“Nay, sir,” said I, “there is no cause to join them now. If ever I left my farm it was to fight for the King’s Majesty.”
He looked at me steadfastly and inclined his head.
“And that cause is now gone? Indeed it is so. Well, man, I respect an honest heart. But come with me a moment.”
He laid his hand on my arm and turned me in the direction of a doorway in the side of the palace. We entered and passed along a dark corridor which led to a small courtyard where a picket of soldiers was on duty. From this we passed into a gallery hung with fine pictures, such as I had never seen before, and from that through many great apartments richly decorated, and looking very vast and magnificent in the dim light, until we paused before a door where stood two pikemen on guard. My companion took a lamp from a table that stood near and advanced to the door, which was thrown open by one of the soldiers.
“Follow me,” said Cromwell, and entered the room. I stepped in after him, and the man shut the door again. The apartment was in darkness, and its proportions were so vast that the lamp shed but little light in it. Cromwell advanced to the centre, and, setting down the lamp upon a table, beckoned me to draw near. And then I saw that upon the table stood a coffin, covered over with a dark-coloured pall. While I wondered what this meant my companion turned the pall back, and I suddenly started with amazement.
“Sir, sir!” I said. “It is the King!”
For truly it was the body of the dead monarch that lay there in the coffin before me. His face was calm, and bore no trace of pain; he seemed, indeed, to be asleep rather than dead. I stood bound to the spot with horror, looking from the dead King’s face to the man who had brought me there, and who was beholding his fallen enemy with impassive countenance.
“Yea,” said Cromwell at length; “it is the King—the King that betrayed his great trust. Mark you, Master Dale, what fate is in store for a monarch that opposeth the just demands of his people. Do you know what this day hath done for England and the English nation? It hath made her and them free forever from tyranny.”
“Alas, sir,” said I, “I know naught save that he had children that are now weeping his death.”
He gave me a swift, deep glance, and drew the pall gently back over the dead King’s face.
“Yea,” he said, “there have been many children weep their father’s death of late years, and many fathers that have wept their children’s death. Come, let us go.”
He took up the lamp, and touched the dark pall here and there where it had become disarranged. Then he looked at me curiously.
“Farmer,” said he, “you see that we have treated him with all courtesy and respect. What think you, if they had taken off my head outside this morning, and the heads of my companions, would they have given us decent burial? Alack, more like Tyburn and the gibbet, and the kites to feed upon us.”
I remembered that saying in after-years, when Charles the Second came back to the kingdom, for then they disinterred Cromwell and his friends, and subjected their dead bodies to many foolish and cruel indignities.
We passed out again, and he preceded me through the great halls and apartments until we once more came into the space before Whitehall. There he suddenly turned upon me.
“Get you gone home, Master Dale,” he said, almost fiercely. “You are better in the country than in this city. There are more than you that are longing for a quiet life amongst the woods and fields, but the Lord hath appointed them to other work. Get you gone, get you gone, and keep clean hands and a right spirit. As to your business, it shall be done.”
Without another word he turned away sharply and disappeared in the direction of Westminster, while I, full of wonder and excitement at what I had heard and seen, went forward to Charing Cross, and along the Strand towards St. Paul’s. The streets were thronged with people, and every tongue was discussing the event of the day. The Roundhead soldiery were at every street corner, and bodies of troopers rode about as if in readiness for any rising. Here and there in the crowd was to be seen a Cavalier, distinguished from those among whom he walked by the difference in his garments and his long hair. Such, however, were suffered to pass in silence and unmolested, for the people seemed in no mood to create disturbances that day.
When I came to Ludgate, I was somewhat faint and weary with the excitement I had passed through, and I turned into the inn which has for its sign a holly bush, and called for ale wherewith to refresh myself. In the parlour of the inn there was gathered a numerous company of men—most of them shopkeepers from the surrounding streets—who had come there to drink their glass and smoke their pipe of tobacco. Amongst them I took my seat and listened to the conversation, which ran entirely on the King’s execution. When I entered, the whole attention of the company was being given to two men who were arguing the matter with great heat, the one being a tall, dark-visaged person of grave air, and the other a little stout man with a very red face and quick manners.
“But I say,” said the little man, “that the King’s execution was illegal; yea, and care not who hears me, for ’tis well known I have ever been on the side of the Parliament, and am, moreover,
