His Big Opportunity Part 25

Roy nodded, then asked anxiously:

"Dudley, were you rude to granny before you went out? Aunt Judy came to look for you here, and she said she hoped you were going to beg granny's pardon for something."

"I'll go now, I had almost forgotten."

And Dudley trotted off to his grandmother's room. She received him sternly, but he was so abjectly penitent that she soon forgave him, and he returned to Roy with a relieved mind.

"It's a dreadful thing to have a temper," he remarked, as he sat upon the nursery table swinging his legs to and fro; "I've given granny an awful headache by the way I banged her door."

"What was it about?" asked Roy, with interest.

"About school," was the answer; "I told her I wasn't going away from you."

"I've been thinking of it a lot," said Roy, with a sigh; "but you'll have to go, and I shall get on pretty well without you. You see a boy with one leg wouldn't be much good amongst a lot of other boys. They would only call him a cripple and push him aside. I shouldn't like them to laugh at me. The only thing for me is a cripple school. Nurse has a little grandson at one. I don't much care for cripples, those I've seen seem very poor creatures with no fun in them, but of course I'm one myself now; only I don't feel like it."

"You're no more a cripple than I am," was Dudley's indignant rejoinder, "why no one would tell anything was the matter with you to look at you."

"We won't talk any more about it," said Roy, "I'm hungry and I hear tea coming."

But both the little hearts were very full of a possible separation, and for some days after it lay like a heavy nightmare on them. Then a letter arrived from Rob which turned the current of their thoughts. It was his first letter from India, and the boys looked at the foreign stamps and paper, as if it were the greatest rarity on earth.

"MY DEAR MASTER ROY:

"I write to tell you we are safely here and I am quite well as I hope you are. It is very hot, but we don't do much work in the middle of the day and I like the place. I wish you could see the flowers and the black men and the funny houses and the colored dresses of the people. I am getting on, I hope, and my sergeant told me the other day I might get the stripe soon if I liked. I will keep a lookout as you told me for Master Dudley's father, but they say India is a bigger place than England, which I don't believe, for we're the grandest nation in the world, and the biggest and the best, all of us in the barrack-room agree to that. I saw a scorpion to-day which pinches when it catches you and draws the blood awful. There is a mountain battery with us now, and they use mules instead of horses, the hills are higher than those at home and it's hard work going up. There is not any fighting yet, but I am ready for it when it comes, and will do my duty to the Queen and you. My chum has helped me write this letter and I hope it pleases you. I am trying to endure hardness. Good-bye, Master Roy,

"Your faithful ROB.

"G.o.d bless you."

"That's a much nicer letter, isn't it?" said Roy, in great delight; "that is quite as long as the one I sent him. I hope he will get some fighting soon."

"Supposing if he does, and gets killed?" suggested Dudley.

But Roy put this thought away from him.

"I've known such lots of soldiers in books that come home, that I think he will. Besides G.o.d will take care of him. Do you remember the picture gallery at the general's the other day, Dudley?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I was thinking about that soldier there with all his medals who broke his mother's heart; and then about the soldier boy the general said was the bravest. I suppose I would rather Rob was properly brave like that, than do great things in battle; but I should think he might do both, don't you think so?"

And Dudley nodded, adding, "Rob won't drink or gamble, I'm quite sure."

XVI

DAVID AND JONATHAN

Easter came, and to the boys' great delight Roy was so much stronger that it was settled he might accompany Dudley to a private boarding school for one term. Thanks were due to Miss Bertram for this arrangement; and she had great difficulty in obtaining her mother's consent to it.

"I am sure the boys will get on best together; Roy will have a better chance of growing strong if he is with Dudley than if he is to mope by himself here. If we find he does not keep well, we can have him home again; and from all we hear of the school, the boys are most carefully looked after."

And certainly to judge from Roy's appearance and spirits, this plan seemed most successful. It was a bright morning in April. The air was cold but dry, and the old garden was sweet with the scent of hyacinths and narcissuses. Bright beds of tulips and polyanthuses bordered the green lawn, and old Hal was surveying the results of his work with pride and satisfaction. Miss Bertram, in her leather gloves and garden ap.r.o.n, was busy in and out of the hothouses; and the boys, after scampering round in every one's way, had at last scrambled up to their favorite seat on the garden wall.

"This time next week we shall be at school," said Dudley; "how funny we shall feel!"

"We shan't be able to climb walls there, I suppose."

"On half-holidays, perhaps we shall. It isn't all lessons; old Selby told us the happiest time of his life was when he was at school."

"I mean to be happy," said Roy, a smile hovering about his lips.

"And so do I," maintained Dudley, stoutly; "but it will be awfully strange at first. It's like Rob going off to be a soldier. We're going out 'to see life' nurse says."

"Old Principle wants us to come to tea with him before we go. I saw him this morning going past our gate. He'll give us some of his good advice like he did Rob, but I don't mind him, he's such a jolly old chap."

There was silence between them for a few minutes. Dudley was eating a slice of cake which he had brought out of the house with him, and Roy was dreamily watching the figures of his aunt and the old gardener moving about amongst the bright colored flower beds.

"Dudley, we'll always keep friends, won't we?"

"Of course we will."

"But I dare say you'll have a lot of fellows at school who can get about quicker with you than I can; and I don't want to keep you back. I only want you to like me still best in your heart."

"Now look here, old chap! You know that I couldn't like any other fellow better than you. You're much more likely to have a lot of chums than I am, because you're so clever. Look at Rob; he used to think nothing of me at all, and I got to think you didn't want me with you, after he came."

"That was awful rot then, because we two are quite different to any other people. Only it would be a good thing to have a fresh promise together; a kind of Bible covenant, you know, before we go to school."

"All right, here goes, then! Let us have your fists--now then, hear me!

I, Dudley Bertram, vow and declare that Fitz Roy Bertram shall continue to be my dearest and nearest chum from this time forth, forevermore.

Amen."

Roy grasped Dudley's hands eagerly and earnestly, and repeated his vow in the same words, perhaps with additional emphasis; then with a sigh of relief, he turned to chatter of other things.

Shortly after Miss Bertram came up to them with a newspaper in her hand.

"Granny has just sent out this paper to me, boys. She thought you would like to know that the troops in the place where Rob is, have all been sent out on some expedition against a rebel chief in the mountains, so he will have some fighting now."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dudley, "don't I wish I was with him! Does the newspaper mention his name, Aunt Judy?"

"When shall we have a letter from him?"

"Not for some time yet, because this is telegraphed. It will be all over before we hear. We must hope and pray that Rob may be kept safely through it."

Miss Bertram looked grave, and the boys sobered down at once.