He could see the terrace from the valley, as he strolled along. The sun was shining, and coaches were driving slowly up and down, and people were leaning over the parapet. He did not go near them,—he was in no mood for people then. He climbed the vast stone stairs which lead from the meadow to the terrace, and sat on the stone benches by the way, and looking about him, asked himself, as all men do on leaving a place for a new life, “Shall ever I see this place again?”
He returned to the inn in the afternoon. On the way he passed Berwick on horseback, riding fast, with his servant behind him.
He stopped, leaned over in his saddle, and said in Roger’s ear, “We ride to-morrow at sunrise.”
Roger literally ran back to the inn. There were a few of his modest preparations to be finished. He would not give up hope of seeing Dicky until the last, and so would not write him a last letter. At eight o’clock he dressed himself, not in his new suit of green and silver, and went to the palace. He had not the heart to flaunt his peach-colored waistcoat in the face of the King and Queen. He had heard the ladies say that the Queen had dressed quite shabbily of late,—although to him she ever appeared majestic in dress as in everything else; but he had no eyes for frayed brocades and mended lace. The King always dressed plainly, and fine clothes were so rare at the palace that a new gala suit was sure to cause something like a panic.
He stopped for a half-hour in the Hall of Guards—for although there were no longer any guards, yet these gentlemen frequented their old quarters.
There were numbers of the late corps present, all eager for the coming campaign, and all bearing their melancholy fortune with cheerfulness and even gayety—especially the Irish gentlemen, whose spirits rose mightily at the prospect of fighting.
In the great saloon above, the King and Queen were, not sitting in state as the French princes and princesses did, but walking about, and motioning those to whom they talked to sit at ease. The King, beckoning to Roger, said to him,—
“Mr. Egremont, I was gratified to give your services, with those of the Duke of Berwick, to my brother the French King, for the temporary service he intends, before you join the Maréchal de Luxembourg. Yet in you I have lost the best penman I ever had.”
“I thank your Majesty for that word,” replied Roger, inwardly congratulating himself on having exchanged the pen for the sword.
And then the Queen called him to her, and told him smilingly that the little Prince of Wales had asked that Mr. Roger Egremont be made his governor, because he told such beautiful stories of bears and lions. Roger had sometimes amused the child with tales.