The last straw, eastern wiseacres say, breaks the camel's back; and it is possible that his toilsome little ascent to the pavilion, and the burning sunbeams pouring in through the glass on Lawrence's head bore their share in producing the drowsy sensations stealing so rapidly upon him, that all the scene before him dissolved as he looked, into one confusing haze. "'Tis like a dream," he murmured to himself, pressing the palms of both his hands on his throbbing temples, in a desperate effort to shake off their oppression. "A murrain on those rascals for drenching me with that stuff till I feel as if I was spinning in an Epping Fair merry-go-round. Like a dream—a bad dream"—and his head drooping lower and lower upon his arms outspread upon the broad window-seat, rested a dead weight there at last, and he fell asleep.
Heavily as one of the Seven Sleepers he slept on. Ten, eleven, mid-day came and went; and still, as afternoon lengthened, and the shadows grew deep upon the grass, he stirred only to sink back again into the unrefreshing sleep of utter fatigue and exhaustion. Sultry as midsummer the sunbeams poured into the airless chamber, till its walls seemed sheeted in parti-coloured flame, which grew but the more dazzling as the time of parting drew on, and the gray evening mists began to spread over the low-lying fields.
A sudden waking.
High aloft in the greenish blue sky the young May moon rose and mingled her mild beams with the fiery westward glow, and still he slept on; but restlessly now, and muttering hurried but inarticulate words, as if he was dreaming uneasy dreams. How much longer he would have drowsed the precious hours away, it is hard to guess, had it not been for a sudden and deafening blare of French horns and all kinds of music, mingled with shouts of gay laughter and voices which broke just beneath the window, sending Lee to his feet with a start and a cry of terror. "Fire! Fire!" he shouted, staggering to the middle of the floor and gazing in wild distraction round the pavilion, while he gasped for breath in its stifling atmosphere. Could it be that he was dreaming still? Strange ugly visions of—Nay, now, but see what things are dreams! and what is it after all but the setting-sun blaze? And as Lee stumbled tremblingly back against the trellised doorway, greedily drinking in the cool evening air, his senses dawned upon him.
"Ay, ay," he said to himself, with a faint smile of amusement at his own fancies, as he stretched his neck over the wall, just in time to obtain a glimpse of the brilliant cavalcade turning the street corner in a cloud of white dust, and caught the shouts of the little crowd collected to see the king pass. "Come back, has he? Yes, yes, God save him, with all my heart and soul—God save the king! But the question is, you see, good people. The question is—" and then Lawrence Lee came to a dead pause, and fell into a deep reverie. "How was he to be saved?" pondered on the young man, his brows knitting painfully. This happy-go-lucky Charles, who suspected no foul play, because he would persist in judging others by himself, despite all his harsh experiences, and thought no one capable of taking so much trouble as to contrive it. This good-natured gentleman, whose manner of speaking, far more than the words he spoke, had won Lawrence Lee's heart, as they were apt to win all who approached him. How—so the young man now asked himself, could he ever have been brought to nurse one traitorous thought towards him? Ay, now indeed he understood, as never he had before, his mother's glowing look, when with the proud tears glistening star-bright in her eyes, she would say: "Thy father died for his king, lad."
What is to be done?
The last shout sank to silence. The birds' song ceased. The last ray of the sunset glory faded, and only the plash of the fountain broke the silence, and still Lawrence Lee stood leaning against the ivied wall so motionless, and his face showing so white and fixed in the dazzling moonlight, that he might have been taken for one of the garden's statues; but at last, as eight o'clock struck in the town belfries, and far-off village church towers chimed it back, he stirred, and slowly descended the little rustic steps.
A deep resolve.
"Rest thee well, father," he murmured, reverently folding his hands as he went. "The world may blame me, and say what it lists. The king shall be saved, though my life should answer for it. Father—only let heaven count me worthy to be called thy son."
And so across the garden, and through the gate, still standing half open as he had left it, he passed on into the street.