Chapter Fifteen.
The march past was one of those brilliant spectacles with which the camp delights its visitors. Royalty was there—indeed, royalties had gathered; the day was perfect, not over-hot, with fleecy clouds flinging soft shadows on the downs. There were the usual manoeuvres on the Foxhills; there was the usual futile thirst for information as to what was going to happen, and the usual ignorance; the usual anxious dread on the part of husbands engaged lest their wives should get in the way, and stop the advance of a regiment; the usual thrills of pointing interest over distant puffs of smoke or gleaming metal; the usual captive balloon, and not quite the usual amount of dust. Claudia, eager and ready, was more like her usual self than she had been since her arrival at Aldershot, keenly interested, and rejoicing quite unduly when she found that Fenwick’s battery was on the conquering side. Then came the stirring march past, artillery waggons lumbering along, cheerful regimental bands, a change, a skirl of pipes, and to the proud defiant tones of “The Campbells are comin’,” the Argyll Highlanders swung by in splendid barbaric dress, like a company of giants. Claudia’s eyes were bright, and she did not so much as hear her companion’s criticisms. Fenwick’s battery passed early, and, leaving it, he came back to where his sister and Claudia stood in the foremost row, for the girl had been far too much carried away to consent to remain in the carriage. He looked approvingly at her sparkling and animated face.
“You should not have been in this place, though,” he said to his sister. “You’d have seen better on the other side of the Duke.”
But Mrs Leslie demurred.
“Colonel Manson advised us to come here, and nothing could have been nicer. There, we should have had horses all round us.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have hurt you. Come along now, and see the end of it.”
“Why should we? Stay here, Claudia. You won’t get such a good view higher up.” The girl thought the same, but went. As soon, however, as Fenwick reached the coveted spot, he began to discover its shortcomings, and to complain of the dust and glare. Claudia laughed.
“Let us go somewhere else,” she said. “I don’t mind.”