CHAPTER LXXXVII

HIS CAUSE

Half-way up the Wish, in the hollow where yesterday Knapp had stolen upon him, the Parson laid him down.

He lay long-legged, gazing towards the hills, whence came the light.

Beneath him the flint cottage, against which he had broken his strength in vain, rose sturdily.

"A nice fight, eh, Parson?"

"I shall get no better--this side of heaven," replied the Parson simply.

"There's only one thing," continued the other. "I think you should have a peep at those powder-barrels in the sluice. Powder's a funny thing--especially when it don't go off."

"I will, sir," said the Parson. "Thank you. I ought to have thought of it myself."

He started down the slope.

A few steps away he paused and plucked a blade of grass. Then he climbed slowly back, the square face very grave.

At the feet of the dying man he halted, and took the grass-blade from his mouth.

"Sir," he said, "are you a Christian?"

At that moment, in that light, sudden though it was, the question seemed beautifully fitting.

"All men are when they are dying," came the quiet reply. "They must be. As the world-tide ebbs, the Christ-tide flows. That is the Law."

"I ask," continued the Parson in labouring voice, "for this reason: I've no doubt you're a better man than I am. Still I'm a clergyman, though I'm not much good at it. And if you've got anything on your conscience--anything you care to tell me--I'll--I'll--in duty-bound I'll--"

Kit made a move to rise.

The dying fingers closed round his own.

"I forget nothing," said the Gentleman simply. "I regret nothing."

"Nothing?" asked the Parson, stubborn to do his duty.

The other closed his eyes.

"One thing perhaps."

"What?"

There was a sighing silence.

"Ireland," came the quivering reply.

"Sir," cried Kit, with flashing intuition, "you are dying for her."

The other squeezed his fingers.

"Ah, thank you, thank you! how generous! How kind! how most un-English!"

"We mean well anyway," grunted the Parson.

"Yes," said the other slowly. "You did her to death: but you did it for the best. That's England to the core!"

The man's white bitterness struck like a sword. It was something new; it was something terrible.

"Drogheda in the name of God!"

"What's done can't be undone," growled the Parson, all the Englishman coming out in him. "I believe we're trying now."

He bent over his fading enemy.

A thousand dim emotions troubled his heart. Words surged up like waves in the fog of his mind and were gone again, unuttered.

"Good-bye," he said at last gruffly, and made a stiff little bob.

A hand sought his.

The Parson hugged it between both his own, and turned, dumb still.

## CHAPTER LXXXVIII

THE ADVENTURER

The dusk began to shroud them.

Beneath them the Parson was climbing out of the creek, making for the mouth of the drain.

"That's a dear man," said the Gentleman. "He's so English--true as steel, and thick as mud."

He rolled his head round. Kit caught the ghost of the old gay twinkle in his eyes.

"Shall I tell you a secret?"

"Yes."

"What d'you think was in those powder-barrels?"

"Beer," flashed the boy.

"Sand, Little Chap--best Eastbourne sand."

The boy rippled off into low laughter.

The Parson, on hands and knees at the mouth of the drain, heard him and looked back. It was not quite his notion of how a dying should be conducted: still, they were both a bit mad, those two on the hill-side, both the poet-y kind, and so must be excused.

"Yes," said the Gentleman, "I think I had the best of you there."

"I think you had."

His comrade's courage warmed the boy's heart.

He had always associated a death-bed with drawn blinds, hushed voices, sniffling women on their knees and the like.

And here lay this long-limbed man on the grass in the evening, the night bending to kiss him, the sea hushed behind, making ready for the plunge with the high heart and twinkling humour of the lad running down the sands to bathe.

A little wind breathed on them chilly.

The Gentleman began to shudder.

The boy brooded over his dim outline.

A sudden burning curiosity kindled his heart.

"Is it--very aweful?" he ventured at last.

"Not a bit," whispered the other. "It's as easy as living, once you know how."

The boy rippled.

"Have you ever done it before?"

"Every hour of every day since the beginning."

The boy hugged his hand. He then too had the sense of reiterated life, eternal here on earth.

"Ah, you feel that," he said comfortably. "Then I know you're not afraid."

"Not a bit," sleepily. "I'm too interested--the undiscovered country, you know." His chest was sinking in upon his voice. "What's it going to be?"

Piper's last word leapt to the lad's tongue.

"Love," he said, before he knew that he had said it.

The Gentleman nodded.

"I believe you," he whispered. "Yes, yes, yes.

"_The face familiar smiling through His tears--_

"I can see it."

Kit was crying, he knew not why.

Unable now to see the other's face, he stretched a hand and stroked it.

"Are you there, sir?"

"Always there, Little Chap."

The voice was far, and getting further.

"How--how d'you feel?"

"Why, as I never felt before," chuckling still.

For long he lay still, the night gathering about him. Then the voice came again out of the darkness.

"Ah! there's the first star!"

He lay with hands folded, and face starward. He was drinking in the dark as it began to people, and humming to himself. Kit, listening with all his heart, heard as it were the voice of one singing in Eternity. And whether his ear heard words, or whether only his heart heard the song the other's heart was singing, he never knew.

"Hark to her, hark to the Voice of the Beautiful Spring, Calling to come, Calling to come,

Over the moon-whitened wave on a kittiwake's wing, Over the foam, Furrow and foam,

Leap to her, leap, O my heart, when thou hearest her sing, Home to her, home, Home to her, home."

The song ceased.

There was an age-long silence.

Then out of the darkness from millions of miles away a whisper,

"Kiss me, Little Chap."

##