THE END OF THE JOURNEY
For perhaps an hour the black and the bay crashed at a fierce pace
across the dark countryside. Hugh had afterwards a confused remembrance
of thickets where he must bend his head to escape the swishing boughs,
of a ford where the water flew high as the girths, of a cluster of
cottages, black and silent in the night. Cleared land and highway sped
by him hazily, but always he had the mist in his face, faint hoof-notes
that ever grew fainter behind him, and just before him the black horse
with the piteously slouching figure in the saddle. Once and again Hugh
had cried out to him: How grievously was he hurt? Could not he stay to
look to it? Each time the terse reply had come: “’Tis nothing. Ride on.”
But the pursuing horses were at last no longer audible; moment after
moment passed, and still no sound reached them but the echo of their own
gallop. Slowly the black’s pace sobered to a trot, and Hugh rode up knee
to knee with his friend. “Dick, ’tis not mortal? Tell me,” he entreated.
“‘Not as wide as the church door,’ as saith the gentleman in the play,”
Strangwayes replied, but for all his gay tone Hugh caught in his voice a
strained note that frightened him; “a mere pistol wound. That knave in
the window gave’t me. Why did you not shoot him down?”
“’Twas my uncle,” Hugh replied.
“A sweet family you belong to, then,” Strangwayes muttered.
“I would it had been me he shot. If he has killed you—” Hugh gulped out.
“Nonsense!” Strangwayes answered testily. “Ride on, and trouble me with
no more such talk.”
For another long space they rode in silence, Strangwayes with his head
sunk on his chest and his left arm motionless. Hugh pressed close to
him, lest he fall from his saddle, but he did not venture to trouble him
with further speech. Thus the breaking day came upon them, as they
trotted through a bit of wet woodland, and Hugh at last could see his
comrade’s white face, that looked gray in the uncertain light, and
thought to make out a dark splotch upon the back of his coat. At the
farther verge of the wood, where a small brook, flowing across the road,
broadened into a pool on the right, Strangwayes reined in his horse with
two or three one-handed jerks at the bridle. “You’ll have to try your
’prentice hand at surgery,” he said, as Hugh sprang down from the bay;
“adventures do often entail such postscripts.”
“Do not make a jest of it,” Hugh answered chokedly, and putting his arm
about Strangwayes helped him to climb from the saddle and to seat
himself on the brink of the pool. He still kept his arm about his
friend, and now, feeling something damp against his sleeve, he looked
closer and found the back of Strangwayes’ coat was all wet and warm.
“’Tis here you’re wounded?” he cried.
“Yes, in the back,” the other replied, with a half-suppressed groan. “A
brave place for a gentleman to take his first hurt! Draw my coat off,
gently. Now take my knife and rip off my shirt. ’Twill serve for
bandages.”
Somehow Hugh mastered the nervous trembling in his fingers sufficiently
to cut away the shirt, upon which the broad stain of red showed with
sickening clearness. Beneath, Strangwayes’ back was slimy with blood,
and the dark drops were oozing from a jagged wound in the fleshy part of
the left shoulder. Strangwayes, who was sitting with his full weight
thrown upon his right arm, never uttered sound nor winced, but Hugh sank
down on his knees, and for a moment felt too faint to do more than
support his friend with his arm.
“‘O dinna ye see the red heart’s blood
Run trickling down my knee,’”
Strangwayes half hummed, and turned his head to look at Hugh. His brows
were puckered with pain, but there was the ghost of a smile on his lips
as he drawled, “Why, Hughie, man, methinks I be the one to feel sick,
not you.”
Thereat Hugh set his teeth, and, shamed into strength by the other’s
courage, dipped half the cut shirt into the brook and washed the wound,
tenderly as he was able, then made shift to bandage it, as Strangwayes
directed. “Well, I’m still wearing a shirt,” the latter said, as Hugh
carefully helped him into his coat, “but ’tis not in the usual way. You
must fasten my coat up to my chin, Hugh, and pray none note my lack of
linen, nor the bullet-hole in the back. What a place to be wounded!”
The rim of the sun was just showing above the eastern trees when they
started to horse once more. Strangwayes, leaning heavily on Hugh,
managed to climb into his saddle, and then he let his hand rest a moment
on the boy’s shoulder, while he looked down at him. “So you are troubled
for me?” he asked dryly.
“More than I would be for any man, unless ’twere my father.”
“You’re a brave lad, Hugh,” Strangwayes said irrelevantly. “I would fain
hug you, if I would not topple out of my saddle if I tried. I thank
Heaven ’twas not you got hurt by my fool’s trick last night.” Then he
put his horse slowly forward, so Hugh mounted the bay and came after.
They went at a gentler pace now, by the highway or by short cuts through
the fields, for Strangwayes knew this country well, he explained, from
his old experience in the king’s army. He kept a little in advance, one
hand on the bridle rein, the other arm limp, and his whole body stooping
a trifle forward. Hugh realized with a helpless pang that his friend was
suffering, he dared not think how much, nor how it might end, yet he was
powerless to aid him. Once, when they rode through a village where the
people were astir about their morning business, he begged Strangwayes to
stop and have his wound looked to, at least have drink to strengthen
him. But the other shook his head, then spoke with pauses between
phrases: “They’d not succor me for love, Hugh; we are not strong enough
to force them; and for the rest, I’ve not a shilling to soften them.”
“How?”
“What I had was none too much to give that maid for the saving of our
liberty, perchance our lives. At least, I rate my life thus high.”
“And that I could be angry with you for such a matter as fooling with
her!” Hugh broke out penitently.
“’Tis for a man’s advantage to be friendly with all women,” Strangwayes
answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “Had I sulked in her presence, like
some haughty gentlemen I know of, we’d be tramping the road to a rebel
prison now, Hugh. That knave Emry! I contrived to reach him a crack on
the head with the butt of my pistol as I rode out, he’ll remember some
days.”
But after that one burst of everyday speech Strangwayes lapsed again
into silence, with so slack a hold on the reins that Hugh, coming close
alongside, ventured now and then to put hand to the bit and guide the
black horse. Lines of pain were deepening in the wounded man’s brows and
about his white lips, and once, as they descended a steep pitch
abruptly, he only half stifled a groan.
So when they reached the next village Hugh took matters into his own
hands by pulling up both horses before a wayside tavern. “What’s to do?”
Strangwayes asked listlessly.
“I am going to get you drink,” Hugh answered, and jumping down from his
horse entered the tavern and made for the common room. There he found a
surly tapster, and, trying hard to be civil and yet not abject, begged:
“Can you give me a glass of aqua vitæ? I’ve a wounded friend here—”
To which the tapster simply responded: “Pack!”
Hugh gave back a step or two, and then, with the feeling that
Strangwayes might be dying and he must do something, however desperate,
pulled out his pistol. “I must have that aqua vitæ,” he said quietly.
“Either you give it me or I go fetch it. Make up your mind.”
Instead the tapster drew away to the door, bawling for assistance till
he roused up another man and a maid and the hostess herself. Hugh, with
his back to the wall and the pistol in his hand, felt unjustified and
ashamed, but, the thought of Strangwayes nerving him, repeated his
request to the hostess. She fell to rating him shrilly for a bullying
swashbuckler to frighten a poor woman so, and, as the men would not
check her and Hugh could not use his pistol for argument here, she was
like to keep it up some time. Happily the maid, who had peered out at
the window, broke in with a glowing account of the fine horses and the
poor wounded gentleman, whereat the landlady, after boxing the wench’s
ears for gaping out of doors, bounced over to the casement. The sight of
Dick Strangwayes or of the horses must have softened her, for after an
instant’s gazing she began to rate the tapster and bade him fetch what
the young gentleman required.
When Hugh came out triumphant with the glass of spirits he found the
rest of the inn people gathered about the horses, and the hostess very
pressingly urging Strangwayes to light and rest at her house. She was
but too glad to help a gentleman fallen on misfortune, she explained,
especially when the gentleman served the king, bless him! His Majesty
and all his men had passed through there and some of them had lain in
her house only the night before.
“Then we’ll soon be up with your friends, Dick,” Hugh urged, trying to
speak cheerfully.
Strangwayes just nodded, then drank the hostess’s health in the aqua
vitæ, and with a flicker of energy bade Hugh get to his saddle. As they
left the little knot of staring people behind them, he turned his face
toward Hugh and, forcing his drawn lips into a smile, asked: “You raided
those inn folk? You’re learning bravely, my Spanish Puritan.”
Then he became silent and suffered the gallant pace at which he had set
out to slacken. The black showed a tendency to veer from one side of the
road to the other, till at last, not above two miles from the tavern,
Strangwayes dropped the bridle rein into Hugh’s ready hand. “You must
lead the horse a bit,” he said wearily. “I’ll rest me.”
Of those last miles Hugh kept only blurred recollections, among which
the dazzle of sunlight upon the firm road beneath the horses’ feet, the
sight of men laboring in tilled fields, and the smell of moist woods,
recurred vaguely. Through all the shifting changes of the wayside
Strangwayes, as he sat bowing over the pommel of his saddle with his
pallid face hidden on his breast, was alone a living reality.
The long piece of woodland ended at last, and across the fields the
roofs of a village came in sight. To the left horses grazing in a meadow
whickered to the passing chargers, and then the riders trotted slowly in
among the houses. There was a smith’s shop, Hugh remembered, about which
lounged men in great boots and buff jackets, and before the village inn
were more in the same attire. Hugh reined up there, scarcely knowing
what he purposed, but before he could dismount a young man with long
light brown hair, who wore a scarlet sash across his jacket, advanced
from the inn door. “King’s men?” the stranger asked. “Why, what has
befallen here?”
Strangwayes raised his chin a trifle, then his head sank again. “Who
commands?” he asked faintly.
“Captain Dennis Butler.”
“Tell him, Richard Strangwayes seeks him. He—” There the voice trailed
off inaudibly.
Hugh leaned a little from his saddle and got his arm about his friend.
Men were hurrying forward curiously, but of a sudden they drew aside to
make way for a thick-set officer with a black beard, who came striding
through their midst. “On my soul, ’tis Dicky Strangwayes!” he cried,
halting at the injured man’s stirrup. “Gad, but you’re come in good
time! We can give you a bottle of Burgundy to crack or a rebel throat to
cut—”
“Ah, Captain, if you’ll give me a bed, I ask nothing else of you,”
Strangwayes gasped out, and pitched forward, half into Butler’s arms.
They had him off the horse and two of the troopers carried him into the
house, so speedily that Hugh got only a glimpse of his friend’s
deathlike face. He jumped down, intent on following, but the youngish
officer with the light hair, paying him no heed, walked away and left
him to the curious troopers. They asked him many questions touching
Strangwayes and how he had been hurt, which Hugh, with eyes on the door
by which his comrade had disappeared, could only answer disjointedly.
Presently a man came out and, saying that Guidon Allestree had so
ordered it, led the black and the bay off to be groomed and fed. Still
unbidden Hugh followed into the stable yard, where, sitting down on the
shaft of a cart, he stared at the inn till he knew every angle of its
timbered roof. He realized vaguely that men passed him by, and one
group, loafing near at hand in the shelter of a shed, he heard talking
loudly together. Once, when they were complaining of the lack of liquor
at this tavern, he was aware that one grumbled, “No wonder; Gwyeth’s men
lay here yesternight.”
Even that seemed not to be personal to Hugh, and he still sat staring at
the blank inn windows, while he wondered to what room they had carried
Strangwayes. At last he could endure the suspense no longer, but taking
his courage in his hand walked into the house, where, halfway up the
stairs, he met the light-haired man. “I pray you, may I not see Master
Strangwayes?” Hugh blurted out his business at once.
“The surgeon has forbidden it. They have but just cut out the bullet,
and he is too weak to be worried.”
“Is there—much danger?” Hugh faltered.
“Nay, very little. A mere ugly flesh wound, but he has lost much blood
and is near exhausted.—Come, come, don’t give way like that, boy,” the
young man added, as a sob of sheer relief escaped Hugh. “Your master’ll
be sound enough in a couple of weeks.”
Hugh looked up with his face aflame; because his clothes were ragged was
no reason that the young officer should take him for a horse-boy. “Will
you be so good as tell Dick I am glad he is recovered?” he said slowly.
“And give him back his pistol here, and tell him since he is in the
hands of friends I have gone about my own affairs.”
So saying he went down the stairs and, without a single glance at the
light-haired officer, passed out into the courtyard. He would not hang
about the place a moment longer, he vowed, but then he reproached
himself for deserting Strangwayes and had half a mind to go back, when
by chance he caught sight of the same group of loungers he remembered
had spoken of Colonel Gwyeth. On the impulse he went to them and,
questioning them, learned that not only had Colonel Alan Gwyeth been
that very morning at the inn, but he was now not above eight miles
distant at Shrewsbury.
At that Hugh faced about and took the highway for the great town. It was
not deserting Dick Strangwayes now, he told himself, for his father
would doubtless let him have a horse and ride back next day to see his
friend, and in any case he must go forward, lest his father be off to
some other part of the country. So during the sunny last hours of the
afternoon he hurried along, scarcely observing the villages through
which he passed nor the men on foot or horseback whom he met or
overtook, in the eager hope at each turn of the road that he would come
upon Shrewsbury steeples. He hardly felt sleepy from last night’s long
watch, nor stiff with his rough ride, just eager and happy. When he
thought of Strangwayes it was only to be thankful that his hurt had not
proved mortal, and to be glad that the skirmish at the “Golden Ram” had
happened. For now he could go to his father, not a raw schoolboy, but a
young gentleman who had been under fire; he was just a bit sorry he had
not himself been wounded.
But when at length he saw the last horizontal rays of the sun upon the
clustered roofs of Shrewsbury, his happy mood seemed to end. It was all
too good to be true; once before he had thought himself almost in his
fathers arms and he had been deceived. He hardly dared ask a countryman
if the king were lodging in the town yonder, and, finding it true, could
not walk forward fast enough, lest before he came up his Majesty should
move away.
Walk fast as he would, twilight was deepening when he entered the town,
but hordes of people—gaping country folk, sober burghers, swaggering
troopers, gayly dressed gentlemen—made the dusky streets lively as by
day. Among them all Hugh forced a path, jostled and pushed, and pushing
in his turn. He began inquiring of those he met if Colonel Alan Gwyeth
lodged in the town, and some had not heard the name, and some knew such
an officer was with the king but knew not where he lay. At last he
chanced upon a foot soldier who directed him for Alan Gwyeth’s lodgings
to the west gate of the town. Thither Hugh tramped to search the
neighborhood for the house and get cursed for disturbing people, but
still he persisted in his search, though there would creep in upon him a
hopeless feeling that it had all been delusion from the first and he
never would find his father.
In the end he got a direction that took him out a quarter-mile beyond
the west gate to an old timbered house that sat close upon the road;
knocking and making his usual inquiry of a curt servant, he found that
Colonel Alan Gwyeth lodged there. Almost unable to believe it, Hugh
repeated the words blankly after the servant, then stood staring at him
without speaking till the door was nearly shut in his face. He stayed it
with one hand, while he asked to see the colonel.
“He is hence with other gentlemen this evening; I know not when he will
return,” was the short reply before the door was closed in good earnest.
Hugh still stood on the steps, trying to comprehend that it was all
true; in a few hours his father, the tall reddish-haired man, would be
walking up to that very door. He would see him, at last. He went slowly
down to the road, and then paused; if he walked away his father might
come, for the evening was already half spent. He decided it would be
better to wait there, so he went up the steps again and sat down.
At first he had no lack of company; horsemen went swinging by, and
groups of men, some staidly, some boisterously with shouts and songs,
passed in the road below him. Hugh listened with ears alert and as each
dark form drew near asked himself if that might be the one. Gradually as
the evening wore on passers-by became less frequent and Hugh wearied of
starting at each new step. He became aware, too, that he was stiff with
sitting in one position and the night was cold enough to make his
clothes of small protection. He looked up at the sharp stars and counted
them and picked out those he knew. Then he changed his position once
more, and fell to thinking how good a hot meal would taste; he had not
eaten food since the supper of the night before. And he was tired, too;
he leaned his head against the railing of the stairs, and, just closing
his eyes, saw the trees and fields of the night ride go by, and saw
Strangwayes’ white face, and saw the face of the tall man who used to
carry him on his shoulder.
A great noise of talking made him rouse up, wondering dazedly if he had
slept. Somebody was shouting out a drinking song, and others, with
voices crisp in the chilly air, were disputing together. A torch seemed
to glare in his very face, and a man, the first of several stumbling up
the steps, nearly fell over him, and swore at him, then dragged him to
his feet with a rough, “What are you doing here, sirrah?”
Rubbing the dazzle of the light out of his eyes, Hugh saw five or six
men about him on the steps, two with torches, who seemed mere troopers,
and the others finely dressed. “Is—Colonel Gwyeth here?” he faltered,
with a half hope that the meeting might be deferred a bit longer.
“Here, Alan, this gentleman has commands for you,” some one called, and
laughed.
At that another man came briskly up from the street and, shoving the
others aside, pushed under the light of the torches. A man of short
forty years, and but little above middle height, Hugh perceived, in a
velvet suit with a plumed hat and a cloak wrapped up to his chin.
Beneath the torchlight his long hair and close-trimmed beard seemed the
color of gold, and he had blue eyes that looked angry and his face was
flushed. “What’s to do here?” he asked curtly, and a trick of the tone
set Hugh’s memory struggling for something that had long been past.
“What do you want of me, you knave?”
Hugh looked up at the flushed, impatient face, and, stammering to find
words, wished it were all over and these men gone, and he were alone
with this stranger; then he hesitated desperately, “Colonel Gwyeth, if
it like you, I am your son.”
Somebody laughed foolishly, and another began, “’Tis a wise child—” but
Alan Gwyeth looked Hugh over and then, turning on his heel with a curt
“The devil you are!” walked through the open door into the house. The
others tramped noisily after him; some one gave Hugh a hasty shove that
sent him pitching to the foot of the steps, and as he recovered himself
he heard the house-door slammed.