By the Colonel It was in the time of the great Civil War--if I should not rather,as a loyal subject,call it,with Clarendon,the Great Rebellion.
It was,I say,at that unhappy period of our history,that towards the autumn of a particular year,the Parliament forces sat down before Sherton Castle with over seven thousand foot and four pieces of cannon.The Castle,as we all know,was in that century owned and occupied by one of the Earls of Severn,and garrisoned for his assistance by a certain noble Marquis who commanded the King's troops in these parts.The said Earl,as well as the young Lord Baxby,his eldest son,were away from home just now,raising forces for the King elsewhere.But there were present in the Castle,when the besiegers arrived before it,the son's fair wife Lady Baxby,and her servants,together with some friends and near relatives of her husband;and the defence was so good and well-considered that they anticipated no great danger.
The Parliamentary forces were also commanded by a noble lord--for the nobility were by no means,at this stage of the war,all on the King's side--and it had been observed during his approach in the night-time,and in the morning when the reconnoitring took place,that he appeared sad and much depressed.The truth was that,by a strange freak of destiny,it had come to pass that the stronghold he was set to reduce was the home of his own sister,whom he had tenderly loved during her maidenhood,and whom he loved now,in spite of the estrangement which had resulted from hostilities with her husband's family.He believed,too,that,notwithstanding this cruel division,she still was sincerely attached to him.
His hesitation to point his ordnance at the walls was inexplicable to those who were strangers to his family history.He remained in the field on the north side of the Castle (called by his name to this day because of his encampment there)till it occurred to him to send a messenger to his sister Anna with a letter,in which he earnestly requested her,as she valued her life,to steal out of the place by the little gate to the south,and make away in that direction to the residence of some friends.
Shortly after he saw,to his great surprise,coming from the front of the Castle walls a lady on horseback,with a single attendant.
She rode straight forward into the field,and up the slope to where his army and tents were spread.It was not till she got quite near that he discerned her to be his sister Anna;and much was he alarmed that she should have run such risk as to sally out in the face of his forces without knowledge of their proceedings,when at any moment their first discharge might have burst forth,to her own destruction in such exposure.She dismounted before she was quite close to him,and he saw that her familiar face,though pale,was not at all tearful,as it would have been in their younger days.
Indeed,if the particulars as handed down are to be believed,he was in a more tearful state than she,in his anxiety about her.He called her into his tent,out of the gaze of those around;for though many of the soldiers were honest and serious-minded men,he could not bear that she who had been his dear companion in childhood should be exposed to curious observation in this her great grief.
When they were alone in the tent he clasped her in his arms,for he had not seen her since those happier days when,at the commencement of the war,her husband and himself had been of the same mind about the arbitrary conduct of the King,and had little dreamt that they would not go to extremes together.She was the calmest of the two,it is said,and was the first to speak connectedly.
'William,I have come to you,'said she,'but not to save myself as you suppose.Why,oh,why do you persist in supporting this disloyal cause,and grieving us so?'
'Say not that,'he replied hastily.'If truth hides at the bottom of a well,why should you suppose justice to be in high places?Iam for the right at any price.Anna,leave the Castle;you are my sister;come away,my dear,and save thy life!'
'Never!'says she.'Do you plan to carry out this attack,and level the Castle indeed?'
'Most certainly I do,'says he.'What meaneth this army around us if not so?'
'Then you will find the bones of your sister buried in the ruins you cause!'said she.And without another word she turned and left him.
'Anna--abide with me!'he entreated.'Blood is thicker than water,and what is there in common between you and your husband now?'
But she shook her head and would not hear him and hastening out,mounted her horse,and returned towards the Castle as she had come.
Ay,many's the time when I have been riding to hounds across that field that I have thought of that scene!
When she had quite gone down the field,and over the intervening ground,and round the bastion,so that he could no longer even see the tip of her mare's white tail,he was much more deeply moved by emotions concerning her and her welfare than he had been while she was before him.He wildly reproached himself that he had not detained her by force for her own good,so that,come what might,she would be under his protection and not under that of her husband,whose impulsive nature rendered him too open to instantaneous impressions and sudden changes of plan;he was now acting in this cause and now in that,and lacked the cool judgment necessary for the protection of a woman in these troubled times.Her brother thought of her words again and again,and sighed,and even considered if a sister were not of more value than a principle,and if he would not have acted more naturally in throwing in his lot with hers.
