Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier

by Beulah Marie Dix

The farther they advanced, the more ill sights there were to see: horses that lay dead or sprawled with disabling wounds yet struggled to rise, men with gashed bodies or blackened faces, who were beyond aid, and others, bleeding with wounds, who had crawled to their feet and were heading for the rear. One horse, a roan, Frank persuaded Hugh, for The Jade’s sake, to shoot with his pistol; but after that Hugh, sparing his scant supply of ammunition, refused to carry on such work. But they tried to aid the wounded men, who came ever more frequently, and with them one or two of another sort, unhurt but riding too hastily to pause to speak. “The cowardly knaves!” Frank cried. “If I find one of our troop turning tail so, hang me if I do not recommend him for a flogging.”

But just then there came a white-faced horseman, who, reining up at their call, gladly gave them what tidings he could, which were vague enough, only the king’s men had swept the rebel horse from off the earth, and chased the rest of the army away, and there had been great fighting, and a scurvy Roundhead bullet had broke his leg. Would one of the young gentlemen reach him a drink of water? He could not dismount. Hugh filled the man’s steel cap at the brook, and then he rode slowly away.

Farther on, where the conflict had been hotter, they passed more bodies, and just the other side of the brook, which they leaped at a narrow turn, came upon one lying face down whose long hair gave him to be a gentleman. Hugh had bent to see if by any chance he still lived, when Frank thrust by him. “Do you not know that head-piece with a nick in it?” he cried. “’Tis Ned Griffith.”

At that they had him over on his back and found he was breathing, in spite of a great gash in his shoulder that had sheered through the cuirass. Tearing off his armor, they splashed water over him till the young fellow revived enough to blink his eyes open, groan, and shut them again. “Live?” said Frank, pouring another capful of water over him. “Do you think a man will die who can fetch a groan like that?”

Griffith’s eyes slowly opened again. “You youngsters?” he asked feebly. “Was it the whole troop rode over me?”

Hugh laid open his coat, and, with a certain grim thankfulness that what he had unwillingly seen now enabled him without physical shrinking to help a friend, bandaged his hurt. “We must carry him to the rear,” he finally ordered Frank. “You take his legs, and I’ll manage his head.”

They lifted up Ned Griffith, who hung limp and heavy in their hands, and set their faces toward the dark hill whence the king’s army had charged forth. The walk out into the field had gone briskly enough, but there seemed no end to the return journey. Again and again they had to lay the injured man down while they recovered breath; but though wounded stragglers passed them, they saw none who could aid them, so of necessity they lifted up their burden once more and struggled on. Sometimes Frank panted out a grumbling complaint, but Hugh made no reply, for his eyes were on the wounded man’s white face and parted lips, and he found himself wondering how his father was faring in the battle, and what might have befallen Dick Strangwayes.

Of a sudden Frank, letting Griffith’s boots come to the ground abruptly, began shouting with all his strength to a brace of loiterers. “Men of our troop,” he explained to Hugh, “and not much wounded, Heaven be thanked for’t! They can convey Ned to a surgeon, if such a one is in the field, and we’ll back to see more.”

Relinquishing their charge on such terms, they set their faces again to the field of battle. It was now drawing toward sundown, and the fire to the south had slackened. “Mark my words, the war is ended,” Frank lamented; “and we have had no part in it, only to tramp about and look on those others have killed.”

Hugh must acknowledge to himself it had been a grim afternoon’s work, so with some hope of brisker adventures he followed willingly, as his companion headed southerly toward the clearer line of a road. “Maybe we’ll find our troop if we walk toward Kineton,” Frank suggested. “And we could ride back with them.”