One morning, in the autumn of the same year, a small cluster of men
standing on the deck of the troopship "Lizard," as she tumbled lazily
forward over the waves, descried in the far horizon before them a dim
low line of blue. My master was one of this cluster, and having
recovered from the depression which had afflicted both his spirits and
his stomach during the early part of the voyage, now celebrated the
"discovery of India" with a cry so outlandish, and other manifestations
of joy so extravagant (one of which was pitching one of the sergeants'
caps overboard) that he was instantly summoned before the officer in
command, and ordered to remain below for the next twelve hours. This
was, I need hardly say, a disappointment to both of us.
All day long we heard overhead the crowding of footsteps, the clanking
of chains, and the banging about of baggage. The men were paraded on
deck and one or two servants down where we were were very busy polishing
the officers' swords. Altogether it looked as if we were not intended
to remain an hour longer in Bombay than was necessary before marching to
the front. Indeed, the arrival of a newspaper on board, along with the
pilot, created such a ferment among the officers and men that it was
evident something unusual had happened since we last heard the news.
When, towards evening, my master was allowed once more to come on deck,
we were not long in discovering the cause of all this.
The Indian Mutiny, which had just broken out when we left England, had
suddenly assumed enormous and hideous dimensions. The rebels, taking
advantage of their first success, seemed to have gone mad with a most
cruel madness. Helpless Englishwomen and children had been massacred
and outraged; gallant Englishmen, overpowered by numbers, had been put
to shameful deaths. One by one our strongholds had been surprised and
captured; and, carrying all before them, the traitors bade fair to leave
England not so much as a foothold in India.
This was enough to make the blood of the tamest among us boil with
indignation, and, as the dreadful truth, bit by bit, dawned on our
gallant fellows, their impatience became almost beyond control. My
master was in sad peril of another arrest by reason of his excitement.
"Show me the spalpeens! Show me 'em!" roared he, almost beside himself.
"Let me at 'em, Duck, ye blackguard; let me at 'em!"
And so saying he seized Mr Downie, who happened to be standing near
him, and nearly shook the bones out of that unoffending hero's body.
"Do ye hear?" roared Paddy, quite out of his senses.
"I hear," said Downie, coolly, proceeding to take off his coat and tuck
up his shirt-sleeves as if he were going to wash his hands.
"What's the gossoon about at all?" cried my master, taken aback by this
unexpected reply to his question.
"On'y going to smash you!" calmly replied the imperturbable Duck,
beginning to spar--"so come on, my lad!"
That Patrick would have joyfully accepted the invitation I have no
doubt, had not an accident at that moment befallen him.
A trolly coming up behind, took him off his feet. To recover himself,
he took a spring forward, and landed full on the top of the junior
ensign of the regiment, a mild youth with a very little voice, and for
the next minute the two were rolling, one on the top of the other, over
and over, along the wet deck, amid the laughter of everybody.
By the time Paddy had picked himself up, and helped the poor young
ensign to his feet, his ardour was sufficiently damped. He apologised
with as good grace as he could to his late victim, and made very humble
excuses to the sergeant in charge, who, fortunately for him, had
witnessed that the affair was an accident.
Duck Downie, however, with his coat off and his sleeves tucked up, still
awaited his man as if nothing had happened, and seemed surprised that
Paddy was not as eager as before for the fray. The latter, however,
quite sobered by this time, merely cried out in the hearing of
everybody,--
"Arrah! Downie, darlint, ye may put on your coat, because I forgive you
this onst; but, man dear, don't do it again!" and was thereby considered
by everybody to have had the best of the whole adventure.
Under such dignified circumstances did we set foot on Indian soil.
The reader will be surprised that I have never yet remembered that when
I last heard of him, Charlie, my first master, was in India. I did
remember it often and often--during the voyage and after landing. And
yet I quite despised myself for imagining (as I did) that the next white
face I saw would surely be his. India is a big place--a dreadfully big
place--and the chances of finding any one particular person there are
about as great as of discovering a needle in a haystack. He might have
left India long ago; he might have fallen in the massacres of the past
few months; he might be somewhere right across the continent. And so,
though I could not get rid of a vague sort of expectation, during the
first few days of my being in India, I always laughed at myself for a
simpleton for thinking such a chance possible.
However, we had no time for thinking just then. From the moment we
landed in Bombay, and for a week or two afterwards, we were continually
on the move. Long forced marches under a broiling sun, it was enough to
wear out any ordinary troops. But our men, and the column to which they
were now attached, formed no ordinary body of men. They were Englishmen
hastening to the rescue, and nothing on earth could stop them. It was
strange how slowly the news of those stirring times came to our ears.
One day we heard with a horror that I can never describe of that foul
massacre at Cawnpore, where in cold blood gentle English ladies and
innocent children had been brutally massacred, and their bodies flung
into a well. Then the news came of the achievements of that wonderful
army of relief led by Havelock.
Day after day came the news of his march on Lucknow, where our besieged
fellow-countrymen lay. Every one knows of that heroic march. Inch by
inch, almost, that handful of men fought their way, fighting a battle a
day, and never yielding a step.
One day a horseman galloped into our camp in a great state of
excitement. As he flung himself from his horse he shouted something,
but we only caught the two words, "Havelock," "Lucknow." It was enough.
Lucknow was saved! There rose cheer upon cheer at the news, and shout
upon shout. Men and officers alike waved their hats and shook hands,
Paddy, as usual, let his feelings get the better of him, and nearly
broke Larry's spine with the joyful thump he gave it; indeed, it is safe
to say our men were almost as proud as if they had themselves achieved
the relief.
Presently, however, there spread a rumour that though Lucknow was saved,
it was not yet relieved.
Havelock had fought his way in, but until help arrived, he, too, would
be a prisoner within its walls; and almost in the same breath came the
grand news; our column was the one destined for this glorious work! How
our hearts beat! What mattered it now how long the marches were, and
how grilling the sun?
"Lucknow" was the cry; and that magic word sustained us in every
hardship and peril.
We reached Cawnpore at last, and there joined Sir Colin Campbell's
force. The sight of this house of murder was simply maddening to the
men. They left the place next morning with a sort of shudder, and set
their faces towards Lucknow. It was not till we were well on the march
that I had leisure to look about me and notice how our force was
increased.
Several now regiments were with us, and the commander-in-chief and his
staff and heavy guns and siege trains accompanied the march. With the
exception of a few skirmishes, my master had yet to learn what a battle
was. We crept on, halting sometimes, and sometimes pushing on, until
one jubilant afternoon the distant walls of Lucknow appeared in sight.
Then indeed our brave fellows began to breathe again.
To-morrow would bring them to the city walls, and--what was equally
after their hearts--face to face with the enemy. We bivouacked here for
the night.
Now it happened on this particular night that my master was on sentinel
duty for the first time in his life, and mightily proud of his charge.
There he stood as stiff as a poker, with his rifle at his side, and I
verily believe would have thought nothing of running his bayonet through
the body of the commander-in-chief if he had presented himself without
the password.
Patrick was not a dreamer; and as he looked across in the direction of
Lucknow I don't suppose his meditations were of the loftiest kind. He
knew there would be a fight to-morrow, and so he was happy; he knew duty
might call him to action even to-night, and so he kept a very sharp
look-out at his post; but otherwise his mind was profoundly untroubled.
It was not so with me. On the eve of the battle I could not but feel
that in a few hours I might be ownerless, and in a dead man's pocket;
and, as I looked back upon my strangely eventful life, I sighed, and
half hoped, if he were slain, they would in mercy bury me with him, and
so end my cares once and for all. Little I knew!
It was scarcely ten o'clock when Paddy was startled by approaching
footsteps. They belonged to an officer of our force who was returning
at this hour from an outpost. Paddy eyed him suspiciously, and even
when he gave the word looked disappointed at not having the privilege of
using his bayonet upon him. Just as he was going on his way, the
officer turned and said, in a voice which startled me,--
"Is it ten yet, my man?"
Why did the voice startle me? I could not see the speaker's face, but
as he spoke I fancied myself back in the Randlebury schoolroom, and my
memory saw a bright-eyed boy I had known once whom I could almost have
believed to be the speaker of these few words. Strange what fancies
take possession of one! Patrick, as he _had_ a watch, and had by this
time learned the mysterious art of telling the time, was not the man to
answer such a question as this at random.
"Hould my gun, cap'n," he said, "till I sthrike a light."
Fancy a sentinel asking an officer to hold his gun! I knew enough of
military discipline to make me tremble at the thought of what would
become of my unceremonious master.
But the officer, instead of flying into a rage, took the rifle and
laughed. That laugh reminded me more than ever of Randlebury.
"You're a pretty fellow," he said. "Is that the manners they teach you
at home."
"I axe yer pardon, colonel, but--"
Here the officer laughed again--and oh! how my heart beat as I heard
him. "If I stay here much longer I shall get promoted to general, I
suppose," said he. "Look sharp and tell me the time."
Patrick, without another word, produced a light. The officer's face was
half turned as he did so, and I could not catch his features, but as he
turned impatiently towards the sentinel the light fell full upon it, and
with a bound of astonishment I recognised in the swarthy, soldierly
officer before me, no other than my oldest and dearest master, Charlie
Newcome, of Randlebury.
The strange presentiment, then, was true--I had found him after so long
a time! But what if he should not see me? What torment to be so near
and yet so far! And how was it likely he would take notice of a common
private's watch, and if he did, how was it likely at this distance of
time he would remember poor me? Jim, I know, had told him of the
strange way in which I had come into his hands, and would certainly have
also told him about losing me. He must, therefore, long ago have given
up all thoughts about me, or if he ever remembered me it would be as one
dead.
My master took me out and held me up to the light.
"It'll be about five minutes past ten, your honour, by my watch."
"Thank you. Good--hullo?"
He had seen me! His eyes were suddenly riveted upon me, and he seemed
glued to the spot where he stood.
"Did your honour plaze to spake?" asked Paddy, proceeding to put me back
into his pocket.
"My old watch!" cried Charlie, springing forward, and catching hold of
my master's hand. "Give it to me!"
Paddy's surprise was unbounded. At first he deemed the man mad, then
drunk, then gradually it dawned upon him this was not an officer at all,
but a highwayman in disguise, seeking to take advantage of his solitude
to rob him.
In an instant he sprang back, and, seizing his rifle, levelled the
bayonet to within an inch of Charlie's heart.
"Now, ye thievin' blackguard," said he, "move an inch and I'll stick ye
like a pig. Arrah! but ye came to the wrong boy when ye thought to play
your tricks on me! Stan' still now, or as sure as you're alive you're a
dead man;" and he gave Charlie a suggestive touch with the point of his
weapon, which showed plainly he had every intention of being as good as
his word.
Here was a predicament! and I could do nothing to help.
Charlie, fairly penned in a corner, was at a loss what to say or do. He
began in an angry strain,--
"Don't be a fool, sir; do you--"
"Howld yer tongue!" roared Paddy, giving another poke with his bayonet.
Then Charlie attempted to laugh, which enraged the sentry all the more.
"Is it mock me, ye would, as well as rob me, ye foul-mouthed spalpeen,
you?" he cried.
"I don't want to rob you," put in Charlie.
"Faith and I'll see ye don't," retorted the Irishman.
"Listen to me an instant," besought Charlie.
"The sorra a word. Ye shall say it all before the gineral the morrow,
for there I'll take ye."
For some moments Charlie stood in this awkward fix, not daring to stir,
or even to speak, and with every prospect of spending the night with a
bayonet point within an inch of his body.
Suddenly, however, a brilliant idea occurred to him. If I really was
his old watch, as he fancied, this man had possibly found me where
Halliday had lost me.
It was a bare chance every way, but he determined to try it.
"So you are from Seatown!" he suddenly exclaimed.
The rifle literally dropped from the astonished sentry's hand.
"Who told ye that?" he almost shrieked.
"Never mind," said Charlie, following up the advantage, and softly
stepping out of his corner. "It's two years since you left, isn't it?"
Patrick was "dumfoundered." This man must be in league, surely, with
the powers of darkness!
"_Now_ do you know why I want that watch?" said Charlie sternly, at the
same time quietly picking up the dropped rifle. The tables were fairly
turned now. The wretched Patrick, whose conscience had more than once
smitten him about the way in which he had become possessed of me, looked
the picture of terror--not at the bayonet, but at the man who held it.
He drew me from his pocket with trembling hands, and holding me out at
arm's length, cried,--
"Arrah, arrah! take him, gineral, take him. How was I to know you was
the gentleman dropped him there? Who'd have--"
By this time Charlie had seized me and taken me to the light. In an
instant he stripped me of my coat, and there, with bounding heart, read
his own initials, scratched years ago with his own boyish hand, in the
dormitory of Randlebury.
"It _is_ it!" he shouted; "my old watch! Who would have thought it
possible!"
Then turning to the trembling Paddy, he said, in a voice almost unsteady
in its eagerness,--
"My man, what will you sell me this watch for?"
Paddy looked more astonished than ever.
"Sure it's your honour's own."
"It was once, but it's yours now. But I'll give you a ten-pound note
for him and a gold watch besides if you'll let me have him back."
Imagine Paddy's astonishment.
"Sure Duck Downie says it's not worth thirty shillings--"
"Who cares for Duck Downie?" shouted Charlie, pulling out his purse.
"Here's the money, and if you come to Lieutenant Newcome's tent when you
are off duty you shall have the watch."
And so saying, and not waiting for another word, he darted off, with me
still in his hands, leaving Paddy fairly stupefied with amazement, and
with only presence of mind enough left to pick up his rifle and make a
royal salute to the retreating form of my first and last and dearest
master.