'"I wonder what your father will do, Frances," said Agnes Blount, "and Sir Harry, and poor Algernon too. Why, what will become of the pages if the King and Queen are driven away? Alack! alack! I hope he won't be beheaded, or anything dreadful happen to him!" This startling idea had not struck me before. Poor Algernon! of course I should not have liked him to be beheaded; though, at the same time, it was a great comfort to think that it was he, and not Oliver, whose neck might be in danger.
'"Nonsense, Agnes," I said, trying to speak very decidedly. "As if they would behead a boy!"
'"Oh, but they would," put in Lucy Fordyce. "Prince Arthur was only a boy, you know, and yet King John murdered him."
'"My dear Lucy, that was so very long ago. Besides Lord Desmond is not heir to the Crown." There was something in that argument, as Agnes allowed, still she did not seem quite satisfied.
'"No, but you see, Frances, he is one of the Queen's pages; and if there really is going to be another civil war, perhaps they will murder the King, as they did his father, and maybe the Queen too; and then, of course, any one belonging to the court will be in great danger. Oh Fan, supposing poor Algernon was to be killed, you would be a widow, you know. Oh dear! oh dear! How shocking!" This last recollection, added to her fears for Algernon, was too much for Agnes. She gave one half-stifled sob and burst into tears.
'This made me feel very uncomfortable, and more really frightened on Algernon's account than I had been at first; for it was such a new thing to see Agnes cry—Agnes, generally so blyth and sweet-tempered—that I began to fear that things must indeed be getting serious. Poor Algernon! We had not been particularly good friends that first and last time of our meeting, considering for what purpose that meeting had been, nor had our parting been much taken to heart by either of us; yet when I remembered his honest brown eyes, and round, rosy, good-humoured face as he rushed about so happily with my brothers, and then tried to imagine him with his curly head upon the block, or dying, sword in hand, amongst a heap of slaughtered pages, a sudden desire came over me to cry also.
"Fancy you a widow!" repeated Agnes, with another dismal sob, as I put my arm round her neck and tried to say something consoling.
'"Like Dr. Power's mother," suggested Lucy Fordyce, looking at me with a sort of scared expression.
'I made an effort to fancy myself like Dr. Power's mother, and the consequence was a violent fit of laughter, which checked my tears completely, and dried up Agnes's too; for Mistress Tabitha Power was eighty-five, and wore deep mourning robes which swept the ground, a black hood drawn almost over her face, and always leaned upon an ebony crutch with a silver handle. Then, when our laugh was over, Agnes began to wonder again what side my father and Sir Harry Mountfort would take in the coming war, if war there really was to be. Mamma, I felt pretty sure, would be for the Duke of Monmouth, because Dr. Power had said that the King would make Papists of us all; and I knew that mamma was the stanchest of Protestants, and that nothing on earth would be so abhorrent to her as the idea of having her own religion or that of her children interfered with. As to my father, I did not know what to think about him, but I had a vague impression that Colonel Dare thought him likely to favour the Duke's pretensions; and if Colonel Dare did not know, who did? Agnes was rather doubtful about Sir Harry. She wished very much to believe that he would take the same view of affairs as Madame St. Aubert and Dr. Power, but could not avoid a misgiving that, whatever his own opinions might be, the part which he eventually took would be decided by Lady Mountfort.
'"And she is a strict Catholic, you know, Frances; and no ones loves the King more than she does. I remember how she used to praise him when he was Duke of York. Ah! she will never let Sir Harry stand up against King James, and he always does everything she wishes."