broken. I hope he will pull round again."
And then Dudley burst into a passionate fit of tears, with relief at the
doctor's words.
IX
MAKING HIS WILL
It was long before the cousins met; Roy's delicate constitution had
received such a shock that his condition for some time was a cause of
grave anxiety. His leg did not heal, and then the terrible word was
whispered through the house "amputation"!
It was a lovely evening in September when after a long talk with the
doctor in the library Miss Bertram came out, her usually determined face
quivering with emotion.
"I will tell him to-night, Doctor Grant, and we shall be ready for you
to-morrow afternoon at three."
She went upstairs, and Dudley with scared eyes having heard her speech
now crept out of the house after the doctor.
"Look here, Doctor Grant," he said, confronting him with an almost
defiant air: "you're not going to make Roy a cripple!"
"I'm going to save his life, if I can," said the doctor, half sadly, as
he looked down upon the sturdy boy in front of him.
"He won't live with only one leg, I know he won't, it will be too much
of a disgrace to him; he'll die of grief, I know he will! Oh, Doctor
Grant, you might have pity on him, it isn't fair!"
"Would you rather see him die in lingering pain?" enquired the doctor,
gravely.
"Oh, I think it so awful! Why should he be the one to be smashed up.
Look at me! I know everybody thinks it a pity it wasn't me. It would
have made us so much more equal. Why should I be so strong, and he so
weak! I tell you what! I've heard a story about joining on other men's
legs. Now tell me, could you do it? Could you give him one of mine? I'd
let you cut it off this minute--to-night, if you only would. If it would
make him walk straight!"
Dudley seized hold of the doctor's coat excitedly, and Doctor Grant saw
his whole soul was in his words.
"I'm afraid that would be an impossible feat, my boy. No--keep your own
legs to wait upon him, and cheer him up all you can."
"Cheer him up!" was the fierce retort; "what could cheer him! I know he
won't be able to live a cripple. He always says he is straight and
upright though his chest is weak, and now when he knows it's no use
trying to be strong any more, for he'll never be able to--when he knows
he won't be able to play cricket, or football, or even climb the wall or
run races--oh, it's awful--it will break his heart, and I wish I was
dead!" After which passionate speech Dudley dashed away, and the doctor
continued his walk shaking his head and muttering, "It's a bad lookout
for the little fellow!"
Dudley ran across the lawn in his misery, and then nearly tumbled over
Rob who was lying on the grass, his face hidden in his arms. He looked
up and his eyes were red and swollen.
"Master Dudley, is it true, is he going to lose his legs?"
Dudley stood looking at him for a minute before he spoke, and then he
said, "Yes, it's all that hateful doctor!"
Rob dropped his head on his arms again and a smothered groan escaped
him.
Dudley continued his run out into the stableyard, from thence to the
road, and he never stopped till he reached old Principle's little
three-cornered shop.
Old Principle was busy serving customers when he came in; he gave him a
friendly nod, and went on with his business whilst Dudley crept into the
little back parlor, and sitting down in an old horsehair chair tried to
recover his breath. It was not long before old Principle came after him.
"Well, my laddie," he said, laying his hand on the curly head, "there's
sad news going through the village this morning, and I see by your face
that 'tis true!"
Dudley nodded and then seizing hold of the old man's hand, leaned his
head against it and burst into tears.
"Why does God do it!" he sobbed at length, "Roy is so much better than I
am, he's always trying to please God, though he never talks about it,
and I've prayed so hard that he might be made quite well!"
"Ay, and the good Lord is making him well perhaps though not by the way
you planned. He might a been killed outright, and then what a trouble
you'd have been in."
"This is nearly as bad," muttered Dudley.
"Now, laddie, don't harden your heart, are you one of the Lord's own
children?"
"I don't know. I don't think I love God as much as Roy does."
"'Tis an awful bad principle," the old man continued, "to doubt and
complain directly we can't understand the Almighty's dealings with us.
He loves Master Roy better'n you and me, and the time will come when
we'll thank the Lord with all our hearts for this accident."
This was utterly incomprehensible to Dudley.
"I feel very badly about it," old Principle went on, "and so do you,
but the one I'm most sorry for is Ben Burkstone. I hear say he's fit to
kill himself with despair!"
"Well," said Dudley, stopping his sobs for a minute; "I don't see it was
his fault; it was the stupid pony; he funked it, and then fell and broke
his knees; mine went over all right. Oh, why didn't it happen to me! If
I had been spilled, I wouldn't have minded, and one leg wouldn't have
been half so bad to me as to Roy!"
"I reckon you'd have got your leg all right again without having to lose
it. 'Tis the laddie's delicate constitution that is so in his way. But I
think you'll find Master Roy as plucky over the loss of his leg as he
ever was. Now lift your heart up to God and ask Him that he may overrule
it all for good. There goes the shop-bell!"
Old Principle disappeared, and Dudley soothed and comforted by his
sympathy, retraced his steps to the house.
Meanwhile Miss Bertram had been going through the trying ordeal of
breaking the news to the little invalid.
Roy was lying in bed, flushed and restless. His eyes looked unnaturally
large and bright, as he met his aunt's anxious gaze.
"I'm so tired of pain, Aunt Judy, and I can't get to sleep."
Miss Bertram sat down and smiled her brightest smile.
Taking his thin little hand in hers she said tenderly,
"Yes, dear, you've been a brave little patient, but I hope you won't
have much more to bear. You would like to be free from it, wouldn't
you?"
"Am I going to die?"
"We hope you're going to get quite well again, if God wills, and if you
will be a good boy and let the doctor cure you."
Roy's eyes were fixed intently on his aunt now.
"How are they going to cure me?"
Then Miss Bertram nerved herself for the occasion.
"Roy, dear, you have been so patient since you lay here, that I know you
will be patient over this. Doctor Grant says that your leg will never
heal as it is, but he is sure you will get well and strong again if--if
you will make up your mind to do without it."
"Does that mean he is going to cut it off?"
"Yes."
Dead silence, broken only by the flapping of the window-curtains in the
breeze. Roy was not looking at his aunt now, but his eyes were fixed on
the distant hills through the open window. A blackbird now hovering on
some jasmine outside, suddenly lifted up his voice and burst into an
exultant song. A faint smile flickered about Roy's lips.
"Do legs _never_ grow again like teeth?"
The pathos of tone saved Miss Bertram from smiling at the comicality of
the question.
"I'm afraid not, dear. Not until we reach heaven."
Then there was silence again, broken at last by Roy's saying in a very
quiet tone,--
"I want to see Dudley."
Miss Bertram rose from her seat, but first she stooped to kiss him.
"You are quite a little hero," she said; "I will send David to you. My
poor little Jonathan!"
A hot tear splashed on Roy's forehead; he put up his hand and stroked
his aunt's face.
"Never mind, Aunt Judy, David made a better king than Jonathan would
have I expect. Don't call Dudley just yet--I--I want to be alone."
Miss Bertram left him, but sat down outside his door on a broad window
ledge and cried like a child.
And then a short time after, Dudley stole softly into the room and Roy's
arms were clinging round his neck.
"Oh, Dudley, I've wanted you, kiss me!"
"You're going to get well, old chap, aren't you? You'll soon be out in
the garden again."
Dudley was speaking in the gruff quick tones he used when trying to hide
his feelings.
"We'll talk about that presently," said Roy, lying back on his pillows
and making Dudley take a seat on his bed. "Dudley, do you know what a
will is?"
"Yes; you've a strong will nurse always says."
"No, not that kind of one. Uncle James left a will when he died saying
he left Norrington Court to father, and father left it to me. It's a
piece of thick paper they write it down on, and it has some sealing wax
on it. Aunt Judy showed me father's will once."
Dudley did not look enlightened, so Roy went on,--
"I want you to get a piece of paper and write down my will for me. I
will tell you what to say."
Dudley slipped out of the room obediently and returned with a sheet of
note paper, but this did not satisfy Roy. "It must be a large
sheet--very large," was his command.
After some minutes' search Dudley came in with a sheet of foolscap, and
then with pen and ink he began to write at Roy's dictation:
"When I am dead"--
But Dudley's pen stopped. "You are not going to die, Roy?"
"I hope I am," was the unexpected reply; "I've been asking God to make
me. I shouldn't think many people lived after their legs were cut off: I
know I don't want to!"
"But I want you to live," cried poor Dudley; "oh! Roy you couldn't be so
mean as to leave me all alone. Oh, do unsay that prayer of yours. You
mustn't die!"
"I'm going to get quite ready to die," persisted Roy; "and if you really
loved me you wouldn't think of liking to see me alive hopping about on a
wooden leg, I couldn't do it."
"Nelson lived with only one arm," said Dudley.
Roy lay back on his pillows to consider this; then he said in a tired
voice:
"Will you write what I want?"
Dudley seized the pen and in round, childish hand wrote as follows:
"When I am dead, Dudley is to have Norrington
Court for his very own, and he is to
live there instead of me. He can have Dibble
and Nibble too. Rob is to have my musical
box. I leave him my best tool box, and father's
red silk pocket-handkerchief which I
keep in the old tobacco pot on my chimneypiece.
I leave granny her sovereign which
she gave me, and my book 'Heroes of old
England.' Aunt Judy is to have my best
four-bladed knife, and my prayer book. I
want old Principle to have my silver mug and
my new writing case. I leave nurse the sovereign
my guardian gave me to get herself some
new shoes, and I leave her my Bible."
Thus far; then Roy gave a tired sigh. Dudley having entered completely
into the spirit of the thing looked up and said eagerly, "There's your
telescope, you know, Roy! If you leave it to me, I'll let you look
through it when we're off on our travels."
"I shall never travel with no legs--besides I shall be dead. I'll leave
my telescope to you."
Dudley subsided at once; then after a silence he asked meekly, "Is that
enough?"
"Yes, I'm so tired, put--'I leave all my old clothes to the village
boys, and my cricket bat and stumps to Ben'--but wait a minute,
Dudley--there are all the servants, and I've got such heaps of books and
toys--I think we'll leave it like that."
Dudley looked at his paper with some pride.
"I've only made six mistakes and three blots," he said; "now may I drop
the sealing wax over it? I've got a lovely red piece in my pocket."
"I think I have to write my name at the bottom first, I know father did.
Give me the pen."
Dudley handed it, and wondered why Roy's fingers shook so as he signed
his name.
"Is that all?"
"No, wait a moment. I want to write something myself."
And then in a large scrawl at the bottom of the paper Roy wrote--
"This boy died before he had time to serve
the Queen, he tried to serve God, and he tried
to do good to some people, only they turned
out mistakes. He hopes the Queen will forgive
him; he knows God will. Amen."
Dudley read this with awe.
"And is that a will?" he asked.
"Yes, let me drop some sealing wax; fetch a candle!"
Dudley was longing to do this part himself, but he generously said
nothing, and presented Roy with a brass button out of his pocket, to
stamp on the hot wax.
A lot of sealing wax was dropped indiscriminately all over the paper,
and then old nurse appeared on the scene to order Dudley off.
"You've been far too long with him already, to my mind," she said; "if
Miss Bertram wasn't beside herself she would never have given you
permission at all; he ought to have been kept extra quiet, and he's
worked himself all in a fever again." She put Roy gently back on his
pillows, and did not notice in her short-sightedness the roll of paper
being stuffed under his pillow. Dudley's spirits sank to zero, now he
was about to be dismissed.
"Good-bye, Roy, ask to see me again, won't you?"
Roy held out his hand.
"I'll talk about it to-morrow," he said, faintly.
And Dudley crept out of the room feeling more forlorn and wretched than
ever.
X
A CRIPPLE
It was all over; two doctors had been closetted in the bedroom for a
very long time, and then Dudley and Rob, sitting on the garden steps,
were told that everything had been successfully carried out, and Roy was
as well and better than had been expected.
"I never saw such fortitude and calm self-control in my life," said Miss
Bertram to her mother; "it was unnatural for a child of his age!"
"He is a true Bertram in spirit," said the grandmother, proudly; then
she added with a sigh, "but, alas, not in body."
"Nurse," said Dudley that night as he was creeping into bed under her
charge; "is Roy going to die?"
"I hope not," answered nurse, a little tearfully. "Doctor Grant says
he'll make a good recovery, but he whispered himself to me--Master Roy
did just before he took the sleeping draught--'Nurse I'll have my leg
buried with me!' he says."
Dudley was silent for a minute, then he asked, solemnly, "And where is
it, nurse?"
Nurse turned upon him tearfully and angrily,
"I believe as how you haven't one speck of feeling for that blessed
darling, you naughty boy! To talk of such a thing in such a way with not
a tear on your face! And to think of him laying there a helpless
cripple, and him the owner of the biggest estate in the county!"
Dudley crept into bed feeling he had no more tears to shed, wondering
when he would be allowed to see Roy again, and also wondering who was
the possessor of his lost leg.
It was a fortnight before he was allowed to see the little invalid, and
when the boys met, Dudley gazed with deep pity on Roy's white little
face, looking smaller and whiter than ever. But he welcomed him with a
smile.
"It's years since you were here, old chap."
"Yes," responded Dudley, "and it's been the most miserablest years of my
life."
"I thought I was going to die then," continued Roy, with still the same
smile; "but God wouldn't let me. He was determined I should live, and do
you know I've been thinking it out. I really believe it is because He is
going to let me do something great still. And Doctor Grant has been
telling me of a man in Parliament who took all the house by storm, and
brought in a most wonderful law that thousands of people blessed him
for, and he--he had a cork leg!"
Certainly Roy had not lost his buoyancy of spirits. Dudley drew a deep
breath of relief, and for the first time began to see brighter times
ahead.
"And I'm going to have a cork leg," went on Roy, "a leg that if I press
a spring I can kick out. Think of that!"
Dudley looked beaming, exclaiming,--
"And it will be very convenient to have a leg with no feeling, won't it,
especially about the knee when you're crawling along a wall with broken
bottles."
"I'm going to see Rob to-morrow," announced Roy, after a little more
conversation. "Has he learned to read while I have been ill?"
Dudley shook his head.
"No, we tried one afternoon on the wall, but we were too miserable, so
we stopped."
"Well, I can teach him here in bed. That's one thing you don't want a
leg to do!"
"I say, Roy," Dudley asked, very cautiously; "don't you feel very funny
without it?"
Roy looked away for a minute without answering, and then he said slowly:
"I try and not think about it. It will be worse when I get up--people
might think when they see me in bed that I'm all right, but they'll know
the truth when I'm up."
Then he added more cheerfully, "It's awfully queer, but do you know I'd
never know it wasn't there as far as the feeling goes. Why I can feel
the pain right down to my toes now. And at night I'm always dreaming I'm
running races with you as fast as I can, and then I wake and can't
believe I'll never run again."
As Roy grew stronger he had more visitors; Rob came to him every day for
a reading lesson, and old Principle brought him books and sweets. Ben
was allowed an interview, and the old groom, with tears running down his
cheeks, besought Roy to forgive him.
"I never ought to allowed you, and 'twas me that egged you on and sent
you to your death!"
"No, it was my own fault, Ben," said Roy, humbly, "and the thing that
pains me most--more than breaking my leg--is to think that I should be
the first Bertram who has failed. Dudley did it, and I didn't, and of
course I shall never be able to try it again. Perhaps I was too proud of
what I could do. We have a picture in the nursery of a boy standing on
the top of a bridge, and then tumbling in the water; it's called 'Pride
must have a fall.' I've had a fall, haven't I, Ben?"
Ben came out from that interview declaring that "Master Roy ought to be
sainted!"
One afternoon Rob was finishing his reading lesson when he looked up
and said, a little shyly,
"Master Roy, you mind what you were a telling me of once--about what
your father told you. Do you think as how I could do it too?"
"Of course you could, Rob. All of us ought to serve God."
"I've been thinking a deal about it, and I should like to, if I knew
how."
"Well, the Bible tells you. I remember nurse made me learn a text a long
time ago, 'If any man serve me let him follow me.' It's just following
Jesus I suppose, and doing what He wants us to do."
"How can we follow somebody we can't see?"
Roy knitted his brows. Rob's questions were hard to answer sometimes,
and then a smile flashed across his face.
"I'll tell you. It's like this. On my birthday granny called me in to
give me a birthday talk and, of course, she talked to me about my
property. She said my uncle had managed it awfully well over there, and
she hoped I would walk in his steps. That would be following him though
he was dead, wouldn't it?"
"Ye-es," was the slow response.
"And so you see," Roy replied, leaning forward impressively, and his
eyes glistening with earnestness, "we can each follow Jesus. Try and
live as He did, and do and speak like Him. We read how He lived in the
New Testament."
"And He was the one that died for us," Rob said, reflectively.
"Yes, He is the one you go to, to get your sins washed away. That comes
first before we begin to serve Him."
"But I never could serve Him proper, always," objected Rob.
"No, nor more can any one. I'm awful, you know! Dudley says I think such
a lot of myself. And of course Jesus never did. And I grumble and cry
over my leg every day, and of course He wouldn't have done it. But Jesus
forgives us again and again, and helps us to be good, and that's why we
love Him, and because He died for us."
"Would He forgive me, and help me?" asked Rob; "are you quite sure He
would care to have me for a servant?"
"Of course I'm sure. He wants everybody. You just ask Him."
Rob said no more. He was a lad of few words, and for some days did not
touch on the subject again. His reading was progressing rapidly, and
when Roy and Dudley found out that his birthday was near they laid their
heads together and presented him with a handsome Bible, as they knew he
was saving up his pennies to buy one.
His gratitude and delight overwhelmed them, and every day now, when his
work was finished, he would sit down and spell out chapters of the
gospels to himself.
As the days began to shorten, Roy grew so much stronger that he was able
to be carried downstairs, and the first evening he was in the
drawing-room, he asked Miss Bertram for the song of the two little
drummer boys.
She sat down at the piano, and Dudley seeing Rob weeding a flower bed
outside the open window, beckoned to him to come up closer and listen.
"It's the best song out," he shouted.
Roy's face shone as Miss Bertram's sweet voice rang out triumphantly.
--"'the fight was won, and the regiment saved
By those two little dots in red!'"
"Oh, how I wish I could be a soldier!" was the muttered exclamation of
Roy, "I shall never be able to serve the Queen now!"
"Nonsense," said Miss Bertram, briskly; "granny would tell you 'that all
the Bertrams have always served the Queen, and only a few of them have
been soldiers!'"
"Well, I suppose they have been sailors?" said Dudley.
"Not at all; we have only had one admiral, and three naval captains in
our family during the last hundred years. Your father, Dudley, served
the Queen as a governor in India quite as well as if he were fighting
for her. Roy's father was her servant in Canada, though he had to do
with politics; your uncle James served as a member of Parliament. The
Queen has numbers of servants. I always think policemen are quite as
brave as soldiers!"
"And what can a one-legged Bertram do?" Roy asked, with a pathetic smile
that went straight to his aunt's heart.
"There's no reason why he shouldn't go into Parliament, and perhaps end
by being a member of the cabinet."
"I never quite understand what that is," said Roy, contemplatively. "I
don't think I should like to be shut up in a stuffy cupboard. They shut
them up in it to talk, don't they, Aunt Judy?"
How Miss Bertram laughed! But whilst she was explaining what a cabinet
was, Rob crept away from the window muttering, "I suppose as how I could
be a policeman, but I'd a deal rather be a soldier!"
XI
A GIFT TO THE QUEEN
"Can I see Master Roy, please?"
It was Rob who spoke, and he seemed breathless with haste and
importance, as he stood at the front door one cold afternoon the end of
October.
"You can give me your message," the young footman said, rather
superciliously.
"No, I can't," was the blunt retort; "ask Master Roy to speak to me."
Rob gained his point, and was ushered into the library where Roy and
Dudley were amusing themselves in the firelight.
The old nursery was not much used now, and the library had begun to be
considered the boys' room, partly because owing to it being on the
ground floor, and opening into the garden, it was more convenient for
Roy's use.
Roy was now the possessor of a cork leg; and with the help of a stick he
was nearly as active as ever. His spirits were as high, and his purposes
as plentiful as before his illness; and his grandmother and aunt
marvelled that he could take his deformity so lightly. Yet there were
times unknown to any, when Roy's brave little heart sank with the
consciousness of it; and often in bed at night his pillow would be wet
with tears.
"Oh, God," he would often pray, "you wouldn't let me die, do help me to
do something worth living for. I feel my leg will keep away all the
opportunities now, but please give me something big to do for you
still."
"Hulloo, Rob, come on," was Roy's exclamation as he caught sight of his
friend. "Just look at Nibble and Dibble, we're teaching them to draw a
cart. It makes you die of laughing to look at them. There they go, and
Dibble turns head over heels in his excitement!"
Roy's happy laugh rang out, but though Dudley joined him, Rob's face was
grave and set.
"Please, can I speak to you on business, Master Roy?"
"Goody! What a long face!" exclaimed Dudley, pulling down his own in
imitation of Rob's, and thereby causing a fresh peal of laughter from
Roy. "Have you been a naughty boy, Rob, and has old Hal been thrashing
you? Have you been skylarking on the top of the greenhouse, and smashed
through on Hal's pate?"
"I should like to speak to Master Roy, alone," said Rob, a little
wistfully; in no way disturbed by Dudley's teasing.
"Oh, it's one of your secrets again. I'll be off, Roy, I want to see old
Principle!"
And Dudley dashed out of the room, whilst Rob came nearer and began his
"business."
"Master Roy, I've been thinking a lot lately, and Miss Bertram asked me
the other day if I'd like any other job for the winter as there's hardly
enough work for me in the garden now. And yesterday I saw a chap in the
village I used to know. He's a recruiting sergeant for the ----shire
regiment, and he wants me to enlist straight away. I wouldn't have given
it a thought only what you said about serving the Queen has stuck to me,
and it does seem a chance, and somehow that song has been in my head
ever since I heard Miss Bertram sing it. I'd like to be in a regiment."