“Oh, yes. Those everlasting superiors of his! They would have fetched him away before he was half well, but I went out to St. Germains and got some gentlemen there to persuade them to let him stay with us until he got his strength back—as the apothecary too said he should. Just as he was able to play the violin and we could have some sweet music, a couple of old black gowns—popish priests, I mean—came and took him off. He pretended he was glad to go, but he always wants to go where he thinks it is most likely to be disagreeable for him.”
“That is not much the way of the Egremonts,” said Roger, laughing; “but Dicky is a soldier under orders, and he does well not to shirk them.”
When he was rising to go, Roger asked a question which brought a deep blush to Bess’s cheek.
“Well, Bess, when shall I be called upon to give you away at your wedding?—for I will by no means allow Papa Mazet that privilege.”
“Never, Mr. Roger. I am well enough off as I am. I have no taste for marrying in my own class, and no ambition to marry above me, and be flouted by the man I marry. Besides, I have to take care of the Mazets, who made me, such as I am; and when they are gone I shall hope to find some other old people or orphan children to take care of; so, Bess Lukens was I born, and Bess Lukens will I die.”
And, strange to say, Roger believed her, although it is difficult for any man to persuade himself that any woman can really live and die happy and unmarried.
Then he went to the Jesuits to see Dicky. Dicky had not changed in the least, and the two cousins walked up and down the garden of the Jesuits’ house, and talked as if they had never been parted a day since they left Egremont. Dicky had much to tell of that brief and tragic visit to England. “And I saw Egremont, Roger; I went by night. It looked prosperous,—the farms well tilled, the park in good order, the dun deer more abundant than I had ever known them. But—but every oak tree on the place is cut down. I was told that Hugo made near eight thousand pounds by the sale of this timber alone.”
Roger ground his teeth. Those oaks, every one of which was fit to be the mainmast of a man-of-war! It had been his dream to make his King a present, worthy of a king to give, as well as receive, of those miles of sturdy oaks, that were indeed too noble for any use but that of the masts and spars of fighting-ships. Dicky, seeing Roger was troubled by this, continued:
“I heard that Hugo tried to turn such of the estate as he could into ready money; he acts as if he doubted that it would always be his. But he could find no one to take the land, and for very shame he cannot sell the jewels and pictures. His foreign blood comes out more and more every day, the people told me; and he is now seeking a foreign appointment, as minister of William of Orange, and as he has been steadfast in the Orange interest, ’tis very likely he will get what he wants.”
“God reward him!” was Roger’s comment; and the kind of reward this might reasonably be expected to be was easily inferred.