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I will take my groom's, and you must let him have a horse to take back some directions from me to Fitzdenys. Brimacott, with your permission, shall watch the road by which you drove out this morning, in case the ponies should find their way there." Lady Eleanor soon came down in her habit, impatient to start, but found Colonel George writing, with a tray of food and drink set down by him.
She therefore feared that something was gone wrong and begged Colonel Fitzdenys, despite his promise, to ride up to the hut on the moor without delay. Of course the colonel started off at once, and when he caught sight of the hut he noticed that the goats were unmilked and bleating pitifully round the door.
'Tis no wonder that his honour the Captain and he were friends, for there wasn't two such gentlemen in the army." So when the children rejoined the Corporal they heard nothing but the praises of Colonel Fitzdenys, of his bravery, his gentleness, and his excellence as an officer; all of which they passed on in the evening to Lady Eleanor, who seemed quite content to hear it.
But it is all wrong," he added; "it is not discipline." "I am quite sure that it will be all right," said Lady Eleanor with great decision. Colonel George shook his head smiling; but he and old Lord Fitzdenys wrote, as he had promised; and it may as well be said that they obtained pardon for Henry Mugford the deserter.
Think, now, if I know the way, you can stay with your son and I can bring him up whatever he wants on any day that you please; and I'll bind myself not to show the way to any one, nor to come back except on the day that you choose." The woman hesitated and looked from Colonel George to Lady Eleanor, who said: "Colonel Fitzdenys is right.
"It is pleasant to see Colonel Fitzdenys again," said Lady Eleanor to the Corporal, as he held the door for her. "It's a treat to look upon his face, my Lady," said the Corporal, "a noble gentleman like that who never forgets the humblest of his friends. I've always said that if I were not in your Ladyship's service there is no one that I would serve so willingly as he.
She remembered how she had dreaded her first meeting with Captain Fitzdenys after the peace, and how he seemed to have realised that her whole life now lay in the children, and had made friends with them at once.
He moved so feebly that Lady Eleanor offered her a pony for him to ride, but his mother refused, though with many thanks; so the two passed away slowly across the park, and disappeared. "Well, there is Tommy Fry cured at any rate," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "And I believe that the woman spoke the truth, when she said that she did not know what she had done to him.
There he heard the whole story from the Corporal, and leaving a message for Lady Eleanor that he would call next day, rode back very quietly to Fitzdenys Court. It need hardly be said that when her first joy over the recovery of the children was over, Lady Eleanor's instant thought was for the strange woman and her idiot son, who had befriended them and saved them for her.
And then Lady Eleanor beckoned to the children to come up; and old Lord Fitzdenys gave Dick two fingers and Elsie one, for he said that if her hand was like her mother's it could not hold more. But Colonel George gave Dick his whole hand, and bent down to kiss Elsie's as he had kissed her mother's, which won her little heart completely.
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