There was a pause when the Corporal had finished reading. John Stich was leaning upon his hammer, the young man once more busied himself with the bellows. Outside, the clearing shower of September rain began pattering upon the thatched roof of the forge.

"Well," said John Stich at last, as the Corporal put the heavy parchment away in his wallet. "Well, and are you going to tell us who are those persons, Corporal, whom our village lads are told to murder by Act of Parliament? How shall we know a rebel ... and shoot him ... when we see one?"

"There were forty persons down on the list a few weeks ago, persons who were known to be in hiding in Derbyshire," said the young soldier, "but..."

"Well, what's your 'but,' Corporal? There were forty persons whom 'twas lawful to murder a few weeks ago.... What of them?"

"They have been caught and hanged, most of them," replied the soldier, quietly.

"Jim, lad, mind that fire," commented John Stich, turning to his "nephew out o' Nottingham," for the latter was staring with glowing eyes and quivering lips at the Corporal, who, not noticing him, continued carelessly,-

"There was Lord Lovat now, you must have heard of him, John Stich, he was beheaded a few days ago, and so was Lord Kilmarnock ... they were lords, you see, and had a headsman all to themselves on Tower Hill, that's up in London: some lesser folk have been hanged, and now there are only three rebels at large, and there are twenty guineas waiting for anyone who will bring the head of one of them to the nearest magistrate."

The smith grunted. "Well, and who are they?" he asked roughly.

"Sir Andrew Macdonald up from Tweedside, then Squire Fairfield, you'd mind him, John Stich, over Staffordshire way."

"Aye, aye, I mind him well enough. His mother was a Papist and he clung to the Stuart cause ... young man, too, and hiding for his life....

Well, and who else?"

"The young Earl of Stretton."

"What! him from Stretton Hall?" said John Stich in open astonishment.

"Jim, lad," he added sternly, "thou art a clumsy fool."

The young man had started involuntarily at sound of the last name mentioned by the Corporal; and the bellows which he had tried to wield fell with a clatter on the floor.

"Be gy! but an Act of Parliament can make thee a lawful a.s.sa.s.sin, it seems," added honest John, with a laugh, "but let me perish if it can make thee a good smith. What think you, Master Corporal?"

"Odd's life! the lad is too soft-hearted mayhap! Our Derbyshire lads haven't much sense in their heads, have they?"

"Well, you mind the saying, Corporal, 'Derbyshire born and Derbyshire bred...' eh?"

"'Strong i' the arm and weak i' th' head,'" laughed the soldier, concluding the apt quotation. "That's just it. Odd's buds! they want some sense. What's a rebel or a traitor but vermin, eh? and don't we kill vermin all of us, and don't call it murder either-what?"

He laughed pleasantly and carelessly and tapped the side of his wallet where rested His Majesty's Proclamation. He was a young soldier, nothing more, attentive to duty, ready to obey, neither willing nor allowed to reason for himself. He had been taught that rebels and traitors were vermin ... egad! vermin they were, and as such must be got rid of for the sake of the rest of the kingdom and the safety of His Majesty the King.

John Stich made no comment on the Corporal's profession of faith.

"We'll talk about all that some other time, Corporal," he said at last, "but I am busy now, you see..."

"No offence, friend Stich.... Odd's life, duty you know, John, duty, eh? His Majesty's orders! and I had them from the Captain, who had them from the Duke of c.u.mberland himself. So you mind the Act, friend!"

"Aye! I mind it well enough."

"Everyone knows _you_ to be a loyal subject of King George," added the Corporal in conciliatory tones, for John was a power in the district, "and I'm sure your nephew is the same, but duty is duty, and no offence meant."

"That's right enough, Corporal," said John Stich, impatiently.

"So good-morrow to you, John Stich."

"Good-morrow."

The Corporal nodded to the young man, then turned on his heel and presently his voice was heard ringing out the word of command,-

"Attention!-Right turn-Quick march!"

John Stich and the young man watched the half-dozen red-coated figures as they turned to skirt the cottage: the dull thud of their feet quickly dying away, as they wound their way slowly up the muddy path which leads across the Heath to Aldwark village.

CHAPTER III

THE FUGITIVE

Inside the forge all was still, whilst the last of the m.u.f.fled sounds died away in the distance. John Stich had not resumed work. It was his turn now to stare moodily before him.

The young man had thrown the bellows aside, and was pacing the rough earthen floor of the forge like some caged animal.

"Tracked!" he murmured at last between clenched teeth, "tracked like some wild beast! perhaps shot anon like a dangerous cur behind a hedge!"

He sighed a long and bitter sigh, full of sorrow, anxiety, disappointment. It had come to this then! His name among the others-the traitors, the rebels! and he an innocent man!

"Nay, my lord!" said the smith, quietly, "not while John Stich owns a roof that can shelter you."

The young man paused in his feverish walk; a look of gentleness and grat.i.tude softened the care-worn expression on his face: with a boyish gesture he threw back the fair hair which fell in curly profusion over his forehead, and with a frank and winning grace he sought and grasped the worthy smith's rough brown hand.

"Honest Stich!" he said at last, whilst his voice shook a little as he spoke, "and to think that I cannot even reward your devotion!"

"Nay, my lord," retorted John Stich, drawing up his burly figure to its full height, "don't talk of reward. I would gladly give my life for you and your family."

And this was no idle talk. John Stich meant every word he said.

Honest, kind, simple-hearted John! he loved those to whom he owed everything, loved them with all the devotion of his strong, faithful nature.

The late Lord Stretton had brought him up, cared for him, given him a trade, and set him up in the cottage and forge at the cross-roads, and honest Stich felt that as everything that was good in life had come from my lord and his family, so everything he could give should be theirs in return.

"Ah! I fear me," sighed the young man, "that it is your life you risk now by sheltering me."

Yet it was all such a horrible mistake.

Philip James Gascoyne, eleventh Earl of Stretton, was at this time not twenty-one years of age. There is that fine portrait of him at Bra.s.sing Hall painted by Hogarth just before this time. The artist has well caught the proud features, the fine blue eyes, the boyish, curly head, which have been the characteristics of the Gascoynes for many generations. He has also succeeded in indicating the sensitiveness of the mouth, that somewhat feminine turn of the lips, that all too-rounded curve of the chin and jaw, which perhaps robs the handsome face of its virile manliness. There certainly is a look of indecision, of weakness of will about the lower part of the face, but it is so frank, so young, so _insouciant_, that it wins all hearts, even if it does not captivate the judgment.

Of course, when he was very young, his sympathies went out to the Stuart cause. Had not the Gascoynes suffered and died for Charles Stuart but a hundred years ago? Why the change? Why this allegiance to an alien dynasty, to a king who spoke the language of his subjects with a foreign accent?

His father, the late Lord Stretton, a contented, unargumentative British n.o.bleman of the eighteenth century, had not thought it worth his while to explain to the growing lad the religious and political questions involved in the upholding of this foreign dynasty. Perhaps he did not understand them altogether himself. The family motto is "Pour le Roi."

So the Gascoynes fought for a Stuart when he was King, and against him when he was a Pretender, and old Lord Stretton expected his children to reverence the family motto, and to have no opinions of their own.