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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
I
t was on Wednesday, October 19, that the main body of Essex’s
army set out from Worcester, and after making slow progress,
owing to the terrible state of the roads, they reached the little
market town of Kineton between nine and ten o’clock on the
Saturday evening. The people, who in those parts were favourable
to the Parliament, received them with no little kindness, and Gabriel
soon found himself in comfortable quarters in the house of a certain
Manoah Mills, a saddler, whose wife, Tibbie, was eager to bestow
the good supper she had provided on six of the soldiers she thought
most in need of it.
The worthy couple stood in their doorway to make choice of their
guests. “We will have naught but knowledgeable men,” said Manoah,
shaking his bald head shrewdly. “Good talkers that can tell us the
news, and good men that can argue a point in theology.”
“Nay,” said Tibbie, “but I will have for one yon lad with the sad
eyes, he’s sore in need of mothering, by the look of, Pshaw! a mere
boy, and not even an officer,” protested Manoah.
But Tibbie had a will of her own, and while her husband brought
in some shrewd and knowledgeable men to his taste, she beckoned
to Gabriel. “Me and my husband can give you shelter for the night,
sir, and a good supper, if you’ll step in. ’Tis hard if those who are
fighting for us can’t get food and lodging on a cold night like this,”
she said.
Gabriel thanked her, and gladly sat down to the excellent supper
of fried eggs and bacon, and rye bread which the good woman
provided; but when the “knowledgeable men” passed from the
events of the day to a warm argument on a difficult point in
theology, he fell far below Manoah’s standard, not being able to take
any interest at all in the discussion, but growing more and more
sleepy, till at length, when he had nodded violently in the middle of
his host’s eager remarks on election and fore-ordination, Tibbie
kindly pointed to an old oak settle by the fire. Here he stretched
himself in great content, and leaving the theologians to edify
themselves with their favourite pastime, was soon lulled by their
voices into dreamless sleep.
Sunday was to be a day of rest, and he woke with a relieved
consciousness that there would be no more ploughing their way
knee deep in mud through the country lanes. Tibbie provided them
with an excellent breakfast, and was just expressing her admiration
of the way in which they all prepared to attend morning service at
the Church, when the bugle sounded “to arms,” and like wild-fire the
news ran through Kineton that the King was only two miles from
them. Already the Royalist cavalry were forming on the top of
Edgehill, a high hill overlooking the little market town, and Essex
promptly drew out his forces in the open ground between, lining the
hedges and enclosures which lay upon one side with musketeers.
Gabriel, in the Lord General’s regiment under Sir Philip Stapleton,
found himself on the right wing next to Lord Brooke’s purple-coated
troop, on the one side, and to Cromwell’s troop on the other.
Then came the apparently interminable waiting which most
severely tries those who have never before been under fire. The day
was cold and windy, moreover, and much rain had fallen during the
night; to wait hour after hour while the King’s army massed itself on
Edgehill was far from inspiriting.
At length, about one o’clock, when it became apparent that Essex
was too good a general to scale heights guarded by a far more
numerous army, and intended to wait in the admirable position he
had chosen, at some little distance from the foot of the hill, the
Royalist forces were brought down into the plain, and somewhat
before three o’clock the dull roar of the cannon began. Then the
Royalists advanced to the charge, and the left wing of the
Parliamentary army, thrown into utter confusion through the
treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue, who had previously arranged with
Prince Rupert to change sides on the field, broke and fled before
Rupert’s fiery charge. Their panic, though partly checked by Denzil
Holies, would certainly have ruined the hopes of the Parliamentary
army had not Rupert been carried away by his usual impetuous zeal,
and hotly pursued them as far as Kineton, where the sight of the
valuable baggage waggons proved irresistible to him, and he and his
troopers, totally ignoring the battle, lingered over the plunder till
they were perforce driven back to the field by the advance of the
Parliamentary rear-guard under Hampden and Grantham.
Meanwhile, Gabriel, who had had the good fortune to be in the
admirably steadfast right wing, had passed through some strange
experiences.
During the first exchange of cannon shots after those long hours
of waiting, and before the first Royalist charge, a sickening
imagination of what awaited them, for a minute half-paralysed him.
He was grateful to a rugged-looking Scotsman beside him, who,
understanding his sudden pallor, said: “Hoots, laddie, a’ that will
pass by; think that the Cause has muckle need o’ just yer ain sel’.”
And at that minute, glancing towards the next troop, Gabriel
perceived Cromwell a little in advance of his men, not looking
harassed, as he had often seen him in London on his way to the
House of Commons, but with an indescribable light in his strong,
noble face—the light of one inspired: while from the manly voices of
his troopers there rang out the psalm which, for Gabriel, would be
for ever associated with Hilary and the morning in the cathedral
when both had been so full of heaviness.

In trouble and adversity

The Lord God hear thee still,
The majesty of Jacob’s God
Defend thee from all ill.
 What followed was more like some wild nightmare than like real
waking existence; for awhile it seemed that the Parliamentary right
wing was to be annihilated as the left had been, for beneath the
splendid charge of Wilmot’s men Fielding’s regiment suffered
grievously. By a rapid and clever movement Balfour and Stapleton
slipped aside, that they might outflank the enemy, but Wilmot made
precisely the same mistake made by Prince Rupert, and pursued the
remnant of Fielding’s men, failing utterly to reckon with the men led
by Cromwell, Balfour and Stapleton, who with great skill hemmed in
the Royalists and fought with a desperate courage that carried all
before it.
Of how matters were going Gabriel had scarcely a thought; he
could realise only his near surroundings. He saw his Scotch
neighbour drop to the ground, killed instantly by a ghastly injury of
the head, and he sickened at the sight, till the memory of the dead
man’s words came back to him. “The Cause has muckle need o’ just
yer ain sel’.”
The next minute, with a horrible shriek, his horse reared wildly,
and he found himself on the blood-stained turf. Struggling to his
feet, still half-stunned by the shock, he snatched at the bridle of the
dead Scot’s horse, and, mounting it, pressed eagerly forward,
fighting now with an ardour and an impassioned zeal which he had
not before felt. The Royalists were making a strenuous resistance,
but they could not stand against the splendid charge of the
Parliamentary troops, who, utterly undaunted by the line of pikes,
pushed on with a steadfastness that was destined to retrieve their
fortunes.
For Gabriel, however, it was soon merely a matter of blocking the
way with his body, his second horse fell a victim, and as he leapt to
the ground a pikeman ran him clean through the thigh; then came a
crash and a sudden darkness, after which for some time he knew no
more.
 When he slowly revived and became conscious of the confused din
of battle he for a moment thought himself in hell; the most horrible
and unearthly screams close by made him shudder, and the pain of
his wound, of which till then he had only been dully aware, became
intolerable agony, as his shrieking horse in its dying struggles
plunged on to him.
“God!” he cried, in his torture, “let me die!”
His words were heard. At that moment a horseman close by
sharply reined back his galloping steed, put a pistol to the head of
the plunging horse and ended its death agony, then, swiftly
dismounting, bent for a moment over Gabriel, with a look of
ineffable pity as he dragged him into a less torturing position.
He was a short man, and to Gabriel’s astonishment he wore the
dress of a Royalist officer. Where had he before seen that broad-
browed, kindly-eyed, yet decidedly plain face?
“Poor lad, I can do no more for you,” said a quiet voice which
could scarcely be heard in the uproar.
“My Lord Falkland!” cried Gabriel, in amazement. “You!”
And then before he could say a word of gratitude, the black cloud
began to steal over him once more and his eyes closed.
Falkland thought him dead, and remounting, rode back to rejoin
Wilmot and urge him to attempt a decisive charge, for, like so many,
he clung to the hope that the war might be ended by one great
battle. At the same moment Hampden was urging a similar request
to Essex, but the Generals on either side refused to venture a further
attempt, and the gathering twilight gave them some excuse. The
King’s standard-bearer, Sir Edward Verney, had been killed; the Royal
Standard was taken; thousands of men lay dead or dying on the
blood-stained plain, and the drawn battle of Edgehill was over.
Gabriel’s swoon must have lasted long, for it was quite dark when
he again came to himself, he was too weak from loss of blood to
wish definitely to live, though still the dead Scotsman’s words
sounded in his ears and braced him to a certain extent, kept him, at
any rate, from voluntarily letting go his precarious hold on life. Then
a memory of Falkland’s pitying face came back to him, and he tried
to think how it could have been possible that the Secretary of State
should be there just at that minute. Early in the afternoon he had
seen him with Wilmot’s men and had been surprised that one in his
position should have exposed himself so needlessly. It must, he
imagined, have been while returning with Wilmot from the pursuit of
Fielding’s routed troop that he had chanced to ride in his direction.
He moved a little, longing to make out where he lay, and how the
day had gone, but the frightful agony of the attempt quickly made
him desist; he sank down with his head propped up a little on the
dead body of the horse which Falkland had put out of its pain.
And now he could make out here and there fires at some little
distance on his left, while two or three fires on the top of Edgehill
led him to think that the Royalists had retired again up the heights,
and that Essex’s army intended to remain on the field throughout
the night. Doubtless, in the morning, hostilities would be resumed.
The far away sound of a psalm raised him for a time above his
pain; he prayed silently for the cause that had cost him so dear, and
his thoughts wandered back to his home and to Hilary. How her face
would have lighted up if he could have told her about Lord Falkland!
Somehow, he could almost fancy the same pitying tone in her voice,
had she come upon him in so terrible a plight. The thought gave him
no little comfort.
But what was this horrible cold creeping over him? This icy chill
which made the torture of his wound almost intolerable? Was this
how death came when men were left to bleed on the battle-field?
Was the death he had once so ardently desired coming to him now?
All the youth within him rose up as if in protest. He longed, with an
agony of longing, to live, and be once more physically strong.
 Very quickly, however, the lifelong habit of direct and most simple
communion with the Unseen came to his aid. And in answer to his
cry he heard the comforting words, “The beloved of the Lord shall
dwell in safety by Him.” What did it matter whether life went on here
or in some other world, since neither death, nor life, nor
principalities, nor powers, could separate him from the love of God?
The sharp frost and the bitter, nipping cold of that autumn night
killed some of the wounded, but saved many by the painful process
of freezing their wounds and thus staunching the blood. When the
age-long hours had been lived through, and the next day dawned,
Gabriel was quite unable to move, even when he heard footsteps
and voices close by, he was too dull and exhausted to call for aid; it
was not until a young, vigorous-looking man, with a mass of wavy
golden hair, stooped over him, that he raised himself to see whether
he had fallen into the hands of friend or foe. The green coat and
orange scarf told him in a moment that this was one of Colonel
Hampden’s men.
“What of the battle?” he asked, faintly.
“Neither side was wholly victorious, but in the main they say that
we made the best fight, as our infantry and cavalry acted better
together. But doubtless the finest charge of the day was Prince
Rupert’s.”
The momentary light in Gabriel’s face died out. The speaker broke
off hurriedly and moistened the dry lips of the wounded man with
water.
“You are badly hurt,” he exclaimed. “We will get you carried to
Kineton, where the surgeons will attend to you.”
“Let me be!” said Gabriel, wearily. “The war has robbed me of all I
value in life; for God’s sake, let me die in peace.”
“That will I not,” said the other, firmly. “You are but worn out with
suffering; remember that the country yet needs you.”
 He beckoned to two soldiers with a roughly extemporised litter,
and then went on to look for others in need of help.
“Who is yon officer?” asked Gabriel, as the men set down the litter
beside him.
“’Tis Cornet Joscelyn Heyworth,” replied the soldier, and without
any loss of time he lifted Gabriel with little care and less skill from
the ground, a process fraught with such hideous pain that a cry was
wrung from his lips.
Joscelyn Heyworth hastily rejoined them.
“Take your water bottle to yonder man by the carcase of the white
horse,” he said. “I will help to carry this gentleman to Kineton.”
Gabriel gave him a grateful look, but he was past speaking, and
could with difficulty strangle his groans through the long rough
journey.
At last he saw the church and the welcome sight of the houses in
the little market town. His bearers hesitated for a minute as to
where to take him.
“Try the house of Manoah Mills, the saddler,” he said, with an
effort. Somehow the recollection of Tibbie’s motherly face carried
with it a world of comfort.
“Here, lad,” said Joscelyn Heyworth, beckoning to a small boy who
was playing hop scotch as unconcernedly as though there were no
such things as wars and fightings amongst them, “guide us to the
house of Manoah Mills and serve one who suffers that you may live
in safety.”
The boy looked with awe at the bloodstained soldier on the litter
and leading the way up the street knocked at the door of a gabled
house, then stood aside as Tibbie appeared, and pointed her to the
little group in the road.
 “Woe worth the day!” she cried, running out with a face of pity.
“Why,’tis Mr. Gabriel Harford that was our guest.”
“Can you tend him and give him a bed to lie on while I fetch the
surgeon?” said Joscelyn Heyworth. “He’s badly hurt, and hath lain
out in the frost all night.”
“Bring him in, sir,” said Tibbie. “He shall have the best bed in the
house. Lord ha’ mercy on us! To think that one so young should lie
at death’s door.”
“Don’t tell him that,” said Joscelyn Heyworth. “An he thinks he’s
lying at the door, he will be minded to step inside.” Very gently he
set down his comrade in the room that Tibbie showed him, and took
it as a good omen that his words called up an amused look in the
dark hazel eyes which mutely thanked him for his help.
He had great hopes that the battle would be resumed and a more
decisive action promptly fought out, but in this he was doomed to be
disappointed. The day was spent in burying the dead and attending
to the wounded and then the Royalist forces withdrew, while the
Parliamentary army rested that night at Kineton.
Joscelyn Heyworth, finding himself with free time on his hands,
went to the saddler’s house again. Tibbie reported well of the
patient, who, having had his wound attended to by the surgeon, had
spent the greater part of the day in sleep, but was now, as she
expressed it, “Turning contrairy, just like a man, and thinking himself
worse when in truth he was mending.”
“I will take a turn at watching by him,” said Joscelyn. “You have
had a hard day’s work.”
“Well, sir,” said Tibbie; “I’ll not deny that I’d as lief have a night’s
rest. My man’s with him now; I’ll show you up.”
She led the way to the room to which the wounded man had been
carried, and as she opened the door the voice of Manoah was heard
discoursing on his favourite topic of election and foreordination.
Gabriel lay wearily listening, and even the submissive Tibbie was
roused by his look of patient endurance.
“Man!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on her husband’s
shoulder, and gently shoving him from his chair, “I do believe you’d
talk the hind leg off a donkey! Theology’s not for sickrooms,
Manoah; go and discourse with them that’s not been wounded.”
Manoah made no objection, for what was the pleasure of arguing
if there was no one to take the opposite side? He had never been
able to drag more than a reluctant “possibly” or “perchance” from
Mr. Harford. And theology, as he had severely told him, knew
nothing of such vague words, but was a matter of “yea, yea,” and
“nay, nay.”
However, he was somewhat mollified by Gabriel’s courteous
thanks for his hospitality and great anxiety to give as little trouble as
possible. And he never noticed the look of relief with which the
patient heard Joscelyn Heyworth’s proposal to remain on night duty.
It seemed to Gabriel a long time since he had had a comrade of
his own age and standing to talk to, and that strong link of
contemporary life, in itself did him good, while naturally he was
drawn to one so frank and friendly as his rescuer. There was a
strength, too, about Cornet Heyworth which appealed to him; young
as he was he nevertheless had the look and bearing of a man who
had suffered for his convictions.
“How long have you been saddled with the saddler?” he asked,
taking Manoah’s vacant chair.
“For an hour by the clock,” said Gabriel, “and never wished more
for the use of my legs, that I might flee from his long tongue.”
Joscelyn laughed.
“Oh! you are mending,” he said, cheerfully. “Last time I saw you,
you were not wanting to run but to die.”
 “A man’s not responsible for what he says in extremity,” said
Gabriel. “’Twas an award’s wish, and I’m ashamed of it now that I
can think clearly.”
“A wish to be fought and conquered,” said Joscelyn, musingly. “But
one that comes to us all in moments of the greatest suffering.”
Then, with a little hesitation, he told Gabriel that the war had
robbed him also in cruel fashion, and in listening to what he was
willing to tell of his story, the wounded man forgot his own troubles,
and the two began a friendship that was to stand them in good
stead.
“I owe my life to you,” said Gabriel, gratefully. “To you, and
strangely enough, to my Lord Falkland.”
He told of the incident on the previous day and of his amazement
that the Secretary of State should be there.
“In truth,” said Joscelyn Heyworth, “I heard from no less a person
than Colonel Hampden’s cousin, Cromwell, that my Lord Falkland
had ridden about the field more as one that wished to spare life than
to take it, and he had heard from others that the Secretary of State
intervened several times when the Royalists would have slain the
fugitives, and urged that they should have quarter on throwing down
their arms.
“But as Secretary he was not bound to fight at all,” said Gabriel.
“No, but ’twas well known that he ever counsels the King to make
peace and, like all peacemakers, he is misunderstood and miscalled
a coward; therefore, no doubt, he loses no chance to give the lie to
those that taunt him, by throwing himself fearlessly into an
unnecessary peril. Never has man been in harder case, for he is
disliked now by both parties, and very scurvily treated, they say, by
the King, who doth not like his plain-speaking and his scrupulous
truthfulness.”
 “Why did he ever desert the Parliamentary cause to which he was
once true?” said Gabriel.
“Colonel Hampden, who hath a great regard for him, says that he
distrusted Archbishop Laud’s teaching and his narrow intolerance,
but dreaded the narrowness of the extreme Puritans even worse.
Being thus in a strait betwixt two parties he, to Colonel Hampden’s
great sorrow, cast in his lot with our opponents.”
“May God keep us from all evil passion in our fighting and make us
as merciful foes as Lord Falkland has proved,” said Gabriel, sorely
perplexed in his mind as he recalled the fiery spirit which had
possessed him after he had seen the ghastly death-wound of his
Scottish comrade. With what a strange, fierce joy he had hurled
himself and his steed against the Royalist pikes, and with what
burning heat the blood had coursed through his veins! Yet now the
mere remembrance of the awful sights he had seen turned him
positively faint.
Joscelyn Heyworth made him take some of Tibbie’s strongest
cordial.
“I am but an ill nurse,” he said, “and have let you talk over much.
Remember that the noblest men on both sides have tried their very
utmost for years to settle matters peacefully; this is a last stand for
freedom and truth against kingly despotism which, in the end, would
leave England a prey to Rome, for the King is ruled by the Queen,
and the Queen is ruled by her confessor.”
Gabriel remembered the dead Scotsman’s words, and they rang in
his ear in very comforting fashion as at last he fell asleep.
His rescuer watched him thoughtfully. He had spoken of his home
and his parents, clearly the war had not robbed him of them; it
must, then, be some yet dearer tie that had been severed. And long
before the morning dawned Joscelyn knew practically the whole
story, for all through the night the feverish wanderings of the
wounded man took the form of last interviews and broken-hearted
partings with a maiden named “Hilary,” who refused to remain
betrothed to one she thought a rebel and a traitor.
 CHAPTER XI.
Love doth unite and knit, both make and keep
Things one together, which were otherwise,
Or would be both diverse and distant.
—Christopher Harvey.

I
t was not until the latter part of October that Hilary and her
mother returned to Hereford. The news of the occupation of the
city by the Earl of Stamford had kept them longer at Whitbourne
than had been expected; but the cold of the country did not suit
Mrs. Unett, and both mother and daughter were glad to settle down
once more in their own home.
Unfortunately, all the girl’s gentle thoughts had been banished by
hearing of the occupation of Hereford by the Parliament’s army. She
was once again a vehement little hater, and was revelling in the
thought of the resolute way in which she would keep Gabriel at a
distance, refusing even to notice him if they passed in the street.
As a matter of fact, the city looked exactly as usual on their
return, not a shot had been fired, no harm had been done to the
cathedral, and except for the discomfort of having soldiers in the
place, few people had complaints to make. Even Durdle shocked her
young mistress by the favourable way in which she spoke of the
army.
“They do say there was some mischief done to Mrs. Joyce
Jefferies’ house,” she admitted, “for she and Miss Acton they fled to
Garnons in a panic. But had they stayed here all would have been
well, for Mr. Gabriel Harford would have taken care of them as he
did of us.”
Hilary’s face flamed, but she was too proud to question the
housekeeper.
“He was down in the garden the night the soldiers was clamouring
at Byster’s Gate,” resumed Durdle, after a pause, “and hearing Maria
screaming, he came to the door to ask if aught was amiss, and no
one could have been kinder like, nor did he ever let a soldier come
nigh the house. And he came to bid me farewell on the fourth of
October, when he went away to Worcester to join the army, and
spoke that civil and pleasant just as though he’d been naught but a
lad still.”
Hilary’s brain seemed to reel; she made a pretence of stooping to
pick up a tortoiseshell cat which dozed by the kitchen fire.
“Bad puss, have you been eating blackbeetles, to grow so thin?”
she exclaimed, stroking her pet with well-assumed indifference.
“What was that you were saying about Worcester, Durdle?”
The good-natured housekeeper gasped, her simple mind could not
in the least understand the subtle workings of Hilary’s more complex
nature.
“Talk about pussy’s bowels being injured by beetles,” she said to
herself, “’tis my belief the lassie has no bowels at all. Was ever such
a heartless speech!”
“Well, Mistress, I was saying how Mr. Gabriel Harford had gone to
join the Earl of Essex’s army, along with his friend Mr. Edward Harley
that was at Oxford with him.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Hilary, carrying her head high. “Dr. Rogers tells
me the troopers stabled their horses in the nave and cloisters at
Worcester. Send up Maria to fetch my cape and hood, Durdle; they
got crushed in the coach, and had best be ironed.”
 Then humming a cheerful song, she quitted the kitchen and
sauntered out into the garden, her heart throbbing as if it would
choke her.
“He has joined the rebel army, and ’tis my fault,” she thought, in
anguish. “If he is killed, his death will be my doing! Oh, why was I
so cruel? Naught I could say would have changed his views, but at
least he would have gone quietly back to his studies had I not
taunted him.”
Every nook in the garden seemed haunted by memories of lost
happiness, she could not pass the sunny wall to which the apricot
trees were fastened, or look towards the stone bench by the briar
bush, without seeing in fancy her lover’s face; and she knew very
well why he had wandered into that special place on the night of the
servants’ alarm about the soldiers.
The sound of the gardener singing, as he gathered the apples,
smote discordantly on her ear, and specially when drawing nearer
she caught the doleful words of an old ballad called “The Wife of
Usher’s Well,” in which the ghosts of the three dead sons return to
their home, but can only remain for the briefest of visits. The
gardener sang with stolid cheerfulness as he filled his basket:

“The cock doth craw, the day doth daw

The channerin’ worm doth chide;
Gin we be mist out o’ our place,
A sair pain we maun bide.

Fare ye weel, my mother dear!

Fareweel to barn and byre!
 And fare ye weel, the bonny lass,
That kindles my mother’s fire.”

Turning hastily away to escape this dismal ditty she reentered the
house, and was glad to encounter her favourite uncle, Dr. William
Coke, who, during Gabriel’s absence in London, had been appointed
to the living of Bosbury, vacant on the death of old Mr. Wall. He had
not been among the very few who had been told of Hilary’s
betrothal, and this fact made her now more at ease with him than
with her grandfather or her mother. For a minute she forgot her
troubles.
“We have but just returned from Whitbourne, sir,” she said,
cheerfully. “’Tis indeed good of you to come to us.”
“I thought, maybe, your mother would be disturbed at today’s
news, and rode over to have a chat with her,” said Dr. Coke, his
genial face clouding a little.
“We have heard no fresh news,” said Hilary, eagerly. “What has
happened, sir?”
“There has been a great battle in Warwickshire, nigh to Kineton,
and though at first all thought the King’s troops would be victorious,
in the end it proved but a drawn battle, both sides suffering
grievously, and naught gained to either. They tell me that thousands
lie dead on the field.”
His sorrowful face made Hilary realise more than she had yet done
what war meant; her head drooped as she remembered her
exultation over the fifty Parliament men killed at Powick Bridge, and
recalled Gabriel’s look of reproach. Very few details had as yet been
learnt, and when she had heard all her uncle could tell her she left
him to talk with Mrs. Unett, and for the sake of being free and
undisturbed sought the cathedral—the only place, save the garden,
to which she was allowed to go without an attendant.
 Entering by the great north porch, she walked through the quiet,
deserted building to the north-east transept, and went to a little
retired nook by an arch in the north wall, where lay the effigy of
Bishop Swinfield. Here she had often come for quiet during the two
years of her betrothal, partly because it was a place where no one
was likely to notice her, and partly on account of her recollections of
the snow effigy which she and Gabriel had once fashioned after this
pattern, in honour of Sir John Eliot. Behind the tomb was a
beautifully sculptured bas-relief of the Crucifixion, and Hilary saw,
with satisfaction, that it had not been injured at all by the Earl of
Stamford’s soldiers, who, according to Durdle, had only visited the
cathedral on Sunday morning, when they had been somewhat
disorderly, and had grumbled that prayers were said for the King,
but never a word for the Parliament.
She knelt long in the quiet, and when she once more turned her
steps homeward her remorse was less bitter and more practical, and
at last, after a hard struggle, she conquered her pride, and knocked
at Dr. Harford’s door, asking whether she could see Mrs. Harford.
Now Gabriel’s mother was one of those women whose affections
are strictly limited to their own families. In so far as outsiders were
useful to her husband or her son, she liked them; but if they caused
her beloved ones the least trouble or pain, she most cordially hated
them.
So when Hilary conquered herself sufficiently to pay this visit, Mrs.
Harford, unable to see any point of view but her own, received the
girl in a most frigid way.
“We have but just returned from Whitbourne,” said Hilary,
blushing, “and I called to inquire after you, ma’am.”
“I am as well as any of us can hope to be in these troubled times,”
said Mrs. Harford, coldly.
There was an awkward pause, broken at last by an inquiry for
Mrs. Unett. Hilary tried desperately to prolong her answer. At the
close came another pause.
“We have but just heard from my uncle, Dr. Coke, of the great
battle in Warwickshire,” she said, falteringly. “Have you had any
news, ma’am?”
The mother looked searchingly into the girl’s blushing face. “Yes,”
she replied, “only an hour or two since a messenger brought me a
letter from Lady Brilliana Harley, who had heard from her husband.
He wrote the day after the battle.”
The silence that followed almost maddened Hilary. “Were Sir
Robert and Mr. Harley safe?” she asked.
“Quite safe!” said Mrs. Harford, resolved not to spare the girl or
help her out in any way. It was some slight satisfaction to her to see
this proud maiden suffer.
“And Gabriel?” she faltered. “He was safe, too?”
“Alas, no!” said the mother, with a sigh.
Hilary turned white, but asked no more questions. As if from a
great distance she heard the silence at length broken by Mrs.
Harford’s voice.
“They gave him up for lost that night, but the next morning a
young officer, Mr. Joscelyn Heyworth, found him on the field and
there was still life in him. They carried him to Kineton, and he lies
there grievously wounded.”
The girl rallied her failing powers and became obstinately hopeful.
“He is young and strong,” she said, with forced cheerfulness. “He is
sure to recover. My mother will be very sorry to hear your ill news,
and—and—if you should again have tidings, she would be glad to
hear, I know.”
“We cannot hope to hear again,” said Mrs. Harford. “It was only by
great good fortune that Sir Robert Harley was able to get a letter to
Lady Brilliana, and we are little like to hear from Gabriel himself,
even if he were well enough to write. This is the hard part of war,
the terrible waiting for news.” After formally polite farewells Hilary
found herself going down the broad oak staircase with dim eyes; but
Neptune, Gabriel’s favourite spaniel, stood wagging his tail in most
friendly fashion in the entrance-hall, and her sore heart was a little
comforted when he bounded up to lick her hand as if he recognised
the fact that she was still in some subtle way connected with his
master.
Unwilling to pass through the street with eyes brimming over with
tears, she went back through the garden and by the little wicket
gate. But the sight of the sunny south walk did not raise her spirits,
and with the terror that even now Gabriel might be lying dead at
Kineton, she could hardly endure the sound of the gardener’s dismal
ditty. He still toiled away at the apple gathering, and still chanted, in
lugubrious tones, the gruesome words:

“The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,

The channerin’ worm doth chide-”

Hurrying away from this unbearable song and half blinded by

tears, she suddenly found herself brought to a pause by Dr. William
Coke, who was standing at the door that he might more closely
inspect in the sunshine a fossil which they had brought back from
Whitbourne.
“Whither away so fast, little niece?” he said in his genial voice.
Then catching sight of the wet eyelashes, “Eh, what is amiss, my
dear?”
“’Tis only that the stupid gardener will sing gruesome ballads
about graves and channerin’ worms just on this special day when we
have heard how thousands are dead and dying at Kineton,” said
Hilary.
He sighed as he patted her shoulder, caressingly.
“True, child, it is indeed a dark day for England. May God send us
peace! But dwell not on that thought of the grave. Remember rather
the words, ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.’”
“But they were not all righteous,” said Hilary, in a choked voice.
“True, yet all belong to Him.”
“Many were rebels,” she said, “and Dr. Rogers thinks that all rebels
will burn for ever in hell.”
“My dear, though Dr. Rogers is a learned man, he knows no more
than the rest of us about the future state. I would even venture to
say,” and here Dr. Coke’s eyes twinkled, “that he knows less than
many, for his heart is not dominated by love but by zeal for
orthodoxy, a thing which some folk mistake for the following of
Christ. And though, as you know, I am loyal to His Majesty, I am
bound to own that there has been much in his rule which rightly
roused the indignation of free Englishmen, and I see that even in my
own parish many of the best and the most God-fearing men have
felt it to be their duty to resist the King and to join the Parliamentary
forces.”
Hilary was comforted by these words, and through that weary
autumn, while they vainly hoped for news of Gabriel, she often
thought of them, and something of her uncle’s wider and nobler way
of looking at things began to dispel the bitter and contemptuous
spirit which’ Dr. Rogers’s teaching had fostered in her. Happily for
her, he was not just then in residence, and in his absence her heart
had some chance of softening and expanding.
At length Christmas came and with it the question whether, for the
first time in her life, she should ignore her next-door neighbours.
She had not dared to approach Mrs. Harford since the day she had
heard that Gabriel was wounded at Edgehill. But she had once or
twice encountered the doctor, and he had always paused to greet
her kindly and to tell her that, as yet, no further news had reached
them. He quietly assumed that she still took some interest in Gabriel,
and by his tact and courtesy steered her safely through the difficult
renewal of friendly relations.
On Christmas Eve she summoned up her courage and carried to
the next-door house a basket full of orange cakes of her own
making, which for years she had been in the habit of taking to Dr.
Harford for the festival.
She found him in his study, looking less careworn than he had
done of late. “So you have not forgotten your old friend?” he said,
saluting her with more than his usual kindliness of manner. “Here are
holly and mistletoe to remind us of Pagan and Druid rites, now
happily at an end, and

‘Here’s rosemary; that’s for remembrance.’

I am right glad that the maiden I have known from cradle days
hath a kind remembrance of her old neighbour, who is yet not too
old to enjoy orange cakes of her making.”
“My mother sends you the season’s greeting, sir,” said Hilary; “and
she would have visited Mrs. Harford, but she keeps the house to-day
with a very great cold.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said the doctor. “You must have a care
of her this winter, Hilary, and let her run no risks. She will, I know,
rejoice with us that we have at length heard good news of Gabriel.”
He carefully avoided looking at the girl, but was glad to hear the
tremor in her voice as she exclaimed, “Oh! have you indeed heard
from him? Then there is no need to wish you a happy Christmas, for
I am sure you have it.”
He turned away and made a pretence of searching for the letter,
all the time knowing perfectly well where it was. “Take this with you
and read it to Mrs. Unett,” he said, still avoiding the girl’s eyes. “She
will be glad to know that he hath made a good recovery.”
Hilary thanked him and made haste to depart. She did not pause
to analyse her feelings—life was more simple in those days; but in
her glowing face, and even in her quick, eager step as she entered
the withdrawing-room, Mrs. Unett read the truth. She had dismissed
Gabriel in hot anger, but love for him still lingered in her heart.
Would its flickering light kindle once more into lasting warmth and
brightness, or would the icy-cold breath of political strife in the end
prevail, and finally extinguish it?
She knelt in the ingle nook close to her mother’s armchair, and
together they read the letter:
“My Dear Sir,—You will doubtless have heard through Sir Robert
Harley that I was left at Kineton, with other wounded men, after the
fight. Thanks to the rescue of one Mr. Joscelyn Heyworth, and the
care of Tibbie Mills, wife of a worthy saddler of Kineton, my wound—
a pike wound through the right thigh—healed by the end of
November, and learning that my Lord of Essex’ army was in the
neighbourhood of London, I rode there by easy stages and sought
out Sir Robert. I found that Ned, who had been serving under Sir
William Waller, hath himself now command of a regiment of foot,
and as fresh men were being sent down to Sir William the second
week in December, I was ordered to go with them. This left me
some days in London, which I spent at Nottinghill; my grandmother
gave me a very hearty welcome, and was glad to hear the latest
tidings of you and of my mother. Who should I find staying in her
house, and painting her portrait, but M. Jean Petitot, the miniature
painter? Whereupon she insisted that he should paint my portrait
also on enamel, and she intends, when a fit chance arrives, to send
it by some trusty bearer to you, for she was right glad, she said, that
you had not grudged your only son to the good cause. When you
see the miniature, I fear you will quote the scurrilous satire put forth
by the Royalists:

This is a very Roundhead in good truth!’

For Tibbie acted the part of Delilah, and shaved off my long hair at
Kineton, to the great satisfaction of her husband, Manoah, a very
strict Puritan, and to my great comfort as I lay ill. However, she hath
left enough to curl over the head and round the nape of the neck, so
that I do not take after the fanatic section, who shave their locks in
a fashion that shows the very skin of the head, and reduces hair to
bristles. There was a man in the Farnham garrison—a vile,
sanctimonious hypocrite—who affected this style, and whose ears
stuck out most horridly from his close-cropped skull.
“We quitted London the second week in December, and by night
march reached Farnham Castle early one morning. You can judge
how great my pleasure was to encounter again Mr. Joscelyn
Heyworth, now appointed galloper to Sir William Waller. He is a little
my senior, and a man that would be after your own heart—strong
and vigorous and of a merry humour, though now somewhat
downcast on account of family divisions, all his kinsfolk being of the
King’s party. Spite, however, of their differing views, he remains on
very loving terms with some of them, though I learnt from one of
Waller’s officers that his father, Sir Thomas Heyworth, treated him
with great harshness and severity, disinheriting him and disowning
him. His friendship is the greatest boon I could have, and the sole
thing in which I have found pleasure since the day we heard of the
rout of Powick Bridge. We rested for ten hours at Farnham Castle,
and then pushed on with the rest of Sir William Waller’s force to
Winchester, which yielded to us after a very short siege. We are now
marching to attack Chichester, and have had a rough time, for the
rain has come down in torrents for some days, and to lie in the wet
fields o’ nights doth not give much rest to such of us as have old
wounds much prone to making themselves felt. To-morrow I have an
opportunity of sending this to you, as a despatch-bearer is riding to
Colonel Massey at Gloucester. I hope it may reach you by Christmas,
and carry to you and my mother the season’s greetings, and
remembrance to any former friends who will receive such greeting
from one of Sir William Waller’s lieutenants.—I rest, dear sir,
“Your son to serve you,
“Gabriel Harford.
“Written this 17 th day of December, 1642, at Petersfield.”
Christmas, with its unfailing call to realise the unity of the one
great family, cannot be joyless, however sad its surroundings. Both
to Gabriel, marching to besiege Chichester, and to Hilary in the quiet
of the old home at Hereford, there came a sense of rest and peace
which was not to be marred even by the miseries of a civil war.
But, unfortunately, with Easter came Dr. Rogers’s term of
residence, and there is no influence so deadly as that of a bitter and
unscrupulous priest who, forgetting his ordination vow to maintain
and set forwards quietness, peace, and love, among all Christian
people, fans the flame of war, or upholds a tyranny that will
ultimately ruin his nation.
 CHAPTER XII.
“I know I love in vain, strive against hope,
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love.”
—Alls Well That Ends Well.

G
abriel Harford was not a man who made many friends, his
great reserve, and a certain fastidious taste gave him an
undeserved reputation for pride and exclusiveness. Moreover,
all that he had gone through since Hilary’s angry dismissal had
tended to bring out the sterner and sadder side of his nature. He
was respected as an indefatigable worker, but few really appreciated
him.
Fortunately, he had found his complement in Joscelyn Hey-worth,
a cheerful, buoyant and extremely sociable young officer, whose
friendship had done much to save him from falling a prey to the
bitterness too apt to overtake those who defend an unpopular truth.
He had also one other firm friend in the regiment—Major Locke, a
grey-haired, middle-aged man, who had served in the German wars.
The Major was a character, and anyone looking at him as he sat
one cold April evening in the chimney corner of a snug room at
Gloucester would have fancied from his melancholy voice and long,
grave face that he was a most strait-laced Puritan. Voice and face
alike belied him, however, for he was, in truth, the wag of the
regiment; and an occasional twinkle in his light grey eyes led a few
shrewd people to suspect that he usually had a hand in the practical
jokes which now and then relieved the tedium of the campaign. His
jokes were always of a good-natured order, and had done much to
keep up the men’s spirits through that hard winter, with its arduous
night marches, its privations and its desultory warfare.
Town after town had yielded to Sir William Waller, but the net
result of the war was at present small.
On this evening the officers had dispersed soon after supper,
weary with thirty-six hours of difficult manoeuvring, and one or two
sharp skirmishes but they had been triumphantly successful in
cutting through Prince Maurice’s army, owing to Waller’s skilful
tactics, and all were now inclined to snatch a good night’s rest in the
comfortable quarters assigned them at Gloucester.
Gabriel, dead beat with sheer hard work, had fallen sound asleep
in a high-backed arm-chair by the fire long before the others had
satisfied their hunger; he woke, however, with a start as they rose
from the table, responding sleepily to the general “good night,” but
loth to stir from his nook.
“Come, my boy,” said the Major, “why sleep dog-fashion when, for
once, you may have a bed like a good Christian?”
“I will wait till Captain Heyworth comes back,” said Gabriel
stretching himself and yawning in truly canine fashion.
“And that will not be over soon, for he will linger at Mr. Bennett’s
house, chatting to pretty Mistress Coriton, his promised bride.”
“’Tis like enough,” said Gabriel, with a sigh, recalling a glimpse he
had had of Clemency Coriton’s love-lit eyes as her betrothed had
marched past the gabled house in the Close that evening. How they
contrasted with those dark grey eyes which had flashed with such
haughty defiance as Hilary had spoken her last hard words to him
—“I will look on your face no more!”
“H’m,” said the Major, “here he comes an I mistake not just as I
had hit on a first rate trick to play him. No, ’tis one that knocks—see
who it is, my boy, we want no visitors at this hour.”
Gabriel crossed the room and threw open the door. A tall,
handsome man, apparently about thirty, stood without, his long,
tawny red hair, his fawn-coloured cloak, lined with scarlet, his rakish-
looking hat with its sweeping feathers, together with the scarlet
ribbons which were the badge of the Royalists, made him rather a
startling apparition in the Puritan city of Gloucester, and especially at
Sir William Waller’s headquarters.
“Is Major Locke within? they told me I should find him here,” he
said in a voice which had something peculiarly genial in its mellow
tones..
“The Major is here, sir,” said Gabriel, ushering him in and
wondering much who he could be.
“What, you, Squire Norton!” exclaimed Major Locke in
astonishment, as he greeted him civilly, but with marked coldness
—“Colonel Norton, at your service,” said the visitor, with a short
laugh that entirely lacked the pleasantness of his voice in speaking.
“You are surprised to see me in the godly city of Gloucester.”
“Well, sir, you are certainly the last person I should have desired
as a visitor,” said the Major, bluntly.
“Major Locke was my most frank and outspoken neighbour,” said
Norton, turning with one of his flashing smiles to Gabriel. “Next to a
good friend commend me to a whole-hearted enemy who hates with
a righteous and altogether thorough hatred. But, my worthy Major,
you, as one of the godly party, should really obey all Scriptural
injunctions. Is it not written, ‘If thine enemy thirst, give him drink’?”
“Lieutenant Harford,” said the Major, in his most lugubrious voice,
“see that this gentleman has all that he requires. And in the
meantime, Colonel Norton, I must ask you to explain your presence
here.”
 “I accompanied a friend of mine who was allowed to pass the
gates to-night with a letter from Prince Maurice to Sir William Waller.
Your General is now writing the answer, and I had leave to seek you
out on a private matter.”
“I desire no private dealing with you, sir,” said the Major, stiffly.
Norton laughed as he replied, “If Lieutenant Harford, who has so
courteously heaped coals of fire on my head by filling me this
excellent cup of sack, will withdraw, I will explain to you what I
mean, Major. I assure you my intentions are wholly honourable.”
The Major made an expressive gesture of the shoulders, evidently
doubting whether he and his visitor put the same construction on
that last word. Gabriel bowed and was about to leave the room
when his friend checked him.
“Do not go, Lieutenant,” he said, decidedly. “I wish to have you
present as long as Colonel Norton remains.”
“As you will,” said Norton, easily. “I am here entirely in your
interest, sir.”
The Major drummed impatiently on the table.
“You seem to doubt that I have an eye to your interests,” said
Norton, laughing.
“Well, sir, I have known you all your life, and I dare swear ’tis the
first time you have considered anyone except yourself,” said Major
Locke, sententiously.
“You have a cursed long memory,” said Norton, cheerfully. “But
look you, Major, I know for a certainty that, early to-morrow, Prince
Maurice will send troops to besiege your house. The Manor is in a
position which will serve his purpose, and he intends to have a
garrison there. Your property will be ruined, your household turned
out, or should they resist, made prisoners, or mayhap, slaughtered.
With one word you can save such a disaster.”
 “And pray what word may that be?” said the Major, frowning.
“Your word of honour that you will give me your daughter Helena
in marriage.”
The Major flushed angrily.
“Sir,” he said, indignantly, “to that request you have already had
your answer.”
“But the times have changed, Major, and I warn you that your
answer had best change with them. Do you not see that I have your
whole property in my power? Speak only this word and I will
contrive that the Manor shall not be attacked, the Prince will easily
be diverted from his plan, and I will get a special letter of protection
for your whole household.”
“Rather than see my daughter wedded to you,” said the Major,
sternly, “I would kill her with my own hand.”
“I believe you would, my sturdy Virginius,” said Norton, with a
laugh. “However, I trust you will not come across her. To-morrow,
when the Manor yields to Prince Maurice, my first thought shall be to
take pretty Mistress Helena under my protection—no need in time of
war for parsons or bridal ceremonies.”
At that the Major sprang forward white with anger, and struck
Norton on the mouth.
“Curse you!” cried the Colonel, drawing his sword. “If you will
force a quarrel upon me, let us fight it out at once; but I call the
Lieutenant to witness that the provocation——”
“Hold your lying tongue, sir,” said the Major, pushing back the
table and whipping out his sword, and the next moment the sharp
clash of the blades rang through the room.
Gabriel was entirely absorbed in watching the combatants; he did
not notice that a stalwart gentleman, with long, light brown hair and
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