St. George and St. Michael

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So long as Rowland imagined the existence of a quarrel, he imagined
therein a bond between them; when he became convinced that no
quarrel, only indifference, or perhaps despisal, separated them, he
began again to despair, and felt himself urged once more to speak.
Seizing therefore an opportunity in such manner that she could not
escape him without attracting very undesirable attention, he began a
talk upon the old basis.

'Wilt thou then forgive me nevermore, Dorothy?', he said humbly.

'For what, Mr. Scuclamore?'

'I mean for offending thee with rude words.'

'Truly I have forgotten them.'

'Then shall we be friends?'

'Nay, that follows not.'

'What quarrel then hast thou with me?'

'I have no quarrel with thee; yet is there one thing I cannot
forgive thee.'

'And what is that, cousin? Believe me I know not. I need but to
know, and I will humble myself.'

'That would serve nothing, for how should I forgive thee for being
unworthy? For such thing there is no forgiveness. Cease thou to be
unworthy, and then is there nothing to forgive. I were an unfriendly
friend, Rowland, did I befriend the man who befriendeth not
himself.'

'I understand thee not, cousin.'

'And I understand not thy not understanding. Therefore can there be
no communion between us.'

So saying Dorothy left him to what consolation he could find in such
china-pastoral abuse as the gallants of the day would, with the aid
of poetic penny-trumpet, cast upon offending damsels--Daphnes and
Chloes, and, in the mood, heathen shepherdesses in general. But,
fortunately for himself, how great soever had been the freedom with
which he had lost and changed many a foolish liking, he found, let
his hopelessness or his offence be what it might, he had not the
power to shake himself free from the first worthy passion ever
roused in him. It had struck root below the sandy upper stratum of
his mind into a clay soil beneath, where at least it was able to
hold, and whence it could draw a little slow reluctant nourishment.

During his poetic anger, he wrote no small amount of fair verse,
tried by the standard of Cowley, Carew, and Suckling, so like theirs
indeed that the best of it might have passed for some of their
worst, although there was not in it all a single phrase to remind
one of their best. But when the poetic spring began to run dry, he
fell once more into a sort of wilful despair, and disrelished
everything, except indeed his food and drink, so much so that his
master perceiving his altered cheer, one day addressed him to know
the cause.

'What aileth thee, Rowland?' he said kindly. 'For this se'ennight
past, thou lookest like one that oweth the hangman his best suit.'

'I rust, my lord,' said Rowland, with a tragic air of discontent.

The notion had arisen in his foolish head that the way to soften the
heart of Dorothy would be to ride to the wars, and get himself
slain, or, rather severely but not mortally wounded. Then he would
be brought back to Raglan, and, thinking he was going to die,
Dorothy would nurse him, and then she would be sure to fall in love
with him. Yes--he would ride forth on the fellow Heywood's mare,
seek him in the field of battle, and slay him, but be himself thus
grievously wounded.

'I rust, my lord,' he said briefly.

'Ha! Thou wouldst to the wars! I like thee for that, boy. Truly the
king wanteth soldiers, and that more than ever. Thou art a good
cupbearer, but I will do my best to savour my claret without thee.
Thou shalt to the king, and what poor thing my word may do for thee
shall not be wanting.'

Scudamore had expected opposition, and was a little nonplussed. He
had judged himself essential to his master's comfort, and had even
hoped he might set Dorothy to use her influence towards reconciling
him to remain at home. But although self-indulgent and lazy,
Scudamore was constitutionally no coward, and had never had any
experience to give him pause: he did not know what an ugly thing a
battle is after it is over, and the mind has leisure to attend to
the smarting of the wounds.

'I thank your lordship with all my heart,' he said, putting on an
air of greater satisfaction than he felt, 'and with your lordship's
leave would prefer a further request.'

'Say on, Rowland. I owe thee something for long and faithful
service. An' I can, I will.'

'Give me the roundhead's mare that I may the better find her
master.'

For Lady was still within the walls. The marquis could not restore
her, but neither could he bring himself to use her, cherishing the
hope of being one day free to give her back to a reconciled subject.
But alas! there were very few horses now in Raglan stalls.

'No, Rowland,' he said, 'thou art the last who ought to get any good
of her. It were neither law nor justice to hand the stolen goods to
the thief.'

He sat silent, and Rowland, not very eager, stood before him in
silence also, meaning it to be read as indicating that to the wars
except on that mare's back he would not ride. But the thought of the
marquis had now taken another turn.

'Thou shalt have her, my boy. Thou shalt not rust at home for the
sake of a gouty old man and his claret. But ere thou go, I will
write out certain maxims for thy following both in the field and in
quarters. Ere thou ride, look well to thy girths, and as thou ridest
say thy prayers, for it pleaseth not God that every man on the right
side should live, and thou mayst find the presence in which thou
standest change suddenly from that of mortal man to that of living
God. I say nothing of orthodoxy, for truly I am not one to think
that because a man hath been born a heretic, which lay not in his
choice, and hath not been of his parents taught in the truth, that
therefore he must howl for ever. Not while blessed Mary is queen of
heaven, will all the priests in Christendom persuade me thereof.
Only be thou fully persuaded in thine own mind, Rowland; for if thou
cared not, that were an evil thing indeed. And of all things, my
lad, remember this, that a weak blow were ever better unstruck. Go
now to the armourer, and to him deliver my will that he fit thee out
as a cuirassier for his majesty's service. I can give thee no rank,
for I have no regiment in the making at present, but it may please
his majesty to take care of thee, and give thee a place in my lord
Glamorgan's regiment of body-guards.'

The prospect thus suddenly opened to Scudamore of a wider life and
greater liberty, might have dazzled many a nobler nature than his.
Lord Worcester saw the light in his eyes, and as he left the room
gazed after him with pitiful countenance.

'Poor lad! poor lad!' he said to himself; 'I hope I see not the last
of thee! God forbid! But here thou didst but rust, and it were a
vile thing in an old man to infect a youth with the disease of age.'

Rowland soon found the master of the armoury, and with him crossed
to the keep, where it lay, above the workshop. At the foot of the
stair he talked loud, in the hope that Dorothy might be with the
fire-engine, which he thought he heard at work, and would hear him.
Having chosen such pieces as pleased his fancy, and needed but a
little of the armourer's art to render them suitable, he filled his
arms with them, and following the master down, contrived to fall a
little behind, so that he should leave the tower before him, when he
dropped them all with a huge clatter at the foot of the stair. The
noise was sufficient, for it brought out Dorothy. She gazed for a
moment as, pretending not to have seen her, he was picking them up
with his back towards her.

'Do I see thee arming at length, cousin?' she said. 'I congratulate
thee.'

She held out her hand to him. He took it and stared. The reception
of his noisy news was different from what he had been vain enough to
hope. So little had Dorothy's behaviour in the capture of Rowland
enlightened him as to her character!

'Thou wouldst have me slain then to be rid of me, Dorothy?' he
gasped.

'I would have any man slain where men fight,' returned Dorothy,
'rather than idling within stone walls!'

'Thou art hard-hearted, Dorothy, and knowest not what love is, else
wouldst thou pity me a little.'

'What! art afraid, cousin?'

'Afraid! I fear nothing under heaven but thy cruelty, Dorothy.'

'Then what wouldst thou have me pity thee for?'

'I would, an' I had dared, have said--Because I must leave thee.
But thou wouldst mock at that, and therefore I say instead--Because
I shall never return; for I see well that thou never hast loved me
even a little.'

Dorothy smiled.

'An' I had loved thee, cousin,' she rejoined, 'I had never let thee
rest, or left soliciting thee, until thou hadst donned thy buff coat
and buckled on thy spurs, and departed to be a man among men, and no
more a boy among women.'

So saying she returned to her engine, which all the time had been
pumping and forcing with fiery inspiration.

Scudamore mounted and rode, followed by one of the grooms. He found
the king at Wallingford, presented the marquis's letter, proffered
his services, and was at once placed in attendance on his majesty's
person.

In the eyes of most of his comrades the mare he rode seemed too
light for cavalry work, but she made up in spirit and quality of
muscle for lack of size, and there was not another about the king
to match in beauty the little black Lady. Sweet-tempered and gentle
although nervous and quick, and endowed with a rare docility and
a faith which supplied courage, it was clear, while nothing was
known of her pedigree, both from her form and her nature, that she
was of Arab descent. No feeling of unreality in his possession of
her intruding to disturb his satisfaction in her, Scudamore became
very fond of her. Having joined the army, however, only after the
second battle of Newbury, he had no chance till the following summer
of learning how she bore herself in the field.

CHAPTER XLIII.

LADY AND BISHOP.

In the meantime a succession of events had contributed to enhance
the influence of Cromwell in the parliament, and his position and
power in the army. He was now, therefore, more able to put in places
of trust such men as came nearest his own way of thinking, and
amongst the rest Roger Heywood, whom, once brought into the active
service for which modesty had made him doubt his own fitness, he
would not allow to leave it again, but made colonel of one of his
favourite regiments of horse, with his son as major.

Richard continued to ride Bishop, which became at length famous for
courage, as he had become at once for ugliness. Fortunately they
found that he had developed friendly feelings towards one of the
mares of the troop, never lashing out when she happened to be behind
him; so they gave her that place, and were freed from much anxiety.
Still the rider on each side of him had to keep his eyes open, for
every now and then a sudden fury of biting would seize him, and
bring chaos in the regiment for a moment or two. When his master was
made an officer, the brute's temptations probably remained the same,
but his opportunities of yielding to them became considerably fewer.

It was strange company in which Richard rode. Nearly all were of the
independent party in religious polity, all holding, or imagining
they held, the same or nearly the same tenets. The opinions of most
of them, however, were merely the opinions of the man to whose
influences they had been first and principally subjected: to say
what their belief was, would be to say what they were, which is
deeper judgment than a man can reach. In Roger Heywood and his son
dwelt a pure love of liberty; the ardent attachment to liberty which
most of the troopers professed, would have prevented few of them
indeed from putting a quaker in the stocks, or perhaps whipping him,
had such an obnoxious heretic as a quaker been at that time in
existence. In some was the devoutest sense of personal obligation,
and the strongest religious feeling; in others was nothing but talk,
less injurious than some sorts of pseudo-religious talk, in that it
was a jargon admitting of much freedom of utterance and reception,
mysterious symbols being used in commonest interchange. That they
all believed earnestly enough to fight for their convictions, will
not go very far in proof of their sincerity even, for to most of
them fighting came by nature, and was no doubt a great relief to the
much oppressed old Adam not yet by any means dead in them.

At length the king led out his men for another campaign, and was
followed by Fairfax and Cromwell into the shires of Leicester and
Northampton. Then came the battle at the village of Naseby.

Prince Rupert, whose folly so often lost what his courage had
gained, having defeated Ireton and his horse, followed them from the
field, while Cromwell with his superior numbers turned Sir Marmaduke
Langdale's flank, and thereby turned the scale of victory.

But Sir Marmaduke and his men fought desperately, and while the
contest was yet undecided, the king saw that Rupert, returned from
the pursuit, was attacking the enemy's artillery, and dispatched
Rowland in hot haste to bring him to the aid of Sir Marmaduke.

The straightest line to reach him lay across a large field to the
rear of Sir Marmaduke's men. As he went from behind them, Richard
caught sight of him and his object together, struck spurs into
Bishop's flanks, bored him through a bull-fence, was in the same
field with Rowland, and tore at full speed to head him off from the
prince.

Rowland rode for some distance without perceiving that he was
followed; if Richard could but get within pistol-shot of him, for
alas, he seemed to be mounted on the fleeter animal! Heavens!-could
it be? Yes it was! it was his own lost Lady the cavalier rode! For a
moment his heart beat so fast that he felt as if he should fall from
his horse.

Rowland became aware that he was pursued, but at the first glimpse
of the long, low, rat-like animal on which the roundhead came
floundering after him, burst into a laugh of derision, and jumping a
young hedge found himself in a clayish fallow, which his mare found
heavy. Soon Richard jumped the hedge also, and immediately Bishop
had the advantage. But now, beyond the tall hedge they were
approaching, they heard the sounds of the conflict near: there was
no time to lose. Richard breathed deep, and uttered a long, wild,
peculiar cry. Lady started, half-stopped, raised her head high, and
turned round her ears. Richard cried again. She wheeled, and despite
spur, and rein, though the powerful bit with which Rowland rode her
seemed to threaten breaking her jaw, bore him, at short deer-like
bounds, back towards his pursuer.

Not until the mare refused obedience did Rowland begin to suspect
who had followed him. Then a vague recollection of something Richard
had said the night he carried him home to Raglan, crossed his mind,
and he grew furious. But in vain he struggled with the mare, and all
the time Richard kept ploughing on towards him. At length he saw
Rowland take a pistol from his holster. Instinctively Richard did
the same, and when he saw him raise the butt-end to strike her on
the head, firmed--and missed, but saved Lady the blow, and ere
Rowland recovered from the start it gave him to hear the bullet
whistle past his ear, uttered another equally peculiar but different
cry. Lady reared, plunged, threw her heels in the air, emptied her
saddle, and came flying to Richard.

But now arose a fresh anxiety:-what if Bishop should, as was most
likely, attack the mare? At her master's word, however, she stood, a
few yards off, and with arched neck and forward-pricked ears,
waited, while Bishop, moved possibly with admiration of the manner
in which she had unseated her rider, scanned her with no malign
aspect.

By this time Rowland had got upon his feet, and mindful of his duty,
hopeful also that Richard would be content with his prize, set off
as hard as he could run for a gap he spied in the hedge. But in a
moment Bishop, followed by Lady, had headed him.

'Thou wert better cry quarter,' said Richard.

The reply was a bullet, that struck Bishop below the ear. He stood
straight up, gave one yell, and tumbled over. Scudamore ran towards
the mare, hoping to catch her and be off ere the roundhead could
recover himself. But, although Bishop had fallen on his leg, Richard
was unhurt. He lay still and watched. Lady seemed bewildered, and
Rowland coming softly up, seized her bridle, and sprung into the
saddle. The same moment Richard gave his cry a second time, and
again up went Rowland in the air, and Lady came trotting daintily to
her master, scared, but obedient. Rowland fell on his back, and
before he came to himself, Richard had drawn his leg from under his
slain charger, and his sword from its sheath. And now first he
perceived who his antagonist was, and a pang went to his heart at
the remembrance of his father's words.

'Mr. Scudamore,' he cried, 'I would thou hadst not stolen my mare,
so that I might fight with thee in a Christian fashion.'

'Roundhead scoundrel!' gasped Scudamore, wild with wrath. 'Thy
unmannerly varlet tricks shall cost thee dear. Thou a soldier?
A juggler with a mountebank jade--a vile hackney which thou hast
taught to caper! A soldier indeed!'

'A soldier and seatless!' returned Richard. 'A soldier and rail! A
soldier and steal my mare, then shoot my horse! Bah! an' the rest
were like thee, we might take the field with dog-whips.'

Scudamore drew a pistol from his belt, and glanced towards the mare.

'An' thou lift thine arm, I will kill thee,' cried Richard. 'What!
shall a man not teach his horse lest the thief should find him not
broke to his taste? Besides, did I not give thee warning while yet I
judged thee an honest man, and a thief but in jest? Go thy ways. I
shall do my country better service by following braver men than by
taking thee. Get thee back to thy master. An' I killed thee, I
should do him less hurt than I would. See yonder how thy master's
horse do knot and scatter!'

He approached Lady to mount and ride away.

But Rowland, who had now with the help of his anger recovered from
the effects of his fall, rushed at Richard with drawn sword. The
contest was brief. With one heavy blow that beat down his guard and
wounded him severely in the shoulder, dividing his collarbone, for
he was but lightly armed, Richard stretched his antagonist on the
ground; then seeing prince Rupert's men returning, and sir
Marmaduke's in flight and some of them coming his way, he feared
being surrounded, and leaping into the saddle, flew as if the wind
were under him back to his regiment, reaching it just as in the
first heat of pursuit. Cromwell called them back, and turned them
upon the rear of the royalist infantry.

This decided the battle. Ere Rupert returned, the affair was so
hopeless that not even the entreaties of the king could induce his
cavalry to form again and charge.

His majesty retreated to Leicester and Hereford.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE KING.

Some months before the battle of Naseby, which was fought in June
early, that is, in the year 1645, the plans of the king having now
ripened, he gave a secret commission for Ireland to the earl of
Glamorgan, with immense powers, among the rest that of coining
money, in order that he might be in a position to make proposals
towards certain arrangements with the Irish catholics, which, in
view of the prejudices of the king's protestant council, it was of
vital importance to keep secret. Glamorgan therefore took a long
leave of his wife and family, and in the month of March set out for
Dublin. At Caernarvon, they got on board a small barque, laden with
corn, but, in rough weather that followed, were cast ashore on the
coast of Lancashire. A second attempt failed also, for, pursued by a
parliament vessel, they were again compelled to land on the same
coast. It was the middle of summer before they reached Dublin.

During this period there was of course great anxiety in Raglan, the
chief part of which was lady Glamorgan's. At times she felt that but
for the sympathy of Dorothy, often silent but always ministrant, she
would have broken down quite under the burden of ignorance and its
attendant anxiety.

In the prolonged absence of her husband, and the irregularity of
tidings, for they came at uncertain as well as wide intervals, her
yearnings after her vanished Molly, which had become more patient,
returned with all their early vehemence, and she began to brood on
the meeting beyond the grave of which her religion waked her hope.
Nor was this all: her religion itself grew more real; for although
there is nothing essentially religious in thinking of the future,
although there is more of the heart of religion in the taking of
strength from the love of God to do the commonest duty, than in all
the longing for a blessed hereafter of which the soul is capable,
yet the love of a little child is very close to the love of the
great Father; and the loss that sets any affection aching and
longing, heaves, as on a wave from the very heart of the human
ocean, the labouring spirit up towards the source of life and
restoration. In like manner, from their common love to the child,
and their common sense of loss in her death, the hearts of the two
women drew closer to each other, and protestant mistress Dorothy was
able to speak words of comfort to catholic lady Glamorgan, which the
hearer found would lie on the shelf of her creed none the less
quietly that the giver had lifted them from the shelf of hers.

One evening, while yet lady Glamorgan had had no news of her
husband's arrival in Ireland, and the bright June weather continued
clouded with uncertainty and fear, lady Broughton came panting into
her parlour with the tidings that a courier had just arrived at the
main entrance, himself pale with fatigue, and his horse white with
foam.

'Alas! alas!' cried lady Glamorgan, and fell back in her chair,
faint with apprehension, for what might not be the message he bore?
Ere Dorothy had succeeded in calming her, the marquis himself came
hobbling in, with the news that the king was coming.

'Is that all?' said the countess, heaving a deep sigh, while the
tears ran down her cheeks.

'Is that all?' repeated her father-in-law. 'How, my lady! Is there
then nobody in all the world but Glamorgan? Verily I believe thou
wouldst turn thy back on the angel Gabriel, if he dared appear
before thee without thy Ned under his arm. Bless the Irish heart! I
never gave thee MY Ned that thou shouldst fall down and worship the
fellow.'

'Bear with me, sir,' she answered faintly. 'It is but the pain here.
Thou knowest I cannot tell but he lieth at the bottom of the Irish
Sea.'

'If he do lie there, then lieth he in Abraham's bosom, daughter,
where I trust there is room for thee and me also. Thou rememberest
how thy Molly said once to thee, 'Madam, thy bosom is not so big as
my lord Abraham's. What a big bosom my lord Abraham must have!'

Lady Glamorgan laughed.

'Come then--"to our work alive!" which is now to receive his
majesty,' said the marquis. 'My wild Irishwoman--'

'Alas, my lord! tame enough now,' sighed the countess.

'Not too tame to understand that she must represent her husband
before the king's majesty,' said lord Worcester.

Lady Glamorgan rose, kissed her father-in-law, wiped her eyes, and
said--

'Where, my lord, do you purpose lodging his majesty?'

'In the great north room, over the buttery, and next the
picture-gallery, which will serve his majesty to walk in, and the
windows there have the finest prospect of all. I did think of the
great tower, but--Well--the chamber there is indeed statelier, but
it is gloomy as a dull twilight, while the one I intend him to lie
in is bright as a summer morning. The tower chamber makes me think
of all the lords and ladies that have died therein; the north room,
of all the babies that have been born there.'

'Spoken like a man!' murmured lady Glamorgan. 'Have you given
directions, my lord?'

'I have sent for sir Ralph. Come with me, Margaret: you and Mary
must keep your old father from blundering. Run, Dorothy, and tell
Mr. Delaware and Mr. Andrews that I desire their presence in my
closet. I miss the rogue Scudamore. They tell me he hath done well,
and is sorely wounded. He must feel the better for the one already,
and I hope he will soon be nothing the worse for the other.'

As he thus talked, they left the room and took their way to the
study, where they found the steward waiting them.

The whole castle was presently alive with preparations for the
king's visit. That he had been so sorely foiled of late, only roused
in all the greater desire to receive him with every possible honour.
Hope revived in lady Glamorgan's bosom: she would take the coming of
the king as a good omen for the return of her husband.

Dorothy ran to do the marquis's pleasure. As she ran, it seemed as
if some new spring of life had burst forth in her heart. The king!
the king actually coming! The God-chosen monarch of England! The
head of the church! The type of omnipotence! The wronged, the
saintly, the wise! He who fought with bleeding heart for the rights,
that he might fulfil the duties to which he was born! She would see
him! she would breathe the same air with him! gaze on his gracious
countenance unseen until she had imprinted every feature of his
divine face upon her heart and memory! The thought was too
entrancing. She wept as she ran to find the master of the horse and
the master of the fish-ponds.

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