For nearly a minute Dick did not stir, but stood staring, with eyes wide
open, lips apart, and the piccolo held still on a level with his chin.
Then, as the figure of the officer was hidden by the marching men, the
young musician uttered a low, hoarse sound--the pent-up breath escaping
from his lungs. The while the buildings opposite, the crowd of people
in doorways and at windows, even the marching men steadily tramping by,
seemed to undulate, rise, and then slowly glide round and round, till he
gave a violent start; for a hand had grasped his arm, and he turned to
gaze at the clarionet-player who was supporting him.
"What is it? A bit faint?"
"I--I don't know," faltered Dick.
"I do. That's it. You've been blowing a bit too hard. Don't play any
more. We've just done."
A minute or two gave the lad time to try and recover himself.
"Yes, that's it," said the clarionet-player; "you got excited, and
played too hard. I remember being once like that; I shivered just as
you are shivering now. Doctor said it was only nerves."
"Only nerves!" said Dick, in a low tone, involuntarily repeating the
man's words.
"Yes, that's it. Keep cool, and you'll soon come right. Feel faint
now?"
"No, the giddiness has gone off."
"That's right."
The bandsman ceased speaking, for he had to take his part again, as the
rear of the new regiment marched past with the mounted officers. Then
followed an ambulance waggon, the water-tub, two or three baggage
waggons, and half a dozen men who had fallen out on the march, all of
whom Dick saw as if it were part of a dream, which lasted, in a confused
way, as he and his companion joined their own regiment, took their place
at the head, and returned to their own quarters.
"Getting all right, again?" said the clarionet-player, as they stood
together in the barrack yard waiting to be dismissed.
"What is it? What's the matter?" asked Wilkins, sourly.
"Smithson sick, sir," was the reply.
The bandmaster looked at his principal flute curiously, but said
nothing.
The next minute they were dismissed, and Dick longed in vain for a place
where he could be alone, the only approach to it being the open window,
where, after the customary change of uniform and wash and clean, he sat
gazing out at the sky, but seeing no bright silvery clouds--nothing but
the face of that young officer and the old ruins down by the flooded
river; for it seemed to Dick Smithson that--in spite of what had been
written about midnight and the witching hour--he had seen a ghost, and
in the broad daylight, too.
He tried to cast the idea from him again and again, but that face would
return, wonderful in its resemblance, and at last a painful, feverish
fit came on; for the countenance he had that day gazed upon, and which
had impressed him so painfully, brought up all the old life which he had
tried so hard and successfully to forget.
"It's like a punishment to me, for trying to forget that which I ought
always to bear in mind," he said at last, with a sigh. "How horrible!
and how strange that two people could be so much alike!"
Dick played with the band in the mess-room that evening, and one or two
of his comrades told him he looked ill; but he laughed it off, and tried
to make them believe that the little fit of weariness was a mere
nothing. But his face told a different tale, and that night, when he
went to his bed, sleep refused to come; and to the accompaniment of his
comrades' heavy breathing--that being the most charitable term that can
be applied to it--he once more went over his old life at Mr Draycott's,
from his first entering the great coach's establishment up to the
morning he had left.
At last sleep came--a miserable, feverish slumber, from which he was
aroused by the _reveille_.
"There," he said to himself. "I shall be all right now," as he took his
dripping head out of the bowl of cold water, and felt refreshed by the
scrub he gave himself; but somehow he did not feel right. His head
burned, and he was glad to get out in the open air, in the hope that a
little exercise would clear his brain and drive away the cobweb-like
fancies which seemed to interfere with its working.
Vain hope! The thoughts only came the faster, and at last he began to
ask himself whether he was going to be ill.
"Mark's dead!" he found himself saying mentally; "and there are no such
things as ghosts--education killed the last of them years ago. But it
does seem horrible to come suddenly face to face with a fellow so like
poor Mark that I should have felt ready to declare it was he. Nature
does make people different; and yet that officer is as like him as can
be. Of course, he would have grown set and more manly. And--oh! but
it's impossible! He's dead! he's dead!"
He had gone back into the band-room, where, as of old, some twenty men
were blowing hard, each working up the parts of new pieces, and utterly
regardless, as well as unconscious, of his neighbour--use having given
the bandsmen the ability to practice away deaf to the noise produced by
others. Here he sat down in his own corner, and began to look over his
music, expecting that before long Wilkins would be there to try over a
few pieces in proper harmony instead of discord. But the crotchets and
quavers became people, and the staves the roads along which they passed;
and, the more he tried, the more excited he grew.
For a few minutes he enjoyed a rest, for his eyes suddenly rested upon
Brumpton, who, looking wonderfully fat, shiny, and happy, sat back, with
his jacket unbuttoned, pumping away at the huge brass instrument, whose
coils he nursed at his breast while he boomed and burred and brought
forth bass notes of the deepest and richest quality.
Then Brumpton's smooth, round face grew dim, and in its place there was
the haughty, self-satisfied young officer, proud of his regimentals and
scornfully gazing at the young bandsman as he passed.
Dick could bear it no longer; he felt that he must get back into the
open air, and to some place where he could be in peace while he made up
his mind what to do.
The next minute his mind did not want making up. He had come to a
determination; for, feeling that he would never be able to rest until he
had got rid of the idea of the officer he had met being his cousin Mark,
he set off with the intention of questioning some of the men of the
incoming regiment about their officers.
He started, and had just got outside the door of the band-room, when he
ran against Wilkins, who turned upon him sharply--
"Now, sir! don't run away; I am going to try over that grand march."
"Back directly, sir!" cried Dick; and, to the bandmaster's indignation,
he was off as hard as he could go towards the barrack gates.