Chapter III · CONFIDENCES.

"Bother this garrison order about 'lights and fires out' by tattoo! here's my fellow actually extinguished the stair-lamp," said the Major, as they stumbled up the old wooden staircase which led to his quarters. "Where are you, Beamish?"

"Behind you, in the dark, Major—in the dark, bedad, like a Protestant Bishop, as we say in Kerry."

Singleton soon found the keys of his rooms at the back of the staircase window-shutter, the place where such are frequently deposited in Chatham and other barracks, and they soon found themselves in his quarters, where, by the application of the poker to the dormant beam above, he summoned his servant down.

"Now then, Bob, look alive, and let us have supper double quick!"

Bob Dacres had relinquished his white livery coat and aiguillette on leaving the mess; but he still retained his yellow plush inexpressibles, white stockings, and buckled shoes. They consorted oddly with an old regimental coat, having white worsted wings—a garment which he had donned for kitchen-work.

The fire was stirred up in the small, meagre grate furnished by her Majesty's Ordnance Department; four candles were lighted, two on the table where the supper was laid, and two more stuck in quart bottles on the mantelpiece, gave the Major's sitting-room a cheerful aspect, though it was minus carpet or curtains, and its furniture was of the plainest description, being the mere barrack allowance; to wit, a couple of Windsor chairs of hard wood, a table of the same material, a set of fire-irons, a cast-metal coal-box, with three field-pieces engraven thereon between the letters V.R. and B.O.; a pair of bellows, and a black iron candlestick. These elegant pieces of furniture, together with a few iron-bound baggage trunks that had been all round the world, completed the comforts and appurtenances of the Major's room, unless we add a couple of regulation swords and undress and dress belts, with a double-barrelled gun and brace of horse-pistols that hung in a corner, and a wooden box of cigars that stood on the mantel-shelf, "pro bono publico," as he said, for Conyers Singleton was a plain soldier of the old school, contenting himself with little, and always resolved to make the most and best of everything. He rarely or never wore "mufti," and when he did it was quite out of the mode.

He had a grave, almost sad face at times, with a remarkably soft expression of eye; and it was currently supposed in the regiment that a shadow or a sorrow must have rested on some portion of his earlier life; at least, all knew that prior to his joining the Fusileers he had been long a prisoner of war in India, and had thereby lost his chances of promotion. "There is no example of human beauty more perfectly picturesque than a very handsome man of middle age—not even the same man when in his youth," according to one of our fair novelists: and these words fully applied to the Major, who, though past the prime of life, was still a man of fine and commanding appearance. His features were noble, and slightly aquiline, and his thick, wavy hair, once a rich dark brown, was fast becoming grey and grizzled now; but his hazel eyes were as clear and bright as when a boy ensign he carried the colours of his regiment fearlessly up the corpse-strewn glacis of Ghuznee, though seven reliefs had been shot under them in succession.

He had seen much service in other corps, but was an especial favourite with the Fusileers.

The supper, which consisted of something better than the promised "devilled bone," was soon discussed; the Major's servant was dismissed to his roost upstairs, and amid a cloud of soothing Cavendish, the trio proceeded to make themselves completely comfortable.

"This is jolly!" exclaimed Beamish, as he tossed aside his sash, and threw open his full-dress uniform.

"I have wine, if you fellows prefer it," said Singleton; "but here are brandy and some real Irish whisky; and neither will taste the worse for being in black bottles."

"The whisky, by all means, with water pur et simple," said Beamish, "and no adulteration of lemon or sugar—orthodox grog, that is the mark, Major, for there's never a headache in a hogshead of it. Ah," continued Pat, while mixing his tumbler and eyeing the contents affectionately, "there is nothing on earth so true as a good glass of grog—nothing so fickle as a pretty woman!"

"Heresy!" said the Major, while Beamish heaved a mock sigh, and Cyril remained silent.

"I saw Miss—Miss What's-her-name?—you know it well enough, Wedderburn—passing in her carriage by St. Mary's Guard to the Lines to-day," resumed Beamish.

"And young Pomfret, no doubt, with her?" added Singleton. "A little fool that boy is!"

"She still looks young and beautiful, that brunette, though I have known her when younger and more beautiful; but that was before we went to Burmah; and, by Jove, 'tisn't yesterday I saw the big pagoda of Moulmein."

"It seems ages ago, and she's on the cards still!"

Cyril's heart beat quicker, and he coloured while they spoke, yet he scarcely knew with what emotion, as he had long ceased to care for the fair one in question.

"Don't affect to be soured with the sex, Pat," said Singleton. "Fill your glass again—it's down to zero."

"Soured! not I; for I am naturally kind and attentive to everything with a petticoat on."

"Even a Scotch Highlander, eh?"

"But we had one omission to-night at mess, Singleton."

"What was it?"

"Your invariable song, 'The girl I left behind me.' It generally comes off about one in the morning."

"But we left at twelve sharp, and I am keeping it for the marching-out day," replied the Major; and with a twinkle in his eyes, which were fixed on Cyril, Beamish began to sing in a mock sentimental manner—

"Well, Beamish," said Singleton, catching something of the other's spirit of raillery, "I hadn't the heart to sing when I saw Wedderburn looking so melancholy."

"What is amiss, Cyril? Have you made a bad book on the Epsom, or the Whittlebury Stakes for three-year-olds? Or is it some red-headed Scotch lass that you have left behind you?"

Cyril's eyes dilated and flashed; and he coloured with vexation, but attempted to laugh while raising the glass to his lips.

"You seem awfully cut up about something, and it must be a girl, Wedderburn," said the Major. "I can see that with half an eye."

Cyril's colour deepened; he was in no humour either for scrutiny or banter. But Beamish said, laughingly—

"Don't grieve so about it, or her, or whatever it is. Little more than a week must find us on the sea, and if a girl has jilted you, forget all about it, or score it down to the bad drop that is in her, as we say in Ireland."

He winced decidedly under this unwitting home-thrust, but drained a huge rummer of brandy-and-water at a gulp, and then with a sudden burst of that communicativeness which seizes most men at times, and of which they generally repent when calm reflection comes in the morning, he exclaimed—

"I have been deceived, Singleton—deceived where I trusted; I own it, and am sick and sore at heart just now!"

"Hear that, now. Bedad! I would have sworn it!" said Beamish, in whose eyes there shone a light that was all merriment, without an atom of the commiseration for which Cyril was inclined to look.

"I have been deluded, I say, Singleton, by a girl I loved well and dearly," he resumed, with growing bitterness; "and in my heart I am constantly vowing—yes, swearing that I shall forget her; but with every futile vow her gentle face, her soft voice, and all her image—the remembered charm of her presence—come back to me clearer and more vividly than ever! Oh, what magic, what idiosyncrasy of the human heart is this!"

"By Jove! it's like a bit of Moore's melodies!" said Beamish, while Cyril coloured deeper, with a sudden sense of his rashness in making such an admission.

"You are just what I was at your age, when a subaltern, though, luckier than I, you are now a captain," said Singleton. "I was hot-headed, generous, impulsive, and warm-hearted. Ah, what a devil of a treadmill is this work-a-day world, that it grinds both heart and soul out of us till nearly all trust in man, and too often in woman too, passes away with every scrape of our razor! How many fellows have I seen come into the service since I was first gazetted—cultivate their whiskers, and the d—d Jews!—get into debt or matrimony, sell out or go to the devil, while I have still held on, and am only a major yet, when so many of my brother-subalterns are in command of regiments, or the enjoyment of snug staff appointments!"

"But you had a singular run of ill-luck," urged Cyril—"your captivity."

"True; few, however, but myself, know exactly all that captivity cost me; and now, if you have patience to listen to an old soldier's story, I don't care if I should spend a few minutes in telling you the incidents that cast a a shadow on my life for many a year—a shadow that may never pass away or melt into sunshine."

The Major paused, and after a time said—

"It is a strange, but pretty true axiom, that 'a man is only as old as he feels; a woman as old as she looks;' thus I am not so old as to be past loving, or at least remembering what it was to love and be loved in return. So listen to my story."

And filling his glass and his meerschaum almost at the same time, Conyers Singleton related the following little narrative of his early life.