CHAPTER I
THE CEDAR ROOM
One fine autumn morning a long time ago, a little boy lay stretched in the broad seat of a latticed window, gazing earnestly with his great dark eyes on the scene before him. The window was the only one in the room, which was situated high up in a sort of tower at the corner of a big old house.
The beautiful garden surrounding the house was laid out in long terrace walks, with wide stone steps and balustrades, and planted with smooth-shaven yew-hedges as thick and almost as sturdy as walls, and the flower-beds carpeting the ground were ablaze with glorious colors in the shadowless sunshine, for the great bell in its wooden cote above the square red-brick gate-house was ringing out midday. Bounding the garden on every side were lofty walls, covered with the spreading branches of plum and pear and apple trees, and the rich fruit gleamed red and tawny and purple, bright as gems among the green leaves. Away beyond the garden, far as eye could reach, stretched wood and dale and fair green meadows, where the sheep cropped at the sweet turf and the cows grazed, whisking away the tiresome flies with their great tails as they moved slowly along. Here and there among the leafy hedgerows and coppices, the little boy, whose Christian name was Charles, could see from his lofty watch-place the gleaming of a stream which wound like a silver ribbon on and on, nearer and nearer, till it reached the little wood covering the wide, sloping banks which shut in the road leading past the house. There for some distance it was almost completely lost in the ferny brushwood, peeping out again at last in a rush-grown pool. Thence hurrying onward, it wound right round the walls of the house, so that to reach the great nail-studded main door you had to cross a little one-arched stone bridge.
Faster and faster, as he gazed upon this fair scene, the tears brimmed up into the little lad’s eyes, until they rolled down his cheeks—cheeks not very rosy or chubby, like those of most boys and girls of eight or nine years old, which was the age of this boy, but of a clear, naturally healthful brown, although just now they looked a little wan. His hair was also dark, and fell in thick curly locks upon the broad collar of Flemish lace covering his shoulders to the top of the sleeves of his dark-green velvet surcoat. His face was rather handsome, and, although there was an expression of self-will about his lips, it was mingled with great good-humor, as if he had a kind, generous nature, and might look merry enough when there was anything to be merry about.
That, however, he at present considered as being very far from the case; and at last his silent weeping broke out into loud sobs, which grew only the louder the more he strove to stifle them. They could be heard such a long way off that they reached the ears of Lady Chauncy, the mistress of the house, who was sitting at her needlework in her private room on the floor below. She rose with a little impatient frown at being thus disturbed, and taking from a side-table a small gilt cage, which contained a fine blackbird or merle, as blackbirds were then called, and carrying it with her, went up the stairs to the room where the boy was.
First removing a stout wooden bar from across the door, she lifted a bunch of big keys, hanging from her girdle, and, selecting one of the keys, put it in the lock of the door, turned it, and entered the room.
“What is the matter?” she said, as she carefully locked the door behind her, and advanced a few steps into the room. She was an oldish lady, with a yellowish wrinkled face framed tightly in with a cap of fine linen in such a fashion that, if she had any hair, none of it was to be seen. Her eyes were light green-gray, and gleamed sternly, but not unkindly, under their thick grizzled brows upon the boy, as at sight of her he slid down from his corner, and went and sat in a large high-backed armchair. He brushed away the tears from his eyes, but he made no answer, and the lady had to repeat her question.
“What are you crying about? Are you ill?” she went on. “Have you a headache, or a toothache—or any ache?”
“No, madam, not the merest finger-ache,” replied the little lad, with almost a smile. “There is nothing—nothing at all amiss with me,” and then, in spite of his grand words, a last lingering sob broke up his speech. “I am only—only——”