I glances across to
Aaron, and thinks I, 'Look out for squalls! Here's big brother
coming, and a nice credit _this'll_ be to the family!' . . ."
The historic present, as my Latin grammar used to call it, is our
favourite tense: and if you insist that, not being a hundred years
old, I cannot speak as an eye-witness of this historic scene, my
answer must be Browning's,--"All I can say is--I saw it!"]
"Gentlemen!" began the Major.
We might not all be officers, like the Mevagissey Artillery, but in
the Troy Gallants we were all gentlemen.
"Gentlemen!"--the Major waved an arm seaward--"yonder lies your
enemy. Behind you"--he pointed up the harbour to the town--
"England relies on your protection. Shall the Corsican tyrant lay
his lascivious hands upon her ancient liberties, her reformed and
Protestant religion, her respectable Sovereign and his Consort, her
mansions, her humble cottages, and those members of the opposite sex
whose charms reward, and, in rewarding, refine us? Or shall we meet
his flat-bottomed boats with a united front, a stern 'Thus far and no
farther,' and send them home with their tails between their legs?
That, gentlemen, is the alternative. Which will you choose?"
Here the Major paused, and finding that he expected an answer, we
turned our eyes with one consent upon Gunner Sobey, the readiest man
in the company.
"The latter!" said Gunner Sobey, with precision; whereat we gave
three cheers.
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