“My dear child, do not talk nonsense,” said Lady Avillion. “We shall have you a Radical when you are of age!”
“What is that?” said Bertie.
“The people who slew your dear Charles the First were Radicals,” said his grandmother, cleverly.
He was discouraged and silent. He went sorrowfully and leaned against one of the windows and looked down the green vista of the chine. It was raining, and they would not let him go out of doors. He thought to himself, “What use is it calling me ‘my lord,’ and telling me I own so much, and bowing down before me, if I may never do once, just once, as I like? I know I am a little boy; but then, if I am an Earl, if I am good enough to be that, I ought to be able to do once as I like. Else, if not, what is the use? And why does the skipper say always to me, ‘Your lordship is owner here’?”
And then a fancy came into his little head. Was he like the Princes in the Tower? Was he a prisoner, after all? His little mind was full of the pageant of history, and he made his mind up now that he was a princely captive watched and warded.
“Tell me, dear Deb,” he said, catching his nurse by the sleeve as she turned from his bed that night, “tell me, is it not true that I am in prison, though you are all kind to me; that somebody else wants my throne?”
Nurse Deborah thought he was “off his head,” and ran to the physician for a cooling draught, and sat up in fright all the night, not even reassured by his sound tranquil sleep.
Bertie asked her nothing more.
He was more sure than ever that a captive he was, kept in kindly and honorable durance, like James of Scotland in the Green Tower.