A Mask and a Martyr

Prologue

..-.-. 1 I. a melancholy mephistopheles - - - 12 II. ' I want my wife to myself ' - - - 20 in. a fighting hussar - - - - - 27 IV. PEACE — without honour - - - - 36 v. the white feather- . - - -45 vi. bluebeard's castle - - - - -55 VII. as others see us - - - - - 64 vni. a female agitator - - - - -73 ix. the ecchymosis - - - - - 81 X. THE TWO PARIAHS - - - - - 91 XI. A JEWEL SCANDAL ----- 101 XII. BREAKAGES AND BRAVADO .... 112 XIII. THE BRUTE OF THE BOWER - - - - 120 XIV. ' ET TU, BRUTE ?' - - • - - 134 XV. THE VICTIM'S REBELLION .... 142 XVI. A coward's martyrdom .... 154 xvn. vox populi ------ 164 XVIII. A CANNIBAL FEAST ----- 174 XIX. AN OPEN-AIR DEMONSTRATION - - - 190 XX. WANTED — -A DOG THAT BITES - - - CONTENTS VI CHAPTER. PAGE XXI. DISHONOURABLE SCARS ... - 210 XXII. A NIGHT RESCUE - - - - 218 XXIII.

THE SCAPEGOAT .... - 226 XXIV. IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE - - - 236 XXV. A HONEYMOON IN THE PILLORY - - - 253 XXVI. ' WITH A STAIN ON HIS CHARACTER ' - - 262 XXVII. MINISTERING ANGELS — VARIOUS - - - 269 XXVIII. BLUEBEARD AT BAY ----- 284 XXIX. A CHAMBER OF HORRORS .... 293 XXX. A FORLORN HOPE ..... 300 XXXI. ' . . . NOBLY PLANNED ' - - - - 310 XXXII. ' THE TERROR BY NIGHT ' - - - - 318 XXXIII. INDIAN SUMMER ----- 332 XXXIV. THE BIRD FLOWN - - - - . 340 XXXV. THE LAST SACRIFICE - - - - 348 XXXVI. 'A LAND NOT INHABITED' - A MASK JŒV A MARTYR

PROLOGUE.

. ' Cosmo,' said Mr. Harradyne, stalking in, tall and grey, ' take this book, with my compliments, down to the Manse, and say I shall be obliged if Mr. Campbell will return me the first volume, as I am in need of it.' The battered old schoolroom of the house of Harradyne was still and shadowy in the low red light of a lurid sunset. Outside, wild but soft, the autumn wind alternately howled, and sang strange legends to the harp-strings of the tossing fir branches. The house stood grim and tall, like a sentry, on the brow of a heathery hill, looking into a wooded valley with a murmuring stream. Cosmo Evan, Harradyne number three, slipped down rather slowly from the window-seat in which he was curled up, pleasing his fancy and plaguing his nerves — here and there a boy, even a Scotch boy, has nerves — with a book of ghostly lore.

He prudently left it behind him, and standing before his father with a downcast head and a sidelong upward glance of deprecation, said : ' Can't I go to-morrow morning ?' He was a slim boy of eleven, with wavy chestnut hair, fine and soft ; a delicate skin, in spite of his hardy life ; and large hazel eyes, which at this early date revealed his emotions, and thereby displeased his father. His young nose gave promise of being a pointed aquiline, and his mouth was fine and sensitive. He was a handsome lad, but there was something uncertain, half mischievous, half per suasive, in his good looks ; whereas his brothers, Kenneth and Forbes, had the proper Harradyne qualities of appearance and character. ' And why, pray ?' said his father. ' Because,' said Cosmo softly, twisting his thin growing fingers in one another, and struggling between two fears, ' it will be dark down by the burn before I get back, and — I daren't.' ' What is that word ?' said his father angrily. ' I daren't,' said Cosmo.

His voice was silky, but obstinate ; it changed into a childish cadence as he added : ' It's the Kelpie burn, sir, and Lexy says ' Mr. Harradyne snorted indignantly.

PROLOGUE.

9 ' Well, you can take your choice which you will dare — the Kelpie or a thrashing.' Cosmo instantly made it. ' Oh, a thrashing !' he said joyfully, falling into Scotch in his relief. ' Will I get the cane ?' He went a step towards the door with an in sinuating look which failed of its disarming intention. He received the thrashing without much heroism, dropping big tears on the dusty floor, and whimpering like a whipped puppy ; but there was a faint glint of triumph in his eye as his father, having thrown him aside with a final shake, and an impatient remark that he was ' no Harradyne,' summoned Forbes, his senior, to do the undesired errand. ' I shall have to thrash the cowardice out of that lad, some way,' said Mr. Harradyne to his eldest son Kenneth that night, as they sat together in the long narrow dining-room, ' or he'll disgrace us.' ' He'll be all right when he's a bit bigger,' said Kenneth. ' He's all fads and fancies.' The cowardice was by degrees thrashed out of, or possibly out of sight into, Cosmo.

So also was some degree of cunning. He was clever, and he made his cleverness save his skin. He had a still self-denying obstinacy which enabled him to hoard rare pennies, and rarer sixpences ; with these he secured a bribed escort or substitute for dangerous errands, and also purchased surreptitious rushlights, which divested his gaunt and alarming bedroom of some of its nightly terrors. He learned that appeals ad misericordiam and caresses were vain with his father. So, instead of taking his hand, or a piece of his coat, or sidling up to lay his head on his shoulder, he said ' Yes, sir,' with formal respect, and immediately set to work to consider how he could act the negative he dared not utter. When he was a little fellow, his mother, who had his hazel eyes and soft ways, had won privileges for him ; but now she was dead, he was only one, and the least creditable, of three.

He slowly dis carded the objectionable ' fads and fancies,' or buried them too deep for human wit to detect, but with them, unfortunately, an innate inclination to serve for love's sake, and to love with persistence. Pie became rather a young cynic ; and was even amused by his father and brothers, who were no longer ashamed of, but a little puzzled by, him. He grew up a tall, wiry, handsome fellow, whose physique was somewhat like his moral self — pliant, but with the pliant recoil of highly tempered steel. In course of time he followed the tradition of his family, and entered the cheapest attainable regiment of cavalry, where he contrived to live on the starva-

PROLOGUE.

11 tion allowance which was all his impoverished house could afford ; where he was not particularly popular, but lived his own life, and had his own way in cool contentment, with a quiet sneer at greater happiness or unhappiness than his own.

Chapter I

A MELANCHOLY JIEPHISTOPHBLES. It was a hot summer afternoon ; the dull parallelo gram of the parade at Slowton Barracks lay yellow and parched in the glare, its waste varied only by a stray Hussar or two, and a panting regimental dog, on business. Wynne, otherwise ' Duster ' — so-called because when on parade he had been seen, with the enthusiasm of youth, removing particles of dust, by means of a cambric handkerchief, from the accoutre ments of his men ; Currie, otherwise ' Lobster,' from the extensive feelers at the ends of his mous tache ; Fanshawe, Captain — of course ' Fanny ' — and Audley, otherwise ' Blinkbonny ' — a reference to his eye-glass and his good looks — sat in the former's room in some undress, with cigars and cool drinks, and chatted. ' I hear Harradyne is back,' said Fanshawe, who A MELANCHOLY MEPH1ST0PHELES 13 had been away for a week ; ' what is his wife like ?

Has anybody seen her ?' He was a dispassionate person, inclining to good nature when it was not too much trouble ; taking a quiet human interest in the affairs of his fellow creatures, and conducting his own uneventfully. ' Oh !' said Duster — he sat up in his chair ; ' she is — she's something scrumptious !' He was young and ardent ; taking it out of him self immensely on all subjects. Life was one long series of superlative blisses and utter disappointments to him. He was always getting what he sorrowfully called ' bit,' but he was too popular with everybody to be upbraided. When the Colonel reproved him, he bit his lip, and tried not to cry ; he got into scrapes, but generally came out of them with honour ; and found good where nobody else could find it. His face was round and brown, and his eyes soft, like a good dog's. ' I went and called there the day after they came,' he added ; ' and she's perfectly — Oh ! ' ' She is good-looking,' said the Lobster senten tiously ; ' very good-looking !' He puffed at a cheroot and meditated.

His eyes were light-blue and prominent, almost aB crustacean as his moustache. He was a particularly smart officer ; much too smart, some people said. The dim prospect of his coming to be commanding officer would have put the regiment into mourning. ' I never saw old Van look so young and festive before,' remarked Audley; 'he's a good fellow at bottom, particularly if you're in a hole.' ' Can't one of you fellows describe this paragon ?' said Fanshawe. ' I can,' said the eager Duster. ' Her name's Violet — jolly pretty name — and so are her eyes, violet and pretty. So soft, you know ; and when she turns them up at old Van, you feel you want to murder him ! Tall, and walks like the Major's thoroughbred ; and hair like girls' in novels — golden brown — and such a complexion, and little white teeth, and big black eyelashes!

And though that's all true — only it ain't half good enough— it's not that that makes you admire her so : it's her ways. You needn't laugh, Lobs ; you know you think the same. A little soft voice, and an innocent sort of look, like a pretty bird ; and she says, "Ah, do !" and " Ah, don't !" I think she's a little Irish.' 'Duster, my son,' said Fanshawe, laughing, 'it strikes me you covet your neighbour's wife.' ' I don't ! I wouldn't !' said the boy, with great earnestness and flashing eyes. ' Why, if I was married to anybody like that, I should feel as if A MELANCHOL Y MEPHISTOPHELES 15 somebody had left me the next Derby winner ! I should hardly dare to breathe.' ' Oh, bother ! dry up !' said Currie. ' The mystery is, Fanny, how she came to marry Harradyne. I'm told she has money, in addition to her looks, and is of fairly good family.' ' I know,' said Fanshawe, with calmness, ' that you aren't very fond of Van Harradyne, but that's no reason other people shouldn't be.' ' Who is ?' said Currie, with a spice of defiance ; ' tell me that.' ' Well, I am,' said young Wynne. ' Of course I am ; I should be an ungrateful beast if I wasn't. When we were away in Ireland, in country quarters, and I was his Sub. and was down with typhoid fever, didn't he nurse me like a mother, night and day ?

Hardly took his clothes off, when they thought I was going to be a dead 'un ; and wrote to my people every morning.' ' I never heard that,' said Fanshawe. ' I must say I shouldn't have thought it of him. Somehow, he's the sort of fellow you never do know much of, though he's pretty well liked.' ' He did it, though,' said Duster. ' Used to pat me, and hush me like a baby, and be so jolly kind and affectionate, when I was at the worst. But, some how,' he added sorrowfully, ' directly I got round he cooled down, and he won't be a bit chummy now, do what I will.' ' Just like him,' said Currie. ' I hate those un certain chaps ; and I repeat — I can't think why she ' ' Because he's so good-looking,' interrupted Duster ruthlessly. ' He can't deny that, can he, Fanny ?' ' He's well enough,' said Currie peevishly ; ' but I hate the way he drawls out his opinions, as if nothing was worth being in earnest about.

And the sort of melancholy Mephistopheles look he puts on, to match his hook-nose and six yards of moustache hanging down his chest !' ' Hallo, Lobs !' exclaimed Duster joyously ; ' that's the pot calling the kettle black, with a vengeance ! Look at those corkscrews of yours !' ' The CO. doesn't like him much better than I do,' remarked Currie. ' No, I grant you he doesn't,' said Fanshawe. ' But the CO. is too much of a gentleman to show it. And his dislike — indeed anybody's— wouldn't affect Harra dyne much, I think; he takes everything pretty coolly. When his last charger, that he was so fond of, got her back broke in a blind ditch, he only said, with his dry little sneer, that it always happened so, if you gave more money than you ought for a horse.' ' That's just him,' said Currie ; ' always money !

A MELANCHOLY MEPHISTOPHELES 17 He knew what he was doing when he married this girl ; he's not a Scotchman for nothing. She hasn't a tremendous lot, I believe, but it's all in her own power — that is to say, in his, now he's got the lady. He knows how to go to work. The poor little thing, in the innocence of her heart, told Mrs. Schuster that she had first begun to love " dearest Cosmo " because he was so lonely ; and after they were engaged he told her he had never had anybody to love him, or under stand him, or make him happy — and yards more of that rot. Perfectly sickening, when one knows what the man is !' ' But does one know ?' said Fanshawe, poising his cigar between his fingers. ' Oh, this man's always abusing somebody,' said Audley. ' I wanted,' said the boy, Duster, with a careworn air, ' to chirp him up a bit, and be more intimate ; so when I was getting better, I asked him if I mightn't call him "Cosmo."

He said, "Why?" I said I wanted to be more friendly. He said, " Oh ! we are friendly enough, aren't we ?" ' ' What a cruel snub !' said the Lobster, with gusto. ' I shall be curious to see how the marriage turns out.' ' It's not,' said Fanshawe, ' the best of times for marrying and giving in marriage. There's a trifle of a scare about war prospects in the air. It would be pitiful enough for a bride to be turned into a widow ; and even you, Currie, will own that Harradyne has plenty of pluck and dash. He'll always be well to the front, wherever there's any risk.' ' Yes ; I'll give him that,' said Currie, ' canny as he is. Hallo, Schuster !' as a fifth Hussar entered the room, ' what's your news?' Schuster was known as an inveterate gossip, and, with his wife's assistance, kept the regiment thoroughly acquainted with its own domestic affairs.

He sat down, looked solemnly round — he was an ugly, owl faced little man — and said in a low voice, with great importance : ' Not to go beyond the regiment ' — the other men nodded — ' Mrs. Harradyne has just been telling my wife — they're friends, you know — that she has made over all her property to Harradyne, every shilling of it.' ' What a deuced little fool !' said Currie. ' Poor girl !' said Fanshawe. ' There's something admirable and mournful in some women's trust.' ' Harradyne will do no harm with it ; he's an honourable fellow,' observed Audley. ' She's done quite right,' said Duster, growing as red as a turkey-cock. ' Can't he take better care of it than she can ?' A MELANCHOLY MEPHISTOPHELES 19 ' Oh yes, my child,' drawled Currie ; ' such good care that she'll never see a penny of it.' ' My wife said what she could,' said Schuster ; ' but the thing was done.

She's very angry about it ; and though I don't want to abuse Van Harradyne, I must say I don't think it was exactly the conduct of a gentleman. The girl is a mere child, and, my wife says, has a sort of slavish adoration for him.' ' It's a queer business,' said Fanshawe philosophi cally ; ' and I think I sha'n't marry money if I get the chance. Either your wife bullies you, or people say you bully her. Let's liquor, and stop talking about Harradyne.'

Chapter II

' I WANT MY WIFE TO MYSELF In the bow-windowed drawing-room of one of the small villas on the outskirts of Slowton, Captain and Mrs. Harradyne were discussing an urgent matter. He leaned back in an armchair, with his eyes on the ceiling and a slight frown on his forehead ; she knelt beside him, with her hands clasped on the arm of his chair, and her face turned up imploringly. Duster's youthful ardour had not exaggerated her beauty ; it was almost perfect of its kind. She had an exquisite complexion, pure and dazzling ; those deep blue eyes, ' put in with sooty fingers,' which usually tell of Irish blood ; the features of a marble Psyche, and the half wild, half innocent loveliness of expression of a fabled nymph. Her crimson lips were parted in an uncertain, tearful smile, and her large eyes passionately uplifted ; but Cosmo's head «/ WANT MY WIFE TO MYSELF' 21 remained averted, and his attitude was one of chill resolve.

He also was strikingly, but rather unpleasantly, handsome. There was a half sinister, half melancholy character, best defined by the French word funeste, about his features, which their fine and rather sharp modelling emphasized. The soft fanciful brightness of boyhood had vanished from his eyes, and left them dark and still, with a cold satiric gleam ; his long heavy chestnut moustache desirably concealed a faint but confirmed sneer. There were more lines on his face, though they were fine and delicate, than twenty six years usually leave behind ; and there was an indifferent languor in the movements of his tall figure and long pointed fingers. Somebody had once said that he was like a disagreeable Vandyke, and the remark was apt. There had been a pause, broken only by the rattle of a passing tradesman's cart, or the voices of children playing in the road ; but Violet was too piteously in earnest to wait long.

She put her rose-tipped fingers timidly on her husband's shoulder. ' Oh, Cosmo, darling, say you won't ! The Colonel's wife is so motherly, and I never knew my own mother, and everybody in the regiment so kind !' Cosmo turned his head slowly round with elevated eyebrows, and put up his hand to touch hers ; but it was less the caress of a husband than a soothing pat to a fractious child. ' My dear Violet, they are always like that at first. You're an agreeable novelty, don't you see ?' ' I don't know why you should say so. I know they don't understand you ' — she put her arm round his neck coaxingly — ' but I could tell them how different you are to what you seem.' ' Pray don't !' said Harradyne. 'I can fancy Mrs. Iredale's face. Besides, nobody would believe you, if you gushed about me till Doomsday.' He was sarcastically passive under her caress. 'You are very unkind,' she said, with big tears and a small pout. ' You don't care what I feel about it, though you know what a dull life I have had.

I thought it would be so pleasant knowing all your friends ' ' My acquaintances, please.' ' And having everything prettier than anybody else, to please you, and looking nice, that you might be proud of me ; and now it's all gone !' ' Am I nothing ?' said Cosmo. He said it without moving a muscle ; his hazel eyes were as inscrutable as they were keen, but his voice deepened a little, and he slowly caressed his moustache. ' Why, you are my husband,' said Violet, ' of course, darling !' '/ WANT MY WIFE TO MYSELF' 23 ' H'm, I might read that two ways,' said he — ' a necessary evil, or ' ' Don't talk like that ! It's your old bad way.' She nestled her head against his shoulder. ' Oh, do please give up that hateful idea, and I will be so good ! I won't dance with Mr. Currie, or stay in the supper room with Captain Sutton, or say a word to anybody you don't like, or anything.' She ruffled her golden hair against his cheek : its delicate odour stole to him ; and her velvet-soft hand twined round his.

He was a cynic, and a scoffer, but ' Poor little woman !' he said, with a brief laugh that ended hi a sigh. ' You are sorry,' said Violet wistfully ; ' but you don't change your mind.' ' No. You know the reason,' he said doggedly. She began to sob. He felt the tears hot on his cheek and neck, and could not quite resist her. He put his arm about her, and said, in a voice which had something artificial in it, but was meant to be tender : ' Suppose I want to have my wife all to myself, where no one — nothing — can come between us? Can't I make you happy without Mrs. Iredale's help, and Currie's ?' ' Oh, Cosmo, you know you could ! You know I would rather be like this than in all the gaiety in the world. But when you talk of taking me away into some strange place in the country ?' she paused in terrogatively. ' I suppose so,' said Harradyne ; and his eye glittered with what seemed to Violet rather a sinister light. 'Then,' she faltered, with renewed tears — 'I'm afraid.' ' Afraid of what ?' said Cosmo. ' Of you.' ' Of me ?

My dear Vi, what nonsense !' He put her a little from him, with a frown and a laugh. ' But I am, when you look like that, and laugh ; and I don't know what you mean, or what you will do.' ' I thought I explained ; and that we were quite agreed.' ' Haven't I done all you wished ?' she cried, with affectionate reproach — ' trusted you with everything I had. I like you to have it ; I know I should get taken in by somebody. But it was something for a ghl to do ! Mrs. Schuster said so. You praised me for it at the time, but now ' ' Good heavens ! Did you tell Mrs. Schuster ?' exclaimed Harradyne. A black cloud of cold anger blotted the light out of his eyes. He took his arm from her, leaned his head back upon it, and whistled ' / WANT MY WIFE TO MYSELF ' 25 under his breath. ' Do you know the effect of that pretty little confidence ?' ' I told you,' she said, with a pardonable toss of her head. ' Mrs. Schuster said I was very generous.' She rose to her feet, and stood looking down at him with fast-crimsoning cheeks, and eyes that began at last to flash a little. ' I don't think so, because I love you, Cosmo ; but ' ' Well,' said Cosmo from between his teeth, still viewing the ceiling, ' my meanness in taking will be as much despised as your generosity in giving is admired.

Perhaps you overlooked that ?' She half expected an indignant suggestion of a return of her gift, but it did not come. Captain Harradyne was a prudent man. He sat biting his fine finger-tips a moment, with his brows drawn down over his eyes, thinking. Then he said,; deliberately : ' I beg your pardon for that piece of temper.' He stood up, took her hand, and kissed her flushed cheek with measured tenderness. ' Poor little Vi ! Don't cry any more. Let's dismiss this disagreeable subject. We love each other, and what else matters ? I know I have an awful way of snarling at times ; but you shall get me out of it. Eh ? Now, shall we kiss and be friends ?' She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him A MA SA' AND A MARTYR 26 a great many times on obscure parts of his countenance — ' to kiss the lines out,' she said. 'And now,' he said, 'as a just retribution, my head's fit to split.

I think I'll go across to the Mess and have a smoke.' ' To the Mess again?' she said under her breath, with deep reproachful eyes. But he said with firmness ' Yes. I have a great deal to think of,' and de parted. CHAPTEB III. A FIGHTING HUSSAR. A week or so later, Slowton Barracks, and all other barracks and camps in the United Kingdom, were stirred by the trumpet of the war scare of 187-. In the Fighting Hussars, which had its name to maintain, the smallest trumpeter lifted up his voice and wept sore because he was too small to go ; and the Colonel, an excitable man, was thrown into a con dition of alternate exultation and irritation hard to keep pace with. Little Duster dieted himself that he might be prepared for the hardships of active service, and sat up late at night studying books on Military Tactics.

Nothing else was talked of ; even the cool Fanshawe was excited. Harradyne said very little, but as this was his usual custom, it was only observed retrospec tively. One day, just when hope was at its highest, he presensed himself at the Colonel's house at Slowton Wick, and sent in a request for a few minutes' conversation. The Colonel was out, but expected in in a few minutes. He said, rather disgustedly, he would call again ; and walking restlessly about the neighbouring roads to fill up the time, met Wynne. ' I'm awfully glad to see you !' the latter exclaimed. ' Never get a sight of you at all, old boy ! No wonder, though, with such a pearl of a wife. Lovely, I call her!' ' Think so ?' said Harradyne indifferently. ' Very kind, I'm sure.' ' I say,' said Duster, slipping his arm into the other's and hugging it gleefully, ' isn't this ripping about the Muscovite showing his teeth ?

I dream about it all night.' 'You might find something better to dream of,' said Harradyne. ' You are terribly young, Duster !' It was a cruel cut. The boy's friendly hand grew limp. ' You needn't snap a chap's nose off,' he said, more in sorrow than in anger. ' I dare say you are just as gone about it as I am, only you're such a con foundedly cool hand, you don't show it. But, of course,' he added, with a sudden remembrance, ' a married man is different. Mrs. Harradyne must feel it awfully.' Harradyne released his arm, looked full in the lad's open face, with the enigmatical expression in his eyes deepened to moodiness, and said with a smile, ' Mrs. Harradyne won't have occasion to feel any thing at all,' turned on his heel and walked swiftly away, leaving Duster looking after him, with a very fallen countenance. ' Well, Captain Harradyne,' said the Colonel, with a formal politeness he only displayed to people he disliked, ' what can I do for you ?' He was a stout man, who tried to keep his stout ness under ; easy and good-tempered as a rule, where the honour of the Fighting Hussars or the Service was not touched, but hot on these sacred points, con sequently popular with all ranks.

Harradyne had just been ushered into the dining room ; he looked round it with that unseeing keenness which comes to a man at the crises of life, and imprints every detail of their outward surroundings on his memory. He saw, in years to come, waking and in dreams, the expanding dinner-table, round wLich several generations of officers had sat; the chairs, battered by travel through the length and breadth of Britain ; the Colonel's shabby escritoire littered with papers, and his youngest child's toy horse ; but he showed no consciousness of a crisis. He said, with as much calmness as if he stated that he was going home to lunch, in the cool drawl to which the Colonel specially objected : ' I thought it right, sir, before taking any formal steps, to let you know that I propose sending in my papers at once.' He looked in the Colonel's astonished face with half shut eyes and a half smile. 'What!' said Iredale, jumping up, with his eyes starting half out of his head ; ' I couldn't have heard what you said.' ' I am going to leave the regiment, sir, that's all.