Part 4 (1/2)
Boyd's roving gaze had been arrested by a little scene enacting just around the corner of the partly-erected barracks, where half a dozen soldiers had gathered around some camp-women, whose sullen att.i.tude discouraged their gallantries. She was dressed in shabby finery. On her hair, which was powdered, she wore a jaunty chip hat tied under her chin with soiled blue ribbons, and a kerchief of ragged lace hid her bosom, pinned with a withered rose. The scene was sordid enough; and, indifferent, I gazed elsewhere.
”A s.h.i.+lling to a penny they kiss her yet!” he said to me presently, and for the second time I noticed the comedy--if you choose to call it so--for the wench was now struggling fiercely amid the laughing men.
”A pound to a penny!” repeated Boyd; ”Do you take me, Loskiel?”
The next moment I had pushed in among them, forcing the hilarious circle to open; and I heard her quick, uneven breathing as I elbowed my way to her, and turned on the men good-humoredly.
”Come, boys, be off!” I said. ”Leave rough sport to the lower party.
She's sobbing.” I glanced at her. ”Why, she's but a child, after all!
Can't you see, boys? Now, off with you all in a hurry!”
There had evidently been some discipline drilled into Colonel Thomas's regiments the men seemed instantly to know me for an officer, whether by my dress or voice I know not, yet Morgan's rifle frock could be scarcely familiar to them.
A mischievous sergeant saluted me, grinning, saying it was but idle sport and no harm meant; and so, some laughing, others seeming to be ashamed, they made haste to clear out. I followed them, with a nod of rea.s.surance to the wench, who might have been their drab for aught I knew, all camps being full of such poultry.
”Gallantly done!” exclaimed Boyd derisively, as I came slowly back to where he stood. ”But had I been fortunate enough to think of intervening, egad, I believe I would have claimed what she refused the rest, Loskiel!”
”From a ruddied camp drab?” I asked scornfully.
”Her cheeks and lips are not painted. I've discovered that,” he insisted, staring back at her.
”Lord!” said I. ”Would you linger here making sheep's eyes at yonder ragged baggage? Come, sir, if you please.”
”I tell you, I would give a half year's pay to see her washed and clothed becomingly!”
”You never will,” said I impatiently, and jogged his elbow to make him move. For he was ever a prey to strange and wayward fancies which hitherto I had only smiled at. But now, somehow--perhaps because there might have been some excuse for this one--perhaps because what a man rescues he will not willingly leave to another--even such a poor young thing as this plaything of the camp--for either of these reasons, or for none at all, this ogling of her did not please me.
Most unwillingly he yielded to the steady pressure of my elbow; and we moved on, he turning his handsome head continually. After a while he laughed.
”Nevertheless,” said he, ”there stands the rarest essence of real beauty I have ever seen, in lady born or beggar; and I am an a.s.s to go my way and leave it for the next who pa.s.ses.”
I said nothing.
He grumbled for a while below his breath, then:
”Yes, sir! Sheer beauty--by the roadside yonder--in ragged ribbons and a withered rose. Only--such Puritans as you perceive it not.”
After a silence, and as we entered the gateway to the manor house:
”I swear she wore no paint, Loskiel--whatever she is like enough to be.”
”Good heavens!” said I. ”Are you brooding on her still?”
Yet, I myself was thinking of her, too; and because of it a strange, slow anger was possessing me.
”Thank G.o.d,” thought I to myself, ”no woman of the common cla.s.s could win a second glance from me. In which,” I added with satisfaction, ”I am unlike most other men.”
A Philistine thought the same, one day--if I remember right.