St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3MacDonald, George
History
St. George and St. Michael, Volume 3
MacDonald, George
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 Castdown.
'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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