"Wig, sir!" suggested the Sergeant, holding it out.
"Aye, to be sure!" nodded the Major, taking and clapping it on somewhat askew. "Now—Sergeant—forward!"
"Stick, sir!" said the Sergeant, proffering a stout crab-tree staff.
"Aye!" smiled the Major, twirling it in a sinewy hand, "'twill be useful like as not."
So saying (being ever a man of action) the Major sallied forth carrying the stick very much as if it had been a small-sword; along the terrace he went and down the steps (two at a time) and so across the wide sweep of velvety lawn with prodigious strides albeit limping a little by reason of one of his many wounds, the tails of his war-worn Ramillie coat fluttering behind. Reaching the orchard he crossed to a particular corner and halted before a certain part of the red brick wall where grew the cherry tree in question.
"Sir," said the Sergeant, squaring his shoulders, "you'll note as all cherries has been looted from top branch—only ones as was ripe——"
"A thousand devils!" exclaimed the Major.
"Also," continued the Sergeant, "said branch has been broke sir."
"Ten thousand——" The Major stopped suddenly and shutting his mouth very tight opened his grey eyes very wide and stared into two other eyes which had risen into view on the opposite side of the wall, a pair of eyes that looked serenely down at him, long, heavy-lashed, deeply blue beneath the curve of their long, black lashes; he was conscious also of a nose, neither straight nor aquiline, of a mouth scarlet and full-lipped, of a chin round, white, dimpled but combative and of a faded sun-bonnet beneath whose crumpled brim peeped a tress of glossy, black hair.
"Now God—bless—my soul!" exclaimed the Major.