There was no reply, and the boy felt hurt; but just then he recollected something which made him clap his right hand first to his cheek and then to his forehead, as if he fully expected to find both places still wet and warm. They felt still as if his mother’s lips had but just left them.
From that moment Alfred lay quite still in the darkness, feeling very happy and contented, till all at once a long-drawn restful sigh escaped his lips, and he was just dropping off to sleep when he awoke again and lay listening, for his three brothers, believing that he had gone off to sleep, began talking again in an eager whisper, but what about he could not tell, till all at once Red said something about “otters.”
They were going to have a grand otter hunt up the little Wantage stream with the dogs; and for a few moments a feeling of bitter disappointment came over the boy, for he had looked forward to the day when that hunt would take place.
He felt better when he recalled the Queen’s words as he wished her good night. They were:
“I am so glad, Fred, my boy. You have made me feel very happy.”
“Father Swythe must have told her what I said,” thought Alfred, and in another minute he was asleep.
The next morning after breakfast the boy did not feel half so brave, and he was thinking of how he could get away to the monk’s quiet cell-like room without his brothers seeing him; but he was spared from all trouble in that way, for the monk came up to him smiling.
“I’m going to speak to your brothers, Fred,” he said. “I told the Queen that you had promised to try very hard, and she said she was very glad, but she would be so much happier if your brothers came too; so I am going to ask them to come. Do you know where they are?”
“Out in the broad courtyard,” said Alfred quickly; but Father Swythe shook his head.
“No,” he said; “I came across just now, and they were not there.”