The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XXI.

Con­se­quences of the Pu­ri­tan's warn­ing.

Cou­pling Hugh Calve­ley's present strange ap­pear­ance and solemn warn­ing with his pre­vi­ous de­nun­ci­ations ut­tered in se­cret, and his in­ti­ma­tions of some dread de­sign, with which he had sought to con­nect the young man him­self, in­ti­mat­ing that its ex­ecu­tion would jeop­ar­dize his life; putting these things to­geth­er, we say, Jo­ce­lyn could not for an in­stant doubt that the King was in im­mi­nent dan­ger, and he felt called up­on to in­ter­fere, even though he should be com­pelled to act against his fa­ther's friend, and the fa­ther of Ave­line. No al­ter­na­tive, in fact, was al­lowed him. As a loy­al sub­ject, his du­ty im­pe­ri­ous­ly re­quired him to de­fend his sovereign; and per­ceiv­ing that no one (in con­se­quence of the King's in­junc­tions) ad­vanced to­wards the Pu­ri­tan, Jo­ce­lyn hasti­ly quit­ted the Conde de Gon­do­mar, and rush­ing for­ward sta­tioned him­self be­tween the monarch and his bold ad­mon­ish­er; and so near to the lat­ter, that he could eas­ily pre­vent any at­tack be­ing made by him up­on James.

Ev­ident­ly dis­con­cert­ed by the move­ment, Hugh Calve­ley signed to the young man to stand aside, but Jo­ce­lyn re­fused com­pli­ance; the rather that he sus­pect­ed from the man­ner in which the oth­er placed his hand in his breast that he had some weapon con­cealed about his per­son. Cast­ing a look of bit­ter­est re­proach at him, which plain­ly as words said--“Un­grate­ful boy, thou hast pre­vent­ed my pur­pose,” the Pu­ri­tan fold­ed his hands up­on his breast with an air of deep dis­ap­point­ment.

“Fly!” cried Jo­ce­lyn, in a tone cal­cu­lat­ed on­ly to reach his ears. “I will de­fend you with my life. Waste not an­oth­er mo­ment--fly!”

But Hugh Calve­ley re­gard­ed him with cold dis­dain, and though he moved not his lips, he seemed to say, “You have de­stroyed me; and I will not re­move the guilt of my de­struc­tion from your head.”

The Pu­ri­tan's lan­guage and man­ner had filled James with as­ton­ish­ment and fresh alarm; but feel­ing se­cure in the propin­quity of Jo­ce­lyn to the ob­ject of his un­easi­ness, and be­ing close­ly en­vi­roned by his ret­inue, the fore­most of whom had drawn their swords and held them­selves in readi­ness to de­fend him from the slight­est hos­tile at­tempt, it was not un­nat­ural that even so tim­orous a per­son as he, should re­gain his con­fi­dence. Once more, there­fore, he re­strained by his ges­tures the an­gry im­petu­os­ity of the no­bles around him, who were burn­ing to chas­tise the rash in­trud­er, and sig­ni­fied his in­ten­tion of ques­tion­ing him be­fore any mea­sures were adopt­ed against him.

“Let him be,” he cried. “He is some puir de­ment­ed crea­ture fit­ter for Bed­lam than any­where else; and we will see that he be sent thith­er; but mo­lest him not till we hae spo­ken wi' him, and cer­ti­fied his con­di­tion more ful­ly. Quit not the po­si­tion ye hae sae ju­di­cious­ly oc­cu­pied, young Sir, al­beit against our or­ders,” he cried to Jo­ce­lyn. “Din­na draw your blade un­less the fel­low seeks to come till us. Not that we are un­der ony ap­pre­hen­sion; but there are blu­idthirsty traitors even in our pa­cif­ic ter­ri­to­ries, and as this may be ane of them, it is weel not to ne­glect due pre­cau­tion. And now, man,” he added, rais­ing his voice, and ad­dress­ing the Pu­ri­tan, who still main­tained a stead­fast and un­moved de­meanour, with his eye con­stant­ly fixed up­on his in­ter­roga­tor. “Ye say ye are a mes­sen­ger frae heav­en. An it be sae,--whilk we take leave to doubt, rather con­ceiv­ing ye to be an en­voy from the Prince of Dark­ness than an am­bas­sador from above,--an ill choice hath been made in ye. Un­to what or­der of prophets do ye con­ceive your­self to be­long?”

To this in­ter­ro­ga­tion, pro­pound­ed in a jeer­ing tone, the Pu­ri­tan deigned no re­ply; but an an­swer was giv­en for him by Archee, the court jester, who had man­aged in the con­fu­sion to creep up to his roy­al mas­ter's side.

“He be­longs to the or­der of Melchisedec,” said Archee. A re­ply that oc­ca­sioned some laugh­ter among the no­bles, in which the King joined hearti­ly.

“Tut, fule! ye are as daft as the puir body be­fore us,” cried James. “Ken ye not that Melchisedec was a priest and not a prophet; while to judge frae yon fel­low's ab­ulyiements, if he be­longs to any church at all, it maun be to the church mil­itant. And yet, aib­lins, ye are na sae far out af­ter a'. Like aneuch, he may be in­fect­ed with the heresy of the Melchisede­cians,--a pesti­lent sect, who plagued the ear­ly Chris­tian Church sair­ly, plac­ing their mas­ter aboon our Blessed Lord him­self, and hold­ing him to be iden­ti­cal wi' the Holy Ghaist. Are ye a Melchisede­cian, sir­rah?”

“I am a be­liev­er in the Gospel,” the Pu­ri­tan replied. “And am will­ing to seal my faith in it with my blood. I am sent hith­er to warn thee, O King, and thou wilt do well not to de­spise my words. Re­pent ere it be too late. Won­der­ful­ly hath thy life been pre­served. Ded­icate the re­main­der of thy days to the ser­vice of the Most High. Per­se­cute not His peo­ple, and re­vile them not. Purge thy City of its un­clean­ness and idol­atry, and thy Court of its cor­rup­tion. Pro­fane not the Sab­bath”--

“I see how it is,” in­ter­rupt­ed Archee with a scream; “the man hath been driv­en stark wud by your Majesty's Book of Sports.”

“A book de­vised by the dev­il,” cried Hugh Calve­ley, catch­ing at the sug­ges­tion; “and which ought to be pub­licly burnt by the hang­man, in­stead of be­ing read in the church­es. How much, mis­chief hath that book done! How many abom­ina­tions hath it oc­ca­sioned! And, alas! how much per­se­cu­tion hath it caused; for have not many just men, and sin­cere preach­ers of the Word, been pros­ecut­ed in thy Court, mis­named of jus­tice, and known, O King! as the Star-​Cham­ber; suf­fer­ing stripes and im­pris­on­ment for re­fus­ing to read thy mis­chievous procla­ma­tion to their flocks.”

“I knew it!--I knew it!” screamed Archee, de­light­ed with the ef­fect he had pro­duced. “Take heed, sir­rah,” he cried to the Pu­ri­tan, “that ye make not ac­quain­tance wi' 'that Court mis­named of jus­tice' yer ain sell.”

“He is lik­er to be ar­raigned at our court styled the King's Bench, and hanged, drawn, and quar­tered af­ter­wards,” roared James, far more en­raged at the dis­re­spect­ful men­tion made of his man­ifesto, than by any­thing that had pre­vi­ous­ly oc­curred. “The man is not sae doit­ed as we sup­posed him.”

“He is not sane enough to keep his neck from the hal­ter,” re­joined Archee. “Your Majesty should spare him, since you are in­di­rect­ly the cause of his mal­ady.”

“In­ter­cede not for me,” cried Hugh Calve­ley. “I would not ac­cept any grace at the tyrant's hands. Let him hew me in pieces, and my blood shall cry out for vengeance up­on his head.”

“By our hal­idame! a dan­ger­ous traitor!” ex­claimed James.

“Hear me, O King!” thun­dered the Pu­ri­tan. “For the third and last time I lift up my voice to warn thee. Vi­sions have ap­peared to me in the night, and mys­te­ri­ous voic­es have whis­pered in mine ear. They have re­vealed to me strange and ter­ri­ble things--but not more strange and ter­ri­ble than true. They have told me how thy pos­ter­ity shall suf­fer for the in­jus­tice thou doest to thy peo­ple. They have shown me a scaf­fold which a King shall mount--and a block where­on a roy­al head shall be laid. But it shall be bet­ter for that un­for­tu­nate monarch, though he be brought to judg­ment by his peo­ple, than for him who shall be brought to judg­ment by his God. Yet more. I have seen in my vi­sions two Kings in ex­ile: one of whom shall be re­called, but the oth­er shall die in a for­eign land. As to thee, thou mayst live on yet awhile in fan­cied se­cu­ri­ty. But de­struc­tion shall sud­den­ly over­take thee. Thou shalt be stung to death by the ser­pent thou nour­ish­est in thy bo­som.”

What­ev­er cred­it might be at­tached to them, the Pu­ri­tan's prophet­ic fore­bod­ings pro­duced, from the man­ner in which they were de­liv­ered, a strong im­pres­sion up­on all his au­di­tors. Un­ques­tion­ably the man was in earnest, and spoke like one who be­lieved that a mis­sion had been en­trust­ed to him. No in­ter­rup­tion was of­fered to his speech, even by the King, though the lat­ter turned pale as these ter­ri­ble com­ing events were shad­owed forth be­fore him.

“His words are aw­some,” he mut­tered, “and gar the flesh creep on our banes. Will nane o' ye stap his tongue?”

“Bet­ter hae stapt it afore this,” said Archee; “he has said ow­er meik­le, or not aneuch, The Deil's mal­ison on thee, fel­low, for a prophet of ill! Hast thou aught to al­lege why his Majesty should not tuck thee up with a hal­ter?”

“I have spo­ken,” re­spond­ed the Pu­ri­tan; “let the King do with me what he lists.”

“Seize him! ar­rest him! ye are near­est to him, Sir,” shout­ed the king to Jo­ce­lyn.

The com­mand could not be dis­obeyed. As Jo­ce­lyn drew near, and laid his hand up­on Hugh Calve­ley, the lat­ter looked re­proach­ful­ly at him, say­ing, “Thou doest well, son of my old friend.”

Jo­ce­lyn was un­able to re­ply, for a crowd now pressed for­ward on all sides, com­plete­ly sur­round­ing the pris­on­er. Some of the no­bles threat­ened him with their swords, and the warders, who had come up from the gate­way, thrust at him with their par­ti­zans. Jo­ce­lyn had great dif­fi­cul­ty in shield­ing him from the in­fu­ri­at­ed throng.

“Touch him not!” he cried, clear­ing a space around them with the point of his sword. “His Majesty has com­mit­ted him to my cus­tody, and I am re­spon­si­ble for him. Par­don me if I dis­arm you, Sir,” he added in an un­der­tone to the pris­on­er.

“Here is my sword,” replied Hugh Calve­ley, un­buck­ling his belt and de­liv­er­ing up the weapon it sus­tained to Jo­ce­lyn; “it hath nev­er been dis­hon­oured, and,” he added, low­er­ing his voice, “it hath been twice drawn in thy fa­ther's de­fence.”

The re­proach cut Jo­ce­lyn to the heart.

At this mo­ment the crowd drew aside to al­low the King's ap­proach.

“Hath he been searched to see whether any dead­ly or of­fen­sive weapon is con­cealed about him?” de­mand­ed James.

“He can­not have any more of­fen­sive weapon than his tongue,” cried Archee, who ac­com­pa­nied his roy­al mas­ter. “I coun­sel your Majesty to de­prive him of that.”

“There is some­thing hid­den in his breast,” cried one of the warders, search­ing in his jerkin, and at length draw­ing forth a short, clum­sy pis­tol, or dag, as the weapon was then called. “It is load­ed, an please your Majesty,” the man con­tin­ued, af­ter ex­am­in­ing it.

Ex­cla­ma­tions of hor­ror arose from those around, and Jo­ce­lyn had again some dif­fi­cul­ty in pro­tect­ing the pris­on­er from their fury.

“A dag!” ejac­ulat­ed James, “a load­ed dag, crammed to the muz­zle wi' bul­lets, nae doubt. Haud it down, man! haud it down! it may fire off of it­sel', and ac­com­plish the vil­lain's mur­th­er­ous and sac­ri­le­gious de­sign. And sae this was to be the in­stru­ment of our de­struc­tion! Dost thou con­fess thy guilt, thou blu­id-​thirsty traitor, or shall the tor­ture force the truth from thee?”

“The tor­ture will force noth­ing from me,” replied Hugh Calve­ley. “But I tell thee, tyrant, that I would have slain thee, had not my hand been stayed.”

“Heard ye ev­er the like o' that?” ex­claimed James, his rud­dy cheek blanched with fright, and his voice qua­ver­ing. “Why, he ex­ceedeth in au­dac­ity the arch-​traitor Fawkes him­sel'. And what stayed thy hand, vil­lain?” he de­mand­ed,--“what stayed thy hand, thou blood-​thirsty traitor?”

“The pres­ence of this youth, Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey,” re­joined Hugh Calve­ley. “Had he not come be­tween us when he did, and checked my pur­pose, I had de­liv­ered my coun­try from op­pres­sion. I told thee, tyrant, thou hadst been mar­vel­lous­ly pre­served. Thy pre­serv­er stands be­fore thee.”

“Heav­en de­fend us!” ex­claimed James, trem­bling. “What an es­cape we hae had. There hath been a spe­cial in­ter­po­si­tion o' Prov­idence in our be­hoof. Our grat­itude is due to Him who watch­eth ow­er us.”

“And in some de­gree to him who hath been made the in­stru­ment of your Majesty's preser­va­tion,” ob­served the Conde de Gon­do­mar, who formed one of the group near the King. “Since the foul traitor hath pro­claimed the name of my young pro­tegé”, there can be no need for fur­ther con­ceal­ment. Mas­ter Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey hath been sin­gu­lar­ly for­tu­nate in ren­der­ing your Majesty a ser­vice, and may for ev­er con­grat­ulate him­self on his share--ac­ci­den­tal though it be--in this af­fair."

“By my hal­idame! he shall have rea­son for con­grat­ula­tion,” cried James, gra­cious­ly re­gard­ing the young man.

“Ay, let him rise by my fall. 'Tis meet he should,” cried the Pu­ri­tan, bit­ter­ly. “Show­er thy hon­ours up­on him, tyrant. Give him wealth and ti­tles. I could not wish him worse mis­for­tune than thy favour.”

“Hold thy scur­ril tongue, vil­lain, or it shall be torn out by the roots,” said James. “Thou shalt see that I can as prompt­ly re­ward those that serve me, as thou shalt present­ly feel I can severe­ly pun­ish those that seek to in­jure me. Hark ye, Count!” he added to the Span­ish Am­bas­sador, while those around drew back a lit­tle, see­ing it was his Majesty's plea­sure to con­fer with him in pri­vate, “this youth--this Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey, hath gen­tle blu­id in his veins?--he comes of a good stock, ha?”

“He is the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of an old Nor­folk fam­ily,” De Gon­do­mar replied.

“What! the son of Sir Fer­di­nan­do?” de­mand­ed James, a shade cross­ing his coun­te­nance, which did not es­cape the wily am­bas­sador's no­tice.

“You have guessed right, Sire,” he said. “This is Sir Fer­di­nan­do's son; and, if I may be per­mit­ted to say so, your Majesty owes him some repa­ra­tion for the wrongs done his fa­ther.”

“How! Count!” ex­claimed James, with a look of slight dis­plea­sure. “Do you ven­ture to ques­tion our judg­ments on hearsay--for ye can know naething o' your ain knowl­edge?”

“I know enough to be sat­is­fied that mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions were made to your Majesty re­spect­ing this young man's fa­ther,” De Gon­do­mar replied; “for I am well as­sured that if you ev­er erred at all, it must have been through ig­no­rance, and want of due in­for­ma­tion. This was what I de­signed to ex­plain more ful­ly than I can well do now, when I availed my­self of your Majesty's gra­cious per­mis­sion to bring the young man in­to your pres­ence; and I should then have tak­en leave to ex­press how much he mer­it­ed your Majesty's favour and pro­tec­tion. For­tune, how­ev­er, has out­run my wish­es, and giv­en him a stronger claim up­on you than any I could urge.”

“Ye are right, Count,” re­joined James cau­tious­ly. “He hath the strongest claim up­on us, and he shall not find us un­grate­ful. We will con­fer wi' Stee­nie--wi' Buck­ing­ham, we mean--about him.”

“Par­don me, Sire,” said De Gon­do­mar, “if I ven­ture to sug­gest that your Majesty hath an ad­mirable op­por­tu­ni­ty, which I should be sor­ry to see ne­glect­ed, of show­ing your good­ness and clemen­cy, and si­lenc­ing for ev­er the voice of calum­ny, which will some­times be raised against you.”

“What mean ye, Count?” cried James. “Ye wad na hae me par­don yon traitor?”

“Most as­sured­ly not, Sire,” De Gon­do­mar re­joined. “But I would urge some present mark of favour for him who hath saved you from the traitor's fell de­signs. And I am em­bold­ened to ask this, be­cause I feel as­sured it must be con­so­nant to your Majesty's own in­cli­na­tions to grant the re­quest.”

“It is sae, Count,” re­joined James. “We on­ly de­sired to con­sult wi' Buck­ing­ham to as­cer­tain whether he had ony ob­jec­tions; but as this is al­to­geth­er un­like­ly, we will fol­low our ain in­cli­na­tions and do as your Ex­cel­len­cy sug­gests.”

De Gon­do­mar could scarce­ly con­ceal his sat­is­fac­tion.

At this mo­ment Lord Roos pressed to­wards the King.

“I have some­thing to say in ref­er­ence to this young man, my liege,” he cried.

“In his favour?” de­mand­ed the King.

“Yes, yes; in his favour, Sire,” said De Gon­do­mar, look­ing hard at the young no­ble­man. “You need not trou­ble his Majesty fur­ther, my lord. He is gra­cious­ly pleased to ac­cede to our wish­es.”

“Ay, ay; nae mair need be said,” cried James. “Let the young man stand for­ward.”

And as Jo­ce­lyn obeyed the in­junc­tion which was im­me­di­ate­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to him by De Gon­do­mar, the King bade him kneel down, and tak­ing Lord Roos's sword, touched him with it up­on the shoul­der, ex­claim­ing, “Arise! Sir Jo­ce­lyn.”

“You are safe now,” whis­pered De Gon­do­mar. “This is the first blow, and it has been well struck.”

So con­fused was the new-​made knight by the hon­our thus un­ex­pect­ed­ly con­ferred up­on him, that when he rose to his feet he could scarce­ly com­mand him­self suf­fi­cient­ly to make the need­ful obei­sance, and ten­der thanks to the King. For a mo­ment, his brow was flushed with pride, and his breast beat high; but the emo­tions were in­stant­ly checked, as he thought how the ti­tle had been pur­chased. Look­ing to­wards the pris­on­er, he be­held him in the hands of the warders, to whose cus­tody he had been com­mit­ted, with his arms bound be­hind him by thongs. His gaze had nev­er quit­ted the young man dur­ing the cer­emo­ny which had just tak­en place, and he still re­gard­ed him stern­ly and re­proach­ful­ly.

“Let the pris­on­er be re­moved, and kept in a place of safe­ty till our plea­sure re­spect­ing him be made known,” cried James. “And now, my lords and ladies, let us for­ward to the palace.”

And the cav­al­cade was once more put in mo­tion, and pass­ing through the great gate­way en­tered the Foun­tain Court, where the no­bil­ity of both sex­es dis­mount­ed, while their at­ten­dants and the fal­con­ers and var­lets passed off to the of­fices.

The pris­on­er was con­veyed to the porter's lodge, and strict­ly guard­ed, till some se­cure cham­ber could be pre­pared for him. On the way thith­er Jo­ce­lyn con­trived to ap­proach him, and to say in a low tone--“Can I do aught for Ave­line?”

“Con­cern not your­self about her, _Sir_ Jo­ce­lyn,” re­joined Hugh Calve­ley, with stern con­tempt. “She is in a place of safe­ty. You will nev­er be­hold her more.”