SIR JOHN ARMITAGE found Milnehill an exceedingly agreeable habitation. He fell into the routine of the Colonel’s habits as a man long accustomed to a life and duties similar to those of his host only could have done. Day by day he recovered of his querulousness and invalidism. He even forgot the dreaded heir who had driven him from his new inheritance, and began to be able to speak on ordinary subjects without much allusion to the dreadful subject of marriage, and his own perplexities in respect to it. Then Sir John, when once delivered from himself, was a little of a humorist, and enjoyed the peculiarities of the society in which he found himself. Numberless old Indian officers, members of the Civil service, families who, without being of that origin, had two or three sons in our oriental empire, and people more or less connected with India, were to be found in the neighbourhood. Indeed, with the mixture of a clergyman or two, a resident landed proprietor, linked to the community by means of a son in the B.N.I., or a daughter married in Calcutta, and one or two stray lawyers from Edinburgh—this formed the whole of Colonel Sutherland’s society, and no small part of the general society of the neighbourhood.
These excellent people, to the greater part of whom the world consisted of India and Edinburgh, whose associations were all connected either with the kindly and limited circle of home, or with the bizarre and extraordinary life of the East, and to whom the rest of the world came in by the way, a sort of unconsidered blank of distance between the two points of interest, were as original and agreeable a community as one could wish to meet with; experienced, for years of travel, of intercourse with primitive people, and of universal command and authority, had given a certain decision and authority to their judgment; yet so singularly simple in respect to this European world and its centres of civilisation, and so innocent of all public sentiment other than the dominant Anglo-Saxon instinct of sway and rule over an inferior race, that their views on general subjects had a freshness and novelty which, if sometimes a little amusing, was always racy and original. Knowing very little, except in words, of the races who contest with us the supremacy of the modern world; of those powers so equally balanced whose slightest move on either side sets all the kingdoms of Christendom astir, and threatens contests bigger and more ominous than any conquering campaign of the East; this community was good-humouredly contemptuous of the incomprehensible ignorance of those dwellers at home who knew no difference between Tamul and Hindostani, who innocently imagined that a man at Agra, being in the same country with his brother at Madras, might have a chance of meeting with him some day, or who could not be made to comprehend the difference between a Dhobi and a man of high caste. These strange ignorances they laughed at among themselves with a pleasant feeling of superiority, and contested Indian appointments and the new regulations of the Company with far greater interest than the state of Europe could excite them into. One and another had charge of a little troop of children, “sent home” for their education. Somebody was always returning, somebody always “going out.” There was great talk, especially among the ladies, of outfits and their comparative cheapness, and of the respective advantages and disadvantages in travelling overland or by the Cape. Sir John, who was Indian enough to find himself much at home in this society, was at the same time man of the world enough to be amused by its characteristics. He found it more entertaining to listen to a lady’s troubles in a journey to the hills, to the adventures of the dàkh, or the misbehaviour of the Syces, than he had found it in recent days to bewail the afflictions of a continental tour, the impositions of the inns, and the failure of the cooks. Palanquins and howdahs were unquestionably more picturesque than travelling carriages and vetturini, and the Dakh Bungalow ten times more original than the Hôtel d’Angleterre or the Römische Kaiser. Sir John, for the moment, found himself so famously entertained, that he showed no inclination whatever to abridge his stay at Milnehill.
He liked his host, he liked the society, he liked the quarters; the dinners were good, the curry superlative, the house extremely cosy. Then the freedom of the bachelor life, free from any disagreeable claim of duties, suited the baronet exactly. His room was exactly the size he preferred, his fire always burned cheerfully, the Colonel left him to himself with perfect good breeding and discreet kindness, forcing his inclinations in nothing. General Mulligatawny, whose “policy” touched one side of the humble enclosure of Milnehill, had two unmarried ladies at present resident in his house, in whom the baronet felt a certain interest, both bound for India, and consequently not to be seen or treated with after a certain date, which greatly increased their attractions. One of them, the General’s grand-daughter, a pretty girl of eighteen, to whom Sir John seriously, but secretly, inclined, and who, he rather more than suspected, was pretty certain to laugh in his face at any avowal of his incipient sentiment; the other, a handsome woman of thirty, youngest of all the said General’s dozen children, “going out” to keep house for a brother, who had already got through two wives, and preferred a little interregnum before looking for another. This latter lady, Sir John felt with a little terror, was what people call “extremely suitable,” and the very person for him. Consequently, he conceived a great dread of her, mingled with a little anxiety to look well in her presence. With these attractions to the neighbourhood, is it wonderful that Sir John showed little inclination to leave Milnehill?
The week passed, and another week followed it. There was still no news from Roger Musgrave, and the Colonel grew at once impatient and anxious. These feelings, struggling with his punctilious and old-fashioned hospitality, made him exceedingly uncomfortable. He could no longer enjoy the presence of his guest, while at the same time it was against all his traditions of friendliness to suggest anything to him which should shorten his stay, or make him feel himself unwelcome. The Colonel, to whom all the varied sentiments of life had come in their due season, could not see the baronet’s perplexities and pre-occupations in presence of womankind without secret amusement and wonder; and Sir John’s regards, divided between Miss Mulligatawny and her niece, surprised his host into occasional accesses of private laughter; but this by no means sufficed to divert the Colonel, as it diverted his visitor, from the important object which had originally brought him here. Colonel Sutherland never entered his cosy dining-room in the morning without the dread of finding a letter from Roger, telling of some step which was irrevocable, and carried him quite out of their reach. He went to rest with that thought in the evening, and took it up on waking the next day: he began to be quite restless and full of discomfort; he even meditated setting out by himself to London to find the young man: he wrote to various old friends in town, begging them to make inquiries. Then he repeated to himself, “Make inquiries! look for a needle in a bundle of hay!” Yet, nevertheless, sent off his letters. On the whole, nothing had so agitated and disturbed the Colonel for years. He pictured to himself the lingering hope of being yet sought after and aided, which would dwell in the youth’s mind unawares: he imagined the hope sickening, the expectation failing: he thought of the bitter enlightenment, which has ceased to believe in words and promises, growing round the boy: he felt his own word losing its meaning, and his own earnest desire frustrated. Then, unable to keep silence, in spite of his reticence as host, he spoke to Sir John on the subject. Sir John made light of his troubles: “My dear fellow, what can they do with a batch of new recruits in a week—three weeks, is it? Very well, then, three weeks; what do you suppose could be done in that time? Besides, have you any certainty that troops are being sent abroad at all? I don’t know of any; and for the Queen’s service, you know, I ought to be almost a better authority than yourself. No, no, have patience—we’ll hear from the boy presently, I have not the slightest doubt of it. Give him up?—no, not a bit! but a little knocking about will do him good—always does young men good! If you look so very serious, I shall believe you want to get rid of me.”
This last address was unanswerable. The Colonel closed his lips with a sigh. As for his own influence, from which he at one time hoped a good deal, he found it conclude in a courteous letter and a ready promise. The Colonel was extremely discomfited and discouraged; for the first time in his life he repented of kindness. Had he, after all, “raised expectations which could never be realized?” The matter gave him a great deal more pain than Sir John could have thought possible. He, with all the carelessness of a man who has commonly found the world go well with him, put this affair aside lightly. Why should anything happen to disconcert their plans? As soon as the boy should turn up he was ready and eager to help him. He had no apprehension of any romantic contretemps, such as the Colonel feared; such things only occurred in very rare cases. What harm could it do to wait?
Thus still another week passed on. A month after hearing from Roger, Colonel Sutherland found another letter on his breakfast table; it was dated “Ship ‘Prince Regent,’ in the Downs, March 21st.” With a gasp of excitement the Colonel ran his eyes over it, and then thrust it into the hand of Sir John, who was calmly eating his breakfast. The baronet started, read it over, jumped from his seat, and called for his man in a voice of thunder. Then he flew to a writing-table which stood in one corner, wrote something hurriedly in gigantic characters, shouting aloud at the end of every word for “Summers! Summers!” Summers made his appearance hastily, amazed and fluttered by the imperative demand.
“Fly!—horseback, railway, anything that’s quickest—telegraph-office, Edinburgh! To be sent this instant; return directly; here’s your money; I tell you, fly!” cried the excited baronet.
Summers made an astonished bow, looked at the paper, and demanded where? His master took him by the shoulders and thrust him out of the door, following him through the rain along the garden, and shouting, “Telegraph-office, Edinburgh!” in his ear, with sundry stimulating expletives. Then Sir John returned much more slowly. He found the Colonel marching about the room, very grave, and very much excited.
“It’s not your fault, old fellow,” said the baronet, hastily “bolting,” to use his own expression, the remainder of his breakfast; “here’s the man that’s to blame; come down upon me, it’ll do you good. I don’t give this up yet. How’s the wind? Dead south-west for a miracle—can’t go a step down the Channel in a sou’-wester! Come along—put up your traps, brighten your grave face, and let’s be off by the first train!”
“We’ll be too late!” said the Colonel, whose mortification and distress were great.
“Not a bit of it,” said Sir John. “Telegraph reaches the ship in half-an-hour—‘Young man, Roger Musgrave, enlisted among the troops on board the “Prince Regent,” to be detained. To the officer in command.’ We shall be there by noon to-morrow all right. Why do you suppose now that Fortune should make up her mind to spite us? Why shouldn’t the wind stay for twenty-four hours in that quarter, and all be well?”
“Why, indeed?” said the Colonel, with a sigh; “why should not everything serve our caprice when we lose the true opportunity, and then make a fictitious one?—but they don’t, Armitage. I shall never forgive myself; however, while there is still a hope let us go.”
For the Colonel’s fears had been literally fulfilled. Roger had enlisted in a regiment about to sail for the Cape, where there was at present raging one of the many Caffre wars. He wrote to take leave of his friend, believing well to be out of reach before any late succour could reach him. A certain shade of proud and forlorn melancholy was in his farewell. The young man felt to his heart a pang which he would not confess—he had been taken at his word.