_ CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. HOW I WAS UNEXPECTEDLY ENLISTED IN A NEW SERVICE, IN COMPANY WITH AN IRISHMAN
The first thing I was conscious of, after partially recovering from the agony, mental and bodily, of my late accident, was a sharp tugging at my handle.
"Watch! I say, watch!" I heard a voice whisper, "what's to be done?" It was the watered ribbon.
"How should I know?" I growled; "if you had done your duty we should never have been here!"
One is always ready to blame somebody for everything that happens amiss.
"Oh, yes, I dare say," it replied; "if you hadn't poked your nose into that hole we should never have been here."
I did not like being thus talked to by a disreputable piece of watered ribbon, and so kept a dignified silence.
"What's to be done?" presently repeated my companion, giving me another rude tug at the collar.
"Hold your tongues, if we've nothing to say," was my curt reply.
"Oh, but I've a lot to say," went on this irrepressible chatterbox; "in the first place--"
"_Will_ you be silent?" said I, angrily; "isn't it bad enough to be down here, all through your carelessness?"
"But it's not through my carelessness; it was through the hole in the pocket you got down here."
"If you had half the sense of a--"
"Of a nickel watch, let us say," said the watered ribbon, losing his temper; "and that would be precious little. Well?"
"If you had half the sense of a blade of grass, you would have been able to prevent it."
"But you see I hadn't half the sense of a blade of grass, or a quarter, or an eighth, or a sixteenth. If I had I should have known better than to lend my moral support to a good-for-nothing, tarnished, ill- regulated, mendacious piece of Britannia metal, that chooses to call itself a silver watch. Ha, ha! what do you think of that?"
What I thought of that this impudent ribbon was not destined then to hear; for there came at that moment a sound of approaching footsteps across the field, which made us both hold our breaths. Unless the comer, whoever he was, could get sight of us, he was sure to tread right on the top of us! Luckily the moon was out, and with her aid I made myself as bright as possible. The footsteps belonged to a youth, not, certainly, oppressed by melancholy, to judge by the tune he was whistling, or very infirm, to judge by the pace at which he advanced.
He came nearer and nearer, and in another step would have been upon me when suddenly both he and the whistling halted. He stooped, and, with an exclamation of surprise, picked me up.
"Man alive, an' it's a watch! Hout, boys! there's luck for yez!"
So saying he thrust me and the ribbon into a pocket crowded with all sorts of oddments, and walked on more rapidly than ever.
I was too bewildered at first by my narrow escape and the sudden change in my fortunes to pay much heed to my new quarters; but presently that everlasting ribbon jerked my neck roughly, and called out in a loud whisper,--
"I say, watch, he's an Irishman!"
"Oh!" said I, as briefly as I could.
"Yes, and there's a lucifer here tells me he's no better than he ought to be. What do you think of that?"
"I think you and he ought to understand one another, if that's the case," growled I, unable to resist the temptation of a sarcastic reply.
"Ho, ho! that's pretty good for you, watch. However, there are some folk who are not as good as they ought to be, let alone better."
After a brief pause he began once more.
"He's young; only eighteen, I'm told."
As no answer was necessary here, I vouchsafed none.
"And he's trying to get a job on some ship, there's a nice look-out! What a poor figure _you'd_ cut if you went to sea!"
I could not stand this, probably because I knew it was true; so I turned my back, and in self-defence bade good evening to an old pocket-comb which lay near me.
"Whew! good evening! whew!" replied he. He had a curious way, this comb, of giving a sort of half-whistle, half-sigh, between every few words he spoke.
"I suppose you are an older resident here than I am?" I suggested, by way of making myself agreeable.
"No, I'm not, whew! I belong to the other pocket, whew! I don't know why I'm here, whew! but make yourself at home, whew!"
"I hear your master is going to sea," said I.
"Not at all, whew! Who told you that? whew! but I tell you what, whew--"
"What?" I inquired.
At this moment our master stopped still in the middle of the road. I looked out and saw that he was standing face to face with a fine soldierly-looking fellow in uniform, who wore a cockade of ribbons on his shako.
"Good evening, my lad," said the soldier.
"Good evening, cap'n," said the youth.
"Not cap'n just yet," said the other, laughing; "call it sergeant."
"Well, sargint. Good evening to ye, sargint."
"I've been looking for you all day, that I have," said the sergeant.
"What, me!" said my new master, in astonishment.
"Well, I was told to look out for the finest young fellow in the place, and that's about the same thing."
The lad chuckled at this vastly, and then said,--
"And what might ye be wanting me for, gineral, at all at all?"
"Faith, Patrick," said the sergeant, adopting the Irish brogue as if he had been a native, "to give yez a message from the Quane, just."
"The Quane!" shouted the Irishman.
"Sure, no other. She wants your help, my lad."
"And she shall have it, bless her! What can I do at all?"
"Arrah, she wants yez to foight a blackguard or two that's guv' her impidence."
"They have! I'm yer boy for a shindy. Where are they, colonel?"
"Not far off. And, by the way, she sent ye this bran new shillin' with her best respex to ye, Pat; and sez I'm to axe ye what you'll take to drink her health in; so come along, my lad."
Patrick did come along, and of course was duly and willingly enlisted by his new friend, who promised him honour, and glory, and riches enough to make a commander-in-chief's mouth water.
My new master, perhaps, was fond of making himself out a greater simpleton than he really was. At any rate, he appeared to believe every word the recruiting officer told him. And having no friends to say good-bye to, and no luggage to pack up, and no money (unless he pawned me) to spend, he was ready for marching orders immediately. To my surprise, he showed no desire now to dispose of me.
"What 'ud I want to give him up?" he said to himself as he held me in his hand. "Shure he'll be handy to tell the toime by on the faylde of battle." And with this satisfactory assurance he put me back in his pocket, which, greatly to my relief, was not the one which contained that asthmatic pocket-comb.
Patrick had not to leave for his depot till next day, and took a long stroll through the streets of Seatown along with the recruiting officer this evening. He was in high spirits and very proud of being a soldier, so the sergeant had very little difficulty in keeping him in good humour. Indeed, he stood that officer in good stead once; for encountering a compatriot acquaintance, a likely sort of fellow too, he helped her Majesty's army to a fine recruit.
"Here, Larry, ye blackguard," called he, "here's a gentman axing for yez."
Larry, a hulking sheepish young Irishman, did not look particularly happy at this information, and replied,--
"And what's to prevent him axing?"
"Man dear, and is that the way ye address one of the Quane's foighting men? Spake to him, meejor dear."
The "dear meejor" at this point took up the discourse.
"Faith," he said, "till I saw Patrick here I thought there wasn't a single boy in the place smart enough to wear a red coat, but I see there's two of ye anyhow."
And the sergeant laughed loud and clapped Larry on the back, and told him it was a shame for him to be walking about in boots full of holes, when he might be strutting up and down as fine as any gentleman in the place, to say nothing of regular pay and quarters, and all the chance of glory. And Patrick added his persuasions, and quoted his own example as a great argument. And between them Larry let the shilling drop into his hand, and the three went off to drink her Majesty's health, and then continued their pilgrimage through the streets.
At one street corner there was a rush of people, reading a newly-posted bill. Fancy my astonishment as I read:--"L20 reward! Lost yesterday (February 4th), near Seatown Gaol, an old silver watch, of very little value to any one but the owner. A piece of black ribbon was attached. Any one bringing the above to the Reverend James Halliday, at 2, Quay Street, will receive L20 reward."
How my heart beat as our party halted in front of this announcement. Alas! my new master was not a scholar, and on satisfying himself the object of the people's assembling was not a fight, he took no further interest in the matter, but shouldered his way past with no more thought of me just at that moment than of the North Pole.
That night, as I lay in the dark in my new quarters, I had leisure to think over the strange turn which my fortune had taken. Here I was in a town where three of those whom at some time or other I had called master were living. One was a common prisoner, one a hard-working curate, and one a raw recruit. Of my other masters, one was a London thief, one lay in his grave, and the other, and best loved of all, was far away in scenes and perils which I could not so much as picture to myself. What would become of me? I knew not; but I could not help feeling the best part of my life was spent, for who could be to me again what some of those whom I now remembered had been?
I had arrived thus far in my meditations when I all of a sudden turned faint. I knew what the matter was at once, and what did this lump of an Irishman understand about watch-keys and winding up?
I called faintly to the watered ribbon--
"I'm running down!"
"Down where?" ejaculated he, in well-feigned alarm.
"Wretch!" gasped I, "somebody ought to wind me up."
"Up where?" again asked my unsympathetic tormentor.
"Brute!" was all I could say.
"That's just the way with you clever people," began the ribbon; "as long as you are all right no name's bad enough for poor people like us; but as soon as ever you get into trouble--"
Here with a groan I ran down, and was spared the end of his speech.
I only had a vague, dim idea of what took place for the next few months. I was conscious of long railway journeys, and arriving at a big, dreary-looking sort of prison where there was nothing but soldiers.
All day long the place rang with bugle notes and words of command; and all night my master slept in a great room with a lot of noisy men, of whom I have an impression he was not the most silent. In due time he put a coat over the waistcoat in which I lived, and was mightily proud the first time he walked abroad in his new dress. And so things went on for nearly a year.
But one day it was evident some great excitement had come to vary the monotony of our barrack life. Officers talked in clusters instead of drilling their men, and the men instead of doing their ordinary work crowded into the long shed to talk over the news.
And it soon came out what the news was. The regiment had been ordered to hold itself in readiness for immediate service at the seat of war in India! What excitement there was! What cheers and exultation! What spirits the men were in, and what friends every one became all of a sudden with everybody else! Among the rest my young master's blood rose within him at the thought of fighting. He had grown sick of the dull routine of barrack life, and more than once half repented his easy acceptance of the Queen's shilling, but now he thought of nothing but the wars, and his spirits rose so high that the sergeant on duty had to promise him an arrest before he could be reduced to order.
At night the room where we slept was a perfect Babel. Men talked of nothing but the voyage and the campaign that was to follow, and wished the marching orders had been for to-morrow instead of next week.
Suddenly (and I don't exactly know why) my master remembered my existence, and I heard him call out,--
"Does any of you boys know anything about a watch, at all?"
"Duck Downie does," replied one or two voices.
"Duck Downie, me jewil, will ye step this way just?" called out my master, "and cast your eye on my watch?"
The gentleman rejoicing in the name of Duck Downie was a ferocious- looking little fellow who had, before he decided to devote his energies to the extermination of her Majesty's foes, been a watchmaker's apprentice. He came, forward at the invitation, and cast his eye in the direction indicated. It was evidently the first time he had known that Paddy so much as owned a watch; for he stared hard at me, and then said with a knowing wink,--
"Did he struggle much?"
"Faith and he did a wee bit, Duck, but so did I too, ye see," said Paddy, entering into the joke.
"Let's have a look at him," said Duck, taking me and stripping the coat off my back. "Give us the key."
"The kay!" said Paddy, whose notions of a watch's interior were delightfully vague; "sure there's no kay. Here, Edward I will ye lend Mister Downie a kay!"
The youth addressed as Edward fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the key of his locker, which he handed to my master.
"That's the boy! Here's a kay, Duck darlint, since ye want one."
Duck was rude enough to laugh immoderately at this--so much so, that my master, who was unconscious of a joke, grew quite angry.
"Ef that's all ye can do--gape like an ould money-box--I can do that as well myself; so hand up the watch!"
Duck Downie laughed again at this, and then said,--
"I want the key of the watch, puddin'-head, not this thing!"
"Arrah, it's got no kay, I tell ye. What ud _it_ want a kay for?"
Duck laughed again at this.
"Paddy," said he, "next time you borrow a gentleman's watch be sure you ask 'im for the key, do you hear? You want the key to wind the thing up--that's why he don't go."
Paddy, who had sense enough to see that Mr Downie knew more about a watch than he did, held his peace, and took no trouble to refute the imputation on the way in which he had come by me.
Duck Downie having, with some difficulty, borrowed a watch-key, wound me up, greatly to my delight and that of my master. It was delicious to feel the blood tingling through my veins once more, and to have my heart beat again with renewed animation. My master's glee was only equalled by his astonishment. He looked at first as if he suspected Duck Downie of being in league with supernatural powers; but when that eminent mechanic took the trouble to explain to him the value of the operation he had just performed on me, Paddy without a word rushed out, at the risk of all sorts of penalties, into the town, and knew no peace till he had possessed himself of a "kay," which henceforth became the inseparable companion of me and the watered ribbon. _