The new arrival was Parson Stanard. His face was not scarred, but it was red with anger, and his collar was wilted by excitement which betrayed itself even in his hasty stride as he walked.
“Yea, by Zeus!” he cried, as soon as he reached his friends. “Gentlemen, I have tidings. The enemy is risen! Even now he is hot upon our trail. My spirit burns within me like that of Paul Revere, the messenger of liberty, riding forth from good old Boston town. Boston, cradle of liberty, father of——”
The Parson’s news was exciting, but even then he could not withstand the temptation to deliver a discourse upon the merits of his native town. Mark had to set him straight again.
“Has Bull been after you, too?” he asked.
“Yea!” said the Parson. “He has, and that, too, with exceeding great vehemence. Truly the persistency of the yearling is surprising; like the giant Antaeus of yore, he springeth up afresh for the battle, when one thinks he is subdued at last. Gentlemen, they attacked me absolutely without provocation. I swear it by the undying flame of Vesta. I was peregrinating peacefully when I met them. And without even a word, forsooth, they sprang at me. And mighty was the anger that blazed up in my breast, yea, by Zeus! As Homer, bard immortal of the Hellenic land, sang of the great Achilles, ‘his black heart’—er, let me see. By Zeus, how does that line go? It is in the first book, I know, and about the two hundred and seventy-fifth line, but really I——”
“Never mind Homer,” laughed Mark. “What about Harris? What did you do?”
“I replied to their onslaughts in the words of Fitz James: ‘This rock shall fly from its firm base as soon as I!’ The two who reached me first I did prostrate with two concussions that have paralyzed my prehensile apparatus——”
“Bully for the Parson!” roared Texas.
“And then,” continued the other sheepishly, “observing, by Zeus, that there were at least a dozen of them, I concluded to think better of my resolution and effect a retreat, remembering the saying that he who runs away may live to renew his efforts upon some more auspicious occasion.”
The Parson looked very humble indeed at this last confession; Mark cheered him somewhat by saying it was the most sensible thing he could have done. And Dewey still further warmed his scholarly heart by a distinction that would have done credit to even Lindley Murray, the grammarian.