CHAPTER VIII.
THE COURT-MARTIAL.
St. Giles's clock, the castle clock, and on the dials of every other clock, the hands went inexorably round, and the day and the morning of the eventful crisis came inevitably at last, and Cecil put on his beloved full uniform, as his heart told him, perhaps for the last time—but minus his sword and sash!
He looked round his humbly furnished barrack-room, with the eye of one who was taking a long farewell of something, and a heavy sigh escaped his overcharged breast. Leslie Fotheringhame, who was to act as his legal friend in court, pressed his hand, and said in his off-hand way:
'Take courage, my dear friend. Keep up your pecker, old fellow; Marshal Ney's scrape was a worse one than yours.'
Through a crowd of idlers, witnesses and others, who thronged the antechambers and bare stone passages, they proceeded towards the mess-room, in which the court, composed of officers of the rank of captain and above it, was being constituted and sworn by the president, and all fully dressed in review order, with their swords and sashes, around a table littered with writing materials and a few volumes of military regulations.
The first incident that jarred on Cecil's nerves was the voice of the president, a cranky old Colonel, whose whole life had been passed in sinecure staff appointments, saying:
'Bring in the prisoner!'
And he found himself, after being introduced by Fotheringhame, with whom he sat apart at a writing-table, duly charged with 'conduct unbecoming the character of an officer, in having, on the —— day of ——, 18—,' etc., etc.; to all of which he listened as one in a dream; and still more did it all seem so as the day wore on. How bright the sunshine seemed outside, and how close and dark the ruin within that ill-omened room, which had been so often the scene of hospitality and convivial jollity.
Through the open windows came, as from a distance, the jangle of St. Giles's musical bells, with 'mingling din,' as Scott has it; and their monotony and iteration galled his spirit, and from mere association of ideas he felt certain that he must loath them for ever after.
Of how much Hew Montgomerie was his evil genius, Cecil Falconer knew not, nor had the least suspicion. Yet he looked around the many faces in court more than once, expecting to see his parti-coloured eyes regarding him with exultation; but that worthy was miles away from the spot. Among the spectators he saw many legal men, in black with white ties, who had come up from the Parliament House—that provincial 'gossip shop'—to stare, whisper, and make severe comments, which certainly were sometimes called for; and to draw somewhat invidious comparisons between the modes of administering civil and military law.
When the minds of those who compose any court are fully made up as to the guilt of the prisoner, and know the sentence that must be passed in conformity to certain iron rules laid down by law and custom, the proceedings are usually summary enough, and so it was in the case of Cecil Falconer.
Doubt of his guilt or error there seemed to be none; most of those composing the court had been at the ball in question, and were more or less cognisant of the bewildering catastrophe; but all that Cecil and Leslie Fotheringhame, as his friend and adviser, desired to bring before the listeners, were the simple facts that he had just been dancing—that hence some strange giddiness might have come upon him in consequence; of the wine he had taken but a single glass, as they could easily prove; and they desired to argue these simple points earnestly, in the hope of modifying the opinion of the tribunal, and Fotheringhame wished to put a question to the lieutenant-colonel commanding, as ex-officio prosecutor.
'Stop, sir, please,' said a member of the court—Brevet-Major Hammer of the Royal Artillery, a fiery-eyed little man with grey spectacles and red nose—a man who had crammed at Woolwich, and was up to the ears in military law, though ignorant of all the principles thereof; 'this would seem to be a leading question, and, according to Hough on courts-martial, such questions cannot be allowed.'
On this subject there ensued much difference of opinion, and Major Rammer made some notes thereon with a dry pen.
'Clear the court!' cried the president in consequence, and there was a general exodus of the audience.
'What utter stuff this is!' said Falconer to the adjutant, as they smoked a cigar outside, while the fourteen members of the court, the president and the deputy-judge advocate, seemed to be all speaking and wrangling at once; and after some twenty minutes' deliberation the court was re-opened, and all the audience trooped in again.
The question was voted 'irregular,' though neither Fotheringhame nor Falconer had stated what it was to have been; so, as the former was about to propose another:
'We are here, sir, to try Captain Falconer, not you?' said Major Rammer, snappishly; 'not you, sir, remember.'
'Of that circumstance I do not require to be reminded,' replied Fotheringhame, haughtily; 'yet I do not see why the prisoner, or I as his friend, may not question the prosecutor as to——'
'In Tylter, on court-martial and military law, in Hough and in Simmonds,' began Major Rammer, with emphatic solemnity, and glaring through his goggles round the table, 'it is distinctly laid down——'
'Clear the court!' cried some one else.
It was again cleared accordingly, and all the orderlies, idlers, and wondering advocates, had to make a stampede into the dreary stone passages outside.
The debate, whatever it was about, was a stormy one, and above the voices of all others was heard that of Major Rammer citing Hough and Simmonds. The president had never sat on a court-martial before—and, perhaps, had always hoped he might never do so, and never be called upon to give a casting vote in any question in this world; thus he was induced to comply with the dictum of the fiery-nosed and irritable Major Rammer, in all matters in the present instance, and the charge was eventually brought clearly home.
The two doctors, though both fast friends of Cecil's, when examined as to the after effects of his mysterious illness, only served to make matters worse; and, as doctors proverbially disagree, they did so as to the symptoms on this.
'Clear the court!' once more thundered Major Rammer, and after it was cleared again, the major returned to the attack, flanked by Hough and Simmonds.
In short, the personage who alone could have thrown any clear light on the whole catastrophe, was utterly unthought of by all, and was enjoying himself in the country while waiting impatiently the result of his treachery as reported in the public prints.
When the defence came, the colonel, the adjutant, and others, bore the highest testimony to the goodness of Falconer's character and disposition, his attention to duty, the love borne him by his brother officers and soldiers, and his gallantry on more than one occasion in India.
Hart's Army List was not at hand as to the latter.
'Clear the court!' suggested Major Rammer, who required documentary proofs of the said 'gallantry,' though his own breast was bare of all decorations.
'Well!' exclaimed Fotheringhame, as they were again cooling their heels in the passage; 'if the proceedings of this day are published, they will read rather queerly;' to which he added something not meant for ears polite.
Why prolong this account—a painful legal farce, for such the ignorance of the president, and the interference of 'the well-read' Major Rammer made it?
To those who knew Cecil well, his handsome face seemed pale—a face always grave and dignified; and his eyes seemed to observe the proceedings with a strange listlessness.
As afternoon drew on Major Rammer offered less opposition; Cecil was allowed to ask a few questions, as the former perhaps found himself in a minority, though most industrious in distributing slips of paper, with observations and quoted 'precedents' all round the table. The tedious proceedings were at length closed—the opinion and finding given—the punishment, whatever it was, meted out, and proceedings on which the existence—certainly the future—of Cecil Falconer seemed to depend, were despatched to the Horse Guards by the swift night mail.
The weary Falconer's room that night was filled with sympathisers, and the proceedings were discussed, and 'that old pump jammer' duly stigmatised, amid the consumption of much tobacco, champagne, brandy and seltzer, long after tattoo, the roll-calling, the last farewell sound of 'lights and fires out' had pealed from the citadel gate and in the Grand Parade, and after silence and the silver moonlight fell together on the vast fortress and its rock.
'I thank all much, very much,' said Cecil with no small emotion; 'but it is no use you fellows talking: there is nothing for me now but to drift quietly away into the dark sea of ruin—it may be death!'
His lips were working convulsively as he spoke.
'Let the worst come to the worst, I'll bear it like a man, and drag out the remnant of my life' (without her, he thought) 'an adventurer, a beggar, an emigrant—a soldier in some foreign service, perhaps—what matters it how or when the bitter end may come? I'll not shoot myself anyhow—that were the deed of a sinner and coward!'
'For God's sake, Cecil, don't run on this way! It's enough to make a fellow's heart bleed!' said Fotheringhame with much anxiety of manner.
'Who knows what becomes of those fellows who go to the dogs, or are driven there?' he asked bitterly.
'Take heart, man—take heart,' urged Dick Freeport, patting him on the shoulder: 'you'll be, at worst, put at the bottom of the list of captains; and you're not very far above that now.'
'No, no, Dick; I read dismissal in the faces of the President and that artillery fellow who was so infernally well up in Hough and Simmonds.'