The Rough Road Part 24

He dozed pleasantly on the straw of the barn, but it was not the dead sleep of the night. Bits of his recent little adventure fitted into the semi-conscious intervals. He heard the girl's voice saying so gently: "_Pauvre garcon!_" and it was very comforting.

He was finally aroused by Phineas and Mo Shendish, who, having slept like tired dogs some distance off down the barn, now desired his company for a stroll round the village. Doggie good-naturedly a.s.sented. As they pa.s.sed the house door he cast a quick glance. It was open, but the slim figure in black with the blue ap.r.o.n was not visible within. The s.h.i.+ning cask, however, seemed to smile a friendly greeting.

"If you believed the London papers," said Phineas, "you'd think that the war-worn soldier coming from the trenches is met behind the lines with luxurious Turkish baths, comfortable warm canteens, picture palaces and theatrical entertainments. Can you perceive here any of those amenities of modern warfare?"

They looked around them, and admitted they could not.

"Apparently," said Phineas, "the Colonel, good but limited man, has missed all the proper places and dumps us in localities unrecognized by the London Press."

"Put me on the pier at Brighton," sang Mo Shendish. "But I'd sooner have Margit or Yarmouth any day. Brighton's too toffish for whelks.

My! and c.o.c.kles! I wonder whether we shall ever eat 'em again." A far-away, dreamy look crept into his eyes.

"Does your young lady like c.o.c.kles?" Doggie asked sympathetically.

"Aggie? Funny thing, I was just thinking of her. She fair dotes on 'em. We had a day at Southend just before the war----"

He launched into anecdote. His companions listened, Phineas ironically carrying out his theory of adaptability, Doggie with finer instinct.

It appeared there had been an altercation over right of choice with an itinerant vendor in which, to Aggie's admiration, Mo had come off triumphant.

"You see," he explained, "being in the fish trade myself, I could spot the winners."

James Marmaduke Trevor, of Denby Hall, laughed and slapped him on the back, and said indulgently: "Good old Mo!"

At the little school-house they stopped to gossip with some of their friends who were billeted there, and they sang the praises of the Veuve Morin's barn.

"I wonder you don't have the house full of orficers, if it's so wonderful," said some one.

An omniscient corporal in the confidence of the quartermaster explained that the landlady being ill in bed, and the place run by a young girl, the house had been purposely missed. Doggie drew a breath of relief at the news and attributed Madame Morin's malady to the intervention of a kindly providence. Somehow he did not fancy officers having the run of the house.

They strolled on and came to a forlorn little _Debit de Tabac_, showing in its small window some clay pipes and a few fly-blown picture post-cards. Now Doggie, in spite of his training in adversity, had never resigned himself to "Woodbines," and other such brands supplied to the British Army, and Egyptian and Turkish being beyond his social pale, he had taken to smoking French Regie tobacco, of which he laid in a stock whenever he had the chance. So now he entered the shop, leaving Phineas and Mo outside. As they looked on French cigarettes with st.u.r.dy British contempt, they were not interested in Doggie's purchases. A wan girl of thirteen rose from behind the counter.

"_Vous desirez, monsieur?_"

Doggie stated his desire. The girl was calculating the price of the packets before wrapping them up, when his eyes fell upon a neat little pile of cornets in a pigeon-hole at the back. They directly suggested to him one of the great luminous ideas of his life. It was only afterwards that he realized its effulgence. For the moment he was merely concerned with the needs of a poor old woman who had sighed lamentably over an empty paper of comfort.

"Do you sell snuff?"

"But yes, monsieur."

"Give me some of the best quality."

"How much does monsieur desire?"

"A lot," said Doggie.

And he bought a great package, enough to set the whole village sneezing to the end of the war, and peering round the tiny shop and espying in the recesses of a gla.s.s case a little olive-wood box ornamented on the top with pansies and forget-me-nots, purchased that also. He had just paid when his companions put their heads in the doorway. Mo, pointing waggishly to Doggie, warned the little girl against his depravity.

"Mauvy, mauvy!" said he.

"_Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?_" asked the child.

"He's the idiot of the regiment, whom I have to look after and feed with pap," said Doggie, "and, being hungry, he is begging you not to detain me."

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried the child.

Doggie, always courteous, went out with a "_Bon soir, mademoiselle_,"

and joined his friends.

"What were you jabbering to her about?" Mo asked suspiciously.

Doggie gave him the literal translation of his speech. Phineas burst into loud laughter.

"Laddie," said he, "I've never heard you make a joke before. The idiot of the regiment, and you're his keeper! Man, that's fine. What has come over you to-day?"

"If he'd said a thing like that in Mare Street, Hackney, I'd have knocked his blinking 'ead orf," declared Mo Shendish.

Doggie stopped and put his parcel-filled hands behind his back.

"Have a try now, Mo."

But Mo bade him fry his ugly face, and thus established harmony.

It was late that evening before Doggie could find an opportunity of slipping, un.o.bserved, through the open door into the house kitchen dimly illuminated by an oil lamp.

"Madame," said he to Toinette, "I observed to-day that you had come to the end of your snuff. Will you permit a little English soldier to give you some? Also a little box to keep it in."

The old woman, spare, myriad-wrinkled beneath her peasant's _coiffe_, yet looking as if carved out of weather-beaten oak, glanced from the gift to the donor and from the donor to the gift.

"But, monsieur--monsieur--why?" she began quaveringly.

"You surely have some one--_la bas_--over yonder?" said Doggie with a sweep of his hand.

"_Mais oui?_ How did you know? My grandson. _Mon petiot_----"

"It is he, my comrade, who sends the snuff to the _grand'mere_." And Doggie bolted.

CHAPTER XIII

At breakfast next morning Doggie searched the courtyard in vain for the slim figure of the girl. Yesterday she had stood just outside the kitchen door. To-day her office was usurped by a hefty cook with the sleeves of his grey s.h.i.+rt rolled up and his collar open and vast and tight-hitched braces unromantically strapped all over him. Doggie felt a pang of disappointment and abused the tea. Mo Shendish stared, and asked what was wrong with it.

"Rotten," said Doggie.

"You can't expect yer slap-up City A.B.C. shops in France," said Mo.

Doggie, who was beginning to acquire a sense of rueful humour, smiled and was appeased.