“Ay, Diccon,” I said. “And the sound of the water that was dashed down the sleeve of any that were caught in an oath.”
He laughed like a little child. “It is well that I was n't a gentleman, and had not those trees to fell, or I should have been as wet as any merman.... And Pocahontas, the little maid... and how blue the sky was, and how glad we were what time the Patience and Deliverance came in!”
His voice failed, and for a minute I thought he was gone; but he had been a strong man, and life slipped not easily from him. When his eyes opened again he knew me not, but thought he was in some tavern, and struck with his hand upon the ground as upon a table, and called for the drawer.
Around him were only the stillness and the shadows of the night, but to his vision men sat and drank with him, diced and swore and told wild tales of this or that. For a time he talked loudly and at random of the vile quality of the drink, and his viler luck at the dice; then he began to tell a story. As he told it, his senses seemed to steady, and he spoke with coherence and like a shadow of himself.
“And you call that a great thing, William Host?” he demanded. “I can tell a true tale worth two such lies, my masters. (Robin tapster, more ale! And move less like a slug, or my tankard and your ear will cry, 'Well met!') It was between Ypres and Courtrai, friends, and it's nigh fifteen years ago. There were fields in which nothing was sowed because they were ploughed with the hoofs of war horses, and ditches in which dead men were thrown, and dismal marshes, and roads that were no roads at all, but only sloughs. And there was a great stone house, old and ruinous, with tall poplars shivering in the rain and mist. Into this house there threw themselves a band of Dutch and English, and hard on their heels came two hundred Spaniards. All day they besieged that house,—smoke and flame and thunder and shouting and the crash of masonry,—and when eventide was come we, the Dutch and the English, thought that Death was not an hour behind.”
He paused, and made a gesture of raising a tankard to his lips. His eyes were bright, his voice was firm. The memory of that old day and its mortal strife had wrought upon him like wine.
“There was one amongst us,” he said, “he was our captain, and it's of him I am going to tell the story. Robin tapster, bring me no more ale, but good mulled wine! It's cold and getting dark, and I have to drink to a brave man besides”—
With the old bold laugh in his eyes, he raised himself, for the moment as strong as I that held him. “Drink to that Englishman, all of ye!” he cried, “and not in filthy ale, but in good, gentlemanly sack! I'll pay the score. Here's to him, brave hearts! Here's to my master!”
With his hand at his mouth, and his story untold, he fell back. I held him in my arms until the brief struggle was over, and then laid his body down upon the earth.
It might have been one of the clock. For a little while I sat beside him, with my head bowed in my hands. Then I straightened his limbs and crossed his hands upon his breast, and kissed him upon the brow, and left him lying dead in the forest.