Kitabı oku: «No Quarter!», sayfa 21
Chapter Fifty Two
At Home Again
There was rejoicing at Ruardean. After two years of forced absence, the master of Hollymead had returned to his ancestral home, and the faces of his beautiful daughters once more gladdened the eyes of the villagers.
Out of the world’s way as was this quaint little place, it too had suffered the severities of the war. More than one visit had been paid to it by patrols and scouting parties of the Royalist soldiery; which meant very much the same as if the visitors had been very bandits. They made free with everything they could lay hands on worth the trouble of taking – goods, apparel, furniture, even to the most cherished household goods; invading the family sanctuary, and at each re-appearance stripping it cleaner and cleaner.
Ruardean had, indeed, become an impoverished place, as all the rural district around. The “chimney tapestry” had disappeared from the farmer’s kitchen, neither flitch nor ham to be seen in it; empty his pigsties, unstocked his pastures; and if a horse remained in his stable it was one no Cavalier would care to bestride. The King’s Commissioners of Array had requisitioned all, calling it a purchase, and paying with bits of stamped paper, which the reluctant vendor knew to be worth just nothing. But, nolens volens, he must accept it, or take the alternative, sure of being made severe for him.
So afflicted ever since the surrender of Bristol to Rupert, no wonder the Forest people had grown a-weary of the war, and were glad when they heard of Wintour’s defeat at Beachley, and soon after of Monmouth being taken by the Parliamentarians. It seemed earnest of a coming peace; while to the people of the Ruardean district Ambrose Powell once more appearing among them was like the confirmation of it.
Something besides gave them security, for the time at least. A squadron of horse had taken up quarters in their village; not the freebooting Cavaliers, bullying and fleecing them; but soldiers who treated them kindly, paid full price for everything, in short, behaved to them as friends and protectors. For many of them were their friends their own relatives, the body of horse being that commanded by Colonel Walwyn, with Rob Wilde as its head sergeant.
Alike secure felt the ladies in Hollymead House, safe as within Gloucester. How could it be otherwise, with Sir Richard having his headquarters there and Eustace Trevor under the same roof?
The happy times seemed to have returned; and the sisters, after their long irksome residence in walled towns, more than ever enjoyed that country life, to which from earliest years they had been accustomed.
And once again went they out hawking, with the same cast of peregrines and the same little merlin. For Van Dorn, living in a sequestered spot, and unaffected by the events of the war, had kept the falcons up to their training.
Once more to the marsh at the base of Ruardean Hill, the party almost identical with that which had repaired thither two years before. And as before rang out the falconer’s hooha-ha-ha-ha! and shrill whistle, as a heron rose up from the sedge; again a white heron, the great egret! Singular coincidence, and strangely gratifying to the fair owner of the peregrines, for she especially wanted an egret. How she watched as it made for upper air, with the falcons doing their best to mount above it; watched with eager, anxious eyes, fearing it might get away. Not that she was cruel, only just then she so desired to have a white heron; would give anything for one.
She did not need to have a fear. Van Dorn had done his duty by the hawks, and, the chased bird had no chance of escaping. Soon its pursuers were seen above it, with spread trains and quivering sails; then one stooped, raked, and rose over again; while the other stooped to bind; both ere long becoming bound; when all three birds came fluttering back to earth.
With triumphant “whoop?” the falconer pronounced it a kill; but this time, seemingly without being told, he plucked out the tail coverts, and handed them to his young mistress. Days before, however, Van Dorn had received injunctions to procure such if possible. There was a hat that wanted a plume.
“To replace that you lost, dear Eustace,” she said, passing them over to him.
“’Tis so good of you to think of it, darling?”
How different their mode of addressing one another from the time when they were last upon that spot! No painstaking coyness now; but heart knowing heart, troth plighted, and loves mutually reliant.
“I shall take better care of this one,” he added, adjusting the feathers into a panache. “Never man sadder than I when the other was taken from me. For I feared it would be the loss of what I far more valued.”
“Your life. Ah! so feared I when I heard you were wounded – ”
“No, not my life,” he said, interrupting. “Something besides.”
“What besides?”
“Your love, Vaga; at least your esteem.”
“Eustace! How could you think that?”
“From having lost my own, along with my character as a soldier. To be taken as in a trap.”
“Never that, dearest! All knew there was treason. If you were taken so might a lion, with such numbers against you. And how you delivered yourself!”
She had learnt all the particulars of his escape – a deed of daring to be proud of. And proud was she of it.
“Do you know, Eustace,” she continued, without waiting his rejoinder, “that you spared me a journey, and perhaps some humiliation?”
“A journey! Whither?”
“To Goodrich Castle first; and it might have been anywhere after.”
“But why?”
“To throw myself at Sir Henry Lingen’s feet, and crave mercy for you.”
“That would have been humiliation indeed, darling. And I’m glad that chance hindered you from it.”
“Chance! No love: your courage did it, and – ”
“My horses’s heels, rather say. But for them I should not be here.”
He was upon that horse’s back then; she on a palfrey by his side.
“Noble Saladin!” she exclaimed, drawing closer, and passing her gloved hand caressingly over his arched neck. “Dear, good Saladin! If you but knew how grateful I am!”
Saladin did seem to know, as in soft, gentle neighing he turned his head round to acknowledge the caress.
A fair picture these betrothed lovers formed as they sate in their saddles under the greenwood tree. Some change was there in them since they had been there before. He handsome as ever, perhaps handsomer. His cheeks embrowned with two years’ campaigning, his figure braced to a terser, firmer manhood; on Saladin’s back he seemed the personification of a young crusader just returned from the Holy Wars.
She lovelier than of erst, if that were possible. A woman now, her girlhood’s beauty had done all Major Grenville said of it, and more. Sager had she grown, made so by the vicissitudes and trials of the time; and it became her. Not now clapped she her hands, and echoed the falconer’s “whoop!” when the hawks struck their quarry down. Instead, took it all quietly; so different from former days!
But there was another cause now sobering, almost saddening, her, one which affected both. The war was not yet at an end. At any hour, any moment, might come a summons which would again separate them, perchance never more to meet! In that tranquil sylvan scene they felt as on the deck of a storm-tossed, wreck-threatened ship, in the midst of angry ocean! Cruel war, to beget such reflections – such fears!
And, alas! they were realised almost on the instant. Following the old course, the hawking party had ascended to the summit of the hill to give the merlin its turn. The game of its pursuit, more plentiful, was easily found and flushed, so that soon the courageous creature made a kill – a landrail the quarry.
But ere it could be cast-off for a second flight, just as once before, the sport was interrupted by, their seeing a horseman on the opposite hill coming down the road from the Wilderness to Drybrook.
He might not have been noticed but for the pace, which was a rapid gallop. This down the steep declivity told of some pressing purpose, while the sun’s glitter upon arms and accoutrements proclaimed him a soldier.
More definite was the knowledge got of him through a telescope, which one of the attendants carried. Glancing through it, Sir Richard recognised the uniform of a Parliamentarian dragoon – one of Massey’s own regiment. Coming that way, and at such a speed, the man must be a messenger with despatches; and for whom but himself?
Separating from his party, and taking Hilbert with him, the knight trotted off to the nearest point where the Ruardean road passed over the shoulder of the hill, there halting till the dragoon should come up. Nor had he long to wait. As conjectured, the man was a messenger, bearing a despatch that called for all haste in the delivery, and therefore came galloping up the slope without lessening his pace. He seemed some little disconcerted at seeing two horsemen drawn up on the road before him, but a word from Sir Richard reassured him, as he perceived it was the knight himself.
As the despatch was for Sir Richard, this brought his gallop to an end; and, drawing up, he handed over the document, simply saying —
“From Governor Massey, Colonel.”
Addressed “Colonel Walwyn,” it read, —
“Gerrard has slipped through out of South Wales, by Worcester, and now en route to join the King at Oxford. I’ve got orders from the Committee to march out and intercept him, if possible at Evesham, or before he can cross the Cotswolds. I shall want every man of my command. So draw off from the Ruardean, for Gloucester, and reinforce its garrison. Start soon as you get this – lose not a moment. Time is pressing.
“E. Massey.”
When Sir Richard returned to the hawking party his hurried manner, with the serious expression upon his features, admonished Vaga Powell that her presentiment was on the eve of being fulfilled. Sure was she of it on hearing his answer to Sabrina, who had anxiously questioned him on his coming up.
“Yes, dearest! A courier from Massey at Gloucester. I’m commanded to proceed thither in all haste. We must home.”
And home went they to Hollymead, hurriedly as once before. But not to stay there; only to leave the ladies within a few minutes in getting ready for the “route.” Then back down to Ruardean to order the “Assembly” sounded; soon after “Boots and saddles”; in fine, the “Forward, march!” and before the sun had sunk over the far Hatteral Hills, the sequestered village had resumed its wonted tranquillity, not a soldier to be seen in its streets, nor anywhere round it.
Chapter Fifty Three
Again Presentiments
“Don’t you wish we were back in Gloucester, Sab?”
“Why wish that, Vag?”
“It’s so lonely here.”
“How you’ve changed, and in so short a time! While in the city you were all longings for the country and now – ”
“Now I long to get back to the city.”
“The prosaic city of Gloucester, too!”
“Even so. And am sorry we ever came away from it.”
“You’ve got yourself to blame. Father was all against it, you know, and only yielded to your solicitations. As you’re his favourite he couldn’t refuse you.”
“But you approved of it yourself, for another reason.”
Sabrina had approved of it for another reason thus hinted at. After the taking of Monmouth by the Parliamentarians, Sir Richard Walwyn had orders to keep to the Hereford side of the Forest and guard the approaches in that direction. Hence his having his Horse quartered at Ruardean, and hence the desire of the sisters to be back at Hollymead House. Now that he was gone to Gloucester – so unexpectedly summoned thither – all was different, and to Vaga the country life she had so enthusiastically praised seemed no longer delightful.
“Well, Vag, we’re here now, and must make the best of it. Though I confess to feeling it a little lonely myself. I wish father had taken Richard’s advice.”
At his hurried departure Colonel Walwyn had counselled their leaving Hollymead, and going back to reside at Gloucester, if not at once, soon as the removal could be conveniently made. The knight, without wishing unnecessarily to alarm them, had yet some apprehensions about their safety in that remote place. But they were not shared in by his intended father-in-law, who, although not absolutely rejecting the advice, still delayed following it. So secure felt he that, even on the very day when Sabrina was speaking of it, he had himself gone to Gloucester, on Committee business, and left his daughters at Hollymead alone.
Vaga echoed her sister’s wish, then added, – “It may be worse than lonely. Don’t you think there’s some danger?”
“Oh, no! What danger?”
“Why, from the enemy – the King’s people.”
“There are none nearer than Bristol and Hereford.”
“You forget Goodrich Castle?”
“No, I don’t. But with Monmouth in the hands of our soldiers the Goodrich garrison will have enough to do taking care of itself, without troubling us.”
Monmouth had not yet been retaken by the Royalists; at least no word of that had reached Hollymead House.
“Besides,” she continued. “Sir Henry Lingen would not likely molest us. You remember before the war he was very much father’s friend, and – ”
“And before he was married very much yours,” interpolated the younger sister, with a glance of peculiar significance. “I remember that too. For the which reason he might be the very man to molest us. There’s such a thing as spitefulness, and he could scarce be blamed for feeling it a little.”
“T’sh, Vaga! Don’t say such silly things. There never was aught between Sir Henry and myself, nor any reason for his being spiteful now. We have nothing to apprehend from that quarter.”
“Still we may from some other.”
“What other are you thinking of?”
“Not any in particular. Only a vague sense of somebody – a foreboding – as when we were out hawking, just before that courier arrived. I had the same feeling then, and it came true.”
“Admitting it did, what evil came of it? None; only an ordinary event, Richard and Eustace being separated from us. So long as the war lasts we must expect that, and be patiently resigned to it.”
Though sager grown, Vaga was still not equal to the strain of any prolonged resignation. Of a subtle, nervous nature, she was easily affected by signs and omens, felt presentiments and had belief in them. One was upon her at this same moment, and in an instant after she saw that which seemed likely to justify it.
“Look!” she cried; “look yonder?” They were in the withdrawing-room, having entered it after eating breakfast, she herself standing at one of the windows, with eyes bent down the long avenue. What had elicited her exclamation was a figure that, having passed inside the park gates, was coming on for the house. A woman, but of man’s stature, and by this easily identifiable. For at the first glance Vaga recognised the sister of Cadger Jack.
It was not that which had caused her to exclaim so excitedly. Winny was an almost everyday visitor at the big house, having much business there, and nothing strange would be thought of her coming to it at any time. The strangeness was the way in which she was making approach, hurriedly and in long strides – almost at a run!
“What can it mean?” mechanically interrogated Sabrina, who had joined the other at the window. “So unlike Winifred’s usual stately step! Unlike her manner too – she seems greatly excited. Something amiss, I fear.”
“Oh, sister! I’m sure of it. Just what I’ve been thinking and saying. She has news for us, and sad news – you’ll see.”
“I trust not. Stay! this is Monmouth market day, possibly she has been to the market and heard something there. In that case it’s not likely to affect us much, all we care for being on the other side of the Forest. And yet the cadgers could scarce have been to the market and back again already? ’Tis too early. But we shall soon know.”
By this the cadgeress was pushing open the wicket-gate of the haw-haw, and, now near, they could read the expression upon her features, which showed full of concern.
Though the month of October, the morning was warm, and the window in which they, stood, a casement, had been thrown open. Stepping into a little balcony outside, and leaning over the rail, Sabrina called out interrogatively – “You have some news for us, Win?”
“’Deed yes, my lady. That hae I, an’ sorry be’s I to say’t.”
“Bad news, then?” exclaimed both sisters in a breath, their hearts audibly beating.
“Is it anything from Gloucester?” gasped out the elder one, the other mentally echoing the question.
“No, my ladies. It be all ’bout Monnerth.”
This some little relieved them, and more tranquilly they waited to hear what the news was.
“Them be’s bad, as ye ha’ guessed,” continued the cadgeress. “Him have been took by the Cavalières.”
“Him! Who?” simultaneously exclaimed the sisters, again greatly excited.
“Monnerth, mistresses; I sayed Monnerth, didn’t I?”
“Oh! yes, yes.” They were too glad to give assent, without noticing her ungrammatic provincialism. “Monmouth taken by the Cavaliers, you say?”
“Yes, my ladies. They’s be back into it, an’ ha’ shut up the Parliamentaries in prison – all as didn’t get away.”
“Where have you heard this, Win? You haven’t been to Monmouth yourself, have you?”
“No, Mistress Sabrina. Only partways. Jack an’ me started for the market; but fores crossin’ the ferry at Goodrich us heerd as how the Sheriff wor down at Monnerth, an’ had helped them o’ Ragland to capter the town. Takin’ the hint, us turned back an’ hurried home, fast as ever we could; an’ I han’t lost a minnit in comin’ to tell ye.”
“’Twas thoughtful of you, Winifred,” said Sabrina. “And we give you thanks. Now go round to the cook and have something to eat. But stay! I’m forgetting. You haven’t told us what time it happened – I mean the taking of Monmouth. You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, mistress. Night afore last, or early yester morn. Whens day broke the King’s flag be seen over the Castle, an’ there wor great rejoicins in the town. So tolt we the ferryman o’ Goodrich.”
“What should we do?” inquired Vaga, after the cadgeress had parted company with them, retiring to the kitchen.
“What can we do? Nothing, till father comes home. As they must have had the intelligence at Gloucester, yesterday evening at latest, we may look for him soon. I suppose we must give up all thought of hawking to-day? Some one had better go to Van Dorn’s lodge, and tell him not to come.”
“Too late! There he is now.”
The falconer was seen approaching by a side path, with an attendant who carried the hawks on a cadge, a couple of dogs following. At the same instant saddled horses, in the charge of grooms, were being brought round from the rear of the house. All this had been ordered beforehand, the ladies having sate down to breakfast costumed and equipped for the sport of falconry.
“Shall we send them back?” queried Sabrina, irresolutely.
“Why should we?”
Vaga was passionately fond of hawking; and, now that she knew the worst of that foreboding late felt, was something of herself again. The taking of Monmouth was but one of the many incidents of the war; no misfortune had happened to any in whom they had special concern.
“I suppose we’ll have to leave Hollymead now,” she added, “once more to take up our abode in cities. In which case it may be long before we have another day with hawks. If we don’t go, Van Dorn will be so disappointed.”
“If we do, then,” rejoined Sabrina, half assentingly, “it mustn’t be far – not outside the park.”
“Agreed to that. No need for our going out of it. Inside we’ll find plenty of things to fly your Mer at. As for my Pers, if better don’t turn up, we can whistle them off at a cushat.”
So it was settled, and in twenty minutes after they were in their saddles, and away beyond sight of the house, listening to the hooha-ha-ha-ha, the whistle and the whoop.
Chapter Fifty Four
A Glittering Cohort
It was getting late in the afternoon when a party of horsemen, numbering about two hundred, commenced the ascent of Cat’s Hill, going in the direction of Ruardean.
Soldiers they were, in scarlet doublets, elaborately laced; their standard flag, with the Royal arms in its field, and a crown upon the peak of its staff, proclaiming them in the service of the king.
That it was no common cavalry troop could be told by other distinctive symbols. Beside the three or four subalterns in their places along the line, half a score other officers were at its head; in gorgeous uniforms, and with hats grandly plumed, as on the personal staff of a general. And such were they; the rank and file rearward being his escort. No ordinary general either, but the commander-in-chief of the King’s armies – Prince Rupert himself.
His own garb in splendour outshone all; a blaze of jewels and gold, from the aigrette in his hat to the spurs upon his heels – costume more befitting court than camp.
But he was not now on any war expedition; instead, on the way to seek conquest of other kind than by the sword.
It was the day succeeding that night of revelry at his quarters in Bristol; and the words there exchanged between him and Colonel Lunsford will explain his presence on the Cat’s Hill, with face turned towards Ruardean. For in that direction also lay Hollymead House whither he was proceeding.
Quick work and a rapid ride had he made of it; evincing the strong passion of fancy with which the “bit of saucy sweetness” had inspired him.
Lunsford was with him, by his side; the two some lengths in the lead, and apart from the others, conversing as they rode on.
“You think, mein Colonel,” said the Prince, interrogatively, “we shall find the fraüleins at home this time!”
“Pretty sure of it, your Highness. Since the Goodrich ferryman heard of their being at Hollymead yesterday, it’s scarcely probable they can have taken departure since.”
“But the news from Monmouth will have reached them. How about that?”
“It will affect them somewhat, I dare say. Still, Master Powell is not a man to be easily frightened. As your Highness will be aware, Ruardean is not under the Monmouth Commissioners. Sir John Wintour on the Gloucester side, is the one Powell has most reason to apprehend a visit from. And as he will know of Sir John’s being held in check by Massey, he won’t be much alarmed, just yet. Still, no doubt, he’ll be for moving back again to Gloucester; though not in such hot haste, but that your Highness will have an opportunity of holding speech with him.”
“Gott! Sir Thomas; that should be the reverse of pleasant, from what you’ve told me about the old Roundhead’s tongue. He may give it me as he did yourself.”
“No fear of that, your Highness.”
“Why not, pray?”
“The circumstances are quite different. He had backings about him then – these ugly fores fellows, five to our one. Besides a Royal Prince – Puritan though he be – he’ll have respect for that. But what matters it about his prating? Your Highness intends laying him by the heels.”
“That will depend on circumstances. We must try the suaviter before the fortiter. If fair words fail, then – the extremities.”
“Our present visit to the Master of Hollymead is to be of a friendly character then? Is that your Highness’s intention!”
“Ceremoniously so; all the politeness to be observed by every one of our escort. You will see to that, Colonel?”
“It shall be seen to. But does your Highness propose taking them all to the house? It might be convenient to leave some at the village, to wait your coming back.”
“Nein, nein!” impatiently exclaimed the Prince. “All go on with me.”
Astute schemer as was Lunsford himself, he was not aware of certain motives actuating his master. Anything but an Adonis was the son of the Elector Palatinate. Yet such he dreamed himself, with a confidence in his power of fascinating the fair sex almost illimitable. The type and boast of Cavalierism, he wielded sway uncontrolled wherever he went, or the Royal cause was triumphant; women, as men, either willingly submitting to his caprices, or not daring to oppose them. Many a conquest had he made over weak creatures consenting. For the achievement of such he well knew the advantage of stately show and regal surroundings, nowhere more effective than in the country he was defiling with his presence. Even at this day as then, where the proverbial indemnity for the wrong-doing of kings is extended to princes and princelets, their social backslidings gaining them credit, rather than blame, under the facetious title, geniality.
No man better than Rupert knew woman’s weakness in this regard. Hence the shining retinue he had summoned to attend him in this ride through the Forest of Dean – one of the pleasure excursions he was accustomed to make under the plea of a military reconnaissance. For, although the future pirate of the West Indian seas was quite indifferent to English public opinion, there were reasons then for him not too openly outraging it. By his defeats and failures he had lost the countenance of the court, and intrigue was there busy against him.
“In that case, your Highness,” rejoined Lunsford, “there’s no necessity for our going through the village. A path leads through the woods by which it can be avoided.”
“Is it a roundabout?”
“Not much, if any. It comes back into this again, near Hollymead Park gates. If we pass through the village your Highness’s escort will gain a large accession of strength, which may not be agreeable to you.”
“Gott, yes! Something in that, Sir Thomas. Let us take the other way, then. Where does it branch off?”
“There, your Highness”; and he pointed to the embouchure of a wood road some paces ahead on the right.
Without further speech they turned into it, and rode on beneath the shadow of trees, whose branches, arcading over, hindered sight of the sun. For, though October, these were still in full foliage, the leaves falling late in the Forest of Dean. But green no more; save those of the yew, holly, and frost-defying bramble, with the mistletoe and its pearl-like pellucid berries. All others showed hues and tints varied, and almost as vivid as those of the tropical forests so much extolled by travellers.
A winding path it was, by reason of the steep incline; and as in silence the glittering cohort, forced into single file by its narrowness, slowly followed the sinuosities upward, it might have been likened to a gigantic serpent in crawl towards unsuspecting prey.
This similitude in more ways than one; for at the head of that glancing line there were serpents, though in human shape, making approach to what they intended as victims.
