LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 121, 20 October 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BITER BIT.

By J. A. St. John Blythe, Chapter I. The prosperity of the wicked is an old subject of lamentation and perplexity ; yet, some 3000 years ago, the wise king sounded a warning in the ears of evil-doers—“ Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein ; and he that rofleth a stone, it will return upon him.” Some one else, likewise—though who I am sure I do not know—has talked about the gods making scourges of our pleasant vices wherewith to chastise us. I suppose if one really did see the game played out one might probably arrive at the conclusion that the prosperity of the wicked was of a very precarious nature. At any rate, I do remember once in my life being witness to as perfect a piece of retributive justice as moralist ever sighed after. Many a long year ago I was 'surgeon to the regiment of hussars, then light dragoons. We were, for a cavalry regiment in those days, a remarkably quiet set of fellows, There were a few wild ones among us ; but they were more addicted to exploits perilous to their own necks than to any flagrant derelictions from morality; so on the whole we bore a good character, and were rather a favorite regiment wherever we were quartered. At last, however, it so happeued one of our-fellows got into some mess. It was a turf transaction I believe, but I was away at the time it happened, on sick leave, and never heard a very clear account of what had occurred. I only know that he did come to grief in some way, and found it expedient to exchange into a regiment just starting for India. He had only been gone a few hours when I returned, and in the course of the afternoon his subaltern, Charley Fitzgerald, a. scatter-brained young Irishman, never long out of hot water, lounged into my quarters. ‘I saw Deverill off this morning,’ he said, after some desultory chat. ‘ He was awfully blue at going, and I believe he’s been horribly badly used by those rascally fellows. He is to sail almost directly. ” ‘ Who has he exchanged with ?’ I asked. ‘ A fellow I never heard of—Berrington. Fred. Berrington I think lie is. He hasn’t been long home from India. He got a company in that regiment about six months ago, and was awfully disgusted at their being ordered for foreign service directly afterwards. Did you ever hear of him ?’ ‘ I am not sure. I fancy I have, ’ I _ replied ; ‘ but I can’t recall anything distinct about him.’ ‘Berrington,’ I repeated to myself, after Fitzgerald was gone. ‘ Fred. Berrington ’ — I was certain the name was familiar to me, but where I had heard it, or what I knew about him, I could not in the least recollect. A few days after, Captain Berrington put in an appearance. I felt certain, from the moment I saw him, that if I had ever known anything about him it could only have been from having heard him mentioned. I had certainly never seen him. He was not a man one would have been likely to forget. I think, taking him all in all, he was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, He stood full six feet in his stocking soles, and was magnificently made. His features were beautifully cut, and yet massive enough to save them from the almost effeminate look generally resulting from very delicate chiselling. His eyes were the greatest blot in his face, at least to my fancy, though they were very fine ones. They were bluish-grey, and, somehow, they always made me think of cold steel ; except at least on rare occasions, when they turned almost black. Berrington seemed likely enough to be a very popular man in the regiment. He was good-tempered, and had plenty of tact, — that most indispensable requisite for any man who wants to get on the army. He did not obtrude angles for other people to break their shins against, neither did he manifest that peculiar talent which seems born with some men for always contriving to tread upon other people’s corns. He could assume, when he chose, a singularly winning manner; but he had not been in the regiment many weeks before I detected that manner was reserved almost exclusively for women, and this fact, coupled with the cold steel, inclined me to distrust him. About a month after he joined us, I went up to London on business, and accidentally met, one afternoon in Piccadilly, an old acquaintance, I might say relative, for I believe ho was some sort of distant cousin ; a half-pay major, the best part of whose life was spent between his lodgings in Jermyn street and his club. I never came across a man possessed of such an insatiable thirst for information on all subjects connected with the army, or, perhaps in consequence of such an amount of knowledge of every man who was or ever had been in the service. I never heard a single fellow mentioned in his presence about whom he could not tell

you something. Nor was this power confined to men of his own day, he knew all about those who must have been in long petticoats when he went on half-pay. He instantly assailed me with a battery of questions about poor Deverill’s affair, about which subject however he seemed to know a good deal more than I did. This circumstance, coupled with the fact that the hour was four o’clock at the height of the season, and he rather deaf, prevented his gaining much information from me. ‘ Confound the noise !’ he testily exclaimed at last. ‘ I can’t hear one word in ten. Are you disengaged this evening, Haddon ?’ ‘ Yes. lam quite free to-night.’ * Then dine with me at my club. We’ve a stranger’s room now, you know. Then we can talk without the bore of all this cursed row. I want to ask you about several of your fellows. ’ I joined him at his club at the appointed hour, and in a quiet corner of the stranger’s room I was duly cross-examined. ‘Well, I declare,’ the major said at last, * I don’t believe you know as much about Deverill’s affair as I do.’ ‘ I don’t think I do. I was away at the time it all happened, you know. ’ ‘Ah, yes, so I heard. Well, it’s my opinion he was very hardly used. But I know Dalrymple is a bit of a martinet, especially where turf transactions are concerned. It’ll give the poor devil a lesson which will be useful to him. So you’re a very quiet set now in the ?’ ‘ Yes, decidedly.’ ‘ What in my day we should have called a set of muffs, I expect. Ah, the service isn’t what it was. By-the-by, who has got Deverill’s troop ?’ ‘ A man of the name of Berrington, lately home from India. ’ ‘ Berrington ! What Christian name ?’ ‘Fred.’ ‘ The major indulged in a low whistle. ‘Fred. Berrington, by Jove! turning up in the . Well, upon my word ! It must be the same. Ecmarkably good-looking fellow, ain’t he ?—with a pair of cold grey eyes, and short brown curly hair ?—splendid figure, half Hercules, half Apollo?’ ‘ That’s the man. I can’t help thinking I know the name. Do you know anything about him ?’ ‘ 1 should rather think I do. You can make the most of your regimental good character, Haddon. There’ll be a stain upon it soon, I’ll bet you twenty to one. You’ve the honour of numbering now among the ornaments of your distinguished corps about the most consummate scoundrel in the whole service.’

‘ Then I’ll begin to blow my own trumpet on the subject of natural penetration. I don’t like him, and have not done so from the first moment he joined us. But what are his proclivities f ‘ Playing fast and loose with every girl he can get hold of. He doesn’t affect your garrison hacks, mind. He flies at higher game. He’ll pick out two or three of the prettiest and nicest girls about a place, make love to them all at once, in serious downright earnest, and amuse himself with the excitement of avoiding all the snares and pitfalls which naturally result. Then, in the end, he’ll contrive to step out altogether. He can put on a manner, too, which would delude any woman into the belief he was thoroughly in earnest. There’s no end to the misery that fellow has caused. If there are any pretty and really nice girls about your neighbourhood, may the Lord have mercy on them !’

‘ 1 don’t think there are many. But if the fellow is such a scoundrel, how has he continued to avoid getting tripped up somewhere ?’

* He’s a remarkably clever fellow, and so infernally cool over it. There’s more still behind, too : he’s the most black-hearted scoundrel that breathes. ’

‘ Don’t speak so loud, I said. The major was an honorable, upright man, and in his rising wrath, at the remembrance of Berrington’s delinquencies, was growing more vehement than was, under the circumstances, desirable.

He looked round, and lowered his voice, as he continued : ‘ There’s one transaction of his beats everything I know for cool villainy. Some few years since, just before he went to India, he was quartered down in the north. There was a fool of a woman living there of whom I knew something, a widow, with one daughter, who was about sixteen then, a pretty, gentle, loving little creature, as innocent as a child of ten yeax-s old, just the sort of game that the rascal likes. He soon got hold of the mother. I heard of it, and warned her, but she was so infatuated about him that she would believe nothing against him, and the poor child fell a victim. He humbugged the mother with some story about his not daring, on account of property to marry openiy, and actually induced her to consent to a private marriage, which he was to arrange entirely. He carried the poor child off with him, and for about a year I suppose she was very happy. Then he found a baby was impending, and suggested she should go to her motlxer. The child died, fortunately, and almost before she was well again, he coolly wrote and told her the marriage was all a sham, enclosed a cheque for £IUO, and sailed for India the following day.’ ‘ The scoundrel!’ I exclaimed, almost as loud as the major had spoken. ‘What has become of her !’ ‘ In a lunatic asylum, hopelessly insane!’ was his short answer. ‘ This is the brilliant ornament to society your regiment has fallen heir to. I congratulate you. ’ < He won’t be in it long, ’ I said, ‘if the colonel gets scent of this story. < Ko ; I’ll be bound Halrymple would make him glad to go if he did ; but that is just what he won’t do. I shouldn’t the least wonder to see Berrington get the whip hand of him entirely. Well, if there is in this world one thing at which 1 should rejoice more than any other, it would be at hearing that retribution had fallen on that rascal’s head. ’ ‘ Is he a hard drinker, or anything of that sort ?’ ‘ I doubt it. He’s such a confoundedly deep fellow it would be hard to tell, and he would carry easily what would send most men under the table. I believe he’s a gambler, bixt in general a sxiccessful one. No the excitement of keeping two or three love affairs, not mere flirtations, but i-egular love affairs, going at once, seems to be his favorite amusement. He’d have paid dear for that exploit I told of, if there had been anyone to take it up ; but that’s just what there wasn’t. If there had been, I’ll be bound he’d never have carried it so far.’ I went back to head-quarters the following morning with a mightily-increased opinion of my own power of reading character. To be continued