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HUGH GWYETH

A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER

HUGH GWYETH
A ROUNDHEAD CAVALIER

BY

BEULAH MARIE DIX

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.

1913

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1899,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped March, 1899. Reprinted May, July, 1899; January, 1900; October, 1908; January, 1913.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith

Norwood Mass. U. S. A.

CONTENTS

HUGH GWYETH

A Roundhead Cavalier

CHAPTER I
TIDINGS OUT OF THE NORTH

Up in the tops of the tall elms that overshadowed the east wing of Everscombe manor house the ancient rooks were gravely wrangling. A faint morning breeze swept the green branches and, as the leaves stirred, the warm September sunlight smiting through fell in flakes of yellow on the dark flagstones of the terrace below. For a moment Hugh Gwyeth ceased to toss up and catch the ball in his hand, while he stood to count the yellow spots that shifted on the walk. Eight, nine,—but other thoughts so filled his head that there he lost count and once more took up his listless tramp.

Off to his left, where beyond the elms the lawn sloped down to the park, he could hear the calls of the boys at play,—his Oldesworth cousins and Aunt Rachel Millington’s sons. The Millingtons had come to Everscombe a week before out of Worcestershire, where the king’s men were up in arms and had plundered their house. Yet the young Millingtons were playing at ball with the Oldesworth lads as if it were only a holiday. “Children!” Hugh muttered contemptuously and, conscious of his own newly completed sixteen years, threw an increased dignity into his step. He was a wiry lad, of a slender, youthful figure, but for all that he carried himself well and with little awkwardness. Neither was he ill-looking; though there was a reddish tinge to his close-cut hair it changed to gold when he came into the sunlight, and at all times there was in his blue eyes a steady, frank look that made those who liked him forget the freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheek bones, and the almost aggressive squareness of his chin.

Mouth and chin were even sullen now, as Hugh lingered a moment to glance up at the small diamond panes of the window of the east parlor. Within, Hugh’s grandfather, Gilbert Oldesworth, the master of Everscombe, his sons, Nathaniel and Thomas, his daughter’s husband, David Millington, and Roger Ingram, the lieutenant in Thomas Oldesworth’s troop of horse, were conferring with men from Warwick on the raising of forces, the getting of arms, and all the means for defending that part of the county; and Peregrine, the eldest of the Oldesworth lads, was allowed to be of their counsels. Hugh turned away sharply and resumed his dreary tramp up and down the flagged terrace. “If I had been Uncle Nathaniel’s son, they would have suffered me to be present as well as Peregrine,” he muttered, pausing to dig the toe of his shoe into a crack between the flagstones. “’Tis not just. I am near a man, and they might treat me—” He gave the ball an extra high toss and paced on slowly.

But, call as he would upon his injured dignity, he could not refrain from facing about at the end of the walk and retracing his steps till he was loitering once more beneath the window of the east parlor. He was not listening, he told himself, nor was he spying; there was no harm in walking on the east terrace of a morning, nor in lingering there to play at ball. So he stood slipping the ball from hand to hand, but his eyes were fixed on the little panes of the window above and his thoughts were busy on what was happening within. Would the people of the hamlets round about Everscombe, the farmers and ploughboys, who of a Sunday sat stolidly in the pews of the village church at Kingsford, would they truly resist their sovereign? The Oldesworths would head them, without doubt, but how many others scattered through the county and all through wide England were of the like mind? And what would come of it? Would there be war in the land, such wars as Hugh had read the Greeks and Romans had waged, such as the great German wars in which his own father had borne a part? And if there was a war and brave deeds to do and fame to win, would his grandfather and his uncles let him come and fight too, or would they still shut him out with the little boys, as they had shut him out to-day?

So he was thinking, when of a sudden the window at which he had been staring swung open, and Nathaniel Oldesworth, a mild-featured man of middle age, looked out upon him. Hugh flushed suddenly and kept his eyes on the ball he was still shifting from hand to hand. “You here, Hugh?” his uncle’s voice reached him. “Take yourself off to your play.”

“Ay, sir,” Hugh answered, and sauntered away down the walk. He kept his chin up and his mouth was sulky, but in his boy’s heart every fibre of awakening manhood was quivering at this last insult. Go play! when every moment was big with events, when war was bursting on the land, and there was work for every man to do, he was bidden to content himself with a ball!

He went slowly down the steps at the south end of the terrace and bearing off from the stables struck through the long grass toward the orchard. He walked with eyes on the ground, too deeply buried in his own resentful thoughts to heed whither he was going, but he realized when he entered the orchard, for the sunlight that had been all about him since he quitted the terrace went out; he saw the earth was no longer grassy but bald and brown, and he trod on a hard green apple that rolled under his foot.

A second small apple suddenly plumped to the ground before him, and a girl’s voice called, “Hugh, Hugh.”

The boy looked up. Just above his head, through the branches of the great apple tree, he saw the face of Lois Campion, the orphan niece of Nathaniel Oldesworth’s wife. “Are you hunting for snails?” she asked, while her dark eyes laughed. “Prithee, give over now, like a good lad, and help me hence. I have sat here half the morning for lack of an arm to aid me.”

She had slipped down the branches to the fork of the tree so that she could rest her hands on Hugh’s shoulders, and as they came thus face to face her tone changed: “Why, Hugh, what has gone wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answered shortly, swinging her down to the ground.

“You look as though you had eaten a very sour apple,” said Lois. “Try these. There are sweet tastes in them, if you chew long enough.” She had seated herself at the foot of the tree with her head resting against the gnarled gray trunk.

“It’s not apples I want,” Hugh replied gruffly, and then the troubled look in the girl’s eyes made him sit down beside her with a thought of saying something to make amends for his surliness; only words did not come easily, for his mind could run on nothing but his own discontent.

“I think I know,” Lois spoke gently and put her hand on his arm. “’Tis because of Cousin Peregrine.”

Hugh shook off her hand and dropped down full length on the ground with his forehead pressing upon his arms; he felt it would be the crowning humiliation of the morning if the girl should see the look on his face at the mere mention of his trouble.

For a time there was silence, except for the thud of a falling apple and the soft rustle of leaves in the light wind; it was one of Lois’s best comrade qualities, Hugh realized vaguely now, that she knew when to hold her peace. It was he himself that renewed the conversation, when he felt assured that he had himself too well in hand to let any childish breaking be audible in his voice: “I wish my father had lived.”

“I wish my parents had, too,” Lois answered quietly.

“I did not wish it, when I spoke, because I loved them, I fear,” Hugh went on, digging up the scant blades of grass about him with one hand; “I do love them, but I did not think of it so, then. But I thought how, when a lad hath a father alive, things are made easy for him,—no, not easy; I do not mean skulking at home,—but he is helped to do a man’s part. Now there was a good friend of mine, there at Warwick school, Frank Pleydall; I’ve spoke of him to you. I was home with him once for the holidays, to a great house in Worcestershire, where his father, Sir William Pleydall, lives. And Frank had his own horses and dogs, and the servants did his bidding, and—and his father is very fond of him.” Hugh paused a moment, then gave words to the grievance nearest his heart: “And Peregrine, now, because he is Uncle Nathaniel’s son, he is to have a cornetcy in Uncle Thomas’s troop, and he will have a new horse,—I do not begrudge it to Peregrine, but they might try me and see what I can do.”

“But, Hugh,” Lois ventured, “you are younger than Peregrine.”

“Only two years and a half,” Hugh raised himself on one elbow, “and do but feel the thick of my right arm there. And at Warwick school when they taught us sword-play I learnt enough to worst Master Peregrine, I am sure. And I can stick to my saddle as well as he, though I never have anything to ride but a plough horse. And I have not even that now,” he went on, with an effort at a laugh, “since all have been taken to mount Uncle Thomas’s troop. But Peregrine will have a horse and a sword of his own and go to the wars. Do you understand what ’tis I mean, Lois?”

“Yes,” Lois replied with a downward look and a quiver of the mouth. “You will think ’tis girl’s folly in me, but I have felt what you mean when I have seen Martha and Anne have new gowns, and I must wear my old frock still.”

There was another long silence, broken this time by Lois. “Hugh,” she half whispered, “I believe we are very wicked and ungrateful to our kinsfolk.”

“I do not believe so,” the boy answered doggedly; “they have given us nothing but food and clothes, and one craves other things besides.”

Lois nodded without speaking, then fetched a breath like a sob. “Lois!” Hugh cried in honest alarm; he had never seen her thus before, “don’t cry. I am ashamed I bore myself so unmanly to hurt you. Don’t cry.” He took her hand in his, and tried to think of something comforting to say.

Lois bit her lips and made not another sound till she could answer with only a slight tremble: “What you spoke of, made me feel lonely.”

“I am sorry I spoke so,” Hugh said contritely, still holding her hand. “Shall we go look for apples now?”

The girl shook her head: “Prithee, do not put me off, Hugh, and do not reproach yourself; I am not sorry that you spoke so. You are the only one to whom I can talk of such things, here at Everscombe.”

“And you are the only one I have been able to talk to of anything that touches me nearly, these two years since my mother died.—Do you know, Lois, I sometimes think you look like her. She had brown hair like yours, for she was a true Oldesworth and dark. Now I am a Gwyeth, and so I come rightly by my red hair.”

“You shall not slander it so,” Lois interrupted.

“Aunt Delia calls it red. I care not for the color, but I’d like to let it grow.” Hugh ran his fingers through his cropped hair.

“Would you turn Cavalier?” Lois asked half seriously.

“Most gentlemen wear their hair long; even my grandfather and Uncle Nathaniel, for all they hold to Parliament.”

“Master Thomas Oldesworth has cut his close; he says all soldiers do so in Germany.”

“My father did not,” Hugh answered quickly. “And he had more experience in the German wars than ever Uncle Tom will have.”

“Tell me about him again, Hugh, if you will,” Lois begged.

The boy slipped down till he rested on his elbow once more. “There is not much I can tell,” he began, but his face was eager with interest in the old story. “I remember little of those times, but my mother was ever telling me of him. His name was Alan Gwyeth; ’tis a Welsh name, and he had Welsh blood in him. They put him to school, but he ran away to follow the wars in the Low Countries. Later he was here in Warwickshire to raise men who’d adventure for the German wars, and he met my mother, and they loved each other, so they married. My grandfather and Uncle Nathaniel did not like my father, so he left the kingdom straightway, and she went with him on his campaigns in Germany. I was born there; I think I can remember it, just a bit. A porcelain stove with tiles, and the story of Moses upon them; and a woman with flaxen hair who took care of me; and my father, I am sure I remember him, a very tall man with reddish hair and blue eyes, who carried me on his shoulder.” Hugh’s look strayed beyond the girl and he was silent a time. “Then it all ended and we came home to England. I remember the ship and I was sick; and then the great coach we rode in from Bristol; and how big Everscombe looked and lonesome, and my mother cried.”

“And—and your father?” Lois asked timidly.

“He died,” Hugh answered softly. “My mother never told me how, but it must have been in battle, for he was a very brave soldier, she said. And he was the tenderest and kindest man that ever lived, and far too good for her, she said, but I do not believe that. And just before she died she told me I must try always to be like him, a true-hearted gentleman and a gallant soldier.—I am glad I look like him, and then, sometimes,” Hugh’s tone grew more dubious, “but usually ’tis when I have done wrong, Aunt Delia says I am my father over again.”

“Aunt Delia has a sharp tongue,” said Lois with a sigh.

“I know it well,” Hugh answered ruefully.

“But still, she has a kind heart,” the girl was amending charitably, when from across the orchard came a shrill call of “Hugh,” which ended in a high-pitched howl.

Lois rose and peering under her hand gazed out into the sunlight of the level grass beyond the apple trees. “’Tis Sam Oldesworth,” she said, and as she spoke a boy of thirteen or fourteen years broke headlong into the shade of the orchard.

“Where have you been, Hugh?” he panted. “Have you my ball safe? I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

“For the ball? There ’tis,” Hugh replied.

“Nay, not for that. There’s something up at the house for you.”

“What is it?” Hugh came to his feet at a jump, while his thoughts sped bewilderingly to swords, horses, and commissions.

“Guess,” replied Sam.

Hugh turned his back and walked away toward the manor house at a dignified pace; it would not do to let a young sprig like Sam know his curiosity and eagerness. But Lois, having no such scruples, teased her cousin with questions till the boy, bubbling over with the importance of the news, admitted: “Well, the post from the north has come, and there is something for Hugh in the east parlor.”

“A letter?” Hugh queried with momentary disappointment in his tone. But though a letter was not as good as a commission it was something he had never had before in his life, so he quickened his step and with high expectations entered the east wing and passed through the small hall to the parlor.

The door stood open, and opposite the sunlight from the window, still flung wide, lay in a clear rectangle upon the dark floor. About the heavy oak table in the centre of the room, in speech of the news brought from the north by the freshly arrived letters, sat or stood in knots of two or three the grave-faced men of the conference. At the head of the table, where the sunlight fell upon his long white hair, sat Master Gilbert Oldesworth, an erect man with keen eyes and alert gestures, in spite of his seventy years. Hugh also caught sight of Peregrine and noted, with a certain satisfaction, that this fortunate cousin sat at the foot of the table and seemed to have small share in the business in hand. But next moment he had enough to do to give heed to his own concerns, for Nathaniel Oldesworth called him by name and he must enter to receive his letter. He felt his cheeks burn with the consciousness that strangers had their eyes on him and that he must appear to them a mere dishevelled, awkward schoolboy; he grew angry with himself for his folly, and his face burned even more. Scarcely daring to raise his eyes, he caught up the letter his uncle held out to him and slipped back again into the hall.

Sam pounced upon him at once. “What is it?” he demanded, and Lois’s eyes asked the same question.

Hugh forgot the hot embarrassment and misery of a moment before, as he turned the letter in his hand. “I don’t know the writing,” he said, prolonging the pleasure while he examined the superscription; then he tore open the paper, and the first sight of the sheet of big sprawling black letters was enough. “Ah, but I do know!” he cried. “’Tis from Frank Pleydall, Lois.”

“Your school friend?”

“Yes. I have not heard from him these six months, since he left the school. Doctor Masham, the master, said the queen was a Babylonish woman, and when Sir William heard of that he came to the school in a great rage and called Doctor Masham a canting Puritan and a hoary-headed traitor,--truly, the Doctor is but little older and not a bit more white headed than Sir William himself. And he took Frank away, and—I was right sorry to lose him.”

“But you have found him again now,” said Lois. “Come, Sam.” She coaxed the youngster, still reluctant and lingering, out upon the terrace, and Hugh, happy in being alone, set himself down at once on the stairway that led from the hall to the upper story. It was hard to find a secluded place in Everscombe those days, what with the men from Thomas Oldesworth’s troop quartered in the old west wing, and the Millingtons and other refugee kinsfolk in the main part of the house. So in the fear that a noisy cousin or two might come to interrupt him, Hugh settled himself hastily and began his letter:—

Good Hugh:

It has come to my remembrance that it is many days since you have had news of me, so at a venture I send this letter to your grandfather’s house, though the roads are so beset and the post so delayed it is doubtful if it ever reach you. I am here at Nottingham with my father. He commands a notable troop of horse, drawn out of our own county, and many of them men bred on our own lands, proper stout fellows, that will make the rebels to skip, I promise you. My father is colonel, and some of my cousins and uncles and neighboring gentlemen hold commissions, and I think I shall prevail upon my father to bestow one on me, though he maintains I be over-young, which is all folly. The king’s standard was raised here week before last, and we all nigh split our throats with cheering. The town is full of soldiers and gentlemen from all over the kingdom, and many from following the wars abroad, and more coming every day. I have seen his Majesty the king,—God bless him! He rode through the street and he hath a noble face and is most gracious and kingly. I do not see how men can have the wickedness to take up arms against him. I have also seen his nephew, Prince Rupert, the famous German soldier, who they say shall have a great command in the war. My father has had speech with him and he commended our troop most graciously. It has been the most memorable time of all my life, and, best of all, I shall never go back to school now, but go to the wars. I would you might be with us, Hugh, for it is the only life for gentlemen of spirit. Heaven keep you well, and if this reaches you, write me in reply.

Your loving friend to serve you,

Francis Pleydall.

Nottingham, Sept. 5, 1642.

I misremembered to tell you. Among the soldiers come from Germany is a certain Alan Gwyeth, a man of some forty years, with hair reddish gold like yours. It is an odd name and I thought perhaps he might be some kinsman of yours. We met with him the day the standard was raised, and I would have questioned him myself, but my father said I was over-forward and I had to hold my peace. Did your father leave any brothers or cousins in Germany? This man is a notable soldier and has got him a colonelcy under the Prince.

F. P.

Hugh sat staring at the paper and saw the black letters and the words but found no meaning in them. Across the dim hall he could see through the open door the strip of greensward that ran across the front of Everscombe, part black with the shadow of the east wing and part dazzling bright with the noon sun. He fixed his gaze upon the clean line where the shade gave way to vivid light, till the sunny greenness blurred before his eyes; he felt the roughness of the paper, as he creased and recreased it with nervous fingers, but he could not think; he could only feel that something vast and portentous was coming into his life.

A noise of tramping feet and a burst of voices roused him. The conference ended, the men came slowly from the east parlor, and lingered speaking together, then scattered, some with Nathaniel Oldesworth into the main part of the house, some with Thomas Oldesworth out upon the terrace. Master Gilbert Oldesworth was not among them, Hugh noted, and on a sudden impulse he half ran across the hall and entered the east parlor, closing the door behind him.

Master Oldesworth looked up from the paper over which he had been poring. “You would speak with me, Hugh?” he asked, with a touch of displeasure in his tone.

“If I may. ’Tis important,” Hugh stammered. “Will you look at this letter? No, not all, just this place, sir.”

Hugh stood at his grandfather’s side, griping the edge of the table so he saw the blood leave his fingers. In the elms outside the open window the rooks still scolded, and over in the corner of the room the great clock ticked loudly, but there was no other sound till Hugh had counted thrice sixty of its noisy ticks. Then the boy drew a quick breath, and, dreading what he might find, raised his eyes to his grandfather’s face. But he saw no sign there for several moments, not till Master Oldesworth had laid down Frank Pleydall’s letter, and then Hugh perceived there was something akin to pity in the old man’s eyes.

“Well, Hugh, and what would you know?” he asked.

“That man, Alan Gwyeth, is he—” Hugh felt and knew what the answer would be before Master Oldesworth spoke the words slowly: “Yes, Hugh, ’tis your father.”

CHAPTER II
HOW ONE SET OUT TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE

“You must have known at last, but I had not thought it would be so soon,” Master Oldesworth went on. “’Twas folly ever to have kept it from you.”

In a blind way Hugh had groped for a chair and sat down with his elbow on the table and his forehead pressing hard upon his hand. His face was toward the window and he was aware of the brightness flooding in through it, but he could see clearly only his grandfather’s thin, clean-shaven lips and searching eyes. “Tell me,” he found voice to say at last, “I want to know all. My father—he has been alive all these years? You knew?”

Master Oldesworth nodded.

“You deceived me?” Hugh’s voice rose shrill and uncontrollable. “You knew you were deceiving me? You had no right, ’twas wickedness, ’twas—”

“It was your mother’s wish.”

The burst of angry words was choked in Hugh’s throat; with a little shudder of the shoulders he dropped his head upon his folded arms. “Will you tell me wherefore, sir?” he asked in a dull tone.

“Because of the never-dying folly of woman,” Master Oldesworth replied, with a sudden fierce harshness of tone that made Hugh lift his head. He felt that, if the revelation of the letter had not made every other happening of that day commonplace, he would have been surprised at the sudden lack of control that made his grandfather’s sallow cheeks flush and his thin lips move. But in a moment Master Oldesworth was as calm of demeanor as before and his voice was quite colorless when he resumed: “Hear the truth at last, Hugh, and you, too, will have reason to curse the folly of womankind. She, your mother, my best-beloved daughter, was most wilful, even from a child. Though you have none of her look I have noted in you something of her rash temper. Her own impulse and desire must always be her guides, and well they guided her. For there came a swashbuckling captain of horse out of Germany, with a brisk tongue and an insolent bearing, for which that mad girl put all her love on him, worthless hackster though he was.”

“’Tis my father whom you speak of so?” Hugh cried, with an involuntary clinching of the hands.

“Your mother’s work again!” said Master Oldesworth with a flicker of a smile, that was half sad and half contemptuous. “She fled away from her father’s house to marry this swaggering rascal; she followed him into Germany; and there she found true all her kinsmen had told her of his worthlessness and wickedness. So she took her child and gladly came back to us again.”

“She never uttered word of this to me,” Hugh maintained doggedly.

“I urged her to,” Master Oldesworth continued, “but, with the weakness of her sex, before six months were out she had forgot his unworthiness and baseness. She remembered only that she loved him and she blamed herself that she had left him; indeed, she would have returned if she had been assured he would receive her back. But I forbade her hold communication with him while she dwelt beneath my roof, and he himself did not care to seek her out, though she long looked for him. When he did not come she was the more convinced the fault was hers, and, since she had robbed her son of his father, as she phrased it, she would at least give him a true and noble conception of that father to cherish. Perhaps she held it compensation for the wrong she thought she had worked Alan Gwyeth that she sketched him unto you a paragon of all virtues. And partly for that he was dead to her, and partly for that she would not have the shame of her flight, as she called her most happy deliverance, be known to you, she gave him out to you as dead. ’Twas ill done, but I suffered her to rule you as she would; I had ever a weak fondness for her.”

With a sudden jarring noise Hugh thrust back his chair and stumbling to the window stood so Master Oldesworth could not see his face. His poor mother, his poor mother! Because he knew in his heart she had done ill to him with her weak deceptions he loved her and pitied her all the more, and his eyes smarted with repressed tears that he could not see her nor tell her that it all mattered little, the agony this disillusionment was costing him; he knew she had meant it kindly and he thanked her for it.

He was still staring out between the elms at the sloping lawn, where, he remembered as if it had happened years back, he had played that very morning like a boy, when his grandfather’s dry tones reached him: “This man would seem to have roistered through life without thought of her. Of late I did not know myself whether he were dead or living, but it seems he is sailing on the high waves of royal favor and has found himself fitting comradeship among the profligates and traitors of King Charles’s camp.”

Hugh swept his hand across his eyes and faced about squarely. His father a profligate who had abandoned his mother! Who dared say it or believe it? His mother’s face as she had looked before she died came back to him. A true-hearted gentleman and a gallant soldier, like his father,—like his father.

“And you never suspected anything of the truth ere this?” Master Oldesworth pursued.

“Once, months back, Aunt Delia told me a story somewhat like this,” Hugh’s voice came low but so firm it surprised him, “but I held it only some of her spitefulness and I did not believe it.”

Master Oldesworth looked up with a curious expression. “Do you believe it now?” he asked.

“No,” Hugh answered honestly, then quickly added, “I crave your pardon, sir, but I cannot believe it.”

“Have back this letter of yours,” Master Oldesworth said, rising, and as Hugh came up to him he put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You have a loyal heart, Hugh Gwyeth,” he said dryly, “and ’tis no shame of yours you have such a father.”

“I am not ashamed of him, sir,” Hugh replied stoutly.

“You are your mother over again,” said the old man, in a tone that held something of vexation and something of amusement, yet more of kindliness than he was accustomed to show his orphan grandson.

Hugh was in no mood to note this, however, but, delaying only to take his precious letter, left the east parlor at a brisk step that verged upon a run. Once in the open air, where he was freed from the restraint of his grandfather’s presence, he leaped down the low terrace and, hallooing at the top of his lungs, raced full speed across the lawn. But when the shadow of the tall oaks on the border of the park fell upon him the noisiness of his joy somewhat abated. He rambled on more slowly with a happy under-consciousness of the dusky green of the old trees about him and the shimmer of the stray sunbeams; he wondered that the dull, familiar park seemed so joyous and beautiful a place.

Not till he had crossed the grassy roadway that led to the manor house, and plunged into the thicker growth of trees, did he come again to the power of framing connected thoughts. Little by little he let his pace slacken, till at length he flung himself down in the shade of a beech tree and pulling out Frank’s letter read the last sentences aloud. His father was alive, an officer in the king’s army, at Nottingham, only the width of two counties away. Hugh clasped his hands behind his head and lying back gazed up unwinkingly at the cloudless blue sky; in his heart there was no room for any feeling save that of pure happiness, of which the bright day seemed a mere reflection. For he neither remembered nor heeded the words his grandfather had spoken of Alan Gwyeth; he only knew that a few score miles away the tall man with reddish hair and blue eyes, who used to carry him upon his shoulder, was alive and waiting for him.

The resolve formed in these hours of reflection he told to Lois Campion, when, late in the afternoon, he crashed his way out to the edge of the park with the briskness of one who has made up his mind. The girl was playing at shuttlecock with Martha Oldesworth, but at sight of Hugh she quickly laid aside her battledoor and came to him where he was lingering for her beneath the oaks. “Where have you been?” she cried. “We missed you at dinner, and Peregrine, who was honey-tongued as ever, said you were sulking. But I knew ’twas some witchery in that letter.”

Hugh laughed excitedly. “Witchery? Ay, ’twas that indeed, Lois. Can you believe it? My father is alive, at the king’s camp; and I have determined to go to him.”

With that he made her sit down beside him and told her all, so confidently and happily she dared not venture more than one objection: “But ’tis a long way to Nottingham, Hugh.”

“I can walk it. Take no heed to the way, Lois, but think of the end.”

“When shall you go?” she asked, playing absently with some acorns she had gathered in her hand.

“To-morrow night.”

“So soon?” The acorns fell neglected to the ground.

“Nay, ’tis delaying over-long. I would set out this very night, but I suppose I should take some time for preparation.”

“And you must run from home by night?” she repeated sadly.

“Like Dick Whittington. I wonder if I have such good fortune as he.”

“How happy your father will be to see you!” Lois continued.

“’Twill be naught but happiness for us all,” Hugh ran on boisterously. “Ah, must you go, Lois?”

“I must finish my game with Martha,” the girl answered steadily. Hugh saw, however, that she did not go near Martha but walked away to the house, and he was vexed because she did not care enough about his departure to stay to talk with him.

It was well for Hugh the day was nearly spent, if his plans were to be kept secret; for he longed to speak of them, and, now Lois would not listen, there was no one in whom he could safely confide. Moreover, Sam Oldesworth was so curious about the letter that it was a perilously great temptation to hint to him just a little, especially when the two boys were preparing for bed. Since the Millingtons had come to Everscombe Sam and Hugh had been obliged to sleep together, an arrangement never acceptable to the older boy and this night even dangerous. Fortunately he realized his weakness enough to reply shortly to all his companion’s eager questions, however gladly he would have told something of his secret, till Sam at last grumbled himself to sleep. But Hugh turned on his side and for hours lay staring into the dark of the chamber, planning for his journey and sometimes wondering where he would be in the blackness of the next night.

In the morning, when he first woke and lay gazing at the familiar room, it gave him a feeling of surprisingly keen regret to tell himself that this was his last day at Everscombe. Perhaps it was the outward aspect of the day that made him feel so depressed, for a slow, drizzling rain was falling and the sky was thick with gray clouds.

All the morning Hugh avoided his cousins, and even Lois, against whom the resentment of the previous afternoon still lasted, and prowled restlessly about the house to pay farewell visits to the rooms that he had known. Thus his Aunt Delia found him, loitering upon the garret stairs, and sharply bade him go about his business, so Hugh, his sensitive dignity a-quiver, drew back to his chamber, where he pretended to choose equipments for his journey. In reality it was a simple matter; he would wear his stuff jacket and breeches,—he owned no other suit of clothes,—and his one pair of stout shoes. He did not trouble himself about clean linen, but he took pains to see that his pistol was in order; it was an old one that had belonged to Peregrine, before he received a case of new ones in keeping with his position as cornet in the Parliament’s army. Peregrine’s old riding boots had also fallen to Hugh’s share; they were a trifle too big and were ill patched, but there was something trooper-like about them that made him sorry when he realized that he could not take them with him. He reluctantly dropped them back into the wardrobe, and then, the sight of them reminding him he had yet to bid farewell to his friends the horses, he spattered out through the rain to the stables.

The stones of the stable yard were slippery and wet; at the trough in the centre three horses, with their coats steaming, were drinking, while the man at their heads, one of Tom Oldesworth’s newly levied troopers, joked noisily with a little knot of his comrades. Inside the big dark stable a great kicking and stamping of horses was rumblingly audible above the loud talk of the men at work. Hugh loitered into the confusion and, making his way through the main building, entered the quieter wing, where were the old family horses with whom he had acquaintance. But when he stepped through the connecting door he perceived that even here others were before him; standing with hands behind him and legs somewhat wide, as befitted a veteran horse-soldier, was Tom Oldesworth, a close-shaven, firm-mouthed man of thirty, in talk with his lieutenant, Roger Ingram. Near by stood Peregrine Oldesworth, a heavy-featured, dark lad, who was bearing his part in the conversation quite like a man. Whatever the matter was, they seemed too merry over it for any business of the troop, so Hugh thought it no harm to saunter over to them.

“Looking for a commission, eh, Hugh?” Tom Oldesworth broke off his talk to ask jestingly.

“Not under you, sir,” Hugh retorted, rather sharply.

Oldesworth laughed and patted his head. “Never mind, my Roundhead,” he said cheerfully, as Hugh ducked out of his reach, “your turn’ll come soon. No doubt Peregrine will get a ball through his brains ere the winter be over, and then I promise you his place.”

“Then you think the war will last till winter?” questioned Ingram.

“Till winter? I tell you, Roger, we’re happy if we have a satisfactory peace in the land two full years hence.”

“You’re out there, Captain. These gallants of the king’s will stand to fight here no better than they stood against the Scots. They’ll be beat to cover ere snow fall—”

“Pshaw!” replied Oldesworth, convincingly. “Look you here, Roger.” Thereupon the two fell to discussing the king’s resources and those of Parliament, and comparing the merits of commanders, and quoting the opinions of leaders, till Hugh tired of it all and strolled away.

He passed slowly down the line of stalls, caressing the soft muzzles of the kindly horses, and lingered a time to admire the big black charger that belonged to Captain Oldesworth. In the next stall stood a clean-limbed bay, which thrust out its head as if expecting notice; Hugh hesitated, then began stroking the velvety nose, when Peregrine swaggered up to him with a grand, “Don’t worry that horse of mine, Hugh.”

“I was not worrying him,” Hugh answered hotly. “But you can be sure I’ll never touch him again.” He turned and walked away toward the open door.

“Oh, you can touch him now and then,” Peregrine replied, as he followed after him out into the courtyard, where the rain had somewhat abated. “But he’s too brave a beast for you youngsters to be meddling with all the time. You’d spoil his temper.” Then, as Hugh still kept a sulky silence, his cousin asked abruptly, “What’s amiss with you to-day?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve not been friendly of late. I believe you are jealous that I have a commission.”

“I do not want your commission,” Hugh replied, and to show he spoke the truth he forced a laugh and tried to say carelessly, as he might have said a month before, “Tell you what I do want, though: a new flint for my pistol. Will you not give me one, Peregrine?”

“Are you going to shoot Cavaliers?” the elder boy asked, as he halted to fumble in his pockets.

“Maybe.”

Peregrine drew out three bits of flint, turned them in his hand, then gave the least perfect to Hugh. “I took it from my new pistol this morning,” he explained. “’Tis good enough for any service you’ll need of it.”

Hugh bit his lip, but with a muttered word of thanks took the flint.

“I was furbishing up my weapons this morning,” Peregrine went on. “We go on real service next week; we determined on it yesterday at the conference.”

“I thought Uncle Tom said the troop would not be in fit condition to serve for a fortnight.”

“Not all the troop. But Uncle Tom, and I, and Lieutenant Ingram, are to take some thirty men that are in trim and go into Staffordshire to see what can be done among the godly people thereabouts.”

“Good luck to you, Peregrine,” Hugh forced himself to say, then shook off his companion and, passing from the stable yard, trudged away through the wet grass, with the old jealous pang worrying him as savagely as ever. But soon he told himself that his father would probably give him a horse and good weapons too, and, being a colonel in the king’s army, would very likely let him go to the wars with him, perhaps even give him a commission; and, thinking still of his father, by the time he returned to the house he had quite forgotten Peregrine.

The rain had nearly ceased; there seemed even a prospect of a clear sunset, and with the lightening of the weather Hugh cast aside the heavy feeling of half-regretful parting which had weighed on him all day and grew impatient for darkness, when he could set out on his journey. But the night came slowly, as any other night, with a rift of watery sunset in the west and mottled yellow clouds, that fading gave place to the long, gray twilight, which deepened imperceptibly.

Hugh started early to his room, which was in the east wing, so he went by the staircase from the little hall. Halfway up, as he strode two steps at a time, he almost stumbled over a slight figure that caught at his arm. “Lois!” he cried.

The girl rose to her feet. “Why are you angry with me, Hugh?” she asked, and though he could not see her face he knew by her voice she was almost sobbing.

“Why did you run away from me yesterday?” he replied, feeling foolish and without excuse.

“No matter. I have forgot. But I wanted to have speech with you.”

“You waited here to bid me farewell? ’Twas good of you, Lois,” Hugh blurted out. “I am sorry I was so rough to you about yesterday.”

“Then we’ll part still friends?” Lois said eagerly. “And here is something you are to take with you.”

“Your five shillings?” Hugh broke out, as she pressed the coins into his hand. “Nay, Lois, I cannot.”

“You must; ’twill be a long journey, and you have little money, I know. And I shall never have need of such a hoard. Prithee, take it, Hugh, else I shall think you still are angry because I left you yesterday. But truly, ’twas only that I could not bear the thought of your going.” She was crying now in good earnest, and Hugh tried awkwardly to soothe her and whisper her some comfort: he wished she were a boy and could go with him, perhaps even now he could come back some time and fetch her; he never would forget what a good friend she had been to him; and much more he was saying, when Martha’s voice came from below in the dusk of the hall: “Lois.”

“I must go,” the girl whispered. “Farewell, Hugh.”

“Farewell, Lois.”

“God keep you, dear, always.”

He heard her go slowly down the stairs and wished she had stayed with him longer; he might have said more cheering things. Then he heard the footsteps of the two girls die away in the hall, and he went on to his room.

He had placed his pistol on a chair beneath his cloak and hat, and had just lain down in his undergarments and stockings beneath the coverings, when Sam came in full of conversation, which Hugh’s short replies quickly silenced. But after the boy had lain down Hugh remembered that this was the last night they would sleep together, and, repenting his shortness, he said gently: “Good night, Sam.”

“What’s wrong with you?” asked his cousin, which made Hugh feel foolish and answer curtly, “Nothing.”

Then there was a long silence in the dark chamber, till at length Sam was breathing deep and evenly. He was well asleep, Hugh assured himself, so, slipping quietly from the bed, he quickly drew on his outer clothes, put on cloak and hat, and tucked the pistol in his belt. He was just taking his shoes in his hand, when Sam stirred and asked drowsily: “What are you doing now?”

“I saw Martha’s battledoor out o’ doors,” Hugh mumbled. “I must fetch it or the dew will spoil it.”

Sam gave a sleepy sigh, then buried his head in the pillow again, and Hugh, waiting for no more, stole out of the room into the darkness of the corridor that was so thick it seemed tangible. He scuffed cautiously to the stairs and with his hand on the railing groped his way down. As he went he grew more accustomed to the blackness, and so, treading carefully, came without stumbling or noise to the outer door. He worked back the bolt, cautiously and slowly, and with a nervous start at each faint creak, till at last he could push the door open far enough to slip through. The grass felt cold beneath his stockinged feet; the night wind came damp and chilly against his face. With a shiver that was not all from cold he drew the door to, more quickly than he had thought, for the metal work jarred harshly.

With a feeling that the whole household must be aroused he ran noiselessly across the terrace, and, pausing only to draw on his shoes, struck briskly through the wet grass toward the park. At its outskirts he halted and, glancing back, took a last look at Everscombe, black and silent under the stars. Only in one window, that of his grandfather’s chamber in the main building, was a candle burning, and the thought of the habitable room in which it shone made the night seem darker and lonelier. Hugh looked quickly away, and calling up his resolution plunged in among the trees.

He had meant to go through to the highway by a footpath, but the woods were blacker than he had thought for; again and again he missed the track, till at last, finding himself on the beaten roadway from the manor house, he decided the quicker course was to follow it. He had covered perhaps half the distance and was trudging along with his head bent to look to his footsteps, when from the thicket just before him came a voice: “Stand, there!”

Hugh stopped where he was, half frightened for the instant, then half inclined to run, when an erect figure stepping from beneath a neighboring tree barred his path. By the long cloak and the staff on which the man leaned Hugh guessed it was his grandfather, even before Master Oldesworth spoke again: “So you are leaving us, Hugh Gwyeth?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugh replied defiantly.

“So I had judged. You are bound for the near park gate?”

Hugh nodded.

“You must bear with my company that far.”

So side by side they passed down the dark roadway, till presently the trees thinned and the starlight reached them. Then Hugh glanced up at his companion’s face but found it fixed in so stern an expression that he did not care to look again.

“You are going to your father?” Master Oldesworth queried after a time.

“Yes, sir,” Hugh replied. The defiance had gone from his tone now.

At length the dimly seen roadway ran between two huge dark pillars, half hidden by the trees; it was the park gate, Hugh saw, and beyond was the king’s highway. Involuntarily he slackened his pace, and his grandfather halted too, and stood by one of the pillars, resting both hands upon the top of his staff. “Then you have the grace to hesitate a moment,” the old man spoke, “before you leave those who have sheltered you?”

Hugh dared not trust his voice to reply, and after a moment Master Oldesworth continued slowly: “It is your mother over again. We reared her and cared for her, and she left us for Alan Gwyeth; and you—Have you not had a home here?”

“Yes, sir,” Hugh answered meekly. He knew well that the grievances which were so true when he told them to Lois would be nothing in his grandfather’s sight.

“And what has this father for whom you leave us done for you?” Master Oldesworth pursued. “You cannot answer? He broke your mother’s heart and deserted you—”

“He is my father,” Hugh replied.

“Go to him, then, as your mother did before you. But mark you this, Hugh Gwyeth: I received her back when Alan Gwyeth wearied of her, but I shall never receive you back. Go now, and you go for all time.”

“I shall never ask you to take me back.” Hugh tried to speak stoutly, but his voice faltered in an ignoble manner.

“Now consider well,” his grandfather continued. “When you pass the gate it will be to me as if you had never lived. Be not rash, Hugh,” he went on more gently. “Come back with me to the house; this folly of yours shall never be known, and I shall look to your welfare as I always have. But if you choose to go to that place of perdition, the king’s camp, and to that evil man, Alan Gwyeth, I forget you are my daughter’s son. Now make your choice between that man and me.”

CHAPTER III
THE ROAD TO NOTTINGHAM

Over in the marsh beyond the dim highway the frogs were piping their lonesome note; the shrilling call of autumnal insects sounded from the wayside; of a sudden the waste darkness reëchoed with solitary noises. All came clearly to Hugh’s ear in the hush that followed his grandfather’s words, and with them something that was akin to fright laid hold on him. Outside the park gate the world looked vast and black; he felt himself weak in his youthfulness, so even the butt of his pistol for which he groped did not strengthen his courage. He looked to his grandfather and involuntarily made a step toward him, but Master Oldesworth still stood with his hands upon the top of his staff and watched him but made no sign. With a stinging sense of rebuff Hugh drew back and held himself quiet, while he strove to think clearly and so make his resolution without prejudice. But all the time he felt that invisible hands were surely haling him back to Everscombe and with his whole will he struggled against them. “Will it be ended past question when I go out at the gateway?” he cried, almost before his thought had framed the words.

He did not even wait for an assent, but as he spoke stepped out beyond the pillars of the gate into the rough highway. There he faced about suddenly. “Grandfather,” he cried, “I—I am grateful for all you have done for me. Prithee, forgive me.” The words died away then, for he saw Master Oldesworth had turned and was walking slowly toward Everscombe, nor did he once look back.

For an instant it was borne in on Hugh to run after his grandfather, to implore pardon, to beg to be taken back and suffered to live the old dull life at the manor house; then the impulse left him and he was more ashamed of it than of his previous wavering. Still he lingered by the gate, straining his eyes into the dusk of the park till long after he had lost sight of Master Oldesworth. Once more he became aware of the sad piping of frogs in the marsh, and he listened stupidly, while heavier and heavier he felt the weight of loneliness press upon him. For he now realized that his decision had indeed been irrevocable; for all time he was cut off from his kinsfolk and his only home.

When at last he turned slowly from the gateway there was no hopefulness in his step nor did he lift his eyes from the ground, unless to glance up at the familiar trees of the park that he should not see again. But at length, through the branches before him, he beheld Charles’s Wain shining clear and the bright Pole Star that seemed to point him northward to the king and to his father. At that Hugh straightened his drooping shoulders resolutely and in good earnest set forth upon his journey.

The new moon had long been set, but the stars were bright and the way amid the trees was plain to follow. A pleasant freshness of the early fall was in the faint night breeze and yet a lurking chill, that made Hugh glad to draw his cloak closer and trudge on more briskly. It was not long after midnight when he reached the first cottage on the outskirts of the village of Kingsford; he had passed the cheery little timbered dwelling many a time, but now, muffled in the night, it seemed unfamiliar. As his feet crunched the gravel of the road before the cottage he heard the house dog bark within, and a sudden feeling of being shut out came over him. The dark houses, as he hurried by them, had the awesome blankness of sleeping faces; even in the woods he had not been so lonely as here in Kingsford, where human beings were within call.

But as he drew to the end of the straggling village he slackened his pace. The road, ascending slightly here, skirted the churchyard, where he could see the light streak that marked the pathway, and the huddled stones, blacker against the turf. For a moment he rested his arms upon the lich wall and stood gazing across the graves at the dense bulk of the little Norman church, with its side porch overshadowed by a dark yew tree and its square tower cleanly outlined against the starry sky. In the chancel of the church his mother lay buried. She would have approved what he was doing, he told himself; she would gladly have returned to Alan Gwyeth. With every fibre of his resolution newly braced he once more took up his march, down the gentle slope and across the one-arched bridge that spanned the river Arrow. There, with the sound of the hurrying water in his ears, he paused and took a final glance at the tower of Kingsford church, and as he passed on wondered vaguely if he should ever set eyes on it again, and when, and how.

Beyond Kingsford the road ran once more through woods with now and again a space of open land or a retired farmhouse. Hugh gave little heed to the country round him, however; he noted only that he had firm road beneath his feet, the cool morning wind in his face, and the stars overhead to light him. But the wind grew chilly and faint with approaching dawn; the stars paled; from far away across the cleared fields a cock crowed and another answered him. When Hugh entered the village next beyond Kingsford, the sky was fading to a dull leaden color and he shivered with the cold of breaking day. Already people were beginning to stir; he met laborers going afield and from roadside barns heard men shouting to cattle, and the bark of dogs. About the little inn there were some signs of life, so he entered and bought bread of a tousled-headed woman. Coming out of the house he saw the eastern sky was breaking into billows of pink, and a little later the cold yellow sun burst forth.

Hugh munched his bread as he tramped along, and the food and the daylight heartened him wonderfully. When the sun got higher he slung his cloak over one shoulder, whistled for company, and almost felt it in his heart to run when he came to an especially even bit of road. For he was his own man now, out in the world, with his pistol at his side, his five shillings and odd pence in his pocket, and his face set toward Nottingham.

Something before noon he trudged into the great town of Warwick and made his way to a tavern he knew from his school days. That time was now a good four months past, so he felt entitled to put a bit of swagger into his gait and rather hoped that in his new freedom he might meet with some of his former schoolfellows. But he kept a wary eye out for his old master, Doctor Masham, who, he suspected, might apprehend him on the spot for a runaway and pack him off to Everscombe; so he drew a breath of relief when he reached the tavern in safety. There he bought him sixpence worth of bread and meat, and, too hungry to give great heed to the varied company in which he found himself, spared expense by eating in the common room.

As his hunger abated he became aware of an exceeding stiffness in the muscles of his legs which made him almost wince when he rose again. He hobbled as far as the door, where a bench in the sun proved so tempting that he sat down to rest him just a moment before starting out. Not only did his legs ache but he found his eyelids heavy and his head dull, and he was possessed of a great desire to yawn and stretch himself. He finally lay down with his head on his arms and would have given himself up to thoughts of Nottingham, only an endless line of swaying trees and dark farmhouses kept sliding before his eyes.

The next thing he knew some one shook him, and he heard the voice of one of the drawers saying, “Now then, master, dost mean to pay us for the use o’ that bench?”

Hugh blinked his eyes open and sat up stiffly; one or two idlers stood gazing at him with amused faces, but for the rest the inn porch was deserted, and the sunlight had climbed above the windows of the second story. “Why, what’s the time?” he cried, broad awake as he perceived that.

“Mid-afternoon and long past,” said the drawer, whereat Hugh jumped to his feet and walked away, so vexed at his sluggishness that for the first half-mile he scarcely heeded the soreness of his legs.

After that his gait grew slower and more halting, but he set his teeth and pulled himself along, as if it were an enemy he held by the collar; he had made up his mind to sleep some six or eight miles out of Warwick at a hamlet that marked the furthest limit of his school rambles, and his plan should not be altered because he had foolishly slept away precious time. The sun set and left him toiling along the highway; the twilight darkened; and the crescent of the moon was riding low among the stars, when Hugh dragged his tired feet over the threshold of the inn for which he aimed. The house was about closing and there was little welcome for this belated traveller, but from sheer weariness the boy was past resenting uncivil usage. He ate thankfully what was given him, stumbled away to his chamber, and, almost before he had flung off his dusty clothes, was sound asleep.

When he woke the mid-morning sun was streaming through the window full in his face, but there was a sharpness in the air of the little chamber that made him pull the blankets up to his chin. The poor inn bed seemed far more comfortable than any he had slept upon at Everscombe; it took an inordinate amount of resolution to rise from it, and an equal courage to drag his shoes on to his swollen feet. But he had already lost the bracing early hours of the day and he must waste no more time in coddling himself, so he took the road at once, as briskly as his limbs would bear him.

Sore and stiff as he still was from yesterday’s long march, he made slow progress; it was close on midday when, passing through the town of Coventry, he entered upon the old Roman road, the Fosse, which he was to follow. The sight of the straight way stretching endlessly northeast discouraged him at first, but after a short rest he pulled himself together and, hobbling on, half forgot the pain in his heels in the exhilaration of going forward. It was new country he was now passing through, for he was no traveller; Everscombe to Warwick had been his usual round, save for that one trip into Worcestershire with Frank Pleydall. Since the last year, when Peregrine had been up to London with his father, Hugh had fretted at the narrow range of his journeyings and felt aggrieved at having made his German travels so young that he could cudgel up only scant recollections of them. But now Peregrine might go to London or Staffordshire or whither he pleased; Hugh felt no jealousy, for he knew it was far pleasanter to be an independent traveller, bound to Nottingham and a soldier father.

Thus, though he no longer had any wish to run, he contrived to jog along quite cheerily till mid-afternoon. Then the low-lying clouds darkened and a soft rain, striking chilly against Hugh’s face, made him glad to pull his cloak up to his eyes. The fields and cottages looked gray through the downpour, and then all he saw was the broad puddles of the roadway, as of necessity he bent his head against the storm. At each step he could hear the water oozing in his shoes, his stockings were clammy wet, and his hat brim flapped cold against his forehead; but as the afternoon waned he lost these single sensations, and only knew that from head to foot he was soaked and numb and weary. Still he plodded on, because he must hold out till he reached an inn, but it was at a heavy mechanical pace, while he counted the steps and wondered drearily if the march would never end.

Twilight was turning to night when he splashed at last into a considerable village and stumbled into the first inn to which he came. There was a brisk fire in the common room and but one other guest, so Hugh was free to slip into the chimney corner and dry his dripping clothes while he ate his supper. For civility’s sake he began talking to his companion, from whom he learned that he was now over the boundary and into Leicestershire. The knowledge gave him a childish homesick pang; Everscombe seemed to have fallen hopelessly far behind him and Nottingham was still distant the length of a county. With no further care to eat he thrust aside his trencher and dragged himself off to bed.

In his waking moments he heard the rain plashing softly on the thatch of the shed beneath his window, and with the morning light he found the sky still gray and the storm still beating down. He put out one hand to his coat, flung on the stool beside his pallet, and felt that it was not half dried from yesterday’s soaking. Then for a time he rested quiet again, while he wondered in half-shamed fashion if he might not lie by a day till the storm was over. But when he reckoned up his store of money, he saw he could not afford to lose so many hours; it was yet more than two days’ march to Nottingham, and he had not full three shillings to keep him on the way. He wondered at the speed with which money went, for he was new to ordering such matters; hitherto he had been sure of his three meals a day and bed at night, and looked upon stray sixpences as valuable only for the apples and tops into which they might be turned. He put that last recollection out of his head as speedily as possible, ashamed of his scarcely ended childhood, and, accepting the responsibilities of the manhood he had claimed for himself, got up and dragged on his damp clothes.

After breakfasting he wrapped his sodden cloak about him and plunged resolutely out into the rain. The heavy mud stayed him with clogging his shoes, but he was now somewhat seasoned for the march and managed to keep up a pace that, though not of the fastest, was steady. So he came at length through the afternoon drizzle to the town of Leicester, which he loyally told himself was not the half as fine as his own old Warwick. But none the less he made his lodging there that night, and he went to bed hopefully; for the western clouds were showing a faint yellow streak that promised better weather on the morrow.

Sure enough, when morning came the rain had ceased to fall, and though the air was still heavy with mist there seemed a prospect the sun might yet break through. Hugh took the highway in gay spirits, and plodding along at a stouter pace than on the day before congratulated himself on covering such a deal of ground. But by noon he came to a less flattering estimate of himself; for, talking with an idler at a small tavern he had entered to buy his dinner, he discovered he was now following the Fosse not to Nottingham but to Newark. Thereat Hugh faced about to retrace his steps, too vexed at his own stupidity to allow himself to stop for dinner. His informant called after him some direction about a cross-way to the Nottingham road, which he scarcely heeded at the moment; but afterward, when he was out of the village, he remembered, and striking across the fields came into a narrow road full of ruts and great puddles.

At first Hugh splashed along recklessly, but presently, when a streak of sunlight crept through the trees and turned the puddles bright, he let his pace slacken and little by little brought himself back to a more contented mood. After all, he could make up by steady walking what he had lost, and in any case Nottingham was now less than two days’ journey distant. He began whistling for content, then stopped, as a rustling in the bushes ahead caught his ear. He saw the branches crackle outward, and two men, bursting through, came swinging down the roadway to meet him.

Recovering from his first surprise, Hugh prepared to give them the usual traveller’s good day, but on second glance kept to his side of the road and walked more rapidly. One of the fellows was thick-set and well tanned, and chewed a straw as he trudged; the other, a younger man, clad like a field laborer, was taller and hulking, with a bearded, low-browed face. As they came abreast he bade Hugh a surly good even and on the word, almost before the boy could reply, gave a grip at his collar. Hugh dodged back and pulled out his pistol, while the thought flashed through his head that running was impossible in this mire,—and then it was not befitting his father’s son. Next instant the tall man sprang upon him and Hugh, thrusting the pistol into his face, pulled the trigger, then felt the weapon knocked out of his hand and found himself grappling with his big antagonist. The man’s fingers pressed into his throat, he knew; and he remembered afterward how a smooch of red flecked the fellow’s beard, as he dashed his fist against his mouth. Then he was griping the other about the neck, hammering up at that stained face, and he heard the fellow bawl, “Devil and all! Why don’t ’ee come in and help me, Jock?” Another gruff voice retorted, “If thou canst not handle a younker like that, thou deservest to have bloody teeth.” Then of a sudden Hugh found himself twisted over so he saw the sky above him all shot with black, and he felt a bursting pain in his forehead. Thrusting up his hands gropingly, he went down full length in the mud without strength enough in him to move, even when the tall man knelt over him and, with one hand on his throat, rifled his pockets.

“Here, have back your pistol, master,” he heard the gruff voice say, and he dimly saw the well tanned man, with a grin on his face, fling the pistol down in the mud beside him. Then the two walked off at their old swinging pace, and Hugh dragged himself up on his elbow and lay staring uncomprehendingly at his bleeding knuckles. After a time he got painfully to his feet and in mechanical fashion reckoned up the damages; they had taken his cloak and cleaned his pockets of money and of everything but the creased letter from Frank Pleydall and a loose bit of string. They had left him nothing but the torn and well-muddied clothes he wore and the pistol, that now was all befouled with mire. As Hugh picked it up all the hot anger of the actual conflict swept over him again, and with some wild idea of making the robbers restore their plunder he staggered a few steps down the road. Then strength failed him, and dropping down by the roadside he sat with his aching head in his hands. The world was a brutal place, he reflected with dumb resentment; even if a man had courage enough he did not always have the muscle to defend his own, not even with a pistol to back him.

It did not better matters to sit there and whimper so after a time he rose and, still rather dazed with his drubbing, went unsteadily on his way. At the first brook he halted to wash his wounded hands and cleanse the pistol, which he dried upon his coat as well as he could. The rest of the afternoon he marched slowly because of the dizziness in his head, and so the twilight had overtaken him before he reached the main road and a village that lay upon it.

Close by the wayside stood a tavern, where candles were lighted and food would be cooking, but Hugh only gave one wistful look and passed on. He made his supper of a drink of water from the public well, and, falling in speech there with some loiterers, he found he was now into the shire of Nottingham and not above ten miles from the town. His heart jumped at the news, but next moment he was telling himself he could not tramp those miles in the dark and he grew sober as he realized unwillingly that he must sleep in the open. Till mid-evening he lingered in the village street, then, drawing reluctantly away from the sight of the few candles that still shone in cottages, passed on to the outskirts of the hamlet. After a cautious reconnoissance he crept through a hedge into a field, where he had dimly made out in the darkness a stack of straw, in the lee of which he snuggled down. The straw rustled with startling loudness at his least movement, and the earth beneath him was so damp his teeth chattered in his head. The strangeness of the place kept him many moments awake, but he held his eyes shut that he might not have sight of the lowering sky. Little by little he forgot it all and fell to thinking of the last time he had lain in the open, when he and Sam Oldesworth had stolen out for a frolic to lie the night in Everscombe Park. How Sam would have marvelled at this nights doings! And Lois, only Lois would have pitied him, like a girl.

Then he knew there had been a long space in which Lois and all other remembrances left him, and he found himself shivering in the midst of wet straw with gray morning light all around him. He crawled to his feet and making his way to the highroad slowly set forth again. He was keenly hungry with his twenty-four hours of fasting and stiff with the dampness of his lodging, but he cheered himself with the thought that before night he would be in Nottingham. He would have enough to eat then, and a bed to sleep in, and decent clothes once more; but he put aside these creature comforts at the thought that he would see his father before he slept again. He wondered what his father would say, and he planned what he would tell him, and how he would make light of his long walk and the hunger and the cold.

His heart fairly jumped within him when at last, in the mid-afternoon, he saw from a hill a great congregation of houses and steeples, which he knew must be Nottingham. He started down the hill on the run, though his knees were smiting together with his long fast. He thought he could keep up the pace clear to the gates of the town, but a troublesome stone got into his shoe, so presently he had to pause and sit down under a hedge to look to it. As he was pulling on the shoe again a man passing by bade him good day, and Hugh, seeing there were houses within call, so he need not fear a second assault, entered into talk with him: “Yonder’s Nottingham, is it not?”

“O’ course,” answered the other, proportioning his courtesy to the state of Hugh’s jacket.

“How do you like having a king lie so near?” Hugh laughed for the sheer happiness that was in him.

“Ill enough,” growled the other, “wi’ his swaggering ruffians breaking our fields and kissing our wenches. Praise Heaven they be gone now.”

“Gone?” Hugh echoed blankly.

“Ay, his Majesty and the whole crew of his rakehelly followers went packing westward three days back.”

CHAPTER IV
TO HORSE AND AWAY

If Hugh Gwyeth had been a few years older he might perhaps have cursed his ill fortune; if he had been a few years younger he would assuredly have put his head down on his knees and wept; as it was, being neither man nor child, he blinked his eyelids rapidly and forced a weak grin, then asked: “There’s a road that runs west from Nottingham, is there not, friend? Perhaps then there is some cross-way from here by which I may reach it?”

The man delayed long enough to give full information about a path, a stile, a meadow, and an ancient right of way, which Hugh checked off mechanically. But after the man had passed on he still sat a time staring at the distant roofs of Nottingham and blinking fast.

At length he got to his feet and started down the hillside by the path the man had shown him, slowly, for all the spring had gone out of his gait now, and his knees felt weak and shook so that more than once he had to pause to rest. During such a halt a sickening fear seized him: suppose after all he should never reach his father? There was no danger of his dying of starvation yet, for he had had food as late as the previous morning; but what if strength failed him and he fell down in the fields or lonely woods and slowly perished there? That fear still staying with him, he made his night’s resting-place under a hedge, almost within hail of a farmhouse. He lay down early in the twilight, too exhausted to make the day’s march longer, but he could not sleep for very hunger. In the first hours of his waking the dim light in the distant farmhouse gave him company, but after that he had only the stars. He lay huddled in a heap for warmth and stared up into the sky at Charles’s Wain and the North Star, that were shining clear as on the night when he quitted Everscombe.

He lost sight of the stars at last, slept, and woke in white moonlight, then slept and woke again, and, finding the chilly dawn breaking, rose and plodded painfully out into the highway. The farmhouse in the gray morning did not bear out the hospitable promise of its candle of the night before; so, sick with hunger though he was, Hugh went by it without so much as asking for a drink of water. But a few rods farther on, when he caught sight of some apple trees, he crawled through the hedge and helped himself, then hurried away guiltily and tramped the next quarter mile so fearful of apprehension that he durst not taste the plunder. When he did so he found that the apples were half sour and hard, so he could scarcely swallow a mouthful, and that little sickened him. When he resumed his walk he felt dizzier and weaker even than before.

About eleven of the morning he passed through a small village, where he met people coming to their midday meal. He loitered along slowly and rested a time by a well in the centre of the place; it was in his mind to go boldly to some cottage and ask for food, but he could not decide which house looked least inhospitable. While he was still debating, the shameful realization of what he was doing came over him; he jumped up and, pulling his battered felt hat over his face, walked away with something of his old dignified step. But once outside the village his pace slackened, as he told himself unsparingly that begging befitted a gentleman far better than stealing, and he must now do one or the other.

It was several hours later that a third resource occurred to him: he might trade something for food, his pistol, perhaps. He examined it carefully and decided that, though it looked a trifle rusty, it might serve. In the expectation of getting food for it at the next town he labored on more hopefully, but the next village seemed never to come, for his knees were now fairly knocking together and his halts grew more frequent and prolonged. Once, when he had to cross a small stream, he found himself too unsure of foot to keep the stepping-stones, so he must splash into the water up to his knees. A branch sent his hat into the stream, and, without heart enough left even to struggle after it, he let it drift away.

The sun was nearly set when at last he came to scattered houses, which he judged must be on the outskirts of a considerable town. At the thought of food he stumbled forward more rapidly, with his pistol in his hand ready for the barter, but he saw no possible purchaser till he came to a small inn. There he found a knot of men gathered about a side door, so, after a moment’s hesitation, he ventured into the courtyard. Country fellows they proved to be, idling and smoking on the inn porch; one, who took the deference of his comrades as a matter of course, had the look of a small farmer; another seemed a smith; the rest were of the ordinary breed of tavern frequenters. Hugh paused by a horseblock, and, looking them over, found little encouragement in their appearance, yet he was trying to frame a proper greeting with which to go up to them, when a tapster bustled out on the porch and, getting sight of him, hailed him roughly, “Now then, what brings you here?”

Hugh hesitated over to the porch; he had forgot what he had meant to say and for a moment no words came to him; then, realizing it was now or never, he managed to stammer: “I have a pistol here. Maybe some one of you would—wish to buy it.” As he spoke he held out the pistol, but the farmer, the great man of the crew, shoved it aside and, pulling fiercely at his pipe, wheezed out something about vagabonds and the stocks. The blacksmith, however, took the pistol carelessly, turned it over, and laughed. “How many men hast killed wi’ this, sirrah?” he asked in a big voice, and passed the pistol to his neighbor, who grinned and offered a ha’penny for it.

Hugh gazed helplessly at the ring of mocking faces, then let his eyes drop to the ground, and with the blood tingling in his cheeks waited their pleasure. He would gladly have seized upon his pistol and flung away from them, but he felt too faint and hungry to walk a rod, and before he could get food he must make this sale. But at last, with slow sickening disappointment, he realized they had no notion of purchasing, but were making sport of him. “If you will not buy—” he blurted out with weak anger.

“What is going on here?” a pleasantly drawling voice struck in.

Turning sharply Hugh almost brushed against a man who had approached from the direction of the stables, a gentleman, by his dress and easy bearing. “Will you not suffer me to see, friends?” he drawled slowly, and reaching out his hand took the pistol from the man who held it.

Gazing up at him hopefully Hugh saw that the newcomer was not above two or three and twenty years of age, with long dark hair and a slight mustache, under which Hugh fancied he saw his mouth twitch as he looked the pistol over. Then the gentleman glanced up and showed a pair of humorous brown eyes, which, as he surveyed Hugh, suddenly grew grave. “Here, I’ve need of a pistol,” he said, and held out a piece of money.

It was a crown piece, Hugh saw, that would buy unlimited bread, and meat, too; but, as his fingers were closing over it, the remembrance of the twitch in the purchaser’s lips and the laugh in his eyes recurred to him, and of a sudden he understood that a pistol which thieves themselves would not deprive him of could not be worth even a ha’penny. He had no right to take money for it, he knew, and in his disappointment he grew angry at his own stupidity, and angry at the brown-haired gentleman for offering him charity, and angry at the other men who looked on and thought him a beggar and worse. “After all, I’ll not sell it,” he muttered sullenly. “Perhaps—’tis not in good condition.”

“Tis a serviceable weapon,” replied the other.

“It’s worthless,” Hugh maintained doggedly. “Give it back to me.”

“But I’ve taken a fancy to it.”

“Keep it, then,” Hugh retorted, fiercely, so his voice might not break, and elbowing his way through the group of men walked off. He could smell the food cooking inside the tavern, and hunger gnawed him so savagely that even the thought that he had refused charity and had not deceived any one into buying a worthless pistol could not keep a lump from gathering in his throat. His step wavered and he had to halt an instant to lean against the gate-post: out beyond the street looked lonely and chill in the misty twilight. Just then he heard the click of spurs upon the stones of the courtyard, and some one took him by the shoulder. Even before he heard the drawl he knew it was the young gentleman. “Look you here, sir, I cannot take your pistol as a gift.”

More than one rough speech came to Hugh’s lips, but he did not utter a word, only shook off the grasp on his shoulder and without looking up made a step forward. Then his knees seemed to give way, the ground suddenly came nearer, and, pride, resentment, and all, he pitched down on the stones at the gentleman’s feet.

The other bent over him quickly, and this time Hugh had neither strength nor will to shake him off. “What’s wrong with you, lad?” There was almost no drawl in the speakers voice, “Hurt? Tired? Hungry?”

Hugh nodded dumbly.

“Well, well! That’s easier remedied than a broken leg. Up with you, now.” Hugh found himself upon his feet again, and, with the young man’s hand beneath his elbow, stumbled obediently back across the courtyard and through the little group about the door, who made way for them. Within they turned up a staircase, and now he heard the man beside him asking: “You’ll not refuse to take supper with me, perchance? When gentlemen meet on the road—”

“You’ve no need to make it easy unto me,” Hugh gulped out brokenly. “If some one did not help me I doubt if I could tramp many days more, and—I’d liefer take help from you.”

Indeed, utter weariness and hunger had for the moment made an end of Hugh’s dignity as effectually as if he had cast it quite away at the inn gate. He suffered the stranger to lead him into a room and seat him in a big chair by the fire, where he drank what was given him and swallowed down some mutton broth, sparingly, at first, as he was told. He troubled himself neither to think nor to speak, but he noted that the dark inn chamber seemed like home, the fire felt warm, and the candles twinkled dazzlingly. He found, too, that the brown-haired gentleman had a kind, elder-brotherly way with him, and that in private life he dispensed with his drawl, though his voice lost none of its pleasant tone.

“Well, you feel almost your own man again now, do you not?” his host queried at last.

Hugh essayed a smile in reply.

“Wait an hour or so and, if soft answers still have power with tavern women, we’ll have a good supper then,—I take it you’ll be ready for it. And now it seems time for ceremonious introductions. My name is Richard Strangwayes.”

“And my name is Hugh Gwyeth. My father is Colonel Alan Gwyeth of the king’s army.” Hugh spoke slowly as if he liked to linger over the words; it was the first time he had ever claimed his father.

“And you are bound for the king’s camp?” asked Strangwayes, sitting down on the opposite side of the fireplace.

Hugh explained very briefly that he had left home to join his father and had had a hard march, to which Strangwayes listened with sympathetic eyes, though when he took up the conversation again his tone was light. “We are headed for the same place, then, Master Gwyeth, for I am wearing out my horse to reach his Majesty’s army. I am going to join my uncle, Sir William Pleydall—”

Hugh felt he could have hugged the man, he seemed suddenly to have come so very near. “Why, I know Sir William,” he cried, “I was at school with his son. I’ve a letter from him here.” Pulling out Frank’s worn letter he passed it to Strangwayes, who stared at him an instant, then hastily scanned the sheet. When he handed it back Hugh noted a change in his manner; he had been kind before with the kindness of one stranger to another, but now he seemed to have taken to himself a permanent right to befriend Hugh. He came across the hearth and shook hands with the boy. “I’m right glad we chanced to meet, Hugh,” he said warmly. “We’ll journey the rest of the way together. Oh, yes, I can procure you a horse.”

Hugh ventured some weak objection, rather shamefacedly, for he knew he hoped Strangwayes would thrust it aside, and he felt only satisfaction when the young man did so. “Leave you to come on alone? Folly! I only lend you the horse; your father will settle the matter with me. I’ll charge him Jew’s interest, if ’twill content you. Do you think I mean to leave my cousin Frank’s comrade to fray out his clothes and his body along the road?”

Afterwards, when they were eating supper together and the maid who served them had quitted the room, Strangwayes suddenly looked up and asked quizzically, “You are well assured there is no Spanish blood in you?”

Hugh was quite sure; why had Master Strangwayes asked? What were Spaniards like, anyway? Strangwayes drawled on disjointedly for a quarter of an hour, while his eyes laughed in a provoking way: Spaniards were fierce fighters, and their women were pretty, and they liked gold, and they were proud as the devil, and they were very cruel, and they had a deal of dignity, and they grew oranges in their country. “Dream it out to-night, Hugh,” he advised, as they rose from the table; but Hugh disobeyed flagrantly, for the instant he was laid in a Christian bed once more he was sound asleep.

He woke in broad daylight, and, having assured himself that the bed was real, so Richard Strangwayes could not have been a dream, dozed contentedly again, and woke with a start to rise and dress with the unsettled feeling of one who has slept long enough to lose count of time. When he went downstairs he judged by the sunlight that flooded the courtyard that it must be near noon, and his guess was verified by the tapster, who was vastly more respectful than he had been on the preceding evening. Those loitering about the courtyard, too, eyed him curiously but no longer mocked him. The only relic of last night’s dismal scene which he found was a rusted pistol that lay near the post of the outer gate. After a hasty glance about to make sure none were looking, Hugh snatched it up and, hiding it beneath his coat, sauntered nonchalantly out of the courtyard. Just across the road was a sluggish muddy ditch, and into this he dropped the pistol that had once been Peregrine Oldesworth’s. Even as he did so he felt a quick pang of regret, for he realized he had trusted in the worthless weapon as he never could trust again in the truest sword or the surest musket.

A bit saddened and a bit shamed at such a feeling, he retraced his steps to the gateway, where he came face to face with Strangwayes, very martial indeed with his big hat and riding-boots, who trotted up on a long-legged white horse. By the bridle he led a despondent-looking gray, which halted with the greatest readiness, as Strangwayes reined in his own steed and addressed Hugh: “What do you think of this high-tempered charger? Unless appearances are arrant liars, he is the prettiest bit of horse-flesh within two league of here. His Majesty,—Heaven bless him and requite it to his followers!—has carried away every well-seeming thing that goes o’ four legs. Here, sirrah hostler, give the beasts a bite. We’ll do the like service to ourselves, Hugh, and then the word is, ‘To horse and away.’”

“I am ready,” Hugh answered. “But I fear I have made you to lose time—”

“Time spent in horse-dealing is never lost,” Strangwayes replied sententiously; “especially when the rascal who owns the horse has likewise a winsome daughter. Now come to dinner.”

It was during this meal that a new care burdened Hugh. Now that he was no longer half starved and near desperate he had time to take heed to minor matters, and he was keenly aware of the holes in his stockings and the rents in his breeches and jacket. It seemed Strangwayes had guessed something of his thought, for, as they rose from the table, he spoke out with a half embarrassment: “Look you here, Hugh, I meant—to lend you money to get you fresh clothes, but, faith, the gray there cost a penny more than I thought, and, as we’ve no wish to starve again, methinks you must be content to let your new coat ride away on his back.”

“’Tis no great matter,” Hugh forced himself to say. “If you be willing to take the road with such a vagrant-looking fellow as I.”

Strangwayes suggested, however, that they do what they could, so the tapster was bribed and the chambermaid cajoled, till out of the inn stores Hugh was furnished with a cap and a pair of boothose, and a good part of the hedge mud was brushed off the rest of his apparel. So when at last he rode out from the inn on the gray horse Hugh felt himself a very passable Cavalier, for his covered head greatly increased his self-respect, and the boothose in most hypocritical fashion concealed the torn stockings. But had he been quite out at elbow he felt he would have shone in the borrowed light of Strangwayes’ completeness, and would have been content with that or anything he might owe to his new friend.

That night they slept within the borders of Staffordshire, and, sparing their horses, took the road late next morning beneath a lowering sky. They were headed for Shrewsbury, Hugh learned, whither the king was marching by a northern road; they would keep to the south, however, in the hope of speedily overtaking a scouting party led by one Butler, an old friend of Strangwayes, whom the reports of tavern-keepers placed less than four and twenty hours ahead of them. If the horses held out, they doubtless would come up with him in the course of a twelvemonth, Strangwayes announced dolorously, after a morning spent in flogging his beast along the heavy road. It was impossible to mend the pace, so they forgot it at last in talk, for after his days of non-intercourse Hugh was but too happy to tell some one his thoughts and plans; and he felt Strangwayes was as safe a confessor as a man could have. So he related his early life, much in detail, and the intimate reasons of his present quest, and all he knew of his father. At that Strangwayes’ dark eyebrows went up amazingly and came down in a twist above his nose. “Name of Heaven!” he ejaculated, turning in his saddle to face Hugh, “do you mean to tell me you are tracing over the kingdom after a father who has not set eyes on you for twelve years? What think you the man will say to you or do with you?”

Hugh paused blankly, assailed with sudden queer doubts, as Strangwayes thus harked back to his grandfather’s hints. But next instant the older man laughed off his surprise and plunged headlong into a tale that soon ended Hugh’s discomfort. “Confidence for confidence, Hugh. Would you hear something of myself? If they ever put me in a chap-book they can say I was the unhappy third son of a worthy knight of Lincolnshire. They put me to school at a tender age,—pass over that; no doubt you can guess what it means. No, I did not run from school; mine has been a sober and industrious life, fit for all youth to take instruction by. When I was sixteen I betook myself to Oxford, for my father was too loyal a gentleman to trust even so poor a piece of goods as a third son among the Puritans of Cambridge. There at Oxford I improved my hours to best advantage and learned to play famously at bowls, and would have become a past master at tennis, had not the Scots war broke out. Sir William Pleydall procured me a lieutenancy—”

“And you have been to war once already?” asked Hugh, suffering the gray to slacken the pace to his natural amble. “Tell me of your battles, I pray you, Master Strangwayes.”

“If you’ll clip my title to Dick,” replied the other. “It sounds more natural. Truth to tell, I was in but one battle, Hugh, and that was the fierce and bloodless battle of Wilterswick, here in this same pleasant Staffordshire. You remember, doubtless, when the king went against the Scots, how loath our excellent yokels were to follow after. Rank Puritans, the most of the levies were, and worked off their warlike energies pulling down communion rails and hunting parsons out of their parishes. We had a choice lot of such spirits in our troop, and, to put a leaven to the whole lump, the captain was an Irishman, ergo, a Catholic. A proper black fellow he was, Dennis Butler; the same one at whose mess-table we may chance to sit to-morrow night. This Butler and I took ourselves to rest one wet night at Wilterswick, and, faith, we waked to the hunt’s up of a big stone crashing in at our casement and found our trusty followers crowding the street before the inn, clamoring to hang the captain for a Papist. At their head was a venomous, two-legged viper, Constant-In-Business Emry,—he was rightly named,—a starveling of a fellow,—I’d swear he began life a tailor. Butler had rated him a day or two before, so he was in earnest, and, truth, the rest of them looked it. So Denny Butler, being a gentleman of resources, gathered himself into his clothes and left by the rear door.”

“And you?” Hugh cried out, “I hold your captain went like a coward.”

“Nay, nay, we’d agreed to it; I knew they’d not hurt me. So I slipped on my shirt and breeches, and went down to speak unto them. They threw stones and other things, and roared somewhat, but at last I made myself heard; then I talked to them like a preacher and a father, and tripped up Constant-In-Business Emry on a theological point, and demonstrated that I was a good Church of England man, like all my ancestors before me. By that they were tolerably subdued, so I called for a Book of Common Prayers and read them morning service, then down we all knelt in the mud of the courtyard and I prayed over them. You never know how hard you can pray till you’re put to it. By that Butler was well away, so I went back to my chamber and finished dressing. I ruined a serviceable pair of velvet breeches kneeling in that mud, and the lesson of that is to go rough clad when you go to war. And that was the end of my military glory, for the king struck a truce with the Scots, I lost my commission, and, as I would have no more of the university, my father packed me off to London to take chambers in the Middle Temple. He held the Puritans should not have a monopoly of lawyers, ‘fight the devil with his own weapons,’ as ’twere. But I confess the only court I followed was the king’s court and I learned far more of dancing and sonneteering than of the precepts of worthy Sir Edward Coke. Then my father,—Heaven rest him!—died, and left me an annuity. I have no liking for annuities; they encourage a man in the sordid practice of living within his means. I sold mine out of hand, and, with a droll streak of prudence, as rare as strange, committed a round sum to Sir William Pleydall to hold in trust for me, then set out with the rest to see the world. I went to the Low Countries and served a time as a gentleman volunteer, and then to France, where I learned some handy tricks at fencing.”

“You’re a great swordsman?” Hugh queried with bated breath. “Did you ever fight a duel?”

“On my honor, yes,” the other replied with a smile. “No earlier than last April I crossed swords with a certain Vicomte de Saint Ambroix. The manner of it? Do you think of challenging any one, Master Hugh? Why, monsieur the vicomte chose to speak some scurvy untruths of Englishwomen in my company, so I did but go up to him and strike him across the mouth, saying, ‘Monsieur, I do myself the honor of telling you that you lie in your throat.’ Which was a great waste of words. But we fought and he was hurt somewhat in the shoulder. No, I have no scars, but I got then a piteous gaping wound in a crimson satin doublet of mine, which has never healed, as flesh and blood heals in time. That was the last adventure, fortunately, for here comes what shall abridge my story.” Strangwayes pointed before him where the dusky roofs of a straggling village showed among the wet trees.

“But how came you home, Dick?” Hugh coaxed.

“Simply told. I heard there was work for men of enterprise, and I judged my loyal uncle would have turned my pounds and shillings into troopers and muskets, and would gladly give me a commission in exchange. So I spent what surplus money I had,—’tis the surest way to cheat thieves,—and took ship for King’s Lynn. I paid a swift visit to my elder brother in Lincolnshire; he is for the Parliament,—Heaven and my father’s spirit forgive him! So I mounted and faced me westward to the king, and here I am now, and here we are.”

The two horses clinked across the cobbles of the courtyard of the village inn, a hostler ran up officiously, and the host himself came puffing out to greet the guests. “Well, friend, what news on the road?” cried Strangwayes, swinging out of his saddle. “Has a troop of Cavaliers passed through here?”

The host gazed from one to the other, then up at the sky, then back at the travellers. “Be you king’s men?” he finally asked, with mild curiosity.

“Sure, I trust we all be honest people,” Strangwayes answered dryly.

“Well, well, that may be as it may be; I say naught; only ’tis good hap for you, you lie in a snug haven to-night.”

“Why, what mean you? Are there hobgoblins farther on?” Strangwayes’ voice dropped to a ridiculous quaver that made Hugh smile.

“Worse nor hobgoblins, master,” replied the host. “Have ye not heard, then? They do say a stout band of Puritan rogues are plundering the country, yonder toward the west of us.”

CHAPTER V
IN AND OUT OF THE “GOLDEN RAM”

Though the dawn of another day had broken, slate-colored clouds still hid the sun and a mist like a fine rain hung in the air; even the white horse and the gray, standing saddled and ready in the inn yard, touched noses as if they vowed the weather bad. Hugh slapped their flanks and settled their damp manes, while he waited for Strangwayes to pay the reckoning to the mildly curious host, but the process proved so long that at last he mounted into the saddle and ambled slowly out into the highway. Turning the gray horse’s nose to the west he paced forward, with his heart a-jump at the thought that yonder in the mist before him real danger that tested men’s courage might be lurking.

A gay clatter of hoofs on the uneven roadway made him turn just as Strangwayes came abreast of him. At once Hugh blurted out what was uppermost in his thoughts: “Do you think, Dick, the host spoke true? Are there enemies before us? What think you?”

“I think there be two whose words are not to be over-trusted: a woman when she will have a boon of you, and a tavern-keeper when he will have you to tarry in his lodgings.”

“Then you believe the host’s talk of Roundheads—”

“Mere words to frighten children. It troubles me not the half as much as his showing me just now that Butler must have borne more northward. Well, let the Irish rogue go hang! We’ll push on as we are and reach Shrewsbury,—some day.—Come up, you crows’ meat!” This to the white horse, whose nose was at its knees.

“To-day will be but as yesterday, then, without any danger?” asked Hugh, a thought relieved, yet with room for a feeling of grievous disappointment at being cheated of his looked-for adventure.

Strangwayes’ telltale eyes laughed immoderately, though he kept his mouth grave: “You’ll have all the adventures you need, after you reach the king’s army. Still, as I have an honest liking for you, mayhap, if you’re a good lad, I’ll find you one ere we come thither.”

Then they fell to speaking of all they would do, when once they were enrolled among his Majesty’s followers, and, what with talking and urging on their laggard horses, they kept themselves employed till past noon. “We’ll bait here,” Strangwayes announced, as rounding a curve they got sight of a tiny hamlet half concealed beneath a hill. “Then we’ll make a long stage this afternoon and sleep the night well within the borders of Shropshire.”

At that cheering thought they put the horses to their best pace and clattered through the village street quite gallantly, though there were none to admire them, save a flock of geese, and a foolish-looking girl, who seemed the whole population of the little place. Thus they came to the farther end of the hamlet, where, a bit retired from the neighboring cottages, stood a shabby inn, before which hung a sign-board bearing a faded yellow sheep. “Golden Ram!” Strangwayes translated it. “Mutton would suit me as well!”

They rattled into the little inn yard, ducking down in their saddles to save their heads from the bar across the low gateway, and drew rein just in time to avoid riding down a flurried serving-maid. Strangwayes almost fell out of his saddle, so promptly he dismounted to reassure her. “You’re not harmed, my lass?” he asked anxiously, slipping one arm about her as if he expected her to faint, though, from her fine fresh color, that did not seem likely. Hugh had already seen something of his friend’s civilities to barmaids, so he kept to his saddle and felt rather foolish, when suddenly the host, a scrawny man with a lantern face, appeared in the doorway. At sight of him Strangwayes, in his turn, looked a bit foolish, and stepping away from the maid began briskly, “Well, friend, what can you give us to dinner?” There he paused dumfounded, and stared, then cried out: “Heaven keep us! If it be not my constant friend Emry, as busy as ever! Verily, ’tis a true saying that the Lord will not see the righteous forsaken.”

“Lieutenant Strangwayes was always a merry gentleman,” Constant-In-Business Emry replied, with a rather dubious countenance.

“Tut, tut! You’re all mistaken, my man. I abominate merriment as much as I do ale. Which calls it to my mind I am uncommon dry and thirsty. Jump down, Hugh. We’ll have experience of a Puritan tavern.”

“Ay, men must eat,” sighed Emry. “Though my calling may smack of the carnal taint, yet ’tis not all ungodly, since—”

“Don’t trouble yourself for that,” Strangwayes replied. “Faith, I never thought to surprise you in so honest a calling.”

With that he led the way into the inn, where he and Hugh dined together in an upper chamber. The food was none of the best, Hugh privately thought, but Strangwayes praised it mightily to the maid who served them, the same they had encountered in the courtyard. She was a stepdaughter of Emry, who had married her mother, the now deceased hostess of the “Golden Ram,” so she told Strangwayes, and added much more touching Emry, who seemed the same old Puritan malcontent of Wilterswick. Soon the talk turned from him to gayer matters, for the girl was fresh-faced and black-eyed, so Strangwayes gave more heed to her than to his meat and drink. Hugh, feeling more foolish and out of place than ever, choked down his food quickly, then left the room, and, as he closed the door, heard a suppressed squeak: “Don’t ’ee, sir. An thou kiss me again I’ll scream.”

Hugh stamped downstairs and stood glowering out into the courtyard, where the mist was now dribbling down in a slow rain. He watched the grayish streaks it made across the black openings of the sheds opposite the inn porch, and athwart the gaping door of the stable at his right. A wretched chilly day it was, and—why need Dick Strangwayes play the fool because a wench had red cheeks? When he heard his friend’s step he did not even turn his head, and then Strangwayes came up alongside him, and clapping one arm about his shoulders said in a low tone, “Jealous of a tavern maid, or I’ll hang myself!” Then he walked off laughing and disappeared into the stable.