CHAPTER VII. A FRENCH LESSON.

Herbert Larkins presented himself with some trepidation at the commanding officer’s quarters, a house outside, but not far from the barracks. The hall door was wide open, but he did not go in. The man whom he relieved told him ‘to patrol up and down in front of the house—that was all he had to do.’

This he did religiously for half an hour or more, and then he heard himself called from within.

‘Orderly!’ A clear, sweet voice it was; very musical in its intonation and very different from the gruff accents to which he had most recently been accustomed.

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‘Orderly!’ again; this time much more sharply spoken, and with undoubted petulance. ‘How stupid! Why don’t you come when you’re called?’ and then the owner of the voice appeared. Mahomet had come to the mountain.

A bright-faced beautiful child; a fair golden-haired girl, not yet in her teens, wearing a fresh pink and white frock, with pink ribbons in her sunny locks, and a pink silk handkerchief tied like a shawl over her shoulders and neck. Herbert took it all in at a glance, and remembered the picture for the rest of his life.

A very imperious young person, evidently; she had honest kindly eyes, but her small nose slightly ‘tip tilted,’ and the upward curve of scorn in her lip indicated a proud, haughty nature, and the wilfulness of one who, though still a child, had everything[114] always her own way. An only child, born late in their married life, Edith Prioleau ruled languid mother and doting father with a despotism against which they had neither the inclination nor power to protest.

‘Are you the orderly?’ she asked, almost stamping her foot.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes? Yes—what?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Yes, Miss, you should say when you speak to me. Do you know who I am? I am the colonel’s daughter.’

Whereat Herbert drew himself up, and saluted her formally with hand to cap, as though she were the commander-in-chief.

‘You’re only a recruit, I suppose?’ She spoke quite contemptuously. ‘I never saw you before. I don’t like strangers. I shall[115] speak to Mr. Wheeler about it. How long have you been dismissed drill?’

Herbert smiled at her intimate acquaintance with military details, and the smile seemed to give her fresh annoyance.

‘You’re a rude soldier. You shan’t come as orderly again. But here’—she remembered what she wanted—‘take this list to the barrack library; be quick, please, and bring me all those books. I want them at once, please, all. You understand? At once, and all; and when you come back bring them in to me—there in the back room.’

‘Edith!’ said another voice just then, faintly and querulously, ‘you are losing the whole morning. Your French—’

‘Oh, bother!’ cried Edith, and retired, dragging one foot after the other, as though loth to return to her studies.

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Herbert executed his commission promptly enough, and presently returned laden with books—some, but not all, of those for which Edith had sent. He carried them straight into the back room.

‘I am sorry to say, miss, that the “Loss of the Wager” is out, and so is Maxwell’s “Stories of Waterloo,” but I have brought you “Thaddeus of Warsaw” and the “Romance of War.”’

Then he stopped short, for he saw that the young lady was not attending to him in the least. Her head was buried in her hands, and when she eventually looked up her eyes were suffused with tears.

‘Oh, dear, it is so hard. I can’t make head or tail of it.’

It was only a French exercise after all, about which there was all this coil. But Edith was not an industrious scholar. In[117] plain English, she hated books, and would any day throw them aside to get on her pony to scamper across the Hopshire downs, or ride out to the drill-field with her father, or to stand by at band practice, or accompany the regiment when it marched out.

‘I know a little French,’ said Herbert diffidently; ‘perhaps I can help?’

Edith stared at him through her tears. A private soldier know French! More, probably, than she knew herself! The notion filled her with amazement—with gratitude, perhaps, but also with chagrin.

But when, after a few minutes’ close application, he untied the terrible knot, gratitude overpowered all other sentiments, and she could have shaken hands with him—almost—in her glee.

‘It’s most extraordinary,’ she cried, dancing about the room with delight. ‘I[118] never heard of such a thing; you’re the most wonderful orderly—’

‘You seem very merry, Miss E.,’ said an officer who put his head into the room just then.

‘Oh, Major Diggle! Just look here.’ And in a few words, volubly spoken, she explained what had occurred.

‘So you know French, do you?’ said the major to Herbert, in a supercilious tone impossible to describe. ‘And Latin and Greek perhaps, and Hebrew?’

‘No, sir, not Hebrew.’ Herbert had drawn himself up straight, and stood correctly at ‘attention.’ He had already learnt the lesson of respect due to an officer, and was fully conscious of the great gulf which separated the major from the private soldier.

‘What’s your name? Larkins? Where[119] were you at school? When did you enlist? And why?’

Herbert answered all these questions except the last.

‘You don’t choose to tell that, eh? Oh, with all my heart. It’s none of my business. But now, if Miss Prioleau does not want you—that will do; you can go.’

Herbert saluted, and walked off.

Directly the door was shut, the major turned to Edith, and said,

‘You ought not to be so familiar with private soldiers. You mustn’t do that again, Miss E.’

‘I shall do as I please, and don’t choose to be called Miss E., Major Diggle.’

He equally hated to be called Diggle without the Cavendish.

‘I shall tell the colonel,’ he said rather angrily, as he left the room.

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She only made a face after him when he had gone, as though she did not care a bit what he did. There was no love lost between these two. The child, with intuitive perception, disliked the parvenu’s pretentious airs. He thought her, en revanche, a very pert and forward child, who ought to be snubbed and kept in her place. There were one or two old feuds between them, too. He had accused her, although she hotly repudiated the charge, of telling tales. He had caught her, he declared, looking out of the windows, to see and tell her father what officers came late for parade. She, on the other hand, had discovered, and had announced her discovery openly, that he wore—not a wig—but one of Unwin and Albert’s coverings for bald heads; and Diggle, who was proud of his looks, did not like it at all.

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It was not likely, therefore, that any friend of Edith’s would find much favour with the major. But even if she had been disposed to champion the erudite recruit, so young and obscure a soldier was really beneath the notice of the great Cavendish Diggle. By-and-bye Herbert might prove a thorn in the major’s side, and give him many anxious hours—but that time was still to come.

Meanwhile, Herbert Larkins pursued the even tenour of his ways, taking the rough with the smooth, but finding that the first considerably preponderated. What he lacked most were congenial companions and agreeable occupation for his idle hours. Herbert found the time hang very heavy on his hands. He could not bring himself to spend hours with Joe Hanlon in the canteen; nor, indeed, did ‘the Boy’ wish[122] him to do so. Hanlon was ambitious for his young comrade, and he knew the way to preferment too well to encourage Herbert to take to drink. There was nothing left by way of amusement, after all needful polishing and cleaning-up was done, but patrolling the Triggertown streets, and frequenting such ginshops and music-halls as suffered private soldiers in the Queen’s uniform to pass their doors.

Herbert, as a last resource, turned bookworm. He had attended the regimental school as in duty bound; but it was soon very clear that a regimental schoolmaster, however well certificated, could not teach an ex-sixth-form boy very much. Herbert passed all the required standards, and was very quickly dismissed as a prodigy of learning. He might indeed have obtained a billet as an assistant teacher in the school,[123] but Joe Hanlon supported him in his refusal of the post. There would be much better openings for him later on, and in the regular line. All he had to do was to wait patiently for his ‘lance stripe,’ and this he was certain to obtain so soon as he had completed the twelve months’ service from the time of joining, which was the usual time of probation in the Duke’s Own.

The books he read he got from the barrack library, a place well stocked enough, but not with volumes covering a wide range of subjects. After exhausting the list of good works of fiction and travel, he felt himself fortunate at finding ‘Lecky’s Rise and Progress of Rationalism in Europe.’

One day when Herbert was absent on guard, a volume of this was lying upon his shelf—in the wrong place—and the captain, who was inspecting the rooms, noticed it.

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‘It’s that Larkins, sir.’ His old enemy the gate sergeant, Sergeant Pepper, spoke. ‘A young soldier, sir. Very careless young fellow, sir. No use my speaking to him, sir. Better have his name put on the gate, sir?’

‘Let me see the book. “Lecky”? Strange! a recruit, do you say? What’s he like? Smart? Send him over to my quarters to-morrow.’

Captain Greathed was an officer of a somewhat uncommon type. Thoughtful, studious, steady, he concealed under a quiet demeanour a true soldierly spirit and keen professional ambition. He yearned secretly for military distinction, and only bided his time. Meanwhile he read and pondered deeply the lessons of the past. He had mastered military literature in all its branches. Had he chosen, he might have entered the[125] Staff College with ease, and would certainly have passed through it with distinction; but he was too fond of his regiment to care to leave it even to study or to serve upon the staff. He took an interest too in his men, which was more than many of his brother officers did.

‘I sent for you, Larkins,’ he said to Herbert, ‘to see what you are made of. You are reading “Lecky;” do you understand it? Have you read any other books of the kind?’

‘I was always fond of philosophic reading.’

‘You have been well educated, then? You are the man, I suppose, who did Miss Prioleau’s French lesson for her?’ That story had soon got about. ‘Well, that’s not everything; let’s see how much you know,’ and Captain Greathed put a series[126] of questions to him which soon tested the extent of his learning.

‘You ought to do well enough, but book-lore is not everything. You look strong. Are you active? Are you good at gymnastics? Can you play cricket, and walk and run well? Try you? We will. Meanwhile keep straight and steady, and you’ll do. It’ll be your own fault if you don’t get on.’

From that time forth Captain Greathed took especial notice of Herbert, spoke to him frequently—an honour highly prized by the private soldier—advised him as to his reading, and lent him military books. All this did not pass unobserved in the company, and it soon became evident that his comrades rather resented the captain’s undisguised preference for Larkins. The body of the men in the Duke’s Own were not[127] particularly attached to their officers, and to be a favourite with superiors was not a certain passport to popularity with the rank and file. Herbert, in spite of Boy Hanlon’s championship, found himself kept at arm’s length rather, and often subjected to innuendoes and sneers.

One day there was some commotion in the barrack-room. Several men who had been slovenly on parade had had their ‘passes’ stopped. These permits to be absent from quarters after hours are much appreciated, and those who had forfeited them were naturally sore. Herbert, who wished to attend a lecture at the Mechanics’ Institute, had also ‘put in a pass,’ backed by the captain, which had been granted, much to the disgust of the other men.

It’s a burning shame,’ said one; and[128] others followed on the same side, but with louder and coarser expletives.

‘A young jiggermy-dandy like you,’ cried a big soldier, Jubbock by name, who had the reputation of being cock and bully of the company. ‘What right have you to what’s denied your betters? A sneaking young lickspittle, who’s got the length of the captain’s foot. I’ll teach you to—’

Jubbock advanced towards him with a threatening air.

‘Well?’ said Herbert coolly, ‘what’ll you teach me?’

‘To know your master. Take that,’ and Jubbock aimed a tremendous blow at Herbert, which the latter promptly parried, and with a smart ‘one—two’ put the great fellow flat on his back.

There was a shout in the barrack-room as Jubbock rose furious and closed with his[129] opponent. Then came a hubbub of voices. ‘The sergeant, the sergeant! Sergeant Pepper, the “Real Cayenne!”’ as he was commonly called when he looked like mischief.

‘What’s this? Quarrelling in the barrack-room? I’ll not have it. drop it. Who began it? You, Larkins? Then to the guard-room you’ll go, double quick. Here, Corporal Smirke, get a file of men.’

‘But t’other chap rasperated him,’ Hanlon put in. ‘Jubbock’s more to blame than Larkins. If you shop one you must shop the other.’

‘So I will. I’ll run them both in—march them off.’

And so Herbert, with a smarting sense of injustice, found himself relegated to the guard-house, and locked up for the night.