“Now do be quick, John, for once in your life. Dear John, do try to be quick, now.”
“Strornary gallantry of a young hofficer! Could have sworn that it were in my breeches-pocket. I always thought ‘gallantry’ meant something bad. A running after strange women, and that.”
“Oh no, John—oh no, John; it never does. How can you think such dreadful things? but how long are you going to be, John?”
“Well, it did when I wor a boy, that’s certain. But now they changes everything so—even the words we was born to. It have come to mean killing of strange men, hath it? Wherever now can I have put that papper? I must have dropped un on the road, after all.”
“You never can have done such a stupid thing!—such a wicked, cruel thing, John Shorne! If you have, I will never forgive you. Very likely you put it in the crown of your hat.”
“Sure enough, and so I did. You must be a witch, Miss Mabel. And here’s the very corner I turned down when I read it to the folk at the Pig and Whistle. ‘Glorious British victory—capture of Shoedad Rodleygo—eighty British officers killed, and forty great guns taken!’ There, there, bless your bright eyes! now will you be content with it?”
“Oh, give it me, give it me! How can I tell until I have read it ten times over?”
Crusty John blessed all the girls of the period (becoming more and more too many for him) as his master’s daughter ran away to devour that greasy journal. And by the time he had pulled his coat off, and shouted for Paddy and another man, and stuck his own pitchfork into the litter, as soon as they had backed the wheelers, Mabel was up in her own little room, and down on her knees to thank the Lord for the abstract herself had made of it. Somehow or other, the natural impulse of all good girls, at that time, was to believe that they had a Creator and Father, whom to thank for all mercies. But that idea has been improved since then.
