“Master farmer,” said Cromwell, “you would like to get back to that hayrick you spoke of. Will you take a letter to Sir Richard Lowther at Pontefract Castle, and so get your liberty, and go home?”
“If it be not against the King, sir,” I answered.
“I dare say the King is not mentioned in it,” said he. “ ’Tis a private letter from Sir Thomas here.”
“Will you deliver it faithfully, friend?” asked the other officer, glancing hard at me. “You look trusty, I think.”
“I will ride straight to the Castle with it, sir, if you will give me my own horse again,” I said, and held out my hand for the packet.
“Give him his horse,” said Cromwell, “and see him out of the camp.”
He followed me to the curtain of the tent. “Go home, lad,” said he; “go home, and do not come a-fighting again. The only son of thy mother, and she a widow! Go home, go home; there are enow of us that have lost children already.”
He pushed me out into the darkness, and, dropping the curtain, went inside the tent again, and left me wondering.
XXVIII
Of My Adventure at the Wayside Inn
I was exceedingly well pleased to regain my liberty on such easy terms, and said so to the trooper who conducted me outside the camp, and who was the same grayheaded man that had brought me in earlier in the day. Also I was somewhat interested at the behaviour towards me of General Cromwell, whom I had previously imagined to be more likely to hang me from the nearest tree than to send me home again to my hayricks.
“You doubtless gained his favour, Master Dale,” said the old trooper, “by telling him that you had as much right to fight for the King as he had to fight against him. He liketh plain speaking, doth Master Oliver, whether it is in his own way or not. But it is not with such as you that our quarrel is. I dare say you do honestly fight for the King, knowing no better, and believing you do your duty thereby. Against that I have naught to say. But there are those about the King and in his army who do corrupt him with evil counsels, loving not the liberty and advantage of the nation, but rather thinking of their own selfish ends, and it is with these that our quarrel lies. Yea, and will lie until God hath swept them away from the face of the earth, and England is free again. And now, lad, you are outside the camp and can go without let or question, and so fare you well.”
In this way I took leave of the enemy, and rode away through Askham Bryan towards Tadcaster, glad enough to be free to go after my own affairs. My head was very full of my late adventures as I rode along. It was only forty-eight hours since I had left home, and yet I had seen in that time more than ever I had seen in all the previous years of my life. I had carried a despatch from the King to Prince Rupert and had heard a council held between the Prince and his generals, I had gone into battle and slain more than one man and got wounded myself, and I had been taken prisoner and had held parley with General Cromwell. Here was enough to make one think deeply, and I wondered what the people at home would say to it. Somehow it seemed a long, long time since I saw the farmhouse lights and the faces of those I loved. A whole age seemed to have gone by since I had ridden away on that errand to York. I wondered if the wounded officer still lay at our house, and if all had gone well since I left. I had seen enough of war to make me satisfied, and I resolved as we sped homewards that in future I should stay where my duty required me to be rather than go forth to seek adventures. And yet I should have done the same thing again under similar circumstances. The villages along the roadside were busy enough even at that late hour of the evening. Fugitives of the Royalist army had fled or crept along the highway all day long, wounded and weary, and were filling the inns by which I passed. The road itself was thronged with carts and wagons filled with wounded men, going I know not whither. For the first few miles I was stopped more than once by Roundhead soldiers, who let me go on at once on seeing a passport I had received from General Cromwell. Of Royalist troops I saw none; they were apparently dispersed in other directions.
When I came to Aberford I determined to take the road which runs through Castleford, rather than follow the usual route to Brotherton and Ferrybridge. This I decided upon for two reasons: first, the road through Castleford would take me in an almost straight line to Pontefract; and, second, it would probably be not so thronged as the other highway. So I went on and made good progress for a while, but before I had come to Kippax, Captain suddenly went dead lame and hobbled so sorely that I was forced to dismount and lead him by the bridle. Poor beast, he had gone through some sorely trying work since leaving home, and in addition to it had received a slight wound in his left shoulder from a pike-thrust aimed at him by one of the Roundhead foot. It was a most unfortunate matter, however, that he should fail me at this juncture, for I was then but five miles from Pontefract and eight from home, and should have been at Dale’s Field in two hours if all had gone well.
There was nothing for it but
