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The great Lord Fitzdenys himself came once, and the doctor regained favour in Mrs. Fry's eyes by bringing another doctor to see what he called "this interesting case;" and as none of the gentlemen ever went away without giving a few pence to the boy and a few shillings to his mother, the family of Fry gained both dignity and profit.
"How should I take away a boy's speech? they'm all agin me and my boy; that's all it is." "Well, they say that he can't speak," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "You shall tell him to speak yourself, and then we shall be able to judge." So Mrs. Fry was called in and told to hold her tongue, and Tommy, who had hidden himself in her skirts, was brought forward.
Then the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Fry was come and had brought Tommy with her; on which Colonel Fitzdenys told the woman outright that she had been accused of bewitching the boy and depriving him of his speech. The woman's hard manner at once returned, and she laughed loud and scornfully. "That's only their lies," she said.
Elsie clapped her hands with delight, and a strange man's voice shouted "Bravo!" at the sound of which Lady Eleanor started and coloured for a moment. "'Tis surely his lordship from Fitzdenys Court," said Mrs. Fry, who had lowered her apron a little. "'Eas, 'tis.
It was well that in those dreary days she had been obliged to look after him and give him the comfort which he tried, but in vain, to give to her. She remembered how, for all his courage, the old gentleman had drooped and died after the death of his son, and how all ties with the old life seemed to be severed, but for George Fitzdenys' letters of sympathy.
There he locked his prisoner into a separate loose-box with a barred window, having first tied his wrists before him, instead of his thumbs behind him; and then he sought out pen and paper and wrote; a letter to Colonel Fitzdenys, which, though it was not very long, took him much time to write, and ran as follows:
Indeed they were still talking hard, and did not seem to want to be interrupted, when old Lord Fitzdenys came back to say that it was time for him to return. The old gentleman took his leave with the same stately courtesy; but both the children put up their cheeks to be kissed by Colonel George, who promised to come back to them soon. Then seeing Mrs.
George Fitzdenys was badly wounded in the first skirmish, two of the best troopers were killed and others wounded; and, after that, twelve months of service seemed to cut off member after member of what Fitzdenys had called the happiest troop in the Army.
"You cannot start until you have eaten something," was all that he said. "We may have a long ride and a long watch before us;" and Lady Eleanor gulped down a few morsels, for she felt, while hardly knowing why, that Colonel George had taken command and that she must obey orders. In a few minutes he finished writing and sent the letter back to Fitzdenys Court.
"Colonel Fitzdenys, I should say, whom I mind as the captain's lieutenant; come back only yesterday safe and sound from the Injies." "That's well," said Sally, "for a fine brave gentleman he is, as never passes me without a kind word.
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