"Please, sir," he said, "would you be so kind as to take me on again?"
The Colonel said not a word in answer, but he gave honest Fyser's hand
such a shake that it was perfectly natural the tears should come into
his eyes. The tears would come into anybody's eyes if his hand was
squeezed like that.
Whilst her ladyship went to take her things off, Fyser said, "Would you
like to step this way, sir?" The Colonel followed obediently.
"This will be your den, I suppose, sir, unless you would like to have it
in another part of the 'ouse."
John Stanburne felt like a man in a dream. There was every scrap of his
old den-furniture in the place. Philip Stanburne had bought it all at
the Wenderholme sale--every atom of it, even to his old boot-jack. And
as Mr. Fyser had had the arrangement of it, you may be sure that it was
in the old convenient and accustomed order.
But the Colonel and Lady Helena were still more surprised to find in the
principal rooms of the house various cabinets and other things of value
which had formerly been at Wenderholme, and especially a museum of
family relics which had occupied the centre of the great hall. In these
cabinets and cases little plates of silver were discovered, on
examination, to be inlaid, and each of these little plates was engraved
with the inscription, "Presented to Colonel Stanburne by the Officers of
the Twentieth Royal Lancashire Militia."
The regiment happened to be just then up for its annual training under a
major-commanding, no new colonel having as yet been appointed. And one
day there came rather a solemn deputation of officers to Stanithburn
Peel, all in full uniform.
The spokesman of the deputation was our old acquaintance, Captain
Eureton. He began by informing Colonel Stanburne that, although the
lieutenant-colonelcy had been offered to the senior major, he had begged
the lord-lieutenant to permit him to remain at the head of the regiment
as major-commanding; and that now he and all the officers unanimously
joined in entreating Colonel Stanburne to withdraw his resignation, and
resume his old position amongst them. There was no mistaking the
earnestness and sincerity of this petition, and John Stanburne
consented. He was received at Sootythorn at a great banquet given by the
officers just before the disbanding of the regiment; and at the review
which concluded the training, it was John Stanburne who commanded.
CHAPTER XX.
A SIMPLE WEDDING.
"I could so like to go to little Jacob weddin'," said Mrs. Ogden one day
in her little home at the Cream-pot, "but I'm like as if I were 'feard
to leave our Jacob for one single day. He's just same as a childt, an'
to-morrow's his pay-day, an' I couldn't like anybody else to pay him his
week's wage. But what I suppose they'll be just as well wed as if I'd
been there, for that matter."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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