II

I think he saw young Alex Breagh, a junior Lieutenant of the

Grenadier company of the Royal Ennis Regiment of Infantry, winning

his spurs of manhood under Gough and Hardinge and Gilbert on the

plain beside the Sutlej, where stands Ferozshahr.

"For I don't pretend to be a hero or anything of that sort, but I've

never shirked my share of fighting," said the silent voice within

him, and the Captain exhaled a spirt of smoke and mumbled: "I believe

you!" And the other Breagh went on:

"Fair play and no favor won us our honors, mind you! though the

chance didn't come until later on. True, we helped Sir Harry Smith

to pound the Sikhs at Ferozshahr and at Aliwal, when the cavalry of

his Right had driven the Khâlsas back across the Red Ford. Waiting

for the elephants with the heavy siege-guns and the ammunition and

stores to come up from Delhi, took a hell of a time. Seven long

weeks of broiling by day and freezing o' nights, while Tij Sinh and

his thirty-five thousand Khâlsas entrenched themselves, mounted their

heavy artillery--made their bridge of boats, and encamped their

cavalry up the river. But the day came--our day!--and I don't forget

that foggy tenth of February while I'm breathing."

Captain Breagh sucked at his pipe and reflectively pulled a whisker.

And the silent voice went on:

"We were with the Left Division under General Dick, and led the

assault, while Gilbert and Smith feigned to attack on the enemy's

left and center. And in that charge,--when the General got his

death-wound from a swivel-ball,--I was the second red-coat to cross

the ditch, and scramble over the big mud rampart, and saber a Sikh

gunner with his linstock in his hand!..."

Mrs. Breagh, chagrined at remaining so long the object of her

husband's inattention, picked up his fallen newspaper and almost

timidly laid it on his knee. And the child under the table kept as

quiet as a mouse, almost...

"Thank ye, my dear!" said the Captain, while the other Breagh went on:

"And when the Treaty was signed and the rumpus all over--for the

time!--because Dalhousie's bungling brought the hornets about our

ears again!--we marched from Lahore to Calcutta with Britain's

victorious army--barring the force we'd left with Lawrence at Mian

Mir."

The silence continuing, Mrs. Breagh drew her work-table toward her,

and began to look over a basket of little toeless and heel-less

stockings. As she did this she sighed. The Captain smoked

thoughtfully. And the inward voice went on:

"The Governor-General and his staff rode with Sir Harry Smith and the

Advance--and between the Cavalry Brigade that came after 'em--for Sir

Harry swore he'd be damned but since we'd seen the hottest of the

fighting, we should have the post of honor!--between the Cavalry and

Ours came the spoils of war, drawn by the Government elephants--two

hundred and fifty Sikh guns we'd taken at Sobraon. Hah!"

The Captain's eyes were fixed on the fire. He smoked in quick, short

puffs.

"Standards waving, bands blowing their heads off, and a bit o' loot

in most men's knapsacks. Glory for the dead, and praise and

promotion for the living--begad! it was worth while--just then!--to

be a British soldier! And I'd been wounded just enough to look

interesting, and got a Special Mention in Despatches--and the women

were pulling caps for me,--devil a lie in that! And I danced with

Milly at the Welcome Back Ball at Government House, in March, 1846.

And whether it was Fate--or that way she had of looking up under her

eyelashes, and showing a laughing mouth full of tiny pearly-white

teeth over the top of her fan, I've never been quite clear. But even

before the steward introduced Lieutenant Breagh to the Hon. Millicent

Fermeroy, I'd fallen head over ears in love with Milly, and she was

as mad for me!"

Still silence reigned in the room, only broken by the cinders falling

on the hearth, and the breathing of three people. Mrs. Breagh still

bent over her basket of little worn socks, of which those in most

crying need of darning belonged to Carolan. Her lips were tightly

closed, but as the man within her husband talked to the man, the

woman within the woman talked to his wife.

"I wonder whether he knows I know he's thinking of her again? I

wonder whether she'd have liked to sit and toil and moil for a child

of mine, and know that the other woman held the first place in his

heart? Ah, dear me!"

She glanced at her husband. He did not see her. He was living in

the Past.

"Nobody noticed how often we danced together.... It had gone pretty

far with us before Her Ladyship scented what was in the wind, and

sent an _aide-de-camp_ to remind Miss Fermeroy that the doctor had

set down his foot against her overheating herself with waltzing,--and

I found myself staring after her with her bouquet in my hand.... And

I took it home to quarters--and I've got it now, stowed away with her

letters and a lot of other things in a tin uniform-case.... Fanny

hasn't an idea of that!"

The smoke-puffs came more slowly, and the darning-needle now worked

busily. The voice of a sergeant who was drilling a squad of recruits

came in gruff barks from the Parade.

"The Fermeroys were great folks.... Colonel Lord Augustus

Fermeroy--Milly's uncle, was a tremendous Light Cavalry swell on the

Commander-in-Chief's Staff. Of course, I knew that he would never

hear of an engagement between his brother's orphan daughter--(to do

the old man justice, he loved her as his own!)--and a Lieutenant of a

marching regiment of infantry who'd nothing but his pay. So--as

Milly and me had made up our minds we couldn't live without each

other,--we were married secretly--first at a Protestant Mission

Church, and then by a French Franciscan _padre_--and _he_ made bones

about splicing us--because I wasn't a Catholic,--and if I hadn't told

a white lie or two about my intention of turning Papist, I don't

believe he'd have tied the knot. But all's fair in love!--and we

were in love with a vengeance. I suppose I was a selfish beggar to

coax Milly into deceiving her people, but----"

A long ray of chilly January sunshine, full of dancing dust-motes,

came in at the window. Mrs. Breagh sneezed as it fell across her

face.

"A time came when I knew I had been as selfish as she never would

have called me. People had to be told!--so we enlightened 'em by

shooting the moon. The condition of my war-chest wasn't over and

above flourishing, but I got a month's leave for the Mofussil and

secured a twenty-rupee furnished bungalow at Titteghur--and next

morning--before the hue and cry had well begun, Lady Augustus got a

_chit_ from Milly by _harkára_--I remember every word of it.

'_Dearest Aunt,--I hope you have not been alarmed, supposing me to

have been murdered or carried off by wicked persons. I am safe and

happy with my own dear husband, from whom, I shall never be parted

now._'"

The pipe was nearly smoked out, but the Captain did not appear aware

of that.

"'_Never be parted_,' and before three months were over our heads..."

Clash! Mrs. Breagh had let her scissors fall. Her husband made a

long arm, picked them up, and gave them back to her.

"Thank you, Alex, love!" said Mrs. Breagh effusively. But he went on

sucking at the now empty pipe, and staring at the waning fire. And

the silent voice went on:

"The Fermeroys were furious. But there was no use in making a fuss

and a scandal, and I must say they took the blow awfully well. Good

haters both--declared that under no conceivable circumstances would

they ever admit within their doors an officer who had acted so

dishonorably, but they'd receive Milly whenever she liked to come.

Nor would they--though her uncle was her guardian and

trustee--deprive her of her fortune--seven thousand pounds in East

India Stock, Home Rails, and Government Three Per Cents. But they

tied it up tight for the benefit of the child that was coming, and

others that might come--in what they called a Post-Matrimonial

Settlement, and I was agreeable; though, mind you!--I had the law on

my side if I'd chosen to make a fuss. And I was too much in love to

bother over money--or to care a cowrie about being cut by the

Fermeroys' friends."

Nothing but gray ashes remained in the pipe-bowl.

"I don't know whether it wasn't to get me out of the way that the

regiment was ordered to Sikandarabad. There'd been a Sepoy rising at

Haidarabad, six miles north of the Subsidiary Force's

cantonments--and as the big Mussulman city was swarming with all the

blackguards and _budmashes_ in the Dekkan--and bazar-_gup_ had it

that another Rohilla riot was threatening--Ours got the route to go.

And Milly--God bless her! wouldn't hear of being left behind. And we

steamed down coast to Masulipatam, and marched the two hundred miles;

and though it was early in January, the roads were confoundedly

squashy and the heat was like a vapor-bath--there being no winter to

speak of in the South."

"He's in a regular brown study," said her unseen gossip and

confidante to the Captain's second wife. "Perhaps his tailor has

been dunning him, or he's been losing at cards. When men are out of

spirits, money's generally at the bottom of it! Better get him to

tell what's the matter by-and-by--not now!"

"And the long road ran like a brown snake between mangrove-swamps and

paddy-fields, where it wasn't coffee-plantations and cotton-ground.

And there were black-buck and partridge for the shooting when you

could get away from the columns; and duck and snipe when we were hung

up at the river-fords waiting for the elephants that were to take

over the baggage and guns."

The shouts of the drill-sergeant came more faintly from the

Parade-ground. The Captain seemed to doze as he sucked at the empty

pipe, but Memory's voice went on:

"The women and children of the rank and file were carried on the

baggage-wagons, and the officers' wives traveled by bullock-_tonga_

or _palki-dak_, under an escort of good-conduct men of the Subsidiary

Force the Brigadier had sent down from cantonments. Milly laughed at

their oilskin-covered wickerwork chimney-pot hats and little old red

coatees, and black unmentionables and bare sandaled feet. But they

couldn't keep the beggars of bearers from turning out of the road and

taking short-cuts through jungle-paths. Then they'd dump the

_palkis_ down in the shade, and light a fire of sticks, and squat

round and smoke their hubble-bubbles or chew betel.... And Milly's

blackguards had gone out of sight behind some trees, and she was

scared at finding herself alone and unprotected. And she tried to be

calm and plucky, thinking of--what she and me were looking for....

But something trotted out of a cane-brake and snuffed at the _palki_

curtains--and she went off in a dead faint and small blame to her!

For there were the prints of a full-grown tiger's pugs in the soft

ground round the palanquin--and the place where his hind-claws had

torn up the grass when he bounded off...."

The forgotten pipe was upside down in the smoker's mouth now. A

pinch of ashes had fallen upon the breast of the unhooked scarlet

coat.

"When I came up I made those coolie-brutes eat plenty stick. But

Milly--poor girl! had got her death-blow. And the boy was born that

night under canvas by the roadside. An old Murderer--Surgeon-Major

Murdoch of Ours--did all man could do to save her. But--just at

dawn--with the eastern sky all lemon-yellow and pink and madder

behind a mango-tope, with a Hindu temple near it, and a clump of mud

huts--and some old saint's shrine under a sacred peepul-tree--the boy

was born and the mother went out like a blown waxlight. Oh, my

darling! ... And the Catholic chaplain--who'd been fetched to give

Milly the Last Sacraments--baptized the boy, for Milly had made me

swear all the children should be of her faith. And the boy would

have died, too, but that my company Sergeant's wife--she that is

nurse to my youngest child to-day--happened to be able and willing to

suckle him. And we struck camp and set out on the last march,

carrying a corpse and a new-born baby. And that night we buried my

girl by torchlight in the cemetery belonging to the European

infantry-barracks. And it's six years ago to-day--and here I am

married to another woman! Are you happy with her, Alex Breagh?

She's as unlike the other as chalk's different from cheese--and poor

Milly 'ud have called her a vulgar person! I know she would! And

yet--Milly never gave me a decent meal, and the servants did as they

liked! and Fanny's a rare housekeeper. I've been more comfortable

since I married her than I ever was in my life before. Yes, I'm a

happy man!..."

He told himself this continually. And yet the knowledge of material

comfort could not long silence the crying of his heart.

He took the smoked-out pipe from his mouth, and turned to look at the

plump, high-colored, personable woman who was sitting darning his

children's stockings with his wedding-ring shining on her finger, and

the present had its value for him, and he ceased to company with the

dead. His regard, at first chill and gloomy, warmed: his

good-humored smile curled his full red lips again....

"Why, how you look, love!" said Mrs. Breagh, and she rose and came to

his side. Then she sat on his knee and smoothed his hair from his

forehead. And the Captain returned her kiss, and told himself that

true wisdom lay in making the best of one's luck generally, and being

grateful for whatever good the gods chose to grant.

"No use crying over spilt milk! ... Beg pardon, my dear!--but what

were you asking me?"

"I was asking--supposing Carolan had never been born--or had

died--whether you would have come into his mother's money?"

"Would I have inherited Milly's seven thousand pounds? Not a

halfpenny of it, my dear! In the event of her decease without issue

it would have gone back to her family. And even during Milly's

lifetime she only had the half-yearly interest. Couldn't sell out

stock, or raise a lump sum for--ahem!--for the benefit of any person

she'd a mind to help. And husband and wife are one flesh, so the

Bible tells you!"

"The poor thing that's gone ought to have had more spirit than to let

you be treated so!" said the second wife, who had possessed no

fortune beyond a hundred pounds or so, bestowed as dowry on his

younger daughter by the hard-worked apothecary of an English country

town; and was conscious that in marrying her the Captain had not

aspired to a union above his social rank.

"Begad! my dear! I don't mind owning that Lord Augustus hated me,

from the top hair of my head to the last peg in my boot-sole.

And--when he died--and he did go over to the majority not long after

the Fermeroys had sailed for England with Lord Hardinge--when he died

it didn't make a pin's difference, for under that settlement I've

told you of, the co-trustee, a solicitor--Mr. Mustey, of Furnival's

Inn, Holborn, London--took his son,--who'd been made partner in his

business--as his partner in the trusteeship. And, of course, the

money's the boy's!--though the two-hundred-and-twenty-odd annual

interest is paid to me--the whole of it!--until Carry's old enough to

go to school and college--and when he reaches twenty-three the whole

lump of the principal will be his--seven thousand golden

sovereigns--to play ducks and drakes with if he likes!"

"And my poor darlings will have nothing," Mrs. Breagh bleated,

"unless,---because I've treated Carolan in all respects--and

more!--as if he were my own child, and that I would declare with my

head upon my dying pillow!--unless he has the gratitude and the

decent feeling to do something for Alan,--if it's only giving him a

few hundreds to start him properly in life...."

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," advised her lord.

"My dear, if you'll get me the materials from the sideboard, I'll wet

my whistle. Talking's dry work!"

With wifely compliance Mrs. Breagh placed the whisky-decanter and the

Delhi clay-bottle of drinking-water near her Alexander's elbow. You

are to imagine the Captain mixing a jorum on half-and-half

principles, nodding to his Fanny, and taking a refreshing swig of the

cooling draft. And at this juncture a head of scarlet curls was

poked out from the covert of the Indian shawl tablecloth, and the

clear treble of his eldest son piped out:

"Dada, how much money is seven fousand golding sovereigns? And how

long will it be before I get them to make ducks and drakes?"