One of the 28th: A Tale of Waterloo

"I should think nothing will be done just at present," the major said. "Every country in Europe has been disbanding its armies just as we have since peace was proclaimed, and it will be a long time before any of them are ready to take the field in anything like force. Even Napoleon himself, great organizer as he is, will take some time to put all France under arms again. An army is a machine that cannot be created in a day. The soldiers have to clothed, arms to be manufactured, the cavalry to be mounted, the artillery to be organized, and a field train got together. No, I should say that at least four months must elapse before fighting begins in earnest. With anything like a favorable wind we should be across in America in a month. If orders are sent out a month after we start we may be back in time for the opening ball. Judging from the past, it is likely to be a long business unseating Napoleon again, and if we are not in for the first of it we may be in plenty of time for a fair share of the fighting, always supposing that the authorities are sufficiently awake to the merits of the regiment to recall us."

"How is the wind this evening?" one of the officers asked.

"It was westerly when we came in," Lieutenant Desmond said. "Why do you ask?"

"Why, as long as it blows from the west there is not much chance of the transports getting in here."

"That is so," the major agreed. "The question for us to consider is whether we ought to pray for a fair wind or a foul. A fair wind will take us quickly across the Atlantic and will give us a chance of getting back in time. A foul wind may possibly give them time to make up their minds at the Horse Guards, and to stop us before we start. It is a nice question."

"There is no hope whatever, major, that our government will make up their minds before the wind changes, not if it blew in one quarter longer than it has ever been known to do since the beginning of the world. Especially, as not only they, but all the governments of Europe have to come to a decision."

"Oh, if we had to wait for that it would be hopeless; but at the same time, as it must be evident to any individual of the meanest capacity that something or other for which troops will be required will have to be done, surely a month ought to be sufficient for the idea to occur to some one in authority that it would be as well not to be sending soldiers abroad until matters are finally settled."

"I agree with you," the adjutant said. "Therefore I think we had best decide that our hopes and wishes shall be unanimous in favor of a continuance of westerly winds."

Never were the weathercocks watched more anxiously than they were by the officers and men of the Twenty-eighth for the next fortnight. The elements certainly appeared favorable to their wishes, and the wind blew steadily from the desired quarter, so that it was not until ten days after they were expected that the two transports which were to convey the Twenty-eighth to America dropped anchor in Cork harbor.

Captain O'Connor rejoined the regiment on the evening before the transports arrived. He walked with two sticks, but this was a measure of precaution rather than of necessity.

"I feel like an impostor," he said, laughing, as he replied to the welcome of his comrades. "I believe I could safely throw away these sticks and dance a jig; but the doctor has laid his commands on me, and my man, who has been ruling me with a rod of iron, will not permit the slightest infringement of them. He seems to consider that he is responsible for me in all respects, and if he had been master and I man he could not have behaved with grosser despotism."

"I am glad to see you looking so well, O'Connor," Ralph said, shaking his captain warmly by the hand.

"I don't know whether I do right in shaking hands with you, Conway," O'Connor said. "I have been thinking it over while I have been lying there, and I have come to the conclusion that it's you I have to thank for this affair altogether."

There was a general laugh. "How do you make that out?" Ralph asked.

"It's clear enough, now my eyes are opened. It was you who discovered that passage, and when you did so you said at once to yourself, now, I will get O'Connor and Desmond to go down this place, they are safe to break their necks, and then I shall get all the honor and glory of the affair. And so it came about. There were Desmond and I lying on the top of each other with the breath knocked clean out of our bodies, while you were doing all the fighting and getting the credit of the affair. I appeal to all friends here if it is not a most suspicious affair."

There was a chorus of agreement. "We did not think it of you, Conway;" "A most disgraceful trick;" "Ought to be sent to Coventry;" "Ought to be drummed out of the regiment;" mingled with shouts of laughter.

"By the way, the trial of those fellows comes on next week," one of the officers said when the laughter subsided; "so if the transports don't come in you will be able to see the last of them, O'Connor."

"I shall have no objection to see that red rascal hung; but as to the other poor devils, I should be glad enough for them to get off. An Irish peasant sees no harm in making whisky, and it's only human nature to resist when you are attacked; beside it was the Red Captain's gang that set them to fighting, no doubt. If it hadn't been for them I don't suppose there would have been a shot fired. I hope that's the view the authorities will take of it."

As it turned out this was the view taken by the prosecuting counsel at the trial. The Red Captain was tried for the murder of his officer and for the shooting of two constables in Galway, was found guilty, and hung. The others were put on trial together for armed resistance to his majesty's forces, and for killing and slaying three soldiers. Their counsel pleaded that they were acting under the compulsion of the gang of desperadoes with them, that it was these and these only who had fired upon the soldiers as they ascended the rocks, and that the peasants themselves had no firearms; indeed, it was proved that only five guns were found in the cave. He admitted that in their desperation at the last moment the men had defended themselves with pikes and bludgeons; but this he urged was but an effort of despair, and not with any premeditated idea of resisting the troops. He pointed out that as all the soldiers had fallen by gunshot wounds, none of the prisoners at the bar had any hand in their death. The counsel for the crown did not press for capital sentences. Two of the men, who had before suffered terms of imprisonment for being concerned in running illicit stills, were sentenced to transportation. The others escaped with terms of imprisonment.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEW HOUSEMAID

"What do you think of the new housemaid, Charlotte?"

"As she has only been here twenty-four hours," Miss Penfold replied, "I don't think I can say anything about it, Eleanor. All servants behave decently for the first week or two, then their faults begin to come out. However, she seems quiet in her way of going about, and that is something. My room was carefully dusted this morning. These are the only two points on which I can at present say anything."

"I met her in the passage this morning," Eleanor Penfold said, "and it seemed to me that her face reminded me of some one. Did that strike you?"

"Not at all," the elder sister replied decidedly. "I am not given to fancies about such things. I saw no likeness to any one, and if I had done so I should not have given it a second thought. The one point with us is whether the woman is clean, quiet, steady, and thoroughly up to her work. Her reference said she was all these things, and I hope she will prove so. She is older than I like servants to be, that is, when they first come to us. A young girl is teachable, but when a servant has once got into certain ways there is never any altering them. However, if she knows her work it does not matter; and there's one comfort, at her age she is less likely to be coming to us one day or other soon and saying that she wants to leave us to get married."

The new servant, Anna, as she was called in the house soon settled down to her duty. Miss Penfold allowed that she knew her work and did it carefully. The servants did not quite understand the newcomer. She was pleasant and friendly, but somehow "she was not," as one of them said, "of their sort." This they put down partly to the fact that she had been in service in London, and was not accustomed to country ways. However, she was evidently obliging and quiet, and smoothed away any slight feeling of hostility with which the under housemaid was at first disposed to feel against her for coming in as a stranger over her head, by saying that as she had no acquaintances in the village she had no desire to go out, and that whenever her turn came to do so the other might take her place. As Jane was keeping company with the blacksmith's son, this concession greatly pleased her; and although at first she had been disappointed that she had not on Martha's leaving succeeded to her place, the fact that she was but twenty-one, while the newcomer was a good many years her senior, went far to reconcile her to being passed over.

Mrs. Conway had not been twenty-four hours in the house before she discovered there was an obstacle in the way of her search that she had not foreseen. She had dusted the drawing-room and dining-room, and then went to the door of the room which she supposed to be the library. She found it locked. At dinner she asked the other housemaid what the room opposite the dining-room was, and where was the key.

"That was master's library," the girl said. "Miss Penfold always keeps it locked, and no one is allowed to go in. It's just as he left it; at least Martha said so, for I have never been inside since. On the first day of each month it is opened and dusted. Miss Penfold always used to go in with Martha and stay there while she did the work. She said it was to see that nothing was moved, but Martha used to think there was another reason."

"What is that?" Mrs. Conway asked.

Jane shook her head and glanced at the butler, as much as to say she did not care about speaking before him; but presently when she had an opportunity of talking alone with the newcomer she said: "I didn't want to say anything before James, he holds with the Miss Penfolds. He only came a month or two before master's death and did not know much about him, and he will have it they have been ill treated, and that the lawyer and all of them ought to be punished for going on as if the Miss Penfolds had done something wrong about the will. Cook, she doesn't give no opinion; but Martha and me both thought they knew something about it, and were keeping Miss Withers and young Conway out of their rights. But I forgot that you were a stranger, and didn't know nothing about the will."

Then she told Mrs. Conway all about the will being missing, and how Mr. Tallboys, who had made it for Mr. Penfold, said that all the property had been left to Mabel Withers, who was the daughter of the clergyman and a great pet of the master's, and to a boy who had been staying there some months before, and whose name was Conway.

"Well, Martha and me believed that they," and she nodded toward the drawing-room, "must know something about it; for Mr. Tallboys would have it that it was stowed away in some secret hiding place, and has been looking for it here and pulling down the wainscotting and all sorts. And, of course, if there was a secret hiding-place the Miss Penfolds would know of it as well as their brother. Martha used to think that the reason why the Miss Penfolds had the room shut up, and would never let her go into it without one of them being there to look after her, was that the hiding-place was somewhere in the library, and that they were afraid that when she was dusting and doing up she might come upon the will."

The same conclusion had flashed across Mrs. Conway's mind as soon as she heard that the room was kept locked.

"If the will is really hidden away," she said, "it's likely enough to be as you say; but I shouldn't think two ladies would do such a thing as that."

"Oh, you don't know them," Jane said sharply. "They are two regular old cats they are, and hunt one about all over the house as if they thought one was going to steal something. They was fond of their brother in their way, but, bless you, they treated him like a child, and he das'ent call his soul his own; and you may be sure they didn't like the thought that he had left his money away from them, and that some one else would become master and missis of the Hall while they were living. Martha and me was both of one mind that the old women were likely enough to do it if they had a chance. I would give a good deal if I could find the will myself just to see their faces; interfering old things. It was only two Sundays ago they told me after I came out of church that they didn't approve of the ribbons in my bonnet; just as if a girl was to go about as if she was a convict."

"But you say there were men searching here, Jane. How was it they didn't find it if it's in the library, and how was it the Miss Penfolds allowed them to search?"

"They couldn't help it," Jane replied. "There was an order from the court in London, or a judge or some one, and they couldn't stop it. They went away when the men came and didn't come back till it was all over. I don't know how it was that they didn't find it in the library, for they searched it regular. I was in there two or three times while they were at work, and they took out all the books from the shelves and pulled down a lot of the wood-work and turned it all upside down, but they couldn't find anything. Still, you see, it ain't a likely tale of theirs as they keeps the door locked because they want it to be just as he left it, when it's all been turned topsy-turvy and everything put out of its place.

"That's what Martha and me couldn't get over, though Martha told me they done their best to have it put just as it was; and there's paper and pens on the table, just to pretend it is exactly as it used to be and that no one hadn't been in. As if they cared so much about him. I call it sickening, that's what I calls it. The Withers don't come here now. They used to be often here in the master's time, but they are not friends with them now. Last Sunday the parson he made it hot for them, and preached a sermon about secrets being known and undiscovered things coming to light. Of course he didn't say nothing special about wills, but they felt it, I could see. Our pew's on the opposite side of the church, and I could see their faces. Miss Penfold she got white, and pinched up her lips, and if she could have given a piece of her mind to the parson she would have done so; and Eleanor she got red and looked as if she was going to cry.

"She is a lot better than her sister, she is; and if any wrong's been done it's the old one that's done it, I am sure, and Martha always said so too. I could put up with the younger one very well, but I can't abide Miss Penfold."

"I am quite anxious to see the room, Jane, after what you have been telling me about it."

"Well, you will see it in about a week. It's always on the first of the month that it is done up; and you will see the old woman will go in with you, and watch you all the time like a cat watches a mouse. Martha used to say so, But there—as you are not from this part of the country, and she won't think as you know nothing about the will or care nothing about it, she won't keep such a sharp lookout after you as she did with Martha."

Upon the following Sunday Mrs. Withers, on the way home from church, asked her husband with some anxiety whether he was not well. "I noticed you were quite pale in church, James, and you lost your place once or twice, and seemed as if you really weren't attending to what you were doing?"

"Then I am afraid, my dear, I seemed what I was, for I was tremendously surprised; and though I tried hard to keep my thoughts from wandering I am afraid I succeeded very badly."

"Surprised, James! What was it?"

"I will tell you, my dear. You know that letter we had a fortnight ago from Mrs. Conway, and that we puzzled over it a good deal. After talking as usual about her being determined to find the will and set matters straight, she said that we might possibly see her before long, and begged us not to show any surprise or to seem to recognize her. Well, you know, we talked it over, and could make nothing of it. Now I know what she means."

"What! Did you see her in church to-day, James?"

"I did, Amy; and where do you think she was?"

"I can't guess, James. Why, where could she be, and where can she be staying if not with us? I didn't see her. Are you sure you are not mistaken?"

"She was sitting behind you, Amy, which will account for your not seeing her. She was sitting in the Penfolds servants' pew, in a plain straw bonnet and quiet clothes like the others."

"Among the Penfolds' servants, James! Are you dreaming?"