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“Hullo!” said Nandy, beginning to understand. “Desertin’, eh?”

The soldier nodded as he flung the tunic down on the beach–and Nandy took note of the figures 32 in brass on the collar. “It’s all along of a woman,” said he.

“Ah!” said Nandy, sympathetic. “There’s lots of us in the world taken that way.”

“Looky-here,” said the soldier, “if you try any sauce with me, you’ll be sorry for it; and, what’s more, you won’t get this pretty suit o’ scarlet clothes I was minded to leave you for a present.”

“Thank you,” said Nandy.

“They won’t fit so badly if you turn up the bottoms o’ the pantaloons: and you can’t look worse than you do in a state o’ nature.”

“All right,” said Nandy; “only make haste about it; for ’tis cold standin’ here in the water.”

To tell the truth a rare notion had crept into his head. This scarlet uniform–for scarlet it was, with white and yellow facings–had come as a godsend. He would walk home in it, and if it didn’t frighten twenty shillings out of Aunt Barbree he must have lost the knack of lying.

“You can’t be in more of a hurry than I am,” answered the soldier, stripping to the very buff–for everything he wore, down to his shirt, carried the regimental mark. The only part of Nandy’s wardrobe he spared were the boots, which wouldn’t fit him at all.

“So long!” said the soldier, having lit his pipe: and with that he gave a shake to settle himself down in Nandy’s clothes, picked up his pistol and scrambled up through the bushes. In thirty seconds he was over the cliff and out of sight, and Nandy left to stare at his new uniform.

He picked up the articles gingerly and slipped them on, one by one. There was a coarse flannel shirt with a leather stock, a pair of woollen socks, black pantaloons with a line of red piping, spatterdashes, a tunic such as I’ve described–with pipe-clayed belt and crossbelt–and last of all a great japanned shako mounted with a brass plate and chin-strap and a scarlet-and-white cockade like a shaving-brush. When his toilet was finished, Nandy stepped down to the edge of the tide to take a look at his own reflection. It seemed to him that he cut a fine figure; but somehow he couldn’t fetch up stomach to wear that rory-tory shako, but took his way towards Merry-Garden carrying it a-dangle by the chin-strap. However, by the time he reached the gate he had begun to feel more accustomed to his grandeur, and likewise that in for a penny was in for a pound: so, clapping the blessed thing tight on his head and pulling down the strap, he marched up the steps with a bold face.

The verandah was empty, and he strode along it and past the laylock-bush where–scarce ten minutes before–Dr. Clatworthy had received such a desperate shock. A little way beyond it was a path leading round to the back door, and Nandy was making for this when his ears caught the sound of laughing and the jingling of teacups from the line of arbours, and he spied Susannah coming towards the house with a teapot in one hand and an empty cream-dish in the other. For the moment she didn’t recognise him.

“Attention! Stand at ease!” said Nandy, drawing himself up to the salute.

“The Lord deliver us!” screamed Susannah, dropping teapot and cream-dish together: and at the sound of it a dozen gentlemen in regimentals came rushing out from their arbours. Before Nandy knew whether he stood on his heels or his head one of these gentlemen had gripped him by the collar, and was requiring him to say instanter what the devil he meant by it.

“Why, damme,” shouted someone, “if ’tisn’t the uniform of the Thirty-second! Here! Shilston! Appleshaw!”