Novelist.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2695, 19 October 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

Novelist.

[aix kigiits keskbvjsd.] Love's Labour Won: AN EVENTFUL STORY.

LY JAMES GRANT. Author of "Tlio ltonifincn of War," "The Black " Watch," " Fairer than a Fairy," &c., ftc.

CHAPTER XLVTL—The R.W.I I '. Regiment. Tins accession of company iilled Dick with some consternation ancl dismay. Unused, as yet, to any discipline, ancl undeterred by the presence or authority of Sergeant liawksley, the. recruits were noisy, and as rough and brutal in mannci and language as any street Arabs could be, and, like too ruucli of the material that now swell our ranks, they were not from the agricultural districts, but from the recesses of London—that city of the slums— and in their dilapidated attire, like their general aspect, betokened an early struggle with work, crime, and misery. Dick was instantly eyed over as a victim to floece or torment in some fashion, but to sundry unraistakeable hints, as to how glad they -would be " to drink his jolly good 'ealth," he could make no response. However, some had a little money among them, and early though the hour, they proceeded, as they phrase it, " to liquor up, and have another wet as they were nearly all the result o itlie public-house and street oornor system of recruiting not of the good, old and now forgotten system of " beating up" with drum and fife.

They perched their dirty persons on the tables as freely as they did on the ricketty chairs, with pots of indifferent beer, adulterated stout or glasses of " dog's nose" before them, with foul clay pipes stuck between their teeth, smoking industriously thereat and still more fouling the atmosphere with the _ odour of coarse tobacco ; some singing, some swearing, and all disposed to chaff each other in rough and un-

savour v terms —so we must hasten over this portion of our story.

Whether Corporal Gutters—baptised Albert Edward, for the snobs of humble life imitate those of the higher circle in the love of grand names—also, of her Majesty s 1. R. W. F. L. W. 0. .Regiment, was a non-commissioned officer of the new school, we do not pretend to say but only know, though barely twenty and pass the pacing-stick, he was a finished scamp and tyrant, who, after being wanted by the police under several aliases in his native Whitechapal, had joined the corps as a " lardwell recruit."

I Cadaverous in visage, he was sandy-haired, and like an old boy or premature man, His upper lip, though of great length, was, like his acutely receding chin —hairless, and would probably ever be so. His cunning eyes were of watery grey, swollen and protruding like those of a pug dog, which he strongly resembled. He had neither been well developed nor well nourished and his ill-shapen legs were thickest at the ankles, and for a time past he had been fleecing the "Johnnie Raws" by the " Three Card Trick, in which ho excelled, witli other London street accomplishments. He speedily fastened on Dick. " Who's precious cur is this ?' he asked, snatching up Bingo—who, scared by the general noise and row had kept close under his master's chair —by the nape of the neck, and swinging the poor animal about in a way the latter seemed well disposed to resist with his teeth. " Put down the dog, you fellow?" cried Dick, fdled with wrath and alarm.

" Fellow ! Who do you call that, you d d young wasp ! Your cur, is it ?" saidtlie corporal, laughing, though insolent and irafco. "It is clean agin the Queen's rools and reggulations for recruits to have dawgs, and I'll toss this 'un into the Grlynno with a stone at its neck."

" 'Taint 'arf a bad 'uii," interposed another warrior of tho Whitechapel type ;lie's worth a fiver at least. Suppose, lads, wo got a fiver on this 'ore dawg, and has some jolly drinks all round ?" This proposal was greeted with a storm of applause and much clanking of battered pots upon the sloppy table. " All right," said the stripling corporal. " I knows a party at the Marboro' Arms as will givo us the money." Swelling with rago and alarm, Dick, who had started to his feet on this, said— " Set down my dog, you insolent rascal." " lie's mad—he is," said tho corporal, appualingly, to his companions. " Docs you know who you're a speakin' to ?" he asked of Dick, while his grasp on tho terrier tightened. "Do you kuow who you are speaking to ?" said Dick. " Blest if 1 do, or care." " Well, I ain a gentleman." This assertion was greeted, after tho silence of a moment or two, with a roar of laughter that was certainly genuine, and much doffing in mockery of battered luilf-bullot hats; but this only added to tho exnsporation of Dick, who, before Sergoaut Hawksley could interfere, started forward and confronted the dog-stcaler, for such ho considered him, amid crios of — '■ Here's a rum go !" " A gent—a gent—oh what a lark !"

And much more to the same purpose. "Standback, you d—d young muff," said the corporal, "or I'll knock your two sanguinary eyes into 0110 !"

" Two may play at that game," cried Dick, who was a fearless little gentleman, and clenching his fists in a way that Beggio had taught him, ho rushed on Gutters and dealt him in quick succession a couple of blows that, while noarly knocking him down, compelled him to releaso the dog and stand on his own dofenco. " This is a liout and hout mu-

tiny," he cried with a fierce and filthy oath, and wasrusliingonDick, who must evidently have had tho worst of the brawl, when the strong hand of the sergeant arrested him. " Let me go," cried Gutters, choking with rago ; J' I'll—I'll murder the young willin !" "No you won't —he may hand you over to the police for dog stealing, and it won't be the first time perhaps —silence) I order you to be quiet," said tho sergeant, sternly, and the bully fell back abashed.

But Dick had received several side-blows from others who resented perhaps, the respectability of his appearance, and more than all, the inopportune assertion that lie was a " gentleman." He felt his lips bleeding, and sought a pocket for his handkerchief; but it was gone one of his new English comrades, true to his old instincts, had quietly appropriated it in the scuffle. Seargeant Hawsley thought the best way to keep the peace, for the present would be to take Dick away witli him, arid have a ramble together in the town prior to taking him before a magistrate for attestation ; and for fear ef another attack upon his favourite, the poor boy carried Bingo in his arms for a time, and was rewarded by having his cheeks elaborately licked therefor.

» Gutters will be your enemy for all this," said the sergeant, " He is a bad lot—will smash you up if he can. I would rather have lost

twenty guineas than have had the row happen." " But I will not associate with him," said Dick, loftily. The sergeant smiled, and then cast a hostile glance at the terrier, though the innocent cause of the disturbance. The worthy veteran then, after giving Dick a glass of beer at the Bear Inn as they rambled about, proceeded to give him a deal of sound advice, concerning how he should comport himself among such fellows as Gutters —"thefellows of the new system ' after he joined the regiment, otherwise, ho would find life a pandemonium on earth. Ho also instructed him in all that he was to reply to tho magistrate —tlio many preliminaries, as to his name, ago, height, width of chest, birth-place, parents, and so forth ; and that ho was to state his pe.xfect willingness to serve in tho B.W.F. L.W.O. Regiment for tho term of six years with tho colours ; to bo followed at the end of that period with a similar term in tho Army Kescrvo 011 threepence per diem for the luxuries of life. To all of this Dick listonod with ideas that wero vague indeed ; ho could not anticipate the future. To a boy of his ago, twelve years more seemed a lifetime ; but his spirits rose again in the bright sunshine, and under tho kindly influence of the sergeant, whom ho deemed a protector and hero, with his China and Egyptian medals. There was sure to be a big war before long—one of " the big wars that make ambition virtue"— thought Dick, and if he only fought like some of the youthful heroes, of whom he had read so much lately, the British Government must, in common gratitude, make him a general, at least, and what would Uncle Grimshaw think then? Of this future, Dick felt just then as sure as ever iS uicho did on his island. In this m<?od ho indited at the Bear his letter to Melanie, and gave it to the sergeant to stamp and post for him ; and as the former was in no hurry to do this, because of subsequent events, a long time elapsed before she re-

ceived it, After tlio prelimary of passing the doctor, Dick found himself with the sergeant under the piazzas of the tow a hull, where he regaled himself for the lirst time in his life, perhaps, with a cheap cigar, supplied to him by Hawksley, prior to presenting themselves before tlie sitting magistrate, who, they were informed, was very busy just then with some poaching cases, which had made his worship very savage, as he was a great game preserver, So Dick assumed an air of nonchalance, and sauntered to and fro with the dog closc to his heels smoking his new cigar with doubtful pleasure, and from which, ore long, he began to feel unfortunate effects. The market-place and all the houses seemed to career after cacli other like the wooden horses in a merry-go-round. Dick felt most decidedly sick, though ashamed to say so ; and a headache came upon him, as though his temples were split open. lie threw away the fatal cigar ; but did so too late, and a wild clutch that ho made at Bingo rendered matters worse, The mischief was done. He heard the voicc of the sergeant saying: " Now is the time, young sir. come along." And mechanically Dick followed him—followed him into a spacious room with lofty but plainly-gazed windows, furnised with rows of seats oil three sides like pews in a church, with a raised dnis or platform on the fourth, in the centre of which, under a gilded coat of the Royal Arms, sat a solitary magistrate with an air of grotesque dignity, with a couple of helmetted constables near him, and an old and white-haired clerk at a desk in front. " For what i 3 this boy brought here !" asked the magistrate. " Attestation, sir," replied the sergeant. " Look up, boy ! "said the former in a voice which, if awful, sounded strangely familiar to Dick, who, to his consternation and disgust —even amid his sickness and dire confusion—found himself face to face with Plantagenet Pugwash, Esquire, justice of the peace for the county of Oxford, swelling on the perch, in all the dignity of his vast stick-up collar, scarlet tie and brown surtout, and in short, surrounded by all the terrors of country civil depotism — the last man in the world before whom Dick Talbot, under all the circumstances, could wish to find himself.

CHAPTER XLVIII. — "Dick'S SciUPE. Now, Mr P. Pug wash was an Englishman of a nob uncommon kind ; and it was easier to appeal to his ignorant prejudices and to his passions than to his reason. Thus, after a grim and triumphant stare of recognition, he began, as a magistrate, his questions—per printed form —-but in a bullying and tyrannical manner, sufficiently galling to a boy of spirit like Dick, who, however, heard him as one in a dream, and his voice failed him, while the four corners of Die justice-room seemed to be in quick pursuit of cacli other. " Speak out, sir !" thundered old Pngwash.

" The boy does not seem quit# well, sir," suggested the sergeant. ■' The boy's either intoxicated or shamming," snarled Ml- Pugwash, twitching up his long shirt collar. " Shamming—not a bit of it your worship ; the poor boy is only sick " Don't dictate to me, sir ! I says as he is intoxicated. I did not think —I do not think that anyone but this hardened young rascal w®uld have the effrontery to appear before me—before me—in such a state as he is 1" " I'll bring him again to-morrow, sir—he'll be all right then, sir," said the sergeant, kindly, " the lad isn't used to smoking, certainly J) " But ho drinks —he has a brother, a shabby sailor feller, aud we know that all sailors, and soldiers too, drink." " So do many that consider themselves better, yet ain't worth powder and shot," said the soldier, indignantly. " I don't want your opinion, sergeant — silence, sir ! Wigorous measures is necessary here —I must windicate the laws of the land." "Just so, sir," said Sergeant Hawsley, who thought with Mr Bumble, that "the law was a Hass." " The prisoner is remanded in custody till to-morrow," said Mr P. Pugwash with a great air; "he must be attested not later than twenty-four hours after enlistment —don't the liact say so, clerk 1" " Yes, your worship, unless the smart money be paid," replied the seedy old clerk, who was certainly one of an antiquated school, as he added in a snivelling voice, " otherwise both parties is criminally implicated—one for deserting, and 'totlier for aiding, abetting, and conniving at desertion." " Conniving at desertion—hexactly so," said Mr Pugwash, who was densely ignorant of the whole matter. " Hetnanded till to-morrow morning. Call the next case."

" Remanded till to-morrow — and in custody," wrote tho clerk. " Custody of course," snapped Mr Pugwasli. Then Dick found himself transferred from his friend, the sergeant to the care of an unpleasantly sto-lid-looking policeman of apparently colossal proportions —a circumstance which dissipated tho fumes of his recent cigar at onco. " After this you must keep your eye 011 him, sergeant," said Mr Pugwasli, viciously, as a Parthian shot ; "ho is a precious young wiper and a poaching waggabone." li You're a " began Dick furiously. " Silence Talbot," cried the sergeant, and he was pulled away. " And look here, constable," said tho magistrate, " you had better havo that dawg of his drowned 01' destroyed ; it is a wicious cur." " All right, your worship," was the response, while Dick, clutching Bigo tightly and despairingly, was | lugged rather roughly away. Now it chanced, that in tho constable, Sergeant Ilawsley suddenly discovered an old comrade, with whom ho immediately fraternised, and to whose kindly care he specially commended Dick, for the worthy non-commissioned officer was really interested in tho liomoloss but spirited lad who seemed to havo no friend but his dog, and was honestly concerned for the mistake of which ho knew himself to be the innocent cause. Thus he told Di ck to'' keep up his pecker til! to-morrow," when he should see him again ; meanwhile, with some forethought, he made arrangement about food for him, and went away, after which poor Dick, feeling very lonely and miserable, was confined in a small apartment—a kind of cell, with a wooden bed and couple of blankets as furniture, nothing more —wherein to pass the entiro day and following night as best he could ; his only solace amid his new affliction being that his dog was left with him at least till the time expired. Committed to his own reflections now, they took a very darkened, bitter turn indeed, as the silent and lonely hours of the day passed slowly—oh, how slowly !—on. In his solitude ho thought much over the whole situation which he found himself. His military ardour was considerably cooled, if not crushed ; his natural pride and sensitiveness had received more than one most serious shock. In the Western Fusiliers, _ he would not and could not associate with such repulsive fellows as Corporal Gutters and his companions ; thus he resolved if he could, to avoid it ; that gallant corps should not be favoured with his services therein, ncr would he undergo the fatal cermony of attestation therefor. . ,11 He remembered to liavo heard Montague Lonsdale say, that at this very period, many good fellows who had failed to commit the barbarisms of Chaucer to heart and the most obscure of Shakespeare to memory for Exams, and had failed to get suitable employment of any kind after years wasted in useless study, had enlisted ; and that in one hussar regiment, there was an entire troop of Public School and University men, who had pluckilv become troopers as their only opening in life ; while in the ranks of the famous Black Watch alone, there were no less than forty Scottish gentlemen serving as privates ; so all corps, thought Dick, could not bo like H. M. Fusiliers, with all tho mystical letters. Anyhow, he should " lovant." I He would turn a clean pair of

heels to the whole matter if possible, and just as the sun was setting and darkness closing, ho set about an examination of the place in which ho found himself, aided and inspired by all that he had read in his tales of boys' adventures by flood and field, and their hairbreadth escapes from savages, pirates, man-eating tigers, and demons too. The narrow closet or cell—if such it was—opened, he knew, off a corridor, adjoining the office or apartment, occupied by the Inspector and his constables, whose voices and heavy footsteps, muffled by distance and closed doors, he could hear from time to time. Its ceiling was lofty, and it had a small window somewhat high in the external wall but above his hermit-like couch, and thereby not inaccessible to one who climb deftly as a squirrel, like Dick. With boy-like agility he scrambled up, and through the dirt-ob-scured panes saw that it was only about thricc his own height from the ground without, and overlooked a kind of meadow, beyond which spread the open country ; while in the immediate foreground were some leafless trees and hedgerows, already becoming shrouded in the rising, silvery haze of evening. He found also that the window was ungrated, but securcd by a screw, stiffened by rust, through upper and lower sashes; thus his place of sequestration was certainly not one for prisoners of a desperate, class. But sashes, if open, would make an aperture so small that 110 fully-grown man of moderate size could have escaped thereby; but Dick was a boy—young, supple and slender—and boys can achieve feats of agility in which a grenadier would fail. So his spirits rose, and could he but get the window, or even the lower half thereof, open without noise or exciting an alarm, he resolved that his place in Woodstock should be vacant in the morn-

ing. This desire was enhanced by a certainty that once or twice lie heard the voice of Corporal Gutters in the constables', room. The darkness fell completely, and Bingo whined and crept close to him for companionship and warmth " Faith in a beloved superior is perhaps the most beautiful and affecting of all the attributes of a dog," says a writer; and certainly the little terrier had the most sublime faith in Dick. The latter could not bring himself to recline on, or even use in any work, the blanket assigned for his use. He was sharp enough to imagine, with great disgust, what manner of inmate might have used it last; and now, boy like, his spirit rose higher, as the time for action came nearer. But if his fingers proved unable to turn the old screw and open the window, or if Bingo barked at the attempt and raised an alarm —what | then?

Dick shrewdly expected that a final visit would be paid him, about or after nightfall. Then he would be left completely to himself, and have about fourteen hours of darkness and gloom in which to make the attempt to escape from his prison with all its abundant humiliations, and put as much distance between it and himself as possible. For the first time, perhaps, the degrading sensation of being a. prisoner came over the boy, when, amid the darkness, he heard heavy steps in the corridor without —a key grating in the door-lock, and saw a light stream like the long blade of a fiery sword through the keyhole, as the door was opened, and the colossal constable, in his glazed night-capp, peeped in, muttered, " all right, I see," —and again left him to darkness and solitude. " Now !" thought Dick, as he drew a long breath, lie would be solua now till morning, and ere then, he must have succeeded, or miserably failed. For a time he sat still, and seemed to hear only the pulsations of his heart. Alone—lie was again alone ! and thought and felt it to be a great adventure, to baffle the insolent and pitiful Pugwash, the _ escape from the Western Fusiliers and all connected therewith, and also put the law and its big myrmidons at defiance. There was no moon, but the stars shone clearly through the small window overhead. All was very without—so still that Dick could hear once or twice the clamour of a long string of aquatic birds winging their way to the fenny and marshy lands 011 the banks of the Gly nuo and Isis. He clambered up to the window, and with bated breath again looked through its cobwebby panes. Darkness lay everywhere; scarcely a light twinkled on that side of the town, and a great stillness, we have said, prevailed. He tried the sciew, clutching the knob with trembling fingers, and his heart seemed to die away on finding that it was immovI a ble—fast as tight turning and old | rust could make it. Perspiration burst upon his temples, and tlie exultant visage of old Pugwash, wedged between his stitt collars, came in fancy before him. What was he to do 1 To smash the glasses would not avail him and might only cause an alarm ; and he had be en deprived of his pocket-knife, witih which he might have cut round t he bolt. Again lie tried it, with all his strength and a prayer on his lips. It yielded —it mo- pod at last! Bxulautly, breathless" ly, slowly, ho

turned it round, till it came forth and lell on the plank bed below. Then Dick found that both sashes moved horizontally on pivots ; he pushed open the lower one and felt the chill air of the last night of November on his flushed and heated face. . Ho peered forth. Around him all was still, and silent, save the bark of a distant dog and the clock in the old Chantry Church tower striking the hour of eleven. The ground below looked far down—he could not see it in the hazo and obscurity, but judged correctly that it gave a drop of about fifteen feet. What if in dropping he broke a leg ? Well—happen what might, the attempt must be made now, though if Bingo barked in exultation on being brought forth, all might be lost yet. To muffle and break the fall of himself and his dog, he threw out the blankets, letting them drop in a heap pretty close to the wall. Then he put the terrier on the windowsill, and passing out feet foremost, let himself down to his full length by one arm and a hand, clutching Bingo by the other, and dropped deftly as a cat on the ground below —the concussion being alike, broken by the blankets and the soft wet turf on which they lay. Dick lighted on his feet, but fell prone ou his back, and though shaken, was only breathless for half a minute ; but not a bit tho worse for tho adventure, and still grasping his dog to prevent it from barking, he began his flight without the delay of a second. (To be continued.)