With the scant power of his returning strength, Hugh tried to move clear of the arm that was about him. “I had hoped, this time, you would not be sorry to see me,” he broke out, in a voice that quavered in spite of himself.
He heard the captain give a sharp order to Ridydale to be off, and he felt it was to save the dignity which had almost slipped from him. He put his head down on the captain’s shoulder again. “Father, you are glad to have me, after all,” he said softly.
He felt the sudden tension of the arm that drew him closer, though when Captain Gwyeth spoke, his tone was of the driest: “After the trouble I’ve had to get hold of you, do you not think ’tis reasonable I should be glad?” Then he cut short all response with a hasty: “Lie you down here now and be quiet. You’ve been knocked just enough for you to make a fool of yourself if you try to talk.”
Hugh grinned weakly, and suffered his father to put him down with his head upon a folded cloak. “I’ll send Ridydale to have an eye to you,” the captain said in a low tone, “and if anything happens, I’ll be near.” Then he rose and tramped away down the nave of the church, but Hugh, watching him through half-shut eyes, saw him halt to glance back.
After that Hugh lay a long time in a heavy, half-waking state, where he listened to the slow pacing up and down of those about him who kept guard, and to the quicker step of men who, on other errands, hastened across the reëchoing church; he heard men shout orders across the aisles or nearer to him speak in curt monosyllables; and he heard, too, all the time, the labored groaning of one who must lie somewhere near. Then there were moments when, losing all sounds, he drifted off into an unknown world, where he lived over again the happenings of the last hours, and struggled in the water of the Arrow, and fought Oldesworth’s troopers, and made the last run through the churchyard under the Roundhead fire.
It was a relief to come back to consciousness and find himself lying comfortably on the floor of the choir with the dark roof far above him. A glint of purple sunlight from a broken window wavered on the ground beside him, and, forcing his mind to follow one train of thought, he contrived at last to reason out that it must be past noon. Pulling himself up on his sound arm, he tried to look about the church, but the effort made his head ache so he was glad to lie down. But he had got sight of Ridydale, who stood on a bench beneath one of the tall windows in speech with a trooper, and after a moment’s rest he called the corporal by name.
Ridydale stepped down, carabine in hand, and came to Hugh’s side. “Is there anything you’ll be wanting, sir?” he began.
“Yes,” Hugh replied, “I’d take it kindly of you if you’d just tell me what hit me that time.”
Ridydale grinned and settled himself close by on the steps of the altar with his carabine across his knees. “’Tis all very simple, Master Hugh,” he explained. “They wasted a deal of lead trying to wing you,—they’re clumsy marksmen, those Roundhead cowherds. Somehow, by good luck, they contrived to shoot you in the arm. I take it you stumbled on one of those sunken stones, then, for you went down and broke your head against another gravestone.”
“Was that it?” Hugh asked, in some mortification.