The Trumpet-Major

‘Well, you can have the paper if you want it; but you never give me much time to see what’s in en! Here’s the paper.’ He held it out, but before she could take it he drew it back again, saying, ‘I have not had my share o’ the paper by a good deal, what with my weak sight, and people coming so soon for en. I am a poor put-upon soul; but my “Duty of Man” will be left to me when the newspaper is gone.’ And he sank into his chair with an air of exhaustion.

Anne said that she did not wish to take the paper if he had not done with it, and that she was really later in the week than usual, owing to the soldiers.

‘Soldiers, yes – rot the soldiers! And now hedges will be broke, and hens’ nests robbed, and sucking-pigs stole, and I don’t know what all. Who’s to pay for’t, sure? I reckon that because the soldiers be come you don’t mean to be kind enough to read to me what I hadn’t time to read myself.’

She would read if he wished, she said; she was in no hurry. And sitting herself down she unfolded the paper.

‘“Dinner at Carlton House”?’

‘No, faith. ’Tis nothing to I.’

‘“Defence of the country”?’

‘Ye may read that if ye will. I hope there will be no billeting in this parish, or any wild work of that sort; for what would a poor old lamiger like myself do with soldiers in his house, and nothing to feed ’em with?’

Anne began reading, and continued at her task nearly ten minutes, when she was interrupted by the appearance in the quadrangular slough without of a large figure in the uniform of the yeomanry cavalry.

‘What do you see out there?’ said the farmer with a start, as she paused and slowly blushed.

‘A soldier – one of the yeomanry,’ said Anne, not quite at her ease.

‘Scrounch it all – ’tis my nephew!’ exclaimed the old man, his face turning to a phosphoric pallor, and his body twitching with innumerable alarms as he formed upon his face a gasping smile of joy, with which to welcome the new-coming relative. ‘Read on, prithee, Miss Garland.’

Before she had read far the visitor straddled over the door-hurdle into the passage and entered the room.

‘Well, nunc, how do you feel?’ said the giant, shaking hands with the farmer in the manner of one violently ringing a hand-bell. ‘Glad to see you.’

‘Bad and weakish, Festus,’ replied the other, his person responding passively to the rapid vibrations imparted. ‘O, be tender, please – a little softer, there’s a dear nephew! My arm is no more than a cobweb.’

‘Ah, poor soul!’

‘Yes, I am not much more than a skeleton, and can’t bear rough usage.’

‘Sorry to hear that; but I’ll bear your affliction in mind. Why, you are all in a tremble, Uncle Benjy!’

‘’Tis because I am so gratified,’ said the old man. ‘I always get all in a tremble when I am taken by surprise by a beloved relation.’

‘Ah, that’s it!’ said the yeoman, bringing his hand down on the back of his uncle’s chair with a loud smack, at which Uncle Benjy nervously sprang three inches from his seat and dropped into it again. ‘Ask your pardon for frightening ye, uncle. ’Tis how we do in the army, and I forgot your nerves. You have scarcely expected to see me, I dare say, but here I am.’

‘I am glad to see ye. You are not going to stay long, perhaps?’

‘Quite the contrary. I am going to stay ever so long!’

‘O I see! I am so glad, dear Festus. Ever so long, did ye say?’

‘Yes, ever so long,’ said the young gentleman, sitting on the slope of the bureau and stretching out his legs as props. ‘I am going to make this quite my own home whenever I am off duty, as long as we stay out. And after that, when the campaign is over in the autumn, I shall come here, and live with you like your own son, and help manage your land and your farm, you know, and make you a comfortable old man.’

‘Ah! How you do please me!’ said the farmer, with a horrified smile, and grasping the arms of his chair to sustain himself.

‘Yes; I have been meaning to come a long time, as I knew you’d like to have me, Uncle Benjy; and ’tisn’t in my heart to refuse you.’

‘You always was kind that way!’

‘Yes; I always was. But I ought to tell you at once, not to disappoint you, that I shan’t be here always – all day, that is, because of my military duties as a cavalry man.’

‘O, not always? That’s a pity!’ exclaimed the farmer with a cheerful eye.

‘I knew you’d say so. And I shan’t be able to sleep here at night sometimes, for the same reason.’

‘Not sleep here o’ nights?’ said the old gentleman, still more relieved. ‘You ought to sleep here – you certainly ought; in short, you must. But you can’t!’

‘Not while we are with the colours. But directly that’s over – the very next day – I’ll stay here all day, and all night too, to oblige you, since you ask me so very kindly.’

‘Th-thank ye, that will be very nice!’ said Uncle Benjy.

‘Yes, I knew ’twould relieve ye.’ And he kindly stroked his uncle’s head, the old man expressing his enjoyment at the affectionate token by a death’s-head grimace. ‘I should have called to see you the other night when I passed through here,’ Festus continued; ‘but it was so late that I couldn’t come so far out of my way. You won’t think it unkind?’

‘Not at all, if you couldn’t. I never shall think it unkind if you really can’t come, you know, Festy.’ There was a few minutes’ pause, and as the nephew said nothing Uncle Benjy went on: ‘I wish I had a little present for ye. But as ill-luck would have it we have lost a deal of stock this year, and I have had to pay away so much.’

‘Poor old man – I know you have. Shall I lend you a seven-shilling piece, Uncle Benjy?’

‘Ha, ha! – you must have your joke; well, I’ll think o’ that. And so they expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his landing, hey? And that the yeomanry be to stand in front as the forlorn hope?’

‘Who says so?’ asked the florid son of Mars, losing a little redness.

‘The newspaper-man.’

‘O, there’s nothing in that,’ said Festus bravely. ‘The gover’ment thought it possible at one time; but they don’t know.’

Festus turned himself as he talked, and now said abruptly: ‘Ah, who’s this? Why, ’tis our little Anne!’ He had not noticed her till this moment, the young woman having at his entry kept her face over the newspaper, and then got away to the back part of the room. ‘And are you and your mother always going to stay down there in the mill-house watching the little fishes, Miss Anne?’

She said that it was uncertain, in a tone of truthful precision which the question was hardly worth, looking forcedly at him as she spoke. But she blushed fitfully, in her arms and hands as much as in her face. Not that she was overpowered by the great boots, formidable spurs, and other fierce appliances of his person, as he imagined; simply she had not been prepared to meet him there.

‘I hope you will, I am sure, for my own good,’ said he, letting his eyes linger on the round of her cheek.

Anne became a little more dignified, and her look showed reserve. But the yeoman on perceiving this went on talking to her in so civil a way that he irresistibly amused her, though she tried to conceal all feeling. At a brighter remark of his than usual her mouth moved, her upper lip playing uncertainly over her white teeth; it would stay still – no, it would withdraw a little way in a smile; then it would flutter down again; and so it wavered like a butterfly in a tender desire to be pleased and smiling, and yet to be also sedate and composed; to show him that she did not want compliments, and yet that she was not so cold as to wish to repress any genuine feeling he might be anxious to utter.

‘Shall you want any more reading, Mr. Derriman?’ said she, interrupting the younger man in his remarks. ‘If not, I’ll go homeward.’

‘Don’t let me hinder you longer,’ said Festus. ‘I’m off in a minute or two, when your man has cleaned my boots.’

‘Ye don’t hinder us, nephew. She must have the paper: ’tis the day for her to have ’n. She might read a little more, as I have had so little profit out o’ en hitherto. Well, why don’t ye speak? Will ye, or won’t ye, my dear?’

‘Not to two,’ she said.

‘Ho, ho! damn it, I must go then, I suppose,’ said Festus, laughing; and unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and clanked into the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand he cried, ‘Anthony Cripplestraw!’

Cripplestraw came up in a trot, moved a lock of his hair and replaced it, and said, ‘Yes, Maister Derriman.’ He was old Mr. Derriman’s odd hand in the yard and garden, and like his employer had no great pretensions to manly beauty, owing to a limpness of backbone and speciality of mouth, which opened on one side only, giving him a triangular smile.