“It is that I cannot endure to think that Lord Harry Dalblane should have my favourite horse, Harkaway. If he could be in your hands——”
“A doubtful blessing for the horse,” said Falkland, smiling as he noted the eager, boyish face of his petitioner. “For I tell you frankly, Mr. Harford, I ever ride where the danger is the hottest, and am in the case of Job when he cried, ‘Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul: which long for death but it cometh not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures.’”
Gabriel was too thoroughly healthy in body and mind to grasp the full import of the words; he thought the speaker only referred to that brief and natural craving for freedom which assails everyone in the extremity of pain, whether mental or physical. He himself had so quickly overcome the craving at Hereford and at Edgehill that it never occurred to him that one so immeasurably his superior could not also overcome it.
But the surgeon at Marlborough had surmised rightly enough; Falkland, handicapped in the race by months of sleeplessness, could only see that his present position was untenable, could only yearn to exchange the prolonged and thankless suffering of one who metaphorically stands between two fires, for a literal and brief riding forth alone between the two armies, welcoming a bullet in the heart from Royalist or Parliamentarian, since with both alike he was out of harmony.
“I shall be sending a messenger to the West to-morrow,” he said, after a minute’s silence. “If you will give me your father’s address I will myself write to him and tell him what has befallen you. Since you are known to Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir William Waller, and since your father and Sir Robert Harley are lifelong friends, it will assuredly be possible in time to get you exchanged. And for your horse, I will speak to Lord Harry about it ere he goes to the siege of Bristol. An you wish it, I will myself ride Harkaway.”
So they parted, the prisoner to return to his stifling and noisome quarters, the Secretary of State to the equally uncongenial atmosphere of the Court and the presence of a King whose obstinacy and insincerity made it hard, even for Falkland, who was noted for the sweet graciousness of his manners, to refrain from sharp words and caustic comments.
CHAPTER XXII.
Return him safe; learning would rather choose