GOOD NIGHT
"Good night! Sleep, and so may ever
Lights half seen across a murky lea,
Child of hope, and courage, and endeavour,
Gleam a voiceless benison on thee!
Youth be bearer
Soon of hardihood;
Life be fairer,
Loyaller to good;
Till the far lamps vanish into light,
Rest in the dreamtime. Good night! Good night!"
The last Saturday of the summer term saw the Manor cock-house at
cricket: almost a foregone conclusion, and therefore not particularly
interesting to outsiders. During the morning Scaife gave his farewell
"brekker" [1] at the Creameries; a banquet of the Olympians to which
John received an invitation. He accepted because Desmond made a point
of his so doing; but he was quite aware that beneath the veneer of the
Demon's genial smile lay implacable hatred and resentment. The
breakfast in itself struck John as ostentatious. Scaife's father sent
quails, _à la Lucullus_, and other delicacies. Throughout the meal the
talk was of the coming war. At that time most of the Conservative
papers poohpoohed the possibility of an appeal to arms, but Scaife's
father, admittedly a great authority on South African affairs, had told
his son a fight was inevitable. More, he and his friends were already
preparing to raise a regiment of mounted infantry. At breakfast Scaife
announced this piece of news, and added that in the event of
hostilities he would join this regiment, and not try to pass into
Sandhurst. And he added that any of his friends who were present, and
over eighteen years of age, were cordially invited to send in their
names, and that he personally would do all that was possible to secure
them billets. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Caesar
Desmond was on his feet, with an eager--
"Put me down, Demon; put me down first!"
And then Scaife glanced at John, as he answered--
"Right you are, Caesar, and if things go well with us, I fancy that we
shall get our commissions in regular regiments soon enough. The
governor has had a hint to that effect. Let's drink success to
'Scaife's Horse.'"
The toast was drunk with enthusiasm.
During the holidays, John saw nothing of Desmond, although they wrote
to each other once a week. John was reading hard with an eye to a
possible Scholarship at Oxford; Desmond was playing cricket with
Scaife. Later, Desmond went to the Scaife moor in Scotland. John
noted that his friend's letters were full of two things only: sport,
and the ever-increasing probability of war. At the end of August John
Verney, the explorer, returning to Verney Boscobel after an absence of
nearly four years, began to write his now famous book on the Far East.
Then John learned from his mother that his uncle had borne all the
charges of his education. When he thanked him, the uncle said warmly--
"You have more than repaid me, my dear boy; not another word, please,
about that. Warde tells me they expect great things of you at Oxford."
Uncle and nephew were alone, after dinner. John had noticed that the
hardships endured in Manchuria and Thibet had left scars upon the
traveller. His hair was white, he looked an old man; one whose
wanderings in wild places must perforce come soon to an end.
"Uncle," said John. "I want to chuck Oxford."
"Eh?"
"I should like to go into the Army."
"Bless my soul!"
The explorer eyed his nephew with wrinkled brow. John gave reasons; we
can guess what they were. The prospect of war had set all ardent souls
afire.
"I must think this over, my boy," the uncle replied presently. "I must
sleep on it. Have you told your mother?"
"No; I counted upon you to persuade her."
"Um. Now tell me about Lord's! Ah! I'm sorry I missed that match."
Next day, his uncle said nothing of what lay next to John's heart, but
the pair rode together over the estate. During that ride it became
plain to the young man that his uncle had no intention of settling
down. Once or twice, in the driest, most matter-of-fact tone, the
elder spoke as if his heir were likely to inherit soon. Finally, John
blurted out a protest--
"But, uncle, you are a strong man. Why do you talk as if--as if----"
the boy couldn't finish the phrase.
"Tut, tut," said the uncle. "I know what I know;" and he fell into
silence.
Not till the evening, after Mrs. Verney had gone to bed, did the man of
many wanderings speak freely.
"John," said he, quietly, "I have a story to tell you. Years ago, your
father and I fell in love with the same girl. She married the better
man." He paused to fill a pipe: John saw that his uncle's fingers
trembled slightly; but his voice was cool, measured, almost monotonous.
"I made my first expedition to Patagonia. When I came back you were
just born; and I asked that I might be your godfather. I went to
Africa after the christening. And six years later your father died. I
think he had the purest and most unselfish love of the poor and
helpless that I have ever known. He wore away his life in the service
of the outcast and forlorn. And before he died, he expressed a wish
that you should work as he did, for others, but not in precisely the
same way. He knew, none better, the limitations imposed upon a parson.
He prayed that you might labour in a field larger than one parish. And
I promised him that I would do what I could when the time came. It has
come--to-night. In my opinion, in Warde's opinion, in your dear
mother's opinion, Parliament is the place for you. You will be
sufficiently well off. Take all Oxford can give you, and then try for
the House of Commons. Charles Desmond will make you one of his Private
Secretaries. I have spoken to him. You have a great career before
you."
"But if war breaks out, uncle----"
"War _will_ break out. Don't misunderstand me! If you are wanted out
there, and the thing is going to be very serious, if you are wanted,
you must go; but decidedly you are not wanted yet. And you are an only
son; all your mother has. John, you must think of her, and you will
think of her, I know."
The conviction in his quiet voice communicated itself to his nephew.
There was a pause of nearly a minute; and then John answered, in a
voice curiously like his uncle's--
"All right."
Verney senior held out his hand. "I knew you would say that," he
murmured.
On the 18th of September, when John returned to the Hill, the country
had just learned that the proposals of the Imperial Government to
accept the note of August 19 (provided it were not encumbered by
conditions which would nullify the intention to give substantial
representation to the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this
meant war, none, least of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond could talk
of nothing else. He told John that his father had promised to let him
leave Harrow before the end of the term, if war were declared. The
Demon, so John was informed, had made already preparations. He was
taking out his three polo ponies, and had hopes of being appointed
Galloper to a certain General. Scaife's Horse was being organized, but
in any case would not take the field before several months had elapsed;
the Demon intended to be on the spot when the first shot was fired.
To all this gunpowder-talk John listened with envious ears and a
curious sinking of the heart. He had looked forward to having Desmond
to himself; and lo! his friend was seven thousand miles away--on the
veldt, not on the Hill.
"You are not keen," said Desmond.
On the day of the Goose Match, Saturday, September 30th, Scaife came
down to Harrow to take leave of his friends. Already, John noted an
extraordinary difference in his manner and appearance. He treated John
to a slightly patronizing smile, called him Jonathan, asked if he could
be of service to him, and posed most successfully as a sort of sucking
Alexander.
That he absorbed Desmond's eyes and mind was indisputable. Everything
outside South Africa, and in particular the Hill and all things
thereon, dwindled into insignificance. Scaife made Desmond a present
of the very best maps obtainable, and nailed them on the wall above the
mantelpiece, pulling down a fine engraving which John had given to
Desmond about a year before. Desmond uttered no protest. The
engraving was bundled out of sight behind a sofa.
And after Scaife's departure, Desmond talked of him continually, and
always with enthusiasm. Warde added a note or two to the chorus.
"This is an opportunity for Scaife," he told John. "He may distinguish
himself very greatly, and the discipline of the camp will transmute the
bad metal into gold. War is an alchemist."
Upon the 11th of October war was declared.
After that, Desmond became as one possessed. He went about saying that
he pitied his father profoundly because he was a civilian and a
non-combatant. Warde wrote to Charles Desmond; "If you mean to send
Harry out, send him at once. He's fretting himself to fiddlestrings,
doing no work, and causing others to do no work also."
Sir William Symons' victory and death followed, and then the mortifying
retreat of General Yule. Upon the 30th day of the month eight hundred
and fifty officers and men were isolated and captured. Who does not
remember the wave of passionate incredulity that swept across the
kingdom when the evil tidings flashed over-seas? But Buller and his
staff were on the _Dunottar Castle_, and all Harrovians believed
devoutly that within a month of landing the Commander-in-Chief would
drive the invaders back and conquer the Transvaal.
Day after day, Desmond importuned his father. The "fun" would be over,
he pointed out, before he got there--and so on. At last word came. A
billet had been obtained. Desmond received a long envelope from the
War Office. He showed it to all his friends, old and young. Duff
junior--Caesar's fag--became so excited that he asked Warde for
permission to enlist as a drummer-boy. The School cheered Caesar at
four Bill.
And then came the parting.
Caesar was to join the Headquarters' Staff as soon as possible. He
spent the last hours with John, but his mind, naturally enough, was
concentrated upon his kit. He chattered endlessly of saddlery,
revolvers, sleeping bags, and Zeiss' glasses. John packed his
portmanteau. And on the morrow the friends parted at the station
without a word beyond--
"Good-bye, old Jonathan. Wish you were coming."
"Good-bye, Caesar. Good luck!"
And then the shrill whistle, the inexorable rolling of the wheels, the
bright eager face leaning far out of the window, the waved
handkerchief, the last words; "So long!" and John's reply, "So long!"
John saw the face fade; the wheels of the vanishing train seemed to
have rolled over his heart; the scream of the engine was the scream of
anguish from himself. He left the station and ran to the Tower.
There, after the first indescribable moments, some kindly spirit
touched him. He became whole. But he had ceased to be a boy. Alone
upon the tower he prayed for his friend, prayed fervently that it might
be well with him, now and for ever-- Amen.
When he returned to the Manor, however, peace seemed to forsake him.
The horrible gap, ever-widening, between himself and Desmond, might
indeed be bridged by prayer, but not by the shouts of boys and the
turmoil of a Public School.
During the rest of the term he worked furiously. Desmond was now on
the high seas, whither John followed him at night and on Sundays.
Warde, guessing, perhaps, what was passing in John's heart, talked much
of Desmond, always hopefully. From Warde, John learned that Charles
Desmond had tried to dissuade his favourite son from becoming a soldier.
"He wanted him to go into Parliament," said Warde.
John nodded.
"It was a disappointment. Yes; a great disappointment. Harry would
have made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and
the gift of the gab. And the father would have had him under his own
eye."
"But he wanted to go to South Africa from the beginning."
"You wanted to go," said Warde; "your uncle told me so. It was a
greater thing for you, John, to stand aside."
And then John put a question. "Do you think that Harry ought to have
stood aside too?"
Warde, however, unwilling to commit himself, spoke of Harry's ardour
and patriotism. But at the end he let fall a straw which indicated the
true current of his thoughts--
"Mr. Desmond is very lonely."
John swooped on this.
"Then you think, you do think, that Harry should have stayed behind?"
"Perhaps. One hesitates to accuse the boy of anything more than
thoughtlessness."
"If he wished to serve his country," began John, warmly.
Warde smiled. "Yes, yes," he assented. "Let us believe that, John;
but there has been too much cheap excitement."
Dark days followed. Who will ever forget Stormberg and Magersfontein?
A pall seemed to hang over the kingdom. Ladysmith remained in the grip
of the invader; the Boers were not yet driven out of Natal. Meantime
Caesar had reached Sir Redvers Buller. A letter to his father,
describing the few incidents of the voyage out, and his arrival in
South Africa, was sent on to John and received by him on the 1st of
February. "John will understand," said Caesar, in a postscript, "that
I have little time for writing." But John did not understand. He
wrote regularly to Desmond; no answer came in return.
At the end of the Christmas holidays John returned to Harrow. He was
now Head of his House, and very nearly Head of the School. The weeks
went by slowly. Soon, he and a few others would travel to Oxford for
their examination; there would be the strenuous excitement of
competition, and the final announcement of success or failure. To all
this John told himself that he was lukewarm. Nothing seemed to matter
since he had lost sight of Caesar's face, since the train whirled his
friend out of his life. But he worked hard, so hard that the Head
Master bade him beware of a breakdown.
The hour of triumph came. John had gratified his own and Warde's
ambition; he was a Scholar of Christ Church. And this well-earned
success seemed to thaw something in his heart. The congratulations,
the warm hand-clasps, the generous joy of schoolfellows not as
fortunate, restored his moral circulation. A whole holiday was granted
in honour of his success at Oxford. He told himself that now he would
take things easy and enjoy himself. The clouds in South Africa were
lifting, everybody said the glorious end was in sight. And so far
Desmond had escaped wounds and sickness. He had received a commission
in Beauregard's Irregular Horse; in the five days' action about Spion
Kop he behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Scaife, having obtained his
billet of Galloper, was with a General under Lord Methuen.
On the last Monday but one in the term, John was entering the Manor
just before lock-up, when a Sixth Form boy from another house passed
him, running.
"Have you heard about poor Scaife?" he called out.
"No--what?"
"Warde will tell you; he knows." The boy ran on, not wishing to be
late.
John ran too with his heart thumping against his side. He felt
certain, from the expression upon the boy's face, that Scaife was dead.
And John recalled with intense bitterness and humiliation moments in
past years when he had wished that Scaife would die. Charles Desmond
had told him only three weeks before that his Harry hoped to join the
smart cavalry regiment in which a commission had been promised to
Scaife. At that moment John was sensible of an inordinate desire for
anything that might come between this wish and its fulfilment. And
now, Scaife might be lying dead.
He found Warde in his study staring at a telegram. He looked up as
John entered, and in silence handed him the message.
"_Demon dead. Died gloriously._"
The telegram came from an Harrovian, an old Manorite at the War Office.
John sat down, stunned by the news; Warde regarded him gravely. John
met his glance and could not interpret it. Presently, Warde said
nervously--
"Why did the fellow write 'Demon' instead of 'Scaife'? I don't like
that." He looked sharply at John, who did not understand. Then he
added, "I've wired for confirmation. There may be a--mistake."
"What mistake?" said John. Warde's manner confused him, frightened
him. "What mistake, sir?"
Warde, twisting the paper, answered miserably--
"There has been an action, but not in Scaife's part of Africa.
Beauregard's Horse were engaged and suffered severely. And would any
one say 'Demon' in such a serious context?"
"Oh, my God!" said John, pale and trembling. At last he understood.
Add two letters to "Demon" and you have "Desmond." How easily such a
mistake could be made!--"Desmond," ill-written, handed to an old
Manorite to copy and despatch.
"It's Scaife--it's Scaife," John cried.
Warde said nothing, staring at the thin slip of paper as if he were
trying to wrest from it its secret.
"Everybody called him 'Demon,'" said John.
"Still, one ought to be prepared."
For many hideous minutes they sat there, silent, waiting for the second
telegram. Dumbleton brought it in, and lingered, anxiously expectant;
but Warde dismissed him with a gesture. As the door closed, Warde
stood up.
"If our fears are well founded," he said solemnly, "may God give you
strength, John Verney, to bear the blow."
Then he tore open the envelope and read the truth--
"_Henry Desmond killed in action._"
"No," said John, fiercely. "It is Scaife, Scaife!"
Warde shook his head, holding John's hand tight between his sinewy
fingers. John's face appalled him. He had known, he had guessed, the
strength of John's feeling for Desmond, but he had not known the
strength of John's hatred of Scaife. And Desmond had been taken--and
Scaife left. The irony of it tore the soul.
"Don't speak," commanded Warde.
John closed his lips with instinctive obedience. When he opened them
again his face had softened; the words fell upon the silence with a
heartrending inflection of misery.
"And now I shall never know--I shall never know."
He broke down piteously. Warde let the first passion of grief spend
itself; then he asked John to explain. The good fellow saw that if
John could give his trouble words it would be lightened enormously. He
divined what had been suppressed.
"What is it that you will never know, John?"
At that John spoke, laying bare his heart. He gave details of the
never-ending struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his
friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond
all else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde
listened, holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection.
The romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of
the struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained
still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished--this
had poignant significance for the house-master.
"I shall never know now," John repeated, in conclusion.
"But you have faith in your friend."
"He never wrote to me," said John.
At last it was out, the thorn in his side which had tormented him.
"If he had written," John continued, "if only he had written once.
When we parted it was good-bye--just that, nothing more; but I thought
he would write, and that everything would be cleared up. And now,
silence."
The week wore itself away. A few details were forthcoming: enough to
prove that a glorious deed had been done at the cost of a gallant life.
England was thrilled because the hero happened to be the son of a
popular Minister. The name of Desmond rang through the Empire. John
bought every paper and devoured the meagre lines which left so much
between them. It seemed that a certain position had to be taken--a
small hill. For the hundredth time in this campaign too few men were
detailed for the task. The reek of that awful slaughter on Spion Kop
was still strong in men's nostrils. Beauregard and his soldiers halted
at the foot of the hill, halted in the teeth of a storm of bullets.
Then the word was given to attack. But the fire from invisible foes
simply exterminated the leading files. The moment came when those
behind wavered and recoiled. And then Desmond darted forward--alone,
cheering on his fellows. They were all afoot. The men rallied and
followed. But they could not overtake the gallant figure pressing on
in front. He ran--so the Special Correspondent reported--as if he were
racing for a goal. The men staggered after him, aflame with his
ardour. They reached the top, captured the guns, drove down the enemy,
and returned to the highest point to find their leader--shot through
the heart, and dead, and smiling at death. Of all the men who passed
through that blizzard of bullets he was the youngest by two years.
Warde told John that the Head Master would preach upon the last Sunday
evening of the term, with special reference to Harry Desmond. Could
John bear it? John nodded. Since the first breakdown in Warde's
study, his heart seemed to have turned to ice. His religious sense,
hitherto strong and vital, failed him entirely. He abandoned prayer.
Evensong was over in Harrow Chapel. The Head Master, stately in
surplice and scarlet hood, entered the pulpit, and, in his clear, calm
tones, announced his text, taken from the 17th verse of the First
Chapter of the Book of Ruth--
"The Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and
me."
The subject of the sermon was "Friendship:" the heart's blood of a
Public School: Friendship with its delights, its perils, its peculiar
graces and benedictions.
"To-night," concluded the preacher, amid the breathless silence of the
congregation, "this thought of Friendship has for us a special
solemnity. It is consecrated by the memory of one whom we have just
lost. You, who are leaving the school, have been the friends and
contemporaries of Henry Julius Desmond; his features are fresh in your
memories, and will remain fresh as long as you live.
"Tall, eager, a face to remember,
A flush that could change as the day;
A spirit that knew not December,
That brightened the sunshine of May."
"Those lines, as you know, were written of another Harrovian, who died
here on this Hill. Henry Desmond died on another hill, and died so
gloriously that the shadow of our loss, dark as it seemed to us at
first, is already melting in the radiance of his gain. To die young,
clean, ardent; to die swiftly, in perfect health; to die saving others
from death, or worse--disgrace--to die scaling heights; to die and to
carry with you into the fuller ampler life beyond, untainted hopes and
aspirations, unembittered memories, all the freshness and gladness of
May--is not that cause for joy rather than sorrow? I say--yes. Henry
Desmond is one stage ahead of us upon a journey which we all must take,
and I entreat you to consider that, if we have faith in a future life,
we must believe also that we carry hence not only the record of our
acts, whether good or evil, but the memory of them; and that memory,
undimmed by falsehood or self-deception, will create for us Heaven or
Hell. I do not say--God forbid!--that you should desire death because
you are still young, and, comparatively speaking, unspotted from the
world; but I say I would sooner see any of you struck down in the
flower of his youth than living on to lose, long before death comes,
all that makes life worth the living. Better death, a thousand times,
than gradual decay of mind and spirit; better death than faithlessness,
indifference, and uncleanness. To you who are leaving Harrow, poised
for flight into the great world of which this school is the microcosm,
I commend the memory of Henry Desmond. It stands in our records for
all we venerate and strive for: loyalty, honour, purity, strenuousness,
faithfulness in friendship. When temptation assails you, think of that
gallant boy running swiftly uphill, leaving craven fear behind, and
drawing with him the others who, led by him to the heights, made
victory possible. You cannot all be leaders, but you can follow
leaders; only see to it that they lead you, as Henry Desmond led the
men of Beauregard's Horse, onward and upward."
The preacher ended, and then followed the familiar hymn, always sung
upon the last Sunday evening of the term:--
"Let Thy father-hand be shielding
All who here shall meet no more;
May their seed-time past be yielding
Year by year a richer store;
Those returning,
Make more faithful than before."
The last blessing was pronounced, and with glistening eyes the boys
streamed out of Chapel; some of them for the last time.
Upon the next Tuesday, John travelled down into the New Forest. April
was abroad in Hampshire; the larches already were bright green against
the Scotch firs; the beech buds were bursting; only the oaks retained
their drab winter's-livery.
During the few days preceding Easter Sunday, John rode or walked to
every part of the forest which he had visited in company with his dead
friend. At Beaulieu, standing in the ruins of the Abbey, he could hear
Desmond's delightful laugh as he recited the misadventures of Hordle
John; at Stoneycross he sat upon the bank overlooking the moor, whence
they had seen the fox steal into the woods about Rufus's Stone; at the
Bell tavern at Brook they had lunched; at Hinton Admiral they had
played cricket.
To his mother's and his uncle's silent sympathy John responded but
churlishly. His friend had departed without a word, without a sign;
that ate into John's heart and consumed it. For the first time since
he had been confirmed, he refused to receive the Sacrament. He went to
church as a matter of form; but he dared not approach the altar in his
present rebellious mood.
Again and again he accused himself of having yielded to a craven fear
of offending Desmond by speech too plain. Always he had been so
terribly afraid of losing his friend; and now he had lost him indeed.
This poignancy of grief may be accounted for in part by the previous
long-continued strain of overwork. And it is ever the habit of those
who do much to think that they might have done more.
At the beginning of May, John came back to the Hill, for his last term.
Out of the future rose the "dreaming spires" of Oxford; beyond them,
vague and shadowy, the great Clock-tower of Westminster, keeping watch
and ward over the destinies of our Empire.
In a long letter from Charles Desmond, the Minister had spoken of the
secretaryship to be kept warm for him, of the pleasure and solace the
writer would take in seeing his son's best friend in the place where
that son might have stood.
His best friend? Was that true?
The question tormented John. Because Caesar had been so much to him,
he desired, more passionately than he had desired anything in his life,
the assurance that he had been something--not everything, only
something--to Caesar.
One day, about the middle of the month, John had been playing cricket,
the game of all games which brought Caesar most vividly to his mind.
Then, just before six Bill, he strolled up the Hill and into the
Vaughan Library, where go many relics dear to Harrovians are enshrined.
Sitting in the splendid window which faces distant Hampstead, John told
himself that he must put aside the miseries and perplexities of the
past month. Had he been loyal to his friend's memory? Would not a
more ardent faith have burned away doubt?
John gazed across the familiar fields to the huge city on the horizon.
Soon night would fall, darkness would encompass all things. And then,
out of the mirk, would shine the lamps of London.
Warde's voice put his thoughts to instant flight. Some intuition told
John that something had happened. Warde said quietly--
"A letter has come for you in Harry Desmond's hand-writing."
John, unable to speak, stretched out his hand.
"Take it," said Warde, "to some quiet spot where you cannot be
disturbed."
John nodded.
"I have seen how it was with you," Warde continued, with deep emotion,
"and you have had my acute sympathy, the more acute, perhaps, because
long ago a friend went out of my life without a sign." Warde paused.
"Now, unless my whole experience is at fault, you hold in your hand
what you want--and what you deserve."
Warde left the library; John put the letter into his pocket. Where
should he go? One place beckoned him. Upon the tower, looking towards
the Hill, he would read the last letter of his friend.
Within half an hour he was passing through the iron gates. He had not
visited the garden since that forlorn winter's afternoon, when he came
here, alone, after bidding Desmond good-bye. He could recall the
desolation of the scene: bleak Winter dripping tears upon the tomb of
Summer. With what disgust he had perceived the decaying masses of
vegetation, the sodden turf, the soot upon the bare trunks of the
trees. He had rushed away, fancying that he heard Desmond's voice.
"There is a curse on the place."
Now, May had touched what had seemed dead and hideous, and, lo! a
miracle. The hawthorns shone white against the brilliant green of the
laurels; the horse-chestnuts had---to use a fanciful expression of
Caesar's--"lit their lamps." Out of the waving grass glimmered and
sparkled a thousand wild flowers. John heard the glad _Frühlingslied_
of bees and birds. Then, opening his lungs, he inhaled the
life-renewing odours of earth renascent; opening his heart he felt a
spiritual essence pervading every fibre of his being. Once more the
chilled sap in his veins flowed generously. It was well with him and
well with his friend. This conviction possessed him, remember, before
he opened the letter.
He ascended the tower, and broke the seal.
"I have been meaning to write to you, dear old chap, ever since we
parted; but, somehow, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it in earnest
till to-night. To-morrow, we have a thundering big job ahead of us;
the last job, perhaps, for me. Old Jonathan, you have been the best
friend a man ever had, the only one I love as much as my own
brothers--_and even more_. It was from knowing you that I came to see
what good-for-nothing fools some fellows are. You were always so
unselfish and _straight_; and you made me feel that I was the contrary,
and that you knew it, and that I should lose your friendship if I
didn't improve a bit. So, if we don't meet again in this jolly old
world, it may be a little comfort to you to remember that what you have
done for a very worthless pal was not thrown away.
"Good night, Jonathan. I'm going to turn in; we shall be astir before
daybreak. Over the veldt the stars are shining. It's so light, that I
can just make out the hill upon which, I hope, our flag will be waving
within a few hours. The sight of this hill brings back our Hill. If I
shut my eyes, I can see it plainly, as we used to see it from the
tower, with the Spire rising out of the heart of the old school. I
have the absurd conviction strong in me that, to-morrow, I shall get up
the hill here faster and easier than the other fellows because you and
I have so often run up our Hill together--God bless it--and you! Good
night."
[1] Brekker, _i.e._ breakfast.
THE END
The further fortunes of John Verney and
his friends are related by MR. VACHELL in
JOHN VERNEY