Wenderholme Part 14

CHAPTER XVI.

A CASE OF a.s.sAULT.

The officers' mess was rather a good thing for Mr. Garley. He charged five shillings a-head for dinner without wine; and although both the Colonel and the large majority of his officers were temperate men, a good deal of profit may be got out of the ordinary vinous and spirituous consumption of a set of English gentlemen in harder exercise than usual, and more than usually disposed to be convivial. Even the cigars were no inconsiderable item of profit for Mr. Garley, who had laid in a stock large enough and various enough for a tobacconist.

A dense cloud of smoke filled the card-room, and through it might be discerned a number of officers in red sh.e.l.l-jackets reposing after the labors of the day, and wisely absolving nature from other efforts, in order that she might give her exclusive care to the digestion of that substantial repast which had lately been concluded in the mess-room.

There was a party of whist-players in a corner, and the rattle of billiard-b.a.l.l.s came through an open door.

Captain Eureton's servant came in and said that there was an innkeeper from Whittlecup who desired to speak to the Adjutant. The Captain left the card-room, and the officers scarcely noticed his departure, but when he came back their attention was drawn to him by an exclamation of the Colonel's. "Why, Eureton, what's the matter now? how grave you look!"

The Adjutant came to the hearth-rug where John Stanburne was standing, and said, "Is not Captain Stanburne a relation of yours, Colonel?"

"Cousin about nine times removed. But what's the matter? He's not ill, I hope."

"Very ill, very ill indeed," said Eureton, with an expression which implied that he had not yet told the whole truth. "There's no near relation or friend of Captain Stanburne in the regiment, is there, Colonel?"

"None whatever; out with it, Eureton--you're making me very anxious;"

and the Colonel nervously pottered with the end of a new cigar.

"The truth is, gentlemen," said Eureton, addressing himself to the room, for every one was listening intently, "a great crime has been committed this evening. Captain Stanburne has been murdered--or if it's not a case of murder it's a case of manslaughter. He has been killed, it appears, whilst visiting a billet, by a man in his company."

The Colonel rang the bell violently. Fyser appeared--he was at the door, expecting to be called for.

"Harness the tandem immediately."

"The tandem is at the door, sir, or will be by the time you get downstairs. I knew you would be wantin' it as soon as I 'eard the bad news."

The Doctor was in the billiard-room, trying to make a cannon, to the infinite diversion of his more skilful brother officers. His muscular but not graceful figure was stretched over the table, and his scarlet sh.e.l.l-jacket, whose seams were strained nearly to bursting by his att.i.tude, contrasted powerfully with the green cloth as the strong gas-light fell upon him. Just as he was going to make the great stroke a strong hand was laid upon his arm.

"Now then, Isaac Ogden, you've spoiled a splendid stroke. I don't hoftens get such a chance."

"You're wanted for summat else, Doctor. Come, look sharp; the Colonel's waiting for you."

In common with many members of his profession, Dr. Bardly had a dislike to be called in a hurried and peremptory manner, and a disposition, when so called, to take his time. He had so often been pressed unnecessarily that he had acquired a general conviction that cases could wait--and he made them wait, more or less. In this instance, however, Isaac Ogden insisted on a departure from the Doctor's usual customs, and threw his gray military cloak over his shoulders, and set his cap on his head, and led him to the street-door, where he found the tandem, the Colonel in his place with the Adjutant, Fyser already mounted behind, and the leader dancing with impatience.

The bright lamps flashed swiftly through the dingy streets of Sootythorn, and soon their light fell on the blossoming hedges in the country. Colonel Stanburne had been too much occupied with his horses whilst they were in the streets; but now on the broad open road he had more leisure to talk, and he was the first to break silence.

"You don't know any further details, do you, Eureton?"

"Nothing beyond what I told you. The innkeeper who brought the news was the one Captain Stanburne was billeted with, and he quitted Whittlecup immediately after the event. He appears quite certain that Captain Stanburne is dead. The body was brought to the inn before the man left, and he was present at the examination of it by a doctor who had been hastily sent for."

"Beg pardon, sir," said Fyser from behind, "I asked the innkeeper some questions myself. It appears that Captain Stanburne was wounded in the head, sir, and his skull was broken. It was done with a deal board that a Hirish militia-man tore up out of a floor. There was two Hirish that was quarrellin' and fightin', and the Captain put 'em both into a hempty room which was totally without furnitur', and where they'd nothink but straw to lie upon; and he kep 'em there under confinement, and set a guard at the door. And then these two drunken Hirish fights wi' their fists--but fists isn't b.l.o.o.d.y enough for Hirish, so they starts tearin'

up the boards o' the floor, and the guard at the door tried to interfere between 'em, but, not havin' no arms, could do very little; and the Captain was sent for, and as soon as hever one o' these Hirish sees him he says, 'Here's our b.l.o.o.d.y Captain,' and he aims a most tremenjious stroke at him with his deal board, and it happened most unfortunate that it hit the Captain with the rusty nail in it."

"I wonder it never occurred to him to separate the Irishmen," observed Eureton, in a lower tone, to the Colonel. "He ought not to have confined them together."

"Strictly speaking, he ought not to have placed them in confinement at all at Whittlecup, but sent them at once under escort to headquarters."

"What's this that we are meeting?" said the Adjutant. "I hear men marching."

The Colonel drew up his horses, and the regular footfall of soldiers became audible, and gradually grew louder. "They march uncommonly well, Eureton, for militia-men who have had no training; I cannot understand it."

"There were half-a-dozen old soldiers in Captain Stanburne's company, and I suppose the sergeant has selected them as a guard for the prisoners."

The night was cloudy and dark, and the lamps of the Colonel's vehicle were so very splendid and brilliant that they made the darkness beyond their range blacker and more impenetrable than ever. As the soldiers came nearer, the Colonel stopped his horses and waited. Suddenly out of the darkness came a corporal and four men with two prisoners. The Colonel shouted, "Halt!"

"Have you any news of Captain Stanburne?"

"He's not quite dead, sir, or was not when we left."

The tall wheels rolled along the road, and in a quarter of an hour the leader had to make his way through a little crowd of people in front of the Blue Bell.

The Doctor was the first in the house, and was led at once to young Stanburne's room. The Whittlecup surgeon was there already. No professional men are so ticklish on professional etiquette as surgeons are, but in this instance there could be little difficulty of that kind.

"You are the surgeon to the regiment, I believe," said the Whittlecup doctor; "you will find this a very serious case. I simply took charge of it in your absence."

The patient was not dead, but he was perfectly insensible. He breathed faintly, and every few minutes there was a rattling in the throat, resembling that which precedes immediate dissolution. The two doctors examined the wound together. The skull had been fractured by the blow, and there was a gash produced by the nail in the board. The face was extremely pale, and so altered as to be scarcely recognizable. The innkeeper's wife, Mrs. Simpson, was moistening the pale lips with brandy.

When the Colonel and Captain Eureton had seen the patient, they had a talk with Dr. Bardly in another room. The Doctor's opinion was that there were chances of recovery, but not very strong chances. Though Philip Stanburne had enjoyed tolerably regular health in consequence of his temperate and simple way of living, he had by no means a robust const.i.tution, and it was possible--it was even probable--that he would succ.u.mb; but he _might_ pull through. Dr. Bardly proposed to resign the case entirely to the Whittlecup doctor, as it would require constant attention, and the surgeon ought to be on the spot.

CHAPTER XVII.

ISAAC OGDEN AGAIN.

As the lieutenant of the Grenadier Company, Mr. Isaac Ogden was appointed to do captain's work at Whittlecup in the place of Philip Stanburne.

For many weeks Mr. Ogden had displayed a strength of resolution that astonished his most intimate friends. Without meanly taking refuge in the practice of total abstinence, he had kept strictly within the bounds of what in Shayton is considered moderation.

The customs of the mess at Sootythorn were not likely to place him in the power of his old enemy again; for although the officers were not severely abstinent, their utmost conviviality scarcely extended beyond the daily habits of the very soberest of Shaytonians.

Viewing the matter, therefore, from the standpoint of his personal experience, Dr. Bardly looked upon Ogden as now the most temperate of men. It is true that as a militia officer he could not follow a new rule of his about not entering inns, for the business of the regiment required him to visit a dozen inns every day, and to eat and sleep in one for a month together; and it is obvious that the other good rule about not drinking spirits at Twistle Farm could not be very advantageous to him just now, seeing that, although it was always in force, it was practically efficacious only during his residence under his own roof. It seems a pity that he did not legislate for himself anew, so as to meet his altered circ.u.mstances; but the labors of regimental duty appeared so onerous that extraordinary stimulation seemed necessary to meet this extraordinary fatigue, and it would have appeared imprudent to confine himself within rigidly fixed limits which necessity might compel him to transgress. So in point of fact Mr. Ogden was a free agent again.

Whilst Philip Stanburne had remained at the Blue Bell, Lieutenant Ogden had been in all respects a model of good behavior. He had watched by Philip's bedside in the evenings, sometimes far into the night, and the utmost extent of his conviviality had been a gla.s.s of grog with the Whittlecup doctor. But the day Philip Stanburne was removed, Lieutenant Ogden, after having dined and inspected his billets, began to feel the weight of his loneliness, and he felt it none the less for being accustomed to loneliness at the Farm. Captain Stanburne's illness, and the regular evening talk with the Whittlecup doctor, had hitherto given an interest to Isaac Ogden's life at the Blue Bell, and this interest had been suddenly removed. Something must be found to supply its place; it became necessary to cultivate the acquaintance of somebody in the parlor.

It is needless to trouble the reader with details about the men of Whittlecup whom Mr. Ogden found there, because they have no connection with the progress of this history. But he found somebody else too, namely, Jeremiah Smethurst, a true Shaytonian, and one of the brightest ornaments of the little society that met at the Red Lion. When Jerry saw his old friend Isaac Ogden, whom he had missed for many weeks, his greeting was so very cordial, so expressive of good-fellowship, that it was not possible to negative his proposition that they should "take a gla.s.s together."

Now the keeper of the Blue Bell Inn knew Jerry Smethurst. He knew that Jerry drank more than half a bottle of brandy every night before he went to bed, and without giving Mr. Ogden credit for equal powers, he had heard that he came from Shayton, which is a good recommendation to a vendor of spirituous liquors. He therefore, instead of bringing a gla.s.s of brandy for each of the Shayton gentlemen, uncorked a fresh bottle and placed it between them, remarking that they might take what they pleased--that there was 'ot warter on the 'arth, for the kettle was just bylin, an' there was shugger in the shugger-basin.

The reader foresees the consequences. After two or three gla.s.ses with his old friend, Isaac Ogden fell under the dominion of the old Shayton a.s.sociations. Jerry Smethurst talked the dear old Shayton talk, such as Isaac Ogden had not heard in perfection for many a day. For men like the Doctor and Jacob Ogden were, by reason of their extreme temperance, isolated beings--beings cut off from the heartiest and most genial society of the place--and Isaac had been an isolated being also since he had kept out of the Red Lion and the White Hart.

"Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men?"

That abandonment of the Red Lion had been a moral gain--a moral victory--but an intellectual loss. Was such a fellow as Parson Prigley any compensation for Jerry Smethurst? And there were half-a-dozen at the Red Lion as good as Jerry. He was short of stature--so short, that when he sat in a rocking-chair he had a difficulty in giving the proper impetus with his toes; and he had a great round belly, and a face which, if not equally great and round, seemed so by reason of all the light and warmth that radiated from it. It was enough to cure anybody of hypochondria to look at Jerry Smethurst's face. I have seen the moon look rather like it sometimes, rising warm and mellow on a summer's night; but though anybody may see that the moon has a nose and eyes, she certainly lacks expression. It was pleasant to Isaac Ogden to see the friendly old visage before him once again. Genial and kind thoughts rose in his mind. Tennyson had not yet written "t.i.thonus," and if he had, no Shaytonian would have read it--but the thoughts in Ogden's mind were these:--