, and the
ground half covered with dead and dying men; but that was duty--this is
pleasure. Sergeant Wilks will show the boys and girls, who pay him
their pennies, views in all parts of the world, such as would cost them
thousands of pounds if they travelled to see them, and all as natural
as life. He will show them great battles by land and sea, where the
soldiers and sailors shed their blood like water in the service of
their country. But cruel murders and notorious crimes he will not show
them."

It was not the boys and girls, only, who were the sergeant's patrons.
Picture books were scarce in those days, and grown-up girls and young
men were not ashamed to pay their pennies to peep into the sergeant's
box.

There was scarcely a farm house throughout his beat where he was not
known and welcomed. His care of the child, who, when he first came
round, was but a year old, won the heart of the women; and a bowl of
bread and milk for the little one, and a mug of beer and a hunch of
bread and bacon for himself, were always at his service, before he
opened his box and showed its wonders to the maids and children of the
house.

Sidmouth was one of his regular halting places, and, indeed, he visited
it more often than any other town on his beat. There was always a room
ready for him there, in the house of a fisherman's widow, when he
arrived on the Saturday, and he generally stopped till the Monday. Thus
he had come to know the names of most of the boys of the place, as well
as of many of the elders; for it was his custom, of a Saturday evening,
after the little one was in bed, to go and smoke his pipe in the
taproom of the "Anchor," where he would sometimes relate tales of his
adventures to the assembled fishermen. But, although chatty and cheery
with his patrons, Sergeant Wilks was a reticent, rather than a
talkative, man. At the "Anchor" he was, except when called upon for a
story, a listener rather than a talker.

As to his history, or the county to which he belonged, he never alluded
to it, although communicative enough as to his military adventures; and
any questions which were asked him, he quietly put on one side. He had
intimated, indeed, that the father and mother of his grandchild were
both dead; but it was not known whether she was the child of his son or
daughter; for under his cheerful talk there was something of military
strictness and sternness, and he was not a man of whom idle questions
would be asked.