one loving howre
for many years of sorrow can dispence;
a dram of sweete is worth a pound of sowre.
. . . true is, that true love hath no powre,
to looken backe; his eyes be fixt before.
—spenser.
meanwhile massey, with great coolness and ability, retreated in good order with the remainder of his men to gloucester, but many had been made prisoners, and about a hundred and twenty had been killed in the street and in the hot pursuit.
had it not been for waghorn’s words to the royalists, gabriel might have made his escape as easily as the governor of gloucester had anticipated. but, learning that important despatches were so nearly within their reach, some four or five troopers gave chase to him with a heat and determination that only increased with each mile traversed. bullets whistled about his ears, but on he sped, every nerve strained in the wild excitement of the ride, all pain for the time overcome by the intense desire to carry out his task.
a second ball struck the already injured arm, making a ghastly flesh wound. still he galloped on, but, alas! with the horrible consciousness that his pursuers were gaining on him.
his strength was fast failing when the sound of church bells fell on his ear; surely they were the bells of bosbury? hardly conscious of the direction he had taken, only galloping madly across country to baffle his pursuers, he had indeed approached within a short distance of the village, which lay in the valley below embosomed in trees.
for the time being he was out of sight of the royalist troopers, and, with a word to harkaway, he put the horse at a hedge which seemed a little off the course he had ridden.
the horse did his part gallantly, and alighted in a field which sloped steeply down to a tiny brook, but the agony of the leap was too much for the rider. with a stifled groan he fell to the ground, and harkaway, not understanding his grievous plight, but thankful to find the desperate gallop at an end, unconsciously served his master by going quietly down to drink at the brook.
the pursuers were puzzled at suddenly losing all trace of the despatch-bearer. they paused to listen, but no sound of distant horse-hoofs fell upon their ear, only somewhat further on they could hear children’s voices. riding forward, they came into sight of an orchard in which two little girls with their skipping-ropes were playing on the daisy-flecked grass. as they skipped they sang an old may-pole song, their childish voices rising high and clear in the country quiet:
come, ye young men, come along,
with your music, dance and song;
bring your lasses in your hands,
for ’tis that which love commands.
then to the may-pole haste away,
for ’tis now a holiday.
it is the choice time of the year,
for the violets now appear;
now the rose receives its birth,
and pretty primrose decks the earth.
then to the may-pole haste away,
for ’tis now a holiday.
suddenly they broke off, and the elder child cried out: “look! look, meg. there be soldiers yonder.”
“three, four, five of them!” said the little one, counting with keen interest.
“and two of them have left their horses and be coming this way,” said nan. “see their red ribbons; they be king’s soldiers.”
“oh, nan, i’m frightened! they said they would hang the boys and drown the girls!” cried meg, clinging to her sister.
“that was because the children of broxash sang
if you offer to plunder, or take our cattle,
be assured we will bid you battle.’”
said nan, reassuringly. “we were only singing the may-pole song.”
nevertheless her eyes grew large with fright as the soldier approached.
“here, you brats!” he shouted. “have you seen a puritan officer gallop by this way?”
“no, we have been skipping,” she replied, sturdily.
“a wounded man on a bay horse.”
“we have not seen him—he hath not been here,” said nan.
“curse him! what a dance he hath led us! how a man that’s been twice hit can ride across country that fashion, beats me. the devil must be in him. come, mate, we must to horse again, and push on—the plaguey fellow shan’t give us the slip.”
they hastened back to rejoin their comrades, and nan looked wistfully after them.
“i hope they won’t find him,” she said, shivering. “if they do they’ll kill him.”
“i’m glad we’re not men,” said meg, picking up her skipping-rope. “we shall never have to kill folk.”
by this time gabriel had recovered his senses, and the sight of the malvern hills roused him to the remembrance that he was near bosbury; with a vague idea of getting hilary to bind up his wounds for him, and then of somehow reaching his father, he staggered to his feet, hoping to find harkaway at no great distance. the horse, however, was nowhere to be seen, and, with faltering steps, he made his way with great difficulty across the field to a gap which he saw in the hedge. the children’s voices reached him, and helped him to persevere.
“here each bachelor may choose
one that will not faith abuse,
nor repay with coy disdain
love that should be loved again.”
it was the same maypole song that he had listened to years ago at bosbury just after their betrothal.
utterly spent with pain and loss of blood, the effort of making his way through the gap in the hedge proved more than flesh could bear.
“’tis no use—no use!” he thought, despairingly as he entered the orchard. “i can’t go another step! my god! must i be so near to hilary, and yet die like a dog in a ditch?” he reeled back, and, with a groan, fell senseless to the ground, to the horror and dismay of the children, who dropped their skipping-ropes and fled in terror.
“the puritan!” they screamed; “he has fallen down dead!” but before very long curiosity conquered terror; they stole back hand-in-hand, and gazed at him with awe-struck faces.
“he looks as if he were asleep,” said little meg.
“that’s how folks do look,” explained nan, “just asleep, you know. but all the time they’re really awake up in the sky.”
“wondering, perhaps, why we don’t understand,” said meg, dreamily.
“oh, see!” cried nan, in great excitement, “he’s down here still, he’s not dead. his hand is moving!”
gabriel tried to get up, but fell back again.
“oh! what hellish pain!” he moaned.
“what can we do for you, sir?” said nan.
“who is it?” he asked, looking up in a dazed way. “where?”
“we be farmer chadd’s children, sir, and this is our orchard nigh to bosbury,” replied the little girl.
“how far from bosbury?”
“’tis but a little way across the hop-yards, sir.”
“if i could see hilary before i die!” he muttered. “i will see her! i will see her! what became of harkaway? children, do you see a riderless horse near?”
they ran off and soon returned with beaming faces.
“there be a strange horse down by the brook,” said nan. “a bay with two white feet.”
“he is gentle enough; could you bring him here for me? i am sorely hurt.”
they gladly promised and ran down the sloping field, leaving gabriel in a curious borderland of semi-consciousness.
“i shall remember it all if i try,” he reflected. “my head is getting clearer. there was something i had to do! what on earth was it? massey trusted me with something. if the prince overpowered him i was to go—where? this agony makes all else a blank! i shall be no better than that daft vagabond who woke me last night. ha! the despatches! i remember all now!”
with intense anxiety he felt for them. they were bloodstained but safe, and exhausted with the effort of concealing them once more, he sank back in a dead faint.
now it chanced that on this wednesday morning the litany being ended, dr. coke and hilary left the church and went to see farmer chadd, who was in great distress because his horses had been seized by the canon frome garrison. they were talking to him in the farmyard when his two little daughters came running up to beg his help.
“there’s a horse, father, down by the brook,” they explained breathlessly, “and the wounded puritan officer in the orchard asked us to fetch it, but it won’t let us come near.”
“a puritan officer? one of the fugitives from ledbury, i reckon,” said farmer chadd.
“he is wounded, do you say, child?” asked the vicar.
“ay, sir,” said nan, dropping a curtsey. “wounded and well-nigh dead.”
“i wish you would stable the horse and say naught about it in the village, chadd, as likely as not the poor fellow will be haled to prison if the canon frome folk hear of this,” said dr. coke.
“i’d do aught that would go against them” said the farmer, thinking wrathfully of the looting and plundering he had had to endure.
“i will give help to the officer, then, and you will put up the horse,” said the vicar. “come, children, show us where this poor puritan lies.”
hilary, with a horrible presentiment of coming sorrow, hastened across the orchard, and, with a low cry, knelt down on the grass beside the wounded man.
“uncle,” she said, looking up with wild eyes, “see who it is!”
“poor boy! poor boy!” said the vicar, with deep concern. “what a change since yesterday, when he stood bold and strong at the head of his soldiers. he has swooned. help me, dear, to remove his armour.”
hilary obeyed, and, giving the helmet to nan and meg, asked them to fetch water from the brook. the vicar, who had some little knowledge of surgery, managed, for the time, to staunch the wounds, and, presently, feeling a woman’s soft fingers at his throat unfastening his gorget, gabriel regained consciousness, and lay watching the sweet, grave face which bent over him.
“hilary!” he said, faintly. “thank god! now i can die in peace!”
“no, no,” she said, smoothing back the hair from his forehead. “you must live, gabriel, i—we—cannot spare you. uncle coke is half a leech, he will bind up your wounds.”
the vicar gave a rueful smile. “i may be half a leech, but i’m not a whole conjuror, and can’t make a couple of handkerchiefs into bandages that will serve. no, hilary, you must get me some linen from mrs. chadd. here come the children with the water; take them with you.”
the vicar went to rescue the helmet full of water which nan in her haste was spilling by the way, and hilary bent over her lover.
“i will be back again very soon, gabriel; promise not to move rashly. i wish i need not leave you—i can’t bear to go.”
he raised her hand to his lips. “what a nightmare these years of war have been! if we could but wake and forget them!” he said, with a tired sigh.
but before anything further could be said the vicar interposed, cheerfully, “come, my dear, the children will help to carry the things, and not even prince rupert’s protestation forbids me to obey the commandment and give a thirsty enemy a cup of water to drink.”
while hilary and the children ran to the farm he held the helmet to the wounded man’s lips.
gabriel drank thirstily. “if you have signed the protestation, sir, the less you have to do with me the better,” he said, reviving a little.
“i have not signed it,” said the vicar, sturdily, “and i have every intention of taking you to my house that you may be properly tended.”
“sir, indeed i dare not let you run such a risk; if aught should befall you what would become of hilary?” said gabriel, his eyes full of anxiety.
“you are right to think of her; you two were old friends at hereford.”
“more than friends—we were betrothed before this war divided us.”
“yet, did we not agree yesterday when you spared bosbury cross that, spite of the war, there was one bond which still united us?”
“you would not object to my suit?” said gabriel, eagerly.
“on the contrary, i should welcome it. the friendship betwixt the harfords and the unetts is a two generation friendship, and truth to tell, i have just learnt that my niece is in some danger from the attentions of colonel norton—a man in whom i have been much deceived.”
gabriel lay musing for a minute, then asked abruptly—“how soon could i be fit to ride, sir?”
“it will be a matter of a month at least,” said the vicar.
“surely, i could ride as far as hereford—to my father?”
“nay, ’tis out of the question. oh, we will hide you safely somehow. hilary hath a ready wit and will doubtless hit on some device.”
“if i could but have speech with my father,” said gabriel, restlessly.
“well, i could myself ride over for him, and he could dress your wounds,” suggested the vicar.
with an effort gabriel rallied his failing powers.
“i will be true with you,” he said, firmly. “’tis not for that i would see him, but i bear despatches to fairfax and cromwell, and am in honour bound to see them in safe hands.”
“despatches!” exclaimed the vicar with a troubled look. “this is a grave matter. yet ’twas honest of you to tell me. i think i might at least bring your father to-night to see you.”
“and should i die ere he comes—promise to give them to him,” said gabriel, pleadingly. “dying folk must often have asked your aid, vicar. i ask that—nothing but that?”
“now, may god forgive me if i do amiss,” muttered the vicar. then, turning to meet the eager hazel eyes which watched him so intently, “i promise you, my poor boy. be at rest.”
after this gabriel lay with closed eyes until he heard hilary’s voice.
“i fear we have seemed long,” she said, “and you are suffering so much.”
he smiled. “not now,” he replied, reviving for a while from sheer happiness in the change that had come over her.
“you little folk run over and play under the apple trees,” said the vicar to nan and meg, “while i tend my patient.”
and with hilary’s help he rapidly bound up the wounds in a somewhat rough and ready fashion, and put the arm in a sling.
“captain harford has told me much, my dear, while you have been gone,” he remarked. “do you feel disposed to take on you the duties of nurse?”
hilary blushed and glanced shyly at her lover. “yes,” she replied. “where can we best shelter gabriel?”
“he thinks that his presence at the vicarage could not be hid from the villagers. we must not risk awakening colonel norton’s suspicions.”
“uncle! why should we not use the room in the church tower? the bell-ringers never go up the steps. no one but zachary ever goes, and zachary must be taken into the secret.”
“’tis well thought of, child; captain harford would be safe enough there if we can once carry him up unseen.”
“why should you not give out that you mean to use the tower room for your antiquities?”
“you can truthfully say that you are making a study of bones,” said gabriel, smiling in the midst of his pain.
“the notion is not amiss, but yet it will be hard to take him there in broad daylight,” said the vicar, securing the last bandage.
hilary’s face lighted up. “why,” she cried, eagerly, “you and zachary might carry him in a hop-pocket? if you go by way of the hop-yards you would scarce be likely to meet a soul, and if you did, ’tis easily explained that you are carrying something you have just discovered. the villagers will only think ’tis what mrs. durdle calls one of parson’s ‘antics.’”
the vicar turned with a smile to gabriel. “did i not tell you she would hit on some device? but before i go i will help you to move to the other side of the hedge, for there is a right of way through this orchard to ledbury, and you had best not risk being seen.”
“the pursuit was hot, but i think it must be over by now,” said gabriel, allowing himself to be helped to a place where he was sheltered from the orchard by an elm tree and a low hedge.
“there! now don’t stir till i return,” said the vicar. “i will go home and bid mrs. durdle prepare the room, and bring zachary back with me, as soon as may be. and you little people, let mistress hilary know if anyone comes in sight.”
“ay, sir,” said the children, curtseying.
“you are like two good little watchmen,” he added, smiling and patting their heads. “see that you don’t fall asleep at your posts, for the sun is hot. now,”—he thought to himself with a humorous gleam in his eyes—“if hilary and her lover do not patch up their ancient quarrel i shall wish i had sent her on this errand instead of going myself.”
