CHAPTER VI

There was no sleep in the grey-stone house on the Beacon Hill, on that eventful night on which Polson Jervase left his home, for anybody except the domestics, who were ignorant of the blow which had fallen on the household. Jervase made no pretence of courting sleep at all: but having banked up the fire he went down into the cellar, brought up a couple of bottles of brandy, and prepared himself to make a night of it. It had not been his habit for years to drink to excess, but in his earlier days at any time of trouble he had gone to that false solace, and now the instinct came back to him. James kept him company awhile in his potations, but by and by crept off to bed, and Jervase sat alone drinking fiercely, at first without apparent effect.

General Boswell rose before dawn without having closed an eye, and waited for the daylight. At its first dawning he walked softly to the room in which Irene lay and tapped quietly at the door.

'Who's there?' his daughter's voice asked him, and he answered:

'It is I, dear. I wish to speak to you for a moment.' The girl unlocked the door and left it partly open. He waited for a moment and then half entered the room. 'I am just starting for home,' he said. 'And in an hour the carriage will be here to bring you away. Pray be ready for it.'

She answered 'Yes,' and her father walked downstairs and into the hall. He was searching for his hat and overcoat when Jervase lurched out of the parlour. His bloodshot eyes and staggering gait showed in what fashion he had passed the night.

'You're off?' he said, thickly. 'Won't you have some breakfast?'

'No,' said the General. 'Go back to your bottle.'

'Look here,' said Jervase, 'I shall put this all right. I've had the night to think it over, and I shall effect a compromise. D'ye see? I shall effect a compromise. It won't cost you a penny, and it won't break me. I shall have a sleep by and by, and then I shall go and see Stubbs, and effect a compromise. I hope you don't bear malice, General? You'll shake hands before you go, won't you?'

'No,' said the General. 'Go back to—your bottle.'

'But I say,' Jervase proceeded, with a drunken tenacity, 'you ain't going to bear malice, are you, General?'

'Stand out of my way, you drunken beast!' the General responded, 'or I'll do you a mischief.'

'Oh, if that's the way you're going to take it, all right,' said Jervase. 'James and me are going to stand the racket—it won't hurt you either in credit or in pocket, and I don't see what you've got to be shirty about. It wasn't exactly what you might call a legirrimate transaction, but there are lots of things in business that are not legirrimate. See 'em done every day—see 'em done by respec'able people.'

Boswell by this time had found his hat and overcoat, and was prepared to go. He turned his back upon his host and re-ascended the stairs and knocked a second time at Irene's door.

'Is that you, Papa?'

'Yes, it is I. Can you hear me?'

'Oh, yes, distinctly.'

'I shall return for you. Keep your door locked until I come. Jervase has been drinking and he may annoy you.' With that, he walked back to the hall, where Jervase, holding on by the handle of the door, was solemnly swaying to and fro. 'I shall regret,' said Boswell, 'to be forced to use violence: but if you do not instantly free me of your very disagreeable presence I shall be compelled to do you damage. Stand on one side, I tell you. Go!'

There was that in the ring of his voice which pierced to Jervase's intelligence, bemused as he was, and he staggered back into the parlour. The General undid the fastenings of the door and walked out into the keen, bright morning air. When he returned an hour later, Jervase had drunk himself to sleep, and there was no further trouble with him. Irene was ready and came from her bedroom at the General's call. His heart ached as he looked at her, for the passage of that one night of sleepless grief had blighted all her fresh young beauty as a year of sickness might have done. He took her to his arms and held her there until she drew gently away from him.

'I know, dear,' she said in a voice she bravely tried to control, but with no great success. 'I know, dear.'

They exchanged no further words until they reached home, but her father placed an arm about her shoulders and drew her to his breast, where she nestled quietly. She had wept all her tears away, but a dry sob shook her frame from time to time, and with every repetition of the sound the father's face twitched as if a rough hand had been laid upon a wound. He parted from her tenderly when they reached home, and they met again at the breakfast table.

'You understand everything that has happened, dear?' he asked. 'I think so.'

'The owner of the salt mine which my partners have for years been robbing is a Major de Blacquaire, whose regiment is just now quartered at Birmingham. They will have the route in a day or two, and I must see him before he goes. I shall drive into the town at once; and then I must run up to London. I do not know as yet what my partners' rascality may have cost me, but I am not a wealthy man, and the business may spell ruin. I cannot afford to be idle, and I must get back into harness. Lord Raglan knows my record. I was with him when he lost his right arm at Waterloo. He has more than once,' the old soldier went on with a certain stateliness, 'expressed a certain regard for me. I have every reason to believe myself highly honoured by his esteem. At a time like this men of experience will be in demand, and I feel hopeful of finding an appointment. I am not yet too old to serve my Queen and country. Lord Raglan will see service again, of course, and he is six years my senior, so that he is scarcely likely to make my years a ground of objection.'

'Take me with you, dear,' said Irene, 'I shall not be very happy if I am left alone.'

'Do you care for the drive this morning?' her father asked.

'I should like it,' she answered, 'of all things.'

'Run away and dress then,' said the General, 'for I have ordered the carriage already, and it will be round in a quarter of an hour. That is short notice for a lady's toilet.' he went on, trying to smile, 'but you must learn military despatch.'

And thus it came about that Polson and Irene met once more before the final parting, for at the moment at which the carriage swept into the barrack square the newly-enlisted recruit was walking towards the orderly room under the guidance of a corporal. The youngster still wore the fluttering ribbons in the shabby old sealskin cap, and that fact and his presence in the barracks told the whole story instantly.

'By Heaven!' cried the General, 'I like that. The lad has grit in him!' He cried aloud in the ringing clarion voice which advancing years had left in all its rounded sweetness, 'Hi, you there—halt!' and the corporal at the voice straightened himself and stood to attention. Polson knew the voice, but he walked on until the command was repeated. The General stopped the carriage and alighted. 'Can you bear to speak to him?' he whispered.

'Yes,' said Irene, 'I wish it.'

The General walked briskly to the recruit, and stretched out his hand towards him. 'You have done well, my lad. You could have done nothing better. You have an old soldier's respect, Polson. You have joined us?'

'Yes, sir,' said Polson, 'I have joined you. Volnay is here, sir—you remember Volnay?'

'His father and I charged together at Waterloo,' said the General. 'He is a good lad. You and he are great friends, I hear?'

'We have been,' Polson answered. 'Major de Blacquaire is here as well; but he has a Staff appointment, and I understand he leaves the corps to-morrow.'

'He is the man I am here to see,' said Boswell. 'Irene is with me, and I believe she wishes to speak to you.'

The young man glanced deprecatingly at his old array, and the General read the glance. 'She will understand all that,' he said, 'just as well as I do. You have seen De Blacquaire?'

'I believe he is in barracks—I saw him a few hours ago.'

'Corporal! 'called the General, 'find Major de Blacquaire, give him General Boswell's compliments, and ask him to receive me.'

The corporal saluted and went his way, a bewildered man, for it had never before fallen to his lot to find a raw recruit in the enjoyment of a General's friendship. There was a mystery here, and it kept the regiment in talk for a little while until the interest in it died out; but it made Polson a man of mark from the first. The corporal was back in a minute with a salute to say that Major de Blacquaire was in his own apartment, and would be proud to see General Boswell at once, so the General sent off Polson to Irene and made his way to De Blacquaire's quarters, piloted by the corporal. De Blaequaire received General Boswell with a show of profound respect.

'I am here,' began the General, plunging into business at once after his own soldierly fashion, 'I am here on an uncommonly unpleasant business. You are the proprietor of a salt mine. You may not be aware that I have invested the greater part of my fortune in the hands of your neighbours, Messrs. Jervase & Jervoyce.'

'I was not aware of that, sir,' said De Blaequaire, 'and I am very sorry to hear it. The men, to my certain knowledge, are a brace of thieves.'

'I heard a very startling piece of news last night,' the General continued. 'I heard that your solicitor, Mr. Stubbs I believe, has made a charge against my partners of having robbed you and the former proprietor of the mine, my lamented old friend General Airey, through a whole course of years.'

'That is undoubtedly true,' De Blacquaire answered. 'I have evidence that a passage exists between their mine and my own, and all the evidence points to the belief that it was purposely made. Their property, I learn, was a miserable failure for many years, and it has now for years yielded them a large income.'

'My share of that income,' said the General, 'has amounted to something like fifteen hundred pounds a year for seven years past, and I need not tell you that it will be my immediate business, so soon as I can realise the money, to repay you—on distinct proof, of course, of the felonious action of my partners.'

'I really do not see, General Boswell,' said De Blacquaire, 'that there is any call upon you to sacrifice yourself for their benefit. The men are wealthy, and I have no doubt that I can force them to disgorge.'

'It will be my own hope and aim to do that also,' the General answered. 'But I have no wish for money which has been dishonourably acquired, and I am very much afraid that I have been living at your cost. It is my obvious duty to return to you whatever has come into my possession, provided always that the facts are assured. I have my remedy against my partners in the law courts, and if necessary I must seek it there.'

'I shall not venture,' said De Blacquaire, 'to dispute a point of personal honour with General Boswell; but I venture to suggest that the better course would be for us, as the injured parties, to join forces against Messrs. Jervase & Jervoyce, and discuss the partition of the spoils when we have secured them. They are thoroughly solvent; I know that, for I have made inquiries; and they are well worth powder and shot. Until the case is heard, or until they themselves come to heel of their own free will, I cannot in honesty receive anything from you.

Their confession or, failing that, their conviction must absolutely precede any such action as you contemplate. I am taking a business point of view, sir, and I think that on reflection you will find that there is no escape from it.'

The General sat frowning and perplexed. He was in haste to be rid of the sense that he was handling tainted money, and he was eager even to beggar himself to secure freedom from the load which lay upon his mind. 'I wish you to understand, Major de Blacquaire,' he said, 'that I am pressing this matter for reasons personal to myself. I am placed in a most abominable and unbearable position. I have unwittingly been made a partner in a very shameful transaction, and I may tell you that I have not the faintest doubt in my own mind as to the justice of your cause. I do not feel that as a man of honour I am justified in retaining for a day money which has been actually stolen from another. I think I may say that it is your duty to relieve me from this burden. I must fight for my own hand afterwards; but I cannot consent to hold these gains a moment longer than is necessary for me to repay them.'

'Suppose, sir,' said De Blacquaire, 'that we submit this matter to an independent and high-minded arbiter. You know Colonel Stacey? He is in quarters at this moment, I believe, and I am sure he would give his judgment between us willingly, I feel so confident of his verdict that perhaps it's hardly fair on my part to suggest the appeal to him.'

'I know Stacey well,' said the General, 'Colonel Stacey is a man of honour. I have a great respect for Stacey, and I will abide by his opinion. I feel assured that he will be on my side. Will you kindly take me to him?'

'Certainly, sir.' The Major took up his forage cap, opened the door for his guest, and marshalled him into the open, where he saw the hated Polson standing at the side of the General's carriage in conversation with a lady. His gorge rose within him at the spectacle, and it came into his mind that General Boswell might be as little pleased as he himself was. He asked a question by way of calling his companion's attention. 'That is your carriage, sir?'

'Ah, by the way,' the General answered, 'that reminds me. That is young Jervase standing there. His commission is probably in his agent's hands to-day. He has learned the facts about this salt mine business, and he has thrown up what I know to have been the dearest hope of his life. He has joined as a recruit. He is a very fine and worthy fellow, Major de Blacquaire. I don't know a better lad in the world, and I desire to bespeak your good will for him. A gentleman's position in the ranks is not very tolerable; but a friend at court may make things easier for him.'

Now Major de Blacquaire had made a very excellent impression on the elder warrior, who thought that he had behaved honourably and with delicacy in respect to the unfortunate business which had brought them together; but he undid that impression most conclusively.

'Should you call,' he asked in his most deliberate and supercilious drawl, 'should you call Mr. Polson a gentleman, sir?'

'Most decidedly, sir!' the General answered, with sudden heat. 'He has the instincts of a gentleman, and the sense of honour of a gentleman. He has had the education of a gentleman, and has lived among gentlemen. If these are not the facts to warrant the use of the word, I have no judgment in the matter.'

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said De Blac-quaire, 'I am possibly prejudiced; but I thought the fellow a sort of unlicked cub.'

The General said no more, but his shoulders straightened, and both hands went up to the big grey moustache. It was in his mind to offer a retort, but he remembered his own dignity in time, and contented himself by saying, 'I shall recommend him most strongly to Colonel Stacey's best consideration. And you, Major de Blacquaire, I understand, are leaving the regiment?'

'I have received a Staff appointment, sir, and I leave to-morrow. These are the Colonel's quarters.'

Both men had grown extremely frigid, but Colonel Stacey's welcome to his old campaigning comrade smoothed the General's ruffled mind. He was a bluff, grizzled man of sixty, with a scarlet countenance and a white head so closely cropped that it looked like a bottle-brush. He had seen service in every quarter of the world, and his manly chest was covered with well-won medals. He listened to the General's story sympathetically, but he gave his judgment with a twinkle of the eye.

'The same old Quixote, eh, George? De Blacquaire's right, of course—absolutely right. And as for you, my boy, you haven't got a leg to stand on. Of course you're going to join forces with your fellow sufferer, and it's quite monstrous to suggest that the money should come out of the pocket of an innocent man. If the case were anybody's but your own you'd look at it like a sensible man. And if you were advising me, you would tell me precisely what I'm telling you. Here, where's that rascal of mine?' He opened the door and shouted, and in came a bronzed dragoon in civilian costume. 'Get a bottle of champagne and bring glasses. I've been longing for an excuse for self-indulgence all the morning, and I'm much obliged to you for giving it.'

'I mustn't join you,' said the General.

'Oh, by gad,' said the Colonel, 'but you must and you shall. I'm expecting to get my marching orders any hour, and those chaps mean to fight, mind you, and it's an open problem as to whether old Bob Stacey will come back again. Come on, George! You're not going to shirk a last liquor with a comrade of forty years' standing!'

The General yielded, the wine was served, De Blacquaire at the Colonel's command emptied his glass and withdrew, leaving the old friends together. The General seized the moment to speak a word for Polson. He told the lad's story, and the Colonel nodded his white head with curt approval.

'Is he a smart fellow?' he asked.

'Highly intelligent,' the General answered. 'Took his B.A. at Oxford, first-rate man across country, excellent shot. Would have had his commission this week if his father hadn't turned out a rascal. Throws up everything like a lad of honour as he is, and takes the Queen's shilling.'

'That's all right,' said the Colonel. 'Leave him to me. I'll shepherd him.'



CHAPTER VII

General Boswell's coachman was a Scot; a grim, taciturn, brickdust-coloured fellow, who had been in his present service for a quarter of a century. He had been bred amongst horses from his boyhood, for his father had been a horsebreaker, and when he had run away from home and enlisted, he had satisfied ambition by becoming a driver of artillery. Then he had been wounded, and had turned batman for awhile. He had gone to the General as valet, but his stable love had broken out again, and he had gravitated by force of nature to the place of coachman. Polson's mind did not go back to a time when he did not remember Duncan, and to Irene he was like a fixed part of the scheme of nature. He had one defect which at this instant made him invaluable. He resented any imputation of the fact angrily, but he had been deaf as an adder for years.

There was no great privacy in a barrack square, to be sure, but it was as safe to talk within arm's length of Duncan as if he had been a stone Sphinx. Duncan was a man of rare discretion, and, though it must have been like an upheaval of the world to him to see the most constant of visitors at the General's modest little mansion, walking in shabby raiment in a barrack square with a recruit's ribbons fluttering from his cap, he saluted imperturbably as the young man came up, and then sat motionless.

Polson came to the side of the carriage, cap in hand.

'Your father told me I might speak to you,' he said wistfully. 'I hope I am not wrong in coming to you.'

'You have enlisted?' she asked him. 'You are going to the war?' Her self-possession cost her an effort, but she maintained it She had a soldier's daughter's pride, and though she had met this first great trouble so brief a time ago she had already taught herself to face it. Her father was a man conspicuously brave among the brave, and he had told her of his very first experience of war—a period of prolonged inaction under fire. 'A trying thing at first,' he had said, 'but duty will reconcile one to anything.' This memory had been present with her all the morning, and though the unexpected sight of her lost lover almost broke her down, the thought had had power to nerve her.

'Yes,' he answered simply. 'I have enlisted. I shall have to go through a certain amount of drill, but that will soon be over, and then, I suppose, I shall get my marching orders.'

'Father approves of what you have done,' she said.

'He has told me so,' he responded. 'I am very glad of it. God is good to me,' he went on, turning half away from her and gazing across the square. 'I had not hoped to see you again for years, if ever, and there is just one thing I wanted very much to say. It is of no use to have reserves and disguises at a time like this. I shan't distress you? Can you let me speak?'

'Put your cap on, Polson,' she said composedly. 'You will catch cold.'

The touch of womanly solicitude, small as it was, moved him. He obeyed her, and stood, still looking across the square, until he had mastered a suspicious clicking in the throat.

'You need have no fear of me, Polson,' Irene said. 'Speak out all your mind.'

'Well, dear, it's this. We've been comrades ever since I helped you to learn to ride your first pony. We've always been the very best of friends, and only last night I was going to ask for something more. You don't mind hearing me out, Irene?'

'No. Let us speak plainly. Let us understand each other.'

'Well, you see, everything went last night with a clean sweep by the board. I thought I was safe for a commission. I'd been brought up to expect a handsome fortune.' He spoke in a level tone, as if he had been reading uninteresting matter from a book. 'All that is changed and everything is changed with it. I'm a penniless private of dragoons, and our ways in the world are wide apart. For old time's sake I should be very sorry to believe that you'd ever forgot me altogether, but if you'll try to bring yourself to think of me as trying to be cheerful in a humble station, as remembering you always in my heart of hearts, and never forgetting the distance that divides us—if you'll try to think of me as always honouring myself because I was once your friend'—He was forced to pause, but he went on again, level-voiced and monotonous as before—'If you'll try to think of me as learning to be cheerful for your sake, not as a moaning, broken-hearted chap—which I don't mean to be at all—but just doing my work, you know, and thinking about you like an affectionate poor relation might—why, then, in—in time you'll get to feel the parting less.'

'Have you finished, Polson?' 'Yes, dear. That's about all, I think. You see, I know you, Irene. You'll grizzle if you think I'm grizzling. That's your nature. You can't bear to think of a canary bird in pain.'

'And that is all?'

'Yes, dear. That's all.'

'I shall never forget you, dear. I shall never forget you, and I shall never change. If you had asked me to be your wife before these things happened I should have said "Yes," and I should have been proud and happy. But, Polson, this is why I thank God for having brought us together just this once. I want you to remember that in this war names will be heard of that never were known before. Yours may be one of them.'

'You mustn't waste your life thinking of me, Irene. I shall remember every word you have spoken. I shall treasure every word. I hope I shall do my duty.'

'I am sure of that,' she answered. And then for a long time not a word was spoken, and when at length they broke silence, they spoke of things which were indifferent by comparison. They discussed the probable hour of the arrival of the route, the probable destination of the regiment, the time at which Polson might expect to escape his drill.

At last the General appeared walking side by side with Colonel Stacey. Irene was facing that way, and was naturally the first to see him.

'Here is good-bye, dear,' she said. 'Papa is coming.'

'Good-bye,' he said softly. 'Good-bye. God bless you.'

'God bless you, too,' said Irene. She held out her little gloved hand to him, and he took it in his own. She looked bravely into his eyes, and they spoke their last farewell without a sign of tremor.

'This,' said the General, advancing as Polson turned away, 'is the young fellow of whom I have been speaking. Polson, this is your commanding officer, Colonel Stacey.' Polson raised his cap and bowed civilian fashion.

'Ah!' said the jolly colonel, turning his red face and twinkling eyes on the recruit.

'You are Polson Jervase? Joined this morning, eh? I hear an excellent account of you. Try to deserve it. I shall remember you. Good morning.'

But as Polson saluted again, and turned to go, the General seized him by the hand and shook it warmly.

'We must all face the fortune of war, my lad,' he said. 'The best of good luck go with you. If you hear of me out yonder, as you may, don't forget to report yourself. Good-bye.'

There were a good many eyes at the barrack windows, and the minds of many dragoons were inspired with wonder. For a General and a Waterloo veteran was a personage, and the daughter of the same was a personage, and it was out of the common for a newly-joined recruity to engage in intimate talk with the like of them for half an hour together, and to be shaken hands with by the veteran, and saluted as if he were an officer by the veteran's coachman, and personally introduced to 'Old Stayce' into the bargain.

And amazement sat on many foreheads when the carriage rolled away, and the General stood up to wave his hat to the recruity, and the lady stood up to wave her hand, and the recruity, unconscious of the interest he excited, waved the shabby old sealskin cap in answer until the equipage was ringingly saluted at the gate, and swung swiftly out of sight.

And then, it was over. Oh, it was all over, and one manly heart was sore and cold. The new recruity stood there planted in the barrack square, as innocent of his surroundings as if he had been asleep, and mechanically filled and lit his pipe, and stood on with his chin sunk upon his breast, scarcely aware of his own thoughts, and as yet realising little but solitude and an ache in the doleful middle of it. But a warmth stole into the cold. When everything was said and done, there was one thing left. Irene loved him. Loved him! How sweet and sacred a wonder. Yet her own dear lips had told him that she would have been proud and happy to be his wife, and that nothing should change her. And she had given him an ambition. The lofty and inspiring words were not yet written, but their purport thrilled him, as it thrilled many who went out to fight and bleed for a cause which may not have been wholly worthy of their devotion, and yet in a sense was worthy because they believed in it with all their hearts and souls. For, after all, what is it but the purpose which ennobles action? If the greatest Englishman since Shakespeare had not yet given Polson Jervase the words in which to speak his thought, it lightened his breast all the same.

I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told; And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd, Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims, Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar; And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freer under the sun. And the heart of a people beat with one desire; For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and done, And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

So thought Polson Jervase, and so thought hundreds of valiant men who were ready to lay down their lives in a quarrel which the years have proved unprofitable.

But a voice awoke the recruity from his reverie—a voice of authority which asked with a most unnecessary emphasis what the blank, blank he meant by skulking there, when he knew conventionally well that he had been conventionally well ordered to the quartermaster's stores to get his conventional kit. The recruit was not accustomed to hear himself addressed in this manner, and his earliest impulse was to hit the pug nose of the person who accosted him, but he remembered himself in time, and bethinking him of the wise man's saying, that a soft answer turneth away wrath, he asked meekly where he should go. Then the Sergeant, who was so straitly trousered and jacketted that he pranced in his going, ordered him to follow his nose, adding that if he conventionally well supposed that because a conventional General in a conventional carriage came to see him off, he was entitled to shirk his conventional duties, he was conventionally well in error.

'I say, Sergeant,' said Polson, turning to face his conductor, 'that's a filthy bad habit. If you want to be respected, drop it.'

The Sergeant went as scarlet as his stable-jacket, and said that any conventional recruit had conventionally well got to respect him any conventional how.

'My dear sir, no,' said Polson. 'It's quite impossible to respect a man who talks like a foul-mouthed parrot.'

The Sergeant walked like a man astounded and said no more, and Polson likewise held his peace. They were both quietly businesslike whilst Polson got his kit served out to him, and by the time this work was over, the dinner hour had arrived. He was told off to a mess in a long barrack-room, in which his brother recruits were quartered, under the charge of an old soldier. Some of these new comrades were fresh from the plough, and some were the rowdy refuse of the town; one wore a miner's flannels, and another was a weedy youth from a shop-counter, who had a higher opinion of himself than others were likely to form.

The speech of every man jack of them was like the exhalation of a cesspool, and the newest of Her Majesty's hired servants sat in a grim wrath and loathing, seeing that he had chosen these for his life companions. The meal was plentiful, and not bad of its kind, but it was dirtily served, and asked for long custom or an appetite of more than average keenness. Our recruit had neither the one nor the other, but he remembered his promise to Irene. He had undertaken to meet his fate cheerfully, and the fare was part of his fate. He would have no re-pinings. The food was honest and wholesome, and he would probably learn to be eager for worse before the war was over. So he, as it were, squared his shoulders at his trencher, and was just ready to fall to, when one of the plough-tail gentry sitting just opposite let fall a speech which would have turned the stomach of a decent hog, if he had happened to understand it. Polson's heart maddened within him, and he smote his fist upon the unclothed table so that the plates of chipped enamel iron danced from end to end on it.

'You filthy clodpole!' he said, rising from his place and thrusting a prognathous jaw and blazing eyes half-way across the table. 'Speak like that again in my hearing, and I'll give you such a hiding as you never had since you were born.'

'And sarve him right, begorra,' said the man at the head of the table. 'It's sick I am of all the dirty stuff I've to listen to—An' dese boys is 'listed for de war, and dere's not wan of 'em knows he mayn't be stiff on de field in tree or four monts' time. An' be way of makin' ready for a soldier's end an' a sudden meetin' wid his God, dey're chewin' blasphaymious conversation from reveille to lights out, so dey are.'

'Thank you,' said Polson, and so sat down and tried to go on with his dinner.

The meal was finished in silence. The scene had its effect, and it had all the more surely for two or three things which happened later on. Example. The whole rough squad was turned into the riding school that afternoon dressed as they might happen to be. The accustomed old drill-horses, saddled and bridled, were ranged on the tan at the wall, with stirrups crossed over the shoulders, and when the word 'Mount' was given, Polson was the only one of the newly recruited crowd who did not make a painful climb in trying to obey the order. He was in the saddle in a flash, and sat there like a centaur.

'We've got one man amongst us, seemin'ly,' said the old rough-riding Sergeant.

'You've seen a horse before to-day, my lad.'

'One or two,' said Polson.

'Come out,' said the red-nosed drill.

'Let's see what you're good for. Put her at that.'

'That' was a furze-covered revolving pole mounted on swivelled trestles, and about three feet high. It was a leap for a child, and Polson went over it, turned and came nimbly back again. The instructor approached him and took him by the foot and ankle.

'That's the shape for the cavalry leg,' he said. 'Keep that and don't lose it. Now put her at it again.'

As the recruit turned to obey the order, the Sergeant mischievously slashed the mare across the quarters, and the venerable she-trooper skipped; but this was hardly a thing to scare the best cross-country man of his shire, and Polson nipped over the bar and back again. At that moment entered Captain Volnay, to whom the drill, saluting, said:

'It's no use wasting this man's time here, sir. Colonel's orders are to get 'em through as fast as possible. He'd be better engaged at foot drill.'

'Very good,' said Volnay. 'You can dismount, my man. Come with me.'

On the far side of the square a squad was at work at the sword exercise, and the instructor's voice was bawling: 'Thrust, return, thrust—return. Carry—so! Slope—so! Shun! Stand at ease!'

'Well,' said Volnay. 'How do you like it?'

'I shall like it well enough, I dare say. I haven't shaken into the saddle yet.'

'I'm going to hand you over to this lot,' said Volnay, indicating the squad with a motion of the hand. 'D'you know anything about it?'

'A bit,' the recruit answered. 'You see, it's been the dream of my life to join, and I've been taking lessons.'

'Good old enthusiast!' said Volnay. 'I saw you meeting old Stayce. He's a grand old sort. No finer soldier in the army. Regiment adores him. And he has an eye for a man who does his duty. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse, old Pol, eh?'

'I'll try,' said Polson.

'You'll try right enough. You're a good old pebble. I've got to be professional, you understand. No end of a devil of a lot of unpleasantness if these chaps suspected favouritism.'

'Oh,' said Polson, 'I'm at work. No playing en amateur.'

'That's the style. There are some of our fellows saying there'll be no fighting. That's rubbish. There's glory in front of some of us, Polly.'

They went on in silence until they reached the guard.

'Shun!' roared the Sergeant, and the men clicked their heels together and straightened their backs and tucked their chins in and assumed that ramrod posture which the authorised drill-book of the day described as 'the free and unconstrained attitude of a soldier.'

'Sergeant,' said Volnay, 'this man has just joined, but Sergeant Gill finds that he can ride and has dismissed him from the riding school. He tells me that he's been taking lessons in sabre practice. Just put him through his paces, will you?'

So the Sergeant set his squad to stand at ease again, and Polson, being provided with a belt and sabre, was stuck up in front of it, feeling absurdly like a trick ape on show.

'Draw—so! Slope—so! Prep—air! Prove distance!' and so on.

'Pursuin' practice. One. Cut—thrust—parry. Two. Cut—thrust—parry. Shunt Now from the word of command, right through. Sword exercise. Prep—air! Prove distance—go! Shun! Pursuin' practice I Prep—air! Go! Shun! That's all right, sir. Ever been in the service before, young feller?'

'No,' said Polson. 'I always meant to join, and I thought I'd get ready as far as I could.'

'Now look here, my lad,' said the Sergeant. 'You've been through the mill before, you have. You're a deserter, you know, that's what you are.'

Polson laughed. He had thought never to laugh again, but the accusation tickled him.

'I beg your pardon, Captain Volnay,' he said, saluting in officer's fashion—the only way he had been taught; 'but perhaps you will speak up for me.'

'Deserter?' said Volnay. 'Rubbish! Known the man for years. Always keen on the service, and got ready for it. Jervase.' 'Yes, sir.'

'You're a pretty good shot, I gather?' 'Thank you, sir.'

'Any instruction in musketry?' 'Pretty fair, sir.'

'Put him through his facings, Sergeant, in the riding school at four o'clock this afternoon. I'll be there. You hear, Jervase?'

'Yes, sir.'

At this juncture the Sergeant surprised a wink from Volnay, which that young gentleman supposed to have been unseen, and he fell a-thinking. The result of his cogitation was rapid and conclusive. The young man who knew the minutiae of his trade of soldier, and had an officer's trick of salute, and was on winking terms with the wealthiest man in the regiment, was a person to be made up to, and to be made up to in the least transparent way.

'We're awfully short-handed, sir,' said the Sergeant, touching his forage cap to Volnay. 'We might utilise this man as a drill, sir, if you'll permit me to suggest such a thing. I could get on twice as fast, sir, if I'd half the squad to deal with.'

'Very well,' said Volnay. 'I'll see the adjutant about that.'

And the raw recruit was drilling his barrack-room comrades before he or they had fitted on a uniform, and his ringing 'Carry—so!' or 'Ground—oh!' sounded through the square as imperiously as any in those first busy days.

'You're a (conventional) wonder, you are,' said the drill instructor at the close of the second day. 'You've got the powers that be behind you, and you'll be one of us in a month or two. Promotion's quick when the word comes for blood and rust and mud and oil.'



CHAPTER VIII

If Polson had not to be taught how to ride, how to handle a sabre or a gun, or how to balance himself in the goose-step—matters which he had taken the pains to master long ago—there were still certain things to learn, and the button stick, and the flat and chain burnish, and the pots of chrome yellow, and blacking, and pipeclay, were just as strange to him as they would have been to any other raw recruit; so that he was teaching his business at one end and learning it at the other for a matter of some four or five days.

There was a poor exile of Erin in the shape of an impecunious Irish nobleman, who enlisted on the same day with Polson and whose uniform was tried on in the same hour.

They were in the tailor's shop together with a hurried Sergeant standing over them.

The aristocratic Paddy pulled on his trousers with a heavy sigh.

'The livery,' said he, 'of me degradation.'

'It is the Queen's uniform,' said Polson, 'and you have a right to be proud to wear it.'

The child of Erin buttoned his stable jacket and went out to drill, and Polson gave him a purposed double dose of labour. He had given orders to an individual man here and there, but until he became a dragoon he had never commanded a crowd, and there is something in that which makes either a man or a sweep of the commander. Polson was all alert, eager to teach what he knew to the slow and loutish squad before him; but on that first morning of his wearing the Queen's cloth, keen as he was upon his own business, he could not help recognising a certain pair of flea-bitten greys which swept through the barrack gate whilst he was at work some fifty yards away. They came from the Bar-field Arms, and he had helped the man who now drove them in their breaking, four or five years ago.

There was a cry of 'Guard, tarn out!' and a clash of salute as the carriage rolled through the gates without a challenge, and the man who sat at the back, disdaining the cushions, and with a lustrous silk hat cocked over one eyebrow, was his father. John Jervase came into barracks, as he had gone everywhere throughout his life, with a magnificent impudence, and he distributed salutes to all and sundry from a majestic forefinger; whilst his only son watched him with a sardonic eye as he bowled up to the officers' quarters.

The card of Mr. John Jervase was carried to Colonel Stacey, and Colonel Stacey was ready to receive Mr. Jervase in a flash.

'I am told, sir,' said Mr. Jervase, in that bluff, John-Bull way of his, which had brought a hundred people to his net, 'that the regiment has its marching orders, and I can quite believe that you've got something better to do than to listen to anything I have to say.'

'I'm pressed for time, sir,' said the Colonel. 'The regiment marches in an hour.'

'Here's a lad of mine, sir,' said Jervase, 'has enlisted. And here is a letter from Kirby & Sons, the well-known Army agents, telling me they've got my cheque for his commission. It's been the hope of my heart to see the lad in the army, and it's been his hope also. We've had a quarrel, sir, and I don't mind confessing that it is my fault. The lad's a good lad.' His voice began to tremble. 'But he's throwing his life away for a freak. I've bowt his commission, and here's the letter from the London agents to say that the whole thing is complete. I know he's here, for I heard him as I crossed the barrack square. I'd like you to help me to bring him back to reason.'

The Colonel took a whip from the table and struck a blow upon the door, which was one of his substitutes for bell-ringing.

'Private Jervase,' he said, 'is drilling a squad in front of the Cupola. Send him here.' He waved his visitor to a chair, and plunged into the examination of a heap of papers which lay before him. Jervase nursed his silk hat in both hands and waited, listening to the scattered noises of the barrack square and catching amongst them his son's voice with a sort of fatal sound of command in it.

'Is he going to talk to me like that?' asked the father of himself; and the minutes went slowly by until Colonel Stacey's batman tapped respectfully at the door, and announced 'Private Jervase.'

'I'll leave you,' said the Colonel, gathering his papers in his hand, and darting towards the doorway.

'I beg you won't, sir,' cried Jervase the elder, 'I shall be more than obliged to you, sir, if you will help me to bring my boy to reason. There,' he cried, casting a letter upon the table, 'is a notice from the London agents that his commission is bought and paid for. There's my cheque for a thousand pounds, and if that isn't good enough for him, there's fifty twenty-pound notes of the Bank of England, and he can have both of 'em with as good a heart on my side as if he took the one and left the other.'

The Colonel looked from the son to the father, and back from the father to the son.

'Really, Mr. Jervase,' he said, 'I don't see that this is much of an affair of mine. I will leave you to fight it out between you.'

The Colonel walked to the door, and father and son were left together. John Jervase, banker, capitalist, driver of men, was not in the least like himself that morning, and his hands trembled so that he was fain to clutch one with another, and to hold both tight between his knees as he sat.

'Look here, Polly,' he began, but Polson gazed sternly straight before him, and gave no sign of sympathy or forgiveness. 'Look here, Polly, I've had about a week of it, and I can't stand it any longer. You and me's got to be friends, or else I've got to put an end to things in a way as you won't fancy.'

He waited, but there was no response from the stolid figure in front of him. Pol-son stared out of the window and stood silent and immobile as a statue.

'I left you to yourself,' said Jervase, 'until I'd got everything right and comfortable. Major de Blaequaire has gone off to Southampton, and I believe he's on his way to Varna, somewhere in the Black Sea. I've made a deposit with Stubbs, his lawyer, of no less than fifty thousand pounds, my lad. That's been a shake, I tell you. I've had a good deal o' trouble to raise that sum in a hurry, but I've done it, and there's to be no action and no scandal of any sort until De Blaequaire comes back again. That gives your Uncle James and me time to turn round.'

He waited again, and still Polson stood like a statue and made no answer.

'I've done more than that,' Jervase went on. 'I've banked twelve thousand pounds to General Boswell's credit, so that come what may he isn't likely to suffer. If De Blaequaire carries the case on when he comes back to England, James and me can pay him every penny of his rightful claim, and we'll do it.'

He paused again, for his voice had once more half escaped from his control. The boy stood before him, cold and inflexible as doom. To the father's eye he had never looked so manly and handsome as he did at this moment, and what with fatherly pride and self pity and a sense of the magnanimity of his own purposes, the emotions of John Jervase were strangely mixed.

'There'll be no trouble at all, Polly,' he said, after a pause. 'I've put everything straight for you. You've only got to run up to London to sign your papers, to have your commission, and go out like a gentleman. I've brought a portmanteau with me in the carriage, with everything you'll actually need in it for a week or two, and there's the money for you to order anything else you want. I packed the portmanteau with my own hands, Polly.'

He paused again, for in his own way he was genuinely moved: but the boy still stood there, staring out of the window, and answered never a word.

'You've got to listen,' said the elder, rising and shaking him by the shoulder. 'You think I have acted like a scoundrel, and you're ashamed of your old father. I dare say you're right, my lad, but it wasn't so much my fault as you might fancy. There was a leak between that mine of old General Airey's and your Uncle James's when I went into partnership with him, and, after all, we only helped Nature just a little bit, and there's many a man walking about this minute, holding his head high, who has done more wrong than I have.'

'For God's sake, don't!' cried Polson, breaking silence for the first time. 'It's bad enough as it is. Don't make it worse by talking about it.'

'I won't, Polly,' said Jervase. 'I'll do anything you like if you'll only shake hands and say as you forgive me. Now there's two thousand pound on this here table, and there's the letter from your agents; and you can be off to London within an hour, and have your heart's desire. What's the good of being stupid?'

He took a great bandana handkerchief from the tail pocket of his respectable black coat, and blew his nose resoundingly, and wiped his eyes. He was very deeply moved indeed, and Polson was profoundly sorry for him; but there was a sick whirl in the lad's mind which robbed him of any clear power of thought and seemed indeed to deaden feeling itself. Only he knew that nothing could undo his shame. Nothing could ever make him respect himself again. Nothing could give back to him the old sense of honour, the knowledge that he came of honest folk.

'Look here, Polly,' Jervase broke out again, 'I haven't bred you up to be a common soldier. When I was a young and struggling man, by comparison with what I am now, I said to myself, "I'll make my lad a gentleman." I sent you to Rugby, and I sent you to Oxford, and I never stinted neither love nor money. And if I was a bit over-greedy and in a hurry to be rich, I did what I did a good deal more for your sake than my own.'

'Leave bad alone, father,' said Polson, with an almost savage sternness. 'Can't you see that you make things worse with every word you speak? Isn't it enough for me to know what I know already, but you must make me a partner in that shameful business?'

'Polly,' said Jervase, almost fawning on him, 'I've been a hard man all my life, and I've lived a hard life for years. I've been a proudish sort of chap, in my own way, and I've never stooped to ask any man's pardon twice for the same offence. But it's different between you and me, and I can't let my own flesh and blood go away from me until I've had a word of some sort. It's only a word, Polly. You can't deny me! You're a-going out to the war, Polly, and you might never come back again. And think of me—think of your poor old father sittin' at home, and sayin' to himself, "I sent my son away with a broken heart and ashamed of his own father, and he wouldn't touch my hand before he went to his own death, and he wouldn't say one forgiving word to me, and I murdered him, and I broke his heart, and I made him ashamed of his own father." You think of me, Polly, sittin' at home and thinkin' like that. Maybe for years and years. We're a long-lived lot, we Jervases, and I should make old bones in the course of nature, but I couldn't bear it, Polly, I couldn't bear it. I should have to put an end to it, and if you go away without a word, it won't be long before I do it.'

The bugles sang out the assembly in the barrack square. Polson both heard and understood, but his father did neither. Within half an hour the regiment would be on the march, and already the red-coated, brass-helmeted men, shining from head to foot and glittering in the fine array war wears before the exchange of the first blows, were moving about the open.

'Now look here, Polly,' said Jervase, striving no longer to disguise the wet eyes and the breaking voice, 'it's take it or leave it. There's your father's hand. Are you a-going to touch it before he goes away?'

'Don't you think,' asked Polson, 'that you're making it pretty hard for both of us?'

'Very well,' said Jervase, 'there's no handshake. There's no good-bye betwixt we two as friends. Perhaps you may come back in a different humour, Polly. Here's your agent's letter. Are you a-going to take your commission, and fight in a gentleman's uniform for your Queen and country, or are you going out to advertise your father's shame by wearing a private's coat?'

'I shall go as I am,' said Polson.

'Very well,' said John Jervase again. 'There's the father's hand refused, and there's the commission chucked into the gutter. Now here's a cheque for a thousand pound as you can cash with Cox & Co. in London. Are you a-going to take that, or are you not?'

'I'm not likely,' said Polson, 'to have any sort of use for money.'

'You're hard,' said his father. 'You're bitter hard. There's the 'and refused. There's the commission chucked, and there's the check too dirty for you to look at. Very well. Now there's fifty notes for twenty pounds a-piece. Will you take them?'

'No,' said the youngster, 'I shall have no want of money and no use for it.'

'You're hard,' said Jervase. 'You're bitter hard. Will you take one of them? It might come in useful. Take it, Polly. Just take it, even if you never spend it.' He clutched one note from the heap which lay upon the table, and held it in a shaking hand towards his son. And Polson still stood like a statue, and stared out of the window. He would fain have been more relenting had he dared, but he feared the loss of his own manhood if he once began to pardon, and perhaps he was severer to himself than to the old man who begged for his forgiveness. 'There's the 'and,' said Jervase, weeping openly. 'He won't touch that. There's the commission only waiting for him to sign, and he won't touch that. There's a cheque for a thousand pound as would send him to the war fitted out like a gentleman, and he won't touch that. There's the ready money to the same amount as would help him to hold his head up among his comrades anywhere, and he won't touch that. And here's a note for a mere twenty pounds, and his father asks him just to take it as a sort of a memorial, and to keep it like as if it was a funeral card, and he won't touch that.'

Polson was white to the lips, but he looked straight before him still, and gave no sign. Jervase took up the agent's letter and deliberately tore it into pieces. He took up his own cheque and tore that into pieces also. He patted the pile of notes together and put them into his breast pocket, crying all the while with odd little child-like snatches of sound which were wounding to listen to.

The bugles sang out again in the square, and the distant hoofs were clattering on the cobbled stones in front of the stables. Through the window Polson could see the glitter of the polished brass of the band, as it moved slowly across the square towards the barrack gate, and formed up in a solid cube. There was a crowd outside in the streets, and from it rose a noise of cheering. There was silence in the room except for those child-like, unrestrained sobs which shook John Jervase; and even these quieted down as if he too were listening to the growing tumult outside. There was a sudden roll of drums, and the band began to play 'The Girl I left behind me.' An imperious rap sounded at the door, and Colonel Stacey entered without waiting for a response.

'Do you take your commission, Jervase, or are you to be left here?' he asked brusquely.

'I am to be left here, sir,' Polson answered. 'But I hope that I may get my marching orders as soon as possible.'

'We embark on Friday,' said the Colonel, 'and another ship follows that day week. I'll see you through by then.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Polson, and the Colonel nodded and was gone.

The band was playing, and the crowd in the street was cheering, and there was silence between father and son for two or three minutes. Then rose from the barrack square a deafening roar as 'old Stayce' rode out on the bright bay with the three white stockings, and cantered to the front. The hoarse, commanding voice pealed out the word, the band crashed into a new marching tune, and the regiment began to move forward, like a scarlet snake with glistering scales. Clank and clatter of scabbard, tramp of the ordered ranks, blare of the band, and roar on roar from the street, and then little by little a falling silence. At last dead quiet.

'You needn't think there's no clean money in my hands,' said Jervase. 'I don't owe everything to that blasted brine-pit. You can take your own rights. You can take what I offer you, and feel as you're an honest man all the same. And Polly, if you're going out as a private soldier you'll want money. It isn't as if an untravelled man was talkin' to you. I know the Black Sea Coast I spent one Febiwerry there, a man before the mast. I'll back it again the Pole for cold. You'll miss a lot o' comforts, Polly, as a pound or two would buy for you.'

'I must go back to duty,' said Polson, 'or I shall get into hot water.'

'Take a hundred pound, Polly. It's clean money. I'll swear it on my Bible oath. Look here, Polly. Look here!'

Jervase rose and shook his son by both shoulders in a frenzy.

'Look here, Polly, look here. Listen.'

'I am listening, father.'

'Then look as if you was listening for Heaven's sake! I'm worth half a million, if I'm worth a penny. I never owned to it before, but if it isn't true God strike me dead. Outside that salt mine, I've been an honest man. You won't believe it, but I have. I saw a chance of making money elsewhere, and I wanted a start, and I turned rogue for the sake of it. Polly, Polly. I'll pay every penny with a three per cent, interest—compound, mind you—compound—and I shall be a rich man still!

'Pol, you're hard. I don't know where you get it from. But, mind you! One of these days you might find yourself led into a temptation, and then perhaps you'll think of your old father. How many business men have gone through life, and never done but one thing as they had a call to be ashamed of? I've done one; and I've been bowled out at it! There's men that does hundreds, Polly, and are never bowled out at all! I'll tell you what. It ain't me having been dishonourable as stands between us. It's your own pride, Polly. It's a good pride. It's what you might call a righteous pride. But if I was just what I am, without being your father—if I was just what you might call an average old sinner, you wouldn't let me beg like this, Polly. No, you wouldn't! And look here, Polly. Money's money, and here's a thousand pound——'

'Damn your thousand pounds,' cried Polson. He turned to face his father in an agony, and struck his own clenched fist upon his breast three several times. Then he turned to his original position and stared through the window across the empty square.

'Yes,' said John Jervase slowly. 'Damn the thousand pounds. Damn it, and damn it, and damn it over again. You think I'm trying to bribe you, Polly? No! You wait till you're a father, with your only son a-going to the wars without a penny in his pocket, and hating you too much to take what you can give him. Then you'll feel what I feel. Damn the thousand pounds! Damn all the money as was ever coined. But, Polly, there's my hand again. I'd rather you took it full—but won't you take it empty?'

The lad took the empty hand and wrung it hard, and held it long.



CHAPTER IX

The time, half-past four o'clock in the morning; the date the twentieth of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-four; the place the southern bank of the River Alma. Present, some thirty thousand stalwart British men, the vast majority of them snoring open-mouthed, and here and there in the grey of the morning a sentry pacing up and down. Facing northward, Polson Jer-vase's regiment lies far to the right, and to the right of it again, at a distance of some half a mile, the men of Bosquet's command are also sleeping. This is a day destined to be famous and terrible in history; but the dawn is cloudless and quiet. Away beyond the slope of the valley, across the grey flow of the river and half-way upon the northern slope, the pacing sentries, or such of them as are sharp-sighted, can perceive what looks like a wrinkle in the hill. It is some three or maybe four miles from the long line of sleepers, and it indicates the outlines of that great Redoubt around which the memories of Englishmen will cling for centuries to come.

Near five o'clock, and a soft warm morning wind blowing under a stainless sky. Gallopers from headquarters pass here and there with a quiet word, 'Wake your men, and make no noise.' There is no sound of any bugle call at that reveille, and the men silently arise, sit up and shake themselves, and mostly make their toilet by a simple process of eye-rubbing and the assumption of their headgear. Then the camp fires are lit here and there where a clump of officers gathers together over their morning tea and coffee. For thus early in the campaign all the luxuries of home are not abandoned or forgotten. Troop and company orderlies stroll down to the river, bearing buckets, and the rank and file munch their ration of ship's biscuit. And before the simple meal is barely over, the stealthy word passes along the ranks, and a forward march begins, ghost-like in the dawn. Somewhat clumsily manoeuvred by their chiefs, the line, three or four miles in length, dips; down towards the river and crowds at a few chosen fording places. Then it spreads out again like an open fan, and marches up the further slope—the infantrymen dripping from the arm-pits downwards, and the handful of cavalry on the right of the British flank shining in the rising sun to the horses' shoulders.

Then a pause, and a long pause. Vine yards along the hill and spaces of field and farm, and scattered houses here and there, and on the left the village of Vourliouk, set aflame by the foe for some as yet undiscovered reason. The smoke goes circling up into the pure air, and a faint scent of burning is discernible. Still a mile and a half away on either side the great Redoubt, and in front of it there are cubes and oblongs which look like masses of grey stone, and might pass for such except that now and again they may be seen to move. These are the infantry troops of Russia, with whom our own men are soon to be in deadly conflict. The fields of Europe have heard no sounds of any cannon fired in anger since the last loud Sabbath of Waterloo shook down the spoilers of the Continent; but, unseen at this distance, the guns which line that wrinkle of the hill above there are charged to the throat, and there are resolute men behind them.

The sun rises higher and higher, and the men of the halted army throw themselves to the ground, awaiting a further word from somebody. Solitary gallopers go hither and thither, over the rolling hills. The staff, with waving plumes, goes cantering along the line, and the idea somehow passes through the ranks that Lord Raglan has gone to consult with Monsieur St. Arnaud as to the disposition of the day's battle. There are thousands of youngsters lying there among the vineyards who have never, until this moment, set eyes on their commander. Raglan goes by amidst a dropping fire of cheers, the sleeve of the right arm dangling loose beside him, his bronzed Roman face one cheerful and inspiring smile, and the cunning left hand, with which he has learned to write his despatches, held low down as he controls his charger. And on the far right of the English line, Polson Jervase is standing at his horse's head, cheering with the rest, when on a sudden he discerns a familiar figure: General Boswell is at the Chiefs side and the two are in familiar converse. The young soldier's first battle not yet begun, and Irene's father going by so near and yet so unmindful of him as a mere unit among the waiting thousands. And it is not yet, not even yet, so very certain that we are to give battle this morning, after all. For we have been bedevilled hither and thither with false marches and with false rumours of sailing and lines of route. Monsieur St. Arnaud has been for camping south of the Balkans, and giving battle to the power of Russia there, and Raglan has been all for the Crimea and the road to Sevastopol. And no man has known what to believe amongst the divided councils of the Allies. The men amongst the vineyards are plucking and sucking the grapes. The sun grows hotter and hotter, and there is so dreary a silence in these waiting hours that the angry neigh of a horse is heard for a mile along the line. Five o'clock when we began to move, and here is high noon, and impatience all on edge, and nothing done. The staff comes cantering back, and another hour goes by in silence; and then from the Highlanders half a mile away on the left of the handful of cavalry there rises a sound of jubilation. And round the camp fires at night, when the fight is over and the English are in possession of the field, the men learn the reason of the cry. Sir Colin Campbell has sent round the word that the men are to break their cartridge packets, and lay the cartridges loose in their pouches, and this is the first word of real business. Now at one o'clock, or near it, the note passes along the line from east to west, and the men are afoot again, and marching forward two deep against those solid masses of grey human masonry, and that gash upon the hill-side which is by and by to burst like a volcano into flame. There goes the first boom of cannon from the Russian side, and a round shot sends the earth spluttering amidst the staff as it canters by once more, plumes waving, and epaulets, and scabbards, and gold lace, and all the fine tinsel of war, as yet unsoiled, glittering in the sunshine.

This is no day for a cavalryman to win honour. Here we sit on the hill-side with a downward slope before us, and an upward slope beyond, and the unmounted men are working their way onward and upward, whilst we are held inactive. And now the war begins in earnest. The tartan fellows are lounging along, half of them with the stem of a grape bunch between their teeth, loading and firing as they go, scarcely a man of them having stood fire before, and walking towards their baptism of death and blood with an astounding cheerfulness, and the long waving broken line converges as if by instinct, and, as the historians of the battle tell us, without definite order from any quarter, towards that grim gash on the hillside, until it grows to be something of a mob, so thickly clustered that the Russian batteries cleave lines through it. It wavers, it pauses, it rushes forward, it takes shelter beneath the forehead of the hill on which the great Redoubt stands, and then declines, a mere swarm of ants to look at from this distance, towards the belching roar and smoke and flame. And on a sudden the batteries are silent, and far and far there goes up a cheer. And then there is silence again, and a long waiting, and the grave massive oblongs and cubes of masonry come down on this side and on that, and the watchers in the valley wait in a tense and terrible strain. Where are the reinforcements? Where is the Duke of Cambridge, with the Guards? Hidden away there in a wrinkle of the hill they are waiting for some unknown reason, and the conquerors of the great Redoubt seem doomed. But after awful minutes and minutes, which stretch to hours, the line sweeps up. Raglan's immortal two guns come into play from the knoll on the distant right, and the tide of battle is turned again. And all the while we of the cavalry division are maddened with excitement, and consumed by ennui, by turns, wearied with thirst and heat, and waiting in vain for our chance to strike a blow at the enemy. Bored and tired and athirst, the men who have stood for hours at the bridle throw themselves on the sunburned grass. No chance for us to-day, says one to the other, and the tide of battle, now grown invisible, is rolling noisily here and there, now seeming as if it would vanish altogether into the air, and now as if a flying enemy had suddenly taken heart and were back in swift return. And here is a hill to the west of us, and the hot sun, yet shining clean and bright through whiffs and shreds of scattered smoke, goes down behind it, and the shadow lengthens, and creeps up the brown-green face of the hill to the left. And lo, on a sudden, a sweating galloper on the crest of the hill, with his horse one lather from haunch to bridle, is tearing down with orders. Here is old Stacey in the saddle again, and his hoarse voice is calling. The tired and thirsty souls are alert in an instant, and away go the Heavy Dragoons at a walk until the hill is breasted. Then at a trot, a canter, a gallop, a charge. For the masses of the enemy are all huddled in disorderly crowds away there in the pass, and it needs but one decisive blow to smite them into utter rout and scatter them like chaff. Then was an hour when the fate of a great campaign lay in the balance; and because that hour was not chosen England had to pour out her blood and her treasure in one mingled torrent for a year or two. For as the charging regiment was in amongst the lingerers of the retreat, the pursuit was called away. The keener spirits had naturally ridden furthest, and there was no man there that day who was keener than Polson Jervase. When the bugles rang out the 'Retire,' he would, had he been in command, have risked a plagiarism of Nelson, with a glass at the blind eye, and would have failed to recognise the recalling signal. But he was a unit, and a private unit at that. And he was already half emmeshed amidst the edges of the flying crowd, and actually at their mercy, if any of the fugitives had found so much as a sheep's heart to awake within him.

So he turned and galloped back, and since he had been one of the first in the advance, he was naturally one of the last to retreat. There had been a rare burst of a downhill mile or two, and his horse, unfed and unwatered within the last twelve hours, was in need of mercy. He rode the poor beast tenderly, caressing him as he went, and looking up he was aware of an officer in staff uniform, who was rounding up the stragglers. There are few things that appeal more directly from man to man than the sympathy of the sound and rooted sportsman. Polson had followed the hounds almost from the time when he could first bestride a pony; and the sight of a clean workman across bad country was like wine to him at any time. This fellow in the cocked hat and waving plumes was splendidly mounted, to be sure, but the going was as treacherous and difficult as it well could be, and the horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the valley there came a flash and a volley of smoke, and almost directly afterwards an echoing boom of sound. The charger reared, drooped upon his haunches, and fell over; the rider dropped with admirable agility on one side and avoided the threatened mischief of the fall. There were scores of unmastered steeds racing about the valley and the upward slopes; Polson rode for the nearest, and, having secured it, cantered up to the place where the dead charger lay, A round shot had ploughed its way clean through the noble creature's chest, and the sight was pitiable and gruesome.

'Here is a mount, sir,' said the young dragoon. 'Not as good as your own, but it will carry you back to camp, anyhow.'

As he spoke, the epauletted cocked-hatted owner of the slaughtered charger was leaning downward, detaching something from a holster, and when he looked up he displayed the features of Major de Blacquaire.

Until that instant neither could have recognised the other, but at the first glance there was a challenge in the eyes of either.

'Thanks, my man,' said De Blacquaire, laying a hand upon the rein which Polson held out towards him.

Nothing could have been more savagely incisive than the tone, nothing more purposed to wound.

'You caught this horse rather cleverly,' said De Blacquaire, 'and I'm very much obliged to you. Of course, you understand that a man doesn't go into action with a lot of money about him; but if you'll ask for me at headquarters this evening, Major de Blacquaire, you'll find half-a-sovereign waiting for you. You can ask my man for it.'

The Major stood drawling there, with purposed insult in word and tone and smile, and Polson, leaning downward, drew his dragoon's gauntlet from the left hand, and struck him across the face with it.

'I suppose,' he said, 'that's flat mutiny, and whilst I am about it, here's another sample of the same.'

The Major retreated behind his horse, and stood there, almost speechless with indignation.

'I threatened you with a hiding once before,' said Polson. 'And you were cur enough to run away. I told you on the day I joined that if we ever met again and by word or look or gesture you insulted me, I would spoil that handsome face of yours. You can report against me, if you like, and I dare say that if you do it may go pretty hard with me. But I will let you off for the moment with what you have taken, and for the present I will say good evening to you.'

He drew on his gauntlet as he spoke, and turned his horse's head.

'Wait there,' said De Blacquaire. 'I have just one word to say to you. You know that I could have you triced to the triangle and flogged?' Polson nodded, but said nothing. His eyes spoke for him. 'You know I could have you court-martialled and shot?'

'Like enough,' said Polson. Major de Blacquaire swung into the saddle. 'I don't care to take revenge that way,' he said. 'I have known you always for an impudent and underbred young cub; but you go by way of pretending to be a gentleman, and I have my punishment in store for you. I learned something of you from your friend, Captain Volnay, and amongst other things I find you are playing Quixote. When the campaign is over you'll be going back to the old thief's thousands. I will give you a gaol-bird to go back to. I have at quarters what amounts to a confession. It's an offer of restitution from Mr. Jervase; and I am not disposed to accept it. The case must slumber until this little business is over; but when I get back I will make a criminal prosecution of it, and you may make up your mind for whatever it may be worth that the work of this last five minutes has made a felon of that blackguard of a father.'

'And that,' said Polson, 'is an English officer's answer to a blow!'

'Yes,' said De Blacquaire, 'that is the English officer's answer.' And so saying, he put in spurs and rode away.



CHAPTER X

Here we are, fifteen months later, with Balaclava and Inkerman behind us, and the world ringing with the story of our valour; and something here and there being said about the staring incapacity of our commanders and the crass dishonesty and stupidity of our contractors. The army which left home in such bright array is transformed to a crowd of ragged vagabonds, and all the services are mixed together in the trenches and the camps before Sevastopol. Here are men of the Horse Artillery whose batteries have lost their horses; and here are cavalrymen dismounted, whether by reason of warlike misadventure or the sheer starvation of horseflesh. And since folks must do something for their bread in campaigning times, as at more peaceful seasons, the rules and regulations of special branches of the military service are cast aside, and men of every arm are working in the trenches together. A crowd of vagabonds we are to look at, to be sure; but a year of war, if you only think of it, makes a boy a veteran, and the bronzed, weatherbeaten, and ragged lads of whom the army is in the main composed, have lived in an atmosphere of powder for a year past; have gone marching and counter-marching under shot and shell; and charging, and repelling charges, until the imminent peril of their lives is a great deal more familiar to them than their daily bread. The peril is there always, and the bread turns up with extreme fitfulness.

On the Christmas Eve of 'fifty-five there was a time of excitement in the second parallel before the Malakoff; and this was not because of any special danger of the siege or any threatened imminent assault, but simply and merely because of the late slaughter of a pig of tender age whose screams had come up from the Turkish camp about the witching hour of midnight.

Amongst the war-worn, ragged, bronzed and bearded crowd is that identical Paddy who reckoned his uniform the livery of his degradation when he first assumed it. He is as ragged as any Connemara harvester by this time, and as tanned, as plucky, and as impudent in the face of death and hardship as he knows how to stick; and it is he who has brought the news which flutters the spirits of the score of men who are huddled in the trench together, right beneath the gaping embrasure of the Russian guns.

It was near midnight, and an extreme languor of fatigue had fallen upon all men when the tattered slip of Hibernian nobility crawled up on hands and knees so as not to expose himself against the sky-line, and dropped into his own place in the trench. He dropped with his feet on the stomach of Sergeant Polson Jervase, who denounced his clumsiness in fair set terms, which came as pat to his lips as if he had rehearsed them for a year.

'Is that you?' said Paddy. 'I beg yer pardon, and be damned to you. And now will ye just listen? D'ye hear the death cry?'

Everybody heard the death cry, filling the air from barely a third of a mile away: the voice of pork at the last agony.

'The Lord alone knows where it's come from, but that Mussulman crush down below has got hold of a pig. The devil a ration has been served to them for a month past, and they ought to know what hunger means be this time. But bhoys,' the speaker went on, with a whispered emphasis, 'we're Christian men, I hope, and we can't dream of allowing those poor infidels to peril their immortal salvation by the eating of strange food. It's eternal loss to the soul of a Mussulman that puts a knife and fork into a griskin. And I'm proposin' a work of Christian charity. Have ye got the matayrials for a fire handy?'

One of the men sleepily bade him be damned, and turned over in the mud in a scrap of ragged blanket; but all the rest at the bare suggestion of a meal were wide awake. 'Sergeant, darlin', just be giving me half-a-dozen men and we will make an exploitation, and be back in no time with a meal of meat that ought to be good enough for this particular mess from now till New Year's Day. Is there any chance of a fire now?'

A member of the hungry, hard-bitten band owned a solitary lucifer; but was afraid that the damp had deprived it of all virtue.

'Hurry up, boys,' said one. 'If once those blessed Bazouks get a fork into piggy, we shall have to fight for a share of him.'

'We've got the makings of a fire here somewhere,' said the man with the solitary lucifer. 'But how are we to start it? This brushwood stuff is all wet, and it won't catch.'

But one man was there with a providential scrap of newspaper. There was a moon in the frosty sky, with tatters of windy cloud about it, which gave light enough to show the men each others' faces dimly, and they all clustered in a rough ring, some kneeling, some standing, and the centre of the throng was the man with the match. Near him, second only in importance, was the man with the newspaper, and kneeling near was a third who stirred up the loose brushwood below the heaped fuel which had been gathered and hoarded for a month past for a Christmas fire.

'Here's a dry pebble,' said one man, pressing solicitously forward, and proffering his midnight find to the man with the match. 'Strike her on that, and for God's sake hold your breath, boys.'

The human centre of interest, the man with the match, took the pebble and polished it to complete dryness on the lining of his overcoat. Then he struck the match, which emitted a faint phosphorescent glow, and went dark again.

In those days, when a Russian gunner felt aweary, and found a lack of interest in the crawling hours of darkness, he would let bang a gun from the Redoubt, simply pour passer le temps; and at this minute the skipping 'zip' of a shot, a splutter of earth, and then the sullen boom of the discharge came to give variation to the scene. The lucifer match, however, was the all-absorbing centre of interest just then, and the scratch on the pebble was a much more important sound than any bellow of cannon from the fort. The lucifer was barely equal to its duties, and half-a-dozen times it gave its feeble spark of phosphorescent light in vain; but at last it struck, and the blue and yellow sulphur bubbled and crackled into flame. The man with the newspaper was ready, and caught the fire. The wet twigs smoked pungently, and there was one heart-sinking moment when the last chance seemed to have vanished; but then the fire sparkled up merrily, and the blaze lit the earthen side of the trench and the silky-bearded, bronzed, unwashed faces, and the stalwart, tattered figures of the crowd, with a flickering changeful brightness.

'That's all right, boys,' said the Honourable Patrick Erroll, Private of Dragoons. 'And now, Sergeant darlin', give me half-a-dozen rank and file, and, please God, well have a meal for Christmas morning.'

'Now, I'm just as keen as any one of you,' said Sergeant Jervase, 'and just as hungry; but be very quiet about the business, Paddy, and don't have a row with the Bashis, for the Lord's sake.'

'Trust me, Sergeant,' said the Honourable Mr. Erroll, 'and nurse the fire whilst we're away.'

Out of the blank darkness of the night the flame and glow from the second parallel seemed to bite a hole; and as its brightness grew, it drew the attention of the gunners of the Malakoff, who banged at it sulkily from time to time. But the reckless contingent under Paddy's leadership had already clambered to the open and were making a muddy way in the darkness towards the Turkish camp.

Down in the trench the fire grew to a rich and splendid glow, and one or two of the favoured of fortune, who owned pipes and tobacco, plucked bright embers from it, and, nestling under the shelter of the wall, sucked away at their comfort with simple animal noises of satisfaction.

'I say, Bill,' says one, 'was you ever Hingry before you seen this Gawd-forsaken Crimea?'

'Lor' love yer,' says the man questioned, 'I was born hungry, and I've been hungry ever since. But if the Honourable Paddy finds that 'og, and I get hold of a hind leg of him, I won't complain before to-morrow midnight.'

The fire glowed with a richer and a richer light, and men of hospitable minds wiped their half-smoked clays on the inside crook of a coated elbow and passed on luxury and refreshment to less-favoured neighbours. It was a time for comradeship, if only for the fact that it was Christmas Eve, and coming fast towards Christmas morning. But the thought of the slain porker was in all men's minds, and made them expansive and generous and reserved by turns. Boom! said the gun from the Redoubt, and the earth spluttered between the collar of Sergeant Polson's jacket and his neck, and dribbled comfortlessly down his back, colder than any charity he had known of: lately-frozen earth, half thawed, with wet snow on the top of it, and a sulky boom behind to add a threat to its cold sting.

After long waiting, a voice in ecstatic laughter, and surely the voice of the Honourable Paddy, Shuffling footsteps in the dark, and the hungriest of the whole crowd in the trench climbing to peer into the blackness; a youth who has not yet finished growing, and who finds the irregularity of meals a cruel thing.

'I'd like to know,' says the Honourable Mr. Erroll cheerfully, 'who trusted those infernal Russians with a gun? They'll be hurting somebody by and by, if they're not careful. But here's the pig, boys, and there's nobody but poor little Ahmed Bey the worse for us. I knocked him on the head from behind, and we'll be none the worse friends to-morrow.'

Bang, and bang, and bang! sounded the guns from the Russian battery, drawn by the light; but a delicious odour rose upon the air, and the teeth of the little contingent watered. There was a ramrod with Sergeant Polson at one end of it, and Paddy Erroll at the other, and the loveliest loin of young pork in the middle; and the two, with scorched hands and scorched faces, turned, and turned, and turned the improvised spit. And there were some less nice in appetite who had raked out heaps of glowing cinders from the fire, and had lain succulent slices thereon and buried them in more cinders, and who were now enjoying a compound feast of pork and charcoal, with such an insane relish as no home-staying epicure could conceive over the lordliest dish the combined cuisine of the whole wide world could show him.

'What are you up to here, you fellows?' said a voice out of the darkness. 'That's a jolly appetising smell.'

'Fresh roast pork, sir,' responded one man with his mouth full.

'Fresh roast pork!' echoed the inquirer. 'Hillo—that you, Sergeant? You're in luck. I'll join your mess if you make no objection.'

'Nobody more welcome than Captain Volnay, sir,' said Polson. 'Find that old bread-box, one of you, and give Captain Volnay a seat.'

'Hurry up!' said Volnay. 'That smell is maddening. How did you men come in for such a treasure trove as this?'

'I'm Columbus,' said the Honourable Paddy, tinning the ramrod spit.

'Why, by Jingo!' cried Volnay, 'you've got a whole pig here. I say, Sergeant, I'm going to confiscate a leg for our Christmas mess. You don't think you fellows are going to be allowed to sit gourmandising here whilst we go hungry!'

One man, sheltered by the shadow, answered sneeringly:

'Precious little going hungry amongst your set, sir,' said he.

'And precious little you know about it, my good fellow,' Volnay answered, with his sunny laugh. 'Life isn't all beer and skittles amongst your officers, let me tell you.'

'I'd like to change, sir,' said the malcontent.

'Would you?'asked the Captain. 'Well, I dare say you would. But we all have enough to grumble at, and to spare, if we happen to be built that way. Just expedite that joint, Sergeant.'

'It will be all the better for another turn or two, sir,' said Polson. 'It's a deadly pity, but there's no such thing as a hint of crackling. Piggy came along with his bristles on, and we have no shaving tackle.'

'Who goes there?' cried a voice in the darkness, two score yards away.

'Grand rounds,' said another voice. It was Major de Blacquaire's, and Polson had not heard it since the day of the Alma, a year and three months ago.

'Halt, grand rounds, and give the countersign.'

'Bonnie Dundee.'

'Pass, grand rounds, and all's well.'

Grand rounds came tramping down the trench and the men about the fire rose up and stood to attention.

'What is this?' asked De Blacquaire. 'Who's in charge here?'

'I am, sir,' Polson answered, saluting.

'What's the meaning of this blaze here? Can't you see that you're drawing the enemy's fire? Report yourself to me at noon to-morrow. Scatter that stuff, and trample it out.'

A foot was thrust into the embers, and they flared up suddenly. The Major recognised his enemy, and looked from his eyes to the stripes upon the left sleeve of his ragged overcoat.

'Is that your own coat?' he asked. 'Yes, sir.'

'Sergeant are you? I'll break you for this to-morrow.'

'That you, old chap?' drawled Volnay from his seat on the bread-box. 'Said you were dead. We've got no end of a find here. Whole pig. If you'll let me know where to find you, I've bagged a ham, and I'll invite myself to dine with you, and bring my own rations with me.'