THE DRILL SERGEANT
Shallwe view our subject through the glasses of philosophy? Precious microscopic glasses, by which we look into the exquisite order of a bee’s weapon, which shames the ruggedness of that vaunted wonder of man’s hands—a Whitechapel needle. By which the superfine coat of the unworthy appears but as a vile complication of coarse hemp-strings; by which we look into the heart that to the naked eye displays a tenanted cherub, with voice of music and wings of light, but find a weak-eyed little monster, with squeak of mouse and pinions of leather. O, glorious spectacles! which show palaces not entirely as resting-places for divinities—many laurels as nettles, stinging what they are fancied to adorn—Fame’s trumpet, a penny whistle blown by Asthma—the awful person of Ceremony, a Merry-Andrew stricken grave—a grand review-day, a game at ninepins on an extensive scale—a levee, a triumph of the laceman and jeweller—a court ode, a verbose receipt for wages—“honourable gentleman,” convicted scoundrel—“learned friend,” stupid opponent—a prison, a temporaryretirement from noise—a glass of spring water, a “cup of sack”—an ugly face, God’s own handiwork—a handsome one, nothing more—noble blood, of the same hue as a carter’s—a black parish coffin, a couch of crystal—a grave, a place of rest—consecrated earth, the whole globe—a tombstone, work for the mason—a pompous epitaph, the toil of a liar! This transformation—or rather, this showing of reality—is the result of using the glasses of philosophy. Without the common microscope we could not know how certain insects respired, whether at the mouth or shoulders; wanting philosophy’s optic, we should be in like ignorance of the source of being in some men—for all exist not by the same laws. To the naked eye, indeed, there appears no difference; but to the spectacled orb of philosophy it is shown that many men respire, not by inward organisation, but by external and adventitious instruments. Let those who are sceptical on this position consider for a moment the bearing of a thorough-paced coxcomb: does he breathe from his lungs? No; but from his habiliments. His coat, cravat, boots—yea, his spurs, are the sources of his being, his dignity, his action. Nay, some men take all their life from a riband at their button-hole, or a garter at their leg.—Our Drill Sergeant takes it from his rattan.
I know that much of this may be deemed foreign to the purpose. To those who so conclude, I say—A common wire-dancer gives not his grand feat without many little nick-nack preparations. When we visit the Egyptian Hall, that grand emporium of monsters, we do not step from the pavement into the show-room, but are wisely made to thread two or three passages for the better excitation of our feelings. And shall my Drill Sergeant have not the common observance paid to a mermaid? I trust I have more respect for my subject, and the army in general. If any one of my readers, when he glanced at the title, thought to meet with the Sergeant standing bolt upright atthe beginning of the line, like the sentinel at Buckingham Gate, I luxuriate in his disappointment.
To be candid: I had laid down no form for my beginning; so I thought a caper or two upon philosophy would not be amiss, trusting eventually to drop upon my subject. This is a trick frequently played by ——. However, to business.
We must contemplate the Drill Sergeant at a distance: there is no closing with him. A painter would decline a chair in the tiger’s den, asserting that he could take the animal’s stripes equally well through the bars. Even so will I take the stripes of our Sergeant. First, to consider his appearance, or rather the discipline by which his “thews and muscles” deport themselves. He has a vile, cat-like leer of the eye, that makes us retreat back a few paces, and rub our palms, to be assured the knave has not secretly placed in one of them a shilling. We tremble, and for once are afraid to meet the king’s countenance—(I am adding to the awful attributes of the Drill Sergeant the fearful privilege of recruiting). We shrink, lest he has mentally approved of us as being worthy of ball cartridge. He glances towards our leg, and we cannot but feel that he is thinking how it would look in a black gaiter. At this moment we take courage, and, valiantly lifting off our hat, pass our luxuriant curls through our four fingers—we are petrified; for we see by his chuckle that he has already doomed our tresses to the scissors of the barrack-barber. We are at once about to take to our legs, when, turning round, we see something under a middle-sized man, looking over our head. On this we feel our safety, and triumph in the glory of five feet one. Something must always be allowed for weakness—something for vanity; which, indeed, philosophers denominate the greatest weakness. Hence all these cogitations, foolishly attributed by the little individual to the Sergeant, arise from the civil man’sself-conceit; the Sergeant always treating with ineffable contempt persons of a certain size. And here may be remarked the astonishing capacity of our Sergeant in judging of human altitude. Ere George Bidder can enumerate the virtues of King Ferdinand, our Sergeant will sum up the exact height of a man, duly allowing for his pumps and silk stockings. Strive to mystify the question, and the ability of the Sergeant mocks the endeavour; for, he will, on a minute’s notice, resolve how many feet of martial flesh are in a complete square, after including the triangle, fife, and drummer lads, and deducting some of the boy officers. Thus, five-feet-eight reader, if thou wouldst enjoy the pranks of the Sergeant, unmolested by his eye, teach thy leg to mimic lameness: or, if easier, cough consumptively.
I would wish to convey a striking resemblance of our Drill Sergeant on duty, when you would swear by his gait that this glorious earth was wholly composed of spring wires, so elastic are his soles. It is a motion unparalleled either in the natural or artificial world; it is a movement by itself—like the swoop of the eagle, the waddle of the duck, the fleetness of the greyhound, or the hop of the frog. And yet, on intense consideration, I think I have seen something approximating to the bearing of our Drill Sergeant. What think you of the manner of a pug dog in a dropsy, exposed for air on a nipping December morning, his black nose turning almost white with indignation at the coldness of the flags?—There certainly is a resemblance; there is dignity in both animals, albeit to the daring eye of a grotesque character. It must, however, be owned, that on great occasions our Sergeant can alter his deportment. It is not in the nature of things to be always strained to the highest: the distended skin of the serpent at times falls into amiable and social wrinkles; an arrant shrew may sometimes be caught singing “Sweet Home!” the bow-string of a William Tell may be doubtless as relaxedand tuneless as the instrument of a Haymarket fiddler;—and shall not our Sergeant unbend? He does break himself up from the stiffness of parade; for see him when the draughts of mine hostess hath diluted some portion of military starch, and he no longer holds his head like a game-cock, taking his morning’s potation; see him then, and own that even a Sergeant may be amiable. Is he not the very model of elegant ease? He is, indeed, unbent; for his limbs swing loosely as hung ramrods. Our Sergeant can now talk; his tongue hath overleapt the two barriers, “Attention!” and “Stand at ease!” and rambles wildly from Egypt to Waterloo. And if it should happen that the pretty barmaid be niece to the landlady, mark how the Sergeant probes for her feelings with charged bayonets—how he will try to smite her gentle ear with a discharge of artillery—swear that he hath had twenty wounds under his coat, although very politically adding that they have left him not a bit the worse man. Then, if the damsel still continue untouched, taking orders with a calm air, our Sergeant hints in a whisper, audible to the dozing watchman at the door, something about a Spanish widow at Saragossa; adding very loudly, “But no—I was always for true love!” adorning the beautiful edifice of principle with a flowery oath. He then begins a sentiment, and, at a loss, dives for the conclusion to it in a pot of ale. If there happen to be four or five privates in the room, our Sergeant increases in importance from the circumstance—just as a cat becomes great from the introduction of a litter of puppies. Our Sergeant is more than ever the leading gander of the flock—the king-herring of the shoal—the blue-bottle of the swarm—the pebble of the sand—the G of the gamut. He has now additional hearers of the tales of his prowess, and, if he but give the wink, companions who saw him face the breach and spike the cannon. His rank next becomes the subject of discussion; and lookingvery complacently at his arm, he tells of some dreadful exploit in which he earned his stripes. “And doubtless, Sergeant, not before you deserved them,” ventures a small, quiet wight in the corner, who will have his fling, though at the expense of his liquor; for ere he concludes his remark he gives the Sergeant his glass—just as a schoolboy, who twitches the trunk of an elephant, throws to the animal a peace-offering of apples—whilst the privates inwardly laugh at the joke, and get rebuked for again enjoying it on parade to-morrow morning. Just as the Sergeant’s opponents are nearly all slaughtered, a little Italian boy, bearing a tortoise, adroitly glides into the room to display the testaceous wonder; or he has with him a bust of Napoleon, at which our Sergeant bristles up, looking, indeed, seriously fierce at plaster of Paris. Here he utters some half-audible wish that he had not received a bullet in the last charge, and then——Now, however, our Sergeant takes an opportunity to pour forth his learning—he mangles five words of French; the Italian shakes his head, and holds forth his hand; the Sergeant swears at him for an impostor, ignorant of his own language. It drawing late, our Sergeant calls for his reckoning, and, learning the amount, with an affected air of destitution avows he has no money; he has not a piece of silver about him, unless it be that at his breast—and here he carelessly lifts up with one finger a Waterloo medal;—then he draws out a watch, once the property of a French general slain by our Sergeant, and asks if that will serve for the amount? At length, however, the money being shaken from a yellow silk purse, our Sergeant, after a salutary admonition to the privates, goes off, as he says, to visit a friend in the Ordnance.
He is, indeed, unbent.
He is, indeed, unbent.
He is, indeed, unbent.
Now this is the utmost stretch of our Sergeant’s amiability; and he departs with a consciousness of having made himself remarkably agreeable, at the same time that he has maintained the proper dignity of the army. To-morrow heis stiff and stately again, performing his old duty of setting up in due order men for the sport of War, that fearful skittle-player. And, indeed, how great must be the satisfaction of the Drill Sergeant when he thinks that, by his kindly solicitude, his Majesty’s subjects will “die with decency” and “in close order.” Soothing reflection!
We may liken a Recruiting Sergeant to a sturdy woodman—a Drill Sergeant to a carpenter. Let us take a dozen vigorous young elms, with the same number of bluff-cheeked, straddling rustics. How picturesque and inviting do the green waving elms appear! Whilst we look at them our love and admiration of the natural so wholly possess us that we cannot for a moment bring ourselves to imagine the most beautiful offspring of teeming earth cut up into boot-jacks or broom-handles: in the very idea there is sacrilege to the sylvan deities. The woodman, however, lays the axe to the elms (the forest groans at the slaughter); the carpenter comes up with his basket of tools across his shoulder; and at a Christmas dinner we may by chance admire the extraordinary polish of our eating knife, little thinking it owes its lustre to the elm which shadowed us at midsummer. Now for our rustics. We meet them in green lanes, striding like young ogres—carelessness in their very hat-buckles—a scorn of ceremony in the significant tuck-up of their smock-frock. The Recruiting Sergeant spirits them away from fields to which they were the chief adornment, and the Drill Sergeant begins his labour.
And now, reader, behold some martial carpentry and joinery. Our Drill Sergeant hath but few implements: as eye, voice, hand, leg, rattan. These few tools serve him for every purpose, and with them he brings down a human carcass, though at first as unwieldy as a bull, to the slimness and elegance of the roe. There are the dozen misshapen logs before him; the foliage of their heads gone with theelm leaves, as also their bark—their “rough pash,”—the frocks and wide breeches.
Mercy on us! there was a stroke of handiwork! the Sergeant with but one word has driven a wedge into the very breast of that pale-looking youngster, whose eyelid shakes as though it would dam up a tear! Perhaps the poor wretch is now thinking of yellow corn and harvest home. Another skilful touch, and the Sergeant hath fairly chiselled away some inches off the shoulder of that flaxen-headed tyro: and see how he is rounding off that mottled set of knuckles, whilst the owner redly, but dumbly, sympathises with their sufferings. There is no part left untouched by our Sergeant; he by turns, saws, planes, pierces, and thumps every limb and every joint; applies scouring paper to any little knot or ruggedness, until man, glorious man, the “paragon of animals,” fears no competition in stateliness of march, or glibness of movement, from either peacock or Punch.
The Drill Sergeant hath but little complacency in him; he is a thing to be reverenced, not doted upon; we fear him and his mysteries; even his good humour startles, for it is at once as blustering and as insignificant as a report of a blank cartridge. Again, I say, the Drill Sergeant is to be approached with awe; smirking flies the majesty of his rattan. He is the despot of joints; and we rub our hands with glee, and our very toes glow again, when we reflect they are not of his dominions.
The HANDBOOK of SWINDLING
The HANDBOOK of SWINDLING
The HANDBOOK of SWINDLING