The Queen's Scarlet Part 53

"It's quite bad enough to have to be shot by other people, Brigley, without trying to hurt oneself. But how came you to think such a thing?"

"Well, sir--I--"

"Well, you what?"

"--Have heered of such things, sir, with gents--as has been in great trouble, sir--as lost a deal o' money, sir."

Lacey frowned.

"Ever been with a gentleman who did such a thing?"

"Well, yes, sir--almost, sir--not exactly, sir; but I thought he had, sir."

"That's a nice clear way of expressing yourself. Well, don't run away with that idea, again. I don't like to be s.n.a.t.c.hed out of my sleep in that fashion. What time is it? Morning gun fired?"

Jerry's jaw dropped, and he stood staring over the empty soda-water gla.s.s.

"I said had the morning gun been fired!" remarked Lacey, sharply.

Jerry's face began to wrinkle all over, and there was a peculiar twinkle in his eyes as they met his master's.

"Yes, sir, the gun's gone off a quarter of a hour ago."

"There, be off! Call me in time to dress for parade."

"Yes, sir; of course, sir. Very sorry, sir. My mistake, sir. But don't you see how it was?"

"No; I'm too sleepy to see anything; but don't make any more such mistakes."

"No, sir--cert'nly not, sir; but don't you see, sir, how it was, really?"

"No; unless you'd had too much coffee!"

"Well, sir, then, as you will keep on thinking it was coffee or something else, I must, for my character's sake, sir, explain."

"Not this morning, Brigley, thank you; some other time."

"Won't take a moment, sir," persisted Jerry. "You see, I'd got thinking, sir, through having had a hawkward experience of the sort, that you might do something of the kind; and I was actually meaning to walk in and stop you, when there was that tremenjus noise, and I thought you'd made it."

"And I did not!" said the lieutenant, angrily. "Now be off!"

"No, sir, it wasn't you," said Jerry, grinning; "and it only shows how easy we can make mistakes. You see now, sir? It was the morning gun."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

A SECRET'S LIMIT.

"He might have told me," Jerry said to himself. "I've done all I could for him, and kep' his secret when I've felt at times as if I must shout out 'Sir Richard' all over the barracks. I call it mean: that's what I call it--mean! It ain't as if I hadn't shown him as he might trust me.

I should have said a deal to him in a fatherly sort o' way to show him that it wasn't the kind o' thing for a gen'leman to do. I should have pointed out to him as he did wrong last time in going off, and what a lot of injury it did him; and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have kep'

it so close, and gone without letting me know. But once bit twice shy, and I'm not going to be bit again. I'm not going to break my heart fancying he's made a hole in the water. That's what set me thinking about the lieutenant as I did. If he wasn't one of the easiest-going bits o' human machinery as ever lived, he'd have been awfully nasty with me for serving him as I did. No, I'm not going to humbug after S'Richard; and I'm not going to worry. I was ready to be friends if he liked to trust me; but he didn't, and there it ends."

Jerry sat sunning himself outside the officers' quarters as he mused in this way, and felt a bit resentful against d.i.c.k as he went on.

"I know where he's off to. He's gone to see some lawyer fellow up in town to get advice, and he'll have to pay for it. I could have given him just as good, and he could have had it free, gratus, for nothing; but stuff as people don't have to pay for they think ain't worth having.

Hullo! here comes Dan'l Lambert. Mornin'!"

"Morning," said Brumpton, rather gruffly, as he halted in front of Jerry, with his battered bombardon in his hand, evidently on his way from the band-room to the sergeants' quarters.

"Any news? Ain't come back, I s'pose?" said Jerry.

"No; he won't come back till he's brought," said Brumpton rather sternly. Then, suddenly, "I told you about my bit of a row with Wilkins?"

Jerry nodded.

"There's a fine upset about that. Can't tell yet what's to be the end of it. I don't want to lose my stripes."

"Oh, they ought to let you off," said Jerry.

Sergeant Brumpton shook his head.

"Discipline," he said, "discipline. I oughtn't to have let my temper get the better of me."

"But the officers won't be able to help laughing. He must have looked like a periwinkle stuck in his sh.e.l.l. Go and tell him you're very sorry, and shake hands."

"Ah! you don't understand our ways here, Brigley. He wouldn't take the apology. He don't like me going there to practice, because it was all through young Smithson, for he hates him like poison."

"Yes, or he wouldn't have said what he did," cried Jerry. "It was too bad."

"Yes, too bad," said the sergeant, "when the poor lad didn't even take his own instruments away with him."

"Didn't he?" cried Jerry, rather excitedly. "What, not them big and little silver-keyed flutes?"

"No; they've got them up in his quarters, keeping them for him. Some of the men are precious wild about what Wilkins said."

Jerry made no reply, but stood rubbing one side of his nose with his finger.

"Well, why don't you speak?" said the sergeant.

"Because I was thinking," said Jerry; "and a man can't think of one thing and talk of another at the same time."

"What were you thinking, then?"

"I was thinking it seemed strange for him to leave those flutes behind.

They was his own, and he set a deal of store by them."

"Well, what do you make of it, now you have thought it?"