Outside the park gate he was about turning in the Ross direction when he saw a party on horseback advancing from the opposite, as he had himself come. Four there were—two gentlemen in front, with their respective attendants a little behind. He could have shunned them by riding rapidly on before; but from the stylish appearance of one of the gentlemen he took it they were Cavaliers, possibly might be acquaintances; and after his long, lonely ride he was in the humour for company. It might help him some little to get over his chagrin. So he drew rein, and sate in his saddle waiting for them to come up.
There was a wide sweep of grass-grown turf between the park gate and the public road, and he had halted at the end of it on the right. Soon the party approaching reached the other, and he saw, with some surprise, and a little vexation, their horses’ heads being turned in towards the gate. Whoever the gentlemen might be, they were evidently bent upon a visit to the house that had refused hospitality to himself.
With something more than curiosity he scanned them now. Were they known to him? Yes! one was; his surprise becoming astonishment, as in the more showily-attired of the two gentlemen he recognised his cousin Eustace.
“You, Eust!” he exclaimed, drawing his horse round, and trotting towards his kinsman; his glance given to the other being as that to a stranger; for he was not acquainted with Sir Richard Walwyn.
“You, Rej!” was the all-but echo of a response, and the cousins came together, Sir Richard passing on into the park. The gentleman tax-gatherer, still smarting under the rebuff given him, the smart shared by his servant, had ill-manneredly left the gate open behind them.
It was months since the cousins had met; though each knew where the other was, or ought to be. Hence Reginald’s surprise to see Eustace there, supposing him to be engaged in his duties at Court. He spoke it inquiringly, as they held out to shake hands; but, before the other could make answer, he saw that which gave him a start—blood upon the hand extended to him! The white buckskin glove was reddened with it all over up to the gauntlets.
“God bless me, Eust! what’s this? A wound! Have you been quarrelling?”
“Oh! nothing much. Only a little prick in the wrist.”
“Prick in the wrist! But from what?”
“The point of a rapier.”
“The deuce! Then you have been quarrelling. With whom, pray?”
“Speak a little lower, Rej. I’d rather he didn’t hear us.”
And Eustace nodded towards Sir Richard, who was not yet quite beyond earshot.
“Surely you don’t mean the affair was with him?”
“I do—it was.”
“He got the better of you?”
“Quick as you could count ten.”
“Zounds! that’s strange—you such a swordsman! But still stranger what I see now, your being in his company. Not his prisoner, are you?”
“Well, in a way I am.”
“In that case, cousin, my sword’s at your service. So let me try conclusions with him. Possibly, I may get you a revanche; at the same time release you from any parole you may be under.”
Though, but the moment before, some little cowed, and declining a combat with serving men, Reginald Trevor was all courage now; and feared not to meet a gentleman in fair fight. For he saw that Trevor blood had been spilt, and, although he and his cousin Eustace had never been bosom friends, they were yet of the same family. The hot Cymric blood that ran in the veins of both boiled up in his to avenge whatever defeat his kinsman might have sustained, and without awaiting answer he asked impatiently,—
“Shall I follow, and flout him, Eust? I will if you but say the word.”
“No, Rej; nothing of the sort. Thank you all the same.”
“Well; if you’re against it, I won’t. But it edges a Trevor’s teeth to see one of his kin—full cousin, too—worsted, conquered, dead—down as you seem to be. All, I suppose, from your antagonist being a bit bigger and older than you are. He’s that as regards myself; for all I’ve no fear to face him.”
“I know you haven’t, Rej. But don’t be angry with me for saying, if you did, it would end as it has with me—maybe worse.”
The ci-devant gentleman-usher spoke with some pique. Notwithstanding the generous offer of his cousin to espouse his quarrel, there was that in the proposal itself which seemed to reflect on his own capability—a suggestion, almost an assertion, of patronising superiority.
“What do you mean, Eustace?” asked the other, looking a little roughed.
“That yonder gentleman,” he nodded towards Sir Richard, now well out of hearing, “is a perfect master of both sword and horse. He proved himself my master in less than five minutes after engaging; could have thrust me in as many seconds had he been so disposed. While fighting with him I felt a very child in his hands; and he, as I now chance to know, was but playing with me. In the end he disarmed me—could have done it long before—by this touch in the wrist, which sent my rapier spinning off into the air. That isn’t all. He has disarmed me in another sense; changed me from angry foe to, I might almost say, friend. That’s why I’ve told you that I’m in a way his prisoner.”
“It’s a strange tale,” rejoined Reginald, choking down his wrath. “All that, by sun, moon, and stars! But I won’t question you further about it; only tell me why you are here. I thought you were so fixed in the Palace of Westminster, such a favourite of the grand lady who there rules the mart, you’d never more care to breathe a breath of country air. Yet here I find you in the Forest of Dean—its very heart—far away from court and city life as man could well get within England’s realm. How has it come about, cousin?”
“I wouldn’t mind telling you, Rej, if there was time. But there isn’t. As you see, Sir Richard is waiting for me.”
“Sir Richard who?”
“Walwyn.”
“Oh, that’s the name of your generous conqueror?”
“It is.”
“I’ve heard of the individual, though never saw him till now. But how fell you into his company, and what brought about your quarrel?”
“Leave it, Rej, like other matters, till we meet again, and have more time to talk over such things.”
“Agreed. Still there’s time to say why you are going to Hollymead House.”
“Hollymead House?”
“Oh, you didn’t know that was the name of Ambrose Powell’s place!”
“Ambrose Powell?”
“What! Nor yet the name of the man you’re about to pay visit to?”
“I confess I do not.”
“Nor anything else of him?”
“Nothing whatever.”
He was on the point of adding, “Only that I’ve been told something about a pair of pretty girls,” when it occurred to him he might be touching on a subject in which his cousin had a tender concern.
“’Pon my honour!” rejoined the latter, making an uphill attempt to laugh, “the tale grows stranger and stranger! You, of the King’s Household, on your way to make acquaintance—friendly, of course—with one of his Majesty’s greatest and most pronounced enemies—a man who hates King, Court, and Church; above all, bitter against your especial patroness, the Queen. I’ve heard him call her a Jezebel, with other opprobrious epithets.”
“Odd in you, Rej, such a devoted Royalist, to have listened calmly to all that?”