rgeant said, "so I suppose you have agreed to
serve the queen?"

"As her majesty was so pressing," Jack replied with a smile, "you see I
had no choice in the matter."

"That's right," the sergeant said kindly; "always keep up your spirits,
lad. Care killed a cat, you know. You are one of the right sort, I can
see, but you are young to be pressed. How old are you?"

"Sixteen," Jack replied.

"Then they had no right to take you," the sergeant said; "seventeen's
the earliest age, and as a rule soldiers ain't much good till they are
past twenty. You would have a right to get off if you could prove your
age; but of course you could not do that without witnesses or papers,
and it's an old game for recruits who look young to try to pass as under
age."

"I shan't try," Jack answered; "I have made up my mind to it now, and
there's an end to it. But why ain't soldiers any good till they are past
twenty, sergeant? As far as I can see, boys are just as brave as men."

"Just as brave, my lad, and when it comes to fighting the young soldier
is very often every bit as good as the old one; but they can't stand
fatigue and hardship like old soldiers. A boy will start out on as long
a walk as a man can take, but he can't keep it up day after day. When it
comes to long marches, to sleeping on the ground in the wet, bad food,
and fever from the marshes, the young soldier breaks down, the hospital
gets full of boys, and they just die off like flies, while the older men
pull through."

"You are a Job's comforter, I must say," Jack said with a laugh; "but
I must hope that I shan't have long marches, and bad food, and damp
weather, and marsh fever till I get a bit older."

"I don't want to discourage you," the sergeant remarked, "and you know
there are young soldiers and young soldiers. There are the weedy, narrow
chested chaps as seems to be made special for filling a grave; and there
is the sturdy, hardy young chap, whose good health and good spirits
carries him through. That's your sort, I reckon. Good spirits is the
best medicine in the world; it's worth all the doctors and apothecaries
in the army. But how did you come to be pressed? it's generally the
ne'er do well and idle who get picked out as food for powder. That
doesn't look your sort, or I'm mistaken."

"I hope not," Jack said. "I am here because I am a sort of cousin of the
Mayor of Southampton. He wanted me to serve in his shop. I stood it for
a time, but I hated it, a