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Distance and the darkness together rendered the vision indistinct; but Roland could see that the form was human, that it moved onwards with rapid strides, and with its countenance bent upon the earth, or upon another moving object, dusky and of lesser size, that rolled before it, guiding the way, like the bowl of the dervise in the Arabian story; and, finally, that it held in its hands, as if on the watch for an enemy, an implement wondrously like the fire-lock of a human fighting-man.
Well, I was a fighting-man!" "We're all fighting-men. It's only what we fight and how." "Well, say that I had been a chief, and they lifted me on their shields and called me king, the very next day I should have made her queen!" "You think like a ballad. And, oh, man, you talk mickle of the lasses!" Ian looked at him with long, narrow, dark-gold eyes. "They're found in ballads," he said.
A look of profoundest disgust overspread his handsome young face, a face which undoubtedly lent itself to very clear expression of such feelings as contempt, disgust and scorn, an unusual face, with the thin high-bridged nose of an English aristocrat, the large eyes and pencilled black brows of an Indian noble, the sallow yet cheek-flushed complexion of an Italian peasant-girl, and the firm lips, square jaw, and prominent chin of a fighting-man.
The bravest, coolest, keenest chap I ever met, the finest fighting-man, the truest comrade and friend, and from time to time something queer peeped out, and one was puzzled.... Madness in the family, I suppose.... Poor devil, poor, poor devil!" and Captain Malet-Marsac stamped about and swore, for his eyes tingled and his chin quivered.
Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly "see" the priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a bull-headed, hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he "fixed" Delphi by bribes.
"Who handed you up a cliff a goat couldn't climb? who brought you to this house? who put the flag-idea into your head, and brought it off?" The Parson's words made sudden confusion in the lad's mind. It came to him with a shock of surprise to find such triumphant faith in this ruddy fighting-man. "And why d'you think of all the houses in the world He sent you to this one?" the other continued.
"Ah!" he ejaculated, panting a little with his exertion, "I don't think it's likely. What say, sir?" he added, addressing an imaginary Malay fighting-man. "Have I seen your spear? No, sir. Haven't set eyes upon it, honour bright. `Always tell the truth, Pete, granny used to say. Well, ain't that the truth?
She answered slowly: "It is we who pass, so that the young Manuel whom I loved in a summer that is gone, is nowadays as perished as that summer's gay leaves. What, grizzled fighting-man, have you to do with that young Manuel who had comeliness and youth and courage, but no human pity and no constant love? and why should I be harboring his lighthearted mischiefs against you?
Wishing to give me something of an education, he sent me to a day-school, two or three streets distant from where we lived, and there, being rather a puny boy, I suffered much persecution from my schoolfellows, who were a very blackguard set. One day, as I was running home, with one of my tormentors pursuing me, old Sergeant Broughton, the retired fighting-man, seized me by the arm "
There was no hanky-panky about his promotion either no petticoat influence; it was all sheer merit and courage. He was a fighting-man from first to last and shared all the chances. But the trouble is that one doesn't know where he came from, and, therefore, one can't be sure where he's going. I know that sounds snobbish.
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