heart not sorry to see the boy growing up so different from himself;
and Cyril, in spite of his father's faults, loved him. When Sir
Aubrey came back with unsteady step, late at night, and threw himself
on his pallet, Cyril would say to himself, "Poor father! How
different he would have been had it not been for his misfortunes! He
is to be pitied rather than blamed!" And so, as years went on, in
spite of the difference between their natures, there had grown up a
sort of fellowship between the two; and of an evening sometimes, when
his father's purse was so low that he could not indulge in his usual
stoup of wine at the tavern, they would sit together while Sir Aubrey
talked of his fights and adventures.

"As to the estates, Cyril," he said one day, "I don't know that
Cromwell and his Roundheads have done you much harm. I should have
run through them, lad--I should have diced them away years ago--and I
am not sure but that their forfeiture has been a benefit to you. If
the King ever gets his own, you may come to the estates; while, if I
had had the handling of them, the usurers would have had such a grip
on them that you would never have had a penny of the income."

"It doesn't matter, father," the boy replied. "I mean to be a soldier
some day, as you have been, and I shall take service with some of the
Protestant Princes of Germany; or, if I can't do that, I shall be
able to work my way somehow."

"What can you work at, lad?" his father said, contemptuously.

"I don't know yet, father; but I shall find some work to do."

Sir Aubrey was about to burst into a tirade against work, but he