“I know you carry one mark of my sword on you,” Hugh answered, looking his tormentor in the face, “and if you’d not let your troop come aid you, you’d carry more.”
For a moment he expected Peregrine to strike him; then the elder lad merely laughed exasperatingly. “You’ll not talk so high by to-night,” he said, “when you’re fetched out to see that dog Gwyeth hanged up in Everscombe Park.”
“You’d best catch him before you hang him,” Hugh answered stoutly, though the heart within him was heavy almost beyond endurance. What might the Oldesworths not do if once they laid hands on Captain Gwyeth? A prisoner of war had no rights, Hugh was well aware, and so many accidents could befall. He felt his face must show something of his fear, and he dreaded lest Peregrine goad him into farther speech, and his words betray his wretchedness.
But happily just there they turned in between the stone pillars of Everscombe Park, and Peregrine paced to the front of his squad. Hugh listlessly watched the well-remembered trees and turnings of the avenue, which were clear to see now in the breaking dawn. The roofs of the manor house showed in even outlines against the dull sky, all as he remembered it, only now the lawn beneath the terrace was scarred with hoof-prints, and over in the old west wing the door was open, and a musketeer paced up and down the flagstones before it. Heading thither, the squad drew up before the entrance, and Hugh, haled unceremoniously from the horse’s back, was jostled into the large old hall of the west wing, that seemed now a guardroom.
“How do you like this for a home-coming, cousin?” Peregrine asked, and Hugh looked him in the eyes but answered nothing. His captor laughed and turned to his troopers. “Search him thoroughly now,” he ordered; “then hold him securely till Captain Oldesworth comes.—And I can tell you, sirrah,” he addressed Hugh once more, “you’ll relish his conversation even less than you relish mine.”
CHAPTER XX
BENEATH THE ROOF OF EVERSCOMBE
They had searched Hugh, thoroughly and with more than necessary roughness, and now he was permitted to drag on his dripping clothes again. It was in a long, narrow room at the end of the old hall, where the ceiling was high and dark and the three tall windows set well up from the floor. A year ago it had been a closed and disused apartment, but now a couple of tables and some stools were placed there; Hugh noted the furniture in listless outer fashion as he sat wrestling on his sodden boots. For once his captors had taken their hands off him; one trooper was guarding the door and another was pacing up and down beneath the windows, but the corporal and the third man stood within arm’s reach of him. When Hugh rose to his feet the corporal made a little movement, and he realized they were all alert for his least suspicious action. “My faith, I’m not like to get away from the four of you,” Hugh broke out in a despairing sort of sullenness. “’Tis only that I’d fain put on my coat, unless you claim that along with my cuirass and buff jacket.”
One bade him put on and be hanged, and Hugh, having drawn on the wet garment, sat down again on the stool by the table, too utterly weary and hopeless to note more than that the room was damp and the chill of his soaked clothes was striking to his marrow. With a thought of tramping some warmth into his body he rose again, but the corporal sharply bade him sit down quietly or be tied down. Hugh resumed his place on the stool with his shoulders against the edge of the table and one ankle resting on the other knee; he would gladly have swung round and rested his head upon the table, so worn-out and faint he felt, only he knew if he did his captors would think him childish and frightened.
Of a sudden he heard the sentinel at the door advance a step and announce to the corporal: “Captain Oldesworth has just come into the guardroom, sir.”
A queer tingling went through Hugh’s veins, and upon it followed a sickening faintness. Bringing both feet down to the ground, he faced about with his clinched hand on the table and his eyes fastened upon the door. He knew now why he had not been able to think, those last moments, why every humiliation had been scarcely heeded, in the expectation of this that was before him. He saw the corporal draw up stiff in salute, the sentinel stand back from the door, and then, clean-shaven, set-mouthed as ever, he saw Tom Oldesworth stride in.