“No, sir?” I said, not understanding him.
“I have stayed too long,” he said, “too long already. And I do not think that when I have gone I shall ever forget one that I shall leave behind.”
Then my heart gave a great bound, for I knew what he meant, and for an instant something like fear came into it.
“Nay,” said he, perhaps seeing the apprehension in my face, “nay, Master Dale, there is naught that need disturb you. She is yours, and she hath never had the slightest cause to suspect how it is with me. But who, indeed, could see her and not love her? Let that be my excuse.”
Now, I knew not what to say, being inwardly much troubled that so honourable and gallant a gentleman should have given his love where no love could be given back to him. And as I could find no words, being always very tongue-tied when I most wanted to speak, I held out my hand to him so that the grip of my fingers might tell him what I felt.
“And now,” said he, after we had clasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes for a moment, “and now, Master Dale, if you will have my horse saddled, I will ride away. I was loath to be stopped by you, but I am more loath to go.”
And, indeed, he had hard work to get away from us, for my mother at first would not hear of his going, and the girls were very much cast down about it, having found him such good company. But he was firm in his resolution, and at last he had said farewell to each of us and to Jacob Trusty, and was mounted on his horse and at the gate. As for my mother, she had become so attached to him that she shed tears at his going, and the maidens were not far from sharing in her grief.
“Let us go down to the gate to see him off,” said I to Rose, and she went with me. “Give him a flower to put in his coat, Rose. He will remember us by it until it fades at least.”
But I knew that he would keep forever what came from her hands. She plucked a white rose from a bush that stood near and gave it to him, as he leaned from his horse to bid us farewell once more. He lifted it to his lips, like the gallant cavalier he was, and placed it above his heart. And then with one last word to us he rode away, and we stood watching him until he disappeared in the distance.
XXX
Of the First Siege of Pontefract Castle
Ben Tuckett, I think, was somewhat comforted when he heard that Captain Trevor had ridden away, but he had hardly recovered his peace of mind when a fresh matter came to trouble him. This time it was not his heart that was threatened, but his pocket, and though Ben was a true and honest lover, he had a trader’s liking for his broad pieces, and cared not to see his substance threatened, nor his trade likely to suffer injury.
It was Ben’s way to come to me with all his doubts and fears, and I felt sure that something had happened, or was about to happen, when I caught sight of him coming along the highway one morning about a week after Captain Trevor had left us. His head hung very low, and his face was so doleful that I wondered if there had been a fire in his shop, or if thieves had stolen his goods.
“Why, how now, Ben?” said I. “What fresh matter hath come to trouble thee? Thou lookest as if all the woes of the world were settling on thy shoulders.”
“Alas, Will!” said he, and sat him down on the low wall that shuts out our fold from the house. “Alas! I think there is naught but trouble in this world. One down, and t’other comes on before you have got your wind again. Alas! and I had just painted my shop—three pound did it cost, honest money, hardly earned. Yes, three pound did I pay to John Simpson for painting of it, and now I dare say shop and stock will be burnt up.”
“What, is there a fire in the town?”
“Nay,” said he, “but there will be fire–yea, and smoke and all.”
“It strikes me, Ben, that your wits are gone a-wool-gathering. What is all this talk of fire and smoke?”
“My wits are as sound as thine. What, man, have you not heard, then, that the Roundheads are going to besiege the Castle?”
“Yes, many a time during this last three years.”
“Ay, but the investment hath begun. Colonel Sands fell in with a foraging party from the Castle yesterday, and killed some, captured others, took all the cattle, and made forty horse prisoners.”
Now, this was news indeed, for though we had expected that Pontefract Castle would be besieged sooner or later, there had been such delay in the commencement of active operations that we had begun to think the enemy were never coming to decisive action in the matter. This Colonel Sands, indeed, had been sent by the Parliamentarians to invest Pontefract Castle soon after the great fight at Marston Moor, but his force was so small that he had done little more than keep an eye on the motions of the garrison.
“And now,” continued Ben, “they will be fighting and slaying night and day, and the soldiers will take what they please in the town without paying for it, and some of their bombs are sure to hit my shop, and perchance set it afire, and then where shall I be? Even if it is not set on fire, it will be dashed to pieces, which is just as bad.”
However, as things turned out, Ben’s
