"pigpi10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yonge Charlotte M)

Edmund, and kissed us, and bade mother keep up a good heart. Don't
you remember that, Lucy?"

"I do," said Walter; "it was the last time we ever saw him."

And Walter sat on the table, resting one foot on the bench, while the
other dangled down, and leaning his elbow on his knee and his head on
his hand; Rose sat on the bench close by him, with Charlie on her
lap, and the two little girls pressing close against her, all earnest
to hear from her the story of the great fight of Naseby, where they
had all been in a farmhouse about a mile from the field of battle.

"I don't forget how the cannon roared all day," said Lucy.

"Ah! that dismal day!" said Rose. "Then by came our troopers, blood-
stained and disorderly, riding so fast that scarcely one waited to
tell my mother that the day was lost and she had better fly. But not
a step did she stir from the gate, where she stood with you, Charlie,
in her arms; she only asked of each as he passed if he had seen my
father or Edmund, and ever her cheek grew whiter and whiter. At last
came a Parliament officer on horseback--it was Mr. Enderby, who had
been a college mate of my father's, and he told us that my dear
father was wounded, and had sent him to fetch her."

"But I never knew where Edmund was then," said Eleanor. "No one ever
told me."

"Edmund lifted up my father when he fell," said Walter, "and was
trying to bind his wound; but when Colonel Enderby's troop was close
upon them, my father charged him upon his duty to fly, saying that he
should fall into the hands of an old friend, and it was Edmund's duty
to save himself to fight for the King another time."

"So Edmund followed Prince Rupert?" said Eleanor.

"Yes," said Lucy; "you know my father once saved Prince Rupert's life
in the skirmish where his horse was killed, so for his sake the
Prince made Edmund his page, and has had him with him in all his
voyages and wanderings. But go on about our father, Rose. Did we go
to see him?"

"No; Mr. Enderby said he was too far off, so he left a trooper to
guard us, and my mother only took her little babe with her. Don't
you remember, Walter, how Eleanor screamed after her, as she rode
away on the colonel's horse; and how we could not comfort the little
ones, till they had cried themselves to sleep, poor little things?
And in the morning she came back, and told us our dear father was
dead! O Walter, how can we look back to that day, and rejoice in a
new war? How can you wonder her heart should sink at sounds of joy
which have so often ended in tears?"