CHAPTER XL.

“Duelling, in this country at least, is no longer legal, and we believe that war, which has been aptly styled international duelling, is alike doomed.. . . It is certain that the time must assuredly come (for is not this the darkness before the dawn?), and it will be probably sooner than we can conceive, when there will be a tremendous upheaval and revulsion of feeling with regard to it.” —J. J. Green.

For some little time Gabriel lay back in perfect silence against the grassy bank, and, spite of the acute pain he was in, he nevertheless felt ready to echo the children’s chorus which floated to them from beneath the apple trees—For it is now a holiday.

Hilary sat on the grass beside him, and from time to time he opened his eyes to watch the tender womanly hand as it ministered to his needs, or to look into the sweet face, as it bent over him. He realised, too, with a happy sense of homecoming, that he was indeed in his native county every time he caught sight of the lovely Malvern Hills which, in the morning light, seemed to take all the hues to be seen on a pigeon’s neck, and formed a fitting background for Hilary’s rare beauty.

“Ought I to let you do all this for a ‘friendly foe’?” he said, looking up at her with a hint of the old mirth in his eyes.

“Forget what I said yesterday, Gabriel. I did not mean half of it,” she said, blushing.

“I knew you meant to keep your promise—that was my sole comfort last night at Ledbury,” he replied, with a sigh.

Hilary continued nervously, but yet with no little force: “I went that very afternoon to see Dame Elizabeth, and you were right, it was just as you said. Oh! I hope I may never again see the false face that deceived me.”

“God grant you never may!” said Gabriel. And then a silence fell between them, and the merry talk of the children could be heard.

Hilary mused sadly over her shortcomings, but presently, noticing a change in her lover’s face, gave an exclamation of dismay.

“Gabriel! how white your lips are growing! Is the pain so great?”

“’Tis very bearable while you are near,” he said, his eyes resting on her with indescribable tenderness. “I was thinking how love can lift one out of all that is worst in the world.”

She instantly responded to his thought as in the first days of their betrothal. “’Tis stronger than war, or differing views,” she said, gently.

“Ay, or death,” he replied.

“Don’t talk of death!” she cried, shuddering. “Oh! when we heard of the battle this morning, and I remembered the cruel words I had spoken to you, I thought my heart would break.”

“My beloved,” he said. And in the strong emphasis of the word there seemed to lurk all the pent-up passion of the long years of separation.

For the first time since that September morning when they had talked in the garden at Hereford, before hearing of Powick fight, their lips met in a kiss that was like a sacrament, and each knew that nothing could ever again part them.

But their happiness was short-lived, for the children ran through the gap in the hedge, and Little Meg said, breathlessly, “Mistress Hilary! there be someone coming into the orchard.”

“It looks like one of the officers from Canon Frome,” said Nan, uneasily, her mind dwelling on cattle-lifting and plundering.

“What if it should be Norton!” said Gabriel, trying to get up.

“You must not show yourself,” said Hilary, earnestly.

“All will be ruined if you are seen. Dear love, promise me, and then I shall have no fear.”

“’Tis true I should be worse than no defence,” said Gabriel, reluctantly.

Hilary hastily placed her cloak so as to screen him a little better from view, and made the children sit in the gap to block the way.

“Nan and Meg, you will not betray him, I know,” she said.

“Sit there and weave daisy chains.”

Glancing at the approaching figure, she saw that it was indeed Norton, and, anxious to prevent him from drawing too near to the hedge, she went forward to meet him. She wondered now how she could ever have been deceived by him, and hated herself for having allowed him for a moment to make her distrust Gabriel’s love.

Norton’s greeting was eager and full of charm.

“This is clearly a red-letter day in my calendar, Mistress Hilary. First, I have news of Prince Rupert’s success at Ledbury, and then I have the crowning happiness of meeting you.”

“’Tis indeed a fair morning,” said Hilary. “You are doubtless going by the field-path to Ledbury to gain further tidings. I will not detain you. Good day, sir,” and she curtseyed, hoping to dismiss him.

“Oh! I am in no haste; my horse has cast a shoe, and I have sent it on to Diggory, the smith. Prince Rupert is sure to pursue Massey most of the way to Gloucester, ’tis ever his failing to press the chase too far. I will rest awhile in this pleasant orchard.”

Poor Hilary, only longing for him to go, felt that she was indeed being punished for having allowed him in former times to be too much with her.

“I wonder whether you have thought over what I said to you the day before yesterday,” observed Norton, eagerly watching her.

“The day before yesterday,” she said, with a puzzled look. “What happened then?”

“You are not complimentary,” he replied, laughing. “Perhaps you have forgotten all about it. But I remember very well that I had the happiness of walking with you from the Hill Farm to the Vicarage, and of offering you——”

“Was that only the day before yesterday? To me it seems half a lifetime ago,” said Hilary.

“You were not altogether kind to me; in fact, when we got to the Vicarage you followed Colonel Massey’s example, and beat a hasty retreat.”

She made a brave effort to divert him from the subject, observing with a smile: “And I am going to beg you, sir, not to follow the example of Prince Rupert; pray do not push the pursuit any further.”

“Pardon me,” said Norton more gravely, “but I have every intention of carrying it to a successful end. Don’t you understand that I love you?”

“Sir, it is of no use,” she replied. “I cannot listen to your suit. Pray, pray leave me.”

“I will not leave you,” he said, fiercely, “till I clearly understand why you are thus cold and indifferent.”

“Sir, I have no love to give you,” she said, with quiet dignity.

“Never mind that, my love is hot enough to serve for both.”

“I do not want your love,” she said, emphatically.

His eyes gleamed with an anger that made him look devilish.

“The meaning of which is, that you love another. Rumour spoke truly, and the young Parliamentary captain who spared Bosbury Cross—:—”

Hilary started, and a wave of colour suffused her face.

“You see I know all about it.”

She remained quite silent, with drooped head.

“Do you love this Captain Harford? Speak—for I will know the truth!” he said, savagely.

Hilary raised her head. There was such suffering and pathos in her face that any man not the thrall of passion would have been touched. “Sir, all our lives we have loved each other. Oh! if you understood, you would be generous,” she said.

“Why did you not tell me the truth on Monday?”

“Our betrothal had ended at the beginning of the war. I vowed I would not love a rebel. But yesterday, when we met again, I found that war was weaker than love, that it could not really part us.”

“So you became disloyal to your King?”

“No, no; I shall always honour His Majesty; but in truth I can think of only one man in all the world, and that”—her face lighted up—“that is Gabriel Harford, for he is all the world to me. I have told you the whole truth, sir, and now, by your honour as a gentleman, I ask you to leave me.”

“Shall I tell you what you have done?” said Norton, speaking low and rapidly. “You have made me all the more in love with you—all the more determined to win you. What is this Captain Harford? A mere boy, your old playmate, perchance a pleasant comrade, but wholly unfit to be your lord and master.”

“Sir,” she said, with a new dignity in her manner, “he is the man I love.”

Norton muttered an impatient oath.

“Had he been of our party I might have left you to him with a good grace. But nothing shall make me yield to a miserable Roundhead, a strait-laced Puritan, who glories in self-control, and keeps a conscience on his premises. Much good may his conscience do him! I have him like a rat in a trap!”

The words almost paralysed her with terror. What did he know? What did he mean? Had he caught sight of Gabriel?

“And you!” cried Norton, passionately. “You are in my power. Do you understand that?”

Beside himself with wrath, Gabriel dragged himself up on to his knees and drew his sword from the scabbard. Meg and Nan glanced round at him uneasily; and Hilary, conscious of the movement though her back was turned to the hedge, grew desperate in her anxiety.

“No, no!” she panted. “You are too brave a man to take so base an advantage.”

“Pshaw!” said Norton, sneeringly. “The man’s a fool who neglects to use his advantages. You think only of the dear Puritan. You only fear what I may do to him. Well, I will confide in you. I have sent a trusty ambassador to Ledbury, and he is sure to make Captain Harford prisoner. Then, when he is in my power—well, there are many ways of exterminating rats—and rebels.”

Hilary choked back a sob, and moved a few steps from the hedge.

“I am told,” said Norton with a cruel smile, “that Sir Francis Doddington hung fourteen rebels at Andover t’other day. And elsewhere twelve of them were strung up to one apple-tree. We might hang Captain Harford from one of those apple-trees yonder; it would be a fitting death for a Herefordshire man.”

With a wild hope of getting him out of the orchard she moved as though to go, trusting that he might follow’. But Norton was too quick for her.

“Come! cheer up and don’t be so silent,” he said, throwing his arm round her waist. “We’ll talk no more of the Puritan. Let us kiss and be friends.”

“Don’t touch me!” she cried, indignantly, wrenching herself from his embrace. “You are worse than a murderer.”

Norton laughed mockingly.

“Now that was a foolish speech, for as I warned you, the game is in my hands.”

“Thank God! there is someone coming,” cried Hilary, catching sight of a man slowly approaching by the path from Ledbury, and running swiftly towards him. “Why, Waghorn! is it you?” she exclaimed, recognising the well-known face of the wood-carver beneath a bandage tied about his forehead. “You have little liking for us, but I know you will help me now.”

“Mistress!” said Waghorn grimly, “I have a word to speak with yonder Governor of Canon Frome, and I cannot serve you.”

Norton strode angrily towards him.

“A word to speak, indeed! What have you been about? Where is your prisoner?”

Hilary in great astonishment stood by, glancing from one to the other. Waghorn, then, had been the Colonel’s ambassador! Had he suddenly turned Royalist, or was it merely to revenge himself on Gabriel that he had become a spy?

“Sir,” said Waghorn, “I did all that you told me. Last night, having changed my outward man, I followed Captain Harford wherever he went in Ledbury. As the shadow followeth the wayfaring man when the sun shineth, so did I follow him. I saw Colonel Massey give him the despatches.”

“Well! Well! did you take them?” asked Norton, impatiently.

Not heeding the interruption, Waghorn stolidly resumed his tale.

“He hid them in his buff coat and lay down to sleep by the market-house. I well-nigh took the packet from him, but a cur barked and he roused up, gripped me by the arm and called the guard.”

“Idiot! I might have known that you would bungle the business. How was it you did not get him disabled in the skirmish instead of being knocked on the head yourself?”

“I adjured Prince Rupert’s men to fire on him,” said Waghorn, with solemn vindictiveness, “and the ball of the avenger entered into his arm; but he still galloped on, clinging to the neck of his steed. Then one of the ungodly clouted me on the head and I saw him no more.”

His slow speech, and the failure of the enterprise irritated Norton past endurance.

Seizing him by the coat-collar, he gave him a sound shaking.

“You prating, pig-headed, sour-faced lunatic! I wish I had managed the matter myself. Did you not ask which way he rode? Was there no pursuit by the Prince’s troopers?”

Waghorn groaned. “Mercy! Mercy! Oh, my head! My head! Remember I’ve a sore head.”

“You’ve no head at all, you gaping fool, or you wouldn’t have made such a cursed mess of this matter. Did you not ask, I say? Could no man give you news of him?”

Freeing himself and groaning as he adjusted his bandages, the wood-carver replied, sullenly, “I have news of him. When you will leave me time to speak, I will tell you all.”

“Speak then,” said Norton, impatiently.

“I am a righteous avenger,” said Waghorn, with an air of offended dignity, “and, though thrice baulked, I will yet lay hands on the ungodly man that dallies with malignants, and doth not destroy graven images. ‘Let his days be few, and let another take his office!’”

“Go to! You are not preaching on a tub, you fool, but speaking to a King’s officer,” said Norton, with an angry frown.

Waghorn continued deliberately. “When I could think of aught but my clouted head, I sought to pursue Captain Harford, asking from one and another if they had seen a wounded Parliament officer on a bay horse. At length I fell in with some troopers who vowed they had pursued him in this direction, but had lost all trace of him and were returning to Prince Rupert.”

“They had seen him this way?” said Norton, musingly.

Waghorn turned his piercing eyes on Hilary and looked at her fixedly. She tried bravely to keep an unmoved face.

“Doubtless he had his reasons for riding towards Bosbury,” said the spy, with scornful emphasis.

“A good notion,” cried Norton. “After all, you have a head on your shoulders, Waghorn. Methinks the lady’s face hath an anxious look.”

“Sir,” said Hilary, drawing herself up, “no maiden could listen to such words as you have forced me to hear to-day without showing some sign of anxiety.”

Waghorn watched her with the eyes of a hawk, and his solemn voice broke the brief silence which had fallen upon them.

“I adjure you, Mistress, by all you hold most sacred, to speak the truth. Have you seen Captain Gabriel Harford?”

The girl breathed hard, but kept silence, gazing like one transfixed into Waghorn’s keen eyes.

“Speak, Mistress,” he repeated. “Have you seen Captain Gabriel Harford?”

“I saw him—yesterday,” gasped Hilary.

“We know that. Have you seen him this morning?”

There was a minute’s pause, while in agony she tried to see some way out of the dilemma. But way there was none.

“You have seen him?” urged Waghorn, merciless as any Inquisitor.

“Yes,” she replied, a sob rising in her throat.

Norton, with fury in his eyes, stepped nearer to her.

“You dare to protect this rebel, and yet you knew that he carried despatches to the rebel army?”

Hilary bowed her head in assent, then turned away.

“When did you see him?” urged Norton, wrathfully.

She looked up, and her terrible distress was evident.

“I saw him—anon,” she said, in a broken voice.

“How long ago?”

“A little while before you came,” she faltered.

“Which way did he ride?” cried Norton, maddened at the thought that this girl was thwarting them and making them lose precious time. “Tell me at once.”

Utter despair seized her.

“Oh!” she sobbed, “have pity on me!”

“Pity!” said Norton, savagely. “Have you pitied me? Tell me which way he went, or I’ll——”

At this, Gabriel, driven desperate, struggled to his feet, but, turning faint, was forced for a while to lean against one of the hedge-row elms. The children, terrified by his movement and by the dispute in the orchard, dropped their daisy-chains and ran at full speed down the field, while the Colonel, becoming aware of a stir behind him, glanced round.

That was too much for Hilary. She sprang forward and diverted Norton’s attention by pointing to the hills. Her voice was the voice of one goaded beyond all endurance.

“He rode yonder!” she cried, “to Malvern!”

Norton turned to the wood-carver. “Haste, Waghorn! Take word to my servant at the blacksmith’s, and do you ride with him in pursuit. I have a word to say to this lady.” Waghorn was only too ready to undertake such congenial work, and the moment he was gone Norton seized Hilary roughly by the wrists.

“By your tears and your pretences,” he said, with fierce scorn, “you have done your best to hinder me; but I would have you know, Mistress, that I am not one to be baffled. You are wholly at my mercy now.”

In wild terror, she felt the pitiless brute force of the man.

“Let me go!” she panted, struggling to free herself.

“No, by Heaven! you shall not,” said Norton, passionately. “Waghorn can settle matters with your lover, and I will make sure of you.”

In the agony of her resistance she forgot everything else, and was as much startled as Norton when suddenly an indignant voice rang out close to them.

“Coward!” cried Gabriel, and his tone made the Colonel wince as he released Hilary, and stood staring at the wounded man, who, apparently almost at his last gasp, nevertheless confronted him with drawn sword.

His left arm was bandaged and in a sling, the sleeve of his buff coat had been ripped from wrist to shoulder, and hung down soaked in blood; his face was ghastly pale, with eyes like a flaming fire. Norton felt that he could not fight one in such extremity.

“What, the Puritan here, after all!” he cried. “I’faith, this is excellent. I arrest you, sir, in the King’s name.”

Gabriel’s breath came in gasps, but with a gesture he urged Hilary to stand back under the trees, and, with flashing eyes, turned upon her assailant.

“Defend yourself!” he cried.

“Nay, an’ you will fight,” said Norton, drawing his sword. “Your blood be on your own head.”

Hilary, with hands clasped on her breast, stood by frozen with horror, every shade of colour gone from her lovely face. In awful contrast to the peaceful orchard with its grass and daisies, its pink-and-white apple blossom, its glimpses of the Malvern hills, was the unequal fight in the foreground, the deadly thrust of the flashing swords, the clash of the steel, the gasping, sobbing breath of her lover.

Everything seemed against Gabriel; not only was he exhausted by pain and loss of blood, but he was a shorter, slighter man than the Colonel, and a less practised swordsman. He had nothing in his favour but a good cause, and a dauntless courage, and these will not ensure success.

Although he made a brave fight it was before long only too evident that he was failing; twice he staggered and almost fell, and though each time recovering himself, Norton was convinced that in another minute he must succumb. And now the better side of the Colonel’s nature once more asserted itself; he felt a certain admiration for his foe, an uneasy consciousness that there had been truth in that indignant cry of “Coward!” The thought disturbed him, so did the panting, agonising gasps of the Puritan, and an uncomfortable chill went to his heart when, in the heat of the combat, he felt a ring which he specially valued slip from his left hand.

Suddenly he was taken off his guard; with a desperate thrust Gabriel ran him through the body, and in the same instant both duellists fell to the ground, the one severely wounded, the other wholly exhausted by the rescue of the woman whom he loved, and in the defence of whose honour he had spent the last remnants of his failing strength.