So now our last hopes were fled, and there was naught for it but to make an honourable surrender. We had defended the Castle for a space of five months, and during that time we had slain over a thousand of our enemies with very little loss to ourselves. If we had been able to secure provisions we could have held out for the King forever, for the place was so strong as to be well-nigh impregnable. Food, however, we could not get, and we could do the King no good by starving to death. At this point the besiegers made us honourable offers as to our surrender, which we presently accepted, marching away from the Castle at eight o’clock on the morning of . The major portion of the garrison went forward to Newark, but I and my companions stayed at Dale’s Field, and were not sorry to see somewhat in the way of home comforts after our long and serious privations.
XXXIX
Of the Death of Philip Lisle
It was now drawing near harvest time, and I determined to see my crops gathered and garnered before I did aught else. To tell truth, I had lost a good deal during the recent hostilities, for the Roundheads had levied contributions on my cattle many a time while the siege was in progress, so that when I came back to Dale’s Field I found myself poorer by some fourteen or fifteen head of cattle, to say naught of a score or so of sheep. However, I was thankful to find that they had not burnt my house or my buildings, which was what I had feared more than once.
I took Philip and Ben home with me to Dale’s Field when we left the Castle, while Jack Drumbleforth went to his father’s house, where the Vicar was much delighted with the sight of his son. Now that we were all at home again the women made much of us, for they were all agreed that we looked like half-starved rats. Naught would suffice them upon the day of our coming home but that we must have a feast, and to this joyful event a messenger was despatched to bring Parson Drumbleforth and Jack. We were very merry that night, and Ben Tuckett, having found his spirits again, amused us with stories of his own prowess during the siege, which, to hear him talk, was exceeding great and wonderful. Cause for rejoicing, however, we had little beyond the fact that we were all safe and sound. Our party was defeated on all sides, and we knew not what would happen next.
“I shall to the wars again,” said Jack, when we began to discuss the future. “Beaten we are, no doubt; but I will go fight for the King until the last blow has been struck.”
“Well said, Jack,” said Philip Lisle; “I will go with you. We seem to be vanquished at this present time, but all is not lost yet.”
“Gentlemen,” said Ben Tuckett, who sat in the chimney-corner near Lucy, “if you only knew how warmly I approve your sentiments you would be delighted. I love to see brave men. However, my duty forbids me to further engage in warfare. I have looked after the King’s business so long that my own hath suffered. As for my house, it is in ruins—and ’twas a Royalist cannon did it, too—and I suppose my stock which lay hidden there is lost.”
“Thou art not the only man that has lost something,” said Jack. “It will be worse for many than for thee, Ben. God send they do not fine all of us that have taken part with the King.”
“That is what I expect them to do,” said Philip Lisle.
“What!” cried Ben. “And will they fine me, too, after all I have lost? Then I had best do naught in the way of reopening my shop. They cannot fine me if I have naught, can they?”
“They can clap thee into gaol, lad,” said Jack. “Yea, and hold thee there until thou hast paid the piper.”
“Alas!” cried poor Ben, “was ever man so unfortunate! However, if only it be a small fine—”
And with that he began to look hard at the hearthstone under which he and Lucy had buried his money, and after that he said no more, but seemed to think deeply. But when my mother and the girls had gone to bed and Jack and Philip were talking their plans over, he drew me into a corner and began to talk confidentially.
“Will,” said he, “I have been thinking tonight that it is high time you and I were settled. We are neither of us as young as we were.”
“Speak for thyself, Ben. As for me, I am four-and-twenty.”
“Is it so little? Well, to be sure I am thy junior. Somehow I had thought myself twoscore at least. It is, I suppose, because I have passed through so much tribulation. However, to the point. It is, I say, time we were settled.”
“Are we not settled already?”
“A man never is settled,”
