"It was two of the morning when I roused from his sleep old Jeremiah Soames, that I have known since Lady Mary did bring me, a sickly child, to Bridport for the sea-bathing. His boat is now about sailing for the fishing, and in the meantime Meg has been well hid in his curing-shed, and I in his little upper chamber. He would not, for caution, advance his hour to drop out of harbor, but once he has a fair offing will make a course for the French coast, or, if the wind serve, up Channel through the Straits for a Dutch port—Flushing perhaps, or Rotterdam. I have yet no clear purpose for the future, but already some thought to obtain a commission to serve under the great John Sobiesky against the Turk. It were some pleasure, in these days when Christians will be ever cutting each the other's throat for cause of heresy, to rise a little above the policy of dog-eating dogs, and to stand with men of all opinions for Christ against the Infidel.
"To my mother I must not now run the danger of writing, for since I know not surely where she is, whether in London or at Royston, the letter might well fall into other hands. So I will ask you, my two friends (the two best I do suppose that ever man had), by some means to advise her of all that has happened, and to convey to her my great love and duty. To her at Royston I will write so soon as I shall be landed, and in certainty of what is best to be done.
"To you, Philippa, my old comrade, the letter all for your private perusal that is in my mind must remain unwritten. 'T is not fit I should now ask more of you than the life I have received at your hands in the moment when my own were stained with blood. For, though I do piously trust it is rather the stain that a soldier must bear than the murderer's, sinking through till the soul itself is spotted, yet will I now say no word but what your kind father's eyes may read in the same moment with your own. Yet, even with a price, 't is very like, set on my head, let me be in thought your old comrade, that do in exile most bitterly regret I saw not your face of late, guessing from the mellow notes of your voice how fair it has become.
"To you, Sir Michael, I would say, knowing not what report has run of the deed I did, that I truly believe yourself had done no less, placed as I was placed. I meant not indeed to kill the man, but, when I remember, can scarce find it in my heart to be sorry that he died.
"To both of you I am grateful beyond any proof of words. If the chance come you will know I speak truth, and am indeed the true servant of you both till death and after.
"E. ROYSTON."
At another time the approach of a thing so rare among us as a coach had taken my mind off the most ingenious tale or history ever printed. But the tale is not written, nor like to be, that could for me vie in interest with this simple letter. Being then in my second reading of it, while Sir Michael, content with one perusal over my shoulder, had in kindness walked away along the terrace to the steps of the great door, leaving me to squeeze a second cup of sweetness, as it were, for my sole drinking, out of that letter, I neither knew that a coach had come, nor that my father was leading from it in my direction the Lady Mary Royston. And I, looking up in great joy of the letter, encountered with my eyes, in which I doubt not the light of my happiness was plain, her noble and austere countenance frowning upon me in manifest displeasure. But I was not dashed in my spirits, as perhaps she intended, by the gloom of her regard, partly because in serious things my father had long ceased to use me as a child, and partly because I guessed that, with his habit of kindness that was ever mindful of the small matters that do please women, he had left to me the pleasant task to tell of the letter. So I dropped my lady the finest courtesy I was mistress of, very freely thereafter smiling in her face, the letter whipt behind my back.
"Mistress Drayton seems but little cast down with all these terrible doings, Sir Michael," said her ladyship.
My father smiled grimly, but left reply to me, who answered: "Nay, dear madam, for we have but now received this news of Mr. Royston, which I believe as much intended for your ladyship as for my father and me." And, seeing by his face my father was willing, I handed her the letter.
With little courtesy she seized, and with great greediness perused, the letter, and her face was the face of a woman that tears at food after a great fasting; yet midway, at that passage, as I suppose, wherein I was peculiarly addressed, she looked from the letter to me in a manner to call to my mind those words which, in my eagerness to give ease to the mother's anxiety, I had forgotten the son to have used. With that memory, and under her gaze, the blood came hotly to my face, and I was glad when her eyes speedily fell again to the letter, which when she had finished, the heart of the woman within broke down the iron gates of pride and jealousy that had shut in the mother, even as they had so long shut out the friends of her son; for she now opened her arms to me, taking me to her bosom, and weeping over me tears of joy, while she blessed us, father and daughter, for the saving of her boy's life, declaring herself to be a jealous and wicked old woman, but, now she knew him safe, a very happy one, if her friends and Ned's would but forgive her.