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Margery Of Lawhibbet
by
The same thought clearly was running in his head a week later, when he took leave of us once more by the ford.
“Come back to us, Mark!” Margery wept this time, with her arms about his neck.
“Ay, sweetheart, and with an estate in my pocket.”
“Ah, forget that old folly! Come back with body safe and honour bright, and God may take the rest.”
He slapped his pocket with a laugh as he shook up the reins.
Then followed five quiet anxious months. ‘Twas not until early in June that, by an express from Ashburton in Devon, we heard that our brother’s fortune was still rising, he having succeeded to the command of his company made vacant by the wounding of Captain Sir Harry Welcome. “And this is no mean achievement for a poor yeoman’s son,” he wrote, “in an army where promotion goes as a rule to them that have estates to pawn. But I hope in these days some few may serve his Majesty and yet prosper, and that my dear Margery may yet have her wish and be mistress in Lantine.” Margery read this letter and knit her brow thoughtfully. “It was like Mark to think of writing so,” said she; “but I have not thought of Lantine for this many a day.”
“And he might have left thinking of it,” said I, “until these troubles are over and the King’s peace established.”
“Tut,” she answered smiling, “he does not think of it but only to please me. ‘Tis his way to speak what comes to his tongue to give us pleasure.”
“For all that, he need not have misjudged us,” I grumbled; and then was sorry for the pain with which she looked at me.
“It is you, Jack, who misjudged!” She spoke it sharply. We still prayed together for our brother twice a day; but she knew–and either dared not or cared not to ask why–that since his first home-coming my love had cooled towards him. Very likely she believed me to be jealous.
The hay-harvest found and passed us in peace, and the wheat was near ripe, when, towards the close of July, rumours came to us of an army marching towards Cornwall under command of the Earl of Essex; by persuasion (it was said) of the Lord Robarts, whose seat of Lanhydrock lies on our bank of the river about three miles above Lostwithiel, facing the Lord Mohun’s house of Boconnoc across the valley. My Lord Mohun, after some wavering at first, had cast in his fortune with the King’s party, to which belonged well nigh all the gentry of our neighbourhood; and had done so in good time for his reputation. But the Lord Robarts was an obstinate clever man who chose the other side and stuck to it in despite of first misfortunes. We guessed therefore that if the Parliamentarians came by his invitation they would not neglect a district on which he staked so much for mastery; and sure enough, about July 25th, we heard that Essex had reached Bodmin with the mass of his forces, Sir Richard Grenvill having retired before him and moved hastily with the Queen’s troop to Truro. After this, Margery and I used to climb every morning to the earthwork and spy all the country round for signs of the hated troopers. Yet day passed after day with nought to be seen, and little to be heard but further rumours, of which the most constant said that the King himself was following Essex with an army, and had already seized and crossed the passes of the Tamar.
‘Twas on the 2nd of August that the bolt fell; when after mounting the slope at daybreak with nothing to warn us, we stepped through the dykes into the old camp. A heavy dew hung in beads on the brambles, and at the second dyke I had turned and was holding aside a brier to let Margery pass, when a short cry from her fetched me right-about and staring into the face of a tall soldier grinning at us over the bank. In the enclosure behind him (as we saw through a gap) were a number of men in mud-coloured jerkins, quietly mounting a couple of cannon.