Dick Chester
Date: 2025-08-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Great Britain -- History -- Civil War; 1642-1649 -- Juvenile fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dick Chester

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Title: Dick Chester

A story of the Civil War

Author: G. I. Whitham

Illustrator: Paul Hardy

Release date: August 2, 2025 [eBook #76615]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Blackie and Son Limited, 1921

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK CHESTER ***

DICK ANSWERS THE ROUNDHEAD MESSENGER

Dick Chester

A Story of the Civil War

BY

G. I. WHITHAM

ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HARDY

BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I.  Dick Swims the Moat
II.  Captain of Dent
III.  The Enemy at Dent
IV.  The Flag goes Down—and Up
V.  Giles makes a Sortie
VI.  Dick and Giles draw Lots
VII.  Giles's Master
VIII.  Dick's Disappearance
IX.  Master Purvis tells a Tale
X.  The Inn-keeper's Boy
XI.  The Lady Dorothy Byng
XII.  Dick's Cousin
XIII.  Lady Dorothy's Story
XIV.  The Coming of John Dent
XV.  Dick Meets Death
XVI.  Her Ladyship's Promise
XVII.  Dick goes for Help
XVIII.  In their Majesties' Lodgings
XIX.  Giles's Master again
XX.  Giles
XXI.  The End of John Dent
XXII.  Dick's Return
XXIII.  Her Ladyship Finishes her Story

ILLUSTRATIONS

Dick answers the Roundhead Messenger ... Frontis.

"He held up a bright object dangling from a silk string" [missing from source book]

"May I come in, madam?" he asked [missing from source book]

DICK CHESTER

CHAPTER I

DICK SWIMS THE MOAT

Giles the stableman had led out the horses, the two horses—one for the steward, Master Purvis, one for Captain Dent,—and he stood at their heads in the castle-yard. The owner of the castle, Sir Reginald Chester, was dead—killed in battle; Captain Dent, his cousin, did not care to hold Dent Castle for the King, and was leaving it to its fate. The servants had fled, hearing the enemy were at hand. Master Purvis remained, and Giles the stableman—Master Purvis because he was too fat to run away, and Giles by Captain Dent's orders, and for reasons of his own. Dick Chester, the late baronet's son, aged eleven years, stood on the steps, very red in the face, waiting for his cousin. Out came Captain Dent, swinging a riding-whip—a handsome, hard-looking man, dressed in a riding-suit of buff leather, with a breastplate of steel and a crimson sash. His beaver hat was of black, with a waving crimson plume, and a long sword swung at his heels as he strode down the steps. Dick sprang forward.

"Cousin—!" he cried.

"Is the flag down?" asked Captain Dent of Giles, who stepped back and looked up at the tower.

"Yes, sir," he said, saluting.

"Cousin John," Dick said, coming up to him again, "I wish to remain behind."

"You wish?" said the captain grimly. "Get on to that horse, and be brisk, I advise you. You and your wishes! Go to!"

Dick hung back with an angry glance at the captain, who turned to the stableman.

"Go and find that fat fool of a steward. Am I to wait all day for servants and children?"

He swore as he sprang into the saddle.

"What, not up yet?" he thundered, as he saw Dick still irresolute on the steps of the door.

"'Tis my house," the boy cried impulsively; "my house, now my father's dead. It was to be held for the King. You've no right to drive us away. You've no business—"

The captain made a long arm and struck at him. Dick dodged the blow, flew down the steps, whipped across the courtyard, over the drawbridge, and out of sight. Captain Dent spurred after him, thundered across the bridge, and stared about him. The long white road twisted through the fields to the highway. Through the length and breadth of the land all was still. There was not a sign of Dick. The captain was furious. He swore. He stormed. He searched every ditch and hedgerow with his eye. No Dick. The fat steward came ambling out behind him. He suggested that they should call to him. As if, quoth his kinsman, he would come! It was rather like singing: "Dilly-dilly ducks, come and be killed", you know, for John Dent was a cruel man, and Dick feared him dreadfully. There was only a thrashing in store for him did he come. Master Purvis suggested searching.

"Not I," said the captain; "he may stay and starve, for me; or be found by Roundheads and hanged, for me! Up with the drawbridge, Giles! Surrender when called upon, and good-day!"

So the captain pricked his horse up to a canter, and Master Purvis, with a wry face, for he hated riding, jogged behind him.

No sooner were they well out of sight down the highway than young Richard Chester appeared on the scene from a little wood behind the old gray castle. When he reached the moat he found the drawbridge was drawn up, but at the same time perceived Giles the stableman's dark head through the latticed panes of the gate-house window.

"What ho, there! Giles!" he shouted.

No answer.

"Giles!" again he shouted.

No movement.

Losing patience at the fourth repetition, he took up a pebble and flung it through the glass into the room. At this Giles came forth.

"Let down the bridge, sirrah!" cried little Dick.

"Not so, my young friend," answered the stableman.

"I'm not your young friend," said Dick angrily. "Let down the bridge!"

"Not so, my young enemy, then," Giles replied calmly. "I hold this castle for the King. Those who run away at twelve cannot return at one. Good-morning."

He turned away.

"Giles," Dick shouted, dancing on the moat-edge in his excitement, "I order you! I'm your master."

"Ha, ha!" said Giles, "that is a good jest, my little one," and he stepped back.

"I'm Sir Richard Chester, and the castle's mine!" Dick cried.

"Come and take it then, my man," said Giles, and he went back into the gate-house, and shut the door.

Prayers, entreaties, threats, explanations passed across the moat to unheeding ears. Dick at last, tired out, sat down and cried. Then, stung by the thought that Giles the stableman watched and laughed, he sprang up, pulled off his coat and shoes, plunged into the deep moat, and swam across.

CHAPTER II

CAPTAIN OF DENT

Little Dick Chester had never known a mother's love nor a father's care. His mother died when he was born. His father had been too much occupied with the King's business to attend to his family. Dick had been alternately petted and tyrannized over by servants. He was high-spirited, but had never been taught to control himself, and his want of training amongst gentle people had left him something of a savage. His cousin John had beaten him for his insolence, as he called it; and the rector of the parish had set him tasks to learn for his carelessness; but he had never had an example to go by. He feared his cousin, and hated learning in the person of the rector. He was proud—proud of his good birth, of his old castle, of his new title,—inclined to be overbearing, and, if roughly used, revengeful.

Struggling out of the moat water, he dashed open the gate-house door, and with a torrent of angry words, dripping, gasping, choking, flung his small person into the room.

"Upon my word!" said Giles the stableman. He was sitting at the table writing.

"What do you mean? How do you dare?" Dick cried, tossing the drops from his hair. "Writing! Since when did beggars learn to spell?" He swept ink, pens, and paper off the table on to the floor.

"Since young gentlemen ceased to learn manners," said Giles, and he frowned.

"Pooh!" said Dick rudely, stamping on the fallen papers. "Go to, for a surly rogue and pretender. You cannot write your own name nor what you are—beggar."

"I could write your name and what you are, nathless," said Giles, picking up his writing from the floor.

Dick clutched at the paper to tear it away. "Fair and softly," said Giles, holding it far above his head. "Go and fetch your coat and shoes, your honour, and then we'll have a talk."

He let down the bridge. Dick shook his head. "When I'm across you'll pull it up again and leave me."

For answer Giles snapped his fingers, walked out across the bridge, picked up the coat and shoes, and came back. The bridge was pulled up, the portcullis lowered, and Giles came in to find Dick reading the superscription of the letter which he had taken from the floor.

"'To His Majesty the King!'" He laughed at Giles. "You write to the King, Giles!" and he laughed again.

"Sir," said Giles, "I was never thrashed for reading another man's letter, but I have the best will in the world to thrash you for it now. However, I'd do it did I not know you were ignorant of politeness, never having been taught it. Let it pass."

Dick blushed, but said angrily: "You! Who are you? The stable-help?"

Giles bowed.

"Picked up by Captain Dent, who knows where, or how, three days ago."

"True," said Giles. "On the great North Road, sitting in the ditch, starving. 'Want a job, my man?' said the captain. 'Want some food, my lord,' said I meekly. 'Hold my horse,' growled the captain, and went into an inn. At the end of half an hour he came out of the inn and asked me one or two questions. 'On what side was I?' 'On the road-side,' I answered. 'Did I want an easy job and much money?' 'Of course I did.' Followed a good meal at The Checkers, in the presence of two ugly Puritans, and then the captain's stirrup and a long trot hither."

Dick listened with interest, half-forgetting his anger.

"Why did you lie in the ditch starving, Giles?" he demanded.

"Because," said Giles gravely, "had I lain in the middle of the road I should have been, by your leave, trodden on. And now, sir," he added, "let me tell you I am for toe King, and I happen to know it was the King's will that this house should be held for him."

"Yes," Dick cried, "word was sent us with the express order to keep the flag flying and hold out till relieved. Then comes news of my father's death, and Master Purvis was frightened. Then comes my cousin, Captain Dent, saying we must all quit, and he brings—"

"Me," said Giles, "and he bids me shut up the house closely when he has gone, and surrender to the first Roundhead who knocks at the gate. Captain John Dent is a traitor."

Dick started to his feet.

"Giles," he cried, "what shall we do?"

"When I saw you," said Giles, shaking his finger at him, "running away this morning, I thought you too were a traitor. I would have stood by the old place, and—"

"Giles! I only ran away from my cousin. I'm here. I've come back. I hid so's to return."

"Very good," said Giles. "Then we two will hang on here, and fly our old rag over the crop-ears of Puritans."

Dick did not think to question the loyalty and devotion of the stableman. His plan was his plan; his intention jumped with his own. He had only been in the place a week; he was a stranger, a beggar a tramp from the road, a starving man out of a ditch, but there was something so gay, so fearless about him that young Dick was attracted.

"For God and the King!" cried Giles, tossing his battered hat.

"For God and the King!" Dick echoed proudly, and they shook hands.

"We're well victualled, sir," said Giles, "and our walls will stand anything but cannon. You must know I heard a thing or two at The Checkers that led me to suppose the enemy may be here any moment."

Dick gave a caper of delight. Fancy the glory! A castle to hold alone—almost alone! Sir Richard Chester, aged eleven, supported only by a stable-helper, held his castle for the King for—oh, weeks!—with incredible risks! Dick almost regretted the great stores of flour, of beer, of hams and cured pork, of preserves and wines at his command. He was almost ashamed of the thickness of his walls, for he was in comparative safety, and might dwell at his ease and laugh at his foes he thought.

"Giles," he said.

"Sir," said Giles, pulling his forelock.

"I am the captain of this castle."

"Not a doubt of it, sir."

Dick smiled, and walked, head in air, across the floor. Giles watched him.

"If your honour will go and change your clothes, which are too wet to be healthy, I will prepare dinner," he said respectfully.

A clammy, clinging feeling about the legs and back moved Dick to acquiescence. He ran out, first being graciously pleased to remark that he was hungry.

Giles followed him thoughtfully across the court and into the kitchen. During dinner, which Dick insisted upon Giles sharing with him, he explained that he had decided that Giles must be promoted from the stables to be his lieutenant, especially as there were no horses in the stables to mind. Giles thanked him with becoming gratitude. Then Dick held forth upon the grand position they were in, the solemnity of their trust, and the wicked desertion of Captain John Dent.

"He said he had no orders to hold the place," Dick said, "and we couldn't without him. His orders were to rejoin his regiment. He frightened the men-servants with something or other, and they ran away. No one cared but me."

"What did he mean to do with you, I wonder?" said Giles.

"Take me with him and put me to school, he said," and Dick shrugged his shoulders. Defending a castle is better than school, and an enemy not yet arrived is pleasanter in contemplation than a cousin's harsh words and heavy whip.

"Is the flag up, Giles?" he questioned restlessly. And, seeing that it was, he set off to visit the walls and defences, as he said. Later in the afternoon he came out on the leads by the flagstaff, and found Giles there looking out over the land. Giles was a tall young man, but he stooped somewhat. His dark hair was not cropped like the Puritans', nor long and waving like the Cavaliers'. It fell over his brow and straggled over his shoulders untidily. He wore a long beard and moustache, and his skin was tanned and browned by sun and wind. He was thin, but seemed stronger and more active than he looked. His clothes were an indescribable tangle of rags. Yet, withal, he looked clean, and Dick remembered seeing him undergoing very prolonged morning ablutions at the pump in the yard. His eyes were particularly nice, large and rather sad, but very friendly and kind.

Dick sat down by him on the leads. He was tired, and a little disappointed that the enemy had not arrived yet and given him an opportunity for importance.

"Giles," he said, "have you always been a groom?"

"No, sir," said Giles, smiling.

"What have you been?"

"Everything, I fancy, except a thief; and then, again, nothing, except a fool."

Dick was puzzled.

"What were you doing on the road when Cousin John picked you up? Where had you been?"

"I had just come from France," said Giles.

Dick stared.

"Well—" he said.

"I was in France, and my master sent for me to come to England."

"I see. Your master was in England?"

"Ay. So I took ship and came over. I was ill at the time, but that was no matter. When we landed we stayed the night at an inn—an infamous place. The landlord would have murdered me. The servant who was with me ran away—custom of servants, you will observe,—the landlord seized my baggage. His wife helped me to escape in these rags of her husband's. I took, perforce, to the road, for I was penniless and a stranger, and your cousin found me. And," he turned himself round with a comical movement of his hands towards his tattered person, "behold me!" he said.

Dick laughed.

"And your master, Giles; where is he?"

"Ah, boy! where is every man's master in these days? He is riding up and down England, fighting and flying."

"A soldier?" Dick asked.

"Be sure of it," Giles answered. "We shall meet soon, doubtless." Then he laughed. "Faith, he wouldn't know me if we met to-day," he said.

"Have you been in other countries besides France?" Dick questioned.

"Ay. Germany, the Low Countries, and Spain, and Russia, and Italy."

"With your master?"

"I have served many masters," said Giles shortly.

Silence fell. Then Dick suddenly sprang up.

"Look!" he cried, "look!" He pointed to a cloud of dust on the highroad. "They come!" he said.

CHAPTER III

THE ENEMY AT DENT

The cloud of dust rolled nearer. Presently a dark mass could be seen on the level road. Then, before Dick's wondering eyes, a body of cavalry unrolled itself over the plain in the mellow light of the September evening. He caught the heavy tramp, tramp of the horses, the jingle of bridle-chains, the ring of steel on steel. Nearer they came and nearer, blue-gray lines of armed men, with the flutter of an orange scarf here and there, with here a tossing crest and there a white charger to relieve the sombre hues of the Puritan horse. Giles swept his gray eyes over the moving lines.

"Grand!" he muttered. "My faith! what won't drilling do?"

Dick moved restlessly at his side.

"Giles, Giles, what next?" he cried, as the word of command rang out crisply, and the long lines of horsemen swayed and stopped as if turned to stone. Then three or four officers rode to the front and paused, looking at the old walls of Dent, and pointing to the flag that flapped idly over Dick's young head.

"Their worships are puzzled," said Giles, watching keenly, but appearing quite calm. "You see, they thought they were coming to their own house, so to speak."

Dick laughed a little excited laugh.

"They thought wrong," he bubbled.

Giles looked round at him with his friendly eyes.

"They will come and ask our meaning in a moment, Captain," he said.

"They shall hear," said Dick.

Sure enough, an officer with a white flag came galloping towards the castle.

"Come along," said Giles. "I mean, your honour had better speak from the gate-house."

They crossed the courtyard, and went up the spiral staircase that led to the gate-house. The messenger with the white flag had just arrived opposite, and was reining in his horse. Giles lifted his old hat with a bow, and Dick, being nervous, copied the action.

"In whose hands is this castle?" asked the Puritan.

"In mine," Dick shouted back, feeling his own voice very weak and small after the thundering bass of the soldier.

"You!" said the latter, shielding his eyes from the sun with a gauntleted hand. "What are you, prithee?"

"Sir Richard Chester," said Dick proudly.

He looked a gallant little figure as he stood up, straight as a ramrod, his dark curls blown out like a streamer behind him, and his hand on the hilt of his dagger. As Captain of Dent he had thought it expedient to don his best suit of black velvet, with the lace collar and cuffs, when he had thrown off his wet clothes before dinner. His shoes had steel buckles, and his hat a black plume. He was in mourning for his father, and the only colour about him was the red-leather sheath of his dagger.

The Puritan looked up at him grimly.

"Who is in command here?" he asked.

"I am."

The Puritan laughed.

"Come you down, my manikin," he jeered, "and open the door."

Dick flushed with anger, and was about to fling a retort at the officer, when Giles spoke to him.

"It's about time, your honour, that His Majesty's name came into the conversation. Suppose you say this place is held for him?"

"Dent is held for the King," Dick shouted, and Giles lifted his hat again.

"What is that?" asked the Puritan, pointing to the tattered figure at Dick's elbow. "A scarer of crows?"

"And of bigger things than crows," Giles said smiling.

Dick could not help noticing that though Giles did not seem to lift his voice, it rang out in the stillness, every word clear and vibrating. By the Puritan's his own voice had seemed a mere shrill squeal, but by Giles's the Puritan's was a roar, hoarse and unmusical.

"Well, you'll have to come out of that," he said. "The general will come up and talk to you in person."

"A thousand thanks," Giles said, and it seemed to Dick, who was struggling in a chaos of half-formed threats, that the stableman dropped the words over the battlements right into the Puritan's face, for he started and looked up sharply. Then he shook his head and galloped off.

"If we'd a musket I'd put a bullet in him as he rides off," said Dick savagely.

Giles turned on him with such a blaze of anger in his eyes that Dick fell back a step or two.

"Fire on a flag of truce! Fire at a man's back!" Giles said. "Upon my soul, Richard Chester, you want shooting yourself!" He laid a heavy hand on Dick's collar, and lifted the other. "You hold a castle for His Majesty! You little dastardly puppy!"

He swung Dick round, shook him till his teeth chattered, and let him drop. Dick was choking with anger. He struck at Giles blindly and silently. Giles moved away.

"A pretty sight for our friend the enemy," he said quietly; "the captain cuffing the scarecrow, and the scarecrow shaking the captain. Get up sir! Here comes their general to reason with you."

But Dick, white with passion, struggled to his feet only to rush down the stairs, saying:

"You can answer him yourself, you beast! you beast! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never come near you again."

The door crashed behind him, and Giles, in his rags, with a clouded face, was left to speak to the enemy alone.

"Now, my man," began the general in a blustering tone, "this is some little jest, I perceive. Believe me, 'tis ill fooling with me unless you are prepared for consequences."

"'Who sups with the devil should have a long spoon'," said Giles. "I'm prepared. See the walls. We are here. If you want to punish us, you must get at us. To get at us you must scale our walls. If you try that we shall shoot you. Pray, begin."

"I was told," said the Puritan imperturbably, and sawing the air with his forefinger, "that this house would be delivered up to me to-night by one Giles, a stableman in rags. You're in rags. Don't deny it, sirrah! I can see them from here."

One of the officers laughed behind his gauntlet, for the wind flapped Giles's garments mockingly.

"John Dent told you that in the Checkers Inn at Lumley. I heard him," said Giles.

"Don't stand prating there, fool! Come down and let us in," shouted a choleric little man riding beside the general.

"My orders are to keep you out," said Giles.

"Whose orders?" shrilled the little man.

"Whose orders?" echoed the general.

"Richard Chester's, the Captain of Dent."

Dick, crouching behind the door below, heard and wondered. Giles might have left him out of it all when he had made him so furious, and struck at him so hard.

Arguments, and explanations, and suggestions passed below amongst the officers. Commands to surrender, mixed with threats of hanging, ultimately, were wafted on the evening breeze to Giles. He replied with a gentle shake of the head, as if too tired to make speeches, until the general came to the end of a perfect storm of abuse and maledictions and insults. Then Dick heard Giles make answer.

"Your manners are not nice, sir, and your words are not pleasant. You are angry; to be sure you are. But, consider, anger in such hot weather, in a man with your neckband, may lead to an apoplexy. Let me recommend a cold supper, with light potations. Good-night."

Dick fled down the stairs, because he was laughing, and felt that Giles ought not to see that. He avoided his lieutenant in gloomy silence. He saw him go down to prepare supper, and he lurked in the hall in the gathering twilight. Giles went to the yard-door and looked out; he came to the hall-door and looked in.

"Supper's ready, your honour," he said drily.

Dick took no notice. Half an hour passed, and he sat in the dark, holding out dismally against the hunger that begged him to eat.

Giles ran up the turret-stairs whistling a tune. Then Dick slowly moved to the kitchen, saw bread and cold meat on the table, and flung himself upon it. Crossing the hall in the dark, wondering whether to go to bed or not, he hesitated, listening. Overhead he heard the steady tramp of his lieutenant's feet on the leads.

"He watches"—Dick thought,—"I won't go near him," and went to his room. He lay down to sleep in his clothes, but woke very soon and sat up. He must get up and see what the enemy were doing. In his stocking-feet he ran to the foot of the turret-stairs and listened. All was still overhead.

"He's asleep," Dick thought, and crept up the steps softly. The door at the top was open, and close to it, on the leads, with his head on his arm, lay Giles. As Dick's head appeared in the opening, Giles turned over and fixed him with his eyes.

"I—I—" Dick stammered clumsily.

Giles rose to his feet and saluted.

"Your honour wishes to look out?" he said, and moved aside.

Dick brushed past him and looked over the battlements. He could see watch-fires blazing in the fields, and, in the half-lights, descried white tents—shadowy, vague, like phantom tents. In the night silence he could hear the sentries pacing up and down, up and down. A horse stamped, restless at its feed. A distant voice started a dreary psalm-tune, and other voices answered out of the shadows. Dick gazed and gazed, and behind him Giles stood, at ease but very silent; and Dick knew that he was looking at him, looking through him, with the gray eyes he had all but once found so friendly and so gay. At last Dick turned from the battlements, and, after several false attempts, succeeded in passing the tall figure of his officer with his head reasonably high. Giles saluted, and Dick passed, with the knowledge that Giles, in his fluttering rags, was immeasurably his superior, that he had fallen in the estimation of his stableman, and was regarded with serene contempt by a beggar off the king's highway. When he woke in the morning he was first thrilled with excitement at the call of a bugle outside, and then recalled the uncomfortable incident of yesterday, which had dashed the glory of Richard Chester, Baronet and Captain of Dent.

"Never again," he said aloud, before rising, "never again will I even think of hitting a man in the back."

"And, therefore," said a voice in the doorway behind him, "you will never say it any more than, I think, you would ever have done it."

Dick sprang off the bed, and Giles—Giles with the old gray eyes—saluted with respect from the doorway.

"I dare say I ought to have been shaken," Dick began simply, thinking aloud in a moment of excitement, "but—

"But," Giles cut in, "you scarcely think I—Ragged Robin—am the man who should have done it. My dear sir, consider"—Giles set down a pail of water he was bringing for Dick to wash in, and spoke earnestly.—"That kind of thing said amongst men—such men as your father and my master,—what would it bring you? Contempt and dislike. Believe me, those two things don't make pleasant living. But, observe now, you spoke without thinking, and because you knew no better. Has anyone taught you what a man's honour is?"

"No, Giles," said Dick slowly, "but I think I know—a little."

"Very good," said Giles. "You are here, and you have taken the King's honour to keep as well as your own. His Majesty has no use for persons who hit in the back. You understand? It's just one of the things we don't do—that such men as my master don't do."

"There are others?" Dick questioned.

"Many others. But you've learnt one; and be thankful you've learnt it with me, and not amongst strangers." And then he added gravely: "I was very violent; I was very much aggrieved at you. I must ask your honour to pardon my assault."

Dick looked at the floor.

"Of course," said Giles, "striking my superior officer in the face of the enemy proves me mutineer and insubordinate."

Still Dick regarded the floor.

"And, moreover," said Giles, "your honour is perfectly free to think, and say, and indeed act, now and always, as you please. What concern can it be of Giles the stableman?"

Dick had nothing to add.

"If you disgraced yourself before others, ought it to matter to Giles, or ought he to care?"

Dick's face puckered curiously. Giles backed hurriedly to the door.

"And thirdly and lastly, your honour's breakfast is waiting."

Dick plunged after him and caught him by the ends of his fluttering rags.

"Giles—I say—Giles—I am sorry I struck you," he cried huskily.

And Giles turned with a laugh.

"You're a gentleman, Dick!"

The day passed chiefly in sitting on the leads talking. Dick's eyes scarcely left the spread-out wonder of the little cavalry camp below. Questions simply flowed from his lips, to every one of which Giles seemed to know the answer. He knew what everything meant—bugle-calls, horse-exercising, the mysteries of drill, the saddling-up, the watering, and the thousand-and-one orderly, fascinating, jingling details of a soldier's day in camp. He told, too, stories of other camps that he had seen, of brilliant leaders, like Prince Rupert, who "never comes but to conquer or to fall". He led the boy through the mazes of engagements by day and by night. He made him enjoy sieges, both inside the walls and out. He told him of deeds of valour that set his blood dancing, and deeds of shame that made him pause and think. In moonlight escapes and midnight massacres, in the silence of prisons and the noises of battlefields, in perils by land and perils by water Giles the stable-helper had had his part under the masters he had served. Dick listened to tales of strange lands and distant cities, of foreign ways and clothes and customs. Giles was indeed a perfect storehouse of romance and adventure. And his heroes were all brave and gallant, modest and of a becoming reverence. He had no condemnation deep enough for the man who was false to his God, his King, or his friends. Dick was enthralled, enraptured. To be like these men whom Giles had served and known, to think such thoughts as theirs, to say such words as theirs, to live such a life as theirs, and die such a death—this idea filled his soul.

"Giles," he said, "I will be a hero, the friend of kings, faithful to death."

"God knows," said Giles; "we are in His hand. To-morrow a bullet may kill you, covered with glory; or a week hence you may die in a ditch, out of sight, never missed. You may be called to rot all your years in a dungeon, or die disgraced on a gallows, for that. You cannot tell."

"Why, then," said little Dick, "what is the value of striving and trying?"

"Because," said Giles, "that is what we were born for."

"But these masters you served?" Dick cried.

"Their duty led them to glory," said Giles. "Had it led to shame, they'd have followed. My dear fellow, it's the duty that counts."

CHAPTER IV

THE FLAG GOES DOWN—AND UP

On the sixth day of the siege Dick noticed that his lieutenant looked unwontedly serious.

"What is it, Giles?" he asked. "Anything wrong?"

Giles shrugged his shoulders.

"Little Captain," he said, "why don't our friends, the enemy, go away or attack us?"

"Go away?" Dick asked, for it had not struck him that cavalry might be better employed than in camping before a castle into which they could not seemingly get.

"I admit," Giles went on in his jesting way, "that the situation is salubrious, that the plain is well watered, and that the pasture for cattle is excellent. The view, too, of yonder hills is delightful, for men who have seen neither the Alps nor the Pyrenees. Your honour's cows, too, give excellent milk. Hark to the clatter of the pails in the hands of the Puritan dairymen! But, notwithstanding, to an unprejudiced, leisurely observer, it seems, in these tumults, our friends there might seek something more suiting their profession—unless, to be sure," he added, "the troopers are recruiting their health."

Dick drummed on the stones with his shoe-heels.

"I wish they'd attack us," he said.

"I want—" said Giles. "I know what I want, little Captain—"

"What do you want?" asked Dick.

"A man—one of those men," said Giles, stretching his hands towards the camp as if he would have picked up one of the Puritan soldiers that they could see in the meadow below. "Now, if I want a bird for the pot, I go out and shoot him."

Dick caught his hand.

"Let's go out and shoot a MAN!" he cried.

"We can't," Giles said with a despairing gesture. "How can we? Why, your little body wouldn't hold the bullets they'd send us."

Dick sighed.

"Bear up," said Giles, patting his captain's shoulder. "I'll load a musket there is in the hall, and go sit me in the room over the gate. Who knows, some carping pig of a Puritan may come past to bid us good-day."

He ran down the turret-stairs humming a tune, and Dick watched him presently cross the courtyard. There were two windows in the little room over the portcullis arch in the gate-house—one narrow slit, with an iron bar down the middle, looked over the moat, and one looked over the yard, and had a view of the leads and the flagstaff. Giles had sung two Cavalier songs to himself, and had, I think, almost forgotten why he was sitting there with a gun across his knees, when he became aware of a man crouching behind a low wall that flanked the castle orchard on the far side of the moat, well within range.

He had scarcely marked him before he heard a report, then a loud cry from the leads. Darting to the other window, he saw the flag drooping from the broken rope. The wind caught it, held it straight out for a moment, then down it came at a run, and sank out of sight behind the battlements. From down the meadow he heard a cheer.

"For which we will have payment," he said grimly. He sprang up the steps to the roof. The Puritan trooper had stepped out of cover, and stood mocking, waving his hand to the bare pole.

"He laughs best who laughs last," shouted Giles, with his gun at his shoulder. He fired, and the man fell as he laughed. Giles turned in time to see the flag fluttering up to the staff-head gaily. Dick had knotted the rope, and, looking across at a group of Puritans who were watching, he waved his hat to them, bowed—in careful imitation of the stableman's manner—and stepped out of sight.

"Of the right stuff," was Giles's comment, and he went down to meet his commander. "Of course," he thought, "he will absolutely require to tell me how he did it."

When Dick joined him, all he said was:

"Giles, what think you? They shot at our flag!"

"Very insolent, on my word!" Giles responded, and waited.

"But it's up still," said Dick, and he slipped his hand through Giles's arm, and smiled to himself.

"I saw," said Giles quietly. "It was well done. You're a captain for a man to serve under, Dick."

For a minute Dick was silent. Then he looked up.

"I've been thinking, Giles," he said, "that it is very foolish of me to lord it over you here. You've served in the wars, Giles, and you know so much more than I. It seems a great piece of absurdity. So here, I resign. And—let me see. Yes. Have this." He unbuckled his dagger. "It's all I've got, Giles. Let me fasten it on for you. What's the matter? Did I prick you with the point?"

Giles's eyes were suddenly lowered—almost shut, in fact—but Dick was sure he had seen something very curious about them. And it seemed impossible to find Giles's middle amongst his rags, for his hands were in Giles's hands; and—anyhow, between them, the dagger fell to the ground.

"Dick, I'd serve under you to the end of time!" Giles said gaily. "I wouldn't have you resign for an empire! Nay, don't talk of resigning. Zounds! my dear little fellow, I'm more proud of serving under you than under any one of my kings and dukes and great barons!"

Dick was convinced of the utter impossibility of giving up his post. Giles promised to help, to advise, to suggest; but command, no!

"But I'll keep your dagger for a keepsake, sir."

"Call me Dick," the boy cried affectionately.

"I'll keep it in memory of this day, Dick, then, and some day, perhaps, I'll give you something in exchange."

And there never was a more devoted, attached, considerate, unselfish couple of officers anywhere in the world. And if, forgetting his mightiness, the captain at times waited on the lieutenant, and the lieutenant at times rated the captain, and if they both laughed loudly at each other's jests, and played each other desperate practical jokes, there was no one to complain. They were prepared to stand by each other, living, in the face of every foe; and Dick, for one, had no higher ambition than to die in the esteem and affection of his lieutenant and stableman Giles.

CHAPTER V

GILES MAKES A SORTIE

"Giles," said Dick in the evening, as they stood on the leads by the flagstaff; "Giles, they haven't taken the Puritan's body away," and he pointed to the man where he lay by the moat.

"No," answered Giles. "I fancy, my Captain, that his people will leave him alone."

"Do you think—" Dick said, staring at the Puritan's body, "are you sure he is dead, Giles?"

"That I am quite sure he is not, Dick," said Giles.

Dick nodded.

"I thought I saw him stir."

"He may be dying, and he may be suffering acutely, and he may, peradventure, need a drink," Giles remarked.

Dick regarded the figure of the soldier a while longer thoughtfully.

"He's an enemy, Giles."

"He was, Dick, so long as he had the will and the strength. For myself, I feel no particular anger against yon helpless man now. But it may be a lure."

"A lure?" Dick questioned.

"Ay. They may leave him there to lure us out. For you must know, Dick, and they will know, Dick, of what value that man is to us."

"How?"

"He will, maybe, tell us the news. And news to a besieged castle is worth risking a life for. But, you see, in this castle—to our future glory and present inconvenience—there are so very few lives to be risked."

"I'll go," said Dick, drawing himself up.

"My child, could you carry him in?"

Dick's face fell.

"I'd drag him hither by the heels."

"I think, were I wounded, I should scarcely like that kind of carriage," said Giles with a grimace.

"You go, then," said Dick.

Giles saluted.

"At your honour's orders," said he. "And if you'll do as I tell you," he added, when Dick expostulated with him for addressing him so, "I'll let down the bridge and go out, Dick, and you must stand by to work it up again at need."

He looked down at Dick very earnestly.

"What you have to do, Dick, is the simplest thing in the world. If you see me fall, if you see the enemy close with me—more than, say, three at a time.—up with the bridge!"

"And leave you!" Dick gasped.

"Of course. It isn't me you're responsible for; it's Dent Castle. If I go out to bring in my man, there must be no danger to Dent. Understood, Dick?"

"Yes."

"And you'll do it?"

"Yes."

They shook hands, and going down to the court Giles lifted the portcullis, and stood in the arch, looking out. There was nothing to be seen but the body of the Puritan by the low wall, and nothing at all to be heard. Giles shaded his eyes with his hand, and searched the first meadow. Not a soul. Then he examined the camp in the meadow beyond.

"I can get to my man and back before anyone there could get hither," he said.

What he could not see was the little wood in the rear of the castle, and four troopers and an officer lurking in the orchard. He let down the bridge.

"Now, Dick, stand here. And remember, if I fall, or am attacked, up with it!"

Dick went and laid his small hand on the crank. Giles walked over the bridge, along the side of the moat to the wall of the orchard. He knelt down by the man's side, and felt for the heart, found it beat still, though feebly, and rose to his feet. As he did so he was almost blinded by the flash of a musket, and the ball carried away his old battered hat. Dick, at his post, turned very white, and knew suddenly, as he saw him face to face with death, how much he had come to love ragged Giles.

The trooper who had fired dropped his musket, drew his sword, came running through the orchard shouting, caught his foot in the twisted root of a plum-tree, and fell sprawling; and his sword, flying up out of his hand, whizzed almost to Giles's feet. He picked it up, put it between his teeth, picked up his man, flung him on his back, and set off at a run for the bridge. Two bullets flew past him, and one lodged in his burden, as he knew by the sound and a sudden twist of the hands he held in his own. Three men appeared by the wall. Two fired again, and the third, sword in hand, leapt the low wall after Giles. Dick, watching, saw Giles start forward and stumble.

"He's hit!" Dick thought, and his hands, clinging to the cranks of the drawbridge, trembled, and his legs shook under him.

And now he saw a party of horsemen separate from the camp below, and come galloping over the fields. But Giles was still running forward. Oh, how short a way it had seemed to the orchard-wall a moment ago, and what miles and miles it now seemed to come back!

"He's not down! They've not closed with him!" Dick told himself. "I needn't draw it up yet."

Giles's feet were on the bridge-end as the line of horsemen came into range, drew up, and fired Dick saw the flash, then the blue line of smoke. He heard the report echo and re-echo, and the bullets come hopping on to the bridge, into the water, and one or two whistled softly past him and dropped ping-ping on the stones of the court. Dick shut his eyes.

"Up with it!" a voice shouted in his ear, and something shot past him and fell at his side.

Flinging all the strength of his little body into the effort, Dick felt the cranks yield. Up went the bridge, and the foremost Puritan, springing and missing his foothold, went down into the water with a curse and a crash. A horseman, whipping and spurring for the bridge, but failing to wrench his charger's head round, followed him with a splash that sent the moat-water as high as the roof of the gate-house, and a noise that deafened Dick as he stood tugging at the portcullis pulleys for dear life. Giles limped to his aid, and whilst bullets rained past them, and muskets cracked, and soldiers shouted, and officers yelled orders, the great iron grating came down with a clash, and the two besieged comrades lifted a cheer.

"God save the King!" Giles shouted in mocking triumph, and then Dick leapt into his arms.

"Giles, Giles, I love you! But oh, Giles, I'm very sick!"

And the two heroes retired to the hall with their Puritan, to ransack their wounds, as Giles said, and to drink the King's health and the Captain of Dent's.

CHAPTER VI

DICK AND GILES DRAW LOTS

Giles bound up the Puritan's wounds first, and gave him some wine, laying him on a settle by the kitchen fire. He revived a little, but Giles saw very soon that he was dying. Dick had conceived the idea that Giles would torture the trooper to gain information. Master Purvis had told him how they treated Guy Fawkes, and what a part the boot and the thumb-screw had played in similar cases. But Giles, on being questioned, said his taste did not run to displays of that kind, and Dick felt relieved, he scarcely knew why.

Giles was wounded in the leg, but only slightly, the ball having passed through the flesh without injuring the bone. He bound it up, and then they drank to the King. The Puritan's face twisted in a grim smile.

"I'm dying," he said slowly. "To-day me, to-morrow thee."

"Scarcely so soon, I trust," Giles said, fixing a keen eye on the speaker.

"Within the week," the man said.

Giles gave him more wine.

"We are courageous," he said, smiling, "for your people can't get into Dent. In a day, or two days, there will come our own fellows. Up will be crumpled your psalm-singing friends yonder. Within a week we shall have the King here at Dent."

The Puritan, strengthened by the wine, tried to lift himself to his feet, but fell back again. He had only power to shake his fist at Giles.

"Your King," he said, "is six miles off, at Lumley. Can he hear when you call him? He'll hear the guns that shall shatter these doomed walls, I tell you."

He stopped. Again Giles gave him wine, but he refused it.

"Your people have no guns to shatter our walls with," Giles said sternly, bending over him, and, it seemed to Dick, anxiously waiting for something the trooper might add.

"Within a week," said the man almost inaudibly. "To-day me, to-morrow thee."

Giles paused a moment, and then asked Dick to go up on the leads and see what the enemy were doing.

"Don't come back. I'll be with you in a few moments," he said.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he came up to him, and told him that the Puritan soldier was dead.

"We must bury him in the court, Dick, where there are no flags, and the grass grows."

So they went down and dug him a grave. Giles bore out the Puritan wrapped in a cloak, laid him in the ground, and they shovelled in the earth over him silently. Then Giles asked for a prayer-book, which Dick, wondering, found him; and Giles, standing at the foot of the new grave, bareheaded, in his fluttering rags, read the prayers from the burial service.

"Perhaps he would have preferred one of his own people to do it, but I've done my best, Dick," said he at the end; "and I dare say he did his."

When they were sitting on the leads in the late evening-light, Dick observed that Giles was silent, preoccupied, absent, not at all himself.

"Giles," he said, and his companion started.

"I'm thinking, Dickie," he said. "Will you favour me with your views on the state of the case at this juncture?"

Giles turned over and lay full-length on the leads, his chin in his hands, and his eyes fixed on the boy.

Dick did not reply to the question, not quite understanding it, but he said: "Methinks, Giles, that we took a great deal of trouble this morning for naught."

"'Naught' being our friend under the earth there," Giles suggested, waving his hand towards the court.

"He was no good to us," Dick said.

"Was he not?" Giles said, smiling. "Within a week, he said, we should be dead. He called our walls doomed. He prophesied that His Majesty would hear the guns that shattered Dent. He was good enough to inform us, if you will bend your mind to consider his words, Captain,—he was good enough to inform us that his people had sent for artillery; and he was good enough to add, also, that His Majesty was six miles off, at Lumley. Why, Dick, if we'd learnt all that from a letter, how grateful we'd have been to the man who brought it to us. Prithee, don't scorn it because I acted as bearer."

Dick looked at Giles solemnly. "What a wonderful man you are, Giles!" he said simply.

"Thanks," said Giles, bowing his head. "The thing is, how shall we act in the matter? We want to know if Dent is worth holding—if His Majesty wants it. How shall we learn?"

Dick shook his head blankly. "We cannot," he said.

"Oh, tush, my dear fellow!" said Giles scornfully. "Let us think."

And he thought, with his eyes fixed on the moon rising over Dick's head. Dick thought too, and was the first to come to a solution of the riddle.

"Giles, you were writing a letter to the King—once—in the gate-house—you remember. Someone must carry it to the King quickly."

"First fix on the someone," advised Giles.

"There's only me and you," Dick said breathlessly.

"We'll draw lots," Giles said; "for the reasons for each of us to go and stay are just equal. You are the Captain of Dent, and should stay by the castle. You are the least observable of us, and therefore should go. I might do it swifter, so should go; but there are other reasons why I should stay."

He did not state the reasons, the chief of which was that, if help did not come before the Puritan artillery, the one remaining in Dent would be taken and shot. Dick's youth might have been his safeguard; but still, Giles would rather he were safe out of the way.

A little tuft of grass was growing in a cranny of the stone coping, and Giles plucked two blades.

"These two blades are us, Dick," he said; "the little one's you, and the big one's me."

He turned and placed them between his finger and thumb, concealing the ends.

"Now, draw," he said, holding his hand out to Dick.

Dick suddenly felt a wild thrill of excitement, and a tightening of the throat as if he would choke. On the one side he saw himself alone in the great world without the walls, seeking his sovereign, every tree and hedge hiding an enemy. On the other, he saw himself alone in the great empty castle of Dent, fearing at every sunrise the sight of advancing artillery, and dreading to hear the thunder of guns in the darkness of every night.

"Draw, draw," said Giles, smiling down at him. "Now!"

Dick drew one of the narrow green blades, biting his lip hard as he did so.

Giles opened his hand and looked at the one he still held. "The long one stays," he said. "Dick, it is you."

They had risen for this solemn business, but now they sat down side by side. Giles was relieved, and Dick felt, now that the choice was made for him, that he would have been disappointed had it turned out otherwise.

"No time to lose," said Giles cheerily.

And Dick said excitedly: "Tell me what I shall do. Shall I go to-night? Giles, they'll see us let down the bridge. If they take me, what must I do with the letter?"

"We'll have no letter, Dick," said Giles, stemming the questions. "'Tisn't safe; 'tisn't needed. Now, hearken!"

Giles explained what the messenger must do. He must go out that night, but not till late, for the moon shone on the wrong side for them yet. When the back of Dent was in shadow, Dick must climb out by the little window in the buttery—Giles would take out the bars. Dick must then swim the moat, as Giles knew he was quite equal to doing in moments of excitement. (Dick laughed guiltily at that.) He must then put on a dry suit, for fear the damp and the night air together crippled him with an ague before he reached Lumley. Before he swam across the moat he was to hurl a bundle of clothes to the other side ready.

"Do you know the way to Lumley?" Giles asked.

"By the fields," said Dick. "Once I went thither with Master Purvis to a coursing-match."

"How long will it take you to get there?"

"About two hours. 'Tis a shorter way by the fields, but the first bit's uphill."

"Well, avoid roads and people. If a Puritan accosts you, you're a poor boy driven from home by the enemy. So you are. Your father's killed, and your mother's dead; you have no brothers. You haven't, have you?"

"No," said Dick. "I'd a step-brother, but he died years ago in France."

"Oh, well, you needn't drag him into a talk with a Puritan! If you meet any of our people you're Richard Chester of Dent, with news for His Majesty or any general commanding at Lumley. And, mind this, Dick, don't tell anything else to anyone till you've seen the chief. Don't be led into the tale of our siege, because no one will believe you. Be sure of that."

"Will the King or the general believe me?" Dick asked.

"The Puritan said the King was at Lumley," said Giles. Then, as if suddenly struck with some brilliant idea: "My master will be at Lumley if the King's there!" Giles seemed to be hunting for something hidden in his tatters, and presently produced the half of a golden coin, with a hole in it, attached to a silken cord. "See; if you think they are not believing your story, hold up this boldly, and say: 'Does anyone here know this?' The one who has the other half is my master, and if he believes you all will go well."

"Couldn't I ask for him first, Giles?" said Dick. "What is his name?"

"No," said Giles. "If you're stopped by a sentry, say your name, and ask for the general or His Majesty. If you can get on alone, do, and reap the glory, Captain. But if our friends doubt the tale, as they may—boys and stablemen not holding castles alone as a common thing, and Captain Dent having, no doubt, told them something very far from the truth,—up with your token, and see what it brings you."

Dick promised to obey these directions. It was further arranged that he should wear an old suit of homespun, and a hat without a plume, and a collar without lace, and strong shoes without buckles. As they put these clothes together in a bundle, Dick said:

"Giles, I've been thinking. There are clothes in the house—some of my father's,—could you not put some on? The winds get cold, Giles dear. You'll be chilled."

Giles smiled with more kindness than usual, as he thanked the boy gently. "But I have decided," he said, "to go through with this adventure as I am." He surveyed his figure in a mirror. "Upon my soul, Dick, the flutter of my clothes when a draught fans them is decidedly quaint. It's like living with congenial companions; they sympathize with every mood, my dear. If I sigh, they sigh with me; if I laugh, the merry wags shake all over like aspens; if I am in a hurry, they spread out like wings to assist me. Never was man more at one with his garments, or his clothes more a part of himself."

"But, Giles, if your master comes with me, what will he think of you?"

Giles laughed softly. "Faith, Dick, it will greatly amuse him. And after, why it will make a rare jest for—for the other servants of my master."

When the moon was silvering the old gray gate-house and the flags of the courtyard of Dent, Dick was standing in the dark, with nothing on, on the brink of the moat at the back. He flung his bundle over, and heard it fall with a thud on the far bank. Then he ran back, shivering, and embraced Giles through the buttery window. There was nothing more to say of advice or caution. Giles had only to kiss him and wish him God-speed. "Drop a pebble in the moat when you're ready to start, Dick," he whispered.

The next minute Dick plunged in and disappeared in the darkness. On the farther side he dried himself down, according to Giles's direction, with a towel from the bundle, which he afterwards hid under a boulder, lest the Puritans should discover it and guess one of their birds had flown out of Dent. Then he dressed, dropped a pebble in the moat, and then, with a beating heart, very cold and very courageous, set off to find the field-path to Lumley.

CHAPTER VII

GILES'S MASTER

Giles, left behind, pictured many adventures that might have befallen Dick in his two hours' walk in the dark, but he did not foresee—perhaps because he did not know the field-path to Lumley—what really befel. Clouds coming up about two o'clock hid the moon. In the darkness Dick missed the bridge that crossed the beck about a mile from the castle, and, having wandered some distance out of his way, found himself suddenly overshoes in a bog. He floundered out again and left a shoe behind—floundered in again to seek it—groped about, feeling the oozing mud over and round, but failed to discover it—finally, after much squelching and sucking of the mud, determined to leave it altogether. To walk in one shoe is not easy, to hop is most fatiguing. Dick hurled the left shoe into the swamp to keep the right one company, and set off to seek higher ground, his ardour undamped—that is, in comparison with his person. About an hour later it began to rain, first in light showers, then faster. Dick, coming into violent collision with a stone wall, crept under the lee of it to wait till the rain ceased, for in the darkness he was utterly lost. When the dawn began to grow gray he rose and looked about him. Just before him was a roofless barn, and beyond that the beck that he ought to have crossed higher up. Reflecting that he could not possibly be any wetter, Dick took off his stockings and waded in. The September morning was raw, and the water was cold. It was deep, too, and there were slippery stones at the bottom. Just as he sprang for the bank his foot slipped, and he fell back with a splash. Away floated his stockings unheeded, and when he emerged, wet, muddy, drabbled, bare-legged, scratched and bruised, he looked, in fact, an excellent companion for Giles in his rags.

The King had his quarters in the manor-house at Lumley, and the Earl of Newcastle was in command of his army. Prince Rupert was there too, and very anxious to occupy the earl's place.

A number of gentlemen were sitting at breakfast in their quarters—a small farm close to the manor—when a tall cavalry-officer came swaggering in, and, saluting, said with a laugh:

"More news of Dent, so please you. Just being reported to my Lord of Newcastle, but I have the messenger here."

"Bring him in," said the gentleman at the head of the table.

The officer retired, and came back in a moment with a boy, bare-legged, and dirty, and torn.

"Ho!" said the gentleman. "Who are you, my hedge-sparrow?"

"Sir Richard Chester of Dent," answered Dick, looking round the room, and then long and earnestly at his questioner. He thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful, or so handsomely dressed. The gentleman wore a coat of tawny velvet with open sleeves, showing a white cambric shirt with very fine lace at the wrists. Over this he had a sleeveless buff leather coat. Round his throat was a gorgelet of steel, over which fell a lace collar, and a richly-embroidered baldric held his sword in a gold-tipped scabbard. He had gold spurs fastened to his long wrinkled riding-boots. Such men and such clothes had never been to Dent in Dick's lifetime. He might well regard them with awe.

"Sir Richard Chester!" said the gentleman, flicking a crumb from his sleeve with a lace handkerchief, and returning Dick's stare with good-humoured carelessness. "There seem to be a good many baronets in that family, gentlemen," and he smiled round the table. His friends laughed softly.

"Three within a month!" said one. "Four, for 'tis barely a month since the first Sir Reginald died."

"Four," said another gentleman. "Sir Reginald the First, Sir Reginald the Second, Sir John, and—"

"Sir Richard," said the first gentleman, and he pointed at Dick with a beautiful white hand covered with jewels.

"I don't understand," said Dick, coming nearer, eagerly.

"Farther off," said the gentleman, pushing back his chair, but still good-humouredly, "if you will be so good! Thank you. I perceive you have been in a quagmire."

Dick had begun to feel hot and uncomfortable. The gentlemen seemed so indifferent to any news he might have, and they spoke so slowly, and moved so negligently, that his preconceived ideas of his own importance, and of a commanding officer's desire for information, deserted him. His nervousness made him aggressive. That indefinable something, that was not insolence, and yet was supreme indifference to his feelings, vexed him bitterly, as Giles the stableman's manners had vexed him when, the first day of the siege, he refused to let down the bridge. He clenched his hands, and, scowling, spoke up quickly.

"I am Sir Richard Chester, and I have held Dent Castle for nearly a week, I may tell you. And I am come now to ask the King's will—whether we hold it longer or whether we give it up, or how we shall act."

"'Tis gracious of your honour to consult him," said the other gently.

"You will observe, sir, that the young gentleman is so used to negotiating with sovereigns as a brother-potentate that he drops of nature into the regal 'we'," said another gentleman in an elaborately-explaining tone from the far end of the table.

Dick turned scowling to him, tossed back his clinging curls, and simply glared at him. The young gentleman covered his eyes, and murmured: "I am scorched," almost inaudibly.

Dick was trembling with rage, and would have flown violently at him, but for the restraining hand of the officer behind him.

"Osborne, where did you come across this young baronet?" enquired the first speaker.

"In the ante-room of the Lord Newcastle's chamber, sir."

"You lie! 'Twas the pig-sty!" cried Dick.

The gentlemen laughed all at once, and the one at the head of the table the loudest, at this.

"Nathless the earl's ante-chamber, my child," continued the officer. "He had been sent on from a picquet beyond the river, having given the name of Sir Richard Chester, and demanding the King or the general commanding."

"I am Sir Richard Chester," said Dick again.

"But," said the gentleman, "you were drowned, you know, a week since, in the Lum."

"I was not," said Dick stoutly.

"Yes, truly. Gregory Balston yonder attended your funeral. Did you not, Gregory?"

"Upon my word I did, sir," said a young gentleman, setting down a glass and nodding gravely "I was sharing tents with Dent—Captain Dent—Captain Sir John Dent."

"One of the baronets of the family," murmured another.

"Precisely," said Balston, "having succeeded the interesting young gentleman who fell into the Lum. Captain Dent was on duty, so he sent his secretary, one Master Purvis, to see the body, and he asked me, as a friend, to attend upon his part."

"Thank you," said the gentleman in tawny. "We quite well remember, for Sir John claimed the barony the next evening, and promised to raise a troop for the King."

Dick looked on helplessly, and could only say: "I never fell in the Lum."

"You fell into the quagmire, you know," said the gentleman.

"And you fell into the pig-sty, you know," said the officer.

"Has Newcastle seen him?" asked the gentleman.

"No, sir. He was engaged."

Just then another officer entered to say his lordship had asked for the messenger from Dent.

"Come," said the gentleman, "we've not had a breath of Dent news yet, sir. Stay, sir, a moment. Now, my boy, say what you want to say."

But Dick had gathered by now that this was not the general commanding, and, remembering Giles's advice to give his news to no one else—though rather late in the day,—he was dumb.

"Speak," said the gentleman.

"I will not," Dick retorted. "You think I tell lies; and you tell them about my being dead—that's a lie; and John Dent's not a baronet—that's another!"

The other stood up. "Dead or alive, your manners are quite unbearable. Take him away, sirs, and I'll follow."

Osborne handed him over to the new-comer, and Dick was marched off down a passage to the Earl of Newcastle's quarters, the gentleman in tawny clanking behind him.

Lord Newcastle was writing at a table as they entered his room, and he rose and bowed.

"If you will have the goodness to bear with my company, my lord," said the gentleman, "I should be glad to hear news of Dent."

The earl handed him a chair. "Now, boy," he said, turning to Dick with some sternness, "what news of Dent?"

"I am Sir Richard Chester," Dick began.

The earl smiled slightly, and the other gentleman said: "If we might suggest passing over styles and titles, and keeping strictly to business, my lord—?"

"Go on," said the earl quietly. "Have you come from Dent?"

"Yes," said Dick sullenly.

"Who is commanding there?"

"I am," said Dick.

The earl frowned. "Tell the truth, sir," he said.

"I am," Dick persisted. "We have held it for a week. Yesterday we learned artillery was coming, and Giles wished—"

"Who is Giles?" enquired the earl.

"Giles is—is—the stableman." Dick flushed and stammered.

The two gentlemen laughed.

"Here is a story of a cock and a bull," the one in tawny said. "Truly—behold the cock—of a fine hackle!"

Dick bit his lip. He was very tired. He thought all these people very unreasonable; he was being disbelieved and ill-treated. He was cold and hungry, and he hated this gentleman. Therefore, in spite of his manhood, he wanted to cry.

"Proceed," said the earl patiently. "What did Giles wish?"

"Giles wished to know," Dick faltered, "if the King—"

"Would give him a peerage," began the bantering gentleman.

The earl suddenly turned, as his servant announced someone to him in a low voice. "Oh, just remove this boy to your room, Dennison!" he said hastily. "See he breakfasts. I shall want him again."

"Might I suggest a bath also," murmured the gentleman.

Taking Dick by the hand, the servant led him off to a small cupboard, which was his room at the farm. Here Dick found courage, after breakfasting, to ask if he might have a wash; and, in washing, came across the silk cord attached to Giles's golden token.

"I am a little fool! I quite forgot it. Who knows but one of these gentlemen might have been Giles's master. He would have befriended me."

"Eh?" said the man in whose care he was. "What is that about?"

"'Tis Giles's token," Dick answered vaguely. "I'll try it when they send for me again."

Just then the earl's voice was heard calling loudly on Dennison, who came running back in a moment for Dick.

When they came into the room, Dick found it crowded with people. The Earl of Newcastle was speaking to a gentleman in black velvet, who was leaning on a gold-headed cane. Dick caught something about Dent.

"The first news was from Captain Dent, to say he had quitted the castle before the orders reached it. The second was from his secretary, to say his cousin, young Sir Richard Chester, had been drowned whilst fleeing from the enemy, and, as the next baronet, he promised to raise a troop."

"Yes, yes," said the gentleman.

"Then," continued the earl, "there came a man from Dent village, saying the Chesters' flag was floating again. Then he came and reported the castle besieged by the enemy, the flag still up, and a garrison making sorties and capturing the enemy by the dozen. He said Sir Reginald Chester was in command."

"He being dead," put in Dick's first questioner. "I believe they are all dead in that family; but, being loyal, have come back to help us. This pygmy says he is Sir Richard."

Every eye was turned on Dick.

"Ay, sir; to-day comes this boy," said my Lord Newcastle, "saying the garrison is composed of himself and a stableman, and that he has come through the enemy's lines for assistance."

"And through a variety of other things also, as we perceive," said Dick's tormentor, pointing to his mud-stained clothes.

The gentleman in black tapped Dick on the shoulder with his cane, saying:

"What is your name, friend?"

"Dick Chester," answered the boy, and he held up a bright object dangling from a silk string.

"Ha! and what have we there?" asked the gentleman with a slight smile.

"It's Giles's. He gave it to me, and said the man who had the other half was his master, and would believe all I said."

One of them took the token, and Dick watched anxiously as it passed from hand to hand. His heart sank as one after another handed it on without owning to it. At last it came to the gentleman whom he hated, who shook his head mockingly, and was about to toss it back to Dick when the gentleman in black took it from him.

"By your leave, Nephew," he said.

Seating himself in the earl's chair, he laid the token on his knee, and, having felt in his pockets, presently laid another bright half beside it. They fitted. He looked up with a whimsical smile. "Evidently," he said, "I am the man."

Dick came forward. "You are Giles's master, then," he said.

"And this belonged to Giles the stableman?"

Dick nodded. "Yes, and my lieutenant at Dent. He should have been captain, but refused it."

"In favour of whom?"

"Me," said Dick, gaining confidence. "I claimed it because it was my castle, but I wanted him to have it very soon, for he was a better man than I."

"A better man never stepped," said the other, repressing a laugh. "But if he had a better, 'twould be you. Now, come—Dick, is it?—come, Dick, then, let us have the news of Dent from beginning to end."

He drew the boy to his side, and, whilst the rest of the company stood wondering by, Dick gave the history of the siege, from the moment when he swam the moat to get in, to the moment when he swam the moat to get out. He told all about Giles, who had been found starving by the road-side, of his wonderful wisdom, and of the treachery of John Dent.

"Is it to be believed?" queried the Earl of Newcastle.

"Every word, my lord," said the gentleman in black; "I vouch for every word that comes from Giles the stableman." His lips twitched with amusement, and, beckoning the earl to come nearer, he whispered in his ear. The earl started and looked round at Dick.

"There isn't a doubt of it," said the gentleman in black, rising.

"The Chesters were all madmen," said the earl.

"A very good kind of madness, however," said the other, patting Dick's shoulder. "Now, my lord, will you be so good as to relieve Dent, sending a special messenger from us to the officer commanding, to come as he is, and on peril of our displeasure to alter a rag of his apparel."

"Ah, he said it would make you laugh!" Dick observed.

The gentleman laughed heartily. "So it does," he said gaily. "So he is Giles, is he? A stable-man, eh?"

"Yes, sir," said Dick,

"So be it, then," said Giles's master. "And now, will you stay with my Lord Newcastle here till Giles comes?"

"May I not ride with the troops to bring him in?" Dick requested.

He did not understand the ways of these gentlemen, and was very much afraid of being left alone with any one of them.

"By no means," said the gentleman in tawny, shaking his head. "If we find no Giles at Dent, if we find you've been romancing, the Provost-Marshal will want you, youngster. The whipping-post"—he rolled his eyes,—"the stocks, then chased out of the camp."

"Nephew," said the gentleman in black, "I beg you will desist. Sir Richard Chester stands in no danger of such things."

Lord Newcastle came up to Dick with a friendly smile.

"Now, sir, will you go with me?"

Dick hung back, and the gentleman in tawny laughed.

"He mislikes you, my lord. Hey! he shall choose amongst us. Dick, my gallant, wilt come with me?"

"Not I, sir," said Dick promptly, stepping to the side of Giles's master. "I will go with you," he said, taking his hand.

Half the people in the room sprang forward as if to drag him back, but the gentleman seemed more pleased than otherwise. He waved back the one in tawny.

"Eh, Nephew?" he said; "you cannot say his choice is a bad one. Do not follow me, I thank you."

And holding Dick's hand, he walked slowly out of the room.

CHAPTER VIII

DICK'S DISAPPEARANCE

As Dick and his new friend crossed the meadow that divided the farm from Lumley Manor, everyone they met saluted. The people looked after Dick with marked wonder that did not escape him, tired and confused as he felt. He thought Giles's master must be some great lord or other, and that these men wondered at his condescension towards himself.

"They don't know who I am," he thought, "nor what Giles and I have done."

And rather proud of the great man's interest in him, he pressed closer to his side and addressed him with a confidence which something in his companion's bearing kept from being too free. They were the beat friends in the world by the time they had sat together half an hour in the manor-house parlour. There was not a single thing left untold about Giles or himself, Dick considered. There were a great many questions to be asked of Giles's master, only unfortunately Dick was so sleepy that no words could come to his mind. He was annoyed to find that while the gentleman spoke to him his head would nod, and that, unless he rubbed his eyes very hard and very frequently, the room and the gentleman kept fading out of sight. He tried to sit straight on the cushioned window-seat, but found himself slipping down in a most undignified manner over and over again.

"I should think a person might keep awake better," he said in an anxiously polite tone, "had he his head on—a—a—level with—with—"

"With the said person's feet," suggested the gentleman. "Decidedly."

Before Dick could make any effort to achieve the desired position he found himself lying full-length on the cushions, in the most restful attitude imaginable, with a cloak thrown over him.

"I fancy," the gentleman observed gravely, "that a person could keep awake better did he first sleep."

Dick closed his eyes.

"Will you tell me when Giles comes, sir?" he said. "I must be ready to run out and meet him. Dear Giles!"

"It seems to me you love Giles from the bottom of your heart, and don't give the least trifle to any other creature."

Dick curled himself into more luxurious comfort.

"Is no one else," he observed.

"No father or mother, I am aware," said the gentleman thoughtfully; "but have you not a brother?"

"No," said Dick sleepily; "he's dead."

"Oh, then Giles has it all, has he? None left over for—the King, for instance?" and the gentleman twisted his moustache and regarded him with an amused expression.

"The King? No," said Dick solemnly. "One would not love a king, you know. 'Tis not possible. One would fear the King—"

"I see," said the gentleman, inclining his head.

"But I think I love you, sir," Dick said shyly. "Giles does—and Giles—"

His eyes closed just as he felt the gentleman's hand on his hair.

"Then there's nothing to complain of, Dick," he heard him saying, and then was asleep in a second.

Dick slept peacefully hour after hour. It was quite dark in the manor-house parlour when he awoke. He lay a minute trying to remember where he was and what had happened. Then he heard the sentries pacing up and down outside the closed door, and looking round the room, found it empty. He threw off the cloak and got up. His eyes caught the glitter of something brilliant on a table in a dark corner. Boy-like, he must needs go to see what it was. It was a cluster of diamonds in the hat-band of Giles's master. The hat lay on the table, with a pair of perfumed gloves, the gold-headed cane, and a little Latin book. Dick stood, winking back at the winking diamonds, feeling very happy, listening to the bugle-calls without, to the steady tramp of the sentry, to the hum of conversation in the next room, where he now and then recognized the voice of Giles's master. He was in the midst of friends, quite safe to all appearance, so hemmed in with the safeties that surround the near presence of a king that had he been conscious of an enemy he would have felt no fear, and no one need have the least fear on his account it seemed.

About five minutes after he got up there was a great noise of cheering in the camp, and not ten minutes had gone by before the door flew open, and Giles entered in his rags, followed by his master and Dick's tormentor, and the Earl of Newcastle.

They looked round the room. The boy was gone.

"Dick!" Giles cried gaily; and then again louder: "Dick!"

But there was no answer.

Giles looked under the table. The gentleman in tawny laughed.

"Were our young friend at all of a shy or retiring disposition," he said, "one would fancy he had been overcome with confusion at your graciousness, Uncle."

"He fell asleep on the window-seat yonder," said Giles's master.

The gentleman went up and patted the window-seat, and shook his head.

"All solid," he said. "Can't have gone through."

"Have the goodness to question the sentry, and the guard in the hall," said Giles's master to a gentleman behind in the passage.

The earl followed him, and returned in a few moments to say the sentry and guard all assured them that no one had passed for any purpose. The sentry had looked in twenty minutes before, according to his orders, and the young gentleman was sleeping quietly on the window-sill. There had never been any sound from the room.

Giles took a turn through the chamber whilst the rest stood silently contemplating each other. Then he began a rapid search of the walls, till he came to that part which was behind Dick as he stood by the table.

In the panelled oak Giles's finger, warily moving, found an inequality; a spring gave way under pressure, and a door in the wall flew back.

"Hum!" said the one in tawny, and his face changed from gay indifference to interest.

"'Sdeath!" Giles muttered, and passed through into a dark narrow passage, stone-flagged, that led to a door into the garden, concealed outside by a great hedge of yew. The hedge was hollow, having a passage up the middle. Giles and the gentleman went up, and came out at the end into a wood, and then into a meadow, where some of the raw recruits were returning from drill. The gentleman went down to the officer in charge, and questioned him closely. He was a mild-eyed countryman. He had seen no one come out of the wood, but they had only been there ten minutes. Surely there was a misapprehension; no path led from that side of the manor; there was no door on that side. The gentleman bade him go back to the drilling of chaw-bacons.

Giles had waited impatiently while he made his enquiries. They came back together, but the other hurried off to his quarters immediately, being wearied of looking for needles in bottles of hay, as he put it, waving his hand to the world, as it were, and adding: "Shall one child be found that is lost in England at this day?"

"This child shall be found," said Giles's master quietly. "My Lord Newcastle, you will send out to search everywhere for him." Then he laid his hand on Giles's shoulder. "Of what are you thinking?" he asked.

"Of John Dent," said Giles grimly.

"John Dent was arrested four hours ago, sir, said the earl.

"And is he still in ward?" Giles's master demanded.

"Enquiries shall be made," and the earl bowed and retired.

In ten minutes he was back. "John Dent is gone," he said briefly.

Giles stood for a moment thoughtfully, with bent head.

"If you will be so good, my lord," said Giles's master, "as to make out a commission for my friend here, as I directed, and to draw on all loyal persons, in the King's name, for assistance to the utmost, with power to take troops at his pleasure, and a pass to go whithersoever he wills, I shall be glad."

Giles looked up. "I thank you—" he began, and the earl, bowing hastily, left master and servant alone.

CHAPTER IX

MASTER PURVIS TELLS A TALE

And what had become of little Dick Chester?

He was standing by the table, as I have said, when suddenly, without the sound of an opening door, or the fall of a footstep behind him, a great cloak was thrown over his head, and wound tightly round his body; he was lifted off his feet silently, and borne off, he knew not by whom or whither. It was useless to struggle or cry out, for he was almost smothered, and his captor's arms were as strong as his step was swift and silent. Yet Dick writhed and trembled in despair for he knew not how long, till he heard a horse stamping close by. Then he felt himself lifted up. Another pair of arms, steel-clad and unyielding, received him. He was on the back of a horse. Then there was the sound of a man dropping into the saddle close to him. Bridles jingled, saddles creaked, scabbards tapped spurred heels, but no one spoke. Then eight hoofs beat the earth together, and Dick found, by the sway of the man who now held him, that they were going at a hand-gallop, and by the thud, thud at their side that another rider accompanied them.

On and on they went in that appalling silence, never speaking or making any human sound. The horses snorted occasionally, but he that held Dick never seemed to breathe. Terror, and the heat of the thick cloak, and the wild pace together made Dick sick and giddy. He made one or two desperate efforts to get his hands free, but they were useless, and he lay still again, trembling and choking. Perhaps he fainted, or perhaps he slept, but anyhow, when the smothering cloak was at last removed, he found himself in a dismal little chamber, with a high grated slit in the wall far out of reach. A man was standing over him, holding a light.

"Eat your supper," he said sternly, pointing to a plate of bread and meat, "and then go to sleep."

Dick begged him to say where he was, who had brought him there, and what for. But the man relapsed into silence, and went out and locked the door after him. Dick rushed to it, and called, and entreated, and cried, but nobody came; and when he listened, the silence was unbroken and terrible.

But there were other people in the house—a lonely farmhouse, miles away from Lumley, in the midst of desolate moors.

At the end of a long passage was a room with fire and lights, and there John Dent, in armour, looking very hard and dangerous, was striding up and down restlessly, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He had been arrested, on Dick's information, as a traitor, and awaiting the arrival of Giles to bear testimony against him, had been confined to his quarters, from whence he had escaped. He had with him his servant, Newton, and he had met at this farm Master Purvis, who lodged there, and a renegade Cavalier—broken, that is, dismissed from his regiment, for neglecting his duty.

A few days ago John Dent had been perfectly satisfied with everything. His cousin had been drowned—so he supposed—and he had succeeded to his title and possessions. These were assured to him if the King proved successful in his struggle with the Parliament, for he had curried favour by offering to raise and arm a troop. If the king failed, he was ready to go over to the victors, for whom he had done several services already—such as agreeing to vacate Dent for them to go into.

And now, to-day, not only had he been charged with his treason, not only had Dick inconsiderately come to life again, but he had heard that his title and estates were gone. No wonder he felt bitter hatred against Dick, and a wild anger against the stableman whom he had helped on the highroad, and who had turned all his plans upside down. He could not endure to leave Dick unpunished and to escape himself without some, however slight, revenge; and Newton, his servant, found out, through a man who had worked at the manor, the entrance, by the yew-hedge, and the secret door to the parlour. Knowing Giles's master was at a council, the servant had entered softly and succeeded in capturing Dick, John Dent having promised a high reward if he did it unseen.

Having got him, the question was: What should be done with the boy? Master Purvis could only puff out his fat cheeks and say: "No, no," as though someone had already suggested a deed he dared not contemplate. Perhaps he saw the suggestion in John Dent's hard face as he paced up and down uneasily. But Newton, who was full of resource, knew of the very thing, he assured his good master, which could be worked easily for a trifling sum.

"Go on, sirrah," said Captain Dent shortly.

It appeared that Newton had a half-sister in the south somewhere, whose husband kept an inn. They had just lost their only son, and were anxious to adopt a strong lad who would make himself a bit useful about the place. Adopting, as Newton said, grinning, was so much less expensive than hiring a boy. Now, couldn't the young gentleman be taken there immediately, to lie snug until his honour wanted him, or until he had other plans for him? His half-sister's husband was a thrifty man and hard-working, and his sister a sharp woman. They'd keep the boy out of mischief, and active employment, as his honour knew, was healthy. To be sure, he would have to work; but then none would take him for nothing. And if his honour wanted to be sure of his staying where he was put—Newton paused,—why, he couldn't expect to pick him a home anywhere, with anyone, as his honour would quite understand.

Captain Dent paced the room more slowly. "An inn?" he said at last. "Every kind of traveller stays at an inn. Dick will get hold of some Royalist or other, and tell his tale while he waters his horse for him."

Newton had nothing to say to this. But the dismissed Cavalier officer cut in. "Would he be believed, think you? I heard from Newton that it went hard with him amongst the officers at first."

"Ay," said Newton. "I heard the earl's groom say that he was almost whipped away for a liar. Anyhow, he refused to stay with them, for, they say, someone frightened him by saying he must stay till his story was proven, as the Provost-Marshal would need him for a thrashing."

John Dent stopped by Master Purvis. "Go you," he said sternly, "and tell the boy his tale was not proven; that there was no Giles at Dent Castle; that all the King's host know, or will know, that he is a liar; that he is under the King's severest displeasure. He will believe you. Don't mention my name, on your peril. Teach him to fear the very air round a Cavalier of any rank. Say, if he breathes the name of Chester anywhere in England, every King's man has orders to hale him to the whipping-post and the stocks. Say you've saved him at the risk of your life; you were fond of him. Say what you like; but make haste, and let it be well done, or—"

"I go, I go!" said Master Purvis hurriedly, and he went out of the room. "They'll kill him, if he gives any trouble," he thought; "and Captain Dent will kill me if I fail him. For all sakes he must be made to believe as they tell him."

He found Dick crouched on the floor in one corner, but as the moon fell through the grating on Master Purvis's round figure, Dick recognized him, and sprang to his feet with a cry of joy. Master Purvis had been kind to him at Dent. It was he who had given him the dagger with the red-leather sheath on his birthday. Master Purvis had come to save him, for he was his friend.

But Master Purvis sat down on the floor and told him such a tale as went near breaking Dick's heart. There was no Giles at Dent; no sign of an enemy there either. It was all as Master Purvis had left it a week since. Everybody believed Dick a liar and no more Sir Richard Chester than he, Master Purvis, was. Through all the army, and to all loyal persons, a proclamation had been sent denouncing Dick as a traitor, who had tried, and almost succeeded, in luring the King's forces into a trap. The King himself had expressed his endless displeasure, without hope of a pardon, and the Earl of Newcastle had issued an order to every man, of what rank in the King's forces soever, to take, whip, and brand any boy giving the name of Dick Chester. And the Provost-Marshal was waiting, prepared to deal him justice, when he, Master Purvis, had engaged a friend to rush in softly and kidnap poor Dick.

To a broken question about the gentleman who had been so good to him, Master Purvis made up a swift reply that the gentleman had not believed anything against him at first, but did now, and would never forgive him. The tale came on so swiftly, almost without a pause, the facts followed each other so glibly, that Master Purvis was almost proud of his achievement, and more than convinced of the effect it had upon Dick.

"And so," ended Master Purvis, "you must go quietly away to some friends of mine till I can come for you. Newton will take you—a good faithful servant; and you must be obedient and silent, and he will take all care of you."

Master Purvis got up here nervously, for the misery on Dick's white face spoilt the flow of his sentences. He felt he was doing the best for the boy, and had made himself think that Dick ought to be grateful.

"Be sure you never say your name," he said hastily, "nor breathe a word of your story." He opened the door. Dick sprang after him.

"Giles!" he cried. "Giles! Where is Giles?"

"I don't know," said Master Purvis, shaking him off. "Perhaps dead. Most likely dead," he added, desiring, of all things, to get away from Dick's agonized eyes, and the tones of his voice, and the touch of his hands.

Master Purvis came back to his master quite out of breath. Captain Dent was still pacing the floor.

"Have you done the business?" he questioned sharply.

"Yes," panted Master Purvis.

"Have you frightened him thoroughly from confiding in Royalists of any sort?"

"Yes; I think—Nay, I'm sure," Master Purvis answered.

The ex-Cavalier laughed. "You ought to make quite sure," he said.

Captain Dent, suddenly halting by the officer, said: "You might meet him and Newton on the way, and carry out some of His Majesty's orders. But you may go short of dragging him back to the Provost."

"Ay, I might, if you make it worth while," said the other coolly.

"He won't know you're broken," said Dent. "And there's nothing like feeling for believing."

"True," rejoined the other. "And we'll see which feels more broken. Terms?" he added, and they discussed them.

Then Dent left the farm, and the ex-Cavalier shortly followed him.

In the early morning, Master Purvis took Dick some breakfast, which he did not eat; afterwards set him before Newton on horseback, and watched them gallop off with a sigh of relief. Master Purvis was selfish, so selfish that he did not care even to see anything painful, and there was something very painful in the silence of Dick.

All the day he was silent, did not even cry, did not eat or drink, scarcely moved. They slept at an inn, and started again in the early morning. Dick put one or two questions, but in a dull way, merely about the length of their journey, for bodily weariness was now his most conscious feeling. He had no chance of escaping had he dreamt of anything of the sort, which he did not. He only wanted to stop riding, to rest, and he had a queer feeling that, if they were to stop for a whole day, he would fall asleep, and wake up to find it was all a bad dream. But they never stopped, except for an hour or two.

Newton changed his horse on the second day and on the fourth. On that day Dick asked more questions. "When did Newton think Master Purvis would come to his friends in the south?" Newton couldn't say. Dick did not like Newton, and towards the evening of the fourth day he began to be troublesome. He had been sick in the morning, and was inclined to a sullen resistance simply for the relief of resisting. And now he cried and was peevish, would rather stay and starve where they were than go farther.

"The first Royalist we meet will save you from starving," Newton said meaningly.

And just then there came into sight round a bend of the road a Cavalier, gaily dressed, well mounted, with a servant behind him. This was the ex-officer, and he felt a certain amusement in the part he was now playing. He seemed to be riding by, but suddenly reined up, and looked sharply at Dick.

"Hold!" he shouted. "That boy is wanted by the King's Provost-Marshal."

Dick's heart was in his mouth. Newton drew up, and stammered out something with well-feigned confusion.

"Hand him over, sirrah, and don't gibber," snapped the officer. "The earl has given his orders about this matter. All the officers intend to be present, let me tell you!"

Dick shivered. He thought of all those gay gentlemen looking on at his shame. He knew how indifferent and good-humoured their faces would be, how they would jest courteously with each other, and care not a jot for the boy who, they said, had lied to them brazenly. And Giles's master would be there! He had been so kind, and had trusted him so thoroughly.

Newton set him down on the ground. The officer had dismounted too. Dick, utterly misled by the tale he had been told, and quite in despair, flung himself at the officer's feet, and begged him to kill him there, not to take him back—to have mercy and kill him there.

"Not that!" Dick cried. "I can die here, but not before them! For pity's sake, spare me!"

The man's hard face flushed a little. He remembered his own shame when, before the troops, he was degraded and sent from the army.

Newton muttered impatiently: "Thrash him, Major, and let us be gone."

But Dick, seeing some signs of relenting, sprang to his feet, and pointed to the pistols in the nearest holster. "Shoot me!" he said steadily, ceasing to cry and to tremble. "I did not lie to them! Shoot me here! Don't take me back! I'll stand still!"

Dick heard the chink of gold coins as the major stood with his hands in his pockets.

The major's face twitched. Somehow the game had lost its amusement. He took hold of Dick and swung him up before Newton. Then he mounted his own horse.

"The money in your pocket?" said Newton insolently.

The officer reined in so suddenly that his charger reared in the air. He plunged his hand in his pocket and dashed the gold pieces on the ground. Then he struck in the spurs and galloped off, followed by his man.

Newton dismounted, gathered up the pieces, and rode off with Dick, laughing. "That's the fault of being a gentleman, my chuck," he said roughly. "However degraded you are you can never rely on yourself. A pinch too much dirt and—fah!—your gentleman's nose tilts. A bit of a whine from a weakling, like you, and—eh, dear me!—my gentleman's blood boils, and turns him soft again!"

CHAPTER X

THE INN-KEEPER'S BOY

The Seven Thorns was a lonely place. The long dusty road ran past it to the hills, and the country was desolate and wild. The road sloped down to the east and up to the west. As far as you could see to the east swept the trees of the Forest of Arne, and in a clearing, out of sight save for the smoke-wreaths and the church weathercock, lay Arncastor, the county town. There was nothing to the west but the sunset, where the white road ran out of sight into the sky, as it seemed.

Master Tomlinson and his wife Mistress Joan, and his cow and three pigs, a mongrel dog, some fowls, and "the boy" lived at the inn. It was not a place of good repute, for tradition said that travellers were robbed there. In quiet times Master Tomlinson had but little custom, but in these days the road was busy and the inn much frequented. Now a party of the King's horse would clatter up to the door, with waving plumes and jingling spurs, and rainbow coats and sashes. Anon, next week, maybe, a Puritan regiment would gallop up soberly, with grave, earnest faces under their steel head-pieces, and plain suits, and long swords clanking at their sides. Then would pass a party of travellers: a Royalist parson and his family, driven from the rectory-house, going they knew not whither. And to-morrow a Puritan divine, grave and pious, exhorting men to repentance, and denouncing the King and his gallants and the ladies of the Queen. Once or twice there was a skirmish between rival parties in the inn-yard, with oaths and cries and groans and great confusion. These scenes Master Tomlinson abhorred, for they meant that one or maybe both of the parties would ride off without paying the score.

Every week, on a Friday, Mistress Tomlinson rode over on the old white horse to Arncastor to buy necessaries for the house. Master Tomlinson never went with her, nor did she take the boy. Her husband's work was to lounge beside the door and wait for travellers, be polite to them if it seemed worth while, protesting he was all for the King to the Cavaliers, and all for the Parliament to the Puritans. He would carry the dishes and wait upon the officers, and drink, at their expense, confusion to the King to-day and to his enemies to-morrow.

The boy's duties were manifold: to rise at four, to go to his bed—a heap of straw—when Master Tomlinson had done with him, to make the fire and sweep the kitchens, to feed the pigs and clean the stables, to carry wood and wash the dishes, to hold and water tired horses, to draw the ale and wait on the common soldiers and low-class travellers, to turn the spits and dodge the blows, to bear burdens and get kicks and buffets, to eat his food where and when it could be found, to hear foul language, to see all things ugly and unpleasant, and to be always alert, always ready to obey. This was the business of the boy at the Seven Thorns, under the stick of the host, and the open hand of Dame Joan, and the promiscuous compliments of everybody else—a belt to-day from the trooper whose ale did not suit him, a switch to-morrow from the Cavalier whose stirrup he forgot to hold, the flat of an irritable officer's sword or a boot at his head from another, the shrill recriminations of some woman on whose dress he had spilled, or long exhortations from some Puritan preacher. Always ill-clothed, badly shod, in the bitterest weather, with work always to be done, and eyes swollen with crying, with bruises and wheals generally fresh and aching somewhere, Dick Chester served for six months as the boy of the inn.

Master Purvis never came. There was nothing else to hope for. The Cavaliers were his constant dread, lest, recognizing him, they should hale him back to exhibit him as a liar, and disgrace him. His spirit was broken. Had he thought of flight, whither could he fly? He had neither friend nor hope anywhere in the world. Giles was dead, or he would not have deserted him and covered him with dishonour. He was an outcast, one who lived under a ban. He never asked for pity after the first month, or looked for any mercy; Master Tomlinson cured him of that. If he ever dreamed of escaping he was checked by that fear of detection, for, child-like, he never thought that the world would have forgotten him completely in a week. Surely the Cavaliers all knew of him! He turned pale and trembled under their indifferent glances, for might not one of them recognize him, as the gentleman on the road had done? And he might not be suddenly turned to mercy, as that one had been, and then—!

There is no knowing how long Dick might have lived at the Seven Thorns but for an event which happened at the beginning of April. Perhaps he would have stayed there all his life, and grown from a cowed, terrified child into a stupid, ignorant man. He had been trustful, easily led, and so deeply impressed by Master Purvis's tale that he accepted his position without a word. Truthful, kindly, very simple, he had no idea of others deceiving him to this extent. Had John Dent appeared at all in this business he might have suspected trickery, but fat, dull Master Purvis, whom he had known all his life, carried no fear to his mind. Master Purvis had heard of his danger, and had saved him. Dick had always teased and despised Master Purvis, but now he was the only creature he thought of as a friend in the wide world.

It was on a gusty April day that Dick, feeding the pigs in the early morning, saw a troop of Parliamentarians gallop up to the inn door. He was about to run out to hold their horses when something in their bearing, and their haste, and the way they glanced behind them to the west, struck him. The troop did not dismount; only two soldiers swung themselves from their saddles, rushed into the inn, and returned in a moment, bringing with them Master Tomlinson, who was entreating, expostulating, and explaining all in a breath.

Dick had hidden himself in the yard, but he could hear the stern voice of the Puritan commander charging the host with some falseness that had led him and his men into the midst of a force three times their size. In vain Master Tomlinson denied all knowledge; in vain he protested 'twas all a mistake, that he had fully believed the King's force to be small. Dick could not catch all that was being said as to how and when the host had given the misleading information. But he saw the soldiers bind his hands, and put him up before one of their companions. Then out dashed Mistress Joan with tears and screams for her poor husband, and the officer was a kind man and would have pity, she was sure. And they were poor folks, he must observe, and had to turn a penny how they could in these bad days.

"Forward!" cried the officer.

But Mistress Joan clung to his stirrup, and entreated and threatened, betraying so exact a knowledge of facts that the Puritan did not deem it safe to leave her behind. A warning cry from the rear made him look round. There was a dust-cloud on the sky-line.

"Turn her apron over her head," he commanded. "Up with her!"

Dick saw the dame hoisted up before a trooper, wringing her hands and filling the air with muffled wails.

"Forward!" again shouted the officer, and they were off down the hill with a swirl of wind and a clatter of hoofs, and in five minutes out of sight in the Forest of Arne.

Dick, wondering and frightened, had just gathered up enough courage to step from behind the haystacks when, with horses spume-flecked and riders swaying, past swept a Royalist troop at a hand-gallop, the earth shaking as they went by. Five minutes had scarcely passed before a long train of horsemen came more slowly down the road, with silken guidons fluttering in the April wind and the sun glittering on armour and bridle-chains. Dick's heart stood still. In the midst—tallest, handsomest, most debonnair—rode the gentleman who had teased and threatened him at Lumley. He had taken off his helmet, and was fanning himself with a lace handkerchief, commenting at the same time on the heat, the dust, and the tiresome haste of the enemy. He broke off to point at the seven thorn-trees by the inn door, then to the sign. He called an order, and he and his cavalry rode slowly on, leaving two officers and about a dozen men behind. They came into the yard, and discovered the boy behind the hay-ricks. They drove the cow off from her pasture, and led out the old white horse. The ducks were driven from their pond, and the pigs, squeaking and grunting, from their sty. They killed the cocks and hens, and the mongrel dog, who interfered injudiciously. They cut up the hay-ricks and bore them off in sections, and took all the corn they could find in the granaries.

Dick, meanwhile, stood quaking at the officers' mercy, being questioned, and giving confused replies. He did not dare to look up, fearing recognition. He knew both the gentlemen—one was called Balston, and had declared he had attended Dick's funeral, and the other was Captain Osborne, who had taken him before the teasing gentleman and his friends at Lumley.

"Was the man Tomlinson your father?" asked Osborne.

"No, sir," said Dick.

"Do you know where he is?"

"Gone with the enemy."

"With the rebels? Come—answer!"

Dick replied, and after much questioning they got from him the account of how Tomlinson and Dame Joan had been carried off.

"Ha! Traitor to both sides, of course," said Balston.

They dismounted and went into the house, leaving their chargers in Dick's care. He could hear them talking in the hall.

"We must take him," said Osborne.

"Take that dirty boy with us? Heavens and earth, Osborne! I'd as soon take a sack of coals!"

"Orders," said the other. "He can ride behind me, if you're afraid he'll soil your armour, my over-delicate gentleman. Or, 'slife, we'll give him a bath first in the pond."

Dick heard. He was lost! Quick as lightning terror woke the desire for escape at any cost. He slipped the horses' bridles over the gate-post, ran into the stables softly, passed through a door at the back, raced down a meadow, and hot, sick, with a wildly-beating heart, crouched under some bushes out of sight. He was sure the officers had recognized him, and that their chief had sent them to the Seven Thorns on purpose to arrest him, whereas their orders merely were to attach anyone at the inn, so that he might be questioned as to the Puritans' movements, which, it was supposed, were well known there. Dick lay still until he recovered his breath, and then ran away aimlessly across the fields till he was tired, pausing every now and then to listen for pursuit. He soon felt a lack—the lack of even the one piece of bread that would have been his breakfast at the inn. Being sure he was not followed, he lay down to rest under a budding chestnut-tree, and fell asleep. He woke fancying Master Tomlinson was whipping him, and found the rain beating his bare neck and legs. His only clothing consisted of a fragmentary shirt, and breeches that would have disgraced a scarecrow. Mistress Tomlinson had taken away the shoes and stockings she had lent him for the winter, saying, now spring had come, he had no need to wear out good woollen hose and leather shoes. A forlorn little object, with a cough that belied the good lady's opinion about warm clothing, he wandered over the country through the pouring rain. There was no road where he went, and he came to neither farm nor cottage. Cold and wet and hungry he had often been at the inn, and to-day he was neither struck nor scolded. There was no work to do, and if only there were some shelter to be found, he could lie down again and go to sleep. He thought very much of Giles as he wandered on. At the inn he had never had one moment for dreaming, but now he remembered all that had happened at Dent, and all that Giles and he had talked about.

But thinking did not satisfy hunger. The thought of a piece of dry crust and an onion, or, may be, a piece of cold bacon, made his mouth water, and as his strength failed him he cried bitterly for food. He was more faint and tired and wretched than he had ever been, even on the worst day at the inn. In his ignorance of death, thinking it would come very quickly, worn out and broken spirited he lay down towards evening to wait for it.

Death was tardy, and in two hours' time he was fainter, but as much alive to discomfort as before. Trudging on again, he knew not how, he came upon a deep, mossy lane, with primroses growing on its steep, high banks, and hare-bells drooping in the wind. Dick climbed, or rather rolled, down into the lane. Surely it would lead him to some dwelling, and every feeling was merged now into the desire for food. The stones and ruts cut his feet, and exhaustion made him dizzy. He slipped and fell; rose and stumbled on again twice. The third time he did not get up. It had ceased to seem worth while. It was getting dark and eerie, but he lay quite still. Half-starved always, one day of hard walking, absolutely without food, had been too much for Richard Chester. His last thought was of Giles.

CHAPTER XI

THE LADY DOROTHY BYNG

The next traveller down the lane was a dog—a great black retriever with the most benevolent brown eyes. He came splashing down through the puddles, and overshot the mysterious heap by the roadside, though he sniffed something. Plunging back, he described a circle, with a suspicious stiffening of the tail, and smelt at Dick. "Boy" was his decision. "Strange, dirty boy; must be growled at." The dog growled accordingly, but the boy took no notice. Insufferable impertinence! With great indignation the dog lifted his nose and barked. At this point an old man in a gray livery suit, wrapped in a big cloak, came round the corner.

"What's there, Lorry?" he asked, stopping.

The dog, with every appearance of thirsting for Dick's blood, barked back that it was an orchard-robber, a stealer of chickens, a vagabond, a tramp. The old man pushed him aside, and, kneeling down, ran his fingers over Dick's bruised, bony little person.

"Case o' starvation, Lorry, my friend," he observed.

Lorry snorted, as if he knew different, and then he barked angrily, by way of discouraging the old servant still further. But the man shook his head, and lifted Dick out of the wet and muddy ditch.

"My Lady would fair eat me if I left him here to die, Lorry," he said, and wrapped the boy in his cloak.

Lorry eyed this move with contempt, and as the old man started down the lane carrying Dick in his arms, he rushed on ahead at a splashing canter and with an angry sway of the tail. He stated in a series of snapping barks that he was going on to tell someone what a very silly old man this was. With this amiable intention he found his way through a gate with stone pillars at the sides, up a broad avenue, to a door. Lorry barked for admittance, and made the steps as muddy as he could in the meantime. Presently the door opened a little, and a young lady looked out, reproachfully.

"To the back-door, an' it please you!" she said severely. "Would you have the hall flags looking thus?" She pointed down at the muddy steps.

Lorry explained by barks that this really was an exceptional occasion. Unless he informed her in time, Philip would certainly carry in at the back-door a dirty, indifferent ragamuffin of a boy. He was still arguing the case when the young lady, with her own eyes, saw Philip coming carrying a ragged boy, just as Lorry was telling her he would. Forgetting her hall flags, she ran out on the steps to call Philip. Lorry rushed in, made a swift but devastating journey round the hall and into the parlour, and out again, saying plainly: "Exactly what I said!"

Lady Dorothy Byng lived alone in the big old Tudor house at the bottom of the lane. Old Philip was her butler and house-steward, and Bridget, his wife, was her maid. She need not ask anyone's leave to have Dick carried into her oak-panelled parlour, and laid on a settle by the fire. Lorry, it is true, remonstrated to the best of his ability, but, failing to convince her, he lay down to watch operations. In his opinion, starving creatures should be restored with chicken-bones, not bread-and-milk, but he could not convince anyone of that either.

Dick opened his eyes in the strange room, and saw kind faces.

"Dream," he murmured, and shut them again. In this condition he drank milk until he was persuaded of its reality. The comfort was almost unbearable. He turned his cheek on a soft cushion, and fell asleep.

"Well, Philip," said Lady Dorothy next morning, "what think you of our little waif?"

Dick had slept the night in Philip's room.

"Well, my Lady," the old butler replied, "'tis an ill-groomed colt, to be truthful; but, begging your pardon, Bridget saith its skin is as soft and fine as your Ladyship's; bruised, all of a mass, madam, but white as milk now Bridget hath washed him. And hair, Bridget saith, like spun silk."

Lady Dorothy lifted her eyebrows.

"Upon my word, I must go up and see this prodigy, Philip. Is it asleep?"

"Not now, my Lady. But I'll carry him down if it pleases you to see him."

"No, no," she said, "I'll go up."

Dick was lying in a bed—a real bed. The butler's couch was princely after the straw of the inn-keeper's boy. He had had as much food as he wanted, and, instead of being cuffed away from the dish, had been pressed to eat more. He had been washed, and his cuts and bruises doctored. It was no dream—a reality. He kept shutting his eyes and opening them quickly. Each time everything was there: the white-washed wall, the latticed window, the bed, and himself—Dick. It was during one of these experiments that the door opened softly, and Lady Dorothy Byng came in. Dick's lids lifted quickly, and his gaze became fixed. She wore a gown of soft white material, and in the white lawn and lace at her bosom, caught in the folds, was a daffodil flower. Her fair hair was dressed in curls on her forehead and neck, and her bare arms and hands were exquisitely beautiful. She had been famous at a court where many women had been fair. To Dick she appeared the most beautiful creature ever created. Her brown eyes looked into Dick's gray ones with a gaze as fixed as his, and more troubled. For fully two minutes she stood still, and then, with a little sigh, came close to the bed.

"Are you rested?" she asked gently.

"Yes, Lady, I thank you."

"Rest as long as you like, and eat as much as you can," she said; "and when you are stronger, perhaps you will tell me whither you were going, and how I can help you."

At the inn no one had spoken like this to Dick, and he was at a loss how to answer. In fancy he fell back to the modes of Giles's master, and then, with more confidence, to Giles's own. Recalling his slow, gentle way of speaking, he said: "Your Ladyship is very good. I thank you." But there he stopped, hesitated a moment, and then dropped suddenly into the hurried tones and loose language of the inn—a quite unintelligible jargon to Lady Dorothy's ears. He tried to explain how he came to be lying by the roadside, but she shook her head.

"Never mind how you came there," she said. "You were hungry, I take it, and tired, and the side of the road was safer than the middle."

Dick remembered Giles had said something like that. He smiled faintly. Could he do nothing to show her Ladyship he was grateful before she sent him away?

"I shall not send you away, my child," she answered, smiling. "You will go when you want to."

"I shall never want to," said Dick, lifting his eyes to hers, full of tears.

Lady Dorothy caught his face between her hands, and looked eagerly at him.

"What is your name?" she enquired.

"Dick—" he began, and stopped sadly.

"What else?" she demanded. But as he did not answer, she let him go.

"Very well," she said kindly. "But if you choose to trust me, I come of people used to be trusted with anything."

Dick hid his face in the pillow. But he turned in a moment.

"Are you for the King, madam?"

"Of a certainty," she replied, as if she deemed the question unnecessary—almost foolish.

Dick sighed. She might have heard of him through father or brother, or some Cavalier friend.

"And do I harbour a young rebel?" she asked.

"No—oh, no, madam!"

"That is well; for I might love my own enemies at a pinch, Dick, but the King's—never!"

Dick sighed again.

"Do you know anyone who is with the King, madam?"

"Several gentlemen," she said, smiling. "I might claim acquaintance with many."

"If you knew who I was," stammered Dick, "you might not—you would not—"

"If you have done anything false, do not tell me," she said.

"Nothing!" he cried. "Oh, nothing, madam! But I am hunted. I am—madam, my name is—"

"Have no fear," she said. "If you have done no wrong, and are in peril, you will be safe with me. Tell me, Dick! Tell me!"

Dick could no more withstand her, now she entreated, than he could fly.

"My name is Chester, madam. Sir Richard Chester of Dent.

"Yes, Dick," she said, kneeling down by the bed, and looking at him.

"Did you know all the time?" he asked, wondering.

"Yes, I think I did, dear," she said.

She kissed him, and then stood up.

"Go to sleep now, Dick," she whispered. "And—and you must stay with me for always, dear."

She left the room swiftly, and Dick lay back wondering.

CHAPTER XII

DICK'S COUSIN

Bridget waited on Dick all day, keeping him in bed, petting him, and nursing him, and making much of him. In the evening Philip came in with a parcel in his arms.

"Now, sir," he said, "if you will be pleased to rise, here are your clothes. All the way to Arncastor have I been to fetch your honour a wardrobe, by my Lady's orders. And here you be."

Dick sat up and watched with interest as Philip laid out a complete suit of gray cloth, very fine and elegant, shoes with large rosettes, silk stockings, and a fine holland shirt with lace ruffles and collar.

"Those are not my clothes, sir," he said.

"By your good leave, sir, my Lady says they are. I was cleaning my plate, and humming a tune, as it might be, this morning, when in comes my Lady, and saith she: 'Philip, the young gentleman upstairs is my kinsman.' 'Yes, my Lady,' I say. 'He hath fallen amongst unkind people, and lost his clothes, Philip,' saith my Lady. 'Yes, my Lady,' I say. 'Ride you over to Arncastor, and purvey him all manner of apparel,' saith my Lady. And 'Yes, my Lady,' say I."

Dick got up and let Philip dress him without a word, and comb and curl his hair.

"Moreover," the old man continued, as he wound a crimson sash with fringed ends round Dick's waist; "moreover, my Lady fetches this forth of her stores, and this fine lace also, and saith she: 'Dress the young gentleman carefully, Philip, remembering he is my kinsman.' And 'Yes, my Lady,' say I."

Between laughing and crying at all this comfort and kindness, Dick was led downstairs to the oak-panelled room where Lady Dorothy Byng was sitting. She rose as he entered, and dropped him a curtsy.

"Welcome, little Cousin," she said.

Dick stood stock-still and stared at her. There was a fire on the hearth, for the spring evenings were cold, and she stood in the light of it, wonderfully dressed in a pale-blue brocade, with hare-bells in her hair.

"Come and speak to me, Dick."

She held out her hand. Dick sprang across the floor, and flung himself on his knees to kiss her hand and thank her.

"Little courtier," she said. "Where did you learn such manners?"

"Ah, my Lady, how shall I ever thank you?"

She sat down and drew him towards her. "Dick," she said, "did you never hear that the Byngs and the Chesters were cousins?"

"No, madam!"

"Ah, but they are! Lady Chester was Mistress Elizabeth Byng."

"I never heard of it, madam," said Dick.

"Will you not have me for a cousin, Dick?" she asked persuasively.

"Ay, that will I though!" he cried eagerly. He would have said the same had she proposed to be his grandmother. He cared not a straw how it might have come about. It was enough for him that she desired to be akin to him—poor, lonely little wretch. Why, what a different thing life might be, in this room, with such a cousin!

"Dick, will you tell me all about yourself some day?" she asked next.

"Now, madam—"

"Say 'Cousin Dorothy'," she said.

"Now, Cousin Dorothy. You will not tell anyone? You will never let them take me away?" He looked up wistfully.

"No one shall part you from me, Dick. That I promise you," she said, kissing him. "You shall stay with me always if you care, Dick. I live here quite alone. I doubt whether anyone in the world remembers poor Dorothy Byng. In all this long war, Dick, neither friend nor foe has broken the quiet of our life here. We have never seen so much as a plume or a crop-head from the windows. You will be safe enough here, if you think you can bide in such a dull place."

She had won Dick's confidence as completely as Giles and his master had done. Sitting there at her knee, he told her his story as well as he could. Some of the incidents puzzled her, explain them how he would, stumbling amongst the current language of the Seven Thorns. On that, and on many other occasions, she made him tell his tale again and again. There were parts of it quite beyond her credence. For one thing, she would not believe the Cavaliers wanted Dick for punishment, or that the two who came to the inn were on the look-out for him, or remembered, or recognized him. She tried to reason away his fear of detection, for she saw it weighed on his mind.

"When you're stronger, Dick, you'll forget all about it. Someone has deceived you about the proclamation. You misunderstood the officers at the inn."

"But there was the one on the road," Dick reminded her. "The one sent to bring me back."

"We don't understand the whole matter, 'tis plain, Dick," she said thoughtfully. "And the only way to make it all clear is to enquire amongst His Majesty's forces."

But this suggestion almost threw Dick into a frenzy of terror.

"No, no, I beseech you, madam!" he cried. "They will come and seize me! Oh, please, let it be!"

"But I want you set right, Dick."

"Oh, no!" he persisted. "I would rather—far, far rather not. Ah, madam, to be taken back before all those fine gentleman and disgraced as a liar!"

"But you are not a liar."

"No; but how prove it?" he said piteously. "They do so confuse a person. They talk with two meanings, and one can't tell which to answer. Whatever you say they laugh, and make it sound different. Dear Lady Dorothy, keep me from them!"

"Well," she said, "we'll say no more about it at present. But, my child, 'tis months since your adventure at Lumley. Think you any of those teasing gentlemen would remember your face if they saw you?"

But Dick could not be argued out of his terror. The sight of a Cavalier would almost have killed him with apprehension.

"Had you dealt direct with the King, Dick, you would stand in danger of recognition if he met you. He never forgets a face, once seen, be it peer's or pauper's."

"I didn't see the King," said Dick. He begged her ladyship so earnestly not to stir in the matter, and to keep his very name from everyone, that at length she consented. She would not wholly sympathize with his fears, however, and tried, sometimes by coaxing and sometimes by laughing, to persuade him out of them. But Dick's chief sorrow was that he could not interest her in Giles. Lady Dorothy dismissed the mention of him with a little gesture of disgust. A stable-helper, tramping the road in tatters, taking the first job that came, was distinctly disagreeable to her.

"Tell me all the rest as often as you will, Dick," she would say, laughing. "But, if you love me, spare me Giles."

Dick felt this state of mind difficult to understand, but after much arguing, and some tears, he gave the subject up in despair. He supposed it was because she was a great lady, and great ladies, be they never so charming, must have their foibles. To a great lord, now, like Giles's master, what an acceptable subject was dear Giles! The veto placed on Giles's praises prevented Dick from telling his story very well. She seemed to find very unsatisfactory points in it. For instance, why had not Giles honestly given Dick his master's name? Why all that mystery with the token, pray? And what was the token—a coin? But Dick declared he had not noticed it much. He did not think it was a coin. It had not a crowned head on. Giles's master had not given it back to him. Then she asked if Dick could not describe Giles's master. Dick's description, though it seemed to him truthful, was not convincing, the most lucid facts being that he had worn a black velvet suit, and did not look like a soldier. But he had said before that Giles had told him that his master was a soldier, and her Ladyship shook her head doubtfully. And if Giles was not at Dent when it was seen by the relief-party, where was he? Dead, Dick supposed. She did not seem to think so. She was sure the boy was telling the truth as far as he knew it, but she was certain he had in some way been grossly deceived. Poor, simple country boy, he had been sacrificed to someone's private ends, she thought. For the Royalist proclamation she had nothing but contempt.

"Dick," she said one day, "I believe your cousin John Dent's at the bottom of this trouble."

"Oh, how, Cousin Dorothy?" he asked with surprise.

"Why, I believe he had you stolen from Lumley, and set Master Purvis to take you to the Seven Thorns. For, you see, he would be the next baronet were you lost for ever."

Dick pondered this proposition for some time, but could not accept it. He firmly believed Master Purvis had saved him from the Provost-Marshal—the Provost-Marshal with whose justice the gentleman at Lumley had threatened him if they failed to find Giles. Master Purvis might have chosen a better home for him. But perhaps that cruel man, Newton, had taken him to friends of his own to save trouble. He had evidently been well known to the Tomlinsons. He could not connect Captain Dent with the business in any way. He did not think he had been at Lumley, and Master Purvis had never mentioned his name.

"You have no other brothers, Dick?" asked her Ladyship. "I mean—John Dent is your heir?"

"Yes," said Dick, "he is my heir."

"Then you have no other brothers, Dick?" she persisted.

"I never had either brother or sister of my own, madam."

"Not of your own?" she repeated.

"No. I had a step-brother. He died—oh, it will be six years ago now!—in France."

"Do you remember him?" she asked, looking into the fire.

"No, Cousin Dorothy. I never saw him."

"How was that, Dick?"

"Master Purvis said he quarrelled with my father. I don't know. I never heard. He never came to Dent—never after I was born, I'm sure."

"Oh!" she said.

CHAPTER XIII

LADY DOROTHY'S STORY

Lorry expressed grave doubts of Dick's character for several days, though, as her Ladyship told him, he had no grounds for his suspicions at all. He was merely jealous. That a strange creature should occupy the bear-skin at her feet, and that his mistress should pat the boy's head as often as Lorry's, was an offence to him. In vain her Ladyship introduced Dick to him as one of the family, "Master Richard Byng", as he was called now, since he would not be known as Richard Chester. Lorry would have none of him. But one day he quite suddenly changed his mind. They were walking in the garden, and Lady Dorothy asked the boy to fetch her scarf. Dick darted off up the terrace to the house, and Lorry, with a joyous yelp, dashed after. Here, he thought, was one who would sympathize with his own wild moods. Here was this boy, who could run fast, faster than Lady Dorothy; who could leap and bound, which Lady Dorothy never did. He could scream with laughter, also, in emulation of Lorry's barks, and he did not mind having his face licked, and had no skirts to crush. Henceforth, in the interests of fun and exercise, he cultivated Dick. Together they risked their lives in a thousand monkey-tricks, climbing and fishing and falling. Dick learned to know the fields and woods for miles round in Lorry's company; but they never went quite to the top of the twisted lane and out on the highroad, for there, as Dick told Lorry, they might meet with a Cavalier. He fished and bathed in the streams. He rode on the fat pony, Fairy, by her Ladyship's side. Old Philip taught him to fence, and to shoot with a pistol, and many other manly accomplishments good for health and bad for clothes. On Sundays her Ladyship read the Litany and the prayers for the King, in the dining-room, for no clergyman could be found to come and read the service in her chapel just then. On wet days she read aloud to Dick out of books of romance and travel and poetry, whilst he and Lorry shared the bear-skin or the window-seat. She played the lute also, and she taught Dick to sing with her, whilst Lorry whined outside, not liking their melody. She told him delightful tales, too, about living men and women. Very much the same kind of tales as Giles had told him, Dick thought, though he dare not say so, since she would not love Giles. He grew well-mannered under her care, affectionate and gentle, carried himself like a young gentleman, losing in time the hunted look and shrinking air of the innkeeper's half-starved boy. He was very happy, and in a month or two became very merry. He loved his cousin with all his heart, and hoped for nothing but to live with her all his life, and please her if he could. The old house was a lively place in those early summer months. Dick and Lorry were up at dawn, and filled it with noise and laughter till the night. Sometimes, it is true, Dick was very sad. Something would remind him of Giles, and he would burst into tears and run away to hide himself until the fit was over. One day Lorry crept after him softly, found him out, and lay down by him, his tail slowly thumping the ground, and his great eyes quite as full of grief as Dick's. Dick flung his arms round the dog's neck.

"You seem to know how bad it feels," he sobbed. "How do you know, old fellow?"

Lorry gave a little whimper, as though he would have him believe he had lost scores of dear friends himself. Then he tried to lick Dick all over at once.

"She is good, Lorry, yet she doesn't know. She won't hear me say how I loved Giles—my dear, dear Giles!"

Lorry whined sympathetically.

"Perhaps she never missed anyone," continued Dick, rubbing his eyes and crying bitterly.

"Yes, she did, Dick. Yes, she does," said Lady Dorothy's voice quite near him.

She had caught sight of him crouching under the hedge at the end of the garden, and he saw she was weeping too. She sat down by him, and drew him to her. Dick laid his head on her knee, and Lorry laid his on her dress.

"Tell me," said Dick.

"Well, Dick, I will tell you," she said, "because it has something to do with you. You must know that I once had a brother, Dick, a year younger than myself. He was very dear to me, and when I went to court, our father got him a post there also. And it was there, Dick, that he and I both met again your step-brother, whom we'd known when we were children."

Dick dried his eyes, and looked up.

"I was sixteen, Dick, only sixteen, but I had more than sixteen suitors. Of these I, outwardly at least, favoured most John Dent."

"John Dent!" exclaimed Dick.

"John Dent," she repeated. "In those days John Dent, 'twas expected, would soon be a great lord, and he was handsome and rich—very rich. My father and brother wished me to marry him."

"You couldn't!" cried Dick, sitting up. "He's a bad man, and cruel. Oh, Cousin Dorothy, how dare they think of marrying you to him?"

"Well, Dick, perhaps he was not so bad in those days. He had done many things—gallant, hazardous things—such as you read of in tale-books. He was by way of being a hero, and he loved me, I think. But—"

"But you didn't love him," said Dick, with strong confidence in her judgment.

"No; but I was very young, and very easily flattered. And Reginald, your brother, whom I'd known so long—well, for one thing, he did not ask me to marry him, and he was poor, compared with John Dent, and I loved riches. And he had done nothing, and I thought I loved a hero. He only hung about the court, and was gay and a spendthrift, and my father did not like him, nor my brother. And one day, Dick, someone told me my brother, Lord Byng, had insulted Reginald Chester. And the next day, when I was sitting at work in my room in my father's house in London, the door flew open, and Philip rushed in. 'My Lady, my Lady!' he cried, 'they are murdering your brother!' I ran down into the hall, and there stood Reginald Chester, his sword in his hand, and at his feet, quite dead, my poor young brother. Ah, Dick! I accused Reginald, in my anger and grief, of killing Byng. He was such a child, I told him, he should have considered his years and scorned to take offence at his sayings. He had sworn to me once always to be patient with Byng. And I called him a liar, then, and a coward to fight such a boy, and I—Oh, I know not what I said—everything cruel! Last of all, I drew from my bosom and flung at his feet a boyish gift he'd given me, the only thing he'd ever given me, when we were children. He had said then 'twas a pledge of his love for me. He picked it up in silence, threw down his sword, and said one thing, very bitter and terrible. I bent over my brother. I never heard him go, Dick; and I have never seen him since."

"He's dead now," said Dick, looking gravely before him; "but if he did that, I'll never forgive him! Never!"

She laid her hand over his lips.

"He did not do it, Dickie. I would not have told you about him if so."

"Who, then?"

"John Dent; quite accidentally, not deliberately. Byng and Reginald had made friends, and John Dent, annoyed by it, taunted my brother with fearing Reginald's sword. Byng sprang at him in anger. In self-defence John threw him back. He fell with his head against a stone table, and was killed so, Dickie. There was no other wound on him. It was just so."

"And my brother?" Dick said.

"He went abroad—far away. We none of us saw him any more."

"Did people think he had done it? Was that why he went away?"

"Oh, no, Dick! A gentleman who was with them saw the whole thing, and told us. Your brother had drawn on John Dent, to avenge Byng. John Dent had but just hurried out of the hall when I came down the stairs thither."

"Why did he go away, then?"

Lady Dorothy looked away across the garden to the sky.

"I sent him away, Dick," she said.

Dick gathered that Reginald had gone away because of the things Lady Dorothy had said to him in the hall. After a long silence, he said gently: "And then you were sorry?"

"Then and ever since," she replied.

"And he never came back?"

"Never. He would not, you know."

They were silent again. Lorry, feeling it was all very dismal, gave a little whine.

"And so," Lady Dorothy said at last, "I made a mistake, Dick. When my father died soon after Byng, I left the court, and bought this old house in this desolate country, and came here out of the world."

"Well, I'm glad you didn't marry John Dent, Cousin Dorothy," said Dick, with a great sigh.

"One mistake was enough, Dick."

"And is that why—why you were so good to me, Cousin Dorothy?"

"That is why I loved you immediately, Dick. It was because of your eyes, Dick—real Chester eyes. I knew you before you told me, dear. And you will always stay with me, and be my brother, Dick, will you not?"

A little while later she said: "But I came meaning to cheer you, not make you sadder."

"I'm happier," said Dick.

"But listen. I have a birthday, sir, week after next, and I have a mind to be gay."

Lorry wagged his tail as if he understood something more cheerful was coming up for discussion.

"Now, what shall we do on the day, Dick?"

Dick thought solemnly for a few moments.

"I have it!" he cried. "We'll ride out early, and take with us our breakfast and our dinner."

"Ah!" said her ladyship. "And eat them both at once. And then what, sir?"

"No, no!" cried the boy eagerly. "Ride a long way first, Cousin Dorothy, then breakfast. Then on again to the ruined abbey you told me of in the woods."

"Then dinner?" she suggested.

"Then dinner!" cried Dick. "And you will tell me stories about the monks, and the knights who used to ride about adventuring. Then ride home in the evening. A lovely day, Cousin Dorothy! a lovely day!"

"Agreed," she said. "But what next? There will be some hours left over, Dick. There will be—"

"There will be supper!" cried Dick, as one inspired. "Supper, Cousin Dorothy, with roasted ducks, green peas, and strawberries, Cousin Dorothy! And cream!"

Lorry lifted his head and barked for joy.

"Ducks' bones, Lorry," said Dick, poking him in the ribs. "And skin—nice brown skin. Ah! so rich, and bad for dogs."

"We'll have a perfect banquet, Dickie," said her Ladyship, rising to the occasion, and enjoying his delight. "You shall be toast-master for the night, and call my health, after His Majesty's. And you may wish me a long and happy life; for I dare look forward to one now with my dear little brother Dick. And I'll wear white satin and pearls, sir. And you, what will you wear?"

"My best suit—the gray, Cousin. 'Tis as good as new."

"Well enough for most days, Dick; not festive enough for this. 'Tis to be a new life for me, Dick—less selfish, much brighter. You must wear something new, for luck, and to remind you to wish me happiness, you know."

"Then I'd best wear the rags I came in," cried Dick impulsively. "Remind me to wish you well, Cousin Dorothy? They'd remind me, did I ever forget for a second of the day."

"Why, Dickie," she said, kissing him, "you know how to say a good thing well. But, my dear, they would not suit my satin and pearls."

"The gray, then. I care not two straws, so I'm with you."

"Don't make rash assertions, sir. You'll be a coxcomb some day."

They were going indoors, when she stayed him.

"I have it, as you say, Dick. We'll ride into Arncastor to-morrow and have your worship measured for a suit. The court comes to Arncastor, Philip tells me. The King meets the Queen there to-morrow. There will be the newest modes and tailors in plenty," she went on, not heeding the boy's uneasiness. "You shall see what gay gentlemen wear."

"Oh, no, no!" Dick entreated.

"No, no! Why no?" she asked.

"I dare not! I dare not!" he cried. "Someone would see me, and drag me away."

"Oh, still that old fancy, Dick?" she said, with a touch of displeasure. "Methought you'd outgrown it. And pray, who would touch the cousin of Lady Dorothy Byng?"

"I dare not, madam."

"Then you're a little coward."

Dick's face turned very white. He bent his head unconsciously. "As you please, madam," he said, "I will go then."

He walked away, but, calling his name, she stepped swiftly after him. Unheeding, injured, and proud, he went on.

"Come back! Come back and forgive me, Dick!"

He wavered; remembered her story; remembered her goodness, and turned.

"Forgive me, Dick!" she entreated. "I had no right to say it."

"Never mind," he said, swallowing down his anger. "I am a coward. I will go with you anywhere."

"That you shall not," said her Ladyship. "Indeed, I had forgotten about—about it, Dick. Kiss me. There! we are friends again! Philip shall fetch a tailor over here to measure you. What? Clear your face and forgive me."

"But you think me a coward?" he said.

"No. You will get over it in time, Dick. 'Tis because you are not very strong yet. But there; I will not torture you, dear. Come, let us think of the suit, Dick. Of a rose-coloured silk, I picture it. Rose suits your dark man, let me tell you. Quite simple. Just slashed to let your honour's white holland show through. And I have a Mechlin collar that I'll bestow on you, Dick, with a jewel to loop up your hat."

Dick found the subject alluring after all, though he professed to scorn dress as unmanly. But even whilst he talked of the birthday a dead weight lay at the bottom of his heart. She had called him, and she thought him, a coward.

CHAPTER XIV

THE COMING OF JOHN DENT

It was the night before her Ladyship's birthday, and she and Dick were sitting in the oak parlour after supper, discussing the chances of a fine day on the morrow. Dick was in a state of excitement, for he had just been on a visit to the larder, and had seen the rows of cold fowls, and creams, and custards prepared by her Ladyship's cook. He was agitating Lorry's mind with whispered promises of good things for to-morrow, when they all heard the sound of horses in the yard, then men's voices at the door and in the hall. Lady Dorothy drew back the shutter to look out, but Dick ran into the hall to see, and came back in a second with a startled air.

"Cousin Dorothy! Two officers—rebels—and their troops!"

Old Philip here came into the parlour.

"Madam," he gasped, "'tis some of the enemy. They want a night's lodging and supper, and won't be denied."

"Why were they admitted?" her Ladyship asked.

"Madam, the door was open. They were in ere I knew."

At the moment Philip was pushed aside, and one of the intruders entered the room. "Madam," he said, "we have lost our way. If you are mistress here, give orders for food to be served us, and beds for us after, and we will give you no trouble."

"I have neither food nor beds for rebels, sir," she said indifferently, scarcely looking at him.

"Then, madam, I must take what you will not give me, and place your household under arrest."

"You must do what you please, sir. 'Tis easy to overcome a few women and one weak old man."

The officer gave her a long, hard look, which she met with coolness, and then he went out, pushing Philip before him.

"Dick," said her Ladyship, "that was—"

"John Dent!" cried the boy.

"Think you he recognized you, Dickie?"

"I think he scarcely looked at me, Cousin Dorothy. He knew you."

Her Ladyship began to pace up and down.

"There seems to be nothing for us to do," she said presently. "We will go to our rooms and lock ourselves in, and wait till they're gone. Do you think they will rob me of everything—burn, pillage, and destroy?"

Dick went to the door, opened it, and shut it again quickly.

"There are two troopers outside, Cousin," he whispered excitedly.

"Guards posted! Imprisoned in my own parlour! Upon my word, Dick, 'tis insufferable."

She sat down to think out the situation. But very soon the door was flung open, and John Dent came in again. She stood up.

"Madam," he said, "if you will retire, I shall be obliged to you. We shall leave at daybreak, and since you have not given us hospitality, we need not wake your Ladyship to say 'thank you'."

"Come, Dick," she said, without noticing the speaker.

"Dick will remain with me. My friend and I have a few questions to ask him. Dick, I may tell you, is my cousin."

Another officer entered, and bowed awkwardly to the lady. John Dent held the door open.

"You may leave us, madam," he said.

Dick knew well the hard look on John Dent's face.

"Cousin Dorothy," he said quickly, "if you will go, I will soon answer these gentlemen's questions."

"I will not trust you alone with them, my dear," she said.

"As you please," said John Dent, with a slight smile, seating himself. "Now, Richard, speak the truth, and don't lie to us as you did to the Royalists at Lumley. Who was with you at Dent?"

"Giles," answered the boy. "The stableman you helped on the road, and who knew you were a traitor."

"Who else?"

"No one."

"I warned you, boy," said John Dent. "We are no more to be imposed on than the King's people. Who else?"

"No one," said Dick.

"You hear, Captain Strong?" said Dent to the other officer.

"'Tis a lie," said the other. "We should not have sat outside Dent fearing to attack a child and a groom. 'Twas a gentleman spoke to me and to our general, though he masqueraded in your stableman's rags. They would not have held Dent without a garrison—don't you tell me. Go to!"

"You see, Richard? Captain Strong was at Dent. He knows what he speaks of."

"Ay!" cried the captain. "Why they made a sortie and carried in a trooper. Think you, with the drawbridge down, they'd have left the place in charge of a child?"

"No doubt one of their leaders masqueraded in Giles's rags. Now, sir! once again, who?" asked Dent.

"There was no one but Giles and me," said Dick stoutly.

"Richard, I warn you once more to tell the truth."

"I am telling it. There was only Giles and me."

"A lie! A lie!" Strong affirmed angrily. "'Twould be to our lasting disgrace if a stable-helper and a baby kept us out of Dent. Or 'twill be to yours, Colonel Dent. For we went thither by your arrangement."

He cast a curious glance at his companion. Suspicion will attach to the man who leaves one party for another, be he never so zealous.

"It is to your lasting disgrace, then," said Dick hotly. "'Tis you that are lying."

"Were you a few years older you should hang, sir, if it's the truth!" growled Strong.

John Dent looked across at her ladyship and saw her move uneasily.

"As it is," Strong continued, "you shall be flogged. I swear you shall—whether it's truth or lie."

"You will not lay a finger on my cousin, sir," said her ladyship haughtily. "And you, sir, who command here—"

"My name is Dent, madam."

"Oh, I have no concern with your name, sir!"

"Your Ladyship once listened when I offered to bestow it upon you."

"I thank God I escaped the disgrace, sir!" she replied.

"I must beg you to be silent, madam," he said, flushing, "or I must compel you to leave the room. I was about to ask Captain Strong why age should be a bar. If Richard Chester is old enough, or thinks himself old enough, to hold a castle, and flout a general, he is old enough to die."

Lady Dorothy could contain herself no longer.

"A truce, sir, to such mummery!" she cried. "Do you think to scare Dick into a falsehood by such a threat?"

"Oh no, madam!" he replied. "I don't wish to frighten anyone. If Dick prefers it, I am quite willing to send him to his friends. They are all at Arncastor. He will know whether they are prepared, and how prepared, to receive him."

"Not that!" Dick cried. "Not that!"

"Ah!" said Dent to the other officer, "a pretty conclusive proof his story is a lie, Strong."

"Oh, if he admits 'tis a lie, and that there were men and a commander at Dent, I've no more against him," Strong said. "The rumour that one man and a boy kept us out must be stopped. And methinks 'tis to your interest also that men shouldn't say your paid servant kept us out where you'd lured us to enter."

"Tell the truth, Dick," said Dent fiercely. "Or to-morrow I send you to Arncastor. They will cut the truth out of you there, whilst the Cavaliers look on."

Dick turned white, but he said nothing.

"Say 'twas a gentleman at Dent. That you had a garrison—that's all," Dent urged.

The boy was silent.

"Very good," said Dent rising. "Corporal!"

A soldier entered saluting.

"Take charge of this boy, Richard Chester, and conduct him to Arncastor to-morrow."

Dick sprang towards him, clutched his arm, and cried: "Kill me here! Kill me here! I can't bear that!"

Lady Dorothy swept forward, and drawing Dick to her, she folded her beautiful arms about him.

"John Dent!" she said in a low voice, but very clear and cutting. "You coward! How will you answer to your God for this offence? You know 'tis a fabric of lies about our people desiring his punishment—a fabric of lies, and you reared it. Stand back, sir!"

"Take care, madam!" he said angrily.

"Ah!" she said scornfully. "I do not fear a coward!"

"Then you shall confess me a brave man, for you shall fear me! He shall die!"

"You have no power to do it," she said, but Dick felt her tremble under Dent's glance.

"He has borne arms. He was Captain of Dent. Scotch your snake when he's small, madam. He dies at sun-up."

"Sir," said her ladyship in an altered tone, "if I plead with you—"

"'Tis likely mere pleading will be heard after your insults! Richard, step out, sir! If you hide in her Ladyship's skirts any longer, my men shall drag her away."

Dick kissed her hands swiftly, tore them away, and stood out alone.

"Take him away, Corporal," Dent commanded.

"May I go to my own room?" Dick asked. "I've been very happy there. It has a high window. I couldn't escape." He was addressing Captain Strong, who sat back in his chair, with a slightly, puzzled expression.

"Let him have his way," he said hastily to the corporal. "And Dent—I say, Dent, have not we very suddenly jumped to this conclusion? He is but a child!"

"Away!" cried Dent to the corporal. "What, Strong? Nay, thus I kill rumours. Now, madam, will it please you to leave us, or must I send for a guard for you, also?"

Lady Dorothy turned to Strong.

"Sir," she said, "you will not suffer this? You will exercise your power—"

"Strong has none," said Dent brutally. "If he moves in this matter, he reckons with me."

Strong fidgeted, and looked uneasily at the lady.

"I'm rich, sirs," said her ladyship desperately. "Captain Strong, if you will aid me—"

"He daren't take a bribe," Dent interrupted.

"And you, sir?" she asked. "For what will you sell me the life of this child?"

"There is one bribe I will take—only one,—you may offer it," Dent replied slowly, looking at her.

Very hurriedly she left the room.

CHAPTER XV

DICK MEETS DEATH

The first thing Dick saw, when the sun rose, was the new suit of rose-coloured silk which her Ladyship had given him to wear on her birthday. Old Philip had laid it out on the oak chest when it came from Arncastor the afternoon before. This was her birthday, to which they had so looked forward. He sat up in the bed and looked at the sun.

"I'm going to die," he said aloud.

It was quite unbelievable. There was the world outside, and here was his room and the birthday suit, and himself well and strong, and as much in need of breakfast as usual. He had not meant to go to sleep last night, but without undressing had lain down to think. Sleep had come, however, and here was the sun, and at sunrise they had said he should die. He started up. In a mirror opposite he saw a tumbled suit, an untidy head, and a pair of large frightened eyes.

"This won't do," he thought miserably. "I look like a traitor. I die game, like the men in the tale-books."

He stripped, plunged into a basin of cold water, got out a clean shirt, paused; cried a little, and dried the tears with his wrist-bands; then drew on the new silken hose, and put on the shoes with rosettes. Then came the rose-coloured suit, and with trembling hands he fastened the collar of rich lace her Ladyship had given him, and tied the embroidered sash.

"'Tis her birthday," he thought. "God bless her and give her many, many happy years, dear Cousin Dorothy! I wish I'd died at the inn before I knew what happiness felt like."

He buried his face in the pillows and cried bitterly. But he heard steps outside, and pulled himself up. The corporal came in.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"I haven't said my prayers yet," said Dick.

"Say them then, in good season."

Dick said the Lord's Prayer, and then, putting on his hat, said: "I'm ready."

"I'm not afraid to die," he observed as they went downstairs, "but I'm sorry past bearing to leave Cousin Dorothy."

The corporal said: "Umph!"

In the hall Captain Strong bade them halt. The door was open, and Dick saw two troopers under a tree on the grass, and hanging from a branch of the tree was a rope. He started. He had thought they would shoot him at least. A rope! A halter! Die on a gallows! He flushed. And for what? A lie would have saved him, and his death was of no importance. He was not saving anyone, or serving anyone, by his death.

"God knows, Dick," Giles had said at Dent, "you may die disgraced on a gallows, for that. But, my dear fellow, it's the duty that counts."

Dick bit his lip. If Giles were only here!

Just then, between Dick and the tree, came the black form of Lorry, with a tense, disapproving lift of the tail. He saw Dick waiting for a game, he supposed, gave a yelp of greeting, and came bounding up the path and into the hall. Dick caught him in his arms. Then, turning to the corporal savagely, he said: "Why don't you get on, you cowards? I can't stand much more."

The parlour door opened as he spoke, and the Lady Dorothy came out, followed by John Dent. She was very pale, but quite composed, and she wore the same dress as upon the last evening, and the flowers in her hair, Dick noticed vaguely, were dead. She came straight up to him and kissed him.

"You are free, Richard," said John Dent. "To horse, every man!" He was pale too, and curiously subdued in his manner. "She pleaded for you, Richard," he said. "Farewell, madam!"

Her Ladyship turned and swept him a curtsy, but she neither spoke nor lifted her eyes to him. He bowed. Then she led Dick away to her room.

"Oh, Cousin!" he cried. "Dear Cousin! is it true? Have they gone? Am I safe?"

"All true, Dick. Quite safe," she whispered.

He kissed her, kneeling by her, tried to thank her, and cried from excitement and relief.

"And 'tis still your birthday, dear! It seems weeks since sunrise. But, after all, we are going to have a merry day!"

She caressed him.

"We may, Cousin Dorothy, after all," he ran on. "Thanks to you, dearest, best of cousins! I'll never call John Dent my cousin—never any more! But you are weary. You haven't slept. Not been to bed all night? And I—I slept like a log. We will not ride out, then. We'll bide at home. Ods me! I'm hungry—something dreadful!"

"Go and breakfast, Dick," she said, "and I'll come anon."

"Shall I send Bridget with the chocolate and come and have it with you?"

"Nay," she answered. "You will want much more than she can carry. I'll call her by and by. You run, quick, Dick. Here comes Lorry, scratching. Be off the two of you!"

She fairly turned them out of her room and shut the door.

Bridget came to Dick later, and said her ladyship was resting, and would he hold her excused till the evening banquet, when she would come down right gaily.

Dick cheerfully agreed, for had she not been up all night on his behalf? He sent her his love, by Bridget, and bade her say he was busy composing an oration for the evening feast. Then he went to enquire of the maids what depredations the Puritans had made; but finding they had confined themselves to beef and beer, he went off with Lorry to visit the gardens and the stables.

"I've come back to life, Lorry," he told his friend. "Hours since I should have been cold and dead, sir, but for her. Eh, Lorry, dear, if she should some day need helping, I'd face anything for her!"

The rope was gone from the tree on the lawn, but Dick ran past it with a shudder. It was good to be alive, and how near he had been to death!

That evening the table was spread in the dining-room, with more candles to light it than usual. There were great bowls of roses, and strawberries in silver dishes, with creams and jellies enough for three times the number of guests. Lady Dorothy Byng wore her white satin and pearls, and a cluster of damask roses in her hair. She was more gay and more beautiful, Dick thought, than he had ever seen her before. At the end of the feast Dick stood up and cried lustily: "His Majesty the King! God bless him!"

Her Ladyship rose and curtsied, and they drank the health together. Her Ladyship leaned back in her chair, but Dick remained standing, and Philip refilled the glass. He turned the glass in his fingers.

"I'd made a lovely speech, Cousin," he said, and the lights seemed curiously dim, "but I—I can't remember a word. I'd die for you, though, and I love you, and I wish you very many happy years and a long—"

"Not that, Dick," she said, lifting her hand. "I don't think I'll care for a long life. But I like the rest very much, Dick. Thank you. Philip, you may go."

Dick's eyes saw things more plainly now. He looked at her steadily.

"What have I said to make you weep?" he asked.

"Nothing. Come here, dear. There! I think I'm tired again, Dickie."

Dick kissed her.

"You go and rest, Cousin," he said cheerfully. "All these candles make one's head ache this hot night."

"Yes, Dick, but I want you first to add one clause to your dear little speech."

"What?" he said.

"I want you to say, instead of dying, that you'll live with me always. That you'll never leave me for a day."

"Add that!" he cried. "Did I need to? You know I never will."

"Say it, though, Dickie. 'Whatever happens' say."

Dick said it and drank the toast, and his cousin left him with a good-night kiss.

CHAPTER XVI

HER LADYSHIP'S PROMISE

Dick was in bed and half-asleep when old Philip tapped at his door and came in.

"Are you asleep, master?" he said softly.

Dick sat up.

"What's the matter, Philip?" he asked.

"Eh, eh, sir, matter enough," the old man muttered. "Her Ladyship sent me to you."

"Is her Ladyship abed, Philip? Is she resting?"

"Nay, there'll be no rest for her to-night, master." The old man sat down by the bedside as he spoke. "She was for not having you told," he went on slowly, "but Bridget overruled her, and I upheld my wife. 'Tis only fitting you should hear. You must know there was a price paid for your life this morning, Master Richard."

"What for? What price?" asked Dick.

"Her Ladyship gave her word to marry that black coward and traitor, Mr. John Dent."

Dick started up, gasping.

"John Dent! Promised to marry John Dent?"

"Ay, on condition he did not hang thee."

Dick fell back, shaking nervously.

"I'd better—" he began, "I'd rather have hanged than that."

"Well, there it is, sir," old Philip observed, "and no way, so far's I can see, out of the hole. They didn't ask you and they didn't ask me, and I'd have killed John Dent myself sooner, and hanged for it after."

"John Dent!" Dick cried again. "For my sake!"

"Her Ladyship saith, if you must know, you must, and I must come and tell you. She fears how you may take it. But she saith also she trusts the promise you made her, that whatever happens you will never leave her."

"Never!" Dick exclaimed. He was thinking of John Dent—the dark, harsh face, the cruel tongue, the heavy hand. Always to live with that! to be at that man's mercy! "Philip!" he cried, "cannot we stop it? Hath my lady no friends?"

"He comes the day after to-morrow at noon," answered Philip, shaking his head. "He brings a parson. My Lady stipulated for a churchman to marry them here at once in the chapel. She cannot stir. She hath given her promise. Her people—her family—are all away in the north, what's left of them. There's no time to run to and fro seeking their help."

"But, Philip, she must have friends nearer. The court is at Arncastor. My Lady was at court. There must be someone there would help."

"'Tis many years since my Lady was at court," said old Philip shrewdly. "They have short memories at courts, sir. No one there will recollect her; new names come up right fast."

"But there would be someone there who'd take up the matter," Dick urged, "if only to catch the traitor John Dent. There would be some gentlemen would ride out and help."

"Your ideas of gentlemen, sir—begging your pardon,—are got out of my Lady's romance-books. The live kind is different. They'd ride out to help, I grant you; but I know your court sparks! They'd want a reward. We'd be as likely out of the frying-pan into the fire as not, master."

Dick thought if his friend Giles were alive, and had power, he would come to aid her Ladyship without wanting anything from her in reward. Then he remembered Giles's master. He had seemed powerful enough. But he did not even know the name of Giles's master. He sighed.

"Can you do nothing, Philip?"

"Me, sir? No! Her Ladyship gave a promise that none of her servants should quit the place till—till it's done."

Dick stared dismally before him.

"But you are not one of her Ladyship's servants, master," said Philip after a pause.

"Well?" said Dick.

"Well," the old man echoed, "if you have any friends at Arncastor, or know of anyone that would help you—leaving her Ladyship out of the question,—for anyone's sake, sir, now is the time to seek them up."

"I haven't a friend in the world," said Dick bitterly; "not one."

"You might have left the house, you see. You might have gone to Arncastor," said Philip.

"I?" Dick cried in horror. "I go to Arncastor? Why, Philip, I should be seized the minute I got there. They would not listen to me. They wouldn't believe a word I said. Ah, you don't know!"

"'Tis only what her Ladyship hath told us that I know, sir," said Philip. "That you were her cousin; that you had fallen amongst folks that ill-treated you; and that you had found her out and come hither. That is all, sir. But I thought that you might have other friends, and you were sure to wish to serve her."

Dick said nothing. He was still thinking of life with John Dent. Would he let Dick stay with them? After the wedding, even if he had made her any promise about it, would he not try to get rid of Dick? Think of being always in the power of John Dent! In trying to avoid it he would run risk of danger, of failure, of disgrace, and also the loss of her faith in him.

Philip took up his candle and left the room with a husky "Good-night, master", which Dick did not heed. He buried his face in the pillows. Stay with her as he had promised, and see her daily sacrificed to the selfishness and cruelty of John Dent? John Dent had caused the death of young Lord Byng, and he had caused her to quarrel with Dick's brother, who had left her, and gone away to die. And should she be married to this man, and must Dick stay with her always, bound by his promise, unable to help, but seeing her misery? Would that be keeping his faith with her? Would that be a return for her love?

It was her Ladyship's custom to drink chocolate at eight every morning, and Dick always came to her room to have some with her. The morning after her birthday she waited a few minutes, and then told Bridget she might take away the tray.

"Shall I send Philip to look for Master Richard?" the woman asked.

"No," answered Lady Dorothy. "He hath gone away."

"Gone away, my Lady?" cried Bridget.

"Yes; he rode out at sunrise on the pony. I saw him. I was up."

"But he should be back by now, my lady."

"He is not coming back, Bridget. He stopped where the lane turns and looked back at the house. He was crying, I think. Poor Dickie! I didn't wave to him. He would have come back if I had. I—I—expected it. He fears his cousin, John Dent."

Lorry had pushed his way into the room. He came up and laid his black head on his mistress's knee. With eyes and tail he told her what faithless beings boys were, and the creatures to be trusted were dogs, and dogs alone, his kind especially, and of his kind himself.

"You may go, Bridget," said her Ladyship.

Bridget flew downstairs, and flung herself, the tray, and her story into her husband's pantry.

"But I'll never believe it of him—never! Him as we've nursed and cockered! Oh, no, man, no! Master Richard's too much of a gentleman born, I say. His pony's mayhap fallen with him, he's that venturesome with it. You mark my words, unless he's killed with his tricks and his jumpings, he'll be back at dinner-time."

But at dinner-time there was no Richard.

"He's dead, then, poor lamb!" cried Bridget.

"You're putting my Lady's wine in his goblet, you silly woman!" Philip interrupted. "Take yourself to your own place, look's ter! Get along, wilt tha! You an' your lambs!"

CHAPTER XVII

DICK GOES FOR HELP

Dick had wakened at dawn, the dawn he would never have seen but for her. He dressed quickly in the silken clothes of yesterday. "They will less likely recognize me on the way if I go finely clad," he thought. He said his prayers, took his long riding-boots under his arm, slipped out of his room, paused to listen, then crept stealthily along the corridor, down the stairs, and into the hall. Here he paused again to listen, then went swiftly down a long passage near the kitchen, took the stable-key from its peg, unbarred the outer door, and trembled as the bolt squeaked faintly. Outside he pulled on his boots, sped across the grass to the stable-yard, and saddled and led out the pony. Lorry was watching him all the time from his kennel. He was too wise to bark, for Dick had impressed upon him that barking at sunrise was a vain pastime, fit only to rouse ladies from their dreams and bring them to their casements to suggest the grass was yet too damp for boys and dogs to walk through, or that the air was still too raw for delicate chests and coughs like Dick's. When the pony was saddled Dick went over and kissed Lorry's nose.

"Take care of her, old fellow," he said. "And if I don't come back, oh! make her understand 'tis neither fear nor faithlessness that keeps me from her! You would if you could speak."

Then he mounted, and, keeping on the grass, rode down into the lane. When Lorry realized that, in spite of Dick's kiss and his own good behaviour, he was not to be taken too, he gave a great bay of disappointment that brought Lady Dorothy to her window in time to see Dick's last look at the old house before he turned out of sight. He rode to the lane-head, and for the first time came out upon the highroad. It was all uphill, and the fat pony's progress slow. On the ridge of the hill, when they reached it, he looked down the long, straight, dusty way he knew so well, where the travellers came out of the clouds at one end and went into the trees on the other. There, a speck in the haze, miles down, lay the inn of the Seven Thorns.

"Come up, Fairy," said Dick, whipping his pony to a canter, and they went down the hill bravely in a cloud of dust.

The landlord was just opening his shutters at the Seven Thorns—Mr. Tomlinson, the sleek and plausible, as plausible as ever, returned in safety after his adventures. In Dick's nervous grip on the reins as they passed, the pony read a command to stop, and he stopped, to Dick's discomfort.

"A fine day, young gentleman," said the landlord, bowing. "Will your honour stay and breakfast? Methinks the horse's shoe goes loose—on the off hind-foot, my lord."

Dick struck in a spur. Fairy bounded forward. Without answering, Dick galloped for the woods.

"He didn't know me, though," he said to himself. But he had shaken in his saddle at the sound of his old master's voice. He wondered if, behind in the inn-yard, some poor wretch of a bruised and hungry boy was toiling through his work—the familiar weary work.

They had passed the forest-trees, Arncastor was in sight. Dick caught sight of a wide river, a bridge with soldiers on it, meadows dotted with tents, and the gray town behind, with dancing flags on the church towers, and then Fairy lurched forward, recovered himself, and stood still.

"What now, sir?" Dick demanded impatiently.

Fairy looked round with a gentle whinny, and Dick got down.

"Your shoe, you stupid little beast?"

Yes, that was it, and Fairy affected a pathetic and extreme lameness. The shoe was left behind on the hill. A little way from the bridge, on Dick's side of the water, was an inn—a large, comfortable, happy-looking place—the Blue Boar—very different from the Seven Thorns. Dick, leading his pony, walked to the inn, and whilst Fairy was attended to he asked for breakfast. Lady Dorothy had given him money from time to time, and as there was little to spend it on in her surroundings, Dick had a purseful at his disposal now. He had a good breakfast of trout and ham-and-eggs, and strawberries and new milk. The landlady took him into especial care and favour from the first. "As sweet a spoken little lord as ever stepped," she said.

"I'm not a lord," said Dick, nodding to her. "But you're very kind, and I like you, and I wish you'd presently let me speak to you in private."

Of course the good woman would do anything for such a pretty young squire. The fact was, during breakfast Dick had heard talk amongst the soldiers and others in the inn-parlour that had taken away what little confidence in himself he had possessed. His ideas were of the vaguest. He had meant to find Giles's master amongst the Cavaliers at Arncastor, and to entreat him for help, for Giles's sake. After that he had not dared to plan or think of anything. But he had gathered, from the company breakfasting at the same time as himself, that no one could get into the town without stating his name and business to the officer at the bridge, who handed it on to his superior, and he to a third; and then, if all seemed satisfactory, the person would be admitted with a pass. Some of the gentlemen and the officers and nobles passed unquestioned with whom they pleased. But Dick had no satisfactory account of himself or his business to offer, and to give his name, he thought, meant ruin at the outset. If he had only learnt the name of Giles's master, and could have asked to see him. Dick had not foreseen these difficulties. He was very simple, but he had a way of placing implicit confidence in anyone who was kind to him. In the present trouble he had an inspiration to take the handsome, motherly landlady into the case, and entreat for advice. She had an honest eye, and an air that meant firm support if she deemed you worthy of regard. So Dick explained to her, alone in her own room, that he was on urgent family business, that he must see a gentleman of the court immediately, and would she tell him how best he might get into the town. He could not give his name, and his business could only be confided to the gentleman in question.

"And his name?" asked she.

"I do not know his name," Dick said; "I have only seen him once."

The landlady shook her head.

"Where do you come from, sir?" she said.

Dick thought there was no harm in answering that question.

"I live with the Lady Dorothy Byng."

"Ah, then," she cried, "old Philip Wayland is my uncle that's butler to her ladyship!"

"He'd have come on this errand if he could," said Dick, "but he couldn't. He—that's just it."

"Is it her ladyship's business?"

"I've made it mine," said Dick. "'Tis mine."

"And you want to see this gentleman?"

"I must see him," said Dick.

"Is he about the court, then?"

"Always where the King is," Dick replied.

"One of his gentlemen? An Esquire-of-the-body, or that?"

Dick was doubtful.

"I think he was a great lord," he said. "He wore rich jewels, and everyone bowed to him."

"Umph," she said, "there's a plenty of fine birds at court still. But, now— Bless the child! Don't look that piteous—eh, don't! What you want is to get into Arncastor, and stand somewhere nigh where the King lodges, and see the courtiers pass. When your gentleman comes along—

"That's it!" Dick cried, embracing her. "You have it! Now, how to get in?"

"Dear only knows, my chuck; but—mercy me! there's Lionel!"

"Who's Lionel?" asked Dick.

"He's my sister's son," she explained, "and a man of my Lord Newcastle's."

She whisked out of the room, and returned in a minute with a handsome young man in the Newcastle livery. To him she explained Dick's case, whilst the boy stood anxiously by her side.

"Simple as swallowing," said Lionel cheerfully at the end of the tale. "Supposing, of course, my young gentleman doesn't mind a bit of masquerading?"

"I don't mind anything," Dick assured him hastily.

"What you want, sir," said the cheerful young man, "is to stand where the courtiers do pass; but that, sir, mustn't be on the road. You'd have no chance in the throng and amongst the soldiers. You should see them one by one to recognize your friend, eh?"

"Go on! Go on!" Dick begged.

"Why, then," said Lionel, "to work that, sir, you must be got into His Majesty's lodgings. Now, to-night I am on duty in a passage looking into the hall that the King crosses on his way to Her Majesty's supper-room. My Lord Newcastle sups with Their Majesties to-night, with Prince Rupert, and the Earl of Lumley, and a number of other peers and gentlemen. I'm to wait in this passage, taking with me a lad with a torch, to attend my master home. Now, if the young gentleman isn't above it, and will drop a cloak over his braveries and carry a torch, I'll take him with me instead of one of my Lord's pages. He can go into the town with me unmolested. Now, sir?"

"To-night?" said Dick sadly. "Not till to-night?"

"Why no," said Lionel. "I'm taking a holiday, you see, sir." He winked at the landlady. "And Susan, you see, sir—Susan—"

"Susan's no daughter of me if she looks at you again," interposed the landlady, "should you fail to see the young gentleman through!"

Lionel protested that he would. They might depend on him for that. It was Dick's only chance of penetrating that net-work of formalities and customs that surround a king. This was his only hope. He must pass the intervening hours as best he might, and wait patiently for evening. Lionel was a good-natured youth, and Dick's pale-faced anxiety touched him.

"See you, sir," he said kindly, "I'll do my best. You shall have every chance. We'll take our stand early, before the supper-hour. We'll be there before His Majesty comes in from the gardens, where he'll be walking if the evening's fine. If your friend's not with him then, we'll hope he'll be there as he goes to supper, and if not then, we'll trust he may be when the King returns. We'll find him, never fear!"

"You're a good man, Lionel," said Dick, shaking hands with him heartily. "I'll never forget you. If they—if I fail, you mustn't think I still don't thank you, for I shall. There! There's my purse. Take it all!"

He thrust his purse into the young man's hand. Lionel tossed it up to the ceiling, caught it cleverly, and handed it back.

"Better keep it to the end of the day, sir," he said. "My aunt there, she'll run you up a mighty bill, and want the money or the life of you. She'll stand no nonsense, won't my aunt."

"That she won't, you naughty fellow!" cried his aunt.

"And oh, Lionel," Dick entreated, "don't forget me! Don't forget to come."

"Beshrew me! Nay, sir, you may pin your faith to Lionel."

And the cheerful youth ran off to spend the day with Susan.

"There's no harm cometh to a man," quoth he, "by serving a young gentleman who talks with his eyes—eh, my dear, pitiful!—and has a purse of gold and a friend at court. Your good-hearted man, Susan, ah! there are rewards and gold for your good-hearted man."

"But you haven't the gold," remarked Susan.

"Wait till the job's done, my shrewd one," said he.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THEIR MAJESTIES' LODGINGS

"At least," Dick reflected as he and Lionel crossed the bridge and went up the street into Arncastor. "At least, I have not been recognized or stopped yet. And I might meet him now—any minute."

As he thought so, Lionel pulled him aside. Three gentlemen were passing, and as Lionel bared his head Dick did also, and then turned pale. He met well-remembered eyes fixed on him for a second—indifferently, indeed, but he quailed.

"That was his highness Prince Rupert," said Lionel as they went on again. "The tallest of the three."

Dick drew a long breath. It was the gentleman who had teased him at Lumley.

Another hundred yards farther and Lionel's hat was off again. Again Dick saw a familiar face and met the blank expression of eyes that had once frowned on him severely.

"My master, my Lord Newcastle," said Lionel.

"My master, too, for the time," said Dick with another sigh of relief. "How fortunate he did not stay you to ask why a strange lad was with you as page."

Lionel laughed. "Od zooks, sir! His lordship scarce knows his page from his bed-post. These great men heed their servants very little. They know their falcon's peculiarities and their hounds' tempers, but, save your innocence, their servants are as wood or stone."

Dick thought of Giles and his master.

"There's His Majesty, I grant you," Lionel observed. "They say he knows his servants. He never forgets a face. But I know no one else like that."

"I know one," said Dick.

"So? Well, here we are!"

They were in a side street having a long bare wall, with a door round which stood a group of soldiers. Gentlemen's servants in livery, calling their masters' names, were hurrying in and out. Pages in silken suits were hustling about, chaffing the troopers and getting in everyone's way.

"My Lord of Newcastle!" Lionel cried, and he and Dick were admitted. They crossed a court to a door at the back of the house, a large rambling mansion occupied now by the King and Queen. The guards here knew Lionel, and he stayed to talk with them, whilst Dick, carrying his unlit torch and holding his cloak about him, stood near, shivering with excitement and suspense. At last Lionel turned to him.

"Come along. His Majesty has not come in yet from walking. We're in luck, you see," he said as they threaded a crowded hall and a corridor thronged with guards and servants. "For, after supper, there is to be a masque—sort of play, sir—in the gardens by torchlight, and every gentleman about the court will be present. Such bravery! Such music and singing! Now the Queen's back all the court's alive."

Dick followed him into a panelled gallery. There were benches along the walls, and Lionel sat down on one near the farthest end. Close to them four broad white stone steps led down into a great square hall, with costly hangings, lounges, and pictures. Wide doors stood open, and beyond, Dick caught a glimpse of a beautiful lawn, where splendidly attired ladies and courtiers were strolling up and down. In the hall were guards with gleaming cuirasses, and a group of young gentlemen in the costliest dresses were lounging at a window, chattering. As Dick watched, a page in the Royal livery ran in from the garden and spoke to one of these. He parted from his companions and came up the steps by Dick.

"Will His Majesty be coming in soon, sir?" asked Lionel, bowing respectfully.

"He has just gone in by the Queen's entrance," said the gentleman, and hurried on.

"That is one of His Majesty's Gentlemen of the Bedchamber," said Lionel. "We shall have to wait now an hour or more, till he passes to the supper."

"Oh, this waiting!" Dick sighed. "If only I knew his name!"

"Patience!" urged Lionel. "Sit down here, and kick your heels."

"But he might go through the hall!" Dick cried. "I must keep looking."

"Point him out to me," said Lionel yawning. "Then I'll learn his name and be after him like a flash."

The minutes passed heavily enough. The hall was getting dusky now. Suppose he passed down there, and Dick did not recognize him? Or, suppose he came, and did not know the boy again, and would not hear his story. He might hand Dick over to the guards without a word of explanation. Ah, how slow the time went! Yet, how fast! It would be to-morrow very soon, and nothing done yet.

But there was movement in the hall. The guard was changed. A delicious sound of harps and violins came from the Queen's apartments on the left. Servants were bringing lights—thousands of lights, it seemed to Dick. The hall glowed with a soft radiance, and the soldiers' equipments winked like silver. Dick stole out on the top step. The lights from below shone on his pale face.

"Stand back, there!" called an officer irritably. "Whose are you?"

"My Lord Newcastle's!" cried Lionel, coming to Dick's assistance.

"What are you doing?"

"What you should be doing," Lionel retorted; "minding our own business."

There was a very hurriedly-suppressed laugh. The officer had only just time to spring back to his place, saluting, as Prince Rupert sauntered past on his way to the Queen's rooms—a perfect dream of scarlet and gold, with his tall fair head, and superb, easy grace. His page, carrying his cloak and plumed hat, followed him as far as the steps, where he bowed sedately to his master's back, and then came up to join Lionel in the gallery. He would have proceeded to quiz Dick, but Dick was far too intent upon his own affairs to heed questions, or answer them.

"New to his place?" said the scented page scornfully.

"Not so new but he can keep others in theirs," Lionel responded. They kept up a lively bickering, for the servants were rivals as much as their masters, whilst Dick, all eyes, watched the brilliant scene below. The unhurried movements, the decorous laughter, the soft lights were very enthralling. But what now? A gentleman darted down the steps, brushing past him, spoke to the guard, and came back.

"What's the news, friend?" asked the page.

"His Majesty," the gentleman replied, sitting down by them. "He goes to speak to the Prince before supper."

"Hey, big eyes!" cried the page, "step out and see thy King!" He gave Dick a push which unintentionally sent him flying out upon the top step. His torch flew from his hand, clattering into the hall below. The King's gentleman cuffed the page. Lionel sprang to his feet. The guardsman at the foot of the steps wheeled with a growl of anger. The rest saluted. A gentleman passing stopped and looked up. Dick gave a cry, plunged down the steps, and was pinioned by the guardsman.

"Let me go!" he cried. "Sir!—for pity's sake!"

"Let him go," said the gentleman. "He is a friend of mine. Stand back!"

Dick had contracted an odd habit at the inn of clasping and wringing his hands, whilst his eyes looked up in such a way that no one less than a brute could have denied him anything. As the guard, astonished, fell back, he stood before Giles's master in this pathetic way, saying: "Sir, help me for Giles's sake!"

The gentleman, somewhat moved, stretched out his hand. Dick took it in both his own and shook it heartily.

"Great powers!" murmured Lionel, staggering back.

"Well I—never—did!" gasped the appalled and tittering page.

"What help do you need, Sir Richard Chester?" asked Giles's master, stroking his moustache to hide a smile. "Is it another castle to relieve?"

"No, sir," said Dick, conscious of the staring eyes about him. "'Tis about my cousin Dorothy—the Lady Dorothy Byng."

"What of her?" demanded the gentleman, waving back a brilliant creature with a white wand, who was bearing down upon them.

"We—we must stop her marrying—" Dick began.

"Stop her marrying?" the gentleman said with a lift of the eyebrows. "We mustn't meddle with ladies' marriages, must we? They never thank us. When did you last see Giles? Eh? What now?" Dick had hidden his face in his hands. The gentleman was laughing at him. All round him people were smiling. The page in the gallery above was giggling. No one would listen to him then. Giles's master touched him gently.

"Answer me. When did you last see Giles?"

"Giles is dead," said Dick, raising his head. "You must know that, sir, or I would have gone to him instead of you. He wouldn't have given me up! I know what will happen to me. But do—do help my cousin! She saved my life yesterday. Oh, sir! I do not care—you may do what you like with me."

"Thanks, Dick." And Giles's master took his hand, with a swift, rather stern glance at the amazed guards, the tittering page above, the official with the white wand, waiting with a kind of protesting, yet patient air, behind. "That being so, you shall come with me a little. Excuse me to His Highness, my lord. I shall be with him presently." He walked away with Dick, the noble lord bowing profoundly.

"What think you of that?" gasped Lionel, looking after them.

"Death," answered the page gloomily, shaking his head. "Do you often bring lunatics to court, sirrah?"

CHAPTER XIX

GILES'S MASTER AGAIN

Giles's master took Dick into a small panelled room, lighted by the setting sun only, and seating himself in a carved arm-chair, motioned Dick to a stool at his side.

"And who told you Giles was dead?" he asked, after speaking in French for some moments to a gentleman at the door.

This meant the telling of Dick's disappearance from Lumley, saved from disgrace by Master Purvis, as he thought. He had scarcely begun the recital before a door at the far end of the room opened, and a gentleman in a white velvet suit stood on the threshold, bowing. Dick stopped.

"Go on," said Giles's master. "The gentleman is a friend of mine. My lord, will you have the goodness to wait in the window yonder? Thanks. Well, Dick. They told you there was an order out for your arrest and so forth?"

Dick went on again. His confidence in the gentleman's kindness was restored, and as he had spoken to him at Lumley so he spoke now, and told him all about the Seven Thorns, and of his flight across the fields, and how the Lady Dorothy Byng befriended him, and then turned out to be his cousin. But there the gentleman stayed him.

"The Lady Dorothy Byng was your father's first wife's niece," he said. "She was your step-brother's cousin, not yours, Dick."

Dick sighed. "That's a pity," he said. "She asked me to have her for a cousin. I was very glad to. Anyone would, I think."

Giles's master laughed, and the gentleman in the window half-turned round.

"So they told you Giles was dead?" said his master. "Were you grieved then?"

Dick did not answer. He bit his lips, but the tears would come.

"Sorrow no longer," said the gentleman quickly. "Giles is alive!"

"Alive!" Dick cried, so loud and so joyously that the man in the window took a step into the room, quite startled.

"Alive and well," said Giles's master quietly. "Why did you never try to find out? Why, if we may enquire, did you never find your way back to your friends and learn the truth?"

"I dare not, sir," said Dick, hanging his head.

"Ha! the bogey of a proclamation? All a make-believe, my child. There was never anything but kindness waiting for you with Giles and his—master."

"But I didn't know," said Dick. "Cousin Dorothy said it could not be true, indeed, but I did not believe her. She—she said my idea of my own importance was sadly exaggerated." He imitated her manner a little.

"Nay, if you'd had the least idea of your own importance you'd have got back to us in spite of John Dent's trickery. 'Twas all John Dent, Dick. Why, Giles—he broke his heart when we failed to find you. And I—why," he said, touching his high forehead, with a smile, "I fancy a new wrinkle came here with puzzling about your so sudden disappearance. Yes, indeed!"

Dick laughed.

"So the Lady Dorothy did not believe the proclamation story?" resumed the gentleman.

"No," said Dick, blushing. "She would have had me come to Arncastor weeks ago, but I would not. She said I was a coward—" He stopped abruptly, but went on in a second: "I must have been, too. If I'd come—but I dare not be taken, and—and disgraced before you and—and the others."

"Yet you came to-day?"

"To try and save her," Dick said.

"She should not have called you a coward, I think," Giles's master observed. "But, come. Why does she want saving? We will have that part now."

"She has promised to marry John Dent," Dick began; and whilst he told of his cousin's goodness, and John Dent's cruelty, the gentleman in white drew nearer, unobserved.

"Sir, you will help me, won't you?" Dick entreated.

The gentleman in white took a step forward, but Giles's master begged him to have patience a little longer, and he returned to his window in silence.

"I will help you to the best of my ability," said Giles's master, taking Dick's hand kindly, "and for your sake. The lady herself seems of a variable temper. As I said before, she should not have called you a coward."

"Ah, sir," Dick cried, "she's all goodness—all kindness! She never meant to hurt me, and she begged my pardon—she, a great lady. I love her very much, more than anyone, except Giles. We agreed on everything in the world, I think—except Giles," he added.

"Ha!" said the gentleman. "And what ailed her Ladyship of Giles?"

Dick explained as well as he could that it appeared that great ladies could not appreciate courage and virtue when they went in rags. And he felt the gentleman upon whose knee he leant shake with laughter.

"Ay," he said, "that's it, Dick. These great ladies! They will send their slaves to the ends of the earth to fetch them a bodkin. Call them cowards, yet expect their hearts to be laid at their feet with a 'Do me the honour to tread here, madam'! And you are bent upon serving this fastidious dame, Dick? And upon making me serve her too?"

"For me," said Dick, "I would die for her. I have said what she hath done for me. And there is another reason, if I have not shown you, sir, why I must help her."

"And the other reason?"

Dick looked round. The light was very dim now, but he could see the gentleman in white impatiently tapping his leg with his rapier-sheath, his face turned to the window.

"'Tis about my brother, who is dead," said Dick in a low voice. "'Tis her story, told me in—in confidence. But I think, sir, no one should hear it but you, and you because you will help."

"Quite right," said Giles's master, with a swift glance towards the window. "You may whisper." He bent his head, and Dick, slipping his arm round his neck, whispered his tale.

The gentleman in white stood so strangely still he might have been fairly accused of holding his breath to hear the whisper.

"Well," said Giles's master at the close, "I hold you're right, Dick. Your very life is hers so long as she needs it. Should she ever find anyone else to make her happy, will you come to me? I confess I should like you about me. True, I have Giles; but Giles, you may have noticed, Giles is a very remarkable person."

"Ay, indeed!" was Dick's hearty response.

"And to be trusted," continued his master, "with great matters. I have to send him from me; and then—well, Dick—I have no one near me quite so faithful as Giles. I don't know whether I am called a good master or not. It seems to me I bring my servants nothing but misfortune and privation—sometimes death." He sighed.

Dick laid his hand on his friend's affectionately. "I'd never care for that, sir," he said earnestly. "I've been near death. It doesn't matter. If I could be with you, and sometimes see dear Giles, I'd be quite happy, if Cousin Dorothy was happy too. Why, sir, I've been beaten and been hungered by those I served. Do you think mere privation with you and Giles would be hard?"

Just then the door opened softly, a curtain was drawn back, and a servant appeared with lights.

"If you would have the goodness to say we do not need them," said Giles's master to the gentleman in white. "Thanks."

The servant retreated, bowing; but Dick had seen the lights fall on the gentleman in white—a figure as superb as Prince Rupert's and a dress beautiful and rich. A jewel had flashed in his sword-hilt, and a "George" hung from a blue ribbon at his neck. What a thing to be a courtier!

As the gentleman came back he shot a piercing glance at the two figures in the dusk, and, pointing especially at Dick, he said something in a voice so low that Dick only caught the last words—"The audacity!" The boy resented it, and Giles's master seemed to disagree with the sentiment also, for he put his arm round the boy's shoulder, with a slight laugh, and, stooping, kissed him lightly on the brow.

"No audacity!" he said. "Are you jealous, my lord? Dick once told me he loved Giles with all his heart because there was no one else to love—no father and no mother. And his brother, whilst he lived, I suppose, had never even looked at him. Yet Dick knows how to love, and should not lack a return of it. No doubt, my lord, you have heard something of the tale he's been telling me. Perchance you found it somewhat interesting?"

The gentleman in white bowed.

"As to that which we took care you should not hear," proceeded Giles's master, "suffice it, for the completion of the story, that the Lady Dorothy Byng once had a fancy for my friend, Dick's brother. And, we might add—might we not, Dick?—that she cherishes his memory still—more or less."

Dick said gravely: "She loves him still."

"Therefore Dick is bound to help her now. And I have bound myself to help Dick. And I must beg you, my lord, to see Giles helps us all. We'll place the matter, Dick, in the hands of Giles—a delicate revenge for her scorn of him, eh? He shall order all he needs, and take this traitor, John Dent, if he can catch him, send him hither for trial, and have done with him. He shall scatter John Dent's friends, if he hath any, to the winds. He shall take you home to the Lady Dorothy Byng, with my greetings. And our dear, good Giles shall ask her if she cannot—it will be hard if she cannot—find some other companion and give you to me. There! Have we marked the part of each player and disposed of the villain of the piece?"

The gentleman in white bowed, whilst Dick enthusiastically thanked his friend. Giles's master made as if to rise, so Dick stood up.

"Where shall I find dear Giles?" he asked excitedly.

"Dear Giles, eh? Oh, he will be with you as soon as I am gone!" He held Dick's hand a moment, looking down at him half with amusement half with tenderness, glanced up at the other gentleman, and moved towards the door. There, stopping suddenly, he looked back.

"I have recalled one person for whom no part is assigned," he said. "The parson, Dick; be sure he is treated well, sir. I could wish Giles would find some use for him. Maybe he will."

The gentleman in white drew back the curtain and opened the door.

"Sir!" cried Dick, springing after him, "one moment! Will you tell me your name?"

"Charles," said Giles's master.

"Charles?" Dick repeated. "Charles what?"

"Stuart," the gentleman answered. And the door shut.

CHAPTER XX

GILES

"The King?" Dick cried, half-incredulously. "The King!" He grew hot, then cold, as he stood there, half-expecting some awful retribution to follow on his audacities. But then the King had not been angry; he had not seemed displeased. "The King!" he cried again.

"The King!" echoed a voice behind him—a voice that carried him back to the leads of Dent. "Have you no word for Giles after all these months?"

"Giles!" Dick cried, spinning round. But there was only the gentleman in white, whom the King had addressed as "My lord".

"Don't you know me, little Captain?" The gentleman moved to the window, where the last glow from the evening sky was lingering still. "See!" he said.

Dick searched the face. Yes, there were the eyes, the gray, kind eyes of Giles; but the hair cut square across the brow, and falling in curls on the shoulders, was not like Giles's. The long beard was gone, too, and under the upturned moustaches was a mouth Dick did not know. But there were the eyes, and as his own scanned more closely the costly dress, he saw his own little dagger in its worn red leather sheath, hanging by the courtier's rapier at his side.

"Giles!" he said softly, and flung himself into his friend's arms.

Some time later Giles said: "But, come! We have affairs, Dick. To business, with what appetite we may!"

"Well, I'm hungry enough," said Dick simply.

There was a tap at the door, and a magnificent gentleman entered.

"Her Majesty holds you excused from supping with her, my lord," he said, bowing. "And His Majesty requests me to add he will not expect to see you these three days, with his farewells to you, and," said the gentleman, almost choking over the words, as if they outraged his sense of propriety, "his love to Sir Richard Chester of Dent."

"Convey my most profound thanks to Her Majesty, sir, for her graciousness," said Giles calmly. "And my humble thanks to His Majesty, also, if you please."

"And my humble thanks also," Dick stammered. "And my love, sir, please say, all Dick Chester's love."

The gentleman visibly shuddered as he bowed.

"Dick! Dick!" Giles said, laughing, "I should never wonder if that gentleman had a fit. What do you mean by sending messages like that, sir? Ah, but you're fickle! First me, then my master, then the—the Lady Dorothy is it? Then again my master. All your love, you pygmy! CÃ¦sar's ghost! Where do you keep it all?"

Dick laughed.

"Don't you love people, then, Giles? You do His Majesty, and—and—"

"And who, prithee?" demanded Giles.

"Why, and me, Giles dear," said Dick serenely.

"Come along," said Giles laughing again. "We've made free with His Majesty's rooms long enough. We will go and hunt up some officer who will take his troop over to your place to-night. 'Twould never do for us to sleep and let John Dent steal a march on us, eh? I know my man! As like as not he'll hear of your coming hither and do his best to outwit us."

"But shall we not go to-night, Giles? Her Ladyship will be so disturbed by my absence."

"Your arrival would disturb her more at this hour, surely, Dick? The officers I send will keep her—her household safe until morning, and one of them, when he has seen that all is well, shall ride back even to-night and report to us."

They were going down the passage that led from the King's rooms to the hall. In the hall the guard saluted Giles, and looked somewhat sourly at Dick.

"Giles," said Dick, pulling his friend back as he was turning towards the door, "there's Lionel! I have but just recalled him."

"Who and what—" began Giles.

"He brought me here," Dick hurriedly explained. "He's a man of my Lord Newcastle's. I want to thank him now." He had dragged Giles to the foot of the steps. "I'd never have got here but for him. Will you come, Giles? He's up here."

"I'll thank him myself, do you leave me breath enough," said Giles good-humouredly.

The corridor above was crowded with noblemen's and ladies' servants and pages, some playing cards, some sitting, some standing, but all, it seemed to Dick, talking at once. He could not see Lionel anywhere. He would have pressed through the throng to seek him, but that, it appeared, was not Giles's way. Drawing Dick back he said quietly, but in a voice that stilled the tumult, and travelled down the corridor and into the passage beyond: "Is there here a man of my Lord Newcastle's—one Lionel?"

In the silence, Lionel, on a bench in a corner, whispered to Prince Rupert's page: "There! Farewell, sir! I'm dead!—dismissed!—undone!"

"Serves you right," said the page sweetly. "Don't mind my toes—a dead man has his privileges."

"There he is," said Dick, as Lionel, looking by no means cheerful, came out of the listening and looking crowd. Dick darted forward, shook hands with him, and overwhelmed him with thanks. Then Giles stretched his hand to the embarrassed youth.

"There are my thanks, too, my friend," he said. "This is Sir Richard Chester, and we are all right glad to have him here."

"And I'm in no trouble, my lord?" Lionel gasped, turning the gold pieces Giles had left in his palm.

"Not a breath," said Giles.

"Who'll bear the torch?" Dick asked. "What will my Lord Newcastle say when he finds no boy at all with you, Lionel?"

"Eh?" Giles said, "what torch?"

Dick explained, and Lionel looked a little doubtful and distressed.

"Oh, say to his lordship I stole his torchbearer!" Giles said coolly. "Say it was Sir Richard Chester, my man. He will hold you without blame. Good-night!"

"What think you to those?" Lionel asked, as, having pushed his way through the curious crowd, he sat down again by the page, and spread out his gold pieces.

"Bribes," said the page, sniffing. "Who is the child?"

"The child who held Dent Castle, and disappeared from Lumley."

The page whistled.

"Oh, Lionel! a perfect gold-mine! I wish that I'd discovered and recovered the pretty treasure."

The "pretty treasure" and Giles were by this time out in the streets of Arncastor, which were thronged with merry people going across the river to view from the meadows the masque in the Queen's gardens. They stopped at a house whence came a sound of singing, where the light from an unshuttered upper window shone out into the street. By this light Dick, chancing to look up at Giles, saw a subtle change in him. A minute since he had been laughing and kindly, now he was grave, unapproachable. As they climbed the stairs a high, clear voice was singing a song, and as Giles opened the door of the festal chamber out rolled a rollicking chorus, with a clinking of glasses and stamping of feet that almost deafened Dick. About twenty gentlemen were gathered about a table, with doublets undone, belts on the floor, sashes untied, and making clamour enough for a town. Giles waited, surveying them, till the end of the song, and then asked, in his well-modulated voice and a tone of ice:

"Is Captain Slingsby here?"

"My lord," cried one of the company, "a health! a health! The King!"

"God save the King!" cried another.

"God save the King, with all my heart!" said Giles, taking the glass pushed towards him, and drinking, hat in hand.

"Confusion to his foes!" cried another voice.

"Ah!" said Giles, "I see enough and to spare amongst his friends, gentlemen. Is Captain Slingsby here?"

"Be not too hard on us, my lord," said a young man at the end of the table, rising and bowing. "Gentlemen, I give you my lord, his health!"

"Your health, my lord!" they all cried together, and the glasses clinked again.

Giles bowed gracefully, and asked in exactly the same tone as before:

"Is Captain Slingsby here?"

A tall young man, very flushed, with a handsome face and fair love-locks, came forward unwillingly. Giles slowly looked him over from head to foot.

"I was about to apologize, sir, for coming in the middle of supper. I am too late. I perceive you are long past the end," he said.

The young man's face darkened.

"'Tis not for you to say if I have had enough," he observed sulkily.

"Enough?" Giles replied, with a lift of the eyebrow. "I doubt that word would not have occurred to me, sir, to describe the—er—quantity in question. I will not trouble you, sir. Good-night."

But in the meantime the other gentlemen had demanded Dick's name, and having learnt it, had drunk his health noisily. The boy, imitating Giles, bowed when they had finished.

"We have all heard of Sir Richard Chester," said the gentleman at the head of the table. "How is it, Sir Richard, that you are not amongst us?"

"I live with my cousin," said simple Dick, somehow feeling an excuse was needed for his not appearing amongst the King's friends. "She lives alone. She cannot spare me yet."

"She?" cried another gentleman. "Is she fair, Sir Richard?"

"Is she young?" questioned a second.

"Hath she eyes like yours?" another asked eagerly.

"Ay, doth that melting orb run in the family?" enquired another.

"A health!" shouted the one at the head of the table. "Give us her health, Sir Richard," and he pushed Dick a glass of wine.

"My cousin!" said Dick bravely, lifting the brimming glass.

"Nay, her name! Her name! Give us her name!" they cried.

Dick looked along the table at the flushed faces, the unsteady hands. Either the thought of his cousin's name on those lips awoke a delicacy in him, or the expression on Giles's face had warned him, but suddenly their mirth and their manners repelled him.

"You're none of you fit to speak her name," he said, "and your glasses have had a score of healths drunk out of them to-night."

He was unprepared for the explosion of wrath that followed. Someone else was, though. Giles laid his hand on his shoulder, and took the glass out of his hand.

"He is right," he said, "though he cuts us, gentlemen. We are not fit—there is no company fit—for her name to be called in. So I give you 'Dick's Cousin!' her health! and not another out of the glass."

He tossed off the wine, and flung the glass over his shoulder. With a shout the gentlemen sprang to their feet and followed his lordship's lead. The crash of glass made Dick's ears tingle.

"And there is my purse to pay the host's bill," cried Giles.

A cheer followed them downstairs and into the street.

"When you don't want your head broken, Dick," Giles remarked, "and yet want to express disapproval, say 'we'. It hath a pleasant sound, and puts your hearers on your side, keeping out ill-blood."

"What now, Giles?" Dick asked, as they once again halted before a house with lighted casements and sounds of life within.

"To find an officer sober enough for our work, Dick. Slingsby promised me to keep clear of that set of ribald idiots, and there he is with them again. Let's try this man, Captain Harland."

He left the boy in a parlour below, for he saw he was tired out by this time, and in a few minutes returned.

"We'll sup here now, Dick," he said cheerfully, "and then, what say you to spending the night over the river at your friends' of the Blue Boar? My man shall take my things over. Three days' absence! Dick, lad, what if her Ladyship won't take me in, even for one?"

Dick smiled sleepily.

"She will, Giles, when she sees you," he said.

After supper Giles took Dick out to see Captain Harland and his troopers start. The sight roused him for the moment. He caught sight of young Captain Slingsby casting wistful eyes at Giles.

"Why are you here, sir?" Giles demanded, when he saw the young officer.

"I—I ran after you to ask pardon," Slingsby stammered. "I'm quite sober. I—I got them to pump on my head."

He moved his neck uneasily under his damp yellow curls.

"Captain Harland is commanding for me, sir," said Giles.

"I can ride to serve you, my lord, if I may not command," said the young man quietly, "and I will, unless you forbid me. God knows I'm a fool!"

"Harland," Giles called to the man at the head of the troop, "you know what I said of sending someone back to-night with news?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Be good enough to return to me yourself, and leave the command to Slingsby."

"Very good, my lord," said the officer, smiling.

Young Slingsby leant from the saddle and wrung Giles's hand. The troop clattered off down the narrow street, out of sight.

"Now, we'll go and find my man, and over the water to bed, Dick," said Giles.

"Giles," said Dick, "I like what you did for that man. He's a nice man, too. But, I say, Giles, when you're angry you cut."

"I am rather a bad brute when I'm rubbed the wrong way, Dick. Hold up!"

Dick stumbled.

"I'm that sleepy, Giles," he explained apologetically, "I can scarcely walk."

"My lord," said a man, running up to them at this moment, "I followed you from the inn."

"Oh, good!" said Giles, stopping. "I shall be away for three days. Bring my things to the Blue Boar, over the river. Run, there's a good lad."

The servant ran off.

"That's my man, Dick," said Giles. "We need go no farther that way."

Dick had a very vague idea of what followed after that. He thought they were stopped on the bridge, and he heard Giles call out "Lumley!" and someone said, laughing: "Pardon! I did not see—did not recognize your lordship"; and Giles called "Good-night!" as they went on again. It appeared to Dick that he was not walking, and he wondered what Giles was doing, and why both he and the officer had laughed when the latter said he had not recognized him. It was curious, also, that he could see nothing but stars.

"Where am I, Giles?" he murmured, moving his limbs uneasily.

"In the arms of Morpheus, my dear fellow," said Giles. "And do not kick him in the wind, I beg of you, or he will probably let you fall."

CHAPTER XXI

THE END OF JOHN DENT

Dick slept very heavily that night. He woke once, and found Giles bending over him, smiled comfortably, and fell asleep again; and the very next minute, as it seemed to him, Giles was shaking him by the shoulder, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and his friend impatient.

"Wake up, you dog in a blanket!" Giles cried. "If you don't wake up, I swear I'll go without you."

"Giles!" Dick cried, as if he had never seen him the night before, and he was out of bed in a second. Giles was dressed already, and Dick's toilet was scrambled through, with frequent breaks for bursts of confidence and conversation. At last he was complete—collar and sash, and decorously combed-out curls—in his rose-coloured silk and his riding-boots. Giles lounged up and stood beside him, in silk of the same colour and a collar of superb point-lace.

"Who told you to wear that colour?" he demanded.

"My Cousin Dorothy gave it me—this suit—to wear on her birthday," Dick explained. "'Rose-colour suits your dark man', she said." And he gave a comical little glance at himself in the mirror. "'Tis her favourite colour, moreover, and a gay, pretty hue, I think."

Giles walked to the window and looked out.

"And you wear the same," said Dick, following. "Why, we might be brothers, Giles."

Giles bowed. "You flatter me, sir! Or is it only with my clothes you'd be akin?"

"I wish we were brothers, Giles," said Dick, sighing. "I have no one of my own, not even Cousin Dorothy now, since His Majesty saith we are not truly related. Wait a moment, Giles; I haven't said my prayers yet. Have you?"

"Long since," said Giles; but he waited for Dick with a good-humoured smile.

"You can have me for as much your own as you like," he observed, as Dick rose from his knees.

"But you're such a very—splendid person now, Giles," said Dick, rather shyly. "And, Giles, I remember they called you a lord last night. Were you a lord when we were at Dent?"

"No, a simple gentleman like yourself, by chance serving as stableman, as by chance Sir Richard Chester served as boy at the inn."

"What is your name then, Giles?"

"Lumley—the Earl of Lumley, at your service." He drew himself up and saluted. Then he cried: "Beshrew me, Dick, I'd forgotten!" He hunted amongst his things, and in a minute said: "Here, Dick, in exchange for the dagger you gave me."

He laid in the boy's hands a little rapier, a perfect miniature of a man's, with hilts of steel inlaid with silver, in a dainty sheath of blue velvet, hung with little silver chains to an embroidered baldric. Dick's eyes danced, his cheeks flushed, and embracing the gift with one arm he embraced the giver with the other. Then he drew the sword, and Giles told him it had been given to him years ago, that it was made in Toledo, and that the Spanish words on its shining surface might be translated as—"A trusty blade for a trusty blade". "Which last is Richard Chester," he observed.

They then started down to find breakfast; and Dick, dashing on before, dashed back again to say, with a rapturous sniff: "Come on, Giles, 'tis trout!"

It was trout, and more ham-and-eggs, and strawberries and new milk for Dick. Giles, it seemed, preferred chocolate, "like my Cousin Dorothy," said Dick; and Giles, setting down the dish, said: "If you drink any more milk 'twill go to your head, Dick. Come, sirrah! Enough! Time flies!"

"But I haven't half-finished the pitcher," Dick grumbled.

"Pest!" said Giles impatiently. "'Twill churn as you ride, Dick. My faith! but those strawberries are fine! 'Tis scarce six yet." Laughing, he sat down and fell to on the fruit.

Then they must call the landlady, and Dick must needs embrace her.

"Was ever a lad so fond of kissing!" Giles observed.

"And you found your friend, my pretty sir?" asked the landlady, beaming upon them.

"Ay," answered Dick, laughing and blushing hotly. "And, would you believe it, 'twas the King!"

The landlady lifted her hands in amazement.

"Eh!" she cried, as Dick proceeded to tell his adventures, "but my Lionel will have trouble for this."

"No," put in Giles reassuringly. "My Lord Newcastle will not have a word to say. And if your Lionel loses his place ever, send him to me, mistress. But no heads will fall for Sir Richard Chester. He shakes his Sovereign by the hand—"

"Giles, I didn't know," interrupted Dick.

"'Tis all one to him," Giles proceeded. "He knows he's bound to be every man's favourite, and every lady's also, it seems," and he smiled at the landlady.

Then he paid her bill several times over, with a trifle also for Susan, did she ever care to set up house-keeping, as, from something Sir Richard had said, seemed likely. Dick laughed, and the landlady bobbed curtsies and blessed his lordship's good heart.

"And won't the young gentleman tell us his name?" she asked; "that we may remember him always."

She looked at Dick, who thought she meant his generous companion.

"This is Gi—the Earl of Lumley," he said. She curtsied again.

"I recognized my lord," she said. "'Twas yourself, I meant, sir."

"This is Sir Richard Chester," said Giles, as he turned Dick to the door, since he seemed unable to tear himself away. "He held a castle for His Majesty last year—"

"'Twas you, Giles!" Dick interrupted.

"For a week," Giles continued calmly. "And then he was lost, and we find him again now, facing a great danger for a lady's sake."

"There was no danger, really," Dick said, with a flush of pride and pleasure.

"You thought there was, which, I take it, amounts to the same thing."

The landlady did not quite understand this speech, but as they stood together she thought they made a very pretty picture, so she held up her hands again, and said: "Bless us and save us, now, just to look at that!"

Outside, Dick found Fairy; and as the pony whinnied to him, and rubbed its nose against his shoulder, the boy's conscience pricked him.

"Oh, Giles," he said, wringing his hands, "I'm forgetting Cousin Dorothy! She'll be wondering, and—and—can't we start?"

"Don't do that!" said Giles hurriedly, catching his hands and drawing them apart. "Here! we're all ready! Get up!"

He held Dick's stirrup, and then swung himself into his own saddle. As they rode out of the yard, followed by the earl's servants, he laid his hand suddenly on the boy's.

"Did they murder you often at that inn, Dickie?" he asked, in a voice that made Dick start.

"Yes—I mean—no, Giles! Do you care?"

Giles nodded.

"Then they didn't," said Dick firmly. "And if they did, I don't care now—I don't care,—not a rush!"

"Well," said Giles grimly, "you used to work your hands so when they did it; and if we pass the miserable pig-sty I'm going to break the man's neck."

Dick laughed rather unsteadily.

"No, Giles, don't let us stay. And I'm sorry I annoyed you. Cousin Dorothy can't bear me to do it. I didn't know. I forgot."

Giles, smiling, suggested that the Lady Dorothy Byng would be wringing her hands all this time over Dick, may be. Her name loosened Dick's tongue, and he began to talk of her, and her goodness and beauty, and all she had done for him even before she had given that terrible promise, and to save his life had given her word to marry John Dent.

"John Dent!" said Giles, frowning. And his horse reared, as if the bridle had been jerked suddenly, as indeed it had.

"And how do you account for all this kindness being lavished upon you, sir?" he asked, "seeing, as His Majesty saith, you are not related."

Dick looked at his friend with a shade of regret or apology.

"I didn't know it was you behind His Majesty's chair last night, Giles, or I need not have whispered. But I thought 'twas her story, and I—"

"Don't tell me her story, if you know it," Giles interrupted. "But, in one word, Dick, how would you account for it to the world?"

"'Tis her way to be good to everyone," Dick answered thoughtfully. "And methinks she loves me—nay, I know she doth. But mainly, I think, 'tis because of my brother, who is dead."

"A brother, who is dead?" Giles questioned.

"Yes," said Dick. "But—but she knew him, and she hath never forgotten him, Giles."

They rode on, and though Giles was silent he listened to Dick's talk, still of his Cousin Dorothy, and of his life with her, and of Philip, and Bridget, and Lorry, and everything else. They passed the Seven Thorns without Giles noticing it. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, where road and sky were meeting. Dick was glad he did not stay, for he was in haste to be home now. Who knew what might be happening? Things might have occurred since Captain Harland reported all well hours ago. When they reached the brow of the hill Giles struck in his spurs, and his horse bounded forward. Dick's pony put out all its strength and stretched its diminutive legs, but it was quite useless; in spite of Dick's admonitions the bay shot ahead in a few minutes, and Giles vanished round the first bend of the lane.

"It's too bad!" Dick cried. "He'll be there first. His horse might want to see her as badly as I do. Get up, Fairy! Go on!"

Fairy did his best, and he was panting and foaming when, where the lane broadened out before the gates, they came upon Giles talking from his saddle to Slingsby on foot.

"Just as well, maybe," Giles was saying as they cantered up. "John Dent arrived before his time, Dick; and before his time has gone to his account."

"Is he dead?" Dick gasped.

"Yes," said Giles. "Hold my reins, Dick, will you? I'll see him, Slingsby." Dismounting, he strode away with his officer, climbed the steep bank, and disappeared.

Dick sat still, holding the reins, whilst the horses drooped their heads and lashed at the flies with their tails. Giles was soon back. He sprang down into the lane lightly with a pleasant jingle of spurs and chains and scabbard.

"There was a skirmish, Dick, which we've missed," he said. "They took one of his troopers, who says Dent had spies here, who saw you ride off yesterday. He turned up at dawn, and Slingsby caught him in the fields over yonder. He was killed the first of the lot. The—the household down there seem to have heard, or seen, nothing."

"Oh, Giles, what a good thing you sent a troop overnight! But I'm sorry we missed the fighting," said Dick.

Giles stood thoughtfully twisting his moustache.

"But have we done all His Majesty directed, Dick?" he said at length. "His friends have fled—they were not numerous. He is dead; we cannot, therefore, send him to trial."

"Is there a clergyman there? We were to look after him, Giles, as His Majesty particularly mentioned. You were to find him something to do, weren't you? What? My cousin once said she would try and find a parson as tutor for me. Giles, dear, send him away, quickly! She might keep him for that, if not."

Giles laughed a little.

"Come along," he said absently, taking his bridle over his arm and moving slowly towards the gate. But he stopped when they reached the door of the house. "My part in the game's played, Dick. Go you in and tell all the news to her Ladyship. Ask her hospitality for Slingsby and his men. I'll wait here."

"You'll not!" said Dick. "You'll come in, Giles, and help tell her."

Giles shook his head gently.

"Go you in, Dickie, and tell her your tale—'tis your tale, and I want her to hear what her waif has done for her, from himself. Believe me, she'll like it better so. And if you've a mind to please me, Dick, you will say nothing of the Earl of Lumley; but you may tell her that Giles was sent to help you—you, mind,—and that this same Giles, stable-helper and what-not, awaits her Ladyship's permission to enter."

"A rare jest!" said Dick, laughing. "She will call me a little blockhead ever to have thought you a stableman when she sees you."

"Maybe," said Giles curtly.

CHAPTER XXII

DICK'S RETURN

The Lady Dorothy Byng was in her chamber upstairs, pacing the floor, with bent head, restlessly, and very pale indeed. Lorry lay on the broad step in the window-place, watching her with pathetic, uncomprehending eyes. She was certainly unhappy. But why? Was it because, for a whole day, she had missed that frolicking Dick? Or was she unwell? Oppressed by the air of misfortune around him, whereunder no one laughed, or ran, or had their regular meals, Lorry lifted his black nose and gave a piteous, half-strangled whine. But even that, he found, did not draw his lady's eyes from the oaken floor, nor stay her pacing feet, nor bring a word from her closed lips. So she walked, and Lorry watched, for hours, till the sun came hot and hotter on the dog's back and threw the devices of the casement glass upon her Ladyship's white dress as she passed him, splashing her with colour one minute, and leaving her to go cold and gray into the shadow the next.

Suddenly she stopped with a start. Lorry, growling, bounded up to the casement and laid his nose on the sill. How foolishly men built their houses, he thought, for here, strain as he might, the casement was too high for him to see round into the yard, and yet he knew it was full of horses and men, strangers all.

"He is come!" cried her ladyship. "Too soon. He shall not have me till the time!" She was trembling now.

Lorry was too much occupied in barking, with anger and menace, to heed her. There were steps, running steps, in the corridor. Someone tried the latch. Lorry, changing his tone with bewildering suddenness, leapt across to the door, over-turning a stool on his way. He then set up such a scratching and pawing, with such frantic leaps and such joyous, echoing barks as made her Ladyship's brain whirl. Above the clamour she caught Dick's shrill cries.

"Cousin Dorothy! Open! Open, Cousin Dorothy! Be quick!"

Be quick! She flew, like Lorry, unbolted her door, and, catching Dick in her arms, went near smothering him with kisses. Lorry's wild efforts to be kissed also were unnoticed, and he could only find Dick's hair and the tip of one ear, which he industriously worked at, leaping, barking, and wagging his tail.

"He's come, Dick," her ladyship murmured.

But Dick, drawing back, and holding Lorry's head down by main force, so that he could speak without having his mouth licked, said: "You're safe, Cousin Dorothy—safe."

"There are men in the yard, Dick!" she said quickly.

"Our men," he said proudly. "And—oh, dear Cousin Dorothy,—where shall I begin?"

"Here," she said, drawing him down on the floor as she sank into a chair. "And you shall tell me first, Dick, you are safe—unhurt. That you have really come back. Lorry and I—we may as well confess it—"

"You thought I'd run away?"

She looked down at him remorsefully.

"You must try and forgive us," she said.

"I'll forgive you," Dick cried. "I'd forgive you anything. And what might you expect of a coward like me?"

She stopped him with a kiss.

"But I'll never forgive Lorry!" said Dick in a minute. "Never! No, sir! Go down! I pointedly told you about it. I relied on you, sir, to make her understand,—that I did."

Lorry sighed, with every show of contrition, thrusting his nose into his mistress's hand.

"You must pardon us both, Dick dear. And what said you?" she asked eagerly. "That I was safe?"

"Yes, yes, Cousin Dorothy. Why, John Dent is dead, and—"

And the story of his adventure followed, with many wondering, incredulous questions from her Ladyship. Indeed, Dick read something more than mere amazement in her face as he related his freedoms with the King. She half expressed a fear that Dick had been deceived again in some way. But Dick patiently assured her it was true, every word of it, and passed on to the arrangements His Majesty made, and how he then placed the matter in the hands of Giles—Giles, who was alive, who was there with his master,—Giles, who had come all the way with Dick, and had managed everything so excellent well.

"Oh, don't sing me his praises!" her ladyship said, lifting her hand. "Every particle of my appreciation is keeping for you."

"But I could have done nothing without Giles and His Majesty."

"Oh, I give you the King, Dick, and welcome!" she said. "But I take it as singular His Majesty should have given the affair—my affair, when you come to reflect, Dick, and I am a lady, into the hands of a groom. But you say you have officers with the troops—in command of them? Giles, I suppose, was to wait upon you."

Dick hid his face in her dress, and shook with laughter. The Earl of Lumley to wait on him!

"Oh, Cousin Dorothy!" he bubbled. He clapped his hands to his mouth to keep himself from telling all about dear Giles.

"Why do you laugh so, Dick?" she demanded. "Where is the occasion? You're over-excited, my brave little knight." She bent over him. "Where did His Majesty kiss you, Dick? We must keep the place sacred, I think."

Dick raised his face with the most exasperating chuckle.

"'Tis too late for that, Cousin Dorothy. Giles has been over the ground several times."

Her Ladyship made a slight, laughing gesture of contempt or annoyance, and he did not receive the proffered kiss.

Dick stood up.

"Well, Cousin Dorothy," he said slyly. "There is that Giles, you know, standing out there in the sun, very tired, maybe, and very hot, and—"

"And very thirsty, no doubt," she said. "Why did he not go in with the rest? You said you'd given Philip his orders to wait on them?"

"Yes, Cousin Dorothy, but Giles said he would wait outside till he had your Ladyship's permission to enter."

"Very proper," observed her Ladyship coolly. "Let him wait, Dick. I want your tale all over again. And then my thanks are to be made, Dickie."

But Dick looked positively frightened.

"Oh, Cousin!" he gasped, "I doubt we had better leave him no longer,—he—he—"

"You have much too soft a heart, Dick," she said. "Your stableman, now—There! Don't look so distressed. I will do anything you wish, Dick. I will even go and thank this worthy man for what he has done. And when he and the rest have all gone, and we are once more alone, I will thank you for what you have done, Dick—for the rest of my life."

"I want no thanks," said the boy, his face growing merry again as they went out together.

Lorry descended the first flight of shallow steps quite sedately behind them, but with a sniff he suddenly pushed past, fell precipitately down the next flight into the hall, and stood, stark and stiff, glaring out at the door.

"Man on the steps!" he barked viciously. "Strange man! One of these men who are hanging about here." He raced out in a quiver of fury.

"Farewell to your Giles, Dick!" said her ladyship. "Lorry will devour him ere we arrive."

But when they came in sight of the steps, they beheld that eccentric dog, Lorry, crouched and fawning at the stranger's feet. And the stranger was calling him a "good old lad" in an indifferent, good-humoured way, flicking his head with his glove, which mark of approval Lorry received with a meek thankfulness never accorded to his lady's demanded caresses or Dick's boisterously-received attentions. The Cavalier had had more pity for his horse than for himself; the bay had been sent out of the hot glaring sun, though Giles still waited her Ladyship's permission to enter. She halted at the top of the steps, and her eye ran over the man, his attitude, and his rose-coloured dress.

"Where is your Giles, Dick?" she demanded.

Before Dick had time to answer, the gentleman started and looked up. Baring his head with one hand, and pushing Lorry out of the way with the other, he advanced a step.

"May I come in, madam?" he asked.

Dick felt the hand he held tremble. He glanced from one to the other. What was happening? Her Ladyship caught away her hand, and swept down the steps to Giles with a cry. She gave him her hand and drew him in across the hall to the parlour. They went in, and Giles shut the door. Dick and Lorry looked at each other. The boy rubbed his eyes. The dog pattered to the door, and pressed his nose against the crack. Then, looking impatiently at Dick, he said with his eyes: "Come and open it; you know how." But Dick shook his head doubtfully.

"Better not, old fellow," he said. "'Tis queer; but they don't want us."

Lorry grunted and fidgeted about, nosing the hall-floor till he came on the glove which Giles had dropped. Then he gave a satisfied sigh, and lay down with his treasure between his paws, and his nose on it. By some instinct he gathered that Giles was a person to be courted, a man not given to caressing, but a man who would love a dog, and whom a dog must love and obey.

Dick stood irresolute, his hand playing with his sword-hilt.

"Ah, it's Giles! 'Tis all right," he said at last, and ran off to find Philip. Instead, he came upon young Captain Slingsby in the dining-room, finishing a stately repast, whilst opposite sat the clergyman who should have married her Ladyship to John Dent. Dick stayed to drink the King's health with them, and then coaxed Slingsby into the garden to ask for tales about Giles. He got what he wanted there, for Slingsby loved no theme so well as the praises of the Earl of Lumley, his goodness and his generosity, and his own lamentable folly in going against his excellent advice. They visited the soldiers, and Dick rushed about amongst them, forgetful of everything else, questioning, wondering, inspecting arms and accoutrements, and thinking how fine a thing it was to be a soldier and fight for the King. He had no notion how time was flying until he became aware that he was very hungry. Slingsby had fallen asleep under a tree in the garden, and to Dick's suggestion that he should come in and have dinner, returned a decided negative, punctuated with yawns.

"But if you were to place a delicate dish or two under my nose, Sir Richard," he said, just as Dick was departing, "I don't know that the smell, were it a well-chosen smell, would absolutely turn me."

"Right you are," said Dick. "I'll find something."

He ran off, and came back presently, staggering under a tray.

"Cold duck, sir," he observed, "with a cream and a compÃ´te and a bottle of something Philip calls prime."

Slingsby sat up.

"Good fortune!" he said briskly, and set to work.

"I did not find my cousin anywhere," said Dick.

"Ah!" said Slingsby, with half-closed eyes, "and where is my lord?"

"I don't know," said Dick.

He was going down the passage to Philip's room, just after dinner, when he observed that the chapel-door was open, and that Philip and Bridget were whispering within. He went up to them. There were a great many flowers on the altar, and the clergyman was laying out his service-books and vestments.

"What is he doing?" Dick whispered. "There will be no service to-day."

To his confusion, Bridget burst into tears, and unceremoniously embraced him.

"Yes, yes, my little sir," the good woman said, wiping her eyes. "And it's yourself will wait on the groom. And the young captain to give her Ladyship away—God bless her! And all to end happily after all!"

Dick stared! Then turned on Philip.

"She's mad," he said judicially.

"Ay," Philip agreed, laughing. "I uphold you, sir. But a wedding, sir, I may tell you, will unhinge any woman's reason for the time. And we've you, sir, to thank for it all. 'He's a hero, Philip,' saith her Ladyship but a minute since. And—'Yes, my Lady,' say I. That being so, sir, may I make so bold as to ask your honour to shake hands with me, and may we be the first very heartily to congratulate your honour?"

"You're mad, too," said Dick, his eyes round with amazement. "Where's my Lady?" He darted away.

Bridget said: "God bless him, the pretty lamb!"

"Lamb!" said Philip contemptuously. "Lamb, quotha? Lion, more likely—brave little lion, I tell thee. Away with you! You an' your lambs!"

CHAPTER XXIII

HER LADYSHIP FINISHES HER STORY

Dick, racing down the passage, ran up against Giles.

"Where's my cousin?" he cried. "Everybody's mad!"

"Are you bitten?" Giles enquired. "Your cousin is asking for you, and I have been hunting you this half-hour."

He pushed Dick into the oak parlour, and sauntered away himself.

"Oh, Dick, dear," cried her Ladyship, "what a hot, tangled, dishevelled young gallant! Come here to me at once, sir! I've something to say."

The sight of his cousin, sitting by the casement in her white dress, calmed Dick. He had thought her on her birthday night most beautiful, but her loveliness at this moment filled him with a kind of awe.

He flung himself down on the window-seat.

"Bridget said—" he began.

"Oh, never mind Bridget!" said her Ladyship. "I have a great deal to say, Dick. Do you know this?"

She laid in his hand two halves of a gold coin, each attached to a silken cord.

"Giles's token!" Dick cried. "The one I gave His Majesty at Lumley."

"Yes, and 'tis a coin, Dick, of Scotland, and called a 'bonnet-piece'."

Dick was in no mood to be interested in coins.

"'Twas Giles's," he observed; "and Bridget—"

"Listen, Dick," she entreated. "This piece once belonged to a boy I knew. 'Twas his chief treasure, and he broke it in two to give half to a little maid for a keepsake. When they were older she gave it him back, but in anger, Dick, and misunderstanding. And then he wanted to— He was a very foolish man, Dick; he thought no one was like her, and that she hated him, so he would destroy himself. But he had a master who loved him, and he took from him the half that had belonged to the maid, and he bound the man to him by an oath, to live, and go away and forget the woman if he could; but for his sake to keep his oath and live. A year after 'twas said the man was dead. But he was only in prison, Dick, and he escaped. His master knew he was living, but no one besides, till, his master having need of him, he came home."

Dick was sitting before her, attentive, grave, wide-eyed.

"His master made him an earl, Dick, on condition that another title he possessed should go to his younger brother, who had used it believing 'twas his of right. His Majesty said: 'As Sir Richard Chester he held Dent, and as Sir Richard Chester he shall be known.'"

But Dick stopped her, catching her hand.

"Cousin Dorothy! No matter for that title. Was it Giles?"

She nodded.

"Who was it your Dorothy insulted in her father's hall years ago, Dick, thinking he'd killed her brother?"

"Was it—was it Giles?"

"Giles!" she said. "Ah, Dick! how could you be so deceived? A stableman! How could you, Dick? And how could you let me leave him at my door like that? Your brother Reginald, and—and he has never forgotten, Dick."

But Dick was scarcely heeding now.

"There is so much to think of," she went on rapidly. "But Reginald will have us wedded to-day. And why should I keep him waiting? We have wasted so many years." A tear fell on her hand, but she wiped it hastily away. "Will you have me for a sister, Dick," she said.

Dick did not answer. He was experiencing a real difficulty in sorting and understanding his own feelings. Giles! Giles whom he had lorded over, flouted, struck, at Dent, his brother! That he should be a great lord had seemed sufficiently astounding yesterday. Giles the stableman, Giles the courtier, the unapproachable presence amongst roisterers and revellers, the man to be obeyed, the friend, the companion—his brother! A quite strange conviction of his own unworthiness came over Dick. He turned his eyes solemnly on her Ladyship, and sighed.

"Dick!" she cried. "What is it? Are you not glad, proud, to be his brother?"

"All that," said Dick shortly. "What of him?"

"What of him?"

"Ay. Is he glad? Is he proud?" the boy demanded, with a strong likeness to his brother in his manner.

She kissed him.

"Go and ask him," she said, smiling. "He's in the garden waiting. To be sure, he's glad."

"But he never told me," Dick said doubtfully. "Why not, then? Because he was ashamed of me." His cheeks burned. "Think of me by him! Think how I treated him at Dent! And what I was at the inn!"

"Dick!" she exclaimed. Then, laughing a little, very softly: "Oh, you amazing creatures!" she said. "Why, think you, did Reginald never let me know he lived? Ah, because he thought I did not care! Why did he not tell you he was your brother? Because he thought you would not love him, forsooth! Why cannot you believe him glad to have you? Lest he deem you unworthy. Your audacities shock terribly one moment, and these sudden attacks of modesty are, let me tell you, confusing. Dick, go and find him. You are indeed just worthy of each other—a pair of stiff-necked, provoking, adorable beings!"

Dick moved to the door, hesitating still. Could it be true? Was Giles really his brother, and was he to claim affection by right, and be no longer a waif and a stray? Her Ladyship followed him, and stood at the foot of the stairs, swinging the gold tokens by their silken cords.

"You might have said 'Yes', when I was bold enough to offer myself as your sister," she said. "Reginald tells me 'twas His Majesty's wish. You would not question his wish, Dickie. You are going to him day after to-morrow, I may tell you. But what must I do if you will not have me for—"

But he flew at her, and the sentence was never completed. Then he ran down the steps, murmuring busily:

"My brother Reginald! My brother Reginald! But 'tis sad to say Giles no more!"

The Earl of Lumley was sitting on the grass where it sloped steeply to the banks of a little stream in the garden. Lorry lay by his side, beating the turf with his tail. They both heard Dick coming, and got up.

"A body," Giles observed, "launched down an inclined plane, Lorry, will gather force as it travels. The steeper the plane the greater the impact when such a body, so travelling, comes home. Therefore"—he set his feet apart, and extended his arms—"My boy!"

Dick had come home with impact sufficient, it seemed, to shake the earl slightly, and to make his eyes dim for a moment, and his voice break.

"Well," he said at last, "hath she told you all, Dickie?"

"Yes—Reginald."

"Not that, sir," said the earl, frowning.

"My—my lord?" Dick questioned, faltering a little.

"Heavens, no! I thank you, brother."

"Then Giles!" Dick cried, with a triumphant and comfortable sense of previous acquaintanceship and security.

"That's it, little Captain," said Giles, when his breath returned after Dick's second onset, and Lorry's wild efforts to be received also. "Giles for you, if for no one else, Dick. And now shall we find—"

"My sister Dorothy," said Dick.

"By all means," said Giles.

And together, followed by Lorry, they went back to the house.

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Table of Contents

- Dick Chester
- CHAPTER I DICK SWIMS THE MOAT
- CHAPTER II CAPTAIN OF DENT
- CHAPTER III THE ENEMY AT DENT
- CHAPTER IV THE FLAG GOES DOWN—AND UP
- CHAPTER V GILES MAKES A SORTIE
- CHAPTER VI DICK AND GILES DRAW LOTS
- CHAPTER VII GILES'S MASTER
- CHAPTER VIII DICK'S DISAPPEARANCE
- CHAPTER IX MASTER PURVIS TELLS A TALE
- CHAPTER X THE INN-KEEPER'S BOY
- CHAPTER XI THE LADY DOROTHY BYNG
- CHAPTER XII DICK'S COUSIN
- CHAPTER XIII LADY DOROTHY'S STORY
- CHAPTER XIV THE COMING OF JOHN DENT
- CHAPTER XV DICK MEETS DEATH
- CHAPTER XVI HER LADYSHIP'S PROMISE
- CHAPTER XVII DICK GOES FOR HELP
- CHAPTER XVIII IN THEIR MAJESTIES' LODGINGS
- CHAPTER XIX GILES'S MASTER AGAIN
- CHAPTER XX GILES
- CHAPTER XXI THE END OF JOHN DENT
- CHAPTER XXII DICK'S RETURN

- CHAPTER XXIII HER LADYSHIP FINISHES HER STORY

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE