Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/122

110 those black classics are the very deuce, and that's a fact. However, a scholar like you is sure to get something or other one of these days, and become a swell like Teddy; and then when some Miss Cunningham of the future comes out, it will be your turn to go in and win."

Too late then, thought Yorke, bitterly, as the other's random talk shot home. It must be now or never. And what chance is there that the prize will keep so long, till I am ready to claim it? Yet that night the young fellow sat up at work till late after mess; and all next day, while his chum was at a cricket-match, he stayed in the little bungalow over his books, only leaving them towards sundown, when he mounted his pony and took the way of the course.

The mall or course of Mustaphabad was about two miles long, bordered by trees, and bounded on each side by the mud-banks which enclosed the rectangular spaces allotted for officers' houses — spaces some of them converted into neat gardens, some laid out in grass, some left in a state of nature, a small desert of baked mud or sand, as the case might be. The road was a wide one, macadamized for carriages in the middle, a sandy track on either side left soft for riders, and watered to keep down the dust.

The prospect was not lively, nor was there a soul yet to be seen, for he had come out too soon; he had not spoken to any one all day; life seemed flat, stale, and unprofitable; and as he rode at foot-pace along the mall, his heart sank within him. What if a military career was to be always like this?

Presently a moving object appeared in the far perspective, which in the fulness of time developed into a buggy and horse with two occupants, Tirtell of the 8oth N. I. driving his young wife. So, after all, matrimony was possible even for a subaltern on regimental duty. And for a moment a vision passed across his mind, as of himself driving a buggy with some one by his side, her dress touching him, and even the idea sent a thrill through his frame. Could it be possible the time should ever come when some loved object should be driving by his side, looking frankly into his face, and smiling, and he talking to her at his ease, as Tirtell did to his wife? Everybody said Mrs. Tirtell was very clever, which certainly Tirtell was not, yet he was talking quite without embarrassment, and his wife was laughing at what he said. No; this would be too much happiness for a human being. Besides, he could not associate such a noble presence as Miss Cunningham's with a buggy — nothing less than a barouche would befit so peerless a creature. But why build up these foolish castles in the air? Miss Cunningham the bride of a penniless subaltern of native infantry! And yet why despair? Surely his patient efforts to qualify for preferment would be rewarded before long. Everybody said that India was the country where any man could win success without interest or favour, merely by deserving it. And if Mr. Cunningham should be averse to his daughter's marrying an officer of irregular cavalry or the quartermaster-general's department (for to one or other of these goals did his ambition now point), why, surely her father's interest could easily obtain for him an assistant commissionership; and once in the civil line, the road to wealth and preferment was easy.

A current of ideas somewhat in this fashion passed through the young fellow's mind, as his pony with loose rein bore him slowly along the mall, now beginning to show a sprinkling of visitors. A couple of hussar officers in their braided frock-coats and trousers with gold-lace stripes, mounted on their Arab chargers; a couple of horse-artillery officers, distinguishable from the cavalry only by red instead of gold stripes; Chupkin of the irregulars, in a uniform designed by his commanding officer after a Continental tour, which had borrowed a trifle in lace and embroidery from every cavalry costume in Europe, his wife riding his second charger; the brigadier, a stout red-faced man, mounted on the Cabulee cob which had been the subject of discussion the day before; foot-artillery and infantry officers, blue and red jacketed, and more or less well-mounted; married captains driving their wives in buggies; married field-officers, with their wives and children in barouches and pair; Despenser, the superintending surgeon, who had a family at home as well as in India, and was supposed to be heavily in the banks, in a barouche and one; some forty or fifty people distributed over the two miles or so of road, with the substitution of coloured uniforms for white linen jackets and trousers, gave the place quite a lively appearance by contrast with the monotony of the hot season, just ended. Mrs. Polwheedle, of course, was there, seated in an extra large barouche, as became a brigadier's lady, and being short-sighted, merely raised a double eyeglass and 