The Young Castellan: A Tale of the English Civil War, Page 3

  CHAPTER THREE.

  COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.

  The wail on one string went on, and naturally sounded louder as RoyRoyland opened a door to stand gazing in at the quaint octagonal room,lit by windows splayed to admit more light to the snug quarters hungwith old tapestry, and made cosy with thick carpet and easy-chair, andintellectual with dwarf book-cases filled with choice works. These hadoverflowed upon the floor, others being piled upon the tops of chairsand stacked in corners wherever room could be found, while some wereeven ranged upon the narrow steps of the corkscrew stone staircase whichled to the floor above, occupied by Master Palgrave Pawson for abedchamber, the staircase being continued up to the leads, where itended in a tiny turret.

  "I wonder what father will say, my fine fellow, when he finds what a lotof his books you've brought up out of the library," said Roy to himself,as he stood watching the plump, smooth-faced youngish man, who, with anoblong music-book open before him on the table, was seated upon a stool,with a 'cello between his legs, gravely sawing away at the strings, andfrowning severely whenever, through bad stopping with his fingers--andthat was pretty often--he produced notes "out of tune and harsh." Themusician was dressed, according to the fashion of the day, in darkvelvet with a lace collar, and wore his hair long, so that itinconvenienced him; the oily curls, hanging down on either side of hisfat face like the valance over an old-fashioned four-post bedstead,swaying to and fro with the motion of the man's body, and needing, fromtime to time, a vigorous shake to force them back when they encroachedtoo far forward and interfered with his view of the music.

  The slow, solemn, dirge-like air went on, but the player did not turnhis head, playing away with grave importance, and giving himself agentle inclination now and then to make up for the sharp twitches causedby the tickling hair.

  "You saw me," said Roy, speaking to himself, but at the musician, "forone of your eyes turned this way; but you won't speak till you've got tothe end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off thoselong greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do whenthey're all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn't suit your round,fat face. You don't look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but Isuppose you're a very good sort of fellow, or else father would not havehad you here."

  Just then the music ended with an awkwardly performed run up an octaveand four scrapes across the first and second strings.

  "Come in, boy," said the player, taking up a piece of resin to apply tothe hair of the bow, "and shut the door."

  He spoke in a highly-pitched girlish voice, which somehow always tickledRoy and made him inclined to laugh, and the desire increased upon thisoccasion as he said, solemnly--

  "Saraband."

  "Oh! Who's she?" said the boy, wonderingly.

  The secretary threw his head back, shaking his curls over his broadturn-down collar, and smiled pityingly.

  "Ah," he said, "now this is another proof of your folly, Roy, inpreferring the society of the servants to that of the noble works withwhich your father has stored his library. What ignorance! A sarabandis a piece of dance music, Italian in origin; and that was a verybeautiful composition."

  "Dance?" cried the boy. "People couldn't dance to a tune like that. Ithought it was an old dirge."

  "Want of taste and appreciation, boy. But I see you would prefersomething light and sparkling. I will--sit down--play you a coranto."

  It was on Roy's lips to say, "Oh, please don't," but he contentedhimself with crossing the room, lifting some books off an oakenwindow-seat, his tutor watching him keenly the while, and putting themon the floor; while, with his head still thrown back on one side, MasterPalgrave Pawson slowly turned over the leaves of his music-book with thepoint of his bow.

  Roy seated himself, with a sigh, after a glance down through the openwindow at the glistening moat dotted with the great silver blossoms anddark flat leaves of the water-lilies, seeing even from there the shadowyforms of the great fish which glided slowly among the slimy stalks.

  "Ready?" said the musician, giving his hand a flourish.

  "Yes, sir," said Roy, aloud; and then to himself, "Oh, what an awfulfib." Then he wrinkled up his brows dismally, and began to think of oldBen polishing the armour and swords; but the next moment his facesmoothed out stiffly, and he grew red in his efforts to keep fromlaughing aloud, for Master Pawson commenced jerking and snatching fromthe strings a remarkable series of notes, which followed one another ina jigging kind of fairly rapid sequence, running up and down the gamutand in and out, as if the notes of the composer had suddenly becomeanimated, and, like some kind of tiny, big-headed, long-tailed goblins,were chasing one another in and out of the five lines of the stave,leaping from bar to bar, never stopping for a rest, making fun of theflats and sharps, and finally pausing, breathless and tired, as theplayer now finally laid down the bow, took out a fine lacedhandkerchief, and began to wipe his fingers and mop his brow.

  "There," he said, smiling; "you like that bright, sparkling compositionbetter?"

  "No," said Roy, decisively; "no, I don't think I do."

  "I am glad of it; very glad of it. I was afraid that you preferred thelight and trivial coranto to the graceful saraband."

  "But, I say. Master Pawson, the Italians surely don't dance to suchmusic as that?"

  "I have never been in Italy, my dear pupil, but I believe they do.Going?"

  Roy had risen from his chair.

  "Yes, sir; I thought, as you were practising, you would not want me tostop and read to-day, and you are writing a letter, too."

  "Letter?" said the secretary, hurriedly reaching towards an open sheetupon the table and turning it over with the point of his bow. "Oh,that? Yes, some notes--some notes. Well, it is a fine day, andexercise is good, and perhaps I shall run through a few morecompositions. So you can go, and we will study a little in the evening,for we must not neglect our work, Roy, my dear pupil; we must notneglect our work."

  "No, sir. Thank you, sir," said the boy; and, for fear of a change ofdecision, he hurried from the room and made his way out upon the oldramparts, to begin walking leisurely round the enclosed garden, andlooking outward from the eminence upon which the castle was built acrossthe moat at the foot, and away over the sunny forest towards the villageand little church, whose spire rose about two miles away.

  "I wish he wouldn't always call me `my dear pupil,' and smile at me asif he looked down from ever so high up. I don't know how it is, but Ialways feel as if I don't like him. I suppose it's because he's soplump and smooth.

  "Seems hard," mused the boy, seating himself in one of the crenellationsof the rampart, and thinking deeply, "that he should get letters withnews from London, and poor mother not have a line. That was a letter onthe table, though he pretended it was not, for I could see it began likeone. I didn't want to read it. Perhaps he was ashamed of being alwayswriting letters. Don't matter to me. Afraid, perhaps, that he'll betold that he ought to attend more to teaching me. Wish he'd be alwayswriting letters. I can learn twice as much reading with mother."

  It was very beautiful in that sunny niche in the mouldering stones closeto the tower farthest away from that occupied by the secretary, and aspot much favoured by the boy, for from there he could look right overthe square gate-way with its flanking towers, and the drawbridge whichwas never drawn, and the portcullis which was never lowered.

  "Can't hear him playing here," thought Roy that day; and hecongratulated himself upon the fact, without pausing to think that thedistance was so short that the notes should have been audible.

  Roy had been successful in getting off his reading with the tutor, buthe was very undecided what to do next, for there were so many things totempt him, and his mind kept on running in different directions. Oneminute he was dwelling on his mother's troubles and the want of newsfrom his father, and from this it was a natural transition to thinkingof how grand it would be if he could prevail upon her to let him go upto that far-away mysterious cit
y, which it took days to reach onhorseback, and then he could take her letter and find where his fatherwas lying with his regiment, and see the army,--maybe see the king andqueen, and perhaps his father might let him stay there,--at all eventsfor a time.

  Then he was off to thinking about the great moat, for twice over asplash rose to his ears, and he could see the rings of water whichspread out and made the lily-leaves rise and fall.

  "That was the big tench," he said to himself. "Must catch that fellowsome day. He must weigh six or seven pounds. It ought to be a goodtime now. Want a strong line, though, and a big hook, for he'd run inand out among the lily-stems and break mine. Now, if I knew wherefather was, I could write and ask him to buy me one and send it down byhis next letter. No: he wouldn't want to be bothered to buy mefishing-lines when he's with his regiment. I know," he said to himself,after a pause; "old Ben has got the one he caught the big eel with.I'll make him lend me that. Poor old Ben! who'd ever have thought thathe could cry. For it was crying just as a little boy would. Seemsfunny, because he has been a brave soldier, and saved father's lifeonce. Shouldn't have thought a man like that could cry."

  Roy began to whistle softly, and then picked up a little cushion-likepatch of velvety green moss and pitched it down towards a jackdaw thatwas sitting on a projecting stone just below a hole, watching himintently, first with one eye and then with the other, as if puzzled toknow what he was doing so near to his private residence, where his wifewas sitting upon a late batch of eggs, an accident connected with ratshaving happened to the first.

  It did not occur to the bird that it was quite impossible for itsnesting-place to be reached without a swing down from above by a rope;but, being still puzzled, it tried to sharpen its intellectual facultiesby standing on one leg and scratching its grey poll with the claws ofthe other, a feat which made it unsteady and nearly topple over towardsthe deep moat below.

  "_Tah_!" it cried, in resentment of the insult when the little greenmoss cushion was thrown; and, as the bird sailed away, Roy rose andwalked slowly along the rampart, through the corner tower, and then ontowards the front, where that over the outer gate-way stood tall,massive, and square. Here the boy left the rampart, entered through alow arched door, and stood in the great chamber over the main gate-way,where the rusty chains were wound round the two capstans, held fast nowby their checks, and suspending the huge grated portcullis, with itsspikes high enough to be clear of a coachman driving a carriage.

  "Wonder whether we could let that down?" thought Roy.

  He had often had the same thought, but it came very strongly now, and hebegan to calculate how many men it would take to lower the portcullis,and whether he, Ben, and a couple more could manage it.

  "Looks as if everything must be set fast with rust," he thought, and hewas about to turn and descend; but as he reached the corner where thespiral steps led down, he stood where they also led up to anotherchamber in the massive stone-work, and again higher to the leads.

  The result was that in his idle mood Roy began to ascend, to findhalf-way up, by the slit which gave light, that the jackdaws had beenbusy there too, coming in and out by the loop-hole, and building a nestwhich was supported upon a scaffolding of sticks which curved up fromthe stone step on which it rested, and from that to the splay and sillby the loop-hole.

  "Only an old one," said the boy to himself, and he brought the greatedifice down with a sharp kick or two, thinking that it must be about ayear since any one had come up that way.

  "What a lot of the old place seems no use!" he said to himself, as, withthe dry sticks crackling beneath his feet, he climbed up the darkstairway and entered the next chamber through its low arched door.

  "Why, what a jolly private room this would make!" he said to himself;"only wants a casement in and some furniture. I'll ask father to let mehave it for my play--I mean study; no, I don't--I mean odds and endsplace."

  He paused--after glancing out at the beautiful view over the woodlandcountry dotted with meadow-like pastures in which the ruddy cattle ofthe county grazed--by the open fireplace with the arms of the Roylandscut in stone beneath the narrow shelf, and the sight of this opening,with the narrow, well-made chimney and some projecting stone blocks fromthe fire-back, set him thinking.

  "Fight differently now," he said, as he recalled the object of thefurnace before him, and how he had heard or read that it was used onpurpose to melt lead ready for pouring down upon the besiegers who mighthave forced their way across the drawbridge to the portcullis. "Fancymelting lead here to pour down upon men's heads! What wretches we musthave been in the old days."

  He altered his mind, though, directly, as he went back to the stairway.

  "Perhaps we never did pour any down, for I don't think anybody ever didattack the castle."

  Thinking he might as well go a little higher, he mounted the spiralinstead of descending, the dry elm twigs brought in by the jackdawswhich made the untenanted corners their home crackling again beneath hisfeet.

  Passing out of the corner turret, which supported a stout, newflag-pole, he was now on the leaded roof of the great square tower,which frowned down upon the drawbridge and gazed over the outergate-way, in whose tower old Jenkin Bray, the porter, dwelt, and whomRoy could now see sitting beside the modern iron gate sunning himself,his long white hair and beard glistening in the light.

  There were openings for heavy guns in front here, and a broad, level,projecting parapet with a place where the defenders could kneel, andwhich looked like a broad seat at the first glance, while at its footwas a series of longish, narrow, funnel-shaped openings, over which theboy stood, gazing down through them at the entrance to the maingate-way, noting how thoroughly they commanded the front of where theportcullis would stand when dropped, and where any enemies attacking andtrying to break through would be exposed to a terrible shower of moltenlead, brought up from the furnace in the chamber below to pour down uponthe besiegers, while those who assailed them were in perfect safety.

  "Horrid!" muttered Roy; "but I don't know; the enemy should stop awayand leave the people in the castle alone. But hot lead! Boiling waterwouldn't seem so bad. But surely Master Pawson's friend is wrong; wecan't be going to have war here in England. Well, if we do, there'snothing to bring them here."

  Roy left the machicolations and knelt upon the broad stone seat-likeplace to stretch himself across the parapet, and look down, over thenarrow patch of stone paving, down into the deep moat, whose waters werelit up by the sunshine, so that the boy could see the lily and otherwater-plant stems and clumps of reed mace; at the farther edge the greatwater-docks and plantains, with the pink-blossomed rush. But hisattention was wholly riveted by the fish which swarmed in the sunnydepths, and for a time he lay there upon his breast, kicking up hisheels and studying the broad-backed carp, some of which old age haddecked with patches of greyish mould. There were fat tench, too,walloping about among the lilies, and appearing to enjoy the pleasure offorcing their way in and out among the leaves and stems; while the carpsailed about in the open water, basking in the sunshine, and seemed tofind their satisfaction in leaping bodily out of the water to fall backwith a splash.

  There were roach, too, in shoals, and what seemed remarkable was thatthey kept swimming close up to where a great pike of nearly three feetlong lay motionless, close to a patch of weed.

  "Must be asleep," thought Roy, "or not hungry, and they all know it,because he would soon snap up half a dozen of them."

  Then, as he lay lazily watching the fish in the drowsy sunshine whichhad warmed the stones, the political troubles of the nation and thegreat cloud of war, with its lightnings, destruction, and death, wereunseen. He was surrounded by peace in the happiest days of boyhood, andtrouble seemed as if it could not exist. But the trumpet-blast had rungout the call to arms, and men were flocking to that standard and tothis, and the flash and thunder of guns had begun.

  But not there down to that sleepy, retired part of Devon. There was thecastle built for defen
ce, and existing now as Sir Granby Royland's happycountry home, surrounded by its great estate with many tenants, whileits heir was stretched out there in the sunshine upon his chest, kickingup his heels, and thinking at that moment that it would not be a badamusement to bring up a very long line with a plummet at the end, tobait it, and then swing it to and fro till he could drop it right outwhere the great pike lay, ten or a dozen feet from the drawbridge.

  "I will some day," said the boy, half aloud; "but it's too much troublenow."

  He swung himself round and lay there, looking back over the top of thespacious building, on whose roof he was, right across the now floral oldcourt-yard, and between the two angle towers, to the wide-spreadingacres of the farms and woodlands which formed his father's estate.

  The jackdaws flew about, and began to settle at the corners as he lay sostill and languidly said to himself--

  "Need to lie still; it wouldn't do to slip over backward. I shouldn'teven go into the moat, for I should come down on those stones."

  "Stupid to be in dangerous places," he said to himself directly after,and, rolling over, he let himself down upon the broad seat-like place,where he could lie and watch the prospect just as well.

  "Rather stupid of me not to come up here oftener," he thought. "It's acapital place. I will ask father to let me have all this old emptytower to myself. What's that? A fight?"

  For there was a sudden rush upward of jackdaws from where they hadblackened the farthest corner tower to the left, and, looking in thatdirection as he lay, he saw the reason of the sudden whirr of wings andoutburst of sharp, harsh cries, for there upon the leads, and holding onby the little turret which covered the door-way of the spiral staircase,stood Master Pawson.

  "Feels like I do, I suppose," thought Roy, as the secretary cast hiseyes round the old building, particularly watchful of the pleasaunce,but keeping right back by the outer crenelles as if not wishing to beseen.

  At first Roy felt that the secretary saw him, and as his eyes roved onand he made no sign, the boy's hand went to his pocket in search of hishandkerchief to wave to him. He did not withdraw it, but lay lazilywatching while the secretary now turned his back and stood gazing rightaway.

  "Never saw him do anything of that kind before," thought Roy. "What'she looking after? I shouldn't have thought he had ever been up there inhis life."

  Roy lay quite still, with his eyes half closed, and all at once thesecretary drew out his white laced handkerchief, wiped his foreheadthree times with a good deal of flourish, and returned it, after whichhe slowly stepped into the turret opening and backed out of sight.

  "Mind you don't slip," said Roy, tauntingly, but quite conscious of thefact that his words could not be heard. "Why, he has gone down like abear--backward. I could run down those stairs as fast as I came up."

  Perhaps it was the warm sunshine, perhaps it was from laziness, but,whatever the cause, Roy Royland went off fast asleep, and remained sofor quite a couple of hours, when, starting up wonderingly, and notquite conscious of the reason why he was there, he looked about him, andfinally over the great parapet, to see the secretary beyond the fartherend of the drawbridge, talking in a very benign way to the old porter,who stood with bent head listening to his words.

  "Why, it seems only a few moments ago that I saw him on the leads overhis chamber staring out across country, and he must have been downsince, and had a walk.--How time does go when you're snoozing," thoughtRoy, "and how stupid it is to go to sleep in the daytime! I won't do itagain."