Her gentle eyes were moist, and her voice shook slightly as she gave me her hand to kiss and bade me rise. And as I did so my joy was dashed by sudden qualms born of the honor which this love of mine awakened.
“Sweet mistress,” I cried, “I have presumed too far. I had forgotten in the moment’s happiness my sad condition. I am a poor soldier of fortune—a landless, houseless ruffler.”
“Nay, Lal,” she answered with a tenderness beyond all words, “not that, but a loyal, worthy gentleman whom a noble devotion to his King hath beggared. And for this reduced condition of yours I love you, Lal, as much as for your own dear self.”
Such was the dawn of our happiness—a happiness, alas! that was about to suffer a sorry interruption.
It would appear that when Carleston left Bailienochy, he quitted at the same time the loyal party to which hitherto he had belonged. It would appear from what I learned anon that he had repaired to that cross-eyed pillar of the Covenant, the Marquess of Argyle, and offered to become a traitor and informer in the service of Kirk and State. He sought my ruin, and that of Sir Everard Fitzmorris with me. In the service of M’Callum More he came upon an infernal Presbyterian villain and kinsman of Argyle, named Sir John Gillespie, betwixt whom and me there lay as hot and goodly a hatred as ever led to the striking of stout blows.
This Gillespie—a dog who had once sought to sell the King to Cromwell—found ample employment for his treacherous instincts in hunting those loyalists that had taken up arms to do battle for their prince’s honor. No sooner did he learn that the business with Carleston was to seize the person of one Lionel Faversham, than he joined hands with his lordship.
In his eagerness to see me trussed, Gillespie allowed his zeal to outrun all prudence, and without waiting until Argyle should grant him the posse of men he needed for the undertaking, he got together a parcel of hired cut-throats and with these at his back, and accompanied by Carleston, he came north in quest of me.
I had the news of his approach—and enough, besides, to make me infer that which I have here set down—but an hour before his advent at Bailienochy. ’Twas brought me by my faithful Giles, who had been overtaken by Gillespie and his party at Kirrienmuir, and who had traveled hot-foot to warn me.
Forthwith I repaired to Sir Everard, before whom I laid the whole matter from the beginning, pointing out the peril that was sweeping down upon us. He heard me calmly, even when I told him that I loved his daughter, for the time was come to make all things clear.
“I have seen it for some days, Lal, and I had looked to hear from you ere this.”
“Sir Everard—” I began, but he cut me short.
“There is no time at present, lad. The myrmidons of the Kirk are at my gates. The times are sorry, Lal, but we will hope and pray for a speedy and blessed restoration of His Majesty to his throne of England, and when that comes to us also will be restored that which we have lost in the service of the King, our master. Time enough then, Lal, for you to think of marriage. Pish, lad, enough said. I will quit Bailienochy forthwith, with Lady Grizel and Margaret. I have friends in Inverness. Thither will we go, and if you are minded to come with us—”
I shook my head, albeit not without reluctance.
“No, Sir Everard,” I answered, for all that I would fain have gone whither my lady went. “Middleton is still in the north, with some ten thousand men, ’tis said. I will make an effort to join him, for it may come to pass that a blow will soon be struck.”
He did not seek to alter my determination, for indeed had he numbered but my years ’tis certain he would have acted in like fashion. He was on the point of leaving me to bid the ladies prepare for the journey, when a shouting without, and the clatter of arms, told us that already our enemies were upon us and that our retreat was cut off.
We stood in the lofty hall of the castle, and at that unwelcome noise we instinctively clasped each other’s hand, and a look of anguish passed between us. But on my part this weakness was short-lived. With an oath, I sprang to the table where lay a brace of pistols. I seized them and looked to their priming.
“What would you do, Lal?” cried the old nobleman, aghast.
“Do, Sir Everard?” quoth I. “Why, take as high a price for my life as I can, and die here. Think you I have a stomach for a gallows at Perth?”
The words were but uttered when the door was flung rudely open, and into the room strode Carleston, followed by Gillespie and six as ill-looking ruffians as ever escorted a man of his position.
“I am returned, you see,” cried his lordship, with a coarse laugh, “returned to pay my reckoning.”
I stood erect, my hands behind my back, concealing the pistols that I grasped. Upon Carleston I bestowed not so much as a glance, but addressed myself to Gillespie. “Give you good-day, Mass-John,” quoth I, contemptuously. “What is your Judas traffic now?”
He advanced toward me with a sour look on his lean, sallow face.
“I am come to arrest you, you son of Belial, and you, too, Sir Everard,” he answered, grimly.
“Upon what charge?”
“That of malignancy and conspiracy against the Covenant.”
He stood within a yard of me, and before he could guess my purpose I had set a pistol at his head.
“If any of your ruffianly followers move hand or foot, Sir John,” I cried, in a loud voice, “I’ll blow your rascally brains out.”
Rat me, but I could have laughed at the hush that fell upon them, and to see them standing as if turned to stone, none daring to brave my threat. Sir John alone had courage to raise his hand, but before it had reached the level of his belt, the cold nozzle of my pistol was pressed against his forehead, and—
“Have a care, Sir John,” I thundered, “or by the living God, I fire.”
There was that in my voice and glance that told him how deadly earnest was my purpose. I saw the conviction of it writ plain upon his now livid face, and I was quick to use the advantage I had gained.
“Bid your men throw down their weapons, Sir John,” I commanded. There was a moment’s pause. “Did you not hear me, sir?” I growled. “Bid them throw down their weapons or I’ll show your Presbyterian soul the road to hell.”
In a choking voice he gave the command, and it was followed by a clatter of falling swords and pistols that made joyful music to my ears.
“Have they all complied, Sir Everard?”
“All but Lord Carleston.”
“Take this pistol, sir,” I said, holding out my left hand, “and shoot him without mercy if he still refuses.”
Keeping his face toward Carleston, Sir Everard took the pistol, and a moment later, in answer to his rasping challenge, I heard his lordship’s sword rattle on the parquet.
“Bid him stand yonder with those other ruffians,” said I, and presently, when in that also my will was done, I desired Sir Everard to collect the relinquished weapons and place them upon the table behind me.
“And now, Jack Presbyter,” said I to Gillespie, “bid your ruffians march through the door on their left.”
“Whither does it lead?” he demanded, sullenly.
“What’s that to you? Bid them march, you dog.” And to urge him I pressed the nozzle harder still against his temple. I was obeyed, and in a moment the hall was empty save for Sir Everard, Sir John and myself. “And you shall follow your men, Sir John, so that you may know whither they are gone. Step backwards. Slowly. So!”
I guided him step by step to the door of the chamber into which his myrmidons had already disappeared across the threshold. I drove him, then reaching forward I closed the door upon them and shot the bolts. ’Twas a stout piece of oak that would resist any efforts, while the chamber was lighted by a single window too small to admit the body of a man.
We had them safely caged. I turned to Sir Everard with a laugh of exultation. The old knight was pale with excitement, and the moisture stood thick upon his brow.
“’Twas bravely done, lad. Oddslife! I never saw a bolder thi
ng.”
“Come, Sir Everard,” I cried, “let us depart.”
“But what of them?” he asked, jerking his thumb toward the door.
“Let them rot there.”
Some discussion I had with Sir Everard, who censured the barbarity of my notions, which presently was ended by the appearance of Lady Grizel and Margaret. They came shuddering with dread, and great was their rapture upon beholding us safe and unharmed. And when Sir Everard related to them with enthusiasm and much kindly exaggeration the paltry thing that I had done, there was a flush of pleasure in my sweet lady’s cheeks, and a glance of pride in the gray eyes that beamed upon me and claimed me for her own.
At sunset, some two hours later, they set out at last upon their journey to Inverness, bearing with them what valuables they could carry and escorted by half a dozen of Sir Everard’s gillies. We parted in the courtyard of the castle, for since I went by way of Lochnagar our roads lay not together. Margaret lingered a moment after the others, and if our parting was fraught with sadness, yet it was lighted by the hope of happy days we each felt the future held in trust. Fondly she bade me look to my safety and remember that I belonged to her.
“Farewell, my cavalier,” she murmured, when at last I led her to the gate where Sir Everard waited. “Be loyal, brave and fortunate, and until next we meet wear this in memory of me.”
She was gone at last, and I stood in the gateway, my eyes riveted upon the lumbering coach, and in my hand the locket which at parting she had left me, and which inclosed a tiny miniature of her angel face.
With a sigh that was not all pain, I turned to find Giles behind me, with our horses ready saddled for the journey.
Bidding him await me, I mounted to my chamber to make my final preparations.
’Twas soon done, and armed and booted I descended again to the hall to take a last look at the door that shut in Gillespie and his party. My foot was on the stairs when of a sudden my ear caught the thud of hoofs. At the sound my heart misgave me, and dashing down the intervening steps I made for the first window on the landing and thence looked out.
Coming up the road toward the castle at a sharp trot, I espied a party of men, a score maybe, in corselets and pots that bespoke their calling. This was no ruffianly out-at-elbow crew such as had attended Gillespie, but an orderly company of troopers—their service, one glance was enough to tell me, was the Covenant’s.
I must make a dash for it, I told myself, and with that I sprang down the steps four at a time.
Breathless, I reached the courtyard.
“Giles,” I shouted. He turned toward me a face that wore a settled look of despair, and before he could do more than rap out an oath the troop was at the gate.
Well, the game was played, and clearly the day was, after all, the Covenant’s. It but remained to let my bearing give luster to my defeat, and so I met with a courtly bow the young officer that rode forward. And then when fortune appeared to have deserted me, she showed me a curious and unlooked for favor. To this day I cannot fathom the source of that officer’s misapprehension, beyond the fact that seeing me so fully equipped did dupe him into it. Suffice it that the words wherewith he greeted and astounded me were:
“Have I the honor to address Sir John Gillespie?”
I may lack the nimble wit of an ante-chamber fop, but I have never known my sense to fail me in a moment of peril. And so despite the profound amazement that beset me, I bowed and answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“Your servant, sir.”
“I am Captain Campbell,” said he, alighting and throwing the reins to one of his men. “I was told that I should find you here. I bring you this letter from the Marquess of Argyle.”
“You are sorely needed here, sir,” I said, coolly, taking the letter and breaking the seal. “Those malignant dogs, Faversham and Fitzmorris, proved not the easy capture I expected. They met me with a parcel of godless followers, and but that I held a pistol to the head of the elder of those sons of Baal, and threatened to shoot him unless his ruffians obeyed me, you would have come too late, captain. As it is, for all that I have got them safely under lock and key, but for your timely arrival I should not have known what to do with them. But what says my Lord of Argyle?”
I turned my attention to the letter whilst the officer laughed over that which I had told him. It was a peremptory order to Gillespie to deliver up what prisoners he had taken to Captain Campbell, and forthwith to proceed to Lochnagar, there to effect the capture of two notorious malignants who were described in the letter.
I handed the paper to Campbell.
“There are your orders, Captain, and mine. My horse is ready, and I will start at once. Since the prisoners here are to be intrusted to you, go up and take them; the din they are making will lead you to them. I wish you joy of your capture.”
He looked up in some astonishment, and fearing lest this should be followed by suspicion, I was quick to add, “Will you lend me three troopers to help me in this business?”
His brow cleared and he smiled.
“Verily you are impatient to smite the enemies of Israel,” quoth he. “Take six.”
“Three will suffice,” I replied, getting into the saddle. “Too many might prove dangerous”—in which there was more truth than the captain suspected.
Five minutes later, with Giles and the three troopers, I rode out from Bailienochy, whilst Campbell and his Sassenachs went to secure their prisoners. Like the wind I went, for methought pursuit was imminent. Yet fortune smiled on me to the end, and in the dead of that winter night, Giles and I—with the connivance of a heavily bribed landlord—left the inn where we had halted without taking leave of our slumbering escort. Before daybreak twenty miles of difficult country separated us from them.
Two days later in a hostelry at Inverury I heard the story, told with vast unction by a loyal Highlander, of how a young spark of the court had fooled two parties of Covenanters to do battle at Bailienochy, each deeming the other a body of malignants. It would appear from what I then learned that when Campbell unbarred the door, Gillespie and his men—albeit unarmed—flung themselves furiously upon the troopers. Not until four of them had been cut down did they discover their error.
But fortunately for my escape it took Gillespie some hours to convince Captain Campbell of the trick whereof he had been made the victim.
AFTER WORCESTER FIELD
From the dawn at Worcester of that disastrous Wednesday, the third of September of ‘51, until the noon of Thursday when I flung myself down, jaded and worn, in the woods near Newbury, it seemed to me that not of hours but of years were the things that had befallen me.
I had been one of the gallant troop that, led by our valiant liege himself, had ridden out from the Sidbury Gate and charged the rebels on Perry Wood with a fury that drove them hell-to-leather from their guns. I had been one of those who in that brief hour of exultation had turned eager eyes toward Leslie and his Scottish horse. I had seen the traitor watching us, muffled in his cloak, but stirring never a foot to complete for us the work of victory so well begun. And when, anon, Cromwell’s Ironsides recovered and returned to scatter us down the hillside like leaves before an autumn breeze, and I knew that Worcester field was lost to us because Leslie had failed, in my heart I cursed that treacherous, Presbyterian Scot, as to-day—dead though he be—I curse his memory.
I had been one of the maimed and bleeding troops that had fled back to shelter within Worcester Gates, with guns belching hell upon us from behind. I was one of that last little knot that had hacked a way for the King through the Roundhead press about the Sidbury Gate, and at length—covered with blood and grime, yet with no worse a hurt than a pistol bullet through the fleshy part of my left arm—I had stood and heard the cry of “Save himself who can,” in Worcester streets.
’Twas a miracle that I got clear of the town as night was closing in upon that shambles, and made my way along the Severn toward Gloucester.
Guided by the outline of t
he Cotwold Hills, I rode on toward Cirencester until—after midnight—my martyred brute stopped, shuddered and fell beneath me. For some few hours I slept in the shelter of a hedge, a sleep from which I awakened shuddering, for in my dreams I had seen again the horrors of the day before. The steely gray of dawn was in the sky, and my limbs were numb.
I found a horse grazing in a field— a poor, sorry nag—and on its back I set the saddle of my fallen charger. I forsook the roads, and, having crossed the Thames, I went by fields and woods until some three hours before noon that melancholy horse would go no further. Leaving it, I dragged myself wearily into the shelter of a neighboring wood.
Guided by the murmur of waters, I crawled along until presently I came upon a shallow stream splashing merrily along in the sunlight that fell upon it through the half-denuded trees. I flung myself prone, and like an animal I lowered my head until I could reach the water. I drank—God, how I drank! And there, jaded and worn, with never a thought of what might betide, I fell asleep.
I awakened with a start to find the sunlight gone from the water and the long shadows cast athwart it by the trees, bespeaking evening. Something rustled behind me. I turned sharply and the unexpected sight of a human figure had almost wrung a cry from me, when I saw ’twas no more than a girl. A little slip of golden-headed womanhood it was, of some twenty years at most, with a winsome face and merry blue eyes that looked down upon me half saucily, half timidly.
“Oddslife, child,” I cried at last, “you made my awakening a rude one. What o’clock is it?”
“Past six, sir,” she replied composedly. Then running her eye over my dusty and disordered apparel, my great boots and spurs, my plumed hat and lengthy sword, and noting mayhap the gold lace upon the coat that lay beside me, and last of all the haggard face that was turned to hers, her curiosity must have been aroused. “Whence come you, sir?” she asked, and in a breath she added: “You are not from Newbury?”