g George's walk: he carried himself as
straight as if he had swallowed a ramrod, and kept his arms hanging
down his sides, as if they had been made of wood.

"Gawk," said Jake, "what will you allow me if I get Mary Ann to marry
you?"

"A good smack on your chops," said Aloys, and drove his cows away. Mary
Ann closed the sash, while the boys set up a shout of laughter, in
which George's voice was heard above all the others.

Aloys wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, so great was
the exertion which the expression of his displeasure had cost him. He
sat for hours on the feed-box of his stable, maturing the plans he had
been meditating.

Aloys had entered his twentieth year, and it was time for him to pass
the inspection of the recruiting-officers. On the day on which he, with
the others of his age, was to present himself at Horb, the county town,
he came to Mary Ann's house in his Sunday gear, to ask if she wished
him to get any thing for her in town. As he went away, Mary Ann
followed him into the hall, and, turning aside a little, she drew a bit
of blue paper from her breast, which, on being unwrapped, was found to
contain a creutzer.[4] "Take it," said she: "there are three crosses on
it. When the shooting stars come at night, there's always a silver bowl
on the ground, and out of those bowls they make this kind of creutzers:
if you have one of them in your pocket you are sure to be in luck. Take
it, and you will draw a high number."[5]

Aloys took the creutzer; but in crossing the bridge which leads over
the Necker he put his hand in his pocket, shut his eyes, and threw the
creutzer into the river. "I won't draw a high number: I want to be a
soldier and cut George out," he muttered, between his teeth. His hand
was clenched, and he drew himself up like a king.

At the Angel Hotel the squire waited for the recruits of his parish;
and when they had all assembled he went with them to the office. The
squire was equally stupid and pretentious. He had been a corporal
formerly, and plumed himself on his "commission:" he loved to treat all
farmers, old and young, as recruits. On the way he said to Aloys,
"Gawk, you will be sure to draw the highest number; and even if you
should draw No. 1 you need not be afraid, for they never can want you
for a soldier."

"Who knows?" said Aloys, saucily. "I may live to be a corporal yet, as
well as any one: I can read and write as well as another, and the old
corporals