Tell England | Page 3

these stories. We suspect--but who can sound the artful depths
of a woman who is at once young, lovely, a mother, and a widow?--that
Mrs. Ray, knowing that Rupert could never recall his father, was
determined that at least one soldierly figure should loom heroic in his
childish memories. She would tell again and again how he asked
repeatedly, as he lay dying, for "that Rupert, the best of the lot." And
her son would say: "I s'pose he meant Daddy, mother." "Yes," she
would answer. "You see, you were all Ruperts: Grandfather Rupert Ray,
Daddy Rupert Ray, and Sonny Rupert Ray, my own little Sonny Ray."
(Mothers talk in this absurd fashion, and Mrs. Ray was the chief of
such offenders.)
But quite the masterpiece of all her tales was this. One summer
morning, when the Boulogue promenade was bright and crowded and
lively, the Colonel was seated with his grandson beside him. A little
distance away sat Rupert's mother, who was just about as shy of the
Colonel as the Colonel was shy of her (which fact accounts, probably,
for Rupert Ray's growing up into the shy boy we knew). Well, all of a
sudden, the boy got up, stood immediately in front of his grandsire, and
leaned forward against his knees. There was no mistaking the meaning
in the child's eyes; they said plainly: "This is entirely the best attitude
for story-telling, so please."
The officer, with military quickness, summed up the perilous situation
on his front; he had suffered himself to be bombarded by a pair of
patient eyes. And now he must either acknowledge his incompetence
by a shameful retreat, or he must stir up the dump of his imagination
and see what stories it contained. So with no small apprehension, he

drew upon his inventive genius.
A wonderful story resulted--wonderful as a prophetic parable of things
which the Colonel would not live to see. Perhaps it was only
coincidence that it should be so; perhaps the approach of death
endowed the old gentleman with the gift of dim prophecy--did he not
know that he would follow the swallows away?--perhaps all the Rays,
when they stand in that shadow, possess a mystic vision. Certainly the
boy Rupert--but there! I knew I was in danger of spoiling his story.
If the Colonel's tale this morning was wonderful to the listener, the
author suspected that he was plagiarising. The hero was a knight of
peculiar grace, who sustained the spotless name of Sir R---- R----. He
was not very handsome, having hair that was neither gold nor brown,
and a brace of absurdly sea-blue eyes. But he was distinguished by
many estimable qualities; he was English, for example, and not French,
very brave, very sober, and quite fond of an elderly relation. And one
day he was undoubtedly (although the Colonel's conscience pricked
him) plunging on foot through a dense forest to the aid of a
fellow-knight who had been captured and imprisoned.
"What was the other knight like?" interrupted Rupert.
"What, indeed?" echoed the Colonel, temporising till he should evolve
an answer. "Yes, that's a very relevant question. Well, he was a good
deal fairer than Sir R---- R----, but about the same age, only with brown
eyes, and he was a very nice little boy--young fellow, I mean."
"What was his name?"
"His name? Oh, well--" and here the Colonel, feeling with some taste
that "Smith," or "Jones," or "Robinson" was out of place in a forest
whose mediæval character was palpable, and being quite unable at such
short notice to recall any other English names, gained time by the
following ingenious detail: "Oh, well, he lost his good name by being
captured. And then--and then to his aid came the stalwart Sir R----,
with his sword drawn, and his--er--"
"Revoller," suggested the listener.
"Yes, his revolver fixed to his chain-mail--"
In this strain the Colonel proceeded, wondering whether such
abominable nonsense was interesting the child, whose gaze had now
begun to reach out to sea. In reality Rupert was thrilled, and did not like
to disturb the flow of a story so affecting. But the strength of his

feelings was too much. He was obliged to suggest an amendment.
"Are you sure I didn't go upon a horse?" he asked.
"Why, of course, the unknown knight in question did, and the sheath of
his sword clanked against his horse's side, as he dashed through the
thicket."
"Had the fair-haired knight anything to eat all this time?"
This important problem was duly settled, and several others which
were seen to be involved in such an intricate story; and a very happy
conclusion was reached, when Mrs. Ray decided that it was time for
Rupert to be taken home. She was about to lead him away, when the