"Can't you see my brother anywhere?" she asked Hempel, who held an old
spyglass to his eyes.
"No, ma'am, sorry to say I can't," replied Hempel. He would willingly
have conjured up a dozen brothers to comfort Polly; but he could not
swerve from the truth, even for her.
"Give me the glass," said Mahony, and swept the line.--"No, no sign of
either of them. Perhaps they thought better of it after all.--Listen!
now they're singing--can you hear them? The MARSEILLAISE as I'm alive.
--Poor fools! Many of them are armed with nothing more deadly than picks
and shovels."
"And pikes," corrected Hempel. "Several carry pikes, sir."
"Ay, that's so, they've bin 'ammerin' out bits of old iron all the
mornin'," agreed Ocock. "It's said they 'aven't a quarter of a firearm
apiece. And the drillin'! Lord love yer! 'Alf of 'em don't know their
right 'and from their left. The troops 'ull make mincemeat of 'em, if
they come to close quarters."
"Oh, I hope not!" said Polly. "Oh, I do hope they won't get hurt."
Patting her hand, Mahony advised his wife to go indoors and resume her
household tasks. And since his lightest wish was a command, little Polly
docilely withdrew her arm and returned to her dishwashing. But though
she rubbed and scoured with her usual precision, her heart was not in
her work. Both on this day and the next she seemed to exist solely in
her two ears. The one strained to catch any scrap of news about "poor
Ned"; the other listened, with an even sharper anxiety, to what went on
in the store.
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