These young officers were not very busy; they were occupied in, perhaps, the most wearisome of all the duties that devolve on the dragoon, and their task consisted of lounging about a troop-stable, attired in undress uniform, to watch the men cleaning and “doing up” their respective horses. They could but smoke, and talk over the morning’s field-day to while away the time. Neither of them was encumbered with an undue proportion of brains—neither of them could have engaged in a much deeper discussion than that which they now carried on; yet they did their duty scrupulously, they loved the regiment as a home, and looked upon the B Troop as their family; and although their thoughts ran a little too much on dress, fox-hunting, driving, and other less harmless vanities, they were, after all, good comrades and tolerably harmless members of society. Cornet Capon’s ideas oozed out slowly, and only under great pressure, so he smoked half a cigar in solemn silence ere he resumed, with a wise look—
“There’s something at the bottom of all this about the Major, Clank. Did you notice where he halted us after the charge—all amongst that broken ground at the back of the Heath? We shall have half the horses in the troop lame to-morrow.”
“Old ‘Trumpeter’ was lame to-day,” returned Clank, with a grim smile, “and that’s why D’Orville was so savage with me for riding him. You’re right, Capon. The Major’s amiss—there’s a screw loose somewhere, I’m sure of it, and I’m sorry for it.”
“He lost ‘a cracker’ at Newmarket last week, I know,” said Capon, thoughtfully; “I shouldn’t wonder if he was obliged to go—let me see—Lipstrap’ll get the majority, and I shall get my lieutenancy. Well, I shall be sorry to lose him, though he does blow me up.”
“Pooh! man, it’s not that,” rejoined Clank, who was a man of sentimental turn of mind, and kept Tommy Moore in his barrack-room. “You young ones are always thinking about racing. I’ve known D’Orville hit a deal harder than that, and never wince. Why, I recollect he played a civilian, at Calcutta, for his commission and appointments against the other’s race-horses and a bungalow he had up in the hills. ’Gad, sir, he won the stud and the crib too—and not only that, but I landed a hundred gold mohurs by backing his new lot for the Governor-General’s Cup, and went and stayed a fortnight with him at his country-house besides—best billet I ever had—furniture and fittings and fixings all just as t’other fellow left them. No—D’Orville’s as game as a pebble about money—it isn’t that.”
Cornet Capon opened his eyes, smoked sedulously for about five minutes, and then asked Clank, “What the devil there was to bother a fellow, if it wasn’t money?”
“Women!” replied the Captain, looking steadily at his companion; “women, my boy. I’ve watched the thing working now ever since I was a cornet, and I never knew a good fellow thoroughly broke down that there wasn’t a woman at the bottom of it. Now, look at Lacquers; when Lacquers came to us, there wasn’t such another cheery fellow in the Hussar Brigade—it did me good to see Lacquers drink that ’34 we finished in Dublin—and as for riding, there wasn’t another heavy-weight in that country could see the way he went—and now look what he’s arrived at. Never dines at mess—horses gone to Tattersall’s—sits and mopes in his barrack-room, or else off to London at a moment’s notice—and closeted all day with agents and men-of-business—and what is it that’s brought him to this pass? Why, that girl he wants to marry, who won’t have anything to say to him—and why she won’t is more than I can tell, unless she’s got a richer chap in tow somewhere else. Capon, my boy, you’re younger than me, and you’ve got most of your troubles to come. Take my advice, and stick to the regiment, and horses and hunting and that; but keep clear of women; they’re all alike—only the top-sawyers are the most mischievous—you keep clear of ’em all, for if you don’t you’ll be sorry for it—mark my words if you’re not.”
This was a long speech for the Captain, and he was quite out of breath at its conclusion; but the Cornet did not entirely agree with him. He had got a tendresse down in the West—a saucy blue-eyed cousin, whose image often came before the lad’s eyes in his barrack-room and his revelry and his boyish dissipation; so he contented himself with remarking profoundly that “Women were so different, it was impossible to lay down any general rule about them any more than horses;” and expressing his conviction that, whatever might be the secret grief preying upon the Major’s spirits, it could have nothing to do with the fair sex, “for you know, Clank, D’Orville’s a devilish old fellow—why, he must be forty if he’s a day.”
So the pair jingled into the mess-room to have some luncheon, and ordered their buggy, to drive up to London afterwards, and spend the rest of the day in the delights of the metropolis—since this it is which makes Hounslow such a favourite quarter with these light-hearted sons of the sword.