“I ought to go; I ought to be alongside un,” moaned Phoebe; “I was at the bottom of everything from fust to last.  For me he run away; for me he stopped away.  Mine’s the blame, an’ them as judge him should knaw it an’ hear me say so.”

“Caan’t do no such vain thing as that,” declared Mr. Blee. “’T was never allowed as a wife should be heard ’pon the doin’s of her awn husband.  ‘Cause why?  She’d be one-sided—­either plump for un through thick an’ thin, or else all against un, as the case might stand.”

“As to the sentence,” continued Martin, “if a man with a good character deserts and thinks better of it and goes back to his regiment, he is not as a rule tried by court-martial at all.  Instead, he loses all his former service and has to begin to reckon his period of engagement—­six or seven years perhaps—­all over again.  But a notoriously bad character is tried by court-martial in any case, whether he gives himself up or not; and he gets a punishment according to the badness of his past record.  Such a man would have from eighty-four days’ imprisonment, with hard labour, up to six months, or even a year, if he had deserted more than once.  Then the out-and-out rascals are sentenced to be ’dismissed her Majesty’s service.’”

“But the real gude men,” pleaded Phoebe—­“them as had no whisper ’gainst ’em, same as Will?  They couldn’t be hard ’pon them, ’specially if they knawed all?”

“I should hope not; I’m sure not.  You see the case is so unusual, as an officer explained to me, and such a great length of time has elapsed between the action and the judgment upon it.  That is in Will’s favour.  A good soldier with a clean record who deserts and is apprehended does not get more than three months with hard labour and sometimes less.  That’s the worst that can happen, I hope.”

“What’s hard labour to him?” murmured Billy, whose tact on occasions of universal sorrow was sometimes faulty. “‘Tis the rankle of bein’ in every blackguard’s mouth that’ll cut Will to the quick.”

“What blackguards say and think ban’t no odds,” declared Mrs. Blanchard.  “’Tis better—­far better he should do what he must do.  The disgrace is in the minds of them that lick theer lips upon his sorrow.  Let him pay for a wrong deed done, for the evil he did that gude might come of it.  I see the right hand o’ God holding’ the li’l strings of my son’s life, an’ I knaw better’n any of ’e what’ll be in the bwoy’s heart now.”

“Yet, when all’s said, ‘tis a mournful sarcumstance an’ sent for our chastening,” contended Mr. Blee stoutly.  “Us mustn’t argue away the torment of it an’ pretend ’tis nought.  Ban’t a pleasing thing, ‘specially at such a time when all the airth s gwaine daft wi’ joy for the gracious gudeness o’ God to the Queen o’ England.  In plain speech, ‘t is a damn dismal come-along-of-it, an’ I’ve cried by night, auld though I am, to think o’ the man’s babes grawin’ up wi’ this round theer necks.  An’ wan to be born while he ’m put away!  Theer ’s a black picksher for ‘e!  Him doin’ hard labour as the Law directs, an’ his wife doin’ hard labour, tu—­in her lonely bed!  Why, gormed if I—­”