“Dick, I cannot satisfy him,” Hugh gasped, almost bewildered by the coolness and breadth of Strangwayes’ plan. “Captain Turner never does aught but mock me; I’m near as unhappy with him as with my father.” He could have bit his tongue for the ease with which it let slip such a piece of the truth, but Strangwayes only gave him one involuntary look, then changed the subject hastily to the matter of the raid into Northamptonshire.
Next day, when his Majesty and his men rode south for Oxford, Captain Turner, Lieutenant Strangwayes, and Volunteer Gwyeth, with some forty troopers, got to saddle and went cantering eastward, to their own pleasure and the discomfort of more than one Puritan of Northamptonshire. It was partisan warfare, but Turner waged it honorably; and Hugh, after he once got used to riding with his hand on his hilt through villages of hostile, scowling people, had no quarrel with the life.
They made their first dash for a country-house where arms and powder were stored; there was slight resistance, a shot or two without damage, a door battered in, and then Hugh was detailed with five men to ransack a wing of the house where were the kitchen and offices. As they found nothing they only wearied themselves with the thorough search Hugh insisted on, and got laughed at for their pains by a fat kitchen wench. But Strangwayes and his squad captured six muskets and a keg of powder, though he came away grumbling. “No more work of that sort for me,” he confided to Hugh. “You, you rogue, were safe in the buttery, while I was rummaging the parlor, and the gentlewomen stood off with their skirts gathered round them and glowered on me as if I were a cutpurse. I’m thinking the time will never come that women understand the laws of war.”
Afterward they struck into a small town where more powder was said to be hid. Across the narrow part of the main street the people had built a barricade of carts and household stuff, so Turner, after reconnoitring, determined on a charge. “You had best bear the colors, Gwyeth,” he said, as the troop fell into order outside the village. “Strangwayes must ride at the rear, and, in any case, his two arms are of more profit to us than yours.”
Hugh forgave the sneer as the cornet of the troop was put into his hands. Like all Sir William’s cornets, it was a red flag with a golden ball upon it, the prettiest colors in the world, Hugh considered, except the black flag with the cross of gold that Colonel Gwyeth’s troop marched under. Settling the staff firmly against his thigh, he glanced up to see the folds of the flag droop in the still air, then took his place by Turner at the front of the troop, and, a moment later, charged in behind him. The stones clicked beneath the horses’ feet, the cottages sped by, the barricade, whence came the hateful spitting of muskets, was right before them. Hugh swerved for the left end, where the structure was lowest, and Bayard, gathering himself up, cleared it at a leap. Behind the barricade were men of all coats, some loading and steadily firing, but more already scrambling down to flee. One, crying out at sight of Hugh, broke away the faster; another levelled a pistol at him, but before he could fire Bayard’s hoofs had struck him into the kennel. Then the whole barricade seemed to go down as the Cavaliers, some still in the saddle, others dismounted to scramble the better, came pouring over.
Thus the king’s men possessed themselves of the town and took the powder, which for some days to come supplied them. But there was a price to pay, for in the encounter they had two men wounded, one of whom died that night, and on the morrow before they marched was buried in an orchard. Hugh never forgot the look of the leafless trees, the frosty ground, and the silent men, who stood drawn up, with their breastpieces strapped in place, all ready to mount. Each tenth man sat his horse with the bridles of his comrades’ steeds in his hand, and there, at a little distance from the horses, some of the townspeople, loitering with curious, unsympathetic faces, peered and pointed at those about the grave. They buried the dead trooper without his armor, but with his cloak wrapped round him, and Strangwayes, standing with his helmet under one arm, read the burial service. For the life of him Hugh could not help thinking of that sermon Dick had once preached to Emry and his friends, and there came on him an unbecoming desire to laugh, which mixed with a choke in his throat so his lips moved till he was well assured Captain Turner must think him no better than a child.
The morning sunlight was strong when they rode away from the orchard, and half a mile out the troopers were swearing good-humoredly at each other, and Strangwayes was jesting at the bravery of the town watch, a single countryman whom he had hauled out, roaring for mercy, from beneath an empty cart. Hugh laughed at the tale, and laid it to heart that in war no man can hold regrets long, for his turn may come next, and what little life may be left him is not given to be needlessly saddened.
So he designedly carried a light heart under his buff jacket, and seized what enjoyment he could from the small matters of everyday work. He was happy when they had broiled bacon or a chicken for supper, which was not often, and thankful for any makeshift of a bed; he took pleasure in cantering Bayard at the head of the troop, and watching the red and gold cornet flutter and flap above him; and he liked the fierce, hard knocks of the skirmishes they had, in little villages and at lonely country-houses, here and there through the shire. But when food failed and there was no bed but the ground, when he was weary and sore with much riding, even on that one wretched day when a troop of Roundhead dragoons fell on them and sent them scampering with three saddles empty, he got his best content from Strangwayes’ friendship, which made him surer of himself and readier to face the world, yet humbler in his efforts to keep the affection of the older man.
The thought that the winning of a commission in that troop meant more such days of service with Strangwayes caused Hugh to redouble his efforts to please Turner, and he succeeded so far that after the first skirmish the captain suffered him to carry the cornet. For the rest, Turner met all his honest efforts and prompt obedience with sarcasms on his youth and simplicity, which made Hugh wince and go on laboring bravely. Only one word of approbation did he get of Turner; that was on a pouring wet night when Hugh came in from a watch with the pickets, soaked to the skin, and, finding no food, lay down without a word on the floor of the cottage where the officers were quartered, and went sound asleep. Through his waking he could have sworn he heard Turner say, “After all, Lieutenant, there’s the right mettle in this crop-headed whelp.”
Though when Hugh opened his eyes and saw Turner standing over him with a candle in his hand, the latter only said, “My faith, sir, do you ever do aught but sleep?”