n eyes, and
heard afterwards that that bad boy had been whining to go back to the
Black Captain ever since, which showed how hardened he was, and that
nobody but Bonaparte himself could be expected to do him any good.

But those were "trying times." It was bad enough when the pickle of a
large and respectable family cried for the Black Captain; when it came
to the little Miss Jessamine crying for him, one felt that the sooner
the French landed and had done with it the better.

The big Miss Jessamine's objection to him was that he was a soldier, and
this prejudice was shared by all the Green. "A soldier," as the speaker
from the town had observed, "is a bloodthirsty, unsettled sort of a
rascal; that the peaceable, home-loving, bread-winning citizen can never
conscientiously look on as a brother, till he has beaten his sword into
a ploughshare, and his spear into a pruning-hook."

On the other hand there was some truth in what the Postman (an old
soldier) said in reply; that the sword has to cut a way for us out of
many a scrape into which our bread-winners get us when they drive their
ploughshares into fallows that don't belong to them. Indeed, whilst our
most peaceful citizens were prosperous chiefly by means of cotton, of
sugar, and of the rise and fall of the money-market (not to speak of
such salable matters as opium, firearms, and "black ivory"),
disturbances were apt to arise in India, Africa and other outlandish
parts, where the fathers of our domestic race were making fortunes for
their families. And, for that matter, even on the Green, we did not wish
the military to leave us in the lurch, so long as there was any fear
that the French were coming.[1]

[Footnote 1: "'The political men declare war, and generally for
commercial interests; but when the nation is thus embroiled with its
neighbors the soldier ... draws the sword, at the command of his
country.... One word as to thy comparison of military and commercial
persons. What manner of men be they who have supplied the Caffres with
the firearms and ammunition to maintain their savage and deplorable
wars? Assuredly they are not military.... Cease then, if thou would'st
be counted among the just, to vilify soldiers."--W. Napier, Lieut.
General, _November_, 1851.]

II

[Illustration]

To let the Black Captain have little Miss Jessamine, however, was
another matter. Her Aunt would not hear of it; and then, to crown all,
it appeared that the Captain's fat