Good Hugh:
It has come to my remembrance that it is many days since you have had news of me, so at a venture I send this letter to your grandfather’s house, though the roads are so beset and the post so delayed it is doubtful if it ever reach you. I am here at Nottingham with my father. He commands a notable troop of horse, drawn out of our own county, and many of them men bred on our own lands, proper stout fellows, that will make the rebels to skip, I promise you. My father is colonel, and some of my cousins and uncles and neighboring gentlemen hold commissions, and I think I shall prevail upon my father to bestow one on me, though he maintains I be over-young, which is all folly. The king’s standard was raised here week before last, and we all nigh split our throats with cheering. The town is full of soldiers and gentlemen from all over the kingdom, and many from following the wars abroad, and more coming every day. I have seen his Majesty the king,—God bless him! He rode through the street and he hath a noble face and is most gracious and kingly. I do not see how men can have the wickedness to take up arms against him. I have also seen his nephew, Prince Rupert, the famous German soldier, who they say shall have a great command in the war. My father has had speech with him and he commended our troop most graciously. It has been the most memorable time of all my life, and, best of all, I shall never go back to school now, but go to the wars. I would you might be with us, Hugh, for it is the only life for gentlemen of spirit. Heaven keep you well, and if this reaches you, write me in reply.
Your loving friend to serve you,
Francis Pleydall.
Nottingham, Sept. 5, 1642.
I misremembered to tell you. Among the soldiers come from Germany is a certain Alan Gwyeth, a man of some forty years, with hair reddish gold like yours. It is an odd name and I thought perhaps he might be some kinsman of yours. We met with him the day the standard was raised, and I would have questioned him myself, but my father said I was over-forward and I had to hold my peace. Did your father leave any brothers or cousins in Germany? This man is a notable soldier and has got him a colonelcy under the Prince.
F. P.
Hugh sat staring at the paper and saw the black letters and the words but found no meaning in them. Across the dim hall he could see through the open door the strip of greensward that ran across the front of Everscombe, part black with the shadow of the east wing and part dazzling bright with the noon sun. He fixed his gaze upon the clean line where the shade gave way to vivid light, till the sunny greenness blurred before his eyes; he felt the roughness of the paper, as he creased and recreased it with nervous fingers, but he could not think; he could only feel that something vast and portentous was coming into his life.
A noise of tramping feet and a burst of voices roused him. The conference ended, the men came slowly from the east parlor, and lingered speaking together, then scattered, some with Nathaniel Oldesworth into the main part of the house, some with Thomas Oldesworth out upon the terrace. Master Gilbert Oldesworth was not among them, Hugh noted, and on a sudden impulse he half ran across the hall and entered the east parlor, closing the door behind him.
Master Oldesworth looked up from the paper over which he had been poring. “You would speak with me, Hugh?” he asked, with a touch of displeasure in his tone.