The Young Castellan: A Tale of the English Civil War

by George Manville Fenn

But he never thoroughly went to sleep, the act of sinking back making him start into wakefulness, bitter and angry with himself for these lapses, and in every case springing up to pace the room.

“Poor mother! What she must have suffered through it all, and I scarcely gave her a thought. That wretch must have locked her in her room or she would certainly have been seeing to the wounded.”

The clock chimed and struck, and chimed and struck again, with Roy counting the long lingering hours as they went on, for he was longing for the day to appear, hopeless as the dawn would be. But he wanted to see the general, to beg that he might go to Lady Royland; and the time when he would meet him seemed as if it would never come.

But at last the faint light began to dawn through the window, and, hot and feverish, he threw it open, to look out across the court and over the eastern ramparts at the coming signs of day, which grew brighter and clearer till the sentinels upon the terrace-like place, and the crenellations, stood out of a purply black plainly marked against the sky.

There were at least twenty men marching to and fro where at the most he had had two; and he groaned in spirit for a time as he went over again the occurrences of the past night. But far on high the sky began to be dappled with orange and golden clouds, which increased in brightness till the whole east was one glory of light, bringing with it hope; while the soft cool breeze he drank in gave him fresh courage and the strength to act the part he had to play,—that of one too proud to be cast down, so that his men should speak of him ever after as his father’s son.

“Better than being in one of the dungeons,” he thought, as he indulged in a good bathe, and dressed himself simply; after which he carefully hung up his armour, with the helmet above, and longed for his sword that it might occupy its old place.

“Better be lying rusting in the moat than resting in such hands as his,” he muttered.

After spending some time at the window gazing across the court at the windows of the long chamber used for the hospital, and at the opening to the stabling down below, he fell to wondering as to how the poor fellows who were wounded had passed the night; and this brought a shudder, and he ran across to the little slit in the thickness of the wall to open the tiny casement, and look down at the moat, peering to right and left with starting eyes in expectant dread of seeing some ghastly sign of the horrible struggle that had taken place upon the tower platforms. But the lilies floated peacefully enough, and displayed their great white cups, and the fish played about beneath the leaves, making rings in the smooth patches where they rose—rings which spread and spread till they slightly swayed the reeds and rushes at the edge.

But he saw no dead white face gazing up at the sunlit heavens, and, search the waters as he would, there was not a sign to send a shudder through his frame.

All at once there was the tramp of feet overhead, and he went back to the other window, where he stood and looked across, and on the eastern rampart saw the guard relieved, the sun burnishing the men’s steel caps; and soon after, as he watched, wondering what the day would bring forth, he heard the sentries at his door relieved in turn.