Colonel Manton put up his rod and demanded to be set ashore. It had
been his first experience of coarse fishing on the river, and it had
not proved to his taste. It was not that the perch had been distant or
the chub unapproachable. On the contrary, the place having been
ground-baited overnight, the sport had been excellent. It was the
worms and one other thing which decided him. He had been present at
Talavera, at Ciudad Rodrigo, at Badajos, at Vittoria, at Quatre Bras,
at Waterloo; he had seen as much carnage as most men, but this
bloodless impaling of lob-worms on hooks, and then casting them, so
transfixed, to lie writhing on the river bottom for an indefinite
period at the end of a ledger-line, offended his sense of fitness. It
was not, it seemed to him, playing the game. The worms had no chance,
and they could not bite back. He hated to sit there and think of what
was going on under the quiet water, and the reflection gained nothing
in relish from the fact that, by refusing to soil his own hands with
the viscous contortions of the creatures, he must appear, in
delegating that operation to the boatman, to torture by deputy, like
the most cowardly of Eastern despots. And so when, as presently
happened, this same stolid deputy, in “disgorging” an obstinate hook
from a barbel’s throat tore away---- But it is enough to say that the
Colonel put down his rod and demanded there and then to be set ashore.
There was no gainsaying him, of course. It was sufficient that he was
the guest of a distinguished General living at Datchet; but in
addition to this the Colonel’s personal actions invited no criticism.
He fished--as he walked, as he rode, as he appeared on all secular
occasions--in a dark blue wasp-waisted frock-coat with frogs, in tight
nankeen trousers strapped under neat insteps, in a stiff collar and
full black stock, in a tall hat with a brim so crescented that its
front peak looked like the “nasal” of a Norman helmet. And for the
rest he carried himself and his white moustache with the conscious
authority of a cock of a hundred fights.
The boatman put him ashore on the river-bank some half-mile below
Datchet, towards which village he immediately addressed his steps. The
path was lonely and unfrequented, and it gave the Colonel some
surprise to observe, as he turned a clump of bushes, a fashionable old
beau toddling along it in front of him. In a few moments the latter
paused, nonplussed, at a stile, and the Colonel came up with him.
The pedestrian was a man of uncouth bulk but distinguished mien. He
wore a black frock-coat of a somewhat military cut, with a rich fur
collar. Curly auburn locks, obviously artificial, showed beneath the
brim of his glossy hat, and accented somewhat ghastfully the puffy
pallor of a face whose texture betrayed its age. His eyes had a
glutinous, half-blind appearance; his loose lower lip perpetually
trembled. He peered at the newcomer, panting a good deal, as if the
sudden apparition had shaken his nerves.
“If I may venture, sir,” said Colonel Manton, and proffered his arm.
The other accepted it to mount the stile. It was an ungraceful
business, and, once over, he stood, with his hands to his sides,
vibrating heavily, like a worn-out engine, to his own respirations.
Presently he was sufficiently recovered to speak.
“A damned obstruction--a damned obstruction! Cannot I leave my
carriage a moment to walk round by the water but this annoyance must
appear in my path!”
“A villainous stile,” said the Colonel. “We will indict it for a
trespass.”
He was a reasonable man, and he felt the absurdity of the complaint.
But, to his surprise, his sarcasm missed fire.
“Do so, do so,” said the old gentleman, and took his arm again, as it
might have been his own walking-stick. They went on together, and in a
little the stranger had opened a conversation with all the effrontery
in the world.
“My boy, what’s your rank?” said he. “I perceive you are a soldier.”
The officer stared, and drew himself up.
“Colonel Manton, sir, at your service,” he answered distantly.
He was surprised; but the man was old, near seventy by his appearance,
and very possibly from his cut a retired veteran like himself.
Familiarity from a general, say, would be pardonable, and even kindly.
Besides, he did not dislike the implied suggestion of juniority.
“Hey!” said the stranger--“retired?”
“Yes, sir, retired.”
“Brevet rank?”
“Brevet be damned!” said Colonel Manton hotly. “I owe my promotion,
sir, if you wish to know, to Waterloo.”
The stranger glanced at him with a curiously sly look, and pinched the
arm on which his own fingers rested.
“What!” he said, “were you there?”
“I had the honour, sir,” said the Colonel grandiloquently, “of playing
my little part in that Homeric contest.”
“Whose division, hey?”
“Picton’s--Pack’s brigade. You are a little--you will excuse my saying
it--particular.”
“Certainly I will, my boy. Wounded--hey?”
A distinct flush suffused the Colonel’s cheek.
“Wounded--yes,” he replied shortly.
The old fellow nudged him confidentially.
“Tell me,” he said--“how?”
“Look here--you must forgive me, you know,” exploded the Colonel; “but
I must point out that we are strangers. Still--as a
fellow-campaigner--if that is the case--may I ask, sir, if _you_ were
at Waterloo?”
The other laughed enjoyingly.
“_Was_ I?” he said. “To be sure I was. You had all good reason for
knowing it.”
Colonel Manton’s eyes opened. Here was a momentous implication.
Evidently he had to do with some great general of division, though the
boast sounded a little extravagant and unmilitary. He ran over in his
mind a dozen possible names, but without success. And then the thought
occurred to him: “Good reason for knowing it? What the devil! Is it
possible he was on the other side?”
The idea seemed too preposterous for belief; the stranger was so
obviously British. Who, in wonder’s name, could he be, then? Hill,
Macdonnell, Saltoun, Uxbridge, Vandeleur, Somersett, Hackett--all
divisional or brigadier-generals? He could not identify him, of his
knowledge, with any one of these. The Iron Duke himself? He had never
been brought into very close personal contact with the great man, but
naturally he was familiar with his features. Could it be possible that
time had so fused and blunted those that their characteristic contour
had degenerated into this scarce distinguishable pulp? Prosperity, he
knew, could play strange tricks with countenances, yet a _volte-face_
so revolutionary seemed incredible. And yet who else but the Duke had
been on that day as indispensable as implied? But it was conceivable
that some might have so regarded themselves--that certain heads might
have been turned by their share in the success of so stupendous a
victory.
Colonel Manton had been living abroad on his half-pay for some years,
and, until the occasion of this visit during the summer of 1830, had
dwelt for long a stranger to his native land. He could but suppose
that he had in a measure lost the clue, through subsequent
developments, to old events. It remained clear only that he was in the
presence of one who had, or believed himself to have, contributed
signally to the success of the epoch-making battle. And that must be
enough for him. He spoke thenceforth as a subordinate to his
commanding officer.
“I beg your indulgence, sir,” he said. “I have been absent from my
country for a considerable time, and features once familiar elude me.
You asked about my wound. It is a ridiculous matter, and I recall it
without enthusiasm. The fact is that, when d’Erlon’s guns were
pounding us before the advance, a ball smashed the head of a sergeant
standing near me, and one of the fellow’s cursed double-teeth was
driven into my neck. It was not enough to cripple my fighting-power,
but I would have given a dozen of my own to boast a more honourable
scar.”
The stranger chuckled.
“Scars are not the only guarantee of valour,” he said.
The Colonel ventured: “You brought away some of your own, sir?”
“No,” said the old fellow. “No; Wellington and I got off scot-free.”
The Colonel dared again: “Were you, may I ask, on his personal staff?”
“Well, yes,” said the stranger, chuckling still more, “I suppose you
might call it that.”
Suppose? Colonel Manton gaped. It was positively a matter of history
that not one of that staff had escaped death or mutilation. The other
may have noticed his perplexity, for he turned on him with an air of
sudden annoyance.
“You haven’t the assurance to question my word, I hope, sir?” he
demanded.
“Certainly not,” answered the Colonel.
“I could give you convincing proof,” said the stranger. “Did the
Commander-in-Chief--now did he or did he not--visit General Blücher
at Wavre the night before the battle to make sure of his
co-operation?”
“It is a disputed point, sir,” said the Colonel. “I believe that even
his Grace has been known to contradict himself in the matter, saying
at one time that he would never have fought without Blücher’s
explicit promise to back him up, at another flatly contradicting the
report that he saw the Prussian general on the night before the
battle.”
“And he did not, my boy,” sniggered the old fellow triumphantly, “for
his interview with him was after midnight, and therefore on the day
_of_ the battle. I ought to know, _for I sent him off there myself_.”
He cackled into such a spasm of laughter that the convulsion caught
his wind.
“O, my chest!” he wheezed and gasped, “my miserable chest! I’m the
most wretched creature on earth. But it’s nothing, nothing--the
youngest fellows are subject to it.” He coughed and wiped his eyes
with a heavily-scented handkerchief. “Yes,” he said presently, “yes,
Wellington was a sound workaday general, a fine soldier, an inspired
commissary, but, of genius--h’m! We need only suggest, Manty my boy,
that he was well advised. The man at his elbow, hey? You need not
mention it, you know, but the real hero of Waterloo--hey, d’ye see?
Keep it to yourself; there were reasons against its being
divulged--you understand? What, my boy!”
The Colonel stared before him as if hypnotised; he stumbled in his
walk. Was it possible to mistake the implication--that the laurels
ought by rights to have adorned the brow of this stranger beside him?
He felt like one whose faith had suddenly exploded of its own
intensity, leaving his breast a blackened shell. Could there actually
have been another, of whom he had never heard, at the Duke’s right
hand on that tremendous day, the presiding but unconfessed genius of
it? He had heard speak of the Corsican’s little red familiar. Was his
great rival, were possibly all commanding intellects, so
supernaturally provided?
He was really a simple man, with a mind ruled to certain prescriptive
lines of conduct. He glanced askance at his companion, who was smiling
and murmuring to himself. Who in Heaven’s name could he be, and why
had he selected _him_ for his astounding confidences? For all his own
fearless rectitude, an uncanny feeling began to possess him. He was
glad, in turning a corner, to see the end of the path, and the head of
a waiting coachman showing above the hedge. And the next moment they
had emerged on to the village green.
A barouche stood there, with a bareheaded gentleman standing at its
door. The liveries of the servants were scarlet, and a mounted man in
a scarlet embroidered coat waited a little apart. The gentleman came
forward.
“Will your Majesty be pleased to ascend?” he asked.
The King dropped the Colonel’s arm, and appeared on the instant to
forget all about him.
“Yes, Watty; yes, certainly, my boy,” he said. “Is that the fiery
chariot?”