Major Keeling

“ From a scathing rebuke of the criminal carelessness which had led to the late regrettable incident, Major Keeling passed to personalities.
“What have you been doing to yourself?” he asked sharply. “You ought to be as hard as nails with the life you lead at Shah Nawaz. But perhaps you don’t lead it. You look like a Bengal writer.”
“With this examination in view——” began Ferrers with dignity.
“Hang these examinations! They spoil the good men and make the bad ones worse. I’ll have no one up here who would sacrifice his real work to them. ”

“ On my honour, Haigh, if those two women had believed me guilty, I should have been ready to blow out my brains!”
“The ladies ought to be flattered,” said Sir Dugald soberly. Major Keeling gave him a sharp look, but he was gazing straight between his horse’s ears, with an absolutely impassive face. No one looking at him would have guessed that he was trying to break through his natural reserve so far as to inform the Commandant of Penelope’s engagement. ”

“ Once in their own country they need only separate and mingle among their fellow-countrymen, who were all as villainous in looks and character as themselves, and there would be no hope of tracking them. Hence Major Keeling’s face was perturbed when he sent for Colin to his office shortly before the hour fixed for starting.
“I have just had a chit from Ferrers, asking for a small reinforcement in order to effect the capture of Shir Hussein, and suggesting that you should be sent in charge of it,” he said. ”

“ In time they will all have learnt their lesson, but it may not be for a long while yet.”
“Upon my word, young lady!” said Mr Crayne, actually pausing to look at her. “Has Major Keeling engaged you as his official advocate? He ought to be thankful to have found such a champion.”
“Miss Ross has only said what we all know and feel,” said Lady Haigh, coming to Penelope’s rescue as she sat silent, flushed but undaunted. “We are all Keelingolaters here, Mr Crayne; and don’t you know it’s very rude to say things against your hostess’s friends at her own table?” ”

“ It was easier for him than for most men to drop out of the usual run of life, for he was not in the regular army. He had raised a body of horse towards the end of the Mahratta Wars, and done such good service that when they were over his commission was continued, and his regiment recognised as irregular cavalry. But Keeling’s Horse was never brigaded with other regiments. ”

“ Therefore if they are wise, the best thing they can do is, like Prospero, to drown the magic book beneath the waters of absorbing employment. Often it will float up again to the surface, and each time it must be prodded back with averted eyes. So, for Keeling, a love that could not be realised once crowned the hill-tops of his nature ”

“ For years Keeling has blazoned himself throughout India as the only man who could get this frontier quiet and keep it so, and yet he can’t make time to eat his dinner or show proper respect, but has to go and hunt murderers. ”

“ You haven’t dragged Lady Haigh up-country at this pace, I hope?”
“No, sir; I left her at the river. The fact is, Mr Pater wants me to go on with the steamer.”
“And not come here at all? Why, man, your house is all ready for you.” The bright look of welcome had gone from General Keeling’s face, leaving it painfully old and worn. “But I know what it is. King John”—alluding to the imperious ruler of a neighbouring province—“wants more men.”
“He does, and he asks specially for gunners. It’s by no wish of mine, General; but the Commissioner is anxious to send every man we can spare. ”

“ Blister-white and at the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that young chins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly.
"You that spoke—are you the master of that ship?"
"Officer of the watch," the words floated back; "the captain's below."
"Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech," Abel
Keeling replied. ”

“ Bestowing a second kiss on Penelope, Mr Crayne left her to his nephew, and went out to see the camels loaded, and incidentally to wrestle with his misgivings, which were difficult to banish.
“It’s Keeling if it’s any one. I thought so from the first, and his face last night makes it almost certain. And the girl ain’t happy either. But why should I look after Keeling? He’s old enough to manage his own affairs. No one could expect me to take his side against George. Besides, this is George’s one chance. If any one can keep him straight it’ll be a woman. Keeling can get on all right by himself. ”

“ This room with its books was Mr Keeling’s secret romance: all his life, even from the days of the fish-shop, the collection of fine illustrated books had been his hobby, his hortus inclusus, where lay his escape from the eternal pursuit of money-making and from the tedium of domestic life. There he indulged his undeveloped love of the romance of literature, and the untutored joy with which design of line and colour inspired him. ”

“ Perhaps some day when Lord and Lady Inverbroom are in Bracebridge again, we might all have lunch together there.’
For the last six months Keeling had been obliged to keep a hand on himself when he was with his wife, for either she had developed an amazing talent for putting him on edge, or he a susceptibility for being irritated by her. Both causes{285} probably contributed, for since her accession to greatness, her condescension had vastly increased, while he on his side had certainly grown more sensitive to her pretentiousness. ”

“ Are you a good shot, Keene? because he is a notorious one.”
“I can hit my man, colonel; it is true that I have only fought one duel in my life, and would make a great sacrifice rather than fight another; but no alternative is left me in this case; and if blood is shed, it must be on the head of him who provoked it.”
“Very true,” replied Colonel Delmar, biting his lip; “I only hope you will be successful.”
“I have no particular animosity against Major Stapleton,” replied I; “but as he is such a good shot, I shall in my own defence take good aim at him. ”

“ No one can tell what the law of the land will do when it is put in motion, although many people thought that if Mrs. Keeling had brought a suit against the Hot Cross Bun Company, she would have won it. But Mrs. Keeling was a poor woman, and you have to put a penny in the slot when you want the figures of justice to work, so the unfortunate creature signed something which the lawyer of the company had written out, and accepted the few pounds which Keeling had paid for Room 18 on the Gibrontus. ”

“ General Keeling’s eye kindled, but he shook his head. “No, Haigh, my work lies up here. It would be too much to ride with the regiment through a mob of those cowardly, pampered Bengalis—too much luck for me, I mean. I have made out a list for Pater of the men I can afford to send on by the next steamer, and I must stay and do their work. I’m glad you will get your chance at last. John is a just man—like most of us when our prejudices don’t stand in the way—and his recommendations will be attended to. His is the show province, not left out in the cold like poor Khemistan. ”

“ The Board of hospital directors would see to that, and Lord Inverbroom sketched out his idea for the day. The ceremony of the opening he proposed should be in the morning, and for it he hoped to secure the presence of a very distinguished personage. Lunch would follow, and if Mr Keeling approved, he would at the luncheon announce the name of the munificent giver. Then he paused a moment.
‘Mr Keeling,’ he said, ‘I think there is no doubt that the Prime Minister would wish to submit your name to the King as the recipient of some honour in public recognition of your munificence. ”

“ On my descending into the sitting-room I found the colonel alone.
“Well, Keene,” said he, “everything is arranged, for the major is deaf to all expostulation. You are to meet this evening, and, to avoid interference, Captain Green and I have agreed to say that the major has apologised, and all is made up.” Of course I had no objection to make to that, and we parted for the present, I walking to the dock-yard, and he remaining at the hotel to write letters. ”

“ The General read it with visible pleasure.
“The Arabits have kept the appointment right enough, gentlemen,” he said to his staff. “They are drawn up behind Mahighar—the very place I fixed on,—a strong position, so Keeling says, with both flanks protected by shikargahs and the front by a deep dry watercourse. He estimates them at twenty thousand at least, with fifteen guns. The Khans are in camp behind a fortified village on their right. He remains under fire to reconnoitre more closely, which will give us time for our part of the business.” ”

“ Isn’t it enough for a man to have the whole military and civil charge of the district, and the burden of keeping the peace all along this frontier, upon his shoulders, without his work being made harder by the woman who ought to help him? Do you know that he worries himself about you to such an extent that it interferes with his work?”
“I didn’t know—— What do you mean? Did he tell you?” stammered Penelope, utterly confounded by this attack.
“Tell me? Do you know him no better than that? Of course not. But I have eyes, and Keeling and I have been friends for five-and-twenty years. ”

“ How do any of y’ever come out alive? Y’are sure”—with a break in her voice—“that Ambrose was safe after that?”
“Didn’t I say so? Keeling sent back a message to the General that he had cot sight of Kamal-ud-din’s elephant, and was going to pursue him to Umarganj if necessary, and the old man sent Ambrose to catch him up and see what direction he was taking. Couldn’t have the Khemistan Horse lost in the desert and perhaps cut off, you see.” ”

“ Retired colonels must needs have private money of their own in addition to their pensions to live so spaciously, and Mr Keeling, even thus housed, was putting by very considerable sums of money every year. Into one of those carriage drives, advertised{14} to passers-by as the entrance of ‘The Cedars’ (probably because there were three prosperous larch trees planted near the ‘In’ gate) , Mrs Keeling’s carriage turned, and after passing some yards of shrubbery stopped before a wooden Gothic porch. ”

“ In spite of her practice in the conduct of social functions as Lady Mayoress, and her natural aptitude for knowing how to behave suitably, Mrs Keeling had one moment of extremest terror when the Royal Princess came up the steps of the hospital next day, between Keeling and Lord Inverbroom, to where the Lady Mayoress awaited her. ”

“ Keeler never had any money, to the general knowledge, and he never borrowed, and he could not have had credit at the restaurant where he invited us to feast at his expense. There was T. B. Aldrich, there was J. T. Fields, much the oldest of our company, who had just freed himself from the trammels of the publishing business, and was feeling his freedom in every word; there was Bret Harte, who had lately come East in his princely progress from California; and there was Clemens. ”

“ After that, Ke-ino went into the fight with a company of men; every day he won a victory. But, for all that, the war still went on.
Ka-le-lea stayed in the house all day with his wife, the King’s daughter. He had no war-helmet, no feather cape, and he never took a company of men out to battle. Ke-ino was the great man now, and Ka-le-lea was never spoken of.
Still the war went on. But after the first crow of [189] the cock, a man with a great club used to go to Ha-la-wa, where the officers and chiefs of Pueo-nui’s army were, and do battle with them. This the man did every day. ”

“ Abel Keeling was one of the new men, the men who swore by the line-ahead, the broadside fire of sakers and demi-cannon, and weeks and months without a landfall. Perhaps one day the wits of such men as he would devise a craft, not oar-driven (because oars could not penetrate into the remote seas of the world) —not sail-driven (because men who trusted to sails found themselves in an airless, three-mile strait, suspended motionless between cloud and water, ever gliding to a wall of rock) —but a ship ... a ship ... ”

“ Do men of science hail him as a great [132] discoverer, or hold out the hand of fellowship? Do people do honour to the man whose sole entreaty to them will be to receive from his hands a gift a thousand times more precious to them than steam engine or dynamo? It is a literal fact that if Keely fell exhausted to-day, in the terrible struggle he has so long maintained, his failure to establish his claims would be received with a shout of malignant delight from nearly every lecture-hall, pulpit, counting-house and newspaper office in the so-called civilized world. ”

“ Keeling being telegraphed for, rushed, with the rapidity of an express train, to the scene of what he called his misfortune, and met the condolences of every body there, not excepting his rivals and most jealous neighbours.
The only man who could not understand the affair, but whose suspicions, if he had any, took no definite shape, was the agent of the company, deputy-registrar of births, deaths, and marriages, parish-clerk, undertaker, coal-merchant, and commission-agent. This respectable old gentleman informed every body that there had been no house on fire in B—— for forty years. ”