“Go, my son, to a land that needs just such ardent spirits as yours; go and help your king and country.”
A dark frown passed over the face of Captain Bonyton, for it was well known that the colonists, with few exceptions, sympathized with the parliament of England, and not with Charles First. But touched to finer issues, the headstrong youth felt a softness steal over him, and he answered to the sentiment rather than to the fact of paternity.
“Nay, my father, give me Hope; the world is nothing to me deprived of her.”
Here the natural sarcasm of the elder Bonyton broke forth.
“Go, John, go, in God’s name; it were a pity that so much chivalry should be wasted here in this wilderness. Go, fight with the king against his turbulent parliament. I doubt if thy single hand may not turn the scale. That bold man Cromwell is making hot work at home. It were better for thee to go there and die in harness, than stay here and marry a mad woman.”
Young Bonyton’s eyes glared momentarily upon the father who gave utterance to this cutting speech, but he turned to Sir Richard and said, imploringly:
“Tell me, yea or nay, my father.”
Sir Richard pressed his hand upon his brow, to crowd back the pang caused by the words of the elder Bonyton, and then he took the hand of John and said, in a voice so low and solemn that it was well-nigh inaudible:
“Young man, you know not what you ask. Hope must not be, can not be, a wife. She is God’s child, John. He has seen fit to reserve some of his gifts to be her eternal inheritance. She is incomplete in mind—not mad.”