Colonel Greatheart

by H. C. Bailey

  "It must then be a melancholy moment, sir," says Joan.

  "I think a man knows little of a woman, Joan," said Joy in a low voice.

  "For then"—David Stow continued his confessions to Joan—"for then he perceives how coarse and hard is man's nature, how unfit for a woman's soul."

  "For which God made it," said Joan.

  "Nay, madame, which of us does not know how much he falls short of the purpose of God, which designed us for happiness in His service."

  "And good courage."

  David Stow started and saluted like a soldier who has been chidden.

  "Joan, I think it hurts sometimes when people call themselves ill," said Joy, her voice trembling.

  "That is when the people are dear to us," said Joan.

  "Nay, nay, not that at all," Joy cried in alarm. "But you would not have people abase themselves, would you, Joan? 'Tis like being a coward."

  "Why, then, cousin, I think I heard you a coward a while ago."

  David Stow made an exclamation. Joy's blushes surged and fled. "Hush, O, hush!" she gasped.

  Joan obeyed . . . "Nay, then, if I am silent, what will befall you?" said she.

  "Why, madame, I could tell you of one who is a coward and weak and vain withal, who yet dares hope—hope—" But he dared no more and Joy dared nothing.

  Then Joan, with a quaint, tender smile, "Cousin, I have to tell you of one who dares hope."

  "I—I—I—when the people of old saw God they were sore afraid. And, Joan—do you think—is't even so when we know the joy of the love that He gives?"

  "I can not tell that," said Joan in a low voice. She drew her arm away and slipped back, leaving them side by side. It was at the man she looked, at his pale face, earnest and grave and glad. Then, with a strange gesture she turned and fled from them.

  David Stow took Joy's hands in his and drew her close. Grave-eyed and pale and silent, she came and rested against his heart. He bowed over her, and so they stood in the sunlight, still and quiet.

  But as Joan sped away to the town she looked through a mist of tears.

  | Contents |

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Lucinda is Wed

  THE campaign was afoot. Rupert broke out of Oxford and made a swift foray across the midlands. Sir Thomas Fairfax, a man of method, bade his New Model army draw together upon Thame. So the lieutenant general set a strong post in Abingdon and moved northward.

  Now, the New Model, which sought to provide itself with the newest inventions of the art of war, had got a great regiment of dragooners. There were few of the Puritans knew clearly what a dragooner ought to be or do. The commissary general, who mistrusted them profoundly, saw in them a happy way to dispose of Colonel Royston. He might, being a veteran, know how to use them. If so, well. They might, being neither fish, flesh nor good red herring, go down in a notable ruin. And that would not be all ill, either.

  So it is as major of the lieutenant's dragooners, the weedy men on cobs with red coats and no armor nor helmet, but a sword and dragon apiece, that you see Royston ride into Thame. His men were half trooper, half musketeer, and the scorn of both, but Royston liked them well enough. They were ne'er-do-wells, not saints. The strenuous, godly souls chose regiments they understood. Royston had what was left, the fellows who wanted not salvation but sport and eighteen pence a day. He understood them. With them he could make himself a place.

  The world was going well with him again. He had a cynic laugh at circumstance. Honest friendship brought him nothing but ill. A nasty treason set him on the way to fortune and pleasure. For there was pleasure, keen pleasure that whipped his sense and mind, in Lucinda. Her hot passion, ay and her strength that strove fierce against him still, and the pain he saw her feel bore him a storm of delight. She was utterly desirable in her yearning and her scorn, a wild woman who longed for him and loathed him at once, made fit food for his desperate soul.

  She was won now. He rode into Thame on a May morning that sparkled with frost to possess her. The mass of trees about the gray square tower were gay in their new dress, gold and white and gray as the wind played and a hundred dainty shades of green. Royston sent his men to their tents in the fields southward of the little town and strode away. Lucinda was lodged in the overhanging upper rooms of a new house by the grammar school. She kept him waiting a while, and when she came from her bed chamber surprised him by her somberness. She was all dark gray.

  "The Puritan bride, sir," quoth she with a mocking curtsy.

  "Say you so? Then I pity you."

  "Well." She looked at him long, then gave a reckless laugh. "O, ay, we are fit mates."

  "You flatter me," said Royston, as he gave her his arm.

  Together, silent, they made their way to the church, little heeded in the bustle of the gathering army. But, on a sudden, Lucinda checked and faltered. Royston, looking down, saw her face all crimson. "It is nothing. It is a faintness," she gasped, and for a moment hung heavy on his arm.

  Through the throng she had seen a lilting gait that she remembered and was aware of shame. But her heart played false. She knew, she knew that it could not be he. Angry, with head erect, she went on her way. Royston had not seen.

  In the doorway of the mayor's house, David Stow made way for Joan, and, turning, saw the bride. He made an exclamation. "Surely there are some there that we know," quoth he.

  Joan saw and was white. "I—I do not understand," she said unsteadily.

  "Nay, but I must," said David Stow, and turned from the house of his lady and went after them. And Joan followed him.

  The wind was blowing free through the great church, for the glass of its best windows had been beaten out by savory souls, zealous to destroy the works of Baal, when they rabbled the vicar. On the steps of the choir, Mr. Hugh Peters, Cromwell's warrior chaplain, awaited them in gown of Geneva and bands. Save for him the church was empty. "Gird up your loins," he cried. "You come to a godly work," and added a joke kindly enough but something broad.

  Upon the mere wedding he wasted little time. It was a bluff question apiece and a hearty "I pronounce you man and wife before the living God!" Mr. Peters was not a man of ceremonies, but he valued himself as a preacher and that he had but one or two gathered together before him was never any restraint. Lucinda had to hear a history of matrimony from its origin, illuminated by the leading cases of Bathsheba, Jezebel and Henrietta Maria, which later became a homily and an exhortation on wifely duties, distinguished by solid sense rather than delicacy. It is likely that Royston was amused. There was a grim humor mingled even in his passions. But Lucinda had nothing of that and her heart was raging. That this ruddy parson should dare to school her like a milkmaid! Cherish and obey, quotha! The Lord loveth a goodly housewife! The godly rearing of children! Her eyes flamed at Mr. Peters. Her hands clenched and unclenched nervously. And Mr. Peters smiled upon her and spoke with some unction of a maid's fears. Lucinda was hot with a wrath she scarce understood. There was a questioning wonder in the eyes that flamed. True, he was a gross, insolent fool, but that should not suffice to move her so. He promised her passion the burdens of common life, the dull daily labors of women of no account. Bah, it was ludicrous, but what matter for such anger? Why, because it filched the glamour and joy from her desires; she sought a wild reign of sensation, and he foretold her dull wifehood, the life of a slave. Service of Royston—was that to be her lot? To be spent in motherhood? She turned upon Royston with a fierce stare of hate, and seeing the placid sneer on his full lips broke out in ugly laughter.

  It alarmed Mr. Peters, who, a man of charity, conceived her overwrought by the fears of maidenly modesty and his own eloquence and cut the latter short. He took them apart to sign his book (the registers of the church had vanished with the exiled vicar). "I dismiss you to joy," said he. "But let not your private joys make you sleepy in the service of the Lord."

  "I'll assure they shall not," said Lucinda, and laughed again.

  Royston thrust her arm through his with a mast
erful gesture and bore her off at a gait too fast for grace.

  From behind a pillar of the nave came a neat man of middle size. Royston checked heavily with a thud and clatter of spur and sword and a booming oath. Lucinda was struggling to be away from him. For surely it was Colonel Stow.

  "Pray, sir, have you any tidings of my brother?" said David Stow.

  "Good morrow and well met," said Royston heartily. "Did you know my wife when she was a maid?"

  David Stow saluted. "I have heard much and heard less than the truth, I think," he said, and his grave eyes rested on Lucinda.

  Lucinda made him a curtsy, and Royston, giving room for her skirts, stepped aside and saw Joan Normandy. "Ha, here is an old affection. Yes, my dear, Jerry is very well." Lucinda, starting at the tone, turned to see the girl blush to her brow. The two women gazed at each other, and Lucinda saw wonder and pity.

  "I thought you and Jerry so close friends," said David Stow in grave, level tones.

  "Why, friends we are still, I hope," said Royston with a laugh. "Jerry found his account with the King and I could not. Faith, sir, the more I know the King's cause the worse I like it. Jerry had another mind. But I will uphold his honesty."

  "You are very good, sir."

  "Well, the truth is I sought a cleaner standard, and owing no faith to the King, was free to seek. I would that Jerry were of my mind or I could be of his. Well, it is life!"

  "And Mistress Royston came with you from Oxford to share it?"

  "Why, madame could not endure the license of the court, and—"

  "There was none to protect her?"

  "There was none to whom she could give the right but me," said Royston with dignity.

  David Stow looked keenly from one to the other. "I give you joy of to-day," he said and stood aside to let them pass.

  Lucinda, as she swept by, saw the wonder in Joan's face blent with joy…

  David Stow turned from watching them back to Joan. "Shall we be gone, madame?" But he saw that she did not hear, he saw her eyes. Joan was left in the great church alone.

  Heavy of foot, silent, Lucinda was borne to her lodging. Royston looked down at her with a mocking smile, but he did not understand. Fear dulled her heart. She was bound by the new dread of a jealous hate. If Colonel Stow should fall to another woman's breast, if he should find happiness so, then was her fate intolerable. That Puritan girl dared love him and it might be… while she was Royston's toy…

  Come to her lodging, safe in the upper room, Royston caught her greedily. Her lips were cold.

  | Contents |

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Colonel Stow is Shown his Duty

  "We go out to war, my dear," said Matthieu-Marc.

  "And you'll come back and marry me, will 'e not?" said Molly amiably.

  Matthieu-Marc coughed. "Marriage," said he, "is a sacrament; you may also consider it a sauce. I am not sure that you are worthy the one. I am sure that you need not the other."

  Molly boxed his ears. "The truth is, you are afraid of me."

  "I fear nothing but God and an English omelette," said Matthieu-Marc with indignation.

  "Then you do not love me?" said Molly.

  "I love all women—who do not love me."

  "Sure that is the whole world of them!"

  Matthieu-Marc recovered his spirits. "I shall die the bachelor I was born," said he with enthusiasm. Molly proffered her cheek. He saluted it before he swaggered out.

  Then Alcibiade, who had been eating a cake in contented obscurity, approached for the like favor. Molly withdrew. "Parbleu, Molly, no woman loves me neither," Alcibiade protested.

  "'Tis a fool that says so."

  "But would a fool want your lips?"

  "No fool will ever get them," quoth Molly and withstood him earnestly.

  So that he faltered in the struggle, and looking something pathetic, said, "Adieu, my dear," and went off.

  "Sure, he is a fool indeed," said Molly, and left her cakes, to cry.

  They had not gone far out of Oxford when the cavalry came clashing against the Puritans. Then Colonel Stow enjoyed life. One good regiment could not save the army, but his could entertain itself well in affairs of outposts. His men lacked indeed the Puritan flame, but they knew their trade now to the last letter, and in the crafty by-play of war the fanatic had no advantage.

  While Sir Thomas Fairfax lay at Stony Stratford, it fell to Colonel Rich, a very fervent member, to watch the byways through Whittlewood Forest. Now Colonel Stow, schooled in the Duke of Weimar's Black Forest campaigns, had reared an uncommon kind of cavalry which was as happy in a wood as out of it. He exercised Colonel Rich marvelously, so that the good man expected the second coming sooner than ever. The seventh angel, he pointed out, had plainly poured out his vial and the woman which sat upon the scarlet beast was already almost drunken with the blood of the saints.

  Colonel Stow snapped up the Puritans here and there till there were some score and a half of melancholy prisoners locked in the barn at Brackley Hatch. One rainy dawn a couple of squadrons got past Colonel Rich altogether and fell on Skippon's quarters at Denshanger, to the extreme displeasure of that worthy martinet, who proposed that Colonel Rich should await the second coming in his grave. For Colonel Stow's men beat in a picket, blew up a stableful of powder, carried off a wagon of silver, a score of prisoners and the sergeant major's pet chaplain.

  Colonel Rich explained that his name should be called Magor Missabib and that the beast was with power and seat and great authority. The lieutenant general pleaded for Colonel Rich as a vessel of righteousness and Skippon allowed himself to be appeased.

  But Colonel Rich was hardly the happier. He raged through the forest with multiplied fury, though little better fortune.

  The mass of the King's army had made the Watling Street and were moving away. Colonel Stow had the ordering of the rear guard. Then a half dozen of his troopers, lingering to drink in Towcester, were overwhelmed by a wild charge of Colonel Rich's men, who, pressing on, ran their heads into a neat crossfire and were greatly mishandled. Nevertheless, Colonel Rich had his little convoy of prisoners and was not ill satisfied.

  In the end of the day, when Colonel Stow was sitting down to food in Faster's Booth, one of his men broke in, much damaged. Scraps of his shirt were bound about his forehead and his left arm; he lurched in his walk. "You paid for that ale in Towcester," said Colonel Stow.

  "By God, sir, the others be like to pay more," the man cried hoarsely. "The butcher Rich, he would hang us all at dawn."

  "You are drunken still," said Colonel Stow.

  "And I wish I were, for Billy Porter be one of them," said the man. "Sure, 'tis gospel, sir. When he lay up there beyond Towcester he had us parade in the farm-yard in front of him, and first he preached at us a while, and swore all the Bible down upon us, and then he bade us repent, for we should be hanged ere he marched, and the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's heel, meaning you, sir. And then he made a horrid prayer on us, and, seeing his sergeant was a-listening mighty, I made a dive at he and upset he on the muck and the others, and mostly Billy Porter, being violent, too, there was a mighty to do, but it was only me won away, for I got first to the horses, and mighty good practice they made at me, too. And I would as lief be with old Billy Porter, I am sure." He was fairly crying for weakness and strain.

  "Feed him," said Colonel Stow to a sergeant. His officers were loud and profane in indignation. "An ill game, gentlemen. We will play our hand. Captain Godfrey! You will take a trumpet and ride to Colonel Rich and acquaint him that for each man of mine so murdered, I will hang two of his. I will give you a letter. Saddle, sir. Faith, gentlemen, war would be clean enough if only soldiers fought." While the others rattled their abuse noisily, Colonel Stow sat silent and heavy with thought.

  A while after he sought out his unhappy prisoners, who lay upon straw in a shed. Colonel Stow stood before them between two torch bearing troopers, a grim vision of war to their helplessness. Haggard
, unshaven faces loomed white at him. "Gentlemen! I am forced to a cruelty I hate. Colonel Rich of your army hath four of my men prisoners. He swears to hang them for no offense but being his foes. This I can not suffer. I have warned Colonel Rich that if he will not observe the honor of war, I may not either. For each man of mine he murders, a man of his must die. Gentlemen, I pray God he may not put me to such extremity. But if he will—I warn you. Draw lots among yourselves. If my men die, four men of you die with the morning."

  He waited lest any should seek to answer. There was none. The Puritan temper knew no fear of death. They asked no mercy. They flung no taunt either. Colonel Stow looked keenly from one to the other; one face made him linger long. Then he saluted and turned away.

  Soon his adjutant came to the stable, and picking out the parson, bade him come and speak with his colonel. Again John Normandy looked into the eyes of Colonel Stow.

  "I owed you more courtesy, sir," said Colonel Stow gravely. "If I had known you were the chaplain we took, you had fared better."

  "You owe me nothing," said the minister. "You served me well. I would that you had served God so."

  There was a crooked smile on Colonel Stow's lips. He remembered what had chosen his cause for him. "Let it be, then. I have to speak of this matter of tonight, which, on my soul, I loathe."

  "You do well," said the minister.

  "O, understand me! I have no shame for what I do. If Colonel Rich would play the butcher, by butchery I must school him."

  "You do well," said the minister again.

  "What, sir?" Colonel Stow cried in amazement.

  "Man, man, do you think the children of light have less care for righteousness than you? Are we not shamed that a leader of ours should keep no faith with the helpless? I protest to you that if Colonel Rich does this thing, there are those in the host of the Lord will take such vengeance upon him as shall cause the ears of all them that hear it to tingle."

  "I hope it may be so," said Colonel Stow gravely, with no great faith. "Nevertheless, sir, I must do my part. If my men are murdered, there must be requital."