to Drakeport
before I let you go. Do you see this stick? If you attempt to walk
a step more towards the port, I'll crack your head with it."

He gulped down something in his throat. "Is the old man ill?" he
asked.

"He's dead," said I, simply.

The fellow turned his eyes to the horizon, and began whistling the
air of "The Prickly Briar" softly to himself. And while he whistled,
my memory ran back to the day when he first came to trouble us, and
play the fiend's mischief with a couple of dear honest hearts.

The day I travelled back to was one in the prime of May, when the
lilacs were out by Dr. Jago's green gate, and the General from
Drakeport Barracks, with the red and white feathers in his
cocked-hat, had just cantered up the street, followed by a dozen
shouting urchins, on his way to the Downs. For it was the end of the
militia-training, when the review was always held; and all the
morning the bugles had been sounding at the head of every street and
lane where the men were billeted.

When the gold-laced General disappeared, he left the streets all but
empty; for the townspeople by this time had flocked to the Downs.
Only by Dr. Jago's gate there stood a small group in the sunshine.
Kitty, the doctor's mare that had pulled his gig for ten years, was
standing saddled in the roadway, with a stable-boy at her head; just
outside the gate, the little doctor himself in regimentals and black
cocked-hat with black feathers, regarding her; behind, the pleasant
old face of his wife, regarding _him_; and, behind again, the two
maid-servants regarding the group generally from behind their
mistress's shoulder.

"Maria, I shall never do it," said the doctor, measuring with his eye
the distance between the ground and the stirrup.

"Indeed, John, I don't think you will."

"There was a time when I'd have vaulted it. I'm abominably late as
it is, Maria."

"Shall I give master a leg up?" suggested one of the maids.

"No, Susan, you will do nothing of the kind." Mrs. Jago paused, her
brow wrinkled beneath her white lace cap. Then an inspiration came--
"The chair--a kitchen chair, Susan!"

The maid flew; the chair was brought; and that is how the good old
doctor mounted for the review. Three minutes later he was trotting
soberly up the street, pausing twice to kiss his hand to his wife,
who watched him proudly from the green gate, and took off her
spectacles and wiped them, the better to see him out of sight.