“Not at all,” he answered. “It is a custom of war. Come now. As a prisoner of war, give me your parole.”
“You said just now that I was not a prisoner of war,” I answered.
“Very well, then,” he said. “I am a magistrate. I commit you add suspected person. Hart! Hart!” (Here he called in a man-servant.) “Just see that this young sprig keeps out of mischief. Think it over, Mr. Martin. Think it over.”
In a couple of minutes I was back in my prison cells, locked in for the night, with neither lamp nor candle. A cot had been made up for me in a corner of the room. Supper was laid for me on the table, which had been brought back to its place. There was nothing for it but to grope to bed in the twilight, wondering how soon I could get away to what I still believed to be a righteous cause in which my father wished me to fight. I slept soundly after my day of adventure. I dreamed that I rode into London behind the Duke, amid all the glory of victory, with the people flinging flowers at us. But dreams go by contraries, the wise women say.
I was a full fortnight, or a little more, a prisoner in that house. They treated me very kindly. Aurelia was like an elder sister. Old Sir Travers used to jest at my being a rebel. But I was a prisoner, shut in, watched, kept close. The kindness jarred upon me. It was treating me like a child, when I was no longer a child. I had for some wild weeks been doing things which few men have the chance of doing. Perhaps, if I had confided all that I felt to Aurelia, she would have cleared away my troubles, made me see that the Duke's cause was wrong, that my father would wish his son well out of civil broils, however just, that I had better give the promise that they asked from me. But I never confided really fully in her. I moped a good deal, much worried in my mind. I began to get a lot of unworthy fancies into my head, silly fancies, which an honest talk would have scattered at once. I began to think from their silence about the Duke's doings that his affairs were prospering, that he was conquering, or had conquered, that I was being held by this loyalist family as a hostage. It was silly of me; but although in many ways I was a skilled man of affairs, I had only the brain of a child, I could not see the absurdity of what I came to believe. It worried me so much that at the end of my imprisonment I became very feverish; really ill from anxiety, as prisoners often are. I refused food for the latter part of one day, hoping to frighten my captors. They did not notice it, so I had my pains for nothing.