“She knows that?” cried Roy.
“Well, yes. I am what you would call a brutal rebel and traitor to my king; but I have a wife who knows what anxiety is about her husband and her son during this cruel war, and I took the liberty of asking an interview last night, before going to rest, and telling Lady Royland how you had behaved.”
“Thank you, General—General—”
“Hepburn, my lad,” and he caught the hand the boy held out. “And let me tell you that you have a mother of whom any boy should be proud—your father a wife such as few men own. She passed the whole night tending the wounded and winning our doctor’s esteem. But come; I am hungry, and so must you be too.”
Roy followed him without a word, feeling that, prisoner though he was, the salutes of the sentinels they passed were full of respect; and when he reached the dining-room, in which about twenty officers were gathered waiting their general’s presence to begin, they rose like one man, and pressed forward to shake him by the hand, making the boy flush with mingled shame and pride, for had he taken the castle instead of losing it, his reception could not have been more warm.
“Come,” said the general, after their hasty meal was at an end, “you are my prisoner, but I will not ask you to make promises not to escape. You can go about the castle; the men will let you pass anywhere within the portcullis. You will like to visit your wounded men, of course.”
“And the other prisoners?” said Roy.
“I am going to parade them now; so come with me and see.”
The strong force pretty well filled the square court-yard, but left a vacant place in the middle into which the general strode; and then giving his orders, there was a pause, during which Roy’s gaze turned involuntarily towards the little turret at the corner of the gate tower; but no flag fluttered there, and he felt a pang as he gazed at the tall pole with the halyard against it swayed by the wind.
But he had something else to take his attention directly as he glanced round the walls.