II
He turned about.
"Blob, come here. Keep a sharp look-out at this window, and give a holloa if anything stirs. You can sing em a little song, if you know one to keep em quiet."
He slid down into the twilight of the kitchen. There only the old foretop-man was to be seen, patient at his post of watch.
"Where's Knapp, Piper?"
"Why, sir, in the cellar. Wanted to be alone with his trouble, I reck'n. Tarrabul down-earted, the poor lad be."
"I'll cheer him up," cried the Parson, and disappeared through an open trap-door into the night beneath. "Nipper Knapp! Nipper Knapp, my boy!"
In two minutes he was back.
Knapp was at his heel, sparring playfully at the back of the other's head.
True, for the broken heart there is no such cure as action or the hope of it.
As they emerged into the twilight of the kitchen a voice, pure as a rivulet's, poured down in song upon them from above.
From outside came a gust of laughter, and then a roaring chorus.
"By the Lord!" thundered the Parson. "It's The Doxie's Daughter."
"And the Gap Gang singing choir!" said Piper grimly. "Likely it'll be the only hymn they knaw."
"One moment, Master Blob!" muttered the Parson between clenched teeth. "I'll swab that boy's soul clean if I have to do it with a scrubbing-brush…. Now, Knapp, ready yourself, while I write a note to the Commandant."
Knapp tore off his coat, and began to fight an exhibition battle with a ghost in the corner.
"Will ye fight the lot then, Jack?" chuckled old Piper.
"Ay, and wop em, too!" cried the little man, dodging, ducking. "Ave a slap at em first, and then go through—that's my idee."
"It's not mine, though!" roared the Parson, catching him a rousing kick.
"Get on with your undressing, d your eyes!"
He finished his note and folded it.
"And now for the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft."