THE INTERPOSITION OF JOHN RIDYDALE
It shamed Hugh afterward to remember how overwhelmingly, at that first
dim prospect of relief, the realization of his friendlessness and
degradation came over him, till not even sufficient spirit was left in
him to make his usual evasions. “Yes, I am Hugh Gwyeth,” he answered
simply; “I am the colonel’s son.”
Then he felt the sharp sting of twigs across his face, as he pressed his
head upon his folded arms against the yielding hedge, and his breath
came stranglingly for a great lump that had gathered in his throat and
was near choking him. Ridydale was patting him on the shoulder, he knew,
and he heard him say: “Come, come, master, don’t go play the woman now.
’Tis all well, I tell you.”
At that Hugh lifted his head from his arms. “Did my father send you to
seek me?” he asked, eagerly, as the griping feeling in his throat would
let him.
Ridydale hesitated a moment. “I’ll wager he’ll be glad enough that I
have found you, sir,” he said at length. “For now, get you over to the
cottage where the light shows yonder and bide till I come.”
“But Saxon’s horse,”—Hugh’s long drill in stable duty made him protest.
“Hang the horse and Bob Saxon, too!” growled Ridydale, with an expletive
or so. “A pretty trade for your father’s son to turn a hand to!”
Still muttering, he strode back to the stable, while Hugh obediently
made his way, by the hedge-gap and the well-trodden path, to the
farthest of the cluster of cottages that quartered the troop. By virtue
of his coming from Corporal Ridydale he was suffered to enter the
low-studded living room and sit down on a stool in the chimney corner.
It was a poor smoky room, but with the fire and candle it was warmer and
brighter than the stable, and there was a home-likeness about the
children sprawling on the hearth, the woman cooking pottage at the fire,
even about her stolid peasant husband, that made Hugh content to sit in
a kind of open-eyed drowse and watch them. In these hours of negative
comfort the whole burden of responsibility seemed slipped from him, and
he neither thought nor vexed himself with anticipation, only waited for
Ridydale.
All save the cottager’s wife had packed to bed in the loft before the
corporal returned. Hugh heard him outside, rating some unknown trooper
with bullying volubility, and then he came in, grumbling about the
mismanagement of Hardwyn, who in his absence had got the men out of all
conceit of obedience. By the time they sat down to supper he had almost
calmed himself, however, and was kindly spoken to the woman who attended
them and brusquely civil to Hugh, who after his vagabond period felt ill
at ease, even at so poor a board. Ridydale noted all that, and
apparently he had made inquiries too, for when they were left alone at
table he spoke out, half angrily and half sorrowfully, “So you’ve been
drudging in the stables ever since that night, sir?”
“There was nothing else to do,” Hugh answered, and took another piece of
bread, with a comfortable sense that he could have all he wanted.
“’Twas hard to think at first it could be the colonel’s son,” Ridydale
went on, “though I was on the watch for you. I heard of that blockhead
Rodes,—he who bore the colonel’s torch that night—how you came unto him.
Rodes told it for a jest the colonel’s comrades would put upon him, but
I that had been with him nigh twenty years, I had a shrewd doubt there
might be some truth lay at the bottom of it. So I took it on myself to
make search, so soon as we returned to Shrewsbury. Lord save me, sir,
when I used to see you, there where we were in Lower Saxony, such a
well-favored little rascal, I never thought to come upon you currying
horses for your father’s men.”
“You were in Germany?” Hugh asked.
“Where the colonel has been I have been, these twenty years. I went as
his man when he first crossed to the Low Countries—a proper young
soldier he was! Then I was back with him in Warwickshire, seventeen
years agone; it seems longer.”
“Then—you knew my mother?” Hugh asked, pushing aside his trencher.
“Ay, Mistress Ruth Oldesworth, and a gallant-spirited young gentlewoman
she was. To leave her knave kinsfolk so, for love o’ the colonel! And
she was that kind spoken to all of us that followed him. Faith, a man
could nigh forgive her, even for deserting the colonel so.” Hugh broke
out.
Hugh rumpled the hair back from his forehead, while he strove to grasp
the significance of this new information. He realized that these last
weeks there had been in his heart an unphrased feeling that his father
was cruel, and his mother must have suffered much, just as he was
suffering. Once he had held both parents something nobler than human
creatures; and latterly his mother had seemed more than ever a saint,
and his father an utter wretch; but now, what was he to think? Ridydale
spoke presently. Hugh replied, and snuffed the candle with his fingers a
moment, then broke out: Ridydale thoughtfully eyed the fire smouldering
on the hearth, and tousled his beard with one hand.he began at length.
“They were both very young and high-tempered, and he would have his
pleasure. He was stubborn, though I grudge to say it of him, and she was
not over-patient. There was words betwixt them, and that same day our
troop was sent foraying southward and he did not even take leave of her.
But he faced the troop about ere the sennight were over and brought us
home at a gallop. And when he came to quarters she had taken you and
gone for England. He never said word of it, even to me, save, ‘She might
ha’ left me the lad; he was as much mine as hers.’”
“Then—he did have some care for me once?” Hugh asked; he was keeping his
face turned toward the fire, away from his companion.
Hugh smiled at the fire, rather tremulously; it was dawning upon him
that Ridydale, for all his formal respect and kindness, was disappointed
that he did not bear out the promises of his babyhood, and he had a
doleful feeling that in the same way Colonel Gwyeth, too, would always
be disappointed in him. Ridydale began again, “and joined ourselves unto
King Gustavus. For the colonel would not make a start to follow his
lady; perhaps ’twas stubbornness, but he had no word of her since she
quitted Germany, and he was too proud to go a-begging to her, so we just
stayed on in the Swedish army. Once—’twas the year we fought at
Wolfenbüttel—there came a gentleman volunteer from England with tidings
out of Warwickshire, and so we learned that she was dead.”
Hugh blinked at the fire and made no answer. Ridydale mused aloud. Then,
as Hugh still kept silent, Ridydale suggested they get to bed, and led
the way up the steep ladder to the loft. There were two pallets in
Ridydale’s rough chamber, and Hugh wondered impersonally, as he lay down
on one, what trooper the corporal had violently dispossessed of his
quarters to make room for him. At the foot of the pallet, in the sloping
roof, was a small window, through which Hugh found, after the candle was
out, he could see five bright stars and a patch of purple-black sky. He
lay staring at the stars and saw no meaning in them, for thinking busily
to himself and trying to comprehend that his parents had been neither
all good nor utterly depraved, but just frail everyday human creatures,
whom he must love and bear with for their humanness.
Next morning he awoke of his own accord, without being kicked, and,
finding the room empty and a sunbeam coming through the little window,
rose up and went briskly below stairs. Late though he was, the woman
gave him all the breakfast he wanted, and then force of habit took him
over to the stable.Saxon greeted him, and the other men merely pestered
him with questions but gave him no blows.
With a feeling that it was not yet time to proclaim his identity to all,
Hugh answered evasively, and then, because it was irksome to be idle, he
watered one of the horses, and, as Unger had bidden him the day before,
began patching up a headstall. He was sitting on a keg, fumbling with a
refractory buckle, when Ridydale bore down upon him with a fierce,
Arguing that if he were still a stable-boy Ridydale had the right to
command him, and if he were a gentleman Ridydale’s friendliness had
given him the right to make requests, Hugh laid aside the headstall and
went meekly back to the cottage, where till dinner time he lounged
ingloriously on the doorstone. After the noon meal Ridydale, very sullen
and wrathful, beckoned him outside and rated him, respectfully but
severely. “’Tis not becoming a gentleman like you to fetch and carry for
those dogs of troopers,” he explained. It was so ludicrously like the
view of what befitted a gentleman which up to a fortnight ago he himself
had held that Hugh could not help smiling. “Methinks ’tis not what a
gentleman does but how he does it makes the disgrace,” he said.
Ridydale shook his head and looked dubious, then, coming apparently to a
better temper, changed the subject by offering to lend Hugh money with
which to buy fresh clothes. “The colonel will be here to-night,” he
concluded, “and I’ve a plan to wait a good-natured moment and tell him
of you. I’m thinking he’ll ask to see you, and you should not come
before him in such rags as these.”
But Hugh had had enough of borrowing on the chance of Colonel Gwyeth’s
making repayment, and he refused the loan; if the colonel chose to
provide for him, he reasoned to himself, he need wear his rags but few
hours longer; and if the colonel rebuffed him again he would liefer have
rags than whole clothes and a debt to so short-pursed a man as a
corporal of carabineers. Ridydale fairly let slip his self-control at
the boy’s obstinate refusal. “If ’twere not for your red hair and your
trick of setting your lips together, I’d doubt if you were a Gwyeth,” he
broke out at last, and marched away to the stables in some temper.
Whereat Hugh felt angry, then grew thoughtful, and, reflecting that the
man, for all his arbitrary ways, had treated him with real kindness,
wondered if he might not have somewhat tempered his refusal. So, when he
next saw Ridydale, at supper, he tried to talk him into good humor by
questioning him of his father, which much mollified the corporal, and
then of the troop, and finally of the progress of the war. It seemed
Colonel Gwyeth’s force had shared with Sir William Pleydall’s troop some
brisk skirmishing about Worcester; Hugh wondered if Frank had had the
good fortune to be present, and sought to get news of the Pleydalls from
Ridydale, who, when he learned Hugh had acquaintance with such
gentlemen, looked a trifle more favorably upon him. The boy was sorely
tempted to tell him the story of Dick Strangwayes and the skirmish at
the “Golden Ram,” but, after all, that was a kind of self-glorification
that would become Bob Saxon better than Hugh Gwyeth. So he held his
peace, and was thankful that he had got Ridydale into a mood where, if
he still esteemed him rather a weak-spirited fellow, he did not utterly
despise him.
But early as next morning it was Hugh’s ill luck to destroy whatever
good impression he had made. Having risen late, he had fetched a bucket
of water up to the chamber, and, stripped to the waist, was bathing
himself with much splashing, when Ridydale unexpectedly came in. “The
colonel has granted to speak with me ere noon,” the corporal announced
his business at once, “so you shall speedily—” There he paused, looking
sharply at Hugh, who stood sidewise toward him, then strode over to the
boy. “How got you those fresh scars on your back?” he demanded.
“No matter,” answered Hugh, facing hastily toward the speaker.
Ridydale took him unceremoniously by the shoulders, and turned him
round. “’Twas done with a whip!” he burst out. “What means this? Have
you been flogged?”
“Yes,” Hugh replied. “Now have the goodness to take your hands off me.”
“Was it done here at the stables?” Ridydale persisted. “Answer me,
master.”
“Do you look for me to turn tale-bearer?” Hugh retorted.
“I look to cut some combs for this,” Ridydale stormed. “Though you lack
in spirit you bear your father’s name, and for that they that misuse you
shall answer—”
“I pray you, let it all go,” Hugh interrupted. “I have suffered no
harm—”
Ridydale stamped his foot down on the floor. “Harm, quotha! Why, you
might be a brat out of the kennel for all the shame you take from it.
Tell me, what can befall a man of gentle birth that’s worse harm than to
be banged by a pack of knaves?”
Hugh busied himself in pulling on his shirt, and made no reply.
“Well, ’tis time the colonel took you in hand,” Ridydale blustered. “You
need to be taught what befits a gentleman.”
Then he went noisily out of the room, and Hugh heard him clatter down
the ladder from the loft. Looking out at the little window he saw
Ridydale head for the stables, and he hoped the man might not make
inquiries there or bring any one into disgrace for what had befallen.
Then, as he turned back to finish dressing, a new alarm seized Hugh:
what if the corporal, in his irritation, should refrain from speaking
for him to Colonel Gwyeth? But next moment he had quite accepted the
thought; indeed, he seemed all along to have half suspected some
miscarriage would destroy his faint hope of the last few hours. It would
only be of a piece with all that happened to him since he set out from
Everscombe.
So, on the whole, he was surprised when about an hour later the
cottager’s wife knocked at his door with the news that a trooper was
below, come to take him before the colonel. No, he was not excited, Hugh
told himself, for he cared not what the issue might be; he had twice
gone so eagerly to meet his father, and each time been so bitterly
disappointed, that now, whatever good fortune might be before him, it
could awake in him no fresh anticipation. Yet, for all that, he came
down the ladder rather briskly, and, when he found himself actually
setting forth to Colonel Gwyeth’s quarters, felt a thrill of something
like apprehension.
The bit of walk up the byway and along the main road to the great house,
the back of which Hugh knew so well from his stable days, ended all too
soon. Still repeating to himself that he did not care, he was not
frightened, Hugh followed the trooper through the doorway; and then the
door had closed, he was left alone in a dim back room, and suddenly he
realized that in sober truth he was near to trembling with nervous
dread. He was afraid of that flushed, red-haired man who had publicly
rejected him; he was afraid of his roughness and more afraid of his
tenderness, and if it had not been for shame at running away so
ignominiously he would have bolted out of the house. Since that was not
to be thought of he sat down on the window-seat and studied the dead
leaves and withered flower-stalks of a strip of garden outside. Then he
looked about the room and counted the oak panels in the walls and the
diamond panes in the windows, but after all his eyes strayed to the door
opposite, by which his guide had left him, and he found himself
listening to the subdued hum of men’s voices that sounded within. Once a
single voice rose choked and impatient, and immediately after feet
scurried down the passage outside the entrance door. Getting up, Hugh
tried hard to stare out at the window, but soon found himself facing the
door and listening. All within was quiet now; indeed, there was not a
sound nor a warning when at length the door was flung open and Ridydale
himself beckoned him to come in. “Don’t be afeard, sir,” he said under
his breath as Hugh passed him, and even in the midst of his own
agitation Hugh noted that the corporal’s face was anxious and his manner
subdued.
“No prompting, Corporal Ridydale,” interrupted a stern voice that Hugh
remembered. “Come hither, sirrah.”
Hugh halted where he was, a few paces from the door, and looked toward
the fireplace. Before the hearth Colonel Gwyeth was standing with his
hands behind him; the set of his lips could not be judged because of his
thick beard, but his brows were contracted so his eyes looked black
beneath them. “So this is my son,” he began more quietly.
Hugh bowed his head without speaking; for the moment he dared not trust
his voice.
“Come, come, hold up your head, man,” the colonel broke out impatiently;
and then, with a visible effort to maintain his quieter tone, “Why have
you not come to me ere this?”
“I did not court a second rejection, sir,” Hugh answered, with a steady
voice, though his hands were crushing his cap into a little wad.
“There was no need of a first rejection, as you call it. You could have
spared us both all this shame had you chosen a proper time and place to
seek me.”
“I had come some miles and I was eager to see you,” Hugh answered
slowly.
“Had they used you ill at Everscombe that you ran away?” the colonel
broke in.
“N-no, sir,” Hugh must admit in simple justice. “My grandfather always
used me rather kindly.”
“Gilbert Oldesworth?” Colonel Gwyeth turned impatiently from the
fireplace. “’Twas of him, I doubt not, you had your good Roundhead
doctrine.”
“I—do not understand, sir.”
“The doctrine of giving your cheek unto the smiter. That cut on your
face, now, was that, too, given you by one of my grooms?”
Hugh felt the blood sting in his cheeks; he looked at his father but
made no answer.
“Perchance, sir—” Ridydale ventured in a subdued voice.
“Be quiet, John.—I have heard the whole history of your last fortnight,
Hugh Gwyeth, your honorable associates, your gentle bearing, all you
have done to uphold the credit of your house.”
“On my soul, sir, you do the lad wrong,” Ridydale struck in rashly.
“Though his way be not your way, he is but young and—”
“Hold your tongue, John Ridydale!” the colonel cried, banging his fist
down on the table beside him. “And for you, sirrah Hugh, if you have
aught to say for yourself, say it out now.”
“I know not why I should defend myself, sir.” Now they would hark to him
at last, Hugh was amazed to find how hot and thick his words came. “I
know not what I have done shameful, unless it becomes a gentleman better
to starve than to work for his bread.”
“You have only done this much, that you have bitterly disappointed me,”
Colonel Gwyeth answered sharply. “For my gallant young gentleman I had
thought on, those crop-eared kinsmen of mine have sent me a snivelling
young Roundhead—”
“For my hair, that is not my fault,” Hugh blurted out, “and for
snivelling, you have no right to put that word to me. You may ask any
one—”
Colonel Gwyeth swept back one arm with an impatient movement that sent
some loose papers from the table crackling to the floor. “Can you not
understand now what you have done?” he cried. “When you ran away from
your school you looked for me to make a soldier of you, did you not?
Tell me now, how can I set over my troopers a fellow their whips have
lashed?”
For the moment Hugh found no words; the full significance of his
father’s speech, the totally new view of his weeks of discipline,
dismayed him beyond reply. With it all came a feeling that he was
bitterly sorry that the matter had gone amiss; in time he might have
come to like the red-haired man, who was disappointed in him, and the
red-haired man might have come to like him. Even yet it was possible he
might win the colonel’s favor, if he could show his mettle, if he were
only given a chance! Then he heard Ridydale venture, “An’t like you,
sir—”
“Enough, Jack,” the colonel replied, with a poor assumption of a casual
tone. “I want you now to take Master Hugh here and get him fitting
clothes and a steady horse. By to-morrow night I shall have procured a
pass—”
“What mean you to do with me?” Hugh cried out, making a step toward his
father.
“I am going to despatch you back to your kinsfolk at Everscombe.”
There was an instant of silence; then, “You hold me so mean-spirited a
fellow that you will not keep me with you?” Hugh asked slowly.
“Your ways suit your Puritan kindred better than they suit me,” Gwyeth
answered, fumbling among the papers on the table. “’Tis too late now for
me to mend what they have marred. So I shall furnish you with a horse
and clothes—”
“I did not come out of Warwickshire to beg a new coat and a nag of you.”
As he spoke, Hugh half turned away to the door and he perceived now that
Ridydale was violently signing to him to be quiet and stay where he was.
He did not heed, but, stepping to the door, laid his hand on the latch.
“And I shall not go back to Everscombe, sir,” he finished his speech
deliberately.
“Tut, tut! You are too old for such childishness,” answered the colonel,
with exasperating contempt.
“I will not go to Everscombe,” Hugh repeated.
“Do you turn saucy, you young crop-head?” replied Colonel Gwyeth,
letting slip his assumption of calmness. “You will do as I bid you.”
“You have no right to say ‘do this’ unto me,” Hugh flung back. “And I
want nothing of you,—nothing that you have offered me. I had rather get
my head broke in a troop stable twenty times over. But I’ll leave your
stable. And I’ll never trouble you more, sir, with coming unto you,
unless you choose to send for me again.” All this he said fast, but
without raising his voice, and throughout he kept his eyes fixed on the
colonel, who stood with his clinched hand resting on the table, and a
black look on his face. But Hugh gave him no time to answer, just said,
“Good morrow, sir,” with much dignity, set his cap on his head, and
walked out of the room. He took great pains to close the door carefully
behind him.
Once outside upon the highway, he became aware that his face was burning
hot and every fibre of his body seemed braced as for actual battle.
Heading blindly toward Shrewsbury he tramped along fiercely, while he
went over and over the incidents of the last half-hour. If any man but
his own father had dared speak so contemptuously and so untruly of him!
No, if it had been another than his father, it would not have mattered.
But that Colonel Gwyeth, of all men, should hold him such a miserable
fellow, and give him no chance to prove himself better!
Just then he heard behind him Ridydale’s voice: “Master Hugh! Stay a
moment, sir.” The corporal had plainly run from the house, but, so soon
as Hugh halted, he sobered his pace and came up at a more dignified
gait. “On my soul, sir, I meant not to put all awry,” he broke out at
once.
“Did you bear the tale of that flogging unto him?” Hugh asked hotly.
“Ay. But not as you think, sir, on my honor.” Ridydale strode at Hugh’s
side while he poured out the story: “I had taken me to the stables and
dragged the truth from the knaves there. Well, I’ll settle that score
with Jeff Hardwyn. I was hot with it all when I came to the colonel, and
he bespeaks me very careless and cool, if ’twas his son indeed, belike
in time, and so on. I might ha’ known ’twas but the way of him and he
would yet make it right, but I blurted out he’d best move quickly for
his son’s sake, not leave him to be buffeted by every cullion in his
stables. Well, he got the whole story of me then, sir, and off he goes
into one of his fine Gwyeth rages, and packs off Rodes after you, and
rates every one in the house on whom he can put hands until you come.
And I left him in such another rage. Why in Heaven’s name did you go
about to defy him so, sir?”
“Because he drove me to it,” Hugh retorted, and pressed on with his face
set to the front.
“Well, no one is driving you now that you keep such a pace. Whither are
you going, an’t like you?”
“Shrewsbury. To seek in all the troop stables till I find those who will
employ me.”
“Nay, nay, lad, come back with me, if you have it in heart to forgive
me. On my soul, I meant not so to dash your fortunes. By the Lord, I’ve
a liking for you, sir, in spite of your meek bearing. And I doubt not
your father would see there was some good in you, in time. Only come
back, and mayhap he—”
“Before I’d beg of Colonel Gwyeth now, I’d go carry a musket for a
common foot soldier,” Hugh answered.
“Well, you’ve not your father’s spirit,” Ridydale jerked out
impatiently.
Hugh turned on him: “I trust I’ve not. I trust I’ll never live to cast
off a son of my own.”
At that Ridydale stared blankly, then stopped short and burst out
laughing. “By the Lord, you are the colonel over again, sir, whether it
like you or not! My faith, and he does not realize it even now, no more
than I did. Why, there’s mettle in you, sir, after all. Now come back.”
But Hugh very plainly showed his whole intent was turned to Shrewsbury,
so at length Ridydale abruptly yielded. “I’ll come along with you,” he
offered. “Very like I can find employment for you there, sir. If you
care to trust unto me—”
“Ay, and I thank you too,” Hugh answered, touched for the moment, till
he remembered that Ridydale cared for him only as he would have cared
for a dog, had it borne the name of Gwyeth.
After that they trudged on in silence, past the huddled, outlying
houses, through the west gate of Shrewsbury, and so into the crowd and
confusion of the garrison streets. It was somewhat past noon, Hugh
judged by the position of the sun, and then the sun was shut out, as
they turned into a narrow byway where the mud was deep in the shadow of
the tall houses. “This has not much the look of a troop stable,” Hugh
suggested, as Ridydale halted and knocked at the dark rear door of what
seemed a considerable mansion.
But Ridydale was speaking a word aside to the serving man who opened,
and paid no heed. Presently he stepped in, bidding Hugh follow, and
then, leaving him alone in a dingy anteroom, he walked away with the
servant. Seating himself on a bench by the wall Hugh tried to run over
the morning’s events, and then to put them by and think only of what was
before him: stable-boy, trooper one day, perhaps. Only it was not a good
thing to hope forward to, so he drummed his finger-tips on the bench and
wondered why Ridydale delayed.
Just then there came a quick, light step outside the inner door. “Where
is he?” a shrill voice cried. The door was kicked open, and there
plunged in headlong a slim figure in blue. “Hugh, you scoundrel! Where
have you been? Why did you not seek me out at first? Hang me if I be not
glad to see you, old lad.”
“Frankie Pleydall!” was all Hugh could get out for the arms about his
neck that were near to strangling him.