"And would you mind telling me, sir," asked Outofwork, "what sort of chaps it don"t suit?"
"Well, you see, chaps that have been brought up in the country and tied to their mothers" ap.r.o.n strings all their life: they have such soft hearts, they are almost sure to cry-and a crying soldier is a poor affair. I wouldn"t enlist a chap of that sort, no, not if he gave me ten pounds. Now, for instance, if Mr. Wurzel was to ask my advice about being a soldier I should say "don"t!""
"Why not, sir?" asked Joe; "how"s that there, then? D"ye think I be afeard?"
"I should say, go home first, my boy, and ask your mother!"
"I be d---d if I be sich a molly-coddle as that, nuther; and I"ll prove un, Mr. Sergeant; gie me thic bright shillin" and I be your man."
"No," said the sergeant, "think it over, and come to me in a month"s time, if your mother will let you. I don"t want men that will let their masters buy them off the next day."
"No; an lookee here, Maister Sergeant; I bean"t to be bought off like thic, nuther. If I goes, I goes for good an" all."
"Well, then," said the sergeant, shaking him by the hand, and pressing into it the bright shilling, "if you insist on joining, you shall not say I prevented you: my business is not to prevent men from entering Her Majesty"s service."
Then the ribbons were brought out, and Joe asked if the young woman might sew them on as she had done Harry"s; and when she came in, Joe looked at her, and tried to put on a military bearing, in imitation of his great prototype; and actually went so far as to address her as "My dear," for which liberty he almost expected a slap in the face. But Lucy only smiled graciously, and said: "Bravo, Mr. Wurzel! Bravo, sir; I"ve seen many a man inlisted, and sewed the Queen"s colours on for him, but never for a smarter or a finer fellow, there!" and she skipped from the room.
"Well done!" said several voices. And the sergeant said:
"What do you think of that, Mr. Wurzel? I"ll back she"s never said that to a soldier before."
Joe turned his hat about and drew the ribbons through his fingers, as pleased as a child with a new toy, and as proud as if he had helped to win a great battle.
Here I awoke.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Sergeant makes a loyal speech and sings a song, both of which are well received by the company.
And when I got to Bournemouth I dreamed again; and a singular thing during this history was, that always in my dream I began where I had left off on the previous night. So I saw that there, in the room at "The Goose," were Sergeant Goodtale, and Harry, and Joe, and the rest, just as I had left them when I last awoke. But methought there was an air of swagger on the part of the head witness which I had not observed previously. His hat was placed on one side, in imitation of the sergeant"s natty cap, and he seemed already to hold up his head in a highly military manner; and when he stooped down to get a light he tried to stoop in the same graceful and military style as the sergeant himself; and after blowing it out, threw down the spill in the most off-hand manner possible, as though he said, "That"s how we chaps do it in the Hussars!" Everyone noticed the difference in the manner and bearing of the young recruit. There was a certain swagger and boldness of demeanour that only comes after you have enlisted. Nor was this change confined to outward appearance alone. What now were pigs in the mind of Joe? Merely the producers of pork chops for breakfast. What was Dobbin that slowly dragged the plough compared to the charger that Joe was destined to bestride? And what about Polly Sweetlove and her saucy looks? Perhaps she"d be rather sorry now that she did not receive with more favour his many attentions. Such were the thoughts that pa.s.sed through the lad"s mind as he gradually awakened to a sense of his new position. One thought, however, strange to say, did not occur to him, and that was as to what his poor old mother would think. Dutiful son as Joe had always been, (though wild in some respects), he had not given her a single thought. But his reflections, no doubt, were transient and confused amid the companions by whom he was surrounded.
"You"ll make a fine soldier," said the Boardman, as he saw him swagger across to his seat.
"Yes," said the sergeant, "any man that has got it in him, and is steady, and doesn"t eat too much and drink too much, may get on in the army. It isn"t like it used to be."
"I believe that," said Bob Lazyman.
"The only thing," continued the sergeant, "is, there is really so little to do-there"s not work enough."
"That ud suit me," said Bob.
"Ah! but stop," added the sergeant, "the temptations are great-what with the girls-."
"Hooray!" exclaimed d.i.c.k; "that beats all-I likes them better than mutton chops."
"Yes," replied the sergeant; "they are all very well in their way; but you know, if a man wants to rise in the army, he must be steady."
"Steady, boys! stea-dy!" shouted d.i.c.k
I don"t know how far the sergeant was justified, morally, in thus holding out the prospect of riotous living to these hungry men, but I think, all things considered, it was an improvement on the old system of the pressgang, which forced men into the navy. These lads were not bound to believe the recruiting sergeant, and were not obliged to enter into a contract with Her Majesty. At the same time, the alluring prospects were such that if they had been represented as facts in the commercial transactions of life, such is the purity of the law that they would have given rise to much pleading, multifarious points reserved, innumerable summonses at Chambers, and, at least, one new trial.
"Now," said Jack Outofwork, "I tell yer what it is-I don"t take no Queen"s shilling, for why? it ain"t the Queen"s-it belongs to the people-I"m for a republic."
""Well," said the sergeant, "I always like to meet a chap that calls himself a republican, and I"ll tell you why. This country is a republic, say what you like, and is presided over by our gracious Queen. And I should like to ask any man in this country-now, just listen, lads, for this is the real question, whether-"
"Now, order," said Lazyman, "I never "eerd nothing put better."
"Let"s have order, gentlemen," said Harry; "chair! chair!"
"All "tention, sergeant," said d.i.c.k.
"I say," continued the sergeant; "let us suppose we got a republic to-morrow; well, we should want a head, or as they say, a president."
"That"s good," said half-a-dozen voices.
"Well, what then?" said the sergeant; "Who would you choose? Why, the Queen, to be sure."
Everybody said "The Queen!" And there was such a thumping on the table that all further discourse was prevented for several minutes. At last everyone said it was good, and the sergeant had put it straight.
"Well, look"ee "ere, lads-I was born among the poor and I don"t owe nothing to the upper cla.s.ses, not even a grudge!"
"Hear! hear! Bravo, Mr. Sergeant!" cried all.
"Well, then; I"ve got on so far as well as I can, and I"m satisfied; but I"ll tell you what I believe our Queen to be-a thorough woman, and loves her people, especially the poor, so much that d---d if I wouldn"t die for her any day-now what d"ye think o" that?"
Everybody thought he was a capital fellow.
"Look, here," he continued, "it isn"t because she wears a gold crown, or anything of that sort, nor because a word of her"s could make me a field marshal, or a duke, or anything o" that sort, nor because she"s rich, but I"ll tell you why it is-and it"s this-when we"re fighting we don"t fight for her except as the Queen, and the Queen means the country."
"Hear! hear! hear! hear!"
"Well, we fight for the country-but she loves the soldiers as though they were not the country"s but her own flesh and blood, and comes to see "em in the hospital like a mother, and talks to "em the same as I do to you, and comforts "em, and prays for "em, and acts like the real mother of her people-that"s why I"d die for her, and not because she"s the Queen of England only."
"Bravo!" said Joe. "Hope I shall soon see her in th" "orsepittal. It be out "ere: beant it St. Thomas"s."
"I hope you won"t, my brave lad," said the sergeant; "but don"t tell me about republicanism when we"ve got such a good Queen; it"s a shame and a disgrace to mention it."
"So it be," said Joe; "I"m darned if I wouldn"t knock a feller into the middle o" next week as talked like thic. Hooroar for the Queen!"
"And now I"m going to say another thing," continued the sergeant, who really waxed warm with his subject, and struck admiration into his audience by his manner of delivery: may I say that to my mind he was even eloquent, and ought to have been a sergeant-at-law, only that the country would have been the loser by it: and the country, to my mind, has the first right to the services of every citizen. "Just look," said the sergeant, "at the kindness of that-what shall I call her? blessed!-yes, blessed Princess of Wales! Was there ever such a woman? Talk about Jael in the Bible being blessed above women-why I don"t set no value upon her; she put a spike through a feller it"s true, but it was precious cowardly; but the Princess, she goes here and goes there visiting the sick and poor and homeless, not like a princess, but like a real woman, and that"s why the people love her. No man despises a toady more than I do-I"d give him up to the tender mercies of that wife of Heber the Keenite any day; but if the Princess was to say to me, "Look "ere, Sergeant, I feel a little low, and should like some nice little excitement just to keep up my spirits and cheer me up a bit"" (several of them thought this style of conversation was a familiar habit with the Princess and Sergeant Goodtale, and that he must be immensely popular with the Royal Family), "well, if she was to say, "Look here, Sergeant Goodtale, here"s a precipice, it ud do me good to see you leap off that," I should just take off my coat and tuck up my shirt sleeves, and away I should go."
At such unheard of heroism and loyalty there was a general exclamation of enthusiasm, and no one in that company could tell whom he at that moment most admired, the Princess or the Sergeant.
"That"s a stunner!" said Joe.