"Susy so cold," whimpered the mite pitifully.
"I should think you was cold," returned Private Flinders sympathetically. "I'm none too warm myself; and the fog seems to fair eat into one's bones. Well, little 'un, I can't carry you back to where you came from, that's very certain. I can't even take you round to the guard-room. Now, what the deuce am I to do with you? And I shan't be relieved for over a hour."
Private Flinders being one of the most good-natured men in creation, it ended by his gathering the child in his arms, and carrying her up and down on his beat until the relief came.
"Why, what's the meaning of this?" demanded the corporal of the guard, when he perceived the unusual encumbrance to the private's movements.
"Ah! Corporal, that's more than I can tell you," responded the other promptly. "This here kid toddled along over a hour ago; and as she don't seem to know what her name is, or where she come from, I just walked about with her, that she mightn't be froze to death. I suppose we'd best carry her to the guard-room fire, and keep her warm till morning."
"And then?" asked the corporal, with a twinkle in his eye, which the dark night effectually hid.
"Gord knows," was the private's quick reply.
Eventually, the mite who rejoiced in the name of Susy, and did not know whence she had come or whither she was going, was carried off to the guard-room and made as comfortable as circumstances would permit--that being the only course, indeed, at that hour of the night, or, to be quite correct, of the morning--which could with reason be followed.
She slept, as healthy children do, like a top or dog, and when she awoke in the morning she expressed no fear or very much surprise, and, having enquired in a casual kind of way for her mammy, she partook of a very good breakfast of bread and milk, followed by a drink of coffee and a taste or two of such other provisions as were going round. Later on Private Flinders was sent for to the orderly-room, and told to give the commanding officer such information as he was in possession of concerning the stray mite, who was still in the warm guard-room.
Now it happened that the commanding officer of the 9th Hussars was a gentleman to whom routine was a religion and discipline a salvation, and he expressed himself sharply enough as to the only course which could possibly be pursued under the present circumstances.