For the next week Hugh felt he had something to look forward to, though expectation made the days even more tedious. With long intervals of rest, he furbished up his sword and spurs, and, when that interest failed, spent much time in devising a name to assume till his peace was made with his Majesty. Strangwayes had announced early that he meant to go by the name of Henry Ramsden, and there was an end of it; but Hugh had an unaccountable feeling that he did not wish to take any one of the common names that men he knew had borne, and bestow it on a hunted duellist. He finally ended by calling himself Edmund Burley, but it was a long process of selection, and the choice was made only on the day he left the “Sceptre.”
They made their start about midnight, when the road was quiet, and the houses in the fields beyond the alehouse were all black. Two horses were fetched them at the side door, the drawer held a lantern half screened with his hand as they mounted, and the host wished them God-speed in a guarded, low voice. Then they paced softly into the highway and headed northward under the starlight. At first Hugh sat straight, and would gladly have talked with Dick to tell him how easy, after all, he found the exercise. But Dick would have no speaking till almost cock-crow, when they were riding through a stretch of lonely fields, and by then no jauntiness was left in Hugh, only dull pain and faintness, so he had no will to say anything except, “Thank Heaven!” when Strangwayes, fairly lifting him off his horse, half carried him into a dwelling-place.
There he spent the day, sleeping some and for the rest lying still as he was bidden, till twilight came on and once more they got to saddle. A little fine rain was sifting down now, and the cold wet on his face refreshed Hugh somewhat, but even then, when they halted at last at the gate of a lonely farm enclosure, he was drooping over his saddle-bow. He noted of the house only that there was a green settle in the living room, the arm of which was of just the right height to rest his head upon, and the loud-voiced woman who had roused up to greet them held a guttering candle so he was assured the dripping wax must soon burn her fingers.
After that he remembered Dick helped him to bed in a little upper chamber; the sheets felt good, and he shut his eyes to keep out the troublesome candlelight. “Rain or no, I’m going to push on for Sir William’s house in Worcestershire,” Dick was saying. “You’re safe here with Widow Flemyng, Hugh. And ere long I’ll have you with me again. God keep you till then, old lad!” He bent down and kissed Hugh, who hugged him with a sudden childish feeling that he could not let Dick go.
So he turned over with his face in the pillow, broad awake now, and he heard Dick’s boots creaking down the stairway. He lay listening alertly for more, but he heard only the spatter of rain upon the window.
CHAPTER XV
THE LIFE OF EDMUND BURLEY
At one end of the bench outside the garden door of Ashcroft, Widow Flemyng’s great black cat lay sunning himself; at the other end Hugh Gwyeth sat hugging one knee, while he wondered drowsily which were the lazier, he or the cat. In the alert blue spring weather the tips of green things were bursting through the soft mould of the garden; the birds were making a great ado in the trees; and in the field beyond the hedge the widow’s man, Ralph, was ploughing, and whistling as he ploughed. Only Master Hugh Gwyeth lingered idly on the garden bench and meditatively handled the flabby muscles of his arm till he grew impatient with himself. Three weeks and more he had been at Ashcroft, yet this was all the strength he had gained or was likely to gain with sitting still. He dragged the cat, heavy and reluctant, up from its nap, and was trying to coax the creature to jump over his hands, which at least required a little exertion, when Nancy, the serving-maid, came out to potter about the garden. Spying him, she called: “Don’t ’ee vex poor Gib, now. Better get thee into the kitchen; the mistress is at her baking.”
Hugh laughed, and, rising leisurely, made his way down the garden to the rear door. Women were droll creatures, he reflected; his mother, of course, had always treated him with tenderness, but why these strangers should pamper him like a child, and concern themselves about his every movement, was more than he could puzzle out. From the first Nancy had made no end of commiserating him for the scar on his face, and even the widow herself, for all her sharp ways, had been melted to pity, when she came to examine his wardrobe. “Well, well, well! when did a woman put hand to these shirts?” she had cried, whereat Hugh informed her blushingly that ’twas his custom to have his shirts washed till they grew too tattered to serve even under a buff jacket, and then he threw them away. “You poor thriftless child!” sighed the widow, “sure, you’re not fit to be sent to the wars.” So she mended his shirts and stockings, and, when that way of showing her motherly care failed, brewed him ill-tasting concoctions of herbs, which Hugh swallowed courteously, though with inward protests against this expression of good-will. He was far more grateful when her kindness finally took the form of cooking him such food as he liked, and pressing him to eat at all times, for his illness had left him with an alarming appetite, which without such connivance could never have been decently satisfied.
He halted now, as he had often done, with his elbows on the sill of the opened window in the long kitchen, and took a sweeping survey of the dressers and the fireplace and the brick oven. Just by the window stood a table at which the Widow Flemyng, with her sleeves tucked up and her broad face flushed, was rolling out pastry. “I marvel you’ve not been here before,” she said gruffly, as she caught sight of him; “where have you been all this morning now?”
“Teasing the cat,” Hugh answered. “Before that I was down through the meadow—”