CHAPTER III

THE ENEMY AT DENT

The cloud of dust rolled nearer. Presently a dark mass could be seen on the level road. Then, before Dick's wondering eyes, a body of cavalry unrolled itself over the plain in the mellow light of the September evening. He caught the heavy tramp, tramp of the horses, the jingle of bridle-chains, the ring of steel on steel. Nearer they came and nearer, blue-gray lines of armed men, with the flutter of an orange scarf here and there, with here a tossing crest and there a white charger to relieve the sombre hues of the Puritan horse. Giles swept his gray eyes over the moving lines.

"Grand!" he muttered. "My faith! what won't drilling do?"

Dick moved restlessly at his side.

"Giles, Giles, what next?" he cried, as the word of command rang out crisply, and the long lines of horsemen swayed and stopped as if turned to stone. Then three or four officers rode to the front and paused, looking at the old walls of Dent, and pointing to the flag that flapped idly over Dick's young head.

"Their worships are puzzled," said Giles, watching keenly, but appearing quite calm. "You see, they thought they were coming to their own house, so to speak."

Dick laughed a little excited laugh.

"They thought wrong," he bubbled.

Giles looked round at him with his friendly eyes.

"They will come and ask our meaning in a moment, Captain," he said.

"They shall hear," said Dick.

Sure enough, an officer with a white flag came galloping towards the castle.

"Come along," said Giles. "I mean, your honour had better speak from the gate-house."

They crossed the courtyard, and went up the spiral staircase that led to the gate-house. The messenger with the white flag had just arrived opposite, and was reining in his horse. Giles lifted his old hat with a bow, and Dick, being nervous, copied the action.

"In whose hands is this castle?" asked the Puritan.

"In mine," Dick shouted back, feeling his own voice very weak and small after the thundering bass of the soldier.

"You!" said the latter, shielding his eyes from the sun with a gauntleted hand. "What are you, prithee?"

"Sir Richard Chester," said Dick proudly.

He looked a gallant little figure as he stood up, straight as a ramrod, his dark curls blown out like a streamer behind him, and his hand on the hilt of his dagger. As Captain of Dent he had thought it expedient to don his best suit of black velvet, with the lace collar and cuffs, when he had thrown off his wet clothes before dinner. His shoes had steel buckles, and his hat a black plume. He was in mourning for his father, and the only colour about him was the red-leather sheath of his dagger.

The Puritan looked up at him grimly.

"Who is in command here?" he asked.

"I am."

The Puritan laughed.

"Come you down, my manikin," he jeered, "and open the door."

Dick flushed with anger, and was about to fling a retort at the officer, when Giles spoke to him.

"It's about time, your honour, that His Majesty's name came into the conversation. Suppose you say this place is held for him?"

"Dent is held for the King," Dick shouted, and Giles lifted his hat again.

"What is that?" asked the Puritan, pointing to the tattered figure at Dick's elbow. "A scarer of crows?"

"And of bigger things than crows," Giles said smiling.

Dick could not help noticing that though Giles did not seem to lift his voice, it rang out in the stillness, every word clear and vibrating. By the Puritan's his own voice had seemed a mere shrill squeal, but by Giles's the Puritan's was a roar, hoarse and unmusical.

"Well, you'll have to come out of that," he said. "The general will come up and talk to you in person."

"A thousand thanks," Giles said, and it seemed to Dick, who was struggling in a chaos of half-formed threats, that the stableman dropped the words over the battlements right into the Puritan's face, for he started and looked up sharply. Then he shook his head and galloped off.

"If we'd a musket I'd put a bullet in him as he rides off," said Dick savagely.

Giles turned on him with such a blaze of anger in his eyes that Dick fell back a step or two.

"Fire on a flag of truce! Fire at a man's back!" Giles said. "Upon my soul, Richard Chester, you want shooting yourself!" He laid a heavy hand on Dick's collar, and lifted the other. "You hold a castle for His Majesty! You little dastardly puppy!"

He swung Dick round, shook him till his teeth chattered, and let him drop. Dick was choking with anger. He struck at Giles blindly and silently. Giles moved away.

"A pretty sight for our friend the enemy," he said quietly; "the captain cuffing the scarecrow, and the scarecrow shaking the captain. Get up sir! Here comes their general to reason with you."

But Dick, white with passion, struggled to his feet only to rush down the stairs, saying:

"You can answer him yourself, you beast! you beast! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never come near you again."

The door crashed behind him, and Giles, in his rags, with a clouded face, was left to speak to the enemy alone.

"Now, my man," began the general in a blustering tone, "this is some little jest, I perceive. Believe me, 'tis ill fooling with me unless you are prepared for consequences."

"'Who sups with the devil should have a long spoon'," said Giles. "I'm prepared. See the walls. We are here. If you want to punish us, you must get at us. To get at us you must scale our walls. If you try that we shall shoot you. Pray, begin."

"I was told," said the Puritan imperturbably, and sawing the air with his forefinger, "that this house would be delivered up to me to-night by one Giles, a stableman in rags. You're in rags. Don't deny it, sirrah! I can see them from here."

One of the officers laughed behind his gauntlet, for the wind flapped Giles's garments mockingly.

"John Dent told you that in the Checkers Inn at Lumley. I heard him," said Giles.

"Don't stand prating there, fool! Come down and let us in," shouted a choleric little man riding beside the general.

"My orders are to keep you out," said Giles.

"Whose orders?" shrilled the little man.

"Whose orders?" echoed the general.

"Richard Chester's, the Captain of Dent."

Dick, crouching behind the door below, heard and wondered. Giles might have left him out of it all when he had made him so furious, and struck at him so hard.

Arguments, and explanations, and suggestions passed below amongst the officers. Commands to surrender, mixed with threats of hanging, ultimately, were wafted on the evening breeze to Giles. He replied with a gentle shake of the head, as if too tired to make speeches, until the general came to the end of a perfect storm of abuse and maledictions and insults. Then Dick heard Giles make answer.

"Your manners are not nice, sir, and your words are not pleasant. You are angry; to be sure you are. But, consider, anger in such hot weather, in a man with your neckband, may lead to an apoplexy. Let me recommend a cold supper, with light potations. Good-night."

Dick fled down the stairs, because he was laughing, and felt that Giles ought not to see that. He avoided his lieutenant in gloomy silence. He saw him go down to prepare supper, and he lurked in the hall in the gathering twilight. Giles went to the yard-door and looked out; he came to the hall-door and looked in.

"Supper's ready, your honour," he said drily.

Dick took no notice. Half an hour passed, and he sat in the dark, holding out dismally against the hunger that begged him to eat.

Giles ran up the turret-stairs whistling a tune. Then Dick slowly moved to the kitchen, saw bread and cold meat on the table, and flung himself upon it. Crossing the hall in the dark, wondering whether to go to bed or not, he hesitated, listening. Overhead he heard the steady tramp of his lieutenant's feet on the leads.

"He watches"--Dick thought,--"I won't go near him," and went to his room. He lay down to sleep in his clothes, but woke very soon and sat up. He must get up and see what the enemy were doing. In his stocking-feet he ran to the foot of the turret-stairs and listened. All was still overhead.

"He's asleep," Dick thought, and crept up the steps softly. The door at the top was open, and close to it, on the leads, with his head on his arm, lay Giles. As Dick's head appeared in the opening, Giles turned over and fixed him with his eyes.

"I--I--" Dick stammered clumsily.

Giles rose to his feet and saluted.

"Your honour wishes to look out?" he said, and moved aside.

Dick brushed past him and looked over the battlements. He could see watch-fires blazing in the fields, and, in the half-lights, descried white tents--shadowy, vague, like phantom tents. In the night silence he could hear the sentries pacing up and down, up and down. A horse stamped, restless at its feed. A distant voice started a dreary psalm-tune, and other voices answered out of the shadows. Dick gazed and gazed, and behind him Giles stood, at ease but very silent; and Dick knew that he was looking at him, looking through him, with the gray eyes he had all but once found so friendly and so gay. At last Dick turned from the battlements, and, after several false attempts, succeeded in passing the tall figure of his officer with his head reasonably high. Giles saluted, and Dick passed, with the knowledge that Giles, in his fluttering rags, was immeasurably his superior, that he had fallen in the estimation of his stableman, and was regarded with serene contempt by a beggar off the king's highway. When he woke in the morning he was first thrilled with excitement at the call of a bugle outside, and then recalled the uncomfortable incident of yesterday, which had dashed the glory of Richard Chester, Baronet and Captain of Dent.

"Never again," he said aloud, before rising, "never again will I even think of hitting a man in the back."

"And, therefore," said a voice in the doorway behind him, "you will never say it any more than, I think, you would ever have done it."

Dick sprang off the bed, and Giles--Giles with the old gray eyes--saluted with respect from the doorway.

"I dare say I ought to have been shaken," Dick began simply, thinking aloud in a moment of excitement, "but--

"But," Giles cut in, "you scarcely think I--Ragged Robin--am the man who should have done it. My dear sir, consider"--Giles set down a pail of water he was bringing for Dick to wash in, and spoke earnestly.--"That kind of thing said amongst men--such men as your father and my master,--what would it bring you? Contempt and dislike. Believe me, those two things don't make pleasant living. But, observe now, you spoke without thinking, and because you knew no better. Has anyone taught you what a man's honour is?"

"No, Giles," said Dick slowly, "but I think I know--a little."

"Very good," said Giles. "You are here, and you have taken the King's honour to keep as well as your own. His Majesty has no use for persons who hit in the back. You understand? It's just one of the things we don't do--that such men as my master don't do."

"There are others?" Dick questioned.

"Many others. But you've learnt one; and be thankful you've learnt it with me, and not amongst strangers." And then he added gravely: "I was very violent; I was very much aggrieved at you. I must ask your honour to pardon my assault."

Dick looked at the floor.

"Of course," said Giles, "striking my superior officer in the face of the enemy proves me mutineer and insubordinate."

Still Dick regarded the floor.

"And, moreover," said Giles, "your honour is perfectly free to think, and say, and indeed act, now and always, as you please. What concern can it be of Giles the stableman?"

Dick had nothing to add.

"If you disgraced yourself before others, ought it to matter to Giles, or ought he to care?"

Dick's face puckered curiously. Giles backed hurriedly to the door.

"And thirdly and lastly, your honour's breakfast is waiting."

Dick plunged after him and caught him by the ends of his fluttering rags.

"Giles--I say--Giles--I am sorry I struck you," he cried huskily.

And Giles turned with a laugh.

"You're a gentleman, Dick!"

The day passed chiefly in sitting on the leads talking. Dick's eyes scarcely left the spread-out wonder of the little cavalry camp below. Questions simply flowed from his lips, to every one of which Giles seemed to know the answer. He knew what everything meant--bugle-calls, horse-exercising, the mysteries of drill, the saddling-up, the watering, and the thousand-and-one orderly, fascinating, jingling details of a soldier's day in camp. He told, too, stories of other camps that he had seen, of brilliant leaders, like Prince Rupert, who "never comes but to conquer or to fall". He led the boy through the mazes of engagements by day and by night. He made him enjoy sieges, both inside the walls and out. He told him of deeds of valour that set his blood dancing, and deeds of shame that made him pause and think. In moonlight escapes and midnight massacres, in the silence of prisons and the noises of battlefields, in perils by land and perils by water Giles the stable-helper had had his part under the masters he had served. Dick listened to tales of strange lands and distant cities, of foreign ways and clothes and customs. Giles was indeed a perfect storehouse of romance and adventure. And his heroes were all brave and gallant, modest and of a becoming reverence. He had no condemnation deep enough for the man who was false to his God, his King, or his friends. Dick was enthralled, enraptured. To be like these men whom Giles had served and known, to think such thoughts as theirs, to say such words as theirs, to live such a life as theirs, and die such a death--this idea filled his soul.

"Giles," he said, "I will be a hero, the friend of kings, faithful to death."

"God knows," said Giles; "we are in His hand. To-morrow a bullet may kill you, covered with glory; or a week hence you may die in a ditch, out of sight, never missed. You may be called to rot all your years in a dungeon, or die disgraced on a gallows, for that. You cannot tell."

"Why, then," said little Dick, "what is the value of striving and trying?"

"Because," said Giles, "that is what we were born for."

"But these masters you served?" Dick cried.

"Their duty led them to glory," said Giles. "Had it led to shame, they'd have followed. My dear fellow, it's the duty that counts."