Barrington. Volume 1

“You don’t know what an opportune visit you have made me, Barrington,” said he; “but first, to present you to my friend, Captain Stapylton – or Major – which is it?”

“Captain. This day week, the ‘Gazette,’ perhaps, may call me Major.”

“Always a pleasure to me to meet a soldier, sir,” said Barrington; “and I own to the weakness of saying, all the greater when a Dragoon. My own boy was a cavalryman.”

“It was exactly of him we were talking,” said Withering; “my friend here has had a long experience of India, and has frankly told me much I was totally ignorant of. From one thing to another we rambled on till we came to discuss our great suit with the Company, and Captain Stapylton assures me that we have never taken the right road in the case.”

“Nay, I could hardly have had such presumption; I merely remarked, that without knowing India and its habits, you could scarcely be prepared to encounter the sort of testimony that would be opposed to you, or to benefit by what might tend greatly in your favor.”

“Just so – continue,” said Withering, who looked as though he had got an admirable witness on the table.

“I’m astonished to hear from the Attorney-General,” resumed Stapylton, “that in a case of such magnitude as this you have never thought of sending out an efficient agent to India to collect evidence, sift testimony, and make personal inquiry as to the degree of credit to be accorded to many of the witnesses. This inquisitorial process is the very first step in every Oriental suit; you start at once, in fact, by sapping all the enemy’s works, – countermining him everywhere.”

“Listen, Barrington, – listen to this; it is all new to us.”

“Everything being done by documentary evidence, there is a wide field for all the subtlety of the linguist; and Hindostanee has complexities enough to gratify the most inordinate appetite for quibble. A learned scholar – a Moonshee of erudition – is, therefore, the very first requisite, great care being taken to ascertain that he is not in the pay of the enemy.”

“What rascals!” muttered Barrington.

“Very deep – very astute dogs, certainly, but perhaps not much more unprincipled than some fellows nearer home,” continued the Captain, sipping his wine; “the great peculiarity of this class is, that while employing them in the most palpably knavish manner, and obtaining from them services bought at every sacrifice of honor, they expect all the deference due to the most umblemished integrity.”

“I’d see them – I won’t say where – first,” broke out Barrington; “and I ‘d see my lawsuit after them, if only to be won by their intervention.”

“Remember, sir,” said Stapylton, calmly, “that such are the weapons employed against you. That great Company does not, nor can it afford to, despise such auxiliaries. The East has its customs, and the natures of men are not light things to be smoothed down by conventionalities. Were you, for instance, to measure a testimony at Calcutta by the standard of Westminster Hall, you would probably do a great and grievous injustice.”

“Just so,” said Withering; “you are quite right there, and I have frequently found myself posed by evidence that I felt must be assailable. Go on, and tell my friend what you were mentioning to me before he came in.”

“I am reluctant, sir,” said Stapylton, modestly, “to obtrude upon you, in a matter of such grand importance as this, the mere gossip of a mess-table, but, as allusion has been made to it, I can scarcely refrain. It was when serving in another Presidency an officer of ours, who had been long in Bengal, one night entered upon the question of Colonel Barrington’s claims. He quoted the words of an uncle – I think he said his uncle – who was a member of the Supreme Council, and said, ‘Barrington ought to have known we never could have conceded this right of sovereignty, but he ought also to have known that we would rather have given ten lacs of rupees than have it litigated.’”

“Have you that gentleman’s name?” asked Barrington, eagerly.

“I have; but the poor fellow is no more, – he was of that fatal expedition to Beloochistan eight years ago.”

“You know our case, then, and what we claim?” asked Barrington.

“Just as every man who has served in India knows it, – popularly, vaguely. I know that Colonel Barrington was, as the adopted son of a Rajah, invested with supreme power, and only needed the ratification of Great Britain to establish a sovereignty; and I have heard” – he laid stress on the word “heard” – “that if it had not been for some allegation of plotting against the Company’s government, he really might ultimately have obtained that sanction.”

“Just what I have said over and over again?” burst in Barrington. “It was the worst of treachery that mined my poor boy.”

“I have heard that also,” said Stapylton, and with a degree of feeling and sympathy that made the old man’s heart yearn towards him.

“How I wish you had known him!” said he, as he drew his hand over his eyes. “And do you know, sir,” said he, warming, “that if I still follow up this suit, devoting to it the little that is left to me of life or fortune, that I do so less for any hope of gain than to place my poor boy before the world with his honor and fame unstained.”

“My old friend does himself no more than justice there!” cried Withering.

“A noble object, – may you have all success in it!” said Stapylton. He paused, and then, in a tone of deeper feeling, added: “It will, perhaps, seem a great liberty, the favor I’m about to ask; but remember that, as a brother soldier with your son I have some slight claim to approach you. Will you allow me to offer you such knowledge as I possess of India, to aid your suit? Will you associate me, in fact, with your cause? No higher one could there be than the vindication of a brave man’s honor.”

“I thank you with all my heart and soul!” cried the old man, grasping his hand. “In my own name, and in that of my poor dear granddaughter, I thank you.”

“Oh, then, Colonel Barrington has left a daughter? I was not aware of that,” said Stapylton, with a certain coldness.

“And a daughter who knows no more of this suit than of our present discussion of it,” said Withering.

In the frankness of a nature never happier than when indulging its own candor, Barrington told how it was to see and fetch back with him the same granddaughter he had left a spot he had not quitted for years. “She ‘s coming back to a very humble home, it is true; but if you, sir,” said he, addressing Stapylton, “will not despise such lowly fare as a cottage can afford you, and would condescend to come and see us, you shall have the welcome that is due to one who wishes well to my boy’s memory.”

“And if you do,” broke in Withering, “you’ll see the prettiest cottage and the first hostess in Europe; and here ‘s to her health, – Miss Dinah Barrington!”

“I ‘m not going to refuse that toast, though I have just passed the decanter,” said Peter. “Here ‘s to the best of sisters!”

“Miss Barrington!” said Stapylton, with a courteous bow; and he drained his glass to the bottom.

“And that reminds me I promised to be back to tea with her,” said Barrington; and renewing with all warmth his invitation to Stapylton, and cordially taking leave of his old friend, he left the house and hastened to his hotel.

“What a delightful evening I have passed, Dinah!” said he, cheerfully, as he entered.

“Which means that the Attorney-General gave you a grand review and sham fight of all the legal achievements of the term; but bear in mind, brother, there is no professional slang so odious to me as the lawyer’s, and I positively hate a joke which cost six-and-eightpence, or even three-and-fourpence.” <

“Nothing of this kind was there at all, Dinah! Withering had a friend with him, a very distinguished soldier, who had seen much Indian service, and entered with a most cordial warmth into poor George’s case. He knew it, – as all India knows it, by report, – and frankly told us where our chief difficulties lay, and the important things we were neglecting.”

“How generous! of a perfect stranger too!” said she, with a scarcely detectable tone of scorn.

“Not – so to say – an utter stranger, for George was known to him by reputation and character.”

“And who is, I suppose I am to say, your friend, Peter?”

“Captain or Major Stapylton, of the Regent’s Hussars?”

“Oh! I know him, – or, rather, I know of him.”

“What and how, Dinah? I am very curious to hear this.”

“Simply, that while young Conyers was at the cottage he showed me a letter from that gentleman, asking him in the Admiral’s name, to Cobham, and containing, at the same time, a running criticism on the house and his guests far more flippant than creditable.”

“Men do these things every day, Dinah, and there is no harm in it.”

“That all depends upon whom the man is. The volatile gayety of a high-spirited nature, eager for effect and fond of a sensation, will lead to many an indiscretion; but very different from this is the well-weighed sarcasm of a more serious mind, who not only shots his gun home, but takes time to sight ere he fires it. I hear that Captain Stapylton is a grand, cold, thoughtful man, of five or six-and-thirty. Is that so?”

“Perhaps he may be. He ‘s a splendid fellow to look at, and all the soldier. But you shall see for yourself, and I ‘ll warrant you ‘ll not harbor a prejudice against him.”

“Which means, you have asked him on a visit, brother Peter?”

“Scarcely fair to call it on a visit, Dinah,” blundered he out, in confusion; “but I have said with what pleasure we should see him under our roof when we returned.”

“I solemnly declare my belief, that if you went to a cattle-show you ‘d invite every one you met there, from the squire to the pig-jobber, never thinking the while that nothing is so valueless as indiscriminate hospitality, even if it were not costly. Nobody thanks you, – no one is grateful for it.”

“And who wants them to be grateful, Dinah? The pleasure is in the giving, not in receiving. You see your friends with their holiday faces on, when they sit round the table. The slowest and dreariest of them tries to look cheery; and the stupid dog who has never a jest in him has at least a ready laugh for the wit of his neighbor.”

“Does it not spoil some of your zest for this pleasantry to think how it is paid for, brother?”

“It might, perhaps, if I were to think of it; but, thank Heaven! it’s about one of the last things would come into my head. My dear sister, there’s no use in always treating human nature as if it was sick, for if you do, it will end by being hypochondriac!”

“I protest, brother Peter, I don’t know where you meet all the good and excellent people you rave about, and I feel it very churlish of you that you never present any of them to me!” And so saying, she gathered her knitting materials hastily together, and reminding him that it was past eleven o’clock, she uttered a hurried good-night, and departed.

CHAPTER XXVI. A VERY SAD GOOD-BYE

Conyers sat alone in his barrack-room, very sad and dispirited. Hunter had left that same morning, and the young soldier felt utterly friendless. He had obtained some weeks’ leave of absence, and already two days of the leave had gone over, and he had not energy to set out if he had even a thought as to the whither. A variety of plans passed vaguely through his head. He would go down to Portsmouth and see Hunter off; or he would nestle down in the little village of Inistioge and dream away the days in quiet forgetfulness; or he would go over to Paris, which he had never seen, and try whether the gay dissipations of that brilliant city might not distract and amuse him. The mail from India had arrived and brought no letter from his father, and this, too, rendered him irritable and unhappy. Not that his father was a good correspondent; he wrote but rarely, and always like one who snatched a hurried moment to catch a post. Still, if this were a case of emergency, any great or critical event in his life, he was sure his father would have informed him; and thus was it that he sat balancing doubt against doubt, and setting probability against probability, till his very head grew addled with the labor of speculation.

It was already late; all the usual sounds of barrack life had subsided, and although on the opposite side of the square the brilliant lights of the mess-room windows showed where the convivial spirits of the regiment were assembled, all around was silent and still. Suddenly there came a dull heavy knock to the door, quickly followed by two or three others.

Not caring to admit a visitor, whom, of course, he surmised would be some young brother-officer full of the plans and projects of the mess, he made no reply to the summons, nor gave any token of his presence. The sounds, however, were redoubled, and with an energy that seemed to vouch for perseverance; and Conyers, partly in anger, and partly in curiosity, went to the door and opened it. It was not till after a minute or two that he was able to recognize the figure before him. It was Tom Dill, but without a hat or neckcloth, his hair dishevelled, his face colorless, and his clothes torn, while from a recent wound in one hand the blood flowed fast, and dropped on the floor. The whole air and appearance of the young fellow so resembled drunkenness that Conyers turned a stern stare upon him as he stood in the centre of the room, and in a voice of severity said, “By what presumption, sir, do you dare to present yourself in this state before me?”

“You think I’m drunk, sir, but I am not,” said he, with a faltering accent and a look of almost imploring misery.

“What is the meaning of this state, then? What disgraceful row have you been in?”

“None, sir. I have cut my hand with the glass on the barrack-wall, and torn my trousers too; but it’s no matter, I ‘ll not want them long.”

“What do you mean by all this? Explain yourself.”

“May I sit down, sir, for I feel very weak?” but before the permission could be granted, his knees tottered, and he fell in a faint on the floor. Conyers knelt down beside him, bathed his temples with water, and as soon as signs of animation returned, took him up in his arms and laid him at full length on a sofa.

In the vacant, meaningless glance of the poor fellow as he looked first around him, Conyers could mark how he was struggling to find out where he was.

“You are with me, Tom, – with your friend Conyers,” said he, holding the cold clammy hand between his own.

“Thank you, sir. It is very good of you. I do not deserve it,” said he, in a faint whisper.

“My poor boy, you mustn’t say that; I am your friend. I told you already I would be so.”

“But you ‘ll not be my friend when I tell you – when I tell you – all;” and as the last word dropped, he covered his face with both his hands, and burst into a heavy passion of tears.

“Come, come, Tom, this is not manly; bear up bravely, bear up with courage, man. You used to say you had plenty of pluck if it were to be tried.”

“So I thought I had, sir, but it has all left me;” and he sobbed as if his heart was breaking. “But I believe I could bear anything but this,” said he, in a voice shaken by convulsive throes. “It is the disgrace, – that ‘s what unmans me.”

“Take a glass of wine, collect yourself, and tell me all about it.”

“No, sir. No wine, thank you; give me a glass of water. There, I am better now; my brain is not so hot. You are very good to me, Mr. Conyers, but it ‘s the last time I’ll ever ask it, – the very last time, sir; but I ‘ll remember it all my life.”

“If you give way in this fashion, Tom, I ‘ll not think you the stout-hearted fellow I once did.”

“No, sir, nor am I. I ‘ll never be the same again. I feel it here. I feel as if something gave, something broke.” And he laid his hand over his heart and sighed heavily.

“Well, take your own time about it, Tom, and let me hear if I cannot be of use to you.”

“No, sir, not now. Neither you nor any one else can help me now. It’s all over, Mr. Conyers, – it’s all finished.”

“What is over, – what is finished?”

“And so, as I thought it would n’t do for one like me to be seen speaking to you before people, I stole away and climbed over the barrack-wall. I cut my hand on the glass, too, but it’s nothing. And here I am, and here’s the money you gave me; I’ve no need of it now.” And as he laid some crumpled bank-notes on the table, his overcharged heart again betrayed him, and he burst into tears. “Yes, sir, that’s what you gave me for the College, but I was rejected.”

“Rejected, Tom! How was that? Be calm, my poor fellow, and tell me all about it quietly.”

“I’ll try, sir, I will, indeed; and I’ll tell you nothing but the truth, that you may depend upon.” He took a great drink of water, and went on. “If there was one man I was afraid of in the world, it was Surgeon Asken, of Mercer’s Hospital. I used to be a dresser there, and he was always angry with me, exposing me before the other students, and ridiculing me, so that if anything was done badly in the wards, he ‘d say, ‘This is some of Master Dill’s work, is n’t it?’ Well, sir, would you believe it, on the morning I went up for my examination, Dr. Coles takes ill, and Surgeon Asken is called on to replace him. I did n’t know it till I was sent for to go in, and my head went round, and I could n’t see, and a cold sweat came over me, and I was so confused that when I got into the room I went and sat down beside the examiners, and never knew what they were laughing at.

“‘I have no doubt, Mr. Dill, you ‘ll occupy one of these places at some future day,’ says Dr. Willes, ‘but for the present your seat is yonder.’ I don’t remember much more after that, till Mr. Porter said, ‘Don’t be so nervous, Mr. Dill; collect yourself; I am persuaded you know what I am asking you, if you will not be flurried.’ And all I could say was, ‘God bless you for that speech, no matter how it goes with me’ and they all laughed out.

“It was Asken’s turn now, and he began. ‘You are destined for the navy, I understand, sir?’

“‘No, sir; for the army,’ said I.

“‘From what we have seen to-day, you ‘ll prove an ornament to either service. Meanwhile, sir, it will be satisfactory to the court to have your opinion on gun-shot wounds. Describe to us the case of a man laboring under the worst form of concussion of the brain, and by what indications you would distinguish it from fracture of the base of the skull, and what circumstances might occur to render the distinction more difficult, and what impossible?’ That was his question, and if I was to live a hundred years I ‘ll never forget a word in it, – it’s written on my heart, I believe, for life.

“‘Go on, sir,’ said he, ‘the court is waiting for you.’

“‘Take the case of concussion first,’ said Dr. Willes.

“‘I hope I may be permitted to conduct my own examination in my own manner,’ said Asken.

“That finished me, and I gave a groan that set them all laughing again.

“‘Well, sir, I ‘m waiting,’ said Asken. ‘You can have no difficulty to describe concussion, if you only give us your present sensations.’

“‘That’s as true as if you swore it,’ said I. ‘I ‘m just as if I had a fall on the crown of my head. There’s a haze over my eyes, and a ringing of bells in my ears, and a feeling as if my brain was too big.’

“‘Take my word for it, Mr. Dill,’ said he, sneeringly, ‘the latter is a purely deceptive sensation; the fault lies in the opposite direction. Let us, however, take something more simple;’ and with that he described a splinter wound of the scalp, with the whole integuments torn in fragments, and gunpowder and sticks and sand all mixed up with the flap that hung down over the patient’s face. ‘Now,’ said he, after ten minutes’ detail of this, – ‘now,’ said he, ‘when you found the man in this case, you ‘d take out your scalpel, perhaps, and neatly cut away all these bruised and torn integuments?’

“‘I would, sir,’ cried I, eagerly.

“‘I knew it,’ said he, with a cry of triumph, – ‘I knew it. I ‘ve no more to ask you. You may retire.’

“I got up to leave the room, but a sudden flash went through me, and I said out boldly, —

“‘Am I passed? Tell me at once. Put me out of pain, for I can’t bear any more!’

“‘If you’ll retire for a few minutes,’ said the President —

“‘My heart will break, sir,’ said I, ‘if I ‘m to be in suspense any more. Tell me the worst at once.’

“And I suppose they did tell me, for I knew no more till I found myself in the housekeeper’s room, with wet cloths on my head, and the money you see there in the palm of my hand. That told everything. Many were very kind to me, telling how it happened to this and to that man, the first time; and that Asken was thought very unfair, and so on; but I just washed my face with cold water, and put on my hat and went away home, that is, to where I lodged, and I wrote to Polly just this one line: ‘Rejected; I ‘m not coming back.’ And then I shut the shutters and went to bed in my clothes as I was, and I slept sixteen hours without ever waking. When I awoke, I was all right. I could n’t remember everything that happened for some time, but I knew it all at last, and so I went off straight to the Royal Barracks and ‘listed.”

“Enlisted? – enlisted?”

“Yes, sir, in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Foot, now in India, and sending off drafts from Cork to join them on Tuesday. It was out of the dépôt at the bridge I made my escape to-night to come and see you once more, and to give you this with my hearty blessing, for you were the only one ever stood to me in the world, – the only one that let me think for a moment I could be a gentleman!”

“Come, come, this is all wrong and hasty and passionate, Tom. You have no right to repay your family in this sort; this is not the way to treat that fine-hearted girl who has done so much for you; this is but an outbreak of angry selfishness.”

“These are hard words, sir, very hard words, and I wish you had not said them.”

“Hard or not, you deserve them; and it is their justice that wounds you.”

“I won’t say that it is not, sir. But it isn’t justice I ‘m asking for, but forgiveness. Just one word out of your mouth to say, ‘I ‘m sorry for you, Tom;’ or, ‘I wish you well.’”

“So I do, my poor fellow, with all my heart,” cried Con-yers, grasping his hand and pressing it cordially, “and I ‘ll get you out of this scrape, cost what it may.”

“If you mean, sir, that I am to get my discharge, it’s better to tell the truth at once. I would n’t take it. No, sir, I ‘ll stand by what I ‘ve done. I see I never could be a doctor, and I have my doubts, too, if I ever could be a gentleman; but there’s something tells me I could be a soldier, and I’ll try.”

Conyers turned from him with an impatient gesture, and walked the room in moody silence.

“I know well enough, sir,” continued Tom, “what every one will say; perhaps you yourself are thinking it this very minute: ‘It ‘s all out of his love of low company he ‘s gone and done this; he’s more at home with those poor ignorant boys there than he would be with men of education and good manners.’ Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it is ‘n’t! But there ‘s one thing certain, which is, that I ‘ll never try again to be anything that I feel is clean above me, and I ‘ll not ask the world to give me credit for what I have not the least pretension to.”

“Have you reflected,” said Conyers, slowly, “that if you reject my assistance now, it will be too late to ask for it a few weeks, or even a few days hence?”

“I have thought of all that, sir. I ‘ll never trouble you about myself again.”

“My dear Tom,” said Conyers, as he laid his arm on the other’s shoulder, “just think for one moment of all the misery this step will cause your sister, – that kind, true-hearted sister, who has behaved so nobly by you.”

“I have thought of that, too, sir; and in my heart I believe, though she ‘ll fret herself at first greatly, it will all turn out best in the end. What could I ever be but a disgrace to her? Who ‘d ever think the same of Polly after seeing me? Don’t I bring her down in spite of herself; and is n’t it a hard trial for her to be a lady when I am in the same room with her? No, sir, I’ll not go back; and though I haven’t much hope in me, I feel I’m doing right.”

“I know well,” said Conyers, pettishly, “that your sister will throw the whole blame on me. She ‘ll say, naturally enough, You could have obtained his discharge, —you should have insisted on his leaving.”