re mere country-side clods, and knew as little of the rights and
wrongs of that great Eastern question which had overshadowed the world
so long, as the horses they drove about the heavy country lanes or the
flocks they herded. But they broke into a cheer.

The bringer of the news lifted a hand, and waved them into silence.

'You'll have the missus in to know what all that hullaballoo's about,'
he said, reprovingly: 'and I don't want to be bothered until I've made a
change. Now I'll tell you what it is, my lads. The Queen wants men, and
there isn't one of you that isn't fit to go a-soldiering. I just tell
you this--if any one of you, or the whole lot of you, see fit to take
the Queen's shilling I'll put a pound to it for bounty money. Now, you
needn't cheer again,' he added hastily.

As a matter of fact, none of his listeners showed any inclination to
cheer. War in the abstract was a thing to cheer about, but war in
the concrete--war with its possibilities--thus brought home to each
individual mind excited no enthusiasm.

'You think about that, my lads,' said the host, distributing a series of
smiling nods about him. 'Old Jack Jervase's day is over, or he'd be at
it again, and so I tell you. It's many and many a year now since I heard
a shot fired in anger, or since I stood on a ship's deck. But I've got
the heart for the work still, if I haven't got the figger. Heigh-ho,' he
went on, with a regretful moan, 'there's no room for a pottle-bellied,
bald-headed old coot like me atween the decks of a man o' war. But if I
was five-and-twenty years younger, why, God bless my soul, I shouldn't
hesitate a minute!'

The woman he had despatched immediately upon his entrance returned at
this instant and coughed behind her hand to indicate her presence.

'All ready, Mary?' said Mr. Jervase in a ringing and cheery voice.
'That's well. Don't forget what I've told you, lads: fine young chaps
like you ought not to desert their Queen and country in the hour of
need. I'll keep my promise. Any one of you as takes the sergeant's
shilling can claim a pound for bounty money from old Jack Jervase.'

So saying, he rolled, with a nautical gait, towards the door by which
the domestic had re-entered the room, and having reached the stairfoot,
and finding himself alone, he added, with a sudden snarl, 'I'd like to
give three of ye a chance of earning a wooden leg anyhow--coming into my
house and guzzling my best beer the very minute my back's t