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 I (A
 
 CHRONICLES OF DUSTYPORE
 
 CHRONICLES of DUSTYPORE 
 
 A TALE OF 
 MODERN ANGLO-INDIAN SOCIETY 
 
 f.. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 WHEAT AND TARES' 'LATE LAURELS^ 
 
 ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1875 
 
 [Aii rights reserved^
 
 CJ) 
 
 a 
 
 CO 
 
 S2 3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 1^ CHAPTER 
 
 ^ I. The Sandy Tracts 
 
 00 II- Maud ^^ 
 
 <i III. War at the Salt Board . 
 
 • . . 36 
 
 46 
 
 . 61 
 
 f^ V X. ri. v^wiviri^iUlUxM WALLAH,' . . . . 74 
 
 IV. Felicia 
 
 V. 'Sutton's Flyers'. 
 
 4 VI. 'A Competition Wallah 
 
 VII. The Rumble Chunder Grant 
 
 '^ VIII. Golden Days . . . . 
 
 Ci IX. The First Ball . 
 g X. The Woes of a Chaperon 
 XI. Friends in Council 
 
 «s 
 
 93 
 
 lOI 
 
 114 
 131 
 145
 
 vi Contents of the First Volume. 
 
 I'AGH 
 CHArTKK 
 
 XII. A Chapter of Disclosures . . . . 170 
 
 XIII. Uesvceux MAKES THE Running . . • 180 
 
 XIV. To THE Hills ! '97 
 
 XV. A District Officer 221 
 
 XVL Elysium ^3° 
 
 XVII. A Battle Royal 245 
 
 XVIII. Gaudia in Excelsis 256 
 
 XIX. A Brush on the Frontier . • • "-ll 
 
 XX. A Last Ride -9-
 
 CHRONICLES OF DUSTYPORE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SANDY TRACTS. 
 
 He seems like one whose footsteps halt, 
 
 Toiling in immeasurable sand ; 
 
 And o'er a weary, sultry land, 
 
 Far beneath a blazing vault, 
 
 Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill, 
 
 The city sparkles like a grain of salt. 
 
 Anyone who knows or cares anything about 
 India — that Is, say, one EngHshman in a 
 hundred thousand — is familiar with the train 
 of events which resuhed in the conquest of 
 the Sandy Tracts, the incorporation of that 
 unattractive region in the British Indian 
 
 ^ For the sake of readers who might mispronounce the 
 name of the famous station Dastypur if the official spelling 
 were retained, the name is spelt phonetically. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 V
 
 2 Chronicles of DiLstypore. 
 
 Empire, and the establishment of an Agency 
 at Dustypore. The ninety-nine thousand nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine who neither know 
 nor wish to know would not be grateful for 
 an account of batdes fought at places of 
 which they never heard, of victories gained 
 by generals whose fame is already for- 
 gotten, and of negotiations which nobody but 
 the negotiators understood at the time, and 
 which a few years have effectually relegated 
 to the oblivion that awaits all that is at once 
 dull, profitless, and unintelligible. 
 
 Suffice it to say that the generally ad- 
 mired air of * Rule Britannia,' which has 
 been performed on so many occasions for the 
 benefit of admiring audiences in different 
 parts of the Indian continent, was once again 
 piped and drummed and cannonaded into the 
 ears of a prostrate population. The resistless
 
 The Sandy Tracts, 3 
 
 ^ red line,' historical on a hundred battle- 
 fields, once again stood firm against the on- 
 set of despairing fanaticism, and once again 
 in its advance moved forward the boun- 
 daries of the conquering race. The solid 
 tramp of British soldiers' feet sounded 
 the death-knell of a rule whose hour 
 of doom had struck, and one more little 
 tyranny — Its cup of crime, perfidy, and folly 
 full — was blotted for ever from the page of' 
 the world's story. The sun set into a horizon 
 lurid with the dust of a flying rabble, and the 
 victorious cavalry, as it returned, covered 
 with sweat and dirt, from the pursuit, found 
 all the fighting done, an English guard on 
 duty at the city-gates, a troop of English 
 artillery drawn up in front of the principal 
 mosque, and a couple of English sentinels 
 plodding up and down with all the stolidity 
 
 r 2
 
 4 Chronicles of D^istypore. 
 
 of true Britons In front of the Officers' 
 Quarters. The Sandy Tracts were ours. 
 
 The next morning at sunrise the British 
 flag was flying on the Fort of Dustypore, and 
 a British General and his staff were busy 
 with maps, orders, and despatches in quarters 
 from which the ladies of a royal seraglio had 
 fled in post-haste the afternoon before. 
 Thenceforward everything went on like 
 clockwork. Before the week was out order, 
 such as had not been dreamed of for many 
 a long year, prevailed in every nook and 
 corner of the captured city. One morning 
 an elderly gentleman, in plain clothes, at- 
 tended by two or three uniformed lads and a 
 tiny cavalry escort, rode in, and a roar of 
 cannon from the Fort announced that the 
 ' Agent ' had arrived. Then set in the full 
 tide of civil administration. Courts began to
 
 The Sandy Tracts. 5 
 
 sit, pickpockets and brawlers were tried, 
 sanitary regulations were issued, returns 
 were called for, appointments were made. 
 The ' Dustypore Gazette,' on its first issue, 
 announced with the greatest calmness, and in 
 the curt language appropriate to an every- 
 day occurrence, the annexation of the Sandy 
 Tracts ; and a gun fired from the Fort every 
 morning, as near as might be to mid-day, 
 announced to the good people of Dustypore 
 that, by order of Queen Victoria, It was 
 twelve o'clock in a British cantonment. 
 
 The new addition to Her Majesty's 
 possessions resembled the Miltonlc hell in 
 one particular, at any rate — in being a region 
 of fierce extremes. On winter mornings a 
 biting wind, fresh from its icy home In the 
 distant snow-clad range, cut one to the core ; 
 and people clustered, with chattering teeth
 
 6 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 and blue fingers, round blazing hearths, 
 where great logs worthy of an English 
 Christmas tempered the cruel atmosphere to 
 a eenial Mow. When the * rains ' came it 
 poured a little deluge. During the eight 
 months of summer the state of things re- 
 sembled that prevailing in the interior of a 
 well-constructed and well-supplied Arnott's 
 stove. Then it was that the Sandy Tracts 
 were seen in the complete development of 
 their resources and in the fullest glory. 
 Vast plains, a dead level, but for an occa- 
 sional clump of palms or the dome of some 
 despoiled and crumbling tomb, stretched 
 away on every side, and ended in a hazy 
 quivering horizon that spoke of infinite heat. 
 Over these ranged herds of cattle here and 
 there ; browsing on no one could see what ; or 
 lying, panting and contented, in some muddy
 
 The Sa7tdy Tracts. 7 
 
 pool, with little but horns, eyes, and nos- 
 trils exposed above the surface. Little ill- 
 begotten stunted plants worked hard to live 
 and grow and to weather the roaring fierce 
 winds. The crows sat gasping, open- 
 beaked, as if protesting against having been 
 born into so sulphurous an existence. Here 
 and there a well, with its huge lumbering 
 wheel and patient bullocks, went creaking 
 and groaning night and day, as if earth 
 grudged the tiny rivulet, coming so toilfully 
 from her dry breast, and gave it up with 
 sighs of pain. The sky was cloudless, piti- 
 less, brazen. The sun rose into it without a 
 single fleck of vapour to mitigate its fierce- 
 ness, and pierced, like a red-hot sword, the 
 rash mortal who dared, unprotected, to meet 
 its ray. All day it shone and glistened and 
 blazed, until the very earth seemed to crack
 
 8 Chronicles of Dicstypoi'c. 
 
 with heat and the mere thought of it was 
 pain. The natives tied their heads up in 
 bags, covered their mouths, and carried 
 their clothes between the sun and them- 
 selves. Europeans entrenched themselves 
 behind barriers of moistened grass, lay out- 
 stretched under monster fans, and consoled 
 themselves with what cool drinks their 
 means allowed, and with the conviction, 
 which seemed to spring perennial in each 
 sufferer's breast, that the present was by 
 far the hottest summer ever known. 
 
 Dew there was none. You stepped from 
 your door in the morning into a bed of 
 sand, which no amount of watering could 
 reduce to the proper solidity of a garden- 
 path. As you came in at night you shook off 
 the dust that had gathered on }^ou in your 
 evening stroll. Miles away the galloping
 
 The Sandy Tracts. 9 
 
 horseman might be tracked by the little 
 cloud that he stirred up as he went. The 
 weary cattle trudged homeward from their 
 day's work in a sandstorm of their own 
 manufacture. There was sand in the air one 
 breathed, in the food one tried to eat, in the 
 water that pretended to assuage one's thirst : 
 sand in heaven, and sand on earth — and a 
 great deal of sand in the heads of many of 
 the officials. 
 
 This getting of sand into the head, and 
 getting it in in a degree compatible neither 
 with health, comfort, or efficiency, was a 
 recognised malady in the Sandy Tracts. It 
 cost the Government a good deal of money, 
 and the services of many a useful brain. 
 Officers, when they felt themselves becoming 
 unendurably sandy, and their ideas propor- 
 tionately confused, used to take furlough,
 
 lo Chro7iiclcs of Ditstypore. 
 
 and go home, and try to get washed clear 
 again at Malvern or Wiesbaden. There 
 was a famous physician In Mayfair re- 
 nowned for his skill In ridding the heads of 
 those poor gentlemen of the unwelcome 
 deposit, who made a reputation and a 
 fortune by, so to speak, dredging them. 
 
 There was one official head, however, at 
 Dustypore In which no particle of sand was 
 to be found, and that was Mr. Strutt's. It 
 was for this reason, probably, amongst 
 others, that he was made Chief Secretary 
 to the Salt Board, a post which, at the time 
 when this history commences, was one of the 
 most important, responsible, and lucrative in 
 the entire service. For the Salt Board, as 
 will hereafter be seen, was an Institution 
 whose dignity and powers had grown and 
 grown until they almost overtopped those of
 
 The Sandy Tracts. 1 1 
 
 the Agency itself. If the Salt Board was 
 the embodiment of what was dignified and 
 powerful in Dustypore, Mr. Strutt had con- 
 centrated in his own person the functions and 
 attributes of the Board. He was prompt, 
 indefatigable, self-satisfied, and what his 
 superiors valued him for especially, lucky. 
 
 A long career had taught him and the world 
 that those who attacked him came off second- 
 best. His answers were unanswerable, his 
 reports effective, his explanations convincing. 
 His nervous hand it was that depicted the 
 early triumphs of the Dustypore Adminis- 
 tration, and in sonorous periods set forth the 
 glories of the British rule — the roads, the 
 canals, the hospitals, and schools — the sup- 
 pression of crime, the decreased mortality, 
 the general passion of the inhabitants for 
 female education. His figures were con-
 
 12 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 stantly quoted by people who wished to talk 
 about India to English audiences, and his 
 very name was a pillar of strength to the 
 champions of the English rule. Even his 
 enemies were constrained to admit that he 
 possessed the art of ' putting It ' to a degree 
 of fearful and wonderful perfection. 
 
 The maxim, * like master like man,' was 
 as far as possible from being verified In the 
 case of Mr. Strutt and his superiors. Of 
 these Mr. Fotherlngham, the Chairman, was 
 lymphatic in temperament, inordinately 
 vain, and the victim of an Inveterate habit 
 of enunciating platitudes. Cockshaw, who 
 came next, was off-hand, superficial, and 
 positive — with the positlveness of a man 
 who hates deliberation and despises every 
 form of uncertainty. Blunt, the third 
 member, was a non-civilian, and had been
 
 The Sandy Tracts. 1 3 
 
 brought out from England on account of 
 his practical acquaintance with salt-mines, and 
 of his having been a secretary in the Board 
 of Trade. He was business-like, straightfor- 
 ward, and unconciliating,"he generally thought 
 differently from his colleagues, and he had 
 the roughest possible manner of saying what 
 he thought. 
 
 Such a trio had sometimes, as may well 
 be imagined, no little trouble in preserving 
 toward the outer world the aspect of serene, 
 benevolent, and consistent infallibility, the 
 maintenance of which Fotheringham re- 
 garded as the first of duties. Cockshaw did 
 not in the least mind a row, so long as he 
 was not kept too long at office for the 
 purpose of making it. Blunt would have 
 stayed at office till midnight, arguing 
 doggedly, sooner than abandon his point.
 
 J 4 CJironiclcs of Dtistypore. 
 
 Happily Fotheringham had a great sense 
 of propriety, concealed the dissensions of 
 his colleagues from the public eye, and 
 preserved the Board's dignity from igno- 
 minious collapse. 
 
 Under Strutt came a hierarchy of less 
 important subordinates, who paved the long 
 descent, so to speak, from the official altitudes 
 in which the Salt Board had its being, to the 
 vulgar public who consumed the salt. Chief 
 of these was Vernon, with whom the reader 
 will speedily become better acquainted. 
 Under him, again, came Mr. Whisp, the 
 Assistant-Secretary, a young gentleman 
 whose task it was to draw up minutes of the 
 Board's proceedings, to draft its circulars, and 
 to collect the statistics out of which Strutt 
 concocted his reports. He had thus, it will
 
 The Sandy Tracts. 1 5 
 
 be seen, an opportunity of acquiring much 
 useful information, and a highly ornamental 
 style, and Whisp was generally regarded in 
 the service as a rising man.
 
 1 6 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAUD. 
 
 Nature said, * A lovelier flower 
 On earth was never sown : 
 This child I to myself will take ; 
 She shall be mine, and I will make 
 A lady of my own.' 
 
 When Vernon was appointed Under-Secre- 
 tary to the Salt Board he no doubt Imagined 
 that, in connection with that august body, 
 he would be known to fame, and (as 
 Strutt would grandiloquently have put 
 it) leave his mark on his epoch. He was 
 destined, however, as the reader of these 
 pages will presently perceive, to become 
 remarkable on the less unusual ground of
 
 Mated. 1 7 
 
 relationship to an extremely pretty girl. 
 His cousin Maud, of whom years before, in 
 a rash moment of benevolence, he had con- 
 sented to become guardian and trustee, had 
 been suddenly thrown upon his hands. She 
 was no longer a remote anxiety which could 
 be disposed of by cheques, letters to gover- 
 nesses, and instructions to solicitors, but 
 an immediate, living reality, with a highly 
 effective pair of eyes, good looks — as to which 
 women might cavil, but every man would be 
 a firm believer — the manner of an eager child, 
 and a joyousness which Vernon was obliged 
 to admit was at once deliciously infectious 
 to the world at large, and a very agreeable 
 alterative to the state of mind produced 
 by Indian summers, salt statistics, letters 
 polished by Whisp, or common-places enun- 
 ciated by Fotheringham. With the timidity 
 VOL. I. c
 
 1 8 Chro7iicles of Dustypore. 
 
 of Indolence he shuddered to think of the 
 social entanglements and disturbances which 
 so new an element in his household was 
 calculated to produce. 
 
 Maud, on the other hand, had come out 
 to India with a very low opinion of herself 
 and of her claims upon the good-will of 
 society. At Miss Goodenough's establish- 
 ment for young ladies, where her education 
 had been completed, her shortcomings had 
 been impressed upon her in a manner whole- 
 some, perhaps, and necessary, but decidedly 
 depressing. She had been haunted by the 
 awful consciousness that she was a ' Tom- 
 boy.' Her general demeanour, her mode of 
 expressing herself, her Ignorance of many 
 things with which no one ought to be un- 
 familiar, had been the object of the most 
 unflattering comment. The elder Miss
 
 Maud. 19 
 
 Goodenough — between whom and Maud 
 there existed a real though somewhat fitful 
 attachment — used to have her into a solemn 
 little chamber and administer the most awful 
 lectures on her shortcomings, and the dis- 
 grace and suffering which they would justly 
 entail. These interviews were generally 
 tearful and tender ; for Miss Goodenough, 
 to whom Maud had been consigned as a 
 child on her first arrival from India, loved 
 her with a sort of rapture which made itself 
 felt amid all the vehement fault-finding 
 which Maud's delinquencies necessitated. 
 Maud had always regarded the old lady in 
 something of a maternal light, and never could 
 be brought to abandon the familiar abbrevia- 
 tion of ' Goody,' by which she had been 
 allowed, as a child, to address her in- 
 structress, and accepted her sentences with 
 
 C2
 
 20 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 unquestioning faith and submission. The 
 two used to weep together over Maud's 
 shortcomings. She looked upon Miss 
 Goodenough as a friend whose heart it was 
 her unhicky fate to lacerate. Miss Good- 
 enough regarded Maud as a creature whose 
 alarming impulses and irregularities justified 
 the darkest forebodings as to her future, and 
 succeeded in infecting her pupil with some of 
 her own apprehensions. Some judgment 
 must, so both agreed, sooner or later over- 
 take one whose shoulders seemed guided by 
 a hidden law to unequal altitudes, whose 
 toes defied every endeavour to keep them 
 pointed in the conventional direction, and 
 whose impetuous behaviour was constantly 
 producing a scandal of more or less gravity. 
 
 * Dearest child,' Miss Goodenough would 
 say, with an air of profound commiseration,
 
 Maud. 
 
 21 
 
 *if you could see how you look, with one 
 shoulder up to your ears and the other near 
 to what should be your waist ! ' 
 
 This taunt particularly grieved Maud, 
 for she felt bitterly that her form was un- 
 romantically plump, and not at all of the 
 refined tenuity of several of her companions. 
 
 ' My shoulders ! ' she would exclaim, with 
 the tears in her eyes ; ' I wish they were both 
 at Jericho. I am sure I am made wrong, 
 dearest Goody, indeed I am.' 
 
 * Then, my dear,' Miss Goodenough 
 would say, not encouragingly, ' we should 
 try all the more to remedy natural defects ; 
 at any rate, you might know your Bible. 
 Now, dear Maud, your ignorance Is, you 
 know, simply shocking.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know,' said Maud, * but I can't 
 help it. Those horrid kings of Israel and
 
 22 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 Judah ! They made Israel to sin, they make 
 me to sin, indeed they do. Jehoshaphat, 
 Jehoiakim, Jonadab, Jehu — all Indeed — all 
 beginning with J — how can anyone re- 
 member them ? ' 
 
 ' Then, my dear,' her inexorable monitress 
 would reply, ' you can never know what every 
 well-educated young lady, what every mere 
 school-child, is acquainted with. How can 
 you be fit to go into the world ? ' 
 
 * I wish,' said Maud, passionately, in 
 despair at the difficulties of existence, ' that 
 when the tribes got lost they had taken 
 their histories with them, and lost them too. 
 Darling Goody, let me learn texts, hymns, 
 all the Sermon on Mount, as much poetry 
 as you please, only not those dreadful 
 Chronicles ! ' Maud used on these occa- 
 sions to throw her arms round Goody's
 
 Maud. 23 
 
 neck in an outbreak of affectionate repent- 
 ance, in a way that the elder lady, who w^as 
 absurdly impressionable, found it difficult to 
 resist. 
 
 But Miss Goodenoughs kindness made 
 Maud's conscience all the less at ease. 
 Calmness, self-restraint, composure, a well- 
 stocked mind, and sensible judgment were, 
 Miss Goodenough told her, the great excel- 
 lences of character to be aimed at. Maud 
 looked into herself, and felt, with agonies of 
 self-reproach, that in every particular she fell 
 miserably short ; that she was the very 
 reverse of calm — the least thing roused her 
 into passion, or sent her spinning from the 
 summit of serene high spirits to the lowest 
 depths of despair. As for self-restraint, Maud 
 felt she was just as capable of it as of flying 
 to the moon.
 
 24 Chro7iicles of Diistypore. 
 
 From time to time she made violent 
 efforts to be diligent, and set to work with 
 sudden zeal upon books which her instruc- 
 tress assured her were most interesting and 
 improving. These attempts, for the most 
 part, collapsed in grievous failure. Improve- 
 ment, Maud felt ruefully, there might be, 
 though unbeknown to herself; interest she 
 was certain there was none. On the other 
 hand, a chance novel, which had somehow 
 or other passed scatheless through the rigid 
 blockade which Miss Goodenough esta- 
 blished around her young ladies, had filled 
 her with a sort of ecstacy of excitement ; and 
 no amount of poetry — no such amount, at any 
 rate, as came within the narrow limits of her 
 mistress's literary horizon — seemed capable 
 of fatiguing or even of satisfying her. Dis- 
 playing the most complete inaptitude for
 
 Mated. 25 
 
 every other form of diligence, she was ready 
 enough to learn any amount that anyone 
 liked to give her. She even signalised her 
 zeal by the spasmodic transcription of her 
 favourite passages into a precious volume 
 marked with a solemn ' Private,' protected 
 from profane eyes by a golden padlock, and 
 destined by its proprietress to be the deposi- 
 tory of all her intellectual treasures. 
 
 Miss Goodenough, however, though ad- 
 mitting perforce the merits of the great 
 masters of English song, regarded the claims 
 of poetry as gena'ally subordinate to those of 
 history, geography, arithmetic, and various 
 other branches of useful and ornamental 
 learning, and treated Maud's passion for 
 Sir Walter Scott as but another alarming 
 symptom of an excitable disposition and ill- 
 regulated mind.
 
 26 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 A crisis came at last. It happened at 
 church, where Miss Goodenough's young 
 ladies used to sit just under the gallery, 
 while the boys of ' the Crescent House 
 Academy ' performed their devotions over- 
 head. One fatal Sunday In February, just 
 as the service was over, and the two Misses 
 Goodenough had already turned their backs 
 to lead the way out, and the young ladies 
 were preparing to follow, a little missive 
 came fluttering down and fell almost into 
 Maud's hands ; at any rate, she slipped It 
 into her Prayer-book ; and all would have 
 gone well but for that horrid Mademoiselle de 
 Vert, who, turning sharply round, detected the 
 occurrence, and the moment Maud was out- 
 side the church demanded her Prayer-book. 
 
 Maud turned fiery red in an instant, and 
 surrendered her book.
 
 Mated. 27 
 
 'And the note,' said Mademoiselle de 
 Vert. 
 
 ' What note ? ' said Maud. But alas ! her 
 tell-tale cheeks rendered the question useless, 
 and made all evasion impossible. Maud was 
 speedily driven to open resistance. 
 
 ' No, thank you,' she said, with an air 
 that told Mademoiselle de Vert that further 
 attempts at coercion would be labour thrown 
 away ; ' It was not Intended for you ; It was 
 a valentine.' 
 
 After this appalling disclosure there was, 
 of course, when they got home, an explanation 
 to be had with Miss Goodenough, who pro- 
 fessed herself, and probably really was, terri- 
 fied at so new a phase of human depravity. 
 
 Maud was presently In floods of tears, 
 and was obliged to confess that she and the 
 offending culprit had on more than one occa-
 
 28 Chro} licks of Dustypore, 
 
 sion let each other's eyes meet, had in fact 
 exchanged looks, and even smiles ; so that, 
 perhaps, she was the real occasion for this 
 unhallowed act of temerity. 
 
 ' Forgive me, forgive me ! ' she cried ; ' it 
 was nothing wrong ; it was only a heart with 
 an arrow and a Cupid ! * 
 
 'A Cupid!' cried Miss Goodenough, in 
 horror at each new revelation ; ' and some 
 writing too, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Maud, whose pleasure In the 
 valentine was rapidly surmounting the dis- 
 grace into which it had got her ; ' really 
 pretty verses. Here it is !' And thereupon 
 she produced the offending billet, and pro- 
 ceeded to read with effusion : — 
 
 I would thou wert a summer rose, 
 And I a bird to hover o'er thee ; 
 
 And from the dawn to evening's close 
 To warble only, ' I adore thee ! '
 
 Maud. 29 
 
 *Stop!' cried Miss Goodenough, widi 
 great decision, and white with indignation ; 
 ' do you know what you are reading ? Do 
 you know that that vulgar rubbish is the sort 
 of odious impertinence that shopboys send 
 to their sweethearts, but which it is an insult 
 to let a lady even see, and which, trans- 
 mitted in a church, is little less than sacri- 
 lege ? ' 
 
 So saying, Miss Goodenough took the 
 offending letter and consigned it to the 
 flames, and poor Maud stood ruefully by, 
 watching the conflagration of the silver 
 Cupid, mourning over Miss Goodenough's 
 hard-heartedness, and consoling herself with 
 the reflection that at any rate she remem- 
 bered the verses. 
 
 ' I must write to your aunt Felicia to re- 
 move you. What an example for other girls ! '
 
 30 Chronicles of Dusty pore, 
 
 ' Well/ said Maud, resignedly, and 
 blushing in anticipation at the thought of 
 such an exposure ; ' do not, at any rate, tell 
 her about the valentine. Dear Goody, did 
 you never have one sent to you when you 
 were my age ? * 
 
 Miss Goodenough quite declined to 
 gratify this audacious enquiry, and made up 
 her mind that It was high time for Maud to 
 be under more masterful guidance than her 
 own. The result was that In the follow- 
 ing November Maud was a passenger on 
 the P. & O. steamship ' Cockatrice,' from 
 Southampton to Calcutta, where her cousin 
 Vernon was to meet her and escort her to 
 her new home In Dustypore. 
 
 She had been, it must be acknowledged, 
 to a certain degree reassured by the 
 experience of her voyage. She found that
 
 Maud, 3 1 
 
 the kings of Israel and Judah did not 
 occupy a prominent place in general con- 
 versation ; that a precise acquaintance with 
 the queens of England was not expected of 
 her ; and that nobody resented the impe- 
 tuosity of her movements or her want of 
 self-restraint. On the contrary, several of 
 her fellow-voyagers had evinced the liveliest 
 sympathy and interest in her, and had 
 devoted themselves successfully to keeping 
 her amused. Maud, in fact, had gone down 
 to her cabin on more occasions than one 
 during the voyage and shed some tears at 
 the approaching separation from friends, 
 whom even those few weeks of chance 
 companionship had carried close to her heart. 
 It had been in truth a happy time. The 
 captain, to whose special care she was 
 committed, had watched over her with a
 
 32 CJu'OJiiclcs of Dicstypore, 
 
 more than paternal interest. The doctor 
 insisted on her having champagne. The 
 purser set all his occult influences at work 
 to increase her comfort. The stewards con- 
 spired to spoil her. Maud felt that nothing 
 she could do would at all adequately express 
 her feelings to all these good people who 
 had ministered to her wants, and tried, with 
 so much success, to please her. There are 
 people, no doubt, to whom a voyage to India 
 is the height of boredom ; but there are other 
 happier natures to whom it presents a con- 
 tinuous series of excitements, interests, and 
 joys. Maud, at any rate, enjoyed it with a 
 sort of rapture, and trembled to think how 
 faintly Miss Goodenough's admonitions even 
 now began to fall upon her conscience's ear. 
 
 Then there had been some very charm- 
 ing fellows-passengers on board, with whom
 
 Maud. 33 
 
 she had formed the warmest friendship. 
 There was a certain Mr. Mowbray, for 
 instance — a comely, curly-pated, beardless 
 boy, on his way to join his regiment — whom 
 she found extremely interesting, and who 
 lost no time in becoming confidential. It 
 was very pleasant to sit on deck through 
 long hazy mornings and play besique with 
 Mr. Mowbray ; and pleasant too, when the 
 day was done, to sit with him in the 
 moonlight and watch the Southern Cross 
 slowly wheeling up, and the waves all ablaze 
 with phosphoric splendour, and to talk about 
 home, and Mr. Mowbray's sisters, and the 
 stations to which each of them were bound, 
 never, probably, to meet again. There was 
 something m}^sterious about it, Maud felt, 
 and impressive, and very, very charming. 
 And then, on some evenings, the 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 Chronicles of Dnstyporc. 
 
 stewardess would declare that Maud looked 
 pale, or had a headache, and that she should 
 have a little dinner on deck. 'Just a bit of 
 chicken, miss,' this benevolent being would 
 say, ' and a slice of ham, and the doctor will 
 give you a glass of champagne. The cabin is 
 a deal too hot for you.' And then, by some 
 happy fatality, Mr. Mowbray would also 
 have a headache that very afternoon, and 
 nothing but dining on deck would do for 
 him ; and so there would be a very pleasant 
 little repast going on over the heads of the 
 hot, noisy crowd who were gobbling up their 
 food below ; and the two invalids would 
 forget their maladies, fancied or real, in the 
 innocent excitement of a congenial tete-a-tete. 
 On the whole, Maud had arrived at Dusty- 
 pore Avith the conviction that existence, 
 though beset with almost innumerable diffi-
 
 Mated. 
 
 35 
 
 culties and dangers, was replete with enjoy- 
 ments, which made it, despite every draw- 
 back, most thoroughly well worth while to 
 be alive. 
 
 D 2
 
 o 
 
 6 CJirojiichs of Diistypoi^e, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WAR AT THE SALT BOARD. 
 Hos motus animorum atque hasc certamina tanta. 
 
 The Salt Board had excessively respectable 
 traditions. Its commencement dated far 
 back In Indian history, long before the 
 conquest of the Sandy Tracts, and Its pres- 
 tige had been maintained by a series of 
 officials all of whom had been in the habit of 
 speaking of one another with the utmost 
 respect. The * illustrious Jones,' the * great 
 administrator Brown,' the ' sagacious and 
 statesmanlike Robinson,' all threw the lustre 
 of their abilities over the institution, and
 
 War at the Salt Board, 37 
 
 were appealed to with unhesitating faith by 
 their successors in the department. When 
 one member referred to another he spoke of 
 himself as ' sitting at his feet/ or as ' formed 
 in his school,' or as 'guided by his principles,' 
 in language that was perhaps a little un- 
 necessarily grandiloquent, but which had, at 
 any rate, the effect of investing the Board 
 with a sort of moral ei'S-ndeur with the un- 
 initiated. Even the mistakes of the Board 
 acquired a sort of dignity, and were not to be 
 spoken of in an off-hand or irreverential 
 manner. They might seem mistakes, but it 
 was not prudent to be too sure that they 
 were so. Many other decisions of the Board 
 had been cavilled at by rash critics, and time 
 had shown their wisdom. The Board, 
 moreover, had a certain grand, misty way of 
 its own of talking, that made its proceedings
 
 38 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 somewhat hard to criticise. Indeed, all 
 outside criticism was resented as an imper- 
 tinence, and those rash critics who had the 
 temerity to attempt it were put down with 
 the contemptuous decisiveness appropriate to 
 ill-judged advisers. There was a regular 
 conventional way of crushing them : first it 
 was contended that, being outsiders, they 
 could not, in the nature of things, understand 
 the matter — as if there was a sort of inner 
 .and spiritual sense, by which the affairs of 
 the Salt Board must be apprehended. Then 
 there were stereotype phrases, which really 
 meant nothing, but which were understood 
 and accepted in the Sandy Tracts as imply- 
 ing that the Board considered the subject dis- 
 posed of, and did not want further discussion. 
 Arguments which could not be otherwise 
 met were smothered in an array of big
 
 War at the Salt Board. 39 
 
 names, or parried by pathetic references to 
 the zeal of the Sah officials, and the con- 
 scientious manner in which they worked in 
 the sun. Whatever line was adopted, it was 
 the invariable tradition that Government 
 should express its concurrence, and so all 
 ended comfortably to all parties concerned. 
 All this was naturally regarded as being 
 highly satisfactory. But the maintenance of 
 this agreeable equilibrium depended on the^ 
 persons concerned being tempered of the 
 right metal, imbued with the right spirit, 
 and what Strutt used to call ' loyal.' The in- 
 trusion of an alien spirit could not fail to 
 produce deplorable disturbance, disquiet, and 
 the dissipation of all sorts of agreeable 
 illusions ; and this was what happened when 
 Blunt — who was an outsider, the hardest, 
 roughest, most matter-of-fact of commercial
 
 40 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 Englishmen — was appointed to the Board. 
 Bkint violated every tradition In the most 
 ruthless fashion, was unimpressed by all the 
 solemnities which awed conventional be- 
 holders, and had the most Inconvenient way 
 of asking what things meant, and on (as he 
 used to say, with a sort of horrid glee) 
 ' picking the heart of a thing.' Now, the 
 Board did not at all relish having its heart 
 picked out in this unceremonious fashion, 
 and resented It with a sort of passionate dis- 
 like. Fotherlngham felt that he had indeed 
 fallen on very evil times, and that the 
 pleasant days of peace were numbered. 
 Cockshaw, when he found that Blunt would 
 neither smoke nor play whist, gave him up 
 as a bore. The very clerks in the office felt 
 agitated and depressed. When Blunt pulled 
 out his spectacles, and produced his papers,
 
 War at the Salt Board. 41 
 
 and went ruthlessly into figures, looking 
 rigid and tough, and implacable and indefa- 
 tigable, both Fotheringham and Cockshaw 
 knew that their places were not worth 
 having, and that they must look for comfort- 
 able quarters elsewhere. Fotheringham 
 counted the months to the time when his 
 peiision would be due. Cockshaw, who was 
 a man of action, applied forthwith for the 
 Chief Commissionership of the Carraway 
 Islands, which was just then in the market. 
 
 Blunt had not been many weeks at 
 Dustypore before he showed to demonstration 
 at the Board that the accounts were kept on 
 an entirely wrong footing, and that a vast 
 sum of money, five or six lakhs, was not 
 traceable. 
 
 * It is the floating balance/ said Fother- 
 ingham, with an air of quiet assurance arising
 
 42 CJiro7iiclcs of Diistypore. 
 
 from his having given the same reply fre- 
 quently before, and always found it answer. 
 
 * Perhaps you will trace it, then,' said 
 Blunt, pushing the papers across to Fother- 
 ingham in the most unfeeling way. '/ 
 cannot.' 
 
 *We had better send for Strutt,' said 
 Cockshaw, who knew nothing about the 
 accounts himself, and had a -nervous distrust 
 of Fotheringham's explanations. There- 
 upon Strutt appeared, radiant and self-satis- 
 fied, and cleared up everything with the easy 
 air of a man who is and who feels himself 
 thoroughly master of the situation. 
 
 ' No,' he said, in reply to Fotheringham's 
 enquiry, * not in the floating balance, but in 
 Suspense Account A : here it is, you see : 
 one item, 2 lakhs — 85,000 rs. 15 annas 3 pie.' 
 
 ' Of course,' said Fotheringham, ignoring
 
 War at the Salt Board. 43 
 
 his blunder with an air of placid dignity ; 
 ' there, you see, it is ! ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Blunt, insatiable of explana- 
 tion, ' but you said it was in the floating 
 balance ; and pray where are the other 
 items, and what is Suspense Account A, and 
 how many other Suspense Accounts have 
 you ? Pray go on, Mr. Strutt.' 
 
 So Mr. Strutt had to go on, and then it 
 was sad to see the brightness fade out of his 
 face, and his pleasant swagger disappear, and 
 his answers get wilder and wilder as Blunt 
 led him from figure to figure, puzzled him by 
 putting things in all sorts of new lights, and 
 finally took him completely out of his depth. 
 
 This was not the sort of treatment to 
 which Strutt had been accustomed, or for 
 which he was constitutionally fitted. At 
 last, in despair, he sent down for Vernon and
 
 44 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 the Head Accountant, and these two brought 
 up a pile of ledgers, and traced the missing 
 sums from one account into another in a 
 manner which baffled all Fotheringham's 
 attempts to follow them, and proved at last 
 to their own satisfaction that all was right. 
 
 Still the horrible Blunt was only half con- 
 vinced. 
 
 ' All may be right,' he said, ' and I will 
 take your words that it is so. But the 
 figures do not prove it ; nor do they prove 
 anything except that the system of accounts 
 is deplorable. Any amount of fraud might 
 be perpetrated under them. I can't under- 
 stand them : Strutt does not understand 
 them : not one of you gentlemen understands 
 them. This may suit you ; but, as for me, I 
 hate what I cannot understand.' 
 
 So no doubt did Fotheringham, and this
 
 War at the Salt Board. 45 
 
 was one reason why he so cordially hated 
 Blunt. 
 
 Another thing about Blunt that irritated 
 his colleagues was his way of coughing — a 
 loud, harsh, strident cough — whenever he 
 was vexed. 
 
 ' His coughs are quite like oaths,' Fother- 
 ingham said, with a shudder ; and it must be 
 confessed that Blunt could throw an expres- 
 sion that sounded horribly like ' damn it ' 
 Into his mode of clearing his throat ; and that 
 when Fotheringham was arguing with him 
 he cleared his throat oftener and more 
 vigorously than can have been necessary.
 
 46 Chro7iiclcs of Dtistypo^r. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FELIC I A. 
 
 The laws of marriage character'd in gold 
 Upon the blanched tablets of her heart, 
 A love still burning upward, giving light 
 To read those laws : an accent very low 
 In blandishment, but a most silver flow 
 
 Of subtle-paced counsel in distress. 
 Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried, 
 
 Winning its way with extreme gentleness 
 Through all the outworks of suspicious pride. 
 
 The new home in which Maud found herself 
 might well have contented a more fastidious 
 critic than she was at all inclined to be. 
 The Vernons were delightful hosts. Maud 
 had established thoroughly comfortable rela- 
 tions with her cousin during the long journey 
 to Dustypore ; and though he was too in-
 
 Felicia. 47 
 
 dolent or, perhaps, too much absorbed in 
 work for anything but a sort of pa,ssive 
 poHteness, still this was, upon the whole, 
 satisfactory and reassuring, and Maud felt 
 very much at her ease with him. Mrs. 
 Vernon, the ' Cousin Felicia,' whom Maud 
 now realised in flesh and blood for the first 
 time, inspired her with a stronger, keener 
 feeling of admiration than any she had 
 known before. She was beautiful, as Maud 
 had often heard ; but beauty alone would not 
 account for the thrill of pleasure which 
 something in Felicia s first greeting gave her. 
 The charm lay In an unstudied, unconscious 
 cordiality of manner that fascinated the 
 new-comer with its sincerity and grace. 
 Felicia coruscated with cheerfulness, courage, 
 mirth. She was bright, and Infected those 
 about her with brightness. Transplanted
 
 48 Chronicles of Ditstypore. 
 
 from the quiet luxury of an English country- 
 house to the rough experiences of Indian 
 life, she bore through them all an air of 
 calmness, joyousness, refinement, which the 
 troubles of life seemed incapable of disturb- 
 ing. When, years before, just fresh from 
 the schoolroom, and with all the dazzling 
 possibilities of a London Season before her, 
 she had admitted her attachment to Vernon, 
 and her unalterable desire to go with him to 
 India, her father's face had looked darker 
 than she had ever seen it before ; and a 
 family chorus of indignation had proclaimed 
 the unwisdom of the choice. The rector's 
 son and the squire^s daughter, however, had 
 played about together as boy and girl, and 
 long years of intimacy had cemented a friend- 
 ship too strong to be shattered by such feeble 
 blows as worldliness or prudence could inflict
 
 Felicia. 49 
 
 upon It. Vernon had nothing but the slender 
 portion which a country clergyman might be 
 expected to leave his children at his death ; 
 nothing, that is, except a long list of school 
 and college honours, and a successful candi- 
 dature for the Indian Civil Service. Felicia, 
 as her deploring aunts murmured amongst 
 themselves, ' was a girl who might have 
 married anyone ; ' and her parents, without 
 incurring the charge of a vulgar ambition, 
 might naturally complain of a match which 
 gave them so little, and cost them the pang 
 of so complete a separation. Felicia^ at any 
 rate, had never repented of her choice ; she 
 was greatly in love with her husband, and 
 had the pleasant consciousness that his taste 
 — fastidious, critical, and not a little sarcastic 
 — found In her nothing that was not absolute 
 perfection. India had developed In her a 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 self-reliance and fortitude which never could 
 have been born in the safe tranquillity of her 
 home. The hot winds of Dustypore had 
 not quite robbed her cheeks of their English 
 bloom ; but there were lines of suffering, 
 anxiety, and fatigue which, when her face 
 was at rest, let out the secret that her 
 habitual brightness was not as effortless as 
 it seemed. 
 
 The fact was that life, with all its en- 
 joyments, had been to her full of pangs, of 
 which, even at a safe distance, she could 
 scarcely trust herself to think. The separa- 
 tion from her home was a grief that long 
 usage made none the easier to bear. On the 
 contrary, there was a sort of aching want 
 which was never appeased, and which the 
 merest trifle — a letter — a message — a word — 
 was sufficient to light up into something like
 
 Felicia. 51 
 
 anguish. Felicia never achieved the art of 
 reading her home letters with decent com- 
 posure, and used to carry them, with a sort 
 of nervous uneasiness, to her own room, to 
 be dealt with in solitude. Then four 
 children, all with an air of Indian fragility, 
 and whose over-refined looks their mother 
 would thankfully have bartered for a little 
 vigour and robustness, had cost her many 
 a heartache. On the horizon of all her 
 married life there loomed the dreadful 
 certainty of a day when another series of 
 separations would begin, and the choice 
 would lie between the companionship of her 
 husband in India or the care of her children 
 at home. 
 
 From this horrid thought it was natural 
 for such a temperament as Felicia's to 
 seek refuge in merriment, which, if some- 
 
 E 2 
 
 iiWJVERSITY OF ffj
 
 52 Chronicles of Ditstypore. 
 
 times a little strained, was never wholly un- 
 natural. Excitement was a pleasant cure 
 for gloomy thought, and it was to Felicia 
 never hard to find. Every sort of society 
 amused her, and those who saw her only in 
 public would have pronounced her a being 
 to whom melancholy was inconceivable. Her 
 husband, however, could have told that 
 Felicia was often sad. There were after- 
 noons, too, when she was quite alone, when 
 she would order the carriage, and drive 
 away by an unfrequented road to the dreary, 
 lonely Station Cemetery, and weep passionate 
 tears over a grave where years before she 
 and her husband had come one morning 
 together and left a precious little wasted 
 form, and Felicia had felt that happiness 
 was over for her, and that life could never 
 be the same again. Nor was it, for there
 
 Felicia. 53 
 
 are some griefs which travel Avith us to our 
 journey's end. 
 
 Charmed as Maud had been with her 
 newly-found relation, she was conscious of 
 the stiffness of a perfectly unaccustomed 
 life, and thought wistfully of the pleasures 
 of the voyage, and even of her French and 
 geography with Miss Goodenough. Felicia, 
 with all her kindness, just a little alarmed 
 her, she was so brilliant, so dignified, and, 
 quite unconsciously, so much of a fine lady. 
 Vernon was buried in his books, or away at 
 office, and very seldom available for the 
 purposes of conversation. The days, despite 
 the excitement of novelty, dragged heavily, 
 and Maud began to think that If every 
 day was to be as long as these, and there 
 were three hundred and sixty-five of them 
 in the year, and fifty years, perhaps, In
 
 54 Chronicles of Diistyporc. 
 
 a lifetime, how terrific an affair existence 
 was ! 
 
 Before, however, she had been a week at 
 Dustypore the ice began to melt. Felicia 
 came in one morning from a long busy time 
 with nurses, children, servants, and house- 
 keeping, established herself in an easy-chair, 
 close to Maud, and was evidently bent upon 
 a chat. Maud found herself presently, she 
 knew not how, pouring out all her most 
 sacred secrets and giving her heart away in 
 a most reckless fashion to a companion 
 whom, so far as time went, she still re- 
 garded as almost a stranger. Such a 
 confession she had never made, even to 
 Miss Goodenough, nor felt Inclined to make 
 it. Now, however, it seemed to come 
 easily and as a matter of course. Felicia 
 was sympathetic, and greatly interested.
 
 Felicia, 55 
 
 Even the episode of the valentine was 
 not forgotten. 
 
 ' There,' Maud cried, with a sHghtly 
 nervous dread of telling something either 
 improper or ridiculous ; ' that was my 
 very last schoolgirl scrape. Was it very 
 bad?' 
 
 ' Very bad ! ' cried Felicia, with a laugh, 
 the joyousness of which was entirely re- 
 assuring ; ' It was that naughty boy who got 
 you into trouble. Fortunately there are no 
 galleries in our church here, and no boys, so 
 there Is nothing to fear.' 
 
 That evening Felicia was singing an old 
 familiar favourite air, as she was fond of 
 doing, half In the dark, and unconscious of a 
 listener. Vernon was deep In his papers in 
 the adjoining room. Maud, at the other end 
 of the piano, where she had been turning
 
 56 Chronicles of Dtistyporc. 
 
 over the leaves of some music, stood, with 
 her hand still resting on the page, gazing at 
 the singer and wrapt in attention. Some- 
 thing, she knew not what, nor stopped to 
 ask — the time, the place, the song, or the tone 
 of Felicia's voice — touched her as with a 
 sudden gust of feeling. When the song was 
 over Maud walked across, flung her arms 
 round her companion, and kissed her with a 
 sort of rapture. 
 
 Felicia, looking up, surprised, saw that 
 the other's eyes were full of tears. 
 
 * That Is pretty, is it not ? ' she said, 
 taking Maud's hand kindly in her own. 
 
 ' Sing it once more,' Maud petitioned. 
 And so, while Vernon, unconscious of the 
 flow of sentiment so close about him, was 
 still absorbed In the vicissitudes of Orlssa, 
 Felicia's performance was encored, and two
 
 Felicia. 5 7 
 
 sympathetic natures had found each other 
 out and worked into unison. 
 
 Afterwards, when Maud had departed, 
 Felicia, with characteristic impulsiveness, 
 broke out Into vehement panegyric — 
 
 'Come, George,' she said, 'don't be 
 stupid, please, and uninterested ; don't you 
 think she is quite charming ? ' 
 
 ' Felicia,' said her husband, ' you are for 
 ever falling In love with some one or other, 
 and now you have lost your heart to Maud. 
 No, I don't think her charming ; but I dare 
 say a great many other people will. She 
 will be the plague of our lives, you will see. 
 I wish we had left her at Miss Good- 
 enough's.' 
 
 ' Of course everybody will fall In love 
 with her,' cried Felicia, quite undaunted by 
 her husband's gloomy forebodings ; ' and I
 
 58 Chronicles 0/ Dicstypore. 
 
 will tell you what, George — she will do de- 
 lightfully for Jem.' 
 
 ' Jem ! ' exclaimed her husband, with a 
 tone of horror. * Felicia, you are match- 
 making already — and Jem too, poor fellow !' 
 
 Now, Jem Sutton was Vernon's oldest 
 friend, and Felicia's kinsman, faithful servant, 
 and ally. Years before, the two men had 
 boated and cricketed together at Eton, and 
 spent pleasant weeks at each other's homes ; 
 and when they met in India, each seemed 
 to waken up the other to a host of affec- 
 tionate recollections about their golden youth. 
 Sutton, in fact, was still a thorough school- 
 boy, and as delighted with finding his old 
 chum as if he had just come back from the 
 holidays. He had contrived to get as much 
 marching, fighting, and adventuring into his 
 ten years' service as a man could wish — had
 
 Felicia. 59 
 
 led several border forays with daring and 
 success ; had received several desperate 
 wounds, of which a great scar across the 
 forehead was the most conspicuous ; had 
 established a reputation as a rider and a 
 swordsman ; and had received from his Sove- 
 reign the brilliant distinction of the Victoria 
 Cross, which, along with a great many other 
 honourable badges, covered the wide expanse 
 of his chest on state occasions. 
 
 Despite his fighting proclivities, Sutton 
 had the softest possible pair of blue eyes, his 
 hair was still as bright a brown as when he 
 was a curly-pated lad at his mother s side ; 
 nor did the copious growth of his moustache 
 quite conceal a smile that was sweetness and 
 honesty itself Felicia's two little girls re- 
 garded him as their especial property, and 
 made the tenderest avowals of devotion to
 
 6o Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 him. Sutton treated them, as all their sex, 
 with a kindness that was chivalrously polite, 
 and which they were already women enough 
 to appreciate. 
 
 Lastly, among other accomplishments, 
 which rendered him especially welcome at 
 the Vernons' house, he possessed a tuneful 
 tenor voice, and sang Moore's Melodies with 
 a pathos which was more than artistic. On 
 the whole, it is easy to understand how 
 natural it seemed to Felicia that two such 
 charming people as Sutton and Maud should 
 be destined by Heaven for each other, and 
 that hers should be the hand to lead them 
 to their happy fate.
 
 6i 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 'button's flyers.' 
 
 Consider this — he had been bred i' the wars 
 Since he could draw a sword. 
 
 'Sutton's Flyers' were well known In the 
 Sandy Tracts as the best Irregular cavalry 
 in that part of the country. Formed origi- 
 nally in the Mutiny, when spirits of an 
 especial hardihood and enterprise gathered 
 instinctively around congenial leaders, they 
 had retained ever since the prestige then 
 acquired, and a standard of chivalry which 
 turned every man In the regiment Into 
 something of a hero. Many a stalwart lad, 
 bred in the wild uplands of the Province,
 
 62 CJiro7iicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 had felt his blood stirred within him at the 
 fame of exploits which appealed directly to 
 instincts on which the pacific British rule 
 had for years put an unwelcome pressure. 
 Around the fire of many an evening meal, in 
 many a gossiping bazaar, in many a group at 
 village well or ferry, the fame of the 
 ' Flyers ' was recounted, and ' Sutton Sahib ' 
 became a household word by which military 
 enthusiasm could be speedily turned into a 
 blaze. With the lightest possible equipage — 
 wiry country-bred horses — and a profound 
 disregard for all baggage arrangements, 
 Sutton had effected some marches which 
 earned him the credit of being supernaturally 
 ubiquitous. Again and again had Mutineer 
 detachments, revelling in fancied security, 
 found that the dreaded horsemen, whom they 
 fancied a hundred miles away, and marching
 
 * Sutton s Flyers.' 62, 
 
 In an opposite direction, had heard of their 
 whereabouts, and were close upon their 
 tracks. Then the suddenness of the attack, 
 the known prowess of the leader, the half- 
 superstitious reverence which his followers 
 paid him, invested the troop with a tradition 
 of invincibility, and had secured them, on 
 more than one occasion, a brilliant success 
 against odds which less fervent tempera- 
 ments than Sutton's might have felt it wrong 
 to encounter, and which certainly made 
 success seem almost a miracle. To his own 
 men Sutton was hardly less than a god, and 
 there were few of them on whom he could 
 not safely depend to gallop with him to their 
 doom. 
 
 More than one of his officers had saved 
 his life in hand-to-hand fight by reckless 
 exposure of their own ; and his adjutant had
 
 64 Chrofticles of Dies typ ore. 
 
 dragged him, stunned, crushed, and bleeding, 
 from under a fallen horse, and carried him 
 through a storm of bullets to a place of 
 safety. All of them, on the other hand, had 
 experienced on a hundred occasions the 
 benefit of his imperturbable calmness, his 
 inspiring confidence, and unshaken will. 
 Once Sutton had gratified their pride — and 
 perhaps, too, his own — by a display of 
 prowess which, if somewhat theatrical, was 
 nevertheless extremely effective. A fight 
 was on hand, and the regiment were just 
 going into action, when a Mahomedan 
 trooper, famed as a swordsman on all the 
 country-side, had ridden out from the enemy's 
 lines, bawled out a defiance of the English 
 rule, couched in the filthiest and most op- 
 probrious terms, and dared Sutton to come 
 out and fight, and let him throw his carcase
 
 ' Sutton s Flyers! 65 
 
 to the dogs. There are moments when 
 instinct becomes our safest, and indeed our 
 only, guide. Sutton, for once in his Hfe, felt 
 a gust of downright fury : he gave the order 
 to halt and sheathe swords, took his chal- 
 lenger at his word, rode out in front of his 
 force, and had a fair hand-to-hand duel with 
 the hostile champion. The confronted 
 troops looked on in breathless anxiety, while 
 the fate of either combatant depended on ^ 
 turn of the sword, and each fought as 
 knowing that one or other was to die. 
 Sutton at last saw his opportunity for a 
 stroke which won him the honours of the 
 day. It cost him a sabre-cut across his 
 forehead, which .to some eyes might have 
 marred his beauty for ever ; but the foul- 
 mouthed Mussulman lay dead on the field, 
 smitten through the heart, and Sutton rode 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 Chronicles of Dnstypore. 
 
 back among his shouting followers the ac- 
 knowledged first swordsman of the day. 
 
 Such a man stood in no need of Felicia s 
 panegyrics to seem very impressive in the 
 eyes of a girl like Maud. Despite his 
 gentleness of manner, and the sort of 
 domestic footing on which everybody at the 
 Vernons', down to the baby, evidently placed 
 him, she felt a little awed. She was inclined 
 to be romantic ; but it was rather alarming 
 to have a large, living, incarnate romance 
 sitting next her at luncheon, cutting slices of 
 mutton, and asking her, with a curiosity that 
 seemed necessarily condescending, about all 
 the details of the voyage. There seemed 
 something incongruous and painfully below 
 the mark in having to tell him that they had 
 acted ' Woodcock's Little Game,' and had 
 played ' Bon Jour, Philippe,' on board ; and
 
 'Stcttons Flyers! 67 
 
 Maud, when the revelation became neces- 
 sary, made it with a blush. After luncheon, 
 however, Sutton and the little girls had a 
 game of ' Post,' and Maud begun to console 
 herself with the reassuring conviction that, 
 after all, he was but a man, and a very 
 pleasant one. 
 
 After he had gone, Felicia, who was 
 the most indiscreet of match-makers, beean 
 one of her extravagant eulogiums. ' Like 
 him ! ' she cried, in reply to Maud s enquiry ; 
 'like is not the word. He is the best, 
 noblest, bravest, and most chivalrous of 
 beings.' 
 
 ' Not the handsomest ! ' interrupted 
 Maud, tempted by Felicia's enthusiasm into 
 feeling perversely indifferent. 
 
 ' Yes, and the handsomest too,' Felicia 
 
 said ; ' tall, strong, with beautiful features, and 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Chronicles of Dusty porx. 
 
 eyes as soft and tender as a woman's ; Indeed 
 a great deal softer than most women's.' 
 
 ' Then,' objected Maud, ' why has he 
 never ' 
 
 * Because,' answered her companion. In- 
 dignantly anticipating the objection, * there Is 
 no one half-a-quarter good enough for him.' 
 
 ' Well,' said the other, by this time quite 
 in a rebellious mood, ' all I can say is that / 
 don't think him in the least good-looking, I 
 don't like that great scar across his forehead.' 
 
 ' Don't you ? ' cried Felicia ; and then she 
 told her how the scar had come there, and 
 Maud could no longer pretend not to be in- 
 terested. 
 
 The next day Sutton came with them for 
 a drive, and Maud, who had by this time 
 shaken off her fears, began to find him 
 decidedly interesting. There was some-
 
 ' Sutton s Flyers' 69 
 
 thing extremely romantic in having a soldier, 
 whose reputation was already almost his- 
 torical, the hero of a dozen brilliant episodes, 
 coming tame about the house, only too happy 
 to do her bidding or Felicia's, and apparently 
 perfectly contented with their society. 
 Felicia was in the highest spirits, for she 
 found her pet project shaping itself with 
 pleasant facility into a fair prospect of reali- 
 sation ; and when Felicia was in high spirit^ 
 they infected all about her. 
 
 Sutton, innocently unconscious of the 
 cause of her satisfaction, but realising only 
 that she wanted Maud amused and be- 
 friended, lent himself with a ready zeal to 
 further her wishes, and let no leisure after- 
 noon go by without suggesting some new 
 scheme of pleasure. Maud's quick, impul- 
 sive, highly-strung temperament, her moods
 
 70 Chronicles of Dusiyporc. 
 
 of joyousness or depression, hardly less 
 transient than the shadows that flit across 
 the fields In April, her keen appreciation of 
 beauty and pathos, made her, child as she 
 was in most of her thoughts and ways, an in- 
 teresting companion to him. Her eagerness 
 in enjoyment was a luxury to see ; and 
 Sutton, a good observer, knew before long, 
 almost better than herself, what things she 
 most enjoyed. Instead of the reluctant and 
 unsympathetic permission which her late In- 
 structress had accorded to her poetical tastes, 
 Sutton and Felicia completely understood 
 what she felt, treated her taste on each occa- 
 sion with a flattering consideration, and led 
 her continually to ' fresh woods and pastures 
 new,' where vistas of loveliness, fairer far 
 than any she had yet discovered, seemed to 
 break upon her.
 
 ' Sutton s Flyers' 71 
 
 Vernon's library, his one extravagance, 
 was all that the most fastidious scholar could 
 desire ; any choice edition of a favourite poet 
 was on his table almost before his English 
 friends had got it. A beautiful book, like 
 a beautiful woman, deserves the best attire 
 that art can give it, and Maud felt a thrill of 
 satisfaction at all the finery of gilt and Rus- 
 sian leather in which she could now behold 
 her well-beloved poems arrayed. Sutton 
 told her, with a decisiveness which carried 
 conviction, what things she would like, and 
 what she might neglect ; and she soon fol- 
 lowed his directions with unquestioning faith. 
 He used to come and read to them some- 
 times, in a sweet, impressive manner, Maud 
 felt ; and the passage, as he had read it, lived 
 on in her thoughts with the precise shade of 
 feeling which his voice had given it.
 
 72 Chronicles of Dicstyporc. 
 
 One happy week was consecrated to the 
 ' Idylls of the King/ and this had been so 
 especially delightful as to make a little epoch 
 in her existence — so rich was the picture — 
 so great a revelation of beauty — such depths 
 of sorrow — such agonies of repentance — 
 such calm, quiet, ethereal scenes of love- 
 liness. 
 
 More than once Sutton, in reading, had 
 looked up suddenly, and found her eyes bent 
 full upon him, and swimming with tears ; 
 and Maud had stooped over her work, the 
 sudden scarlet dyeing her cheek, yet almost 
 too much moved to care about detection. 
 
 How true, how real, how living it all 
 seemed ! Did it, in truth, belong to the far- 
 off, misty, fabulous kingdom over which the 
 mystic Arthur ruled, or was she herself 
 Elaine, and Lancelot sitting close before her,
 
 * Stitto7is Flyers. ' 7 3 
 
 and all the harrowing story playing itself out 
 in her own little troubled world ? Anyhow, 
 it struck a chord which vibrated pleasurably, 
 yet with a half-painful vehemence, through 
 her mind, and filled it with harmonies and 
 discords unheard before. Certainly, it must 
 be confessed, there was a something about 
 Sutton that touched one to the heart.
 
 74 CJu'oiiiclcs of Dusiyporc. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 'A COMPETITION WALLAH.' 
 
 Ainsi doit etre 
 Un petit-maitre : 
 L^ger, amusant, 
 Vif, complaisant, 
 Plaisant, 
 Railleiir aimable, 
 Traitre adorable ; 
 C'est rhomme du jour, 
 Fait pour I'amour. 
 
 One of the stupid things that people do in 
 India is to select the two hottest hours of 
 the day for calling on each other. How 
 such an idiotic idea first found its w^ay into 
 existence, by what strange fate it became 
 part of the social law of Anglo-Indians, and 
 how it is that no one has yet been found
 
 'A Competition Wallah! 75 
 
 with courage or strength enough to break 
 down a custom so detrimental to the health 
 and comfort of mankind, are among the 
 numerous mysteries which the historian of 
 India must be content to leave unsolved. 
 Like Chinese ladies' feet, the high heels on 
 which fashionable Europe at present does 
 penance, suttee of Hindu widows, and in- 
 fanticide among the Raj-poot nobles, it is 
 merely a curious instance that there is no- 
 thing so foolish and so disagreeable that 
 human beings will not do or endure it if it 
 only becomes the fashion. 
 
 At any rate, the ladies and gentlemen of 
 Dustypore were resolved not to be a whit 
 less fashionable and uncomfortable than their 
 neighbours, and religiously exchanged visits 
 from twelve to two. 
 
 Maud's arrival was the signal for a burst
 
 76 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 of callers, and a goodly stream of soldiers 
 and civilians arrived day by day to pay their 
 homage to the newly-arrived beauty and 
 her chaperon. Felicia's house was always 
 popular, and all that was pleasantest and 
 best In Dustypore assembled at her parties. 
 Young London dandles fresh from home, 
 and exploring the Sandy Tracts under the 
 impression of having left the Ultima TJmle 
 of civilisation far behind them, were some- 
 times startled to find her drawing-room as 
 full of taste, luxury, and refinement as if they 
 had suddenly been transported to Eaton 
 Square. 
 
 What is the nameless grace that some 
 women have the art of putting Into chairs 
 and tables, which turns them from mere bits 
 of upholstery Into something hardly short of 
 poetry ? How is It that In some rooms there
 
 ^A Competition Wallah' 'jy 
 
 breathes a subtle charm, an aroma of delicacy 
 and culture, a propriety in the behaviour of 
 the sofas and ottomans to one another, a 
 pleasant negligence apparent through the 
 general order, a courageous simplicity amid 
 elaborated comfort, which, in the absence of 
 the mistress, tells the expectant visitor that 
 he is about to meet a thoroughbred lady ? 
 Some such fascination, at any rate, there 
 lingered about the cool, carefully-shaded 
 room in which Felicia received her guests. 
 It was by no means smart, and not especially 
 tidy, for it was often invaded and occupied 
 by a victorious horde from the nursery, and 
 bore many a sign of the common-place 
 routine of daily life. But to Felicia's friends 
 it was an enchanted abode, where a certain 
 refuge might be found from whatever dis- 
 agreeable things or people prevailed outside,
 
 78 Chronicles of Diistypore, 
 
 and where Felicia, who, whatever she might 
 feel, always looked calm and radiant and 
 cool, presided as the gaiiiis loci, to forbid the 
 possibility of profane Intrusion. 
 
 One thing that made It picturesque was 
 that at all times and seasons It abounded 
 In flowers. Felicia was an enthusiastic 
 gardener, and her loving skill and care could 
 save many a tender plant which would, In a 
 less experienced hand, have withered and 
 sunk under the burning heat and dust that 
 prevailed everywhere but In the confines of 
 Felicia's kingdom. Her garden gave her a 
 more home-like feeling than any other Indian 
 experience. It refreshed her to go out early 
 In the morning, while the children were 
 yet asleep, and the sun's rays had barely 
 surmounted the tall rows of plantains that 
 marked the garden's boundary, and guarded
 
 'A Co7}ipetitiou Wallah! 79 
 
 her treasures from the sultry air. It soothed 
 her to superintend ferns and roses, cuttings 
 from some Himalayan shrub, or precious 
 little seedlings from England. By dint of 
 infinite care she had created a patch of turf, 
 which, if not quite as green, fresh, and dewy 
 as the lawn at home, was, at any rate, a rest 
 to eyes weary with dazzling wastes and the 
 bright blazing air. There Felicia had a 
 shady corner, where pots and sticks and ' 
 garden-tools attested the progress of many 
 a new gardening experiment, and where the 
 water forced up from the well at the garden s 
 end went rippling by with a pleasant sound, 
 coolirig and softening all the air around. 
 There oftentimes her fancies would wander 
 to the pleasant Manor House, where her 
 taste for flowers had been acquired in her 
 father's company, and she would be again
 
 So Chronicles of Diistypore, 
 
 fern-hunting with him through some cool 
 mossy woodland, or wandering through a 
 paradise of bluebells, with the well-loved 
 beeches towering overhead, while the sweet 
 summer evening died slowly away. 
 
 Early amongst the visitors Mr. Desvoeux 
 was announced, and Felicia, when she saw 
 his card, told Maud that she would be sure 
 now to be very much amused. 
 
 * He is the most brilliant of all the young 
 civilians,' she said, 'and is to do great things. 
 But he talks great nonsense, and abuses 
 everybody. So don't be astonished at any- 
 thing you hear.* 
 
 * And Is he nice ? ' enquired Maud. 
 Felicia made a little face, not altogether 
 
 of approval. 
 
 ' Well,' she said, ' he is more curious than 
 nice ; ' and then Desvoeux made his appear-
 
 'A Competition Wallah! 8i 
 
 ance, and, while he was exchanging preHmi- 
 nary common-places with Felicia, Maud had 
 an opportunity of observing the visitor's ex 
 terior claims, which were not Inconsiderable, 
 to the reo^ard of womankind. 
 
 He was certainly, Maud felt at once, 
 extremely handsome, and, apparently, ex- 
 tremely anxious to be thought so. The 
 general effect which he produced was that of 
 a poetical dandy. He was dressed with a* 
 sort of effeminate finery, with here and there 
 a careless touch which redeemed it all from 
 utter fopdom. He was far too profusely set 
 about with pretty things, lockets and rings, 
 and costly knick-knacks ; on the other hand, 
 his handkerchief was tied with a -more than 
 Byronic negligence. The flower In his 
 buttonhole was exquisite, but it was stuck In 
 with a carelessness which. If studied, was 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 Chronicles of Diisfyporc. 
 
 none the less artistic. On the whole he was 
 overdressed ; but he walked into the room, 
 with the air of a man who had forgotten all 
 about it, and who had no eyes or thoughts 
 for anything but his present company. 
 
 Maud soon began to think him very en- 
 tertaining, but, as Felicia had said, ' curious.' 
 He was full of fun, extravagant, joyous, un- 
 conventional ; he had turned, after the first 
 few sentences, straight upon Maud, and 
 pointedly invited her into the conversation ; 
 and she soon felt her spirits rising. 
 
 ' I saw you this morning,' he said, ' in the 
 distance, riding with Sutton. I should have 
 asked to be allowed to join you, but that I 
 was too shy, and Sutton would have hated 
 me for spoiling his tcte-ct-tcte! 
 
 * Three is an odious number, is it not, 
 Mr. Desvoeux ? ' said Felicia, * and should be
 
 'A Competition Wallah! "^-i^ 
 
 expunged from the arithmetic books. Why 
 was It ever Invented ? ' 
 
 ' In order, I suppose,' said Desvceux, ' that 
 we three might meet this morning, and that 
 there might be three Graces, and three 
 witches in Macbeth, and three members of 
 the Salt Board. Three Is evidently a neces- 
 sity ; but when I am of the trio, and two of 
 us are men, I confess I don't like it. It is so 
 nice to have one's lady all to oneself. But, 
 Miss Vernon, you are alarmed, I know, and 
 naturally ; you think that I am going to ask, 
 what I suppose fifty people have been asking 
 you all the week, whether you enjoyed the 
 voyage to India, and how you like the looks 
 of Dustypore. But I will be considerate, 
 and spare you. Enjoyed the voyage, In- 
 deed ! What a horrid mockery the question 
 seems ! ' 
 
 G 2
 
 84 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 ' But I ^/^ enjoy it,' cried Maud; *so you 
 see that you might have asked me after all. 
 It was very exciting.' 
 
 ' Yes, all the excitement of wondering 
 every day what new mysteries of horror the 
 ship's cooks will devise for delectation ; and 
 whether the sinews of Sunday's turkey can 
 rival those of Saturday's goose ; the excite- 
 ment of going to bed in the dark, and tread- 
 ing on a black-beetle ; the excitement of 
 shaving in a gale of wind, and cutting one's 
 nose off, as I very nearly did ; the excite- 
 ment of the young ladies who are expecting 
 their lovers at Bomba}', and of the young 
 ladies who will not wait till Bombay, but 
 manufacture their lovers out of hand. It is 
 too thrilling ! ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Maud, ' we had theatricals, 
 and readings, and dances, and a gentleman
 
 'A Competition Wallah! 85 
 
 who played the most lovely variations on the 
 violin, and I enjoyed it all immensely ! ' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Desvoeux, as If suddenly con- 
 vinced, ' then perhaps you are even capable 
 of liking Dustypore ! ' 
 
 ' Poor Mr. Desvoeux ! ' said Felicia; ' how 
 sorry you must be to have finished your 
 march, and be back again at stupid Dusty- 
 pore ! ' 
 
 ^ * No place Is stupid where Mrs. Vernon 
 is,' said Desvoeux, gallantly ; * or rather no 
 place would be, if she were not so often 
 *'not at home."' 
 
 ' That must be,' Felicia said, ' because 
 you call on mail-days, when I am busy with 
 my home despatches.' 
 
 The real truth was that Felicia con- 
 sidered Desvoeux in need of frequent setting 
 down, and closed the door inhospitably
 
 S6 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 against him, whenever he showed the least 
 indinatlon to be intimate. 
 
 * Well,' said Desvoeux, ' the days that you 
 are busy with your despatches, and when I 
 have written the Agents, I do not find 
 it lively, I admit. Come, Mrs. Vernon, 
 the Fotheringhams, for instance — does 
 not the very thought of them leave 
 a sort of damp upon your mind ? It 
 makes one shudder.' Then Desvoeux 
 passed on to the other officials, upon 
 whom he poured the most vehement con- 
 tempt. 
 
 The Salt Board, he told Maud, always 
 from time immemorial consisted of the three 
 greatest fogies in the service ; that was the 
 traditionary rule ; it was only when you were 
 half-idiotic that you could do the work 
 properly. As for Mr. Fotheringham, he was
 
 'A Competition Wallah! Z^j 
 
 a lucky fellow ; his idiocy had developed 
 
 early and strong. 
 
 ' That is why Mrs. Vernon detests him 
 
 so.' 
 
 ' I don't detest him at all/ said Felicia ; 
 
 ' but I think him rather dull.' 
 
 * Yes,' said Desvoeux, with fervour ; ' as 
 
 Dr. Johnson said of some one, he was, no 
 doubt, dull naturally, but he must have taken 
 a great deal of pains to become as dull as he 
 is now. Now, Miss Vernon, would you like 
 to see what the Board is like ? First, you must 
 know that I am the Agent's private secre- 
 tary, and part of my business is to knock his 
 and their heads together and try to get a 
 spark out. That is how I come to know 
 about them. First I will show you how 
 Vernon puts on his air of under-secretary, 
 and looks at me with a sort of serious.
 
 SS Chronicles of Dusty pore, 
 
 bored, official air, as If he were a bishop, and 
 thought I was going to say something Im- 
 pertinent/ 
 
 * As I dare say you generally are,' said 
 Felicia, quite prepared to do battle for her 
 husband. 
 
 ' Well,' said Desvoeux, ' this Is how he 
 sits and looks — ^gravity and fatigue personi- 
 fied.' 
 
 ' Yes,' cried Maud, clapping her hands 
 with pleasure ; ' I can exactly fancy him.' 
 
 ' Then,' continued Desvoeux, who was 
 really a good mimic, and warming rapidly 
 into the work, ' In comes the Board. First 
 Fotheringham, condescending and serene, 
 and wishing us all good morning, as if he 
 were the Pope dispensing a blessing. You 
 know his way — like this ? Then here Is 
 Cockshaw, looking sagacious, but really
 
 'A Competition Wallah! 89 
 
 pondering over his last night's rubber, and 
 wishing the Board were over/ 
 
 Felicia was forced to burst out laughing 
 at the Imitation. 
 
 ' And now,' cried Maud, ' give us Mr. 
 Blunt; 
 
 Desvoeux put on Blunt's square, awkward 
 manner, and coughed an Imprecatory cough. 
 
 * Gentlemen,' he said, ' your figures are 
 wrong, your arguments false, and your con- 
 clusions childish. I don't want to be offen- 
 sive or personal, and I have the highest 
 possible opinion of your genius ; but you 
 must allow me to observe that you are all 
 a pack of fools ! ' 
 
 ' Capital,' cried Maud. ' And what do 
 you do all the time, Mr. Desvoeux ? ' 
 
 * Oh, Vernon and I sit still and wink at 
 each other, and hope for the time when we
 
 90 Chronicles of Ditstypore. 
 
 shall have become idiotic enough to be on 
 the Board ourselves. We are of the new 
 regime, and are supposed to have wits, and 
 we have a great deal of intelligence to get 
 over. But you know how the old ones were 
 chosen. All the stupidest sons of the 
 stupidest families in England for several 
 generations, like the pedigree-wheat, you 
 know, on the principle of selection ; none but 
 the blockheads of course would have any- 
 thing to do with India.' 
 
 ' Don't abuse the bridge that carries you 
 over,' Felicia said. ' No treason to India — it 
 has many advantages.' 
 
 * Innumerable,' cried Desvoeux: 'first, a 
 decent excuse for separation between 
 husbands and wives who happen to be un- 
 congenial — no other society has anything to 
 compare with it. You quarrel, you know *
 
 'A Competition Wallah! 91 
 
 ' No, we don't,' said Felicia, ' thank you. 
 Speak for yourself.' 
 
 * Well, I quarrel with Mrs. Desvoeux, 
 we'll say — though, by the way, I could not 
 quarrel even with my wife — but suppose a 
 quarrel, and we become mutually insupport- 
 able : there is no trouble, no scandal, no in- 
 convenience. Mrs. Desvoeux' health has long 
 required change of air ; I secure a berth for 
 her on the P. & O., escort her with the 
 utmost politeness to Bombay, have a most 
 affectionate parting, remit once a quarter, 
 write once a fortnight — what can be more 
 perfect ? ' 
 
 * But suppose,' said Maud, ' for the sake 
 of argument, that you don't quarrel, and 
 don't want to separate ? ' 
 
 * Oh, suppose,' said Felicia, who knew 
 that the conversation was taking just the
 
 92 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 turn she hated, ' that we try our duet, Mr. 
 Desvoeux ? You know that you are a difficult 
 person to catch.' 
 
 ' That Is one of your unjust speeches,' 
 said Desvoeux, dropping his voice as they 
 approached the piano, and becoming sud- 
 denly serious. * You know that I come 
 quite as often as I think I have a chance of 
 being welcome.' 
 
 Felicia ignored the remark, and began 
 playing the accompaniment with the utmost 
 unconcern. The fact was that Desvoeux, 
 though not quite such a Don Juan as he 
 liked to be thought, had a large amount of 
 affection to dispose of, and had given Felicia 
 to understand upon twenty occasions that he 
 would like to begin a flirtation with her if 
 he dared.
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE RUMBLE CHUNDER GRANT. 
 Monstrum horrendum — informe — ingens 
 
 There were many things which a man was 
 expected to know about in official circles at 
 Dustypore, and first and foremost was th$ 
 ' Rumble Chunder Grant.' Not to know 
 this argued oneself not only unknown but 
 ignorant of the first principles of society and 
 the common basis on which thought and con- 
 versation proceeded. It was like not having 
 read Mr. Trollope's novels, or knowing no- 
 thing about the Tichborne Trial, or being in 
 any other way out of tune with the times.
 
 94 Chrofiicles of Dustypore. 
 
 One of the things that gave the old civIHans 
 such a sense of immeasurable superiority 
 over all outsiders and new-comers was the 
 consciousness that with them rested this 
 priceless secret, this mystery of mysteries. 
 
 One inconvenient consequence, however, 
 of everybody being expected to know was, 
 that everybody took for granted that every- 
 body else did know, and that those who did 
 not know veiled their ignorance under a 
 decent mask of familiarity, and by talking 
 about it in a vague, shadowy sort of 
 phraseology which conveniently concealed 
 any little inaccuracies. It had to do with 
 salt, moreover, and it was at the Salt Board 
 that unsearchable depths of the subject were 
 best appreciated, and this vagueness of 
 language most in vogue. 
 
 The facts were something of this sort.
 
 The Rtmible Chimder Grant. 95 
 
 When the Enghsh took the country we 
 found particular famiHes and villages in 
 Rumble Chunder in enjoyment of various 
 rights in connection with salt ; some had 
 little monopolies, others might manufacture 
 for themselves at a quit-rent, others might 
 quarry fof themselves at particular times 
 and places, and so forth. 
 
 The Gazette which announced the an 
 nexation of the province had declared in 
 tones of splendid generosity that the British 
 Government, though inexorable to its foes, 
 would temper justice with mercy so far as 
 to respect existing rights of property, and 
 would protect the loyal proprietor in the 
 enjoyment of his own. The sonorous phrases 
 of a rhetorical Viceroy had entailed on his 
 successors a never-ending series of disputes, 
 and had saddled the empire with an obliga
 
 96 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 tlon which was all the more burthensome for 
 being undefined. Ever since that unlucky- 
 Gazette, officials had been hard at work to 
 find, out what it was that the Governor- 
 General had promised to do, and how much 
 it would cost to do it. One diligent civilian 
 after another went down to Rumble Chunder 
 and made out a list of people who were, or 
 who pretended to be, entitled to interests in 
 salt. Then these lists had been submitted 
 and discussed, and minuted upon, and 
 objected to, and returned for further investi- 
 gation, and one set of officers had given 
 place to another, and the chance of clearing 
 up the matter became fainter every day. 
 Meanwhile the Rumble Chunder people had 
 gone their ways, exercising what rights they 
 could, and happy in the possession of an 
 interminable controversy. In course of time
 
 The Rumble CImnder Grant. 97 
 
 most of the original documents got destroyed 
 in the Mutiny, or eaten by white ants, and 
 a fresh element of uncertainty was introduced 
 by the question of the authenticity of all 
 existing copies. There had come a new 
 Secretary of State at home, whose views as 
 to the grantees were diametrically opposed 
 to all his predecessors', and who sent per- 
 emptory orders to carry out the new policy 
 with the least possible delay. Thus the 
 subject had gradually got itself into a sort 
 of hopeless trough, for which Desvoeux used 
 to say that the only effectual remedy would 
 be the end of the world. No one knew 
 exactly what his rights were, and everyone 
 was afraid of endangering his position by too 
 rigid an enquiry or too bold an assertion. 
 
 One peculiarity of this, as of most Indian 
 controversies, was the unnatural bitterness of 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 9«S Chronicles of Dusty pore, 
 
 spirit to which it gave rise. The most 
 amiable officials turned to Qfall and worm- 
 wood at its very mention, and abused each 
 other over it with the vehemence of vexed 
 theologians. 
 
 Whether vain attempts to understand it 
 had engendered an artificial spitefulness, or 
 whether discussion, like beer-drinking, is a 
 luxury too strong for natures enfeebled by an 
 Eastern climate, sure enough it was that 
 directly this wretched question came to the 
 fore good-nature, moderation, and politeness 
 were forgotten, and the antagonists made up 
 for the confusion of their ideas by the 
 violence of the language in which they 
 expressed them. 
 
 The last phase of the story was, that 
 some of the descendants of the original 
 grantees, thinking the plum was now about
 
 The Rumble CImnder Grant. 99 
 
 ripe for picking, took up the question in a 
 wily, patient, vexatious sort of way, and 
 produced a tremendous lawsuit. Then a 
 Member of Parliament, whose ideas, by some 
 sudden process (on which his banker's book 
 would probably have thrown some light) 
 had been suddenly turned Indiawards, made 
 the most telling speech in the House, de- 
 picting in vivid colours the wrongs of the 
 Rumble Chunder people and the Satanic 
 ruthlessness of British rule. Then pam- 
 phlets began to appear, which showed to 
 demonstration that all the Viceroys had been 
 either liars or thieves, except a few who had 
 been both, and asked how long this Rumble 
 Chunder swindle was to last. The whole 
 subject, in fact, began to be ventilated. Now, 
 ventilation, though a good thing in its time 
 and place, is bad for such veteran institutions
 
 100 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 as the Salt Board. Every new ray of day- 
 light let in disclosed an ugly flaw, and the 
 fresh air nearly brought the tottering edifice 
 about the ears of its inhabitants. It needed, 
 as Fotheringham ruefully felt, but the rude, 
 trenchant, uncompromising spirit of a man 
 like Blunt to produce an imbroglio which 
 could neither be endured, concealed, or dis- 
 posed of in any of the usual methods known 
 to Indian officialdom ; and Blunt was known 
 to be hard at work at the statistics, and 
 already to have assumed an attitude of ob- 
 trusive hostility. Fotheringham could only 
 fortify himself with the reflection that the 
 Providence which had seen him through a 
 long series of official scrapes would probably 
 not desert him at this last stage of his career. 
 He wished, nevertheless, that he had fore- 
 stalled Cockshaw in his application for the 
 Carraways.
 
 lOI 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GOLDEN DAYS. 
 
 lovely earth ! O lovely sky ! 
 
 1 was in love with nature, I ; 
 And nature was in love with me ; 
 O lovely life — when I was free ! 
 
 Felicia had been surprised, and not al- 
 together pleased, at the unnecessary cor- 
 diality with which Maud had bade their 
 visitor farewell. There was an excitement, 
 an animation, an eagerness in her manner 
 which Felicia had not before perceived, and 
 which she felt, at once, might be difficult to 
 manage. Desvceux was exactly the person 
 whom she did 7iot want Maud to like, and 
 the very possibility of her liking him brought
 
 I02 Chronicles of Dusty po^^e. 
 
 out in Felicia's mind a latent hostility of 
 which, under an exterior of politeness and 
 even familiarity, she was always dimly con- 
 scious. She did not mind talking to him 
 herself, she was even amused by him, but 
 then it was always with a kind of protest ; 
 she knew exactly how far she meant to go, 
 and felt no temptation to go any further. 
 But the notion of him in any other capacity 
 but that of a remote member of society, 
 whose function it was to say and do absurd 
 things in an amusing way, was strange, and 
 altogether distasteful. Anything like in- 
 timacy was not to be thought of for an 
 instant ; the merest approach to close contact 
 would bring out some discord, the jar of 
 which, by a sort of instinctive anticipation, 
 Felicia seemed to feel already. So long 
 as he moved in quite another plane, and
 
 Golden Days. 103 
 
 • belonged to a different world, his eccen- 
 tricities might be smiled at for their 
 comicality without the application of any 
 rigid canon of taste or morals. But a 
 person who was at once irreligious and 
 over-dressed, who constantly had to be 
 'put down' for fear he should become 
 offensive, and who was a stranger to all the 
 little Masonic signals by which ladies and 
 gentlemen can find each other out — the very 
 idea of his presuming to cross the pale, and 
 to form any other tie than those of the most 
 indifferent acquaintance, filled Felicia with the 
 strongest repugnance. It was provoking, 
 . therefore, that he seemed to take Maud s 
 fancy and impress her more than any other 
 of the many men with whom she was now 
 becoming acquainted. It was more than 
 provoking that she should let her impressions
 
 I04 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 come so lightly to the surface, and be read 
 in signs which Desvoeux's experienced eye 
 would, Felicia knew, have not the least 
 trouble in interpreting. 
 
 Suppose — but this was one of the dis- 
 agreeable suppositions which Felicia's mind 
 put aside at once, as too monstrous to be 
 entertained — suppose he should come to 
 stand in the way of the rightful, proper, 
 destined lover ? She thrust aside the notion 
 as absurd. All the same, it made her un- 
 comfortable, and no doubt justified her to 
 herself in pushing forward Sutton's interests 
 with more eagerness than she might other- 
 wise have thought it right to employ about 
 another person s concerns. When one feels 
 a thing to be the thing that ought to happen, 
 and sees it in danger of being frustrated by 
 some thoroughly objectionable interference.
 
 Golden Days. 105 
 
 It is but natural to do something more than 
 merely wish for a fortunate result. Felicia, 
 at any rate, could boast of no such passivity ; 
 and, if praising Sutton would have married 
 him, Felicias wishes on the subject would 
 have been speedily realised. 
 
 The course of love, however, rarely flows 
 exactly in the channels which other people 
 fashion for it, and Maud's inclination re- 
 quired, her cousin felt, the most judicious 
 handling. There could be no harm, how- 
 ever, in allowing Sutton's visits to go on 
 with their accustomed frequency ; and since 
 Maud must forthwith learn to ride, and 
 Sutton volunteered to come in the mornings 
 to teach her, no one could blame Felicia if, 
 in the intervals of instruction, the pupil and 
 teacher should become unconsciously pro- 
 ficient in any other art besides that of
 
 io6 Chronicles of Dtistypore. 
 
 equitation. Maud used to come in from 
 these rides with such a bright glow on her 
 cheek, and in such rapturous spirits, that her 
 cousin might well feel reassured. 
 
 Sutton had found for her the most perfect 
 pony, whose silky coat, lean, well-chiselled 
 head, and generally aristocratic bearing pro- 
 nounced it the inheritor of Arab blood. 
 Maud speedily discovered that riding was 
 the most enjoyable of all human occupations. 
 Down by the river's side, or following long 
 woodland paths, where the busy British rule 
 had planted many an acre with the forests of 
 the future, or out across the wide plains of 
 corn stretching for miles, broken only by 
 clumps of palms, or villages nestling each in 
 a little grove, under the wing of some an- 
 cestral peepul-tree, the moon still shining 
 overhead, and the sun just above the horizon,
 
 Golden Days. 107 
 
 still shrouded in the mists of morning — how 
 fresh, how picturesque, how exhilarating 
 everything looked ! How pleasant, too, to go 
 through all these pretty scenes with a com- 
 panion who seemed somehow to know her 
 tastes and wishes, and to have no thought 
 but how to please her ! Sutton, though in 
 public a man of few words and unsatisfac- 
 torily taciturn on the subject of his own 
 exploits, had, Maud presently discovered, 
 plenty to tell her when they were alone. 
 The power of observation which made him 
 so nice a judge of character extended itself 
 to all the scene about him, and revealed a 
 hundred touches of interest or beauty which, 
 to coarser or less careful vision, would have 
 lain obscure. Maud felt that she had never 
 known how beautiful nature was till Sutton 
 told her.
 
 io8 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 * There,' he would say, ' I brought you 
 round this wood that we might not miss that 
 pretty bend of the river, with Humayoun's 
 Tomb and the palms beyond. See what a 
 beautiful blue background the sky makes to 
 the red dome and that nice old bit of crumb- 
 ling wall. The bright Indian atmospheres 
 have their own beauty, have they not ? 
 And see that little wreath of smoke hanging 
 over the village. This is my pet morning 
 landscape.' 
 
 ' And those peach-groves,' cried Maud, 
 * all ablaze with blossom, and those delicious 
 shady mulberries, and the great stretch of 
 green beyond. It is quite enchanting : a 
 sort of dream of peace.' 
 
 * We had a fine gallop across here once, 
 Sutton said, * when first we took the Sandy 
 Tracts.' And then Maud learnt that they
 
 Golden Days. 109 
 
 were riding over a battle-field, and that for a 
 long summer's afternoon men had fought and 
 fallen all along the path where now they 
 stood ; and that a battery of artillery had 
 been posted at the very corner of the village 
 to which her guide had brought her. ' I re- 
 member when they knocked that hole in the 
 old wall yonder, and how all the fellows be- 
 hind it took to their heels. Then afterwards 
 we stormed the Tomb, and had to finish our 
 fighting by moonlight.' ^ 
 
 * Was that when you got your Victoria 
 Cross ? ' asked Maud, who was possessed by 
 a spirit of insatiable curiosity about Sutton's 
 badges, which he was not slow to gratify. 
 
 ' Oh, no,' said Sutton, laughing ; ' I got 
 nothing then but a bullet through my 
 shoulder, and a knock on the head from a 
 musket-stock which very nearly ended my
 
 I lo Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 soldierinc^ then and there. Look, now, how 
 quickly the scene changes as the sun gets 
 up — half its beauty is gone already ! Let us 
 have a good canter over this soft ground, 
 and get home before it grows too hot/ 
 
 Maud, who had never thought of a battle 
 except as one of the afflicting details that 
 had to be remembered at an historical class, 
 and if possible to be hooked on to its proper 
 site and date, felt a delicious thrill in actually 
 realising with her own eyes the place where 
 one of the troublesome events took place, 
 and in talking to a person who had actually 
 taken part in it. ' And what became of the 
 bullet in your shoulder ? ' she asked. 
 
 * It was a very troublesome bullet,' said 
 Sutton, * and a great deal harder to dislodge 
 than the people from the Tomb. But I was 
 unlucky when I was a lad, and never came
 
 Golden Days, 1 1 1 
 
 out of action without a souvenir of some sort 
 or other/ 
 
 When Maud got home she asked Fe- 
 licia about this storming of the Tomb, and 
 learnt that Sutton's account was not as truth- 
 ful as it might have been. He and half-a- 
 dozen others had, Felicia told her, volun- 
 teered for the storm ing-party, had made a 
 rush for the walls through a shower of 
 bullets ; and Sutton and two companions, 
 getting separated from the others, had been 
 left for some seconds to hold their own 
 as best they could against the angry, fright- 
 ened mob within. No one, perhaps scarcely 
 Sutton himself, knew exactly what had hap- 
 pened. The rest of the party, however, 
 when they made their way in, found him 
 standing at bay over a dead comrade's body, 
 and his antagonists too completely taken
 
 1 1 2 Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 aback at his audacity to venture, at any 
 odds, within reach of his sword. In the 
 scuffle which ensued Sutton received the 
 wounds of which Maud had been informed ; 
 but his exploits were for ever after quoted as 
 a proof that there is nothing which a man 
 may not do, if only he have pluck and will 
 enough to do it. 
 
 Maud felt all this very impressive, and 
 Sutton's society more and more delightful. 
 Her enjoyment of it, however — by this time 
 by no means small — began to be seriously 
 qualified by an anxiety, increasingly present to 
 her mind, as to her fitness for the dignified 
 companionship thus thrust upon her. She 
 felt passionately anxious to please Sutton, 
 and more and more distrustful of her power 
 to do so. He was good, noble, chivalrous, 
 everything that Felicia had said, and how
 
 Golden Days. 1 1 3 
 
 hopelessly above herself ! What must he think 
 of one who was, as Miss Goodenough had 
 often told her, a mere congeries of defects ? 
 True, he never seemed shocked or annoyed 
 at anything she said, and professed to like 
 the rides as much as she did ; but might not 
 this be from mere good-nature, or the charm 
 of novelty, or the wish to oblige Felicia, or 
 any transitory or accidental cause ? Terrify- 
 ing thought, if some day he should find her 
 wanting, and banish her from his regards ! 
 Meanwhile, happy, happy mornings, and 
 sweet, bright world, in which such pleasure 
 can be found, even if haunted by a doubt 
 as to whether it is really ours or not ! 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 114 Chrofiicles of Diistypore. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FIRST BALL. 
 II est aimable, car on se sent toujours en danger avec lui. 
 
 Befoke Maud had been many weeks with 
 the Vernons there was a Garrison Ball, and 
 at this it was fated that she should make her 
 first public appearance in Dustypore society. 
 That night was certainly the most eventful 
 and exciting one that she had ever passed. 
 To wake and find oneself famous is no doubt 
 an agreeable sensation ; but to put on for the 
 first time in one's life a lovely ball-dress, 
 bright, cloudlike, ambrosial — to be suddenly 
 elevated to a pinnacle to receive the homage
 
 The First Ball, 115 
 
 of mankind — to exercise a pleasant little 
 capricious tyranny in the selection of part- 
 ners — to be seized upon by one anxious 
 adorer after another, all striving to please, 
 each with a little flattering tale of his own — 
 to read in a hundred eyes that one is very 
 pretty — to find at last a partner who, from 
 some mysterious reason, is not like other part- 
 ners, but just perfection — to know that one's 
 views about him are entirely reciprocated— »it 
 was, as Maud, on going to bed, acknowledged 
 to herself with a sigh, which was half fatigue 
 and half the utterance of an over-excited 
 temperament, too much enjoyment for a 
 single human soul to carry ! 
 
 In the first place, Sutton, all ablaze with 
 medals, tall, majestic, impressive — and, as 
 Maud had come to think with Felicia, un- 
 deniably handsome — had begged her in the 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 Chronicles of Dicslypore. 
 
 morning to keep several dances for him. 
 The prospect of this among other things had 
 put her In a flutter. She would have pre- 
 ferred some of the ensigns. It seemed a 
 sort of alarming familiarity. Could such a 
 being valse, and bend, as ordinary mortals 
 do, to the commonplace movements of a 
 mere quadrille ? It was one thing to go 
 spinning round with another schoolgirl, 
 under the superintendence of Madame 
 Mlllvllle, to the accompaniment of her hus- 
 band's violin — but to be taken possession of 
 by a being like Sutton, to have to write his 
 name down for two valses and a set of 
 Lancers — to know that In five minutes one 
 will be whirling about under his guidance — 
 the Idea was delightful, but not without a 
 touch of awe ! Sutton, however, quieted 
 these alarms by dancing in a rather pon-
 
 The First Ball. 1 1 7 
 
 derous and old-fashioned manner, and finally 
 tearing her dress with his spur. Maud had 
 accordingly to be carried off, in order that the 
 damage might be repaired ; and, her mind 
 somewhat lightened by the sense of responsi- 
 bility discharged, and the ice satisfactorily 
 broken, looked forward to the rest of the 
 evening with unmingled pleasure. While 
 her torn dress was being set to rights she 
 scanned her card, saw Sutton's name duly 
 registered for his promised dances, and made 
 up her mind, as she compared him with the 
 rest, that there was no one in the room she 
 liked one-half as well. 
 
 But then she had not danced with 
 Desvoeux ; and Desvoeux was now waiting at 
 the door, and imploring her not to curtail the 
 rapture of a valse, the first notes of which 
 had already sounded. Desvoeux's dancing,
 
 ii8 Chro7iicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 Maud speedily acknowledged to herself, bore 
 about the same relation to Sutton's that her 
 Arab pony's canter did to the imposing 
 movements of the latter gentleman's first 
 charger. His tongue, too, seemed as nimble 
 as his feet. He was in the highest possible 
 spirits, and the careless, joyous extravagance 
 of his talk struck a sympathetic chord In his 
 companion's nature.' 
 
 ' There ! ' he cried, as the last notes of the 
 music died away, and he brought his com- 
 panion to a standstill at a comfortable sofa. 
 * Such a valse as that is a joy for ever — a 
 thing to dream of, is it not ? Some ladies, 
 you know, Miss Vernon, dance in epic poems, 
 some in the sternest prose — Carlyle, for in- 
 stance—some in sweet-flowing, undulating, 
 rippling lyrics. Yours is (what shall I say ?) 
 an ode of Shelley's, or a song from Tenny-
 
 The First Ball, \i 9 
 
 son, a smile from Paradise ! Where can you 
 have learnt it ? ' 
 
 * Monsieur Millville taught us all at my 
 school,' said Maud, prosaically mindful of the 
 many battles she had had in former days 
 with that gentleman : ' a horrid little wizened 
 Frenchman, with a fiddle. We all hated him. 
 He was always going on at me about my 
 toes.' 
 
 ' Your toes ! ' cried Desvoeux, with effji- 
 sion. * He wanted to adore them, as I do — 
 sweet points where all the concentrated 
 poetry of your being gathers. Put out that 
 fairy little satin shoe, and let me adore them 
 too!' 
 
 * No, thank you ! ' cried Maud, greatly 
 taken aback at so unexpected a request, 
 gathering her feet instinctively beneath her ; 
 * it s not the fashion ! '
 
 I20 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 ' You will not ? ' Desvoeux said, with a 
 tone of sincere disappointment. * Is not that 
 unkind ? Suppose it was the fashion to cover 
 up your hands in tulle and satin, and never 
 to show them ? ' 
 
 * Then,' Maud said, laughing, ' you would 
 not be able to adore them either ; as it is, 
 you see, you may worship them as much as 
 you please ! ' 
 
 * I have been worshipping them all the 
 evening. They are lovely — a little pair of 
 sprites.' 
 
 * Stop ! ' cried Maud, * and let me see. 
 My shoes are fairies, and my dancing a 
 poem, and my fingers sprites ! How very 
 poetical ! And, pray, is this the sort of way 
 that people always talk at balls ? ' 
 
 * Not most people,' said Desvoeux, un- 
 abashed, * because they are geese, and talk
 
 The First Ball, 121 
 
 in grooves — about the weather, and the last 
 appointment, and the freshest bit of stale 
 gossip — but it is the way / talk, because I 
 only say what I feel, and am perfectly 
 natural/ 
 
 * Natural ! ' said Maud, in a tone of some 
 surprise, for her companion's romantic extra- 
 vagance seemed to her to be the very climax 
 of unreality. 
 
 * Yes,' said Desvceux, coolly, ' and that.is 
 one reason why all women like me ; partly it 
 is for my good looks, of course, and partly 
 for my dancing, but mostly because I am 
 natural and tell the truth to them.' 
 
 * And partly, I suppose,' said Maud, who 
 began to think her companion was in great 
 need of setting down, 'because you are so 
 modest.' 
 
 * As to that, I am just as modest as my
 
 122 Chronicles of Dtcstypore. 
 
 neighbours, only I say It out. One knows 
 when one is good-looking, does one not ? and 
 why pretend to be a simpleton ? You know, 
 for instance, how very, very pretty you are 
 looking to-night ! * 
 
 *We were talking about you, if you 
 please,' said Maud, blushing scarlet, and 
 conscious of a truth of which her mirror had 
 informed her. 
 
 * Agreeable topic,' said the other, gaily ; 
 * let us return to it by all means ! Well, now, 
 I pique myself on being natural. When I 
 am bored I yawn or go away ; when I 
 dislike people I show my teeth and snarl ; 
 and when I lose my heart I don't suffer in 
 silence, but inform the fair purloiner of that 
 valuable organ of the theft without hesita- 
 tion. That is honest at any rate. For 
 instance, I pressed your hand to-night, when
 
 The First Ball, 123 
 
 you came in first, to tell you how delighted I 
 was that you were come, to be the belle of 
 the party. You did not mind it, you know ! ' 
 
 * I thought you very impertinent,' said 
 Maud, laughing in spite of herself, * and so I 
 think you now, and very conceited into the 
 bargain. Will you take me to have some 
 tea, please ? ' 
 
 * With all my heart,' said the other ; *but 
 we can go on with our talk. How nice it is 
 that we are such friends, is it not ? ' 
 
 ' I did not know that we were friends,' 
 said Maud, * and I have not even made up 
 my mind if I like you.' 
 
 * Hypocrite ! ' answered her companion ; 
 * you know you took a great fancy to me the 
 first morning I came to call on you, and Mrs. 
 Vernon scolded you for it after my depar- 
 ture.'
 
 124 Chronicles of Dtcstypore, 
 
 * It Is not true,' said Maud, with a 
 stammer and a blush, for Desvoeux 's shot was, 
 unfortunately, near the mark ; ' and anyhow, 
 first impressions are generally wrong.' 
 
 * Wrong ! ' cried the other, * never, never ! 
 always infallible. Mrs. Vernon abused me 
 directly I was gone. She always does : it is 
 her one fault that prevents her from being 
 absolute perfection. She does not like me, 
 and is always putting me down. It is a 
 great shame, because she has been till now 
 the one lady in India whom I really admire. 
 But let us establish ourselves on this nice 
 ottoman, and I will show you some of our 
 celebrities. Look at that handsome couple 
 talking so mysteriously on the sofa : that is 
 General Beau and Mrs. Vereker, and they 
 are talking about nothing more mysterious 
 than the weather; but it is the General's
 
 The First Ball. 1 25 
 
 fancy to look mysterious. Do you see how- 
 he is shrugging his shoulders ? Well, to that 
 shrug he owes everything in life. Whatever 
 happens, he either shrugs his shoulders, or 
 arches his eyebrows, or says " Ah ! " Beyond 
 these utterances he never goes ; but he 
 knows exactly when to do each, and does it 
 so judiciously that he has become a great 
 man. He is great at nothing, however, but 
 flirtation ; and Mrs. Vereker is just now the 
 reigning deity.' 
 
 * No wonder,' cried Maud. * How lovely 
 she is ! such beautiful violet eyes ! ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said the other, with a most pathetic 
 air ; ' most dangerous eyes they are, I assure 
 you. You don't feel it, not being a man, 
 but they go through and through me. She 
 always has a numerous following, especially 
 of boys, and has broken a host of hearts,
 
 126 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 which is all the more unfair, as she does not 
 happen to possess one of her own.' 
 
 * She must have a heart, with those eyes 
 and such a smile,' objected Maud. 
 
 * Not the least atom, I assure you,' said 
 the other. ' Nature, in lavishing every other 
 grace and charm upon her, made this single 
 omission, much, no doubt, to the lady's own 
 peace of mind. It is all right in the present 
 instance, because Beau does not happen to 
 have any heart either.' 
 
 ' I don't believe you in the least,' said 
 Maud, ' and I shall get my cousin to take 
 me to call upon her.' 
 
 * You are fascinated, you see, already,' 
 said Desvoeux, ' though you are a woman. 
 You will find her a perfect Circe. Her 
 drawing-room is an enchanted cell, hung 
 round with' votive offerings from former
 
 The First Ball, 127 
 
 victims. She lives on the gifts of worshippers, 
 and will accept everything, from a sealskin 
 jacket to a pair of gloves. I used to be an 
 adorer once, but I could not afford it. Now 
 I will introduce you.' Thereupon he pre- 
 sented Maud in due form. General Beau 
 arched his handsome brow, and said, ' Ah ! 
 how d'ye do, Miss Vernon ?' in his in- 
 scrutable way ; and Mrs. Vereker, who, as 
 a reigning beauty, felt an especial interest 
 in one who seemed likely to endanger her 
 ascendency, was bent on being polite. She 
 gave Maud the sweetest of smiles, scolded 
 Desvoeux with the sweetest little pout for not 
 having been to her for an age ; and, if she 
 felt jealous, determined, at any rate, not to 
 show it. She observed, however, with the 
 eye of a connoisseur, how Maud's hair was 
 done, and a little mystery of lace and
 
 128 Chronicles of Dtcstypore. 
 
 feathers, just then the fashionable head-dress, 
 which she thought would be immensely be- 
 coming to herself She pressed Maud affec- 
 tionately to come some day to lunch, in- 
 wardly resolved to despoil the pretty ingdnue 
 of her novelty. Mrs. Vereker was a type 
 of character which Indian life brings into 
 especial prominence, and develops into fuller 
 perfection than is to be found in less artificial 
 communities. Herself the child of Indian 
 parents, whom she had scarcely ever seen, 
 with the slenderest possible stock of home 
 associations, accustomed from the outset to 
 have to look out for herself, she had come 
 to India while still almost a child, and in a 
 few months, long before thought or feeling 
 had approached maturity, had found herself 
 :the belle of a station, and presently a bride. 
 These circumstances separated her frequently
 
 The First Ball. 129 
 
 from her husband, and she learnt to bear 
 separation heroically. The sweet incense 
 of flattery was for ever rising, and she learnt 
 to love it better every day. Any number of 
 men were for ever ready to throw themselves 
 at her feet and proclaim her adorable ; and 
 she came to feel it right that they should 
 do so. She found that she could conjure 
 with her eyes and mouth, and exercise a 
 little despotism by simply using them a^ 
 Nature told her. The coldness of her heart 
 enabled her to venture with impunity into 
 dangers where an ardent temperament could 
 scarcely but have gone astray — she was 
 content so long as she lived in a stream of 
 flattery, and half-a-dozen men declared them- 
 selves heart-broken about her. Strict people 
 called her a flirt, but friends and foes alike 
 declared her innocence itself. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 Chronicles of Dies typ ore. 
 
 Beau was devoting himself to her partly 
 because her good looks gave him a slight 
 sense of gratification, partly because he con- 
 sidered it the proper thing to be seen on 
 confidential terms with the handsomest 
 woman in the room, partly to have the 
 pleasure of cutting out the younger men. 
 
 Desvoeux, delighted with his new-found 
 treasure, was only too happy to leave a 
 quondam rival in possession of the field, and 
 to have a decent excuse for abandoning a 
 shrine at which it was no longer convenient 
 to worship.
 
 131 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE WOES OF A CHAPERON. 
 
 The world is out of joint — O cursed spite, 
 That ever I was born to set it right ! 
 
 Felicia came home from the ball in far less, 
 high spirits than her protdg^e. Things had 
 not gone as she wished, nor had Maud be- 
 haved at all in the manner which Felicia had 
 pictured to herself as natural and appropriate 
 to a young lady making her ddhtt in polite 
 society. Instead of displaying an interesting 
 timidity, and clinging to her chaperon for 
 guidance and protection, Maud had taken 
 wing boldly at once, as in a congenial at- 
 mosphere ; had been far too excited to be in 
 
 K 2
 
 1 3 2 Chronicles of Dtistypore. 
 
 the least degree shy, and had lent herself 
 with indiscreet facility to a very pronounced 
 flirtation. Felicia began to realise how hard 
 it is to make the people about one be what 
 one wants them to be, and how full of disap- 
 pointment is the task of managing mankind, 
 even though the fraction operated upon be 
 no larger than a wayward schoolgirl's heart. 
 Maud, whose rapidly increasing devotion to 
 Sutton had for days past been a theme of 
 secret congratulation in Felicia's thoughts, 
 had been behaving all the evening just in the 
 way which Sutton would, she knew, most dis- 
 like, and showing the most transparent liking 
 for the person of whom, of all others, he es- 
 pecially disapproved. Sutton, too, Felicia 
 considered, was not comporting himself at all 
 as she would have had him : he lavished 
 every possible kindness on Maud, but then it
 
 The Woes of a Chapero7i, 133 
 
 was less for Maud's sake than her own ; he 
 would have done, she felt an annoying con- 
 viction, exactly the same for either of her 
 little girls ; and though he agreed with her in 
 thinking Maud decidedly picturesque, and in 
 being amused and interested in the fresh, 
 eager, childlike impulsiveness of her charac- 
 ter, his thoughts about her, alas ! appeared 
 to go no further. 
 
 ' Why that profound sigh, Felicia ? ' her 
 husband asked, when Maud had gone away 
 to bed, leaving the two together for the first 
 time during the evening. ' Does it mean that 
 some one has been boring you, or what } ' 
 
 * It means,' said Felicia, * that I am very 
 cross, and that Mr. Desvoeux is a very 
 odious person.' 
 
 * And Maud a very silly one, fUest-ce pas ? 
 Did not I tell you what a deal of trouble
 
 134 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 our good-nature in having her out would be 
 sure to give us ? Never let us do a good- 
 natured act again ! I tell you Maud is al- 
 ready a finished coquette, and, I believe, 
 would be quite prepared to flirt with me.' 
 
 ' I wish she would,' said Felicia, in a des- 
 pairing tone. ' Do you know, George, I do 
 not like these balls at all ? ' 
 
 ' Come, come, Felicia, how many valses 
 did you dance to-night ? ' her husband asked, 
 incredulously, for Felicia was an enthusiastic 
 Terpsichorean. 
 
 ' That has nothing to do with it,' she 
 said. * All the people should be nice, and so 
 many people are not nice at all. It is too 
 close quarters. There are some men whose 
 very politeness one resents.' 
 
 ' Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it,' 
 said her husband, ' for instance ? '
 
 The Woes of a Chaperon. 135 
 
 ' For instance, General Beau/ said Felicia. 
 ' He looks up in the pauses of his devotions 
 to Mrs. Vereker and turns his eyes upon one 
 as if to say, " Poor victim ! your turn will 
 be the next"' 
 
 ' I saw you playing *' Lady Disdain " to 
 him with great success to-night,' her hus- 
 band answered. And indeed it must be con- 
 fessed that Beau's advances to Felicia, with 
 whom he was always anxious to stand well, 
 were received by that lady with a slightly 
 contemptuous dignity, very unlike her usual 
 joyous cordiality. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Felicia ; * General Beau's 
 compliments are more than I can stand. 
 But, George, what can I do with Maud .^ 
 Is not Mr. Desvoeux insufferable } ' 
 
 ' Well,' said her husband, ' if a man's am- 
 bition is to be thought a matcvais sujet, and
 
 136 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 to dress, like a shopboy, endimanchd, it does 
 not hurt us.' 
 
 * But it may hurt Maud,' said Felicia, * if, 
 indeed, it has not hurt her already. O dear, 
 how I wish she was safely married ! ' 
 
 From the above conversation it may be 
 inferred that the responsibilities of her new 
 charge were beginning to weigh upon 
 Felicia's spirits. Sutton too slow, and 
 Desvoeux too prompt, and Maud's fickle 
 fancies inclining now this way, now that, what 
 benevolent custodian of other people's happi- 
 ness had ever more harassing task upon 
 her hands ? 
 
 It is probable, however, that had Feli- 
 cia's insight or experience been greater, the 
 position of affairs would have seemed less 
 fraught with anxiety. Maud's liking for 
 Desvoeux was a sentiment of the very
 
 The Woes of a Chaperon. 137 
 
 lightest texture ; its very lightness was, 
 perhaps, its charm. With him she was 
 completely at her ease, and experienced the 
 high spirits which being at one's ease en- 
 genders. She was certain of pleasing him, 
 but careless whether she did so or not ; his 
 extravagant protestations amused her, and 
 were flattering in a pleasant sort of way, and 
 his high spirits made him an excellent com- 
 panion, but nothing about him touched her 
 with the keen deep interest that every word 
 or look of Sutton's inspired, or with the same 
 strong anxiety to retain his friendship. 
 Desvoeux might come and go, and Maud 
 would have treated either event with the 
 same indifference ; but if Sutton should ever 
 begin to neglect her she was already con- 
 scious of a sort of pang which the very idea 
 inflicted. Upon the whole it is probable
 
 138 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 that Felicia's apprehensions were groundless. 
 Not the less, however, did she feel discon- 
 certed and aggrieved when, the very next 
 morning after the ball, Desvoeux made his 
 appearance, in the highest possible spirits, 
 evidently on the best terms with Maud, and 
 politely ignoring all Felicia s attempts to put 
 him down. He was, as it seemed to her, in 
 his very most objectionable mood, and she 
 felt glad that, at any rate, her husband was 
 at home, and that she was not left to do 
 battle by herself She resolved to be as 
 unconciliatory as possible. As for Maud it 
 never occurred to her to conceal the pleasure 
 which Desvoeux's arrival gave her, and she 
 soon let out the secret that his visit had been 
 pre-arranged. 
 
 * I did not think that you really would 
 come, Mr. Desvoeux ; it is so nice of you,
 
 The Woes of a Chaperon. 139 
 
 because we are both of us far too tired 
 to do anything but be idle, and you can 
 amuse us.' 
 
 * You forget, Maud/ said Vernon, ' that 
 Desvoeux may be too tired to be amusing/ 
 
 ' And I,' said Felicia, with a slight shade 
 of contempt in her tones, ' am too tired even 
 to be amused. I feel that Mr. Desvoeux's 
 witticisms would only fatigue me. I intend 
 to give up balls.' 
 
 * Then,' said Desvoeux, with an air of 
 admiring deference which Felicia felt 
 especially irritating, 'balls will have to give 
 up me. I should not think it in the least 
 worth while to be a steward, and to do all 
 the horrid things one has to do — polish the 
 floor, and audit the accounts, and dance 
 official quadrilles with Mrs. Blunt — if our 
 chief patroness chose to patronise no more.
 
 140 Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 A ball without Mrs. Vernon would be a May 
 morning without the sunshine.' 
 
 * Or a moonlight night without the moon,' 
 said Felicia. * Allow me to help you to a 
 simile.' 
 
 * You see he is tired,' said Vernon, ' poor 
 fellow, and for the first time in his life in 
 need of a pretty phrase.' 
 
 'Not at all,' said Desvceux, with imper- 
 turbable good-nature. ' I am constantly at a 
 loss, like the rest of the world, for words to 
 tell Mrs. Vernon how much we all admire 
 her. It is only fair that the person who 
 inspires the sentiment should assist us to 
 express it.' 
 
 ' But,' cried Maud, ' you are forgetting 
 poor me. Who is to take care of me, if you 
 please, in the balls of the future ? ' 
 
 * Yes, Felicia,' said Vernon, ' you cannot
 
 The Woes of a Chaperon. 141 
 
 abdicate just yet, I fear. As for me, I feel 
 already far too old/ 
 
 ' Then,' cried Desvceux, * you must look 
 at General Beau, and learn that youth is 
 eternal. How nice it is to see him adoring 
 Mrs. Vereker, and to remember that we, too, 
 may be adored some thirty years to come ! ' 
 
 * Beau's manner is very compromising,' 
 said Vernon ; * it is a curious trick. His 
 first object when he likes a lady is to en- 
 danger her reputation.' 
 
 * Yes,' answered Desvceux, * he leads her 
 with a serious air to a sofa, or hides himself 
 with her in a balcony ; looks gravely into 
 her eyes, and says, '* How hot it has been 
 this afternoon ! " or something equally inte- 
 resting ; and all the world thinks that he is 
 asking her to elope at least.' 
 
 * His manners appear to me to be insuf-
 
 142 Chronicles of Dtistypore. 
 
 ferable,' Felicia said, in her loftiest style ; 
 *just the sort of familiarity that breeds 
 contempt' 
 
 ' Poor fellow ! ' said Desvoeux, who knew 
 perfectly that Felicia's observations were half- 
 intended for himself ; ' it is all his enthu- 
 siasm. He is as proud of every fresh 
 flirtation as if it were a new experience — like 
 a young hen that has just laid its first ^gg. 
 He always seems to me to be chuckling and 
 crowing to the universe, " Behold ! heaven 
 and earth ! I have hatched another scandal." 
 Now,' he added, 'Miss Vernon, if ever you 
 and I had a flirtation we would not wish all 
 the world to ''assist," as the French people 
 say, would we ? People might suspect our 
 devotion, and guess and gossip ; but there 
 would not be this revolting matter-of-fact 
 publicity, and we should be for ever putting
 
 The Woes of a Chaperon. 143. 
 
 people off the scent. I should still look 
 into the Misses Blunt's eyes, still dance a 
 state quadrille with their mamma, still talk to 
 Mrs. Vereker about the stars, still feel the 
 poetry of Miss Fotheringham's new Paris 
 dresses — you would continue to fascinate 
 mankind at large ; only we two between 
 ourselves should know how mutually broken- 
 hearted we had become.' 
 
 ' That is a contingency,' Felicia said, in a 
 manner which Desvoeux understood as a 
 command to abandon the topic, ' which, 
 happily, there is no need to discuss.' The 
 conversation turned to something else ; but 
 Felicia made up her mind more than ever 
 that their visitor was a very impertinent 
 fellow, and more than ever resolved to guard 
 Maud from every form of attack which he 
 could bring to bear against it. No protection
 
 144 Chronicles of Duslypore. 
 
 could, she felt, be half so satisfactory as the 
 counter-attraction of a lover who would be 
 everything that Desvceux was not, and whom 
 all the world acknowledged to be alike 
 sans peur and sans reproche.
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 After short silence then, 
 And summons sent, the great debate began. 
 
 A BODY constituted of as discordant elements 
 as the three members of the Salt Board, was 
 not likely to remain very long at peace with 
 itself ; and for weeks past, Blunt s increasing 
 truculence of deportment had warned his 
 colleagues of an approaching outbreak. 
 
 Since his successful raid upon the Board's 
 accounts, this gentleman had made the lives 
 of Fotheringham and Cockshaw a burden to 
 them. His insatiable curiosity plunged, in 
 the most ruthless manner, into matters which 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 the others knew instinctively would not 
 bear investigation. He proposed reforms 
 in an off-hand manner which made poor 
 Fotheringham's hair stand on end ; and the 
 very perusal of his memoranda was more 
 than Cockshaw's industry could achieve. 
 He had a sturdy cob on which he used to 
 ride about in the mornings, acquiring health 
 and strength to be disagreeable the entire 
 day, and devising schemes of revolution as 
 he went. Poor Cockshaw's application for 
 the Carraways had been refused ; General 
 Beau had got the appointment, and was 
 actually in course of a series of valedictory 
 visits to various ladies whom he believed 
 broken-hearted at his departure. Fothering- 
 ham grew greyer and sadder day by day, 
 and prepared himself as best he might to 
 meet the blows of fate in an attitude of
 
 Friends in Council, 147 
 
 dignified martyrdom. Matters at last reached 
 a crisis in a proposal of Blunt's, brought out 
 in his usual uncompromising fashion, and 
 thrust upon the Board, as Fotheringham 
 acknowledged with a shudder, with a horrid 
 point-blank directness which rendered evasion 
 and suppression (the only two modes of deal- 
 ing with questions which his experience had 
 taught him) alike impossible. In the first 
 place. Blunt demonstrated, by statistics, that 
 not enough salt was produced at the Rumble 
 Chunder quarries to enable the inhabitants to 
 get enough to keep them healthy. Nothing 
 could be more convincing than his figures : 
 so many millions of people — so many thou- 
 sands of tons of salt — so much salt necessary 
 per annum for each individual, and so forth. 
 Then Blunt went on to show that the classes 
 of diseases prevalent in the Sandy Tracts 
 L 2
 
 148 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 were precisely those which want of salt 
 produces ; then he demonstrated that there 
 was wholesale smuggling. From all this it 
 followed obviously that the great thing 
 wanted was to buy up existing interests, 
 develop the quarries, improve the roads, and 
 increase the production. If this were done 
 salt might be sold at a rate which would 
 bring it within the reach of all classes, and 
 yet the gains of Government would be in- 
 creased. This was Blunt's view. The 
 opposite party urged that to vary the salt- 
 supply would interfere with the laws of 
 political economy, would derange the natural 
 interaction of supply and demand (this was 
 one of Fotheringham's favourite weapons), 
 would depress internal trade, paralyse exist- 
 ing industries, cause all sorts of unlooked-for 
 results, and not benefit the consumer a
 
 Friends in Coimcil. 149 
 
 whit; and that, even if it would, ready- 
 money was not to be had at any price. 
 Blunt, however, was not to be put off with 
 generalities, and claimed to record his 
 opinions, that his colleagues should record 
 theirs, and that the whole matter should be 
 submitted to the Resident. Cockshaw gave 
 a suppressed groan, lit a cheroot, and 
 mentally resolved that nothing should tempt 
 him into writing a memorandam, or,, if 
 possible, into allowing anybody else to do 
 so. * For God's sake,' he said, * don't let us 
 begin minuting upon it ; if the matter must 
 go to Empson, let us ask him to attend the 
 Board, and have it out once for all.' Now, 
 Mr. Empson was at this time Resident at 
 Dustypore. The custom was that he came 
 to the Board only on very solemn occasions, 
 and only when the division of opinion was
 
 150 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 hopeless ; then he sat as Chairman, and his 
 casting vote decided the fortunes of the day. 
 
 The next Board day, accordingly, 
 Empson appeared, and it soon became 
 evident that Blunt was to have his vote. 
 
 Fotheringham was calm, passive, and be- 
 haved throughout with the air of a man who 
 thought it due to his colleagues to go 
 patiently through with the discussion, but 
 whose mind was thoroughly made up. The 
 fight soon waxed vehement. 
 
 ' Look,' said Blunt, ' at the case of cotton 
 in the Kutchpurwanee District.' 
 
 ' Really,' said Fotheringham, ' I fail to 
 see the analogy between cotton and salt.' 
 This was one of Fotheringham's stupid 
 remarks, which exasperated both Empson 
 and Blunt, and made them flash looks of in- 
 telligence across the table at each other.
 
 I^rzends in Council. 1 5 1 
 
 * Then,' Blunt said, with emphasis, ' I'll 
 explain the analogy. Cotton was twopence- 
 halfpenny per pound, and hard to get at 
 that. What did we do ? We laid out ten 
 lakhs in irrigation, another live lakhs in 
 roads, a vast deal more in introducing Euro- 
 pean machinery and supervision ; raised the 
 whole sum by an average rate on cotton cul- 
 tivation — and what is the result ? Why, 
 last year the outcome was more than doi*ble 
 what it was before, and the price a half- 
 penny a pound lower at least.' 
 
 ' And what does that prove ? ' asked 
 Fotheringham, who never could be made to 
 see anything that he chose not to see. ' As 
 I said before, Avhere is the analogy ? ' Blunt 
 gave a cough which meant that he was uttering 
 execrations Internally, and took a large pinch 
 of snuff Fotheringham looked round with
 
 1=^2 
 
 Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 the satisfied air of a man who had given a 
 clencher to his argument, and whose op- 
 ponents could not with decency profess any 
 longer to be unconvinced. 
 
 ' I am against it,' said Cockshaw, ' because 
 I am against everything. We are over- 
 governing the country. The one thing that 
 India wants is to be let alone. We should 
 take a leaf out of the books of our prede- 
 cessors — collect our revenue, as small an one 
 as possible, shun all changes like the devil — 
 and let the people be.' 
 
 ' That is out of the question,' said Emp- 
 son, whom thirty years of officialdom had 
 still left an enthusiast at heart. " Rest for 
 India " is the worst of all the false cries which 
 beset and bewilder us ; It means, for one 
 thing, a famine every ten years at least ; and
 
 Friends in Council, 153 
 
 famines, you know, mean death to them and 
 insolvency to us.' 
 
 * Of course,' said Fotheringham, senten- 
 tiously, with the grand air of ^olus soothing 
 the discordant winds, ' when Cockshaw said 
 he was against everything he did not mean 
 any indifference to the country. But we are 
 running up terrible bills ; you know, Emp- 
 son, we got an awful snubbing from home 
 about our deficit last year.' ♦ 
 
 'Well, but now about the Salt,' put in 
 Blunt, whose task it seemed to keep every- 
 body to the point in hand. ' This is no ques- 
 tion of deficit. I say it will pay, and the Go- 
 vernment of India will lend us the money fast 
 enough if they can be made to think so too.' 
 
 * Well,' said Cockshaw, stubbornly light- 
 ing another cheroot, and getting out his
 
 154 Chronicles of Dtistypore. 
 
 words between rapid puffs of smoke, 'it 
 won't pay, you'll see, and Government will 
 think as I do.' 
 
 * Then,' replied Blunt, ' you will excuse 
 me for saying Government will think wrong, 
 and you will have helped them. Have you 
 examined the figures ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' said Cockshaw, with provoking 
 placidity, ' and I think them, like all other 
 statistics, completely fallacious. You have 
 not been out here. Blunt, as long as we have.' 
 
 * No ; but the laws of arithmetic are the 
 same, whether I am here or not.' 
 
 * Well,' observed Fotheringham, ' I really 
 do not see — forgive me, pray, for saying it 
 — but, as senior member, I may perhaps be 
 allowed the observation — I really do not see 
 how Blunt can pretend to know anything 
 about our Salt.'
 
 Friends in Council, 155 
 
 * There is one thing I know about it,' said 
 Blunt to Empson as they drove home from 
 the Board ; * whatever it is, it is not Attic ! ' 
 
 While thus the battle raged within, 
 Desvoeux, who had come with the Agent to 
 the Board, took an afternoon s holiday, and 
 found himself, by one of those lucky accidents 
 with which Fortune favours every flirtation, 
 in Mrs. Vereker's drawing-room, where 
 Maud had just arrived to have luncheon 
 and spend the afternoon. 
 
 Now, Mrs. Vereker was a beauty, and, as a 
 beauty should, kept a little court of her own in 
 Dustypore, which, in its own way, was quite 
 as distinct an authority as the Salt Board or 
 the Agency itself. Her claims to sove- 
 reignty were considerable. She had the 
 figure of a sylph, hair golden and profuse, 
 and real. She had lovely liquid purple eyes.
 
 156 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 into which whoever was rash enough to look 
 was lost forthwith ; and a smile — but as to 
 this the position of the present chronicler, 
 as a married man and the father of a family, 
 renders it impossible for him to describe it 
 as it deserved. Suffice it to say that, even 
 in a faded photograph, it has occasioned the 
 partner of his bosom the acutest pangs, and 
 it would be bad taste and inexpedient to say 
 more than that gentlemen considered it be- 
 witching, while many married ladies con- 
 demned it as an unmeaning simper of a 
 very silly woman. She affected to be 
 greatly surprised at Desvoeux's arrival, and 
 even to hesitate about letting him in ;. but 
 the slight constraint of her manner, and the 
 flush that tinged her cheek, suggested the 
 suspicion that the call was not altogether 
 fortuitous.
 
 Friends in Council, 157 
 
 * How provoking/ she said, when 
 Desvoeux made his appearance, * that you 
 should just come this morning to spoil our 
 tUe-d-tUe ! Don't you find, Miss Vernon, 
 whatever one does in life, there is invariably 
 a man de trap f ' 
 
 * No,' cried Desvoeux, gaily ; * Providence 
 has sent me kindly to rescue you both from 
 a dull morning. Ladies have often told me 
 that under such circumstances it is quite a 
 relief to have a man come in to break the 
 even flow of feminine gossip. Come, now. 
 Miss Vernon, were you not pleased to see 
 my carriage come up the drive ? ' 
 
 * No, indeed,' said Maud ; ' nothing could 
 be more mal d propos. Mrs. Vereker was 
 just going to show me a lovely new Paris 
 bonnet, and now, you see, we must wait till 
 you are gone ! '
 
 158 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 * Then, indeed, you would hate me,' 
 answered Desvoeux ; ' but happily there is no 
 necessity for that, as I happen to be a con- 
 noisseur in bonnets, and Mrs. Vereker would 
 not be quite happy in wearing one till I 
 had given my approval. She will go away 
 now, you will see, and put it on for us to 
 look at.' 
 
 ' Is not he conceited ? ' said Mrs. Vereker, 
 raining the influence of a bewitching smile 
 upon her guests, and summoning, as she 
 could at pleasure, the most ingenuous of 
 blushes to her cheeks. * He thinks he is 
 quite a first-rate judge of everything.' 
 
 ' ^otoi every thingl said the other, 'but of 
 some things — Mrs. Vereker's good looks, for 
 instance — yes, from long and admiring con- 
 templation of the subject ! It would be hard 
 indeed if one could not have an opinion
 
 Friends in Council. 159 
 
 about what has given one so much pleasure, 
 and, alas ! so much suffering ! ' 
 
 Desvoeux said this with the most senti- 
 mental air, and Mrs. Vereker seemed to take 
 it quite as a matter of course. 
 
 * Poor fellow ! ' she said ; ' well, perhaps I 
 will show you the bonnet after all, just to 
 console you — am I not kind ? ' 
 
 ' You know,' said Desvoeux, * that you are 
 dying to put it on. Pray defer your and our 
 delectation no longer ! ' 
 
 ' Rude and disagreeable person ! ' cried 
 the other. ' Suppose, Miss Vernon, we go 
 off and look at it by ourselves, and have a 
 good long chat, leaving him alone here to 
 cultivate politeness ? ' 
 
 'Yes,' cried Maud, Met us. Here, Mr. 
 Desvoeux, is a very interesting report on 
 something — education — no, irrigation — with
 
 i6o Chronicles of Dtistypore. 
 
 nice tables and plenty of figures. That will 
 amuse you till we come back.' 
 
 * At any rate, don't turn a poor fellow out 
 into such a hurricane as this,' said Desvceux, 
 going to the window, and looking into the 
 garden, where by this time a sand-storm was 
 raging, and all the atmosphere thick and 
 murky with great swirls of dust. * I should 
 spoil my complexion and my gloves, and 
 very likely be choked into the bargain.' 
 
 ' But it was just as bad when you came, 
 and you did not mind it.' 
 
 'Hope irradiated the horizon,' cried Des- 
 vceux ; * but it was horrible. I have a perfect 
 horror of sand — like the people in '* Alice," 
 you know — 
 
 They wept like anything to see 
 
 Such quantities of sand. 
 ' If this were only cleared away,' 
 
 They said, * it would be grand.'
 
 Friends in Council. i6i 
 
 * If seven maids with seven mops 
 
 Swept it for half a year, 
 Do you suppose/ the Walrus said, 
 
 ^That they could get it clear ? ' 
 < I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, 
 
 And shed a bitter tear. 
 
 * And I shall shed a bitter tear if you send me 
 away. At any rate, let me stay to lunch, 
 please, and have my horses sent round to 
 the stable.' 
 
 ' Shall we let him ? ' cried Mrs. Vereker, 
 teasingly. * Well, if you do, you will ha\re 
 nothing but poached eggs and bottled beer. 
 There is a little pudding, but only just big 
 enough for Miss Vernon and me.' 
 
 ' I will give him a bit of mine,' said 
 Maud. ' I vote that we let him stay, if he 
 promises not to be impertinent.' 
 
 ' And I will show him my bonnet,' cried 
 the other, whose impatience to display her 
 new^ finery was rapidly making way. 'It Is 
 
 vol.. T. M
 
 1 62 Chronicles of Dicstypo}^. 
 
 just as well to see how things strike men, you 
 know, and my caro sposo among his thousand 
 virtues happens to be a perfect Ignoramus 
 on the point of dress. Pie knows and cares 
 nothing about all my loveliest things.' 
 
 * Except,' said Desvoeux, ' how much they 
 cost. Well, there is a practical side which 
 somebody must know about, I suppose, and a 
 husband is just the person ; but it is highly 
 inartistic' 
 
 ' How did you know that I was here ? ' 
 Maud asked, when Mrs. Vereker had left the 
 room. ' And why are }'0u not at the Agency 
 doing your lessons ? ' 
 
 * Because we have an aviary of little 
 birds at the Agency,' answered Desvoeux, his 
 manner instantly becoming several shades 
 quieter and more affectionate, * and one of 
 them came and sung me a tune this morning 
 and told me to go and take a holiday and
 
 Friends in Conncil. 163 
 
 meet the person I like the best in the 
 world.' 
 
 ' Now,' said Mrs. Vereker, gleefully re- 
 entering the room, with a cluster of lace and 
 flowers artistically poised upon her shapely 
 little head, * is not that a duck, and don't I 
 look adorable ? ' 
 
 * Quite a work of art,' cried Desvoeux, 
 with enthusiasm. ' Siren ! Avhy, already too 
 dangerously fair, i^hy deck yourself with fresfi 
 allurements for the fascination of a broken- 
 hearted world 1 I am convinced Saint 
 Simon Stylites would have come down from" 
 his pillar on the spot if he could but have 
 seen it ! ' 
 
 * And confessed himself a c^one coon from 
 a moral point of view,' laughed Mrs. 
 Vereker, despoiling herself of the work of art 
 in question. * And now let us have some 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 lunch ; and mind, Mr. Desvoeux, you can only- 
 have a very little, because, you see, we did 
 not expect you.' 
 
 Afterwards, when It was time for Maud 
 to eo, it was discovered that no carrlacre had 
 arrived to take her home. * What can I 
 do ? ' she said, In despair. ' Felicia will be 
 waiting to take me to the Camp. George 
 promised to send back his office carriage 
 here, the moment he got to the Board.' 
 
 * Then,' said Desvoeux, with great pre- 
 sence of mind, ' he has obviously forgotten It, 
 and I will drive you home. Let me order 
 my horses ; they are quite steady.' 
 
 Maud looked at Mrs. Vereker — she felt 
 a burning wish to go, and needed but the 
 faintest encouragement. Felicia would, she 
 knew, be not well pleased ; but then It was 
 George's fault that she was unprovided
 
 Friends in Council. 165 
 
 for, and it seemed hardly good-natured to 
 reject so easy an escape from the embarrass- 
 ment which his carelessness had produced. 
 
 * I would come and sit in the back seat, 
 to make it proper,' cried Mrs. Vereker, * but 
 that I am afraid of the sun. I tell you what : 
 I will drive, and you can sit in the back seat; 
 that will do capitally.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Desvoeux, with the 
 most melancholy attempt at politeness, and 
 his face sinking to zero. 
 
 * Indeed, that is impossible ! ' cried Maud. 
 
 * I know you want to stay at home. I will go 
 with Mr. Desvceux.' And go accordingly they 
 did, and on the way home Desvoeux became, 
 as was but natural, increasingly confidential. 
 
 * This is my carriage,' he explained, * for 
 driving married ladies in — you see there is 
 a seat behind — very far behind — and well
 
 1 66 Chronicles of Dttstyporc. 
 
 railed off, to put the husbands in and keep 
 them in their proper place — quite in the back- 
 ground. It is so disagreeable when they 
 lean over and try to join in the conversation ; 
 and people never know when they are de 
 trop. ' 
 
 ' Ah, but,' said Maud, ' I don't like driving 
 with you alone. I hear you are a very 
 terrible person. People give )'ou a very bad 
 character.' 
 
 ' I know,' answered her companion ; 'girls 
 are always jilting me, and treating me 
 horribly badly, and then they say that it is 
 all my fault. I dare say they have been 
 telling you about Miss Fotheringham s affair, 
 and makincr me out a monster, but it was she 
 that was alone to blame.' 
 
 ' Indeed,' said Maud, ' I heard that it 
 made her very ill, and she had to be sent to
 
 Friends in CotcnciL 167 
 
 England, to be kept out of a consump- 
 tion.' 
 
 * This was how It was,' said Desvoeux : 
 ' I adored her — quite adored her ; I thought 
 her an angel, and I think her one still, but 
 with one defect — a sort of frantic jealousy, 
 quite a mania, you know. Well, I had a 
 friend — it happened to be a lady — for whom 
 I had all the feelings of a brother. We had 
 corresponded for years. I had sent her 
 innumerable notes, letters, flowers, presents, 
 you know. I had a few things that she had 
 given me — a note or two, a glove, a flower, a 
 photograph, perhaps — just the sort of thing, 
 you know, that one sends 
 
 * To one's brother,' put in Maud. ' Yes ; I 
 know exactly.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Desvoeux, in the most injured 
 tone, * and I used to lend her my ponies,
 
 1 68 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 and, when she wanted It, to drive her. And 
 what do you think that Miss Fotheringham 
 was cruel, wild enough to ask ? To give back 
 all my little mementoes, to write no more 
 notes, have no more drives ; in fact, discard 
 my oldest, dearest friend ! I told her, of 
 course, that it was impossible, impossible ! ' 
 Desvceux cried, getting quite excited over 
 his wrongs. ' '' Cruel girl," I said, '' am I to 
 seal my devotion to you by an infidelity to 
 the kindest, tenderest, sweetest of beings ? " 
 Thereupon Miss Fotheringham became quite 
 unreasonable, went into hysterics, sent me 
 back a most lovely locket I had sent her 
 only that morning, and Fotheringham pcre 
 wrote me the most odious note, in his worst 
 style, declaring that I Avas trifling ! Trifling, 
 
 indeed ! and to ask me to give up my ' 
 
 * Your sister !' cried Maud ; ' it was hard
 
 Friends in Council, 169 
 
 indeed ! Well, here we are at home. Let 
 me jump down quick and go in and get my 
 scolding.' 
 
 'And I,' said Desvoeux, 'will go to the 
 Agency and get mine.' 
 
 Stolen waters are sweet, however ; and it 
 is to be feared that these two young people 
 enjoyed their tctc-ct-tcte none the less for the 
 consideration that their elders would have 
 prevented it if they had had the chance.
 
 1 70 C/iro7iiclcs of Dtcstypore. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A CHArTER OF DISCLOSURES. 
 
 For his thoughts ! 
 Would they were blank sooner than filled with me. 
 
 Maud did not exacdy get a scolding, but 
 Felicia looked extremely grave. Maud's 
 high spirits were gone in an instant ; the 
 excitement which had enabled her to defy 
 propriety hitherto deserted her at the door : 
 the recklessness with which Desvoeux always 
 infected her had driven away with him in 
 his mail-phaeton, and left her merely with 
 the disagreeable consciousness of having 
 acted foolishly and wrongly. Felicia knew
 
 A Chapter of Disclostcres. 171 
 
 exactly how matters stood, and scarcely said 
 a word. Her silence, however, was, Maud 
 felt, the bitterest reproach. 
 
 * Scold me, scold me, dear,' she cried, the 
 tears starting to her eyes ; 'only don't look 
 like that, and say something ! ' 
 
 ' Well,' said Felicia, ' first promise me 
 never to drive alone with Mr. Desvoeux.* 
 
 ' After all,' suggested Maud, ' it is a mere 
 matter of appearances, and what do they 
 signify ? ' 
 
 'Some matters of appearance,' said 
 Felicia, * signify very much. Besides, this 
 is something more than that. It is bad 
 enough for you to be seen with him — what 
 I really care about is your being with him 
 at all.' 
 
 ' But,' said Maud, ' he is really very nice : 
 he amuses me so much ! '
 
 172 Chronicles of Ditstypore, 
 
 ' Yes/ answered the other, ' he amuses 
 one, but then it always hurts. His fun has 
 a something, I don't know what It is, but 
 which Is only just not offensive ; and I don't 
 trust him a bit' 
 
 ' But,' Maud argued, ' he is great friends 
 with George, is he not ? ' 
 
 ' Not great friends,' said Felicia ; ' they 
 were at college together, and have worked In 
 the same office for years, and are Intimate 
 like schoolboys, and George never says an 
 unkind word of anyone; but I do not call 
 them friends at all.' 
 
 * No ? ' said Maud, quite unconvinced, and 
 feeling vexed at Felicia's evident dislike for 
 her companion. ' Well, he's a great friend of 
 mine, so don't abuse him, please.' 
 
 * Nonsense, child ! ' cried Felicia, in a 
 fright. ' You don't know him in the least,
 
 A Chapter of Disclosures. i ']'^ 
 
 or you would not say that. To begin wlth^ 
 he Is not quite a gentleman, you know.' 
 
 'Not a gentleman!' cried Maud, aohast. 
 ' He seems to me a very fine one.' 
 
 * As fine as you please,' said Felicia, * but 
 not a thorough gentleman. Gentlemen 
 never say things that hurt you or offend 
 your taste. Now, with Mr. Desvoeux I feel 
 for ever in a fright lest he should say some- 
 thing I dislike ; and I know he thinks things 
 that I dislike.' 
 
 * I think you are prejudiced, Felicia, 
 What he says seems to me all very nice.' 
 
 * Perhaps it is prejudice,' Felicia answered^ 
 ' but I think it all the same. I feel the dif- 
 ference with other people ; Major Sutton, for 
 instance.' 
 
 'He is your ideal, is he not ? ' cried 
 Maud, blushing and laughing, for somehow
 
 174 Chronicles of DtLstypo7^e, 
 
 she was beginning to feel that Felicia had 
 •designs upon her. 
 
 * Yes,' Felicia said, in her fervent way ; 
 •'he is pure and true and chivalrous to the 
 core: he seems to me made of quite other 
 ; stuff from men like Mr. Desvoeux.' 
 
 * He is all made of solid gold,' cried 
 Maud, by this time in a teasing mood, ' and 
 Mr. Desvoeux is plaster-of- Paris, and putty, 
 and pinchbeck, and everything that is horrid. 
 But he is very amusing, dearest Felicia, all 
 the same, and very nice. I will not drive 
 with him any more, of course, if you do not 
 like It.' 
 
 Thereupon Maud, In a somewhat re- 
 bellious frame of mind, was about to go and 
 take her things off, and was already half-way 
 through the doorway, when she turned 
 round and saw Felicias sweet, serene, re-
 
 A Chapter of Disclosures. 175 
 
 fined brow wearing a look of harassment 
 and annoyance, and a sudden pang- of re- 
 morse struck her that she should, in pure 
 mischief, have been wounding a tender heart, 
 and endangering a friendship with which she 
 felt everything else in the world was but a 
 straw in the balance. She rushed back, and 
 flung her arms round her companion s neck. 
 
 ' Dearest Felicia,' she said, ' you know I 
 would fly to the moon rather than do any- 
 thing you did not like, or make you like me 
 the tiniest atom less. I want to tell you 
 something. You think, I know, that I am 
 falling in love with Mr. Desvoeux. Well, 
 dear, I don't care for him that!' 
 
 Thereupon Maud clapped two remark- 
 ably pretty hands together in a manner 
 highly expressive of the most light-hearted 
 indifference, and Felicia felt that, at any rate,
 
 1 76 Ch ron iclcs of Dusty pore. 
 
 she might console herself with the reflection 
 that Maud was as yet quite heart-whole, and 
 that, so far as Desvoeux was concerned, 
 Sutton's prospects were not endangered. 
 The certainty, however, that Desvoeux had 
 selected Maud for his next flirtation, and 
 that she felt no especial repugnance to the 
 selection, made Felicia doubly anxious that 
 her chosen hero should succeed, and her 
 protdgdc be put beyond the reach of danger 
 as soon as possible. But then Sutton proved 
 provokingly unamenable to Felicias kind 
 designs upon him. 
 
 His continued bachelorhood was a mys- 
 tery of which not even she possessed the 
 key. It was not insensibility for every word, 
 look, and gesture bespoke him more than 
 ordinarily alive to all the charms which 
 sway mankind. It certainly was not that
 
 A Chapter of Disclosicres. 177 
 
 either the wish or the power to please were 
 wanting ; nobody was more courteous at 
 heart, or more prompt to show It, or more 
 universally popular : nor could It be want 
 of opportunity ; for, though he had been 
 all his life fighting, marching, hurrying on 
 busy missions from one wild outpost to 
 another, on guard for months together at 
 some dangerous spot where treachery or 
 fanaticism rendered an explosion Imminent ; 
 yet the busiest military life has Its Intervals 
 of quiet, and the love-making of soldiers Is 
 proverbially expeditious. Was It, then, some 
 old romance, some far-off English recollec- 
 tion, some face that had fascinated his boy- 
 hood, and forbade him, when a man, to think 
 any other altogether lovely ? Could the 
 locket, which formed the single ornament 
 where all else was of Spartan simplicity, have 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 1 78 Chronicles of Diistyp07'c. 
 
 told a tale of one of those catastrophes where 
 love and hope and happiness get swamped 
 in hopeless shipwreck ? Was it that, ab- 
 solutely unknown to both parties, his rela- 
 tions to Felicia filled too large a place in his 
 heart for any other devotion to find room 
 there ? Was it that a widow sister who had 
 been left with a tribe of profitless boys upon 
 her hands, and to whom a remittance of Sut- 
 ton's pay went every month, had made him 
 think of marriage as an unattainable luxury ? 
 Sutton, at any rate, remained with- 
 •out a wife, and showed no s}'mptom of 
 anxiety to find one. To those venturesome 
 •friends who were sufficiently familiar to rally 
 him on the subject he replied, cheerfully 
 •enough, that his regiment was his wife, and 
 that such a turbulent existence as his would 
 make any other sort of spouse a most incon- 
 venient appendage. Ladies experienced in
 
 A Chaptc7^ of Disclositres. 179 
 
 the arts of fascination knew Instinctively that 
 he was unassailable, and even the most in- 
 trepid and successful gave up the thoughts 
 of conquest in despair. To be a sort of 
 privileged brother to Felicia, to be the 
 children's especial patron and ally, to sit 
 chatting: with Vernon far into the niorht with 
 all the pleasant intimacy of family relation- 
 ship, seemed to be all the domestic pleasures 
 of which he stood in need. ' i\s well,' Felicia 
 sighed, ' might some poor maiden waste her 
 love upon the cold front of a marble Jove.' 
 
 Such was the man upon whom Felicia had 
 essayed her first attempt at match-making ; 
 and such the man, too, with whom Maud, 
 though she had buried the secret deep in the 
 recesses of her heart — far even out of her own 
 sight — had already begun to love with all the 
 passionate violence of a first attachment. 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DESVCEUX MAKES THE RUNNING. 
 
 Free love, free field — we love but while we may : 
 The words are hushed, their music is no more ; 
 The leaf is dead, the yearning past away, 
 New leaf, new life — the days of frost are o'er. 
 New life, new love, to suit the newer day: 
 New loves are sweet as those that went before. 
 Free love, free field — we love h\\\. while we may. 
 
 Felicia was beginning to find Maud a serious 
 charge, and to be weighed down in spirit by 
 the responsibiHty involved in her protection. 
 It would have been easy enough to tell her 
 not to flirt, but it was when Maud was uncon- 
 scious and self-forgetful that she fascinated 
 the most ; and how warn her against the 
 exercise of attractions of which she never
 
 Desvoetix makes the Running. 1 8 1 
 
 thought, and the existence of which would 
 have been a surprise to her ? When, on the 
 lawn, Maud's hat blew off and all her wealth 
 of soft brown hair tumbled about her 
 shoulders in picturesque disarray, and she 
 stood, bright and eager and careless of the 
 disaster, thinking only of the fortunes of the 
 game, but beautiful, as every creature who 
 came near her seemed to feel ; when she was 
 merriest in the midst of merry talk and 
 made some saucy speech, and then blushed 
 scarlet at her own audacity ; when her 
 intensity of enjoyment in things around her 
 bespoke itself in every look and gesture ; 
 when the pleasure she gave seemed to infect 
 her being, and she charmed others because 
 she was herself in love with life, how warn 
 her against all this ? You might as well 
 have preached to an April shower! Desvoeux,
 
 1 8 2 Chron teles of Dusty pore. 
 
 too, was not a lover likely to be easily dis- 
 couraged or to let the grass grow beneath 
 his feet. Both from temperament and policy 
 he pressed upon a position where advantages 
 seemed likely to be gained. Despite the 
 very coolest welcomes, Felicia began to find 
 him an Inconveniently frequent visitor. An 
 avowed foe to croquet, he appeared with 
 provoking regularity at her Thursday after- 
 noons, when the Dustypore world was col- 
 lected to enjoy that innocent recreation on 
 the lawn, and somehow he always contrived 
 to be playing In Maud's game. Even at 
 church, he put In an unexpected appearance, 
 and sate through a discourse of three-quarters 
 of an hour with a patience that was almost 
 ostentatiously hypocritical. Then he would 
 come and be so bright, natural, and amusing, 
 and such good compan}', that Felicia w^as
 
 Desv(BUX makes the Runnmg. 183 
 
 frequently not near as chilling to him as 
 she wished, and as she felt the occasion 
 demanded. He was unlike anybody that 
 Maud had ever met before. He seemed 
 to take for granted that all existing institu- 
 tions and customs were radically wrong, and 
 that everybody knew it. ' Make love to 
 married women ? Of course ; why not — what 
 are pretty married women for ? Hard upon 
 the husbands ? Not a bit ; all the unfairness 
 was the other way — the husbands have such 
 tremendous advantages, that it is quite dis- 
 heartening to fight against such odds : tra.di- 
 tion and convention and the natural feminine 
 conservatism all in favour of the husbands ; 
 and then the Churchmen, as they always do, 
 taking their part too : it was so mean ! No, 
 no ; if the husbands cannot take care of them- 
 selves they deserve the worst that can befall
 
 184 Chronicles of Dicstyp07'e. 
 
 them.' Or he would say, ' Go to church ! 
 Thank you, if Miss Vernon sings in the 
 choir, and will say '' How dye do ? " to me as 
 she comes out, I will go and welcome ; but 
 otherwise, ca nicmbttc, as the Frenchman 
 said. I always was a fidget, Miss Vernon, 
 and feel the most burning desire to chatter 
 directly anyone tells me to hold my tongue ; 
 and then I'm argumentative, and hate all 
 the speaking being on one side ; and then — 
 and then, — well, on the whole, I rather agree 
 with a friend of mine, who said that he had 
 only three reasons for not going to church — 
 he disbelieved the history, disapproved the 
 morality, and disliked the art.' 
 
 Maud used to laugh at these speeches ; 
 and though she did not like them, nor the 
 man who made them, and understood what 
 Felicia meant by saying that Desvoeux's fun
 
 Desvoeux makes the Running. 185 
 
 had about it something which hurt one, it 
 seemed quite natural to laugh at them. She 
 observed too, before long, that they were sel- 
 dom made when F'elicia was by ; and that 
 Desvoeux, if in higher spirits at Mrs. Vereker s 
 than at the Vernons' house, was also several 
 shades less circumspect in what he said, and 
 divulged tastes and opinions which were con- 
 cealed before her cousin. More than once, 
 as Felicia came up, Desvoeux had adroitly 
 turned the conversation from some topic 
 which he knew she would dislike ; and Maud, 
 who was guilelessness itself, had betrayed by 
 flushing cheeks and embarrassed manner the 
 fact of something having been concealed. 
 On the whole, Felicia had never found the 
 world harder to manage, or the little empire 
 of her drawing-room less amenable to her 
 sway. Her guests, somehow, would not be
 
 1 86 Chronicles of Dusfypoi^c. 
 
 what she wished. Dcsvoeux, though be- 
 having with marked deference to her wishes, 
 and always sedulously polite, pleased her less 
 and less ; Maud's innocence and impulsive- 
 ness, however attractive, frequently produced 
 embarrassments, which it required all Felicia's 
 tact to overcome. Her husband, laconic and 
 indolent, gave not the slightest help. 
 Another crround on which she distressed her- 
 
 o 
 
 self (very unnecessarily, could she only have 
 known) was, that Sutton, among other per- 
 formers on Felicia's little stage, played not at 
 all the brilliant part which she had mentally 
 assigned him. The slightl)- contemptuous 
 dislike for Desvoeux which Felicia had often 
 heard him express, and In which she greatly 
 sympathised, though veiled under a rigid 
 courtesy, was yet Incompatible with cordiality 
 or good cheer ; and Desvoeux, whose high
 
 Desvcettx makes the Running. 1871 
 
 spirits nothing could put down, often ap- 
 peared the pleasanter companion of the two. 
 Sutton, in fact, had on more occasions than one 
 come into colHsion with Desvceux in a manner 
 which a less easy-going and light-hearted 
 man would have found it difficult to for- 
 give. Once, at mess, on a ' guest-night/ Des- 
 vceux had rattled out some offensive nonsense 
 about women, and Sutton had got up, and^ 
 pushing his chair back unceremoniously, had 
 marched silently away to the billiard-room 
 in a manner which in him, the most chival- 
 rous of hosts, implied a more than ordinarily 
 vehement condemnation. Afterwards Des- 
 vceux had been eiven to understand that, if 
 he came to the mess, he must not, in the 
 Majors presence, at any rate, outrage good 
 taste and good morals by any such displays. 
 Then, at another time, there was a pretty
 
 1 88" Chronicles of Dies ty pore. 
 
 young woman — a sergeant's wife — to whom 
 Desvocux showed an indination to be poHte. 
 Sutton had told Desvoeux that It must not be, 
 in a quietly decisive way which he felt there 
 was no disputing, though there was some- 
 thino- in the other's authoritative air which 
 was extremely galling. He could not be im- 
 pertinent to Sutton, and he bore him no 
 deep resentment ; but he revenged himself 
 by affecting to regard him as the ordinary 
 * plunger ' of the period — necessary for pur- 
 poses of defence, and a first-rate leader of 
 native cavalry, but socially dull, and a fair 
 object for an occasional irreverence. Sutton's 
 tendency was to be more silent than usual 
 when Desvoeux was of the party ; Desvoeux, 
 on the other hand, would not have let Sutton's 
 or the prophet Jeremiahs presence act as a 
 damper on spirits which were always at boil-
 
 DesvceiLx snakes the R7 tuning. 189 
 
 ing-point, and a temperament which was for 
 ever effervescing into some more or less de- 
 corous form of mirth. The result was that 
 the one man quite eclipsed the other, and 
 tossed the ball of talk about with an ease 
 and dexterity that was not always quite re- 
 spectful to his less agile senior. One night, 
 for instance, Maud, in a sudden freak of 
 fancy, had set her heart upon a round of 
 story-telling. ' I shall come last, of course," 
 she said, 'as I propose it, and by that tir?ie 
 it will be bedtime ; but, Major Sutton, you 
 must tell us something about some of your 
 battles, please ; something very romantic and 
 exciting.' ^ 
 
 Sutton was the victim of a morbid 
 modesty as to all his soldiering exploits, and 
 would far rather have fought a battle than 
 described it. * Ah,' he said, ' but our fieht-
 
 190 C /wo nicies of Dustypore. 
 
 ing out here is not at all romantic — it is 
 mostly routine, you know, and not pic- 
 turesque or amusing.' 
 
 ' Yes, but,' said Maud, ' tell us something 
 that is picturesque or amusing : a hair- 
 breadth escape, or a forlorn hope, or a 
 mine. I love accounts of mines. You 
 dig and dig for weeks, you know, and 
 then you're countermined, and hear the 
 enemy digging near you ; and then you 
 put the powder in, and light the match, 
 and run away, and then— now you go 
 ^on ! ' 
 
 ' And then there is a smash, I suppose,' 
 laughed Sutton ; ' but you know all about it 
 better than I. I'm not a gunner — all my 
 work is above-ground.' 
 
 ' Well, then,' cried Maud, with the eager 
 air of a child longing for a story, ' tell us
 
 D CSV cell X makes the R^inning. 191 
 
 something above-ground. How did you get 
 your Victoria Cross, now ? ' 
 
 Maud, however, was not destined to get 
 a story out of Sutton. 
 
 ' There was nothing romantic about that, 
 at any rate,' he said. ' It was at Mirabad. 
 There was a cannon down at the end of a 
 lane which was Hkely to be troublesome, and 
 some of our fellows went down with me and 
 spiked it. That was all ! ' ' 
 
 ' Excuse me, Miss Vernon,' said Des- 
 voeux ; ' Sutton's modesty spoils an excellent 
 story. Let me tell it as it deserves.' And 
 then he threw himself into a mock-traeical 
 attitude. 
 
 ' Go on,' said Maud, eagerly. 
 
 ' The street-fighting at Mirabad,' said 
 Desvoeux, with a declamatory air, ' was the 
 fiercest of the whole campaign '
 
 192 Chronicles of Dicstyporc. 
 
 * What campaign ? ' asked Sutton. 
 
 * The Mirabad campaign/ replied the 
 other, with great presence of mind, ' In 
 eighteen hundred and — , I forget the 3^ear — 
 but never mind/ 
 
 * Yes, never mind the year,' said Maud ; 
 * go on/ 
 
 * The enemy fought us Inch by inch, and 
 lane by lane ; from every window poured a 
 little volley : every house had to be stormed, 
 hand-to-hand we fought our way, and so on. 
 You know the sort of thing. Then, as we 
 turned Into the main street, puff! a great 
 blaze and a roar, and a dense cloud of smoke, 
 and smash came a cannon-ball into the midst 
 of us — five or six men were knocked over — 
 Tomkinss horse lost a tail, Brown had his 
 nose put out of joint, Smith was blown up to a
 
 Desvcettx makes the Running. 193 
 
 second-storey window — something must be 
 done. But I am tiring you ? ' 
 
 ' No, no,' cried Maud, ' I like it — go on/ 
 ' Well, let me see. Oh, yes, something- 
 must be done. To put spurs to my Arab's 
 sides, to cut my way down through the 
 astonished mob, to leap the barricade (it was 
 only eight feet high, and armed with a 
 chevaiix de frize), to sabre the six gunners 
 who were working the battery, was, I need 
 hardly say, the work of a moment. Then a 
 crushino: blow from behind, and I remember 
 nothing more till, a month later, I found 
 myself, weak and wounded, in bed ; and a 
 lovely nun gave me some gruel, and told me 
 that Mirabad was ours ! "Where am I ?" I 
 exclaimed, for I felt so confused, and the nun 
 looked so angelic, that I fancied I must have 
 
 VOL. I. , O
 
 194 Chronicles of DiLstypoi^e. 
 
 gone to heaven. My companion, however, 
 soon brought me to earth by — et ccBtera, et 
 ccetcra^ et eeetera.^ 
 
 ' That is the sort of thing which happens 
 in "Charles O'Malley,'" said Sutton ; 'only 
 Lever would have put Tippoo Sahib or 
 Tantia Topee on the other side of the barri- 
 cade, and I should have had to cut his head 
 off and slaughter all his bodyguard before I 
 got out again/ 
 
 ' And then,' said Maud, * the nun would 
 have turned out to be some one/ 
 
 ' But,' said Desvoeux, ' how do you know 
 that the nun did not turn out to be some 
 one, if only I had chosen to fill up those 
 et cesteras ? ' 
 
 * Well,' said Sutton, who apparently had 
 had enough of the joke, ' that part of the story 
 I will tell you myself. The nun was a male
 
 Desvattx makes the Rtuinmg. 195 
 
 one — my good friend Boldero, who took me 
 into his quarters, looked after me for six 
 weeks, till I got about again, and was as 
 good a nurse as anyone could wish for/ 
 
 ' I should have liked to be the nun,' 
 Maud cried, moved by a sudden impulse, 
 which brouorht the words out as the thoueht 
 flashed into her mind, and turninor crimson, 
 as was her wont, before they were out of 
 her mouth. 
 
 ' That is very kind of you,' said Sutton, 
 standing up, and defending her, as Maud 
 felt, from all eyes but his own ; ' and you 
 would have been a very charming nurse, 
 and cured me, I daresay, even faster than 
 Boldero. And now, Desvoeux, ofo and sine 
 us a song, as ^finale to your story.* 
 
 Maud knew perfectly well that this was a 
 mere diversion to save her from the confusion
 
 196 Chrojiicles of Dustypore. 
 
 of a thoughtless speech, and turn Desvoeux's 
 attention from her. It seemed quite natural, 
 and of a piece with Sutton's watchful, sym- 
 pathetic care, to give her all possible pleasure 
 and to shield her from every shade of annoy- 
 ance. A thrill of gratitude shot through her. 
 There was a charm, a fascination, in protec- 
 tion so prompt, so delicate, so kind, compared 
 with which all other attractions seemed faint 
 indeed. That evening Maud went to bed 
 with her heart in a tumult, and wept, she 
 knew not wherefore, far into the night — only 
 aeain and asfain the tears streamed out — the 
 outcome, though as yet she knew it not, of 
 that purest of all pure fountains, an innocent 
 first love.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE HILLS ! 
 
 However marred, and more than twice her years, 
 Scarred with an ancient sword-cut on the cheek, 
 And bruised and bronzed, she Hfted up her eyes, 
 And loved him with that love which was her doom. 
 
 Summer was beginning to come on apace ; 
 not summer as English people know it, the 
 genial supplement to a cold and watery 
 spring, with just enough heat about it to 
 thaw the chills of winter out of one, but 
 summer in its fiercest and cruellest aspect, 
 breathing sulphurous blasts, glowing with 
 intolerable radiance, begirt with whirlwinds 
 of dust — the unsparing despot of a sultry 
 world. The fields, but a few weeks ago
 
 198 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 one great ' waveless plain ' of ripening corn^ 
 had been stripped of their finery, and were 
 now lying brown and blistering in the sun's 
 eye ; the dust lay deep on every road and 
 path and wayside shrub, and seized every 
 opportunity of getting itself whirled into 
 miniature siroccos. More than once Maud 
 and Felicia had been caught, not in a sweet 
 May shower, stealing down amid bud and 
 blossom, and leaving the world moist and 
 fresh and fragrant behind it, but in rough, 
 turbulent clouds of rushing sand, which shut 
 out the sunshine and replaced the bright blue 
 atmosphere with the lurid glare of an eclipse. 
 Felicias flowers had begun to droop, nor 
 could all her care rescue the fresh green of 
 her lawn from turning to a dingy brown. 
 Already prudent housekeepers were busy 
 with preparations against the evil day so
 
 To the Hills! 199 
 
 near at hand ; verandahs were guarded with 
 folds of heavy matting, to shut out the in- 
 tolerable light that would have forced a way 
 through any ordinary barrier ; windows were 
 replaced by fragrant screens of cuscus-grass, 
 through which the hot air passing might lose 
 a portion of Its sting ; and one morning, when 
 Maud came out, she found a host of labourers 
 carrying a huge winnowing-machine to one 
 side of the house, the object of which was, 
 Vernon informed her, to manufacture 'air 
 cool enough for panting Britons to exist in. 
 Day by day some piece of attire was dis- 
 carded as too Intolerably heavy for endur- 
 ance. The morning ride became a thing of 
 the past, and even a drive at sunset too 
 fatiguing to be quite enjoyable. Maud felt 
 that she had never — not even when Miss 
 Goodenough had locked her up for a whole
 
 200 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 summer afternoon, to learn her ' duty to her 
 neighbour' — known what exhaustion really 
 meant till now. 
 
 The children were turning sadly white, 
 and Felicia began to be anxious for their de- 
 parture to the hills. Maud would of course 
 go with them, and Vernon was to follow in a 
 couple of months, when he could get his 
 leave. Much as she hated leavinsf her hus- 
 band, Felicia was on the whole extremely 
 glad to go. The state of things at home dis- 
 turbed her. Maud's outspoken susceptibility, 
 Desvoeux's impressionable and eager tem- 
 perament, Sutton's unconsciousness of what 
 she wanted him to do — the combination was 
 one from which it was a relief in prospect to 
 escape to the refuge of a new and unfamiliar 
 society. Felicia's buoyant and hopeful 
 nature saw in the promised change of scene
 
 To the Hills! 20 1 
 
 the almost certainty that somehow or other 
 matters would seem less unpromising when 
 looked at from the summits of Elysium. 
 
 For Elysium accordingly they started. 
 Three primitive vehicles, whose battered 
 sides and generally faded appearance spoke 
 eloquently of the dust, heat, and bustle in 
 which their turbulent existence was for the 
 most part engaged, were dragged, one after- 
 noon, each by a pair of highly rebellious 
 ponies, with a vast deal of shouting, pushing, 
 and execrating, Into a convenient position 
 before the Hall-door, and their tops loaded 
 forthwith with that miscellaneous and profuse 
 supply of baggage which every move in 
 India necessarily Involves, and which it Is 
 the especial glory of Indian servants to pre- 
 serve In undiminished amplitude. Suffice it 
 to say that it began with trunks and cradles,
 
 20 2 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 went on with native nurses, and concluded 
 with a eoat. Vernon sat in the verandah, 
 smoking a cheroot with characteristic com- 
 posure, and interfering- only when some py- 
 ramid of boxes seemed to be assuming pro- 
 portions of perilous altitude. He was to 
 travel with them, establish them at Elysium, 
 and ride down sixty miles again by night — 
 a performance of which no Dustyporean 
 thought twice. Maud, to whom one of the 
 creaking fabrics was assigned, in company 
 with the two little girls, found that, the feat 
 of clambering in and establishing herself 
 once safely accomplished, the journey pro- 
 mised to be not altogether unluxurious. 
 The Vernons' servants were experienced and 
 devoted, and every detail of the journey was 
 carefully foreseen. The interior of the 
 carriage, well furnished with mattresses apd
 
 To the Hills f 203; 
 
 pillows, made an excellent bed ; a little army 
 of servants gathered round to proffer aid and 
 to give the Sahibs a passing salaam ; friendly 
 carriages kept rolling in to say ' Goodbye.'' 
 Sutton, who had been kept away on busi- 
 ness, galloped in at the last moment, and 
 seemed too much occupied in saying good- 
 bye to Felicia to have much time for other 
 thoughts. ' Goodbye,' he said, in the most 
 cheery tone, as he came to Maud's carriage, 
 and ' Goodbye, Uncle Jem! ' shouted the little 
 girls, waving their adieux as best they might 
 under the deep awning ; and then, after a 
 frantic struggle for independent action on the 
 part of the ponies, they were fairly off and 
 spinning along the great, straight high road 
 that stretches in . unswerving course through 
 so many hundred miles of English rule. 
 The little girls were in the greatest glee, and
 
 204 CJironicles of Dustypoi^e. 
 
 busy in signalling" Uncle Jem for as long as 
 possible. Maud, somehow, did not share 
 their mirth — for the first time Sutton had 
 seemed unkind, or near enough unkind, to 
 give her pain. This ending of the pleasant 
 time seemed to her an event which friend- 
 ship ought not quite to have ignored. She 
 looked back upon many happy hours, the 
 brightest of her life, and the person who had 
 made them bright evidently did not share 
 her sentimental views about them in the 
 least. Partings, Maud s heart told her, must 
 surely be always sad, yet Sutton's voice had 
 no tone of sadness in it. ' Stay — stay a 
 little !' she could have cried with Imogen : 
 
 Were you but riding forth to air yourself, 
 Such parting were too petty. 
 
 True, they were to meet In a few weeks ; 
 but yet — but yet !
 
 To the Hills f 205 
 
 ' You've clot a big tear on your cheek,'' 
 said one of her companions, with the merci- 
 less frankness of childhood. 
 
 ' Have I ?' said Maud. ' Then it must be 
 the dust that has gone into my eyes. How 
 hot it is ! Come, let us have some oranges ! * 
 
 By this time evening was fast closing in,, 
 and Mauds cheeks were soon safe from 
 further observation. Before long her and 
 her companions' eyes were fast-closed by that 
 kindly hand which secures to the rhost 
 troubled of mankind the boon that one-third, 
 at any rate, of existence shall be spent in 
 peace. When they awoke the stars were 
 shining bright, but the sky was already 
 ruddy with the coming dawn, and Maud 
 could see the giant mountain forms looming 
 cold and majestical in the grey air above 
 them. They alighted at a little wayside inn.
 
 2o6 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 and found delicious cups of tea (die Indians' 
 invariable morning luxury) awaiting them. 
 Maud had sufficiently recovered her spirits to 
 make a bold Inroad on the bread-and-butter. 
 A mist hung about the country round, 
 and it was a delightful, home-like sensation 
 to shrink once again, as the cold mountain 
 blasts came swishing down, throwing the 
 wreaths of vapour here and there, and 
 recalling the delicious reminiscence of a 
 November fog. In a few moments the 
 horses were ready, the children and nurses 
 packed Into palanquins, and the upward 
 march began. These morning expeditions 
 in the mountains are Indescribably ex- 
 hilarating. At every step }'ou breathe a 
 fresher atmosphere, and feel a new access of 
 life, vigour, and enjoyment. Sweet little 
 gushes of pure cold air meet yoy at the.
 
 To the Hills! 207 
 
 turnings of the road and bid you welcome. 
 The vegetation around is rich, profuse, and — 
 long-forgotten charm — sparkHng everywhere 
 with dew. There has been a thunderstorm 
 in the night, and the mountain-sides are 
 streaminor still : little cataracts come tumbling 
 clamorously beside your path ; below you a 
 muddy stream is foaming and brawling, and 
 collecting the tribute of a hundred torrents 
 to swell the great flood that spreads, miles 
 wide, in the plain. As the path rises you 
 get a wider horizon, and presently the great 
 champaign lies flashing and blinking in the 
 morning's rays. Miles away overhead a 
 tiny white thread shows the road along 
 which in an hour or two you will be 
 travelling, and a little speck at the summit, 
 the cottage where your mid-day rest will be. 
 Behind you lie heat, monotony, fatigue, hot
 
 2o8 Chronicles of Diistyporc. 
 
 hours in sweltering courts, weary strugglings 
 through the prose of officialdom, the tiresome 
 warfare against sun and dust ; around you 
 and above, it is all enchanted ground ; the 
 air is full of pleasant sounds and sweet 
 invisible influences ; the genius of the woods 
 breathes poetry about the scene, the mountain 
 nymphs are dancing on yonder crest, and 
 Puck and Oberon and Titania haunting in 
 each delicious nook. Well may the first 
 Englishman who toiled panting hither wards 
 from the reeking realms below have fancied 
 himself half-way to Paradise, and have 
 christened the crowning heights Elysium. 
 Maud, at any rate, leaving the rest of the 
 party behind, rode forward in an ecstac)' of 
 enjoyment. 
 
 They spent the hot hours of the day m a
 
 To the Hills ! 209 
 
 sweet resting-place. Years afterwards the 
 calmness of that pleasant day used to live in 
 Maud's recollection ; and though many scenes 
 of bustle and trouble and fevered excitement 
 had come between herself and it, yet the 
 very thought of it used to soothe her. * I 
 have you, dear,' she would say to Felicia, 
 ' in my mind's picture-gallery, set in a dozen 
 different frames — scenes in which you played 
 a part — and this is my favourite. I love you 
 best of all in this ; it cools and gladdens me 
 to look at it.' 
 
 The scene, in fact, was a lovely one. On 
 one side rose a vast amphitheatre of granite, 
 rugged, solemn, precipitous ; downwards, 
 along the face of this, a careful eye might 
 trace from point to point the little path up 
 which the party were to make to-morrow's 
 march. This mountain ridge separated them 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2 1 o Chron ides of Dusty pore, 
 
 from the Elysian Hills, and seemed to frown 
 
 at them like some giant bulwark reared to 
 
 guard the snowy solitudes beyond from 
 
 human intrusion. On the other hand, fold 
 
 upon fold, one sweet outline melting into 
 
 another, here kissed by soft wreaths of cloud, 
 
 here glittering clear and hard in the flood of 
 
 light, stretched all the minor ranges, along 
 
 which for fifty miles the traveller to the 
 
 Elysians prepares himself for the final 
 
 sublimity that lies beyond. In front, where 
 
 the mountains parted, lay glistening in the 
 
 •sweltering horizon, and immeasurably below 
 
 them, the great Indian plain, spread out as 
 
 far as eye could follow it — a dim, hazy, 
 
 monotonous panorama — varied only when 
 
 occasionally a great river, swollen with the 
 
 melting snows above, spread out for miles 
 
 across the plain, and twinkled like an inland
 
 To the Hills ! 211 
 
 lake as the sun's rays fell upon It, and 
 suggestive, on the whole, of intolerable 
 lieat. 
 
 The hillside around was covered thick 
 with forest growth of tropical luxuriance. 
 On the heights above, a clump of rhododen- 
 drons glowed with a rosy glory ; here, on a 
 rugged precipice, a storm-stricken deodar 
 •spread Its vast flat branches as if to brave the 
 storm and the lightning strokes such as had 
 before now seamed its bark. The path below 
 was overhung with a dense growth of bam- 
 boo, each stem a miracle of grace, and 
 growing at last to an Inextricable jungle in 
 the deep bosom of the mountain gorge. 
 Fantastic creepers in fantastic exuberance 
 tossed wildly about the crag s side, or hung 
 festooning the roadside with a gorgeous 
 natural tapestry. A hundred miles away the 
 
 p 2
 
 2 1 2 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 everlasting snow-clad summits, which had 
 stood out so clear In the grey morning, when 
 they first emerged from their couch of clouds, 
 were fading into faintness as the bright day- 
 light poured about them. Just below the spot 
 on which their camp was pitched there was a 
 little spring and a drinking-place, and con- 
 stant relays of cattle came tinkling up the 
 road, and rested In the tall rocks' shadow for 
 a drink, while the weary drivers sat chatting 
 on the . edge. Every now and then weird 
 beings from the Interior, whose wild attire 
 and unkempt aspect bespoke them as belong- 
 ing to some aboriginal tribe, were to be seen 
 staggering along under huge logs of timber 
 felled In the great forests above, and now 
 brought down to the confines of civilisation 
 for human use. It was a new page In 
 Nature's \ grand picture-book, and full of
 
 To the Hills ! 213 
 
 charm. Maud, who was always very much 
 alive to the outer world, was greatly im- 
 pressed. Her nerves were over- wrought. 
 She took Felicia's hand, and seemed to be in 
 urgent need of imparting her excited mood 
 to some one. 
 
 ' How beautiful this is ! ' she cried ; ' how 
 solemn, how solitary ! Already all the world 
 seems to be something unsubstantial, and the 
 mountains the only reality.' 
 
 Felicia threw herself back upon the turf 
 and gave a great sigh of relief. 
 
 * I like these delicious gusts of air,' she 
 said, ' fresh and pure from the snow-tops.' 
 
 ' Yes,' cried Maud ; ' how serene and 
 grand they look ! No wonder the Alpine 
 tourists go crazy about them, and break 
 their necks In clambering about them be- 
 wildered with pleasure.
 
 2 14 C^^ ^^on iclcs of Dusty pore. 
 
 How faintly flushed, how phantom fair 
 Was Monte Rosa hanging there ! 
 
 A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys 
 And snowy dells in a golden air ! 
 
 And here Is a whole horizon of Monte 
 Rosas ! I should like to stop a month here 
 and devote myself to sketching.' 
 
 While they were chatting in the shade, a 
 native lad, who had been standing on a 
 neighbouring knoll, came running down to a 
 picketed pony, and began hurriedly to pre- 
 pare him for departure. 
 
 * What Sahib s horse ? ' Vernon asked 
 with that imperative Inquisltlveness that the 
 superior race allows itself In India. 
 
 ' Boldero Sahib,' replied the breathless 
 groom ; and before many minutes more 
 * Boldero Sahib ' himself began to be appa- 
 rent on the opposite hillside. 
 
 * The Impetuous Boldero,' cried Vernon^
 
 To the Hills ! 215 
 
 * riding abroad, redressing human wrongs, 
 and doing his best, as usual, to break his 
 neck, as if there could by any possibility be 
 anything worth hurrying about in the plains 
 below. Now, Maud, you will see a real 
 philanthropist in flesh and blood.' 
 
 Presently the tiny distant object had 
 shaped itself into a man-and-horse, and in 
 a quarter of an hour more Boldero came 
 clattering into the yard, had slung himself 
 out of the saddle in a moment, and was 
 already preparing to mount his new horse, 
 when he discovered the Vernons, and was 
 introduced to Maud. He seemed to have 
 broken like a whirlwind into the repose of 
 the party. His servants were evidently well 
 experienced in their master's movements ; the 
 saddle had been speedily shifted, and the 
 fresh horse was already ready for a start.
 
 2 1 6 Chronicles of Dicstypor^e. 
 
 Boldero drank off a great beaker of cold 
 water. Maud's first Impression was that he 
 looked extremely handsome and extremely 
 hot, and In better spirits and a greater hurry 
 than she had ever seen anyone In In her life. 
 Vernon, after first greetings, had speedily 
 resumed his attitude of profound repose, and 
 evidently had no Intention of being Infected 
 with bustle. 
 
 ' Come, Boldero,' he said, ' do, for good- 
 ness sake, send away your horse and wait 
 here and have some lunch, Instead of flying 
 off in such a madman's hurry. India, which 
 has already waited several thousand years for 
 your arrival to reform her, can, no doubt, 
 dispense with you for twenty minutes more ; 
 and Fortune does not send good meetings 
 every day.' 
 
 'Yes, Mr. Boldero,' said Felicia, 'and I
 
 To the Hills! 217 
 
 have just been making a salad, which I am 
 delighted you have arrived to admire ; and 
 I daresay you have half-a-dozen new ferns 
 to show me.' 
 
 ' I am pledged to be at Dustypore to- 
 morrow, and ought to be ten miles further 
 on my way by this time,' said Boldero. 
 * However, there is a glorious moon all 
 through the night, and this delightful 
 Doongla Gully seems set as a snare to 
 beguile one into loitering by the way. What 
 a sweet little oasis it is among all the gloom 
 of the mountains ! ' 
 
 ' Now, Maud,' said Vernon, ' I'll give you 
 an idea of what the virtuous civilian does. 
 He rides all night, he works all day.' 
 
 ' Or rather,' said Boldero, who had as 
 much dislike as the rest of the army of good 
 fellows to being the topic of conversation.
 
 2 1 8 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 *by night he dances, by clay he plays at 
 Badminton. My visit to the Viceroy was 
 nothing, except for the solemnity of the affair/ 
 *Well,' answered Vernon, 'and now you 
 come just in time to give my cousin a lesson 
 in water-colours. You must know, Maud, 
 that Mr. Boldero carried off the prize at 
 Elysium for a mountain-sketch last year. 
 Now, Boldero, be good-natured, and tell the 
 mystery of your mountain skies, which, 
 though I deny their fidelity, are, I must 
 admit, as beautiful as the real ones.' 
 
 * Will you ? ' said Maud, her eyes flashing 
 out and her colour coming at the mere 
 thought of what she especially desired. 
 
 * Will I not ? ' Boldero said, with alacrity. 
 *What pleasanter afternoons w^ork could 
 Fortune send one ? ' And thereupon Maud's 
 sketch-book was produced.
 
 To the Hills ! 219 
 
 * Did you ever see such a daub ? ' she cried. 
 * It looks worse now it is dry than when I did 
 it. It is so provoking ! I feel the scenes — 
 I have them all beautifully in my mind, and 
 then come those horrid, hard, blotchy heaps. 
 Just look at this odious mountain ! Alas ! 
 alas ! ' Maud went on ruthlessly blotting- 
 out her morning's work, which, to tell the 
 truth, did not deserve immortality. 
 
 ' You made it a little too blue,' said her „ 
 tutor. ' See, now ; I will tone it down for 
 you in a minute.' 
 
 * No, no,' cried Maud; *let us have some- 
 thing fresh, that I have not desecrated by a 
 caricature. Here, this in front of us will be 
 lovely.' 
 
 ' See,' said Boldero ; ' we will have that 
 little bit of dark shade, and that jolly little 
 cloud overhead.*
 
 2 20 CJiroiiiclcs of Dicstyporc. 
 
 Maud's face g-Iowed widi pleasure, and 
 her companion's last diought of getting in 
 time to Dustypore disappeared. 
 
 Before the sketch was done the evening 
 shadows were already fast climbing up the 
 mountain's side ; the valley's short clay was 
 over ; cold masses of vapour were gathering 
 about the crag.s ; and the moon, that was to 
 light the traveller through his night-long 
 journey, was sailing, pale and ghost-like, 
 overhead. Boldero waved them a last fare- 
 well as he disappeared round the opposite 
 hillside, and seemed to Maud's excited 
 imagination like some knight-errant riding 
 down into the gloom.
 
 22[ 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A DISTRICT OFFICER. 
 
 Their aches, hopes, 
 Their pangs of love, with other incident throes, 
 That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain 
 In life's uncertain voyage. — Tivion of Athens. 
 
 BoLDERO was one of the Oueen's orood 
 bargains. His mind teemed with schemes 
 for the regeneration of mankind ; disappoint- 
 ment could not damp his hopefulness, nor 
 difficulty cool his zeal ; he was an enthusiast 
 for improvement, and the firmest believer in 
 its possibility. Against stupidity, obstinacy, 
 the blunders of routine, official vis inerticr, he 
 waged a warfare which, if not always discreet.
 
 22 2 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 Avas sufficiently vigorous to plague his oppo 
 neiits. 
 
 ' See,' cries Mr. Browning's philanthropist, 
 
 I have drawn a pattern on my nail, 
 And 1 will carve the world fresh after it. 
 
 Boldero's nails were absolutely covered with 
 new patterns, and the little bit of the world 
 on which he was able to operate was con- 
 tinually being carved into some Improved 
 condition. Nature having gifted him with 
 courage, high spirit, resource, inventiveness, 
 enterprise, and, precious gift, administrative 
 effectiveness, and Fortune and the Staff Corps 
 having guided his steps from a frontier 
 regiment to a civilian appointment In the 
 Sandy Tracts, his importance was speedily 
 appreciated. Wherever he looked at the 
 machinery about him he saw things out of 
 gear, and working badly, and he forthwith
 
 A District Officer. 22 
 
 o 
 
 became possessed with devices to improve 
 them. He saw material, money, time, 
 wasted; wheel catching against wheel, and 
 producing all sorts of bad results by the 
 friction ; office coming to dead-lock with 
 office ; one blundering head knocking against 
 another ; wants to which no one attended ; 
 wrongs which no one avenged ; sufferings to 
 which no hand brought relief. Some men 
 see such things, and acquiesce in them as 
 inevitable, or relieve themselves by cynical 
 remarks on the best of all possible worlds. 
 Boldero felt it all as a personal misfortune, 
 and was incapable of acquiescence. Thus 
 he was for ever discovering grievances, 
 which, when once discovered, no one could 
 deny. His reports to Government sent a 
 little shudder through the Chief Secretary's 
 soul. I
 
 2 24 Chronicles of Diistyporc. 
 
 The Salt Board regarded him with es- 
 pecial disfavour. Cockshaw cursed liim for 
 the long correspondence he involved. 
 Fotheringham thought him dangerous, rash, 
 Quixotic. Even Blunt accorded him but 
 a scanty approval, Blunt's view being al- 
 ways the rough, commonplace, and unsenti- 
 mental, and Boldero's projects Involving a 
 constant temptation to expenditure. But the 
 Agent was a finer judge of character than 
 any of them, and his keen eye speedily de- 
 tected Boldero s rare merits, and his fitness 
 for responsible employment. Boldero had 
 more than justified the Agent's hopes, and 
 accordingly moved rapidly up from one post 
 to another, and was now acting as Chief 
 Magistrate of the district next to Dustypore. 
 Here his energetic temperament had the 
 fullest play. He built, he planted, he
 
 The District Office7\ 225 
 
 drained. Sunrise found him ever in the 
 saddle. He drove his Municipal Committee 
 wild with projects of reform water supply, 
 vaccination, canals, maps, and public gardens. 
 He fulminated the most furious orders ; 
 plunged into all sorts of controversies, was 
 always waging war in some quarter or other, 
 and manufactured for himself even a hotter 
 world than Nature had provided ready-made. 
 He offended the doctors by invading the hos- 
 pitals and pointing out how the patients 
 were killed by defective arrangements ; the 
 Chaplain, by objecting to the ventilation of 
 the church and the length of the sermons ; 
 the Educational Department by a savage 
 tirade on the schools ; and the General In 
 command by a bold assault on the drainage 
 of the barracks. Altogether a bustling, 
 joyous, irrepressible sort of man, and, as the 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 2 26 Chronicles of Dicstyporc. 
 
 Agent knew, a perfect treasure in a land 
 where energy and enthusiasm are hard to 
 keep at boihng* heat, and where to get a thing 
 done, despite the piles of official correspond- 
 ence it gets buried under, is a result as 
 precious as it is difficult of achievement. 
 
 When he first came to India he had been 
 for a couple of years in Sutton's regiment, 
 and at the time of Sutton's illness the two 
 had almost lived together. The intimacy so 
 formed had ripened into a cordial friendship, 
 and Boldero had thus become a not un- 
 frequent visitor at the Vernons' house, 
 where though her husband pronounced him 
 an enthusiastic bore, Felicia ever accorded 
 him a kindly welcome. He had now, how- 
 ever, carried away with him that which 
 speedily cured him of enthusiasm, and, 
 rather, forbade him to feel enthusiastic about
 
 The District Officer, 227 
 
 any thing but one. With his accustomed ear- 
 nest precipitancy he had fallen deeply in 
 love with Maud the first moment he had 
 seen her, and all his afternoon had been 
 spent in that paradise which springs into 
 sudden existence beneath a happy lovers 
 feet. Maud had been delighted with him 
 for being so handsome, so good-natured, and 
 the latest comer. And, then, was not he 
 Sutton's friend, whose care and kindness had 
 brought him from Death s door ? Maud 
 thought of this with a gush of interest, and 
 rained the sweetest and most gracious smiles 
 upon him in consequence. Those bright 
 looks pursued him down the mountain's side 
 the livelong night, and next day into court 
 and office and all the hundred businesses of 
 a busy ofiicial's day. So bright were they, 
 even in recollection, that all the brightness 
 
 Q2
 
 2 28 Chrojiiclcs of Dustypore. 
 
 seemed to have faded out of everything else. 
 The details of his District, lately so full of in- 
 terest, had become the dreariest routine. Im- 
 jDrovements which, when last he thought of 
 them, seemed of vital importance, faded 
 away 'into uselessness or impossibility. A 
 great pile of papers stood, ranged upon the 
 study table, inviting disposal. A week ago 
 Boldero would have fallen upon them like a 
 glutton on some favourite repast, and driven 
 through them with alacrity and enjoyment. 
 Now he had not the -heart to touch them. A 
 week ago the plains, with all their draw- 
 backs, were pleasanter far, for a healthy man, 
 than the indolent comforts and dull frivolities 
 of a Hill station. Now, alas ! Elysium was 
 the only place where life — any life, that is, 
 which deserved the name — was to be had. 
 Meanwhile, the object of his devotion
 
 The District Officer. 229 
 
 was conscious only of having had a very- 
 pleasant afternoon and added one more to 
 an already ample list of agreeable acquaint- 
 ances. By the time she arrived at Elysium, 
 next day, Boldero had faded into indistinct- 
 ness, and his chance meeting with them 
 figured in Maud's thoughts only as one, and 
 not the most striking, incident of a journey 
 which had been to her full of things new, 
 interesting, and picturesque.
 
 230 Chronicles of D^istypore, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ELYSIUM. 
 
 For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled 
 Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly 
 
 curled 
 Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming wold. 
 
 The conquering races who, in one age or 
 another, have owned the fair plains of 
 Hindostan have successively made the dis- 
 covery that there are portions of the year 
 when their magnificent possession had best 
 be contemplated from a respectful distance. 
 Some monarchs retired from the summer to 
 the exquisite Cashmir valleys. Some to cool 
 plateaux in the far interior. The latest ad- 
 ministrators of the country have solved the
 
 Elysmin, 231 
 
 problem by perching, through the hot 
 season, on the summits of a craggy 
 range, and by performing the functions of 
 Government at an altitude of 7,000 feet 
 above the sea. 
 
 The fact that the highest officials In the 
 country, having a large amount of hard work 
 to do, should prefer to do It In an invigora- 
 ting mountain atmosphere, rather than amid 
 swamps, steam, and fever In the plains below, 
 is not, of course, surprising. The only 
 matter of regret Is, that the obvious advan- 
 tages, public and private, of an European 
 climate for half the year can, from the 
 nature of things, be enjoyed by so tiny a 
 fraction of the official world. As it Is, the 
 annual removal of the Government to its 
 summer quarters gives rise too often to a 
 little outburst of unreasonable though not
 
 232 Chronicles of Dies typ ore. 
 
 unnatural jealousy ; and Indian journalists, 
 who are necessarily closely pinned to the 
 plains, are never tired of inveighing against 
 the * Capua ' of the British rule. The truth 
 is, however, that if Hannibal's soldiers had 
 worked half as hard at Capua as English 
 officials do at Elysium, nothing but good 
 could have resulted from their sojourn in 
 that agreeable resting-place. Of the holiday-^ 
 makers it may safely be said that, in nine 
 cases out of ten, they have earned, by long 
 months of monotonous, laborious, and almost 
 solitary life, a good right to all the refresh- 
 ment of body and soul that a brief interval 
 of cool breezes, new faces, and an amusing 
 society can give them. The ' Jack ' of the 
 Civil Service is often a dull boy because the 
 stern rdgime of ' all work and no play ' is too 
 rigorously enforced upon him. Let no one,
 
 Elysium, 233 
 
 therefore, grudge him his few weeks of rest 
 and merry-making, or mock at the profuse 
 homage with which the goddess Terpsichore 
 is adored by her modern votaries on the 
 Himalayan heights. 
 
 Elysium, indeed, enchants one on the 
 first approach. You clamber for weary miles 
 up a long, blazing ascent, where even the 
 early morning sun seems to sting and pierce. 
 As the road turns, you enter suddenly a 
 sweet depth of shade formed by thick 
 growths of ilex and rhododendron, from the 
 breaks in which you look out at ease upon 
 the blazing day beyond. Dotted all about 
 the road, above and below, perched on every 
 convenient rock or level ridge of soil, or 
 sometimes built up on a framework of piles, 
 are the homes of the Elysians, not, alas 1 
 the ideals which the imagination would con-
 
 234 Chronicles of D it sty pore. 
 
 celve of the abodes of the blest, but seaside 
 lodgings, of a by no means first-rate order, 
 with precipices, clouds, and rain, Instead of 
 sea. Presently the road fails at a great 
 chasm in the mountain-side, and the horses' 
 feet clatter over a frail-looking structure of 
 planks and scaffolding hanging on the moun- 
 tain's edge. This Is merely a landslip, an 
 event too common even to be observed. 
 Each heavy rainfall, however, washes an 
 appreciable fraction of the Elysian summits 
 to the depths below, and leaves the craggy 
 sides barer and steeper than ever. Then, 
 emerging from the ilex grove, the traveller 
 passes to a little Mall, where the fashionable 
 world assembles for mutual deliberation, and 
 the tide of life, business, and gaiety flows 
 fast and strong. There is something in the 
 air of the place which bespeaks the close
 
 Elysmm. 235 
 
 neighbourhood of the Sovereign rule, the 
 august dimax of the official hierarchy. Ser- 
 vants, brilliant in scarlet-and-gold, are hurry- 
 ing hither and thither. Here some Rajah,, 
 petty monarch of the surrounding ranges or 
 the fat plains below, attended with his mimic 
 court and tatterdemalion cavalry, is march- 
 ing in state to pay his homage to the ' great 
 Lord Sahib.' Here some grand lady, whose 
 gorgeous attire and liveried retinue bespeak 
 her sublime position, is constrained to bate 
 her greatness to the point of being carried, 
 slung like the grapes of Eschol, ,on a pole, 
 and borne on sturdy peasants' shoulders, to 
 pay a round of the ceremonious visits which 
 etiquette enjoins upon her. Officers, secre- 
 taries, aides-de-camp come bustling by on 
 mountain-ponies, each busy on his own be- 
 hest. The energetic army of morning callers
 
 22,6 Chronicles of Dnstypore. 
 
 are already in the field. A dozen palanquins 
 gathered at Madame Fifini's, the Elysian 
 ' Worth,' announce the fact that as many 
 ladies are hard at work within, running up 
 long bills for their husbands, and equipping 
 themselves for conquest at the next Govern- 
 ment House 'at home.' Smartly-furnished 
 shops glitter with all the latest finery of Paris 
 and London, and ladies go jogging along on 
 their bearers' shoulders, gay enough for a 
 London garden-party in July. In the midst 
 of all, the solid basis on which so huge a 
 structure of business, pomp, and pleasure is 
 erected, clumps the British Private, brushed, 
 buttoned, and rigid, with a loud, heavy tread 
 which contrasts strangely with the noiselessly 
 moving crowd around him, and bespeaks his 
 conscious superiority to a race of beings 
 whom, with a lordly indifference to minute
 
 Elysium. 237 
 
 ethnological distinctions, he designates collec- 
 tively as * Moors.' 
 
 Some servants were waiting at the en- 
 trance of the place to conduct the Vernons 
 to their home, and before many minutes the 
 travellers were standing in the balcony,, 
 looking out on the steep slopes of green 
 foliage below them and noble snow-ranges- 
 which bounded the entire horizon. Maud 
 soon rushed off to explore the house, and 
 Felicia made her way to the garden, to, see 
 how many of last summers plants the winter 
 had spared to her. Presently she came in, 
 with dew-bedrenched sleeves and gloves, and 
 an armful of sparkling roses, geraniums, and 
 heliotropes, and deposited them joyously in a 
 heap on the table. 
 
 ' There,' she cried, ' is my first fruit-offer- 
 ing. Bury your face in them, George, and do
 
 238 Chronicles of Dicstypore, 
 
 homage, as I have been doing, to the Genius of 
 the Hills ! Come here, babies, and be crowned.' 
 FeHcia knelt down and stuck the chil- 
 dren's hair full of flowers, till each looked as 
 gaudy as a little Queen of May. Her hus- 
 band came and stood over them and 
 Avatched the scene. 
 
 * Now,' he said, ' Felicia, you ought to be 
 quite happy — you have your children and 
 your flowers to adore at once.' 
 
 * And my husband,' said Felicia, looking 
 up at him, with her sweet, radiant smile. 
 ^ And, oh dear, how I wish you had not to 
 go down again to-night! Do you know, 
 George, I mind each separation worse than 
 the last ? Next summer we will send the 
 children straight to '' the Gully," and we will 
 stay comfortably together.' 
 
 Maud came back in the highest spirits.
 
 Elysitcvi, 239 
 
 * Look here,' she said, showing a handful of 
 snow, and fingers red and blue with unaccus- 
 tomed cold — ' how nice It Is to feel It once 
 again ! And what nectar the air Is ! And, 
 George, actually, strawberries ! ' 
 
 * Yes,' said Vernon, ' and cream, and 
 plenty of both. Is It not enchanting ? ' 
 
 * You shall have some flowers too, dear, 
 cried Maud, who seldom missed an oppor- 
 tunity of petting Felicia and letting her 
 love run out In some pretty act or speech. 
 
 * See, this rose was made for me to deck 
 you with. Does she not look charming, 
 George ? ' 
 
 * Hush ! ' said George ; ' we shall make 
 her and the little girls too as vain as possible. 
 Now, as I suppose nobody means to crown 
 me, I vote that you go and get ready for 
 breakfast, and I will prepare Maud a plate of
 
 240 Chronicles of Dustyporc. 
 
 strawberrlcs-and-crcam, by way of beginning 
 the feast.' 
 
 That morning lived ever afterwards in 
 Maud's thoughts as one of the times when 
 the world looked brightest to her. Every- 
 thing was full of excitement, interest, and keen 
 pleasure. If, from time to time, a thought of 
 Sutton set her heart beating, It was more 
 that she had learnt to worship him as an 
 ideal of all that was most charming in man 
 than that his absence cost her any serious 
 regret. It had given her a pang to part, 
 and to feel how little of a pang it had given 
 him. He had been almost unconscious of her 
 departure ; he had been certainly quite, quite 
 indifferent to it. Such insensibility was a little 
 speck on the otherwise spotless perfection ; 
 but Maud's heart was too light for this to 
 weigh it down for long. A long, charming
 
 Elysium. 241 
 
 vista of enjoyment was opening before her. 
 Half-a-dozen people, she knew, were awaiting 
 her arrival with impatience, and thought 
 Elysium not quite Elysium till she came. 
 Before the morning was over there would 
 come, so her prophetic soul announced, kind 
 familiar faces, all the brighter for her pre- 
 sence, with all sorts of delightful projects, 
 often talked of beforehand, now to come into 
 actual fruition ; rides, picnics, dances, thea- 
 tricals, and (thrilling thought !) a fancy ball, 
 at which Maud had already found herself 
 twenty times whirling in anticipated valses, 
 each more enchanting than the last. Who 
 could contemplate such a prospect with equa- 
 nimity ? or whose heart have room for 
 gloomy thoughts with so many bright dreams 
 to crush them out ? Then, presently, there 
 came a note from Mrs. Vereker bidding her 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 a cordial welcome, and threatening her high 
 displeasure if Maud's first visit was not to 
 her. To Mrs. Vereker's accordingly they 
 went, and found her in a little cottage, 
 romantically stuck into a cleft in the rocks, 
 with a cataract of honeysuckle tumbling all 
 about a wooden porch, and a view of the 
 mountains which even her adorers, burning 
 to behold herself, were yet constrained to 
 stop and look at. There was a little court, 
 with a wooden railing to guard the edge, and 
 geraniums blazing all about it, where a suc- 
 cession of adorers' ponies waited while their 
 owners did homage within. Through that 
 convenient cranny in the foliage the deity, 
 imseen, could spy the approaching visitor 
 and decide betimes whether she would be at 
 home or not. Now she was unquestionably 
 at home, and met them at the door with
 
 Elysmni. 243 
 
 merry greetings. She led them in, and 
 showed them her drawing-room, the very 
 home of Innocence and refined propriety. 
 * My husband does not wish me to mope 
 when he Is away,' she said, with a charming 
 simple smile ; and, to do her justice, In this 
 respect, at any rate, she obeyed his wishes. 
 If the loveliest, freshest bonnets, the daintiest 
 gloves, the most picturesque mountain cos- 
 tumes, a succession of bewildering head- 
 dresses, could rescue a widowed soul from 
 melancholy, Mrs. Vereker had no right to 
 gloom ; nor was hers the only nature that 
 was cheered, for all mankind conspired to 
 assure her that she was the most bewitchinof 
 of her sex. Turn where she would she found 
 a host of willing courtiers, who thought their 
 assiduous services well rewarded with a 
 single smile. She looked at the world 
 R 2
 
 244 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 through her beautiful purple eyes, and saw it 
 prostrate at her feet. 
 
 Even Felicia was captivated, despite her 
 own convictions ; and Vernon alone of the 
 party declared her a little ogling hypocrite, 
 and pronounced himself unable to under- 
 stand how anyone could think her even 
 pretty.
 
 245 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 A BATTLE ROYAL. 
 Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer 
 
 Leaving the celestials to their business and 
 pleasures in the upper regions, the Historic 
 Muse must now descend into the plains and 
 record the wrath of Blunt, and the more 
 than Homeric combats which, stirred by Ate 
 in her most malignant mood, that irre- 
 pressible official waged against his luckless 
 compeers at the Board. The outbreak was 
 horribly inopportune. The weather was -be- 
 coming disagreeably hot ; Cockshaw was 
 looking up his rifles and fishing-rods for a
 
 246 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 month's run into Cashmir ; Fotherlngham 
 was preparing to retire behind his cuscus en- 
 trenchments, and sestlvate in placidity till 
 the moment arrived for going to the hills ; 
 but the black soul of Blunt was impervious 
 to climatic influences ; his craving for Inform- 
 ation became more insatiable, his contempt 
 for Fotheringham's platitudes and Strutt's 
 tall writing less and less disguised. The 
 further Blunt looked into the Rumble 
 Chunder affair the keener crrew his sense 
 of the feeble, round about, inaccurate, un- 
 thorough way in which it had been treated 
 by everyone who had essayed to take It in 
 hand. * The way to handle nettles,' he said, 
 roughly, ' is to take tight hold of them, and 
 bear what stinging you get and have done 
 with it.' 
 
 Neither Fotherlngham nor Cockshaw
 
 A Battle Royal. 247 
 
 were in the least disposed to handle official 
 nettles, or to admit the force of Blunts logic 
 as applied to themselves, 
 
 * Some nettles/ Fotheringham said, with 
 dignified composure, ' will not bear handling 
 at all. Many of our Indian institutions you 
 will find, Blunt, require a course of treatment 
 always unpopular with ardent physicians ; 
 that, namely, of being left alone.' 
 
 ' Aye,' said Cockshaw, blowing a great 
 stream of smoke from his mouth, as if he 
 wished he could treat Blunt and his schemes 
 in like fashion ; ' leave well alone, Blunt. 
 What the deuce is it you are driving at ? ' 
 
 ' I'll tell you what I am driving at,' said 
 Blunt : ' I want to be out of the muddle in 
 which we have been going on all these years, 
 just for want of a little explicitness and 
 courage.'
 
 248 Chronicles of Dtistypore, 
 
 * Excuse me,' said Fotherlngham, testily ; 
 * I am not aware that the conquerors and 
 administrators of the Sandy Tracts have 
 ever been accused of deficiency in courage, 
 at any rate.' 
 
 ' Of course not,' answered the other ; ' no 
 one supposes anything of the sort ; but v^^hat 
 I mean is that no one has faced the conse- 
 quences of that confounded Proclamation of 
 the Governor-General in a plain, business-like 
 way, and seen what it really comes to.' 
 
 Now, the Governor-General's Proclama- 
 tion was regarded in official circles at 
 Dustypore with a sort of traditional awe, as 
 something almost sacred. Fotheringham 
 had often spoken of it as the Magna Charta 
 of the Sandy Tracts, and Strutt generally 
 quoted it in the peroration of his Annual 
 Report: nothing, accordingly, could be less
 
 A Battle Royal. 249 
 
 congenial to his audience than Blunt's 
 coarse, off-handed, disrespectful way of re- 
 ferring to It. Fotherlngham's whole nature 
 was in arms against the Idea of this rash, 
 irreverential Intruder handling with such 
 jaunty freedom and contempt the things 
 which he had all his life been accustomed 
 to treat and to see treated with profound 
 respect. The moment had now come when 
 to put up with Blunt any longer would, he 
 thought, be simple weakness ; the cup of 
 Blunt's misdeeds at last was full ; and 
 Fotherlngham, his patience fairly at an end, 
 pale and excited, spoke, and spoke in wrath. 
 
 ' I must beg,' he said, in a tone of 
 aggrieved dignity which Blunt especially 
 resented, 'to remind our junior colleague 
 that there are some things of which his Inex- 
 perience of the country renders it impossible
 
 250 CJironiclcs of Diistypore. 
 
 for him to be a competent judge, and of 
 which, when he knows them better, he will 
 probably think and speak with more respect. 
 This Rumble Chunder Grant is one of them. 
 Cockshaw and I have been at work at it for 
 twenty years : we know the places, the people, 
 the language, the feeling it excites, the 
 dangers it may provoke. The Proclamation, 
 which Blunt is pleased to describe as ' con- 
 founded,' was, we know, a high-minded, well- 
 considered act of a great statesman, and has 
 been the foundation-stone of all peace, 
 prosperity, and civilisation in the province. 
 It all seems clear to you, my good sir, 
 because — forgive me for saying it — you do 
 not see the intricacies of the matter, and 
 are incapable of appreciating its bearings. 
 
 For my part ' 
 
 ' Come, come, Fotheringham,' said Cock-
 
 A Bailie Royal, 251 
 
 shaw, who had been looking nervously at his. 
 watch, and knew that it wanted only seven 
 minutes to the hour at which his afternoon 
 game of racquets should begin, * don't let us 
 drift into a quarrel. As to speaking rudely 
 of the Proclamation, it is as bad as the man 
 who damned the North Pole, you know — . 
 no harm is done to anyone by that. Blunt 
 is not so nervous about the matter as we 
 are, because he has not had such a deal of 
 bother over it as we have had. My idea is 
 that we have gone into it of late quite as far 
 as we can just now. Suppose we drop it for 
 the present, and take it up again in the cold 
 weather ? ' 
 
 * I object altogether,' Blunt said, in a 
 dogged way, which made Cockshaw give up 
 his chance of racquets that day as desperate. 
 * That system of postponements is one of the
 
 ^52 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 objectionable practices which I especially de- 
 precate. Whenever any of us get hold of a 
 thing which he does not fancy, or cannot or 
 will not understand, he puts it into his box 
 and burkes it, and no more is heard of it for 
 a twelvemonth. I would sooner take the 
 chance of going wrong than the certainty of 
 doing nothing.' 
 
 * And 1/ answered Cockshaw, lighting a 
 new cheroot with the remaining fraction of 
 his old one, ' would sooner take the risk of a 
 little delay than the certainty of going wrong, 
 as you will do to a moral certainty if you are 
 in such a devil of a hurry.' 
 
 * Please, Cockshaw,' said Fotheringham, 
 to whom his colleague's cheroots and bad 
 language were a chronic affliction, ' do not 
 lose your temper. For my part, I was going 
 to observe when - you interrupted me just
 
 A Battle Royal. 253, 
 
 now, I really do not know what it is that 
 Blunt imagines could be done.* 
 
 * This could be done/ Blunt said — ' we 
 could bring things to a head, and know 
 exactly how we stand ; ascertain the claims, 
 the rights, and at what prices we could 
 buy the owners of them out' 
 
 * My good sir,' Fotheringham exclaimed, 
 by this time fairly in a passion, 'that is 
 exactly what all of us have been trying to 
 do for the last ten years, and you talk as if 
 it could be done out of hand.' 
 
 ' And so it could,' cried Blunt, ' if anyone 
 would only resolve to do it. I tell you what : 
 let me have Whisp and a few clerks and 
 translators, and hold a local commission, and 
 I will go into the District myself and knock 
 my way through the matter somehow or 
 other.'
 
 254 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 ' You will find it infernally hot,' said 
 •Cockshaw. 
 
 ' You will have a rising on the frontier/ 
 said Fotheringham, ' mark my words, and 
 •come back deeper in difficulties than ever.' 
 
 However, Blunt at last got his way, and 
 went off trotting on his cob ; Cockshaw es- 
 •caped gleefully to the racquet-court; and 
 Fotheringham sat sadly at the Board-room, 
 ■conscious of present harassment and im- 
 pending disaster. Both he and Blunt used 
 to carry away with them to their domestic 
 circles the traces of the conflicts in which 
 they had been engaged : both reached their 
 homes in a truly pitiable state of mind and 
 body whenever this hateful Rumble Chunder 
 Grant affair was on hand : both ladies knew 
 only too well the days when it formed part of 
 the programme. Blunt used to stamp about
 
 A Battle Royal. 255 
 
 and abuse the servants, emphasising his 
 language with various vehement British ex- 
 pletives, quaffing large goblets of brandy and 
 soda-water, as If to assuage an Inward fury, 
 and making no secret of his opinion that 
 Fotheringham was a donkey. Fothering- 
 ham, on the other hand, retired to his sofa, 
 called for sal-volatile, had both the Misses 
 Fotheringham to bathe his temples with 
 toilet-vinegar, and breathed a hint that poor 
 Blunt was a terribly uncouth fellow, and that 
 it was extremely disagreeable to have to do 
 with people who, not being gentlemen them- 
 selves, could not understand what gentlemen 
 felt. Mrs. Fotheringham thought so too, 
 and began, on her part, not to love Mrs. 
 Blunt.
 
 256 Chronicles of Dtistyporc, 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 GAUD I A IN EXCEL SIS. 
 
 Ouis non malarum quas Amor curas habet 
 Hasc inter obliviscitur ? 
 
 Before many weeks had passed Sutton and 
 Desvoeux came up to Elysium for their holi- 
 days, and Maud's cup of pleasure began to 
 overflow. Boldero, moreover, to the great sur- 
 prise of everyone, discovered that the plains 
 were telling seriously on his constitution, and, 
 despite the lamentations of his Commissioner, 
 who was at his wits' end to find a satisfactory 
 substitute, insisted on carrying out the doc- 
 tors recommendation to try a change of air.
 
 Gatidia in Excelsis. 257 
 
 ' I am sorry you are 111,' the Commis- 
 sioner said, 'and overworked, but what on 
 earth am I to do without you ? No one 
 understands anything about our arterial 
 drainage scheme but you ; and who is to 
 open the new cattle fair ? And then there 
 is that lakh of saplings we had determined 
 to plant out in the rains — my dear fellow, 
 don't go till October, at any rate.' 
 
 But Boldero was inexorable : the arterial 
 drainage of the Sandy Tracts, new cattle fairs, 
 and even the delicious prospect of planting 
 out a hundred thousand trees in a region 
 where a tree was almost as great a pheno- 
 menon as Dr. Johnson found it in the 
 Hebrides — all seemed to him but as hollow 
 dreams, which fell meaningless on the ear, 
 when compared with the solid reality of a 
 personal romance. To go to Elysium, to 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 see Maud again, to hear her joyous laugh, 
 to watch her eyes hght up with pleasure, and 
 the colour coming and going in her cheeks, 
 as each new turn of feeling swayed her this 
 way or that ; to hold her hand in his, and 
 feel a subtle, electric Influence flashing from 
 her to him and stirring every nerve and fibre 
 of his being into new existence ; and then to 
 win this sweet creature to him with a tender 
 avowal of devotion, and the sweet coercion 
 of passionate attachment ; to bring her to 
 irradiate a dreary, solitary life with youth, 
 beauty, freshness, everything that Boldero 
 now discovered that his own existence 
 wanted ; this was the dream which filled his 
 waking and sleeping thoughts, or, rather, this 
 was the reality, and everything else was dream- 
 land ; far off, unsubstantial, unsatisfying. 
 What, to a man in this mood, are reclama-
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis. 259 
 
 tion schemes, and irrigation projects, and all 
 the vexatious details involved in improving 
 thankless people against their wills, edu- 
 cating those who do not want to be taught, 
 and aiming at a chimerical Golden Age, 
 which no one is sure can ever come, and 
 which, at any rate, we shall never see ? 
 Boldero confessed to himself that a morning s 
 sketching on the mountain's side with Maud 
 was, as far as his interest about the matter 
 went, worth more than all the Golden Ages 
 that poets have sung or philanthropists de- 
 vised. The utmost concession that the 
 Commissioner could get out of him was that 
 he would go only for a fortnight. And so to 
 Elysium he came among the rest. 
 
 There may be natures to whom, accord- 
 ing to Sir Cornewall Lewis's dictum, life 
 would be tolerable but for its enjoyments ;
 
 26o Chronicles of Diistyporc. 
 
 , but the Elysiumites, assuredly, are not of the 
 number. They go about pleasure-hunting 
 with a vehemence the stronger and keener 
 for the long period of partial or total absti- 
 nence from amusement which most of them 
 have undergone. A soldier's wife who has 
 been for months marching up and down a 
 desert frontier, with no attainable form of 
 excitement but the agreeable possibility of 
 having one's throat cut In the night or a 
 bullet cleverly lodged in one from behind a 
 rock overhead — the engineer who has been 
 for months out in camp with little com- 
 panionship but that of theodolites and maps 
 — the forest superintendent who has spent a 
 twelvemonth among the deodars in some 
 nameless Himalayan gorge — the civilian who 
 has carried off his bride to a solitary exist- 
 ence In some far-off Mofussll station, where
 
 Gaicdia in Excelsis. 261 
 
 the only European is perhaps an excise officer 
 or policeman — people like these acquire a 
 keen relish for any change of scene, and rush 
 into a holiday with the enthusiasm of long- 
 imprisoned schoolboys. Nothing damps 
 their ardour — not even Himalayan rain, which 
 effectually damps everything else. There is 
 a ball, for instance, at the Club House ; it is 
 raining cataracts, and has been doing so for 
 twenty hours. The mountain paths are knee- 
 deep in mud, and swept by many a turgid 
 torrent rattling from above. Great masses of 
 thunder-cloud come looming up, rumbling, 
 crashing, and blazing upon a sodden, reeking 
 world. The night is black as Tartarus, save 
 when the frequent flashes light it up with a 
 momentary glare. The road is steep, rough, 
 and not too safe. Carriages, of course, there 
 are none. A false step might send you
 
 262 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 several thousand feet down the precipice 
 into the valley below. Will all this prevent 
 Jones the Collector, and Brown the Police- 
 man, and Smith of the Irregular Cavalry 
 putting their respective ladies into palan- 
 quins, mounting their ponies like men, and 
 finding their way, through field and flood, to 
 the scene of dissipation ? Each will en- 
 sconce himself in a panoply of indiarubber, 
 and require a great deal of peeling before be- 
 coming presentable in a ballroom ; but each 
 will get himself peeled, and dance till four 
 o'clock. The ladies will emerge from their 
 palanquins as fresh and bright and ambrosial 
 as lace and tarlatan can make them. Mrs. 
 Jones, if she would only tell the truth, has 
 already more than half-filled up her card 
 with engagements. Smith and his wife have 
 never been at a dance since the niofht he
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis. 263 
 
 proposed to her at the Woolwich ball, and 
 feel quite romantic at the prospect of a valse 
 together. Mrs. Brown will meet half-a-dozen 
 particular friends who are dying to see her, 
 and whom she Is not averse to see. The 
 night outside is Tartarean, certainly, but 
 within there Is nothing but light, music, and 
 mirth. The band crashes out and drowns 
 the patter of the rain above ; the Viceroy, 
 towering like a Homeric chief among his 
 peers, mingles with the throng, and Is valsing 
 with Felicia. Boldero has reached the 
 seventh heaven of his hopes, and actually 
 has possession of Maud's hand, and has her 
 heart beating close to his own. Desvceux 
 looks reproachfully at her over Mrs. Vereker s 
 shoulder as they go whirling by — a hundred 
 happy hearts are pulsating with excite- 
 ment and pleasure, drowning the cares of
 
 264 Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 existence In such transient oblivion as may 
 be manufactured out of fiddlers and cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 Is this the race which proclaims itself in- 
 adept at amusement, and which, historians 
 gravely assure us, loves to take its very 
 pleasures sadly ? Are these the melancholy 
 beings whose gloom is supposed to have ac- 
 quired a still sadder tinge from the sad 
 routine of Eastern life ? Say, rather, a race 
 with healthy instincts and conscious energy, 
 and the ready joyousness of youth — fittest 
 rulers of a world where much hard work is 
 to be done, where many things tend to 
 melancholy, and all things to fatigue. 
 
 Boldero, as he rode homewards (only 
 three miles out of his direct course) by the 
 side of Maud's palanquin, through the pelting- 
 rain, admitted to himself an almost unlimited
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis. 265 
 
 capacity for happiness, of which he had till 
 now been unaware. 
 
 There were some balls, moreover, when 
 it did not rain ; when the music, streaming 
 out into the still atmosphere, could be heard 
 miles away across the gorge, and the moon, 
 sailing in a cloudless sky, flooded the moun- 
 tain-sides with soft pure light. Such a night 
 was that on which the * Happy Bachelors' 
 entertained their friends. Happy indeed ! for 
 the fairest hands in Elysium had been busy 
 twining wreaths and arranging flowers, and 
 ottomans and sofas and mirrors had been 
 brought from many a despoiled drawing-room, 
 in order that the Happy Bachelors' abode 
 should be as picturesque and comfortable as 
 hands could make it. Whole conservatories 
 of lovely plants had been all the morning 
 marching up the craggy path on coolies'
 
 266 Chro7iicles of Dttsiyporc. 
 
 heads. All Elysium was alert, for the 
 Bachelors were men of taste, * well loved of 
 many a noble dame ; ' and, if not otherwise 
 fitted for the Episcopate, at any rate ful- 
 filling the Apostolic requirement of being 
 given to hospitality. 
 
 To one person, however, that ball was 
 a period of the darkest disappointment. 
 While the merriment of the eveninof was 
 raging to its height poor Boldero's heart 
 was growing colder and colder, and all his 
 pleasant schemes were rapidly melting into 
 air. The course of true love always runs de- 
 lightfully smooth when one person only is con- 
 cerned, and that person s imagination directs 
 it at his will ; but how often rude contact 
 with reality brings all our airy castle-building 
 to the ground ! Boldero, in his dreams about 
 Maud, had no doubt judged her charms
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis. 267 
 
 aright ; but he had omitted one Important con- 
 sideration, namely, that he was not the only- 
 man In the world, and that other people 
 would be likely to think about her much 
 as he did himself. This melancholy fact 
 was now borne in upon him with a 
 cruel vehemence. Maud seemed to be in 
 the greatest request, and to smile with dis- 
 tracting impartiality on all who came about 
 her. ' Why did you not ask me sooner ? ' she 
 said, reproachfully, when he came to claim a 
 dance. ' My card has been full for ages. 
 Stop — you shall have one of Mr. Desvoeux's ; 
 he does not matter, and he has put down his 
 name for several too many. Shall it be the 
 fifteenth ? ' Maud asked this in the most 
 artless way, and seemingly without a sus- 
 picion that Boldero could be otherwise than 
 pleased. Alas ! how far otherwise than
 
 268 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 pleased he felt ! The fifteenth ! and then 
 only a sort of crumb of consolation from 
 Desvoeux's over-ample banquet ! How cruel 
 for a man whose heart was beating high with 
 hope, and who had risen to that state of 
 nervous excitement when to propose would 
 have been easier than not ! The charmer 
 had come and gone. The next moment Bol- 
 dero saw her hurrying off with a new part- 
 ner, and laughing just the same joyous, child- 
 like laugh that had been ringing In his ears 
 for weeks. 'What could that idiotic young 
 ensign have said to make her laugh ?' How 
 could anyone laugh while Boldero found 
 existence rapidly growing Into a Sahara 
 around him ? What business had Maud to 
 smile so affectionately on each new-comer ? 
 Then what was this intimacy with Desvceux 
 which enabled her to treat him so uncere-
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis, 269 
 
 moniously ? How came he to be putting 
 down his name for what dances he pleased ? 
 Boldero moodily denounced her as a flirt of 
 the purest water, and not over-particular in 
 her selection of admirers. As for Desvoeux, 
 could any really nice girl like such a fop as 
 that ? Poor Boldero, in the amiable, sen- 
 sible condition of mind which jealousy pro- 
 vokes, plunged at once into despair, felt too 
 acutely miserable to dance, and resigned 
 himself, a melancholy wallflower, to the con- 
 templation of enjoyment in which fate for- 
 bade him to participate. 
 
 Presently Maud came back, and put 
 every depreciatory thought about herself to 
 instant flight. There had been some mis- 
 take about a quadrille, she said, and her 
 partner was not forthcoming, and so she had 
 taken flight ftt once. It was so dull dancing
 
 270 Chro7iicles of Dustypore. 
 
 with people one did not know ; and would it 
 not be nice if it \yas the fashion to dance 
 only with one's friends ? ' And now,' she 
 said, ' do take me outside to look at the 
 moon.' Maud was evidently bent on being 
 kind and gracious ; and Boldero, blushing to 
 think what an idiot he had been making of 
 himself, took her out into the balcony, where 
 the Bachelors' industry had worked wonders 
 with ferns and flowers, and sofas poetically 
 suggestive of a tete-a-tete, and all that an 
 artistic Bachelor s soul dreams of as appro- 
 priate to balls. There lay the still valley at 
 their feet — all its depths filled with motion- 
 less white clouds, that glistened in the moon- 
 light like a silver lake. The twinkling fires of 
 the hamlets opposite were one by one dying 
 out of sight. The solemn pine-shade all 
 around, wherever the moonligiit could not
 
 Gaudia in Excelsis. 2 7 1 
 
 pierce, made the rest of the picture seem 
 ablaze with glory. Is there a sweeter, softer 
 radiance in the world than the moonlight 
 of the Himalayas ? ' This is enchanting,' 
 Maud said, in great spirits ; ' how I should 
 like to sketch it ! Why should we not have 
 a moonlight party ? And you will do my 
 sketch for me, will you not, Mr. Boldero ? 
 Let me get Mr. Desvoeux to arrange it ; he 
 is great at such things ; and we can make him 
 sing to us and play on his guitar, which he 
 does delightfully, while we are drawing — 
 would it not be delicious ? ' Boldero, in his 
 heart, doubted the deliciousness of any pro- 
 gramme in which Desvoeux figured as a per- 
 former. He had no time to reply, however, 
 for all too soon — before, as it seemed, he and 
 his companion had well established them- 
 selves — the quadrille had ended, and Maud's
 
 272 Chronicles of Ditstypore. 
 
 claimant for the next dance came bustling 
 up ; and Maud, who thought moonlight all 
 very well, but would not have missed a valse 
 for the world, went gleefully away, smiling 
 her adorer a kind farewell that sent him 
 sevenfold deeper into love than ever. 
 
 No proposal, it was clear enough, was 
 destined to be made that night ; but would 
 the scheme look hopefuller to-morrow ? 
 Boldero lay tossing through the few hours 
 which intervened before to-morrow, already 
 reddening the eastern horizon, came, and 
 could give himself no satisfactory reply. 
 She liked him, certainly ; but with how many 
 was this precious privilege shared ? He was 
 one of the * friends ' with whom Maud liked 
 to dance ; but the list was so long, that all 
 through a long evening he could with 
 difficulty get near her for a minute. She
 
 Gatidia in Excelsis. 273 
 
 would come with him for a moonlight picnic ; 
 but then Desvoeux was to arrange it ; Sutton, 
 no doubt, to preside ; and half-a-dozen more 
 attendant courtiers to swell the little 
 monarch's train. Boldero's manly bosom 
 heaved with sighs. His servant, inex- 
 perienced in such symptoms, brought him, 
 unbidden, a large beaker of iced soda-water, 
 as if the flames of love could be extinguished 
 by that innocent beverage. 
 
 Maud had, in fact, been very much 
 impressed with Boldero, and, with the 
 frankness of inexperience, had taken good 
 care to let him know it. At this period of 
 her career novelty possessed a wondrous 
 charm, and the last admirer had a strong 
 recommendation in being the last. Boldero 
 forgot that at Elysium this fortunate advan- 
 tage was no longer his. Still, Maud smiled 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 2 74 Chronicles of Dustypore. 
 
 upon him, as she did on almost everyone 
 who aspired to her smiles. It was not so 
 much fickleness as the keen pleasure of 
 success, the most natural and pleasantest, 
 probably, of all human successes, the proved 
 capacity to charm mankind. What faint 
 adumbration of love had darkened the sun- 
 shine of her heart was all for Sutton ; and 
 even this was a sort of transient pang, which 
 the excitement of daily life made it easy to 
 forget. Knowing but faintly what love 
 meant, she mistook, as women often do, the 
 thrill of flattered vanity for solid feeling. 
 Boldero had not disguised his admiration, 
 nor Maud the pleasure which it gave her. 
 Mutual satisfaction had been the natural 
 result. Poor Boldero, who was always rush- 
 incr at conclusions, and unskilled in the tactics 
 of the feminine heart, thouo^ht himself at once
 
 Gaudia in Excelszs. " 275 
 
 the happiest of men, and gilded his horizon 
 with a bright aurora of matrimonial bHss. 
 Maud, meanwhile, by a hundred half-un- 
 conscious arts, encouraged the delusion, and 
 established the relation of friendly intimacy. 
 When he looked across the room her bright 
 eyes met his, and spoke him the heartiest 
 recognition. She would look up wearily from 
 some uncongenial companion, and find 
 Boldero watching her, and a glance would 
 sign the pledge of mutual understanding/* 
 ' Here is the song you liked,' she had said 
 only the evening before, ' and I like it too ; * 
 and then she had sung it, and each note had 
 caught a new charm in being intended 
 especially for his ear. So it was that 
 Boldero had fallen into the too common 
 mistake of impetuous lovers : he thought, 
 poor mortal, that Maud had fallen violently 
 
 T2
 
 276 Chronicles of Dicstyporc. 
 
 in love with him ; the truth being- that she 
 was merely rather pleased at the symptoms 
 of his being violently in love with her, and 
 accepted his homage with a light heart, as 
 hardly more than her due.
 
 277 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A BRUSH ON THE FRONTIER. 
 
 Tell me not, love, I am unkind, 
 
 That from the nunnery 
 Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind 
 
 To war and arms I fly. 
 
 The reign of peace and pleasure was not 
 destined to last through the summer un- 
 disturbed ; conflicts more serious than those 
 which were agitating poor Boldero's ^breast 
 broke in upon the tranquil season, and 
 caused a hurried dispersion of many of the 
 holiday-makers. 
 
 For weeks past the news from the 
 frontier had not been reassuring. Blunt had 
 gone off on his mission to the Rumble
 
 2 yS Chronicles of Dtistyporc. 
 
 Chunder District, dragging the miserable 
 Whisp, who could not ride, and hated 
 leaving head-quarters, in his train. He had 
 mastered the whole matter, as he considered, 
 from first to last, and was resolved to bring 
 his knowledge to bear with good effect upon 
 the entanglements which his predecessors* 
 ignorance and indistinctness had produced. 
 He saw his way quite clearly, and was 
 resolved to have it. Other people had 
 faltered and hesitated ; but Blunt was 
 resolved to strike, and to strike hard, and to 
 finish the matter and have done with it once 
 for all. He arrived, accordingly, in no mood 
 to be trifled with, as Mahomed Khan, the 
 first of the Zamindars who had an interview 
 with him, discovered in about two minutes. 
 Now, Mahomed Khan, a wily old gentleman, 
 with a great turn for diplomacy, was deeply
 
 A Brush on the Frontier. 279 
 
 interested In the Rumble Chunder question, 
 and had, at different times, Interviewed a 
 long succession of ' Sahibs ' with reference to 
 It. He had Invariably found them long- 
 suffering, conciliatory, anxious to learn, and 
 not difficult to puzzle. He had talked to 
 them at ease In his own language, and was 
 accustomed to the elaborate courtesy due to 
 the leader of a powerful and not over-loyal 
 clan. When Sutton was getting his troop 
 together in the Mutiny a word from 
 Mahomed Khan would have put the whole 
 district In a blaze, and rendered it Impossible 
 to recruit a man. The respect, however, 
 which one good soldier feels for another had 
 carried the day. The old fellow had ridden 
 with fifty followers Into Sutton's camp, 
 unstrapped his sword, and, placing It In 
 Sutton's hands, had sworn that he and his
 
 28o Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 would follow him wherever he pleased to 
 lead them. Well had the oath been kept ; 
 and when some months later the fighting 
 closed, Mahomed Khan's name was recorded 
 as amongst the most deserving of Her 
 Majesty's lieges, and his well-timed loyalty 
 had resulted in a fine grant of fat acres, a 
 conspicuous seat in the Durbar, and, not least 
 in the estimation of men keenly sensitive to 
 honour, a vast deal of complimentary writing 
 and talking on the part of every British official 
 with whom he had to deal. All this flattery 
 had, perhaps, turned the old soldier's head, 
 or, at any rate, had given him no small idea 
 of his importance to the British ' Raj,' and of 
 his claims to the gratitude of British ad- 
 ministrators. His rights in the Salt matter 
 had been left in convenient obscurity, and 
 might, not without reason, be considered as
 
 A Brush on the Frontier, 281 
 
 tacitly conceded by the Power with whom he 
 was on such affectionate terms. 
 
 This, however, was not at all the light In 
 which Blunt saw the matter ; he was annoyed 
 at the man's bluster, pomposity, and pretence. 
 He was not In the least impressed by a well- 
 worn packet of letters which his visitor 
 produced, In which successive generals and 
 commissioners had testified to his deserts ; 
 what he wanted was business, and this was 
 essentially unbuslness-llke. If Sutton had 
 written, ' You have proved yourself a brave 
 and loyal soldier, and I will ever be your 
 friend,' this was no reason why Mahomed 
 Khan should not pay his salt-dues like other 
 folk, or should object to have his title-deeds 
 rigidly overhauled. 
 
 ' If It was just, why had Sir John 
 Larrens Sahib never done it ? ' the old
 
 282 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 man objected ; but Blunt did not care what 
 Sir John Lawrence had done or had not 
 done ; what he wanted was his bond, and 
 nothing else would satisfy him. This was 
 Blunts first nettle, and he was grasping it 
 firml}-, with no doubts as to the propriety 
 of the course. Then, at last, he got tired 
 of the interview, and — fatal blunder for an 
 Eastern diplomat — became abrupt and rude, 
 and began to show his hand. Thereupon 
 Mahomed Khan began to show his teeth, 
 and went away in a surly mood, with the 
 news, which spread like wildfire among the 
 clansmen, that the Sirkar was going to rule 
 them with a heavy hand ; that all old rights 
 were to be cancelled, a grievous land-tax to 
 be imposed, and that a terrible ' Sahib,' of 
 fierce aspect, had arrived to see this ob- 
 jectionable policy carried out.
 
 A Brush on the Frontier. 283 
 
 Then Blunt found the investigation by 
 no means the simple matter he had hoped. 
 Statements which looked so neat and clean 
 when submitted to the Board, and neatly 
 minuted on by Whisjo, assumed an aspect of 
 hopeless inexplicability when Blunt had them 
 face to face ; and the more he questioned the 
 less he understood. He was armed with 
 powers to examine witnesses, but not a word 
 of truth could be got out of anyone. Five 
 old countrymen, whose noble bearing, well- 
 chiselled features, and long flowing beards 
 would have made a fortune in a Roman 
 studio, came before him, and told him the 
 most unblushing lies with a volubility that 
 fairly staggered Blunt's bewildered compre- 
 hension. 
 
 To say one thing to-day, the precise 
 opposite to-morrow, and to explain with easy
 
 284 Chronicles of Dttstypore. 
 
 grace that It was a mistake, or that the 
 evidence had been wrongly taken down, 
 seemed to every man whom Blunt inter- 
 rogated the correct and natural procedure 
 for a person who was being pressed for 
 information which it was inconvenient to 
 produce. Some men remembered every- 
 thing, others professed the most absolute 
 obliviousness — each contradicted all the rest, 
 except when Government interests were 
 concerned, and thus all swore together like 
 a band of conspirators. Then the accounts 
 were kept on a system which none of the 
 Salt Board people understood, and which 
 no one else could be induced to explain. 
 
 Then, by some fatality, the white ants 
 had always eaten the precise documents of 
 which Blunt stood in need, and the trembling 
 officials produced a tattered mass of dirt and
 
 A Brush on the Frontier, 285 
 
 rags, and assured him that this was the 
 record which he called for, or rather all that 
 could be found of Its remains. Blunt be- 
 came, day by day, more profoundly convinced 
 that all men — all the Rumble Chunder men, 
 at any rate — were liars, and let his conviction 
 appear In short speeches and abrupt pro- 
 cedure. The old Zamlndars, outraged by 
 discourtesy in the presence of their retainers, 
 came away from his presence quivering with 
 rage, and ripe for the first chance of mischief 
 which offered. Blunt found the nettle sting- 
 ing him sorely, and, like a rough, resolute 
 man, grasped it with all the more unflinching 
 hand. When at last he succeeded in making 
 out a case he dealt out the sternest justice, 
 not, perhaps, without a gratified vlndlctlve- 
 ness against the people who had so long 
 baffled and annoyed him. One Uzuf AH,
 
 286 Chronicles of Dicstypore. 
 
 a large grantee, had been called upon to 
 verify his claims ; and this he proceeded 
 to do with the utmost alacrity. He and his 
 forefathers, he protested, had been in posses- 
 sion for centuries — look at the Revenue 
 records, the files of the Courts, the orders 
 of Government. Here, too, was a sunnud 
 from the Emperor Akbar confirming them 
 in their rights. Twenty witnesses, all dis- 
 interested, honourable, unimpeachable, the 
 entire village, indeed, would attest the fact 
 of continuous, open, rightful enjoyment from 
 a period as far as memory could go. So the 
 twenty witnesses did ; but then appeared a 
 gentleman, one Hosain Khan, on the other 
 side, and blew the pretty story into the air. 
 Usuf Ali was an audacious impostor ; every- 
 body in the country knew that his father had 
 come from Delhi not thirty years ago ; he 
 had no more right to an ounce of salt than
 
 A Brush oil the Frontier, 287 
 
 the ' Commissioner Sahib ' himself ; the 
 ground over which he claimed his rights 
 was notoriously in the possession of another 
 man. As for the sunnud of Akbar, it was 
 an obvious forgery, as the Commissioner 
 Sahib might see for himself by merely 
 looking. 
 
 Hosain Khan having had his innings, 
 Uzuf Ali returned to the wickets, and began 
 to make great play. ' Ask Hosain Khan,* 
 he said, ' if his uncle did not carry off my 
 sister, and if some of our people did not kill 
 him for it ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' says Hosain Khan, ' you stabbed 
 him yourself, like a coward as you are, when 
 he lay asleep by his bullocks.' 
 
 ' And if I did,' cries his opponent, ' did 
 not your father knock out my cousin's brains 
 with a bathee (club), and get sent over the 
 Kala Panee (black water) for his pains ? '
 
 288 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 The controversy waxed ardent ; the com- 
 batants' voices rose shrill and high ; they 
 tossed their black locks, and waved their arms, 
 and poured out long streams of passionate 
 family history, long-cherished feuds — deep, 
 never-to-be-forgotten wrongs — interminable 
 complications as to lands and wells, women and 
 bullocks ; and Blunt, who understood nothing 
 but that they had travelled a long way from 
 the Rumble Chunder Grant, sat by in mute 
 and wrathful despair, and began to perceive 
 that the administration of justice to folks so 
 excitable and unveracious as these was no 
 such easy matter as he had once imagined. 
 
 Amid all the chaff, however. Blunt had, 
 he thought, got hold of one piece of solid 
 fact : either the sunnud was a forgery or it 
 was not ; and if a forgery, then he resolved 
 to make an example, prosecute Uzuf Ali for
 
 A Brttsh on the Frontier. 289 
 
 his fraud, and turn him summarily out of his 
 pretended rights. A forgery no doubt it 
 was, for the paper bore the British water- 
 mark, and you could see the places where 
 the gunpowder had been smeared in hopes 
 of giving it an antiquated look. And so the 
 question was decided, and the order made 
 out, and poor Uzuf Ali, in vain protesting 
 that it was a device of the enemy, left the 
 Commissioner's presence a ruined man. 
 
 Ruined men, however, are dangerous 
 things at all times, and especially with an ex- 
 citable and easily frightened people, who see 
 in their neighbours' fall only an anticipation 
 of their own. The Bazaar was presently in a 
 tumult — angry clusters of talkers gathered in 
 circles round the grain-shops or at the village 
 well or under the great banyan-tree which 
 spread a wide shade over one end of the 
 
 VOL. I. U *
 
 290 CJiroiiicles of Dicstypore, 
 
 street, and discussed past grievances and fu- 
 ture disaster. Meanwhile Blunt, not with so 
 light a heart or seeing his way as clearly as 
 usual, had moved his head- quarters a dozen 
 miles away, and begun a new series of inves- 
 tigations with a new set of Hosain Khans and 
 Uzuf Alis, and with precisely similar success. 
 Before the month was over Fothering- 
 ham's words had come true. The Eusuf 
 K hay Is were up — a police outpost had been 
 attacked in force one night, and its occupants 
 had made a bad retreat, leaving two of their 
 number on the field. The marauders had 
 ridden through twenty miles of British ter- 
 ritory, burning villages, destroying crops, 
 driving away bullocks to their fastnesses in 
 the hills. Blunt, as he came, escorted by a 
 strong detachment into Dustypore, met the 
 Horse Artillery rattling out towards the dis-
 
 A Brttsh on tJie Frontier, 291 
 
 turbed region ; and a telegram despatched to 
 Elysium informed Sutton that he was to head 
 a flying column into the enemies' country, and 
 that he must be with his regiment without an 
 instant's delay. 
 
 U2
 
 292 CJu'oniclcs of Dtistypore. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A LAST RIDE. 
 
 He turned his charger as he spoke 
 
 Upon the river-shore ; 
 He gave the bridle-reins a shake, 
 
 Said ' Adieu for evermore, 
 My love ! 
 
 And adieu for evermore ! ' 
 
 Sutton, who was practising La ci darem la 
 inano with Maud when the telegram arrived, 
 glanced at its contents without stopping the 
 duet, and slipped it into his pocket before 
 Maud had even seen it. Andiam, Andiam, 
 Andiani, she sang joyfully ; Andiam, An- 
 diam, Andiam pealed Sutton's pleasant tenor 
 tones, and so the performance came smoothly 
 to its close. ' And now,' Sutton said, ' I am
 
 A L ast Ride. 293 
 
 afraid we must stop our practice for this 
 morning, as I have to go to the Viceroy ; and 
 I will come and see you on my way back. 
 I may have to go down to Dustypore this 
 afternoon.' 
 
 ' Down to Dustypore ! ' Maud cried, in a 
 tone that bespoke the pang of disappoint- 
 ment that shot into her heart. ' We hoped 
 you would stay all the summer.' 
 
 VAnd so did I,' said her companion ; 'but 
 unluckily some of my naughty boys on the 
 hills out there have been getting into too 
 good spirits, and I must go and look after 
 them. And now for his Excellency.' 
 
 Before Sutton had been gone many 
 minutes Desvoeux came galloping up the 
 pathway, and found Maud still standing in 
 the verandah, where she had wished Sutton 
 farewell, and where in truth she had been
 
 294 Chro7iicles of Dtcstypore. 
 
 standing in a brown study ever since he 
 went. Desvoeux was in the gloomiest spirits, 
 and too much concerned about himself to pay- 
 much attention to Maud's troubled looks. 
 * Have you heard the dreadful, dreadful 
 news ?' he said. ' All our holidays are over for 
 the year. There has been an outbreak on 
 the frontier. The troops are already on the 
 march. The Agent is closeted with the 
 Viceroy, and goes down this afternoon, and 
 of course poor I have to go along with him. 
 Sutton is to command the expedition, and, I 
 dare say, is off already. Every soldier in the 
 place will be ordered down ; and meanwhile 
 what is to become of the fancy-ball ? 
 
 * And the moonlight picnic ? ' cried Maud, 
 suddenly conscious of the necessity of con- 
 cealing a feeling which she would not for
 
 A Last Ride. 295 
 
 the world have had Desvoeux suspect, 
 namely, that Sutton's absence would be to 
 her a calamity which would go far to render 
 balls and picnics alike a matter of indif- 
 ference. 
 
 * Yes/ Desvoeux said, with bitter vehe- 
 mence ; * life is sometimes too unendurably 
 disagreeable, and things go so provokingly 
 as one does not want them. And we were 
 just having such a happy time ! And then, 
 I suppose, to make our farewell the sadder, 
 you have chosen this morning to look your 
 loveliest. As for me, the only bits of life I 
 care about any longer are those I spend with 
 you.' 
 
 ' And with Mrs. Vereker,' cried Maud. 
 ' Come, Mr. Desvoeux, confess, now, have you 
 not been there just this minute saying the
 
 296 Chronicles of Dicstyporc. 
 
 very same thing to her ? I'll ask her this 
 afternoon, and we will compare notes as to 
 our adieux ! ' 
 
 * Profane idea ! ' said Desvoeux. ' But you 
 are always mocking. You know I care a 
 great deal more about you than you do 
 about me.' 
 
 ' Impossible,' cried Maud. ' Did I not tell 
 you just now that I was broken-hearted 
 about the picnic ? I meant to sit by the 
 waterfall and make you sing us '* Spirito 
 Gentil," in the moonlight. It is a cruel dis- 
 appointment.' 
 
 * You are very unkind, and very heart- 
 less,' said Desvoeux, in no mood for banter. 
 
 ' Come, come,' said Maud, ' do not be 
 cross ; we will not quarrel just as we are 
 parting.' 
 
 ' Well, then, be serious.'
 
 A Last Ride, 297 
 
 * I am serious,' said the other ; ' and, 
 seriously, I am sorry that we are to lose you. 
 Poor fellow!' 
 
 ' Give a poor fellow a present, ' said 
 Desvoeux, beseechingly ; ' that cherry riband 
 that binds the loveliest neck in the world.' 
 
 ' No, I won't,' said Maud ; ' it cost me 
 two rupees only the day before yesterda)^ 
 There, you may have this rose. Take it, 
 take it, and remember * 
 
 ' You are enough to drive a fellow mad,' 
 said Desvoeux. 'Who will be the lucky 
 man to find out where your heart is, and 
 whether you have got one ? ' 
 
 Then Desvoeux cantered off, and Maud 
 retired to her bedroom, locked herself in, 
 threw herself on a couch, and indulged in 
 the unusual luxury of a thoroughly good 
 cry. Sutton, quite unconsciously, had made
 
 298 Chronicles of Dusty pore. 
 
 great advances in the occupation of her 
 heart. He had been constantly with her 
 and FeHcia ; and the more Maud saw of 
 other people, the more convinced she be- 
 came that he was the paragon of men, 
 and with him the only chance of happi- 
 ness for her. And now he would come 
 back presently, Maud knew, and say a 
 kind, feeling farewell to Felicia, and a word 
 or two of politeness to her, and go away 
 on his expedition, and take all the sun- 
 shine of existence with him, and never 
 have a suspicion of the aching heart he left 
 behind, and of the treasure of devotion 
 waiting for him if he chose to have it. 
 Surely there must be something wrong in 
 the constitution of a world where such woes 
 could come to pass ! 
 
 So while Desvceux, in a sort of half-rage.
 
 A Last Ride. 299 
 
 was hustling his pony down the hillside as 
 if he really did mean to break his neck once 
 for all and have done with a life in which 
 Maud could not continually figure, Maud 
 herself was in affliction for quite another 
 cause ; and Sutton, his heart too full of 
 warlike schemes to think of love, was busy 
 with a map spread out on the Viceroy's table, 
 pointing out exactly the route through the 
 hills which the expedition was to take. 
 Sutton and the Viceroy were the best of 
 friends. They had ridden and shot and 
 slaughtered tigers and bears in each other's 
 company, and each knew and liked the other 
 as a daring, enthusiastic, and thoroughgoing 
 sportsman. The Viceroy, himself no mean 
 performer, had seen Sutton dispose of a big 
 boar, turned to bay, on more than one 
 occasion, in a way which had filled him with
 
 300 Chronicles of Diistypore. 
 
 admiration and delight ; and when, in rare 
 intervals of business, the Ruler of India 
 allowed himself a day's holiday for a walk 
 through the forest in search of bears or 
 jungle-pheasant, no more favourite com- 
 panion than Sutton ever helped to fill the 
 bag. Each trusted the other thoroughly, 
 and the Viceroy now spoke of the expedition 
 with a cheerful confidence indicative of his 
 conviction that It was In the proper hands. 
 The main plans had been actually settled. 
 The force was to be pushed on as far into the 
 hills as was practicable. Two strong mule- 
 batteries were provided to keep the moun- 
 tain-sides clear of a hovering enemy. When 
 they reached the high-table, which lay 
 beyond, a dash was to be made at a village 
 where one of the rebellious tribes was known 
 to be entrenched In force ; and when this was
 
 A Last Ride, 301 
 
 seized and destroyed, and the rebels for the 
 time dispersed, the little army was to be 
 encamped for a few weeks, by way of 
 demonstration of military power to the re- 
 fractory mountaineers. * Good bye, Sutton,' 
 said the Viceroy, ' and good luck to you and 
 speedy return.' And then, as he went out, 
 kind ladies met him in the hall and wished 
 him a fresh farewell ; and Sutton went away, 
 in a glow of excitement and pleasure, to 
 make his preparations for the afternoon's 
 gallop, unconscious of all the sentiment in 
 another person's heart which his departure 
 was stirring into life. He would be gone a 
 fortnight or three weeks, and was, in truth, 
 not sorry for an excuse for a return to his 
 dear soldiers after a month's idleness and 
 holiday-making. 
 
 When he came to the Vernons', an hour
 
 302 Chronicles of Dustypore, 
 
 later, he found Maud's pony at the door, 
 and herself ready-equipped. 
 
 ' Would you like a companion for the 
 first stage of your journey ? ' Felicia said. 
 * If so, Maud will ride with you, and the 
 children and I will start later, and meet her 
 on the way home.' This was, in fact, a kind 
 device of Felicia's — one of the rash things 
 which people do when they are completely 
 perplexed, in a sort of wild hope that some 
 good may come of it, rather than with any 
 precise design. Felicia had come with 
 distressing distinctness to recognise the full 
 gravity of the position, and to feel how 
 dreadfully she had been to blame. She had 
 done all that one woman can to lead another 
 to fall in love, and she had succeeded only 
 too well. Her little scheme of happiness for 
 her two friends was marred by an impedi-
 
 A Last Ride. 303 
 
 ment which she had altogether overlooked. 
 Sutton's obduracy had never occurred to her 
 as a serious impediment, yet now he seemed 
 hopelessly incomprehensible. Bitterly Felicia 
 reproached herself for all her part in the 
 proceeding ; but of what use was self- 
 reproach ? There was the terrible result, 
 beyond the reach alike of penitence or 
 redress. Maud's heart, Felicia knew in- 
 stinctively, was lost — her very silence on the 
 topic betrayed the consciousness of some- 
 thing to conceal. There was a sort of 
 entreating air about her that seemed to cry 
 for pity. More than once Felicia had taken 
 her to her arms and embraced her tenderly — 
 she could not have said why, but yet she 
 knew. Maud, with her joyousness gone, 
 and battling with a silent sorrow, seemed to 
 her to have a touch of pathos which roused
 
 304 Chro7iiclcs of Dusty pore. 
 
 all the latent melancholy of Felicia's nature 
 into activity. It was one of those sad things 
 in life before which her fortitude completely 
 failed. Ruefully did she vow, now that 
 vowing was of no use, that her first attempt 
 at match-making should be her last. At any 
 rate, she sent the two riders off together on 
 this last ride, in the faint hope that some- 
 thing might occur to bring the tardy wooer 
 to a right frame of mind. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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