Brownsmith's Boy Part 80

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

AFTER SEVEN YEARS.

Sir Francis, as I afterwards learned, did not insist upon the matter, but the very next day, as I was in the peach-house, I heard the door open, and I felt anything but comfortable as I saw Courtenay enter the place and come slowly up to me.

I was prepared for anything, but I had no cause for expecting war. He had come in peace.

"We're going away directly after lunch," he said in a low, surly tone, as if he resented what he was saying. "I'll--, I'll--there! I'll try-- to be different when I come back again."

He turned and went hurriedly out of the place, and he had not been gone long when the door at the other end clicked, and I found, as soon as he who entered had come round into sight, that it was Philip.

He came up to me in a quick, impetuous way, as if eager to get his task over, and as our eyes met I could see that he had evidently been suffering a good deal.

"I'm going away this afternoon," he said quickly. "I wish I hadn't said and done all I have. I beg--"

He could not finish, but burst into a pa.s.sionate fit of sobbing, and turned away his face.

"Good-bye!" I said. "I shall not think about it any more."

"Then we'll shake hands," he cried--"some day--next time we meet."

We did shake hands next time we met, but when Philip Dalton said those words he did not know it would be seven years first. But so it was.

I never knew exactly how it happened, but I believe one of my uncles was influenced to take some part in the affair, and Sir Francis did all the rest. What I do know is that about three months after the young Daltons had gone I was on my way to a clergyman's house, where I stayed a year, being prepared for my future career; and when I had been with the Reverend Hartley Dallas a year I was able to join the Military College at Woolwich, where I went through the regular course, and in due time obtained my commission in the artillery.

I had not long been in the service before the Crimean war broke out, and our battery was one of the first despatched to the seat of war, where, in company with my comrades, I went through that terrible period of misery and privation.

One night I was in charge of a couple of guns in a rather dangerous position near the Redan, and after repairing damages under fire my lads had contrived to patch up a pretty secure shelter with sand-bag and gabion, ready for knocking down next day, but it kept off the rain, and where we huddled together there was no mud under our feet, though it was inches deep in the trench.

It was a bitter night, and the tiny bit of fire that we had ventured to make in the hole we had scooped underground hardly kept the chill from our half-frozen limbs. Food was not plentiful, luxuries we had none, and in place of the dashing-looking artillerymen in blue and gold people are accustomed to see on parade, anyone who had looked upon us would have seen a set of mud-stained, ragged scarecrows, blackened with powder, grim looking, but hard and full of fight.

I was seated on an upturned barrel, hugging my sheepskin-lined greatcoat closer to me, and drawing it down over my high boots, as I made room for a couple of my wet, shivering men, and I felt ashamed to be the owner of so warm a coat as I looked at their well-worn service covering, when my sergeant put in his head and said:

"Captain of the company of foot, sir, would be glad if you could give him a taste of the fire and a drop of brandy; he's half dead with the cold."

"Bring him in," I said; and I waited, thinking about home and the old garden at Isleworth and then of that at Hampton; I didn't know why, but I did. And then I was thinking to myself that it was a good job that we had the stern, manly feeling to comfort us of our hard work being our duty, when I heard the _slush, slush, slush, slush_, sound of feet coming along the trenches, and then my sergeant said:

"You'll have to stoop very low to get in, sir, but you'll find it warm and dry. The lieutenant's inside."

"Yes, come in," I said; and my men drew back to let the fresh corner get a bit of the fire.

"It's awfully kind of you," he said, as he knelt down, took off his dripping gloves, and held his blue fingers to the flame. "What a night!

It isn't fit for a dog to be out in. 'Pon my soul, gunner, I feel ashamed to come in and get shelter, and leave my poor boys in the trench."

"Get a good warm then, and let's thaw and dry one of them at a time.

I'm going to turn out soon."

"Sorry for you," he said. "Brandy--thanks. It's worth anything a night like this. I've got some cigars in my breast-pocket, as soon as my fingers will let me get at them."

He had taken off his shako, and the light shone full upon his face, which I recognised directly, though he did not know me, as he looked up and said again:

"It's awfully kind of you, gunner."

"Oh! it's nothing," I said, "Captain Dalton--Philip Dalton, is it not?"

"Yes," he said; "you know me?"

"To be sure," I replied; "but you said that next time we met we'd shake hands."

He sank back and his jaw dropped.

"You remember me--Grant? How is Sir Francis?"

"Remember you!" he said, seizing my hand, "Oh! I say, what a young beast I was!"

I learned more than once that he and his brother turned out fine, manly soldiers, and did their duty well in that hard-fought campaign. I tried also to do mine, and came back one of the last to leave the Crimea, another grade higher in my rank.

During my college life I often used to go over and see the brothers Brownsmith, to be warmly welcomed at every visit; and if ever he got to know that I was going to Isleworth to spend Sunday, Ike used to walk over, straighten his back and draw himself up to attention, and salute me, looking as serious as if in uniform. He did not approve of my going into the artillery, though.

"It's wrong," he used to say; and in these days he was back at Isleworth, for Mr Solomon had entered into partnership with his brother, and both Ike and Shock had elected to follow him back to the old place.

"Yes," he would say, "it's wrong, Mars Grant, I was always drew to you because your father had been a sojer; but what would he have said to you if he had lived to know as you turned gunner?"

"What would you have had me, then? You must have artillerymen."

"Yes, of course, sir; but what are they? You ought to have been a hoozoar:--

"'Oh, them as with jackets go flying, Oh, they are the gallant hoozoars,'"

he sang--at least he tried to sing; but I went into the artillery.

By the way, I did not tell you the name of the sergeant who ushered Philip Dalton into my shelter that night. His name was John Hampton, as fine a soldier as ever stepped. He joined the artillery when I got my commission. Poor Shock, for I knew him better by that name; he followed me with the fidelity of a dog; he always contrived something hot for me when we were almost starving, and any day he would have gone without that I might eat. And I believe that he would have fought for me to the death.

Poor Shock! The night when I was told that he could not live, after being struck down by a piece of sh.e.l.l, I knelt by him in the mud and held his hand. He just looked up in my face and said softly:

"Remember being shut up in the sand-pit, sir, and how you prayed? If you wouldn't mind, sir--once again?"

I bent down lower and lower, and at last--soldier--hardened by horrors-- grown stern by the life I led--I felt as if I had lost in that rough, true man the best of friends, and I cried over him like a child!

THE END.