Pierre pulled off his toque and made a shame-faced bow, smiling gratification all over his countenance to find his service appreciated.
"The Frinchman must com wid us, sorr. He kin hilp to dhraw the sled wid the chap he knocked down--an' roight nately he did that same--for a Frinchman. We'll thrate him well, sorr, but we'll have to lock him up. Ye kin spake a worrd to his haunor to-morrow maurnin', sorr."
Pierre started, and looked piteously to Miss Matilda, and then his manly heart gave way--he was not very old--he stuffed his fists into his eyes and wept sore. To prison! To be locked up! It was dreadful, and it was shame; and yet, even then, if it had had to be done over again, he would have done it just the same. It was for Muriel he had fought, and for her sake he was content to suffer.
CHAPTER X.
[ANNETTE].
"Poor Pierre!" was the natural burden of the conversation round the Misses Stanley's supper table that night.
"Did not think it was in him," said Considine. "A quiet, fat, soft-eyed, soft-spoken boy--just like some of my mulatto table-niggers at home, in the old time. Never struck me there was man in him at all."
"He struck out splendidly," cried Gerald. "Straight from the shoulder--just one almighty drive, and the rowdy fell in his tracks--felled like an ox--without a struggle. Hope, for Pierre's sake, he has not killed him. He had not moved up to the time we left the ground. There could not have been a prettier stroke. We must not let him get into trouble about it. It would have gone roughly with me if he had not run in just then. One on either side, and I dared not hit out at the one, for laying myself open to the other."
"You did very well, Gerald. Your own man was not at all badly floored, though he recovered more quickly than the other. 'Pon honour, I felt my old blood warming at sight of the fray. I should have been at your side in another instant, when I saw that ruffian get on his feet again, with musket clubbed--walking stick, I should say--a rather ridiculous object, I fear; but the old war-horse, you know"--and he turned to Matilda as if he had made a happy quotation from the poets, and she responded with an approving smile as in duty bound--"pricks up his ears at the noise of battle. However, the policeman appeared, and saved me from making a show of myself. That is one of the troubles of getting old. A man is more likely to get laughed at for showing his mettle than admired."
"Nobody would have laughed, Mr. Considine," said Matilda. "It was kind of you to mean it. But about Pierre. I can think of nothing but poor Pierre being taken up for trying to protect Muriel from a gang of ruffians. How came he to be there? He might have dropped from the clouds, I was so surprised."