“He's come at last, Bella,” said Kellett, as, tired and weary, he
entered the little cottage one night after dark. “I waited till I saw
him come out of the station at West-land Row, and drive off to his
house.”
“Did he see you, papa?--did he speak to you?” asked she, eagerly.
“See _me_--speak to _me!_ It's little he was thinking of me, darling!
with Lord Glengariff shaking one of his hands, and Sir Samuel Downie
squeezing the other, and a dozen more crying out, 'Welcome home, Mr.
Bunn! it is happy we are to see you looking so well; we were afraid you
were forgetting poor Ireland and not coming back to us!' And by that
time the carmen took up the chorus, and began cheering and hurrahing,
'Long life and more power to Davenport Dunn!' I give you my word, you 'd
have thought it was Daniel O'Connell, or at least a new Lord-Lieutenant,
if you saw the uproar and excitement there was about him.”
“And he--how did he take it?” asked she.
“Just as cool as if he had a born right to it all. 'Thank you very
much,--most kind of you,' he muttered, with a little smile and a wave of
his hand, as much as to say, 'There now, that'll do. Don't you see that
I'm travelling _incog._, and don't want any more homage?'”
“Oh, no, papa,--not that,--it was rather like humility--”
“Humility!” said he, bursting into a bitter laugh,--“you know the man
well! Humility! there are not ten noblemen in Ireland this minute has
the pride and impudence of that man. If you saw the way he walked down
the steps to his carriage, giving a little nod here, and a little
smile there,--maybe offering two fingers to some one of rank in the
crowd--you'd say, 'There's a Prince coming home to his own country,--see
how, in all their joy, he won't let them be too familiar with him!'”
“Are you quite just--quite fair in all this, dearest papa?”
“Well, I suppose I'm not,” said he, testily. “It's more likely the
fault lies in myself,--a poor, broken-down country gentleman, looking
at everything on the dark side, thinking of the time when his own family
were something in the land, and Mr. Davenport Dunn very lucky if he got
leave to sit down in the servants'-hall. Nothing more likely than that!”
added he, bitterly, as he walked up and down the little room in moody
displeasure.
“No, no, papa, you mistake me,” said she, looking affectionately at
him. “What I meant was this, that to a man so burdened with weighty
cares--one whose brain carries so many great schemes and enterprises--a
sense of humility, proud enough in its way, might naturally mingle with
all the pleasures of the moment, whispering as it were to his heart,
'Be not carried away by this flattery, be not carried away by your own
esteem; it is less you than the work you are destined for that men are
honoring. While they seem to cheer the pilot, it is rather the glorious
ocean to which he is guiding them that they address their salutations.'
Might not some such consciousness as this have moved him at such a
time?”
“Indeed, I don't know, and I don't much care,” said Kellett, sulkily. “I
suppose people don't feel, nowadays, the way they used when I was young.
There's new inventions in everything.”
“Human nature is the same in all ages!” said she, faintly.
“Faith, and so much the worse for it, Bella. There's more bad than good
in life,--more cruelty and avarice and falsehood than there's kindness,
benevolence, and honesty. For one good-natured act I 've met with,
have n't I met twenty, thirty, no, but fifty, specimens of roguery and
double-dealing. If you want to praise the world, don't call Paul Kellett
into court, that's all!”
“So far from agreeing with you,” cried she, springing up and drawing
her arm within his, “you are exactly the very testimony I'd adduce. From
your own lips have I heard more stories of generosity--more instances
of self-devotion, trustfulness, and true kindness--than I have ever
listened to in life.”
“Ay, amongst the poor, Bella,--amongst the poor!” said Kellett, half
ashamed of his recantation.
“Be assured, then, that these traits are not peculiar to any class. The
virtues of the poor, like their sufferings, are more in evidence than in
any other condition,--their lives are laid bare by poverty; but I feel
assured people are better than we think them,--better than they know
themselves.”
“I 'm waiting to hear you tell me that I 'm richer too,” said Kellett,
with a half-melancholy laugh,--“that I have an elegant credit in a bank
somewhere, if I only knew where to draw upon it!”
“There is this wealth in the heart of man, if he but knew how to profit
by it: it is to teach us this lesson that great men have arisen from
time to time. The poets, the warriors, the explorers, the great in
science, set us all the same task, to see the world fair as it really
is, to recognize the good around us, to subdue the erroneous thoughts
that, like poisonous weeds, stifle the wholesome vegetation of our
hearts, and to feel that the cause of humanity is our cause, its
triumphs our triumphs, its losses our losses!”
“It may be all as you say, Bella darling, but it's not the kind of world
ever _I_ saw. I never knew men do anything but cheat each other and tell
lies; and the hardest of it all,” added he, with a bitter sigh, “that,
maybe, it is your own flesh and blood treats you worst!”
This reflection announced the approach of gloomy thoughts. This was
about the extent of any allusion he would ever make to his son, and
Bella was careful not to confirm him in the feeling by discussing or
opposing it. She understood his nature well. She saw that some fortunate
incident or other, even time, might dissipate what had never been more
than a mere prejudice, while, if reasoned with, he was certain to argue
himself into the conviction that of all the rubs he had met in life his
son Jack's conduct was the hardest and the worst.
The long and painful silence that now ensued was at length broken by
a loud knocking at the door of the cottage, a sound so unusual as to
startle them both.
“That's at _our_ door, Bella,” said he. “I wonder who it can be? Beecher
couldn't come out this time of the night.”
“There it is again,” said Bella, taking a light. “I 'll go and see who's
there.”
“No, let me go,” cried Kellett, taking the candle from her hand, and
leaving the room with the firm step of a man about to confront a danger.
“Captain Kellett lives here, does n't he?” said a tall young fellow, in
the dress of a soldier in the Rifles.
Kellett's heart sank heavily within him as he muttered a faint “Yes.”
“I'm the bearer of a letter for him,” said the soldier, “from his son.”
“From Jack!” burst out Kellett, unable to restrain himself. “How is he?
Is he well?”
“He's all right now; he was invalided after that explosion in the
trenches, but he's all right again. We all suffered more or less on that
night;” and his eyes turned half inadvertently towards one side, where
Kellett now saw that an empty coat-sleeve was hanging.
“It was there you left your arm, then, poor fellow,” said Kellett,
taking him kindly by the hand. “Come in and sit down; I'm Captain
Kellett. A fellow-soldier of Jack's, Bella,” said Kellett, as he
introduced him to his daughter; and the young man bowed with all the
ease of perfect good-breeding.
“You left my brother well, I hope?” said Bella, whose womanly tact saw
at once that she was addressing her equal.
“So well that he must be back to his duty ere this. This letter is from
him; but as he had not many minutes to write, he made me promise to come
and tell you myself all about him. Not that I needed his telling me, for
I owe my life to your son, Captain Kellett; he carried me in on his back
under the sweeping fire of a Russian battery; two rifle bullets pierced
his chako as he was doing it; he must have been riddled with shot if the
Russians had not stopped their fire.”
“Stopped their fire!”
“That they did, and cheered him heartily. How could they help it! he was
the only man on that rude glacis, torn and gullied with shot and shell.”
[Illustration: 166]
“Oh, the noble fellow!” burst out the girl, as her eyes ran over.
“Is n't he a noble fellow?” said the soldier. “We don't want for brave
fellows in that army; but show me one will do what he did. It was a shot
carried off this,” said he, touching the empty sleeve of his jacket;
“and I said something--I must have been wandering in my mind--about a
ring my mother had given me, and it was on the finger of that poor
hand. Well, what does Jack Kellett do, while the surgeon was dressing
my wound, but set off to the place where I was shot down, and, under all
that hailstorm of Minié-balls, brought in the limb. That's the ring,--he
rescued it at the risk of his life. There's more than courage in that;
there's a goodness and kindness of heart worth more than all the bravery
that ever stormed a battery.”
“And yet he left me,--deserted his poor father!” cried old Kellett,
sobbing.
“If he did so, it was to make a name for you that the first man in
England might be proud of.”
“To go off and list as a common soldier!” said Kellett; and then,
suddenly shocked at his own rudeness, and shamed by the deep blush on
Sybella's face, he stammered out, “Not but I've known many a man with
good blood in his veins,--many a born gentleman,--serving in the ranks.”
“Well, I hope so,” said the other, laughing with a hearty good-nature.
“It's not exactly so common a thing with us as with our worthy allies
the French; but every now and then you'll find a firelock in the hands
that once held a double-barrelled Manton, and maybe knocked over the
pheasants in his own father's preserves.”
“Indeed, I have heard of such things,” said Kellett, with a sigh; but
he was evidently lending his assent on small security, because he cared
little for the venture.
“How poor Jack loves you!” cried Bella, who, deep in her brother's
letter, had paid no attention to what was passing; “he calls you
Charley,--nothing but Charley.”
“My name is Charles Conway,” said the young man, smiling pleasantly.
“'Charley,'” read she, aloud, “'my banker when I have n't a shilling, my
nurse in hospital, my friend always,--he 'll hand you this, and tell
you all about me. How the dear old dad will love to hear his stories of
campaigning life, so like his own Peninsular tales! He'll see that the
long peace has not tamed the native pluck of the race, but that the
fellows are just as daring, just as steady, just as invincible as ever
they were; and he'll say, too, that to have won the friendship of such a
comrade I must have good stuff in me also.'”
“Oh, if he hadn't gone away and left his old father!” broke in Kellett,
lamentingly; “sure it was n't the time to leave me.”
“Wasn't it, though?” broke in the soldier; “I differ with you there. It
was the very moment that every fellow with a dash of spirit about him
should have offered his services. We can't all have commissions,--we
can't all of us draw handsome allowances from our friends; but we can
surely take our turn in the trenches, and man a battery; and it's not a
bad lesson to teach the common fellow, that for pluck, energy, and even
holding out, the gentleman is at least his equal.”
“I think it's the first of the name ever served in the ranks,” said the
old man, who, with a perverse obstinacy, would never wander from this
one idea.
“How joyously he writes!” continued Bella, as she bent over the letter:
“'I see by the papers, dearest Bella, that we are all disgusted and
dispirited out here,--that we have nothing but grievances about green
coffee and raw pork, and the rest of it; don't believe a word of it.
We do curse the Commissariat now and then. It smacks like epicurism to
abuse the rations; but ask Charley if these things are ever thought of
after we rise from dinner and take a peep at those grim old earthworks,
that somehow seem growing every day, or if we grumble about fresh
vegetables as we are told off for a covering party. There's plenty of
fighting; and if any man has n't enough in the regular way, he can steal
out of a clear night and have a pop at the Russians from a rifle-pit.
I 'm twice as quick a shot as I was when I left home, and I confess the
sport has double the excitement of my rambles after grouse over Mahers
Mountain. It puts us on our mettle, too, to see our old enemies the
French taking the work with us; not but they have given us the lion's
share of it, and left our small army to do the same duties as their
large one. One of the regiments in our brigade, rather than flinch from
their share, returned themselves twelve hundred strong, while they had
close upon three hundred sick,--ay, and did the work too. Ask dad if
his Peninsulars beat that? Plenty of hardships, plenty of roughing,
and plenty of hard knocks there are, but it's the jolliest life ever a
fellow led, for all that. Every day has its own story of some dashing
bit of bravery, that sets us all wild with excitement, while we wonder
to ourselves what do you all think of us in England. Here comes an order
to summon all to close their letters, and so I shut up, with my fondest
affection to the dear old dad and yourself.
“'Ever yours,
“'Jack Kellett.
“'As I don't suppose you'll see it in the “Gazette,” I may as well say
that I 'm to be made a corporal on my return to duty. It's a long way
yet to major-general, but at least I 'm on the road, Bella.'”
“A corporal! a corporal!” exclaimed Kellett; “may I never, if I know
whether it's not a dream. Paul Kellett's eldest son--Kellett of
Kellett's Court--a corporal!”
“My father's prejudices all attach to the habits of his own day,” said
Bella, in a low voice, to the soldier,--“to a time totally unlike the
present in everything.”
“Not in everything, Miss Kellett,” said the youth, with a quiet smile.
“Jack has just told you that all the old ardor, all the old spirit,
is amongst the troops. They are the sons and grandsons of the gallant
fellows that beat the French out of Spain.”
“And are _you_ going back?” asked Kellett, half moodily, and scarcely
knowing what he said.
“They won't have me,” said the soldier, blushing as he looked at his
empty sleeve; “they want fellows who can handle a Minié rifle.”
“Oh, to be sure--I ought to have known--I was forgetting,” stammered he
out, confusedly; “but you have your pension, anyhow.”
“I've a kind old mother, which is better,” said the youth, blushing
deeper again. “She only gave me a short leave to run over and see Jack
Kellett's family; for she knows Jack, by name at least, as if he were
her own.”
To Bella's questions he replied that his mother had a small cottage near
Bettws, at the foot of Snowdon; it was one of the most picturesque spots
of all Wales, and in one of those sunny nooks where the climate almost
counterfeits the South of Europe.
“And now you'll go back, and live tranquilly there,” said the girl, half
dreamily, for her thoughts were wandering away Heaven knows where.
The youth saw the preoccupation, and arose to take his leave. “I shall
be writing to Jack to-morrow, Captain Kellett,” said he. “I may say I
have seen you well and hearty, and I may tell the poor fellow--I 'm
sure you 'll let me tell him--that you have heartily forgiven him?” Old
Kellett shook his head mournfully; and the other went on: “It's a hard
thing of a dark night in the trenches, or while you lie on the wet
ground in front of them, thinking of home and far away, to have any
one thought but love and affection in your heart It does n't do to be
mourning over faults and follies, and grieving over things one is sorry
for. One likes to think, too, that they who are at home, happy at their
firesides, are thinking kindly of us. A man's heart is never so stout
before the enemy as when he knows how dear he is to some one far away.”
As the youth spoke these words half falteringly, for he was naturally
bashful and timid, Bella turned her eyes fully upon his, with an
interest she had not felt before, and he reddened as he returned her
gaze.
“I 'm sure you forgive me, sir,” said he, addressing Kellett. “It was a
great liberty I took to speak to you in this fashion; but I was Jack's
comrade,--he told me every secret he had in the world, and I know how
the poor fellow would march up to a Russian battery to-morrow with an
easier heart than he'd hear one hard word from you.”
“Ask Bella there if I ever said a word, ever as much as mentioned his
name,” said Kellett, with all the self-satisfaction of egotism.
Bella's eyes quickly turned towards the soldier, with an expression
so full of significance that he only gave a very faint sigh, and
muttered,--
“Well, I can do no more; when I next hear from Jack, sir, you shall know
it.” And with this he moved towards the door.
Bella hastily whispered a few words in her father's ear, to which, as he
seemed to demur, she repeated still more eagerly.
“How could we, since it's Sunday, and there will be Beecher coming out?”
muttered he.
“But this is a gentleman, papa; his soldier jacket is surely no
disgrace--”
“I couldn't, I couldn't,” muttered he, doggedly.
Again she whispered, and at last he said,--
“Maybe you 'd take your bit of dinner with us tomorrow, Conway,--quite
alone, you know.”
The young fellow drew himself up, and there was, for an instant, a
look of haughty, almost insolent, meaning in his face. There was that,
however, in Bella's which as speedily overcame whatever irritation had
crossed his mind, and he politely said,--
“If you will admit me in this dress,--I have no other with me.”
“To be sure,--of course,” broke in Kellett. “When my son is wearing the
same, what could I say against it?”
The youth smiled good-naturedly at this not very gracious speech; mayhap
the hand he was then holding in his own compensated for its rudeness,
and his “Good-bye!” was uttered in all frankness and cordiality.