“What is it?” Hugh came to his feet at a jump, while his thoughts sped bewilderingly to swords, horses, and commissions.
“Guess,” replied Sam.
Hugh turned his back and walked away toward the manor house at a dignified pace; it would not do to let a young sprig like Sam know his curiosity and eagerness. But Lois, having no such scruples, teased her cousin with questions till the boy, bubbling over with the importance of the news, admitted: “Well, the post from the north has come, and there is something for Hugh in the east parlor.”
“A letter?” Hugh queried with momentary disappointment in his tone. But though a letter was not as good as a commission it was something he had never had before in his life, so he quickened his step and with high expectations entered the east wing and passed through the small hall to the parlor.
The door stood open, and opposite the sunlight from the window, still flung wide, lay in a clear rectangle upon the dark floor. About the heavy oak table in the centre of the room, in speech of the news brought from the north by the freshly arrived letters, sat or stood in knots of two or three the grave-faced men of the conference. At the head of the table, where the sunlight fell upon his long white hair, sat Master Gilbert Oldesworth, an erect man with keen eyes and alert gestures, in spite of his seventy years. Hugh also caught sight of Peregrine and noted, with a certain satisfaction, that this fortunate cousin sat at the foot of the table and seemed to have small share in the business in hand. But next moment he had enough to do to give heed to his own concerns, for Nathaniel Oldesworth called him by name and he must enter to receive his letter. He felt his cheeks burn with the consciousness that strangers had their eyes on him and that he must appear to them a mere dishevelled, awkward schoolboy; he grew angry with himself for his folly, and his face burned even more. Scarcely daring to raise his eyes, he caught up the letter his uncle held out to him and slipped back again into the hall.
Sam pounced upon him at once. “What is it?” he demanded, and Lois’s eyes asked the same question.
Hugh forgot the hot embarrassment and misery of a moment before, as he turned the letter in his hand. “I don’t know the writing,” he said, prolonging the pleasure while he examined the superscription; then he tore open the paper, and the first sight of the sheet of big sprawling black letters was enough. “Ah, but I do know!” he cried. “’Tis from Frank Pleydall, Lois.”
“Your school friend?”
“Yes. I have not heard from him these six months, since he left the school. Doctor Masham, the master, said the queen was a Babylonish woman, and when Sir William heard of that he came to the school in a great rage and called Doctor Masham a canting Puritan and a hoary-headed traitor,--truly, the Doctor is but little older and not a bit more white headed than Sir William himself. And he took Frank away, and—I was right sorry to lose him.”
“But you have found him again now,” said Lois. “Come, Sam.” She coaxed the youngster, still reluctant and lingering, out upon the terrace, and Hugh, happy in being alone, set himself down at once on the stairway that led from the hall to the upper story. It was hard to find a secluded place in Everscombe those days, what with the men from Thomas Oldesworth’s troop quartered in the old west wing, and the Millingtons and other refugee kinsfolk in the main part of the house. So in the fear that a noisy cousin or two might come to interrupt him, Hugh settled himself hastily and began his letter:—