"I'm running down!"
"Down where?" ejaculated he, in well-feigned alarm.
"Wretch!" gasped I, "somebody ought to wind me up."
"Up where?" again asked my unsympathetic tormentor.
"Brute!" was all I could say.
"That's just the way with you clever people," began the ribbon; "as long
as you are all right no name's bad enough for poor people like us; but
as soon as ever you get into trouble--"
Here with a groan I ran down, and was spared the end of his speech.
I only had a vague, dim idea of what took place for the next few months.
I was conscious of long railway journeys, and arriving at a big,
dreary-looking sort of prison where there was nothing but soldiers.
All day long the place rang with bugle notes and words of command; and
all night my master slept in a great room with a lot of noisy men, of
whom I have an impression he was not the most silent. In due time he
put a coat over the waistcoat in which I lived, and was mightily proud
the first time he walked abroad in his new dress. And so things went on
for nearly a year.
But one day it was evident some great excitement had come to vary the
monotony of our barrack life. Officers talked in clusters instead of
drilling their men, and the men instead of doing their ordinary work
crowded into the long shed to talk over the news.
And it soon came out what the news was. The regiment had been ordered
to hold itself in readiness for immediate service at the seat of war in
India! What excitement there was! What cheers and exultation! What
spirits the men were in, and what friends every one became all of a
sudden with everybody else! Among the rest my young master's blood rose
within him at the thought of fighting. He had grown sick of the dull
routine of barrack life, and more than once half repented his easy
acceptance of the Queen's shilling, but now he thought of nothing but
the wars, and his spirits rose so high that the sergeant on duty had to
promise him an arrest before he could be reduced to order.
At night the room where we slept was a perfect Babel. Men talked of
nothing but the voyage and the campaign that was to follow, and wished
the marching orders had been for to-morrow instead of next week.
Suddenly (and I don't exactly know why) my master remembered my
existence, and I heard him call out,--
"Does any of you boys know anything about a watch, at all?"
"Duck Downie does," replied one or two voices.
"Duck Downie, me jewil, will ye step this way just?" called out my
master, "and cast your eye on my watch?"
The gentleman rejoicing in the name of Duck Downie was a ferocious-
looking little fellow who had, before he decided to devote his energies
to the extermination of her Majesty's foes, been a watchmaker's
apprentice. He came, forward at the invitation, and cast his eye in the
direction indicated. It was evidently the first time he had known that
Paddy so much as owned a watch; for he stared hard at me, and then said
with a knowing wink,--
"Did he struggle much?"
"Faith and he did a wee bit, Duck, but so did I too, ye see," said
Paddy, entering into the joke.
"Let's have a look at him," said Duck, taking me and stripping the coat
off my back. "Give us the key."
"The kay!" said Paddy, whose notions of a watch's interior were
delightfully vague; "sure there's no kay. Here, Edward I will ye lend
Mister Downie a kay!"
The youth addressed as Edward fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the
key of his locker, which he handed to my master.
"That's the boy! Here's a kay, Duck darlint, since ye want one."
Duck was rude enough to laugh immoderately at this--so much so, that my
master, who was unconscious of a joke, grew quite angry.
"Ef that's all ye can do--gape like an ould money-box--I can do that as
well myself; so hand up the watch!"