Chapter Seven.
“That Irreclaimable Scamp!”
For some while after his departure from Lannercost, their recent guest occupied a very large share in the conversation and thoughts of its inmates. He had been so long with them, had become so much one of themselves in their quiet, rather isolated life, and now his absence had left a very real void.
He had written to them with fair frequency, telling of up-country doings—of the growing aggressiveness of the Matabele, and of the contemplated expedition, with the object of bringing Lo Bengula to book, then of the actual formation of such expedition, by that time on the eve of a start, and how he and young West had volunteered upon the Salisbury Column, and were to serve in the scouting section. Then correspondence had ceased. The expedition had set out.
It was then that Bayfield found himself importuned to increase the circulation of two or three other newspapers, in addition to those regularly sent him, by one subscriber, in order that no chance might be missed of seeing the very latest concerning the Matabele war, and upon such, Lyn and small Fred would fasten every post day.
“I say, Lyn!” cried the latter, disinterring his nose from a newly opened sheet, “but won’t Mr Blachland make Lo Bengula scoot, when once he gets at him? Man! but I’d like to be there.”
“But he and the King are great friends, Fred.”
“Pooh! How can they be friends if they’re at war? Nouw ja—but he just will scoot old Lo Ben! I’d like to be there.”
“I hope they’ll take all sorts of proper precautions against surprises,” said Lyn seriously, for she was just old enough to remember the shudder of gloom which ran through the whole country when the disastrous news of Isandhlwana had come upon it like a storm-burst fourteen years previously. It had struck vividly upon her childish imagination then and she had not forgotten it.
“Surprises! I’d like to see them surprise a commando that Mr Blachland’s on,” returned Fred, magnificent in his whole-souled contempt that any one could even imagine any such possibility. “And these Matabele chaps ain’t a patch on the Zulus. I’ve heard Mr Blachland say so again and again. Ja, he’s a fine chap! Won’t he make old Lo Ben sit up!”
Lyn would smile at this kind of oft-repeated expression of her young brother’s honest and whole-hearted idolatry, in which, although more reticent herself, she secretly shared. And the object of it? He was always in her thoughts. She delighted to think about him—to talk about him. Why not? He was her ideal, this man who had been an inmate of their roof for so long, who had been her daily companion throughout that time and had stored her mind with new thoughts, new ideas, which all unconsciously to herself, had expanded and enlarged it—and not one of which but had improved it. He represented something like perfection to her, this man, no longer young, weather-beaten, somewhat lined, who had come there in the capacity of her father’s friend. Strange, you see, but then, life is teeming with eccentricities.
This state of Lyn’s mind was not without one interested spectator, and that her father. Half amused, half concerned, he watched it—and put two and two together. That outburst of grief in which he had surprised her had never been repeated, and, watching her with loving care, he failed to descry any symptom of it having been, even in secret. But the girl’s clear mind was as open and as honest as a mirror. There was no shadow of hesitation or embarrassment in her manner or speech when they talked of their late guest—even before strangers. George Bayfield was puzzled. But through it all, as an undercurrent, there ran an idea. He recalled the entire pleasure which Blachland had taken in Lyn’s society, the frank, open admiration he had never failed to express when she or her doings formed the topic of conversation between them—the excellent and complete understanding between him and the girl. What if—Too old! Not a bit of it. He himself had married very young, and Blachland was quite half a dozen years his junior. Why, he himself was in his prime—and as for the other, apart from that shake of fever, he was as hard as nails.
Now this idea, the more and more it struck root in Bayfield’s mind, was anything but distasteful to him. The certainty that he must some day lose Lyn, was the one ever-haunting grief of his life. He had pictured some externally showy, but shallow-pated youth—on the principle that such things go by opposites—who should one day carry off his Lyn, and amid new surroundings and new interests, teach her—unconsciously perhaps, but none the less effectually—to forget her old home, and the father who loved and adored her from the crown of her sweet golden head to her little feet. But here was a man whose experience of the world was greater than his own, a man with an exhaustive knowledge of life, who had immediately seen and appreciated this pearl of great price, a strong man who had lived and done—no mere empty-headed, self-sufficient, egotistical youth; and this man was his friend. He was thoroughbred too, and the worst that could be said of him was that he had sown some wild oats. But apart from the culminating stage in the sowing of that crop—and even there probably there were great extenuating circumstances—nothing mean, nothing dishonourable had ever been laid to Hilary Blachland’s charge. Personally, he had an immense liking and regard for him, and, as he had said to himself before, Lyn’s instinct was never at fault. He remembered now that Blachland had declared he could never stand English life again—and—he remembered too, something else, up till now forgotten—how Blachland had half chaffingly commissioned him to find out the lowest terms its owner would accept for a certain farm which adjoined Lannercost, and which was for sale, because he believed he would squat down for a little quiet life when he returned from up-country. All this came back to him now, and with a feeling of thankful relief, for it meant, in the event of his idea proving well-founded, that his little Lyn would not be taken right away from him after all.
So the months went by after Hilary Blachland’s departure, but still his memory was kept green and fresh within that household of three.
One day, when Bayfield was outside, indulging in some such speculation as the above, out to him ran Lyn, flourishing one of the newly arrived newspapers. She seemed in a state of quite unwonted excitement, and at her heels came small Fred.
“Father, look, here’s news! Look. Read that. Isn’t it splendid?”
Bayfield took the paper, but before looking at the paragraph she was trying to point out, he glanced admiringly at the girl, thinking what a sweet picture she made, her golden hair shining in the sun, her blue eyes wide with animation, and a glow of colour suffusing her lovely clear-cut face. Then he read:
“Gallantry of a Scout.”
It was just such a paragraph as is sure to occur from time to time in the chronicling of any of the little wars in which the forces of the British Empire are almost unceasingly engaged, in some quarter or other of the same, and it set forth in stereotyped journalese, how Hilary Blachland of the Scouting Section attached to the Salisbury Column, had deliberately turned his horse and ridden back into what looked like certain death, in order to rescue Trooper Spence, whose horse had been killed, and who was left behind dismounted, and at the mercy of a large force of charging Matabele, then but a hundred or two yards distant—and how at immense risk to his rescuer, whose horse was hardly equal to the double load, Spence had been brought back to the laager, unharmed, though closely pursued and fired upon all the way. Bayfield gave a surprised whistle.
“What, father? Isn’t it splendid?” cried Lyn, wondering.
“Yes. Of course.” What had evoked the outburst of amazement was the name—the identity of the rescued man—but of this to be sure, Lyn knew nothing. So of all others it was destined to be the man who had played him a scurvy dog’s trick that Blachland was destined to imperil his own life to save: true that the said trick had been a very great blessing in disguise, but that feet did not touch the motive thereof. It remained.
“Bah! The swine wasn’t worth it,” went on Bayfield, unconsciously.
“No, very likely not,” assented Lyn. “But that makes it all the more splendid—doesn’t it, father?”
“Eh, what? Yes, yes—of course it does,” agreed Bayfield, becoming alive to the fact that he had been thinking out loud. “By Jove, Lyn, you’ll have to design a new order of merit for him when he gets back. What shall it be?”
“Man, Lyn! Didn’t I tell you he’d make old Lo Ben scoot?” said Fred triumphantly, craning over to have another look at the paragraph, which his father was reading over again. It did not give much detail, but from the facts set forth it was evident that the deed had been one of intrepid gallantry. Bayfield, yet deeper in the know, opined that it deserved even an additional name, and his regard and respect for his friend increased tenfold. For the other two—well, there was less chance than ever of Hilary Blachland’s name and memory being allowed to grow dim in that household.
“Why, he’ll soon be back now,” said Lyn. “The war must be nearly over now they’ve got to Bulawayo.”
“Perhaps. But—they haven’t got Lo Ben yet,” replied her father, unconsciously repeating Blachland’s own words. “They’ll have to get him. Fancy him blowing up his own place and clearing!”
“Ja. I knew he’d make old Lo Ben scoot,” reiterated Fred.
There was another household something over six thousand miles distant from Bayfield’s in which the name of Hilary Blachland was held in honour, which is strange, because the last time we glanced within the walls of this establishment, the reverse was the case. “That out and out irreclaimable scamp!” was the definition of the absent one then. It was hard winter around Jerningham Lodge when the news of Spence’s rescue arrived there, and it was sprung upon Sir Luke Canterby in precisely the same manner as he had learned the whereabouts of his erring nephew on that occasion—through the daily papers to wit. He had congratulated himself mightily on the success of Percival’s mission. The latter’s correspondence was full of Hilary, and what great times they were having together up-country. Then the war broke out and the tidings which reached Sir Luke of his absent nephews were few and far between. Thereupon he waxed testy, and mightily expatiated to his old friend Canon Lenthall.
“They’re ungrateful dogs the pair of them. Yes, sir—Ungrateful dogs I said, and I’ll say it again. What business had they to go running their necks into this noose?”
The Canon suggested that in all probability they couldn’t help themselves, that they couldn’t exactly turn tail and run away. Sir Luke refused to be mollified.
“It was their duty to. Hang it, Canon. What did I send Percy out there for? To bring the other rascal home, didn’t I? And now—and now he stays away himself too. It’s outrageous.”
Then had come the news of the capture and occupation of Bulawayo, and the events incidental to the progress of the column thither, and Sir Luke’s enthusiasm over his favourite nephew’s deed knew no bounds. He became something like a bore on the subject whenever he could buttonhole a listener, indeed to hear him would lead the said listener to suppose that never a deed of self-sacrificing gallantry had been done before, and certainly never would be again, unless perchance by that formerly contemned and now favoured individual hight Hilary Blachland.
“That out and out irreclaimable scamp,” murmured the Canon with a very comic twinkle in his eyes. Then, as his old friend looked rather foolish—“See here, Canterby, I don’t think I gave you bad advice when I recommended you to put that draft behind the fire.”
“Bad advice! No, sir. I’m a fool sometimes—in fact, very often. But—oh hang it, Dick, this is splendid news. Shake hands on it, sir, shake hands on it, and you’ve got to stay and dine with me to-night, and we’ll put up a bottle of the very best to drink his health.”
And the two old friends shook hands very heartily.
[a/]