CHAPTER VI

DICK AND GILES DRAW LOTS

Giles bound up the Puritan's wounds first, and gave him some wine, laying him on a settle by the kitchen fire. He revived a little, but Giles saw very soon that he was dying. Dick had conceived the idea that Giles would torture the trooper to gain information. Master Purvis had told him how they treated Guy Fawkes, and what a part the boot and the thumb-screw had played in similar cases. But Giles, on being questioned, said his taste did not run to displays of that kind, and Dick felt relieved, he scarcely knew why.

Giles was wounded in the leg, but only slightly, the ball having passed through the flesh without injuring the bone. He bound it up, and then they drank to the King. The Puritan's face twisted in a grim smile.

"I'm dying," he said slowly. "To-day me, to-morrow thee."

"Scarcely so soon, I trust," Giles said, fixing a keen eye on the speaker.

"Within the week," the man said.

Giles gave him more wine.

"We are courageous," he said, smiling, "for your people can't get into Dent. In a day, or two days, there will come our own fellows. Up will be crumpled your psalm-singing friends yonder. Within a week we shall have the King here at Dent."

The Puritan, strengthened by the wine, tried to lift himself to his feet, but fell back again. He had only power to shake his fist at Giles.

"Your King," he said, "is six miles off, at Lumley. Can he hear when you call him? He'll hear the guns that shall shatter these doomed walls, I tell you."

He stopped. Again Giles gave him wine, but he refused it.

"Your people have no guns to shatter our walls with," Giles said sternly, bending over him, and, it seemed to Dick, anxiously waiting for something the trooper might add.

"Within a week," said the man almost inaudibly. "To-day me, to-morrow thee."

Giles paused a moment, and then asked Dick to go up on the leads and see what the enemy were doing.

"Don't come back. I'll be with you in a few moments," he said.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he came up to him, and told him that the Puritan soldier was dead.

"We must bury him in the court, Dick, where there are no flags, and the grass grows."

So they went down and dug him a grave. Giles bore out the Puritan wrapped in a cloak, laid him in the ground, and they shovelled in the earth over him silently. Then Giles asked for a prayer-book, which Dick, wondering, found him; and Giles, standing at the foot of the new grave, bareheaded, in his fluttering rags, read the prayers from the burial service.

"Perhaps he would have preferred one of his own people to do it, but I've done my best, Dick," said he at the end; "and I dare say he did his."

When they were sitting on the leads in the late evening-light, Dick observed that Giles was silent, preoccupied, absent, not at all himself.

"Giles," he said, and his companion started.

"I'm thinking, Dickie," he said. "Will you favour me with your views on the state of the case at this juncture?"

Giles turned over and lay full-length on the leads, his chin in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the boy.

Dick did not reply to the question, not quite understanding it, but he said: "Methinks, Giles, that we took a great deal of trouble this morning for naught."

"'Naught' being our friend under the earth there," Giles suggested, waving his hand towards the court.

"He was no good to us," Dick said.

"Was he not?" Giles said, smiling. "Within a week, he said, we should be dead. He called our walls doomed. He prophesied that His Majesty would hear the guns that shattered Dent. He was good enough to inform us, if you will bend your mind to consider his words, Captain,--he was good enough to inform us that his people had sent for artillery; and he was good enough to add, also, that His Majesty was six miles off, at Lumley. Why, Dick, if we'd learnt all that from a letter, how grateful we'd have been to the man who brought it to us. Prithee, don't scorn it because I acted as bearer."

Dick looked at Giles solemnly. "What a wonderful man you are, Giles!" he said simply.

"Thanks," said Giles, bowing his head. "The thing is, how shall we act in the matter? We want to know if Dent is worth holding--if His Majesty wants it. How shall we learn?"

Dick shook his head blankly. "We cannot," he said.

"Oh, tush, my dear fellow!" said Giles scornfully. "Let us think."

And he thought, with his eyes fixed on the moon rising over Dick's head. Dick thought too, and was the first to come to a solution of the riddle.

"Giles, you were writing a letter to the King--once--in the gate-house--you remember. Someone must carry it to the King quickly."

"First fix on the someone," advised Giles.

"There's only me and you," Dick said breathlessly.

"We'll draw lots," Giles said; "for the reasons for each of us to go and stay are just equal. You are the Captain of Dent, and should stay by the castle. You are the least observable of us, and therefore should go. I might do it swifter, so should go; but there are other reasons why I should stay."

He did not state the reasons, the chief of which was that, if help did not come before the Puritan artillery, the one remaining in Dent would be taken and shot. Dick's youth might have been his safeguard; but still, Giles would rather he were safe out of the way.

A little tuft of grass was growing in a cranny of the stone coping, and Giles plucked two blades.

"These two blades are us, Dick," he said; "the little one's you, and the big one's me."

He turned and placed them between his finger and thumb, concealing the ends.

"Now, draw," he said, holding his hand out to Dick.

Dick suddenly felt a wild thrill of excitement, and a tightening of the throat as if he would choke. On the one side he saw himself alone in the great world without the walls, seeking his sovereign, every tree and hedge hiding an enemy. On the other, he saw himself alone in the great empty castle of Dent, fearing at every sunrise the sight of advancing artillery, and dreading to hear the thunder of guns in the darkness of every night.

"Draw, draw," said Giles, smiling down at him. "Now!"

Dick drew one of the narrow green blades, biting his lip hard as he did so.

Giles opened his hand and looked at the one he still held. "The long one stays," he said. "Dick, it is you."

They had risen for this solemn business, but now they sat down side by side. Giles was relieved, and Dick felt, now that the choice was made for him, that he would have been disappointed had it turned out otherwise.

"No time to lose," said Giles cheerily.

And Dick said excitedly: "Tell me what I shall do. Shall I go to-night? Giles, they'll see us let down the bridge. If they take me, what must I do with the letter?"

"We'll have no letter, Dick," said Giles, stemming the questions. "'Tisn't safe; 'tisn't needed. Now, hearken!"

Giles explained what the messenger must do. He must go out that night, but not till late, for the moon shone on the wrong side for them yet. When the back of Dent was in shadow, Dick must climb out by the little window in the buttery--Giles would take out the bars. Dick must then swim the moat, as Giles knew he was quite equal to doing in moments of excitement. (Dick laughed guiltily at that.) He must then put on a dry suit, for fear the damp and the night air together crippled him with an ague before he reached Lumley. Before he swam across the moat he was to hurl a bundle of clothes to the other side ready.

"Do you know the way to Lumley?" Giles asked.

"By the fields," said Dick. "Once I went thither with Master Purvis to a coursing-match."

"How long will it take you to get there?"

"About two hours. 'Tis a shorter way by the fields, but the first bit's uphill."

"Well, avoid roads and people. If a Puritan accosts you, you're a poor boy driven from home by the enemy. So you are. Your father's killed, and your mother's dead; you have no brothers. You haven't, have you?"

"No," said Dick. "I'd a step-brother, but he died years ago in France."

"Oh, well, you needn't drag him into a talk with a Puritan! If you meet any of our people you're Richard Chester of Dent, with news for His Majesty or any general commanding at Lumley. And, mind this, Dick, don't tell anything else to anyone till you've seen the chief. Don't be led into the tale of our siege, because no one will believe you. Be sure of that."

"Will the King or the general believe me?" Dick asked.

"The Puritan said the King was at Lumley," said Giles. Then, as if suddenly struck with some brilliant idea: "My master will be at Lumley if the King's there!" Giles seemed to be hunting for something hidden in his tatters, and presently produced the half of a golden coin, with a hole in it, attached to a silken cord. "See; if you think they are not believing your story, hold up this boldly, and say: 'Does anyone here know this?' The one who has the other half is my master, and if he believes you all will go well."

"Couldn't I ask for him first, Giles?" said Dick. "What is his name?"

"No," said Giles. "If you're stopped by a sentry, say your name, and ask for the general or His Majesty. If you can get on alone, do, and reap the glory, Captain. But if our friends doubt the tale, as they may--boys and stablemen not holding castles alone as a common thing, and Captain Dent having, no doubt, told them something very far from the truth,--up with your token, and see what it brings you."

Dick promised to obey these directions. It was further arranged that he should wear an old suit of homespun, and a hat without a plume, and a collar without lace, and strong shoes without buckles. As they put these clothes together in a bundle, Dick said:

"Giles, I've been thinking. There are clothes in the house--some of my father's,--could you not put some on? The winds get cold, Giles dear. You'll be chilled."

Giles smiled with more kindness than usual, as he thanked the boy gently. "But I have decided," he said, "to go through with this adventure as I am." He surveyed his figure in a mirror. "Upon my soul, Dick, the flutter of my clothes when a draught fans them is decidedly quaint. It's like living with congenial companions; they sympathize with every mood, my dear. If I sigh, they sigh with me; if I laugh, the merry wags shake all over like aspens; if I am in a hurry, they spread out like wings to assist me. Never was man more at one with his garments, or his clothes more a part of himself."

"But, Giles, if your master comes with me, what will he think of you?"

Giles laughed softly. "Faith, Dick, it will greatly amuse him. And after, why it will make a rare jest for--for the other servants of my master."

When the moon was silvering the old gray gate-house and the flags of the courtyard of Dent, Dick was standing in the dark, with nothing on, on the brink of the moat at the back. He flung his bundle over, and heard it fall with a thud on the far bank. Then he ran back, shivering, and embraced Giles through the buttery window. There was nothing more to say of advice or caution. Giles had only to kiss him and wish him God-speed. "Drop a pebble in the moat when you're ready to start, Dick," he whispered.

The next minute Dick plunged in and disappeared in the darkness. On the farther side he dried himself down, according to Giles's direction, with a towel from the bundle, which he afterwards hid under a boulder, lest the Puritans should discover it and guess one of their birds had flown out of Dent. Then he dressed, dropped a pebble in the moat, and then, with a beating heart, very cold and very courageous, set off to find the field-path to Lumley.