This compliment was intended for Corporal ’Lige as a matter of course; but he paid no other attention to it than to say:
“If the lad had profited by my teachings, he’d know that he has no right to talk with outsiders while he’s in the ranks.”
“That’s exactly it,” Mr. Rice replied, 35 wholly oblivious that the corporal was administering what he believed to be a most severe rebuke. “That is exactly it, my son, and you will do well to remember that you cannot fail in your duty so long as you take pattern from the corporal.”
The old soldier gave vent to what can be described only as a “snort” of contempt; and the boy’s sorrow was as nothing compared with what it had been when bidding good-by to his mother.
After the young Rices had turned their faces homeward in obedience to the orders of the elder Rice, Isaac gave more heed to copying the movements of the corporal, thereby atoning in a certain measure for his previous injudicious remarks.
The boy firmly believed that no more able soldier could be found in all the colonies than this same Corporal ’Lige, and had any person 36 ventured to remark that the expedition might be as well off without him, Isaac would have set the speaker down as one lacking common sense.
Take the corporal out of the ranks, and young Rice would have said there was no possibility either Crown Point or Ticonderoga could be captured.
Thus it was that an order from Colonel Allen, Colonel Easton, or Seth Warner was as nothing compared with one from Corporal ’Lige, in the mind of Isaac Rice; but there were many in the ranks who did not have such an exalted opinion of the old soldier, and these were free with their criticisms and unfavorable remarks, much against the raw recruit’s peace of mind, as well as the corporal’s annoyance.
It was because of these light-headed volunteers, who saw only in this expedition a 37 novel and agreeable form of junketing, out of which it was their duty to extract all the sport possible regardless of the feelings of others, that Corporal ’Lige withdrew himself, so to speak, from his comrades, and barely acknowledged the salutes of any save his superior officers.
At the end of the second day’s journey he refused to go into camp with them; but applied to the captain of his company for permission to advance yet a short distance further, at which point he could join the troops when they came forward next morning. It was known by all the expedition, even including those who were making the old soldier the butt of their mirth, that he was held in high esteem by Colonel Ethan Allen, and the request, although irregular, was readily granted, after a warning against the perils attendant upon such a course.