"It's resource that makes the soldier, you know, Kit. I slipped into my old regimentals, gave Knapp his bugle, clapped a shako on Blob's head, and put the two of them behind the shingle-bank to act as a skeleton-force…. And you know the rest."
Kit gazed at the square-set figure before him with respectful admiration.
"It must have been a close thing, sir."
The Parson shrugged.
"It would have been a mere bagatelle but for the Gap Gang cutting in on our line of retreat. That added interest, and made a bright little affair of what would otherwise have been a dull retirement."
"And how did the Gap Gang come to cut in?"
"Oh, that's easily explained….
"At midnight I went out to beat em up—crept along under the cliff past Holy Well. When I got to Cow Gap, there were my friends lying on their backs in a bunch, snoring like so many sows, and the boat beached beneath em. I believe I could have killed the lot then and there, and nobody the wiser; but I wasn't going to soil my hands with the cold blood of those swine. So I just jumped into the boat, and got to work at once—put my heel through her bottom, and was just tearing up a plank, when the noise wakes old Red Beard.
"'Who the blank's that?' he growled, sitting up in the moonlight.
"'Why,' says I, tearing away, 'the gentleman you're good enough to call the blankety Parson.'