Sir Francis, as I afterwards learned, did not insist upon the matter,
but the very next day, as I was in the peach-house, I heard the door
open, and I felt anything but comfortable as I saw Courtenay enter the
place and come slowly up to me.
I was prepared for anything, but I had no cause for expecting war. He
had come in peace.
"We're going away directly after lunch," he said in a low, surly tone,
as if he resented what he was saying. "I'll--, I'll--there! I'll try--
to be different when I come back again."
He turned and went hurriedly out of the place, and he had not been gone
long when the door at the other end clicked, and I found, as soon as he
who entered had come round into sight, that it was Philip.
He came up to me in a quick, impetuous way, as if eager to get his task
over, and as our eyes met I could see that he had evidently been
suffering a good deal.
"I'm going away this afternoon," he said quickly. "I wish I hadn't said
and done all I have. I beg--"
He could not finish, but burst into a passionate fit of sobbing, and
turned away his face.
"Good-bye!" I said. "I shall not think about it any more."
"Then we'll shake hands," he cried--"some day--next time we meet."
We did shake hands next time we met, but when Philip Dalton said those
words he did not know it would be seven years first. But so it was.
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I never knew exactly how it happened, but I believe one of my uncles was
influenced to take some part in the affair, and Sir Francis did all the
rest. What I do know is that about three months after the young Daltons
had gone I was on my way to a clergyman's house, where I stayed a year,
being prepared for my future career; and when I had been with the
Reverend Hartley Dallas a year I was able to join the Military College
at Woolwich, where I went through the regular course, and in due time
obtained my commission in the artillery.
I had not long been in the service before the Crimean war broke out, and
our battery was one of the first despatched to the seat of war, where,
in company with my comrades, I went through that terrible period of
misery and privation.
One night I was in charge of a couple of guns in a rather dangerous
position near the Redan, and after repairing damages under fire my lads
had contrived to patch up a pretty secure shelter with sand-bag and
gabion, ready for knocking down next day, but it kept off the rain, and
where we huddled together there was no mud under our feet, though it was
inches deep in the trench.
It was a bitter night, and the tiny bit of fire that we had ventured to
make in the hole we had scooped underground hardly kept the chill from
our half-frozen limbs. Food was not plentiful, luxuries we had none,
and in place of the dashing-looking artillerymen in blue and gold people
are accustomed to see on parade, anyone who had looked upon us would
have seen a set of mud-stained, ragged scarecrows, blackened with
powder, grim looking, but hard and full of fight.
I was seated on an upturned barrel, hugging my sheepskin-lined greatcoat
closer to me, and drawing it down over my high boots, as I made room for
a couple of my wet, shivering men, and I felt ashamed to be the owner of
so warm a coat as I looked at their well-worn service covering, when my
sergeant put in his head and said:
"Captain of the company of foot, sir, would be glad if you could give
him a taste of the fire and a drop of brandy; he's half dead with the
cold."
"Bring him in," I said; and I waited, thinking about home and the old
garden at Isleworth and then of that at Hampton; I didn't know why, but
I did. And then I was thinking to myself that it was a good job that we
had the stern, manly feeling to comfort us of our hard work being our
duty, when I heard the _slush, slush, slush, slush_, sound of feet
coming along the trenches, and then my sergeant said:
"You'll have to stoop very low to get in, sir, but you'll find it warm
and dry. The lieutenant's inside."
"Yes, come in," I said; and my men drew back to let the fresh corner get
a bit of the fire.
"It's awfully kind of you," he said, as he knelt down, took off his
dripping gloves, and held his blue fingers to the flame. "What a night!
It isn't fit for a dog to be out in. 'Pon my soul, gunner, I feel
ashamed to come in and get shelter, and leave my poor boys in the
trench."
"Get a good warm then, and let's thaw and dry one of them at a time.
I'm going to turn out soon."
"Sorry for you," he said. "Brandy--thanks. It's worth anything a night
like this. I've got some cigars in my breast-pocket, as soon as my
fingers will let me get at them."
He had taken off his shako, and the light shone full upon his face,
which I recognised directly, though he did not know me, as he looked up
and said again:
"It's awfully kind of you, gunner."
"Oh! it's nothing," I said, "Captain Dalton--Philip Dalton, is it not?"
"Yes," he said; "you know me?"
"To be sure," I replied; "but you said that next time we met we'd shake
hands."
He sank back and his jaw dropped.
"You remember me--Grant? How is Sir Francis?"
"Remember you!" he said, seizing my hand, "Oh! I say, what a young
beast I was!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I learned more than once that he and his brother turned out fine, manly
soldiers, and did their duty well in that hard-fought campaign. I tried
also to do mine, and came back one of the last to leave the Crimea,
another grade higher in my rank.
During my college life I often used to go over and see the brothers
Brownsmith, to be warmly welcomed at every visit; and if ever he got to
know that I was going to Isleworth to spend Sunday, Ike used to walk
over, straighten his back and draw himself up to attention, and salute
me, looking as serious as if in uniform. He did not approve of my going
into the artillery, though.
"It's wrong," he used to say; and in these days he was back at
Isleworth, for Mr Solomon had entered into partnership with his
brother, and both Ike and Shock had elected to follow him back to the
old place.
"Yes," he would say, "it's wrong, Mars Grant, I was always drew to you
because your father had been a sojer; but what would he have said to you
if he had lived to know as you turned gunner?"
"What would you have had me, then? You must have artillerymen."
"Yes, of course, sir; but what are they? You ought to have been a
hoozoar:--
"`Oh, them as with jackets go flying,
Oh, they are the gallant hoozoars,'"
he sang--at least he tried to sing; but I went into the artillery.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, I did not tell you the name of the sergeant who ushered
Philip Dalton into my shelter that night. His name was John Hampton, as
fine a soldier as ever stepped. He joined the artillery when I got my
commission. Poor Shock, for I knew him better by that name; he followed
me with the fidelity of a dog; he always contrived something hot for me
when we were almost starving, and any day he would have gone without
that I might eat. And I believe that he would have fought for me to the
death.
Poor Shock! The night when I was told that he could not live, after
being struck down by a piece of shell, I knelt by him in the mud and
held his hand. He just looked up in my face and said softly:
"Remember being shut up in the sand-pit, sir, and how you prayed? If
you wouldn't mind, sir--once again?"
I bent down lower and lower, and at last--soldier--hardened by horrors--
grown stern by the life I led--I felt as if I had lost in that rough,
true man the best of friends, and I cried over him like a child!