"THAT IRRECLAIMABLE SCAMP!"
For some while after his departure from Lannercost, their recent guest
occupied a very large share in the conversation and thoughts of its
inmates. He had been so long with them, had become so much one of
themselves in their quiet, rather isolated life, and now his absence had
left a very real void.
He had written to them with fair frequency, telling of up-country
doings--of the growing aggressiveness of the Matabele, and of the
contemplated expedition, with the object of bringing Lo Bengula to book,
then of the actual formation of such expedition, by that time on the eve
of a start, and how he and young West had volunteered upon the Salisbury
Column, and were to serve in the scouting section. Then correspondence
had ceased. The expedition had set out.
It was then that Bayfield found himself importuned to increase the
circulation of two or three other newspapers, in addition to those
regularly sent him, by one subscriber, in order that no chance might be
missed of seeing the very latest concerning the Matabele war, and upon
such, Lyn and small Fred would fasten every post day.
"I say, Lyn!" cried the latter, disinterring his nose from a newly
opened sheet, "but won't Mr Blachland make Lo Bengula scoot, when once
he gets at him? Man! but I'd like to be there."
"But he and the King are great friends, Fred."
"Pooh! How can they be friends if they're at war? _Nouw ja_--but he
just will scoot old Lo Ben! I'd like to be there."
"I hope they'll take all sorts of proper precautions against surprises,"
said Lyn seriously, for she was just old enough to remember the shudder
of gloom which ran through the whole country when the disastrous news of
Isandhlwana had come upon it like a storm-burst fourteen years
previously. It had struck vividly upon her childish imagination then
and she had not forgotten it.
"Surprises! I'd like to see them surprise a commando that Mr
Blachland's on," returned Fred, magnificent in his whole-souled contempt
that any one could even imagine any such possibility. "And these
Matabele chaps ain't a patch on the Zulus. I've heard Mr Blachland say
so again and again. _Ja_, he's a fine chap! Won't he make old Lo Ben
sit up!"
Lyn would smile at this kind of oft-repeated expression of her young
brother's honest and whole-hearted idolatry, in which, although more
reticent herself, she secretly shared. And the object of it? He was
always in her thoughts. She delighted to think about him--to talk about
him. Why not? He was her ideal, this man who had been an inmate of
their roof for so long, who had been her daily companion throughout that
time and had stored her mind with new thoughts, new ideas, which all
unconsciously to herself, had expanded and enlarged it--and not one of
which but had improved it. He represented something like perfection to
her, this man, no longer young, weather-beaten, somewhat lined, who had
come there in the capacity of her father's friend. Strange, you see,
but then, life is teeming with eccentricities.
This state of Lyn's mind was not without one interested spectator, and
that her father. Half amused, half concerned, he watched it--and put
two and two together. That outburst of grief in which he had surprised
her had never been repeated, and, watching her with loving care, he
failed to descry any symptom of it having been, even in secret. But the
girl's clear mind was as open and as honest as a mirror. There was no
shadow of hesitation or embarrassment in her manner or speech when they
talked of their late guest--even before strangers. George Bayfield was
puzzled. But through it all, as an undercurrent, there ran an idea. He
recalled the entire pleasure which Blachland had taken in Lyn's society,
the frank, open admiration he had never failed to express when she or
her doings formed the topic of conversation between them--the excellent
and complete understanding between him and the girl. What if--Too old!
Not a bit of it. He himself had married very young, and Blachland was
quite half a dozen years his junior. Why, he himself was in his prime--
and as for the other, apart from that shake of fever, he was as hard as
nails.
Now this idea, the more and more it struck root in Bayfield's mind, was
anything but distasteful to him. The certainty that he must some day
lose Lyn, was the one ever-haunting grief of his life. He had pictured
some externally showy, but shallow-pated youth--on the principle that
such things go by opposites--who should one day carry off his Lyn, and
amid new surroundings and new interests, teach her--unconsciously
perhaps, but none the less effectually--to forget her old home, and the
father who loved and adored her from the crown of her sweet golden head
to her little feet. But here was a man whose experience of the world
was greater than his own, a man with an exhaustive knowledge of life,
who had immediately seen and appreciated this pearl of great price, a
strong man who had lived and done--no mere empty-headed,
self-sufficient, egotistical youth; and this man was his friend. He was
thoroughbred too, and the worst that could be said of him was that he
had sown some wild oats. But apart from the culminating stage in the
sowing of that crop--and even there probably there were great
extenuating circumstances--nothing mean, nothing dishonourable had ever
been laid to Hilary Blachland's charge. Personally, he had an immense
liking and regard for him, and, as he had said to himself before, Lyn's
instinct was never at fault. He remembered now that Blachland had
declared he could never stand English life again--and--he remembered
too, something else, up till now forgotten--how Blachland had half
chaffingly commissioned him to find out the lowest terms its owner would
accept for a certain farm which adjoined Lannercost, and which was for
sale, because he believed he would squat down for a little quiet life
when he returned from up-country. All this came back to him now, and
with a feeling of thankful relief, for it meant, in the event of his
idea proving well-founded, that his little Lyn would not be taken right
away from him after all.
So the months went by after Hilary Blachland's departure, but still his
memory was kept green and fresh within that household of three.
One day, when Bayfield was outside, indulging in some such speculation
as the above, out to him ran Lyn, flourishing one of the newly arrived
newspapers. She seemed in a state of quite unwonted excitement, and at
her heels came small Fred.
"Father, look, here's news! Look. Read that. Isn't it splendid?"
Bayfield took the paper, but before looking at the paragraph she was
trying to point out, he glanced admiringly at the girl, thinking what a
sweet picture she made, her golden hair shining in the sun, her blue
eyes wide with animation, and a glow of colour suffusing her lovely
clear-cut face. Then he read:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gallantry of a Scout."
It was just such a paragraph as is sure to occur from time to time in
the chronicling of any of the little wars in which the forces of the
British Empire are almost unceasingly engaged, in some quarter or other
of the same, and it set forth in stereotyped journalese, how Hilary
Blachland of the Scouting Section attached to the Salisbury Column, had
deliberately turned his horse and ridden back into what looked like
certain death, in order to rescue Trooper Spence, whose horse had been
killed, and who was left behind dismounted, and at the mercy of a large
force of charging Matabele, then but a hundred or two yards distant--and
how at immense risk to his rescuer, whose horse was hardly equal to the
double load, Spence had been brought back to the laager, unharmed,
though closely pursued and fired upon all the way. Bayfield gave a
surprised whistle.
"What, father? Isn't it splendid?" cried Lyn, wondering.
"Yes. Of course." What had evoked the outburst of amazement was the
name--the identity of the rescued man--but of this to be sure, Lyn knew
nothing. So of all others it was destined to be the man who had played
him a scurvy dog's trick that Blachland was destined to imperil his own
life to save: true that the said trick had been a very great blessing in
disguise, but that feet did not touch the motive thereof. It remained.
"Bah! The swine wasn't worth it," went on Bayfield, unconsciously.
"No, very likely not," assented Lyn. "But that makes it all the more
splendid--doesn't it, father?"
"Eh, what? Yes, yes--of course it does," agreed Bayfield, becoming
alive to the fact that he had been thinking out loud. "By Jove, Lyn,
you'll have to design a new order of merit for him when he gets back.
What shall it be?"
"Man, Lyn! Didn't I tell you he'd make old Lo Ben scoot?" said Fred
triumphantly, craning over to have another look at the paragraph, which
his father was reading over again. It did not give much detail, but
from the facts set forth it was evident that the deed had been one of
intrepid gallantry. Bayfield, yet deeper in the know, opined that it
deserved even an additional name, and his regard and respect for his
friend increased tenfold. For the other two--well, there was less
chance than ever of Hilary Blachland's name and memory being allowed to
grow dim in that household.
"Why, he'll soon be back now," said Lyn. "The war must be nearly over
now they've got to Bulawayo."
"Perhaps. But--they haven't got Lo Ben yet," replied her father,
unconsciously repeating Blachland's own words. "They'll have to get
him. Fancy him blowing up his own place and clearing!"
"_Ja_. I knew he'd make old Lo Ben scoot," reiterated Fred.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was another household something over six thousand miles distant
from Bayfield's in which the name of Hilary Blachland was held in
honour, which is strange, because the last time we glanced within the
walls of this establishment, the reverse was the case. "That out and
out irreclaimable scamp!" was the definition of the absent one then. It
was hard winter around Jerningham Lodge when the news of Spence's rescue
arrived there, and it was sprung upon Sir Luke Canterby in precisely the
same manner as he had learned the whereabouts of his erring nephew on
that occasion--through the daily papers to wit. He had congratulated
himself mightily on the success of Percival's mission. The latter's
correspondence was full of Hilary, and what great times they were having
together up-country. Then the war broke out and the tidings which
reached Sir Luke of his absent nephews were few and far between.
Thereupon he waxed testy, and mightily expatiated to his old friend
Canon Lenthall.
"They're ungrateful dogs the pair of them. Yes, sir--Ungrateful dogs I
said, and I'll say it again. What business had they to go running their
necks into this noose?"
The Canon suggested that in all probability they couldn't help
themselves, that they couldn't exactly turn tail and run away. Sir Luke
refused to be mollified.
"It was their duty to. Hang it, Canon. What did I send Percy out there
for? To bring the other rascal home, didn't I? And now--and now he
stays away himself too. It's outrageous."
Then had come the news of the capture and occupation of Bulawayo, and
the events incidental to the progress of the column thither, and Sir
Luke's enthusiasm over his favourite nephew's deed knew no bounds. He
became something like a bore on the subject whenever he could buttonhole
a listener, indeed to hear him would lead the said listener to suppose
that never a deed of self-sacrificing gallantry had been done before,
and certainly never would be again, unless perchance by that formerly
contemned and now favoured individual hight Hilary Blachland.
"That out and out irreclaimable scamp," murmured the Canon with a very
comic twinkle in his eyes. Then, as his old friend looked rather
foolish--"See here, Canterby, I don't think I gave you bad advice when I
recommended you to put that draft behind the fire."
"Bad advice! No, sir. I'm a fool sometimes--in fact, very often.
But--oh hang it, Dick, this is splendid news. Shake hands on it, sir,
shake hands on it, and you've got to stay and dine with me to-night, and
we'll put up a bottle of the very best to drink his health."
And the two old friends shook hands very heartily.