'I HAVE COME FOR YOUR SWORD.'
The mind of Cecil, next forenoon, when he partially awoke, and seemed
to grope his way back to life and to the world, was a species of
chaos. He was ill, sick, abed in the doctor's hands--too ill to
think--too weak to rise. He found himself in his quarters in the
castle, and the events of the past night confused themselves
grotesquely and hideously with the prosaic features of the apartment
in which he lay: the joy and rapture of his being with Mary, mingled
with the remembered horror that seemed to envelop him, as darkness
descended on his eyes and the ball-room whirled round him, and amid
the circles of the dancers, the crash of the music and the murmur of
many voices, he fell heavily on the floor, as all sense passed away,
and he seemed to sink into a sea!
When he did begin to come round and rouse himself, he was sensible of
a hum of voices, and considerable odour of vinegar and of cigars, in
his huge room--for a large one it was; and there were Acharn, Leslie
Fotheringhame, and Dick Freeport and the doctor, refreshing
themselves with brandy-and-water, talking about the ball and
surmising about himself, sympathisingly, and in low tones.
'I cannot comprehend it,' he heard the doctor say; 'a curious case,
and not like imbibing too much. He must have eaten or drunk
something poisonous at the supper-table. There was no sudden
transition from heat to cold--he had undergone no great fatigue or
excessive weakness to cause such a fit as overtook him; but I have
known strong and healthy persons, abounding in blood, seized with
sudden faintings after violent exercise----'
'But, man alive, doctor, Falconer is one of the best round dancers in
the regiment,' said Freeport.
'It must have been the closeness of the room,' said Acharn.
'It looks a deuced deal more like half-poisoning,' exclaimed the
doctor, with a finger on Cecil's pulse. Then turning to Falconer's
servant, Tommy Atkins, and a hospital orderly who were in attendance,
he ordered his hands to be rubbed, and his head to be bathed with
brandy, salts to be held to his nostrils, and a little wine, as soon
as he could swallow it, to be given him--for he was unwilling to
accept the idea that was forcing itself upon him, that Cecil had,
perhaps, taken too much champagne over-night; and then he withdrew.
In defiance of the doctor's injunction, which was that he was to lie
with a low pillow, Cecil struggled up into a sitting posture and
looked rather wildly around him as he greeted his friends.
He felt that he was in a dreadful emergency--a coil--yet in his pale
face there was that faint indication of a smile that is sadder by far
than none; for he felt that however well-meaning and attached to him
his brother officers were, they were certain to have but one fatal
suspicion in the matter.
'What on earth has come to you, Falconer, old fellow?' said
Fotheringhame. 'I never knew of your getting into a scrape like
this, even when a greenhorn, who was fined a dozen of Moselle for
first drawing his sword, or a ditto for the sergeants' mess on first
carrying the colours!'
'By Jove! it knocks me into a cocked hat,' added Freeport; 'I can't
reason over it--the whole thing seems so unnatural--so horribly
unreal! This is a worse scrape than mine with the three daughters of
the depôt commandant.'
'There was safety in the trio,' said Acharn.
'Yes--he couldn't marry them all, certainly,' said Fotheringhame,
'though I am not prepared to say that if the law of Scotland
permitted it he might have tried to do so.'
'How can you fellows jest thus?' said Falconer, faintly.
'True--I beg your pardon,' replied Fotheringhame; 'but chaff and fun
are such habits with us.'
'I fear that this affair will be no "fun" for me. Have I talked much
nonsense, Dick?'
'Well--being screwed--Cecil, you certainly did talk a lot of stuff;
but people do that at all times, and even when quite sober.'
Falconer felt his heart sink at the view his best friends were taking
of this catastrophe. He felt that he was the victim of some hidden
and mysterious circumstance over which he had no control; but how was
that to be proved? and he knew that in the chief city of Mrs. Grundy
the public always took the worst possible view of everything.
'You do not think--you dare not think,' he exclaimed
half-entreatingly and half-defiantly, 'that I forgot my position and
the honour of the corps, and took too much wine last night--in
uniform and at a public ball too, in presence of the general
commanding and all the staff?'
'I fear, my dear Falconer,' said Fotheringhame, 'that it only looks
too much like that very mistake.'
'By heavens! I was never near the supper-tables but once--and had but
one glass of Moselle!' cried Falconer impetuously.
'But people will be sceptical in such matters,' said Acharn, pulling
his long black moustache angrily; 'and from much of what I heard on
parade this morning there is a devil of a row impending.'
'Over me?'
'Yes.'
At that moment there came a single knock smartly on the door, and the
adjutant entered with an expression of grave concern on his face.
After a few words of kind inquiry, and half apology, he said:
'I am so sorry for you, my poor fellow, but the chief is furious,
and, by his order, I have come--for _your sword_.'
The words seemed to sink into Falconer's soul. He knew all this
implied, and that, too probably, it was the beginning of his
destruction--the beginning of a bitter end!'
So his sword was taken away, and he found himself under arrest--but
arrest at large, as the adjutant informed him that he was at liberty
to take exercise within defined limits, within the barracks, but not
to go beyond the barrier-gates of the fortress, and not to quit his
room otherwise than in uniform, minus a sword and sash.
All this was not new to him, of course, yet he had listened to the
adjutant as one in a dream, and saw him take away the sword. After
the departure of this important official--the grand vizier of the
colonel--the gravity of the situation became painfully apparent to
all, and it may well be supposed there was no more jesting then, and
Falconer felt all the horror of the new position.
His mysterious illness seemed to grow worse now; a dreadful ache
racked his head; his heart grew heavy as lead, and his spirit seemed
to die under this disgrace and all it implied and all it imperilled,
and as yet he had not the most remote idea that he was the victim of
a wretch's revenue: thus the well-meant efforts of his friends to
rouse him and inspire him with the hope that he would yet get over
it--that all would be explained--that all would be well in the end,
and so forth, were made in vain.
Dick Freeport, Leslie Fotheringhame, and the entire corps were
bewildered by the catastrophe, and poor Tommy Atkins, who doted on
his master, was in despair--got very tipsy on the head of it, and had
given him, therefore, three days in the black hole, to contemplate
the unstability of human--and more especially of military--affairs.
Events followed each other fast now; and when again the adjutant most
reluctantly visited him, it was to announce that he was in orders for
a general court-martial, and to furnish him, by the colonel's
instructions, with a copy of the charge preferred against him, 'for
conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman at the ball,' together
with a list of the witnesses for the prosecution.
All the bright, youthful, and enthusiastic hopes--the hopes cherished
for years; all the visions of glory and honour conjured up on the day
he first donned his uniform, were crushed and gone now, like the dear
love of yesterday, for the love of Mary had--in one sense--come into
his heart but yesterday; and yet, how strong and keen, how tender and
true it was!
So bewildered was poor Falconer by his mysterious illness, the sudden
giddiness and unconsciousness in the ball-room, and his symptoms
since, that he actually began to believe at last, or adopt the idea,
based perhaps on the remarks of his medical attendant, that he had
been guilty of what was unwillingly imputed to him.
And yet, how _could_ it be? Utterly unconscious as he was of Hew's
vicinity to him on that occasion, the idea that he had been vulgarly,
yea brutally, hocussed, never occurred to his simple mind, though the
doctors hinted that he must have partaken of something deleterious.
Apart from his comrades of the mess, there was an intense interest in
the regiment for Cecil; the soldiers, and even their wives, paid him
surreptitious visits of condolence; and the children of his company,
who had been the recipients of so many Christmas-boxes and bonbons,
lingered with hushed voices under the windows of his room--the girls
curtseying and the small boys coming to 'attention' and saluting him
quite gravely as their fathers would have done; and Cecil felt all
this keenly and gratefully.
In the barracks and guard-house, his affairs were under constant and
serious consideration, through the medium of much birds'-eye, and
among many stories of kindness and generosity, connected with Cecil's
popularity among the Cameronians, was one which they recalled
prominently now: how, on one occasion, after a long day's march of
heat and thirst, far up country in India, when commanding an advanced
picket before the position of a hill-tribe, he had found, on visiting
his sentinels, one of them, Tommy Atkins, worn with toil, sound
asleep--a crime which was death by the Articles of War, if reported.
But instead of making poor Tommy a prisoner with the quarter-guard,
he had shouldered his musket and kept the post in person, watching
over the sleeping soldier on the one hand and the hill-camp on the
other, till the movement of armed tribesmen in front compelled him to
fire and bring the picket under arms.
He saw less of his chief friend Leslie Fotheringhame than he might
otherwise have done, for the time of the latter--despite anxiety for
the affair of his friend--was much occupied by Annabelle Erroll, and
in dangling after her.
At last there came a day which Cecil never forgot, from the emotions
of mortification and humiliation it occasioned him, It was a
Thursday--the usual 'march-out' day for the regiment. From his
window he watched its departure, with bayonets fixed and colours
flying, in heavy marching order, and in all the pride and bravery of
the service, while he remained behind a prisoner, disgraced, deprived
of his sword and sash, with a terrible ordeal before him, and too
probably a doom--to him--worse than death!
And he heard the drums grow fainter and fainter, till their last
notes died away in the distance, and he heard only the beating of his
heart, that followed them with painful yearning it had never known
before.
Anon, when the regiment returned, Freeport told him that when passing
the house of Sir Piers Montgomerie, it had been halted in column,
when the fine old soldier came out on the balcony and was received
with a general salute, which he beheld with swelling heart and
glistening eyes, and then he attempted to make a speech, but his
voice failed him--yet he made a short one--so short as only to be
equalled by that of the Duke of Wellington to the Household Brigade,
when, after keeping silence for some time, he said, 'Guards! you know
me, and I know you--stand at ease!'
'Was--was Miss Montgomerie on the balcony?' asked Cecil, after a
pause.
'No; there was only old Mrs. Garth waving her handkerchief
vigorously, and alternately mopping her eyes with it, poor old soul,
as she thought, I have no doubt, of old John Garth of our Grenadiers.
I thought it strange that the belle of our unlucky ball was not
there.'
But Mary had been watching the regiment, sorrowfully, from her own
room, and missing an absent face sorely indeed.
To her this was a time of great horror and dismay; each night that
she laid her sweet face on the pillow, she thought:
'If I could only waken in the morning to find it all a dream--all a
dream!'
But alas! it was a dream from which there was no awakening. Blended
with great pity and sorrow, she knew and felt now, in all its
intensity, the love she had thought about, read about in romance, but
never knew till she had met Cecil Falconer; the love, that is,
whether found or not, ever a young girl's day-dream.
To all, save Annabelle Erroll, she had to act the part of apparent
unconsciousness of, or indifference to, all that was in progress.
Abed, it seemed to her that she heard every hour struck by the
adjacent clocks, and yet she must have slept a little, as the memory
of more than one torturing or tantalising dream told her.
People, however, do get through everything somehow.
In the petty circle of Edinburgh society, the _malheur_ of Falconer
spread with many exaggerations, and with much rancour; he was a great
bibber, a _vaurien_, and it was not the first time, by many, that he
had been in such a scrape; and there was much lifting up of hands and
eyes among the self-righteous who abound in the northern city of the
Seven Hills.
Mary resolved to avoid hearing aught on the subject of the nine days'
wonder; she paid no idle visits, and was at home but to few; yet, as
many of the few were connected with the service, the whole affair,
the court-martial, and what was certain to come of it, were freely
discussed in spite of her.
And he had no one to console him 'up there,' she would think, as she
surveyed resentfully the grand old fortress, with its towers,
turrets, and black portholes, which seemed to her but as a great
trap, or giant lock, barring in Cecil from her and the world. And
all her good-natured friends assured her, that the military trial
could only end in dismissal, ruin, and disgrace. Would that she
could go to him, and see him once again, and assure him that whatever
came to pass, she was his own still.
She was tearless and very quiet. She would not even retort upon
Hew's bitter exultation over the affair--an exultation which his
detestable nature rendered him incapable of concealing. Her sweet
face looked blank and white, and nothing seemed to rouse her.
Kind old Mrs. Garth felt intense pity for her.
'Poor darling,' she would say, while caressing her; 'no tears
yet--would that I could see you weep!'
'Why?'
'It would at least relieve your heart. You have yet to learn,
dearest Mary, that with too many in this world the growth of love is
unlike every other growth: it often expands and blooms strongest amid
sorrow and gloom and the chill blasts of adversity.'
'I am afraid, Sir Piers,' said Mrs. Garth on one occasion, 'the girl
is simply breaking her heart!'
'Simply breaking her fiddlestick!' growled the general, who was
terribly worried by the whole situation; 'yet I should not be angry
with poor little Mary,' he added in a gentler tone; 'God is very
good! He took pity on me, a childless old man, and, seeing an empty
corner in my heart, sent her to fill it.'
Mary could hear, incidentally, from time to time, the general in his
pure dismay that a Cameronian should cause such _esclandre_, Mrs.
Garth acting in his interests, even Annabelle in her sorrow, and not
knowing very well what to think (as she had her doubts of mankind in
general), all inferring by casual remarks that Falconer was quite
unworthy of her--that she had made a lucky escape, and so forth; but
they 'forgot that' the woman never yet lived who could cast a true
love out of her heart, because the object of it was unworthy of her,
and that all she can do is to struggle against it in secret; and poor
Mary was no exception to the rest of her sex generally.
'Look a little beyond the present, dear Mary,' said Sir Piers, as he
caressed her head, that nestled beside his knee, and passed his old
shrivelled hand through her rich brown hair; 'I dare say you think
Providence very short-sighted in sweeping out of our circle this
interloper, who thought to come between Hew and yourself, a
ne'er-do-well, an utter black sheep in birth and bearing!' he added,
angrily; for in his rage at the probable slur cast on the
regiment--_his_ regiment--he was pitiless with regard to Cecil, who,
for a time, had come between the wind and his nobility; and Mary knew
not exactly how Hew, artfully, insidiously, and openly, by turns, had
succeeded in influencing Sir Piers against the victim of his own
treachery, but she replied simply and firmly, as Cecil's love for her
seemed something too sacred and too precious to be referred to so
bluntly as it too often was:
'Talk not to me of Hew; had Cecil Falconer never been born, I never
could have loved Hew Montgomerie!'
Hew was one of the many in this age of refined civilisation, who,
though they have no fear of God, have a wholesome fear of the police!
Thus, with all his malevolent hatred of Falconer, he shrank from
using a dagger or pistol, even secretly; but he had resorted to a
means of revenge more subtle and cruel than either.
The great military influence of Sir Piers might have arrested the
tide of ruin that was setting in against Falconer, and might
ultimately have been brought to bear upon the president and members
of a court so honourable and impartial as a military one; but Sir
Piers was enraged by the whole affair, and his mind was so full of it
that for a time he ceased even to prose about Central India. Thus,
for many reasons patent to the reader, his influence, if used at all,
was thrown into the opposite scale; and so Falconer was left to his
destiny, an inexorable one, by the _code militaire_.
'Surely it is sharp work, Sir Piers, resorting to a court-martial at
once,' said Fotheringhame on one occasion; 'could not your influence
with the general commanding----'
'Don't speak of it, sir,' said Sir Piers, testily, with a wave of his
hand.
'Is there no other resort?'
'None,' replied the other, sternly.
'Yet I have heard our lieutenant-colonel tell that when you, Sir
Piers, were in his place at the head of the Cameronians, you were
less severe on a similar occasion, but of more importance than a
ball.'
'What was it?'
'When Lieutenant Piers Montgomerie was placed under arrest.'
The old general blushed scarlet and then grew very pale. The
occasion referred to was when the regiment was leaving Edinburgh for
the East; he had urged the men to behave soberly and with propriety
during their last days in the castle, that all might parade and march
forth in perfect order; and nobly did they all respond to the appeal,
all save one, his son, who came flushed from some late entertainment
to the parade in the early morning, to the great dismay of Sir Piers.
A court-martial would have ruined his prospects for life; yet he was
put under arrest, and, some example being necessary, it appeared in
orders thus:
'Lieutenant Montgomerie, of the Grenadiers, will in future do duty
with one of the battalion companies.'
This was in the days before the Crimea, when to be attached to a
flank company was equally advantageous and honourable.
'True, Mr. Fotheringhame; the offender was my own son Piers,' said
the general with much emotion, yet more irritation at the
reminiscence; 'but this affair of Captain Falconer took place in the
face of the city, as one may say; so let the arrest and charge take
their course!'
How the drum for mess jarred on Cecil's ear when he heard it now!
Instead of dining at that jovial table, and sharing in the happiness
of its social circle, he had his solitary repast brought to him in
covered dishes on a salver, the repast he had neither the appetite
nor zest to eat, and which he would rather not have seen nor faced,
save for acting a part before his servant, Tom Atkins, a sympathetic
fellow, however, who could not help thinking that had _he_ been seen
groggy in public, how much more easily he would have got over it than
his luckless captain.
The sweetest and the saddest hours must pass away inexorably, and so
the sad hours passed with Cecil Falconer.
Day follows day and night follows night--is not human life made up of
these?--but nothing lasts for ever, thank God, was his thought, and
the end, be it ever so bitter, comes at last. But bitter as those of
Marah seemed now the waters of his life! He felt that Mary and he
were parted for ever; that she could be his love no more, and that
the day-dream of her could be dreamt over never again!
About this time he received a kind and earnest letter of condolence
from old Mr. John Balderstone, who had conceived a great friendship
for him at Eaglescraig; but the terms of it served to irritate Cecil,
as they too plainly hinted, 'from what Mr. Hew had reported, that on
the night in question he had been exhilarated a little too much,
perhaps.'
He tore and tossed it away with a malediction; yet old John
Balderstone meant well and kindly.
Hew's satisfaction at the progress of events was too great for
concealment.
'Screwed as Bacchus at the regimental ball!' he thought to himself;
'and this is the cad who tried to take Mary and her money away from
me. By-and-by we'll kiss and be friends, as the children say, now
that he is scratched for the running. He'll be doing the "blighted
being" style of thing now,' he added aloud to Sir Piers. 'How
interesting!--it is quite an idyll, whatever the devil that may be.
Or perhaps he'll be going on the boards--back to the old trade of his
mother before him! I have known more than one broken-down army
fellow who came out quite strong in genteel comedy.'
The general heard and eyed him sternly, but with silence. What would
his emotions have been had he fully known _all_?
Hew, however, thinking it would be as well to be out of Edinburgh
about this time, took his departure to the country, on pretence of a
little fishing; and the eventful day of Falconer's life was close at
hand.
On the night before it, to his own surprise, he slept the heavy, yet
feverish sleep that follows great tribulation of mind and consequent
exhaustion of power; yet not without a dream in which he heard the
voice of the adjutant again saying gravely, and with commiseration:
'I have come for your sword.'