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Finally he squatted beside Mrs. Morran, lit his pipe, and took a firm hold on his patience. It was not tested for long. Presently he was aware that a change had come over the scene that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was wafted to him. "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting rattled.
Gallant tin soldiers of the line lay where they had fallen; nearly the whole of a shilling box of light cavalry had paid the penalty of rashly exposing themselves in a compact body to the enemy's fire; while a rickety little field-gun, with bright red wheels, lay overturned on two infantry men, who, even in death, held their muskets firmly to their shoulders, like the grim old "die-hards" that they were.
The Die-Hards faded out of the kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking at each other. They did not look long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed by Mrs. Morran's out-of-doors boots and Dickson's tackets. Arm in arm the two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the South Lodge.
I was very glad to do so, for, let me say quite frankly, I am ready to advocate the League of Nations before any assembly, certainly not least an assembly of Liberals. But not only an assembly of Liberals I should be ready to advocate it even before an assembly of "Die-Hards." Your chairman has said, and said truly, that the League is not a party question.
The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again on the stone stairs. Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter of naked feet as the Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was delivering himself blind and bound into their hands.
It did not originate in the constituencies, but in the Cabinet; it was not forced upon the caucus by an aroused and indignant country, but by the caucus upon the country; nine-tenths of its momentum has been derived from above and not from below; the true centers of excitement throughout its polite and orderly progress have been the lobbies of the House and the correspondence columns of The Times; it was only at the last that the urbanities of the struggle between the "Die-hards" and their fellow Unionists furnished the public as a whole with material for a mild sporting interest.
Sir Allan MacNab with his old die-hards, fulminating against all enemies of the British tradition, was still willing to make an unholy alliance with the French, if only he could checkmate a governor-general who did not seem to appreciate his past services to Britain.
'Awa' to Finnick, says I. 'D'ye think we take our orders from dirty ne'er-do-weels like you? 'By God, says they, 'we'll cut your lights out, and then the battle started." "What happened? Dickson asked excitedly. "They were four muckle men against six laddies, and they thought they had an easy job! Little they kenned the Gorbals Die-Hards!
"The iniquity of oblivion," says Sir Thomas Browne, "blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity." "Time," writes Dr. Isaac Watts "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away!" And this fine hymn was a favourite with Captain AEneas Pond, the commanding-officer of the Die-hards.
Here was the "Black Watch," and there the "Coldstream Guards;" while this assembly of six French Zouaves, a couple of red-coats, a bugler, and a headless mounted officer on a three-legged horse, was the old 57th Foot the "Die-Hards" ready to exhibit once more the same stubborn courage and unflinching fortitude as they had displayed at Albuera.