"Ah, the roog," said Sally, as Dick flourished the figure. "Many's the
time that I've wanted to throw he behind the fire. He tooked from me
my boy, my Jan; ah, you knows the story of my Jan, don't 'ee, my dear?"
she added turning to Elsie.
"Yes," said Elsie, who had heard the story so often as a mite of a
child that she told it herself with something of a Devonshire accent,
"poor Jan that 'listed for a soldier and went to Portingale to the
wars, and never come back, not he, nor wild Lucy that ran away for the
love of him, nor the boy that was born to them."
"Aye," said the old woman to the Corporal, but smiling sadly on the
child. "Killed he was, so they said, but they couldn't tell how nor
where; and missing they was, but I never could find out nought about
mun, though I hope still to hear somewhat; but it must come soon for
it's ten years agone now, and I reckon that my time's a getting short."
The Corporal nodded; but Dick had brought down another figure in china,
the figure of a man in a red coat with a hooked nose and two curves of
black whisker on his cheeks, underneath which was written WELLINGTON.
"Aye," said old Sally, triumphantly, "that was the boy to give Boney
what vor. And now here's the wreaths, my dears, tied with the family
colours, blue and white. I've a had they ribbins forty years, ever
since the great election, when Bracefort was head of the poll, your
grandfather that was.
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