Colonel Boyce

“ So we went in a hurry aboard the schooner which was ready for him, and crossed to Dieppe, landing by night beyond the town. I make no doubt from his adroitness that Colonel Boyce hath done business in France before, but of what kind I leave you to guess when you have heard all. We were well furnished with horses and upon the road to Paris before noon. He gave out to some officers which questioned him that we were of Prince James's service upon our way to St. Germain. We rode to Pontoise, and there, as it had been planned from the first, Colonel Boyce stayed while I rode on to the Prince. ”

“ So they left the farm and rode to Headquarters and Boyce made his report, and as all save one of his troop were dead, there were none, save that one, to gainsay him. On his story no doubt was cast; but an officer who loses his whole troop in the military operation of storming a farm-house garrisoned by one old man does not find peculiar favour in the eyes of his Colonel. Boyce took a speedy opportunity of transference, and got into the thick of some fighting. Then he served with distinction and actually got mentioned in dispatches for pluckily rescuing a wounded man under fire. ”

“ But Colonel Boyce had quickly recovered his equanimity. "They used to tell me that I was a cold fellow. But I vow you are a very fish. So you have half a mind to stay here, have you? Well, I bear no malice."
"It is only half a mind," Harry said. "Are you in a hurry?"
"Oh, you may sleep on it. Damme, I suppose there is little to do here but sleep. What does Master Geoffrey want with you? He is old to keep a tame schoolmaster."
"I listen to his poetry."
"Oh Lud!" said Colonel Boyce, with sincere sympathy. "I suppose they are wealthy folk, your Wavertons. Do they keep much company?" ”

“ But Colonel Boyce swayed in his seat and fell sideways fainting.
A moment McBean surveyed him as if he thought this too a trick. Then, "Ventrebleu" says he, "here's Providence takes a hand," and he whistled, and it is not to be denied that he looked covetously at the cabinet which held Colonel Boyce's papers. "The poor old devil," he said with a shrug. "He grows old, in fact. I suppose there's more blood in his shirt now than his damned body," and he knelt down and began to feel about the wound. ”

“ Colonel Boyce, they said, would be too patriotic to refuse the town's recognition. It was part of the game which he, as a brave soldier, no matter how modest, could not fail to play. He would recognise that such public honourings of valour had widespread effect among the population. In face of such arguments I had to withdraw my opposition; otherwise it might have appeared that I was actuated by petty personal motives. God knows I only desired to save Boyce from undergoing a difficult ordeal. ”

“ Therefore was I to go with letters to the Prince, and messages which should persuade him to ride out to Pontoise and come to business with Colonel Boyce. I went on then alone, save that Colonel Boyce gave me one of his fellows to be my guide and servant, and he stayed with the rest at Pontoise. Thus far, I beg you remark, I had no cause to apprehend treachery. Upon the face, the scheme was fair enough, and all had been done even as Colonel Boyce proposed to me in England. I will maintain myself honourably free of any blame in the affair against any man whomsoever. ”

“ Boyce to cool me. 'Tis his role. A convenient family, faith. One makes you uncomfortably hot and t'other freezes you. You go get warm, my Weston. Though I vow 'tis dangerous to trust you to the Colonel. He has made very shameless love to me, and you have a tender heart."
It occurred to Harry that Mrs. Weston and his father, thus forced to look at each other, wore each an air of defiance. They amused him.
"I am not afraid," Mrs. Weston said.
"I profess I am abashed," said Colonel Boyce. "Pray, ma'am, be gentle to my disgrace," and he offered his arm. ”

“ They were now come to Colonel Boyce's lodging and he bade the bearers take Harry up to his own room.
"I sent a brisk lad for Rolfe," says McBean. "I could but stop the blood. He'll be here soon enough. It's but a step to Chancery Lane. He knows more of wounds than any man in the town."
Colonel Boyce was for a moment speechless. "I shall send for Dr. Radcliffe and Sir Samuel Garth," says he majestically. "I wish you good night, sir."
"I believe they have sense enough to do no harm," said McBean. "And now, Boyce, a word with you. Not in the street." ”

“ Gad's life, ma'am, our friends here will be calling me out for my daring to exist."
Lady Waverton was very well pleased. "Sir, you will let me give you a dish of tea. I warrant the men were already sighing to be rid of us."
"Then I vow they be blind," quoth Colonel Boyce, and opened the door, from which he came back with a laugh to his glass of port. Over drinking it he went through all the tricks of the connoisseur and ended with a cultured ecstasy.
"I see you are a man of the world, Colonel," Hadley sneered.
"A man of many worlds, sir," the Colonel laughed easily. ”

“ For he said to the Prince: 'Enfin, sir, I can tell no reason why you should not go see this Colonel if you choose. If there were any guile in the business, faith, they would never have trusted it to this fellow!'
"So the thing was agreed. In the morning we rode for Pontoise, the Prince, my Lord Middleton, myself. His Royal Highness was pleased to limit himself to one servant. The man with whom Colonel Boyce had provided me went on to carry advice of our coming. We came to Pontoise towards evening. Colonel Boyce had put up at the Lion d'Or. ”

“ He had, however, his sentimental side; and it was this side of him that was offended by the idea of woman suffrage. The colonel clung to the old-fashioned idea of the home. He had a chivalric ideal of woman, as representing everything soft and seducing and glamoursome. The spectacle of the sex preparing to leave its shrine in the heart of man for the sordid arena of politics shocked him to the depths of his manly soul.
Therefore, from the beginning of the suffrage agitation in Arden, the Times had violently opposed the movement. The colonel wielded what used to be called a trenchant pen. ”

“ We were in constant communication with the local Volunteer Training Corps; with the Godbury Volunteers and the Godbury School O.T.C., who both desired to take a part in the great event. In compliance with the conditions imposed, we gave as much publicity as we could to Mrs. Boyce. Lieutenant Colonel Boyce, V.C., and Mrs. Boyce were officially associated in the programme of the reception. How to disentangle them afterwards, when the presentation of the address, engrossed on velluni and enclosed in a casket, should be made to the Colonel, was the subject of heated and confused discussion. ”

“ I was only born Thomas Lambourne's daughter."
"There is no need; ma'am." A long, lean hand was waved. "I wonder if we are in some fashion connected. We are both called Mrs. Boyce. The Boyces of Oxfordshire, ma'am?"
Alison's laugh had something of a sneer in it, "Of nowhere that I know, ma'am. My husband is Mr. Harry Boyce, son of Colonel Oliver Boyce."
The lady fluttered her fan, settled herself afresh in her chair, rearranged her close-fitting lips. Alison was reminded of a hen preening itself. "I had heard so, ma'am. And my husband is Colonel Oliver Boyce." ”

“ It was not Colonel Banford's hand; he could not have written that article. Some personal enemy stood behind him. And some one who bore malice to Hector as well as to her. That was the worst of Millicent felt that she could endure the pains of publicity for herself, as martyrdom in a just cause, but to drag in Hector and their personal relation! To make Hector appear ridiculous in the eyes of all Arden!
Tears of exasperation rose to her own eyes, but she quickly suppressed all show of emotion. Perhaps even now that secret enemy was watching her! ”

“ Consider something else beside the Peyton ranch."
Boyd opened his eyes wide.
"What's the idea?" he demanded.
"I like the Colonel. I don't want to see him in trouble."
"What's that got to do with it? He's in trouble already."
"Yes, I know. But he could go on as he is, if you did not act. You know that, father. Let's leave the old man in peace. He's lived on that place for a long time."
"Ken, I do wish you would grow up and be a man," said Boyd impatiently, but not unkindly. "You must get over this sentimentalizing and look at plain facts." ”

“ Looking at and listening to the men you would not have thought there was anything special in the situation. They turned all the responsibility over to the officers, who in turn did the same to those above them—the captain to the colonel, the colonel to the brigadier, and so on.
Colonel Haskell had not yet returned—having sent in all the horses he had gotten, and was still after the balance. About nine or ten o'clock, artillery firing began in front of General Longstreet, and the blue jackets showed in heavy masses on the edge of the woods. ”

“ It was about this time that I first met B.-P.—now General Sir R. S. S. Baden-Powell, but then only Colonel—who had been sent up to take charge of the operations, and who confirmed the court martial’s sentence on Umwini. I was on water guard that day, to see that the natives did not poison the stream, when a man whom I took for a trooper came up and entered into conversation with me, asking about my past experiences, &c., and it was only when I got back to camp, after going off duty, that I found I had been talking to the officer in command of the expedition. ”

“ Lieutenant Williams was the aide who had had the pleasure of conveying to the officer in charge of the gun his brigade commander’s congratulations.
“Go,” said the colonel, “and direct the withdrawal of that gun instantly. Hold! I’ll go myself.”
He strode down the declivity toward the rear of the Notch at a break-neck pace, over rocks and through brambles, followed by his little retinue in tumultuous disorder. At the foot of the declivity they mounted their waiting animals and took to the road at a lively trot, round a bend and into the Notch. ”

“ Suddenly, directly in front of his line, he heard a faint, confused rumble, like the clatter of a falling building translated by distance. The lieutenant mechanically looked at his watch. Six o'clock and eighteen minutes. At the same moment an officer approached him on foot from the rear and saluted.
"Lieutenant," said the officer, "the colonel directs you to move forward your line and feel the enemy if you find him. If not, continue the advance until directed to halt. There is reason to think that the enemy has retreated." ”

“ Finally the nurse came for the reluctant child and the hostess bethought herself:
"We will have a cup of tea; you will be dry and tired."
She rang and switched on a blaze of light. With one accord they all looked at the stranger, for they had hardly seen him well in the glooming twilight. The woman started in amazement and the colonel half rose in anger. Why, the man was a mulatto, surely; even if he did not own the Negro blood, their practised eyes knew it. ”

“ A distant horseman, trotting swiftly homeward, splashed through the ford at the moment; but long before he reached the gate the colonel had gone on through upon his regular daily tramp, making the rounds of the big wide-spreading post. The young officer, silent and pale, had gone back to his office. The sentry at the gate presented arms as the tall haggard-looking rider came trotting in, sitting very erect and squarely down in the saddle. At the parting of the roads he suddenly reined in and dismounted. "Take him to the stables and get your dinner, Gribble," said he to the trumpeter boy. ”

“ His gray eyes, which seemed occasionally to strike right and left across the landscape, like search-lights, were for the most part fixed upon the sky beyond the Notch; until he should arrive at the summit of the road there was nothing else in that direction to see. As he came opposite his division and brigade commanders at the roadside he saluted mechanically and was about to pass on. The colonel signed to him to halt.
"Captain Coulter," he said, "the enemy has twelve pieces over there on the next ridge. If I rightly understand the general, he directs that you bring up a gun and engage them." ”

“ Every man in the two rooms decreased the distance between himself and the ceiling. Only General Pershing remained unperturbed; at least, no sound came from within and his door was not opened.
After the field had been cleared and the composure of the innocent bystanders restored, I took up again my task of waiting. Colonel Boyd was courteous and interesting; indeed, the American officer overseas as I saw him was two things—busy, very busy, and always courteous. He has no time to waste, but he is efficient without being a "gump." His efficiency is branded with his Americanism ”

“ The battalion scout officer and a disillusioned sergeant, with hash marks on his sleeve, were the point. The men were echeloned back, right, and left with an automatic rifle on each flank. In the centre marched the colonel, smoking, to the horror of all, a cigar. Smoking was not done up there, after dark. With him was the elegant French captain, who appeared to be very gallantly resigned to it. The story would, he reflected, amaze and delight his mess—if he ever got back with it! These droll Americans! He must remember just what this colonel said: a type, Nom de Dieu! ”