Rubbing the dazzle of the light out of his eyes, Hugh saw five or six men about him on the steps, two with torches, who seemed mere troopers, and the others finely dressed. “Is—Colonel Gwyeth here?” he faltered, with a half hope that the meeting might be deferred a bit longer.
“Here, Alan, this gentleman has commands for you,” some one called, and laughed.
At that another man came briskly up from the street and, shoving the others aside, pushed under the light of the torches. A man of short forty years, and but little above middle height, Hugh perceived, in a velvet suit with a plumed hat and a cloak wrapped up to his chin. Beneath the torchlight his long hair and close-trimmed beard seemed the color of gold, and he had blue eyes that looked angry and his face was flushed. “What’s to do here?” he asked curtly, and a trick of the tone set Hugh’s memory struggling for something that had long been past. “What do you want of me, you knave?”
Hugh looked up at the flushed, impatient face, and, stammering to find words, wished it were all over and these men gone, and he were alone with this stranger; then he hesitated desperately, “Colonel Gwyeth, if it like you, I am your son.”
Somebody laughed foolishly, and another began, “’Tis a wise child—” but Alan Gwyeth looked Hugh over and then, turning on his heel with a curt “The devil you are!” walked through the open door into the house. The others tramped noisily after him; some one gave Hugh a hasty shove that sent him pitching to the foot of the steps, and as he recovered himself he heard the house-door slammed.
CHAPTER VII
HOW THE WORLD DEALT BY A GENTLEMAN
He could get only a broken sleep, because of a door that was always slamming; sometimes men were laughing, too, but the crash of the closing door was louder still, so loud Hugh woke at last. “It was all a bad dream,” he said in his thoughts, with a lightening of the heart that made him feel like his old self. But next moment his hand touched the damp boards of the doorway in which he was crouched and found them real; across the roadway the dim houses, with the mist that comes before day hanging over them, were real; and so was the blank sky. Then all that had happened last night was true: there was a lad named Hugh Gwyeth, whose father would have none of him, who had not a friend to turn to, nor a penny to his name, nor, except for this cold doorway whither he had crawled, a place to lay his head. Hugh sat up and, as if it were another man’s concern, checked it all off dispassionately.
Just then a drunken trooper came reeling down the empty street, and Hugh found himself making nice calculations as to whether the man’s zig-zag progress would plunge him into a muddy puddle just opposite the doorway, or bring him safely by on the far side. When the fellow staggered past unsplashed Hugh lost interest in him, and began counting the windows of the opposite houses, that were slowly lighting up with the dawn. Presently a man on a red horse came clicking down the narrow way, then two men helping a comrade home, then a little squad of foot soldiers under a brisk officer; and after that townsmen and stray troopers came in greater numbers, the doors and windows opened, and the day began.
All the long morning Hugh tramped the streets of Shrewsbury, aimlessly, for he had nowhere to go. Everscombe was not to be thought of; even if he had been at the very gates of the manor house, even if his grandfather had found it in his heart to relent, the affair at the “Golden Ram” would have made forgiveness impossible to his kinsfolk. Neither could he go back to Strangwayes, who had lent him a horse for which his father was to pay; at least the bay would compensate for that, but he had no right to ask farther kindness which he could never return. And then Strangwayes’ new friends had shown him out of doors; perhaps Dick would not care to have him come back.
With such broken reflections Hugh loitered through the town, and now and again, in gazing at the swarming men and brave horses that filled the streets, tried to forget his miserable plight. About noon he stood many minutes in a gutter and listlessly watched a great body of horse march by. He heard some one say the king was going northward on an expedition, and he asked himself if Colonel Gwyeth went too, and was troubled an instant till he realized that he had now no call to follow.