About two years before the time of which I am now writing, and about a year and a half before the time of his death, the Colonel came unexpectedly to my lady's house in London.
"Tell Colonel Herncastle," she said, when I gave her her brother's message, "that Miss Verinder is engaged, and that I decline to see him." I tried to plead for a civiller answer than that; knowing the Colonel's constitutional superiority to the restraints which govern gentlemen in general.
"Do not pursue her," said Monsieur Fanjat to the
colonel, "or you will arouse an aversion which might become insurmountable.
To own the truth,
Colonel Silky was delighted with me.
"Poor devil!" said the
colonel, coughing tremendously.
Be that as it might, it seemed to produce no awakening effect on
Colonel Pyncheon.
The
colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski.
He rejoiced that he had not betrayed his knowledge of the
Colonel's house; and when, on his return to barracks, he discovered that no cheroot-case had been left behind, he beamed with delight.
He asked all travellers whether they knew a certain
Colonel Lor Crawley--avec sa femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle.
'Well, well,' ses th'
colonel, 'they deserve t' be major generals,' he ses.
"He has been in your service some years,
Colonel Ross?"
By this time I could understand a few words of their strange language, and when the
colonel asked me if I would prefer to remain at the post as his body servant, I signified my willingness as emphatically as possible, for I had seen enough of the brutality of the common soldiers toward their white slaves to have no desire to start out upon a march of unknown length, chained by the neck, and driven on by the great whips that a score of the soldiers carried to accelerate the speed of their charges.
Should he perceive
Colonel Proctor, we could not prevent a collision which might have terrible results.
The
colonel, Demin, had taken a large country house.
He had been a
colonel in the Confederate army, and still maintained, with the title, the military bearing which had always accompanied it.