Snake and Sword Part 25

"Also, to the Philosopher, bread-and-dripping is as interesting and desirable prog as the voluble-varied heterogeny of the menu at the Carlton or the Ritz--'specially when you've no choice."

"Hear, hear," put in Dam.

"Goatey ol' Goate!" said Trooper Bear with impressive solemnity. "Give me your hand, Philossiler. I adore dripping. I'ss a (hic) mystery.

(No, I don' want both hands," as Goate offered his right to Bear's warm embrace.) I'm a colliseur of Dripping. I understan' it. I write odes to it. Yesh. A basin of dripping is like a Woman.

'Strornarillily. You never know what's beneath fair surface.... Below a placid, level, unrevealing surface there may be--nothing ... and there may be a rich deposit of glorious, stimulating, piquant _essence_."

"Oh, shut up, Bear, and don't be an a.s.s," implored Trooper Burke (formerly Desmond Villiers FitzGerald) ... "but I admit, all the same, there's lots of worse prog in the Officers' Mess than a crisp crust generously bedaubed with the rich jellified gravy that (occasionally) lurks like rubies beneath the fatty soil of dripping."

"Sound plan to think so, anyway," agreed Trooper Little (_ci devant_ Man About Town and the Honourable Bertie Le Grand). "Reminds me of a proverb I used to hear in Alt Heidelberg, _'What I have in my hand is best'_."

"Qui' sho," murmured Trooper Bear with a seraphic smile, "an' wha' I have in my 'place of departed _spirits_,' my tummy, is better. Glor'us mixshure. Earned an honest penny sheven sheparate times cleaning the 'coutrements of better men ... _'an look at me for shevenpence'_ ..."

and he slept happily on Dam's shoulder.

In liquor, Trooper Bear was, if possible, gentler, kinder, and of sweeter disposition than when sober; wittier, more hopelessly lovable and disarming. These eight men--the "gentlemen-rankers" of the Queen's Greys, made it a point of honour to out-Tommy "Tommy" as troopers, and, when in his company, to show a heavier cavalry-swagger, a broader accent, a quiffier "quiff," a cuttier cutty-pipe, a smarter smartness; to groom a horse better, to muck out a stall better, to scrub a floor better, to spring more smartly to attention or to a disagreeable "fatigue," and to set an example of Tomminess from turning out on an Inspection Parade to waxing a moustache.

Trooper Bear professed to specialize as a model in the carrying of liquor "like a man and a soldier". When by themselves, they made it a point of honour to behave and speak as though in the clubs to which they once belonged, to eat with washen hands and ordered attire, to behave at table and elsewhere with that truest of consideration that offends no man willingly by mannerism, appearance, word or act, and which is the whole Art of Gentility.

They carefully avoided any appearance of exclusiveness, but sought every legitimate opportunity of united companionship, and formed a "mess" of eight at a table which just held that number, and on a couple of benches each of which exactly fulfilled the slang expression "room for four Dragoons on a form".

It was their great ambition to avoid the reproach of earning the soubriquet "gentleman-ranker," a term that too often, and too justly, stinks in the nostrils of officer, non-commissioned officer, and man (for, as a rule, the "gentleman-ranker" is a complete failure as a gentleman and a completer one as a ranker).

To prove a rule by a remarkably fine exception, these eight were among the very smartest and best troopers of one of the smartest and best Corps in the world--and to Damocles de Warrenne, their "Society of the Knights of the dirty Square Table" was a Rock and a Salvation in the midst of a howling sea of misery--a cool pool in a searing branding h.e.l.l.

Trooper Bear's brief nap appeared to have revived him wonderfully.

"Let us, like the Hosts of Midian, prowl around this happy Sabbeth eve, my dear," quoth he to Dam, "and, like wise virgins, up and smite them, when we meet the Red-Caps.... No, I'm getting confused. It's they up and smite us, when we've nothing to tip them.... I feel I could be virtuous in your company--since you never offer beer to the (more or less) fatherless and widowed--and since I'm stony. How _did_ you work that colossal drunk, Matty, when you came home on a stretcher and the Red-Caps said you _'was the first-cla.s.sest delirious-tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs as ever was, aseein' snakes somethink 'orrible,'_ and in no wise to be persuaded _'as 'ow there wasn't one underyer bloomin' foot the 'ole time'_. Oh you teetotallers!"

Dam shuddered and paled. "Yes, let's go for as long a walk as we can manage, and get as far from this cursed place as time allows," he replied.

His hair was still short and horribly hacked from the prison-crop he had had as a preliminary to "168 hours cells," for "drunk and disorderly".

"I'll come too," announced the Honourable Bertie.

"Yes," chimed in Trooper Adam Goate, "let's go and gladden the eyes, if not the hearts of the nurse-maids of Folkestone."

"Bless their nurse-maidenly hearts," murmured Trooper Bear. "One made honourable proposals of marriage to me, quite recently, in return for my catching the runaway hat of her young charge.... Come on." And in due course the four derelicts set forth with a uniformity of step and action that corresponded with their uniformity of dress.

"Let's take the Lower Road," said Dam, as they reached the western limit of the front at Folkestone. "I fear we rather contaminate the pure social air of the Upper Road and the fashionable promenade."

"Where every prospect pleases and only man, in the Queen's uniform, is vile," observed Trooper Bear.

Dam remembered afterwards that it was he who sought the quiet Lower Road--and he had good reason to remember it. For suddenly, a fashionably dressed and beautiful young girl, sitting alone in a pa.s.sing private victoria, stood up, called "Stop! Stop!" to the coachman, and ere the carriage well came to a standstill, sprang out, rushed up to the double file of soldiers, and flung her arms around the neck of the outside one of the front rank.

With a cry of "Oh, _Dam_! Oh, _Dammy_!"--a cry that mightily scandalized a serious-minded policeman who stood monumentally at the corner--she kissed him again and again!

Troopers Bear, Goate, and Little, halting not in their stride, glancing not unto the right hand nor unto the left hand, speaking no word, and giving no sign of surprise, marched on in perfect silence, until Trooper Bear observed to the world in general "The lady was _not_ swearing. His _name_ must be Dam--short for Damon or Pythias or Iphigenia or something which we may proceed to forget.... Poor old chappie--no wonder he's taking to secret drinking. _I_ should drink, myself. _Poor_ chap!" and Trooper Goate, heaving a sympathetic sigh, murmured also "Poor chap!"

But Trooper Little, once the Hon. Bertie Le Grand, thought "Poor _lady_!"

The heart of Damocles de Warrenne bounded within him, stood still, and then seemed like to burst.

"Oh, _Lucille_! Oh, darling!" he groaned, as he kissed her fiercely and then endeavoured to thrust her from him. "Jump into your carriage quickly. _Lucille_--Don't ... _Here_ ...! Not _here_.... People are looking ... _You ...!_ A common soldier.... Let me go. Quick.... Your carriage.... Some one may--"

"Let you _go_, darling ...! Now I have found you.... If you say another word I'll serve you as you served the Haddock. I'll hang on to your arm right along the Leas. I'll hang round your neck and scream if you try to run away. This is poetic justice, darling. Now you know how our Haddock felt. _No_--I _won't_ leave go of your sleeve. Where shall we go, dearest darling Dammy. Dare you drive up and down the Front with me in Amelia Harringport's sister's young man's mother's victoria? oh, my _darling_ Dam...." and Lucille burst into happy tears.

"Go up that winding path and I'll follow in a minute. There will be secluded seats."

"And you'll bolt directly I leave go of you?... I--"

"No, darling, G.o.d knows I should if I were a man, but I can't, _I can't_. Oh, Lucille!"

"Stay here," cried the utterly fearless, unashamed girl to the unspeakably astounded coachman of the mother of the minor Canon who had the felicity of being Amelia Harringport's sister's young man, and she strode up the pathway that wound, tree-shaded, along the front of the gently sloping cliff.

In the utter privacy of a small seat-enclosing, bush-hidden half-cave, Damocles de Warrenne crushed Lucille to his breast as she again flung her arms around his neck.

"Oh, Lucille, how _could_ you expose yourself to scandal like that; I ought to be hung for not taking to my heels as you came, but I could not believe my eyes, I thought I was going mad again," and he shivered.

"What should I have cared if every soul in the world who knows me had arranged himself and herself in rows and ranks to get a good view? I'd have done the same if Grumper had been beside me in the carriage. What is the rest of the World to me, beside _you_, darling?... Oh, your _poor_ hair, and what is that horrid scar, my dearest? And you are a '2 Q.G.' are you, and how soon may you marry? I'm going to disappear from Monksmead, now, just like you did, darling, and I'm coming here and I'm going to be a soldier's wife. Can I live with you in your house in barracks, Dammy, or must I live outside, and you come home directly your drill and things are finished?"

Dam groaned aloud in hopeless bitterness of soul.

"Lucille--listen," said he. "I earn one-and tuppence a day. I may not marry. If you were a factory-girl or a coster-woman I would not drag you down so. Apart from that, I am unfit to marry any decent woman. I am--what you know I am.... I have--fits. I am not--sound--normal--I may go m...."

"Don't be a pure priceless a.s.s, darling. You are my own splendid hero--and I am going to marry you, if I have to _be_ a factory-girl or a coster-woman, and I am going to live either with you or near you.

You want looking after, my own boy. I shall have some money, though, when I am of age. When may I run away from Monksmead, darling?"

"Lucille," groaned the miserable man. "Do you think that the sight of you in the mire in which I wallow would make me happier? Can't you realize that I'm ruined and done--disgraced and smashed? Lucille, I am not sane at times.... The SNAKE ... _Do_ you love me, Lucille? Then if so, I beg and implore you to forget me, to leave me alone, to wait awhile and then marry Delorme or some sane, wholesome _man_--who is neither a coward nor a lunatic nor an epileptic. Lucille, you double and treble my misery. I _can't_ bear it if I see you. Oh, why didn't you forget me and do the right and proper thing? I am unfit to touch you! I am a d.a.m.ned scoundrel to be here now," and leaping up he fled like a maddened horse, bounded down the slope, sprang into the road, nor ceased to run till he fell exhausted, miles away from the spot whereon he had suffered as he believed few men had done before.

And thus and thus we women live!

With none to question, none to give The Nay or Aye, the Aye or Nay That might smoothe half our cares away.

O, strange indeed! And sad to know We pitch too high and doing so, Intent and eager not to fall, We miss the low clear note of call.

Why is it so? Are we indeed So like unto the shaken reed?

Of such poor clay? Such puny strength?

That e'en throughout the breadth and length Of purer vision's stern domain We bend to serve and serve in vain?

To some, indeed, strange power is lent To stand content. Love, heaven-sent, (For things or high or pure or rare) Shows likest G.o.d, makes Life less bare.

And, ever and anon there stray In faint far-reaching virelay The songs of angels, Heav'nward-found, Of little children, earthward-bound.

A. L. WREN.

CHAPTER X.

MUCH ADO ABOUT ALMOST NOTHING--A TROOPER.