Colonel Quaritch, V.C. | Page 2

His presence
jarred upon the frivolity of the lighter members of their sex, who dimly
realised that his nature was antagonistic, and the more solid ones could

not understand him. Perhaps this was the reason why Colonel Quaritch
had never married, had never even had a love affair since he was
five-and- twenty.
And yet it was of a woman that he was thinking as he leant over the
gate, and looked at the field of yellowing corn, undulating like a golden
sea beneath the pressure of the wind.
Colonel Quaritch had twice before been at Honham, once ten, and once
four years ago. Now he was come to abide there for good. His old aunt,
Mrs. Massey, had owned a place in the village--a very small place--
called Honham Cottage, or Molehill, and on those two occasions he
visited her. Mrs. Massey was dead and buried. She had left him the
property, and with some reluctance, he had given up his profession, in
which he saw no further prospects, and come to live upon it. This was
his first evening in the place, for he had arrived by the last train on the
previous night. All day he had been busy trying to get the house a little
straight, and now, thoroughly tired, he was refreshing himself by
leaning over a gate. It is, though a great many people will not believe it,
one of the most delightful and certainly one of the cheapest
refreshments in the world.
And then it was, as he leant over the gate, that the image of a woman's
face rose before his mind as it had continually risen during the last five
years. Five years had gone since he saw it, and those five years he spent
in India and Egypt, that is with the exception of six months which he
passed in hospital--the upshot of an Arab spear thrust in the thigh.
It had risen before him in all sorts of places and at all sorts of times; in
his sleep, in his waking moments, at mess, out shooting, and even once
in the hot rush of battle. He remembered it well--it was at El Teb. It
happened that stern necessity forced him to shoot a man with his pistol.
The bullet cut through his enemy, and with a few convulsions he died.
He watched him die, he could not help doing so, there was some
fascination in following the act of his own hand to its dreadful
conclusion, and indeed conclusion and commencement were very near
together. The terror of the sight, the terror of what in defence of his
own life he was forced to do, revolted him even in the heat of the fight,

and even then, over that ghastly and distorted face, another face spread
itself like a mask, blotting it out from view-- that woman's face. And
now again it re-arose, inspiring him with the rather recondite reflections
as to the immutability of things and impressions with which this
domestic record opens.
Five years is a good stretch in a man's journey through the world. Many
things happen to us in that time. If a thoughtful person were to set to
work to record all the impressions which impinge upon his mind during
that period, he would fill a library with volumes, the mere tale of its
events would furnish a shelf. And yet how small they are to look back
upon. It seemed but the other day that he was leaning over this very
gate, and had turned to see a young girl dressed in black, who, with a
spray of honeysuckle thrust in her girdle, and carrying a stick in her
hand, was walking leisurely down the lane.
There was something about the girl's air that had struck him while she
was yet a long way off--a dignity, a grace, and a set of the shoulders.
Then as she came nearer he saw the soft dark eyes and the waving
brown hair that contrasted so strangely and effectively with the pale
and striking features. It was not a beautiful face, for the mouth was too
large, and the nose was not as straight as it might have been, but there
was a power about the broad brow, and a force and solid nobility
stamped upon the features which had impressed him strangely. Just as
she came opposite to where he was standing, a gust of wind, for there
was a stiff breeze, blew the lady's hat off, taking it over the hedge, and
he, as in duty bound, scrambled into the field and fetched it for her, and
she had thanked him with a quick smile and a lighting up of the brown
eyes, and then passed on with a bow.
Yes, with a little bow she