“Why danged if it bean’t our Joe!”
I must confess I did not hear this observation in my dream, but I was some distance off, and if Mr. Ricochet, Q.C., in cross-examination had said, “Will you swear, sir, upon your oath that the bull did not use those words?” I must have been bound to answer, “I will not.”
But presently they met old Tim, the Collie, and there was no need for Joe to speak to him. Up he came with a bound and caressed his old mate in the most loving manner.
The Queen’s uniform was no disguise to him.
The next day it was quite a treat to see Joe go through the village. Such a swagger he put on that you would have thought he was the whole regiment. And when he went by the Vicarage, where Polly was housemaid, it was remarkable to see the air of indifference which he assumed. Whack went his riding-whip on his leg: you could hear it a hundred yards off. He didn’t seem to care a bit whether she was staring at him out of the study window as hard as she could stare or not. Two or three times he struck the same leg, and marched on perfectly indifferent to all around.
At length came Sunday, as Sunday only comes in a country village. No such peace, no such Sabbath anywhere. You have only got to look at anything you like to know that it is Sunday. Bill’s shirt collar; the milkman; even his bright milk-can has a Sunday shine about it. The cows standing in the shallow brook have a reverent air about them. They never look like that on any other day. Why the very sunshine is Sabbath sunshine, and seems to bring more peace and more pleasantness than on any other day of the week. And
all the trees seem to whisper together, “It’s Sunday morning.”
Presently you see the people straggling up to the little church, whose donging bell keeps on as much as to say, “I know I’m not much of a peal, but in my humble way I do my duty to the best of my ability; it’s not the sound but the spirit of the thing that is required; and if I’m not very musical, and can’t give you many changes, I’m sincere in what I say.” And this was an emblem of the sincerity and the simplicity of the clergyman inside. He kept on hammering away at the old truths and performing his part in God’s great work to the best of his ability; and I know with very great success. So in they all came to church; and Joe, who had been a very good Sunday-school pupil (notwithstanding his love of poaching) and was a favourite with the vicar, as the reader knows, took his old place in the free seats, not very far from the pew where the vicar’s servants sat. Who can tell what his feelings were as he wondered whether Polly would be there that morning?
The other servants came in. Ah, dear! Polly can’t come, now look at that! Just as he was thinking this in she came. Such a flutter in her heart as she saw the bright uniform and the brighter face, bronzed with a foreign clime and looking as handsome as ever a face could look. O what a flutter too in Joe’s heart! But he was determined not to care for her. So he wouldn’t look, and that was a very good way; and he certainly would have kept his word if he could.
I think if I had to choose where and how I would be admired, if ever such a luxury could come to me, I would be Joe Wurzel under present circumstances. A young hero, handsome, tall, in the uniform of the