Friends I Have Made Part 13

"`Now, look here, my good young lady, how am I to remember your dreadful name? What is it?'

"`Laurie, ma'am,' I replied.

"`Of course it is: I remember it quite well. Now go and play and sing something; and mind, I don't want my ears deafened with fireworks, and the drums split with parrot-shriek bravuras. Sing something sweet and simple and old-fashioned--if you can,' she added, ungraciously.

"I crossed the room and sat down to the magnificent piano, and for the next five minutes I seemed to be far away, down in the old home, as I forgot where I was, in singing my poor dead father's favourite old ballad, `Robin Adair;' while, as I finished, I had hard work to keep back the tears.

"`Ro--bin A--dair,' she sang, as I rose, in a not unpleasing voice.

`Now let me hear you read. I always make my companion read to me a great deal; and mind this, I hate to hear any one drone like a school-girl. Go over there into the corner of the window, and stand there. Take that book; you'll find the mark left in where Miss Belleville--bah! I believe her name was Stubbs, and her father a greengrocer--left off. Now then, begin!'

She pushed a lounge-chair close up to the window, and sat down with her hands in her m.u.f.f, while I stood there, feeling like a school-girl, and ready to drone, as I began to read with faltering voice what happened to be Thackeray's most beautiful chapter--The Death of poor old Colonel Newcome. I know my voice trembled at times, and a strange sense of choking came upon me as I went on, battling--oh! so hard--to read those piteous heart-stirring lines; but I was weak and suffering, I was faint with hunger and exertion, sick with that despair of hope deferred, and at last the room, with its costly furniture, seemed to swim round before me, a cold perspiration bathed my face, and with a weary sigh I caught feebly at the curtains, and then fell heavily upon the polished floor.

"I have some faint memory of being lifted, and wheeled in a chair whose castors I heard chirrup, to the front of the fire, and then, as my senses began to return, I seemed to feel arms round me, and a pleasant voice saying, half aloud:

"And she just lost her poor father too--to set her to read such a thing as that! I declare I'm about the wickedest, most thoughtless, and unfeeling old woman under the sun."

"Then there was the refreshing odour of a vinaigrette, and the sick feeling began to pa.s.s away.

"`I--I beg pardon,' I faltered, trying to rise.

"`I beg yours, my dear,' she said, tenderly. `Sit still, sit still.

Now then, try and drink that.'

"Some sherry was held to my lips, and then I was almost forced to eat a biscuit. They, however, rapidly revived me, and I found Mrs Porter had torn off her bonnet and mantle, and was kneeling by my side.

"That's better, my dear," she said, smiling at me, as she pa.s.sed her arm round my waist, and drew me nearer to her, and kissed me in a gentle, motherly way. This was too much, for I was very weak and hysterical. I could fight against harshness, but her tender words and ways unlocked the flood-gates of my grief, and I laid my head down and sobbed as if my heart would break.

"An hour later, after she had literally forced me to partake of the breakfast that was ordered up, she sat beside me, holding my hand, and more than once I saw the tears steal down her pleasant face as she won from me, bit by bit, the story of my troubles and my bitter struggles here in town.

"At last I rose to go, trembling and expectant. Would she engage me?

It was more than I dared to hope.

"`Sit still, my child,' she said, tenderly, `and stay with me; we shall be the best of friends.'

"I stayed--stayed to know her real worth and to win her motherly love-- stayed to find, when John Murray returned, that his love was greater for my sister than for me, and patiently resigned my love to her, and then battled with a long illness when they had gone together to the far-off home. But every day gave me a new lesson on not judging too hastily.

That is ten years since; and I am still in my peaceful, happy home, though only as companion to a lady."

CHAPTER NINE.

MY OLD SERGEANT.

I have visited the sick a good deal in my time, and have ever found that a serious illness is one of the greatest softeners of a rugged nature.

I have noticed it in workhouse and in hospital as well as in the dreary habitations that are occupied by the poor. Perhaps it is more noticeable in men than in women, and in many cases it has seemed to me to bring forth nature's gentility where it has for years, perhaps, been encrusted with rude, rugged ways.

One of my most genuine gentlemen by nature was a quaint old sergeant of dragoons, living in ill-health upon his little pension, and at the wish of some people in the country near our old home, I sought him out, and found him, after some trouble, in one of the little streets of Walworth, and imparted to him my mission, namely, to inquire if he could tell me the whereabouts of one John Morris and his wife, relatives of the farming people who asked me to inquire.

I found the sergeant, a stern, rugged old fellow, in his lodgings, and he looked surlily at me, being, as I afterwards found, in pain, and he saluted me with a harsh "Well, ma'am, what's for you? I'm not in the humour for visitors now."

"I will not keep you long," I said, and stated my business.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said. "I thought you came to preach at me, and tell me what a wicked old man I am. There, bless your heart, I knowed it well enough, none better. John Morris, eh?"

"Yes, and his wife, do you know where they are?"

"Dead, ma'am, dead, both of them: gone to where there's rest and peace, and no more sorrow; `where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary--' You know the rest. Know them! Of course. John Morris was in my troop--B troop, 20th Dragoon Guards; smart, fresh-coloured, honest Lincolnshire lad--a good lad; without any of the general rough ways of a soldier: for there's good sort of fellows among us, as well as the sweepings of towns and villages; and I loved that lad as if he'd been my own son. Why? Because he was a thorough soldier, every inch of him.

He came to me to 'list--I was recruiting sergeant then. `Think twice of it, my lad,' I says; `ours is a rough life;' for from his talk I found he'd been having some tiff at home; so `think twice of it, my lad,' I says: for I did not want to see a fine young fellow throw himself away.

And it is that, you know, though it don't sound loyal of me, as an old troop-sergeant-major, to say so; and feeling this--though I knew I should make a profit of the young fellow--I did not like to see him 'list, when a `rough' would have done just as well. But he would do it; he was set upon it; and told me that if I didn't take him, he would join the foot-regiment quartered in the town. So seeing how things stood, and sooner than he should do that, I gave him the shilling, and he entered one of the smartest heavy cavalry regiments in the service.

"I always liked him for his frank, honest, open manner, and the way he set to work to learn his duties--riding-school, foot-drill, sword-exercise,--no matter what it was, he worked at it; learned quietly and cheerfully; and in a wonderfully short time made himself a smart soldier. You never heard him snubbed for dirty belts or rusty accoutrements; everything belonging to him shone like silver or gold; while his horse was groomed till its skin was like satin. The men called him `Model Jack;' for whenever some one on parade was having it for want of smartness, without pausing for a moment, the captain, or major, would shout, `Rein back, John Morris,' tell the one in trouble to look at him and his traps, and then order so much punishment-drill.

"But we all liked John Morris; and there was not a man in the troop would have said a word against him, or done him an ill turn; for wasn't he always ready to help a mate who was sick, or do a turn for a young beginner? But he was only a weak man, and he must do what no soldier who has any respect for a woman should do--he must get in love with a nice pretty little body, who was foolish enough to take a fancy to the fine smart young fellow. Seeing what a superior sort of la.s.s she was, if it had been any other man in the troop, I'd have done what I could to stop it; but knowing the lad's character--no smoker, no drinker; but one who spent all his spare time in the barrack reading-room--I couldn't say a word; and so matters went on till we got the route, and were to be shifted from Edinburgh to Hounslow.

"Next time I saw John Morris, I knew there was something the matter; and after stable he comes to me, and in a blunt, straightforward way, he says--

"`Sergeant, I want to be married. Will you speak to the officers for me?'

"`No, my lad,' I says, `I won't.'

"He started, and looked surprised; for I was gruff; while as a rule I was always as friendly to him as I could be to a private--though there wasn't a man in the troop who speaking honestly would tell you I was ever a bully.

"`Look here, my lad,' I says: `if you respect that little la.s.s, you'll just say good-bye to her kindly, and for good; or else tell her to wait till you can buy yourself out, and go into something civilian.'

"`But--' he began.

"`There, hold your tongue, my lad; and just go up to the married men's quarters, and look at the want of common comforts in the accommodation; look at the misery of their life; and then, if you're not satisfied, go and look at the poor women who are not on the strength of the regiment-- married without leave, you know--and see whether you'd like to see your little maid brought down to that.'

"`But I've always done my duty, sergeant, and the colonel would give me leave to be married, and I'd do more to make her comfortable than--'

"`Major Ellis wants Sergeant Rollin,' shouts some one; and, seeing that was me, I jumped up.

"`But you'll ask for me, sergeant?' says John Morris, getting hold of my hand as he looked in my face.

"`Be off with you, sir, to your duty,' I roared fiercely; and he went away, and so did I, and, as a matter of course--stupidly, as I told myself--I spoke to the major, and he said he'd speak to the colonel; but it was no use, for there were three more men married than there should have been by rights, and they could not have so many women and children in barracks.

"I told Morris afterwards, and he thanked me, and went about his duties till the day for marching came, and then I found out that John had married without leave, and, of course, punishment must follow as soon as it was known. I would not see it; but it was reported by another sergeant, and, as a matter of course, the poor weak lad was placed in arrest. I say wreak; but, there, I don't know--the poor things loved one another very dearly; and the official orders, though they're strong, ain't so strong as human nature.

"He never grumbled or said anything about his punishment, but bore it all like a man, though he was anxious enough about his little wife, who travelled by parly train as far as their money would go, and walked the rest of the way up to Hounslow. And then there was the regular misery and struggle for the next few years: the poor little la.s.s not being acknowledged by the regiment as one of the soldiers' wives and having to lodge out of barracks, and live as best she could upon the beggarly pittance her husband could give her, helped out by what she, poor little thing, with her baby, could earn.

"I wasn't going to jump upon a fallen man, but I know John Morris thought deeply upon my words as he saw the smart pleasant-faced little body sinking day by day into a drudge. I never said a word about it to him, nor he to me; but I did what I could to help him, though that wasn't much.

"Then came another shift of quarters, and Mary Morris had a hundred and sixty miles to tramp to the next town we were stationed at; but she did it without a murmur, and a few days after we reached our quarters I saw her at the barrack-gate.

"We were not there very long, but had to make a fresh start, and this time it was with two little children that Mary Morris tramped after the regiment, to reach her husband nearly a fortnight after we had settled down--she looking worn out and haggard with trouble and her long journey. To have seen her now, no one would have known her for the bonnie little la.s.s whom I had seen resting so lovingly upon the lad's arm in Edinburgh town. But there, it was the usual lot of a soldier's wife who is not on the strength; and from town to town the poor girl followed us about till the very last; and so long as she could be near her husband I believe the little thing was happy.

"I said till the last; for there came a day when I stood at the barrack-gate with tears in my eyes, that I was quite ashamed of, to see John Morris, the fine stalwart dragoon, in full marching order, leaning down from his horse, his gauntlet glove off, holding his little wife's hand tightly clasped, as he gazed into her loving eyes--eyes as brimful of tears and affection as were those of the captain's sister, leaning out of her carriage-window, and waving her handkerchief to her brother.

"Then came the trumpet-calls, and we were off, leaving many a tearful eye behind. But Mary Morris turned up again at the port where we were to embark; for it was only the sea that could stay the faithful little woman from following her husband. But there was the sea now; and we were ordered abroad for ten years, to a country that would be the grave of many of us, as I well knew.