Loke who that is most vertuous alway,

Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay

To do the gentil dedes that he can,

And take him for the gretest gentilman.

—Chaucer.


While Hilary was learning at Hereford that in time of sore distress differences of opinion in matters of Church and State lose all hold on the mind, Gabriel was destined to meet in Somersetshire the noblest of the King’s Generals—Sir Ralph Hopton.

Waller, while awaiting reinforcements from London, had made his headquarters in Bath, and, though few days passed without skirmishes in the neighbourhood, he had been able to hold in check the combined forces of Hopton, Hertford and Prince Maurice, and to protect not only Bath but Bristol.

The citizens of Bath held him in high esteem, and when on the evening of the 16th June a messenger from the Royalist army was admitted into the city with a letter for the General, he had to run the gauntlet of some pretty sharp criticisms from the onlookers as he drew rein and dismounted at the door of the “Nag’s Head” in Northgate Street.

This the young man took in very good part, and Gabriel, who chanced to be leaning against the open door listening to one of Major Locke’s stories, felt drawn to him when he saw the imperturbable good humour with which he bore such taunts as:

“Let the barber shave your love-locks!” and, “Here’s a curled Court darling!”

“Take the gentleman’s horse,” said Gabriel, turning to one of the grinning ostlers, and then stepping forward he greeted the newcomer courteously.

“I have a letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and am to place it in Sir William Waller’s own hands,” said the young officer. “Is he within?”

Something in his voice and face seemed curiously familiar, and as Gabriel led him to the General’s room he could not resist hazarding a question.

“An I mistake not, sir, you must be a kinsman of Captain Heyworth?”

The young officer laughed.

“Truth! I myself am Captain Heyworth—Richard Heyworth of Shortell. Tell me, is my brother Joscelyn here?”

“Unfortunately not. He hath three weeks’ leave, and hath gone to London on business.”

“A curse on my ill-luck!” said Dick Heyworth. “I made sure I should have seen him here.”

He seemed so grievously disappointed that Gabriel felt the more drawn to him and announcing “Captain Heyworth,” watched the General’s surprise and perplexity as the visitor entered the room. Waller signed to him to remain in attendance, and put one or two rapid questions to Richard Heyworth.

“I sent a letter to Sir Ralph Hopton after the fray at Chewton Mendip by the hands of Mr. Reginald Powell—a prisoner we had taken—did it reach him safely?”

“Ay, sir—a letter proposing an exchange of prisoners. This is the General’s reply, and he bade me say he earnestly hoped you would agree to the second proposal he makes.”

Waller read the letter thoughtfully.

“I will write a reply,” he said at length, “and in the absence of your brother will send it by Lieutenant Harford, who shall accompany you on your return. I see, Sir Ralph writes from Wells; both you and your horse will need rest and refreshment after such a ride. Lieutenant Harford will see that you are well cared for.”

“Shall I return for your reply, sir?” asked Gabriel.

“Come for it at sunrise to-morrow,” said Waller, glancing again at the letter. Then, looking up at Dick Heyworth, “I would fain comply with Sir Ralph’s request could I consult my personal wishes, but I am bound to think only of the Cause. I will wish you good-night, sir.”

It only remained for Dick Heyworth to bow and withdraw, but Gabriel noted his look of annoyance as they entered the adjoining room, where the remains of the officers’ supper were still on the table.

“’Tis ever ‘the Cause, the Cause,’ with you Parliament folk,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Now if our two Generals could have met there might be some hope of making an end of the war.”

“Was that your errand?”

“That and the reply as to the exchange of prisoners. You had best not tell it in Gath, however. Sir Ralph Hopton, as you doubtless know, was an old friend of your General’s, and they served together in the German wars. He had a great wish to meet him and discuss this accursed civil strife.”

“Of what avail would that be,” said Gabriel, “when the King will never offer terms that can be accepted, and when Parliament places no confidence in his promises.”

“Ay, there’s the rub,” said Dick.

“Your Cornishmen know how to fight,” said Gabriel. “They gave us a smart repulse at Chewton Mendip.”

“Yes,” said Dick, making great inroads on the plate of beef his companion had set before him. “They are the best soldiers we have, and are men after Sir Ralph’s own heart, for they are as little given to plundering as the best of your Puritan troops. Sir Ralph is like to break his heart over Prince Maurice’s men, for they plunder right and left.”

“It would be little to your General’s liking, specially in his own county of Somerset.”

“That is what irks him so sorely, for they ruin the property of all his old friends and neighbours. But tell me of my brother, for I have not clapped eyes on him since you took Winchester.”

“He hath been several times of late at Gloucester, and was in high spirits at encountering there Mistress Clemency Coriton, his betrothed.”

“He was ever a lucky dog,” said Dick, laughing.

“He came very near to being shot in the back t’other night, by a treacherous blackguard that serves under Prince Maurice,” observed Gabriel.

“Ha! I can guess who that is,” said Dick. “Now I understand the dark hints and innuendoes that Colonel Norton has thrown out once or twice of late. Tell me what really passed.”

Gabriel, though omitting Helena’s name, told the story of her father’s duel with Norton and of their subsequent errand.

“That was an affair after Joscelyn’s own heart,” cried Dick. “Did I not tell you he was a lucky dog? Such chances are for ever coming his way. Never mind, my turn will come.”

Just after sunrise the two young officers rode off together to Wells, and by the time they had reached Hopton’s quarters, an old house in the Close, they had become fast friends, united by their common affection for Joscelyn. Gabriel was taken into a panelled room, where the Royalist General sat writing at a table in the oriel window. He was a middle-aged man, with threads of grey already showing in his long dark hair, and there was something singularly noble in his clear, open face and dignified bearing. A man of stainless character, he found many of his co-workers very little to his taste, and he seemed grievously disappointed to learn that his old friend Waller had felt unable to agree to the proposed meeting. Gabriel could not help glancing at his expression now and then as he read the letter which he had eagerly opened.

It ran as follows:

“Sir,”—The experience which I have had of your worth and the happiness which I have enjoyed in your friendship, are wounding considerations to me, when I look upon this present distance between us; certainly, sir, my affections to you are so unchangeable, that hostilitie itself cannot violate my friendship to your person; but I must be true to the cause wherein I serve. The old limitation of usque ad aras holdeth still, and where my conscience is interested all other obligations are swallowed up. I should wait on you according to your desire, but that I look on you as engaged in that partie beyond the possibility of retreat, and consequents incapable of being wrought upon by anti-persuasion, and I know the conference could never be so close betwixt us, but that it would take wind and receive a construction to my dishonour. That great God, who is the Searcher of all hearts, knows with what a sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hate I detest this war without an enemie, but I look upon it as opus domini which is enough to silence all passion in me. The God of Peace send us, in His good time, the blessing of peace, and in the meantime fit us to receive it. We are both on the stage and must act those parts that are assigned to us in this tragedy, but let us do it in the way of honour and without personal animositie; whatsoever the issue of it be, I shall never resign that dear title of

“Your most

“Affectionate Friend

“and Faithful Servant,

“William Waller.

“Bath, June 16, 1643.”

Sir Ralph Hopton sighed as he refolded the letter; it had only made him crave more passionately for an end of the war which was dividing England. He glanced a second time at Gabriel, struck by something familiar in his face. “Are you not one of the Herefordshire Harfords?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” replied Gabriel, “son of Dr. Bridstock Harford, of Hereford.”

“I met him many years ago at Canon Frome, when he must have been of your age; you are his living image. How is my kinsman, Sir Richard Hopton?”

“He is well, sir, but hath suffered from the plundering of his house at Canon Frome by the Royalists, to revenge his having accompanied my Lord Stamford last year when he took Hereford.”

“These plunderings and robberies are hateful to me,” said Sir Ralph. “Nothing does so much to embitter the struggle as the wanton destruction of property. By-the-bye, an’ I mistake not, you are connected with the Hoptons through a marriage with Madame Martha Harford, so that in somewhat remote fashion you are also akin to me. I could wish you were with us in this contest, but as they tell me Sir William Waller often says, we will part as enemies that may live to be friends.” Then bidding Dick Heyworth show all hospitality to Waller’s messenger, he dismissed them and began to write his reply to the Parliamentary General.

A few hours later, when Gabriel, with the letter in his wallet, paused at the city gate to take leave of Dick Heyworth, it chanced that Colonel Norton, lounging at his ease at the open window of an alehouse hard by, was roused to sudden interest in the proceedings.

“’Tis the very man!” he exclaimed. “Now I shall get hold of his name, which hath slipped my memory, and will have some sport with the Puritan dog.”

He strolled out of the alehouse, carelessly greeted Dick Heyworth, and, with a mockingly profound bow and sarcastic smile, turned to Gabriel.

“Good day, sir!” he exclaimed. “Have you had any more midnight rides with the fair Helena?”

Dick Heyworth, seeing the angry flush which rose in his new friend’s face, hastily interposed, hoping to avert a storm.

“To name a lady in such a fashion in the open street, sir,——” he began, but there he was interrupted by Gabriel, who, furious at the insinuation and the insult conveyed in Norton’s look and tone, could no longer restrain his tongue.

“In her present abode she is little like to need protection from villainous assaults such as yours, sir,” he said, with that sudden fiery vehemence which comes with startling force now and then from the most self-controlled men.

“Ha!” said, Norton, with his short, harsh laugh. “I have no doubt you stowed her away very conveniently in the godly city of Gloucester, where, doubtless, all men are saints. Beggarly hypocrites that you are! But the King will soon triumph now, and I ask nothing better than to have the privilege of hanging you, you Puritan mongrel!”

“The King’s cause is ill served, sir, by such words,” said Dick, angrily. “You, perhaps, do not understand that Lieutenant Harford bears a letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and cannot take up a personal quarrel.”

Norton burst into loud laughter.

“Bless you, my children!” he exclaimed, his eyes twinkling with genuine merriment. “’Twas precisely the name of this gentleman that I wished to discover—do not let me detain you longer now, Mr. Harford, we shall meet again, for I never allow myself to be baulked.”

With a derisive smile he returned to the alehouse, and Dick Heyworth rode on for a little way with his new friend.

“That fellow has a bitter grudge against you and my brother,” he said. “You had best beware of him, for he sticks at nothing. ’Tis men of that make who are the ruin of His Majesty’s Army.”

“But, on the other hand, you have men like my Lord Falkland and Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir Bevil Granville,” said Gabriel, his chivalrous nature readily sympathising with what was passing in his companion’s mind. “And, as you may guess, we have not a few narrow-minded zealots and fanatics who are ill to work with.”

“True, men like that Original Sin Smith that played Joscelyn false at Farnham,” said Dick, “Indeed, I think you are right, such a fellow revolts one even more than Colonel Norton, being both villain and hypocrite.”

Then, entrusting Gabriel with a letter for his brother, and many last messages, Dick Heyworth returned to Wells, and Gabriel rode back to Waller’s headquarters, his mind full of Sir Ralph Hopton’s last words, “We will part as enemies that may live to be friends.” If only Hilary would have given him as much comfort as that, how hopefully would he have faced the bitterness of this heart-rending strife!

The sun was setting when he rode into Bath, and the Abbey tower outlined against a saffron sky rose in solemn grandeur, which unconsciously soothed his troubled mind, though, like most of his generation, he had very little feeling for the beautiful. What he had was gained almost entirely from the poetry of the Bible—a Book which had been to him and to his father before him the great educator, and to which, in common with all the best of the Puritans, he owed the sterling honesty and the moral courage that characterised him. To the modern world he would have seemed primitive and unsophisticated. But there is a certain kind of simplicity that is very ill compensated by 忙stheticism, and sturdy Puritan uprightness is sorely needed in these latter days of luxury, lying and greed of gain.

Having delivered the letter from Sir Ralph Hopton, and Dick Heyworth’s letter to his brother, into the General’s keeping, he went in search of Major Locke, and to his great delight found the rare treat of a letter from home awaiting him. His father gave him the new’s of Mrs. Unett’s death, and overwhelmed with the sense of what Hilary’s desolation would be, he lost no time in writing to her. But it is one thing to write a letter in time of war, and quite another to send it safely to its destination.

The next night the troops were ordered into the Bradford Valley, and a strong position was taken up on Claverton Down, ............