Читать книгу Hugh Gwyeth: A Roundhead Cavalier - Beulah Marie Dix - Страница 3

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Up in the tops of the tall elms that overshadowed the east wing of Everscombe manor house the ancient rooks were gravely wrangling. A faint morning breeze swept the green branches and, as the leaves stirred, the warm September sunlight smiting through fell in flakes of yellow on the dark flagstones of the terrace below. For a moment Hugh Gwyeth ceased to toss up and catch the ball in his hand, while he stood to count the yellow spots that shifted on the walk. Eight, nine,—but other thoughts so filled his head that there he lost count and once more took up his listless tramp.

Off to his left, where beyond the elms the lawn sloped down to the park, he could hear the calls of the boys at play,—his Oldesworth cousins and Aunt Rachel Millington’s sons. The Millingtons had come to Everscombe a week before out of Worcestershire, where the king’s men were up in arms and had plundered their house. Yet the young Millingtons were playing at ball with the Oldesworth lads as if it were only a holiday. “Children!” Hugh muttered contemptuously and, conscious of his own newly completed sixteen years, threw an increased dignity into his step. He was a wiry lad, of a slender, youthful figure, but for all that he carried himself well and with little awkwardness. Neither was he ill-looking; though there was a reddish tinge to his close-cut hair it changed to gold when he came into the sunlight, and at all times there was in his blue eyes a steady, frank look that made those who liked him forget the freckles across the bridge of his nose and cheek bones, and the almost aggressive squareness of his chin.

Mouth and chin were even sullen now, as Hugh lingered a moment to glance up at the small diamond panes of the window of the east parlor. Within, Hugh’s grandfather, Gilbert Oldesworth, the master of Everscombe, his sons, Nathaniel and Thomas, his daughter’s husband, David Millington, and Roger Ingram, the lieutenant in Thomas Oldesworth’s troop of horse, were conferring with men from Warwick on the raising of forces, the getting of arms, and all the means for defending that part of the county; and Peregrine, the eldest of the Oldesworth lads, was allowed to be of their counsels. Hugh turned away sharply and resumed his dreary tramp up and down the flagged terrace. “If I had been Uncle Nathaniel’s son, they would have suffered me to be present as well as Peregrine,” he muttered, pausing to dig the toe of his shoe into a crack between the flagstones. “’Tis not just. I am near a man, and they might treat me—” He gave the ball an extra high toss and paced on slowly.

But, call as he would upon his injured dignity, he could not refrain from facing about at the end of the walk and retracing his steps till he was loitering once more beneath the window of the east parlor. He was not listening, he told himself, nor was he spying; there was no harm in walking on the east terrace of a morning, nor in lingering there to play at ball. So he stood slipping the ball from hand to hand, but his eyes were fixed on the little panes of the window above and his thoughts were busy on what was happening within. Would the people of the hamlets round about Everscombe, the farmers and ploughboys, who of a Sunday sat stolidly in the pews of the village church at Kingsford, would they truly resist their sovereign? The Oldesworths would head them, without doubt, but how many others scattered through the county and all through wide England were of the like mind? And what would come of it? Would there be war in the land, such wars as Hugh had read the Greeks and Romans had waged, such as the great German wars in which his own father had borne a part? And if there was a war and brave deeds to do and fame to win, would his grandfather and his uncles let him come and fight too, or would they still shut him out with the little boys, as they had shut him out to-day?

So he was thinking, when of a sudden the window at which he had been staring swung open, and Nathaniel Oldesworth, a mild-featured man of middle age, looked out upon him. Hugh flushed suddenly and kept his eyes on the ball he was still shifting from hand to hand. “You here, Hugh?” his uncle’s voice reached him. “Take yourself off to your play.”

“Ay, sir,” Hugh answered, and sauntered away down the walk. He kept his chin up and his mouth was sulky, but in his boy’s heart every fibre of awakening manhood was quivering at this last insult. Go play! when every moment was big with events, when war was bursting on the land, and there was work for every man to do, he was bidden to content himself with a ball!

He went slowly down the steps at the south end of the terrace and bearing off from the stables struck through the long grass toward the orchard. He walked with eyes on the ground, too deeply buried in his own resentful thoughts to heed whither he was going, but he realized when he entered the orchard, for the sunlight that had been all about him since he quitted the terrace went out; he saw the earth was no longer grassy but bald and brown, and he trod on a hard green apple that rolled under his foot.

A second small apple suddenly plumped to the ground before him, and a girl’s voice called, “Hugh, Hugh.”

The boy looked up. Just above his head, through the branches of the great apple tree, he saw the face of Lois Campion, the orphan niece of Nathaniel Oldesworth’s wife. “Are you hunting for snails?” she asked, while her dark eyes laughed. “Prithee, give over now, like a good lad, and help me hence. I have sat here half the morning for lack of an arm to aid me.”

She had slipped down the branches to the fork of the tree so that she could rest her hands on Hugh’s shoulders, and as they came thus face to face her tone changed: “Why, Hugh, what has gone wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answered shortly, swinging her down to the ground.

“You look as though you had eaten a very sour apple,” said Lois. “Try these. There are sweet tastes in them, if you chew long enough.” She had seated herself at the foot of the tree with her head resting against the gnarled gray trunk.

“It’s not apples I want,” Hugh replied gruffly, and then the troubled look in the girl’s eyes made him sit down beside her with a thought of saying something to make amends for his surliness; only words did not come easily, for his mind could run on nothing but his own discontent.

“I think I know,” Lois spoke gently and put her hand on his arm. “’Tis because of Cousin Peregrine.”

Hugh shook off her hand and dropped down full length on the ground with his forehead pressing upon his arms; he felt it would be the crowning humiliation of the morning if the girl should see the look on his face at the mere mention of his trouble.

For a time there was silence, except for the thud of a falling apple and the soft rustle of leaves in the light wind; it was one of Lois’s best comrade qualities, Hugh realized vaguely now, that she knew when to hold her peace. It was he himself that renewed the conversation, when he felt assured that he had himself too well in hand to let any childish breaking be audible in his voice: “I wish my father had lived.”

“I wish my parents had, too,” Lois answered quietly.

“I did not wish it, when I spoke, because I loved them, I fear,” Hugh went on, digging up the scant blades of grass about him with one hand; “I do love them, but I did not think of it so, then. But I thought how, when a lad hath a father alive, things are made easy for him,—no, not easy; I do not mean skulking at home,—but he is helped to do a man’s part. Now there was a good friend of mine, there at Warwick school, Frank Pleydall; I’ve spoke of him to you. I was home with him once for the holidays, to a great house in Worcestershire, where his father, Sir William Pleydall, lives. And Frank had his own horses and dogs, and the servants did his bidding, and—and his father is very fond of him.” Hugh paused a moment, then gave words to the grievance nearest his heart: “And Peregrine, now, because he is Uncle Nathaniel’s son, he is to have a cornetcy in Uncle Thomas’s troop, and he will have a new horse,—I do not begrudge it to Peregrine, but they might try me and see what I can do.”

“But, Hugh,” Lois ventured, “you are younger than Peregrine.”

“Only two years and a half,” Hugh raised himself on one elbow, “and do but feel the thick of my right arm there. And at Warwick school when they taught us sword-play I learnt enough to worst Master Peregrine, I am sure. And I can stick to my saddle as well as he, though I never have anything to ride but a plough horse. And I have not even that now,” he went on, with an effort at a laugh, “since all have been taken to mount Uncle Thomas’s troop. But Peregrine will have a horse and a sword of his own and go to the wars. Do you understand what ’tis I mean, Lois?”

“Yes,” Lois replied with a downward look and a quiver of the mouth. “You will think ’tis girl’s folly in me, but I have felt what you mean when I have seen Martha and Anne have new gowns, and I must wear my old frock still.”

There was another long silence, broken this time by Lois. “Hugh,” she half whispered, “I believe we are very wicked and ungrateful to our kinsfolk.”

“I do not believe so,” the boy answered doggedly; “they have given us nothing but food and clothes, and one craves other things besides.”

Lois nodded without speaking, then fetched a breath like a sob. “Lois!” Hugh cried in honest alarm; he had never seen her thus before, “don’t cry. I am ashamed I bore myself so unmanly to hurt you. Don’t cry.” He took her hand in his, and tried to think of something comforting to say.

Lois bit her lips and made not another sound till she could answer with only a slight tremble: “What you spoke of, made me feel lonely.”

“I am sorry I spoke so,” Hugh said contritely, still holding her hand. “Shall we go look for apples now?”

The girl shook her head: “Prithee, do not put me off, Hugh, and do not reproach yourself; I am not sorry that you spoke so. You are the only one to whom I can talk of such things, here at Everscombe.”

“And you are the only one I have been able to talk to of anything that touches me nearly, these two years since my mother died.—Do you know, Lois, I sometimes think you look like her. She had brown hair like yours, for she was a true Oldesworth and dark. Now I am a Gwyeth, and so I come rightly by my red hair.”

“You shall not slander it so,” Lois interrupted.

“Aunt Delia calls it red. I care not for the color, but I’d like to let it grow.” Hugh ran his fingers through his cropped hair.

“Would you turn Cavalier?” Lois asked half seriously.

“Most gentlemen wear their hair long; even my grandfather and Uncle Nathaniel, for all they hold to Parliament.”

“Master Thomas Oldesworth has cut his close; he says all soldiers do so in Germany.”

“My father did not,” Hugh answered quickly. “And he had more experience in the German wars than ever Uncle Tom will have.”

“Tell me about him again, Hugh, if you will,” Lois begged.

The boy slipped down till he rested on his elbow once more. “There is not much I can tell,” he began, but his face was eager with interest in the old story. “I remember little of those times, but my mother was ever telling me of him. His name was Alan Gwyeth; ’tis a Welsh name, and he had Welsh blood in him. They put him to school, but he ran away to follow the wars in the Low Countries. Later he was here in Warwickshire to raise men who’d adventure for the German wars, and he met my mother, and they loved each other, so they married. My grandfather and Uncle Nathaniel did not like my father, so he left the kingdom straightway, and she went with him on his campaigns in Germany. I was born there; I think I can remember it, just a bit. A porcelain stove with tiles, and the story of Moses upon them; and a woman with flaxen hair who took care of me; and my father, I am sure I remember him, a very tall man with reddish hair and blue eyes, who carried me on his shoulder.” Hugh’s look strayed beyond the girl and he was silent a time. “Then it all ended and we came home to England. I remember the ship and I was sick; and then the great coach we rode in from Bristol; and how big Everscombe looked and lonesome, and my mother cried.”

“And—and your father?” Lois asked timidly.

“He died,” Hugh answered softly. “My mother never told me how, but it must have been in battle, for he was a very brave soldier, she said. And he was the tenderest and kindest man that ever lived, and far too good for her, she said, but I do not believe that. And just before she died she told me I must try always to be like him, a true-hearted gentleman and a gallant soldier.—I am glad I look like him, and then, sometimes,” Hugh’s tone grew more dubious, “but usually ’tis when I have done wrong, Aunt Delia says I am my father over again.”

“Aunt Delia has a sharp tongue,” said Lois with a sigh.

“I know it well,” Hugh answered ruefully.

“But still, she has a kind heart,” the girl was amending charitably, when from across the orchard came a shrill call of “Hugh,” which ended in a high-pitched howl.

Lois rose and peering under her hand gazed out into the sunlight of the level grass beyond the apple trees. “’Tis Sam Oldesworth,” she said, and as she spoke a boy of thirteen or fourteen years broke headlong into the shade of the orchard.

“Where have you been, Hugh?” he panted. “Have you my ball safe? I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

“For the ball? There ’tis,” Hugh replied.

“Nay, not for that. There’s something up at the house for you.”

“What is it?” Hugh came to his feet at a jump, while his thoughts sped bewilderingly to swords, horses, and commissions.

“Guess,” replied Sam.

Hugh turned his back and walked away toward the manor house at a dignified pace; it would not do to let a young sprig like Sam know his curiosity and eagerness. But Lois, having no such scruples, teased her cousin with questions till the boy, bubbling over with the importance of the news, admitted: “Well, the post from the north has come, and there is something for Hugh in the east parlor.”

“A letter?” Hugh queried with momentary disappointment in his tone. But though a letter was not as good as a commission it was something he had never had before in his life, so he quickened his step and with high expectations entered the east wing and passed through the small hall to the parlor.

The door stood open, and opposite the sunlight from the window, still flung wide, lay in a clear rectangle upon the dark floor. About the heavy oak table in the centre of the room, in speech of the news brought from the north by the freshly arrived letters, sat or stood in knots of two or three the grave-faced men of the conference. At the head of the table, where the sunlight fell upon his long white hair, sat Master Gilbert Oldesworth, an erect man with keen eyes and alert gestures, in spite of his seventy years. Hugh also caught sight of Peregrine and noted, with a certain satisfaction, that this fortunate cousin sat at the foot of the table and seemed to have small share in the business in hand. But next moment he had enough to do to give heed to his own concerns, for Nathaniel Oldesworth called him by name and he must enter to receive his letter. He felt his cheeks burn with the consciousness that strangers had their eyes on him and that he must appear to them a mere dishevelled, awkward schoolboy; he grew angry with himself for his folly, and his face burned even more. Scarcely daring to raise his eyes, he caught up the letter his uncle held out to him and slipped back again into the hall.

Sam pounced upon him at once. “What is it?” he demanded, and Lois’s eyes asked the same question.

Hugh forgot the hot embarrassment and misery of a moment before, as he turned the letter in his hand. “I don’t know the writing,” he said, prolonging the pleasure while he examined the superscription; then he tore open the paper, and the first sight of the sheet of big sprawling black letters was enough. “Ah, but I do know!” he cried. “’Tis from Frank Pleydall, Lois.”

“Your school friend?”

“Yes. I have not heard from him these six months, since he left the school. Doctor Masham, the master, said the queen was a Babylonish woman, and when Sir William heard of that he came to the school in a great rage and called Doctor Masham a canting Puritan and a hoary-headed traitor,--truly, the Doctor is but little older and not a bit more white headed than Sir William himself. And he took Frank away, and—I was right sorry to lose him.”

“But you have found him again now,” said Lois. “Come, Sam.” She coaxed the youngster, still reluctant and lingering, out upon the terrace, and Hugh, happy in being alone, set himself down at once on the stairway that led from the hall to the upper story. It was hard to find a secluded place in Everscombe those days, what with the men from Thomas Oldesworth’s troop quartered in the old west wing, and the Millingtons and other refugee kinsfolk in the main part of the house. So in the fear that a noisy cousin or two might come to interrupt him, Hugh settled himself hastily and began his letter:—

Good Hugh:

It has come to my remembrance that it is many days since you have had news of me, so at a venture I send this letter to your grandfather’s house, though the roads are so beset and the post so delayed it is doubtful if it ever reach you. I am here at Nottingham with my father. He commands a notable troop of horse, drawn out of our own county, and many of them men bred on our own lands, proper stout fellows, that will make the rebels to skip, I promise you. My father is colonel, and some of my cousins and uncles and neighboring gentlemen hold commissions, and I think I shall prevail upon my father to bestow one on me, though he maintains I be over-young, which is all folly. The king’s standard was raised here week before last, and we all nigh split our throats with cheering. The town is full of soldiers and gentlemen from all over the kingdom, and many from following the wars abroad, and more coming every day. I have seen his Majesty the king,—God bless him! He rode through the street and he hath a noble face and is most gracious and kingly. I do not see how men can have the wickedness to take up arms against him. I have also seen his nephew, Prince Rupert, the famous German soldier, who they say shall have a great command in the war. My father has had speech with him and he commended our troop most graciously. It has been the most memorable time of all my life, and, best of all, I shall never go back to school now, but go to the wars. I would you might be with us, Hugh, for it is the only life for gentlemen of spirit. Heaven keep you well, and if this reaches you, write me in reply.

Your loving friend to serve you,

Francis Pleydall.

Nottingham, Sept. 5, 1642.

I misremembered to tell you. Among the soldiers come from Germany is a certain Alan Gwyeth, a man of some forty years, with hair reddish gold like yours. It is an odd name and I thought perhaps he might be some kinsman of yours. We met with him the day the standard was raised, and I would have questioned him myself, but my father said I was over-forward and I had to hold my peace. Did your father leave any brothers or cousins in Germany? This man is a notable soldier and has got him a colonelcy under the Prince.

F. P.

Hugh sat staring at the paper and saw the black letters and the words but found no meaning in them. Across the dim hall he could see through the open door the strip of greensward that ran across the front of Everscombe, part black with the shadow of the east wing and part dazzling bright with the noon sun. He fixed his gaze upon the clean line where the shade gave way to vivid light, till the sunny greenness blurred before his eyes; he felt the roughness of the paper, as he creased and recreased it with nervous fingers, but he could not think; he could only feel that something vast and portentous was coming into his life.

A noise of tramping feet and a burst of voices roused him. The conference ended, the men came slowly from the east parlor, and lingered speaking together, then scattered, some with Nathaniel Oldesworth into the main part of the house, some with Thomas Oldesworth out upon the terrace. Master Gilbert Oldesworth was not among them, Hugh noted, and on a sudden impulse he half ran across the hall and entered the east parlor, closing the door behind him.

Master Oldesworth looked up from the paper over which he had been poring. “You would speak with me, Hugh?” he asked, with a touch of displeasure in his tone.

“If I may. ’Tis important,” Hugh stammered. “Will you look at this letter? No, not all, just this place, sir.”

Hugh stood at his grandfather’s side, griping the edge of the table so he saw the blood leave his fingers. In the elms outside the open window the rooks still scolded, and over in the corner of the room the great clock ticked loudly, but there was no other sound till Hugh had counted thrice sixty of its noisy ticks. Then the boy drew a quick breath, and, dreading what he might find, raised his eyes to his grandfather’s face. But he saw no sign there for several moments, not till Master Oldesworth had laid down Frank Pleydall’s letter, and then Hugh perceived there was something akin to pity in the old man’s eyes.

“Well, Hugh, and what would you know?” he asked.

“That man, Alan Gwyeth, is he—” Hugh felt and knew what the answer would be before Master Oldesworth spoke the words slowly: “Yes, Hugh, ’tis your father.”