Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"Was she laughing at my unwonted gravity, that so strange a light seemed to glitter in her eyes, on her teeth, and over all her lovely face? I kissed her hands again, and she left them in mine. Adoration began to fill my heart and eyes, and be faintly murmured on my lips; for the great beauty of the girl bewildered and intoxicated me; and, perhaps, I was emboldened by past success in more than one love affair. She sought to withdraw her hand, saying--

"'Look not thus; I know how lightly you hold the love of one elsewhere.'

"'Of my cousin Marie Louise? Oh! what of that! I never, never loved till now!' and, drawing a ring from her finger, I slipped my beautiful opal in its place.

"'And you love me?' she whispered.

"'Yes; a thousand times, yes!'

"'But you are a soldier--wounded, too. Ah! if you should die before we meet again!'

"'Or, if you should die ere then?' said I, laughingly.

"'Die--I am already dead to the world--in loving you; but, living or dead, our souls are as one, and----'

"'Neither heaven nor the powers beneath shall separate us now!' I exclaimed, as something of melodrama began to mingle with the genuineness of the sudden passion with which she had inspired me. She was so impulsive, so full of brightness and ardour, as compared to the cold, proud, and calm Marie Louise. I boldly encircled her with my arms; then her glorious eyes seemed to fill with the subtle light of love, while there was a strange magnetic thrill in her touch, and, more than all, in her kiss.

"'Carl, Carl!' she sighed.

"'What! You know my name?-- And yours?'

"'Thyra. But ask no more."

"There are but three words to express the emotion that possessed me--bewilderment, intoxication, madness. I showered kisses on her beautiful eyes, on her soft tresses, on her lips that met mine half way; but this excess of joy, together with the pain of my wound, began to overpower me; a sleep, a growing and drowsy torpor, against which I struggled in vain, stole over me. I remember clasping her firm little hand in mine, as if to save myself from sinking into oblivion, and then--no more--no more!

"On again coming back to consciousness, I was alone. The sun was rising, but had not yet risen. The scenery, the thickets through which we had skirmished, rose dark as the deepest indigo against the amber-tinted eastern sky; and the last light of the waning moon yet silvered the pools and marshes around the borders of the Langsö Lake, where now eight thousand men, the slain of yesterday's battle, were lying stark and stiff. Moist with dew and blood, I propped myself on one elbow and looked around me, with such wonder that a sickness came over my heart. I was _again_ in the cemetery where the bullet had struck me down; a little gray owl was whooping and blinking in a recess of the crumbling wall. Was the drapery of the chamber but the ivy that rustled thereon?--for where the lighted buffet stood there was an old square tomb, whereon lay my sword and bearskin cap!

"The last rays of the waning moonlight stole through the ruins on a new-made grave--the fancied _fauteuil_ on which I lay--strewn with the flowers of yesterday, and at its head stood a temporary cross, hung with white garlands and wreaths of immortelles. Another ring was on my finger how; but where was she, the donor? Oh, what opium-dream, or what insanity was this?

"For a time I remained utterly bewildered by the vividness of my recent dream, for such I believed it to be. But if a dream, how came this strange ring, with a square emerald stone, upon my finger? And _where_ was mine? Perplexed by these thoughts, and filled with wonder and regret that the beauty I had seen had no reality, I picked my way over the ghostly _débris_ of the battle-field, faint, feverish, and thirsty, till at the end of a long avenue of lindens I found shelter in a stately brick mansion, which I learned belonged to the Count of Idstedt, a noble, on whose hospitality--as he favoured the Holsteiners--I meant to intrude as little as possible.

"He received me, however, courteously and kindly. I found him in deep mourning: and on discovering, by chance, that I was the officer who had halted the line of skirmishers when the funeral _cortège_ passed on the previous day, he thanked me with earnestness, adding, with a deep sigh, that it was the burial of his only daughter.

"'Half my life seems to have gone with her--my lost darling! She was so sweet, Herr Kaptain--so gentle, and so surpassingly beautiful--my poor Thyra!'

"'_Who_ did you say?' I exclaimed, in a voice that sounded strange and unnatural, while half-starting from the sofa on which I had cast myself, sick at heart and faint from loss of blood.

"'Thyra, my daughter, Herr Kaptain,' replied the Count, too full of sorrow to remark my excitement, for this had been the quaint old Danish name uttered in my dream. 'See, what a child I have lost!' he added, as he drew back a curtain which covered a full-length portrait, and, to my growing horror and astonishment, I beheld, arrayed in white even as I had seen her in my vision, the fair girl with the masses of golden hair, the beautiful eyes, and the _piquante_ smile lighting up her features even on the canvas, and I was rooted to the spot.

"'This ring, Herr Count?' I gasped.

"He let the curtain fall from his hand, and now a terrible emotion seized him, as he almost tore the jewel from my finger.

"'My daughter's ring!' he exclaimed. 'It was buried with her yesterday--her grave has been violated--violated by your infamous troops.'

"As he spoke, a mist seemed to come over my sight; a giddiness made my senses reel, then a hand--the soft little hand of last night, with my opal ring on its third finger--came stealing into mine, unseen! More than that, a kiss from tremulous lips I could not see, was pressed on mine, as I sank backward and fainted! The remainder of my story must be briefly told.

"My soldiering was over; my nervous system was too much shattered for further military service. On my homeward way to join and be wedded to Marie Louise--a union with whom was intensely repugnant to me now--I pondered deeply over the strange subversion of the laws of nature presented by my adventure; or the madness, it might be, that had come upon me.

"On the day I presented myself to my intended bride, and approached to salute her, I felt a hand--the _same hand_--laid softly on mine. Starting and trembling I looked around me; but saw nothing. The grasp was firm. I passed my other hand over it, and felt the slender fingers and the shapely wrist; yet still I saw nothing, and Marie Louise gazed at my motions, my pallor, doubt, and terror, with calm but cool indignation.

"I was about to speak--to explain--to say I know not what, when a kiss from lips I could not see sealed mine, and with a cry like a scream I broke away from my friends and fled.

"All deemed me mad, and spoke with commiseration of my wounded head; and when I went abroad in the streets men eyed me with curiosity, as one over whom some evil destiny hung--as one to whom something terrible had happened, and gloomy thoughts were wasting me to a shadow. My narrative may seem incredible; but this attendant, unseen yet palpable, is ever by my side, and if under any impulse, such even as sudden pleasure in meeting you, I for a moment forget it, the soft and gentle touch of a female hand reminds me of the past, and haunts me, for a guardian demon--if I may use such a term--rules my destiny: one lovely, perhaps, as an angel.

"Life has no pleasures, but only terrors for me now. Sorrow, doubt, horror, and perpetual dread have sapped the roots of existence; for a wild and clamorous fear of what the next moment may bring forth is ever in my heart, and when the touch comes my soul seems to die within me.

"You know what haunts me now--God help me! God help me! You do not understand all this, you would say. Still less do I; but in all the idle or extravagant stories I have read of ghosts--stories once my sport and ridicule, as the result of vulgar superstition or ignorance--the so-called supernatural visitor was visible to the eye, or heard by the ear; but the ghost, the fiend, the invisible Thing that is ever by the side of Carl Holberg, is only sensible to the touch--it is the unseen but tangible substance of an apparition!"

He had got thus far when he gasped, grew livid, and, passing his right hand over the left, about an inch above it, with trembling fingers, he said--

"It is here--here now--even with you present, I feel her hand on mine; the clasp is tight and tender, and she will never leave me, but with life!"

And then this once gay, strong, and gallant fellow, now the wreck of himself in body and in spirit, sank forward with his head between his knees, sobbing and faint.

Four months afterwards, when with my friends, I was shooting bears at Hammerfest, I read in tell Norwegian _Aftenposten_, that Carl Holberg had shot himself in bed, on Christmas Eve.

THE BOMBARDIER'S STORY.

"Some feel by instinct swift as light
The presence of the foe,
Whom God ordains in future time
To strike the fatal blow." AYTOUN.

Very few persons in this world are unlucky enough to see, or to have seen, a ghost; but we nearly have all met with some one else who had seen something weird or unearthly. And now for a little story of my own, by which you will find that, in my time, I have more than once encountered a ghost, or that which, perhaps, was _worse_ than any ghost could be.

In the Christmas before the battle of the Alma, I, Bob Twyford, was a young bombardier of the Royal Artillery, a "G.C.R." (good conduct ring) man, mighty proud of that, and of my uniform, with its yellow lace and rows of brass buttons, with the motto "_Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt_," and so forth, when I went home on a month's furlough, to see old mother and all my friends at our little village in the Weald of Kent.

I was proud too, to show them that, by the single chevron of bombardier, my foot was firmly planted on the first step of the long ladder of promotion; happy, too, that there was one in particular to show it to--my cousin, little Bessie Leybourne--though she was a big Bessie now--my sweetheart, and my wife that was to be, if good promotion came, or if I bought my discharge, and took to business with some money we expected--money that was long, long in coming.

More than once, in the beautiful season of autumn, had Bessie Leybourne been the queen of the hop-pickers, and then I thought that she looked bright and beautiful as a fairy, when the crown of flowers was placed on her sunny brown hair, and her deep blue eyes were beaming with pleasure and gratified vanity.

I had a dream about Bessie on the night before--a dream that made me uncomfortable and gave me much cause for thought; and so a vague presentiment of coming evil clouded the joy of my returning home.

I had seen Bessy in her beauty and her bravery as the hop queen; but she was calling on me to protect her--for she was struggling to free herself from the embraces and the blandishments of a handsome and blasé-looking man, whose costume and bearing were alike fashionable and distinguished. Close by them, looking on evidently with amusement, was his friend, a hook-nosed, grim, and sombre-looking fellow, with a black moustache, and malevolent eyes, who held me back as with a grasp of iron, while uttering a strange, chuckling laugh, the sound of which awoke me. But the faces of those men made a vivid and painful impression upon me; for the whole vision seemed so distinct and real, that I believed I should recognize them anywhere.

I spoke to Tom Inches, our Scotch pay-sergeant, about it, and he, being a great believer in dreams, assured me that it was ominous of some evil that would certainly happen to Bessie or to me, or to us both.

"For you must know, Bob," he continued, "that in sleep the soul seems to issue from the body, and to attain the power of looking into the future; for time or place, distance or space, form no obstruction then; so the untrammelled spirit of the dreamer may see the future as well as the past, and know that which is to happen as well as that which has happened."

The Scotchman's words had a solemnity about them that rendered me still more uneasy; but I strove to shake off care, and already saw in anticipation my mother's cottage among the woodlands of the Weald.

Every pace drew me nearer home, and I trod gaily on, with my knapsack on my back, and only a crown piece in my pocket. My purse was light; but, save for that ugly dream, my heart was lighter still, as I thought of Bessie Leybourne.

I had left the railway station some miles behind. It was Christmas Eve. The Weald of Kent spread before me; not as I had seen it last in its summer greenness, but covered deep with snow, over which the sun, as he set, shed a purple flush, that deepened in the shade to blue, and made the icicles on every hedge and tree glitter with a thousand prismatic colours.

Red lights were beginning to twinkle through the leafless copses from cottage windows, and heavily the dun winter smoke was curling in the clear mid air, from many a house and homestead, and from the clustered chimney stalks of the quaint and stately old rectory.

An emotion of bitterness came over me, on passing this edifice, with all its gables and lighted oriel windows.

I had no great love for the rector. When a boy I had found in our garden a pheasant, which he, the Rev. Dr. Raikes, had wounded by a shot. Pleased with the beauty of the bird, I made a household pet of it, till his keeper, hearing of the circumstance, had me arrested and stigmatized as a little poacher, the rector, as a magistrate, being the exponent of the law in the matter. So I quitted the parish and its petty tyrant, to become a gunner and driver in the artillery, where my good education soon proved of service to me.

For the sake of a miserable bird, the sporting rector had driven into the world a widow's only son. But how fared he in his own household?

Valentine Raikes, his only son, was breaking his proud and pampered heart by mad dissipation, by gambling, and every species of debauchery; by horse-racing, and by debts of honour, which had been paid thrice over, to save his commission in the hussars.

At last I stood by mother's cottage door.

The little dwelling was smothered among hops and ivy, and with these were blended roses and honeysuckle in summer. Now the icicles hung in rows under the thatched eaves, but a red and cheerful glow came through the lozenged panes of the deep-set little windows on the waste of snow without.

A moment I lingered by the gate, and in the garden plot, for my heart was very full, and it well-nigh failed me; but there was a listener within who heard my step and knew it. And the next moment saw me in my mother's arms, and I felt like a boy again, as my happy tears mingled with hers, and it seemed as if this Christmas Eve was to be the Christmas Eve of past and jollier times.

"A merry Christmas, Bob, and a happy new year!"

The dear old woman's face was bright with joy; yet I could detect many a wrinkle now where dimples once had been, and see that her hair was thinner and whiter, perhaps, as she passed her tremulous hand caressingly over my bronzed face as if to assure herself of my identity, and that I was really her "own boy Bob." Then she helped me off with my knapsack, and sat me in father's old leathern chair, by the side of the glowing hearth, and pottered about, getting me a hot cake, and a mug of spiced ale, muttering and laughing, and hovering about me the while.

"But, mother, dear," said I, looking round, "where is Bessie all this time? She got my letter, of course?"

"Bessie is across the meadows at the church, Bob?"

"On this cold night, mother!"

"Yes; helping Miss Raikes to decorate it for the service to-morrow."

"Miss Raikes!" said I, and a cloud came over me.

I had left head-quarters with only four crowns in my pocket. We soldiers are seldom over-burdened with cash--for though England expects every man to do his duty, England likes it done cheap--and I had well-nigh starved myself on the road home that I might bring something with me for those I loved--some gay ribbons for Bessie, and a lace cap for my mother, who was so proud of her "Bombardier Bob," for so she always called me, heaven bless her!

"I hope she won't be long away, mother, for I've had such a dream----"

"Lor' bless me, Bob," said she, pausing as she bustled about preparing supper, "a dream, have you--about what, or whom?"

"Bessie," said I, with a sigh, as I took the ribbons from my knapsack.

"Was it good or evil, Bob?"

"I can't say, mother," said I, with a sickly smile, as the solemn words of the Scotch pay-sergeant came back to my memory; "for an evil dream, say we, portends good, and a pleasant dream portends evil; they seem to go by contraries. Yet somehow, by the impression this dream made upon me, it seems almost prophetic."

"Don't 'ee say so, Bob, for though in the Old Testament we find many instances of prophetic dreaming, I don't believe in such things nowadays."

The darkness had set completely in now, and I saw that, although mother affected to make light of Bessie's protracted absence, she glanced uneasily, from time to time, through the window, and at the old Dutch clock that ticked in its corner, just as it used to tick when I was a boy, and rode on father's knee; for nothing here seemed changed, save that mother was older, and stooped a trifle more.

"Mother, dear," said I, starting up at last, "I can't stand this delay, and Bessie must not come through the lanes alone; so I shall just step down to the church and escort her home."

In another moment I was out in the snow. A few thick flakes were falling athwart the gloom. The decoration of the rectory church for the solemn services of the morrow was, I knew of old, always considered an important matter in our village, yet I could not help thinking that, as I had written to announce the very time of my return, Bessie might have been at home to welcome me. Instead of that, I had now to go in search of her; and this was the Christmas meeting--the home-coming of which I had drawn so many happy and joyous pictures when alone, and in the silence of the night when far away, a sentinel on a lonely post, or when tossing sleeplessly on the hard wooden guard-bed.

Mother was kind, loving, affectionate as ever, but Bessie, my betrothed, why was she absent at such a time?

The sad presentiment of coming evil grew strong within me, and I thought, with bitterness, of how far I had marched afoot for days, and starved myself to buy her gewgaws, for I knew that pretty Bessie was not without vanity.

"Pshaw!" said I. "Be a man, Bob Twyford--be a man!" and, leaping the churchyard stile, I slowly crossed the burial ground.

There were lights in the church; and I heard the sound of merry voices, and even of laughter, ringing in its hollow, stony space.

Snow covered all the graves, and the headstones, which stood in close rows; a heavy mantle of snow loaded the roof of the church, and, tipping the carvings of its buttresses, brought them out from the mass of the building in strong white relief. Great icicles depended from the gurgoyles of its tower and battlements, and the wind whistled drearily past, rustling the masses of ivy that grew over the old Saxon apse. The tracery of the windows, the sturdy old mullions and some heraldic blazons, with quaint and ghastly spiritual subjects in stained glass, could be discerned by the lights that were within.

I lifted my forage-cap in mute reverence as I passed one grave, for I knew my father lay there under a winding-sheet of snow, and a pace or two more brought me to the quaint little porch of the church, where I remained for a time looking in, and irresolute whether to advance or retire.

When my eyes became accustomed to the partial gloom within, I could see that the zigzag Saxon mouldings and ornaments of the little chancel arch, the capitals of the shafts, the stairs of the pulpit, and the oaken canopy thereof, were all decorated with ivy sprigs and holly leaves, combined with artificial flowers, all with some meaning and taste, so as to bring out the architectural features of the quaint old edifice.

A portable flight of steps stood in the centre of the aisle, just under the chancel arch, which was low, broad, massive, of no great height, and formed a species of frame for a picture that sorely disconcerted me.

On the summit of that flight stood a lovely, laughing young lady, whose delicate white hands, a little reddened by the winter's frost, were wreathing scarlet holy-berries among the green leaves.

A little lower down was seated Bessie--my own Bessie--her blue eyes radiant with pleasure, her thick hair--half flaxen, half auburn--shining like golden threads in the light of the altar lamps, that fell on her beaming English face, so fresh, so fair, so charming. Her lap was full of ivy and holly twigs, which a gentleman who hovered near, cigar in mouth, was cutting and tossing into that receptacle, amid much banter and badinage, that savoured strongly of familiarity, if not of flirtation.

Near them in the background loitered another, who was simply leaning against the pillar of the chancel arch, looking on with a strange smile, and sucking the ivory handle of his cane.

He laughed as he regarded them.

That laugh--where had I heard it before?

In my dream. And now the antitypes--the men of my dream--stood before me!

As yet unnoticed, I remained apart, and observed them; but not unseen, for the eyes of the dark man were instantly upon me, and the peculiarity of their expression rendered me uneasy.

He who hovered about Bessie was a fair-faced, blasé-looking young man, with sleepy blue eyes, a large jaw, a receding chin, and thick, red, sensual lips. He had long, thin, flyaway whiskers, and a slight moustache, with an unmistakably good air about him.

His companion had that peculiar cast of features which we sometimes see in the Polish Jew--keen and hawk-like, with sharp, glittering black eyes, hair of a raven hue, and a general pallor of complexion that seemed bilious, sickly, and unhealthy.

I felt instinctively that I hated one and solemnly feared the other. Why was this?

Was it the result of my dream?--of that "instinct which, like imagination, is a word everybody uses, and nobody understands?"

Perhaps we shall see.

Suddenly the eye of the fair-haired stranger fell on me. He adjusted his glass, surveyed me leisurely, and, pausing in the act of playfully holding a sprig of mistletoe over Bessie's head, said, in the lisping drawl peculiar to men of his style--

"A soldier, by Jove! Now, my good man--ah, ah!--what do you want here at this time of night?"

"I came to escort my cousin home, sir."

"Your cousin, eh--haw?"

"Bessie Leybourne, sir; but," I added, reddening with vexation and annoyance, "I see she is still busy."

"Cousin, eh? What do you say to this, Bessie?"

Bessie, who started from the steps on which she had been seated, came towards me, also blushing, confused, and letting fall all the contents of her lap as she held out her hands to me, and said--

"Welcome home, dear Bob. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! Captain Raikes, this is my Cousin Bob, who is a soldier like yourself--an artilleryman," she added, with increasing confusion, as if she felt ashamed of my blue jacket among those fine folks; while the captain, after glancing at me coolly again, merely said, "Oh--ah--haw--indeed!" and proceeded to assist his sister in descending the steps, as their labours were done, and the decorations of the church complete; but a heavier cloud came over me now.

Captain Raikes was the son of the rector, and squire of the parish, in right of his mother, who was an heiress; and he, perhaps the wildest and most systematic profligate in all England, had made the acquaintance of Bessie Leybourne!

A little time they lingered ere Bessie curtseyed, and bade the young lady good-night. Captain Raikes whispered something which made Bessie blush, and glance nervously at me, while his friend with the hook nose gave a mocking cough, and then we separated. They took the path to the gaily-lighted rectory, while Bessie and I trod silently back through the snow to my mother's little cottage.

I pressed Bessie's hand and arm from time to time, and though the pressure was returned, I never ventured to touch her cheek, or even to speak to her, for I felt somehow, intuitively, that all was over between us; and we walked in silence through the lanes where we had been wont to ramble when children.

It seemed to be always summer in the green lanes then; but it was biting winter now. I asked for no explanation, and none was offered me; but I felt that Bessie, once so loving and playful, was now cold, reserved, and shy.

Next day was Christmas. Our fireplace was decked with green boughs, and holly-leaves, and huge sprigs of mistletoe. I heard the chimes ringing merrily in the old tower of the rectory church.

It was a clear, cold, snowy, and frosty, but hearty old English Christmas; and faces shone bright, hands were shaken, and warm wishes expressed among friends and neighbours, as we trod through the holly lanes, and over the crisp, frosty grass, to church--mother, Bessie, and I; and again, as in boyhood, I heard our rubicund rector preach against worldly pride and luxury, both of which, throughout a long life, he had enjoyed to the full.

The dark stranger--the squire's constant companion, chum, and Mentor, whose strange bearing and wicked ways gained him the sobriquets of Pluto and Hooknose in the village--was not with the rector's family on this day; and I learned that he resided at the village inn. It was evident, though we read off the same book, that Bessie's thoughts were neither with heaven nor me, for I caught many a glance that was exchanged between Captain Raikes and her, and these showed a secret intelligence.

I sat out the rector's sermon in silent misery, and in misery returned home--a moody and discontented fellow, wishing myself back at head-quarters, or anywhere but in the Weald of Kent.

Bessie didn't seem to care much about my ribbons. Why should she? I was only a poor devil of a bombardier, and couldn't give her such rich presents as those pearl drops which I now discovered in her ears.

"A present from Captain Raikes, Bob," said mother, good, simple soul; "but I don't think she should ha' shown 'em till her wedding-day."

I had a mouthful of mother's Christmas dumpling in my throat at that moment, and it well-nigh choked me.

The mistletoe hung over our heads; but I never claimed the playful privilege it accorded. Was there not some terrible change, when I dared not--or scorned--to kiss Bessie, even in jest? Others' kisses had been upon her lips, and so they had no longer a charm for me!

Day and night dread and doubt haunted me, while hope, with her hundred shapes and many hues, returned no more. Brooding, silent, and melancholy thoughts seemed to consume me; yet the time passed slowly and heavily, for Bessie's falsehood and fickleness formed the first recollection in the morning, the last at night, and the source of many a tantalizing dream between. All the ebbs and flows of feeling or emotion which torment the lover I endured. My sufferings were very great; and from being as jolly, hardy, and expert a gunner as ever levelled a Lancaster or an Armstrong, I was becoming a very noodle--a moonstruck creature--"a thoroughbred donkey," as Tom Inches would have called me--and all for the love of Bessie Leybourne.

Short though my time at home would be, Bessie could give me but little of her society. My jealousy would no longer be concealed, and that she had secret meetings with our squire I could no more doubt. Then came tears, upbraidings, and bitterness, with promises that she would meet him no more; and in the strongest language I could command, I told her of the perils she ran, of the desperate character of Valentine Raikes, of his mad orgies and debaucheries, of the gambling, drinking, singing, swearing, and whooping that accompanied the suppers he and Hooknose had almost every night in a lonely lodge of the rectory grounds.

"Oh, Bob, don't bother," she would say, imploringly, through her smiles and tears. "It is terrible to be told constantly that one must marry one particular young man."

"Meaning, Bessie, that mother reminds you of being engaged to me?"

"Well, yes."

"You are fickle, Bessie."

"My poor Bob, you are not rich, neither am I."

"Hence your fickleness; but, oh, Bessie, don't think I want to make a soldier's wife of you. I hope for better days, and to settle down at home. Oh, Bessie, my own Bessie, listen to me, and hear me."

And so she would listen to me, and hear me, and then slip away to keep a tryst with my rival.

Once or twice Bessie became angry with me, and ventured to defend the squire, laying the blame of all his evil actions on his friend, or Mentor--the dark Mephistopheles, who was always by his side. Her defence of him maddened me. From tears she took to taunts, and I replied by scorn.

We separated in hot anger, and with my mind a perfect chaos--a whirl--and already repenting my violence, or precipitation, I strode moodily through the holly lanes, till a sudden turn brought me face to face with Captain Raikes and his dark friend, in close and earnest conversation.

The idea of honest and manly remonstrance seized me; and touching my cap respectfully, as became me to an officer, I said--

"Captain Raikes, may I crave a word with you?"

"Certainly--haw!" he drawled, while his friend drew back, surveying me with his strange, malevolent, but terrible smile. "In what can I--haw--serve you?"

"In a matter, sir, that lies very near my heart."

He surveyed me with a quiet but puzzled air, through his glass, and replied--

"Haw--have seen you before. How is your pretty cousin, Bessie Leybourne, this morning--well, I hope?"

"It is about Bessie I wish to speak, sir," said I, with a gravity that made him start and colour a little--but only a little, as he was one of those solemn, self-conceited, unimpressionable "snobs," who disdain to exhibit the slightest emotion. He did, however, become uneasy ultimately, and pulled his long whiskers when I said--

"Captain Raikes, my cousin Bessie is my betrothed wife; and, though I am but a poor private soldier (or little more), I must urge, sir--ay, request--that you cease to follow, molest, or meet her, as I have good reason to know you do; for though Bessie is a true-hearted girl, no good can come of it. So I put it to you, sir, as a gentleman--as my comrade, though our ranks are far apart--whether your intentions can be honourable in the matter?"

"By Jove! the idea! I'll tell you what it is, my good fellah," said he, twirling his riding whip; "I have listened to your impertinent advice--your demmed interference with my movements--so far without laying this across your shoulders; but beware--haw--how you address me on this subject again."

Passion and jealousy blinded me, and shaking my hand in his face, I said--

"Captain Raikes, on your life I charge you not to trifle with her or with me!"

He never lost his self-possession, but said, with a smile--

"Very good; but rather daring in a private soldier--a poacher--a vagabond!"

I heard the strange laugh of Hooknose at these words, and, while it was ringing in my ears, I struck the squire to the earth, and he lay as still as if a twelve-pound shot had finished him. Then I walked deliberately away.

I had vague alarms now. He might have me arrested on a charge of assault or might report me to head-quarters for the blow, although he was not in uniform; but he did neither, as he left the Weald that night for London; and mother and I sat gazing at each other in alarm and grief--our Bessie had disappeared!

By some of our neighbours she had been seen near the branch station of the South-Eastern line, with Valentine Raikes and his mysterious friend, the Hooknose: and from that hour all trace of her was--lost!

* * * * *

She had left me coldly and heartlessly, and old mother, too, who had always been more than a mother to her.

So passed the last Christmas I was to spend in old England.

I got over it in time. I was not without hope that I might discover Bessie, and befriend her yet--ay, even yet. But I couldn't do much, being only a poor fellow with two shillings per diem, and an extra penny for beer and pipeclay. But even that hope was crushed when, in the following August, I was ordered with the siege train to Sebastopol, and sailed from Southampton aboard the "Balmoral," of Hull, a transport ship, which had on board a whole battery of artillery, with one hundred and ten fine horses.

Captain Raikes was, I knew, with the Light Cavalry Brigade, under Lord Cardigan; and I only prayed that heaven and the chances of war would keep us apart, and not put the terrible temptation before me of seeing him under fire.

Our voyage was prosperous till we entered the Black Sea, when we experienced heavy gales of wind, and lost our topmasts; and as the gales increased in fury and steadiness, they were blowing a perfect hurricane on the night when, in this crippled condition, we hauled up for the harbour of Balaclava.

Were I to live a thousand years, I should never forget the horrors and certain events of that night; and though the perils that our transport encountered were ably described by more than one newspaper correspondent, I shall venture to recall them here.

Wearied with hard stable duty, I had fallen asleep in my birth, when I was suddenly roused by a voice--the voice of Bessie,

"Bob, Bob, dearest Bob--save me! save me! I am drowning!"

It rang distinctly in my ears, and then I seemed to hear the gurgling of water, as I sprang from bed in terror and bewilderment, and from no dream that I was at all conscious of; but I had little time to think of the matter, for now the bugle sounded down the hatchway to change the watch on deck.

The night was pitchy dark; all our compasses had suddenly become useless--no two needles pointed the same way--and the rudder bands were rent by the force of the sea, which tore in vast volume over the deck, sweeping everything that was loose away. The watch were all lashed to belaying pins, or the lower rattlins; but three of ours and two seamen were swept overboard and drowned.

To add to our dangers, as we lifted towards the harbour mouth, the "Balmoral" heeled over so much that the ballast broke loose in the hold, and uprooted the stable deck. The centre of gravity was thus lost, and the transport lay almost over on her beam-ends, with the wild sea breaking over her, as she went, like a helpless log, on some rocks within the harbour entrance.

The captain commanding the artillery ordered Tom Inches and a party, of whom I was one, into the hold or stables, to see how the horses fared; and I shall never forget that terrific scene, for it nearly rendered me oblivious of the cry that yet lingered in my ears.

The time was exactly midnight, and I almost fear to be considered a visionary by relating all that followed. The vessel lay nearly on her beam-ends to starboard; the whole of the stalls on the port side had given way, and the horses were lying over each other in piles, many of them half or wholly strangled in their halters; and there, in the dark, they were biting and tearing each other with their teeth, neighing, snorting, and even screaming (a dreadful sound is a horse's scream), and kicking each other to death.

The atmosphere was stifling. The wounds they gave each other were bloody and frightful. Many had their legs and ribs broken, and others their eyes dashed out by ironed hoofs. Above were the bellowing of the wind, and the roaring of the Black Sea on the rocks of Balaclava. There were even thunder-peals at times, to add to the terrors of the occasion, and the rain was falling on the deck like a vast sheet of water.

Many of our men were severely wounded by kicks; for the horses that survived were wild with fear--maddened, in fact--and, in their present condition, proved quite unmanageable.

Carrying a lantern, I was making my way into the hold, and through this frightful scene, when suddenly, amid it all, and through the gloom, I saw a face that terrified--that fascinated--me, but which none of my comrades could see.

Was I mad, or about to become so?

Within six inches of my own face was the keen, dark, and swarthy--the almost black--visage of Hooknose glaring at me, mocking and jibbering; his eyes shining like two carbuncles, his sharp teeth glistening with his old malevolent smile; and, as I shrank back, I heard his mocking laugh--the same laugh that had tingled in my ears on that fatal Christmas time at home.

I fell over a horse, the hoof of another struck me on the chest. I became insensible, and, on recovering, found myself on deck, in the hands of Tom Inches and the surgeon.

I was soon fit for duty, luckily, as that ship was no place for a sick man. With sunrise the storm abated; with slings the horses were hoisted out as fast as we could bring them; and of the hundred and ten we had on board, we found that ninety-five had been kicked to death, smothered, or so bruised that we were compelled to shoot them with our carbines.

Their carcasses lay long in Balaclava harbour, where they were used as stepping stones by the sailors and boatmen, till their corruption filled the air, adding to the cholera and fever in the town and camp.

All that haunted me must have been fancy, thought I, for my thoughts were always running on Bessie--lost to me and to the world--fevered fancy, especially the cry, and the horrid gurgling as of a drowning person that followed it. The sound of the sea must have produced or suggested the cry in my sleeping ear, and the subsequent vision in the hold--those gleaming eyes and that fierce hooked nose; and yet, as an author has remarked, the whole world of nature is but one vast book of symbols, which we cannot decipher because we have lost the key.

It was ungrateful of me to be always thinking of Bessie, who had scorned, flouted, and deserted me--thinking more of her than of poor old mother in the Weald of Kent, who loved me with all her soul, as only a mother could love a son who was amid the trenches of Sebastopol; but I couldn't help it, for the terrible mystery that involved the fate of Bessie made me brood over it at all times.

As for the trifle of money I had expected, it never came, and now I didn't want it.

It was Christmas Eve before Sebastopol, as it was all over God's Christian world; but I hope never again to see such a ghastly festival. I was not at the breaching batteries that night, having been sent with two horses and four men to bring in a twelve pound gun, which had been left by the Russians in the valley of Inkermann, after the battle of the 5th of November. Tom Inches and many a brave fellow of ours had gone to their long home in that valley of death, and I was a battery-sergeant now.

The cold was awful, and we were rendered very feeble by hunger, toil, and half-healed wounds; so, like men in a dream, we traced the horses to the gun, and limbered up the tumbril, both of which lay among some ruins in rear of the British right attack, and not far from the frozen Tchernay.

Three miles distant rose Sebastopol, and the sky seemed all on fire in and around it, for they were keeping Christmas night, amid shot from our Lancaster guns, and whistling Dicks of all sorts and sizes, from hand-grenades to eighteen-inch bombs, chokeful of nails, broken bottles, and grapeshot.

Yet I couldn't help thinking of home, and how merrily the village chimes would be ringing in the old tower of the rectory church, amid the hop-gardens and the cherry-groves of Kent. And then I saw in fancy the old fireside, where father's leathern chair was empty now, and where one at least would say her prayers that night for me--that happy night at home, when every church and hearth would be gay with ivy leaves and holly-berries, and the lads and the lasses would be dancing under the mistletoe; and with all these came thoughts of Christmas geese and plum-puddings, and I drew my sword-belt in a hole or two, for I was starving--light-headed and giddy with want; and as we rode silently on, the swinging chains of the gun seemed to me like the jangle of our village chimes! but they rung over the snowy waste that lay between Khutor Mackenzie and the Highland camp--a white waste, dotted by many a dead man and horse.

As we rode silently on, man after man of our little party of four gave in, dropped from the gun, to which I had no means of securing them, overcome by cold, fatigue, and death. At last I was riding alone in the saddle, with the gun rattling behind me.

Ghastly sights were around me on that Christmas night, and the glinting of the moon at times made them more ghastly still.

On French mule litters, and on horses, many wounded and dying men were being borne from the redoubts down to Balaclava; and as my progress was very slow, with two worn-out, half-starved nags, a terrible procession passed before me. Many of the poor fellows were nearly over their troubles and sorrows. With closed eyes, relaxed jaws, and hollow visages, they were carried down the snowy path by the Ambulance Corps, and the pale steam that curled in the frosty air from the lips of each alone indicated that they breathed.

Two dismounted hussars--for amid their rags, I discovered them to be such--were carrying one who seemed like a veritable corpse, strapped upright on a seat; the legs dangled, the eyes were staring open and glassy, and the head nodded to and fro.

"Comrades," said I, "that poor fellow is surely out of pain now?"

"Not yet," said one. "He is an officer of ours, badly wounded and frost-bitten."

"An officer!"

"Captain Raikes. He won't last till morning, I fear."

"Raikes," said I through my clenched teeth; "Valentine Raikes--and here!"

"Ay, here, sure enough," said the hussar.

My heart bounded, and then stood still for a moment. At last I said--

"Place him on the gun, comrades, and I will take him on to Balaclava; but first, here I've some raki in my canteen. Give him a mouthful, if he can swallow."

Raikes was placed on the seat of the gun-carriage, buckled thereto with straps, and muffled up as well as we could devise, to protect him from the cold. The two hussars left me, and then we were alone, he and I--Valentine Raikes and Bob Twyford--in the solitary valley, through which the road wound that led to Balaclava.

Though coarse and fiery, the raki partially revived the sinking man, and, leaving my saddle, I asked him, in a voice husky with cold and emotion, if he knew me.

But he shook his head sadly and listlessly. And bearded as I was then, it was no wonder that his dimmed vision failed to recognize me.

"I am Robert Twyford, the bombardier, whose plighted wife you stole, Valentine Raikes! God judge between you and me; but I feel that I must forgive you now."

"My winding sheet is woven in the loom of hell!" he moaned, in a low and almost inarticulate voice. "Oh! Twyford, I have wronged you--and her--and--many, many more."

"But Bessie!" said I, drawing near, and propping him in my arms; "what came of Bessie Leybourne? Speak--tell me for mercy's sake, while you have the power!"

"Ask the waters--the waters----"

"Where--where?"

"Under Blackfriars-bridge. She perished there on the 27th of last September."

The 27th was the night of the storm--the night of the mysterious drowning cry, which startled me from sleep!

"I am sinking fast, Twyford!" he resumed, in a hollow and broken voice. "Pray for me--pray for me. There is but one way to heaven----"

"But many to perdition!" added a strange, deep voice.

And a dark, indistinct, and muffled figure, having two gleaming eyes, stood by the wheel of the gun-carriage, just as a cloud overspread the moon.

"Here--he here! Do not let him touch me--do not let him--touch me!" cried Raikes, in a voice that rose into a scream of despair, as he threw up his arms and fell back.

There was a gurgle in his throat, and all was over!

A fiendish, chuckling laugh seemed to pass me on the skirt of the frosty wind; but I saw no one; nor had I time to observe, or to remember, much more, for now a madness seemed to seize the horses.

They dashed away with frightful speed, the field-piece swinging like a toy at their hoofs. It swept over me breaking one of my legs, and inflicting also a terrible wound on the head, I sank among the snow, and remember no more of that night, for, after weeks of delirium and fever, I found myself a poor, weak, and emaciated inmate of the hospital at Scutari, and so far on my way home to dear old England.

But such was the Christmas night I spent before Sebastopol, and such were those mysteries in the "Book of Nature," to which I can find as yet no key.

KOTAH.

A TALE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.

It was on a soft and warm night in April that we were encamped not far from the margin of Lake Erie, in expectation of the Fenian raiders, who were having armed picnics, and threatening a plundering invasion of Upper Canada. We were simply an advanced post, consisting of my company of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment, and some two hundred volunteers, farmers and their sons. For some time past there had been considerable alarm along the Canadian frontier. General Mead, of the United States army, was at Eastport with his staff, and the Federal gun-boat Winooske was cruising off that place, on the look-out for an alleged Fenian vessel.

Numerous armed meetings had taken place in the State of Maine, and a great embarkation of the brotherhood in green was expected to take place at Ogdensburg, the capital of St. Lawrence, which has a safe and commodious harbour; but luckily the whole affair ended in bluster and rumour. The only fire we saw was that of our bivouac, and the only smoke that of the soothing weed, while we sat by "the wolf-scaring faggot," and drank from our canteens of rum-and-water, singing songs, and telling stories to wile the night away.

The picturesque was not wanting in the group around that blazing fire of pine wood. The Royal Canadians, in their dark green tunics, faced with scarlet; the volunteers, in orthodox red coats or fringed hunting-shirts, with white belts worn over them, were all bronzed, rough, and bearded fellows, hardy by nature and resolute in bearing, led, in most instances, by old Queen's officers, who had commuted their commissions, and turned their swords into ploughshares on farms by the banks of the New Niagara, or the shores of the vast Erie, whose waters stretched in darkness far away towards the hills of Pennsylvania.

"Come, captain, tell us a story of other lands and sharper work than this," said one of the Canadian volunteers, as he proffered me his tobacco-pouch, which was prettily embroidered with wampum; "tell us something about the mutiny in India. You served there, as we all know."

"Yes," said I, as the memory of other times and other faces--faces I should never look upon in this world again--came over me, "I served there in the --th Dragoons, and can relate a strange story indeed--of discipline overdone--of that which we hear little about in our service, thank heaven--tyranny; and of a young hero, who, without a crime, was sentenced to die the death of a felon!"

"We know," said one of my subs, "that the mutiny is always a bitter subject with you."

"I lost much by the destruction of Indian property, and so had to begin the sliding-scale."

"What kind of scale is that?"

"Sloping from the cavalry to the line."

"But the story, captain!" urged the volunteers.

"Well, here goes," said I; and after a pause and a sip at the canteen, began thus:--

"The narrative I am about to tell you was not one in which I figured much personally, save as member of a court-martial; but it details suffering with which I was familiar--the miserable fate of Sergeant Anthony Ernslie, a fine old soldier, and his son Philip, a brave young fellow--a mere lad--both of whom were in my troop during the Crimean war, and afterwards in the memorable mutiny, the horrors of which are so fresh in the minds of all.

"I had not been long with the regiment before I discovered that a deeply-rooted enmity existed between our sergeant-major, Matthew Pivett, and my troop-sergeant, Ernslie, and that it had been one of long standing, having originated in jealousy when both were privates quartered at Canterbury, and both were rivals for the affection of a pretty milliner girl. She, however, preferred Ernslie, then a horse artilleryman; but when our corps was under orders to join the army of the East, Ernslie volunteered for general service in the cavalry, and, by the chance of fate, was placed in my troop of the --th Dragoons, where his steady conduct, fine appearance, and strict attention to duty, soon caused me to recommend him for promotion, and he gained his third stripe with a rapidity that did not fail to excite the remark of the envious.

"Yet his life was rendered miserable by the sergeant-major--a stern, wiry, sharp-eyed, loud-voiced, and vindictive man; and more than once, when I interposed my authority to keep peace between them, has Ernslie told me, with tears in his eyes, that 'he cursed the day on which he left the ranks of the Horse Artillery to become a dragoon!'

"A senior, when perpetually on the watch to worry a junior, may easily find opportunities enough for doing so. Thus Ernslie's belts were never pipe-clayed quite to the taste of Pivett, and at the staff inspection before parade, faults were ever found with his horse, harness, and everything. He was put on duty at times out of his turn, and not in accordance with the roster. A complaint to the adjutant or myself always altered these errors; but the sting of annoyance remained. At drill a hundred petty faults were found with him, and he was perpetually accused of taking up wrong dressings, distances, and alignments, till, in his anger and bewilderment, the poor man sometimes really did so, and then great was the delight of Pivett!

"'For what,' said he one day, bitterly, 'for what did I ever leave my old regiment?'

"'No good, most likely,' sneered Pivett.

"'Sir, I won my three good-conduct rings there.'