Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War by R. D. Blackmore (red queen ebook .TXT) 📖

old man cried, leaping up and catching at a rugged cord of trunk, with his other hand pointing up the hill. From the base of the castle a broad blaze rushed, showing window and battlement, arch and tower, as in a flicker of the Northern lights. Then up went all the length of fabric, as a wanton child tosses his Noah's ark. Keep and buttress, tower and arch, mullioned window and battlement, in a fiery furnace leaped on high, like the outburst of a volcano. Then, with a roar that rocked the earth, they broke into a storm of ruin, sweeping the heavens with a flood of fire, and spreading the sea with a mantle of blood. Following slowly in stately spires, and calmly swallowing everything, a fountain of dun smoke arose, and solemn silence filled the night.

“All over now, thank the angels and the saints! My faith, but I made up my mind to join them,” cried Charron, who had fallen, or been felled by the concussion. “Cheray, art thou still alive? The smoke is in my neck. I cannot liberate my words, but the lumps must be all come down by this time, without adding to the weight of our poor brains. Something fell in this old tree, a long way up, as high as where the crows build. It was like a long body, with one leg and one arm. I hope it was not the Commander; but one thing is certain—he is gone to heaven. Let us pray that he may stop there, if St. Peter admits a man who was selling the keys of his country to the enemy. But we must do duty to ourselves, my Cheray. Let us hasten to the sea, and give the signal for the boat. La Torche will be a weak light after this.”

“I will not go. I will abide my time.” The old man staggered to a broken column of the ancient gateway which had fallen near them, and flung his arms around it. “I remember this since I first could toddle. The ways of the Lord are wonderful.”

“Come away, you old fool,” cried the Frenchman; “I hear the tramp of soldiers in the valley. If they catch you here, it will be drum-head work, and you will swing before morning in the ruins.”

“I am very old. My time is short. I would liefer hang from an English beam than deal any more with your outlandish lot.”

“Farewell to thee, then! Thou art a faithful clod. Here are five guineas for thee, of English stamp. I doubt if napoleons shall ever be coined in England.”

He was off while he might—a gallant Frenchman, and an honest enemy; such as our country has respected always, and often endeavoured to turn into fast friends. But the old man stood and watched the long gap, where for centuries the castle of the Carnes had towered. And his sturdy faith was rewarded.

“I am starving”—these words came feebly from a gaunt, ragged figure that approached him. “For three days my food has been forgotten; and bad as it was, I missed it. There came a great rumble, and my walls fell down. Ancient Jerry, I can go no further. I am empty as a shank bone when the marrow-toast is serving. Your duty was to feed me, with inferior stuff at any rate.”

“No, sir, no;” the old servitor was roused by the charge of neglected duty. “Sir Parsley, it was no fault of mine whatever. Squire undertook to see to all of it himself. Don't blame me, sir; don't blame me.”

“Never mind the blame, but make it good,” Mr. Shargeloes answered, meagrely, for he felt as if he could never be fat again. “What do I see there? It is like a crust of bread, but I am too weak to stoop for it.”

“Come inside the tree, sir.” The old man led him, as a grandsire leads a famished child. “What a shame to starve you, and you so hearty! But the Squire clean forgotten it, I doubt, with his foreign tricks coming to this great blow-up. Here, sir, here; please to sit down a moment, while I light a candle. They French chaps are so wasteful always, and always grumbling at good English victual. Here's enough to feed a family Captain Charron has throwed by—bread, and good mutton, and pretty near half a ham, and a bottle or so of thin nasty foreign wine. Eat away, Sir Parsley; why, it does me good to see you. You feeds something like an Englishman. But you know, sir, it were all your own fault at bottom, for coming among them foreigners a-meddling.”

“You are a fine fellow. You shall be my head butler,” Percival Shargeloes replied, while he made such a meal as he never made before, and never should make again, even when he came to be the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of London.