Part 40 (1/2)
The King was most gracious when the Prince again presented Cyril to him and told him of the good fortune that had befallen him.
”By my faith, Sir Cyril, you were born under a lucky star. First of all you saved my Lord of Wisbech's daughters; then, as Prince Rupert tells me, you saved him and all on board his s.h.i.+p from being burned; and now a miracle has well-nigh happened in your favour. I see, too, that you have the use of your arm, which the Prince doubted would ever altogether recover.”
”More still, Your Majesty,” the Prince said. ”He had the Plague in August and recovered from it.”
”I shall have to keep you about me, Sir Cyril,” the King said, ”as a sort of amulet to guard me against ill luck.”
”I am going to take him to sea first,” Prince Rupert broke in, seeing that Cyril was about to disclaim the idea of coming to Court. ”I may want him to save my s.h.i.+p again, and I suppose he will be going down to visit his estate till I want him. You have never seen it, have you, Sir Cyril?”
”No, sir; at least not to have any remembrance of it. I naturally long to see Upmead, of which I have heard much from my father. I should have gone down at once, but I thought it my duty to come hither and report myself to you as being ready to sail again as soon as you put to sea.”
”Duty first and pleasure afterwards,” the King said. ”I am afraid that is a little beyond me--eh, Rupert?”
”Very much so, I should say, Cousin Charles,” the Prince replied, with a smile. ”However, I have no doubt Sir Cyril will not grudge us a few days before he leaves. There are several of the gentlemen who were his comrades on the _Henrietta_ here, and they will be glad to renew their acquaintance with him, knowing, as they all do, that they owe their lives to him.”
As Cyril was walking down the High Street, he saw a student coming along whose face seemed familiar to him. He looked hard at him.
”Surely you must be Harry Parton?” he said.
”That is my name, sir; though I cannot recall where I have met you.
Yet there seems something familiar in your face, and still more in your voice.”
”I am Cyril Shenstone.”
”Why, what has become of you, Cyril?” Harry said, shaking him warmly by the hand. ”I searched for you a year ago when I was in London, but could obtain no tidings whatever of you, save that you had lost your father. We are alike there, for my father died a few months after yours did.”
”I am sorry indeed, Harry. I had not heard of it before. I was not, indeed, in the way of doing so, as I was working in the City and knew nothing of what was pa.s.sing elsewhere.”
”This is my college, Cyril. Come up to my room; there we can talk comfortably, and we have much to tell each other. How is it that you have never been near us?” he went on, when they were seated in front of a blazing fire in his room. ”I know that there was some quarrel between our fathers, but when we heard of Sir Aubrey's death, both my father and mother thought that you would come to see us or would have written--for indeed it was not until after my father's death that we paid a visit to London. It was then my mother asked me to search for you; and after great difficulty I found the quarter in which you had lived, and then from the parish register learned where your father had died. Going there, I learned that you had left the lodging directly after his death, but more than that the people could not tell me.”
”I should have come to see your mother and Sir John, Harry. I know how deeply I am indebted to them, and as long as I live shall never cease to be grateful for Lady Parton's kindness to me. But I had received so much kindness that I shrank from seeming to wish to presume upon it further. I had, of course, to work for my living, and I wanted, before I recalled myself to them, to be able to say that I had not come as a beggar for further favours, but that I was making my way independently. Sooner or later I should have come, for your father once promised me that if I followed out what you remember was my plan, of entering foreign service, he would give me letters of introduction that would be useful to me. Had I that favour still to ask I could do it without shame. But more than that I would not have asked, even had I wanted bread, which, thank G.o.d! was never the case.”
”I can understand your feeling, Cyril, but my mother a.s.suredly would always have been pleased to see you. You know you were a favourite of hers.”
”Had you been near town, Harry, I should certainly have come to see her and you as soon as I had fairly established myself, but I heard from my father that you had all gone away into the country soon after the unfortunate quarrel he had with Sir John, and therefore delayed taking any step for the time, and indeed did not know in what part of the country your father's estates lay. I know that he recovered them as soon as he returned.”
”They had never been forfeited,” Harry said. ”My father retired from the struggle after Naseby, and as he had influential friends among the Puritans, there was no forfeiture of his estates, and we were therefore able, as you know, to live in comfort at Dunkirk, his steward sending over such monies as were required. And now about yourself. Your brains must have served you rarely somehow, for you are dressed in the latest fas.h.i.+on, and indeed I took you for a Court gallant when you accosted me.”
”I have been truly fortunate, Harry, and indeed everything has turned out as if specially designed for my good, and, in a most strange and unlooked-for manner, I have just come into my father's estates again.”
”I am glad indeed to hear it, Cyril. Tell me how it has all come about.”
Cyril told the story of his life since he had come to London.
”You have, indeed, had strange adventures, Cyril, and, though you say little about it, you must have done something special to have gained Prince Rupert's patronage and introduction to Court; but I shall worm all that out of you some day, or get it from other lips. What a contrast your life has been to mine! Here have you been earning your living bravely, fighting in the great battle against the Dutch, going through that terrible Plague, and winning your way back to fortune, while I have been living the life of a school-boy. Our estates lie in Shrops.h.i.+re, and as soon as we went down there my father placed me at a school at Shrewsbury. There I remained till his death, and then, as was his special wish, entered here. I have still a year of my course to complete. I only came up into residence last week. When the summer comes I hope that you will come down to Ardleigh and stay with us; it will give my mother great pleasure to see you again, for I never see her but she speaks of you, and wonders what has become of you, and if you are still alive.”
”a.s.suredly I will come, and that with the greatest pleasure,” Cyril said, ”providing only that I am not then at sea, which is, I fear, likely, as I rejoin the s.h.i.+p as soon as Prince Rupert takes the sea against the Dutch. However, directly we return I will write to you.”
”If you do so, let it be to Ardleigh, near Shrewsbury, Shrops.h.i.+re.