One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
tant. He says, the Germans despise us most.’
‘Then this gentleman thinks you have a good case?’
‘He is a friend of Captain Dartrey’s.’
Hearing that name, Nesta said: ‘Now, Skepsey, you must
tell me everything. You are not to mind your looks. I believe,
I do always believe you mean well.’
‘Miss Nesta, it depends upon the magistrate’s not being
prejudiced against the street-processionists!
‘But you may expect justice from the magistrate, if your
case is good?’
‘I would not say no, Miss Nesta. But we find, the opinion
of the public has its effect with magistrates—their sentences.
They are severe on boxing. They have latterly treated the
“Army” with more consideration, owing to the change in the
public view. I myself have changed.’
‘Have you joined it?’
‘I cannot say I am a member of it.’
‘You walked in the ranks to-day, and you were maltreated?
Your friend was there?’
‘I walked with Matilda Pridden; that is, parallel, along the
pavement.’
‘I hope she came out of it unhurt?’
‘It is thanks to Captain Dartrey, Miss Nesta?’
This time Nesta looked her question.
Manton interposed: ‘You are to speak, Mr. Skepsey’; and
she stopped a flood of narrative, that was knocking in his mind
to feel its head and to leap—an uninterrupted half-minute
more would have shaped the story for the proper flow.
He began, after attending to the throb of his bruises in a
manner to correct them rather than solace; and the beginning
was the end: ‘Captain Dartrey rescued us, before Matilda
Pridden suffered harm, to mention—the chin, slight, teeth
unshaken; a beautiful set. She is angry with Captain Dartrey,
for having recourse to violence in her defence: it is against
her principles. “Then you die,” she says; and our principles
are to gain more by death. She says, we are alive in them; but
worse if we abandon them for the sake of living.—I am a
little confused; she is very abstruse.—Because, that is the
corruptible life, she says. I have found it quite impossible to
argue with her; she has always a complete answer; wonderful.
In case of Invasion, we are to lift our voices to the Lord;
and the Lord’s will shall be manifested. If we are robbed, we
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