Not many minutes before he appeared, not with the tin dipper but a whole bucketful of clear cold water, forgetting all about his sore feet; and while the men went and sat round the iron pot of savoury hotch-potch, Tom Jones stayed behind to help bathe and bandage the head of the handsome little fellow upon whose sunburned face more than one hot tear fell, as loving hands made him up a temporary bed of great-coats in the shade. "Oh, Tom, Tom!" sobbed the big rough coarse woman, as she knelt there at last after doing all she could, "many's the time that I've prayed that I might have a little boy to call my own; but Heaven knows best, and he might have lived to die like this." "He ain't a-going to die," said Tom, sniffing again. "He is--he is; and no doctor near!" "No," said Tom, with another sniff; "he's miles away, along o' them poor wounded chaps we left behind." "I can do nothing, nothing more--and he's somebody's bairn!" "Yes," said the boy hoarsely, "and the Frenchies killed 'em, for Joe Beane telled the men as the sight he see was horrid." "Hush! Ah, look," whispered the woman, and she bent over the poor little victim, who wailed faintly, "Oh, don't--don't--Ah!" Then he lay silent and motionless, as his rough nurse softly laid her hand upon the fire-scorched forehead. "Why, that there ain't Portygeeze," whispered Tom, staring. "Well, old gal, what about him now?" "Oh, I don't know, Joe; I don't know. He just spoke a little." "Poor little nipper. All right, my gal; you'll bring him round." Tom had ceased sniffing and had turned to give a long stare at the men grouped round the pot, to see that they had done eating and were lighting their pipes. "Might ha' arxed a pore chap to have had a bit, corporal," he said. "Ay, we might, lad; but then you see we was all so hungry we mightn't, and you're only a boy." "Yes, that's it," grumbled Tom, wrenching his bugle round and giving it a vicious polish with his sleeve. "Allus the same; on'y a boy; just as if I could help that!" "And such a hungry sort o' boy; holler all through. It's a waste to give you good food. That there stoo was evvinly." Joe turned away from Tom's sour puckered face, to bend over the insensible little patient with a look full of pity, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I should just liked to have been there, missus, with my bay'net fixed when they cut that little fellow down. Here, I'll sit and have a pipe and keep the flies off him, while you go and pick a bit. The boys wouldn't touch a morsel till I'd put aside some for you and Tom." That night the 200th was still marching on where they were to camp in the mountains, while on a rough kind of litter formed of a long basket strapped upon the back of a mule, with a couple of great-coats and a blanket for bed, lay the poor child whose life Mrs Beane was trying to save.