knocks--a
saddle for a piller, earth for bed and sometimes a damned--no, a---damp
bed, mam, the sky for roof----"

"But you be come home at last, Sergeant," said Mrs. Agatha softer than
ever.

"Home? Aye, thanks to his honour's legacy as came so sudden and
unexpected. Here's us two battered old soldiers comes marching along
and finds this here noble mansion a-waiting for us full o' furniture
and picters and works o' hart----"

"Art, Sergeant!"

"Aye, hart, mam--pre-cisely--and other knick-knacks and treasures and
among 'em--best and brightest----"

"Well, Sergeant?"

"Among 'em--you, mam!" said he; and here, aiming a somewhat random blow
with the hammer he hit himself on the thumb and swore. Whereon Mrs.
Agatha, having duly reproved him, was for examining the injured member
but, shaking his head, he sucked it fiercely instead and thereafter
proceeded to hammer away harder than ever.

"But then--you are--neither of you so very--old, Sergeant."

"The Major was thirty-one the day Ramillies was fought and I was
thirty-three--and that was ten years agone mam."

"And you are both monstrous young for your age--so straight and
upright--and handsome. Y-e-e-s, the Major is very handsome--despite
the scar on his cheek--the wonder to me is that he don't get married."

Hereupon the Sergeant dropped the hammer.

"As to yourself, Sergeant," pursued Mrs. Agatha, her bright eyes
brim-full of mischief, "you'll never be really happy and content until
you do."

Hereupon the Sergeant stooped for the hammer and seemed uncommonly red
in the face about it.

"As to that mam," said he, a thought more ponderously than usual, "as
to that, I shall never look for a wife until the Major does, it has
become a matter o'----"

"Duty, of course, Sergeant!"

"Of dooty, mam--pre-cisely!" Saying which, the Sergeant turned to his
work again; but, chancing to lift his gaze to a certain lofty branch
that crawled along the wall just beneath the coping, he fell back a
pace and uttered a sudden exclamation:

"_Sacre bleu!_"

"Lud, Sergeant!" cried Mrs. Agatha, clasping her posy to her bosom and
giving voice to a small, a very small scream, "how you do fright one
with your outlandish words! What ails the man--there be no Frenchmen
here to fight--speak English, Sergeant--do!"

"Zounds!" exclaimed the Sergeant with his gaze still fixed.

"Sergeant--pray don't oathe!"

"But zookers, mam----!"

"Sergeant--ha' done, I say!"

"But d