Loke who that is most vertuous alway,
Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can,
And take him for the gretest gentilman.
—Chaucer.
While Hilary was learning at Hereford that in time of sore distress differences of opinion in matters of Church and State lose all hold on the mind, Gabriel was destined to meet in Somersetshire the noblest of the King’s Generals—Sir Ralph Hopton.
Waller, while awaiting reinforcements from London, had made his headquarters in Bath, and, though few days passed without skirmishes in the neighbourhood, he had been able to hold in check the combined forces of Hopton, Hertford and Prince Maurice, and to protect not only Bath but Bristol.
The citizens of Bath held him in high esteem, and when on the evening of the 16th June a messenger from the Royalist army was admitted into the city with a letter for the General, he had to run the gauntlet of some pretty sharp criticisms from the onlookers as he drew rein and dismounted at the door of the “Nag’s Head” in Northgate Street.
This the young man took in very good part, and Gabriel, who chanced to be leaning against the open door listening to one of Major Locke’s stories, felt drawn to him when he saw the imperturbable good humour with which he bore such taunts as:
“Let the barber shave your love-locks!” and, “Here’s a curled Court darling!”
“Take the gentleman’s horse,” said Gabriel, turning to one of the grinning ostlers, and then stepping forward he greeted the newcomer courteously.
“I have a letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and am to place it in Sir William Waller’s own hands,” said the young officer. “Is he within?”
Something in his voice and face seemed curiously familiar, and as Gabriel led him to the General’s room he could not resist hazarding a question.
“An I mistake not, sir, you must be a kinsman of Captain Heyworth?”
The young officer laughed.
“Truth! I myself am Captain Heyworth—Richard Heyworth of Shortell. Tell me, is my brother Joscelyn here?”
“Unfortunately not. He hath three weeks’ leave, and hath gone to London on business.”
“A curse on my ill-luck!” said Dick Heyworth. “I made sure I should have seen him here.”
He seemed so grievously disappointed that Gabriel felt the more drawn to him and announcing “Captain Heyworth,” watched the General’s surprise and perplexity as the visitor entered the room. Waller signed to him to remain in attendance, and put one or two rapid questions to Richard Heyworth.
“I sent a letter to Sir Ralph Hopton after the fray at Chewton Mendip by the hands of Mr. Reginald Powell—a prisoner we had taken—did it reach him safely?”
“Ay, sir—a letter proposing an exchange of prisoners. This is the General’s reply, and he bade me say he earnestly hoped you would agree to the second proposal he makes.”
Waller read the letter thoughtfully.
“I will write a reply,” he said at length, “and in the absence of your brother will send it by Lieutenant Harford, who shall accompany you on your return. I see, Sir Ralph writes from Wells; both you and your horse will need rest and refreshment after such a ride. Lieutenant Harford will see that you are well cared for.”
“Shall I return for your reply, sir?” asked Gabriel.
“Come for it at sunrise to-morrow,” said Waller, glancing again at the letter. Then, looking up at Dick Heyworth, “I would fain comply with Sir Ralph’s request could I consult my personal wishes, but I am bound to think only of the Cause. I will wish you good-night, sir.”
It only remained for Dick Heyworth to bow and withdraw, but Gabriel noted his look of annoyance as they entered the adjoining room, where the remains of the officers’ supper were still on the table.
“’Tis ever ‘the Cause, the Cause,’ with you Parliament folk,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Now if our two Generals could have met there might be some hope of making an end of the war.”
“Was that your errand?”
“That and the reply as to the exchange of prisoners. You had best not tell it in Gath, however. Sir Ralph Hopton, as you doubtless know, was an old friend of your General’s, and they served together in the German wars. He had a great wish to meet him and discuss this accursed civil strife.”
“Of what avail would that be,” said Gabriel, “when the King will never offer terms that can be accepted, and when Parliament places no confidence in his promises.”
“Ay, there’s the rub,” said Dick.
“Your Cornishmen know how to fight,” said Gabriel. “They gave us a smart repulse at Chewton Mendip.”
“Yes,” said Dick, making great inroads on the plate of beef his companion had set before him. “They are the best soldiers we have, and are men after Sir Ralph’s own heart, for they are as little given to plundering as the best of your Puritan troops. Sir Ralph is like to break his heart over Prince Maurice’s men, for they plunder right and left.”
“It would be little to your General’s liking, specially in his own county of Somerset.”
“That is what irks him so sorely, for they ruin the property of all his old friends and neighbours. But tell me of my brother, for I have not clapped eyes on him since you took Winchester.”
“He hath been several times of late at Gloucester, and was in high spirits at encountering there Mistress Clemency Coriton, his betrothed.”
“He was ever a lucky dog,” said Dick, laughing.
“He came very near to being shot in the back t’other night, by a treacherous blackguard that serves under Prince Maurice,” observed Gabriel.
“Ha! I can guess who that is,” said Dick. “Now I understand the dark hints and innuendoes that Colonel Norton has thrown out once or twice of late. Tell me what really passed.”
Gabriel, though omitting Helena’s name, told the story of her father’s duel with Norton and of their subsequent errand.
“That was an affair after Joscelyn’s own heart,” cried Dick. “Did I not tell you he was a lucky dog? Such chances are for ever coming his way. Never mind, my turn will come.”
Just after sunrise the two young officers rode off together to Wells, and by the time they had reached Hopton’s quarters, an old house in the Close, they had become fast friends, united by their common affection for Joscelyn. Gabriel was taken into a panelled room, where the Royalist General sat writing at a table in the oriel window. He was a middle-aged man, with threads of grey already showing in his long dark hair, and there was something singularly noble in his clear, open face and dignified bearing. A man of stainless character, he found many of his co-workers very little to his taste, and he seemed grievously disappointed to learn that his old friend Waller had felt unable to agree to the proposed meeting. Gabriel could not help glancing at his expression now and then as he read the letter which he had eagerly opened.
It ran as follows:
“Sir,”—The experience which I have had of your worth and the happiness which I have enjoyed in your friendship, are wounding considerations to me, when I look upon this present distance between us; certainly, sir, my affections to you are so unchangeable, that hostilitie itself cannot violate my friendship to your person; but I must be true to the cause wherein I serve. The old limitation of usque ad aras holdeth still, and where my conscience is interested all other obligations are swallowed up. I should wait on you according to your desire, but that I look on you as engaged in that partie beyond the possibility of retreat, and consequents incapable of being wrought upon by anti-persuasion, and I know the conference could never be so close betwixt us, but that it would take wind and receive a construction to my dishonour. That great God, who is the Searcher of all hearts, knows with what a sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hate I detest this war without an enemie, but I look upon it as opus domini which is enough to silence all passion in me. The God of Peace send us, in His good time, the blessing of peace, and in the meantime fit us to receive it. We are both on the stage and must act those parts that are assigned to us in this tragedy, but let us do it in the way of honour and without personal animositie; whatsoever the issue of it be, I shall never resign that dear title of
“Your most
“Affectionate Friend
“and Faithful Servant,
“William Waller.
“Bath, June 16, 1643.”
Sir Ralph Hopton sighed as he refolded the letter; it had only made him crave more passionately for an end of the war which was dividing England. He glanced a second time at Gabriel, struck by something familiar in his face. “Are you not one of the Herefordshire Harfords?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” replied Gabriel, “son of Dr. Bridstock Harford, of Hereford.”
“I met him many years ago at Canon Frome, when he must have been of your age; you are his living image. How is my kinsman, Sir Richard Hopton?”
“He is well, sir, but hath suffered from the plundering of his house at Canon Frome by the Royalists, to revenge his having accompanied my Lord Stamford last year when he took Hereford.”
“These plunderings and robberies are hateful to me,” said Sir Ralph. “Nothing does so much to embitter the struggle as the wanton destruction of property. By-the-bye, an’ I mistake not, you are connected with the Hoptons through a marriage with Madame Martha Harford, so that in somewhat remote fashion you are also akin to me. I could wish you were with us in this contest, but as they tell me Sir William Waller often says, we will part as enemies that may live to be friends.” Then bidding Dick Heyworth show all hospitality to Waller’s messenger, he dismissed them and began to write his reply to the Parliamentary General.
A few hours later, when Gabriel, with the letter in his wallet, paused at the city gate to take leave of Dick Heyworth, it chanced that Colonel Norton, lounging at his ease at the open window of an alehouse hard by, was roused to sudden interest in the proceedings.
“’Tis the very man!” he exclaimed. “Now I shall get hold of his name, which hath slipped my memory, and will have some sport with the Puritan dog.”
He strolled out of the alehouse, carelessly greeted Dick Heyworth, and, with a mockingly profound bow and sarcastic smile, turned to Gabriel.
“Good day, sir!” he exclaimed. “Have you had any more midnight rides with the fair Helena?”
Dick Heyworth, seeing the angry flush which rose in his new friend’s face, hastily interposed, hoping to avert a storm.
“To name a lady in such a fashion in the open street, sir,——” he began, but there he was interrupted by Gabriel, who, furious at the insinuation and the insult conveyed in Norton’s look and tone, could no longer restrain his tongue.
“In her present abode she is little like to need protection from villainous assaults such as yours, sir,” he said, with that sudden fiery vehemence which comes with startling force now and then from the most self-controlled men.
“Ha!” said, Norton, with his short, harsh laugh. “I have no doubt you stowed her away very conveniently in the godly city of Gloucester, where, doubtless, all men are saints. Beggarly hypocrites that you are! But the King will soon triumph now, and I ask nothing better than to have the privilege of hanging you, you Puritan mongrel!”
“The King’s cause is ill served, sir, by such words,” said Dick, angrily. “You, perhaps, do not understand that Lieutenant Harford bears a letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and cannot take up a personal quarrel.”
Norton burst into loud laughter.
“Bless you, my children!” he exclaimed, his eyes twinkling with genuine merriment. “’Twas precisely the name of this gentleman that I wished to discover—do not let me detain you longer now, Mr. Harford, we shall meet again, for I never allow myself to be baulked.”
With a derisive smile he returned to the alehouse, and Dick Heyworth rode on for a little way with his new friend.
“That fellow has a bitter grudge against you and my brother,” he said. “You had best beware of him, for he sticks at nothing. ’Tis men of that make who are the ruin of His Majesty’s Army.”
“But, on the other hand, you have men like my Lord Falkland and Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir Bevil Granville,” said Gabriel, his chivalrous nature readily sympathising with what was passing in his companion’s mind. “And, as you may guess, we have not a few narrow-minded zealots and fanatics who are ill to work with.”
“True, men like that Original Sin Smith that played Joscelyn false at Farnham,” said Dick, “Indeed, I think you are right, such a fellow revolts one even more than Colonel Norton, being both villain and hypocrite.”
Then, entrusting Gabriel with a letter for his brother, and many last messages, Dick Heyworth returned to Wells, and Gabriel rode back to Waller’s headquarters, his mind full of Sir Ralph Hopton’s last words, “We will part as enemies that may live to be friends.” If only Hilary would have given him as much comfort as that, how hopefully would he have faced the bitterness of this heart-rending strife!
The sun was setting when he rode into Bath, and the Abbey tower outlined against a saffron sky rose in solemn grandeur, which unconsciously soothed his troubled mind, though, like most of his generation, he had very little feeling for the beautiful. What he had was gained almost entirely from the poetry of the Bible—a Book which had been to him and to his father before him the great educator, and to which, in common with all the best of the Puritans, he owed the sterling honesty and the moral courage that characterised him. To the modern world he would have seemed primitive and unsophisticated. But there is a certain kind of simplicity that is very ill compensated by æstheticism, and sturdy Puritan uprightness is sorely needed in these latter days of luxury, lying and greed of gain.
Having delivered the letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and Dick Heyworth’s letter to his brother, into the General’s keeping, he went in search of Major Locke, and to his great delight found the rare treat of a letter from home awaiting him. His father gave him the new’s of Mrs. Unett’s death, and overwhelmed with the sense of what Hilary’s desolation would be, he lost no time in writing to her. But it is one thing to write a letter in time of war, and quite another to send it safely to its destination.
The next night the troops were ordered into the Bradford Valley, and a strong position was taken up on Claverton Down, for scouts had brought word that the Royalists meant to attempt Bath from that quarter. Some days passed before Gabriel found any one to whom he could entrust the letter, but at last Major Locke’s servant Tobias, who was carrying a packet to Mistress Helena at Gloucester, consented to take charge of it. Tobias, however, though thoroughly honest, was not blessed with brains. Thinking to save himself, he made what he fondly hoped was a short cut across the down, instead of availing himself of the sheltered valley. To his utter dismay, he came across a Royalist officer and a couple of scouts who were reconnoitering to see whether it would be possible after all to capture the city from the Bradford Valley, and while Hopton’s men were making a vigorous attack on the position at Claverton, poor Tobias found that his venture was like to cost him his life.
The scouts seized him and one glance at the face of the officer told him that his last hour was at hand.
“You come from Waller’s camp,” said Colonel Norton, sharply. “Don’t deny it, I can read it in your craven face. What strength has he there?”
Tobias told the number of the troops.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was but on an errand,” faltered the poor fellow. “I am nought but a servant, sir.”
“Whose servant?”
“Major Locke’s, sir,” said Tobias, sealing his own doom by the words.
Norton chuckled gleefully.
“Ha! that’s good hearing. You are carrying his letters no doubt. Here string him up, men, and we’ll turn out his pockets afterwards, and save him the discomfort of a struggle. These Puritans have such consciences, he would doubtless scruple to part with his trust.”
“Sir, sir,” pleaded poor Tobias. “They can be naught to you—they be no despatches—they be but private letters, and both of them only to ladies, sir.”
At this, Norton burst into a roar of laughter. The two scouts, hating both the work and the officer in command, took advantage of his convulsions of merriment, to loose the prisoner.
“Chuck the despatches and run,” whispered one of them. And Tobias needed no second bidding.
Flinging the letters on the ground, he ran like a hunted hare to the shelter of a little coppice, and though Norton swore at the scouts as they made a feint of rushing in pursuit, and sent more than one shot after the terrified messenger, he was too eager to seize on the letters before the wind whirled them away to trouble much about his victim. Tobias gasping for breath ran madly down the slope, till at length catching his foot on a tree stump he fell violently to the ground, severely spraining his ankle. But a sprained ankle means little to a man who has been at death’s door; he lay patiently enough in the wood till next day, and then limped down to Claverton to learn from the villagers that Waller had retired to Bath, and that the Royalists had abandoned the Avon, and were to attempt the capture of Bath from the north.
What with skirmishes and intricate manoeuvring, it was not until the Royalist forces had encamped at Marshfield that Norton had time to open the letters he had seized. But his satisfied chuckle as he read the first, and the malicious merriment in his eyes, showed that the capture had been worth making. The Major’s letter was short, and ran as follows:
“Dear Nell,—Captain Joscelyn Heyworth hath returned from London, where, at my request, he visited your godmother, Madam Harford. Strangely enough, she proves to be a kinswoman of Lieutenant Harford, your trusty rescuer. Madam Harford desires that at the earliest opportunity you travel with Cousin Malvina to London, and that you make her house—Notting hill Manor—your home until these calamities be overpast. Mr. Bennett and Alderman Pury will let you know when the journey may be attempted, and will find you a proper escort. I write in great haste; a battle is imminent, Sir W. Waller hoping thereby to save Bath, and to prevent the army of the West from joining the King’s forces at Oxford. I am just exchanged into Sir Arthur Hazlerigg’s new regiment, known as the ‘Lobsters,’ and you would smile to see how fine we look, most thoroughly encased in armour, like the knights of old. Truth to tell, I find it mighty cumbersome, but it may serve. God keep you from all ill, and grant us in peaceful times a happy reunion. I could wish to have seen you safely wedded to such an one as Lt. G. H., but have not as yet broached the subject with him.
“Your loving father,
“George Locke.
“To Mrs. Helena Locke,
“at the House of Alderman Pury,
“Gloucester.”
Norton refolded this sheet carefully, and thrust it into an inner pocket, reflecting that later on it might suit his purposes to send it to little Mistress Nell. Then, with a smile of malicious enjoyment, he read the address on the second letter.
“To Mistress Hilary Unett,
“care of the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of Hereford.”
Unfastening the seal, he read with some surprise, the following words:
“I hesitate to break that silence which you most emphatically enforced when we last met, but the news of your bereavement, which I have just learnt from my father, so stirs my heart that write I must, and should this only offend you more deeply I must pay the penalty. That you are desolate and sad at heart I well know. My beloved, if only I could comfort you I would ask nothing more—but this is the sorest part of our unhappy difference as to the war, that I am cut off from the right of serving you, and am doubtful whether you will even be at the trouble to read these lines. But should you read them, then I pray you read betwixt the lines the love for you which fills my heart—a love that is ill at expressing itself in words, but which will always be longing to serve you while life lasts. It is some consolation to me to know that you are with your grandfather, whose kindness when last he parted with me I cannot forget. I have just had the pleasure of seeing Sir Ralph Hopton, the noblest of all His Majesty’s Generals, being sent (in the absence of Captain Joscelyn Heyworth) with a letter from Sir W. Waller. Sir Ralph was kind enough to call cousins with me on account of Mistress Martha Harford, who was afterwards wedded to Mr. Michael Hopton—you will remember smiling over her mistaken epitaph on the monument in Bosbury Church. Was it in some other life that we spent that happy day at Bosbury, when we were betrothed? Would to God we could find ourselves there once more with hearts united! Should you see my father, will you let him know that we are expecting a decisive battle in the neighbourhood of Bath? I will write to him after it is over.
“Dear Hilary, for the sake of old days, I pray you at least to accept my sympathy in your sorrow, and
“Believe that I rest ever
“Your faithful servant,
“Gabriel Harford.”
Norton’s face, as he read, was a curious study. Anything more unlike his notion of a love-letter it was impossible to conceive. He read it twice, and a new sense of shame began to steal over him. His eyes at length rivetted themselves on the one sentence, “for the sake of old days,” but he was looking, in truth, at some scene long ago in his own life—a scene which softened him strangely, and called out the better side of his nature.
“Curse it!” he cried, at length, beginning to pace the room restlessly. “I wish I had never meddled with that boy’s love-letter. God! if I could undo the past!”
With a hand that shook, he took up a tankard of ale and hastily drained it.
“Humph! that’s better,” he muttered. “A pox on such soft-hearted sentiment! It must be as the proverb hath it, ‘Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.’ I can no more undo my past than I can get this letter back into the messenger’s pocket, and there’s an end on’t.”
With that he tore up the sheet and flung the pieces out of the window, watching the rapid way in which the summer wind whirled them into space. Then, drawing out the Major’s letter, he once more perused it, and very soon was laughing heartily over the father’s matrimonial hopes for his daughter.
“‘Twill be hard if I can’t contrive to put a spoke in his wheel,” he thought. “I’ll be revenged on him before long, and on Mr. Gabriel Harford, too. What does the fellow mean by philandering with little Nell, when he is still courting this Hereford lady? I should have had her t’other night if it had not been for his cursed knight-errantry.”
And then once more that memory which had no connection at all with little Helena Locke came back to torture him.
With an impatient shrug of the shoulders he drew out his pipe and began to fill it, humming to himself meanwhile a song from The Queen of Corinth:
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan;
Sorrow calls no time that’s gone;
Violets plucked the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
The next day one of the most obstinately contested battles of the campaign was fought on the slopes of Lansdown, and Norton, who with all his faults was an excellent soldier, had no time to think of past regrets or of private enmities. Again and again the Parliamentary troops charged down the hill, but Hopton’s Cornishmen with their deadly pikes pressed bravely on. The slaughter on both sides was terrible, the Royalists alone leaving fourteen hundred dead and wounded on the field, and Waller’s army, forced at length from their position on the brow of the hill by superior numbers, had to retire along the ridge to Bath about midnight.
The city was saved, for Hopton’s army was in no condition to attack it, and the noble-hearted Royalist General was full of sadness when, on the return of daylight, he visited the battlefield. He had himself been slightly wounded, but by sunrise he was in the saddle again, giving directions as to the relief of the injured, and by his kindly words bringing comfort to many of the poor fellows who had lain in torture on the hillside all through the night.
While he was thus occupied, Captain Nevill, the officer in attendance on him, drew his attention to a trumpeter from the Parliamentary army, accompanied by one of Waller’s officers. As the latter dismounted and came forward, Sir Ralph, scanning his face, saw that it was none other than Gabriel Harford, who, since Captain Heyworth had been left on the battle-field either dead or wounded, was acting as Waller’s galloper. He had come with a request from the Parliamentary General for a day’s truce in order to succour the wounded and bury the dead.
“’Tis needed indeed by us as well as by you,” said Hopton; and his words were spoken to that awful accompaniment of groans and piteous cries for water which Gabriel could so well recall after the battle of Edgehill.
“Sir William Waller bade me also ask if any surgeon from Bath should be sent to the aid of Sir Bevil Granville,” he said, watching the General’s face with interest.
“The offer does credit to his humanity. Sir Bevil was Carried to Cold Ashton Vicarage,” replied Sir Ralph; “but he was dying last night, I think by now he is past surgeon’s aid.”
The words had hardly left his lips when a tremendous explosion threw both speaker and hearers to the ground. Gabriel and Captain Nevill escaped unhurt, and were soon on their feet again, eagerly bending over the prostrate form of the General, while others rushed to the yet more terribly injured Major Sheldon, and lifted aside the bodies of those who had been actually killed.
“There is life in him yet,” said Captain Nevill, with his fingers on the General’s pulse.
“Yes,” said Gabriel, “but there won’t be long, unless we can check this. Quick! off with your scarf, sir, and bind it about his arm while I hold the artery.”
“I’ faith, sir, you’re as good as a leech,” said the Royalist Captain, unable even at that moment of anxiety to forbear a glance at the strangely attractive face of Waller’s envoy.
“A poor substitute, but the son of a physician,” said Gabriel, deftly guiding the rather clumsy efforts of Captain Nevill.
A moan from Hopton brought a look of relief to both his helpers.
“Who is it?” he groaned; “what hath chanced?”
“A powder-waggon accidentally exploded, sir,” said Captain Nevill.
“I can’t hear a word,” moaned Hopton; “it hath deafened and blinded me. Let the troops fall back on Marshfield.”
But here the agony becoming unbearable he lost consciousness, and naught remained for his saddened followers but to obey those last words, and carry him from the battle-field.
“I will ride back and send the best surgeon in Bath to wait upon him,” said Gabriel, longing to stay and search for his friend Joscelyn Heyworth, who must be lying somewhere on the hillside, though whether dead or wounded he could not tell. But his duty was to ride back to Waller with Hopton’s message, and personal wishes had to be stifled.
“Should Sir Ralph recover I shall tell him he owes his life to you, for assuredly he would have bled to death had it not been for your promptitude,” said Captain Nevill, warmly. “Doth he know your name?”
“Yes, sir, ’tis Gabriel Harford. Farewell, and may God preserve your leader.”
Then, remounting his horse at the too of the hill, he galloped along the Lansdown ridge, making all speed back to Sir William Waller, that help might be sent as soon as possible to those tortured soldiers, whose groans still rang in his ears.
The horrors of the campaign made his heart ache, yet if ever war was unavoidable he honestly believed that it was this war, which had only been undertaken after years of patient endeavour to combat by peaceful means the King’s misrule. Again and again, moreover, the disputants had paused during the hostilities and had tried to come to a peaceful settlement, but the fatal bar of the King’s insincerity and the repeated discovery of his underhand dealings while negotiations for peace were yet going on had always frustrated the hopes of the distracted country.
Gabriel was ready and willing to lay down his life for the freedom of England and the preservation of the Reformed religion. The recent death of John Hampden the Patriot, had, indeed, filled him with renewed eagerness to sacrifice everything for the cause. And, at the same time, he could not but feel, as his friend Joscelyn Hey worth had felt after the return from Chalgrove Field, a burning desire to call to account the main authors of all this woe. His Majesty and the Archbishop might personally be well-meaning men, but their tyrannical government had filled him with loathing, and he grieved to think of the thousands of homes which their policy had blighted. For Sir Bevil Granville and for the brave Cornishmen who had fallen on the previous day he could only feel admiration, but he would gladly have had in their stead those he deemed the cause of all the misery—the hard and aggressive Dr. Laud and the weak and untrustworthy King.
They say it was a shocking sight,
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that you know must be
After a famous victory.
—Southey.
Never, perhaps, had the hopes of Waller’s army been higher than on the morning of the 13th July as they encompassed the town of Devizes, the attack upon which had been fixed for that evening. Throughout the march from Bath they had been able to harass the rear of Hopton’s army: they had intercepted a convoy of ammunition coming from Oxford; and though Prince Maurice’s convoy had contrived to escape, they held Hopton and all his foot cooped up in Devizes with no match and very little powder.
While still suffering terribly from the effects of the explosion, the brave Royalist General had the wit to devise on his sickbed a plan for supplying match. He ordered the townsfolk to give the ropes which held up the sacking of their beds, and these, when boiled in resin, served very well for the emergency. Still, he was heavy-hearted, for he knew that the unfortified town could not long withstand such an attack as Waller was like to make, and in great suffering of body and anxiety of mind he lay musing over the dire misfortunes which had followed this army of the West.
The hours passed slowly by, and at length early in the afternoon he was roused by the approach of quick footsteps.
“Sir, sir,” cried Captain Nevill, eagerly, “we are, I trust, saved. Prince Maurice hath returned from Oxford bringing fresh troops under my Lord Wilmot. They are massed on Roundway Down.”
“Massed where?” cried Hopton, still somewhat deaf from his accident.
“A mile off, on Roundway Down,” shouted Captain Nevill.
“Then, for the time, Devizes is saved,” said Hopton, with a sigh of relief, “for Sir William Waller will assuredly draw off his troops and give the Prince battle at the foot of the down.”
Such, indeed was Waller’s intention, but his plans were frustrated by the over-eagerness of his friend, Sir Arthur Hazlerigg. Remembering the gallant behaviour of the “Lobsters” at Lansdown and the terror they had struck into the hearts of the Royalists, he charged gallantly, but rashly, up the slippery and precipitous hill. The Royalists bore down upon them with crushing force, and, to the dismay of Waller and his troops on the plain below, the whole regiment thus sharply repulsed tore frantically down the hill.
It was the most appalling sight Gabriel had ever seen; the maddened horses, forced down perilous heights “where never horse went down or up before,” fell by scores, crushing their riders, and, to his horror, he saw his friend Major Locke first wounded in the thigh by a musket ball, and then thrown headlong to the ground with his horse on the top of him.
The sight of this was more than he could endure, for he knew only too well the horrible agony the Major would undergo. Receiving a word of permission from Waller, he set spurs to his horse, and rode in hot haste to the rescue, hoping to bring his friend to shelter. But by the time he had dragged him from beneath the horse and had contrived to lift him on to his own beast, he found, to his utter dismay, that the whole of Waller’s cavalry had been put to flight. The terrible sight of the destruction of Hazlerigg’s regiment had filled the men with panic, and, seeing that they were hemmed in on the side of Devizes by Hopton’s steadily advancing Cornishmen, they broke and fled in the wildest disorder.
To rejoin his routed comrades was for the present impossible; already they were riding pell-mell back to the west, hotly pursued by the Royalists, and all he could do was to try to find some sort of shelter for his wounded friend. Leading his horse cautiously along the side of the down, and supporting the Major as well as he could in the saddle, he gradually drew off from the scene of the disaster. At any moment, as he well knew, they might be seen by the enemy and shot down; but at length, thanks to the general absorption in the pursuit, he succeeded in gaining a little hollow scooped out of the hillside, where, sheltered by a few stunted trees he had the good fortune to find one of the rude huts used by shepherds in the lambing season.
“You shall rest here,” he said, helping Major Locke to dismount. “Then, later on, when the coast is clear I will try to get you to less comfortless quarters.”
“You have saved my life, lad,” said the Major, sinking down on to the mud floor of the hut with a groan. “The plungings of my poor Whitefoot would soon have crushed me to death. Now, an’ you love me, help me out of this armour.”
“Alas! ’twas the heavy armour that proved the death of many of our comrades,” said Gabriel, relieving the Major from his cumbrous burden. “The weight was too much for them to remount quickly if once unhorsed.”
Taking the orange scarf from his waist, he succeeded in bandaging the Major’s wound; then unrolling the cloak which was fastened on his saddle, he made the injured man fairly comfortable, and having secured his horse to a tree hard by, sat down and tried to form some plan for the future.
“Have you no water?” groaned the Major. “I am half mad with thirst.”
“There is not a drop,” said Gabriel; “but when dusk comes I will go out and reconnoitre. We must get you out of this filthy hut as soon as may be. I will fetch you water, and make some plan for your removal.”
The waiting seemed long, but at length, when all seemed quiet and twilight was coming on, Gabriel stole cautiously forth on his dangerous errand. At a distance he judged to be about a mile from the hollow he saw lights burning in a house, and since it lay in the opposite direction to Devizes, and away from the western quarter in which Waller’s flying cavalry had been pursued by the foe, he thought it might be possible to get safe shelter there for the wounded Major. He dared not, however, risk moving him until he had made sure, and hurrying across the open down, through a cornfield, and into a deep lane which led to a main road, he found on approaching nearer that the lights burnt in the windows of a substantial farmhouse.
Should he risk the chance of encountering Royalists, who would instantly make him prisoner? There was nothing whatever to indicate whether the house contained friends or foes. On the other hand, it was impossible to linger, or it would grow too dark to find his way back to Major Locke’s hiding-place. He must put a bold face on it and knock.
In response he heard the heavy bolts withdrawn, and the door was slowly opened by an old, grey-haired man, who peered suspiciously at the stranger standing in the gloom of the porch.
“I have come to crave water and, if possible, linen for a sorely wounded man,” said Gabriel, his heart sinking a little as he noticed the severity of the old man’s face. It was certainly not the face of one who cultivated the virtues of compassion and tender-heartedness.
“As grim an old fellow as I ever clapped eyes on,” he reflected, ruefully. “There’ll not be much help here.”
“Before I say ay or no to that I will hear who thou art for,” said the master of the house, sternly.
“Surely you would not refuse a cup of water to a wounded man whether he were friend or foe,” said Gabriel.
“Ay, that would I in good sooth, if the wounded man was one of the Amalekites, a foe to the truth,” said the veteran, with a gleam of indignant zeal in his hard eyes.
Gabriel gave a sigh of relief; he had not lighted on a fiery Royalist who would hand him over as a prisoner, but upon one of those stern and uncompromising Puritans who literally applied every word of the Old Testament to the troubles of their own day.
“Nay, we are not what you call Amalekites,” he replied, biting his lip to keep back a smile; “we were both in Sir William Waller’s army. An’ you could give shelter to my friend, Major Locke, you would be doing a good deed, and he will be well able to recompense you.”
“I cannot take him in now—the women-folk be all abed and asleep, and we be hard-working folk; but bring him at dawn to-morrow and my wife will tend him before she sets about her business in the dairy.”
Gabriel thanked him heartily, and gladly accepted half a loaf of rye bread which the farmer proffered with the flagon of water.
“Now if you could but spare me a bit of linen I should have better hope of bringing my wounded friend here in safety,” he said, glancing round the great kitchen to which he had been led.
“The women-folk would ha’ known what to give thee, sir,” said the farmer, in perplexity, “but beshrew me I can’t tell where——”
He broke off with an exclamation of relief, and crossing the room took down a long roller towel on which the household were wont to wipe their hands, apparently without much preliminary washing.
“Here, sir, use this,” he said. And Gabriel, treasuring up the story to amuse his father when next they met, but too well-seasoned a warrior after his nine months’ campaign to be in the least dainty, accepted the towel with genuine gratitude, and returned to his friend as fast as the fading light and the perplexities of the way would allow.
The Major was so much exhausted by the dressing of his wound that he fell asleep directly he had refreshed himself with the water and the rye bread. Gabriel, not daring to close his eyes lest he should sleep after daybreak, paced to and fro outside the hut, and thought sadly enough over the tragedy he had seen enacted that day. Now and then on the soft summer wind the distant sound of groans reached his ear, for many of the victims still lay as they had fallen on the hill side, and several times the piercing shriek of a wounded horse made him shudder.
He resolved that as soon as he had left the Major in safekeeping at the farmhouse, his best plan would be to rejoin Waller, who, in all probability, would make in the first instance for Bristol, and try to reorganise his shattered army. But as he thought of the desperate condition of the Parliamentary forces, and of the extraordinary conduct of Lord Essex in permitting the reinforcements from Oxford to escape him when, with his whole army, he was lying idle at Reading, his heart was sorely troubled; for it seemed to him that the Cause was being overborne, and that evil was like to triumph.
With a sigh, he stretched himself for a time on the sheep-cropped grass of the steep little hollow, watching the stars and the swaying of the branches in the group of trees hard by. The sight brought to his mind certain long-familiar words about one in olden days who had been troubled by the near approach of an overwhelming army, which threatened to ruin his country—
And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.. . . Then said the Lord to Isaiah, “Go forth now to meet Ahaz.... and say unto him, ‘Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted.’”
And therewith he fell to thinking of the strange rise and fall of nations, and of the things which make a nation truly great. How transitory was all earthly glory and dominion—how eternal the glory of truth and righteousness, and the joy of struggling to right wrong!
Thus the night wore away; and at daybreak he saddled his horse, and, rousing Major Locke, helped him with great difficulty to mount. Then, slowly and carefully, he guided Harkaway along the slippery down, and, skirting the cornfield, came out into the lane below. The hedges rose high on either side, cutting off all view of the surrounding country; but as they paced slowly round the last turning and came into sight of the main road, a sound of tramping feet made Gabriel pause. Undoubtedly soldiers were approaching, and he cautiously led Harkaway into a shady nook, where they could see but were little likely to be seen.
For a minute his heart beat high with hope, for he was certain that the men wore orange scarves; then, with a pang, he saw that many had been stripped of their buff coats, while, from their dejected bearing, it was only too evident that they were prisoners.
“’Tis Sir William Waller’s foot soldiers,” whispered the Major, “they are marching them to Oxford.”
“Shall we turn back?” questioned Gabriel.
“Nay, lie low here in the shadow, they will never notice us,” said the Major.
The words had only just been uttered when, to their consternation, Harkaway, catching sight of the horses ridden by a couple of officers, whinnied loudly.
“The very beast we stand in need of,” said one of the officers, with a laugh, “and right willing to come with us, me-thinks.”
Setting spurs to their horses the two young fellows swooped down upon the little group in the lane, and Gabriel, seeing that escape was hopeless, stood his ground.
“By your leave, sir,” he said, as one that he afterwards learnt to be Captain Tarverfield, snatched at Harkaway’s bridle, “I do but carry a sorely injured friend to the farm hard by, and you are welcome to the horse then.”
They laughed, boisterously.
“Nay, but you will have to join our merry company yonder, my worthy Roundhead,” said the elder of the two. “Short hair and a well-bred accent mark you out as a traitor. ’Tis idle to pretend that you are a Cavalier’s serving-man.”
“I make no pretence, sir,” said Gabriel, angrily. “I do but ask you, out of common humanity, to let a wounded man pass.”
“Oh! Lord Harry Dalblane knows naught of humanity,” said Captain Tarverfield, laughing.
“So it seems,” said Gabriel, with bitterness.
“You must come out of this hole, and see what our Colonel has to say about it,” said Lord Harry, gripping Gabriel firmly by the arm and following his companion, who led Harkaway out to the main road. “Here, by good fortune, he comes. Sir, an’ it please you to call a halt, we have taken two more prisoners, and a horse that is well worth having.”
Gabriel, looking up in the dim light, gave a start of dismay when he perceived that the Colonel was Major Locke’s deadly foe.
“Why, Harry! you are worth your weight in gold,” exclaimed Norton, with a chuckle of satisfaction. “You have taken the two men I most desired to have.”
“’Twas the horse that I desired,” said Lord Harry, studying Harkaway’s points with the keen eye of one who made the training of horses the chief interest of life. “And this prating Puritan here vows that it must first carry this wounded gentleman to a farm hard by.”
“Nay, but Major Locke is coming to Oxford with me,” said Norton, with a laugh. “I’ll give him excellent safe quarters there in the Castle—surely a better place for you, Squire, than a mere farm.”
“I shall scarce reach Oxford,” said the Major, faintly.
“Sir,” broke in Gabriel, “Major Locke is grievously wounded in the thigh; a thirty-mile ride will be his death.”
“Well, an he cannot ride perchance you would prefer that he should walk,” said Norton, mockingly. “But rest assured, Mr. Harford, that to Oxford he will have to go. I warned you at Wells that I am a man that was never yet baulked. You robbed me of my ride with the fair Helena, and I shall solace myself with this journey with her father.”
There was a gleam of such devilish cruelty in his eyes, as he glanced at Major Locke to see how he was taking this, that Gabriel’s wrath could no longer be restrained.
“You have him now at your mercy,” he said, “and the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel; but be assured that, in another world, for every brutal deed and word you will have to pay to the uttermost farthing.”
Norton laughed till his merriment infected Lord Harry, but Captain Tarverfield looked grave and ill at ease.
“You hear him, gentlemen,” said Norton, still chuckling. “Methinks he had best be dubbed Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. To-night, Lieutenant, you shall have an excellent opportunity for a sermon, but at present I will trouble you to hold your tongue and to tender me your sword.”
With great enjoyment he noted the spasm of pain that passed over his captive’s face as he reluctantly obeyed. Then, signing to one of his men to come forward, the Colonel gave sharp and peremptory orders:
“Strip the prisoner.”
And in a minute the man had robbed Gabriel of helmet and gorget, buff coat and vest.
“Stay,” said Captain Tarverfield, who had watched with some compunction the prisoner’s keen suffering under this degradation. “Though it is lawful to strip an officer Colonel, you would surely leave the preacher his shirt to serve as surplice.” Norton laughed, gaily.
“True. And since he is so devoted a friend to Major Locke we will rope them together, the one mounted and the other afoot. And you had better keep up the pace, Mr. Harford, or your own horse will kick you on.”
The prisoner, by a supreme effort, stifled a smart retort, and began to consider how best to spare the Major when they were bound together. By the time the cavalcade moved forward again the rosy glow of sunrise was making the whole countryside beautiful, and in the sore battle that Gabriel was waging with his own nature—in the manly effort to bring his own character and conduct into accord with the high ideal he held, the sight of the rising sun brought him no small comfort. None knew better than a single-hearted Puritan how to wage that strenuous inner warfare which makes men truly great, and the conflict was to Gabriel as real as any visible struggle. As he marched now he fought as he had done on many a battle-field to the well-known battle psalm:
Let God arise, and scattered
Let all His en’mies be;
And let all those that do Him hate
Before His presence flee.