“A freight of devils, sir!� the Captain remarked in loud-toned confidence to the neighbor on his left. “If the Admiralty had any sense of humor—or any sense of fitness, by George!—the name of the ship would have been changed before we sailed. But the Paradise has seemed almost like one, sir, since we disembarked ’em, and that’s a fact. What’s the next toast on the list, did you ask? ‘The united healths of the two regimental V. C.’s, Captain the Hon. Gerald Garthside and Private Dancey Juxon.’�
“What were the special acts of gallantry, do you—ah!—happen to—ah!—remember?� asked the Captain’s left-hand neighbor (a pompous local magnate), “for which the Cross has been—ah!—conferred?�
“Usual thing. Garthside—that’s Garthside, on the Mayor’s left hand, trying to look modest, and succeedin’ uncommon badly—Garthside rode from Mealiekloof to Blitzfontein with despatches for the Brigadier, peppered by Cronje’s outposts from overlooking ground nearly the whole distance. Juxon was cut off while out on scout with a detachment, and got away from twenty Boers with his officer on the crupper. Young Bogle, next-of-kin to Lord Baverstone, died before Juxon got back to the regiment, chipped in too many places for recovery! Better off if he’d been left behind, do you say? Probably—probably. But Juxon has the V. C., and they’re bringin’ him in to hear his health proposed.... Fine-lookin’ young Tommy, isn’t he? Looks quiet and well-behaved, you think? Ah, you ought to have been with us on the voyage from the Cape. The evil genius of the lower troop-deck, and that’s facts. Ringleader in every act of insubordination, up to all sorts of devilment, a black sheep, sir, a black—hip, hip, hurray! For he’s a jolly——�
“And so,� said the Colonel of the Dapple Grays to his Senior Major, a few weeks later, when the regiment had shaken down in its old barracks at Studminster; when its feminine complement had rejoined it; when wives once more “upon the strength� were washing the tattered remains of shirts which had seen more service than soap-suds, and husbands were employing eloquence in the effort to convince civilian visitors to the canteen that, despite the solemn warning recently issued from the most authoritative quarters, to treat the newly-convalescent enteric patient to beer or ardent spirits is to accelerate and not to retard his return to perfect health—— “And so it’s a settled thing, the engagement between your little girl and Garthside? Affair not jumped up in a hurry? Began a year before the regiment was ordered to the Front? Of course. My wife saw the attachment growing between ’em, and helped it on, she tells me. Every married woman’s a match-maker, you know—don’t you know—whether she’s put her own private pot on a bit of good blood, with temper and stayin’ power and so forth, or a dee-d confounded showy screw. And your little girl, not having a level-headed mother of her own alive to look after her!... Deucedly raw weather, you know, don’t you know!�
Sir Alured broke off, anticipating rather than seeing the gray change in Major Rufford’s face, and remembering that the handsome wife, who had died when Emmie was a hoyden of thirteen, had signalized the close of her career upon earth as Major Rufford’s wife and the mother of his children by an act of desperate folly. But the Senior Major’s wounds had been cicatrized by the great healer Time, and he looked back quietly enough as the Colonel cleared his throat with unnecessary violence, and twisted the great moustache that had been iron-gray and was now snow-white.
“Lady Gassiloe has been very kind, and Emmie doesn’t forget how much she owes her. And there’s the right stuff in Garthside; I can trust him to make my little girl a good husband. It’s odd, when one comes to think of it, that our other Victoria Cross man is going to be married, and to Emmie’s foster-sister, Peggy Donohoe.�
“The deuce!� said Sir Alured. “Is that dee-d young scoundrel, Juxon, going to settle down? Seems too good to be true. Why, the old Paradise was hell when Juxon wasn’t in the cells. Nearest approach to a rhyme I ever made in my life, by George! But Juxon’s character apart it’s not a bad match. The young blackguard has plenty of good looks, and Peggy’s as pretty a girl as you may see, look high or low. And she thinks Juxon a proo shevally with his V. C.; and so do poor Bogle’s people, and so do the public, by Jove! You should have heard him when he reported himself.... ‘What did you mean, you dee-d idiot,’ I asked him, ‘by picking up a man who’d had the top of his head shot clean off, and couldn’t live five minutes? D’ye call that philanthropy? In my opinion it’s dee-d foolery!’ ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Colonel, sir!’ says Juxon, ‘I calls it precaution. When I ’oisted Mr. Bogle up be’ind me, I see’d ’e’d ’ad ’is gruel, an’ the last breath went out of ’im before old ’Andsome-Is—that’s wot I calls that ’ere spavined gray o’ mine—’ad got into ’is stride. But the bullets was ’ummin’ round me like ’ornets, an’ pore Mr. Bogle, lyin’ as ’e wos acrost my ’ams, drawed fire an’ furnished cover.’ Furnished cover! The cool young beggar fortifies his rear with the next in succession to one of the oldest peerages in the United Kingdom, gets mentioned in despatches, and receives his V. C.! Too dee-d funny, you know, don’t you know!�
And Sir Alured mixed a brandy and soda, and chose an enormous cigar from a case resembling a young Gladstone bag. The conversation took place in a curious ground-glass hutch, sacred to the inner mysteries of Official business, and labeled “Private.� And as the second in command charged and kindled a meerschaum of incredible age and foulness, there came a knock at the door.
“C’min!� barked the Chief over the rim of the tilted tumbler, and the regimental Doctor looked round the door. “Oh! it’s you, Assassin!� he said, as he wiped the froth off the great white moustache. “How many exenterics have you kicked out of the convalescent ward this morning?�
“Three,� said the Assassin—“Denver, Moriarty, and Jarman. Garthside’s lambs all.�