They burnt a corpse upon the sand—
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging boats
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where’er Thy altars rise,
Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes! (Salrette Boat-Song)
[a short tale]
THERE is hope for a man who gets publicly and riotously drunk more often than he ought to do; but there is no hope for the man who drinks secretly and alone in his own house—the man who is never seen to drink.
This is a rule; so there must be an exception to prove it. Moriarty’s case was that exception.
He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, very kindly, put him quite by himself in an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk to and a great deal of work to do. He did his work well in the four years he was utterly alone; but he picked up the vice of secret and solitary drinking, and came up out of the wilderness more old and worn and haggard than the dead-alive life had any right to make him. You know the saying, that a man who has been alone in the jungle for more than a year is never quite sane all his life after. People credited Moriarty’s queerness of manner and moody ways to the solitude, and said that it showed how Government spoilt the futures of its best men. Moriarty had built himself the plinth of a very good reputation in the bridge-dam-girder line. But he knew, every night of the week, that he was taking steps to undermine that reputation with L.L.L. and Christopher and little nips of liqueurs, and filth of that kind. He had a sound constitution and a great brain, or else he would have broken down and died like a sick camel in the district; as better men have done before him.
Government ordered him to Simla after he had come out of the desert; and he went up meaning to try for a post then vacant. That season, Mrs. Reiver—perhaps you will remember her—was in the height of her power, and many men lay under her yoke. Everything bad that could be said has already been said about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale. Moriarty was heavily-built and handsome, very quiet and nervously anxious to please his neighbours when he wasn’t sunk in a brown study. He started a good deal at sudden noises or if spoken to without warning; and, when you watched him drinking his glass of water at dinner, you could see the hand shake a little. But all this was put down to nervousness, and the quiet, steady, sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip-sip again that went on in his own room when he was by himself, was never known. Which was miraculous, seeing how everything in a man’s private life is public property in India.
Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver’s set, because they were not his sort, but into the power of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in front of her and made a goddess of her. This was due to his coming fresh out of the jungle to a big town. He could not scale things properly or see who was what.
Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard he said she was stately and dignified. Because she had no brains, and could not talk cleverly, he said she was reserved and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy! Because she was unworthy of honour or reverence from any one, he reverenced her from a distance and dowered her with all the virtues in the Bible and most of those in Shakespeare.
This big, dark, abstracted man who was so nervous when a pony cantered behind him, used to moon in the train of Mrs. Reiver, blushing with pleasure when she threw a word or two his way. His admiration was strictly platonic; even other women saw and admitted this. He did not move about in Simla, so he heard nothing against his idol: which was satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no special notice of him, beyond seeing that he was added to her list of admirers, and going for a walk with him now and then, just to show that he was her property, claimable as such. Moriarty must have done most of the talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn’t talk much to a man of his stamp; and the little she said could not have been profitable. What Moriarty believed in, as he had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver’s influence over him, and, in that belief, he set himself seriously to try to do away with the vice that only he himself knew of.
His experiences while he was fighting with it must have been peculiar, but he never described them. Sometimes he would hold off from everything except water for a week. Then, on a rainy night, when no one had asked him out to dinner, and there was a big fire in his room, and everything comfortable, he would sit down and make a big night of it by adding little nip to little nip, planning big schemes of reformation meanwhile, until he threw himself on his bed hopelessly drunk. He suffered next morning.
One night the big crash came. He was troubled in his own mind over his attempts to make himself ‘worthy of the friendship’ of Mrs. Reiver. The past ten days had been very bad ones, and the end of it all was that he received the arrears of two and three-quarter years of sipping in one attack of delirium tremens of the subdued kind; beginning with suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts and hysteria, and ending with downright raving. As he sat in a chair in front of the fire, or walked up and down the room picking a handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor Moriarty really thought of Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own fall for the most part; though he ravelled some P.W.D. accounts into the same skein of thought. He talked and talked, and talked in a low dry whisper to himself, and there was no stopping him. He seemed to know that there was something wrong, and twice tried to pull himself together and confer rationally with the Doctor; but his mind ran out of control at once, and he fell back to a whisper and the story of his troubles. It is terrible to hear a big man babbling like a child of all that a man usually locks up, and puts away in the deep of his heart. Moriarty read out his very soul for the benefit of any one who was in the room between ten-thirty that night and two-forty-five next morning.
From what he said, one gathered how immense in influence Mrs. Reiver held over him, and how thoroughly he felt for his own lapse. His whisperings cannot, of course, be put down here; but they were very instructive—as showing the errors of his estimates.
. . . . .
When the trouble was over, and his few acquaintances were pitying him for the bad attack of jungle-fever that had so pulled him down, Moriarty swore a big oath to himself and went abroad again with Mrs. Reiver till the end of the season, adoring her in a quiet and deferential way as an angel from heaven. Later on, he took to riding—not hacking, but honest riding—which was good proof that he was improving, and you could slam doors behind him without his jumping to his feet with a gasp. That, again, was hopeful.
How he kept his oath, and what it cost him in the beginning nobody knows. He certainly managed to compass the hardest thing that a man who has drunk heavily can do. He took his peg and wine at dinner; but he never drank alone, and never let what he drank have the least hold on him.
Once he told a bosom-friend the story of his great trouble, and how the ‘influence of a pure honest woman, and an angel as well,’ had saved him. When the man—startled at anything good being laid to Mrs. Reiver’s door—laughed, it cost him Moriarty’s friendship. Moriarty, who is married now to a woman ten thousand times better than Mrs. Reiver—a woman who believes that there is no man on earth as good and clever as her husband—will go down to his grave vowing and protesting that Mrs. Reiver saved him from ruin in both worlds.
That she knew anything of Moriarty’s weakness nobody believed for a moment. That she would have cut him dead, thrown him over, and acquainted all her friends with her discovery, if she had known of it, nobody who knew her doubted for an instant.
Moriarty thought her something she never was, and in that belief saved himself; which was just as good as though she had been everything that he had imagined.
But the question is, what claim will Mrs. Reiver have to the credit of Moriarty’s salvation, when her day of reckoning comes?
IN SUMMER all right-minded boys built huts in the furze-hill behind the College—little lairs whittled out of the heart of the prickly bushes, full of stumps, odd root-ends, and spikes, but, since they were strictly forbidden, palaces of delight. And for the fifth summer in succession, Stalky, M‘Turk, and Beetle (this was before they reached the dignity of a study) had built like beavers a place of retreat and meditation, where they smoked.Now there was nothing in their characters, as known to Mr. Prout, their house-master, at all commanding respect; nor did Foxy, the subtle red-haired school Sergeant, trust them. His business was to wear tennis-shoes, carry binoculars, and swoop hawk-like upon evil boys. Had he taken the field alone, that hut would have been raided, for Foxy knew the manners of his quarry; but Providence moved Mr. Prout, whose schoolname, derived from the size of his feet, was Hoofer, to investigate on his own account; and it was the cautious Stalky who found the track of his pugs on the very floor of their lair one peaceful afternoon when Stalky would fain have forgotten Prout and his works in a volume of Surtees and a new briar-wood pipe. Crusoe, at sight of the foot-print, did not act more swiftly than Stalky. He removed the pipes, swept up all loose match-ends, and departed to warn Beetle and M‘Turk.
But it was characteristic of the boy that he did not approach his allies till he had met and conferred with little Hartopp, President of the Natural History Society, an institution which Stalky held in contempt. Hartopp was more than surprised when the boy meekly, as he knew how, begged to propose himself, Beetle, and M‘Turk as candidates; confessed to a long-smothered interest in first-flowerings, early butterflies, and new arrivals, and volunteered, if Mr. Hartopp saw fit, to enter on the new life at once. Being a master, Hartopp was suspicious; but he was also an enthusiast, and his gentle little soul had been galled by chance-heard remarks from the three, and specially Beetle. So he was gracious to that repentant sinner, and entered the three names in his book.
Then, and not till then, did Stalky seek Beetle and M‘Turk in their house form-room. They were stowing away books for a quiet afternoon in the furze, which they called the ‘wuzzy.’
‘All up,’ said Stalky serenely. ‘I spotted Heffy’s fairy feet round our hut after dinner. ‘Blessing they’re so big.’
‘Con-found! Did you hide our pipes?’ said Beetle.
‘Oh no. Left ’em in the middle of the hut, of course. What a blind ass you are, Beetle! D’you think nobody thinks but yourself? Well, we can’t use the hut any more. Hoofer will be watchin’ it.’
‘“Bother! Likewise blow!”’ said M‘Turk thoughtfully, unpacking the volumes with which his chest was cased. The boys carried their libraries between their belt and their collar. ‘Nice job! This means we’re under suspicion for the rest of the term.’
‘Why? All that Heffy has found is a hut. He and Foxy will watch it. It’s nothing to do with us; only we mustn’t be seen that way for a bit.’
‘Yes, and where else are we to go?’ said Beetle. ‘You chose that place, too—an’—an’ I wanted to read this afternoon.’
Stalky sat on a desk drumming his heels on the form.
‘You’re a despondin’ brute, Beetle. Sometimes I think I shall have to drop you altogether. Did you ever know your Uncle Stalky forget you yet? His rebus infectis—after I’d seen Heffy’s man-tracks marchin’ round our hut, I found little Hartopp—destricto ense—wavin’ a butterfly-net. I conciliated Hartopp. ’Told him that you’d read papers to the Bug-hunters if he’d let you join, Beetle. ’Told him you liked butterflies, Turkey. Anyhow, I soothed the Hartoffles, and we’re Bug-hunters now.’
‘What’s the good of that?’ said Beetle.
‘Oh, Turkey, kick him!’
In the interests of science, bounds were largely relaxed for the members of the Natural History Society. They could wander, if they kept clear of all houses, practically where they chose; Mr. Hartopp holding himself responsible for their good conduct.
Beetle began to see this as M‘Turk began the kicking.
‘I’m an ass, Stalky!’ he said, guarding the afflicted part. ‘Pax, Turkey. I’m an ass.’
‘Don’t stop, Turkey. Isn’t your Uncle Stalky a great man?’
‘Great man,’ said Beetle.
‘All the same, bug-huntin’s a filthy business,’ said M‘Turk. ‘How the deuce does one begin?’
‘This way,’ said Stalky, turning to some fags’ lockers behind him. Fags are dabs at Natural History. ‘Here’s young Braybrooke’s botany-case.’ He flung out a tangle of decayed roots and adjusted the slide. ‘’Gives one no end of a professional air, I think. Here’s Clay Minor’s geological hammer. Beetle can carry that. Turkey, you’d better covet a butterfly-net from somewhere.’
‘I’m blowed if I do,’ said M‘Turk simply, with immense feeling. ‘Beetle, give me the hammer.’
‘All right. I’m not proud. Chuck us down that net on top of the lockers, Stalky.’
‘That’s all right. It’s a collapsible jamboree, too. Beastly luxurious dogs these fags are. Built like a fishin’-rod. ’Pon my sainted Sam, but we look the complete Bug-hunters! Now, listen to your Uncle Stalky! We’re goin’ along the cliffs after butterflies. Very few chaps come there. We’re goin’ to leg it, too. You’d better leave your book behind.’
‘Not much!’ said Beetle firmly. ‘I’m not goin’ to be done out of my fun for a lot of filthy butterflies.’
‘Then you’ll sweat horrid. You’d better carry my Jorrocks. ’Twon’t make you any hotter.’
They all sweated; for Stalky led them at a smart trot west away along the cliffs under the furzehills, crossing combe after gorsy combe. They took no heed to flying rabbits or fluttering fritillaries, and all that Turkey said of geology was utterly unquotable.
‘Are we going to Clovelly?’ he puffed at last, and they flung themselves down on the short, springy turf between the drone of the sea below and the light summer wind among the inland trees. They were looking into a combe half full of old, high furze in gay bloom that ran up to a fringe of brambles and a dense wood of mixed timber and hollies. It was as though one-half the combe were filled with golden fire to the cliff’s edge. The side nearest to them was open grass, and fairly bristled with notice-boards.
‘Fee-rocious old cove, this,’ said Stalky, reading the nearest. ‘“Prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law. G.M. Dabney, Col., J.P.,” an’ all the rest of it. ‘Don’t seem to me that any chap in his senses would trespass here, does it?’
page 2
‘You’ve got to prove damage ’fore you can prosecute for anything! ‘Can’t prosecute for trespass,’ said M‘Turk, whose father held many acres in Ireland. ‘That’s all rot!’
‘’Glad of that, ’cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight across, Beetle, you blind lunatic! Any one could stop us half a mile off. This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly-net.’
Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles.
‘Now we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up at all,’ said the tactician. ‘Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! Beastly stink of fox somewhere!’
On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox-track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo. Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse.
‘By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do except lie down,’ said Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. ‘Look here!’
He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked.
artist: Leonard Raven-Hill (1867-1942)
‘Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it,’ said Stalky, filling himself a pipe. ‘Isn’t it scrumptious? Good old sea!’ He spat again approvingly, and was silent.
M‘Turk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snored and gurgled; the birds, scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm sleepy silence.
‘Hullo, here’s a keeper,’ said Stalky, shutting Handley Cross cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on the sky-line to the east. ‘Confound him, he’s going to sit down!’
‘He’d swear we were poachin’ too,’ said Beetle. ‘What’s the good of pheasants’ eggs? They’re always addled.’
‘’Might as well get up to the wood, I think,’ said Stalky. ‘We don’t want G.M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know.’
Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the furze.
‘Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!’ The keeper threw the gun to his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky’s legs and ran over the cliff-edge.
They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, dishevelled, hot, but unseen.
‘Narrow squeak,’ said Stalky. ‘I’ll swear some of the pellets went through my hair.’
‘Did you see him?’ said Beetle. ‘I almost put my hand on him. Wasn’t he a wopper! Didn’t he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what’s the matter? Are you hit?’
M‘Turk’s lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like this save once in a sad time of civil war.
‘Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?’ he said, in a grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head.
‘Well, he didn’t hit us,’ said Stalky. ‘I think it was rather a lark. Here, where are you going?’
‘I’m going up to the house, if there is one,’ said M‘Turk, pushing through the hollies. ‘I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney.’
‘Are you crazy? He’ll swear it served us jolly well right. He’ll report us. It’ll be a public lickin’. Oh, Turkey, don’t be an ass! Think of us!’
‘You fool!’ said M‘Turk, turning savagely.
‘D’you suppose I’m thinkin’ of us. It’s the keeper.’
‘He’s cracked,’ said Beetle miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this was a new Turkey—a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey—whom they accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming vigorously.
‘Are you Colonel Dabney?’ M‘Turk began in this new creaking voice of his.
‘I—I am, and’—his eyes travelled up and down the boy—‘who—what the devil d’you want? Ye’ve been disturbing my pheasants. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye needn’t laugh at it. (M‘Turk’s not too lovely features had twisted themselves into a horrible sneer at the word ‘pheasant.’) You’ve been bird’s-nesting. You needn’t hide your hat. I can see that you belong to the College. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye do! Your name and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me—Eh? You saw my notice-boards? ’Must have. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did! Damnable! Oh, damnable!’
He choked with emotion. M‘Turk’s heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a little—two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why should he, the offender, be angry?
‘Lo-look here, sir. Do—do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don’t, your keeper does. We’ve seen him! I do-don’t care what you call us—but it’s an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ among neighbours. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s worse than murder, because there’s no legal remedy.’ M‘Turk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his throat.
page 3
‘Do you know who I am?’ he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle quaking.
‘No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?’
And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked M‘Turk out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain—once by the old gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the three was the least they could expect. Yet—if their eyes and ears were to be trusted—the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but—
‘I do not.’ He was still gurgling.
‘Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not fit to live in the same county with a God-fearin’ fox. An’ a vixen, too—at this time o’ year!’
‘Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?’
‘Of course I did, ye silly man,’ with a stamp of the foot. ‘Would you not have done as much for me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, now?’
Forgotten—forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! M‘Turk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was the landed man speaking to his equal—deep calling to deep—and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry.
‘I apologise,’ said he. ‘I apologise unreservedly—to you, and to the Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?’
‘We were in your combe,’ M‘Turk began, and he told his tale alternately as a schoolboy, and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: ‘So you see he must be in the habit of it. I—we—one never wants to accuse a neighbour’s man; but I took the liberty in this case—’
‘I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous—oh, infamous!’ The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. ‘This comes of promoting a fisherman—a fisherman—from his lobster-pots. It’s enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don’t attempt to deny it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I’d much like the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English they are. Don’t attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I shouldn’t have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded. . . . But out of the mouths of—No—no! Not that by any odds. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye’re not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but—beer, now? Eh? What d’you say to beer, and something to eat? It’s long since I was a boy—abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!’
They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but M‘Turk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother.
‘My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so long as you do not disturb my pheasants. The two are not incompatible. Don’t attempt to deny it. They’re not! I’ll never allow another gun, though. Come and go as ye please. I’ll not see you, and ye needn’t see me. Ye’ve been well brought up. Another glass of beer, now? I tell you a fisherman he was and a fisherman he shall be to-night again. He shall! ’Wish I could drown him. I’ll convoy you to the Lodge. My people are not precisely—ah—broke to boy, but they’ll know you again.’
He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge gate in the split-oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had played second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding M‘Turk as one from another world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought a melancholy upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in his pockets, he crooned:—
‘Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?’
Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon him, for that song was barred utterly—anathema—the sin of witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in silence, waiting till it pleased him to touch earth.
The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. M‘Turk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking English once more.
‘Turkey, it was immense!’ said Stalky generously. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you. You’ve got us a hut for the rest of the term, where we simply can’t be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, fids! I gloat! Hear me gloat!’
They spun wildly on their heels, jodelling after the accepted manner of a ‘gloat,’ which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man’s song of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just in time to meet their housemaster, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the ‘wuzzy.’
Unluckily, all Mr. Prout’s imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard M‘Turk openly deride cricket—even house-matches; Beetle’s views on the honour of the house he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently—since human nature is what it is— those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very serious, but . . .
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall.
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ Beetle spun behind him with outstretched arms.
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ M‘Turk’s voice cracked.
Now was there or was there not a distinct flavour of beer as they shot past Mr. Prout?
He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to Little Hartopp’s rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate led him to King, a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a zealous hater of Stalky & Co.
‘Ah-haa!’ said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. ‘Curious! Now my house never dream of doing these things.’
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‘But you see I’ve no proof, exactly.’
‘Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it! I suppose it is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered at least a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course they were smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They think it manly.’
‘But they’ve no following in the school, and they are distinctly—er—brutal to their juniors,’ said Prout, who had from a distance seen Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag.
‘Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. Self-sufficient little animals! There’s something in M‘Turk’s Hibernian sneer that would make me a little annoyed. And they are so careful to avoid all overt acts, too. It’s sheer calculated insolence. I am strongly opposed, as you know, to interfering with another man’s house; but they need a lesson, Prout. They need a sharp lesson, if only to bring down their over-weening self-conceit. Were I you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. Boys of that order—I may flatter myself, but I think I know boys—don’t join the Bug-hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep mine open too.’
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ far down the corridor.
‘Disgusting!’ said King. ‘Where do they pick up these obscene noises? One sharp lesson is what they want.’
The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few days. They had all Colonel Dabney’s estate to play with, and they explored it with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper road—they were careful to ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper and his wife—drop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; or they could begin at the combe, and climb up into the road.
They were careful not to cross the Colonel’s path—he had served his turn, and they would not out-wear their welcome—nor did they show up on the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the gorse by the cliff-edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened it the Pleasant Isle of Aves, for the peace and the shelter of it; and here, pipes and tobacco once cachéd in a convenient ledge an arm’s length down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable.
For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited them to enter his house. Therefore, they did not need to ask specific leave to go visiting; and school rules were strict on that point. He had merely thrown open his grounds to them; and, since they were lawful Bug-hunters, their extended bounds ran up to his notice-boards in the combe and his Lodge-gates on the hill.
They were amazed at their own virtue.
‘And even if it wasn’t,’ said Stalky, flat on his back, staring into the blue. ‘Even suppose we were miles out of bounds, no one could get at us through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. Isn’t this better than lyin’ up just behind the Coll.—in a blue funk every time we had a smoke? Isn’t your Uncle Stalky——?’
‘No,’ said Beetle—he was stretched at the edge of the cliff thoughtfully spitting. ‘We’ve got to thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the Great Man. Turkey, dear, you’re distressing Heffles.’
‘Gloomy old ass!’ said M‘Turk, deep in a book.
‘They’ve got us under suspicion,’ said Stalky. ‘Hoophats is so suspicious somehow; and Foxy always makes every stalk he does a sort of—sort of—’
‘Scalp,’ said Beetle. ‘Foxy’s a giddy Chingangook.’
‘Poor Foxy,’ said Stalky. ‘He’s goin’ to catch us one of these days. ’Said to me in the Gym last night, “I’ve got my eye on you, Mister Corkran. I’m only warning you for your good.” Then I said, “Well, you jolly well take it off again, or you’ll get into trouble. I’m only warnin’ you for your good.” Foxy was wrath.’
‘Yes, but it’s only fair sport for Foxy,’ said Beetle. ‘It’s Hefflelinga that has the evil mind. ’Shouldn’t wonder if he thought we got tight.’
‘I never got squiffy but once—that was in the holidays,’ said Stalky reflectively; ‘an’ it made me horrid sick. ’Pon my sacred Sam, though, it’s enough to drive a man to drink, havin’ an animal like Hoof for house-master.’
‘If we attended the matches an’ yelled, “Well hit, sir,” an’ stood on one leg an’ grinned every time Heffy said, “So ho, my sons. Is it thus?” an’ said, “Yes, sir,” an’ “No, sir,’ ‘an’ “Oh, sir,” an’ “Please, sir,” like a lot o’ filthy fa-ags, Heffy ’ud think no end of us,” said M‘Turk, with a sneer.
‘’Too late to begin that.’
‘It’s all right. The Hefflelinga means well. But he is an ass. And we show him that we think he’s an ass. An’ so Heffy don’t love us. ’Told me last night after prayers that he was in loco parentis,’ Beetle grunted.
‘The deuce he did!’ cried Stalky. ‘That means he’s maturin’ something unusual dam’ mean. ‘Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred lines for dancin’ the cachuca in Number Ten dormitory. Loco parentis, by gum! But what’s the odds, as long as you’re ’appy? We’re all right.’
They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the Sergeant. Boys with bad consciences show it. They slink out past the Fives Court in haste, and smile nervously when questioned. They return, disordered, in bare time to save a call-over. They nod and wink and giggle one to the other, scattering at the approach of a master. But Stalky and his allies had long out-lived these manifestations of youth. They strolled forth unconcernedly, and returned, in excellent shape, after a light refreshment of strawberries and cream at the Lodge.
The Lodge-keeper had been promoted to keeper, vice the murderous fisherman, and his wife made much of the boys. The man, too, gave them a squirrel, which they presented to the Natural History Society; thereby checkmating little Hartopp, who wished to know what they were doing for Science. Foxy faithfully worked some deep Devon lanes behind a lonely cross-roads inn; and it was curious that Prout and King, members of Common-room seldom friendly, walked together in the same direction—that is to say, north-east. Now, the Pleasant Isle of Aves lay due south-west.
‘They’re deep—day-vilish deep,’ said Stalky. ‘Why are they drawin’ those covers?’
page 5
‘Me,’ said Beetle sweetly. ‘I asked Foxy if he had ever tasted the beer there. That was enough for Foxy, and it cheered him up a little. He and Heffy were sniffin’ round our old hut so long I thought they’d like a change.’
‘Well, it can’t last for ever,’ said Stalky. ‘Heffy’s bankin’ up like a thunder-cloud, an’ King goes rubbin’ his beastly hands, an’ grinnin’ like a hyena. It’s shockin’ demoralisin’ for King. He’ll burst some day.’
That day came a little sooner than they expected—came when the Sergeant, whose duty it was to collect defaulters, did not attend an afternoon call-over.
‘Tired of pubs, eh? He’s gone up to the top of hill with his binoculars to spot us,’ said Stalky. ‘Wonder he didn’t think of that before. Did you see old Heffy cock his eye at us when we answered our names? Heffy’s in it, too. Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me! Come on!’
‘Aves?’ said Beetle.
‘Of course, but I’m not smokin’ aujourd’hui. Parce que je jolly well pense that we’ll be suivi. We’ll go along the cliffs, slow, an’ give Foxy lots of time to parallel us up above.’
They strolled towards the swimming-baths, and presently overtook King.
‘Oh, don’t let me interrupt you,’ he said. ‘Engaged in scientific pursuits, of course? I trust you will enjoy yourselves, my young friends?’
‘You see!’ said Stalky, when they were out of ear-shot. ‘He can’t keep a secret. He’s followin’ to cut off our line of retreat. He’ll wait at the baths till Heffy comes along. They’ve tried every blessed place except along the cliffs, and now they think they’ve bottled us. No need to hurry.’
They walked leisurely over the combes till they reached the line of notice-boards.
‘Listen a shake. Foxy’s up wind comin’ down hill like beans. When you hear him move in the bushes, go straight across to Aves. They want to catch us flagrante delicto.’
They dived into the gorse at right angles to the tunnel, openly crossing the grass, and lay still in Aves.
‘What did I tell you?’ Stalky carefully put away the pipes and tobacco. The Sergeant, out of breath, was leaning against the fence, raking the furze with his binoculars, but he might as well have tried to see through a sand-bag. Anon, Prout and King appeared behind him. They conferred.
‘Aha! Foxy don’t like the notice-boards, and he don’t like the prickles either. Now we’ll cut up the tunnel and go to the Lodge. Hullo! They’ve sent Foxy into cover.’
The Sergeant was waist-deep in crackling, swaying furze, his ears filled with the noise of his own progress. The boys reached the shelter of the wood and looked down through a belt of hollies.
‘Hellish noise!’ said Stalky critically. ‘’Don’t think Colonel Dabney will like it. I move we go up to the Lodge and get something to eat. We might as well see the fun out.’
Suddenly the keeper passed them at a trot.
‘Who’m they to combe-bottom for Lard’s sake? Master’ll be crazy,’ he said.
‘Poachers simly,’ Stalky replied in the broad Devon that was the boy’s langue de guerre.
‘I’ll poach ’em to raights!’ He dropped into the funnel-like combe, which presently began to fill with noises, notably King’s voice crying, ‘Go on, Sergeant! Leave him alone, you, sir. He is executing my orders.’
‘Who’m yeou to give arders here, gingy whiskers? Yeou come up to the master. Come out o’ that wuzzy! (This is to the Sergeant.) Yiss, I reckon us knows the boys yeou’m after. They’ve tu long ears an’ vuzzy bellies, an’ you nippies they in yeour pockets when they’m dead. Come on up to master! He’ll boy yeou all you’m a mind to. Yeou other folk bide your side fence.’
‘Explain to the proprietor. You can explain, Sergeant,’ shouted King. Evidently the Sergeant had surrendered to the major force.
Beetle lay at full length on the turf behind the Lodge literally biting the earth in spasms of joy.
Stalky kicked him upright. There was nothing of levity about Stalky or M‘Turk save a stray muscle twitching on the cheek.
They tapped at the Lodge door, where they were always welcome.
‘Come yeou right in an’ set down, my little dearrs,’ said the woman. ‘They’ll niver touch my man. He’ll poach ’em to rights. Iss fai! Fresh berries an’ cream. Us Dartymoor folk niver forgit their friends. But them Bidevor poachers, they’ve no hem to their garments. Sugar? My man he’ve digged a badger for yeou, my dearrs. ’Tis in the linhay in a box.’
‘Us’ll take un with us when we’m finished here. I reckon yeou’m busy. We’ll bide here an’—’tis washin’ day with yeou, simly,’ said Stalky. ‘We’m no company to make all vitty for. Niver yeou mind us. Yiss. There’s plenty cream.’
The woman withdrew, wiping her pink hands on her apron, and left them in the parlour. There was a scuffle of feet on the gravel outside the heavily-leaded diamond panes, and then the voice of Colonel Dabney, something clearer than a bugle.
‘Ye can read? You’ve eyes in your head? Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye have!’
Beetle snatched a crochet-work antimacassar from the shiny horsehair sofa, stuffed it into his mouth, and rolled out of sight.
‘You saw my notice-boards. Your duty? Curse your impudence, sir. Your duty was to keep off my grounds. Talk of duty to me! Why—why—why, ye misbegotten poacher, ye’ll be teaching me my A B C next! Roarin’ like a bull in the bushes down there! Boys? Boys? Boys? Keep your boys at home, then! I’m not responsible for your boys! But I don’t believe it—I don’t believe a word of it. Ye’ve a furtive look in your eye—a furtive, sneakin’, poachin’ look in your eye, that ’ud ruin the reputation of an archangel! Don’t attempt to deny it! Ye have! A sergeant? More shame to you, then, an’ the worst bargain Her Majesty ever made! A sergeant, to run about the country poachin’—on your pension! Damnable! Oh, damnable! But I’ll be considerate. I’ll be merciful. By gad, I’ll be the very essence o’ humanity! Did ye, or did ye not, see my notice-boards? Don’t attempt to deny it! Ye did. Silence, Sergeant!’
page 6
Twenty-one years in the army had left their mark on Foxy. He obeyed.
‘Now. March!’
The high Lodge-gate shut with a clang. ‘My duty! A sergeant to tell me my duty!’ puffed Colonel Dabney. ‘Good Lard! more sergeants!’
‘It’s King! It’s King!’ gulped Stalky, his head on the horsehair pillow. M‘Turk was eating the rag-carpet before the speckles hearth, and the sofa heaved to the emotions of Beetle. Through the thick glass the figures without showed blue, distorted, and menacing.
‘I—I protest against this outrage.’ King had evidently been running up hill. ‘The man was entirely within his duty. Let—let me give you my card.’
‘He’s in flannels!’ Stalky buried his head again.
‘Unfortunately—most unfortunately—I have not one with me, but my name is King, sir, a housemaster of the College, and you will find me prepared—fully prepared—to answer for this man’s action. We’ve seen three——’
‘Did ye see my notice-boards?’
‘I admit we did; but under the circumstances——’
‘I stand in loco parentis.’ Prout’s deep voice was added to the discussion. They could hear him pant.
‘F’what?’ Colonel Dabney was growing more and more Irish.
‘I’m responsible for the boys under my charge.’
‘Ye are, are ye? Then all I can say is that ye set them a very bad example—a dam’ bad example, if I may say so. I do not own your boys. I’ve not seen your boys, an’ I tell you that if there was a boy grinnin’ in every bush on the place still ye’ve no shadow of a right here, comin’ up from the combe that way, an’ frightenin’ everything in it. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did. Ye should have come to the Lodge an’ seen me like Christians, instead of chasin’ your dam’ boys through the length and breadth of my covers. In loco parentis ye are? We’ll, I’ve not forgotten my Latin either, an’ I’ll say to you: ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.’ If the masters trespass, how can we blame the boys?’
‘But if I could speak to you privately,’ said Prout.
‘I’ll have nothing private with you! Ye can be as private as ye please on the other side o’ that gate, an’—I wish ye a very good afternoon.’
A second time the gate clanged. They waited till Colonel Dabney had returned to the house, and fell into one another’s arms, crowing for breath.
‘Oh, my Soul! Oh, my King! Oh, my Heffy! Oh, my Foxy! Zeal, all zeal, Mr. Simple.’ Stalky wiped his eyes. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!—“I did boil the exciseman!” We must get out of this or we’ll be late for tea.’
‘Ge—ge—get the badger and make little Hartopp happy. Ma—ma—make ’em all happy,’ sobbed M‘Turk, groping for the door and kicking the prostrate Beetle before him.
They found the beast in an evil-smelling box, left two half-crowns for payment, and staggered home. Only the badger grunted most marvellous like Colonel Dabney, and they dropped him twice or thrice with shrieks of helpless laughter. They were but imperfectly recovered when Foxy met them by the Fives Court with word that they were to go up to their dormitory and wait till sent for.
‘Well, take this box to Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, then. We’ve done something for the Natural History Society, at any rate,’ said Beetle.
‘’Fraid that won’t save you, young gen’elmen,’ Foxy answered, in an awful voice. He was sorely ruffled in his mind.
‘All sereno, Foxibus.’ Stalky had reached the extreme stage of hiccups. ‘We—we’ll never desert you, Foxy. Hounds choppin’ foxes in cover is more a proof of vice, ain’t it? . . . No, you’re right. I’m—I’m not quite well.’
‘They’ve gone a bit too far this time,’ Foxy thought to himself. ‘Very far gone, I’d say, excep’ there was no smell of liquor. An’ yet it isn’t like ’em—somehow. King and Prout they ’ad their dressin’-down same as me. That’s one comfort.’
‘Now, we must pull up,’ said Stalky, rising from the bed on which he had thrown himself. ‘We’re injured innocence—as usual. We don’t know what we’ve been sent up here for, do we?’
‘No explanation. Deprived of tea. Public disgrace before the house,’ said M‘Turk, whose eyes were running over. ‘It’s dam’ serious.’
‘Well, hold on, till King loses his temper,’ said Beetle. ‘He’s a libellous old rip, an’ he’ll be in a ravin’ paddy-wack. Prout’s too beastly cautious. Keep your eye on King, and, if he gives us a chance, appeal to the Head. That always makes ’em sick.’
They were summoned to their house-master’s study, King and Foxy supporting Prout, and Foxy had three canes under his arm. King leered triumphantly, for there were tears, undried tears of mirth, on the boys’ cheeks. Then the examination began.
Yes, they had walked along the cliffs. Yes, they had entered Colonel Dabney’s grounds. Yes, they had seen the notice-boards (at this point Beetle sputtered hysterically). For what purpose had they entered Colonel Dabney’s grounds? ‘Well, sir, there was a badger.’
Here King, who loathed the Natural History Society because he did not like Hartopp, could no longer be restrained. He begged them not to add mendacity to open insolence. ‘But the badger was in Mr. Hartopp’s rooms, sir.’ The Sergeant had kindly taken it up for them. That disposed of the badger, and the temporary check brought King’s temper to boiling-point. They could hear his foot on the floor while Prout prepared his lumbering inquiries. They had settled into their stride now. Their eyes ceased to sparkle; their faces were blank; their hands hung beside them without a twitch. They were learning, at the expense of a fellow-countryman, the lesson of their race, which is to put away all emotion and entrap the alien at the proper time.
page 7
So far good. King was importing himself more freely into the trial, being vengeful where Prout was grieved. They knew the penalties of trespassing? With a fine show of irresolution, Stalky admitted that he had gathered some information vaguely bearing on this head, but he thought——The sentence was dragged out to the uttermost: Stalky did not wish to play his trump with such an opponent. Mr. King desired no buts, nor was he interested in Stalky’s evasions. They, on the other hand, might be interested in his poor views. Boys who crept—who sneaked—who lurked—out of bounds, even the generous bounds of the Natural History Society, which they had falsely joined as a cloak for their misdeeds—their vices—their villainies—their immoralities——
‘He’ll break cover in a minute,’ said Stalky to himself. ‘Then we’ll run into him before he gets away.’
Such boys, scabrous boys, moral lepers—the current of his words was carrying King off his feet—evil-speakers, liars, slow-bellies—yea, incipient drunkards. . . .
He was merely working up to a peroration, and the boys knew it; but M‘Turk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing:
‘I appeal to the Head, sir.’
‘I appeal to the Head, sir.’
‘I appeal to the Head, sir.’
It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a public flogging. They had been accused of it. The case was the Head’s, and the Head’s alone.
‘Thou hast appealed unto Cæsar: unto Cæsar shalt thou go.’ They had heard that sentence once or twice before in their careers. ‘None the less,’ said King uneasily, ‘you would be better advised to abide by our decision, my young friends.’
‘Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see the Head, sir?’ said M‘Turk to his house-master, disregarding King. This at once lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover it meant no work, for moral leprosy was strictly quarantined, and the Head never executed judgment till twenty-four cold hours later.
‘Well—er—if you persist in your defiant attitude,’ said King, with a loving look at the canes under Foxy’s arm. ‘There is no alternative.’
Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky & Co. had fallen at last—fallen by drink. They had been drinking. They had returned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even now lying hopelessly intoxicated on the dormitory floor. A few bold spirits crept up to look, and received boots.
‘We’ve got him—got him on the Caudine Toasting-fork!’ said Stalky, after those hints were taken. ‘King’ll have to prove his charges up to the giddy hilt.’
‘Too much ticklee, him bust,’ Beetle quoted from a book of his reading. ‘Didn’t I say he’d go pop if we lat un bide?’
‘No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards,’ said M‘Turk, ‘and it’s trig night, too. Hullo! Here’s our dear friend Foxy. More tortures, Foxibus?’
‘I’ve brought you something to eat, young gentlemen,’ said the Sergeant from behind a crowded tray. Their wars had ever been waged without malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy’s mind that boys who allowed themselves to be tracked so easily might, perhaps, hold something in reserve. Foxy had served through the Mutiny, when early and accurate information was worth much.
‘I—I noticed you ’adn’t ’ad anything to eat, an’ I spoke to Gumbly, an’ he said you wasn’t exactly cut off from supplies. So I brought up this. It’s your potted ’am tin, ain’t it, Mr. Corkran?’
‘Why, Foxibus, you’re a brick,’ said Stalky. ‘I didn’t think you had this much—what’s the word, Beetle?’
‘Bowels,’ Beetle replied promptly. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. That’s young Carter’s potted ham, though.’
‘There was a C on it. I thought it was Mr. Corkran’s. This is a very serious business, young gentlemen. That’s what it is. I didn’t know, perhaps, but there might be something on your side which you hadn’t said to Mr. King or Mr. Prout, maybe.’
‘There is. Heaps, Foxibus.’ This from Stalky through a full mouth.
‘Then you see, if that was the case, it seemed to me I might represent it, quiet so to say, to the ’Ead when he asks me about it. I’ve got to take ’im the charges to-night, an’—it looks bad on the face of it.’
‘’Trocious bad, Foxy. Twenty-seven cuts in the Gym before all the school, and public expulsion. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin’,”’ quoth Beetle.
‘It’s nothin’ to make fun of, young gentlemen. I ’ave to go to the ’Ead with the charges. An’—an’ you mayn’t be aware, per’aps, that I was followin’ you this afternoon; havin’ my suspicions.’
‘Did ye see the notice-boards?’ croaked M‘Turk, in the very brogue of Colonel Dabney.
‘Ye’ve eyes in your head. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did!’ said Beetle.
‘A Sergeant! To run about poachin’ on your pension! Damnable! Oh, damnable!’ said Stalky, without pity.
‘Good Lord!’ said the Sergeant, sitting heavily upon a bed. ‘Where—where the devil was you? I might ha’ known it was a do—somewhere.’
‘Oh, you clever maniac!’ Stalky resumed. ‘We mayn’t be aware you were followin’ us this afternoon, mayn’t we? ‘Thought you were stalkin’ us, eh? Why, we led you bung into it, of course. Colonel Dabney—don’t you think he’s a nice man, Foxy?—Colonel Dabney’s our pet particular friend. We’ve been goin’ there for weeks and weeks. He invited us. You and your duty! Curse your duty, sir! Your duty was to keep off his covers.’
‘You’ll never be able to hold up your head again, Foxy. The fags ’ll hoot at you,’ said Beetle. ‘Think of your giddy prestige!’
The Sergeant was thinking—hard.
‘Look ’ere, young gentlemen,’ he said earnestly.
page 8
‘You aren’t surely ever goin’ to tell, are you? Wasn’t Mr. Prout and Mr. King in—in it too?’
‘Foxibusculus, they was. They was—singular horrid. Caught it worse than you. We heard every word of it. You got off easy, considerin’. If I’d been Dabney I swear I’d ha’ quodded you. I think I’ll suggest it to him to-morrow.’
‘An’ it’s all goin’ up to the ’Ead. Oh, Good Lord!’
‘Every giddy word of it, my Chingangook,’ said Beetle, dancing. ‘Why shouldn’t it? We’ve done nothing wrong. We ain’t poachers. We didn’t cut about blastin’ the characters of poor, innocent boys—saying they were drunk.’
‘That I didn’t,’ said Foxy. ‘I—I only said that you be’aved uncommon odd when you come back with that badger. Mr. King may have taken the wrong hint from that.’
‘’Course he did; an’ he’ll jolly well shove all the blame on you when he finds out he’s wrong. We know King, if you don’t. I’m ashamed of you. You ain’t fit to be a Sergeant,’ said M‘Turk.
‘Not with three thorough-goin’ young devils like you, I ain’t. I’ve been had. I’ve been ambuscaded. Horse, foot, an’ guns, I’ve been had, an’—an’ there’ll be no holdin’ the junior forms after this. M’rover, the ’Ead will send me with a note to Colonel Dabney to ask if what you say about bein’ invited was true.’
‘Then you’d better go in by the Lodge-gates this time, instead of chasin’ your dam’ boys—oh, that was the Epistle to King—so it was. We-ell, Foxy?’ Stalky put his chin on his hands and regarded the victim with deep delight.
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ said M‘Turk. ‘Foxy brought us tea when we were moral lepers. Foxy has a heart. Foxy has been in the Army, too.’
‘I wish I’d ha’ had you in my company, young gentlemen,’ said the Sergeant from the depths of his heart; ‘I’d ha’ given you something.’
‘Silence at drum-head court-martial,’ M‘Turk went on. ‘I’m advocate for the prisoner; and, besides, this is much too good to tell all the other brutes in the Coll. They’d never understand. They play cricket, and say, “Yes, sir,” and “Oh, sir,” and “No, sir.”’
‘Never mind that. Go ahead,’ said Stalky.
‘Well, Foxy’s a good little chap when he does not esteem himself so as to be clever.’
‘“Take not out your ‘ounds on a werry windy day,”’ Stalky struck in. ‘I don’t care if you let him off.’
‘Nor me,’ said Beetle. ‘Heffy is my only joy—Heffy and King.’
‘I ’ad to do it,’ said the Sergeant plaintively.
‘Right O! Led away by bad companions in the execution of his duty, or—or words to that effect. You’re dismissed with a reprimand, Foxy. We won’t tell about you. I swear we won’t,’ M‘Turk concluded. ‘Bad for the discipline of the school. Horrid bad.’
‘Well,’ said the Sergeant, gathering up the tea-things, ‘knowin’ what I know o’ the young dev—gentlemen of the College, I’m very glad to ’ear it. But what am I to tell the ’Ead?’
‘Anything you jolly well please, Foxy. We aren’t the criminals.’
To say that the Head was annoyed when the Sergeant appeared after dinner with the day’s crime-sheet would be putting it mildly.
‘Corkran, M‘Turk, & Co., I see. Bounds as usual. Hullo! What the deuce is this? Suspicion of drinking. Whose charge?’
‘Mr. King’s, sir. I caught ’em out of bounds, sir: at least that was ’ow it looked. But there’s a lot be’ind, sir.’ The Sergeant was evidently troubled.
‘Go on,’ said the Head. ‘Let us have your version.’
He and the Sergeant had dealt with each other for some seven years; and the Head knew that Mr. King’s statements depended very largely on Mr. King’s temper.
‘I thought they were out of bounds along the cliffs. But it come out they wasn’t, sir. I saw them go into Colonel Dabney’s woods, and—Mr. King and Mr. Prout come along—and—the fact was, sir, we was mistook for poachers by Colonel Dabney’s people—Mr. King and Mr. Prout and me. There were some words, sir, on both sides. The young gentlemen slipped ’ome somehow, and they seemed ’ighly humorous, sir. Mr. King was mistook by Colonel Dabney himself—Colonel Dabney bein’ strict. Then they preferred to come straight to you, sir, on account of what—what Mr. King may ’ave said about their ‘abits afterwards in Mr. Prout’s study. I only said they was ’ighly humorous, laughin’ an’ gigglin’, an’ a bit above ’emselves. They’ve since told me, sir, in a humorous way, that they was invited by Colonel Dabney to go into ’is woods.’
‘I see. They didn’t tell their house-master that, of course.’
‘They took up Mr. King on appeal just as soon as he spoke about their—’abits. Put in the appeal at once, sir, an’ asked to be sent to the dormitory waitin’ for you. I’ve since gathered, sir, in their humorous way, sir, that some ’ow or other they’ve ’eard about every word Colonel Dabney said to Mr. King and Mr. Prout when he mistook ’em for poachers. I—I might ha’ known when they led me on so that they ’eld the inner line of communications. It’s—it’s a plain do, sir, if you ask me; an’ they’re gloatin’ over it in the dormitory.’
The Head saw—saw even to the uttermost farthing—and his mouth twitched a little under his moustache.
‘Send them to me at once, Sergeant. This case needn’t wait over.’
‘Good evening,’ said he when the three appeared under escort. ‘I want your undivided attention for a few minutes. You’ve known me for five years, and I’ve known you for—twenty-five. I think we understand one another perfectly. I am now going to pay you a tremendous compliment. (The brown one, please, Sergeant. Thanks. You needn’t wait.) I’m going to execute you without rhyme, Beetle, or reason. I know you went to Colonel Dabney’s covers because you were invited. I’m not even going to send the Sergeant with a note to ask if your statement is true; because I am convinced that, on this occasion, you have adhered strictly to the truth. I know, too, that you were not drinking. (You can take off that virtuous expression, M‘Turk, or I shall begin to fear you don’t understand me.) There is not a flaw in any of your characters. And that is why I am going to perpetrate a howling injustice. Your reputations have been injured, haven’t they? You have been disgraced before the house, haven’t you? You have a peculiarly keen regard for the honour of your house, haven’t you? Well, now I am going to lick you.’
page 9
Six apiece was their portion upon that word.
‘And this, I think’—the Head replaced the cane, and flung the written charge into the waste-paper basket—‘covers the situation. When you find a variation from the normal—this will be useful to you in later life—always meet him in an abnormal way. And that reminds me. There are a pile of paper-backs on that shelf. You can borrow them if you put them back. I don’t think they’ll take any harm from being read in the open. They smell of tobacco rather. You will go to prep. this evening as usual. Good-night,’ said that amazing man.
‘Good-night, and thank you, sir.’
‘I swear I’ll pray for the Head to-night,’ said Beetle. ‘Those last two cuts were just flicks on my collar. There’s a Monte Cristo in that lower shelf. I saw it. Bags I, next time we go to Aves!’
‘Dearr man!’ said M‘Turk. ‘No gating. No impots. No beastly questions. All settled. Hullo! what’s King goin’ in to him for—King and Prout?’
Whatever the nature of that interview, it did not improve either King’s or Prout’s ruffled plumes, for, when they came out of the Head’s house, six eyes noted that the one was red and blue with emotion as to his nose, and that the other was sweating profusely. That sight compensated them amply for the Imperial Jaw with which they were favoured by the two. It seems—and who so astonished as they?—that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty both of suppressio veri and suggestio falsi (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful.
They were careful, as only boys can be when there is a hurt to be inflicted. They waited through one suffocating week till Prout and King were their royal selves again; waited till there was a house-match—their own house, too—in which Prout was taking part; waited, further, till he had buckled on his pads in the pavilion and stood ready to go forth. King was scoring at the window, and the three sat on a bench without.
Said Stalky to Beetle: ‘I say, Beetle, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Beetle. ‘I’ll have nothin’ private with you. Ye can be as private as ye please the other end of the bench; and I wish ye a very good afternoon.’
M‘Turk yawned.
‘Well, ye should ha’ come up to the lodge like Christians instead o’ chasin’ your—a-hem—boys through the length an’ breadth of my covers. I think these house-matches are all rot. Let’s go over to Colonel Dabney’s an’ see if he’s collared any more poachers.’
THEY had dropped into the Chaplain’s study for a Saturday night smoke—all four house-masters—and the three briars and the one cigar reeking in amity proved the Rev. John Gillett’s good generalship. Since the discovery of the cat, King had been too ready to see affront where none was meant, and the Reverend John, buffer-state and general confidant, had worked for a week to bring about a good understanding. He was fat, clean-shaven, except for a big moustache, of an imperturbable good temper, and, those who loved him least said, a guileful Jesuit. He smiled benignantly upon his handiwork—four sorely-tried men talking without very much malice.
‘Now remember,’ he said, when the conversation turned that way, ‘I impute nothing. But every time that any one has taken direct steps against Number Five study, the issue has been more or less humiliating to the taker.’
‘I can’t admit that. I pulverise the egregious Beetle daily for his soul’s good; and the others with him,’ said King.
‘Well, take your own case, King, and go back a couple of years. Do you remember when Prout and you were on their track—for hutting and trespass, wasn’t it? Have you forgotten Colonel Dabney?’
The others laughed. King did not care to be reminded of his career as a poacher.
‘That was one instance. Again, when you had rooms below them—I always said that that was entering the lion’s den—you turned them out.’
‘For making disgusting noises. Surely, Gillett, you don’t excuse—’
‘All I say is that you turned them out. That same evening your study was wrecked.’
‘By Rabbits-Eggs—most beastly drunk—from the road,’ said King. ‘What has that——?’
The Reverend John went on.
‘Lastly, they conceive that aspersions are cast upon their personal cleanliness—a most delicate matter with all boys. Ve-ry good. Observe how, in each case, the punishment fits the crime. A week after your house calls them “stinkers,” King, your house is, not to put too fine a point on it, stunk out by a dead cat who chooses to die in the one spot where she can annoy you most. Again the long arm of coincidence! Summa. You accuse them of trespass. Through some absurd chain of circumstances—they may or may not be at the other end of it—you and Prout are made to appear as trespassers. You evict them. For a time your study is made untenable. I have drawn the parallel in the last case. Well?’
‘She was under the centre of White’s dormitory,’ said King. ‘There are double floor-boards there to deaden noise. No boy, even in my own house, could possibly have pried up the boards without leaving some trace—and Rabbits-Eggs was phenomenally drunk that other night.’
‘They are singularly favoured by fortune. That is all I ever said. Personally, I like them immensely, and I believe I have a little of their confidence. I confess I like being called “Padre.” They are at peace with me; consequently I am not treated to bogus confessions of theft.’
‘You mean Mason’s case?’ said Prout heavily. ‘That always struck me as peculiarly scandalous. I thought the Head should have taken up the matter more thoroughly. Mason may be misguided, but at least he is thoroughly sincere and means well.’
‘I confess I cannot agree with you, Prout,’ said the Reverend John. ‘He jumped at some silly tale of theft on their part; accepted another boy’s evidence without, so far as I can see, any inquiry; and—frankly, I think he deserved all he got.’
‘They deliberately outraged Mason’s best feelings,’ said Prout. ‘A word to me on their part would have saved the whole thing. But they preferred to lure him on; to play on his ignorance of their characters——’
‘That may be,’ said King, ‘but I don’t like Mason. I dislike him for the very reason that Prout advances to his credit. He means well.’
‘Our criminal tradition is not theft—among ourselves, at least,’ said little Hartopp.
‘For the head of a house that raided seven head of cattle from the innocent pot-wallopers of Northam, isn’t that rather a sweeping statement?’ said Macrea.
‘Precisely so,’ said Hartopp, unabashed. ‘That, with gate-lifting, and a little poaching and hawk-hunting on the cliffs, is our salvation.
‘It does us far more harm as a school—’ Prout began.
‘Than any hushed-up scandal could? Quite so. Our reputation among the farmers is most unsavoury. But I would much sooner deal with any amount of ingenious crime of that nature than—some other offences.’
‘They may be all right, but they are unboylike, abnormal, and, in my opinion, unsound,’ Prout insisted. ‘The moral effect of their performances must pave the way for greater harm. It makes me doubtful how to deal with them. I might separate them.’
‘You might, of course; but they have gone up the school together for six years. I shouldn’t care to do it,’ said Macrea.
‘They use the editorial “we,”’ said King irrelevantly. ‘It annoys me. “Where’s your prose, Corkran?” “Well, sir, we haven’t quite done it yet. We’ll bring it in a minute,” and so on. And the same with the others.’
‘There’s great virtue in that “we,”’ said little Hartopp. ‘You know I take them for trig. M‘Turk may have some conception of the meaning of it; but Beetle is as the brutes that perish about sines and cosines. He copies serenely from Stalky, who positively rejoices in mathematics.’
‘Why don’t you stop it?’ said Prout.
‘It rights itself at the exams. Then Beetle shows up blank sheets, and trusts to his “English” to save him from a fall. I fancy he spends most of his time with me in writing verse.’
‘I wish to Heaven he would transfer a little of his energy in that direction to Elegiacs.’ King jerked himself upright. ‘He is, with the single exception of Stalky, the very vilest manufacturer of “barbarous hexameters” that I have ever dealt with.’
‘The work is combined in that study,’ said the chaplain. ‘Stalky does the mathematics, M‘Turk the Latin, and Beetle attends to their English and French. At least, when he was in the sick-house last month——’
‘Malingering,’ Prout interjected.
‘Quite possibly. I found a very distinct falling off in their “Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre” translations.’
‘I think it is profoundly immoral,’ said Prout. ‘I’ve always been opposed to the study system.’
‘It would be hard to find any study where the boys don’t help each other; but in Number Five the thing has probably been reduced to a system,’ said little Hartopp. ‘They have a system in most things.’
‘They confess as much,’ said the Reverend John. ‘I’ve seen M‘Turk being hounded up the stairs to elegise the “Elegy in a Churchyard,” while Beetle and Stalky went to punt-about.’
‘It amounts to systematic cribbing,’ said Prout, his voice growing deeper and deeper.
‘No such thing,’ little Hartopp returned. ‘You can’t teach a cow the violin.’
‘In intention it is cribbing.’
‘But we spoke under the seal of the confessional, didn’t we?’ said the Reverend John.
‘You say you’ve heard them arranging their work in this way, Gillett,’ Prout persisted.
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‘Good Heavens! Don’t make me Queen’s evidence, my dear fellow. Hartopp is equally incriminated. If they ever found out that I had sneaked, our relations would suffer—and I value them.’
‘I think your attitude in this matter is weak,’ said Prout, looking round for support. ‘It would be really better to break up the study—for a while—wouldn’t it!’
‘Oh, break it up by all means,’ said Macrea. ‘We shall see then if Gillett’s theory holds water.’
‘Be wise, Prout. Leave them alone or calamity will overtake you; and what is much more important, they will be annoyed with me. I am too fat, alas! to be worried by bad boys. Where are you going?’
‘Nonsense! They would not dare—but I am going to think this out,’ said Prout. ‘It needs thought. In intention they cribbed, and I must think out my duty.’
‘He’s perfectly capable of putting the boys on their honour. It’s I that am a fool.’ The Reverend John looked round remorsefully. ‘Never again will I forget that a master is not a man. Mark my words,’ said the Reverend John.
‘There will be trouble.’
. . . . .
But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright.
Out of the blue sky (they were still rejoicing over the cat war) Mr. Prout had dropped into Number Five, read them a lecture on the enormity of cribbing, and bidden them return to the form-rooms on Monday. They had raged, solo and chorus, all through the peaceful Sabbath, for their sin was more or less the daily practice of all the studies.
‘What’s the good of cursing?’ said Stalky at last. ‘We’re all in the same boat. We’ve got to go back and consort with the house. A locker in the form-room, and a seat at prep. in Number Twelve.’ He looked regretfully round the cosy study which M‘Turk, their leader in matters of Art, had decorated with a dado, a stencil, and cretonne hangings.
‘Yes! Heffy lurchin’ into the form-rooms like a frowzy old retriever, to see if we aren’t up to something. You know he never leaves his house alone, these days,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Oh, it will be giddy!’
‘Why aren’t you down watchin’ cricket? I like a robust, healthy boy. You mustn’t frowst in a form-room. Why don’t you take an interest in your house? Yah!’ quoted Beetle.
‘Yes, why don’t we! Let’s! We’ll take an interest in the house. We’ll take no end of interest in the house! He hasn’t had us in the form-rooms for a year. We’ve learned a lot since then. Oh, we’ll make it a be-autiful house before we’ve done! ’Member that chap in Eric or St. Winifred’s—Belial somebody? I’m goin’ to be Belial,’ said Stalky, with an ensnaring grin.
‘Right O!’ said Beetle, ‘and I’ll be Mammon. I’ll lend money at usury—that’s what they do at all schools accordin’ to the B. O. P. ‘Penny a week on a shillin’. That’ll startle Heffy’s weak intellect. You can be Lucifer, Turkey.’
‘What have I go to do?’ M‘Turk also smiled.
‘Head conspiracies—and cabals—and boycotts. Go in for that “stealthy intrigue” that Heffy is always talkin’ about. Come on!’
The house received them on them on their fall with the mixture of jest and sympathy always extended to boys turned out of their study. The known aloofness of the three made them more interesting.
‘Quite like old times, ain’t it?’ Stalky selected a locker and flung in his books. ‘We’ve come to sport with you, my young friends, for a while, because our beloved house-master has hove us out of our diggin’s.’
‘’Serve you jolly well right,’ said Orrin, ‘you cribbers!’
‘This will never do,’ said Stalky. ‘We can’t maintain our giddy prestige, Orrin, de-ah, if you make these remarks.’
They wrapped themselves lovingly about the boy, thrust him to the opened window, and drew down the sash to the nape of his neck. With an equal swiftness they tied his thumbs together behind his back with a piece of twine, and then, because he kicked furiously, removed his shoes.
There Mr. Prout happened to find him a few minutes later, guillotined and helpless, surrounded by convulsed crowd who would not assist.
Stalky, in an upper form-room, had gathered himself allies against vengeance. Orrin presently tore up at the head of a boarding party, and the form-room grew one fog of dust through which boys wrestled, stamped, shouted, and yelled. A desk was carried away in the tumult, a knot of warriors reeled into and split a door-panel, a window was broken, and a gas-jet fell. Under cover of the confusion the three escaped to the corridor, whence they called in and sent up passers-by to the fray.
The juniors hurried out like bees aswarm, asking no questions, clattered up the staircase, and added themselves to the embroilment.
‘Not bad for the first evening’s work,’ said Stalky, rearranging his collar. ‘I fancy Prout ‘ll be somewhat annoyed. We’d better establish an alibi.’ So they sat on Mr. King’s railings till prep.
‘You see,’ quoth Stalky, as they strolled up to prep, with the ignoble herd, ‘if you get the houses well mixed up an’ scufflin’, it’s even bettin’ that some ass will start a real row. Hullo, Orrin, you look rather metagrobolised.’
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‘It was all your fault, you beast! You started it. We’ve got two hundred lines apiece, and Heffy’s lookin’ for you. Just see what that swine Malpas did to my eye!’
‘I like your saying we started it. Who called us cribbers? Can’t your infant mind connect cause and effect yet? Some day you’ll find out that it don’t pay to jest with Number Five.’
‘Where’s that shillin’ you owe me?’ said Beetle suddently.
Stalky could not see Prout behind him, but returned the lead without a quaver.
‘I only owed you ninepence, you old usurer.’
‘You’ve forgotten the interest,’ said M‘Turk. ‘A halfpenny a week per bob is Beetle’s charge. You must be beastly rich, Beetle.’
‘Well, Beetle lent me sixpence.’ Stalky came to a full stop and made as to work it out on his fingers. ‘Sixpence on the nineteenth, didn’t he?’
‘Yes; but you’ve forgotten you paid no interest on the other bob—the one I lent you before.’
‘But you took my watch as security.’ The game was developing itself almost automatically.
‘Never mind. Pay me my interest, or I’ll charge you interest on interest. Remember I’ve got your note-of-hand!’ shouted Beetle.
‘You’re a cold-blooded Jew,’ Stalky groaned.
‘Hush!’ said M‘Turk very loudly indeed, and started as Prout came upon them.
‘I didn’t see you in that disgraceful affair in the form-room just now,’ said he.
‘What, sir? We’re just come up from Mr. King’s,’ said Stalky. ‘Please, sir, what am I to do about prep.? They’ve broken the desk you told me to sit at, and the form’s just swimming with ink.’
‘Find another seat—find another seat. D’you expect me to dry-nurse you? I wish to know whether you are in the habit of advancing money to your associates, Beetle?’
‘No, sir; not as a general rule, sir.’
‘It is a most reprehensible habit. I thought that my house, at least, would be free from it. Even with my opinion of you, I hardly thought it was one of your vices.’
‘There’s no harm in lending money, sir, is there?’
‘I am not going to bandy words with you on your notions of morality. How much have you lent Corkran?’
‘I—I don’t quite know,’ said Beetle. It is difficult to improvise a going concern on the spur of the minute.
‘You seemed certain enough just now.’
‘I think it’s two and fourpence,’ said M‘Turk, with a glance of cold scorn at Beetle.
In the hopelessly involved finances of the study there was just that sum to which both M‘Turk and Beetle laid claim, as their share in the pledging of Stalky’s second-best Sunday trousers. But Stalky had maintained for two terms that the money was his commission for effecting the pawn; and had, of course, spent it on a study ‘brew.’
‘Understand this, then. You are not to continue your operations as a money-lender. Two and fourpence, you said, Corkran?’
Stalky had said nothing, and continued so to do.
‘Your influence for evil is quite strong enough without buying a hold over your companions.’ He felt in his pockets, and (oh, joy!) produced a florin and fourpence. ‘Bring me what you call Corkran’s note-of-hand, and be thankful that I do not carry the matter any further. The money is stopped from your pocket-money, Corkran. The receipt to my study, at once.’
Little they cared! Two and fourpence in a lump is worth six weekly sixpences any hungry day of the week.
‘But what the dooce is a note-of-hand?’ said Beetle. ‘I only read about it in a book.’
‘Now you’ve jolly well got to make one,’ said Stalky.
‘Yes—but our ink don’t turn black till next day. ‘S’pose he’ll spot that?’
‘Not him. He’s too worried,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Sign your name on a bit of impot-paper, Stalky, and write, “I O U two and fourpence.” Aren’t you grateful to me for getting that out of Prout? Stalky ’d never have paid. . . . Why, you ass!’
Mechanically Beetle had handed over the money to Stalky as treasurer of the study. The custom of years is not lightly broken.
In return for the document, Prout expounded to Beetle the enormity of money-lending, which, like everything except compulsory cricket, corrupted houses and destroyed good feeling among boys, made youth cold and calculating, and opened the door to all evil. Finally, did Beetle know of any other cases? If so, it was his duty as proof of repentance to let his house-master know. No names need be mentioned.
Beetle did not know—at least, he was not quite sure, sir. How could he give evidence against his friends? The house might, of course—here he feigned an anguished delicacy—be full of it. He was not in a position to say. He had not met with any open competition in his trade; but if Mr. Prout considered it was a matter that affected the honour of the house (Mr. Prout did consider it precisely that), perhaps the house-prefects would be better . . .
page 4
He spun it out till half-way through prep.
‘And,’ said the amateur Shylock, returning to the form-room and dropping at Stalky’s side, ‘if he don’t think the house is putrid with it, I’m severial Dutchmen—that’s all. . . . I’ve been to Mr. Prout’s study, sir.’ This to the prep.-master. ‘He said I could sit where I liked, sir. . . . Oh, he is just tricklin’ with emotion. . . . Yes, sir, I’m only askin’ Corkran to let me have a dip in his ink.’
After prayers, on the road to the dormitories, Harrison and Craye, senior house-prefects, zealous in their office, waylaid them with great anger.
‘What have you been doing to Heffy this time, Beetle? He’s been jawing us all the evening.’
‘What has His Serene Transparency been vexin’ you for?’ said M‘Turk.
‘About Beetle lendin’ money to Stalky,’ began Harrison; ‘and then Beetle went and told him that there was any amount of money-lendin’ in the house.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said Beetle, sitting on a boot-basket. ‘That’s just what I didn’t tell him. I spoke the giddy truth. He asked me if there was much of it in the house; and I said I didn’t know.’
‘He thinks you’re a set of filthy Shylocks,’ said M‘Turk. ‘It’s just as well for you he don’t think you’re burglars. You know he never gets a notion out of his conscientious old head.’
‘Well-meanin’ man. Did it all for the best.’ Stalky curled gracefully round the stair-rail. ‘Head in a drain-pipe. Full confession in the left boot. Bad for the honour of the house—very.’
‘Shut up,’ said Harrison. ‘You chaps always behave as if you were jawin’ us when we come to jaw you.’
‘You’re a lot too cheeky,’ said Craye.
‘I don’t quite see where the cheek comes in, except on your part, in interferin’ with a private matter between me an’ Beetle after it has been settled by Prout.’ Stalky winked cheerfully at the others.
‘That’s the worst of clever little swots,’ said M‘Turk, addressing the gas. ‘They get made prefects before they have any tact, and then they annoy chaps who could really help ’em to look after the honour of the house.’
‘We won’t trouble you to do that!’ said Craye hotly.
‘Then what are you badgerin’ us for?’ said Beetle. ‘On your own showing, you’ve been so beastly slack, looking after the house, that Prout believes it’s a nest of money-lenders. I’ve told him that I’ve lent money to Stalky, and no one else. I don’t know whether he believes me, but that finishes my case. The rest is your business.’
‘Now we find out’—Stalky’s voice rose—‘that there is apparently an organised conspiracy throughout the house. For aught we know, the fags may be lendin’ and borrowin’ far beyond their means. We aren’t responsible for it. We’re only the rank and file.’
‘Are you surprised we don’t wish to associate with the house?’ said M‘Turk, with dignity. ‘We’ve kept ourselves to ourselves in our study till we were turned out, and now we find ourselves let in for—for this sort of thing. It’s simply disgraceful.’
‘Then you hector and bullyrag us on the stairs,’ said Stalky, ‘about matters that are your business entirely. You know we aren’t prefects.’
‘You threatened us with a prefect’s lickin’ just now,’ said Beetle, boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the enemy.
‘And if you expect you’ll gain anything from us by your way of approachin’ us, you’re jolly well mistaken. That’s all. Good-night.’
They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.
‘But—but what the dickens have we done?’ said Harrison, amazedly, to Craye.
‘I don’t know. Only—it always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They’re so beastly plausible.’
And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in blind-folded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the matter tactfully.
So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any other establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and wished to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter already settled between him and his house-master. In injured innocence no boy excelled Beetle.
Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the culprit, who had not striven to deny or palliate his offence. He sent for Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone they had adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to their study, they used the language of despair. They then made headlong inquisition through the house, driving the fags to the edge of hysterics, and unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the natural and inevitable system of small loans that prevails among small boys.
‘You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday, because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte’s. I didn’t know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order—I cashed it at Keyte’s—for five bob; but he’ll pay me back before the holidays. We didn’t know there was anything wrong in it.’
They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury, or anything approaching to Beetle’s gorgeous scale of interest. The seniors—for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects outside compulsory games—told them succinctly to go about their business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison was one idiot, and Craye was another; but the greatest of all, they said, was their house-master.
page 5
When a house is thoroughly upset, however good its conscience, it breaks into knots and coteries—small gatherings, in the twilight, box-room committees, and groups in the corridor. And when from group to group, with an immense affectation of secrecy, three wicked boys steal, crying ‘Cavé’ when there is no need of caution, and whispering ‘Don’t tell!’ on the heels of trumpery confidences that instant invented, a very fine air of plot and intrigue can be woven round such a house.
At the end of a few days, it dawned on Prout that he moved in an atmosphere of perpetual ambush. Mysteries hedged him on all sides, warnings ran before his heavy feet, and counter-signs were muttered behind his attentive back. M‘Turk and Stalky invented many absurd and idle phrases—catch-words that swept through the house as fire through stubble. It was a rare jest, and the only practical outcome of the Usury Commission, that one boy should say to a friend, with awful gravity, ‘Do you think there’s much of it going on in the house?’ The other would reply, ‘Well, one can’t be too careful, you know.’ The effect on a house-master of humane conscience and good intent may be imagined. Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining the esteem of his charges does not like to hear himself described, even at a distance, as ‘Popularity Prout’ by a dark and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue. A rumour that stories—unusual stores—are told in the form-rooms, between the lights, by a boy who does not command his confidence, agitates such a man; and even elaborate and tender politeness—for the courtesy wise grown men offer to a bewildered child was the courtesy that Stalky wrapped round Prout—restores not his peace of mind.
‘The tone of the house seems changed—changed for the worse,’ said Prout to Harrison and Craye. ‘Have you noticed it? I don’t for an instant impute——’
He never imputed anything; but, on the other hand, he never did anything else, and, with the best intentions in the world, he had reduced the house-prefects to a state as nearly bordering on nervous irritation as healthy boys can know. Worst of all, they began at times to wonder whether Stalky & Co. had not some truth in their often repeated assertions that Prout was ‘a gloomy ass.’
‘As you know, I am not the kind of man who puts himself out for every little thing he hears. I believe in letting the house work out their own salvation—with a light guiding hand on the reins, of course. But there is a perceptible lack of reverence—a lower tone in matters that touch the honour of the house, a sort of hardness.’
“Oh, Prout he is a nobleman,a nobleman, a nobleman!Our Heffy is a nobleman—He does an awful lot,Because his popularity—Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity—His giddy popularityWould suffer did he not!”
The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by twenty clear voices, came faint from a form-room. The fags rather liked the tune; the words were Beetle’s.
‘That’s a thing no sensible man objects to,’ said Prout, with a lop-sided smile; ‘but, you know, straws show which way the wind blows. Can you trace it to any direct influence? I am speaking to you now as heads of the house.’
‘There isn’t the least doubt of it,’ said Harrison angrily. ‘I know what you mean, sir. It all began when Number Five study came to the form-rooms. There’s no use blinkin’ it, Craye. You know that, too.’
‘They make things rather difficult for us, sometimes,’ said Craye. ‘It’s more their manner than anything else, that Harrison means.’
‘Do they hamper you in the discharge of your duties, then?’
‘Well, no, sir. They only look on and grin—and turn up their noses generally.’
‘Ah,’ said Prout sympathetically.
‘I think, sir,’ said Craye, plunging into the business boldly, ‘it would be a great deal better if they were sent back to their studies—better for the house. They are rather old to be knocking about the form-rooms.’
‘They are younger than Orrin, or Flint, and a dozen others that I can think of.’
‘Yes, sir; but that’s different, somehow. They’re rather influential. They have a knack of upsettin’ things in a quiet way that one can’t take hold of. At least, if one does——’
‘And you think they would be better in their own studies again?’
Emphatically Harrison and Craye were of that opinion. As Harrison said to Craye, afterwards, ‘They’ve weakened our authority. They’re too big to lick; they’ve made an exhibition of us over this usury business, and we’re a laughing-stock to the rest of the school. I’m going up [“for Sand-hurst” understood] next term. They’ve managed to knock me out of half my work already, with their—their lunacy. If they go back to their studies we may have a little peace.’
‘Hullo, Harrison.’ M‘Turk ambled round the corner, with a roving eye on all possible horizons. ‘Bearin’ up, old man? That’s right. Live it down! Live it down!’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You look a little pensive,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Exhaustin’ job superintendin’ the honour of the house, ain’t it? By the way, how are you off for mares’-nests?’
‘Look here,’ said Harrison, hoping for instant reward. ‘We’ve recommended Prout to let you go back to your study.’
page 6
‘The dooce you have! And who under the sun are you, to interfere between us and our house-master? Upon my Sam, you two try us very hand—you do, indeed. Of course we don’t know how far you abuse your position to prejudice us with Mr. Prout; but when you deliberately stop me to tell me you’ve been makin’ arrangements behind our back—in secret—with Prout—I—I don’t know really what we ought to do.’
‘That’s beastly unfair!’ cried Craye.
‘It is.’ M‘Turk had adopted a ghastly solemnity that sat well on his long, lean face. ‘Hang it all! A prefect’s one thing and an usher’s another; but you seem to combine ’em. You recommend this—you recommend that! You say how and when we go back to our studies!’
‘But—but—we thought you’d like it, Turkey. We did, indeed. You know you’ll be ever so much more comfortable there.’ Harrison’s voice was almost tearful.
M‘Turk turned away as if to hide his emotions.
‘They’re broke!’ He hunted up Stalky and Beetle in a box-room. ‘They’re sick! They’ve been beggin’ Heffy to let us go back to Number Five. Poor devils! Poor little devils!’
‘It’s the olive branch,’ was Stalky’s comment. ‘It’s the giddy white flag, by gum! Come to think of it, we have metagrobolised ’em.’
Just after tea that day, Mr. Prout sent for them to say that if they chose to ruin their future by neglecting their work, it was entirely their own affair. He wished them, however, to understand that their presence in the form-rooms could not be tolerated one hour longer. He personally did not care to think of the time he must spend in eliminating the traces of their evil influences. How far Beetle had pandered to the baser side of youthful imagination he would ascertain later; and Beetle might be sure that if Mr. Prout came across any soul-corrupting consequences——’
‘Consequences of what, sir?’ said Beetle, genuinely bewildered this time; and M‘Turk quietly kicked him on the ankle for being ‘fetched’ by Prout.
Beetle, the house-master continued, knew very well what was intended. Evil and brief had been their careers under his eye; and as one standing in loco parentis to their yet uncontaminated associates, he was bound to take his precautions. The return of the study key closed the sermon.
‘But what was the baser-side-of-imagination business?’ said Beetle on the stairs.
‘I never knew such an ass as you are for justifyin’ yourself,’ said M‘Turk. ‘I hope I jolly well skinned your ankle. Why do you let yourself be drawn by everybody?’
‘Draws be blowed! I must have tickled him up in some way I didn’t know about. If I’d had a notion of that before, of course I could have rubbed it in better. It’s too late now. What a pity! “Baser side.” What was he drivin’ at?’
‘Never mind,’ said Stalky. ‘I knew we could make it a happy little house. I said so, remember—but I swear I didn’t think we’d do it so soon.’
. . . . .
‘No,’ said Prout most firmly in Common-room.
‘I maintain that Gillett is wrong. True, I let them return to their study.’
‘With your known views on cribbing, too?’ purred little Hartopp. ‘What an immoral compromise!’
‘One moment,’ said the Reverend John. ‘I—we—all of us have exercised an absolutely heartbreaking discretion for the last ten days. Now we want to know. Confess—have you known a happy minute since—’
‘As regards my house, I have not,’ said Prout. ‘But you are entirely wrong in your estimate of those boys. In justice to the others—in selfdefence—’
‘Ha! I said it would come that,’ murmured the Reverend John.
‘—I was forced to send them back. Their moral influence was unspeakable—simply unspeakable.’
And bit by bit he told his tale, beginning with Beetle’s usury, and ending with the house-prefect’s appeal.
‘Beetle in the rôle of Shylock is new to me,’ said King, with twitching lips. ‘I heard rumours of it—’
‘Before!’ said Prout.
‘No, after you had dealt with them; but I was careful not to inquire. I never interfere with—’
‘I myself,’ said Hartopp, ‘would cheerfully give him five shillings if he could work out one simple sum in compound interest without three gross errors.’
‘Why—why—why!’ Mason, the mathematical master, stuttered, a fierce joy on his face.
‘You’ve been had—precisely the same as me!’
‘And so you held an inquiry?’ Little Hartopp’s voice drowned Mason’s ere Prout caught the import of the sentence.
‘The boy himself hinted at the existence of a good deal of it in the house,’ said Prout.
‘He is past master in that line,’ said the chaplain. ‘But, as regards the honour of the house——’
‘They lowered it in a week. I have striven to build it up for years. My own house-prefects—and boys do not willingly complain of each other—besought me to get rid of them. You say you have their confidence, Gillett: they may tell you another tale. As far as I am concerned, they may go to the devil in their own way. I’m sick and tired of them,’ said Prout bitterly.
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But it was the Reverend John, with a smiling countenance, who went to the devil just after Number Five had cleared away a very pleasant little brew (it cost them two and fourpence) and was settling down to prep.
‘Come in, Padre, come in,’ said Stalky, thrusting forward the best chair. ‘We’ve only met you official-like these last ten days.’
‘You were under sentence,’ said the Reverend John. ‘I do not consort with malefactors.’
‘Ah, but we’re restored again,’ said M‘Turk. ‘Mr. Prout has relented.’
‘Without a stain on our characters,’ said Beetle. ‘It was a painful episode, Padre, most painful.’
‘Now, consider for a while, and perpend, mes enfants. It is about your characters that I’ve called to-night. In the language of the schools, what the dooce have you been up to in Mr. Prout’s house? It isn’t anything to laugh over. He says that you so lowered the tone of the house he had to pack you back to your studies. Is that true?’
‘Every word of it, Padre.’
‘Don’t be flippant, Turkey. Listen to me. I’ve told you very often that no boys in the school have a greater influence for good or evil than you have. You know I don’t talk about ethics and moral codes, because I don’t believe that the young of the human animal realises what they mean for some years to come. All the same, I don’t want to think you’ve been perverting the juniors. Don’t interrupt, Beetle. Listen to me! Mr. Prout has a notion that you have been corrupting our associates somehow or other.’
‘Mr. Prout has so many notions, Padre,’ said Beetle wearily. ‘Which one is this?’
‘Well, he tells me that he heard you telling a story in the twilight in the form-room, in a whisper. And Orrin said, just as he opened the door, “Shut up, Beetle; it’s too beastly.” Now then?’
‘You remember Mrs. Oliphant’s Beleaguered City that you lent me last term?’ said Beetle.
The Padre nodded.
‘I got the notion out of that. Only, instead of a city, I made it the Coll. in a fog—besieged by ghosts of dead boys, who hauled chaps out of their beds in the dormitory. All the names are quite real. You tell it in a whisper, you know—with the names. Orrin didn’t like it one little bit. None of ’em have ever let me finish it. It gets just awful at the end part.’
‘But why in the world didn’t you explain to Mr. Prout, instead of leaving him under the impression—’
‘Padre Sahib,’ said M‘Turk, ‘it isn’t the least good explainin’ to Mr. Prout. If he hasn’t one impression, he’s bound to have another.’
‘He’d do it with the best o’ motives. He’s in loco parentis,’ purred Stalky.
‘You young demons!’ the Reverend John replied. ‘And am I to understand that the—the usury business was another of your house-master’s impressions?’
‘Well—we helped a little in that,’ said Stalky.
‘I did owe Beetle two and fourpence—at least, Beetle says I did, but I never intended to pay him. Then we started a bit of an argument on the stairs, and—and Mr. Prout dropped into it accidental. That was how it was, Padre. He paid me cash down like a giddy Dook (stopped it out of my pocket-money just the same), and Beetle gave him my note-of-hand all correct. I don’t know what happened after that.’
‘I was too truthful,’ said Beetle. ‘I always am. You see, he was under an impression, Padre, and I suppose I ought to have corrected that impression; but of course I couldn’t be quite certain that his house wasn’t given over to money-lendin’, could I? I thought the house-prefects might more about it than I did. They ought to. They’re giddy palladiums of public schools.’
‘They did, too—by the time they’d finished,’ said M‘Turk. ‘As nice a pair of conscientious, well-meanin’, upright, pure-souled boys as you’d ever want to meet, Padre. They turned the house upside down—Harrison and Craye—with the best motives in the world.’
‘They said so.
‘They said it very loud and clear,
They went and shouted in our ear,’
said Stalky.
‘My own private impression is that all three of you will infallibly be hanged,’ said the Reverend John.
‘Why, we didn’t do anything,’ replied M‘Turk. ‘It was all Mr. Prout. Did you ever read a book about Japanese wrestlers? My uncle—he’s in the Navy—gave me a beauty once.’
‘Don’t try to change the subject, Turkey.’
‘I’m not, sir. I’m givin’ an illustration—same as a sermon. These wrestler-chaps have got some sort of trick that lets the other chap do all the work. Then they give a little wriggle, and he upsets himself. It’s called shibbuwichee or tokonoma, or somethin’. Mr. Prout’s a shibbuwicher. It isn’t our fault.’
‘Did you suppose we went round corruptin’ the minds of the fags?’ said Beetle. ‘They haven’t any, to begin with; and if they had, they’re corrupted long ago. I’ve been a fag, Padre.’
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‘Well, I fancied I knew the normal range of your iniquities; but if you take so much trouble to pile up circumstantial evidence against yourselves, you can’t blame any one if——’
‘We don’t blame any one, Padre. We haven’t said a word against Mr. Prout, have we?’ Stalky looked at the others. ‘We love him. He hasn’t a notion how we love him.’
‘H’m! You dissemble your love very well. Have you ever thought who got you turned out of your study, in the first place?’
‘It was Mr. Prout turned us out,’ said Stalky, with significance.
‘Well, I was that man. I didn’t mean it; but some words of mine, I’m afraid, gave Mr. Prout the impression——’
Number Five laughed aloud.
‘You see it’s just the same thing with you, Padre,’ said M‘Turk. ‘He is quick to get an impression, ain’t he? But you mustn’t think we don’t love him, ’cause we do. There isn’t an ounce of vice about him.’
A double knock fell on the door.
‘The Head to see Number Five study in his study at once,’ said the voice of Foxy, the school sergeant.
‘Whew!’ said the Reverend John. ‘It seems to me that there is a great deal of trouble coming for some people.’
‘My word! Mr. Prout’s gone and told the Head,’ said Stalky. ‘He’s a moral double-ender. Not fair, luggin’ the Head into a house-row.’
‘I should recommend a copy-book on a—h’m—safe and certain part,’ said the Reverend John disinterestedly.
‘Huh! He licks across the shoulders, an’ it would slam like a beastly barn-door,’ said Beetle. ‘Good-night, Padre. We’re in for it.’
Once more they stood in the presence of the Head—Belial, Mammon, and Lucifer. But they had to deal with a man more subtle than them all. Mr. Prout had talked to him, heavily and sadly, for half an hour; and the Head had seen all that was hidden from the house-master.
‘You’ve been bothering Mr. Prout,’ he said pensively. ‘House-masters aren’t here to be bothered by boys more than is necessary. I don’t like being bothered by these things. You are bothering me. That is a very serious offence. You see it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, now, I purpose to bother you, on personal and private grounds, because you have broken into my time. You are much too big to lick, so I suppose I shall have to mark my displeasure in some other way. Say, a thousand lines apiece, a week’s gating, and a few things of that kind. Much too big to lick, aren’t you?’
‘Oh no, sir,’ said Stalky cheerfully; for a week’s gating in the summer term is serious.
‘Ve-ry good. Then we will do what we can. I wish you wouldn’t bother me.’
It was a fair, sustained, equable stroke, with a little draw to it, but what they felt most was his unfairness in stopping to talk between executions. Thus:
‘Among the—lower classes this would lay me open to a charge of—assault. You should be more grateful for your—privileges than you are. There is a limit—one finds it by experience, Beetle—beyond which it is never safe to pursue private vendettas, because—don’t move—sooner or later one comes—into collision with the—higher authority, who has studied the animal. Et ego—M‘Turk, please—in Arcadia vixi. There’s a certain flagrant injustice about this that ought to appeal to—your temperament. And that’s all! You will tell your house-master that you have been formally caned by me.’
‘My word!’ said M‘Turk, wriggling his shoulder-blades all down the corridor. ‘That was business! The Prooshian Bates has an infernal straight eye.’
‘Wasn’t it wily of me to ask for the lickin,’’ said Stalky, ‘instead of those impots?’
‘Rot! We were in for it from the first. I knew the cock of his old eye,’ said Beetle. ‘I was within an inch of blubbing.’
‘Well, I didn’t exactly smile,’ Stalky confessed.
‘Let’s go down to the lavatory and have a look at the damage. One of us can hold the glass and t’others can squint.’
They proceeded on these lines for some ten minutes. The wales were very red and very level. There was not a penny to choose between any of them for thoroughness, efficiency, and a certain clarity of outline that stamps the work of the artist.
‘What are you doing down there?’ Mr. Prout was at the head of the lavatory stairs, attracted by the noise of splashing.
‘We’ve only been caned by the Head, sir, and we’re washing off the blood. The Head said we were to tell you. We were coming to report ourselves in a minute, sir. (Sotto voce.) That’s a score for Heffy!’
‘Well, he deserves to score something, poor devil,’ said M‘Turk, putting on his shirt. ‘We’ve sweated a stone and a half off him since we began.’
‘But look here, why aren’t we wrathy with the Head? He said it was a flagrant injustice. So it is!’ said Beetle.
‘Dearr man,’ said M‘Turk, and vouchsafed no further answer.
It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a basin.
‘You are a funny ass! What’s that for?’ said Beetle.
‘I’m—I’m thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!’
The stream is shrunk—the pool is dry, And we be comrades, thou and I; With fevered jowl and dusty flank Each jostling each along the bank; And by one drouthy fear made still, Forgoing thought of quest or kill. Now ’neath his dam the fawn may see, The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he, And the tall buck, unflinching, note The fangs that tore his father’s throat. The pools are shrunk—the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud—Good Hunting!—loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.
THE Law of the Jungle—which is by far the oldest law in the world—has arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the Jungle People till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make it. You will remember
that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the Seeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped across every one’s back and no one could escape. ‘When thou hast lived as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle obeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight,’ said Baloo.
This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo’s words came true, and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law.
It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Ikki, the Porcupine, meeting Mowgli in a bamboo-thicket, told him that the wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Ikki is ridiculously fastidious in his choice of food, and will eat nothing but the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, ‘What is that to me?’
‘Not much now,’ said Ikki, rattling his quills in a stiff, uncomfortable way, ‘but later we shall see. Is there any more diving into the deep rockpool below the Bee-Rocks, Little Brother?’
‘No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break my head,’ said Mowgli, who, in those days, was quite sure that he knew as much as any five of the Jungle People put together.
‘That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom.’ Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself: ‘If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. And yet—hunting among strangers ends in fighting; and they might hurt the Man-cub. We must wait and see how the mohwa blooms.’
That spring the mohwa tree, that Baloo was so fond of, never flowered. The greeny, cream-coloured, waxy blossoms were heat-killed before they were born, and only a few bad-smelling petals came down when he, stood on his hind legs and shook the tree. Then, inch by inch, the untempered heat crept into the heart of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at last black. The green growths in the sides of the ravines burned up to broken wires and curled films of dead stuff; the hidden pools sank down and caked over, keeping the last least footmark on their edges as if it had been cast in iron; the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered, clanking when the hot winds blew, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of the stream.
The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year, for they knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chil, the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for there was a great deal of carrion, and evening after evening he brought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh hunting-grounds, that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days’ flight in every direction.
Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, fell back on stale honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted rock-hives—honey black as a sloe, and dusty with dried sugar. He hunted, too, for deep-boring grubs under the bark of the trees, and robbed the wasps of their new broods. All the game in the Jungle was no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera could kill thrice in a night, and hardly get a full meal. But the want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle People drink seldom they must drink deep.
And the heat went on and on, and sucked up all the moisture, till at last the main channel of the Waingunga was the only stream that carried trickle of water between its dead banks; and when Hathi, the wild elephant, who lives for a hundred years and more, saw a long, lean blue ridge of rock show dry in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock, and then and there he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce, as his father before him had proclaimed it fifty years ago. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning.
By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce; but water is water, and when there is but one source of supply, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs. In good seasons, when water was plentiful, those who came down to drink at the Waingunga—or anywhere else, for that matter—did so at the risk of their lives, and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night’s doings. To move down so cunningly that never a leaf stirred; to wade knee-deep in the roaring shallows that drown all noise from behind; to drink, looking backward over one shoulder, every muscle ready for the first desperate bound of keen terror; to roll on the sandy margin, and return, wet-muzzled and well plumped out, to the admiring herd, was a thing that all tall-antlered young bucks took a delight in, precisely because they knew that at any moment Bagheera or Shere Khan might leap upon them and bear them down. But now all that life-and-death fun was ended, and the Jungle People came up, starved and weary, to the shrunken river,—tiger, bear, deer, buffalo, and pig, all together,—drank the fouled waters, and hung above them, too exhausted to move off.
The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no wallows to be cool in, and no green crops to steal. The snakes had left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog. They curled round wet stones, and never offered to strike when the nose of a rooting pig dislodged them. The river-turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera, cleverest of hunters, and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud. Only the Peace Rock lay across the shallows like a long snake, and the little tired ripples hissed as they dried on its hot side.
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It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then. His naked hide made him seem more lean and wretched than any of his fellows. His hair was bleached to tow colour by the sun; his ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket, and the lumps on his knees and elbows, where, he was used to track on all fours, gave his shrunken limbs the look of knotted grass-stems. But his eye, under his matted forelock, was cool and quiet, for Bagheera was his adviser in this time of trouble, and told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never, on any account, to lose his temper.
‘It is an evil time,’ said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot evening, ‘but it will go if we can live till the end. Is thy stomach full, Man-cub?’
‘There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it. Think you, Bagheera, the Rains have forgotten us and will never come again? ’
‘Not I! We shall see the mohwa in blossom yet, and the little fawns all fat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and hear the news. On my back, Little Brother.’
‘This is no time to carry weight. I can still stand alone, but—indeed we be no fatted bullocks, we two.’
Bagheera looked along his ragged, dusty flank and whispered: ‘Last night I killed a bullock under the yoke. So low was I brought that I think I should not have dared to spring if he had been loose. Wou!’
Mowgli laughed. ‘Yes, we be great hunters now,’ said he. ‘I am very bold—to eat grubs,’ and the two came down together through the crackling undergrowth to the river-bank and the lace-work of shoals that ran out from it in every direction.
‘The water cannot live long,’ said Baloo, joining them. ‘Look across. Yonder are trails like the roads of Man.’
On the level plain of the farther bank the stiff jungle-grass had died standing, and, dying, had mummied. The beaten tracks of the deer and the pig, all heading toward the river, had striped that colourless plain with dusty gullies driven through the ten-foot grass, and, early as it was, each long avenue was full of first-comers hastening to the water. You could hear the does and fawns coughing in the snuff-like dust.
Up-stream, at the bend of the sluggish pool round the Peace Rock, and Warden of the Water Truce, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with his sons, gaunt and gray in the moonlight, rocking to and fro—always rocking. Below him a little were the vanguard of the deer; below these, again, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the opposite bank, where the tall trees came down to the water’s edge, was the place set apart for the Eaters of Flesh—the tiger, the wolves, the panther, the bear, and, the others.
‘We are under one Law, indeed,’ said Bagheera, wading into the water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. ‘Good hunting, all you of my blood,’ he added, lying down at full length, one flank thrust out of the shallows; and then, between his teeth, ‘But for that which is the Law it would be very good hunting.’
The quick-spread ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks. ‘The Truce! Remember the Truce!’
‘Peace there, peace!’ gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. ‘The Truce holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting.’
‘Who should know better than I?’ Bagheera answered, rolling his yellow eyes up-stream. ‘I am an eater of turtles—a fisher of frogs. Ngaayah ! Would I could get good from chewing branches!’
‘We wish so, very greatly,’ bleated a young fawn, who had only been born that spring, and did not at all like it. Wretched as the Jungle People were, even Hathi could not help chuckling; while Mowgli, lying on his elbows in the warm water, laughed aloud, and beat up the scum with his feet.
‘Well spoken, little bud-horn,’ Bagheera purred. ‘When the Truce ends that shall be remembered in thy favour,’ and he looked keenly through the darkness to make sure of recognising the fawn again.
Gradually the talking spread up and down the drinking-places. One could hear the scuffling, snorting pig asking for more room; the buffaloes grunting among themselves as they lurched out across the sand-bars, and the deer telling pitiful stories of their long foot-sore wanderings in quest of food. Now and again they asked some question of the Eaters of Flesh across the river, but all the news was bad, and the roaring hot wind of the jungle came and went between the rocks and the rattling branches, and scattered twigs and dust on the water.
‘The men-folk, too, they die beside their ploughs,’ said a young sambhur. ‘I passed three between sunset and night. They lay still, and their Bullocks with them. We also shall lie still in a little.’
‘The river has fallen since last night,’ said Baloo. ‘O Hathi, hast thou ever seen the like of this drought?’
‘It will pass, it will pass,’ said Hathi, squirting water along his back and sides.
‘We have one here that cannot endure long,’ said Baloo; and he looked toward the boy he loved.
‘I?’ said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. ‘I have no long fur to cover my bones, but—but if thy hide were taken off, Baloo——’
Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely:
‘Man-cub, that is not seemly to tell a Teacher of the Law. Never have I been seen without my hide.’
‘Nay, I meant no harm, Baloo; but only that thou art, as it were, like the cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine——’Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him over backward into the water.
‘Worse and worse,’ said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering. ‘First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do.’
‘And what is that?’ said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute, though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.
‘Break thy head,’ said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.
‘It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher,’ said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.
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‘Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport.’ This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water. He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the deer on the opposite bank; then he dropped his square, frilled head and began to lap, growling: ‘The jungle has become a whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!’
Mowgli looked—stared, rather—as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. ‘Mancub this, and Mancub that,’ he rumbled, going on with his drink, ‘the cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!’
‘That may come, too,’ said Bagheera, looking him steadily between the eyes. ‘That may come, too—Faugh, Shere Khan!—what new shame hast thou brought here?’
The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.
‘Man!’ said Shere Khan coolly, ‘I killed an hour since.’ He went on purring and growling to himself.
The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry: ‘Man! Man! He has killed Man!’ Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.
‘At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game afoot?’ said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.
‘I killed for choice—not for food.’ The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi’s watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan’s direction. ‘For choice,’ Shere Khan drawled. ‘Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?’
Bagheera’s back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind, but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.
‘Thy kill was from choice?’ he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it is best to answer.
‘Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi.’ Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.
‘Yes, I know,’ Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, ‘Hast thou drunk thy fill?’
‘For to-night, yes.’
‘Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when—when we suffer together—Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!’
The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi’s three sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew—what every one else knows—that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
‘What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?’ Mowgli whispered in Bagheera’s ear. ‘To kill Man is always shameful. The Law says so. And yet Hathi says——’
‘Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man—and to boast of it—is a jackal’s trick. Besides, he tainted the good water.’
Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: ‘What is Shere Khan’s right, O Hathi?’ Both banks echoed his words, for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen something that none, except Baloo, who looked very thoughtful, seemed to understand.
‘It is an old tale,’ said Hathi; ‘a tale older than the Jungle. Keep silence along the banks, and I will tell that tale.’
There was a minute or two of pushing and shouldering among the pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one after another, ‘We wait,’ and Hathi strode forward till he was nearly knee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled and yellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle knew him to be—their master.
‘Ye know, children,’ he began, ‘that of all things ye most fear Man’; and there was a mutter of agreement.
‘This tale touches thee, Little Brother,’ said Bagheera to Mowgli.
‘I? I am of the Pack—a hunter of the Free People,’ Mowgli answered. ‘What have I to do with Man?’
‘And ye do not know why ye fear Man?’ Hathi went on. ‘This is the reason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when that was, we of the Jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In those days there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same tree, and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark.’
‘I am glad I was not born in those days,’ said Bagheera. ‘Bark is only good to sharpen claws.’
‘And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the Elephants. He drew the Jungle out of deep waters with his trunk; and where he made furrows in the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran; and where he struck with his foot, there rose ponds of good water; and when he blew through his trunk,—thus,—the trees fell. That was the manner in which the Jungle was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me.’
‘It has not lost fat in the telling,’ Bagheera whispered, and Mowgli laughed behind his hand.
‘In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing enough for all. They were lazy. Each wished to eat where he lay, as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good. Tha, the First of the Elephants, was busy making new jungles and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not walk in all places; therefore he made the First of the Tigers the master and the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should bring their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers ate fruit and grass with the others. He was as large as I am, and he was very beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom of the yellow creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in those good days when this the Jungle was new. All the Jungle People came before him without fear, and his word was the Law of all the Jungle. We were then, remember ye, one people.
page 4
‘Yet upon a night there was a dispute between two bucks—a grazing-quarrel such as ye now settle with the horns and the fore-feet—and it is said that as the two spoke together before the First of the Tigers lying among the flowers, a buck pushed him with his horns, and the First of the Tigers forgot that he was the master and judge of the Jungle, and, leaping upon that buck, broke his neck.
‘Till that night never one of us had died, and the First of the Tigers, seeing what he had done, and being made foolish by the scent of the blood, ran away into the marshes of the North, and we of the Jungle, left without a judge, fell to fighting among ourselves; and Tha heard the noise of it and came back. Then some of us said this and some of us said that, but he saw the dead buck among the flowers, and asked who had killed, and we of the Jungle would not tell because the smell of the blood made us foolish. We ran to and fro in circles, capering and crying out and shaking our heads. Then Tha gave an order to the trees that hang low, and to the trailing creepers of the Jungle, that they should mark the killer of the buck so that he should know him again, and he said, “Who will now be master of the Jungle People?” Then up leaped the Gray Ape who lives in the branches, and said, “I will now be master of the Jungle.” At this Tha laughed, and said, “So be it,” and went away very angry.
‘Children, ye know the Gray Ape. He was then as he is now. At the first he made a wise face for himself, but in a little while he began to scratch and to leap up and down, and when Tha came back he found the Gray Ape hanging, head down, from a bough, mocking those who stood below; and they mocked him again. And so there was no Law in the jungle—only foolish talk and senseless words.
‘Then Tha called us all together and said “The first of your masters has brought Death into the jungle, and the second Shame. Now it is time there was a Law, and a Law that ye must not break. Now ye shall know Fear, and when ye have found him ye shall know that he is your master, and the rest shall follow.” Then we of the jungle said, “What is Fear?” And Tha said, “Seek till ye find.” So we went up and down the Jungle seeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes——’
‘Ugh!’ said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their sand-bank.
‘Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news that in a cave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair, and went upon his hind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the herd till we came to that cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of it, and he was, as the buffaloes had said, hairless, and he walked upon his hinder legs. When he saw us he cried out, and his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that voice when we hear it, and we ran away, tramping upon and tearing each other because we were afraid. That night, so it was told to me, we of the Jungle did not lie down together as used to be our custom, but each tribe drew off by itself—the pig with the pig, the deer with the deer; horn to horn, hoof to hoof,—like keeping to like, and so lay shaking in the Jungle.
‘Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still hidden in the marshes of the North, and when word was brought to him of the Thing we had seen in the cave, he said: “I will go to this Thing and break his neck.” So he ran all the night till he came to the cave; but the trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the order that Tha had given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran, drawing their fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl. Wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide. And those stripes do his children wear to this day! When he came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and called him “The Striped One that comes by night,” and the First of the Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the swamps howling.’
Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.
‘So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, “What is the sorrow?” And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the new-made sky, which is now so old, said: “Give me back my power, O Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from a Hairless One, and he has called me a shameful name.” “And why?” said Tha. “Because I am smeared with the mud of the marshes,” said the First of the Tigers. “Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash away,” said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the Tigers said, “What have I done that this comes to me?” Tha said, “Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let Death loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the people of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art afraid of the Hairless One.” The First of the Tigers said, “They will never fear me, for I knew them since the beginning.” Tha said, “Go and see.” And the First of the Tigers ran to and fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambhur and the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples, and they all ran away from him who had been their judge, because they were afraid.
‘Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was broken in him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with all his feet and said: “Remember that I was once the Master of the Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my children remember that I was once without shame, or fear!” And Tha said: “This much I will do, because thou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night in each year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed—for thee and for thy children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One—and his name is Man—ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall be afraid of you, as though ye were judges of the Jungle and masters of all things. Show him mercy in that night of his fear, for thou hast known what Fear is.”
‘Then the First of the Tigers answered, “I am content”; but when next he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side, and he remembered the name that the Hairless One had given him, and he was angry. For a year he lived in the marshes waiting till Tha should keep his promise. And upon a night when the Jackal of the Moon [the Evening Star] stood clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was upon him, and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before him and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers struck him and broke his back, for he thought that there was but one such Thing in the jungle, and that he had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the kill, he heard Tha coming down from the woods of the North, and presently the voice of the First of the Elephants, which is the voice that we hear now——’
The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but it brought no rain—only heat lightning that flickered along the ridges—and Hathi went on: ‘That was the voice he heard, and it said: “Is this thy mercy?” The First of the Tigers licked his lips and said: “What matter? I have killed Fear.” And Tha said “O blind and foolish! Thou hast untied the feet of Death, and he will follow thy trail till thou diest. Thou hast taught Man to kill!”
‘The First of the Tigers, standing stiffly to his kill, said: “He is as the buck was. There is no Fear. Now I will judge the Jungle Peoples once more.”
‘And Tha said: “Never again shall the Jungle Peoples come to thee. They shall never cross thy trail, nor sleep near thee, nor follow after thee, nor browse by thy lair. Only Fear shall follow thee, and with a blow that thou canst not see he shall bid thee wait his pleasure. He shall make the ground to open under thy feet, and the creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow together about thee higher than thou canst leap, and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. Thou hast shown him no mercy, and none will he show thee.”
page 5
‘The First of the Tigers was very bold, for his Night was still on him, and he said: “The Promise of Tha is the Promise of Tha. He will not take away my Night?” And Tha said: “The one Night is thine, as I have said, but there is a price to pay. Thou hast taught Man to kill, and he is no slow learner.”
‘The First of the Tigers said: “He is here under my foot, and his back is broken. Let the Jungle know I have killed Fear.”
‘Then Tha laughed, and said: “Thou hast killed one of many, but thou thyself shalt tell the jungle—for thy Night is ended.”
‘So the day came; and from the mouth of the cave went out another Hairless One, and he saw the kill in the path, and the First of the Tigers above it; and he took a pointed stick——’
‘They throw a thing that cuts now,’ said Ikki, rustling down the bank; for Ikki was considered uncommonly good eating by the Gonds—they called him Ho-Igoo—and he knew something of the wicked little Gondee axe that whirls across a clearing like a dragon-fly.
‘It was a pointed stick, such as they put in the foot of a pit-trap,’ said Hathi, ‘and throwing it, he struck the First of the Tigers deep in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the First of the Tigers ran howling up and down the jungle till he tore out the stick, and all the jungle knew that the Hairless One could strike from far off, and they feared more than before. So it came about that the First of the Tigers taught the Hairless One to kill—and ye know what harm that has since done to all our peoples—through the noose, and the pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the flying stick, and the stinging fly that comes out of white smoke [Hathi meant the rifle], and the Red Flower that drives us into the open. Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the Tiger, as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger given him cause to be less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him, remembering how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the rest, Fear walks up and down the jungle by day and by night.’
‘Ahi! Aoo!’ said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them.
‘And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now, can we of the jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together in one place as we do now.’
‘For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?’ said Mowgli.
‘For one night only,’ said Hathi.
‘But I—but we—but all the jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man twice and thrice in a moon.’
‘Even so. Then he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would run. But on his one Night he goes openly down to the village. He walks between the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men fall on their faces, and there he does his kill. One kill in that Night.’
‘Oh!’ said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. ‘Now I see why it was Shere Khan bade me look at him! He got no good of it, for he could not hold his eyes steady, and—and I certainly did not fall down at his feet. But then I am not a man, being of the Free People.’
‘Umm!’ said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. ‘Does the Tiger know his Night?’
‘Never till the jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening mist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet rains—this one Night of the Tiger. But for the First of the Tigers, this would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear.’
The deer grunted sorrowfully, and Bagheera’s lips curled in a wicked smile. ‘Do men know this—tale?’ said he.
‘None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants—the children of Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken.’
Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to talk.
‘But—but—but,’ said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, ‘why did not the First of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did but break the buck’s neck. He did not eat. What led him to the hot meat?’
‘The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit; but from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others, the Eaters of Grass,’ said Baloo.
‘Then thou knowest the tale. Heh? Why have I never heard?’
‘Because the jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning there would never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother.’
THE INDUS had risen in flood without warning. Last night it was a fordable shallow; to-night five miles of raving muddy water parted bank and caving bank, and the river was still rising under the moon. A litter borne by six bearded men, all unused to the work, stopped in the white sand that bordered the whiter
plain.
‘It’s God’s will,’ they said. ‘We dare not cross to-night, even in a boat. Let us light a fire and cook food. We be tired men.’ They looked at the litter inquiringly. Within, the Deputy Commissioner of the Kot-Kumharsen district lay dying of fever. They had brought him across country, six fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had won over to the paths of a moderate righteousness, when he had broken down at the foot of their inhospitable hills. And Tallantire, his assistant, rode with them, heavy-hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and lack of sleep. He had served under the sick man for three years, and had learned to love him as men associated in toil of the hardest learn to love—or hate. Dropping from his horse he parted the curtains of the litter and peered inside.
‘Orde—Orde, old man, can you hear? We have to wait till the river goes down, worse luck.’
‘I hear,’ returned a dry whisper. ‘Wait till the river goes down. I thought we should reach camp before the dawn. Polly knows. She’ll meet me.’
One of the litter-men stared across the river and caught a faint twinkle of light on the far side. He whispered to Tallantire, ‘There are his campfires, and his wife. They will cross in the morning, for they have better boats. Can he live so long?’
Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde was very near to death. What need to vex his soul with hopes of a meeting that could not be? The river gulped at the banks, brought down a cliff of sand, and snarled the more hungrily. The littermen sought for fuel in the waste—dried camel-thorn and refuse of the camps that had waited at the ford. Their sword-belts clinked as they moved softly in the haze of the moonlight, and Tallantire’s horse coughed to explain that he would like a blanket.
‘I’m cold too,’ said the voice from the litter. ‘I fancy this is the end. Poor Polly!’
Tallantire rearranged the blankets; Khoda Dad Khan, seeing this, stripped off his own heavy-wadded sheepskin coat and added it to the pile. ‘I shall be warm by the fire presently,’ said he. Tallantire took the wasted body of his chief into his arms and held it against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him very warm Orde might live to see his wife once more. If only blind Providence would send a three-foot fall in the river!
‘That’s better,’ said Orde faintly. ‘Sorry to be a nuisance, but is—is there anything to drink?’
They gave him milk and whisky, and Tallantire felt a little warmth against his own breast. Orde began to mutter.
‘It isn’t that I mind dying,’ he said. ‘It’s leaving Polly and the district. Thank God! we have no children. Dick, you know, I’m dipped—awfully dipped—debts in my first five years’ service. It isn’t much of a pension, but enough for her. She has her mother at home. Getting there is the difficulty. And—and—you see, not being a soldier’s wife—’
‘We’ll arrange the passage home, of course,’ said Tallantire quietly.
‘It’s not nice to think of sending round the hat; but, good Lord! how many men I lie here and remember that had to do it! Morten’s dead—he was of my year. Shaughnessy is dead, and he had children; I remember he used to read us their school-letters; what a bore we thought him! Evans is dead—Kot-Kumharsen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is dead—and I’m going too. “Man that is born of a woman is small potatoes and few in the hill.” That reminds me, Dick; the four Khusru Kheyl villages in our border want a one-third remittance this spring. That’s fair; their crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak to Ferris about the canal. I should like to have lived till that was finished; it means so much for the North-Indus villages—but Ferris is an idle beggar—wake him up. You’ll have charge of the district till my successor comes. I wish they would appoint you permanently; you know the folk. I suppose it will be Bullows, though. ’Good man, but too weak for frontier work; and he doesn’t understand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai will bear watching. You’ll find it in my papers,—in the uniform case, I think. Call the Khusru Kheyl men up; I’ll hold my last public audience. Khoda Dad Khan!’
The leader of the men sprang to the side of the litter, his companions following.
‘Men, I’m dying,’ said Orde quickly, in the vernacular; ‘and soon there will be no more Orde Sahib to twist your tails and prevent you from raiding cattle.’
‘God forbid this thing!’ broke out the deep bass chorus. ‘The Sahib is not going to die.’
‘Yes, he is; and then he will know, whether Mahomed speaks truth, or Moses. But you must be good men when I am not here. Such of you as live in our borders must pay your taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of the villages to be gently treated this year. Such of you as live in the hills must refrain from cattle-lifting, and burn no more thatch, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of the priests, who, not knowing the strength of the Government, would lead you into foolish wars, wherein you will surely die and your crops be eaten by strangers. And you must not sack any caravans, and must leave your arms at the police-post when you come in; as has been your custom, and my order. And Tallantire Sahib will be with you, but I do not know who takes my place. I speak now true talk, for I am as it were already dead, my children,—for though ye be strong men, ye are children.’
‘And thou art our father and our mother,’ broke in Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. ‘What shall we do, now there is no one to speak for us, or to teach us to go wisely!’
‘There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to him; he knows your talk and your heart. Keep the young men quiet, listen to the old men, and obey. Khoda Dad Khan, take my ring. The watch and chain go to thy brother. Keep those things for my sake, and I will speak to whatever God I may encounter and tell him that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. Ye have my leave to go.’
Khoda Dad Khan, the ring upon his finger, choked audibly as he caught the well-known formula that closed an interview. His brother turned to look across the river. The dawn was breaking, and a speck of white showed on the dull silver of the stream. ‘She comes,’ said the man under his breath. ‘Can he live for another two hours?’ And he pulled the newly-acquired watch out of his belt and looked uncomprehendingly at the dial, as he had seen Englishmen do.
For two hours the bellying sail tacked and blundered up and down the river, Tallantire still clasping Orde in his arms, and Khoda Dad Khan chafing his feet. He spoke now and again of the district and his wife, but, as the end neared, more frequently of the latter. They hoped he did not know that she was even then risking her life in a crazy native boat to regain him. But the awful foreknowledge of the dying deceived them. Wrenching himself forward, Orde looked through the curtains and saw how near was the sail. ‘That’s Polly,’ he said simply, though his mouth was wried with agony. ‘Polly and—the grimmest practical joke ever played on a man. Dick—you’ll—have—to—explain.’
And an hour later Tallantire met on the bank a woman in a gingham riding-habit and a sun-hat who cried out to him for her husband—her boy and her darling—while Khoda Dad Khan threw himself face-down on the sand and covered his eyes.
II
The very simplicity of the notion was its charm. What more easy to win a reputation for far-seeing statesmanship, originality, and, above all, deference to the desires of the people, than by appointing a child of the country to the rule of that country? Two hundred millions of the most loving and grateful folk under Her Majesty’s dominion would laud the fact, and their praise would endure for ever. Yet he was indifferent to praise or blame, as befitted the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys. His administration was based upon principle, and the principle must be enforced in season and out of season. His pen and tongue had created the New India, teeming with possibilities—loud-voiced, insistent, a nation among nations—all his very own. Wherefore the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys took another step in advance, and with it counsel of those who should have advised him on the appointment of a successor to Yardley-Orde. There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to a younger civilian of Mr. G. C. Dé’s nationality (who had written a remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in administration); and Mr. G. C. Dé could be transferred northward to Kot-Kumharsen. The Viceroy was averse, on principle, to interfering with appointments under control of the Provincial Governments. He wished it to be understood that he merely recommended and advised in this instance. As regarded the mere question of race, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé was more English than the English, and yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy and insight which the best among the best Service in the world could only win to at the end of their service.
The stern, black-bearded kings who sit about the Council-board of India divided on the step, with the inevitable result of driving the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys into the borders of hysteria, and a bewildered obstinacy pathetic as that of a child.
‘The principle is sound enough,’ said the weary-eyed Head of the Red Provinces in which Kot-Kumharsen lay, for he too held theories. ‘The only difficulty is——’
‘Put the screw on the district officials; brigade Dé with a very strong Deputy Commissioner on each side of him; give him the best assistant in the Province; rub the fear of God into the people beforehand; and if anything goes wrong, say that his colleagues didn’t back him up. All these lovely little experiments recoil on the District-Officer in the end,’ said the Knight of the Drawn Sword with a truthful brutality that made the Head of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a tacit understanding of this kind the transfer was accomplished, as quietly as might be for many reasons.
It is sad to think that what goes for public opinion in India did not generally see the wisdom of the Viceroy’s appointment. There were not lacking indeed hireling organs, notoriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureaucracy, who more than hinted that His Excellency was a fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doctrinaire, and, worst of all, a trifler with the lives of men. ‘The Viceroy’s Excellence Gazette,’ published in Calcutta, was at pains to thank ‘Our beloved Viceroy for once more and again thus gloriously vindicating the potentialities of the Bengali nations for extended executive and administrative duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, Esq., M.A., will uphold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, some of which will now have to serve under a despised native and take orders too. How will you like that, Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate himself superiorly to race-prejudice and colour-blindness, and to allow the flower of this now our Civil Service all the full pays and allowances granted to his more fortunate brethren.’
III
‘When does this man take over charge? I’m alone just now, and I gather that I’m to stand fast under him.’
‘Would you have cared for a transfer?’ said Bullows keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallantire’s shoulder: ‘We’re all in the same boat; don’t desert us. And yet, why the devil should you stay, if you can get another charge?
‘It was Orde’s,’ said Tallantire simply.
‘Well, it’s Dé’s now. He’s a Bengali of the Bengalis, crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to. They naturally have always kept him in his own home district, where all his sisters and his cousins and his aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He did no more than turn the place into a pleasant little family preserve, allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently he’s immensely popular down there.’
‘I’ve nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to explain to the district that they are going to be governed by a Bengali? Do you—does the Government, I mean—suppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of villages say? How will the police—Muzbi Sikhs and Pathans—how will they work under him? We couldn’t say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper; but my people will say a good deal, you know that. It’s a piece of cruel folly!’
‘My dear boy, I know all that, and more. I’ve represented it, and have been told that I am exhibiting “culpable and puerile prejudice.” By Jove, if the Khusru Kheyl don’t exhibit something worse than that I don’t know the Border! The chances are that you will have the district alight on your hands, and I shall have to leave my work and help you pull through. I needn’t ask you to stand by the Bengali man in every possible way. You’ll do that for your own sake.’
‘For Orde’s. I can’t say that I care twopence personally.’
‘Don’t be an ass. It’s grievous enough, God knows, and the Government will know later on; but that’s no reason for your sulking. You must try to run the district; you must stand between him and as much insult as possible; you must show him the ropes; you must pacify the Khusru Kheyl, and just warn Curbar of the Police to look out for trouble by the way. I’m always at the end of a telegraph-wire, and willing to peril my reputation to hold the district together. You’ll lose yours, of course. If you keep things straight, and he isn’t actually beaten with a stick when he’s on tour, he’ll get all the credit. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be told that you didn’t support him loyally.’
‘I know what I’ve got to do,’ said Tallantire wearily, ‘and I’m going to it. But it’s hard.’
‘The work is with us, the event is with Allah,—as Orde used to say when he was more than usually in hot water.’ And Bullows rode away.
That two gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service, and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange and saddening. Yet listen to the artless babble of the Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging a rush of Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets. So he became blind, and hated the English none the less for the little accident. Yardley-Orde knew his failing, and had many times laughed at him therefor.
‘Dogs you are,’ said the Blind Mullah to the listening tribesmen round the fire. ‘Whipped dogs! Because you listened to Orde Sahib and called him father and behaved as his children, the British Government have proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye know is dead.’
‘Ai! ai! ai!’ said half a dozen voices.
‘He was a man. Comes now in his stead, whom think ye? A Bengali of Bengal—an eater of fish from the South.’
‘A lie!’ said Khoda Dad Khan. ‘And but for the small matter of thy priesthood, I’d drive my gun butt-first down thy throat.’
‘Oho, art thou there, lickspittle of the English? Go in to-morrow across the Border to pay service to Orde Sahib’s successor, and thou shalt slip thy shoes at the tent-door of a Bengali, as thou shalt hand thy offering to a Bengali’s black fist. This I know; and in my youth, when a young man spoke evil to a Mullah holding the doors of Heaven and Hell, the gun-butt was not rammed down the Mullah’s gullet. No!’
The Blind Mullah hated Khoda Dad Khan with Afghan hatred, both being rivals for the headship of the tribe; but the latter was feared for bodily as the other for spiritual gifts. Khoda Dad Khan looked at Orde’s ring and grunted, ‘I go in to-morrow because I am not an old fool, preaching war against the English. If the Government, smitten with madness, have done this, then ’
‘Then,’ croaked the Mullah, ‘thou wilt take out the young men and strike at the four villages within the Border?’
‘Or wring thy neck, black raven of Jehannum, for a bearer of ill-tidings.’
Khoda Dad Khan oiled his long locks with great care, put on his best Bokhara belt, a new turban-cap, and fine green shoes, and accompanied by a few friends came down from the hills to pay a visit to the new Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen. Also he bore tribute—four or five priceless gold mohurs of Akbar’s time in a white handkerchief. These the Deputy Commissioner would touch and remit. The little ceremony used to be a sign that, so far as Khoda Dad Khan’s personal influence went, the Khusru Kheyl would be good boys,—till the next time; especially if Khoda Dad Khan happened to like the new Deputy Commissioner. In Yardley-Orde’s consulship his visit concluded with a sumptuous dinner and perhaps forbidden liquors; certainly with some wonderful tales and great good-fellowship. Then Khoda Dad Khan would swagger back to his hold, vowing that Orde Sahib was one prince and Tallantire Sahib another, and that whosoever went a-raiding into British territory would be flayed alive. On this occasion he found the Deputy Commissioner’s tents looking much as usual. Regarding himself as privileged he strode through the open door to confront a suave, portly Bengali in English costume writing at a table. Unversed in the elevating influence of education, and not in the least caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad Khan promptly set the man down for a Babu—the native clerk of the Deputy Commissioner—a hated and despised animal.
‘Ugh!’ said he cheerfully. ‘Where’s your master, Babujee?’
‘I am the Deputy Commissioner,’ said the gentleman in English.
Now he overvalued the effects of university degrees, and stared Khoda Dad Khan in the face. But if from your earliest infancy you have been accustomed to look on battle, murder, and sudden death, if spilt blood affects your nerves as much as red paint, and, above all, if you have faithfully believed that the Bengali was the servant of all Hindustan, and that all Hindustan was vastly inferior to your own large, lustful self, you can endure, even though uneducated, a very large amount of looking over. You can even stare down a graduate of an Oxford college if the latter has been born in a hothouse, of stock bred in a hot-house, and fearing physical pain as some men fear sin; especially if your opponent’s mother has frightened him to sleep in his youth with horrible stories of devils inhabiting Afghanistan, and dismal legends of the black North. The eyes behind the gold spectacles sought the floor. Khoda Dad Khan chuckled, and swung out to find Tallantire hard by. ‘Here,’ said he roughly, thrusting the coins before him, ‘touch and remit. That answers for my good behaviour. But, O Sahib, has the Government gone mad to send a black Bengali dog to us? And am I to pay service to such an one? And are you to work under him? What does it mean?’
‘It is an order,’ said Tallantire. He had expected something of this kind. ‘He is a very clever S-sahib.’
‘He a Sahib! He’s a kala admi—a black man—unfit to run at the tail of a potter’s donkey. All the peoples of the earth have harried Bengal. It is written. Thou knowest when we of the North wanted women or plunder whither went we? To Bengal—where else? What child’s talk is this of Sahibdom—after Orde Sahib too! Of a truth the Blind Mullah was right.’
‘What of him?’ asked Tallantire uneasily. He mistrusted that old man with his dead eyes and his deadly tongue.
‘Nay, now, because of the oath that I sware to Orde Sahib when we watched him die by the river yonder, I will tell. In the first place, is it true that the English have set the heel of the Bengali on their own neck, and that there is no more English rule in the land?’
‘I am here,’ said Tallantire, ‘and I serve the Maharanee of England.’
‘The Mullah said otherwise, and further that because we loved Orde Sahib the Government sent us a pig to show that we were dogs, who till now have been held by the strong hand. Also that they were taking away the white soldiers, that more Hindustanis might come, and that all was changing.’
This is the worst of ill-considered handling of a very large country. What looks so feasible in Calcutta, so right in Bombay, so unassailable in Madras, is misunderstood by the North, and entirely changes its complexion on the banks of the Indus. Khoda Dad Khan explained as clearly as he could that, though he himself intended to be good, he really could not answer for the more reckless members of his tribe under the leadership of the Blind Mullah. They might or they might not give trouble, but they certainly had no intention whatever of obeying the new Deputy Commissioner. Was Tallantire perfectly sure that in the event of any systematic border-raiding the force in the district could put it down promptly?
‘Tell the Mullah if he talks any more fool’s talk,’ said Tallantire curtly, ‘that he takes his men on to certain death, and his tribe to blockade, trespass-fine, and blood-money. But why do I talk to one who no longer carries weight in the counsels of the tribe?’
Khoda Dad Khan pocketed that insult. He had learned something that he much wanted to know, and returned to his hills to be sarcastically complimented by the Mullah, whose tongue raging round the camp-fires was deadlier flame than ever dung-cake fed.
IV
Be pleased to consider here for a moment the unknown district of Kot-Kumharsen. It lay cut lengthways by the Indus under the line of the Khusru hills—ramparts of useless earth and tumbled stone. It was seventy miles long by fifty broad, maintained a population of something less than two hundred thousand, and paid taxes to the extent of forty thousand pounds a year on an area that was by rather more than half sheer, hopeless waste. The cultivators were not gentle people, the miners for salt were less gentle still, and the cattle-breeders least gentle of all. A police-post in the top right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the top left-hand corner prevented as much salt-smuggling and cattle-lifting as the influence of the civilians could not put down; and in the bottom right-hand corner lay Jumala, the district headquarters—a pitiful knot of lime-washed barns facetiously rented as houses, reeking with frontier fever, leaking in the rain, and ovens in the summer.
It was to this place that Grish Chunder Dé was travelling, there formally to take over charge of the district. But the news of his coming had gone before. Bengalis were as scarce as poodles among the simple Borderers, who cut each other’s heads open with their long spades and worshipped impartially at Hindu and Mahomedan shrines. They crowded to see him, pointing at him, and diversely comparing him to a gravid milch-buffalo, or a broken-down horse, as their limited range of metaphor prompted. They laughed at his police-guard, and wished to know how long the burly Sikhs were going to lead Bengali apes. They inquired whether he had brought his women with him, and advised him explicitly not to tamper with theirs. It remained for a wrinkled hag by the roadside to slap her lean breasts as he passed, crying, ‘I have suckled six that could have eaten six thousand of him. The Government shot them, and made this That a king!’ Whereat a blue-turbaned huge-boned plough-mender shouted, ‘Have hope, mother o’ mine! He may yet go the way of thy wastrels.’ And the children, the little brown puff-balls, regarded curiously. It was generally a good thing for infancy to stray into Orde Sahib’s tent, where copper coins were to be won for the mere wishing, and tales of the most authentic, such as even their mothers knew but the first half of. No! This fat black man could never tell them how Pir Prith hauled the eye-teeth out of ten devils; how the big stones came to lie all in a row on top of the Khusru hills, and what happened if you shouted through the village-gate to the gray wolf at even ‘Badl Khas is dead.’ Meantime Grish Chunder Dé talked hastily and much to Tallantire, after the manner of those who are ‘more English than the English,’—of Oxford and ‘home,’ with much curious book-knowledge of bump-suppers, cricket-matches, hunting-runs, and other unholy sports of the alien. ‘We must get these fellows in hand,’ he said once or twice uneasily; ‘get them well in hand, and drive them on a tight rein. No use, you know, being slack with your district.’
And a moment later Tallantire heard Debendra Nath Dé, who brotherliwise had followed his kinsman’s fortune and hoped for the shadow of his protection as a pleader, whisper in Bengali, ‘Better are dried fish at Dacca than drawn swords at Delhi. Brother of mine, these men are devils, as our mother said. And you will always have to ride upon a horse!’
That night there was a public audience in a broken-down little town thirty miles from Jumala, when the new Deputy Commissioner, in reply to the greetings of the subordinate native officials, delivered a speech. It was a carefully thought-out speech, which would have been very valuable had not his third sentence begun with three innocent words, ‘Hamara hookum hai—It is my order.’ Then there was a laugh, clear and bell-like, from the back of the big tent, where a few border land-holders sat, and the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and the lean, keen face of Debendra Nath Dé paled, and Grish Chunder turning to Tallantire spake: ‘You—you put up this arrangement.’ Upon that instant the noise of hoofs rang with- out, and there entered Curbar, the District Superintendent of Police, sweating and dusty. The State had tossed him into a corner of the province for seventeen weary years, there to check smuggling of salt, and to hope for promotion that never came. He had forgotten how to keep his white uniform clean, had screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, and clothed his head indifferently with a helmet or a turban. Soured, old, worn with heat and cold, he waited till he should be entitled to sufficient pension to keep him from starving.
‘Tallantire,’ said he, disregarding Grish Chunder Dé, ‘come outside. I want to speak to you.’ They withdrew.
‘It’s this,’ continued Curbar. ‘The Khusru Kheyl have rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies on Ferris’s new canal-embankment; killed a couple of men and carried off a woman. I wouldn’t trouble you about that—Ferris is after them and Hugonin, my assistant, with ten mounted police. But that’s only the beginning, I fancy. Their fires are out on the Hassan Ardeb heights, and unless we’re pretty quick there’ll be a flare-up all along our Border. They are sure to raid the four Khusru villages on our side of the line: there’s been bad blood between them for years; and you know the Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war since Orde went out. What’s your notion?’
‘Damn!’ said Tallantire thoughtfully. ‘They’ve begun quick. Well, it seems to me I’d better ride off to Fort Ziar and get what men I can there to picket among the lowland villages, if it’s not too late. Tommy Dodd commands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hugonin ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, and—No, we can’t have the Head of the Police ostentatiously guarding the Treasury. You go back to the canal. I’ll wire Bullows to come in to Jumala with a strong police-guard, and sit on the Treasury. They won’t touch the place, but it looks well.’
‘I—I—I insist upon knowing what this means,’ said the voice of the Deputy Commissioner, who had followed the speakers.
‘Oh!’ said Curbar, who being in the Police could not understand that fifteen years of education must, on principle, change the Bengali into a Briton. ‘There has been a fight on the Border, and heaps of men are killed. There’s going to be another fight, and heaps more will be killed.’
‘What for?’
‘Because the teeming millions of this district don’t exactly approve of you, and think that under your benign rule they are going to have a good time. It strikes me that you had better make arrangements. I act, as you know, by your orders. What do you advise?’
‘I—I take you all to witness that I have not yet assumed charge of the district,’ stammered the Deputy Commissioner, not in the tones of the ‘more English.’
‘Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, Tallantire, your plan is sound. Carry it out. Do you want an escort?’
‘No; only a decent horse. But how about wiring to headquarters?’
‘I fancy, from the colour of his cheeks, that your superior officer will send some wonderful telegrams before the night’s over. Let him do that, and we shall have half the troops of the province coming up to see what’s the trouble. Well, run along, and take care of yourself—the Khusru Kheyl jab upwards from below, remember. Ho! Mir Khan, give Tallantire Sahib the best of the horses, and tell five men to ride to Jumala with the Deputy Commissioner Sahib Bahadur. There is a hurry toward.’
There was; and it was not in the least bettered by Debendra Nath Dé clinging to a policeman’s bridle and demanding the shortest, the very shortest way to Jumala. Now originality is fatal to the Bengali. Debendra Nath should have stayed with his brother, who rode steadfastly for Jumala on the railway-line, thanking gods entirely unknown to the most catholic of universities that he had not taken charge of the district, and could still—happy resource of a fertile race!—fall sick.
And I grieve to say that when he reached his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been conferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good, said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would hardly have justified. To every power that could move a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder Dé appealed telegraphically. He was alone, his assistants had fled, and in truth he had not taken over charge of the district. Had the telegrams been despatched many things would have occurred; but since the only signaller in Jumala had gone to bed, and the station-master, after one look at the tremendous pile of paper, discovered that railway regulations forbade the forwarding of imperial messages, policemen Ram Singh and Nihal Singh were fain to turn the stuff into a pillow and slept on it very comfortably.
Tallantire drove his spurs into a rampant skewbald stallion with china-blue eyes, and settled himself for the forty-mile ride to Fort Ziar. Knowing his district blindfold, he wasted no time hunting for short cuts, but headed across the richer grazing-ground to the ford where Orde had died and been buried. The dusty ground deadened the noise of his horse’s hoofs, the moon threw his shadow, a restless goblin, before him, and the heavy dew drenched him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that brushed against the horse’s belly, unmetalled road where the whip-like foliage of the tamarisks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of lowland furred with bent and speckled with drowsing cattle, waste, and hillock anew, dragged themselves past, and the skewbald was labouring in the deep sand of the Indus-ford. Tallantire was conscious of no distinct thought till the nose of the dawdling ferry-boat grounded on the farther side, and his horse shied snorting at the white headstone of Orde’s grave. Then he uncovered, and shouted that the dead might hear, ‘They’re out, old man! Wish me luck.’ In the chill of the dawn he was hammering with a stirrup-iron at the gate of Fort Ziar, where fifty sabres of that tattered regiment, the Belooch Beshaklis, were supposed to guard Her Majesty’s interests along a few hundred miles of Border. This particular fort was commanded by a subaltern, who, born of the ancient family of the Derouletts, naturally answered to the name of Tommy Dodd. Him Tallantire found robed in a sheepskin coat, shaking with fever like an aspen, and trying to read the native apothecary’s list of invalids.
‘So you’ve come, too,’ said he. ‘Well, we’re all sick here, and I don’t think I can horse thirty men; but we’re bub—bub—bub blessed willing. Stop, does this impress you as a trap or a lie?’ He tossed a scrap of paper to Tallantire, on which was written painfully in crabbed Gurmukhi, ‘We cannot hold young horses. They will feed after the moon goes down in the four border villages issuing from the Jagai pass on the next night.’ Then in English round hand—‘Your sincere friend.’
‘Good man!’ said Tallantire. ‘That’s Khoda Dad Khan’s work, I know. It’s the only piece of English he could ever keep in his head, and he is immensely proud of it. He is playing against the Blind Mullah for his own hand—the treacherous young ruffian!’
‘Don’t know the politics of the Khusru Kheyl, but if you’re satisfied, I am. That was pitched in over the gatehead last night, and I thought we might pull ourselves together and see what was on. Oh, but we’re sick with fever here and no mistake! Is this going to be a big business, think you?’ said Tommy Dodd.
Tallantire gave him briefly the outlines of the case, and Tommy Dodd whistled and shook with fever alternately. That day he devoted to strategy, the art of war, and the enlivenment of the invalids, till at dusk there stood ready forty-two troopers, lean, worn, and dishevelled, whom Tommy Dodd surveyed with pride, and addressed thus, ‘O men! If you die you will go to Hell. Therefore endeavour to keep alive. But if you go to Hell that place cannot be hotter than this place, and we are not told that we shall there suffer from fever. Consequently be not afraid of dying. File out there!’ They grinned, and went.
V
It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget their night attack on the lowland villages. The Mullah had promised an easy victory and unlimited plunder; but behold, armed troopers of the Queen had risen out of the very earth, cutting, slashing, and riding down under the stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and all feared that they had brought an army about their ears, and ran back to the hills. In the panic of that flight more men were seen to drop from wounds inflicted by an Afghan knife jabbed upwards, and yet more from long-range carbine-fire. Then there rose a cry of treachery, and when they reached their own guarded heights, they had left, with some forty dead and sixty wounded, all their confidence in the Blind Mullah on the plains below. They clamoured, swore, and argued round the fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah shrieking curses on the returned.
Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and un-breathed, for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the occasion. He pointed out that the tribe owed every item of its present misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had lied in every possible particular and talked them into a trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that a Bengali, the son of a Bengali, should presume to administer the Border, but that fact did not, as the Mullah pretended, herald a general time of license and lifting; and the inexplicable madness of the English had not in the least impaired their power of guarding their marches. On the contrary, the baffled and out-generalled tribe would now, just when their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded from any trade with Hindustan until they had sent hostages for good behaviour, paid compensation for disturbance, and blood-money at the rate of thirty-six English pounds per head for every villager that they might have slain. ‘And ye know that those lowland dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns?’ A low growl ran round the fires. ‘Now, seeing that all this is the Mullah’s work, and that we have gained nothing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to pray. We are weakened, and henceforth how shall we dare to cross into the Madar Kheyl border, as has been our custom, to kneel to Pir Sajji’s tomb? The Madar men will fall upon us, and rightly. But our Mullah is a holy man. He has helped two score of us into Paradise this night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, and we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night. He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine: and there our women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our fighting-tale. How think you?’
A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and the soft wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives followed the chuckle. It was an excellent notion, and met a long felt want of the tribe. The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could not see, and calling down the curses of God and Mahomed on the tribe. Then began a game of blind man’s buff round and between the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal poet, has sung in verse that will not die.
They tickled him gently under the armpit with the knife-point. He leaped aside screaming, only to feel a cold blade drawn lightly over the back of his neck, or a rifle-muzzle rubbing his beard. He called on his adherents to aid him, but most of these lay dead on the plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some pains to arrange their decease. Men described to him the glories of the shrine they would build, and the little children clapping their hands cried, ‘Run, Mullah, run! There’s a man behind you!’ In the end, when the sport wearied, Khoda Dad Khan’s brother sent a knife home between his ribs. ‘Wherefore,’ ‘said Khoda Dad Khan with charming simplicity, ‘I am now Chief of the Khusru Kheyl!’ No man gainsaid him; and they all went to sleep very stiff and sore.
On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lecturing on the beauties of a cavalry charge by night, and Tallantire, bowed on his saddle, was gasping hysterically because there was a sword dangling from his wrist flecked with the blood of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe that Orde had kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot trooper pointed out that the skewbald’s right ear had been taken off at the root by some blind slash of its unskilled rider, Tallantire broke down altogether, and laughed and sobbed till Tommy Dodd made him lie down and rest.
‘We must wait about till the morning,’ said he. ‘I wired to the Colonel just before we left, to send a wing of the Beshaklis after us. He’ll be furious with me for monopolising the fun, though. Those beggars in the hills won’t give us any more trouble.’
‘Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see what has happened to Curbar on the canal. We must patrol the whole line of the Border. You’re quite sure, Tommy, that—that stuff was—was only the skewbald’s ear?’
‘Oh, quite,’ said Tommy. ‘You just missed cutting off his head. I saw you when we went into the mess. Sleep, old man.’
Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis and a knot of furious brother officers demanding the court-martial of Tommy Dodd for ‘spoiling the picnic,’ and a gallop across country to the canal-works where Ferris, Curbar, and Hugonin were haranguing the terror-stricken coolies on the enormity of abandoning good work and high pay, merely because half a dozen of their fellows had been cut down. The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis restored wavering confidence, and the police-hunted section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of watching the canal-bank humming with life as usual, while such of their men as had taken refuge in the water-courses and ravines were being driven out by the troopers. By sundown began the remorseless patrol of the Border by police and trooper, most like the cow-boys’ eternal ride round restless cattle.
‘Now,’ said Khoda Dad Khan to his fellows, pointing out a line of twinkling fires below, ‘ye may see how far the old order changes. After their horse will come the little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will go to Tallantire Sahib—who loves me—and see if I can stave off at least the blockade. Do I speak for the tribe?’
‘Ay, speak for the tribe in God’s name. How those accursed fires wink! Do the English send their troops on the wire—or is this the work of the Bengali?’
As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he was delayed by an interview with a hard-pressed tribesman, which caused him to return hastily for something he had forgotten. Then, handing himself over to the two troopers who had been chasing his friend, he claimed escort to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bullows at Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time for reasons in writing had begun.
‘Thank Heaven!’ said Bullows, ‘that the trouble came at once. Of course we can never put down the reason in black and white, but all India will understand. And it is better to have a sharp short outbreak than five years of impotent administration inside the Border. It costs less. Grish Chunder Dé has reported himself sick, and has been transferred to his own province without any sort of reprimand. He was strong on not having taken over the district.’
‘Of course,’ said Tallantire bitterly. ‘Well, what am I supposed to have done that was wrong?’
‘Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all your powers, and should have reported, and written, and advised for three weeks until the Khusru Kheyl could really come down in force. But I don’t think the authorities will dare to make a fuss about it. They’ve had their lesson. Have you seen Curbar’s version of the affair? He can’t write a report, but he can speak the truth.’
‘What’s the use of the truth? He’d much better tear up the report. I’m sick and heartbroken over it all. It was so utterly unnecessary—except in that it rid us of that Babu.’
Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a stuffed forage-net in his hand, and the troopers behind him.
‘May you never be tired!’ said he cheerily. ‘Well, Sahibs, that was a good fight, and Naim Shah’s mother is in debt to you, Tallantire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell me, through jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collarbone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. There has been a fault—a great fault. Thou knowest that I and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept the oath we sware to Orde Sahib on the banks of the Indus.’
‘As an Afghan keeps his knife—sharp on one side, blunt on the other,’ said Tallantire.
‘The better swing in the blow, then. But I speak God’s truth. Only the Blind Mullah carried the young men on the tip of his tongue, and said that there was no more Border-law because a Bengali had been sent, and we need not fear the English at all. So they came down to avenge that insult and get plunder. Ye know what befell, and how far I helped. Now five score of us are dead or wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, and desire no further war. Moreover, that ye may better listen to us, we have taken off the head of the Blind Mullah, whose evil counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for proof,’—and he heaved on the floor the head. ‘He will give no more trouble, for I am chief now, and so I sit in a higher place at all audiences. Yet there is an offset to this head. That was another fault. One of the man found that black Bengali beast, through whom this trouble arose, wandering on horseback and weeping. Reflecting that he had caused loss of much good life, Alla Dad Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-morrow shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to you to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. See, no man kept the spectacles, though they were of gold.’
Slowly rolled to Tallantire’s feet the crop-haired head of a spectacled Bengali gentleman, open-eyed, open-mouthed—the head of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent down. ‘Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, Khoda Dad Khan, for this is the head of Debendra Nath, the man’s brother. The Babu is safe long since. All but the fools of the Khusru Kheyl know that.’
‘Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat for me. The thing was under our hills asking the road to Jumala, and Alla Dad Khan showed him the road to Jehannum, being, as thou sayest, but a fool. Remains now what the Government will do to us. As to the blockade—’
‘Who art thou, seller of dog’s flesh,’ thundered Tallantire, ‘to speak of terms and treaties? Get hence to the hills—go, and wait there starving, till it shall please the Government to call thy people out for punishment—children and fools that ye be! Count your dead, and be still. Rest assured that the Government will send you a man!’
‘Ay,’ returned Khoda Dad Khan, ‘for we also be men.’
As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, he added, ‘And by Good, Sahib, may thou be that man!’
ON AN evening after Easter Day, I sat at a table in a homeward bound steamer’s smoking-room, where half a dozen of us told ghost stories. As our party broke up a man, playing Patience in the next alcove, said to me: “I didn’t quite catch the end of that last story about the Curse on the family’s first-born.”“It turned out to be drains,” I explained. “As soon as new ones were put into the house the Curse was lifted, I believe. I never knew the people myself.”
“Ah! I’ve had my drains up twice; I’m on gravel too.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve a ghost in your house? Why didn’t you join our party?”
“Any more orders, gentlemen, before the bar closes?” the steward interrupted.
“Sit down again, and have one with me,” said the Patience player. “No, it isn’t a ghost. Our trouble is more depression than anything else.”
“How interesting? Then it’s nothing any one can see?”
“It’s—it’s nothing worse than a little depression. And the odd part is that there hasn’t been a death in the house since it was built—in 1863. The lawyer said so. That decided me—my good lady, rather and he made me pay an extra thousand for it.”
“How curious. Unusual, too!” I said.
“Yes; ain’t it? It was built for three sisters—Moultrie was the name—three old maids. They all lived together; the eldest owned it. I bought it from her lawyer a few years ago, and if I’ve spent a pound on the place first and last, I must have spent five thousand. Electric light, new servants’ wing, garden—all that sort of thing. A man and his family ought to be happy after so much expense, ain’t it?” He looked at me through the bottom of his glass.
“Does it affect your family much?”
“My good lady—she’s a Greek, by the way—and myself are middle-aged. We can bear up against depression; but it’s hard on my little girl. I say little; but she’s twenty. We send her visiting to escape it. She almost lived at hotels and hydros, last year, but that isn’t pleasant for her. She used to be a canary—a perfect canary—always singing. You ought to hear her. She doesn’t sing now. That sort of thing’s unwholesome for the young, ain’t it?”
“Can’t you get rid of the place?” I suggested.
“Not except at a sacrifice, and we are fond of it. Just suits us three. We’d love it if we were allowed.”
“What do you mean by not being allowed?”
“I mean because of the depression. It spoils everything.”
“What’s it like exactly?”
“I couldn’t very well explain. It must be seen to be appreciated, as the auctioneers say. Now, I was much impressed by the story you were telling just now.”
“It wasn’t true,” I said.
“My tale is true. If you would do me the pleasure to come down and spend a night at my little place, you’d learn more than you would if I talked till morning. Very likely ’twouldn’t touch your good self at all. You might be—immune, ain’t it? On the other hand, if this influenza,—influence does happen to affect you, why, I think it will be an experience.”
While he talked he gave me his card, and I read his name was L. Maxwell M’Leod, Esq., of Holmescroft. A City address was tucked away in a corner.
“My business,” he added, “used to be furs. If you are interested in furs—I’ve given thirty years of my life to ’em.”
“You’re very kind,” I murmured.
“Far from it, I assure you. I can meet you next Saturday afternoon anywhere in London you choose to name, and I’ll be only too happy to motor you down. It ought to be a delightful run at this time of year the rhododendrons will be out. I mean it. You don’t know how truly I mean it. Very probably—it won’t affect you at all. And—I think I may say I have the finest collection of narwhal tusks in the world. All the best skins and horns have to go through London, and L. Maxwell M’Leod, he knows where they come from, and where they go to. That’s his business.”
For the rest of the voyage up-channel Mr. M’Leod talked to me of the assembling, preparation, and sale of the rarer furs; and told me things about the manufacture of fur-lined coats which quite shocked me. Somehow or other, when we landed on Wednesday, I found myself pledged to spend that week-end with him at Holmescroft.
On Saturday he met me with a well-groomed motor, and ran me out, in an hour and a half, to an exclusive residential district of dustless roads and elegantly designed country villas, each standing in from three to five acres of perfectly appointed land. He told me land was selling at eight hundred pounds the acre, and the new golf links, whose Queen Anne pavilion we passed, had cost nearly twenty-four thousand pounds to create.
Holmescroft was a large, two-storied, low, creeper-covered residence. A verandah at the south side gave on to a garden and two tennis courts, separated by a tasteful iron fence from a most park-like meadow of five or six acres, where two Jersey cows grazed. Tea was ready in the shade of a promising copper beech, and I could see groups on the lawn of young men and maidens appropriately clothed, playing lawn tennis in the sunshine.
“A pretty scene, ain’t it?” said Mr. M’Leod. “My good lady’s sitting under the tree, and that’s my little girl in pink on the far court. But I’ll take you to your room, and you can see ’em all later.”
He led me through a wide parquet-floored hall furnished in pale lemon, with huge Cloisonnee vases, an ebonized and gold grand piano, and banks of pot flowers in Benares brass bowls, up a pale oak staircase to a spacious landing, where there was a green velvet settee trimmed with silver. The blinds were down, and the light lay in parallel lines on the floors.
He showed me my room, saying cheerfully: “You may be a little tired. One often is without knowing it after a run through traffic. Don’t come down till you feel quite restored. We shall all be in the garden.”
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My room was rather warm, and smelt of perfumed soap. I threw up the window at once, but it opened so close to the floor and worked so clumsily that I came within an ace of pitching out, where I should certainly have ruined a rather lop-sided laburnum below. As I set about washing off the journey’s dust, I began to feel a little tired. But, I reflected, I had not come down here in this weather and among these new surroundings to be depressed; so I began to whistle.
And it was just then that I was aware of a little grey shadow, as it might have been a snowflake seen against the light, floating at an immense distance in the background of my brain. It annoyed me, and I shook my head to get rid of it. Then my brain telegraphed that it was the forerunner of a swift-striding gloom which there was yet time to escape if I would force my thoughts away from it, as a man leaping for life forces his body forward and away from the fall of a wall. But the gloom overtook me before I could take in the meaning of the message. I moved toward the bed, every nerve already aching with the foreknowledge of the pain that was to be dealt it, and sat down, while my amazed and angry soul dropped, gulf by gulf, into that horror of great darkness which is spoken of in the Bible, and which, as auctioneers say, must be experienced to be appreciated.
Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each causing their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an unrecorded length of time, until at last they blurred together, and I heard a click in my brain like the click in the ear when one descends in a diving bell, and I knew that the pressures were equalised within and without, and that, for the moment, the worst was at an end. But I knew also that at any moment the darkness might come down anew; and while, I dwelt on this speculation precisely as a man torments a raging tooth with his tongue, it ebbed away into the little grey shadow on the brain of its first coming, and once more I heard my brain, which knew what would recur, telegraph to every quarter fox help, release or diversion.
The door opened, and M’Leod reappeared. I thanked him politely, saying I was charmed with my room, anxious to meet Mrs. M’Leod, much refreshed with my wash, and so on and so forth. Beyond a little stickiness at the corners of my mouth, it seemed to me that I was managing my words admirably; the while that I myself cowered at the bottom of unclimbable pits. M’Leod laid his hand on my shoulder, and said “You’ve got it now already, ain’t it?”
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s making me sick!”
“It will pass off when you come outside. I give you my word it will then pass off. Come!”
I shambled out behind him, and wiped my forehead in the hall.
“You musn’t mind,” he said. “I expect the run tired you. My good lady is sitting there under the copper beech.”
She was a fat woman in an apricot-coloured gown, with a heavily powdered face, against which her black long-lashed eyes showed like currants in dough. I was introduced to many fine ladies and gentlemen of those parts. Magnificently appointed landaus and covered motors swept in and out of the drive, and the air was gay with the merry outcries of the tennis players.
As twilight drew on they all went away, and I was left alone with Mr. and Mrs. M’Leod, while tall menservants and maidservants took away the tennis and tea things. Miss M’Leod had walked a little down the drive with a light-haired young man, who apparently knew everything about every South American railway stock. He had told me at tea that these were the days of financial specialisation.
“I think it went off beautifully, my dear,” said Mr. M’Leod to his wife; and to me: “You feel all right now, ain’t it? Of course you do.”
Mrs. M’Leod surged across the gravel. Her husband skipped nimbly before her into the south verandah, turned a switch, and all Holmescroft was flooded with light.
“You can do that from your room also,” he said as they went in. “There is something in money, ain’t it?”
Miss M’Leod came up behind me in the dusk. “We have not yet been introduced,” she said, “but I suppose you are staying the night?”
“Your father was kind enough to ask me,” I replied.
She nodded. “Yes, I know; and you know too, don’t you? I saw your face when you came to shake hands with mamma. You felt the depression very soon. It is simply frightful in that bedroom sometimes. What do you think it is—bewitchment? In Greece, where I was a little girl, it might have been; but not in England, do you think? Or do you?”
“Cheer up, Thea. It will all come right,” he insisted.
“No, papa.” She shook her dark head. “Nothing is right while it comes.”
“It is nothing that we ourselves have ever done in our lives that I will swear to you,” said Mrs. M’Leod suddenly. “And we have changed our servants several times. So we know it is not them.”
“Never mind. Let us enjoy ourselves while we can,” said Mr. M’Leod, opening the champagne.
But we did not enjoy ourselves. The talk failed. There were long silences.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, for I thought some one at my elbow was about to speak.
“Ah! That is the other thing!” said Miss M’Leod. Her mother groaned.
We were silent again, and, in a few seconds it must have been, a live grief beyond words—not ghostly dread or horror, but aching, helpless grief—overwhelmed us, each, I felt, according to his or her nature, and held steady like the beam of a burning glass. Behind that pain I was conscious there was a desire on somebody’s part to explain something on which some tremendously important issue hung.
Meantime I rolled bread pills and remembered my sins; M’Leod considered his own reflection in a spoon; his wife seemed to be praying, and the girl fidgetted desperately with hands and feet, till the darkness passed on—as though the malignant rays of a burning-glass had been shifted from us.”
“There,” said Miss M’Leod, half rising. “Now you see what makes a happy home. Oh, sell it—sell it, father mine, and let us go away!”
“But I’ve spent thousands on it. You shall go to Harrogate next week, Thea dear.”
“I’m only just back from hotels. I am so tired of packing.”
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“Cheer up, Thea. It is over. You know it does not often come here twice in the same night. I think we shall dare now to be comfortable.”
He lifted a dish-cover, and helped his wife and daughter. His face was lined and fallen like an old man’s after debauch, but his hand did not shake, and his voice was clear. As he worked to restore us by speech and action, he reminded me of a grey-muzzled collie herding demoralised sheep.
After dinner we sat round the dining-room fire the drawing-room might have been under the Shadow for aught we knew talking with the intimacy of gipsies by the wayside, or of wounded comparing notes after a skirmish. By eleven o’clock the three between them had given me every name and detail they could recall that in any way bore on the house, and what they knew of its history.
We went to bed in a fortifying blaze of electric light. My one fear was that the blasting gust of depression would return—the surest way, of course, to bring it. I lay awake till dawn, breathing quickly and sweating lightly, beneath what De Quincey inadequately describes as “the oppression of inexpiable guilt.” Now as soon as the lovely day was broken, I fell into the most terrible of all dreams—that joyous one in which all past evil has not only been wiped out of our lives, but has never been committed; and in the very bliss of our assured innocence, before our loves shriek and change countenance, we wake to the day we have earned.
It was a coolish morning, but we preferred to breakfast in the south verandah. The forenoon we spent in the garden, pretending to play games that come out of boxes, such as croquet and clock golf. But most of the time we drew together and talked. The young man who knew all about South American railways took Miss M’Leod for a walk in the afternoon, and at five M’Leod thoughtfully whirled us all up to dine in town.
“Now, don’t say you will tell the Psychological Society, and that you will come again,” said Miss M’Leod, as we parted. “Because I know you will not.”
“You should not say that,” said her mother. “You should say, ‘Goodbye, Mr. Perseus. Come again.’”
“Not him!” the girl cried. “He has seen the Medusa’s head!”
Looking at myself in the restaurant’s mirrors, it seemed to me that I had not much benefited by my week-end. Next morning I wrote out all my Holmescroft notes at fullest length, in the hope that by so doing I could put it all behind me. But the experience worked on my mind, as they say certain imperfectly understood rays work on the body.
I am less calculated to make a Sherlock Holmes than any man I know, for I lack both method and patience, yet the idea of following up the trouble to its source fascinated me. I had no theory to go on, except a vague idea that I had come between two poles of a discharge, and had taken a shock meant for some one else. This was followed by a feeling of intense irritation. I waited cautiously on myself, expecting to be overtaken by horror of the supernatural, but my self persisted in being humanly indignant, exactly as though it had been the victim of a practical joke. It was in great pains and upheavals—that I felt in every fibre but its dominant idea, to put it coarsely, was to get back a bit of its own. By this I knew that I might go forward if I could find the way.
After a few days it occurred to me to go to the office of Mr. J.M.M. Baxter—the solicitor who had sold Holmescroft to M’Leod. I explained I had some notion of buying the place. Would he act for me in the matter?
Mr. Baxter, a large, greyish, throaty-voiced man, showed no enthusiasm. “I sold it to Mr. M’Leod,” he said. “It ’ud scarcely do for me to start on the running-down tack now. But I can recommend—”
“I know he’s asking an awful price,” I interrupted, “and atop of it he wants an extra thousand for what he calls your clean bill of health.”
Mr. Baxter sat up in his chair. I had all his attention.
“Your guarantee with the house. Don’t you remember it?”
“Yes, yes. That no death had taken place in the house since it was built: I remember perfectly.”
He did not gulp as untrained men do when they lie, but his jaws moved stickily, and his eyes, turning towards the deed boxes on the wall, dulled. I counted seconds, one, two, three—one, two, three up to ten. A man, I knew, can live through ages of mental depression in that time.
“I remember perfectly.” His mouth opened a little as though it had tasted old bitterness.
“Of course that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me.” I went on. “I don’t expect to buy a house free from death.”
“Certainly not. No one does. But it was Mr. M’Leod’s fancy—his wife’s rather, I believe; and since we could meet it—it was my duty to my clients at whatever cost to my own feelings—to make him pay.”
“That’s really why I came to you. I understood from him you knew the place well.”
“Oh, yes. Always did. It originally belonged to some connections of mine.”
“The Misses Moultrie, I suppose. How interesting! They must have loved the place before the country round about was built up.”
“They were very fond of it indeed.”
“I don’t wonder. So restful and sunny. I don’t see how they could have brought themselves to part with it.”
Now it is one of the most constant peculiarities of the English that in polite conversation—and I had striven to be polite—no one ever does or sells anything for mere money’s sake.
“Miss Agnes—the youngest—fell ill” (he spaced his words a little), “and, as they were very much attached to each other, that broke up the home.”
“Naturally. I fancied it must have been something of that kind. One doesn’t associate the Staffordshire Moultries” (my Demon of Irresponsibility at that instant created ’em), “with—with being hard up.”
“I don’t know whether we’re related to them,” he answered importantly. “We may be, for our branch of the family comes from the Midlands.”
page 4
I give this talk at length, because I am so proud of my first attempt at detective work. When I left him, twenty minutes later, with instructions to move against the owner of Holmescroft, with a view to purchase, I was more bewildered than any Doctor Watson at the opening of a story.
Why should a middle-aged solicitor turn plovers’ egg colour and drop his jaw when reminded of so innocent and festal a matter as that no death had ever occurred in a house that he had sold? If I knew my English vocabulary at all, the tone in which he said the youngest sister “fell ill” meant that she had gone out of her mind. That might explain his change of countenance, and it was just possible that her demented influence still hung about Holmescroft; but the rest was beyond me.
I was relieved when I reached M’Leod’s City office, and could tell him what I had done—not what I thought.
M’Leod was quite willing to enter into the game of the pretended purchase, but did not see how it would help if I knew Baxter.
“He’s the only living soul I can get at who was connected with Holmescroft,” I said.
“Ah! Living soul is good,” said M’Leod. “At any rate our little girl will be pleased that you are still interested in us. Won’t you come down some day this week?”
“How is it there now?” I asked.
He screwed up his face. “Simply frightful!” he said. “Thea is at Droitwich.”
“I should like it immensely, but I must cultivate Baxter for the present. You’ll be sure and keep him busy your end, won’t you?”
He looked at me with quiet contempt. “Do not be afraid. I shall be a good Jew. I shall be my own solicitor.”
Before a fortnight was over, Baxter admitted ruefully that M’Leod was better than most firms in the business: We buyers were coy, argumentative, shocked at the price of Holmescroft, inquisitive, and cold by turns, but Mr. M’Leod the seller easily met and surpassed us; and Mr. Baxter entered every letter, telegram, and consultation at the proper rates in a cinematograph-film of a bill. At the end of a month he said it looked as though M’Leod, thanks to him, were really going to listen to reason. I was many pounds out of pocket, but I had learned something of Mr. Baxter on the human side. I deserved it. Never in my life have I worked to conciliate, amuse, and flatter a human being as I worked over my solicitor.
It appeared that he golfed. Therefore, I was an enthusiastic beginner, anxious to learn. Twice I invaded his office with a bag (M’Leod lent it) full of the spelicans needed in this detestable game, and a vocabulary to match. The third time the ice broke, and Mr. Baxter took me to his links, quite ten miles off, where in a maze of tramway lines, railroads, and nursery-maids, we skelped our divotted way round nine holes like barges plunging through head seas. He played vilely and had never expected to meet any one worse; but as he realised my form, I think he began to like me, for he took me in hand by the two hours together. After a fortnight he could give me no more than a stroke a hole, and when, with this allowance, I once managed to beat him by one, he was honestly glad, and assured me that I should be a golfer if I stuck to it. I was sticking to it for my own ends, but now and again my conscience pricked me; for the man was a nice man. Between games he supplied me with odd pieces of evidence, such as that he had known the Moultries all his life, being their cousin, and that Miss Mary, the eldest, was an unforgiving woman who would never let bygones be. I naturally wondered what she might have against him; and somehow connected him unfavourably with mad Agnes.
“People ought to forgive and forget,” he volunteered one day between rounds. “Specially where, in the nature of things, they can’t be sure of their deductions. Don’t you think so?”
“It all depends on the nature of the evidence on which one forms one’s judgment,” I answered.
“Nonsense!” he cried. “I’m lawyer enough to know that there’s nothing in the world so misleading as circumstantial evidence. Never was.”
“Why? Have you ever seen men hanged on it?”
“Hanged? People have been supposed to be eternally lost on it,” his face turned grey again. “I don’t know how it is with you, but my consolation is that God must know. He must! Things that seem on the face of ’em like murder, or say suicide, may appear different to God. Heh?”
“That’s what the murderer and the suicide can always hope—I suppose.”
“I have expressed myself clumsily as usual. The facts as God knows ’em—may be different—even after the most clinching evidence. I’ve always said that—both as a lawyer and a man, but some people won’t—I don’t want to judge ’em—we’ll say they can’t—believe it; whereas I say there’s always a working chance—a certainty—that the worst hasn’t happened.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Now, let’s come on! This time next week I shall be taking my holiday.”
“What links?” I asked carelessly, while twins in a perambulator got out of our line of fire.
“A potty little nine-hole affair at a hydro in the Midlands. My cousins stay there. Always will. Not but what the fourth and the seventh holes take some doing. You could manage it, though,” he said encouragingly. “You’re doing much better. It’s only your approach shots that are weak.”
“You’re right. I can’t approach for nuts! I shall go to pieces while you’re away—with no one to coach me,” I said mournfully.
“I haven’t taught you anything,” he said, delighted with the compliment.
“I owe all I’ve learned to you, anyhow. When will you come back?”
“Look here,” he began. “I don’t know, your engagements, but I’ve no one to play with at Burry Mills. Never have. Why couldn’t you take a few days off and join me there? I warn you it will be rather dull. It’s a throat and gout place-baths, massage, electricity, and so forth. But the fourth and the seventh holes really take some doing.”
“I’m for the game,” I answered valiantly; Heaven well knowing that I hated every stroke and word of it.
“That’s the proper spirit. As their lawyer I must ask you not to say anything to my cousins about Holmescroft. It upsets ’em. Always did. But speaking as man to man, it would be very pleasant for me if you could see your way to—”
I saw it as soon as decency permitted, and thanked him sincerely. According to my now well-developed theory he had certainly misappropriated his aged cousins’ monies under power of attorney, and had probably driven poor Agnes Moultrie out of her wits, but I wished that he was not so gentle, and good-tempered, and innocent eyed.
page 5
Before I joined him at Burry Mills Hydro, I spent a night at Holmescroft. Miss M’Leod had returned from her Hydro, and first we made very merry on the open lawn in the sunshine over the manners and customs of the English resorting to such places. She knew dozens of hydros, and warned me how to behave in them, while Mr. and Mrs. M’Leod stood aside and adored her.
“Ah! That’s the way she always comes back to us,” he said. “Pity it wears off so soon, ain’t it? You ought to hear her sing ‘With mirth thou pretty bird.’”
We had the house to face through the evening, and there we neither laughed nor sung. The gloom fell on us as we entered, and did not shift till ten o’clock, when we crawled out, as it were, from beneath it.
“It has been bad this summer,” said Mrs. M’Leod in a whisper after we realised that we were freed. “Sometimes I think the house will get up and cry out—it is so bad.”
“How?”
“Have you forgotten what comes after the depression ?”
So then we waited about the small fire, and the dead air in the room presently filled and pressed down upon us with the sensation (but words are useless here) as though some dumb and bound power were striving against gag and bond to deliver its soul of an articulate word. It passed in a few minutes, and I fell to thinking about Mr. Baxter’s conscience and Agnes Moultrie, gone mad in the well-lit bedroom that waited me. These reflections secured me a night during which I rediscovered how, from purely mental causes, a man can be physically sick; but the sickness was bliss compared to my dreams when the birds waked. On my departure, M’Leod gave me a beautiful narwhal’s horn, much as a nurse gives a child sweets for being brave at a dentist’s.
“There’s no duplicate of it in the world,” he said, “else it would have come to old Max M’Leod;” and he tucked it into the motor. Miss M’Leod on the far side of the car whispered, “Have you found out anything, Mr. Perseus?”
I shook my head.
“Then I shall be chained to my rock all my life,” she went on. “Only don’t tell papa.”
I supposed she was thinking of the young gentleman who specialised in South American rails, for I noticed a ring on the third finger of her left hand.
I went straight from that house to Burry Mills Hydro, keen for the first time in my life on playing golf, which is guaranteed to occupy the mind. Baxter had taken me a room communicating with his own, and after lunch introduced me to a tall, horse-headed elderly lady of decided manners, whom a white-haired maid pushed along in a bath-chair through the park-like grounds of the Hydro. She was Miss Mary Moultrie, and she coughed and cleared her throat just like Baxter. She suffered—she told me it was a Moultrie castemark—from some obscure form of chronic bronchitis, complicated with spasm of the glottis; and, in a dead, flat voice, with a sunken eye that looked and saw not, told me what washes, gargles, pastilles, and inhalations she had proved most beneficial. From her I was passed on to her younger sister, Miss Elizabeth, a small and withered thing with twitching lips, victim, she told me, to very much the same sort of throat, but secretly devoted to another set of medicines. When she went away with Baxter and the bath-chair, I fell across a major of the Indian army with gout in his glassy eyes, and a stomach which he had taken all round the Continent. He laid everything before me; and him I escaped only to be confided in by a matron with a tendency to follicular tonsilitis and eczema. Baxter waited hand and foot on his cousins till five o’clock, trying, as I saw, to atone for his treatment of the dead sister. Miss Mary ordered him about like a dog.
“I warned you it would be dull,” he said when we met in the smoking-room.
“It’s tremendously interesting,” I said. “But how about a look round the links?”
“Unluckily damp always affects my eldest cousin. I’ve got to buy her a new bronchitis-kettle. Arthurs broke her old one yesterday.”
We slipped out to the chemist’s shop in the town, and he bought a large glittering tin thing whose workings he explained.
“I’m used to this sort of work. I come up here pretty often,” he said. “I’ve the family throat too.”
“You’re a good man,” I said. “A very good man.”
He turned towards me in the evening light among the beeches, and his face was changed to what it might have been a generation before.
“You see,” he said huskily, “there was the youngest—Agnes. Before she fell ill, you know. But she didn’t like leaving her sisters. Never would.” He hurried on with his odd-shaped load and left me among the ruins of my black theories. The man with that face had done Agnes Moultrie no wrong.
We never played our game. I was waked between two and three in the morning from my hygienic bed by Baxter in an ulster over orange and white pyjamas, which I should never have suspected from his character.
“My cousin has had some sort of a seizure,” he said. “Will you come? I don’t want to wake the doctor. Don’t want to make a scandal. Quick!”
So I came quickly, and led by the white-haired Arthurs in a jacket and petticoat, entered a double-bedded room reeking with steam and Friar’s Balsam. The electrics were all on. Miss Mary—I knew her by her height—was at the open window, wrestling with Miss Elizabeth, who gripped her round the knees.
Miss Mary’s hand was at her own throat, which was streaked with blood.
“She’s done it. She’s done it too!” Miss Elizabeth panted. “Hold her! Help me!”
“Oh, I say! Women don’t cut their throats,” Baxter whispered.
“My God! Has she cut her throat?” the maid cried out, and with no warning rolled over in a faint. Baxter pushed her under the wash-basins, and leaped to hold the gaunt woman who crowed and whistled as she struggled toward the window. He took her by the shoulder, and she struck out wildly:
“All right! She’s only cut her hand,” he said. “Wet towel quick!”
page 6
While I got that he pushed her backward. Her strength seemed almost as great as his. I swabbed at her throat when I could, and found no mark; then helped him to control her a little. Miss Elizabeth leaped back to bed, wailing like a child.
“Tie up her hand somehow,” said Baxter. “Don’t let it drip about the place. She”—he stepped on broken glass in his slippers, “she must have smashed a pane.”
Miss Mary lurched towards the open window again, dropped on her knees, her head on the sill, and lay quiet, surrendering the cut hand to me.
“What did she do?” Baxter turned towards Miss Elizabeth in the far bed.
“She was going to throw herself out of the window,” was the answer. “I stopped her, and sent Arthurs for you. Oh, we can never hold up our heads again!”
Miss Mary writhed and fought for breath. Baxter found a shawl which he threw over her shoulders.
“Nonsense!” said he. “That isn’t like Mary;” but his face worked when he said it.
“You wouldn’t believe about Aggie, John. Perhaps you will now!” said Miss Elizabeth. “I saw her do it, and she’s cut her throat too!”
“She hasn’t,” I said. “It’s only her hand.”
Miss Mary suddenly broke from us with an indescribable grunt, flew, rather than ran, to her sister’s bed, and there shook her as one furious schoolgirl would shake another.
“No such thing,” she croaked. “How dare you think so, you wicked little fool?”
“Get into bed, Mary,” said Baxter. “You’ll catch a chill.”
She obeyed, but sat up with the grey shawl round her lean shoulders, glaring at her sister. “I’m better now,” she panted. “ Arthurs let me sit out too long. Where’s Arthurs? The kettle.”
“Never mind Arthurs,” said Baxter. “You get the kettle.” I hastened to bring it from the side table. “Now, Mary, as God sees you, tell me what you’ve done.”
His lips were dry, and he could not moisten. them with his tongue.
Miss Mary applied herself to the mouth of the kettle, and between indraws of steam said: “The spasm came on just now, while I was asleep. I was nearly choking to death. So I went to the window I’ve done it often before, without, waking any one. Bessie’s such an old maid about draughts. I tell you I was choking to death. I couldn’t manage the catch, and I nearly fell out. That window opens too low. I cut my hand trying to save myself. Who has tied it up in this filthy handkerchief? I wish you had had my throat, Bessie. I never was nearer dying!” She scowled on us all impartially, while her sister sobbed.
From the bottom of the bed we heard a quivering voice: “Is she dead? Have they took her away? Oh, I never could bear the sight o’ blood!”
“Arthurs,” said Miss Mary, “you are an hireling. Go away!”
It is my belief that Arthurs crawled out on all fours, but I was busy picking up broken glass from the carpet.
Then Baxter, seated by the side of the bed, began to cross-examine in a voice I scarcely recognised. No one could for an instant have doubted the genuine rage of Miss Mary against her sister, her cousin, or her maid; and that a doctor should have been called in for she did me the honour of calling me doctor—was the last drop. She was choking with her throat; had rushed to the window for air; had near pitched out, and in catching at the window bars had cut her hand. Over and over she made this clear to the intent Baxter. Then she turned on her sister and tongue-lashed her savagely.
“You mustn’t blame me,” Miss Bessie faltered at last. “You know what we think of night and day.”.
“I’m coming to that,” said Baxter. “Listen to me. What you did, Mary, misled four people into thinking you—you meant to do away with yourself.”
“Isn’t one suicide in the family enough? Oh God, help and pity us! You couldn’t have believed that!” she cried.
“The evidence was complete. Now, don’t you think,” Baxter’s finger wagged under her nose—“can’t you think that poor Aggie did the same thing at Holmescroft when she fell out of the window?”
“She had the same throat,” said Miss Elizabeth. “Exactly the same symptoms. Don’t you remember, Mary?”
“Which was her bedroom?” I asked of Baxter in an undertone.
“Over the south verandah, looking on to the tennis lawn.”
“I nearly fell out of that very window when I was at Holmescroft—opening it to get some air. The sill doesn’t come much above your knees,” I said.
“You hear that, Mary? Mary, do you hear What this gentleman says? Won’t you believe that what nearly happened to you must have happened to poor Aggie that night? For God’s sake—for her sake—Mary, won’t you believe?”
There was a long silence while the steam kettle puffed.
“If I could have proof—if I could have proof,” said she, and broke into most horrible tears.
Baxter motioned to me, and I crept away to my room, and lay awake till morning, thinking more specially of the dumb Thing at Holmescroft which wished to explain itself. I hated Miss Mary as perfectly as though I had known her for twenty years, but I felt that, alive or dead, I should not like her to condemn me.
Yet at mid-day, when I saw Miss Mary in her bathchair, Arthurs behind and Baxter and Miss Elizabeth on either side, in the park-like grounds of the Hydro, I found it difficult to arrange my words.
“Now that you know all about it,” said Baxter aside, after the first strangeness of our meeting was over, “it’s only fair to tell you that my poor cousin did not die in Holmescroft at all. She was dead when they found her under the window in the morning. Just dead.”
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“Under that laburnum outside the window?” I asked, for I suddenly remembered the crooked evil thing.
“Exactly. She broke the tree in falling. But no death has ever taken place in the house, so far as we were concerned. You can make yourself quite easy on that point. Mr. M’Leod’s extra thousand for what you called the ‘clean bill of health’ was something toward my cousins’ estate when we sold. It was my duty as their lawyer to get it for them—at any cost to my own feelings.”
I know better than to argue when the English talk about their duty. So I agreed with my solicitor.
“Their sister’s death must have been a great blow to your cousins,” I went on. The bath-chair was behind me.
“Unspeakable,” Baxter whispered. “They brooded on it day and night. No wonder. If their theory of poor Aggie making away with herself was correct, she was eternally lost!”
“Do you believe that she made away with herself?”
“No, thank God! Never have! And after what happened to Mary last night, I see perfectly what happened to poor Aggie. She had the family throat too. By the way, Mary thinks you are a doctor. Otherwise she wouldn’t like your having been in her room.”
“Very good. Is she convinced now about her sister’s death?”
“She’d give anything to be able to believe it, but she’s a hard woman, and brooding along certain lines makes one groovy. I have sometimes been afraid of her reason—on the religious side, don’t you know. Elizabeth doesn’t matter. Brain of a hen. Always had.”
Here Arthurs summoned me to the bath-chair, and the ravaged face, beneath its knitted Shetland wool hood, of Miss Mary Moultrie.
“I need not remind you, I hope, of the seal of secrecy—absolute secrecy—in your profession,” she began. “Thanks to my cousin’s and my sister’s stupidity, you have found out “ she blew her nose.
“Please don’t excite her, sir,” said Arthurs at the back.
“But, my dear Miss Moultrie, I only know what I’ve seen, of course, but it seems to me that what you thought was a tragedy in your sister’s case, turns out, on your own evidence, so to speak, to have been an accident—a dreadfully sad one—but absolutely an accident.”
“Do you believe that too?” she cried. “Or are you only saying it to comfort me?”
“I believe it from the bottom of my heart. Come down to Holmescroft for an hour—for half an hour and satisfy yourself.”
“Of what? You don’t understand. I see the house every day-every night. I am always there in spirit—waking or sleeping. I couldn’t face it in reality.”
“But you must,” I said. “If you go there in the spirit the greater need for you to go there in the flesh. Go to your sister’s room once more, and see the window—I nearly fell out of it myself. It’s—it’s awfully low and dangerous. That would convince you,” I pleaded.
“Yet Aggie had slept in that room for years,” she interrupted.
“You’ve slept in your room here for a long time, haven’t you? But you nearly fell out of the window when you were choking.”
“That is true. That is one thing true,” she nodded. “And I might have been killed as—perhaps Aggie was killed.”
“In that case your own sister and cousin and maid would have said you had committed suicide, Miss Moultrie. Come down to Holmescroft, and go over the place just once.”
“You are lying,” she said quite quietly. “You don’t want me to come down to see a window. It is something else. I warn you we are Evangelicals. We don’t believe in prayers for the dead. ‘As the tree falls—’”
“Yes. I daresay. But you persist in thinking that your sister committed suicide “
“No! No! I have always prayed that I might have misjudged her.”
Arthurs at the bath-chair spoke up: “Oh, Miss Mary! you would ’ave it from the first that poor Miss Aggie ’ad made away with herself; an’, of course, Miss Bessie took the notion from you: Only Master—Mister John stood out,—and—and I’d ’ave taken my Bible oath you was making away with yourself last night.”
Miss Mary leaned towards me, one finger on my sleeve.
“If going to Holmescroft kills me,” she said, “you will have the murder of a fellow-creature on your conscience for all eternity.”
“I’ll risk it,” I answered. Remembering what torment the mere reflection of her torments had cast on Holmescroft, and remembering, above all, the dumb Thing that filled the house with its desire to speak, I felt that there might be worse things.
Baxter was amazed at the proposed visit, but at a nod from that terrible woman went off to make arrangements. Then I sent a telegram to M’Leod bidding him and his vacate Holmescroft for that afternoon. Miss Mary should be alone with her dead, as I had been alone.
I expected untold trouble in transporting her, but to do her justice, the promise given for the journey, she underwent it without murmur, spasm, or unnecessary word. Miss Bessie, pressed in a corner by the window, wept behind her veil, and from time to time tried to take hold of her sister’s hand. Baxter wrapped himself in his newly found happiness as selfishly as a bridegroom, for he sat still and smiled.
“So long as I know that Aggie didn’t make away with herself,” he explained, “I tell you frankly I don’t care what happened. She’s as hard as a rock—Mary. Always was. She won’t die.”
We led her out on to the platform like a blind woman, and so got her into the fly. The half-hour crawl to Holmescroft was the most racking experience of the day. M’Leod had obeyed my instructions. There was no one visible in the house or the gardens; and the front door stood open.
Miss Mary rose from beside her sister, stepped forth first, and entered the hall.
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“Come, Bessie,” she cried.
“I daren’t. Oh, I daren’t.”
“Come!” Her voice had altered. I felt Baxter start. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Good heavens!” said Baxter. “She’s running up the stairs. We’d better follow.”
“Let’s wait below. She’s going to the room.”
We heard the door of the bedroom I knew open and shut, and we waited in the lemon-coloured hall, heavy with the scent of flowers.
“I’ve never been into it since it was sold,” Baxter sighed. “What a lovely, restful plate it is! Poor Aggie used to arrange the flowers.”
“Restful?” I began, but stopped of a sudden, for I felt all over my bruised soul that Baxter was speaking truth. It was a light, spacious, airy house, full of the sense of well-being and peace—above all things, of peace. I ventured into the dining-room where the thoughtful M’Leod’s had left a small fire. There was no terror there, present or lurking; and in the drawing-room, which for good reasons we had never cared to enter, the sun and the peace and the scent of the flowers worked together as is fit in an inhabited house. When I returned to the hall, Baxter was sweetly asleep on a couch, looking most unlike a middle-aged solicitor who had spent a broken night with an exacting cousin.
There was ample time for me to review it all—to felicitate myself upon my magnificent acumen (barring some errors about Baxter as a thief and possibly a murderer), before the door above opened, and Baxter, evidently a light sleeper, sprang awake.
“I’ve had a heavenly little nap,” he said, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands like a child. “Good Lord! That’s not their step!”
But it was. I had never before been privileged to see the Shadow turned backward on the dial—the years ripped bodily off poor human shoulders—old sunken eyes filled and alight—harsh lips moistened and human.
“John,” Miss Mary called, “I know now. Aggie didn’t do it!” and “She didn’t do it!” echoed Miss Bessie.
“I did not think it wrong to say a prayer,” Miss Mary continued. “Not for her soul, but for our peace. Then I was convinced.”
“Then we got conviction,” the younger sister piped.
“We’ve misjudged poor Aggie, John. But I feel she knows now. Wherever she is, she knows that we know she is guiltless.”
“Yes, she knows. I felt it too,” said Miss Elizabeth.,
“I never doubted,” said John Baxter, whose face was beautiful at that hour. “Not from the first. Never have!”
“You never offered me proof, John. Now, thank God, it will not be the same any more. I can think henceforward of Aggie without sorrow.” She tripped, absolutely tripped, across the hall. “What ideas these Jews have of arranging furniture!” She spied me behind a big Cloisonnee vase. “I’ve seen the window,” she said remotely. “You took a great risk in advising me to undertake such a journey. However, as it turns out … I forgive you, and I pray you may never know what mental anguish means! Bessie! Look at this peculiar piano! Do you suppose, Doctor, these people would offer one tea? I miss mine.”
“I will go and see,” I said, and explored M’Leod’s new-built servants’ wing. It was in the servants’ hall that I unearthed the M’Leod family, bursting with anxiety.
“Tea for three, quick,” I said. “If you ask me any questions now, I shall have a fit!” So Mrs. M’Leod got it, and I was butler, amid murmured apologies from Baxter, still smiling and self-absorbed, and the cold disapproval of Miss Mary, who thought the pattern of the china vulgar. However, she ate well, and even asked me whether I would not like a cup of tea for myself.
They went away in the twilight—the twilight that I had once feared. They were going to an hotel in London to rest after the fatigues of the day, and as their fly turned down the drive, I capered on the door step, with the all-darkened house behind me.
Then I heard the uncertain feet of the M’Leods and bade them not to turn on the lights, but to feel—to feel what I had done; for the Shadow was gone, with the dumb desire in the air. They drew short, but afterwards deeper, breaths, like bathers entering chill water, separated one from the other, moved about the hall, tiptoed upstairs, raced down, and then Miss M’Leod, and I believe her mother, though she denies this, embraced me. I know M’Leod did.
It was a disgraceful evening. To say we rioted through the house is to put it mildly. We played a sort of Blind Man’s Buff along the darkest passages, in the unlighted drawing-room, and little dining-room, calling cheerily to each other after each exploration that here, and here, and here, the trouble had removed itself. We came up to the bedroom—mine for the night again—and sat, the women on the bed, and we men on chairs, drinking in blessed draughts of peace and comfort and cleanliness of soul, while I told them my tale in full, and received fresh praise, thanks, and blessings.
When the servants, returned from their day’s outing, gave us a supper of cold fried fish, M’Leod had sense enough to open no wine. We had been practically drunk since nightfall, and grew incoherent on water and milk.
“I like that Baxter,” said M’Leod. “He’s a sharp man. The death wasn’t in the house, but he ran it pretty close, ain’t it?”
“And the joke of it is that he supposes I want to buy the place from you,” I said. “Are you selling?”
“Not for twice what I paid for it—now,” said M’Leod. “I’ll keep you in furs all your life, but not our Holmescroft.”
“No—never our Holmescroft,” said Miss M’Leod. “We’ll ask him here on Tuesday, mamma.” They squeezed each other’s hands.
“Now tell me,” said Mrs. M’Leod—“that tall one, I saw out of the scullery window—did she tell you she was always here in the spirit? I hate her. She made all this trouble. It was not her house after she had sold it. What do you think?”
“I suppose,” I answered, “she brooded over what she believed was her sister’s suicide night and day—she confessed she did—and her thoughts being concentrated on this place, they felt like a—like a burning glass.”
“Burning glass is good,” said M’Leod.
“I said it was like a light of blackness turned on us,” cried the girl, twiddling her ring. “That must have been when the tall one thought worst about her sister and the house.”
“Ah, the poor Aggie!” said Mrs. M’Leod. “The poor Aggie, trying to tell every one it was not so! No wonder we felt Something wished to say Something. Thea, Max, do you remember that night “
“We need not remember any more,” M’Leod interrupted. “It is not our trouble. They have told each other now.”
“Do you think, then,” said Miss M’Leod, “that those two, the living ones, were actually told something—upstairs—in your in the room?”
“I can’t say. At any rate they were made happy, and they ate a big tea afterwards. As your father says, it is not our trouble any longer—thank God!”
“Amen!” said M’Leod. “Now, Thea, let us have some music after all these months. ‘With mirth, thou pretty bird,’ ain’t it? You ought to hear that.”
And in the half-lighted hall, Thea sang an old English song that I had never heard before.
With mirth, thou pretty bird,
rejoice Thy Maker’s praise enhanced;
Lift up thy shrill and pleasant voice,
Thy God is high advanced!
Thy food before He did provide,
And gives it in a fitting side,
Wherewith be thou sufficed!
Why shouldst thou now unpleasant be,
Thy wrath against God venting,
That He a little bird made thee,
Thy silly head tormenting,
Because He made thee not a man?
Oh, Peace! He hath well thought thereon,
Therewith be thou sufficed!
The Rt. Hon. R. B. Haldane, Secretary of State for War, was questioned in the House of Commons on April 8th about the rocking-horses which the War Office is using for the purpose of teaching recruits to ride. Lord Ronaldshay asked the War Secretary if rocking-horses were to be supplied to all the cavalry regiments for teaching recruits to ride. ‘The noble Lord,’ replied Mr. Haldane, ‘is doubtless alluding to certain dummy horses on rockers which have been tested with very satisfactory results.’ . . . The mechanical steed is a wooden horse with an astonishing tail. It is painted brown and mounted on swinging rails. The recruit leaps into the saddle and pulls at the reins while the riding-instructor rocks the animal to and fro with his foot. The rocking-horses are being made at Woolwich. They are quite cheap. (Daily Paper)
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MY instructions to Mr. Leggatt, my engineer, had been accurately obeyed. He was to bring my car on completion of annual overhaul, from Coventry via London, to Southampton Docks to await my arrival; and very pretty she looked, under the steamer’s side among the railway lines, at six in the morning. Next to her new paint and varnish I was most impressed by her four brand-new tyres.
‘But I didn’t order new tyres,’ I said as we moved away. ‘These are Irresilients, too.’
‘Treble-ribbed,’ said Leggatt. ‘Diamond-stud sheathing.’
‘Then there has been a mistake.’
‘Oh no, sir; they’re gratis.’
The number of motor manufacturers who give away complete sets of treble-ribbed Irresilient tyres is so limited that I believe I asked Leggatt for an explanation.
‘I don’t know that I could very well explain, sir,’ was the answer. ‘It ’ud come better from Mr. Pyecroft. He’s on leaf at Portsmouth—staying with his uncle. His uncle ’ad the body all night. I’d defy you to find a scratch on her even with a microscope.’
‘Then we will go home by the Portsmouth road,’ I said.
And we went at those speeds which are allowed before the working-day begins or the police are thawed out. We were blocked near Portsmouth by a battalion of Regulars on the move.
‘Whitsuntide manœuvres just ending,’ said Leggatt. ‘They’ve had a fortnight in the Downs.’
He said no more until we were in a narrow street somewhere behind Portsmouth Town Railway Station, where he slowed at a green-grocery shop. The door was open, and a small old man sat on three potato-baskets swinging his feet over a stooping blue back.
‘You call that shinin’ ’em?’ he piped. ‘Can you see your face in ’em yet? No! Then shine ’em, or I’ll give you a beltin’ you’ll remember!’
‘If you stop kickin’ me in the mouth perhaps I’d do better,’ said Pyecroft’s voice meekly.
We blew the horn.
Pyecroft arose, put away the brushes, and received us not otherwise than as a king in his own country.
‘Are you going to leave me up here all day?’ said the old man.
Pyecroft lifted him down and he hobbled into the back room.
‘It’s his corns,’ Pyecroft explained. ‘You can’t shine corny feet—and he hasn’t had his breakfast.’
‘I haven’t had mine either,’ I said.
‘Breakfast for two more, uncle,’ Pyecroft sang out.
‘Go out an’ buy it then;’ was the answer, ‘or else it’s half-rations.’
Pyecroft turned to Leggatt, gave him his marketing orders, and despatched him with the coppers.
‘I have got four new tyres on my car,’ I began impressively.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Pyecroft. ‘You have, and I will say’—he patted my car’s bonnet—‘you earned ’em.’
‘I want to know why——,’ I went on.
‘Quite justifiable. You haven’t noticed anything in the papers, have you?’
‘I’ve only just landed. I haven’t seen a paper for weeks.’
‘Then you can lend me a virgin ear. There’s been a scandal in the junior Service—the Army, I believe they call ’em.’
A bag of coffee-beans pitched on the counter, ‘Roast that,’ said the uncle from within.
Pyecroft rigged a small coffee-roaster, while I took down the shutters, and sold a young lady in curl-papers two bunches of mixed greens and one soft orange.
‘Sickly stuff to handle on an empty stomach, ain’t it?’ said Pyecroft.
‘What about my new tyres?’ I nsisted.
‘Oh, any amount. But the question is’—he looked at me steadily—‘is this what you might call a court-martial or a post-mortem inquiry?’
‘Strictly a post-mortem,’ said I.
‘That being so,’ said Pyecroft, ‘we can rapidly arrive at facts. Last Thursday—the shutters go behind those baskets—last Thursday at five bells in the forenoon watch, otherwise ten-thirty a.m., your Mr. Leggatt was discovered on Westminster Bridge laying his course for the Old Kent Road.’
‘But that doesn’t lead to Southampton,’ ‘Interrupted.
‘Then perhaps he was swinging the car for compasses. Be that as it may, we found him in that latitude, simultaneous as Jules and me was ong route for Waterloo to rejoin our respective ships—or Navies I should say. Jules was a permissionaire, which meant being on leaf, same as me, from a French cassowary-cruiser at Portsmouth. A party of her trusty and well-beloved petty officers ’ad been seeing London, chaperoned by the R.C. chaplain. Jules ’ad detached himself from the squadron and was cruisin’ on his own when I joined him, in company of copious lady-friends. But, mark you, your Mr. Leggatt drew the line at the girls. Loud and long he drew it.’
page 2
‘I’m glad of that,’ I said.
‘You may be. He adopted the puristical formation from the first. “Yes,” he said, when we was annealing him at—but you wouldn’t know the pub—“I am going to Southampton,” he says, “and I’ll stretch a point to go via Portsmouth; but,” says he, “seeing what sort of one hell of a time invariably trarnspires when we cruise together, Mr. Pyecroft, I do not feel myself justified towards my generous and long-suffering employer in takin’ on that kind of ballast as well.” I assure you he considered your interests.’
‘And the girls?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I left that to Jules. I’m a monogomite by nature. So we embarked strictly ong garçong. But I should tell you, in case he didn’t, that your Mr. Leggatt’s care for your interests ’ad extended to sheathing the car in matting and gunny-bags to preserve her paint-work. She was all swathed up like an I-talian baby.’
‘He is careful about his paint-work,’ I said.
‘For a man with no Service experience I should say he was fair homicidal on the subject. If we’d been Marines he couldn’t have been more pointed in his allusions to our hob-nailed socks. However, we reduced him to a malleable condition, and embarked for Portsmouth. I’d seldom rejoined my vaisseau ong automobile, avec a fur coat and goggles. Nor ’ad Jules.’
‘Did Jules say much?’ I asked, helplessly turning the handle of the coffee-roaster.
‘That’s where I pitied the pore beggar. He ’adn’t the language, so to speak. He was confined to heavings and shruggin’s and copious Mohg Jews! The French are very badly fitted with relief-valves. And then our Mr. Leggatt drove. He drove.’
‘Was he in a very malleable condition?’
‘Not him! We recognised the value of his cargo from the outset. He hadn’t a chance to get more than moist at the edges. After which we went to sleep; and now we’ll go to breakfast.’
We entered the back room where everything was in order, and a screeching canary made us welcome. The uncle had added sausages and piles of buttered toast to the kippers. The coffee, cleared with a piece of fish-skin, was a revelation.
Leggatt, who seemed to know the premises, had run the car into the tiny backyard where her mirror-like back almost blocked up the windows. He minded shop while we ate. Pyecroft passed him his rations through a flap in the door. The uncle ordered him in, after breakfast, to wash up, and he jumped in his gaiters at the old man’s commands as he has never jumped to mine.
‘To resoom the post-mortem,’ said Pyecroft, lighting his pipe. ‘My slumbers were broken by the propeller ceasing to revolve, and by vile language from your Mr. Leggatt.’
‘I—I——’ Leggatt began, a blue-checked duster in one hand and a cup in the other.
‘When you’re wanted aft you’ll be sent for, Mr. Leggatt,’ said Pyecroft amiably. ‘It’s clean mess decks for you now. Resooming once more, we was on a lonely and desolate ocean near Portsdown, surrounded by gorse bushes, and a Boy Scout was stirring my stomach with his little copper-stick.’
‘“You count ten,” he says.
‘“Very good, Boy Jones,” I says, “count ’em,” and I hauled him in over the gunnel, and ten I gave him with my large flat hand. The remarks he passed, lying face down tryin’ to bite my leg, would have reflected credit on any Service. Having finished I dropped him overboard again, which was my gross political error. I ought to ’ave killed him; because he began signalling—rapid and accurate—in a sou’ westerly direction. Few equatorial calms are to be apprehended when B.P.’s little pets take to signallin’. Make a note o’ that! Three minutes later we were stopped and boarded by Scouts—up our backs, down our necks, and in our boots! The last I heard from your Mr. Leggatt as he went under, brushin’ ’em off his cap, was thanking Heaven he’d covered up the new paint-work with mats. An ’eroic soul!’
‘Not a scratch on her body,’ said Leggatt, pouring out the coffee-grounds.
‘And Jules?’ said I.
‘Oh, Jules thought the much advertised Social Revolution had begun, but his mackintosh hampered him.’
‘You told me to bring the mackintosh,’ Leggatt whispered to me.
‘And when I ’ad ’em half convinced he was a French vicomte coming down to visit the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, he tried to take it off. Seeing his uniform underneath, some sucking Sherlock Holmes of the Pink Eye Patrol (they called him Eddy) deduced that I wasn’t speaking the truth. Eddy said I was tryin’ to sneak into Portsmouth unobserved—unobserved mark you!—and join hands with the enemy. It trarnspired that the Scouts was conducting a field-day against opposin’ forces, ably assisted by all branches of the Service, and they was so afraid the car wouldn’t count ten points to them in the fray, that they’d have scalped us, but for the intervention of an umpire—also in short under-drawers. A fleshy sight!’
Here Mr. Pyecroft shut his eyes and nodded. ‘That umpire,’ he said suddenly, ‘was our Mr. Morshed—a gentleman whose acquaintance you have already made and profited by, if I mistake not.’
‘Oh, was the Navy in it too?’ I said; for I had read of wild doings occasionally among the Boy Scouts on the Portsmouth Road, in which Navy, Army, and the world at large seemed to have taken part.
‘The Navy was in it. I was the only one out of it—for several seconds. Our Mr. Morshed failed to recognise me in my fur boa, and my appealin’ winks at ’im behind your goggles didn’t arrive. But when Eddy darling had told his story, I saluted, which is difficult in furs, and I stated I was bringin’ him dispatches from the North. My Mr. Morshed cohered on the instant. I’ve never known his ethergram installations out of order yet. “Go and guard your blessed road,” he says to the Fratton Orphan Asylum standing at attention all round him, and, when they was removed—“Pyecroft,” he says, still sotte voce, “what in Hong-Kong are you doing with this dun-coloured sampan?”
‘It was your Mr. Leggatt’s paint-protective matting which caught his eye. She did resemble a sampan, especially about the stern-works. At these remarks I naturally threw myself on ’is bosom, so far as Service conditions permitted, and revealed him all, mentioning that the car was yours. You know his way of working his lips like a rabbit? Yes, he was quite pleased. “His car!” he kept murmuring, working his lips like a rabbit. “I owe ’im more than a trifle for things he wrote about me. I’ll keep the car.”
page 3
‘Your Mr. Leggatt now injected some semi-mutinous remarks to the effect that he was your chauffeur in charge of your car, and, as such, capable of so acting. Mr. Morshed threw him a glarnce. It sufficed. Didn’t it suffice, Mr. Leggatt?’
‘I knew if something didn’t happen, something worse would,’ said Leggatt. ‘It never fails when you’re aboard.’
‘And Jules?’ I demanded.
‘Jules was, so to speak, panicking in a water-tight flat through his unfortunate lack of language. I had to introduce him as part of the entente cordiale, and he was put under arrest, too. Then we sat on the grass and smoked, while Eddy and Co. violently annoyed the traffic on the Portsmouth Road, till the umpires, all in short panties, conferred on the valuable lessons of the field-day and added up points, same as at target-practice. I didn’t hear their conclusions, but our Mr. Morshed delivered a farewell address to Eddy and Co., tellin’ ’em they ought to have deduced from a hundred signs about me, that I was a friendly bringin’ in dispatches from the North. We left ’em tryin’ to find those signs in the Scout book, and we reached Mr. Morshed’s hotel at Portsmouth at 6.27 p.m. ong automobile. Here endeth the first chapter.’
‘Begin the second,’ I said.
The uncle and Leggatt had finished washing up and were seated, smoking, while the damp duster dried at the fire.
‘About what time was it,’ said Pyecroft to Leggatt, ‘when our Mr. Morshed began to talk about uncles?’
‘When he came back to the bar, after he’d changed into those rat-catcher clothes,’ said Leggatt.
‘That’s right. “Pye,” said he, “have you an uncle?” “I have,” I says. “Here’s santy to him,” and I finished my sherry and bitters to you, uncle.’
‘That’s right,’ said Pyecroft’s uncle sternly. ‘If you hadn’t I’d have belted you worth rememberin’, Emmanuel. I had the body all night.’
Pyecroft smiled affectionately. ‘So you ’ad, uncle,’ an’ beautifully you looked after her. But as I was saying, “I have an uncle, too,” says Mr. Morshed, dark and lowering. “Yet somehow I can’t love him. I want to mortify the beggar. Volunteers to mortify my uncle, one pace to the front.”
‘I took Jules with me the regulation distance. Jules was getting interested. Your Mr. Leggatt preserved a strictly nootral attitude.
‘“You’re a pressed man,” says our Mr. Morshed. “I owe your late employer much, so to say. The car will manœuvre all night, as requisite.”
‘Mr. Leggatt come out noble as your employee, and, by ’Eaven’s divine grace, instead of arguing, he pleaded his new paint and varnish which. was Mr. Morshed’s one vital spot (he’s lootenant on one of the new catch-’em-alive-o’s now). “True,” says he, “paint’s an ’oly thing. I’ll give you one hour to arrange a modus vivendi. Full bunkers and steam ready by 9 p.m. to-night, if you please.”
‘Even so, Mr. Leggatt was far from content. I ’ad to arrange the details. We run her into the yard here.’ Pyecroft nodded through the window at my car’s glossy back-panels. ‘We took off the body with its mats and put it in the stable, substitooting (and that yard’s a tight fit for extensive repairs) the body of uncle’s blue delivery cart. It overhung a trifle, but after I’d lashed it I knew it wouldn’t fetch loose. Thus, in our composite cruiser, we repaired once more to the hotel, and was immediately dispatched to the toyshop in the High Street where we took aboard one rocking-horse which was waiting for us.’
‘Took aboard what?’ I cried.
‘One fourteen-hand dapple-grey rocking-horse, with pure green rockers and detachable tail, pair gashly glass eyes, complete set ’orrible grinnin’ teeth, and two bloody-red nostrils which, protruding from the brown papers, produced the tout ensemble of a Ju-ju sacrifice in the Benin campaign. Do I make myself comprehensible?’
‘Perfectly. Did you say anything?’ I asked.
‘Only to Jules. To him, I says, wishing to try him, “Allez à votre bateau. Je say mon Lootenong. Eel voo donneray porkwor.” To me, says he, “Vous ong ate hurroo! Yamay de la vee!” and I saw by his eye he’d taken on for the full term of the war. Jules was a blue-eyed, brindle-haired beggar of a useful make and inquirin’ habits. Your Mr. Leggat he only groaned.’
Leggatt nodded. ‘It was like nightmares,’ he said. ‘It was like nightmares.’
‘Once more, then,’ Pyecroft swept on, ‘we returned to the hotel and partook of a sumptuous repast, under the able and genial chairmanship of our Mr. Morshed, who laid his projecks unreservedly before us. “In the first place,” he says, opening out bicycle-maps, “my uncle, who, I regret to say, is a brigadier-general, has sold his alleged soul to Dicky Bridoon for a feathery hat and a pair o’ gilt spurs. Jules, conspuez l’oncle!” So Jules, you’ll be glad to hear——’
‘One minute, Pye,’ I said. ‘Who is Dicky Bridoon?’
‘I don’t usually mingle myself up with the bickerings of the junior Service, but it trarnspired that he was Secretary o’ State for Civil War, an’ he’d been issuing mechanical leather-belly gee-gees which doctors recommend for tumour—to the British cavalry in loo of real meat horses, to learn to ride on. Don’t you remember there was quite a stir in the papers owing to the cavalry not appreciatin’ ’em? But that’s a minor item. The main point was that our uncle, in his capacity of brigadier-general, mark you, had wrote to the papers highly approvin’ o’ Dicky Bridoon’s mechanical substitutes an ’ad thus obtained promotion—all same as a agnosticle stoker psalmsingin’ ’imself up the Service under a pious captain. At that point of the narrative we caught a phosphorescent glimmer why the rocking-horse might have been issued; but none the less the navigation was intricate. Omitting the fact it was dark and cloudy, our brigadier-uncle lay somewhere in the South Downs with his brigade, which was manoeuvrin’ at Whitsun manœuvres on a large scale—Red Army versus Blue, et cetera; an’ all we ’ad to go by was those flapping bicycle-maps and your Mr. Leggatt’s groans.’
‘I was thinking what the Downs mean after dark,’ said Leggatt angrily.
‘They was worth thinkin’ of,’ said Pyecroft, When we had studied the map till it fair spun, we decided to sally forth and creep for uncle by hand in the dark, dark night, an’ present ‘im with the rocking-horse. So we embarked at 8.57 P.M.’
‘One minute again, please. How much did Jules understand by that time?’ I asked.
page 4
‘Sufficient unto the day—or night, perhaps I should say. He told our Mr. Morshed he’d follow him more sang frays, which is French for dead, drunk or damned. Barrin’ ’is paucity o’ language, there wasn’t a blemish on Jules. But what I wished to imply was, when we climbed into the back parts of the car, our Lootenant Morshed says to me, “I doubt if I’d flick my cigar-ends about too lavish, Mr. Pyecroft. We ought to be sitting on five pounds’ worth of selected fireworks, and I think the rockets are your end.” Not being able to smoke with my ’ead over the side I threw it away; and then your Mr. Leggatt, ’aving been as nearly mutinous as it pays to be with my Mr. Morshed, arched his back and drove.’
‘Where did he drive to, please?’ said I.
‘Primerrily, in search of any or either or both armies; seconderrily, of course, in search of our brigadier-uncle. Not finding him on the road, we ran about the grass looking for him. This took us to a great many places in a short time. ’Ow ‘eavenly that lilac did smell on top of that first Down—stinkin’ its blossomin’ little heart out!’
‘I ’adn’t leesure to notice,’ said Mr. Leggatt. ‘The Downs were full o’ chalk-pits, and we’d no lights.’
‘We ’ad the bicycle-lamp to look at the map by. Didn’t you notice the old lady at the window where we saw the man in the night-gown? I thought night-gowns as sleepin’ rig was extinck, so to speak.’
‘I tell you I ’adn’t leesure to notice,’ Leggatt repeated.
‘That’s odd. Then what might ’ave made you tell the sentry at the first camp we found that you was the Daily Express delivery-waggon?’
‘You can’t touch pitch without being defiled,’ Leggatt answered. ‘’Oo told the officer in the bath we were umpires?’
‘Well, he asked us. That was when we found the Territorial battalion undressin’ in slow time. It lay on the left flank o’ the Blue Army, and it cackled as it lay, too. But it gave us our position as regards the respective armies. We wandered a little more, and at 11.7 p.m., not having had a road under us for twenty minutes, we scaled the heights of something or other—which are about six hundred feet high. Here we ’alted to tighten the lashings of the superstructure, and we smelt leather and horses three counties deep all round. We was, as you might say, in the thick of it.’
‘“Ah!” says my Mr. Morshed. “My ’orizon has indeed broadened. What a little thing is an uncle, Mr. Pyecroft, in the presence o’ these glitterin’ constellations! Simply ludicrous!” he says, “to waste a rocking-horse on an individual. We must socialise it. But we must get their ’eads up first. Touch off one rocket, if you please.”
‘I touched off a green three-pounder which rose several thousand metres, and burst into gorgeous stars. “Reproduce the manœuvre,” he says, “at the other end o’ this ridge—if it don’t end in another cliff.” So we steamed down the ridge a mile and a half east, and then I let Jules touch off a pink rocket, or he’d ha’ kissed me. That was his only way to express his emotions, so to speak. Their heads come up then all around us to the extent o’ thousands. We hears bugles like cocks crowing below, and on the top of it a most impressive sound which I’d never enjoyed before because ’itherto I’d always been an inteegral part of it, so to say—the noise of ’ole armies gettin’ under arms. They must ’ave anticipated a night attack, I imagine. Most impressive. Then we ’eard a threshin’-machine. “Tutt! Tutt! This is childish!” says Lootenant Morshed. “We can’t wait till they’ve finished cutting chaff for their horses. We must make ’em understand we’re not to be trifled with. Expedite ’em with another rocket, Mr. Pyecroft.”
‘“It’s barely possible, sir,” I remarks, “that that’s a searchlight churnin’ up,” and by the time we backed into a providential chalk cutting (which was where our first tyre went pungo) she broke out to the northward, and began searching the ridge. A smart bit o’ work.’
‘’Twasn’t a puncture. The inner tube had nipped because we skidded so,’ Leggatt interrupted.
‘While your Mr. Leggatt was effectin’ repairs, another searchlight broke out to the southward, and the two of ’em swept our ridge on both sides. Right at the west end of it they showed us the ground rising into a hill, so to speak, crowned with what looked like a little fort. Morshed saw it before the beams shut off. “That’s the key of the position!” he says. “Occupy it at all hazards.”
‘“I haven’t half got occupation for the next twenty minutes,” says your Mr. Leggatt, rootin’ and blasphemin’ in the dark. Mark, now, ’ow Morshed changed his tactics to suit ’is environment. “Right!” says he. “I’ll stand by the ship. Mr. Pyecroft and Jules, oblige me by doubling along the ridge to the east with all the maroons and crackers you can carry without spilling. Read the directions careful for the maroons, Mr. Pyecroft, and touch them off at half-minute intervals. Jules represents musketry an’ maxim fire under your command. Remember, it’s death or Salisbury Gaol! Prob’ly both!”
‘By these means and some moderately ’ard runnin’, we distracted ’em to the eastward. Maroons, you may not be aware, are same as bombs, with the anarchism left out. In confined spots like chalk-pits, they knock a four-point-seven silly. But you should read the directions before ’and. In the intervals of the slow but well-directed fire of my cow-guns, Jules, who had found a sheep-pond in the dark a little lower down, gave what you might call a cinematograph reproduction o’ sporadic musketry. They was large size crackers, and he concluded with the dull, sickenin’ thud o’ blind shells burstin’ on soft ground.’
‘How did he manage that?’ I said.
‘You throw a lighted squib into water and you’ll see,’ said Pyecroft. ‘Thus, then, we improvised till supplies was exhausted and the surrounding landscapes fair ’owled and ’ummed at us. The Junior Service might ’ave ’ad their doubts about the rockets, but they couldn’t overlook our gunfire. Both sides tumbled out full of initiative. I told Jules no two flat-feet ’ad any right to be as happy as us, and we went back along the ridge to the derelict, and there was our Mr. Morshed apostrophin’ his ’andiwork over fifty square mile o’ country with “Attend, all ye who list to hear!” out of the Fifth Reader. He’d got as far as “And roused the shepherds o’ Stonehenge, the rangers o’ Beaulieu” when we come up, and he drew our attention to its truth as well as its beauty. That’s rare in poetry, I’m told. He went right on to—“The red glare on Skiddaw roused those beggars at Carlisle”—which he pointed out was poetic licence for Leith Hill. This allowed your Mr. Leggatt time to finish pumpin’ up his tyres. I ’eard the sweat ’op off his nose.’
‘You know what it is, sir,’ said poor Leggatt to me.
‘It warfted across my mind, as I listened to what was trarnspirin’, that it might be easier to make the mess than to wipe it up, but such considerations weighed not with our valiant leader.’
‘“Mr. Pyecroft,” he says, “it can’t have escaped your notice that we ’ave one angry and ’ighly intelligent army in front of us, an’ another ’ighly angry and equally intelligent army in our rear. What ’ud you recommend?”
page 5
‘Most men would have besought ’im to do a lateral glide while there was yet time, but all I said was: “The rocking-horse isn’t expended yet, sir.”
‘He laid his hand on my shoulder. “Pye,” says he, “there’s worse men than you in loftier places. They shall ’ave it. None the less,” he remarks, “the ice is undeniably packing.”
‘I may ’ave omitted to point out that at this juncture two large armies, both deprived of their night’s sleep, was awake, as you might say, and hurryin’ into each other’s arms. Here endeth the second chapter.’
He filled his pipe slowly. The uncle had fallen asleep. Leggatt lit another cigarette.
‘We then proceeded ong automobile along the ridge in a westerly direction towards the miniature fort which had been so kindly revealed by the searchlight, but which on inspection (your Mr. Leggatt bumped into an outlyin’ reef of it) proved to be a wurzel-clump; c’est-à-dire, a parallelogrammatic pile of about three million mangold-wurzels, brought up there for the sheep, I suppose. On all sides, excep’ the one we’d come by, the ground fell away moderately quick, and down at the bottom there was a large camp lit up an’ full of harsh words of command.
‘“I said it was the key to the position,” Lootenant Morshed remarks. “Trot out Persimmon!” which we rightly took to read, “Un-wrap the rocking-horse.”
‘“Houp la!” says Jules in a insubordinate tone, an’ slaps Persimmon on the flank.
‘“Silence!” says the Lootenant. “This is the Royal Navy, not Newmarket”; and we carried Persimmon to the top of the matrgel-wurzel clump as directed.
‘Owing to the inequalities of the terrain (I do think your Mr. Leggatt might have had a spiritlevel in his kit) he wouldn’t rock free on the bedplate, and while adjustin’ him, his detachable tail fetched adrift. Our Lootenant was quick to seize the advantage.
‘“Remove that transformation,” he says. “Substitute one Roman candle. Gas-power is superior to manual propulsion.”
‘So we substituted. He arranged the pièce de resistarnce in the shape of large drums—not saucers, mark you—drums of coloured fire, with printed instructions, at proper distances round Persimmon. There was a brief interregnum while we dug ourselves in among the wurzels by hand. Then he touched off the fires, not omitting the Roman candle, and, you may take it from me, all was visible. Persimmon shone out in his naked splendour, red to port, green to starboard, and one white light at his bows, as per Board o’ Trade regulations. Only he didn’t so much rock, you might say, as shrug himself, in a manner of speaking, every time the candle went off. One can’t have everything. But the rest surpassed our highest expectations. I think Persimmon was noblest on the starboard or green side-more like when a man thinks he’s seeing mackerel in hell, don’t you know? And yet I’d be the last to deprecate the effect of the port light on his teeth, or that bloodshot look in his left eye. He knew there was something going on he didn’t approve of. He looked worried.’
‘Did you laugh?’ I said.
‘I’m not much of a wag myself; nor it wasn’t as if we ’ad time to allow the spectacle to sink in. The coloured fires was supposed to burn ten minutes, whereas it was obvious to the meanest capacity that the junior Service would arrive by forced marches in about two and a half. They grarsped our topical allusion as soon as it was across the foot-lights, so to speak. They were quite chafed at it. Of course, ’ad we reflected, we might have known that exposin’ illuminated rockin’ horses to an army that was learnin’ to ride on ’em partook of the nature of a double entender, as the French say—same as waggling the tiller lines at a man who’s had a hanging in the family. I knew the cox of the Archimandrite’s galley ’arf killed for a similar plaisanteree. But we never anticipated lobsters being so sensitive. That was why we shifted. We could ’ardly tear our commandin’ officer away. He put his head on one side, and kept cooin’. The only thing he ’ad neglected to provide was a line of retreat; but your Mr. Leggatt—an ’eroic soul in the last stage of wet prostration—here took command of the van, or, rather, the rear-guard. We walked downhill beside him, holding on to the superstructure to prevent her capsizing. These technical details, ’owever, are beyond me.’ He waved his pipe towards Leggatt.
‘I saw there was two deepish ruts leadin’ down’ill somewhere,’ said Leggatt. ‘That was when the soldiers stopped laughin’, and begun to run uphill.’
‘Stroll, lovey, stroll!’ Pyecroft corrected. ‘The Dervish rush took place later.’
‘So I laid her in these ruts. That was where she must ’ave scraped her silencer a bit. Then they turned sharp right—the ruts did—and then she stopped bonnet-high in a manure-heap, sir; but I’ll swear it was all of a one in three gradient. I think it was a barnyard. We waited there,’ said Leggatt.
‘But not for long,’ said Pyecroft. ‘The lights were towering out of the drums on the position we ’ad so valiantly abandoned; and the Junior Service was escaladin’ it en masse. When numerous bodies of ‘ighly trained men arrive simultaneous in the same latitude from opposite directions, each remarking briskly, “What the ’ell did you do that for?” detonation, as you might say, is practically assured. They didn’t ask for extraneous aids. If we’d come out with sworn affidavits of what we’d done they wouldn’t ’ave believed us. They wanted each other’s company exclusive. Such was the effect of Persimmon on their clarss feelings. Idol’try, I call it! Events transpired with the utmost velocity and rapidly increasing pressures. There was a few remarks about Dicky Bridoon and mechanical horses, and then some one was smacked—hard by the sound—in the middle of a remark.’
‘That was the man who kept calling for the Forty-fifth Dragoons,’ said Leggatt. ‘He got as far as Drag . . . ‘
‘Was it?’ said Pyecroft dreamily. ‘Well, he couldn’t say they didn’t come. They all came, and they all fell to arguin’ whether the Infantry should ’ave Persimmon for a regimental pet or the Cavalry should keep him for stud purposes. Hence the issue was soon clouded with mangold-wurzels. Our commander said we ’ad sowed the good seed, and it was bearing abundant fruit. (They weigh between four and seven pounds apiece.) Seein’ the children ’ad got over their shyness, and ’ad really begun to play games, we backed out o’ the pit and went down, by steps, to the camp below, no man, as you might say, making us afraid. Here we enjoyed a front view of the battle, which rolled with renewed impetus, owing to both sides receiving strong reinforcements every minute. All arms were freely represented; Cavalry, on this occasion only, acting in concert with Artillery. They argued the relative merits of horses versus feet, so to say, but they didn’t neglect Persimmon. The wounded rolling downhill with the wurzels informed us that he had long ago been socialised, and the smallest souvenirs were worth a man’s life. Speaking broadly, the junior Service appeared to be a shade out of ’and, if I may venture so far. They did not pay prompt and unhesitating obedience to the “Retires” or the “Cease Fires” or the “For ’Eaven’s sake come to bed, ducky” of their officers, who, I regret to say, were ’otly embroiled at the heads of their respective units.’
‘How did you find that out?’ I asked.
page 6
‘On account of Lootenant Morshed going to the Mess tent to call on his uncle and raise a drink; but all hands had gone to the front. We thought we ’eard somebody bathing behind the tent, and we found an oldish gentleman tryin’ to drown a boy in knickerbockers in a horse-trough. He kept him under with a bicycle, so to speak. He ’ad nearly accomplished his fell design, when we frustrated him. He was in a highly malleable condition and full o’ juice de spree. “Arsk not what I am,” he says. “My wife ’ll tell me that quite soon enough. Arsk rather what I’ve been,” he says. “I’ve been dinin’ here,” he says. “I commanded ’em in the Eighties,” he says, “and, Gawd forgive me,” he says, sobbin’ ’eavily, “I’ve spent this holy evening telling their Colonel they was a set of educated inefficients. Hark to ’em!” We could, without strainin’ ourselves; but how he picked up the gentle murmur of his own corps in that on-the-knee party up the hill I don’t know. “They’ve marched and fought thirty mile today,” he shouts, “and now they’re tearin’ the intestines out of the Cavalry up yonder! They won’t stop this side the gates o’ Delhi,” he says. “I commanded their ancestors. There’s nothing wrong with the Service,” he says, wringing out his trousers on his lap. “’Eaven pardon me for doubtin’ ’em! Same old game—same young beggars.”
‘The boy in the knickerbockers, languishing on a chair, puts in a claim for one drink. “Let him go dry,” says our friend in shirt-tails. “He’s a reporter. He run into me on his filthy bicycle and he asked me if I could furnish ’im with particulars about the mutiny in the Army. You false-’earted proletarian publicist,” he says, shakin’ his finger at ’im—for he was reelly annoyed “I’ll teach you to defile what you can’t comprehend! When my regiment’s in a state o’ mutiny, I’ll do myself the honour of informing you personally. You particularly ignorant and very narsty little man,” he says, “you’re no better than a dhobi’s donkey! If there wasn’t dirty linen to wash, you’d starve,” he says, “and why I haven’t drowned you will be the lastin’ regret of my life.”
‘Well, we sat with ’em and ’ad drinks for about half-an-hour in front of the Mess tent. He’d ha’ killed the reporter if there hadn’t been witnesses, and the reporter might have taken notes of the battle; so we acted as two-way buffers, in a sense. I don’t hold with the Press mingling up with Service matters. They draw false conclusions. Now, mark you, at a moderate estimate, there were seven thousand men in the fighting line, half of ’em hurt in their professional feelings, an’ the other half rubbin’ in the liniment, as you might say. All due to Persimmon! If you ’adn’t seen it you wouldn’t ’ave believed it. And yet, mark you, not one single unit of ’em even resorted to his belt. They confined themselves to natural producks—hands and the wurzels. I thought Jules was havin’ fits, till it trarnspired the same thought had impressed him in the French language. He called it incroyable, I believe. Seven thousand men, with seven thousand rifles, belts, and bayonets, in a violently agitated condition, and not a ungenteel blow struck from first to last. The old gentleman drew our attention to it as well. It was quite noticeable.
‘Lack of ammunition was the primerry cause of the battle ceasin’. A Brigade-Major came in, wipin’ his nose on both cuffs, and sayin’ he ’ad ’ad snuff. The brigadier-uncle followed. He was, so to speak, sneezin’. We thought it best to shift our moorings without attractin’ attention; so we shifted. They ’ad called the cows ’ome by then. The Junior Service was going to bye-bye all round us, as happy as the ship’s monkey when he’s been playin’ with the paints, and Lootenant Morshed and Jules kept bowin’ to port and starboard of the superstructure, acknowledgin’ the unstinted applause which the multitude would ’ave given ’em if they’d known the facts. On the other ’and, as your Mr. Leggatt observed, they might ’ave killed us.
‘That would have been about five bells in the middle watch, say half-past two. A well-spent evening. There was but little to be gained by entering Portsmouth at that hour, so we turned off on the grass (this was after we had found a road under us), and we cast anchors out at the stern and prayed for the day.
‘But your Mr. Leggatt he had to make and mend tyres all our watch below. It trarnspired she had been running on the rim o’ two or three wheels, which, very properly, he hadn’t reported till the close of the action. And that’s the reason of your four new tyres. Mr. Morshed was of opinion you’d earned ’em. Do you dissent?’
I stretched out my hand, which Pyecroft crushed to pulp. ‘No, Pye,’ I said, deeply moved, ‘I agree entirely. But what happened to Jules?’
‘We returned him to his own Navy after breakfast. He wouldn’t have kept much longer without some one in his own language to tell it to. I don’t know any man I ever took more compassion on than Jules. ’Is sufferings swelled him up centimetres, and all he could do on the Hard was to kiss Lootenant Morshed and me, and your Mr. Leggatt. He deserved that much. A cordial beggar.’
Pyecroft looked at the washed cups on the table, and the low sunshine on my car’s back in the yard.
‘Too early to drink to him,’ he said. ‘But I feel it just the same.’
The uncle, sunk in his chair, snored a little; the canary answered with a shrill lullaby. Pyecroft picked up the duster, threw it over the cage, put his finger to his lips, and we tiptoed out into the shop, while Leggatt brought the car round.
‘I’ll look out for the news in the papers,’ I said, as I got in.
‘Oh, we short-circuited that! Nothing trarnspired excep’ a statement to the effect that some Territorial battalions had played about with turnips at the conclusion of the manœuvres. The taxpayer don’t know all he gets for his money. Farewell!’
We moved off just in time to be blocked by a regiment coming towards the station to entrain for London.
‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said a sergeant in charge of the baggage, ‘but would you mind backin’ a bit till we get the waggons past?’
‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘You don’t happen to have a rocking-horse among your kit, do you?’
The rattle of our reverse drowned his answer, but I saw his eyes. One of them was blackish-green, about four days old.
A HOODED motor had followed mine from the Guildford Road up the drive to The Infant’s ancestral hall, and had turned off to the stables.‘We’re having a quiet evening together. Stalky’s upstairs changing. Dinner’s at 7.15 sharp, because we’re hungry. His room’s next to yours,’ said The Infant, nursing a cobwebbed bottle of Burgundy.
Then I found Lieutenant-Colonel A.L. Corkran, I.A., who borrowed a collar-stud and told me about the East and his Sikh regiment.
‘And are your subalterns as good as ever?’ I asked.
‘Amazin’—simply amazin’! All I’ve got to do is to find ’em jobs. They keep touchin’ their caps to me and askin’ for more work. ’Come at me with their tongues hangin’ out. I used to run the other way at their age.’
‘And when they err?’ said I. ‘I suppose they do sometimes?’
‘Then they run to me again to weep with remorse over their virgin peccadilloes. I never cuddled my Colonel when I was in trouble. Lambs—positive lambs!’
‘And what do you say to ’em?’
‘Talk to ’em like a papa. Tell ’em how I can’t understand it, an’ how shocked I am, and how grieved their parents’ll be; and throw in a little about the Army Regulations and the Ten Commandments. ’Makes one feel rather a sweep when one thinks of what one used to do at their age. D’you remember——’
We remembered together till close on seven o’clock. As we went out into the gallery that runs round the big hall, we saw The Infant, below, talking to two deferential well-set-up lads whom I had known, on and off, in the holidays, any time for the last ten years. One of them had a bruised cheek, and the other a weeping left eye.
‘Yes, that’s the style,’ said Stalky below his breath. ‘They’re brought up on lemon-squash and mobilisation text-books. I say, the girls we knew must have been much better than they pretended they were; for I’ll swear it isn’t the fathers.’
‘But why on earth did you do it?’ The Infant was shouting. ‘You know what it means nowadays.’
‘Well, sir,’ said Bobby Trivett, the taller of the two, ‘Wontner talks too much, for one thing. He didn’t join till he was twenty-three, and, besides that, he used to lecture on tactics in the ante-room. He said Clausewitz was the only tactician, and he illustrated his theories with cigarends. He was that sort of chap, sir.’
‘And he didn’t much care whose cigar-ends they were,’ said Eames, who was shorter and pinker.
‘And then he would talk about the ’Varsity,’ said Bobby. ‘He got a degree there. And he told us we weren’t intellectual. He told the Adjutant so, sir. He was just that kind of chap, sir, if you understand.’
Stalky and I backed behind a tall Japanese jar of chrysanthemums and listened more intently.
‘Was all the Mess in it, or only you two?’ The Infant demanded, chewing his moustache.
‘The Adjutant went to bed, of course, sir, and the Senior Subaltern said he wasn’t going to risk his commission—they’re awfully down on ragging nowadays in the Service—but the rest of us—er—attended to him,’ said Bobby.
‘Much?’ The Infant asked. The boys smiled deprecatingly.
‘Not in the ante-room, sir,’ said Eames. ‘Then he called us silly children, and went to bed, and we sat up discussin’, and I suppose we got a bit above ourselves, and we—er——’
‘Went to his quarters and drew him?’ The Infant suggested.
‘Well, we only asked him to get out of bed, and we put his helmet and sword-belt on for him, and we sung him bits out of the Blue Fairy Book—the cram-book on Army organisation. Oh yes, and then we asked him to drink old Clausewitz’s health, as a brother-tactician, in milk punch and Worcester sauce, and so on. We had to help him a little there. He bites. There wasn’t much else that time; but, you know, the War Office is severe on ragging these days.’ Bobby stopped with a lop-sided smile.
‘And then,’ Eames went on, ‘then Wontner said we’d done several pounds’ worth of damage to his furniture.’
‘Oh,’ said The Infant, ‘he’s that kind of man, is he? Does he brush his teeth?’
‘Oh yes, he’s quite clean all over!’ said Trivett; ‘but his father’s a wealthy barrister.’
‘Solicitor,’ Eames corrected, ‘and so this Mistet Wontner is out for our blood. He’s going to make a first-class row about it—appeal to the War Office-court of inquiry—spicy bits in the papers, and songs in the music-halls. He told us so.’
‘That’s the sort of chap he is,’ said Trivett. ‘And that means old Dhurrah-bags, our Colonel, ’ll be put on half-pay, same as that case in the Scarifungers’ Mess; and our Adjutant’ll have to exchange, like it was with that fellow in the 73rd Dragoons, and there’ll be misery all round. He means making it too hot for us, and his papa’ll back him.’
‘Yes, that’s all very fine,’ said The Infant; ‘but I left the Service about the time you were born, Bobby. What’s it got to do with me?’
‘Father told me I was always to go to you when I was in trouble, and you’ve been awfully good to me since he . . .’
‘Better stay to dinner.’ The Infant mopped his forehead.
‘Thank you very much, but the fact is——’Trivett halted.
‘This afternoon, about four, to be exact——’ Eames broke in.
‘We went over to Wontner’s quarters to talk things over. The row only happened last night, and we found him writing letters as hard as he could to his father—getting up his case for the War Office, you know. He read us some of ’em, but I’m not a good judge of style. We tried to ride him off quietly—apologies and so forth—but it was the milk-punch and mayonnaise that defeated us.’
‘Yes, he wasn’t taking anything except pure revenge,’ said Eames.
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‘He said he’d make an example of the regiment, and he was particularly glad that he’d landed our Colonel. He told us so. Old Dhurrah-bags don’t sympathise with Wontner’s tactical lectures. He says Wontner ought to learn manners first, but we thought——’ Trivett turned to Eames, who was less a son of the house than himself, Eames’ father being still alive.
‘Then,’ Eames went on, ‘he became rather noisome, and we thought we might as well impound the correspondence’—he wrinkled his swelled left eye—‘and after that, we got him to take a seat in my car.’
‘He was in a sack, you know,’ Trivett explained. ‘He wouldn’t go any other way. But we didn’t hurt him.’
‘Oh no! His head’s sticking out quite clear, and’—Eames rushed the fence—‘we’ve put him in your garage—er pendente lite.’
‘My garage!’ Infant’s voice nearly broke with horror.
‘Well, father always told me if I was in trouble, Uncle George——’
Bobby’s sentence died away as The Infant collapsed on a divan and said no more than, ‘Your commissions!‘ There was a long, long silence.
‘What price your latter-day lime juice subaltern?’ I whispered to Stalky behind my hand. His nostrils expanded, and he drummed on the edge of the Japanese jar with his knuckles.
‘Confound your father, Bobby!’ The Infant groaned. ‘Raggin’s a criminal offence these days. It isn’t as if——’
‘Come on,’ said Stalky. ‘That was my old Line battalion in Egypt. They nearly slung old Dhurrah-bags and me out of the Service in ’85 for ragging.’ He descended the stairs and The Infant rolled appealing eyes at him.
‘I heard what you youngsters have confessed,’ he began; and in his orderly-room voice, which is almost as musical as his singing one, he tongue-lashed those lads in such sort as was a privilege and a revelation to listen to. Till then they had known him almost as a relative—we were all brevet, deputy, or acting uncles to The Infant’s friends’ brood—a sympathetic elder brother, sound on finance. They had never met Colonel A. L. Corkran in the Chair of Justice. And while he flayed and rent and blistered, and wiped the floor with them, and while they looked for hiding-places and found none on that floor, I remembered (1) the up-ending of ‘Dolly’ Macshane at Dalhousie, which came perilously near a court-martial on Second-Lieutenant Corkran; (2) the burning of Captain Parmilee’s mosquito-curtains on a hot Indian dawn, when the captain slept in his garden, and Lieutenant Corkran, smoking, rode by after a successful whist night at the club; (3) the introduction of an ekka pony, with ekka attached, into a brother captain’s tent on a frosty night in Peshawur, and the removal of tent, pole, cot, and captain all wrapped in chilly canvas; (4) the bath that was given to Elliot-Hacker on his own verandah—his lady-love saw it and broke off the engagement, which was what the Mess intended, she being an Eurasian—and the powdering all over of Elliot-Hacker with flour and turmeric from the bazaar.
When he took breath I realised how only Satan can rebuke sin. The good don’t know enough.
‘Now,’ said Stalky, ‘get out! No, not out of the house. Go to your rooms.’
‘I’ll send your dinner, Bobby,’ said The Infant. ‘Ipps!’
Nothing had ever been known to astonish Ipps, the butler. He entered and withdrew with his charges. After all, he had suffered from Bobby since Bobby’s twelfth year.
‘They’ve done everything they could, short of murder,’ said The Infant. ‘You know what this’ll mean for the regiment. It isn’t as if we were dealing with Sahibs nowadays.’
‘Quite so.’ Stalky turned on me. ‘Go and release the bagman,’ he said.
‘’Tisn’t my garage,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m company. Besides, he’ll probably slay me. He’s been in the sack for hours.’
‘Look here,’ Stalky thundered—the years had fallen from us both—‘is your—am I commandin’ or are you? We’ve got to pull this thing off somehow or other. Cut over to the garage, make much of him, and bring him over. He’s dining with us. Be quick, you dithering ass!’
I was quick enough; but as I ran through the shrubbery I wondered how one extricates the subaltern of the present day from a sack without hurting his feelings. Anciently, one slit the end open, taking off his boots first, and then fled.
Imagine a sumptuously-equipped garage, half-filled by The Infant’s cobalt-blue, grey-corded silk limousine and a mud-splashed, cheap, hooded four-seater. In the back-seat of this last, conceive a fiery chestnut head emerging from a long oatsack; an implacable white face, with blazing eyes and jaws that worked ceaselessly at the loop of the string that was drawn round its neck. The effect, under the electrics, was that of a demon caterpillar wrathfully spinning its own cocoon.
‘Good evening!’ I said genially. ‘Let me help you out of that.’ The head glared. ‘We’ve got ’em,’ I went on. ‘They came to quite the wrong shop for this sort of game—quite the wrong shop.’
‘Game!’ said the head. ‘We’ll see about that. Let me out.’
It was not a promising voice for one so young, and, as usual, I had no knife.
‘You’ve chewed the string so I can’t find the knot,’ I said as I worked with trembling fingers at the caterpillar’s throat. Something untied itself, and Mr. Wontner wriggled out, collarless, tieless, his coat split half down his back, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his watch-chain snapped, his trousers rucked well above the knees.
‘Where,’ he said grimly, as he pulled them down, ‘are Master Trivett and Master Eames?’
‘Both arrested, of course,’ I replied. ‘Sir George’—I gave The Infant’s full title as a baronet—‘is a Justice of the Peace. He’d be very pleased if you dined with us. There’s a room ready for you.’ I picked up the sack.
‘D’you know,’ said Mr. Wontner through his teeth—but the car’s bonnet was between us, ‘that this looks to me like—I won’t say conspiracy yet, but uncommonly like a confederacy.’
When injured souls begin to distinguish and qualify, danger is over. So I grew bold.
‘’Sorry you take it that way,’ I said. ‘You come here in trouble——’
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‘My good fool,’ he interrupted, with a half-hysterical snort, ‘let me assure you that the trouble will recoil on the other men!’
‘As you please,’ I went on. ‘Anyhow, the chaps who got you into trouble are arrested, and the magistrate who arrested ’em asks you to dinner. Shall I tell him you’re walking back to Aldershot?’
He picked some fluff off his waistcoat.
‘I’m in no position to dictate terms yet,’ he said. ‘That will come later. I must probe into this a little further. In the meantime, I accept your invitation without prejudice—if you under stand what that means.’
I understood and began to be happy again. Subalterns without prejudices were quite new to me. ‘All right,’ I replied; ‘if you’ll go up to the house, I’ll turn out the lights.’
He walked off stiffly, while I searched the sack and the car for the impounded correspondence that Bobby had talked of. I found nothing except, as the police reports say, the trace of a struggle. He had kicked half the varnish off the back of the front seat, and had bitten the leather padding where he could reach it. Evidently a purposeful and hard-mouthed young gentleman.
‘Well done!’ said Stalky at the door. ‘So he didn’t slay you. Stop laughing. He’s talking to The Infant now about depositions. Look here, you’re nearest his size. Cut up to your rooms and give Ipps your dinner things and a clean shirt for him.’
‘But I haven’t got another suit,’ I said.
‘You! I’m not thinking of you! We’ve got to conciliate him. He’s in filthy rags and a filthy temper, and he won’t feel decent till he’s dressed. You’re the sacrifice. Be quick! And clean socks, remember!’
Once more I trotted up to my room, changed into unseasonable unbrushed grey tweeds, put studs into a clean shirt, dug out fresh socks, handed the whole garniture over to Ipps, and returned to the hall just in time to hear Stalky say, ‘I’m a stockbroker, but I have the bonour to hold His Majesty’s commission in a Territorial battalion.’ Then I felt as though I might be beginning to be repaid.
‘I have a very high opinion of the Territorials myself,’ said Mr. Wontner above a glass of sherry. (Infant never lets us put bitters into anything above twenty years old.) ‘But if you had any experience of the Service, you would find that the Average Army Man——’
Here The Infant suggested changing, and Ipps, before whom no human passion can assert itself, led Mr. Wontner away.
‘Why the devil did you tell him I was on the Bench?’ said Infant wrathfully to me. ‘You know I ain’t now. Why didn’t he stay in his father’s office? He’s a raging blight!’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Stalky cheerfully. ‘He’s a little shaken and excited. Probably Beetle annoyed him in the garage, but we must overlook that. We’ve contained him so far, and I’m going to nibble round his outposts at dinner. All you’ve got to do, Infant, is to remember you’re a gentleman in your own house. Don’t hop! You’ll find it pretty difficult before dinner’s over. I don’t want to hear anything at all from you, Beetle.’
‘But I’m just beginning to like him,’ I said. ‘Do let me play! ‘
‘Not till I ask you. You’ll overdo it. Poor old Dhurrah-bags! A scandal ’ud break him up!’
‘But as long as a regiment has no say as to who joins it, it’s bound to rag,’ Infant began. ‘Why—why, they varnished me when I joined!’ He squirmed at the thought of it.
‘Don’t be owls! We ain’t discussing principles! We’ve got to save the court of inquiry if we can,’ said Stalky.
Five minutes later—at 7.45 to be precise—we four sat down to such a dinner as, I hold, only The Infant’s cook can produce, with wines worthy of pontifical banquets. A man in the extremity of rage and injured dignity is precisely like a typhoid patient. He asks no questions, accepts what is put before him, and babbles in one key—very often of trifles. But food and drink are the very best of drugs. I think it was Heidsieck Dry Monopole ’92—Stalky as usual stuck to Burgundy—that began to unlock Mr. Wontner’s heart behind my shirt-front. Me he snubbed throughout, after the Oxford manner, because I had seen him in the sack, and he did not intend me to presume; but to Stalky and The Infant, while I admired the set of my dinner jacket across his shoulders, he made his plans of revenge very clear indeed. He had even sketched out some of the paragraphs that were to appear in the papers, and if Stalky had allowed me to speak, I would have told him that they were rather neatly phrased.
‘You ought to be able to get whackin’ damages out of ’em, into the bargain,’ said Stalky, after Mr. Wontner had outlined his position legally.
‘My de-ah sir,’ Mr. Wontner applied himself to his glass, ‘It isn’t a matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I assure you, we Wontners’—he waved a well-kept hand—,‘do not stand in any need of filthy lucre.’ In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the world dwelt on. Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at The Infant’s ankle. Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army Man, and the desolating vacuity—I remember these words—of Army Society, notably among its womenkind. It appeared there was some sort of narrow convention in the Army against mentioning a woman’s name at Mess. We were much surprised at this—Stalky would not let me express my surprise—but we took it from Mr. Wontner, who said we might, that it was so. Next he touched on Colonels of the old school, and their cognisance of tactics. Not that he himself pretended to any skill in tactics, but after three years at the ’Varsity—none of us had had a ’Varsity education—a man insensibly contracted the habit of clear thinking. At least, he could automatically co-ordinate his ideas, and the jealousy of these muddle-headed Colonels was inconceivable. We would understand that it was his duty to force on the retirement of his Colonel, who had been in the conspiracy against him; to make his Adjutant resign or exchange; and to give the half-dozen childish subalterns who had vexed his dignity a chance to retrieve themselves in other corps—West African ones, he hoped. For himself, after the case was decided, he proposed to go on living in the regiment, just to prove—for he bore no malice—that times had changed, nosque mutamur in illis—if we knew what that meant. Infant had curled his legs out of reach, so I was quite free to return thanks yet once more to Allah for the diversity of His creatures in His adorable world.
And so, by way of an eighty-year-old liqueur brandy, to tactics and the great General Clausewitz, unknown to the Average Army Man. Here The Infant, at a whisper from Ipps—whose face had darkened like a mulberry while he waited—excused himself and went away, but Stalky, Colonel of Territorials, wanted some tips, on tactics. He got them unbrokenly for ten minutes—Wontner and Clausewitz mixed, but Wontner in a film of priceless cognac distinctly on top. When The Infant came back, he renewed his clear-spoken demand that Infant should take his depositions. I supposed this to be a family trait of the Wontners, whom I had been visualising for some time past even to the third generation.
page 4
‘But, hang it all, they’re both asleep!’ said Infant, scowling at me. ‘Ipps let ’em have the ’81 port.’
‘Asleep!’ said Stalky, rising at once. ‘I don’t see that makes any difference. As a matter of form, you’d better identify them. I’ll show you the way.’
We followed up the white stone side-staircase that leads to the bachelors’ wing. Mr. Wontner seemed surprised that the boys were not in the coal-cellar.
‘Oh, a chap’s assumed to be innocent until he’s proved guilty,’ said Stalky, mounting step by step. ‘How did they get you into the sack, Mr. Wontner?’
‘Jumped on me from behind—two to one,’ said Mr. Wontner briefly. ‘I think I handed each of them something first, but they roped my arms and legs.’
‘And did they photograph you in the sack?’
‘Good Heavens, no!’ Mr. Wontner shuddered.
‘That’s lucky. Awful thing to live down—a photograph, isn’t it?’ said Stalky to me as we reached the landing. ‘I’m thinking of the newspapers, of course.’
‘Oh, but you can easily have sketches in the illustrated papers from accounts supplied by eyewitnesses,’ I said.
Mr. Wontner turned him round. It was the first time he had honoured me by his notice since our talk in the garage.
‘Ah,’ said he, ‘do you pretend to any special knowledge in these matters?’
‘I’m a journalist by profession,’ I answered simply but nobly. ‘As soon as you’re at liberty, I’d like to have your account of the affair.’
Now I thought he would have loved me for this, but he only replied in an uncomfortable, uncoming-on voice, ‘Oh, you would, would you?’
‘Not if it’s any trouble, of course,’ I said. ‘I can always get their version from the defendants. Do either of ’em draw or sketch at all, Mr. Wontner? Or perhaps your father might——’
&Then he said quite hotly, ‘I wish you to understand very clearly, my good man, that a gentleman’s name can’t be dragged through the glitter to bolster up the circulation of your wretched sheet, whatever it may be.’
‘It is——’ I named a journal of enormous sales which specialises in scholastic, military, and other scandals. ‘I don’t know yet what it can’t do, Mr. Wontner.’
‘I didn’t know that I was dealing with a reporter,’ said Mr. Wontner.
We were all halted outside a shut door. Ipps had followed us.
‘But surely you want it in the papers, don’t you?’ I urged. ‘With a scandal like this, one couldn’t, in justice to the democracy, be exclusive. We’d syndicate it here and in the United States. I helped you out of the sack, if you remember.’
‘I wish to goodness you’d stop talking!’ he snapped, and sat down on a chair. Stalky’s hand on my shoulder quietly signalled me out of action, but I felt that my fire had not been misdirected.
‘I’ll answer for him,’ said Stalky to Wontner, in an undertone that dropped to a whisper. I caught—‘Not without my leave—dependent on me for market-tips,’ and other gratifying tributes to my integrity.
Still Mr. Wontner sat in his chair, and still we waited on him. The Infant’s face showed worry and heavy grief; Stalky’s, a bright and bird-like interest; mine was hidden behind his shoulders, but on the face of Ipps were written emotions that no butler should cherish towards any guest. Contempt and wrath were the least of them. And Mr. Wontner was looking full at Ipps, as Ipps was looking at him. Mr. Wontner’s father, I understood, kept a butler and two footmen.
‘D’you suppose they’re shamming, in order to get off? ‘he said at last. Ipps shook his head and noiselessly threw the door open. The boys had finished their dinner and were fast asleep—one on a sofa, one in a long chair—their faces fallen back to the lines of their childhood. They had had a wildish night, a hard day, that ended with a telling-off from an artist, and the assurance they had wrecked their prospects for life. What else should youth do, then, but eat, and drink ’81 port, and remember their sorrows no more?
Mr. Wontner looked at them severely, Ipps within easy reach, his hands quite ready. ‘Childish,’ said Mr. Wontner at last. ‘Childish but necessary. Er—have you such a thing as a rope on the premises, and a sack—two sacks and two ropes? I’m afraid I can’t resist the temptation. That man understands, doesn’t he, that this is a private matter?’
‘That man,’ who was me, was off’ to the basement like one of Infant’s own fallow-deer. The stables gave me what I wanted, and coming back with it through a dark passage, I ran squarely into Ipps. ‘Go on!’ he grunted. ‘The minute he lays hands on Master Bobby, Master Bobby’s saved. But that person ought to be told how near he came to being assaulted. It was touch-and-go with me all the time from the soup down, I assure you.’
I arrived breathless with the sacks and the ropes.
‘They were two to one with me,’ said Mr. Wontner, as he took them. ‘If they wake——’
‘We’ll stand by,’ Stalky replied. ‘Two to one is quite fair.’
But the boys hardly grunted as Mr. Wontner roped first one and then the other. Even when they were slid into the sacks they only mumbled, with rolling heads, through sticky lips and snored on.
‘Port?’ said Mr. Wontner virtuously.
‘Nervous exhaustion. They aren’t much more than kids, after all. What’s next?’ said Stalky.
‘I want to take ’em away with me, please.’
Stalky looked at him with respect.
page 5
‘I’ll have my car round in five minutes,’ said The Infant. ‘Ipps’ll help carry ’em downstairs,’ and he shook Mr. Wontner by the hand.
We were all perfectly serious till the two bundles were dumped on a divan in the hall, and the boys waked and began to realise what had happened.
‘Yah!’ said Mr. Wontner, with the simplicity of twelve years old. ‘Who’s scored now?’ And he sat upon them. The tension broke in a storm of laughter, led, I think, by Ipps.
‘Asinine—absolutely asinine!’said Mr. Wontner, with folded arms from his lively chair. But he drank in the flattery and the fellowship of it all with quite a brainless grin, as we rolled and stamped round him, and wiped the tears from our cheeks.
‘Hang it!’ said Bobby Trivett. ‘We’re defeated!’
‘By tactics, too,’ said Eames. ‘I didn’t think you knew ’em, Clausewitz. It’s a fair score. What are you going to do with us?’
‘Take you back to Mess,’ said Mr. Wontner.
‘Not like this?’
‘Oh no. Worse—much worse! I haven’t begun with you yet. And you thought you’d scored! Yah!’
They had scored beyond their wildest dream. The man in whose hands it lay to shame them, their Colonel, their Adjutant, their Regiment, and their Service, had cast away all shadow of his legal rights for the sake of a common or bear-garden rag—such a rag as if it came to the ears of the authorities, would cost him his commission. They were saved, and their saviour was their equal and their brother. So they chaffed and reviled him as such till he again squashed the breath out of them, and we others laughed louder than they.
‘Fall in!’ said Stalky when the limousine came round. ‘This is the score of the century. I wouldn’t miss it for a brigade! We shan’t be long, Infant!’
I hurried into a coat.
‘Is there any necessity for that reporter-chap to come too?’ said Mr. Wontner in an unguarded whisper. ‘He isn’t dressed for one thing.’
Bobby and Eames wriggled round to look at the reporter, began a joyous bellow, and suddenly stopped.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Wontner with suspicion.
‘Nothing,’ said Bobby. ‘I die happy, Clausewitz. Take me up tenderly.’
We packed into the car, bearing our sheaves with us, and for half an hour, as the cool nightair fanned his thoughtful brow, Mr. Wontner was quite abreast of himself. Though he said nothing unworthy, he triumphed and trumpeted a little loudly over the sacks. I sat between them on the back seat, and applauded him servilely till he reminded me that what I had seen and what he had said was not for publication. I hinted, while the boys plunged with joy inside their trappings, that this might be a matter for arrangement. ‘Then a sovereign shan’t part us,’ said Mr. Wontner cheerily, and both boys fell into lively hysterics. ‘I don’t see where the joke comes in for you,’ said Mr. Wontner. ‘I thought it was my little jokelet to-night.’
‘No, Clausewitz,’ gasped Bobby. ‘Some is, but not all. I’ll be good now. I’ll give you my parole till we get to Mess. I wouldn’t be out of this for a fiver.’
‘Nor me,’ said Eames, and he gave his parole to attempt no escape or evasion.
‘Now, I suppose,’ said Mr. Wontner largely to Stalky, as we neared the suburbs of Ash, ‘you have a good deal of practical joking on the Stock Exchange, haven’t you?’
‘And when were you on the Stock Exchange, Uncle Leonard?’ piped Bobby, while Eames laid his sobbing head on my shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Stalky, ‘but the fact is, I command a regiment myself when I’m at home. Your Colonel knows me, I think.’ He gave his name. Mr. Wontner seemed to have heard of it. We had to pick Eames off the floor, where he had cast himself from excess of delight.
‘Oh, Heavens!’ said Mr. Wontner after a long pause. ‘What have I done? What haven’t I done?’ We felt the temperature in the car rise as he blushed.
‘You didn’t talk tactics, Clausewitz?’ said Bobby. ‘Oh, say it wasn’t tactics, darling!’
‘It was,’ said Wontner.
Eames was all among our feet again, crying, ‘If you don’t let me get my arms up, I’ll be sick. Let’s hear what you said. Tell us.’
But Mr. Wonter turned to Stalky. ‘It’s no good my begging your pardon, sir, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Don’t you notice ’em,’ said Stalky. ‘It was a fair rag all round, and anyhow, you two youngsters haven’t any right to talk tactics. You’ve been rolled up, horse, foot, and guns.’
‘I’ll make a treaty. If you’ll let us go and change presently,’ said Bobby, ‘I’ll promise we won’t tell about you, Clausewitz. You talked tactics to Uncle Len? Old Dhurrah-bags will like that. He don’t love you, Claus.’
‘If I’ve made one ass of myself, I shall take extra care to make asses of you!’ said Wontner. ‘I want to stop, please, at the next milliner’s shop on the right. It ought to be close here.’
He evidently knew the country even in the dark, for the car stopped at a brilliantly-lighted millinery establishment, where—it was Saturday evening—a young lady was clearing up the counter. I followed him, as a good reporter should.
‘Have you got——’ he began. ‘Ah, tbose’ll do!’ He pointed to two hairy plush beehive bonnets, one magenta, the other a conscientious electric blue. ‘How much, please? I’ll take them both, and that bunch of peacock feathers, and that red feather thing.’ It was a brilliant crimson-dyed pigeon’s wing.
page 6
‘Now I want some yards of muslin with a nice, fierce pattern, please.’ He got it—yellow with black tulips—and returned heavily laden.
‘Sorry to have kept you,’ said he. ‘Now we’ll go to my quarters to change and beautify.’
We came to them—opposite a dun waste of parade-ground that might have been Mian Mir—and bugles as they blew and drums as they rolled set heart-strings echoing.
We hoisted the boys out and arranged them on chairs, while Wontner changed into uniform, but stopped when he saw me taking off my jacket.
‘What on earth’s that for?’ said he.
‘Because you’ve been wearing my evening things,’ I said. ‘I want to get into ’em again, if you don’t mind.’
‘Then you aren’t a reporter? ‘he said
‘No,’ I said, ‘but that shan’t part us.’
‘Oh, hurry!’ cried Eames in desperate convulsions. ‘We can’t stand this much longer. ’Tisn’t fair on the young.’
‘I’ll attend to you in good time,’ said Wontner; and when he had made careful toilet, he unwrapped the bonnets, put the peacock’s feather into the magenta one, pinned the crimson wing on the blue one, set them daintily on the boys’ heads, and bade them admire the effect in his shaving-glass while he ripped the muslin into lengths, bound it first, and draped it artistically afterwards a little below their knees. He finished off with a gigantic sash-bow, obi fashion. ‘Hobble skirts,’ he explained to Stalky, who nodded approval.
Next he split open the bottom of each sack so that they could walk, but with very short steps. ‘I ought to have got you white satin slippers,’ he murmured, ‘and I’m sorry there’s no rouge.’
‘Don’t worry on our account, old man—you’re doing us proud,’ said Bobby from under his hat. ‘This beats milk-punch and mayonnaise.’
‘Oh, why didn’t we think of these things when we had him at our mercy?’ Eames wailed. ‘Never mind—we’ll try it on the next chap. You’ve a mind, Claus.’
‘Now we’ll call on ’em at Mess,’ said Wontner, as they minced towards the door.
‘I think I’ll call on your Colonel,’ said Stalky. ‘He oughtn’t to miss this. Your first attempt? I assure you I couldn’t have done it better myself. Thank you!’ He held out his hand.
‘Thank you, sir!’ said Wontner, shaking it. ‘I’m more grateful to you than I can say, and—and I’d like you to believe some time that I’m not quite as big a——’
‘Not in the least,’ Stalky interrupted. ‘If I were writing a confidential report on you, I should put you down as rather adequate. Look after your geishas, or they’ll fall!’
We watched the three cross the road and disappear into the shadow of the mess verandah. There was a noise. Then telephone bells rang, a sergeant and a mess waiter charged out, and the noise grew, till at last the Mess was a little noisy.
We came back, ten minutes later, with Colonel Dalziell, who had been taking his sorrows to bed with him. The ante-room was quite full and visitors were still arriving, but it was possible to hear oneself speak occasionally. Trivett and Eames, in sack and sash, sat side by side on a table, their hats at a ravishing angle, coquettishly twiddling their tied feet. In the intervals of singing ‘Put Me Among the Girls,’ they sipped whisky-and-soda held to their lips by, I regret to say, a Major. Public opinion seemed to be against allowing them to change their costume till they should have danced in it. Wontner, lying more or less gracefully at the level of the chandelier in the arms of six subalterns, was lecturing on tactics and imploring to be let down, which he was with a run when they realised that the Colonel was there. Then he picked himself up from the sofa and said: ‘I want to apologise, sir, to you and the Mess for having been such an ass ever since I joined!’
This was when the noise began.
Seeing the night promised to be wet, Stalky and I went home again in The Infant’s car. It was some time since we had tasted the hot air that lies between the cornice and the ceiling of crowded rooms.
After half an hour’s silence, Stalky said to me ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but 1 believe I’ve been weepin’. Would you put that down to Burgundy or senile decay?’
Cry ‘Murder!’ in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
That ask—‘Art thou the man?’ We hunted Cain,
Some centuries ago, across the world.
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
Today. (Vibart’s Moralities)
[a short tale]
SHAKESPEARE says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles, turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread on a worm—not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue-paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is a story of the worm that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne ‘The Worm,’ though he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a girl’s, when he came out to the Second ‘Shikarris’ and was made unhappy in several ways. The ‘Shikarris’ are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well—play a banjo, or ride more than a little, or sing, or act,—to get on with them.
The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of gate-posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He objected to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very much to himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four of these five things were vices which the ‘Shikarris’ objected to and set themselves to eradicate. Every one knows how subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and not permitted to be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and does no one any harm, unless tempers are lost; and then there is trouble. There was a man once—
The ‘Shikarris’ shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices by every one except the Senior Subaltern, who continued to make life a burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his chaff was coarse and he didn’t quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting too long for his Company; and that always sours a man. Also he was in love, which made him worse.
One day, after he had borrowed The Worm’s trap for a lady who never existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to The Worm, purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess all about it, The Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, ladylike voice—‘That was a very pretty sell; but I’ll lay you a month’s pay to a month’s pay when you get your step, that I work a sell on you that you’ll remember for the rest of your days, and the Regiment after you when you’re dead or broke.’ The Worm wasn’t angry in the least, and the rest of the Mess shouted. Then the Senior Subaltern looked at The Worm from the boots upwards, and down again, and said—‘Done, Baby.’ The Worm held the rest of the Mess to witness that the bet had been taken, and retired into a book with a sweet smile.
Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still educated The Worm, who began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I have said that the Senior Subaltern was in love. The curious thing is that a girl was in love with the Senior Subaltern. Though the Colonel said awful things, and the Majors snorted, and the married Captains looked unutterable wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those two were engaged.
The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl was a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come into this story at all.
One night, at the beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except The Worm, who had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were sitting on the platform outside the Mess House. The Band had finished playing, but no one wanted to go in. And the Captains’ wives were there also. The folly of a man in love is unlimited. The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the girl he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval while the men yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint voice lifted itself.
‘Where’s my husband?’
I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the ‘Shikarris’; but it is on record that four men jumped up as if they had been shot. Three of them were married men. Perhaps they were afraid that their wives had come from Home unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the impulse of the moment. He explained this afterwards.
Then the voice cried, ‘Oh, Lionel!’ Lionel was the Senior Subaltern’s name. A woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to happen and ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small world of ours, one knows so little of the life of the next man—which, after all, is entirely his own concern—that one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn up any day for any one. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern had been trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that way occasionally. We didn’t know; we wanted to hear; and the Captains’ wives were as anxious as we. If he had been trapped he was to be excused; for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes and gray travelling-dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of tears. She was tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and called him ‘my darling,’ and said she could not bear waiting alone in England, and his letters were so short and cold, and she was his to the end of the world, and would he forgive her? This did not sound quite like a lady’s way of speaking. It was too demonstrative.
Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains’ wives peered under their eyebrows at the Senior Subaltern, and the Colonel’s face set like the Day of Judgment framed in gray bristles, and no one spoke for a while.
Next the Colonel said, very shortly, ‘Well, Sir?’ and the woman sobbed afresh. The Senior Subaltern was half choked with the arms round his neck, but he gasped out—‘It’s a damned lie! I never had a wife in my life!’ ‘Don’t swear,’ said the Colonel. ‘Come into the Mess. We must sift this clear somehow,’ and he sighed to himself, for he believed in his ‘Shikarris,’ did the Colonel.
We trooped into the ante-room, under the full lights, and there we saw how beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us all, sometimes choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then holding out her arms to the Senior Subaltern. It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. She told us how the Senior Subaltern had married her when he was Home on leave eighteen months before; and she seemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people and his past life. He was white and ashy-gray, trying now and again to break into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how lovely she was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt sorry for him, though.
I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our dull lives. The Captains’ wives stood back; but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand and watching the woman from underneath it. Another was chewing his moustache and smiling quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full in the open space in the centre, by the whist-tables, the Senior Subaltern’s terrier was hunting for fleas. I remember all this as clearly as though a photograph were in my hand. I remember the look of horror on the Senior Subaltern’s face. It was rather like seeing a man hanged, but much more interesting. Finally, the woman wound up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F.M. in tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the bachelor Majors said very politely, ‘I presume that your marriage-certificate would be more to the purpose.’
That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the Senior Subaltern for a cur, and abused the Major and the Colonel and all the rest. Then she wept, and then she pulled a paper from her breast, saying imperially, ‘Take that! And let my husband—my lawfully wedded husband, read it aloud—if he dare!’
There was a hush, and the men looked into each other’s eyes as the Senior Subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We were wondering, as we stared, whether there was anything against any one of us that might turn up later on. The Senior Subaltern’s throat was dry; but, as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman, ‘You young blackguard!’ But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was written, ‘This is to certify that I, The Worm, have paid in full my debts to the Senior Subaltern, and, further, that the Senior Subaltern is my debtor, by agreement on the 23d of February, as by the Mess attested, to the extent of one month’s Captain’s pay, in the lawful currency of the Indian Empire.’
Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s quarters, and found him, betwixt and between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, and serge dress, on the bed. He came over as he was, and the ‘Shikarris’ shouted till the Gunners’ Mess sent over to know if they might have a share of the fun. I think we were all, except the Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little disappointed that the scandal had come to nothing. But that is human nature. There could be no two words about The Worm’s acting. It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can. When most of the Subalterns sat upon him with sofa-cushions to find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly, ‘I don’t think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my sisters.’ But no acting with girls could account for The Worm’s display that night. Personally, I think it was in bad taste; besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even for fun.
The ‘Shikarris’ made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; and, when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm sank the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good Worm; and the ‘Shikarris’ are proud of him. The only drawback is that he has been christened ‘Mrs. Senior Subaltern’ ; and, as there are now two Mrs. Senior Subalterns in the Station, this is sometimes confusing to strangers.
Later on, I will tell you of a case something like this, but with all the jest left out and nothing in it but real trouble.
THE autumn batch of recruits for the Old Regiment had just been uncarted. As usual they were said to be the worst draft that had ever come from the Depôt. Mulvaney looked them over, grunted scornfully, and immediately reported himself very sick. ‘Is it the regular autumn fever?’ said the doctor, who knew something of Terence’s ways. ‘Your temperature’s normal.’
‘“Tis wan hundred and thirty-seven rookies to the bad, sorr. I’m not very sick now, but I will be dead if these boys are thrown at me in my rejuced condition. Doctor, dear, supposin’ you was in charge of three cholera camps an’——’
‘Go to hospital then, you old contriver,’ said the doctor, laughing.
Terence bundled himself into a blue bedgown—Dinah Shadd was away attending to a major’s lady, who preferred Dinah without a diploma to anybody else with a hundred,—put a pipe in his teeth, and paraded the hospital balcony, exhorting Ortheris to be a father to the new recruits.
‘They’re mostly your own sort, little man,’ he said, with a grin; ‘the top-spit av Whitechapel. I’ll interogue them whin they’re more like something they never will be,—an’ that’s a good honest soldier like me.’
Ortheris yapped indignantly. He knew as well as Terence what the coming work meant, and he thought Terence’s conduct mean. Then he strolled off to look at the new cattle, who were staring at the unfamiliar landscape with large eyes, and asking if the kites were eagles and the pariah-dogs jackals.
‘Well, you are a holy set of bean-faced beggars, you are,’ he said genially to a knot in the barrack square. Then, running his eye over them,—‘Fried fish an’ whelks is about your sort. Blimy if they haven’t sent some pink-eyed Jews too. You chap with the greasy ’ed, which o’ the Solomons was ‘your father, Moses?’
‘My name’s Anderson,’ said a voice sullenly.
‘Oh, Samuelson! All right, Samuelson! An’ ’ow many o’ the likes o’ you Sheenies are comin’ to spoil B Company?’
There is no scorn so complete as that of the old soldier for the new. It is right that this ‘should be so. A recruit must learn first that he is not a man but a thing, which in time, and by he mercy of Heaven, may develop into a soldier of the Queen if it takes care and attends to good advice. Ortheris’s tunic was open, his cap over-topped one eye, and his hands were behind his back as he walked round, growing more conemptuous at each step. The recruits did not dare to answer, for they were new boys in a strange school, who had called themselves soldiers at the Depôt in comfortable England.
‘Not a single pair o’ shoulders in the whole lot. I’ve seen some bad drafts in my time,—some bloomin’ bad drafts; but this ’ere draft beats any’ draft I’ve ever known. Jock, come an’ look at these squidgy, ham-shanked beggars.’
Learoyd was walking across the square. He arrived slowly, circled round the knot as a whale circles round a shoal of small fry, said nothing, and went away whistling.
‘Yes, you may well look sheepy,’ Ortheris squeaked to the boys. ‘It’s the likes of you; breaks the ’earts of the likes of us. We’ve got to lick you into shape, and never a ha’penny extry do we get for so doin’, and you ain’t never grateful neither. Don’t you go thinkin’ it’s the Colonel nor yet the company orf’cer that makes you. It’s us, you Johnnie Raws—you Johnnie bloomin’ Raws!’
A company officer had come up unperceived behind Ortheris at the end of this oration. ‘You may be right, Ortheris,’ he said quietly, ‘but I shouldn’t shout it.’ The recruits grinned as Ortheris saluted and collapsed.
Some days afterwards I was privileged to look over the new batch, and they were everything that Ortheris had said, and more. B Company had been devastated by forty or fifty of them; and B Company’s drill on parade was a sight to shudder at. Ortheris asked them lovingly whether they had not been sent out by mistake, and whether they had not better post themselves back to their friends. Learoyd thrashed them methodically one by one, without haste but without slovenliness; and the older soldiers took the remnants from Learoyd and went over them in their own fashion. Mulvaney stayed in hospital, and grinned from the balcony when Ortheris called him a shirker and other worse names.
‘By the grace av God we’ll brew men av them yet,’ Terence said one day. ‘Be vartuous an’ parsevere, me son. There’s the makin’s av colonels in that mob if we only go deep enough—wid a belt.’
‘We!’ Ortheris replied, dancing with rage. ‘I just love you and your “we’s.” ‘Ere’s B Company drillin’ like a drunk Militia reg’ment.’
‘So I’ve been officially acquent,’ was the answer from on high; ‘but I’m too sick this tide to make certain.’
‘An’ you, you fat H’irishman, sniftin’ an’ shirkin’ up there among the arrerroot an the sago!’
‘An’ the port wine,—you’ve forgot the port wine, Orth’ris: ’Tis none so bad.’ Terence smacked his lips provokingly.
‘And we’re wore off’ our feet with these ‘ere—kangaroos. Come out o’ that, an’ earn your pay. Come on down outer that, an’ do somethin’, ’stead o’ grinnin’ up there like a Jew monkey, you frowsy—’eaded Fenian!’
‘When I’m better av my various complaints I’ll have a little private talkin’ wid you. In the meanwhile,—duck!’
Terence flung an empty medicine bottle at Ortheris’s head and dropped into a long chair, and Ortheris came to tell me his opinion of Mulvaney three times over,—each time entirely varying all the words.
‘There’ll be a smash one o’ these days,’ he concluded. ‘Well, it’s none o’ my fault, but it’s ‘ard on B Company.’
It was very hard on B Company, for twenty seasoned men cannot push twice that number of fools into their places and keep their own places at the same time. The recruits should have been more evenly distributed through the regiment, but it seemed good to the Colonel to mass them in a company where there was a fair proportion of old soldiers. He found his reward early one morning when the battalion was advancing by companies in echelon from the right. The order was given to form company squares, which are compact little bricks of men very unpleasant for a line of charging cavalry to deal with. B Company was on the left flank, and had ample time to know what was going on. For that reason, presumably, it gathered itself into a thing like a decayed aloe-clump, the bayonets pointing anywhere in general and nowhere in particular; and in that clump, roundel, or mob, it stayed till the dust had gone down and the Colonel could see and speak. He did both, and the speaking part was admitted by the regiment to be the finest thing that the ‘old man’ had ever risen to since one delightful day at a sham-fight, when a cavalry division had occasion to walk over his line of skirmishers. He said, almost weeping, that he had given no order for rallying groups, and that he preferred to see a little dressing among the men occasionally. He then apologised for having mistaken B Company for men. He said that they were but weak little children, and that since he could not offer them each a perambulator and a nursemaid (this may sound comic to read, but B Company heard it by word of mouth and winced) perhaps the best thing for them to do would be to go back to squad-drill. To that end he proposed sending them, out of their turn, to garrison duty in Fort Amara, five miles away,—D Company were next for this detestable duty and nearly cheered the Colonel. There he devoutly hoped that their own subalterns would drill them to death, as they were of no use in their present life.
page 2
It was an exceedingly painful scene, and I made haste to be near B Company barracks when parade was dismissed and the men were free to talk. There was no talking at first, because each old soldier took a new draft and kicked him very severely. The non-commissioned officers had neither eyes nor ears for these accidents. They left the barracks to themselves, and Ortheris improved the occasion by a speech. I did not hear that speech, but fragments of it were quoted for weeks afterwards. It covered the birth, parentage, and education of every man in the company by name: it gave a complete account of Fort Amara from a sanitary and social point of view; and it wound up with an abstract of the whole duty of a soldier, each recruit his use in life, and Ortheris’s views on the use and fate of the recruits of B Company.
‘You can’t drill, you can’t walk, you can’t shoot,—you,—you awful rookies! Wot’s the good of you? You eats and you sleeps, and you eats, and you goes to the doctor for medicine when your innards is out o’ order for all the world as if you was bloomin’ generals. An’ now you’ve topped it all, you bats’-eyed beggars, with getting us druv out to that stinkin’ Fort ’Ammerer. We’ll fort you when we get out there; yes, an’ we’ll ’ammer you too. Don’t you think you’ve come into the H’army to drink Heno, an’ club your comp‘ny, an’ lie on your cots an’ scratch your fat heads. You can do that at ’ome sellin’ matches, which is all you’re fit for, you keb-huntin’, penny-toy, bootlace, baggage-tout, ’orse-’oldin’, sandwich-backed se-werss, you.’ I’ve spoke you as fair as I know ’ow, and you give good ’eed, ’cause if Mulvaney stops skrimshanking—gets out o’ ’orspital—when we’re in the Fort, I lay your lives will be trouble to you.’
That was Ortheris’s peroration, and it caused B Company to be christened the Boot-black Brigade. With this disgrace on their slack shoulders they went to garrison duty at Fort Amara with their officers, who were under instructions to twist their little tails. The army, unlike every other profession, cannot be taught through shilling books. First a man must suffer, then he must learn his work, and the self-respect that that knowledge brings. The learning is hard, in a land where the army is not a red thing that walks down the street to be looked at, but a living tramping reality that may be needed at the shortest notice, when there is no time to say, ‘Hadn’t you better?’ and ‘Won’t you please?’
The company officers divided themselves into three. When Brander the captain was wearied, he gave over to Maydew, and when Maydew was hoarse he ordered the junior subaltern Ouless to bucket the men through squad and company drill, till Brander could go on again. Out of parade hours the old soldiers spoke to the recruits as old soldiers will, and between the four forces at work on them, the new draft began to stand on their feet and feel that they belonged to a good and honourable service. This was proved by their once or twice resenting Ortheris’s technical lectures.
‘Drop it now, lad,’ said Learoyd, coming to the rescue. ‘Th’ pups are biting back. They’re none so rotten as we looked for.’
‘Ho! Yes. You think yourself soldiers now, ’cause you don’t fall over each other on p’rade, don’t you? You think ’cause the dirt don’t cake off you week’s end to week’s end that you’re clean men. You think ’cause you can fire your rifle without more nor shuttin’ both eyes, you’re something to fight, don’t you? You’ll know later on,’ said Ortheris to the barrack-room generally. ‘Not but what you’re a little better than you was,’ he added, with a gracious wave of his cutty.
It was in this transition-stage that I came across the new draft once more. Their officers, in the zeal of youth forgetting that the old soldiers who stiffened the sections must suffer equally with the raw material under hammering, had made all a little stale and unhandy with continuous drill in the square, instead of marching the men into the open and supplying them with skirmishing drill. The month of garrison-duty in the Fort was nearly at an end, and B Company were quite fit for a self-respecting regiment to drill with. They had no style or spring,—that would come in time,—but so far as they went they were passable. I met Maydew one day and inquired after their health. He told me that young Ouless was putting a polish on a half-company of them in the great square by the east bastion of the Fort that afternoon. Because the day was Saturday I went off to taste the full beauty of leisure in watching another man hard at work.
The fat forty-pound muzzle-loaders on the east bastion made a very comfortable resting-place. You could sprawl full length on the iron warmed by the afternoon sun to blood heat, and command an easy view of the parade-ground which lay between the powder-magazine and the curtain of the bastion.
I saw a half-company called over and told off for drill, saw Ouless come from his quarters, tugging at his gloves, and heard the first ’Shun! that locks the ranks and shows that work has begun. Then I went off on my own thoughts; the squeaking of the boots and the rattle of the rifles making a good accompaniment, and the line of red coats and black trousers a suitable back-ground to them all. They concerned the formation of a territorial army for India,—an army of specially paid men enlisted for twelve years’ service in Her Majesty’s Indian possessions, with the option of extending on medical certificates for another five and the certainty of a pension at the end. They would be such an army as the world had never seen,—one hundred thousand trained men drawing annually five, no, fifteen thousand men from England, making India their home, and allowed to marry in reason. Yes, I thought, watching the line shift to and fro, break and re-form, we would buy back Cashmere from the drunken imbecile who was turning it into a hell, and there we would plant our much-married regiments,—the men who had served ten years of their time,—and there they should breed us white soldiers, and perhaps a second fighting-line of Eurasians. At all events Cashmere was the only place in India that the Englishman could colonise, and if we had foothold there we could, . . Oh, it was a beautiful dream! I left that territorial army swelled to a quarter of a million men far behind, swept on as far as an independent India, hiring warships from the mother-country, guarding Aden on the one side and Singapore on the other, paying interest on her loans with beautiful regularity, but borrowing no men from beyond her own borders—a colonised, manufacturing India with a permanent surplus and her own flag. I had just installed myself as Viceroy, and by virtue of my office had shipped four million sturdy thrifty natives to the Malayan Archipelago, where labour is always wanted and the Chinese pour in too quickly, when I became aware that things were not going smoothly with the half-company. There was a great deal too much shuffling and shifting and ‘as you wereing.’ The non-commissioned officers were snapping at the men, and I fancied Ouless backed one of his orders with an oath. He was in no position to do this, because he was a junior who had not yet learned to pitch his word of command in the same key twice running. Sometimes he squeaked, and sometimes he grunted; and a clear full voice with a ring in it has more to do with drill than people think. He was nervous both on parade and in mess, because he was unproven and knew it. One of his majors had said in his hearing, ‘Ouless has a skin or two to slough yet, and he hasn’t the sense to be aware of it.’ That remark had staved in Ouless’s mind and caused him to think about himself in little things, which is not the best training for a young man. He tried to be cordial at mess, and became overeffusive. Then he tried to stand on his dignity, and appeared sulky and boorish. He was only hunting for the just medium and the proper note, and had found neither because he had never faced himself in a big thing. With his men he was as ill at ease as he was with his mess, and his voice betrayed him. I heard two orders and then:—‘Sergeant, what is that rear-rank man doing, damn him?’ That was sufficiently bad. A company officer ought not to ask sergeants for information. He commands, and commands are not held by syndicates.
It was too dusty to see the drill accurately, but I could hear the excited little voice pitching from octave to octave, and the uneasy ripple of badgered or bad-tempered files running down the ranks. Ouless had come on parade as sick of his duty as were the men of theirs. The hot sun had told on everybody’s temper, but most of all on the youngest man’s. He had evidently lost his self-control, and not possessing the nerve or the knowledge to break off till he had recovered it again, was making bad worse by ill-language.
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The men shifted their ground and came close under the gun I was lying on. They were wheeling quarter-right and they did it very badly, in the natural hope of hearing Ouless swear again. He could have taught them nothing new, but they enjoyed the exhibition. Instead of swearing Ouless lost his head completely, and struck out nervously at the wheeling flank-man with a little Malacca riding-cane that he held in his hand for a pointer. The cane was topped with thin silver over lacquer, and the silver had worn through in one place, leaving a triangular flap sticking up. I had just time to see that Ouless had thrown away his commission by striking a soldier, when I heard the rip of cloth and a piece of gray shirt showed under the torn scarlet on the man’s shoulder. It had been the merest nervous flick of an exasperated boy, but quite enough to forfeit his commission, since it had been dealt in anger to a volunteer and no pressed man, who could not under the rules of the service reply. The effect of it, thanks to the natural depravity of things, was as though Ouless had cut the man’s coat off his back. Knowing the new draft by reputation, I was fairly certain that every one of them would swear with many oaths that Ouless had actually thrashed the man. In that case Ouless would do well to pack his trunk. His career as a servant of the Queen in any capacity was ended. The wheel continued, and the men halted and dressed immediately opposite my resting-place. Ouless’s face was perfectly bloodless. The flanking man was a dark red, and I could see his lips moving in wicked words. He was Ortheris! After seven years’ service and three medals, he had been struck by a boy younger than himself! Further, he was my friend and a good man, a proved man, and an Englishman. The shame of the thing made me as hot as it made Ouless cold, and if Ortheris had slipped in a cartridge and cleared the account at once I should have rejoiced. The fact that Ortheris, of all men, had been struck, proved, that the boy could not have known whom he was hitting; but he should have remembered that he was no longer a boy. And then I was sorry for him, and then I was angry again, and Ortheris stared in front of him and grew redder and redder.
The drill halted for a moment. No one knew why, for not three men could have seen the insult, the wheel being end-on to Ouless at the time. Then, led, I conceived, by the hand of Fate, Brander, the captain, crossed the drill-ground, and his eye was caught by not more than a square foot of gray shirt over a shoulder-blade that should have been covered by well-fitting tunic.
‘Heavens and earth!’ he said, crossing in three strides. ‘Do you let your men come on parade in rags, sir? What’s that scarecrow doing here? Fall out, that flank-man. What do you mean by—You, Ortheris! of all men. What the deuce do you mean?’
‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ said Ortheris. ‘I scratched it against the guard-gate running up to parade.’
‘Scratched it! Ripped it up, you mean. It’s half off your back.’
‘It was a little tear at first, sir, but in portin’ arms it got stretched, sir, an’—an’ I can’t look be’ind me. I felt it givin’, sir.’
‘Hm! ‘ said Brander. ‘I should think you did feel it give. I thought it was one of the new draft. You’ve a good pair of shoulders. Go on!’
He turned to go. Ouless stepped after him, very white, and said something in a low voice.
‘Hey, what? What? Ortheris,’ the voice dropped. I saw Ortheris salute, say something, and stand at attention.
‘Dismiss,’ said Brander curtly. The men were dismissed. ‘I can’t make this out. You say——?’ he nodded at Ouless, who said something again. Ortheris stood still, the torn flap of his tunic falling nearly to his waist-belt. He had, as Brander said, a good pair of shoulders, and prided himself on the fit of his tunic.
‘Beg y’ pardon, sir,’ I heard him say, ‘but I think Lieutenant Ouless has been in the sun too long. He don’t quite remember things, sir. I come on p’rade with a bit of a rip, and it spread, sir, through portin’ arms, as I ’ave said, sir.’
Brander looked from one face to the other and I suppose drew his own conclusions, for he told Ortheris to go with the other men who were flocking back to barracks. Then he spoke to Ouless and went away, leaving the boy in the middle of the parade-ground fumbling with his sword-knot.
He looked up, saw me lying on the gun, and came to me biting the back of his gloved forefinger, so completely thrown off his balance that he had not sense enough to keep his trouble to himself.
‘I say, you saw that, I suppose?’ He jerked his head back to the square, where the dust left by the departing men was settling down in white circles.
‘I did,’ I answered, for I was not feeling polite.
‘What the devil ought I to do?’ He bit his finger again. ‘I told Brander what I had done. I hit him.’
‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ I said, ‘and I don’t suppose Ortheris has forgotten it already.’
‘Ye—es; but I’m dashed if I know what I ought to do. Exchange into another company, I suppose. I can’t ask the man to exchange, I suppose. Hey?’
The suggestion showed the glimmerings of proper sense, but he should not have come to me or any one else for help. It was his own affair, and I told him so. He seemed unconvinced, and began to talk of the possibilities of being cashiered. At this point the spirit moved me, on behalf of the unavenged Ortheris, to paint him a beautiful picture of his insignificance in the scheme of creation. He had a papa and a mamma seven thousand miles away, and perhaps some friends. They would feel his disgrace, but no one else would care a, penny. He would be only Lieutenant Ouless of the Old Regiment dismissed the Queen’s service for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The Commander-in-Chief, who would confirm the orders of the court-martial, would not know who he was; his mess would not speak of him; he would return to Bombay, if he had money enough to go home, more alone than when he had come out. Finally,—I rounded the sketch with precision,—he was only one tiny dab of red in the vast gray field of the Indian Empire. He must work this crisis out alone, and no one could help him, and no one cared—(this was untrue, because I cared immensely; he had spoken the truth to Brander on the spot)—whether he pulled through it or did not pull through it. At last his face set and his figure stiffened.
‘Thanks, that’s quite enough. I don’t want to hear any more,’ he said in a dry grating voice, and went to his own quarters.
Brander spoke to me afterwards and asked me some absurd question—whether I had seen Ouless cut the coat off Ortheris’s back. I knew that jagged sliver of silver would do its work well, but I contrived to impress on Brander the completeness, the wonderful completeness, of my disassociation from that drill. I began to tell him all about my dreams for the new territorial army in India, and he left me.
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I could not see Ortheris for some days, but I learnt that when he returned to his fellows he had told the story of the blow in vivid language. Samuelson, the Jew, then asserted that it was not good enough to live in a regiment where you were drilled off your feet and knocked about like a dog. The remark was a perfectly innocent one, and exactly tallied with Ortheris’s expressed opinions. Yet Ortheris had called Samuelson an unmentionable Jew, had accused him of kicking women on the head in London, and howling under the cat, had hustled him, as a bantam hustles a barn-door cock, from one end of the barrack-room to the other, and finally had heaved every single article of Samuelson’s valise and bedding-roll into the verandah and the outer dirt, kicking Samuelson every time that the bewildered creature stooped to pick anything up. My informant could not account for this inconsistency, but it seemed to me that Ortheris was working off his temper.
Mulvaney had heard the story in hospital. First his face clouded, then he spat, and then laughed. I suggested that he had better return to active duty, but he saw it in another light, and told me that Ortheris was quite capable of looking after himself and his own affairs. ‘An’ if I did come out,’ said Terence, ‘like as not I would be catchin’ young Ouless by the scruff av his trousies an’ makin’ an example av him before the men. Whin Dinah came back I would be under court-martial, an’ all for the sake av a little bit av a bhoy that’ll make an orf’cer yet. What’s he goin’ to do, sorr, do ye know?’
‘Which?’ said I.
‘Ouless, av course. I’ve no fear for the man. Begad, tho’, if ut had come to me—but ut could not have so come—I’d ha’ made him cut his wisdom-teeth on his own sword-hilt.’
‘I don’t think he knows himself what he means to do,’ I said.
‘I should not wonder,’ said Terence. ‘There’s a dale av thinkin’ before a young man whin he’s done wrong an’ knows ut, an’ is studyin’ how to put ut right. Give the word from me to our little man there, that if he had ha’ told on his shuperior orf’cer I’d ha’ come out to Fort Amara to kick him into the Fort ditch, an’ that’s a forty-fut drop.’
Ortheris was not in good condition to talk to. He wandered up and down with Learoyd brooding, so far as I could see, over his lost honour, and using, as I could hear, incendiary language. Learoyd would nod and spit and smoke and nod again, and he must have been a great comfort to Ortheris—almost as great a comfort as Samuelson, whom Ortheris bullied disgracefully. If the Jew opened his mouth in the most casual remark Ortheris would plunge down it with all arms and accoutrements, while the barrack-room stared and wondered.
Ouless had retired into himself to meditate. I saw him now and again, and he avoided me because I had witnessed his shame and spoken my mind on it. He seemed dull and moody, and found his half-company anything but pleasant to drill. The men did their work and gave him very little trouble, but just when they should have been feeling their feet, and showing that they felt them by spring and swing and snap, the elasticity died out, and it was only drilling with war-game blocks. There is a beautiful little ripple in a well-made
line of men, exactly like the play of a perfectly-tempered sword. Ouless’s half-company moved as a broom-stick moves, and would have broken as easily.
I was speculating whether Ouless had sent money to Ortheris, which would have been bad, or had apologised to him in private, which would have been worse, or had decided to let the whole affair slide, which would have been worst of all, when orders came to me to leave the station for a while. I had not spoken directly to Ortheris, for his honour was not my honour, and he was its only guardian, and he would not say anything except bad words.
I went away, and from time to time thought a great deal of that subaltern and that private in Fort Amara, and wondered what would be the upshot of everything.
When I returned it was early spring. B Company had been shifted from the Fort to regular duty in cantonments, the roses were getting ready to bud on the Mall, and the regiment, which had been at a camp of exercise among other things, was going through its spring musketry-course under an adjutant who had a notion that its shooting average was low. He had stirred up the company officers and they had bought extra ammunition for their men—the Government allowance is just sufficient to foul the rifling—and E Company, which counted many marksmen, was vapouring and offering to challenge all the other companies, and the third-class shots were very sorry that they had ever been born, and all the subalterns were a rich ripe saddle-colour from sitting at the butts six and eight hours a day.
I went off to the butts after breakfast very full of curiosity to see how the new draft had come forward. Ouless was there with his men by the bald hillock that marks the six hundred yards’ range, and the men were in gray-green khaki, that shows the best points of a soldier and shades off into every background he may stand against. Before I was in hearing distance I could see, as they sprawled on the dusty grass, or stood up and shook themselves, that they were men made over again—wearing their helmets with the cock of self-possession, swinging easily, and jumping to the word of command. Coming nearer, I heard Ouless whistling Ballyhooley between his teeth as he looked down the range with his binoculars, and the back of Lieutenant Ouless was the back of a free man and an officer. He nodded as I came up, and I heard him fling an order to a non-commissioned officer in a sure and certain voice. The flag ran up from the target, and Ortheris threw himself down on his stomach to put in his ten shots. He winked at me over the breech-block as he settled himself, with the air of a man who has to go through tricks for the benefit of children.
‘Watch, you men,’ said Ouless to the squad behind. ‘He’s half your weight, Brannigan, but he isn’t afraid of his rifle.’
Ortheris had his little affectations and pet ways as the rest of us have. He weighed his rifle, gave it a little kick-up, cuddled down again, and fired across the ground that was beginning to dance in the sun-heat.
‘Miss!’ said a man behind.
‘Too much bloomin’ background in front,’ Ortheris muttered.
‘I should allow two feet for refraction,’ said Ouless.
Ortheris fired again, made his outer, crept in, found the bull and stayed there; the non-commissioned officer pricking off the shots.
‘Can’t make out ‘ow I missed that first,’ he said, rising, and stepping back to my side, as Learoyd took his place.
‘Is it company practice?’ I asked.
‘No. Only just knockin’ about. Ouless, ’e’s givin’ ten rupees for second-class shots. I’m outer it, of course, but I come on to show ’em the proper style o’ doin’ things. Jock looks like a sea-lion at the Brighton Aquarium sprawlin’ an’ crawlin’ down there, don’t ‘e? Gawd, what a butt this end of ’im would make.’
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‘B Company has come up very well,’ I said.
‘They ‘ad to. They’re none so dusty now, are they? Samuelson even, ’e can shoot sometimes. We’re gettin’ on as well as can be expected, thank you.’
‘How do you get on with——?’
‘Oh, ’im! First-rate! Theres nothin’ wrong with ’im.’
‘Was it all settled then?’
‘’Asn’t Terence told you? I should say it was. ’E’s a gentleman, ’e is.’
‘Let’s hear,’ I said.
Ortheris twinkled all over, tucked his rifle across his knees and repeated, ‘’E’s a gentleman. ’E’s an officer too. You saw all that mess in Fort ’Ammerer. ’Twasn’t none o’ my fault, as you can guess. Only some goat in the drill judged it was be’aviour or something to play the fool on p’rade. That’s why we drilled so bad. When ’e ’it me, I was so took aback I couldn’t do nothing, an’ when I wished for to knock ’im down the wheel ’ad gone on, an’ I was facin’ you there lyin’ on the guns. After the captain had come up an’ was raggin’ me about my tunic bein’ tore, I saw the young beggar’s eye, an’ ’fore I could ’elp myself I begun to lie like a good ’un. You ’eard that? It was quite instinkive, but, my! I was in a lather. Then he said to the captain, “I struck ’im!” sez ’e, an’ I ‘eard Brander whistle, an’ then I come out with a new set o’ lies all about portin’ arms an’ ’ow the rip growed, same as you ’eard. I done that too before I knew where I was. Then I give Samuelson what-for in barricks when he was dismissed. You should ha’ seen ’is kit by the time I’d finished with it. It was all over the bloomin’ Fort! Then me an’ Jock went off to Mulvaney in ’orspital, five-mile walk, an’ I was hoppin’ mad. Ouless, ’e knowed it was court-martial for me if I ’it ’im back—’e must ha’ knowed. Well, I sez to Terence, whisperin’ under the ’orspital balcony—“Terence,” sez I, “what in ’ell am I to do?” I told ’im all about the row same as you saw. Terence ’e whistles like a bloomin’ old bullfinch up there in ’orspital, an’ ’e sez, “You ain’t to blame,” sez ’e. “’Strewth,” sez I, “d’you suppose I’ve come ’ere five mile in the sun to take blame?” I sez. “I want that young beggar’s hide took off. I ain’t a bloomin’ conscrip’,” I sez. “I’m a private servin’ of the Queen, an’ as good a man as ’e is,” I sez, “for all ’is commission an’ ’is airs an’ ’is money,” sez I’
‘What a fool you were,’ I interrupted. Ortheris, being neither a menial nor an American, but a free man, had no excuse for yelping.
’That’s exactly what Terence said. I wonder you set it the same way so pat if ’e ’asn’t been talkin’ to you. ’E sez to me—“You ought to ’ave more sense,” ’e sez, “at your time of life. What differ do it make to you,” ’e sez, “whether ’e ’as a commission or no commission? That’s none o’ your affair. It’s between man an’ man,” ’e sez, “if ’e ’eld a general’s commission. Moreover,” ’e sez, “you don’t look ’andsome ’oppin’ about on your ’ind legs like that. Take him away, Jock.” Then ’e went inside, an’ that’s all I got outer Terence. Jock, ’e sez as slow as a march in slow time,—“Stanley,” ’e sez, “that young beggar didn’t go for to ’it you.” “I don’t give a damn whether ’e did or ’e didn’t. ’It me ’e did,” I sez. “Then you’ve only got to report to Brander,” sez Jock. “What d’yer take me for?” I sez, as I was so mad I nearly ’it Jock. An’ he got me by the neck an’ shoved my ’ead into a bucket o’ water in the cook-’ouse an’ then we went back to the Fort, an’ I give Samuelson a little more trouble with ’is kit. ’E sez to me, “I haven’t been strook without ’ittin’ back.” “Well, you’re goin’ to be now,” I sez, an’ I give ’im one or two for ’isself, an’ arxed ’im very polite to ’it back, but he didn’t. I’d ha’ killed ’im if ’e ’ad. That done me a lot o’ good.
‘Ouless ’e didn’t make no show for some days,—not till after you was gone; an’ I was feelin’ sick an’ miserable, an’ didn’t know what I wanted, ’cept to black his little eyes good. I ’oped ’e might send me some money for my tunic. Then I’d ha’ had it out with him on p’rade and took my chance. Terence was in ’orspital still, you see, an’ ’e wouldn’t give me no advice.
‘The day after you left, Ouless come across me carrying a bucket on fatigue, an’ ’e sez to me very quietly, “Ortheris, you’ve got to come out shootin’ with me,” ’e sez. I felt like to bunging the bucket in ’is eye, but I didn’t. I got ready to go instead. Oh, ’es a gentleman! We went out together, neither sayin’ nothin’ to the other till we was well out into the jungle beyond the river with ’igh grass all round,—pretty near that place where I went off my ’ead with you. Then ’e puts his gun down an’ sez very quietly: “Ortheris, I strook you on p’rade,” ’e sez. “Yes, sir,” sez I, “you did.” “I’ve been studying it out by myself,” ’e sez. “Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?” sez I to myself, “an’ a nice time you’ve been about it, you bun-faced little beggar.” “Yes, sir,” sez I. “What made you screen me?” ’e sez. “I don’t know,” I sez, an’ no more I did, nor do. “I can’t ask you to exchange,” ’e sez. “An’ I don’t want to exchange myself,” sez ’e. “What’s comin’ now?” I thinks to myself. “Yes, sir,” sez I. He looks round at the ’igh grass all about, an’ ’e sez to himself more than to me,—“I’ve got to go through it alone, by myself!” ’E looked so queer for a minute that, s’elp me, I thought the little beggar was going to pray. Then he turned round again an’ ’e sez, “What do you think yourself?s ’e sez. “I don’t quite see what you mean, sir,” I sez. “What would you like?” ’e sez. An’ I thought for a minute ’e was goin’ to give me money, but ’e run ’is ’and up to the top-button of ’is shootin’ coat an’ loosed it. “Thank you, sir,” I sez. “I’d like that very well,” I sez, an’ both our coats was off an’ put down.’
‘Hooray!’ I shouted incautiously.
‘Don’t make a noise on the butts,’ said Ouless from the shooting-place. ‘It puts the men off.’
I apologised, and Ortheris went on.
‘Our coats was off, an’ ’e sez, “Are you ready?” sez ’e. “Come on then.” I come on, a bit uncertain at first, but he took me one under the chin that warmed me up. I wanted to mark the little beggar an’ I hit high, but he went an’ jabbed me over the heart like a good one. He wasn’t so strong as me, but he knew more, an’ in about two minutes I calls “Time.” ’E steps back,—it was in—fightin’ then: “Come on when you’re ready,” ’e sez; and when I had my wind I come on again, an’ I got ’im one on the nose that painted ’is little aristocratic white shirt for ’im. That fetched ’im, an’ I knew it quicker nor light. He come all round me, close-fightin’, goin’ steady for my heart. I held on all I could an’ split ’is ear, but then I began to hiccup, an’ the game was up. I come in to feel if I could throw ’im, an’ ’e got me one on the mouth that downed me an’—look ’ere!’
Ortheris raised the left corner of his upper lip. An eye-tooth was wanting.
‘’E stood over me an’ ’e sez, “Have you ’ad enough?” ’e sez. “Thank you, I ’ave,” sez I. He took my ’and an’ pulled me up, an’ I was pretty shook. “Now,” ’e sez, “I’ll apologise for ’ittin’ you. It was all my fault,” ’e sez, “an’ it wasn’t meant for you.” “I knowed that, sir,” I sez, “an’ there’s no need for no apology.” “Then it’s an accident,” ’e sez; “an’ you must let me pay for the coat; else it’ll be stopped out o’ your pay.” I wouldn’t ha’ took the money before, but I did then. ’E give me ten rupees,—enough to pay for a coat twice over, ’an we went down to the river to wash our faces, which was well marked. His was special. Then he sez to himself, sputterin’ the water out of ’is mouth, “I wonder if I done right?” ’e sez. “Yes, sir,” sez I; “ there’s no fear about that.” “It’s all well for you,” ’e sez, “but what about the comp’ny?” “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” I sez, “I don’t think the comp’ny will give no trouble.” Then we went shootin’, an’ when we come back I was feelin’ as chirpy as a cricket, an’ I took an’ rolled Samuelson up an’ down the verandah, an’ give out to the comp’ny that the difficulty between me an’ Lieutenant Ouless was satisfactory put a stop to. I told Jock, o’ course, an’ Terence. Jock didn’t say nothing, but Terence ’e sez : “You’re a pair, you two. An’, begad, I don’t know which was the better man.” There ain’t nothin’ wrong with Ouless. ’E’s a gentleman all over, an’ ’e’s come on as much as B Comp’ny. I lay ’e’d lose ‘is commission, tho’, if it come out that ’e’d been fightin’ with a private. Ho! ho! Fightin’ all an afternoon with a bloomin’ private like me! What do you think?” he added, brushing the breech of his rifle.
‘I think what the umpires said at the sham fight; both sides deserve great credit. But I wish you’d tell me what made you save him in the first place.’
‘I was pretty sure that ’e ’adn’t meant it for me, though that wouldn’t ha’ made no difference if ’e’d been copped for it. An’ ’e was that young too that it wouldn’t ha’ been fair. Besides, if I had ha’ done that I’d ha’ missed the fight, and I’d ha’ felt bad all my time. Don’t you see it that way, sir.’
‘It was your right to get him cashiered if you chose,’ I insisted.
‘My right!’ Ortheris answered with deep scorn. ‘My right! I ain’t a recruity to go whinin’ about my rights to this an’ my rights to that, just as if I couldn’t look after myself. My rights! ’Strewth A’mighty! I’m a man.’
The last squad were finishing their shots in a storm of low-voiced chaff. Ouless withdrew to a little distance in order to leave the men at ease, and I saw his face in the full sunlight for a moment, before he hitched up his sword, got his men together, and marched them back to barracks. It was all right. The boy was proven.
