As he spoke he made a cut at the horse’s flank; then Peregrine, crying out his name, sprang down and faced him. They were blade to blade at last, and at the first blow the older lad flinched, stumbling back in the long grass of the field, and Hugh, with eyes on his set, angry face, pressed after him. Horses were galloping nearer and nearer, men calling louder, but Hugh did not heed; for Peregrine, mistaking a feint he made, laid himself open, and he lunged forward at him.
Then his sword-arm was caught and held fast, and he was flung backward into the grasp of a couple of troopers. The man who had first seized him, a grim corporal in a yellow sash, wrenched the sword out of his hand, and he heard him speak to Peregrine: “Has the knave done you hurt, sir?”
Hugh pulled himself together, though his whole body was still a-quiver with the action of the last moments, and looked about him. Yellow-sashed troopers surrounded him, six or seven, he judged, and a few paces distant stood Peregrine, with his hand pressed to his right forearm. “He slashed me in the wrist,” young Oldesworth broke out; “I tripped, else he had not done it.”
“You had not tripped if you had stood your ground,” Hugh flung back, with an involuntary effort to loosen his arms from the grasp of those who had seized him.
“Hold your tongue, you cur!” snapped Peregrine, and might have said more, had there not come from across the river a prolonged hail. One ran down to the brink to catch the words; but Hugh had no chance to listen, for at Peregrine’s curt order he was hustled upon one of the troop horses. They tied his hands behind him, too; whereat Hugh set his teeth and scowled in silence. What would Peregrine do with him before he were done, he was wondering dumbly, when the man from the river came up with the report that the captain bade to convey the prisoner to Everscombe, and see to it that he did not escape. “I’ll see to it,” Peregrine said grimly, and got to his saddle, awkwardly, because of his wounded arm, that was already staining a rough bandage red.
The morning was breaking grayly as the little squad turned westward through the fields, and by a hollow to the Kingsford road. As they descended into the highway, Hugh faced a little about in his saddle, and gazed down it toward the village; a rise in the land shut the spot from sight, but he knew that yonder Captain Gwyeth lay, awaiting the message that he was not to bring. The trooper who rode at his stirrup took him roughly by the shoulder then, and made him face round to the front. “You don’t go to Kingsford to-day, sir,” he jeered.
Hugh had not spirit even to look at the fellow, but fixed his eyes on the pommel of the saddle. Trees and road he had known slipped by, he was aware; he heard the horses stamp upon the roadway; and he felt his wet clothes press against his body, and felt the strap about his wrists cut into the flesh. But nothing of all that mattered as his numbed wits came to the full realization that this was the end of the boasting confidence with which he had set forth, and the end of his hope of meeting with his father. The last fight would be fought without him, or even now Captain Gwyeth, ignorant of the aid that should hurry to him, might be putting himself into his enemies’ hands. At that, Hugh tugged hopelessly at the strap, and found a certain relief in the fierce smarting of his chafed wrists.
Like an echo of his thoughts Peregrine’s voice came at his elbow: “So you were thinking to reach Kingsford, were you?”
“I should not be riding here just for my pleasure,” Hugh replied, with a piteous effort to force a light tone.
“’Twould be as well for you if you were less saucy,” his cousin said sternly. “You know me.”