His Big Opportunity Part 16

Then he added more cheerfully, "It's awfully queer, but do you know I'd never know it wasn't there as far as the feeling goes. Why I can feel the pain right down to my toes now. And at night I'm always dreaming I'm running races with you as fast as I can, and then I wake and can't believe I'll never run again."

As Roy grew stronger he had more visitors; Rob came to him every day for a reading lesson, and old Principle brought him books and sweets. Ben was allowed an interview, and the old groom, with tears running down his cheeks, besought Roy to forgive him.

"I never ought to allowed you, and 'twas me that egged you on and sent you to your death!"

"No, it was my own fault, Ben," said Roy, humbly, "and the thing that pains me most--more than breaking my leg--is to think that I should be the first Bertram who has failed. Dudley did it, and I didn't, and of course I shall never be able to try it again. Perhaps I was too proud of what I could do. We have a picture in the nursery of a boy standing on the top of a bridge, and then tumbling in the water; it's called 'Pride must have a fall.' I've had a fall, haven't I, Ben?"

Ben came out from that interview declaring that "Master Roy ought to be sainted!"

One afternoon Rob was finis.h.i.+ng his reading lesson when he looked up and said, a little shyly,

"Master Roy, you mind what you were a telling me of once--about what your father told you. Do you think as how I could do it too?"

"Of course you could, Rob. All of us ought to serve G.o.d."

"I've been thinking a deal about it, and I should like to, if I knew how."

"Well, the Bible tells you. I remember nurse made me learn a text a long time ago, 'If any man serve me let him follow me.' It's just following Jesus I suppose, and doing what He wants us to do."

"How can we follow somebody we can't see?"

Roy knitted his brows. Rob's questions were hard to answer sometimes, and then a smile flashed across his face.

"I'll tell you. It's like this. On my birthday granny called me in to give me a birthday talk and, of course, she talked to me about my property. She said my uncle had managed it awfully well over there, and she hoped I would walk in his steps. That would be following him though he was dead, wouldn't it?"

"Ye-es," was the slow response.

"And so you see," Roy replied, leaning forward impressively, and his eyes glistening with earnestness, "we can each follow Jesus. Try and live as He did, and do and speak like Him. We read how He lived in the New Testament."

"And He was the one that died for us," Rob said, reflectively.

"Yes, He is the one you go to, to get your sins washed away. That comes first before we begin to serve Him."

"But I never could serve Him proper, always," objected Rob.

"No, nor more can any one. I'm awful, you know! Dudley says I think such a lot of myself. And of course Jesus never did. And I grumble and cry over my leg every day, and of course He wouldn't have done it. But Jesus forgives us again and again, and helps us to be good, and that's why we love Him, and because He died for us."

"Would He forgive me, and help me?" asked Rob; "are you quite sure He would care to have me for a servant?"

"Of course I'm sure. He wants everybody. You just ask Him."

Rob said no more. He was a lad of few words, and for some days did not touch on the subject again. His reading was progressing rapidly, and when Roy and Dudley found out that his birthday was near they laid their heads together and presented him with a handsome Bible, as they knew he was saving up his pennies to buy one.

His grat.i.tude and delight overwhelmed them, and every day now, when his work was finished, he would sit down and spell out chapters of the gospels to himself.

As the days began to shorten, Roy grew so much stronger that he was able to be carried downstairs, and the first evening he was in the drawing-room, he asked Miss Bertram for the song of the two little drummer boys.

She sat down at the piano, and Dudley seeing Rob weeding a flower bed outside the open window, beckoned to him to come up closer and listen.

"It's the best song out," he shouted.

Roy's face shone as Miss Bertram's sweet voice rang out triumphantly.

--"'the fight was won, and the regiment saved By those two little dots in red!'"

"Oh, how I wish I could be a soldier!" was the muttered exclamation of Roy, "I shall never be able to serve the Queen now!"

"Nonsense," said Miss Bertram, briskly; "granny would tell you 'that all the Bertrams have always served the Queen, and only a few of them have been soldiers!'"

"Well, I suppose they have been sailors?" said Dudley.

"Not at all; we have only had one admiral, and three naval captains in our family during the last hundred years. Your father, Dudley, served the Queen as a governor in India quite as well as if he were fighting for her. Roy's father was her servant in Canada, though he had to do with politics; your uncle James served as a member of Parliament. The Queen has numbers of servants. I always think policemen are quite as brave as soldiers!"

"And what can a one-legged Bertram do?" Roy asked, with a pathetic smile that went straight to his aunt's heart.

"There's no reason why he shouldn't go into Parliament, and perhaps end by being a member of the cabinet."

"I never quite understand what that is," said Roy, contemplatively. "I don't think I should like to be shut up in a stuffy cupboard. They shut them up in it to talk, don't they, Aunt Judy?"

How Miss Bertram laughed! But whilst she was explaining what a cabinet was, Rob crept away from the window muttering, "I suppose as how I could be a policeman, but I'd a deal rather be a soldier!"

XI

A GIFT TO THE QUEEN

"Can I see Master Roy, please?"

It was Rob who spoke, and he seemed breathless with haste and importance, as he stood at the front door one cold afternoon the end of October.

"You can give me your message," the young footman said, rather superciliously.

"No, I can't," was the blunt retort; "ask Master Roy to speak to me."

Rob gained his point, and was ushered into the library where Roy and Dudley were amusing themselves in the firelight.

The old nursery was not much used now, and the library had begun to be considered the boys' room, partly because owing to it being on the ground floor, and opening into the garden, it was more convenient for Roy's use.

Roy was now the possessor of a cork leg; and with the help of a stick he was nearly as active as ever. His spirits were as high, and his purposes as plentiful as before his illness; and his grandmother and aunt marvelled that he could take his deformity so lightly. Yet there were times unknown to any, when Roy's brave little heart sank with the consciousness of it; and often in bed at night his pillow would be wet with tears.

"Oh, G.o.d," he would often pray, "you wouldn't let me die, do help me to do something worth living for. I feel my leg will keep away all the opportunities now, but please give me something big to do for you still."

"Hulloo, Rob, come on," was Roy's exclamation as he caught sight of his friend. "Just look at Nibble and Dibble, we're teaching them to draw a cart. It makes you die of laughing to look at them. There they go, and Dibble turns head over heels in his excitement!"

Roy's happy laugh rang out, but though Dudley joined him, Rob's face was grave and set.