Anne began reading, and continued at her task nearly ten minutes, when she was interrupted by the appearance in the quadrangular slough without of a large figure in the uniform of the yeomanry cavalry.
‘What do you see out there?’ said the farmer with a start, as she paused and slowly blushed.
‘A soldier—one of the yeomanry,’ said Anne, not quite at her ease.
‘Scrounch it all—’tis my nephew!’ exclaimed the old man, his face turning to a phosphoric pallor, and his body twitching with innumerable alarms as he formed upon his face a gasping smile of joy, with which to welcome the new-coming relative. ‘Read on, prithee, Miss Garland.’
Before she had read far the visitor straddled over the door-hurdle into the passage and entered the room.
‘Well, nunc, how do you feel?’ said the giant, shaking hands with the farmer in the manner of one violently ringing a hand-bell. ‘Glad to see you.’
‘Bad and weakish, Festus,’ replied the other, his person responding passively to the rapid vibrations imparted. ‘O, be tender, please—a little softer, there’s a dear nephew! My arm is no more than a cobweb.’
‘Ah, poor soul!’
‘Yes, I am not much more than a skeleton, and can’t bear rough usage.’
‘Sorry to hear that; but I’ll bear your affliction in mind. Why, you are all in a tremble, Uncle Benjy!’