Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

"We are going straight to the parade-ground ourselves, so if you come with us you cannot go wrong." There was a short silence, and the same speaker continued, "The Colonel said we were to consider ourselves introduced. I know who you are—you're Captain Stanburne of Stanithburn Peel; and now I'll tell you who we are, both of us: I'm the Doctor—my name's Bardly. I don't look like a doctor, do I? Perhaps you are thinking that I don't look very like an officer either, though I'm dressed up as one. Well, perhaps I don't. This man here is called Isaac Ogden, and he lives at Twistle Farm, on a hill-top near Shayton, when he's at home."

This queer introduction, which was accompanied by the oddest changes of expression in the Doctor's face, and by a perpetual twinkle of humor in his gray eye, amused Philip Stanburne, and put him into a more genial frame of mind than his experience of the swell clique at breakfast-time. Isaac Ogden asked Stanburne what company he had got, and on being told that it was number six, informed him that he himself was only a lieutenant.

"He's lieutenant in the grenadier company," said the Doctor, "and on Sunday morning we shall see him like a butterfly with a pair of silver wings.[16] He's only a chrysalis to-day; his wings haven't budded yet. He's very likely put 'em on in private—most of them put on their full uniform in private, as soon as ever it comes from the tailor's. It's necessary to try it on, you know—it might not fit. The epaulettes would fit, though; but they generally take their epaulettes out of the tin box and put them on, to see how they look in the glass."

"Well, Doctor," said Stanburne, "I suppose you are describing from personal experience. When your own epaulettes came, you looked at yourself in the glass, I suppose."

Here an indescribably comic look irradiated Dr. Bardly's face. "You don't imagine that I have laid out any money on epaulettes and such gear? The tailor tried to make me buy a full uniform, of course, but it didn't answer with me. What do I want with a red coat, and dangling silver fringes over my shoulders? I've committed one piece of tomfoolery, and that's enough—I've bought this sword; but a sword might just possibly be of use for a thief. There was a man in Shayton who had an old volunteer sword always by his bedside, and one night he put six inches of it into a burglar; so you see a sword may be of use, but what can you do with a bit of silver fringe?"

"But I don't see how you are to do without a full uniform. How will you manage on field days, and how will you go to church on Sundays?"

"Get leave of absence on all such occasions," said the Doctor; "so long as I haven't a full uniform I have a good excuse." The fact was, that the Doctor's aversion to full dress came quite as much from a dislike to public ceremonies as from an objection to scarlet and silver in themselves. He had a youthful assistant in the regiment who was perfectly willing to represent the medical profession in all imaginable splendor, and who had already passed three evenings in full uniform, surrounded by his brothers and sisters, and a group of admiring friends.

The day was a tiresome idle day for everybody except the Adjutant, who shouted till his throat was sore, and the sergeants, on whom fell the real work of the companies. After lunch, the important matter of billets had to be gone into, and it was discovered that it was impossible to lodge all the men in Sootythorn. One company, at least, must seek accommodation elsewhere. The junior captain must therefore submit, for this training, to be banished from the mess, and sent to eat his solitary beefsteak in some outlandish village, or, still worse, in some filthy and uncouth little manufacturing town. His appetite, it is true, might so far benefit by the long marches to and from the parade-ground that the beefsteak might be eaten with the best of sauces; but the ordinary exercises of the regiment would have been sufficient to procure that, and the great efforts of Mr. Garley at the Thorn might have been relied upon for satisfying it. So the junior captain was ordered to take his men to Whittlecup, a dirty little town, of about six thousand inhabitants, four miles distant from Sootythorn; and the junior captain was Philip Stanburne.

Behold him, therefore, marching at the head of his rabble, for the men as yet had neither uniforms nor military bearing, on the dusty turnpike road! The afternoon had been uncommonly hot for the season of the year; and a military uniform, closely buttoned across the breast, and padded with cotton wool, is by no means the costume most suitable for the summer heats. There were so few lieutenants in the regiment (there was not one ensign) that a junior captain could not hope for a subaltern, and all the work of the company fell upon Philip Stanburne and his old sergeant. It was not easy to keep any thing like order amongst the men. They quarrelled and fought during the march; and it became necessary to arrange them so as to keep enemies at a distance from each other. Still, by the time they reached the precincts of Whittlecup several of the men were adorned with black eyes; and as a few had been knocked down and tumbled in the dust by their comrades, the company presented rather the appearance of a rabble after a riot than of soldiers in her Majesty's service. Philip Stanburne's uniform was white with dust; but as the dust that alighted on his face was wetted by perspiration, it did not there remain a light-colored powder, but became a thick coat of dark paste. Indeed, to tell the truth, the owner of Stanithburn had never been so dirty in his life.

Now there was a river at the entrance to Whittlecup, and over the river a bridge; and on the bridge, or in advance of it (for the factories had just loosed), there stood a crowd of about three thousand operatives awaiting the arrival of the militia-men.