He was turning as he said, when Astbury, with an oath, sprang forward, flourishing his cudgel; but he had forgotten that the young officer was no novice at sword-play, and a turn of Dick's wrist sent the ruffian's stick flying over the hedge. Astbury, nothing disconcerted, rushed in and closed with him, and so heavy was the onslaught of the burly fellow that it staggered Richard, and he was put to it to hold his own. But, after a few blows had been exchanged, Dick's rising temper supplied the strength that had been lessened by hardship, while Astbury, unwieldy and out of condition, soon lost his breath, and, hitting out wildly, gave Dick an opening for a good straight left-hander, that sent his opponent crashing on the ground. Once down, he seemed in no hurry to get up, and Dick, having satisfied himself that the fellow was more frightened than hurt, left him sprawling in the mud with his twenty shillings scattered round him, and, as Bunyan would have put it, "went joyfully on his way, and was troubled no more by him at that time."
CHAPTER V.
HIDDEN WORTH.
"Here all things in their place remain,
As all were ordered ages since,
Come, care and pleasure, hope and pain,
And bring the fated fairy prince."
TENNYSON, The Day Dream.
Through the winter weather Richard Harrison wandered eastward.
The dull listlessness from which his encounter with Astbury aroused him for a moment, closed on him again as soon as he was once more alone; the glimpse of his old ideals that had revisited him had faded, and only left him with a dogged determination to do nothing unworthy of them, but with no pride or pleasure in his resolve. And as he grew more weary, more desperate of escape from his pursuers, he soon ceased to think at all; political dreams, sorrow for the dead, hopes of finding new friends and ambitions in a new world, all were forgotten, the spirit within him was dulled by suffering; only the poor body cried incessantly for rest, for food, for warmth, and most often craved in vain.
So one February evening found him struggling across the moorlands that fringe the coast of Norfolk between Hunstanton and Lynn. Thickets of russet fern and gorse stretched from the dark firwoods to the grey strand and the grey waters of the Northern Sea. The rooks croaked drearily to each other as they winged their way inland, and the gulls circled wailing over the heath before taking their flight to roost on some lonely sand-bank, and no other sound broke the monotonous plunge of the cold waves.
But across the heath a clump of trees rising against the pale sky seemed to shelter a group of buildings, where possibly some charitable hand might bestow broken meat on a beggar, or at least a corner in a rick-yard might afford a shelter from the bitter frost that was numbing his limbs. It was long since he had ventured into a town where he might be questioned and recognized—the hunted man had only dared ask food or lodging at solitary farms or lonely hamlets; and as he pushed forward, the gables and twisted chimneys of a mansion house, with garden walls and dove-cote, gave him hopes of help. He hurried on as fast as his weary limbs could carry him, with a terror of the icy darkness that was closing in like the shadow of death descending upon him, and almost at a run he reached his goal, and stood on the balustraded stone arch that crossed the ice-encumbered moat of the old house. Then, as he raised his eyes to the building, a groan of despair broke from him; it was but the mockery of shelter he could find there. The gates before him creaked on their rusty hinges, the gryffons that had ramped so proudly on the gate-posts, had fallen from their high estate, and lay grovelling among the dead flags that fringed the moat. Dead weeds bristled white with frost between the paving-stones of the once stately courtyard, and the great house beyond loomed dark and deserted in the twilight, with windows boarded up, or gaping black and empty through their shattered casements.
The strength that had carried him so far, failed as his hopes dropped. He stumbled, clutched with a last effort at the gate, and lay a huddled heap on the threshold of the empty courtyard. All was silent. The dry flags rustled, the ice cracked in the moat below, the wanderer lay quiet at last.
A very homely sound broke the ghostly stillness. The click of pattens on the paving-stones, and a carol hummed in the clear tones of a girl's voice, as her tall lithe figure came round the corner of the apparently deserted house. A greater contrast to the melancholy scene could not be imagined than her young face glowing with life and health, the ruddy coils of chestnut hair, and the bright hazel eyes that roved far and wide over the empty landscape, as she caught the swinging gates, and began to tie them in place with a piece of cord.