So Joe stayed chattering away till dinner-time, and then, referring to the pudding, said he had never tasted anything like it in his life; and went on telling the old people all the wonders of the campaign: how their regiment just mowed down the enemy as he used to cut corn in the harvest-field, and how nothing could stand aginst a charge of cavalry; and how they liked their officers; and how their General, who warn’t above up to Joe’s shoulder, were a genleman, every inch on him, an’ as brave as any lion you could pick out. And so he went on, until Mr. Bumpkin said:
“An’ if I had my time over agin I’d goo for a soger too, Joe,” which made Mrs. Bumpkin laugh and ask what would become of her.
“Ha! ha! ha! look at that!” said Joe; “she’s got you there, master.”
“No she bean’t, she’d a married thic feller that wur so sweet on her afore I had ur.”
“What, Jem?” said Mrs. Bumpkin, “why I wouldn’t ha’ had un, Tom, if every ’air had been hung wi’ dimonds.”
And so they went on until it was time to take a turn round the farm. Everything seemed startled at Joe’s fine clothes, especially the bull, who snorted and pawed the earth and put out his tail, and placed his head to the ground, until Joe called him by name, and then, as he told his comrades afterwards in barracks, the bull said:
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.