rds and cows and
rabbits, and everything that acts by nature's laws. When a dog sits in
front of his kennel, fast chained, every stranger dog that comes in at
the gate confesses that the premises are his, and all the treasures they
contain; and if he hunts about--which he is like enough to do, unless
full of self-respect and fresh victuals--for any bones invested in the
earth to ripen, by the vested owner, he does it with a low tail and many
pricks of conscience, perhaps hoping in his heart that he may discover
nothing to tempt him into breach of self-respect. But now men are
ordered, in this matter, to be of lower principle than their dogs.

King George the third, who hated pomp and show, and had in his blood the
old German sense of patriarchal kingship, would have enjoyed a good talk
with Zebedee and his wife Kezia, if he had met them on the downs alone;
but, alas, he was surrounded with great people, and obliged to restrict
himself to the upper order, with whom he had less sympathy. Zebedee,
perceiving this, made all allowance for him, and bought a new Sunday hat
the very next day, for fear of wearing out the one he had taken off to
His Majesty, when His Majesty looked at him, and Her Majesty as well,
and they manifestly said to one another, what a very fine subject they
had found. Such was loyalty--aye, and royalty--in those times that we
despise.

But larger events demand our heed. There were forty thousand gallant
fellows, from the age of fifteen upwards, doing their best to look like
soldiers, and some almost succeeding. True it is that their legs and
arms were not all of one pattern, nor their hats put on their heads
alike--any more than the heads on their shoulders were--neither did they
swing together, as they would have done to a good swathe of grass; but
for all that, and making due allowance for the necessity they were under
of staring incessantly at the King, any man who understood them
would have praised them wonderfully. And they went about in such
wide formation, and occupied so much of their native land, that the
best-drilled regiment Napoleon possessed would have looked quite small
among them.

"They understand furze," said a fine young officer of the staff, who
had ridden up to Admiral Darling's carriage and saluted three ladies who
kept watch there. "I doubt whether many of the Regular forces would
have got through that brake half so well; certainly not without double
gaiters. If the French ever