“Thanks be to all the saints!” exclaimed Alice fervently; “Then, come boy—tell me what passed between you?”
“After all his questions touching thee and thy health were done,” said Charley, “and that we had talked of other matters of no import, he sat him down, and thus gravely addressed me as I stood before him: ‘I have been thinking how best to provide for thee, boy. I can see that thou art but ill fitted for hardy service, or the toils of war. And, by the Rood, it is well for thee that, in these times, there are other ways of winning to high fortune, yea, and to royal favour even, besides that which leads to either by doughty deeds of arms, where so many perish ere they have half completed the toilsome and perilous journey. Thou must content thee, then, with some peaceful trade. Let me see—let me see. Ah! I have it. Now-a-days, men have more chance to push themselves forward by the point of the needle, than by the point of the lance. What thinkest thou of Master Hommil, the king’s tailor, who, as all men say, hath a fair prospect of shaping such a garb for himself, as may yet serve him to wear for a peer’s robes, if he doth but use his sheers with due discretion? This is the very thing for thee, and it is well that I have so luckily hit on it. I’ll have thee apprenticed to a tailor, and, when thy time is out, I’ll have thee so taught in all the more curious mysteries of thine art, by its very highest professors, that none in the whole land shall be found to equal thee. Thou shalt travel to France for learning in the nicer parts of thy trade, and then, I will set thee up, close under the royal eye, with such a stock of rarest articles in thy shop, as shall make it a very Campvere, for the variety and richness of its merchandize. But thou must begin thy schooling under Master Jonathan Junkins here, who, though but a country cultivator of cabbage, hath an eye towards the cut of a cloak or doublet, that might well beget the jealousy of the mighty Hommil himself. I once wore a rose-coloured suit of Jonathan’s make, that did excite the envy, yea, and the anger, too, of that great master, by the commendations that royalty himself was heard to pass upon it. Though there were some there, who, from malice, no doubt, did say, that the merit lay more in the shape of the wearer, than in that of the garments. But I am trifling. I have some orders to give ere I mount, and this, as to thy matter with Junkins, shall be one; and time wears, boy, and thou, too, hast some little way before thee to limp home; therefore, God keep thee. Bear my love, or, as she would herself have it to be, my friendship, to thy mother. And, see here; give her this ring as a fresh remembrance of me. Farewell—I shall see that all be well arranged regarding thee ere I go; and I trust that thou wilt not idly baulk the prudent plans I have laid down for thee, or the good intentions I have towards thee; and so again, farewell, my boy!’—And thus, my dearest mother, was I dismissed.”
“Well, God’s will be done!” said Alice, with a deep sigh, after a long pause, and after having betrayed a variety of emotions during her son’s narrative. “I had hoped better things for thee, my boy, but God’s will be done! Thou hast no choice but to submit, Charley. Forget not that Sir Walter Stewart is thy father, and that thou art bound by the law of nature to obey him.”
“It is because I do not forget that Sir Walter Stewart is my father, that I find it so hard a thing to obey him in this,” said Charley, with a degree of excitement, which all his earnestly exerted self-command was, for the moment, unable entirely to control. “But, as it happens, that it is just because he is bound to me by the law of nature, and by no other law, that he thus condemns me to be nailed down to the shop-board of a tailor, instead of giving me a courser to ride, and a lance to wield, so, as thou most truly sayest dear mother, by the law of nature, but by that law alone, am I compelled to submit to this bitter mortification, and to obey him.”
“Nay, nay, dearest Charley, talk not thus!” cried Alice, throwing her arms around her son’s neck, and fondly kissing him; “talk not thus frowardly if thou lovest me!”
“Love thee, my dearest mother!” cried Charley, returning her embraces with intense fervour, and weeping from the overpowering strength of his feelings; “Nay, nay, thou canst not doubt my love to thee; thou canst not doubt that, on thy weal, or thy woe, hangs the happiness or the misery of your poor boy. Be not vexed, dearest mother, for though I have spoken thus idly, trust me that a father’s word shall ever be with me as the strictest law, which I, so far as my nature can support me, shall never wilfully contravene.”
Charley Stewart again tenderly embraced his mother, and, scarcely aware that he was leaving her to weep, he hurried away to seek some consolation for himself, in a quarter where he never failed to find it. This was at the cottage of Bessy MacDermot, whither he was wont frequently to wander, for the purpose of listening to the innocent prattle of his young plaything Rosa, who, having now seen some eight or nine summers, was fast ripening into a very beautiful girl. As Charley approached the widow’s premises on the present occasion, he found Rosa by the side of a clear spring, that bubbled and sparkled out from beneath a large mossy stone, that projected from the lower part of the slope of a flowery bank, under the pensile drapery of a grove of weeping birches. The moment she beheld him, she came tripping to meet him, with a rustic wreath of gay marsh marigolds and water-lilies in her hand.
“Where have you been all this long, long morning, dearest Charley?” cried Rosa; “I have been so dull without you; and see what a wreath I have made for your bonnet! But I have a great mind to wear it myself, for you don’t deserve to have it, for being so long in coming to me.”
“I have been over at the castle, Rosa,” said Charley, stooping to embrace her, as she innocently held up her lips to be kissed by him. “I have been over at Drummin, looking at the grand array of steeds and horsemen. But what are these flowers?—Water-lilies, as I hope to be saved! Holy Virgin! Rosa, how didst thou come by them?”
“I got them from the pool,” replied Rosa, hesitating, and gently tapping his cheek with a few stray flowers which she held in her hand; “I got them in the same way that you pulled them for me the other day, that is with a long hazle rod, with a crook at the end of it.”