I
In the loft the Parson was patting the shoulder of the lad now panting beside him.
"Another notch to the Navy," he said…. "What news, boy?"
Kit told of the lugger, ready to sail; of the business of the barrels in the creek; of the rumbling in the drain.
The Parson listened with nodding head.
"I feel like a mouse that knows it's going to have a cat jump on its back, but don't know quite when or just how," he muttered.
"Meantime there's Nelson, sir!" cried the boy, great-eyed and anxious.
"I know, my boy, I know. But while there's the lugger, there's hope."
He leaned out of the window. A sentry was now on the shingle-bank; and he could see the tall-plumed bearskins of the Grenadiers busy about the lugger.
The boy took up the telescope.
The mists were lifting, and the sun shone white upon the water. He could see the frigate, faint indeed and far, stately-pacing towards her doom; he could see the mast of the lugger, Grenadier-guarded, and those leagues of shining waste between the two.
Where was help?
An awful darkness drowned his heart.
He shut the telescope with a snap.
"We're beat," he sobbed.
The other gripped his arm.
"If we're beat, England's beat. If England's beat, the Devil's won, and the world's lost—which is absurd."
The man's stern enthusiasm fired the boy afresh.
"If you'll tell me what to do I'll do it," he said a little tremulously. "But I don't see the way."
"There is a way, Kit. There must be. And we shall find it."
The man was indomitable. There seemed no ghost of a chance; still no shadow of despair clouded that clear spirit. As the sea of difficulties rose about him, his soul rose to meet it on triumphant wings.
Yet the problem before him seemed insoluble.
Nelson there: they here: one boat between, and that boat guarded by the pick of the Army of England.
He turned those good blue eyes of his upon the boy with a drolling baffled look.
"How's it to be done?—what says the Commodore?"
The light had fled from the boy's face. Pale and still, he looked like a young saint about to be martyred.
"There's only one way I can think of, sir."
"What's that?"
The lad lifted the eyes of a woman.
"Pray."
A darkness drove across the Parson's face.
"You pray," he growled. "I'll sharpen my sword."
Turning to the corner he bowed to Polly shining among the cobwebs.
"A sweet morning, my lady," he cried. "And promise of a fair day's work."
The boy turned his face to the wall.