Tom Tuftons Travels | Page 8

the Squire kept all his valuable papers, and some of the
heirlooms which had come down to him from his forefathers. Tom
looked on with curious eyes. He had always experienced, from
childhood upwards, a certain sense of awe when that press was
unlocked and thrown open. He now observed his mother's actions with
great curiosity.
"Come, Tom, and lift down that box, for it is heavy," she said; and Tom
came forward and carefully lifted down a small iron-bound chest,
which, for its size, was in truth remarkably heavy. This box was placed
upon the table, whilst the mother locked up the safe once more.
Then she selected a small key from a number in a bag at her girdle, and
offered it to her son.
"There, Tom, the box and its contents are yours. You will find within
five hundred golden pieces--guineas every one of them, bright and new
from the mint. Your father saved them up for you for many long years,
in case it should ever become needful that you should leave home to
see the world. Always it was his hope that you would remain at home
to be his comfort and stay; but if that could not be, then would he wish
to send forth his only son in such a manner as beseemed his condition
in life."
Tom's eyes sparkled. A flush mounted to his cheek, and his hand shook
a little as he put the key into the lock.
It was all true. There lay, in neat rolls, more money than he had ever
seen in all his life--a fortune for a prince, as it seemed to him in his
youthful inexperience. The admonitions and counsel of his mother fell
on deaf ears. Tom's busy brain was planning a thousand ways in which

his wealth might be expended. He would go forth. He would see the
world. He would win fame and fortune. He would never return to
Gablehurst until he brought with him a name which should cause the
ears of those who knew him to tingle by reason of the fame he had
won!
"Nay, but boast not of the future, my son," pleaded the mother, with a
note of anxiety in her voice; "and be not over confident. The times are
perilous, and you are but an untried youth. Boasting is not well."
But Tom could not listen. He laughingly repeated his boast, and was off
to the stables forthwith, to pick for himself the best horses for his ride
to London. For, of course, he must first go there, to fit himself out for
his journey beyond seas, and find out where the army of the Duke was
at present to be found.
Vague rumours of the great victory had penetrated to the wilds of Essex;
but where Blenheim was, and what the victory was all about, the rustics
knew as little as "Old Kaspar" of the immortal ballad of later days. The
squires were little less vague in their ideas as to the scope and purpose
of the war. It was to abase the power of France--so much they knew,
and was unpopular with the Tories of Jacobite leanings, for the reason
that the French king was sheltering the dethroned monarch of the Stuart
line. But then the great Duke who was winning all these victories was
said to be a stanch Tory himself; so that it was all rather confusing, and
Tom was just as ignorant and ill-informed on all these topics as the
hinds who tilled his fields. He had never cared to inform himself of
what was passing in the world, and the newspapers had always seemed
to him very dull reading.
Now, however, he wished he knew a little more; but he told himself
that he should quickly pick up everything in London. His heart beat at
the thought of seeing that wonderful city; and although he carelessly
promised his mother not to linger there long, he was by no means sure
that he would not make a good stay, and learn the fashions of the gay
world before he crossed the sea.
He was quite of the opinion that, clad in a new suit of fashionable make,

he could ruffle it with the best of the young bloods about town. He was
now all in a fever to be off. He selected for his attendant a young
groom, with whom he had long been more intimate than his father
approved. His mother in vain besought him to take faithful old John, or
at least Peter, whom they had known from boyhood; but Tom would
have nobody but young Robin, and declared that he and Robin,
mounted upon Wildfire and Wildgoose--two of the best and fleetest
horses ever reared in the meadows round Gablehurst--could distance