In the Track of the Troops | Page 2

circumstances. Suddenly I heard the sound of footsteps. Next moment, before I had time to give warning, Jacob Lancey came round the corner of the stables with a pitchfork on his shoulder, and walked right into the fortress. He set his foot on the principal gateway, tripped over the ramparts, and falling headlong into the citadel, laid its banner in the dust. At the same instant there came a terrific flash and crash, and from the midst of smoke and flames, the groom appeared to shoot into the air!
With feelings of horror I sprang to the rescue and dragged the poor fellow from the smoking debris. He was stunned at first, but soon recovered, and then it was found that one of the fingers of his left hand had been completely blown off. Words cannot describe my feelings. I felt as if I had become next thing to a murderer. Lancey was a tall powerful man of about thirty, and not easily killed. He had received no other injury worth mentioning. Although the most faithful of servants, he was irascible, and I anticipated an explosion of temper when he recovered sufficiently to understand the nature of his injury, but I was mistaken. The blowing-up seemed to have quite cured his temper--at least as regarded myself, for when I afterwards went to see him, with a very penitent face, he took my hand and said--
"Don't take on so, Master Jeffry. You didn't do it a purpus, you know, and, after all, it's on'y the little finger o' the left hand. It'll be rather hout o' the way than otherwise. Moreover, I was used to make a baccy stopper o' that finger, an' it strikes me that the stump'll fit the pipe better than the pint did, besides bein' less sensitive to fire, who knows? Any'ow, Master Jeffry, you've got no occasion to grieve over it so."
I felt a little comforted when the good fellow spoke thus, but I could not forgive myself. For some time after that I quite gave up my chemical and other experiments, and when I did ultimately resume them, I went to work with extreme caution.
Not long after this event I went to college, and studied medicine. My course was nearly completed when my dear father died. He had earnestly desired that I should enter the medical profession. I therefore resolved to finish my course, although, being left in possession of a small estate named Fagend, in Devonshire, and an ample income, it was not requisite that I should practise for a livelihood.
One morning, a considerable time after my studies were completed, I sat at breakfast with my mother.
"Jeff," she said (my name is Jeffry Childers); "Jeff, what do you think of doing now? Being twenty-four, you ought, you know, to have some fixed idea as to the future, for, of course, though independent, you don't intend to be idle."
"Right, mother, right," I replied, "I don't mean to be an idler, nevertheless I don't mean to be a doctor. I shall turn my mind to chemistry, and talking of that, I expect to test the powers of a particular compound today."
"And what," said my mother, with a peculiar smile, "is the nature of this compound?"
"Violently explosive," said I.
"Ah, of course, I might have guessed that, Jeff, for most of your compounds are either violently explosive or offensive--sometimes both; but what is the name of this one?"
"Before answering that," said I, pulling out my watch, "allow me to ask at what hour you expect Bella home to-day."
"She half promised to be over to breakfast, if cousin Kate would let her away. It is probable that she may arrive in less than an hour."
"Curious coincidence," said I, "that her lover is likely to arrive about the same time!"
"What! Nicholas Naranovitsch?"
"Yes. The ship in which he sailed from St. Petersburg arrived late last night, and I have just received a telegram, saying that he will be down by the first train this morning. Love, you know, is said to have wings. If the pair given to Naranovitsch are at all in keeping with his powerful frame, they will bear him swiftly to Fagend."
It may interest the reader at this point to know that my only sister, Bella, had been engaged the previous year to one of my dearest college friends, a young Russian, whose father had sent him to finish his education in England. My own father, having been a merchant, many of whose dealings were with Russia, had frequently visited St. Petersburg and twice my mother and sister and I accompanied him thither. While there we had met with the Naranovitsch family.
Young Nicholas was now in the army, and as fine-looking a fellow as one could wish to see. Not only was he strong and manly, but gentle in