La Gloire. Degrade my profession!—my—look ye, Madelon; I love thee with all my heart—with an honest soldier's heart—else I could tell your father, that a citizen could never get on in the world, without a soldier to do his journey-work:—and your soldier, look ye—'sblood! it makes me fret like a hot day's march!—your soldier, in all nations, when he is rusted down to your quiet citizen, and so sets up at home for himself, is in double respect, for having served such an honourable apprenticeship.
Madelon. Nay, now, La Gloire, my father meant not——
La Gloire. Marry, I would tell your father this to his teeth; which, were it not for my captain and me—two soldiers, mark you me—might not, haply, have been so soon set a going.
Madelon. Ungenerous! I could not have spoken such cutting words to you, La Gloire.—My poor father only meant, that the wars might separate us. But I had a remedy for that, too, for all your unkindness.
La Gloire. Pish!—remedy?—well—psha!—what was the remedy, Madelon?
Madelon. Why, I could have followed you to the camp.
La Gloire. And wouldst thou follow me then?
Madelon. Ay, surely, La Gloire: I could follow him I love all over the world.
La Gloire. And bear the fatigue of a campaign, Madelon?