"Axing your grace, your honour, but same can't nowise be, orders notwithstanding nevertheless—no!"
"Ha! D'ye mean you actually—refuse to obey?"
The Sergeant blinked, swallowed hard and saluted:
"Your honour—sir—I do!"
"God—bless—my—soul!" ejaculated the Major and stared wide-eyed at cross-belts, buckles and spatterdashes as if he had never seen such things in all his forty-one years. "Is it—insubordination, Sergeant Zebedee?" he demanded, his cheeks flushing.
"Your honour—it be. Same I do admit though same regretting. But sir, if you are for the wars it na't'rally do follow as I must be. Wheresoever you go—speaking as soldiers sir, I must go as by natur' so determined now and for ever, amen."
"And what o' the estate, ass? I ha' left you agent here in Mr. Jennings' room."
"Same is an honour, sir, but dooty demands——"
"And what of Mrs. Agatha, dolt?"
The Sergeant's broad shoulders drooped quite perceptibly for a moment, then grew rigid again: