Читать книгу The Honourable Jim - Baroness Emmuska Orczy - Страница 17

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Mistress Barbara Brent was at Stoke Lark, all alone, while Oxford was invested, Squire Brent being at the time with the King’s army at Leicester; but later on, in the early days of June, when Fairfax abandoned the siege, the Squire, fearing for her safety should the Parliamentary army spread itself over the country, bade her join him at Daventry, whither he himself had gone with the King.

Whereupon Mistress Barbara Brent, waited on by two armed lackeys and Mistress Leake, her faithful nurse, set forth from Stoke Lark on the morning of June the 11th. It was a typical English early summer’s day, with a cool breeze blowing from the West; the hills around were covered with purple heather and golden gorse, and in the hedgerows the dog-rose was in bloom. Soon after the small cavalcade had passed Ilmington they spied, on the Northampton Road, what looked like a vast body of men moving in a northeasterly direction. This they took to be Fairfax’s main army of whom Squire Brent had evinced such fear, but of a truth in the distance they seemed to be moving in remarkable order, there being few stragglers in the rear as is so often the case in an army on the march, nor did the men spread themselves over the neighbouring fields, but appeared to walk in serried ranks, shoulder to shoulder and at a slow, even gait.

Soon, however, the secondary road which led by a short cut to Daventry, and which Mistress Barbara and her escort were following, took a sharp turn to the left and anon the intervening rising ground hid the main road and the moving army from view.

Toward sunset the church tower of Daventry came in sight. Already, as they neared the town, the travellers perceived a number of people, all wending their way in the same direction as themselves; men in leather jerkins or civilian clothes, women in sombre gowns or gaily-coloured kirtles; even children did they overtake on the way. Almost as soon as they entered the city they were met by a motley crowd which filled the narrow streets in every nook, angle and doorway, so much so that their horses had grave difficulty in making their way and became restive with the noise around them.

The market place, which they were forced to traverse in order to arrive at the inn where Squire Brent had given them rendezvous, was thronged with men and horses, whilst carts and wagons and other appurtenances of an artillery train were ranged up in close ranks all around the square. The approaches to the various taverns were well-nigh impassable, men sat about on casks and benches outside the doors, leaving but scant space in the street for the passage of horsemen. Leather jerkins predominated here, but there was a goodly sprinkling of cloth tunics too, and amongst the innumerable plumed hats that tossed about in every direction like froth upon the waves of the sea could be seen a few caps of more sober shape, whilst here and there the steel of gorget or casque caught the glint of a slanting ray from the setting sun.

The King himself being in Daventry and his army encamped on Borough Hill, there was but little more than standing room in the place. There were four thousand men at arms in and around the city which accounted for the congestion in the squares and streets, not to mention the rabble which usually hangs in the wake of an army and of which the royalists always had a goodly number—the ragtag and bobtail of camp followers, vagabonds who had nothing to lose and everything to gain when fighting was going on and provisions were plentiful, beggars and muckworms of all sorts, ragamuffins and cinder-wenches that did more perhaps to discredit the King’s cause in the eyes of the sober middle classes of England than any extortionate demand for money or abuse of privilege.

Mistress Barbara’s lacqueys had much ado to forge a way for their lady through the throng. At times she was nearly unhorsed by the pressure of the crowd against her stirrups or the pranks of the ’prentices who, impudent as well as heedless of danger, boldly played hide and seek under the very horses’ bellies. As Matthew, her chief man, pushed his way along with many oaths and vigorous threats, the colour of his livery was recognised by some and Mistress Barbara was greeted with a hail of welcome.

“Make way there,” Matthew shouted peevishly, “’twere to better purpose than shouting yourselves hoarse!”

“Whither away, Master Matthew?” some one called to him out of the crowd.

“To the sign of the ‘Wheatsheaf,’” Matthew replied, “where His Honour Squire Brent is awaiting us, and if ye hinder us further ’twill be at your peril.”

And with a threatening glance directed at some drunken louts who were wilfully obstructing his way, he fingered the pistol in his belt wherewith he was happily provided.

“Squire Brent is not awaiting you at the ‘Wheatsheaf,’ I’m thinking, Master Matthew,” said one of the men, raising his voice above the hubbub of the crowd.

“And why, may I ask,” retorted Matthew gruffly, “shouldst thou be thinking such d——d nonsense?”

“Because Squire Brent is hunting with the King in Fawsley Park,” the man replied, “and they are not like to return before night.”

“The King hunting in Fawsley Park?” Matthew joined with a frown and checked his horse for a moment that he might the more easily parley with the knave. “Nay, then thou’rt proved to be a liar, friend. For how should the King be hunting when those accursed rebels are hard upon his heels?”

“Tshaw!” the other ejaculated contemptuously and spat upon the ground. “Those accursed rebels, as you so justly call them, Master Matthew, would not dare attack us now. What are they but a lot of raw recruits who never saw a shot fired and know not one end of a firelock from another? They would not dare measure their strength against us? Are they not running away from Oxford? Tell me that, Master Matthew!”

“Ay! Ay!” Matthew assented somewhat dubiously, remembering the army that he had spied in the distance that very morning moving along the road in orderly array. “I should not call it running,” he added thoughtfully.

“Matthew! Matthew!” here interposed Mistress Barbara and pushed her horse resolutely a step or two forward. “Stop that gossip, man, and see that we get to the tavern as soon as may be.”

The little cavalcade moved on, but not before they heard a good deal more talk about the King going a-hunting and Prince Rupert’s wish to move northwards to meet the Parliamentary army and give them the sound drubbing they deserved. Spirits ran high amongst the soldiers on the subject of the coming fight. They still had their wallets and baggage-train full of the loot captured in the sacking of Leicester, and the fact that the siege of Oxford had been abandoned was but another proof of how Cavalier pluck and Cavalier science of arms was destined soon to stamp out the last spark of rebellion and treachery.

“They’ll never stand up to Prince Rupert’s horse!” was the sum total of every man’s opinion, and some there were who had it on the highest possible authority that the King himself had declared that “the rebels were weaker than they were thought to be, whether by their distractions which are very great, or by wasting their men.”