THE SAINT
They passed out of the cottage.
A heavy-browed jasmine, the flowers fading now, hung about the door.
The greensward ran smoothly away to a shingle bank that rose, long-
backed and brown, some three hundred yards away. The bank crossed the
horizon like a low breast-work, sweeping away eastward in long roan
curve. On the right it ran into a little blunt hill, green-brown and
bare. Beyond the bank the sea leapt to the eye.
The Parson was walking reverently.
There was about him something of the subdued air of the schoolboy
going to interview a respected master.
"Step quietly," he murmured. "We are going into the presence of a
saint."
In front of the cottage, about two hundred yards from it, a little
knoll, shaded with sycamores, humped up out of the greensward.
At the foot of it, in the shadow of a tree, a tall old man was sitting
bolt upright in a wooden chair with wheels. A brown book had fallen
open beside him; and a musket, propped against the chair, threw a
black shadow across the page.
"Loaded!" muttered the Parson, pointing. "He can draw a cork from a
bottle at a hundred yards."
"More than most saints could," whispered the boy.
"He's a common-sense saint, not the ordinary run," replied the Parson
with a grin.
The old man's back was towards them. He was gazing intently through a
long glass at the privateer. Kit could see nothing but a straight back
and moon-silvered head.
"Piper, I've brought a young gentleman of your Service to see
you," said the Parson in the quiet tone in which a man addresses a
woman or a superior.
The old sailor dropped the glass. His great hands fumbled with the
wheels of his chair, and he slewed himself about.
Kit's heart gave a jerk.
The old man ended abruptly at the thighs!
Irresistibly the boy recalled a doll of Gwen's whose china legs he had
once plucked off in passion, leaving saw-dust stumps.
The Parson saw the look on the boy's face.
"Ah, I should have told you. Lost both legs in the action with the
_Ca Ira_, wasn't it, Piper?"
The doll spoke.
"Not lost, sir--gone before."
Kit glanced at him sharply.
Was he joking?
No; in that grave face lurked no laughter. The old man had said the
thing that he believed in simplest faith. And what a face it was!
nobly large, worn as the earth, and as full of quiet dignity. Pale,
too, but not with the pallor of ill-health. Indeed the old man looked
hard and wholesome as a forest tree. Rather the boy was reminded of a
cathedral seen in February sunshine.
The great upper lip was bare and stiff as clay. The wide mouth curled
up at the corners, as though it often smiled. Friendly eyes, the colour
of forget-me-nots, dwelt on the boy. A stiff white fringe framed all.
And the note of the whole was calm--calm invincible.
Then the boy's eyes fell on those blue bags thrusting out over the
edge of the chair. A question leapt to his lips. It was out before he
could stop it.
"Dud--dud--does it hurt?"
The old man's face broke up and shone. He chuckled.
A saint could laugh, then! the boy felt himself relieved.
"No, sir, thank you, ne'er a bit. And not nigh as much at the time as
you might fancy--a tidy jar like to be sure.... One thing, I don't
suffer from no bunions." He went off again into his deep chuckle; and
again the boy felt comfort at heart.
The saint could joke!
"Tell him about it, Piper," said the Parson; "you and Nelson."
"Why, sir," said the old man, frank as a child, "the Captain were
standin by my gun in the waist, where he'd no business to ha been
reelly by rights. Flop I goes on the broad o my back, when it took me.
He was down on his knees beside me in a second, dabbin with his little
handkercher. 'Don't kneel in that, sir,' says I, 'your white breeches
and all.' 'Ah, dear fellow!' says he, taking my hand, 'dear fellow!
dear fellow!...' Then they carried me off to the cock-pit."
That was the whole story, but it was so simply told that the boy saw
and felt it all.
"Yes, sir. There warn't a man aboard the _Agamemnon_ but'd ha
died for Captain Nelson and proud too."
He put the spy-glass to his eye to hide the fact that he was blinking.
"She's had a rare mauling, surely. I'd just like to know her story."
"Here's the young gentleman can tell you, Piper," chimed in the
Parson.
There was a faint glow in the hollow of the old man's cheeks as he
listened to the boy's tale, and he was rubbing his huge hands together
slowly.
"Seems the powder's laid, but the match lies yet in the pocket of this
here Gentleman," he said, as Kit concluded. "One thing's clear, sir!
We want that boat!... Now if so be I might make so bold, if you and
the young gentleman'd take the glass, and step across to the Wish
there, you could see all along the shore past Cow Gap to the Head, and
make out what they're up to."
"That's a good notion for a sailor!" cried the Parson briskly. "Come
on, Kit."
"And I'll make my course for the cottage and see all's snug there,"
said the old man. "You never know what's comin next in this world.
It's the wise man as is ready for the worst."
He trundled himself across the grass.
"Here's your book!" cried Kit, and bending picked it from the ground.
As he did so he saw the name.
It was Law's _Serious Call._