In Honour's Cause Part 57

"Pooh! no; not a bit more than if you had cut your finger with a sharp knife. Now, if the bullet had gone in there, or there, or there, or into his thick young head," said the doctor, making pokes at the lad's body as he lay on the bed, "we should have some excuse for being anxious; but a boy who has had his arm scratched by a bullet! The idea is absurd. I say, colonel, are boys of any good whatever in the world?"

"Oh yes, some of them," said the colonel, smiling and giving Frank a kindly nod. "Good night, my lad. There will be no need for you to sit up, I think."

"Not a bit, Gowan," said the doctor quietly. "Don't fidget, boy. He'll be all right."

Frank looked at him dubiously.

"I mean it, my lad," he said, in quite a different tone of voice. "You may trust me. Good night."

He shook hands warmly with the boy, and all but Captain Murray left the chamber, talking about the scare that the shots had created in the Palace.

"I hear they thought the Pretender had dropped in," said the doctor jocosely. Then the door was shut, and the sound cut off.

"I'll leave you now, Frank, my lad," said Captain Murray. "Take one of the pillows, and lie down in the next room on the couch. There's an extra blanket at the foot of the bed. I will speak to my servant to be on the alert, and to come if you ring. Don't scruple to do so, if you think there is the slightest need, and he will fetch the doctor at once.

You will lie down?"

"If you think I may," said Frank, as he walked with him to the door of the sitting-room, beyond earshot of the occupant of the bed.

"I am sure you may, my boy. The doctor only confirmed my own impression, and I feel sure he would know at a glance."

"But Drew seems quite insensible, sir."

"Yes--seems," said Captain Murray. "There, trust the doctor. I do implicitly. I think he proved his knowledge in the way he saved Baron Steinberg's life. Good night. You will have to be locked in; but the sentry will have the key, and you can communicate with him as well as ring, so you need not feel lonely. There, once more, good night."

The captain pa.s.sed out, and Frank caught sight of a tall sentinel on the landing before the door was closed and locked, the boy standing pale and thoughtful for some moments, listening to the retiring steps of his father's old friend, before crossing the room, and entering the chamber, which looked dim and solemn by the light of the two candles upon the dressing table. He took up one of these, and went to the bedside, to stand gazing down at Andrew's drawn face and bandaged arm, his brown hair lying loose upon the pillow, and making his face look the whiter by contrast.

"In much pain, Drew?" he said softly; but there was no reply.

"Can I do anything for you?"

Still no reply, and the impression gathered strength in the boy's mind that his companion could hear what he said but felt too bitter to reply.

This idea grew so strong, that at last he said gently:

"Don't be angry with me, Drew. It is very sad and unfortunate, and I want to try and help you bear it patiently. Would you like me to do anything for you? Talk to you--read to you; or would you like me to write to your father, and tell him of what has happened?"

But, say what he would, Andrew Forbes made no sign, and lay perfectly still--so still, that in his anxiety Frank stretched out his hand to touch the boy's forehead and hands, which were of a pleasant temperature.

"He is too much put out to speak," thought Frank; "and I don't wonder.

He must feel cruelly disappointed at his failure to escape; but I'm glad he has not got away; for it would have been horrible for him to have gone and joined the poor foolish enthusiasts who have landed in the north."

He stood gazing sadly down at the wounded lad for some minutes, and then softly took the extra pillow and blanket from the bed, carried them to the little couch in the next room, returned for the candles, and, after holding them over the patient for a few minutes, he went back quietly to the sitting-room, placed them on the table, took a book, and sat down to read.

He sat down to read, but he hardly read a line, for the scenes of the past twenty-four hours came between his eyes and the print, and at the end of a quarter of an hour he wearily pushed the book aside, took up one of the candles, and looked in the chamber to see how Andrew appeared to be.

Apparently he had not moved; but now, as the boy was going to ask him again if he could do anything for him, he heard the breath coming and going as if he were sleeping calmly; and feeling that this was the very best thing that could happen to him, he went softly back to his seat, and once more drew the book to his side.

But no; the most interesting work ever written would not have taken his attention, and he sat listening for the breathing in the next room, then to the movements of the sentry outside as he moved from time to time, changing feet, or taking a step or two up and down as far as the size of the landing would allow. Then came a weary yawn, and the clock chimed and struck twelve, while, before it had finished, the sounds of other clocks striking became mingled with it, and Frank listened to the strange jangle, one which he might have heard hundreds of times, but which had never impressed him so before.

At last silence, broken only by the pacings of other sentries; and once more came from the landing a weary yawn, which was infectious, for in spite of his troubles Frank yawned too, and felt startled.

"I can't be sleepy," he said to himself; "who could at such a time?"

And to prove to himself that such a thing was impossible, and show his thorough wakefulness, he rose, and once more walked into the chamber, looked at the wounded lad, apparently sleeping calmly, and returned to his seat to read.

And now it suddenly dawned upon him that, in spite of his desire to be thoroughly wakeful, nature was showing him that he could not go through all the past excitement without feeling the effects, for, as he bent firmly over his book to read, he found himself suddenly reading something else--some strange, confused matter about the house in Queen Anne Street, and the broken door.

Then he started up perfectly wakeful, after nodding so low that his face touched the book.

"How absurd!" he muttered; and he rose and walked up and down the room.

The sentry heard him, and began to pace the landing.

Frank returned to his seat, looked at the book, and went off instantly fast asleep, and almost immediately woke up again with a start.

"Oh, this won't do," he muttered. "I can't--I won't sleep."

The next minute he was fast, but again he woke up with a start.

"It's of no use," he muttered; "I must give way to it for a few minutes.

I'll lie down, and perhaps that will take it off, and I shall be quite right for the rest of the night."

Very unwillingly, but of necessity, for he felt that he was almost asleep as he moved about, he rose, took up the blanket from the couch, threw it round him like a cloak, punched up the pillow, and lay down.

"There!" he said to himself; "that's it. I don't feel so sleepy this way; it's resting oneself by lying down. I believe I could read now, and know what I am reading. How ridiculous it makes one feel to be so horribly sleepy! Some people, they say, can lie down and determine to wake up in an hour, or two hours, or just when they like. Well, I'd do that--I mean I'd try to do that--if I were going to sleep; but I won't sleep. I'll lie here resting for a bit, and then get up again, and go and see how Drew is. It would be brutal to go off soundly, with him lying in that state. How quiet it all seems when one is lying down!

It's as if one could hear better. Yes, I can hear Drew breathing quite plain; and how that sentry does keep on yawning! Sentries must get very sleepy sometimes when on duty in the night, and it's a terribly severe punishment for one who does sleep at his post. Well, I'm a sentry at my post to watch over poor Drew, and I should deserve to be very severely punished if I slept; not that I should be punished, except by my own conscience."

He lay perfectly wakeful now, looking at the candles, which both wanted snuffing badly, and making up his mind to snuff them; but he began thinking of his father, then wondering once more where he could be, and feeling proud of the way in which the officers talked about him.

"If the King would only pardon him!" he thought, "how--I must get up and snuff those candles; if I don't, that great black, mushroom-like bit of burnt wick will be tumbling off and burning in the grease, and be what they call a thief in the candle. How it does grow bigger and bigger!"

And it did grow bigger and bigger, and fell into the tiny cup of molten grease--for in those days the King's officers were not supplied with wax candles for their rooms--and it did form a thief, and made the candle gutter down, while the other slowly burned away into the socket, and made a very unpleasant odour in the room, as first one and then the other rose and fell with a wanton-looking, dancing flame, which finally dropped down and rose no more, sending up a tiny column of smoke instead.

Then the sentry was relieved, and so was Frank, for, utterly worn out, he was sleeping heavily, with nature hard at work repairing the waste of the day, and so soundly that he did not know of the reverse of circ.u.mstances, and that Andrew Forbes had risen to enter the outer room, and look in, even coming close to his side, as if to see why it was he did not keep watch over him and come and see him from time to time.

History perhaps was repeating itself: the mountain would not go to Mahomet, so Mahomet had to go to the mountain.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A STRANGE AWAKENING.

There is not much room in a bird's head for brains; but it has plenty of thinking power all the same, and one of the first things a bird thinks out is when he is safe or when he is in danger. As a consequence of this, we have at the present day quite a colony of that shyest of wild birds, the one which will puzzle the owner of a gun to get within range--the wood-pigeon, calmly settled down in Saint James's Park, and feeding upon the gra.s.s, not many yards away from the thousands of busy or loitering Londoners going to and fro across the enclosure, which the birds have found out is sacred to bird-dom, a place where no gun is ever fired save on festival days, and though the guns then are big and manipulated by artillerymen, the charges fired are only blank.

But Saint James's Park from its earliest enclosure was always a place for birds--even the name survives on one side of the walk devoted by Charles the Second to his birdcages, where choice specimens were kept; so that a hundred and eighty years ago, when the country was much closer to the old Palace than it is now, there was nothing surprising in the _c.h.i.n.k_, _c.h.i.n.k_ of the blackbird and the loud musical song of thrush and lark awakening a sleeper there somewhere about sunrise. And to a boy who loved the country sights and sounds, and whose happiest days had been spent in sunny Hampshire, it was very pleasant to lie there in a half-roused, half-dreamy state listening to the bird notes floating in upon the cool air through an open window, even if the lark's note did come from a cage whose occupant fluttered its wings and pretended to fly as it gazed upward from where it rested upon a freshly cut turf.

The sweet notes set Frank Gowan thinking of the broad marshy fields down by the river, bordered with sedge, reed, and b.u.t.ter-bur, where the clear waters raced along, and the trout could be seen waiting for the breakfast swept down by the stream--where the marsh marigolds studded the banks with their golden chalices, the purple loosestrife grew in brilliant beds of colour, and the creamy meadow-sweet perfumed the morning air. Far more delightful to him than any palace, more musical than the choicest military band, it all sent a restful sense of joy through his frame, the more invigorating that the window was wide, and the odour of the burned-down candles had pa.s.sed away.

He lay imbibing the sweet sounds and freshness through ear and nostril; but for a time his eyes remained fast closed. Then, at a loud thrilling burst from the lark's cage in the courtyard, both eyes opened, and he lay staring up at the whitewashed ceiling, covered with cracks, and looking like the map of Nowhere in Wonderland. For the lark sang very sweetly to charm the wished-for mate, which never came, and Frank smiled and gradually lowered his eyes so that they were fixed upon the uncurtained window till the lark finished its lay.