The Paymaster looked, too, at the figure upon the bed, looked with a bent head, under lowered eyebrows, his lip and chin brown with snuffy tears.
“At sixteen he threw the cabar against the champion of the three shires, and though he was a sober man a bottle was neither here nor there with him,” said the Cornal.
Miss Mary was upon her knees.
“The batteries are to open fire on San Vincent; seven eighteen-pounders and half a dozen howitzers are scarcely enough for that job. Tell Mackellar to move up two hundred yards farther on the right.”
The General babbled again of his wars in a child’s accent, that rose now and then stormily to the vehemence of the battle-field. “Columns deploy on the right centre company.... No, no, close column on the rear of the Grenadiers.... I wish, I wish.... Jock, Jock, where’s your boy now? I cannot see him, I’m sore feared he’s hiding in the sutler’s vans. I knew him for a dreamer from the first day I saw him.... That’s Williams gone and my step to Major come. God sain him! we could have better spared another man.... Halt, dress!”
He opened his eyes again and they fell upon Gilian. “You mind me of a boy I once knew,” said he. “Poor boy, poor boy, what a pity of you! My sister Mary would have liked you. I think we never gave her her due, and indeed she had a generous hand.”
“Here she’s at your side, dear Dugald,” said his sister, and her head went down upon his breast.
“So she is,” said he, arousing to the fact; “I might be sure she would be there!” He disengaged the hand she had in hers, and wearily placed it for a moment on her hair with an awkward effort at fondling. “Are you tired, my dear?” he said, repeating it in the Gaelic. “It’s a dreich dreich dying on a feather bed.” He smiled once more feebly, and Gilian screamed, for the kitten had touched him on the leg.
“Go downstairs, this is no place for you, my dear,” said Miss Mary; and he went willingly, hearing a stertorous breathing in the bed behind him.