Chapter 25

THE RESCUE

Let all the dukes and all the devils roar,
He is at liberty! I’ve ventured for him;
And out I’ve brought him to a little wood
A mile hence.

TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

Morning, cold and wintry, dawned upon the gloomy chambers of the Tower. York became eager to put in execution some plan of escape in which Warwick should share; but Warwick was full of timidity and fear. His prison was a frightful den; yet all without was a wide, pathless, tiger-infested jungle. He besought his cousin to regard his own safety only. Richard refused; yet the more he meditated, the more did obstacles crowd upon him. After the lapse of an hour, Warwick was called upon to attend early mass, as usual, in the chapel of the fortress. Here he saw Stanley and the disguised shrinking Monina; and, the service ended, attended them to the prison-chamber of the chamberlain, relating as he went, in quick low whispers, the history of the preceding night. Both his hearers grew pale: one feared for her friend, the other for himself; though on that score all cause of dread was well nigh at an end. All three entered Stanley’s cell, and found there Prince Richard himself, whose active mind had led him to watch his opportunity to pass hither unseen from Warwick’s apartment.

The young earl of March, arming for the battle of Northampton, looked not so young, so blooming, and so frankly erect, as his uncrowned son. Stanley saw at once who was before him, and, never forgetting the courtier, addressed his prince with a subject’s respect. York was struck by the placid, though somewhat worldly physiognomy of the man, devoted to die, at the age when human beings are most apt to cling to life; when, having weathered the storms and passions of youth, they desire to repose awhile on the sun-enlightened earth, before they enter the gloomy gates of the tomb.

The prince spoke eagerly of escape—of safety—of life: Warwick, even timid Warwick, urged an attempt at flight; while Monina kissed her aged friend’s hand, and turned her sweet eyes on him, saying: “You will listen to him, though you were deaf to me.”

Stanley alone was unmoved—”A thousand heartfelt, useless thanks, my dear and honoured Lord, your poor servant renders; and even when prayer for himself is most needed, earnestly he prays that harm to you arise not from your unexampled generosity. I cannot fly; I do believe that I would not, if I could: and I will spare myself the disgrace of further endangering you, and of being seized myself in the coward’s act. Ask me not, with your beseeching eyes, my gentle, venturous child, for it must not be. I die to-morrow; and this fate you would have me avoid. Whither would you drag me from the block? To poverty? to an unhonoured old age? a traitor’s reputation, and miserable dependence? I am a sinful man; but I trust in God’s mercy, and he holds out better hopes after the brief spasm of death, than you after the torture of difficult escape.”

More he would have said; but they were interrupted. They had not been aware of any one’s approach; and suddenly Sir John Digby, lieutenant of the Tower, entered. He was aghast to see one more than he expected—one whose demeanour spoke nobility. Silence followed his entrance; nor did words readily present themselves to the blunt soldier. At length, addressing the cause of this wonder, he, in an ironical tone of voice, asked, “May I, lieutenant of this fortress, delegated by his majesty to its keeping, be permitted to ask, fair sir, the name, station, and designs of my unbidden guest?”

“My answer to your two first questions,” replied York, “would little satisfy you. My design was to facilitate the escape of this virtuous and unhappy gentleman.”

“The king is infinitely your debtor; and I shall prove unmannered in marring your intent.”

“You do not mar it. Sir John,” said the prince. “My Lord Chamberlain is a true man, and would rather lay his head on the block, at his liege’s bidding, than carry it in security at the prayer of any other. Sir William has refused to fly; and, my mission ended, I was about to take my leave.”

“Do so, young man; take leave—an eternal one—of Sir William, and follow me. My lord of Warwick, this is an unmeet scene for you to be present at. This holy man comes to bestow the last words of pious comfort my noble prisoner can receive in this world: please your lordship to leave them together uninterrupted. I am sorry,” continued the lieutenant, addressing Monina, “to retract the permission I gave you yesterday; but this strange incident must be my excuse. Say a last farewell to him you have named your father.”

Monina dreaded too much the fate that might befall her friend to entreat for any change in this decree. Soon poor Sir William found himself separated from the busy scene of life, shut up with the chaplain. He was bid to remember and repent, and to prepare to die. A dark veil fell before the vista of coming years, which was apparent to the eyes of his late companions. He saw in the present hour—one only, almost superfluous, added to the closing account. They beheld in it the arbiter of their undivined destinies.

It is an awful emotion when we feel that the “very shoal of time” on which we stand is freighted with the good and ill of futurity—that the instant birth of the hour inherits our entire fortunes. Yet Richard was proof against this rough testimony of our powerless mortality. The ill had not yet arrived with which he did not believe he could cope; and more—now he was bent upon endeavouring to save Stanley; for his own fate, though about to expose it to the most unquestioned shape of peril, he had no fears.