[Pg 11]

[Pg 12]

“How came you to join the army?”

“Faith, sir, I had no choice. The King’s recruiting officers came after me, and I had to go. But I cannot say I regretted it, for I could never have been anything else but a soldier, and I have a better chance to rise in the army than in any of the humble callings open to me in civil life. My mother said it was best—that I came of good fighting stock on her side—her brothers were officers, and as far back as she knows her ancestors they were mostly in the army and navy.”

The fire was burning brightly now; they were warmed through, their hunger was appeased, and so comfortable was their situation that they were both in a mood to entertain and be entertained. A fire in the snow and a supper of cheese and bacon meant luxury to St. Arnaud now, who had been brought up in palaces, and he found himself listening to Gavin’s story with the same interest that the Arab in the parching desert listens to the story-teller who makes him forget all his miseries.

“Did you ever see your father?” he asked.

“Once. My father was sent to the court of the [Pg 13]Empress Queen on a diplomatic mission. He passed secretly through Paris and sent for me. I went with the sole idea that he might do justice to my mother. But I might have saved my shoe leather. However, what I did that day to my father is written to my credit in heaven’s books, for I mauled him well, and I was but eighteen—I am only nineteen now.”

[Pg 13]

St. Arnaud could not refrain from a look of disapproval, and Gavin, noting it, asked at once, with the greatest naïveté:

“But he spoke abominably of my mother, and any man who speaks one disrespectful word of her—he is my enemy, and I am his. Would not you do the same by your mother?”

And St. Arnaud involuntarily answered “Yes.”

“Well, then,” continued Gavin, rising to his feet, “are you surprised that I should think I did a righteous act in flying at Sir Gavin? He is a strong, well-made man, though not so big as I am now, and as I took him by surprise, I succeeded in knocking him off his chair before he had got out half he had meant to say about my mother. His valet came running in then, and Sir Gavin, smiling as he wiped some blood off his face, sent the man away. Oh, he [Pg 14]was a cool one! He smiled all 

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