University of Virginia Library

13. XIII.
AN OLD CAVALIER OF THE KING.

I might here terminate my memoirs: the great epic
is finished, and the curtain has fallen on the tragedy.
But some incidents remain to be narrated, which refer
to my personal fortunes; and my children, if no others,
will like to hear of these incidents and of what marked
my last days in England.

On the night of the scene at Whitehall, I wandered
about London, laboring under a sort of stupor of grief
and despair. A new blow was, however, coming. Fate
had not exhausted her malice.

I had entered a low tavern, worn out and seeking a

spot to rest. On the rude table, covered with beer-stains,
lay a newspaper, which I took up mechanically.
As my eye fell upon it, I saw my father's name; and
as I read, my heart sank within me. The paper gave
a list of estates belonging to royalists, which had been
confiscated. Cecil Court was among them, and the
name of Sir Jervas Ireton opposite indicated that the
estate had been conveyed to him.

This intelligence came near to unman me. Then
my dear and honored father would be turned adrift,
homeless, in his old age! The sworn foe of our family
had wreaked his utmost vengeance upon us! The
coarse Sir Jervas Ireton would rule in the ancient home
of the Cecils!

I rose, my head turning, nearly. Whither should I
go? To France, leaving this blow to fall upon my
father? I could not: I must first see him. But how
to get to Warwickshire? I had no horse: was penniless.
I went out of the tavern with a fire burning in
my brain, and tottered rather than walked along the
deserted streets.

I was going along thus, the prey of a despair which
I could not resist, when, just as I passed beneath a
swinging lamp, I heard the clatter of hoofs. They
drew nearer. I raised my head, the light shone upon
my face, and I heard my name uttered.

A moment afterwards, a cavalier, whose horse's hoofs
had made the clatter, stopped near me, threw himself
from the saddle, and passed his arm around me.

“Cecil, you are ill!” he exclaimed.

The light fell upon the speaker, and I recognized
Colonel Edward Cooke.

“What mean you by wandering through the streets
at this hour, friend?” he continued. “You are pale
and woe-begone: you have seen all to-day, I doubt
not. But come! you are ill, Cecil! Tell me whither
you go.”

In a few words I told him of the confiscation of Cecil
Court, and of my resolution to see my father again
before I left England forever.

“Well,” the old cavalier said, “nothing is easier,
friend. You know I live near London, and my stud
is not yet seized. My horses are famous ones, as you
know; and you shall take your choice. Come! my
servant will give you his cob, and make the journey
home on foot. Come, friend!—we poor forlorn cavaliers
should help each other.”

I responded by a warm pressure of the hand, and
was soon in the saddle. Half an hour afterwards we
had left London by a by-way where there was no sentinel,
and two hours later reined in our horses in front
of the old manor-house of Colonel Cooke. I had
visited the house twice before, the reader will remember,
—first to bear to the old cavalier the queen's note
requesting him to be ready with his horses when she
thought to fly with her children to France, and again
to make arrangements for the king's escape from
Hampton Court. The old house shone now in a
bright moonlight, which lit up, too, the leafless and
spectral trees; but within, in the great fireplace of an
apartment hung round with portraits, roared a fire of
logs, which revived our chilled limbs.

My host proceeded at once to produce flagons and
cold meats. The food and rich wine warmed me and

brought back my energies. Then, lighting a pipe, and
puffing clouds of smoke from beneath his gray mustache,
Colonel Cooke began to speak of the terrible
event of the day just passed.

I have no space to repeat our conversation. It
extended far into the night. All over England, I
think, that night, poor cavaliers like ourselves were
conferring on the future and shedding tears over the
past.

At last Colonel Cooke rose, and the light fell full
upon his tall figure and his brave face, with its gray
mustache, and its sparkling eyes yet undimmed by
age.

“You must be weary, friend,” he said; “and your
bed is ready. At dawn my best horse will be saddled:
take him; I make you a present of him. God bless
and prosper you! And now a last cup!”

He filled my cup and his own, raised his above his
head, and, with flashing eyes, exclaimed,—

“Confusion to Cromwell and his gang, and God
save his majesty King Charles II.!”

With a close pressure of the hand, we parted, and I
retired to rest.

On the next morning by sunrise I was riding at a
gallop in the direction of Warwickshire.