A Cricket Lunch
WHEN the bell rang for luncheon at half-past one, the score-sheet was
pretty reading:--
FIRST INNINGS OF LITTLE CLUMPTON.
H. J. Halliday, not out 98
R. C. Dimsdale, lbw b T. S. M. Trentham 7
J. F. S. Oldknow, not out 46
Extras 14
----
Total for 1 wicket 165
As the players came trooping in from the field, pangs of sadness
overtook both the Optimist and me, for we knew that for the present our
right good time was at an end. We were condemned to go and lunch in
the stuffy marquee, among the wasps and bad speeches. But I had failed
to allow for the particular talent of the Optimist. He is a man who is
certain to make his mark in diplomacy one day. His eye had observed a
pretty substantial hamper on the roof of the coach.
“Pity us, Grace,” said he appealingly, as we prepared to descend.
“We’ve got to spend the next hour in that ‘Inferno,’ fishing flies out
of the salad and ‘hearing, hearing’ the Earl’s annual, ‘Gentlemen, I
can assure you that this auspicious occasion is one of the proudest
moments of my--er--er--life.’ Pity us, Grace!”
“I do, old chap,” said Grace, very earnestly. “But you needn’t, you
know. That is, if you can stand sandwiches and ginger beer. There’s
lots here, in the hamper. Oh! and I think there’s a bottle of fizz.”
“It’s really too good of you,” said the Optimist. But Miss Grace was
so prompt in her attempt to pull forth the hamper in question from
under the seat that our thanks, scruples, and retreat were all alike
submerged in the assistance we felt bound to lend her.
“What a weight it is!” said I. “There must be enough for both teams
here.”
“I believe in being prepared for emergencies,” said she. “Feed ’em, I
say. A man that can’t eat’s no good for cricket. And there’s certain to
be some of the boys along presently. Hullo! here’s Charlie, for one.
Don’t he look awfully sorry for himself, poor old chap! That’s ’cause
he’s got no wickets. Buck up, Charlie!”
The best bowler in England climbed up on to the roof.
“Now then, Grace,” said he briskly. “Keep ’em from that fizz. Two of
your beef-slabs round, mind, before that’s touched. That’s for dessert.
Brightside, I should recommend you to stick to Caley. I’m certain to
bowl you neck and heels if you don’t.”
“Same as you’ve been serving ’em this morning,” said Miss Grace.
“Don’t be rude, Grace,” said he. “But give me a sandwich. Oh, I say,
and do you see which fizz you’ve brought? Whew! won’t there be a row!
You know that the Guv’nor particularly said it was not to be touched.”
“Well, Charlie, now,” said his sister, “do you think I’d bring that
sugary stuff to give to pretty nearly a county team?--one of ’em going
out with Stoddy, too. But the Guv.’s an awful good sort, and I’m sure
he’ll see it in a proper light when I explain to him that I couldn’t
possibly give that horrid what-do-you-call-it to a team like we’ve got
to-day. Besides, he’d only have let the Bishop and the Rural Dean have
had it. I’ll take good care they don’t get it, though. Let ’em stick
to their port. Never saw such a pair of old muffs in my life. ’Don’t
know a bat from a bagpipe!” Then, as she distributed a napkinful of
the solidest beef sandwiches I ever saw, she continued with manifest
perplexity: “Do you know that I can never understand on what principle
they go on in the Church to get their preferment. There’s Toddles, now.
Look at Toddles. ’Got his Blue, plays for Kent and the Gentlemen, and
his cutting’s simply marvellous, and yet he’s just a common curate.
And then there’s my old Guv’nor. ’Don’t want to boast, but my old
Guv’nor’s---- Well, look what Lillywhite says about him. He’d play the
whole Dean and Chapter left hand with a toothpick, and yet _he_ don’t
wear gaiters. ’Can’t reckon it up at all. Don’t it seem ridiculous?
’specially when you come to think of the set of old duffers who do.”
“Grace, don’t be libellous,” said the best bowler in England, with
a face of keen enjoyment. “Drop your jaw and look sharp with those
glasses.”
“May I participate in this pleasant function?” said a meek voice. The
little parson clambered on to the roof and smiled into our midst.
“Toddles!” cried Miss Grace, with a flashing eye. “How dare you! Don’t
you show your face here, you--you--you little curate! Aren’t you
thoroughly ashamed?”
“My dear Grace, I have no words in which to express my penitence,” said
the little parson, in a broken tone; but as he looked at us his face
had such a twinkle in it that I’m sure he must have been a master of
deceit.
“Oh, you haven’t!” said Miss Grace scornfully. “Well, Toddles, it’s
lucky for you that you made that score against Notts yesterday. One
can’t say exactly what’s in one’s mind to a man who’s just made a score
like that. Say you’re sorry, Toddles, and I’ll forgive you.”
“Oh, Grace! how magnanimous you are!” cried the little parson, in
throbbing accents. “I can assure you that time only will assuage my
sorrow!”
“If time don’t, stone-ginger will, and that’s a cert.,” said the
irreverent Charlie. “Try one, old man”; and the best bowler in England
poured out a Caley for the erring one.
The little parson tossed it off, and fell upon a massive sandwich with
a vigour that was in disproportion to his inches.
It was one of the liveliest cricket lunches at which I ever assisted;
and I think the heartiest. Miss Grace’s sandwiches had certainly been
designed for very punishing batsmen and terrific fast bowlers. Two
great slices of bread with a succulent chunk of beef between went to
the making of them. He who ate one had partaken of no inconsiderable
meal; he who ate two must have had an appetite of which any man ought
to have been proud. But Miss Grace herself set us all a noble example.
She fell on one of these tremendous slabs with the courage of a lion,
and had a big stone-ginger all to herself.
“Charlie,” said the little parson, “we’d better put Grace on at the top
end after lunch. She seems in great form.”
“’Wish you would,” said Grace wistfully. “I’d shift ’em. ’Just feel
like it. Pass the mustard, Mr. Dimsdale. Thanks aw’fly. Cheery, help
yourself. ’Won’t wait to be invited, will you? You’ll find some apples
underneath. Now then, Toddles, buck up! You’re not in church. Ham or
beef? ’Nother beer for Charlie.”
“If we’d only got some gin, it would improve it,” sighed England’s best
bowler.
“Mr. Dimsdale, if you’ll look in the left-hand corner, right down at
the bottom,” said Miss Grace, “you’ll find a bottle. Charlie, how dare
you! Don’t you touch that fizz. Mr. Dimsdale, I repose _implicit_
confidence in you.”
“Grace,” said the best bowler in England, brandishing the gin bottle,
“you’re a trump!”
“Always was,” said Miss Grace. “But it’s not until Middlesex and Kent
get beastly, jolly hungry that they think it worth their while to talk
about it.”
“Oh, you’ve got your points,” said her brother. “You do know how to
feed us. ’Seem to know exactly what we like. Your feeding’s lovely.
Look at these sandwiches; they’re a dream.”
“Two of ’em ’d be a nightmare,” said the little parson.
“For a man your size, perhaps,” Miss Grace said. “Ought to have brought
a few of those anchovy things for you. And, Toddles, I forbid you to
have gin. Sure to get into your head, you know, and then you’d miss
another catch.”
“Here, no-ball! That’s a chuck!” cried Charlie. “I’ll have Jim Phillips
to you, Grace. You don’t give the poor chap a chance.”
“Charlie, if you’re rude you’ll get no fizz.”
Miss Grace foraged in the hamper and produced two bottles of that giddy
liquid. She promptly began to unwire them, too. Disdaining our earnest
and repeated offers to withdraw the corks, she pulled them out herself
with considerable ease and neatness, saying,--
“’Daren’t trust you men with this. I’ll measure it myself, then all
of us will get a share. Hands down, Charlie. Oh, yes, I know being a
bowler’s beastly thirsty; thank you so much for reminding me. Look
alive, Mr. Dimsdale, with those glasses. You’ll find ’em wrapped up in
the _Sporting Life_.”
“She means _The Woman at Home_, in Annie S. Swan’s grand new serial,”
said the little parson, with something that bore a perilous resemblance
to a common wink.
“Go on, pile it up!” The voice of Miss Grace was more indignant than
the hissing of the fizz. “And, Toddles, I saw you. Oh, you naughty
little curate. You’d better be careful, Toddles, or I won’t work that
sweater for you. Pass that to Cheery. Don’t drink it yet. I’ve got to
propose a toast.”
When we were all furnished with a means to honour it, our hostess
insisted on our standing up along with her, whereon she held the glass
aloft, and cried in a voice pregnant with emotion:
“Here’s luck to good old Stoddy in the autumn!”
We pledged him with great fervour.
“I say, you men,” said Grace. “That went well, didn’t it? And I say,
isn’t this stuff just prime. My old guv’nor knows a thing or two. And
what price the Bishop and the Rural Dean? It’s positive extravagance
in my old guv’nor to lavish it on those old jossers. But they look
like being left, eh? Next time they’ll get the other sort, and that’ll
sour their ‘outlook,’ and their preaching won’t be quite so full of
hope. But we’d better finish it now it’s here. Fill up, and we’ll drink
another.”
The second was: “Here’s luck to good old Archie of that ilk!”
This was drunk with acclamation. And the champagne still continuing to
hold out, nothing would satisfy the enthusiasm of Miss Grace but that
a third should be proposed. It was evidently pretty near her heart, for
her colour rose, her eyes sparkled, and her lips began to tremble.
“Here’s to dear old Charlie, and may Stoddy have the sense to take him
too. And it’s a great big shame he’s not been yet invited!”
Charlie having been pushed down into an attitude of repose by main
force, we drank this more heartily than ever. And the feeling provoked
by the peculiar circumstances of the case was so extreme, that when
the gallant little parson broke out into a rousing cheer that did an
infinite amount of credit to so small a man, the rest of us supported
him in such a stentorian fashion that we attracted the attention of the
general public.
“Stow that rot!” exclaimed the best bowler in England, whose
discomposure was rather painful. “Confound you, Grace, what have you
got to play the giddy goat like this for!”
“Speech! speech!” cried Miss Grace, hugely delighted at the condition
to which she had reduced him. The great bowler grew more embarrassed
than ever.
“Now then, Charlie, buck up,” said his sister. “Don’t keep us waiting.
We can’t get on with the serious business, the sandwiches and so forth,
until you’ve acknowledged the honour that we’ve done you. Now then,
let’s see you do the thing in style. Like you used to do it at the
Union, you know. What price, old Charlie, at the Union?”
“Oh, this is all beastly bally rot,” exclaimed the great bowler most
miserably red. “Dimsdale, if you don’t stop grinning, you’ll be sorry.
Grace, I’ll get level with _you_, take _my_ word. I’ll drop every bally
catch that comes, and talk about misfielding and the overthrows--I’ll
give _you_ beans!”
Miss Grace, in her capacity as president of the feast, hammered the
hamper top with an empty stone-ginger beer bottle in a very resolute
manner, and said:
“Now then, Charlie, are you going to buck up and begin? Something in
the Earl’s style, don’t you know. ‘Unaccustomed as I am to public
speaking’ sort of thing. You know, something with a bit of class about
it, and not so much of your awfully beastly bally. Not good form at all
you know, Charlie. Quite third rate, don’t you know. Now then, I’ve
given you a friendly lead. Let’s see you stand up like a man, and say,
‘Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, unaccustomed as I am----’ Well, why don’t
you go on?”
“Just you shut your face, Grace, and pass me a ham sandwich, and let’s
have the mustard this way. You’d better drop your rotting, Grace, it
really isn’t funny,” said the poor bowler wriggling dismally.
“_You’re_ pretty humorous though,” said his sister cruelly. “If you’ll
be good enough to look as funny as that till I find my kodak. I’ll take
a snapshot of you. You would send up the circulation of the _Windsor
Magazine_. ‘Eminent cricketer replying to the toast of his health.’
What, ho!”
If a wasp had not settled itself on the dazzling white collar of poor
Charlie’s persecutor and demanded extremely discreet conduct on the
part of Miss Grace whilst three men gallantly but cautiously arranged
its capture and decease, it is possible that the great bowler’s bad
time would have continued longer than it did. Miss Grace Trentham,
having rather severely handled a famous exponent of the game, turned
her attention to one of even greater eminence. Stoddart’s blindness in
omitting to ask Charlie to make the trip to Australia was trenchantly
reviewed.
“If Stoddy don’t take Charlie,” Miss Grace said with weighty
deliberation, “Stoddy’ll be wrong. Charlie’s worth three Jack Hearnes
this season, and Mold and Richardson aren’t in it. ’Fact it’s my
’pinion that if Charlie had only got a bit more intellect, and hadn’t
such a gift for drinking things, he’d be another Spoff.”
“Go on, Grace, keep at it,” murmured the gentleman in question with a
most pathetic air of resignation. “That’s the fizz. Girls and champagne
as usual. To watch the fluent way they lip it, you’d think it was only
milk. But it gets there just the same. Go on, Grace; let’s hear what
else it’s got to say.”
“Charlie, you’re a coarse person,” said his sister. “You had better
take your hat off to let the sun expurgate your ideas a bit.”
“Grace,” said the little parson, “you’re a regular Jessop when it comes
to hitting. That’s six.”
“Do you believe in dreams, Mr. Dimsdale?” said Miss Grace suddenly.
“Well, I was born in the West country, so I suppose I’m obliged to,”
said I.
“Well, I dreamt last night but one,” said she, “that a wire came from
town to Charlie, saying, ‘Will you complete team? Name inadvertently
omitted. Stoddart.’”
A roar of laughter considerably interfered with Miss Grace’s narrative.
“Grace, if you keep playing this game,” said the best bowler
in England, fighting for his breath, “I shall die young. Name
inadvertently omitted’s rather good.”
“Certain it has been,” said Miss Grace with deep conviction. “Stoddy
would never be such a blind owl as to leave you out on purpose,
Charlie. I’ve a very high opinion of Stoddy.”
“Stoddy will be pleased,” piped the little parson.
“If that’s meant for sarcasm, Toddles,” said Miss Grace, “you’d better
save it for your fielding. It needs it more than I do.”
“Put her down another six,” said Charlie. “She’s serving all the
bowling alike. She is in a punishing mood. Toddles, if you’ll take my
tip, you’ll go off next over.”
“Don’t take much to flog the stuff _you’ve_ been rolling up this
morning, anyhow,” said Miss Grace truculently. “But I’ve been on
the point of writing to Stoddy once or twice to tell him that he’s
forgotten to invite you, Charlie.”
“Good God, what the, the----!” spluttered the horrified Charlie very
incoherently indeed. The bare possibility of such an unheard of
proceeding half paralysed the poor bowler. His clerical friend, who had
acquired in some mysterious manner a laugh that began in his boots and
rose in Rabelaisian moments as high as his knee-joints, nearly tumbled
off the coach in wrestling with it.
“I would do it if I thought I would,” said Miss Grace stoutly, and the
half-perplexed solemnity of her countenance made three of us howl with
joy; the fourth, however, looked as though he would never smile again.
“You needn’t tell us that, we know it,” moaned the poor bowler. “That’s
why you’re such a source of comfort to us.”
“Toddles,” said Miss Grace, addressing herself to the Rev. Mr.
Elphinstone, who was engaged in shinning the Optimist on the off-chance
that the Optimist’s mind might be invaded by some much-needed
solemnity, “Toddles, your behaviour is positively low. But Charlie,
now, don’t you think, as Stoddy must have overlooked you, it would be
doing the right thing by him to write and tell him so before it is
too late? No good for him to know it, would it, when Sid Gregory and
Clem Hill and that lot are knocking the cover off the ball as they did
before?”
“Go on, go on,” said the great bowler; “it sounds like sacred music.”
“Well, anyhow,” she continued, “I’m not going to let England lose the
rubber this time, if I can help it. And they will, that’s a cert.,
if you’re not there, Charlie, to rattle their timber. They can play
everybody else as easily as they’d play that stuff o’ Toddles’s.”
“Cheek,” said the reverend patentee of “that stuff o’ Toddles’s,”
employing the power of speech with evident difficulty, “awful cheek.”
“Always was you know, Toddles, your bowling,” said Miss Grace
indulgently. “But we won’t go into that now. What ought I to say to
Stoddy when I write him? Would he think it too familiar if I began, ‘My
dear Mr. Stoddart,’ or ought it to be ‘Dear Sir’? Don’t quite know how
to start it, don’t you know. You see Stoddy’s not exactly an ordinary
person, don’t you see. The Guv’nor says great men are so touchy.”
Miss Grace was evidently embarrassed. So were some others. The little
parson’s laughter rumbled from his boots until one wondered how his
small eights could hold so much. As for the unhappy Charlie, he was so
completely demoralised that after saying, “Why don’t some of you men
give her another stone-ginger to keep her quiet?” he proceeded to fill
an immense tumbler with neat gin for that purpose, under the impression
that he was pouring out ginger beer.
When at last things had sorted themselves out a bit, during which
process Miss Grace, the innocent cause of this disorder, regarded us
all with unaffected gravity, the little parson said, with an expression
of really concentrated elfishness: “But you know, you men, there’s a
wonderful amount of truth in what Grace says. If Stoddy really has
forgotten Charlie, and if she reminds him of the fact, she will be
doing a service to her country, won’t she?”
“By Jove, she will,” chorused the Optimist and I.
“Well, if that’s the case, I’m sure I’ll write to Stoddy then,” said
Grace.
And she looked as though she meant to do it too.
The poor bowler had got about as much as he could bear. I think I never
saw a grown man look more completely overborne. He began doggedly to
munch another sandwich, and nearly choked himself by trying to whistle
a jaunty music hall ditty expressive of heart-easing mirth with his
mouth full. When he spoke, his voice was so subdued and melancholious
that, as Miss Grace said, it reminded her of Toddles reading the
marriage service.
“She’ll do it,” he said. “Rather a good joke for me, eh? He’s sure
to show it to McGregor and O’Brien and that lot. They’ll simply die.
Shan’t be able to show my face up at Lord’s for years. Awfully nice for
me, eh?”
“Well,” Miss Grace said, “I hope Stoddy does show it to McGregor
and O’Brien and that lot. They’ll tell him what a fool he’s been to
overlook you, Charlie.”
“She means it,” said I, to console him.
“I should rather think she does,” said he. “If she once gets a giddy
idea into that gaudy feminine head of hers, there’s nothing can shift
it. She’s a downright terror. And, I should like to know what cove it
was that said women had no sense o’ humour. Why they’re that darned
funny they ought to be put in a circus.”
“Awful good sort Grace is though, when you get to know her,” said the
little parson, most caressingly, “and no end of a patriot as well.
She sinks all private and domestic matters when the welfare of her
country is concerned. Shouldn’t be a bit surprised if, when this leaks
out, they don’t get up a shilling testimonial to her in the _Daily
Telegraph_.”
“’Nother beer for Toddles,” said the recipient of this flattery, “and
Toddles, you can have some gin in it, if you like.”
Mercifully enough for her luckless brother Charlie, Miss Grace here
remembered that she was hostess, and suspended the conversation to a
more convenient season while she ministered to our wants. We all fell
again in earnest to our interrupted meal; but I’m sure that the best
bowler in England was so depressed throughout his entire being, that he
couldn’t possibly have enjoyed his.
There was a delicious sense of out-of-doors and the open air as we
sat up here under the genial sun of summer. The band was playing now,
and the smart mob from the various carriages and the ladies’ tent was
parading the bright green lawn prior to the resumption of the game. The
crowd was beginning to re-assemble round the ring. And here and there
we could observe from our exalted situation, various of the players
making a tour of the ground, in their “blancoed” boots and brilliant
blazers, pretty generally accompanied too by graceful persons in straw
hats and white piqué. Some of these graceful persons happened to be
“dressed,” it is true, but their costumes bid the pen pause, as nothing
less than a fashion journal could describe them.
“I think girls look jolly nice and cool all in white,” said Charlie.
“None of your brown holland for me, thank you. Aren’t fond o’ that
ruffly, crumply sort o’ stuff, are you Toddles?”
“No,” said the cruel Toddles. “And to my unsophisticated mind plain
ribands look more chaste than those staring Zingari ties and things
they crib from their male relations.”
But Miss Grace was far too occupied in attacking her mighty second
sandwich, and insisting on her guests adventuring a third, holding that
great virtues were resident therein, to heed this brilliant persiflage.
Besides, the injustice was too palpable. For I’m certain that had Grace
chosen to wear a potato sack, with a ribbon of the Zingari black, red
and yellow round the neck of it, she would have made an effect all
poetry and sunshine and been a positive delight. The brown holland
was quite plain and simple, without one suspicion of a flounce; but
its wearer had invested it with all the glamours of a love scene out
of Meredith. Hers was a natural genius of beauty for which she was
not all responsible. Without the slightest art or consideration, it
looked out of her eyes. She must have known all about it, being a girl.
Nevertheless she was not in the least uplifted by it, and would have
much preferred to play for Middlesex than to be the belle of a London
season.
When at last the formal luncheon was at an end, and the Earl’s speech
had been duly delivered for the benefit of the _Little Clumpton
Advertiser_, two persons of light and leading were observed to be
bearing down upon our drag. One was the honourable and reverend parent
of Miss Grace; the other was the Earl himself. It was good to notice
the celerity with which our hostess slipped the empty champagne
bottles, bearing their tell-tale labels, back into the hamper at the
first approach of these dignitaries.
“Mum’s the word, you know,” said she, “if the Guv wants to know what
we’ve had to drink. His natural benevolence sometimes leads him to ask
lots o’ questions that he oughtn’t to.”
As soon as the new comers halted immediately beneath us, Miss Grace
greeted them in the hearty fashion that was her wont.
“Hullo, father! had a good lunch? Hullo, Dicky! Got your speech off all
comfy, or did you break down in the middle, as you usually do?”
“A bit nearer the end this time,” said the Earl.
“Anyhow,” said Miss Grace, “I hope you didn’t shove in your usual
reference to Alfred Mynn and Fuller Pilch and that crowd. I think
everybody’s getting about sick of ’em. What with the Old Man and Ranji
and Andrew Lang, they’re getting stale. You take my advice, Dicky,
and give ’em a rest. Everybody’ll be so grateful, and as it’ll make
your peroration shorter by about ten minutes, you can bet that their
gratitude will be pretty genuine.”
“Clean out of the ground again,” cried England’s best bowler in great
delight. “’Nother six. She keeps on lifting ’em. Charlie Thornton isn’t
in it. Dick, you take my advice, and clear out o’ this while you’re
well.”
“What have I done to deserve this?” said the poor Earl appealingly.
“’Feel like it,” said Miss Grace. “And so would you, Dicky, had
you been sitting up here all the jolly morning putting down Little
Clumpton’s runs, watching Halliday batting like an angel, and Toddles
dropping him, and ordinary club men smacking Charlie’s best for fours.
165 for one; isn’t it disgraceful? However, you had better come up
here, Dicky, and I’ll give you an apple to keep you good.”
“Can’t, much as I regret it,” said the Earl. “’Got my social duties to
attend to.”
“A useful yarn,” said Miss Grace.
“And, Laura,” said the deep voice of Miss Grace’s parent, “I should
like you to come down and attend to yours. There’s all the county here,
and you’ve not even acknowledged them yet.”
“’Haven’t seen one of ’em except in the distance,” said his ingenuous
daughter.
“You are scarcely likely to, if you carefully keep out of their way,”
said the Rector.
“Seems to be a lot o’ truth in that,” said Miss Grace, wagging her head
very thoughtfully. “Funny I didn’t think of that before. But I tell you
what, pater: if they ask you where I am, tell ’em I’ve got an old frock
on, and that I’m afraid to face the music. It’ll please ’em awfully,
and it won’t hurt me. See!”
By the anxious expression on the old gentleman’s face it was evident
that this proposal was not altogether in accordance with his ideas. He
was deeply desirous of bringing his daughter round to his own point
of view, yet didn’t know how. It was clearly a case for a mamma to
exercise her prerogative, as a mere father is not made of stern enough
stuff to thwart a daughter in the enjoyment of her own way. Miss Grace,
however, was by no means insensible to her parent’s deeply solicitous
look.
“All right, father, I’ll come,” she said. Then, turning round to us,
added in an apologetic undertone, “My old guv’nor’s such an awful good
sort, don’t you see, that when he looks like that, I can’t resist him.
But I sha’n’t stop long. Can’t stand a set o’ women inquiring whether I
take any interest in cricket, and can I tell ’em what a maiden is, and
what are those funny things that some o’ the men have got strapped on
their legs? I shall cut early. And oh! I say, Cheery, will you do the
scoring while I’m gone? ’Know how to take the analysis, don’t you? In
red ink, mind. Here you are. Oh! and if you observe any of those public
school cubs prowling round, don’t let ’em come up. Keep ’em down with
your boot. Bye, bye; back soon!”
Miss Grace then departed to do the right thing by her friends, just as
the bell rang for the clearance of the ground. And as she walked, with
the Earl on one side of her and her parent on the other, she looked
not unlike a deserter being reluctantly led back in custody to her
regiment.