His
very talk, which used to be so homely, began now to be tinselled with
big swelling words of vanity imported from the army. I need hardly say
these bombastical phrases did not elevate his general dialect: they lay
fearfully distinct upon the surface, "like lumps of marl upon a barren
soil, encumbering the ground they could not fertilize."
Jacintha took leave to remind him of an incident connected with
warfare--wounds.
"Do you remember how you were down upon your luck when you did but cut
your foot? Why, that is nothing in the army. They never go out to fight
but some come back with arms off, and some with legs off and some with
heads; and the rest don't come back at all: and how would you like
that?"
This intrusion of statistics into warfare at first cooled Dard's
impatience for the field. But presently the fighting half of his heart
received an ally in one Sergeant La Croix (not a bad name for a military
aspirant). This sergeant was at the village waiting to march with the
new recruits to the Rhine. Sergeant La Croix was a man who, by force of
eloquence, could make soldiering appear the most delightful as well as
glorious of human pursuits.
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