In a wood, within ten miles of Windsor, two youths are seen, gun in
hand, in pursuit of game. A brace of thoroughbred setters, guarding the
cover in front, and a well-equipped keeper, walking obsequiously in the
rear, precludes any suspicion of poaching; though the personal
appearance of the young sportsmen needs no such testimony.
The wood is only an extensive pheasant-cover, and their father is its
owner. They are the sons of General Harding, an old Indian officer,
who, with a hundred thousand pounds, garnered during twenty years'
active service in the East, has purchased an estate in the pleasant
shire of Bucks, in the hope of restoring health to a constitution
impaired upon the hot plains of Hindostan.
A fine old Elizabethan mansion, of red brick, now and then visible
through the openings of the cover, tells that the General has laid out
his lacs with considerable taste, while five hundred acres of finely
timbered park, a "home farm," and half-a-dozen others rented out--to say
nothing of the wood-covers and cottage tenements--prove that the
_ci-devant_ soldier has not carefully collected a hundred thousand
pounds in India to be carelessly squandered in England.
The two young sportsmen, already introduced as his sons, are his only
sons; in short, the only members of his family, with the exception of a
maiden sister, who, being sixty years old, and otherwise extremely
uninteresting, will not figure conspicuously in our tale, however true
it is.
Looking at the two youths, as they step through the pheasant-cover, you
perceive there is but slight difference in their size; there is in their
age, and still more in their personal appearance. Both are what is
termed _dark_; but there is a difference in the degree. He who is the
elder, and who bears the baptismal name Nigel, has a complexion almost
olive, with straight black hair, that under the sunlight exhibits a
purplish iridescence.
Henry, the younger, with fair skin and ruddier cheek, has hair of an
auburn brown, drooping down his neck like clusters of Spanish chestnuts.
So great is their dissimilarity in personal appearance, that a stranger
would scarce believe the two young sportsmen to be brothers.
Nor are they so in the exact signification of the word. Both can call
General Harding father; but if the word "mother" be mentioned, their
thoughts would go to two different personages, neither any longer on the
earth. Nigel's should stray back to Hyderabad, to a tomb in the
environs of that ancient Indian city; Henry's to a grave of later date,
in the quiet precinct of an English country churchyard.
The explanation is easy. General Harding is not the only man, soldier
or civilian, who has twice submitted his neck to the matrimonial yoke,
though few ever wedded two wives so different in character as were his.
Physically, mentally, morally, the Hindoo lady of Hyderabad was as
unlike her Saxon successor as India is to England.
Looking at Nigel Harding and his half-brother, Henry, one could not help
perceiving that the dissimilarity had in both cases been transmitted
from mother to son, without any great distraction caused by the blood of
a common father. An incident, occurring in the cover, gives evidence of
this.
Though especially a pheasant preserve, the young sportsmen are not in
pursuit of the bird with strong whirring wings. The setters search for
smaller game. It is mid-winter. A week ago the youths might have been
seen, capped and gowned, loitering along the aisles of Oriel College,
Oxford. Now home for the holidays, what better than beating the
home-covers? The frost-bound earth forbids indulgence in the grand
chase; but it gives rare sport by driving the snipes and woodcocks--both
migratory birds among the Chilterns--to the open waters of the running
rivulet.
Up the banks of one--a brook that, defying the frost, gurgles musically
among the trees--the young sportsmen are directing their search. This,
with the setters, tells that woodcock is their game. There are two
dogs, a white and a black, both of good breed, but not equally well
trained. The black sets steady as a rock; the white quarters more
wildly, runs rash, and has twice _flushed_ the game, without _setting_
it.
The white dog belongs to Nigel; the black to his half-brother.
A third time the setter shows his imperfect training, by flushing a cock
before the sportsmen are nigh enough to obtain a fair shot.
The blood sprung from Hyderabad can stand it no longer. It is hot even
under the shadows of a winter wood in the Chilterns.
"I'll teach the cur a lesson!" cries Nigel, leaning his gun against a
tree, and taking a clasp-knife out of his pocket. "What you should have
taught him long ago, Doggy Dick, if you'd half done your duty."
"Lor, Muster Nigel," replies the gamekeeper, to whom the apostrophe has
been addressed, "I've whipped the animal till my arms ached. 'Tain't no
use. The steady ain't in him."
"I'll put it into him, then!" cries the young Anglo-Indian, striding,
knife in hand, towards the spaniel. "See if I don't!"
"Stay, Nigel!" interposed Henry. "You are surely not going to do the
dog an injury?"
"And what is it to you, if I am? He is _mine_--not _yours_."
"Only, that I should think it very cruel of you. The fault may not be
his, poor dumb brute. As you say, it may be Dick who is to blame, for
not properly training him."
"Thank'ee, Muster Henry! 'Bleeged to ye for yer compliment. In coorse
it be all my doin'; tho' not much thanks for doin' my best. Howsoever,
I'm obleeged to ye, Muster Henry."
Doggy Dick, who, though young, is neither graceful nor good-looking,
accompanies his rejoinder with a glance that bespeaks a mind still more
ungraceful than his person.
"Bother your talk--both!" vociferates the impatient Nigel. "I'm going
to chastise the cur as he deserves, and not as you may like it, Master
Hal. I want a twig for him."
The twig, when cut from its parent stem, turns out to be a stick,
three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
With this the peccant animal is brutally belaboured, till the woods for
a mile around re-echo its howlings.
Henry begs his brother to desist.
In vain. Nigel continues the cudgelling.
"Gi'e it him!" cries the unfeeling keeper. "Do the beggar good."
"You, Dick," interposes Henry, "I shall report you to my father."
An angry exclamation from the half-brother, and a sullen scowl from the
savage in gaiters, is the only notice taken of Henry's threat. Nigel,
irritated by it, only strikes more spitefully.
"Shame, Nigel! Shame! You've beaten the poor brute enough--more than
enough. Have done!"
"Not till I've given him a mark to remember me!"
"What are you going to do to him? What more?" hurriedly asks Henry,
seeing that Nigel has flung away the stick, and stands threateningly
with his knife. "Surely you don't intend--"
"To split his ear! That is what I intend doing!"
"For shame! You shall not!"
"Shall not? But I shall, and will!"
"You shall split my hand first!" cries the humane youth, flinging
himself on his knees, and with both hands covering the head of the
setter.
"Hands off, Henry! The dog is my own; I shall do what I please to him.
Hands off, I say!"
"I won't!"
"Then take the consequences."
With his left hand Nigel clutches at the animal's ear, at the same time
lunging out recklessly with the knife blade. Blood spurts up into the
faces of both, and falls in crimson spray over the flax-like coat of the
setter.
It is not the blood of Nigel's dog, but his brother's--the little finger
of whose left hand shows a deep, longitudinal cut traversing all the way
from knuckle to nail.
"You see what you've got by your interference!" cries Nigel, without the
slightest show of regret. "Next time you'll keep your claws out of
harm's way."
The unfeeling observation, more than the hurt received, at length stirs
the Saxon blood of the younger brother.
"Coward!" he cries. "Throw your knife away, and stand up. Though you
_are_ three years older than I, I don't fear you. You shall pay for
this."
Nigel, maddened by the challenge from one whom he has hitherto
controlled, drops the knife; and the half-brothers close in a fisticuff,
fight with anger as intense as if no kindred blood ran in their veins.
As already stated, there is but slight difference in their size. Nigel
the taller, Henry of stouter build. But in this sort of encounter the
Saxon sinews soon show their superiority over the more flaccid frame of
the Anglo-Indian; and in ten minutes' time the latter appears but too
well pleased, when the keeper interferes to prevent his further
punishment. Had it gone the other way, Doggy Dick would have allowed
the combat to continue.
There is no thought of further sport. For that day, the woodcocks are
permitted to remain undisturbed in their shrubby cover.
Henry, binding up his wounded hand in a kerchief, strides direct
homewards, followed by the black setter. Nigel stalks moodily behind,
with Doggy Dick by his side, and the blood-besprinkled animal skulking
cowed-like at his heels.
General Harding is astonished at the early return of the sportsmen. Is
the stream frozen up, and the woodcocks gone to more open quarters?
The blood-stained kerchief comes under his eye, and the split finger
requires explanation. So, too, a purple ring around the eye of his
eldest born. The truth has to be told, each giving his version.
The younger brother is at a disadvantage: for the testimony is two to
one--the keeper declaring against him. For all that, truth triumphs in
the mind of the astute old soldier, and although both his sons are
severely reprimanded, Nigel receives the heavier share of the censure.
It is a sad day's sport for all--the black setter alone excepted.
For Doggy Dick does not escape unscathed. Ere parting from the presence
of the General, the licence is taken from his pocket; the velveteen
shooting jacket stripped from his shoulders; and he receives his
discharge, with a caution never to show himself again in the Beechwood
preserves, under the penalty of being treated as a poacher.