Imatges de pàgina
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office seems to have a special spite, shipping them from Quebec to Calcutta, and thence to Dublin, all in the course of a twelvemonth. It was never so with us. There was no regiment in the service stood higher for bravery or general efficiency, if I do say it, and we fell into a way of thinking that we deserved all the favoritism we got. There wasn't a speck of war, just then, in any quarter of the British possessions; and, as always happens at such times, our officers were bringing their wives and families over to them; and such as hadn't wives, were seriously thinking of getting them. Among the latter, was Lieutenant John Martin.

Aside from the painful recollections of the time, I shall always think of that summer at Malta with a great deal of pleasure. Our barracks were built on a smooth terrace overlooking the blue Mediterranean, with gardens lying back from them, and a beautiful shaded road running to them. We were as comfortable as need be; and before the end of August we had the ball-room finished, and three evenings a week were devoted to hops, concerts or promenades. And after the ladies came, and before I fell under the ban of the colonel's displeasure, as you shall hear, I thought, on the whole, Malta was about as favorable a spot as I should ever want to be assigned to.

The ladies were the wives, the daughters and the sisters of our officers; hardly enough, of course, to stock the ball-room, but that was a want easily supplied from the society of the town, where scarlet coats were decidedly popular. The field-officers all had wives and daughters; the matrons rather sedate, as might be expected, but excellent company, for all that; there were a round dozen of the line who had wives and children; and there were sprightly, handsome girls enough, among the daughters and sisters, all under the watchful care of the elder ladies, to excite the jealous rivalry of the subs. And of them all, Maggie Maxwell shone pre-eminent. Colonel Maxwell was the father of no less than six daughters, of whom Mag was the youngest; and all but she had married in the army. Two of them found husbands in the -7th, and the others were distributed equally among the infantry, cavalry and artillery. The "Maxwell establishment" had grown to be a standing joke before Mag was old enough to make love to; and, in the meantime, the colonel had conceived a whim which, in the end, was the cause of all my misery. He was

not of aristocratic birth; he was, in fact, as plain and unassuming a man, out of his uniform, as ever wore the king's colors; and nobody ever heard that Lieutenant Colonel Smith, or Captain Jones, or Lieutenant Simpkins, or the rest, had encountered any difficulty when they proposed to marry his girls; indeed, it was whispered that the colonel had been somewhat assiduous in getting them happily off his hands. But, as for Mag, it was well understood he had other views. She must never marry a soldier. He thought he'd done about enough for the service, in a domestic way; he didn't clearly perceive why he should be the father-in-law, as well as the colonel, of the regiment. Mag he considered as fitted for a very much higher sphere than any of her sisters had found; not, of course, that there could be anything more honorable than to marry an officer of the British military service; but he should be old enough to be retired, by-and-by (there was a tradition among us that he was about ninety then), and when that day came, he wanted at least one of his children near him. Those were just his views; and if he had allowed Mag to come to Malta, contrary to his first determination, it was only because he wanted to avoid an unpleasantness in the family. It was to please Mrs. Maxwell, sir; for no other reason. Mrs. Maxwell was a woman of unreasonable temper, if he must say it, and he hadn't been married to her fifty years to find that out. An extraordinary woman, sir, if he did say it; a woman who had a decided will of her own; and the Lord only knew what a fuss she would have made in the world, if nature had made her a man. So that when she wrote him that affectionate letter, closing with the words, "Maxwell, you old fool, hush up! I shall have my own way; Mag shall come with me, for the poor child needs the voyage and the change of air; and if you and I together can't keep all the young popinjays of your regiment at a distance, it will be quite time for you to be put on the retired list;" when she wrote that to him, he understood that the matter was settled. But he wanted it understood among the boys that he wouldn't have any nonsense-no, not a bit of it. If any man of the subs attempted to cast sheep's eyes at Mag, he'd put him under arrest, and have him detached on recruiting service. Yes, by the gods, he would!

All this was confidentially communicated by the colonel to the adjutant, about a week after the arrival of the ladies; and by the

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adjutant to us. The two had lingered at the table so late, that the lieutenant-colonel and myself, as senior sub, had to take charge of the parade; and as the colonel mellowed over his Oporto, he grew quite confidential with old Sykes on the subject of his domestic affairs, and finally inquired, point-blank, whether he, the adjutant, suspected that any, and if so, which of the subs was already smitten with Mag. Sykes was a clever fellow enough generally, but just at that time he had a grudge against me on some accountI don't know exactly what, but I think I had left him out at my dinner-party, because he got drunk so early, habitually, and proposed such silly toasts; but, however, he blurted out that it was the talk of the garrison that Lieutenant Martin was deeply affected in that quarter; at least, he was severely joked about it, at the mess.

"So the wind sets in that quarter, eh?" returned the colonel. "The presumptuous young scamp! A nice idea he must have of his position and mine, and his merits! By

adjutant, I'll have that flame smothered, or I'm not the man I take myself for! Now, sir, bear this in mind; you are to keep him on duty every other day, and as much oftener as will be necessary, to prevent his meeting her. We'll give him a thorough course of detail, till he recovers his senses. Do you understand ?"

Sykes did understand; and he took a malicious pleasure in literally obeying his instructions. For the next month there was hardly a day passed that I was not put on some duty which kept me at the barracks; and it was always contrived so as to keep me from the dances and dinner-parties, which the other officers enjoyed to their hearts' content. I remonstrated with the adjutant, and was referred to the colonel; but when Sykes informed me of his instructions, I was not slow to interpret their meaning, and so refrained from appealing to Colonel Maxwell. But my resolution was quickly taken, that no such tactics as these should prevent me from winning his daughter, if a good allowance of British pluck could be of any avail; and I determined to show the old man that he could not drive me from the field by any such selfish use of his authority. I was, in fact, deeply in love with Mag from the first. I had met her at the quay, on the evening of her arrival, whither the colonel had sent me to escort the ladies up to their new quarters. She was a tall, dashing brunette, with an eye

which would have captivated a much less impressible man than 1; and her merry laugh and mischievous ways completed the business with me. You may laugh at me, you young jackanapes; but you wont laugh two or three years hence, when you meet some such style of a girl, and find yourself conquered before you have had a chance to resist. That evening, on the way up to the quarters, we talked together as frankly as though we had been friends from childhoodas frankly as two guileless young natures can always commune with each other. It was a long walk, and I lengthened it as much as I could; and I was rather encouraged when the ambulance met us half way, and the fat old Mrs. Maxwell and the rest of them got in to ride, that Mag declared she preferred walking, as the evening was so pleasant. The truth is, it was a case of love at first sight. She told me afterward that she owned it to herself before I left her; and as for me, my own feelings were too positive to admit of a doubt. She told me all about herself, where she had lived and what she had done; how her mother had kept her out of society, and particularly that of the army, and how lonely she had been at school, and with her aunt, Deborah Maxwell, who had always had the principal charge of her. How the poor girl ever preserved her wonderful vivacity, under the repression she had been subjected to, I never could see; but here she was, as blithe and handsome as a gazelle, after being shut up the whole winter in Dublin with Aunt Deb; and when I told her something of our life here at Malta, and of all the social pleasure which we expected from the presence of the ladies-the balls, the fetes, the horseback rides, and the moonlight sails in the harborshe clapped her hands gleefully, and accepted my offer on the spot, to be her cavalier.

"Mother is always telling me what awful fellows you lieutenants are," she said, archly; and then added, with a gush of laughter, "but I really don't see anything very fright-. ful about you. I've never seen any of the officers but father, and some of the pompous old fellows he used to bring to dinner with him, and who always called me 'Miss Margaretta,' and were buttoned up so tight that they could hardly open their mouths. We shall be real splendid friends, I am sure."

After that, before her father took the alarm, I walked with her one evening on the terrace, and that finished the matter with both of us. It makes me sigh to look back to that time,

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"But sweetest far is love-first, passionate love."

And he's entirely right, although I don't suppose he knew anything about the better sort of it. There is nothing in this dark world so beautiful as the spectacle of an honest-hearted, manly young fellow, and a pure-minded girl, deep in love with each other. They are the most hopeful, trustful and devoted people imaginable; all the miserable selfishness which finds a place in the hearts of everybody else, is driven out of theirs; they live and enjoy life only for each other, and if there are difficulties and discouragements in the way, they only love and hope so much the stronger, in defiance of parents, fortune, and the world generally. So, at least, it was with Mag and me. When I made her understand why I could never join in the society of the quarters, upon which my heart was set at first, she opened her blue eyes to their widest, and then set her white teeth together, and stamped her foot in the most determined

way.

“And you are suffering all this for me?" she said. "Jack Martin, you dear, good boy, you are worth more to me than the whole pack of them, and I love you a great deal better for what they make you suffer. Don't you believe it? There!"

What do you suppose she did? She reached up and put her arms round my neck and kissed me-once, twice, three times. Ah, Mag, you darling, I wonder if we shall know each other by-and-by, when it's all over with me, and I go toward the land where you've gone?

The major wiped a tear from either eye, coughed, kicked his ankles violently against the lattice, and continued:

Well, we were not slow in devising a system of secret meetings; and with the aid of two of my chums who heartily sympathized with me, we managed to meet as often as every other day, without exciting the least suspicion. I was zealous in the performance of my duty, and apparently took no thought of the society of Mag Maxwell or anybody else; in fact, Sykes reported to the colonel that the scheme was working admirably, and that Lieutenant Martin was in a fair way to be cured of his nonsense; and the colonel twirled his gray mustaches, and said, "I

thought I knew how to manage them, Sykes." As for Mag, she seemed the gayest of the gay; she danced, walked, rode and flirted with the subalterns indifferently, setting them all by the ears, and treating them all with such equal favor that her father was delighted with her. "That's right, girl," he would say (as she told me); "break their hearts as fast as you like; I wont let them get to blows; and by-and-by you shall have a member of parliament for a husband."

"That was news to me," she said, looking up innocently into my face. "You don't mean to join the civil service, do you, Jack?"

The colonel, and Mrs. Maxwell, and the rest of them, saw how Mag conducted herself, and set their minds at rest; but they did not dream of our stolen interviews, and of the thousand and one plans to overcome our difficulties with which we bothered our simple heads. Elopement was out of the question, because there was not a priest on the island at that time, other than our chaplain, who would not have been frightened to death at such a proposition.

"If we could only conciliate your father," I sighed.

"I'm fearful we never can," said Mag, echoing my sigh. "He has repeated that odious idea about marrying a member of parliament, as much as fifty times. Tlie other day I asked him if a bishop wouldn't do; and do you think, he seemed to consider it all in earnest; for he answered, 'Yes, possibly; some man who stands high in the church or state; but never a soldier.' has the most unaccountable prejudice against my marrying one of his own profession-all because my sisters are soldiers' wives. But he hasn't half as good a son-in-law as I could give him."

He

She always made me laugh when I felt the most doleful, with one of her queer sayings. I had not done laughing at this one, when she clapped her hands and cried out, joyfully:

"Such a happy thought as I've just had! I verily believe Aunt Deb can help us ever so much."

Deborah Maxwell, whom I have named once before, was one of the ladies of the Maxwell household at Malta; a tall, angular spinster, of the most uncertain age; although from certain dates which some of the officers had gathered about the Maxwell clan, she was thought to be not less than forty-seven. She was the colonel's youngest sister, and a lady well known to every officer who had

held rank under her brother for the past thirty years. Beginning when a girl of seventeen, a bold, wild madcap, as our older officers described her, and when the colonel was a captain in India, she had been a devoted attache of whatever corps he was assigned to, whenever and wherever the presence of ladies was either possible, desirable, or even tolerable. There was hardly a general or fieldofficer in the service who had not waltzed and flirted with her in those days, in some quarter of the globe, when they were captains and subs; and during all these thirty years, she had sedulously pursued the darling object of her heart-the winning of a husband from the service. At such times as the exigences of campaigns forbade her presence with us, she would retire to an old home in Dublin; and upon the first opportunity she would be sure to rejoin us, more ardent than ever in the pursuit. Poor woman! I could pity her, were it not that she was at the bottom of all my misery.

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The years slipped · away, taking from her the bloom of her youth, and bringing not the recompense of a husband, until she came to Malta, thinner, more angular, and more wrinkled as to her sallow face, than ever before; but with a set of curls which none of us had ever seen her wear before, teeth which Captain Burnet said were unquestionably hers, if they were paid for, and that stereotyped, languishing smile, which ought to have melted the stony heart of some son of Mars before most of us were born. To me, the old creature was positively insufferable. For the last three years, or ever since I had served with the -7th, I had seen her dangling upon it, a perfect nightmare to the older men who had escaped her fascinations in times past, and a terror to the newer ones, upon whom she ever brought to bear her most powerful fascinations. standing her as well as I did, it surprised me to hear from Mag that she might help us vastly, at this juncture, if she would.

And under

"She has an immense influence over father," she explained. "I believe she has more than mother has. Mamma can govern him, but can't coax him a particle, when he gets into one of his set ways. Now I'm pretty sure that if Aunt Deb can be made to go to work at him in good earnest, she can drive all those odd notions of members of parliament out of his stubborn head, and make him think well of you for a-well, no matter; I shan't use that compound word any more."

"But I doubt if she will think well of it herself," I suggested.

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"Botheration, Jack Martin! don't you think I can coax Aunt Deb into anything? Just wait till to-morrow, and I'll tell you what she says."

And on the morrow she did tell me. Aunt Deb had received her confession with positive. affright; had lifted up her hands, protesting that Mag was a wicked, wicked girl, and she didn't really know what would become of her; that her brother would be fearfully angry, and never would consent; and in fact she did not approve of it herself. And then Mag Lad soothed and calmed her, and after half an hour's skillful manipulation, had brought her to say that she would dare even her brother's displeasure for her dear Mag, and that she would do all that could possibly be done by any one to help us. But there was one thing must be done first. She wasn't entirely satisfied about Lieutenant Martin. She wanted to think well of him; she must like any one that her dear Mag liked; but she had an old grudge against Lieutenant Martin. He had used her most shabbily a year ago, at the grand review at Dover, and had never explained it at all. She wasn't the person to be slighted by any subaltern of the 7th, and when Lieutenant Martin made amends for his ungentlemanly conduct, it would be quite time for her to intercede with Colonel Max well for him.

"What did you do, Jack ?" Mag asked.

"The Lord knows; I'm sure I don't. No doubt she's right about it; I must have snubbed her unmercifully half a dozen times. But that shall be made right, Mag; only arrange an interview for me, and she shall think me the very nicest young Briton alive. I'll manage her!"

Mag went straightway to her aunt, and begged her to grant me an audience immediately. Miss Deborah demurred; she didn't wish to do anything imprudent, and she was afraid this would be. What would Colonel Maxwell think, if he knew she had seen me privately? But for the sake of her dear Mag -yes, for her sake, she would take even as great a risk as this. She would meet me at ten o'clock that night, down by the oak tree at the sea-wall.

And I went, unsuspecting gosling as I was. Ned, my boy, you're pretty smart, for a young one, and think you know considerable; and you would have done just as I did-and thrust yourself into the trap just as I did. It's

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a fact, after all, that nothing but age and experience can confer wisdom. Seventeen hundred times since have I thought of the snare that this old Delilah wove for me, and as many times have I anathematized the blindness which sent me headlong into it. Well, well, we can only be young once, so we can only be silly once. Don't interrupt me, Ned; what I say is the sorrowful truth.

I was on hand at the appointed place, promptly at fifteen minutes before ten. Never suspecting any trick, it did not occur to me to look for eavesdroppers; but, as I afterward discovered, Sykes and Simpkins were lying perdu on the other side the wall, and drank in every word that was uttered. Presently a female figure came up with a nimble step, and drawing the shawl down from her head, disclosed the familiar features of Aunt Deborah.

"O Lieutenant Martin-is it you?" she began, with two or three abortive attempts at a sob. "Such a time as I have had to get away without being seen! And if they should miss me, I don't know what I would do. O dear, how my heart does beat! O dear, dear -I am so faint! O my-O!"

She snatched my hand and placed it where her heart was supposed to be, when I immediately perceived that there was no perceptible palpitation at all. I attempted to disengage myself; but she was now leaning her whole weight on my shoulder; and I was actually compelled to put my arm round her to hold her away from me.

"My dear Miss Maxwell," I said, “don't, I beg of you, be so agitated; there is surely nothing to excite any alarm. You embarrass

me seriously, and I hardly know how to begin what I had to say. You know, I suppose, why I solicited an interview ?"

"O Mr. Martin, don't-don't, I beg of you! Whoever would have thought such a thing of you ?"

"Be calm, Miss Maxwell; pray be calm. I assure you, I had no reason to suppose that this would take you by surprise. You have been acquainted with me about three years—"

A convulsive "yes," interrupted me, and the woman laid her aged head and false curls on my shoulder.

"And I had no reason to think that you cherished any other sentiments toward me than those of the kindest regard."

I love to hear you say that," she murmured. "And I now assure you, that however my actions may have appeared to show to the

contrary, I have ever regarded you as one of the best of my friends-"

"The friendship of you men is so dangerous," she parenthesized.

"A lady who has stood very high in my regard, and toward whom I hope my relations will not long hence assume a nearer aspect." "O Mr. Martin, don't, I beg of you!"

"Why not, Miss Maxwell? Indeed, you must hear me. You cannot be a stranger to the sentiments of affection which I entertain for your niece-"

"What?-for who?" she screamed, starting with well-simulated surprise, and immediately grabbing me by both arms.

"Why, for Mag, of course. Didn't she tell you that we were engaged, and—”

The woman seemed suddenly transformed into a tigress. She threw her long, bony arms about me, pinning my own to my sides so that I was comparatively powerless, and sent forth upon the still night air a succession of such piercing shrieks and screams as wellnigh deafened me.

"O, you horrid man! 0, 0, 0! that I should ever live to be deceived in this way! O my poor heart! Help! Murder! Thieves! O you wretch! Help! Colonel! Adjutant! Lieutenant Simpkins! Save me! 0,0!"

She kept up her infernal noise, holding on to ine all the while, at the same time that I was too astonished to break away, until half the garrison had rushed to the spot, including officers, soldiers, and several of the ladies. As soon as the colonel saw the cause of the alarm, he ordered the men back to their quarters. By this time the woman had released me, and thrown herself down at my feet, where she made a miserable pretence of sobbing and crying.

"Mr. Martin, what does all this mean, sir?" asked the colonel, with his very sternest

manner.

"I've nothing to say here, sir," I replied. "I've no explanation to give, before this crowd of people." Here several audible comments, such as "Brute," "Scoundrel," " Monster," and the like, from the ladies present, reached me. "I believe I can explain it to your comprehension, if not to your satisfaction, at a private interview; and, in the meantime, I declare that I have done nothing contrary to my obligations as an officer and a gentleman."

The colonel was both angry and puzzled, and he looked from Deborah to me, and back to her, in evident perplexity.

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