Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier

by Beulah Marie Dix

Twilight was turning to night when he splashed at last into a considerable village and stumbled into the first inn to which he came. There was a brisk fire in the common room and but one other guest, so Hugh was free to slip into the chimney corner and dry his dripping clothes while he ate his supper. For civility’s sake he began talking to his companion, from whom he learned that he was now over the boundary and into Leicestershire. The knowledge gave him a childish homesick pang; Everscombe seemed to have fallen hopelessly far behind him and Nottingham was still distant the length of a county. With no further care to eat he thrust aside his trencher and dragged himself off to bed.

In his waking moments he heard the rain plashing softly on the thatch of the shed beneath his window, and with the morning light he found the sky still gray and the storm still beating down. He put out one hand to his coat, flung on the stool beside his pallet, and felt that it was not half dried from yesterday’s soaking. Then for a time he rested quiet again, while he wondered in half-shamed fashion if he might not lie by a day till the storm was over. But when he reckoned up his store of money, he saw he could not afford to lose so many hours; it was yet more than two days’ march to Nottingham, and he had not full three shillings to keep him on the way. He wondered at the speed with which money went, for he was new to ordering such matters; hitherto he had been sure of his three meals a day and bed at night, and looked upon stray sixpences as valuable only for the apples and tops into which they might be turned. He put that last recollection out of his head as speedily as possible, ashamed of his scarcely ended childhood, and, accepting the responsibilities of the manhood he had claimed for himself, got up and dragged on his damp clothes.

After breakfasting he wrapped his sodden cloak about him and plunged resolutely out into the rain. The heavy mud stayed him with clogging his shoes, but he was now somewhat seasoned for the march and managed to keep up a pace that, though not of the fastest, was steady. So he came at length through the afternoon drizzle to the town of Leicester, which he loyally told himself was not the half as fine as his own old Warwick. But none the less he made his lodging there that night, and he went to bed hopefully; for the western clouds were showing a faint yellow streak that promised better weather on the morrow.

Sure enough, when morning came the rain had ceased to fall, and though the air was still heavy with mist there seemed a prospect the sun might yet break through. Hugh took the highway in gay spirits, and plodding along at a stouter pace than on the day before congratulated himself on covering such a deal of ground. But by noon he came to a less flattering estimate of himself; for, talking with an idler at a small tavern he had entered to buy his dinner, he discovered he was now following the Fosse not to Nottingham but to Newark. Thereat Hugh faced about to retrace his steps, too vexed at his own stupidity to allow himself to stop for dinner. His informant called after him some direction about a cross-way to the Nottingham road, which he scarcely heeded at the moment; but afterward, when he was out of the village, he remembered, and striking across the fields came into a narrow road full of ruts and great puddles.

At first Hugh splashed along recklessly, but presently, when a streak of sunlight crept through the trees and turned the puddles bright, he let his pace slacken and little by little brought himself back to a more contented mood. After all, he could make up by steady walking what he had lost, and in any case Nottingham was now less than two days’ journey distant. He began whistling for content, then stopped, as a rustling in the bushes ahead caught his ear. He saw the branches crackle outward, and two men, bursting through, came swinging down the roadway to meet him.

Recovering from his first surprise, Hugh prepared to give them the usual traveller’s good day, but on second glance kept to his side of the road and walked more rapidly. One of the fellows was thick-set and well tanned, and chewed a straw as he trudged; the other, a younger man, clad like a field laborer, was taller and hulking, with a bearded, low-browed face. As they came abreast he bade Hugh a surly good even and on the word, almost before the boy could reply, gave a grip at his collar. Hugh dodged back and pulled out his pistol, while the thought flashed through his head that running was impossible in this mire,—and then it was not befitting his father’s son. Next instant the tall man sprang upon him and Hugh, thrusting the pistol into his face, pulled the trigger, then felt the weapon knocked out of his hand and found himself grappling with his big antagonist. The man’s fingers pressed into his throat, he knew; and he remembered afterward how a smooch of red flecked the fellow’s beard, as he dashed his fist against his mouth. Then he was griping the other about the neck, hammering up at that stained face, and he heard the fellow bawl, “Devil and all! Why don’t ’ee come in and help me, Jock?” Another gruff voice retorted, “If thou canst not handle a younker like that, thou deservest to have bloody teeth.” Then of a sudden Hugh found himself twisted over so he saw the sky above him all shot with black, and he felt a bursting pain in his forehead. Thrusting up his hands gropingly, he went down full length in the mud without strength enough in him to move, even when the tall man knelt over him and, with one hand on his throat, rifled his pockets.

“Here, have back your pistol, master,” he heard the gruff voice say, and he dimly saw the well tanned man, with a grin on his face, fling the pistol down in the mud beside him. Then the two walked off at their old swinging pace, and Hugh dragged himself up on his elbow and lay staring uncomprehendingly at his bleeding knuckles. After a time he got painfully to his feet and in mechanical fashion reckoned up the damages; they had taken his cloak and cleaned his pockets of money and of everything but the creased letter from Frank Pleydall and a loose bit of string. They had left him nothing but the torn and well-muddied clothes he wore and the pistol, that now was all befouled with mire. As Hugh picked it up all the hot anger of the actual conflict swept over him again, and with some wild idea of making the robbers restore their plunder he staggered a few steps down the road. Then strength failed him, and dropping down by the roadside he sat with his aching head in his hands. The world was a brutal place, he reflected with dumb resentment; even if a man had courage enough he did not always have the muscle to defend his own, not even with a pistol to back him.

It did not better matters to sit there and whimper so after a time he rose and, still rather dazed with his drubbing, went unsteadily on his way. At the first brook he halted to wash his wounded hands and cleanse the pistol, which he dried upon his coat as well as he could. The rest of the afternoon he marched slowly because of the dizziness in his head, and so the twilight had overtaken him before he reached the main road and a village that lay upon it.

Close by the wayside stood a tavern, where candles were lighted and food would be cooking, but Hugh only gave one wistful look and passed on. He made his supper of a drink of water from the public well, and, falling in speech there with some loiterers, he found he was now into the shire of Nottingham and not above ten miles from the town. His heart jumped at the news, but next moment he was telling himself he could not tramp those miles in the dark and he grew sober as he realized unwillingly that he must sleep in the open. Till mid-evening he lingered in the village street, then, drawing reluctantly away from the sight of the few candles that still shone in cottages, passed on to the outskirts of the hamlet. After a cautious reconnoissance he crept through a hedge into a field, where he had dimly made out in the darkness a stack of straw, in the lee of which he snuggled down. The straw rustled with startling loudness at his least movement, and the earth beneath him was so damp his teeth chattered in his head. The strangeness of the place kept him many moments awake, but he held his eyes shut that he might not have sight of the lowering sky. Little by little he forgot it all and fell to thinking of the last time he had lain in the open, when he and Sam Oldesworth had stolen out for a frolic to lie the night in Everscombe Park. How Sam would have marvelled at this nights doings! And Lois, only Lois would have pitied him, like a girl.

Then he knew there had been a long space in which Lois and all other remembrances left him, and he found himself shivering in the midst of wet straw with gray morning light all around him. He crawled to his feet and making his way to the highroad slowly set forth again. He was keenly hungry with his twenty-four hours of fasting and stiff with the dampness of his lodging, but he cheered himself with the thought that before night he would be in Nottingham. He would have enough to eat then, and a bed to sleep in, and decent clothes once more; but he put aside these creature comforts at the thought that he would see his father before he slept again. He wondered what his father would say, and he planned what he would tell him, and how he would make light of his long walk and the hunger and the cold.