“India! In a month from to-day we shall be off. To hear our senior major talk, one might as well be going to the bottomless pit at once. Well, he'll sell out—that's a comfort. Gives us a step, and gets rid of an old ruffian. I don't seem to care much what the place is like if we only get some work; and there will be some work there before long, by all accounts. No more garrison-town life, at any rate. And if I have any luck—a man may get a chance there.”
“What the deuce can he be about? This all comes of sentiment, now. Why couldn't I go quietly off to India without bothering up to Oxford to see him? Not but what it's a pleasant place enough. I've enjoyed my three days there uncommonly. Food and drink all that can be wished, and plenty of good fellows and fun. The look of the place, too, makes one feel respectable. But, by George, if their divinity is at all like their politics, they must turn out a queer set of parsons—at least if Brown picked up his precious notions at Oxford. He always was a headstrong beggar. What was it he was holding forth about last night? Let's see. 'The sacred right of insurrection.' Yes, that was it, and he talked as if he believed it all too; and if there should be a row, which don't seem unlikely, by Jove, I think he'd act on it, in the sort of temper he's in. How about the sacred right of getting hung or transported? I shouldn't wonder to hear of that some day. Gad! suppose he should be in for an installment of his sacred right to-night. He's capable of it, and of lugging me in with him. What did he say we were come here for? To get some fellow out of a scrape, he said—some sort of poaching radical foster-brother of his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound. And he couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at the public, where I might have set in the tap, and not run the chance of having my skin blown over my ears, and my teeth down my throat, on this cursed look-out place, because he's too well known there. What does that mean? Upon my soul, it looks bad. They may be lynching a J. P. down there, or making a spread eagle of the parish constable at this minute, for anything I know, and as sure as fate, if they are, I shall get my foot in it.”
“It will read sweetly in the naval and military intelligence—'A court-martial was held this day at Chatham, president, Colonel Smith, of Her Majesty's 101st Regiment, to try Henry East, a lieutenant in the same distinguished corps, who has been under arrest since the 10th ult., for aiding and abetting the escape of a convict, and taking part in a riot in the village of Englebourn, in the county of Berks. The defense of the accused was that he had a sentimental friendship for a certain Thomas Brown, an undergraduate of St. Ambrose College, Oxford, &c. &c.; and the sentence of the Court—'
“Hang it! It's no laughing matter. Many a fellow has been broken for not making half such a fool of himself as I have done, coming out here on this errand. I'll tell T. B. a bit of my mind as sure as—
“Hullo! didn't I hear a shout? Only the wind, I believe. How it does blow! One of these firs will be down, I expect, just now. The storm will burst in a quarter of an hour. Here goes! I shall ride down into the village, let what will come of it. Steady now—steady. Stand still you old fool; can't you?”
“There, now I'm all right. Solomon said something about a beggar on horseback. Was is Solomon, though? Never mind. He couldn't ride. Never had a horse till he was grown up. But he said some uncommon wise things about having to do with such friends as T. B. So, Harry East, if you please, no more tomfoolery after to-day. You've got a whole skin, and a lieutenant's commission to make your way in the world with, and are troubled with no particular crotchets yourself that need ever get you into trouble. So just you keep clear of other people's. And if your friends must be mending the world, and poor men's plastering, and running their heads against stone walls, why, just you let go of their coat tails.”
So muttering and meditating, Harry East paused a moment after mounting, to turn up the collar of the rough shooting-coat which he was wearing, and button it up to the chin, before riding down the hill, when, in the hurly-burly of the wind, a shout came spinning past his ears, plain enough this time; he heard the gate at the end of Englebourn lane down below him shut with a clang, and saw two men running at full speed towards him, straight up the hill.
“Oh! here you are at last,” he said, as he watched them. “Well, you don't lose your time now. Somebody must be after them. What's he shouting and waving his hand for? Oh, I'm to bring the cavalry supports down the slope, I suppose. Well, here goes; he has brought off his pal the convict I see—
Says he, you've 'scaped from transportation
All upon the briny main;
So never give way to no temptation,
And don't get drunk nor prig again!
There goes the gate again. By Jove, what's that? Dragoons, as I'm a sinner! There's going to be the d——-st bear-fight.”