John Bloundelle-Burton - The Sword of Gideon

"If he knows he has said nothing-leastways to me. After midday he sat beneath the great tulip tree, with maps and charts on the carpet spread at his feet above the grass, and twice he has sent off messengers to Whitehall and once to Kensington, but still none come anigh us in this quiet spot. But, Master Bevill," the old woman went on, laying a knotted finger on the young man's arm-she had known him from boyhood-"those two or three who have passed by say that great things are a brewing-that we are going to war again as we went in the late King's reign, and with France as ever; and that-and that-the bells are all a-ringing because 'tis so."

"And so it is, good dame Sumner. We are going to see if we cannot at least check the King of France, who seeks now to make Spain a second half of France. But come; we must not trifle with time. Let me hook my bridle rein here, and you may give my horse a drink of water when he is cool, and tell me where my lord is now. Great deeds are afoot!"

"He is in the long room now. There shall you find him. Ay, lord! what will he be doing now that war is in the air again? He who is never still and in a dozen different cities and countries in a month."

With a laugh at the old woman's reflections on her master's habits-which reflections were true enough-Bevill Bracton went on towards the house itself and, entering it by the great front door, crossed a stone-flagged hall, and so reached a polished walnut-wood door that faced the one at the entrance. Arrived at it, he tapped with his knuckle on the panel, and a moment later heard a voice from inside call out:

"Who's there?"

"'Tis I-Bevill."

"Ha!" the voice called out again, though not before it had bidden the young man come in, "and so I would have sworn it was. Why, Bevill," the occupant of the room exclaimed, as now the young man stood before him, and when the two had exchanged handshakes, "I expected you hours before. When first the news came to me this morning-"

"Your lordship knows?"

"Know? Why, i' faith, of course I know. Is there anything Charles Mordaunt does not know when mischief is in the wind? – Mordanto, as Swift calls me; Sir Tristram, as others describe me; I, whose 'birth was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars,' and who, like those planets, am ever wandering and unfixed. Be sure I know it. As, also, I knew you would come. Yet, kinsman, one thing I do not know-that one thing being, what it is you expect to gain by coming, unless it is the hope of finding the chance to see those Catholics, amongst whom you lived as a youth, beaten down by sturdy Protestants like yourself."

"For that, and to be in the fray. To help in the good cause-the cause we love and venerate. Through you. By you-a kinsman, as you say."

"You to be in the fray-and by me? Yet how is that to be? You are-"

"Ah, yes! I know well. A broken soldier-one at odds with fortune. Yet-"

"Yet?"

"Not disgraced. Not that-never that, God be thanked."

"I say so, too. But still broken, though never disgraced. What you did you did well. That fellow, that Dutchman, that Colonel Sparmann, whom you ran through from breast to back-he may thank his lucky stars your spadroon was an inch to the left of his heart-deserved his fate."

"He insulted England," Bracton exclaimed. "He said that without King William to teach us the art of war we knew not how to combat our enemies. For that I challenged him, and ran him through. Pity 'twas I did not-"

"Nay; disable thine enemy-there is no need to kill him. All the same," Lord Peterborough continued drily, "King William broke you for challenging and almost killing a superior officer."

"King William is dead. Death pays all debts."

"I would it did! There are a-many who will not forgive me when I am dead."

"Queen Anne reigns, the Earl of Marlborough is at the head of the army. My lord, I want employment; I want to be in this campaign. Oh, cousin Mordaunt," Bevill Bracton said, with a break in his voice, "you cannot know how I desire to be a soldier once again, and fighting for my religion, my country, and the Queen. To be moving, to be a living man-not an idler. I have never parted with this," and he touched the hilt of the sword by his side, "help me; give me the right; find me the way to draw it once more as a soldier."

"How to find the way! There's the rub. Marlborough and I are none too much of cater-cousins now. We do not saddle our horses together. And he is-will be-supreme. If you would get a fresh guidon you had best apply to him."

"Even though I may have no guidon nor have any commission, still there will surely be volunteers, and I may go as one."

"There will be volunteers," Lord Peterborough said, still drily, "and I, too, shall go as one."

"You!"

"Yes, I. Only it will be later. When," and he smiled his caustic smile, "the others are in trouble. If Marlborough, if Athlone, or Ormond, who goes too, finds things going criss-cross and contrary, then 'twill be the stormy petrel, Mordanto, who will be looked to."

"But when-when?" Bevill Bracton asked eagerly.

"When they have had time to flounder in the mire; when Ginkell-I mean my Lord Athlone-has, good honest Dutchman as he is, fuddled himself with his continual schnapps drinking; or when Jack Churchill, sweet as his temper is and well under control, can bear no more contradictions and cavillings from his brother commanders. Then-then Charles Mordaunt will be looked to again; then-for I can cast my own horoscope as well as any hag can do it for me-I shall be invited to put my hand in my pocket, to stake my life on some almost impossible venture, to give them the advice that, when I attempt to offer it, they never care to take."

"But-but," Bevill said, "the time! The time!"

"'Twill come. Only you are young, impatient, hot-headed. I am almost old, yet I am the same sometimes-but you will not wait. What's to do, therefore?"

"I cannot think nor dream-oh, that I could!"

"Then listen to me. 'Tis not the way of the world to do so until it is too late; in your case you may be willing. Do you know Marlborough?"

"As the subaltern knows the general, not being known by him. But no more."

"'Tis pity. Yet-yet if you could bring yourself before his notice; if-if-you could do something that should come under his eyes-some deed of daring-"

"I must be there to do it-not here. At St. James's or Whitehall I can do nought. The watch can do as much as I."

"That's very true; you must be there. There! there! Let me see for it. Where are the charts?" and Lord Peterborough went towards a great table near the window, which was all littered with maps and plans that made the whole heterogeneous mass look more like a battlefield itself after a battle than aught else.

"Bah!" his lordship went on, picking up first a plan and then a chart, and throwing them down again. "Catalonia, Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz. No good! no good! Marlborough will not be there. The war may roll, must roll, towards Spain, yet 'tis not in Spain that he will be. But Holland-Brabant-Flanders. Ha!" he cried at the two latter names. "Brabant-Flanders. And-why did I not think of it? – she is there, and there's the chance, and-and, fool that I am! for the moment I had forgotten it."

" She! The chance! Brabant! Flanders!" Bevill Bracton repeated, the words stumbling over each other in his excitement. "She! Who? And what have I to do with women-with any woman? I, who wish to do all a man may do in the eyes of men?"

"Sit down," Lord Peterborough said now, in a marvellously calm, a suddenly calm, voice. "Sit down. I had forgotten my manners when I failed to ask you to do so earlier."

"Ah, cousin Mordaunt, no matter for the manners at such a moment as this. Alas! you set my blood on fire when you speak of where the war will be, of where it must be, and then-then-you pour a douche of chill cold water over me by talking of women-of a woman."