“Now, what,” says Mr. George, “may this be? Is it blank cartridge or ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?”

An open letter is the subject of the trooper’s speculations, and it seems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm’s length, brings it close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left hand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that side, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy himself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and thoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it every now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won’t do. “Is it,” Mr. George still muses, “blank cartridge or ball?”

Phil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the distance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time and in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to the girl he left behind him.

“Phil!” The trooper beckons as he calls him.

Phil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were going anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a bayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon his dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the brush.

“Attention, Phil! Listen to this.”

“Steady, commander, steady.”

“‘Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months’ date drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.’ What do you make of that, Phil?”

“Mischief, guv’ner.”

“Why?”

“I think,” replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle in his forehead with the brush-handle, “that mischeevious consequences is always meant when money’s asked for.”

“Lookye, Phil,” says the trooper, sitting on the table. “First and last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in interest and one thing and another.”

Phil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very unaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the transaction as being made more promising by this incident.

“And lookye further, Phil,” says the trooper, staying his premature conclusions with a wave of his hand. “There has always been an understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?”

“I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.”

“You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.”

“Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?”

“The same.”

“Guv’ner,” says Phil with exceeding gravity, “he’s a leech in his dispositions, he’s a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws.”

Having thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after waiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of him, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has in hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium that he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George, having folded the letter, walks in that direction.

“There IS a way, commander,” says Phil, looking cunningly at him, “of settling this.”

“Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.”

Phil shakes his head. “No, guv’ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS a way,” says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; “what I’m a-doing at present.”

“Whitewashing.”

Phil nods.

“A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my old scores? YOU’RE a moral character,” says the trooper, eyeing him in his large way with no small indignation; “upon my life you are, Phil!”

Phil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting earnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush and smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb, that he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much as injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when steps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice is heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at his master, hobbles up, saying, “Here’s the guv’ner, Mrs. Bagnet! Here he is!” and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet, appears.

The old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the year, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very clean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so interesting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from another quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an umbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of the old girl’s presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in this life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a metallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model of a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a pair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious capacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article long associated with the British army. The old girl’s umbrella is of a flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays — an appearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a series of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet bag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her well-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the instrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or bunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of tradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a sort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad. Attended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest sunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs. Bagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George’s Shooting Gallery.

“Well, George, old fellow,” says she, “and how do YOU do, this sunshiny morning?”

Giving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long breath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a faculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such positions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench, unties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms, and looks perfectly comfortable.

Mr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and with Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod and smile.

“Now, George,” said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, “here we are, Lignum and myself” — she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on account, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old regimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment to the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy — “just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he’ll sign it like a man.”

“I was coming to you this morning,” observes the trooper reluctantly.

“Yes, we thought you’d come to us this morning, but we turned out early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and came to you instead — as you see! For Lignum, he’s tied so close now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what’s the matter, George?” asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk. “You don’t look yourself.”

“I am not quite myself,” returns the trooper; “I have been a little put out, Mrs. Bagnet.”

Her bright quick eye catches the truth directly. “George!” holding up her forefinger. “Don’t tell me there’s anything wrong about that security of Lignum’s! Don’t do it, George, on account of the children!”

The trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.

“George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and occasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. “If you have allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum’s, and if you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of being sold up — and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as print — you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly. I tell you, cruelly, George. There!”

Mr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his large right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from a shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.

“George,” says that old girl, “I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed of you! George, I couldn’t have believed you would have done it! I always knew you to be a rolling sone that gathered no moss, but I never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had the heart to serve us so. Oh, George!” Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her cloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, “How could you do it?”

Mrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if the shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who has turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and straw bonnet.

“Mat,” says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still looking at his wife, “I am sorry you take it so much to heart, because I do hope it’s not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have, this morning, received this letter” — which he reads aloud — “but I hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody’s way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it’s impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family better than I like ’em, Mat, and I trust you’ll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. Don’t think I’ve kept anything from you. I haven’t had the letter more than a quarter of an hour.”

“Old girl,” murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, “will you tell him my opinion?”

“Oh! Why didn’t he marry,” Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and half crying, “Joe Pouch’s widder in North America? Then he wouldn’t have got himself into these troubles.”

“The old girl,” says Mr. Baguet, “puts it correct — why didn’t you?”

“Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope,” returns the trooper. “Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe Pouch’s widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me. It’s not mine; it’s yours. Give the word, and I’ll sell off every morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum wanted, I’d have sold all long ago. Don’t believe that I’ll leave you or yours in the lurch, Mat. I’d sell myself first. I only wish,” says the trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, “that I knew of any one who’d buy such a second-hand piece of old stores.”

“Old girl,” murmurs Mr. Bagnet, “give him another bit of my mind.”

“George,” says the old girl, “you are not so much to be blamed, on full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the means.”

“And that was like me!” observes the penitent trooper, shaking his head. “Like me, I know.”

“Silence! The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “is correct — in her way of giving my opinions — hear me out!”

“That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. But what’s done can’t be undone. You are always an honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can’t admit but what it’s natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and forgive all round!”

Mrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her husband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds them while he speaks.

“I do assure you both, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to discharge this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough here, Phil and I. But the gallery don’t quite do what was expected of it, and it’s not — in short, it’s not the mint. It was wrong in me to take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step, and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you’ll try to overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself.” With these concluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he holds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a broad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession and were immediately going to be shot with all military honours.

“George, hear me out!” says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. “Old girl, go on!”

Mr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to observe that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely assenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to the enemy’s camp.

“Don’t you mind a woman’s hasty word, George,” says Mrs. Bagnet, patting him on the shoulder. “I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am sure you’ll bring him through it.”

The trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring Lignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak, basket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of her family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of mollifying Mr. Smallweed.

Whether there are two people in England less likely to come satisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr. George and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned. Also, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square shoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits two more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy affairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the streets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing his companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer to Mrs. Bagnet’s late sally.

“George, you know the old girl — she’s as sweet and as mild as milk. But touch her on the children — or myself — and she’s off like gunpowder.”

“It does her credit, Mat!”

“George,” says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, “the old girl — can’t do anything — that don’t do her credit. More or less. I never say so. Discipline must he maintained.”

“She’s worth her weight in gold,” says the trooper.

“In gold?” says Mr. Bagnet. “I’ll tell you what. The old girl’s weight — is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight — in any metal — for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl’s metal is far more precious — -than the preciousest metal. And she’s ALL metal!”

“You are right, Mat!”

“When she took me — and accepted of the ring — she ‘listed under me and the children — heart and head, for life. She’s that earnest,” says Mr. Bagnet, “and true to her colours — that, touch us with a finger — and she turns out — and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires wide — once in a way — at the call of duty — look over it, George. For she’s loyal!”

“Why, bless her, Mat,” returns the trooper, “I think the higher of her for it!”

“You are right!” says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though without relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. “Think as high of the old girl — as the rock of Gibraltar — and still you’ll be thinking low — of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.”

These encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather Smallweed’s house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who, having surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but indeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she consults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred to give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words on her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus privileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the drawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs. Smallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.

“My dear friend,” says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean affectionate arms of his stretched forth. “How de do? How de do? Who is our friend, my dear friend?”

“Why this,” returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at first, “is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, you know.”

“Oh! Mr. Bagnet? S............