Tears were filling Dudley's blue eyes, but Mrs. Bertram looked displeased.

"In my days, children never thought of arguing with their elders. I think your aunt and I are as capable of taking care of Roy as you are. Now leave the room, and do not refer to the matter again."

Then Dudley astonished his grandmother by the first exhibition of temper that he had ever displayed before her.

"I won't be separated from Roy. If you send me to school, I shall run away, and I shall write and tell father the reason!"

A stamp of the foot emphasized this passionate speech, and then Dudley fled from the room, banging the door violently behind him.

As on a former occasion he now took himself and his grief to old Principle. It was early-closing day in the village, and he found the old man just locking up his door prepared for a ramble.

"Come along up to the hills with me, laddie," he said, after hearing the trouble; "there's nothing like fresh air for blowing away a fit of the dumps. I am going to the cave again—will you come with me?"

"Yes, I will. I've been in an awful temper in granny's room, and banged her door. I don't think she'll ever forgive me!"

"'Tis like this, Master Dudley," said old Principle, presently, as they walked over the hills together; "if it's right for you to go, there's nothing to be said, and you must fall in with it whether you like it or no."

"But it can't be right for me to leave Roy when he wants me."

"It may be the best thing in the world for him and you, if it is to be. 'Tis a bad principle to determine whether a thing is right or wrong, according to our liking."

"It's a cruel thing to part us!" said Dudley, doggedly.

"But may be a way will be found out of the difficulty by Master Roy going with you."

"They say he isn't strong enough. That wetting in the rain has made him bad again."

"Well now I should ask the good Lord to make him strong enough. There's time between this and Easter."

Dudley brightened up at once.

"Do you think he might be strong enough? I should be able to take great care of him, and I would, too. And he's so plucky, that I'm sure the other boys would be good to him."

The cave was reached, and in the interest of watching excavation going on Dudley was soon his bright self again.

He came home radiant, with a match-box full of tiny shells for Roy who was waiting for him in the nursery.

"You have been away a time," he said, wearily: "I'm sure I'm well enough to go out now. I can't bear the winter. It means so many colds and aches."

"Well, you're going to get better very soon, and look here, old chap! If you try your very best, perhaps the old doctor will give you leave to come to school with me after Easter."

Roy's eyes sparkled at the thought.

"Nurse always makes such a molly-coddle of me, and so does granny; but I'll try as hard as I can to be better."

"And now just look at these! Old Principle says these show that the sea must have washed up amongst the hills and into his cave hundreds of years ago, for these belong to salt water fish not river ones. Look at them! 'Fossils' he calls them, they're shells made out of stone. He told me I might give you these from him. I thought he would never go back to his cave again after last December, but he says he feels so much stronger now; and he is very careful how he digs; he won't let me come near him while he does it. And he told me he has been busy writing a paper which he is going to send to some society in London—I forget its name. He is what you call a discoverer, isn't he?"

Roy nodded, then asked anxiously:

"Dudley, were you rude to granny before you went out? Aunt Judy came to look for you here, and she said she hoped you were going to beg granny's pardon for something."

"I'll go now, I had almost forgotten."

And Dudley trotted off to his grandmother's room. She received him sternly, but he was so abjectly penitent that she soon forgave him, and he returned to Roy with a relieved mind.

"It's a dreadful thing to have a temper," he remarked, as he sat upon the nursery table swinging his legs to and fro; "I've given granny an awful headache by the way I banged her door."

"What was it about?" asked Roy, with interest.

"About school," was the answer; "I told her I wasn't going away from you."

"I've been thinking of it a lot," said Roy, with a sigh; "but you'll have to go, and I shall get on pretty well without you. You see a boy with one leg wouldn't be much good amongst a lot of other boys. They would only call him a cripple and push him aside. I shouldn't like them to laugh at me. The only thing for me is a cripple school. Nurse has a little grandson at one. I don't much care for cripples, those I've seen seem very poor creatures with no fun in them, but of course I'm one myself now; only I don't feel like it."

"You're no more a cripple than I am," was Dudley's indignant rejoinder, "why no one would tell anything was the matter with you to look at you."

"We won't talk any more about it," said Roy, "I'm hungry and I hear tea coming."

But both the little hearts were very full of a possible separation, and for some days after it lay like a heavy nightmare on them. Then a letter arrived from Rob which turned the current of their thoughts. It was his first letter from India, and the boys looked at the foreign stamps and paper, as if it were the greatest rarity on earth.

"MY DEAR MASTER ROY:

"I write to tell you we are safely here and I am quite well as I hope you are. It is very hot, but we don't do much work in the middle of the day and I like the place. I wish you could see the flowers and the black men and the funny houses and the colored dresses of the people. I am getting on, I hope, and my sergeant told me the other day I might get the stripe soon if I liked. I will keep a lookout as you told me for Master Dudley's father, but they say India is a bigger place than England, which I don't believe, for we're the grandest nation in the world, and the biggest and the best, all of us in the barrack-room agree to that. I saw a scorpion to-day which pinches when it catches you and draws the blood awful. There is a mountain battery with us now, and they use mules instead of horses, the hills are higher than those at home and it's hard work going up. There is not any fighting yet, but I am ready for it when it comes, and will do my duty to the Queen and you. My chum has helped me write this letter and I hope it pleases you. I am trying to endure hardness. Good-bye, Master Roy,

"Your faithful ROB.

"God bless you."

"That's a much nicer letter, isn't it?" said Roy, in great delight; "that is quite as long as the one I sent him. I hope he will get some fighting soon."

"Supposing if he does, and gets killed?" suggested Dudley.

But Roy put this thought away from him.

"I've known such lots of soldiers in books that come home, that I think he will. Besides God will take care of him. Do you remember the picture gallery at the general's the other day, Dudley?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I was thinking about that soldier there with all his medals who broke his mother's heart; and then about the soldier boy the general said was the bravest. I suppose I would rather Rob was properly brave like that, than do great things in battle; but I should think he might do both, don't you think so?"

And Dudley nodded, adding, "Rob won't drink or gamble, I'm quite sure."



XVI

DAVID AND JONATHAN

Easter came, and to the boys' great delight Roy was so much stronger that it was settled he might accompany Dudley to a private boarding school for one term. Thanks were due to Miss Bertram for this arrangement; and she had great difficulty in obtaining her mother's consent to it.

"I am sure the boys will get on best together; Roy will have a better chance of growing strong if he is with Dudley than if he is to mope by himself here. If we find he does not keep well, we can have him home again; and from all we hear of the school, the boys are most carefully looked after."

And certainly to judge from Roy's appearance and spirits, this plan seemed most successful. It was a bright morning in April. The air was cold but dry, and the old garden was sweet with the scent of hyacinths and narcissuses. Bright beds of tulips and polyanthuses bordered the green lawn, and old Hal was surveying the results of his work with pride and satisfaction. Miss Bertram, in her leather gloves and garden apron, was busy in and out of the hothouses; and the boys, after scampering round in every one's way, had at last scrambled up to their favorite seat on the garden wall.

"This time next week we shall be at school," said Dudley; "how funny we shall feel!"

"We shan't be able to climb walls there, I suppose."

"On half-holidays, perhaps we shall. It isn't all lessons; old Selby told us the happiest time of his life was when he was at school."

"I mean to be happy," said Roy, a smile hovering about his lips.

"And so do I," maintained Dudley, stoutly; "but it will be awfully strange at first. It's like Rob going off to be a soldier. We're going out 'to see life' nurse says."

"Old Principle wants us to come to tea with him before we go. I saw him this morning going past our gate. He'll give us some of his good advice like he did Rob, but I don't mind him, he's such a jolly old chap."

There was silence between them for a few minutes. Dudley was eating a slice of cake which he had brought out of the house with him, and Roy was dreamily watching the figures of his aunt and the old gardener moving about amongst the bright colored flower beds.

"Dudley, we'll always keep friends, won't we?"

"Of course we will."

"But I dare say you'll have a lot of fellows at school who can get about quicker with you than I can; and I don't want to keep you back. I only want you to like me still best in your heart."

"Now look here, old chap! You know that I couldn't like any other fellow better than you. You're much more likely to have a lot of chums than I am, because you're so clever. Look at Rob; he used to think nothing of me at all, and I got to think you didn't want me with you, after he came."

"That was awful rot then, because we two are quite different to any other people. Only it would be a good thing to have a fresh promise together; a kind of Bible covenant, you know, before we go to school."

"All right, here goes, then! Let us have your fists—now then, hear me! I, Dudley Bertram, vow and declare that Fitz Roy Bertram shall continue to be my dearest and nearest chum from this time forth, forevermore. Amen."

Roy grasped Dudley's hands eagerly and earnestly, and repeated his vow in the same words, perhaps with additional emphasis; then with a sigh of relief, he turned to chatter of other things.

Shortly after Miss Bertram came up to them with a newspaper in her hand.

"Granny has just sent out this paper to me, boys. She thought you would like to know that the troops in the place where Rob is, have all been sent out on some expedition against a rebel chief in the mountains, so he will have some fighting now."

"Hurrah!" shouted Dudley, "don't I wish I was with him! Does the newspaper mention his name, Aunt Judy?"

"When shall we have a letter from him?"

"Not for some time yet, because this is telegraphed. It will be all over before we hear. We must hope and pray that Rob may be kept safely through it."

Miss Bertram looked grave, and the boys sobered down at once.

"But, Aunt Judy, of course fighting is dreadful, but it is a soldier's duty, isn't it?"

"And Rob is sure to do his duty."

"Yes, boys, we will hope he will serve his Queen as well as he served us whilst here. Rob was a good boy: I wish there were more like him."

And Miss Bertram moved away, whilst her little nephews worked off their excitement at this news, by jumping down from the wall, and performing a mimic battle in the pine wood outside. Very eagerly and impatiently did they look for a letter before they went off to school, but none came; and the last word that Roy said as he was leaving the house was,—

"Mind, Aunt Judy, you send on my letter when it comes as quick as lightning!"

It was rather an ordeal for both the boys when the last leave-takings of all at home came. The old nurse wept profusely, and was only comforted by the assurance that she should go to her charges on the very first intimation of illness. Mrs. Bertram gave them such warnings against choosing evil companions, and becoming depraved in principles, that the boys were quite awed and depressed; and the servants, one and all, expressed such pity and sympathy for their departure, that Dudley at last confided to Roy:

"If we were going to prison they couldn't look more shocked and gloomy."

General Newton insisted upon taking them himself to school.

"It looks well," he said to Miss Bertram, a little pompously; "for the boys to have a man at their back, and I will have a few words with the principal myself about Roy's delicacy of constitution. It will come with more force from me than from you."

So the general was allowed to have his way, and by the time the boys were in the train with a large packet of sandwiches and cakes to while away the time, their spirits rose, and they declared that going off to school was "the jolliest thing out."

It was late in the evening when they reached their destination. The school was not far from the sea, and the clergyman who kept it would never have more than thirty boarders; his wife, a sweet-faced gentlewoman, received the boys most kindly, and General Newton came away satisfied that it would prove a happy home as well as a good training for the motherless boys.

Dudley and Roy were not long in making themselves at home; their high spirits made them general favorites amongst the boys; and even Roy did not feel himself out of place in the playground, whilst in the schoolroom he proved a quick and intelligent pupil.

"The boys are happy, mother," said Miss Bertram one morning going into her mother's room and handing her two letters; "and Mrs. Hawthorn has written most favorably of them both."

"I should think so," said Mrs. Bertram, stiffly, who though sternness itself to her grandsons was most indignant if any one dared to say a word against them to her; "they would not be true Bertrams if they were not favorites with all."

She opened the letters and read—

"DEAR AUNT JUDY:

"It's our hour for home letters. We like it here awfully. Mrs. Hawthorn is a brick, she lets me come into the drawing-room with her whenever I am tired, but I've only been in once yet because I like to watch the boys play best. I can bowl at cricket and bat too, and I give a boy called 'Gnat' twopence a game to do my runs for me. I'm collecting birds' eggs. There's a boy here who has got 250 of them. I mean to find a sea gull's nest, and then he'll swap twenty of his with me for one gull's, because he has never got one yet. There is a boy called 'Simple Simon,' he thinks I am a wonder because I let him run pins into my cork leg and never cry out. He does not know it's a sham leg and I shan't tell him. We should like another hamper very soon, please. Cook's gingerbread was A1. Give my love to granny, and tell her I take my tonic when I go to bed every night. Give my love to nurse. Tell old Principle Mr. Hawthorn would like to know such a clever man and see his cave. Send me Rob's letter directly it comes, please. We do drill in the gymnasium.

"Your loving nephew

"FITZ ROY BERTRAM."

DEAR AUNT JUDY:

"This is an awfully jolly school. I'd like you to be one of the boys. We are going to have a paper chase next Thursday, and I bet I'll lick some of the chaps at running. Roy and I sleep in the next beds to each other. I look after him when he will let me, he is top of his class and Tom Hunter says he is a plucky chap. Hunter is captain of the eleven. We go to bathe every morning down by the sea, and Hunter says his father is going to give him a boat of his own in the summer. There is a jolly tuck shop in the town. We can go to it every Saturday. There is a boy here called 'Fishy,' he wants to be my chum but I like one called 'Cheshire Cat' better, but I have no chum but Roy. Old Hawthorn only canes for lies. A boy got caned last night, and blubbered like a baby before he went in. I send my love to granny, and all of you. Roy expects Rob's letter every day.

"Your loving nephew

"DUDLEY.

"P.S. Hunter says our cake has made his mouth water for the next."



XVII

ROY'S BIG OPPORTUNITY

"Roy, Mrs. Hawthorn wants you. She has got some letters for you."

Dudley came up excitedly to Roy, directly after dinner was over one Saturday afternoon.

"And I say," he continued; "bring them out and let us go down to the beach to read them together. The tide will be out till the evening."

Roy hastened off, and wondered at Mrs. Hawthorn's grave look.

"Your aunt has sent me some letters to give you, Roy. She has only just received them herself. They are about your friend in India."

"From Rob?" said Roy, with sparkling eyes. "Oh, I thought he never would write. How jolly! And I see his writing, that's my letter."

He held out his hand eagerly but Mrs. Hawthorn laid her hand on his shoulder gently.

"Yes, that was a letter he wrote to you before the fighting. Your aunt has heard since—from a nurse who nursed him."

Something in her tone frightened Roy.

"Has he been wounded? He is well again, isn't he?"

"He is quite well now," she said, in a hushed voice.

For a minute Roy gazed at her, with horror and doubt dawning in his dark eyes, then snatching the letters out of her hand he rushed out of the room; and seizing hold of Dudley in the hall he exclaimed almost frantically:

"Dudley, something awful has happened to Rob, let us get away from the house and read these letters."

He held them tightly in his hand, and would not let Dudley take them from his grasp, till they reached the beach.

Then sitting down and leaning against an old weather-beaten rock, Roy, with trembling fingers, first unfolded Rob's letter to himself.

"MY DEAR MASTER ROY:

"We are going up to the mountains to-morrow to fight. The men say it will be stiff work, driving an old chief from his stronghold. Some of them don't like it, but I am ready. I am a better writer now, I hope, so want to tell you what I never have yet. I do thank you with all my heart for being so kind to a homeless lad and taking him in and giving him a happy home. And I thank you much more for teaching him to read and write and giving up your playtime to get him on. But if I was to thank you for a hundred years, I couldn't thank you enough for telling me about my Saviour and showing me the way to heaven. Every word you ever said is sticking to me. I mind all our talks, and if I may have had some rough times in trying to serve God first, I have been as happy as a king. And I have found that the Lord has kept me through the worst times, and I love Him with all my heart. When I get to heaven I shall be able to thank you proper. I do feel thankful to you and Master Dudley. And now good-bye and God bless you.

"Your faithful ROB forever."

Roy read this through.

"He's all right, Dudley. What did she mean? Why did she look so funny?"

Dudley shook his head.

"I don't know, read what Aunt Judy says."

Roy spread out his aunt's letter, and read it in unfaltering tones to the end.

"MY POOR DEAR LITTLE JONATHAN:

"If granny were not really very unwell I should have come straight off to soften the blow to you, but I send the letters which I have just received, and I have asked Mrs. Hawthorn to explain them to you. You must be comforted by knowing that our dear Rob has proved himself a hero and died a hero's death. I know you would like to see the nurse's letter written from the hospital, and I also send you one from the major of his regiment who used to know me years ago. I know you will be a brave boy and bear this trouble like a man. Tell Dudley to write to me by the first post to tell me you have got the letters safely.

"Your loving aunt,

"JULIA BERTRAM."

The letter dropped from Roy's grasp, and he flung himself down on the beach face foremost.

Dudley sat staring out at the sea without speaking. The blow had fallen so heavily, and so unexpectedly, that speech was not forthcoming.

At last Roy looked up.

"You read the other letters to me, Dudley," he said, in a choked voice.

And Dudley, with a good deal of hesitation and effort interrupted by tears, read out as follows:

"DEAR MADAM:

"I have been asked to write to you about Robert White who I am sorry to say was brought into the military hospital the other day dangerously wounded. He lingered three days and was perfectly conscious up to the last. I never saw a braver or more patient lad. He told me all about your goodness to him, and his devotion to a little nephew of yours was most touching. His name was always on his lips. He asked me to tell you the circumstances of his death, and added, 'She will tell Master Roy, I have tried to do my duty. And I will be waiting now in heaven to welcome him. I would have liked to be his servant, but God wants me, and God comes first.' I heard from his sergeant the details of the engagement. A small party of them—White among them—had been ordered to go and take a certain mountain pass, and their officer in command was shot just before they reached it. I wish I could give you the account in the sergeant's own words as he told it me. I will try. 'We were marching up in single file, for the pass was a very narrow one. Through the clefts round it, we saw projecting the enemy's bayonets and spears, and we knew it was certain death for the first one in our ranks. I led the men, and I tell you, Mum, it was a cold-blooded way of meeting one's death, worse than in the fiercest battle fighting shoulder to shoulder! I pulled myself together, tried to say a prayer and marched on, wondering where I should be the next minute, when suddenly before I knew where I was, Corporal White had placed himself in front of me. "You are not ready, sergeant," he said; "I am, let me take your place." It wasn't time to stand arguing, but I tell you I felt queer when I saw the lad stretched for dead under my feet. We had a sharp skirmish, but we drove the enemy back, and the first one I went to look for was White.'

"The sergeant told me this with a sob in his voice; he added that for months he had ridiculed White for his religion and tried to drive it out of him. But he came every morning to the hospital, and I saw him on his knees by White's bedside, offering up a prayer that he might be made a different man.

"And now I must try to give you more details about White himself. I asked him if I could do anything for him the last day he was alive and then he asked me to write to you. He kept the photo of your little nephew under his pillow, and more than once he murmured—'God first, the Queen next, and then Master Roy—I'll be a faithful servant if I can!' Toward evening I saw he was sinking. I said 'Are you comfortable, corporal?' and he looked up with such a radiant smile: 'Safe in the arms of Jesus,' he murmured, and those were his last words. From what I have heard from those who knew him out here, I gather that his life was a singularly pure and upright one, and that young as he was he had influenced more than one careless drinking man to turn over a new leaf, and be the same as he was. I am forwarding his Bible and small belongings by this mail.

"Believe me, dear madam,

"Yours faithfully,

"ROSE SMITH—Sister in Charge."

Roy listened to this with breathless interest, his eyes shining through his tears.

"Oh, Dudley, how splendid! oh, Rob, you have been a brave soldier, but I shall never, never see you again!"

Down went the little head and a torrent of tears burst forth; whilst Dudley laying his curly head against his cousin's joined him in his weeping. One more letter remained to be read and this was the major's—

"DEAR MISS BERTRAM:

"Having heard from you that one of my men was a protege of yours, I take the opportunity of saying a word for the poor young fellow. He has been an exemplary character since he came into the regiment, and has, I hear, been a general favorite from his extreme good nature, in spite of being a religious lad. His influence was felt by all his comrades who came in contact with him, and I feel we have lost a smart and promising soldier. The sister in the hospital tells me she is writing particulars of his death. My sergeant is very much cut up over it.

"With kind regards,

"Believe me, yours truly,

"W.A. ALDRIDGE—Major."

"And that's all," said Dudley, mournfully; "why, I can't believe Rob is dead—we never knew he was ill."

Roy took up the letter, and read through Rob's again. Then he looked across the blue ocean in front of him.

"Just read me that bit of the nurse's letter of the fight, Dudley. Can't you think of him marching up to the enemy?"

Dudley read the desired bit, and then with a deep drawn breath Roy said:

"He acted out the song of the drummer boys, didn't he? He marched on to meet his death like they did. I wonder how it felt. Could you have put yourself in front of the sergeant, Dudley?"

"If you had been the sergeant, I could," was the prompt reply.

"But the sergeant hadn't been kind to him. Oh, Rob, Rob."

"Don't cry so, old chap, you'll make yourself ill. He's happy now. Don't you think we'd better be going in?"

But Roy would not leave the beach till the tea bell sounded, and then he crept in with such a white, weary face that kind Mrs. Hawthorn put him straight to bed, and stayed with him listening to his trouble till tired out and exhausted he fell asleep. When Dudley came to bed he found him clutching the letters tight in one hand, and muttering in his sleep, "God first, the Queen next, and then Master Roy!"

Once in the night he was roused by Roy's grasping hold of his bedclothes.

"Dudley, are you asleep?"

"No," was the sleepy answer, "aren't you well?"

"Yes, but I can't sleep. Tell me, was it my fault? Did I send Rob to his death? I wanted him to go. Did I make him go?"

"Of course you didn't," and Dudley now was wide-awake. "He wanted to go first, and you didn't like it, don't you remember?"

"Yes, I think he liked going; but if he hadn't heard that song perhaps he would never have gone, he would never have wanted to be a soldier."

"He did a lot of good out there. I don't think he will be sorry now."

Roy settled down to sleep again comforted; but for the next few days he seemed quite unable to give his mind to his lessons, and after some correspondence with Miss Bertram, it was arranged that he and Dudley should go home from Saturday to Monday. It was a sad home-coming, and when Roy saw Rob's Bible his grief burst out afresh. The pages showed how much they had been studied, but no verse was more marked than the one Roy had given him. "Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

On Sunday evening the boys paid a visit to old Principle. They had been talking about Rob, when Roy said wistfully,

"Rob used his opportunity when he got it, didn't he? I expect he didn't know what a hero he was. I wonder if I shall ever get one come to me. I should like to do something great for God, and great for my country. I shall never give up wishing for a great opportunity to come to me!"

Then old Principle spoke, and his tone was very solemn:

"'Tis not I that will make you proud and uplifted, laddie, but you have been given the grandest opportunity that ever a poor mortal could be given, and you've taken it and made use of it, thank the Lord!"

Both boys gazed up at him with open eyes and mouths.

Dudley said after a minute's thought:

"We've both had some little opportunities, and Roy has had the biggest. He saved me from drowning, and he went into the cave to fetch you!"

"Those weren't proper opportunities," muttered Roy in scorn, "they aren't worth remembering; not after what Rob has done."

"Yes, the opportunity I'm talking of was a grander one than them, though old Principle can't forget he owes his life perhaps to both of you boys' thought of him. 'Tis what the Lord Himself left His throne in heaven for," the old man proceeded in the same solemn tones; "'tis the one thing, the only thing we're told brings joy to the happy ones above; nay to the Almighty Himself, and 'tis wonderful that He will let us have the part in it we do!"

"What do you mean?" questioned Roy awed and puzzled by old Principle's manner.

"I mean this, laddie, you had an opportunity of leading an ignorant soul to the feet of his Saviour; of enlisting a soldier not only in the Queen's service but in the service of the King of Kings; of being the means of filling an empty barren soul with a flood of light and gladness; and of sending out a missionary in the midst of ungodliness and vice, to turn many from the error of their ways. Is it not a greater honor to help to save a soul from destruction, than bring glory to yourself by some feat of physical strength or skill? Thank the Lord on your knees to-night, that He sent you the opportunity you were always hankering after; and thank Him He gave you the grace to seize hold of it, and make use of it for His Glory, not your own!"

Old Principle's burst of eloquence almost startled the boys, and they received it in silence; but later on, as they were walking home in the cool of the evening Roy linked his arm in Dudley's and said softly—

"I see it all now. My broken leg and everything. It was when I was too weak to go out with you, that Rob and I used to talk over these things."

And Dudley replied, with an emphatic nod, "Yes, though you didn't know it, Rob was your big opportunity."

FINIS.