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She had no more idea when she walked back along the High Street with the Contessa swinging her basket by her side, whether that lady was going to tea with Major Benjy to-day or to-morrow or when, than she knew whether the crab was going to eat the beefsteak.
Some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon's sword and pistol, which hung over the mantelpiece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks with which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side.
"It's the great sea-serpent at last," said Benjy, with something like awe on his countenance. "It does look uncommon like it," replied the Captain, with a perplexed expression on his rugged visage. "Get out the rifles, lad! It's as well to be ready. D'ye know what it is, Chingatok?" Again the giant uttered the unpronounceable name, while Benjy got out the fire-arms with eager haste.
'Up into the garret in the north corner. There is no fireplace in the room; but I shan't want that, poor soul o' me. ''Tis not moving far. ''Tis not. But I have not a soul belonging to me within ten mile; and you know very well that I couldn't afford to go to lodgings that I had to pay for. 'I know it I know it, Uncle Benjy! Well, don't be disturbed.
They had, with that wizard's permission, built to themselves a temporary stone hut, as Benjy Vane facetiously said, "on the very top of the North Pole itself;" that is, on the little mound or truncated cone of rock, in the centre of the Great Isle, on which they had already set up the observatory, and which cone was, in very truth, as nearly as possible the exact position of that long-sought-for imaginary point of earth as could be ascertained by repeated and careful observations, made with the best of scientific instruments by thoroughly capable men.
She has little, and I have much; but I do adore that girl, in spite of myself! 'Let's go on, said Anne. 'Prithee stand by an old man till he's got into his house! implored Uncle Benjy. 'I only ask ye to bide within call. Stand back under the trees, and I'll do my poor best to give no trouble. 'I'll stand by you for half-an-hour, sir, said Loveday. 'After that I must bolt to camp.
And after surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the Browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of the gallant bouts of forty years back, to which Tom listened with all his ears and eyes.
I be so plaguy bad wi' th' rheumatiz in my back." Benjy paused, in hopes of drawing the farmer at once on the subject of his ailments without further direct application. "Ah, I see as you bean't quite so lissom as you was," replied the farmer, with a grim smile, as he lifted the latch of his door; "we bean't so young as we was, nother on us, wuss luck."
Derriman! he exclaimed. 'My tin box! said Uncle Benjy. 'O, only the trumpet-major! 'Your box is safe enough, I assure you. It was only' here the trumpet- major gave vent to an artificial laugh 'only a sly bit of courting, you know. 'Ha, ha, I see! said the relieved old squireen. 'Courting Miss Anne! Then you've ousted my nephew, trumpet-major! Well, so much the better.
Still, if the cutting of cards malignantly ordained that Miss Mapp was ejected, it was only reasonable to expect that after her magnanimity to the United Services, either Major Benjy or Captain Puffin would be so obdurate in his insistence that she must play instead of him, that it would be only ladylike to yield.
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