“That was friendly conduct of you!” Frank Pleydall, having ended his last hot tirade, suffered himself to fall back once more with his shoulders against one arm of his big chair and his legs hanging over the other. “I take it, had not that tall corporal of yours come hither and opened up the matter to us, you’d have gone sweat in a stable, eh? On your honor, Hugh, did you enjoy the life?”

“Would you?” Hugh retorted, and then, as he looked at Frank’s curls and fair skin, the impossibility of his going through such experience came home to him. He shrugged his shoulders and, turning to the mirror, went on dragging the comb through his rebellious hair, rather slowly, for to be cleanly and freshly clad was an unwonted sensation, to enjoy which he was willing to dally a trifle in dressing. From time to time he paused to glance at Frank, who lounged and chatted, just as he had done in the old days at school, or to look about the dark room, with great bed and heavy furniture, that recalled to him his grandfather’s chamber at Everscombe. After all, he still felt at home in well-ordered life; “outcast” was not stamped upon him for all time. In Frank’s stockings and shirt, which was rather scant for him, and a certain Cornet Griffith’s gray breeches, and another officer’s half-worn shoes, swept up in the general levy Frank had made on the nearest wardrobes, he thought himself for a moment the same young gentleman who had left Everscombe a month before. Then, chancing to meet the blue eyes that looked back at him out of the mirror, he realized this was not the face he used to know; this face was thin, so the jaws seemed squarer, and there was a firmer set to the lips, and a new depth to the eyes. A slight cut on one cheek and a bruise above one eye he noted, too, without great resentment against those who had given them; such marks would pass quickly, he knew, but the endurance and obedience he had acquired with them would remain.

“I should think it would pleasure you to study that well-favored face,” Frank chuckled lazily. “When you’re done, sir, get on your coat, and I’ll take you to my father.”

Hugh pulled on Cornet Griffith’s gray jacket, which was somewhat too large for him, and stood turning back the long sleeves. “What a tall fellow you seem!” his comrade broke out, bringing his feet down to the floor and sitting forward in his chair. “On my conscience, I could swear you were more than six months elder than I.”

“So could I,” Hugh answered thoughtfully.

“Well, for all that you are not to treat me like a boy as the other men do; you’re nothing but a lad yourself.”

Hugh laughed, and put his hand down on Frank’s shoulder. “We’ll be good comrades as we ever have been,” he said. “I shall never forget how kindly you have used me this day.”

“Oh, hang all that!” Frank put in hastily. “You’d do the like for me. And ’tis pleasure for me to have you with me. You can share my chamber,—there’s space enough for one to be lonesome,—and we’ll go to the wars together, eh?”

The realization of part of the boyish plan he had brought with him from Everscombe pleased Hugh gravely, but he had been too often disappointed to clutch eagerly at any hope, so he only said, “I’d like it right well,—if your father wish me to stay.”

“If I wish it, he will,” Frank answered confidently, and so they went arm in arm down the stairs.

Large as the house was, Sir William and the officers of his troop contrived to fill it only too full, Hugh concluded, after Frank had haled him, to his great embarrassment, into several rooms, and presented him formally to all the men on whom he could lay hands. Of the number he best remembered a dry-spoken Captain Turner, who told him, with an implication that made Hugh’s face redden, that he ought in justice to notify the rebels that he had joined the king. He remembered, too, a long-legged Cornet Griffith, whose boyish face at sight of him took on such a rueful look that Hugh suspected the loan of the gray clothes had been a forced one. He ventured a private expostulation to Frank, who merely laughed: “Oh, Ned Griffith is a cousin of mine, so he ought to be glad to lend me his goods.—And here I have found my father out at last.”

With that he dragged Hugh by the sleeve into a retired parlor, where Sir William Pleydall, a stout florid man of near sixty, was sitting at a table dictating to a secretary. “Here is Hugh Gwyeth, sir, of whom Colonel Gwyeth’s corporal told you,” Frank announced. “You’ll entertain him as a gentleman volunteer, will you not, sir?”

“Will you be silent, Francis, till I have done with this piece of work?” Sir William burst out.

Frank knelt down on a chair with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, so the candlelight fell across his girlishly fair face. “I am right sorry, sir,” he began winningly, “I did not mark you were busied. I had thought—you would gladly aid a friend of mine. Have I offended you greatly, sir?”

“No, Frank,” Sir William answered hastily, and, putting by the papers he held, motioned Hugh to come over to him. “I remember you very well, sir,” he began. “You were home with Frank one Michaelmas time. So you ran away from that school? ’Twas very well done of you. That man Masham is a cozening, foul-mouthed knave of a crop-headed Puritan.” Sir William’s face flushed and Frank made haste to change the subject. “You promised me Hugh should stay with me, sir, you’ll recollect.”

“If he care to,” Sir William made answer. “You look sober enough, Master Gwyeth, to keep my lad in proper behavior.”

“I would gladly serve you, Sir William, in any way I could,” Hugh said earnestly. “I think I could fight—”

Sir William began laughing. “Call yourself a gentleman volunteer, if ’tis any satisfaction to you,” he said, and seemed about to end the conversation; but, after a second glance at Hugh, asked abruptly in a lower tone, “Between ourselves, sir, what vice was there in you wherefore your father would not entertain you?”

“I did not chance to please him,” Hugh answered.

“But you are his only son, are you not?” asked Sir William, looking, not at Hugh, but at Frank, who was still kneeling by the table.

“Yes, Sir William,” Hugh replied, with his eyes suddenly lowered.

The baronet was silent a moment, then, “Stay with us as long as you please, my lad,” he said in a kinder tone than he had yet used, and with that, abruptly taking up his papers, turned again to his secretary.

Hugh came out in silence from the little parlor, and for a time, while he enjoyed the realization that he had not lost a boy’s capacity for feeling happy and hopeful, could make no reply to Frank’s brisk chatter. But, before the evening was over, he made amends to Master Pleydall, for, snugly settled in a window-seat with his friend, he recounted to him not only the distinctions he hoped to win in the war, but all that had befallen him in the last six months. Frank, hugging his knees in his excitement, wished audibly he had been with Hugh to run away; two days without food seemed so slight a thing when told. But Strangwayes’ share in events surprised him enough to make him leave clasping his knees and sit up straight: “Met my Cousin Dick? What good fortune for you! He used to be a gay kindly fellow, the best liked of all my father’s nephews. What manner of man is he grown now?”

Hugh’s eager account made Frank look dubious. “Very like when he comes again you’ll not wish to be my comrade any more,” he suggested jealously.

“You’re somewhat of a fool, Frank,” Hugh answered candidly. “Tell me now, have you had news of Dick of late?”

“Ay, he’s still with Butler’s troop; we only learned that on coming out of Worcestershire two days back. He is but just recovered from his wound and fever—”

“Do you think, Frank,” Hugh interrupted, “to-morrow we might walk over to the village and see him?”

“I take it you’ll not,” Frank retorted. “Where have you kept yourself from the news? To-morrow we march southward to flay the skin off that old fox, the rebel Earl of Essex. We’ll make short work of him, and then—” he trailed off into an exact exposition of the way the war would go, which ended only at bedtime.

Next day, as Frank had promised, in a keen, clear weather that made the throngs of troop-horses prance and gave a vividness to every bright coat and sword-hilt, the southward march began. Hugh, riding forth bravely with Frank, Captain Turner, and others of Sir William’s officers, felt he could have shouted for mere pleasure in the sight of the plunging horses, the troops of men, and the throngs of friendly townsfolk that lined the streets of Shrewsbury. In every fibre of him was a bracing sensation, not only from the crisp air and the sunlight, but from the mere feeling of the horse moving beneath him and the ordered motion all about him of men and beasts. Now first it came over him that, even if he might not serve with his father, he was glad that he was one of his Majesty’s great marching army, bound to fight for the king.

At the east gate, by which all must pass, horses and men were wedged thickly, so presently Hugh found himself forced to one side of the gateway, where his progress was checked. An ammunition wagon had broken down and blocked the way ahead, the word ran through the crowd, whereat some men swore, and others, laughing, took the delay merrily. While they were waiting thus, an officer with one trooper attending rode headlong into the thick of them and there stuck fast. “You’ll need slacken pace, sir, you’ll find,” Turner called to him.

“I’ve no wish to show my steed’s quality,” replied the other. “But I’d fain be with a troop of mine that’s somewhere ahead on the road ’twixt here and Staffordshire.” He impatiently thrust back the flapping brim of his felt hat, and Hugh was made sure of what he had guessed by the voice, that it was Colonel Gwyeth himself.

At first he felt a kind of trembling, which was foolish, he told himself; for he no longer feared the man. So he did not even try to urge his horse forward, but suffered the beast to keep his stand, while he gazed fixedly at the colonel. All through the press ran a swaying motion, which soon forced Colonel Gwyeth, still in loud speech with Turner, knee to knee with Hugh, and at the touch he faced toward him. Hugh felt a thrill go through him, but he looked his father squarely in the eyes and, lifting his hat a trifle, said, “Good morrow, sir.”

“In the name of the fiend!” Gwyeth broke out; he had to turn in his saddle to say it, for the movement in the throng had now brought him level with the nose of Hugh’s horse. “Well, sir, you seem fully able to fend for yourself.”

So he was swept away, and next instant Ridydale following him was up alongside. “’Tis all well, Master Hugh?” he asked in a low tone as he brushed by.

“Ay, thanks to you,” Hugh replied, and then Ridydale was forced away, so he lost him in the ruck of horsemen. After that he gave heed only to edging his own beast forward till they were out upon the highway, where they found the road so nearly choked with the riders of their troop, which they presently overtook, that a swift pace was still out of the question. This was somewhat of a relief to Hugh, for the borrowed sorrel which he bestrode was of no great speed, and made him think sadly of the bay horse he had ridden on the headlong dash from the “Golden Ram.” Frank, however, who was capitally mounted on his roan mare, The Jade, so named for her wretched temper, lamented all the morning that he had not space sufficient to show his steed’s fine paces.

About noon, as they passed through the village where Hugh had met with Butler’s troop, he coaxed Frank out of the ranks and, with an eager hope of seeing Dick Strangwayes again, headed for the inn. But the place was filled with thirsty troopers, so the tapsters were too busy to pay much heed to the boys till Frank tried bribery. Then they learned that the day before Butler’s dragoons had started southward to capture some arms at a Puritan country-seat; and, though he looked scarce fit to ride, the gentleman who had lain ill at the house had gone with them. “Well, Cousin Dick must be a hardy fellow,” said Frank, as the two boys got to horse again. “Though, to be sure, all the gentlemen of our family are.” He flung out his chest as full as possible while he spoke, and presently got his hat tilted over one ear at a swaggering angle.

Thus the march went on, by south and east, over ground Hugh had already once ridden at a time that now seemed immeasurable years behind him. He had let his life at Shrewsbury and his father’s rejection of him slip backward in his memory, till now he found himself living heartily in the present. Existence meant not to worry at what was past, but to sleep in an inn bed or on a cottage floor, whatever quarters fell to the troop, to eat what fare Sir William’s officers could procure, and through all, wet or dry, to ride on whither the king led.

Very early in the march they entered the hamlet of the “Golden Ram,” where Hugh, as he held it to be his duty, sought out Sir William and laid before him the story of Emry’s treachery. The baronet, after some moments of explosive swearing, sent men to apprehend the fellow, and bade Hugh go to guide them. But when they came to the inn they found that at their approach Constant-In-Business Emry had discreetly removed, and there was left only the red-cheeked maid with the black eyes, who joked and flirted with the troopers while she drew them ale. At first she did not recognize Hugh, and, when she did, seemed to take little interest in him; but, as the men tramped out, she ran after him, and catching his arm asked him in a whisper how the dark gentleman fared, and if he had been hurt in the scuffle. The news of Dick’s illness made her half sniffle, which touched Hugh so that, having no money to give her, he tried his friend’s tactics and kissed her. Whereat the wench, after a feint at boxing his ears, darted back to the door of the common room, where she paused, laughing shrilly. “Ride away, my lad,” she called after him. “It takes more than jack-boots and spurs to make a man.”

Hugh went back to his horse in some mortification; it might be well enough for Dick Strangwayes to be on good terms with all women, but he had no will to meddle farther in such matters.

Yet, scarcely a week later, he found himself seated at a table in a stuffy chamber, trying by the flicker of a guttering candle to blot out a letter to a girl. For the army was now among the Warwickshire fields, and the sight of home country brought back to Hugh’s thoughts Everscombe and the good friend he had left there. So, while Frank jeered from the bed about his sweetheart, and urged him to put out the candle and lie down, Hugh, sitting in his shirt-sleeves, painfully scrawled some ill-spelt lines to Lois Campion. Much had happened that would only make her miserable to know, so he spoke little of his father, only told her he was well and happy, and, as Colonel Gwyeth could offer him no place in his troop, was serving with Sir William Pleydall. He sent his duty to his grandfather, too, and his obedient faithful services to her.

Just there Frank sat up in bed, and, throwing a boot at the candle, contrived to overturn the ink-bottle. Shutting his lips, Hugh mopped up the stuff, then, still without speaking, began to undress. “Now you’ve lost your temper, Master Roundhead,” Frank teased; but Hugh held his tongue till he had blown out the candle and stretched himself in the bed, then said only, “Good night.”

He was almost asleep when Frank began shaking him. “Hugh, prithee, good Hugh,” he coaxed, “are you truly angry? Pray you, forgive me, Hugh.”

“Don’t I always?” Hugh answered, half waked. “Go to sleep, Frank.”

So they began next morning on as good terms as ever, and before night had barely avoided two of those quarrels which Frank made a daily incident to friendship. But by the following sunrise even Frank was too busied with other matters for such diversion. “The rumor’s abroad that we’re to bang old Essex soon,” he broke out, as he and Hugh rode a little before Sir William’s troop along the stony Warwickshire road.

“We’ve been going to ever since we left Shrewsbury,” Hugh replied. “I hope—Perhaps if I did somewhat in battle some one would bestow a commission on me; I’d like not to tax your hospitality longer.” Then he repented of the last as an ungracious speech.

But Frank, without heeding, ran on: “I hope I shall get a share in this work, and I will, if I lose my head for it. You’ll understand, Hugh, my father let me have no share in the fighting in Worcestershire; they left me at home when they went out to Powick Bridge. On my honor, Hugh, I wish sometimes one or two of my sisters had been boys. ’Tis a fine thing, no doubt, to be sole heir to a great property, but a man would like a little liberty now and again, not to be ever kept close and out of harm like a girl. Now I’ll lay you any amount of money my father will strive to keep me from this battle.”

Hugh did not look properly sympathetic, so Frank added pettishly: “And he’ll rate you no higher than me, so if you are to have a hand in the fighting and get you a commission, you must look to yourself.”

None the less Hugh cherished a suspicion that if a battle took place under his very nose he would be aware of it, and in that hope he went trustingly to sleep next night. Sir William’s troop was quartered about a small manor house, some three miles to the west of Edgcott, where the king lay. Hugh noted the place merely as one that gave comfortable harborage, for he and Frank were assigned a chamber to themselves, where they went promptly and wearily to bed. But barely asleep, as it seemed, a troublesome dream disturbed Hugh; he thought himself back in the Shrewsbury stables, where the horses had all turned restless and stamped unceasingly in their stalls. Then of a sudden he sat up in bed, broad awake, just in time to see the door kicked open, and Griffith, with his coat in one hand and a candle in the other, stumble in. “Up with you, youngsters!” he cried. “Essex is coming.”

“Essex?” Frank whimpered sleepily. “We’ll kill him.”

“Leave us the candle, Cornet Griffith,” Hugh cried, springing up and beginning to fling on his clothes. “How near are the enemy?” His teeth were chattering with the cold of the room and a nervous something that made his fingers shake.

“The Lord knows!” Griffith replied, struggling into his coat. “The word to get under arms has but just come.”

“Where is my other stocking?” Frank put in piteously from his side of the bed. “Hugh, have you seen it?”

“Stockings!” the cornet ejaculated. “There’s a fellow would wait for lace cuffs ere he went to fight.”

Thus warned, Hugh put his bare feet into his riding-boots, and, fastening his jacket without the formality of donning a shirt, ran for the door at Griffith’s heels. Frank, after an unheeded entreaty to wait for him, tumbled into his shirt and breeches, and came headlong after out into the corridor.

Below in the great hall, under the dim light of candles, men were jostling and shouting and pulling on coats and buckling sword-belts, as they passed hurriedly out by the black open door. Running blindly after the crowd, Hugh collided by the entrance with Captain Turner, who came in jauntily, albeit he was in his shirt-sleeves. “How near are the enemy, Captain?” Hugh cried, catching him by the arm.

Turner looked down at him with a dry smile. “Not so near, Gwyeth, but you’ll have time to wash your face ere they come up.”

Even the mocking tone could not recall Hugh to his self-composure, but he ran on out of the house, where he was jostled by troopers and nearly trampled on by horses that were being led up. Getting out of harm’s way at last in an angle of the front of the house, he became aware that the stars were few in the sky and on the horizon a light streak showed; it must be nearing dawn. Just then he heard the deadened sound of a horse’s being rapidly ridden over turf, and then a strange officer came galloping up to the very door. Running thither, Hugh saw him disappear into an inner room, whence a little later Sir William Pleydall, a bit excited but carefully accoutred, came forth with the announcement that the enemy were near by at Kineton, and the troop was to hold itself in readiness to march to meet them.

There was sufficient time to follow Captain Turner’s advice, so Hugh and Frank went back to their chamber and, while their candle paled in the daybreak, dressed methodically. Hugh turned up his boot-tops and fastened his buff coat up to his chin, telling himself he should be too grateful to Sir William for such a stout jacket to envy Frank his cuirass, then, while his companion was tugging a comb through his curly hair, sat down on the window-seat to wait. The manor house looked out across a valley toward the east, where a light rift in the dun clouds showed till presently the sun broke through, and turned the mist in the lowlands to silver. “It will be a fair day,” Hugh said, half aloud; “’tis a Sunday, too, is it not?”

“Yes,” sneered Frank. “How can so godly a man as Essex fight of a Sabbath?” Then he broke off speech for the serious business of strapping on his sword, which was long enough to threaten to trip him up. Hugh looked on rather enviously, for no one had yet offered him a sword, and, as he felt he should not ask for one, he had to content himself with sticking in his belt a spare pistol Captain Turner had lent him.

When the two young soldiers came downstairs they found the candles were long since out and gray daylight was glimmering through the hall. There tables were spread, about which the officers of the troop, all equipped, sat or stood while they ate; and, as they had good appetites, Hugh, though he was not over-hungry, felt obliged to take bread and meat and try to make a hearty meal. All about him was talk of nothing but the battle, the numbers the Earl of Essex had in his army, the numbers the king could put against him, and the surety of a mighty victory. “Do not you be all so certain,” croaked Turner, who had seated himself to make a comfortable meal. The others hooted him down, so he changed the subject by chaffing Frank on his prodigiously long sword. The boy retorted saucily enough to make those about him laugh; indeed, for the most part, all were gay now daylight had come and the work before them was clear to see. There were wagers laid on the length of the battle, promises of high revelry on the spoils of the enemy, and above all calls for wine. When the glasses were filled, Sir William, rising at the head of the table, gave the king’s health. Hugh remembered afterward the instant’s tense hush that came in the talk and loud laughter, then the sudden uproar of fists smiting on the table, boot-heels stamping on the floor, and through and above all cheers and cheers that made the high-roofed hall reËcho. Then, as the tumult died down, the major, Bludsworth, cried: “Now, then, lads: To the devil with the Parliament and Essex!”

After that was shouting that made the lungs ache, and glasses shattered on the floor, then, as the storm of curses and calls abated, one of the officers struck up a song against the Parliament, and some joined in, some laughed, and others still cried, “Down with the Parliament!”

Just then a messenger, pushing in, spoke a word to Sir William, who gave orders for the troop to prepare itself to march, for the main guard would soon be under way.

“Mayhap we can get sight of something from the hill here,” Frank cried. “Come out, Hugh, and see.”

Running out into the cold of the nipping morning air they set their faces to the steep pitch of hillside behind the manor house. The turf was stiff with frost, so climbing was easy, and in a short space they were at the summit. Instinctively they turned their first glance to the west where the enemy lay. “But ’tis useless gazing,” Frank said, next moment, “for ’twixt here and Kineton rises a piece of high land; they call it Edgehill. Face back to the east, Hugh. Look, look, ’tis the vanguard!”

Winding down the opposite slope they could now distinguish a long line of moving figures, horsemen upon horsemen, with the sunlight glittering ever the stronger on their cuirasses and helmets. Moment after moment the boys delayed there, till the foremost of the riders toiled up a lower ridge of the hill, not an eighth of a mile distant from them. The hum of the moving files reached them; almost they thought to distinguish the devices of the fluttering banners. “But the king’s standard will come only with the Life Guards and the foot,” Frank explained. “This evening ’twill be waving over all England. God and our right! God and King Charles!”

“Yonder below marches a black cornet,” Hugh broke in. “See you, Frank? My father’s troop goes under such a banner.”

“Say we draw down nearer to them,” the other cried, and started to descend the hill.

“Stay, Frank,” Hugh called, “it must be mid-morning. I think we were best get back to our troop.”

“Name of Heaven! I had near forgot,” Frank replied, and, facing about, started back to the manor house at full speed.

Hugh followed after, slipping upon the steep hillside, and so they came down behind the stables, where after the tumult of the earlier morning was a surprising quiet. “Some must have set out already,” Frank panted, as he headed for the house.

“I’ll fetch our horses,” Hugh shouted after him, and ran to the stable. Within he saw The Jade and the sorrel had already been led forth, and in their places, all a-lather and with drooping heads, stood the black and bay captured from the Oldesworths. “When were they put here?” Hugh cried to the hostler, and, without waiting for an answer, ran for the house; if the horses were there, Dick Strangwayes must be close at hand.

But when he came to the house he found neither horse nor man, only off to the right the last of Sir William’s troop were pacing round a spur of the hill, and on the doorstone stood Frank with his hands tight clinched. “Hugh, they’ve taken our horses!” he cried shrilly.

“Have you seen anything of Dick?” Hugh asked in his turn.

“And Bludsworth,—the fiend come and fetch him!—he answered me: ‘The men that can strike the stoutest blows for the king must have the horses to-day.’” Frank plunged a step or two across the trampled turf, as if he had a mind to run after the troop. “He’d not a dared use me so, if he knew not my father would approve. I told you they’d cheat us of the battle. Never mind, I would not fight for them if I could.”

As Frank’s voice trailed off into inarticulate mutterings Hugh found opportunity to question: “Has Dick been here? Tell me.”

“Ay, ’twas he and another from Butler’s troop. Had spurred night and day. Their horses were spent. And Dick Strangwayes has taken my Jade. Plague on him! He’s too heavy for her; he’ll break her legs. My Jade—”

“He has gone into the battle and I did not see him,” Hugh broke out. “He may be hurt again.”

“I care not if he be,” Frank cried, “so he bring her back safe. She was the prettiest bit of horseflesh! And I was going to ride her in the battle.—Did I not tell you they’d not let us come? And no doubt they’ll beat the rebels and ’tis the last encounter and I shall not be there. And she was my horse, and she loved me; she almost never kicked at me.” Frank’s shrill voice broke suddenly. “Oh, hang it all!” he cried, and, dropping down on the doorstone with his head on the threshold, began sobbing piteously and choking out more oaths till his voice was lost for weeping.

Hugh forgot his own bitter disappointment at not seeing Dick and having no chance to earn a commission in the battle, in his first alarm for Frank. Then alarm gave place to something akin to disgust at the boy’s childishness, and he half started to walk away, but he turned back. After all, Frank was younger than he, and he ought to be patient with the lad, just as Dick Strangwayes had been patient with him. So he stood over Frank and tried to joke him into being quiet.

“But ’twas my horse,” the boy sobbed, “and there’ll never be another battle, and I had no part in the last.”

“Well, it does not befit your cuirass to cry like that,” Hugh answered; and then, “Look you here, Frank, ’tis not above six miles to Kineton and we’ve good legs to carry us. Why should we not have a hand in the fighting even now?”