that day, and the valor of the adjoining parish (which had also supplied
a hero), England might be mourning her foremost [Greek word], her very
greatest fighter in the van, without the consolation of burying him, and
embalming him in a nation's tears--for the French might have fired
the magazine--and when he proceeded to ask who it was that (under the
guiding of a gracious hand) had shattered the devices of the enemy, up
stood Robin Cockscroft, with a score of equally ancient captains,
and remembering where they were, touched their forelocks, and
answered--"Robin Lyth, sir!"

Then Mary permitted the pride of her heart, which had long been painful
with the tight control, to escape in a sob, which her mother had
foreseen; and pulling out the stopper from her smelling-bottle, Mistress
Anerley looked at her husband as if he were Bonaparte himself.
He, though aware that it was inconsistent of her, felt (as he said
afterward) as if he had been a Frenchman; and looked for his hat, and
fumbled about for the button of the pew, to get out of it. But luckily
the clerk, with great presence of mind, awoke, and believing the sermon
to be over, from the number of men who were standing up, pronounced
"Amen" decisively.

During the whole of the homeward drive Farmer Anerley's countenance was
full of thought; but he knew that it was watched, and he did not choose
to let people get in front of him with his own brains. Therefore he let
his wife and daughter look at him, to their hearts' content, while he
looked at the ledges, and the mud, and the ears of his horse, and the
weather; and he only made two observations of moment, one of which was
"gee!" and the other was "whoa!"

With females jolting up and down, upon no springs--except those of
jerksome curiosity--conduct of this character was rude in the extreme.
But knowing what he was, they glanced at one another, not meaning in any
sort of way to blame him, but only that he would be better by-and-by,
and perhaps try to make amends handsomely. And this, beyond any denial,
he did as soon as he had dined, and smoked his pipe on the butt of the
tree by the rick-yard. Nobody knew where he kept his money, or at least
his good wife always said so, when any one made bold to ask her. And
even now he was right down careful to go to his pot without anybody
watching; so that when he came into the Sunday parlor there was not one
of them who could say, even at a guess, where he last had been.

Ma