“There be a strange horse down by the brook,” said Nan. “A bay with two white feet.”
“He is gentle enough; could you bring him here for me? I am sorely hurt.”
They gladly promised and ran down the sloping field, leaving Gabriel in a curious borderland of semi-consciousness.
“I shall remember it all if I try,” he reflected. “My head is getting clearer. There was something I had to do! What on earth was it? Massey trusted me with something. If the Prince overpowered him I was to go—where? This agony makes all else a blank! I shall be no better than that daft vagabond who woke me last night. Ha! the despatches! I remember all now!”
With intense anxiety he felt for them. They were bloodstained but safe, and exhausted with the effort of concealing them once more, he sank back in a dead faint.
Now it chanced that on this Wednesday morning the Litany being ended, Dr. Coke and Hilary left the church and went to see Farmer Chadd, who was in great distress because his horses had been seized by the Canon Frome garrison. They were talking to him in the farmyard when his two little daughters came running up to beg his help.
“There’s a horse, father, down by the brook,” they explained breathlessly, “and the wounded Puritan officer in the orchard asked us to fetch it, but it won’t let us come near.”
“A Puritan officer? One of the fugitives from Ledbury, I reckon,” said Farmer Chadd.
“He is wounded, do you say, child?” asked the Vicar.
“Ay, sir,” said Nan, dropping a curtsey. “Wounded and well-nigh dead.”