This fat fellow with the heaving shoulders on the thwart before him, this chap with the crease across his bald neck, and the black sweat trickling from his hair, had insulted him.

As woman, he was bent upon revenge; as man, he would go warily, striking only to strike home.

"That was a fine horse you flogged to death," he began tranquilly, trailing his fingers in the dead green waters.

"Yes, sir," panted the other, thrusting at the oars. "I don't spare spur when I'm ridin agin the French. I'm a man, and an Englishman--not a pink-faced, girl-eyed booby togged out in a cocked hat and a tin dagger, calling meself a King's officer."

"I guessed that you were not one of us," replied the boy delicately. "Your manners are too distinguished. But tell me a little more about your ride. You seemed in rather a hurry. I take it you were riding for a drink."

The great man swung round. His whole life seemed to have stopped short, and now hung behind his eyes--an appalling shadow.

For one swift moment the boy thought he would be struck.

Then the big man spoke; and his voice was measured and very still.

"If you think I burst the gamest eart that ever beat in an orse's ide for a drink, why then, sir," with crushing simplicity, "you think wrong."

He resumed his rowing, and continued with the same surprising dignity.

"I bred that orse; I broke that orse; I loved that orse."

The tide of the boy's being set back with a shock.

"O!" he cried. "O ... I didn't mean ... I really...."

"That's all right, sir," came the other's smothered voice. "I know you didn't."

He swallowed, and his face grew rigid. Then a light broke all about it.

"But there!" with husky pride. "He won't bear me no grudge--will you, old man?" with a hoarse burst of tenderness, flinging his arm towards the bank, where the dead horse's girths glimmered still in the dusk. "He know'd I wouldn't have asked it of him, only I had to. That's my old orse! that's my Robin!--Never asked no questions. Just took and died and did his duty without the talkin. Maybe some of us might learn a bit from him."

Taking a great bandana from his pocket, he blew his nose like the report of a pistol.

"A'ter all," he said, with touching solemnity, "he died for his country, did my Robin--same as Abercromby at Alexandrya."

III

Behind them on the hill a clock struck eight.

The riding-officer held up his hand.

"Ark!" he cried. "It was going seven in Ditchling as I pelted down the Beacon. Gallop! gallop! gallop! There's ne'er another orse in England could ha done it, with big Jerry Ram bumpin on his back all the way; danged if there be!"

He thumped his knee.

"King George ought to know on it! He died for him. Fair lay down to it, belly all along the ground. Might ha know'd he was on the King's business, and the Gentleman with two minutes' start streakin away for Birling Gap like a bullet from the bow."

"Aw, he'll be out again than?" drawled the waterman, sleepy and Sussex.

"Out again!" shouted Big Jerry, and clapping the handkerchief to his ear, thrust it beneath the other's eye of mildew. "What's that?--blood, ain't it?--whose?--mine.--How?--The Gentleman."