The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

In every room,

All to delight that princely train,

These again shall be,

When the time we see,

That the King shall enjoy his own again,

That the King shall enjoy his own again!”

The chorus echoed and re-echoed among the black rafters of the roof; the King on his knees in his dreary palace afar off might have heard that resounding cry of hope and triumph.

Roger, standing up and waving his glass with the rest, felt a glow of good cheer and companionship; so would he sing and shout for the King some day in the hall at Egremont. The thought of poor Bess came into his mind as he was bawling for the King, but man-like he made himself comfortable thinking, “Doubtless it is best that we should part, but God bless her wherever she is;” and then he joined in the chorus and sang as loud as any.

Not many gayer evenings were spent at the inn than the first night there of Roger Egremont. When the bats and owls in the forest of St. Germains were crying aloud in the midnight, the fiddle was again singing, and the rafters trembling with the carolling. There was a song with the fiddling,—a very tender song,—and Dicky was the singer. Some Scotch gentlemen did the manly sword dance very nobly, but one did it better, and that was Dicky. There was play, and a good deal of money changed hands, and poor Dicky lost all he had—about seven livres—and laughed rather ruefully at his own ill luck. And at last, when the black sky was turning a ghostly gray, and in the heart of the forest there was a rustling of wings and a chirping, and a small wind stirred the budding twigs, Roger and Dicky went up together to the great, bare attic room, and throwing themselves down on a pallet, slept with Dicky’s arm around Roger’s neck, as they had often slept when they were lads together at Egremont. And under their pillow was the little bag of earth without which Roger had not slept a single night since leaving his native land.

It was near noon before Roger waked. When he first stirred he thought he was in Newgate, as he had thought on waking every morning since he left it. But when he opened his eyes he quickly recognized the large attic room, with little in it. But through the open window came cheerful sounds of the common things of life,—the creaking of a bucket from the well, the sound of voices in the cherry orchard; and the spring sun was streaming in the one great window. Beside the window sat Dicky, fully dressed, and deeply absorbed in a little book, which Roger knew to be a book of devotion. Roger laughed to himself; he knew Dicky of old. The book of devotion always appeared after a particularly merry night in the old days at Egremont.