The Mercenary Part 43

A week before Nigel had ridden into Tilly's camp, much to the old general's surprise.

"I had thought Wallenstein would have clapped hands upon you to command a brigade!"

"I am not rich enough!" said Nigel. "Besides, who knows whether he will be needed."

"H'm!" was the old general's comment. "If old Tilly gets knocked on the head he will be needed, and soon. But what am I to do with you? Had you brought me three or four regiments now! Said there was a lack of officers, did they? Fools! Of captains and lieutenants? Yes! They have a habit of getting killed! Of colonels even I lack one or two, but of generals! I warrant Gustavus has not half as many. 'Tis the way of Imperial armies!"

"'Tis no matter what I am called!" said Nigel. "Give me a regiment. I am content to be called 'Colonel.' Give me a chance of having at them, sword, musket, gun, anyhow."

"You shall stand just as good a chance of getting killed as I do,"

grunted the Count.

Nigel was satisfied. The old general's thirst for danger was well known, and he had not forgotten Breitenfeld. Presently Count Tilly a.s.signed him his command. It was a small brigade, comprising three regiments of musketeers and two batteries of ten pieces each. One of the regiments had just lost its colonel, the colonels of the other two were but young in experience, and had but recently been promoted.

The artillery was commanded by a major, who, Tilly said, might be relied upon to handle his pieces and his men in a soldier-like fashion, but had no head for tactics. This Nigel was to supply. Nigel's lines were well up the Lech towards the little town of Rain, and the northern angle of the triangle that formed the whole position of the camp.

For some days at least Nigel did nothing but drill and exercise his little force, make himself acquainted with his officers, and make reconnaissances along the road by which Gustavus must come.

The next best thing to a solitary hill-top for descrying an advancing host is a church spire, and one such, in a village some ten Scots miles from Rain, and a mile or two off the road to Donauwerth, Nigel had marked for a look-out tower.

Before the late sunrise of a wintry morning, wrapped in his ample horseman's cloak, he had crossed the Lech by the only and that a pontoon bridge and galloped for the village.

There was but a faint glimmer of dawn visible over the flat country as he approached the place, and little more as he slid from his horse, tethered it in a farmer's half-filled barn, and strode forward to the village church.

Cautiously he stole in at the door and up the winding stone stair to the belfry tower, and then up a rickety ladder into the spire itself as far as he could get. There was an open trap-door at the top, and inside was darkness.

He pulled himself up, and, feeling with his hands that a gangway of planks was laid against the outer framework of the spire, he crawled along it, hoping to find a convenient c.h.i.n.k, or a small window hatch, to serve his purpose. The cold damp wind of the morning rather than the light apprised him that such a peep-hole was near him, and he felt about and about for the fastenings.

It was just when his hands had in fact touched the rusty hasp that the feeling came over him that he was not alone. The place was dark but not noiseless, for the wind whistled eerily and partially lifted loose laths of wood by one end, only to let them fall again as if in mockery of the work of men's hands. But over and above these noises was something more.

It was as if other hands at some other point of the circ.u.mference were seeking slowly and noiselessly to undo a stubborn latch or rusty bolt.

This m.u.f.fled noise had made itself heard once or twice, and Nigel crouched warily on guard. Then, framed in a pause, came a clink of metal, of a sword against a spur, then silence.

Through a hundred little c.h.i.n.ks the dawn began to steal and make of the darkness merely a misty gloom. Nigel had risen to his feet, and there across the unfloored s.p.a.ce loomed the figure of another man, in cloak and headpiece like himself, standing stark against the roof.

With a grim quick motion Nigel ripped open his hatch, and with an answering jerk the stranger opened his. The wind rushed across with a roar and a whistle, and the dawn poured in till it made a twilight.

"Eh! sir! It's braw and snell the morn!" said the stranger, making a polite salute with his sword.

"Aye is it!" said Nigel, surprised beyond measure by the sound of the Scots tongue, but returning the compliment in kind.

"Mebbe ye wouldna refuse a wee ta.s.sie o' usquebaugh!" the stranger went on affably.

"When I know, sir, whether you come here as friend or enemy," said Nigel, looking across at the weather-tanned but open face something suspiciously.

"Man! ye should never refuse a cup offered in kindness, be it by friend or enemy. But to lat ye ken, I'm just ane o' yon Gustavus' officers, and I came here to spy out Count Tilly's dispositions. Give me twa glimpses and a keek oot o' this spy-hole and I'm your very humble servant." And without more ado he bowed, turned round, and scanned the camp at Rain, which he could see quite well through a gla.s.s.

And under his breath he counted and added--

"Thirty thousand, or mebbe thirty-twa! And a wheen o' cannon! And a river in front and the highroad behind. It's ower safe! I wouldna give a fig to be in yon." There was a note of good-natured contempt in his voice. "Eh! sir!"

"And why, sir?" asked Nigel, amused by the coolness of this gentleman, for gentleman he seemed for all his plainness of speech, which, it struck Nigel, might have been a.s.sumed.

"I have no liking to fight through the bars of a hencoop with the back out. Give me a gentle hillside and a wide plain, where there's no rinnin' awa' till all's daen, where there's room to get each at other. I dinna favour your fortified camps!"

"As for me," said Nigel, "I have had experience of both kinds of fighting, but on this occasion it is for me to await you on the other side of the river. I am with Count Tilly!"

"I gave you credit, sir, for more sense, seeing you'd a Scots tongue in your heid!" was the commentary.

"But it's richt ye should tak' your fill o' what ye can see! I'm for doon the stair," he added.

Nigel made a movement to intercept him. He waved his glove in friendly deprecation.

"Hoots aye! I'll wait for you at the foot! Ye'll be perverse enough to be wishing to carry me back to breakfast in Tilly's camp. And I've made up my mind to tak' ye back with me to sup our brose! I'll wait! Never fear!"

With which he went quietly and unhurried down the stair--and Nigel took a long look from his hatch. Very dimly he descried something in movement along the road from Donauwerth, and on the wings of the morning air came the sound of a solitary trumpet. Gustavus was advancing, and it behoved Nigel to get back to the camp. He descended the stair, and found the enemy standing, stamping his feet in the roadway.

"Now, sir! where's your horse? Mine's here. I've no wish to carry you, or you me, and there's no need to hack the puir beasties, so if it's all the same to you we'll fight on foot!"

"It's all the same to me," said Nigel, throwing off his cloak. "My horse is in the barn yonder."

"Good!" said the other. "Swords is it? And the first man to be disabled is the other's prisoner! Are these the conditions of the combat?"

Nigel saluted. "My name and condition is,--Nigel Charteris of Pencaitland--Major-General--commanding a brigade under Count Tilly."

"And mine is Sir John Hepburn, Captain-General of the Scots Brigade, serving with Gustavus Adolphus. It is a rare pity we should meet so. I kent your father lang syne. Even now I am willing to go my ways and allow you to do the same."

A swirl of remembrance gushed into Nigel's brain at the words, "Sir John Hepburn!"

"It is just that you are Sir John Hepburn that I dare not!" said Nigel.

"Were you a lesser man!"

Sir John Hepburn stood on guard, a man of forty, broad-shouldered, well-knit, wary.

"Have at you, Sir John!" said Nigel, and the battle began.

They were both good swordsmen, but the fact that each had made up his mind to disarm the other without doing him much bodily hurt, engendered such an excess of caution as made it an affair of more length than bloodshed. Both men were winded before either had scored a scratch.

By mutual consent they dropped their points and took breath, but spoke never a word. Both had wrists of the hardest sinew, and both had learned most of the tricks of fence that Spain, Italy, and France could teach.

It was curious how each divined a change in the attack, and attuned his defence to meet it.

The one fact that emerged from the continual parry and thrust was that Nigel was the better able to recover his wind, and slightly the more agile, and so, given an equal fortune, would wear his opponent down.

"Faith! Nigel Charteris! ye're a wise chiel at the swords!" blurted Sir John at the end of the fourth bout.

Once more they crossed, and the sparks flew from their weapons, and this time indeed neither man came off scathless, though the wounds were too slight to hinder either, and then came Nigel's opportunity: for in making a new attack Sir John did not recover himself quickly enough to prevent fleet-footed Nigel slipping beneath his guard, and by a turn of the wrist making it necessary for Sir John to have his own broken, or to let go his sword. Nigel had him at his mercy.

"Do you yield yourself a prisoner, Sir John?"