Great Britain -- History -- Civil War, 1642-1649 -- Fiction
The moon had risen before they reached it, and Dorothy was therefore
glad, when she dismounted at the gate, to think she need ride no
further. But while Tom went in to rouse his mother, she let Dick have a
few bites of the grass before taking him into the kitchen--lest the
roundheads should find him. The next moment, however, out came Tom in
terror, saying there was a man in his mother's closet, and he feared the
roundheads were in possession.
'Then take care of thyself, Tom,' said Dorothy; and mounting instantly,
she made Dick scramble up into the fields that lay between the cottage
and her own house, and set off at full speed across the grass in the
moonlight--an ethereal pleasure which not even an anxious secret could
blast.
Through a gap in the hedge she had just popped into the second field,
when she heard the click of a flint-lock, and a voice she thought she
knew ordering her to stand: within a few yards of her was again a
roundhead soldier. If she rode away, he would fire at her; that mode of
escape therefore she would keep for a last chance. The moon by this time
was throwing an unclouded light from more than half a disc upon the
field.
Keeping a sharp eye upon the man's movements, she allowed him to come
within a pace or two, but the moment he would have taken Dick by the
bridle she was three or four yards away.
'Fright not my horse, friend,' she said.--'But how!' she added, suddenly
remembering him, 'is it possible? Master Upstill! Gently, gently, little
Dick! Master Upstill is an old friend. What! hast thou too turned
soldier? Left thy last and lapstone and turned soldier, master Upstill?'
'I have left all and followed him, mistress,' answered Cast-down.
'Art sure he called thee, master Upstill?'
'I heard him with my own ears.'
'Called thee to be a shedder of blood, master Upstill?'
'Called me to be a fisher of men, and thee I catch, mistress--thus,'
returned the man, stepping quickly forward and making another grasp at
Dick's bridle.
It was all Dorothy could do to keep herself from giving him a smart blow
across the face with her whip, and riding off. But she gave Dick the cut
instead, and sent him yards away.
'Poor Dick! poor Dick!' she said, patting his neck; 'be quiet; master
Upstill will do thee no wrong. Be quiet, little man.'
As she thus talked to her genet, Upstill again drew near, now more surly
than at first.
'Say what manner of woman art thou?' he demanded with pompous anger.
'Whence comes thou, and whither does thee go?'
'Home,' answered Dorothy.
'What place calls thee home?'
'Why! dost not know me, master Upstill? When I was a little one, thou
didst make my shoes for me.'
'I trust it will be forgiven me, mistress. Truly I had ne'er made shoe
for thee an' I had foreseen what thee would come to! For I make no
farther doubt thou art a consorter with malignants, harlots, and
papists.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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