About that hour, also, there came an unusual glut to the traffic, in the form of a troop of the horse-guards. These magnificent creatures, resplendent in glittering steel, white plumes, and black boots, were passing westward. Giles stood in front of the arrested stream. A number of people stood, as it were, under his shadow. Refuge-island was overflowing. Comments, chiefly eulogistic, were being freely made and some impatience was being manifested by drivers, when a little shriek was heard, and a child’s voice exclaimed:—
“Oh! papa, papa—there’s my policeman—the one I so nearly killed. He’s not dead after all!”
Giles forgot his dignity for one moment, and, looking round, met the eager gaze of little Di Brandon.
Another moment and duty required his undivided attention, so that he lost sight of her, but Di took good care not to lose sight of him.
“We will wait here, darling,” said her father, referring to refuge-island on which he stood, “and when he is disengaged we can speak to him.”
“Oh! I’m so glad he’s not dead,” said little Di, “and p’raps he’ll be able to show us the way to my boy’s home.”
Di had a method of adopting, in a motherly way, all who, in the remotest manner, came into her life. Thus she not only spoke of our butcher and our baker, which was natural, but referred to “my policeman” and “my boy” ever since the day of the accident.
When Giles had set his portion of the traffic in harmonious motion he returned to his island, and was not sorry to receive the dignified greeting of Sir Richard Brandon, while he was delighted as well as amused by the enthusiastic grasp with which Di seized his huge hand in both of her little ones, and the earnest manner in which she inquired after his health, and if she had hurt him much.
“Did they put you to bed and give you hot gruel?” she asked, with touching pathos.
“No, miss, they didn’t think I was hurt quite enough to require it,” answered Giles, his drooping moustache curling slightly as he spoke.