“That which you wot of,” it ran, “has come to pass, and it now behoves us to do what we are resolved upon. Within twenty-four hours of your receipt of this, then, you will join me at the third milestone on the road between Doncaster and Sheffield.—M. R.”
As I finished reading this brief epistle for the second time, Gregory came tapping at my door again.
“Your uncle is asking for you, Master Richard,” says he. “Sir Jarvis has finished his supper, and they are talking of the war—Lord help us all!—though, indeed, it seems as if Sir Nicholas forgot his pains in discussing of fights and such-like. But I misdoubt that to-morrow——”
He lighted me down the stair, shaking his grey hair and muttering to himself. In the great kitchen he left me, and I went over to the hearth and placed Matthew Richardson’s letter amidst the glowing cinders. I stood there until I saw it crumble into white ashes.
III.
When I went into the hall, my uncle and Sir Jarvis sat in their chairs by the hearth, the great screen protecting them from the draught, and the fire piled up with logs, and glowing so bright that you had fancied it was a winter’s night rather than an August evening. On the table between them stood a second flask of Sir Nicholas’s Tokay, and I observed that in his excitement my good uncle had filled his own glass and sipped largely from it, which was a bad thing for his gout, and to be paid for afterwards. Sir Jarvis Cutler was smoking tobacco from a pipe—a newfangled habit which I knew my uncle could not abide, but which he evidently forgave in a guest so much after his own heart.
“Sit thee down, Dick,” says Sir Nicholas. “Od’s body, I wondered what had got thee. These boys, Sir Jarvis, will for ever be at their books—pour thyself out a glass of wine, Richard: ’tis vastly different stuff, I warrant me, to what you find in your common rooms at Oxford. Sir Jarvis, spare not—there is more where that came from—if it were not for the gout I would help you to crack more bottles than one. Nay, Dick, forget thy books and rhymes, man!—this is no time for a long face.”
“With due respect, neighbour,” says Sir Jarvis, “’tis a time that will bring long faces enow. But as for books, I agree—’tis rather a time for swords than words. Thou wilt have to lay aside the pen, lad,” he says, turning himself to me, “and take up the sword.”
“I trust not, sir,” says I. “I have no mind to see fighting ’twixt folk of one speech and blood.”
“Why,” says he, “that’s well said from one point o’ view, but neither here nor there at this present. For fighting there will be, aye, ’twixt father and son, and brother and cousin.”