His Big Opportunity Part 17

"Please, can I speak to you on business, Master Roy?"

"Goody! What a long face!" exclaimed Dudley, pulling down his own in imitation of Rob's, and thereby causing a fresh peal of laughter from Roy. "Have you been a naughty boy, Rob, and has old Hal been thras.h.i.+ng you? Have you been skylarking on the top of the greenhouse, and smashed through on Hal's pate?"

"I should like to speak to Master Roy, alone," said Rob, a little wistfully; in no way disturbed by Dudley's teasing.

"Oh, it's one of your secrets again. I'll be off, Roy, I want to see old Principle!"

And Dudley dashed out of the room, whilst Rob came nearer and began his "business."

"Master Roy, I've been thinking a lot lately, and Miss Bertram asked me the other day if I'd like any other job for the winter as there's hardly enough work for me in the garden now. And yesterday I saw a chap in the village I used to know. He's a recruiting sergeant for the ----s.h.i.+re regiment, and he wants me to enlist straight away. I wouldn't have given it a thought only what you said about serving the Queen has stuck to me, and it does seem a chance, and somehow that song has been in my head ever since I heard Miss Bertram sing it. I'd like to be in a regiment."

Rob paused for breath, and Roy's eyes were wide open with wonder and astonishment.

"But, Rob, you aren't old enough to be a soldier yet!"

"I'm just the age--they take them at eighteen, and I was that the other day, only I don't look it."

"But you're going to be my servant. I couldn't let you go."

Rob's face fell.

"I thought I could have seven years--or even twelve years would hardly find you ready to take up your property. And then I'd come back to you and never leave you again!"

"But I want you with me now--always"--said Roy, in a distressed tone; "I couldn't do without you all that time, and it's horrid of you to want to get away from here, I think."

"All right, Master Roy, I won't go--I'll get a job in the village that will keep me close at hand."

Rob tried to speak cheerfully, and after waiting a minute to see if Roy would say any more, he left the room quietly; all the light having died out of his honest grey eyes.

Roy watched the antics of his mice in the firelight, but his thoughts were far away from them. At last he opened the door and made his way up to his grandmother's room to have his usual chat with her before tea.

"Granny, if a person you like will do anything you like, ought you to make that person do what you like instead of what they like?"

"It sounds like a riddle," said Mrs. Bertram, with a smile. "I won't ask who the person is, the question is whether you like that person or yourself best. Which do you?"

Roy did not answer for a minute, then he hung his head.

"I'm afraid I like myself best."

"If you give me more details, perhaps I can advise you."

"Well, granny, may I talk first to Dudley about it, and then I'll tell you. But you see it's like this--the person wants to please you, and you can't pretend to be pleased if he does what doesn't please you!"

"I think the best plan would be to leave yourself out of the question entirely, and only think of the other person; that would be the most unselfish way."

Roy knitted his brows and heaved a heavy sigh.

"Am I a very selfish person, granny?"

"You are much more selfish than Dudley is," said Mrs. Bertram, decidedly, who never minced matters with her grandsons.

Roy flushed a deep crimson, and his grandmother added,

"I do not say that you are altogether to blame, for Dudley has always given way to you and spoiled you; but you do not very often think of his wishes before your own."

"No, I never do."

Roy's tone was of the deepest dejection; but the sudden entrance of Dudley gave a turn to the conversation, and he gradually recovered his spirits.

When the two boys were at their tea half an hour later, Roy spread the whole matter before Dudley who looked at it in quite a different light.

"How stunning! And is he really going? Hurray! One of us will be a soldier, at any rate. I wish I was big enough to go with him."

"But I don't want him to go, and I told him so, and he isn't going!"

Dudley opened his eyes at this.

"You going to keep him back? Why you're the one that's always talking about serving the Queen, and fighting for her!"

"Yes, I should like to, but--but Rob is different. I want him to be with me."

"Then you don't care about serving the Queen, if you're going to do her out of a soldier who might fight for her!"

This was quite a new aspect of the affair.

"You think I'm like the dog in the manger? I can't go myself and I don't want him to. But if you go to a boarding school like Aunt Judy talks of, and I'm not allowed to go with you, and Rob is gone, I shall be left all alone; and I hate being alone, you don't know how I hate it--I think I should die!"

"Well, if I was you and knew I couldn't be a soldier myself, I would love to send some one instead of me--you know how they do in France. Old Selby was telling us. They pay a subsidy--subst.i.tute--don't you call it?--to go and fight for them."

"Yes, that is the coward's way," Roy said, scornfully.

He paused for a minute, and then his eyes flashed fire.

"Yes, Dudley, I'll let him go. It's me that's the coward to try and keep him back! You and I shall send him, and he shall be our subst.i.tute, and when we hear of him doing brave things, we shall feel it's ourselves.

And we'll make him write letters to us and tell us all he is doing--oh, it will be splendid. How glad I am he has learned to read and write.

Dudley, you just go and fetch him in, will you?"

Dudley crammed rather a large piece of cake into his mouth, and dashed out of the room; and a few minutes later dragged in the would-be soldier.

"We've settled you can go, Rob," said Roy, with a little of his masterful air about him; "only you're to go as _our_ soldier. I think if I had had a good, broad, strong chest and never broke my leg, I should have enlisted, but you can go instead of me. Are you glad?"

"I'm sorry to leave you, Master Roy, but I'd dearly like to go."

"We must tell granny and Aunt Judy, and see what they say first. But I'm sure they'd like you to go."

No objection was made. Miss Bertram was rather pleased than otherwise.

"He will make a good soldier," she said, when talking it over with the boys; "he is a steady, reliable lad, with not too many ideas of his own, and implicitly obedient."