""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 c.o.c.k," 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 n.o.body but Nelson"d ha dared to say it."
II
The boy was staring hard.
"Did they call you Black c.o.c.k, sir? Abercromby"s Black c.o.c.k?"
"That"s me, sir, at your service," replied the Parson--"Joy of Battle in the Regiment, Abercromby"s Black c.o.c.k 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 a.s.s 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 c.o.c.k-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 c.o.c.k breakfast....
"Well, on the seventh morning as they were carting their chap away, and I was wiping my sword, a swaggering great Cuira.s.sier turned round and shouted,
""To-morrow we bring David to slay your Goliath!"
""D"you hear that, Black c.o.c.k?" 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 c.o.c.k-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 c.o.c.k!" 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-l.u.s.ty.
"Such a h.e.l.l 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."
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
FIGHTING FITZ
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 whom Napoleon had called the first light cavalryman in Europe after Marengo.
"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?"