"
Roy said no more, but though he listened and looked, the rest of the
time they were in the gallery, his thoughts were with the hero of the
Victoria Cross. He ran back to have one more look at him before they
went downstairs, and gazed up at the bold, frank bearing, and the
laughing mouth of the soldier, with wistful pity in his brown eyes.
"You served your Queen and country, but I expect you left out God," he
said, in a whisper; then he ran on to overtake the others.
After an early tea the boys were packed up in the trap to come home.
"Drive home as quickly as you can," said the general to the groom, "for
rain is not far off, and it will not do to let Master Fitz Roy get a
soaking; he looks as if a breath of wind will blow him away."
"I do hate people talking about me like that," Roy confided to Dudley as
they set off at a brisk rate; "I might just as well be a girl. I often
wonder I wasn't born one for all the good that I shall do in the world."
"That's all stuff," said Dudley, indignantly; "you'll be an awfully
strong man I expect when you grow up, you see if you aren't!"
Roy shook his head, and was unusually silent for some time. They were
driving through the outskirts of a village when down came the rain.
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