In Spite of All: A Novel

There was no more skipping that day for Nan and Meg; frightened out of their senses, they made their way home, and were just crossing the stable-yard when their father caught sight of them.

“I have stabled that bay horse as Vicar said,” he remarked, “and do you two little maids keep a still tongue in your heads or we may get into trouble. Why, what’s amiss with you both?”

“Oh, father,” said Nan, sobbing, “our wounded Puritan is going to fight the officer from Canon Frome, who is in the orchard threatening Mistress Hilary.”

“I’ll teach un to mind his manners in my orchard!” said Farmer Chadd, hastily picking up a stout cudgel. “Threatening did you say? and the lady there with no better protection than a wounded soldier! Good Lord! but these evil living Cavaliers will be the ruin o’ the land! Run in to your mother, my maids, and say I’ll be back soon for dinner.”

Just as he reached the orchard by one entrance the Vicar and Zachary entered at the opposite side, and all three men gazed in horror at the sight before them. The Governor of Canon Frome was stretched out on the grass, bleeding and unconscious, and Gabriel Harford, to all appearance lifeless, lay with his head on Hilary’s lap.

The Vicar bent over him and felt his heart.

“He still lives! but how can he possibly have fought Colonel Norton when in such a plight?”

“It was to save me, sir,” said Hilary. “Oh! let us take him quickly to shelter before it is too late.”

“There’s life in this plaguey Governor o’ Canon Frome, sir,” said Farmer Chadd, “What be we to do with un?”

“If you and your wife could bind up his wound; the best way would be to take word to his men, and get them to bear him hence on a litter. Could you do that, Chadd, and say naught as to Captain Harford? He is the son of Dr. Bridstock Harford, of Hereford.”

“Then I’ll do anything in the world for un, for Dr. Harford saved my good woman’s life,” said Farmer Chadd. “You shelter the young gentleman, sir, and me and the missus will see to this here plaguey Colonel.”

With Zachary’s help the Vicar lifted Gabriel on to the bier which they had brought from the church, and carefully covering him with sacking they bore him down through the hopyards to Bosbury. Fortunately, it was the dinner-hour, and they did not encounter a single person, but were able to cress the churchyard and to carry their burden up the step-ladder to the first floor of the tower. Here they found Mrs. Durdle hard at work; she had already laid a mattress on the floor, and was bustling about with a broom in despair at the dust and the cobwebs which had accumulated.

“I do wish I had time to scrub the place down, sir,” she lamented. “It bean’t fit for a dog to lay in, let alone a Christian.”

“Never mind,” said the Vicar, “I’ll warrant ’tis cleaner than Oxford Castle, and the main thing is to hide him and save his life. Zachary, can you fix boards in three of the windows, or at night the villagers may see our light?”

Leaving the wounded man to the kindly offices of Mrs. Durdle and Hilary, both of them well skilled in sick-nursing, the Vicar hastened back to his house, returning before long with a box full of pre-historic bones under one arm and a flagon of Hollands under the other.

“If anyone chances to ask you why we come to and fro to this tower, Zachary,” he remarked, toiling up the ladder and setting down his burden, “you can tell them I am keeping my antiquities here, and can say you’ve seen them. What! hath Captain Harford not yet regained his senses? Try to get a little of this down his throat, Hilary. That’s better; he will soon revive, and I will then set off for Hereford.”