Colonel Halkett

“ Colonel Halket leaned forward, with an eager smile to hear the gratifying details. Floyd rehearsed them all; Colonel Halket was greatly amused upon hearing how overcome Mrs. Bell had been. He was less pleased to learn of the daughter's indifference and self-possession, and shook his head over it, though Mrs. Halket thought she must be a girl of some character—rather bright, too. "The young women of the present day," pronounced Colonel Halket, "are too independent—they have a tendency to fortify themselves against the proprieties—not to be deferential. In all classes." ”

“ Sir Peter Halket was told to remain with four hundred men as a baggage-guard, and the general rode forward himself with Colonel Burton’s eight hundred men, ordering a bayonet charge of a party up the hill on our right, whence came so hot a fire from unseen enemies that the officers were at once killed, and the men fell back at a run.
For some time Sir John’s force behaved with great courage and let the broken pioneers pass through their lines, but could never be got to go farther, and stood stupidly firing into the wood. ”

“ Halkettin assisting the garrison of William stadt, at that time besieged by the French, that he soon after obtained for him the rank of Commander; and on his return from the continent, that of Post-Captain. The Prince of Orange also, as a mark of the high sense he entertained of the eminent services performed by him in the gun-boats, ordered him to be presented with a medal, with a suitable inscription, value 500 guilders [3] .
Captain Halkett’s post commission bears date Aug. 13, 1794; he was soon after appointed to the Circe, of 28 guns, stationed in the North Sea ”

“ It represented him as a cold-blooded and deliberate young man who looked upon his vast inheritance as a profitable field to be more thoroughly exploited. The Telegram had always railed at Colonel Halket, but now it extolled him; with all his faults he had—up to the time of his last great mistake, which was no doubt attributable to old age—held the affection of his people and striven to benefit them as well as to enrich himself. ”

“ Once when four or five of us gets in, we’ll open the hall door for the remainder; you can finish the master easily when he hears the first alarm and rushes from his room; the rest will be child’s play, and then no quarter. The black seal is to this paper; mind, Hackett, you’re to watch the Colonel’s door, and I’ll be first man through the window. No more at present, from your friend and commander,
“James Halligan.”
“But here’s a postscript,” and the parson turned the paper.
“‘When the job’s over we’ll have a roaring night. As, captain, you know the Colonel’s lady—‘” He paused. ”

“ I could do it now—but it's too much like murder if you're not in uniform!"
The man on the grass had managed to evade suffocation; he got up now and staggered off toward the woods, and Halkett drove his companion after him at the point of his own revolver.
"Keep clear of me!" he said. "If you do any more telephoning or telegraphing it will end in murder. I've had just about enough, and if any more of your friends continue to push this matter after I enter France, just as surely as I warn you now, I'll defend my own life by taking theirs. You can telephone that to them if you want to!" ”

“ He’ll be a colonel, or a general, before we’ve done with him. I call them all generals or colonels up here; it’s safest, you know; if they’re not that today they will be tomorrow!”
This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but the first speaker remained serious.
“I only know this,” he said, “I’d teach these fellows a lesson, if any one belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here, while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. ”

“ It's a dreadful thing, Halkett, to send men into fire dressed in that way!"
"It is. But look, Warner. Is there anything more magnificent when in mass formation than a brigade of French cuirassiers?"
As they rode clanging under the windows of the inn, officers and troopers looked up curiously at the man in his bathrobe, in friendly surprise at the young man in the British field uniform; but when the upturned, sunburned faces caught sight of the next window beyond, a quick, gay smile flashed out, and dark blue sleeves shot up in laughing greeting and salute.
"It's Philippa," whispered Halkett. ”

“ Can I wonder that you wish to cling to a condition that is happy beyond that of other workingmen"— (Floyd detected an exchange of smiles and shrugs among the members of the reception committee, and observed that one sombre, continuous nudge seemed to traverse the audience) —"a condition that you yourselves have created?—For though much has been done for you, you have done even more for yourselves."
Here again Colonel Halket hesitated a moment, and was visibly nonplussed when so magnanimous an admission failed to evoke the anticipated applause. ”

“ On his passage he captured the Aquilla, of 4 guns, pierced for 22, with a valuable cargo from Buenos Ayres, bound to Corunna. During his stay on the Jamaica station, he also took the following vessels; Cantabrian, Spanish corvette, of 18 guns and 100 men, with a cargo, off the Havannah; Resolution, (formerly a British cutter) 18 guns, 149 men; and Vigilante, French privateer, of 14 guns, in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Apollo arrived at Portsmouth, March 12, 1802. Captain Halkett subsequently commanded the Ganges, of 74 guns ”

“ In the evening he goes up to the hospital to inquire after his wounded—he never misses this visit—and if a victim of the siege is to be buried it is ten to one that we see him at the graveside. The Colonel trusts his command, but like the good general that he is, leaves nothing to chance, and always has the concentrated knowledge of every officer in his head. Many stories are told by our sentries of one who silently steals out of the blackness of the night and is on them before they have time to challenge. ”

“ We must find them, and I must see my little girl again!”
“Kape aisy, me darlint; kape aisy,” here interposed Garry O’Neil, before Captain Applegarth could answer the question. “Sure, Mr Fosset promised to give us the worrd whin she hove in sight, an’ you’re only distarbin’ yoursilf for nothing, colonel! More’s the pity, too, mabruchal, whin your leg is progressin’ so illigantly an’ the swillin’ goin’ down as swately as possible. Now kape aisy, if only to oblige me. Faith, colonel, me profissional reputation’s at shtake!” ”

“ The black scoundrel gave out a shrill laugh like that of a hyena, as Colonel Vereker had described it to us when telling his yarn.
“Pardon me, sir, I am here,” he yelled out mockingly. “I am here. I do not run away like your white trash! Why don’t you come and fight me? Bah! I spit on you, my fine plantation colonel. When I get at you I will serve you just as I did your sly slave the other day, whom you sent to betray us, though you, yourself, were too great a coward to come amongst us, yes, to come amongst us yourself. Aha! colonel.” ”

“ The Englishman looked up at him with a keen light in his eye.
“I told you he would not kill that nigger.—See—here—” He took up the knife which had fallen from Peter Halket’s grasp, and fitted it into a piece of the cut leather that lay on the earth.
“But you don’t think—” The Colonial stared at him with wide open eyes; then he glanced round at the Captain’s tent.
“Yes, I think that—Go and fetch his great-coat; we’ll put him in it. If it is no use talking while a man is alive, it is no use talking when he is dead!” ”

“ Within the American lines, at that point where a regiment of heavy artillery was stationed, Captain Hallowell raised his hand in signal to his gunner. Out on the parapet of the front trench an anxious colonel was standing, regardless of all danger, a pair of powerful glasses to his eyes. His vision was focused upon a little light far out in No Man's Land.
Two hundred feet away from that light Joe and Frank Hoskins lay prone upon the ground, silent, impatient, fearful, hoping. ”

“ He strode out of the saloon beside the half awe-stricken, half-amused, yet all discreetly silent loungers, followed by his wondering but gloomy client. At the door they parted,—the Colonel tiptoeing towards his office as if dancing with rage, the stranger darkly plodding through the stifling dust in the opposite direction, with what might have been a faint suggestion to his counselor, that the paths of the homicide did not lie beside the still cool waters. ”

“ The house was in silence.
A little while after the officers had departed, a strange, unshaven, unkempt face peered round the edge of the door, which the colonel had left open. It was a lined and somewhat careworn face; the eyes were bright and wild; the hair, very rough and tangled, was red. The face moved slowly forward; inch by inch a dirty, tattered khaki uniform showed itself; and the rays of the lamp on the table glinted on the blade of a long carving knife, held in the man's right hand. He wore no boots, and his stockings made no sound as he tiptoed across the room. ”

“ The Colonel, without replying, slowly filled a glass of whiskey and water. For a moment he held it dreamily before him, as if still engaged in gentle reminiscences called up by the act. Then tossing it off, he wiped his lips with a large white handkerchief, and leaning back comfortably in his chair, said, with a wave of his hand, "The interview I requested, Mr. Hotchkiss, concerns a subject--which I may say is--er--er--at present NOT of a public or business nature--although LATER it might become--er--er--both. It is an affair of some--er--delicacy." ”

“ Meantime, instead of paying his proposed journey to Scotland Hatfield [139] stopped at Longtown, where he received two letters, by which he seemed much disturbed, and returned after three days' absence to Buttermere. Some friends of the real colonel, chancing to hear of his marriage, paused on their way through Cumberland, at Keswick, and wrote to their supposed acquaintance, asking him to come and visit them. Hatfield went in a carriage and four, and had an interview with the gentlemen, but flatly denied that he had ever assumed Colonel Hope's name. ”

“ He went slowly back along the river quay, crossed diagonally in front of the deserted cabaret, entered the Impasse d'Alcyon, and traversed it to the river bank, where Halkett sat under the big willow tree, smoking his pipe and letting the rowboat float by the chain which he held in his hands.
"Halkett," he said, "they're in Ausone or near it. I'm convinced of that. Their car came in with only two men in it. The military confiscated it. The men's names are Adolf Meier and Josef Hoffman, and they inscribed themselves as commercial travelers from Paris. Do you happen to know them?" ”

“ Colonel Halket assured him. "I should n't take chances intrusting it to anybody about whose sympathy I could n't feel sure.—And Marion Clark would be a help, too," he added craftily. "Sympathetic and efficient; I should n't wonder, Floyd, if she had a touch of your grandmother's quality."
"Is the idea one that can afford to wait indefinitely?"
"Nonsense; why should it? You can afford not to wait. ”

“ On regaining their camp Arthur reported what had taken place to Colonel Alderson, who at once took him across to O'Donnell.
"You have done well indeed, Captain Hallett," said the general; "and though it is a grievous pity that you did not kill him, which would have been more to our advantage than the winning of a pitched battle, it will lay him up for a time, and that will be more to us than a reinforcement of ten thousand men. I thank you most heartily, sir, in the name of the government." ”

“ A dead stillness was over the rest of the camp. The light through the walls of the Captain’s tent made all clear at the stem of the little tree; but there was no sound of movement within.
For a moment Peter Halket stood motionless; then he walked up to the tree. The black man hung against the white stem, so closely bound to it that they seemed one. His hands were tied to his sides, and his head drooped on his breast. His eyes were closed; and his limbs, which had once been those of a powerful man, had fallen away, making the joints stand out. ”

“ Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer. “The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honour and esteem; a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind.” ”

“ I then volunteered to attempt to get the wounded into the Residency, and was told by Captain Halliburton, if I succeeded, to tell General Outram to send him reinforcements or they would all be killed and the guns lost. I soon came across Colonel Campbell, wounded in the leg (afterwards amputated in Lucknow, and he died) , and I got one of his men to carry him on his back (who would have been recommended for the V.C. if he could have been found, but he was supposed to have been killed) . ”

“ Of course you can refuse me admittance, but General Evans will know what that means."
After a few more words Colonel Wylde and Arthur left the ministry.
"You spoke out straight, Hallett," the British commissioner said with a smile.
"I could not help doing so, sir. The state of the men is pitiful in the extreme. They are scarecrows; they have practically no uniform whatever save their greatcoats, and they are in rags. I should have liked to take the little man by the neck and shake him."
"They are in a bad way themselves," the colonel said. "The court is a perfect nest of intrigue. ”