faith can raise earth to heaven, or draw down
heaven to earth, make both extremes to meet,
felicity and misery, can crown
reproach with honour, season sour with sweet.
nothing’s impossible to faith: a man
may do all things that he believes he can.
—christopher harvey.
he hath but swooned,” said the colonel, after a brief pause “come, harry, the game is up and we’ll e’en be off to bed. lord! but this hereford maid hath thrice the beauty of nell. i’ve a mind to woo her myself!”
with a last glance at the miniature he turned haughtily to the sentry. “bolt the church door after us and then dash some water over this prisoner; he will soon come round. and look that you leave him bound, as he is; none of your cursed irish sentiment. if you loose him i’ll have you flogged within an inch of your life.”
he walked rapidly down the aisle, lord harry blundering after him and protesting that it had been rare sport, but that he was heavy with sleep and would like to snore the clock round.
when gabriel came to himself all was very still. the night had closed in, but, by the light of a lantern in the angle of a high pew hard by, he saw the little side chapel and the outline of the windows. his head ached miserably, and the sharp pain caused by the cords which bound him reminded him of all that had passed. glancing round he gave a sigh of relief on finding his tormentors gone. there was no one but the sentry, and he stood as though watching gravely a rare and unusual spectacle. in his hand he held a chalice full of water, and he now lifted this to the prisoner’s lips.
“god save you kindly,” he said, with a friendly look in his irish blue eyes. “i’d be glad to unloose you, sir, if the colonel hadn’t forbidden it.”
gabriel drank thirstily, and thanked his friendly guard.
“are you a scot?” he asked, puzzled by the man’s accent.
“no, sir. praised be st. patrick! i am irish,” said the soldier, with a good-natured smile.
“irish!” exclaimed gabriel in amazement. for to his fancy all the irish were wild, bloodthirsty papists, whose chief amusement was the wholesale massacre of protestants. the incident did more to widen his mind than the study even of such a broad-minded book as lord brooke’s “treatise on toleration.”
“how is major locke?” he asked, anxiously.
“i have given him water, sir,” said the man; “but there’s death in his face—he’ll not last long.”
and with that he went on his round, leaving the prisoner to reflect over the events of the day, and to endure as best he could the increasing torture of his position.
slowly the hours crept on, and when at length the sentry opened the great door and admitted captain tarverfield and two others that accompanied him, gabriel was too much exhausted to take any notice of the sounds which echoed distinctly enough through the quiet church.
“take the surgeon to major locke,” said captain tarverfield. “is he still living?”
“yes, sir,” said the irishman, “he lies in the chancel. and perhaps, sir, you’ll do something for lieutenant harford up yonder—as for me, yer honour, the colonel vowed he’d half murther me if i unloosed him.”
“if ’tis the colonel’s doing i must ask your help, my lord,” said the captain, turning to his worn and weary-looking companion.
“lieutenant harford is the gentleman you mentioned to me anon?” said lord falkland. “he told you i saved his life at edgehill? well, let us see what the sentry means.”
while the irishman lighted the surgeon up the middle aisle to the chancel, tarverfield, carrying his own lantern, led the way up the south aisle, wondering what trick norton’s malice had devised. a sudden ejaculation from falkland made him pause.
“look!” said the secretary of state, his pale, melancholy face transfigured by a glow of wrathful indignation, as he pointed to the pillar and to the slight form of the lieutenant. the captain, familiar as he was with the horrors of the battle-field, could hardly understand why the sight of this piece of wanton cruelty should anger them both so strangely. perhaps it was the boyish face of the victim, or some subtle contrast between the nobility and strength of his expression and the cruel helplessness of his attitude.
as they drew nearer, the prisoner, whose head had drooped on his breast, looked up with a gleam of hope in his wide, weary eyes.
“have you brought help for major locke?” he asked, eagerly.
“the surgeon is now with him,” said tarverfield. “what devil’s trick have the colonel and lord harry been up to? have you been bound all these hours?”
gabriel assented, but his eyes were fixed on falkland’s face; the indignation in it had changed to a look of rare delight, the delight of one who has at last found congenial work.
“hold the lantern nearer, captain,” cried the secretary of state, drawing his sword; and going to the farther side of the pillar he severed the cords and the rope, then stepped swiftly back.
“have a care,” he said, as gabriel, in the first agony of moving his stiffened muscles, gave an involuntary exclamation, and then hastily apologised.
“the rope was pressing all the time on that old wound got at edgehill the day you rescued me, my lord,” he said, colouring. “you have twice made me your debtor.”
“’tis i that would thank you, sir,” said falkland, “for twice giving me an opportunity of doing work in this distracted time without scruple or misgiving. here comes the surgeon. ’twere well he should see to your wrists.”
“major locke?” asked gabriel, looking anxiously at the surgeon’s face.
“’twas too late,” he replied, gravely. “the major drew his last breath just as we approached.”
gabriel made a step or two forward in the direction of the chancel, then suddenly reeled and would have fallen to the ground had not the surgeon caught him.
“he hath swooned,” said tarverfield; “and no wonder, after the way in which his muscles have been cramped all these hours.”
“with your leave he had best be carried to the vestry,” said the surgeon, and, lighted by the irishman, they carried the lieutenant out of the church.
falkland, with a sigh, picked up the lantern and walked slowly on, glancing now and then into the high pews where lay the wretched prisoners, roped in couples, and most of them sleeping from sheer fatigue, in spite of hunger and discomfort. reaching the chancel, he paused for some minutes beside the body of the major. the dead face, with its majestic calm and its strange smile, contrasted curiously with the faces of the sleeping prisoners.
“happy man!” murmured falkland. “he is free, and has died for what he deemed his country’s good, like my old friend john hampden.” then, with a deep sigh that was almost a groan, he passed on, breathing the cry that was ever now in his heart, and often on his lips, “peace! peace!”
when he entered the vestry he found that the leech had dressed the wounds on gabriel’s wrists, but had not yet succeeded in reviving the prisoner.
“’tis food the poor fellow stands in need of,” said tarver-field. “i can testify that he has had nothing since sunrise yesterday, and doubtless little enough since early the day before, for waller was too busy preparing to attack devizes.”
“with your permission, my lord, i will fetch him food from my own house,” said the surgeon, who, like most of the inhabitants of marlborough, sympathised with the parliament. indeed, since many of the houses had been burnt and plundered in december by the royalists, and the town had been constantly harassed on market days by bodies of plundering cavaliers from oxford, it was natural enough that the feeling was all in favour of the prisoners and against prince maurice’s men.
“i will wait here,” said falkland, as the captain prepared to follow the surgeon, “i wish to speak to the prisoner when he comes to himself.”
the irishman, whose guard had just been relieved, was about to follow captain tarverfield, when falkland detained him, putting a few brief questions as to what he had heard while lord harry dalblane and captain norton were with the prisoner. from the replies of the sentry he gathered enough to enable him to judge pretty accurately what had really passed, and when the man had gone he stood beside the unconscious prisoner, watching him intently and with compassion, for he was able to guess at much of his story. presently he took a small gold pin from his lace cravat, and stooping over the prisoner restored the miniature to its place and pinned together the shirt collar.
gabriel, opening his eyes, looked in bewilderment at the pale, sad-eyed face bending over him; then recognising it as he regained his faculties, sat up and looked round the dimly-lighted vestry in a dazed way. some one had laid him down on a long wooden chest, the same which the irishman had rifled for the cope. on the opposite wall hung an old board on which were painted the ten commandments, and the light from the lantern shone specially upon the words, “thou shalt do no murder.”
he shivered, for that night he had for the first time felt the deadly hatred that is akin to murder, and he knew that he had longed for the chance of taking norton’s life.
“you are cold,” said falkland. “take this,” and he put a short brown cloak he was wearing about the prisoner’s shoulders. “nay,” as gabriel thanked him, but hesitated to accept the loan, “i have no need of it, and it will be of service to you in oxford castle, where i fear your quarters will be comfortless enough.”
“my lord,” said gabriel, “you have shown me such kindness that i will make bold to ask your help in letting mistress helena locke know of her father’s death.”
“where doth the lady live?” asked falkland.
“she is at gloucester, at the house of alderman pury.”
“i will see that the news is sent to her, and i will do what i can, mr. harford, to obtain your release, for they have treated you very scurvily, and i shall see that his majesty hears all the details. here comes the friendly surgeon with food for you.”
“you are fatigued, my lord,” said tarverfield, looking at falkland’s haggard face. “will you not sleep before the day dawns?”
“sleep, sir, hath long forsaken me,” said falkland, wearily. “i shall sleep when peace is declared in this unhappy country. leave me to see mr. harford discuss his supper; and do you retire, for doubtless you will be early on the march.”
the kindly captain, who was a good soldier, but one who rarely troubled to think of the right or wrong of the cause he defended, gladly enough returned to his quarters at the nearest inn; and the surgeon, having promised to make arrangements for the major’s burial, for which gabriel advanced the money, walked back to his house, his mind haunted by falkland’s weary, sleepless eyes.
“’tis not for me to ‘minister to a mind diseased,’” he reflected. “as the poet hath it—
‘therein the patient
nust minister to himself,’
but i fear ’tis over late; the sorrows of this war have broken his heart—he is far gone in melancholy.”
his reflections were only too true, yet for a brief time something of the old geniality and charm insensibly returned to the secretary of state as he watched the hungry young lieutenant forgetting his troubles in the relief of a good meal. in the rare delight of such sympathy as falkland knew well how to bestow, gabriel’s reserve was broken down, and before the supper was ended he had revealed to his companion the story of his gradual awakening in london, had spoken of bishop coke’s kindness to him, of one connected with the bishop to whom he had been betrothed, and of the havoc the war had wrought in his happiness.
instinctively his hand went to hilary’s miniature as he recalled with a shudder what had passed about it a few hours before; and then finding the way in which his shirt had been fastened, his eyes sought falkland’s with a gratitude that touched the state secretary. with the incomparable gentleness characteristic of him, he said a few words to the boy, which by their reverent sympathy seemed to blot out the memory of the moral torture he had undergone.
then, promising to do what he could for the prisoner in the future, he left him to sleep, and slowly paced down the street to his quarters. he had merely joined lord wilmot’s expedition for the relief of devizes as a volunteer, and now in his restless mood grudged the delay at marlborough, and by break of day was riding with a couple of his servants to oxford, leaving the two troops of cavalry and the long train of prisoners to follow later.
