"And I'll make my course for the cottage and see all's snug there,"

said the old man. "You never know what's comin next in this world.

It's the wise man as is ready for the worst."

He trundled himself across the gra.s.s.

"Here's your book!" cried Kit, and bending picked it from the ground.

As he did so he saw the name.

It was Law's _Serious Call._

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

THE SIMPLETON

They pa.s.sed out of the shadow of the sycamore into the sun-glare.

The greensward ran away into shallow creek lying between them and the little hill beyond. Crossing it, they began the ascent.

"This is the Wish," explained the Parson, climbing; "the Wash really, because the sea washed round it in old days. It's gone back along these parts. Old Piper says, when he was a boy, the creek used to fill at spring-tides."

At the top of the hill Kit looked about him.

The Wish thrust out into the brown beach, a natural watch-tower, some hundred feet high. This was no doubt the b.u.mp of green he had seen from the dew-pond.

Eastward a long sweep of shingle embraced Pevensey Bay. Westward, Beachy Head shouldered out into the sea.

It was nearly low tide. Barriers of black rocks bound the sea.

On the edge of it a boy in a blue jersey danced. In his hand was a sea-weed scourge; and as the sea toppled in tiny ripples at his feet, he spanked it, leaping back to avoid the touch of the water. As he leapt he yelled; and in the stillness his pure treble rose to them.

"Hod back, ye saucy thing! hod back, I say!"

The Parson put his hand to his mouth.

"Blob!" he holloaed.

The boy looked up, and with a parting spank came towards them.

"Who's that?" asked Kit, "and what's he doing?"

"Blob--blobbing'," replied the Parson laconically.

"Who's Blob?"

The Parson took up his tale.

"You remember I told you Black Diamond promised to look me up some time. Well, I knew he'd be as good as his word. So very next day I had the windows barred, a brace of bullet-proof doors slung, got in a barrel of powder, and made all snug....

"And just as well I did, too. A couple of days later, just about the time the bats begin to twitter, I heard the thud of feet on the gra.s.s, and a laugh. They thought they'd taken on an easy job--just walk into the house, and cop me at my supper. We let em up to within twenty yards. Then we let em have it, the three of us--Piper, Knapp, and I....

"Such a panic! 'It's a trap!' screams one. 'Blockademen!' yells a second. Diamond was the only one of the lot to keep his head. ''Bout ship, boys!' he shouts. 'Call again another day.' And off they scuttled, quicker than they came....

"'Come on, Knapp!' says I, and bundles out after them, holloaing like a regiment. One or two turned, and there was a bit of a barney. I stuck one chap, and was just going to stick another--a fellow in blue jumping around in a queer kind of way--when all of a sudden he gave a jab in the back to one of his own chaps.

"Then he turned, and I saw he was a boy about your age, with a face like a pink moon.

"He came at me like a man, flashing his knife.

"'Here! who are you for?' says I.

"'Whoy, mesalf!' says he.

"'But what you at?' says I.

"'Whoy, foightin!' says he.

"'Who?' says I.

"'Whoy, the nearest!' says he, and smacks at me.

"Then Knapp tripped him from behind, and he was our prisoner....

"He's been with us ever since. Piper's been tryin to make a Christian of him."

"What's his story?"

"I don't know, and he can't tell us. He knows nothing--not even fear.

I call him Blob, because blob's his nature. Piper found the name Hoad on his shirt. I daresay his people sold him to the Gap Gang; and they kept him."

"To be cruel to?" shuddered Kit.

"Not they," laughed the Parson. "He was plump as a little pig. They'd be kind to him because he wasn't right--superst.i.tion, you see. Kept him to bring em luck, probably. A kind of idol."

The boy in the blue jersey was coming up the hill towards them, s...o...b..ring at the mouth. His hands were in his pockets, and he lolloped along on his toes.

"Oi druv her back," he announced with complacent cunning. "She was creepin in on us, sloy-loike."

His face was that of a babe. Clearer eyes Kit had never seen, nor a more perfect mouth. But for the ears, large and flap, it might have been the face of a cherub, poised on the gawky body of fifteen. The expression, by no means vacant, was of slow and staring interest.

Certainly this was no congenital idiot. Probably some chance blow on the head in infancy had arrested mental growth. The flesh had gone on; the mind had stopped. A baby-soul was sheathed in the body of a boy.

The two lads were much of a height, and much of an age. But what a difference between them!

The one was limp as a lolling flower, the other alert as a sword, and as keen. Experience had written nothing on the face of the simpleton.