He sank sideways amongst the heath and fern.
Rodd looked at him in horror, for the poor fellow seemed as if he was about to faint with weakness and misery, while he kept giving utterance to hysterical gasps as he was plainly enough struggling hard to avoid bursting into a passion of weak girlish tears.
“Here, I say, don’t do that!” cried Rodd, stooping and catching him by the arm to shake him violently. “You don’t know that the soldiers have caught your father.”
“No, but I feel sure that they must have done so,” cried the poor fellow, rising a little and gazing wildly in the speaker’s eyes, while Rodd’s energy seemed to galvanise him into action.
“Well, suppose they have? They’d only take him back into the prison again, would they?”
“I—I don’t know,” faltered the lad. “I heard firing, and they may have shot him down and taken him.”
“Yes—may, may, may!” cried Rodd angrily. “But I don’t believe our soldiers would be such brutes. It’s only Frenchmen that do such things as that.”
“What!” cried the lad, struggling to his feet. “How dare you speak so of our brave fellows! I appealed to you for help, and you insult me. Do you think if you were in France and flying for your life with your father—”
“Haven’t got one,” said Rodd shortly. “Died before I was born.”
“Do you think then that if you alone had appealed to me for help I would have treated a poor escaping prisoner like this?”