n old soldier
could turn his hand to anything.

So slipped away a fortnight and more, during which Valencia was the
cynosure of all eyes, and knew it also: for Claude Mellot, half to amuse
her, and half to tease Elsley, made her laugh many a time by retailing
little sayings and doings in her praise and dispraise, picked up from
rich Manchester gentlemen, who would fain have married her without a
penny, and from strong-minded Manchester ladies, who envied her beauty a
little, and set her down, of course, as an empty-minded worldling, and a
proud aristocrat. The majority of the reading-parties, meanwhile,
thought a great deal more about Valencia than about their books. The
Oxford men, it seemed, though of the same mind as the Cambridge men in
considering her the model of all perfection, were divided as to their
method of testifying the same. Two or three of them, who were given to
that simpering and flirting tone with young ladies to which Oxford
would-be-fine gentlemen are so pitiably prone, hung about the inn-door
to ogle her: contrived always to be walking in the garden when she was
there, dressed out as if for High Street at four o'clock on a May
afternoon; tormented Claude by fruitless attempts to get from him an
introduction, which he had neither the right nor the mind to give; and
at last (so Bowie told Claude one night, and Claude told the whole party
next morning) tried to bribe and flatter Valencia's maid into giving
them a bit of ribbon, or a cast-off glove, which had belonged to the
idol. Whereon that maiden, in virtuous indignation, told Mr. Bowie, and
complained moreover (as maids are bound to do to valets for whom they
have a penchant), of their having dared to compliment her on her own
good looks: by which act she succeeded, of course, in making Mr. Bowie
understand that other people still thought her pretty, if he did not;
and also in arousing in him that jealousy which is often the best
helpmate of sweet love. So Mr. Bowie went forth in his might that very
evening, and finding two of the Oxford men, informed them in plain
Scotch, that, "Gin he caught them, or any ither such skellums,
philandering after his leddies, or his leddies' maids, he'd jist knock
their empty pows togither." To which there was no reply but silence; for
Mr. Bowie stood six feet four without his shoes, and had but the week
before performed, for the edification of the Cambridge men, who held him
in high honour, a few old Guards' feats