Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/95

Rh house, and the conversation perforce ended. Nor did Yorke feel disposed to renew it, for Ivirke's tone jarred on him. And the subject was not referred to again during the rest of the march.

 

was reached at last, some time after the rainy season had set in. It was still very hot, but the country had now put on its green mantle again, and was no longer a wilderness; and it seemed to Yorke another good omen that on the very day of their marching in, the English mail arrived with another batch of honours; Kirke was promoted to a full colonel, and Yorke made a C.B. The regiment was met on arrival by the general — for Mustaphabad was now the headquarters of a division — no less a person than our old friend Tartar, now Sir Montague Tartar, K.C.B., who came out to meet it at the head of his staff as a compliment to this distinguished corps: and after a brief inspection, and some praise bestowed for the excellent appearance of both men and horses after the long march, the regiment proceeded to occupy the quarters allotted them, the native cavalry lines on the right flank of the station, the officers taking possession of such of the vacant bungalows as they had engaged beforehand, — comfortable houses enough, especially by contrast with tents, which had been lately rethatched and repaired, and, with their neat gardens, looked none the worse for the mutiny damages. Kirke alone of the officers had not been able to make up his mind about hiring a house beforehand, and took possession of a couple of rooms in the mess-house until he could choose one for himself.

During the first few days after their arrival, regimental business kept all the officers employed. Horses had to be cast, and men's furlough papers made out, and arms overhauled and replaced: but when this was all set in train, and Yorke thought he could be spared, he asked Kirke to forward his application for the usual sixty days' leave.

"I can't let you go just now, my dear fellow," said Kirke, "for I am just going to take privilege leave myself, and we can't both be absent together. But you shall have your leave as soon as ever I come back."

Yorke thought this a little selfish, as Kirke had had long leave the previous season, and he not a day; however, the latter was commanding officer and could please himself, so there was no more to be said about it. And Yorke set himself to getting as best he could through the sixty days which had to be passed till his turn should come. It was pleasant to find that the station had quite recovered its ordinary aspect, for the ravages of the mutineers and plunderers who followed in their train, although awful to witness, had but a limited scope to work upon. The Anglo-Indian bungalow consists of substantial walls supporting a thatched roof, which, if it could be easily burnt, could also be easily replaced; this done and the walls whitewashed, the house looks as good as new, while the rapid growth of Indian vegetation soon obliterates any damage done to Indian gardens by trampling over the shrubs. The little bungalow at the other end of the station in the lines formerly occupied by the 76th Native Infantry, which Spragge and he used to live in, looked just the same as ever; it was occupied again, and there, standing by the stable-door in the corner of the garden, as Yorke rode by on the evening of his arrival, was the new tenant smoking a cigar and superintending the littering-up of his horse, just as he used to do in the days of the gallant Devotion — evidently a subaltern as he had been, but who probably surveyed life like a veteran from the vantage-ground of one or two campaigns. The residency, too, which of course he rode out to see on his first spare evening, had been completely restored, and with a fresh coat of plaster on the walls was looking quite smart; while half a score of scarlet-clad messengers lounged about the portico, just as in the old pre-mutiny days. The new commissioner, a civilian, from another part of the country, being out for his evening drive, Yorke took the liberty of dismounting and walking over the grounds, recalling the different points rendered memorable in his mind by incidents of the siege. There, for example, was the bush behind which the fellow was crouching whom Egan shot, the first man he saw hit. Hard by, a stone with an inscription recorded that the body of Major Peart had been disinterred from underneath that spot, and removed to the cantonment cemetary. The bodies of the rebels, too, he learnt, had been exhumed from the well into which they were cast, and the interior filled up. He walked into the west veranda. The family of the new commissioner was in England, and the rooms on this side were unoccupied. Here was her room. How neat and trim she always looked when she stepped forth, even in those times! And 