Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/247

Rh to stand by and see their officer wounded in that way. Disbanding was too good for them."

"But the whole regiment didn't see the thing done," observed the commissioner.

"Oh, that doesn't matter," she replied; "they were all sepoys together, and sepoys always stick by each other, with their nonsense about caste, and their not doing this or doing that. I have no patience with them."

"My dear,"said the brigadier, who sat opposite, in a voice of mild reproach, "you forget that your husband is a sepoy-officer."

"No, I don't," replied the lady; "but I wasn't always the wife of a native-infantry officer, you know; and I have my feelings on this point. Besides, I don't consider that you belong to the native army now that you are a brigadier; you command Europeans and natives too, so you ought to be impartial."

"For my part," observed Major Winge of the hussars, who was one of the company, "I should like to see every black regiment cut down to half its present strength, and a dozen more British regiments sent out."

"Native-infantry regiments, I suppose you mean?" interposed Colonel Falkland.

"Oh, of course," replied the other, "they are dark; same thing, you know."

"The same thing, perhaps, but not the same name; we will keep to the official designation, with your permission, if the thing is to be discussed at all."

"By all means, if you like," returned the major; "no offence was meant."

"You did not mean to be offensive, of course," said the colonel.

And so the conversation dropped, or rather a turn was given to it by the commissioner, who asked Major Winge across the table if his regiment had many horses entered for the coming races.

While it was going on, Yorke felt his face flush at the implied insult to his branch of the service. A feeling of bashfulness, however, kept him silent at first, and then just as he was about at last to burst out. Colonel Falkland had stepped in to the rescue.

That the offensive attack should have been properly put down was satisfactory, but there now succeeded to the indignation a feeling of shame that Miss Cunningham should have been witness of the scene. What must she think of military men, if they were ready to deal in such braggart ways across a dinner-table, till even Falkland, a man who seemed placed above such things by standing and natural dignity, was drawn into the squabble? It was all that horrid Mrs. Polwheedle's doing, and it was just the same on the day of his first call. How could this gentle and refined creature tolerate her society? Even if the commissioner was too good-natured to take care of his daughter in that respect, surely her godfather might interpose to shield her from such vulgarizing contact.

The person referred to, who sat next to him, seemed to be reading his thoughts, for he interrupted the current of them by remarking in an undertone: "I am afraid our hostess will think some of us have been taking our wine before dinner instead of at the proper time. It is a sad world this," he added with a smile; "shut one's self out as we may from all that is disagreeable, still the unpleasant will obtrude itself sometimes. The worst of it is that I am afraid the gentleman opposite had only too much truth on his side."

"Do you really think, sir," asked the youngster eagerly, "that the native army is not to be trusted?"

"I think that it might be reduced with great advantage, and the proportion of European troops brought up again to what it was when I first entered the service."

"Then do you really think that there is any mischief brewing in the native army?"

"It is a mercenary army," replied the colonel, "and it is an army which has nothing to do at present, two conditions which don't go well together. Of course you may keep mercenary troops in order by discipline; but we have merely the semblance of discipline left now. It would not need a very violent shake, I fear, to bring the military fabric to pieces, or at any rate to put it grievously out of joint."

"But surely there is nothing to show that things are worse now than they have been for the last fifty years? There have been repeated instances of misconduct before, but the army has outlived them. And, in the present instance, it seems to have been effectually put down. Why should things be worse now than at any time before?"

"Of course there is a great deal to be said on the optimist side. The men have all their pensions to look to, and then it is not likely that the Hindoos and 