f
the bygone coach-guard, and in its sudden annihilation a fragment had
cut the gunner across the face, and a second inflicted a pretty deep
flesh-wound on his arm. Neither injury was very serious, and the general
escape, as John Grimbal pointed out, might be considered marvellous, for
not a soul save Billy himself had been so much as scratched.

With Martin Grimbal on one side and Mr. Chapple upon the other, the
wounded veteran walked slowly and solemnly along. The dramatic moments
of the hour were dear to him, and while tolerably confident at the
bottom of his mind that no vital hurt had been done, he openly declared
himself stricken to death, and revelled in a display of Christian
fortitude and resignation that deceived everybody but John Grimbal.
Billy gasped and gurgled, bid them see to the bandages, and reviewed his
past life with ingenuous satisfaction.

"Ah, sawls all! dead as a hammer in an hour. 'T is awver. I feel the
life swelling out of me."

"Don't say that, Billy," cried Martin, in real concern. "The blood's
stopped flowing entirely now."

"For why? Theer's no more to come. My heart be pumping wind, lifeless
wind; my lung-play's gone, tu, an' my sight's come awver that coorious.
Be Gaffer Lezzard nigh?"

"Here, alongside 'e, Bill."

"Gimme your hand then, an' let auld scores be wiped off in this
shattering calamity. Us have differed wheer us could these twoscore
years; but theer mustn't be no more ill-will wi' me tremblin' on the lip
o' the graave."

"None at all; if 't wasn't for Widow Coomstock," said Gaffer Lezzard.
"You 'm tu pushing theer, an' I say it even now, for truth's truth,
though it be the last thing a man's ear holds."

"Break it to her gentle," said Billy, ignoring the other's criticism;
"she'm on in years, and have cast a kindly eye awver me since the early
sixties. My propositions never was more than agreeable conversation to
her, but it might have come. Tell her theer's a world beyond marriage
customs, an' us'll meet theer."

Old Lezzard showed a good deal of anger at this speech, but being in a
minority fell back and held his peace.

"Would 'e like to see passon, dear sawl?" asked Mr. Chapple, who walked
on Billy's left with his gun reversed, as though at a funeral.

"Me an' him be out, along o' rheumatics keeping me from the House of God
this month," said the sufferer, "but at a solemn death-bed hour like
this here, I'd soon see un as not. Ban't no gert odds, for I forgiv