Some of these old whiskerandos,
originally peasants, trained since boyhood in victorious armies,
and accustomed to move among subject and trembling populations,
could ill brook their change of circumstance. There was one man of
the name of Goguelat, a brute of the first water, who had enjoyed
no touch of civilisation beyond the military discipline, and had
risen by an extreme heroism of bravery to a grade for which he was
otherwise unfitted--that of marechal des logis in the 22nd of the
line. In so far as a brute can be a good soldier, he was a good
soldier; the Cross was on his breast, and gallantly earned; but in
all things outside his line of duty the man was no other than a
brawling, bruising ignorant pillar of low pothouses. As a
gentleman by birth, and a scholar by taste and education, I was the
type of all that he least understood and most detested; and the
mere view of our visitors would leave him daily in a transport of
annoyance, which he would make haste to wreak on the nearest
victim, and too often on myself.
It was so now. Our rations were scarce served out, and I had just
withdrawn into a corner of the yard, when I perceived him drawing
near. He wore an air of hateful mirth; a set of young fools, among
whom he passed for a wit, followed him with looks of expectation;
and I saw I was about to be the object of some of his insufferable
pleasantries.
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