Roy laughed outright once more.
“Why, you dear, darling, silly old mother!” he cried, flinging his arms about her neck, and kissing her; “just as if I could go away and leave you here. I should look a nice young cavalier when I met my father—shouldn’t I?—and he asked where I had left you. No! I’m only grumbling like old Ben does about being shut up, though General Hepburn does treat us very well.”
“Yes; no gentleman could behave to us with more consideration, my boy.”
“But why doesn’t father or the king, or some one of his officers, come and attack this place? All this time gone by, and the general here seems to hold the country for miles round, and all the gentry are friendly to him. Do you know Parson Meldew was here yesterday to see the beast?”
Lady Royland looked at him wonderingly.
“Well, I can’t help calling him that. He is a beast, and he lives in a den. No one seems to associate with him. I believe he hates the general, but the general told me one day that Pawson was not good enough to hate.”
“Don’t mention his name in my presence,” said Lady Royland, sternly.
The conversation came to an end, Roy walking off into the court-yard, a garden no longer, to see a squadron of horse drawn up before starting upon some reconnoissance.
They rode out to the sound of the trumpet; and as the horses’ hoofs echoed on the lowered bridge, and mingled with their snorting and the jingle of the accoutrements, Roy felt his heart burn within him, and the longing to be free grew almost unbearable.
As the drawbridge was raised again, a grunt behind him made the boy turn sharply, to face the old sergeant, who had come up, his step unheard amidst the tramping of the horses as they passed over the planks.