Corporal Sam and Other Stories Part 9

One point of it pierced and stuck in the upper muscles of my left arm; the other p.r.i.c.ked pretty sharply upon a rib; and the pain of this double stroke forced me to drop my sword and make a s.n.a.t.c.h at the accursed missile, to pluck it out. 'Twas the work of two seconds at most, and then with a jerk upon the wrist-knot I had the sword-hilt again in my grip; but it let three stout ruffians in upon me to finish me. And this they were setting about with a will when, as I beat up a stroke that threatened to cleave my skull, I heard a voice calling on them to hold, and the lady in scarlet forced her horse between us. As the brute's shoulder pressed me back into the angle of my embrasure she held out her pistol at arm's length, her finger on the trigger, and pointed it at close quarters full on my face.

'You are my prisoner.'

I stared up and along the pistol barrel and met her eyes. They looked down on me disdainfully, with no mercy in them, but (it seemed to me) a certain curiosity. A slight frown puckered her brows.

She had spoken in a cold, level voice, and if her colour was pale, her manner and bearing showed no trace of agitation.

'Would seem,' said I, 'there is no choice. I submit, madam--to your pleasure, but not to the rabble you lead.'

At this her eyebrows lifted a little. 'A gentleman?' I heard her say, but rather to herself than to me.

'To the extent,' I answered, 'of having a distaste for pitchforks.'

She made no reply to this, but turned about on her men who were murmuring and calling to one another to cut my throat. 'I think you heard me say that this officer is my prisoner. The man who forgets it I will have flogged and afterwards shot. And now stand back, if you please.'

I had made a motion to hand her my sword, but she signed to me to keep it, and rode off towards the patrol, leaving the crowd to stare at me. Being unsure how far her authority prevailed with them, I stuck to my embrasure, and kept an eye lifting for danger, while I wiped, as carelessly as might be, the sweat from my forehead--for the work had been hot while it lasted. I had laid out a couple of these yokels in good earnest, and while their comrades dragged them away, and, propping them against the parapet opposite, called for water to bathe their wounds, I became unpleasantly sensible of my own hurts.

The stab in my upper arm, though it bled little, kept burning as though the pitchfork had been dipped in poison; and from the less painful scratch on the ribs I was losing blood; I could feel it welling under my shirt, and running warm down the hollow of my groin.

Loss of blood, they say, will often clarify a man's eyesight and quicken his other faculties; or it may be that, as the morning sun ate up what remained of the fog, all around me--the bridge and the persons upon it, the trees up the valley, the river tumbling between--on a sudden grew distinct to the view. At any rate, in my memory, as out of a blurred print, springs the apparition of my lady as she came riding back from her parley with the patrol, with the sunlight on her flaming feather and habit of red velvet, and her horse's shadow moving clear-cut along the granite parapet. Nay, it seemed that her voice, too, had a sharper edge as she spoke to me.

'I have explained to the captain, yonder, that you are my prisoner.

Which is your horse?--the dark bay, I think.' For they had captured mine as well as poor Hutson's, and a servant held the pair by the bridge-end.

'It is, madam.'

She motioned to the man to lead him forward. 'Now mount,' she said; 'and follow me, if you please. You may keep your sword.'

Mounting, to a man in my plight, was no such easy matter; but she had walked forward to give some directions about the wounded men, and did not perceive the pain it cost me. Yet (I told myself) she must have seen me take my wound; and her indifference angered me.

Having mounted and found my stirrups, I shut my teeth hard.

'Are you ready?' she asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

'At your service, madam.'

Without another word or look she started at a brisk trot, which I forced my horse to copy, though it gave me the most discomfort of any she could have chosen; and at my heels rode three of her servants on great clattering cart-horses. The highway beyond the bridge rose with a gentle slope, much obscured by trees. Between them, a short distance up the hill, I caught sight of a lodge-gate, with a park and a fair avenue beyond it; but of these I had no more than a glimpse, for almost at once my lady led us off to the right and along a rutted cart-track, black with the mould of rotted leaves, that wound up the valley bottom and close alongside of the river. The sun was high enough by this to pierce through the foliage of elms and alders overhanging the stream and dapple the scarlet habit ahead of me with pretty spots and patterns of shadow; but not yet high enough to reach the low-lying summer-leases (as they would be called in my county) by which the river curved. And here were cattle, yet half-awake, heaving themselves out of their lairs to stretch themselves and begin to browse. The war had not touched this part of the valley; and but for a shot or two fired now and again on the distant hidden hills, we might have deemed it a hundred miles removed. Nay, we had ridden scarcely six furlongs before we came to an old man angling. His back was towards us, and he did not turn to spare us so much as a look.

The cart-track, though here and there it descended close to the brink and crossed a plashet left by the late floods, held the most of its course partly level, and some twenty feet above the river. So we rode for a mile, and came in sight of a second bridge, newer and more ma.s.sive than the first, for it carried one of the main highways of the county. Here also at the confluence of two streams the valley widened, and as we emerged on the highway out of the gloom my eyes rested on a broad gra.s.sy park sloping up from the bridge, and crowned with terraces and a n.o.ble house.

The entrance to this park lay but a gunshot up the road on our left; and, coming to it, my lady drew rein.

'Your name?' she asked.

'Medhope.'

'It is singular that I should have found a gentleman,' said she, in a musing, half-doubtful voice, as I leaned from my saddle, stifling the pain, and unhasped the gate for her.

Said I dryly, 'The Parliament army, madam, includes a few of us.

I know not why you should press this point: and 'faith you took me without waiting for credentials; but if it please you I am even a poor knight of the shire.'

'My husband is fortunate,' said she; and put her horse to the trot again.

While yet I pondered what she might mean by this--for she said it without the ghost of a smile--we reached the house and rode into a great empty back-court, where nevertheless was the main entrance--an arched doorway with a broad flight of steps. Here she slipped from her saddle, commanded me to alight, and gave my horse over to our escort, to lead him to stable. Signing to me, she led the way up the steps, and I followed, half-dizzy with loss of blood. The great door stood open. We pa.s.sed into a cool hall, paved with lozenges of polished granite, white and black; and through this, with a turn to the left, down a long corridor similarly paved and hung with tapestries. To the right of this corridor were many doors, of which she led me past five or six, and then pausing at one for me to overtake her, pushed it open.

The room within was of goodly size, and flooded with the morning sunshine that poured through three long windows. In the midst of it stood a table laid for breakfast, and at the head of the table, backed by a sideboard loaded with cold meats, sat a man plying knife and fork, and with a flagon handy beside him--a heavy, broad-shouldered man, with a copper-red complexion, and black hair that grew extraordinarily low upon his forehead. This and a short, heavy jaw gave him a morose, sullen look. I guessed his age at something near thirty.

The sight of us standing in the doorway appeared to annoy him.

He scowled for a moment at my lady, and dropped his eyes, while (as it seemed to me) a rush of angry blood suffused his face and gave it a purplish tint; but anon lifted and fixed them on me with a stare that as plainly as words demanded my business. My lady also turned to me.

'This,' she said, 'is my husband, Sir Luke Glynn.' She faced about on him. 'I have brought you here Captain Medhope, an officer of the rebel army, to take what repayment you are ready to give. He is, I may warn you, a good swordsman.'

Whatever she meant by this, she said it coldly, and as coldly kept her eyes on him awaiting his answer. Still avoiding them he continued to stare at me, and presently, pushing aside his tankard, leaned back in his chair with a rough laugh.

'My good Kate,' said he brutally, 'I took you at least for a sportswoman?' Still leaning back he pointed towards me.

'Your friend is hurt, wherever you found him. Better ring for Pascoe and put him to bed.'

'Hurt?' she echoed, and turned to me, where I stood swaying, with a hand on the table's edge, and a face (I dare say) as white as the diapered cloth. Her eyes rested on me at first increduously, then with dismay.

'It is not serious,' I stammered. 'If some one will set a chair for me--no, not there--clear of the rug. My boots are full of blood, I think.'

With this I must have fallen in a faint, straight into her arms, and the faint must have lasted a few minutes. For when my senses came back some one had removed my jack-boots and stockings, and a hand had opened my shirt wide at the breast and found the wound. The hand was Lady Glynn's; and on the other side of me stood her husband with a goblet of wine, some of which he had managed to coax down my throat.

The wine doubtless had revived me, yet not so that I noted all this at once or distinctly. For the while I lay back with closed eyes, and heard--as it were in a dream--my host and hostess talking together.

'A scratch, as you see,' said Lady Glynn. 'There is no need to send for a surgeon--who belike would only take blood from him: and he has lost enough already. A few hours' rest--if, when I have bathed the wound, you and Pascoe will carry him upstairs--'

'You are considerate, truly,' he answered. 'No doubt, having hired your bully, you wish to make the best of him. But--I put it to you-- in asking _me_ to nurse him you overshoot my Christian virtue.'

'I think not,' she corrected him in a cool, level voice. 'That is, if you will consider him for what he is, the messenger of your honour. For the rest, he happens to be no bully but a gentleman-- though I confess,' she added, 'this comes to you by purest luck: I had no time to pick or choose. Lastly, I have not hired him; but--'

'But what?' he asked, as she came to a deliberate pause.

'But, if you force me to it, I may try.'

What she meant by this, I, lying between them with closed eyes, could not guess: but I suppose that, meeting her look, he understood.

'You?' he said at length, hoa.r.s.ely. 'You?' he repeated, and broke out with a furious oath. 'No, by--, Kate, you can't mean it!

You can't--it's not like you . . . there, take your hand from him, or I'll slit his throat, there, as he lies!'

But her hand, though it trembled, rested still on my breast, above the wound. 'If you lay hand on him, I go straight to the King; and if you hurt me, I have provided that a letter reaches the King.

You are trapped every way, husband; and--and let us have no violence, please, for here comes Pascoe at last with the hot water.'

It had cost me some self-command to keep my eyes closed during this talk. I opened them as a gray-headed servant came bustling in with a steaming pan. For just a second they encountered Lady Glynn's.

Perhaps some irregular pulse of the heart--she had not withdrawn her hand--or some catch in my breathing warned her in the act of turning.

She gazed down on me as if to ask how much I had heard: but almost on the instant motioned to the old man to come close.

'Have you a sponge?' she asked.

'It is in the pan, my lady.'

She took it, rinsed it twice or thrice to make sure the water was not too hot, and fell to bathing my wound. Her hand was exquisitely light; the sense of the warm water delicious; and again I closed my eyes. But in this exchange of glances my previous image of her had somehow faded or been transformed, and with a suddenness that to this day I cannot account for. To be sure I had formed it in haste and amid the distractions of a pretty sharp combat. On the way to the house she had kept well ahead--and drawn rein but to converse with me for less than half a minute. Only once--as she came riding back across the bridge from her parley with the patrol--had I taken stock (as you might say) of her looks; and, even so, my eyes had been occupied with her scarlet habit and feather, her bearing, her seat in the saddle, and the tone in which she spoke her commands, rather than with her actual features. That these were handsome I had certainly noted: but that I had noted them more particularly at the time I only discovered now, and by contrast.