Page images
PDF
EPUB

had fallen to her share upon the King's turning in his seat, glanced out-board ship. to hide his face.

To the captain's cabin and the wardroom she had bidden a smiling goodbye, but her delightful perplexities: were not yet over-two of her admirers accompanied her ashore, were at that moment at her elbows. One, the larger and more voluble man, who has been keeping the lady in a condition of decorous merriment, bethinks him of his own affairs and is for decently disencumbering himself of hers in ad

vance.

"And now, my dear leedy, the moment has come for parting; 'sweet sorrow,' the pote calls ut, and in this case rightly, for 'tis but timporary, I trust. An', by the way, permit me to proffer ye my assistance in any little arreengements which yer melancholy juties and onprotictud condition may devolve ye

in."

"Major Boyle, I am sure you are too kind," simpered the lady.

"Not at all," cried the gentleman airily. ""Tis a bargain thin. I will do mesilf the honor of calling upon ye, madam, as soon as my military engeegements permit": he half arose, bowing. "And now, me dear madam, I'll refrain from engeeging yer charming attintion; 'tis not the hour for pleasantries; yer fut is upon the threshold of new experiences; 'tis a mimorable moment in yer young life. First impressions, my dear leedy, are priceless-let me advise ye to be garnering thim; use your beautiful eyes. close yer charming lips, and husband yer resources."

"La! Major, whatever are you saying?" cried the lady, whose attention had been wandering. "Husband? and my poor dear colonel not twelve months in his grave!"

She simpered coquettishly. The man upon the other side of her wondered; never had she appeared to less advantage. He felt his lip curl and, half

As

He sat upon the lady's left; the Irishman had risen; a little ungloved right hand was dipping its finger-tips in the water alongside, the tortoise-shell hook of a parasol lay over the gunwale. the launch, now no longer under steerage way, swung in towards the stonework the silent watcher saw with a start what might happen.

"Hands inboard, there," yelled the middy at the yoke-lines. The lady, still held in chat by her loquacious admirer, either did not hear or failed to understand that she was the person addressed. "Madam!" squealed the boy; she, laughing gaily at a final sally, retained her position. There was yet the tenth of a second left for action; leaning behind her, the English Major made a snatch at her wrist, caught it roughly, the boat, lifting upon the swell, jarred dully against the green, weed-coated stone. Something crushed. The lady shrieked. The middy shut his eyes. She was caressing knuckles rasped by nothing severer than a man's grip.

"Sir! How dare you? I never!"

"Justin! May I ask what ye mean by this conduct?" said the Irishman in silkiest accents, his eyes sparkling under twitching brows.

"Begad, sir, 'twas mighty well done!" broke in the lieutenant in charge. "You saved the lady's hand. See here, madam, what your five fingers would have been like." He was pointing to the parasol-handle crushed flat between the gunwale of the heavy launch and the unyielding stonework.

"Oh, Major Justin, how can I thank you enough?" exclaimed the lady, a little breathlessly.

"It isn't necessary to say anything more about it, madam; but if ye will permit me to escort ye to your lodging I shall feel abundantly repaid. I bespoke ye a porter by the first boat.

I see the fellow awaiting us at the top of the steps: allow me."

He had not replied to his angry rival. The obvious event had done that for him. Taking courteous possession of his fair prize, he passed the Waterport envied and admired by the crew of the launch.

"Handy enough for a King's ship; pity he's to be wasted ashore," grunted a jack, pulling stroke, who had seen all.

"And who might those fine, new, live officer-passengers of yours be?" asked an orange-woman of the lieutenant, an old acquaintance. The lieutenant told all he knew. "Whew!" whistled the dame, and shifted the quid in her cheek. "Then the fat's in the fire again, sir! More bloody doin's afore the month is out, as sure as there's monkeys on the Rock."

Next morning, in the anteroom at the Convent, the newcomers were awaiting the Governor's leisure to report themselves. They sate in silence. Officers of the garrison passed in with their "morning states," returned with their orders. The levée was thinning, their turns would come soon.

An orderly, who before he enlisted must surely have been a town crier or master of ceremonies, came to the door, throwing a chest. "Ma-jor"

The Irishman got his feet under him, "Justin!" He extended them · again with a smothered oath. The Englishman arose and followed the man to the presence.

Governor Sir George Eliott, whose business it was to know his men, looked the new-comer over with interest; his broad, sea-bronzed mask of a face was made up to an enduring patience; he foresaw an awful time ahead of him; he wanted men, men; King George sent him broken gamblers, disgraced fribbles, the culls and incapables of their services, rubbish. The Rock was the most unpopular of sta

tions. He recognized in Justin a man after his own heart, and beamed upon him.

"Sir, I am glad to make your acquaintance." The greeting reached the ears of those in the anteroom through an imperfectly closed door, and one at least of the listeners eocked an eyebrow.

"You served in Madras, I see, under my friend Coote; I have heard of ye, sir, and all to your advantage. Ye are gazetted to the 12th with seniority, which is unusual. Ye came out in the Paladin, I believe; and had ye an agreeable voyage? Had ye companions? So-humph! Who is without?" A pause. "Send Major Boyle in."

"Ma-jor Boyle!" bawled the orderly. The Irishman obeyed the summons with alacrity. He strode into the room and saluted, as fine a figure of a man as you shall see in a whole garrison: tall, splendidly set-up, fresh-complexioned; the sparkle of hazel eyes lit up his face from under alertly arched brows. The Governor took him all in with a solemn regard. The jaw was too square and heavy, the mouth verged upon truculence. The head looked as round as a bullet and as hard. The man, one felt, would be an exacting friend, an encroaching comrade, a dangerous enemy, but for a night assault, a forlorn hope, no fitter fellow stepped.

His Commander returned his salute in silence, looked him over in silence, referred again to some writing, a private advice, apparently just arrived by Packet. He opened his lips. "Step outside there, and shut that door." The orderly obeyed.

"Major Boyle, I make your acquaintance, sir; I trust it may ripen into mutual respect. But I am bound to warn ye, sir, that your record has preceded ye."

The man addressed started, his rocky face flushed. The Englishman inter

posed. "Have I your permission to retire, sir?"

"Ye have not, sir. I desire ye to remain. I am speaking to the two of ye, for your guidance, gentlemen, and for your good.

"You, Major Boyle, come to me from the 41st, but 'tis not your first exchange: ye served in the North Corks and also in the Fermanagh Fusileers."

"I did, sir. I was mentioned in despatches whilst serving with the Fusileers in Canada."

"And stood your court-martial, if I am not misinformed, for killing a brother officer."

"And had my sword returned to me, sir; it was an affair of honor, properly seconded, everything in order."

The

"You were the challenger, sir." man addressed allowed the statement to pass. The Governor

continued:

"But the unfortunate experience was wasted upon ye; it has not been your last of the sort, as it was not your first. Ye went out recently with a civilian. and still more recently with a Militia officer. Ye stood your trial at Chester Assizes, sir, upon the capital charge." "And was acquitted again, sir." "As I read this, the jury disagreed, which appears to have been a most fortunate circumstance for ye, for there were no seconds, I see."

He tapped

the paper. "Well, sir, it seems that instead of putting ye on your trial again, the minister has permitted ye to I am exchange, has sent ye out to me. but little obliged to Mr. Jenkinson, if I may speak frankly.

"And now, sir, a word in your ear; ye have come to a hornet's nest. There is some damned old senseless grudge between your regiments, gentlemenyours and yours"-he nodded to each in turn. "The men have been confined to barracks this month past, but in this latitude a month is too much: it spells scurvy. After all is said, I must rely upon the regimental officers, upon you,

just you.

Your predecessors fell out and played the fool: Von Toppler and Stedman. They paid the penalty; one is in hell and the other on half-pay. But how am I to hold this place for my King if my own officers run one another through the gizzard for a wry word?" He paused, and his eye was "Now, gentlemen, ye

severe.

come

Ye

upon the ground with clean sheets so far as this silly matter between the 12th and the Hardenbergs is concerned. Ye know nothing, and desire to know nothing, but my express wishes. will start fair and take a posture that shall make for amity. Ye hear me?" Again the great soldier's eye roved from one to the other; the Englishman was attending to him with an air of respectful concern, the Irishman's countenance was a medley of pent emotions.

"Ye have enjoyed a favorable voyage: ye have made one another's acquaintance under agreeable circumstances, and are about to take up your duties with nothing but the friendliest feelings between ye. This is so?"

"Certainly, sir," replied Justin: the other assented less cordially, but assent he did.

"Then, gentlemen, I will ask ye to take one another's hands, here in my presence-so. I am obliged to ye. I wish ye a good-day. Ye may go."

The two officers reached the door of the Convent, passed the sentry, took a dozen steps side by side in a silence which the Englishman had no especial desire to break. His companion, as he perceived, was smarting under the rebukes of his new Commander. How would he bear himself?

Beyond earshot of the sentry the Irishman wheeled hotly upon the man beside him, “Well?"

Justin stopped, as was but civil, but awaited some more definite indication of the man's meaning. None forthcoming.

was

"Major Boyle, as you apparently in

vite me to make some comment upon what I have heard, I will just say that so far as it touches yourself I have already forgotten it, every word of it. I beg to wish ye a good”

"For-got ut, have ye?" mocked the other in a high-pitched, satirical tone. "I would hardly have thought ut. Your

hearing is perfect, my dear sir; your ears are long enough, in all conscience!" "And I have already forgotten that too," replied Justin in haste, and, turning upon his heel, left, pursued by a jeering laugh.

(To be continued.)

Ashton Hilliers.

ON ESSAYS AT LARGE.

There is no word which it seems harder to define than the word Essay; it seems as difficult to describe as the quality of justice in Plato's "Republic," which turned out to be the one indefinable and essential principle that was left, like Argon, when all the other qualities that go to the making up of the state were subtracted. Similarly, when all other forms of human composition have been classified, the essay is left. Almost the only quality that it seems possible to predicate of it is comparative brevity, and even that is not essential to it, for such a book as the "Anatomy of Melancholy" is little more than a gigantic essay, when all is said. The difficulty is that the word has travelled so far from its original meaning, which implied something tentative and evanescent. Yet if the word can be applied to Macaulay's Essays, the original conception falls to the ground at once, for Macaulay's Essays are certainly neither evanescent nor tentative, but some of the most positive and palpable documents in the archives of literature. The fact is that the word has been wrested from its meaning to cover any species of short study, biographical or historical. We do not, however, presume to plead that the word should be restored to its original meaning; words are our servants and not our masters; usage is more important than derivation, and it is mere pedantry to attempt to main

tain the opposite.

But for all that it is agreeable, even if it be useless, to discern and disentangle the proper qualities of things, and to play with literary values is as pretty a game as to toy with vintages.

The true essay, then, is a tentative and personal treatment of a subject; it is a kind of improvisation on a delicate theme; a species of soliloquy, as if a man were to speak aloud the slender and whimsical thoughts that come into his mind when he is alone on a winter evening before a warm fire, and, closing his book, abandons himself to the luxury of genial reverie. I remember once being in the studio of a great painter. He was at work on a portrait which for personal reasons I had been asked to criticize. After we had discussed the picture, he had taken up his palette and brush, and was adding some little touches. As he did this, he began to talk first about the methods, and then about the aims of art. He spoke as if almost unconscious of the presence of an auditor, in very simple, spontaneous language, as though he were thinking aloud. He suddenly broke off, with a half-blush, and said "These are some of the thoughts that come into my head as I stand at my work; I am ashamed to trouble you with them," and I could not induce him to resume. That was, I felt, a real essay in the making. I had seen the very telegraphy of the brain at

work, the unseen soul at its business of thought, and I felt too, as I reflected, that I had understood it all perfectly, as I could not have understood a technical treatise; for the real stuff of thought is simple enough-it is the learned mind that complicates and embroiders. The theme itself matters little the art of it lies in the treatment. And the important thing is that the essay should possess what may be called atmosphere and personality; and thus it may be held to be of the essence of the matter that the result should appear to be natural, by whatever expenditure of toil that quality may need to be achieved. In this sense it may be held that Bacon's Essays are hardly true essays, because they are too aphoristic-the bones are picked too clean, the definition is too superbly lucid and concise. Most essayists could not afford to spin their web as close as that-a single page of Bacon would furnish out themes and climaxes and ornaments for a whole essay of the more leisurely type. For the mark of the true essay is that the reader's thinking is all done for him. A thought is expanded in a dozen ways, until the most nebulous mind takes cognizance of it. The path winds and insinuates itself, like a little leafy lane among fields, with the hamlet-chimneys and the spire, which are its leisurely goal, appearing only by glimpses and vistas, to left or to right, just sufficiently to reassure the sauntering pilgrim as to the ultimate end of his enterprise. But the Essays of Bacon resemble more a series of stepping-stones, rigid, orderly, compact, the progress across which must be wary and intent, admitting but little opportunity for desultory contemplation.

Again, the true essay must be, as we have said, tentative. It must never be authoritative. It must make no pronouncement, and draw no conclusion.

The most the essayist may do is to venture to suggest. As a cicerone, he must not discourse professionally of dates and mouldings, but trifle gracefully with an historical association, or indicate an effect of light and shadow on a mellow wall. In fact the campanula that swings its lilac bells upon the broken ledge, or the orange rosettes of lichen on the weathered ashlar are more his concern than the origin and significance of the pile itself. His duty is rather to exhibit his subject from a dozen different points of view, and he must take thought of foreground and distance more than of elevation and perspective. If he convinces at all, it must be by persuasion and example, and not by precept or statute-but indeed his aim is never intellectual conviction, nor the unveiling of error; it is rather to show the poetical value of a thought, its suggestiveness, its gossamer connections, its emotional possibilities; and thus the breeze that stirs the surface of the pool is as important as the pool itself; the reflected images of tree and hill, that blend and waver, as much his pre-occupation as the actual forms themselves-indeed more so; for, as I have said, atmosphere is the end of all his devices. Personality, then, is the characteristic of the essay; not necessarily egotistic personality, the mind regarding itself with absorbed delight, repeating and viewing and recording its own motions. That indeed is not forbidden to the essayist, for the essence of his art is zest in his subject; but greater still is the charm of personality unconscious of itself, and merely following its own contemplations with a delighted intentness, like the talk of a child. And here I think lies another characteristic of the true essayist, a certain childlike absorption in his subject. We all of us love trifles at heart; the shapes and aspects of things, the quality of sounds, the savors of food, the sweet and pungent odors

« PreviousContinue »