^M" L I B R.AR,Y OF THE UNIVERSITY or ILLINOIS 823 N259S 1863 V. 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign I http://www.archive.org/details/scapegraceatseao01neal 80APEGEA0E AT SEA OK, SOLDIERS AFLOAT AND SAILORS ASHORE. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY THE AUTHOK OP " CAVENDISH." "THE PRIDE OP THE MESS. "the flying DUTCHMAN," &C., &C. VOL. L [SECOND EDITION] T. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1863. [_I7ie Might of Tramlation it Reserved.'] DEDICATION. To WILLIAM JACOBSON, Esq., TAUNTON. Deae Jacob, Allow me to inscribe with your name these trifling pages ? Their greatest value in my eyes will arise from the opportunity they afford me of reminding you how many Y delightful hours of my life have been gilded by your accom- v3 phshments, learning, humour, your love of art and hospitality, ^ during the thirty years of our friendship. As misers think upon their hoards, enchanted with the sum, yet sighing to -X) remember they must some day part; so do I, in absence, often recall the sunny days I have passed in your society. "^ In that long space — alas, how many voices that we welcomed with affection — are now hushed for ever ! May your life be spared in all happiness and honour, till words grow strong enough to express with what warmth and sincerity I remain your friend, :-, • W. JOHNSTONN NeALE. ^ Fountain Violet, Nov. 8, 1862. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTER L The Scapegraces were a family of very long standing in the navy ; ever since the reign of the eighth Henry they had been more or less con- spicuous in the sea service, down to our own day. Yet, strange to say, the Assurance Offices would hardly have termed them a ' ' long lived' ' family. Prolific they certainly were. It was no uncom- mon thing in olden times to find several cousins Scapegraces — various branches of the same great family — serving in the same fleet as midshipmen, but what with small pox, scarlet VOL. I. B 2 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. fever, boat actions, pirate hunting, cutting out expeditions, and other causes, such numbers of the family died out as midshipmen, that comparatively few of them attained the rank of lieutenant. Now and then you certainly did meet a Scapegrace commanding a man-of- war, and no doubt the family could at one time boast of one of the most distinguished flag officers in the service. Still, whatever might be their rank, two qualities seem ed to accompany the family wherever they went and whenever they served. First, they were almost invariably courageous to a fault ; and secondly, though studded with the imperfections of our nature, hot tempered and whatnot, most of them were greatly loved and very popular, especially among the seamen. Of course they were very proud of their ancient family, and when in his cups, old Admiral Scapegrace, of our club, used to lament the corruptions that so manv centuries had introduced into his name. But even he was not a little confused as to his family. Sometimes when he was very far gone. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 6 after the fifth bottle of claret, he would insist that the Scapegraces had large landed posses- sions in England as far back as the heptarchy, with sundry castles on the Ehine, and nobody knew where not. At other times he was con- tent with maintaining the old story, that his most distinguished ancestor came over with William the Conqueror, and, indeed, let fly the identical arrow which killed poor Harold. " At this time," the Admiral used to say, '' our old family name was spelled properlj , and was De la Scagrace; but what with some of my ancestors not being able, like other warlike barons, to write, and others who attained the art not liking it, they shortened it down to La Scagrace. Then it came to Scagrace alone, till now — my eyes, sir ! if it isn't Anglicised into Scapegrace. I've been once or twice to the Herald's College about changing it back again, but the lubbers always made out the probable cost at some two hundred pounds or near away; so I put it off and put it off till my wife brought me a son, and as that has never happened I B 2 4 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. begin to fear the name will go out of the service altogether — mj eyes ! " This last affliction seemed every year to grow more terrible in the eyes of the gallant veteran. In fact he believed it was killing him, assisted by gout in the stomach; so at last he opened his heart to one of the great counsellors andconsolers of the club, General Sir Bertram Montagu. Be- tween the Montagus and the Scapegraces there had been many family alliances; theGen eral was therefore an esteemed connection. After many conferences on this important matter, sundry cases of claret, and serious imprecations on the Admiral's orbs of vision, it was finally and solemnly arranged that Sir Bertram's second son, just born, should take the time-honoured name of Scapegrace ; and that the Admiral should,in consideration of the same,leave theboy some sum, not to be less than fifty thousand pounds, the youth in due time to be entered in Her Majesty's maritime service, as a safeguard and precaution against such a terrible calamityas the Scapegraces dying out of the English navy. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. O The Admiral made his will directly ; the great object of his life seemed accomplished. He was not at all too speedy with his parchments, for the following spring proving unusually wet and unhealthy, he took to his bed, and aided by colchicum and the Doctor, paid the last debt that Nature could exact, even of a Scapegrace. But now came the General's difficulty. How could he announce such a name to his wife, the Eight Honble. the Lady Angelina Montagu ? A " rose in aromatic pain'' was not one tenth so delicate as she. The hall porter lately had blown his nose so unwarily she had heard it in the drawino;-room. On the Generars return home, the door was opened by the groom of the chambers, and asking his wife the reason why, the General heard to his dismay that Lady Ano-elina had turned off the uncautious hall porter at an instant's notice, for "grossly insult- ing her.' ' And this was the damsel to whom Sir Bertram had to break the intelligence that her infant son was to be called " Scajpegrace^'' for the inadequate sum of fifty thousand pounds ! 6 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Too late tlie General saw his raslmess, but he had passed his word, and if it had related to razing his house to the ground, every stone of it would have come down . A gentleman' s word is not estimated in this manner now-a-day s, owing to the large infusion of City blood into West End circles; but perhaps it would not have been less happy for both extremes had the City been innoculated by the West End in this respect, rather than the West End invaded by the City. But to our tale. General Montagu, you sup- pose, was stern and determined. Hardly so ; determined he always was — stern never. Than Sir Bertram Montagu, few men were more popular in the club. First of all he was reputed to be very rich — that's always remarkably popular — next he was a good listener, which not only is, but deserves to be, popular. His friends were not allowed to know, what was in truth the fact, that Montagu was a very absent man; and, generally speaking, while Smith and Jones were telling him their oft repeated stories over the newspaper or the din- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 7 ner table, his thoughts were quietly wool- gathering in some totally opposite direction. A most engaging smile, and his eyes — which wore a very benevolent expression, looking full in yours — never allowed you to doubt that you had his full attention, while a fe w words discreetly dropped at the end of the story completed the illusion. Several legacies and no end of trusteeships — not quite so welcome — rewarded Montagu for his amiability, which none could possibly question, for his cook was excellent, his wine priceless in its age and choice, and hospitality was the one great plea- sure, it might almost be ssdd forte of his existence. Montagu married late in life. Lady Angeli- na was much younger than himself, and on her partial recovery from presenting him with the second boy, she expressed to her husband the great dilemma in which she found herself in choosing hisChristian names. What withJulius, Algernon, Conrad, Percy, and a host equally choice, she was lost in a multitude of elegancies. " Choose what names you like, my dear," 8 SCAPEaPvACE AT SEA. said the General, "but one name he must bear, because I've promised it/' " Dear me, General ! " said bis wife, some- what tartly, " how extraordinary of you, and without consulting me. What could induce you to do such a thing?" "Well, my dear," said the General, in a deprecatory tone, " I was vexed with myself afterwards that I had done so, but I acted with the best intentions." " The best intentions. General ! That's always what men say when they do a disa- greeable thing. What can you mean ? " " Simply this, my dear. An old friend, a very old friend, and indeed a connection in the sister service, who had always grieved over the want of a son, promised me if I would give his name to my next boy, he would leave him fifty thousand pounds in his will." " O ! my dear General, people say that kind of thing but never keep their word." " And sometimes, love, they do keep their word, for my friend died last week and left SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 9 your boy sixty thousand instead of fifty ; but lie must bear the name.'' "Goodness me, liow horrible! But what is the name?" " Well, my dear, it's a very ugly name, but a very ancient family." " What is it. General ; what is it ?" "Well, my dear," replied the General, trying to escape from his wife's fingers, which were firmly entangled in his button hole ; " I'd rather not say more about it just at pre- sent, it might distress you, and a few days hence you will be better able to bear it." " Not tell me the name, love — not tell me the name ! Oh ! this suspense is more terrible than the worst reality. I shall go out of my senses." " General Montagu, you really must tell your good lady the name," said the nurse, popping out, baby in arms, from the adjoining ante-room ; " suspense is the most dreadfullest thing to bear as is, when a lady is just re- covering from her confinement. Indeed, you must tell my lady the name." B 5 10 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " This moment, General. I insist upon it ; you must tell me !'' '' Well, my dear," said the General, " I would rather have postponed it, though I know curiosity is a thing not easily forborne. You must be prepared, as I told you, for an awkward name; still sixty thousand pounds — " " What is the name. General — what is the name, never mind the money *, what is the hated name ?" "Not hated, my dear, only eccentric." " Eccentric, General ! Worse and worse. 0, I shall go mad ! What is the name?" " Don't distress yourself, my love, there's no occasion for that. Scapegrace is the name !" " O ! you have killed me !" shrieked Lady Angelina, throwing up her arms and sinking back on her pillow. '•'• Mercy me. General ! — to kill my lady, and she going on so nicely !" cried the nurse ; and putting down the baby, she flew to her mistress with the smelling salts, ordered her assistant to exclude the disturber ; and before the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 11 General could gain his wife's side to entreat, implore, or explain, he was hustled into the passage, and told if he was not worse than a barbarian to set off at once for the physician. "Certainly — certainly!'' said the General, and hastily and wondering, he took down his hat and started. But unfortunately his club lying in his way, he entered for a few moments, as he thought, just to take a glass of sherry and a biscuit, met his brother of&cer Gen. Viscount Boreear in the hall, fell into his trap for a long story, dropped off into an absent fit till the story was ended, suffered himself to be led into the house to dinner, and never remembered his wife's fainting fit till the hackney cab set him down at the door at night. " Dear me," said the General, " this is verj provoking ; I ought to have gone for the phy- sician. What shall I do ? " While he was debating this knotty point, ^ and keeping the cab waiting his decision, the door opened, and disclosed to his view in the ample hall, not only one physician but three, all 12 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. wearing that solemn air so much more eloquent than words. The conscience-stricken General walked into the house, closed the door behind him, and then leading the way into the dining- room, asked the solemn trio to follow him. A long consultation ensued ; the lady was in no danger they could discover, but insisted on having a consultation over her case because she was dying. " Is she in any danger whatever?'^ said the General. " None whatever,' ' said the physicians, " but she hinted— " " Hinted at what?" said the General. " That you had been the cause of her death." " Very sad ! " said the General, smiling, "but since that is the case, all I can say is that to-morrow I'll be the cause of her cure." The physicians wished to know his remedy, but the General insisted on their joining him in a glass of rare paxaretta, left their curi- osity unsatisfied and bowed them out. On the following afternoon the rector of the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 13 parish and his lady called to see the baby. The rector's wife was summoned to go upstairs, and the parson being represented as '' very anxious to see the baby," the child was taken down into the dining-room by the smiling nurse. " Let me take it nearer the light, nurse," said the General. The nurse gave the baby into its father's arms, and at this moment the old butler en- tered to say my lady wanted the nurse upstairs. "I'll take care of baby till you return, nurse," said the General. " Thank you, Sir Bertram," said the nurse, hurrying out of the room, which she had scarce- ly quitted before the housekeeper entered. The butler quietly locked the dining-room door after her, and produced a china bowl half full of water ; the rector produced his prayer book, and in a few minutes — the butler and house- keeper standing sponsors — the names of Julius Scapegrace Montagu were safely and irrevo- cably bestowed upon the baby. 14 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. The moment tlie door was opened in burst the nurse, open mouthed. '' You may make your mistress's mind quite happy now, nurse," said the General. '' Tell her all suspense is over and the admiral's legacy secured." He did not add, as he might have done, that the navy was the destination of the little squal- ler, but that intelligence was hardly necessary to increase the debate upstairs, which was soon audible through all the baize doors. " Excuse me. Dr. Penfold, but I've some business at the club," said the General, sliding gracefully a cheque for twenty pounds into the rector's soft and friendly palm. " Don't mention it, my dear General," re- plied the parson, pouring himself out a glass of Madeira, as he glanced well pleased at his gal- lant friend's autograph, slippedit into his waist- coat pocket, and resigned himself to the Times and the easy chair till his wife came down to him. '' My dear, we shall never be forgiven up- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 15 stairs," said Mrs. Penfold, entering in a fe fv minutes with the longest face. '' So I suppose," said the Dr., ''help your self meanwhile to a glass of Madeira. I see the funds have risen slightly. And how did you leave Lady Angelina?" Poor Lady Montagu! to her dying day she never quite forgave the General, but the sixty thousand pounds secured to the younger son, and daily rolling into bigger money with the in- terest well invested in four-and-a-half Russian Stock; the consolation seemed to grow stronger and stronger every year. But it quite cured her, she said, of having children, if strangers were to presume to meddle with them in this wuy. A violent cold, caught in one of our patent consumption-procuring low dresses, added a melancholy finis to her trials. The General hurried to Nice, Rome, Madeira, but all in vain. In that island of sun-fed vines and romantic hills she fell asleep to wake no more to this life, and the General returned a disconsolate widower, not long to survive her ; directing in 16 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. liis last will that his eldest son should go into the army and his younger son into the navy to serve for two years, leaving it to each to quit the ser- vice if not agreeable at the end of that period. In accordance with the General's will his executors in due time procured a commission for the elder son in the Nonsuch Eegiment, and a naval cadetship for the younger son in H.M.8. Saucebox. And with these pre- liminaries duly explained, our story opens in the barracks of the Nonsuch Regiment, then quartered in the little town of Forest ville, the room into which we usher the reader being the quarters of a gallant subaltern rejoicing in the name of Walduck. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 17 CHAPTER II. The hour was noon, yet the first meal of day was still unremoved. The breakfast had evi- dently been the repast of one of your military anchorites ; tea was supposed to have formed its staple, and a cup of that refreshing beve- rage stood yet unconsumed upon the cloth. The smoke proceeding from it was not very urgent, for the tea was half cold, but in order to comfort the cup in its neglect there stood beside it a noble sized wine glass, three parts full of light Burgundy. A tall slim bottle of 18 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Beaune, very nearly finished, was in close proximity to the wine glass. Scattered at intervals over the table were Eussian caviare, Pate de foie gras^ Indian chutnee, a plate full of peaches, a box full of cigars, a couple of glass jars, one containing marmalade and the other preserved apricots ; the whole embellished with divers articles of silver plate. In the corner of the room stood a very nice tandem whip, and, hanging just above it, were half-a-dozen horsewhips; stiff, taper, flexible, hunting, even down to a couple of ladies' -whips, and, as if to keep these company, on the sofa were seen, peeping out from a military cloak, something that looked marvel- lously like a lady's muff. The owner of this apartment, a young man of three-and-twenty, was engaged, as it may readily be supposed, in the consistent occupa- tion of deep study — Vauban possibly ? — or Napier? — Nothing of the sort — his study, un- fortunately, was of the kind called " brown.'' SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 19 He stood with liis back to the fireplace, the skirt of a silk dressing gown tucked under each arm, his hands in his pockets, and between his lips his fourth cigar of that morning^ s consump- tion, the remains of the other three, together with a sufficient quantity of tobacco-ashes, were lying in elegant confusion on a breakfast plate before him, together with the fag end of a piece of toast, the best half of a pat of butter, and an ivory hilted knife, mounted with a silver ferrule, and bearing the family crest of the industrious hero who had gone through the labour of such a breakfast ; to wit, Augustus Henry Walduck. Presently a knock was heard at the door. '' Come in," said the host ; but scarcely had the words passed from his lips when the door opened with a sudden burst, and in strode the visitor. Captain Worsted, holding in his hand an open letter. " Ah, Walduck, my boy, what not yet finished breakfast?" said the Captain, going up to the table, and extracting a cigar from the box without any further invitation. 20 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Well, I have been trying at it for some- time, you know ; but a serious affair, like a breakfast,a man ought not to dismiss in a hurry/ ' "Why not ?'^ " For fear of gross improvidence, sir ; waste- fulness, and all other extravagant errors. If an officer in Her Majesty's Service lets his break- fast go in a hurry, what the dickens is he to do with the rest of his day until dinner-time?" " Ah, true ! I did not take that view of it. Here, have you got any more wine left ?" " Yes ; you'll find some left in that bottle. Let me ring for another glass." " Oh, not at all ! Do not trouble yourself. Here is a tea-cup." " Oh, monstrous, my boy ! Drink Beaune out of a tea cup ! — It would make my head ache for an hour !" " Ah ! Yes ; you are not seasoned yet, you know, but an old soldier like myself can con- trive to rough it. Though I do not approve of Burgundy and cigars." And as the Captain said this he replaced on the table the tea cup SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 21 quite empty. " They do not go well together. Have you not got a little brandy ?'' " Yes ; there is the case bottle on the table before you.'' " Ah, that is more legitimate ! I will just take a thimble full." While Worsted said this he poured out a tea cup full of eau de vie^ mixed a little cold water with it, lighted his cigar, and tucked up his coat tails to match his friend, Walduck moved a little way from the fire. " I say, Walduck, this fire is confoundedly hot this summer day.'' " Well, it is rather boiling, you know ; but I am seasoning myself for the West Indies ! I think a little fire in the morning, and one at night, a man may stand almost all through the summer. But have you got any news in that letter ? Who is it from ?" " Ah, by the way ! Yes ; I wanted to tell you this is from an old brother officer of mine, — Piper, of the 120th. He was at the 22 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Horse Guards yesterday, and met the new fellow that is coming down to join ours." '' What, this fellow who has been gazetted — Mr. Ernest Plantagenet Montagu?" " Yes." '' Poor devil ! How I pity him ! A. fellow with such a name as that won't live in this regiment above a week, T should think !" " Oh, no, Walduck, my boy ! I think we may give him ten days ! Indeed, we ought not to let him get out of the regiment until we have given him three weeks of it. Drill him thoroughly all the day, and rouse him up every night to go through the sword exercise with an umbrella on the mess table." " Well, well, I do not think it would be a bad three weeks' amusement for us. We are getting rather dull now. That last fellow who came seems to have lost all the go in him. What account does Piper give of this Mr. Jolly Newcomer ?" " Oh, Piper knew all the family very well. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 23 Our fellow is the eldest son of General Montagu. Our fellow has lots of tin,and so has his younger brother, who took the name of Scapegrace after the Admiral for fifty thousand pounds !" " Ahem ! Decentish fellows then. I wish their names were on the back of my last bill." " What, that old bill of yours which Flee- cem, in the city, has renewed so often ? What is it for now ?'^ " Oh, confound the bill ! It has swollen to two hundred and fifty pounds, and every time I think of it I get a cold shudder.' ' '' Very likely, Worsted. Don't you wish you could take some old curmudgeon's cogno- men for a small sum, say for three thousand pounds, you know,to pass your worsted through the shuttle of the Herald's Office, and come out upon velvet ; all your acceptances taken up, and happily shoved in the fire ; your debts paid, and perhaps even a five pound note left in your pocket, and not only your pay clear, but your credit fresh to begin at the old fun, ' three months after date.' " 24 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. *' Walduck, what jou say suggests a bright idea to mj mind/' " What is it r " Why, if this young fellow has just come into a good fortune, we might draw it mild with him down here, you know, and let him off some of his midnight parades ; and instead of thisv-ahem — ha — a — ^you understand." " ! yes, I understand quite ; you might stick him with an acceptance or two to hand over to Fleecem.^' " No, I don't think I should go to Fleecem again." "No; why not?" " Why I have been introduced lately to two most respectable proctors." " ! nonsense. What are their names ?" " 0, highly respectable men, I am told, Messrs. Takein and Doem." " By the way, that reminds me, Walduck, that Piper tells me this young Montagu is on the look out to buy a couple of good horses." " Is he?" said Walduck, dropping both his SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 25 coat tails in a moment of enthusiasm. " Write and tell your friend I can suit him to a hair.'' " What horse have you got to sell ? " " Oh ! there is Grey Bob, I am thinking of parting with him ; and then there is my chest- nut mare." " Well I will write if you can recommend them." " Eecommend them ! Oh, he cannot have anything better." '' Then I suppose I may say you will give a warranty with both of them? " " Warranty be hanged ! I never warranted a horse in my life, and I never will." " Oh, very well. What price shall I say you want for them ? " " Well, what price is he willing to go to ?" " As far as I understand Piper, price i$ immaterial." : " Well, I won't be hard with him. He shall have Grey Bob for — let me see — seventy guineas ; and the chestnut mare is honestly VOL. I. c 23 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. wortli eighty. One hundred and fifty guineas, tell him, he shall have the pair for/' " Pretty stiff price that,'' said Worsted, smiling with a knowing look, '' but we shall see what Johnny Newcome says to it." " What has become of the younger son, is he coming into the army too?" '' Oh no, poor devil ! I understand they have shipped him on board a man of war. Think of such shocking inhumanity, poor unhappy little wretch ; with fifty thousand pounds too, what a sacrifice ! " '* Well, well, there must be victims for every sad emergency. You might as well pity that poor dog who is carrying that mortar hod in the barrack yard there after his master." " I do not, comparatively; at least he has got solid ground to walk on. Ah ! here comes my servant with a card. Zounds, this cannot be Montagu come down, can it ? Piper said in his letter that he had given him a letter of introduction to me. Come in, Pipeclay," added Worsted, as the corporal knocked at the door. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 27 " Ensign Montagu, your honor, lias arrived to join the regiment. He is sitting in your honor's quarters, and he ordered me to bring you this card." " Very well. Pipeclay. My compliments and I will be with him in a few minutes. Hand him a book to read." " Please your honor," said Pipeclay, touching his forehead with his finger, " there is never a book in your honor's quarters but the army list." " Give him that, Pipeclay ; nothing can be better ; a man must read that very often be- fore he remembers the whole of it, you know." " Please, your honor, I did give him the army list, but he laid that down again." '' Oh, very well ; give it him again. Pipeclay. In literature, as in everything else, there is a real taste and an acquired one. The army list. Pipeclay, is an acquired taste, for when a man has been sometime without getting a step, it is wonderful how naturally he takes to perusing it. Give it to him again. Pipeclay, and this time with my compliments." c 2 28 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " I will, your honor." " Oh ! and, Pipeclay." The old Corporal turned back. " Nothing more, Pipeclay." Then, as the Corporal left the room Worsted turned round to Walduck. " I had half a mind to send word to this Montagu to get ready for his examination in the Army List, but one must not let the men share in any little practical joke. You and I will go presently and stick it into him — squat the poor schoolboy down with the Army List in his fist, and make him learn the first five pages by heart. Tell him the Colonel always requires that from every new Ensign as a test of memory." "No, I would not begin with the poor wretch the first day he joins. Let him have one peep at his military life, au couleur de rose. Sup- pose you go away and bring him here." " Oh ! no, you get your breakfast things cleared away, and go and cut your beard off. I must take this fellow now, and introduce him to the Colonel and the Major, and when I have SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 29 done that I will bring him round to you, and you can shew him your two horses if you like." " Ah ! well, I will.'' " But, I say, Walduck, remember, if you get one hundred and fifty for Grey Bob and your chestnut mare, you must discount me a bit of stiflp for a fifty pound note." "Well, I don't care if I do." " All riglit then. I will go to my friend — my young friend, and we will soon put him up to a thing or two." ''^Au revoir^^^ said Walduck, and off marched Worsted to do honour to his friend's intro- duction. 30 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA, CHAPTEE TIL Among many Englisli, and especially amongst military men, it is frequently a rule to be as stiff and starch on first acquaintance as possible. The notion seems to have originated in an idea that every man should impress another who makes his acquaintance with the idea that he individually, in his own person, has not the most remote wish for any friendship to ensue between them, so that if this does arise it may be held to spring entirely from the desire of the other party, and is not looked upon as a matter at all desirable by yourself. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 31 It can easily be supposed that if two people act upon this principle the meeting might be as frigid as the Mer de Glace. By degrees the acquaintance is supposed to thaw, and then, the stiff piece of sham starch, cracking off from the natural man, frequently reveals a jolly and familiar fellow. As Captain Worsted entered his room, he had one hand in each of his coat pockets be- hind, much in the attitude of a gentleman intent on doing his tailor the utmost possible service by tearing his own coat up the back. He found the new comer. Ensign Montagu, seated at his little table with his foot stretched out towards the empty fireplace, his arms folded on his chest. On hearing the footsteps coming up stairs and the door open, the Ensign started to his feet, pushed his chair back, and bowing said : " I presume I have the pleasure of speak- ing to—" " Captain Worsted," interposed the latter, finishing the sentence for him. 32 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Montagu's riglit arm made an involuntary motion as if to shake hands, but it was a part of Worsted's rule not to allow any such fami- liarity. His own hands remained immovably fixed in his coat pockets, and, nodding his head slightly, he said : " Take a chair, will you. I have got Piper's letter by the Corporal and will take you pre- sently and introduce you ^ o the Colonel. How long have you been in Forestville ?" " Not an hour. Captain AVorsted, T came by the train — just drove up to the hotel, saw my luggage, &c., all safe, and then came on. I suppose you find it very nice quarters here?" " Oh ! pretty well for that. If you are a fast fellow, there is some little amusement going on in the town. Do you drive tandem ?" " No, Captain Worsted, I have never driven tandem." " Ah ! the roads are toll loll for tandem, but there is one hint I must give you. I understand by Piper's letter I am to take the liberty of put- ting you up to little matters iu the regiment." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 33 '^ Tliank you, Captain Worsted ! I should be very much obliged to you." '' Oh ! it is not much I was going to say. I advise you to take care and keep clear of the slow men of the regiment — they are a horrid set of bores." "Ah!- yes!" " There is Captain Spinney — we call him ' Tristram Shandy/ or the Preacher. He has al- ways got a long yarn to spin, and disapproves of everything, from a fellow smoking a cigar to purchasing his promotion — horrid old bore." u Ah!— yes!" " Then there is the Paymaster, he is another of this clique; and then there is Lieutenant Clut- terbuck, he is another of the slow coaches ; and there are two or three other fellows who, as you will find, all hang together — what one does, the other does — what one says, the other says — and what one thinks, the other thinks." " But our Colonel, what sort of a man is he?" " ! under the rose, you know, he is the c 5 34 SCAPE?tRACE AT SEA. fastest man in the lot. You will soon see the way he goes. Egad! how he cuts along!'* " And the Major — what sort of a man is the Major ?'' '' He is one with us of course — fast man, an old stager, up to a thing or two, I promise you; and there is Walduck, you will find him a very gentlemanly fine fellow ; so is Lieutenant Falding, and so is old Eumney and two or three other fellows you will see at mess 5 some of them are away on detached duty. Alto- gether I think you will find ours one of the fastest regiments in the service." " Ah! — yes," said Montagu. " Now, if you are ready we will just step over to the Colonel's quarter." Montagu having asserted his readiness, they both proceeded to the Colonel's quarters. Slowly walking up and down before which they met two old officers, leisurely pacing to and fro, finishing off their morning cigars. "Oh! here is Colonel Loosefysh," said the Captain, '' and Major Fussey too." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 35 On seeing Worsted approach with a stranger, the Colonel and the Major faced about and halted until Worsted came up to them, when the latter said : " This is Mr. Montagu, come to join ours. Colonel Loosefysh — Major Fussey — Mr. Mon- tagu." '' I am happy, gentlemen," said Montagu, making a polite bow, which was returned by a stiff military bend, '' to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance." " Will you take a cigar?" said Fussey, pro- ducing his case. '•' Thank you," said Worsted, who was not asked ; but immediately profited by one of the Major's Havannahs, while Montagu declined for the present. ''Don't you smoke?" said the Colonel. " Not quite so early," said Montagu. " But I suppose. Colonel Loosefysh, it is a principle of military life to smoke at all hours." " Principle !" said Loosefysh, drawing the cigar out of his mouth, and just touching the 36 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. ashy end with his little finger, " I think it rather confuses a man in life to have too many principles. I admit it is right to go upon a principle ; but principle should be short, sharp, decisive. I have one simple principle for my life and only one, so that I do not easily mix it up with any other." " Indeed, Colonel Loosefysh ! I have no doubt your great experience has suggested to you a military principle, which is the key to all others. Pray, as your junior ensign, may I venture to ask what your great principle is?" " You shall have it, sir, and welcome," said the Colonel. " I make it a simple principle of my life never on any account, nor under any circumstances whatever, to deny myself any- thing; that is my great and only principle, sir." " Ah ! Ha !" laughed Fussey. " Ha ! Ha !" laughed Worsted. As for poor Montagu, he elevated his eye- brows and seemed considerably staggered. '' But surely. Colonel Loosefysh," he re- plied, " you do not mean to say that this SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 37 principle of yours makes no distinction whether the gratification to be obtained is at your own or another person's expense." "Faith, sir! I make no fine drawn dis- tinctions whatever ; they are all very well for boys fresh from school. Men of the world know that fine distinctions always confuse a simple principle. Mine is short, sharp, decisive. I do not care one single rush whose expense it may be at. All I know is, I never have denied, and I never will deny to myself any single thing that I can possibly desire and obtain under any cir- cumstances whatever. You know I do not take any credit for my principle. It is not my own you understand — it is not my own. I got it from my mother." '' Your mother, Colonel Loosefysh ; surely there must be some mistake. I can scarcely credit that such a principle could come from a mother." "Not come from my mother? Confusion, sir ! do you doubt my honor when I tell you a thing ? " 38 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Not for a moment, Colonel Loosefysh. I do not mean to cast the slightest doubt upon your assertion, I only thought there might be some little misconception/' " Sir, I do not deal in misconceptions, but I will prove to you in the most logical of all modes the correctness of my assertion. Lady Louisa Loosefysh used to say to me, ' Charles, my dear boy, remember you must be an indul- gent landlord — always an indulgent landlord — an indulgent landlord is what every Irish- man ought to be." " But, Colonel Loosefysh, was that all she said?" " To be sure it was, and was not that more than enough?" " But excuse me for saying I do not see how your principle springs out of Lady Louisa Loosefysh' s observation." " Not see it ? Don't you see it ? A landlord I was bound to be by her will you see ; she left me heir to a long entailed property. However, by this and by that, thanks to your infernal SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 39 lawyers, the devil a farthing I ever had to spend of rent since the time she died. The confounded mortgages eat that all up ; indulgent, therefore you see I cannot be to others, so if I cannot indulge others by this and by that, the only man I can indulge is myself, and I will do that same on all and every occasion. I call that, major, a very sound and logical deduction from very admirable premises. Poor Lady Louisa ! she is with the saints long ago, but if she looks down upon this earth and sees one man more than another acting up to his principles, I flatter myself Colonel Loosefysh of the Non- such Regiment is the man. Major, hold out your cigar case again. The last time it came forth T was very much shocked to observe you did not offer it to your own Colonel.'' " I beg your pardon a thousand times, Loosefysh." In another moment out came Fussey's cigar case again, and the Colonel dipped his relentless fingers into it, pulling out — of course by the merest accident — two cisrars instead of one. 40 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " I suppose you dine at mess tHs evening, Mr. Montagu?'' " Yes, I propose to have that pleasure, sir." " Well we shall meet there if we (Jo not meet before," said the Colonel, turning round to resume his walk. Taking this gentle hint Montagu bowed to his superior officers, and Worsted led the way with him to Walduck's quarters. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 41 CHAPTER IV. "When Worsted and Montagu entered the quar- ters of Walduck, they found the breakfast things on the table just as they had been left half-an-hour before. Everything in the room remained unchanged except that on the china plate were now lying the fag ends of six cigars instead of three, while a fresh one was burn- ing between the lips of the smoker. ' ' Holloa, Walduck , my boy ! ' ' said Worsted. '^What not finished your breakfast yet? I have brought Mr. Montagu to call upon you. 42 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. He has just come to join ours. He has brought me down a letter from Piper of the 120th." " Ah, Piper ! Was not that Piper formerly of the 130th, when they were quartered near us at Booserabad, Mr. Montagu ?" " I don't know, really ; but I know he has been in the East Indies." " Oh, yes ! I am sure it is the same man — a tall fellow with red whiskers?" " Yes." " A little marked with the small pox? He does not pronounce the ' P ' very well, and has a horrid mode of finishing off the fag end of a game of billiards when he has got a good bet with long odds in his favour." " Ah ! I do not know about the billiards, but he certainly has a little lisp with the 'K.' " '' Yes. I have no doubt it is the same. Well, I am delighted to see you, Mr. Montagu ; whenever you write to Piper give him my kind regards. I am very glad you have come to join the Nonsuch Regiment. I think you will find we are the fastest regiment in the service." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 43 " Well, I had always understood that you had very much distinguished yourselves in action. I believe you were at Ferozeshan and Chillian wallah, and all through the Peninsula, especially that terrible field of Albuera." " Oh, as to that, my boy, that is all bosh ! We do not attend to that sort of stuff. There are more Subalterns drive tandems in the Nonsuch Regiment, than any other corps in the service, and T will take a bet our cham- pagne bill at mess is heavier than any other regiment in England." " Oh, indeed !" said Montague. " I have never heard that." " Why, my boy, where the dickens have you come from that you should hear any thing? I sup- pose you were at Eton last year, were you not ?' ^ " Yes," said Montagu, blushing. "My poor father intended that I should have gone and spent a few years at Potsdam and Vienna and St. Petersburg, so as to learn the system of the Russian and German armies, but un- happily, his death — " 44 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Ah! poor old buffer," said Worsted, taking another cigar out of Walduck's case, although the one he had recently taken from Fussej was not yet half finished. "Your governor, no doubt, was a jolly old dog in his day, but all that sort of thing you know is confoundedly slow. If he had spent the money in a couple of dog carts for you and given you a few hundreds to spend atTattersall'ssoas to know the points of ahorse, you would have found it much more useful in the service. Men must be fast, sir, in our days. If they are not fast they are nothing. Where we were quartered last there was a depot of the — teenth. By Jove ! you should have seen what fast boys they were. It was in Ire- land, and we used to turn out after mess upon a dark night — raining cats and dogs, sir, agreeing on three different roads to the same town, about ten miles off; then we used to make a sweep- stake of five guineas a piece, put the three roads in a hat. so that each man drew his route by ballot, and then we used to start off three tan- dems — no lamps allowed, you know — all dark SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 45 roads, brooks, stones, bits of bog and all sorts of devilments in the way, and the fellow that got into the town first ordered a champagne supper with mulled claret and brandy to follow. Two fellows in each dog cart — so that whichever got there first was sure to have a chum for his supper, and the moment he got in, there was dry your clothes how best you might. Give a quarter of an hour's grace, start the supper, and keep it going till they all come in. I say, Walduck, was not that jolly fun f " Ah ! in those days one met something like fast men ! and how those Irish waiters used to delight in it.'^ " Yes. Do you remember that clever little fellow, Barney O'Reilley, how he used to keep on all night bottle after bottle mulling the claret with burnt brandy till sometimes the fellows would not come in till ten o'clock the next morning, splashed, by Jove, how they were splashed!" " Yes, Worsted, and do you remember what two or three confounded spills we all of us got 46 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. in turns ! but there was a good deal of money- made at that fun. I got in first several times." " Ah ! but then jou know, Walduck, you had such splendid cattle. I should think first and last you must have cleared a thousand pounds in bets during our Irish quarters." " Oh ! not so much as that, but, however, it was adding a little zest to life. Now that really was fast, you know ; and there were some very pretty girls in that town too — but there, you know, Mr. Montagu, a man must be a good tandem whip to keep his reputation up at all to the mark." " Oh, a fellow who does not drive a tandem is a slow fellow. Every man now in the ser- vice drives a tandem." "• Yes. Oh— certainly !" " After all a tandem is A B C work. Four- in-hand is very pretty fun ; it is a great pity these infernal railroads have come in. My old governor was a member of the four-in-hand club. I like four-in-hand. How many horses have you brought down with you,Mr.Montagu?' ' SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 47 " Why — a — why — really — my commission at last came in such a hurry, I had not time to look out any horses ; and, indeed, I thought I should be able to get one or two down here at Forestville." " Oh ! One or two will not do you know ; you can^t do without three, you know. Can he, Worsted?" " Oh, impossible ! By the way, Walduck, unless you are more ill-natured than I take you for, you could spare him a couple, I think, out of your stable. How many horses have you got there now? " '' Well, I have only four at present ; but I do not mind obliging Mr. Montagu with a couple, if they would be of any use to him." " Well, indeed, Mr. Walduck, I am very much obliged to you ; I should like to look at your horses," said the youthful Ensign. " Ah, by the way, let us see what is the clock," added Walduck, taking out his watch. " Oh, they are just going to have their feed. Come, we will go and see them fed. Before we 48 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. start we will just take a glass of sometliing mild. Here, Topknot, bring me down my surtout, will you, and put another bottle on the table. Have you breakfasted, Mr. Montagu ? '^ " Yes, thank you, Mr. Walduck ; I break- fasted before I left Town.'' " Ah ! Then you are ready for luncheon. Worsted, fill Mr. Montagu a glass of Burgundy, will you? Just draw the cork, and do the honors while I throw off my dressing gown." In a few minutes in came the servant with a fresh bottle, and in spite of all Montagu's protestations, a tremendous wine-glass full was poured out for his consumption, and a ripe Stilton put upon the table. " Now toss that off, Mr. Montagu, and we will drink success to our brother officers of the Nonsuch Regiment." " Thank you — thank you, Mr. Worsted, but I really am afraid to drink so much wine in the middle of the day." ''Ah, but light wine like this goes for nothing. It is much safer to drink than water in these SCAPEGRACE A'l SEA. 49 cliolera times. Now then, finisli off your heeltap, and we will drink the colours of the regiment, and may they be happily borne by an out and out fast Ensign, who has this day joined our depot." Poor Montagu was obliged to finish the first glass, and the relentless Worsted immediately filled him bumper the second. " I really feel myself very much honored by your kindness. Captain Worsted, and I hope whenever the gallant Nonsuch finds itself under the enemies' fire I hope I may have the happiness of carrying the colors of the regi- ment into the thickest of it !" *' Ah ! yes — yes ; that is all very well ; those ambitious notions of glory and all that sort of thing, you know — they do very well for such young fellows as you, — just come from reading Caesar's Commentaries; we old stagers take the disease mildly ; there is no particular charm to my mind in an action, except that it brings a man a chance of buying his promotion a little more rapidly, but even that must be at the loss VOL. I. D 50 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. of some jolly fast fellow or another, with a bullet through his vitals, and then again, it is such a chance if one ever does get into action — the world is so entirely peaceful/' " Oh ! upon my word, Captain Worsted, I have very great hopes we shall have a jolly pepper at the Czar before long." '' Oh ! yes, that may be ; but we must take those things as they come." '' Now, gentlemen, I am at your service," said Walduck, making his appearance. ' ' Have you got a glass of wine here for me ?" " Oh ! yes," said Worsted ; " here is a glass left." "Ah! thank you. Now then, Montagu, the pleasure of a glass of wine with you." " Oh ! really, Mr. Walduck, you are too good, upon my honor, I am not accustomed to drink wine in the forenoon." " Oh ! nonsense, man, you must not admit you are such a slow fellow as that. Light wine like this, you know, goes for nothing." '' Well, just put a little into mine." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. bl " No, indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. It is a regular insult to offer to drink to a man in a heeltap — toss it off — come." Once more poor Montagu was obliged to empty his glass, and Walduck filling it up to the brim, did the same for himself. " Here is the speedy completion of your mili- tary education, Mr. Montagu, and without wish- ing bad luck to any one, I take leave to say a rattling war and speedy promotion." Walduck and Montagu bowled to each other, and the latter endeavoured to set his glass down half emptied. " No, no, that won't do, you know ; you must not do disgrace to your host's wine ; toss him off." " Come, Worsted, there is just half a glass left in the bottle, and that falls to you." "Ah, well, poor injured individual ! I sup- pose I must submit to it. Pour on, I will endure." The bottle finished, they all set out, and in a few minutes reached the stables of Lieutenant Walduck. D 2 52 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTEE V. " Now wMch, may I ask, Mr. Walduck, do you consider your best horses of those four?" " Oh, undoubtedly this one. Grey Bob, and that chestnut mare, two splendid cattle. You could not sit behind anything finer.'' "Ah, indeed!" said Montagu. " I wish I knew the points of a horse, upon my honour. I know a horse when I see him, certainly, but as to being able to tell you what he ought to be, or w^hat he ought to do, I never could make that out." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 53 " Oil, my dear fellow, that is merely from want of a little instruction." '' Oh, quite so !" chimed in Worsted. " You put yourself into WalducFs hands, he will very soon make you know a horse when you see him, indeed !" " I am sure, Mr. Walduck, I should be very much obliged to you." " Oh, the thing is as simple as possible. Always make a rule to drive good cattle. Your eye will very soon tell you what is the shape and style of a creature that goes through his work best. Now, look at this Grey Bob — what a splendid haunch he has — what quarters — look at his back ! Then here is a chest for you — wind enough for anything ! Now look at his leg— just feel, sir, flat and broad, and strong enough for a charger ! Then how light he is; a fine broad hoof; then look at his nostrils. Ple'd blow, sir, blow like a grampus ; no impediment here, sir ! Then look at his eye — there is a magnificent eye, sir ! Now, you see all my horses, more or less, are of the same 54 SCAPEGIRACE AT SEA. stamp, tliat is the cut of them, quite. Speed, free, sir — go, sir, fast — fast — ^verj fast ! Take such a horse as that, give him plenty of com — give him his head — you find nerve, and he will take you anywhere, or do anything.'* '' Ah, they appear to be two very fine horses, certainly." As Montagu said this, he looked at the two admired steeds very intently, while Worsted, turning quietly round to Walduck, with a sub- dued sparkle of humour in his eye, and the least possible movement of his tongue in his cheek, added the word : "Very!" " Snaffle," said the owner, turning to his groom, " the moment those two horses have had their feed, harness them,tandem, and bring them round to my quarters. The day is so fine. Wor- sted, it is quite a sin to spend it in idleness. We will spin our friend here a few miles along the road to Maidenhead, andbringhim back again." "Oh, thank you ! I shall enjoy the ride very much," exclaimed Montagu. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 55 In the course of five minutes tlie horses were harnessed, while the three military heroes stood looking on, and the groom then drove them round to Walduck's quarters, where a few things were put into the body of the cart in the shape of some cigars, a few coats and wrappers, and off they started, Walduck driving, Montagu on his left hand. Worsted behind Walduck, and the groom behind Montagu. What with the wine the latter had taken, what with the tremendous pace at which he now found himself whirled along, Montagu's spirits soon rose to a very agreeable elevation. He admired the horses, the driving, the harness, the turn out, everything as it was put to him, and yielded a ready assent to the assertion not made to him above a dozen times, that the whole thing, the proceeding, and the men engaged in it, were 'fast,' ' very fast,' decidedly ' very fast.' " I suspect, Walduck," said Worsted, after they had been driving about half-an-hour, '^ when you talk of selling these horses, that 56 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. you will never be able to bring yourself to part with them.'* '' Oh ! yes, I think I should, if I got my price for them.'* " Pray what, may I ask, is your price ?'' said Montagu. " Oh ! they are cheap at two hundred guineas," said Worsted. " Well, — yes, no doubt they are," said Walduck. " But as our friend here is a young hand, I would make an abatement in his favour; he shall have them for one hundred and fifty guineas." " Well, I am extremely obliged to you, Mr. Walduck," said Montagu. " I say, done." " T am sorry to part with them, Mr. Montagu, "yet still, you will know when you keep horses a little more yourself, they breed in a man's mind a curious changeability ; they are just like a man keeping pictures, houses, or any- thing else ; he is always chopping and chang- ing, buying fresh ones, and so on." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 57 " Ob ! I quite understand," said Montagu^ " though I assure you now I have bought these two, it would be a long while before I should be inclined to change them again." " One hundred and fifty guineas," said Worsted ; "why, my dear fellow, did not you say you refused that last week, you know ? I say, Mr. Montagu, will you take five guineas for your bargain ?" " Oh, no ; indeed I would not. Oh ! I could not think of doing that." " Well, no offence you know." " They are dirt cheap at one hundred and fifty. Now if you like, Mr. Montagu, you shall take the reins and drive us all back." ''Why — really, Mr. Walduck, I never have driven tandem hitherto ; and to say nothing of my own neck, I should not like to jeopar- dise yours and Captain Worsted's by making a start at it without any preparation — and the horses are so fresh to-day." " Oh, never mind, here is a straight road D 5 58 gCAPEGEACE AT SEA. before you — come. Snaffle, jump down when I pull up ; I and Mr. Montagu will change seats." " Oh ! really, Mr. Walduck, indeed I will not trespass on your kindness." " Oh, nonsense ; if a fellow has to learn any- thing there is nothing like doing it at once. I know what it is — a fellow debates and debates and never does anything — it is like a fellow learning to swim, it is not till some fellow takes liim by the scruff of his neck and throws him into the stream that he does it, and then he is quite surprised to find it such easy work. Come, I will take no denial. Here, lay hold of these reins, I shall be close at your elbow, you know, if anything goes wrong, and if you do give old Worsted a spill there behind, it will be only ne- cessary for him to ball himself up — a worsted ball cannot be hurt under any circumstances." " Come, master Walduck, don't you go so tamely to pun upon my name. This is the way, Mr. Montagu, you see these young officers take liberties with old seniors like myself, but I sup- pose I must endure it. Pun on, I will endure." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 69 In a few minutes Montagu, spite of his better judgment, seduced by Walduck and a pint of Burgundy taken fasting, had the tandem reins in his hand, the groom was once more in his place, and away the horses went. " Now I will hold the whip for you," said Walduck; " when a man begins to learn tandem driving he should learn one thing at a time; the management of the whip is a science in itself, you first of all learn to drive the horses. The next time I come out with you, you shall learn to manage the whip. Let them go — give them theu' heads." '' Oh, really, consider, Mr. Walduck, you know. No, I never — I never did drive tandem." " No, my boy, and you never will if you don't give them their heads. Here ! Yoicks I Yoicks !" and in a minute Walduck unfolded his whip, sent it lashing around the body of the leader, and away went the chesnut mare. " Yoicks ! Yoicks ! Away, Grey Bob." Away they both went as fast as they could lay their legs to the ground. 60 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Oh, really this is dreadful ; some accident will happen!" " Oh, this is all right. Worsted, my boy, hold on like grim death, you know." '•'• Oh, Mr. Walduck, here comes a market cart. We certainly shall go over it." " Never mind. Go over it clear then ! The market carts must take care of themselves." " Do take the reins — do take the reins !" " Not I. Never mind that; go on. Yoicks ! Yoicks! There, go it, Chestnut !" Away went the whip about the head of the chestnut mare, and the tandem dashed past tjae market gardener, leaving about half-an-inch clear between the wheels. Then rose a volley of oaths from the cultivator of cabbages ; but they were all lost upon the military heroes, who in a few seconds were yards and yards past him, and a j&ne, clear, level road presented itself before the half-horrified Johnny Newcome. '^ That is it ! Well done, Mr. Montagu ! Hold them well — hold them up — hold them up. Now, is not that jolly ? That is something SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 61 you never learned in Julius Caesar ! That is wliat I call ' fast,' sir, — that is ' fast.' Go it, Chestnut ! Yoicks ! Little Grey !" '' Well, really, indeed — dear me — I could not have thought I could have driven tandem so easily." " To be sure you could not. Now is not that splendid ?" '' I hope the road has no turning for the next three or four miles." "Oh, none whatever," said Walduck, again using the whip. " Don't— don't, Mr. Walduck ! Don't whip the horses, that is a good fellow ! I am sure they are going as fast as they can tear now." '' Well, as they are your cattle I won't ; but I only wished you to see what they can do. Worsted, my boy, did you notice the time since our new driver took the ribbons?" " Yes," said Worsted, pulling out his watch. '' I marked it at the first mile post he passed, and now there is another just ahead; time it there and we shall have gone just three miles." 62 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " There, now we are abreast of it. What is the time ?" " Just ten minutes.'' " Ah ! very good ; that is the pace I usually allow them, eighteen miles an hour; that is what I call fast, you know — fast — decidedly fast." *' Dear me, that is tremendous," said Mon- tagu. " And now then, with all my laurels fresh upon me, and before I have spilled any one, I will resign the ribbons, Mr. Walduck, into your hands. You pull them up." " Ah ! give them their heads ; they will soon drop down to an easy pace ; they like a spin like that, it helps the fire out of them." " Yes — I have often thought now that the body of a horse must really be a sort of living alembic, which takes in the grain in a natural state and at once by a process of animal fer- mentation, and distillation, converts it into spirit; a sort of addition to Black's chemistry." " Ah ! yes, that is all very scientific I have no doubt, but we fast men are content with saying that if your prad has got the corn SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 63 in him he can go the pace, if otherwise it is no go, you know." " I say. Worsted, if we turn back now and trot gently into town, I think we shall be able to give our friend the — " " The market gardener." " Ah ! yes, the market gardener a shave on the other side of his cart." " It would be a cruel injustice to pay him more attention on the off than on the near side." '' Why, that is rather against the rules of the road, but these brutes always drive right in the middle — so I suppose I shall be able to give him a turn." The military heroes were as good as their word. Having pulled up and turned back, they trotted along very gently until just be- hind the market gardener, who, fast asleep in the middle of his greens, and cart of course in the middle of the road,never heard them coming. " Now, Snaffle, as we pass by you bawl in that fellow's ears as if thunder was cracking — you can give him a yoicks too. Worsted, and 64 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. you, too, Montagu. I will let their heads go, you know, and you call out the moment you see my leader, abreast his mare ; he will most likely pull up on the near side and we shall just shave the nose of his horse nicely." In an instant away went the folds of the tandem whip, snap rattled the lash about the tips of the chestnut's ears, off she went — away flew Grey Bob, and, as the tandem once more at full gallop dashed past on the near side of the market gardener, and, as Grey Bob was abreast of the gardener's wheels a terrific shout, " Yoicks ! Hi ! Ahee !" was raised by all four of them. Up started the guilty slumberer, fiercely he pulled his near rein of course, and, as the old weary nag Dobbin obeyed the summons, like a sudden thunder roar rattled the wheels past the very point of his nose, almost touching it. Up reared the frightened old horse, leaving it doubt- ful for a moment whether the heavily laden cart would not drag him backwards. Forth came another volley of oaths, and away dashed the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 65 tandem,tlie whole partyof Burgundians uttering terrific sounds and cries of triumph and delight. " Now I call that 'fast.' Now that is what I call decidedly 'fast!"' said Walduck. " Oh, very !" said Montagu. " There is nothing like tandem !" said Worsted. "Oh, nothing!" said Montagu; and delighted at having comfortably got over this first ordeal in the eyes of his fast friends, he was neverthe- less considerably pleased at once more finding himself standing safe with all his limbs sound on the pavement of the barracks. By this time he found his quarters had been assigned to him, and was about to go off to in- spect them, when Walduck said : " What shall we do with your horses ? Have you got any stables of your own ?" " Oh, by the way," said Montagu, " I quite forgot. If you will favour me with a sheet of paper, I will give you a cheque. Perhaps you will oblige me by letting the horses remain in 66 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. your stable until I have made some arrange- ment for tliem." " Oh, yes ! There is plenty of room ; there is a stall or two to spare, and I know Snaffle will take care of them ; won't you, Snaffle?" Snaffle raised his finger to his hat in military fashion. ''I suppose they are to have the same feeds as usual, sir ?'' " Oh, yes. Snaffle ; attend to them just as usual, as if they were still mine. I will give you" (turning to Montagu) " a sheet of note- paper if you will come into my room." The two then ascended the steps leading to Walduck' s barrack-room. A sheet of note-paper was put before Montagu, and in a few minutes duly filled up by a cheque, not inappropriately drawn on "Goslings and Sharpe," and signed for the amount of one hundred and fifty guineas. "Thank you," said Walduck. "I will give you a receipt for it as the horses still remain in my stable, in case I should depart this life before SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 67 you have accommodated yom-self witli stabling of your own, my executors will know to wliom the cattle belongs !" The second document was filled up as rapidly as the first, and each party folding up his own, Montagu went off to his quarters, leaving Walduck and Worsted behind him. " That is a very nice young man," said Wor- sted, taking his note case from his pocket. " Very," said Walduck. And each of these two sagacious heroes looked in the other's face with a suppressed smile. "This is what I call a morning industriously spent, notwithstanding your late breakfast." " Well, it might have been worse. Where is that kite of yours which I promised to dis- count?" " Oh, here it is," said Worsted, drawing out a long slip of paper bearing his signa- ture. " I say. Worsted, my boy, it is a long date — it is six months.'' " Oh, yes ; but then you know — a — you 68 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. will calculate the interest you know — a — you will get it in one way/' " Well, you will stand a ^ve pound note for this of course, won't you?" "Oh! Walduck, my boy, that is tremendous you know." " Oh, gammon, tremendous ! It is only twenty per cent." " Well, but my dear fellow, I have sold your horses for you." " Ah ! yes. But I should have been sure to have sold them myself, only perhaps I might have taken a day or two longer about it. And then, you know, Worsted, the market is so full of your paper. Your respectable friends Taekin and Doem would not like to do it for less than sixty per cent." " Well, zounds, sir! those fellows are men of business, you know ; this is done between men of honor." '' Yes, there is a long difference between the two certainly, and so there is between twenty and sixty you know." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 69 "Ah ! now, it is too mucli ; upon my honor it is too bad of you." " Gammon ! that will do to tell some slow fellow. It does not do among fast men to talk in that way. T tell you what I will do, if you choose to make it three months instead of six, I take it at ten per cent, instead of twenty. In six months, you know, a fellow may go to Constantinople, Varna, Odessa, the Crimea, pass through cholera, dysentry, "The imminent peril of the deadly breach," and go to the very dogs ; and I should like to ask you soberly. Master Worsted, if you vanish in your corporeal substance from before the eyes of your unhappy creditors, who the deuce are your executors, and where is your estate ?" '' Oh ! as to those mere fictions of law, they are not worth considering.'' " Not by you, but I, who am going to give you a cheque for good hard round money must have three months." " No, I cannot say — " 2^ 70 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Well then I must have five pounds, so here is a check for forty-five pounds, and that is done with." Walduck folded up and put in his pocket book Worsted^ s security, then scribbled out and hand- ed over to him a check for forty-five pounds. " Ah ! Walduck, upon my life," said Wor- sted, looking at the cheque, " you are a worse screw than your horses." '^ Ah, my dear fellow, when you are as good a judge of horseflesh as I am, you will find that they are magnificent cattle that very for- tunate young man, Mr. Montagu, has become possessed of to-day." " Egad, Walduck ! upon my life I thought you gave him the reins that he might throw them both down and render the bargain irre- versible." '' Oh, no, I merely gave him the reins that he might taste the fun of driving tandem, which is a great pleasure. I think now he will go in at it, and of course he will knock up a horse or two now and then." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 71 " Oh, of course, and lie will know where to come to a friend of great skill in horse-flesh to replace them/' " Precisely.'' " Well, then, I think you ought to give me back that other five pounds for the risk that I put my neck to in sitting beside the pair of you." " Don't you wish you may get it, old boy!" '' Upon my life, Walduck, for so young a fellow I never did know snch a screw as you are. Hang me if I do not think you will die with no end of tin. I know as well as can be what you will do with my acceptance ; you will go and get it discounted with your own bankers for about seven shillings, and you will have the whole of your capital at your own disposal again to-morrow afternoon." " Well, my dear fellow, supposing I do ; remember I shall have to put my name to your rotten paper, and if Death lays hold of you loyally fighting for your Queen and country, I shall have to stump up every farthing." 72 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Then you won't give me back the five- pound note ?" " No, my dear fellow ; as old Loosefysh would say, my principles are short, sharp, and decisive. It is a leading principle of my life never to enter into any transaction, unless I see my way clear to make a profit by it.'' " Well, at any rate, let us wash our throats clear of the dust with a fresh bottle of Bur- gundy." " Oh, yes ; you may do that and welcome." " Then hand us out another cigar." " A dozen if you like. Here, Topknot, more wine and cigars — the same bin as the last. " Ah ! you are a rum dog, Walduck, upon my life. You are so screwy in your money matters, and yet a hospitable fellow too ; you are always ready to stand Sam." " Principle, my boy, principle, as old Loose- fysh would remark, short, sharp, and decisive. It is the leading principle of my life to live on the very best I can get, and to let no man come under my roof tree who is not heartily welcome SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. id to sliare it ; but as to money, you know that is quite another affair, that comes under the other principle which I need not repeat to you." " Well, Walduck, my boy," said Worsted, pouring out the wine, '' we must take you as we find you. What do you think of this fellow, Montagu ?" " Why, I think he is an ass." " Well, so do I ; but still it strikes me that he is an ass that will do to carry panniers for us. What do you say?" " Yes, sir ; yes. Load him and ride him — ride him and load him well, sir, till you find him going down on his knees, then get off his back as fast as ever you can. Now, Worsted, my boy, you will just excuse me. I must be off. It is near the time the bank closes, and I don't in- tend to keep that fellow's cheque for one hun- dred and fifty-seven pounds ten shillings in my pocket a minute longer than I can help." " Ah, there is some sense in that." " Whenever you get hold of a stranger's cheque, always cash it at the first opportunity. VOL. I. E 74 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. It is a leading principle of my life, short, sharp, and decisive — Colonel Loosefysh ; ahem ! I suppose I shall find you here when I come back?" " That will depend upon the Beaune. If any- thing remains in the bottle, you may take it for certain I am here ; but if you give time for the bottle to empty itself, you may take it for certain that I shall be gone/' "What, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say you will go before you have finished the cigar-case !" " Yes, my dear fellow, I shall, for, as soon as the bottle is empty, I shall put the cigars in my pocket." " Bravo — egad, Worsted, that is Worsted all over. If I had merely heard the sentiment echoed on the other side of the Ganges I should have sworn it had been uttered by you. Adieu, old boy — au revoiry " Diamond cut diamond," muttered Wor- sted, tossing off a couple of glasses, one after the other; "what a knowing young shaver that SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 75 is ; there's no doing him any way. However, the creature is useful;'^ and with this consolo- tary thought, Worsted took up his position before the fire, a coat tail under each arm, and industriously puffed out one roll of smoke after another. In this meditative occupation Walduck found him on his return from the bank, and, having called for another bottle, they pro- ceeded in those grave and serious labours until the preparatory bugle gave them notice to dress for mess. E 2 76 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTER VT. Scarcely liad Montagu got into Ms new quar- ters when a card was brought to him bearing the inscription of Captain Spinney. " Show him up," said Montagu, and the Captain entered. '' Good morning, Mr. Montagu ; my name is Spinney. I am Captain of the Nonsuch Regi- ment, and, therefore, your brother officer. I have taken the liberty of calling on you, for I understand youhave just joined ours to-day.'^ " I am obliged to you,'' replied Montagu. '' Will you take a chair. Captain Spinney ?" " Thank you," said Spinney. " I see you are SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. 77 busy getting your room to rights, and I will not stay with you long ; but I was anxious to lose no time in welcoming you to ours, as far as my humble position goes. I hope you will find the regiment everything you could desire.'' " Thank you, Captain Spinney ; I am much obliged to you. Your regiment appears to have a very friendly set of officers." " Well, yes — possibly so. But, sir, you are a young officer — a very young officer — and as such I need not tell you that everything depends upon your set — everything depends upon that — that is upon whom a young officer selects for his friends." " Oh, of course, sir." " A man who j oins, generally has an acquaint- ance at starting with his regiment. In all probability if those acquaintances are bad they are not very easily shaken off again, and very often form a kind of guiding chain which regu- lates his whole conduct and existence." "Precisely, Captain Spinney; that is cer- tainly very true and undeniable." 78 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " And of course in ours as well as in every other regiment, there are men of all classes and stamps,y ou know ; some very fine,noble, gallant, and courageous men, and, of course, you know, in every regiment there must be men who are not exactly patterns in every department of character. Well, I must not take up your time; there is only one thing I wish to caution you against. Take care how you get into what is called the 'fast' set of this regiment." " The fast set, Captain Spinney ? Perhaps I may take the liberty, as you are my senior, and speak in this confidential way, of asking what you mean by laying such stress on men being ' fast,' and men being ' slow ?' I confess at Eton I heard the term once or twice, just as you may hear any other term among gentlemen ; but here it appears to be the criterion. If a man is a ' fast ' man, he appears to be a sort of hero, and if a ' slow ' man, a sort of Pariah." " Precisely," said Spinney, once more seating himself, and holding out one forefinger against the other : " that is the very idea I wish to SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 79 impress upon your mind. Can anything in the world be more absurd, or more ridiculous than boys of two or three or four-and-twenty, setting themselves up to say who are fast and who are slow, undertaking to condemn their superiors and seniors?" '' Well, I have always had a very great — I will not say, perhaps, antipathy to, but certainly lack of understanding of such a piece of cant." " It is, sir ; cant ! it is nothing but cant ! Now there is a young man in this regiment who prides himself upon being the head of the ' fast' men here — a young man of the name of Walduck.'' '' Yes, Captain Spinney.'' " I advise you to be very cautious, Mr. Montagu, how you make the acquaintance of Mr. Walduck, and above all things don't let him sell you any of his old screws." " Old screws ! What an extraordinary fancy ! Is he connected with manufacturing or carpentering business ?" 80 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " No, no ! I do not mean manufacturing screws ; I mean screws of horses/^ " Oh, yes ! I have heard the term before.'' " Well, you take care he does not palm off any of his horses upon you." '' I am very sorry, Captain Spinney, but your advice comes rather late in both in- stances. I have made his acquaintance." " Oh, dear ! Then you have bought one of his horses." " No, I have bought two." "And you joined the regiment this morning." " Yes ; a few hours ago." '' And that fellow has contrived to fix you with two of his horses already. '' Well, I won't say contrived ; but I have bought them." " Well, that is ' fast ' with a vengeance on his side, I must say ! 'Tis shameful ! Well now, I suppose you have been unwise enough to let him have fifty pounds of your money, for I am sure he has not a nag in his stable worth twenty." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 81 " Well, perhaps you see this matter — I will not say with an eye of prejudice — but, per- haps something bordering that way. He certainly drove me out to-day with his tandem — two horses that never could be bought for that money, and I gave him one hundred and fifty guineas.'^ '' Oh dear ! Oh dear ! Ha, ha, ha ! Well, my dear fellow, there is only one consolation that I see in the matter." " Pray what is it ?" said Montagu, not altogether pleased with this exhibition. " Why, that you must have a load of money to part with it so easily." " Well, I do not say that I have a load, but at any rate T certainly thought that might be the worth of the horses, and that seemed to be the price named, and I gave it, and there is the end of the transaction." ''Oh, yes; quite an end ! Have you paid it?" " Yes, I gave a cheque." " Then there is an end of that ; but do let me caution you, as a young man, against going £ 5 82 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. on in tliat kind of way. You will see Worsted and Eacket — liave you seen them ?'' " Yes, I have seen Captain Worsted, but not Mr. Racket.'' " Well, he is a nice sample of the school ; you will see these fellows all living in a style above three times their income. Champagne and burgundy breakfasts — champagne and burgundy dinners— mulled claret and grilled- bone suppers, horses, carriages, and many other little expenses, by the way, not much less than those I have enumerated ; but it is endless, sir ; and all of them have got nothing, not one of them worth a single farthing ; no- body knows how they carry on." " But, surely, sir, you do not mean to say that Mr. Walduck is not a man of large private fortune ?" " Large fortune ! humbug, sir, not a bit of it. His fortune is just what he can make out of such gentlemen as you !" " Well, that is consolatory." " Why, sir, I have known Walduck —a clever SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 83 fellow, and an agreeable fellow no doubt, I bave known Walduck sell something like sixty horses in a single year. Why, when the regiment was in India he always had six horses, and any man might buy five of them before breakfast, and no man would buy one without leaving a consi- derable sum of money in Walduck's pocket, and that is not the sort of thing for the army. It may do all very well for a fellow who writes up ' Dealer in horses,' but a man who comes into the army should be of high and generous mind, well versed in all the noble deeds of daring by which great commanders in olden time have won renown ; a man should be truthful, abste- mious, simple in his habits, high in his notions of honour, self-denying in his own personal ways and tastes ; he should make the service his home and his study ; that is what a soldier should be ; and now just put such a character as that beside these butterflies of pleasure. Oh ! what a miserable mistake it is to fall into." " Well, sir, I admit that." " Yes, and not only for the sake of the service 84 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. but look at a man's own position. Now sup- pose one of these fellows, accustomed to carry on in this kind of way, finds himself in hard ser- vice against the Eussians ; what the deuce would those fellows do when perhaps for days and days together they may be stuck upon half rations of salt pork, with never a fryingpan to cook it. The service is going to Old Harry when rich manufacturers can send their sons into the army by purchasing commissions, and when they get here, instead of learning their duty, they set an example of extravagance, idleness, debauchery, tomfoolery, in short, sir !" '' There's a great deal of truth in what you say. Captain Spinney." " What I say, sir ! I have been my whole life looking at it. Here I am, a Captain in the army, a man of fifty-six, always ready to do my duty everywhere — have seen service in every quarter of the globe, and I see a pack of these boy s, with their notions of fast men and slow men, come into the service, with a heap of money made by selling butter and cheese, and then, SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 85 forsooth, tliey must tliink themselves fast men, when they are not even gentlemen in reality, except by the commission they have so unfortu- nately been allowed to purchase, and then they set an example of all sorts of profusion; then you find some sharp }'Oung gentleman who shall be nameless, falling into the same habits of profu- sion in this, or some other regiment ; and, as he has not got the manufacturer's money, how does he do it ? By turning horse jockey and selling his old screws to his brother officers. And, sir, it is a rotten system, altogether very wrong, sir. I hope, Mr. Montagu, that as you are the son of a general officer, and no doubt have pro- perty legitimately acquired, that you will take a high stand in the regiment — set your back atrainst this nonsense — don't allow yourself to be drawn into these frivolities — come and study your profession like a man, continue your read- ing, and take very good care to know what were the tactics of every distinguished man who ever commanded an army, from Alexan- 86 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. der the Great down to Napoleon Buonaparte and Arthur of Wellington. '^ " Well, indeed, Captain Spinney, that ap- pears to me to be the only proper course for an officer to pursue. ^^ " I am very glad to hear you say it, sir. I shall be most happy to be your tutor ; if you will allow me. I'll show you everything, teach you everything of your profession that has been bequeathed to us by its greatest ornaments; all its wisdom and all its science ; in short,I'll make you a thorough soldier. Just go and take Bour- rienne's Memoirs of Napoleon, and refer to the time when he joined his regiment, and you will find he made the self-same com- plaints I am now making. He insisted upon the propriety of an Ensign being taught to live upon his pay. He pointed out the ne- cessity of doing away with all these ridicur lous, extravagant, expensive messes, that ruin every man who joins a regiment in which they are maintained. What the deuce does a SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 87 soldier do with a Frencli cook, and made dishes? and out of five shillings a dajfor clothes and other expenses to stamp down two shillings orhalf acrown for his mess, besides wine. It is all rotten, sir. A soldier cannot live too frugally 5 he ought to be able to keep his body thin, his health perfect, and his habits hardy, and that ought to be done every day, too; the mess should not cost more than nine-pence. I think, if I remember rightly. Napoleon even went so far as to say that an officer ought not to consider it a degradation to black his own boots.' ^ '' Ah, well — ^yes; I think there is something said about that.'' " But I do not say that would suit the English service. I do not see any objection to a man employing a servant; but as to all this ridicu- lous folly, expense, and trash, which have been allowed to creep into the English army, I would cut it down to the very root ; and then men, instead of wasting their time over tandem, Bur- gundy, champagne, and grilled-bone suppers, with mulled claret, and the ruin of every milliner 88 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. and mantua-maker in tlie neiglibourhood, would be turning their attention to the condition of the regiment, the care of their men, the science of tactics, the prospect of advancement in the glorious profession of arms; but, however, Mr. Montagu, you want to set your room to rights. I will not take up any more of your time. Just think over what I have said, and try to support me in it as far as you can. If we can only get one or two young men of fair family and fortune to make a stand against this extravagance — although our Colonel Loosefysh does not seem to me to care a single tinker's button for anything off the parade — yet, still, I think we might put down a great deal of the ' fast' nonsense I see going on around me. Good morning." " Good morning, sir," said Montagu, follow- ing Captain Spinney to the door of his quarters, and then after he had gone away, he muttered to himself: '' Well, that is a contrast at any rate to my friends of the morning. I wonder what they would say to his notions ? I must draw them SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 89 out a little more about Spinney. Let me see, what was it tliey said of him this morning ? They called him a preacher, did they not? How curious it is ; wherever you find a man has an aversion for another, that other is sure to have an aversion for him at the same time. There is a good deal in what Spinney says. I do think these habits of extravagance are doubly out of place in the army, and that I, for parting with a cheque for one hundred and fifty-seven pounds ten shillings so easily to Mr. Walduck, am no small share of a fool ; however, I will dress for mess, and think over that another time." 90 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTER VII. On entering the mess-room Montagu found him- self in a blaze of light, the room pretty well filled with his brother officers, all in regimentals, together with one or two officers from the de- tachment of another regiment then in the neigh- bourhood. As soon as Montagu entered, Walduck and Worsted hastened up to him, and introduced him to several of their ' fast' set, among the rest to Ensign Racket, a tall, slim, fair-haired, curly- headed youth, with large, blue eyes, an agree- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 91 able countenance, and rather rollicking man- ners. These introductions soon came to an end, and then Spinney, coming up to our hero, as if he saw what was going on, contrived, as the Irish lady said, to surround him ; at any rate, old Spinney got him into the corner on the left hand side of the fire-place, and there began a long story about Sir Thomas Picton and '' the fighting brigade ;'^ Napier, the historian ; and Arthur, of Wellington ; and thus he kept firing at him with so much animation, that he held his ground until dinner was announced, and then adroitly popped him into a chair between himself and Major Fussey. " At any rate," muttered old Spinney, " the fast boys shall not have him for this evening." How far Spinney was right the sequence of events will show. The table groaned under the heavy service of plate ; fish and soup, each of two kinds, cham- pagne, Chablis, Hock, and Moselle, all well iced, were the dinner wines ; a host of entrees sue- 92 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. ceeded, besides the usual proportion of joints; and after a dinner in the usual style of modem profusion, that is, about six times more than was sufficient for the guests, wine and dessert were put upon the table. The dessert included everything that could be got at Covent Garden, and the wines were to match; besides Port and Sherry, there was a profusion of Claret, some very good Burgundy, and a bottle or two of Lachrymce Christi, As for the conversation, it was the old stereo- typed jargon of army messes, and chiefly con- sisted in divers relations as to " Jackson, of Ours," and " Thompson, of Yours." At length, when the wine evidently had done its office among the guests, a few of the more prudent ones slipped off, and some of the choice spirits gathered round the Colonel at the head of the table, deserting the junior officer at the other end, who had been vice-president in right of having invited a couple of guests. As the evening drew on, the choice party to which we have alluded settled itself down into SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 93 the Colonel, Major Fussej, Captain Spinney, Ensign Racket, Lieutenant Walduck, Captain Worsted, and Montagu. The guests who had been invited had wisely departed, and soon after them the Colonel ab- sented himself, and then Major Fussey took the chair. I am afraid if a very nice critic were to write his opinion of these gallant officers, he would pronounce them all to have been most exceed- ingly drunk ; but if a military authority, with a lenient view of the habits, and customs, and necessities of the case, had been called in to give an opinion upon their state, he would have pronounced them " well seasoned vessels.'^ Under these circumstances, of course, every man's humour came out most prominently ; that of Fussey' s was to tell stories, in which he himself played no small part. It must be confessed, also, that Spinney had a great pre- dilection in the same line — but as two suns cannot shine in one hemisphere, so it occurred 94 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. tliat these great narrators constantly infringed upon each other's little histories. In all these cases Fussey had the best of it. " Pardon me, Captain Spinney," he would exclaim, with marked emphasis, and a voice, that, coming from the chair, bore down all opposition, " I have not quite finished what I was about to remark." "Oh, I beg pardon," said Spinney, '4t struck me you must have concluded." " On the contrary. Captain Spinney, I was just going to tell my young friend there, Mr. Montagu, that when I saw him driving out in Walduck's tandem, it reminded me of a story of George, Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales, Mr. Montagu, was wrapped up in my father." "Indeed, Major Fussey," said Montagu, who was rather startled, amidst all the confu- sion of his wine, at hearing that so cold- hearted a man as the roue Prince of Wales could be wrapped up in anyone. Yes, sir," said Fussey; "the Prince of SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 95 Wales was wrapped up in my father, and one day when he came to call upon him, ' Fussey,' said the Prince, ' I am come to consult you on a very delicate matter — a very delicate matter, indeed—^ " " Now,Isay,Fussey," said Captain Spinney, "before you go on any further with this story I do protest upon fair play in carving out this conversation, so I shall just take my watch and notice how many minutes you take in this story of yours, and by the way, it is about the fiftieth time I have heard it. As many minutes as you take in telling your story 1 shall have in telling mine when it comes to my turn, and then from me, you know, it can go round to Worsted, and from Worsted it can go to Walduck, and from Walduck to Eacket, and from him round to Montagu, so that we shall all have a share in the conversation.'' " D — n you, sir ! It is the most insulting proposition I ever heard in my life !" said Fussey, striking the table with his fist. " You must recall that oath immediately, 93 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Major Fussey/' said Captain Spinney, lifting up from the table the watch he had put down. " D — n it, sir ! I won't recall a word of it, sir. Don't talk to me about recalling my words ! I am a pistol man, sir !" " Oh, very well ! If you are a pistol man, the sooner we settle pistol men the better. Gentlemen, we had better adjourn this mess to the nearest uninterrupted bit of meadow we can find !" " Stop, gentlemen, stop," said Worsted, put- ting out his hand in a sort of maudlin, would-be pacific manner ; " don't let this go any further. It is all about a few words of moonshine. No- body thinks higher of Captain Spinney than Major Fussey, and nobody thinks higher of Major Fussey than Captain Spinney, then what is it you are going to fight about ? You would not set such an example to a young officer holding a commission in Her Majesty's service, and joining the mess of his regiment for the first time to-night. I am sure. Captain Spin- ney, you did not mean to insult Major Fussey." SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. 97 " Oh, he knows that well enough ; but I shall say nothing until that oath is recalled." " I am sure, Major Fussey," said Worsted, " that oath escaped you in the warmth of the moment. You never could have intended to have sworn at the head of the table." " Now, Worsted, don't interfere in the matter ; I shall only quarrel with you. I have been grossly insulted. I am a pistol man, and shan't recall anything, and. Captain p .1 1 3/, I am quite at your service." " But, my dear fellows, you do not remember the late orders from the Horse Guards. The whole thing won't do ; it is a case of no go ; it is a case of court martial for all of }^ou." '' A pest upon the Horse Guards, the courts martial, the commission ! When an officer, and a gentleman is insulted he is not to sit down under it. I am a pistol man, sir, and. Captain Spinney, I am quite at your service." " At any rate, gentlemen," said Walduck, rising, the matter had better be adjourned till VOL. I. F 98 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. to-morrow morning ; you see we are all ^arm over our wine/' " Excuse me, Mr. Walduck, but if I am to shoot a man, I should prefer to shoot him warm rather than cold. I know what view the law takes of a cold shot." " Major Fussey, I must request you to recall that oath, or come out with me at once." " Sir, I tell you again, sir, I am a pistol man ; the last alternative befits me best. I tell you, sir I am a pistol man. I shall recall nothing, sir, but the decanter." " Very well. Major Fussey. Captain Wor- sted, will you do what is necessary for me in this little matter?" ''To be sure," said Worsted, "and you, Walduck, my boy, just step over to my quar- ters for my pistols. Here is my key. I always keep them in the top drawer. We will go out one at a time, you know. Captain Spin- ney, it will excite less attention ; there is a very nice meadow just below the castle." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 99 " We must take care," said Walduck, ''not to shoot any of the passers by ; there is a high- way over that meadow." ''Oh!" said Fussey, "a stray passenger or two shot in a little affair of honour is of no consequence anyways. Perhaps if we look sharp, Spinney, we may bag a pair of lovers courting on a stile, you know," and Fussey, getting up from his chair, and stumbling a little as he did so, stalked out of the mess- room, followed by Walduck. After Walduck marched Spinney, who did take a little pains to walk straight, but did not quite succeed ; to Spinney succeeded Racket, and Montagu brought up the rear. As for poor Montagu, he had entered the room certainly without the slightest intention of committing any breach of the rules of pro- priety, and had striven hard throughout the whole dinner to keep himself and the wine- bottle on respectful terms, but he found it a very difficult matter to retain his senses on the one hand and his character on the other ; F 2 100 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. if that can be called cliaracter which is the erroneous estimation formed ofyouin awrong cause by a set of blunderers. Still, Montagu followed the example of all the other men, and went to his quarters to take off his red coat and put on a plain one. Excited as he was by wine, he had a lively feeling of horror at the folly which he had seen, and the crime towards which it appeared tending ; a vague notion floated through his mind of whether he should go and appeal to the Colonel, but then, the fear of being considered and branded as a tell-tale stood in his path ; he knew not what to do ; then again, prudence suggested to him that it would be as well to go to bed and know no more of the matter, or what occurred, but curiosity and excitement suggested that this conduct might also be branded by his new friends as an act of sneakism. Then ao;ain, there just glimmered through his brain, the reflection that possibly all the parties were so very drunk they might not be able to do any SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 101 miscliief under those circumstances. Then he put on his hat and threw his cloak over his shoulders and walked out to the field of action^ On his way he came up with Eacket, and, to his astonishment, he found Eacket a little more drunk if possible than himself — stagger- ing along, and every now and then, pulling himself up to a dead halt, and bursting into an immoderate fit of laughter, then he would hold his sides. "Ha! ha! ha! ha!'' " What is it you are laughing at, my dear Eacket ?" said Montagu. " Oh dear, this duel ! Ha ! ha !" " Laughing at the duel ? Why, dear me, it seems a very sad and melancholy termina- tion to such a dinner !" " Ha ! ha ! ha ! Sad and melancholy ! Ha ! ha!" '' Well, but what do you see to laugh at in it?" " Who can help laughing ?" '' Laughing at what ?" 102 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Sucli a couple of old fools ! Ha ! ha ! lia ! The idea of men going out to shoot one another about such rubbish and nonsense, while if they would only let Dame Nature alone she would poke them both into the grave before long." " Well, but who is Major Fussey ?'' " How the deuce should I know?" " Who is this father that the Prince of Wales was so wrapped up in." " I don t know." '' Dear me, it is very extraordinary ! Did you ever hear him allude before to the Prince of Wales being wrapped up in his father ?" " Yes, he always has been ; and as long as Major Fussey lives it is my belief that he always will be wrapped up in his father very snugly." '' But who is his father ?" " Oh, nobody knows — nobody ever could find out who his father was." " Dear me ; that is very extraordinary." " Very !" " I suppose he was some very distinguished SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 103 individual ; but if so, how is it tliat nobody could find liim out ?" " No ; nobody ever could — no mortal man. All that was known of him was that the Prince of Wales was wrapped up in him ! I suppose he must have been Sir Inverness Cape, or Monsieur Eoquelaire !'' '' AVell, is it possible to do anything in this duel?" " Yes ; look on and laugh. '^ " But it is very shocking to see blood shed in this way." " Blood shed ! Do you think those two old boobies can hurt one another ? Come along ; neither of them will be the wiser to-morrow." By the time Eacket had concluded, he and Montagu arrived at the ground, and got to the further corner of the field, as far away from the footpath as they could get. They found Walduck and Worsted trying to pace the distance of ten paces, but going marvellously wide of the mark every now and then. 104 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. However, after a time Walduck put his liat down. " Ah," said he, " here are the ten paces. Here, Worsted, put your hat dow n at the other end ; that is the best mark. We shall not make any mistake then." '' Oh, never mind my hat," said Worsted ; " I will put down Fussey's pistol case. It is just as good, you know. Now, then, I will step it again — from my pistol case to your hat it is twelve paces." " No, it is ten." " No, my boy, it is twelve." " No, I swear it is ten." " Well, we will try it again — one, two, three, four, five — it is neither ten nor twelve, it is eleven." " Well, eleven paces is a very good dis- tance," said Spinney. " Do — don't you interfere, Spinney," said Worsted. '' Just remember you're entirely in the hands of your second. Now, then, Wal- duck, are you agreed that it is eleven paces ?' ' SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 105 " Yes ! as far as I can make out. Ye — yes, tliat will do." '' Now, then, we will load these pistols." " Holloa ! who the deuce are those two fellows?" " Oh, don't interrupt them ; it's only Mon- tagu and Eacket." '' Very well. Here, Montagu and Racket, just come over here and help us to load these pistols." When Montagu and Eacket came to the spot, they found Walduck and Worsted trying to load the pistols, but both so exceedingly tipsy, that the task was quite beyond them." " Ah," said Eacket, '' this is the Major's celebrated case of pistols, is it not?" " Yes, yes," said Walduck, '' a splendid case of pistols," nodding his head about, as if he could just contrive to stand upright, and that was all. "Ah," said Eacket, '' I have often heard of these pistols — the Major gives names to them." L 5 106 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Yes/' said Worsted ; " one is called Sweetbreath, and the other Harmony — lovely names for pistols/' " I say, Worsted, you had better give your pistol to Montagu, you know. Have you — have you — a — ever loaded a pistol, Montagu ?" " Yes, sir." " Thank you, sir; thank you, sir," handing over his pistol to Montagu. " I say, Montagu," whispered Racket, " we will put in no bullets." " I am very glad of it," said Montagu ; "I suppose they are too far gone to tell that there are no bullets in by the report." " Oh, yes, they are too far gone for that ; but here is something a great deal better. We will have some jolly sport presently." "What is it?" " Hush ; don't laugh for the world ! It's a box of new soft rhubarb pills which the chemist's boy, like a booby, put into my hand just as I was stepping into the mess-room " " Have you got the powder in ?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 107 U\T. Yes. Where are the pills ? '^ " Here they are." •' All right. Now put in plenty of wads." " Here, Worsted and Walduck. Here are the pistols loaded. I suppose you will toss up for first choice." " Yes, that is the best way. I have got no money ; have you got any, Walduck ? " " No ; I never have any." " Have you got any, Montagu?" " Yes ; here is half-a-crown." " All right," said Eacket, holding the two pistols in his hand muzzles downwards. "Now, Worsted — now, Walduck, Montagu is going to toss up the half-crown. One of you cry. Heads." " Well, Walduck, you are junior, you know; you cry out; which will you have,heads or tails?' ' " Women for ever ! " cried Walduck, making a desperate effort to stand upright. " Woman it is," said Montagu, as the half- crown cauie into the palm of his hand. *'A11 right— all right!" said Walduck. " Nothing like the smiles of the ladies. Just 108 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. give me the right hand pistol ; that will do — no doubt that is Sweetbreath !" At this word poor Montagu's gravity was overcome, and he burst into a roar of laughter. '' Hush ! Hush ! " said all the other three. '' Laugh at a duel — shocking ! " " I beg your pardon." " You should never go beyond a smile at a duel. It is a serious matter, Mr. Montagu. Egad, sir ! if this thing should come to the Old Bailey, one of those pig-headed London juries might hang you for laughing ! Now then, Mr. Walduck, go and put your man in his place, and give him his pistol ; I will do the same with my man ; and, as you have the choice of pistols, perhaps I had better give the word." " If you please, Captain Worsted." " Very well. Now then, here we go. Racket and Montagu, you get out of reach of shot." " I will, sir," said Eacket, going a long dis- tance, Montagu closely following, and both of them convulsed with laughter. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 109 In a few seconds eacli of the two comba- tants bad tbeir deadly weapon. " Now, Capt. Spinney/' said Worsted, "you will remember that these pistols of Major Fus- sey's are hair triggers — first-rates, you know. I am going into the middle on one side ; I shall give the word — One. Gentlemen,both of you be so good as to listen. When I draw off to the right centre I am to give the words One,two, three, and at the third word you will fire — both of you." "All right," said both of the combatants. Waldack staggered off to the left. Worsted staggered off to the right, and having arrived at a good safe spot between the parties, he said in a loud voice : " Prepare to fire, gentlemen. One — two — three." Bang ! Bang ! As the second report came off, which was from Spinney's pistol, Major Fussey was seen to stagger. "Ah! shot, Major?" cried all four of the lookers on. " My mouth," said the Major ; " why what 110 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. is tins ? This pistol is loaded with, slugs ; there is foul play.'' " Foul play !" cried one of the seconds in amazement. " Wounded with slugs, foul play," cried the other, with horror. " Has anyone a lucifer match ?" " Yes," said Montagu, "here is a little vesta case 1 carry in my pocket." " Then just get a light in your hat." Though hardly able to obey this command from suppressed laughter, Montagu gave his little vesta case, which was of silver, into the hands of Eacket, who had taken off his hat, lit one of the wax matches, and, in the still, calm summer night, held up the light to Major Fussey's face ; the spectacle that was seen there may be easily imagined. Covered with rhubarb,spattered over his head and neck, and the breast of his shirt, with a considerable quantity in his mouth, which he had kept spitting and spitting, wholly unable to make out what was the matter with him. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Ill "Any of my teetli gone?" said Fussey. " What, in the name of Fury, are you all laucrhins: at ? What is this T And putting out his hand, he cast out upon it from his mouth some of the smashed pill that still remained. " Why," said he, " this tastes like rhubarb; what is the meaning of this ? what is the meaning of this ? I insist on knowing." "Oh! I see how it is," said Racket ; "the sheep have been lying in this field. The ball, Major, has evidently struck the ground, and scattered some of the dirt in your face." " Well, this is rather too bad of Sweetbreath, but thank my stars it is no worse," said Spin- ney. "Mr. Walduck, is Captain Spinney satis- fied?" " Oh, perfectly satisfied," said Spinney, " perfectly satisfied." And then, adding his laugh to the general chorus, away went Spinney back to the town, as fast as he could walk. 112 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Poor Fussey, drunk as lie was, could evi- dently see there was something existing that ought not to exist, but how it had happened, whether it was a real accident, he could not quite make out *, thinking, however, that it was the wisest way to take it in an accidental light, he turned round to the assembled youngsters and said: " Gentlemen, this is all very well for you to laugh at ; but it is an exceedingly unpleasant shot, and what is more, one of the most singular and extraordinary performances of Sweet- breath I have ever seen in the whole course of my service. Where are my pistols — take care of my pistols, let me see them.'' " Stay, stay," said Eacket, who was afraid of the whole affair blowing up ; "I see the police coming — get off — get off. Major, as fast as you can — ^get off, Walluck, get home. I have got the pistols ; I will keep them both safe. I dodge the police behind this hedge." '' Take care of my pistols," muttered the Major, " they are great favourites of mine ; one SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 113 T call Sweetbreath, and the other Harmony — they were given to my father by the Prince of Wales — the Prhice of Wales was wrapped up in my father.'' And with tliis parting injunction Fussey took to his heels before the imaginary police, and in a few minutes Eacket was left standing alone, roaring with laughter. The pistols, both Sweetbreath and Har- mony, were now, in a very unpromising con- dition, deposited safe in their case under his arm. This was all he wanted — an opportu- nity to get quietly to his quarters, and the pistols put in order by his servant, before Fussey' s practised eye could detect the trick that had been played upon them. 114 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA, CHAPTER VIIL As Montagu and Eacket passed on to their quarters, they heard a confused noise and talking in the mess-room. " What can be going on there ?" said Mon- tagu. " Surely Fussey and Spinney are not gone now to finish the evening with another set of stories, a fresh quarrel, and a second duel." " Oh, no," said Racket; "you just step in there. I know what is going on — something which will make you open your eyes, I dare say. Most likely it is one of the junior En- signs that stands between us going through the broadsword exercise with an umbrella." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 115 " Broadsword exercise with an umbrella at this time of night ! What do you mean ?'' " Oh, it is as common as pie-crust to rouse up one of these poor junior devils every night, and stick him on the mess-room table with no more clothes on than he brings from the bed ! Some- times we make him dance a hornpipe — some- times we make him go through the broad- sword exercise with an umbrella — anything, you know, for a lark, in a fast way." " Oh, that is a fast thing, is it ? Well, I will go and have a look at a fast thing !" '' Do, and I will just give the pistols to my servant, and I will join you." Montagu stepped into the mess-room, and there he beheld an unfortunate wight who had not dined at the mess that day, and with whose features, therefore, he was not familiar, stand- ing on the mess-room table in nothing but his night-shirt, with a folded umbrella in his hand, going through the exercise of the broadsword, at the word of command given by one of the lieutenants. 116 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Several other officers were round the table, laughing and jeering, making a noise, and — strange taste — enjoying the joke. After looking at this spectacle for sometime, Montagu was quite unable to see either the humour of it, or the ' fast ' nature that it might be supposed to discover, and in a short time he withdrew from the mess-room, sought his own quarters, and there, to his great delight, he found waiting for him his brother Scapegrace, who had come across the country from Farn- borough Station, on the South Western line, in a post-chaise, having obtained a few days' leave from the man-of-war to which he be- longed, then lying at Portsmouth. " Ah, my dear Julius, I am so glad to see you," said Montagu, shaking his brother warmly by the hand. "It is very singular that you should have dropped in to-day of all days. If you had come yesterday, you would have found I had not joined." " What, have you only just joined ?" " Only this afternoon." SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. 117 " Ah, and I can see by the quickness of your eye, and the impediment in your speech, that you have had a dose of the mess ! '' " Oh, no, nothing particular — a sheet or two in the wind, as you sailors say ! " " But come, you turn in, and I will take my quarters on your sofa, and in the morning when you get up we will have a long chat together." '^ Stay, my dear boy," said Montagu ; " surely, after such a long drive across the country, you will take something?" " Well, if it would not put you out to order us a little coffee." '' Oh, not at all. Mercer, just let us have a little coffee, will you?" said Montagu, calling his own private servant. The coffee came, and was, in the course of half-an-hour, duly dispatched, and the brothers lay one on the sofa and the other on the bed. The last thing before the sailor took up his berth he looked under the sofa, to see there was no one there, and then bolted the door. 118 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. "Why, what do you expect to find?" said Montagu. " Well, I expect to find nothing ; but you know it always was a habit of mine, and I have not got rid of it yet. I always see the coast clear before the garrison goes to sleep." " Ah ! we are curious fellows. The last thing I should think of, would be looking under the bed, or bolting the door." " Then, if you have not looked under yours, I will ; " and, accordingly, he made a second inspection, and then, quite satisfied as to the state of the fortress, popped out the light, drew the clothes well around him, and was soon fast asleep. About half-an-hour after this occurrence. Scapegrace was roused from his slumbers by a tremendous knocking at the door. " Holloa ! who the deuce is there ?" " Let us in, my boy, will you?" " Let you in ! Why, what the dickens do you want at this time of night?" " I want to come in." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 119 " Want and be hanged, then, if that is the only explanation you have to give. You won't come in here I can tell you.'' '' Let us come in, or we will knock down the door!" " Why do you want to come in ?" " Because we do." " Well, then, want on a little longer." " Bring up the poker and knock in the door," Scapegrace heard one of the fellows say, — "Just kick that panel in." " Kick away, my hearty," said Scapegrace, and then, running into his brother's room, he said — " Here, Ernest, turn out of bed as fast as you can 5 here are some fellows trying to break in the door — I suppose it is nothing but skylarking. Come and help me to barri- cade, and we will have some fun." ''What shall we do?" " You come and help me, and I will take the fender and stick it with its flat side against the door, and then ram the sofa against the fen- der ; while I do that you jam up the end of the 120 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. sofa v/itli a chair or two — pull your wash-hand- stand to this room, and we will shove forward that chest of drawers ; they shan't come in." ''What do they want?" '' They won't tell me ; I have asked them half a-dozen times." " Come along, then, let us bar them out. That is it — up with the fender, so ! Well done, that is a tight jam I" '' Now, here goes your chair !" '' Now 'then, I will shove along the chest of drawers." '' Let us come in," said a loud voice outside. " We'll see you hanged first," was Scape- grace's reply. Crash went the stroke of a poker on the panel. Crack was heard — the splitting of the wood. '' Crack away, my hearties," said Scape- grace. " Now, Ernest, my boy, lend me a hand. We will stick this chest of drawers up on end on the sofa, and stick him with his flat side against the door ; that is it ; now then — so, with his back against the door — that is it. Now run SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 121 for a chair, and let them hammer away. That is what we call well blocked out, do you see ; we have got a good stout substance for them to bang away at ; that is right, kick again, my boy," said Scapegrace, as the door shook under the attacks from without. " Now, then, another chair, Ernest. So — that is it. I don't think they can force us in any way. Now, then, outside there, kick away, break through the door if you can." " Let us come in, or we will kick it to pieces." " Kick away then." Immediately this last defiance was given, a tremendous series of kicks and blows were heard — then crash went the panel in pieces. " Ah, well, they can't send the panel in." Then came another crashing noise ; the as- sailants, whoever they were, had forced their hands in and taken out part of the panel. " What is that gone ?" said Montagu. " Oh, it's only a little bit gone of the lower panel." VOL. I. G 122 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. "What is this?" said the fellows on the outside ; '' why, he has barricaded it up with a fender." " Break it with a poker, then." " Hurrah, Ernest," said Scapegrace. " Let us have a poker on our side, and have a crack at them." Bang went the poker on the outside, sound- ing upon the iron of the fender. Bang went the poker on the inside, sticking out through the crack between the interstices, and hitting some fellow a terrific blow on the legs. "Egad, my shin is broke," a voice was heard to exclaim on the outside. "Nevermind your shin," said another; " smash the upper panel." Crash went the upper panel with a blow. " Hurrah, my boys," said Scapegrace, "that won't do." " The upper panel won't do," said the man on the outside, " there is something more solid." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 123 " Quick, Ernest, my boy ; bring more chairs, and jam under the sofa." '' That is right; now they can't get in — hang me if they can. Hurrah, there, outside, at the charge again. Go it, little cripples ; shan't get in, I tell you. Now, Ernest, we may ^o and lie down, for those fellows can't get in at the door, I will answer for it — not to-night." " Oh, no," replied Montagu, " we won't lie down. Just wait till this row is quiet. They will soon give over when they find they can't get in." " Just give us a cigar will you ? How they are banging away at the door. I say, do they go on in this way every night ? If they do you will have some fine fun." ''Well, I do not know," replied Montagu, who was now beginning to be somewhat sober ; "I saw something in the mess-room I did not much like ; making a fellow go through his broad- sword exercise with nothing on but his night- shirt, on the mess-table. It is now nearly four o'clock. What a mad set of fellows these G 2 124 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. hair-brained men are ; breaking in a fellow's door in tbis way/' " Ob, tbey can't break in," said tbe young sailor, lighting bis cigar. At tbis moment a terrific bang was beard, and to tbe astonishment of Montagu and bis brother, crash went the door — ^not into the room but out on the stairs, and away went after it the chest of drawers — crash, crash, crash ; making at every stair a frightful plunge. " Hold," said the sailor, " bow in the name of tbe furies have they done that?" and jumping on his feet, he ran to what remained of the portal, and there he beheld a perfect explanation of that which had so excited his surprise. While Montagu and Scapegrace were talking and lighting their cigars their assailants from below had managed to pass their hands through the door where tbe panels were broken out, and introduce a rope round tbe cross framing ; tbis rope they had hastily tied fast, and half a dozen of them taking a rouse at it down tbe stairs, had literally dragged tbe door from its posts, and SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 125 hinges ; the chest of drawers had followed with a lurch through the opening, and it was quite clear there was now a practicable breach. " Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " cheered the assail- ants from below. '' Now for the forlorn hope. Up you go.'' " Man the bulwarks, my boys," cried the young sailor, who had rushed into his brother's room and brought forth a can well charged with water. " Come on, my jolly boys." '' Who is that I hear there going on with this tremendous noise?" demanded a voice from below. ''It is I, my tulip," answered Scapegrace, " ready to fight to the last extremity. Come on if you have got any pluck ; now is your time. Come on, here we are." " Surrender instantly, sir, or I will order the men to fire," said a voice below. " Fire away and be hanged," said Scape- grace, launching the whole contents of his formidable vessel right in the direction of the voice. " Fire away, you old beggar. A man had better be killed than insulted." 126 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA, A tremendous volley of oaths was now heard in the same tone, drowned almost by the deluge that dripped and ran, and trickled down the stairs. And then in a voice scarcely audible from rage, the word of command was given, " Sergeant, clear that staircase, and fire on anyone that resists you/' " By Jove ! '^ said Montagu, '' that is the voice of Colonel Loosefysh." " Colonel Loosefysh be hanged ! '* roared Scapegrace. " What business has he to come and break into a man's room any more than anyone else ? " " By Jove ! did you thro w that water on him?" "Yes." " Bad luck ! where is this to end ? Have we got the night-mare ? Is it a dream ? or what is the meaning of it ? Is this what they mean when they talk of a fast regiment ? " thus saying, Montagu instinctively made his retreat to his bed-room, pulling his brother after him, and they locked themselves in. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 127 CHAPTER IX. Scarcely had Montagu and his brother bolted the inner door, when a peremptory rapping was heard on the outside of it. " Ensign Montagu, open the door directly to Colonel Loosefysh." Springing from his bed, upon which he had thrown himself, Montagu drew back the bolts of the door, and then beheld his Colonel — his eyes flashing with fury, his red shell-jacket dripping with water, which he was vainly endeavour- ing to wipe off with his pocket handkerchief. " Consider yourself under arrest, sir, for per- sonal violence to your superior officer,'' said 128 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. the Colonel ; while a number of junior officers at tlie Coloners back seemed deligbted at hearing this decision. " I begyour pardon, Colonel Loosefysh," said Montagu, "but you are under an error; I have used no personal violence whatever to anyone." " Zounds ! sir, how can you tell me that, when you see you have spoiled my shell-jacket entirely ? Sir, do you not see I am deluged and dripping with water ?" " I am very sorry that you have been incon- venienced. Colonel Loosefysh ; but, in the first place, I did not throw the water, and, in the next place, whatever has been done in my rooms has been done entirely on the defensive." ''Defensive, sir! do not talk to me of the defensive. It was o/fensive, sir, and cursedly ofiensive, too, to be deluged in this way by a boy who has just entered the service." " I have to repeat. Colonel Loosefysh, that I have done nothing of the sort. I pledge my word and honour as a gentleman and an officer, that I have not thrown water on anyone." SCAPEGRACE Al SEA. 129 " I did it," said the young sailor, coming forward. " Hush, Julius,'^ said Montagu, extending his hand, as if to stay his brother's speaking. " Do not interfere in the matter. It is quite unnecessary for you to say a word." " You did it ! And who the dickens are you ? " demanded Loosefysh, turning furiously on the midshipman. '^ A person quite as good as you, sir," said Scapegrace, giving a hitch to his trousers, and doubling his fists, just as if he would like to bring the matter to a personal arbitrament. " And, let me tell you, that if it was you who broke into my brother's door, you may consider yourself very lucky to get off with a sousing of cold water, for, if I could only have seen instead of merely hearing you, I would have done the best in my power to — " " Hush, hush ! Julius," said Montagu, put- ting his hand before his brother's mouth. " Who is this little bantam ? " said Loose- fysh to Montagu. G 5 130 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. "This is my only brother, Colonel Loosefysh. He belongs to Her Majesty's Ship Saucebox. She is just on the eve of sailing for the Crimea, and he came up by train to Farnborough, and then posted over late last night in order to wish me good-bye before starting. He was in my room when the attack was made on my door, and we, thinking it was only some fun of my brother officers, barricaded in defence. If any water has been spilled upon you, I beg most sincerely to apologise for any incon- venience you have been put to." '' Apologies will not do for me, sir, for such a gross insult as this. You must have known my voice. You will consider yourself under arrest, sir, and I will write for a court-martial to-morrow.'' " Court-martial be hanged ! " interposed Scapegrace. " If you have any pluck in you, you had better come and fight it out with me. It was I threw the water over you, and I will do it again if you will let me fill the jug, and, if you are not satisfied with that, I will undertake SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 131 to put a bullet through any button-hole of your coat at ten paces." [^But before Colonel Loosefysh could quite catch this intemperate language, his brother had succeeded in drawing him into the other room, and closing the door which separated the peppery youngster from the irascible Colonel. " Hush ! hold your tongue, Julius. Do not make a fool of yourself. If you do not inter- fere, this will all blow over to-morrow. I am quite sure, from what I have seen of the mess to-night, all this talk of the court-martial is only fun. These fellows are up to so much fun you hardly know how to deal with them ; whereas if you say anything to defy Colonel Loosefysh's power, he may order you out of my quarters." " Well, then, I would refuse to go." " Well, then, he would simply send a ser- geant and a file of men, and bundle you out, whether or nay." " Well, of all the infernal pieces of injustice I ever heard of, this is one of the worst. You 132 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. come to a quiet chap's quarters, break and smash his door in, and then, when he defends himself with a little of the limpid element, you talk of trying him by a court-martial." " Well, never mind ; you lie down and go to sleep. Loosefysh does not believe you did it at present ; but I dare say by the morning he will have reason to change his mind. And you must admit that it was very vexatious for a man at the head of a regiment, and in sight of his officers, to be treated like a bundle of dirty turnips, and have a cold sousing from a man who has only this afternoon joined the corps." " Well ; but you did not do it." " It is just as bad if from my brother. Do not make matters worse, but go fast asleep as I intend to do. All I can say is, that if they try me by court-martial, they can only turn me out of the regiment, and, from what I see of it, I begin to suspect that would be no great loss to any man. A more noisy, racketty set of dogs it is impossible to conceive. Do your fellows go on in this way on board ship ?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 133 " No, by Jove, they daren't ; but tliey would if they were allowed, and ten times worse." " Ah, it's very extraordinary, the tendency there is in young men to play torn- fool ; what a good thing it is, when they are over-ruled for their own benefit." " Hang your morals ! Give me another cigar, and let us go to sleep." Montagu having complied with this sensible adjuration and advice, the brothers divided the bed between them, and while they heard the tumult down stairs now subsiding, now waxing more furious, they presently dropped off into the land of dreams, and when they awoke on the following morning, to Montagu's surprise, a large hole about the size of a dollar was found burned through the sheet, the blanket, and the counterpane by the lighted end of Julius' cigar. "What do you call this?" said Montagu, pointing it out to his brother. " I call that a narrow escape from a case of broil. But after all, my dear fellow, you must admit it is a kind thing of your brother before 134 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. he goes to sea to mark your bedding for you." " The Adjutant, sir, will be glad to see you as soon as you come down-stairs," said Mon- tagu's servant, coming in at this moment. "Adjutant!" said Montagu. ''What the deuce can the adjutant want with me? It is not time for parade yet?" " No, your honor," said the servant. " The Adjutant looks very grave, sir." " Tell him I will be with him in a few minutes." Hurrying forward his toilet, Montagu de- scended to the room below, and there found the official of the regiment. " I am sorry to tell you, Mr. Montagu," said the Adjutant, " that Colonel Loosefysh finds himself under the necessity of applying for a court-martial upon you." " I am sorry for it," said Montagu. " It is a very serious thing," said the Adju- tant. " I do not think it at all serious, ' * said Montagu. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 135 ** The Colonel accuses me of doing a tiling which I never did/' " You will iind it a very serious thing. It is very unfortunate for a gentleman who has -only just joined his regiment to be tried by a court martial in this way. Do you think that you can exchange into some other corps ?'* '' Certainly not/' said Montagu. " Why should I leave the regiment ? It would be tantamount to confessing that I am guilty, whereas I am wholly blameless in the matter." '' Well, do as you like, you know ; but my advice is to you to sell out as fast as you can.'' " And my determination is to do nothing of the sort. Why shovld not a man be tried by a court martial ? Time hangs heavily in the re- giment. A man may be as well tried by a coui't martial as be engaged in fighting duels, breaking doors, driving tandems, or any other of the regimental amusements, I have witnessed during the eighteen hours I have passed here." '' AYell, Mr. Montagu, it is not for me to comment upon a gentleman's taste in passing 136 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. his time ; but I think being tried by a court martial is about the last mode of passing my time that I should desire." " Don't you think it would be better to do that, than to be pulled out of bed, and go through the sword exercise on the mess table with your umbrella." " Oh, that is a joke, you know." " I should think it was no joke, and I sup- pose that was what was intended for me last night, when the fellows came to break open my door ; and if Colonel Loosefysh was one of the assailant party, I thall leave it to the autho- rities at the Horse Guards to decide whether he did not very righteously come in for, I will not say a shower of gold, but a good drenching." " Oh, as to Colonel Loosefysh, you do not think that Colonel Loosefysh would break in- to your quarters to play the pranks that the junior Ensigns of the regiment alone amuse themselves with." " I do not know who are the parties who amuse themselves in this way. My impression SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 137 is tliat wlien you bring me to a court-martial, and these things come out before the public, you will find that the Colonel and the Adjutant, and the superior officers of the regiment will have all the blame upon their shoulders, right or wrong. These things cannot go on in a regiment, or in any other state of society, without coming to the knowledge of the seniors and the leaders, and if Colonel Loosefysh knew that these things were going on, and did not choose to stop them, Colonel Loosefysh is to be blamed for it. I have nothing to fear from the court-mar- tial ; I think the fear is in another direction." " Eeally, Mr. Montagu, Colonel Loosefysh and the Adjutant of the Nonsuch Eegiment are extremely indebted to you for enlightening them as to the action of public opinion ; but it strikes me that Colonel Loosefysh is quite able to take care of his own character in the eyes of public opinion." '" Precisely, and no doubt he is ; and so am I to take care of mine." 138 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Well, then, am I to tell him that you in- tend to stand the court-martial ? " " Most decidedly I do ; fifty court-martials if he pleases ; and I shall instantly write to retain the best counsel I can get ; and re- member, those who play at bowls must look out for rubbers. The court-martial may begin with my case, but it may not end there." " Very well, sir ; then, of course, until the court is appointed, you are aware you are put under arrest by Colonel Loosefysh." " Oh, yes, I am quite aware of it. I re- member everything that passed last night, and am perfectly ready to abide the consequences." The Adjutant made a stiff bow, turned on his heel, and left the room. " That is right, Ernest, my boy," said Julius, who had come down into the room soon after his brother, under pretext of making tea ; for the breakfast things were laid out in the room below where this interview took place. " That fellow is afraid of a court-martial. I like the idea of SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 139 his coming over here trying to make you sneak ont of the regiment. Now,remember^when I go back to the ship, do not you let these fellows per- suade you to do so under a Qy pretence whatever." " I do not intend they shall, my boy. What do I care about their court-martial ? They can- not prove, you know, that I did anything to Col. Loosefysh. I only helped you to barricade my own door, and you are not in the regiment, and they cannot make you responsible for giving him a jug of cold water ; and medically speak- ing, I should think he is all the better for it, after the wine of the mess; however, here come the devilled kidneys — they are better worth attention than Adjutants and courts- martial; so pitch into them, my boy." " I will," said the sailor, setting to work with a will at the various good things which the breakfast table displayed, and interspers- ing his acts of devotion to the materialities of life by a long string of questions and answers as to matters in which he and his brother took especial interest. 140 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. By tlie time breakfast was over, in walked Walduck, and then came Racket, and then Worsted, and all insisted on knowing what were the particulars of last night's row. All laughed heartily when the details were known, and all concurred in saying that Mon- tagu had nothing to fear from the court- martial, with the exception of Worsted. " It is all very fine," said he, " of you young gentlemen to tell our friend here that he has nothing to fear from a court-martial, but when you have had as much experience of military life as I have, you will know that a court- martial means mischief, and that it does not signify one straw what a man is charged with if the charge is made against him by his supe- rior officer ; those toadies at the Horse Guards are sure to back him up in it ; that is what they call supporting authority." " But, surely. Worsted, you do not mean to say that the guilt or innocence of the man accused has nothing to do with the case?" " I do not go so far as to say that, but this I SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 141 mean to say — that, if a colonel of a regiment brings a subaltern to a court-martial for a thing he has done to a superior, instead of fair plaj, what with the expense of defending himself, what with the erroneous versions that men give of the offence, what with the impression that is made against him at Whitehall, and the stead- fast manner in which for ever afterwards, the cold shoulder of official power is presented to him, his rise in the service is very much im- peded, if not wholly ruined ; and, if Montagu will take my advice, stupid as this charge ap- pears to be, he will lose no time in consulting his fiiends, and negociating an exchange into some other corps.'' " Oh, monstrous. Worsted ! You cannot be serious in saying such a trumpery charge as this can do him any harm." " Tinimpery ! By Jove, you wait and see what these devils will make of it, at a general court-martial, before they have done with it. Wait till they have got him into all the expense of defending himself by counsel and attorney, 142 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. bothered by unwilling witnesses, fagged by ad- journments about nothing from day to day; the long miserable detail of evidence dragged slowly through the most tortuous of all chan- nels, every man trying to mistify him, mislead him, defeat and thwart him, and exaggerate his offence, and turn an incredulous ear to his explanation, and then you will see what a serious complexion it will assume." "But surely," said Montagu, "Colonel Loose- fysh never can have the injustice, when he reflects upon it, to try me for an offence of which he must know I am not guilty, when only last night two of the senior officers of the regiment went out and fought a duel, though duelling is expressly forbidden by the regula- tions of the army." " My dear Montagu," said Worsted, "are you yet to learn the truth of the old saying, that one man may steal a horse with impunity, and another man be hung for looking over a gate ?" " Oh, I never can believe such gross injustice, SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 143 and think of tlie honourable character of Lord Hardfist at the head of the Horse Guards/' " Think of your grandmother's tom-cat's tail ! You will find at the Horse Guards that the colonel of a regiment can be backed through anything/' " Why is Colonel Loosefysh so inveterate against me ? What have I done ? I am not aware of having given him any offence." " Offence, my dear innocent youth, how can you ask the question ? Do yon not know that there were all his junior officers present when a jug of cold water was poured over him, and though he may be morally convinced in his own mind, as I dare say he is, that you had nothing to do with it, still the public insult was not the less ; and it can only be atoned for in one of two ways, either by your being tried by a court martial, and, right or wrong, dismissed the ser- vice, or by your sending in your papers to sell out, or at once exchanging into another regiment." " Well, certainly, I never looked at it in that light before," said Montagu. 144 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Don't you give in, my boy/' said Scape- grace, '' hang their court-martial, and hang their commission, and hang their selling out! You go to the trial like a plucky brick ! I will come forward and prove I did it. They cannot turn you out of the regiment, and, when you have shown them all up, right and left, then stick your commission in the fire, and spit at the whole of them, and leave the court ! " " Holloa, little one ! Who has stuck a pin into you ? " said Worsted, turning round and looking at Scapegrace, who, with a cigar in his cheek, and his arms stuck a kimbo, gave out this resolute note of defiance. " I beg your pardon, Captain Worsted, that is my only brother. He has just come up to visit me from Her Majesty's Ship, Saucebox, lying at Spithead." "" "Oh, ah!" said Worsted; "now I under- stand. He is one of the Saucebox's — I com- prehend. And so, young gentleman — " " Halloa ! avast heaving there, old buffer. Don't you call me ' young gentleman,' " inter- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 145 rupted Scapegrace. '' In Her Majesty's navy we do not allow that sort of thing, you know. My name is Julius Montagu Scapegrace, and among gentlemen in ordinary society Christian names are used with a prefix. You call me Mr. Scapegrace, if you please, and I will call you Captain Worsted ; but as to ' young gentle- man,' that sort of thing we do not stand." " Upon my life, Mr. Scapegrace, you are a very formidable young — I beg your pardon ; I was going to say something very improper — a very formidable officer. And so you have been the cause of all this mischief ; it was you who pitched the cold water on the Colonel ?" '^ Yes, bless his eyes 1 and I should like to pitch jug the second over him if I could get the chance, to cool his court-martial courage. Why the deuce does he not call me out?" " Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha !" roared several of them. '' That would be a good joke. The idea o Colonel Loosefysh calling out a midshipman fourteen years of age !" VOL. I. H 146 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " I will tell you wliat, you old set of beggars, twitting me as you are upon my age — I will undertake to do this : here is a sovereign/' flinging one on the table ; " now let each man of you put down another sovereign. We will make a sweepstake of it, and I will go out to any spot near here where you have got ten paces of clear ground, and I will undertake, at ten paces, to make a better shot at the ace of hearts than any one of you.'' " Ah, we must not let you walk away with all our money, you know. We will concede you the fact of your excellent shotism, and, as to the sovereign, perhaps you will allow us to give it to the poor." » " I have no objection to the poor having it, but a great objection to your having it," said Scapegrace, darting again upon the gold. " But, to come back to the point w^e were dis- cussing, how did it happen that Colonel Loosefysh came to break in our door ? What object had he in doing it ?" ''Oh," said Worsted, " he had no hand in it SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 147 at all. I believe lie heard a great row going on, and some one had told him, under the rose, that Major Fussey and Captain Spinney had been fighting a duel, and, under some notion that mischief was afloat, he came out of his quarters to see what was the matter, and, happening to come by your door just as the chest of drawers came tumbling out of the room, he immediately called the corporal of the guard, and was coming up to see what was the matter, when you must needs fire upon him with the water-jug." '' Why, what a thin-skinned fellow he must be, to care about that. I say. Captain Worsted, you go and tell him with my compliments, that he may shy four or five jugs of cold water down my back in return, then we shall be even." " No, thank yoa, Mr. Scapegrace ! depend upon it I will carry no message, nor have any interference in the matter, farther than advis- ing your brother to exchange into another regiment as soon as possible." " And that advice I am quite resolved not to H 2 148 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. take," said Montagu. " If this is tlie style of tMng the army is, I do not care how soon I find my way out of it. Even if I exchanged into another regiment, it would only be the same thing over again. I will, therefore, take my stand where I am, and run my chance, and, if they take my commission, it is only a question of ^ve or six hundred pounds gone, and it is worth that to see the fun of a court-martial." "Well," said Worsted, "if you get excited and nervous in going the pace in a tandem, I do not know what you will think of it when you find yourself fixed with all the bother of a general court-martial. It is always the case in starting in life — no man will ever take another man's experience. We all of us like to knock our heads against the wall before we can be- lieve how hard it is." And Worsted, walking up to Montagu's mantelpiece, where the box of cigars stood, helped himself to two or three, and strode out of the room. As soon as Worsted was gone, Walduck and our hero began to compare notes as to who SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 149 was the best counsel to employ for the defence ; but here Walduck's information was rather at fault, and Montagu determined, therefore, to write to some friends in London for advice upon the subject. " By the way, Walduck," said he, "I am told to consider myself under arrest." " Oh, yes, of course. Every man who is going to be tried by a court-martial must con- sider himself under arrest." " Well, now, is it a heavy consideration, as the lawyers would say, or what?" " Well, it is light or heavy, as a man may choose to take it." '' But must I confine myself to my room?" '' Oh, no ; you may go out in the town in plain clothes, only keep out of the Coloners way, you know. And, by the way now I think of it, the best thing you can do is to come with me this evening to a dance. Worsted is going to take me to see some friends of his at a ball given by a gentleman of the name of Doem. 150 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. There are some very nice girls there. Very- fond of giving balls, is Doem.'^ "Is he ?'' said Scapegrace ; "I suppose he has got some daughters to marry. ^' " Only one, I believe.^' " Only one," said Scapegrace. " What sort of a looking girl is she ?" " A sort of garrison girl — rather pretty look- ing. At one time it was said that she and the Colonel were going to drive their horses to- gether, but it has all gone off." " Is there any dancing there, Mr. Walduck?" said Montagu. " Yes, you may dance till your limbs drop off if you like." " Well, that will just suit me ; I vote that we go then," said Scapegrace, turning to his brother. " But if the Colonel was once inclining that way, is it not just the house where I should meet him ?" said Montagu. " Oh, no," said Walduck, " that is just the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 151 house where you will be sure not to meet him. That is all broken off now." " I suppose while I am under arrest I must not dine at mess?" '' Certainly not." " And how about keeping guard. Shall I have to do my duty ?" " No ; no duty whatever." " Well, then, T think, as far as I can judge, that being under arrest is rather an agreeable position ; a man has nothing to do but amuse himself, which he may call, I suppose, getting ready for his court-martial. He does not wear out his red coat, because that is laid by in his drawers; he has no guard to keep, no parades to attend, and therefore his rest is undisturbed." " Oh, yes, a man under arrest is, certainly, a gentleman very much at large ; but there is a heavy reckoning in the rear, remember, for all that. You laugh at a court-martial, be- cause you do not know what it is ; but wait till the pressure comes, my boy, you will not half like it." 152 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " I wisli somebody would try me by a court- martial,'* said Scapegrace. " I should enjoy the fun exceedingly; but I have never been able to get such luck, and yet I have taken every sort of liberty in the service I can possibly think of — gone to sleep upon my watch; left my boat's crew, lost my men, turned in without calling the officers of the next watch — but no, I never had such luck as to be tried by a court-martial. All they do with me is to give me a double and treble watch, and I assure you a little of that so sickens a man, that he very soon relinquishes the notion of courting the distinction." " Ah, that is all very well for you naval men to go on in that way. I should think the navy must be a brutal service." ''What the dickens do you mean?** said Scapegrace, firing up. " Why, in the first place, you are divided into two or three messes — I decidedly object to that. Well, then, you know, you are cooped up inside a ship, and cannot get on shore. I call that a most decided piece of brutality." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 153 tt \T. Yes, my boy, but you wait a moment and see if the war breaks out ; you will precious soon find the difference between being carried about in a warm snug ship, and looked after the moment you are wounded, compared to being left to rot and die in the trenches ; sick without medicine, wounded without hospitals, dying without surgeons, and dead without burial." " Ah, yes, war is a most disagreeable thing certainly, and I think it will be very desirable if the Horse Guards could be made to give gen- tlemen notice of the approach of war, so that a man might sell out about eighteen months be- fore hand, and thereby recover his money for a fresh investment, without losing caste, do you see, by appearing to avoid danger." '' Ah, that would be very fine, truly ; but don't you think at the same time that the Horse Guards may go a step further ?" " What step would that be ?" said Walduck. " Why, you know, they might issue their commissions to ladies boarding schools, and instead of taking young gentlemen into the H 5 154 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. army, thej might, during peace, you know, have young ladies ; then, when war was about to be declared, men might enter." " O, I don't know about that ; but I think it a very great bore to have all a man's notions of regimental duty disturbed by being sent to a disagreeable climate — hard duty, his mess in- terrupted, his rations very uncertain; his tandem knocked up, and, in fact, the whole of a man's little amusements disturbed ; and some brutal foreign soldiery making holes in his coat. It is very unfair indeed when a man has entered the army on a peace establishment that he should be called upon to alter all his private arrangements, merely because a stupid set of ministers or some ridiculous creature of a king may choose to go to war." " But, my dear fellow, you forget that the purpose of an army is to rear up a set of men to cut throats, and if men do not like their pro- fession, you know, they ought to keep out of it." " Oh, quite erroneous ! The intention of the army is to find some agreeable occupation for SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 155 gentlemen of birtli and fortune, wltli a good investment for their money, and a position jfrom whicli they can look down with supreme contempt upon everybody else in creation. If this is not the army, all I can say is that I am very much mistaken in what is generally called the noble profession of arms. How- ever, I suppose it will last our day, and if you will look into my quarters at tiffin time, Montagu, I will take you out for a drive, notwithstanding your arrest ; you know the Colonel won't pretend to see us, and then, in the evening, you shall go and bask in the smiles of Miss Doem. In the meantime, think over Worsted's advice about an ex- change, and, if you cannot make your mind up to that, write to your Mends and retain the best legal advisers you can get for the court-martial." 156 SCAPEaRACE AT SEA. CHAPTEE X. Faithful to the advice given him, Montagu sat down the moment after the breakfast things were cleared away and wrote a long letter to his trustee — Mr. Mere worth, an easy-going gentleman, a man of large property in Norfolk — detailing to him the facts under which he was threatened with a court-martial, asking his advice, and suggesting the propriety of immediately retaining the best legal assistance. There are many men in the world — and Mere- worth was one of them — who are thoroughly kind-hearted, and, with every intention of doing SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 157 good, are yet wholly unable to e£fect mucli in assisting anyone around tliem ; and this arises from the fact of their own lives having passed so comfortably that they have no experience as to the quicksands to be avoided, and no prac- tised energy in the art of mastering the diffi- cult shoals and navigation of human existence. Mereworth, on reading his ward's letter, yawned fearfully, and after saying, '' Dear me ! — poor Monty ! — very vexatious," enclosed it to his London solicitors, with a request that they would be kind enough to attend to it, then, writing a few lines to tell Montagu that he had done so, and that they would be sure to take every care of him, he rose from his library chair, took his hat and stick, called his dog, and walked across the park to his kennel. Meanwhile, on the evening on which this letter was written, Montagu, at the hour of eight o'clock, accompanied by his brother Scapegrace, Captain Worsted and Mr. Wal- duck, in plain clothes went to the house of the great Mr. Doem. 158 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Now Walduck well knew, but he did not choose to say, that Mr. Dqem was a partner in the celebrated firm of Takein and Doem. Doem himself was a tall, stout man — a sort of walk- ing whale — always dressed in black, with a spotless white handkerchief; the most paternal air, the most friendly manners ; was always delighted to see every one ; would be charmed if he could be of any service; never appeared to be thinking of anybody's interest but yours, and always intent upon nobody's interest but his own. His daughter — a remarkably shrewd- looking damsel, of about seven-and-twenty, who was still very pretty, and had once been more so — was all smiles and grace. To look at her face no one would ever imagine that she possibly could have been out of temper on any one occasion of her life. It was only now and then,whenyougot an opportunity of steadfastly looking at her eye and those little faint lines between her eyebrows, that you arrived at any possible inference of stormy furrows occasion- ally defacing that placid surface. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 159 Tli^^ rooms were large, well lighted, full of guests — all busy dancing, talking, flirting and eating ices. Besides his daughter, Doem also had residing with him a young lady of a very different stamp — quiet, pale, gentle, and reserved. This lady was understood to be Doem^s ward. Her parents having died wbile she was still a minor, left as her trustees two gentlemen of rank and fortune, but these, unfortunately, dying, the trust, by some unaccountable means, passed into the hands of Doem, and, as one of the consequences, this young lady had come to reside under his roof. The moment Montagu entered the room, both Doem and his daughter hastened to tender their best services to get partners, and in a few minutes all the military heroes and the sailor were busily engaged in the intricacies of the dance. " Do you know anything of this new officer who has just joined your regiment, Captain Worsted ?'* said Miss Doem, as this worthy pair, partners in a quadrille, finished their first figure. 160 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. "Oh,yes; I know all about him; heistheson of a general officer, and he joined us yesterday/' " A young man of very good fortune, is he not?" " Why, yes ; they say he has got the best part of a hundred thousand pounds, some say the whole of it." " Oh, has he so much as that?" said Miss Doem, affecting a sort of carelessness of manner, looking down towards the other end of the ball-room, while at the same time there was a deep earnestness about the eye which refused, as it were, to be foiled. " Oh, he is safe for seventy thousand, I think, at any rate. A fish, I assure you, worth land- ing. Miss Doem, if your tackle is strong enough." " Oh, Captain Worsted," said the fair Har- riet, unable to keep a bright spot of colour from mounting into her cheek, '' you know I disapprove of matrimony altogether ! I have seen too many unhappy matches in my life to think that women are at all safe in trusting you treacherous men !" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 161 " Ah, my dear Miss Doem, do not be too severe upon us, altbough at tlie same time I confess you are riglit. If I were a woman no- thing should induce me to marry — except the ring and parson, and a nice young man !" " For shame, Captain Worsted, to talk so lightly of the matter ! But for all that I assure you I am quite serious. I do not know why it is, or how it is, but I suppose for our sins, human happiness is impossible. I have seen two or three pairs of lovers who have blossomed with endless love and affection, and yet ma- tured themselves into most indifferent hus- bands and wives." " Ah, but, my dear Miss Doem, now just look at that young Montagu. Do you believe it possible that such a simple, innocent, suck- ing-dove-looking fellow as that, could ever make anything but a most submissiv^e and desirable husband ?'' " Pray, Captain Worsted, do not talk of husbands and submission, because you know very well they are two things that never go 162 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. togetlier, and, indeed, it would not be right tliej should ! but I confess Mr. Montagu's ap- pearance is in his favour. Where is his pro- perty situated ? I think papa was saying something about an estate of his in Norfolk.' ' " What, your papa has found out that already, has he ? And Montagu only joined us yesterday. How clever !" " Now that is too bad of you, Captain Wor- sted ; only yon know it is part of the business of a proctor to be conversant with all the estates of the landed gentry." " Precisely, Miss Doem ; just as the cook of a mess knows all the joints in his larder. Oh, yes, Montagu has, I believe, an estate in Nor- folk, and it forms a remarkably pretty feature in his face, does it not ?" " I declare you are altogether abominable, Captain Worsted ; but for all that, when we have done dancing bring him up to me, and let me see what I think of him." " Very well, I will humour you; you know I am not a dog in the manger, Miss Doem. Ah ! SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 163 if I only had now two or three thousand dirty acres in Yorkshire, or Devonshire, or Somerset- shire, or any other shire in the three kingdoms, do you think, Miss Doem, that I would ever let such a young little downy face as Montagu come near you ? Ah ! no, believe me, never,'' and the next time the figure came to the turn of Captain and Miss Doem, the gallant hero gave her fingers a very tender squeeze, " How remorse-stricken you will be to-mor- row when you see my fingers black and blue. Captain Worsted," whispered Miss Doem, as she looked sentimentally at the gallant captain. " Yes, my dear Miss Doem, I am always stricken with remorse when I look at your fair hand and reflect who may some day be the en- vied possessor of it. By the way, did I not tell you that Montagu has got into a scrape, and is going to be tried by a court-martial?" " Dear me — is he ? What for ? Nothing serious I hope." " You think it would be a pity, eh, to lose such a promising young man from our corps ?" 134 SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. " No, no, do not be nonsensical,but do tell me ; you do not mean that he is to be tried by a court-martial, when he only joined yesterday/^ " Well he was in luck's way ; he joined the Eegiment in the morning and was put under ar- rest at night, and was told the next day that a court-martial must sit upon him." " Why what in the name of fortune has he been about ?" " Merely assaulting his commanding officer, only the colonel of his regiment, that is all — nothing more." " Dear me ! and such a mild looking young man too. You would not think there was any- thing violent about him." " No, truly so ; but we men are such deceitful creatures,you know, we never look what we are. ' ' " Ah, Captain Worsted, that is unfortunate- ly too true for us poor women — but, really, I feel quite interested for this young man. Go and bring him to me." '' I will." " But remember. Captain Worsted — honor SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 165 brio'lit now — do not let him know tliat I told you to do so." '' Oh ! I will be sure to keep that dark.'' " Honor bright." " Yes," saidWorsted/'honor among thieves." Two very intelligent glances passed between Miss Harriet and the Captain as these words were uttered, and, carelessly sauntering up to where Montagu stood, Worsted said : " That is an uncommon nice girl, that Miss Doem," having just, in the sight of Montagu, handed an ice to Miss Doem, and placed a chair for her. " Indeed !" said Montagu. " Oh, charming creature !" " Are you very much attached in that quarter, Captain Worsted?" '^ Who ? I ? Not at all. I am not a marry- ing man you know." " Is that really so ?" *' Yes, indeed it is." '' Well now, may I ask what are the charms which strike you so much in Miss Doem?" 166 SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. " Well, she dances beautifully. Do you not think so ?" " Yes, I think she does dance very nicely. I was looking at her, but then if that made a charming woman, every ballet girl would be an angel more or less." " No, that certainly alone does not make a charming woman ; but she is charming." " Perhaps she has a sweet voice and sings well?" " No, I do not know about that. I believe she does sing though, but I was not alluding to that — no — a — eh -—it is hard to say ; but she is a very charming creature." " Do you call her beautiful. Captain Wor- sted?" "I do not know that I should call her beautiful. No — a — no — she is what I call a charming person — a very charming person." " But of what do her charms consist ? Is she a great conversationalist?" " Oh, she has plenty to say for herself." " What have you been talking about?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 167 " Well, let me see — well, chiefly about the weather, I think — nothing more.'' " She must have great powers if she has been able to keep the weather up all through that long dance, during which I saw you talking together so much/' " Oh, she has great powers I assure you. A girl very much sought after in this town, I assure you — a sort of little pro vincial heiress !" '' What about the hair did you say ?" " I say she is a little provincial heiress.'' '' Oh, I beg your pardon, I did not catch the word. I suppose she comes under the designa- tion of the old song — ' An heiress, that's clear, For her mother sells beer,'" " No," replied Worsted, " the song should run in her case — * An heiress, by gor. For her father sells law.'" '^ She is the only child of Doem, the rich proctor, of these parts — a partner in the great firm of Takin and Doem." 168 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Oil, is that a money -making profession, that of proctors ?" " My dear fellow, how can you talk in that way ? Do cats like milk ? Do not you know that all the property in the kingdom of Great Britian is only held in trust by the owners for the use of lawyers at large and proctors in particular, though they talk of sweeping them away in a new divorce court ?" " Well, by Jove, I dare say that is true. It never struck me before.'' " True ! It is one of the few true things that are to be found in England. If a man has no property he is always going to the lawyers to raise it, and very soon ends by going to the dogs, as the saying is." "You may depend upon it that her father will leave her something very considerable. Come along with me ; I will take you up and introduce you." " Stop a moment, my dear Worsted, do you know, on second thoughts, I would rather be introduced to that lady-like, pale girl, who SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 169 sits over in the corner. I have seen Mr. Doem speak to her several times ; and I ob- serve nobody dances with her. It is a nice, intellectual-looking face." " That may be, my dear fellow, she does not dance with anyone ; so it is of no use in- troducing you there." " Well, never mind the dancing. I do not care a Rg about the dancing. You introduce me, that is all you have to do. I will sit out with her." " Come, nonsense, Montagu, none of your shamming ; you are dying to be introduced to Miss Doem all the time." And Worsted, keeping fast hold of the youngster's arm, in another minute had got him close up to the lady of the house. " You quite forget, Montagu, that this is your hostess. You ought to have been intro- duced to her the moment you came into the room, but for the fact of her being busy dan- cing." VOL. I. I 170 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. * " But are you sure now, she will not have a bill of costs against me ?'' " Mr. Montagu— Miss Doem." " I am very happy, Mr. Montagu, to have the pleasure of your acquaintance,'' said the lady, fixing on him a glance which seemed like that of a basilisk, under which the Ensign could neither advance nor retreat. Montagu faltered out something which he intended to be civil, and requested the pleasure of her hand in the next dance. This was granted with a most gracious smile. '' But for the present, Mr. Montagu, if you will allow me to sit down for a few minutes — thank you — " as he handed her to a chair, and was about to take his departure. " I am told,'' said the lady, " that you are very intimate with my friend. Lady Gubbins, of Gubbins Grange, near Norwich." " No," said Montagu ; " I know there is a Lady Gubbins living near Norwich, but I never had the pleasure of meeting her." " Oh, indeed ; I am so sorry. I told Captain SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 171 Worsted tliat you knew Lady Gubbins very well. She is a very old and intimate friend of mine ; but perhaps you reside in a more distant part of the country ?" " Yes," said Montagu, " we are several miles from Norwich, and, having a small, convenient town in our neighbourhood, we very rarely go into the city." " Norfolk is a very fine county ; do not you think so, Mr. Montagu ?" " Yes, I think it is ; but so are many other of the counties of England." " Do you hunt there ?" "I have followed the hounds once or twice." " But you do not keep a pack yourself." '' Oh, no," said Montagu, with a smile ; " the Lord deliver me from such an infliction as that!" " Perhaps you are not fond of riding," said the lady. " Yes *, oh, yes, I am fond of riding in a quiet way." " What do you think of the neighbourhood I 2 172 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. about US? Have you ridden mucli here? But perhaps you have not any horses down." " Yes, I have a couple of horses here, but I only bought them yesterday of Walduck, of ours." " What, has he sold you the grey cob and the chesnut mare ?" " Yes," said Montagu, " he has ; how did you know them so well ?" " Oh, I have often seen him riding both of them. But he offered me both steeds not long ago." " Indeed ; ah, yes, they were on sale. What were you asked to give for them?" " I forget what he asked ; I think about eighty pounds ; but of course I was not going to give such a sum as that. I offered him their fair value, about fifty pounds." " Indeed !" said Montagu rather chagrined, " I do not think that can be their fair value, I gave a good deal more than that." " Did you ?' ' said the lady coloring, "perhaps I am wrong in their value then. Possibly he SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 173 may have offered tliem to a lady for less than then- price." " But what can a lady want with so many horses, for I suppose that you have some of your own ?" " I like a little change occasionally ; besides I go across country now and then you see. We have in this neighbourhood buck hounds, and buck hunting always was a favourite sport with Diana." " Do you mean to plead then that ladies are privileged buck hunters." ' ' Ladies are privileged to do what they please, Mr. Montagu, till they are foolish enough to marry, when their only privilege is to do what their husbands please, which I think is a very silly thraldom. But come, they are forming themselves for a waltz, so we will stand up." When the waltz was over the fair Harriet resumed her chair. '' Now tell me who you would like to dance with." " There is a very pale lady -like looking girl," 174 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. said Montagu, " sitting over there in the comer. I should like to dance with her.'' '' Ah ! how very unfortunate for you your choice is, she never dances. You must choose again." " Well," said Montagu, rather struck that neither Worsted nor his hostess would introduce him, '' I am fond of the pursuit of anything under difficulties. You introduce me, and I will see if I can persuade her out of her previous notion." " Oh, Mr. Montagu, you make me smile. Have you ever moved the Pyramids ?" " I cannot exactly say I have." " Do you think you could push Snowdon up into the neighbourhood of London for cockneys to build their villas on its sides ?" '' Possibly that might be too much for me." " Are you willing on short notice to under- take to drain the Eed Sea ?" " Certainly not." " Or to cut across the Isthmus of Darien and leave a ship canal in your track ?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 175 " I would rather be excused." " Would you like to bore a tunnel througli the earth, and lay down an electric railway to shoot you out to the other side of the hemis- phere ?" " Well, possibly at a moment's notice I might be unwilling to do that either." " Well, then I can tell you you may do all these things safely before yoa undertate to move a single atom of that young lady's will." " Dear me ! You quite interest me in her character." '' What, did you never meet a blue stocking before?" " Is she a blue stocking ? Well, no, I never did meet a blue stocking. I should like to have a little conversation with one." " Fie, for shame, Mr. Montagu. I am sure I shall not allow you to waste the sweetness of your rhetoric upon such a desert as that. There is a very charming pretty girl. Miss Thompson, everybody is dying to dance with her. Now if 176 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. you will promise me jour best behaviour I will see if I cannot make interest in your favor." " But, mj dear Miss Doem, I do not care about dancing again. Do not take any trouble for me.'^ However the fair Doem would hear no ap- peal. She remorselessly hurried Montagu away by the arm, until she brought him opposite to a most charming doll, who might have passed for wax work in any part of Madame Tussaud's ex- hibition, if she had been content to hold her tongue and keep her eyes fixed. She had also the same exquisite vacancy of expression, which those said deities of the bees so often present. " Miss Thompson, allow me to introduce Mr. Montagu, who is dying to dance with you." " I am much obliged to you, Mr. Montagu," said the young lady, smiling, " but this dance I am engaged." '' Perhaps the next," said Montagu. " I am very sorry, I am engaged for that too." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 177 " Thank you/' said Montagu, " then I hope you will allow me to take charge of you until your partner arrives.'* The young lady smiled and made room for him on the settee, and Montagu sat down by her side. " I will come to you in a minute," said Miss Doem. " Do not hurry," said Montagu, " I shall be a fixture here for some time." Miss Doem nodded, and away she went to attend to some other matter. The moment she was gone — " Tell me," said Montagu, " who is that pale girl that sits over there in that corner ?" ' ' Where ?' ' said the little innocent wax- work. '' ! yes, I see ; you mean that lady to whom Captain Worsted is paying such assiduous court, while Mr. Walduck is leaning over her chair from behind." " Yes," said our hero, " that is the lady." " Dear me ! do you not know who that is ?" '' No, indeed. I have asked two people to I 5 178 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. introduce me ; both of tliem know her, and neither of them will do it. Who is she?" " That is Miss Wyndham. She is the ward of om^ host's, Mr. Doem, and lives in the house of her trustee — it is said, not very willingly, but I do not know how far that is correct." " Not very willingly — how strange ! How is that ? Where are her parents ?" But at this moment the bright eyes of Miss Doem were seen advancing in the distance, and the tongue of the pretty Miss Thompson became spell- bound, and not another word did it utter. " I have not been very long, have I !" said Miss Doem. " 0, no, a very short time indeed." " Now if you will come with me, Mr. Mon- tagu, I will find you a partner." '' Thank you, but Thave come to the deter- mination of not dancing any more this evening. I feel a little giddy ; I was up very late last night, and so, if I am not better after a short interval of rest — " " Now, not another word — ^you are going to SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 179 say you are going home, but I will not hear it. How abominable it is of you men, when you come to a party specially made for dancing, you have always got some reason why you never like the trouble to make yourselves agreeable ; and, if you can do nothing else, I observe you make a point of sitting up all the previous night, in order, I suppose, that you may be as drowsy in a ball-room as if it were conventional. Come away with me, Mr. Montagu, and take a glass of champagne and a little lobster salad, and, if I hear of your departure before daylight, you shall be visited by my heavy displeasure.'^ '' I suppose you will not try me by court- martial, too, will you ?" " Ah ! by the way, what is all this I hear about a court-martial?" '' Oh ! do not you know I am under arrest, and to be tried by court-martial?" " What have you done ?" " About as much as you have I should think. A friend of mine who was in my quarters, threw a jug of water over some people 180 SCAPEaRACE AT SEA. who were breaking into my rooms, and tlie water happened to fall on the Colonel's head. He will persist in thinking I did it." " And a very valuable service to society if yon had, for a more hot brained old fellow than Colonel Loosefysh is not to be met with in a hurry. And so that is the cause of your court-martial. Give me your arm down stairs, will you?" And the fair Harriet led her swain into the supper-room, and urged him, by ' precept and example too,' to make war upon the good things spread before him. It is quite enough in this world to with- stand the battery of fair eyes, but, when they are seconded by champagne on the morning side of midnight it requires a perfect anchorite to remain firm and unyielding before them. Montagu was no anchorite, and in spite of all his predetermination to the contrary, he found himself dancing again, again, and again, with the fair Harriet, until his mind began to yield to the combined influence of her deter- mination, merriment, and shrewdness. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 181 There was sometliing also wliicli lie felt in the delight of gettmg rid for a few hours of the remembrance of his court-martial. Worsted had spoken truly when he had warned him that the onus and the annoyance of his tri- bunal would increase and grow upon him. From the earliest hour of waking, up to the moment of engaging in the dance his thoughts had been perpetually strained as to what his defencewould be, what the charge would be, what the result would be, &c.,&c., &c.; the music, the lights, the dancing, th^ l^appy looking faces, — alas how treacherous the expression in too many cases! — the dazzling fair round shoulders, the elegant dress, and the motions of the dance, all conspired to wean him from a remembrance of himself; but still, throughout the whole evening,one thing he remarked, that either Miss Doem, or Worsted, or Walduck always surrounded him, and fre- quently as he tried to get an introduction to the pale ward, somebody would always be in his way to prevent him. Having found the supper-room very agreeable 182 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. at half-past twelve, Montagu returned to it at half-past one — tliisthiae without a lady, and on his own account; and on making his way back to the ball-room, the thought struck him : — " why should I allow these people to hem me about in this way?" Looking around for a moment he perceived that the fair Harriet was busy in the mazes of the dance. Captain Worsted being her partner, and, that for an instant Walduck had left the side of Miss Wyndham. Emboldened by the influence of the hour, Montagu quietly went up to the tabooed lady, and taking a chair beside her said : " I am sorry to see. Miss Wyndham, that you do not honour the dance with your countenance. Will you try one quadrille ?" Miss Wyndham looked at him for a moment or so in surprise, and then answered : " I should be very happy to dance a quadrille with you, Mr. Montagu, if you like.'' In an instant Montagu's arm was offered, and the lady and gentleman were walking SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 183 through the room. They had not proceeded many yards before they met Walduck, who addressed them in a state of most mtense amazement : '' Why — where are you going ? " '' To dance a quadrille," said the lady. " You dance. Why, you have been refusing me all the evening." '^ I thought I should continue to refuse, but the whim has seized me the other way." In a few minutes they passed by the spot where Miss Doem was busy flirting with Wor- sted. ''Why, Blanche! You and Mr. Montagu too ; where are you going ? " " I am going to dance," said Miss Wyndham. " You dance — I never knew you to dance in my life." " Then I shall enlarge your experience," said the lady. Miss Doem looked at Montagu as he thought with a great abatement of her previous merri- ment, and no pleased expression of the eye, but 184 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. she did not address a word to liim ; still lie overheard her say to Captain Worsted: "who can have introduced them ? " Worsted shook his head. " May I ask, Miss Wyndham, how you came to know my name ? " " I have heard nothing else but your name for the last two hours, and it requires no great effort to remember it, I think." " My name for the last two hours — why, what have they been doing with my unhappy name ?'^ " Oh, all sorts of things, but chiefly going through the history of your forthcoming court-martial." " Oh ! that wretched court-martial, I have been trying to forget it, and have succeeded pretty well for the last three hours." " Then I ought not to have mentioned it. We will talk of something else — but one reason why I knew your name was — I asked Captain Worsted to introduce me to you, but I could not get him to do so ; for I was at school once with a very nice young girl bearing your name SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 185 and I want you to tell me if she is any rela- tion." " Was it Emily Montagu?'' " Yes, it was." " At a school at Brighton ?' " Yes." " Ah, it was my cousin, poor girl. If she had lived it would have made a great difference to me; she would have inherited all my uncle's property. My uncle, youknow, was her father." " Dear me, and she is dead ?" '' Yes, poor girl, she died of consumption. Oh! several years ago, now. She died at Nice." " I am so sorry to hear it. She was a great favourite of mine ; she was such an exquisitely pure-minded girl, and so beautiful." " Yes, very often you see that — as if the most exquisite flowers, and those with the most bewitching perfume should be the first to fade. How old was poor Emily when you parted from her?" " Let me see ; she must have been about sixteen." 186 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " She died just before lier seventeentli birth- day." " What a dreadful grief it must have been to her father !" " He never recovered it. He had previously lost his wife by an attack of the same insidious disease. I do not remember my aunt, but I have had her described to me as very beautiful, very gentle, and much beloved.'^ " Then your cousin resembled her." " Oh ! completely." " I am so sorry to hear she is no more. I hoped when I heard your name and saw the evident family likeness, that I might soon see again my old friend — you know young people at school form attachments and friendships, which in their fervour few things seldom approach or surpass." " Yes," said Montagu, " I well know what it is. I had a very dear friend of mine, a pale, delicate- looking boy — poor Tom Basden. We were at school together at Eaton, and he lived near us in Norfolk ; there was nothing in the world that I would not have done for him ; and one day SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 187 he came to me and asked me to change several of my little belongings for some of his, but, I was in a wayward mood that afternoon, and I would let him have nothing that he asked. I remember there was a powder-flask he wished for and one or two other things. He seemed to me very low- spirited, and soon went away. The next morn- ing I found that his father, the General, had lost a large fortune by speculating, and the family had all gone off to the continent that night. Poor Tom came to wish me good bye and get some little keepsake ; he was enjoined by his father not to say a word of their intended departure, and he was always obedient to those who had a right to control him. He said nothing of his going away, if he had he might have taken the last thing I had in the world. When I heard he was gone the next morning, I cannot tell you how grieved I was. I hoped and hoped to meet him again, but he never came back to school. He was appointed to a writer- ship in the East Indies. He went off without coming to England, and the next thing I heard 188 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. of him was that he died of jungle fever, after a heavy day's shooting. If I live till I am a hundred I shall never cease sorrowing for my waywardness that afternoon.'' " I remember him perfectly," said Miss Wyndham ; " we were passing the winter in Eome when the General came out to Italy. Lady Basden had a moderate fortune, and I remember hearing something about the General having sustained some severe loss ; and your friend must have been that slight, slim youth that I remember ; a melancholy-looking boy, with a pale, gentle expression efface." " Yes," said Montagu, " that was dear old Tom, and if he was alive and to be seen in this world, I would willingly set off to Madras to see him to-morrow." " That was precisely the kind of feeling I had for your cousin ; it is very inexplicable these strong and overwhelming attachments of youth, indeed, you may almost say childhood. When they terminate fatally and are sealed by the death of one of the parties, the survivor passes through SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 189 life witli an impression tliat nothing but death could have terminated such a friendship; and yet I have heard other people tell me that these strong affections of school days do not stand the multifarious tests of this great world, and that many people who have been perfectly de- voted to each other at school have survived to become mere passing acquaintances, and per- haps almost strangers.'^ '^ I do not believe it/' said Montao^u. " I do not believe that where this intense regard really does exist that the — ^what shall I call it ?" — '' The canonization of the heart can be de- stroyed by time." ''Precisely," said Montagu, adopting the language of his partner. " I think once a saint in the affections of the soul, the person is be- lieved a saint for ever." " I am afraid, Mr. Montagu," said Miss Wyndham, smiling at his adopting the poet's view rather than that of the practical men and women of the world, " If that were true, how can you account for the num- 190 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. ber of iinliappy marriages we constantly see around us." " I conclude that in their cases, either they were people incapable of forming this intense affection, or that the generality of marriages take place rather with those who are thrown together, and are able to contract marriage without opposition, and that in their case the same magnetic and overwhelming attraction does not exist." " Well, Mr. Montagu, I am afraid you are wrong in both cases from all I have seen of the world, and all I have read. I fear I must come to the conclusion, that the most intense affections of the human heart in youth wear off with time and the influence of society, and that the human mind is too imperfect to produce that perfect love which never wearies and never abates." " Oh ! Is it possible you can think so ? what treason to live to admit it." " No, indeed, it is not ; there can be no ques- tion that love was intended by Heaven for the highest human enjoyment of which the soul is SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 191 capable ; and Indeed, we know that love, per- fect love, is the description of the Great Au- thor of the universe given by Himself. I have, therefore, always considered that love is to be the great reward of Heaven ; and that when our spirits have thrown off the clods of clay, we shall be able to feel in all its per- fection that transcendant emotion which deifies even, in this sad, dull world, everything which it illumes. I believe that in a future state its great reward will be the filling of the soul with a love so perfect that its extacy shall know no more of diminution, hindrance, or cessation, than the flight of time itself." " That idea" said Montagu, ''never before presented itself in that form to my mind, but now you offer it to my consideration, I admit the picture is a thrilling one, and the happi- ness sufficiently known to man to be capable of appreciation, and yet at the same time so infinitely beyond his present capacities as to fill the intellect with amazement, and, if I may 192 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. use tli8 expression, overwhelm it in the laby- rinth of an endless maze of joy.'^ " But we are expressly told that no hmnan imagination can by any possibility conceive the happiness of the next world/ ^ '^ Yes, we are ; but I suppose you as a soldier conceive the happiness not worth preparing for/ ^ " I am quite at a loss, Miss Wyndham, to understand what you mean." " What do you say yourself — what is your present position — that of slaughtering and cut- ing throats. Do you conceive this a good preparation for an eternity of tenderness and love, for instance?" " Indeed, Miss Wyndham, you rather stag- ger me." ''• You may well be staggered ; take up any of the papers and read the butcheries that are going on in the East, and then think that you are one of the profession destined specially to increase and magnify them. Just remember, that at any moment in the middle of your pro- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 193 fession, you may be cut short by a lance, sabre or bullet ; perhaps your heart filled with all the most murderous emotions of the human mind. Do you think now seriously that that is a fitting mood for transmission to a state of the most perfect benevolence and love?" " You take rather a startling view of the profession of arms." " If there were no soldiers, Mr. Montagu, there would be no wars." " Yes, but unless you could make all men peaceable at the same moment the world would be overridden with barbarians, for the more uncivilised the nation, the slower they would be to appreciate the doctrines of peace and Christianity, and before civilized nations could convert the barbarian by argument, civilization would be overwhelmed and des- troyed under the steeled hoof of these savage invaders." ''It is a complicated and a melancholy ques- tion I admit ; but do you not think the pro- VOL. I. K 194 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. fession of arms should be left to those who have no doubts on the subject, and that all who ques- tion the Christianity of cutting throats should be withdrawn from the combat ?" " Perhaps in a day or two my court-martial may save me all trouble on this question, and dismiss me from the service." "If it does so," said Miss Wyndham, '' and you want my consolation come to me. Now the dance is forming, let us stand up for our quadrille." SCAPEGEACB AT SEA. 195 CHAPTER XL Scarcely had Montagu finished the quadrille with Miss Wyndham when supper was an- nounced, and the words were trembling on our hero's lips to ofFe'r his arm to take her down to the supper-room, but at this moment up came a stout, tall, fat, burly sort of animated puncheon with Miss Doem on his arm. '*' Mr. Montagu, I have great pleasure in making your acquaintance. Will you take my daughter down to supper?" This then was old Doem ; and adjured in K 2 196 SCAPEaEACE AT SEA. tliis pointed manner, poor Montagu had no al- ternative hut to make a bow and accede. " Captain Worsted/' said Doem, " will you take down Miss "Wy ndham. Mr. Walduck, will you give your arm to Miss Smith," and thus he went on assimino-to various cavaliers their fair damsels, and on moved the whole party to the supper-room — ^a large apartment at the further end of the house, evidently the offices decked up in laurels and other devices to hide the plain walls of the building. " What another supper,'' said Montagu, as he entered the room and saw the endless range of chairs on either side. " Another supper," said Miss Doem, " what do you mean ? you have had no other supper." '• Then tell me what was all that champagne and lobster-salad of which I partook not long since with you." '^ Oh ! that was only a little refreshment. Now we are going to have a regular sit down supper." And accordingly a sit down supper they had. Montagu found himself very near to Doem's SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 197 right hand, sufficiently near during the repast for Doem to condole with him on his approach- ing court-martial. " I hope, my dear Mr. Montagu, you have taken immediate steps for procuring able legal assistance. J do not say it with a view to my- self, you know, but I know the necessity in urgent cases like this.'' " Thank you, sir, I have already taken the necessary steps, and written to my guardian." " I am very glad to hear it. I have frequently officiated at courts-martial for friends,and I con- fess I do not like giving up the amount of time they require, and I must also say it is a very disagreeable duty. Everything is done in a manner so utterly at variance with the rules of eviclence, and of true propriety, and common sense, which is the foundation of all law, that really to use a hackneyed expression, it makes a respectable lawyer's blood run cold to sit in a room during a court-martial." " You do not give me a very flattering pic- ture of my future prospects," said Montagu. 198 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. "All ! sir, it's a very up-MU game as you will find when you come to fight it." '' So I am told on all hands, but as I know that I have justice on my side, I am slow to entertain any fears of the result." " If justice, sir, had anything to do with courts martial, you might be right in the view you take of the case, but in fact, the more unjust a man's case is, I believe the greater hope he ought to entertain of getting clear of his adver- saries before a military court of enquiry. The pleasure of a glass of wine, Mr. Montagu ?" Then were exchanged bumpers ofchampagne. " I hope you will make a friend of me during the progress of the busin ess Mr. Montagu. I shall be happy at any time to give the advantage of any little experience I may possess to any profession- al friend of yours, who may be engaged for you/ " That is very liberal of you," said Mon- tagu, and he thought it ; but Doem's liberality was the liberality of the hand that fills the purse and then returns it to the pocket. He well knew what he was about. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 199 '' If you take my advice," said Miss Wynd- liam, who was sitting near enougli to be lieard, " you will take your commission and enclose it in an envelope to Lord Hardfist, at the Horse Guards, and trouble yourself no more about your court-martial than you do about the mountains in the moon." "What," said Captain Worsted, "you do not mean to say that you would counsel the gallant hero to turn his back upon the service of his country. Fie, Miss Wyndham, where is your military enthusiasm ? " " Precisely in the same spot, Captain Wor- sted, where last year's snow is : can you tell me where that is ? " " That is too bad of you, Blanche, in the presence of so many red coats, to throw cold water on their aspirations after martial fame." "Oh! it is all sham," said Walduck. "I know in her heart Miss Wyndham loves a red coat beyond all other colours." " Mr. Walduck, there is no denying that you are a very shrewd gentleman, but still I 200 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. reiterate my advice to Mr. Montagu, and lie knows the grounds on which I base my opinion." " A paradox, Miss Wyndham,'' said old Doem ; '' we all know you are very fond of paradoxes ; your motive for crying down the army is to prove your regard for it." "Why, how can that be?" said Walduck. "Why, because the more she pulls it to pieces in my hearing and my daughter's, the more strenuously, she knows, we shall fight for its fair fame." At such an auspicious moment, Doem, of course, felt bound to commence that series of toasts which, beginning with royalty and the two services, brings with questionable gallan- try, " the ladies" in the rear. And after con- siderable fun, and much more wine had been en- joyed, the whole assembled guests adjourned once more to the ball-room, to have the pleasure of witnessing the break of day, and the killing effects it produces on human complexions when it follows on a night of dissipation. Just as Montagu was setting off for his quar- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 201 ters, it occurred to him that for some hours past he had not seen his brother Julius, and on enquiry being made, young Scapegrace was found in old Doem's study, where he ap- peared to have passed the evening fast asleep in the easy-chair. K 5 202 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTER XIL Day after day passed by, and every day the un- fortunate Montagu expected to hear that his court-martial was appointed, but still no such intelligence reached him ; no message came to him from the Colonel,no mitigation of his arrest arrived, and yet, strange to say, no court-mar- tial was ordered to take place upon his case. Some men thought there was a hitch at head quarters; others that the Colonel did not like to bring things to extremities, and was trying to force on a sale, or exchange ; some even went so far as to report a rumour that a court of inquiry SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 203 was to be held on Colonel Loosefysh himself, on the general state of discipline in the regiment. Only one result was visible, that from and after the evening of the door breaking, a great dimi- nution had taken place in the skylarking of the young ofl&cers ; the junior Ensigns had been released from the midnight parade in their night-clothes upon the mess-room table. Even Major Fussey had been remarkably abstemious and silent, as to the great fact of the Prince of Wales having been wrapped up in his father. During the whole of this time, day after day, invitations had come to Montagu from Doem ; generally they assumed the shape of an invi- tation to dinner on the following day. Some- times they were from Miss Doem, to accom- pany her in a ride to some neighbouring scenery. Once or twice a little scrap of poetry had fallen out from that fair lady's letter, and at all times nothing could exceed the comfort and bolstering which Montagu received at the hands of the stout father. At last, towards the end of the week, just as 204 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Montagu had arrived from oneoftliose cliarm- ing rides, and was quietly removing his soiled boots, to dress for dinner as usual, at Miss Doem's,a knock came to Montagu s quarters,and on the word of admittance being given — '' Come in" — Captain Spinney presented himself. '' Ah ! Captain Spinney, how do you do ?'' " How do you do, Mr. Montagu? I was going to say how are you, but I did not put that ques- tion for you have so much colour in your cheeks, and so much animation in your eye, that no man would suppose you to be a young officer under arrest, waiting for a court-martial." "Well, my dear Captain Spinney, what is the use of a man making himself unhappy about a thing he cannot help ? So long as we can fight and battle against it, why, it is all very well to be uneasy, and nervous, and anxious, and watch- ful, and so on, but when that day has passed, and that approaches which we have no power to avoid, then comes in the soldier's good quality of patience, or, to use the often quoted phrase of Captain Worsted ; ' pour on, I will endure.' " SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 205 " Well, well, I am veiy sorry to find tliat you have got into this position." '' It was a sad termination to that merry evening we had. You remember that curious trick of Sweetbreath upon its owner." '' Oh ! I shall never forget it," said Captain Spinney ; " what a shot !" '' Nor shall I ; such a shot !" '' Poor Fussey, he has never been able to en- dure coming near me since. In fact, he leads the life of an anchorite. If he does not take very great care thePrince of Wales will unwrap him- self, out of his father. But, however, I come to talk to you about your own prospects at present. I have just received information from a private friend at the Horse Guards, that Lord Hard- fist is determined to bring you to a court- martial." " Lord Hardfist may hang himself in his garters if he likes, as far as I myself am con- cerned, and barring all unchristian feelings on the occasion, which would desire that no man should be hanged ; it is not because a gentle- 206 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. man chooses to enter the army that, therefore, he is to become a slave. I have done nothing for which I need have any fear before a court- martial — let them hold a court-martial. I assure you, as a man of honor and a gentle- man, I did not throw the water. It was some one whom I shall not name.'' " Oh ! yes, we all understand that, but unfor- tunately truth is very little looked at in the court-martial system. What is looked at is,what they call, the good of the service, and keeping up strict discipline, and the necessity of uphold- ing a Colonel's authority before the men. Do not you think you could manage to exchange out of the regiment ? Any other regiment would answer your purpose just as well as the Non- such." " That is very likely, as any other room in the hotel would answer just as well as the coffee- room,but if any insolent,impudent fellow comes and tells me to leave the cofFee-room,what is my reply ; why, that I will see him, I will not say what first, and that is precisely the answer I SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 207 mean to give Colonel Loosefysh and Lord Hardfist about my leaving this regiment. I will see them — I cannot say what, first/' " As to Lord Hardfist, you know, you must not blame him in the matter, because, in all probability, the report that has come before him is simply the fact that the Colonel has had a jug of cold water thrown over him, and you are accused of doing it ; and if that is the state of facts brought before him, he can only do one thing — bring you before a court- martial, and dismiss you the service." " Very well; then if 1 have not done it, you know, it is the duty of Lord Hardfist not to dismiss me the service/' " Yes, but the young man who necessitates a court-martial is in a very awkward position!" '^ Why, so?" " There are fifty things that must come out on a court-martial in the course of the sifting and examination of witnesses, which were never contemplated when the court-martial began, and which bring scandal on the service, and 208 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. show up tlie regiment, that is why it is always desirable to avoid courts-martial if possible. You will find that in both services, the heads who administer them, never will grant a court- martial if they can possibly help it, or if the case is not extremely clear. I think if you were to exchange into another regiment you would find your course in the service much more easy.'' "Yes, and my character exposed to a per- petual slur. I will not do anything of the sort, I am resolved !" " Well, if you remain, you mu^t look out to have your life made a perpetual system of mar- tyrdom, and, even if you should get acquitted of this charge, the chances are ten to one that you will have something else brought against you the first moment you make a mistake. My dear fellow, you know I am very glad to see you remain in the service — to tell you the truth — I like you very much — there is something in you beyond the light frivolity of those boys just let loose from school, who think of nothing else but a red-coat and a tinsel pair of epaulettes, SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 209 but T strongly counsel you to exchange. In all probability, you know, this regiment is going on very serious service; it has been a long time at home, and our service companies will be sure to be ordered out to the Crimea. It is all very well to pooh, pooh the Eussians, but you will find they are a dogged, obstinate set of brutes, well found in their artillery, and requiring a great deal of whacking, and many a man who enters upon the fields of the Crimea, depend upon it, will never come out of them." " Yes, Captain Spinney, but you must be aware that is no argument to address to a soldier^ because when I entered the profession I intended to go to the top of it ; and every man, who reads as you would say, CoBsar and Xenophon, to say nothing of modern writers, knows that for every soldier who climbs the top of the tree, some thousands must be buried at its roots." " Well, well, if you are as resolved as that, I see, you have thought upon it, and made up your mind. I will say no more. But now there is another danger of which I desire to warn you. 210 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Of course you have got your counsel and at- torneys, and all that sort of thing engaged/' '' Oh ! yes, some time since." "Well, now, who is this with whom you are so intimate here — this Mr. Doem?" " I do not know. I believe he is a very respectable man." " Oh ! no doubt ; he must be respectable ; he is a friend of Walduck and Worsted." " Yes, I was taken there by them." '' Has he not a daughter ?" "Oh! yes, he has a daughter." "And she is marriageable, is she not?" " Yes, she is marriageable." "Ah! I thought so." " Well, what of that. Captain Spinney ; most daughters are marriageable at some age or other." " Nothino; ! nothino; !" " On what ground do you make that remark?" " Oh, come, come, an old fellow like my- self, a bachelor, knows who has marriageable daughters, and who has not." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 211 " What then you are looking out for your- self are you ?" " Yes, do you not see ; I am very steadfast ; but tell me does the daughter talk nicely about love and all those tender sort of things ?" " That is hardly a fair question, is it?" said Montagu. " I merely ask for information, because if I should be introduced to the young lady (I do not see much probability of it), I should know what topic to talk upon. By the way, has she ever told you how much she was once attached to Colonel Loosefysh?" " No, she has not ; was she indeed ?" said Montagu, jumping up with boyish glee, and showing a good deal of curiosity. " Oh ! I do not say so ; I merely ask you if she has ever communicated to you such a fact?" "Ah ! come now. Captain, these are only your old soldiers ways of saying a thing. I will not split. Tell me about it?" "Really, Mr. Montagu, I know nothing about it ; I know nothing about it. It just struck me 212 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. that a young ladj, the daughter of an eminent solicitor in the same town with such a distin- guished regiment as the Nonsuch; and the gallant Colonel of such regiment, being at one time frequently asked to the table of the eminent solicitor ; it struck me as just possible, do you see, that if the lady had any pencJiant at all towards the red-coat, the Colonel of the regi- ment would be as likely to excite her regards as the junior Ensign *, do you see ?" " So ho! jumps the cat in that quarter ? But, Captain Spinney, I have dined there very often lately, and I never even met the Colonel there.'' " Oh ! dear no ; of course not, and what is more, you will not." "Indeed!" " So I should think at least. The Colonel is in very delicate health; the water at Mr. Doem's pump disagrees with him; so I conclude; you know he drinks such an inexpressible quantity of water does Colonel Jjoosefysh ; he has not dined at Mr. Doem's now for several months. Very curious,isitnot, these little sanitary facts ? SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 213 By the way, Mr. Montagu, did you ever hear a very cm-ious old song that begins : *' Oh ! no, we never mention him ; his name is never heard : My lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word." " To be sure I have ! '' " Ah ! very often sung, is it not ? but, un-' fortunately for you, the song is not, ' Oh ! no we never mention kirn ;' it is, ^ Oh ! no we never mention her,^ *' '' But come now, tell me, without all this tantalising and inuendo, was Har-yat, as her father calls her, was she much smitten with the gallant Loosefysh?*' '' I do not know exactly, but I — I should say, if report speaks true, that the fish to which she is most attached are gold-fish, but not those that swim in the bowl, my dear fellow; I have never heard that she went into a con- sumption, or pined away, or did anything of that sort, even although the gallant Colonel does not go there quite so frequently as he did." " Then how is it. Captain Spinney, you do not go there ? you are a bachelor ; you have 214 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. been making some inquiries about the mar- riageable daughter, and so, bow is it you bave not bad your turn ?'' " Ob ! sir, tbere are some fisb, you know, — hard in tbe jaws — do not bite ; wben a man bas arrived at my time of life and tbe Colonel's, Mr. Montagu, it takes a very long book to catcb us. But tbere is anotber lady, is tbere not, tbat you meet at tbe table of Mr. Doem, a ward of bis?" '^ Yes, tbere is a very peculiar girl." '' Ab! now, I sbould say, I do not know ; you would find great difficulty in drawing ber out." " Wbat you say is — " " Yes, very great — indeed, I sbould tbink you would not be able to get at ber mucb ; you would find generally, tbat somebody else en- grosses ber conversation ; takes ber out of tbe way; keeps you at an unapproachable distance." " Dear me, bow very droll tbis is. Captain Spinney, of you ; tbat is tbe very idea, do you know, tbat sometimes flashed across my mind, though I could not conceive tbe meaning of it." " Ob ! accident, sir, accident, mere accident. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 215 These tilings never have any sort of design, you know. It does also happen by accident, that the lady is Doem^s ward, and has a very large fortune, or had, when Doem first became her trustee ; the Lord knows what it may be now, you know !" " Oh ! a large fortune has she. Oh ! Oh ! that is it, is it ; and do you think that Wal- duck and Worsted know this?'' " Do I think that rivers run towards the sea, or that stars shine brightest at night, or that winds produce waves on the ocean. Lord ! what is there, do you think that Walduck does not know that is his interest to know, or of what, I should like you to tell me, is Worsted ignorant except that of which for his own best interest he ought to have no knowledge.'' " Dear me. Captain Spinney ; a light breaks in upon me wonderfully." '^ Does it ? Does it ? Well, then I wish you good morning." " But tell me, Captain Spinney — " '' Oh ! no ! I never tell anything." 216 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Tut just one word, my dear Captain Spin- ney." " I never have a word for anybody. Good morning : — good morning — good morning." And away Captain Spinney hurried down the stairs as fast as he could clatter, leaving Montagu in a state of consternation, amaze- ment, incredulity, and surprise, at the various odds and ends he had heard that afternoon. The warning voice, however, of his alarm clock, admonished him to dress for dinner, and hurrying forward his toilet he soon found himself once more with his legs under Mr. Doem's table. fiCAPEGEACE AT SEA. 217 CHAPTER XIII. '' Is not this provoking, my dear Mr. Mon- tagu," said Miss Doem, on coming into the drawing-room soon after Montagu arrived there, ready dressed for dinner. " Is not what provoking. Miss Doem ?" " Why, my father has been called off to town on some urgent business this afternoon, about an hour ago, in order to take up Miss Wyndham, who is summoned by the illness ofone of her re- lations. I beg to apologise to you most sincerely for their absence, and if I had had a little more notice of it I would have endeavoured to ask one VOL. I. L 218 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. or two people to fill their places at tlie dinner- table. I know you will find it insufferably dull, but I promise to do my best to amuse you." And do lier best Miss Doem certainly did ; numerous were the little kind, encouraging speeches she made to our hero. He had no idea till then of sundry little charms which it appeared she possessed. In the evening, encouraged by having no other auditor, the fairHar-yat drew forth an old song-book which had not seen the light for several years, and entertained him with divers melodies, all new to Montagu, and which all in their day had been proved, as it were, upon other fortifications, more song-proof than his heart. Surely after all, thought Montagu, that queer ol d fish. Spinney, must be mistaken ; there cannot be this general conspiracy hatching in this house which his words seem to insinuate. " What an ingenuous, artless creature this girl seems. She is really very accomplished, and I do believe she is sincerely anxious about my un- fortunate court-martial." However, though it SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 219 must be confessed that the fish was swimming up to the bait with longing eyes, he had not the least idea of opening his lips to swallow it, notwithstanding the many pretty compli- ments he received in the course of the evening, and the beautiful copy of verses which he was entrusted, under solemn promise of secresy, only to peruse, and not to copy. On the following day the adjutant walked into his room with a long letter. " Mr. Montagu, an order has arrived from the Horse Guards for holding a general court-mar- tial in your case, to commence this day week." Notwithstanding all that Montagu had as- sumed of natural philosophy, his heart bound- ed towards his mouth at these words, and having read the document in silence — in si- lence he transmitted it to the Adjutant, and made his bow, and that functionary returned to his superior not much wiser than he came. Was it fancy, or was it reality, that prompted Montagu to trace, throughout the whole of that L 2 220 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. day, in every face, a dififerent expression to that whicli before had greeted his appearance. Even Walduck and Worsted seemed to grow more cold and frigid; even Spinney seemed to keep out of speaking distance; even old Doem looked grave; even the fair Har-y at suspicious; the only person who afforded him warmer welcome than before was Blanche Wyndham, who having returned by the midnight train on the previous evening, for the first time in her life held out her hand, and said, '' I am very glad to see you, Mr. Mon- tagu, I understand the order for your court- martial has arrived at last, and I wish you well and speedily through such an annoyance.^* These words seemed to contain very little, and yet, until that hour had arrived, Montagu could not have believed how much of cordial spirit and cheering influence they would exercise upon him. Eetuming the pressure of her hand with warmth, he could not help saying in a low voice to her : '' These are the first words of real sympathy SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 221 which have met my ear to-daj, and I value them more than I can express." Blanche Wyndham looked at him for a mo- ment gravely and earnestly, and then with- drew to the other end of the room. But sharply indeed were both her looks and her expression watched by the fair Har-yat, and Worsted, and Walduck, who were all around, though scarcely within hearing dis- tance. 222 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. CHAPTER XIV. On the following day down came Montagu's legal adviser, an elderly gentleman, with whom time had left but a few locks of grey hair, and a pair of gold spectacles ; a most exceedingly gentlemanly person, but about the last man in the world who could be of any use to a poor unfortunate victim selected to be broken and dismissed the service, by the combined influence of worthless evidence and court-martial partialities. At the first consultation with his client, he heard everything that had to be said, and then setting on his spectacles with a thumb on one si(je and a finger on the other, he replied : SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 223 " Well, Mr. Montagu — all I can say is tliat it is very extraordinary, most extraordinary. I cannot understand. I do not understand it. I will not pretend to understand it ; it is most extraordinary." This was consolatory information, for Mon- tagu to know that the only man upon whose understanding he was to place any reliance, was a man who could understand nothing about the case. It was, therefore, with great relief on the following day he heard this very gentlemanly old stager express a different opinion, that under all the circumstances of the case, perhaps it would be better that his junior partner, Mr. Tweezer, should come down and attend to this business, and he was sure that everything that could be done would be done by Mr. Tweezer. "Very well," said Montagu, "send Mr. Tweezer by all means ;" and on the following day down came Mr. Tweezer. Mr. Tweezer was as completely a contrast to his senior partner as can possibly be 224 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. imagined ; a short, sharp, wiry, thin little fellow, who never sat still a moment. When he heard the facts of the case, he ex- claimed : " Ah ! I see, I see, I see it all. No case. Not a fragment of a case. Not a ghost of a case. Have not the slightest chance in the world against you !'' " Do not you think it would be advisable to employ counsel?'' said Montagu. " Not the least in the world. What is there ever for a counsel to do ? We shall call your brother, you know, who will prove we had nothing to do with it. We were not parties to it. In short, that we had nothing to say to it, and we shall be instantly acquitted. I see it all. I see the men before me quite. Well, nothing can be more satisfactory. Set your mind perfectly at ease. Count wholly upon me, and consider yourself already acquitted. '* SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 225 CHAPTER XV. While Montagu was still balancing between these opinions a rap came at the door, and on the word being given, in walked Walduck. After a few preliminary observations of no great moment, Mr. Walduck marched up to the looking-glass, and as he adjusted his neckcloth, said : — " I say, Montagu, what a deuce ofa fellow you are amongst the girls ; they say Miss Doem is over head and ears in love with you.'' " They say so. Who say so ?" said Montagu, colouring to the eyes. '' All our fellows say so. The Colonel asked L 5 226 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. if it was true tliat you were going to marrry Miss Doem. I answered, ' upon my life, Colonel, I do not know, they appear to be very sweet on one another/ " " But, my dear Walduck, surely, you must mistake. I have never paid any attention to Miss Doem/' '' Have you not ? Then I suppose, I do not know what attention is when I see it. As for the poor girl, she is never easy except when you are near her, and when you are away she is always looking about for you, or asking for you. Upon my life, you have made quite a conquest in that quarter.^' " Oh ! really, Wa-duck, I must disclaim." " Oh ! man, you need not disclaim with the colour mounting up to your cheeks in that way; there is no great harm in it, you know. Women are fond of red-cloth, and when a man makes up his mind to enter the army he must suffer these little persecutions with equanimity." " Oh ! it is not that, my dear Walduck, but do hear me ; do allow me to assure you — ." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 227 " Nonsense my good fellow. What assurance is there necessary ? It is no great matter as I see. Nothing that you can say can alter it, you know ; there is the poor girl's partiality evinced in all she does ; but what I cannot make out in the matter is — how you manage it ! She is a monstrous fine girl, you know, and though her father is not first-chop, yet, still, he can give her a good bit of tin, I have no doubt. We have all been trying our hands to lead her in a string, but we have none of us been able to make any impression until you came, so that I am quite glad for the honour of the regiment." '' Oh ! but, my dear Walduck ; really I must explain to you." "My dear fellow,no explanation is necessary." " But I must protest." " Oh ! nonsense, my dear fellow, in these matters no man's protestation is believed." '^ But really, Walduck, I vow to you." " Oh ! come Montagu. You know as well as I do, that at lovers' perjuries Jove laughs." 228 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " No, but on my honour, "Walduck." " Nonsense, Montagu, when a lady is in the case, what man would not pledge his honour to screen the idolised fair from any imputation. No, you need not say anything. It is a matter which does not rest upon the saying of either of the parties, but entirely upon the doing. You know we can all see what is going on in the breasts of both you. I never saw a girl so over head and ears in love in my life. How- ever, I do believe she will make a capital wife ; a clever, sensible, clear headed creature ; a monstrous fine girl, upon my word. Are you going to ride to day ?" '' I had promised to go and call upon Miss Do em and ride with her, but, after what you have said — " " You will go all the more." " No. Indeed, I think I shall write a note and put it off." " Ah ! now you would not be cruel, would you ? What, man alive, you cannot expect to have all these things quite to yourself; a fine SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 229 girl like tliat we have all been trying our best to hook. Egad ! she is always so cool, and so civil, and so off-handed, she has never appeared to have anything like a feeling for anyone, but now, only mention the name of Mr. Montagu, she is all eyes, now she grows pale, then she grows red, then she grows pale again. Then she is so anxious about the court-martial ; so convinced that papa is right in his opinion." " What is that opinion ?" " Oh ! the Lord only knows ! That courts- martial are a bore I suppose, and he is quite right if he says so. Well, I am off, old fellow. I won't interfere with your tete-a-tete ride. Lucky fellow ! Lucky fellow !" And saying this, away vanished Walduck, though Montagu followed him to the door of his quarters, trying to " assure, protest," &c., &c., in the ear of one who had come determined to hear neither assurance nor protestation. As soon as Walduck was gone Montagu mused for a few minutes as to what he had better do. The idea of Miss Doem being seriously attached to him had never crossed his mind. She always 230 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. appeared sucli a clever, capable young lady, so thoroughly able to take care of herself, that the last idea which would have struck him was that of her falling in love, as it is termed, with any- one. On the other hand, it served strangely to jar upon his credibility that all the officers of the regiment had been trying in vain to make an impression upon her stony heart, when he remembered the hints of old Spinney, and even the assertion of Walduck, that the Colonel and herself had once had a violent flirtation. '' Now," thought he, " if I don't go and ride that will look very strange, and I shall be called upon for an explanation, so I think I will just ride over to day and keep a little more with that companion of hers. Yes, I must take care we do not separate so much in our rides. I see, I must be a little more particular in this case, though her manner is so open and straightfor- ward, I cannot bring myself to believe that the girl herself has any designs, and I am sure I have none on her, though as a companion, she certainly is chatty and agreeable." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 231 CHAPTEE XVL T^E ride took place, and when once more the two ladies, two grooms, and our hero, pulled up at Mr. Doem's residence, Montagu tendered his adieux^ and the young lady insisted on his joining their dinner-table ; in vain Montagu resisted, Miss Doem was peremptory. He pleaded a headache, but this, it was said would vanish with the soup, and it was deci- dedly bad for a headache that a young gentle- man should go home to dine alone at his quarters, when the benefit of society and con- versation might be had. 232 SCAPEaRACE AT SEA. " You had better not dine alone, Mr. Mon- tagu/' said Miss Wyndham; "you will do nothing but think of this horrid court-martial that is coming. Now, you shall not go until you promise to come back." "Well, I promise," said Montagu, too readily yielding to the influence so strongly laid upon him, and to dinner he returned. After dinner, Mr. Doem sat on one side of the fire-place and took a nap, the young ladies played duets on the piano, while Montagu stood be- hind them, lost in the brown study produced by the three-fold occupation of turning over the music leaves, thinking of the court-martial, and balancing the charms of the fair beings before him. After playing duets for half-an-hour, Miss Doem said she had forgotten her handkerchief, and left the room, laying her injunctions on Miss Wyadham to sing one or two solos, and naming certain songs. " But you are not going to stay away, my dear," said Miss Wyndham. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 233 " Oil ! dear, not a minute. I am only going up to my room." The minute, however, lengthened into a quarter of an hour, and having listened to a couple of songs, it certainly occurred to the mind of Montagu that this would be a good opportunity, during Miss Doem's absence, of getting quietly away to his own quarters with- out making any further appointment, or re- ceiving any fresh invitation for the following day, and by this means he thought he could gradually allow the intimacy between himself and the fair Doem to receive a scarcely per- ceptible cooling, which should at least end in a safe distance between them. At the end of the second song, he abruptly started to his feet, and wished Miss Wyndham good bye. " Just make my adieux to Mr. Doem when he wakes from his nap, for I do not like to disturb him." " Surely you are not going," said the ward, " Harriet will be down in a minute." 234 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " Pray do not disturb her,'' said Montagu. '' Oh! but do stay till she comes back; she will be so disappointed. Why are you going away? It is very little past nine o'clock." " I have some pressing letters which I must write." " Oh ! surely they will do to-morrow morn- ing, for there is no post to-night." " No ! T cannot put them off till to-morrow morning, I must w^ite them to-night ; they will occupy me all the night and to-morrow morning too." " In that case I will not press you to your inconvenience, but let me run and call Harriet to wish you good bye !" " On no account," said Montagu ; '' I could not think of disturbing her," and in another moment he had extricated himself and was hurrying to his own quarters. It was a moonlight night, but every now and then, as the sky was cloudy, a dark mass of vapour would either obscure the light, or throw a partial shadow over the quiet scene. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 235 Just as Montagu was approacliing his quar- ters, his attention was called to the shutting of the Colonel's door, on the opposite side of the square. Expecting to see the Colonel emerge, Montagu drew into the shadow so as not to be seen himself. Instead, however, of the Colonel coming out of his quarters, to Montagu's surprise, there came out a young lady, and, though she was well cloaked and shawled, and wrapped up, still some indefinable impression seized Mon- tagu's mind that this was Miss Doem. "It is impossible," muttered he, drawing close into the shadow, which, from the causes I have mentioned, happened at that time to be very deep where he was standing, while a streak of moonlight fell along the road which the lady was pursuing. He looked again and again, and every time he looked, his suspicions became confirmed. A momentary pang of something like j ealousy shot through his breast, followed by something like deep indignation at being made such a dupe. 236 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. " At least/' muttered he ; " this is an im- posture whicli I can, and will unravel. I will speak to her. I will insist on seeing her face before she goes." Starting from his hiding-place, at a quick pace, he followed the figure. In an instant the lady's pace was re-doubled. Montagu walked still quicker. The lady took a gentle trot. Montagu began to run. Off the lady started at full speed. Well might she trust to speed. She was evi- dently an able and a quick runner ; and after threading her way through one or two turnings, Montagu lost sight of her, but at the same moment, he saw on the pathway a light- colored kid glove, dropped by the figure. Snatching this up, he stood for a moment and listened for retreating footsteps. None were audible ; he ran hastily down one or two streets to try and catch a glimpse of the well-shawled figure, but it was gone. He asked one or two passers-by if they had met any young lady SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 237 dressed as he described, but lie received a nega- tive on every hand, and disquieted with all sorts of doubts, suspicions, and chagrins, he returned to his quarters, pulled forth the glove, and on the inside of it, in letters that he knew only too well, he found the initials H.D. Suspicion had now become almost certainty ; still he resolved if possible to have that certainty made clear, and after turning over in his own mind for some time the best mode of proceeding, he resolved on the following day to call upon the lady, and under some pretence, or other, to see if he could light upon the fellow glove. This incident kept him awake for some hours that night, turning in his own mind what could be the ins and outs of that precious scheme of which he was now convinced that he was the obj ect. After vainly endeavouring to conjecture all the windings of the plot, he fell asleep towards morning, dreamed throughout the night of Loosefysh and the fair Harriet plotting against 238 SCAPEGPwACE AT SEA. him at every corner, and immediately after breakfast, lie set off to the dwelling of Doem to see if he could resolve his suspicions. " So, Mr. Truant, you took advantage of my absence for a few minutes to steal away, did you, last night,'' said the fair Har-yat, present- ing to our hero on his entering the drawing- room a countenance so ingenuous, so open, so little confused, that, for a few minutes, he was staggered as to whether his suspicions of the previous night had not wronged her. This feeling called the color up into his own cheeks, and an innocent spectator being told that one of the two was full of deceit towards the other, would infallibly have selected Montagu as the traitor, and the fair Harriet as the victim. '' I had some letters to write," answered our hero, '' and was obliged to hurry off with as little observation as I could." " Then you do in this case plead guilty, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court?" " Yes, "said Montagu," I do ! And as a proof SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 239 of the sincerity of my repentance, I ana ready to inidergo any punishment you may think fit to impose/^ " \\ ell, so far, that is a mark of true contri- tion. What penalty shall we inflict, Blanche?" " Oh ! I think some very light penalty will be adequate to the offence, as the culprit con- fesses.'* '' Oh ! " said Montagu, " I am perfectly pre- pared to undergo a severe sentence, even to the extent of an hour's shopping." "Excellent," said Miss Wyndham, "nothing could be more apropos ; the morning is very fine ; of course, I have a host of things I wanr to buy ; where is there a lady in the land, who has not; ]}ass sentence, therefore, my dear Harriet, on the prisoner, and before he escapes the jurisdiction of the court, let us go up stairs and put on our bonnets." " Prisoner," said the fair Harriet, " what have vou to say why the sentence of the court should not be passed upon you, and that you should not be transported from the place where 240 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. you now^tand to sucli drapers^ mercers', bon- net makers', and other milliners' shops, as Blanche Wjndham and Harriet Doem, by, and with the advice of, their privy council, shall be pleased to direct and appoint ! " " Nothing," said Montagu. "Very well, then, as a further infliction, you will be pleased to read the Morning Post until we come down stairs." And the fair Harriet vanished. No sooner had she gone, than our hero took a scrutinising glance all round the room, to see if he could detect a lady's glove, but not one was to be seen. In a few minutes the ladies rejoined him, and they all set out to the town. At the first draper's to which they went, various articles were called for by both the fair purchasers; but not a word was said about gloves. Montagu looked at Harrriet's hands, but from them he learned nothing, for there certainly were seen a new pair, but that formed no suf- ficient evidence by which to decide anything. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 241 Thinking that if the lady were guilty, she would be sure not to say anything in his pre- sence, he rose from his chair where he had been sitting beside them, sauntered slowly about the shop, and at last stood looking out at the door- way with his back to the counter, pretending to look down the street, but, in reality musing on last night's adventure. " Is there no other article, ladies ?" said the white- neckclothed gent, behind the counter. "Ah! by the way, some gloves,'^ Montagu heard replied in a very low voice, sufficiently loud to redeem it from an appearance of sus- picion, and yet sufficiently subdued so as not to be easily heard. '' Will you take off your gloves. Miss, that I may judge of the size ?" ''Match that," said the lady, and the shop- man immediately after walked away. " Now," said Montagu to himself, '' what are the chances that the glove to be matched is the fellow glove," and turning round on his VOL. I. M 242 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. heel, lie sauntered back to the counter just as the aforesaid white neckcloth, with a man in- side it, brought back a box of gloves, holding in his hand the fellow glove to the one that he had found. Montagu fixed his eyes on Harriet as the man approached, and saw her change color. "What a pretty little hand you have," said the treacherous Montagu, taking the spare glove out of the shopman's hand as he ap- proached the counter. "For shame," said Harriet, snatching at her lost gauntlet. "Nay," said Montagu, "you cannot want an old glove, you know ; allow me to keep it as a gage dJ amities " I insist, Mr. Montagu. Don't be so foolish !" " Nay, my dear Miss Harriet, I am willing to pay a full penalty, I will even surpass the lampseller in Aladdin, I will give you a dozen new gloves for this old one." . " Oh ! well," said the lady ; " I think an ex- change so much in one's favour as that is not to SCAPEGliACE AT SEA. 243 be refused ;" but at the same time sbe said this Montaofu saw, or thouo;ht he saw, an evident mortification in her countenance, as though she thought it was giving a dangerous importance to the matter to make any contest for the re-de- livery of the glove, while at the same time she felt equally annoyed at its being withheld. The gloves being selected, Montagu gallantly ordered the shopman to charge the dozen gloves to him, and perhaps the fair Harriet, as she heard this order, might have hoped in her heart that it was dictated not by suspicion but affection, so she made no objection to the gal- lant swain paying for the articles. The morning passed away in strolling through the various parts of the town, and when on gain- ing Doem's house in time for luncheon, Mon- tagu received an invitation to come and dine, he declined on the score of an engagement of business at his quarters. Hurrying home he drew forth from his pocket the rifled prize, turned out the inside, and there, beyond all doubt, were the initials ''H.D." m2 244 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. He then compared the second glove with the first, and not the faintest doubt could remain that they had both formed a pair originally on the hands of the " monstrous fine gal '' of Mr. Walduck. A horseman, who suddenly finds himself on the brink of some terrific chasm; a sleep-walker, who wakes on the parapet of a high house, and many other individuals suddenly aroused to a state of consciousness of dangers equally near and unsuspected, might in a great degree have some notion of the feelings which pervaded our hero's breast, when he came thus suddenly sa- tisfied of the plot going on around him ; but it was one thing to detect the danger ; it was an- other thing to decide how it should be met. In our first days of youth and freshness, there are few things which strike the heart with so much pain as the discovery of the intrigue and deception that mingle with every turn of life. Mankind are so anxious at first starting in exis- tence to believe that everything is as fair as it looks ; that we take some time to arrive at the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 245 melancliolj and disenchanting fact, tliat little or nothing is what it appears to be ; that human schemes, human guilt, and human folly, are mixed up with everything that belongs to man; that those are nowhere mixed up with his affairs without some attempts being made on some hand to conceal the combination, and that almost every object presented to our gaze has another side very different from that which is so ingeniously shown to us ; however, at last, the knowledge does arrive, and as the glitter- ing varnish cracks off from the surface of ex- istence, it leaves the rough and jagged reality deprived of almost all that at first enthralled the youthful eyes which gazed so delightedly upon it. No doubt this is melancholy enough to know and see, and still more melancholy to be the victim of, but y-et, even this, bad as it is, subserves one great use ; it weans us from our affections of earthly grandeur, human ambition, or more terrestrial hopes ; it con- vinces us of the frailty of our own nature, of 246 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. the sundry substrata on which all sublunary expectations must be raised, of the truth and of the necessity of religion, and the solid wisdom of turning our hearts towards enjoy- ments in which this world has no share and human weakness no power to disappoint us. In the present case, poor Montagu felt doubly isolated, notwithstanding his own im- pression that Harriet Doem was no object of conceni to him; he could not help now feeling that her lively conversation and shrewd mind had obtained more hold upon him than he had previously imagined, and it was no consolation to his fresh and sincere but wounded spirit to find that it was all mere farce and hollowness. To know that all the tender speeches she had made to him were all balderdash, uttered, perhaps, at the very time when she in her soul was laughing at him, was sufficiently mortifying. He would, if he could, have resisted the evi- dence on which this suspicion rested, but it was too firm to be shaken — it was overwhelming — ■ SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 247 he would have liked if possible to have men- tioned his suspicion to his brother officers, but, old Spinney, he thought would laugh at him, and Walduck, he suspected, was in the plot against him, and angry as he felt with Miss Harriet, he was too generous to set afloat the fact that he had seen her come out of the Colonel's quarters late at night. Full of these unpleasant feelings, therefore, he remained brooding over his own disgust ; and though he received divers pink-coloured notes from the fair offender, he resolutely pleaded indisposition, or business to all, and pursued the life of a hermit until the morning amved for the court-martial. 248 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. CHAPTER XVII, At the tour of nine o'clock the court-martial opened. The scene for this solemn proceeding was the mess-room — a long and not over handsome apartment, whose faded paper conveyed no imposing notion to the gazing civilians of the dignity of justice in her military seat. At one end of the room sat the court round a table comprising three sides of a square. At a table by himself sat the Deputy Judge Advocate General. This was at the right- hand termination of the three-sided table. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 249 Some way down the room in a line with him sat the prosecutor with his table, and on a line with him, on the opposite side of the room stood the unhappy prisoner. Ensign Montagu, with his table. A sentry stood at the entry of the mess-room with a drawn bayonet, on guard, lest so ferocious a young gentleman as the Ensign might attempt anything upon the lives of the Court, or any- thing so daring as to escape himself. The Court having been duly opened, the charges were read as follows : — " For that on the day of , Enisgn Montagu was guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in creating a disturb- ance in the night at his quarters, and declining, or delaying to open the door of his quarters when summoned by the Colonel, in disobedience of tne said Colonel commanding the regiment." " For that on the day of , Ensign Montagu was guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in discharging, or causing to be discharged, upon the person of M 5 250 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. Colonel Loosefysli, commanding the Nonsuch Eegiment, a vessel of water, or some other liquid." The Colonel having been sworn, proceeded to give his evidence as follows : — ''On the day of , about three o'clock in the morning, hearing a noise in the Barrack-square, I rang the bell for my servant, and sent him out to enquire. He returned and told me the noise proceeded from Ensign Montagu's quarters, who was in a state of in- toxication." " Object to that," said Mr. Tweezer, whisper- ing to his client; "that is hearsay evidence." '' What do you mean by hearsay evidence ?" said Montagu. " Oh, I cannot explain now. The Court will understand you. Just say as I tell you. I object to that, as hearsay evidence." " I object to that, Mr. President, as hearsay evidence." '' The Court cannot take any notice of any objection that is made verbally," said the Presi- SCAPEGRACE Al SEA. 251 dent of the court-martial. " If you have any objection to make, you must write your objec- tion down and hand it up to us, and we will consider whether the objection can be allowed. If we allow the objection, then the question shall be expunged from the minutes." " But, surely !" said the attorney, starting to his feet, in his excitement for his client's interest ; "in the meantime all the damage is done to my client's case, because you hear this illegal evidence, which may be wholly and totally false, and after that has made an im- pression on your minds, how are we to sweep it away ?" " Who is that Stranger presuming to ad- dress the Court ?" said the President, in a voice of thunder. " Let him hold his tongue, or he shall be mimediately placed under arrest, and carried from the Court !" " It was I, sir, who addressed you. I am so- licitor to the prisoner." ^*We know of no solicitor here, sir; hold your tongue, sir, instantly ! You are a stranger in 252 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. this Court and cannot be allowed to be heard for a moment. The Court, in its merciful consi- deration for the situation of the prisoner, per- mits him to have the assistance ofa stranger to advise him, but your voice, remember, sir, is not to be heard. If you know anything of court- martial law, you must know very well that every word that is uttered on behalf of the prisoner must be by his own lips. He may consult with you, and that is all, and after giving you this warning, if you break this rule of the Court, I shall order that sentry to remove you." " Sir, I humbly submit, that the meanest criminal in the country, tried at the Old Bailey—" '' Silence ! sir, we have nothing to do with the Old Bailey here. Obey the orders of the Court, or leave it. Mr. Montagu, if your at- torney does not comport himself properly you had better change your legal adviser, or you will be left without one." " What an infernal system ! Was there ever such iniquitous villany out of the jurisdiction SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 253 of the infernal regions?" said an Irish reporter, laying down his pen in sheer disgust at such a travestie on justice. "Silence! Order!" said the President, who heard these murmurs, but did not choose to take notice of their meaning. " Now, prisoner, if you have your objections written, give them to the orderly, and lay them before the Court." '' In one moment, sir," said Montagu, who scribbled out on a piece of paper : — " I object to Colonel Loosefy sh detailing in his evidence hear- say assertions made by his servant, which are not matters of charge against me, and, though wholly untrue, prejudice the case, and, therefore, ought not to be repeated." This slip of paper was handed to the orderly, who carried it up to the President. The President looked through it, and taking his pen, said : — '' Prisoner, the Court cannot allow your ob- jection to take this form. You must confine yourself to a simple objection." Then, taking 254 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. his pen, he struck out some passages, and sent it down to Montagu to write over again. Montagu bowed meekly to this reproof, and then wrote the objection as follows : — " I object to the statement of Colonel Loose- fysh's servant as being hearsay." This second paper was blotted, folded up, and carried by the orderly to the President once more. The President handed it first to the officers on his right hand, then to the officers on his left hand. It was then folded up and given to the orderly, who carried it to the Deputy Judge Advocate, who wrote across it, '' Objection al- lowed." The Judge Advocate then folded it up and sent it by the orderly to the President. The President handed it to his right hand ; and, after each officer had perused it, he handed it to the officer on his left hand. The moment this was seen by one old codger on the left hand, he shook his headvery violently and whispered something in the President's ear, as if he insisted on the hearsay being allowed. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 255 The President then whispered something back to him, as if he was trying to reason with him. In a few seconds it became evident that they both differed very materially, and the President, lifting his head, said : " Clear the Court." By this time, nearly twenty minutes had been lost over a point so trivial and so indisputable, that three seconds would have disposed of it in any court of law in the kingdom. However, on this knotty point, it seems the military law- yers were not agreed ; the Court was cleared, and after ten minutes' full debate, the prisoner was once more allowed to march in, under guard of the sentry, and the reporters came back to their tables, and the half-a-dozen favoured individuals, who were supposed to form the public, resumed their places at the barrier at the end of the room. When silence was restored a little, the Presi- dent said, " Prisoner, tlie Court have taken into consideration the objection that you have made, 256 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. and tliey are pleased to allow it. Colonel Loose- fjsh, be pleased to omit from your evidence anything derogatory to tlie prisoner, which your servant may have said, and now tell us what occurred." " On hearing the report of my servant," re- sumed Colonel Loosefysh, '' I immediately rose, dressed myself, and went to the prisoner's quarters. I there found everything in a state of confusion and great disturbance, and a chest of drawers, which had evidently been hurled from the prisoner's room was blocking up the stair- case, leading to his quarters. Perceiving that some considerable violence had been used, and that the order and propriety of the barracks were outraged, I immediately called to Ensign Montagu to come down to me ; but all that I received in reply was, what appeared to me a shout of defiance. I then ordered the corporal to clear the staircase, and to bring down Mr. Montagu. I had scarcely issued these orderswhen some further words of defiance were bawled out from the top of the stairs. Ensign Montagu SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 257 abstained from obeying my order, and instead of receiving obedience from him, I was deluged with a shower of some liquid, hurled from Mr. Montagu's quarters, as I suppose, from Mr. Montagu' t^ hands. I then ordered the corporal to clear the staircase, and fire upon anyone resisting him. This being done, I en- tered Mr. Montagu's quarters, and found the outer door completely demolished. I found that he had hurled his chest of drawers down the staircase ; that he had piled a sofa, and a fen- der, and fire irons, and washhand stand, and everything that apparently he could command, as a sort of barricade to the door of his quar- ters, and that instead of obeying me on as- cending the staircase when T called upon him, he had retreated to his inner room, his bed- room, and there made it fast in defiance of me. On the following morning, I put him under arrest, and wrote for a court-martial. That is all the evidence I have to offer." This evidence had been taken down bit by bit by the President of the court-martial, and 258 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. when lie liad made an end of writing it, lie turned to Ensign Montagu, and said : " Now, prisoner, it is for you to cross- examine the prosecutor, and in doing so, I need not remind you of the rules of court- martial law ; which require that eachjquestion should be written down, and handed up to the Court, before it is put to the witness, in order that the Court may determine whether it is proper or not to allow it/^ "Very well, sir," said Ensign Montagu, making a low bow to the President. '^ Now," said his solicitor, in his desperately excited state, taking hold of a button on poor Montagu's dress, and drawing his ear down to his lips, " if you cannot shake this witness on his cross-examination, you are done for." " How am I to shake him ?" said Montagu. "What do you mean?" " Well," said Tweezer, " all you have to do is to shake his credibility. Do not you know — I explained it to you last night — cross- question him as to his credibility." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 259 " What do you mean ?" said Montagu. " Do you think that any question that I can put to him will induce this court to believe that he is not telling the truth?" " I do not mean that exactly ; but a man may tell the truth and yet exaggerate it." " Well, but how am I to shew that ?" " Well, you must. Here give me the pen and ink and paper, and I will write the question." " Oh, no ; they must go in my hand writing." " Well, then you can copy them. Now then, let me see, the first question is to get out of him that he knew your brother was on a visit to you, and in your apartments. This will be the question then : — " Are you aware that my bro- ther, Mr. Montagu Scapegrace, of Her Majesty^s Ship Saucebox, had arrived on a visit to me at my quarters on the night in question ?" This question, havingbeen duly copied by the prisoner, was handed up to the Court; handed nght and left, then to the Deputy Judge Advo- cate General, and, having been allowed, was read aloud, and then copied by the President 260 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. into a book ; and, after tlie copying was com- plete, was read by Mm to the witness. The attorney watched this whole process, and then throwing his pen down with infinite disgust, muttered : " What an infernal system of old fools! What is the use of trying to cross-examine a man under this complicated folly? Long before the witness is called upon to answer the ques- tion he of course has arranged in his mind that answer which will most defeat the inten- tion of the man who puts the question. It is worse than useless to call this an inquiry for the purpose of truth." " What is that you say," said the prisoner. " Oh, it is perfectly vain to contend before such a Court as this. They could convict an angel or acquit a devil, with or without evi- dence, under such a system as this." "Pray," said Montagu, " do not say anything of that sort to dishearten me. I am quite per- plexed enough as it is. Do remember that I wished for proper counsel, but you would take SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 261 my defence on your own shoulders, so at least bear in mind you are here to assist me and not to distress me." " I beg your pardon, my dear sir, — I beg your pardon a thousand times ; but it really does drive my patience beyond all bounds to see a charge like this, without a shadow of a case in it, trumped up by such a rotten system." By this time the question was finally read to Colonel Loosefysh, who gave the simple answer: ''No; I did not." " Now, prisoner, the Court is waiting for your next question," said the President. " What is my next question ?" said Montagu to the Attorney. " Oh, really, I do not think it is of any use putting any questions at all. It is a perfect defeat of justice such a Court as this : we shall never do anything with it.'' " Well, at any rate, do not give it up in despair. Let us do something. Write out an- other question." " Have you since heard that my brother was 262 SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. in my rooms at the time this liquid was thrown upon you?" This question having been written out, was handed up to the Court. The moment it was read the President said : " We cannot allow such a question as this." ''• Yes, I think you may," said the Deputy Judge Advocate. '' Oh, no ; certainly not," said a young officer of the Guards, who sat on the Presi- dent's left hand. "It is a very dangerous precedent," said an old buffer on the right, twirling his grey moustache. '' Clear the Court," said the President. The Court was again cleared, and after a delay of about twenty minutes all once more resumed their places. " The Court cannot allow the last question to be put," said the President. " I hope, sir, you will make a note that the Deputy Judge Advocate saw no ground of ob- jection to my last question." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 263 '' You must make that application in writ- ing, sir," said the President. Accordingly this great application was made in writing, handed up by the orderly to the President, and copied by him into his book ; which being done, " Proceed in your cross-examination,'^ said the President. " Now what is the next question?" said Montagu. '' Let us stick it into them," said Tweezer, writing the following question : '' Do you not know, or have you not cause to believe, that the liquid thrown over you was thrown by Mr. Montagu Scapegrace, the pri- soner's brother ?" This question having been duly written down, sent up and allowed, was answered by the simple monosyllable " No." " Now then write your next question, Mr. Tweezer," said Montagu. " Here it is," said the attorney. " When you say that you called me to come 264 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. down stairs, do you know if any one heard you?" This question was duly allowed, and put and answered. " No, I do not remember whether anyone heard me." " Now then write another, Tweezer," said Montagu. " When the liquid was thrown upon you, did you hear more voices than one in my room?" This question having been duly handed up and allowed, was answered : " I cannot remember having heard more than one voije, which was a shout of defiance." "Now I will write this question," said Montague. " You might as well write a prescription," said the attorney, " for all the good you will get." '' Pray do not dishearten me, Mr. Tweezer, if you cannot do me any good." " I beg your pardon, but really it is so dis- gusting, this court-martial humbug. This is the SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 265 first time I liave had anything to do witli it, and I will take good care it shall be the last. Upon my life one would think we had gone back to the days of Sir Walter Ealeigh and Sir Edward Coke.'' ^' Pray do you act Coke or Ealeigh?" said Montagu. "No matter, what is your question?" " This," said Montagu, '' Will you under- take to swear it was my voice that answered you in a shout of defiance, or might it not have been my brother's ?" This question having been duly handed up and allowed, was answered by the Colonel : " To the best of my belief it was your voice I heard." The next question that was put was : — " When you first heard the voice in the barrack square, did it not proceed from the mess-room, where some of the ofiicers of the regiment were making Ensign Mollis go through the sword exercise with an umbrella, in his night shirt, standing on the mess table ?" VOL. I. N 266 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. As soon as the question was read aloud — " That question cannot be allowed," said several members of the Court. " No," said the Deputy Judge Advocate, "part of it I think may," and taking his pen, he struck out all the words that related to Ensign Mollis, and left the question standing — " Did it not proceed from the mess-room ?" The question was re-copied, and being then allowed, was put and answered : " No, the noise came from your quarters. '' " Put this question now," saidTweezer,hand- ing up to Montagu the following question : " Did not the noise, which you heard coming from my quarters, proceed from some of the other officers of the regiment trying to break into my room ?" The answer to this was, " I cannot say." The next question was, " Did you not find some officers trying to break into my room when you came over to ascertain the noise ?" The answer to this was, " I cannot remem- ber/V SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 267 The next question was, ^' When you entered my quarters, what officers of the regiment did you see at the bottom of the stairs leading to my quarters ?'' The answer to this was, " I cannot recollect." The next question was, '' Did you see any of the officers of the regiment at or near the bottom of the stairs leading to my room ?'^ The answer to this was, ''I might have seen some officers there, but my attention was called to the chest of drawers, which had been hurled from your room, and I did not notice who was at the bottom of the stairs." The next question was : — " Do you not know that the chest of drawers had fallen through my door, owing to some of the officers having dragged down the door by force with a rope?" The answer to this was : ''I cannot say." The next question was : — " Did you not see a rope tied round the fragment of my door, and leading down the staircase?" n2 268 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. The answer to tMs was : — " I cannot remember." The next question was : — " Do you know whether on the night in question Ensign Mollis was being put through his sword exercise in his night shirt, on the mess table, witli an umbrella in his hand, at the time you heard the noise in my quarter ? " The moment this was read : " That question cannot be allowed,'^ said several members of the Court. " I think it may," said the Deputy Judge Advocate. " Clearly not," said the old fellow on the right of the President. " What has it to do with the case ?" " Clear the Court," said the President. A long debate here followed, and, after half-an-hour's warm discussion the Court was once more opened, and the President read the decision from his book. " The Court cannot allow the last question of the prisoner to be put to the witness." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 269 The next question was : — '' Have any complaints ever been made to you by any of the junior officers of the regiment of having their doors broken through at night, and their persons dragged out of bed to be placed on the mess-table to go through the s wordexercise?" " That is nearly the same question in another form/' angrily said one of the officers as soon as this question was read. '' That question never can be put," said an- other. " I do not see on what ground we can object to it," said the Deputy Judge Advocate. " Clear the Court," said the President. Another half-hour elapsed, and, when the Court was once more opened, the President again read the decision of its superlative wisdom : " The Court cannot allow the last question of the prisoner to be put to the witness." '' Am I to understand, sir," said Montagu, "that the Court will not allow any question to be put to the prosecutor which has reference o the state of discipline of the regiment ?" 210 SCAPEaKACE AT SEA. " I cannot undertake to say wliat jou are to understand, prisoner, you must understand what you please. Your duty now is to cross- examine the witness, write out your questions, and submit them to the Court. The Court will give its decision on each case as it arises.'' The next question was : " Do you know that any of the junior officers of the regiment have been pulled from their beds and made to go through the sword exercise on the mess-room table ?'' This question was immediately objected to. The Court was again cleared for half- an-hour and, on its re-opening, the President once more read its decision. " The Court cannot allow the last question of the prisoner to be put to the witness." " Under these circumstances, sir," said Mon- tagu, " I feel it is quite impossible for me to at- tempt anything that may be called a defence." " The Court cannot allow observations of ihat nature to be made," said the President in a very angry tone. '' The Court has shewn you every SCAPEGRACE A'l SEA. 271 indulgence, sir, and I will not permit anything to be said which reflects in such an unjusti- fiable manner upon the pure administration of military justice. Have you any further questions to put to the prosecutor?" " What had 1 better do ?" said Montagu to Tweezer. " Pitch them to old Harry ! You might as well attempt to turn the Atlantic into treacle, and then swim through it to America, as to eliminate anything like truth or justice under such a villanous system." '' Well, but what is a man to do ?" " If men had either sense or spirit, they would never enter into a service that is governed by such an iniquitous code as the court-martial system." " Silence, silence !" roared the President who could not help hearing the loud tone of the last whisper. " All strangers will be ejected from the Court who make remarks in it." "Well, Mr. Tweezer," said Mpntagu, '4hat sentiment is all very fine and very true, and 272 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. would be very useful if I were buying my commission, but wliat am I to do now I am on my trial?" " You can do nothing. Call your brother as your own witness, and let your commission go to the winds." " I nave no further questions to put," said Montagu. " All the questions I thought ne- cessary for the vindication of truth, have been disallowed by the Court, and I have no alter- native now but to submit, and call my own witness." "Take care of your language, sir," said the President, " remember you are in the hands of the Court, which will take care of its own dignity ; and you will gain nothing by allow- ing pernicious advice to stimulate you to language of a most unbecoming character." Then turning to his brothers of the tribunal right and left — '' I think there is no question to be put to the prosecutor ?" "No, no, none !" said the honorable members of the Court. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 273 On which the President, looking at Colonel Loosefysh, said, " Colonel Loosefysh, the Court has no further question to put to you — you can withdraw." Colonel Loosefysh made a bow to the Court, and stood on one side. The Deputy Judge Advocate here rose and said, ''That is the case, sir, against the prisoner." " Prisoner," said the President, " now is the time for you to make your defence. You have heard the evidence that is adduced against you in support of the charges on which you are tried. Are you ready to proceed in your defence or do you wish for any time to prepare it ? If so, you must now make your application. " What shall I say to this ? Shall I make my defence at once?" '^ No," said Tweezer, " you may as well ask for a day's time, and then we can write it out in proper form and read it; not but that I be- lieve you might as well write out the thirty- nine articles, for all the influence it will have upon those men." N 5 274 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. " In answer to tlie remarks of the Court, sir," said Montagu, addressing tlie President, " I beg respectfully to submit to your con- sideration that I shall be prepared to enter upon my defence to-morrow morning, if the Court will be good enough to adjourn its proceedings until then." The President here referred to his brother Judges, and then replied: — ''The Court is pleased to grant your request, and to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, they will assemble again to hear your defence, till when the Court is adjourned." " And a good riddance," whispered the mess-man, in a tone loud enough for the prisoner to hear it, '* I shall now be able to lay my cloth for dinner." " Well," said Tweezer, " of all the farces I ever saw enacted, save me from a court- martial ; it is the vilest, the most melancholy, and at the same time the most ridiculous tra- vestie on truth, propriety, and freedom, that can disgrace a free country. SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 275 CHAPTEE XVIIT. Punctually at the moment arranged, the Court met on the following morning, and Mr. Julius Montagu Scapegrace, of her Majesty's ship " Saucebox," having been dulj sworn, pro- ceeded to state — "On the morning of the day of , I applied for leave of absence, from my captain at Portsmouth, and having obtained it, I came up by railway train to the Farnborough station, and thence took a post- chaise over to these barracks to pass a day or two with my brother, previous to our sailing to the Black Sea. I arrived very late at night, and found my brother absent fi'om his quar- 276 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. ters. He returned about two o'clock in tlie morning. We had a cup of coffee, and after a little conversation, retired to bed. I slept on tlie sofa in the sitting room, and he slept on the bed in the inner room. About three o'clock in the morning, I was aroused from my sleep by an attempt made to break in the door of the sitting room, which I had locked previously to my lying down. I demanded who was there, but could get no satisfactory information. I then called up my brother, who told me that it was a habit in the regi- ment to pull the junior Ensigns from their beds and in their night clothes." " Stop, sir," said the President, " that evi- dence cannot be admitted." A long discussion here followed. The Court was cleared, and after the usual waste of half an hour, the President read the de- cision of the Court. " The Court cannot permit the witness for the prisoner to state in his evidence any matter irrevelant to the question at issue, whether ut- SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 277 tered by tlie prisoner on the niglit in question or not. The witness is, therefore, directed to confine his statements to matters of fact that bear upon the charge/' Thus cautioned, the witness resumed his tes- timony. '' My brother made some explanation to me, relative to what he supposed was the object of the parties trying to break into his room, and thinking it was only some rough joke among his brother officers, I advised him to bar- ricade the door, and helped him to do it. The door opened inwards, we therefore put against it first of all, the fender, then against that the sofa; we jammed the sofa back against the door with some chairs, and then we piled on the sofa a table and a chest of drawers, and the drawers rested against the door. There was a good deal of fun in making this defence, which I thought was nothing more than a piece of frolic, and at last we were very much amused by finding the door of the sitting room broken in, and, unseen by us, a rope was fastened round the centre style of thedoor,the door was dragged from its hinges, 278 SCAPEGEACE AT SEA. and the chest of drawers, losing their support, tumbled through the opening and fell down the staircase of their own accord. Soon after this, I heard a voice calling out something, I could not distinguish what, and thinking that all was fair in a joke of that sort, I certainly did, of my own accord, and without my brother's concur- rence, suddenly seize up a can full of water and hurl it down the stairs. The noise and confu- sion was very great below, as of several voices, and one was heard above the rest, but I could not tell what it said, and as soon as I had hurled the water down the stairs, my brother and myself ran and shut ourselves into the inner bedroom ; and this is the whole of what then took place.'' When the witness came to be cross-examined, the first question he was asked was— '' At any time that night did you hear your brother say — that is the Colonel's voice ?" The witness answered, " Yes I did." The next question was — " When did he say so?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. . 279 " After I had thrown the water/' '' Will you swear that he did not say so before?" '' No, I cannot swear that. He might or he might not. I do not think he did, but the thing was done so quickly, and there was so much noise and confusion at the moment, that it is very difficult to swear positively which way it was." '' After your brother said, ' that is the Colonel's voice,' did he make any attempt to go down to the Colonel?" " No, he did not." Thus ended the evidence for the prisoner, who then read the following defence : — " Mr. President, and Members of this Honor- able Court. In offering to you, this day, my defence to the charges laid against me, I have to throw myself upon your kind consideration. '' I am the son of a general officer, who for many years served his country with honour and distinction, upon whose name there never rested the shadow of blame, and for whose 280 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. sake, as well as for my own, I am most anxious that I should this day be cleared of the charges laid against me. " I have not attempted to lay before you any evidence of character, because, unhappily, I had only just entered into my regiment when this unfortunate affair arose. I cannot, therefore, expect that you will give weight to any testi- monials of character that I have from my short stay in the regiment, while that I have borne an honorable character up to the day of joining, I am certain you will infer from the fact of her Majesty having honored me with a commission. " I trust from the evidence which I have produced before you, that you will consider I am entitled to your acquittal " The charge against me is two-fold. In one charge I am accused of having, with my own hand, thrown water, or some other liquid, upon the person of my Colonel, an act which I should contemplate with abhorrence; and in the second charge, I am accused with having created a disturbance in my quarters, contrary to SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 281 gentlemanly conduct and good discipline ; and of shewing disobedience by not coming to him when called upon to do so. " With regard to the first charge, I am certain I need not take up your time by combatting so serious though so mistaken an accusation. " From the evidence which has been given before you by my brother, (whose straightfor- ward manner and position as an officer in her Majesty's service entitle him to your fullest credit), you will see that the offensive and re- prehensible act was first committed under the impression of a frolic, on those who had perpe- trated acts of far greater violence ; and in the next place, that this action was one in which I had no part of any sort or kind. I think, therefore, that upon that charge you can have no hesitation in acquitting me. '' With regard to the rest of the charge, I am soiTy to say that your sense of duty has not allowed you to let my questions to the prosecutor be answered. Had you been able to act differ- 282 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. ently, I should have shewn you that the common custom in the regunent is to subject the new ensigns, to an ordeal which, I had every reason to imagine, was about to be exercised upon my- self, an ordeal from which I had every right to protect my person by the most determined and spirited resistance. Under the impression that this liberty was about to be taken with me, I exercised my right as an English subject to defend my person, and to defend my quarters ; which, according to the maxims of English law formed my castle. In the defence of those quarters, if any tumult arose, the blame cer- tainly was not mine, but ought to rest on those who rendered that defence necessary ; for if any man should attempt to take the life of another, surely the hapless victim, who defends himself from murder, is not to be accused by the police of disturbing the several streets with his cries ; so I hope you will believe I was not guilty of any breach of military discipline, if, when the door of my quarters was burst open, SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 283 and raj dwelling violently and illegally broken into, I barricaded it and defended it to the utmost, as I had a right to do. '' With regard to the charge that I was dis- obedient to ray Colonel's orders, the Court will readily perceive that in the noise, consequent on such a turault, it was difficult for anyone to hear up stairs the orders given to hira from the room below. The Court will remember that the staircase was all this while blocked up by the chest of drawers, and that even if T had wished to descend, I should have been unable to do so. And the obstacle which prevented me from descending was equally potent in preventing the words of the Colonel from ascending. I never heard any order given to come down stairs. I never uttered any cry of defiance in return to any such order, and on the instant I detected the Colonel's voice, I gave up all further defence of my sitting-room and retired to bed. '^ Under these circumstances, I leave my honor confidently in the hands of the Court; and 284 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. altliougli they may possibly think, that under the confusion of the night, suf&cient doubt does exist on this transaction, to have rendered it necessary and proper for Colonel Loosefysh to have demanded a court-martial, yet that when those come before the Court, they present them- selves in such a state of doubt, that I am at least entitled to the benefit of that doubt. That the Colonel has not adduced any corroborating evidence to shew that he gave these orders ; that there is no evidence before the Court what- ever of my ever hearing an order given, and that on this ground, as well as on the ground of my having so recently joined the service, I am entitled to your kind consideration and protection by your verdict of acquittal. " In conclusion, my Lords and Gentlemen of this Honorable Court, I beg to thank you for the patience with which you have heard my defence, and the delay with which you were kind enough to favor me in order to pre- pare it." The prisoner then bowed to the Court, and SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 285 after a short consultation between its mem- bers the President rose and said : ''The Court is adjourned until this day week;^ As soon as this decision was heard, a general rush took place ; the sentry conducted Montagu back to his quarters, the officers of the Court adjourned to the inner room to take some luncheon, the reporters bundled up their pens and paper, and hastened off to catch the train ; and the few spectators that formed the public, broke themselves up into knots to dis- cuss the merits of the case and the probabili- ties of the decision. 286 SCAPEGKAOE AT SEA. CHAPTER XIX. (4 Of all the vilest caricatures of justice and truth that I ever saw, sir/' said Mr. Tweezer, turning to our hero, " a court-martial is the essence and the worst of them. You will ex- cuse me running away from you just now, sir, but I promised my partner, Mr. Slowcoach, that I would return to town this afternoon, and if possible, go to Lady Tumbledown and take her instructions for her will ; but, how- ever, sir, I will come down and consult with you to-morrow morning as to what we had better do. I suppose I shall find you at your quarters ?'' SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 287 " I sliall still be under arrest, but you need not take the slightest trouble to come down to consult with me as to what is to be done, I know exactly what we have to do.'^ '' What is that, sir?" "Nothing. We must wait now until the decision of the co art-martial. These men, no doubt will debate on their sentence, and for- ward it up to the Horse Guards ; it will then be laid before her Majesty for approval, and as soon as it is approved of, it will be pub- lished. If it is unfavorable, I shall leave the service at once, and if it is favourable, but that I need not talk about; so tbe long and short of it is, I will write to you, Mr. Tweezer, when I want you." And our hero, making a profound bow to Mr. Tweezer, left the mess-room close- ly followed by the sentry. On arriving at his quarters, his servant touched his hat. — '' Two letters for your honor come since you have been away to the Court to-day, sir." ''0! very well," said Montagu, tossing them 288 SCAPEaRACE AT SEA. down upon seeing they were both in ladies' writing, " get me a glass of wine and a biscuit,'' and drawing from his cigar case one of those consolers of human perplexity, he began to pace up and down the room in sheer disgust of all human things and human trusts. " I should not care," said he, abruptly stopping and apos- trophising the empty fireplace, " for the mere matter of this wretched court-martial going- wrong, but in this short space of time, what an insight my few days in this regiment has given me into the utter rottenness of human society. Amongst all those fellows, how few of them trust one another, and how few are to be trusted. — And then there is this precious damsel. Miss Harriet, too ; to think what a pretty specimen she has turned out, and she has had the impu- dence to write me a letter to-day," taking up the letter and breaking the seal* — " a piece of poetry,too — Asonnet to the oppressed — begs if I suspect from whom it comes, that I will never mention it ; as if there could be any doubt from whom it comes. Ah ! no, Miss Harriet Doem, SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 289 I perceive that it is tlie same liand that wrote the initials on the glove. I had better answer it — Sonnet to a young lady, seen coming out of a Colonel's quarters at night. But ah! who is this from ? Here is another lady's handwriting — this is a disguised hand — what is this ? I suppose it is some beautiful anonymous letter with a dose of abuse, putting one on one's guard, and telling one not to wear so long a whisker, or some exquisite sense of that sort. I have a good mind to toss it in the fire ; but there is no fire, so, come, I will open it." Montagu broke the seal and started with amazement. An inclosure of thin and rustling paper was found inside ; he opened it, and as he saw the amount for which it was, his amaze- ment was redoubled. He took it between his finger and thumb, felt it — could it be a forgery? — he held it up to the light — no, it was a real bona fide note for £500, inclosed with these few simple lines : '' One who feels for you is unwilling that your unavoidable sorrows should be aggravated to any extent it is in the power VOL. I. o 290 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. of the writer to mltiofate. Do not be hurt at the form this takes." " Well," said Montagu, " this is astounding. At any rate all mankind are not equally insin- cere. I have one friend, at any rate, who pre- fers deeds to professions. No w, who in the name of fortune can this be ? Surely this cannot be Harriet Doem?" and taking up the two letters, our hero compared the handwriting of both with the greatest possible minuteness, but the longer the comparison lasted, the more convinced he became that the two epistles emaaated from two different sources. One bore the postmark of St. James's Street,London. ''Well," thought he, '' this is perfectly inexplicable. Surely it cannot be one of my sisters ; they could never think it worth their while to use this disguise ; besides, they know that I have no need of such assistance. I wonder if it is possible that this is Harriet Doem. She knows that I have no need of this. Can this be any know- « ing dodge of hers and the old father to bolster her up in my opinion ?" SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 291 Carefully folding tlie bank note up, and locking it away in liis desk, Montagu paced up and down his quarters for at least an hour, turning the event over in every possible form, and was at the end of that time utterly un- able to solve the difficulty. At the end of this time, in came Mr. Doem himself. " Well, my dear Mr. Montagu," said the proctor, '' I congratulate you upon having this thing off your mind, one way or the other. I was not able to get down in time to hear any of the trial, but I know what these sort of things are. I have heard so many of them. I am told you stand a good chance, and I am come to insist that you and your brother dine with me to-day." '' Indeed, Mr. Doem, I assure you my mind has been so agitated." '' ! nonsense, I will not take any denial, I insist upon your coining to dinner. If your mind has been agitated, you know it requires a little society in order to wean it from your- 292 SOAPEGEACE AT SEA. « self. Now do not think me pertinacious, or accuse me of being rude, but I am resolved not to leave your quarters until I see you take off that uniform, put on your mufti, and come away with me home." " But really, Mr. Doem, I am quite ashamed of being so often at your house. You, who have been so hospitable to me, a mere stranger, who has not the slightest possible claim upon you, and who, in the event of this trial being unfavorable, may utterly disappear from your neighbourhood the day after to-morrow, or the next week.'' '' I hope not that, nir," said Doem, fixing a glance upon Montagu, which the other was hardly able to meet without some little con- fusion, though he had uttered this speech on purpose to shew Doem that he had not the least design upon his fair daughter. " Let us hope, sir, that your court-martial will end with an honorable acquittal." " But even then you know, Mr. Doem, the chances are that the regiment will be ordered SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 293 off immediately to the Crimea, where they are wanting troops, and likely to want them." " Well, well, we will leave all those con- siderations to another day ; I must insist upon not leaving your quarters until you come along with me." " Very well then, Mr. Doem, if your hos- pitality is not to be daunted by any difficulty, here goes," and Montagu threw off his regi- mentals in a few minutes, put on a suit of black, and went off with the proctor to dinner, having previously locked up his desk in the most secure place he could think of, with the mysterious £500 note in it. Nothing could exceed the tenderness of Miss Harriet during the whole evening ; but though Montagu thanked her for the sonnet, in pro- portion as the lady became tender, he felt himself bound no less in manner and incli- nation to be careful and reserved. Above all things. Miss Harriet was loud in her expectations of an acquittal. She had been in Court during a part of the trial, near the o 3 294 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. corner of tlie door, where the public were supposed to be admitted. She was full of compliments as to his defence, and certain that his truthful eloquence must prevail. " I am not at all sure of that, Miss Doem ; neither am I at all certain that if the sentence of the court-martial went against me to-morrow morning, I should break my heart at the result." "0! nonsense, Montagu," said his brother Julius. " Depend upon it, it is a great mis- fortune which you would feel throughout life, if you are turned out of the regiment by a sentence of the court-martial. No man can hope to pass through his existence without making some enemies, and to an enemy it is quite immaterial whether an accusation is well deserved or not, provided only it have its basis in truth, they would make you feel at every turn of life a renewal of the calamity. You would have perpetually to go through ex- planations about it, which, to say the least, would be extremely annoying and troublesome." " I quite agree with you, Mr. Julius, you SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 295 speak like a man of three times your years," said old Doem. '* The sentence of the court- martial maybe the basest and most unjust thing in the world ; still if it deprives your brother of his commission, it will inflict upon him an injury not easily repaired, if at all.'' '' In my opinion, Mr. Montagu," said Miss Wyndham, if the sentence of the court-martial compel you to resign the army, it would be doing you the greatest kindness in the power of your enemies to bestow." " Now, Miss Blanche, I declare it is too bad of you. If your doctrines were common, I do not suppose her Majesty would have a regi- ment in the service." '' Go further than that, Mr. Doem, and say that if my doctrines were common, regiments would be matter of history in every state. They are nothing now, but the badge of a murderous barbarism. Just consider for what regiments are embodied, and try and justify it by the re- ligion you profess to uphold as a Christian." " I am not learned in that sort of thing my- 296 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. self, but I constantly hear ministers of all denominations of religion upholding the army as an institution." " Yes, I know they do, and I also know cer- tain ministers of religion, who uphold slavery in America, and some again who are described in the Bible as wolves in sheep's clothing." " Oh ! those are only your girl's fancies." " Possibly so. But where a large body of human beings are set apart expressly for the purpose of slaughtering and destroying other human beings by thousands at a time, neither having the slightest pretext for quarrel against one another ; I say it passes my comprehension to conceive how ministers of a christian religion can bless their colours, or pretend to be chap- lains in their ranks, or connect with such a profession any office or ministration of christian religion whatever. It is a trade and calling of blood, and wholly and totally opposed to the Gospel, and I think no one can do Mr. Montagu a greater favour than those who sever him from such a callins:." SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. 297 " All! Miss Wynclham, that is all girl's non- sense ; you have got hold of some dissenting parson or another : young ladies will run after dissenting parsons sometimes. If your doctrines were listened to, you know we should have no- thing to do but to lay ourselves down in the street and let the Eussians and the Prussians, and any other overbearing armed set of ruffians walk over our necks and despoil us of all that belongs to us — reduce old England to a heap of ruins, and turn Britons into a set of slaves." " Yes, ^Ir. Doem, it is all very well to hold that argument — if man were the arbiter of his own fate, of his own destinies ; or if the decision of nations rested upon the struggles of the peo- ple. How many millions did this country expend in order to annihilate the race of Buonaparte? and yet Providence so overrules the whole that a Buonaparte is now England's great ally. — What amount of lives were thrown away by the Bourbons, during the reign of Louis le Grand, to destroy England and English influence on the continent ; yet England was the only faithful I 298 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. friend that tlie Bourbons could find to replace them on their throne. What treasures of money and what seas of bloodEngland lavished to set the Bourbons firmly on the throne of France; yet now where are they ? Who can express the hope- lessness of their exile ? Do you imagine, there- fore, that if England had faith enough to carry into practice the peaceful code of the christian religion, that the God she worships would not be quite sufficient to protect her against all at- tacks, and if so, how miserable by the side of such protection is the mere force of arms, which after being expended with relentless fury for years in one direction, are from another direc- tion defeated in a day by an overruling Provi- dence. Now answer me that, if you can.^' " Well, Miss Wyndham, T will answer it.'' " I should like to hear the answer. No man has ever yet produced an answer to that argument." " Well, then, Miss Wyndham, I will." What is it? I am all impatience to hear it." SCAPEGKACE AT SEA. 299 " This is the answer — dinner is on the table, and perhaps you will give your arm to Mr. Montagu Scapegrace." " I hope you do not condemn the navy as much as you do the army, Miss Wyndham," said Julius, offering his arm. • " Perhaps not quite," said Miss Wyndham, '' because the navy is the police of the seas.'^ " Ah, ah ! Do you hear her argument break- ing down, and is not the army the police of the shore ? Is not an army the police of nations ?" " Now what do you say to this argument, Mr. Montagu," said old Doem, who, having no lady to hand down, walked alone in his glory. ''Well," said Montagu, '4t is an argument not to be disposed of in that off-hand manner, but should I ever be convinced of the truth of Miss Wyndham's position, whatever may be the result of the court-martial, I think I should sell the commission and leave the service." '' Do,'* said Miss Wyndham, " and you will find your own reward in it." Old Doem now said grace, and in the clatter ^Hfflr 300 SCAPEGRACE AT SEA. of taking off tlie silyer tureen top, and the ac- companying assault of knives and forks and glasses, all serious discussion vanislied, and the usual slip slop of dinner-table conversation supervened. This dinner was like a dozen others under the same roof, and at eleven o'clock Montagu and his brother found themselves quietly seated in their own quarters, talking over the events of the day. END OF VOL. I. T. C. Newby, Publisher, 30, Welbeck-street, Cavendish Square.