swore an oath at me, made a hit at me - it was a round weak blow
that missed me and almost knocked himself down, for it made him
stumble - and then he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went,
and I lost him.

"It's the young man!" I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I
identified him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver,
too, if I had known where it was.

I was soon at the Battery, after that, and there was the right
man-hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all
night left off hugging and limping - waiting for me. He was awfully
cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my
face and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry,
too, that when I handed him the file and he laid it down on the
grass, it occurred to me he would have tried to eat it, if he had
not seen my bundle. He did not turn me upside down, this time, to
get at what I had, but left me right side upwards while I opened
the bundle and emptied my pockets.

"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he.

"Brandy," said I.

He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most
curious manner - more like a man who was putting it away somewhere
in a violent hurry, than a man who was eating it - but he left off
to take some of the liquor. He shivered all the while, so
violently, that it was quite as much as he could do to keep the
neck of the bottle between his teeth, without biting it off.