The Black Tor | Page 2

was right, but the war the party had been in was with poverty.
"What in the world do they want in this out-of-the-way place--on the road to nowhere?" thought Ralph. "If they're not beggars, they have lost their way."
He pushed back the hilt of his sword, and drew up one leg, covered with its high, buff-leather boot, beneath him, holding it as he waited for the party to come slowly up; and as they did, they halted where he sat, at the side of the road, and the leader, puffing and panting, took off his rusty morion with his left hand, and wiped his pink, bald head, covered with drops of perspiration, with his right, as he rolled his eyes at the lad.
"Hallo, young springald!" he cried, in a blustering manner. "Why don't you jump up and salute your officer?"
"Because I can't see him," cried the lad sharply.
"What? And you carry a toasting-iron, like a rat's tail, by your side. Here, who made this cursed road, where it ought to have been a ladder?"
"I don't know," said Ralph angrily. "Who are you? What do you want? This road does not lead anywhere."
"That's a lie, my young cock-a-hoop; if it did not lead somewhere, it would not have been made."
The man's companions burst into a hoarse fit of laughter, and the boy flushed angrily.
"Well," he said haughtily, "it leads up to Cliff Castle, and no farther."
"That's far enough for us, my game chicken. Is that heap of blocks of stone on the top there the castle?"
"Yes! What do you want?"
The man looked the lad up and down, rolled one of his eyes, which looked something like that of a lobster, and then winked the lid over the inflated orb, and said:
"Gentlemen on an ambassage don't read their despatches to every springald they see by the roadside. Here, jump up, and show us the way, and I'll ask Sir Morton Darley to give you a stoup of wine for your trouble, or milk and water."
"You ask Sir Morton to give you wine!" cried the lad angrily. "Why, who are you, to dare such a thing?"
"What!" roared the man. "Dare? Who talks to Captain Purlrose, his Highness's trusted soldier, about dare?" and he put on a tremendously fierce look, blew out his cheeks, drew his brows over his eyes, and slapped his sword-hilt heavily, as if to keep it in its sheath, for fear it should leap out and kill the lad, adding, directly after, in a hoarse whisper: "Lie still, good sword, lie still."
All this theatrical display was evidently meant to awe the lad, but instead of doing so, it made him angry, for he flushed up, and said quickly:
"I dare," and the men laughed.
"You dare!" cried the leader; "and pray, who may you be, my bully boy?"
"I don't tell my name to every ragged fellow I meet in the road," said the boy haughtily.
"What!" roared the man, clapping his hand upon the hilt of his blade, an action imitated by his followers.
"Keep your sword in its scabbard," said Ralph, without wincing in the least. "If you have business with my father, this way."
He sprang to his feet now, and gazed fiercely at the stranger.
"What?" cried the man, in a voice full of exuberant friendliness, which made the lad shrink in disgust, "you the son of Sir Morton Darley?"
"Yes: what of it?"
"The son of my beloved old companion-in-arms? Boy, let me embrace thee."
To Ralph's horror, the man took a step forward, and would have thrown his arms about his neck; but by a quick movement the lad stepped back, and the men laughed to see their leader grasp the wind.
"Don't do that," said Ralph sternly. "Do you mean to say that you want to speak to my father?"
"Speak to him? Yes, to fly to the hand of him whom I many a time saved from death. And so you are the son of Morton Darley? And a brave-looking, manly fellow too. Why, I might have known. Eye, nose, curled-up lip. Yes: all there. You are his very reflection, that I ought to have seen in the looking-glass of memory. Excuse this weak moisture of the eyes, boy. The sight of my old friend's son brings up the happy companionship of the past. Time flies fast, my brave lad. Your father and I were hand and glove then. Never separate. We fought together, bled together, and ah! how fate is partial in the way she spreads her favours! Your father dresses his son in velvet; while I, poor soldier of fortune--I mean misfortune--am growing rusty; sword, morion, breast-plate, body battered, and face scarred by time."
"Aren't we going to have something to eat and drink, captain?" growled one of the men, with an ugly scowl.
"Ay, brave boys, and soon," cried the leader.
"Then, leave off preaching,