FullReads

‘By repute.’

‘But not Chester? . . . Chester was at one time his led-captain: but they have quarrelled since, and it looks as if–‘

He did not finish the sentence, but left me to guess what remained.

‘You mean,’ said I, ‘it looks as if Chester sold the pass? Well, if he did, I know nothing about it, or about him. This is the first I have heard of him. But speaking at a venture, I should say that either his neck’s in a halter or he has changed sides and is riding off with our troops.’

Sir Luke nodded, but said nothing; and after a while strode to the window. When he spoke again it was with his back turned to me.

‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘my fellows didn’t kill you out of hand.’

‘They were making a plaguy near bid for it,’ I answered; ‘but Lady Glynn interposed.’

‘And that’s the strange part of the business. All rebels, as a rule, are poison to her. . . . As for me, you understand, a man on campaign picks up a sort of feeling for the enemy. He gets to see that all the right’s not on one side, nor all the wrong on t’other. I dare say, now, that your experience is much the same?’ I did not answer this and after a pause he went on, still staring out of window, ‘I believed in the Lord’s Anointed, for my part: but allowing, for argument’s sake, the right’s on that side, there’s enough villainy and self-seeking mixed up with it to poison an honest man. . . . I shouldn’t wonder now that there’s something to be said even for Chester.’

‘That hardly seems possible,’ said I, wondering what his drift might be.

‘I don’t know. Wait till you’ve heard his side of the case. . . . But to go back to our subject–you see I don’t bear you any malice: I am out of this quarrel, and–saving my lady’s obstinacy–I don’t see–I really don’t see why I should billet myself with His Majesty’s prisoners. What’s more, I have an estate in the east of the county, a little this side of Plymouth. They quartered a troop of your fellows upon it last year, and the place, I hear, is a wilderness. . . . If I could get to it, or to Plymouth–well, one good turn deserves another, eh?–that is, if you’re fit to travel?’

I think that at this point he faced around and eyed me for the first time. But I made show that I had dropped asleep. I heard him swear under his breath, and half a minute later he left the room.

He had been offering me escape. But why? I turned his words over, and the more I turned them the less I liked them. He had given me a suspicious number of openings to prove that the right lay with my party. It seemed to me that, on half a hint, this man meant to desert. Yes, and his wife–I recalled her words–held him in some trap. And yet, recalling her face, I could not shake off the fancy that she, rather than he, stood in need of help.

Pondering all this, still with my eyes closed, I dropped asleep in good earnest.

I awoke from a sleep of many hours, to see old Pascoe standing at the bed’s foot. No doubt his entrance had disturbed me.

He carried my boots in one hand, a can of hot water in the other, my stockings and a clean shirt across his arm; and he announced that the hour was four o’clock, and at half-past four Sir Luke and his lady would be dining. If I felt myself sufficiently recovered, they desired the pleasure of my company.

I sat upright on the bed. My head yet swam, but sleep had refreshed me, and a pull at the wine–which had stood all this while untasted– set me on pretty good terms with myself. I bade the old man carry my compliments to his lady and tell her that I will thankfully do her pleasure. ‘But first,’ said I, ‘you must stand by and see me into a clean shirt.’