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 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
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 m QUARTERS WITH THE 
 
 25™ (THE BLACK HOIiSE) DRAGOONS.
 
 IN quartp:rs 
 
 Q. 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 25th (The ]]lack Horse) Dragoons 
 
 BY 
 
 J. S. WINTER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishkrs 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 rAOE 
 
 A Regimental M.P 5 
 
 Paid Out 31 
 
 The Mem-Sahib's Promise 36 
 
 The Piano Fiend 52 
 
 Distinction 69 
 
 A Hidden Hero 85 
 
 A Regimental Ghost 103 
 
 Broke ^ . . . . 120 
 
 Jewel or Paste 138
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 
 
 The good city of Wharnecliffe knew the Scar- 
 let Lancers no more, and the regiment in posses- 
 sion of the barracks, which lay snugly under the 
 shelter of the Castle Hill, was the Twenty-fifth 
 (" The Black Horse ") Dragoons. 
 
 For a few weeks the npper crust and the pretty 
 demoiselles of Wharnecliffe were disposed to re- 
 gret the old regiment, and to cast reflections un- 
 favorable to the new-comers upon their appear- 
 ance, their form, the color of their uniform, the 
 class of their cattle, and the general tone of their 
 demeanor. It is a state of things which mostly 
 does happen when a regiment goes into fresh 
 quarters ; almost as invariably the impression 
 fades away as the new arrivals become better 
 known, until they in their turn depart, leaving 
 lamentations and regrets behind them. 
 
 In this instance, as a matter of fact, the good 
 people, and especially the pretty demoiselles of 
 Wharnecliffe, did not take a very long time to
 
 6 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 discover that they liked the Black Horse very 
 much indeed, even so much as to vote them an 
 improvement upon the Scarlet Lancers — an im- 
 provement because the commanding officer was 
 a bachelor, ergo, the married officers were in the 
 minority, which was not the case with those who 
 had preceded them. There is no doubt what- 
 ever that the chief does set the fashion in most 
 things to the officers of his regiment. I have 
 found it an almost invariable rule that if the 
 colonel goes clean shaven, except as to his up- 
 per lip, whiskers are tabooed by his officers ; if 
 the colonel is a downright milksop (oh yes ! it is 
 quite possible ; I have known several) that regi- 
 ment is never much good at polo or anything 
 else; if the colonel has a fancy for wearing his 
 unmentionables in a neat arrangement of wrin- 
 kles and bagginess, a similar taste will prevail 
 throughout the regiment ; while if he be unmar- 
 ried, the regimental Benedicks are positively no- 
 where. 
 
 It was 80 with the Black Horse, and assuredly 
 the pretty demoiselles of Wharnecliffe were not 
 likely to grumble at the fact : anyway they didn't 
 grumble — on the contrary. As for the Black 
 Horse, they were very well satisfied with their
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 7 
 
 new quarters; they bad come from Aldershot, 
 which they to a man cordially detested. Wharne- 
 cliffe was bright and clean and cheery. There 
 was good society, good shooting, and better hunt- 
 ing in the neighborhood ; moreover, they hoped to 
 be quartered there for two years. 
 
 Still, though at heart they were all so well 
 satisfied with the pleasant lines in which their 
 places had fallen unto them, there were spirits 
 among them who found Wharnecliffe just tinged 
 with dulness, who found not sufficient relaxation 
 in afternoon teas and evening receptions, and ap- 
 preciated even less the stately dinners and other 
 entertainments periodically given at the Castle. 
 They had fought bitterly against the unutterable 
 sameness and weariness of Aldershot, and lo! 
 they were not altogether satisfied when fate 
 popped them down in the prettiest suburb of 
 Wharnecliffe ; but then, as some one or other very 
 truly remarks, " There were spirits of discontent 
 even in Paradise." 
 
 It was on a blithe and bonny June morning 
 that a decided spirit of discontent entered the 
 anteroom and turned over the papers lying on 
 the big round table. 
 
 "Such a nuisance!" he exclaimed. "We've
 
 8 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 got aa industrious fit on again — no more leave. 
 I particularly wanted to go to town next week." 
 
 " Did you say so ?" asked Lord Archie Falconer, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 " Say so," returned the other. " I said my 
 mother was very anxious to see me, being very 
 dangerously ill." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And then the chief asked what was the mat- 
 ter with her, so I said quinsy. I couldn't think 
 of anything else, like an ass as I am. If I'd said 
 consumption, I should have been safe." 
 
 Lord Archie rose with a yawn and stretched 
 himself. " Well, Orford, how you could reason- 
 ably expect to get leave on the strength of your 
 mother having the quinsy, when here's her name 
 among the people at the State ball last night, I 
 don't know. You should try my plan, and go 
 in for a set of false teeth ; when I want leave, 
 I just break a front one off, and go and show 
 the chief — tell him I must have leave to go 
 and see my dentist — and, ac a matter of course, 
 get it." 
 
 Orford grinned from ear to ear, showing all 
 his white and even teeth. "There are disadvan- 
 tages even in having a set of perfect grinders,"
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 9 
 
 he said, laughingly. " What are you going to do 
 to-day ?" 
 
 " Going to dine at Moore Park," Lord Archie 
 answered. 
 
 " Going to dine at Moore Park again ? AVell, 
 you'll be nailed at Moore Park one of these fine 
 days, take my word." 
 
 " Not I ; ' mamma' and I are great friends." 
 
 "Yes, Pve no doubt; 'mamma' would like to 
 be ' mamma' to you iu reality," Orford rejoined. 
 
 " Pooh — nonsense ! Pm no such wonderful 
 fish to catch, and a wife couldn't exactly live out 
 of being called Lady Archie, you know," Lord 
 Archie declared. " Oh, I'm safe enough." 
 
 "No fellow's safe when a girl gets frightfully 
 gone on him," put in the only other occupant of 
 the anteroom, with a sententious air. 
 
 " She isn't," asserted Lord Archie. 
 
 " Doesn't she call you Archie ?" 
 
 "I don't know, upon my word ; I never noticed." 
 
 " Take notice to-night," Urquhart said, wisely. 
 " Why, man, Pve heard her." 
 
 " Lord Archie, as every one calls me," suggested 
 Lord Archie. 
 
 " Archie^'' persisted Urquhart, obstinately. 
 
 " Ah !" reflectively. " Well, Pll take notice."
 
 10 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 He went out then, leaving Urquhart and Or- 
 ford together in the anteroom. Orford turned 
 the papers over discontentedly. 
 
 " Oh, the devil !" he burst out at length. " I 
 must do something to relieve the everlasting mo- 
 notony of this dull hole." 
 
 " Get married," suggested Urquhart. 
 
 " Get married ?" — contemptuously — then leaned 
 his elbow on the table, and cast longing eyes up at 
 the bright blue of the June sky. " How jolly 
 town must be looking just now. The park never 
 looks so pretty as it does this month — flowers all 
 blooming, pretty girls riding or driving, or walk- 
 ing up and down. Oh! confound it all, why did 
 I go into the Army, I wonder ?" 
 
 But Urquhart, who had many resources in him- 
 self, and had but small patience with this kind of 
 dissatisfaction and grumbling, had gone away and 
 left him to chatter with the four walls, of which 
 audience Marcus Orford soon grew weary. 
 
 It was very late when Lord Archie returned 
 from Moore Park that night — so late that Urqu- 
 hart was already gone to by-bye; while Orford, 
 who was smoking his last pipe, was sitting on the 
 senior captain's cot, having strolled in to borrow 
 the loan of a belt for tlie morrow.
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 11 
 
 " There's Archie Falconer," he said, stopping his 
 chatter to hsten. " Yes, I thought I heard his 
 cart just now." 
 
 Urquhart raised himself on his elbow and ham- 
 mered at the wall. " Halloo !" cried a voice from 
 the other side of it. 
 
 " Did she call you Archie ?" Urquhart demand- 
 ed. 
 
 " Shut up," was the answer. 
 
 " But did she call you Archie ?" he persisted. 
 
 " Never mind," was the reply. 
 
 "Draw your own inference," laughed Orford, 
 getting off the cot. " I'm off to roost. By-bye." 
 
 " Bj'-bye," responded Urquhart, with a laugh. 
 He hardly gave the joke another thought, and 
 Marcus Orford appeared in the mess-room the fol- 
 lowing morning in such good - humor and high 
 spirits that no one would ever have suspected him 
 of having suffered the torments of ennui during 
 the whole term of his natural life. 
 
 " What devilment is Orford up to now ?" asked 
 Lord Ai'chie of Urquhart, next to whom he was 
 sitting. 
 
 "Heaven knows," murmured Urquhart in re- 
 ply. Both knew their man well, and neither 
 doubted that sure enough the devilment was there.
 
 12 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 But what it was did not come to light either on 
 that day or the next. But on the morning follow- 
 ing that, when Urquhart and Lord Archie went 
 for a ride after breakfast, and before morning sta- 
 bles, Marcus Orford's handiwork proclaimed itself 
 on every wall and fence and boarding in and for 
 three miles around the good city of Wharuecliffe 
 — proclaimed itself in great flaming, flaring post- 
 ers some three yards long by two feet in height, 
 bearing in letters a foot high the question — 
 
 DID SHE CALL YOU ARCHIE? 
 
 Urquhart was the flrst to catch sight of it. 
 
 " By Jove, Archie !" he exclaimed ; " look at 
 that." 
 
 " Good heavens !" cried Archie Falconer, blank- 
 ly; then looked round at Urquhart with sudden 
 intelligence in his eyes. " It's that fiend, Orford, 
 and oh, by Heaven, won't I pay him out for this ; 
 won't I ?" 
 
 And didn't he? Ton haven't heard the story ? 
 Then I'll tell you. 
 
 A week later Marcus Orford's father, old Lord 
 Ceespring, went for hours in the greatest danger 
 of his life, for he was a corpulent old gentleman,
 
 A REGIMEN'TAL M. P. 18 
 
 who had lived hard and fast, and married the pret- 
 tiest girl of the season at five-and-forty, and had 
 gone in for gourmandizing and politics ever since. 
 Gourmandizing at all times, in season and out of 
 season, gout or no gout, apoplexv or no apoplexy ; 
 but for politics in a dignified manner, and on what 
 he with a grand air termed the respectable side 
 of the House. 
 
 Imagine, then, this old gentleman's delight — he 
 who was the most ultra, extreme, and rabid Con- 
 servative perhaps to be found in England — he 
 who was of the bluest of the blue — he who be- 
 lieved in the divine right of the British aristocra- 
 cy, and sneered at a new lord as he would have 
 sneered at new port if it had been offered to him 
 — imagine his delight when he received the for- 
 mal announcement of the fact that his son, the 
 Honorable Marcus Orford, his own child, the heir 
 to the title of which he was the sixteenth baron 
 who had borne it, had consented to stand in the 
 Liberal interest for the borough of Wharnecliffe 
 at the forth-coming election ; not only so to stand, 
 but actually in opposition to a scion of one of 
 the most prominent Tory houses in the country. 
 "Tut! tut! God bless my soul!"— only Lord 
 Ceespriug did not put it quite so delicately ; in
 
 14 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 fact, it was not his soul at all that he called in 
 question, but his visual organs, which he did not 
 exactly bless — " the boy's mad, mad, utterly mad ; 
 an utter lunatic. Oh, my lady ! my lady ! what- 
 ever can you and I have done that our son should 
 make such a fool of himself as this ?" 
 
 " What has he done ? Not married some 
 wretched girl ?" cried Lady Ceespring, in alarm. 
 
 "Married!" contemptuously. "Why, he might 
 have married a dozen women and not got himself 
 into such a scrape as this. Read that, my lady ;" 
 and he flung a newspaper across the table to her, 
 one paragraph of which was ostentatiously marked 
 with ink. 
 
 " We understand that the Hon. Marcus Orford, 
 eldest son and heir of Lord Ceespring, who holds 
 a lieutenant's commission in the Black Horse (now 
 quartered at Wharnecliffe), has consented to con- 
 test the city in the Liberal interest at the forth- 
 coming election. 
 
 " We may add that Mr. Orford's father is one 
 of the most prominent Conservatives in the Upper 
 House." 
 
 Poor Lady Ceespring, who was lovely, but not 
 strong-minded, and very fond of her boy, began to 
 cry weakly, while the old lord fumed and fretted,
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 15 
 
 and huni'd and liaw'd, and d — d as much as his 
 manners and my lady's presence wonld allow him, 
 as he read the painful and elaborate evidence of 
 his son's degeneration and mad folly. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen — (" Gentlemen — bah ! snivelling 
 fools," was his comment) — 
 
 "'Having been honored by a request from a 
 number of the inhabitants of your ancient and 
 historically famous borough to offer myself as a 
 candidate for the honor of representing your in- 
 terests in Parliament, I take this means to express 
 my satisfaction and pride at having been so hon- 
 ored by you— ("young f ool— ugh !")— and I hasten 
 to accept so flattering a request, and to assure you 
 that though my abilities are far less than the rep- 
 resentative of such a borough as yours should pos- 
 sess, yet I am confident-—' " (" Oh, I can't wade 
 through all this blash — I'll see what his precious 
 sentiments are.") 
 
 " These opinions — oh ! what next? — ' Support Mr. 
 Gladstone — amelioration of the people — break- 
 ing down of class distinction — (" good Lord ! what 
 next?") — vote for «w?/ measures tending to the ulti- 
 mate adoption of manhood suffrage — ("oh! he's 
 mad, quite mad I I shall have to get him shut up 
 in an asylum. I see nothing else for it!"). Polit-
 
 16 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 ical power should be wrested from property-hold- 
 ers, who have already annexed everything that is 
 worth having.'" And here Lord Ceespring sat 
 back in his chair and glared at the huge poster, at 
 last crumpling it up in a bunch and slapping it in 
 the acme of his rage and fury. 
 
 For a moment he seemed as if he was going to 
 i-ead no more; then he found curiosity getting the 
 better of him, and smoothed it out again, continu- 
 ing his task heroically. 
 
 " ' I am also in favor of the nationalization of 
 the land'" — this made him speechless for quite 
 two minutes, but he went at it again, determined 
 to be brave and know the worst — "'disestablish- 
 ment of the Church'" — ("oh yes, yes — that's at 
 the root of it all !"). Lord Ceespring himself was 
 as wicked an old sinner as ever hid his face in 
 his hat, or shouted the responses for the benefit 
 and edification of his tenants and laborers — but 
 he believed in Church and State firmly for all 
 that. 
 
 " ' Deceased Wife's Sister Bill — (" yes, yes, that's 
 not so bad ") — reduction of the Civil List — (" now 
 what the devil does he know about the Civil List, 
 I should like to know?") — to inquire into the 
 amount and sources of E.oyal incomes' — ("demmed
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 17 
 
 impertinence /call it," cried Lord Ceespring, boil- 
 ing over again). 
 
 "Well, what next? Er — ' susj^ension of all 
 perpetual pensions — for the payment of members 
 of Parliament'— ("yes, give up his own income to 
 let the butcher and the baker or his own valet set 
 into Parliament," in an excess of fnry). 
 
 " Well, well, what next % Er— ' abandonment of 
 the Soudan, compensation to the families of na- 
 tives slaughtered while I'ightly struggling to be free 
 —("er— mighty fine that sounds, you young fool !"). 
 
 "'Withdraw our troops from Egypt and Af- 
 ghanistan, and solicit the friendship of Eussia 
 and France especially— ("oh! you would, would 
 you ? Solicit the friendship of the chief physician 
 of Colney Hatch would be an improvement, I 
 fancy "). 
 
 "'Independent government of India — Home 
 Rule for Ireland — evacuate Malta, Cyprus, and 
 Gibraltar— (" ah ! Marcus Orford, you've enjoyed 
 independent government a good deal too long, 
 I'm thinking"). I am, gentlemen, your hum- 
 ble and obedient servant ' (" er— bah ! the silliest 
 and demmedest idiot that ever drew breath or 
 brought disgrace on a good old House that has 
 held its head up with the best of the land for
 
 18 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 twenty generations — 'humble and obedient' — • 
 pall ! I shall go and fetch him away at once, my 
 lady," he announced, flinging the poster from 
 him, " and I shall take Dr. Marchmont with me. 
 If the lad's mad we must get him quietly put 
 out of the way at once; but I'm afraid — I'm 
 afraid he's not mad, only bad "). 
 
 A few hours later the old lord and the family 
 doctor arrived at Wharnecliffe, where on every 
 hand they were met by copies of thq flaring 
 poster which had nearly been the death of the 
 old man that morning. Still in many places were 
 the remains of Marcus Orford's joke—" Did she 
 call you Archie?" — and in all these cases the 
 address to the electors was pasted immediately 
 above them, being also conspicuously placed else- 
 where throughout the town. 
 
 By the time he reached the barracks. Lord Cee- 
 spring had got into a perfect white heat with 
 suppressed rage and fury. Captain Urquhart was 
 the first ofticer whom he saw. 
 
 " Your son is on a court-martial this morning," 
 he said, pleasantly. "He'll be in soon." 
 
 " Ah " — and the old lord looked suspiciously 
 round the anteroom — " you haven't got one of 
 those posters up here ?" he said.
 
 A REGIMENTAL M.P. 19 
 
 Urqnhart laiiglied. "No — we have only just 
 heard about it. Orford is going to be finely 
 roasted when he comes in." 
 
 "Koasted!" burst out the old man. "Of all 
 the demmed fools — the demmed fools, sir; but 
 I shall lock him up. I've brought the family 
 doctor down with me — Dr. Marchmont, gentle- 
 men—and—oh, here he is ! Well, and pray wliat 
 have you got to say for yourself ?" 
 
 Marcus Orford looked puzzled, but offered the 
 old man his liand ; Lord Ceespring bi'usquely re- 
 jected it. 
 
 "No, sir; shake hands with your demmed de- 
 molition people — Church, State, land, incomes, 
 rights ! Dem it all, sir, why, your very wife's 
 sister isn't sacred from you." 
 
 Marcus Orford looked blankly at his father, at 
 tlie doctor, at his brother-officers, and back at his 
 father again. 
 
 " What are you talking about ?" 
 
 "Talking about?" the old lord almost screamed 
 in his rage; "about your — your— " And here 
 speech failed him, so he dragged the now tattered 
 and crumpled poster out of his pocket, and wavino- 
 it in his son's face fairly gobbled with excitement 
 and fury.
 
 20 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 Marcus Orford glanced at it, saw his signature 
 at the foot, dropped it on the floor, looked round 
 at his conii-ades, and caught a certain wicked 
 something in Archie Falconer's eyes. 
 
 "You've done me in the eye this time, Archie," 
 and then he burst out laughing; and so it all 
 came out. 
 
 But they never forgot, nor let him forget, how 
 the family doctor came down to Wharnecliffe for 
 the express purpose of shutting him up in a luna- 
 tic asylum, nor how he was paid out for " Did she 
 call you Archie ?"
 
 PAID OUT. 
 
 Without so much as the shadow of a donbt, the 
 Honorable Marcus Orford was, if his mind chanced 
 to be bent in a certain direction, a very ingenious 
 young gentleman ; yet when it came to him to 
 have a desire — a desire about as strono- as a desire 
 could very well be — to be able to pay Lord Archie 
 Falconer out for having, as he put it, " done him 
 in the eye " in the matter of making a sort of Guy 
 Fawkes member of Parliament of him — not only 
 of paying him out, but of doing so in an adequate 
 manner, with interest at something more than 
 compound rate — why, he was simply at his wit's 
 end, for he didn't know how to do it. The more 
 he tried to hit upon a plan the less did he seem 
 able to do so; and all the time he had the daily, 
 nay, the hourly, aggravation of the other's constant 
 presence and unmerciful chaff — the aggravation of 
 never being able to lift his eyes or to turn his head, 
 to open his mouth, or even to take refuge behind a 
 newspaper, without a fire of chaff from his exultant 
 comrade.
 
 98 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " There's Bobblekins taking his morning dose of 
 politics again " — and Lord Archie had a singularly 
 clear and penetrating voice, so that whatever Babel 
 of chatter and cliaff might be going on at the time, 
 and it happened that the whole length of the long 
 mess-table lay between them, Marcus Orford never 
 missed a single word that fell from the other's lips. 
 
 " Bobblekins is trying to think how he can pay 
 me out," Lord Archie laughed, one dull and dreary 
 afternoon, when Orford had. come in tired and stiff 
 from a day with the Castle hounds, and was iu 
 very truth scarcely thinking of anything, " and he 
 can't manage it." 
 
 "All things come to him who can afford to 
 wait," quoted Orford, coolly. 
 
 " I say, fancy old Bobblekins going in for quota- 
 tions," Lord Archie cried. " What is that from ?" 
 
 " It was what Balaam said to the ass," answered 
 Orford, promptl}^, " and the ass said — " 
 
 " Go up, thou baldhead," put in Lord Archie, 
 amid a yell of laughter from all the others in the 
 room ; for Orford, though young and comely, al- 
 ready showed a decided tendency to grow a fore- 
 head at the back of his head. 
 
 " Oh no, he didn't ! He said, ' Am I not thine 
 ass?'" and having delivered this shot, Marcus' Or-
 
 PAID OUT. 38 
 
 ford took refuge behind the outspread leaves of 
 the first paper that came to hand. 
 
 It chanced to be one chiefly devoted to mat- 
 ters generally considered more interesting to the 
 ladies than to the rougher sex — a paper not very 
 often seen in the anteroom of the Wharnecliffe 
 Barracks, and only there on that occasion because 
 it contained an account of a fancy ball at which 
 several officers of the regiment had been present. 
 
 Marcus Orford read on mechanically at the page 
 where the paper had opened itself. But he read 
 on in something like bewilderment and wonder, 
 and things came to his knowledge the like of which 
 he had never dreamed of before. He read of false 
 diamonds and false curls — ay, not only false curls, 
 but coverings for thin partings and bald patches — 
 of fashionable fringes and curly crops to cover all 
 the head ; he read of " thin busts perf ected "-^er- 
 fected! he repeated to himself, in disgust — of 
 sunny rays for golden hair; and at least a dozen 
 washes for turning the blackest locks to the fairest 
 flaxen tint in a single application. He read, and 
 it fairly made his flesh creep, of skin-tighteners 
 and lip salves ; and then all at once he came to a 
 little picture of a very stout lady and a very slim 
 and elegant young girl, supposed to be the same
 
 24 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 before and after taking anti-fat. And the next to 
 that seemed to him to be the worst and the most 
 absohitely depraved of the whole lot. It was 
 called 
 
 " ORANGE-BLOOM BOUQUET." 
 
 It set forth in glowing terms — such as a honse- 
 agent uses when he wants to persuade a credulous 
 public that a stuffy little box with eleven tiny com- 
 partments is a desirable and commodious family 
 residence, witli all the most recent modern con- 
 veniences and sanitary improvements — that its 
 properties were to impart a rich and healthful 
 bloom to the complexion, being impossible for the 
 keenest scrutiny to detect, even with the use of the 
 microscope. '"'■It will not wash off !'''' 
 
 Marcus Orford closed his eyes and let the paper 
 fall upon his knee — " it will not wash of.'''' His 
 breath came fast and hard, his heart beat and 
 throbbed in great furious thumps, the blood surged 
 to and fro in his veins — " it will not wash offP 
 
 At last he- got up and went quietly and with a 
 great show of weariness out of the room, still hold- 
 ing the paper in his hand. Then at the door he 
 turned back, and going to the desk, which chanced 
 at that moment to be vacant, wrote down the ad-
 
 PAID OUT. 25 
 
 dress of the house which sold the new preparation, 
 and underneath it the figures 7^. 6d. 
 
 Tliis he carefully folded and put in his pocket, 
 and then leaving the paper upon the desk he took 
 himself away to perfect his plans and gloat over 
 his new discovery in solitude. 
 
 lie did not gloat very long, for his whole soul 
 thirsted for action. He shouted vigorously for his 
 servant, and bade him secure him a cab and then 
 get him some clothes out — " Yes, the gray will do." 
 Then he wrote a letter, which he turned address 
 down upon the blotting pad, carefully committing 
 the sheet of paper he had brought from the ante- 
 room to the flames of the fire, which was roaring 
 and blazing half-way up the chimney. It is true 
 that he was wofuUy stiff and weary, yet he 
 dressed in next to no time ; and having pocketed 
 the precious letter, he took himself out to the cab, 
 which had been waiting some ten minutes at the 
 door below, as gayly and unconcernedly as if he 
 had never been tired out by a hard day with the 
 hounds in the whole course of his life. 
 
 A drive of ten minutes brought hini to the Post- 
 office, where he procured an order for seven-and- 
 sixpence, after which the letter was safely dropped 
 into the box. Marcus Orford breathed freely, with
 
 26 
 
 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 a feeling that his plot had already begun to mature 
 
 itself. 
 
 But he must dissemble. Archie Falconer must 
 not guess this time that anything out of the com- 
 mon was in the wind or in Marcus Orford's brain. 
 It was a distinct effort to him to do it, but he 
 contrived that evening to go to mess with such a 
 truly dejected air that even Archie Falconer for- 
 bore to chaff him, and beyond a murmured remark 
 to his next neighbor, that really poor old Balaain 
 seemed to be taking his defeat or his lack of con- 
 structive ingenuity to heart, he never once during 
 the entire evening approached the subject of the 
 great assembly which constitutes the legislature of 
 this kingdom. 
 
 In due course of time Marcus Orford received, 
 "carefully secured from observation" as the ad- 
 vertisement promised, the " Orange ■ bloom Bou- 
 quet'' In the privacy of his own quarters he 
 opened it, to find that it contained a small bottle of 
 vivid crimson fluid, and a paper of closely-printed 
 instructions for the use of the "Bloom." Marcus 
 Orford pulled up his sleeve and proceeded to try 
 the effect of it upon the upper part of his arm- 
 first he got a tiny camelVhair brush and painted 
 a small patch of it, allowed it to dry on, applied
 
 PAID OUT. 27 
 
 sponge and soap, with the result of washing it all 
 off. His month went dismally down — till he all 
 at once remembered that he had not even looked 
 at the instructions ; therefore he at once proceeded 
 to study them carefully. " Take a little strong 
 salt-and-water and bathe the cheeks with it — this 
 will strike the color'*'' — "Hurray!" said he to him- 
 self or the four walls — " then apply the stain and 
 allow it to dry on, immediately afterwards wash- 
 ing it off with tepid water, when an exquisitely 
 lovely and natural-looking bloom will permanently 
 remain." " Permanently remain P'' chuckled the 
 Honorable Marcus, in an ecstasy of anticipation 
 — " when an exquisitely lovely and natural-looking 
 bloom will permanently remain." 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that that day was 
 the longest Marcus Orford had ever known in his 
 life; the minutes slowly and leisurely dragged 
 themselves away, and the hours seemed as if each 
 needed a kick to make it follow the one which had 
 unw^illiiigly gone before it. He got through morn- 
 ing stables, some business in the office, went and 
 saw one of his troop who was lying sick in hospi- 
 tal, dragged through lunch, a game of billiards, af- 
 ternoon parade, two afternoon teas, and a long 
 talk to the smartest and prettiest girl in Wharne-
 
 38 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 cliffe, whom he met at the corner of the High 
 Street. He went and bought himself some gloves 
 and some cotton ties— nay, he even had his hair 
 cut that he might not get back to barracks too 
 soon, and so have any time to kill before dinner. 
 
 And on liis way back he went into a chemist's, 
 and bought a little bottle of chloroform! Oh, 
 Marcus Orford ! Marcus Orford ! 
 
 Ay, and he used it, too. He waited in patience 
 till the whole corridor which ran along the entire 
 block of the officers' quarters was quiet and de- 
 serted, and then he went stealthily and noiselessly, 
 like a burglar or a cat, and turned the handle of 
 Lord Archie's door. As he expected, it yielded to 
 his touch, and the door opened to him. 
 
 " Archie !" he said, in a low voice, but there was 
 not a sound ; all was as quiet as the grave or a 
 Chinese city of the dead. 
 
 " Archie !" he said agahi, louder this time ; " I 
 
 say, Archie !" 
 
 But Lord Archie did not answer, though the 
 stillness of the midnight hour was broken by the 
 regular and deep breathing of a man buried in an 
 absolutely sound and dreamless sleep. 
 
 Finding that this was so, Marcus Orford closed 
 the door softly behind him, and advanced to the
 
 PAID OUT. 29 
 
 side of the cot. A tall waxen candle in a ffro- 
 tesquelj- moulded brass candlestick stood on the 
 little table beside it ; beside that a box of matches. 
 He struck one gently and lighted the candle, set- 
 ting it so that the light did not fall upon Lord 
 Archie's face. 
 
 Then he took the tiny Ijottle of chloroform from 
 his pocket and sprinkled a little of it upon a hand- 
 kerchief, which he held to the nostrils of the sleep- 
 ing man. As the damp cloth touched his face 
 Lord Archie stirred uneasily and moved his arm. 
 Then the powerful anaisthetic began to take effect 
 upon him, and finding that a good shake was not 
 sufficient to arouse him, Marcus Orford proceeded 
 to business. He had brought with him a sponge 
 tilled with a strong solution of sal t-and- water, and 
 with this he carefully dabbed Lord Archie's hand- 
 some aquiline nose ; then he got out his brush and 
 his bottle of " Bloom," and with equal care painted 
 that feature all over. It did not take long to dry, 
 and when he saw that state had been arrived at he 
 produced another sponge and carefully washed it, 
 drying it cautiously and gingerly with a clean silk 
 handkerchief. This done, he blew out the light 
 and crept away with all his paraphernalia and a 
 safe conscience, for he knew that he had only
 
 30 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 given Lord Archie enough chloroform to stupefy 
 him, and not sufficient to do him the slightest 
 harm. 
 
 Of the two he was the first to appear in the 
 mess-room the following morning; but he had 
 barely begun breakfast ere Lord Archie came in 
 with a rush and a whirl and a gay, pleasant word 
 for every one. 
 
 " Well, Balaam, old man," was his greeting to 
 Orford. 
 
 " Well, mine ass," returned Orford, pleasantly. 
 He almost betrayed himself by his first glance at 
 Lord Archie — for sure enough the permanent 
 bloom, which would not wash ofP, had imparted a 
 painfully natural redness to his noble nose. 
 
 Lord Archie apparently had noticed nothing. 
 He ordered his breakfast and took his place as un- 
 concernedly as he could not possibly have done 
 had he noticed the change, or rather partial 
 change, of his complexion. 
 
 Not so the others, however — trust a handful of 
 officers scrutinizing one another to be as careless or 
 little observant as any one of them regarding his 
 own countenance in a glass. So in this instance, 
 before Lord Archie had been two minutes at the 
 table, Strange cast a keen glance at him, and re-
 
 PAID OUT. 31 
 
 marked, "What a red nose you've got this morn- 
 ing, Archie !" 
 
 " A red nose ! /f " repeated Archie, blankly, 
 putting up a hand to feel that organ instantly. 
 
 "Yes, you— it's as red as beetroot," Strange de- 
 clared, positively. 
 
 " When is a nose not a nose ?" asked Elliot. 
 
 "When it's a little reddish," raising a shout of 
 laughter, in which Orford joined as loudly and as 
 boisterously as any of them. 
 
 " I noticed it some time ago," put in Macken- 
 zie ; " it's been gradually getting worse for the last 
 month or two." 
 
 " The devil it has," said Archie Falconer, in 
 dire dismay, then got up and went to the great 
 glass above the mantel-shelf to see if it was really 
 true or they were only chatfing him. 
 
 But it was, alas! only too true — painfully 
 true; and though Marcus Orford nearly choked 
 with laughter, which was manfully suppressed, Lord 
 Archie discovered nothing, but came dejectedly 
 back to the table, and surveyed his comrades 
 mournfully. 
 
 " I don't drink," he said, at length. " I drink 
 less by far than any man in the regiment. I don't 
 smoke much; it must be my digestion, and if that
 
 32 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 once gets out of order, it plaj's the very deuce and 
 all with one's constitution all round." 
 
 " I shouldn't at all wonder," Strange observed. 
 "Have you had any other symptoms, Archie?" 
 
 " I'd a beastly dream last night," answered the 
 victim, innocently ; " dreamt I was being smoth- 
 ered, and woke up shaking all over." 
 
 "What time was it? Did you look?" asked 
 young Eden. 
 
 " Yes, it was ten minutes to two. I struck a 
 liglit to see," Lord Archie replied. 
 
 Again Marcus Oi-ford's inner man was shaken 
 by convulsions of laughter, but he contrived to 
 hide it all, and so the pretty play was played on. 
 
 The doctor told Lord Archie that his diorestive 
 oi-gans were entirely out of order, and promptly 
 put him upon a diet and a course of restriction 
 such as simi)ly made life a burden to him, and 
 had worse than no effect upon the complexion of 
 his nose. 
 
 For the nose gradually but surely got worse ; 
 the exquisitely lovely and natural - looking bloom 
 deepened visibly in tint, and Lord Archie's wretch- 
 edness deepened in proportion — rather beyond pro- 
 portion for the matter of that. 
 
 " Here's poor old Archie and his nose !" came to
 
 PAID OUT. 33 
 
 be the usual remark wlien the victim made his ap- 
 pearance among liis fellows. 
 
 And, " Well, Archie, how's your poor nose ?" was 
 the general salute he met with. 
 
 He was not touchy nor yet proud, this noble 
 lord of the house of Falconhurst, and at any mo- 
 ment he was ready and willing to dilate upon the in- 
 firmity which had become a serious trouble to him. 
 
 "AVhy don't you try change of air?" the doctor 
 asked him one day, perhaps a little impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, I'm not going among my people such an 
 object as this," he answered, dejectedly. " Why, 
 dash it, my old grandmother would be imploring 
 me to join the Blue Ribbon Army." 
 
 The doctor laughed, and Lord Archie continued. 
 
 " It's one of the things nobody ever believes one 
 about. Who in the barracks really believes that, 
 as a matter of absolute fact, drink is not the cause 
 of it?" 
 
 " Well, I don't for one, Archie," Orford declared, 
 heartily. 
 
 "Don't you really, Marcus?" — eagerly. "By 
 Jove ! you're a right down good fellow, and I'm 
 sorry I ever played you that trick about the elec- 
 tion business — ^'pon my soul I am now." 
 
 " Oh, come, come, old man !" Marcus answered, 
 
 3
 
 34 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 bursting with laughter, yet preserving his outward 
 cahnness excellently well, "don't take that tone. 
 You're not going to depart this life; and as to 
 your nose, why /should say if you persist in going 
 in for the smallest waist in the regiment, and go 
 to a tailor who straps you in as tightly as you can 
 breathe, with a machine and a couple of men to 
 work it, and then measures you for your overalls 
 and tunics, why how can you expect to have any- 
 thing but a red nose ?" 
 
 Lord Archie looked suddenly enlightened. 
 
 " Do you think that could be it ?" he asked of 
 the doctor. 
 
 " It's not at all improbable," answered the doc- 
 tor, with a sweet air of evasion which is common 
 to the profession at large. 
 
 " I'll have all my uniforms let out at once," the 
 wretched victim declared, whereat Marcus Orford 
 laughed out aloud — he couldn't help it for the 
 very life of him — as if it was the very finest joke 
 ever he had heard in all his life. 
 
 " Ah ! you may laugh ; your nose is a decent 
 color," the victim cried. " I too might laugh if it 
 was anybody's nose but my own. I got an idea 
 this morning. I don't know whether it's any good 
 or not," dejectedly.
 
 PAID OUT. 36 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " "Well," hesitatingly, " I saw an advertisement 
 from a chap who does a good deal in the appear- 
 ance line — fills up wrinkles and tightens skins that 
 have got baggy. He says he can cure red noses, 
 but as his advertisement adds, 'you must pay' — 
 not that any cost would matter," with a great sigh. 
 
 And that night the nose got redder, but unfort- 
 unately, in the middle of the operation, Lord 
 Archie moved suddenly, which made Orford give 
 a great start, and caused him to drop the bottle. 
 
 It was tlie work of a moment to catch it up, but 
 the mischief was done — a great crimson stain was 
 cast over the bedclothes, along the sleeve of Lord 
 Archie's night-shirt, and on the arm beneath it, and 
 one great splash had spurted across his breast and 
 across his throat. He was so evidently awaking 
 that Orford blew the light out and bolted, and 
 then Lord Archie, awaking to smell the smoulder- 
 ing wick of tlie barely extinguished candle, roused 
 himself and struck a light, felt that his sleeve was 
 wet, and — " Well," as he said in the morning to 
 Orford, " you brute, and you for one didn't believe 
 that it came from drink." 
 
 "But I paid you out that time, Archie," an- 
 swered Orford, dodging a forage-cap.
 
 THE MEM -SAHIB'S PROMISE. 
 
 It was on a brilliant January day, towards the 
 close of the afternoon, that Thomas Urqnliart, 
 Captain of the Black Horse, pushed a big chair 
 up to the fire in the anteroom, and sat down 
 therein to enjoy The Naval and Militarxj Ga- 
 zette, which had just arrived. He had the room 
 to himself, for the entire regiment seemed to have 
 gone mad over the superb skating which the con- 
 tinuous frost afforded the inhabitants of Wharne- 
 cliflFe. 
 
 There were one or two exceptions, however; 
 the orderly ofiicer for the day was lying on his 
 cot, reading one of Whyte-Melville's novels, and 
 smoking the first lazy pipe of the fourteen hours 
 of wearying and tedious work which constitutes 
 the time known as being on duty; and before 
 Urquhart twice turned a leaf, the door opened 
 and the colonel entered the room. 
 
 " All alone, Urquhart ?" he remarked, cheerily. 
 
 "All alone, sir — cursing my fate a little that 
 last month's sprain won't let me think of the cas-
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 37 
 
 tie mere, outside edges, spread-eagles, and the 
 like." 
 
 " Not ranch spread-eagle about your form," the 
 chief said, with a laugh ; then asked, as he settled 
 jiimself comfortably, with his back to the chiraney- 
 shelf, "any news?" 
 
 "Nothing in particular," Urquhart replied, of- 
 fering him the paper as he spoke. The chief, 
 liowever, declined it with a wave of his hand and 
 a murmur of thanks, and then Urquhart spoke 
 again. 
 
 "By-the-bye, sir, have I not heard yon speak of 
 having been in the regiment with Sir John Far- 
 quhar ?" 
 
 " Certainly — to be sure I was, two years or more 
 — what about him ?" 
 
 " He's dead — that's all," answered Urquhart, 
 simply. 
 
 " Dead ! Ah ! Poor Jack Farquhar ! A bet- 
 ter fellow and a braver officer never drew breath," 
 the colonel said, sadly. " So he's gone at last, after 
 one-and-twenty years of it — poor Jack!" 
 
 " One-and-twenty years of what, sir?" Urquhart 
 asked, curious to know the meaning of his chief's 
 tone. 
 
 " Of misery, Urquhart, misery. Ah, poor Jack !
 
 88 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 I never like to think of him — never! I remem- 
 ber when I joined he was the very life and spirit 
 of the old Black Horse — full of fan and play as 
 a kitten four months old or a monkey that has 
 never felt cold weather. But a cruel blight fell 
 on him in '57, and Jack never held up his head 
 after. Poor Jack !" 
 
 "And how, sir?" Urquhart inquired. 
 
 "I'll tell you," said the colonel. "Jack was 
 just seven-and-twenty when I joined. He wasn't 
 a baronet, nor had he any hopes of ever being 
 one then, but was just Jack Farquhar, with a 
 modest income of six hundred a year over and 
 above his pay. Well, I hadn't been two months 
 in the regiment, and we were just off to India 
 then, when Jack fell in love — not only in love, 
 but with the youngest and loveliest daughter of 
 old Lord Saturn, who was, just as his son is after 
 him, one of the proudest and haughtiest men in 
 England or out of it. 
 
 " Jack knew well enough that if he, with only 
 his handsome face and his modest six hundred a 
 year to recommend him, were to go to old Lord 
 Saturn and ask for the hand of the Lady Marjory 
 Starshine in marriage — Lady Marjory, who was 
 just sixteen, and destined to become a court beau-
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 39 
 
 ty — he would be declined with thanks and po- 
 litely shown the exact position of tho d?or. while 
 measures would be taken effectually to secure the 
 lady from any further communication with him ; 
 and, as he didn't see the good of such an arrange- 
 ment — to himself, at least — he just persuaded 
 Lady Marjory to run away with him. 
 
 "I don't think she needed very much persua- 
 sion, for Jack was an amazingly handsome fello.w, 
 and she was desperately fond of him. Anyhow, 
 run away they did, and managed to get safely and 
 legally tied up and made man and wife. 
 
 " The Saturns were furious ; but since all the 
 blustering and fuss in the world cannot undo what 
 the marriage ceremony has accomplished, they 
 contented themselves with blotting Lady Mtirjory's 
 name out of the family tree, and blotting her once 
 and forever out of the list of their acquaintances. 
 
 "But Lady Marjory and Jack didn't care, not 
 a button ; Lady Marjory had been brought up 
 by servants and governesses, almost a stranger to 
 her parents and her elder sisters, who were all 
 considerably older than herself, and had married 
 very early to become such very great ladies as 
 scarcely to know the young sister in the nursery, 
 even by sight.
 
 40 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 "And, as I said, she and Jack didn't care; slie 
 laughed wlien she heard her name had been 
 blotted out of the family tree ; and a few weeks 
 later we sailed for Indin, 
 
 " Wo went round the Cape, but Lady Marjory 
 and Jack Farquhar never seemed to find the voy- 
 age in the smallest degree tedious or irksome. 
 Whenever Jack had nothing to do— and on board 
 ship that was pretty often— they used to get away 
 into a corner together, and sit in the most blessed 
 unconsciousness that they ever so much as raised 
 a smile or caused a single thought of amusement. 
 If they had known it, I believe she would have 
 laughed more heartily than any of them, for she 
 was a merry little soul, and loved a joke dearly. 
 
 "Her absolute faith in Jack was wonderful; 
 she believed him capable of doing any mortal 
 thing better than any other human being under 
 the sun. Sometimes the fellows used to try and 
 tell yarns too wonderful to be surpassed, and her 
 great blue eyes would open M'ide with the sur- 
 prised and incredulous stare of a child who hears 
 of some marvellous fact for tlie first time, with 
 never a doubt of its being as true as gospel. But 
 it was always the same in the end; when the 
 wonderful yarn came to a close, she always pulled
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 41 
 
 herself together and made answer, ' Oh, that's noth- 
 iyig to what Jack did ; he shot a bear, or a tiger,' 
 or perliaps what then was a fabulous number of 
 partridges. Once, I remember, they tried, some 
 of the mischievous youngsters, to trap her by a 
 long yarn about a fox, but faith was always too 
 much for them, and so that time also. 
 
 " ' Took you three hours to shoot a fox V she 
 commented, scornfully; 'why Jack would have 
 eaten it in that time.' Poor little soul, it was a 
 nice point for some time whether she was not to 
 be caught by the assertion that they had shot 
 a fox or whether it was mere accident which 
 saved Jack from being credited on his wife's evi- 
 dence with that unpunishable but unpardonable 
 crime. 
 
 "Well, we landed at last, and went up-country 
 to Muttrapore, where we settled down, and where 
 by -and -by Jack and Lady Marjory had a child 
 born to them. A girl it was — a pretty little thing 
 as babies go — just like her, with big blue eyes and 
 a lot of flaxen fluff on its head. 'Pon my word, 
 to see that pretty young thing strutting about with 
 her baby in her arms — she scarcely more than a 
 babe herself — calling one's attention to the length 
 of its eyelashes and the closeness of its grasp, or
 
 42 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 bidding one declare it was tlie living image of 
 Jack, when the little soul's own face was repro- 
 duced with a fidelity which was perfectly ludicrous. 
 
 " So the months passed over and the new year 
 came in — the year of '57, so eventful in the an- 
 nals of India, so long to be remembered by the 
 British people. There were signs of the coming 
 storm even then, symptoms of dissatisfaction and 
 discontent, murmurings of fanatical hatred. 
 
 "At Muttrapore there was a big native garri- 
 son, but they were quartered quite on the other 
 side of the town to the Black Horse. Our bar- 
 racks and bungalows all lay on the highest ground, 
 most of the officers living pretty close to the bar- 
 racks. 
 
 " Only two were at any distance, and these were 
 the bungalows of the doctor, old Fitzgerald — you 
 remember him — and the Farquhars. 
 
 " The Farquhars' was the farthest away, being 
 two miles at least from any house but the doctor's, 
 and was, in fact, about equidistant from the cav- 
 alry barracks and the native lines. 
 
 "I remember when the news came that the 
 Mutiny had really broken out at Meerut, that the 
 trouble which had been smouldering so long had 
 burst into the fiercest flames. Nobody talked
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 43 
 
 very much about it, but men looked at one an- 
 other, and the faces of the women grew white 
 and anxious, though they kept very quiet and 
 silent over it. Only little Lady Marjory seemed 
 to have no fear — none at all. 
 
 "'If we were in a native regiment,' she ex- 
 plained one evening when one of the other ladies 
 remarked how brave and gay she was — 'if we 
 were in a native regiment I should give myself 
 up for lost at once ; but here in the midst of the 
 Black Horse I feel as safe as if I were in the 
 Tower of London.' 
 
 " ' And you three miles from the British lines V 
 asked the lady, incredulously. 
 
 " Little Lady Marjory laughed outright. ' They 
 won't rise like a mushroom in a single night,' she 
 cried. 'We shall know— Jack will know days, 
 ao-es before any outbreak happens at Muttrapore. 
 But till it is close upon us don't ask me to take 
 my baby into the craraped-up quarters we should 
 have allotted to us within our lines. I couldn't ; 
 why dear baby would be suffocated; and, you 
 know, we can get there in half an hour any time.' 
 
 " 'You had better be a fortnight too early than 
 an hour too late, Lady Marjory,' the major's wife 
 urged.
 
 44 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " ' Oh, Jack won't let me be a moment too 
 late !' cried the little woman, confidently. 
 
 " So the other gave uj3 tlie useless attempt to 
 frighten her into seeking a place of safety. As 
 she said to me an hour afterwards, ' What could 
 1 do with such a little fool? Her superb faith 
 in Jack — touching and pathetic as it is — simply 
 blinds her to all sense of danger, even when the 
 danger is so near that it may burst like a thunder- 
 storm over our heads at any moment.' 
 
 "'You had better try your powers of persua- 
 sion on Jack himself, Mrs. Le Mesurier,' I sug- 
 gested; 'shake him and you'll shake her.' 
 
 " Poor little fool ! She bade us all a gay ' good- 
 night 'wlien the band was over, and drove away 
 to the bungalow three miles distant, sitting as un- 
 concernedly by Jack's side as if she had been 
 driving out of the Park to quietly eat her dinner 
 in Green Street or Cavendish Square. Her light 
 laugh rang out upon the night air just as Mrs. Le 
 Mesurier asked the question, ' What can I do with 
 such a little fool?' 
 
 "Poor little fool! We saw her riding each 
 morniug, and regularly each evening she and 
 Jack appeared at the band. Other entertainments 
 there were none during those anxious days, those
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 45 
 
 being only kept going in order that the every-day 
 life of the English residents might appear to the 
 natives to be going on in the ordinary every-day 
 manner. The ladies kept away from one an- 
 other's houses lest they might be led into talkin^, 
 the situation over, and so express signs of fea.' 
 which might be overheard by the ever-watchful 
 native servants. The subject was never mentioned 
 in the mess-rooms for the same reason, and when 
 it was absolutel}' necessary that it should be dis- 
 cussed we used lO go out into the great, bare, 
 deserted square, and walk up and down there, 
 knowing that wo were safe from listeners. 
 
 "And every night Jack and Lady Marjory used 
 to come to the band, and she would call out in 
 her sweet, injudicious way, utterly regardless of 
 all precautions or what listeners might be about, 
 or the construction which might be put upon her 
 words — 'Ah! Here we are again, you see, all 
 safe and sound, like n couple of bad shillings, not 
 to be got rid of. You know they say naught is 
 never in danger.' 
 
 " And Jack, poor chap, he was so proud of his 
 little wife's pluck and the real bravery of her 
 spirit that he never used to check her in any wa}". 
 ' Oh, Marjie don't know what fear is,' he used to
 
 46 WITH THE TWENTY- FUTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 boast, when we told him what a dangerous game 
 they were playing, and how the mine might spring 
 up under their feet or ours at any moment; 'I 
 don't think I could frighten her if I tried, and I'm 
 not going to try.' 
 
 " Well, a week or two went over like this, and 
 then May went out and June came in. The signs 
 of the times crept nearer and nearer to us, and 
 the thunder -clouds rolled up over us and hung 
 ready to burst. And then one night, when we 
 were just finishing dinner, a carriage dashed up 
 to the door, and Jack Farquhar, looking anxious 
 and flurried, rushed in. 
 
 " ' I say, you fellows,' he panted, ' do yoii know 
 there's something up at the other side of the town, 
 in the native lines V 
 
 " ' No !' we all cried, for we had not expected it 
 quite so soon. 
 
 "'Yes, ray bearer came in and told me that the 
 native troops had risen and massacred their offi- 
 cers — so he'd been told. He didn't quite believe 
 it, but there was certainly a rising. So I came 
 along to let you know, sir,' he added to the 
 colonel. 
 
 " ' Quite right ! You'd better bring your wife 
 in,' said the colonel — he happened to be dining at
 
 .THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 47 
 
 mess that night — ' or have you left her with Mrs. 
 Le Mesurier?' Mrs. Le Mesurier's bungalow was 
 not a stone's-throw from the gates, the colonel's 
 about a quarter of a mile away. 
 
 " ' I haven't brought her,' said Jack, all at once 
 turning white to his very lips, as if in that mo- 
 ment he realized for the first time what the dan- 
 ger really was. - 
 
 " ' Good God ! man,' cried the colonel, angrily, 
 'are you mad? You've been acting like a fool- 
 hardy idiot the last month or more, but who was 
 to dream you would carry your scatter-brained 
 folly so far as'4;his ? Good God ! it is too horrible 
 to think of.' 
 
 " Jack's knees seemed to fairly give way under 
 him. ' I left her in Jamsee's charge,' he stam- 
 mered. ' She wouldn't come with me ; she wanted 
 to put the child's things together, and her jew- 
 ellery, and — ' 
 
 " ' Don't stand gabbling there,' the colonel cried 
 — he was in a furious rage and a horrible fright, 
 for Lady Marjory was one of his special favorites, 
 and he had from the very beginning estimated the 
 danger of the coming storm at something very 
 near its proper value ; ' let us be off at once, and 
 pray the Lord we be not too late.'
 
 48 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " Poor Jack fairly sobbed aloud in his agony of 
 fear and dread, and followed the colonel out in 
 abject meekness. At the very first hint of the bad 
 tidings, the colonel had sent out the order for the 
 regiment to be in readiness, and hastily giving Le 
 Mesurier instructions upon which to act during his 
 absence, rode off at the head of a piquet, as hard 
 as their horses could take them, for the Farquhars' 
 bungalow. I followed last of them all. 
 
 "In spite of Jack's horse having just come the 
 three jniles they had to traverse, he was the first 
 to reach the house. I had gained the colonel's 
 side by that time, but Jack was well on in front. 
 As we rounded a turn in the road which brouo'ht 
 us in sight of the buugalow. Jack turned round — 
 'It's all right — all is just lighted up as usual;' 
 then added, in a lower voice, 'But, sir, cured of 
 carelessness in that respect forever.' 
 
 " It all looked just as usual, as Jack said — there 
 were lights here and there, open doors in one or 
 two places, dogs barking loudly and furiously as 
 somehow dogs always do bark when you approach 
 a house in India at night. 
 
 "Jack pulled up at the gate, and shouted for a syce 
 to come and take his horse. ' Where the devil aie 
 they all ?' he burst out, irritably ; but nobody came.
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 49 
 
 "He jumped down, and flung the reins to one 
 of the dragoons — the colonel and I followed him. 
 'They've all bolted off to see the row,' he ex- 
 plained, as we went along the drive ; ' but it will 
 be all right, Marjie promised she would look out 
 fur me — she'll be at the drawing-room veranda. 
 Ah ! there she is,' he cried. ' Safe ! safe ! my 
 darling.' 
 
 "He sprang up the steps of the veranda to 
 where Lady Marjory was standing, just on the 
 threshold of the door leadino; into the drawins'- 
 room. She was wearing a flowing muslin gown, 
 entirely white, and stood holding the lintel of the 
 door. 
 
 " Jack rushed to her and caught her in his arms, 
 with a glad and triumphant cry — ' Oh, my darling! 
 — my — ' And then — upon my soul, Urquhart," 
 the colonel broke off, in a shaking voice, " I can 
 scarcely tell the story after all these years — and 
 then there was silence for one dreadful instant 
 ere, with an agonized shriek, he threw up his arms 
 and fell down at our feet, apparently as dead as 
 the poor little woman standing in the door-way." 
 
 " Dead !" cried Urquhart. 
 
 "Dead — yes! With a cord tied tightly about 
 her pretty, soft, childish throat, with her great blue 
 
 4
 
 50 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 eyes staring blankly before her, as, with the hor- 
 ror still stamped upon tliem, they had stared when 
 she stood alone to look a grim and ghastly death 
 in the face — dead ! yes, stone dead, with her dead 
 baby tied up in her arras, and herself tied there 
 to watch for the husband as she had promised him 
 she would do. I think it was. the g-hastliest si2;ht 
 I ever saw, to see that poor dead thing with the 
 great clusters of white, sweet-smelling roses nest- 
 ling against her poor strangled throat. 
 
 '"So much for Jamsee's fidelity,' said the colo- 
 nel bitterly, as we raised Jack from the ground. 
 
 " ' I don't know — look there,' I answered ; and, 
 sure enough, thei-e just outside the door lay the faith- 
 ful Jamsee, with a knife clean through his heart. 
 
 " We got the poor little lady and the dead baby 
 into the carriage, and finding that all our efforts 
 did not restore Jack to himself, just popped him 
 in and drove back again. 
 
 "We took her in to Mrs. Le Mesurier's house, 
 where she lay all that night and was laid away 
 quietly in the morning, with her baby on her 
 breast. Jack never saw her, and when, days after, 
 he came to himself, and gradually remembei-ed 
 what had happened, we never told him the exact 
 manner of her death.
 
 THE MEM-SAHIB'S PROMISE. 51 
 
 " But tliough he never knew how she had been 
 done to deatli by the murderers, he never held up 
 his head afterwards. I believe he tried his very- 
 best to meet his end during the awful times which 
 followed. Wliere shot and shell were fiercest, 
 where death and disease were most rife, thei-e 
 might Jack Farquhar be found ; but his was a 
 charmed life, and, as you see, he has had to live 
 through his one-and-twenty years of the martyr- 
 dom of self-blame and remorse." 
 
 "And Lady Marjory's murderers?" Urquhart 
 asked. 
 
 " I had the pleasure of seeing every one of them 
 disposed of," answered Colonel Ennis, in a tone of 
 satisfaction.
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 
 
 A. STORY IN" FIVK ^CXS. 
 
 EPISODE I. 
 
 OuK name is Moggeridge — Algy, Maud, and 
 Evangeline Moggeridge — and we live in a pretty 
 little semi-detached villa on the Castle Road, about 
 half-way between the Cavalry Barracks and the 
 city of WharneclifPe. 
 
 Mother says — oh yes, we have a mother, of 
 course, though pa died five years ago — that the 
 Laurels is a nasty little cramped-up box of a place, 
 and that we could have got a house twice as large 
 for the same money on the other side of the town 
 a little way out ; but then, as Maud and I say, 
 there would be no barracks on the other side of 
 the town, and it isn't likely two smart girls like 
 us were going to bury ourselves just to gratify an 
 old lady's whims. And as we tell mother, she has 
 had her day, and we want ours — and we mean to 
 have it, too. 
 
 I consider that Maud is a very handsome girl.
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 68 
 
 though she persists in saying she is not half so 
 handsome as I am. Maud is a tall, dashing girl, 
 with a slender figure and lots of style. She has 
 big brown eyes (they look glorious when they're 
 touched up a bit underneath), plenty of color, a 
 little short nose, rather a wide mouth, with very 
 white teeth and ripe red lips. Then, too, she has 
 heaps of dark silky, fluffy hair, which curls all 
 over her forehead, half hides her ears, and lies at 
 the back of her milk-white neck in bewitcliiug 
 little waves ; all the rest is gathered in a mass at 
 the top of her head. 
 
 People say we are very much alike. 
 
 We were sorry when the Scarlet Lancers went 
 away ; it was such a becoming uniform, and the 
 officers were continually passing to and fro in their 
 reo-imentals. I do like to see a man in regiment- 
 als; but then I dote upon the military — so does 
 Maud. We didn't get to know any of the Scarlet 
 Lancers; but we heard before the Black Horse 
 arrived that one of the married officers had taken 
 the house next door to us, when, of course, things 
 would be different. And very glad we were of 
 the change, for the people who lived in that house 
 before were very common shop -people, or some- 
 thing of that kind. And what was most aggra-
 
 54 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 vating of all, mother got to know them, and used 
 to be always going in and out gossiping with Mrs. 
 Barker, who dropped her h^s, and used to wash her 
 own door - step if she happened to be without a 
 servant. 
 
 Mother wouldn't listen to reason about it either; 
 but, as Maud said, mother has a taste for low 
 things, and no idea of taking a proper position in 
 society. 
 
 Well, the regiment arrived at the barracks, and 
 the new people came and took possession of the 
 next house — or rather their luggage did, in charge 
 of a lot of soldiers, who tumbled it out in the 
 middle of the road, and made a litter and mess 
 with straw and paper and rubbish that wasn't 
 cleared away for weeks. 
 
 Just as the soldiers were going away, three cabs 
 appeared, all piled up with luggage, a man-servant, 
 a fat old woman we thought must be the cook, 
 and a smart young lady whom we took to be the 
 mistress, until presently she appeared with a cap 
 and an apron on, and helped to unpack the things. 
 We found out afterwards that she was the lady's- 
 maid, and did a little light house -work, Maud 
 and I took the opportunity of going to the end of 
 the road to post a letter, just to get a peep at the
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 55 
 
 name on the luggage, and it fairly took our breath 
 away, it looked so romantic and distinguished — 
 
 Captain Otho Strange, 
 Twenty-fifth Dragoons, Wharnecliffa 
 
 Captain Otho Strange ! Fancy being called Mrs. 
 Otho Strange, and putting it on your cards, and 
 seeing it on your letters ! What luck some peo- 
 ple have! What a shame he happened to be mar- 
 ried! and how well either of our names would 
 have gone with his — Maud Strange, Evangeline 
 Strai]ge ! What luck some people have ! 
 
 We didn't think much of the furniture ; it all 
 took to pieces, and the man put everything togeth- 
 er in the road, not caring a bit who was lookino- 
 on. There was a big wooden bath, an oval thing 
 with a lid; the lid came off; three smart black 
 and gold legs came out of the tub first, and were 
 quickly screwed in so that it made a table. I sup- 
 pose they called it a gypsrj table. 
 
 All the dining-room furniture seemed to be the 
 same sort of thing. A huge packing-case was 
 opened, and out came arms and legs and backs 
 and seats of chairs; these were all screwed togeth- 
 er and carried in-doors — common-looking things 
 they were, too, not half so good as ours that we are
 
 56 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 always bothering mother to get rid of. Then the 
 packing-case itself turned inside out and made 
 into a chiffonier — such a thing ! I wouldn't have 
 owned it. 
 
 "We had a good stare at everything, for the serv- 
 ants didn't seem to mind on-lookers a bit. There 
 were nice squares of carpet, Turkey or Persian, 
 and very handsome velvet chairs, lots of lovely 
 skin rugs, and pictures without end. 
 
 But as far as we could tell, the furniture in the 
 drawing-room consisted of nothing but big velvet 
 chairs and one or two cases which turned inside 
 out and made into big velvet ottomans. Still, it 
 all looked very nice when it was done, for they 
 had the gas lighted one night and forgot to pull 
 the blinds down, so Maud and I went to the gate 
 to have a look, and saw everything. There were 
 w^hite lace curtains as well as the velvet ones, and 
 the big chairs set here and there on the hand- 
 some carpet, and the skin rugs just anywhere. 
 And one of the batli-lid tables had got a pretty 
 lace and muslin cover, with lots of colored ribbons 
 hanging from it ; so with half a dozen plants the 
 room looked very habitable indeed. 
 
 Mary, our servant, told us they were expected 
 by the last train.
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 57 
 
 EPISODE II. 
 
 We have seen them ; they came out quite early, 
 long before ten o'clock, he in his regimentals, and 
 she in a fresh white cotton breakfast gown, trim- 
 med with Madeira-work — so pretty; and slie stood 
 holding tlie top of tlie gate with one hand and 
 picked a bit of fluff off his coat with the other; 
 and then he said something, and she laughed, and 
 then he lauglied too, and patted her face with his 
 hand; and then he actually saluted her, just as if 
 she had been a stranger. 
 
 She stood leaning her arms on the gate for a 
 good bit after he went — long after he had disap- 
 peared round the corner. Maud and I went out 
 into our garden, and picked a few dead leaves off 
 the rose-trees and gatliered ourselves a button-hole. 
 And then, while we were there, and Mrs. Strange 
 was staring up and down the road, who should come 
 along but another othcer, in regimentals too, but 
 he was on horseback — sucli a handsome fellow, 
 and younger than her husband — and he waved his 
 hand to her, and reined his horse up just outside 
 the gate. 
 
 "Halloo, Kitty!" said he, "I hardly expected to 
 see you this morning."
 
 58 WITH THE TWEx\TY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " Well, Bill," she called back ; and then, yes, 
 actually, if he didn't bend down and give her a 
 great, sounding kiss — yes ; and the man - servant, 
 who had come out to do something at a creeper 
 which grew up by the window, standing by. And 
 Maud said to me, " Ah, don't officers' wives get a 
 good time, just?" 
 
 "Where's Strange?" he asked, presently, at the 
 same time stealing a glance at us. 
 
 " Just gone," she answered. 
 
 " Well, I must be oif, or 1 shall be too late for 
 officers' call. By-bye." 
 
 " By-bye," she said, with a laugh ; and then she 
 watched him go down the road too. Fancy a 
 woman being able to stand at a gate and watch 
 two good-looking fellows go down the road in less 
 than half an hour. 
 
 But she didn't go in then. She strolled about 
 the little garden, and had a long talk to the man 
 about the flowers and the creepers. She didn't 
 seem a bit stuck up either, for she laughed right 
 out twice, and the man laughed too, though he put 
 up his hand and pretended he didn't. However, 
 at last she went in-doors and left him. 
 
 How jolly it must be to have a man-servant, 
 and tell him just what you want him to do? What
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 59 
 
 luck some people have ! And, as Maud said to me, 
 she wasn't half as good-looking as us. 
 
 " What shall we do ?" I said to Maud. 
 
 "Oh, go in and sing something," she answered. 
 She's awfully proud of ray singing, Maud is ; and 
 I knew she wanted Mrs, Strange to hear what I 
 could do in that way. 
 
 Well, I went in and I sang " The Lost Chord," 
 just to clear my voice and set me going, and then 
 " In the Gloaming " and " Golden Love." I'm 
 awfully fond of that, it's so touching — 
 
 "Never to part, oh, darling, never more, 
 Until the angels call us home to rest !" 
 
 I sang ever so many more after that — all my best 
 songs, in fact — last of all " Laddie " — 
 
 " Oh, Laddie, Laddie, Laddie, 
 Come back if 'tis but to say. 
 The angels above have found thee alone. 
 And borne thy burden away!" 
 
 I do like that song ; one can put so much expres- 
 sion into it ! 
 
 I didn't sing any more after that, but Maud 
 said she thought she'd practise a bit. She's a 
 splendid player, is Maud, so dashing and brilliant. 
 She played a good lot that morning — more than
 
 60 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 nsnal ; in fact, until Algy came in and it was our 
 dinner-time. 
 
 When A]gy went back to the office I strolled 
 out as far as the gate with him. But he went 
 away with a horrid short pipe in his mouth, and 
 told me to go in and not make an exhibition of 
 m3'self. That was because I tried to pick a great, 
 long, carroty hair off his coat. I didn't go in, but 
 I wished I hadn't come out. That's the way with 
 brothers ; they're so provoking, and they always 
 make you feel so small ! 
 
 Well, it wasn't very long after that that Maud 
 called out " Evangeline — oh /" and made a rush to 
 the window. I went after her, and saw the very 
 loveliest turn-out I have ever seen in our road be- 
 fore. Of course it belonged to the Stranc^es. It 
 was a sort of low dog-cart made of basket-work, 
 and di-awn by the prettiest pair of ponies ever I 
 saw. The linings were rifle green, and there was 
 a good deal of brass on the harness; the ponies 
 were brown — very dark. Captain Strange came 
 out first, smoking a pipe — just such a horrid dirty 
 thing as Algy persists in using. He had no hat 
 on, and wore a plain light gray suit — dittoes, you 
 know — and had his hands in his pockets. He 
 went out into the road and walked all round the
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 61 
 
 ponies, punched thera here and there, and slapped 
 their necks, smoothed their legs down — some of 
 them, that is — and looked at their feet. And then 
 she came out and looked, and she punched thera 
 and slapped them and smoothed their legs. And 
 didn't she look stylish, just, all in black, with beads 
 eveiywhere that glittered in the sunshine like a 
 lot of black diamonds. She had a little white 
 straw hat, with a great bunch of creamy roses at 
 the front, and tan gloves sewed with black, and 
 not so much as a bit of ornament about her — not 
 a bracelet, nor a necklet, nor an ear-ring, not even 
 a watch-chain ; nothing but a little gold brooch to 
 fasten her collar ; and Maud, who had got the op- 
 era-glasses to get a good look, said it was a per- 
 fectly plain bar of gold, with raised gold letters — 
 just the name, "Otho." Then Captain Strange 
 called Charles, and tlie man came running out 
 with a parasol and his hat and gloves. He bent 
 down when he was putting his gloves on to hear 
 something his wife said, and then he turned round 
 and gave our windows such a stare ! I dare say 
 she was telling him w^hat smart girls we were.
 
 62 
 
 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 EPISODE III. 
 Well, I never ! Of all the insults— But I'll tell 
 you about it. Maud and I went and called on 
 Mrs. Strange this afternoon. We knew she was 
 in, but Charles said she wasn't at home. Of course 
 we couldn't say so, so we left our cards, and I 
 think our cards look very well. 
 
 QfUMi^d QMoaaeiic/^e. 
 
 Ovanmmie Qfioaa cliche. 
 
 And actually they went out for their drive as 
 usual half an hour later, and as soon as their backs 
 were turned, if that impudent Charles didn't come 
 to our house and ring the bell ! 
 
 " Mrs. Strange's compliments," said he, handing 
 Mary an envelope, "and she thinks there must 
 have been some mistake." And off he went. 
 
 "It's to apologize for his saying she wasn't in,"
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 63 
 
 said Maud. Bat it wasn't. There was no address 
 on the envelope, and when we opened it, there fell 
 out our own cards. 
 
 And I suppose she calls herself a lady ! — a vul- 
 gar, stiick-iip thing. So Maud and I resolved to 
 let her see that we are as good as she any day of 
 the week. Just fancy ! after our condescending 
 to go and call on a brazen-faced thing like that, 
 who carries on with another fellow as she does ! 
 / wonder her husband stands it ; but he doesn't 
 care, not a button, and the young officer simply 
 lives there. / can't tell what either of them can 
 see in her. 
 
 EPISODE IV. 
 
 Another insult. I never saw such insolent peo- 
 ple in all my life. If that Charles didn't actually 
 come again with a note for Mrs. Moggeridge. But 
 I'll tell you. It began, " Dear Madam," and it 
 said, in the most brutally plain terms, that his wife, 
 being an author of distinction, found our piano 
 and our singing — Maud's playing and my singing, 
 if you please ! — a very great hinderance, and that 
 they would be very much obliged if we could ab- 
 stain from music between the hours of ten and 
 one in the morning. 
 
 Mother was out when the note came, and of
 
 64 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 course we hadn't waited for her to come in to open 
 it, so Maud put it in the fire, and didn't we let 
 them have it, just! It was half -past nine when 
 the note came, and we sat down to the piano and 
 kept at it till we saw him come home to lunch at 
 one, and I must say I closed the instrument with 
 a feeling that I hadn't made my throat sore for 
 nothing. There was a good deal of satisfaction 
 in that. 
 
 "There!" I exclaimed, as we watched them 
 drive aM'ay that afternoon, " I think we've let 
 'your obedient servant, Otho Strange, captain,' 
 know how much value we set on you and the 
 author of distinction, and I hope you liked it." 
 
 But they didn't look as if they liked it at all, 
 either of them, but we paid them out. lie used 
 to scowl at the windows, and she used to sneer as 
 she went out, and if we met either of them in the 
 street, they used to look straight past us and pre- 
 tend they didn't see us. Such humbug ! 
 
 But we paid them out; we played and we sang 
 morning, noon, and night, except when they were 
 out in the evening, which was pretty often, and 
 then we took a rest. And whenever any of the 
 officers came to see them they used to look our 
 way, of course, and we used to look back, and
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 65 
 
 then they used to laugh, and we smiled back, and 
 then they bowed, and so did we, and didn't she 
 look daggers at ns, just, the nasty, stuck-up cat! 
 Yes, she wanted all the admiration for herself — 
 that was what she wanted. 
 
 And after we had given them about a week to 
 find out what we could do, there came another 
 " Dear Madam " letter, objecting to our musical 
 performances — this time as an intolerable nuisance 
 — and saying if they were not stopped as desired, 
 he should take measures to remedy the matter, 
 and promptly. We didn't let mother see that let- 
 ter either ; we put it in the fire like the other, and 
 let him take measures, as many as he liked. Maud 
 just went on playing till her fingers nearly dropped 
 off, with the top open and the loud pedal down, 
 and I sang till I nearly cracked my throat. But 
 we paid the author of distinction out finely, didn't 
 we, just? And we found out that " Bill" is only 
 her brother, after all. 
 
 EPISODE V. 
 
 Evangeline Moggeridge had written thus far 
 when a change came o'er the spirit of her dream 
 and Maud's, and as the unfinished manuscript 
 happened to fall into my hands, I concluded that 
 
 6
 
 66 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 it would not be ill-spent time for me to wind up 
 the little stoiy of the piano fiend in a fifth episode 
 compiled from accounts which reached me from 
 either side of the wall. 
 
 It was thus: about five weeks had passed since 
 Mrs. Strange had positively, but in terms of polite- 
 ness, declined the honor of the Moggeridge girls' 
 acquaintance by returning their cards — five weeks 
 which to her had been a period of torture inde- 
 scribable. Letters proving of no avail, and a legal 
 remedy seeming to Strange too slow in operation, 
 and also too costly a process for such a case, he 
 get his wits to work, and took a revenge of his 
 own — he flattered himself it was novel ; he knew 
 it was, so to speak, by wholesale. And the follow- 
 ing day he put it into use. The effect was mirac- 
 ulous, for Evangeline Moggeridge was at the pi- 
 ano a-singing 
 
 " An-n-n-n-n-ngels, e-e-e-e-e-e-ver br-i-i-i-i-i-gUt and f-a-a-a- 
 a-air ! 
 Ta-a-a-a-a-ke, o-o-o-b, ta-a-a-ke m-e-e-e t-o-o-o— " 
 
 when there was a Bang — Ckasfi — Bang ! next 
 door, followed by a " Twiddle-diddle, twiddle-did- 
 dle, diddle-dee." Then a " Pom — Pom — Pom — 
 Umtra — Umtra — Umtra — Bang — Bang -— JBang I
 
 THE PIANO FIEND. 67 
 
 Twiddle-diddle— Pom— Pom — Pom! Twiddle- 
 diddle dec. Ting-a-ting-a-tiiig-a-ting-ting-ting 1" 
 followed by a maddening " Tnm-a-dum, a-rnm-a 
 dnm, a-nim-a-dura, a-rum-tum-tum ! Bang — Bang 
 —Bang 1" 
 
 Evangeline did her best — what might be called 
 her level best — but " Angels ever bright and fair" 
 hadn't much chance against the horrible discord 
 and tumult of a band practice! 
 
 As I said, she did her best. She got Maud to 
 come and play that she might stand up and shriek 
 with better effect and more power. But what 
 availed the shriek of a sino;le human throat airainst 
 the "Bang" of the big drum, the "Crash" of the 
 cymbals, the distinct " Twaddle - diddle, twiddle- 
 diddle dee " of the piccolo, the " Pom — Pom — 
 Pom " of the trombone, the " Umtra — Umtra — 
 Umtra " of the ophicleide, or, stay — perhaps 1 am 
 not correct on that point — still there is a thing 
 in a brass band which goes " Umtra — Umtra," is 
 there not? And putting that aside, what chance 
 had the fair Evangeline against all these, backed 
 up by the " Ting-a-ting-a-ting " of the triangles, 
 and the absolutely maddening " Ilum-a-tum,a-rum- 
 a-tum, a-rub-dub-dub"of the little drum as it rat- 
 tled out the good old tune —
 
 68 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTU DRAGOONS. 
 
 "What could old Napoly do, 
 With all his Cuirassiers, 
 When he met on the field of Waterloo 
 With the British Grenadiers ?" 
 
 I give you my sacred word of honor, reader, 
 that "angels," no matter how bright and fair, 
 weren't in the same street with it ! 
 
 Well, after three days of this the Misses Mog- 
 geridge gave in and rested from their labors. Un- 
 fortunately their works followed them, and tlie 
 band practices next door continued, worse than 
 that, from morn till noon, and from noon till dewy 
 eve ; the miscellaneous practising, apparently, of 
 all the separate instruments in the entire band of 
 forty-five performers, each hammering at some dif- 
 ficult and elusive passage, each in a different key 
 to his comrades, continued also. And then there 
 were explanations between Strange and brother 
 Algy, and the distinguished author got her three 
 hours of peace at last.
 
 DISTINCTION. 
 
 Sir Anthony Staunton, Captain of the Black 
 Horse, walked briskly into the anteroom one 
 bright March morning, just before lunch -time. 
 Sir Anthony, better known as Pops, from his in- 
 veterate habit of popping the question to almost 
 every girl to whom he was introduced, in the 
 most blissful disregard of the melancholy fact 
 that he was as poor as a rat or a church mouse, 
 and had barely enough income to cover the mod- 
 est expenses of a cavalry officer who didn't mind 
 owning the truth of his circumstances, was a 
 good specimen of a regimental favorite, for he was 
 a man whom everybody liked — liked thoroughly 
 and sincerely. He was a well-made and well- 
 favored fellow, rather over the middle height, not 
 handsome, but possessed of a pair of handsome 
 gray eyes, and a set of dazzlingly handsome teeth, 
 a perfect digestion, and a heavenly temper, only 
 to be roused by an injustice or a wrong. As to 
 wliat some men, nay, most men, would resent as an 
 insult, Pops was so contemptuous as to be proof
 
 70 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 against it ; indeed there was a story afloat in the 
 Black Horse that one Grand Prix week Pops went 
 to Paris, and with his usual eye to a pretty face 
 promptly went for the fiancee of a young French 
 nobleman, instead of attending to the races, as he 
 had purposely gone to do. 
 
 A rumor had crept back to his regiment that 
 Pops had instantly been called out by the en- 
 raged Frenchman ; therefore, as soon as he show- 
 ed his face among his comrades he was eagerly 
 questioned: "Was it true?" 
 
 " Oh yes," answered he, with a laugh, " it was 
 true enough." 
 
 " And what did you do ? Fight ?" 
 
 " Fight ! No, not quite," contemptuously. 
 
 "But what did you do?" persisted his ques^ 
 tioners. 
 
 " Oh ! I punched his head — the ass," replied 
 Pops, laughing again. 
 
 Well, as I said, he went briskly into the ante- 
 room one bright March morning, straight up to 
 the letter-rack. 
 
 "Any for me?" he said to one of the fellows 
 who was examining the letters with an eye to 
 his own correspondence. 
 
 " Yes, one from your aunt," answered the man,
 
 DiSTlNCTIOIf. 71 
 
 pl-omptly — a reply which raised a general laugh, 
 for Sir Anthony Staunton's aunt, who was also 
 his godmother, was a very favorite personage with 
 the officers of the Black Horse. 
 
 Sir Anthony laughed with the others. He was 
 never, as a rule, behindhand with his share of any 
 jollity or chaff which might chance to be afloat ; 
 but the laughter ceased as suddenly as it had 
 come, for, lo and behold, up in the left-hand cor- 
 ner of the rack was a square envelope, on which 
 was written in a stiff, precise, and singularly an- 
 gular style of caligraphy, his own name — " Sir 
 Anthony Staunton, Bart., 25th Dragoons, Wharne- 
 cliffe " — and as his eyes fell thereon. Sir Anthony 
 Staunton fairly groaned within himself, for he 
 knew that the letter would sooner or later have 
 to be answered. 
 
 But when he had mastered the contents of the 
 epistle he groaned out aloud, in such genuine dis- 
 tress and dismay that every head in the room 
 was raised, every voice silenced, every letter and 
 paper lowered. 
 
 " What's up. Pops ?" said half a dozen sympa- 
 thetic voices. 
 
 " Oh, I've gone and done it this time — no mis- 
 take about it!" he groaned.
 
 7^ WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 "Done what? Not offended them, surely?" 
 Urquhart asked. They all knew that an immense 
 fortune hung on his relations with his godmother- 
 aunts, and felt for him accordingly. 
 
 " Offended them ?" repeated poor Pops, in what 
 was positively almost a wail. "No; but just lis- 
 ten to this, and then tell me what the devil I'm 
 to do !" 
 
 " Go on !" cried several voices, encouragingly. 
 
 So Pops went on — and read aloud part of the 
 letter he had just received. 
 
 "'I am delighted to hear,' it said, 'that you 
 find your new station so congenial to your tastes 
 and pursuits. Your Aunt Lavinia is busily en- 
 gaged in writing a daily manual for the use of 
 our soldiers and sailors, and has asked me to 
 write and tell you that, since she considers it ut- 
 terly impossible to produce good and useful work 
 unless she has an opportunity of closely study- 
 ing the lives and habits of the class for whom 
 she writes, she has decided that we shall come 
 to Wliarnecliffe and pay you a long visit. If you 
 remember, dear Mrs. De Swinton, when her son 
 was colonel of the — th Lancers, was accustomed 
 to pay him a visit of many months' duration each 
 year, and it is partly from her glowing accounts
 
 DISTINCTION. 76 
 
 of those visits, and the pleasure and novelty of 
 the life, that your Aunt Lavinia has persuaded 
 me to take this step — ' " 
 
 " D Mrs. De Svvinton !" burst out Pops, 
 
 savagely, at this point. 
 
 " Did you ever hear De Swinton doing it when 
 the visits were just coming on?" Lord Archie 
 asked. "No? Well, I have; and I can assure 
 you, my poor persecuted Sir Roger, any little mild 
 additions of yours in that line are quite unnec- 
 essary." 
 
 " Oh, De Swinton wasn't the man to do any- 
 thing by halves when he did set about it !" laugh- 
 ed Urquhart. " Well, Pops, what next ? Go on." 
 
 " ' — the wisdom of which I was very doubtful 
 about myself, knowing full well that you are a 
 young man living among young men like yourself, 
 wliile we are two old women full of crotchets and 
 fads of all kinds. Ilowever, you know, my dear 
 boy — no one better — that on the score of her be- 
 ing ten years my junior, your dear aunt will per- 
 sist in thinking herself a skittish young thing, whom 
 any vagary of conduct becomes. And how touchy 
 she is if reminded that she is an old woman of 
 sixty — old enough to be your grandmother rather 
 than your half -aunt; therefore I have reluctantly,
 
 U WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 after saying everything I could to prevent it and 
 turn her from her purpose, given in. If she comes 
 — and I am afraid she will, since she has so set 
 her heart upon it — it will be my duty to accompa- 
 ny her ; and while, my dear boy, thus necessarily 
 inflicting myself upon you, endeavor to render the 
 visit as little unpleasant to you as possible. She 
 bids me say that a couple of rooms — yours, for 
 preference — will be all that we shall require, with 
 the addition of a small sleeping-room for our maid, 
 Warner. Mrs. De Swinton never had more, and 
 had all her meals from the mess, as your Aunt 
 Lavinia wishes to do also. I assure you, my dear 
 Anthony,' the old lady went on, ' I never sat down 
 to pen a letter with greater reluctance, and I am 
 sure that you will exonerate me from any blame 
 in the matter. Although I am an old — I may al- 
 most say an aged — lady, I feel that it is a higlily 
 improper step to take, we not being like dear Mrs. 
 De Swinton, married women. But if I absolutely 
 refuse to come, your Aunt Lavinia is quite capable 
 of coming by herself, in which case there is simply 
 no saying what might happen.' " 
 
 When the yell of laughter which greeted this 
 had somewhat subsided, poor perplexed Pops con- 
 tinued — " ' What is worse,' the old lady went on
 
 DISTINCTION. 75 
 
 to say, ' I dare not say as much to her, for if I do 
 she is quite capable of leaving the whole of her 
 fortune to that detestable Emily Spenderley's hate- 
 ful boy—' " 
 
 "And that would bo a calamity," remarked 
 Archie Falconer, feelingly. 
 
 Sir Anthony Staunton folded the letter and re-, 
 placed it in its envelope. 
 
 "What the devil am I to do?" he said at 
 length. 
 
 Several heads were shaken, but nobody offered 
 any suggestion for the suppression of the frisky old 
 lady who was pining for an opportunity of study- 
 ing the dragoon in his habit as he lives. 
 
 " It must be stopped somehow, or I shall have 
 to leave the regiment," the wretched victim cried 
 at last. " I can't face the men after my Aunt La- 
 vinia has been let loose in barracks, and been cack- 
 ling in and out of the troop-rooms and so on. Oh, 
 hang it! it'll have to be stopped somehow." 
 
 " Oh, tell her small-pox is raging in barracks, 
 and the town simply decimated by scarlet-fever," 
 Lord Archie suggested. 
 
 Sir Anthony shook his head. " She would know 
 that was a lie," he said, dolefully. " And it's no 
 use telling her that the moral tone of the regiment
 
 76 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 isn't fit for a ladj to come to, she'd only be all tlie 
 more anxious to come." 
 
 Orford burst out laughing. "Did any of you 
 fellows ever hear the old butler at Idleminster 
 Mansion House give a description of 'them 'ere 
 ladies' meetings V " 
 
 "No. How? What was it?" 
 
 " He asked me one day when I went to call on 
 the Mayoress if I'd come to call, or was I come to 
 the meeting? 'Meeting,' said I, 'I didn't know 
 there was a meeting. What's it about, John V 
 ' Why, sir,' said John — he's a regular old charac- 
 ter, you know, been there forever — 'it's one of them 
 'ere ladies' meetings — unfortunate sisters and such- 
 like. You'd better stay, sir,' said he, with a sly 
 twinkle in his keen old eyes, 'for, between yon 
 and me, tliere's a lot of old maids gets together 
 here, and they talk and talk and talk, and — well,' 
 said he, ' if ever I want to hear something down- 
 right BAD, I just gets behind the door when there's 
 a ladies' meeting on, and, sure enough,! hears it.'" 
 
 Sir Anthony laughed with the i-est, but not so 
 heartily as was his wont ; and he repeated his dole- 
 ful question, " What the devil am I to do ?" 
 
 " Well now, if I were you," suggested Urquhart, 
 gravely, " I should write back an effusive letter
 
 DISTINCTION. 77 
 
 of prospective welcome, and I slionld just hint — 
 only just gently drop a hint, you know — that the 
 Scarlet Lancers happened to be an uncommonly 
 dirty lot, and that, try as we will, we cannot rid 
 the barracks of the hordes they left behind them 
 as a legacy." 
 
 " Uordes— hordes of what ?" said young Rags, 
 not understanding, though the light which sudden- 
 ly irradiated Staunton's face was sufficient to tell 
 him plainly that a loop-hole wherewith to escape 
 the torture had been thrown open, and a brilliant 
 suggestion made. " Hordes of what ?" he asked. 
 
 " Live-stock," answered Urquhart. 
 
 "Rats!" cried Rags. 
 
 "Beetles!" shouted another voice. "All old 
 ladies are frightened of beetles." 
 
 "Which is it?" Rags asked. 
 
 "£uffs r^ answered Urquhart, tersely. 
 
 And in consequence of this suggestion a diplo- 
 matic and cautious letter went back by return of 
 post to Miss Staunton, written in Anthony Staun- 
 ton's handwriting, but in reality the outcome of 
 Thomas Urquhart's clever brain. 
 
 " My deak Aunt Theodosia," it ran — " Of 
 course I shall be dehghted if you and Aunt Lavinia
 
 78 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 will pay me a visit a la Madame De Swinton ; but 
 as I am not commanding officer, nor even for the 
 matter of that a field-officer, you will, 1 am afraid, 
 have to rough it a great deal more than ever she 
 had to do when visiting her son. The quarter- 
 master is going to do the best he can in the mat- 
 ter of quarters [as a matter-of-fact the quarter- 
 master had never even heard the subject men- 
 tioned], but they will riecessarily be very limited. 
 I don't know what to say about Aunt Lavinia's 
 book — [' Yes, call it a hooli^ it sounds important,' 
 said Urquhart, when Sir Anthony had got thus 
 far] — I'm afraid the ordinary dragoon can't be 
 got to read anything of that sort. You see they 
 have to work pretty hard, and don't get very much 
 time to themselves, when, of course, they like to 
 get out of barracks if they can. But, all the 
 same, it is awfully good of her to think of try- 
 ins: it." Then there followed a little affectionate 
 wind - up, and he remained " Your affectionate 
 nephew, Anthony Staunton." 
 
 By return of post there came back an agonized 
 little note from Miss Thcodosia — " Why, my dear 
 boy, did you not at least make the attempt to damp 
 Lavinia's ardor somewhat ? Her heart is now more 
 Bet upon coming than evei'."
 
 DISTINCTION. 79 
 
 Sir Anthony promptly wrote back, or at least 
 Urqnliart did through him, to the effect that the 
 quartermaster had, with a great deal of trouble, 
 made arrangements for their accommodation, and 
 that preparations were being pushed on according- 
 ly with as much speed as possible. " And, by-the- 
 bye," the letter ended, " do either of you chance to 
 mind a few bugs ? Some people don't, you know." 
 
 Miss Tlieodosia replied, without so much as the 
 loss of a single post, " Do you mean to say you are 
 afflicted with those disgusting and loathsome in- 
 sects? They don't bite me; all the times we have 
 been in Venice, I never had so much as a single 
 bite; but Lavinia is a perfect martyr to them, and 
 "Warner declares if one is within a mile of her it 
 will get to her. I am very sorry for you, my dear 
 boy," the good old lady wound up, " but believe 
 me there are worse things in life even than hugs.'' 
 
 " Maiden aunts who are skittish at sixty," com- 
 mented Urquhart, with a grim laugh. But still 
 Miss Theodosia's hint was not apparently taken, 
 and Staunton wrote back immediately. 
 
 "Your rooms are being cleaned out to-day. 
 Yes, we have bugs, swarms of them ; but with 
 plenty of Condy and Keating scattered about I 
 hope they won't worry you. They don't worry
 
 80 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 rae, and so I have not as yet taken as much trou- 
 ble to get rid of tliein as some of tlie other fel- 
 lows. I shall have a good piano sent in and a few 
 plants in bloom, so everything will look very com- 
 fortable by the time yon come. By-the-bye, I hope 
 you don't mind the smell of stale tobacco ; I cavbt 
 get it out of ray carpets and hangings." 
 
 "I simply abominate tobacco, as yon know or 
 ought to know, ray dear boy," wrote back Miss 
 Theodosia. "And I gave your Aunt Lavinia fair 
 warning this raorning when I read your letter to 
 her, that if the smell of it is not out of your car- 
 pets and hangings when she persists in dragging 
 me out of my own airy and luxurious house to 
 what you call ' rough it ' in barracks, I shall cer- 
 tainly have an imraediate return of the protracted 
 and violent sickness from which I invariably suf- 
 fer on the journey to and from the Continent. La- 
 vinia is exceedingly self-willed, and in spite of the 
 stale smoke and the — [there was a slight hesitation 
 here, as if the old lady had made a brave attempt 
 to nerve herself to write the word itself, but that 
 refinement and a horror of the subject had been 
 too much for her] — creatures, still holds firmly to 
 their coming. Warner gave notice this morning, 
 as Lavinia insisted that it was all raealy-minded
 
 DISTINCTION. 81 
 
 nonsense, and if her mistress, quite as much of a 
 martyr to them as herself, could for a good cause 
 put up with tliem, there was no reason why the 
 maid should give herself airs on the subject. As 
 I said, Warner gave notice. She has been with 
 us twenty-three years, and what we shall do with- 
 out her I really do not know. The under-maid 
 Phcebe is young, very pretty, and particularly gid- 
 dy. Lavinia has told her to prepare for the jour- 
 ney, to the girl's unconcealed delight. I don't 
 know — I cannot tell what may be the conse- 
 quences." 
 
 " I can," remarked Urquhart, when Staunton 
 had read thus far. " Well ?" 
 
 " At the same time," the letter went on, " I can 
 see plainly enough that your Aunt Lavinia is dis- 
 tinctly uneasy in her mind. She told me to ask 
 you whether you had got rid of them or not?' 
 
 "It will be all right," was Urquhart's comment ; 
 "slie won't come now." 
 
 "I shall bolt if she does," answered Sir An- 
 thony, positively. 
 
 " But she won't," asserted Urquhart, in a tone 
 of quiet conviction; "and now write your an- 
 swer." 
 
 And this was the answer that Staunton sent — 
 
 6
 
 83 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 "My deak Aunt Theodosia, — 1 have just come 
 off a court - martial, and am writing in haste to 
 catch the post. I am awfully sorry about War- 
 ner. Can't you persuade her to stop? All the 
 same I shouldn't try to bring her here. Phoebe 
 won't mind a few bugs, and the men will be sure 
 to give her a good time. There are not many 
 pretty girls in Wharnecliffe, and if I remember, 
 Phoebe is a marvellously pretty lassie." ["Never 
 saw the girl in my life !" Staunton remarked, with 
 a laugh, as he wrote the words.] " As to the bugs 
 themselves — well, I really must confess we have 
 not got rid of them. You see they are all over 
 everywhere, and as fast as we clear them out they 
 come in from the other rooms in the same cor- 
 ridor. I've told my servant to catch a hundred 
 or so of good lively specimens, to let Aunt La- 
 vinia see what manner of things she may ex- 
 pect." 
 
 And the following morning, before breakfast, 
 Sir Anthony's servant came to him with a tele- 
 gram — a message of agony. 
 
 " On no account send a hundred of those things 
 here — or even one. Am writing." 
 
 to- 
 
 &• 
 
 And when Sir Anthony took the orange mis-
 
 DISTINCTION. 83 
 
 sive to Urquliart, Urqubart sat down and simply 
 roared over it. 
 
 Later in the day the promised letter arrived. 
 
 "My dear Boy, — Your Aunt Lavinia nearly 
 had a fit. She did indeed faint, or nearly so, and 
 Warner had to bring salts and vinegar and what 
 not. I do not think that she had believed there 
 were as many as you said ; but when j'ou suggest- 
 ed sending a hundred, as if they were tliere for 
 the picking up, she at once gave up all idea of 
 ever setting foot in Wharuecliffe Barracks; and 
 slie and Warner, who have not spoken for more 
 than a week, made it up. 
 
 " I trust when you next come to see us, you 
 will be very careful about your things. Your 
 Aunt Lavinia suggests that you and all your be- 
 longings shall be placed in a temporary quaran- 
 tine, and thoroughly fumigated. Phoebe is bit- 
 terly disappointed, and has been weeping all the 
 morning." 
 
 "So that danger is over," Urquhart laughed. 
 " Thank the Lord !" ejaculated the no longer 
 wretched victim, piously. 
 
 " And henceforth," Lord Archie laughed, " when
 
 84 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 you go to visit your venerated relatives, you will 
 enjoy the proud distinction of being labelled 'un- 
 clean.' " 
 
 "Better than the distinction of looking like a 
 fool," answered Pops, gayly.
 
 A HIDDEN HERO. 
 
 Lord Archie Falconer was keeping his hunt- 
 ers — to tlie tune of a modest couple — out of bar- 
 racks, and was on his way to see them when he 
 chanced to meet with Marcus Orford. 
 
 His way lay through a poor and forlorn-looking 
 district, laid out in small and narrow streets of 
 ugly little featureless houses, built in rows to the 
 cultivation of notliing but a certain air of crushed 
 and melancholy meek neatness, and situated about 
 midway between the barracks and the town of 
 Wharnecliffc. It was peopled chiefly by such of 
 the Benedicks among the rank and file of the 
 Black Horse as were not on the strength of the 
 regiment. 
 
 Marcus Orford was laughing as Lord Archie 
 approached him, and he felt his own face expand' 
 ing into a broad smile instantly. 
 
 " What are you laughing at?" he demanded. 
 
 "I found yesterday," the other answered, " that 
 Arnitt was down with a severe attack of conges- 
 tion of the lungs — a very serious case, his wife
 
 86 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 told me the doctor had pronounced it. I sent 
 him a basket of things down this morning — ice 
 and grapes and jelly, and so on, you know — for, 
 poor devil, it must be hard lines to be ill in such 
 a hole as that" — jerking his stick over his shoul- 
 der to indicate a row of squalid little houses be- 
 hind him — " and Moore brought back word that 
 he was very bad — as bad as he could be. So I 
 thought I'd come round and hear how he is to- 
 day. 'Tis a tidy little place, but terribly bare and 
 comfortless, and I found half a dozen youngsters 
 all squatting about the door-step, and evidently 
 expecting evcrj^ minute to hear that the end had 
 come. ' Halloo, my man,' said I to the biggest 
 boy, a lad of seven or eight, ' ai-e you one of Ar- 
 nitt's boys ?' ' Yes, sir, we're all his'n^ he piped 
 out. ' Oh, are you V I said, thinking Arnitt may 
 well look as hungry as he generally does. 'And 
 how is your father this afternoon?' 'Yery bad, 
 sir — mortal bad — as bad's he can be,' the young- 
 ster piped out in reply. ' An' the dorctor 'e saj's 
 if father lives till morning there'll be some 'opes ; 
 but if he don't live till morning he won't have 
 no 'opes at all.' " 
 
 Lord Archie laughed outright, and Marcus Or- 
 ford continued : " But I don't believe Arnitt will
 
 A HroDEN HERO. 87 
 
 live till morning, poor chap ; and if not, what his 
 wife will do with all those youngsters is rather a 
 hard question." 
 
 "Yes; decent fellow, Arnitt; I had him with 
 m}- horses for a time. Pity he married without 
 waiting for leave ; it's such a drag on a man, un- 
 less the wife happens to have some business of 
 her own ; and Arnitt, poor beggar, is so overrid- 
 den with children, and his wife's line of business 
 not of much use to her." 
 
 " What was it ?" 
 
 " Oh, she was a circus-rider, and a ripping smart 
 girl, too. I remember seeing her the year I join- 
 ed. She had a pretty little face, and a pretty lit- 
 tle figure, too, and a lot of light crinkling fair 
 hair that seemed to wave all over her head in 
 shining flecks of light ; I never saw such jolly 
 hair." 
 
 "She's a pretty little woman now," Marcus Or- 
 ford remarked. " Well ?" 
 
 " We were all more or less gone on her," Lord 
 Archie continued. " The little favorite, we used 
 to call her. Iler circus name was Mademoiselle 
 Favorita — her own, God knows ! However, none 
 of the fellows could make any impression upon 
 her whatever, not the very smallest, and one af-
 
 88 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 ternoon, about six o'clock, I met her going down 
 to the circus with Arnitt, and then I knew why. 
 And, sure enough, very shortly after that she and 
 Arnitt got married. If he'd put in for leave, and 
 waited till he got it, wliich he would have done, 
 they might have got on vei-y well ; but he mar- 
 ried her straight out of hand, and there they have 
 stuck ever since. Arnitt ought to have got on, 
 for he's a gentleman — a 'Yarsity man, too; but 
 he's been unlucky, unlucky all round." 
 
 "Tou don't mean it," Orford cried, in huge 
 surprise, " that he's a gentleman — and a 'Varsity 
 man ?" 
 
 "Oh, but I do, though — an Oxford man. I re- 
 membered his face distinctly as a man of Bra- 
 zenose when I was at Paul's, but for the very life I 
 couldn't then, and have never been able since to 
 put a name to it. And yet I almost fancy — and 
 I think of it every time I get a fair look at him 
 — that I've seen the face with a tuft above it." 
 
 " A tuft ! you don't mean it ?" Orford cried. 
 
 " Yes, I do. I get back to a certain point, and 
 then I seem to come to a dead wall, wliich blocks 
 me com})letely." 
 
 "Oh, you must be mistaken, or bo mixing him 
 up with somebody else," Oi-ford declai-cd. "It
 
 A HIDDEN HERO. 89 
 
 couldn't be, jou know ; somebody would be sure 
 to recognize him." 
 
 "Well, T may be," Lord Archie admitted— "I 
 may be, but still I've had the same impression 
 ever since I have been in the reginaent. Still, as 
 you say, I may be mixing him up with somebody 
 else." 
 
 " Why don't yon ask him outright ?" 
 "I did hint at it once. One of the horses was 
 sick, and we had a good deal of trouble with him ; 
 and one afternoon I was watching Arnitt put a 
 bandage on, when the conviction that I had known 
 him before came upon me stronger than ever. 
 ' Tliis is not the first time you and I have had to 
 do with a horse together, Arnitt,' I said to him. 
 He looked up at me quickly, a flash of a look as 
 if I might be a detective who had been tracking 
 him for years, and had hunted him down at last. 
 ' For God's sake, don't, my lord,' he said, all in a 
 hurry; 'it's no use pretending that I was once 
 a — ' 'An under -grad at Brazenose,' I put in; 
 when, poor beggar, he gave such a cringing shiv- 
 er that I felt sure I'd put my hand on an open 
 wound, and wished I had let him alone. ' I want 
 to forget all that, my lord ; I sunk that life and 
 everything connected with it long since,' he said.
 
 90 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 desperately. 'I wouldn't have joined the Black 
 Horse if I'd ever guessed you would have been 
 gazetted to it' ' Oh, it's all right. I'll not remind 
 you of it again, Arnitt,' I told him ; for, of course, 
 I didn't want to make his burden any heavier for 
 him to carry. I knew his face, but could not re- 
 member his name, and should not try to find out. 
 'Only,' I said, 'I do remember perfectly well that 
 ■you didn't call me "my lord" in the old days.' 
 ' Don't talk about the old days,' he burst out. ' I 
 forfeited all that made them worth having, and 
 I can bear it; but don't remind me of them, if 
 you know wliat pity is — don't.' So of course I 
 told him I wouldn't, and no more I did. I nev- 
 er tried to find him out, but I've often thought 
 about it, and tried to fix the name I knew belong- 
 ed to the face, but I never could ; it has always 
 eluded my memory just as a dream often does- 
 Yes, there is a queer story at the back of Arnitt's 
 hard life, I know that. It's a strange fate for a 
 man to have been a tuft at Brazenose, and then 
 a private in a marching regiment, with a wife 
 picked out of a circus. And he's fond of her, 
 too; oh yes, for she is not a bad sort, and was al- 
 ways pretty. Yes, it's a queer story, very. Well, 
 I must be getting along — by-bye."
 
 A HIDDEN HERO. 91 
 
 " By-bye," returned Orford, and went on his way, 
 wondering much about the story he had just heard. 
 Meantime Lord Archie went farther along the 
 street, and turned in at an archway between two 
 of the Httle featureless houses, which brought him 
 into the stable-yard. He just cast an eye over the 
 animals, and then inquired of the groom which 
 was Arnitt's house. 
 
 The man pointed it out, and Lord Archie cross- 
 ed the narrow, ill-paved little street, and knocked 
 softly on the panel of the door. It was opened 
 by the pretty, fair-haired wife, who looked worn to 
 death, and had a baby in her arms ; two older 
 children, yet little more than infants, clung to her 
 skirts, and the bigger ones stood in the background 
 looking shyly on. 
 
 " Good - day, Mrs. Arnitt. IIow is your hus- 
 band ?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, niy lord, he's very ill," she answered, with 
 quivering lips and eyes brimming over, not because 
 she had been weeping much, but because the sym- 
 pathetic tone went straight to her heart, and made 
 it quiver like a harp swept by a strong hand; 
 "he's very ill indeed; and Dr. Granger scarcely 
 gives me any hope at all." 
 
 "Who's attending to him? Have you got a
 
 92 WITU THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 mirse or anjbodj to help you?" Lord Archie in- 
 quired. 
 
 " Yes, my lord ; Mr. Orford sent one in as soon 
 as ever he heard Arnitt was ill — very ill, that is. 
 But he will never get over it, my lord — never." 
 And lowering her voice almost to a whisper : "He's 
 got something on his mind; I know it; I'm sure 
 of it." 
 
 "What kind of a somcthins:?" Lord Archie 
 asked. 
 
 " I can't tell that, my lord," she answered ; " but 
 something there is, for certain. Arnitt is a very 
 quiet, close sort of man, and though he's one of 
 the best husbands that ever drew breath, and has 
 never given me a cross word since we were mar- 
 ried, and has never raised his hand to one of the 
 cliildren — and tliey are trying at times, there's no 
 denying it — he's never told me a word about his 
 past life, never one. I don't know anything about 
 liim, my lord, not even where he was born, or 
 wliether he has a relation in all the world. But 
 he isn't like me, my lord ; and though he's no bet- 
 ter now than a common soldier, he's a gentleman, 
 Arnitt is; and sometimes I could fancy he was 
 even more than that." 
 
 Lord Archie's conscience pricked him a little
 
 A HIDDEN UERO. 93 
 
 that he was obh'ged in honor to keep fi-oin this 
 distressed little soul, with her pretty, fair hair and 
 blue, tear-drowned eyes, the fact that he knew the 
 truth of much of what she was saying. Then a 
 sudden thought came into his mind. 
 
 "Would he like to see me, do you think?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I feel sure he would, my lord," she answered. 
 
 " Well, you might ask him," he said, for he had 
 no desire to disturb what probably were his ex- 
 groom's last hours by recalling painfully to his 
 mind the incidents of the past — incidents which 
 he most likely needed no stimulus to remember, 
 and which would now be crowding back upon 
 him, as the past does when we have nearly done 
 with the present. 
 
 So she went up the creaking little stairs with 
 the baby in her arms, leaving Lord Archie stand- 
 ing in the midst of the group of awe-stricken and 
 bewildered youngsters, lie spoke to one or two 
 of them, the eldest boy among them, and found 
 that Marcus Orford's little anecdote had been lib- 
 erally doctored in the matter of pronunciation and 
 accent, and that he, in common with all the others, 
 spoke very well indeed, and if not quite up to his 
 own standard, still very much above the averao-e
 
 94 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 of a better class of children than those living in 
 that part of Wharnecliffe. 
 
 And then Mrs. Arnitt appeared again, and said 
 the sick man was very anxious to see his loi'dship 
 if he would go up. So Lord Archie went up alone. 
 
 It was a poor little room in which he found 
 ^himself when he reached the top of the creaking 
 stairway, but it was clean and orderly. The quilt 
 upon the bed was white, if coarse, and there was 
 a pleasant-faced, middle-aged nurse in a white cap 
 sitting beside the patient, who rose and made her 
 obeisance when he entered under the low door- 
 way. Arnitt made a sign to her to leave them, 
 and Lord Archie advanced to the side of the bed. 
 
 " Why, Arnitt," he said, " I am very sorry to find 
 you so ill ; what ever have you been doing to get 
 like this?" 
 
 " I've about come to the end of the journey," 
 said the sick man, in a painful undertone, scarce- 
 ly more than a whisper. 
 
 " Oh ! I hope not, I hope not," put in the officer, 
 kindly. "You must keep up your heart. You 
 know while there's life there's hope, and a man 
 just in his prime, as you are, mustn't think of giv- 
 ing in yet a while. Besides, there are others to 
 think of, you know, Arnitt — there's your wife, and
 
 A HIDDEN HERO. 95 
 
 there are your children — jou must make an effort 
 and do your best to live for their sakes." 
 
 " Poor souls, God help them !" murmured Arnitt, 
 feebly. " I've never been much good to her, and 
 she's been the best and dearest of wives to me; 
 but there'll be a provision for her and for them, 
 never fear ; and, Lord Archie, it was about that I 
 was anxious to see you when Nelly told me you 
 were down below." 
 
 "Ought you to be talking so much?" Lord Ar- 
 chie asked, gently interrupting. He had no- 
 ticed the change in Arnitt's manner of address- 
 ing him — a change f rom " my lord" to "Lord 
 Archie" — and it made the man more familiar 
 than ever. 
 
 " Oh yes, yes— what will it matter in the end ?" 
 impatiently. "Just a few minutes more or less. 
 I must tell you some things, and get you to help 
 my boy into the rights and the position which I 
 had to forego and give up, I know you will, when 
 I have told you my story, beginning from the time 
 when you were xlrchie Falconer of Paul's, and I 
 was Studham of Brazenose." 
 
 Lord Archie uttered a sharp cry of recognition 
 and surprise. " Studham of Brazenose, and in the 
 ranks of the Twenty-lifth Dragoons ! Good heav-
 
 96 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 ens ! what could have possessed you ? You must 
 have been mad — mad !" 
 
 "No, I wasn't mad, not in the least; I was only 
 the victim of circumstances," answered the sick 
 man, with a sad smile. " But, tell me, didn't you 
 know all along ?" 
 
 " I never guessed it. I never suspected it for a 
 moment. I only knew I had known you long ago 
 in the old 'Varsity days. Yes; of course you are 
 Studham ; but, heavens ! how you are altered !" 
 
 "Fourteen years of the ranks do make a change 
 in a man, and the Studham you knew was very 
 young and very foolish," the other answered. 
 
 " Then what can I do for you ? Why don't you 
 claim your own, and take your own place in the 
 world? It's absurd to think of you, Studham — 
 nay, but you are not Studham, but Mannersleigh, 
 now, since your father died — dragging out such a 
 life as yours must of necessity be. It's absurd, and 
 we must get you out of this at once." 
 
 " No, no ; it's a poor little hole, but I've been 
 happy in it. I'll stay here to the end of the chap- 
 ter. We've got to the last page, I fancy. Still, 
 my children have rights, and I have kept silence 
 long enough." 
 
 " For Mannersleigh ; that is, for your brother Taff."
 
 A HIDDEN HERO. 97 
 
 "Yes, Taff; do jou ever liear anything of him? 
 Have you any idea what kind of a life lie is leading ?" 
 
 Lord Archie laughed. " Oh, he has turned over 
 a new leaf; gave up the old ways with the old 
 name. But how came he to prove your death? 
 He must have done it to claim and gain your fa- 
 ther's title." 
 
 "I don't know; I have not heard a word of 
 him for years— never since the day I last saw him, 
 when I told him I had pvooi, proof oi his guilt, 
 the guilt for which I have borne the blame all 
 these fourteen long weary years past. I gave him 
 the opportunity of flying the country, which he 
 scouted, declaring I must be mad, crazy, idiotic to 
 dream of suspecting him." 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Murder !" the sick man answered. " He foul- 
 ly and cruelly murdered my mother's niece, our 
 cousin, because he had made— But what am I 
 saying? I am wandering in my head, that I go 
 blabbing out the secret I have kept all these 
 years to my own hurt and ruin." He looked anx- 
 ionsly at Lord Archie as he spoke, as if he thought 
 he would rush out of the room and proclaim the 
 whole of his secret to the, world at large j but 
 Lord Archie soon set him at rest. 
 
 7
 
 98 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 "Don't worry yourself. You didn't mean to 
 tell me? Well, I shall never disclose it; don't 
 worry yourself about it. And now tell me what 
 steps I shall have to take to secure your son's 
 rights. Have you made a wall, and left your pa- 
 pers in order ?" 
 
 "Everything! They are all in that little tin 
 box. As to my will, that is made too; but I 
 should like to add something to it, if you will 
 consent." 
 
 " I ? Oh, of course ; what is it ?" 
 
 "To act as trustee to my children and their 
 mother. I dare say she will marry again, and 
 I've provided a suitable income in case of it." 
 
 " I'll do it, of course ; but, Studhara, tell me," 
 reverting instinctively to the old name of their 
 'Varsity days, " why, wlien you had the power to 
 take everything and provide properly and suitably 
 for your wife and children — why did you bury 
 yourself in the ranks, and let that young ruffian 
 Taff usurp your place ?" 
 
 " I'll tell you. As I said, Taff flatly refused to 
 clear out of the way, and challenged me — yes, 
 actually challenged me to produce my proofs 
 against him. 1 had them safe enough, and so I 
 told him — they're in that box now, I shouldn't
 
 A HIDDExNf UERO. 99 
 
 have spoken — what would have been the good ? 
 It would have broken my father's heart, and tar- 
 nished our old name ; and the girl was dead, had 
 been lying dead among the sedge and the bul- 
 rushes for hours before we found her. All the 
 ruin that could come upon the Mannersleigli fam- 
 ily would not bring her back again, so I deter- 
 mined to keep silence, simply because I could not 
 see the good of speaking. 
 
 "I had been all that day sitting with my lord, 
 but I happened to be the first to find the poor 
 girl, lying face down in the water, and as I turned 
 her over I tore open the bosom of her gown in 
 doing it, when there fell out a letter in Taff's 
 handwriting, asking her to meet him in that place 
 at four in the afternoon. I concealed it instinct- 
 ively, and seeing her hand clinched upon some- 
 thing, forced it open and took from it a locket 
 which he had worn on his watch-chain at lunch- 
 eon. I knew it, because we had all noticed it. 
 There was a bit of broken chain hano-inor to it, evi- 
 dently where slie had clutched at it in the last 
 agony of her struggle with him. I showed the 
 letter and the locket to him that very nio-ht, and 
 then, owing to the gossip of one of the servants 
 who had seen me take the locket, or rather, had
 
 100 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 seen me take something out of her hand, I was 
 put upon the trial as first witness. As soon as I 
 saw in the report that it was known I had the 
 locket, I made up my mind to clear out of the 
 way at once, for though I could keep silence, I 
 could not give false evidence. I could easier 
 bear ruin and social extinction for myself than I 
 could break my father's heart by putting a rope 
 round my brother's neck. So that night I bolted, 
 and then I got over to Ireland and enlisted in the 
 Twenty-iifth. But I didn't know, I never heard, 
 he was dead. When was it ?" 
 
 "About a year ago," Lord Archie replied. 
 
 " Ah, I never heard it," sighing ; " and you say 
 Taff has turned over a new leaf ?" 
 
 " Presides at philanthropic and religious meet- 
 ings, and so forth. I believe he's quite a shining 
 light among the unco' guid." 
 
 « Ah, he'll need it all !" dryly. "I fear, though, 
 there's not much real good in him. lie was al- 
 ways a bad lot, but my father loved him best of 
 us all. Well, my time is getting short, and if you 
 will get me a lawyer here at once, I'll settle about 
 the trusteeship ; the sooner the better ; there's no 
 time to lose. For the rest it will soon be over. 
 I shall not see to - morrow ; of that I am certain.
 
 A-HIm)E^'• HERO. 101 
 
 As soon as you hear of it, I want you to go and 
 see Taff, and tell him all I have told you ; tell 
 him that you hold my written word, that it is all 
 true, that unless he admits my boy's claim, and 
 allows him to take his place without delay, you 
 have my orders to disclose everything — every- 
 tliing ! But you will have no trouble; and I 
 should like to lie in the old church-yard at home 
 beside my mother. You'll do all this for me, 
 Archie ?" anxiously. 
 
 " I'll do it all to the best of my power," said 
 Lord Archie, with a great lump in his throat and 
 a white mist dancing before his eyes, so that the 
 sick man and the little meagre room were blotted 
 out from his vision. 
 
 " I didn't know he had gone, or I should have 
 done it before. I always meant to put my chil- 
 dren in their own place, but I didn't know the old 
 man was dead. I only kept out of the way for 
 his sake ; it was all for his sake." 
 
 Lord Archie rose to his feet. "I'll go for a 
 lawyer at once ; but, Studham, old fellow, can't 
 you make an effort and get well? I wish you 
 would." 
 
 " It's too late now, Archie ; but thank you all 
 the same."
 
 103 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " It seems such a pity," regretfully. 
 " It can't be helped," patiently ; " and I kept it 
 from him." 
 
 And that night Private John Arnitt died, and a 
 week later was buried as John George Aliired, 
 tenth Earl of Maunersleigh, when Stephen, his 
 son, reigned in his stead.
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 
 
 Although the little town of Wharnecliffe was 
 sucli a bright and cheery spot, and the cavalry 
 barracks such favorite quarters with the gay and 
 gallant heavy and light horse, which go to make 
 up that part of the Army which is called the Cav- 
 alry of the Line, the barracks were once the scene 
 of a very dreadful tragedy, which happened dur- 
 ing the time that the White Dragoons had them in 
 possession ; for during the small hours of a morn- 
 ing, after a particularly gay and rollicking guest- 
 night, a young officer, holding the rank of lieuten- 
 ant, was foully murdered, done to death by the 
 stab of a sharp-pointed knife driven right to the 
 very shaft in his back, but why and by whom to 
 this day never ti-anspired. The strictest investi- 
 gations and inquiries were set on foot, very large 
 rewards were offered, but in spite of all the ef- 
 forts of the best detectives in Scotland Yard, urged 
 forward by every officer in the regiment to do 
 even better than their very best, the mystery re-
 
 104 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 mained a mystery, unravelled and unexplained — 
 one of the many murders which do not out. 
 
 In due time the White Dragoons marched out of 
 Wharnecliffe, their place being taken by the Scar- 
 let Lancers, who, in their turn, after staying their 
 allotted time, marched out like their predecessors, 
 to make way for the Black Horse ; and so, after 
 making a horror-stricken sensation from one end 
 of the kingdom to the other, and being rather 
 more than the traditional nine days' wonder, the 
 cruel and dastardly act became merely a memory, 
 leaving nothing, not even a stain, to show to those 
 who came after that anything had ever taken place 
 under the roof which covered the large block of 
 buildings set apart for officers' quarters, which 
 was out of the ordinary run of every-day barrack 
 life. 
 
 Naturally enough, during the time which the 
 White Dragoons spent at Wharnecliffe after tlio 
 tragedy happened, that particular room remained 
 untenanted. In time the place of the murdered of- 
 ficer was filled up, and he was forgotten, except for 
 an occasional sigh and a " Poor old Jack, he would 
 have liked this, or he would have helped with that;" 
 but the room in which he had met his violent death 
 remained unused. However, when the Scarlet
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 105 
 
 Lancers took over the barracks from the outgoing 
 regiment, it happei>ed tliat no inquiries were made, 
 and no information given, as to tlie identity of the 
 scene of the tragedy; and it being a very good 
 apartment, "Tas portioned out as part of the quar- 
 termaster's quarters. And then, when the Black 
 Horse took over the barracks in their turn, the 
 junior major, not seeing the force of the quarter- 
 master appropriating one of the" best rooms in bar- 
 racks for his own use, expressed a wish to have it 
 as one of the two to which his rank entitled him, 
 and, as a matter of course, got it. 
 
 Now it happened that the officers determined to 
 give a ball on the last day of the year, and invita- 
 tions were early sent out to that effect. There 
 were unusually good ballrooms down in the town, 
 spacious and lofty, with supper-gallery and half a 
 dozen pleasant and cosey little boudoirs of much 
 attractiveness and comfort; and it was perhaps 
 on this account, and partly owing to the extreme 
 popularity of the hosts, that the invitations were 
 eagerly accepted, and refusals were few and far 
 between ; and as a good many guests were coming 
 from a distance, it became a matter of some im- 
 portance to settle how those who, being for the 
 most part ex-officers of the regiment, would infi-
 
 106 AVITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 nitely prefer to be put up in barracks, could with 
 any convenience be disposed of. 
 
 " There is the major's room," suggested young 
 Mackenzie. " You know lie left it at the disposal 
 of any one whu wanted to invite a guest during 
 his leave;" for the major had gone to the south 
 of France for his long leave, and knew how hard 
 up for room his brother-officers would be about 
 the time of giving the ball. 
 
 " Yes, but Winstanley is to have that ; and where 
 we shall contrive to put Carstairs is more than I 
 can imagine." 
 
 " I'll give up my room, and sleep on the sofa in 
 Major Escott's sitting-room." 
 
 " That sofa makes into a bed ; Escott uses it 
 himself in case of emergency," said Urquhart. 
 
 " Then that settles the question nicely," said 
 Mackenzie — " Young Rags " he was generally 
 called — and Carstairs, of the White Di-agoons, 
 being the last for whom sleeping accommodation 
 had to be provided, the matter was dismissed as 
 settled and done with. 
 
 On the night previous to New-year's eve there 
 was, as many of the guests had already arrived in 
 the town, a very large influx of guests at mess; 
 and on the afternoon of that day Carstairs, of the
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 107 
 
 White Dragoons, made his appearance, and was 
 duly installed in young Mackenzie's room. Mac- 
 kenzie was not in barracks when he arrived, and 
 later iu the evening, when officers and guests were 
 assetnbling in the anteroom before dinner, he asked 
 to be introduced to him, and expressed a polite 
 hope that he was not putting him to any great in- 
 convenience. " Not the very least in the world," 
 answered young Mackenzie, heartily. " I am 
 camping in Major Escott's sitting-room, and am as 
 jolly as possible." 
 
 " Has he the rooms over the colonel's ?" Car- 
 stairs asked, with the interest of one who knew 
 the barracks well. 
 
 "Oh no; St. Aubyn, the senior major, has them. 
 No, Escott's rooms are on the right of the entrance 
 door," Mackenzie answered. 
 
 "Ground-floor?" the other inquired. 
 
 "Yes," Mackenzie answered. "I have the sit- 
 ting-room, which comes first, and Winstanley has 
 the bedroom." 
 
 " I wonder he took those rooms," said Carstairs. 
 
 " Why ? They're the best in barracks." 
 
 " Yes, I know ; but the one next the front door 
 was the room where poor Jack Donovan was mur- 
 dered."
 
 108 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " Good heavens ! yon don't say so. I don't be- 
 lieve the major or anybody else ever thought of 
 asking which was the room," Mackenzie cried. "I 
 dare say he wouldn't have taken it if he'd known, 
 much less have asked for it, for he's rather a nerv- 
 ous, superstitious sort of man, I fancy." 
 
 "Will you mind sleeping there?" asked Car- 
 stairs, feeling a tinge of compunction for having 
 turned the lad out of his own quarters. 
 
 " Not a bit in the world, bless you," tlie lad an- 
 swered. " I can't say J believe in ghosts — shouldn't 
 believe in one if I saw one, which isn't a very like- 
 ly thing to happen to me or anybody else. In fact 
 I should rather like to see a specimen. By Jove ! 
 I'd give it a warm welcome." Then he sighed 
 involuntarily: "Ah, but poor dear old Jack, what 
 a good fellow he was ! lie and I were at Chel- 
 tenliam together." 
 
 "Yes; I think to see him lying with that great 
 knife in his back was tlie crudest sight I ever 
 saw," Carstairs answered. " And you can't think 
 how coming back into this old room has brouglit 
 it all into my mind, as freslilyas if it had happened 
 but yesterday." And then there was a movement 
 towards the mess-room, and the two, Carstairs and 
 young Mackenzie, followed the rest and passed in
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 109 
 
 together, and the subject of poor Jack Donovan 
 and his quarters was dropped. 
 
 Among tlie more rojstering spirits, however, the 
 news spread like wildHre, and considerable excite- 
 ment ensued. 
 
 "Poor Jack," said one, "that prig Escott would 
 be frightened out of his seven senses if he knew 
 it." 
 
 "Hush— sh!" with an uneasy glance towards 
 the senior sub., who was sitting close at liand, 
 and would probably have sat, with all the crush- 
 ing weight of his authority, upon such remarks 
 being made at the mess-table itself. 
 
 " By Jove ! but if I don't get myself up like poor 
 Jack's ghost, and try. the effect on him when he 
 comes back, my name's not 'Enery 'Olmes," mut- 
 tered another. 
 
 "You'll frighten him into a lunatic asylum if 
 you do," said another youngster, with decision. 
 " Besides, if it came out you'd look uncommonly 
 awkward playing the fool with the major. Much 
 better try your hand on young Rags over there ; 
 he will be better fun, and you won't have so long 
 to wait to see the effect of your make-up." 
 
 It does not take a particularly brilliant idea in 
 the form of a practical joke to spread like wildfire
 
 110 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 among the youngsters of a regiment, no matter 
 whether they be youngsters in mess-room or can- 
 teen. In this instance wildfire is but a poor way 
 of expressing the rapidity with which the new sug- 
 gestion sprang into existence and grew into matur- 
 ity. It was wholly new — it was not impossible 
 that it would be startling in its results — to a cer- 
 tain extent it was dangerous, and moreover it bor- 
 dered sufficiently on the uncanny to have a flavor 
 and a zest which of late their practical jokes had 
 not possessed ; and in addition to all these consid- 
 erations, it could be carried out at once without any 
 delay whatever — in fact, it could, would, and should 
 be put into practice that very night. 
 
 In next to no time they had it all arranged, all 
 cut and dried, and ready for carrying out. The 
 three whose heads kept so close together during 
 the long festivity of dinner were Norreys, Eden, 
 and Graham. Each was anxious to have the hon- 
 or of personating the ghost; but Graham, having 
 originated the idea, absolutely declined to give up 
 his riglits, and kept to his determination like grim 
 death; therefore it was tinally agreed that he should 
 be the one to strike terror into the heart of the lad 
 whom they one and all were accustomed — chiefly 
 because he had passed a brilliant examination at
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. Ill 
 
 Sandhurst, and had entered the Army witli flying 
 colors as a student — to regard as an out-and-out 
 duifer — nothing short of a regular muff — more 
 likely than not to be driven half frantic by the sight 
 of an apparition, which he would reasonably believe 
 to be the ghost of poor murdered Jack Donovan. 
 
 Having settled this point to their agreement, if 
 not quite to their satisfaction, the three conspira- 
 tors had next to determine upon the costume suit- 
 able for the occasion. Norreys suggested ordinary 
 mess-dress, with flesh-tints carefully rubbed over 
 with phosphor — "It will look perfectly ghastly," 
 he declared. 
 
 "Yes, that's so; I agree to the phosphor, only 
 we sha'n't be able to get it easily to-night," returned 
 Eden. 
 
 " Besides, that would indicate that poor Jack 
 had come straight out of the infernal regions," 
 objected Graham; "and really we can have our 
 joke without insulting the poor chap's memory in 
 that way. No ; I propose the orthodox sheet, mod- 
 ified — a sort of laid-out style ; you know there is 
 something much more really ghastly about the 
 laid-out style than anything else. Tie the face up 
 with a white cloth, tie another round the head, 
 chalk the face well, and just rub a handful of
 
 112 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 matches over it, so as to outline it round the lips, 
 under the eyebrows, and down the line of the nose. 
 Let all the rest appear in the orthodox white sheet ; 
 depend npon it, there is nothing so thoroughly aw- 
 ful in the silent watches of the night as a mysteri- 
 ous and ill-defined, shapeless something in a white 
 sheet — a something in white. A mere figure in 
 ordinary mess-dress would be nothing — it wouldn't 
 frighten a child ; but a horrible, shivering, shud- 
 dering, nameless, featureless thing — a something — 
 is generally enough to make tlie stoutest heart 
 quail and the bravest blood curdle; at least, I 
 know mine would." 
 
 " Yes, Graham is right ; trust your uncanny, 
 second-sight-endowed Scot for being well up in all 
 the blues and horrors," laughed Eden. " Well, 
 then, I say we had better leave the toilet of the 
 nameless, shuddering, featureless something entire- 
 ly to you. Poor old Rags, look at liim, how he's 
 enjoying himself to-niglit. lie little thinks what 
 a treat is in store for him, and how his poor dear 
 little legs will shake under him by-and-by. Ah, 
 well, where ignorance is bliss — you know ; he'll 
 know too, soon enough." 
 
 " Shall you speak, Graliam ?" asked Norreys, af- 
 ter a glance, and a grin at Mackenzie.
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 113 
 
 " I shall groan," answered Graham, promptly ; 
 " not loud, hut with a pathetic plaintiveness — gro- 
 ro-ro-an ! gro-ro-ro-an ! See ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do; and if you don't mind Um'acke will 
 hear, too, and then good - bye to your chance of 
 ajroanino: at Eaojs to-nio;ht." 
 
 " You might carry a bundle of joss - sticks in 
 your hand," suggested Eden, "alight, you know. 
 They make a nice, sweet, overpowering, sickly sort 
 of smell in the room, and would give an air of 
 realistic truthfulness to the scene, which would 
 quite finish young Rags off, if the laid-out style 
 and the groans don't accomplish his destruction by 
 themselves." 
 
 " Have you got any ?" Graham inquired. 
 
 " Yes, I've a bundle of them in mv room." 
 
 " Oh, then I'll use them ; and I'll tell you what, 
 I'll run round to Austin's quarters and borrow that 
 marble hand of his, the thing he brought from 
 Eome last year, and calls 'an antique.' If Rags 
 is bold enough to come to close quarters, it will 
 have a nice laid-out, cold, clammy feeling about 
 it." 
 
 " Poor devil," murmured Eden, half-pityingly. 
 
 " Oh, there's nothino; like doinsc a thine: thor- 
 oughly while you are about it," laughed Graham. 
 
 8
 
 114 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOON& 
 
 " No, tliat's true," agreed Worreys ; " but won't 
 Austin want to know wliat you're going to do with 
 it? I know he sets great store by the thing." 
 
 "I'll borrow it on my own responsibility," the 
 other laughed. " Depend upon it, Austin will go 
 to by-by quite too muddled to notice whether it is 
 there or not, and I'll put it back when we've fright- 
 ened Hags out of his senses. Austin always does 
 get pretty well muddled on a big night, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes, his head won't stand liquor at all," an- 
 swered Eden, who had taken many and many an 
 opportunity, afforded by the combination of a big 
 night with Austin's weak head, to plan and carry 
 out with equal zest and enjoyment the simple sell 
 and the elaborate hoax which obtain and find fa- 
 vor in the inner life of a cavalry regiment. 
 
 Now, it was, of course, an unusually big night 
 on that occasion, and it was very late before Gra- 
 ham and the other two conspirators could, unper- 
 ceived, slip away from the now almost uproarious 
 company. It was not, indeed, until the best stories 
 began to spin around the mess - table, and whist 
 was in full swing in the adjoining room, that they 
 made the smallest attempt to do so, and even then 
 they went off one by one, and at considerable in-
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 115 
 
 tervals. Graham was tlie first to go; and lie, on 
 his way to his own quarters, invaded those belong- 
 ing to Austin, and borrowed the loan of the mar- 
 ble hand, or, as Austin called it, " his antique." 
 It was a line, long-fingered piece of sculpture, and 
 so chilly to the touch that Graham felt quite a 
 perceptible thrill pass up his arm as he grasped it ; 
 yet, full of a desire to leave notliing undone which 
 could in any way tend to add to the reality of his 
 make-up, he, as soon as he reached his own quar- 
 ters, straightway deposited it in the safe and cool 
 shelter of the huge can of watci' which stood in 
 the middle of his bath, in readiness for his morn- 
 ing's tub. 
 
 Then he proceeded to make up his face ; and 
 surely no beauty going to a ball, even a beauty 
 who was getting a shade passee and desperately 
 anxious to conceal the ravages of time and gfiyety, 
 ever took more infinite trouble and pains to pro- 
 duce a desired effect. The way in wliich he care- 
 fully whitened his entire countenance, so that he 
 looked a great deal whiter than most dead people 
 look, the way in which he blacked a stout pin, 
 some six inches long, in the gas, and finding that 
 no good, flung it aside, and tried the same means 
 with a pipe-stem, and then, with the greatest care
 
 116 WITH THE TWENTY- FUTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 and skill, drew a thick line across his fair eye- 
 brows and under his blue eyes, were all really 
 works of the highest praise had they been done in- 
 a better cause. Then he got a box of matches, 
 and with careful manipulation, first of a wet fin- 
 ger, and then of half a dozen matches rubbed well 
 over the spot damped by the finger, managed to 
 produce a fairly strong phosphorescent light of a 
 ghostly bluish color over his eyes and round his 
 lips: he was obliged to put out the light to see the 
 effect of this, which so entranced him that he 
 pi'omptly executed a sort of war-dance — or, by-the- 
 bye, it might have been a Highland fling — to the 
 reflection of his own uncanny image in the glass. 
 
 " I shall have to rub on another supply of phos- 
 phor," he said to himself. " I'fl do that the last 
 thing of all — and now for the laying-out style." 
 
 He didn't find this quite so easy ; however, by 
 the time Eden turned up, he had safely secured a 
 white towel about his face and head in a manner 
 exceedingly uncomfortable to Inmself, and adding 
 wonderfully to the general ghastliness of his ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 " Good Lord ! what a loathsome object you do 
 look, Douglas," exclaimed Eden. " 1 don't believe 
 a real ghost would be half as bad."
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 117 
 
 "I dare say not," Graham tnnmbled, indistinctly. 
 " I'll tell you what, this laying-out style is deuced 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 " Not half so uncomfortable as poor Bags will 
 be by-and-by," laughed Eden, grimly. 
 
 Graham had just completed his entire toilet 
 when Korreys came on the scene. 
 
 " Good conscience !" that young gentleman ejac- 
 ulated, as his eyes fell upon his comrade, " but 
 you'd be an unpleasant sort of chap to meet in a 
 lonely passage on a dark night. I think we must 
 try it on the major after all." 
 
 "We'll see," mumbled the ghost; "let's get 
 Rags disposed of first. Is he gone to roost yet, do 
 you know ?" 
 
 " Yes ; he came up with me ; said he was tired 
 out, and should be asleep before his head touched 
 the pillow," Norreys answered. 
 
 "Then come along," said the ghost, eagerly. 
 
 It was but the work of a moment to slip rapidly 
 along the corridor and down the wide stone stairs, 
 followed at a little distance by the two others. In 
 a twinkling the single gas-jet burning just outside 
 Major Escott's rooms was turned out, and the door 
 of his sitting-room was softly opened. 
 
 The ghost advanced into the darkness. "Er-
 
 118 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 er-er-er-eogli !" he began, in a low, sobbing moan, 
 which rose gradually higher and higher as the wind 
 sobs among the soughing branches of a clump of 
 trees and gradually rises into a sharp shriek of 
 pain, or what sounds as such. 
 
 There was a dead silence, broken only by the 
 faint and regular breathing of the sleeping lad. 
 So the ghost began again — " Arrrrrrrr-ah ! Arrr- 
 rrr-ah ! An-rrr-ah ! Arrr-eogh !" and there ended 
 with such a sharp convulsion of shuddering that 
 young Mackenzie woke with a start. 
 
 " Ivurrrrrrrrrr-eogh !" shivered the ghost. 
 
 "What the devil's that?" cried Mackenzie, 
 aloud. 
 
 The shuddering and the shivering and the 
 moaning went on, and young Eags sprang out of 
 bed ; tlie ghost hearing him groping about for the 
 matches Avent a step nearer, and began his moans 
 and groans anew. Then, quick as thought, the 
 lad, still overpowered with sleep, being unable to 
 find the matches, seized the poker, and tried to 
 stir the dying fire into a blaze; a feeble flicker 
 was the result, but it was enough to show him tho 
 ghastly manner of visitant which had come to 
 him. 
 
 " Just clear out of this," he said, authoritatively ;
 
 A REGIMENTAL GHOST. 119 
 
 but the ghost shuddered and groaned worse than 
 ever. 
 
 Young Rags made a dash at the major's pistol- 
 case. " By Jove, I'll stand none of this fooling," 
 he cried ; " if you don't clear out of this I'll lire 
 — u})on my soul I will." 
 
 " Kurrrrrrrrr-eogii !" gobbled the ghost, when 
 there was a sharp click — a flash — a crj^ — no, two 
 cries — the loudest by far from young Rags, as the 
 shost fell to the floor with a dull thud, and the 
 boy, who had never dreamed that the pistol was 
 loaded, dropped upon his knees beside him. 
 
 And then some of the others hearing the pistol- 
 shot dashed in, and Mackenzie saw — " Oh ! God 
 — oh! God," he cried, and turning the pistol upon 
 himself, fired again, and sent the bullet home — 
 yes, right home to his very heart !
 
 BROKE. 
 
 Several years before the Black Horse got 
 their route for Wharnecliffe, a young fellow walk- 
 ed into barracks one fine morning, and asked for 
 the shilling. 
 
 It was not an unusual proceeding, yet some- 
 thing unusual in his appeai-ance made the adju- 
 tant ask him a string of rather unusual questions 
 — unusual, that is, at such an interview. 
 
 "You want to enlist?" he said, giving him a 
 sharp soldier's look up and down. 
 
 " If you please, sir," was the answer. 
 
 " Er — have you been in any trade ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Know anything about horses?" 
 
 " I've been among them all my life," was the 
 simple reply. 
 
 "Can you ride?" 
 
 Tlie stranger laughed. "Yes, sir; I can ride." 
 
 "Ah! Can you — that is, do you know any- 
 thing of Latin ?" 
 
 "Yes," with a shrug of his shoulders, as if to
 
 BROKE. 121 
 
 indicate that bis knowledge was not great in that 
 h'ne. 
 
 '' Greek ?" 
 
 " Ye— es," more doubtfully still. 
 
 "Modern languages?" persisted the adjutant. 
 
 " Ye— es," most doubtfully of all. 
 
 "Ah! what modern languages?" 
 
 "French," rather disparagingly, "and er— some 
 Gernuiu," was the reply. 
 
 "Oh, French, and some German; that means 
 you speak Fi-ench best. In fact, you're a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " I shall not make the worse soldier for that, 
 
 sir." 
 
 " I don't know— I don't know. They generally 
 do. What's your name ?" 
 " Geoi-ge Jones." 
 
 " George Jones. Oh ! that's not your real name, 
 of course " 
 
 " It is the name I wish to be known by, sii-," 
 with a certain air of dignity, which made the 
 adjutant think better of him all in a moment. 
 
 " I see — I see. AVell, now will you take my 
 advice?" 
 
 "I don't know till I hear what it is," guardedly. 
 The adjutant laughed. "It is good, and it ig
 
 123 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 disinterested, for men of your age and build are 
 just what we want." 
 
 " And it is — " asked the stranger. 
 
 " To go home and make it up with your people. 
 No — stay," as he was about to speak. " I know 
 what the life is ; you don't. My father is Lord 
 Dayrell, but I rose from the ranks, and I know 
 what it is. It's all very well for the general run 
 of recruits ; it saves them from worse things ; but 
 to one of us it's a life of — well, never mind, only I 
 never enlist a gentleman if I can possibly help it. 
 You had better go home and make it up again." 
 
 The lad — for he was but little more — shut his 
 mouth like a steel-trap, and turned a face full of 
 resolution and dogged determination upon the of- 
 ficer. "I'm very much obliged to you, sir, but if 
 you won't enlist me I can try another regiment." 
 
 "Oh! very well — very well; I'll take you," 
 shrugging his shoulders with an air of regret that 
 his advice had not been better received. "But 
 you don't mean to wear those rings, do you ?" 
 
 The lad who wished to be known as George 
 Jones looked down upon his rings and blushed — 
 positively blushed. 
 
 " I'll take them off ; I forgot them " — apologeti- 
 cally, and slipping them off his hand.
 
 BROKE. 123 
 
 "Have you no one you can send them to?" 
 questioned the officer, kindly. " You will certain- 
 ly lose them if you keep them in your kit ; besides, 
 it's not right to leave them about— they're a tempt- 
 ation." 
 
 The lad hesitated. " I— if you wouldn't mind 
 — or" — he stammered. 
 
 " Oh yes ; I'll seal them up and keep them for 
 you if you like," returned the officer. So the 
 young man handed over the rings, a few foi-mal 
 questions were put, and then the adjutant raised 
 liis hand to touch the little bell which would sum- 
 mon the sergeant from the outer office. Some- 
 thing, however, made him stay the gesture and ask 
 yet another question. 
 
 " You were at Eton ?" he said. 
 
 The other looked at him hard for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " No ; Chartei-house," he answered ; " and I don't 
 wish—" 
 
 " Very well ; I will respect your wish. And now 
 you can go. I hope you'll do well." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," answered George Jones, and 
 followed the sergeant out of the room. 
 
 So, in due course of time, he became a trooper in 
 the Twenty-fifth Regiment of Dragoons, was meas-
 
 124 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 iired for his uniform, put into the awkward squad, 
 taught the mysteries of goose-step, and initiated 
 into the horrors of that Inferno which is called the 
 riding-school, and before very long had won the 
 good opinion of almost the entire regiment, and 
 had grown into one of the smartest dragoons in 
 the whole of the ranks. 
 
 And the two rings which he had worn during 
 that iirst interview with the adjutant remained 
 still in the keeping of that officer, who before seal- 
 ing them up and inscribing the packet with the 
 name and regimental number of George Jones, 
 had examined them in no small surprise and as- 
 tonishment. One was a broad band of gold set 
 with a single diamond of great purity and value, 
 and inscribed within the ring with the single word 
 "Edith;" the other was an exceedingly massive 
 signet, set with a great lustrous amethyst, in which 
 were cut the arms and motto of a certain noble 
 house ranking almost with royalty in its princely 
 state and grandeur. 
 
 " Good God ! wliat a young fool ! Some quar- 
 rel about a woman, I'll be bound," muttered Day- 
 rell to himself. And then he sealed the two rings 
 up in a sheet of paper, and put them for safety in 
 the inmost recesses of his despatch-box, after which
 
 BROKE. 125 
 
 for anything which passed his lips, he apparently 
 fortrot all about the matter. 
 
 Whether it had been a quarrel about a woman 
 which had been the means of inducing George 
 Jones to enter the ranks of the Black Horse or 
 not, that young gentleman neither deserted nor 
 was bought off by his relatives. On the contrary, 
 day after day slipped by and grew into weeks, 
 weeks grew into months, months into years, and 
 still lie remained under his nam de guerre^ grow- 
 ing from recruit into trooper, from trooper to cor- 
 poral, and from corporal to sergeant, from which 
 honorable position it was expected in the regiment 
 he would soon be removed by the gift of a com- 
 mission. 
 
 So far so good, and such was the history — the 
 regimental history, that is — of Sergeant George 
 Jones, who had quite proved himself an exception 
 to the general belief among officers that the gen- 
 tleman recruit is not likely to be of much good, or 
 to turn out an acquisition of very high value. He 
 had not found life in the ranks of the British army 
 a bed of roses — quite the contrary. He had felt 
 the pinch of the shoe many and many a time, till 
 the pain of it was almost beyond endurance. He 
 had sickened and turned aside in disgust and loath-
 
 126 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 ing from the food — supposed to be of the best, but 
 presented by swindling contractors and well-tipped 
 quartermasters and their favorite tools among the 
 non-coms, under the noses of honorable subalterns 
 ■who didn't know a leg of mutton from a shin of 
 beef — how should they ? 
 
 And there were other things which made the 
 life exceedingly hard for a gentleman to bear, and 
 nmch more so for this scion of nobility, whose boy- 
 hood had been passed amid princely splendor : the 
 regular hours of work, the fetching and the carry- 
 ing, the air of do this or do that, of come here or 
 go there, with which the sergeants one and all were 
 accustomed — as men who arc not very well bred 
 do if they happen to be clothed with a little brief 
 authority — to address the unfortunate beings who 
 are below them in rank. And there was one great 
 want in his life, one great space which he had 
 never a chance of filling — the want of companion- 
 ship, the companionship of those of his own order. 
 True, he did not want, or rather need not have 
 wanted, for sympathy and for friendship had he 
 cared to take such as lay to his hand. lie was 
 smart and straight and true; from first to last 
 it was well known that his word was his bond, 
 and that if a chap wanted a good turn done for
 
 BROKE. 127 
 
 him, George Jones, whether witli the prefix of 
 private, corpoi-al, oi- sei-geaut, was the man he 
 would be most likely to get to do it. There was 
 many and many a fine young fellow in the Black 
 Horse who would have laid down his very life for 
 the man who had won the admiration of them all ; 
 who never gave himself any airs; who never treat- 
 ed the lowest-born among them with less civility 
 and respect, so long as he kept a clean slate ; who, 
 as one poor passionate lad said— a lad who had 
 come into the service off tramp, and had grown 
 accustomed to can-y all his lessons and numberless 
 other difficulties to him-" Sergeant Jones is a 
 fowling swell, might be a dook, but bless my eyes 
 if you'll ever 'ear from 'ira any of the swagger 
 that you gets from that stuck-up flunky of a petti- 
 fogging cobbler's son that 'as wormed 'isself into 
 favoi-,and calls 'isself a quartermaster; no, blest if 
 you do, no more nor if Sergeant Jones had been 
 boi-n under a hay-rick." 
 
 But when somebody repeated the same to Ser- 
 geant Jones, thinking he might get a little infor- 
 •mation out of him as to his belongings, he only 
 laughed, and asked what on earth it could matter 
 whether a man was born under a hay-rick or in a 
 palace ?
 
 128 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 " I should say the palace was nearest the mark 
 
 with you, sergeant," ventured the other. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said the sergeant, laughing again. 
 
 "I was born at a little eight-roomed cottage in 
 
 Scotland," and walked away. 
 
 " What they calls a shooting-box," said the other 
 
 to himself— which, as a matter-of-fact, was a guess 
 
 not wide of the mark by any means. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, it may be understood 
 
 that, in spite of much that was intensely trying to 
 
 himself, he got on well in and with the Black 
 Horse, until at last, after nearly four years' service, 
 he fell upon an evil day — a very evil day — on 
 which he was posted for the duty of weighing and 
 helping to pass the rations. 
 
 It certainly was not his fault, for the work was 
 the most absolutely distasteful to him that he had 
 ever been put to do since the day he joined the 
 regiment. Still more certain is it that his being 
 set to do it was not the work of the gentleman 
 whom the ex-tramp had designated as " that stuck- 
 up flunky of a pettifogging cobbler's son that 'as 
 wormed 'isself into favor, and calls 'isself a quar- 
 termaster ;" for he would as soon have posted the 
 archangel Michael for the duty as Sergeant Jones, 
 whom he knew to be a gentleman, and guessed
 
 BROKE. 139 
 
 was an aristocrat, and was, as he was well aware 
 by experience, what he called "so beastlj honest." 
 If the truth be told, and, as an accurate and truth- 
 ful chronicler of the ways and doings of this par- 
 ticular regiment, I must tell the truth, it was the 
 doing of our adjutant, the Honorable George Day- 
 rell, who had long suspected that a good deal of 
 dirty and underhand work was going on in the 
 i-egiraent, and had made up his mind to put a stop 
 to it if it lay within human power to do it ; and 
 as he was pleased to give the order that George 
 Jones should take his share of a certain duty, why 
 neither Quartermaster Charles Mui-ray nor Ser- 
 geant George Jones had anything to do beyond 
 simply to obey, although Murray hummed and 
 hawed and d— d a good deal, and Jones turned 
 fairly sick within himself. 
 
 And so on the following morning he quietly 
 took his turn, and an interest in the general pro- 
 ceedings such as made the quartermaster's fingers 
 fairly itch to double themselves into fists and let 
 fly at him straight in the eyes; and then, M'hen 
 about half-way throiigli the business, he suddenly 
 created a sensation by proclaiming, " This meat 
 sti7iks P 
 
 Innnediately a profound silence was the result, 
 
 9
 
 130 WITU THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 in the midst of which the contractor came to his 
 side, and, nnder pretence of examining the joint, 
 said, in a hurried whisper, " Hush — sh ! I'll give 
 you twenty pounds to hold your tongue," In an- 
 swer to which Sergeant Jones promptly knocked 
 him down, without condescending to reply further. 
 
 A babel of voices broke out instantly as the 
 contractor lay spluttering on the ground. Ser- 
 geant Jones stood like a god of vengeance over 
 the great ugly joint of raw meat; and then the 
 quartermaster swaggered up and pretended to ex- 
 amine it as the contractor had done before him. 
 
 " The meat is sweet enough," he declared. "Ar- 
 rest this man immediately." 
 
 Unfortunately down at the bottom of all his 
 imperturbable coolness and sang-froid Sergeant 
 Jones possessed a temper — a temper which when 
 fairly roused might very reasonably have belong- 
 ed to old Nick himself; more unfortunately still, 
 it was roused then, 
 
 " The meat stinks," he reiterated, doggedly. 
 
 "Take the meat away!" roared the quarter- 
 master. 
 
 " Touch it if you dare !" thundered the sergeant. 
 " I hold it in the Queen's name." 
 
 " I say the meat is sweet enough," screamed the
 
 BROKE. 131 
 
 quartermaster, who was in a mortal fright lest ad- 
 jutant or orderly officer slioiild chance to look in. 
 
 " And I say it stinks— touch it at your peril !" 
 thundei-ed the sergeant, altogether forgetting the 
 difference of their rank. 
 
 Thus dared, the quartermaster clawed at the 
 joint, upon which the sei-geant laid a resolute hand, 
 with a grip like iron and the strength of a lion. 
 
 " Arrest this man instantly," cried the quarter- 
 mastei-, turning to the men at hand. 
 
 But nobody moved, and the other stood con- 
 fronting him, with a contemptuous smile upon his 
 handsome face. 
 
 "By all means," he said, coolly— so coolly that 
 not a soul suspected the tempest of fury which in 
 truth possessed him. "You, men, arrest me at 
 once, cmd the meat with meP 
 
 "Put the meat down!" yelled the quarter- 
 master. 
 
 " I shall not do that till I put it before the ad- 
 jutant," returned the sergeant, quietly. 
 
 " Address me in a proper maimer, sir. I am 
 one of your officers. Call me ' sir.' " 
 
 "/call you 'sir'!" contemptuously; he then 
 lost his temper all in one blaze of wrath, and 
 added, " I'll see you d-d first."
 
 133 WITH THE T\YENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 And then the fat was in the fire, and no mis- 
 take about it. All the same, George Jones stuck 
 manfully to his joint of meat, and succeeded in 
 depositing it at the feet of colonel and adjutant, 
 when there was a right royal row, and he prompt- 
 ly found himself under arrest for using bad lan- 
 guage to a superior officer. 
 
 " And why tlie devil couldn't you have reported 
 it to me quietly?" asked Dayrell, irritably, wlien, 
 an hour or two later, he visited the eagle in his 
 cage — he was just like an eagle in a cage. 
 
 " Look here, sir," was the reply ; " that's been 
 done before. Sergeant Parkes tried that, and what 
 was the result ? The meat "was changed, and Ser- 
 geant Pai'kes was broke for bringing a false charge 
 against tliat double -eyed thief Murray, who is — 
 I'm speaking as myself, if you'll allow me — the 
 biggest villain unhung. What was the further re- 
 sult? The disgrace broke Parkes's heart as well 
 as his stripes, and he went headlong to the devil, 
 never did anv o^ood after, and drowned himself at 
 last in a fit of delirium. 77iat was the result of 
 speaking quietly about it," 
 
 "Well, you'll be broke for this to a certainty," 
 said Dayrell, vexedly. 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders carelessly, but
 
 BROKE. 133 
 
 all the same a very dangerous gleam came into 
 his blue ejes. " If I am—" he began, then check- 
 ed himself. "Well, sir" — assuming the respect- 
 ful official tone—" if I am, I am, and it can't be 
 helped. But the colonel has the meat anywaj-, 
 and it stinks." 
 
 " Yes, it stinks," cigreed Davrell, as if that was a 
 very small matter for consideration. Then he said, 
 suddenly, "By -the -bye, what in the world made 
 you enter tlie service? Debt?" 
 
 " Oh no ; I wanted a complete change, that was 
 all. I Avanted to lose myself for a bit, and try to 
 forget all I liad ever known before. I was pretty 
 miserable when I joined, but I'm about tired of 
 the service now. It's a thankless sort of field- 
 not worth keeping straight in. I think I shall 
 clear out of it before Ions." 
 
 "Well, it will be a pretty thing for j^our fam- 
 ily if you're broke for this,'' commented Davrell, 
 vexedly. 
 
 " My family ! Oh, I shall not be the first of the 
 family who has suffered in a good cause," returned 
 the sergeant, carelessly ; and so the adjutant left 
 him to bear his captivity as best he might. 
 
 He did not like it at all ; the enfoi-ced idleness 
 was irksome to him, the lack of liberty fretted
 
 134 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 and worried him, and he had more time than he 
 wanted to sit and think about the woman who 
 had brought all this trouble upon him — the Edith 
 whose ring of betrothal to him was still safe in 
 tlie adjutant's keeping; the Edith who had jilted 
 him for his elder brother, and for wliose sake he 
 liad buried himself in what was simply a living 
 grave, when ^le might much more sensibly and 
 reasonably have gone to Africa and shot lions, 
 whose skins he might have sent home to let her 
 know how utterly he had ceased to regret her. 
 
 However, the past was past, and could not be 
 undone now. Edith was his brother's wife, and 
 he — thank Heaven for it ! — was lieart-whole again. 
 Still, though he had made liglit of the matter to 
 his adjutant, his s])irit was not a little dismayed at 
 the prospect of what the immediate future proba- 
 bly held in store for him — the prospect of being 
 broke for what was in reality simply doing thor- 
 ouglily the duty he had been told off to do. Or 
 stay — ISTo, it was not for that at all ; and his just 
 soul told him more plainly than any sentence of 
 court- martial would liave power to do that two 
 wrongs do not make one right, and that he had 
 been as wrong — though neither dishonest nor mean 
 — to swear at the quartermaster as the quarter-
 
 Broke. 135 
 
 master had been to cheat her Majesty's soldiers 
 out of their proper and healthy rations. And in 
 time the court-martial came off. Sergeant Jones 
 had heard previous to this that an inquiry was 
 pending concerning the quality of the meat sup- 
 plied to the troops, but when his time came he 
 found that this fact did not save him in the least. 
 He had sworn at a superior officer in the presence 
 of many witnesses, and the sentence of the court- 
 martial was that he be therefore reduced to the 
 ranks, or, in common military parlance, " broke," 
 for it. 
 
 The Black Horse were all as sorry as men could 
 be for it, with the exception of the dishonest stew- 
 ard, who vainly imagined from this result to the 
 trial that his own affair would be hushed up and 
 made light of. It was with a fiendish joy that he 
 saw the handsome sergeant brought out to be dis- 
 graced in the eyes of the whole regiment to which 
 he had been so great an ornament and credit. 
 
 It was over in next to no time. There was just 
 a general parade, the reading of the sentence, 
 a rip or two with a penknife, and then George 
 Jones was marched off, a sergeant no longer, but 
 only a private, number 862. 
 
 He bore it well. The entire sympathy of the
 
 136. WITH THE TWEN^TY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 reofiment went with him. To a man the Black 
 Horse could and would, with a little encourage- 
 ment from the victim, have risen and stamped 
 Quartermaster Charles Murray into a shapeless 
 jelly. But not one word of encouragement did 
 they get. 
 
 " Wait a while," said he. " I deserved to be 
 broke, for I knew better than to swear at an of- 
 ficer; at least I ought to have known better. I 
 ought to have known better, too, than to let my 
 devil of a temper get the upperhand of me as I 
 did. But wait a while." 
 
 So the men did wait, and before very long the 
 news spread like wildfire throughout the ranks 
 that George Jones had bought himself off, and 
 that his place would know him no more. 
 
 "And he never done nothing to pay that Mur- 
 ray out !" cried one. 
 
 " "Well, / don't believe in a-setting down and 
 bearing every kick that's given you," said another. 
 
 " Jes you wait," cried the ex-tramp, whose faith 
 in his patron had never wavered, " and you'll see." 
 
 Thus confidently bidden, they did wait, and they 
 did see— what gladdened the heart of every true 
 man among them. For one morning about a 
 week after George Jones had said good-bye to his
 
 r 
 
 BROKE. 137 
 
 old comrades, there turned in at the barrack gates 
 a smart high cart and a pair of bay cobs driven 
 tandem. lie was driving— a groom sat behind. 
 He looked neither right nor left, but drove straight 
 down to the officers' quarters, and sent in a card 
 for the quartermaster, Mr. Miin-ay. The card was 
 inscribed "Lord Ronald Sartoris." 
 
 Mr. Murray was in his own quarters, and came 
 bustling out in liaste when he heard that no less 
 a person than Lord Ronald Sartoris was inquiring 
 for him; and then when he found that Lord 
 Ronald Sartoris and Sergeant Jones were one and 
 the same man, and that he carried a lono-, h'the 
 stinging, cutting tandem whip, he— Well, as the 
 troopei-s said among themselves when talking it 
 over later in the day, " By , but it was fine." 
 
 And after that Mr. Murray sent in his papers, 
 but the exact meaning of it the i-anks never knew. 
 But, as they said, " It was fine."
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. 
 
 Shortly after the terrible tragedy took place 
 in Wharnecliffe Barracks, whicli, as I recounted in 
 " A Regimental Ghost," resulted in the deaths of 
 two of tlie most popular subalterns of the Black 
 Horse — Mackenzie and Graham — an official an- 
 nouncement appeared in the Gazette to the effect 
 that Lester Brookes and DArcy de Bolingbroke 
 had been appointed to fill the two vacant places. 
 In official language it ran thus: Lester Brookes, 
 gentleman, to be lieutenant, vice Christopher Mac- 
 kenzie, deceased ; DArcy de Bolingbroke, gentle- 
 man, to be lieutenant, vice Douglas Graham, de- 
 ceased." 
 
 Naturally enough, the officers of the Black 
 Horse looked forward with a good deal of inter- 
 est to the advent of the two new subalterns. 
 Neither was known to any one of them person- 
 ally, though all knew that Brookes was the son 
 of an enormously rich iron-master, and might be 
 expected to give himself airs accordingly — airs 
 which would probably make him so insufferable
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. I39 
 
 to his brother-officers that measures would have 
 to be taken which would speedily make the regi- 
 ment too hot to hold him. 
 
 D'Arcj de Bolingbroke, excepting for the in- 
 formation that one of the fellows had picked np 
 somewhere that he was the son of the Dean of 
 Birmingham, was altogether an nnknown quanti- 
 ty. About him they hardly formed an opinion 
 at all, though if an outsider had pointedly asked 
 for one, he would have been answered much af- 
 ter this fashion: "Oh! I don't know, I'm sure. 
 What's his father ? Dean of Birmingham. Oh ! 
 the youngster wnll be tlie very devil: parsons' 
 sons always are. You didn't know that ? Ah ! 
 fact, I assure you." 
 
 However, when the two new subalterns joined 
 the regiment and became known to their brother- 
 officers, it was speedily found that all the previous 
 surmises about them had been equally incorrect. 
 Brookes proved a rattling good fellow, handsome, 
 and a good all - round man besides, and as little 
 given to the display of his vast wealth as if he 
 had come into the service with an allowance of 
 but two or three hundred a year. 
 
 As for D'Arcy de Bolingbroke, he turned out 
 to be a perfectly harmless and apparently brain-
 
 140 WITH THE TWENTY- FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 less maslier. The faces of such of the officers as 
 first saw this new addition to their strength were, 
 I can assure jou, quite of a regulation pattern as 
 to expression. For behold, instead of the haruin- 
 scarnm scatnp, which seems to be the universal 
 form of every parson's son who enters the service, 
 no matter whether he be the son of a great dig- 
 nitary of the Church, who has put him into an 
 expensive regiment with an idea that he will one 
 day be a credit to him, and make as famous a 
 general as his father has been a clei'gyman, and 
 with never a fear that he will turn out, as he gen- 
 erally does, a regular bad lot, or whether he be 
 the son of a poverty-stricken incumbent of a fat 
 living of three hundred a year (and what parson 
 may not think himself fairly lucky even if he 
 do no better than that?), who, perplexed and both- 
 ered to know what to make of his lad, is honest- 
 ly thankful when the lad settles the question for 
 himself one fine morning by making a bolt of it, 
 and providing for himself by the simple process 
 known as taking the shilling, and afterwards gives 
 more trouble to those set over him than all the 
 rest of the troop put together. Well, behold, in 
 the place of a scamp of either of these patterns, 
 a harmless masher of the most pronounced type,
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. 141 
 
 with a collar five inches high, a fresh flower in 
 his coat, coat padded and wadded out of all rec- 
 ognition as a thing intended and designed as a 
 covering for the human form divine, knees per- 
 haps not very strong to begin with, but by care- 
 ful practice bi'ought to the pitch of perfection in 
 the way of crookedness and weakness, hat curly- 
 brimmed, ebony crutch -stick heavily mounted in 
 silver, chains, rings, pins, studs— in short, clad in 
 the entire masher costume of the period. 
 
 " Good Lord !" quoth Marcus Orford, when he 
 set eyes upon him for the fii-st time, " what a 
 young fool ! Is he going about like that ?" 
 
 " Not if you do your duty as senior subaltern," 
 replied Urquhart, promptly. 
 
 " Then he won't," said Orford, with decision. 
 Nor did he. The Honorable Marcus Orford 
 was a young gentleman of strong will and of an 
 energetic mind, and he went to work on the task 
 of recasting young D'Arcy de Bolingbroke's outer 
 man with sucli right good vigor that within the 
 space of a week he was another— I had almost 
 said mail, but as that word would imply that he 
 might have been mistaken for a man before, I 
 will say, instead, quite another creature. 
 
 "I say — you know," Orford began, as his fii-st
 
 143 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 attack, "Sinpliatn is coming from town this morn- 
 ing" — he didn't think it necessary to add the in- 
 formation that he had telegraplied for Sinpham 
 himself; "you'd better order some clothes of 
 him." 
 
 " Clothes!" repeated young De Bolingbroke, with 
 a fine air of bewilderment. 
 
 " Yes, clothes," said Orf ord, sharply — " coats and 
 trousers and such like." 
 
 " But I've got plenty of clothes — as many as I 
 want," ventured the new subaltern, wondering if 
 he was quite going back to the days of his boy- 
 hood again. 
 
 " You may have plenty of things yoi(, call 
 clothes," answered Orford, coolly, " but you can't 
 wear them here — not while you belong to a re- 
 spectable regiment like the Black Horse." 
 
 As young De Bolingbroke very soon found, it 
 was useless to argue the point, and within a week 
 he became a new creature, wore ordinary coats 
 and hats, ordinary trousers — ay, and turned them 
 up on wet days like anj^ ordinary fellow; had or- 
 dinary boots with ordinary heels, used an ash stick 
 in place of the silver-mounted ebony crutch, and 
 had, as a matter-of-fact, nothing but his late col- 
 lars and his button-holes to remind him that he
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. I43 
 
 had once been one of the most perfect specimens 
 of the gay crowd of mashers who seem to live for 
 nothing but to ci-awl up and down Piccadilly. To 
 those emblems of departed glory he clung with 
 the tenacity of grim death, or the pitiable eager- 
 ness with which a once handsome woman clings 
 to the last remnant of her fast-fading beauty. 
 
 Nor did it take very long to straigliten him np as 
 to the knees, and to mend his gait from one simu- 
 lating that of a semi-imbecile drunken groom to 
 one approaching somewhat to the free, clean walk 
 of a trained soldier. In fact, between drill, riding- 
 school, and chaff, with the additional aid of a'Ji 
 overwhelming awe for Marcus Orford, D'Arcy de 
 Bolingbroke, before he had been very long in the 
 service, became a \ery decent specimen of a cav- 
 alry officer, without having, it is true, very much 
 in him, or very much to say for himself. It 
 was some little time before he became anything 
 like popular with his brother -officers — not, in- 
 deed, until Sir Anthony Staunton discovered a 
 vein of honor in his composition, such as made 
 his heart warm to him and to give him friend- 
 ship. 
 
 It came about thus : Sir Anthony happened one 
 day to need the loan of a match, or fusee. After
 
 144 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 strolling into several men's rooms which were near 
 his own, and finding neither owner nor lights in 
 any of them, he knocked at the door of De Boling- 
 broke's quarters, and then pushed it open. " Oh, 
 you're here," he remarked. " I've been into ever 
 so many fellows' rooms for a light, and can't get 
 one. Can you give me one ?" 
 
 "Yes; there are plenty of matches on the 
 chimney-shelf," answered De Bolingbroke. " Help 
 
 yourself." 
 
 Sir Authouy walked over to the fireplace and 
 did help himself, lighting his pipe and taking a 
 few of the wax vestas, which he found in the 
 place the other had indicated, with which to re- 
 plenish his small -change pocket. "Thanks, aw- 
 fully," he said, civilly. "It's a queer thing light 
 should be so difiicult to find as it is in barracks. 
 Perhaps it^s because your father's a dean that you 
 are able to supply the want. As a general rule, 
 though, I find it quite true that the shoemaker's 
 missis does go the worst shod—" 
 
 " Yes," said De Bolingbroke, absently. 
 "I had an old nurse once," Sir Anthony went 
 on, not noticing his tone, " when I was a young- 
 ster, you know, and going about with a box of 
 bricks and a hoop ; and after I went to school she
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. J4g 
 
 went and got married to the village constable, who 
 was a Latter-day Saint. Did you ever know any 
 or tiiat sort, now ?" 
 
 "No; can't say I ever did," De Bolingbroke 
 answered. " What are they ?" 
 
 "Don't know, I'm sure. All I know about 
 them IS that this old chap, who had been born 
 with a pretty considerable respect for the family 
 more than any one outside the village had, for 
 by Jove ! the Stauntons are all as poverty-stricken 
 as rats in an empty summer-house), used to say 
 we were very good and very gifted people, only 
 
 we wanted 'light;' we stood sadly in need of 
 I#it. B^, Jove! he should come here; he'd 
 
 hnd lack of light enough to start as a missionarv " 
 And the Stauntons are poor ?" observed De 
 
 Bohngbroke, with more interest than he had a^ 
 
 yet shown. " Ah !" 
 
 He uttered a sigh so heart-rending that Sir An- 
 thony turned and looked at him shai-ply " AVhy 
 what's the matter ?" he asked. 
 
 "I didn't know you were in the same boat with 
 me, he said, dolefully. "It's nothing much, only 
 a writ for a tailor's bill; nothing much, only I 
 never had one before; and though they may be 
 the regulation thing to have in the service-and 
 
 10
 
 146 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 I see some of the fellows get them bj the half- 
 dozen at once — well, I don't like it." 
 
 "Neither do I," said Staunton — "neither do I. 
 Only if you happen to be a poor devil without 
 any income worth speaking of, how are you al- 
 ways to help it? xVnd you didn't know I was 
 poor? Yes; I should rather think I am poor. 
 But, bless you, when you've been in the service as 
 long as I have you'll not mind it — you'll never 
 think about it. Bless you, it's nothing when 
 you're used to it. I live on the edge of a razor, 
 but it !iever is the snuillest trouble to me." 
 
 " AH the same, it's tlie very devil getting writs, 
 and I don't like it," declared tlie lad, uneasily. 
 "Besides, I promised my father I wouldn't get into 
 debt, lie allows me three hundred a year, and I 
 believe if he saw that thing" — with a disgusting 
 gesture in the direction of a pinkish paper lying 
 half unfolded on the floor — " he'd go off his mind 
 altogether sti-aightway — ramping, stark n)ad. I 
 believe he would." 
 
 "Shouldn't have put you into the Black Horse 
 on three hundred a year, then," answered Staun- 
 ton, coolly ; " because his very reverend sense ought 
 to tell him that an expensive regiment can't be done 
 upon it. By-the-bye, is your governor well off ?"
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. I47 
 
 "Oh, beastly rich !" returned De Bolingbroke, 
 with empliasis. 
 
 "Tlien what's the good of worrying yonrself 
 about it? My dear lad, he'll make an awful row, 
 no doubt, a blazing row; futhers do, you know; 
 they like it — mine alioays did. But he always 
 paid up in the end, and so will yours, of course. 
 If he don't or won't, you'd better send him to me, 
 and I'll soon settle the matter for you." 
 "I wish you would," dismally. 
 " Oh ! don't be down in the mouth over it," the 
 other laughed ; he thought as little about the dis- 
 pleasure of a dean as he thought of that state of 
 poverty which he was accustomed graphically to 
 describe as living on the edge of a razor. "It's 
 not as if it were a gambling debt, or for a diamond 
 bracelet; then you might feel shy about it. But 
 a few poor innocent clothes! oh, my dear lad, it 
 isn't worth thinking of a second time ; it isn't in- 
 deed." ' 
 
 " I don't," answered the lad, simply. " But what 
 I do think about is my promise. I oughtn't to 
 have broken it, and in fact I never meant to break 
 it, only Oi-ford made me buy all those new clothes, 
 you kTiow, which I didn't want. And hang it all ! 
 it's very well to say, as the dean'll say when I teU
 
 148 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 him, that the road to hell is paved with good in- 
 tentions ; but I did think I sliould be let to wear 
 what clothes I chose when I joined. I dare say I 
 did look a precious young ass, as Orford said ; but 
 d — n me ! I'd rather look an ass than break a 
 promise any day." 
 
 For once in his life Sir Anthony Staunton let 
 somebody make a series of observations without 
 interruptions. He pulled \evy hard at the pipe, 
 and frowned portentously ; then he spoke. 
 
 " Hang it all!" he said, " but I thought you were 
 a howling young duffer, and nothing more; but 
 you've got the right stuff in you, and look here: 
 I'm rather well off just now, so let me be your 
 banker, will you ? And then you can pull your 
 allowance straight without breaking your promise 
 at all ! Let me : I'll be proud to do a service to a 
 fellow who feels as you do." 
 
 And that was how young D'Arcy de Boling- 
 broke won the respect and the friendship of one 
 of the most popular men in the regiment. 
 
 There were some among the officers who saw 
 the friendship and were puzzled by it, and not 
 knowing — and they never did know from Sir An- 
 thony — the reason of it, failed to understand what 
 he could possibly find to appreciate in the lad
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. I49 
 
 whom they all thought a complete duffer. "He's 
 a very fine fellow at bottom; there are o-raiid 
 points about it," Sir Anthony was accustomed 
 to declare when chaffed on the subject; and as 
 he was not the man to nn'nd either the chaff or the 
 opinion of others, they were not enlightened, and 
 the fi-iendship continued and grew apace, grew 
 and flourished until the regiment got orders for 
 active service and went off to the Soudan— part of 
 that army of vengeance sent out too late for aught 
 but to win for the British government the scorn 
 and the contempt of all the powers in Europe; 
 sent out just as the greatest hero of modern times' 
 was sent before it; just as the cruel school-boy, 
 conscious only of his own power, and heedless of 
 all else, ties a string to a bird's leg and lets the 
 little thing fly to its destruction. Oli, shame! 
 shame! to send an army to make war upon tliose 
 who were not the chief offenders, while the real 
 foe stood afar off and made long noses of derision 
 and contempt at us ! Still, full of shame as tiie 
 ill-fated expedition undoubtedly was, opportunities 
 were not wanting for regiments and men to give 
 proof to the world of what stuff they were made, 
 despite the despicable strings which tied them by 
 the leg, and fortune so far favored young D'Arcy
 
 150 WITU THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS, 
 
 de Bolingbroke that he was given the chance of 
 showing his brother-officers whether in truth he 
 was jewel or paste. 
 
 It happened to fall to the lot of his regiment to 
 make a long march forward with a convoy of 
 fresh water for the troops occupying the zereba on 
 ahead of them, and it happened that on the way a 
 swarm far outnumbering the British troops came 
 down upon them like a wave of the sea or a whirl- 
 wind, and threatened by sheer force of numbers 
 to annihilate them altogether. 
 
 Owing to the fact that Escott was down with 
 enteric fever, Urquhart, long before promoted to 
 the rank of major, was second in command, and as 
 Colonel St. Aubyn was disabled very early in the 
 fray, he very soon had the whole responsibility of 
 pulling off the affair with safety and credit to the 
 
 regiment. 
 
 Hastily a square had been formed, with camels 
 and baggage-wagons in its middle, where the sur- 
 geons accompanying the force were, alas! already 
 too busy attending to the hurts and wants of the 
 wounded. It was necessarily neither a large nor 
 a very strong square. The numerical strength of 
 the enemy seemed endless, and tlieir fanatical 
 courage made them desperate and utterly reckless.
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. 151 
 
 On to the square at various points thej rushed— 
 nay, flung themselves again and again, until at 
 last, to Urquhart's dismay, the line was broken. 
 
 "Good God!" he cried, " II Troop has given 
 way. I knew they would. Here "—looking round 
 for some one to cai-ry a message — "oh, here, Do 
 Bolingbroke, get across there as fast as you can, 
 and send the Blue Jackets over to stop the gap" 
 —for a few men of the Naval Bi-igade were the 
 only men not of his own reo-iment. 
 
 All along he had been doubtful of tlie men of 
 II Troo]), being yomigsters who had never seen 
 active service, and bearing, as entire troops do 
 sometimes, particularly when the officers in com- 
 mand of them hai)pen to lack that smartness and 
 that popularity which arc needed to make a troop 
 worth its salt, on the M'hole, the veiy worst of 
 charactei-s; but that they would waver and break 
 h"ne as they were doing then he had hardly feared, 
 and he fairly hungered to be in their midst, spur- 
 ring them to better thino-s. 
 
 However, he was bound— having the safetv of 
 the entire force at stake— to remain where he was 
 and keep all his men in sight, turning anxiously 
 every moment to watch De Bolingbroke go at his 
 best pace in the direction of the men of the Naval
 
 152 WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 Brigade. He saw that he delivered his message, 
 and then, instead of coming back at once to his 
 post at Urquhart's side, saw him ride quietly to 
 the mass of confused men and horses at the part 
 where the square was broken, dismount, and disap- 
 pear among the others. 
 
 " What is the young idiot after ?" said Urquhart 
 to himself, impatiently, straining his eyes to try 
 and discover him. 
 
 But it was useless. He saw that the men of the 
 Naval Brigade went with a run to the breach, and 
 presently those of H Troop seemed to take heart 
 of grace and make a better fight for it. Step by 
 step the horde of blacks were driven back, and the 
 line was reformed. Still there was no sign of De 
 Bolingbroke, and Urquhart turned with a very 
 ugly word indeed to the work which needed his 
 attention and his head at other points. Slowly 
 the time passed on, and at last it was easy to see 
 that the blacks were getting the worst of it — so 
 much the worst of it that they were not only beat- 
 en off, but their retreat was followed, and numbers 
 of them sent straight to paradise, as their belief is. 
 
 It was not until then that Urquhart was en- 
 abled to look after his men who had been wound- 
 ed. He found poor, prosy, argumentative St. Au-
 
 JEWEL OR PASTE. 153 
 
 bjn just at the point of death, quite unconscious 
 of Ills presence or of anything that was going on 
 around him. Lord Archie was badly liit too, but 
 bearing liis pain cheerfully, and desperately anx- 
 ious to hear the exact particulars of the action. 
 
 There were others besides Loi-d Archie who 
 had had ill-hick that day, though none so severe- 
 ly wounded. Urquhart saw them all, and then 
 came suddenly upon young D'Arcy de Boling- 
 broke sitting on a case of stores, pulling very hard 
 indeed at a pipe. 
 
 "Halloo! you here?" he said, sharply. "Why 
 didn't you come back to me?" 
 
 " Well, sir," answered the lad, taking his pipe 
 from between his teeth, " I saw that the men of 
 H Troop were getting flnrried, and I thought I 
 shouldn't be much use to you if I came back, 
 and I might help to keep their hearts up a bit; 
 so—" 
 
 "And who the devil told you to think?" asked 
 Urquhart, angrily. "I sent you with an order, 
 and your duty was to come back to me as soon 
 as you had delivered it. I am perfectly aware 
 you did great service with II Troop, but at the 
 same time you had no business to thiiih ; nobody 
 expected you to thinh^ or asked you to think.
 
 1^ \WITH THE TWENTY-FIFTH DRAGOONS. 
 
 How could you tell whether you would be of use 
 or not? As it happened- AVhy, halloo! what's 
 up?" he cried, suddenly changing his tone; for 
 the lad had reeled off the stores case, and lay a 
 fainting heap at his feet. 
 
 After a minute or so the senior surgeon came 
 bustling up. " Halloo ! halloo 1 Why,this is worse 
 than I thonght !" he exclaimed. 
 
 " What did you think ?" Urquhart asked, as be 
 held the lad's head against liis breast. 
 
 « He told me half an hour since he'd got a cut 
 on his arm, but that I might take the worst cases 
 first," the surgeon replied. " But, by Jove! the 
 bone is pretty well shivered to pieces. The lad 
 must have endured agonies; and the arm will 
 
 have to come oif." 
 
 "De Bolingbroke," said Urquhart, an hour later, 
 " I wish to Heaven you had come back to me." 
 
 " It was done before that, major," said the lad, 
 
 ■simply- . 
 
 And that was how he showed his regiment 
 
 ^vhether he was jewel or paste, and that was wl.y- 
 he got the cross of honor, which bears two words 
 " For Valor." 
 
 THE END.
 
 BEN-HUR : A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 
 
 By Lkw. VVallack. New Kditio,,. pp. r,r,2. ir„n„ (jloth 
 $1 60. 
 
 Anything ho HtartlinK, "..w, a,.,I .Ihnur.uu-. a. tl.c I,M<lin^ f.at„r. of thm 
 romance docH not oft..n a,,,,.ar in work, of fiction. . . . Hon.. of Mr VVal- 
 lacH wr.t.ng ,h r.n.arkaMe for it. ,.atl,.tic do^jnonc,. 'Hu, H^.-ni-H ,]«, 
 Hcnbcl .n tl.. New Tc.tan.cnt arc rewritten witi ti.o power an-l kill o^ 
 an accomplMli.;<J niaHtor of »f.y!,..._;V. K. 7',rrwj, 
 
 ItH roal baniH in a .l.Hcription of tl.o life of tl.. Jr,wK an,| Ilornann at ll,. 
 bcKinninK of th. Cl.n.tian era, and tl.i.H i. both forcible and brillianf 
 Wc are earned throngi, a .^-n pricing variety of Meene«; we witne.H anea^ 
 fight, a ehar.ot.race, t».e interr.al economy of a I^,man galley, domextie in- 
 teriorn at Ant.oeh, at Jer,i.alem, and an.ong the tribes of the denerf naU 
 acc-H pn.on.H the haunt, of di.-.ipated Itomar. youth, the houne. of 'pion, 
 farn.heH of iHrael. There in plenty of exciting incident; everything i, 
 annr.afed, vivid, and glowing.— A^. K 7'nJmM. 
 
 From Uie opei.ing of the volume to the very ch>He the rea^ler'n iou.re.t 
 wJll be kept at the highcMt pitch, and the novtd will be pronounced by all 
 one of the greatcHt novels of the- day— />,,/,>,« /Ul 
 
 . ^'i' ["" "^ f''"-''''^ '"-•'""J'- ^■'^ 'l"^"«»' •'"". of an EaHU.n, «age, and ihero 
 J8 Hufrjcient of Oriental cuHtom., geography, nomenclature, etc., U, ereatly 
 strengthen the .'',emblan..e.-//W.,rt Comrrumw^allh. ' b - / 
 
 "Uen-Hur" i« interesting, and it. characteri/..tion Ih fine and strong. 
 Mf^nwhile It evincc« careful Mt.idy of the period in which the Kcene \h laid 
 and will help tho.e who read it with reasonable att.:ntion to realiz.. the 
 nature and condition., of f/ebrew life in Jerusalem and Ii.,man life at 
 Antuich at the time of our Kavioiir'M advent.— /i>yiwiV,«- \ y 
 
 It iH really Scripture hi.-.tory of Chri.Ht'H time clothed grae>;fully and 
 dehcau.-ly n, the flowing and lor^e drapery of mo<len. fic-tion fVv, Ut.- 
 
 workH of fiction excel it in genuine ability and inUre^t.-.V. V (Jraphir 
 
 One of the mm^ remarkable and delightful brx.kfl. It i^ an real and 
 warrn an l.f^, itself, and -^^ attractive a., the grandest and mont heroic 
 cfiaptera of hiiiU,ry.~/Tu/ian»f^,fU Jourrud. 
 
 The b<x,k 13 one of .inrjucHtionable p^,wer, and will be read with un- 
 wonU;d intorc^t by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel 
 and romance.— /fo*^,n Jouriud. 
 
 Prmj.sJTfin by IlAItPEIt & lilif/rjIETlS, Nkw Totik. 
 
 «- The above wwk mU hy matt, jy.nUujt T>repaU, (a any part of lU CniUA HUUf- 
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 AT THE RED OLOVE. 
 
 A Novel. Illustrated by C. S. Reinhart. pp. 246. 
 12ino, Extra Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 We have tried to express our admiration of the brilliant talents which 
 the " Red Glove " displays— the accurate knowledge shown of localities ; 
 the characteristics of the surroiniding population, and the instinctive read- 
 ing of the inner selves of the various personages who figure in the story 
 
 A charming idyl— iV. Y. Mail and Express. 
 
 The execution is admirable The characters are the clearest studies, 
 
 and are typical of a certain phase of French life. ... The story is fanciful, 
 graceful, and piquant, and Reinhart's illustrations add to its flavor.— i?o«- 
 
 ton Journal. 
 
 The peculiar vivacity of the French style is blended with a subtle char- 
 acter-analysis that is one of the best things in that line that has been pro- 
 duced for a long time. It is one of the most brilliant pieces of literary 
 work that has appeared for years, and the interest is sustained almost 
 breathlessly. — Boston Evening 'J'raveller. 
 
 The authoress of " At the Red Glove " knows how to paint a flesh-and- 
 blood woman, grateful to all the senses, and respectable for the qualities 
 of her mind and heart. ... All in all, " At the Red Glove " is one of the 
 most delightful of novels since Miss Woolson wrote " For the Major."— 
 N. Y. Times. 
 
 The novel is one of the best things of the summer as a delicious bit of 
 entertainment, prepared with perfect art and presented without a sign of 
 effort. — N. Y. Commercial Adrrrtiser. 
 
 It is an artistic and agreeable reproduction, in bright colors, of French 
 sentiment and feeling. ... It is an abiding relief to read it, after such 
 studies as novels in this country fashionably impose— Boston Olohe. 
 
 A charming little story. . . . The characters are well drawn, with fresh- 
 ness and with adequacy of treatment, and the style is crisp and ofttimes 
 trenchant. — Boston A dvcrfiscr. 
 
 A very pretty story, simply and ex(iuisitcly told. . . . The ups and downs 
 of the courtship are drawn with a master's hand.— Chicinnati Inqnirer. 
 
 There has been no such pleasant novel of Swiss social life as this. . . . 
 The book is one that tourists and summer idlers will do well to add to 
 their travelling libraries for the seasoa.—Fhiladelphia Bulletin. 
 
 Published by IIARrER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
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 THE BREAD-WINNERS. 
 
 A Social Study. IGmo, Clotli, $1 00. 
 
 A.ue,.ican. The ano.y ^ s^u ll ' ?« "'' "'"'""^^ ""^ aggressively 
 He has seen, and ho L Z:::^ ^2^: ^'T t^' "l l^"""^-- 
 Amenean life which no one has put into a Lk before "l f '"" "' 
 
 jvaise^unstinte. p.ise, shouM'L;;- "ir^ss^^:;:::; 
 
 mediate re-reading.lc;;/.^' Y '' "" '° ''"'^ """^' ^''^ ^^^^ ^^ i'"" 
 It is a f -nly remarkable book.-.V. Y. Journal of Commerce 
 
 , Eve.; pa^ of^,::^^,.!;; i^ t .^s Hn^of ^'^r '"'"''■ 
 
 long use has made exact literary exprilu . ? ''"'"' '° "'^°'" 
 
 the conversation of son.e of those giteraihef .' «P«"taneous as 
 
 ea......e .e should 1 ^X^t ^^^^I^^^X^-" ^"^'" ^ 
 
 be^a;;:d^:S::;r::t;:;^ ^ te"":V^ r^'^^^- 
 nu-ntaland moral strurSof thosewh! ' "'^'"'^' ^" '^^■'■'^■^ ^''^ 
 
 selves oppressed is also ov.l . \ '' ^''^'■' ^'"^ ^^''''^ '^'^"'-^^•^" ''"^"i- 
 
 i- .l.lin'eation o1 e ua;:^^ Vf"J^:: Sl!"^''""^'"^ '' *^^ ^"■"- ^^ '" 
 -Kl Ananias Offit, the viiir L , .y "'' ^^T^^^^^ ^"'T'"^ '"='"' 
 '"t" I'lay and work out the author's idea ;re';ill>"'' V'" ''''"S 
 <iivi'i>'alitv maintained ind ,h.v i \ \ , ^ ' ''™'^"' '"^"^ ^''^i'' in- 
 nate fan.iliari,; u"lt^ :^';!^^:,;^'^ ^ '^'^^'-'"-s that shows inti- 
 ing with it.-.V. ^. ^,;:-:;'^:5;;;;;'^" " unquestionable ability u. deul- 
 
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 UPON A OAST. 
 
 A Novel. By Charlotte Dunning, pp. 330. 16mo, 
 
 Cloth, $1 00. 
 
 It embodies throughout the expressions of f°"i^^ American frank- 
 ness is well conceived, well managed, and brought to a delightful 
 and captivating close.— ^»a?J2/ -P?'e«s. .,,.-• • ♦ ♦ 
 
 The author writes this story of American sociallife m an interest- 
 ing manner ... The style of the writing is excellent, and the dia- 
 logue clever.— iV. Y. Times. 
 
 This story is strong in plot, and its characters are drawn with a 
 firm and skilful hand. They seem like real people and their acts 
 and words their fortunes and misadventures, are made to engage the 
 reader's interest and sympathy. — Worcester Daily hpy. 
 
 Thrcharacter painting is very well done. . . . The sourest cynic 
 thlt ever sneered^at woman cannot but find the little story vastly 
 entertainins. — Commercial Bulletin, Boston. _ 
 
 The life of a semi-metropolitan village, with its own aristocracy, 
 eossips, and various other qualities of people, is admirably por- 
 frayed . . . The book fascinates the reader from the first page to 
 the' last — Boston Traveller. , , .„ j .., i. 
 
 The plot has been constructed with no little skill, and the charac- 
 ters— a 1 of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance-are por- 
 tnVyed with great distinctness. The book is written in an entertain- 
 ini?and vivacious style, and is destined to provide entertainment for 
 a laree number of readers. — Christian at ^ork, JN . 1 . 
 
 One of tlie best-if not the very best-of the society novels of the 
 sc&'Bon.— Detroit Free Press. , 
 
 Of peculiar interest as regards plot, and with much srace and 
 fn'shnesa of stvle. — Brooklyn Times. , , , 
 
 The plot has-been constructed with no little skill, and the characters 
 -all of them interesting and worthy of acquaintance-are portrayed 
 with great distinctness. -^i«-sw;w^ i?twrrfe;-, Philadelphia 
 
 A clever and entertaining novel. It is wholly social, and the 
 theatre is a small one ; but the characters are varied and are drawn 
 with a firm hand ; the play of human passion and longing i.s well- 
 l-fi ed and brilliant ; and the movement is efEectiye and satisfac- 
 tory The love story is as good as the social study, making alto- 
 gether an uncommonly entertaining book for vacation reading.- 
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 "AS WE WENT MARCHING OX." 
 
 A Sto.7 of the War. By G, W. Hosmke, M.D „n 
 310. ICmo, Clotli, $1 00. • ' I P- 
 
 and his conversations neatlv managed _ v Y ItllV fA ^^^ natural, 
 
 This is really a fine story, in which marching and fi.rhtin- and Inv. ,. 
 blended, yet one never interferes with the otlfer 7 h" , ^'*' 
 
 ness of camp life, the rude comfort of the h om'..;. " /i , . f"y'"'-'^«q"e- 
 march, there is not in all the wiMns o ^„ it . ■ '""•'J-^'"P« of the 
 
 any such foreofu, description^:-; ;;;^"i;;u:;iii.2.i;;;sr 
 
 Interesting, hoth as a novel and as a description of t\T^!Z! u! \ 
 soldier- the discomforts of rainy ni-ht. n i.hh L X u"*^ ^'^^ 
 
 bivouac in a country filled with foes/ ? Tl.c jit, mi ; n "■ ^""""'^ 
 
 Sljendan-s ride up the ^^^elT:.':::;:^^^^ 
 
 Engli''sh._/>.V,..6«,y, >Lr ' '° "' P"''^' g'-^^'-^f"'. and vigorous 
 
 Dr. Hosmer has written a spirited storv thit will int..,.n^f 1 1 
 ers on both sides of the rebeKio. coS Tl, i campaign- 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
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 BOOTS AND SADDLES; 
 
 Or, Life in Dakota with General Custer. By Mrs. Eliz« 
 ABETH B. Custer. With Portrait of General Custer, 
 pp. 312. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50. 
 
 A book of adventure is interesting reading, especially when it is all true, 
 as is the case with " Boots and Saddles." * * * She does not obtrude the 
 fact that sunshine and solace went with her to tent and fort, but it in- 
 heres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence " these simple 
 annals of our daily life," as she calls them, are never dull nor uninterest- 
 ing. — Evangelist, N. Y. 
 
 Mrs. Custer's book is in reality a bright and sunny sketch of the life 
 of her late husband, who fell at the battle of " Little Big Horn." * * * 
 After the war, when General Custer was sent to the Indian frontier, his 
 wife was of the party, and she is able to give the minute story of her 
 husband's varied career, since she was almost always near the scene of 
 his adventures. — Brooklyn Union. 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory life 
 of General Custer could have been written. Indeed, we may as well 
 speak the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no bio- 
 graphical work anywhere which we count better than this. * * * Surely the 
 record of such experiences as these will be read with that keen interest 
 which attaches only to strenuous human doings; as surely we are right 
 in saying that such a story of truth and heroism as that here told will 
 take a deeper hold upon the popular mind and heart than any work of 
 fiction can. For the rest, the narrative is as vivacious and as lightly and 
 trippingly given as that of any novel. It is enriched in every chapter with 
 illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and here and there a little life story 
 of pathetic interest is told as an episode. — N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 It is a plain, straightforward story of the author's life on the plains of 
 Dakota. Every member of a Western garrison will want to read this 
 book ; every person in the East who is interested in Western life will 
 want to read it, too; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite 
 for adventure will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of read- 
 ers that few authors can expect. — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 These annals of daily life in the army are simple, yet interesting, and 
 underneath all is discerned the love of a true woman ready for any sacri- 
 fice. She touches on themes little canvassed by the civilian, and makes a 
 volume equally redolent of a loving devotion to an honored husband, and 
 attractive as a picture of necessary duty by the soldier. — Commonwealth, 
 Boston. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, N. Y. 
 
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