Our Admirable Betty.

by Jeffery Farnol.

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING THE MAJOR'S CHERRIES

"The Major, mam, the Major has a truly wonderful 'ead!" said Sergeant Zebedee Tring as he stood, hammer in hand, very neat and precise from broad shoe-buckles to smart curled wig that offset his square, bronzed face.

"Head, Sergeant, head!" retorted pretty, dimpled Mrs. Agatha, nodding at the Sergeant's broad back.

"'Ead mam, yes!" said the Sergeant, busily nailing up a branch of the Major's favourite cherry tree. "The Major has a truly wonderful 'ead, regarding which I take liberty to ob-serve as two sword-cuts and a spent bullet have in nowise affected it, Mrs. Agatha, mam, which is a fact as I will maintain whenever and wherever occasion demands, as in dooty bound mam, dooty bound."

"Duty, Sergeant, duty!"

"Dooty, mam--pre-cisely." Here the Sergeant turning round for another nail, Mrs. Agatha bent over the rose-bush, her busy fingers cutting a bloom here and another there and her pretty face quite hidden in the shade of her mob-cap.

"Indeed," she continued, after a while, "'tis no wonder you be so very--fond of him, Sergeant!"

"Fond of him, mam, fond of him," said the Sergeant turning to look at her with glowing eyes, "well--yes, I suppose so--it do be a--a matter o' dooty with me--dooty, Mrs. Agatha, mam."

"You mean duty, Sergeant."

"Dooty, mam, pre-cisely!" nodded the Sergeant, busy at the cherry tree again.

"See how very brave he is!" sighed Mrs. Agatha.

"Brave, mam?" The Sergeant paused with his hammer poised--"Sixteen wounds, mam, seven of 'em bullet and the rest steel! Twenty and three pitched battles besides outpost skirmishes and the like and 'twere his honour the Major as saved our left wing at Ramillies. Brave, mam?

Well--yes, he's brave."

"And how kind and gentle he is!"

"Because, mam, because the best soldiers always are."

"And you, Sergeant, see what care you take of him."

"Why, I try, mam, I try. Y'see, we've soldiered together so many years and I've been his man so long that 'tis become a matter o'----"

"Of duty, Sergeant--yes, of course!"

"Dooty, mam--pre-cisely!" nodded the Sergeant.

"Pre-cisely, Sergeant and, lack-a-day, how miserable and wretched you both are!"

The Sergeant looked startled.

"And the strange thing is you don't know it," said Mrs. Agatha, snipping off a final rose.

The Sergeant rubbed his square, clean-shaven chin and stared at her harder than ever.

"See how monstrous lonely you are!" sighed Mrs. Agatha, hiding her face among her newly-gathered blooms, a face as sweet and fresh as any of them, despite the silver that gleamed, here and there, beneath her snowy mob-cap.

"Lonely?" said the Sergeant, staring from her to the hammer in his hand, "lonely, why no mam, no. The Major's got his flowers and his cherries and his great History of Fortification as he's a-writing of in ten vollums and I've got the Major and we've both got--got----

"Well, what, Sergeant?"

The Sergeant turned and began to nail up another branch of the great cherry tree, ere he answered:

"You, mam--we've both got--you, mam--"

"Lud, Sergeant Tring, and how may that be?"

"To teach," continued the Sergeant slowly, "to teach two battered old soldiers, as never knew it afore, what a home might be. There never was such a housekeeper as you, mam, there never will be!"

"A home!" repeated Mrs. Agatha softly. "'Tis a sweet word!"

"True, mam, true!" nodded the Sergeant emphatically. "'Specially to we, mam, us never having had no homes, d'ye see. His honour and me have been campaigning most of our days--soldiers o' fortune, mam, though there weren't much fortune in it for us except hard knocks--a saddle for a piller, earth for bed and sometimes a d.a.m.ned--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 n.o.ble 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!"