Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier

by Beulah Marie Dix

Springing to his feet Hugh dashed across the grass plot to the lane. On the left he heard hoof-beats, then a cry: “Shoot him down!” A bullet struck the sand at his feet; he heard men running, and another shot. He heard, too, the crunch of crisp weeds beneath his boots as he crashed into the overgrown tangle beyond the lane. He felt the rough stones on the top of the wall, then he had flung himself clear across it, and was struggling up the slope among the graves. His boots were heavy and hampered him, and his breath seemed gone. He looked up to the dead windows of the church and tried to cry: “King’s men! To the rescue!” but what sound he could make was lost in the din behind him. A bullet struck on a headstone just to one side; then of a sudden came a numbing pain in his left arm. He staggered, stumbled blindly a pace; then the sky was rolled up like a gray scroll, the stars were dancing before his eyes, and he was down flat upon the ground. Lifting his head dizzily he had a dim sight of the lane below, men swarming from the cottages, and one he saw leap the wall and come running toward him. Hugh’s head dropped back on the ground; he saw the sky pale above and waited for the butt of his pursuer’s musket to crash down upon him, and prayed it might not be long to wait.

They were still firing, he heard; and he heard, too, quick footsteps behind him and a man breathing fast. He was swung up bodily from the ground, and there came a voice he knew: “Your arm round my neck, so. Have no fear, Hugh; I’ve got you safe.”

There was firing still and faint cheering; the rest darkness; but before it closed in on him Hugh had one blurred glimpse of a strong, blue-eyed face above him, and he knew it was his father who held him.

The light returned to Hugh in a dim and unfamiliar place; high above him, as he lay on his back, he had sight of a vaulted roof full of shadows. His head felt heavy and dazed, so he did not care to stir or speak, just closed his eyes again. There had been faces about him, he remembered vaguely, and he felt no surprise when he heard a voice that was unmistakably Ridydale’s: “He’s coming round, sir.”

They were pressing a wet cloth to his forehead, Hugh judged, and his head was aching so he tried to thrust up his arm to stop them. “Let—me—alone,” he forced the words out faintly, and opened his eyes. It was his father who was bathing his head, he saw, and remembering what brought him thither his mind went back to the formal message he had framed on the way from Tamworth. “Captain Gwyeth, Sir William Pleydall bade me deliver word, he will send you relief; it shall come to-morrow.”

“Saxon, take that word to Lieutenant von Holzberg,” Captain Gwyeth’s voice came curtly. “Spread it through the troop that help is coming.—Spare farther speaking now, Hugh; I understand.”

Hugh closed his eyes heavily and lay quiet. He felt a wet cloth tied round his head, and then he winced through all his body as a knife ripped halfway up his sleeve. “Thank Heaven, ’tis only a clean flesh wound,” he heard the captain say. “Nay, Jack, I’ll hold him. Do you bandage it.”

Hugh felt himself lifted up till his head rested against the captain’s shoulder. Half opening his eyes he had a confused sight down the nave of the church, only now it seemed unfamiliar, for the pews were torn from their places and piled up against the great entrance door. Up and down by the walls men were pacing, and some lay silent on the floor of the choir, and some he heard groaning as they lay. Then he closed his eyes and clinched his teeth, for his arm was aching rarely, so the lightest touch made him shrink. He wondered if the bandages they were putting on would never end, and if he could keep on biting down all sign of pain, when at last Ridydale spoke: “There, sir, ’tis done the best I could. If we only had water to wash the hurt properly!”

That suggested to Hugh that his mouth was dry, so he said under his breath: “I am thirsty.”

“If there be a drop of water in the place, fetch it,” Captain Gwyeth bade; and a moment later Hugh’s head was lifted up and a cup set to his lips. It was brackish water, and very little at that; he swallowed it with one gulp, and opened his eyes to look for more. “Nay, that’s the last,” the captain spoke out. “’Tis an ill lodging you have taken with us. I would to God you were elsewhere!”