e were placed
upon "George of Denmark" and "William of Nassau;" the Corporal joking
and laughing with all the grown-up people. The women, in spite of Mr.
Brock's age, his red nose, and a certain squint of his eye, vowed the
Corporal was a jewel of a man; and among the men his popularity was
equally great.

"How much dost thee get, Thomas Clodpole?" said Mr. Brock to a
countryman (he was the man whom Mrs. Catherine had described as her
suitor), who had laughed loudest at some of his jokes: "how much dost
thee get for a week's work, now?"

Mr. Clodpole, whose name was really Bullock, stated that his wages
amounted to "three shillings and a puddn."

"Three shillings and a puddn!--monstrous!--and for this you toil like a
galley-slave, as I have seen them in Turkey and America,--ay, gentlemen,
and in the country of Prester John! You shiver out of bed on icy winter
mornings, to break the ice for Ball and Dapple to drink."

"Yes, indeed," said the person addressed, who seemed astounded at the
extent of the Corporal's information.

"Or you clean pigsty, and take dung down to meadow; or you act watchdog
and tend sheep; or you sweep a scythe over a great field of grass; and
when the sun has scorched the eyes out of your head, and sweated the
flesh off your bones, and well-nigh fried the soul out of your body,
you go home, to what?--three shillings a week and a puddn! Do you get
pudding every day?"

"No; only Sundays."

"Do you get money enough?"

"No, sure."

"Do you get beer enough?"

"Oh no, NEVER!" said Mr. Bullock quite resolutely.

"Worthy Clodpole, give us thy hand: it shall have beer enough this day,
or my name's not Corporal Brock. Here's the money, boy! there are twenty
pieces in this purse: and how do you think I got 'em? and how do you
think I shall get others when these are gone?--by serving Her Sacred
Majesty, to be sure: long life to her, and down with the French King!"

Bullock, a few of the men, and two or three of the boys, piped out
an hurrah, in compliment to this speech of the Corporal's: but it
was remarked that the greater part of the crowd drew back--the women
whispering ominously to them and looking at the Corporal.

"I see, ladies, what it is," said he. "You are frightened, and think I
am a crimp come to steal your sweethearts away. What! call Peter Brock a
double-dealer? I tell you what, boys, Jack Churchill himself has shaken
this hand, and drunk a pot with me: do you think he'd shake h