Such is the force of education. This boy
had been brought up to expect service. He was to be served all his life,
and so the sword-case had to be left to the porter whom he envied.
During the journey down--between the farthest-removed stations--the sword
had flashed more than once in the dim light of the carriage lamp. Ah!
those first swords! Not Toledo nor Damascus can produce their equal in
after years.
The porter, honest father of two private soldiers of the line himself,
saw it all--at once. He carried the sword-case with an exaggerated
reverence and forbore from remark just then. Afterwards, beneath the
station-lamp, he looked at the shilling--the first of its kind from that
quarter--with a pathetic, meaning smile.
It was Saturday night. The streets of East Burgen were rather crowded,
and Jem Agar--with elbows well in and the whip at the regulation angle
across old Lasher's face, who could not help squinting at the pendant
thong--shouted to the country-folk in a new voice of mighty deep
register.
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