John-for-the-King!

by A. T. Quiller-Couch

 

JOHN-FOR-THE-KING!

BY "Q" (Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch)

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ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN CAMERON

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I.

AT the fag-end of a bight March afternoon in the year 1646, Sir Peter Killigrew, of Arwenack in Cornwall, came cantering easily over St. Budock Hill, and saw the familiar waters of Falmouth Haven spread at his feet. There was no town of Falmouth in those days, but only his own great house of Arwenack hard by the foreshore, with a few fisher-cottages, and, out on the point seaward, the castle of Pendennis guarding the harbour-entrance.

Sir Peter was not bound for Arwenack House, charge of which had been kept for three years past by his steward and a few servants. With a short glance down at its towers and chimneys he struck off towards the peninsula at the end of which stood the castle, its Royal Standard bright against the westering sun.

He pushed still at a canter, up the last slope to the gate, and was admitted by the sentries. As he dismounted and handed over his horse to be rested and fed, they told him that the Governor was taking the air on the platform just now, along with Sir Harry and Colonel Richard.

He smiled to himself as he crossed the forecourt, walking with his long cavalry stride. Two or three hundred, at least, of the garrison appeared to be gathered on the battlements; but his eye picked out a group of three that stood a little apart. He smiled to himself. They were watching the Truro road, and he had taken them in rear.

“Hola, Governor! Hola, Cousin Harry!”

The three turned about in some confusion. They were old John Arundell, Governor of Pendennis; his son, Colonel Dick Arundell, a slow solid man; and Sir Harry Killigrew, Sir Peter’s kinsman of a junior line that had lost none of the family quickness and fire.

“Peter!” cried this last. “Why, how in the world did we miss you? We have been watching Truro-wards these two hours.”

“For which precise reason you missed me, cousin,” Sir Peter smiled again, not without complacency. His speed and skill in the carrying of despatches had become a foible with him, and he practised unexpected arrivals like a virtuoso. The Court Newspaper, Mercurius Aulicus, called him “Our more than Ariel, or perpetuum mobile,” while the army nicknamed him “Peter the Post.” “I come from the Mount,” said he, “or thereabouts”—meaning St. Michael Mount.

“The Mount?... Hopton fallen back, after all?”

“He has very much fallen back. In fact he and Capel are for Scilly as soon as ever a boat will take ’em.”

“And the army?”

“Disbanded. Honourable articles—drums beating and standards flying; but surrender, nevertheless.” Sir Peter shrugged his shoulders. “Why surely, men, you expected it?” he asked, with a nod of his head towards the eastern shore of the haven where over the little fort of St. Mawes the Parliament flag already flew.

“It went up yesterday, a little before sunset. We are left to ourselves, then?”

“Hopton bids you hold out. These were his last words as I left him on the road. Between you and me and this gun I doubt if he meant anything by it; a man in his situation has to say something. What the devil use?—but the word, of course, rests with the Governor——” He broke off, and glanced quickly at the Governor, in whose ear (for he was near seventy, and deaf), the news had been shouted by Colonel Dick.

The old man turned about in a way which, for a moment, the others set down to bewilderment under the shock. His eyes seemed to wander along the eaves of the Castle roof. But after a while he said quite firmly:

“In another month the swallows will be here. They shall nest and hatch and rear a fresh brood before Pendennis surrenders.”

There was a second meaning in these words, noted by the two Killigrews. For Arundell is Hirondelle in the French, and the Arundells carried, for coat armour, six swallows argent on a sable ground.

“Well,” said Sir Peter, laughing, “old Worcester, they tell me, has given a like answer up at Raglan, on the Welsh marches. Yes, two Die-hards must e’en make a match of it.”

“What of Fairfax?” asked cousin.

“An army cannot be disbanded in five minutes. But Fairfax is no sluggard: he will be down on you with a speed of which you shall not complain.”

“I wonder he has not sent on a troop of horse to summon us... You will stay and see this game out?” asked Sir Harry, smiling.

“Why, no,” answered Sir Peter, smiling too. “To begin with I must hark back to the Mount to-night, and thence carry news to Oxford if Hopton has sailed. Moreover, though I have not slept at home three nights in these four years, I had rather—if you will pardon me—not be present when you are burning Arwenack.”

“Burn Arwenack?... Cousin!”

“Why, to be sure you must, since the Governor has taken his resolution. Otherwise the place will shelter a park of artillery right under your noses, besides providing Fairfax with headquarters.”

“T am a true man for the King, I hope,” said Sir Harry musing. “Nevertheless, were I head of the family, as you are—and had I a son, as you have——” Here he came to a halt. A short while ago he had possessed a son, the darling of his hopes, and had lost him in a trivial affair of cavalry near Bridgwater.

“You have given dearer than I. You would choose as I choose,” said Sir Peter gently. In a more cheerful tone he added: “What is it the rebels chant?—‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city.’ I did have a thought that some day, falling sick, I might return to Arwenack—for change of air! But it must go. Pull down what you can and set fire to the rest. There’s no time to be lost, either; and so I’ll turn my back with all speed.

He clapped a hand on his kinsman’s shoulder, shook hands with the other two, and was gone. As he crossed the courtyard they heard him whistling.

II.

So these three gallant gentlemen were left, with a garrison of some fifteen or sixteen hundred souls (about three hundred being women and children) to obey a hopeless order, which yet suited with their mettle. That same evening fatigue parties were marched down to Arwenack House, some to demolish the park wall and outbuildings, others to save the family portraits on the walls and the good wine in the cellar.

But the next day beginning upon the house itself, they found the masonry extraordinarily thick and so compact that the soldiers vowed the mortar to be harder than the very stones. Fewer men could be spared, too; for some three or four of the enemy’s ships this day appeared off the haven-mouth; and although they made no attempt to sail past the cannon of the fort or to land any of their crews, their presence kept a goodly number of the garrison alert upon the gun-platforms. In the end the Governor, who could spare no gunpowder for blasting, gave orders to fire the house.

It burned very slowly, its timbers being of oak scarcely less stout than the masonry. The night of the firing (March 16th) was exceedingly still, with no breeze to drive a flame; and by ten o’clock Sir Harry from the lawn beheld the great hall of his ancestors glowing like a furnace of sea-coal, as the fire ate into the heart of the panels and gnawed the edge of the escutcheon above the chimney-piece—argent, within a bordure bezanty an eagle displayed with two heads; for the Killigrews claimed descent from the Byzantin’s Emperors.

“Stemmata quid faciunt?” quoted Sir Harry, as he turned away, and sadly took the hill towards the Castle.

Soon after midnight a scout reported the rebel van on the road by Penryn, and the Governor called his men off, leaving the great house to burn. The first of the enemy—a troop of horse arriving twenty minutes later, at once set to work to fight the flames. There was water in plenty, for Arwenack stood within a stone throw of the harbour shore, and the main body arriving—before dawn they managed to save a poor remnant of the building, within the west walls of which they hastily crowded back some furniture for General Fairfax, who arrived at noon, having been detained at Truro in taking measures with the sheriff and other gentlemen of estate to pacify the county behind him.

That afternoon he took a slighting survey of the Castle and its defences; and early next day (the 18th) he sent up a trumpet, summoning the garrison to surrender and demanding an answer within two hours.

Colonel Dick Arundell received the message at the castle gate, and carried it to his father.

“Shall I answer it for you?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” snapped the old man. “I never liked pen and ink before now, but here is a letter will do my heart good to compose.”

He took pen and wrote:

“Colonel John Arundell to Sir Thomas Fairfax.”

“Sir,—The Castle was committed to my Government by His Majesty, who by our laws hath command of the castles and forts of this kingdom. Wherefore I wonder that you demand this castle without authority; and having taken less than two minutes’ resolution, I resolve that I will here bury myself before I deliver up this castle to such as fight against His Majesty, and that nothing you can threaten is formidable to me in respect of the loss of loyalty and conscience.

“Your servant,

“John Arundell, of Trerice.

“March 18th, 1646.”

So the siege began.

III.

“You have a great capacity for silence, Dick. A penny for your thoughts, man!”

“They were foolish enough,” confessed Colonel Dick, who had been staring up at the Castle eaves. “I was wondering if the swallows had started to hatch, up at Raglan; or if the birds, like the plants, are earlier here in the West.”

“Now for God’s sake, my dear fellow,”” Sir Harry expostulated with mock testiness, “let’s have no more of Raglan for a while! Your good father hath Raglan on the brain, and I believe indeed lives for no other end but to hear of its downfall and die happy. ’Tis a match between him and old Worcester; and for love of him—as partly because ’tis hard to turn the flow of a deaf man’s discourse—I listen to talk of Raglan—morning, noon and night—breakfast, dinner, and supper (as I suppose we still call our meals). And the Chaplain plays up to him. I had thought, till I heard of Raglan, that nothing could be more tedious than limpets—even when stewed in good red wine.”

“You ask for my thoughts, and I answered you,” said Colonel Dick gravely. “For another thought, I begin to understand how a man goes mad in prison, for this idle siege breeds fancies in me like maggots in carrion. But you shall not dine on limpets to-day, for I took two sizeable pollack down on the rocks this morning.”

“You were a sorry sportsman, then, not to take me with you, and a bad housekeeper, for we might have caught four.”

“I go alone on pretence of examining the outer wall and what damage the enemy did yesterday, and I hide the lines in my pocket, as likewise I brought the fish back within my breastplate. If the men at the sally-port guessed my game, we should have the whole garrison breaking fence.”

“Tut, man! Do you suppose the Governor’s table can be supplied with fresh fish and the whole garrison not know?”

“Old Andrew cooks them in secret.” Old Andrew was the Governor’s body servant.

“H’m ... and hath a daughter, whom a week of wholesome feeding might rescue from the grave. She shall have my portion, poor girl. Dick, ’tis damnable how the women and children suffer!”

“Nay,” said Colonel Dick, “I have seen to that. She is to have mine.”

They began to dispute, irritably, which should have the privilege of yielding up his portion. They were both gaunt with under-feeding: but Sir Harry had dulled the desire of food somewhat by potations of the Killigrew wine.

“I would I had never told you,” said Colonel Dick, gloomily. “’Tis a warning to keep my own counsel in future.”

Sir Harry cast an angry glance down across the forecourt where at least a hundred of the garrison, squatting on the flagstones, were busy with small-pick-hammers, shaping out stone cannon-balls. They drew their material from a heap of granite-dressing which had been brought, some months ago, for the repair of the keep and shot down in a corner of the yard, and during the long six weeks of the siege they had acquired no small expertness. But the incessant irregular tapping worked on the raw of Sir Harry’s temper.

“Oh, the devil take it!” he broke out. “You talk of swallows—’tis these woodpeckers are driving me mad! Or call ’em thrushes hammering snails,—no, limpets!”

He corrected himself with a short laugh. “Why what a silly affair is this siege! Of all these balls, not one in a hundred finds a mark.”

“The rebels make no better practice,” said Colonel Dick, who had recovered his composure. Both men spoke truly. The siege was now in its seventh week, and the artillery had achieved nothing. The castle gunners had hit a ship but twice or thrice, with little damage, while on the land side the besiegers sheltered behind the broken walls of Arwenack and were quite safe. On the other hand the Castle, though it showed a few scars, was in fact impregnable to the cannon brought against it. Fairfax had departed for the siege of Oxford leaving Colonel Hammond in command with express orders not to assault. He trusted to famine.

[Illustration: “He had plucked out a pistol from his holster.”]

To return to the two friends—in the end Colonel Dick let Sir Harry have his way. Below the wall of circumvallation, to the south, in these days a pretty thick scrub ran down the cliff to the very edge of the sea. The pair used to make their way down through this and fish in the dark morning hours. After a while they formed fatigue parties of such soldiers as had been recruited from the fishing villages, and used mullet nets. The catch was regularly distributed, and everyone of the besieged received a share in his turn, though that turn came all too seldom. Some of the more adventurous, having made crab-pots out of withies, tinkered up the garrison boats (of which there were half a dozen), and caught a few crabs and lobsters under the noses of the blockading squadron. But, being weak with famine, they found it heavy work to haul up the boats again, making no noise, and to hide them in the scrub before daybreak out of sight of the ships’ gunners.

IV.

Four months passed, and three weeks, and still Pendennis held out. Some few fainthearts had managed to desert, but the leakage was nothing to count. “I'd liefer have their room than their company,” said old John-for-the-King (by this name all had come to call the Governor); “they leave the more food for better stomachs.” Indeed the deserters carried down such reports of failing stores and famine rations that Colonel Hammond would have preferred their remaining and helping to eat the defence out. “The more the mice, the hollower the cheese,” said he.

His troops, too, were dog-sick of the siege, for old Arundell, having convinced himself that activity was good for hungry men and that such as fought against the Lord’s Anointed should be kept awake with their conscience, took a savage joy in harrying the rebels with night sorties. Once, in July (being by this time reduced to eating horses for beef) the garrison made a really dangerous sally in boats to fetch relief, and were only driven back after sharp slaughter.

No news reached them. One night—toward the close of the second week in August—the Governor and his officers had left the supperless board to prepare another sortie. Only Colonel Dick lingered a few minutes with Sir Harry, who had sent for yet another bottle of Canary.

“If only someone would bring word that Raglan had fallen!” ingeminated Sir Harry, for indeed John-for-the-King had been more than usually prolix in speculating on the fate of that fortress.

“Wh’st, man!” Colonel Dick warned him. Sir Harry, being something more than half drunk, had not perceived old Andrew at his elbow with the fresh bottle.

Now, as we know, old Andrew had a sick daughter. She was crook-backed, by no means beautiful, and peevish as invalids are apt to be. But old Andrew doted on her, and so did his wife. They saw her dying before their eyes, and verily believed that the siege had but to end and she would regain health.

The father had something of a dog’s fidelity and something of a dog’s confidence in his master’s wisdom. There was less true loyalty in him than an ingrained habit of subservience. He had been bred under the shadow of the Arundell shield, and had never dared to look from under its rim. His wife thought for herself now and then.

“Silly old siege, this!” grumbled Andrew as he huddled in bed that night, wondering how soon sleep would come to drug a hungry belly. “There'd be trouble enough, I reckon, if folks knew about this Raglan.”

“Who’s Raglan?” asked his wife sleepily.

“Tisn’t a who; ’tis an it—another damned Castle, same as this, and th’ old Squire ’s holdin’ out against it for a wager. I hears talk at table. God Almighty made the great folks an’ gave ’em the world to play with, but it comes pretty hard on our Jane.”

“Eh?” said his wife, sitting up. “Tell me about it.” So he told her.

••••••

Two days later Colonel Hammond sent up another summons to surrender. There was nothing extraordinary about this; he had sent up a dozen already, and his trumpeter was regularly dismissed from the gate without an answer. This time he had apparently fared no better.

But old Andrew, as he delivered the letter, happened to say—using the liberty of an old servant—“’Tis queer now, the way that Hammond won't take ‘No’ for an answer, but goes on spoilin’ paper. Reckon he don't understand our Cornish courage, seein’ as Raglan Castle fell a week since, and we're alone in the world.”

“Hey! Raglan fallen?”—John-for-the-King dropped of a sudden into his chair. “What have you heard, man?”

“What I say,” answered old Andrew, speaking sulkily and looking askance; “’t has been common talk among the men these two days past. The Lord knows how these things get about—not I. But the fellow who brought yon”—he pointed to the letter—“couldn’t deny it when we taxed him.”

“Where is he?” cried the Governor starting up.

“Dismissed down the hill these ten minutes,” answered old Andrew, more cheerfully. “Such bein’ the guard’s orders.”

V.

Even thus simply it happened. It might indeed have happened otherwise had Sir Harry and Colonel Dick not been absent from the supper board that night. They were away at the fishing. Meanwhile the news of the surrender of Raglan had spread through the garrison like wild-fire. All the officers had heard of it, and they drank to the Governor’s health.

At nine o'clock he left the board, retired to his quarters, and dressed himself with care. Half an hour later, escorted by a trumpet and two lieutenants, he descended the hill to the enemy’s quarters.

The firm front he showed before Colonel Hammond is matter of history: within half-an-hour he had obtained honourable terms.

At noon next day (August 17th, 1646), says the Chronicle quaintly, “the entire garrison of the Castle marched out, with their horses, complete arms and other equipages, according to their present or past commands or qualities, with flying colours, trumpets sounding, drums beating, matches lighted at both ends, and bullets in their mouths.” In this brave style, surrendering to the fortunes of war, they paraded yet—as firmly as their emaciated bodies would allow them—the Royal Standard past the lawn of Arwenack where John-of-the-King stood beside Hammond, a few of their officers fraternising behind them. There were tears in the old Governor’s eyes as Hammond held out a hand.

“By the Lord, sir, you have fought nobly!”

John-for-the-King smiled a wan smile. He took his enemy’s hand, being ever a courteous gentleman, and said he—

“I thank you, sir. We have outlasted Raglan, at all events.”

“Eh?... is Raglan fallen then? You have later news than I, ’twould seem.”

The old man stared at him slowly. For a moment he tottered, as though age and extreme weakness overcame him with a rush: but he thrust aside Hammond’s proferred support.

“But I understood, sir—it was the common talk of my men that your messenger had announced it——”

His gaze, travelling around, encountered Sir Harry’s; not in accusation; pathetically rather, and in trust, as though it said, “You are my friend. For God’s sake explain this to me!”

And in a flash, as their eyes met, Sir Harry guessed the truth... Under that eager questioning look he abased his head, turned, and passed out through the crowd with even such a set face as Peter carried once from Pilate’s Judgment Hall.

He took the road back to the Castle, They said afterwards that he had returned to fire off some of the spare ammunition, lest it should fall into the rebels’ hands, and that a burst gun had inflicted the splinter wound in his forehead. He was alive, indeed, when they found him, but visibly marked for death.

VI.

It is further said that the starved garrison flung themselves so precipitately upon the food supplied by Colonel Hammond, and ate so ravenously, that in the end “more died by putting their hands to their mouths than to their swords.”

But while they gorged, old John-for-the-King, refusing meat or drink, had mounted his horse and started slowly off along the Truro road. What mattered the direction? By instinct, like a dying animal, he headed for his home, to creep back to it. Yet what could home be, when he reached it, but an empty shell. He had pawned or lost all his wealth in his master’s cause; that cause was lost, and here was the end.

To be the last had been his last ambition. It had burned in his old heart like a youthful passion. Now this, too, had proved a cheat... He never once turned for a look back upon the fortress he had, by common consent, defended so gloriously.

Coming to a turn of the road he sighted a small cart some way ahead, drawn by a donkey, making its way inland at a painful crawl. A man and a woman trudged beside it.

At the sound of his horse’s footfall, the man cast a look over his shoulder and made a sudden dart for a gate beside the road. Before he vanished John Arundell had recognised him.

He rode forward quickly. The cart had come to a halt. An invalid girl lay cushioned upon the bottom-boards, and at the cart-tail her old mother stood helpless, awaiting the worst. For knowledge of her sin was written now on the old Squire’s face, and he had plucked out a pistol from his holster. He was swerving towards the gate, to hunt the man down, as of old he would have hunted vermin.

But with a look into the cart, John-for-the-King checked his horse, and very slowly put up his pistol.

“You were my servants,” he said. “As you have dealt with me, so God deal with you!”

He rode on.

VII.

There is a postscript; or, rather, there are two.

(1) Raglan Castle surrendered two days later.

(2) Sir Harry Killigrew’s wounds having been bandaged, under one of the Articles of Surrender, he was hastily carried on shipboard and conveyed to St. Malo, where he died on the 27th September—“lamented,” says Clarendon, “by all good men.” Before his death, however, he dictated a letter to his kinsman Sir Peter, who showed it the Prince of Wales; who (contrary to his habit) remembered it. Two years after His Majesty’s Restoration, Colonel Dick Arundell rode back through the gateway of Pendennis Castle as its Governor, and two years later, he knelt before the King to be ennobled as Lord Arundell of Trerice.

These two honours would have fallen to his father before him; but John-for-the-King was dead of a broken heart.