THE LIFE OF EDMUND BURLEY
At one end of the bench outside the garden door of Ashcroft, Widow
Flemyng’s great black cat lay sunning himself; at the other end Hugh
Gwyeth sat hugging one knee, while he wondered drowsily which were the
lazier, he or the cat. In the alert blue spring weather the tips of
green things were bursting through the soft mould of the garden; the
birds were making a great ado in the trees; and in the field beyond the
hedge the widow’s man, Ralph, was ploughing, and whistling as he
ploughed. Only Master Hugh Gwyeth lingered idly on the garden bench and
meditatively handled the flabby muscles of his arm till he grew
impatient with himself. Three weeks and more he had been at Ashcroft,
yet this was all the strength he had gained or was likely to gain with
sitting still. He dragged the cat, heavy and reluctant, up from its nap,
and was trying to coax the creature to jump over his hands, which at
least required a little exertion, when Nancy, the serving-maid, came out
to potter about the garden. Spying him, she called: “Don’t ’ee vex poor
Gib, now. Better get thee into the kitchen; the mistress is at her
baking.”
Hugh laughed, and, rising leisurely, made his way down the garden to the
rear door. Women were droll creatures, he reflected; his mother, of
course, had always treated him with tenderness, but why these strangers
should pamper him like a child, and concern themselves about his every
movement, was more than he could puzzle out. From the first Nancy had
made no end of commiserating him for the scar on his face, and even the
widow herself, for all her sharp ways, had been melted to pity, when she
came to examine his wardrobe. “Well, well, well! when did a woman put
hand to these shirts?” she had cried, whereat Hugh informed her
blushingly that ’twas his custom to have his shirts washed till they
grew too tattered to serve even under a buff jacket, and then he threw
them away. “You poor thriftless child!” sighed the widow, “sure, you’re
not fit to be sent to the wars.” So she mended his shirts and stockings,
and, when that way of showing her motherly care failed, brewed him
ill-tasting concoctions of herbs, which Hugh swallowed courteously,
though with inward protests against this expression of good-will. He was
far more grateful when her kindness finally took the form of cooking him
such food as he liked, and pressing him to eat at all times, for his
illness had left him with an alarming appetite, which without such
connivance could never have been decently satisfied.
He halted now, as he had often done, with his elbows on the sill of the
opened window in the long kitchen, and took a sweeping survey of the
dressers and the fireplace and the brick oven. Just by the window stood
a table at which the Widow Flemyng, with her sleeves tucked up and her
broad face flushed, was rolling out pastry. “I marvel you’ve not been
here before,” she said gruffly, as she caught sight of him; “where have
you been all this morning now?”
“Teasing the cat,” Hugh answered. “Before that I was down through the
meadow—”
The widow paused with her rolling-pin suspended. “That meadow again? And
no doubt you wet your feet!”
“On my word, good widow,” Hugh laughed, “my kinsfolk have trusted me
abroad without a nurse for several years now.”
“The more fools they!” she replied, smacking the pastry smartly once
more.
Profiting by the pause, Hugh reached one arm in at the window and helped
himself to a strip of pie-crust, all hot and newly baked, that lay
there; he might repress his early fondness for honey and jam, but crisp
pastry was still too great a temptation for him to resist.
“That’s a right Roundhead trick to come thieving at a poor woman’s
window!” said the widow.
“Was there never such a thing as a Cavalier thief?” Hugh suggested.
“I never speak treason, sir. There do be some that say there is a
garrison yonder at Woodstead Manor that never was known to pay for what
it lives by, but I speak no ill of the king’s men, you’ll note.”
Hugh had cause enough to note and remember the conversation a few days
later. Of a dull gray afternoon he had taken himself to his chamber,
dutifully to practise thrusts with his sword at a round mark on the
wainscot, an exercise which proved tedious, so he was glad enough when a
noise of horses stamping and men calling in the yard below gave him an
excuse for running to the window. At the front of the cottage nothing
was to be seen, so, flinging on his coat, he ran downstairs into the
kitchen, whence came the sound of high talk. Bursting into the room, he
found Nancy crouched by the fireplace, and Ralph skulking by her, while
at the door stood Widow Flemyng, arms akimbo, in hot discourse with a
cross-eyed trooper, who wore the king’s colors.
“I tell you, it shall not be put up!” the man was blustering. “We’d
scarce set foot in your stable when your rascal would be breaking a
stave across Garrett’s head.”
“And I tell you, you shall put up with it!” retorted the widow. “Do you
think to come plundering decent loyal bodies, you minching thieves? Not
a step do you stir into this house. Reach me hither the kettle, you
white-livered Ralph.”
Hugh prudently got the kettle into his own hands, then presented himself
at the door with the query, “What’s amiss?”
“Here are three rogues from Woodstead who seek to plunder the very
horses from my plough,” replied the widow, clapping hands on the kettle.
“Now come in if you dare, the pack of you!”
But Hugh stayed her arm, while he looked out and got the situation. In
the open space between the rear door and the stable three horses drooped
their heads, and by them lingered two dragoons, one heavy and surly, the
other a thin-faced fellow, who, looking sharply at Hugh, nudged his
comrade. It seemed just an ordinary small foraging band, who were going
beyond their authority, so Hugh stepped out and confronted the
cross-eyed man with a stern, “What’s your warrant for this?”
“King’s service, sir,” the other replied, gazing at him a little
doubtfully.
“’Tis service that will profit you little if it come to your captain’s
ears,” Hugh answered. “There are none here but loyal people and friends
to the king. Best take advice and go back empty-handed. ’Twill be for
your good in the end.”
Just there a hand was clapped heavily upon his collar; instinctively
Hugh was ducking to wrest himself clear, when the cross-eyed man, too,
caught him by the throat of his jacket, and, realizing the uselessness
of a struggle, the boy held himself quiet. “We’ll go back to Woodstead
right enough, sir,” spoke the thin-faced trooper, who had first seized
him. “But you’ll go with us, Master Gwyeth.”
“My name is Edmund Burley,” Hugh replied stoutly, though the heart
seemed all at once to have gone out of his body.
“Well, you’ve enough the look of the other gentleman for Lord Bellasis
to pay ten pound for the sight of your face. You can explain to him who
you are, sir,” scoffed the thin-faced man. “Fetch a horse from the
stable for him, Garrett.”
After that, as in an ugly dream, matters went without Hugh’s agency. He
felt his arm ache in the hard grip of the cross-eyed man, which he had
no hope to shake off; he heard the widow in heated expostulation with
the thin-faced trooper, assuring him the gentleman had dwelt with her
near six months, and could not have had a hand in the mischief they
charged him with; he saw Nancy come out, all blubbering, to bring him
his hat, and he said, “Why, don’t cry over it, wench,” and wondered at
the dull tone of his voice. It seemed an interminable time, but at
length one of the plough horses was led out, all saddled, and, mounting
as they bade him, he rode away with them in the gray of the afternoon.
As they passed out from the yard he heard the door of Ashcroft slam, and
by that he knew the widow was much moved.
Then, turning eastward, they trotted slowly across gray fields, a
trooper on either side Hugh’s horse, and he went as they guided. For he
took no heed to them, as he told himself that Dick Strangwayes was far
away in the North, Sir William busied at Tamworth, and in Oxford there
was not a friend to aid him. Already he seemed to feel the chill of the
cells in the old Castle at Oxford, and to see a room full of stern men
who bullied and frightened him; after that he thought to hear the cart
jolting beneath him across the stony streets, while the people ran and
pointed at him; and then he felt a rope about his throat. He tried
helplessly to battle off such thoughts, but they still pressed upon him
till his head was stupid with turning them over, and, listening
uncomprehendingly to the talk of those about him, he rode in a sort of
daze.
The afternoon grew grayer and grayer, and was merging into twilight when
they rode through a poor village, beyond which, upon a barren swell of
highland, they came to a stockade flung around a small manor house. They
crossed a rough bridge over a moat, and so, keeping to the left of the
house, drew rein at length before a great stable. “Yon’s the captain,
now,” spoke the cross-eyed man, peering into the dark of the building.
“Looking to the cocks, I’ll be bound,” muttered he of the sharp face.
“What dog’s mischief have you been loitering about, you knaves?” came
from within the stable, and the voice was one Hugh remembered.
“Captain Butler!” he cried, flinging himself from the saddle, and,
stumbling through the door, near embraced the big Irishman who came to
meet him.
“Good faith, ’tis not—” Butler began.
“I am Edmund Burley,” Hugh interrupted feverishly. “Sure, you remember
me, sir?”
Butler pulled him outside, where the light was clearer, and after that
instant’s pause turned upon the troopers with a violent demand as to
what they meant. One replied, “’Tis he who killed Master Bellasis;” but
the captain cut him short with a volley of abuse, that they durst hale
thither an innocent man and a friend of his, too, and followed it with
threats of a flogging to them all and bluster and oaths, till the three
were cowed into a frightened silence.
“Well, I’ll be easy with you this time, you rogues,” Butler resumed
after a moment, “for Master Burley is a merciful man, and I’m thinking
would be better pleased that you went free. And, faith, he bears so
little malice he wishes you all to drink his health.” Thus admonished,
Hugh pulled three shillings out of his pocket and tossed them to his
late captors before Butler led him away to the house. “Come have a drink
with me, Burley,” he said, and added, with a chuckle, “I take it you
need it.”
“That was a narrow escape, eh, Gwyeth?” he spoke later, as Hugh was
swallowing down a bumper of Spanish wine in the west parlor of the
house.
“Narrow as I ever wish,” Hugh replied truthfully.
“I think my fellows will hold their tongues now, betwixt threats and
bribes,” Butler went on. “But after this you’d best do as you should
have done at the first, shelter yourself among honest soldiers, who’d
die ere they’d let a comrade come to harm, just for spitting a paltry
civilian.”
In the end Hugh thought it best to take the advice; if he returned to
Ashcroft there was no reason that Cavalier marauders should not stray
thither again, and a second apprehension might not end so happily. Then,
besides, he was glad, after his weeks of illness and dependence, to be
once more among men, who accepted him as an equal and did not fret him
with constant care. Holding this feeling rather ungrateful, he took
pains to write a very civil and thankful letter to the Widow Flemyng,
which George Allestree conveyed to her, when he rode to Ashcroft with
one of the men to fetch away Hugh’s clothes and accoutrements.
Allestree had welcomed Hugh boisterously, although he had an alarming
habit of almost forgetting to call him Burley; the blue-eyed Irish
volunteer, Mahone, received him with open arms; and even the lieutenant,
Cartwright, unbent a little toward him. Before a fortnight was out Hugh
understood, for by then he felt he could have fallen on the neck of the
meanest scamp, just for joy at sight of a new face in the garrison.
Woodstead lay close upon the borders of Warwickshire, where the rebels
were up in strength, so none were allowed to venture forth far from the
house. All day long there was nothing to do but to walk up and down the
cramped enclosure, to converse with the troopers as to sick dogs and
lame horses, or to watch Butler’s cocks mangle each other in fight, till
in sheer disgust Hugh turned away. But within the house he found still
less amusement; there was not even a Gervase Markham or a Palmerin to
read, so he was reduced to persuading Allestree or Mahone into fencing
with him, and, that failing, could only play at cards or watch the
others at dice, and listen to Cartwright’s same old stories or the
everlastingly same chatter of the younger men.
Once, to be sure, there came a day of excitement, when a part of the
troop prepared to ride away to forage in the hostile country. They set
forth bravely in the mid-afternoon, and till they were lost in dust
Hugh, with neither a horse to ride nor sufficient strength for the work,
watched them wistfully from the entrance gate. Then he loitered away to
his lonely supper with Cartwright, who cursed the luck that left him
behind to command the garrison, and drank so deeply Hugh must call a man
to help him to bed. Next day Butler and his men came back, noisy and
victorious, with cartloads of grain and much miscellaneous plunder that
the common soldiery had taken to themselves. They brought also a
Roundhead lieutenant, half-stripped, grimy, and sullen, whom Butler
clapped into an obscure room on a spare diet till he could find leisure
from his more serious affairs to look to him. For the captain had laid
hands on a considerable amount of strong waters, so for two days there
was high carousing at Woodstead, which shocked Hugh, used though he had
become among these comrades to the sight of hard drinking.
While Butler and his officers shouted and smashed glasses below stairs,
and the men in their turn let discipline slip, Hugh, in the hope of
getting some tidings of his Oldesworth kindred, bribed his way in to
speak with the Roundhead prisoner. The man was defiant at first, then
more communicative when Hugh smuggled him in some bread and meat, but,
being of a Northamptonshire regiment, he could give little of the
information Hugh sought, save that he had heard of Captain Thomas
Oldesworth and had had speech with Hugh’s other uncle, Lieutenant David
Millington, who was in garrison with his company of foot at Newick in
Warwickshire. For his Roundhead kinsfolk’s sake Hugh lent the lieutenant
a coat, and, when Butler, in a shaky, white state of sobriety, packed
him off under guard to prison at Oxford, gave five shillings to the
corporal who had charge of the squad, and urged him to use the prisoner
as civilly as he could. Considering the temper of the squad, however,
and the fact that his old acquaintance, the surly Garrett, was one of
them, Hugh decided those five shillings had probably been expended for
nothing.
Near a week later the men came back, and, in his joy at any new sight in
his monotonous life, Hugh turned out to meet them. He counted them idly,
as they came pacing in at the gate, till his eyes fell upon a horse that
Garrett led, a bay horse, all saddled, which put up its head and
whickered. “Bayard!” Hugh cried, plunging into the press, and, getting
the horse clear, fair put his arms about its neck in the face of the
whole garrison. “Where did you find him?” he questioned Garrett a moment
later, sharply, to preserve his dignity.
The man explained they had come home by a way that took them near
Ashcroft, for he held there might be letters Master Burley would gladly
pay a price for, and there they had found both a letter and the horse,
which had been waiting him some days.
Hugh paid generously, the more so as he saw the letter was directed in
Dick’s black hand; that made the sending of Bayard no longer a mystery,
for doubtless Dick would have him come northward now and so had sent him
the horse. He could hardly wait to see the beast stabled before he ran
up to the chamber he shared with Allestree, and tore open the letter
that should summon him. Then he read:—
SWEET FRIEND:
It doth grieve me to bring you aught of disappointment, but patience
perforce, lad. Sir W. hath need of ammunition and of fieldpieces, so he
hath commissioned me, because of old acquaintance in those parts, to go
into the Low Countries and see what may be procured. I would I could
take you with me, but my time is short, for the ship only waits a
prosperous wind. When my task yonder is done I shall come quietly to the
place you know of to confer with Sir W. I will convey you a word, and if
you will join me there we will try another bout with Fortune together.
Till then you were best keep yourself close. There is a rumor that the
lord you know of hath no such big voice in the king’s counsels as he
used. Time, then, and patience may bring all right with us. Commend me
to good Mistress Flemyng, and be assured at longest I shall send for you
ere the end of summer.
Your very loving friend,
HENRY RAMSDEN.
NEWCASTLE, May 20th, 1643.
That night Hugh ate no supper. Sitting on the broad window-bench he
watched the sunlight wane upon the floor, and the twilight fill in the
chamber, and from time to time, till it was quite dark, he re-read the
letter. In those hours he came to realize how much he had lived on the
expectation that any day Dick might call for him, and he sickened at the
thought of the dull, hateful days of inactivity before him, for now he
must school himself to endure the long three months of summer with
Butler’s crew. Below he could hear the officers singing over their wine,
and, fearing lest Allestree might come half-drunk to urge him to the
table and jeer at his sorry silence, he slipped out by the back way to
the stable, where till bedtime he tried to find some comfort in petting
Bayard.
Next day life was running its old round, save that the hope which before
had made it tolerable was gone. That week Hugh discontinued fencing; the
weather was over-hot, and besides, what use to drill himself for action,
when Dick had no need of him, and his present companions were content to
idle? Instead of using the rapier, he set himself to watching Allestree
and Mahone at dice, and at length came to take a hand himself. It was an
ill memory to him afterward, those feverish summer mornings when,
sitting in their shirt-sleeves, they threw and threw, sometimes with
high words and oaths, sometimes in silence, save for Allestree’s
half-laugh when he made a winning cast. Fortune varied, but in time
there came a day when Hugh got up from the table, and, thrusting his
hands into two empty pockets, slouched off with his head down. He heard
Allestree say, “I hate a fellow who loses with ill grace,” and Mahone
call, “Hi, Ed! Come back. Don’t give over, man, as long as you’ve a
shirt to stake. Put up your horse now.”
But Hugh shook his head. Though he had diced away every penny he
possessed, and with it every hope of setting out by himself to seek
other harborage than Woodstead, he would not risk his horse and sword.
Not twenty-four hours later he had cause to rejoice at having kept his
equipments, for at the mess table Butler announced briskly that next day
the troop would ride a-foraying into Northamptonshire, to a little
village called Northrope, where corn could be got in plenty. “And wine
from a brave tavern there,” Allestree whispered Hugh; “Else the captain
would not be so forward in this business.”
But in his joy at having a hand in active service once more, the end of
the expedition mattered nothing to Hugh. Before noon next day he had his
buff jacket on and his sword slung over his shoulder, then fretted away
the long hours of expectation by tramping about the enclosure, settling
Bayard’s saddle, and listening to Allestree’s proffered bets on the
success of the night’s work. The sun had set behind the low green hills,
when at last Butler led half his troop forth from Woodstead, with
Allestree to keep the rear and Mahone and Hugh to put themselves
wherever they were bid. In spite of the gathering twilight the air was
still heavy with the sweltering heat of the day, and the dust that was
beaten up by the feet of the horses prickled and stung. Before the first
mile was out Hugh had flung open his coat, and was more disturbed at
Bayard’s sweating than at the thought of the skirmish that was to come.
The night air was cooler and the stars were out thick, when at length
the word ran through the line that Northrope lay over the next swell in
the plain. Falling in with the squadron behind Butler, who was to sweep
around and attack the village from the east while Allestree rode in at
the west side, Hugh drew away noiselessly from the rest of the troop,
and at a swift canter passed through a field into a piece of
spicy-smelling woodland. Beyond that they rode softly along a stretch of
sandy road, and at last halted upon the brow of a hill, beneath which
the dark roofs of cottages could be seen. At a whispered command from
Butler Hugh ranged himself among the corporal’s guard who were to keep
the hill and stop whoever fled that way, while the rest of the dragoons
fell into place behind the captain. Then the leader turned to a trooper,
who, swinging his dragon to his shoulder, fired into the air. An
instant, and far to the west another shot replied, Butler shouted to
charge, and with his men at his heels galloped away down the hill.
Below in the village Hugh heard the sound of clattering hoofs, of shouts
of attack, and shriller cries. A moment later, and, as he gazed, he saw
over to the west a reddish gleam that broadened and brightened. “They’ve
fired the village,” muttered one trooper, and the rest grumbled
subduedly that all within the scurvy place would be burned ere they came
to share the plunder.
The moments ran on, while the fire rose and sunk again, till Hugh judged
the night more than half spent. Still none had fled in their direction;
the men were restless at their useless stay, and Hugh himself had grown
to hate this waiting, for it left him time to reflect, and to compare
this raid with the daylight fighting he had had under Turner. For all
the ugly sights of plunder to be seen he felt it a relief when the
corporal gave the word to descend into the village, and gladly as the
rest he trotted forward.
Once in among the houses his comrades scattered to plunder, but Hugh,
left alone, rode on down the street, which grew lighter with the flare
of the burning houses. He had sight of household stuff that littered the
roadway; in the lee of a wall he saw a man sitting with his hand pressed
to his breast; and down toward the blaze, where was a great yelling and
confusion, he made out against the glare the black shapes of men running
to and fro. He saw, too, nearer at hand, a flapping sign-board before
what seemed an inn, where a noisy crew had possession, and he halted a
moment, while he wondered grimly if Butler were not there and if he
should report to him. As he hesitated he heard some one shout from an
upper window of the cottage on his right, and he let his eyes travel
thither. The place looked dark and blank, but as he gazed the door was
kicked open and a man came forth, holding by the arm a girl, who dragged
back with all her slender strength. “What devil’s trade are you about?”
Hugh called angrily. “Bring the wench hither.”
The man hesitated, then unwillingly slouched nearer. As the firelight
flared along the street Hugh saw it was his old enemy, the cross-eyed
trooper; then his gaze dropped lower to the pallid face of the girl. At
that Hugh sprang from his saddle with a cry, “Lois, Lois!”