lazy to leave the shallows when the stream was turned into the
mill-leat. Sometimes they were silent, and the next moment they broke
into chorus like a pack of hounds, while occasionally there came a
shrill rate from one of the old women who watched them from the
cottages, calling back some too venturesome boy from the deep water of
the mill-leat.

So the old women gossiped and the children played, for the daily
coaches up and down had passed some hours before, and there was little
excitement to be looked for in the road after they were gone.
Presently the old women stopped and listened, for they heard the gate
at the lodge clang as it opened and shut, and two children's voices
crying merrily, "Oh, corporal, corporal, put on your watering-cap!"
Then one of the old women hastened, though with infirm steps, across
her little garden towards the road, and stood by the edge of it among
tall stalks of red valerian and a great plant of periwinkle which hung
down over the wall. And there came along the road a tall man with
grizzled hair, dressed in drab breeches and gaiters just like any other
man, but wearing on his head a flat blue cap, widening out from brim to
crown, with a yellow band round the forehead--the watering cap of a
Light Dragoon. He walked very erect, though he limped slightly with
one leg; and over one shoulder he carried a clean white stable-rubber,
neatly folded, with a stable-halter tied across it. Hanging on to his
hand on one side was a little boy of about nine years old with great
brown eyes and glossy black hair, dressed in a very short little brown
jacket with brown breeches buttoning on to it, and a broad white
collar. On the Corporal's other side and clinging tight to his other
hand skipped a little girl with wide blue eyes and fair hair, dressed
all in white, and with her face almost hidden under a little white
sun-bonnet. Both children carried a little wreath of laurel in their
hands and seemed to have some very important business before them,
until they caught sight of the old woman looking down upon them, when
they cried out "Sally! Sally!" and letting go the Corporal's hand ran
up the steep little steps to her, while the Corporal limped more slowly
after them.

"Ah, my dear hearts," said old Sally, "I minded that it was Sallymanky
day, and I said to myself that Master Dick and Miss Elsie would surely
be coming in for the ribbins. Shall us go in to house and fetch mun?
Then please to co