And with that he went out of the tent ere I could thank him for his kindness.
IV.
“Here’s a pretty puzzle!” says I to myself, staring at my uncle’s letter, and full of wonder as to its contents. “What on earth is that fellow Anthony up to now that he should try to shoot a man who happens to be carrying me a packet from Sir Nicholas? Faith!” says I, cutting the strings, “there seems to be something queer in all this—let’s see what the good old knight has been minded to write to me.”
Now Sir Nicholas’s letter ran thus—I transcribe it from the original, which is strictly preserved with my other family papers:—
“Nephew Richard,
“As Providence will have it there is put into my power to-day the chance of holding some communication with you, and I hasten to avail myself of the same, and to take my pen in hand to write to you, though indeed I have no certain knowledge as to whether you be alive or dead. However, if you be alive I trust these may reach you, so that haply you may repent of your exceeding naughtiness upon hearing my admonition thereon, and be turned once more to better ways. Thou art my only brother’s only child, and ’tis a sore vexing of the spirit to me that thou shouldst so strangely depart from those paths of virtue in which I strove to make thee walk. But let me address myself to the immediate purpose with which I write to you. It must be done in few words, for the messenger is in sore haste to be gone on his evil errand. God forgive me for lending assistance to an enemy of the king!—’Swounds, I would not have done it, but that he appealed to me as a Christian, and that I thought there might be some chance of communicating through him with thee, Dick.
“I understood, nephew, when you left me, that you were there and then returning to your studies at Oxford. This was displeasing to me, for I had wished you to fight for the King’s Majesty, but after all there was naught of absolute evil in your desire or your faintheartedness. And yet two days are not gone by after your departure when in comes my other nephew, Anthony Dacre, whom I had dismissed years ago in your favour, Dick, and tells me that he met thee carousing in some wayside inn, and declaring thy intention of joining thyself to the rebels. ’Sdeath, it was a marvel that I did not there and then run him through with my sword! I never heard tell of such a thing as a Coope fighting against his sovereign—’tis most marvellous. But he assured me in the most solemn fashion that he spake the truth. I trust in God, nephew, that he lied, and yet I fear me he did not, for I have since heard that thou and Lawyer Richardson’s son, and some other of your college friends and acquaintance, have attached yourselves to the enemy, being hot-headed young fools. Still I am loth to believe aught that I hear against thee, Dick, for a Coope should always serve the king whose good pleasure it was to make me a knight.
“I know not whether these will ever reach thee, for I have really no knowledge of where thou art, but I now write to inform thee that if thou hast indeed joined the rebels all is over between thee and me. I trust to hear better news, or at any rate that thou wilt repent even at the eleventh hour—I could find it in my heart to forgive thee, nephew, even then—and return to thy proper place, instead of consorting with a pack of scoundrelly crop-eared knaves that would disgrace Tyburn.
“I would have thee know that Anthony Dacre—whom I like not—is for ever pressing his attentions upon Mistress Alison, thy cousin, whom I had always meant thee to marry. I cannot tell whether the wench favours him or not.
“I beseech thee, nephew, if these should come to thy hand and find thee a rebel, to repent thee of thy naughtiness, and to immediately abjure thy errors and return home. I am sore vexed at thy froward conduct, and shall visit thee sharply for it, but as I am a merciful man and stand in loco parentis, as the saying is, to thee, I shall also reserve for thee my forgiveness on condition that you do henceforward fight on the right side.