The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

After this, Anne would on no account walk in the direction of the hall / for fear of another encounter with young Derriman. In the course of a / few days it was told in the village that the old farmer had actually gone / for a week's holiday and change of air to the Royal watering-place near / at hand, at the instance of his nephew Festus. This was a wonderful / thing to hear of Uncle Benjy, who had not slept outside the walls of / Oxwell Hall for many a long year before; and Anne well imagined what / extraordinary pressure must have been put upon him to induce him to take / such a step. She pictured his unhappiness at the bustling / watering-place, and hoped no harm would come to him.

She spent much of her time indoors or in the garden, hearing little of / the camp movements beyond the periodical Ta-ta-ta-taa of the trumpeters / sounding their various ingenious calls for watch-setting, stables, feed, / boot-and-saddle, parade, and so on, which made her think how clever her / friend the trumpet-major must be to teach his pupils to play those pretty / little tunes so well.

On the third morning after Uncle Benjy's departure, she was disturbed as / usual while dressing by the tramp of the troops down the slope to the / mill-pond, and during the now familiar stamping and splashing which / followed there sounded upon the glass of the window a slight smack, which / might have been caused by a whip or switch. She listened more / particularly, and it was repeated.

As John Loveday was the only dragoon likely to be aware that she slept in / that particular apartment, she imagined the signal to come from him, / though wondering that he should venture upon such a freak of familiarity.

Wrapping herself up in a red cloak, she went to the window, gently drew / up a corner of the curtain, and peeped out, as she had done many times / before. Nobody who was not quite close beneath her window could see her / face; but as it happened, somebody was close. The soldiers whose / floundering Anne had heard were not Loveday's dragoons, but a troop of / the York Hussars, quite oblivious of her existence. They had passed on / out of the water, and instead of them there sat Festus Derriman alone on / his horse, and in plain clothes, the water reaching up to the animal's / belly, and Festus' heels elevated over the saddle to keep them out of the / stream, which threatened to wash rider and horse into the deep mill-head / just below. It was plainly he who had struck her lattice, for in a / moment he looked up, and their eyes met. Festus laughed loudly, and / slapped her window again; and just at that moment the dragoons began / prancing down the slope in review order. She could not but wait a minute / or two to see them pass. While doing so she was suddenly led to draw / back, drop the corner of the curtain, and blush privately in her room. / She had not only been seen by Festus Derriman, but by John Loveday, who, / riding along with his trumpet slung up behind him, had looked over his / shoulder at the phenomenon of Derriman beneath Anne's bedroom window and / seemed quite astounded at the sight.

She was quite vexed at the conjunction of incidents, and went no more to / the window till the dragoons had ridden far away and she had heard / Festus's horse laboriously wade on to dry land. When she looked out / there was nobody left but Miller Loveday, who usually stood in the garden / at this time of the morning to say a word or two to the soldiers, of whom / he already knew so many, and was in a fair way of knowing many more, from / the liberality with which he handed round mugs of cheering liquor / whenever parties of them walked that way.

In the afternoon of this day Anne walked to a christening party at a / neighbour's in the adjoining parish of Springham, intending to walk home / again before it got dark; but there was a slight fall of rain towards / evening, and she was pressed by the people of the house to stay over the / night. With some hesitation she accepted their hospitality; but at ten / o'clock, when they were thinking of going to bed, they were startled by a / smart rap at the door, and on it being unbolted a man's form was seen in / the shadows outside.

'Is Miss Garland here? ' the visitor inquired, at which Anne suspended her / breath.

'Yes,' said Anne's entertainer, warily.

'Her mother is very anxious to know what's become of her. She promised / to come home. ' To her great relief Anne recognized the voice as John / Loveday's, and not Festus Derriman's.

'Yes, I did, Mr. Loveday,' said she, coming forward; 'but it rained, and / I thought my mother would guess where I was.'

Loveday said with diffidence that it had not rained anything to speak of / at the camp, or at the mill, so that her mother was rather alarmed.

'And she asked you to come for me? ' Anne inquired.

This was a question which the trumpet-major had been dreading during the / whole of his walk thither. 'Well, she didn't exactly ask me,' he said / rather lamely, but still in a manner to show that Mrs. Garland had / indirectly signified such to be her wish. In reality Mrs. Garland had / not addressed him at all on the subject. She had merely spoken to his / father on finding that her daughter did not return, and received an / assurance from the miller that the precious girl was doubtless quite / safe. John heard of this inquiry, and, having a pass that evening, / resolved to relieve Mrs. Garland's mind on his own responsibility. Ever / since his morning view of Festus under her window he had been on thorns / of anxiety, and his thrilling hope now was that she would walk back with / him.

He shifted his foot nervously as he made the bold request. Anne felt at / once that she would go. There was nobody in the world whose care she / would more readily be under than the trumpet-major's in a case like the / present. He was their nearest neighbour's son, and she had liked his / single-minded ingenuousness from the first moment of his return home.