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To complete the lower portions of the soldier's dress, let him wear either the shoe and gaiter, or the low boot; either is good, there is hardly a choice comfort preponderates in favour of the gaiters ornament in that of the boot.
I asked him at once whether he was hurt, and he said something he thought it must be a bullet had hit him on the gaiter and numbed his leg. He was quite sure it had not gone in, but when we had carried him away we found as I expected that he was shot through the leg. The wound was not serious, but the doctors declared he would be a month in hospital.
That sounds very dreadful and horrible, and it is, if you are thinking of a great, brutal, brogan kick, such as a stupid farmer gives to his patient oxen; but not, if you mean only a delicate, compact, penetrative nudge with the toe of a tight-fitting gaiter, addressed rather to the conscience than the sole, to the sensibilities rather than the senses.
No life was, however, lost, and we made no prisoners. To my great surprise I caught, at the beginning of the affray, a glimpse of the bottle-green coat, drab knee-cords, with gaiter continuations, of the doctor. They, however, very quickly vanished; and till about a week afterwards, I concluded that their owner had escaped in a whole skin. I was mistaken.
Pennypoker's foot slipped and plunged deep down into the clay; and, on her withdrawing it, she was horrified to feel that her foot was slowly but surely pulling out of her gaiter, instead of pulling her gaiter out with it. In vain she had attempted to work her foot down into her shoe once more; in vain she had endeavored to hook her bent toes into it, with a hold sufficient to draw it out.
Euphemia Pennypoker could present a dignified appearance as she received her muddy shoe from the end of the Reverend Gabriel's cane, drew it on to her foot, and walked away towards the station, with mingled clay and water oozing out from her gaiter, at her every step. Once more winter had come, and the snow lay deep and white over the little camp.
Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of black, the pantaloons tight at the calf and ankle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick shoes, buckled high at the instep; an old cloak, lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry; a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic, to wit, a long hooked nose, sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took something wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through which they shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in which a physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness, and some closeness, complete the picture.
He was again tapping with his cane the gaiter covering his slender, shining boot. "If Mr. Temple Temple Barholm had remained here his actions would have seemed less suspicious?" he suggested. It was Palliser who replied. "Or if he hadn't whisked the other man away. He lost his head and played the fool." "He didn't lose his head, that chap.
It is not so good for parade purposes, as the light pantaloon and gaiter, in as much as it conceals defects of limbs; but, on the long run, it is far to be preferred; it lasts better, keeps cleaner, and does more comfortable service to its wearer, than any thing else.
Below the button the shirt billowed open, showing his naked back. His wooden leg stuck straight out to the side, its worn brass tip carrying a blob of red mud, and his good leg dangled down straight, with the trousers hitched half-way up the bare shank and a soiled white-yarn sock falling down into the wrinkled and gaping top of an ancient congress gaiter.
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