

E-text prepared by Joel Erickson, Michael Ciesielski, David Garcia, and
the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



CHRISTIE, THE KING'S SERVANT

A Sequel to 'Christie's Old Organ'

By MRS. O.F. WALTON

AUTHOR OF 'CHRISTIE'S OLD ORGAN'
'A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES'
'THE KING'S CUPBEARER'
'SHADOWS' ETC ETC







[Illustration]




Contents


CHAPTER


     I RUNSWICK BAY
    II LITTLE JOHN
   III STRANGE MUSIC
    IV WHAT ARE YOU?
     V THE RUNSWICK SPORTS
    VI THE TUG OF WAR
   VII OVER THE LINE
  VIII A NIGHT OF STORM
    IX ASK WHAT YE WILL
     X WE KNOW
    XI LITTLE JACK AND BIG JACK
   XII WHERE ARE YOU GOING?






[Illustration]




Chapter I

RUNSWICK BAY


It was the yellow ragwort that did it! I have discovered the clue at
last. All night long I have been dreaming of Runswick Bay. I have been
climbing the rocks, talking to the fishermen, picking my way over the
masses of slippery seaweed, and breathing the fresh briny air. And all
the morning I have been saying to myself, 'What can have made me dream
of Runswick Bay? What can have brought the events of my short stay in
that quaint little place so vividly before me?' Yes, I am convinced of
it; it was that bunch of yellow ragwort on the mantelpiece in my
bedroom. My little Ella gathered it in the lane behind the house
yesterday morning, and brought it in triumphantly, and seized the best
china vase in the drawing-room, and filled it with water at the tap, and
thrust the great yellow bunch into it.

'Oh, Ella,' said Florence, her elder sister, 'what ugly common flowers!
How could you put them in mother's best vase, that Aunt Alice gave her
on her birthday! What a silly child you are!'

'I'm not a silly child,' aid Ella stoutly, 'and mother is sure to like
them; I know she will. _She_ won't call them common flowers. She
loves all yellow flowers. She said so when I brought her the daffodils;
and these are yellower, ever so much yellower.'

Her mother came in at this moment, and, taking our little girl on her
knee, she told her that she was quite right; they were very beautiful in
her eyes, and she would put them at once in her own room, where she
could have them all to herself.

And that is how it came about, that, as I lay in bed, the last thing my
eyes fell upon was Ella's bunch of yellow ragwort; and what could be
more natural than that I should go to sleep and dream of Runswick Bay?

It seems only yesterday that I was there, so clearly can I recall it,
and yet it must be twenty years ago. I think I must write an account of
my visit to Runswick Bay and give it to Ella, as it was her yellow
flowers which took me back to the picturesque little place. If she
cannot understand all I tell her now, she will learn to do so as she
grows older.

I was a young man then, just beginning to make my way as an artist. It
is slow work at first; until you have made a name, every one looks
critically at your work; when once you have been pronounced a rising
artist, every daub from your brush has a good market value. I had had
much uphill work, but I loved my profession for its own sake, and I
worked on patiently, and, at the time my story begins, several of my
pictures had sold for fair prices, and I was not without hope that I
might soon find a place in the Academy.

It was an unusually hot summer, and London was emptying fast. Every one
who could afford it was going either to the moors or to the sea, and I
felt very much inclined to follow their example. My father and mother
had died when I was quite a child, and the maiden aunt who had brought
me up had just passed away, and I had mourned her death very deeply, for
she had been both father and mother to me. I felt that I needed change
of scene, for I had been up for many nights with her during her last
illness, and I had had my rest broken for so long