Some minutes elapsed, during which neither Banquo nor I said a word. I stole a glance at the "'ole under his eye," and saw that it was no laughing matter to "get a sock in the face from a shell." The human profile, on that side, had virtually disappeared; jaw and cheek-bone were smashed in; there was neither nostril nor ear; the lower eyelid was missing; the eye itself was evidently sightless, and a constant trickle of tears ran down into the hideous scar below.
I thought of this man wandering over the earth, abhorred of all beholders; I thought of the music he managed to make with the remnant of his mutilated face; I thought also of the rigour of Destiny and the kindliness of Death. I remember the words running in my head, "He hath no form nor comeliness. Yet he was wounded for our transgressions, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him."
I averted my glance, but not before Banquo had discovered that I was looking at him. "Ha," he said; "you're lookin' at my face. It's a beauty, isn't it? They ought to put it on the board outside the recruitin' stations, as a sort of inducement to good-lookin' young men. Help to make the Army popular wi' the young women, don't you see? 'George, why don't you join the Army and get a face like that? You'd be worth lookin' at then.' Can't you hear 'em saying it? Oh, yes, I'm proud o' my face, that I am! So's my old gal. That's why she left me and the kids the day I come home—never seen her since. Every time I draws my pension I says to myself, 'Bill, my lad, that face o' yours is cheap at the price. Keep up your pecker, my hearty; you'll make yer fortune when Mr. Barnum sees yer! It's a bloomin' good investment, that's what I calls it. Give yer a sort o' start in life. Makes folks glad to see yer when you drops in to tea. And then I'm always feelin' as though I wanted to have my photograph taken—and that's nice, too. So you see takin' it all round, it's quite a blessin' to have a face like mine."
I was silent, not knowing what to say. Banquo went on:
"I thought when I come out o' the 'orspital as it were all up wi' playin' the cornet. But I made up my mind as I'd try. So I kep' up practice all the way home from the Cape, and when we got to Southampton I could just manage to blow into the mouthpiece. It hurt a bit, too, I can tell you. You see, I can only play on one side o' my mouth—like this. But I got used to it after a time; and now I can play a'most as well wi' half a mouth as I used to do wi' a whole un."
Again I was silent, for there was a tangle of thoughts in my mind, and behind it all a vague, uncomfortable sense that I was come to judgment. From this sprang a sudden resolve to change the subject, which was unpleasant to me in more senses than one. So I said, after the pause, "What about your pension?"
"Pension, did you say? Well, you see, sir, I've been in a bit o' trouble since I come home. There was a kind old gent as give me three months in the choke-hole for not behavin' quite as handsome as I ought to. 'It'll spile all my good looks, your Worship,' I says when he sentenced me. 'Remove the prisoner, officer!' he says; and I thinks to myself, 'I'd like to remove you, old gentleman, and see what you'd look like on a hammynition waggon, wi' two dead pals under your nose, and a pom-pom shell a-burstin' in your ear-'ole.' But I've had one good friend, anyhow; and I don't want a better—and that's him there" (indicating Macbeth). "He's a man, he is! I can tell you one thing!—if it hadn't been for him there, I'd ha' sent the other half o' my head to look for the first long ago—and that's the truth!"
While this conversation was proceeding Macbeth, more suo, continued to mutter like a man in a troubled dream, now humming a bar of the tune, now drawling out a phrase from the words, "O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone"—this, I believe, he repeated several times, lighting his pipe in the intervals and spitting out of the door. Then he went on more articulately: "Rum go, ain't it—me singing that hymn in a place like this? Sung it in church 'undreds o' times. We give it sometimes in the streets. It's part of our répertoire" (he pronounced this word quite correctly). "But I can't help makin' a babby o' mysen whenever I think o' what it means. I don't think of it, as a rewle. I should break down if I did; like as I nearly did just naow. Oh Lor'! I can get on all right till I comes to th' end. It's them 'angel faces' wot knocks the stuffing out o' me!"
"Same 'ere," I replied; and I put my head out of the aperture for a breath of fresh air.