After he had been conveyed to another chamber, the physician ordered
restoratives and immediate bleeding;--but time did more than the leech's
art; and the first wish he formed was, that he might once more wend his
way to the Isle of Shepey, and gaze again, and for the last time, upon
the form of her he loved.
Once aroused from his torpor, the means of effecting his escape was the
first thing he considered. He had been removed to one of the lower
rooms, and his apartment could not be termed a prison, though the door
was fastened on the outer side--for the window was not more than ten
feet from the ground, and unbolted; it looked out into the garden, and
the sentinel placed beside that portion of the building had a longer
range than was usually allotted to the palace guard. Robin soon observed
that the lawn beneath was planted with rich clusters of young trees. The
hour for evening prayer had arrived; so that the household would be most
probably engaged, and the garden free from visitors. He looked from the
window; it was one of the loveliest days of summer--a day that at any
other time he would have welcomed with all the enthusiasm of a true
lover of nature; so warm the air, so sweet the flowers, so silently
flitted the small insects, as if dreading to disturb the repose of the
sunbeams that slept on the green turf. Nothing could be more unlike the
vicinity of a court; the very sentry seemed to tread it as hallowed
ground--his step was scarcely heard along the soft grass.
Robin did not attempt to assume any disguise.
"I shall walk boldly when I get out of the garden," he thought, "and if
I am taken before Cromwell, I will say why I desire liberty; I only wish
to see her once more, and then farewell to all! the red cross against my
name, in Oliver's dark book, may be dyed still redder--in my heart's
blood!"
Although his arm was stiff from the bleeding he had undergone but an
hour before, he watched till the soldier's back was turned, and dropped
from the window. He had scarcely time to conceal himself beneath a row
of evergreens when the sentinel turned on his path. Robin crept on, from
tuft to tuft--now under the shadow of a tree--now under that of a
turret, until he found himself close to a high wall which flanked the
side next the river; and then he became sorely perplexed as to the
method of his further escape. To the right was a gate which, from its
position, he judged led into one of the outer courts, and,
notwithstanding his first resolve of braving his way, habit and
consideration induced him to prefer the track least frequented or
attended with risk. At the extremity of the wall, where it turned at a
right angle to afford an opening for a gateway, grew an immense
yew-tree, solitary and alone, like some dark and malignant giant,
stretching out its arms to battle with centuries and storms; softened by
no shadow, cheered by no sunbeam, enlivened by no shower, no herb or
flower flourished beneath its ban, but there it towered, like the
spirit of evil in a smiling world. The wall, too, was overgrown with
ivy--the broad ivy, whose spreading leaves hide every little stem that
clasps the bosom of the hard stone, and, with most cunning wisdom,
extracts sustenance from all it touches. Robin's keen eye scanned well
every nook and corner, and he then mounted the tree, conceiving he
might, with little difficulty, descend on the other side, as he
perceived that the branches bent over the wall. He had hardly reached
midway, when a voice, whose tones he well remembered, fell upon his ear,
and for a moment called back his thoughts from their sad and distant
wanderings. He paused: the sound was not from the garden, nor the roof.
After much scrutiny, he discovered a small aperture of about a foot
square, that was originally a window, but latterly had been choked by
the matted ivy which overspread its bars. The voice was as of one who
has tasted the weariness of life, and would fain put away the cup that
was all bitterness. It sung, but the song was more a murmur than a lay,
sorrowful as the winter's wind that roams through the long and
clustering grass in some old churchyard, telling,-"Of blighted hopes and prospects shaded,
Of buried hopes remember'd well,
Of ardor quench'd, and honour faded."