第7章

He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round us, and often stopping - even stopping his jaws - to listen. Some real or fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly:

`You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?'

`No, sir! No!'

`Nor giv' no one the office to follow you?'

`No!'

`Well,' said he, `I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched warmint, hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint is!'

Something clicked in his throat, as if has works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.

Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down upon the pie, I made bold to say, `I am glad you enjoy it.'

`Did you speak?'

`I said I was glad you enjoyed it.'

`Thankee, my boy. I do.'

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating, and the man's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought there was danger in every direction, of somebody's coming to take the pie away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate it comfortably, I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars he was very like the dog.

`I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him,' said I, timidly; after a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making the remark. `There's no more to be got where that came from.' It was the certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.

`Leave any for him? Who's him?' said my friend, stopping in his crunching of pie-crust.

`The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.'

`Oh ah!' he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. `Him? Yes, yes! He don't want no wittles.'

`I thought he looked as if he did,' said I.

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and the greatest surprise.

`Looked? When?'

`Just now.'

`Where?'

`Yonder,' said I, pointing; `over there, where I found him nodding asleep, and thought it was you.'

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.

`Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,' I explained, trembling;`and - and' - I was very anxious to put this delicately - `and with - the same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon last night?'

`Then, there was firing!' he said to himself.

`I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that,' I returned, `for we heard it up at home, and that's further away, and we were shut in besides.'

`Why, see now!' said he. `When a man's alone on these flats, with a light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears nothin'

all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders """Make ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!" and is laid hands on - and there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night - coming up in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, tramp - I see a hundred. And as to firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad day - But this man;' he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my being there; `did you notice anything in him?'

`He had a badly bruised face,' said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew.

`Not here?' exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with the flat of his hand.

`Yes, there!'

`Where is he?' He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his grey jacket. `Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, boy.'

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding his own leg, which has an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still going.