"Why you yourself are a host, Peter," said Ellinor with affected gravity;
"your sight alone would frighten an army of robbers: who could have
thought you could assume so military an air? The Corporal himself was
never so upright!"

"I have practised my present attitude all the day, Miss," said Peter,
proudly, "and I believe I may now say as Mr. Sternhold says or sings, in
the twenty-sixth Psalm, verse twelfth.

'My foot is stayed for all assays,
It standeth well and right,
Wherefore to God--will I give praise
In all the people's sight!'

Jacobina, behave yourself, child. I don't think, your honour, that we
miss the Corporal so much as I fancied at first, for we all does very
well without him."

"Indeed you are a most worthy substitute, Peter; and now, Nell, just
reach me my hat and cloak; I will set you at your posts: you will have an
ugly night of it."

"Very indeed, your honour," cried all the army, speaking for the first
time.

"Silence--order--discipline," said Peter gruffly. "March!"

But instead of marching across the hall, the recruits huddled up one
after the other, like a flock of geese, whom Jacobina might be supposed
to have set in motion, and each scraping to the ladies, as they shuffled,