Herbert Larkins presented himself with some trepidation at the commanding officer’s quarters, a house outside, but not far from the barracks. The hall door was wide open, but he did not go in. The man whom he relieved told him ‘to patrol up and down in front of the house—that was all he had to do.’
This he did religiously for half an hour or more, and then he heard himself called from within.
‘Orderly!’ A clear, sweet voice it was; very musical in its intonation and very different from the gruff accents to which he had most recently been accustomed.
‘Orderly!’ again; this time much more sharply spoken, and with undoubted petulance. ‘How stupid! Why don’t you come when you’re called?’ and then the owner of the voice appeared. Mahomet had come to the mountain.
A bright-faced beautiful child; a fair golden-haired girl, not yet in her teens, wearing a fresh pink and white frock, with pink ribbons in her sunny locks, and a pink silk handkerchief tied like a shawl over her shoulders and neck. Herbert took it all in at a glance, and remembered the picture for the rest of his life.
A very imperious young person, evidently; she had honest kindly eyes, but her small nose slightly ‘tip tilted,’ and the upward curve of scorn in her lip indicated a proud, haughty nature, and the wilfulness of one who, though still a child, had everything always her own way. An only child, born late in their married life, Edith Prioleau ruled languid mother and doting father with a despotism against which they had neither the inclination nor power to protest.
‘Are you the orderly?’ she asked, almost stamping her foot.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? Yes—what?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Yes, Miss, you should say when you speak to me. Do you know who I am? I am the colonel’s daughter.’
Whereat Herbert drew himself up, and saluted her formally with hand to cap, as though she were the commander-in-chief.
‘You’re only a recruit, I suppose?’ She spoke quite contemptuously. ‘I never saw you before. I don’t like strangers. I shall speak to Mr. Wheeler about it. How long have you been dismissed drill?’
Herbert smiled at her intimate acquaintance with military details, and the smile seemed to give her fresh annoyance.
‘You’re a rude soldier. You shan’t come as orderly again. But here’—she remembered what she wanted—‘take this list to the barrack library; be quick, please, and bring me all those books. I want them at once, please, all. You understand? At once, and all; and when you come back bring them in to me—there in the back room.’
‘Edith!’ said another voice just then, faintly and querulously, ‘you are losing the whole morning. Your French—’
‘Oh, bother!’ cried Edith, and retired, dragging one foot after the other, as though loth to return to her studies.
Herbert executed his commission promptly enough, and presently returned laden with books—some, but not all, of those for which Edith had sent. He carried them straight into the back room.
‘I am sorry to say, miss, that the “Loss of the Wager” is out, and so is Maxwell’s “Stories of Waterloo,” but I have brought you “Thaddeus of Warsaw” and the “Romance of War.”’
Then he stopped short, for he saw that the young lady was not attending to him in the least. Her head was buried in her hands, and when she eventually looked up her eyes were suffused with tears.
‘Oh, dear, it is so hard. I can’t make head or tail of it.’
It was only a French exercise after all, about which there was all this coil. But Edith was not an industrious scholar. In plain English, she hated books, and would any day throw them aside to get on her pony to scamper across the Hopshire downs, or ride out to the drill-field with her father, or to stand by at band practice, or accompany the regiment when it marched out.
‘I know a little French,’ said Herbert diffidently; ‘perhaps I can help?’
Edith stared at him through her tears. A private soldier know French! More, probably, than she knew herself! The notion filled her with amazement—with gratitude, perhaps, but also with chagrin.
But when, after a few minutes’ close application, he untied the terrible knot, gratitude overpowered all other sentiments, and she could have shaken hands with him—almost—in her glee.
‘It’s most extraordinary,’ she cried, dancing about the room with delight. ‘I never heard of such a thing; you’re the most wonderful orderly—’
‘You seem very merry, Miss E.,’ said an officer who put his head into the room just then.
‘Oh, Major Diggle! Just look here.’ And in a few words, volubly spoken, she explained what had occurred.
‘So you know French, do you?’ said the major to Herbert, in a supercilious tone impossible to describe. ‘And Latin and Greek perhaps, and Hebrew?’
‘No, sir, not Hebrew.’ Herbert had drawn himself up straight, and stood correctly at ‘attention.’ He had already learnt the lesson of respect due to an officer, and was fully conscious of the great gulf which separated the major from the private soldier.
‘What’s your name? Larkins? Where were you at school? When did you enlist? And why?’
Herbert answered all these questions except the last.
‘You don’t choose to tell that, eh? Oh, with all my heart. It’s none of my business. But now, if Miss Prioleau does not want you—that will do; you can go.’
Herbert saluted, and walked off.
Directly the door was shut, the major turned to Edith, and said,
‘You ought not to be so familiar with private soldiers. You mustn’t do that again, Miss E.’
‘I shall do as I please, and don’t choose to be called Miss E., Major Diggle.’
He equally hated to be called Diggle without the Cavendish.
‘I shall tell the colonel,’ he said rather angrily, as he left the room.
She only made a face after him when he had gone, as though she did not care a bit what he did. There was no love lost between these two. The child, with intuitive perception, disliked the parvenu’s pretentious airs. He thought her, en revanche, a very pert and forward child, who ought to be snubbed and kept in her place. There were one or two old feuds between them, too. He had accused her, although she hotly repudiated the charge, of telling tales. He had caught her, he declared, looking out of the windows, to see and tell her father what officers came late for parade. She, on the other hand, had discovered, and had announced her discovery openly, that he wore—not a wig—but one of Unwin and Albert’s coverings for bald heads; and Diggle, who was proud of his looks, did not like it at all.
It was not likely, therefore, that any friend of Edith’s would find much favour with the major. But even if she had been disposed to champion the erudite recruit, so young and obscure a soldier was really beneath the notice of the great Cavendish Diggle. By-and-bye Herbert might prove a thorn in the major’s side, and give him many anxious hours—but that time was still to come.
Meanwhile, Herbert Larkins pursued the even tenour of his ways, taking the rough with the smooth, but finding that the first considerably preponderated. What he lacked most were congenial companions and agreeable occupation for his idle hours. Herbert found the time hang very heavy on his hands. He could not bring himself to spend hours with Joe Hanlon in the canteen; nor, indeed, did ‘the Boy’ wish him to do so. Hanlon was ambitious for his young comrade, and he knew the way to preferment too well to encourage Herbert to take to drink. There was nothing left by way of amusement, after all needful polishing and cleaning-up was done, but patrolling the Triggertown streets, and frequenting such ginshops and music-halls as suffered private soldiers in the Queen’s uniform to pass their doors.
Herbert, as a last resource, turned bookworm. He had attended the regimental school as in duty bound; but it was soon very clear that a regimental schoolmaster, however well certificated, could not teach an ex-sixth-form boy very much. Herbert passed all the required standards, and was very quickly dismissed as a prodigy of learning. He might indeed have obtained a billet as an assistant teacher in the school, but Joe Hanlon supported him in his refusal of the post. There would be much better openings for him later on, and in the regular line. All he had to do was to wait patiently for his ‘lance stripe,’ and this he was certain to obtain so soon as he had completed the twelve months’ service from the time of joining, which was the usual time of probation in the Duke’s Own.
The books he read he got from the barrack library, a place well stocked enough, but not with volumes covering a wide range of subjects. After exhausting the list of good works of fiction and travel, he felt himself fortunate at finding ‘Lecky’s Rise and Progress of Rationalism in Europe.’
One day when Herbert was absent on guard, a volume of this was lying upon his shelf—in the wrong place—and the captain, who was inspecting the rooms, noticed it.
‘It’s that Larkins, sir.’ His old enemy the gate sergeant, Sergeant Pepper, spoke. ‘A young soldier, sir. Very careless young fellow, sir. No use my speaking to him, sir. Better have his name put on the gate, sir?’
‘Let me see the book. “Lecky”? Strange! a recruit, do you say? What’s he like? Smart? Send him over to my quarters to-morrow.’
Captain Greathed was an officer of a somewhat uncommon type. Thoughtful, studious, steady, he concealed under a quiet demeanour a true soldierly spirit and keen professional ambition. He yearned secretly for military distinction, and only bided his time. Meanwhile he read and pondered deeply the lessons of the past. He had mastered military literature in all its branches. Had he chosen, he might have entered the Staff College with ease, and would certainly have passed through it with distinction; but he was too fond of his regiment to care to leave it even to study or to serve upon the staff. He took an interest too in his men, which was more than many of his brother officers did.
‘I sent for you, Larkins,’ he said to Herbert, ‘to see what you are made of. You are reading “Lecky;” do you understand it? Have you read any other books of the kind?’
‘I was always fond of philosophic reading.’
‘You have been well educated, then? You are the man, I suppose, who did Miss Prioleau’s French lesson for her?’ That story had soon got about. ‘Well, that’s not everything; let’s see how much you know,’ and Captain Greathed put a series of questions to him which soon tested the extent of his learning.
‘You ought to do well enough, but book-lore is not everything. You look strong. Are you active? Are you good at gymnastics? Can you play cricket, and walk and run well? Try you? We will. Meanwhile keep straight and steady, and you’ll do. It’ll be your own fault if you don’t get on.’
From that time forth Captain Greathed took especial notice of Herbert, spoke to him frequently—an honour highly prized by the private soldier—advised him as to his reading, and lent him military books. All this did not pass unobserved in the company, and it soon became evident that his comrades rather resented the captain’s undisguised preference for Larkins. The body of the men in the Duke’s Own were not particularly attached to their officers, and to be a favourite with superiors was not a certain passport to popularity with the rank and file. Herbert, in spite of Boy Hanlon’s championship, found himself kept at arm’s length rather, and often subjected to innuendoes and sneers.
One day there was some commotion in the barrack-room. Several men who had been slovenly on parade had had their ‘passes’ stopped. These permits to be absent from quarters after hours are much appreciated, and those who had forfeited them were naturally sore. Herbert, who wished to attend a lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute, had also ‘put in a pass,’ backed by the captain, which had been granted, much to the disgust of the other men.
It’s a burning shame,’ said one; and others followed on the same side, but with louder and coarser expletives.
‘A young jiggermy-dandy like you,’ cried a big soldier, Jubbock by name, who had the reputation of being cock and bully of the company. ‘What right have you to what’s denied your betters? A sneaking young lickspittle, who’s got the length of the captain’s foot. I’ll teach you to—’
Jubbock advanced towards him with a threatening air.
‘Well?’ said Herbert coolly, ‘what’ll you teach me?’
‘To know your master. Take that,’ and Jubbock aimed a tremendous blow at Herbert, which the latter promptly parried, and with a smart ‘one—two’ put the great fellow flat on his back.
There was a shout in the barrack-room as Jubbock rose furious and closed with his opponent. Then came a hubbub of voices. ‘The sergeant, the sergeant! Sergeant Pepper, the “Real Cayenne!”’ as he was commonly called when he looked like mischief.
‘What’s this? Quarrelling in the barrack-room? I’ll not have it. drop it. Who began it? You, Larkins? Then to the guard-room you’ll go, double quick. Here, Corporal Smirke, get a file of men.’
‘But t’other chap rasperated him,’ Hanlon put in. ‘Jubbock’s more to blame than Larkins. If you shop one you must shop the other.’
‘So I will. I’ll run them both in—march them off.’
And so Herbert, with a smarting sense of injustice, found himself relegated to the guard-house, and locked up for the night.
Herbert woke after a troubled night’s rest, disturbed by the occasional irruption of comrades brought in by the piquet and patrols, in various stages of intoxication, and the visits of the sergeant of the guard. The bare boards had been his bed, and he ached in every limb. It was with a sense of relief almost, although he dreaded the ordeal before him, that he washed and cleaned himself up preparatory to taking his place in the ranks with the rest of ‘the prisoners.’ With them, under escort of the guard, he was presently marched to the orderly-room, and then, after waiting half-an-hour for his turn, he was marched into the presence of his commanding officer, to answer for his alleged crime.
He and Jubbock appeared together before their judge, Colonel Prioleau. The sergeant, who was the only witness, gave his evidence fairly, although not without a bias against Herbert, but the Colonel withheld judgment till he heard the defence.
‘What have you got to say?’ he asked of both abruptly.
‘Please, your honour,’ began Jubbock, ‘we wasn’t fighting at all; we was only wrastling. This young chap says, says he, he knew a thing or two about the Cumberland cropper, and I, says I, know’d more about the Hampshire hug; and with that we had a set-to, and the sergeant found us at it.’
The old soldier’s tendency to misstatement—to call it by no stronger name—was very repugnant to honest Herbert.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he put in, ‘he is not telling you the truth. We were fighting. He struck me, and I knocked him down.’
Colonel looked up a little curiously. Herbert’s accent and his language were both more accurate than one is accustomed to find in a private soldier.
‘You did, did you? And would you do it again?’
‘I would, sir, if he provoked me; I’m not afraid of him,’ cried Herbert, hotly.
‘He’d better try,’ Jubbock said, growing also warm, notwithstanding the awe inspired by the great man in whose presence he stood.
‘It’s quite evident you can’t agree. There’s bad blood between you still. Well, you know the old rule—no, Captain Greathed, I won’t hear a word—young soldiers must find their level, and hold their own. Besides, there is the old regimental custom. You must fight it out. Send them down to the main ditch, as usual, and let the orderly sergeant go with them to see fair play. It’s no use talking to me, Captain Greathed; I shall stick to the old rule of the Duke’s Own so long as I am commanding the corps.’
Captain Greathed thought it wisest to let matters take their course. Any further interference to protect Herbert might have looked like favouritism, and have done the young fellow more harm than good. He may have thought, too, that Herbert could give a good account of his antagonist.
The mill was conducted according to custom, in semi-official fashion. The orderly sergeant, as before said, and two bottle-holders—Hanlon was Herbert’s—were the only spectators.
For a long time it seemed a close affair. Jubbock’s weight and great reach of arm were immensely in his favour. But Herbert had more science. Self-defence, although fast becoming an old-fashioned art, was not unknown at Deadham School, and he had grown into an accomplished practitioner in it. He was lighter, too, and far more active than Jubbock, and this told in the long run. His adversary tried in vain to get at him; but Herbert danced around him like a cork, till by degrees Jubbock lost all patience and struck out wildly. The wily Herbert promptly seized his advantage, and began to punish Jubbock severely. After this the victory was not long in doubt. At the end of the fourteenth round, Jubbock threw up the sponge, and Herbert was declared, officially, to have won the day.
The result of the fight, noised about as it was in the company, naturally added greatly to Herbert’s prestige. Jubbock was a coarse, rough fellow, inclined to be brutal and overbearing, and he had so long tyrannised over his comrades that his defeat was hailed with much satisfaction. ‘The Boy’—old Joe Hanlon—was wild with delight. He was never tired of expatiating upon Herbert’s prowess, and talked so much about it, taking so much credit to himself, that you might have thought it was he who had won the fight.
Herbert received even higher approval.
‘So I hear you held your own,’ the captain had said to him one day. ‘I thought it was not unlikely you would. But don’t be puffed up by your victory. Take heed to your going—Jubbock’s not likely to love you the more because you have shown yourself the better man.’
There was wisdom in this advice. Jubbock bore malice, as Herbert soon found, from his sulky demeanour and the way he scowled when he dared. Hanlon too reported that Jubbock had sworn to be even with young Larkins yet. But what could he do? Herbert laughed such vague threats to scorn.
It was not long after this that unpleasant rumours became rife in the barrack-room. It was clear that the occupants thereof were not all loyal to one another. The men missed things. First, odds and ends disappeared. A button-brush, a comb, a tin of blacking or a red herring bought for tea. Then money went—pence, not too plentiful with soldiers, and hoarded up between pay-days, in cleaning bag or knapsack, to be drawn upon as required for the men’s menus plaisirs.
There was evidently a thief in the room.
‘Yes: and he’s got to be found out too,’ said Joe Hanlon. ‘There ain’t been such a thing known in the Duke’s Own these years past.’
‘No, nor wouldn’t be now,’ said another, ‘if we got honest lads as recruits. We want no swell-mobsmen and high-falutin dandies with their grand airs, and their fine talk, who come from no one knows where.’
‘What d’ye mean?’ asked Hanlon sharply. ‘If that’s a slap at my towney, I give you the lie, and no two words about it. Larkins is as honest a young chap as ever took the shilling.’
‘Well, Jubbock said—’
‘It’s just what I thought,’ said ‘the Boy.’ ‘Jubbock means mischief, but I’ll circumvent him, or my name’s not Joe Hanlon.’
Matters were presently brought to a crisis. Two half-crowns, a shilling and some coppers were stolen on the day following pay-day, and the men were growing furious.
‘I’d swear to my half-crown anywhere,’ said one victim. ‘It had a twist at the edges and a scar on the Queen’s nose.’
‘Let’s all agree to be searched—our kits, and packs, and all.’
‘Yes, yes,’ everybody cried. ‘We’ll call the colour-sergeant, and do it all regular and proper, so we will.’
There was a general stampede out of the room. Jubbock only was left in it, and Hanlon, who had been shaving behind the door, and was not visible.
The men came trooping back, headed by the colour-sergeant—a stout, consequential little man, who felt that his position was only second in dignity to that of the commander-in-chief.
‘No man must leave the room. You, Corporal Closky, see to that. Now, Sergeant Limpetter, we’ll take the beds with their kits as they come.’
The search was regularly and carefully conducted amid a decorous silence.
All at once there was a loud shout. The money had been discovered in one of the packs.
It was Herbert’s.
‘Larkins,’ cried the colour-sergeant, ‘I’d never have believed it.’
There was a hubbub of voices, the prominent expressions being, ‘I told you so,’ or ‘What did I say?’ followed by a hoarse shout for vengeance, for condign punishment of the despicable thief.
‘A court-martial! a barrack-room court-martial,’ cried several men in a breath, and the cry was taken up by the room.
‘Stop! Give the lad fair play,’ said a new voice, and Joe Hanlon stepped from behind the door.
‘Why, what do you know about it?’ the colour-sergeant asked. ‘Isn’t the evidence as straight as it can be? He was all but taken in the act. The money, which is sworn to, is found in his pack.’
‘Aye, but who put it there?’
‘Himself, of course. Who else?’ It was Jubbock who spoke.
‘You did. I saw you.’
The shot told. Jubbock visibly quailed.
‘It’s a lie. I’ll swear I never touched the pack; I’m ready to take my dying oath—’
‘I saw you, man; I was there, behind the door, shaving, and you thought you was all alone’st in the room. I saw you go to Larkins’ bed, take the money out of your pocket, wrap it in a rag, and put it in Larkins’ pack.’
‘I didn’t, I swear.’
‘After all, it’s only one man’s word against another’s,’ said the colour-sergeant, magisterially.
‘How else could it have got there? Don’t you know,’ Hanlon asked of Jubbock, ‘don’t you know that Larkins is in hospital, and been there these three days past? How could he have touched the pack? He’s not been in the room for three days or more.’
‘That’s right,’ said the colour-sergeant. ‘There’s no more to be said. Jubbock, I would not be in your shoes. You must go to the guard-room.’
‘No, no, no;’ the men were all furious. ‘He’s the thief, the mean hound. Let’s settle it ourselves. A court-martial, a barrack-room court-martial, sergeant.’
‘Well, have it your own way. Here, Snaggs, Cusack, Hippisley, and Muldoon, you’re the four oldest soldiers in the company; go into my bunk and talk it over. Say what’s to be done with him.’
They came back presently.
‘He’s guilty. Three dozen with the sling of his own rifle; that’s our sentence—’
‘Which I approve,’ said the colour-sergeant, and the informal punishment was forthwith administered in a way which would have gladdened the heart of the fiercest old martinet who ever told the drummer to lay on.
Herbert heard all about it, as soon as he came out of hospital, and was not sorry for the villain who had so nearly led him into a terrible scrape. Had the case been proved against him it would have ruined him utterly, for now at length promotion, humble enough, but still advancement, was close at hand. Within a week or two the regimental orders contained a notification that Private Herbert Larkins, of F company, was appointed a lance-corporal.
This raised him at once above the malevolence of enemies such as Jubbock. But it gave him work enough for half a dozen. The lance-corporal, the junior grade of non-commissioned officer, is a sort of general utility man, whose duties begin at daylight and do not end at night. He must be always clean and well dressed, or adieu to hope of further promotion. He must be at the beck and call of the company sergeants, and ready to fly for the sergeant-major. He must be peremptory yet judicious with the privates, whom, although he was one himself yesterday, he is called upon now to command. Difficult, not to say arduous, as were his functions, Herbert managed to discharge them to the satisfaction of his superiors, and soon became known in the regiment as a smart and intelligent young man.
One evening it fell to his lot to take the ‘order book’ round for the perusal of the officers of the company. Ernest Farrington was one of them, and in due course Herbert came to his quarters. He knocked and heard the usual ‘Come in.’
‘Orders, sir.’
‘Orders! All right. One moment—’ ‘Yes, sir; that’s all I know about it,’ went on young Farrington, in continuation evidently of a previous talk. His interlocutor was Major Cavendish-Diggle.
‘You don’t know what became of Lady Farrington? Where is she?’
‘At a private asylum—Dr. Plum’s, at Greystone, the other end of the county, you know.’
‘To be sure. It must have given Sir Rupert great annoyance. But now it’s all happily settled, of course?’
Diggle was just then making the running for Miss Farrington, and wished to be quite certain that there was no fear of future disinheritance.
‘Absolutely,’ said Ernest. ‘The crazy old creature won’t be heard of again, probably.’
‘Shall I leave the order book, sir?’ Herbert then asked, and they remembered they were not alone. They little guessed who their listener was, and how much they had inadvertently revealed to him.
He had long wished to ascertain the whereabouts of his kind patroness, and now he knew. What use he might make of the information did not occur to him. After all, what could a poor soldier do against such a powerful enemy as Sir Rupert Farrington? Still the mouse helped the lion. And it was something to know exactly what had become of poor Lady Farrington. If he could but come across the Larkins, there might be some hope of his re-establishing himself, perhaps of again putting forward his claims. But the only reply he received from the War Office, to which he had written, was that Sergeant Larkins was employed as a barrack-sergeant abroad, and could not at the moment be traced. He must wait, that was clear. But everything comes to him who can wait, and Herbert was still young enough to be sanguine and full of hope.
The first of September was a great day always at Farrington Hall. Sir Rupert preserved very strictly; he was fond of shooting, and his coverts were always well stocked. They had a large party in the house; men chiefly, good guns who could be relied upon to do their share in swelling the Farrington ‘bag.’
This year several of Ernest’s brother officers were to have been invited, but Major Diggle man?uvred so cleverly that none of them were asked but himself. He had his own reasons for keeping men away from the Hall. He was not afraid of rivals, of course—who among the Duke’s Own was there to compete with him? Still they might inadvertently interfere with his little game; and he preferred, at least for the present, to have the field all to himself.
Major Cavendish-Diggle was much appreciated at the Hall. Lady Farrington, a foolish, inconsequent woman, who was entirely wrapped up in Ernest, her only son, received the Major almost with effusion. He had been, oh, so kind to Ernest! She knew it; it was no use his disclaiming it, and she was deeply grateful to him.
‘Ith thutch a trial joining a regiment; everything tho thrange, and Erney tho young, tho inexperienced; he would have been mitherable, quite mitherable, but for you.’
Lady Farrington was a large fair woman; so fair as to be almost colourless. Her manner was not without distinction, and would have been impressive but for the vapidity of her remarks, and a trick of utterance due, seemingly, to her having too many teeth in her mouth, which robbed her words of anything like expression, and sometimes made them unintelligible. Ernest, her son, greatly took after her. He was tall, but rather shambling in gait, and still excessively thin. In voice and manner of speech he reproduced Lady Farrington exactly. His mouth also seemed full of hot potatoes, or too full of teeth; and as he had a trick of keeping it constantly open, as though to cool the potatoes, or air his teeth, his general expression was vacuous in the extreme. A rather full lower lip and a very receding chin did not add to his personal charms. You gathered at once from his face and air that he was weak, irresolute, easily led, and that he might, if misled, slide soon into vicious ways.
But he had improved wonderfully since he had joined the Duke’s Own. They all said so. Even Sir Rupert, dark and undemonstrative as he was generally, thawed enough to say that he thought soldiering would make a man of Ernest—if anything would. Letitia, as Miss Farrington was called, and who in many respects resembled her father, changed her tone on seeing how much Ernest was changed for the better. Her attitude towards him had hitherto been one of patronage mixed with spite. Although outwardly she was very affectionate—in her heart she bore him a grudge because he was one of the sex commonly called superior to her own. She was the elder by three or four years; she had far more brains—‘not that that was surprising’—as she said when she was more than usually venomous, seeing that Ernest had next to none. She was a Farrington, as was evident from her likeness to her father, while her brother was clearly a Burdakin, like his mother. Why should an absurd and monstrously unfair custom constitute him the heir and future head of the family, while she must be satisfied with what her father might choose to give her as a marriage portion or as a settlement for life? She had always bitterly resented the Salic law as it obtained in England with regard to the succession of estates and titles.
Letitia was, however, much more civil to Ernest now. There may be many subtle reasons for such sudden changes of demeanour. Major Cavendish-Diggle was perhaps not remotely connected with Letitia’s. He was Ernest’s bosom friend; what if he presently developed into a friend and admirer of her own? Letitia was not exactly ill-favored, but she was certainly not a beauty in the strict sense of the term. Dark complexioned and thin lipped, but with a nose too sharp, and cheek bones too high, her face was not strikingly attractive to say the least of it; and the fact was being gradually borne in upon her, as she grew on in years, by the slackness with which suitors sought her hand. Major Cavendish-Diggle was one of the first who showed better taste. Why should not men admire her? She had a neat well-proportioned figure. Her eyes were good, of the deep brown piercing order; her dark hair was abundant and rich. She was a good talker, had all the accomplishments of a well-educated young lady, and a large share of that indescribable air of good breeding, of that perfect ease in manner and thorough savoir faire, which are only to be seen in women of good station—all of which Diggle felt would be extremely becoming in a colonel’s or general officer’s wife. If the thin lips and fierce eyes foretold a vixenish temper when thwarted, or if the world went wrong with her, these were bad points still in embryo, little likely to deter so matter of fact a wooer as Diggle from prosecuting his suit.
Not that he precipitated matters. He could see, with half an eye, that Miss Farrington accepted his attentions cheerfully enough; but he was very doubtful whether her parents would look upon him with equal favour. Indeed, Sir Rupert had more than once spoken in a way to damp Diggle’s hopes. The baronet held his head high. He evidently knew what was due to himself. Having passed his early years as a struggling solicitor, barely able to keep the wolf from his door, he was now very eloquent about mésalliances, and the proper maintenance of distinctions of class. The major’s heart misgave him, for reasons best known to himself, when he heard Sir Rupert inveighing against the annoyance of upstart tradesmen, who, on the strength of fortunes amassed by not too reputable business (so he said), aped the manners of their betters, and tried to push themselves forward into the front rank of society. This very visit to Farrington Hall, a crusty old county magnate to whom Diggle had been formally introduced, had remarked rather pointedly upon the major’s name.
‘Diggle, Diggle, I know the name. To be sure. Get my tea from Diggle’s. Devilish good tea too—no connection, major, eh?’
At which Major Cavendish-Diggle inwardly shuddered, although he replied promptly enough.
‘Come and taste our champagne at Triggertown, Mr. Burkinshaw; it’s far better than the best tea in the world.’ Whereby the inconvenient question was for the moment satisfactorily shelved.
Diggle knew, therefore, that much circumspection would be necessary if he aspired to Letitia’s hand. All he could hope to gain was the girl’s good-will and co-operation, and this, by his assiduous, although diplomatically veiled attentions, he secured in due course.
Meanwhile he sought and entirely succeeded in making himself agreeable to all in the house. He talked ‘central fire’ with Sir Rupert, parochial business and district visiting with Lady Farrington, who pretended to play the Dorcas in the parish; he discussed turnips and quarter sessions with the squires and local magnates, who thought that such matters comprised the whole duty of man; last of all, he played duets and danced with Miss Farrington after dinner, in a way she called, and really felt to be divine.
‘It does not bore you to dance?’ she asked him one evening.
‘And with you? No, indeed, and really I am passionately devoted to it.’
‘Some men now-a-days are so fine. They stand about the doors at a dance like farm servants at a fair waiting to be hired.’
‘That’s not the way with the Duke’s Own,’ said Diggle, laughing. ‘No idlers are allowed when we give a ball. You should see our youngsters dance; and we have a string band on purpose for dance music.’
‘Delightful! Do give us a ball, Major Diggle.’
‘With all my heart; when you like. You shall fix the day, and it shall be the finest Triggertown has ever seen.’
The subject was re-opened another day, when Diggle was not by.
‘Does it rest with him?’ incredulous Sir Rupert asked of Ernest. ‘What does your colonel say?’
‘Oh, Colonel Prioleau’s “not in it” compared to Major Cavendish. We always call him Major Cavendish, he likes it better. The Major’s the leading man in the regiment. He does just as he pleases. There’s nobody like him.’
And Ernest went off into p?ans of praise, expatiating upon Diggle’s innumerable good qualities with all the eloquence (it was not much) he could command.
But he did not exaggerate the Major’s influence in the regiment. The ball, which came off a month or so later, was on a scale of unprecedented splendour, mainly because Diggle had resolved that it should be so. He had taken the affair altogether into his own hands. It was he who insisted that the ices should come straight from Gunter’s, that there should be foie gras, plovers’ eggs, and fresh truffles at supper; it was he who had conceived the brilliant idea of placing silver-hooped barrels in the tea rooms, full of champagne constantly on tap. He had commissioned the best decorators in London to do up the ball rooms; one built, contiguous to the mess-house, a boudoir, intended for the sole use of ladies, which was furnished with ivory toilet appliances, and lined with amber satin throughout; another designed an artificial grotto filled with blocks of real ice, which, as they melted, fed a number of fountains, whose waters fell in showers of sweet-scented spray; a third, entrusted with the floral decorations, grouped great masses of tropical plants, a wealth of rich variegated colours in the corridors, before the fireplaces, and in all the best points of view. There were two rooms for dancing; in one the inimitable string band of the Duke’s Own performed, in the other a detachment of Coote and Tinney’s was specially engaged.
‘Ith moth wontherful, thertainly,’ said Lady Farrington, in raptures, as Diggle received her; and having presented her to quiet Mrs. Prioleau, who was in duty bound to do the honours, but who was utterly bored and worn out after the first five minutes, led her to a seat of state on a sort of dais at the top of the room.
‘Oh, Major Cavendish-Diggle!’ cried Letitia, ‘you have indeed achieved a most triumphant success. It’s like a scene in fairy-land. The flowers, and the innumerable lights, the falling waters. Exquisite, enchanting;’ and she half closed her eyes, as in an ecstasy of bliss.
‘I wonder what it will all cost?’ growled Sir Rupert, sotto voce. ‘A pretty penny. I shall have Ernest overdrawing again.’
The fact being that, although Ernest received a handsome allowance, his account was perpetually overdrawn. Constant association with Diggle did not tend to economical ways. What with grouse for breakfast, and hot-house fruits for lunch; what with great guest nights, and expensive wines flowing freely, his mess bills were enormous. Then there were his horses, his dog-cart to take him to the station, his chambers in the neighbourhood of St. James’s, his boot varnish, and his new hats once a fortnight, and his fresh ‘button-holes’ every two or three hours. Sir Rupert hardly knew how the money went, but he knew that the six hundred a year he allowed his son, which was more than he had enjoyed for years until he came into the title, did not go half as far as it should, and he grumbled at the extravagance and ostentation of this great ball.
The baronet was not in the best of humours, therefore, as he stood upon one of the two raised platforms which had been erected on each side of the regimental colours, for the accommodation of the most distinguished guests. The colours were uncased, and drooped gracefully over a trophy of swords and bayonets, the whole being under the protection of two stalwart sentries in full uniform, who stood erect and impassive, like stone statues, perfectly unmoved by the revels in progress around. It was a signal honour to be permitted to mount guard in the ball-room, and only the finest-looking and the steadiest men were selected for the duty. But the duty was fatiguing, and the sentries were relieved every hour, the relief being carried out quietly, but strictly in accordance with the regulations, by non-commissioned officers carefully selected, like the sentries, on account of their smartness and gallant bearing.
While Sir Rupert was standing scowling at the entertainment, for which, without sharing in the honour and glory, he would probably have to pay, the relief marched in. He looked on at the ceremony without interest, heard with indifferent ears the trite words of command, ‘Port arms, take post, shoulder, order,’ and the rest, when something in the aspect of the corporal in command attracted his attention, and he found himself looking curiously at the soldier’s face.
Surely he knew it? Where had he seen it before?
Then with a sudden start he remembered. The man was the living image of cracked Lady Farrington’s protégé—of that lad whom he, Sir Rupert, had inveigled down into Devonshire, and left there to starve. Could it possibly be the same man? Did the fellow know him? Apparently not.
He was still debating the point as the relief marched away, when all doubts were set at rest by hearing a very young lady, a child, in fact (it was Edith Prioleau), say laughingly, and with the accents of Stratford-le-Bow, as she touched the corporal on the arm with her fan,
‘En bien, Caporal Larkins, comment vous portez-vous?’
To which the corporal replied, with a smile,
‘Très bien, mademoiselle. Et vous?’
There could be no mistake. Look, name, voice, all were the same. What a curious fatality! In the same regiment as his son—the true heir and the false serving side by side. Should he tell Ernest? Then Sir Rupert, pondering much, came to the conclusion that it would be best to keep his own counsel, but resolved to put, if possible, a watch upon the young man.
There was great grief in the Duke’s Own. Colonel Prioleau was about to leave the regiment. He had commanded it for a number of years, and would have liked to have gone on commanding it to the end of the chapter, but promotion to the rank of general was fast approaching him, and he felt that he must ‘realise’ at least a part of his cash. Colonels of regiments in old days served for about tenpence a-day. The rest of their pay barely represented the interest upon the capital sum they had sunk in purchasing their rank. By exchanging to half-pay before promotion, a regimental lieutenant-colonel was able to pull a few thousands out of the fire; and this Colonel Prioleau did.
There was great grief in the regiment at his approaching retirement. It was not so much on account of his personal qualities, although these—more particularly his easy-going laissez aller system—had long gained him great popularity, but because the command was to pass into the hands of one who was not, as the saying is, a ‘Duke’s Own man.’ Major Byfield had exchanged into the corps some few years previously, very much against the will of the regiment. Not that there was anything against him. Appearances were indeed in his favour. He was a quiet gentlemanly little person, with that slightly apologetic manner, and hesitating air, which often earn a man appreciation from his fellows, because they indicate a tacit acknowledgment of his inferiority. Major Byfield showed himself still more nervous and undecided on joining the Duke’s Own. Although as a field officer his position was assured, and entitled him to considerable deference from all, he seldom claimed it or asserted himself more than he could help. His brother officers tolerated him, and were civil to him when they saw him, which was not often; but they yielded him no respect, and suffered him to interfere very little in the discipline and management of the corps. What could he know about the Duke’s Own, or its regimental ‘system?’ He had come from the 130th which, it was well known, had a very different ‘system,’ although both were, in fact, ruled by the Queen’s Regulations, and should have been governed on precisely the same lines. There is a good deal of mystery made and much stress laid upon the ‘system’ in force in a regiment. No doubt in many minor details there is a marked difference, but the broad outlines are, or ought to be, the same. But it is a favourite dogma, especially with officers in whom esprit de corps is strong, that no one can understand this system unless he has been trained in a regiment and assimilated it with his earliest ideas. So when the major spoke even in a whisper, or made the faintest hint of a suggestion, he was pooh-poohed and put down. Diggle, his fellow, although junior field officer, quietly said that it was all nonsense, that Byfield misunderstood the situation, that he had better wait till he had longer experience in the regiment before he presumed to put forward his views.
Major Byfield was thus satisfactorily repressed—but only for the time. He had views and opinions of his own upon soldiering, and he was determined when opportunity came to give them full play. They had long persistently preached up and paraded before him the system in force in the Duke’s Own, but he had for as long come to the conclusion that the system was a bad one, and was resolved to reform it should he ever come into power. His character was a strange medley of opposite qualities. Behind the nervous diffidence, which being upon the surface seemed his most prominent trait, was an amount of quiet self-opinionated obstinacy which boded ill for those under his orders should he ever have much authority in his hands. Mrs. Byfield could have opened people’s eyes had she been permitted to disclose the secrets of the Byfield ménage. The major was as narrow-minded as a woman, and as prone to mistake the relative proportion of things, to entirely ignore the main issues, to neglect or overlook broad questions, and concentrate himself with much tenacity upon comparatively unimportant details.
These peculiarities began to develop themselves very soon after he obtained the command. It became evident that the new colonel was a different man from what was supposed. He had been deemed a cipher—one who could hardly call his soul his own; but he proved a fussy, fidgetty, anxious creature, who from nervous apprehension, backed up by no small amount of self-conceit, promised to make everybody’s life a burden to him. The officers as a body began to fear that the good old times were on the wane. The decadence of the Duke’s Own must have fairly commenced when leave for hunting was refused and there were two commanding officers’ parades on the same day. The fact was, the Colonel had resolved to reform the regiment according to his own ideas, and had already set to work with a will. The points on which it fell short of perfection were very clear to his own mind—a weak, but extremely active mind. He thought the officers neglected their business and knew too little of it—facts incontrovertible no doubt, although the remedy was not easy to discover, and needed stronger treatment than Colonel Byfield was in a position to apply. He felt dissatisfied, too, with the demeanour of the men in quarters and on parade, and if it was more within his compass to bring about improvement in these respects, his task was likely to be surrounded with the greater difficulty if his officers were discontented and soured. But the Colonel could not see much beyond the end of his nose, and rushed forward blindly to his fate.
To come in for a large share of criticism, not to say abuse, from those under his orders, is too commonly the lot of the regimental lieutenant-colonel. Colonel Byfield was no exception to the general rule. Before he had been in command a month, his officers generally began to disapprove of his proceedings; after three, they disliked him cordially; and this grew into positive hatred at the end of six. Of course they kept their opinions very much to themselves. English officers, however grievous their wrongs, whether real or fancied, never overstep the bounds of due subordination; and however much those of the Duke’s Own may have chafed at their commanding officer’s trying ways and irksome rule, they did no more than call him a ‘beast’ to one another, and utter frequent and fervid, but private prayers for his translation to some other sphere in this world or the next. They bore their burden bravely enough, silently too and without protest, except when some graceless subaltern or more artful captain wilfully exhibited an utter ignorance of the very rudiments of drill by clubbing his company upon parade, or comported himself disgracefully at the weekly examinations—offences especially heinous in the eyes of a Colonel whose greatest ‘fad’ was to make his officers walking vade mecums or living encyclop?dias of military knowledge. The schoolmaster was abroad in the Duke’s Own, very much to everyone’s discomfort and dissatisfaction.
Excessive timidity, an exaggerated fear of constituted authority, were the secrets of Colonel Byfield’s irritating line of conduct. He was for ever invoking the distant deities of the Horse Guards, and deprecating their wrath. As for their local chief priest, the general officer commanding the Triggertown district, whose authority was much more tangible and near at hand, Colonel Byfield had for him the most wholesome and abject apprehension. It was to appease the possible fury of this awful functionary that he worried and harassed the regiment from morning till night.
‘What will the general say?’ or ‘What will the general do?’ were phrases continually on his lips. He forgot that, as a matter of fact, the general, who was an ordinary general, would probably say or do nothing at all. But this professional ‘Jorkins’ was quoted on every occasion.
‘I cannot overlook your misconduct,’ he would say to Joe Hanlon, when brought up for the thousandth time for being drunk. ‘The general won’t let me.’
‘As if the general cared,’ muttered ‘the Boy’ to himself.
‘I must punish you; I must, indeed.’
‘Colonel Prioleau never did, sir; and I hope, sir—’
‘Colonel Prioleau is not here now, and I don’t choose to be spoken to in that way. Fourteen days’ marching order drill; and if you come here again, I’ll try you for “Habitual”—I will, mark my words.’
‘What’s the good of serving on in the old corps now?’ said Hanlon, very wroth, after he had done his defaulter’s drill. ‘It’s not what it used to be. I’ll put in for my discharge.’
He was fully entitled to it. Twenty-one years’ service, all told. Five good-conduct badges, less one, which his recent misconduct had robbed him of; for with old soldiers it is strength of head, or immunity from punishment that brings reputation; and Hanlon, thanks to Colonel Prioleau’s good nature, had the credit of being one of the best behaved men in the regiment.
‘I won’t stay to be humbugged about,’ he said, indignantly, to his comrade Herbert. ‘I’ll take my pension and look out for a billet in civil life.’
‘What can you get to do?’
‘Lots of things. Commissionaire, prison warder, attendant in a lunatic ’sylum.’
Herbert pricked up his ears.
‘Do you think you could get the last? I wish you would, and I’ll tell you why You’ve never heard my story?’
Whereupon Herbert told it all.
‘I knew you was a nob from the first. I saw it in your talk and in the cut of your jib. Dr. Plum’s of Greystone, you say. Right you are. That’s where I’ll go. To-morrow, if not sooner, and I’ll give you the office—double quick. Hold on a bit, that’s all you’ve got to do; hold on, and do your duty, and it’ll all come right in the end. And see here—’
Hanlon looked about him, as if afraid of listeners.
‘Things ain’t comfortable in the old corps, not just now; and there’s going to be a row. They won’t let on to you,’cos you’re a non-com, and what’s more, only a recruit. There’s men in the regiment mean mischief, if they only get the chance; and if they don’t, they’ll make it, sure as my name’s Joe.’
‘What can they do?’
‘They don’t think or care. All they want is a rumpus, so as to get old Byfield in trouble and make him leave, and that they’ll be able to do. Don’t join them, not whatever they say. Keep your ears cocked, and nip in—only on the right side.’
Hanlon had taken his discharge and got the promise of a billet at Dr. Plum’s, when the storm actually broke in the Duke’s Own.
Colonel Byfield had been agitated beyond measure at the news of the approaching move of his regiment to one of the large camps, and in view of the scrutiny which there awaited him his petty tyranny had passed all bounds. He had parades morning, noon, and night. He exercised the men ad nauseam at squad drill, goose step, and the manual and platoon. He marched them perpetually in battalion up and down the barrack yard, and he took them out day after day upon Triggertown Common for light infantry drill. All this, albeit torture of the most painful description, they could have tolerated probably without a murmur had not the Colonel, dissatisfied with the progress made, sentenced the regiment to be deprived of all leave in all ranks.
This was the point at which the worm turned. One fine morning, long after the ‘dressing’ bugle had sounded, followed by the ‘non-commissioned officers call’ and the ‘fall-in,’ not a man made his appearance upon parade. Colonel Byfield and the officers had the whole square to themselves. The rest of the regiment with the exception of a number of men belonging to one company, F, formed up in the ditch, and while the commanding officer was whistling at vacancy, marched off in excellent order to a distant part of the glacis, where they piled arms and refused to return.
It would be tedious, and it indeed forms no part of this history to narrate, except in the briefest terms, the progress of this very serious military lache. The men, as is usual in such cases, went to the wall. The ringleaders were hunted out, tried and severely punished, and the whole regiment was ordered to proceed on foreign service forthwith. The causes which had led to the disturbance were closely investigated, and as a natural consequence Colonel Byfield was placed upon half-pay.
It was for a long time doubtful whether Diggle, who was the next senior, should be allowed to succeed to the command; but he brought all the interest he could to bear, and he eventually won the day.
As Colonel Diggle, commanding a corps really distinguished, although temporarily under a cloud, he found Sir Rupert Farrington not indisposed to accept his proposals for Letitia; and the marriage came off just before the regiment embarked for Gibraltar.
It was at Farrington Hall that the conversation turning, as it had done more than once before, upon the recent mutiny, brought our hero, Herbert Larkins, prominently to the front.
‘The movement was not general, certainly not,’ Diggle had said. ‘One of the companies, F, Ernest’s in fact, did not take any share in it.’
‘Does Ernest deserve the credit of that?’
‘Not exactly. It was due rather to an astute young corporal, who quietly locked the doors of the men’s rooms. They couldn’t get out to join.’
‘Really? He was promoted, of course?’
‘Yes; he is now a sergeant, and is sure to get on. Oh yes, young Larkins is sure to get on.’
‘It was young Larkins, was it?’
‘Do you know him?’
‘I think I do. I will tell you about it one of these days.’
Diggle, as one of the Farrington family, would soon have a right to know.
For some time after their arrival on the Rock, the officers of the Duke’s Own called it a detestable hole. They were sore at their expatriation and the manner of it; they regretted the joys they had left behind, and could see no good thing in the much vaunted station where they were now relegated for their sins. There was nothing to be done in the place; the climate was intolerable, and there was nothing to eat. They had arrived towards the end of the summer, and the season, never cool, had been unusually sultry. They came in too for the tail end of a long visitation of the ‘Levanter,’ the much dreaded east wind, which caps the Rock with a perpetual cloud and makes life miserable to all; and the welcome change, when it came at length, was heralded by a tremendous thunderstorm and drenching rains. The Duke’s Own were still under canvas at the North Front, waiting till the outgoing regiment vacated its quarters at Windmill Hill, and their encampment was nearly swept away by the storm. Officers lost baggage, the men their kits, and the whole regiment united in deep denunciations of the inhospitable Rock.
Nor did Gibraltar seem to improve upon a closer acquaintance. Its joys and amusements, what were they after London and the shires? Racing! the idea was too preposterous. Half-a-dozen tinpot nags without pace or breeding, cantering round a Graveyard and finishing in a trot. What sort of sport was that to offer the Duke’s Own, which had always had its own regimental drag to witness the great events at home, and which kept open house in its luncheon tent at Ascot and Goodwood and upon Epsom Downs? The hunting too! heaven save the mark! To talk of hunting with the sweepings of a few second-rate kennels, dignified with the name of a pack, when the huntsman was a local genius, and foxes were said to be so scarce or so little enterprising that it was often necessary to have recourse to a red herring! What was such hunting to men who had been constantly out (so they said) with the Heythorp, the Bramham Moor, the Pytchley and Quorn?
These were the earliest impressions of Gibraltar prevailing among the officers of the Duke’s Own. But our friends eventually changed their tone. By their first contemptuous abstention, they found, in the first place, that they lost all the fun that was going, and, next, that, although the sport was second-rate, they could not excel in it even when they tried. One or two of the Duke’s Own, who were said to be in all the secrets of the Dawson and John Scott stables, went in for some of the plates and cups at the autumn meeting, and signally failed in everything. Later on, when the hunting season really began, and they turned out in a body in red coats and the most undeniable tops, to cut everybody down, they were chagrined to find that it was much more difficult to follow than they supposed. Red coats and mahogany tops were nowhere at the end of the first burst. One or two men were completely thrown out; a few tried the breakneck country between ‘the Rivers’ only to crane at length and turn back from the precipices and steep inclines. After that first day the Duke’s Own spoke more respectfully of the Calpe Hunt. By and bye they became less critical in other respects, and at length, when they had been some six months on the Rock, entered as fully into its amusements, and enjoyed them as thoroughly as the oldest stagers in the place.
There was one person, however, connected with the Duke’s Own who highly appreciated Gibraltar from the first. Mrs. Cavendish-Diggle found the station extremely to her taste. A bride still in the hey-day of her married life, full of satisfaction at the importance of her position as the commanding officer’s wife, with the attention she thereby received from all the Duke’s Own, Letitia found soldiering, particularly at Gibraltar, everything that could be desired. But what she enjoyed most of all was the chance she now had of bullying the brother who hitherto had had it all his own way at home. Ernest might be the most worthy at Farrington Hall, but in the Duke’s Own he was under Colonel Diggle’s command, and Colonel Diggle was now unquestionably under that of his wife. How the exquisite and self-sufficient Diggle had succumbed was a mystery which will probably remain unexplained till the curtain lectures of the Diggle couple are given to the world. Then it will no doubt transpire that in the exercise of those inquisitorial functions which every wife naturally arrogates to herself, Letitia had come across certain damaging facts connected with the Colonel’s antecedents which put him completely under his partner’s thumb. That Mrs. Diggle would come ere long to command the regiment was already plainly apparent to all, and the fact was not hailed with particular joy in the corps. Petticoat government in a regiment is not the most successful with, nor is it the most palatable to, those most closely concerned. Letitia’s temper was a little too imperious to be pleasant. She made nipping remarks, and snubbed and put people down in a way they hated but were powerless to resent. ‘Oh! how can you say so, Major Greathed! You are wrong, quite wrong. She married Lord Chigford’s second son. But then you can’t be expected to know;’ or ‘It’s not what I have been accustomed to, Mrs. Moxon. In my father’s house the housekeeper looked to these things. But then of course you—’ which might be taken to imply that Mrs. Moxon had been brought up very differently, and could not be expected to know what was what. Or she lectured the youngsters when they came within her reach, which was only when they wanted leave, knowing that without her good word they could not expect an hour. ‘I hear you are getting sadly in debt, Mr. Mauleverer. I shall write to Sir George.’ ‘So you were not at church parade last Sunday, Mr. Smythe. The Colonel was quite cross.’ ‘Don’t get entangled by any of these bright-eyed scorpions, Mr. Curzon. You see I know all about it. Carmen Molinaro would never do for you.’ All of which irritated and exasperated the officers of the Duke’s Own very considerably.
The man who most cordially hated her, however, was the adjutant, Mr. Wheeler. He was chafed perpetually by her interference. Nothing was sacred to her. She rushed into professional matters with all the effrontery of the fool. So long as she contented herself with favouring her pets among the soldiers’ wives Wheeler did not care. It was when she presumed to advise as to the orderly room work, the correspondence, promotions, and daily routine, that he not unnaturally turned rusty. Whether or not she read the colonel’s letters he scarcely cared, but he did resent having to prepare important despatches from her notes, or send out letters which she had obviously drafted with her own hand. Nor could he, after so many years of nearly absolute authority, readily or cheerfully resign his power in the regiment. Hitherto advancement for the non-commissioned officers had depended mainly upon his good word. Now it was becoming evident that their promotion would depend in future upon that of the colonel’s wife. In one particular case which nearly affected a friend of ours they had fought a sharp battle; the adjutant was obstinate, but the lady was more so, and in the end the latter won the day. It was entirely through Letitia’s good offices that Herbert Larkins became a colour-sergeant long before the ordinary time. She had taken a fancy to the young man—not, you may be sure, because of his presumed connection with the family, for of that she had not the slightest inkling—but because it had lain within his power to do her important service, and because he was a smart, well-grown fellow to boot. Letitia, like many other ill-favoured women, had a keen eye for manly beauty.
But she had really reason to be grateful to Herbert. One day, when he was on guard upon the Upper Road, Mrs. Cavendish-Diggle, followed by her groom, passed on their way towards the town. Something startled Letitia’s horse, and, although an excellent rider, she found he was more than she could manage. After passaging like a crab along the road for some hundred yards, he took to plunging and rearing in a way to dislodge the most accomplished horse-woman from her seat. The groom had ridden up alongside, but he was able to render little assistance, and his best efforts only made Letitia’s horse worse. Had not Herbert promptly supervened, Mrs. Diggle would undoubtedly have been thrown, and probably badly hurt. But with firm hand on the rein he soon mastered the horse, then gradually pacified him.
‘I’m sure, sergeant, I’m extremely obliged to you,’ said Mrs. Cavendish, directly she recovered her breath. ‘What is your name? I must speak of you specially to the Colonel—Colonel Diggle—you know me, I presume? and I see you belong to “us.”’
‘Herbert Larkins, Madam, F company,’ said our hero briefly, as he saluted.
‘Thank you again, so much.’ And with that the Colonel’s wife rode off.
She did speak of him and his conduct in the most glowing terms.
‘You must do something for him, Conrad.’
‘Certainly, I’ll make him a present; or, better still, you shall—a watch, or a pencil-case, or something.’
‘No, no; something in the regiment, I mean. Promote him.’
‘He’s very young. Barely a year a sergeant. I don’t see my way, I don’t indeed.’
‘There are those vacant colours in G company,’ she said, displaying a curiously intimate acquaintance with regimental news.
‘Colour-sergeant! Impossible!’
‘Surely not, when I ask it.’
‘It would be grossly unfair. Promotions must not go by favour.’
‘Kissing does,’ she replied, as though he might expect no such reward unless he were more obliging. It was just possible that by this time Diggle could have deprived himself of the pleasure without any acute pang.
‘What would Mr. Wheeler say?’
‘That’s where it is. You think far more of displeasing Mr. Wheeler than of pleasing me. I feel hurt, Conrad; it’s not what I have a right to expect, considering—’
When she got on this tack the Colonel threw up the sponge. He gave in about the promotion, although the adjutant, thereby making Letitia his enemy for life, tried hard to keep him up to the mark.
The whole thing would have been a job of the worst kind had Herbert been less worthy. But he had really developed into an excellent soldier, smart, personable, and thoroughly well up in his work. He had his drill-book at his fingers’ ends, and could handle a squad as well as any man in the corps. He had learnt by heart all the details of interior economy, and was fully competent to take the charge and payment of a company, or to do credit to his regiment in any position in which he might be placed. All this Mr. Wheeler was forced to admit; and although he cherished a grudge against Herbert on account of what had passed, he so loved a good soldier that he could not bear malice long.
Colour-Sergeant Larkins was indeed fast becoming a very prominent person in the corps. Some backbiting and no little jealousy existed, no doubt, but he was the sort of man to soon outgrow and outlive such feelings. There was much in his manner and address to make him generally popular. His bright face, his cheerful voice, his manly straightforward ways, commended him of themselves. But he had other claims to the suffrages of his fellows. His old skill in games had not deserted him, and soldiers are very like schoolboys in their admiration and respect for personal prowess. The Duke’s Own eleven, thanks to Herbert’s batting and bowling, won every match always at the North Front. His brother sergeants felt lucky if they could secure him for a hand of fives. In all other gymnastic exercises he came equally well to the front. At the garrison athletic sports, which presently came off, as they always do, upon the racecourse at the North Front, he carried everything before him, to the intense gratification of his comrades in the corps.
The name of Sergeant Larkins was indeed on every lip that day. All the world of Gibraltar was present. His Excellency the Governor came in state, so did the general, second in command, and officers of all grades with their wives; crowds of soldiers of all the regiments in garrison were there, and all cheered Herbert to the echo as he carried off the hurdle-race in magnificent style. As for the Duke’s Own, a lot of them, frantic with delight, got him on their shoulders, and were carrying him about in triumph, when some one came up, and with a hurried nervous manner, said,
‘Sergeant Larkins; where’s Sergeant Larkins?’
‘Who wants him?’ said a dozen voices, thinking perhaps the governor had asked him to dinner, or the Queen had sent to make him a general on the spot.
‘An old friend. The oldest he’s got, I think he’ll say, when he sees me and hears my name.’
His enthusiastic supporters dropped Herbert, who came forward to speak to the inquirer.
‘It’s himself, himself, by all that’s holy! Hercules Albert, don’t you remember me?’ cried the man, as he seized both Herbert’s hands, shaking them furiously, and seeming to wish to hug him in his arms.
It was the old Sergeant Larkins, his stepfather, for whom he had so long searched in vain.
‘I heard them calling out the name, and it sounded so queer that I thought I’d have a look at you. How you’ve grown! But tell me all about yourself. Quick, lad. I want to hear, and the mother she—’
‘She’s all right and well, I hope,’ Herbert asked, as soon as he could put in a word. ‘Let’s go to her at once. How comes it I’ve never seen you before?’
‘Only landed from Malta on transfer last week, myself, the missus, and three of the bairns, that’s how it was. But come along, come to the mother at once; she’ll be crazy with delight when she sees you, and so will all the rest.’
The Larkins family had taken up their residence in a small cottage on the road to the Moorish Castle. Larkins père was now principal barrack-sergeant, and as such was entitled to fairly good quarters. He had aged considerably since our first acquaintance with him. His hair was grizzled, his gait was stiff as though his ankle-joints were affected by innumerable barrack inspections, and his eyes were weak from constant search for nail-holes or other barrack damages, or the continuous appraisement of fair wear and tear. Mrs. Larkins had also changed appreciably. She was still buxom, however, and her voice had lost none of its shrill power when she was aroused. This was more seldom than of yore. Her children were no longer the trial they had once been. The two eldest boys were out in the world; Sennacherib was in the band of a regiment at Malta, and Rechab was at the same place on board a man-of-war. Two younger ones, Ascanius and Leonora, were still at home, and so was Jemima Ann, familiarly called Mimie, now a blooming maiden of nineteen, with a soft voice, a sweet face, and eyes bright enough to give the heart-ache to half the young fellows of the place.
The old sergeant preceded Herbert into the cottage, to prepare his wife for a surprise.
‘Some one I know, Jonadab? Some one I’ve not seen these years? A colour-sergeant in the Duke’s Own? What are you driving at? I know no colour-sergeants; for the matter of that none of the Duke’s Own,’ Herbert heard her say as she came to the door.
The moment she set eyes upon her visitor she started and shook all over. She seemed dazed, and could frame no word of speech. Then all at once she gave way, and taking Herbert’s hands in hers, drew him towards her, kissing him again and again, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks.
‘What, Hercules, boy! My boy, my own sweet boy! This is a sight for sore eyes. Where have you dropped from, and in this dress? Come in, boy, come in and tell us all your news.’
And Herbert was led into the house.
Mimie came shyly forward when she was called to add her welcome to the brother she had almost forgotten. But she offered him her cheek quite naturally, and received a sister’s salute, which, nevertheless, sent the warm blood tingling through her veins.
‘You are a sister to be proud of,’ said Herbert. ‘What a beauty you have grown!’
‘Grown!’ interrupted Mrs. Larkins. ‘It’s you who’ve grown out of all memory almost, except to those who love you. But now sit down and let’s know all about it. What brought you to take the shilling? and you never let on, not one word. You might have written to us, Hercules. We, Jonadab and me, have had you always in our thoughts, thinking you were getting to be a fine gentleman who’d have nothing to do with the likes of us.’
‘As if I could ever forget my mother.’
Mrs. Larkins made a gesture which might have meant a strong negative to the expression.
‘When did you leave school? Why did you enlist! You never wrote to us.’
‘Four years ago. I was turned adrift in the world, that was why. I wrote over and over again to the Horse Guards, but could not hear where you were.’
‘And Lady Farrington, did she change her mind, or what?’
‘She went mad, so they said, and they locked her up in an asylum.’
‘Mad!’ shouted the sergeant. ‘Didn’t I always tell you so? mad? She were madder than Mike Horniblow who shot the Maltee, and as mad as our old colonel on an inspection parade.’
‘How was she locked up? who did it? Let’s know all that,’ said Mrs. Larkins.
Herbert recounted fully all that had occurred. His leaving Deadham School, the visit to the west country, Sir Rupert Farrington’s ill-treatment.
‘So that’s what the poor soul was after! Searching for a grandson to succeed to the title and estates,’ cried the sergeant. ‘And you were the last that she found. Well: it’s an ill wind, you know; leastways you got the schooling, even if you are none of her kith or kin.’
‘I suppose I am not, really?’ Herbert asked, looking very hard at Mrs. Larkins, who met the glance without lowering her eyes. There was something in her expression which Herbert immediately understood. There must be an explanation between them, but it could not take place then and there.
‘How should you be?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Didn’t I take you over with the mother when I married her at York? The widow Conlan, she was then, and you her only child.’
‘Conlan is my name then?’
‘By rights, yes; but you’ve took that of Larkins now, and you are a credit to it; so you may take it for what it’s worth, and keep it till you can find a better.’
Was there ever a chance of that? Was he really a Farrington after all, and might he yet prove his claims? Of this no one could give him a clue but Mrs. Larkins, and he gathered from her manner that the subject was one which she would only discuss when they were alone. He had no chance that time of speaking to her on this the subject nearest his heart. The rest of the evening was spent in the interchange of personal news, as is the case when friends and relatives meet after a long separation, and there is so much on both sides to tell and hear.
But Herbert went to the cottage next day. The sergeant, fortunately, was at the barrack-office; Mimie was out of the way, and Mrs. Larkins had the house all to herself.
‘I want to know all you can tell me, mother. Is it not natural? To whom else should I come? For you are my mother, are you not?’
‘No mother could feel more warmly for her child than I do for you, Hercules.’
‘Do but tell me, plainly—I am really your son?’
Mrs. Larkins was silent.
‘It is cruel to keep me in this suspense, mother,—for you have been one to me always. I implore you to tell me the whole truth.’
‘I will, Hercules, or Herbert as you ought by rights to be called. It is a hard matter to tell you all the tale, for there is shame and sorrow in it enough, and that for both you and me.
‘I must begin at the beginning. Years, years ago when I was a bit of a girl in my father’s house, I and my twin sister Annie—whom I loved dearly, as the apple of my eye—father lived at Newark-on-Trent; he was a small tradesman, but well enough to do. Mother died when we were quite chicks, and we grew up to have things much our own way. Annie was a real beauty, and had dozens of lads after her always, but she never fancied none of them. At last luck sent a recruiting party of the 12th Lancers to Newark. One of them was a young corporal, as proper a chap as ever took the shilling, fair spoken, well educated, and superior to the common run. He soon got courting our Annie, and he was the first she favoured. Father did not like it—not a bit. He hated soldiers, and was very rough about Corporal Smith. Annie and he had high words over it, and one day she was not to be found.
‘The recruiters had left the town too.
‘I won’t tell you what grief there was at home. Father was like a madman, and I was little better. He tried hard to get her back. He went miles—to the other end of England—after the regiment, but he never caught them up. He was too late. The regiment had been ordered off to the Cape of Good Hope. Through the rector, father wrote to the War Office, inquiring after Corporal Smith and his wife. The answer came months later, to say that the corporal was alive and well, but that he had no wife—at least no one according to the regimental books.
‘Father never held up his head after that, and within the year he died. I was nearly heart-broken too; but I was young, and I bore up better. As I was all alone in the world, and had the shop on my hands, I took a husband, who offered just then—Michael Conlan, a clerk in a maltster’s at Newark. He was a kindly soul, not over strong, but he helped me in the business, and we managed to get along.
‘One night Annie returned—not alone—she had a child with her, her own, a few months old only, and the two came, seeking shelter and rest. It was as I thought at first—the old story—betrayed, neglected, left.’
‘But you took her in?’ Herbert asked, eagerly.
‘Of course. Neither Michael nor myself asked any questions; our duty was plain, and it was one of love besides for me. All I know is what Annie herself told me, and that was not much. The corporal, it seems, belonged really to a higher station in life. He had quarrelled with his friends and left his home, and wanted never to see or hear of them again. But when Annie’s child was born—’
‘He had married her?’
‘Annie would not acknowledge it; although her silence told only against her own sweet name. She wore a ring, but so may any one; and as to all other proofs she obstinately refused to speak. I pointed out the hardship to her boy. She admitted that, but said she had promised and could not break her word. So I did not worry her, but left her to speak in her own good time. That time never came. Before Annie had been back a week I saw she was not long for this world. She pined and pined. She looked eagerly for news from abroad, but none came from where she sought it, and the disappointment helped the disease in bringing on the end.
‘On her death-bed I swore to be a mother to her boy—’
‘To me?’ said Herbert, no longer in doubt; and as she nodded assent, he took her hard hand and kissed it again and again.
‘And nobly you have fulfilled your oath.’
‘I did my best, Herbert. But I have more to tell you. Your mother, just before she died, gave me a letter. It was from your father to his friends, and was only to be sent to them at Annie’s death, or if she was in dire distress. The letter was addressed to Lady Farrington of Farrington Hall. It was not sealed, and I thought I might read what was inside. There were only a few words: “From Herbert to his mother—Be kinder to my boy.” I added a few of your bright curls, Herbert, and sent the letter on at once. But I gave no clue as to where it had come from. I wanted no answer. I was resolved to take no help from any one in doing my duty by you. I hated the whole of the Farringtons. I so hated the name of Herbert even, that we called you Hercules Albert instead.
‘Later on I lost Michael, my first husband; and I could not bear to remain in Newark alone. I sold up the shop and my belongings, and moved to York. It was there, as Mrs. Conlan, a widow, with one boy—you, Herbert—I met the Sergeant. Things were not prospering with me. I married him gladly, and he has been a thorough good man to me.’
Herbert’s heart was too full for him to speak for some time. Anger, disappointment, anguish—all three feelings possessed him. He was angry with his father, sore at heart for his mother’s sorrow, disappointed that there was no more to tell him.
‘Do you think there was a marriage, mother?’
‘I do. I always did.’
‘It all turns upon that. I may have Farrington blood in me; but whether or no would matter little if I was not entitled to bear the name.’
‘You must make up your mind to your disappointment, Herbert. What clue can we get to the marriage after all these years? Everybody who could speak to it is probably dead.’
‘My father—perhaps he is still alive.’
‘Would he not have sought us out before this if he had been? But he has never made a sign. Nothing but a miracle could do you any good, my boy. Better be contented as you are. And why should you be cast down? You are young and strong. You have been educated like a gentleman; have made a first-rate start, and have everything before you. Make a name for yourself in the world if you can, and don’t pine after what others might have given you.’
‘How is a mere sergeant to make himself a name?’
‘By sticking to his colours and doing his duty like a man. Non-commissioned officers have got to the top of the tree before now. Why should not you?’
‘If we could only have a chance of service—there’s no other hope for a soldier. But we never have any fighting in these days.’
‘How do you know? You be ready for the chance when it offers, that’s all you’ve got to do. Get a commission, and you’ll hold yourself as high as Sir Rupert then, and meet him on equal terms.’