She complied hurriedly, returning Brion to his guardian. The boy was pale, and his lip quivered. His young looks spoke hatred of the cruel act.
‘What!’ cried the gentleman, quite smoothly and pleasantly, noting that expression: ‘wouldst dare me, by-slip?’
‘No, no,’ said the lady: ‘he meant it not. Take him away, good Sir. There, we be going.’
She put her horse between, and smiled, with difficulty, in the face of her comrade. He, for his part, laughed, shrugging contemptuous shoulders; then, before he went, turned with one look on the pedagogue.
‘Cave ursum,’ said he, and no more, but, with a threatening and comprehensive gesture of his hand, imposed silence on those trembling lips. And with that they departed all three, the lady not once looking round, and in a little were lost to view.
‘Who were they, Sir?’ says Brion, his baby breast still full to tears with the agitation of it all. But the other put the question away hurriedly.
‘I know not, child; we are not to consider; forget it all and dismiss the matter from thy mind and memory.’
But that Brion could not altogether do, though, being a reserved and somewhat silent boy, he never spoke of the incident, not even to his kind stupid foster-mother, but kept the thought of it to himself, locked in his little breast. And there it lay, like a flower in a secret cabinet, fading and withering till it was little more than a faint sweet memory, suggesting something infinitely tender but forgotten; and the face of the beautiful pale lady receded in his mind to a distant dream.
He saw the Queen after this, and more than once, travelling with her Court to Richmond—latterly in a great chariot, like a catafalque on wheels, only then first coming into use—but at these times he stood among the other scholars, and, though at first he would look for the lady, never again did he mark her; and gradually, absorbed more and more into the interests of boyhood, he forgot all about the episode.
So the years passed with him until he was fifteen; and never grew boy to that age in a happier atmosphere. He was loved by his preceptor, petted by his lady, popular with their children and the others, in himself interested in everything, of a bold and adventurous spirit, yet constitutionally quiet and reasonable. There was a great waste common, south of the village, and consisting largely of morass, which lent itself gloriously to the exploration of youth. This place was much infested by Egyptians, and teemed moreover with small savage life in infinite profusion, being consequently irresistibly attractive to such as Brion and his playmates. Many were the adventures they experienced in this wild, in hunting and trapping, in extemporising rafts for the countless ponds, and thereon pushing to unknown shores, in penetrating thickets in search of animal surprises, and all in the delicious fear of kidnappings and lurking ambuscades. It was a good education for the spirit, fostering courage and self-reliance, and physically a wholesome counteraction to the Greek and Latin their minds absorbed. The cultured sportsman is ever the soundest product of civilization.