Then
he thought of his mother, and crossed himself, and said a little prayer
to the Virgin.
* * * * *
Charron was waiting by the old yew-tree, and Jerry sat trembling, with
his eyes upon the castle, while the black horse, roped to a branch, was
mourning the scarcity of oats and the abundance of gnats.
"Pest and the devil, but the coast is all alive!" cried the Frenchman,
soothing anxiety with solid and liquid comforts. "Something has gone
wrong behind the tail of everything. And there goes that big Stoobar,
blazing with his sordid battery! Arouse thee, old Cheray! The time too
late is over. Those lights thrice accursed will display our little boat,
and John Bull is rushing with a thousand sails. The Commander is mad.
They will have him, and us too. Shall I dance by a rope? It is the only
dancing probable for me in England."
"I have never expected any good to come," the old man answered, without
moving. "The curse of the house is upon the young Squire. I saw it in
his eyes this morning, the same as I saw in his father's eyes, when the
sun was going down the very night he died. I shall never see him more,
sir, nor you either, nor any other man that bides to the right side of
his coffin."
"Bah! what a set you are of funerals, you Englishmen! But if I thought
he was in risk, I would stay to see the end of it."
"Here comes the end of it!" the old man cried, leaping up and catching
at a rugged cord of trunk, with his other hand pointing up the hill.
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