III
The whole thing was over.
Buzzing August prevailed again.
"Are you hurt?" sobbed Kit.
"No, sir, I'm bravely, thank you. Properly shook up, though." The old man was heaving like the sea. "They'd no knives nor nothin, only one on em, and Boy Hoad stuck him as he passed. They hurt emselves more'n me. I bluv I'm a better man above the waist nor ever I were. All the juice like goes to my arms now I've no legs—that's how I reck'n it be."
"We must get in before they come again. Quick!"
"Ah, they won't come again, sir. Easy satisfied, the Gap Gang. Got no guts because they got no God…. Ah, here's Mr. Joy!"
The Parson was coming across the greensward, high and mighty as a turkey-cock.
The Gentleman was standing among the sycamores, laughing.
He waved his hand to the boy.
"Congratulations, Little Chap," he called.
"Don't accept em," snarled the Parson. "Posing impostor!—coxcomb!— cad!"
"What! has he wounded you, sir?" asked old Piper.
"Pinked me in the calf, the coward!" snapped the Parson. "He's not a gentleman. I always knew he wasn't!—Frenchified feller!"
He looked round with grim satisfaction.
"So you've been busy, too. I reckon they're half a dozen short o what they were before the sally. And we've got our man through, too!"
He pointed across the plain.
From the foot of the Downs a string of Grenadiers were coming back at the double.
They had no prisoner.