“Ay, that would I in good sooth, if the wounded man was one of the Amalekites, a foe to the truth,” said the veteran, with a gleam of indignant zeal in his hard eyes.
Gabriel gave a sigh of relief; he had not lighted on a fiery Royalist who would hand him over as a prisoner, but upon one of those stern and uncompromising Puritans who literally applied every word of the Old Testament to the troubles of their own day.
“Nay, we are not what you call Amalekites,” he replied, biting his lip to keep back a smile; “we were both in Sir William Waller’s army. An’ you could give shelter to my friend, Major Locke, you would be doing a good deed, and he will be well able to recompense you.”
“I cannot take him in now—the women-folk be all abed and asleep, and we be hard-working folk; but bring him at dawn to-morrow and my wife will tend him before she sets about her business in the dairy.”
Gabriel thanked him heartily, and gladly accepted half a loaf of rye bread which the farmer proffered with the flagon of water.
“Now if you could but spare me a bit of linen I should have better hope of bringing my wounded friend here in safety,” he said, glancing round the great kitchen to which he had been led.
“The women-folk would ha’ known what to give thee, sir,” said the farmer, in perplexity, “but beshrew me I can’t tell where——”
He broke off with an exclamation of relief, and crossing the room took down a long roller towel on which the household were wont to wipe their hands, apparently without much preliminary washing.
“Here, sir, use this,” he said. And Gabriel, treasuring up the story to amuse his father when next they met, but too well-seasoned a warrior after his nine months’ campaign to be in the least dainty, accepted the towel with genuine gratitude, and returned to his friend as fast as the fading light and the perplexities of the way would allow.
The Major was so much exhausted by the dressing of his wound that he fell asleep directly he had refreshed himself with the water and the rye bread. Gabriel, not daring to close his eyes lest he should sleep after daybreak, paced to and fro outside the hut, and thought sadly enough over the tragedy he had seen enacted that day. Now and then on the soft summer wind the distant sound of groans reached his ear, for many of the victims still lay as they had fallen on the hill side, and several times the piercing shriek of a wounded horse made him shudder.