Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier

by Beulah Marie Dix

“No more words of that man,” Master Oldesworth silenced him. “You shall never go to him again. A year ago I dealt not wisely with you. I gave you choice where you were too young to choose. For all your folly there are parts in you too good for me to suffer you destroy yourself. Now where I let you walk at your will I shall see to it that you keep the right path, by force, if you drive me to it. For the present I shall hold you in safe custody at Everscombe. Later, as you conduct yourself, I shall determine what course to take.”

“But my father!” Hugh cried.

“Captain Oldesworth will deal with Alan Gwyeth,” Master Oldesworth replied. “Do you forget him.”

“I can never forget him, sir. Sure, I’d liefer be hanged with him than be saved apart from him thus. I—”

The door closed jarringly behind Master Oldesworth, the key grated in the lock, and the bolt was shot creakingly.

For a time Hugh sat staring stupidly at the door of his prison, then, getting slowly to his feet, he began dragging and shoving the chest beneath the window. His hands were still unsteady and he felt limp and weak, so again and again he must pause to sit down. The little room was close and hot; the perspiration prickled on the back of his neck, and stung above his eyebrows. The movement of the chest cleared a white space on the gray floor, and the dust that rose thick sifted into his mouth and nostrils till he was coughing painfully with a miserable feeling that it needed but little for the coughing to end in sobbing. He hated himself for his weakness, and, gritting his teeth, shoved the chest the more vigorously till at last it was in position beneath the window. Lifting the one chair upon it, he mounted up precariously; the sill of the window came level with his collar bone while the top grazed his forehead. He stretched up his arms and measured the length and breadth of the opening twice over, but he knew it was quite hopeless; there was no getting through that narrow window, and, had it been possible, he must risk a sheer fall of two stories to the flagged walk below. For a moment he stood blinking out at the green branches of the elms that swayed before his window, then he dropped to the floor again and sat down on the chest with his face in his hands.

So he was still sitting, when the door was unlocked and one of the serving men of the household came in to fetch him dinner. Hugh looked up, and, recognizing the fellow, would have spoken, but the man only shook his head and backed out hastily. Hugh noted that it was no trooper’s rations they had sent him, but food from his grandfathers table; still he had no heart to eat, though he drank eagerly, till presently he reasoned this was weak conduct, for he must keep up strength if he were ever to come out of his captors’ hands, so, drawing the plate to him, he resolutely swallowed down a tolerable meal.

Then he set himself to watch the motes dance in a sunbeam that ran well up toward the ceiling, but presently it went out altogether. He leaned back then on the chest where he sat, and perhaps had lost himself a time in a numb, half-waking sleep, when of a sudden he caught a distant sound that brought him to his feet. He could not mistake it; off to the east where Kingsford lay he could hear the faint crack of musketry fired in volleys. Hugh cried out something in a hoarse voice he did not recognize; then he was wrenching at the latch and hammering on the door with his clinched hands, while he shrieked to them to let him go. He saw the blood smearing out from his knuckles, but he beat on against the unshaken panels till the strength left him and he dropped down on the floor. Still, as he lay, he could hear the distant firing, and then he ground his face down between his hands and cried as he had never cried before with great sobs that seemed to tear him.

Afterward there came a long time when he had not strength even to sob, when the slackening fire meant nothing to him, and, lying motionless and stupid, he realized only that the light was paling in the chamber. The door was pushed open, and mechanically he rolled a little out of the way of it. The serving man he remembered came in with supper, and at sight of him Hugh lifted up his head and entreated brokenly: “Tell me, what has happened? Have they taken my father? For the love of Heaven, tell me.”

The man hesitated, then, as he passed to the doorway, bent down and whispered: “They’ve beat the Cavaliers into the church, sir, but they’ve not taken the captain yet. Lord bless you, don’t cry so, sir.”