The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

'You often come this way? ' said Festus to Anne rather before he had / overtaken her.

'I come for the newspaper and other things,' she said, perplexed by a / doubt whether he were there by accident or design.

They moved on in silence, Festus beating the grass with his switch in a / masterful way. 'Did you speak, Mis'ess Anne? ' he asked.

'No,' said Anne.

'Ten thousand pardons. I thought you did. Now don't let me drive you / out of the path. I can walk among the high grass and giltycups -- they / will not yellow my stockings as they will yours. Well, what do you think / of a lot of soldiers coming to the neighbourhood in this way?'

'I think it is very lively, and a great change,' she said with demure / seriousness.

'Perhaps you don't like us warriors as a body?'

Anne smiled without replying.

'Why, you are laughing! ' said the yeoman, looking searchingly at her and / blushing like a little fire. 'What do you see to laugh at?'

'Did I laugh? ' said Anne, a little scared at his sudden mortification.

'Why, yes; you know you did, you young sneerer,' he said like a cross / baby. 'You are laughing at me -- that's who you are laughing at! I should / like to know what you would do without such as me if the French were to / drop in upon ye any night?'

'Would you help to beat them off? ' said she.

'Can you ask such a question? What are we for? But you don't think / anything of soldiers.'

O yes, she liked soldiers, she said, especially when they came home from / the wars, covered with glory; though when she thought what doings had won / them that glory she did not like them quite so well. The gallant and / appeased yeoman said he supposed her to mean chopping off heads, blowing / out brains, and that kind of business, and thought it quite right that a / tender-hearted thing like her should feel a little horrified. But as for / him, he should not mind such another Blenheim this summer as the army had / fought a hundred years ago, or whenever it was -- dash his wig if he should / mind it at all. 'Hullo! now you are laughing again; yes, I saw you! ' And / the choleric Festus turned his blue eyes and flushed face upon her as / though he would read her through. Anne strove valiantly to look calmly / back; but her eyes could not face his, and they fell. 'You did laugh! ' / he repeated.

'It was only a tiny little one,' she murmured.

'Ah -- I knew you did! ' thundered he. 'Now what was it you laughed at?'

'I only -- thought that you were -- merely in the yeomanry,' she murmured / slily.

'And what of that?'

'And the yeomanry only seem farmers that have lost their senses.'

'Yes, yes! I knew you meant some jeering o' that sort, Mistress Anne. / But I suppose 'tis the way of women, and I take no notice. I'll confess / that some of us are no great things: but I know how to draw a sword, / don't I? -- say I don't just to provoke me.'