The Pigeon Pie | Page 5

wonder what is doing at Worcester this minute!"
"When will brother Edmund come?" asked Charlie for about the
hundredth time.
"When the battle is fought, and the battle is won, and King Charles
enjoys his own again! Hurrah!" shouted Walter, jumping up, and
beginning to sing -
"For forty years our royal throne Has been his father's and his own."
Lucy joined in with -
"Nor is there anyone but he With right can there a sharer be."
"How can you make such a noise?" said Eleanor, stopping her ears, by
which she provoked Walter to go on roaring into them, while he pulled
down her hand -
"For who better may The right sceptre sway Than he whose right it is to
reign; Then look for no peace, For the war will never cease Till the
King enjoys his own again."
As he came to the last line, Rose returning exclaimed, "Oh, hush, Lucy.
Pray don't, Walter!"
"Ha! Rose turned Roundhead?" cried Walter. "You don't deserve to
hear the good news from Worcester."
"O, what?" cried the girls, eagerly.
"When it comes," said Walter, delighted to have taken in Rose herself;
but Rose, going up to him gently, implored him to be quiet, and listen
to her.
"All this noisy rejoicing grieves our mother," said she. "If you could
but have seen her yesterday evening, when she heard your loyal songs.
She sighed, and said, 'Poor fellow, how high his hopes are!' and then
she talked of our father and that evening before the fight at Naseby."

Walter looked grave and said, "I remember! My father lifted me on the
table to drink King Charles's health, and Prince Rupert--I remember his
scarlet mantle and white plume--patted my head, and called me his
little cavalier."
"We sat apart with mother," said Rose, "and heard the loud cheers and
songs till we were half frightened at the noise."
"I can't recollect all that," said Lucy.
"At least you ought not to forget how our dear father came in with
Edmund, and kissed us, and bade mother keep up a good heart. Don't
you remember that, Lucy?"
"I do," said Walter; "it was the last time we ever saw him."
And Walter sat on the table, resting one foot on the bench, while the
other dangled down, and leaning his elbow on his knee and his head on
his hand; Rose sat on the bench close by him, with Charlie on her lap,
and the two little girls pressing close against her, all earnest to hear
from her the story of the great fight of Naseby, where they had all been
in a farmhouse about a mile from the field of battle.
"I don't forget how the cannon roared all day," said Lucy.
"Ah! that dismal day!" said Rose. "Then by came our troopers, blood-
stained and disorderly, riding so fast that scarcely one waited to tell my
mother that the day was lost and she had better fly. But not a step did
she stir from the gate, where she stood with you, Charlie, in her arms;
she only asked of each as he passed if he had seen my father or
Edmund, and ever her cheek grew whiter and whiter. At last came a
Parliament officer on horseback--it was Mr. Enderby, who had been a
college mate of my father's, and he told us that my dear father was
wounded, and had sent him to fetch her."
"But I never knew where Edmund was then," said Eleanor. "No one
ever told me."
"Edmund lifted up my father when he fell," said Walter, "and was
trying to bind his wound; but when Colonel Enderby's troop was close
upon them, my father charged him upon his duty to fly, saying that he
should fall into the hands of an old friend, and it was Edmund's duty to
save himself to fight for the King another time."
"So Edmund followed Prince Rupert?" said Eleanor.
"Yes," said Lucy; "you know my father once saved Prince Rupert's life
in the skirmish where his horse was killed, so for his sake the Prince

made Edmund his page, and has had him with him in all his voyages
and wanderings. But go on about our father, Rose. Did we go to see
him?"
"No; Mr. Enderby said he was too far off, so he left a trooper to guard
us, and my mother only took her little babe with her. Don't you
remember, Walter, how Eleanor screamed after her, as she rode away
on the colonel's horse; and how we could not comfort the little ones, till
they had cried themselves to sleep, poor little things? And in the
morning she came back, and told us our dear father was dead! O Walter,
how can we look back to