The Gentleman led up the shoulder of the hill, the tails of his long riding-coat flapping about his legs.
Kit, panting behind, admired him as he had never admired even Uncle Jacko. The man seemed to know no fear, striding rapidly on, his enemy behind him.
True, the boy's dirk still flashed in the other's hand; but the lad had his jack-knife; and his eyes dwelt on the place where he could plant it home and home in that black back—there by the seam, where it was a little worn.
And the man had the scent-bottle!
Surely a fellow would be justified….
"Now's your chance, Little Chap!" came the gay voice.
Kit, betrayed to his own soul, sniggered and put the dark thought away with shuddering disgust.
The man was a gentleman, the man trusted him. Once he had saved his life; and once spared it. Should he pay his debt with the jack-knife?
The long-striding figure went up the hill as though on wings.
Kit clambered at his spurs.
Escape he knew was vain. As well might a canary attempt to escape a hawk.
The scabbard of the other's sword poking and peeping between his tails caught the boy's eye and fascinated it. It had seen plenty that sword, he would bet! What tales it could tell!
How he should like to know!…
"Have you ever fought a duel?" he blurted out.
"Used to a bit. Not now."
"Why?—d'you think it wrong?"
The other flung back a merry laugh.
"No, my little Puritan. I gave it up, because it gave me up. You see, I never quite met my match with the small-sword. Or rather I did meet my match once, but the beggar wouldn't fight."
"Do tell," panted Kit, scenting a story.
"It was in Egypt—during the occupation. He was said to be the finest sword in the British Army—Abercromby's Black Cock, they called him. He'd a standing challenge out against any man of ours who'd take it up. Killed seven of our fellows in seven days, a man a morning, in single combat, between the outpost lines—all fair and square and according to Cocker, and the staffs of both Armies looking on. Sounds like a legend, don't it?—The eighth day I appeared to do battle with him. I was twenty-one at the time, and looked seventeen. It was to have been the great day of my life—and was the bitterest. Directly he saw me—'I don't fight with children,' says he, high and mighty as a turkey-cock, and turned on his heel. I wept." He laughed joyously at the reminiscence.
"Curious how small the world is," he continued. "Five years passed— five years full of things. Then one fine day, a few weeks back, I was over yonder at Birling Gap, waiting for a friend, when who should come strolling round the corner, smelling of roast beef and Old England, but my old friend of the curly pate and ruddy cheeks. I'd a minute or two to spare. So I introduced myself, and we adjourned to the beach at once."
"What happened that time?" asked the boy keenly.
"Why, Fat George!" replied the other. "And deuced lucky for MasterBlack Cock too. You see, he was fat and scant o breath."
They had climbed to the top of the world.
It lay spread before them, wide and wonderful; head in the heavens, feet in the sea miles beneath on every side.
On the brow beside them the blackened skeleton of a building stood up stark against the light.
The charred stump of a flag-staff pricked up out of the turf. On the scorched grass lay a singed red flag and tattered pendant.
"What's this?" whispered Kit.
The ghastly desolation of the ruins amid the sea of light and living green appalled him. Moreover he smelt death.
"Signal-station," said the Gentleman, hurrying by. "Black Diamond stormed it at dusk on Saturday night—just before I came along. They took it and burnt the men inside. Black Diamond did the storming—Fat George the burning, he and old Toadie."
"Brutes!" hissed Kit.
"I don't much care for Fat George and old Toadie myself," replied the Gentleman, rather white. "They seem to me scarcely—what shall I say? —spirituels…. Black Diamond was quite a different pair of shoes. A curious nature—three parts sheer devil, one part pure gentleman. I could tell you some strange tales about him."
They had turned their backs on the dark scene.
Before them the land rolled away, fold upon fold, the sea encircling it.
Big Jerry's coombe lay vast and vault-like beneath them on the right, certain dark specks in the centre of it.
They were not sheep, those specks: Kit knew what they were.
Over the shoulder of the coombe, a great flat bay, the sea white along the brown edge of it, swept away scimitar-wise into the mist.
The Gentleman stopped, his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Pevensey Bay! That is where the first Frenchman who ever conquered England landed. Hastings yonder! Battle Abbey over there!—my name on its Roll. Such a wonderful old Church!"
He stopped abruptly.
A ship, lying inshore beneath him, tiny on the plain of sea, had caught his eye.
He flashed round on the boy.
"What nationality?" fiercely, and with pointing finger.
Kit knew at a glance. Even at that distance the ship had something of the dishevelled appearance of a virago after a street-fight. She was the privateer.
"Double Dutchman."
A hand clutched his throat. Eyes of steel pierced him to the heart.
"Frenchman or English? tell, or take the consequences!"
"I couldn't tell you that," choking.
A python arm swept about him.
A face smiled into his.
"I knew you wouldn't. And I wouldn't have liked you if you had. But—"
The boy snapped his eyes. After all he couldn't blame the man!
It was no quick stab that he felt, no maddening darkness that drowned him; but a swift forward thrust that shot him down the slope of the coombe.
It was steep as the roof of a house. Down he pelted, headlong, his legs attempting to catch up his falling body. In vain: head over heels, rolling, bumping, tumbling, a ripple of mocking laughter pursuing him.
There was no danger, he knew. The bottom of the coombe was flat as a floor, the cliff running athwart it a quarter of a mile away.
At last he fetched up, battered and breathless.
Above him he could see the figure of the Gentleman tiny against the sky.
"Forgive me, Little Chap," came a far voice. "I am in a hole, and have to get out as best I can.Il faut que je file. Here is your little prodder."
His arm swung. Something flashed in the sky, fell, always flashing, and stuck in the hillside above him, quivering there.
It was the boy's dirk.
The Gentleman had gone, and the scent-bottle with him.
The boy stood on a track that ran among the gorse, and looked about him.
The wind was at his back, and the sun on his cheek. Above him the brow, rough with gorse, swelled up against the light.
He rushed up the hill into the sky.
On the top, he hunted the landscape with anxious eyes. There was nothing to be seen; no round but the zig-a-zig of the heartless grasshoppers, merry all about him, and the thunder of his own heart.
He swung round. About him, above him, below him, dumb earth, blind sea, deaf heaven.
What was his agony to them?
His hopes died, and he with them. Here was the end of his mission and the end of him.
Old Ding-dong had trusted him—and now!
Mother believed in him—and now!
There would be no Lewes before breakfast; no London before night; noNelson to-morrow morning.
A jackdaw chuckled overhead; a far sheep bleated; a great beetle, with black wing-cases flung back, roared by.
For the rest, all was silence and despair.
He had hoped greatly; he had tried hard; and failed utterly.
Above all he had not eaten for twenty-four hours.
The boy sat down and wept.
About him in the turf the grasshoppers kept up their accursed zig-a- zig. Little cads! At least they might be gentlemen enough not to crack their jokes just now.
The thought tickled him. He began to smile. Plucking a grass-blade, he smote one of his annoyers across the tail. It hopped gloriously. The boy laughed, and rose to his feet, his heart rising with him.
After all he had done his best. Now he must get to Lewes and make his report.
He started.
About him the turf was bare and brown. Here a patch of tall thistles, hoary-crowned, stood out among grey bents. There a clump of gorse and bramble darkened the turf.
Before him a sea of long smooth hills, billow behind billow, rolled in on him out of Infinity. It seemed to him that a giant wind had crept beneath the carpet of green and lifted it. Smooth as water it flowed down to the sea on every side. There were no trees, no hedges, no habitations. It was the loneliest land he had ever seen, and one of the loveliest. Here Earth, the Woman, rounded and beautiful, reclined at her ease before him, naked as God had made her. How different she was from that savagely shaggy man-land in the North whence he sprang! But for a haystack like a hive on a far ridge, a fold in a hollow, and the hillsides patched here and there with plough, it might have been an uninhabited land.
Here he was alone with the Eternal.
A poet to the heart, the boy's soul rose within him. For the moment he forgot his troubles. He was walking on the back of the world, his head in heaven. Beneath him rose the sea, sheer as a wall. The sight of it, dropped from heaven, as it seemed, filled him with awe. It was so near, and yet so far.
The breeze had fallen; all was still. He could hear the rustle of the tide, and the chuckle of jackdaws. Overhead a raven flapped by with slow-skewing head.
Horror of loneliness swept upon the boy. He shrank into his body. The windows of his spirit shut with a bang. Night came down.
All was darkness, mortality, and fear.
Somewhere at the bottom of the coombe beneath lay that ring of still things. Behind rose the blackened skeleton of the signal-station—and heaven knew what inside! He glanced back fearfully. They weren't after him—yet.
He took to his heels, and ran, screaming.
A familiar face greeted him. In a flash he recognised it—a meadow- brown come all the way from Northumberland to comfort him. That was beautiful of the meadow-brown, it was Christian of the meadow-brown, seeing the war to the death that he and Gwen had waged against it at home.
The butterfly gave its message to the boy's heart and settling on a blue flower, began to sip leisurely. Dash it!—the meadow-brown wasn't afraid. Need he be?
His soul took charge again with a smile.
Over there on the left that sheer white bluff, thrusting out into the sea, would be Seaford Head.
Beyond it lay Newhaven; behind it somewhere Lewes. To get there he had only to keep along the highlands.
He held on at a steady jog-trot. The grass sparkled with dew; mushroom bulbs shoved through the turf at his toes; above him and beneath all was blaze.
He crossed a shoulder, threading the gorse; skirted the edge of another huge coombe, troughed out beneath him; passed an ancient withered elder, squatting crone-like on the brow, and climbed a knoll that rose up bald out of the gorse.
He topped the crest, and stopped suddenly. A little dewy-eyed pond, blue as the sky, was staring at him out of a saucer of green.
In a moment he was on his knees at the edge of it, and drinking greedily. Then he took off his coat and laid it on the edge of the saucer to dry.
That done he flung himself on his back to think.
After all there was no hurry. Young as he was, he knew his England well enough to know the reception that awaited him at Lewes. He could see them about him, that cluster of Army officers, as he told his story—stonily incredulous, grimly silent, some sniggering, others jeering openly. The boy's head had been turned by his first brush!— You'd only to look at him to see his sort—the romantic sort, commonly called liars! Great eyes like a girl! What did a chap with eyes like that want in the Service?—Scent-bottle—loss of theTremendous—kidnapping Nelson! Lorlumme, what a yarn!
A clamour of feet close by startled his heart. He leapt up, expecting cavalry.
But no: it was a patter-footed multitude of sheep, who welled in staring yellow flood over the edge of the saucer and down to the pond. Behind them stalked Abraham, a black and white bobtail at heel.
The patriarch wore a slouch-hat and old cloak, loose as a cloud. A wild beard flamed all about him; and in his hand was a long crook. He stood on the rim of the saucer and looked down at his drinking flock.
Kit expected him to raise his hands and bless somebody. Instead he spat luxuriously, and addressed his dog in gibberish.
"Ge ou tha go!" he growled, and only the dog knew he was being desired to get out of that gorse.
Kit watched the man placidly. Instinct, which is inherited experience, reassured him. There was nothing to be feared from this chap, and nothing to be got from him. Abraham was shaggy, he was unintelligible, he was harmless.
In his few days' experience of life, the boy had already learned one great truth: that every man is exactly what helooks. The face always reveals or betrays. And in this face, wild with the wildness of storms and skies, there was nothing but the stupid innocence of one of his own sheep.
The man threw at the boy one shy glance of a woodland creature, and then ignored him. Another moment and he was stalking on his way, with floating cloak, tall crook, dog at heel, a mass of yellow backs rippling along in front of him.
The boy stood on the rim of the saucer and looked down.
Dim green lowlands lay beneath him, spurs of the Downs thrusting out into them.
Beyond, the bay swept away saucer-wise, the sea white along its brown edge. From his feet a shoulder, dark with gorse, plunged seaward. Beneath the swell of it, a level plain ran away to the shore, heaving up there in a little hillock that stood out from the beach as a bump of green.
Off the hillock lay the privateer hove-to. Another boat hung at her stern. The boy recognised it at once. It was the luggerKite.
Behind the hillock, upon the plain, stood a solitary cottage.
At that cottage, lonely in a sea of turf, the boy stared long and earnestly.
It was flying a flag out of the chimney.
And that flag—yes—no—yes—was the Union Jack.
He was off the rim and rushing down through the gorse with thumping heart.
True, Ding-dong had ordered him with his last breath to steer clear of human habitation—"They're all in it," the old man had said. But then he possessed the scent-bottle. Now he had nothing but his skin to lose, and as things were he could afford to lose that. Here at any rate was a straw to catch at. Moreover he was in no hurry to get to Lewes to be called a liar.
Of course it might only prove to be some loyal old lady, flying her colours dauntlessly in the face of the Frenchman. Just such a thing his mother might do; and there were thousands of her like up and down the country—thank heaven for it!
On the other hand it might be a temporary signal-station. After the sacking of the station on Beachy Head, what more likely than that this cottage should be seized for Government purposes and garrisoned?—his own chaps too, sailors—not those swaggering snobs in red coats.
If so, he saw his course clear as day.
There was the privateer. Somewhere among these huge smooth hills lurked the Gentleman, primed with his fatal message. Between the two was one boat, and so far as he knew one only—the long-boat of the smugglers.
If his surmise were correct, and this should prove a blockade-house, he would take the garrison, though it consisted of only half-a-dozen men, attack the Gang, and smash the boat at all costs.
The boy plunged down the hill.
The sun beat fiercely on his head, but he hardly felt it.
Along a track that snaked through the gorse, he pushed his way, flies buzzing about him. A shining gossamer lay across his path, bosom-high. From it a web swung in the wind. At the centre, where the threads met, a black and yellow spider, marked like a man of war, waited its prey. The lad brushed through it with a pang. The spider's work fell about him in ruins: he rushed for the gorse, and hung there topsy-turvy, as though heart-broken. Hard lines certainly! He had upset the spider's apple-cart, as the Almighty had upset his. But he hadhadto— and so no doubt had the Almighty.
He turned as he ran.
"Cheer up, old chap!" he hollaed back to his friend, crouching among the ruins of his home. "It'll all come out in the washing."
Fluffy thistle-heads, reminding him of Gwen's young chickens, stood up out of the gorse all about him. The bunched blackberries were ripening now: he almost expected to see Gwen's face, purple-mouthed, peering at him from a bramble. All about him the silver-downed gorse-pods were snapping like pistols. A stone-chat with ruddy breast spurted out of the gorse, and flirted upwards.
The path broadened; the gorse grew scantier. His feet crushed sweetness out of the thyme. Here and there a young ash thrust up feathery.
Of a sudden he found himself again at the top of one of those almost sheer descents to which he was becoming used.
At its foot grew a hanger of beeches, already bronzing to autumn.
Down he went, slithering on hands and tail, picked himself up towards the bottom, and ran away into the shade of the wood to find himself among silver-grey beech-stems.
How refreshing it was after the glare, how rich, how dark!
Till he was out of it, he had not known how hot it had been on the bare hill-side. Now he was aware of the sweat on his forehead, and a dripping shirt.
Beech-stems rose in stately columns all about him. The floor was red and brown mosaic, the roof a tracery of leaves intertwined with light. Eastward the sun flashed as through a window. Close by a wood-pigeon was praying.
Out of the aisle once again into the glare.
Now the Downs lay behind him, barren and dun. On his left-front the rounded bosom of another beech-wood rose, in its midst a single chestnut already rusting. Across the valley, behind a ridge, a blunt church-tower and yellow-lichened roofs peeped. On the hill beyond, a windmill cocked up against the sky.
He paid little attention, making straight for the flag of his country.
The cottage stood about a quarter of a mile away, conspicuously solitary in the greensward, the Union Jack brave above it.
The boy approached, wary but swift. Out here on the open plain there was no cover. He was exposed as a fly on a sheet of paper. Still things couldn't be worse—he comforted himself with that most comfortable of thoughts.
Some two hundred yards from the cottage a ruined wall ran across the greensward. Behind it the boy took cover and spied.
The cottage was very small; yet, small as it was it was grim to a degree. The flint in rows, tier upon tier, grinned at him fiercely, reminding him of a dog showing its teeth. The colour of steel, the rows of set teeth, the shaggy roof of thatch, the flag ruffling it from the chimney, all bespoke the same sturdy fighting character. Indeed it was so small, and yet so truculent, that Kit laughed to see it.
Chained there a dumb watch-dog on the threshold of its country, it seemed to be saying as it crouched—
"You can all go to sleep: I'm watching."
Kit crossed the wall, and almost expected to hear the cottage growl.
Warily he approached. As he did so, the warrior aspect of the cottage grew upon him. It was less a cottage than a tiny fort. There were only three windows, one on each side the door, and a dormer. The lower windows though latticed were cross-barred; and the door of massive oak, iron-studded, was heavy enough for a castle. Through it, ajar, he caught the gleam of arms.
Certainly this was no peasant's cottage. What was it then?—a signal- station?—
There was no flag-staff, no signal-tackle.
Some lonely smuggler's hold?—not likely: for there was the flag.
Could the flag be a decoy?
There was nothing for it but to go and see.
He stole forward with noisy heart.
The cottage crouched; the sycamores behind it rustled; and the wind that stirred the sycamores brought to him the sound of a voice.
He stopped, fingering his dirk.
Friend or enemy?
The voice was that of a man, deeply melodious without being exactly musical, and came from beyond the cottage somewhere by the clump of sycamores behind.
It was humming a tune, and a tune the boy knew well. Holding his breath, and listening with his heart, the boy could distinguish the words—
Jesu, Lover of my Soul.
Those familiar words, so unexpected in that strange place, smote the boy's heart.
A thousand memories surged in on him.
His lips trembled. A very little, and he would have fallen on his knees.
It was as though an Angel had come to him walking through the Valley of the Shadow, to tell him all was well, and to go forward.
And forward he went with thankful heart.
The sea of turf ran right up to the wall, and broke against it. The windows, seen close, were less windows than loop-holes, barred across. On the sill of one was a pot of musk, newly watered, and very fragrant. Within upon the wall shimmered a ship's cutlass, and a brace of pistols.
The boy peered in.
A kitchen-parlour, raftered and paved with stone, formed the ground- floor. At one end was a huge fire-place; in the opposite corner a bed, piled high with clothes. A ladder led to a trap-door in the low ceiling. The sun flooded into the room through the one window in the other wall. The door on that side was half open; and behind it sat a man.
He was all in black, and very neat: an Englishman, a gentleman, and a parson, Kit would have sworn.
His back was turned. The boy could see nothing but a black coat, a pair of solid shoulders, and a curly head.
This was not the hymn-singer to be sure. He was otherwise engaged. There was something across his knees, and he was tending to it, and talking as he worked.
From his actions and his words, Kit would have sworn that he was bathing a child. For the man was talking as women talk to babies, and some men to the women they love—that little talk, half tender, half mocking, such nonsense, and so sweet.
Then something flashed and sparkled against the dark of the door; and Kit saw it was no babe that lay across the man's knees, but a naked blade.
He was furbishing it with a chamois leather, and caressing it with words.
Now he lifted the blade on flat hands, and kissed the point reverently.
Then he leaned forward, and peered round the half open door with extraordinary stealth.
Comic as the action was, there was yet something terrible about it.
Kit choked with laughter and fear.
The man was half child playing peep-bo! and half spider waiting for a fly.
That vision of the Eternal Child, which he had surprised in the eyes of old Ding-dong sailing into action, was manifest in this man too.
Were men only children?—Yes, surely!—the good ones, at least. Only sinners grew old. Christian never ages.
The man's head turned a trifle. There was a smile flickering about his lips; and in the smile was something of the ogre, and something of the boy.
It was clear that he meant to kill; equally clear that he took joy in his purpose.
He sat down again; and as he did so held up a finger, hushing himself.
He was playing a game, unaware that he was being watched, and enjoying it intensely.
Behind the door he sat now, blade in hand, spider-still.
Plainly he was waiting for somebody.
But for whom?—and what would happen when that somebody came?
The door opened another inch or two, and through it, Kit saw the privateer, black on the white water.
In a flash he understood.
The man was waiting for the French.
The humour of the thing—this lonely swordsman lying in wait behind the door for the crew of the privateer—seized the boy by the throat. The laughter poured out of him headlong.
The man leapt round, dark-faced and terrible. In a twinkle he was across the floor, wary as a panther.
The door opened.
Out he came, thrusting stealthily, his blade leading him. His flanks were covered, himself almost unseen in the dark of the door.
Whatever else the man might be, he was a soldier born.
Then he saw the boy and halted on the threshold.
A man more aggressively English Kit thought he had never seen.
Forty or thereabouts, five feet ten high, and perfectly compact: he wore no wig, and his hair broke in crisp grey curls all about his head: a ruddy face, fighting jowl, and blue eyes, kindled with equal ease to savagery or smiles.
The boy's heart leapt to those eyes, as it leapt to the first blossom starring the black-thorn after winter's desolation. There was hope in them, the hope of Spring.
The man smelt of roast beef and Old England.
Kit loved him at a glance. And was he a stranger?—Had he not fought with this man, hunted with him, died with him a thousand times of old? Had they not stood shoulder to shoulder, and back to back, in many a desperate venture in the past that haunted him? Had he not tried him time and again on the anvil of hard experience, always to find that he rang true? Would he fail him now at his need, this old comrade, who had never failed him before? No. That old sense of the familiarity of all experience swept in on him with staggering force.
Drawn as in a dream, he stepped forward and took the other's hand.
"Friend," he said.
The man lowered his point. His eyes drank in the boy's face.
"So be it," he answered, twinkling.
The blue eyes lived in the brown ones; the hands gripped.
"My name is Caryll—Christopher Caryll."
The other nodded over him.
"Christopher Caryll, called by his mother Kit: an officer of the SeaService, eh?"
The boy's eyes brightened.
"Yes, sir. How did you know?"
"I remember a Kit Caryll by name in the Mediterranean in the nineties. And I ought to know the King's uniform, seeing I was a King's officer myself before I took orders."
"A sailor?"
"Sailor be d'd!" cried the Parson, heartily. "I'd sooner be a cod- fish. No, sir, no: I hate the sea like I hate the French. D'you think if the Almighty had meant me for the water, He'd have troubled to give me that?" He thrust forth his right leg, and dwelt fondly on the calf, contracting and relaxing it.
"But I forget my manners."
He bent over his blade with tenderest chivalry.
"Will you allow me," with a sweep, "to introduce to your ladyship a young gentleman of the sister Service? Mr. Caryll—Lady Polly Kiss-me- quick."
He averted the sword, and shielding his mouth, whispered confidentially—
"The sweetest of her sex, Mr. Caryll, but that hot after the men you wouldn't believe."
Kit threw back his head and gurgled. Only fifteen, and man enough not to be ashamed to be a boy, he still loved make-believe. And his heart went out to this man, who was after all a brother-boy.
"No, I wasn't a sailor. I had my company in the King's Black Borderers," continued the Parson—"the old Blackguards, as they call us, of whom you may have heard."
The boy's eyes flashed.
"I should think I had!" he cried. "It was a brute in the Borderers nearly killed my Uncle Jacko in a duel—in Corsica—in '94. A chap called Joy. He was a notorious bully—a cursing swearing fellow. After-wards he died of drink, mother says. Uncle Jacko was her favourite brother."
The other's face had chilled.
"And what was mother's favourite brother's name—if I may ask?"
"Gordon, sir—Jacko Gordon."
"Jacko Gordon—the Horse-Gunner!" laughed the Parson. "Ha! ha! ha!"
"Did you know him, sir?"
The Parson tossed his Polly in the air, and caught her deftly.
"Did we know him? did we not? You remember Jacko Gordon, my lady?—and the sands of Calvi?"
"That was where the bully fought him!" cried Kit. "Ran him through the fore-arm when he wasn't ready."
A dark breeze swept across the other's face.
"He was ready; and it was not the fore-arm," he replied with icy chilliness. "It was the wrist; was it not, my own?" bending over his blade…. "Yes; he had a lovely wrist—until she kissed it…." He shrugged. "But what would you?—'Calves!' says he; and it was before the mess-tent—' d'you call those things? yours calves?'—'And what d'you call em yourself?' says I, mighty polite. 'Why,cows in calf!'says he, and swaggers off with a silly guffaw.
"After that there was nothing for it but the usual of course. I ran him through the wrist. He dropped his blade….
"'D'you withdraw?' says I, she straining for his heart.
"'What I have said, I have said,' he answered, white as silver and steady as the firmament.
"Then little man Nelson knocked up my sword—
"'That'll do, Black Cock,' says he. 'A joke's a joke; but a brave man's death's a mighty bad joke. She's a little blood-sucker that lady o yours.' And nobody but Nelson'd ha dared to say it."
The boy was staring hard.
"Did they call you Black Cock, sir? Abercromby's Black Cock?"
"That's me, sir, at your service," replied the Parson—"Joy of Battle in the Regiment, Abercromby's Black Cock in the Army. What of it?"
"I met a man who knew you this morning."
The other's eyes leapt.
"Chap with a beak on a chestnut!—handsome young scoundrel!—Frenchified, theatrical, bit o red riband stuck on his stomach."
"That's the man, sir."
"Well, what of him?—Quick!"
Kit repeated the tale of Egypt, as the Gentleman had told it.
The other listened with rapt interest.
"It's all true," he said, "true as the Bible."
He was pacing up and down, his hands behind him.
"There was a time in my life," he began at last "when I had—er—the regrettable habit of—er—using foul language, as your Uncle Jacko may have told you. Never filthy language! never that. I always swore like a gentleman. Chucked the d's and b's and g's about a bit too merry. Well, one day—it was in Egypt—I was carrying on a bit, when a pious sort of ass I knew at home, who was standing by, said—'I wonder what your mother'd think if she heard you now, Harry Joy.' So after I'd given him some for imself, I went back to my tent and thought a bit.
"You see I'd just heard from home that poor old mother was failing. And I couldn't help thinking—Now supposing she dies, and first thing she hears when she gets to heaven is her boy loosing off on earth!…
"So I took an oath Samson-style, and I prayed I and I said—'Look here, Lord, if you'll look over what's past, and help me keep a clean tongue in future, I'll kill you a Frenchman a day for seven days….'
"So I sent a challenge into their lines. There was nothing stirring just then, and they took the thing up very readily. The business took place before reveille out in the desert, between the out-post lines at a place they got to call the cock-pit. All the bloods and bucks on both sides used to come out to see the fun. It was the regular thing— to see Black Cock breakfast….
"Well, on the seventh morning as they were carting their chap away, and I was wiping my sword, a swaggering great Cuirassier turned round and shouted,
"'To-morrow we bring David to slay your Goliath!'
"'D'you hear that, Black Cock?' says Olifant, the Guardsman. 'Are you game?'—'I'm not tired, if they ain't,' says I."
His blue eyes began to twinkle.
"Next dawn, when I got to the Cock-pit, and saw their champion, why, he was a boy!—a boy like a girl!—one of these pretty pink and white things, all eyes and legs and a silly smile. 'I am David,' says he. 'Then go back to Jesse,' says I, pretty short. 'I don't fight with kids.'… And that afternoon I sent him a bottle of milk with my compliments."
The Parson stopped his pacing, and looked the boy in the eyes.
"Next day they broke us, sir,—broke the Black Borderers in square."
"Who did?"
The Parson was breathing deep, and his eyes were smouldering.
"The Legion d'Irlande. No other regiment in the world could have got in; and once in, no other regiment in the world but ours could have got em out, though I say it as shouldn't."
Voice and eyes burst into thunder and flame.
"And who led em? Why, my boy-girl friend storming along on an old white Arab, and laughing like the devil. 'Here, they come!' yells the Colonel.'Prepare for—Cavalree!'I jumped on to the big drum, and had a squint over the men's heads. Lor! I can see the dust of em now—like a mighty great wave sweeping across the desert, and the boy on the white Arab coming along like an earthquake six lengths before the lot. It sent me screaming mad to see em. 'Come on, ye dirty black- a-mouths!' I screeched. 'Irish stew for the rebel brigade!' 'Hullo, Black Cock!' he cried, and I saw him grinning through the dust. 'I'm going to cut your comb.' And he took the old horse by head, and rammed him at us—slap-bang, like riding at a bull-finch; and the whole blanky lot after him."
The Parson was stamping up and down, roaring out his story, his eyes laughing and battle-lusty.
"Such a hell of a hugger-mugger you never saw! They rolled in on us like the sea. Rough and tumble every man for himself—stab somebody— don't matter who!" He paused to pant. "It was the day of my life. The Colonel was down; the Majors were dead; the Captains heaven-knows- where. Our old Raven banner, that we took from their Black Horse at Dettingen was in the dust, the Junior Ensign tumbled up in it all anyhow. 'Got it, Miss B.?' I cried. 'Here!' squeals the poor little chap. 'Heave her up!' Then a horse jumped on him, and put him out of his pain.
"I got the old rag up somehow. 'Round this, men!' I yelled, jumping on the Colonel's dead charger. Get round, ye blanky blanks!' Then I saw this boy-girl chap grinning above me. 'Slash away!' I roared. 'Here's one for yourself!' and I jabbed the staff in his mug. 'No,' says he, as jolly as you like, 'I don't fight with poultry!' And dam-my-soul!— if he don't sneak his hand under the rag and tweak my nose!—this nose!" the Parson squeaked, tapping it—"this nose upon this face! this nose I'm talking to you out o now! And he jumped that wallopin old white out the way he came. 'Come along, children,' says he. 'You've had quite enough for one meal.' And away he goes, laughing like the devil, his blessed pathriots after him."
The tempest in the Parson's wrathful blue eyes subsided.
"Yes, that was my first real meeting with Fighting Fitz."
"Was that Fighting Fitz?" cried the boy, ablaze.
He had heard, as who had not, of the brilliant young Irishman whomNapoleon had called the first light cavalryman in Europe afterMarengo.
"That was Fighting Fitz of Green Brigade fame," said the Parson, mopping his forehead. "We knew him as the Boy Sabreur in Egypt. Even then it was said that no woman could resist him, and no man stand up against him. He went out with young de Beauharnais, Boney's step-son, and ran him through the body; and he carried on an intrigue with … but there! there!… When he was First Consul, Boney decorated him before the Army, and disgraced him within the year. They said the little Corporal began to be jealous: the men worshipped Fitz…. Anyway I know it'll be the regret of my life that I missed my chance when I first met him." He sighed profoundly.
"But you met him again, didn't you, sir?"
The Parson nodded.
"Last month. I was up on Beachy Head with the spy-glass, when I saw theKitebeating up for Cuckmere Haven. So I ran down to Birling Gap thinking—thinking—" he coughed—"she might a—a—be bringing me a little present from France—a bit o bacca, or dallop o tea, or what not, ye know…. What ye say?"
He turned on the boy savagely.
"I didn't say anything," replied Kit, astonished.
The Parson scowled.
"Well, as I swung round into the cutting I nearly ran into a chap on a chestnut—quite the Corinthian, with a bit o red riband stuck on his stomach. I brought up sharp on my heels.
"'Well, my fine fellow,' thinks I, 'what you posing here for?—and why's that mare in a lather?' But before I could say anything—
"'Hullo!' says he, 'I think I should know that nose.'
"'What ye mean?' says I, pretty sharp.
"'Why,' says he, 'I once had the pleasure of pulling it.'
"Then he laughed. And directly he laughed of course I knew.
"I put my hand upon my sword.
"'And what you doing attitudinising inmyland, my lord?' saysI, the bristles at the back of my neck rising. 'Play-acting yourCaesar about to conquer Britain by the look o you!'
"'Why, your Majesty,' says he, 'I'm out for a ride onyourland.'
"I gave him a look.
"'Shall we adjourn to the beach?' says I.
"'Charmed,' says he—'if I'm not too young.'
"And he cocked his leg over the mare's withers, and slid down. 'Now, old lady!' says he. 'You know your own way.' And he gave her a spank; and off she went with a make-believe kick at him, up the hillside and out of sight.
"We went down to the beach, and took our coats off."
The Parson's eyes began to twinkle.
"Yes: the bully had met his match for once—and a bit more. After a very few minutes that was clear. 'How d'you feel?' says he. 'Why, right as rain,' I panted. But I knew he had me. And I knew by the look in his eyes he knew it too. 'True 'tis pity,' says he, running his eye over my shirt.
"'Get on with it,' I says, pretty gruff. 'I must play pussy-cat with my fat mouse,' says he. 'Where'd you like it?' and I must say he was mighty courteous about it. Well, I was just going to tell him, when somebody banged me over the head from behind…. I fell on my face, and a mountain seemed to fall on top of me. 'Shall I knife him, my lord?' comes a voice like a girl's. Then—'Get off, you dung! or I'll make muck o you!'—'I ony thought, my lord—'—'Think, swine!youthink!' And smack—smack goes his sword! The mountain got off. The lord was kneeling by my side.
"'I hope to the deuce you're not hurt, sir,' says he, very concerned.
"I got to my knees.
"'Thanks to you, my lord, I'm not.'
"'It was Big Belly there,' says he, helping me to my feet…. 'These fellows don't understand our ways.'
"'That's the worst of dabbling in dirty water,' says I.
"'Ah, it's not the water—it's the fish you meet in it I mind,' he says.
"He picked up my sword, and gave it me.
"I was trying to walk.
"'Here, take my arm,' says he. 'You've had about two ton o bad man upset on top o you.' And he walked me up and down that beach, tender as a lady—pon my soul he did.
"Just then I heard a holloa.
"'No time to cut to waste, my lord,' sings out someone. 'We've a clear run now, but only knows how long we shall have.'
"Then I saw theKite'slong-boat beached close by, and Diamond and a couple of his chaps standing by.
"The lord took me to a rock, and made me sit down.
"I wonder if you'll excuse me,' says he. 'I'm due to dine with little Boney tonight at eight sharp, and I must be up to time. Truth is I'm not in the Little Corporal's best books just now. He caught Josephine and me amusing ourselves in the rose-walk at Malmaison last week; and he wasn't best pleased.'
"And he took off his hat in his theatrical Frenchified way and went down to the boat.
"I sat on the rock, brushing my knees.
"Diamond shoved her off.
"'Good-day, Parson,' says he, grinning.
"'So this is your smuggling, Diamond!' I roared, shaking my fist at him.
"'Yes,' says he, 'I'm about as good a smuggler as you are Parson.'
"That made me mad.
"'I'm an Englishman anyway and not a blanky traitor!' I roared. 'Here's something to remember me by!' and I snatched the pistol out o my tail-pocket, and snapped it at him.
"The ball went through the full of his shirt.
"'Ah,' says he, mighty nasty, 'I'll drop a return card on you one o' these days, Mr. Clergyman. And don't you forget it.'
"Then the lord stood up and waved.
"'Thank you for a very pleasant afternoon, Mr. Joy,' he called. 'MayI sayau revoir?'
"'The same to you, my lord,' I answered. 'And the sooner the better.'
"And that's the last I saw of him…. And now what I want to know iswhere is he?—for I'm after him."
"It's a long story," said Kit.
The Parson took him by the arm, and led the way into the kitchen.
It was more like a guard-room than a parlour. Clearly no woman reigned here. All was wood, or stone, or steel, clean as a ship, and as comfortless. Arms on the wall; iron-barred windows; no carpets, no curtains, no fal-lals.
The only soft thing in the room was the bed in the corner, piled high with clothes; the only ornament a print above the chimney-piece.
"It looks more like a fort than a kitchen," whispered Kit, awed.
"Ah, thereby hangs a tale!" replied the Parson.
He drew up before the face on the wall.
"You know who that is?" he asked, one hand on the boy's shoulder.
Kit laughed.
It was the face that had hung in old Ding-dong's cabin, that was hanging at that hour in thousands of English homes.
"A Colonel of Marines," continued the Parson—"Nelson by name." [Footnote: In 1795 Nelson was appointed Honorary Colonel of Marines in recognition of his services in the Mediterranean.]
"Indeed," said the boy ironically. "I'd a notion he was a sailor."
The other made no answer. Indeed he did not hear. He stood before the print, worshipping it.
"Every night and morning I say my prayers before that picture," he continued quietly, all the laughter out of his voice. And there was something profoundly stirring about the solemnity with which he added,
"If it's God's will that our country shall be saved, there is the man will save it!"
The boy looked up at him.
"Sir," he said, "Nelson will save the country, if we can save Nelson."
Kit told his tale.
The Parson listened without a word, his hands folded, and face inscrutable.
His silence chilled the boy.
"D'you believe me, sir?" he flashed out at last.
"Believe the boy!" cried the Parson fiercely. "Why, Isawthe fight. I was dancing mad at the foot of the cliff. Great heavens, sir!—didn't you hear me holloa? I should have thought they'd have heard me in France. Why, for the first and last time in my life, I wanted to be a sailor myself!"
Kit finished with a free heart, withholding nothing: the death of Black Diamond; the fight with the privateers; the end of old Ding- dong; and the scene with the Gentleman on the cliff.
The Parson drank in the lad's words. His eyes were grave; his brow furrowed. So stern he seemed, his face so smileless under those laughing curls, that Kit hardly recognised in him the boy-hearted swordsman of a few minutes since.
The story finished, he sat long unmoving; his mouth set, and eyes inward.
Then he began to pace up and down again.
"My prayer is heard," he said at last, and stopping turned to the boy.
"Kit Caryll, d'you know what I am?"
"You look like a—kind of a clergyman, sir."
"And that is what I am," replied the other a touch defiantly. "I am inHoly Orders in my own humble way."
He began pacing once more.
"We all have our weaknesses, sir…. My mother was mine…. She should have been the mother of saints rather than of a—' bully swordsman!'— I think that was the phrase?" cocking a blue eye at the boy.
"After Egypt I came home to find her dying…. Well, she entreated me to forsake my profession and become a Christian—'for my sake, Harry,' says she…. I argued it with her. I told her it was good work, God's work, to kill the French. I said I looked on myself as a Crusader fighting the Moors, as indeed I did. But she wouldn't hear of it. She said the Moors were black and the French white, and that made just all the difference…. And she begged so hard—and—and—"
His back was to the boy, and he was looking out of the window.
It was some time before he went on.
"I couldn't say her no then. So I told her I'd do as she wished and take Orders. But I made one condition. 'I won't go to the French; but if the French come to me, then,' I said, 'surely, mother, I may up and smite!' She gave me that. You see, she never thought they would come."
He cleared his throat.
"Well, the Bishop wouldn't give me a cure, because I didn't know the Catechism. So I kicked my heels till the Peace was broken, and things looked up a bit. And when little Boney began to get his Army of England together on the cliffs yonder, I cheered up, and came and pitched my tent on the nearest spot I could find to be ready. And here I've been ever since.
"On calm summer evenings I've seen the cliffs of France from Beachy Head, and with the spy-glass I've thought I've made out the tents of Lannes' camp. That's been bread and meat to me these two years past. Then a month ago I had that little affair with my lord. That knocked ten years off my life. I've been in training ever since. Today I think I'm a better man than I've ever been." He inhaled a deep breath, swelling his chest.
"And this morning, when I woke and saw that ship hove-to off the Wish, and old Piper told me she was a Frenchman, I just went down on my two knees and thanked God for His great mercies."
He blew his nose boisterously.
"Then I ran up my colours to tempt em ashore. And I've been waiting in hope ever since."
He clapped on his hat.
"And now the first thing to be done is to hold a Council of War with old Piper."
The boy looked up shyly.
"Could I have something to eat first, sir? I haven't tasted food for twenty-four hours."
The Parson fussed off to the cupboard.
"Just like me. Just like a man. No thought—no consideration. All comes of there being no woman about the place."
He brought out a knuckle of ham, a loaf, a pot of jam, and a jug of milk.
As he did so there came a groaning gurgle from the corner.
The Parson whirled round and shot a denouncing finger at the piled bed.
"You dare!" he roared.
"I was ony sniffin, sir," whimpered a cockney voice.
Then for the first time Kit saw that in the bed lay a man. A shaven head, pert and pug-like, and a face shining with sweat protruded. All the rest was lost beneath that mountain of clothes.
As Kit stared, the man winked a merry brown eye at him.
The boy approached.
"Isn't it rather stuffy under all those clothes?" he asked compassionately.
"It's like a h'oven, sir—that ot!" chirped the little man.
"You'll go to a much hotter place when you die, if you so much as stir a finger out," called the Parson with firm cheerfulness. "I'm a Parson, mind you. I know what I'm talkin about."
"Ah, I know you wouldn't go for to put a pore bloke away for fetchin his thumb to mop a drop o sweat off his conk," whined the other.
"Ha! you sweat, Knapp?"
"I spouts pushpiration, sir!"
"Capital, capital!" The Parson hopped across the room and bent his ear to the bed. "I can almost hear him simmer!" He twinkled up at Kit. "It's the very weather for him. He's in a sweet muck-sweat. Lying between two feather-beds, ain't you, me boy?"
He sat down on the table beside the eating lad.
"That's Nipper Knapp. He was my batman in the Borderers. I brought him down here to train, while I was waiting for the French. Such a pretty little bit o stuff! Arms like legs, and legs like bodies. I'll strip him for you one day. Only thing is I have to sweat the meat off him so. Get a belly on him in a day, little pig, if I'd let him."
He spoke of the man much as a farmer speaks of his beasts. The boy's sensitive soul recoiled.
"He can hear every word," he whispered.
"I don't mind," replied the Parson cheerfully.
"Nor don't I," chirped the voice from the bed.
"And what are you training him for?" asked Kit—"the Church, like yourself?"
"No, sir!" retorted the Parson shortly. "I'm training him to make the best use he can of the gifts God has given him—that's his hands and his feet. He can rattle his dukes, and chuck his trotters, as I never saw man yet. Strips ten six. All good, too; all guts. You can't glut him…. I'm backing him to run ten miles in the hour against any man in England, and fight him to a finish in a 24-ft. ring at the end."
The boy shoved back his plate.
"And have you any other spiritual duties, sir?" he asked.
"I stand over Blob while Piper teaches him his prayers," replied theParson sullenly.
"Who is Piper?"
The Parson was staring out of the window.
It was some time before he answered.
"I once asked Nelson who was the bravest man he'd ever met. He answered like a flash, 'My captain of the foretop aboard theAgamemnon—Ralph Piper. The bravest man,' said Nelson, 'because the best. He's my hero!' And I remember the voice in which he said it now."
Kit had risen to his feet.
All his life Nelson had been his hero; and now he was within touch of his hero's hero.
"Where is he?" with glowing eyes.
"Out there—under the sycamores."
Kit recalled the voice humming the hymn that had welcomed him.