The Young Castellan Part 2

"Yes; but he was glad my mother felt so about you, for he could go away more contented now, and satisfied that all would be right. For though-- ahem!--he had the fullest confidence in me, I was too young to have the management of men."

"Wrong, wrong, sir--wrong. On'y want a bit o' training, and you'd make as good a captain as ever stepped.--Then it was her ladyship's doing, and she said all that?"

"Yes."

"G.o.d bless her! my dear mistress. Here, don't you take no notice o'

this here," cried the rough fellow, changing his tone, and undisguisedly wiping the salt tears from his face. "I don't work so much as I ought, sir, and this here's only what you calls presperashum, sir, as collects, and will come out somewheres. And so her ladyship says that, did her?"

"Yes, Ben."

"Then why haven't I knowed this afore? Here's three months gone by since the master went to take command of his ridgement, and I see him off. Ay, I did send him off looking fine, and here have I been eating my heart out ever since. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Oh, I don't know. Yes, I do. Of course, I wasn't going to tattle about what my father and mother said, but when I heard you talk as you did, and seem so cut up and unjust, why, I did."

"Here, let me have it, my lad! Kick away! Jump on me for an old fool.

Why, I'm as blind as old Jenk. Worse.--She'd feel safer if there was any trouble. Bless her! Oh, what an old fool I've been. No wonder I've got so weak and thin."

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"What are you laughing at, sir?"

"You weak and thin! Why, you're as strong as a horse."

"Well, I am, Master Roy," said the man, with a grim smile of pride.

"But I have got a bit thin, sir."

"Not a bit thinner."

"Well, I aren't enjoyed my vittles since the master went, sir. You can't contrad.i.c.k that."

"No, and don't want to; but you did eat a four or five pound eel that you'd no right to catch."

"That I didn't, sir. I give it to poor old Jenk to make a pie. I never tasted it."

"Then you may catch as many as you like, Ben, without asking."

"Thank you, sir; but I don't want to go eeling now. Here, let's have all this fighting-tackle so as you can see your face in it. But I say, my lad, do 'ee, now do 'ee, alter your mind; leave being statesman to them soft, smooth kind o' fellows like Master Pawson."

"I don't see why one couldn't be a statesman and a soldier too," said the boy.

"I don't know nothing about that sort, sir; but I do know how to handle a sword or to load a gun. I do say, though, as you're going wrong instead of right."

"How?"

"How, sir? Just look at your hands."

"Well, what's the matter with them?" said the boy, holding them out.

Ben Martlet uttered a low, chuckling laugh.

"I'll tell you, sir. S'pose any one's badly, and the doctor comes; what does he do first?"

"Feels his pulse."

"What else?"

"Looks at his tongue."

"That's it, my lad; and he knows directly from his tongue what's the matter with him. Now, you see, Master Roy, I aren't a doctor."

"Not you, Ben; doctors cure people; soldiers kill 'em."

"Not always, Master Roy," said the old fellow, whose face during the last few minutes had lit up till he seemed in the highest of glee.

"Aren't it sometimes t'other way on? But look here: doctors look at people's tongues to see whether they wants to be physicked, or to have their arms or legs cut off. I don't. I looks at a man's hand to see what's the matter with him, and if I see as he's got a soft, white hand like a gal's, I know directly he's got no muscles in his arms, no spring in his back, and no legs to nip a horse's ribs or to march fifty mile in a day. Now, just look at yours."

"Oh, I can't help what my hands are like," said the boy, impatiently.

"Oh, yes, you can, sir. You've been a-neglecting of 'em, sir, horrible; so just you come to me a little more and let me harden you up a bit. If you've got to be a statesman, you won't be none the worse for being able to fight, and ride, and run. Now, will you? and--There's some one a-calling you, my lad."

"Yes, coming!" cried Roy; and he hurried out of the armoury into a long, dark pa.s.sage, at the end of which a window full of stained gla.s.s admitted the sunbeams in a golden, scarlet, blue, and orange sheaf of rays which lit up the tall, stately figure of a lady, to whom the boy ran with a cry of--

"Yes, mother!"

CHAPTER TWO.

ROY'S MOTHER AND TUTOR.

"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 gla.s.s, and ma.s.sive oak furniture into the handsome mansion of the middle of the seventeenth century.

They pa.s.sed down a broad staircase into a n.o.ble 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?"