“You bloodthirsty little beggar! You’ll go on getting bigger and bigger while I shall grow an old man like Uncle Giles.”
“I never,” cried Osy, flushing very red, “would stwike an old gemplemans like Uncle Giles. Never! I wouldn’t let nobody touch him. When Cousin Gervase runned away with his chair, I helped old Dunning to stop him. You might kill me, but I would fight for Uncle Giles!”
“It appears you are going to be a soldier, anyhow, Osy.”
“My faver was a soldier,” said Osy. “Movver’s got his sword hanging up in our room; all the rest of the fings belongs to Uncle Giles, but the sword, it belongs to Movver and me.”
The Colonel gave the little hand which was in his an involuntary pressure, and a little moisture came into the corner of his eye. “Do you remember your father,” he said, “my little man?”
Osy shook his head. “I don’t remember nobody but Movver,” the child said.
What a curious thing it was! To hear of the dead father and his sword brought that wetness to Colonel Piercey’s eye; but the name of the mother, which filled all the child’s firmament, dried the half-tear like magic. The poor fellow who had died went to the Colonel’s heart. The lonely woman with the little boy, so much more usual an occasion of sentiment, did not touch him at all. He did not want to hear anything of “Movver”: and, indeed, Osy was by no means a sentimental child, and had no inclination to enlarge on the theme. His mother was a matter of course to him, as to most healthy little boys: to enlarge upon her love or her excellencies was not at all in his way.
“You walk very fast, Cousin Colonel,” was the little fellow’s next remark.
“Do I, my little shaver? What a beast I am, forgetting your small legs. Come, jump and get up on my shoulder, Osy.”
Osy looked up with mingled pleasure and alarm. “I promised Movver: but if you holded me very fast——”