Till my kinsmen need me.
My sword is my father,
My shield is my mother,
My ship is my sister,
My horse is my brother.—Charles Kingsley.
We have seen that Miss Rosenthal could not succeed in prevailing on her perverse guest to abandon the picnic excursion. And, indeed, the sanguine young people who came on the next day to the Parsonage to arrange with Miss Fielding the details of the festival, contrived to reassure Erminie as to the perfect safety of the expedition.
“The roads are guarded on both sides by our pickets, and the country for miles back is quite free from dangerous characters,” said Mr. Allison, a young man of fortune, who had a substitute in the field, risking his life in Mr. Allison’s stead.
“Besides, we shall all go armed to the teeth, and determined to die if necessary, in defence of the ladies!” said Mr. Jim Mim, a very small young man, with a “wee face and little yellow beard,” but with, I do believe, the soul of a hero, for he had done his very best to get into the army, and had been rejected a score of times upon the ground of physical disability.
“But—to use your own phrase,”—said Erminie, smiling, “‘will it pay’ in enjoyment to go upon a party of pleasure when you have to go ‘armed to the teeth,’ and keep up a vigilant watch all the time?”
“Oh, dear, yes! a spice of danger will only add zest to the adventure. I agree with Miss Fielding that nothing could be more piquant than an encounter with Monck and his fierce band,” put in Mr. Montgomery Fitz Smithers, a huge six-footer, with the body of a giant and the spirit of a pigmy, who had crept out of the draft upon the plea of being the only nephew of a maiden aunt, or something of the sort.