International Short Stories: English Part 32

"'Come away! Come away!" sez Judy, pullin' her mother by the shawl.

''Twas none av Terence's fault. For the love av Mary, stop the talkin'!'

"'An' you!' said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin' round forninst Dinah.

'Will ye take the half av that man's load? Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd, before he takes you down too--you that look to be a quarthermaster-sergint's wife in five years. Ye look too high, child.

Ye shall wash for the quarthermaster-sergint, whin he pl'ases to give you the job out av charity; but a privit's wife ye shall be to the end, an' ivry sorrow of a privit's wife ye shall know, an' niver a joy but wan, that shall go from you like the tide from a rock. The pain of bearin' ye shall know, but niver the pleasure of givin' the breast; an'

you shall put away a man-child into the common ground wid niver a priest to say a prayer over him, an' on that man-child ye shall think ivry day av your life. Think long, Dinah Shadd, for you'll niver have another tho' you pray till your knees are bleedin'. The mothers av children shall mock you behind your back whin you're wringin' over the wash-tub. You shall know what ut is to take a dhrunken husband home an' see him go to the gyard-room. Will that pl'ase you, Dinah Shadd, that won't be seen talkin' to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than Judy before all's over. The sergint's wives shall look down on you, contemptuous daughter av a sergint, an' you shall cover ut all up wid a smilin' face whin your heart's burstin'. Stand aff him, Dinah Shadd, for I've put the Black Curse of s.h.i.+elygh upon him, an' his own mouth shall make ut good.'

"She pitched forward on her head an' began foamin' at the mouth. Dinah Shadd ran out with water, an' Judy dhragged the ould woman into the veranda till she sat up.

"'I'm old an' forlorn,' she sez, tremblin' an' cryin', 'an' 'tis like I say a dale more than I mane.'

"'When you're able to walk--go,' says ould Mother Shadd. 'This house has no place for the likes av you, that have cursed my daughter.'

"Eyah!' said the ould woman. 'Hard words break no bones, an' Dinah Shadd'll kape the love av her husband till my bones are green corn.

Judy, darlin', I misremember what I came here for. Can you lend us the bottom av a taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd?'

"But Judy dhragged her off, cryin' as tho' her heart wud break. An'

Dinah Shadd an' I, in ten minutes we had forgot ut all."

"Then why do you remember it now?" said I.

"Is ut like I'd forgit? Ivry word that wicked ould woman spoke fell thrue in my life afterward; an' I cud ha' stud ut all--stud ut all, except fwhen little Shadd was born. That was on the line av march three months afther the regiment was taken wid cholera. We were betune Umballa an' Kalka thin, an' I was on picket. When I came off, the women showed me the child, an' ut turned on uts side an' died as I looked. We buried him by the road, an' Father Victory was a day's march behind with the heavy baggage, so the comp'ny captain read prayer. An' since then I've been a childless man, an' all else that ould Mother Sheehy put upon me an' Dinah Shadd. What do you think, sorr?"

I thought a good deal, but it seemed better then to reach out for Mulvaney's hand. This demonstration nearly cost me the use of three fingers. Whatever he knows of his weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirely ignorant of his strength.

"But what do you think?" he insisted, as I was straightening out the crushed members.

My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from the next fire, where ten men were shouting for "Orth'ris!" "Privit Orth'ris!" "Mistah Or-ther-is!" "Deah Boy!" "Cap'n Orth'ris!" "Field-Marshal Orth'ris!"

"Stanley, you penn'orth o' pop, come 'ere to your own comp'ny!" And the c.o.c.kney, who had been delighting another audience with recondite and Rabelaisian yarns, was shot down among his admirers by the major force.

"You've crumpled my dress-s.h.i.+rt 'orrid," said he; "an' I shan't sing no more to this 'ere bloomin' drawin'-room."

Learoyd, roused by the confusion, uncoiled himself, crept behind Ortheris, and raised him aloft on his shoulders.

"Sing, ye bloomin' hummin'-bird!" said he; and Ortheris, beating time on Learoyd's skull, delivered himself, in the raucous voice of the Ratcliffe Highway, of the following chaste and touching ditty:

"My girl she give me the go oncet, When I was a London lad, An' I went on the drunk for a fortnight, An' then I went to the bad.

The queen she gave me a s.h.i.+lling To fight for 'er over the seas; But guv'ment built me a fever trap, An' Injia gave me disease.

Chorus--"Ho! don't you 'eed what a girl says.

An' don't you go for the beer; But I was an a.s.s when I was at gra.s.s, An' that is why I'm 'ere.

"I fired a shot at an Afghan; The beggar 'e fired again; An' I lay on my bed with a 'ole in my 'ead, An' missed the next campaign!

I up with my gun at a Burman Who carried a bloomin' _dah_, But the cartridge stuck an' the bay'nit bruk An' all I got was the scar.

Chorus--"Ho! don't you aim at a Afghan When you stand on the sky-line clear; An' don't you go for a Burman If none o' your friends is near.

"I served my time for a corp'ral.

An' wetted my stripes with pop, For I went on the bend with a intimate friend, An' finished the night in the shop.

I served my time for a sergeant; The colonel 'e sez No!

The most you'll be is a full C.B.'[*]

An'--very next night 'twas so.

[*] Confined to barracks.

Chorus--"Ho! don't you go for a corp'ral Unless your 'ead is clear; But I was an a.s.s when I was at gra.s.s.

An' that is why I am 'ere.

"I've tasted the luck o' the army In barrack 'an camp 'an clink, And I lost my tip through the bloomin' trip Along 'o the women an' drink, I'm down at the heel o' my service, An' when I am laid on the shelf, My very wust friend from beginning to end, By the blood of a mouse, was myself.

Chorus--"Ho! don't you 'eed what a girl says, An' don't go for the beer; But I was an a.s.s when I was at gra.s.s, An' that is why I'm 'ere."

"Ay, listen to our little man now, singin' and shoutin' as tho' trouble had never touched him! D'ye remember when he went mad with the homesickness?" said Mulvaney, recalling a never-to-be-forgotten season when Ortheris waded through the deep waters of affliction and behaved abominably. "But he's talkin' the bitter truth, tho'. Eyah!

"'My very worst friend from beginning to end, By the blood of a mouse, was mesilf.'

Hark out!" he continued, jumping to his feet. "What did I tell you, sorr?"

Fttl! spttl! whttl! went the rifles of the picket in the darkness, and we heard their feet rus.h.i.+ng toward us as Ortheris tumbled past me and into his greatcoat. It is an impressive thing, even in peace, to see an armed camp spring to life with clatter of accouterments, click of Martini levers, and blood-curdling speculations as to the fate of missing boots. "Pickets dhriven in," said Mulvaney, staring like a buck at bay into the soft, slinging gloom. "Stand by an' kape close to us. If 'tis cav'lry, they may blundher into the fires."

Tr--ra ra! ta--ra--la! sung the thrice-blessed bugle, and the rush to form square began. There is much rest and peace in the heart of a square if you arrive in time and are not trodden upon too frequently.

The smell of leather belts, fatigue uniform, and unpacked humanity is comforting.

A dull grumble, that seemed to come from every point of the compa.s.s at once, struck our listening ears, and little thrills of excitement ran down the faces of the square. Those who write so learnedly about judging distance by sound should hear cavalry on the move at night. A high-pitched yell on the left told us that the disturbers were friends--the cavalry of the attack, who had missed their direction in the darkness, and were feeling blindly for some sort of support and camping-ground. The difficulty explained, they jingled on.

"Double pickets out there; by your arms lie down and sleep the rest,"

said the major, and the square melted away as the men scrambled for their places by the fires.

When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gemming his mustache, leaning on his rifle at picket, lonely as Prometheus on his rock, with I know not what vultures tearing his liver.

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR

By R. L. STEVENSON

Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an honorable fas.h.i.+on, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation; and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the gray of the evening. It was not a very wise proceeding on the young man's part. He would have done better to remain beside the fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of the troops of Burgundy and England under a mixed command; and though Denis was there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him little on a chance encounter.

It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the towns.h.i.+p; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds--a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky.

As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the treetops in the valley below the town.

Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he said good-by upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a glimmer of moons.h.i.+ne, slipped through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Chateau Landon; even by daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He was certain of one thing only--to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's house lay at the lower end or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up at the head, under the great church spire. With this clew to go upon he stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in open places where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him further from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an observation.

He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go sharply downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his inn; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to reconnoiter.

The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which gave an outlook between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By the uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying b.u.t.tresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles. The windows of the chapel gleamed through their intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the b.u.t.tresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the neighborhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.