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An uncontradicted rumor had it that he could have been sergeant-major, but that he told the commandant his ambition lay in the senior captaincy, and first captain he had been named his first class summer, only to lose it late in August, the penalty of a rash and forbidden exploit for the sake of a smile, and possibly a caress, and lose it to the man who, starting at the foot of the list of his chevroned fellows two years before, had risen only to "late sergeant" of a centre company when they came from furlough, but, standing foremost in "Tactics," well up in every subject but French and drawing, and impeccable in conduct, won a captaincy in spite of his lack of inches.
"The basket, boys, the basket." "W'y, Lawd!" cried the section-boss, winking against the light; "ain't they no blizzard?" A trooper with a chevroned sleeve saluted them. His air was jaunty. His face beamed. "There was, sir, last night," he said gaily, "but there hain't none now. Clear has ha bell, sir." "Y' fr'm th' Post?" demanded Lancaster, trying to look severe.
Afterwards he might remark the long-drawn roof of the nave, and the chevroned ribs of the Norman vault, delimiting bay and bay with a saltire as they crossed; or his eyes might be led up to the lantern of the central tower, and follow the lighter ascending lines of Abbot Vinnicomb's Perpendicular panelling, till they vanished in the windows far above. Inside the loft there was room and to spare.
Everywhere the crowd was breaking into the street; citizens marched with their hands on the shoulders of the soldiers; old gentlemen toddled along beside strapping sons; brothers passed arms around brothers; here and there a mother hung to the chevroned sleeve of son or husband who was striving to see ahead through blurring eyes; here and there some fair young girl, badged with the national colours, stretched out her arms from the crowd and laid her hands to the lips of her passing lover.
"What is it; what device is there?" I knew something of heraldry and read aloud without hesitation the bearings upon the shield, prominent among which were three wolves' heads, chevroned, supported by two black wolves, rampant, the coronet and motto "Praeclare factum."
A chevroned black-beard half a horse-length behind him translated the demand into stately Pashtu, and for answer the hill chieftain mounted his stolen horse and shook his tulwar. He had pistols at his belt, but he did not draw them; across his shoulder swung a five-foot-long jezail, but he loosed it and flung it to the ground.
They must not overhear the conversation which he intends holding with his captives; and to prevent this a plan easily suggests itself. "Holla!" he hails a trooper with chevroned sleeves, in authority over the others. "Step this way, sergente." The sergeant advances, and saluting, awaits further speech from the colonel. "Order boots and saddles!" directs the latter.
The sun blazed down and down, till it was within half-an-hour of its setting; but the sketcher still lingered at his occupation of measuring and copying the chevroned doorway a bold and quaint example of a transitional style of architecture, which formed the tower entrance to an English village church.
Anyone outside would have seen islands of white cloud drifting across the blue sky, and each cloud as it passed threw the heavy chevroned diagonals inside into bold relief, and picked out that rebus of a carding-comb encircled by a wreath of vine-leaves which Nicholas Vinnicomb had inserted for a vaulting-boss.
Dean had actually invited her her, Elinor Merchant Folsom Winona, as they called her when she was a toddler among the tepees of the Sioux Pappoose as the girls had named her at school "Nell," as Jessie called her sweetest name of all despite the ring of sadness that ever hangs about it and Daddy had actually smiled and approved her going to the midweek hop on a cadet captain's broad chevroned arm, and she had worn her prettiest white gown, and the girls had brought her roses, and Mr.
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