Eulalia! Read Online Free PDF

slashed downward, neatly severing the drawstring of the sack, and releasing the young haremaid. Lying flat on the floor, she wiggled her ears and threw the Major a salute. “Most kind, sah, thank ye!”
    Mullein silenced her with a glare, turning to Thwurl. “What’re the facts, Corporal, make your report.”
    The droopy-faced Thwurl pawed tenderly at his nose. “There was complaints h’in the mess, Major, h’about the soup. It was too ’ot, sah, this h’assistant cook ’ad loaded it with red pepper, wild ransom, an’ that ’otroot stuff, wot otters likes to h’eat.”
    The assistant cook interrupted from her prone position. “Too hot, my auntie’s pinny! Barley soup’s as dull as blinkin’ dishwater, it needed livenin’ up!”
    Lord Asheye growled out from his windowseat. “Silence, miss, stand up straight, to attention! Corporal Thwurl, carry on with your report, please!”
    â€œWell, sah, h’I told ’er wot h’I thought of ’er soup, an’ she struck me on the nose with ’er ladle, sah, then she went h’on to further h’assault me, an’ several h’others, sah. We ’ad to subdue ’er by stuffin’ ’er h’in a sack, sah. Whereupon she continued to shout h’insults at h’us, an’…”
    Major Mullein waved Thwurl to silence. “Yes, yes, I get the general drift, Corporal. Assistant Cook, what have you to say for yourself, do you wish to refute the charges, wot?”
    Assistant Cook Mad Maudie (the Hon.) Mugsberry Thropple fluttered her eyelashes endearingly at him. “Only to say, Major, that I’d do it all again if that puddenheaded oaf said nasty things about my soup, only next time I‘d punch him in his other eye, too, so there!”
    Lord Asheye shook his great head sternly. “That’s quite enough of that, miss. Corporal, you and the guard may leave now. Major Mullein and I will deal with this, thank you.”
    When the escort had departed, the badger resumed his seat on the windowledge. He spread his big paws despairingly. “Maudie Thropple, what are we going to do with you, eh?”
    Mad Maudie, as she was known to the mountain hares, shifted guiltily from one paw to the other, murmuring, “Really, I don’t know, m’lord, what’s anybeast goin’ t’do with me, that’s what my old pa used t’say.”
    Major Mullein waggled his ears knowingly. “My old friend, rest his memory, Colonel Thropple. What a gallant and considerate creature he was. Don’t you remember any of the lessons he taught you, Maudie?”
    The young hare smiled brightly. “Oh indeed I do, sah, Pa taught me to box, an’ I’ve been Regimental Champion of the Long Patrol for six seasons now!”
    Mullein squinched his eye into a jaundiced stare at her. “We know that right enough, m’gel. You’ve also been on more charges than any other hare I can recall. You’ve served five terms in the guardhouse, and had three final warnings about your conduct, wot!”
    Maudie stared at the floor. “Sorry, sah.”
    The Major’s tone hardened. “Sorry, is it? Well, let me tell you, missy, sorry’s not good enough this time. You’ve tried the patience of everybeast on this mountain far too long, ain’t that right, Lord Asheye, sah?”
    The badger nodded. “Yes, it is, Major. Maudie, you leave us no alternative. It gives me no pleasure to drum you out of the Long Patrol. At dawn tomorrow you will leave Salamandastron!”
    In the stunned silence which followed, Lord Asheye listened to the haremaid’s tears splashing on the forge room floor. There was a loud sniff from Mullein, then he approached the Badger Lord and whispered in his ear.
    â€œI say, sah, we’ve never drummed a hare from the jolly old regiment. Couldn’t ye find some alternative for young