THE COURT-MARTIAL.
St. Giles's clock, the castle clock, and on the dials of every other
clock, the hands went inexorably round, and the day and the morning
of the eventful crisis came inevitably at last, and Cecil put on his
beloved full uniform, as his heart told him, perhaps for the last
time--but minus his sword and sash!
He looked round his humbly furnished barrack-room, with the eye of
one who was taking a long farewell of something, and a heavy sigh
escaped his overcharged breast. Leslie Fotheringhame, who was to act
as his legal friend in court, pressed his hand, and said in his
off-hand way:
'Take courage, my dear friend. Keep up your pecker, old fellow;
Marshal Ney's scrape was a worse one than yours.'
Through a crowd of idlers, witnesses and others, who thronged the
antechambers and bare stone passages, they proceeded towards the
mess-room, in which the court, composed of officers of the rank of
captain and above it, was being constituted and sworn by the
president, and all fully dressed in review order, with their swords
and sashes, around a table littered with writing materials and a few
volumes of military regulations.
The first incident that jarred on Cecil's nerves was the voice of the
president, a cranky old Colonel, whose whole life had been passed in
sinecure staff appointments, saying:
'Bring in the prisoner!'
And he found himself, after being introduced by Fotheringhame, with
whom he sat apart at a writing-table, duly charged with 'conduct
unbecoming the character of an officer, in having, on the ---- day of
----, 18--,' etc., etc.; to all of which he listened as one in a
dream; and still more did it all seem so as the day wore on. How
bright the sunshine seemed outside, and how close and dark the ruin
within that ill-omened room, which had been so often the scene of
hospitality and convivial jollity.
Through the open windows came, as from a distance, the jangle of St.
Giles's musical bells, with 'mingling din,' as Scott has it; and
their monotony and iteration galled his spirit, and from mere
association of ideas he felt certain that he must loath them for ever
after.
Of how much Hew Montgomerie was his evil genius, Cecil Falconer knew
not, nor had the least suspicion. Yet he looked around the many
faces in court more than once, expecting to see his parti-coloured
eyes regarding him with exultation; but that worthy was miles away
from the spot. Among the spectators he saw many legal men, in black
with white ties, who had come up from the Parliament House--that
provincial 'gossip shop'--to stare, whisper, and make severe
comments, which certainly were sometimes called for; and to draw
somewhat invidious comparisons between the modes of administering
civil and military law.
When the minds of those who compose any court are fully made up as to
the guilt of the prisoner, and know the sentence that must be passed
in conformity to certain iron rules laid down by law and custom, the
proceedings are usually summary enough, and so it was in the case of
Cecil Falconer.
Doubt of his guilt or error there seemed to be none; most of those
composing the court had been at the ball in question, and were more
or less cognisant of the bewildering catastrophe; but all that Cecil
and Leslie Fotheringhame, as his friend and adviser, desired to bring
before the listeners, were the simple facts that he had just been
dancing--that hence some strange giddiness might have come upon him
in consequence; of the wine he had taken but a single glass, as they
could easily prove; and they desired to argue these simple points
earnestly, in the hope of modifying the opinion of the tribunal, and
Fotheringhame wished to put a question to the lieutenant-colonel
commanding, as ex-officio prosecutor.
'Stop, sir, please,' said a member of the court--Brevet-Major Hammer
of the Royal Artillery, a fiery-eyed little man with grey spectacles
and red nose--a man who had crammed at Woolwich, and was up to the
ears in military law, though ignorant of all the principles thereof;
'this would seem to be a leading question, and, according to Hough on
courts-martial, such questions cannot be allowed.'
On this subject there ensued much difference of opinion, and Major
Rammer made some notes thereon with a dry pen.
'Clear the court!' cried the president in consequence, and there was
a general exodus of the audience.
'What utter stuff this is!' said Falconer to the adjutant, as they
smoked a cigar outside, while the fourteen members of the court, the
president and the deputy-judge advocate, seemed to be all speaking
and wrangling at once; and after some twenty minutes' deliberation
the court was re-opened, and all the audience trooped in again.
The question was voted 'irregular,' though neither Fotheringhame nor
Falconer had stated what it was to have been; so, as the former was
about to propose another:
'We are here, sir, to try Captain Falconer, not you?' said Major
Rammer, snappishly; 'not you, sir, remember.'
'Of that circumstance I do not require to be reminded,' replied
Fotheringhame, haughtily; 'yet I do not see why the prisoner, or I as
his friend, may not question the prosecutor as to----'
'In Tylter, on court-martial and military law, in Hough and in
Simmonds,' began Major Rammer, with emphatic solemnity, and glaring
through his goggles round the table, 'it is distinctly laid down----'
'Clear the court!' cried some one else.
It was again cleared accordingly, and all the orderlies, idlers, and
wondering advocates, had to make a stampede into the dreary stone
passages outside.
The debate, whatever it was about, was a stormy one, and above the
voices of all others was heard that of Major Rammer citing Hough and
Simmonds. The president had never sat on a court-martial
before--and, perhaps, had always hoped he might never do so, and
never be called upon to give a casting vote in any question in this
world; thus he was induced to comply with the dictum of the
fiery-nosed and irritable Major Rammer, in all matters in the present
instance, and the charge was eventually brought clearly home.
The two doctors, though both fast friends of Cecil's, when examined
as to the after effects of his mysterious illness, only served to
make matters worse; and, as doctors proverbially disagree, they did
so as to the symptoms on this.
'Clear the court!' once more thundered Major Rammer, and after it was
cleared again, the major returned to the attack, flanked by Hough and
Simmonds.
In short, the personage who alone could have thrown any clear light
on the whole catastrophe, was utterly unthought of by all, and was
enjoying himself in the country while waiting impatiently the result
of his treachery as reported in the public prints.
When the defence came, the colonel, the adjutant, and others, bore
the highest testimony to the goodness of Falconer's character and
disposition, his attention to duty, the love borne him by his brother
officers and soldiers, and his gallantry on more than one occasion in
India.
Hart's Army List was not at hand as to the latter.
'Clear the court!' suggested Major Rammer, who required documentary
proofs of the said 'gallantry,' though his own breast was bare of all
decorations.
'Well!' exclaimed Fotheringhame, as they were again cooling their
heels in the passage; 'if the proceedings of this day are published,
they will read rather queerly;' to which he added something not meant
for ears polite.
Why prolong this account--a painful legal farce, for such the
ignorance of the president, and the interference of 'the well-read'
Major Rammer made it?
To those who knew Cecil well, his handsome face seemed pale--a face
always grave and dignified; and his eyes seemed to observe the
proceedings with a strange listlessness.
As afternoon drew on Major Rammer offered less opposition; Cecil was
allowed to ask a few questions, as the former perhaps found himself
in a minority, though most industrious in distributing slips of
paper, with observations and quoted 'precedents' all round the table.
The tedious proceedings were at length closed--the opinion and
finding given--the punishment, whatever it was, meted out, and
proceedings on which the existence--certainly the future--of Cecil
Falconer seemed to depend, were despatched to the Horse Guards by the
swift night mail.
The weary Falconer's room that night was filled with sympathisers,
and the proceedings were discussed, and 'that old pump jammer' duly
stigmatised, amid the consumption of much tobacco, champagne, brandy
and seltzer, long after tattoo, the roll-calling, the last farewell
sound of 'lights and fires out' had pealed from the citadel gate and
in the Grand Parade, and after silence and the silver moonlight fell
together on the vast fortress and its rock.
'I thank all much, very much,' said Cecil with no small emotion; 'but
it is no use you fellows talking: there is nothing for me now but to
drift quietly away into the dark sea of ruin--it may be death!'
His lips were working convulsively as he spoke.
'Let the worst come to the worst, I'll bear it like a man, and drag
out the remnant of my life' (without _her_, he thought) 'an
adventurer, a beggar, an emigrant--a soldier in some foreign service,
perhaps--what matters it how or when the bitter end may come? I'll
not shoot myself anyhow--that were the deed of a sinner and coward!'
'For God's sake, Cecil, don't run on this way! It's enough to make a
fellow's heart bleed!' said Fotheringhame with much anxiety of manner.
'Who knows what becomes of those fellows who go to the dogs, or are
driven there?' he asked bitterly.
'Take heart, man--take heart,' urged Dick Freeport, patting him on
the shoulder: 'you'll be, at worst, put at the bottom of the list of
captains; and you're not very far above that now.'
'No, no, Dick; I read dismissal in the faces of the President and
that artillery fellow who was so infernally well up in Hough and
Simmonds.'