protesting that they could not spare school pence for their children. We have still poaching affrays, in which debauched and idle labourers are sure to be the leaders, under doom of blood-guiltiness, sooner or later. It is still somewhat rare to meet with a rural labourer who has the good sense, independence, intelligence, diligence, and rational frugality which we often find in combination in a family man of the artisan or operative class. The pressure of the time has hitherto been against the peasant. It is now turning in his favour; and it is the business of us all, including himself, to contemplate the remaining evil and the rising good, and to direct our efforts and our hopes accordingly.
WHY I LEFT THE VOLUNTEERS.
“Then I’ll resign,” said I.
“Very well,” said he, “you can do as you please.”
And now, having repeated two sentences, which have been running in my mind ever since they were uttered, I will try to tell how it was that I came to make so decided a remark. It is astonishing the soothing effect which repeating a grievance has on the sufferer, and this must be my excuse for inflicting my woes on an unoffending reader.
First then, to introduce myself. My name is Codlings; I am short, stout, and middle-aged; and I am, or rather (alas!) was, a captain in the Targetshire, or Death to the Invader Volunteers. And I may add that no one could have been a more thorough volunteer than I was: I was proud of the uniform, and liked the exercise.
The 18th of June had long been fixed as the day on which a grand review of the corps was to take place.
An M. P. for the county was to be present, and a bugle was to be presented by the M. P.'s daughter, and altogether we felt that the eyes of Europe would be upon us, and we felt equal to the occasion.
As the day approached our drills were multiplied to such an extent that most of us feared that our uniform would hardly last so as to be fit to be seen at the review, so great was the strain upon it.
However, practice makes perfect, and after our last drill on the evening of the 17th, we one and all considered that we were so near to perfection that our talents would be altogether thrown away upon an ordinary field day, and that nothing short of a grand sham fight, on the exact model of a real one, would at all do us justice.
It was in vain for our adjutant (a half-pay officer of the army, and who is dreadfully jealous of our progress I am sure) to object; a sham battle we were determined upon.
The only difficulty was to decide which battle of modern times should be honoured by our notice: Alma, Inkerman, Solferino, were all discussed; but each presented some objections, and we were nearly giving up the idea, and the adjutant becoming triumphant, when Waterloo was proposed, as being appropriate to the day, and moreover, it was added that there was a small clump of trees on our parade-ground, with a cow-shed in it, which would do admirably for Hugomont and its adjacent wood.
The next question was to find a leader for the force to be driven back; no one was desirous of appearing in the light of a beaten general on their first field, till at last I, Codlings, was selected to enact the part of the great Napoleon.
The somewhat secondary part of Blucher was to be taken by our senior first-lieutenant, Crabtrees by name.
Crabtrees had been originally in the Hussars, but having been rather too fond of chicken hazard, had sold out, and retired to his ancestral acres. He was for some time my front rank man, and although generally speaking he was most expert at the “Manual,” he invariably ordered his rifle on to my toes, apologised, smiled at my agonised contortions, and repeated the performance five minutes afterwards.
He it was, too, who with malice aforethought abstracted the detonating composition from my percussion-caps on the eve of a field day, thereby covering me with confusion; and added insult to injury by exposing the trick he had played me, at the very moment when I was expatiating on the utter uselessness of the government rifle to a select circle of friends, and stating my belief that it was impossible to make most of them go off.
Again, on the occasion of my firing off my ramrod by accident, Crabtrees was the man who discovered its absence, in spite of my trying to look innocent and unconscious, and presented it to me amidst the jeers of my comrades. Altogether, Crabtrees was a nuisance, and I hated him cordially.
Our colonel was to command the supposed British army, assisted by the adjutant, while I was allowed as a set-off to the latter functionary the drill-sergeant of our corps.
The night of the 17th June was a restless one for me, the thoughts of to-morrow were ever present with me, and prevented my sleeping; and even when I had coaxed myself at last into a sort of sleep, I awoke with a start, five minutes afterwards, with the full conviction that I had been omitted to be called, and that the review was all over without me, the representative of Napoleon, the martial Codlings. A second time I awoke, in a fancied endeavour to draw my sword (being attacked by two gigantic enemies); the handle twisted and turned like a snake in my hands, and seemed to be ringing like a bell, when to my surprise I found myself with the bellrope in my grasp, and the whole of the household rushing to my room to ascertain the cause of the sudden outbreak.
At last, after having looked at my watch a hundred times, I found it was six o’clock, and up I got, rushed to the window, and, fates be praised, it was a lovely morning.
How I got dressed that day I know not, for in the excitement of the moment, my buttons flew off from my touch, like needles to a magnet. At last my toilet was completed, but with my feelings breakfast was not to be thought of, anything beyond a cup of tea would have choked me outright.
Our rendezvous was to be the railway station,
