The little cowman nodded. But he was restless as ever all through that Sunday, eating nothing.
On Monday morning arrayed in his best clothes he got into the dog-cart. There, without good-bye to anyone, not even to his beasts, he sat staring straight before him, square, and jolting up and down beside the farmer, who turned on him now and then a dubious almost anxious eye.
So they drove the eleven miles to the recruiting station. He got down, entered, the farmer with him.
"Well, my lad," they asked him, "what d'you want to join?"
"Royal Marines."
It was a shock, coming from the short, square figure of such an obvious landsman. The farmer took him by the arm.
"Why, yu'm a Devon man, Tom, better take county regiment. An't they gude enough for yu?"
Shaking his head he answered: "Royal Marines."
Was it the glamour of the words or the Royal Marine he had once seen, that moved him to wish to join that outlandish corps? Who shall say? There was the wish, immovable; they took him to the recruiting station for the Royal Marines.
Stretching up his short, square body, and blowing out his cheeks to increase his height, he was put before the reading board. His eyes were splendid; little that passed in hedgerows or the heaven, in woods or on the hillsides, could escape them. They asked him to read the print.