“Na, Cornel, na,” said the sergeant; “I’m no so onexperienced as that; faothers and moothers are best in their oun place. I have a cot to mysel’, and a’ my traps about me—next house to Mary, poor thing!—and she’s kept a’ goin’ since I’ve come, and the childer they keep back and forard; and so far as the husband goes, it never was said, among a’ slanders, that I was ought but a peaceable man—”
“Oh! a very peaceable man,” said Colonel Sutherland, with a smile. “That, to be sure, is the last thing one could think of doubting; but come, you have your faults, my good fellow—what do you say to me, now, for such an account as I heard your giving, this morning, to the young man?”
“Well, Cornel!” exclaimed the culprit, keeping up his boldness, though a little abashed—
“Well! It does not appear to me to be well at all,” said the Colonel; “how often have I told you, when on recruiting duty, to tell the truth? You pour a parcel of lies into a poor blockhead’s head, and blow up his pride with thoughts of what’s going to happen to him; and you expect, when he has found out that it’s all lies, as he must do, that he will believe the rest of what you say to him! That’s bad enough; but to go into it con amore—I mean for pure love of romancing—when there was neither necessity nor business in it—I admit to you that’s something that beats me.”
“Ay, Cornel, it’s easy for the like of you,” said Kennedy, “that have your pensions and commands; but what’s a man to say to the poor devils? Hard service and poor wages, barracks and boiled beef, and sixpence a-day! Truth’s a grand thing for the army, Cornel, but it does not bring in no recruits; and where’s the harm done? If Johnny Raw is deceived wance in a way, it’s soon tooken out on him. At the worst, did I ever tell a man he could rise to be Cornel but by a steedy life and doing his duty? Sure, and if he minds himself, he can come to be sergeant, and that’s next best; but the biggest lot of them, Cornel, as you know as well as me, never try, and get no honour at all, at all, as may well be proved; for them that strive not, win not on, as I’ve told them till I was hoarse myself, many’s the day.”
“You never wanted an excuse,” said the Colonel, shaking his head; “however, we’ll leave the general question; did you ever know a man in the 100th rise from the ranks?—did you ever hear of a sergeant sent on a political mission?—and how could you venture to begin the day, you old sinner, with such a pack of lies?”
“Well, well, Cornel—aisy, sir,” said the sergeant; “sure he was a gentleman, and know’d what was what as well as me!”
Colonel Sutherland laughed in spite of himself at this original excuse, on seeing which Kennedy recovered his courage, and took a higher tone.
“And if ye’ll believe me, the best thing for him yonder is just to ’list, Cornel. If he wance ’lists, friends’ll come in and buy his commission; for sure they are well off and in plenty, Yorkshire ways—and the disgrace, sir, the disgrace, that’s what will make them draw their purse-strings. I would not desire a prettier man, either for parade or battle-field. He’s a soldier born!”
“They! who are they?” said Colonel Sutherland; “he has no friends.”