The Young Castellan Part 23

"Do you mean to tell me that you will not listen to my advice?"

"Yes, sir; I cannot."

"Then, my good lad, I must be severe. I have tried gentle means. As your tutor, in whose charge you have been left by your father, I command you to give up all this silly mummery. You have something better to do than to waste time over such childish tricks. Go to your room, and stay there for a while before you come to mine with an apology. Quick! At once!"

He stood, looking very important, as he gave a quick stamp and pointed towards the castle.

"You, Jenkin, go and put that sword away! Rogers and Martlet, go back to your work at once!"

"Stop!" said Roy, firmly, as the men looked at him for help. "Keep as you are. Master Pawson is my tutor, but he has no right to give you any orders.--I must ask you, sir, to go to your room, and not to interfere with what is going on around."

"Hah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ben, expelling a tremendous pent-up breath, and he turned and winked at Rogers and Jenk, though the poor old gate-keeper could not see.

"The boy is mad," cried Master Pawson, flushing angrily now. "This is beyond bearing. An act of rebellion. Once more, sir, will you obey me?"

"Obey you, Master Pawson? In my studies, yes. Over the business of the castle, no!"

"I am striving to save you from being ridiculed by the whole district, sir, and I appeal to you not to force me to have you humbled by going in to complain to Lady Royland."

"You will not humble me, sir, by going in to complain to my mother, for she endorses everything I have done."

"Her ladyship does!" cried Master Pawson, looking quite aghast.

"Of course. All this is by my father's orders."

"Absurd, boy! Your father has given no such orders."

"Indeed!" said Roy, flushing angrily at the contradiction. "You have not been at home, sir, or you would have seen his messengers, three troopers, ride up this morning, from his regiment, who will stay to help us strengthen the place. There they are! I hope you don't think they look ridiculous in their uniforms."

For, as he was speaking, the three men, rested now and refreshed, had marched from the servants' hall to where the new recruits were drawn up, and stood there waiting for their captain to return.

For a few moments Master Pawson's face dropped, and he stared in his utter astonishment.

But he recovered himself quickly, and said, with a smile--

"Of course I did not know of this, my dear boy, especially as it all was while I have been away. As your father has given the orders in his letter,--and I am very glad that your mother has heard at last,--of course there is nothing to be done, unless her ladyship can be brought to see how unnecessary it all is, and likely to cause trouble and misconstruction among the neighbours. I am sure that if Sir Granby could be here now, he would see that it was needless. Whatever troubles may arise, nothing can disturb us in this secluded spot. There, I will go now to attend to my reading. When you have done playing at soldiers," he added, with a slightly mocking emphasis upon the "playing", "perhaps you will join me, Roy. You will get tired of handling swords too large for your hand, but of studies you can never weary. _Au revoir_. I am sorry we had this little misunderstanding."

He patted Roy on the shoulder and walked on across the drawbridge, as if not perceiving that his pupil followed him; and as he drew near the servants, ranged rather awkwardly in their fresh habiliments, he smiled in a way which made every man shrink and feel far more uncomfortable than he had been made by his stiff buff coat. But as he pa.s.sed the three troopers,--fine, manly-looking, seasoned fellows, who wore their uniforms as if to the manner born, and who drew themselves up and saluted him, evidently looking upon him as one of the important personages of the house,--he ceased to smile, and went on to his study in the north-west tower, looking very serious and much disturbed in mind.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

GUNS AND NO POWDER?

Very little more was done with the men that day, for, in spite of Roy's spirited behaviour, he felt afterwards that Master Pawson had cast a damp upon the proceedings. Still, he knew that something must be done to counteract that sneering smile distributed among the men by the tutor; and upon his return to the rank he walked to and fro, and expressed his satisfaction at the prompt.i.tude they had displayed, and, after ordering them to a.s.semble at nine the next morning, he dismissed them. For the messenger had returned with the village carpenter, who took one of the old capstan-bars for a pattern, and undertook to have half a dozen new ones of the strongest oak made by the next morning.

Then there was the greasing of the drawbridge chains and rollers to see to, and, when this was successfully done, Roy found to his satisfaction that the men could raise or lower it with, if not ease, at all events without much difficulty.

To the boy's great delight, he found that the three troopers dropped into their places in the most easy manner, obeying his every order with alacrity and displaying all the readiness of well-drilled men. They began by a.s.sisting at once with the cleaning and easing of the drawbridge chains, one of them, after stripping off his coat, gorget, and cap, climbing the supports to apply the lubricant to the rollers from outside, where they needed it most; and when, that evening, Ben suggested that one of the guns standing in the pleasaunce should be examined, they made the servants stare by the deft way in which they helped him to handle the ponderous ma.s.s of metal, hitching on ropes and dragging it out from where it had lain half-covered with ivy to where it was now planted, so that it could be made to sweep the road-way approaching the bridge; the other one in the garden being afterwards treated in the same way.

"Well, yes, sir, they're pretty heavy," said the corporal, in answer to a compliment pa.s.sed by Roy upon the ease with which the work had been done; "but it isn't all strength that does it. It's knack--the way of handling a thing and all putting your muscle into it together."

"Ay, that's it," said Ben. "That's what you see in a good charge. If it's delivered in a scattering sort o' way it may do good, but the chance is it won't. But if the men ride on shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, and then give point altogether--"

"Yes, as Sir Granby Royland's regiment can," said the corporal, proudly.

"Ay, and always did," cried Ben, excitedly. "It takes something to stand against 'em."

There was a dead silence then, and Roy's heart beat fast, for the war spirit was getting hold of him tightly, for his eyes flashed, and his eagerness to go on with the preparations grew stronger every hour.

"Now, about these guns, sergeant?" he said.

Ben's eyes twinkled as his rank was mentioned, and he gave his young master a grateful look.

"Well, sir," he said, "they've been fast asleep in that garden all these years, with enough ivy over 'em to keep 'em warm in winter and the sun off 'em in summer; but, now they've been woke up, I believe they'll bark as loudly and bite as well as any dogs of their size. If they'd been cast iron, I should have been for putting a very light charge in 'em and standing a good way off when they were fired, but, seeing as they're regular good bra.s.s guns and not a bit worn, all they want is a good cleaning up, and then they'll be fit to do their work like--like--well, sir, like guns. What do you say, corporal?"

"I say they're a fine and sound pair o' guns, sergeant, as'll do their work. We should like a night's rest first, but in the morning my two lads and me will give 'em a good scour up, and you won't know 'em again."

"Right! If the captain says yes, you shall; but I want to be with you-- I'm armourer here."

"Oh, of course, sergeant," said the trooper. "Don't you think we want to take your place."

"I don't, my lad," said the old soldier, warmly; "and I'm only too glad to have three comrades out of the reg'lars to stand by me and help me to lick the recruits into shape."

"Thank ye, sergeant," said the man. "We four can soon do that. They're the right stuff, and only want a bit o' training." Then, turning and saluting Roy respectfully, he went on: "Sir Granby give us all a talking-to, sir, and said he'd picked us out because we--I mean t'others--was the handiest fellows he knew in the regiment, and he hoped we'd do our best to get things in a good state of defence. And, of course, sir, we shall."

The great, manly fellow spoke with a simple modesty that made Ben's eyes sparkle, and he nodded his head and remained silent when the man had ended, but gave vent to his satisfaction by bringing his hand down heavily upon the trooper's shoulder.

"We'll see to the other guns now then," said Roy.

"Yes, sir," said Ben, promptly. "Forward there to the sou'-east tower."

The three men marched off at once in the direction pointed out, and Ben stopped back for a moment or two to whisper to Roy, in a quick, vexed manner--

"Don't go on saying we'll do this next, or we'll do that next, sir, as if you was asking a favour of us. You're captain and castellan, as they calls him. You're governor and everything, and you've got to order us to do things sharp, short, and strong."

"But I don't want to bully you all, Ben," cried Roy.

"n.o.body wants you to, sir. You can't be bullying a man when you're ordering him sharply to do what's right. Of course, if you ask us in your civil way to do a thing, we shall do it, but it aren't correct."

"I'll try differently, Ben."

"Sergeant, sir!"

"Ser-_geant_," said Roy. "But it's all so new yet, I can't quite realise it. And, of course, I'm so young to be ordering big men about."

"You've the right to do it, sir, and that's everything. Now, just suppose the enemy was in front playing up ruination and destruction, and your father was going to charge 'em with his regiment of tough dragoons, do you think he'd say, 'Now, my men, I want you to--or I'd like you to attack those rapscallions yonder'? Not he. He'd just say a word to the trumpeter, there'd be a note or two blown, and away we'd go at a walk; another blast, and we should trot; then another, and away we should be at 'em like a whirlwind, and scatter 'em like leaves. You must learn to order us, sir, sharply. Mind, sir, it's _must_!"