We lads parted outside the inn in the steadfast belief that, after these days spent in one another's company, we would remain the firmest of mutual friends. A farewell feast was ordered of the innkeeper for the day when the two who had been kept were to join the colours.
When the spree was over, I felt a sinking inside, as I wended my way home. A laughing face looked out at me from every window. My father walked slowly up to me and knocked the hat off my head with his arm, so that the ribbons rustled against the frozen snow. For the moment I did not know what this meant; but my father did not leave me long in ignorance.
"Is it all the same to you," he said, "that you come home with a blazing lie on your hat? As to _who_ gave you that besom, we'll talk about that later. All I ask you now is, how can you do a thing like that to your mother? I dare say you don't know--you blackguard young puppy you!--how her heart is torn with anxiety at the thought of losing a child. But that you could give her such a fright! I wouldn't have thought it of you! If Egg Mary hadn't happened to come and tell us that you had a lucky escape this time, you might have had a nice business to answer for, with that damned rosette of yours. And your mother so poorly this long while past and all!"
I trembled in every limb. My recruiting giddiness was gone; I suddenly saw my whole baseness. My heart cried out for my mother. And that same Egg Mary, whom we--not to mince matters--had robbed on the high-road, had gone on ahead, in her good nature, to tell my people, to whom she owed many a little kindness, that they must not be frightened at the soldier's favour with which I should most likely come home, and that I had come out of it with luck.
My mother's joyful, loving grip of my hand only deepened my contrition. But father was wagging the rosette under my nose:
"And now, boy, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me where you got those fine feathers from! Are you walking out with somebody, young as you are? That's what I want to know!"
Many and sweet as were the thoughts of pretty girls that filled my mind, fond as I was of talking of it to fellows like myself, the thing looked very different in my father's presence. I assured him that I was walking out with nobody and that I did not know who had given me the favour. He laughed out loud and then flew at me angrily because of "the silly impudence of trying to make him believe a fib like that."