But it was characteristic of him, and we have clung to it for that reason, in a spirit perhaps _too_ piously conservative. Forty-two ladies! My good fellow"--he turned to the patient--"I really think-- if your leg is equal to it--a short stroll in the fresh air may be permitted. Pray do not think we desire to hurry your cure.
Even setting aside the dictates of charity, and our natural tenderness towards one who, as I understand, has bled for our common country, we owe you something"--the Major"s fingers plucked nervously at the bed-clothes--"some reparation," the Doctor went on, "for the--er--character of your reception. In short, I hope, on your complete recovery, to find you some steady employment, such as too many of our returning heroes are at this moment seeking in vain.
In the meanwhile our town has some lions which may amuse your convalescence--a figurative term, meaning objects of interest."
Once or twice, in the course of his first stroll, the Major"s eyes came near to br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. The town itself had suffered surprisingly little change. The Collector--he seemed scarcely a day older--stood as of old at the head of the Custom House stairs, and surveyed the world benignly with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. Before the Major"s own doorway the myrtles were in bloom, and a few China roses on the well-trimmed standards. By the Broad Ship as of old his nostrils caught the odours of tar and hemp with a whiff of smoke from a schooner"s galley (the _Ranting Blade_, with her figure-head repainted, but otherwise much the same as ever).
Miss Jex, the postmistress, still peered over her blind. She studied the Major"s wooden leg with interest. He, on his part, seemed to detect that the down on her upper lip had sensibly lightened in colour. _En revanche_, from the corner of his eye, as he pa.s.sed the open door, he saw that the portrait over the counter (supposed of yore to represent the Prince Regent) wore a frame of black ribbon.
The black, alas! was rusty.
The manners of the children had not improved. Half a dozen urchins, running into him here by the corner of the post-office on their way from school, fell back in a ring and began to call "Boney!"
derisively. He escaped from them into the churchyard, and pa.s.sing up between the graves, rested for a while, panting in the cool of the porch.
The door stood ajar. Pushing it open, he stepped within and paused again, half terrified by the unfamiliar _tap-tap_ of his wooden leg on the pavement. The sunshine lay in soft panels of light across the floor, and ran in sharper lines along the tops of the pews, worn to a polish by generations of hands that had opened and shut their doors.
Aloft, where the rays filtered through the clerestory windows, their innumerable motes swam like gold-dust held in solution.
The Major found his own pew, dropped into the familiar seat, and strove to collect his thoughts. A week ago, on his way from Plymouth, it had seemed the easiest thing in the world to reveal himself and step back into his own. The only question had been how to select the most impressive moment.
His eyes, travelling along the wall on his right, encountered an unfamiliar monument among the many familiar ones; an oval slab of black marble enclosed in a gilt wreath and inscribed with gilt lettering. He leaned forward, peering closer, blinking against the sunlight that poured through the window.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SOLOMON HYMEN, ESQUIRE SEVEN TIMES MAYOR OF THIS BOROUGH AND MAJOR COMMANDING THE TROY VOLUNTEER ARTILLERY UNFORTUNATELY AND UNTIMELY SLAIN IN ACTION OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE NEAR BOULOGNE ON MAY 15TH, MDCCIV.
THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY SUBSCRIPTION AMONG HIS SORROWING FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE BOROUGH HE, LIVING, ADORNED WITH HIS WISDOM AND DYING, ENDOWED WITH HIS WEALTH AS WITH HIS EXAMPLE.
FORTIBUS ET COELUM PATRIA
He spelled out the inscription slowly, and, turning at the sound of a footstep in the porch, was aware of a tall figure in the doorway--his own faithful Scipio.
Least of all was Scipio changed. Ten years apparently had not even tarnished his livery. It shone in its accustomed scarlet and green and gold in the rays which, falling through the windows of the south aisle, lit up his white teeth and his habitual gentle grin.
"Mistah will be studyin" de board--berry fine board. Not so fine board in Cornwall, dey tell me."
The Major turned his face, avoiding recognition.
"No, not dat; dat"s modern trash," went on Scipio, affably, following his gaze. "Good man, all same, Ma.s.sa Hymen; lef plenty money.
One hundred fifty pound. Lef Cai Tamblyn fifty. Every person say remarkable difference. But doan" you look at _him_; he"s modern trash. Ma.s.sa Hymen lef" me _one_ hundred fifty pound. Dat all go to board up yonder, you see; "Scipio Johnson, Esquire, of this Parish"
in red letters an" gilt twirls. I doan" mind tellin" you. De hull parish an" Lawyer Chinn has it drafted--Vicar he promises me it shall go in--"Scipio Johnson, Esquire, _of_ this Parish," an" twiddles round de capital letters. Man, I served Mas" Hymen han" an" foot, wet an" dry, an" look like he las" anudder twenty year."
"You mean to say that I--that you, I mean--"
"Dat"s so," put in Scipio, nodding cheerfully, while the stained-gla.s.s windows flung flecks of red and blue on his honest ebony features. "An" Cai Tamblyn all de while no better"n a fool.
"_Him_," he"d sneer, not playin" up, but pullin" his cross face.
Dat"s a lesson if ebber dere was one. Cai Tamblyn left with fifty, an" me with three time fifty. "To my faithful servant, Scipio Johnson. . . ." And so Miss Marty, when it came to choose, took me on--Scipio Johnson, Esquire, of this Parish--and Cai Tamblyn no more than "Mister," nor ebber a hope of it."
The Major found himself in the churchyard, staring at a headstone.
He did not remember the stone, yet it seemed by no means a new one.
Weather-stains ran down the lettering and lichen spotted it.
He read the name. It was the name of a man whom he had left hale and young--a promising corporal.
He made his way back slowly to the hospital, leaning heavily on his stick. Strange shrill noises brought him to a halt on the threshold.
They came from the back of the house.
At the sound of his wooden leg in the brick pa.s.sage, Cai Tamblyn thrust his head out from the kitchen doorway.
"You come in," said he. "Please the Lord, the worst is over; but I had to tell her."
"Her?" echoed the Major in bewilderment. "Who?"
"Why, you see, fixed up as we were here--the woman with six empty beds to nurse, and me on "tother side with a roomful o" momentoes, an" no end to it but the grave--there seemed no way out but matterimony. What with my fifty an" her little savin"s we might ha"
managed it, too, comfertable enough. But when along comes you an"
upsets the apple-cart, w"y, in justice, the woman had to be told.
Which it took her like a slap in the wind, an" I"m surprised the way she"d set her heart on it. But never you mind; she"s sensible enough when she comes round."
"Cai," said the Major, solemnly, "I thought we had agreed that no one was to be told?"
"So we did, sir," answered Mr. Tamblyn, setting his jaw. "But, come to think it over, "twasn"t fair to the woman. Not bein" a married man yourself, sir, or as good as such--"
"Excuse me," said the Major, lifting a hand. "I quite well understand. But suppose that I have not come back after all!"
CHAPTER XXII.
WINDS UP WITH A MERRY-GO-ROUND.
Troy on a Regatta Day differs astonishingly from Troy on any other day in the year, and yet until you have seen us on a Regatta Day you have not seen Troy.
Once every August, on a Monday afternoon, the frenzy descends upon us; and then for three days we dress our town in bunting and bang starting guns and finishing guns, and put on fancy dresses, and march in procession with j.a.panese lanterns, and dance, and stare at pyrotechnical displays. But the centre, the pivot, the axis of our revelry is always the merry-go-round on the Town Quay.
"The merry-go-round, the merry-go-round, the merry-go-round at Troy, They whirl around, they gallop around, man, woman, and maid and boy!"
Yachtsmen, visitors, farmers and country wives, sober citizens and mothers of families, all meet centripetally and mount and are whirled to the mad strains of the barrel-organ under the flaming naphtha, around the revolving pillar where the mirrored images chase one another too quickly for thought to answer their reflections.
We make no toil of our pleasure; yet, if you will mark the distinction, it keeps us hard at work, and reflection must wait until Thursday morning. Then we dismiss the yachts on their Channel race westward. We fire the last gun, pull down the blue Peter, and off they go. We draw a long breath, stow away our remaining blank cartridges, pocket the stopwatch, heap the recall numbers together, and, having redded up the jolly-boat, light our pipes and sit and gaze awhile after our retreating visitors. They go from us silent as great white moths; but, silent themselves, they take, as they brought, all the noise and racket with them. Our revel is over; behind us the harbour lies almost deserted, and we row back to our diurnal peace.
To be sure, in the days of which I write, there were no yachts to visit us. But three of His Majesty"s training-brigs had arrived, bringing their gigs and long-boats, and sailing cutters, with the racing-sh.e.l.ls in which the oarsmen of Dock were to do battle with our champions of Troy, and a couple of crews of the famous Saltash fishwomen who annually gave us an exhibition race for a purse of gold and in the evening danced quadrilles and country reels on the quarter-deck with His Majesty"s officers.
The town, on its part, had made all due and zealous preparations; and at eight o"clock in the morning, when the Major stepped out of the hospital for a look at the weather (which was hazy but warm, with promise of a cloudless noon), already the streets breathed festival.
Sir Felix"s coppices had been thinned as usual for the occasion, and scores of small saplings, larch and beech and hazel, lined the narrow streets, their sharpened stems planted between the cobbles, their leafy tops braced back against the house-fronts and stayed with ropes which, leading through the upper windows, were made fast within to bars of grates, table-legs and bed-posts. Over them, from house to house, strings of flags waved in the light morning breeze, and over these again the air was jocund with the distant tunding of a drum and the voices of flute and clarionet calling men to mirth in the Town Square.
The Major gave a glance up and down the street and retired indoors to prepare his breakfast, for he was alone. Cai Tamblyn and the widow Snell had the day before departed--on their honeymoon.
To arrange that his honeymoon should take him from Troy on the day of all days to which every other soul in the town looked forward, was quite of a piece with Cai Tamblyn"s sardonic humour. But he surely excelled himself when, the day before his marriage, he called on the Mayor and begged leave to appoint the patient in the hospital as his _loc.u.m tenens_ for the week.
"The man"s well enough to look after the place," he urged; "and you won"t find him neglectin" it to go gaddin" round the shows. A wooden leg"s a wonderful steadier at fair-times." And the Doctor a.s.sented.
It were too much to say that his appointment, when Cai Tamblyn reported it, touched our hero"s sense of humour, for he had none; but he winced under the dreadful irony of it.
"Do you know what you"re asking?" he cried. "Suppose that visitors call--as they will. Would you have me show them round and point out my own relics?"
"Damme, and I thought I was givin" you a bit o" fun!" said Cai, scratching his head. "It can"t be often a man finds hisself in your position; and in the old days when you got hold of a rarity you liked to make the most of it."