The Soldier's Wife — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

; THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. 5 along at a sober jog-trot pace. The arrival of the carrier’s van was one cf the most important incidents alike of the morning and of the evening: for when passing through in the morning, ne received the various commissions which were to be executed at Middleton—the town to which he was repairing — and the fulfilment of which commissions might be expected on his return in the evening Therefore, when his tinkling bell rang, those vill. gers who were expecting “parcels eame forth from their houses and repaired to the Royal Oak, where the carrier delivered whatsoever was_ thus avvaited., On the present occasion the van brought a passenger—an actual live passenger—and one, too, whose appearance was somewhat calculated to alarm and amaze the peaceful denizens of _“Yes—and if ycu would take my advice,” said the carrier, who having now brought out the parcels, had leisure for a few momente’ chat, “you would tell all your young men at Oak. leigh to be on their guard avin that feller. It isn’t for me to speak disrespectful of any one wot wears his Majesty’s uniform: besides which, he paid me his fare and I had summaut to drink on the road at his expense: but still people will have their own opinions—and [ dowt know cf any law that’s to perwent one from uttering them. So I says that you folks had better tell your young men to be on the look-out: for if that soger-chap hasu’t come to hoist at Oakleizh the same colors he has been a-wearing for 4 week past at Middleton, then my name isn’t painted in yaller letters on that there brick-red vround :°—and he pointed to the side of his Oakleigh. For the individual alluded to wore | covered van where the blazonry of which he a military uniform—a scarlet coat turned upj|spoke duly existed. with white on the tails and blue on the cuffs and collar. He had a sword and a sash ; “What colors does he mean 2” said one of the and | villagers to the barber, when the carrier himself being tall, stout, and of a cei tain stately pompos-| had passed into the public-house to take his ity of appearance, was at once set down as some officer of very high rank. Those villagers who had followed the van to the public-house to wonted glass of ale ere he pursued his way. “ What colors :’ a thin, spare man, with a wizet-face, a starve: obtain their parcels, bowed most respectfully to ling look, a very dirt ty apron, and a bustling exe the military gentleman, which courtesy he returned by carrying his right hand witha sweep ‘Then, stitf | of the arm to the front of. his cap. and rigid as if there were no elasticity in his body, and looking as if a poker were litheness in eomparison, this nportant personage paid his fare from Middleton (amounting tc elghteen- citement of manner: “ what eclors ¢ Why, “they are the same to the sergeant who wears ’em as the three balls are to a pawnbroker, the sign to an ivn, or the pole to my shop. For as these indicate places, so do colors indicate the man.” “Ah, [ understand !’ observed the butcher, who had hurried from his shop with bis knife m be! one hand and his steel in the other, and who now ejaculated Mr. Bates, who wag . pence); and ordering his “ luggage” to brougiit into the public house, he facea to the| gave the former a couple of rubs upon the latter right-about and marched with mefeured steps as if he meant to shar pen it in ominous forebod- and straight as a line up to the door of the)ing of a mischievous intent agaist the new- establishment, which he entered. comer in the scarlet coat. “I vnderstaud now ” The wondering, gaping villagers looked after him until he disappeared from their view : and then they cast their eyes up the street almost expecting to see an entire regimeni, of which this might be the colonel | winding its slow length into the place. But they saw nothing of the kind; and grouping themselves together, began expressing their whispered wonder who he was, and what he could want at Oakleigh. But when the “ luggage,” which in so formal a manner the great man had ordered to be brought in to him, was handed to the hostler in the shape of a brown paper parcel of very moderate dimensions, the villagers, finding that this was all, and that no half-dozen trunks and boxes were to follow, began to entertain a sumewhat diminished opinion of the new arrival; and the carrier being appealed to, set all doubts at rest, by informing them that the object of their interest was a sergent, properly belonging to a depot stationed at Coventry, but who had lately been sojourning at Middleton, at which latter place he had this day secured a seat in the van as far as Oakleigh. It is true that the baker insisted that a sergeant was higher than a general, and that the cobbler placed his rank next to a captain: but Mr. Bates, the villaye- barber, who knew everything, and who came up at the time, speedily set them to rights upon the subject aid made them conprehend what a sergeant really was, then, with awful solemnity of look, he added, “ jt's a recruiting-sergeant |” This announcement produced the effect of consternation upou the assembled villagers: for the group had considerably increased within the last few minutes, the report having already spread from house to house that sume very ime- portant personage in a military uniform had ar-+ rived at the public-house. Kew whose ears tha announcemeit met, had not either relatives or friends in whom they were interested, and for whom their fears were at once excited lest they should be inveigled into the trammels of the recruiting-sergeant; and this feeling was fol- lowed by a simultaneous lesire on the part cf those who had not as yet seen him, to catch a glimpse of the formidable personage, ‘Those who had seen him, wished to see him again; and there was a geuer ‘al move across the little open space in front of the Royal Oak, towards the window of its parlor, A dozeu vlances were at once plunged into the rovim: and there the stately -ergeant was seen, sitting bolt upright in a Windsor chair, with a long clay pipe in his mouth, and a quart pot of the landlord’s prime ale on the table before him, With “eyes right,” the sergeant perceived the group at the window: but he pretended not to take the shizhtest notice of the circumstauce that he was thus the object of so much atten: im tion, Prim, rigid, and mcomicbooks: (EO)