Adam had resumed his old trade of shoemaker. He occupied a small cottage, which, with the aid of a poor old woman in the neighbourhood, who for an hour morning and evening did the work of a servant, he kept with singular neatness. His little parlour was ornamented with several memorials of the war--a sword or two picked up on memorable battle-fields; a French cuirass from Waterloo, with a gaudy print of Wellington, and one also of the meeting with Blücher at La Belle Alliance. The Sergeant attended the parish church as regularly as he used to do parade. Anyone could have set his watch by the regularity of his movements on Sunday mornings. At the same minute on each succeeding day of holy rest and worship, the tall, erect figure, with well-braced shoulders, might be seen stepping out of the cottage door--where he stood erect for a moment to survey the weather--dressed in the same suit of black trousers, brown surtout, buff waistcoat, black stock, white cotton gloves, with a yellow cane under his arm--everything so neat and clean, from the polished boots to the polished hat, from the well-brushed grey whiskers to the well-arranged locks that met in a peak over his high forehead and soldier-like face. And once within the church there was no more sedate or attentive listener. There were few week-days and no Sunday evenings on which the Sergeant did not pay a visit to some neighbour confined to bed from sickness, or suffering from distress of some kind. He manifested rare tact--made up of common sense and genuine benevolence--on such occasions. His strong sympathies put him instantly _en rapport_ with those whom he visited, enabling him at once to meet them on some common ground. Yet in whatever way the Sergeant began his intercourse, whether by listening patiently--and what a comfort such listening silence is!--to the history of the sickness or the sorrow which had induced him to enter the house, or by telling some of his own adventures, or by reading aloud the newspaper--he in the end managed with perfect naturalness to convey truths of weightiest import, and fraught with enduring good and comfort--all backed up by a humanity, an unselfishness, and a gentleman-like respect for others, which made him a most welcome guest. The humble were made glad, and the proud were subdued--they knew not how, nor probably did the Sergeant himself, for he but felt aright and acted as he felt, rather than endeavoured to devise a plan as to _how_ he should speak or act in order to produce a definite result. He numbered many true friends; but it was not possible for him to avoid being secretly disliked by those with whom, from their character, he would not associate, or whom he tacitly rebuked by his own orderly life and good manners.