“Nonsense!” cried Marcus. “You don’t know my father as I do.”
“Better, a lot, boy. I’ve fought with him, starved with him, saved his life; and I’ll be fair—he’s saved mine more than once. But he’s hard as bronze, boy, and when he says a thing he’ll never go back.”
“And I say he’s as good and forgiving as can be, and when all the armour has been put away as he told you, he’ll forget all this trouble, and we shall be as happy again as ever.”
“You say that, boy, because you don’t know him. I do, and there’s nothing left for it but for me to make up my bundle and go off.”
“What!” cried Marcus, laughing. “You pack up your bundle and go?”
“Yes, my lad; I can never get over this again. I have been a servant and herdsman here all these years because I felt your father respected me, but now he don’t I feel as if I could never do another stroke of work, and I shall go.”
“No, you won’t, Serge; you are only saying that because you are cross.”
“Oh no,” said the man, shaking his head, “not cross, boy—wounded. Cut to the heart. I’m only a poor sort of labouring man here and servant, but I have been a soldier, and once a soldier always a soldier at heart, a man who thinks about his honour. Ah, you smile; and it does sound queer for a man dressed like this and handling a herdsman’s crook to talk about his honour; but inside he’s just the same man as wore the soldier’s armour and plumed helmet and marched in the ranks, erect and proud, ready to follow his general wherever he led. You wouldn’t think it strange for a proud-looking man like that to say his honour was touched.”
“No,” said Marcus, thoughtfully.
“Well, boy, I’m the same man still. I have lost your father’s confidence, and as soon as I have done putting away of our armour and weapons, as he told me, in the big old chest, I shall pack up and go.”