ROUNDHEADS AND CAVALIERS
He had thrust the trooper aside and drawn the girl close to him. “Sure,
you do not fear me, Lois?” he urged, for she stood with her hands to her
face and her body braced tensely against the pressure of his arm. “I’m
Hugh Gwyeth. You’ve not forgot—”
At that she uncovered her face and stared at him with so piteous a look
of fright that Hugh hated himself and all who had had a share in that
night’s work. “Be off with you.” He swung round upon the cross-eyed
trooper with some of Allestree’s favorite oaths. “The gentlewoman is kin
to me. Get you hence and be thankful I let you go with a whole skin.”
Then he looked again to Lois, and, noting now that she had no outer
covering upon her shoulders, unstrapped his cloak from the front of his
saddle and wrapped it about her, drawing the folds up to hide her face
somewhat. He felt her hands clutch tremulously at his wrist, and her
voice broke into a choking sob: “O, Hugh! In sober truth, ’tis you? You
will take care of me?”
“To be sure I will,” he said, and, slipping Bayard’s bridle over one
arm, put the other about the girl. “Just come with me now.”
They walked toward where the cottages were burning, slowly, for Lois
staggered as she went, and Hugh, for all his brave speech, was dazed
with the necessity of thinking what he was to do for her protection.
Woodstead was no place to which to fetch a girl, nor was any other
harbor open to him. He halted short in his perplexity, then turned to
her with a sudden idea: “Look you here, Lois; would you wish me to
convey you unto Newick, to Lieutenant Millington?”
“’Tis thither I was going,” she answered faintly.
“Well, you shall be safe there ere to-morrow noon,” he assured her.
“Just a little time here, and be not afraid.”
Thereupon he faced across the street to the house with the sign-board,
where he guessed might be wine and Captain Butler. Within were lights
and men stamping to and fro, while without at the entrance door lingered
others, among whom Hugh caught sight of Garrett, still sober, and seized
on him. “I want your help,” he said brusquely; “I’ll pay you for it ere
I die. Procure some sort of white flag, and find me out a pillion for
this gentlewoman. Put it on my horse and be ready to ride with me when I
bid.”
Leaving the man with mouth and eyes open in astonishment, he led Lois
into the tavern. Across the corridor a trooper was sprawling, drunk,
Hugh saw, as he thrust him aside with his foot to give the girl passage.
Inside the common room the floor crackled with broken glass, on the
chimney-piece two candles sputtered unevenly, and by the table, a bottle
in one hand, a great mug in the other, stood Butler. Hugh felt Lois
press closer to him, but he resolutely left her on a settle by the wall
and went up to the captain. “I pray you, sir, give me a safe-conduct to
pass through the lines with one of your dragoons,” he blurted out his
business.
Butler cursed him roundly, and Hugh, standing stiffly, heard him out
without reply, while in his heart he prayed the ugly fit of drunkenness
might speedily give place to the maudlin fit. A heavy stamping made him
turn in sudden hope as Allestree reeled in from superintending the
seizure of the tavern stores. But one look at the guidon told Hugh he
was too far gone to aid him now, so he could only fall back beside Lois,
and, taking hold of her hand, bid her wait a little longer and not fear.
Presently, after Allestree had pitched into a chair with his head on the
table, Hugh once more made his request to Butler, and once more was
gruffly refused. But then, chancing to spy ink and paper on a shelf, he
blotted off a safe-conduct, and, again presenting himself to the
captain, begged him sign. There were refusals of varying sternness, but
with all the obstinacy of his square chin Hugh followed the man up and
down the chamber, pen in hand, and, holding his temper well in check for
the girl’s sake, bore the other’s abuse and only prayed him sign. At
last Butler, snatching the pen from his hand, splashed a great signature
across the sheet. “Take it, in the devil’s name, you hell babe!” he
cursed.
Hugh thrust the paper inside his coat, and, running to Lois, jostled a
way for her out to the open air. By the tavern door Garrett, holding a
pike with a white napkin bound to it, was sitting his horse, and by him
stood Bayard with a cushion fixed behind the saddle. Hugh helped Lois to
her place, then, leaping up before her, rode briskly out from the
village.
Not till the sight of the fire and the noise of the shouts of the
plunderers were quite lost to them did Hugh let Bayard’s eager trot
subside to an amble. He turned a little to ask Lois how she fared, and
bid her keep the cloak close about her against the damp of the early
morning; then he called to Garrett, and, in talking with him of the road
they must take for Newick, time enough passed for the stars to grow few
in the sky. After that they rode a long space in silence, save for the
soft scuff of the horses now and again as they came upon a stretch of
sandy road. The sky grew a fainter dun color, and in the east a slit of
pale light showed, while in the west a white shred of moon yet lingered
on the horizon line. The morning breeze, coming damp on Hugh’s face,
made him heavy with desire to sleep; only at a splashing sound of water
did he rouse up with a jerk to find Bayard knee-deep in a ford and
drinking greedily. To right and left the bushes above the stream were
dusky, but flecks of lighter gray showed in the water where the road ran
down to meet it. “’Twill be sunrise soon,” Hugh said, and shook himself
awake.
“Think you, presently, I might have a drink of water?” Lois asked
hesitatingly.
“Why, here and now you shall have it!” he cried, and, flinging his
bridle to Garrett, lifted Lois from her place and led her a little
upstream within the shadow of the bushes.
As she knelt on the brink and drank slowly from her hand, Hugh had space
to note how white her face was and how weary her every gesture. So when
she rose he drew her back a little to the roots of an oak tree, where he
bade her sit and rest a time. Garrett shrugged his shoulders, when the
word was passed to him, then tied the horses and went to stretch himself
on the bank farther down-stream. Hugh returned to Lois, and, seating
himself beside her, persuaded her to lean against him, till her eyes
closed and he hoped that she might sleep. He sat very still and looked
sometimes at her brown head against his shoulder, and sometimes at the
branches of the oak above him and the clear sky beyond that was growing
brighter and taking on a bluish tinge. He listened to the hurry of the
brook and the restless stamp of the horses; then, shutting his eyes, he
seemed only to see Everscombe manor house and the sunlight upon the
eastern terrace.
“Are you asleep, too?” The words were spoken softly, but they startled
him through all his body.
“I am awake now, in any case,” he replied, and laughed a little with a
foolish sort of satisfaction as he looked down at Lois. For the tense
look of the night before had left her eyes, and she had again the face
of his old comrade at Everscombe.
“Your poor arm will sleep next, Hugh. I am leaning too heavily against
it.”
“I had not felt it,—if you are content.”
Lois smiled slightly and tremulously, then, slipping out one hand, drew
her fingers through the wet grass. “There has been a heavy dew,” she
said irrelevantly, “and it has soaked my shoes,—my shoe, I mean.” She
let her feet just show beneath her petticoat, and Hugh had sight of one
stout shoe and the toe of a small gray stocking.
“You’ve been tramping with one foot half bare?” he broke out.
“Nay, nay, I have been riding. I knew it not till this morning, so I did
not mind. I must have left that other shoe in the closet where I hid
away.”
“Tell me, Lois, how came you there at Northrope?” he asked, after an
instant.
The girl’s face lost its flash of gayety. “Why, ’tis only—” she began,
and, pulling some blades of grass, twisted them between her fingers
without looking at him. “Last October ’twas, Aunt Delia said perchance I
were best now go visit my mother’s kinsfolk in Northamptonshire. And
last week they said I had best visit her again. O me, I know not why
they will not have me! I do not eat so much, Hugh, and I am ready to be
of service.” She pushed aside his arm and leaned forward with her head
upon her knee; by the movement of her shoulders he knew that she was
crying.
He realized well why she wept, and he knew, too, there was no help that
he could offer; so he only bent forward, and, speaking her name gently,
patted her shoulder. He heard her swallow a sob, then, with her head
still bowed, she went on defiantly, “So there is nothing to tell, Hugh.
A neighbor was riding to Northrope for the day, so they sent me with him
and he left me at that cottage. They thought perhaps some carrier might
be going to Newick, and would convey me thither; then Lieutenant
Millington would find means to despatch me to Everscombe. That is all.”
Hugh bit his nails and made no reply. If his own father rejected him,
how could he reproach the uncles and aunts who grudged shelter to an
orphan girl? Only she was a girl and weak, and somehow they seemed worse
than Alan Gwyeth. He fell back on his stock piece of comfort: “You
should ha’ been a boy, Lois, and then it had all been easy.”
“But I have no wish to be a boy,” Lois said sorrowfully, as she turned
away her face to wipe her eyes.
“Perhaps ’twould not be so pleasant,” Hugh admitted, and added, with a
thought of Frank, “Young boys are sometimes vexatious.”
Lois gave a laugh that was a bit hysterical. “You have grown very
arrogant. Prithee, now, tell me all about yourself and how you got that
sorry scar.”
Hugh hesitated, to collect himself, then set forth at great length what
pertained to Strangwayes, and very hastily told her that his father had
disowned him. At that her face grew so grave he hurried back to
Strangwayes again, and forbore to tell her of the duel. So they talked
on till a shaft of sunlight dazzled upon the brook, and the trees cast
clean dark shadows on the pathway. “We must ride for Newick,” said Hugh,
jumping to his feet. “You’re not so weary, Lois? Wait till the next
village and you shall have wine to hearten you. Perchance you could eat,
too?”
“Perchance, if ’twere offered,” Lois replied demurely, as she smoothed
her hair with her hands.
“It shall be looked to, I promise you,” he answered gayly, and walked
away. Before he had gone ten paces, however, his gayety was at an end,
for he tucked his hands into a brace of bare pockets. He fidgeted a
moment by the horses; then, taking his only course, walked over to the
surly trooper. “Garrett,” he began, in a low tone, “have you money about
you?”
“Ay, sir.”
“Will you lend unto me?”
“You swore the giving should lie all on your side,” the other answered
suspiciously.
“I tell you I’ll pay,” Hugh said angrily; and, seizing on the two
shillings the other reluctantly proffered, walked away with his face
burning.
It had been a petty incident, but the ill taste of it lingered with him,
and took all pleasure from the getting to horse once more. Even the
sight of Lois’s half-smiling face, and her droll efforts to spare her
stockinged foot, could not restore him to his old contented mood. He led
her in silence to where Bayard stood, and there she halted suddenly with
eyes upon the horse. “Why, ’tis indeed the same,” she cried. “’Tis
Peregrine’s steed they said you—”
“Stole?” Hugh asked sharply. “Ay, ’tis the same.”
Then he lifted her to her place, and without a word more set forward.
An hour later, in the full heat of the morning sun, they rode into a
little hamlet, where the people stared at the Royalist red sashes, and
shouted saucy comments on the strangers. Hugh made his way scowlingly to
the village inn, and, helping Lois dismount, led her into the common
room, where he called on the hostess to bring wine and white bread for
the girl. “Are you going with these ruffians of your own will,
sweetheart?” he heard the good woman whisper Lois.
He was turning away impatiently, when, just at the door, he ran upon the
tapster. “Draw two mugs of ale for my man and me,” he ordered curtly.
“Will I, sir? Who’s to pay?” retorted the other. “An you pay, ’twill be
the first of your color—”
“Will you talk?” Hugh cried, with an oath; and struck the fellow so he
staggered. “Fetch what I bid now,” he swore. Then he turned to go back
into the common room; and there Lois sat, not eating, but gazing at him
with blank, dismayed face.
Without staying to drink his ale, Hugh went out and loitered at Bayard’s
head, where he kicked up spiteful little spurts of dust and would not
stroke the horse. When Lois hobbled out at last in a pair of over-large
shoes, he helped her to mount; she did not speak, and he only looked
sharply at her, but said nothing. As the roofs of the village sank
behind the hill in their rear, however, he turned in the saddle and
addressed her almost roughly, “So you are not pleased with me?”
“Sure, Hugh, I must be pleased; you have used me so kindly—”
“That’s a right woman’s trick to bungle at a plain ‘no,’” he said, with
a curt laugh; then started, for tone and laugh sounded to him as an echo
of Allestree, whom he had left drunk at Northrope. Putting spurs to
Bayard, he pressed on at a reckless pace, so the dust rose thick and
white, and turned his throat dry, and sifted in between his collar and
his neck. He was hot and weary and wretchedly angry against all the
world, especially against Lois Campion, why, he could not tell himself.
In such a mood he cantered into the shadow of the first of a straggling
line of cottages, where a sentinel in a yellow sash, springing to the
middle of the road, bade him pull up. “Conduct me to Lieutenant
Millington,” Hugh ordered, showing his safe-conduct; so in a few moments
he was riding down the street at an easy pace, with a Roundhead corporal
walking at his bridle.
They drew up without the gate of a large, half-timbered house, which set
back from the road in a garden of red roses that dazzled drearily before
Hugh’s eyes. “If you will accept of my aid—” he said brusquely to Lois,
and had just swung her down from the horse’s back, when he heard the
gate clatter open behind him. He turned about, and came face to face
with Peregrine Oldesworth.
For an instant they confronted each other without speaking, time enough
for Hugh to take note that his cousin wore a pompous great pair of boots
and a long sword, and had grown a scrap of dark mustache that made him
look older than his years. Then said Peregrine, “Well, have you come to
fetch back that stolen horse, Master Thief?”
“The horse is best off with him who has the wit to keep him,” Hugh
replied quickly. “Be assured I had not come to you beneath a white flag,
if it had not been to bring Lois hither.”
“And a brave convoy you have had, Cousin Lois,” Peregrine said, with a
dull flush on his face. “The next time you must roam the country-side,
pray you, seek another protector than a scape-gallows like this.”
“You know well, Cornet Oldesworth,” Hugh retorted, “that I would pay it
back to you, if you durst put that term to me in any other place.”
“So you’d like to murder me as you murdered Bellasis?”
“Murdered! What do you mean?” The words came faintly from Lois, and to
Hugh’s fancy she seemed to draw a little from him.
“Maybe he will set it forth to you himself,” sneered Peregrine.
“I killed a man in a fair duel,” Hugh replied shortly. “I leave you to
your cousin’s care, Lois.” With that he seized Bayard’s bridle and
turned away, he cared not whither, only he did not wish to see the
horror in Lois’s eyes.
“Perhaps you’ll give your horse a rest here at the stable, sir?” the
Roundhead corporal at his elbow suggested civilly. Hugh slouched down
the road after him, and scarcely heeded Garrett beside him, chuckling,
“Well, sir, I knew from the start you were Master Gwyeth.”
“Now you’re sure of it, you’d best carry the news to Oxford,” Hugh
replied; “I cannot buy silence.”
After they were into the cool of the black stable and he had seen Bayard
cared for, he sat down on a truss of straw and stared at the motes that
swam in the sunlight by the open door. His eyes ached with the light and
the dust, and his throat was all choked; he crushed the straws between
his fingers as he sat, and in this destruction found his only ease.
He roused up as a petty officer entered the stable, who prayed him, from
Lieutenant Millington, to come back to the house and dine with the
officers of the company. Hugh hesitated a moment, then came, rather
sullen and defiant, and after washing the dust from his face entered the
dining room. Millington, a heavy, slow man of near forty, greeted him
courteously, and presented him to his brother officers, who were distant
and suspicious. “You are of Woodstead, are you not, sir?” one asked him,
with an implication that made Hugh guess the other held him to have come
from a den of all iniquities.
Then they conversed of matters that concerned them, while Hugh swallowed
his dinner in silence, with an occasional pause to stare defiantly at
Peregrine, who scowled at him from the opposite corner of the table. It
was a relief when the meal was ended and he could rise, bent on setting
out from the place at once; but Millington bade him step apart with him
into an empty parlor. “’Tis an ill report we have had of you this
winter, Hugh Gwyeth,” he began judicially, as he seated himself by the
open window; “can you give me nothing better to bear to Everscombe?”
Hugh stood erect, with a feeling that he was a culprit brought to
sentence, and replied that he had only slain a man in a fair fight, and
he held that no wrong.
“Perhaps not;” Millington waived the question; “but I tell you, nephew,
’tis not the part of an honest gentleman to be herding with such drunken
libertines and cowardly bullies as those that hold Woodstead.”
“Mayhap ’tis not the company I would keep of my own will,” Hugh
admitted, “though they have been kind to me. But ’tis best I lie close
just now.”
“If you have done no wrong why need you hide yourself?” Millington
retorted, with a flicker of a triumphant smile.
“Have me a murderer and a thief, if you will,” Hugh flung back.
“Nay, ’tis that I held you a lad of good parts, in spite of your running
after these strange gods. That you have dealt so courteously by little
Mistress Campion shows you are not all lost yet. But take heed to the
associates you keep.”
Hugh felt a guilty hotness in his face, but, bracing himself, he
listened with respect to all his uncle had to say farther in the same
strain, and, when he had done, he replied honestly, “I thank you, sir;
methinks you mean all kindly.”
So he took his leave, and turned away to summon Garrett; then
remembered, and with a downcast look hesitated back to Millington. “An’t
like you, uncle,” he faltered, “I am ashamed to ask it, but I have had
to borrow money to provide for Lois, and I promised this fellow of mine
reward for aiding me. And I have no money.”
“Eh? How do you live, then, sir?”
“I had some. I lost it at dice,” Hugh admitted shamefacedly. “On my
honor, I never will again.”
There was an instant’s pause, then Millington said more coldly, “I’ll
pay the man,” and led the way from the house. Hugh, following behind
like a chidden child, saw his uncle go to Garrett, who waited with the
horses just outside the gate, and saw him fee the trooper; by the man’s
face he guessed it was done liberally, but he knew the fact that the
money came from another’s hand must always lower him in the fellow’s
eyes.
Dreading to meet the trooper’s curious look, he was lingering an instant
on the garden walk, feigning to adjust his boot-tops, when he heard
behind him some one call his name. He would not look up till there came
a touch on his arm, and he must raise his eyes to meet Lois’s gaze. “I
wanted to thank you, Hugh,” she said gently.
“You need not.”
“And I wanted to ask your pardon, if I hurt you. Truly, I will never
believe you have done anything that is base, whatever they say. Prithee,
forgive me, Hugh.”
“I should ask you to forgive it that I was so surly,” he hesitated.
“And—and next time I meet you, Lois, I’ll have mended my manners, so you
need not be dismayed. Farewell now.” He looked her frankly in the eyes
as he spoke, then bent a little and kissed her hand.
He came out at the gate more briskly than he had hoped, and there, by
the horses, found Peregrine and Lieutenant Millington in talk. “When you
go back to Thomas Oldesworth tell him from me he should have taught you
that a white flag protects the bearer,” he heard Millington say, and he
noted Peregrine had fixed covetous eyes on Bayard. Indeed, as Hugh swung
into the saddle, his cousin broke out, “You’ll pay me for that horse one
day, sirrah.”
But Hugh deliberately turned his back upon his bluster, while he bade
his uncle a second farewell, then waved his hat to Lois, who still stood
among the roses in the garden, and so headed his horse away from Newick.
The shadows of the two horsemen showed long in the late afternoon sun,
and lengthened and blended at last into the gray of the twilight. Frogs
piped to them in the dusk as they threaded their way through a bit of
bog land, and after that they went a long piece in silence under the
wakeful stars. Hugh suffered Bayard go slowly, while he felt the
pleasant night air upon his face and harked to the hoof-beats, muffled
by the yielding road, till at length a light upon a distant hill showed
where Woodstead lay. At that the horses freshened their pace, and, with
a good flourish, they cantered in at the gate of the manor house and
pulled up at the stables.
Bayard once made comfortable, Hugh went slowly back to the house, where
he found the officers, with their coats off and the table well stored
with glasses, loitering in the west parlor.
“So you’re back, are you, sir?” Butler greeted him. “Well, now you’ve
had a safe-conduct and all at your disposal, is there anything else
you’d command of me?”
“Nothing, sir,” Hugh replied, as he threw off his buff coat. “I’ll not
need your good offices, for—In short, sir, I’m wearied of hiding, and I
want back my own name again. So ’tis in my mind to ride for Oxford
to-morrow.”