"
"The hewing would not be all on one side, Bill, you will see, if
they begin it. You know how easily the soldiers have put down riots
in other places."
"That be true," Bill said; "but they doan't seem vor to see it. Oi
don't say nowt one way or t' other, and oi have had more nor half
a mind to quit and go away till it's over. What wi' my brothers
and all t' other young chaps here being in it, it makes it moighty
hard vor oi to stand off; only as oi doan't know what else vor to
do, oi would go. Oi ha' been a-thinking that when thou get'st to
be an officer oi'll list in the same regiment and go to the wars
wi' thee. Oi am sick of this loife here."
"Well, Bill, there will be no difficulty about that if you really
make up your mind to it when the time comes. Of course I should
like to have you very much. I have heard my father say that each
officer has a soldier as his special servant; and if you would
like that, you see, when we were alone together we should be able
to talk about Varley and everything here just as we do now. Then
I suppose I could help you on and get you made first corporal and
then a sergeant."
"Very well, Maister Ned, then we will look on that as being as good
as settled, and as soon as thou gets to be an officer oi will go
as one of your soldiers."
For an hour they walked across the moor, talking about a soldier's
life, Ned telling of the various parts of the world in which England
was at that time engaged in war, and wondering in which of them
they would first see service.
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