Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/334

300 y' know, Mother—I simply lived with that chap, night and day, for a year, and know no more about him than just that. That, and his marks—and by Jove, he'd got some.… Simply a mass of scars, beginning with the crown of his head, where was a hole you could have laid your thumb in. Been about a bit, too; fought in China, Madagascar, West Africa, the Sahara and Morocco, in the Legion. Certainly been in the British Army—in Africa, too. I fancy he'd been a sailor as well—anyhow he'd been in Japan and got the loveliest bit of tattooing I ever set eyes on. Wonderful colours—snake winding round his wrist and up his forearm. Thing looked alive though it had been done for over thirty years. Nagasaki, I think he said.…" He yawned hugely. "But here I am rambling on about a person you never saw, and keeping you up," he added. He bent to kiss his mother again.

"Mother!—darling! Don't you feel well? Here, I'll get you a little brandy."

Lady Huntingten was clutching at the edge of the table, and staring at her son, white-lipped. Her face looked drawn and suddenly old.

"No, no," she said. "Come back. I—sometimes—a little …" and she sat down on the oak settle beside the table.

"The heat …" she continued incoherently. "There, I'm all right now. Tell me some more about this—John Bull.… He is dead? … You buried him yourself, you said."

"Yes, poor old chap, it was awful."

"And he gave you no messages for his people? He did not tell you his real name?"