THE SOLDIER'S MOTHER
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, I _saw_ the
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 in
Holy 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."