The Gentleman: A Romance of the Sea Part 80

"It was the pluckiest attempt I ever saw!" he cried with the generosity of the victor. "That black filly had never known the feel of a collar, till twenty minutes since.... I was to have broken her this autumn."

"She was the least bit awkward at the start," mused the other. "But she handled sweetly all the same."

"We had all the luck," continued the Parson. "But for that plank, you'd have brought it off. It'll be your turn next time!"

The other lifted his face swiftly.

"Ah, no," he cried, "you mistake. _That's_ nothing! It's _this!_"

He pointed.

Fifty yards away the wain lay wrecked on the greensward, the old white mare crumpled in the shafts. She was stone-dead, and her muzzle, with its coa.r.s.e long hairs, was resting on the quarters of her daughter.

"That's the worst of war," said the Gentleman in that remote voice of his. "_We_ know; _they_ don't."

"I expect it's all fairer than it seems," said the Parson huskily.

The other nodded.

"Have you a pistol?"

The filly was not dead. Lying on her side, she was lifting her head and craning back to gaze at her dead dam.

Something clutched the Parson by the throat. A veil was rent. For a moment he seemed to see the tragedy as the man beneath him saw it--the pa.s.sion, the pathos of that blind suffering in the cause of another.

"Here!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, handing down a pistol.

The Gentleman took it, and seeing a pale face peering behind the other's shoulder,

"She's not suffering, I think. Don't look, Little Chap."

He walked back to the filly.

Lying still now, her head along the greensward, she watched him coming; snorting through full-blown nostrils.

He knelt at her head, pulling her ear, and caressing her.

"There, then, there!--It's all over now, little woman. I've come to comfort you."

CHAPTER LX

THE TWO PRAYERS

I

The Gentleman was walking away into the sunset.

The Parson turned from the dormer, and his eyes were wet.

"And, now, my boy," he cried, "you know what a gentleman is."

The words loosed the fountains of laughter in the lad's heart.

"I thought, sir, that you said--"

"You thought wrong," snapped the Parson. "I said nothing of the sort."

He swung round on Blob and kicked him.

"What fur why?" whimpered Blob.

"Teach you!" cried the Parson. "Want some more, eh? Then behave yourself. I'm sick o your nonsense."

He reached up to the rafter.

"Eat and sleep--that's the whole duty of man just at present. Blob, take Piper his rations, and ask him to forgive an old soldier who's a bit short in the temper in action--and do the same yourself, my boy.

Here, Kit."

They s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty meal.

Outside the dusk was falling.

The Parson brushed the crumbs off his cravat.

"And now will you take first watch, or shall I?"

"I will, sir. I don't feel like sleep."

"Very well. Wake me when the moon dips behind the Downs, or earlier if there's a sign of the soldiers."

Kit took his post at the dormer. The other slipped off his coat.

"I'm not much of a Parson as you may have found out," he muttered, "still I am an Englishman." And he plumped down on his knees defiantly.

His was a very short and simple prayer; the prayer tens of thousands of Englishmen were praying from their hearts at that time.

Kneeling in his s.h.i.+rt, Polly s.h.i.+ning before him against the wall, he repeated it most earnestly.

The whispered words, so simple and heart-felt, reached the ears of the boy at the dormer.

"G.o.d bless our dear country; and G.o.d d--- the French."

The waters of laughter came roaring up the boy's throat, and surged over, irresistible.