DAWN IN THE EAST
MILITARY CRITICISMS--GARE LES FEMMES!--THE MAJOR AT HOME--A
BITTER PILL--“I’M A-WEARY”--VERY NEAR THE BORDER--DAY DAWNS IN
THE EAST--THE BETTER ANGEL--A BRAIN FEVER--A SICK-NURSE IN
SPURS
“’Gad, I thought the Major was very crusty this morning,” remarked
Cornet Capon, as he removed a large cigar from his lips, and watched
its fragrant volume curling away into the summer air. “How he gave it
you, Clank, about leading the column so fast, and about riding that
old trooper instead of your own charger! I can’t help thinking
D’Orville’s altered somehow; used to be such a cheery fellow.”
“_You_ needn’t talk, my boy,” retorted Captain Clank to his subaltern;
“I heard him tell you that if you would attend a little more to your
_covering_, and less to your _overalls_, you would be quite as
ornamental, and a good deal more useful to the regiment; but I agree
with you--he _is_ altered. He’s like all the rest of ’em--a capital
fellow till you get him in command, and then he’s crotchety and
cantankerous and devilish disagreeable. Give us another weed.”
These young officers were not very busy; they were occupied in,
perhaps, the most wearisome of all the duties that devolve on the
dragoon, and their task consisted of lounging about a troop-stable,
attired in undress uniform, to watch the men cleaning and “doing up”
their respective horses. They could but smoke, and talk over the
morning’s field-day to while away the time. Neither of them was
encumbered with an undue proportion of brains--neither of them could
have engaged in a much deeper discussion than that which they now
carried on; yet they did their duty scrupulously, they loved the
regiment as a home, and looked upon the B Troop as their family; and
although their thoughts ran a little too much on dress, fox-hunting,
driving, and other less harmless vanities, they were, after all, good
comrades and tolerably harmless members of society. Cornet Capon’s
ideas oozed out slowly, and only under great pressure, so he smoked
half a cigar in solemn silence ere he resumed, with a wise look--
“There’s something at the bottom of all this about the Major, Clank.
Did you notice where he halted us after the charge--all amongst that
broken ground at the back of the Heath? We shall have half the horses
in the troop lame to-morrow.”
“Old ‘Trumpeter’ was lame to-day,” returned Clank, with a grim smile,
“and that’s why D’Orville was so savage with me for riding him. You’re
right, Capon. The Major’s amiss--there’s a screw loose somewhere, I’m
sure of it, and I’m sorry for it.”
“He lost ‘a cracker’ at Newmarket last week, I _know_,” said Capon,
thoughtfully; “I shouldn’t wonder if he was obliged to go--let me
see--Lipstrap’ll get the majority, and I shall get my lieutenancy.
Well, I shall be sorry to lose him, though he _does_ blow me up.”
“Pooh! man, it’s not _that_,” rejoined Clank, who was a man of
sentimental turn of mind, and kept Tommy Moore in his barrack-room.
“You young ones are always thinking about racing. I’ve known D’Orville
hit a deal harder than that, and never wince. Why, I recollect he
played a civilian, at Calcutta, for his commission and appointments
against the other’s race-horses and a bungalow he had up in the hills.
’Gad, sir, he won the stud and the crib too--and not only that, but I
landed a hundred gold mohurs by backing his new lot for the
Governor-General’s Cup, and went and stayed a fortnight with him at
his country-house besides--best billet _I_ ever had--furniture and
fittings and fixings all just as t’other fellow left them.
No--D’Orville’s as game as a pebble about money--it isn’t _that_.”
Cornet Capon opened his eyes, smoked sedulously for about five
minutes, and then asked Clank, “What the devil there was to bother a
fellow, if it wasn’t money?”
“Women!” replied the Captain, looking steadily at his companion;
“women, my boy. I’ve watched the thing working now ever since I was a
cornet, and I never knew a good fellow thoroughly broke down that
there wasn’t a woman at the bottom of it. Now, look at Lacquers; when
Lacquers came to us, there wasn’t such another cheery fellow in the
Hussar Brigade--it did me good to see Lacquers drink that ’34 we
finished in Dublin--and as for riding, there wasn’t another
heavy-weight in that country could see _the way he went_--and now look
what he’s arrived at. Never dines at mess--horses gone to
Tattersall’s--sits and mopes in his barrack-room, or else off to
London at a moment’s notice--and closeted all day with agents and
men-of-business--and what is it that’s brought him to this pass? Why,
that girl he wants to marry, who won’t have anything to say to
him--and why she won’t is more than I can tell, unless she’s got a
richer chap in tow somewhere else. Capon, my boy, you’re younger than
me, and you’ve got most of your troubles to come. Take my advice, and
stick to the regiment, and horses and hunting and that; but keep clear
of women; they’re all alike--only the top-sawyers are the most
mischievous--you keep clear of ’em all, for if you don’t you’ll be
sorry for it--mark my words if you’re not.”
This was a long speech for the Captain, and he was quite out of breath
at its conclusion; but the Cornet did not entirely agree with him. He
had got a _tendresse_ down in the West--a saucy blue-eyed cousin,
whose image often came before the lad’s eyes in his barrack-room and
his revelry and his boyish dissipation; so he contented himself with
remarking profoundly that “Women were so different, it was impossible
to lay down any general rule about them any more than horses;” and
expressing his conviction that, whatever might be the secret grief
preying upon the Major’s spirits, it could have nothing to do with the
fair sex, “for you know, Clank, D’Orville’s a devilish _old_
fellow--why, he must be forty if he’s a day.”
So the pair jingled into the mess-room to have some luncheon, and
ordered their buggy, to drive up to London afterwards, and spend the
rest of the day in the delights of the metropolis--since this it is
which makes Hounslow such a favourite quarter with these light-hearted
sons of the sword.
The Major was altered certainly, not only in temper, but even in
appearance. He had got to look quite aged in the last few weeks. How
strange it is that time, so gradual in its effects on the rest of
creation, should make its ravages on man by fits and starts, by sudden
assaults, so to speak, and _coups-de-main_, instead of the orderly and
graduated process of blockade! We see a “wonderfully young-looking
man”--we watch him year by year, still as fresh in colour, still as
upright in figure and as buoyant in spirits as we recollect him when
we were boys--we admire his vigour--we envy him his constitution, and
we make minute inquiries as to his daily habits and mode of life--“he
never drank anything but sherry,” perhaps, and forthwith we resolve
that sherry is the true _elixir vitæ_. All at once something
happens--he loses one that he loves--or he has a dangerous
illness--or, perhaps, only meets with severe pecuniary losses and
disappointments. When we see him again, lo! a few weeks have done the
work of years. The ruddy cheek has turned yellow and wrinkled--the
merry eye is dim--the strong frame bent and wasted--the man is old in
despite of the sherry; and Youth, when once she spreads her wings,
comes back no more to light upon the withered branch.
Hair has turned grey in a single night. We ourselves can recall an
instance of a young girl whose mother died suddenly, and under
circumstances of touching pathos. Her daughter, who was devotedly
attached to her, was completely stupefied by the blow. All night long
she sat with her head resting on her hand, and her long black tresses
falling neglected over the arm that supported her throbbing temples.
When the day dawned she moved and withdrew her hand. One lock of hair
that had remained pressed between her unconscious fingers had turned
as _white as snow_. That single lock never recovered its natural hue.
Like the Eastern virgins, it mourned in white for a mother.
Well, the Major looked old and worn as he sat in his lonely
barrack-room, surrounded by many a trophy of war-like triumph or
sporting success. Here was the sabre he had taken from the body of
that Sikh chief whom he cut down at the critical moment when, six
horses’ length ahead of the squadron he was leading, he had been
forced to hew his way single-handed through his swarming foes. There,
spread out on a rocking-chair, was the royal tiger-skin perforated by
a single bullet, that vouched for the cool hand and steady eye which
had stretched the grim brute on the earth as he crouched for his fatal
bound. On the chimney-piece those enormous tusks recalled many a
stirring burst over the arid plains of the Deccan, when the boldest
riders in India thought it no shame to yield the “first spear” to the
“Flying Captain,” as they nicknamed our daring hussar. Nor were these
exploits confined to the East alone. On the verdant plains of merry
England had not Sanspareil, ridden by his owner, distanced the cream
of Leicestershire in a steeple-chase, never to be forgotten whilst the
Whissendine runs down from its source; and did not that spirited
likeness of the gallant animal hang worthily above the cup that
commemorated his fame? Yes, the Major had earned his share of the
every-day laurels men covet so earnestly, and truly it was only
opportunity that was wanting to twine an undying leaf or two amongst
the wreath. Yet did he look haggard, and _old_, and unhappy. His hair
and moustaches had become almost grey now, and as he sat leaning his
head upon his hand, with an open letter on his knee, the strong
fingers would clench themselves, and the firm jaw gnash ever and anon,
as though the thoughts within were goading him more than he could
bear. Like some gallant horse that feels the armed heel stirring his
mettle the while he champs and frets against the light pressure of the
restraining bit, a touch too yielding for him to face, too maddening
for him to overcome, so the Major chafed and struggled, and while he
scorned himself for his weakness, submitted to the power that was
stronger than he; and though he strove and sneered, and bore it with a
grim, sardonic smile, was forced to own the pang that ate into his
very heart.
“And this is what you have come to at last,” he said, almost aloud, as
he rose and paced the narrow room, and halted opposite the
looking-glass that seemed to reflect the image of his bitterest enemy;
“this is what you have come to at last. Fool--and worse than fool!
After chances such as no man ever so threw away--after twenty years of
soldiering, not without a certain share of distinction--with talents
better than nine-tenths of the comrades who have far outstripped you
in the race--with a brilliant start in life, and wind and tide for
years in your favour--with luck, opportunities, courage, and above
all, experience, what have you done? and what have you arrived at?
Three words in a dispatch which is forgotten--a flash or two of the
spurious, ephemeral fame that gilds a daring action or a sporting
feat--the reputation of being a moderately good drill in the
field--and a chance word of approbation from fools, whom you know that
you despise. Truly a fair exchange--a most equal barter. This proud
position you have purchased with a lifetime of energy spent in vain,
and that thorough self-contempt which is now your bitterest
punishment. Money, too; what sums you have wasted, lavished upon worse
than trifles!--but let that pass. Had you the same fortune and the
same temptations you would spend it all again. The dross is not to be
regretted; but oh! the time--the time--the buoyancy of youth, the
vigour of manhood that shall never come again. Fool! fool!” and the
Major groaned aloud. “And what have I lived for?” he added, as he sat
himself down and leaned his head once more upon his hand, looking into
his past life as the exile looks down from a hill upon the lights and
shades of the cherished landscape he shall see no more. “I have lived
for self, and I have my reward. Have I ever done one single action for
a fellow-creature, save to indulge my own feelings? have I not schemed
and flattered, and worked and dared all for self? and this is the
upshot. The first time I try to do a disinterested action--the first
time I strive to break from the fetters of a lifetime, to be free, to
be _a man_, I am foiled, and scouted, and spurned. Refused!--refused!
by a poor governess--ha! ha!--it is, indeed, too good a joke. Gaston
D’Orville on his knees, at forty, a grey old fool--on his knees to a
wretched, dependent governess, and she refuses him. By all the demons
in hell--if there _is_ a hell--it serves him right. Laugh! who can
help laughing? And yet what a woman to lose--a woman who could write
such a letter as this--a woman who knows me better, far better, than I
know myself; she would have shared with me every dream of
ambition--she would have appreciated and encouraged the few efforts I
have ever made to be good--she would have understood me, and with her
I could have been happy even in a cottage--but no! forsooth. Her
mightiness, doubtless, thinks the poor major of hussars, pretty nearly
ruined by this time, no such great catch. And is she not right? What
am I, after all, that I should expect any human being to give up
everything for _me_? Broken-down, old, worn-out, if not in body, at
least utterly out-wearied and used-up in mind, why should I cumber the
earth? Gaston, my boy, you have played out your part--you have got to
the end of your tether--’tis time for the curtain to drop--’tis time
to lie down and go to sleep--there is not much to regret here--you
have seen everything this dull world has to show. Now for ‘fresh
fields and pastures new’--at all events the waking will be glorious
excitement--to find out the grand secret at last--where will it be,
and how? I might know in ten minutes--many an old friend is there
now--not badly off for company at any rate--there was poor Harry, the
night before we were engaged at Chillianwallah he thought he was
_there_. How well I remember him, as he told me his dream just before
we went into action! He thought he was disembodied--floating, floating
away through the blue night sky--hovering over the sea--bathing in the
moonlight--flitting amongst the stars, and ever he got lighter and
lighter, and ever he rose higher and higher, till he reached a cool,
quiet garden, without a breeze or a sound, and there he saw his mother
walking, as he remembered her before she died, when he was yet a
child. And she placed her hand upon his brow, and the thin transparent
hand clove through him--for he, too, was a spirit--till it struck
chill like ice around his heart, and he awoke. Poor Harry, I saw him
go down with a musket-shot through his temples; and he knows all
about it, too, now. Pain! the pain is nothing. A dislocated ankle is
far more acute agony than it would take to kill an elephant--’tis but
a touch to a trigger, and the thing’s done.”
D’Orville got up coolly, and calmly walked across the room, took a
certain oblong mahogany box from under his writing-table, and quietly
unlocking it, drew his hand along the smooth, shining barrel of a
pistol. He examined it well, pricked the touch-hole, shook the powder
well up into the nipple, and then, having wiped the weapon almost
caressingly, laid it down on the table at his elbow, and pursued his
reflections, more at ease now that he had prepared everything for his
escape.
“Well, it can be done in a moment, so there need be no hurry about it.
In the meantime, let me see--I should like to leave some remembrances
to the fellows in the regiment. There’s that sabre--how game the old
white-bearded chief died!--I almost wish I hadn’t cut him down.
‘Faith, I shall see him too. I expect he won’t give me so warm a
welcome as Harry--it’s a pity I can’t take him his sword back again.
Well, Lacquers always admired it, and I’ll leave it him. Poor
Lacquers, he’s a good fellow, though a fool. I’ll leave a note, too,
asking him to take care of the white horse, and shoot him when he’s
done with him: let him follow his master, poor old fellow! Yes;
there’s very little to arrange--one advantage in having got through a
good property. I don’t think there’ll be much quarrelling over _my_
will. And now, to consider the journey. I must have been very near it
often before; and yet, somehow, I never looked at it in that light.
’Tis a different thing in action, with the excitement of duty, and
watching the enemy, and keeping the men in hand, and that confounded
smoke preventing one from seeing what is going on. No, I’ve never been
_quite_ so near as now; but I must some day, even if I should put it
off--I _must_ go at last--and why not now? What matter whether at
forty or seventy? Time is not to be reckoned by years. I am old, and
fit for nothing else. When the fruit is ripe, it had better be
plucked; why should people let it hang and rot, till it drops off the
tree, all spoilt and decayed? How do I know I may not want some of
my manly energy where I am going? _Going_--how strange it
sounds! Well, now to ticket the sabre, and write a line to poor
Lacquers”--(D’Orville indited a few words in his firm, bold hand; if
anything, firmer and bolder than usual)--“and now for ‘a leap in the
dark’--face the Styx, if there be such a place, just like any other
_yawner_; and so, steady, steady!”
His hand was on the pistol--the lock clicked sharp and true up to the
cock--one touch of the trigger, and where would Gaston D’Orville have
been?--when his eye chanced to light upon the seal of Mary’s letter.
It was a casual seal, accidentally selected from a number of others,
but the device was somewhat uncommon, and now struck D’Orville with a
strange, painful distinctness that surprised him. It was but an eye,
surrounded by an obliterated motto; yet it served for an instant to
divert his attention; and--on such trifles turns the destiny of
man--he laid down the pistol, and took up the letter to examine it
more closely. The eye seemed to fascinate him. Turn which way he
would, that eye seemed to watch him; steadily, unremittingly, an eye
that never closes or slumbers seemed to be above him, around him, all
about him; he rose from his chair, and still the eye followed him; he
walked to the window, and the eye watched him steadily from out the
blue summer sky. A trumpet-note pealed from the rear of the building;
it was one of those merry stable-calls so dear to every cavalry
soldier’s heart. The familiar strain brought D’Orville to himself; the
tension of his brain relaxed. As the excitement subsided, the
visionary disappeared, and the real resumed its sway over strong
nerves and a powerful intellect. Mechanically he put the pistols away,
and carefully locked them in their case. Still the eye seemed to be
watching him; and a vague feeling of shame began to take possession of
him, as the suspicion rose in his mind that there was _cowardice_ at
the bottom of the resolution which he had made, as he thought so
boldly, a few minutes ago.
D’Orville was a naturally brave man, and the force of habit and
education had taught him to scorn anything in the shape of fear as the
vilest of all degradation. To betray a woman in his code might be
venial enough; but to shrink from aught in earth, or heaven, or hell,
was a stain upon his honour _not_ to be thought of. In his career of
active service he had seen the advantage of courage too often, had
discovered too frequently how much more rare a quality it is than is
generally supposed, not to appreciate its value and worship it as an
idol, although conscious of possessing it himself. It now dawned upon
him that suicide was after all but a desperate method of running
away--that the sentry had no right to desert his post until regularly
relieved. By the by, in Mary’s letter was there not something about
warfare as compared to religion?--some parallel drawn between the
Christian and the soldier? Again he perused that letter carefully,
attentively, word for word: but the bitterness was past; the writer
was no longer the poor governess, spurning a suitor whom she ought to
have been proud to accept, but the high-minded, pure-hearted woman,
feeling for his sorrows, appreciating his good qualities, and pointing
out to him those consolations which for her could take the sting from
earth’s most envenomed shafts. One or two expressions reminded him of
his mother--the mother he had loved and lost as a boy. Again he seemed
to see that gentle lady bending her graceful head over him, as she
spoke of other worlds, and other duties, and other pleasures totally
unconnected with this lower earth. He remembered the very gown she
wore; he seemed to hear her low, sweet, serious tones, as she called
him “my darling boy,” and insisted on those miraculous stories which
she was herself fully persuaded were truths, and which the boy drank
in, childlike, nothing doubting. Ah! what if they should be true after
all? What if the whole history should be something more than a legend
of priestcraft, an old woman’s fable? D’Orville had thought but little
on such matters; he had heard them discussed by clever men of opposite
opinions, and it never struck him that either side could demonstrate
very satisfactorily the futility of the adversary’s arguments; but he
was wise enough to know that the boasted human intellect has but a
narrow horizon, that “the two-foot dwarf” sees little beyond the
garden-wall, and that “there are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Here were the only two beings he had
ever _respected_ in the world, shaping their whole conduct, as they
formed all their opinions, upon circumstances which they seemed to
believe facts, as firmly as they believed in their own identity. Well,
what of that? These might be facts or they might not. But stay: was
there not something wanting in the whole scheme and constitution of
life, as he had tried it? Could any man have had better chances of
being happy here than he had had? Was he happy? Was he satisfied? Was
there not always a shadow somewhere athwart the sunlight? Was there
not always a craving for something more? As a boy, he longed to be an
officer; no sooner was that distinction gained than he longed for
fame, first in the boyish arena of mere field-sports, then in the
daring exploits of real war. Had he not for a time drunk his fill of
both? and was his thirst quenched? Could he sit down, “_uti conviva
satur_,” and say “Enough”? No, no, he knew it too well. Then came the
daily craving for excitement--that longing for something unattainable,
which, more than all besides, argues the inferiority of our present
state--the necessity for a _to-morrow_, even when the sun of to-day
has for us set its last. Well, had he not wooed excitement in all her
haunts? Had he not gambled and raced and speculated, and shone in the
world of fashion, and sunned himself in the smiles of Beauty? And had
not the goddess ever fleeted away when just within his grasp? Was not
his heart still empty, his desire unslaked? Even had he not endured
this disappointment--had the only woman he really loved consented to
be his--did he not feel in his innermost soul, was he not forced to
confess to himself, that still there would have been a want?--still
would to-morrow have been the goal, still to-day but the journey. Yes,
disguise it how he might, deaden his sensations with what opiates he
would, he could not but own that hitherto his world had been “stale,
flat, and unprofitable.” Had he not been so weary of life, that he had
voluntarily, even now, been within the wag of a finger of laying it
down, to go he cared not whither, so as it was anywhere but here?
Then if there was nothing in the present that could satisfy his soul,
might he not presume that there was a future for which it was
specially created and intended? Yes, there might be something to live
for after all--there might be a career in which to win more than fame
and more than honour--which at any rate should satisfy those longings
and aspirations here, and might be the portal to such a glorious
hereafter as he could not even picture to his world-wearied
imagination--and if so, what scheme so probable, what religion so well
supported by historical proof and logical deduction, as that which he
had learnt at his mother’s knee? One by one, thoughts came back to him
that had lain dormant for more than thirty years; one by one he
recalled the miraculous facts, the touching sufferings that had awed
his boyish imagination and moved his boyish heart. For the first time
for more than thirty years, he thought as a reality of the Great
Example who never quailed nor flinched, nor shrank one jot from His
superhuman task. Did he admire courage? There was One who had faced
the legions of hell, unaided and alone, with but human limbs and a
human heart to support Him through the dread encounter. Did he admire
constancy? There was One who voluntarily endured the obloquy of the
world, the agonies of the most painful death, and moved not an eyelash
in complaint or reproach. Did he admire self-denial--that most heroic
of all heroism? What had that One given up to walk afoot through this
miserable world, with such a prospect as the close of His earthly
career!--and for whom?--even for him amongst the rest--for him who
till this very moment had never thanked Him, never acknowledged Him,
never so much as thought of Him. The strong man’s heart was touched,
the well was unsealed in the desert, and, as the tears gushed from his
unaccustomed eyes, Gaston D’Orville bent the knees that had not bent
for half a lifetime; and can we doubt that he was forgiven?
* * * * *
In four-and-twenty hours D’Orville was laid upon his small
camp-bedstead in a brain fever. The excitement of his late life; the
reaction consequent on his abandonment of his awful resolution; the
strong revulsion of feeling, into which we have no right to pry, had
been too much for a constitution already shaken by years of
dissipation and hard service beneath an Indian sun; and for days
together life and death trembled in the balance so evenly that it
seemed a single grain might turn the scale. And of all his comrades,
who was it that watched at his bedside with the attention, almost the
tenderness, of a woman--sitting up by him at night, giving him his
medicine, smoothing his pillow, and tending him with a brother’s
love?--who but Lacquers! the unmeaning, empty dandy--the fellow with
but two ideas, his dress and his horses--the ignorant, grown-up
schoolboy that could scarcely write his own name; but, for all that,
the staunch, unflinching comrade, the true-hearted, generous friend.
When the lamp, after flickering and fading, and well-nigh dying out
altogether, began once more to flame up pretty steadily, and the
Major, gaunt and grim, with nearly white moustaches, and a black
skull-cap, and haggard hollow cheeks, began to experience the
superhuman appetite of convalescence, and the wonderful longing for
open air and country scenery, and such simple natural pleasures, which
invariably comes over those who have been near the confines of Life
and Death, as though they brought back with them from that mysterious
borderland the earlier instincts of childhood; when, in short, the
Major was getting better, and could sit at his window and see the
white charger go to exercise, or the regiment get under arms below,
many and long were the conversations between him and Lacquers on the
thoughts and feelings which almost insensibly had sprung up in each of
them. Lacquers did not conceal his disappointment as regarded Blanche.
Poor fellow, he had made her an honest, disinterested offer, and it
had not entered into his calculations that he might be repulsed.
“I know I’m not good enough for her, D’Orville,” the humbled dandy
would sigh, as he poured his griefs into his friend’s ear. “I’m not
very ‘blue,’ and that sort of thing, though I suppose I’ve got natural
talents just like other fellows; but I stood by her when all the rest
gave way, and I was the only one amongst ’em that really liked her for
herself and not for her money. Why, you yourself, D’Orville” (the
Major winced), “you yourself never made up to her after you heard of
the smash, nor Mount Helicon, nor Uppy, nor any of ’em; to be sure she
had refused Uppy; do you remember how glum he looked that night at
‘The Peace’? but I don’t believe he’d have proposed to her ten days
later. She might have liked me much better when she came to know
me--mightn’t she? and I would have read history and grammar, and Latin
and Greek, and that, and made myself a scholar for her sake. I can’t
help feeling it, Major, and that’s the truth. She’s the only woman I
ever really cared for; and what have I to live for now?”
Then it was that D’Orville showed himself an altered man--then it was
that the thoughts which had first flashed across him when he
contemplated self-destruction, and had since been progressively
developing themselves on a bed of sickness, bore their fruit, as such
thoughts will sooner or later where a man has a heart to feel or a
brain to reason. He explained to Lacquers the views he now entertained
of life, its duties, and its charms--how different from those on which
he had hitherto acted! He pointed out to him the utter insufficiency
of everything on earth to constitute happiness, when unconnected with
a grand object and a future state of being. He talked well, for he was
in earnest; and he reasoned closely, for his was a penetrating
intellect, ever ready to strip at a moment’s notice the illusive from
the real. He had all his life been an acute man--saw through a fallacy
in an instant, and, to do him justice, never hesitated to expose it:
“Called knavery, knavery--and a lie, a lie.”
Such a mind, when convinced of truth, is doubly strong; and Lacquers
listened, much admiring, though, it must be confessed, not always
quite understanding the deductions of his mentor. Yet was he too, ere
long, stirred with a noble ambition, a desire to fulfil his
destiny in life with some credit to himself and benefit to his
fellow-creatures--a longing to be useful in his generation--to feel
that he was part of the great scheme, and, however humble might be his
task, yet that its fulfilment was a fair condition of his very
existence, and was conducive to the well-being of the whole.
“But what can I do, however willing I am?” he would say. “An officer
of hussars cannot be a Methodist preacher, or even a moral
philosopher, without doing more harm than good. If I thought I had
talents for it, and eloquence and learning, I’d sell out to-morrow,
and go to South Africa as a missionary, or anywhere else--Gold Coast,
Sierra Leone--anything rather than be a useless drone cumbering the
earth in a life without an aim.”
“Not the least occasion for that,” replied D’Orville.
“Fortune--accident--call it rather Providence--has placed you in a
certain station, and it is fit for you to fulfil the duties of that
station without repining or restlessness, because, forsooth, it does
not happen to square exactly with some vague notions of your own. You
may do a deal of good, though you _are_ an officer of hussars. Why
should a soldier be necessarily an irreligious or an immoral man? It
is not his profession that should bear the blame, however convenient
it may be to make the red coat a scapegoat. We must have troops. We
cannot be secure from war. Do you suppose a man leading a squadron
gallantly against an enemy, doing the best he can for all--cool,
confident, and daring--is not fulfilling his duty every whit as well
as he who is on his knees in the rear praying for his success the
while? Our calling bids us look death in the face oftener than other
men, and that very fact should give us trust in Him on whom alone we
can depend at the last gasp. We are always nearer His presence than
those who are not so exposed: and, for my part, I think it a proud and
honourable privilege. Then, in barracks, may you not improve the
_morale_ of all about you in a thousand ways? You may look to the
bodily well-being of your troop. Why?--first, because it’s your duty;
and secondly, because it’s a pleasure to you, and a credit to have
them smart and clean and well-disciplined! Why should you totally
neglect their minds? They, too, have a future as well as a present.
The one is not less a reality than the other. Ay, it’s startling
enough, because people slur it over, and don’t talk of it, or allow
themselves to think of it; but it’s none the less true for all that.
You may shut your own eyes as close as you please, but you won’t
prevent the sun from shining just the same. I grant you that the task
is a difficult one. So much the more credit in fulfilling it, by an
effort that does require some sacrifice and some self-denial. I have
lived forty years in this world for _myself_--the careless,
thoughtless life that a tolerably sagacious dog might have led--and I
have never been really happy. Come what may, I hope to do so no more.
I have found out the true secret that turns everything to gold, and I
don’t grudge a share of my good fortune to my friends.”
“You’re right, D’Orville,” said Lacquers, shaking the Major by the
hand; “you’re right, though I never looked at it in that light before.
I see that I have an object in life--that I have a task to perform;
and I see--no, I don’t see my way quite through it; but I trust I
shall have courage and patience to do the best I can. D’Orville, I
feel happier than I did. I’m not much of a book-worm, and I can’t
quite express what I feel; but, old fellow, you talked of exchanging,
and going to India; well, I’ll go too--we’ll get appointed into the
same corps--I’m good enough to be broiled in that country, at any
rate--and I’ll never leave you, old boy, for you’re the best friend I
ever had!” Little Blanche Kettering might have done worse than take
poor, ignorant, good-looking, blundering, warm-hearted Lacquers.