“Cancel my commission!” said the lieutenant, “if the brat hasn’t bothered the sergeant! The bathing-machine is coming down upon us like the chariot of Queen Boadicea! This will never do. Randolph—you and M’Whirter ride out and reinforce. That scoundrel is another Kellerman, and will break us to a dead certainty!”
“Twa mair o’ ye!” observed the youth with incredible nonchalance, as we rode up with ferocious gestures. “O men, but ye’re bauld bauld the day! Little chance the Frenchies wad hae wi’ the like o’ you ’gin they were comin’! Gee hup, Bauldy!”
“Come, come, my boy,” said Randolph, nearly choking with laughter, “this is all very well, but you must positively be off. Come, tumble round, my fine fellow, and you shall have leave to pass presently.”
“Aum no gaun to lose the tide that way,” persevered the urchin. “The sands is open to the haill o’ huz, and I’ll no gang back for nane o’ ye. Gin ye offer tae strike me, I’ll hae the haill squad o’ ye afore the Provost o’ Portobelly, and, ma certie, there’ll be a wheen heels sune coolin’ in the jougs!”
“By heavens! this is absolutely intolerable!” said the sergeant—“M’Whirter, order the man in the inside to open the door, and come out in Her Majesty’s name.”
I obeyed, as a matter of course.
“I say—you, sir, inside—do you know where you are going? Right into the centre of a troop of the Royal Yeomanry Cavalry! If you are a gentleman and a loyal subject, you will open the door immediately, and desire the vehicle to be stopped.”
In order to give due effect to this remonstrance, and also to impress the inmate with a proper sense of the consequences of interference with martial discipline, I bestowed cut No. Seven with all my might upon the machine. To my horror, and that of my companions, there arose from within a prolonged and double-voiced squall.
“Hang me, if it isn’t women!” said the sergeant.
“Yer mither wull be proud o’ ye the nicht,” said the Incubus on the atomy, “when it’s tell’t her that ye hae whanged at an auld machine, and frichtet twa leddies to the skirlin’! Ony hoo, M’Whirter, gin that’s your name, there’ll be half-a-croun to pay for the broken brodd!”