A large flag, the Union Jack, was suspended over the front of the house, at the door of which stood three or four soldiers of that unwashed stamp which haunt the dens of Orchard-street and the purlieus of Birdcage-walk.
There was an awe-stricken semicircle of rustics at a little distance, before whom stood an enlisting sergeant—his features bloated and reddened from beer and alcohol—beckoning with his naked sword in his hand.
He had the gift of the gab, and the words he was giving utterance to fell glibly enough from his lips.
“Now, my fine fellow,” he cried, in a thick husky voice, “don’t hesitate. A fine chance offers itself. Take the Queen’s money, and join our gallant comrades in the East. Now’s your time; but don’t all speak at once. Happy is the man who enlists in our crack regiment. We want a little help just now to thrash all them black-faced, black-headed scoundrels who’ve been butchering the poor women and children. You won’t have another such a chance, and so don’t hesitate—don’t hang back like a pack of curs. I see around me a fine lot of fellows. Come, now, you with the white dudley, we can’t get on without you. You know there isn’t such a pair of shoulders as yours in the whole army. You’re cut out for a sodger, and it’s a real sin for a handsome young fellow like you to be wasting your precious life following the plough when you might be making a fortune in Injia. There’s heaps of gold there, and you are sure to get promoted. Say the word. Take the Queen’s shilling, and you’ll come back a general with white stars on your breast, and a mahogany box full of yellow sovereigns. You won’t refuse—you’re not one of that sort. I’ve had my eye upon you, and you’ll thank me for making a man of you. What say you, comrade?”
“Don’t ee do nothink o’ the sort, lad. Don’t ee listen to what ee ses,” cried a woman, standing by. “I know what he be. He only talks loike that cos he gets so much a head for every fresh fool he takes in. Take the Queen’s money, indeed! Let him keep it. If it was to a man’s good to go a sodgering, d’ye think they’d want to tempt him with a shilling? Go to the wars, and what will ee get for it? A bit o’ ribbon or an iron cross may be. It’s a hard world for humble folk. In war they does the fightin’, and others get the reward; in peace they does the hard work, and others collar the money. Don’t ee be kiddy kilted into it, my lad. They mek the gentlemen generals, not the private sodgers, and all the plunder goes to the government as stays at home, not to them as risks their lives for it abroad. He can talk and tell lies by the bushel, but don’t ee be gammoned by him—and don’t ee bleeve a word as he ses.”
The rubicund face of the enlisting sergeant became redder than ever as he listened to the words which fell from the lips of the young woman.
He was greatly incensed, and looked upon her with ineffable disgust.
“You are an audacious impudent hussy!” he cried, with the fierce gestures of a Hamlet at the Bower Saloon, “and some wholesome chastisement would do you good, my lady. If you were a man, I’d give you something for yourself, but a British soldier never raises his hand against a woman.”
Having delivered himself of this heroic declaration, he turned towards the rustics, and said, in a confidential tone—
“You’ve got too much sense to take any heed of what a poor half-witted creature like her has to say. Anyone can see that she has not got her right change.”