And the hayricks; properly speakin', _they_
belonged to Detachment E, and I hadn' time to fire more than Farmer
Coad's on my way down wi' the cattle. _And_ the alarm bell, you may
argue, wasn' any business of mine; an' I wish with all my heart I'd
never touched the dam thing! But with the French at your doors, so
to speak--"
"The French?"
"Didn' I tell you? Then I must have overlooked it. Iss, iss, the
French be landed at Talland Cove, and murderin' as they come!
And the Troy lads be cut down like a swathe o' grass; and I, only I,
escaped to carry the news. And you call this a Millenyum, I
suppose?" he wound up with sudden inconsequent bitterness.
But the Vicar apparently did not hear. "The French? The French?" he
kept repeating. "Oh, Heaven, what's to be done?"
"If you was something more than a pulpit Christian," suggested Gunner
Sobey, "you'd hoist me pickaback an' carry me over to hospital; for I
can't walk with any degree of comfort, an' that's a fact. And next
you'd turn to an' drive off the cattle inland, an' give warning as
you go. 'Tis a question if I live out this night, an' 'tis another
question if I want to; but, dead or alive, it sha'n't be said of me
that I hadn' presence of mind."
CHAPTER XI.
THE MAJOR LEAVES US.
Two minutes later the Vicar, staggering up to the hospital door with
Gunner Sobey on his back, came to a terrified halt as his ears caught
the _tramp, tramp_ of a body of men approaching from the direction of
Passage Slip, which is the landing-place of the Little Ferry.
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