CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.
BETWEEN TWO PRISONS.
In Parliamentary war times English roads were very different from whatthey are of to-day. Those of the shires bordering Wales were no betterthan bridle paths, generally following the routes of ancient Britishtrackways, regardless of ups and downs. Travel over them was chiefly inthe saddle or afoot, traffic by pack-horse, wheels rarely making mark onthem save when some grand swell of the period transported his familyfrom town to country house. Then it was a ponderous coach of thechariot order, swung on leathern springs--such as the gossipy Pepys andSir Charles Grandison used to ride in--calling for at least four horses,with a retinue of attendants. These last armed with sword and pistolfor protection against robbers, but also, pioneer fashion, carryingspade and axe to fill up ruts, patch broken bridges, and cut downobstructing trees.
Where the routes ran over hills, the causeway, sunk below the level ofthe adjacent land, was more like the bed of a dry watercourse than ahighway of travel; this due to the wear of hoof and washing away byrains. There was no Macadam then to keep the surface to its normalheight by a compensating stratum of stone; and in many places thetallest horseman, on the back of a sixteen-hands horse would see a cliffon either side of him, its crest barely touchable with the stock of hiswhip. Often half a mile or more of this ravine-like road would beencountered, so narrow that vehicles meeting upon it could not by anypossibility pass each other; one of them must needs back again, perhaps,hundreds of yards! To avoid such _contretemps_, the husbandman who hadoccasion to carry corn to the mill, or produce to the market town, inhis huge lumbering wain, was compelled by law to announce its approachby a jangle of big bells, or the blowing of a horn!
Yet over these ancient highways--many of them still in existence--theRoman legionaries of Ostorius Scapula had borne their victorious eagles;and along them many a Silurian warrior, standing erect in hisscythe-winged chariot, was carried to conquest or defeat.
At a later period had they echoed the tramp of armed men, when Henry theFourth, father of Agincourt's hero, made war upon the Welsh. Laterstill, twice again, in the days of the gallant Llewellyn and those ofthe bold Glendower; and still farther down the stream of time were theystained with blood as of brother shed by brother, when England'speople--those of Wales as well--King-mad and King-cursed, took a fancy,or frenzy, to cut one another's throats about the colour of a rose.
And now, on these same roads, two centuries later, they were againengaged in a fratricidal strife, though not as before with both sidesinfatuated through kingcraft. One was fighting for a better cause--thebest of all--a people's freedom. The first time they had struck blowfor this or themselves; their stand for Magna Charta, so much vaunted,being a mere settling of disputes between barons and king; no quarrel oftheirs, nor its results much gain to them. Neither would it be far fromthe truth to say, it was the _last_ time for them to draw sword on theside of human liberty; indeed difficult to point out any war in whichGreat Britain has been engaged since not undertaken for the propping upof vile despotisms, or for selfish purposes equally vile, to the verylatest of them--Zululand and Afghanistan _videlicet_.
But the rebellion against Charles Stuart had a far different aim, allwho upheld it being actuated by higher and nobler motives; and, thoughthe war was internecine, it need never be regretted. For on the part ofEngland's people it brought out many a display of courage, devotion tovirtue, and other good qualities, of which any people might be proud.
Nor was it all fruitless, though seeming so. From it we inherit suchfragment of liberty as is left us, and to it all such aspirations turn.Not all stifled by the corruption which came immediately after under therule of the Merry Monarch; nor yet by what followed further on, duringthe foul reign of "Europe's first gentleman;" and let us hope still tosurvive through one foreshadowing, nay, already showing, corruptiongreat as either.
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Though in the Parliamentary wars no great battle occurred in thecounties of Monmouth or Hereford, in both there was much partisanstrife, at first chiefly along their eastern borders. Their interiordistricts, save during the Earl of Stamford's brief occupation, andWaller's sweeping raid, had been hitherto in the hands of the Royalists;and no traveller thought of venturing on their roads who was notprepared upon challenge to cry "For the King!"
Two routes were especially frequented; but more by warlike men thanpeaceful wayfarers. One of them ran due north and south between theirrespective capitals. The other passed through the same, but with abow-like bend eastward, keeping to the valley of the Wye, and aboutmidway communicating with the town of Ross. Between them lay awild-wooded district of country, the ancient kingdom of Erchyn, to thisday known as the Hundred of Archenfield. Through this was a third road,leading from Goodrich Castle north-west; which, on the shoulder of ahigh hill, Acornbury, some six miles south of Hereford, met the moredirect route from Monmouth--the two thence continuing the same to theformer city.
On the morning of the capture of Monmouth, at the earliest hour of dawn,a cavalcade was seen issuing from the gates of Goodrich Castle, andturning along this road in the direction of Hereford. It numbered nighan hundred files, riding "by twos," a formation which the narrowtrackway rendered compulsory. Most of the men comprising it carried thelance, a favourite weapon with Colonel Sir Henry Lingen, its commandingofficer. But some twenty were without arms of any kind, though onhorseback: the prisoners of whom Kyrle had spoken as likely to betransferred from Goodrich to the capital. The information accidentallyreceived by him was correct; they were now in transit between the twoplaces, escorted by nearly all the castle's garrison, Lingen himself atthe head.
Had he known of Monmouth being in the hands of the enemy, he would nothave been thus moving away from his stronghold. But, by some mischance,the messenger sent to apprise him of the disaster, did not reachGoodrich till after his departure for Hereford.
Nor was his errand to the latter place solely to see his prisonerssafely lodged. He had other business there, with its Governor, SirBarnabas Scudamore; hence his going along with them. For taking such alarge retinue there was the same reason. Sir Barnabas contemplated anattack on Brampton Bryan Castle; so heroically defended by LadyBrilliana Harley, who had long and repeatedly foiled his attempts totake it.
The High Sheriff of Hereford county--for such was Lingen--took delightin a grand Cavalier accompaniment--many of his followers belonging tothe best families of the shire--and along the route they were alljollity, talking loud, and laughing at each _jeu d'esprit_ which chancedto be sprung. Just come from hard blows at Beachley, and crowdedquarters in Monmouth, they were on the way to a city of more pretension,and promising sweeter delights. Hereford was at the time a centre ofdistinction, full of gentry from the surrounding shires; above all,abounding in the feminine element, with many faces reputed fair.Lingen's gallants meant to have a carousal in the capital city, and knewthey would there find the ways and means, with willing hosts toentertain them.
Different the thoughts of those whom they were conducting thither ascaptives. No such prospects to cheer or enliven them; but the reverse,as their experience of prison life had already taught them.
Most of all was Eustace Trevor dejected, for he was among them. It hadbeen a trying week for the ex-gentleman-usher. Captured, wounded--bygood fortune but slightly--transported from prison to prison, taunted asa rebel, and treated as a felon, he was even more mortified than sad.Enraged also to the end of his wits; he the proud son of Sir WilliamTrevor to be thus submitted to ignominy and insult; he to whom, atWhitehall Palace, but two short years before, earls and dukes had shownsubservience, believing him the favourite of a Queen!
Harrowing the reflections, and bitter the chagrin, he was now enduring,though the Queen had nought to do with them. All centred on a simplegirl, in whose eyes he had hoped to appear a hero. Instead, he hadproved himself an imbecile; been caught as in a trap! What would she--Vaga Powell--
think of him now?
Oft since his capture had he anathematised his ill-fate--oft lamentedit. And never more chafed at it than on this morning while beingmarched towards Hereford. While at Monmouth he had entertained a hopeof getting rescued. A rumour of the affair at Beachley had penetratedhis prison; and he knew Massey had been long contemplating an expeditionacross the Forest and over the Wye. But Hereford was in the heart ofthe enemy's country, a very centre of Royalist strength and rule. Notmuch chance of his being delivered there; instead, every mile nearer toit the likelier his captivity to be of long continuance.
Hope had all but forsaken him; yet, in this his darkest hour ofdespondence, a ray of it scintillated through his mind, once moreinspiring him with thoughts of escape. For something like a possibilityhad presented itself, in the shape of a horse--his own. The same animalhe bestrode in his combat with Sir Richard Walwyn, and that had shownsuch spirit after a journey of nigh fifty miles. Many a fifty miles hadit borne him since, carried him safe through many a hostile encounter.
He was not riding it now, alas! but astride the sorriest of nags."Saladin," the name of the tried and trusty steed, had been taken fromhim at Hollymead, and become the property of a common soldier, one ofthose who had assisted in his capture, the same now having him inespecial charge. For each of the prisoners was guarded by one of theescort riding alongside.
It was by a mere accidental coincidence that the late and present ownersof Saladin were thus brought into juxtaposition; and at first the formeronly thought of its singularity, with some vexation at having beendeprived of his favourite charger, which he was not likely to recoveragain. By-and-by, however, the circumstance became suggestive. He knewthe mettle of the horse, no man better. Perhaps, had Sir Harry Lingen,or any of his officers, known it as well, a common trooper would nothave been bestriding it. But as yet the animal's merits remainedundiscovered by them, none supposing that in heels it could distance allin their cavalcade, and in bottom run them dead down.
On this, and things collateral, had Eustace Trevor commenced reflecting;hence his new-sprung hope. Wounded, with his arm in a sling, he was notbound--such precaution seeming superfluous. Besides, badly mounted ashe was, any attempt at flight would have been absurd, and could but endin his being almost instantly retaken. So no one thought of his makingit, save himself; but he did--had been cogitating upon it all along theway.
"If I could but get on Saladin's back!" was his mental soliloquy, "I'drisk it. Three lengths of start--ay, one--and they might whistle afterme. Their firelocks and lances all slung, pistols in the holstersbuckled up; none dreaming of--Oh! were I but in that saddle!"
It was his own saddle to which he referred, now between the legs of thetrooper, who had appropriated it also.
Every now and then his eyes were turned towards the horse in keen,covetous look; which the man at length observing, said,--
"Maybe ye'd like to get him back, Master Captain? He be precious goodstuff; an' I don't wonder if ye would. Do ye weesh it?"
It was just the question Saladin's _ci-devant_ owner desired to beasked, and he was on the eve of answering impressively, "Very much." Areflection restraining him, he replied, in a careless indifferent way,--
"Well, I shouldn't mind--if you care to part with him."
"That would depend on what ye be willin' to gie. How much?"
This was a puzzler. What had he to give? Nothing! At his capture theyhad stripped him clean, rifled his pockets, torn from his hat thejewelled clasp and egret's plume--that trophy of sweet remembrance.Even since, in Monmouth gaol, they had made free with certain articlesof his attire; so that he was not only unarmed and purseless, but rathershabbily dressed; anything but able to make purchase of a horse, howevermoderate the price.
Would the man take a promise of payment at some future time--his wordfor it? The proposal was made; a tempting sum offered, to be handedover soon as the would-be purchaser could have the money sent him by hisfriends; but rejected.
"That's no dependence, an' a fig for your friends?" was the coarseresponse of the sceptical trooper. "If ye can't show no better suretyfor payin', I hold on to the horse, an' you maun go without him.'Sides, Master Captain, what use the anymal to ye inside o' a prison,where's yer like to be shut up, Lord knows how long?"
"Ah, true!" returned the young officer, with a sigh, and look ofapparent resignation. "Still, corporal,"--the man had a _cheveron_ onhis sleeve--"it's killing work to ride such a brute as this. If onlyfor the rest of the way to Hereford, I'd give something to exchangesaddles with you."
"If ye had it to gie, I dare say ye would," rejoined the corporal, witha satirical grin, as he ran his eye over the bare habiliments of hisprisoner. "But as ye han't, what be the use palaverin' 'bout it? Tillye can show better reezon for my accommodatin' you, we'll both stick tothe saddles we be in."
This seemed to clinch the question; and for a time Eustace Trevor wassilent, feeling foiled. But before going much farther a remembrancecame to his aid, which promised him a better mount than the Rosinante hewas riding--in short, Saladin's self. The wound he had received was alance thrust in the left wrist--only a prick, but when done deluging thehand in blood. This running down his fingers had almost glued themtogether, and the kerchief hastily wrapped round had stayed there eversince, concealing a ring which, seen by any of the Cavalier soldiers,would have been quickly cribbed. None had seen it; he himself havingalmost forgotten the thing, till now, with sharpened wits, he recalledits being there; knew it to be worth the accommodation denied him, andlikely to obtain it.
"Well, corporal," he said, returning to the subject, "I should haveliked a ride on the horse, if only for old times' sake, and the littlechance of my ever getting one again. But I'd be sorry to have youexchange without some compensation. Still, I fancy, I can give you thatwithout drawing upon time."
The trooper pricked up his ears, now listening with interest. He wasnot inexorable; would have been willing enough to make the temporaryswop, only wanted a _quid pro quo_.
"What do you say to this?" continued the young officer.
He had slipped his right hand inside the sling; and drawn forth thegolden circlet, which he held out while speaking. It was a jewelledring, the gems in cluster bedimmed with the blood that had dried andbecome encrusted upon them. But they sparkled enough to show itvaluable; worth far more than what it was being offered for. And therewas a responsive sparkle in the eyes of him who bestrode Saladin, as hehastened to say,--"That'll do. Bargain be it?"