damages!'
'Silence, gentlemen, if you please, a lady's name is mentioned! Let us be cool and hear all about it!'
This was from Captain Torrant.
'And take your drink, Mr. Stiggins,' said Julius, 'have another lump of ice in it?'
'Not because you tell me, young man,' replied the holy man in an offensive tone, 'but because I am a free agent and shall do as I like.'
So saying, to the unconcealed delight of the young scapegraces, he took a little more rum and another lump of ice. Then being anxiously pressed by the Major to know if he had any fresh accusation to make regarding Miss Larcher, he began such a rigmarole about the Major having fucked that much injured lady, and not having done so, and only spreading a lying report to that effect, and that he had never been kicked out of the barracks-not he indeed! — he would like to see the pig that would fuck him out of barracks; and he would bring an action against Miss Larcher, that he would.
'I presume the long and short of the story, Mr. Stiggins, is that you fucked Miss Larcher,' said Captain Larkyns, continuing with an appearance of great interest. 'Well, I never did roger a girl in chapel myself, during divine service, but I have no doubt there is a certain piquancy in it. Did she make a pretty good fuck, Stiggins? Had she a fat arse?'
There is no telling what answer that sainted man might have made in return, for drink and indignation had made him half mad. But the question was immediately started whether it was not the pig who committed himself with Miss Larcher in the chapel, and one of the young sinners bawled out one thing and one another, till the whole question of the pig, Miss Larcher, the chapel, Major Ringtail and the barracks was involved in chaos. One thing was plain enough, Stiggins was drunk.
Then arose the question: what was to be done with him? Finally, it was resolved to adopt Captain Larkyns' views. He suggested that their respected victim would be in a state of total unconsciousness, and that a strong solution of gum, if glue or tar could not be had, should be applied to the sainted countenance, and that some feathers, taken from the pillow of Cornet Periwinkle, as the officer who had joined last was known, should be distributed, so as to give the holy man the appearance, as nearly as possible of an owl. That being the bird of wisdom, was hailed as combining amusement with compliment, if the Reverend Stiggins could only be brought to view it in the same light.
Then the apostle should be placed on a wheelbarrow, with his saintly mug enveloped in a sack, lest peradventure, the eyes of carnal men being cast upon him, scandal might be the result; or what the young dragoons were much more afraid of, the order of the procession might be interrupted in some way.
Major Ringtail, divested of his master's shooting jacket, was ordered forthwith to go and find a wheelbarrow, and a country lout game enough to wheel a load to the Temperance Hotel in Rutshole. Yes, dear reader, that was where the Reverend Stiggins was going, to the muchmaligned Miss Larcher's Temperance Coffee-House; he, her much revered visitor and pastor, being in three predicaments-in drink, in a wheelbarrow, and in the semblance of an owl!
During Tom's absence, his master and his master's companions betook themselves to adorn Stiggins, with as much earnestness and businesslike gravity as if they were doing the most praiseworthy act in the world. One of them concocted a note purporting to be from his Reverence to Miss Larcher, containing expressions of attachment and an offer of marriage. This, neatly folded and addressed, was placed between his right thumb and forefinger, these articles being lashed tight together, greatly to his Reverence's comfort no doubt.
Towards dusk, according to orders a wheelbarrow and a grinning country lad were in attendance outside the barracks gates; the youngster being promised half-a-sovereign if he performed his errand satisfactorily, and one shilling and a licking if he mismanaged matters, readily undertook to convey the apostle to the private door of Miss Larcher's hostelry, there empty him out, and ring the bell as if the place was on fire.
Moreover three or four of the gentlemen present undertook to walk in the same direction, in small but separate parties, so as to watch the result; and also to give aid to the countryman, in case of his conveyance or its interesting freight being interfered with by impertinently curious people, or any such disagreeable interlopers.
Then Stiggins was borne forth and deposited in his chariot: the conductor thereof upon being questioned as to whether the load of sanctity would not be rather too much for him, replied in the negative, asserting that he had harrowed many a heap of 'mook' as doubtless he had, and in the same barrow too-very lately.
'So,' as Mrs. Herman's says, 'the stately march went on.'
Torrant and Larkyns were about twenty yards ahead on the side path; then, in the middle of the road came the body of their victim, watched by Tom, walking carelessly along the path abreast the barrow; then two more officers.
Robert begged his master to let him take part in the procession, but it was considered dangerous.
When Rutshole was reached, these precautions showed the wisdom of the prudent young men who had adopted them. For the vedettes, if we may use the expression, encountered a policeman, who was staring with some curiosity at the conveyance moving slowly along the High Street. He was immediately collared by Larkyns and Torrant, humbugged by an impromptu story of a lost pocketbook by Larkyns, and escorted to the Red Lion to talk about the matter, over a glass of brandy and water. So the coast was clear, and the two gentlemen of the rear guard arriving immediately reported that the barrow was in the act of depositing its precious freight.
Immediately there was a rush made for the door, when the conductor was seen bowling his empty machine down the street on his homeward journey at a devil of a rate.
Simultaneously there arose from the opposite side of the street a shrill scream. The policeman and the officers immediately hurried across to render what assistance they could, most probably-and also perhaps to see the fun.
There they found Miss Larcher, her waiter and two housemaids in agonies of screaming at a prostrate figure, the upper half of which was enveloped in a sack, which the animal inside whatever it might be, was endeavouring to get rid of-but in vain. We are bound to say that the two young officers upon arriving at the scene of action, did not devote their first attention to the writhing tenant of the sack. They knew all about that kind of thing-but Julius nudged Torrent, saying: 'I say, Al, is that Miss Larcher? I thought she was an elderly piece of goods.'
'Well,' said his friend, critically, 'so she is, certainly, one of the hasbeens!
I should say: forty or nearly so, but still I agree with you, she is a fine well-made sort of an old girl, well kept too, I shouldn't wonder.
Devilish good fetlocks, she has got!'
This interesting comment referred, as the reader will perceive, to the general appearance of Miss Larcher, who was by no means the starched old maid that Miss Bonham, in her conversation with her cousin implied her to be. She had decided remains of former good looks, and, as Alfred's acute eye had remarked, very neat ankles, judiciously clothed in neat kid slippers and black silk stockings.
'Toss you lip for her, Alfred!' suggested Captain Larkyns, in as commonplace a sort of way as if it was a bottle of wine that was in question.
'Oh, no, my dear fellow,' replied his friend, 'you are quite welcome to try your luck.'
'Then don't you interfere,' said Julius.
'On the contrary, my dear fellow, I shall be happy to assist your virtuous endeavours in any way that I possibly can. Shall I curry favour with the lady by ordering a couple of gallons of coffee, and a bushel of buttered muffins? That's the sort of thing to do her I suppose?'
'Ha, ha,' laughed Julius, 'in half-an-hour's time, if I have any luck, you may have either a buttered muffin or bun if you like!'
While this confidential interlude was going on, the policeman, assisted by the waiter, had been dragging at the sack. This was removed at last with some difficulty to the operators, and more pain to the patient, as some of his glued-on plumage came off in the operation. Still there remained enough to make him look 'a thing of beauty,' which one of our poets remarked, 'is a joy forever.'
We presume that it was from some deficiency of poetical temperament that none of the spectators, always excepting our military friends, could see the adornment of the Stiggins mug in this light. At any rate, Miss Larcher screamed, and her maids yelled. The little waiter stood in speechless awe, and the policeman remarked in a musing tone: 'Well, I've seen a good many rummy stares but this beats all I ever did see. Suppose 'e must a been an' got drunk, an' slept in a 'en roost.'
'Drunk, the disgusting brute is certainly,' interposed Captain Larkyns, who was a three-bottle man.
