CHAPTER V.
'SUTTON'S FLYERS.'
Consider this--he had been bred i' the wars Since he could draw a sword.
'Sutton's Flyers' were well known in the Sandy Tracts as the bestirregular cavalry in that part of the country. Formed originally in theMutiny, when spirits of an especial hardihood and enterprise gatheredinstinctively around congenial leaders, they had retained ever since the_prestige_ then acquired and a standard of chivalry which turned everyman in the regiment into something of a hero. Many a stalwart lad, bredin the wild uplands of the Province, had felt his blood stirred withinhim at the fame of exploits which appealed directly to instincts onwhich the pacific British rule had for years put an unwelcome pressure.Around the fire of many an evening meal, in many a gossiping bazaar, inmany a group at village well or ferry, the fame of the 'Flyers' wasrecounted, and 'Sutton Sahib' became a household word by which militaryenthusiasm could be speedily kindled to a blaze. With the lightestpossible equipage, wiry country-bred horses, and a profound disregardfor all baggage arrangements, Sutton had effected some marches whichearned him the credit of being supernaturally ubiquitous. Again andagain had Mutineer detachments, revelling in fancied security, foundthat the dreaded horsemen, whom they fancied a hundred miles away andmarching in an opposite direction, had heard of their whereabouts andwere close upon their track. Then the suddenness of the attack, theknown prowess of the leader, the half-superstitious reverence which hisfollowers paid him, invested the troop with a tradition ofinvincibility, and had secured them, on more than one occasion, abrilliant success against odds which less fervent temperaments thanSutton's might have felt it wrong to encounter, and which certainly madesuccess seem almost a miracle. To his own men Sutton was hardly lessthan a god, and there were few of them on whom he could not safelydepend to gallop with him to their doom.
More than one of his officers had saved his life in hand-to-hand fightby reckless exposure of their own; and his adjutant had dragged him,stunned, crushed and bleeding, from under a fallen horse, and carriedhim through a storm of bullets to a place of safety. All of them, on theother hand, had experienced on a hundred occasions the benefit of hisimperturbable calmness, his inspiring confidence and unshaken will. OnceSutton had gratified their pride--and perhaps, too, his own--by adisplay of prowess which, if somewhat theatrical, was neverthelessextremely effective. A fight was on hand, and the regiment was justgoing into action, when a Mohammedan trooper, famed as a swordsman onall the country-side, had ridden out from the enemy's lines, bawled outa defiance of the English rule, couched in the filthiest and mostopprobrious terms, and dared Sutton to come out and fight, and let himthrow his carcase to the dogs. There are moments when instinct becomesour safest, and indeed our only, guide. Sutton, for once in his life,felt a gust of downright fury: he gave the order to halt and sheatheswords, took his challenger at his word, rode out in front of his forceand had a fair hand-to-hand duel with the hostile champion. Theconfronted troops looked on in breathless anxiety, while the fate ofeither combatant depended on a turn of the sword, and each fought asknowing that one or other was to die. Sutton at last saw his opportunityfor a stroke which won him the honours of the day. It cost him asabre-cut across his forehead, which to some eyes might have marred hisbeauty for ever; but the foul-mouthed Mussulman lay dead on the field,smitten through the heart, and Sutton rode back among his shoutingfollowers the acknowledged first swordsman of the day.
Such a man stood in no need of Felicia's panegyrics to seem veryimpressive in the eyes of a girl like Maud. Despite his gentleness ofmanner and the sort of domestic footing on which everybody at theVernons', down to the baby, evidently placed him, she felt a littleawed. She was inclined to be romantic; but it was rather alarming tohave a large, living, incarnate romance sitting next her at luncheon,cutting slices of mutton, and asking her, with a curiosity that seemednecessarily condescending, about all the details of the voyage. Thereseemed something incongruous and painfully below the mark in having totell him that they had acted 'Woodcock's Little Game,' and had played'Bon Jour, Philippe,' on board; and Maud, when the revelation becamenecessary, made it with a blush. After luncheon, however, Sutton and thelittle girls had a game of 'Post,' and Maud begun to console herselfwith the reassuring conviction that, after all, he was but a man, and avery pleasant one.
After he had gone, Felicia, who was the most indiscreet of match-makers,began one of her extravagant eulogiums. 'Like him!' she cried, in replyto Maud's inquiry; 'like is not the word. He is the best, noblest,bravest, and most chivalrous of beings.'
'Not the handsomest!' interrupted Maud, tempted by Felicia's enthusiasminto feeling perversely indifferent.
'Yes, and the handsomest too,' Felicia said; 'tall, strong, withbeautiful features, and eyes as soft and tender as a woman's; indeed agreat deal softer than most women's.'
'Then,' objected Maud, 'why has he never' ----
'Because,' answered her companion, indignantly anticipating theobjection, 'there is no one half-a-quarter good enough for him.'
'Well,' said the other, by this time quite in a rebellious mood, 'all Ican say is, that I don't think him in the least good-looking. I don'tlike that great scar across his forehead.'
'Don't you?' cried Felicia; and then she told her how the scar had comethere, and Maud could no longer pretend not to be interested.
The next day Sutton came with them for a drive, and Maud, who had bythis time shaken off her fears, began to find him decidedly interesting.There was something extremely romantic in having a soldier, whosereputation was already almost historical, the hero of a dozen brilliantepisodes, coming tame about the house, only too happy to do her biddingor Felicia's, and apparently perfectly contented with their society.Felicia was in the highest spirits, for she found her pet projectshaping itself with pleasant facility into a fair prospect ofrealisation; and when Felicia was in high spirits they infected allabout her.
Sutton, innocently unconscious of the cause of her satisfaction, butrealising only that she wanted Maud amused and befriended, lent himselfwith a ready zeal to further her wishes and let no leisure afternoon goby without suggesting some new scheme of pleasure. Maud's quick,impulsive, highly-strung temperament, her moods of joyousness ordepression, hardly less transient than the shadows that flit across thefields in April, her keen appreciation of beauty and pathos, made her,child as she was in most of her thoughts and ways, an interestingcompanion to him. Her eagerness in enjoyment was a luxury to see; andSutton, a good observer, knew before long, almost better than herself,what things she most enjoyed. Instead of the reluctant and unsympatheticpermission which her late instructress had accorded to her poeticaltastes, Sutton and Felicia completely understood what she felt, treatedher taste on each occasion with a flattering consideration, and led hercontinually to 'fresh woods and pastures new,' where vistas ofloveliness, fairer far than any she had yet discovered, seemed to breakupon her.
Vernon's library, his one extravagance, was all that the most fastidiousscholar could desire; any choice edition of a favourite poet was on histable almost before his English friends had got it. A beautiful book,like a beautiful woman, deserves the best attire that art can give it,and Maud felt a thrill of satisfaction at all the finery of gilt andRussian leather in which she could now behold her well-beloved poemsarrayed. Sutton told her, with a decisiveness which carried conviction,what things she would like and what she might neglect; and she soonfollowed his directions with unquestioning faith. He used to come andread to them sometimes, in a sweet, impressive manner, Maud felt; andthe passage, as he had read it, lived on in her thoughts with theprecise shade of feeling which his voice had given it.
One happy week was consecrated to the 'Idylls of the King,' and this hadbeen so especially delightful as to make a little epoch in herexistence--so rich was the picture--so great a revelation ofbeauty--such depths of sorrow--such agonies of repentance--such calm,quiet, ethereal scenes of loveliness.
More than once Sutton, in reading, had looked up sudd
enly and found hereyes bent full upon him, and swimming with tears; and Maud had stoopedover her work, the sudden scarlet dyeing her cheek, yet almost too muchmoved to care about detection.
How true, how real, how living it all seemed! Did it, in truth, belongto the far-off, misty, fabulous kingdom over which the mystic Arthurruled, or was she herself Elaine, and Lancelot sitting close before her,and all the harrowing story playing itself out in her own littletroubled world? Anyhow, it struck a chord which vibrated pleasurably,yet with a half-painful vehemence, through her mind and filled it withharmonies and discords unheard before. Certainly, she confessed toherself, there was a something about Sutton that touched one to theheart.