“Oh, you are a friend of Captain Heyworth,” said Humphrey Neal. “’Tis a small world, where we are for ever coming across unlooked-for connections. Your friend hath lately wedded a pretty kinswoman of mine, heiress to Sir Robert Neal, of Katterliam Court House.”
Gabriel’s face lighted up.
“I have heard naught of him since the battle of Lansdown, when we knew that he was grievously wounded. He recovered then?”
“Ay, he not only recovered, but served all through the siege of Gloucester, and as I say, wedded my cousin. I saw her at Katterham but a se’nnight since.”
“And met her husband also?”
“No, he had rejoined Sir William Waller, and was at Farnham, and by this time will most like be laying siege to Arundel Castle, which had been seized by my Lord Hopton.”
“Sir Ralph Hopton has been raised to the peerage, then?” said Gabriel, remembering vividly his last sight of the Royalist general when he had saved him from bleeding to death after the explosion.
“Ay, the King was anxious, they say, to show him some mark of favour to make up for the scurvy fashion in which Prince Rupert treated him at Bristol.”
“We have heard little of the outer world,” said Gabriel, “save some account of the fight at Newbury.”
“Belike you have not heard, then, of the death of Mr. Pym?”