"Just so, Zeb, just so! Therefore I propose to advance you an extra ten guineas a year as—er—a clothes-bounty, as 'twere."
"Clo'es, sir! And me wi' two soots as refuses to be wore out not to mention this here. Take these breeches, for example, they've done dooty noble and true for three years and no sign o' weakness front or rear——"
"Still, 'tis time they were retired from the active list, Zeb. So at the first opportunity you will proceed to fit yourself out anew—from head to foot. See to it, Sergeant Tring!"
"Very good, sir. Orders is orders."
"And the sooner the better, Zebedee." And the Major nodded and went his way.
"Nom d'un chien!" exclaimed the Sergeant looking after his master's tall, elegant figure. "All I says is—Lord—Lord bless his eyes and limbs!"
Reaching the highway the Major turned aside from the village and mounting a stile with due heed to his dainty apparel, followed a footpath that led over a sloping upland, crossed a murmurous rill and led on beside a wood from whose green depths came leafy stirrings and the evening song of thrush and blackbird. As he progressed, the leaping rill grew to a gurgling brook, widened to a splashing stream, hurrying over pebbly bed until it deepened to a slumberous pool spanned by a rustic bridge.
Evening was at hand and the westering sun cast long shadows making of these drowsy waters a pool of sombre mystery. Being upon the bridge the Major paused to look down into these stilly depths and, leaning well over the handrail, to survey himself in this watery mirror—the graceful fall of his lace steenkirk, the flowing curls of his glossy peruke, the cock of his laced hat; all of which he observed with a profound and grave attention. So lost and absorbed was he that he leaned there quite unconscious of one that had halted just within the wood, crouching furtively amid the leaves. A tall, burly, gipsy-looking fellow this, who caressed a knotty bludgeon in hairy fingers and whose narrowed eyes roved over the indolent, lolling figure on the bridge from gemmed cravat to glittering shoe-buckles; once he took a stealthy forward step, the knobby club a-swing in eager hand but, heeding the wide spread of these plum-coloured shoulders, the vigorous length of these resplendent limbs, scowled and crouched back among the leaves again. Presently, the Major, having settled his hat more to his liking, went on across the bridge and along a path that led over a wide sweep of green meadow and so to another stile flanked by high hedges. Here he paused again to watch a skylark hovering against the blue and to catch the faint, sweet ripple of song. And leaning there with gaze aloft, he fell to deep thought, turning over in his mind a problem that had vexed him much of late, a problem he had pondered by day and thought over by night, to wit:—
Could a feminine being blessed by a bounteous Nature in all the outward attributes most desirable in womanhood, a face beyond compare and goddess-shape, but one who had wantonly exposed that shape to public regard clad in the baser garb of masculinity—could such a one be worthy of a man's humble respect and reverent homage? Would his mother (God rest her sweet soul) have thought her virginal? Would his aunt Clarissa have endured her for a moment?
He sighed heavily and like an echo, came a sob and then another. He started, and guided by these sounds, discovered a very small damsel who wept bitterly, a huddled, woeful little figure in the grassy ditch beneath the hedge.