“Why, they’ve taken the sword away from the poor old fellow,” thought Roy. “How absurd! It will make him half-mad, if it hasn’t done so already.”
But in a few moments the old man sat down on the pedestal of the sun-dial, and his head drooped on his breast.
Beyond him, just visible at the foot of the slope and outside the stables, Roy could see the Roundhead trooper, bareheaded and stripped to his breeches and shirt, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and beginning to clean his horse’s harness. But something which seemed to be more important took the boy’s attention the next moment, and that was the figure of Master Pawson upon the ramparts, walking up and down in the sunshine, this being the first time he had been visible by daylight since the general’s stern words.
“Taking advantage of his being away,” thought Roy; and he was about to shrink back to avoid being seen, but his pride forbade that, and he leaned out and amused himself by parting the thick growth of old ivy, and thinking how easily he could get down into the court if he liked.
“And that wretch could climb up while I’m asleep and kill me if he liked,” he thought, with a slight shudder, which he laughed off the next moment as folly.
Dinner was announced in due time, and he was half-disposed not to go; but he joined the officers, and obtained permission from the captain to visit his mother’s room to tea.
“Oh, yes,” said that officer, quietly. “I do not wish to be too hard upon you, Royland, only I cannot have you conspiring with your men to retake the castle now we seem weak.”
So Roy spent a pleasant evening with his mother, and in good time returned to his own room, heard the sentry placed outside, and then sat in the summer evening, trying to see the men stationed opposite, and upon the towers, from his open window.
It was a very dark night, hot and promising a thunderstorm, the air feeling so close that, when at last Roy retired, he left the large window wide open.
“No fear of Master Pawson playing any tricks,” he said to himself with a laugh as he undressed and lay down, wondering whether the general was going to attack some place, being in perfect ignorance of everything but the fact that he had gone on some expedition.