Thus she rattled on, joyously ticking off all the things she had to show him. She ran a little ahead to look at him, then ran as quickly back to hug him. "Oh, you dear!" she exclaimed. And all the while the heart of the former valiant soldier sank deep and ever deeper into the split-new cricketing shoes he had been so proud of when he sallied forth to meet Cissy Carter by the stile.
"Come on," she cried presently, picking up her skirts. "I'm so excited I don't know what to do. I can't keep quiet. I believe I can race you yet, for all you're so big and have won a silver cricket bat. How I shall love to see it! Come on, Hugh John, I'll race you to the gipsy camp for a pound of candy!"
But Hugh John did not want to race. He did not want not to race. He did not want ever to do anything any more—only to fade away and die. His heart was cold and dead within him. He felt that he would never know happiness again. But he could not bear to disappoint Prissy the first night. Besides, he could easily enough beat her—he was sure of that. So he smiled indulgently and nodded acquiescence. He had not told her that he had won the school mile handicap from scratch.
They started, and Hugh John began to run scientifically, as he had been taught to do at school, keeping a little behind Prissy, ready to spurt at the last and win by a neck. Doubtless this would have answered splendidly, only that Prissy ran so fast. She did not know anything about scientific sprinting, but she could run like the wind. So by the time they reached the Partan Burn she had completely outclassed Hugh John. With her skirts held high in her hand over she flew like a bird; but her brother, jumping the least bit too soon, went splash into the shallows, sending the water ten feet into the air.
Like a shot Prissy was back, and reached a hand down to the vanquished scientific athlete.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Hugh John," she said; "I ought to have told you it had been widened. Don't let's race any more. I think I must have started too soon, and you'd have beaten me anyway. Here's the gipsy camp."
The world-weary exile looked about him. He had thought that at least it might be some manly pleasure to see Billy Blythe once more, and try a round with the Bounding Brothers. After all, what did it matter about girls? He had a twelve-bladed knife in his pocket which he intended for Billy, and he knew a trick of boxing—a feint with the right, and then an upward blow with the left, which he knew would interest his friend.
But the tents were gone. The place where they had stood was green and unencumbered. Only an aged crone or two moved slowly about among the small thatched cottages. To one of these Hugh John addressed himself.
"Eh, master—Billy Blythe—why, he be 'listed for a sodger—a corp'ral they say he be, and may be sergeant by this time, shouldn't wonder. Eh, dearie, and the Boundin' Brothers—oh! ye mean the joompin' lads. They're off wi' a circus in Ireland. Nowt left but me and my owd mon! Thank ye, sir, you be a gentleman born, as anybody can see without the crossin' o' the hand."
Sadly Hugh John moved away, a still more blighted being. He left Prissy at the white lodge-gate in order that she might go home to meet Mr. Picton Smith on his return from the county town, where he had been judging the horses at an agricultural show. He would take a walk through the town, he said to himself, and perhaps he might meet some of his old enemies. He felt that above everything he would enjoy a sharp tussle. After all what save valour was worth living for? Wait till he was a soldier, and came back in uniform with a sword by his side and the scar of a wound on his forehead—would Cissy Carter despise him then? He would show her! In the meantime he had learned certain tricks of fence which he would rather like to prove on the countenances of his former foes.