CHAPTER XXXVIII.
We wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs of transformation,
Not painlessly doth God re-cast
And mould anew the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.
—Whittier.
On returning to Ledbury, Gabriel seized the opportunity of writing to his father, begging that, if possible, he might see him before he left the neighbourhood; and by the time he had found a messenger to despatch to Hereford, Massey had returned from reconnoitring the surrounding country. The Governor of Gloucester was in excellent spirits, for he had reason to believe that Prince Rupert, having learnt of his arrival at Ledbury, had halted in his march to join the King, and would probably return and give him battle.
“I only wish it were possible to fortify this town,” he remarked as he and his officers supped at the ‘Feathers,’ “but it is out of the question.”
“Do you think we shall have a night attack, sir?” asked Gabriel.
“’Tis possible, for Prince Rupert ever loves that device. Yet he could scarce be here to-night. Some of the men had best, however, bivouac in the High Street: your detachment has had light work to-day, Captain Harford, and shall be told off for this under Captain Bayly; I may need you anon for the work of which we spoke.”
“In truth the men have had lighter work than we thought for, sir,” said Gabriel, “for the desire to pull down Bosbury Cross seemed to be only on the part of that fanatic Waghorn, and the Vicar pleaded for it with such excellent good arguments that, under certain conditions, I gave leave that it should be spared. I think, had you been there you would have done the same, sir, and I trust you don’t disapprove of what I did.”
Massey laughed good-humouredly. “If you choose to incur the wrath of that mad fellow ’tis no affair of mine,” he said. “And now I think of it, the Vicar of Bosbury was a sensible and kindly man.”
“Ay, and hospitable,” said Captain Bayly. “He gave us a good supper when we halted last winter at Bosbury. There was a pretty niece, too, I remember.”
This remark brought upon Gabriel much laughter and raillery, which he took in good part.
“Were you not there with one of the Hoptons?” he asked.
“Ay, to be sure, the younger one, that tried to defend Castle, Ditch near Eastnor. He was worsted, and thrown into gaol at Hereford, but managed to escape by leaping a wall, and rejoined us at Gloucester. I don’t know where he is serving now.”
Supper being ended Massey retired to finish his despatches, and Gabriel had orders to supervise the barricading of the streets with carts, which kept the men hard at work throughout the evening.
The moon had risen, and the picturesque High Street with its gabled black and white houses would have looked like a place in fairyland had it not been for the grim preparations for defence and for the busy soldiers moving to and fro, some carrying torches which threw a fitful glare over the scene and made the bright helmets and gorgets glitter. Everyone was far too hard at work to notice the silent spectator who, wrapped in a long cloak and a hood of the sort much worn by aged men, noiselessly shadowed Captain Harford wherever he went.
Waghorn’s hatred only increased when he saw how remarkably active in the cause Gabriel could be, how swiftly the orders he shouted were carried out, and what an excellent officer he made. It was impossible to conceive one more in touch with his men, and the fanatic gnashed his teeth when he reflected that one authoritative word from this young fellow of two or three and twenty would have been sufficient to level the cross with the ground.
By the time all was in readiness it was growing late, and Gabriel and his successor, Captain Bayly, walked down the High Street to the “Feathers,” at the door of which Massey lounged smoking his pipe.
“Bid them sound the bugle for the evening psalm,” he said, as the two officers joined him. “The men had best sleep while they may.”
As the bugle rang through the little town and the men assembled in front of the market-house, Waghorn, stepping forward like a bent and aged man, stealthily approached Gabriel.
“Now will this sparer of crosses join in a psalm with the godly,” he reflected, wrathfully. “Let his days be few! Even in the midst of his sin shall he be stricken!”
Little dreaming that one of his worst foes stood close behind him, Gabriel joined with rather a heavy heart in the psalm which seemed to haunt him at every crisis in his life. Standing now in the street at Ledbury with the manly voices of the soldiers ringing out into the night, he remembered how the same words
In trouble and adversity
The Lord God hear thee still
had strengthened him as he stood waiting for the first attack at Edgehill; how in the Cathedral long ago with his eyes on Hilary’s pale face, the same words had fallen on his ears, and how in the porch at Bosbury the psalm had on this very day been to them a bond of union. No thought of personal danger came to him now, though Waghorn’s cloak brushed his sleeve. It was of Hilary he thought, and of the peril that threatened her.
At the close of the psalm the bugle sounded the “Last post,” and such of the men as had quarters marched off; those who were to bivouac in the street scattering into groups about the market-house, and a detachment moving torch in hand to the upper end of the town where four ways met.
Massey invited Gabriel and Captain Bayly to have a cup of mulled claret with him at the “Feathers.”
“Well, sir, if you will pardon me,” said Gabriel, who longed to be alone, “I will ask to be excused. Truth to tell, I am dog-tired, and would fain sleep.”
Massey slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.
“Art sick, or in love? Eh? Beshrew me, but I believe you did leave your heart at Bosbury to-day. I’ll be with you anon, Bayly.”
Then, drawing Gabriel aside, he moved with him to the further end of the market-house just at the corner of the narrow alley which led steeply up to the church. Against the pale moonlit sky they could see the dark outline of the spire betwixt the gables of the houses.
“I have written both despatches,” he said, in a low voice, “and as we can’t tell what the next four-and-twenty hours will bring forth I will give them now into your keeping, yet do not start until you can bear tidings of Prince Rupert’s doings.”
“I may take part in the battle, sir?” asked Gabriel.
“Yes, if you are minded to volunteer. I will give you word when you had best go. And remember this: a despatch-bearer needs something more than mere courage. He needs dexterity, diplomacy and caution. If I cannot get speech with you, and the fighting goes against us, lose no time in escaping and make whatever circuit you deem best to reach Windsor in safety. I’ faith, I think we have no eyes upon us now in the dark alley, and at the ‘Feathers’ we are over-tightly packed for privacy. Stow these safely away, and give the Commander-in-Chief all the details I am unable to set down. But at all costs see that both despatches are delivered. More hangs on it than you wot of.”
Under the shelter of their military cloaks the transfer of the despatches was easily effected, and Gabriel thrust them into the inner pocket of his coat.
“I will guard them with my life, sir,” he said, in a low voice. “And I thank you for trusting me with the work.”
Massey laughed.
“Small matter for thanks! ’Tis ever a risky and troublesome business. Well, good-night to you, Captain. May your affair of love prosper!”
“Good-night, sir,” said Gabriel, forcing a laugh, as he paced slowly up the narrow alley.
Alas! was it not a very one-sided affair of love? he thought to himself, with a sigh. If for a moment he ventured to hope that Hilary still cared for him, the next he remembered with a pang the way in which she had permitted Norton to dangle about her. He wondered, uneasily, what the Vicar could be dreaming of to allow it. Dr. Coke had seemed a shrewd as well as a generous man, yet had evidently no notion that the Governor of Canon Frome was playing the mischief in his very household. And then he remembered how plausible and fascinating Norton could be, recollected, too, that strange glimpse of a noble nature which he had now and then seen in him, and realised that very probably the Vicar and Hilary only knew the Colonel at his very best.
A storm of despair swept over him as more and more plainly he saw the great danger which threatened her.
“’Tis enough to madden a man!” he said to himself, writhing at the sense of his powerlessness to help. “It may be months or years ere I see her again, while all the time Norton can prowl round in his devilish fashion! Yet, if I rave like this, I shall lose all control over myself. After all, she gave me her promise to speak—I know she will keep her promise.”
The thought calmed him, and, pausing at the head of the alley, he stood for a minute praying silently in his usual brief, formless, but thoroughly heartfelt way, “God of Justice! grant her Thy help and guidance, and keep us from all evil this night.”
The wind blew softly down the narrow alley, the dark spire pointed silently towards heaven, and in the stillness the soul of the Puritan grew once more strong and undaunted.
As he paced back again to the High street he did not notice the dark figure standing in the shade of a doorway, but in the manner of one well used to bivouacking for the night he laid his sword on the ground, put his helmet and gorget in place of a pillow, and, with his military cloak wrapped about him, was soon sleeping soundly in one of the shallow recesses betwixt the wooden posts on which the market-house was raised.
At some little distance a sentry paced to and fro; Waghorn, watching his movements with a keen and wary eye, waited patiently in his sheltered nook until he was assured that all the soldiers slept. Then seizing his opportunity as the sentry marched back to the farthest point of his beat, he glided noiselessly out of the shadow, heartening himself with fierce inward ejaculations.
“Let destruction come upon him at unawares! I dread that sentinel. But courage! I will remember Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite, and my part is not to slay, merely to filch!”
Crouching down beside Gabriel he saw that he slept profoundly. In the cold clear moonlight it was easy to trace marks of care and suffering in the face, and, as the fanatic stealthily unbuttoned the coat, he reflected with grim satisfaction that worse would be in store for the sleeper when he woke.
Just then, to his dismay, he heard the footsteps of the sentry drawing steadily nearer, and hastily stretching himself out beside his victim he lay motionless until the danger was past and the footsteps were once more retreating.
Then in trembling haste he partly raised himself, thrust his hand with the control and caution that he had acquired in his wood-carving within the pocket of the buff coat, and had actually got hold of the despatches when the barking of a dog in a neighbouring house roused Gabriel.
“Hullo!” he cried, sitting up and gripping Waghorn by the arm. “What are you about, fellow?”
Waghorn in vain tried to escape; he was held as in a vice. Fortunately for him his face was in shadow, and he was completely disguised by his cloak and hood. With ready tact he began to whimper and moan like one half-witted.
“’Tis naught but daft Lubin, sir; naught but daft Lubin,” he pleaded.
“Daft Lubin, indeed!” said Gabriel, impatiently. “I should think you were daft to wake up a tired man in the dead of night. Ho! sentry! call the guard and let this crazy fellow be taken up, or he’ll be disturbing the men again.”
Waghorn whimpering, struggling and protesting all the way up the street that he was “naught but daft Lubin,” was remorselessly hurried away by the guard.
Yawning and shivering with the discomfort of one roused in his first sleep, Gabriel stretched his stiff limbs.
“What was the row?” muttered Captain Bayly, drowsily.
“Naught but an old half-witted beggar,” said Gabriel. Then suddenly noticing that his coat was unbuttoned, he felt in consternation for the packet, and gave an ejaculation of relief on finding the despatches safe.
“The night grows cold,” said the other, wrapping his cloak more closely about him.
“’Tis naught to some of the nights we had in Waller’s time,” said Gabriel. “He took no heed of frost or damp, though now and again he was sorry for the horses.”
With another prolonged yawn he stretched himself out face downwards, and was soon once more wrapped in profound sleep.
Towards morning he had a curiously vivid dream. He thought he was swimming across a blood-red lake, and he knew that he bore despatches which should warn Cromwell of a dastardly attempt about to be made on his life. He had nearly gained the shore when the dark hull of a boat loomed into sight, and Norton leaned over the bows with a mocking smile on his lips and dealt him a blow which sent him down—gaspingly down—through the red depths. Yet he rose again to the surface, and flung the despatches with a last dying effort to the shore; and when for the second time he rose, the packet was being lifted from the ground by his father. Then he finally sank and was vainly fighting for breath when a bugle sounded “To arms!”
He sprang up instantly on the alert; the red light heralding the sunrise suffused Ledbury, drums beat the alarm, the guard shouted, “To arms! to arms!” and Massey’s soldiers came pouring out of their night quarters in every direction. In two minutes Gabriel was in the stable saddling Harkaway with his own hands, and learning with a thrill of excitement that Prince Rupert, by a forced march through the night, was now close to the town, and was resolved to give them battle.
Colonel Massey, in excellent spirits, came riding out of the courtyard of the “Feathers,” and rapidly gave directions to his officers. To Captain Bayly fell the work of defending the market-house and the entrance to Church-alley, and soon from the upper end of the town came sounds of incessant firing, and the hoarse cry of the contending watchwords, “St. George!” and “Queen Mary!” from the Royalists, and “God with us!” from the Parliament soldiers. The chief barricade higher up the street kept the Prince’s troops at bay for some time, but in the meanwhile an attempt was made by a detachment of the Royalists to enter the town by Church-alley at right angles with the High Street, and some sharp skirmishing took place there, in which Gabriel bore a part.
Scarcely had they beaten back the attack from this quarter when shouts and uproar warned them that the main barricade had been broken down after a resistance of about half-an-hour. This opened the High Street for the Prince’s horse to charge, and though Massey made a gallant counter-charge and his men fought bravely, they were borne down. Rallying for a time by the market-house, he endeavoured to protect the retreat of his foot, and signing to Gabriel to approach, spoke a few hurried words to him.
“Seize your chance now,” he said, “and ride off. With a circuit you should be able to bear them safely. We shall charge again and fall back in good order on Gloucester.”
Without further delay he urged his men forward against the approaching Royalists. And Gabriel obediently, but with not unnatural reluctance, turned Harkaway’s head in the opposite direction, and was about to ride from the town when a loud outcry made him glance to the right.
Down Church-alley rode once more a detachment of Prince Rupert’s men, and he saw the figure of “daft Lubin” wildly accosting the leader, and heard him shout the words: “Fire on yon officer! He bears despatches! Fire in the King’s name!”
Urging on Harkaway, Gabriel rode like the wind. A sudden crash and a numbness which made the reins fall from his left hand and his arm drop powerless at his side warned him that a ball had struck him; for a moment his eyesight threatened to fail him, but with an effort he recovered himself, gathered up the reins in his right hand and set spurs to his horse.
Waghorn at the corner of the alley stood staring after him in blank astonishment.
“Curse him! how can he ride after that?” he exclaimed. “Ha! he reels in the saddle! Fire again, men! fire again! Now he clings to the horse’s neck—he must fall—he is ours! he is ours! Evil shall hunt the wicked person to overthrow him!”
At that instant one of the Prince’s troopers, finding his way blocked by the fanatic, pushed roughly past.
“Out of the way, you prating Puritan!” he cried, “or I’ll dash your brains out!” And with that he dealt Waghorn a blow on the head which left him groaning on the ground.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
One loving howre
For many years of sorrow can dispence;
A dram of sweete is worth a pound of sowre.
. . . true is, that true love hath no powre,
To looken backe; his eyes be fixt before.
—Spenser.
Meanwhile Massey, with great coolness and ability, retreated in good order with the remainder of his men to Gloucester, but many had been made prisoners, and about a hundred and twenty had been killed in the street and in the hot pursuit.
Had it not been for Waghorn’s words to the Royalists, Gabriel might have made his escape as easily as the Governor of Gloucester had anticipated. But, learning that important despatches were so nearly within their reach, some four or five troopers gave chase to him with a heat and determination that only increased with each mile traversed. Bullets whistled about his ears, but on he sped, every nerve strained in the wild excitement of the ride, all pain for the time overcome by the intense desire to carry out his task.
A second ball struck the already injured arm, making a ghastly flesh wound. Still he galloped on, but, alas! with the horrible consciousness that his pursuers were gaining on him.
His strength was fast failing when the sound of church bells fell on his ear; surely they were the bells of Bosbury? Hardly conscious of the direction he had taken, only galloping madly across country to baffle his pursuers, he had indeed approached within a short distance of the village, which lay in the valley below embosomed in trees.
For the time being he was out of sight of the Royalist troopers, and, with a word to Harkaway, he put the horse at a hedge which seemed a little off the course he had ridden.
The horse did his part gallantly, and alighted in a field which sloped steeply down to a tiny brook, but the agony of the leap was too much for the rider. With a stifled groan he fell to the ground, and Harkaway, not understanding his grievous plight, but thankful to find the desperate gallop at an end, unconsciously served his master by going quietly down to drink at the brook.
The pursuers were puzzled at suddenly losing all trace of the despatch-bearer. They paused to listen, but no sound of distant horse-hoofs fell upon their ear, only somewhat further on they could hear children’s voices. Riding forward, they came into sight of an orchard in which two little girls with their skipping-ropes were playing on the daisy-flecked grass. As they skipped they sang an old May-pole song, their childish voices rising high and clear in the country quiet:
Come, ye young men, come along,
With your music, dance and song;
Bring your lasses in your hands,
For ’tis that which love commands.
Then to the May-pole haste away,
For ’tis now a holiday.
It is the choice time of the year,
For the violets now appear;
Now the rose receives its birth,
And pretty primrose decks the earth.
Then to the May-pole haste away,
For ’tis now a holiday.
Suddenly they broke off, and the elder child cried out: “Look! Look, Meg. There be soldiers yonder.”
“Three, four, five of them!” said the little one, counting with keen interest.
“And two of them have left their horses and be coming this way,” said Nan. “See their red ribbons; they be King’s soldiers.”
“Oh, Nan, I’m frightened! They said they would hang the boys and drown the girls!” cried Meg, clinging to her sister.
“That was because the children of Broxash sang
If you offer to plunder, or take our cattle,
Be assured we will bid you battle.’”
said Nan, reassuringly. “We were only singing the May-pole song.”
Nevertheless her eyes grew large with fright as the soldier approached.
“Here, you brats!” he shouted. “Have you seen a Puritan officer gallop by this way?”
“No, we have been skipping,” she replied, sturdily.
“A wounded man on a bay horse.”
“We have not seen him—he hath not been here,” said Nan.
“Curse him! What a dance he hath led us! How a man that’s been twice hit can ride across country that fashion, beats me. The devil must be in him. Come, mate, we must to horse again, and push on—the plaguey fellow shan’t give us the slip.”
They hastened back to rejoin their comrades, and Nan looked wistfully after them.
“I hope they won’t find him,” she said, shivering. “If they do they’ll kill him.”
“I’m glad we’re not men,” said Meg, picking up her skipping-rope. “We shall never have to kill folk.”
By this time Gabriel had recovered his senses, and the sight of the Malvern Hills roused him to the remembrance that he was near Bosbury; with a vague idea of getting Hilary to bind up his wounds for him, and then of somehow reaching his father, he staggered to his feet, hoping to find Harkaway at no great distance. The horse, however, was nowhere to be seen, and, with faltering steps, he made his way with great difficulty across the field to a gap which he saw in the hedge. The children’s voices reached him, and helped him to persevere.
“Here each bachelor may choose
One that will not faith abuse,
Nor repay with coy disdain
Love that should be loved again.”
It was the same maypole song that he had listened to years ago at Bosbury just after their betrothal.
Utterly spent with pain and loss of blood, the effort of making his way through the gap in the hedge proved more than flesh could bear.
“’Tis no use—no use!” he thought, despairingly as he entered the orchard. “I can’t go another step! My God! Must I be so near to Hilary, and yet die like a dog in a ditch?” He reeled back, and, with a groan, fell senseless to the ground, to the horror and dismay of the children, who dropped their skipping-ropes and fled in terror.
“The Puritan!” they screamed; “he has fallen down dead!” But before very long curiosity conquered terror; they stole back hand-in-hand, and gazed at him with awe-struck faces.
“He looks as if he were asleep,” said little Meg.
“That’s how folks do look,” explained Nan, “just asleep, you know. But all the time they’re really awake up in the sky.”
“Wondering, perhaps, why we don’t understand,” said Meg, dreamily.
“Oh, see!” cried Nan, in great excitement, “he’s down here still, he’s not dead. His hand is moving!”
Gabriel tried to get up, but fell back again.
“Oh! what hellish pain!” he moaned.
“What can we do for you, sir?” said Nan.
“Who is it?” he asked, looking up in a dazed way. “Where?”
“We be Farmer Chadd’s children, sir, and this is our orchard nigh to Bosbury,” replied the little girl.
“How far from Bosbury?”
“’Tis but a little way across the hop-yards, sir.”
“If I could see Hilary before I die!” he muttered. “I will see her! I will see her! What became of Harkaway? Children, do you see a riderless horse near?”
They ran off and soon returned with beaming faces.
“There be a strange horse down by the brook,” said Nan. “A bay with two white feet.”
“He is gentle enough; could you bring him here for me? I am sorely hurt.”
They gladly promised and ran down the sloping field, leaving Gabriel in a curious borderland of semi-consciousness.
“I shall remember it all if I try,” he reflected. “My head is getting clearer. There was something I had to do! What on earth was it? Massey trusted me with something. If the Prince overpowered him I was to go—where? This agony makes all else a blank! I shall be no better than that daft vagabond who woke me last night. Ha! the despatches! I remember all now!”
With intense anxiety he felt for them. They were bloodstained but safe, and exhausted with the effort of concealing them once more, he sank back in a dead faint.
Now it chanced that on this Wednesday morning the Litany being ended, Dr. Coke and Hilary left the church and went to see Farmer Chadd, who was in great distress because his horses had been seized by the Canon Frome garrison. They were talking to him in the farmyard when his two little daughters came running up to beg his help.
“There’s a horse, father, down by the brook,” they explained breathlessly, “and the wounded Puritan officer in the orchard asked us to fetch it, but it won’t let us come near.”
“A Puritan officer? One of the fugitives from Ledbury, I reckon,” said Farmer Chadd.
“He is wounded, do you say, child?” asked the Vicar.
“Ay, sir,” said Nan, dropping a curtsey. “Wounded and well-nigh dead.”
“I wish you would stable the horse and say naught about it in the village, Chadd, as likely as not the poor fellow will be haled to prison if the Canon Frome folk hear of this,” said Dr. Coke.
“I’d do aught that would go against them” said the farmer, thinking wrathfully of the looting and plundering he had had to endure.
“I will give help to the officer, then, and you will put up the horse,” said the Vicar. “Come, children, show us where this poor Puritan lies.”
Hilary, with a horrible presentiment of coming sorrow, hastened across the orchard, and, with a low cry, knelt down on the grass beside the wounded man.
“Uncle,” she said, looking up with wild eyes, “see who it is!”
“Poor boy! poor boy!” said the Vicar, with deep concern. “What a change since yesterday, when he stood bold and strong at the head of his soldiers. He has swooned. Help me, dear, to remove his armour.”
Hilary obeyed, and, giving the helmet to Nan and Meg, asked them to fetch water from the brook. The Vicar, who had some little knowledge of surgery, managed, for the time, to staunch the wounds, and, presently, feeling a woman’s soft fingers at his throat unfastening his gorget, Gabriel regained consciousness, and lay watching the sweet, grave face which bent over him.
“Hilary!” he said, faintly. “Thank God! Now I can die in peace!”
“No, no,” she said, smoothing back the hair from his forehead. “You must live, Gabriel, I—we—cannot spare you. Uncle Coke is half a leech, he will bind up your wounds.”
The Vicar gave a rueful smile. “I may be half a leech, but I’m not a whole conjuror, and can’t make a couple of handkerchiefs into bandages that will serve. No, Hilary, you must get me some linen from Mrs. Chadd. Here come the children with the water; take them with you.”
The Vicar went to rescue the helmet full of water which Nan in her haste was spilling by the way, and Hilary bent over her lover.
“I will be back again very soon, Gabriel; promise not to move rashly. I wish I need not leave you—I can’t bear to go.”
He raised her hand to his lips. “What a nightmare these years of war have been! If we could but wake and forget them!” he said, with a tired sigh.
But before anything further could be said the Vicar interposed, cheerfully, “Come, my dear, the children will help to carry the things, and not even Prince Rupert’s Protestation forbids me to obey the commandment and give a thirsty enemy a cup of water to drink.”
While Hilary and the children ran to the farm he held the helmet to the wounded man’s lips.
Gabriel drank thirstily. “If you have signed the Protestation, sir, the less you have to do with me the better,” he said, reviving a little.
“I have not signed it,” said the Vicar, sturdily, “and I have every intention of taking you to my house that you may be properly tended.”
“Sir, indeed I dare not let you run such a risk; if aught should befall you what would become of Hilary?” said Gabriel, his eyes full of anxiety.
“You are right to think of her; you two were old friends at Hereford.”
“More than friends—we were betrothed before this war divided us.”
“Yet, did we not agree yesterday when you spared Bosbury Cross that, spite of the war, there was one bond which still united us?”
“You would not object to my suit?” said Gabriel, eagerly.
“On the contrary, I should welcome it. The friendship betwixt the Harfords and the Unetts is a two generation friendship, and truth to tell, I have just learnt that my niece is in some danger from the attentions of Colonel Norton—a man in whom I have been much deceived.”
Gabriel lay musing for a minute, then asked abruptly—“How soon could I be fit to ride, sir?”
“It will be a matter of a month at least,” said the Vicar.
“Surely, I could ride as far as Hereford—to my father?”
“Nay, ’tis out of the question. Oh, we will hide you safely somehow. Hilary hath a ready wit and will doubtless hit on some device.”
“If I could but have speech with my father,” said Gabriel, restlessly.
“Well, I could myself ride over for him, and he could dress your wounds,” suggested the Vicar.
With an effort Gabriel rallied his failing powers.
“I will be true with you,” he said, firmly. “’Tis not for that I would see him, but I bear despatches to Fairfax and Cromwell, and am in honour bound to see them in safe hands.”
“Despatches!” exclaimed the Vicar with a troubled look. “This is a grave matter. Yet ’twas honest of you to tell me. I think I might at least bring your father to-night to see you.”
“And should I die ere he comes—promise to give them to him,” said Gabriel, pleadingly. “Dying folk must often have asked your aid, Vicar. I ask that—nothing but that?”
“Now, may God forgive me if I do amiss,” muttered the Vicar. Then, turning to meet the eager hazel eyes which watched him so intently, “I promise you, my poor boy. Be at rest.”
After this Gabriel lay with closed eyes until he heard Hilary’s voice.
“I fear we have seemed long,” she said, “and you are suffering so much.”
He smiled. “Not now,” he replied, reviving for a while from sheer happiness in the change that had come over her.
“You little folk run over and play under the apple trees,” said the Vicar to Nan and Meg, “while I tend my patient.”
And with Hilary’s help he rapidly bound up the wounds in a somewhat rough and ready fashion, and put the arm in a sling.
“Captain Harford has told me much, my dear, while you have been gone,” he remarked. “Do you feel disposed to take on you the duties of nurse?”
Hilary blushed and glanced shyly at her lover. “Yes,” she replied. “Where can we best shelter Gabriel?”
“He thinks that his presence at the Vicarage could not be hid from the villagers. We must not risk awakening Colonel Norton’s suspicions.”
“Uncle! Why should we not use the room in the Church tower? The bell-ringers never go up the steps. No one but Zachary ever goes, and Zachary must be taken into the secret.”
“’Tis well thought of, child; Captain Harford would be safe enough there if we can once carry him up unseen.”
“Why should you not give out that you mean to use the tower room for your antiquities?”
“You can truthfully say that you are making a study of bones,” said Gabriel, smiling in the midst of his pain.
“The notion is not amiss, but yet it will be hard to take him there in broad daylight,” said the Vicar, securing the last bandage.
Hilary’s face lighted up. “Why,” she cried, eagerly, “you and Zachary might carry him in a hop-pocket? If you go by way of the hop-yards you would scarce be likely to meet a soul, and if you did, ’tis easily explained that you are carrying something you have just discovered. The villagers will only think ’tis what Mrs. Durdle calls one of Parson’s ‘antics.’”
The Vicar turned with a smile to Gabriel. “Did I not tell you she would hit on some device? But before I go I will help you to move to the other side of the hedge, for there is a right of way through this orchard to Ledbury, and you had best not risk being seen.”
“The pursuit was hot, but I think it must be over by now,” said Gabriel, allowing himself to be helped to a place where he was sheltered from the orchard by an elm tree and a low hedge.
“There! now don’t stir till I return,” said the Vicar. “I will go home and bid Mrs. Durdle prepare the room, and bring Zachary back with me, as soon as may be. And you little people, let Mistress Hilary know if anyone comes in sight.”
“Ay, sir,” said the children, curtseying.
“You are like two good little watchmen,” he added, smiling and patting their heads. “See that you don’t fall asleep at your posts, for the sun is hot. Now,”—he thought to himself with a humorous gleam in his eyes—“if Hilary and her lover do not patch up their ancient quarrel I shall wish I had sent her on this errand instead of going myself.”
CHAPTER XL.
“Duelling, in this country at least, is no longer legal, and we believe that war, which has been aptly styled international duelling, is alike doomed.. . . It is certain that the time must assuredly come (for is not this the darkness before the dawn?), and it will be probably sooner than we can conceive, when there will be a tremendous upheaval and revulsion of feeling with regard to it.” —J. J. Green.
For some little time Gabriel lay back in perfect silence against the grassy bank, and, spite of the acute pain he was in, he nevertheless felt ready to echo the children’s chorus which floated to them from beneath the apple trees—For it is now a holiday.
Hilary sat on the grass beside him, and from time to time he opened his eyes to watch the tender womanly hand as it ministered to his needs, or to look into the sweet face, as it bent over him. He realised, too, with a happy sense of homecoming, that he was indeed in his native county every time he caught sight of the lovely Malvern Hills which, in the morning light, seemed to take all the hues to be seen on a pigeon’s neck, and formed a fitting background for Hilary’s rare beauty.
“Ought I to let you do all this for a ‘friendly foe’?” he said, looking up at her with a hint of the old mirth in his eyes.
“Forget what I said yesterday, Gabriel. I did not mean half of it,” she said, blushing.
“I knew you meant to keep your promise—that was my sole comfort last night at Ledbury,” he replied, with a sigh.
Hilary continued nervously, but yet with no little force: “I went that very afternoon to see Dame Elizabeth, and you were right, it was just as you said. Oh! I hope I may never again see the false face that deceived me.”
“God grant you never may!” said Gabriel. And then a silence fell between them, and the merry talk of the children could be heard.
Hilary mused sadly over her shortcomings, but presently, noticing a change in her lover’s face, gave an exclamation of dismay.
“Gabriel! how white your lips are growing! Is the pain so great?”
“’Tis very bearable while you are near,” he said, his eyes resting on her with indescribable tenderness. “I was thinking how love can lift one out of all that is worst in the world.”
She instantly responded to his thought as in the first days of their betrothal. “’Tis stronger than war, or differing views,” she said, gently.
“Ay, or death,” he replied.
“Don’t talk of death!” she cried, shuddering. “Oh! when we heard of the battle this morning, and I remembered the cruel words I had spoken to you, I thought my heart would break.”
“My beloved,” he said. And in the strong emphasis of the word there seemed to lurk all the pent-up passion of the long years of separation.
For the first time since that September morning when they had talked in the garden at Hereford, before hearing of Powick fight, their lips met in a kiss that was like a sacrament, and each knew that nothing could ever again part them.
But their happiness was short-lived, for the children ran through the gap in the hedge, and Little Meg said, breathlessly, “Mistress Hilary! there be someone coming into the orchard.”
“It looks like one of the officers from Canon Frome,” said Nan, uneasily, her mind dwelling on cattle-lifting and plundering.
“What if it should be Norton!” said Gabriel, trying to get up.
“You must not show yourself,” said Hilary, earnestly.
“All will be ruined if you are seen. Dear love, promise me, and then I shall have no fear.”
“’Tis true I should be worse than no defence,” said Gabriel, reluctantly.
Hilary hastily placed her cloak so as to screen him a little better from view, and made the children sit in the gap to block the way.
“Nan and Meg, you will not betray him, I know,” she said.
“Sit there and weave daisy chains.”
Glancing at the approaching figure, she saw that it was indeed Norton, and, anxious to prevent him from drawing too near to the hedge, she went forward to meet him. She wondered now how she could ever have been deceived by him, and hated herself for having allowed him for a moment to make her distrust Gabriel’s love.
Norton’s greeting was eager and full of charm.
“This is clearly a red-letter day in my calendar, Mistress Hilary. First, I have news of Prince Rupert’s success at Ledbury, and then I have the crowning happiness of meeting you.”
“’Tis indeed a fair morning,” said Hilary. “You are doubtless going by the field-path to Ledbury to gain further tidings. I will not detain you. Good day, sir,” and she curtseyed, hoping to dismiss him.
“Oh! I am in no haste; my horse has cast a shoe, and I have sent it on to Diggory, the smith. Prince Rupert is sure to pursue Massey most of the way to Gloucester, ’tis ever his failing to press the chase too far. I will rest awhile in this pleasant orchard.”
Poor Hilary, only longing for him to go, felt that she was indeed being punished for having allowed him in former times to be too much with her.
“I wonder whether you have thought over what I said to you the day before yesterday,” observed Norton, eagerly watching her.
“The day before yesterday,” she said, with a puzzled look. “What happened then?”
“You are not complimentary,” he replied, laughing. “Perhaps you have forgotten all about it. But I remember very well that I had the happiness of walking with you from the Hill Farm to the Vicarage, and of offering you——”
“Was that only the day before yesterday? To me it seems half a lifetime ago,” said Hilary.
“You were not altogether kind to me; in fact, when we got to the Vicarage you followed Colonel Massey’s example, and beat a hasty retreat.”
She made a brave effort to divert him from the subject, observing with a smile: “And I am going to beg you, sir, not to follow the example of Prince Rupert; pray do not push the pursuit any further.”
“Pardon me,” said Norton more gravely, “but I have every intention of carrying it to a successful end. Don’t you understand that I love you?”
“Sir, it is of no use,” she replied. “I cannot listen to your suit. Pray, pray leave me.”
“I will not leave you,” he said, fiercely, “till I clearly understand why you are thus cold and indifferent.”
“Sir, I have no love to give you,” she said, with quiet dignity.
“Never mind that, my love is hot enough to serve for both.”
“I do not want your love,” she said, emphatically.
His eyes gleamed with an anger that made him look devilish.
“The meaning of which is, that you love another. Rumour spoke truly, and the young Parliamentary captain who spared Bosbury Cross—:—”
Hilary started, and a wave of colour suffused her face.
“You see I know all about it.”
She remained quite silent, with drooped head.
“Do you love this Captain Harford? Speak—for I will know the truth!” he said, savagely.
Hilary raised her head. There was such suffering and pathos in her face that any man not the thrall of passion would have been touched. “Sir, all our lives we have loved each other. Oh! if you understood, you would be generous,” she said.
“Why did you not tell me the truth on Monday?”
“Our betrothal had ended at the beginning of the war. I vowed I would not love a rebel. But yesterday, when we met again, I found that war was weaker than love, that it could not really part us.”
“So you became disloyal to your King?”
“No, no; I shall always honour His Majesty; but in truth I can think of only one man in all the world, and that”—her face lighted up—“that is Gabriel Harford, for he is all the world to me. I have told you the whole truth, sir, and now, by your honour as a gentleman, I ask you to leave me.”
“Shall I tell you what you have done?” said Norton, speaking low and rapidly. “You have made me all the more in love with you—all the more determined to win you. What is this Captain Harford? A mere boy, your old playmate, perchance a pleasant comrade, but wholly unfit to be your lord and master.”
“Sir,” she said, with a new dignity in her manner, “he is the man I love.”
Norton muttered an impatient oath.
“Had he been of our party I might have left you to him with a good grace. But nothing shall make me yield to a miserable Roundhead, a strait-laced Puritan, who glories in self-control, and keeps a conscience on his premises. Much good may his conscience do him! I have him like a rat in a trap!”
The words almost paralysed her with terror. What did he know? What did he mean? Had he caught sight of Gabriel?
“And you!” cried Norton, passionately. “You are in my power. Do you understand that?”
Beside himself with wrath, Gabriel dragged himself up on to his knees and drew his sword from the scabbard. Meg and Nan glanced round at him uneasily; and Hilary, conscious of the movement though her back was turned to the hedge, grew desperate in her anxiety.
“No, no!” she panted. “You are too brave a man to take so base an advantage.”
“Pshaw!” said Norton, sneeringly. “The man’s a fool who neglects to use his advantages. You think only of the dear Puritan. You only fear what I may do to him. Well, I will confide in you. I have sent a trusty ambassador to Ledbury, and he is sure to make Captain Harford prisoner. Then, when he is in my power—well, there are many ways of exterminating rats—and rebels.”
Hilary choked back a sob, and moved a few steps from the hedge.
“I am told,” said Norton with a cruel smile, “that Sir Francis Doddington hung fourteen rebels at Andover t’other day. And elsewhere twelve of them were strung up to one apple-tree. We might hang Captain Harford from one of those apple-trees yonder; it would be a fitting death for a Herefordshire man.”
With a wild hope of getting him out of the orchard she moved as though to go, trusting that he might follow’. But Norton was too quick for her.
“Come! cheer up and don’t be so silent,” he said, throwing his arm round her waist. “We’ll talk no more of the Puritan. Let us kiss and be friends.”
“Don’t touch me!” she cried, indignantly, wrenching herself from his embrace. “You are worse than a murderer.”
Norton laughed mockingly.
“Now that was a foolish speech, for as I warned you, the game is in my hands.”
“Thank God! there is someone coming,” cried Hilary, catching sight of a man slowly approaching by the path from Ledbury, and running swiftly towards him. “Why, Waghorn! is it you?” she exclaimed, recognising the well-known face of the wood-carver beneath a bandage tied about his forehead. “You have little liking for us, but I know you will help me now.”
“Mistress!” said Waghorn grimly, “I have a word to speak with yonder Governor of Canon Frome, and I cannot serve you.”
Norton strode angrily towards him.
“A word to speak, indeed! What have you been about? Where is your prisoner?”
Hilary in great astonishment stood by, glancing from one to the other. Waghorn, then, had been the Colonel’s ambassador! Had he suddenly turned Royalist, or was it merely to revenge himself on Gabriel that he had become a spy?
“Sir,” said Waghorn, “I did all that you told me. Last night, having changed my outward man, I followed Captain Harford wherever he went in Ledbury. As the shadow followeth the wayfaring man when the sun shineth, so did I follow him. I saw Colonel Massey give him the despatches.”
“Well! Well! did you take them?” asked Norton, impatiently.
Not heeding the interruption, Waghorn stolidly resumed his tale.
“He hid them in his buff coat and lay down to sleep by the market-house. I well-nigh took the packet from him, but a cur barked and he roused up, gripped me by the arm and called the guard.”
“Idiot! I might have known that you would bungle the business. How was it you did not get him disabled in the skirmish instead of being knocked on the head yourself?”
“I adjured Prince Rupert’s men to fire on him,” said Waghorn, with solemn vindictiveness, “and the ball of the avenger entered into his arm; but he still galloped on, clinging to the neck of his steed. Then one of the ungodly clouted me on the head and I saw him no more.”
His slow speech, and the failure of the enterprise irritated Norton past endurance.
Seizing him by the coat-collar, he gave him a sound shaking.
“You prating, pig-headed, sour-faced lunatic! I wish I had managed the matter myself. Did you not ask which way he rode? Was there no pursuit by the Prince’s troopers?”
Waghorn groaned. “Mercy! Mercy! Oh, my head! My head! Remember I’ve a sore head.”
“You’ve no head at all, you gaping fool, or you wouldn’t have made such a cursed mess of this matter. Did you not ask, I say? Could no man give you news of him?”
Freeing himself and groaning as he adjusted his bandages, the wood-carver replied, sullenly, “I have news of him. When you will leave me time to speak, I will tell you all.”
“Speak then,” said Norton, impatiently.
“I am a righteous avenger,” said Waghorn, with an air of offended dignity, “and, though thrice baulked, I will yet lay hands on the ungodly man that dallies with malignants, and doth not destroy graven images. ‘Let his days be few, and let another take his office!’”
“Go to! You are not preaching on a tub, you fool, but speaking to a King’s officer,” said Norton, with an angry frown.
Waghorn continued deliberately. “When I could think of aught but my clouted head, I sought to pursue Captain Harford, asking from one and another if they had seen a wounded Parliament officer on a bay horse. At length I fell in with some troopers who vowed they had pursued him in this direction, but had lost all trace of him and were returning to Prince Rupert.”
“They had seen him this way?” said Norton, musingly.
Waghorn turned his piercing eyes on Hilary and looked at her fixedly. She tried bravely to keep an unmoved face.
“Doubtless he had his reasons for riding towards Bosbury,” said the spy, with scornful emphasis.
“A good notion,” cried Norton. “After all, you have a head on your shoulders, Waghorn. Methinks the lady’s face hath an anxious look.”
“Sir,” said Hilary, drawing herself up, “no maiden could listen to such words as you have forced me to hear to-day without showing some sign of anxiety.”
Waghorn watched her with the eyes of a hawk, and his solemn voice broke the brief silence which had fallen upon them.
“I adjure you, Mistress, by all you hold most sacred, to speak the truth. Have you seen Captain Gabriel Harford?”
The girl breathed hard, but kept silence, gazing like one transfixed into Waghorn’s keen eyes.
“Speak, Mistress,” he repeated. “Have you seen Captain Gabriel Harford?”
“I saw him—yesterday,” gasped Hilary.
“We know that. Have you seen him this morning?”
There was a minute’s pause, while in agony she tried to see some way out of the dilemma. But way there was none.
“You have seen him?” urged Waghorn, merciless as any Inquisitor.
“Yes,” she replied, a sob rising in her throat.
Norton, with fury in his eyes, stepped nearer to her.
“You dare to protect this rebel, and yet you knew that he carried despatches to the rebel army?”
Hilary bowed her head in assent, then turned away.
“When did you see him?” urged Norton, wrathfully.
She looked up, and her terrible distress was evident.
“I saw him—anon,” she said, in a broken voice.
“How long ago?”
“A little while before you came,” she faltered.
“Which way did he ride?” cried Norton, maddened at the thought that this girl was thwarting them and making them lose precious time. “Tell me at once.”
Utter despair seized her.
“Oh!” she sobbed, “have pity on me!”
“Pity!” said Norton, savagely. “Have you pitied me? Tell me which way he went, or I’ll——”
At this, Gabriel, driven desperate, struggled to his feet, but, turning faint, was forced for a while to lean against one of the hedge-row elms. The children, terrified by his movement and by the dispute in the orchard, dropped their daisy-chains and ran at full speed down the field, while the Colonel, becoming aware of a stir behind him, glanced round.
That was too much for Hilary. She sprang forward and diverted Norton’s attention by pointing to the hills. Her voice was the voice of one goaded beyond all endurance.
“He rode yonder!” she cried, “to Malvern!”
Norton turned to the wood-carver. “Haste, Waghorn! Take word to my servant at the blacksmith’s, and do you ride with him in pursuit. I have a word to say to this lady.” Waghorn was only too ready to undertake such congenial work, and the moment he was gone Norton seized Hilary roughly by the wrists.
“By your tears and your pretences,” he said, with fierce scorn, “you have done your best to hinder me; but I would have you know, Mistress, that I am not one to be baffled. You are wholly at my mercy now.”
In wild terror, she felt the pitiless brute force of the man.
“Let me go!” she panted, struggling to free herself.
“No, by Heaven! you shall not,” said Norton, passionately. “Waghorn can settle matters with your lover, and I will make sure of you.”
In the agony of her resistance she forgot everything else, and was as much startled as Norton when suddenly an indignant voice rang out close to them.
“Coward!” cried Gabriel, and his tone made the Colonel wince as he released Hilary, and stood staring at the wounded man, who, apparently almost at his last gasp, nevertheless confronted him with drawn sword.
His left arm was bandaged and in a sling, the sleeve of his buff coat had been ripped from wrist to shoulder, and hung down soaked in blood; his face was ghastly pale, with eyes like a flaming fire. Norton felt that he could not fight one in such extremity.
“What, the Puritan here, after all!” he cried. “I’faith, this is excellent. I arrest you, sir, in the King’s name.”
Gabriel’s breath came in gasps, but with a gesture he urged Hilary to stand back under the trees, and, with flashing eyes, turned upon her assailant.
“Defend yourself!” he cried.
“Nay, an’ you will fight,” said Norton, drawing his sword. “Your blood be on your own head.”
Hilary, with hands clasped on her breast, stood by frozen with horror, every shade of colour gone from her lovely face. In awful contrast to the peaceful orchard with its grass and daisies, its pink-and-white apple blossom, its glimpses of the Malvern hills, was the unequal fight in the foreground, the deadly thrust of the flashing swords, the clash of the steel, the gasping, sobbing breath of her lover.
Everything seemed against Gabriel; not only was he exhausted by pain and loss of blood, but he was a shorter, slighter man than the Colonel, and a less practised swordsman. He had nothing in his favour but a good cause, and a dauntless courage, and these will not ensure success.
Although he made a brave fight it was before long only too evident that he was failing; twice he staggered and almost fell, and though each time recovering himself, Norton was convinced that in another minute he must succumb. And now the better side of the Colonel’s nature once more asserted itself; he felt a certain admiration for his foe, an uneasy consciousness that there had been truth in that indignant cry of “Coward!” The thought disturbed him, so did the panting, agonising gasps of the Puritan, and an uncomfortable chill went to his heart when, in the heat of the combat, he felt a ring which he specially valued slip from his left hand.
Suddenly he was taken off his guard; with a desperate thrust Gabriel ran him through the body, and in the same instant both duellists fell to the ground, the one severely wounded, the other wholly exhausted by the rescue of the woman whom he loved, and in the defence of whose honour he had spent the last remnants of his failing strength.