arching or prying might cost him his place, if they
did not draw him within the meshes of the law against Misprision of
Treason, forbore to vex himself or Authority further on matters that
concerned him not, and was so content to guard his Prisoner with greater
care than ever. The Castle was garrisoned by but twelve men, and of
these six were invalids and matrosses; but the other six were tall and
sturdy veterans, who had been indeed of Oliver's Life-guard, and were
now confirmed in their places, and with the pay, not of common soldiers,
but of private gentlemen, by the King's own order. Their life was
dreary enough, for they could hold but little comradeship with the
invalids, whom they dubbed "greybeards, drivellers, and kill-joys." But
they had a guard-room to themselves, where they diced and drank, and
told their ruffian stories, and sang their knavish catches, as is the
manner, I suppose, for all soldiers to do in all countries, whether in
camps or in cities. But their duty was withal of the severest. The
invalids went snugly to bed at nine of the clock, or thereabouts, but
the veritable men-of-war kept watch and ward all night, turn and turn
about, and even when they slept took their repose on a bench, which was
placed right across the Prisoner's door.

This much-enduring man--for surely no lot could be harder than his--to
be thus, and in the very prime and vigour of manhood, cooped up in a
worse than gaol, wherein for a long time he was even denied the company
of captives as wretched as he,--this slave to some Mightier Will and
Sterner Fate than, it would seem, mortal knowledge could wot of, bore
his great Distress with an unvarying meekness and calm dignity. With
him, indeed, they did as they listed, using him as one that was as Clay
in the hands of the Potter; but, not to the extent of one tetchy word or
froward movement, did he ever show that he thought his imprisonment
unjust, or the bearing of those who were set over him cruel. And this
was not an abject stupor or dull indifference, such as I have marked in
rogues confined for life in the Bagnios of the Levant, who knew that
they must needs pull so many strokes and get so many stripes every day,
and so gave up battling with the World, and grinned contumely at their
gaolers or the visitors who came sometimes to point at them and fling
them copper money. In the King's Prisoner there was a philosophic
reserve and quietness that almost approached content; and his