Marcus: the Young Centurion

by George Manville Fenn

“Do him no end of good,” he muttered—“strengthen his legs.” And he began to walk up and down again, pausing once or twice to pat the horses and growl at the driver, who was sleeping hard with his mouth wide open.

“Yes,” muttered the old soldier, “a good sleep will do the boy good—harden his legs. I said my old soldiering was coming back; I wish my old legs would come back and be the same as they used to when I could walk for weeks, instead of aching like this when I haven’t had to walk, but have been riding all day. Hah!” he sighed, as he lowered himself down into the back of the chariot to lean against the side once more. “I can keep watch over him just as well sitting down as standing up. I don’t see that I need watch at all when the boy’s got a pillow with a set of teeth like a rat trap that will take fast hold of anyone who came to interfere with him. But there’s the master. We have got to meet some day, and I shall have to give an account of myself. ‘What were you doing away from the farm?’ he’ll say. ‘Watching over your boy, master,’ says I. That will have him on the hip. That’s my only chance, the only thing that will save me.”

Serge’s grim face relaxed, and he rolled about in his seat, chuckling softly.

“It will get me off,” he said; “it will get me off with the master. He won’t be very hard on me after that. It aren’t quite honest, for I never thought a bit about the boy when I went away. But I did mean to take him back, and I’d have done it too, and stopped with him, only he was too much for me. Ah, he’s a clever one. He’s only a boy, but he’s got a lot of man in him, and when he gets ripe, you mark my words,” he said, softly, staring hard at the dimly-seen driver the while, “he’ll be as big a man as his father. I don’t mean as to size; like as not he’ll be bigger. I mean as to his head. It aren’t quite fair, and maybe it’s a bit like deceiving the master to answer him like that when he says, ‘What are you doing there?’ and I says, ‘Watching over your boy, master,’ But I am going to watch over him, and I’ll stick to him, and I’ll die for him if I’m obliged; and you can’t say that arn’t honest.”

Serge bent forward and literally glared at the sleeping driver, who muttered something in reply.

“Ah, you may say what you like,” muttered Serge, “but that will be honest; and if you put that in one side of the balance, and my forsaking the old place when I was told to stay, in the other, they’ll weigh pretty much alike. Yes, I’ll watch over him, master, like a man, just as I would have done if he had been my own, for somehow I always seemed to like him, and I suppose I should have felt just about the same if he had been mine. It’s precious dark and quiet enough now. I don’t suppose we shall be disturbed before daylight, for the enemy got more than they expected, so I may just as well sit and rest. I can watch over him just the same, and—” Serge’s next utterance was not understandable if treated as words, but perfectly plain if considered as a snore, for he had sunk sideways till his head rested on the hard edge of the car, while at regular intervals he gave vent to a series of deep gruff tones which sounded as if his neck were bent at such a severe angle that there was not room for his breath to pass comfortably round the corner.

It was not comfortable for him, for though he was sleeping very soundly, his rest was uneasy, consequent upon which he began to dream in a troubled way about being at home; and his busy brain put its own interpretation upon the sounds that rose from his chest and interfered with the soundness of his sleep, so that, half awakened, he lay back listening to his own snoring and attributed it to something else, gradually awakening more and more the while.

“Hark at that!” he muttered. “And after all the trouble I took to mend that bit of fence! Talk about sheep always following one another through a gap, why they are nothing to swine! They want a gap, too, for the leader to go through, but an old boar big with that snout of his and them tusks, he’ll bore and bore and bore till he makes a little hole a big un, and once he gets his snout in he drives on till he gets right through. Now, I’ve mended that hole so as you’d have thought it was quite safe; but hark at that! He’s got right through into the garden, and the old sow and the young uns has followed him. But just wait a bit till I get my staff, and I’ll make such music as will bring Master Marcus out to ask me if I am killing a pig. There’s no room about the place to please them, no miles of acorn and chestnut forest so that they can fill themselves as full as sacks, but they must come into my garden and raven there! Nothing will do for them but my melons and cucumbers! Well, we’ll just see about that.”

Serge rose from his seat, after taking hold of the spear that he had rested against the side of the chariot, and with his eyes closely shut took a couple of steps forward, and then stopped short with his eyes wide open, as he stared wildly round in an absolute state of confusion and strove hard to make out where he was.

For some moments his mind was a complete blank, and the darkness seemed impenetrable, while his mind absolutely refused to answer the mental question—Where am I?