astonishment.
"But, Rob, you aren't old enough to be a soldier yet!"
"I'm just the age--they take them at eighteen, and I was that the other
day, only I don't look it."
"But you're going to be my servant. I couldn't let you go."
Rob's face fell.
"I thought I could have seven years--or even twelve years would hardly
find you ready to take up your property. And then I'd come back to you
and never leave you again!"
"But I want you with me now--always"--said Roy, in a distressed tone; "I
couldn't do without you all that time, and it's horrid of you to want to
get away from here, I think."
"All right, Master Roy, I won't go--I'll get a job in the village that
will keep me close at hand."
Rob tried to speak cheerfully, and after waiting a minute to see if Roy
would say any more, he left the room quietly; all the light having died
out of his honest grey eyes.
Roy watched the antics of his mice in the firelight, but his thoughts
were far away from them. At last he opened the door and made his way up
to his grandmother's room to have his usual chat with her before tea.
"Granny, if a person you like will do anything you like, ought you to
make that person do what you like instead of what they like?"
"It sounds like a riddle," said Mrs. Bertram, with a smile. "I won't ask
who the person is, the question is whether you like that person or
yourself best. Which do you?"
Roy did not answer for a minute, then he hung his head.
"I'm afraid I like myself best."
"If you give me more details, perhaps I can advise you."
"Well, granny, may I talk first to Dudley about it, and then I'll tell
you. But you see it's like this--the person wants to please you, and you
can't pretend to be pleased if he does what doesn't please you!"
"I think the best plan would be to leave yourself out of the question
entirely, and only think of the other person; that would be the most
unselfish way."
Roy knitted his brows and heaved a heavy sigh.
"Am I a very selfish person, granny?"
"You are much more selfish than Dudley is," said Mrs. Bertram,
decidedly, who never minced matters with her grandsons.
Roy flushed a deep crimson, and his grandmother added,
"I do not say that you are altogether to blame, for Dudley has always
given way to you and spoiled you; but you do not very often think of his
wishes before your own."
"No, I never do."
Roy's tone was of the deepest dejection; but the sudden entrance of
Dudley gave a turn to the conversation, and he gradually recovered his
spirits.
When the two boys were at their tea half an hour later, Roy spread the
whole matter before Dudley who looked at it in quite a different light.
"How stunning! And is he really going? Hurray! One of us will be a
soldier, at any rate. I wish I was big enough to go with him."
"But I don't want him to go, and I told him so, and he isn't going!"
Dudley opened his eyes at this.
"You going to keep him back? Why you're the one that's always talking
about serving the Queen, and fighting for her!"
"Yes, I should like to, but--but Rob is different. I want him to be with
me."
"Then you don't care about serving the Queen, if you're going to do her
out of a soldier who might fight for her!"
This was quite a new aspect of the affair.
"You think I'm like the dog in the manger? I can't go myself and I don't
want him to. But if you go to a boarding school like Aunt Judy talks of,
and I'm not allowed to go with you, and Rob is gone, I shall be left all
alone; and I hate being alone, you don't know how I hate it--I think I
should die!"
"Well, if I was you and knew I couldn't be a soldier myself, I would
love to send some one instead of me--you know how they do in France. Old
Selby was telling us. They pay a subsidy--substitute--don't you call
it?--to go and fight for them."
"Yes, that is the coward's way," Roy said, scornfully.
He paused for a minute, and then his eyes flashed fire.
"Yes, Dudley, I'll let him go. It's me that's the coward to try and keep
him back! You and I shall send him, and he shall be our substitute, and
when we hear of him doing brave things, we shall feel it's ourselves.
And we'll make him write letters to us and tell us all he is doing--oh,
it will be splendid. How glad I am he has learned to read and write.
Dudley, you just go and fetch him in, will you?"
Dudley crammed rather a large piece of cake into his mouth, and dashed
out of the room; and a few minutes later dragged in the would-be
soldier.
"We've settled you can go, Rob," said Roy, with a little of his
masterful air about him; "only you're to go as _our_ soldier. I think if
I had had a good, broad, strong chest and never broke my leg, I should
have enlisted, but you can go instead of me. Are you glad?"
"I'm sorry to leave you, Master Roy, but I'd dearly like to go."
"We must tell granny and Aunt Judy, and see what they say first. But I'm
sure they'd like you to go."
No objection was made. Miss Bertram was rather pleased than otherwise.
"He will make a good soldier," she said, when talking it over with the
boys; "he is a steady, reliable lad, with not too many ideas of his own,
and implicitly obedient."
"Is that what makes a good soldier?" asked Roy. "I thought it was dash
and bravery."
"Dash is a dangerous quality. Steady perseverance is better, Jonathan!"
The next few days were most exciting ones for the boys. Roy and Rob had
many a long talk together, and very earnest and serious subjects were
touched upon. Rob had little time left to bid his friends farewell, but
he went to old Principle, as a matter of course.
"Yes," said the old man, a little proudly; "all the younger folks going
out in life comes to me for a parting word. They laughs at me and my
principles, but I'm proud of my nickname, and 'tis only right principles
will make a man live right, and they knows it. What can I say to you,
lad, but fear God and honor the Queen and those in authority under her.
Never be afraid of holding to the right and denouncing the wrong, and
may God Almighty take your body and soul in His keeping until we meet
again."
Rob's last day came, and an hour before his departure, in company with
his friend, the sergeant, he came up to the Manor to bid them all
farewell. Roy had some farewell words with him in the privacy of his
bedroom.
"We shall miss you awfully," he said, walking up and down the room to
hide his emotion; "and it makes me wish I had your chance. But you'll
remember, Rob, I look to you to be a rattling good soldier, much better
than I should have been, and you'll be sure to do something grand and
brave the very first opportunity, won't you? You must get the Victoria
Cross, of course, and the account of you must be in the newspapers, so
that we can read about you. And I shall pray that God will keep you
safe, Rob. I hope you'll never have an arm or leg shot off, though I
think that would be better than having them cut off. I hope you'll come
back safe and sound. When shall we see you again?"
"The sergeant told me I should get a month or six weeks' leave this time
next year, Master Roy."
"A year is a very long time. Rob, if I should die before I grow up, I
want you to promise me that you will be Dudley's servant instead of
mine. He will be master of Norrington Court, then, and I want you to
live there."
"But you aren't going to die, Master Roy, you will live and do great
things yet."
Roy shook his head a little sadly.
"Sometimes I wonder if I ever will. I won't give up trying, but I shall
never be anything but half a man, with my cork leg and my weak chest.
Dudley would make a much grander master. Still there's one thing I can
do. I can serve God--and I've sent you to serve the Queen, and I can try
to serve my fellow creatures. Good-bye, dear Rob, will you kiss me."
And then forgetting his dignity, Roy flung his arms round Rob's neck and
hugged him passionately. "I'll never forget you carrying me home that
night," he whispered in his ear, "I loved you from that time. And Rob
you'll do what father told me to do--serve God first."
Rob nodded, and as he knelt on the ground holding the frail little
figure to him, he made a promise there and then in his heart that he
would never do or say anything that he would be ashamed of Roy's
hearing.
"They're calling me, Master Roy, good-bye."
He was gone, and Roy sitting down on the floor, leaned his head against
his bed and burst into tears.
Dudley found him there, and soon comforted him.
"Look here, if you like it, let us get upon the wall and see Rob and the
sergeant drive by; we can just see the high road, and Rob had to go to
the inn first, so we shall have plenty of time."
Roy's whole face beamed, he seized his stick and limped after Dudley
without a thought of his leg, but when he reached the wall he came to a
standstill.
"I'm afraid I can't climb it, Dudley, I've never been on it since my leg
was broken!"
But Dudley would take no denial.
"Oh, yes, you can, I'll hoist you up, we'll manage it."
And "manage it" they did to Roy's intense delight, though Mrs. Bertram
would have been horror-struck at the narrow escape the little invalid
had, of falling to the ground during the proceeding.
When they saw the trap in the distance, they set up a wild cheer, and
waved their handkerchiefs frantically, and when they were answered by a
cheer and a fluttering piece of white, they felt quite satisfied at
their farewell.
Before they got down from their high perch, Roy said, earnestly, "If God
sent us Rob as an opportunity, Dudley, I wonder if we did him good."
"Well, you see he was such a lot bigger than us, and Aunt Judy says she
never saw such a steady good boy; it's very difficult to do good to
good people, because you want to be so extra good yourself."
"At any rate, we've made him the Queen's soldier."
"Yes," argued Dudley, provokingly; "but he was the first one that
thought of it!"
"Oh, shut up," was Roy's impatient retort; "he told me himself it was
the song of Jake and Jim that did it, and--and my talking to him."
"And I expect the sergeant thinks it's all his doing."
"But he wouldn't have gone unless I had told him he might."
And as usual Roy had the last word.
XII
LETTERS
Very disappointed were the boys at Rob's first letter, which arrived
about a fortnight after he had gone to the regimental depot at a
neighboring town.
"DEAR MASTER ROY:
"I hope you and Master Dudley are
quite well as it leaves me at present. I like it
first-rate, but it is hard work, and I have a
good many masters, but I means to do my
best. God bless you.
"From your faithful
"ROB."
"That's not a letter at all!" said Roy, scornfully; "why he tells us
nothing at all! Why he might have gone to school and told us more! That
from a soldier. It's the stupidest rot I've ever heard!"
"I think you forget what a poor scholar Rob is," said Miss Bertram,
reprovingly. "Now I think that is a remarkably good letter when I think
what a short time he has been learning to write. You boys had better
each write a proper letter to him yourselves, and ask him what you want
to know. He will like to hear from you."
And so that afternoon, sitting up in state at the library table, the
boys spread out their writing materials and began to write.
"I feel," said Roy, biting the end of his pen and looking up at the
ceiling for an inspiration, "that I don't know quite how to begin. I
should like to tell him not to write like an ass, when he knows he ought
to tell us everything."
"All right, tell him so," said Dudley, squaring his elbow and frowning
terribly as he prepared himself for the task. "You know what old Selby
says: 'Make your paper talk, my boys, and make it talk in your own
tongues.'"
After a great many interruptions from each other, and a few skirmishes
round the table which resulted in the ink bottle being spilt, the
letters were finished.
Roy read his aloud with pride to Dudley, who did the same to him.
"MY DEAR ROB:
"You must write us longer letters. I
am quite sure there is lots to tell. What do
you have to eat? And where do you sleep?
Have you got a gun of your own? Do they
let soldiers shoot rabbits on their half-holidays?
Does the band play while you are at dinner?
What are your clothes like, and what are you
to be called, now you're a soldier? When
will you be a sergeant, and is there any fighting
coming off soon? Old Principle says
you will be learning drill. What is drill? He
says it's learning how to march, but Dudley
and I can do that first-rate. How many masters
have you got? Write to me to-morrow
and tell me all. I hope you will remember
you are our soldier, and be sure you do something
very grand as quick as ever you can.
Have you got a sword and a medal? Do you
ride on a horse, and can you fire off the cannon?
I miss you very much but you belong
to us, and must come back full of glory.
"Your loving friend,
"FITZ ROY BERTRAM."
"MY DEAR ROB:
"I hope you like being a soldier. How
many soldiers are there in the same house with
you? Give them my love and tell them we
hope they liked the cake we put in your box
for them. Roy came down to old Principle's
with me yesterday. He showed us a hammer
out of his cave he dug up. He says you will
not be a full blown soldier for a year. He
had a cousin who was a sergeant in India--and
had his brains burst out in battle. When
do you begin to fight? Tell us if you feel
funky, and what the enemy looks like, and who
they are. We think you ought to write us a
much jollier letter. Roy's leg is first-rate, and
he is up on the garden wall now like a cat.
We sit there to do our evening prep: for old
Selby. Good-bye. We're on the lookout for
your name in the newspapers the first battle
that comes off.
"Roy's friend,
"DUDLEY."
"I don't think you've finished your letter properly," observed Roy,
critically, as Dudley concluded reading his. "Why do you write you're my
friend?"
"Because I am," was the prompt reply; "I'm not Rob's friend and I shan't
tell him I am. I just write to him because you do, that's all."
"Don't you like him?"
"I don't want him for my friend; he's going to be a kind of servant.
Besides I wanted him to remember that I was your friend. I knew you long
before he did, and if he was dead now, or if he never had been born, I
should have been your friend just the same. We could have got on all
right without him."
This was not the first touch of jealousy that had appeared in Dudley's
character. He had more than once quarrelled with Roy on account of the
boy who he said had crept in between them, but on Roy always
emphatically assuring him that Rob occupied a back place in his
affections, Dudley would generally be appeased and become his sunny self
again.
"I like Rob very much," said Roy, slowly, "'specially now he's a
soldier. I was thinking in church last Sunday, when they were reading
about David and Jonathan, that Jonathan had an armor-bearer. That's Rob.
Only I can't go to battle, so I send him. Don't you think that's a nice
idea?"
"Did he get killed?" asked Dudley, with interest; "I forget about him."
"It doesn't say--I expect he lived as long as Jonathan did, and then
perhaps David took him to be his servant. That's what I've settled with
Rob, that he shall be your servant if I die."
Dudley gave himself an impatient shake.
"Oh, shut up with that rot, you'll live as long as I do!"
Roy did not speak for a minute, then he said, slowly, "You remember my
will that I made when I was so ill?"
"Yes, what did you do with it?"
"Aunt Judy found it the next morning on the floor nearly under the bed.
She laughed a little at first, and then got quite grave when I explained
it, and she took it away and locked it up somewhere. But if I never
make another, you will remember that I have left Rob to you for your
servant."
Dudley looked up with a comical gleam in his eye.
"And who gave Rob to you, old chap?"
"I took him--at least he gave himself to me."
Roy's tone was dignity itself, but Dudley laughed.
"Well he doesn't belong to you any longer; the Queen has got him."
"I have lent him to her, that's all."
"You talk of Rob as if he is a slave. He's a Briton, and 'Britons shall
be free!'"
"So he is free, but he chose to be my servant when I grow up, and he
shall be!"
Dudley dropped the argument, for Roy's face was flushing hotly, and he
was wonderfully patient with him since his accident.
Miss Bertram entered the room at this juncture, and asked in her cheery
brisk tones, "Would any boys like to drive me to the railway station in
the pony trap? I am going up to London on business, and shall be away
till to-morrow."
"Hurray," shouted Roy; "we'll come, and just read our letters, Aunt
Judy! Won't they make Rob see how he ought to write?"
Miss Bertram took the letters in her hand, praised the little writers,
and then sent them off to their rooms to get tidy for their drive.
A short time after, Roy mounted in front with his aunt, was driving her
with pride along the high road; whilst Dudley from the back seat kept
them lively with his chatter and flow of fun.
The boys always liked the bustle of the station; and getting a lad to
hold the pony, they followed their aunt to the platform and saw her on
board the train. Some friends spoke to her before the train went off and
amongst them was a certain Captain Smalley.
"I say," said Dudley, nudging Roy; "he's an officer, and he is in the
army, I expect he knows Rob."
"We'll ask him, directly the train is off."
But in the bustle of the last few minutes they missed seeing him; the
young captain got into his dog-cart, and was well on his way home before
the boys were ready to start in their trap.
"Oh, I say! See him in the distance! Whip up and let us catch him. Here,
let me drive, it's my turn now!"
But Roy clutched hold of the reins.
"No, I want to."
"I tell you it's my turn!"
"It's the only thing I can do with one leg, it's a beastly shame of
you!"
Dudley, who had nearly got possession of the coveted reins dropped them
instantly.
"All right then, but go ahead!"
And then Roy with a shamed look put the reins in his cousin's hands.
"I'll give them up. Granny always says I'm selfish. It was awfully mean
to talk of my leg. Now then hurry! Gee-up!"
Dudley took the reins with a gratified smile, applied the whip, and the
spirited little pony dashed along the road at such a rate, that a porter
looked after them in dismay.
"Those two young gents will come to their death afore they're
satisfied," he remarked, and another man responded:
"Yes, the little one is pretty well smashed up already, but legs or no
legs, boys allays keeps their sperrits!"
Captain Smalley was rather startled at hearing frantic shouts behind
him, and when he pulled up wondering if some message were to be
delivered, he was still more bewildered by what he heard.
"Hi, Captain Smalley! Stop for us. We've come two miles out of our way.
Now then, Roy, go ahead!"
"Do you know Rob? We want you to tell us how he is. We can't get a word
out of him; is there going to be any fighting? And how does he look in
his clothes?"
"Who is Rob?" asked Captain Smalley.
"Why, he's a soldier like you. You must know him!"
A few more explanations were made, and then the young man laughed
heartily.
"Your young friend is learning his recruit drill at the depot, I should
think. If he were in my regiment I might not be able to give you much
information about him. The army is a big affair, my boys, and I doubt if
Rob and I will ever meet."
The boys' faces fell considerably.
"Do you think he likes it?" asked Roy, anxiously; "do you like being a
soldier?"
"Of course I do, and if he has any stuff in him he will like it, too."
"And will he be sent to fight very soon?"
"I dare say he may do his seven years without a single fight!"
Roy looked very disappointed.
"If he doesn't fight, he might just as well have stopped at home. What's
the good of being a soldier if you don't have any battles?"
"Soldiers prevent battles, sometimes."
This sounded nonsense to the boys. They bade the captain good-bye, and
turned their pony's head homeward quite disconsolate.
"I'll write and tell him to come home if he's not going to do anything,"
said Roy, with his little mouth pursed up determinedly.
"We'll give him a chance, first. He may go out to fight. Captain
Smalley didn't say for certain."
"I think Captain Smalley is funky himself about fighting, that's what I
think!"
And with this disdainful assertion Roy dismissed the subject.
XIII
OLD PRINCIPLE
It was a soft, mild day in December. Mr. Selby's study seemed close and
stifling to the boys as they sat up at the long table with books and
slates before them, and a blazing fire behind their backs.
"This sum won't come right, Mr. Selby," groaned Roy; "and I've gone over
it three times. It is made up of nothing but eights and nines. I hate
nine. I wish it had never been made. Who made up figures, Mr. Selby?"
Roy's questions were rather perplexing at lesson time.
"I will tell you all about that another time," was Mr. Selby's reply.
"Have another try, my boy: never let any difficulty master you, if you
can help it."
A knock at the door, and Mr. Selby was summoned to some parishioner. He
was often interrupted when with his pupils, but they were generally
conscientious enough to go on working during his absence.
But Roy's lesson this morning was not interesting, and he was unusually
talkative.
"It's no good trying to master this sum, it's all those nines. They're
nasty, lanky, spiteful little brutes, I should like to tear them out of
the sum-books."
"Expel them from arithmetic," said Dudley, looking up from a latin
exercise, his sunny smile appearing. "Don't you wish we could have a
huge dust hole to empty all the nasty people and things in that we don't
like?"
"Yes--I'd shovel the nines in fast enough, and a few eights to keep them
company, and then I would throw in all my medicine bottles, and my great
coat, and--and Mrs. Selby on the top of them!"
This last clause was added in a whisper, for if there was any one that
Roy really disliked, it was his tutor's wife. She was a kind-hearted
woman, but fidgety and fussy to the last degree, and was always in a
bustle. Having no children, she expended all her energies on the parish,
and there was not a domestic detail in any village home that escaped her
eye. She had spoken sharply to the boys that morning for bringing in
muddy footprints, and her words were still rankling in Roy's breast.
"It's so awfully hot," Roy continued; "let us open the window, Dudley.
Old Selby won't mind for once; it's like an oven in here."
The window was opened with some difficulty, and the fresh air blowing in
seemed delicious to the boys. Roy clambered up on the old window-seat,
slate in hand, but his eyes commanded the view of the village street,
and the sum made slow progress in consequence.
"I say! Tom White's pig has broken loose, and that stupid Johnnie Dent
is driving it straight into old Principle's! I expect he'll come out in
an awful rage. No--the door must be shut, he can't get in. There seems
quite a crowd round old Principle's. He's giving them a lecture, I
expect. Here comes old Mother Selby tearing up the street, her bonnet
strings are flying and she's awfully excited!"
A minute after the door was thrown open.
"John, it's the most extraordinary thing--oh, you are not here!--Where
is Mr. Selby? I always knew something would happen to that old man
roaming over the hills half the night, and digging holes big enough to
bury himself! John! Where are you?"
She disappeared as quickly as she had come, banging the door violently
behind her; but Roy sprang down from his seat instantly.
"Dudley, it's old Principle! Something must have happened to him, do let
us go and see."
Dudley dashed down his pen, and was vaulting out of the window, when he
suddenly stopped.
"Roy get your great coat, quick. Aunt Judy made me promise to look
after you. I'll wait while you get it."
Roy dashed out into the hall. He heard the rector's voice in the
distance, but was too excited to wait to see him, and after impatiently
tugging on his objectionable coat, he limped off as quickly as he could,
joining Dudley at the garden gate. They heard the news on the way to old
Principle's. It appeared that the old man had gone out the afternoon
before, and had never come home. His shop was shut up exactly as he had
left it, and the woman who went in every day to do his cleaning and
cooking for him, was the first one to notice his absence. The group of
idle women round his door were busily discussing the question when the
boys arrived.