“Well, it did when I wor a boy, that’s certain. But now they changes everything so--even the words we was born to. It have come to mean killing of strange men, hath it? Wherever now can I have put that papper? I must have dropped un on the road, after all.” “You never can have done such a stupid thing!--such a wicked, cruel thing, John Shorne! If you have, I will never forgive you. Very likely you put it in the crown of your hat.” “Sure enough, and so I did. You must be a witch, Miss Mabel. And here’s the very corner I turned down when I read it to the folk at the Pig and Whistle. ‘Glorious British victory--capture of Shoedad Rodleygo--eighty British officers killed, and forty great guns taken!’ There, there, bless your bright eyes! now will you be content with it?” “Oh, give it me, give it me! How can I tell until I have read it ten times over?” Crusty John blessed all the girls of the period (becoming more and more too many for him) as his master’s daughter ran away to devour that greasy journal. And by the time he had pulled his coat off, and shouted for Paddy and another man, and stuck his own pitchfork into the litter, as soon as they had backed the wheelers, Mabel was up in her own little room, and down on her knees to thank the Lord for the abstract herself had made of it. Somehow or other, the natural impulse of all good girls, at that time, was to believe that they had a Creator and Father, whom to thank for all mercies. But that idea has been improved since then. CHAPTER XXXVI. LADY COKE UPON LITTLETON. At Coombe Lorraine these things had been known and entered into some time ago. For Sir Roland had not left his son so wholly uncared for in a foreign land as Hilary in his sore heart believed. In his regiment there was a certain old major, lame, and addicted to violent language, but dry and sensible according to his lights, and truthful, and upright, and quarrelsome. Burning to be first, as he always did in every desperate conflict, Major Clumps saw the young fellows get in front of him, and his temper exploded always. “Come back, come back, you----” condemned offspring of canine lineage, he used to shout; “let an honest man have a fair start with you! Because my feet are--there you go again; no consideration, any of you!” This Major Clumps was admirably “connected,” being the nephew of Lord de Lampnor, the husband of Lady Valeria’s friend. So that by this means it was brought round that Hilary’s doings should be reported. And Lady Valeria had received a letter in which her grandson’s exploits at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo were so recounted that Alice wept, and the ancient lady smiled with pride; and even Sir Roland said, “Well, after all, that boy can do something.”