Sergeant Havlan soon found that he had little need to begin at the beginning with Damocles de Warrenne in the matter of riding, fencing or boxing, and was unreasonably annoyed thereat.
In time, it became the high ambition and deep desire of Dam to overcome Sergeant Havlan’s son in battle with the gloves. As young Havlan was a year his senior, a trained infant prodigy, and destined for the Prize Ring, there was plenty for him to learn and to do.
With foil or sabre the boy was beneath Dam’s contempt.
Daily the children were in Sergeant Havlan’s charge for riding and physical drill, Dam getting an extra hour in the evening for the more manly and specialized pursuits suitable to his riper years.
He and Lucille loved it all, and the Haddock bitterly loathed it.
Until Miss Smellie came Dam was a happy boy—but for queer sudden spasms of terror of Something unknown; and, after her arrival, he would have been well content could he have been assured of an early opportunity of attending her obsequies and certain of a long-postponed resurrection; well content, and often wildly happy (with Lucille) … but for the curious undefinable fear of Something … Something about which he had the most awful dreams … Something in a blue room with a mud floor. Something that seemed at times to move beneath his foot, making his blood freeze, his knees smite together, the sunlight turn to darkness….
CHAPTER IV.
THE SWORD AND THE SOUL.
One of the very earliest of all Dam’s memories in after life—for in a few years he forgot India absolutely—was of the Sword (that hung on the oak-panelled wall of the staircase by the portrait of a cavalier), and of a gentle, sad-eyed lady, Auntie Yvette, who used to say:—
“Yes, sonny darling, it is more than two-hundred-and-fifty years old. It belonged to Sir Seymour Stukeley, who carried the King’s Standard at Edgehill and died with that sword in his hand … You shall wear a sword some day.”
(He did—with a difference.)