Colonel Greatheart

by H. C. Bailey

  There was some hesitation. "The honor, madame, is ours. But I can not think much pleasure will be yours," quoth Colonel Stow.

  "Sir, I am a lone woman—"

  "I'll swear you are not to blame for it," Colonel Royston muttered.

  "—and the country hereby is disturbed—"

  "Oh, madame, you shall be protected from anything but justice," said Colonel Royston with ill grace.

  "The woman who gets but justice gets nothing," quoth Colonel Stow.

  "Indeed, sir," says she heartily, "I want all you can give a woman who can give you nothing. But 'tis not from justice I would be guarded. This is debatable land, and I fear the scum of both armies."

  "I commend your equal condemnation," said Colonel Stow.

  "Nay, sir," says she with dignity, "I am heart and soul with the King."

  "Why grudge him the body, too?" yawned Colonel Royston.

  "Sir, he hath all my spiritual part—"

  "That should be a husband?" Colonel Stow inquired politely.

  "Why—why in truth, sir," she spoke through laughter—then with some struggling emotion—"my husband can not now be with me"—she made eyes at them—"save in my heart."

  "Faith, his tribe should not be at large," Colonel Royston agreed.

  "I, gentlemen, am called my Lady Lepe, and—"

  Colonel Royston's bow seemed to offer his compliments on the name. The two presented each other, and my Lady Lepe smiled on them both. She was indeed comely, though something much buxom, and her eyes pleasantly wicked.

  "I have a friend," she went on, "who is—who is more than a sister to me. She is now in sore need, and I only can help her. It is to her I ride. My way is by Risborough, and if you would see me safe there, I—my husband would ever be grateful."

  "I love all husbands," said Colonel Royston with enthusiasm. "They are the scapegoats of my sex. If, as you suspect, it is a kindness to him to help you away from him, command us."

  "I perceive, sir, you tempt fate. Some day you will be even such a husband as mine."

  "Your courtship flatters me," Colonel Royston admitted, "but is at least forbid by several religions. Moreover, to economize in wives were miserly in a man."

  "I see that I have to suspect you of morality," said the lady. "'Tis rare in gentlemen who ride with an armed tail. And upon that matter—against whom are you armed?"

  "Against the wide world," quoth Colonel Stow, and gave a new point to his beard.

  "We fight for ourselves, according to the honorable fashion of High Germany," said Colonel Royston.

  "Having learned the same by the side of the great Gustavus—"

  "Whom I will ever uphold as the original begetter of cavalry tactic, though certainly of a deplorable taste in psalmody."

  "Likewise with Bernhard of Weimar, who would have been a Caesar if he had ever waited for the infantry and never for women."

  "Finally with M. de Turenne—"

  "Who is la guerre même and no gentleman."

  "I applaud your duetto," says the lady with a smile. "You are surely twin brethren?"

  "Madame, you insult my friend," cried Colonel Royston.

  "Nay, we should like each other less if we were alike," quoth Colonel Stow. "I ever applaud my antithesis. Faith, madame, already I feel an affection for you."

  "The softness of his heart hath ever betrayed him, madame. 'Twas that beguiled him to unworthy wedlock with me. 'Tis one with an unmanly desire to be a savior."

  "'Tis one, madame, with an inhuman power to laugh at himself," Colonel Stow echoed.

  "In truth, I marked in Jerry a poor relish for humor from the first," quoth Royston. "He could not see the jest when on the night of Breitenfeld some honest Frenchmen were amusing themselves with a broken thigh of mine."

  "It is a rudeness to presume the lady interested in your legs, George," said Colonel Stow.

  The lady looked at him with some kindness. "And since that matter of the legs you have been brothers in arms?"

  "Jerry has been so unhappy. With Gustav Adolf, with Bernhard—a man of my heart if he had only cared to keep alive—with M. de Turenne—till he made himself impossible in desiring to hang a gentleman whom we desired to ransom. We removed the gentleman and ourselves, and are here for England to give us the greatness we deserve. Pray, madame, how lies England?" (Colonel Royston proceeded to get a return for his innocent frankness.) "How stands the war? Propound us the victor."

  The lady bridled. "Victor, sir? It were madness to believe that a base mechanic army can stand against the gentry of England."

  Colonel Stow put up his eyebrows. Colonel Royston whistled a small tune. "Every man of honor and blood is with the King!" she cried.

  "Tira lira," said Colonel Royston. "I have heard tell that the men of religion are against him, and I had rather fight ten men of honor than one with a conviction of sin."

  "They are mazed whining Anabaptists," said the lady with indignation. "They have never endured our charge. And what of our generals? We have Prince Rupert, who is the greatest soldier now alive."

  She brought their eyebrows up again. Royston said something smoothly dubious. With zeal she went on. She told them of the wealth and munitions of Oxford, the forces there and in the west, and gave each army its place. Flaming anew to each neat hint of doubt, she told of Rupert and Newcastle in the north, and Rupert's new last plan of war: how from three sides the Royalists were to close upon London and crush that halting generalissimo my Lord Essex and put him in the coffin he bore always with him, and bring the King in triumph to Whitehall. My Lady Lepe had vast and curious knowledge of things.…

  And she did not note that for all their first unsought eager frankness she was telling them vastly more than she had been told. It was this, perhaps, which made Colonel Royston look kindly upon her when they halted in Chinnor to bait. "So victory is the King's, madame?" said he, with a last skeptic smile.

  "Sir," says she vehemently, "'tis as sure as—as—"

  "As that you are a woman," quoth he, kissing her hand as he took her from the saddle.

  She freed herself swiftly. "Of that, sir, no man shall ever be glad, save one." She languished. Her bosom heaved admirably. "Him I have in my heart," she murmured.

  "I wonder if he is in any other," said Colonel Royston, and went in after her, something pensive, caressing a moustachio.

  | Contents |

  Chapter Two

  The Impertinence of Joan Normandy

  THE "Bird in Hand" was their inn. It was a thought excited by Colonel Stow's polyglot train. Alcibiade, a plump Picard, dealt plainly with the hostler. Matthieu-Marc-Luc (thus called because it was ever his task to publish the good news of dinner) flurried the cook. In an upper room my Lady Lepe stood by a little window of bull's-eye glass and watched the hill of larches flush and darken beneath the swift cloud shadow and the wind. Jerry Stow was at her shoulder. From the chimney corner Royston regarded the pair with gentle melancholy.

  "So if we would prosper you bid us fight for the King, madame?" quoth Colonel Stow.

  She turned upon him. "Nay, sir, if you be men of honor you can seek no other cause," she cried with flashing eyes.

  "I am a man of the soil," said Colonel Stow without emotion. "A king is no more to me than my fellow. If he needs me, let him pay me."

  "Is your honor for hire?" says the lady, fiercely scornful.

  Colonel Stow looked at her keenly. "Madame," quoth he, "what is't you want most in the world?"

  Royston was surprised by her blush. "I—I—" she was in difficulty—"a woman tells that to no man but one, Colonel Stow," she said in a hurry.

  Colonel Stow bowed. "To come by what I want I must needs win fame and high place. And so I have set my life on that."

  "And I mine upon dinner," quoth Royston, and fell a-howling for Matthieu-Marc-Luc, while my lady looked on Colonel Stow more kindly.

  "You are no man to fight for canting rebel knaves," said she.

  "Fie on it! All the world cants," cried Roy
ston. "Jerry of fame, you of your womanhood, I of my belly—which is at least no phantom. May we all enjoy them!"

  And then to help him came Matthieu-Marc-Luc, lean, imperious and melancholy. His genius yearned for a stew, and they had no intellect for it at the Bird in Hand. The lady ate admirably, but else was not amusing, and Royston and Stow, maturing between the herrings and the coleworts a scheme for the abolition of the monarchy, psalmody and small beer, excited her to no gratifying enthusiasm. They were passing from the coleworts to some matter of pickled cherries when a chorus of view hallos interfered. Royston turned languidly. Jerry Stow and my lady, mercurial both, started to the window.

  An uncomely throng surged down the village street. It was a tangled knot of green horsemen foaming on one lean wretch afoot. He had the shorn head of the Puritan, the bands and black gown of the minister. He was protesting in vehement screams from the Hebrew prophets. But the pack of gallant horsemen drove him on with mocking wanton cruelty.

  Colonel Stow was stiffening in each limb. "Pah, 'tis no more than a whining Presbyterian," quoth my Lady Lepe, and turned away.

  "If all parsons were in Heaven, the world would be better," Royston yawned; but he kept grave eyes upon Colonel Stow, who stood still and tense by the window.

  The horsemen drew up by the inn and, tumbling down about their quarry, dragged him into the tap-room. Thence came a weird, lurid din of drinking song and lewd oath, mingled with the threats of scripture.

  Colonel Stow, a thought paler, sat down to the end of his dinner. "Who are the gallants in green?" he asked.

  "My Lord Goring's regiment," says my lady at once, and Colonel Royston looked from under his eyelashes.

  Colonel Stow ate pickled cherries with determination, while below the medley of ill sound endured.… It was broken by a new note. Colonel Stow cocked his head to one side. A girl was sobbing. "Some one cries while I dine," said he. "It is an impertinence." And he pushed back his chair and went out.

  My Lady Lepe looked out of the window: "'Tis only a puling Puritan wench," she said with contempt.

  "Madame," says Colonel Royston, who was buckling on his sword, "your womanly sentiments perpetually delight me," and he followed his friend.

  He found Colonel Stow at the foot of the stair surveying circumstance with equable brow. Beside the tap-room window a girl wept, and Alcibiade, his plump master of the horse, and the lean Matthieu-Marc (who had a rival repute as squire of dames) imparted consolation in several languages. But mine host of the Bird in Hand and some cronies stood aloof and jeered. Colonel Stow came to her. "Your weeping, madame," says he, "makes the ungodly rejoice."

  She looked up at him. She was not of the women who are beautiful in tears. She tried to speak to him, and made a miserable ridiculous gulp.

  "'Tis very proper in you to say so," Colonel Stow admitted. "But you need not say it again. I am now in charge of the affair. Come with me."

  She touched his arm with timid trembling fingers. The brutal din from the tap-room rose louder. "My father!" she gasped.

  "Yes, but you are in the way," said Colonel Stow gently. "Come."

  Faltering, doubting—but his placidity was with power—she let him convey her, sobbing, to the door and up to that room where my Lady Lepe sat yawning.

  "Madame," quoth Colonel Stow, "you can be kinder here than I," and led the weeping girl to her side.

  My Lady Lepe shrank back in disgust that seemed to be blended with some fear. "What have I to do with the wench ?" she cried.

  "Your womanhood, madame, was not made only for men," said Colonel Stow, and left them together.

  The girl looked at my Lady Lepe with a most miserable wet face, and my Lady Lepe flushed and stood staring at her mighty awkward.

  Colonel Stow came again to the door of the inn. Standing upon the cellar flap outside the tap-room, he reviewed the position. Mine host rolled up to him frowning: "Sir," he growled, "be you a Roundhead?"

  Colonel Stow began to smile. "Your humor has attracted me," he remarked, "and yet you do not amuse me. Is not that melancholy?"

  "I say, sir," the fellow roared, "be you a Round-head?"

  "If I were," said Colonel Stow sweetly, "I could not be doing what I am. And yet if I were not to be, it is strange that I should seek to be doing what I shall soon have done."

  "And look you," quoth Royston, tapping mine host's puzzled shoulder, "though he be not what he might be in what he does, yet we know that what he has done may be no proof of what he can be. Wherefore we do all hope for salvation." Then they both bowed to mine host—who had taken a step back, and stood gaping.

  Colonel Stow took Royston's arm and turned him to the tap-room. "Go in, George. Make them happy," said he. Their eyes met for a moment. Royston plunged at the door and went in with a flourish and a snatch of song.

  The drinkers of beer

  Did ne'er yet appear

  In matters of any weight!

  'Tis he whose design

  Is quickened by wine

  That raises things to their height.

  He was opportune. The sport of the tap-room had grown keen. The Royalists would have the minister sing for them a lewd song of Davenant's against his church. He steadfastly denied them, and already they had a knotted cord about his temples. Colonel Royston, as he relates, proffered to show them how that torture was done in High Germany.

  Outside, "Alcibiade, my friend," says Colonel Stow, "I am waiting for my horses." Alcibiade bounded to the stable, but was arrested in mid-air by an order in French. Thereafter he bounded again. Mine host and his lounging friends guffawed.

  Colonel Stow took Matthieu-Marc by the elbow and walked him through the village till they came to the smithy. "Matthieu," says he, "buy me two pounds of tenpenny nails and borrow me a hammer withal."

  "The nails—of tenpenny," Matthieu-Marc repeated, and his lean jaws halted wide asunder.

  While Matthieu-Marc turned into the smithy Colonel Stow continued to walk at a gentle gait down the road. His eyes wandered and appeared to admire the cowslips and the speedwell. Coming back to the inn with his nails and his hammer, Matthieu-Marc found Alcibiade waiting by the tap-room door. A moment after Colonel Stow came running, in much agitation. At sight of him Alcibiade heaved up the cellar flap and flung it full wide. Mine host was moved to wrath thereby, and lumbered at Alcibiade, growling: "'Od rot it! What be doing, Frenchman?" Alcibiade, who was a man of action, said nothing, but smote with power. Mine host was engulfed. In the same moment he was and was not. From the depths he complained. Colonel Stow by that had his head in at the little tap-room window and shouted breathless: "George, the Roundheads are on us! Alarm the gentlemen! The Roundheads are on us! A regiment of horse!"

  "Plague 'found them!" Royston roared, flinging down the cord in which he was making artful knots. "Saddle, gentlemen, saddle!"

  The gallant gentlemen of Goring's horse tumbled through the door in a heap, Royston agitating from behind, and in a heap with frantic oaths vanished into the darkness of the cellar. Alcibiade slammed down the flap and stood on it. Matthieu-Marc swung his hammer and drove the long nails home. Underground the noise was confused.

  "You are as neat as Providence, Jerry" said Royston.

  "I should like to see them come out," Colonel Stow admitted. "But one can not have everything. It is time for us to go. Slit their horses' girths, Alcibiade," and he ran upstairs to collect the women.

  Royston escorted his amazed minister to horse. "You had best ride with us, parson," said he. "They would doubtless like to see you again, but one must be selfish at times." But the minister was dazed to dumbness.

  With him mounted on one of the led horses, with his daughter up behind Colonel Stow, they rode away. The loungers of the inn yard showed some timorous ill will, my Lady Lepe no timorous disgust at the turn of affairs, but neither affected the tranquillity of Colonel Stow. They had drawn clear of the village when the minister recovered speech. "Sir," says he to Royston, "I deemed you a man of Belial, and by the grace of G
od you have wrought me a great deliverance. Pray, who are you?"

  "I wonder if you have helped us to find out," said Colonel Royston.

  | Contents |

  Chapter Three

  The Inspiration of Colonel Stow

  COLONEL STOW saw a full troop more of Goring's green horsemen coming down on the village from Thame, and quickened his pace.

  "You are well out of that parish, parson," quoth Colonel Royston, "and it will be some while before you are in it again."

  The minister plainly cared nothing for that, nothing for the home he could not save. Never a man grieved less for worldly ruin. There was a wild joy in his eyes. He was throbbing with some glad spiritual orgasm. After a while he lifted up his voice and made a joyful noise. At once Colonel Royston regretted his salvation, and my Lady Lepe snorted at him. But the minister saw nothing, heard nothing in this world but himself.

  Had not the Lord been on our side

  May Israel now say;

  Had not the Lord been on our side

  When men rose us to slay;

  They had us swallowed quick when as

  Their wrath 'gainst us did flame;

  Waters had covered us; our soul

  Had sunk beneath the stream.

  And many more verses came before he broke off with the jerk of his beginning and, "Sir," he cried, "the hand of the Lord is in this. The Lord will not suffer me to dwell in peace lest I wax fat. He hath appointed me my portion otherwhere. I will go ride with the host and minister unto them till they that persecuted the saints be cast down and this poor land's iniquity purged away.

  ‘He that in Heaven sits shall laugh;

  The Lord shall scorn them all.

  Then shall He speak to them in wrath,

  In rage He vex them shall.'"

  Ny Lady Lepe made a noise that resembled a profane oath. Then, observing Colonel Royston moved to gentle mirth and the minister's keen eyes set upon her, she blushed notably.

  "Father,"—from behind Colonel Stow came a pitiful voice,—"father, shall we not win home again?"

  "Nay, the Philistines are upon us. We are cast out. We are wanderers upon the earth. Let God's glory be magnified thereby." I can conceive that Colonel Royston admired the man's contempt of all ease. For himself was not made like that.