“Sleep, sir, hath long forsaken me,” said Falkland, wearily. “I shall sleep when peace is declared in this unhappy country. Leave me to see Mr. Harford discuss his supper; and do you retire, for doubtless you will be early on the march.”
The kindly captain, who was a good soldier, but one who rarely troubled to think of the right or wrong of the cause he defended, gladly enough returned to his quarters at the nearest inn; and the surgeon, having promised to make arrangements for the Major’s burial, for which Gabriel advanced the money, walked back to his house, his mind haunted by Falkland’s weary, sleepless eyes.
“’Tis not for me to ‘minister to a mind diseased,’” he reflected. “As the poet hath it—
‘Therein the patient
Nust minister to himself,’
But I fear ’tis over late; the sorrows of this war have broken his heart—he is far gone in melancholy.”
His reflections were only too true, yet for a brief time something of the old geniality and charm insensibly returned to the Secretary of State as he watched the hungry young lieutenant forgetting his troubles in the relief of a good meal. In the rare delight of such sympathy as Falkland knew well how to bestow, Gabriel’s reserve was broken down, and before the supper was ended he had revealed to his companion the story of his gradual awakening in London, had spoken of Bishop Coke’s kindness to him, of one connected with the Bishop to whom he had been betrothed, and of the havoc the war had wrought in his happiness.
Instinctively his hand went to Hilary’s miniature as he recalled with a shudder what had passed about it a few hours before; and then finding the way in which his shirt had been fastened, his eyes sought Falkland’s with a gratitude that touched the State Secretary. With the incomparable gentleness characteristic of him, he said a few words to the boy, which by their reverent sympathy seemed to blot out the memory of the moral torture he had undergone.
Then, promising to do what he could for the prisoner in the future, he left him to sleep, and slowly paced down the street to his quarters. He had merely joined Lord Wilmot’s expedition for the relief of Devizes as a volunteer, and now in his restless mood grudged the delay at Marlborough, and by break of day was riding with a couple of his servants to Oxford, leaving the two troops of cavalry and the long train of prisoners to follow later.