And we walked through the town, and over the bridge, and we saw nothing
of his cocked hat and red single-breasted frock, and returned rather
disappointed to tea.
I ran into the back room which commanded the church-yard in the hope of
seeing the old fellow once more, with his cane shouldered, grinning
among the tombstones in the evening sun. But there was no sign of him,
or indeed of anyone else there. So I returned, just as my uncle, having
made the tea, shut down the lid of his silver tea-pot with a little
smack; and with a kind but absent smile upon me, he took his book, sat
down and crossed one of his thin legs over the other, and waited
pleasantly until the delightful infusion should be ready for our lips,
reading his old volume, and with his disengaged hand gently stroking his
long shin-bone.
In the meantime, I, who thirsted more for that tale of terror which the
old soldier had all but begun, of which in that strangely battered skull
I had only an hour ago seen face to face so grizzly a memento, and of
which in all human probability I never was to hear more, looked out
dejectedly from the window, when, whom should I behold marching up the
street, at slow time, towards the Salmon House, but the identical old
soldier, cocked-hat, copper nose, great red single-breasted coat with
its prodigious wide button-holes, leggings, cane, and all, just under
the village tree.
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