Part 4 (1/2)
”You are forgetting the letter, Sir Crispin,” he ventured, and he held out his hand to receive it
Galliard saw the gesture, and for a moment it crossed his mind in self-reproach that the part he chose to play was that of a bully A second he hesitated Should he surrender the letter unread, and fight on without the aid of the inforht of Ashburn and of his own deep wrongs that cried out for vengeance, overcarew yet more frozen as he made answer:
”There has been toowith it First I will satisfy myself that I have been no unconscious abettor of treason You shall have your letter tomorrow, Master Stewart”
”Treason!” echoed Kenneth And before that cold rebuff of Crispin's his ed from conciliatory to resentful--resentful towards the fates that made him this man's debtor
”I assure you, on s, ”that this is but a letter from the lady I hope to make my wife assuredly, sir, you will not now insist upon reading it”
”assuredly I shall”
”But, sir--”
”Master Stewart, I am resolved, and were you to talk from now till dooht to you”
”Sir Crispin,” cried the boy, his voice quavering with passion, ”while I live you shall not read that letter!”
”Hoity-toity, sir! What words! What heroics! And yet you would have me believe this paper innocent?”
”As innocent as the hand that penned it, and if I so oppose your reading it, it is because thus much I owe her Believekey, ”when again I swear that it is no ht that you had understood all this when you rescued ht that what you did was a noble and generous deed
Instead--” The lad paused
”Continue, sir,” Galliard requested coldly ”Instead?”
”There can be no instead, Sir Crispin You will not ive h he was, Crispin winced The breeding of earlier days--so sadly warped, alas!--cried out within hi to suspect treason in that woenerosity long dead took life again, resuscitated by that call of conscience He was conquered
”There, take your letter, boy, and plague rowled, as he held it out to Kenneth And without waiting for reply or acknowledgment, he turned on his heel, and entered the palace But he had yielded overlate to leave a good impression and, as Kenneth turned away, it ith a curse upon Galliard, for whom his detestation seemed to increase at every step
CHAPTER V AFTER WORCESTER FIELD
The morn of the third of September--that date so propitious to Cromwell, so disastrous to Charles--found Crispin the centre of a coentlemen in battle-harness, asseave them ”The damnation of all crop-ears”
”Sirs,” quoth he, ”a fair beginning to a fair day God send the evening find us as ood fortune, however, to be in the earlier work of the day Until afternoon he was kept within the walls of Worcester, chafing to be where hard knocks were being dealt--with Montgoe, or with Pittscottie on Bunn's Hill But he was forced to hold his mood in curb, and wait until Charles and his advisers should elect to eneral attack
It caomery was routed, and Pittscottie in full retreat, whilst Dalzell had surrendered, and Keith was taken Then was it that the main body of the Royal army formed up at the Sidbury Gate, and Crispin found hi in person In the brilliant charge that followed there was no ement to the ave back before the Royalists, who in that fierce, irresistible charge, swept all before them until they had reached the battery on Perry Wood, and driven the Roundheads froloriousin the balance; the turn of the tide it see the first to reach the guns, and with a great shout of ”Hurrah for Cavaliers!” he had cut doo gunners that yet lingered
His cry lacked not an echo, and a deafening cheer broke upon the clamorous air as the Royalists found themselves masters of the position