But let us now, like soldiers on the watch,

Put the soul’s armour on, alike prepared

For all a soldier’s warfare brings.

JOANNA BAILLIE.

The reader will recollect, that when Rochecliffe and Joceline were made prisoners, the party which escorted them had two other captives in their train, Colonel Everard, namely, and the Rev. Nehemiah Holdenough. When Cromwell had obtained entrance into Woodstock, and commenced his search after the fugitive Prince, the prisoners were placed in what had been an old guardroom, and which was by its strength well calculated to serve for a prison, and a guard was placed over them by Pearson. No light was allowed, save that of a glimmering fire of charcoal. The prisoners remained separated from each other, Colonel Everard conversing with Nehemiah Holdenough, at a distance from Dr. Rochecliffe, Sir Henry Lee, and Joceline. The party was soon after augmented by Wildrake, who was brought down to the Lodge, and thrust in with so little ceremony, that, his arms being bound, he had very nearly fallen on his nose in the middle of the prison.

“I thank you, my good friend,” he said, looking back to the door, which they who had pushed him in were securing —“Point de ceremonie — no apology for tumbling, so we light in good company. — Save ye, save ye, gentlemen all — What, á la mort, and nothing stirring to keep the spirits up, and make a night on’t? — the last we shall have, I take it; for a make 10 to a million, but we trine to the nubbing cheat [Footnote: Hang on the gallows] tomorrow. — Patron — noble patron, how goes it? This was but a scurvy trick of Noll so far as you were concerned: as for me, why I might have deserved something of the kind at his hand.”

“Prithee, Wildrake, sit down,” said Everard; “thou art drunk — disturb us not.”

“Drunk? I drunk?” cried Wildrake, “I have been splicing the mainbrace, as Jack says at Wapping — have been tasting Noll’s brandy in a bumper to the King’s health, and another to his Excellency’s confusion, and another to the d — n of Parliament — and it may be one or two more, but all to devilish good toasts. But I’m not drunk.”

“Prithee, friend, be not profane,” said Nehemiah Holdenough.

“What, my little Presbyterian Parson, my slender Mass-John? thou shalt say amen to this world instantly”— said Wildrake; “I have had a weary time in’t for one. — Ha, noble Sir Henry, I kiss your hand — I tell thee, knight, the point of my Toledo was near Cromwell’s heart last night, as ever a button on the breast of his doublet. Rat him, he wears secret armour. — He a soldier! Had it not been for a cursed steel shirt, I would have spitted him like a lark. — Ha, Doctor Rochecliffe! — thou knowest I can wield my weapon.”

“Yes,” replied the Doctor, “and you know I can use mine.”

“I prithee be quiet, Master Wildrake,” said Sir Henry.

“Nay, good knight,” answered Wildrake, “be somewhat more cordial with a comrade in distress. This is a different scene from the Brentford storming-party. The jade Fortune has been a very step-mother to me. I will sing you a song I made on my own ill-luck.”

“At this moment, Captain Wildrake, we are not in a fitting mood for singing,” said Sir Henry, civilly and gravely.

“Nay, it will aid your devotions — Egad, it sounds like a penitential psalm.

‘When I was a young lad,

My fortune was bad,

If ere I do well ’tis a wonder.

I spent all my means

Amid sharpers and queans;

Then I got a commission to plunder.

I have stockings ’tis true,

But the devil a shoe,

I am forced to wear boots in all weather,

Be d —— d the hoot sole,

Curse on the spur-roll.

Confounded be the upper-leather.’” 11

The door opened as Wildrake finished this stanza at the top of his voice, and in rushed a sentinel, who, greeting him by the title of a “blasphemous bellowing bull of Bashan,” bestowed a severe blow, with his ramrod, on the shoulders of the songster, whose bonds permitted him no means of returning the compliment.

“Your humble servant again, sir,” said Wildrake, shrugging his shoulders — “sorry I have no means of showing my gratitude. I am bound over to keep the peace, like Captain Bobadil — Ha, knight, did you hear my bones clatter? that blow came twankingly off — the fellow might inflict the bastinado, were it in presence of the Grand Seignior — he has no taste for music, knight — is no way moved by the ‘concord of sweet sounds.’ I will warrant him fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil — Eh? — all down in the mouth — well — I’ll go to sleep to-night on a bench, as I’ve done many a night, and I will be ready to be hanged decently in the morning, which never happened to me before in all my life —

When I was a young lad,

My fortune was bad —’

Pshaw! This is not the tune it goes to.” Here he fell fast asleep, and sooner or later all his companions in misfortune followed his example.

The benches intended for the repose of the soldiers of the guard, afforded the prisoners convenience enough to lie down, though their slumbers, it may be believed, were neither sound nor undisturbed. But when daylight was but a little while broken, the explosion of gunpowder which took place, and the subsequent fall of the turret to which the mine was applied, would have awakened the Seven Sleepers, or Morpheus himself. The smoke, penetrating through the windows, left them at no loss for the cause of the din.

“There went my gunpowder,” said Rochecliffe, “which has, I trust, blown up as many rebel villains as it might have been the means of destroying otherwise in a fair field. It must have caught fire by chance.”

“By chance? — No,” said Sir Henry; “depend on it, my bold Albert has fired the train, and that in yonder blast Cromwell was flying towards the heaven whose battlements he will never reach — Ah, my brave boy! and perhaps thou art thyself sacrificed, like a youthful Samson among the rebellious Philistines. — But I will not be long behind thee, Albert.”

Everard hastened to the door, hoping to obtain from the guard, to whom his name and rank might be known, some explanation of the noise, which seemed to announce some dreadful catastrophe.

But Nehemiah Holdenough, whose rest had been broken by the trumpet which gave signal for the explosion, appeared in the very acme of horror —“It is the trumpet of the Archangel!” he cried — “it is the crushing of this world of elements — it is the summons to the Judgment-seat! The dead are obeying the call — they are with us — they are amongst us — they arise in their bodily frames — they come to summon us!”

As he spoke his eyes were riveted upon Dr. Rochecliffe, who stood directly opposite to him............