CHAPTER XLI.

“Yet since that loving Lord

Commanded us to love them for His sake,

Even for His sake, and for his sacred Word,

Which in His last bequest He to us spake,

We should them love, and with their needs partake;

Knowing that, whatsoe’er to them we give,

We give to Him by Whom we all doe live.”

—Spenser.


There was no more skipping that day for Nan and Meg; frightened out of their senses, they made their way home, and were just crossing the stable-yard when their father caught sight of them.

“I have stabled that bay horse as Vicar said,” he remarked, “and do you two little maids keep a still tongue in your heads or we may get into trouble. Why, what’s amiss with you both?”

“Oh, father,” said Nan, sobbing, “our wounded Puritan is going to fight the officer from Canon Frome, who is in the orchard threatening Mistress Hilary.”

“I’ll teach un to mind his manners in my orchard!” said Farmer Chadd, hastily picking up a stout cudgel. “Threatening did you say? and the lady there with no better protection than a wounded soldier! Good Lord! but these evil living Cavaliers will be the ruin o’ the land! Run in to your mother, my maids, and say I’ll be back soon for dinner.”

Just as he reached the orchard by one entrance the Vicar and Zachary entered at the opposite side, and all three men gazed in horror at the sight before them. The Governor of Canon Frome was stretched out on the grass, bleeding and unconscious, and Gabriel Harford, to all appearance lifeless, lay with his head on Hilary’s lap.

The Vicar bent over him and felt his heart.

“He still lives! but how can he possibly have fought Colonel Norton when in such a plight?”

“It was to save me, sir,” said Hilary. “Oh! let us take him quickly to shelter before it is too late.”

“There’s life in this plaguey Governor o’ Canon Frome, sir,” said Farmer Chadd, “What be we to do with un?”

“If you and your wife could bind up his wound; the best way would be to take word to his men, and get them to bear him hence on a litter. Could you do that, Chadd, and say naught as to Captain Harford? He is the son of Dr. Bridstock Harford, of Hereford.”

“Then I’ll do anything in the world for un, for Dr. Harford saved my good woman’s life,” said Farmer Chadd. “You shelter the young gentleman, sir, and me and the missus will see to this here plaguey Colonel.”

With Zachary’s help the Vicar lifted Gabriel on to the bier which they had brought from the church, and carefully covering him with sacking they bore him down through the hopyards to Bosbury. Fortunately, it was the dinner-hour, and they did not encounter a single person, but were able to cress the churchyard and to carry their burden up the step-ladder to the first floor of the tower. Here they found Mrs. Durdle hard at work; she had already laid a mattress on the floor, and was bustling about with a broom in despair at the dust and the cobwebs which had accumulated.

“I do wish I had time to scrub the place down, sir,” she lamented. “It bean’t fit for a dog to lay in, let alone a Christian.”

“Never mind,” said the Vicar, “I’ll warrant ’tis cleaner than Oxford Castle, and the main thing is to hide him and save his life. Zachary, can you fix boards in three of the windows, or at night the villagers may see our light?”

Leaving the wounded man to the kindly offices of Mrs. Durdle and Hilary, both of them well skilled in sick-nursing, the Vicar hastened back to his house, returning before long with a box full of pre-historic bones under one arm and a flagon of Hollands under the other.

“If anyone chances to ask you why we come to and fro to this tower, Zachary,” he remarked, toiling up the ladder and setting down his burden, “you can tell them I am keeping my antiquities here, and can say you’ve seen them. What! hath Captain Harford not yet regained his senses? Try to get a little of this down his throat, Hilary. That’s better; he will soon revive, and I will then set off for Hereford.”

The last word seemed to reach Gabriel. He opened his eyes for a moment and caught a misty glimpse of Dr. Coke and Hilary with a rough stone tower wall and a deeply splayed narrow window in the background. Was he once more a prisoner in St. George’s Tower at Oxford? The horror of the thought roused him. Then he noticed that he was lying in a bed on the floor, and that they had removed his buff coat, a perception which vaguely troubled him. ..

“My coat?” he said, anxiously, yet still not knowing why he wanted it.

“Are you cold,” said Hilary, spreading another blanket over him. But the Vicar understood, and fetched the buff coat from the corner where Durdle had thrown it.

“The inner pocket is here,” he said, placing it within reach of Gabriel’s right hand. And then, with a look of relief, the wounded man drew out the despatches.

“Will you give them to my father?” he said, pleadingly,

“Yes,” replied the Vicar; “but I shall beg him to come here first and dress your wounds. Will you give them to him yourself?”

“He may not come in time,” said Gabriel, faintly.

And the Vicar, seeing that he longed to have the anxiety off his mind thrust the despatches into his black doublet, and bidding them keep the tower door locked, set off with Zachary to the stable, where the old servant saddled the cob for him, and, promising to be about the premises ready to give Mrs. Durdle help should she need him, watched his master ride off in the direction of Hereford.

Dr. Coke was not a man to shirk anything which he had promised, but he could not help feeling that in this despatchbearing he had undertaken work which he would have preferred to leave alone. To stand quite aloof from the strife and never to forget that he was before all things pledged to the service of the Prince of Peace had been his aim throughout the Civil War; but to refuse the request of one who lay apparently at the point of death, seemed to him impossible, while Gabriel’s gallant rescue of Hilary increased the desire he felt to give him whatever ease of mind was possible.

On reaching Hereford he rode straight to the physician’s house and, learnt from the servant that her master was about to ride out into the country. However, he was shown into the study.

“I will not detain you many minutes, sir,” he said, after the greetings had passed. “I know how precious time is to such a busy man.”

“Nay, ’tis not on an urgent matter of life and death that I am riding out this afternoon,” said Dr. Harford. “I had last night a letter from my son, who, it seems, is at Ledbury, and I hope to meet him.”

“Alas!” said the Vicar, “I bring you bad news of him. There was a sharp fight this morning at Ledbury, and your son is sorely wounded. We have hidden him from his pursuers in the tower at Bosbury, and he begged me to give you these despatches which he was bearing from Massey to Fairfax and Cromwell.”

Dr. Harford took the blood-stained packet, but for a minute could not speak. At length he asked further particulars as to Gabriel’s wounds, and when he, heard of the desperate ride across country and the duel with Colonel Norton, hope died out of his face. But, as usual, he was full of consideration for his visitor.

“I am inclined to think, sir,” he said, “that you have been hurrying to and fro in aid of my son and have not yet dined. I will bid them prepare a meal, and then, when your horse is rested and my arrangements for leaving home made, we might, an’ you will, ride together to Bosbury.”

The Vicar, being in truth extremely hungry after his arduous work, did not decline the offer of food, and was soon discussing a fat capon in the dining-room, while the doctor saw his wife and his assistant, made hasty arrangements for a week’s absence, and put into his bag such things as he thought likely to prove needful for Gabriel’s case.

His wife, only longing to go herself to Bosbury, watched the preparations with tearful eyes.

“I cannot bear to feel that the headstrong girl who is to blame for it all should have the nursing of him,” she sighed.

“Well, my dear, had you seen his face at Notting Hill when he was at death’s door, and I merely gave him her message, you would understand that Hilary Unett is the only woman in the world who has a chance of nursing him back to life. ’Tis hard, dear wife, but there comes a time when a man is bound to leave even his father and mother and cling to his——”

“Well,” said the poor mother, wiping her eyes, “she is not his wife yet, and if he dies, I for one shall account her his murderess.”

The physician stooped and kissed her tenderly.

“Keep up your heart,” he said, with assumed cheerfulness. “And I know that the kindly Vicar will bring you word how he fares, and if need arises fetch you to him. But if possible we must avoid that, since he cannot be safe when once his hiding-place hath been discovered. The Canon Frome garrison will know that he is not far off, and we may be sure will seek to lay hands on him.”

They were interrupted by little Bridstock, who came running into the room to show them a toy sword which the groom had made for him.

“At any rate, you shall never be a soldier,” said the mother, catching him up in her arms and kissing him. “And you can’t marry that headstrong maid!”

“I shall marry little Betty Brydges,” said the child, with decision, “and be Member of Parliament like Sir Robert Harley.”

The sublime confidence of his tone made the parents laugh.

“’Tis a great thing to know one’s own mind,” said the doctor, patting the child’s curly head. “We have had our troubles, but at any rate our two sons will not vex our souls by weak and unstable characters. There is grit in both of them.”

“I would we had the choosing of their wives,” said Mrs. Harford, ruefully.

“Yet you didn’t think that the best plan years ago,” replied Dr. Harford, with a mirthful glance.

And recalling their own extremely early and rash marriage, his wife could but smile and own that he was right.

Her heart relented a little towards Hilary, and when Dr. Coke told her from what peril Gabriel had that day rescued her, and spoke words of warm gratitude and praise as to her son’s courage and sterling character, her face brightened, and she watched the two riders mount their horses with a more hopeful spirit than might have been expected.

Yet could Dr. Harford have looked at that moment into the tower room where his son lay, he would certainly have taken his wife with him.