"It's th' sergeants and th' corporals. Yo' see in a feight yo' cannot see much further nor yo'r nose end. All yo'n got to do for th' most part is to keep your eye an' yo'r ear on th' sergeant that's drilled yo' sin' yon learned the goose step, an' do as he tells you. As long as he keeps his head an yo' hear his voice, calm an' cheerful, just as if yo' were in the barrack yard or on parade, yo'r all reight an' yo do as you're told, like Tommy Tun, whoever he wer." "I never heard on him, Jack. Whose lad was he?" "Aw don't rightly know, but aw reckon he were famous for keepin' in step. Howsomever, mark my words, George Mellor's a good lad, wi' fire enough for hauf a dozen. That lad o' Parson Booth's, 'at 'ud be better employed if he wer' at home helpin' his mother to rock th' craddle, is a rare 'un to talk. Thorpe's a good 'un if it comes to fisticuffs, but it'll be Soldier Jack they'll all look to when th' bullets is whizzing ovver their heads, an' what little wit they have is scattered an gone." "But, surely, Jack, there'll be no whizzing of bullets?" "Oh! won't there? Aye that an' waur. Do yo' know Horsfall, o' Ottiwell's, has got th' soldiers billetted in th' town, th' King's Bays. Aw've drunk wi' sum o' them, an' had a crack about old times. Oh! curses on this gamey heel o' mine that keeps me limping o'er Cupwith Common when I might be stepping out behind the colours to the merry music of fife an' drum. Yo'll never know, lad, the savage joy of battle. It is the wine o' life. When yo've once tasted it, even love an' liquor are flat beside it. But what can't be cured mun be endured. Well aw say, aw'n talked wi' a sergeant at th' Red Lion i' Marsden. They're patrolling th' district ivvery night. If we go to Ottiwell's, there'll be a warm welcome for us." "But why are yo' in it, Jack, that's what caps me?" I said. "Yo're nawther a cropper nor th' son of a cropper." "No. What o' thissen Ben?" "Well, yo see, I promised George. I cannot run off mi word. An' George sees further, perhaps, nor I do. Then young Booth says its opposition or submission. Opposition may mean imprisonment or worse, but submission can only mean pining to death." "Then yo'r in for George?" Jack asked. "Well if you like to put it so, Soldier, yo'll none be so far off th' mark." "Well then say aw'm in it for yo' an' for sport, an' cause an' its i' mi natur. But most, Ben Bamforth, it's for yo' an' another lad or two, 'at'll need a true friend an' a shrewd head an' a tricky tongue before this work's through. And so, good neet, an' wipe th' muck off thi boots, else that saucy Mary o' yours 'll be axing more questions nor yo'll care to answer." CHAPTER V