The Trumpet-Major | Page 9

up in summer-time for the
narrowness of their quarters by overflowing into the garden on stools
and chairs. The parlour or dining-room had a stone floor--a fact which
the widow sought to disguise by double carpeting, lest the standing of
Anne and herself should be lowered in the public eye. Here now the
mid-day meal went lightly and mincingly on, as it does where there is
no greedy carnivorous man to keep the dishes about, and was hanging
on the close when somebody entered the passage as far as the chink of
the parlour door, and tapped. This proceeding was probably adopted to
kindly avoid giving trouble to Susan, the neighbour's pink daughter,
who helped at Mrs. Garland's in the mornings, but was at that moment
particularly occupied in standing on the water-butt and gazing at the
soldiers, with an inhaling position of the mouth and circular eyes.
There was a flutter in the little dining-room--the sensitiveness of
habitual solitude makes hearts beat for preternaturally small
reasons--and a guessing as to who the visitor might be. It was some
military gentleman from the camp perhaps? No; that was impossible. It
was the parson? No; he would not come at dinner-time. It was the
well-informed man who travelled with drapery and the best
Birmingham earrings? Not at all; his time was not till Thursday at three.
Before they could think further the visitor moved forward another step,
and the diners got a glimpse of him through the same friendly chink
that had afforded him a view of the Garland dinner-table.
'O! It is only Loveday.'
This approximation to nobody was the miller above mentioned, a hale
man of fifty-five or sixty--hale all through, as many were in those days,
and not merely veneered with purple by exhilarating victuals and drinks,

though the latter were not at all despised by him. His face was indeed
rather pale than otherwise, for he had just come from the mill. It was
capable of immense changes of expression: mobility was its essence, a
roll of flesh forming a buttress to his nose on each side, and a deep
ravine lying between his lower lip and the tumulus represented by his
chin. These fleshy lumps moved stealthily, as if of their own accord,
whenever his fancy was tickled.
His eyes having lighted on the table-cloth, plates, and viands, he found
himself in a position which had a sensible awkwardness for a modest
man who always liked to enter only at seasonable times the presence of
a girl of such pleasantly soft ways as Anne Garland, she who could
make apples seem like peaches, and throw over her shillings the
glamour of guineas when she paid him for flour.
'Dinner is over, neighbour Loveday; please come in,' said the widow,
seeing his case. The miller said something about coming in presently;
but Anne pressed him to stay, with a tender motion of her lip as it
played on the verge of a solicitous smile without quite lapsing into
one--her habitual manner when speaking.
Loveday took off his low-crowned hat and advanced. He had not come
about pigs or fowls this time. 'You have been looking out, like the rest
o' us, no doubt, Mrs. Garland, at the mampus of soldiers that have come
upon the down? Well, one of the horse regiments is the -- th Dragoons,
my son John's regiment, you know.'
The announcement, though it interested them, did not create such an
effect as the father of John had seemed to anticipate; but Anne, who
liked to say pleasant things, replied, 'The dragoons looked nicer than
the foot, or the German cavalry either.'
'They are a handsome body of men,' said the miller in a disinterested
voice. 'Faith! I didn't know they were coming, though it may be in the
newspaper all the time. But old Derriman keeps it so long that we never
know things till they be in everybody's mouth.'
This Derriman was a squireen living near, who was chiefly

distinguished in the present warlike time by having a nephew in the
yeomanry.
'We were told that the yeomanry went along the turnpike road
yesterday,' said Anne; 'and they say that they were a pretty sight, and
quite soldierly.'
'Ah! well--they be not regulars,' said Miller Loveday, keeping back
harsher criticism as uncalled for. But inflamed by the arrival of the
dragoons, which had been the exciting cause of his call, his mind would
not go to yeomanry. 'John has not been home these five years,' he said.
'And what rank does he hold now?' said the widow.
'He's trumpet-major, ma'am; and a good musician.' The miller, who was
a good father, went on to explain that John had seen some service, too.
He had enlisted when the regiment was lying in this neighbourhood,
more