Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2692, 12 October 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

Novelist.

[all bights resfrved.] Love's Labour Won:

AN KVENTFUL STORY. BY JAMES GRANT. Author of "Tho Iliiiiiince of Wnr,""Tlio DLick " Watch," "Fairer than a Fairy," &c, iir.c.

CHAPTER XLlV.—Dacoitee. " Fobwaud" was still the word and would be till tho capital was reached and tho king humbled to the dust. Tho Burmese show their fighting qualities best, or only, in the defonce of stockades, which, as they aro well-skilled in all manner of woodcraft, they can erect with wonderful rapidity in the densest jungle, and protect by almost impenetrable entanglements ; and those they can tlofond with a tenacity and determination that better troops might envy ; but no superiority of numbers will tempt them to quit the shelter of such works and trust to valour in the open ground. To note briefly the events preceding a catastrophe that occurred to Lonsdale, ending still more seriously to his friend Montressor, we may state, for the coherence of our narrative, that during the advance to Mandalay, and before the expedition reached Ava, Theebaw sent envoys to obtain terms, which were specified by General Predergast to be, his unconditional surrender, with his army, treasure and kingdom at large. To this comprehensive demand an answer was to be given on the following day. or As none was given, our troops took possession of the defences of Ava, with all the batteries, riflepits, and the ancient brick walls, which are fifteen feet in height, the Burcnese soldiers laying down their arms as ours entered " the City of Gems," as the capital is named, though many cf its houses aro more huts thatched Avith grass. And by the 29th of November tho savage Theobaw was a prisoner, and the iamous white elephant, with nothing white about him save a couple of dirty spots, was in our hands, together with the royal family, or all that remained thereof after tho palace massacre ; and then the war was supposed to bo over— a -war like most of those wo wage now, since we havo ceased apparently to cope with Europeans, in

which, if danger is great, the glor< ia small indeed. Thus, on the night of the 29th soouafterThebow,wko,likeacraverr begged only that his wretched lift might he spared, was put on boarc tho flotilla for conveyance to India, the Dacoits began their work witr a will. So we have now anothei tragedy to record. Prior to the above events, oui troops had reached Mandalay, a few miles distant, where, as evening fell, the scene was singularly beautiful. On each side of the Irawaddy rose its banks, covered with luxuriant foliage, amid which glittered innumerable bell-shaped pagodas and taper spires of varied and fanciful outline, all delicately carved and elaborately gilded, so that they gleamed in the ruddy light of the setting sun liko filagree work studded with gigantic jewels. The first announcement of a treaty of peace was a gorgeouslygilded barge of great beauty, with fifty golden-bladetl oars flashing in light, that shot out from the Ava shore with a great white pennon fluttering in the bow, and high above, a clump of gilded umbrellas, that announced the presence of officers of rank, bearing a message to our general. Anon, tho river widened, and its eastern bank sank low to level yellow sands and grassy inlets, beyond which rose Mandalay, amid the ShaniKange of hills, that start abruptly to the height of some thousand feet ; and from these it was that the "Golden-footed King" came forth from his palace and yeiled himself up to the British troops. Though fighting with the Burmese regulars was ended, the warfare was still, wo say, protracted by tho operations of the treacherous savago and blood-thirsty Dacoits, an Indian name for those who practise robbery as their hereditary privilege or destiuy ; and theso wretches manifested all the worst traits of tho Burmese character, which Captain Franklin describes in his " Notes" as being abjectly servile to superiors, but when " in power, rapacious and cruel; in war treacherous and ferocious ; in their dealings, litigious and faithless; in appetite, insatiable and avaricious ; inhabit, lazy; and in their ideas, persons, houses, and food, obscenely filthy, below anything that has claims to humanity. And these Dacoits inflicted the most dreadful tortures that tho most fertile oriental ingenuity could suggest upon all who fell into their hands alive. In repelling and pursuing a party of them, who had been practising dacoitee —i.e. looting—and murdering in tho vicinity of Mandalay, Lonsdalo and Montressor, with a few men, had pushed along a path, a mile or two in length, bordered on either side by rather neatlybuilt houses or bungalows, and little temples containing well-carvod but monstrously grotesque idols. Tho houses had, in most instances, boon pillaged and hacked and gashed by many wounds from tho bayonet, but chiefly from the sharp crooked dao. Some of the inmates lay in them, or about tho doorways, where piles of clothing, utensils, jars, pan?, lunch-boxes, water flagons, umbrellas and other spoil that had been abandoned in haste, lay strewed about. Here and there lay also a Dacoit, whom the bullets of Lonsdale's party had overtaken, dead or dying, and clad in the usual Burmese costume, a double piece of cloth, about ten cubits long, loosely wrapped about the body, over which was a sleeved frock or tunic that reached to the knees, with a turban-like head-dress. The Dacoits retired through the jungle, firing back a few parting shots at random as they fled; but one of these struck down Montressor, piercing his chest in the vicinity of the heart, inflicting a mortal wound. He sank heavily down in great agony, and Lonsdale had only time to press his hand and leave him in charge of the only medical officer with the party, while he hurried on with a few soldiers, full of vengeance, in a hot and fictcp, and, as it proved eventually, a vain pursuit, as among the jungle and tall elephant grass the Dacoits successfully eluded him. As his party advanced he came upon a Burmese, differently attired from the rest, in a brilliant yellow costume of strange fashion. He was a man of venerable aspect— -a, non-combatant apparently—who had been struck by a ball in the leg near the door of a little temple, and now lay bleeding helplessly, half in and half out of a pool of water, where he would soon have perished had not Lonsdale assisted him. "You are wasting time, Lonsdale," said an officer. " What the deuce ! Surely we have enough and to spare of Burmese; one less in the world won't matter." But Lonsdale drew the aged sufferer forth, tied up his bleeding limb with a handkerchief, gave him a draught from his water-bottle, and passed on, thinking no more on the subject, save that the old man's glance of intense gratitude followed him. Conceiving that lie had pursued the looters far enough, he recalled his advanced files and began to return by one of the three parallel roads that led eastward from Mandalay, just as darkness was closing and the jungles on either side were growing dark and gloomy. Full of anxiety for the fate of his old friend and brother officer, he

reached the narrow path before referred to, and sought the place where he left him, near the edge of a dense thicket, where the medical officer was still beside him, and after placing a great coat, rolled up, under his head and applying a pad and bandage to stop the hoeruorrhage, was now, together with the hospital sergeant, busy with another injured man, who case seemed equally bad; and in answer to an inquiring glance from Lonsdale, the doctor shook his head gloomily and ominously.

Lonsdale thought it was all over with his friend, who was lying there still ami pale with the awful calmness of death about him—a smile that seemed almost seraphic on his handsomely-cut, but now blue, lips, and all the intense quietude of man's last sleep on his closed eyelids ; and though Lonsdale deemed him gone " to tho shore that hath no shore beyond it, set in all the sea," roused by a sound, the dying man opened his eyes. " Montague," said he, feebly, " old fellow, are you here 1" "Yes," replied Lonsdale. " Tell me, please, exactly what these medical fellows think of me," he asked, in a broken voice, with an interval between every word. "Think—they think that you are very much injured." " And won't pull through—oh—l understand. Poor Claire—poor Claire ? Speak out, Lonsdale— don't be afraid—but for her—but for her —I could bear it, whatever it may be."

Lonsdale could not bring himself to tell what was too evidently the case, and the dread verdict the doctor's gliince implied. "Speak—am I dying?" Then ere Lonsdale could form a reply, Montressor said: "You will return to Calcutta after this business is over ■ —-you will see Claire—tell her—■ tell her—l lovwl her a thousand times better than man ever loved woman !" At that moment there was a distant flash, and then with it came the ping of rif'e bullet— a bullet no one precisely knew from whence; but it struck Digby Montressor on the left temp'e, and killed him in a moment —-yet in that moment, strange to say, true to his soldierly instincts, he grasped tin. , hilt of his sword, and expired with his right hand within it. " Follow me!'' cried Lonsdale, and he dashed head long into the jungle, before his soldiers could quite realise the situation. While rushing after him,some fixing their bayonets and others dropping cartridges into the blocks of their rifles, they saw the flash of a revolver in front

—then the noise of a scuffle, and a cry was heard in the gloom. The soldiers went onward with a rush, but not a trace was to be seen of Lonsdale, and a search discovered nothing among the dense, leafy jungle, and tall, elephant grass, but a Burmese sabre—-a weapon without guard or hilt—with the blade and grasp both covered with blood. He seemed to have been spirited away—carried off, no doubt, to be put to death by torture, at the leisure and for the amusement of his merciless captors. CHAPTER XLY.—A Wanderer. When Dick Talbot, tingling with pain in every limb, and with his young and impulsive heart filled with rage and, humiliation and bitterness, left the house of his Uncle Grimshaw, he had, at first, no object in view but the vngue one of putting as great a distance between himself and that locality as possible; and with this intention, he had walked steadily forward, heedless in what direction he went, though not without a certain desire of ultimately making his way to London, where surely something would turn up.

After a time, as he trod along, he kicked up the dry and withered leaves that lay so plentifully- in the country lanes—where is the little by that does not love to kick up these gathered heaps and see them career before the wind ! —-but, anon, heavy thoughts began to press upon him, especially when the afternoon was past and evening began to close.

Save the moan of the east wind, as it swept through the bare trees, there was no sound when the shadows began to deepen, and there seemed—even to Dick's country eyes —something weird in the swaying of the dark boughs against the gloomy backgronnd of the sky ; and save the robin, every bird wa.s silent

now. What was he to do I —where was he to go 1 Back to Rose Cottage 1 No—certainly, never ? He paused and looked round him, after proceeding a few miles. In the distance there loomed a church tower darkly against the sombre grey sky. He knew it was that of Woodstock, and that London lay in another direction, so he paused irresolutely.

From more than one thatched barn, he could still hear the flop 1 flop ! of the swung Ila.il, or the whining of the more newly invented threshing machine ; he heard, too, the grunfcle of the fat pigs that waded knee deep amid the straw of a farm-yard ; and through the windows, as he passed them, he could see the red glances from many a cosy fire, seeming all the redder and more cosy by very contrast with his own homeless condition, and the gloom of the fast coming night.

He knew that the hedgehogs and badgers were hid in their holes, the frogs had buried themselves in the mud of their ponds, and that the field mice and squirrels were shut up with their winter stores, for the time was the last days of chill November. In many respects Dick Talbot was a very simple and essentially a country boy, unaccustomed to the crowded streets, with their taverns, busy shops their strange and flaring placarded advertisements of amusement and folly. His friends had been the grand old trees by the wayside ; the woods, the hedges, and all the feathered tribes that built their nests therein ;he knew the pools where the trout lurked under the long bordering weeds ; and he knew every bird's egg and every bird's habit, as if he were a trained naturalist. Bingo whined, as if enquiring the cause of their wandering, and crept close to him. " My dear old doggie!" exclaimed Dick, caressing his only companion ; " Oh, if you could only talk, Bingo, you would be a perfect dog-—-and what a chum for me 1 1 should want no one else.

Dogs and children—boys especially—take naturally to each other. The dog never cares for others of "his species when he has his little master or mistress with him ; thus, he is alternately playmate, guardian and sometimes horse. Be he ever so poor, a dog is a positive luxury to a boy who enjoys his double position of patron and proprietor, and as poor Dick was, just then, poor enough, he and Bingo were all the world to each other. He now remembered the important part, that—save a few pence— he had no money ; he seldom had any, now that Montague Lonsdale was gone. He could not pay his fare to London, thus, to reach that supposed goal of fortune, ho would have to walk fifty miles or more 1 . Then again, he thought—- " When I gut thero/what shall I —what can I do ?" He shrunk with natural pride;, shame and repugnance, from the idea of making his wants known to strangers, who would no doubt (lout and scorn him ; but the coming night was likely to prove a bitter one. The wind seemed to blow through him, and Ins stooped his head against the blast, while working his way aimlessly along a deep and muddy road, for in November "The country ways are full of mire" as Alexandra Smith, a now forgotten writer says in one of his poems. As yet, there had not been any sharp frosts, and flowers as tender as single dahlias were still lingering in some sheltered places, but the gardens were shorn of their beauty, and from the woodland scenery even the colours of the autumnal foliage had departed. A cheerless drizzle had now begun to fall—tho same that Melanie was then watching anxiously from a window; and Dick, as he shivered, thought, " Even the rabbits and the birds have homes, but I have none !" He felt hungry, too; but on discovering a piece of biscuit in a pocket of his round-tailed Oxford jacket, he had not the heart to eat it, for on seeing his clog eyeing him whistfully, he gave it to the latter. To pass the night on the open highway was impossible, so Dick, on finding himself near some haystacks, burrowed a place in one, for warmth and shelter.

He thought sadly and lovingly of his beautiful sister, who jat that hour—if not busy with him and his tasks—had usually her needle actively employed ; and in fancy he could see her soft, shining, dark brown hair, and long dark lashes, by the light of shaded lamp, and—ugh!— Uncle Grimshaw, with his pince-nez balanced on his nose, with his pale, shifty eyes conning the "[money article." How lonely, grieved, and terrified Melanie must be without him ! And Reggie, too —helpless Beggie. How lonely he was himself, poor boy ; as he thought of it all, a few natural tears escaped him ; and he drew Dingo, his only friend and comrade, close to his side.

And when the dog, chilled with the rain, shivered and whined, Dick thought vengefully of his Aunt Chillington's pet poodle, which slept in a mother-of-pearl basket, that was lined with blue satin, stuffed with clown, and had scented pockets round it; and which dined o(f macaroons and creaiv, or chicken and meat, minced by the hand of his pampered mistress, or her odious French maid, Clochette.

At last Dick slept, and so passed the first night after he ran away from "home."

CHAPTER XLVL—Sergeant Hawksley. Stiff, sore, and for a time chilled to the marrow in every bone, Dick Talbot awoke betimes next morning, surprised that lie did so without any summons from old Bethia Barlow, and for some moments could not remember how he came to be in such a place ; one so strange, and not in his own little room which the kind hands of Melanic had so prettily curtained and decorated for him, so far as her poor means went. Then he crept forth, and still resolved to return no more to the abode of his uncle Grimshaw, and the grinding life of taunting noglect and irritation endured there, at the hands of that repellaut relative, he turned his steps resolutely, if

vaguely, so far as purpose went, towards Woodstock. ,He had no overcoat, and—ugh ! —how cold and bitter the November atmosphere felt; but his spirits rose with locomotion. The sun shone brightly, and the world, and all that's therein, looked so much better by the light of day than the gloom of a starless night. As Dick trod on he felt strangely free—free, unfettered and untrammelled, and the lord of his own person. But how long was that freedom to last 1 A livelihood was to be won somehow; but not like the rewly-fledged Claude Duvals and Boy Brigands, of whom he had lately read so much in penny literature. Hitherto, under Uncle Grimshaw, he had felt somewhat like a hunted creature—cornered-—with all the will, but not the power, to fight to desperation. Now he felt that the future, and all therein, must depend upon himself; but the knowledge that he had only a few pence in his pocket, given secretly by Melanie, rather damped these valiant resolutions.

Ere long, he found himself entering Woodstock, where the morning chimes, so pleasing and so mellow, were being rung from the modern tower added to the old chantry church, founded in some unwonted fit of fear or piety by the despicable King John. Skirted on the westby the Glynne, which expands into a pretty sheet of water in Blenheim Park, the streets are handsome and regular ; but, as the day was not a market one, they had all the stillness and desertion peculiar to those of a small country town. Few people were abroad, and—save, perhaps, the glove-makers—few seemed to have anything to do. After lingering undecidedly under the piazzas of the town hall, which, when used, are adopted as it, mar-ket-place, Dick bethought him of food, and turning into a quiet little tavern, named "The Ch-'cquers," which had a sanded tile floor and quaint windows of the low kind projecting outward, he asked for some bruad and milk, which he proceeded at oncis to share fraternally with his faithful, four-footed companion, aft;n - making the latter perform some of the little tricks for which he was wont to reward him with biscuits and bones, heedless of the only visitor who occupied a corner of the siinplo and wuinscotted, but exceedingly shabby, coffee room. "Now, Bingo !" cried Dick, holding out a morsel of bread, " earn this."

Bingo rose up, turned thrice round upon his hind feet, received the bread upon the tip of his impudent black nose, tossed it up to arrest its descent by a snap, deftly and with a laugh, for dogs do seem to laugh to those who study their eyes and faces. A tall infantry sergeant, on recruiting service, as the tri-coloured ribbons streaming from his forage indicated, was having his " morning," or matutinal pick-me-up of brandy and soda, with a pipe, in the corner of the coffee room referred to, and was an observer of the performance; and as he applauded it greatly, Dick made Bingo go through several others, such as standing on his head, feigning death, and so forth. He placed bread before the dog and said, "on trust;" whereupon Bingo remained still and without moving a muscle, till told it was " paid for," when he took it with a snap ; and when sat upon a chair, with his fore-paws on the tablp, again remained thus motionless, till Dick uttered the word "released," when he capered for joy and again stood on his head.

These talents and this discipline seemed greatly to impress the sergeant, who was a worthy-looking elderly non-commissioned officer of an age, character, and bearing, seldom, if ever seen in the service now, for he had been—it would appear —in the last China War, the medal for which was on his breast with others, for he had been lately scorched by the sun in Egypt, hud born his share in tho midnight rush on Tel-el-Kebir, and more than one battle by the Nile. His closely shorn hair and thick moustache were thickly seamed with grey, but he had a pleasant face and a kindly manner.

After eyeing Dick closely for a time, he said, " Where do you come from, my boy V " Stokencross," replied Dick. " And where are you going to ?', " Why do you ask V "Because —excuse me—but I could see with half an eye that you are on the tramp." " Going to —well, I don't know," replied Dick, with a tone of sadness in his voice. " Don't know, my little lad—that sounds badly. What is your name V " Dick—Richard Talbot." " Ah—and what are your father and mother." " What do you mean ?" asked Dick, irately. " What trade is it ?" it No—l think you are a cut above that," said the sergeant, with a little smile, while slapping his regimental pantaloons with his cane. " Well V he added, enquiringly, with an eye to business. "They are dead—both deadlong ago, sir," said Dick, with a sudden' sob in his throat, for though he could barely recall their memory, he felt, somehow, very lonely and desolate just then. "My father was an officer, who served and died in India."

A subtle change came over the old sergeant's face as he heard the boy. " Ah," said he, and he sipped the last of his grog, while, as Dick spoke, he looked wistfully at him, and there was in his heart that emotion which Sterne describes the son of poor Lieutenant Lefevre feeling, when ho first met Corporal Trim, and, in his loneliness, saw, in a soldier, "a friend." " What was your father's regiment?" asked the sergeant, in a kindly tone. " The 20th Bengal Infantry." " Oh—the old Bth Punjaub," said the sergeant. "They were with us in the China war at Pekin, six and twenty years ago. By Jove ! how time runs on ! How many fine fellows I have seen three volleys fired over since then ; how many shovelled away without coffin or volley— buried where they fell—buried in unconsecrated ground, as the parsons say : though the hearts of many of these English lads would have consecrated Grand Cairo." The sergeant seemed to say this to himself, with tho nearest approach to a sigh, while mechanically refilling his briar-root. "Poor lad!" said he, after a pause, as the sympathetic chord —the freemasonry of the Service —was struck; " why have you left home !" " Because it wasn't much of a ' home'; I could not remain longer. My uncle "

" Oh, don't! I had an uncle, too. He turned me into the streets to find a living anyhow ; so I took the Queen's bright shilling in the Fusiliers, and by the time I was your size was beating a drum under old Hope Grant at the storming of Pekin and the looting of the Summer Palace. You don't mean to go back, I suppose?" "No!" "That is right-—but what do you meiin to do V - " Become a soldier if you will take me," said Dick, with a sudden glow in his boy's heart and a bright flush o:i his fair soft cheek. " You are verv young." " I shall grow older." " You are not an :ippi-(;iitico or anything of that kind, 1 hope?" '" No — f am just pust fourteen. , ' "That will do—right as a trivet; we cannot enlist- boys younger than that, liy the Queen's rugsil.itions." Dick Mt himself "in for it" now, and rather enjoyed the new importance of the situation, though with the vaguest ideas in the world of what was before him, or of the life on which ho was about to enter.

He saw the mysterious letters, T.R.\V.F.RL.W\O.,onthe shoulderstraps of the sergeant, according to the new arrangement the vast territorial muddle, introduced into the unfortunate British Army by Cardwell and Co., in lieu of the o'd single battalions, with their " numbers," of historic memory. The mystic interpretation of this Cabalo meant that the sergeant, Hawkslcy by name, belonged to "The Royal Western Fusilier Regiment, Lord Wolseley's Own," though Old Nick himself, or the sharpest War Office clerk might not have discovered the fact. This is no exaggeration. Under the same eccentric system, the old Second Foot have, on their appointments, T. R. W.S. R.T.Q. (The Royal West Surrey Regiment — The Queen's!) The sergeant ordered breakfast, and invited Dick, who, like a hungry boy, was nothing loth to share it with him. Sergeant Hawksley was a noncommissioned officer of the good old school, which seems to have passed away for ever with the old trained soldiers who were ever the backbone and central figures of our service— that class of whom short service has proved the death-knell, and whose place the dirty, soured and discontented reserve man can never fill.

The old sergeants taught the first rudiments of discipline to the recruit, whose future home was to be the regiment they were so proud of, and he was initiated by them into all the art of barrack and camp soldiery, with tho mysteries of pipeclay and packing a kit, while imbibing something of the veterans' religion—enthusiasm in the service, and pride in his corps, whatever that corps was, from the Ist Royal Scots to the 106 th, and a veneration in whom he saw the ideal gentleman, forseeing nothing of the time when his country might reward his lifelong service with the usual shelter in the workhouse and a share in a pauper grave, after thrilling the village boys by his yarns and " Shouldering his crutch to show how fields were won." The mystic shilling is now, we believe, unnecessary ; but Dick had duly received it, and was told that after having passed the doctor he would be taken before a justice of the peace for solemn attestation. And here we may inform the reader, with reference to Dick's tender age, that according to Her Majesty's Regulations (Section XIX.) " Boys of good character between the ages of 14 and 16 may be enlisted .... at the rate of one boy for every 200 rank and file of the establishment No boy, however, is to be enlisted who does not, from his make and stature, give fair promise of growth and of becoming, when he has attained the proper age, an effective soldier."

To the practiced eye of Sergeant Hawksley, Dick promised all the above required, and felt his position

growing in importance, while already speculating on the martial appearance he should have, in the new unornamented tunic or slopjersey of his regiment, with the many cabalistic initials ; but breakfast was nearly over before he and Sergeant Hawksley had a rather unpleasant accession to their society. This was the arrival of Corporal Gutters, the sergeant's second in command, with some half-dozen or so more recruits, of whom he had been in charge over night at some cheap lodging-house in tho slums of Woodstock. (To be con tinned.)