They drew apart suddenly, warned by the sound of dipping oars, the creak of thole-pins; and in a few seconds the rower hove into view, pulling up-stream as if for dear life. It was Cai Tamblyn. Catching sight of them, with a sharp exclamation he ceased rowing, held water, and bringing the boat's nose round, headed in for shore.
"You're wanted, quick!" he called to the Doctor. "They sent me off in search of you."
"Hey? What? Has there been an accident?"
Cai brought his boat alongside, glanced at Miss Marty, and lowered his voice.
"'Tis Lady Felix-Williams. These here conquerin' 'eroes of the Major's have swarmed down through the woods an' ran foul of the liquor. The Band in partikler's as drunk as Chloe, an' what with horning and banging under her ladyship's window, they've a-scared her before her time. She's crying out at this moment, and old Sir Felix around in his dressing-gown like Satan let loose. Talk about Millenniums!"
"Good Lord!" Dr. Hansombody caught up his haversack. "The Millennium? I'd clean forgot about it!"
Miss Marty gazed at him with innocent inquiring eyes.
"But—but isn't this the Millennium?" she asked.
Let us return for a while to Talland Cove, and to the moment when Captain Arbuthnot's Dragoons broke ambush and charged down upon the Gallants.
Of all our company you will remember that Gunner Sobey passed for the readiest man. This reputation he now and instantly vindicated. For happening to be posted on the extreme left in the shadow of the western cliff, and hearing a sudden cry, "The French! The French!" he neither fell back with the rest of the crowd nor foolhardily resisted an enemy whose strength could not yet be measured: but leaping aside, and by great good luck finding foothold on the rocks to his left, he wriggled over the low ledge of the cliff and thence— now clutching at the grass bents or clusters of the sea-pink, now digging his fingers into the turf, but always flat, or nearly flat, on his belly—he wormed his way at incredible speed up the slope, found covert behind a tall furze-bush, and surveyed for a few seconds the scene below him.
The outcries which yet continued, the splashing as of men in desperate struggle at the water's edge, the hoarse words of command, the scurrying lanterns, the gleam of a hundred tossing sabres—all these told their own tale to Gunner Sobey. He arose and ran again; nor drew breath until he had gained the top of the rough brake and flung himself over a stone wall into the dry ditch of a vast pasture field that domed itself far above him against the starry heavens.
Now let it be understood that what lent wings to Gunner Sobey's heels was not cowardice, but an overmastering desire to reach home with all speed. Let no reader mistake for panic what was in truth exceptional presence of mind.
The Major, you must know, had drawn up, some months before, and issued in a General Order, certainInstructions in Case of Invasion—in case, that is to say, the enemy should momentarily break through our coast defence and effect an actual footing. The main body of the Gallants would then, converting itself into a rearguard, cover the town and keep the foe in check, while separate detachments fell back swiftly, each to execute its assigned duty. For example:
Detachments A and B would round up and drive off the cattle.
Detachment C would assist the escape of the women and children.
Detachment D would collect and carry off provisions, and destroy what was left.
Detachment E would set fire to the corn and the hayricks.
Detachment F would horse themselves and ride inland to warn the towns and villages, and make all possible preparations for blowing up the bridges and otherwise impeding the enemy's advance after the rearguard's passage. And so on.
Gunner Sobey, though but a volunteer, possessed that simplicity of intellect which we have come to prize as the first essential in a British soldier. It was not his to reason why; not his to ask how the French had gained a footing in Talland Cove, or how, having gained it, they were to be dislodged. Once satisfied of their arrival, he left them, as his soldierly training enjoined, severely alone. Deplorable as he might deem the occurrence, it had happened; andipso facto, it consigned him, in accordance with general orders, to Detachment D, with the duties and responsibilities of that detachment. On these then—and at first on these, and these only—he bent his practical, resolute mind. It will be seen if he stopped short with them.
Picking himself up from the dry ditch, intent only on heading for home, he was aware of a dark object on the brink above him; which at first he took for a bramble bush, and next, seeing it move, for a man.
It is no discredit to Gunner Sobey that, taken suddenly in the darkness, and at so hopeless a disadvantage, he felt his knees shake under him for a moment.
"Parley-voo?" he ventured.
The proverb says that a Polperro jackass is surprised at nothing, and this one, which had been browsing on the edge of the ditch, merely gazed.
"I—I ax your pardon," went on Gunner Sobey, still slightly unhinged. "The fact is, I mistook you for another person."
The jackass drew back a little. It seemed to Gunner Sobey to be breathing hard, but otherwise it betrayed no emotion.
"Soh, then! Soh, my beauty!" said Gunner Sobey, and having clambered the ditch, reached out a caressing hand.
The donkey retreated, backing, step by step: and as Gunner Sobey stared a white blaze on the animal's face grew more and more distinct to him.
"Eh? Why, surely—soh, then!—you're Jowter Puckey's naggur? And if so—and I'll be sworn to you, seein' you close—what's become of th' old mare I sold him last Marti'mas?"
The beast still retreated. But Gunner Sobey's wits were now working rapidly. If Jowter Puckey pastured his jackass here, why here then (it was reasonable to surmise) he also pastured the old mare, Pleasant: and if Pleasant browsed anywhere within earshot, why the chances were she would remember and respond to her former master's call.
I repeat that Gunner Sobey was a ready man and a brave. Without pausing to reflect that the French might hear him, he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled into the night.
For a while there came no reply. He had his two fingers in his mouth to repeat the call when, happening to glance at the jackass, he perceived the beast's ears go up and its head slew round towards the ridge. Doubtless it had caught the distant echo of hoofs; for half a minute later a low whinny sounded from the summit of the dark slope, and a grey form came lumbering down at a trot, halted, and thrust forward its muzzle to be caressed.
"Pleasant! Oh, my dear Pleasant!" stammered Gunner Sobey, reaching out a hand and fondling first her nose, then her ears. He could have thrown both arms around her ewe neck and hugged her. "How did I come to sell 'ee?"
To be sure, if he had not, this good fortune had never befallen him.
Neither Gunner Sobey nor the mare—nor, for that matter, the jackass—had ever read the eighteenth book of Homer's Iliad; and this must be their excuse for letting pass the encounter with less eloquence than I, its narrator, might have made a fortune by reporting. For once Gunner Sobey's readiness failed him, under emotion too deep for words. He laid a hand on the mare's withers and heaved himself astride, choosing a seat well back towards the haunches, and so avoiding the more pronounced angles in her framework. Then leaning forward and patting her neck he called to her.
"Home, my beauty! I'll stick on, my dear, if you'll but do the rest. Cl'k!"
She gathered up her infirm limbs and headed for home at a canter.
For a while the jackass trotted beside them; but coming to the gate and dismounting to open it, Gunner Sobey turned him back. Possibly the mare had a notion she was being stolen, for no sooner had her rider remounted than she struck off into a lane on the right hand, avoiding the road to Polperro where her present owner dwelt; and so, fetching a circuit by a second lane—this time to the left— clattered downhill past the sleeping hamlet of Crumplehorn, and breasted the steep coombe and the road that winds up beside it past the two Kellows to Mabel Burrow. Here on the upland she pulled herself together, and reaching out into a gallant stride, started on the long descent towards Troy at a pace that sent the night air whizzing by Gunner Sobey's ears. Past Carneggan she thundered, past Tredudwell; and thence, swinging off into the road for the Little Ferry, still down hill by Lanteglos Vicarage, by Ring of Bells, to the ford of Watergate in the valley bottom, where now a bridge stands; but in those days the foot-passengers crossed by a plank and a hand-rail. Splashing through the ford and choosing unguided the road which bore away to the right from the silent smithy, and steeply uphill to Whiddycross Common, she took it gamely though with fast failing breath. She had been foaled in Troy parish, and marvellously she was proving, after thirty years (her age was no less), the mettle of her ancient pasture. While he owned her, Gunner Sobey—who in extra-military hours traded as a carrier and haulier between Troy and the market-towns to the westward—had worked her late and fed her lean; but the most of us behold our receding youth through a mist of romance, and it may be that old worn-out Pleasant conceived herself to be cantering back to fields where the grass grew perennially sweet and old age was unknown. At any rate, she earned her place this night among the great steeds of romance—Xanthus, Bucephalus, Harpagus, Black Auster, Sleipnir and Ilderim, Bayardo and Brigliadoro, the Cid's Babieca, Dick Turpin's Black Bess; not to mention the two chargers, Copenhagen and Marengo, whom Waterloo was yet to make famous. As she mounted the last rise by Whiddycross Green her ribs were heaving sorely, her breath came in short quick coughs, her head lagged almost between her bony knees; but none the less she held on down the steep hill, all strewn with loose stones, to the ferry slip; and there, dropping her haunches, slid, checked herself almost at the water's edge, and stood quivering.
Billy Bates, the ferryman at Little Ferry, had heard the clatter of hoofs, and tumbled out to unchain his boat; a trifling matter for him, since he habitually slept in his clothes.
"Hallo!" said he, holding his lantern high and taking stock of the gunner's regimentals. "I allowed you'd be a messenger from Sir Felix. They tell me her leddyship is expectin'."
"I pity her then," gasped Gunner Sobey, and waved an arm. "Man, the French be landed, an' the country's ablaze!"
Billy Bates set down his lantern on the slip and ran two trembling hands through his scanty locks.
"If that's so," he answered, "you don't get no boat of mine. There's Hosken's blue boat; you'll find her moored off by a shoreline. Takesheif you will; he's a single man."
"Darn your old carcass!" swore Gunner Sobey. "I wish now I'd waited to cross over before tellin' 'ee!"
"I dare say you do. Well, good night, soce. I'm off to tell the old woman."
Man is a selfish animal. As Gunner Sobey hauled Hosken's blue boat to shore, poor Pleasant came down the slip-way and rubbed her muzzle against his sleeve, dumbly beseeching him to fetch the horse-boat that she too might cross. He struck her sharply across the nose, and, jumping aboard, thrust off from the shore.
In telling Miss Marty that the town was deserted, Cai Tamblyn had forgotten the Vicar.
That good man, it is perhaps superfluous to say, had not sought his bed. He was a widower, and had no one to dissuade him from keeping vigil until daybreak. At ten o'clock, therefore, having seen to the trimming of his lamp and dismissed the servants to rest, he lit his study fire, set the kettle upon it, and having mixed himself a bowl of brandy-punch (in the concoction of which all Troy acknowledged him to be an expert), drew his arm-chair close to the genial blaze, and sat alternately sipping his brew and conning for the thousandth time the annotated pamphlet in which he had demonstrated exhaustively, redundantly, irrefutably, beyond possibility of disbelief or doubt, that with the morrow the world's great age must be renewed and the Millennium dawn upon earth.
For an hour and a half, or maybe three-quarters, he sat reading and reassuring himself that the armour of his proof was indeed proof-armour and exposed no chink to assault; and then—
The Vicar was a man of clean conscience and regular habits. He closed his eyes to review the argument. By and by his chin dropped forward on his chest. He slept. He dreamt. His dreams were formless, uneasy; such as one might expect who deserts his bed and his course of habit to sleep upright in an arm-chair. A vague trouble haunted them; or, rather, a presentiment of trouble. It grew and grew; and almost as it became intolerable, a bell seemed to clang in his ears, and he started up, awake, gripping his chair, his brow clammy with a sudden sweat. He glanced around him. The fire was cold, his lamp burned low, his book had fallen to the floor. Was it this that had aroused him? No; surely a bell had clanged in his ears. His brain kept the echo of it yet.
He listened. The clang was not repeated; but gradually his ears became aware of a low murmuring, irregular yet continuous; a sound, it seemed, of voices, yet not of human voices; a moaning, and yet not quite a moaning, but rather what the French would call amugissement. Yes, it resembled rather the confused lowing of cattle than any other sound known to him. But that was inconceivable.…
He stepped to the window-curtains through which the pale dawn filtered; pulled them aside and started back with a cry of something more than dismay. The Vicarage faced upon the churchyard; and the churchyard was filled—packed—with cattle! Oxen and cows, steers, heifers, and young calves; at least thirty score were gathered there, a few hardier phlegmatic beasts cropping the herbage on the graves; but the mass huddled together, rubbing flanks, swaying this way and that in the pressure of panic as corn is swayed by flukes of summer wind.
The Vicar was no coward. Recovering himself, he ran to the passage, caught his hat down from the peg, and flung wide the front door.
A little beyond his gate a lime-tree walk led down through the churchyard to the town. But gazing over the chines of the herd beyond his garden railing, he saw that through this avenue he could not hope to force a passage; it was crowded so densely that dozen upon dozen of the poor brutes stood with horns interlocked, unable to lift or lower their heads.
To the right a line of cottages bounded the churchyard and overlooked it; and between them and the churchyard wall there ran a narrow cobbled lane known as Pease Alley (i.e., pis aller, the Vicar was wont to explain humorously). Through this he might hope to reach the Lower Town and discover some interpretation of the portent. He opened the gate boldly.
It was obvious, whatever might be the reason, that terror possessed the cattle. At the creaking of the gate the nearest brutes retreated, pressing back against their fellows, lowering their heads; and yet not viciously, but as though to meet an unknown danger.
"Soh!" called the Vicar. "Soh, then!… upon my word," he went on whimsically, answering the appeal in their frightened, liquid eyes, "it's no use your asking me. You can't possibly be worse puzzled than I am!"
He thrust a passage between them and hurried down Pease Alley. Twice he paused, each time beneath the windows of a sleeping cottage, and hailed its occupants by name. No one answered. Only, on the other side of the alley, a few of the beasts ceased their lowing for a while, and, thrusting their faces over the wall, gazed at him with patient wonder.
At the lower end of the alley, where it makes an abrupt bend around the hinder premises of the "Ship" Inn before giving egress upon the street, the Vicar lifted his head and sniffed the morning air. Surely his nose detected a trace of smoke in it—not the reek of chimneys, but a smoke at once more fragrant and more pungent.…
Yes, smoke was drifting high among the elms above the church. The rooks, too, up there, were cawing loudly and wheeling in circles.
He dropped his gaze to his feet, and once more started back in alarm. A gutter crossed the alley here, and along it rushed and foamed a dark copper-coloured flood which, in an instant, his eye had traced up to the back doorstep of the "Ship," over which it poured in a cascade.
Beer? Yes; patently, to sight and smell alike, it was beer. With a cry, the Vicar ran towards the doorway, wading ankle-deep in beer as he crossed the threshold and broke in to the kitchen. The whole house swam with beer, but not with beer only; for when, no inmate answering his call, he followed the torrent up through yet another doorway and found himself in the inn cellar, in the dim light of its iron-barred window he halted to gaze before one, two, three, a dozen casks of ale, port, sherry, brandy, all pouring their contents in a general flood upon the brick-paved floor.
Here, as he afterwards confessed, his presence of mind failed him; and small blame to him, I say! Without a thought of turning off the taps, he waded back to the doorway and leaned there awhile to recover his wits with his breath.
While he leaned, gasping, with a hand against the door-jamb, the clock in the church tower above him chimed and struck the hour of five. He gazed up at it stupidly, saw the smoke drifting through the elm-tops beyond, heard the rooks cawing over them, and then suddenly bethought himself of the bell which had clanged amid his dreams.
Yes, it had been the clang of a real bell, and from his own belfry. But how could anyone have gained entrance into the church, of which he alone kept the keys? How? Why, by the little door at the east end of the south aisle, which stood ajar. Across the alley he could see it, and that it stood ajar; and more by token a heifer had planted her forefoot on the step and was nosing it wider. Someone had forced the lock. Someone was at this moment within the church!
The Vicar collected his wits and ran for it; thrust his way once more through the crowd of cattle, and through the doorway into the aisle, shouting a challenge. A groan from the belfry answered him, and there, in the dim light, he almost stumbled over a man seated on the cold flags of the pavement and feebly rubbing the lower part of his spine.
It is notoriously dangerous to ring a church bell without knowing the trick of it. Gunner Sobey, having broken into the belfry and laid hands on the first bell-rope (which happened to be that of the tenor), had pulled it vigorously, let go too late, and dropped a good ten feet plumb in a sitting posture.
"Good Lord!" The Vicar peered at him, stooping. "Is that Sobey?"
"Itwas," groaned Sobey. "I'll never be the same man again."
"But what has happened?"
"Happened? Why, I tumbled off the bell-rope. You might ha' guessedthat."
"Yes, yes; but why?"
"Because I didn' know how it worked." Gunner Sobey turned his face away wearily and continued to rub his hurt. "I didn't know till now, either, that a man could be stunned at this end," he added.
"Man, I see you're suffering, but answer me for goodness' sake! What's the meaning of all these cattle outside, and the taps running, and the smoke up yonder on the hill? And why—?"
"I done my best," murmured Gunner Sobey drowsily. "Single-handed I done it, but I done my best."
"Are you telling me that all this has beenyourdoing?"
"A man can't very well be ten detachments at once, can he?" demanded the Gunner, sitting erect of a sudden and speaking with an air of great lucidity. "At least not in the Artillery. The liquor, now— I've run it out of every public-house in the town; that was Detachment D's work. And the hayricks; properly speakin',theybelonged to Detachment E, and I hadn' time to fire more than Farmer Coad's on my way down wi' the cattle.Andthe alarm bell, you may argue, wasn' any business of mine; an' I wish with all my heart I'd never touched the dam thing! But with the French at your doors, so to speak—"
"The French?"
"Didn' I tell you? Then I must have overlooked it. Iss, iss, the French be landed at Talland Cove, and murderin' as they come! And the Troy lads be cut down like a swathe o' grass; and I, only I, escaped to carry the news. And you call this a Millenyum, I suppose?" he wound up with sudden inconsequent bitterness.
But the Vicar apparently did not hear. "The French? The French?" he kept repeating. "Oh, Heaven, what's to be done?"
"If you was something more than a pulpit Christian," suggested Gunner Sobey, "you'd hoist me pickaback an' carry me over to hospital; for I can't walk with any degree of comfort, an' that's a fact. And next you'd turn to an' drive off the cattle inland, an' give warning as you go. 'Tis a question if I live out this night, an' 'tis another question if I want to; but, dead or alive, it sha'n't be said of me that I hadn' presence of mind."
Two minutes later the Vicar, staggering up to the hospital door with Gunner Sobey on his back, came to a terrified halt as his ears caught thetramp, trampof a body of men approaching from the direction of Passage Slip, which is the landing-place of the Little Ferry. He had scarce time to lower his burden upon the doorstep before the head of the company swung into view around the street corner. With a gasp he recognised them.
They were the Troy Gallants, and Major Hymen marched beside them. But they came with no banners waving, without tuck of drum—a sadly depleted corps, and by their countenances a sadly dejected one.
For the moment, however, in the revulsion of his feelings, the Vicar failed to observe this. He ran forward with both arms extended to greet the Major.
"My friend!" he cried tremulously. "You are alive!"
"Certainly," the Major answered. "Why not?" He was dishevelled, unshaven, travel-stained, haggard, and at the same time flushed of face. Also he appeared a trifle sulky.
"What has happened?"
"Well"—the Major turned on him almost viciously—"youmay call it the Millennium!"
"But the French—?"
"Eh? Excuse me—I don't take your meaning.WhatFrench?"
"I was given to understand—we have been taking certain precautions," stammered the Vicar, and gazed around, seeking Gunner Sobey (but Gunner Sobey had dived into the hospital and was putting himself to bed). "You don't tell me the alarm was false!"
"My good Vicar, I haven't a notion at what you're driving; and excuse me again if in this hour of disgrace I find myself in no humour to halt here and bandy explanations."
"Disgrace?"
"Disgrace," repeated the Major, gazing sternly back on his abashed ranks. His breast swelled; he seemed on the point to say more; but, indignation mastering him, mutely with a wave of the hand he bade the Gallants resume their march. Mutely, contritely, with bowed heads, they obeyed and followed him down the street, leaving the Vicar at gaze.
What had happened? Why, this.—
After the fiasco in Talland Cove Captain Arbuthnot had formed up his Dragoons and given the word to ride back to Bodmin Barracks, their temporary quarters, whence Mr. Smellie had summoned them.
He was in the devil of a rage. From the Barracks to Talland Cove is a good fourteen miles as the crow flies, and you may allow another two miles for the windings of the road (which, by the way, was a pestilently bad one). To ride sixteen miles by night, chafing all the while under the orders of a civilian, and to return another sixteen, smarting, from a fool's errand, is (one must admit) excusably trying to the military temper. Smellie, to be sure, and Smellie alone, had been discomfited. Smellie's discomfiture had been so signally personal as to divert all ridicule from the Dragoons. Smellie, moreover, had made himself confoundedly obnoxious.
Smellie had given himself airs during the ride from Bodmin; and Captain Arbuthnot had with an ill grace submitted to them, because the fellow knew the country. They were quit of him now; but how to find the way home Captain Arbuthnot did not very well know. He rode forward boldly, however, keeping his eyes upon the stars, and steering, so far as the circuitous lanes would allow him, north by west.
Bearing away too far to the right, as men are apt to do in the darkness, he missed the cross-ways by Ashen-cross, whence his true line ran straight through Pelynt; and after an hour or so of blind-man's-buff in a maze of cornfields, the gates of which seemed to hide in the unlikeliest corners, emerged upon a fairly good high road, which at first deceived him by running west-by-north and then appeared to change its mind and, receding through west, took a determined southerly curve back towards the coast. In short, Captain Arbuthnot had entirely lost his bearings.
Deciding once more to trust the stars, he left the high road, struck due north across country again and by and by found himself entangled in a valley bottom beside the upper waters of the same stream which Gunner Sobey had forded two hours before and some miles below. The ground hereabouts was marshy, and above the swamp an almost impenetrable furze-brake clothed both sides of the valley. The Dragoons fought their way through, however, and were rewarded, a little before dawn, by reaching a good turf slope and, at the head of it, a lane which led them to the small village of Lanreath.
The inhabitants of Lanreath, aroused from their beds by the tramp of hoofs and with difficulty persuaded that their visitors were not the French, at length directed Captain Arbuthnot to the village inn, the "Punchbowl," where he wisely determined to bait and rest his horses, which by this time were nearly foundered. Being heavy brutes, they had fared ill in the morass, and the most of them were plastered with mud to their girths.
The troopers, having refreshed themselves with beer, flung themselves down to rest, some on the settles of the inn-kitchen, others on the benches about the door, and others again in the churchyard across the road, where they snored until high day under the curious gaze of the villagers.
So they slept for two hours and more; and then, being summoned by trumpet, mounted and took the road again, the most of them yet heavy with slumber and not a few yawning in their saddles and only kept from nodding off by the discomfort of their tall leathern stocks.
In this condition they had proceeded for maybe two miles, when from a by-lane on their left a horseman dashed out upon the road ahead, reined up, and, wheeling his horse in face of them, stood high in his stirrups and waved an arm towards the lane by which he had come.
It took Captain Arbuthnot some seconds to recognise this apparition for Mr. Smellie. But it was indeed that unfortunate man.
He had lost both hat and wig; his coat he had discarded, no doubt to be rid of its noisome odour: and altogether he cut the strangest figure as he gesticulated there in the early sunshine. But the man was in earnest—so much in earnest that he either failed to note, or noting, disregarded, the wrathful frown with which Captain Arbuthnot, having halted his troop, rode forward at a walk to meet him.
"Back, Captain, back!" shouted Mr. Smellie, pointing down the lane.
"I beg your pardon, sir"—the Captain reined up and addressed him with cold, incisive politeness—"but may I suggest that you have played the fool with us sufficiently for one night, and that my men's tempers are short?"
"Havers!" exclaimed the indomitable Smellie, rising yet higher in his stirrups and lifting a hand for silence. "I ask ye to listen to the racket down yonder. The drum, now!" (Sure enough Captain Arbuthnot, pricking his ears, heard the tunding of a drum far away in the woods to the southward.) "Man, they've diddled us! While they put that trick on us at Talland Cove, their haill womankind was rafting the true cargo up the river. I've ridden down, I tell you, and the clue of their game I hold in my two hands here from start to finish. The brandy's yonder in Sir Felix's woods, and the men are lying around it fou-drunk as the Israelites among the pots. Man, if ye would turn to-night's laugh, turn your troop and follow, and ye shall cull them like gowans!"
"It is throwing the haft after the hatchet," hesitated Captain Arbuthnot, impressed against his will by the earnestness of the appeal. "You have misled us once to-night, I must remind you; and I give you fair warning that my troopers will not bear fooling twice."
With all his faults the Riding Officer did not lack courage. Disdaining the threat, he waved his hand to the Dragoons to follow and put his horse at a canter down the leafy lane.
It is recorded in the High History of the Grail, of Sir Lohot, son of King Arthur, that he had a marvellous weakness; which was, that no sooner had he slain a man than he fell across his body. So it happened this night to the valiant men of Troy.
The Dragoons, emerging from the woods of Pentethy into close view of the house and its terrace and slope that falls from the terrace to the river, found themselves intruders upon the queerest of domestic dramas.
On the terrace among the leaden gods danced a little man, wigless, in an orange-coloured dressing-gown and a fury of choler. At the head of the green slope immediately under the balustrade Major Hymen, surrounded by a moderately sober staff, faced the storm in an attitude at once dignified and patient.
"An idea has occurred to me," he put in at length with stately deliberation as Sir Felix paused panting for fresh words of opprobrium. "It is, sir, that overlooking the few minutes by which our salvoes were—er—antedated, you allow us to acclaim your latest-born as Honorary-Colonel of our corps."
"But," almost shrieked Sir Felix, "damn your eyes, it'stwins—and bothgirls!"
The Major winced. A rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered with fine suavity.
"There is no true patriot, Sir Felix, but desires an accelerated increase in our population just now, whether male or female. I trust your good lady's zeal may be rewarded by a speedy recovery."
Sir Felix fairly capered. "Accelerated! Acc—" he began, and, choking over the word, turned and caught sight of the Dragoons as they emerged from the woods, the sunlight flashing on their cuirasses.
He fell back against the pedestal of a leaden effigy of Julius Caesar and plucked his dressing-gown about him with fumbling bewildered hands. Was the whole British Army pouring into his peaceful park? What had he done to bring down on his head the sportive mockery of heaven, and at such a moment?
But in the act of collapsing he looked across the balustrade and saw the Major's face suddenly lose its colour. Then in an instant he understood and pulled himself together.
"Hey? A hunt breakfast, is it?" he inquired sardonically, and turned to welcome the approaching troop. "Good morning, gentlemen! You have come to draw my covers? Then let me suggest your beginning with the plantation yonder to the right, where I can promise you good sport."
It was unneighbourly; an action remembered against Sir Felix to the close of his life, as it deserved to be. He himself admitted later that he had given way to momentary choler, and made what amends he could by largess to the victims and their families. But it was long before he recovered his place in our esteem. Indeed, he never wholly recovered it: since of many dire consequences there was one, unforeseen at the time, which proved to be irreparable. Over the immediate consequences let me drop the curtain.Male, male feriati Troes!… As a man at daybreak takes a bag and, going into the woods, gathers mushrooms, so the Dragoons gathered the men of Troy. … Mercifully the most of them were unconscious.
Even less heart have I to dwell on the return of the merrymakers:
"But now, ye shepherd lasses, who shall leadYour wandering troops, or sing your virelays?"
"But now, ye shepherd lasses, who shall leadYour wandering troops, or sing your virelays?"
"But now, ye shepherd lasses, who shall leadYour wandering troops, or sing your virelays?"
Sure no forlorner procession ever passed down Troy river than this, awhile so jocund, mute now, irresponsive to the morning's smile, the cuckoo's blithe challenge from the cliff. To the Major, seated in the stern sheets of the leading boat, no one dared to speak. They supposed his pecuniary loss to be heavier than it actually was— since the Dragoons had after all surprised but a portion of the cargo, and the leafy woods of Pentethy yet concealed many scores of tubs ofeau-de-vie; but they knew that he brooded over no pecuniary loss. He had been outraged, betrayed as a neighbour, as a military commander, and again as a father of his people; wounded in the house of his friends; scourged with ridicule in the very seat of his dignity. Maidens, inconsolable for lovers snatched from them and now bound for Bodmin Gaol, hushed their sorrow and wiped their tears by stealth, abashed before those tragic eyes which, fixed on the river reach ahead, travelled beyond all petty private woe to meet the end of all things with a tearless stare.
So they returned, drew to the quays, and disembarked, unwitting yet of worse discoveries awaiting them.
In the hospital Gunner Sobey, having dived into bed, with great presence of mind fell asleep. The Vicar had fled the town by the North, or Passage, Gate, and was by this time devouring a country walk in long strides, heedless whither they led him, vainly endeavouring to compose his thoughts and readjust his prophecies in the light of the morning's events—a process which from time to time compelled him to halt and hold his head between both hands.
The Major had slammed his front door, locked himself in his room, and would give audience to no one.
It was in vain that the inhabitants besieged his porch, demanding to know if the town were bewitched. Who had gutted their shops? Why the causeways swam with strong liquor? How the churchyard came to be full of cattle? What hand had fired Farmer Elford's ricks? In short, what in the world had happened, and what was to be done? They came contritely, conscious of their undeserving; but to each and all Scipio, from the head of the steps, returned the same answer. His master was indisposed.
Troy, ordinarily a busy town, did no business at all that day. Tradesmen and workmen in small groups at every street-corner discussed a mystery—or rather a series of mysteries—with which, as they well knew, one man alone was competent to grapple. To his good offices they had forfeited all right. Nevertheless, a crowd hung about all day in front of the Mayor's house, nor dispersed until long after nightfall. At eight o'clock next morning they reassembled, word having flown through the town that Dr. Hansombody and Lawyer Chinn had been summoned soon after daybreak to a private conference. At eight-thirty the Vicar arrived and entered the house, Scipio admitting him with ceremony and at once shutting the door behind him with an elaborate show of caution.
But at a quarter to ten precisely the door opened again and the great man himself stood on the threshold. He wore civilian dress, and carried a three-caped travelling cloak on his left arm. His right hand grasped a valise. The sight of the crowd for a moment seemed to discompose him. He drew back a pace and then, advancing, cleared his throat.
"My friends," said he, "I am bound on a journey. Your consciences will tell you if I deserved yesterday's indignity, and how far you might have obviated it. But I have communed with myself and decided to overlook all personal offence. It is enough that certain of our fellow-townsmen are in durance, and I go to release them. In short, I travel to-day to Plymouth to seek the best legal advice for their defence. In my absence I commit the good behaviour of Troy to your keeping, one and all."
You, who have read how, when Nelson left Portsmouth for death and victory, the throng pressed after him down the beach in tears, and ran into the water for a last grasp of his hand, conceive with what emotion we lined up and escorted our hero to the ferry; through what tears we watched him from the Passage Slip as he waved back from the boat tiding him over to the farther shore, where at length Boutigo's Van—"The Eclipse," Troy to Torpoint, No Smoking Inside—received and bore him from our straining eyes.
There lived at Plymouth, in a neat house at the back of the Hoe, and not far from the Citadel, a certain Mr. Basket, a retired haberdasher of Cheapside, upon whom the Major could count for a hospitable welcome. The two had been friends—cronies almost—in their London days; dining together daily at the same cook-shop, and as regularly sharing after dinner a bottle of port to the health of King George and Mr. Pitt. Nor, since their almost simultaneous retreat from the capital, had they allowed distance to diminish their mutual regard. They frequently corresponded, and their letters included many a playful challenge to test one another's West Country hospitality.
Now while the Major had (to put it mildly) but exchanged one sphere of activity for another, Mr. Basket, a married man, embraced the repose of a contemplative life; cultivating a small garden and taking his wife twice a week to the theatre, of which he was a devotee. These punctual jaunts, very sensibly practised as a purge against dullness, together with the stir and hubbub of a garrison town in which his walled garden stood isolated, as it were, all day long, amid marchings, countermarchings, bugle-calls, and the rumble of wagons filled with material of war, gave him a sense of being in the swim—of close participation in the world's affairs; failing which a great many folk seem to miss half the enjoyment of doing nothing in particular.
Mr. Basket welcomed the Major cordially, with a dozen rallying comments on his healthy rural complexion, and carried him off to admire the garden while Mrs. Basket enlarged her preparations for dinner at five o'clock.
The garden was indeed calculated to excite admiration, less for its flowers—for Mr. Basket confessed ruefully that very few flowers would grow with him—than for a hundred ingenuities by which this defect was concealed.
"And the beauty of it is," announced Mr. Basket, with a wave of his hand towards a black-and-white edging compound of marrow bones and the inverted bases of wine bottles, disposed alternately, "it harbours no slugs. It saves labour, too; you would be surprised at the sum it used to cost me weekly in labour alone. But," he went on, "I pin my faith to oyster shells. They are, if in a nautical town one may be permitted to speak breezily, my sheet anchor." He indicated a grotto at the end of the walk. "Maria and me did the whole of that."
"Mrs. Basket is fond of gardening?" hazarded the Major.
"She's extraordinary partial to oysters," Mr. Basket corrected him. "We made it a principle from the first to use nothing but what we consumed in the house. That don't apply to the statuary, of course, which I have purchased at one time and another from an Italian dealer who frequents the Hoe. The material is less durable than one might wish; but I could not afford marble. The originals of these objects, so the dealer informs me, are sold for very considerable sums of money; in addition to which," went on Mr. Basket, lucidly, "he carries them in a tray on his head, which, in the case of marble, would be out of the question; and, as it is, how he contrives to keep 'em balanced passes my understanding. But he is an intelligent fellow, and becomes very communicative as soon as he finds out you have leanings for Art. Here's a group, for instance—Cupid and Fisky—in the nude."
"But, excuse me—" The Major stepped back and rubbed his chin dubiously, for some careful hand had adorned the lovers with kilts of pink wool in crochet work, and Psyche, in addition, wore a neat pink turnover.
"The artistdesigned'em in the nude, but Maria worked the petticoats, having very decided views, for which I don't blame her. It keeps off the birds, too: not that the birds could do the same damage here as in an ordinary garden."
"I can well believe that."
"But we were talking of oyster shells. They are, as I say, our stand-by. To be sure, you can't procure 'em all the year round, like marrow bones for instance; but, as I tell Maria, from a gardening point of view that's almost a convenience. You can work at your beds whenever there's an 'r' in the month, and then, during the summer, take a spell, look about, and enjoy the results. Besides, it leaves you free to plan out new improvements. Now, here"—Mr. Basket caught his friend's arm, and leading him past a bust of Socrates ("an Athenian," he explained in passing; "considered one of the wisest men of antiquity, though not good-looking inoursense of the word "), paused on the brink of a small basin, cunningly sunk in centre of a round, pebble-paved area guarded by statuary—"I consider this my masterpiece."
"A fish-pond!"
"Yes, and containing real fish; goldfish, you perceive. I keep it supplied from a rain-water cistern at the top of the house, and feed 'em on bread-crumbs. Never tellme," said Mr. Basket, "that animals don't reason!"
"You certainly have made yourself a charming retreat," the Major admitted, gazing about him.
Mr. Basket beamed. "You remember the lines I was wont to declaim to you, my friend, over our bottle in Cheapside?—
"'May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.…'"
"'May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.…'"
"'May I govern my passion with an absolute sway,And grow wiser and better as my strength wears away,Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.…'"
"For the last, it must be as Heaven pleases; but to some extent, you see, I have come to enjoy my modest aspirations. Only until to-day one thing was lacking. As poor Bannister used to quote it in the play—you remember him?—
"'I've often wished that I had clearFor life six hundred pounds a yearA something-or-other house to lodge a friend.…'
"'I've often wished that I had clearFor life six hundred pounds a yearA something-or-other house to lodge a friend.…'
"'I've often wished that I had clearFor life six hundred pounds a yearA something-or-other house to lodge a friend.…'
"Ay, my dear Hymen," Mr. Basket wrung the Major's hand with genuine feeling, "you have been a long time putting off this visit; but, now we have you, I promise we don't let you go in a hurry. We will toast old days; we will go visit the play together as of old—yes, this very night. For, as luck will have it, the stock company at the Theatre Royal makes way to-night—for whom think you? No less a man than Orlando B. Sturge, and in his great part of Tom Taffrail inLove Between Decks; or, The Triumph of Constancy; a week's special engagement with his own London company in honour of the Duke of Clarence, who is paying us a visit just now at Admiralty House."
"Sturge?" echoed the Major, doubtfully.
"Good heavens, my dear fellow, don't tell me you haven't heard of him! Really, now, really, you bury yourself—believe me, you do. Why, for nautical parts, the stage hasn't his equal; and a voice, they tell me, like Incledon's in his prime! Mrs. Basket and I have reserved seats, and, now I come to think of it, we had best step down to the theatre before dining, book yours, and arrange it so that we sit in a row. The house will be crowded, if 'tis only for a view of his Royal Highness, who will certainly attend if—hem!—equal to the effort."
"I had not heard of his being indisposed."
"Nor is he, at this hour. But now and then… after his fourth bottle… However, as I say, the house will certainly be crowded."
"You'll excuse me, my friend, if I beg that you and your good wife will trot off to the theatre to-night without troubling about me. The—er—fact is, I have come up to Plymouth primarily to consult a lawyer on a somewhat delicate business, and shall be glad of a few hours' solitude this evening to prepare my case. Do you happen, by the way, to know of a good lawyer? I wish for the very best advice procurable."
"Eh—eh? Delicate business, you say? My dear fellow, no entanglement, I hope? You alwayswere, you know.… But I've said it a thousand times—you ought to get married; and Maria agrees with me… a man of your presence, carrying his years as you do. Eh? You're blushing, man. Then maybe 'tis the real thing, and you've come up to talk over settlements?"
"Tut-tut!" interposed the Major, who indeed had coloured up, and apparently not with annoyance. "There's no woman at all in the case I'm referring to." But here he checked himself. "Nay, I forgot; I'm wrong there," he admitted; "and if she hadn't had twins, I don't believe 'twould have happened."
"Curious circumstance to forget," murmured Mr. Basket; but, perceiving that the Major was indisposed to be communicative, pressed him no further.
At dinner Mrs. Basket, whose welcome had at first been qualified by the prospect of having to give to the unexpected guest her seat atLove Between Decks(on which, good soul, she had set her heart), showed herself in her most amiable light. She was full of apologies for deserting him. "If he had only given them warning. Not but that she was delighted; and even now, if the Major would make use of her ticket… And to leave him alone in the house—for the 'maid' lived two streets away, and slept at home—it sounded so inhospitable, did it not? But she hoped the Major would find his room comfortable; there was a table for writing; and supper would be laid in the parlour, if he should feel tired after his journey and wish to retire to bed before their return. Would he be good enough to forbear standing upon ceremony, and remember the case-bottles in the cellaret on the right-hand of the sideboard? Also, by the way, he must take temporary possession of the duplicate latchkey; and then," added Mrs. Basket, "we shall feel you are quite one ofus."
The Major, on his part, could only trust that his unexpected visit would not be allowed to mar for one moment Mrs. Basket's enjoyment ofLove Between Decks. On that condition only could he feel that he had not unwarrantably intruded; on those terms only that he was being treated in sincerity as an old friend. "I am an old campaigner, madam. Permit me, using an old friend's liberty, to congratulate you on the flavour of this boiled mutton."
In short, the Major showed himself the most complaisant of guests. At dessert, observing that Mr. Basket's eye began to wander towards the clock on the mantelpiece, he leapt up, protesting that he should never forgive himself if, through him, his friends missed a single line ofLove Between Decks.
Mr. Basket rose to his feet, with a half-regretful glance at the undepleted decanter.
"To-morrow night," said he, "we will treat old friendship more piously. Believe me, Hymen, if it weren't for the seats being reserved—"
"My dear fellow," the Major assured him, with a challenging smile for Mrs. Basket, "if you don't come back and tell me you've forgotten for three hours my very existence, I shall pack my valise and tramp off to an inn."
Having dismissed the worthy couple to the theatre—but a couple of streets distant—the Major retired with glass and decanter to his room, drank his quantum, smoked two pipes of tobacco very leisurably, and then, with a long sigh, drew up his chair to the table (which Mrs. Basket had set out with writing materials) and penned, with many pauses for consideration, the following letter; which, when the reader has perused it, will sufficiently explain why our hero had blushed a while ago under Mr. Basket's interrogatory.
"My dear Martha,—'Sweet,' says our premier poet, 'are the uses of adversity.' The indignity (I will call it no less) to which my fellow-townsmen by their folly, and Sir Felix by his perfidy, have recently subjected me, is not without its compensations. On the one hand it has disillusioned me; on the other it has removed the scales from my eyes. It has, indeed, inspired me with a disgust of public life; it has taught me to think more meanly of mankind as a whole. But while weaning my ambitions— perhaps too abruptly—from a wider sphere, it has directed me upon a happiness which has—dare I say it?—awaited me all the while beside the hearth."Let me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, I decided to spare your emotions that sudden assault, and to make my demand in writing—in military phrase, to summon the garrison in form."Your tender consideration of my comfort over a period of years induces me to believe that a stronger claim on that consideration for the future may not be a matter of indifference to you. In short, I have the honour to offer you my hand, with every assurance of a lifelong fidelity and esteem. The station I ask you to adorn will be a private one. I am here to consult a lawyer how best I may release from the consequences of their folly the unfortunate men who betrayed me. This done, I lay down my chain of office and resign my commission. I will not deny that there are wounds; I look to domestic felicity to provide a balm for them. Hansombody, no doubt, will succeed me; and on the whole I am satisfied that he will passably fill an office which, between ourselves, he has for some time expected. I hope to return the day after to-morrow, and to receive the blushing answer on which I have set my heart.—Believe me, dear Coz, your affectionate"Sol. Hymen."
"My dear Martha,—'Sweet,' says our premier poet, 'are the uses of adversity.' The indignity (I will call it no less) to which my fellow-townsmen by their folly, and Sir Felix by his perfidy, have recently subjected me, is not without its compensations. On the one hand it has disillusioned me; on the other it has removed the scales from my eyes. It has, indeed, inspired me with a disgust of public life; it has taught me to think more meanly of mankind as a whole. But while weaning my ambitions— perhaps too abruptly—from a wider sphere, it has directed me upon a happiness which has—dare I say it?—awaited me all the while beside the hearth."Let me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, I decided to spare your emotions that sudden assault, and to make my demand in writing—in military phrase, to summon the garrison in form."Your tender consideration of my comfort over a period of years induces me to believe that a stronger claim on that consideration for the future may not be a matter of indifference to you. In short, I have the honour to offer you my hand, with every assurance of a lifelong fidelity and esteem. The station I ask you to adorn will be a private one. I am here to consult a lawyer how best I may release from the consequences of their folly the unfortunate men who betrayed me. This done, I lay down my chain of office and resign my commission. I will not deny that there are wounds; I look to domestic felicity to provide a balm for them. Hansombody, no doubt, will succeed me; and on the whole I am satisfied that he will passably fill an office which, between ourselves, he has for some time expected. I hope to return the day after to-morrow, and to receive the blushing answer on which I have set my heart.—Believe me, dear Coz, your affectionate"Sol. Hymen."
"My dear Martha,—'Sweet,' says our premier poet, 'are the uses of adversity.' The indignity (I will call it no less) to which my fellow-townsmen by their folly, and Sir Felix by his perfidy, have recently subjected me, is not without its compensations. On the one hand it has disillusioned me; on the other it has removed the scales from my eyes. It has, indeed, inspired me with a disgust of public life; it has taught me to think more meanly of mankind as a whole. But while weaning my ambitions— perhaps too abruptly—from a wider sphere, it has directed me upon a happiness which has—dare I say it?—awaited me all the while beside the hearth."Let me avow, dear cousin, that when first this happy inspiration seized me, I had much ado—you know my promptitude of old—to refrain from seeking you at once and pressing my suit with that ardour which the warmth of my purpose dictated. On second thoughts, however, I decided to spare your emotions that sudden assault, and to make my demand in writing—in military phrase, to summon the garrison in form."Your tender consideration of my comfort over a period of years induces me to believe that a stronger claim on that consideration for the future may not be a matter of indifference to you. In short, I have the honour to offer you my hand, with every assurance of a lifelong fidelity and esteem. The station I ask you to adorn will be a private one. I am here to consult a lawyer how best I may release from the consequences of their folly the unfortunate men who betrayed me. This done, I lay down my chain of office and resign my commission. I will not deny that there are wounds; I look to domestic felicity to provide a balm for them. Hansombody, no doubt, will succeed me; and on the whole I am satisfied that he will passably fill an office which, between ourselves, he has for some time expected. I hope to return the day after to-morrow, and to receive the blushing answer on which I have set my heart.—Believe me, dear Coz, your affectionate"Sol. Hymen."
Cynics tell us that one-half of the proposals of marriage made by men are the direct result of pique. How closely this proposal of the Major's coincided with the recoil of his public humiliation I do not pretend to determine. Certain it is that he had no sooner written and sealed his letter than the shadow of a doubt began to creep over his hot fit.
He started up, lit his long pipe, and fell to pacing the room with agitated strides. Was he doing wisely? Matrimony, he had sometimes told his friends, is like a dip in the sea; the wise man takes it at a plunge, head first. Yes, yes; but had he given it quite sufficient reflection? Could he promise himself he would never regret? He was not doubting that Miss Marty would make him an excellent wife. Admirable creature, she bore every test he could apply. She was gentle, companionable, intelligent in converse, yet never forward in giving an opinion; too studious, rather, to efface herself; in household management economical without being penurious; a notable cook and needlewoman; in person by no means uncomely, and in mind as well as person so scrupulously neat that her unobtrusive presence, her noiseless circumspect flittings from room to room, exhaled an atmosphere of daintiness in which it was good to dwell. No, he had no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself? Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound healed and ceased to smart?
If he sent this letter, he had burnt his boats. He halted before the table and stood for a while considering; stood there so long that his pipe went out unheeded. Ought he not to re-write his proposal and word it so as to leave himself a loophole? As he conned the name on the address, by some trick of memory he found himself repeating Miss Marty's own protest against the Millennium: "Why couldn't we be let alone, to go on comfortably?"
Confound the Millennium! Was it at the bottom of this too? The plaguy thing had a knack of intruding itself, just now, into all he undertook, and always mischievously. It was unsettling—Miss Marty's word again—infernally unsettling. He had begun to lose confidence in himself.
The room was hot. He stepped to the window, flung it open, and drank in the cool air of the summer night. Below him lay the garden, wherein Mr. Basket's statuary showed here and there a glimmer in the velvet darkness. The Major turned back to the room and began to undress slowly; removing his wig, his coat, his waistcoat, and laying them on a chair. Next he turned out his breeches pockets and tossed his purse, with a handful of loose silver, upon the bed. With it there jingled the spare latchkey with which Mrs. Basket had entrusted him.
He picked it up.… Yes, why should he not take a turn in the garden to compose his mind? In his present agitation he was not likely to woo slumber with success.… He slipped on his coat again and descended the stairs, latchkey in hand. A lamp burned in the hall, and by the light of it he read the hour on the dial of a grandfather's clock that stood sentry beside the dining-room door— five-and-twenty minutes past ten. The Baskets would not be returning for another hour at least. He unlatched the front door, stepped out, and closed it softly behind him.
Now mark how simply—how, with a short laugh—by the crook of a little finger, as it were—the envious gods topple down the tallest human pride.
The Major descended the front steps, halted for a moment to peer at a statuette of Hercules resting on his club, and passed on down the central path of the garden with a smile for his worthy friend's foible. A dozen paces, and his toe encountered the rim of Mr. Basket's fish-pond.…
The Major went into Mr. Basket's fish-pond souse!—on all fours, precipitately, with hands wildly clawing the water amid the astonished goldfish.
The echo of the splash had hardly lost itself in the dark garden-alleys before he scrambled up, coughing and sputtering, and struggling to shore rubbed the water from his eyes. Now the basin had not been cleaned out for some months, and beneath the water, which did not exceed a foot and a half in depth, there lay a good two inches of slime and weed, some portion of which his knuckles were effectively transferring to his face. He had lost a shoe. Worse than this, as he stood up, shook the water out of his breeches and turned to escape back to the house, it dawned on him that he had lost the latchkey!
He had been carrying it in his hand at the moment of the catastrophe. … He sat down on the pebbled path beside the basin, flung himself upon his stomach and, leaning over the brink as far as he dared, began to grope in the mud. After some minutes he recovered his shoe, but by and by was forced to abandon the search for the key as hopeless. He had no lantern.…
He cast an appealing glance up at the light in his bedroom window. His gaze travelled down to the fanlight over the front door. And with that the dreadful truth broke on him. Without the latchkey he could not possibly re-enter the house.
He unlaced and drew on his sodden shoe, and sat for a while considering. Should he wait here in this dreadful plight until his hosts returned? Or might he not run down to the theatre (which lay but two short streets away), explain the accident to a doorkeeper, and get a message conveyed to Mr. Basket? Yes, this was clearly the wiser course. The streets—thank Heaven!—were dark.
He crept to the front gate and peered forth. The roadway was deserted. Taking his courage in both hands, he stepped out upon the pavement and walked briskly downhill to the theatre. The distance was a matter of five or six hundred yards only, and he met nobody. Coming in sight of the brightly-lit portico, he made a dash for it and up the steps, where he blundered full tilt into the arms of a tall doorkeeper at the gallery entrance.
"Hallo!" exclaimed the man, falling back. "Get out of this!"
"One moment, my friend—"
"Damme!" The doorkeeper, blocking the entrance, surveyed him and whistled. "Hi, Charley!" he called; "come and take a look at this!"
A scrag-necked youth thrust his face forward from the aperture of the ticket-office.
"Well, I'm jiggered," was his comment. "Drunk, eh? Throw him out!" "If you'll listen for a moment," pleaded the Major, with dignity, and began to search in the pockets of his sodden breeches. "I wish a message taken… but dear me, now I remember, I left my money upstairs!"
"Onthe gilded dressing-table beside the diamond tiyara," suggested the doorkeeper. "Or maybe you cast it down, careless, on the moonlit shore afore taking your dip!"
"My good man, I assure you that I am the victim of an accident. It so happens that, by a singular chain of mischance, I have not at this moment a penny about me. But if you will go to the reserved row of the pit and fetch out my friend Mr. Basket—"
At this point the Major felt a hand clapped on his shoulder, and turning, was aware of two sailors, belted and wearing cutlasses, who, having lurched up the steps arm-in-arm, stood to gaze, surveying him with a frank interest.
"What's wrong, eh?" demanded the one who had saluted him, and turned to his comrade, a sallow-faced man with a Newgate fringe of a beard. "Good Lord, Bill, what is it like?"
"Itlookslike a wreck ashore," answered the sallow-faced sailor after a slow inspection.
"Talk about bein' fond of the theayter! He must haveswumfor it," said the other, and stared at the Major round-eyed. "You'll excuse me; Ben Jope, my name is, bos'n of theVesuviusbomb; and this here's my friend Bill Adams, bos'n's mate.AsI was sayin', you'll excuse me, but you must be fond of it—a man of your age—by the little you make of appearances."
"I was just explaining," stammered the Major, "that although, most unfortunately, I have left my purse at home—"
But here he paused as Mr. Jope looked at Mr. Adams, and Mr. Adams answered with a slow and thoughtful wink.
"Go where you will," said Mr. Jope cheerfully, stepping to the ticket-office; "go where you will, and sail the high seas over, 'tis wonderful how you run across that excuse. Three tickets for the gallery, please; and you, Bill, fall alongside!" He linked an arm in the Major's, who feebly resisted.
"Lord love ye!" said Mr. Jope, "the lie's an old one; but a man that played up to it better in appearances I never see'd nor smelt!"