CHAPTER XVIII.

“What thing is love, which nought can countervail?

Nought save itself, e’en such a thing is love.

All worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,

As lowest earth doth yield to heaven above.

Divine is love, and scorneth worldly pelf,

And can be bought with nothing, but with self.”

—From “England’s Helicon,” 1600.


As they passed the farm in which he had hoped to leave the Major, he saw the master of the house standing at the gate, and, though they could not speak, an understanding glance passed between them, and Gabriel saw the eyes that had looked so hard and stern on the previous night soften in a marvellous fashion. He understood the strong bracing sympathy of the rugged old farmer, and went on his way with renewed courage.

The heat of the July day soon grew intense, and several times the cavalcade was forced to halt and rest. The Major could only just keep in the saddle, and Gabriel watched him anxiously, dreading every minute that he would succumb.

Once when they rested for a short time at West Kennet, Captain Tarverfield approached him, looking with not unkindly curiosity at the young lieutenant—his face burnt ruddy-brown by the sun, and great drops of perspiration falling on his forehead from his rough brown hair. His hazel eyes were extraordinarily clear and bright, and something in his straight, fearless glance attracted the Royalist Captain.

“You have had a hot march,” he said.

“I have a good pair of legs, sir,” said Gabriel; “but my arm is cramped and numb.”

The Captain then noticed that to save his wounded friend he had all these hours had his wrist roped up above his head in a posture that must have long since become torturing.

With a muttered imprecation, the Royalist proceeded to unloose the rope.

“Give me your parole not to escape, and for this hour, at any rate, you can go free,” he said.

Gabriel readily gave the promise, thanking the Captain warmly, and between them they then helped the Major from his horse and laid him on the grass by the roadside. The soldiers had contented themselves with stripping the younger prisoner, and had let the wounded man retain his helmet. Gabriel unfastened it now, and carried it down to the bank of the stream close by; then, returning with the water the Major was eagerly longing for, found Captain Tarverfield still in conversation with him.

“Had I known that Colonel Norton had a grudge against you both, I would have let you pass this morning,” he said. “For Norton is the very devil when once he has a quarrel with any man. ’Tis of no use to ask him for a surgeon’s aid, it would only make him the more brutal. We shall lie this night at Marlborough, however, and I will do what I can for you when Lord Wilmot and my Lord Falkland arrive with the next detachment.”

“Did Lord Falkland come with the Oxford contingent?” asked Gabriel, sudden interest lighting up his face. “I owe my life to his kindly help at Edgehill.”

And he told the young officer what had passed.

“He is greatly changed since then,” said Captain Tarverfield. “They say His Majesty fears and dislikes him, while he is like a fish out of water among the courtiers and fine ladies at Oxford, who spitefully invent evil tales as to his friendship with Mistress Moray. He should never have meddled with statecraft, his conscience is over-tender for the work he is expected to do.”

With that he went off to dine at the village inn, and the Major, reviving a little, began to think of the future.

“We may not again have such a chance as this,” he said, “and there is a matter I would fain broach with you. I know that I have got my deathblow and am sorely troubled as to Helena. I am leaving her well-nigh alone in the world, and have arranged no marriage for her.”

“But Madam Harford will have her in safe keeping, and when once she is in London you may surely rest content,” said Gabriel, suddenly becoming conscious of his friend’s desire.

“I would fain have had you as Lord of the Manor and husband to my child,” said the Major. “The estate hath like enough suffered from Prince Maurice’s troops, no details have yet reached me, but Helena’s dowry is large, and I would gladly see her wedded to you and safe from Squire Norton.”

“Sir,” said Gabriel, looking troubled, “I will do all that I can to shield and help your daughter. But I am not free to wed her; for though ’tis true my betrothal was ended by the war, yet my love remains where it was first given.”

The Major, accustomed to regard marriage chiefly as a matter of business, scarcely understood such an argument, and having found the very man he could trust—one, moreover, who shared most of his views—was very loth to relinquish hope.

“You will see what time brings forth,” he said. “I should rest better in my grave could I think that Nell would be your wife.”

But Gabriel, though moved by his friend’s eagerness, could not be false to himself.

“I will promise, sir, to be her friend and protector,” he said, “when I am out of prison. But to promise more than that would be no true kindness to her.”

“The bugle sounds,” said the Major. “Come, help me to mount for the last time. Most truly did the Psalmist sing, ‘A horse is a vain thing to save a man.’ We owe our capture to poor Harkaway’s friendly greeting of the enemy’s steeds.” Gabriel tried to smile at the jest.

“We must take the fortune of war,” he replied, cheerfully. But as the weary journey continued in the hot afternoon sun, the Major’s strength waned perceptibly, and when at last they reached Marlborough, and were halted in its wide street, he seemed scarcely conscious, though he still kept in the saddle.

A kindly-looking woman came out from one of the houses with a large earthenware mug of home-brewed ale, which she offered to him. He revived a little, thanked her courteously, and made one of his usual little jokes, but with so piteous an effort that Gabriel felt a choking sensation in his throat. He was glad that they were at that moment ordered to march to St. Peter’s Church, in which the prisoners were to be sheltered for the night.

The soldiers untied Major Locke and carried him into the building, putting him down on the chancel floor that he might be a little removed from the noise and confusion in the nave, into which the soldiers were driving the weary prisoners roped together in pairs.

Gabriel, relieved to find his right arm available again, dragged down an old moth-eaten cushion from the pulpit and placed it under the Major’s head, removed his helmet and chafed his cold, clammy hands. But the lack of all comforts baffled his efforts, and he knew that after the long, hot ride the mere chill of the flagstones was the very worst thing for one in his state. He raised him a little, propping up the grey head on his own shoulder.

“You will send the news to Nell,” said the dying man, faintly.

“Yes; but good news I hope,” said Gabriel. “Captain Tarverfield will, I think, remember his promise of help, and a surgeon may do much for you. I hear steps drawing near, maybe he hath already sent. No, ’tis but the sentry.”

The soldier approached them and looked down silently at the wounded man. He was a tall, powerful Irishman who had come over to England as one of Strafford’s grooms, and the Major would have shrunk from him in horror had he known his nationality or guessed him to be a devout Roman Catholic. His face bore an expression which gave Gabriel hope.

“Can you not fetch a surgeon?” he asked. “Surely you may do that much for a prisoner.”

“I would do it, sir,” replied the man, “but I am on sentry duty, and bound not to leave the church. But sure, then, before dark one of the officers will go the rounds, and it will be him you can be asking.”

He moved on, but returned presently with a garment which he had found in the vestry.

“Wrap it about the feet of him, sir,” he said. “That’s the best chance for him, for sure this place be as cold as any vault.”

Gabriel thanked him.

“Was popish vestment ever before of such use?” said the Major, smiling faintly. “Yet, beshrew me! there’s something that tickles my fancy not a little in the thought of quitting this world wrapped in a cope!”

“Talk not yet of quitting the world, sir,” said Gabriel. “I have seen worse wounded men recover.” But he argued against his own fears.

The church was now very quiet, the prisoners, hungry and depressed, were trying to forget their wretchedness in sleep, and only the steps of the sentry could be heard echoing at the west end of the building, until, in response to a peremptory summons, he opened the door and admitted Colonel Norton and Lord Harry Dalblane.

Gabriel at once recognised Norton’s voice, and his heart sank.

“Where have you borne the wounded prisoner?” said the Colonel.

“He lies yonder, sir, in the chancel,” said the sentry, “and is in sore need of a surgeon.”

“Mind your own business,” said the Colonel, sharply. “I shall provide him with all that he merits.”

“And where is our fiery friend, the lieutenant?” said Lord Harry, staggering a little as he followed Norton up the middle aisle, for he had been drinking heavily. “Where is the little preacher?”

“He is here,” said Norton, with his short scoffing laugh; “sitting like an angel on a monument supporting the effigy of a dead saint.”

“Sir,” said Gabriel, “I beg of you to let a surgeon wait upon Major Locke. If the ball were but removed from his wound I think he would recover.”

“Am I to be dictated to first by my own sentry and then by my prisoner?” said Norton, haughtily. “Get up, you vile rebel, or it shall be the worse for you. I see you are not even bound—you need a reminder that you are no free man. Get up, I tell you!”

Gabriel reluctantly obeyed, and laid the Major down as gently as he could on the moth-eaten cushion.

Then he stood silently awaiting his captor’s orders, taking meanwhile a rapid, comprehensive glance at the two officers, Norton with his short fawn and red cloak flung carelessly back over one shoulder, his wide hat and long drooping red feather cocked jauntily to the right side, his handsome, but malicious-looking, face lighted by the sunset glow which streamed through the windows; and Lord Harry laughing, foolishly, in semidrunken light-heartedness, at the thought of the amusement he had planned.

“Come, Colonel,” he said, “when is the sport to begin? But our preacher is scarce in parson’s habit, his knee-breeches and riding-boots are white with dust, and his shirt is like an end of Lent surplice—none of the whitest. I’ll e’en go and plunder the vestry for him.”

“Don’t be a fool, Harry,” said Norton, irritably. “Come, lieutenant, I promised you this morning you should have such a chance of preaching a sermon as had never fallen to your lot before. But I see the pulpit will scarce serve my purpose, you shall come here.”

And gripping him by the shoulder he dragged him to the first pillar in the south aisle.

“Now for your cords, Harry,” he said, with a chuckle. “For this gentleman is of an independent turn, and must be reminded that traitors and prisoners do not roam at large. I must trouble you, Mr. Harford, to stand with your back to the pillar, and to stretch your arms back as far as they will go; hold him steady in that hollowed-out moulding, Harry, while I make these knots fast.”

With fiendish delight in giving pain he tied the cords so tightly that they cut into the victim’s wrists, then he fastened the ends at the farther side of the pillar, and taking a rope tied it with the same vicious tightness a little above his knees; lastly, to make movement impossible he girdled both the prisoner and the pillar with a leathern bridle.

So far Gabriel had borne all in silence, for his mind was still taken up with the thought of his friend, and of the brutal way in which the Major was being left to die. But he was naturally sensitive to all sarcasm and ridicule, and the gibes and jeers of the half-tipsy Lord Harry, and the more biting cruelties of the tongue to which Norton subjected him, were sharper than swords.

Norton, disappointed at his failure to rouse him, turned presently with a laugh to his companion:

“They say, you know, Harry, that these Puritans will neither swear nor game nor drink. But here you see one who is giving us rare sport, and who would pledge all that he has for a drink—even of water—after the march, and who longs to swear. No, no, my fine fellow, there you stand till to-morrow—we’ll have no sentiment over dying traitors. Your friend will soon be safe in hell.”

This allusion to the Major at last broke down Gabriel’s control.

“’Tis you that are already there!” he exclaimed, the blood boiling in his veins. “Only one led by the devil could thus treat a dying man.”

“Preach away, my friend, preach away!” said Norton, with a sneer. “Your fellow prisoners are asleep, and you can’t harm anyone. Come! ’tis not every day you can discourse in a church!”

Just then, in an evil moment, Lord Harry noticed that Norton, in dragging his victim from the chancel, had pulled off the top button of his shirt, which had fallen open, giving to view two or three links of a gold chain and the corner of a shagreen case.

He stumbled forward.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, snatching at the chain and dragging up the miniature attached to it. “Ha, ha! Here’s sport! See what the Puritan dog has got hanging from his collar?”

Gabriel, half maddened by feeling the sot’s fingers on Hilary’s picture, writhed in a frantic effort to free himself. To be forced to stand there helplessly, unable to stir hand or foot, was a torture he had never before felt.

“Oh, fie, Ecclesiastes! we named you well,” said Norton, with his scoffing laugh. “You deal, like Solomon, in numbers. Shame on you! the portrait of a fair lady of Hereford on your person all the time you were philandering with pretty Helena!”

“You lie in your throat,” said Gabriel, vehemently. “I did but rescue her from your fiendish trap.”

“What!” cried Lord Harry, thickly. “Do you give the Colonel the lie direct, you Puritan dog? Take that!”

And he dealt Gabriel a blow on the head which for a minute half stunned him.

Norton drew his friend back.

“Hold your peace, Harry,” he said. “You spoil sport. I understand how to bait this traitor.”

And going close to the prisoner he lifted the miniature and scrutinised it intently, then began to pour out a flood of ribald comment.

Beside himself with rage and disgust, Gabriel in vain struggled to get free, but he could neither silence his tormentors nor shut his own ears to the foul words which sought to pollute all that he held most sacred.

With cruel delight, Norton, as he held the miniature, could feel the throbbing of his victim’s heart, but he was startled when at length Gabriel’s voice was heard. It was low and faint, yet there was a vibration in it which rang through the church, and a note of appeal in its tone which arrested the Colonel against his will.

“God!” cried the tortured man, “deliver us from evil.”

Lord Harry burst into a roar of semi-drunken laughter. “Ay, preach and pray, my canting Puritan!” he cried.

But Norton let the miniature fall once more on Gabriel’s heaving breast, and with an expression of bewildered surprise moved back a pace or two, still, however, keenly watching his victim’s face. The fellow had such an extraordinary air of expecting to be delivered; and it suddenly occurred to Norton that it was not deliverance from pain that he looked for, but from something he deemed infinitely worse. For the first time he understood that this man hated evil, that he asked for deliverance from the vile imaginings, the foul suggestions that had been forced upon him. For a minute the sense of shame which had come to the Colonel as he read the letter to Hilary Unett gave him a second twinge of pain; for he recollected that the strange cry for help had not been “Deliver me,” but “Deliver us.”

It was with a start of superstitious fear that he saw a flickering light moving along through the fast darkening church. Gabriel noticed nothing, for his eyes had closed, his head had dropped forward.

As it drew nearer Norton saw with relief that the light came from the lantern which the Irish sentry had just kindled.

“Did you call me, sir?” said the man, approaching as if in response to a summons.

“No, I did not,” said Norton, irritably.

The man saluted and was about to retire, when he caught sight of Gabriel bound to the pillar, his head drooped on his breast, his frame hanging lifeless, supported only by the cords.

The Irishman’s eyes widened, he crossed himself rapidly. “The prisoner!” he stammered. “Why—yer honour—sure then he’s a dead man!”

“Hold the light nearer!” said Norton sharply, and with an uneasiness he could not have explained he put his ear to the heart that was now strangely still, though but a few minutes ago he had felt it throbbing with passionate indignation.