Chapter Thirty Three.
Roy hears the Simple Truth.
A month had passed, and the prisoners knew nothing of what was going on in the outer world. Now and then rumours floated to Roy’s ears through different channels of how matters progressed in the country, but they were rumours which, Lady Royland pointed out, could not be trustworthy. One day it would be that the king was carrying everything before him, and that the rebellion was nearly stamped out; while on another they heard that the Parliamentarians held the whole country, and the king hardly had a follower left.
The moat embraced the world of the prisoners during their captivity, and they knew what went on within its enclosure,—little else.
“We must wait patiently, Roy,” said Lady Royland.
“Yes, mother,” he replied, with a smile full of annoyance; “we must wait, but I can’t do it patiently. In the old days I could fish and climb after the jackdaws’ nests, and make excursions, and read; but I can’t do any of those things now. I only seem able to think about escaping.”
“Well, my boy,” said Lady Royland, sadly—one day when Roy said this for perhaps the twentieth time, and she looked at him with a pained expression in her eyes—“I know how hard it must be for a young bird to beat its wings, shut in by a cage. Escape, then. You may be able to find your father. But at the least you will be free.”
Roy thought of Pawson’s words about his father’s death, but mentally declared it was a lie like the other assertion, and burst out into a mocking laugh, which made his mother look at him wonderingly.
“Escape?” he said. “I say, mother, do you know I’ve often thought how easily I could get on to the ramparts, slide down a rope, and swim across the moat.”
“Yes, I am sure you could,” she said, eagerly, but with the pain in her eyes growing plainer. “Well, it would be bitter for me to part with you, but go.”