Colonel Sutherland was out of doors early next morning, as was his wont.
The weather had improved, the sun was shining, the fells rose dewy and
fresh through the air and distance, the whole face of the country was
changed. The Colonel strayed along the country road, with his unusual
burden on his mind, yet making such minute, half-conscious observations
of external nature as were usual to him; pausing to examine the hedges,
to pinch a bud upon a branch, and make involuntary comparison between
the progress of the spring at home and here; noting the primrose-tufts
which began to appear in the hedgeside herbage, soft green leaves still
curled up in their downy roll; and making unconscious memorandums in his
mind of the early notes of birds already to be heard among the branches.
Everything was early this year, he thought to himself, as with a calm
and placid pleasure he enjoyed the air, the light, and the cold yet dewy
and sparkling freshness of the morning. In the calm of his age this old
man had recovered the sweet sensations and susceptibilities of
childhood; life with its passions and struggles was over for him, or
seemed so; all was well with his boys; and the many and sharp sorrows of
his manhood had left upon him that feeling of happiness in the mere
freedom from acute and immediate pain, which only those who have
suffered deeply can feel. The sunshine warmed and cheered him to the
heart. It was true that trouble, anxiety, and doubt were in that
innocent and tender soul; a strong desire to help and deliver his young
relatives, with still no perception of the means for doing so; but this
was no urgent distress, enough to break in upon that sacramental morning
hour. There might be difficulty, but everything was hopeful; and the
Colonel wandered along the lonely rural road, where the wet grass
sparkled in the sunshine, and the buds on the hawthorn-hedge basked with
a secret growth and invisible expansion in the tender warmth and light;
and in his age, and the quiet of his soul, was glad as they.
As he approached the corner of an intersecting road, voices came to the
ear of the Colonel, or rather one voice, which seemed familiar to him.
The speaker was addressing some one who made little reply; and Colonel
Sutherland heard, to his great astonishment, a glowing description of
the advantages and pleasures of a soldier's life in India, splendidly
set forth by the odd, familiar accents of this voice, as he approached.
Half amused, half amazed, he listened--the words being, evidently, not
of any private importance, and delivered in a tone too loud for
confidential communications. He thought to himself that it must be some
old soldier beguiling the innocence of some rustic lad, whom want of
employment or youthful disappointment had prompted to try the expedient
of "soldiering," and went forward with a wrinkle on his forehead, but a
smile on his lip--divided between sympathy for the supposed victim, and
a professional reluctance to balk the voluntary recruiter, if the
recruit should chance to be a promising one. But, to his surprise, when
he had gained the corner of the road, instead of a young ploughman or
country bumpkin, his eye fell upon a young man of extremely
prepossessing appearance, with all the look of a gentleman, who listened
with dilated nostrils and eyes fixed upon the distant hills--listened as
a man listens whose thoughts are already too many for him, and who has
but little attention to spare for what is said--but who, nevertheless,
has a serious intention of hearing what is addressed to him. The Colonel
was so much startled by this, that he scarcely observed the other person
present, till an astonished exclamation of his own name, and the sudden
motion of a military obeisance, aroused him. Then the smile returned,
though with a difference, to his lip. The speaker was a sergeant of his
own regiment, a veteran nearly as old as himself, who now stood before
him, between joy and reluctance, eager to make himself known, yet not
perfectly satisfied to be found in this exercise of his vocation; with
confusion in his face, and his mouth full of excuses.
"What, Kennedy!" cried the Colonel; "my good fellow, what brings you
here?"
"It's far enough out of the way, to be sure, Cornel," said the sergeant,
rather sheepishly; "and neyther my oun place, nor like it. Sure it's a
bit of a flirt of a girl's brought me, that's come to be married here."
"Married! What, _you_? You old blockhead!" cried the Colonel, inclining
his deaf ear towards the voice, "what do you want with such nonsense at
your age?"
"Na, Cornel, ne'er a bit of me--the Lord forbid!" said the old soldier;
"but a daughter it is, brought up within five mile of ould Derry, but
seed a lad o' the fells as took her heart; and sure she's all in wan, as
ye may say, the whole stock o' me familly; and according, Cornel, I'm
here."
"And at your old trade, I perceive," said Colonel Sutherland--"hey,
Kennedy?--you will never forget your cockade and bunch of ribbons; but I
rather think you're out a little here."
"Ay, sir, ay--I said as much mysel' wan moment afore. The young master,
Cornel, he's aboove my hand," said the sergeant, promptly; "but youth,
sir, youth will not hearken to a good advice. So I bid to tell him as
he desired; he's all for the cap and the feather, Cornel, and it's not
for an ould sodger to balk a gentleman, in especial as it was
information Mr. Roger sought; and I well rec'klet, Cornel, that ye aye
liked a lad of spirit yoursel'."
"This is a mistake, however," said the young man, hurriedly; "I'm not a
gentleman seeking information. Go on, Kennedy; I want pay and
bread--don't be afraid, sir, there's nobody belonging to me to break
their hearts if I enlist. Let him say out what he has to say."
The Colonel cast kindly eyes upon the young man, and saw his nervous
haste of manner, and the impatient way in which he roused himself out of
his half abstraction to deny the inferences of the sergeant--which,
indeed, were entirely foreign to the address which Kennedy had just been
delivering; and his benevolent heart was interested. "I also am an old
soldier," he said, with his kind stoop forward, and his smile; "perhaps
I am a safer adviser for a young man of your appearance than Kennedy.
Eh? Do you prefer the sergeant? Very well! But you must understand that
the good fellow romances, and that rising from the ranks, even in India,
is not so easy as he would have you suppose. Very true, I have nothing
to do with it; but don't be persuaded to enlist with such an idea. I
wish you good morning, young gentleman. You can come to me, sergeant, at
the inn in an hour or so. I am here only for a few days."
And Colonel Sutherland had turned away, and was once more descending the
road, wondering a little, perhaps, that the young fellow did not eagerly
seek his offered advice on a subject which he knew so much better than
the sergeant, when he heard himself called from behind, and, looking
back, found the youth following. As he came up, the Colonel remarked him
more closely. He was of brown complexion and athletic form, though only
about twenty--already a powerful though so young a man. He was dressed
entirely in black--a somewhat formal suit, which almost suggested the
clerical profession, though, in fact, it meant only mourning, and had a
mingled look in his face of grief and mortification, sincere sorrow, and
a certain affronted, indignant, resentful aspect, which raised a little
curiosity in the mind of the Colonel. He came up with a bold, firm,
straightforward step, which Colonel Sutherland could not help
contrasting unawares with that of Horace, and with the colour varying on
his cheek.
"I ought at least to thank you, sir, for the offer of your advice," he
said hurriedly; then came to a pause; and then, as if vainly seeking for
some explanation of the reason why he rejected it; "I am, however, only
a recruit for the sergeant, not for the Colonel," he added, with sudden
confusion. "It is because of this that I appear churlish and ungrateful
in declining your offer. My dress is a deception. I have no right to be
treated as a gentleman."
"These are strong words," said the Colonel. "I presume, then, that you
have done something by which you forfeit your natural rank?"
A violent colour rushed to the young man's face--"No!--No!--twenty times
No!"--he cried, with a sudden effusion of feeling, half made up of
anger, and half of the grief which lay in wait for him to catch him
unawares; "and will not, if I should starve or die!"
"It seems to me," said Colonel Sutherland, looking round in vain for
Kennedy, who had taken the favourable moment to escape, "that you are in
a very excited condition of mind; if you will take my advice, you will
not do anything in your present state of feeling, and, above all, don't
enlist. Kennedy's story is the common recruiting fable, dressed up to
suit your particular palate. The old fellow cannot forget his old
successes in that way, I suppose. It is as foolish to 'list in haste as
to marry in haste, my young friend. It is a thing much easier to do than
to undo. Keep yourself out of temptation, and consult your friends."
Having said so much, the Colonel gave a slight kindly bow to his
companion, and was about to pass on, but, looking at him again, waited
to see if he had anything to say.
"Is it better to take the plough-stilts than the shilling?" exclaimed
the young man; "you know nothing about me--but you look at my distress
with a kind face. You know the world and life as they really are, and
not as they appear to us here, becalmed on the shores of the sea. I have
no friends to consult, no one to be grieved for me whatever I do. I have
not much wit, and less education; I have only what the brutes
have--strength. What shall I do with it. Is it best to be a ploughman
or a soldier?--I will abide by your decision--which shall it be?"
"Walk down with me to my inn," said Colonel Sutherland, "and tell me who
you are, and how this has happened to you."
The young man turned with an implicit, instantaneous obedience. He made
no preface, no explanation. He had reached to that extreme agitation of
mind in which a listener, interested and friendly, is salvation to the
self-consuming spirit, when that spirit is of the kind which can
disclose itself; as in this case it happened to be.
"My name is Roger Musgrave," he said; "I have been brought up as heir to
my godfather, a man supposed rich. With him I have lived most of my
life--we two. He was more than a father to me: but he is dead, and died
poor. There is nothing left of the supposed inheritance--worse than
that; but that is all that relates to me," he cried, suddenly pausing
with a gasp of restrained grief. "The people here exhaust their kind
feelings to me in reproaches upon him who has left me unprovided for.
False reproaches!--insults to me as much as to him! He is gone, and all
control of me, all love for me, have died in his grave. I have myself to
support, and his honour to reclaim. I ask you how I am to do it
best--must it be as a labourer at home, or as a soldier abroad?"
"But you have given me no reason why your choice should be limited to
these two trades," said Colonel Sutherland; "there are many things
besides which such a young man as yourself can do better than either.
Come, you are very young--you are arbitrary and impatient. The
profession of arms can only carry a man on and forward in time of war.
You are thinking of Napoleon's soldiers, those men who might possibly
carry a marshal's baton in their knapsacks; but you forget that the
first thing required is not the soldiers, but the Napoleon--and things
were never so in the English army, my young friend. Even in times of
war, not one man in a thousand rises from the ranks--no, not even in
India--not in the Company's service. Don't deceive yourself. Don't you
know that even the old women in the village break their hearts when
their sons enlist, and declare that anything would be better? I don't
say _that_. I am a soldier myself; but they are nearer the truth than
you."
"Is it then only the alternative of despair?" cried the young man.
Colonel Sutherland curved his hand over his deaf ear, and begged his
pardon, and had not heard him. The excellent Colonel was at home in his
capacity of adviser: he could understand this lad who came with his
heart on his lips ten times better than he could understand Horace, and
took up his case with lively zeal and interest. He took him to the inn
with himself, and made him sit by while he breakfasted, and grew into
friendship with the young stranger almost against his will. On the
whole, the encounter pleased the Colonel: he made Roger promise to come
to him in the evening, when they could talk over his affairs at leisure,
and warned him with fatherly kindness to do nothing rashly, and to
entertain no further thought of enlistment. Perhaps it was very foolish
of the Colonel to comfort the youth's heart after this rash fashion;
perhaps it was "raising expectations which could never be justified."
The old man never thought of that: he had kindness to give, and good
counsel, and some knowledge of the world. He said to himself that this
was all an old man was good for, and so shook hands with poor Roger
Musgrave as if he had known him all his life, and occupied himself on
the road to Marchmain with contrivances for serving him. It was his
"way"; there are people who have a worse "way" to be met with in this
world.