As Frank’s voice trailed off into inarticulate mutterings Hugh found opportunity to question: “Has Dick been here? Tell me.”
“Ay, ’twas he and another from Butler’s troop. Had spurred night and day. Their horses were spent. And Dick Strangwayes has taken my Jade. Plague on him! He’s too heavy for her; he’ll break her legs. My Jade—”
“He has gone into the battle and I did not see him,” Hugh broke out. “He may be hurt again.”
“I care not if he be,” Frank cried, “so he bring her back safe. She was the prettiest bit of horseflesh! And I was going to ride her in the battle.—Did I not tell you they’d not let us come? And no doubt they’ll beat the rebels and ’tis the last encounter and I shall not be there. And she was my horse, and she loved me; she almost never kicked at me.” Frank’s shrill voice broke suddenly. “Oh, hang it all!” he cried, and, dropping down on the doorstone with his head on the threshold, began sobbing piteously and choking out more oaths till his voice was lost for weeping.
Hugh forgot his own bitter disappointment at not seeing Dick and having no chance to earn a commission in the battle, in his first alarm for Frank. Then alarm gave place to something akin to disgust at the boy’s childishness, and he half started to walk away, but he turned back. After all, Frank was younger than he, and he ought to be patient with the lad, just as Dick Strangwayes had been patient with him. So he stood over Frank and tried to joke him into being quiet.
“But ’twas my horse,” the boy sobbed, “and there’ll never be another battle, and I had no part in the last.”
“Well, it does not befit your cuirass to cry like that,” Hugh answered; and then, “Look you here, Frank, ’tis not above six miles to Kineton and we’ve good legs to carry us. Why should we not have a hand in the fighting even now?”
CHAPTER X
IN THE TRAIL OF THE BATTLE
It was long past the noon hour, as the westward bent of the sun showed, when the two boys panted up the northern pitch of the rough Edgehill. From the manor house to the field they had come at their best pace, running at first even up the hillsides, till sheer lack of breath made them somewhat moderate their speed. A couple of miles out from the house, as they headed aimlessly, with only a vague notion that somewhere to the west the battle would be joined, they came up with a body of foot alongside which they marched clear to the southern verge of the hill. Coming thither, they at last heard the rumor that, while the foot would be massed in the centre for the fight, the Prince with the mounted men, among whom served Sir William’s troop, would hold the right wing. Thereupon they forsook the foot soldiers and, heading to the northward, plunged down a steep pitch and across an open bit of ground, where they got entangled in a body of pikemen and were nearly ridden down by some straggling dragoons, and so came breathless up the last hillside. There upon the high ridge, whence for miles they could see the low country spreading away toward Kineton and right beneath them the mustering squadrons, they made a moment’s halt.
“Below here to the right our men are,” Frank gasped, without breath enough to shout. “If I only had The Jade.”