CHAPTER VI. BACK ON THE ROCK.

As October approached, and with it the time for rejoining his regiment, Herbert became more and more eager and excited. He was quite angry with himself for being so pleased. It seemed such base ingratitude to Lady Farrington to be so delighted to leave her. But he was not that in the least. He felt an increasing regard for her which promised to develop some day into deep affection. He was only overjoyed at the prospect of once more resuming his work. Those who have been long in regular harness can best realize how flat, stale, and unprofitable is life without a fixed object and employment, more or less constant, from morning till night. Neither by[99] inclination nor by his recent training was Herbert of the sort to eat the bread of idleness, or be satisfied with having nothing to do. Therefore it was, that when his adieux were made, and the poor old lady left to her solitary grief, Herbert returned to soldiering with all the vigour and elasticity of a steel spring, which has been set free. He could never forget all he owed his first patron and firm friend; he meant to spend a certain portion of his time with her still; he would go to her always gladly and with the utmost alacrity, when she expressed a wish to see him or desired to have him at her side. But in spite of all, he was like a schoolboy just released from school. The expiration of his leave and his return to duty, which is to some officers such an inexpressible bore, was to him a source of the most unfeigned delight.

[100]

Yet it was not without a certain trepidation that he prepared to take up his new position. How would his brother officers receive him? Would they accept him as one of themselves? He remembered, certainly, that when the news of his promotion first reached the Coast, all had congratulated him warmly, and made many cordial and civil speeches, declaring him to be an honour to the Duke’s Own. But these were days of abnormal excitement; a sharp campaign was barely ended, and active service does much to sweep away formality and level class distinctions. It would be different now, perhaps, at an expensive and brilliant mess in a gay garrison town, where social life was always bubbling up and boiling over in festive gatherings, race-meetings, days with the Calpe hounds, theatricals, and balls. Herbert had no particular[101] craving for these joys. But would he be freely admitted and readily welcomed everywhere? Might not some, unmindful of the fact that he had a gentleman’s education, and that possibly his birth, if he got his rights, was better than theirs, be disposed to look down upon him, and despise him as a man who had ‘risen from the ranks?’

Herbert was little acquainted with the tempers and idiosyncrasies of British officers. Although long associated with them, it had been only as an inferior separated from them by a wide gulf, and he saw only what was on the surface: brusquerie, often, an arrogant manner and a self-satisfied air. He did not know that at bottom they were honest and well-meaning fellows full of prejudices—not all Newtons perhaps, or John Stuart Mills—but straightforward honourable men, who were in the habit of taking[102] their comrades just as they found them, and just for what they were worth. There may be snobs who will kotow to a duke’s son, or revolve as satellites round a wealthy young parvenu; but the general verdict of a British mess upon the individuals who compose it, is based always upon their intrinsic qualities and personal claims.

The Duke’s Own were not long in finding out that Herbert Larkins was ‘a man of the right sort,’ ‘a thorough good chap all round.’ They saw, not without surprise, perhaps, that he took his place among them quite naturally, almost as though to the manner born.

He behaved quite properly at the dinner-table; he did not eat peas with a knife, or drink with his mouth full; he could take his share in the conversation—never very abstruse or wide in its range—and[103] that without dropping his h’s or miscalling his words. He could do most things, too; play cricket and racquets, shoot, ride or play a rubber of whist. Above all, he had a pleasant face and a genial manner, with a smile and a civil word for all who spoke to him, whether on duty or off.

This last was almost sufficient recommendation in itself, especially when found in the adjutant, as it was in Herbert’s case. Colonel Greathed was not a commanding officer to be led by the nose; he drove his own coach, and had his team always well in hand. But even under his régime the adjutant was as he must always be—a considerable personage. He really wields much power; he is the usual channel of communication with the colonel; through him officers apply for leave or other indulgences; he keeps the duty roster, and can, if he[104] pleases, do even the oldest a good turn, by carrying out exchanges, and substituting one name for another, even at the eleventh hour. Over the prisoners he exercises the sway of a task-master and pedagogue combined; he can prolong drill-instruction to a maddening length; and upon his good or evil report much of their happiness depends. With the non-commissioned officers, and rank and file, the adjutant is generally an irresponsible autocrat and king. He holds the sergeants in the hollow of his hand; the colonel nearly always relies upon him to recommend men for promotion, and it is he who brings forward deserving private soldiers and raises them out of the ruck. All this tends to make his position dangerously full of snares. He may easily become puffed up and conceited; worse still (and this is especially noticeable in adjutants[105] who have risen from the ranks), he may drift into favouritism; and, by reason of his intimate acquaintance with the ins and outs of military life, fall into the error of knowing too much and seeing too much. That Herbert steered clear of all the hidden rocks which threaten the adjutant’s course was the best testimony to his worth. Although he never swerved from his duty, no adjutant could have been more generally popular.

The days passed evenly and pleasantly enough. They were happy days for Herbert, which he remembered always in his after life. Busy days, beginning with the fresh morning hours, when he took the battalion out for early drill, and ending with the inspection of the non-commissioned officers at tattoo. Guard-mounting parade in a fortress bristling with sentries; orderly-room[106] in a place where liquor, unfortunately, is cheap; much correspondence and many intricate returns, in a garrison fully provided with the regulation number of staff officers, all these kept him close till it was long past mid-day. Then there was afternoon parade, more writing, the drill of young officers, and a few recruits, or awkward squads, and the day was well advanced before he could call himself really free; but there were few days when he did not find time for a smart canter along the beach of Gibraltar Bay, the Rotten Row of the Rock, or for a longer ramble upon the slopes below the Queen of Spain’s Chair, or on the San Roque road and towards the Cork Wood. Now and again, but rarely, and chiefly when the meet was near at hand, he gave himself a half-holiday, and spent many enjoyable hours with the Calpe hounds. It[107] was his first taste of hunting, and although not quite of the best, perhaps, it was a pleasant introduction to the mysteries of sport. There was always the fair landscape lying bright under the southern sky; the change and movement through the fresh, sweet-scented air, the cheerful companionship of a field of happily-disposed people, whom the day’s outing, with its short runs and rapid break-neck gallops, thoroughly amused.

Ladies, not many certainly, but all very ardent followers of the chase, invariably attend the meets of the Calpe hounds. Herbert saw them, each with her little band of devoted attendants, for ladies are scarce at Gibraltar, and all who have the smallest pretensions to please can always count upon a court of their own. Herbert owed allegiance to none of the reigning[108] queens; he had no leisure for flirting and philandering, nor did he much enjoy the garden-party, afternoon tea, or small and early dance. When he was out with the hounds, therefore, he ranged about alone or with some male companion of his own sort. He had hardly a bowing acquaintance with any one of the fair sex upon the Rock, and it was with no little surprise that he found himself one day greeted with a nod and a most friendly smile by one whom, for the moment, he did not seem to know.

It was Miss Prioleau.

The general, with his wife and daughter, had been away, on leave in England, when the Duke’s Own returned to Gibraltar. They had only been back a few days when Herbert thus again encountered his little friend Edith for the first time.

[109]

He raised his hat, and would have ridden on, but the general himself came up with outstretched hand:

‘Allow me, Mr. Larkins, to congratulate you. As one of the old regiment, I take a pride in any one who has contributed to its credit. You have done so, and right well. I am glad to think you have met with your deserts.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ put in the sweet voice of the daughter, and somehow the simple words were far more grateful to Herbert’s ears than the sonorous praises which fell from her father’s lips. ‘Yes, indeed, Mr. Larkins, it was a noble action, and we are all proud of it.’

The bright maiden had now grown into the fair and more staid and self-conscious, but winsome girl. Yet she was the same attractive little person, no less engaging,[110] and far more dangerous now in her budding womanly beauty than when he had seen her last, still almost a child in her white habit, patronising him at the general’s inspection, and, metaphorically, patting him on the back.

Herbert muttered a few words in acknowledgment of the general’s courteous approval. Edith he thanked by a grateful look, which had perhaps more meaning in it than he intended, or that she exactly liked.

‘I do believe they have found, father!’ she cried; and as she spoke there was a sudden stir and bustle at the far end of the field. Next moment came the whimper of a hound; then the cheering voice of the huntsman, then the twang of a horn, then a whole chorus of voices—for out here everyone acted as amateur whip and unprofessional[111] aid—swelling up into a grand volume of sound.

‘Yoicks! For’rad! Ga—wn a—way!’

It promised to be a capital burst. They had been drawing the White House covert, and the fox headed for the Majarambu woods. The country was rough; now and again you came to a precipice like the side of a house; next to a long slope studded, as it might be, with the great boulders of an old world glacier or moraine; then broad uplands clothed with broad tufts of the gum cistus, just high enough to oblige your horse to take them in a series of quick jumps not always very easy to sit. The pace was good, the going difficult, and, an unusual thing, the run was protracted for more than a quarter of an hour. Ere long the field began to tail off, and presently there were very few people in the first[112] flight. Bill Ackroyd, the huntsman, was one, so was the M.F.H., Herbert also, and Edith Prioleau, but without her papa. The general had got into difficulties at a wide drain, where, as some irreverent subalterns remarked, it was to be hoped he might stay, at least beyond the following Saturday, so that they might escape the usual weekly field-day upon the North Front.

In the exuberant enjoyment of galloping at top speed over a break-neck country, Edith had all but forgotten the existence of her father. No doubt he would turn up at the first check. Runs were not so plentiful, and this one was far too good to lose. She meant to see it out to the very last.

Not quite. There must be accidents sometimes, as the Spanish journals say when describing bull-fights; and all at once Edith’s horse, a not too surefooted barb,[113] put his foot in a hole, and he and his rider came down together.

Over and over they rolled, on the top and close to the margin of the steep cliff, a mixed-up mass, as it seemed to Herbert’s terrified eyes, of habit, light curls, black hoofs, gray mane, and tail. Quick as lightning he had dismounted and gone to the rescue. How he managed he never remembered; but by a great effort, and, as he thought, after the lapse of nearly an age of time, he succeeded in disengaging Miss Prioleau from her horse.

She had fainted. Her face was blanched quite white; a small stream of crimson was trickling from one temple as though she had received a mortal hurt. To bring water in his hunting-hat from a spring hard by, to sprinkle her brow and chafe her hands, was all that Herbert could do until[114] the arrival of a number of others, among whom were one or two eager but officious ladies, and the affrighted general. To them he resigned his charge, but he waited anxiously a little way off to hear how it fared with the poor girl.

Happily she soon came to. The shock of her fall had deprived her of consciousness; a small stone had hit her forehead; but these were the worst injuries she had endured. Very soon she was able to remount her horse and ride slowly home.

Herbert felt first a little neglected, although, as he told himself, he had really no reason to expect any extravagant thanks. Probably no one knew that it was he who had extricated Miss Prioleau from her perilous predicament, the general and his daughter least of all, and what did it matter if they did? The service was a very trifling[115] one, after all, and he had only done what any other man would have done in his place.

He was quite wrong, however, in supposing that those whom he had served were ungrateful. Next morning came a formal but most courteously-worded letter of thanks from the general, and with it a letter from Mrs. Prioleau, repeating her husband’s phrases, and winding up with a very friendly invitation to dine at an early day.

Herbert gladly accepted, full of joy at the prospect of meeting Miss Prioleau again. He hardly considered how far the acquaintance, if allowed to ripen, was likely to affect his peace of mind.