“A thousand thanks,” said the captain with a faint smile, but with no intention then of availing himself of the kind offer.
Friendship is not often formed on the instant, as Jonathan’s for David, when the soul of Jonathan was knit in a moment with the soul of David, and “Jonathan loved him as his own soul.” Albeit the two had met before.
They shook hands heartily and went their ways.
Mr. Cosin was the gentleman who had laid his whip across the saucy lout’s back at the time the French prisoners were marching into the barracks. He was possessed of a fair competence; but loving a country life and something to do, had hired the Manor Farm in Yaxley. The house was of no great size, but built of stone, picturesque, and of considerable antiquity; and it stood, as we have already said, on the opposite side of the road to the church, looking towards the west end, where its handsome tower stands, with lofty well-proportioned
spire, a conspicuous object to all the fen country for miles around. It was about a mile from the Norman Cross barracks.
About two years before this Mr. Cosin had met with the greatest loss that can befall a man. He had lost his wife. It changed the whole complexion of his future. He was like a traveller who had come to the crest of a ridge from which he could look back on the road he had traversed, and the unknown future was spread before him, sharply separated from all the past. In his case that had been a happy past—a very happy past. But the future, whatever it might be, must at least be without her. He was still a young man, and without a family; but he determined to have a sister for his companion, and a sweet memory for his wife.
What a strange idea! many may say, or something stronger.
Well. It may be so. But he did it.
When Tournier returned to the barracks
after his meeting with Cosin, he fell in with his young friend, who has already been alluded to, and whose name was Villemet.