"This is all
The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown
Through ages. Nothing doubted those first sons
Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries,
Nothing believe--"
We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different
attitudes of repose. Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his
element. He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a
sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with
great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his
lips, holding it at arm's length, like a viper or other venomous beast.
"Charley," asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan,
"how is the regiment going on? Insolvent as ever?"
"More so," was the reply. "When I came away they were thinking of
framing a £5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we
had _some_ money--just like the man who pitched loaves over the
city-walls when they were dying of famine--but there was a difficulty
about procuring one. However, we have been promised the son of an
opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes
something to drink), who is to join before Easter. Perhaps he may set us
afloat again."
"Yes," Guy remarked; "fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the
Third Estate. _Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre_. If there is one moneyed
man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often
wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your
Croesus. You deserve statues--as Sydney Smith would have said--_æris
alieni_."
"I am not the rose, but I have lived with her," responded Forrester,
sententiously. "That's the principle of the thing. When a subaltern
arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of
Bendemeer to the tradesmen."
"I believe it is precisely such regiments," remarked Bruce, "that the
political economists have in view when they attack the army estimates."
The observation was aggressive; but Charley's countenance was unruffled
as the Dead Sea as he answered, "Personal, but correct. You are intimate
with Joseph Hume, probably? You look as if you were." (These last words
were a stage aside, not quite so inaudible as could be wished.) "I think
we should fight, if we had a chance, though."
His lip wore a curious smile, and he raised himself on his arm to look
the last speaker full in the face.
"Of course you would," broke in Sir Henry; "that's not a peculiarity of
crack regiments or second sons. It's only in their baptism of fire that
the young ones shrink and start; after that, the meekest of men develop
themselves wonderfully. I heard an old Indian, the other day, speak of a
case in point.
"There was an officer in his service, mild and stupid to a degree. He
had been a butt all his life; bullied at school, at Addiscombe, and in
his corps worst of all.
"They were attacking a hill-fort, and the fire from wall-pieces and
matchlocks was so heavy that the storming-party would not face it. Among
those who retreated were two of his superior officers and chief
tormentors. The junior lieutenant saw them cowering away to seek
shelter, and laughed out loud; then he flung his shako before him into
the fort, and led the sepoys back to the charge, and right over the
breastwork--bareheaded and cheering. He was shot down inside, and lived
only a few hours, all the time in horrible agony; but Western told us
that Bayard or Sidney could have made no braver or calmer ending."
"You are right," Livingstone said. "The Roundheads fought fully as well
as the Cavaliers. I only know of two instances where the thoroughbreds
had the advantage of a contrast. One was when the Scottish regiment took
the island in the Rhine; the other was the exploit of the _Gants
Glacés_. Don't you know it? It's worth hearing.
"They were attacking some town in the wars of the Fronde. The breach was
scarcely practicable, and the best of the besieging army had recoiled
from it with great loss. The Black Mousquetaires stood by in all the
coquetry of scarf, and plume, and fringed scented gloves, laughing
louder at each repulse of the Linesmen. The soldiers heard them and
gnashed their teeth. At last there was a murmur, and then a shout--_'En
avant les Gants Glacés!'_ They wanted to see 'the swells' beaten too.
Then the Household Brigade went up and carried the breach, leaving a
third of their number on it. The general in command made the whole army
defile past their _guidon_, and salute it with sloped standards.
"No; very few men are physical cowards in battle, whatever they may be
across country. I don't believe Paris was, when he ran from Menelaüs;
and Helen did not think so, though she teased him about it, or she would
never have spoken to him again. I rather imagine his feeling was that of
a certain Guardsman of our acquaintance, who said, declining the ordeal
of combat, that 'his first duty was to his partners, and this did not
allow him to risk a black eye.'"
"Might not remorse at the sight of the man he had injured have had
something to do with his flight?" Bruce asked.
He was full of moral sentiments--that man; only you could not look at
him without fancying that they sprung more from an inclination to be
contradictious and disagreeable than from any depth of principle.
"Absurd," Guy retorted. "Wasn't he a heathen, and rather an immoral one?
It was of profligates with far greater advantages of education that some
one said, '_'Le remords nait de l'abandon, et non de la faute_.' The
walls of Troy were strong then, and the Destroyer-of-ships safe behind
them, 'getting herself up alarmingly' for his return. No wonder Menelaüs
was eager for the duel: he was staking his loneliness against Paris's
nine points of the law."
Sir Henry Fallowfield smiled approvingly.
"Yes," he observed, not answering what had been said, but evidently
following out a train of his own thought. "Modern exquisites have
courage, and self-possession, and conceit--great elements of success
with women, I own--but they have not much more. I am certain Charley,
who is a favorable specimen of the class, often affects silence because
he has nothing on earth to say. There is a decadence since my younger
days (I hope I speak dispassionately), and how very far we fell short of
the _roués_ of the Régence! We could no more match them than a
fighting-man in good training could stand up to one of the old Pict
giants. Look at Richelieu: good at all points--in the battle, in the
boudoir, in the Bastille--a dangerous rival at the two ages of ordinary
men's first and second childhood."
"He was a great man in his way," I assented. "Do you remember his answer
to the Duchesse de Maine, when she asked him, for a political purpose,
if he could remain faithful for one week to an intrigue then twenty-four
hours old? '_Madame, quand une fois j'embrasse un parti, je suis capable
des plus grandes sacrifices pour le soutenir._' The object of that
heroic constancy was the Maréchale de Villars, one of the loveliest
women in France. It was the sublime of fatuity--was it not?"
"Well, I don't know," said Charley, settling himself comfortably in his
cushions, and glancing almost imperceptibly at Bruce; "they seem to
fancy us, notwithstanding. We have only one great obstacle--the mothers
that _bore_ us."
Be it known that "they," used simply, stood in his vocabulary for the
fair sex in general.
"Nonsense," replied Fallowfield; "don't be so ungrateful. You don't know
what you owe to those anxious parents. It helps you enormously, being
the objects of perpetual warnings from husbands and chaperons, the
first considering you _mauvais sujets_, the last _mauvais partis_; for
you _are_ 'detrimentals,' for the most part, you will own."
"_Vetitum ergo cupitum_," interrupted Livingstone. "A good many
moralists before and since old Rabelais have discoursed on that text.
The Chief of Errington was probably much more agreeable, besides being a
better match than Jock of Hazeldean, who clearly was what an old
Frenchman lately described to me--'_un vaurien, mon cher, qui court les
filles et qui n'a pas le son_.' But then poor Frank was the government
candidate; so, of course, in a popular election, he went to the wall."
Sir Henry's face grew more pensive and grave as he said, "It is very
hard on the women, certainly, that our race should have degenerated so,
for I believe in my conscience they are as clever and wicked, and
appreciate temptation as much as ever." (The gusto with which he said
this is indescribable.) "There is the Bellasys, for instance, with a
calculating sensuality, an astuteness of stratagem, an utter contempt of
truth, and a general aptitude for making fools of men, that poor Philip
the Regent would have worshiped. When she had no one better to corrupt,
I have seen her take in hand an older, sadder, wiser, uglier man than
myself, and in three days bring him to the verge of insanity, so that he
would scowl at his wife, his companion for forty years, the blameless
mother of six grown-up children, with a hideous expression indicative of
carving-knives and strychnine. Guy suits her best. His thews and sinews
awe her a little sometimes; and he has a certain hardness of character
and pitilessness of purpose, improved by my instructions, which will
carry him far, but not far enough, I think. You're right not to look
flattered" (Guy's face had moved no more than the marble Memnon's); "you
are only a shade better than the rest. Our effete world is not worthy of
that rare creature: she was born a century too late."
"I quite differ with you," Bruce said, in his harshest voice; "I am
certain the great plurality of the women of our day would resist any
temptation, from fear of the consequences, if not from principle."
Fancy the feelings of the Greek professor interrupted in his lecture by
a controverting freshman, and you will have some idea of Fallowfield's.
His eye lighted on the last speaker, glittering like a hooded snake's,
as it were caressing him with a lambent scorn.
I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones
usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you
_do_ differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one
point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a
woman into propriety. Try it."
"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested,
wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many
instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married
to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I
should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not
been through default of aspirants."
An evil smile curled round the old _roué's_ sensual mouth, radiating
even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers.
"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew
how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to
encourage a counteracting influence--family pride. Don't you know she is
a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go
wrong--under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just
now, so she is still '_Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et
dans l'impuissance de se repentir_.'"
It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best
hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while
his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they
would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most
important and profitable to forget them.
We separated soon after this. Sir Henry's face wore an expression of
placid self-congratulation. He thought the conversation had been rather
improving, I believe, and that some of the ideas and illustrations had
been rather neatly put; so he laid his head down that night with the
calm, satisfied feeling of a good man who has done his duty and not lost
a day.
He was not more ingenious in overcoming the scruples of others than in
silencing his own conscience, though of late years this last had
probably ceased to give him much trouble. Finer feelings with him were
only "sensations morbidly exaggerated," and he made no sort of
allowance for such; among others, utterly ignoring remorse, I doubt if
he ever looked forward; I am sure he never looked back. A parody on the
"tag" which was given to Cambronne would sum up his terribly simple and
consistent creed--_La femme se rend, mais ne meurt pas_.