Clash of Arms. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ or, to while away the dreary hours of that poor invalid, would tell him of courts and camps and strange doings in other lands. So jealous, indeed, did the old woman grow--or think she had grown--that she would forbid Andrew the sick room except at stated hours, and, pretending that it was not good for him to pass his days there, bid him go off and ride upon the downs, or attend the hawking parties of a neighbouring squire, or take a rod and catch a dish of trout in the stream.

      And Andrew would obey the old nurse, who had brought him and his brother up from boyhood and domineered over them, as meekly as though he had never roared orders to squadrons and troops in the face of hordes of Turks and Imperialists, or taken the word of command from Condé and Turenne; and would wander idly forth until the hours came round when he might go and sit by Philip's side.

      Yet he found those hours pass slowly and leaden-footedly along, being unable to take much pleasure from the simple country amusements he was surrounded by. His horse was his chief companion, and, since he saw always to its food and litter and its careful grooming, found him some occupation, while he had made friends with two old half-bred watchdogs who roamed about the place, and, at last, attached themselves so to him that they ever attended at his heels when he went on foot.

      One day, too, he nearly frightened the sexton of the village church to death by suddenly bursting through the half-open door and tramping down the aisle to a large yawning pew beneath the pulpit, and entering therein.

      "Good sir," the old man quavered, looking almost in fear and trembling at the swarthy cavalier before him, "this is the pew of the Vause family from the Grange hard by; none enter it----"

      "Ay, 'tis, James," the intruder answered the astonished old man. "Wherefore I am here." Then he thrust his hands through his thick matted hair and put it aside from his brow, and went on: "Because I, too, am a Vause. Hast forgotten me, James?"

      "Lord sakes!" the old man piped through his toothless gums, while he regarded the brown face and noticed the scar that ran adown his cheek, "'tis Master Andrew. And so it is. I mind me I did hear that you were back from foreign lands." Then, because some cheery, pleasant memory rose to his mind, his wrinkled old face broke into a smile, and he put out a gnarled hand and placed it on the buckskin sleeve of the adventurer, and said, "You take me back a twenty year and more, Master Andrew, and I recall how, when I looked not, or was a-digging of some grave, you pelted me with mine own windfalls. And how brave you look, and great and strong. Hast none of thy great strength to spare for Master Philip?"

      "I would I had," said Andrew, "in very truth I do. He is sore pressed." Then he took the old hand in his own and shook it--leaving in it a shining new silver crown--and said:

      "Leave me here awhile, James. It comes not oft that I can sit beneath my mother's monument--may never come again. Leave me awhile."

      The windows of the church were open this bright May day, and through them he heard the dronings of the bees, the bleat of growing lambs and all the sweet country sounds, as he gazed above upon the quaint monument which his brother had had put up to their parents, Philip and Alice Vause. And back to his memory there came again his boyish days, his own turbulent youth and the gentle boyhood of his brother, and how the latter had ever interceded 'twixt him and their father--a stern, disappointed cavalier--saving him many a welting from the paternal cane. And again he thought of the mother he had loved so dear, recalled how she, too, had protected him from many a chastisement, and, as he did so, bent his head forward to the pew rail and said some kind of prayer. Perhaps he prayed for Philip's life to be spared, perhaps----

      Yet the days passed very slowly with him; he grew sick and weary of the trout stream and old Squire Giles's hawkings, and the village greens to which he would wander and take a part in quarter-staff with the yokels, or, stripping off his jacket, would, with their simple foils, show them some passes which set them gaping wide with wonder and musing on where Master Andrew had learnt such tricks of fence.

      Sick and weary, yet he knew he must not go away. Not yet, at least. Philip grew weaker day by day; the warm end of May and the coming of the leafy June brought no access of strength, but rather greater lassitude. And Andrew, though used to seeing sudden death only--death dealt out by shot and fire and ball, death swift and instantaneous--knew that, when the great summer heats had come, Philip would be no more. The village chirurgeon had told him this, had said that the end drew very near; the lungs were growing weaker day by day, the heart-beats becoming more feeble. Yet he needed no telling--he could see for himself.

      But still he did not know who it was who had treated his loved brother so cruelly--and the time was slipping by! Then, at last, on this night, when he said, "tell me all, Philip. I must know what has brought you to this pass," the other seemed disposed to begin his story; perhaps because he, too, knew the hour was near at hand when there would be no more opportunity for the telling thereof. It was so warm that the lattice was open, and Philip, lying on the couch, was opposite to his brother sitting by the open window and inhaling the perfume of the swift-flowering woodbine, and watching the laburnum branches as the soft south wind beat them gently against the casement.

      Then suddenly, as though nerved all at once to confide in him he loved, the sick man began:

      "I was in London when I met her first: attending the Court, seeking to get from the restored King some recognition of our father's services to his father and his cause. Enough of that--you understand the reward of the Cavalier and the Cavalier's children! A well-bred bow, acquired in courts and cities such as you have seen and know, a winning smile, a gracious greeting, and a blessing--from his lips! a promise--never fulfilled."

      "Put not your trust in princes," muttered Andrew, who had not forgotten the regularity with which his mother had taken him to the village church in days gone by.

      "Ay; in him least of all. But you know him, you saw him a while ago; perhaps he gave you a promise too--if so, believe it not. Unless it be for his own purpose it will not be fulfilled."

      Andrew shrugged his shoulders, and the other went on.

      "She was there, fresh come from Dorsetshire, attached to the Duchess of York. Andrew," and he raised himself a little on his elbow as he spoke, "even now, sometimes, by day and night, as I think of it, it seems impossible she could have been so false to me. For, that falsehood should lurk behind her pure innocent eyes, be hidden under her gentle manner, appears incredible. Yet--yet--she was as false as hell."

      Andrew shifted his seat a little, crossed the other leg, and said, "Go on."

      "Not much to tell. I loved her; she said that she loved me. So--we were engaged to be married. She came here on a visit--she and a friend of hers--and I was very frank with her; told her this must be her home, that our life would be easy, but not luxurious, and she answered, 'It was enough. She cared nothing for Courts, and was only in the suite of the Duchess at her father's desire.'" He paused a moment, then he repeated, "We were engaged to be married."

      "Humph!" said Andrew.

      "Engaged to be married--the day was fixed. Then--then--oh! Andrew, I never heard from her nor saw her again."

      "What had befallen?" asked his brother, gazing, as it seemed, almost listlessly out at the laburnum branches swaying against the diamond panes. "What?"

      "Treachery of the deepest, blackest kind. I could have borne very well that she should not love me, but that she should treat me thus--flout and despise me, leave me without a word of regret--that I cannot bear. It has broken my heart."

      "Did it do that?" and Andrew's voice was low--thick--as he asked the question.

      "Ay, it did. I learnt afterwards from the friend who came with her СКАЧАТЬ