Then if there was nothing in the present that could satisfy his soul, might he not presume that there was a future for which it was specially created and intended? Yes, there might be something to live for after all—there might be a career in which to win more than fame and more than honour—which at any rate should satisfy those longings and aspirations here, and might be the portal to such a glorious hereafter as he could not even picture to his world-wearied imagination—and if so, what scheme so probable, what religion so well supported by historical proof and logical deduction, as that which he had learnt at his mother’s knee? One by one, thoughts came back to him that had lain dormant for more than thirty years; one by one he recalled the miraculous facts, the touching sufferings that had awed his boyish imagination and moved his boyish heart. For the first time for more than thirty years, he thought as a reality of the Great Example who never quailed nor flinched, nor shrank one jot from His superhuman task. Did he admire courage? There was One who had faced the legions of hell, unaided and alone, with but human limbs and a human heart to support Him through the dread encounter. Did he admire constancy? There was One who voluntarily endured the obloquy of the world, the agonies of the most painful death, and moved not an eyelash in complaint or reproach. Did he admire self-denial—that most heroic of all heroism? What had that One given up to walk afoot through this miserable world, with such a prospect as the close of His earthly career!—and for whom?—even for him amongst the rest—for him who till this very moment had never thanked Him, never acknowledged Him, never so much as thought of Him. The strong man’s heart was touched, the well was unsealed in the desert, and, as the tears gushed from his unaccustomed eyes, Gaston D’Orville bent the knees that had not bent for half a lifetime; and can we doubt that he was forgiven?
In four-and-twenty hours D’Orville was laid upon his small camp-bedstead in a brain fever. The excitement of his late life; the reaction consequent on his abandonment of his awful resolution; the strong revulsion of feeling, into which we have no right to pry, had been too much for a constitution already shaken by years of dissipation and hard service beneath an Indian sun; and for days together life and death trembled in the balance so evenly that it seemed a single grain might turn the scale. And of all his comrades, who was it that watched at his bedside with the attention, almost the tenderness, of a woman—sitting up by him at night, giving him his medicine, smoothing his pillow, and tending him with a brother’s love?—who but Lacquers! the unmeaning, empty dandy—the fellow with but two ideas, his dress and his horses—the ignorant, grown-up schoolboy that could scarcely write his own name; but, for all that, the staunch, unflinching comrade, the true-hearted, generous friend. When the lamp, after flickering and fading, and well-nigh dying out altogether, began once more to flame up pretty steadily, and the Major, gaunt and grim, with nearly white moustaches, and a black skull-cap, and haggard hollow cheeks, began to experience the superhuman appetite of convalescence, and the wonderful longing for open air and country scenery, and such simple natural pleasures, which invariably comes over those who have been near the confines of Life and Death, as though they brought back with them from that mysterious borderland the earlier instincts of childhood; when, in short, the Major was getting better, and could sit at his window and see the white charger go to exercise, or the regiment get under arms below, many and long were the conversations between him and Lacquers on the thoughts and feelings which almost insensibly had sprung up in each of them. Lacquers did not conceal his disappointment as regarded Blanche. Poor fellow, he had made her an honest, disinterested offer, and it had not entered into his calculations that he might be repulsed.
“I know I’m not good enough for her, D’Orville,” the humbled dandy would sigh, as he poured his griefs into his friend’s ear. “I’m not very ‘blue,’ and that sort of thing, though I suppose I’ve got natural talents just like other fellows; but I stood by her when all the rest gave way, and I was the only one amongst ’em that really liked her for herself and not for her money. Why, you yourself, D’Orville” (the Major winced), “you yourself never made up to her after you heard of the smash, nor Mount Helicon, nor Uppy, nor any of ’em; to be sure she had refused Uppy; do you remember how glum he looked that night at ‘The Peace’? but I don’t believe he’d have proposed to her ten days later. She might have liked me much better when she came to know me—mightn’t she? and I would have read history and grammar, and Latin and Greek, and that, and made myself a scholar for her sake. I can’t help feeling it, Major, and that’s the truth. She’s the only woman I ever really cared for; and what have I to live for now?”
Then it was that D’Orville showed himself an altered man—then it was that the thoughts which had first flashed across him when he contemplated self-destruction, and had since been progressively developing themselves on a bed of sickness, bore their fruit, as such thoughts will sooner or later where a man has a heart to feel or a brain to reason. He explained to Lacquers the views he now entertained of life, its duties, and its charms—how different from those on which he had hitherto acted! He pointed out to him the utter insufficiency of everything on earth to constitute happiness, when unconnected with a grand object and a future state of being. He talked well, for he was in earnest; and he reasoned closely, for his was a penetrating intellect, ever ready to strip at a moment’s notice the illusive from the real. He had all his life been an acute man—saw through a fallacy in an instant, and, to do him justice, never hesitated to expose it:
“Called knavery, knavery—and a lie, a lie.”
Such a mind, when convinced of truth, is doubly strong; and Lacquers listened, much admiring, though, it must be confessed, not always quite understanding the deductions of his mentor. Yet was he too, ere long, stirred with a noble ambition, a desire to fulfil his destiny in life with some credit to himself and benefit to his fellow-creatures—a longing to be useful in his generation—to feel that he was part of the great scheme, and, however humble might be his task, yet that its fulfilment was a fair condition of his very existence, and was conducive to the well-being of the whole.
“But what can I do, however willing I am?” he would say. “An officer of hussars cannot be a Methodist preacher, or even a moral philosopher, without doing more harm than good. If I thought I had talents for it, and eloquence and learning, I’d sell out to-morrow, and go to South Africa as a missionary, or anywhere else—Gold Coast, Sierra Leone—anything rather than be a useless drone cumbering the earth in a life without an aim.”
“Not the least occasion for that,” replied D’Orville. “Fortune—accident—call it rather Providence—has placed you in a certain station, and it is fit for you to fulfil the duties of that station without repining or restlessness, because, forsooth, it does not happen to square exactly with some vague notions of your own. You may do a deal of good, though you are an officer of hussars. Why should a soldier be necessarily an irreligious or an immoral man? It is not his profession that should bear the blame, however convenient it may be to make the red coat a scapegoat. We must have troops. We cannot be secure from war. Do you suppose a man leading a squadron gallantly against an enemy, doing the best he can for all—cool, confident, and daring—is not fulfilling his duty every whit as well as he who is on his knees in the rear praying for his success the while? Our calling bids us look death in the face oftener than other men, and that very fact should give us trust in Him on whom alone we can depend at the last gasp. We are always nearer His presence than those who are not so exposed: and, for my part, I think it a proud and honourable privilege. Then, in barracks, may you not improve the morale of all about you in a thousand ways? You may look to the bodily well-being of your troop. Why?—first, because it’s your duty; and secondly, because it’s a pleasure to you, and a credit to have them smart and clean and well-disciplined! Why should you totally neglect their minds? They, too, have a future as well as a present. The one is not less a reality than the other. Ay, it’s startling enough, because people slur it over, and don’t talk of it, or allow themselves to think of it; but it’s none the less true for all that. You may shut your own eyes as close as you please, but you won’t prevent the sun from shining just the same. I grant you that the task is a difficult one. So much the more credit in fulfilling it, by an effort that does require some sacrifice and some self-denial. I have lived forty years in this world for myself—the careless, thoughtless life that a tolerably sagacious dog might have led—and I have never been really happy. Come what may, I hope to do so no more. I have found out the true secret that turns everything to gold, and I don’t grudge a share of my good fortune to my friends.”
“You’re right, D’Orville,” said Lacquers, shaking the Major by the hand; “you’re right, though I never looked at it in that light before. I see that I have an object in life—that I have a task to perform; and I see—no, I don’t see my way quite through it; but I trust I shall have courage and patience to do the best I can. D’Orville, I feel happier than I did. I’m not much of a book-worm, and I can’t quite express what I feel; but, old fellow, you talked of exchanging, and going to India; well, I’ll go too—we’ll get appointed into the same corps—I’m good enough to be broiled in that country, at any rate—and I’ll never leave you, old boy, for you’re the best friend I ever had!” Little Blanche Kettering might have done worse than take poor, ignorant, good-looking, blundering, warm-hearted Lacquers.