The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XXVII.

The Pu­ri­tan's Prison.

Hugh Calve­ley, it has al­ready been in­ti­mat­ed, was lodged in a vault be­neath the gate­way. The place was com­mon­ly used as a sort of black-​hole for the im­pris­on­ment of any re­frac­to­ry mem­ber of the roy­al house­hold, or sol­dier on guard guilty of ne­glect of du­ty. Cir­cu­lar in shape, it con­tained a large pil­lar, to which iron rings and chains were at­tached. The walls were of stone, the roof arched with ribs spring­ing from the pil­lar that sup­port­ed it, and the floor was paved. Win­dow there was none; but air was ad­mit­ted through a small grat­ed aper­ture in the roof; and thus im­per­fect­ly ven­ti­lat­ed, it will not be won­dered at that the vault should be damp. Mois­ture con­stant­ly trick­led down the walls, and col­lect­ed in pools on the bro­ken pave­ment; but un­whole­some as it was, and al­to­geth­er un­fit for oc­cu­pa­tion, it was deemed good enough for those gen­er­al­ly thrust in­to it, and far too good for its present ten­ant.

As the pris­on­er ex­hib­it­ed no vi­olence, the thongs with which his hands were bound were re­moved on his en­trance to the vault, and he was al­lowed the free use of his limbs. The breast-​plate in which he was clad was tak­en from him, and his ves­ture was again close­ly searched, but no fur­ther dis­cov­ery was made ei­ther of con­cealed weapon, or of any pa­per or let­ter tend­ing to show that he had ac­com­plices in his dread de­sign. The on­ly thing found up­on him, in­deed, was a small Bible, and this, af­ter it had been ex­am­ined, he was per­mit­ted to re­tain. To the in­ter­roga­to­ries put to him by Mas­ter Dendy, the ser­jeant-​at-​arms, he re­turned the briefest an­swers; and when he had said as much as he thought fit, he ob­sti­nate­ly re­fused to make fur­ther re­ply.

In­censed at his per­ver­si­ty, and de­ter­mined to ex­tort a full con­fes­sion, in or­der that it might be laid be­fore the King, the ser­jeant-​at-​arms or­dered the man­acles to be ap­plied. But though the tor­ture was exquisite, he bore it with firm­ness, and with­out ut­ter­ing a groan; main­tain­ing the same de­ter­mined si­lence as be­fore. Had he dared, Mas­ter Dendy would have had re­course to sev­er­er mea­sures; but hav­ing no war­rant for any such pro­ceed­ing, he was obliged to con­tent him­self with threats. To these Hugh Calve­ley replied by a grim smile of con­tempt; but as the ser­jeant-​at-​arms was de­part­ing to make his re­port to Sir Thomas Lake, he said, “I have some­thing to dis­close; but it is for the King's ear alone.”

“Bet­ter re­veal it to me,” re­joined Dendy, halt­ing. “I have it in my pow­er to ren­der your sit­ua­tion far more tol­er­able, or to in­flict greater tor­ment up­on you. Make your choice.”

“Deal with me as you please,” re­turned Hugh Calve­ley stern­ly. “What I have to say is to the King, and to the King on­ly; and though you break ev­ery bone in my body with your en­gines, and tear off my flesh with red-​hot pin­cers, you shall not force the se­cret from me.”

Mas­ter Dendy looked at him, and felt dis­posed to place him in the dread­ful in­stru­ment of tor­ture called Skeff­in­gton's irons, which was hang­ing against the wall; but the con­sid­er­ation that had hith­er­to re­strained him--name­ly, that he was with­out au­thor­ity for the step, and might be called to ac­count for it--weighed with him still; where­fore he con­tent­ed him­self with or­der­ing the pris­on­er to be chained to the pil­lar; and hav­ing seen the in­junc­tion obeyed, he left him.

In this mis­er­able plight Hugh Calve­ley re­mained for some hours, with­out light and with­out food. How the time was passed none knew; but the two yeomen of the guard who en­tered the vault found him on his knees ab­sorbed in prayer. They brought a lamp with them, and re­fresh­ments of a bet­ter kind than those usu­al­ly af­ford­ed to a pris­on­er, and set them be­fore him. But he re­fused to par­take of them. The on­ly favour he be­sought was per­mis­sion to read his Bible; and the lamp placed with­in reach, he was soon deeply en­grossed in the pe­rusal of those pages from which, when earnest­ly sought, con­so­la­tion has ev­er been de­rived un­der the most try­ing cir­cum­stances.

Sir Jo­ce­lyn had for­borne to vis­it the pris­on­er from a fear that his pres­ence might be painful; but the of­fice im­posed up­on him by the King left him no al­ter­na­tive; and about mid­night he de­scend­ed to the vault, to as­cer­tain from per­son­al in­spec­tion that Hugh Calve­ley was in safe cus­tody. The door was un­locked by the hal­berdier sta­tioned at it, and the young man found him­self alone with the pris­on­er. He was in­ex­press­ibly shocked by the spec­ta­cle he be­held, as he had no idea how severe­ly the un­for­tu­nate Pu­ri­tan had been treat­ed, nor of the sort of prison in which he was con­fined.

Hugh Calve­ley, who was still in­tent­ly read­ing the Bible, which he had placed up­on his knee while he held the lamp near it, to throw the light up­on its leaves, did not ap­pear to be dis­turbed by the open­ing of the door, nor did he raise his eyes. But, at last, a deep groan is­su­ing from the breast of the young man aroused him, and he held up the lamp to as­cer­tain who was near. On dis­cov­er­ing that it was Sir Jo­ce­lyn, he knit­ted his brow, and, af­ter stern­ly re­gard­ing him for a mo­ment, re­turned to his Bible, with­out ut­ter­ing a word; but find­ing the oth­er main­tained his post, he de­mand­ed, al­most fierce­ly, why he was dis­turbed?

“Can I do aught for your re­lief?” re­joined the young man. “At least, I can have those chains tak­en off.”

“Thou speak­est as one in au­thor­ity,” cried Hugh Calve­ley, re­gard­ing him, fixed­ly. “Art thou ap­point­ed to be my jail­er?”

Sir Jo­ce­lyn made no an­swer, but avert­ed his head.

“This on­ly was want­ing to fill up the mea­sure of my scorn for thee,” pur­sued the Pu­ri­tan. “Thou art wor­thy of thine of­fice. But show me no favour, for I will re­ceive none at thy hands. I would rather wear these fet­ters to my death, how­ev­er much they may gall my limbs, than have them struck off by thee. I would rather rot in this dun­geon--ay, though it were worse than it is--than owe my lib­er­ation to thee. The sole favour thou canst show me is to rid me of thy pres­ence, which is hate­ful to me, and chas­es holy thoughts from my breast, putting evil in their place.”

“Why should this be so, O friend of my fa­ther?” ex­claimed Sir Jo­ce­lyn. “And why should my pres­ence be hate­ful to you? There is no man liv­ing whom I would less will­ing­ly of­fend than your­self; and in all I have done, where you have been con­cerned, I have had no free agen­cy. Judge me not then too harsh­ly. I com­mis­er­ate your sit­ua­tion from the depths of my heart, and would re­lieve it were it pos­si­ble.”

“Then where­fore per­sist in trou­bling me?” re­joined Hugh Calve­ley. “Have I not good cause for my dis­like of you? You have dis­ap­point­ed the ex­pec­ta­tions I had formed of you. You failed me when I put your pro­fes­sions to the test. You thwart­ed my de­sign at the mo­ment when its suc­cess was cer­tain, and when the tyrant was com­plete­ly in my pow­er. But for you I should not be here, load­ed with these fet­ters; or if I were, I should be con­soled by the thought that I had lib­er­at­ed my coun­try from op­pres­sion, in­stead of be­ing crushed by the sense of fail­ure. What seek you from me, mis­er­able time-​serv­er? Have you not had your re­ward for the ser­vice you have ren­dered the King? Is he not grate­ful enough? I have served as your step­ping-​stone to pro­mo­tion. What more can I do?”

“You can cease to do me in­jus­tice,” re­turned Sir Jo­ce­lyn. “Hon­ours, pro­cured as mine have been, are val­ue­less, and I would rather be with­out them. I sought them not. They have been forced up­on me. Look at the mat­ter fair­ly, and you will see that all these con­se­quences, whether for good or ill, have sprung from your own des­per­ate act.”

“It may be so,” re­joined the Pu­ri­tan. “I will not dis­pute it. But though ill has ac­crued to me, and good to you, I would not change po­si­tions with you. You will wear the tyrant's fet­ters for ev­er. I shall soon be free from mine.”

“Have you noth­ing to say con­cern­ing your daugh­ter?” de­mand­ed the young man.

“Noth­ing,” replied the Pu­ri­tan, with an ex­pres­sion of deep pain, which, how­ev­er, he checked by a mighty ef­fort. “I have done with the world, and de­sire not to be brought back to it.”

“And you refuse to be freed from your chains?”

“My sole de­sire, as I have said, is to be freed from you.”

“That wish, at least, shall be grant­ed,” replied Sir Jo­ce­lyn, as, with a sad heart, he de­part­ed.