Thomas Hardy

A Changed Man Thomas Hardy

Regularly once a week they rode out in marching order. Returning up the town on one of these occasions, the romantic pelisse flapping behind eachhorseman's shoulder in the soft south-west wind, Captain Maumbry glanced up at the oriel. Amutual nod was exchanged between him and the person who sat there reading. The reader and afriend in the room with him followed the troop with their eyes all the way up the street, till, whenthe soldiers were opposite the house in which Laura lived, that young lady became discernible in thebalcony.'They are engaged to be married, I hear, ' said the friend.'Who-Maumbry and Laura? Never-so soon?''Yes.''He'll never marry. Several girls have been mentioned in connection with his name. I am sorry forLaura.''Oh, but you needn't be. They are excellently matched.''She's only one more.''She's one more, and more still. She has regularly caught him. She is a born player of the game ofhearts, and she knew how to beat him in his own practices. If there is one woman in the town whohas any chance of holding her own and marrying him, she is that woman.'This was true, as it turned out. By natural proclivity Laura had from the first entered heart and soulinto military romance as exhibited in the plots and characters of those living exponents of it whocame under her notice. From her earliest young womanhood civilians, however promising, had nochance of winning her interest if the meanest warrior were within the horizon. It may be that theposition of her uncle's house (which was her home) at the corner of West Street nearest thebarracks, the daily passing of the troops, the constant blowing of trumpet-calls a furlong from herwindows, coupled with the fact that she knew nothing of the inner realities of military life, andhence idealized it, had also helped her mind's original bias for thinking men-at-arms the only onesworthy of a woman's heart. Captain Maumbry was a typical prize; one whom all surrounding maidens had coveted, ached for, angled for, wept for, had by her judicious management become subdued to her purpose; and inaddition to the pleasure of marrying the man she loved, Laura had the joy of feeling herself hated bythe mothers of all the marriageable girls of the neighbourhoo