"I had missed you, Roy," said the lady, smiling proudly on the boy; and
he looked with eyes full of pride at the beautiful woman, who now rested
her arm upon his shoulder and walked by his side into the more homelike
part of the old fortalice, whose grim interior had been transformed by
wainscoting, hangings, carpets, stained glass, and massive oak furniture
into the handsome mansion of the middle of the seventeenth century.
They passed down a broad staircase into a noble hall, and from thence
into a library whose broad, low, mullioned stone window opened into what
had been the inner court of the castle, whose ramparts and flanking
corner towers were still there; but the echoing stones that had once
paved it had given place to verdant lawn, trim flower-beds ablaze with
bloom, quaintly-cut shrubs, and creepers which beautified the walls once
so bare and grim.
"I want to talk to you, Roy," said Lady Royland, sinking into a great
formal chair. "Bring your stool and sit down."
"Got too big for the stool, mother," said the boy; "I can't double up my
legs close enough. I'll sit here."
He threw himself upon the thick carpet at her feet, and rested his arms
upon her lap.
"Want to talk to me? I'd rather hear you read."
"Not now, my dear."
"Why, what's the matter, mother?" said the boy, anxiously. "You're as
white as can be. Got one of your headaches?"
"No, my boy,--at least, my head does ache. But it is my heart, Roy,--my
heart."
"Then you've heard bad news," cried the boy. "Oh, mother, tell me; what
is it? Not about father?"
"No, no; Heaven forbid, my dear," cried Lady Royland, wildly. "It is
the absence of news that troubles me so."
"I ought to say us," said Roy, angrily; "but I'm so selfish and
thoughtless."
"Don't think that, my boy. You are very young yet, but I do wish you
would give more thought to your studies with Master Pawson."
The boy frowned.
"I wish you'd let me read with you, mother," he said. "I understand
everything then, and I don't forget it; but when that old--"
"Master Palgrave Pawson," said Lady Royland, reprovingly, but with a
smile.
"Oh, well, Master Palgrave Pawson. P.P., P.P. What a mouthful it seems
to be!"
"Roy!"
"I've tried, mother; but I do get on so badly with him. I can't help
it; I don't like him, and he doesn't like me, and it will always be the
same."
"But why? Why do you not like him?"
"Because--because--well, he always smiles at me so."
"That does not seem as if he disliked you. Rather the reverse."
"He's so smooth and oily."
"It is only his manner, my dear. He seems to be very sincere, and to
have your welfare at heart."
"Yes, that's it, mother; he won't let me alone."
"But he is your tutor, my dear. You know perfectly well that he came to
be your father's secretary and your tutor combined."
"Yes, I know, mother," said the boy, impatiently; "but somehow he
doesn't seem to teach me."
"But he is very studious, and tries hard."
"Yes, I know. But he seems to think I'm about seven instead of nearly
seventeen, and talks to me as if I were a very little boy, and--and--and
we don't get on."
"This sounds very sad, Roy, and I cannot bear to have a fresh trouble
now. Your studies are so important to us."
Roy reached up to get his arms round his mother's neck, drew her head
down, and kissed her lovingly.
"And she shan't have any more trouble," he cried. "I'll get wonderfully
fond of old Paw."
"Roy!"
"Master Palgrave Pawson, then; and I'll work at my lessons and classics
like a slave. But you will read with me, too, mother?"
"As much as you like, my son. Thank you. That has taken away part of
my load."
"I wish I could take away the rest; but I know you're fidgeting because
father hasn't written, and think that something has happened to him.
But don't you get fancying that, because there can't be anything.
They've only gone after a mob of shoemakers and tailors with a
counterpane for flag, and father will scatter them all like dead
leaves."
"Roy! My boy, these are not your words?"
"No, mother; old Ben Martlet said something of that kind to me this
morning."
"Does he not know, then, how serious it is?"
"Serious? What do you mean by serious?"
Lady Royland drew a deep breath, and laid her hand upon her side as if
in pain.
"Why, mother," repeated the boy, "what do you mean by serious?"
"This trouble--this rising, my dear. We have had no news, but Master
Pawson has had letters from London, and he tells me that what was
supposed to be a little petty discontent has grown into a serious
revolution."
Roy gazed in his mother's troubled face as if he did not quite
comprehend the full extent of her words.
"Well, and if it has, mother, what then?"
"What then, my boy?"
"Yes. You've nothing to fidget about. Father is there with his men,
and he'll soon put a stop to it all. You know how stern he can be when
people misbehave."
"My dear Roy, this, I am afraid, is going to be no little trouble that
your father can put down with his men. Master Pawson tells me that
there is every prospect of its being a civil war."
"What! Englishmen fighting against Englishmen?"
"Yes; a terrible fratricidal war."
"But who has quarrelled, mother? Oh, the king will soon stop it."
"Roy, my boy, we have kept you so shut up here in this retired place for
home study, instead of parting with you to send you to one of the great
schools, that in some things you are as ignorant as I."
"Oh, mother!" cried the boy, laughing. "You ignorant! I only wish I
were half as learned and clever. Why, father said--"
"Yes, yes, dear; but that is only book-learning. We have been so happy
here that the jarring troubles of politics and the court have not
reached our ears; and I, for one, never gave them a thought till, after
all these years of peacefulness, your father found himself compelled to
obey the call of duty, and left us. We both thought that it was only
for a week or two, and then the disturbance would be at an end; but
every letter he has sent me has contained worse news, till now it is
nearly a month since I have heard from him."
"Then it is because he is putting down the rioters," said Roy, quickly.
"Rioters, my boy! Rebels you should say, for I fear that a great
attempt is to be made to overthrow the monarchy. Master Pawson's
informants assure him that this is the case, and before long, he says,
there must be an encounter between the Royal and the Parliamentary
troops."
"Is Master Pawson right, mother? Royal troops--Parliamentary troops?
Why, they're all the same."
"No, Roy; there is a division--a great division, I fear, and
discontented people are taking the side against the king."
"Then I'm sorry for them," said the boy, flushing. "They'll get a most
terrible beating, these discontented folks."
"Let us hope so, my boy, so that there may be an end to this terrible
anxiety. To those who have friends whom they love in the army, a
foreign war is dreadful enough; but when I think of the possibility of a
war here at home, with Englishmen striving against Englishmen, I
shudder, and my heart seems to sink."
"Look here," cried the boy, as he rose and stood with his hand resting
upon his mother's shoulder, "you've been fidgeting and fancying all
sorts of things, because you haven't heard from father."
"Yes, yes," said Lady Royland, faintly.
"Then you mustn't, mother. 'Tis as I say; he is too busy to write, or
else he hasn't found it easy to send you a letter. I'll take the pony
and ride over to Sidecombe and see when the Exeter wagon comes in.
There are sure to be letters for you, and even if there are not, it will
make you more easy for me to have been to see, and I can bring you back
what news there is. I'll go at once."
Lady Royland took hold of her son's hand and held it fast.
"No," she said, making an effort to be firm. "We will wait another day.
I have been fidgeting, dear, as you say, and it has made me nervous and
low-spirited; but I'm better now for talking to you, my boy, and letting
you share my trouble. I dare say I have been exaggerating."
"But I should like to ride over, mother."
"You shall go to-morrow, Roy; but even then I shall be loath to let you.
There, you see I am quite cheerful again. You are perfectly right;
your father is perhaps away with his men, and he may have sent, and the
letter has miscarried in these troublous times."
"I shouldn't like to be the man who took it, if it has miscarried," said
the boy, laughing.
"Poor fellow! it may have been an accident. There, go to Master Pawson
now; and Roy, my dear, don't talk about our trouble to any one for the
present."
"Not to old Pawson?"
"Master Pawson."
"Not to Master Pawson?" said Roy, smiling.
"Not unless he speaks to you about it; then, of course, you can."
"But he won't, mother. He only talks to me about the Greek and Latin
poets and about music. I say, you don't want to see me squeezing a big
fiddle between my knees and sawing at it with a bow as if I wanted to
cut all the strings, do you, mother?"
"My dear boy, not unless you wished to learn the violoncello."
"Well, I don't," said Roy, pettishly; "but old Master Pawson is always
bringing his out of its great green-baize bag and talking to me about
it. He says that he will instruct me, and he is sure that my father
would have one sent to me from London if I asked him. Just as if there
are not noises enough in the west tower now without two of us sawing
together. _Thrrum, thrrum, throomp, throomp, throomp_!"
Roy struck an attitude as if playing, running his left hand up and down
imaginary strings while he scraped with his right, and produced no bad
imitation of the vibrating strings with his mouth.
"I should not dislike for you to play some instrument to accompany my
clavichord, Roy," said Lady Royland, smiling at the boy's antics.
"Very well, then; I'll learn the trumpet," cried the lad. "I'm off now
to learn--not music."
"One moment, Roy, my dear," said Lady Royland, earnestly. "Don't let
your high spirits get the better of your discretion."
"Of course not, mother."
"You do not understand me, my dear. I am speaking very seriously now.
I mean, do not let Master Pawson think that you ridicule his love of
music. It would be very weak and foolish, and lower you in his eyes."
"Oh, I'll mind, mother."
"Recollect that he is a scholar and a gentleman, and in your father's
confidence."
Roy nodded, and his lips parted as if to speak, but he closed them
again.
"What were you going to say, Roy?"
"Oh, nothing, mother."
"Nothing?"
"Well, only--that--I was going to say, do you like Master Pawson?"
"As your tutor and your father's secretary, yes. He is a very clever
man, I know."
"Yes, he's a very clever man," said Roy, as, after kissing his mother
affectionately, he went off towards the west tower, which had been
specially fitted up as study and bedchamber for the gentleman who had
come straight from Oxford to reside at Sir Granby Royland's seat a
couple of years before this time. "Yes, he's a very clever man," said
Roy to himself; "but I thought I shouldn't like him the first day he
came, and I've gone on thinking so ever since. I don't know why, but--
Oh, yes, I do," cried the boy, screwing up his face with a look of
disgust: "it's because, as he says, I've no soul for music."
For just at that moment a peculiar long-drawn wailing sound came from
the open window of the west tower, and a dog lying curled up on the
grass in the sun sprang up and began to bark, finishing off with a long,
low howl, as it stretched out its neck towards the open window.
"Poor old Nibbs! he has no soul for it, either," said the boy to
himself, as his face lit up with a mirthful expression. "It woke him
up, and he thought it was cats. Wonder what tune that is? He won't
want me to interrupt him now. Better see, though, and speak to him
first, and then I'll go and see old Ben polish the armour."