them but knew he was an orphan in the
most grievous sense of the term, without a relative in the wide world,
and that his future was something of a problem.

Bob MacGibbon--he was Captain in the 79th--leaned forward and tried to
put his hand upon the child's shoulder, not unkindly, but with a rough
playfulness of the soldier. Gilian shrank back, his face flushing
crimson, then he realised the stupidity of his shyness and tried
to amend it by coming a little farther into the room and awkwardly
attempting the salute in which the Sergeant More had tutored him. The
company was amused at the courtesy, but no one laughed. In a low voice
the Paymaster swore. He was a man given to swearing with no great
variety in his oaths, that were merely a camp phrase or two at the most,
repeated over and over again, till they had lost all their original
meanings and could be uttered in front of Dr. Colin himself without
any objection to them. In print they would look wicked, so they must
be fancied by such as would have the complete picture of the elderly
soldier with the thick neck and the scratch wig. The Sergeant More
had gently withdrawn himself and shut the door behind him the more
conveniently to hear what reception the messenger's tidings would
meet with from the Paymaster. And the boy felt himself cut off most
helplessly from escape out of that fearful new surrounding. It haunted
him for many a day, the strong smell of the spirits and the sharp
odour of the slices floating in the glasses, for our pensioners
were extravagant enough to flavour even the cold midday drams of the
Abercrombie with the lemon's juice. Gilian shifted from leg to leg and
turned his bonnet continuously, and through his mind there darted many
thoughts about this curious place and company that he had happened upon.
As they looked at him he felt the darting tremor of the fawn in the
thicket, but alas he was trapped! How old they were! How odd they looked
in their high collars and those bands wound round their necks! They were
not farmers, nor shepherds, nor fishermen, nor even shopkeepers; they
were people with some manner of life beyond his guessing. The Paymaster
of course he knew; he had seen him often come up to Ladyfield, to talk
to the goodwife about the farm and the clipping, to pay her money twice
yearly that was called wages, and was so little that it was scarcely
worth the name. Six men in a room, all gentle (by their clothes), all
with nothing better