The Mayor of Troy Part 35

With a tightly beating heart he waited for their recognition. . . .

No sign of recognition came. They eyed him curiously. It seemed to them that he spoke with something of a foreign accent. To be sure he articulated oddly--owing to his wound, of which his cheek bore the visible scar.

He knew them all. Had they not, each one of them, aforetime saluted him their commander, raising their hand to the peaks of these very shakos? Had they not marched, doubled, halted, presented arms, stood at attention, all as he bade them? He recognised the victim of the accident, too--a little tailor, Tadd by name, who in old days had borne a reputation for hard drinking.

"I reckon they must ha' stationed you here for a relay," suggested Gunner Sobey (ever the readiest man, no matter in what company he found himself) after eyeing the Major for a while.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I beg _yours_. Seemin' to me I've seen your features before, somewhere, though I can't call up your name." It is a point of honour with the men of Troy (I may here observe) to profess an ignorance of their less-favoured neighbours across the harbour.

"I can't call up your name for the moment, dressed as you be--but 'twas thoughtful of 'em, knowing Tadd's habit, to post up a second figger for a relay. The man seems to be shaken considerable," he went on. "'Twould be a cruelty, as you might say, to ask him to go on playin' Boney, with a wife and family dependent and his heart not in it."

"He certainly isn't fit to mount again, if that is what you mean,"

said the Major, and glanced up the road where one of the troop (Bugler Opie) had ridden in pursuit of the yellow horse and now reappeared leading back the captive by the bridle.

"That's just what I'm saying," agreed Gunner Sobey; "and you'll do very well if you change hats." He stooped and picked Tadd-Bonaparte's _tricorne_ out of the dust and brushed it with the sleeve of his tunic. "Here, let's see how you look in it."

He flipped off the Major's tarpaulin hat, clapped on the subst.i.tute, and fell back admiringly. "The Ogre to the life," he exclaimed; "and _with_ a wooden leg! Hurroo, boys!"

Before the Major could expostulate a dozen hands had lifted him into the saddle astride the yellow horse.

"But--but I don't know in the least, my friends, what you intend!

I cannot ride; indeed I cannot!"

"_With_ a wooden leg! The idea!" answered Gunner Sobey, cheerfully.

"Never you mind, but catch hold o' the pommel. We'll see to the rest."

The riders closed in and walked him forward down the hill, Gunner Sobey pressing close and supporting him, holding his wooden leg tight against the saddle-flap. The Major cast a wild look about him and saw Bugler Opie and another Gallant (Gunner Warboys--he knew all their names) lifting the half-unconscious Tadd and bearing him towards the fountain, to revive him. What was happening? Should he declare himself, here and now?

The company broke into cheers as they set their horses in motion.

Had they indeed recognised him? The procession was a.s.suredly a triumph, of some sort or another. But what did they intend?

From across the harbour the bells of Troy were ringing madly.

The Major shut his teeth. If this were indeed the town's fas.h.i.+on of welcoming him, well and good! If it were a mistake--a practical joke (but why should it be either?)--he had not long to wait for his revenge. . . .

Let _The Plymouth and Dock Telegraph_ narrate, in its own succinct language, what followed:

"The Corsican tyrant coming to grief in an attempt to elude the righteous wrath of his pursuers, another impersonator was speedily found, with the additional touch of a wooden leg, which was generally voted to be artistic. This new Boney on being conveyed down to the water's edge was driven into a boat, his countenance eliciting laugher by its almost comic display of the remorse of fallen ambition. A pair of his _soi-disant_ supporters leapt in and affected to aid his escape, and were followed by pursuing boats in every direction, which had a most pleasing effect. At length, being hemmed in and made captive, he was taken to an island near the sh.o.r.e, supported by two officers of the Troy Volunteers, who affixed a board over him, upon which was printed, in large letters, 'ELBA.' We regret to say that in his vivacious efforts to reproduce the feelings of the fallen tyrant, the impersonator--who by latest accounts is a seaman recently paid off and impressed, almost at a moment's notice, for the _role_ he sustained with such impromptu spirit--slipped on the wet seaweed and sustained a somewhat serious injury of the hip. Being with all expedition rescued, he was conveyed ash.o.r.e to the Infirmary, which, founded by the late Major Hymen as a War Hospital, henceforward will open its doors to those diseases and casualties from which even Peace cannot exempt our poor humanity. By latest advices the invalid is well on his way to recovery. In the evening there was a grand display of fireworks on the Town Quay, conducted by the Magistrates, to whom every praise is due for their efforts to promote conviviality and order."

CHAPTER XX.

IN WHICH THE MAJOR LEARNS THAT NO MAN IS NECESSARY.

For six days Troy continued to rejoice, winding up each day with a dance. We will content ourselves, however, with one last extract from _The Plymouth and Dock Telegraph_:

"At noon on Thursday the town a.s.sembled again and escorted its Mayor and Mayoress to the Hymen Hospital, where, in the presence of a distinguished company, Mrs. Hansombody (ward and heiress of the late S. Hymen) unveiled a bust of her gallant kinsman, whose premature heroic death Troy has never ceased to lament.

Sir Felix Felix-Williams made eulogistic reference to the deceased, remarking on the number of instances by which the late war had confirmed the truth of the Roman poet's observation that it is pleasant and seemly to die for one's country. The Mayor responded on behalf of his amiable lady, whom Sir Felix's tribute had visibly affected. The sculpture was p.r.o.nounced to be a lifelike image, reflecting great credit on the artist, Mr. Tipping, R.A. The pedestal, five feet in height, is of polished black Luxulyan granite, and bears name and date with the words 'Take Him for All in All We shall not Look upon his Like again.' The bust, executed in plaster of Paris, will be replaced by marble when funds allow. The crowd dispersed in silence after the ceremony. Dancing in the street followed at 6 p.m., and was kept up with spirit for some hours, during which a large quant.i.ty of beer was given away."

The Major lay in the next room--the casualty ward--and stared up at the whitewashed ceiling.

His whole being ached as though, mind and body, he had been set upon and beaten senseless with bladders. And this was the second time! Yes--good heavens, how had he deserved it?--the second time!

He remembered, after the disaster off Boulogne--many days after-- awaking to consciousness in his prison bed in the fortress of Givet.

Then, as now, he had lain staring, his whole soul sickened by the cruel jar of the jest. Hand of fate, was it? Nay, a jocose and blundering finger, rather, that had flipped him, as a man might flip a beetle, into the night. Then, as now, his soul had welled up in sullen indignation. He blamed no one; for in all the stupid chapter of accidents there was no one to blame. But when the Protestant chaplain in Givet came to his bed he turned his face to the wall.

He refused to give his name. He did not understand this blind malevolence of fate, but he would make no terms with it. He--Solomon Hymen--had a will of his own and a proper pride. If the world chose to use him so, after all his services to mankind, let it go and be d.a.m.ned to it. I tell you, the man had courage.

If his friends at home valued him, let them seek him out. He had given them cause enough for grat.i.tude. If not, he asked nothing of them. In the prison he gave his name as Mr. Solomon.

Yet he had made two attempts to escape. In the first he ran away with two comrades as far as Mezieres. Being pursued by the _gens-d'armes_ there, and called upon to surrender, his companions had given themselves up. Not so our hero; nor was he secured until he lay unconscious with a bullet-hole in the cheek. It was this which ever afterwards affected his speech, the bullet having cut or partially paralysed some string of the tongue.

It had been touch-and-go with him; but he recovered, and, pa.s.sing henceforward as a desperate character, was drafted south with a dozen other desperate characters to the gloomy fortress of Briancon.

There, in a second attempt for liberty, a fall from the ramparts had cost him his leg.

But worse than all his incarceration had been the final tramp through France--right away north to Valenciennes; then left-about-turn, three hundred and fifty miles to Tours; then south-east to Riou; and from Riou south-west to Bordeaux, where the transport took him off--one of six transports for about fifteen hundred released prisoners. All the way, too, on a wooden leg! Heaven knows how bitterly he had come to hate that leg. Yet his heart, hardened though it was by all this long adversity, had melted as the _Romney_ transport beat up closer and closer for England, and at sight of Plymouth heights he had broken into tears.

Troy! Troy! After all, Troy would remember him. Though he knew it brought him nearer to freedom, all that marching through France had been a weariness eating into his soul. Now a free man, along the road from Plymouth to Troy he had almost skipped.

And this had been his homecoming!

They remembered him. Beyond all his hopes they remembered him.

In their memory he had grown into a Homeric man, a demi-G.o.d. He had only to declare himself. . . .

The Major lay on his hospital bed and stared at the ceiling. It was all very well, but ten years had made a difference--a mighty difference; a difference which beat all his calculations. It was a double difference, too; for all the while that he had been shrinking in self-knowledge, his reputation at home had been expanding like a cuc.u.mber.

Good Lord! How could he live up to it now? To obey his impulses and declare himself was simple enough, perhaps; but afterwards--

He had nearly betrayed himself when Cai Tamblyn--in a queer straight-cut frock-coat of livery, blue with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, but otherwise looking much the same as ever--thrust his head in at the door.

In the first shock of astonishment the Major had almost cried out on him by name.

"Why--eh?--what are _you_ doing here?" he stammered. Hitherto he had been waited on by a strange doctor (Hansombody's new partner) and a nurse whom he had a.s.sisted twelve years ago, when she was left a widow, to set up as a midwife.

"Might ask the same question of you," said Cai Tamblyn. "I'm the kew-rator, havin' been Hymen's servant in the old days, and shows around the visitors, besides dustin' the mementoes--locks of his bloomin' 'air and the rest of the trash, I looked in to see how you was a-gettin' on after the palaver. If I'm not wanted I'll go."

"Don't go."

"Very well, then, I won't." Mr. Tamblyn took a seat on the edge of an unoccupied bed, drew from his pocket a knife and a screw of pig-tail tobacco, sliced off a portion and rubbed it meditatively between his hands. "I done you a good turn just now," he continued. "Some o'

the company--the womenkind especially--wanted to come in and make a fuss over you before leavin'."

"Why should they want to make a fuss over me?"

"Well you may ask," said Mr. Tamblyn, candidly. "'Tain't a question of looks, though. There's a kind of female--an' 'tis the commonest kind, too--can't hear of a man bein' hurt an' put to bed but she wants to see for herself. 'Tis like the game a female child plays with a dollies' house. Here they've got a nice little orspital to amuse 'em, with nice clean blankets an' sheets, an' texteses 'pon the walls, an' a cupboard full o' real medicines an' splints, and along comes a real live patient to be put to bed, an' the thing's complete.

Hows'ever, they didn' get no fun out of 'ee to-day, for I told 'em you was sleepin' peaceful an' not to be disturbed."

"Thank you." Under pretence of settling down more comfortably against the pillow, the Major turned his head aside. "Then it seems you knew this--this--"