True to the Old Flag (Historical Novels - American Cycle). G. A. Henty

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      As Jim Walsham and his companions were chatting in the shade of a boat, their conversation was abruptly broken off by the sight of a figure coming along the road. It was a tall figure, with a stiff military bearing. He was pushing before him a large box, mounted on a framework supported by four wheels. Low down, close to the ground, swung a large flat basket. In this, on a shawl spread over a thick bed of hay, sat a little girl some five years old.

      "It is the sergeant," one of the boys exclaimed. "I wonder whether he has got a fresh set of views? The last were first-rate ones."

      The sergeant gave a friendly nod to the boys as he passed, and then, turning up the main street from the beach, went along until he came to a shaded corner, and there stopped. The boys had all got up and followed him, and now stood looking on with interest at his proceedings. The little girl had climbed out of her basket as soon as he stopped, and after asking leave, trotted back along the street to the beach, and was soon at play among the seaweed and stones.

      She was a singularly pretty child, with dark blue eyes, and brown hair with a touch of gold. Her print dress was spotlessly clean and neat; a huge flapping sunbonnet shaded her face, whose expression was bright and winning.

      "Well, boys," the sergeant said cheerfully, "how have you been getting on since I was here last? Nobody drowned, I hope, or come to any ill. Not that we must grumble, whatever comes. We have all got to do our duty, whether it be to march up a hill with shot and shell screaming and whistling round, as I have had to do; or to be far out at sea with the wind blowing fit to take the hair off your head, as comes to your lot sometimes; or following the plough from year's end to year's end, as happens to some. We have got to make the best of it, whatever it is.

      "I have got a grand new set of pictures from Exeter. They came all the way down from London town for me by waggon. London Bridge, and Windsor Castle, with the flag flying over it, telling that the king--God bless his gracious majesty--is at home.

      "Then, I have got some pictures of foreign parts that will make you open your eyes. There's Niagara. I don't know whether you've heard of it, but it's a place where a great river jumps down over a wall of rock, as high as that steeple there, with a roar like thunder that can be heard, they say, on a still night, for twenty miles round.

      "I have got some that will interest you more still, because you are sailors, or are going to be sailors. I have got one of the killing of a whale. He has just thrown a boat, with five sailors, into the air, with a lash of his tail; but it's of no use, for there are other boats round, and the harpoons are striking deep in his flesh. He is a big fish, and a strong one; but he will be beaten, for he does not know how to use his strength. That's the case with many men. They throw away their life and their talents, just because they don't know what's in them, and what they might do if they tried.

      "And I have got a picture of the fight with the Spanish Armada. You have heard about that, boys, surely; for it began out there, over the water, almost in sight of Sidmouth, and went on all the way up the Channel; our little ships hanging on to the great Spaniards and giving them no rest, but worrying them, and battering them, till they were glad to sail away to the Dutch coast. But they were not safe there, for we sent fire ships at them, and they had to cut and run; and then a storm came on, and sunk many, and drove others ashore all around our coasts, even round the north of Scotland and Ireland.

      "You will see it all here, boys, and as you know, the price is only one penny."

      By this time, the sergeant had let down one side of the box and discovered four round holes, and had arranged a low stool in front, for any of those, who were not tall enough to look through the glasses, to stand upon. A considerable number of girls and boys had now gathered round, for Sergeant Wilks and his show were old, established favourites at Sidmouth, and the news of his arrival had travelled quickly round the place.

      Four years before, he had appeared there for the first time, and since then had come every few months. He travelled round the southwestern counties, Dorset and Wilts, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall, and his cheery good temper made him a general favourite wherever he went.

      He was somewhat of a martinet, and would have no crowding and pushing, and always made the boys stand aside till the girls had a good look; but he never hurried them, and allowed each an ample time to see the pictures, which were of a better class than those in most travelling peep shows. There was some murmuring, at first, because the show contained none of the popular murders and blood-curdling scenes to which the people were accustomed.

      "No," the sergeant had said firmly, when the omission was suggested to him; "the young ones see quite enough scenes of drunkenness and fighting. When I was a child, I remember seeing in a peep show the picture of a woman lying with her head nearly cut off, and her husband with a bloody chopper standing beside her; and it spoiled my sleep for weeks. No, none of that sort of thing for Sergeant Wilks. He has fought for his country, and has seen bloodshed enough in his time, and the ground half covered with dead and dying men; but that was duty--this is pleasure. Sergeant Wilks will show the boys and girls, who pay him their pennies, views in all parts of the world, such as would cost them thousands of pounds if they travelled to see them, and all as natural as life. He will show them great battles by land and sea, where the soldiers and sailors shed their blood like water in the service of their country. But cruel murders and notorious crimes he will not show them."

      It was not the boys and girls, only, who were the sergeant's patrons. Picture books were scarce in those days, and grown-up girls and young men were not ashamed to pay their pennies to peep into the sergeant's box.

      There was scarcely a farm house throughout his beat where he was not known and welcomed. His care of the child, who, when he first came round, was but a year old, won the heart of the women; and a bowl of bread and milk for the little one, and a mug of beer and a hunch of bread and bacon for himself, were always at his service, before he opened his box and showed its wonders to the maids and children of the house.

      Sidmouth was one of his regular halting places, and, indeed, he visited it more often than any other town on his beat. There was always a room ready for him there, in the house of a fisherman's widow, when he arrived on the Saturday, and he generally stopped till the Monday. Thus he had come to know the names of most of the boys of the place, as well as of many of the elders; for it was his custom, of a Saturday evening, after the little one was in bed, to go and smoke his pipe in the taproom of the "Anchor," where he would sometimes relate tales of his adventures to the assembled fishermen. But, although chatty and cheery with his patrons, Sergeant Wilks was a reticent, rather than a talkative, man. At the "Anchor" he was, except when called upon for a story, a listener rather than a talker.

      As to his history, or the county to which he belonged, he never alluded to it, although communicative enough as to his military adventures; and any questions which were asked him, he quietly put on one side. He had intimated, indeed, that the father and mother of his grandchild were both dead; but it was not known whether she was the child of his son or daughter; for under his cheerful talk there was something of military strictness and sternness, and he was not a man of whom idle questions would be asked.

      "Now, boys and girls," he said, "step up; the show is ready. Those who have got a penny cannot spend it better. Those who haven't must try and get their father or mother to give them one, and see the show later on. Girls first. Boys should always give way to their sisters. The bravest men are always the most courteous and gentle with women."

      Four girls, of various ages, paid their pennies and took their places at the glasses, and the sergeant then began to describe the pictures, his descriptions of the wonders within being so exciting, that several boys and girls stole off from the little crowd, and made their way to their homes to coax their parents out of the necessary coin.

      James Walsham СКАЧАТЬ