Part 10 (1/2)

”That's right. They're both cross to-day; they'll make it up to-morrow.”

”Fred!” said Colonel Forrester over his shoulder as he rode off.

”Coming, father. Good-bye, Scar; and, I say, don't tell anybody about the secret place just yet.”

”Very well.”

”It will be all right again directly. Father soon gets good-tempered again after he has been cross; but it always makes him angry if anybody praises up the king.”

”Fred!”

”Coming, father.”

The boy darted off after the departing horseman, and Scarlett sat watching them till they disappeared among the trees, when he went slowly into the house, catching sight of his father striding up and down in the dining-room, and with a more serious look in his face than he remembered to have seen before.

”I hope there is not going to be trouble and fighting, the same as there has been elsewhere,” thought the boy; and he involuntarily glanced through the open hall-door at the beautiful landscape, across which seemed to float visions of soldiers and burning homesteads, and destruction such as had been brought to them in the shape of news from far distant parts.

The coming of his father roused him from his reverie.

”Why, Scar, lad, don't look so serious,” cried Sir G.o.dfrey, clapping the boy on the shoulder. ”I spoke angrily, didn't I, my boy? Well, I was obliged in these rebellious times. Remember this, Scar, no matter what comes, 'G.o.d save the king!'”

”Yes, father,” cried the boy, flus.h.i.+ng as he took off his cap and tossed it in the air, ”'G.o.d save the king!'”

CHAPTER FIVE.

ANOTHER DISCOVERY.

Fred was right; the two elders did soon make it up, and the political ebullition seemed to be forgotten. The boys were soon together again, enjoying their simple country ways as of yore, while the clouds gathering around only looked golden in their suns.h.i.+ny life.

The search for the outlet to the secret pa.s.sage was renewed without success, and then given up for a time. There was so much to see and do that glorious autumn time when the apples were ripening fast, and hanging in great ropes from the heavily laden trees, beneath whose tangled boughs all was grey and green leaves and gloom, every orchard being an improvised wilderness, which was allowed to bear or be barren according to its will.

There was always so much to do. Trout to hunt up the little moorland streams; loaches to impale among the stones of the swift torrents; rides over the long undulating stretches of the moor, from far inland to where it ended abruptly in steep cliffs by the sea.

And so life glided on at Manor and Hall. The king and country were not mentioned; Colonel and Mistress Forrester supped at the Hall, and little Lil listened to the sweet old-fas.h.i.+oned ballads the visitor sang. Then the Scarletts spent pleasant evenings at the Manor, and the two fathers discussed the future of their sons, while Dame Markham and Mistress Forrester seemed to be like sisters.

But all the while the storm-clouds were gathering, and a distant muttering of thunder told that the tempest threatened to break over the pleasant west-country land.

”There's going to be a big change o' some kind, Master Scarlett,” said Nat, the gardener; ”and if there is, it won't be any too soon, for it will put my brother Samson in his proper place, and keep him there.”

”Yes, Master Fred, I went and had a mug o' cider down in the village last night, poor winegar wee sort o' stuff--three apples to a bucket o'

water--such as my brother Nat makes up at the Hall; and there they all were talking about it. People all taking sides all over England.

Some's Cavaliers and some's Roundheads, so they say, and one party's for the king, and the other isn't. Precious awful, aren't it?”

”Perhaps it's only talk, Samson?”

”No, Master Fred, sir, I don't think it's all talk; but there is a deal o' talk.”

”Ah, well, it's nothing to do with us, Samson. Let them quarrel. We're too busy out here to bother about their quarrels.”