"Eat and sleep--that's the whole duty of man just at present. Blob, take Piper his rations, and ask him to forgive an old soldier who's a bit short in the temper in action--and do the same yourself, my boy. Here, Kit." They snatched a hasty meal. Outside the dusk was falling. The Parson brushed the crumbs off his cravat. "And now will you take first watch, or shall I?" "I will, sir. I don't feel like sleep." "Very well. Wake me when the moon dips behind the Downs, or earlier if there's a sign of the soldiers." Kit took his post at the dormer. The other slipped off his coat. "I'm not much of a Parson as you may have found out," he muttered, "still I am an Englishman." And he plumped down on his knees defiantly. His was a very short and simple prayer; the prayer tens of thousands of Englishmen were praying from their hearts at that time. Kneeling in his shirt, Polly shining before him against the wall, he repeated it most earnestly. The whispered words, so simple and heart-felt, reached the ears of the boy at the dormer. "God bless our dear country; and God d--- the French." The waters of laughter came roaring up the boy's throat, and surged over, irresistible. The Parson rose from his knees, and scowled at the lad's shaking shoulders. "I suppose they're too proud to pray in _his_ Service," he sneered. "Pack o pirates!" He took off his coat and folded it with thumps. "Yet I know one sailor who's not above paying his respects to his Maker--and that's Lord Nelson, of whom you may have heard. Seen him myself in the trenches at Calvi. I remember a great buck of a Dragoon Guardsman asking him, "'Why d'you pray, little man?' 'Why,' says Nelson, simple as a child, 'because mother taught me.' Yes, sir," fiercely, "and that's why I pray--and jolly good reason too." "Did she teach you that prayer?" asked Kit demurely. "Bah! blurry young tarry-breeks!" muttered the other; and curling on the floor, his rolled jacket beneath his head, the old campaigner was off to sleep, Polly fair and faithful beside him. II The boy had the house to himself, and the world too. At last he could retire once more upon the Love within him. He could pray--without words. The sea was a plain shining beneath the moon. Against the light, inky sycamores ruffled, stars entangled in their leaves. On the shingle- bank the bear-skinn'd sentinel showed black against white waters. The plain beauty of the night stole upon his mind. All was jewelled silence, save for the jar-r-r of the familiar goat-sucker from the foot of the hills, and the wash of the sea. How calm it was, how strong, how radiant! He had been far away. Now he was drawing near again. It was his once more. He possessed it all, all, all, and loved it as his own. All day he had been the prisoner of his own distraught senses. And how comfortable it was, after the darkness of that life which is death, to resume the large loveliness of Life Unending.