“What thing is love, which nought can countervail?
Nought save itself, e’en such a thing is love.
All worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,
As lowest earth doth yield to heaven above.
Divine is love, and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing, but with self.”
--From “England’s Helicon,” 1600.
As they passed the farm in which he had hoped to leave the Major, he
saw the master of the house standing at the gate, and, though they could
not speak, an understanding glance passed between them, and Gabriel saw
the eyes that had looked so hard and stern on the previous night soften
in a marvellous fashion. He understood the strong bracing sympathy of
the rugged old farmer, and went on his way with renewed courage.
The heat of the July day soon grew intense, and several times the
cavalcade was forced to halt and rest. The Major could only just keep
in the saddle, and Gabriel watched him anxiously, dreading every minute
that he would succumb.
Once when they rested for a short time at West Kennet, Captain
Tarverfield approached him, looking with not unkindly curiosity at the
young lieutenant--his face burnt ruddy-brown by the sun, and great drops
of perspiration falling on his forehead from his rough brown hair. His
hazel eyes were extraordinarily clear and bright, and something in his
straight, fearless glance attracted the Royalist Captain.
“You have had a hot march,” he said.
“I have a good pair of legs, sir,” said Gabriel; “but my arm is cramped
and numb.”
The Captain then noticed that to save his wounded friend he had all
these hours had his wrist roped up above his head in a posture that must
have long since become torturing.
With a muttered imprecation, the Royalist proceeded to unloose the rope.
“Give me your _parole_ not to escape, and for this hour, at any rate,
you can go free,” he said.
Gabriel readily gave the promise, thanking the Captain warmly, and
between them they then helped the Major from his horse and laid him on
the grass by the roadside. The soldiers had contented themselves with
stripping the younger prisoner, and had let the wounded man retain his
helmet. Gabriel unfastened it now, and carried it down to the bank
of the stream close by; then, returning with the water the Major was
eagerly longing for, found Captain Tarverfield still in conversation
with him.
“Had I known that Colonel Norton had a grudge against you both, I would
have let you pass this morning,” he said. “For Norton is the very devil
when once he has a quarrel with any man. ’Tis of no use to ask him for
a surgeon’s aid, it would only make him the more brutal. We shall lie
this night at Marlborough, however, and I will do what I can for you
when Lord Wilmot and my Lord Falkland arrive with the next detachment.”
“Did Lord Falkland come with the Oxford contingent?” asked Gabriel,
sudden interest lighting up his face. “I owe my life to his kindly help
at Edgehill.”
And he told the young officer what had passed.
“He is greatly changed since then,” said Captain Tarverfield. “They say
His Majesty fears and dislikes him, while he is like a fish out of water
among the courtiers and fine ladies at Oxford, who spitefully invent
evil tales as to his friendship with Mistress Moray. He should never
have meddled with statecraft, his conscience is over-tender for the work
he is expected to do.”
With that he went off to dine at the village inn, and the Major,
reviving a little, began to think of the future.
“We may not again have such a chance as this,” he said, “and there is a
matter I would fain broach with you. I know that I have got my deathblow
and am sorely troubled as to Helena. I am leaving her well-nigh alone in
the world, and have arranged no marriage for her.”
“But Madam Harford will have her in safe keeping, and when once she is
in London you may surely rest content,” said Gabriel, suddenly becoming
conscious of his friend’s desire.
“I would fain have had you as Lord of the Manor and husband to my
child,” said the Major. “The estate hath like enough suffered from
Prince Maurice’s troops, no details have yet reached me, but Helena’s
dowry is large, and I would gladly see her wedded to you and safe from
Squire Norton.”
“Sir,” said Gabriel, looking troubled, “I will do all that I can to
shield and help your daughter. But I am not free to wed her; for though
’tis true my betrothal was ended by the war, yet my love remains where
it was first given.”
The Major, accustomed to regard marriage chiefly as a matter of
business, scarcely understood such an argument, and having found
the very man he could trust--one, moreover, who shared most of his
views--was very loth to relinquish hope.
“You will see what time brings forth,” he said. “I should rest better in
my grave could I think that Nell would be your wife.”
But Gabriel, though moved by his friend’s eagerness, could not be false
to himself.
“I will promise, sir, to be her friend and protector,” he said, “when
I am out of prison. But to promise more than that would be no true
kindness to her.”
“The bugle sounds,” said the Major. “Come, help me to mount for the last
time. Most truly did the Psalmist sing, ‘A horse is a vain thing to save
a man.’ We owe our capture to poor Harkaway’s friendly greeting of the
enemy’s steeds.” Gabriel tried to smile at the jest.
“We must take the fortune of war,” he replied, cheerfully. But as the
weary journey continued in the hot afternoon sun, the Major’s strength
waned perceptibly, and when at last they reached Marlborough, and were
halted in its wide street, he seemed scarcely conscious, though he still
kept in the saddle.
A kindly-looking woman came out from one of the houses with a large
earthenware mug of home-brewed ale, which she offered to him. He revived
a little, thanked her courteously, and made one of his usual little
jokes, but with so piteous an effort that Gabriel felt a choking
sensation in his throat. He was glad that they were at that moment
ordered to march to St. Peter’s Church, in which the prisoners were to
be sheltered for the night.
The soldiers untied Major Locke and carried him into the building,
putting him down on the chancel floor that he might be a little removed
from the noise and confusion in the nave, into which the soldiers were
driving the weary prisoners roped together in pairs.
Gabriel, relieved to find his right arm available again, dragged down an
old moth-eaten cushion from the pulpit and placed it under the Major’s
head, removed his helmet and chafed his cold, clammy hands. But the lack
of all comforts baffled his efforts, and he knew that after the long,
hot ride the mere chill of the flagstones was the very worst thing for
one in his state. He raised him a little, propping up the grey head on
his own shoulder.
“You will send the news to Nell,” said the dying man, faintly.
“Yes; but good news I hope,” said Gabriel. “Captain Tarverfield will, I
think, remember his promise of help, and a surgeon may do much for you.
I hear steps drawing near, maybe he hath already sent. No, ’tis but
the sentry.”
The soldier approached them and looked down silently at the wounded man.
He was a tall, powerful Irishman who had come over to England as one of
Strafford’s grooms, and the Major would have shrunk from him in horror
had he known his nationality or guessed him to be a devout Roman
Catholic. His face bore an expression which gave Gabriel hope.
“Can you not fetch a surgeon?” he asked. “Surely you may do that much
for a prisoner.”
“I would do it, sir,” replied the man, “but I am on sentry duty, and
bound not to leave the church. But sure, then, before dark one of the
officers will go the rounds, and it will be him you can be asking.”
He moved on, but returned presently with a garment which he had found in
the vestry.
“Wrap it about the feet of him, sir,” he said. “That’s the best chance
for him, for sure this place be as cold as any vault.”
Gabriel thanked him.
“Was popish vestment ever before of such use?” said the Major, smiling
faintly. “Yet, beshrew me! there’s something that tickles my fancy not a
little in the thought of quitting this world wrapped in a cope!”
“Talk not yet of quitting the world, sir,” said Gabriel. “I have seen
worse wounded men recover.” But he argued against his own fears.
The church was now very quiet, the prisoners, hungry and depressed, were
trying to forget their wretchedness in sleep, and only the steps of the
sentry could be heard echoing at the west end of the building, until,
in response to a peremptory summons, he opened the door and admitted
Colonel Norton and Lord Harry Dalblane.
Gabriel at once recognised Norton’s voice, and his heart sank.
“Where have you borne the wounded prisoner?” said the Colonel.
“He lies yonder, sir, in the chancel,” said the sentry, “and is in sore
need of a surgeon.”
“Mind your own business,” said the Colonel, sharply. “I shall provide
him with all that he merits.”
“And where is our fiery friend, the lieutenant?” said Lord Harry,
staggering a little as he followed Norton up the middle aisle, for he
had been drinking heavily. “Where is the little preacher?”
“He is here,” said Norton, with his short scoffing laugh; “sitting like
an angel on a monument supporting the effigy of a dead saint.”
“Sir,” said Gabriel, “I beg of you to let a surgeon wait upon Major
Locke. If the ball were but removed from his wound I think he would
recover.”
“Am I to be dictated to first by my own sentry and then by my prisoner?”
said Norton, haughtily. “Get up, you vile rebel, or it shall be the
worse for you. I see you are not even bound--you need a reminder that
you are no free man. Get up, I tell you!”
Gabriel reluctantly obeyed, and laid the Major down as gently as he
could on the moth-eaten cushion.
Then he stood silently awaiting his captor’s orders, taking meanwhile a
rapid, comprehensive glance at the two officers, Norton with his short
fawn and red cloak flung carelessly back over one shoulder, his wide
hat and long drooping red feather cocked jauntily to the right side, his
handsome, but malicious-looking, face lighted by the sunset glow which
streamed through the windows; and Lord Harry laughing, foolishly, in
semidrunken light-heartedness, at the thought of the amusement he had
planned.
“Come, Colonel,” he said, “when is the sport to begin? But our preacher
is scarce in parson’s habit, his knee-breeches and riding-boots are
white with dust, and his shirt is like an end of Lent surplice--none of
the whitest. I’ll e’en go and plunder the vestry for him.”
“Don’t be a fool, Harry,” said Norton, irritably. “Come, lieutenant, I
promised you this morning you should have such a chance of preaching a
sermon as had never fallen to your lot before. But I see the pulpit will
scarce serve my purpose, you shall come here.”
And gripping him by the shoulder he dragged him to the first pillar in
the south aisle.
“Now for your cords, Harry,” he said, with a chuckle. “For this
gentleman is of an independent turn, and must be reminded that traitors
and prisoners do not roam at large. I must trouble you, Mr. Harford, to
stand with your back to the pillar, and to stretch your arms back as far
as they will go; hold him steady in that hollowed-out moulding, Harry,
while I make these knots fast.”
With fiendish delight in giving pain he tied the cords so tightly that
they cut into the victim’s wrists, then he fastened the ends at the
farther side of the pillar, and taking a rope tied it with the same
vicious tightness a little above his knees; lastly, to make movement
impossible he girdled both the prisoner and the pillar with a leathern
bridle.
So far Gabriel had borne all in silence, for his mind was still taken up
with the thought of his friend, and of the brutal way in which the Major
was being left to die. But he was naturally sensitive to all sarcasm and
ridicule, and the gibes and jeers of the half-tipsy Lord Harry, and the
more biting cruelties of the tongue to which Norton subjected him, were
sharper than swords.
Norton, disappointed at his failure to rouse him, turned presently with
a laugh to his companion:
“They say, you know, Harry, that these Puritans will neither swear nor
game nor drink. But here you see one who is giving us rare sport, and
who would pledge all that he has for a drink--even of water--after the
march, and who longs to swear. No, no, my fine fellow, there you stand
till to-morrow--we’ll have no sentiment over dying traitors. Your friend
will soon be safe in hell.”
This allusion to the Major at last broke down Gabriel’s control.
“’Tis you that are already there!” he exclaimed, the blood boiling in
his veins. “Only one led by the devil could thus treat a dying man.”
“Preach away, my friend, preach away!” said Norton, with a sneer. “Your
fellow prisoners are asleep, and you can’t harm anyone. Come! ’tis not
every day you can discourse in a church!”
Just then, in an evil moment, Lord Harry noticed that Norton, in
dragging his victim from the chancel, had pulled off the top button of
his shirt, which had fallen open, giving to view two or three links of a
gold chain and the corner of a shagreen case.
He stumbled forward.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed, snatching at the chain and dragging up the
miniature attached to it. “Ha, ha! Here’s sport! See what the Puritan
dog has got hanging from his collar?”
Gabriel, half maddened by feeling the sot’s fingers on Hilary’s picture,
writhed in a frantic effort to free himself. To be forced to stand there
helplessly, unable to stir hand or foot, was a torture he had never
before felt.
“Oh, fie, Ecclesiastes! we named you well,” said Norton, with his
scoffing laugh. “You deal, like Solomon, in numbers. Shame on you! the
portrait of a fair lady of Hereford on your person all the time you were
philandering with pretty Helena!”
“You lie in your throat,” said Gabriel, vehemently. “I did but rescue
her from your fiendish trap.”
“What!” cried Lord Harry, thickly. “Do you give the Colonel the lie
direct, you Puritan dog? Take that!”
And he dealt Gabriel a blow on the head which for a minute half stunned
him.
Norton drew his friend back.
“Hold your peace, Harry,” he said. “You spoil sport. I understand how to
bait this traitor.”
And going close to the prisoner he lifted the miniature and scrutinised
it intently, then began to pour out a flood of ribald comment.
Beside himself with rage and disgust, Gabriel in vain struggled to get
free, but he could neither silence his tormentors nor shut his own ears
to the foul words which sought to pollute all that he held most sacred.
With cruel delight, Norton, as he held the miniature, could feel the
throbbing of his victim’s heart, but he was startled when at length
Gabriel’s voice was heard. It was low and faint, yet there was a
vibration in it which rang through the church, and a note of appeal in
its tone which arrested the Colonel against his will.
“God!” cried the tortured man, “deliver us from evil.”
Lord Harry burst into a roar of semi-drunken laughter. “Ay, preach and
pray, my canting Puritan!” he cried.
But Norton let the miniature fall once more on Gabriel’s heaving breast,
and with an expression of bewildered surprise moved back a pace or two,
still, however, keenly watching his victim’s face. The fellow had such
an extraordinary air of expecting to be delivered; and it suddenly
occurred to Norton that it was not deliverance from pain that he looked
for, but from something he deemed infinitely worse. For the first time
he understood that this man hated evil, that he asked for deliverance
from the vile imaginings, the foul suggestions that had been forced upon
him. For a minute the sense of shame which had come to the Colonel as he
read the letter to Hilary Unett gave him a second twinge of pain; for he
recollected that the strange cry for help had not been “Deliver me,” but
“Deliver us.”
It was with a start of superstitious fear that he saw a flickering light
moving along through the fast darkening church. Gabriel noticed nothing,
for his eyes had closed, his head had dropped forward.
As it drew nearer Norton saw with relief that the light came from the
lantern which the Irish sentry had just kindled.
“Did you call me, sir?” said the man, approaching as if in response to a
summons.
“No, I did not,” said Norton, irritably.
The man saluted and was about to retire, when he caught sight of Gabriel
bound to the pillar, his head drooped on his breast, his frame hanging
lifeless, supported only by the cords.
The Irishman’s eyes widened, he crossed himself rapidly. “The prisoner!”
he stammered. “Why--yer honour--sure then he’s a dead man!”
“Hold the light nearer!” said Norton sharply, and with an uneasiness
he could not have explained he put his ear to the heart that was now
strangely still, though but a few minutes ago he had felt it throbbing
with passionate indignation.