“Here, I’ll lead your horse; lean on me,” said Walter, alarmed at the faint, weary voice in which his brother spoke after the first excitement of the recognition. “I’ll show you what Lucy and I call our bower, where no one ever comes but ourselves. There you can rest till night.”
“And poor Bayard?” said Edmund.
“I think I could put him into the out-house in the field next to the copse, hide his trappings here, and get him provender from Ewins’s farm. Will that do?”
“Excellently. Poor Ewins!—that is a sad story. He fell, fighting bravely by my side, cut down in Sidbury Street in the last charge. Alas! these are evil days!”
“And Diggory Stokes, our own knave?”
“I know nothing of him after the first onset. Rogues and cowards enough were there. Think, Walter, of seeing his Majesty strive in vain to rally them, when the day might yet have been saved, and the traitors hung down their heads, and stood like blocks while he called on them rather to shoot him dead than let him live to see such a day!”
“Oh, had I but been there, to turn them all to shame!”
“There were a few, Walter; Lord Cleveland, Hamilton, Careless, Giffard, and a few more of us, charged down Sidbury Street, and broke into the ranks of the rebels, while the King had time to make off by S. Martin’s Gate. Oh, how I longed for a few more! But the King was saved so far; Careless, Giffard, and I came up with him again, and we parted at nightfall. Lord Derby’s counsel was that he should seek shelter at Boscobel, and he was to disguise himself, and go thither under Giffard’s guidance. Heaven guard him, whatever becomes of us!”
“Amen!” said Walter, earnestly. “And here we are. Here is Lucy’s bank of turf, and my throne, and here we will wait till the sun is down.”
It was a beautiful green slope, covered with soft grass, short thyme, and cushion-like moss, and overshadowed by a thick, dark yew-tree, shut in by brushwood on all sides, and forming just such a retreat as children love to call their own. Edmund threw himself down at full length on it, laid aside his hat, and passed his hand across his weary forehead. “How quiet!” said he; “but, hark! is that the bubbling of water?” he added, raising himself eagerly.