"Is Captain Bullen here?" he asked.
With a presentiment of evil, Lisle went out.
"The colonel has had a bad accident, sir. He was brought in, half an hour ago, by the servants. I understand that he asked for you; and three of us at once rode off, in different directions, to find you."
Lisle called Hallett and, in five minutes, they were mounted and dashed off. As they entered the house, they were met by the surgeon.
"Is he badly hurt"?" Lisle asked, anxiously.
"I fear that he is hurt to death, Captain Bullen. His horse slipped as it was taking a fence, and fell on the top of him. He has suffered severe internal injuries, and I greatly fear that there is not the least hope for him."
"Is he conscious?" Lisle asked, with deep emotion.
"Yes, he is conscious, and I believe he understands that his case is hopeless. He has asked for you, several times, since he was brought in; so you had better go to him, at once."
With a sinking heart, Lisle went upstairs. The colonel was lying on his bed.
"I am glad you have come in time, my dear boy," he said faintly, as Lisle entered. "I am afraid that I am done for, and it is a consolation for me to know that I have no near relatives who will regret my loss. I have had a good time of it, altogether; and would rather that, as I was not to die on the battlefield, death should come as it has. It is far better than if it came gradually.
"Sit by me, lad, till the end comes. I am sure it will not be long.
I am suffering terribly, and the sooner it comes, the better."
The ashy gray of the colonel"s face sufficed to tell Lisle that the end was, indeed, near at hand. The colonel only spoke two or three times and, at ten o"clock at night, pa.s.sed away painlessly.
Upon Lisle devolved the sad work of arranging his funeral. He wrote to the colonel"s lawyer, asking him to come down. Hallett had left the house at once, though Lisle earnestly begged him to stay till the funeral was over. The lawyer arrived on the morning of the funeral.
"I have taken upon myself, sir," Lisle said, "to make all the arrangements for the funeral, seeing that there was no one else to do it."
"You were the most proper person to do so," the lawyer said, gravely, "as you will see when the will is read, on our return from the grave."
When all was over, Lisle asked two or three of the colonel"s most intimate friends to be present at the reading of the will. It was a very short one. The colonel made bequests to several military charities; and then appointed his adopted son, Lisle Bullen, Lieutenant in His Majesty"s Rutlandshire regiment, the sole heir to all his property.
This came almost as a surprise to Lisle. The colonel had indeed told him that he had adopted him, and he was prepared to learn that he had left him a legacy; but he had no idea that he would be left sole heir.
"I congratulate you, sir," the lawyer said, when he folded up the paper. "Colonel Houghton stated to me, fully, his reasons for making such a disposition of his property and, as he had no near relations, I was able to approve of it heartily. I may say that he has left nearly sixteen thousand pounds. The other small legacies will take about a thousand, and you will therefore have some fifteen thousand pounds, which is all invested in first-rate securities."
"I feel my good fortune, sir," Lisle said quietly, "but I would that it had not come to me for many years, and not in such a manner."
The meeting soon after broke up, and Lisle went up to town and joined Hallett at the hotel they both used.
"Well, I congratulate you heartily," Hallett said, when he heard the contents of the will. "It is a good windfall, but not a bit more than you deserve."
"I would rather not have had it," Lisle said, sorrowfully. "I owe much to the colonel, who has for the past three years given me an allowance of two hundred pounds a year; and I would far rather have gone on with that, than come into a fortune in this manner."
"I can understand that," Hallett said; "the colonel was a first-rate old fellow, and his death will be an immense loss to you. Still, but for you it would have come three years ago and, after all, it is better to be killed hunting than to be shot to pieces by savages.
"Well, it will bring you in six or seven hundred pounds a year, a sum not to be despised. It will enable you to leave the army, if you like; though I should advise you to stick to it. Here are you a captain at twenty-one, a V. C. and D. S. O. man, with a big career before you and, no doubt, you will get a brevet majority before long."
"I have certainly not the least idea of leaving the army. I was born in it, and hope to remain in it as long as I can do good work."
"What are you going to do now?"
"I shall go down there again, in a fortnight or so."
"Would you be disposed to take me with you?"
"Certainly I shall, if you will go. I had not thought of asking you, because everything must go on quietly there, for a time; but really I should prize your company very much."
"Well, the fact is," Hallett said, rather shamefacedly, "I am rather smitten with Miss Merton, and I have some hopes that she is a little taken with me. I heard that she has money but, although that is satisfactory, I would take her, if she would have me, without a penny. You know I have three hundred pounds a year of my own; which is quite enough, with my pay, to enable us to get on comfortably. Still, I won"t say that, if she has as much more, we could not do things better."
Lisle laughed.
"I thought you were not a marrying man, Hallett! In fact, you have more than once told me so."
"Well, I didn"t think I was," Hallett admitted, "but you see, circ.u.mstances alter cases."
"They do, Hallett, and your case seems to be a bad one. However, old man, I wish you luck. She is an exceedingly nice girl and, if I were ten years older, I might have been smitten myself; and then, you know, your chance would have been nowhere."
"I quite feel that," Hallett said; "a V.C. is a thing no girl can stand against.
"If you will take me, I will go down with you and stay a little time, and then try my luck."
"That you certainly shall do. I can hardly do anything in the way of festivities, at present; but there is no reason why you should not enter into anything that is going on."
So they went down together. Ten days later, all the families round came to pay visits of condolence; and to each Lisle said that, although he himself could not think of going out, at present, his friend Hallett, who had come to stay with him for a month, would be glad to join in any quiet festivity. So Hallett was frequently invited out, Lisle accompanying him only to the very quietest of dinners.
One evening Hallett returned in the highest glee.
"Congratulate me, my dear fellow," he said. "Miss Merton has accepted me and, after she had done so, I had the inevitable talk with her father. He told me, frankly, that he had hoped that his daughter would make a better match. I of course agreed with him, heartily; but he went on to say that, after all, our happiness was the first consideration, and that he felt sure that it would be secured by her marriage with me. He said that he should allow her four hundred pounds a year, during his and her mother"s lifetime.
At their death there would be a small addition to her allowance, but naturally the bulk of his property would go to her brother. Of course, I expressed myself as infinitely grateful. I said that he had not enquired about my income, but that I had three hundred pounds a year, in addition to my pay; and should probably, some day, come into more. He expressed himself as content and, as I had expected, asked me whether I intended to leave the army. I said that that was a matter for his daughter to decide; but that, for my part, I should certainly prefer to remain in the service, for I really did not see what I should do with myself, if I left it. I said that I had been very fortunate in having, to some small extent, distinguished myself; but that if, after some experience of India, she did not care for the life, I would promise to retire."
""I think you are right," he said. "It is a bad thing for a young man of seven or eight and twenty to be without employment. Your income would be insufficient to enable you to live, with comfort, as a country gentleman; and you would naturally find time lie heavy upon your hands, if you had nothing to do."
"He was good enough to say that he thought his daughter"s happiness would be safe in my hands and, as she would be able to have every luxury in India, he thought that the arrangement would be a very satisfactory one. It is awfully good of him, of course, for she could have made an infinitely better match."
"You have, of course, not settled anything about the date, Hallett?"
"No; I expect we shall settle about that when I see her, tomorrow.
Of course, it must be pretty early, as we had letters, yesterday, to go up to town to be examined by the board; and we have both picked up so much that, I fancy, we shall be ordered back to our regiments pretty sharply. You see, every man is wanted at present and, as we both had a year"s leave before we went out to West Africa, it is not unnatural that they should send us off again, as soon as they can. I dare say, however, they will give us a couple of months; and I suppose we shall want a month for our honeymoon, in which case we ought to be spliced in a month"s time; if she can get ready in that time, which of course she can do, if she hurries up the milliners and other people."
"I have no doubt she could, in the circ.u.mstances," Lisle laughed.
"Well, old man, I do congratulate you most heartily. She certainly is a very charming young woman. I expect I shall not get leave again, till the regiment comes back; which will be another five years yet, and perhaps two or three years longer, if there is any action going on anywhere. I can tell you I am not so hot about fighting as I used to be. The Tirah was sharp, but it was nothing to West Africa, which was enough to cure one of any desire to take part in fighting.
"If we are going to have a fight with Russia, I certainly should like to take part in that. That would be a tremendous affair, and I fancy that our Indian soldiers will give a good account of themselves. If it is to be, I do hope it will come before I leave the army. I am certainly in no hurry to do so."
"You would be a fool, if you were," Hallett said. "Thanks to your luck in getting a commission at sixteen, and to the loss of so many officers in the Tirah, you are now a captain at twenty-one, certainly the youngest captain in the service. Of course, if there is no war, you can"t expect to continue going up at that pace; but you certainly ought to be a major at thirty, if not before. You may command a regiment within five or six years later, and be a brigadier soon after that, for you will have that by seniority. Of course, if you marry you will have to consider your wife"s wishes; but she is not likely to object to your staying on, if you get to be a major, for a major"s wife is by no means an unimportant item in a regiment."
"Ah! Well, we needn"t think about that," Lisle laughed, "especially as, if there is war with Russia before we come home, a good many of us will certainly stay out permanently. Well, old man, I do congratulate you, most heartily."