Yet the war
portent was abroad in all the peaceful morning, and my mood marched with
the lad's when I gave him his answer.
"Truly, I could tell you, Richard; and it is your due to know it from no
other lips than mine. Mayhap, a little later, when restitution can go
hand in hand with repentance and confession--"
"No, no;" he cut in quickly. "Tell me now, Jack; your 'little later' may
be all too late--for me. Does she love you?--has she said she loves
you?"
"Nay, dear lad; she despises me well and truly, and has never missed the
chance of saying so. Wait but a little longer and I pledge you on the
honor of a gentleman you shall have her for your very own. Will that
content you?"
At my assurance his mood changed and in a twinkling he became the
dauntless soldier who fights, not to die, but to win and live.
"With that word to keep me I shall not be killed to-day, I promise you,
Jack; and that in spite of this damned queasiness that was showing me
the burying trench." And then he added softly: "God bless her!"
I could say amen to that most heartily; did it, and would have gone on
to add a benison of my own, but at the moment there were sounds of
galloping horses on our front, and presently three red-coated officers,
one of them the redoubtable Colonel Tarleton himself, rode out to
reconnoitre us most coolly.
I doubt if he would have been so rash had he known that Yeates and his
borderers were concealed in easy pistol-shot; but the simultaneous
cracking of a dozen rifles warned and sent the trio scuttling back to
cover.
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