“Thank you, sir. It’s very good of you; but I want to get on. He’s getting tired of waiting, you know.” And Punch pointed excitedly in the direction of the tree.
The journey was continued soon after, with Punch’s arm locked in that of his new-found friend; and in due time Punch staggered through the trees to where Pen lay, now meeting his gaze with a wild look of misery and despair.
“It’s all right, comrade,” cried Punch. “I have found somebody at last. He must live somewhere near here, but I can’t make him understand anything, only that you were lying wounded. Did you think I had forgotten you?”
“No,” said Pen faintly, “I never thought that.”
“Look here,” said Punch, “say something to him in French. Tell him I want to get you to a cottage, and say we are starving.”
Pen obeyed, and faintly muttered a few words in French; but the priest shook his head.
“Francés?” he said.
“No, no,” replied Pen. “Inglés.”
“Ah, Inglés!” said the priest, smiling; and he went down on one knee to softly touch the rough bandage that was about the wounded leg.
Then, to the surprise of both boys, he carefully raised Pen into a sitting position, signed to Punch to hold him up, and then taking off his curiously fashioned hat and hanging it upon a broken branch of the tree, the boys saw that Nature had furnished him with the tonsure of the priest without the barber’s aid, and they had the opportunity now of seeing that it was a pleasantly wrinkled rosy face, with a pair of good-humoured-looking eyes that gazed up in theirs.