There was a touch of death and of autumn in the air. Already the leaves on the sycamores were shrivelled; and a rusting chestnut was hung with nuts prickly as sea-urchins. As they passed among the trees a robin lifted its winter-sweet song.
The Parson peered out.
The cottage faced them, grey and grinning. There was no sign or stir of life about it; but manifold evidence of death. On the greensward, all about dead men lay crumpled, faces downwards, killed clearly in flight.
Kit's heart turned white.
Dead men as dung upon the grass here in the holiness of evening, and a robin singing in the sycamores overhead.
Song and slaughter! God's work and man's! O, would the day never come when men would understand?
"Pretty work," said the Parson, with the zeal of a professional, as he stepped off the knoll. "Cavalry! See here!—a beautiful stroke. A big man on a big horse, I should say, and putting lots o beef into it Yes, yes, yes," with the gusto of an expert. "They've used the edge—see! Got em on the run, then cut em in collops—and all over my bowling-green, tool" treading at the offending horse-hooves.
Kit gave a little cough.
He had seen the lower deck of the Tremendous awash with blood; he had dirked men, and shot them. But this was different. That was death in battle: this was death in life.
The Parson looked up and saw the lad white as a woman in such circumstance. He remembered himself.