The Four Feathers

The Four Feathers, by A. E. W. Mason

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Title: The Four Feathers
Author: A. E. W. Mason

Release Date: July 21, 2006 [eBook #18883]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE FOUR FEATHERS
by
A. E. W. MASON
Author of "Miranda of the Balcony," "The Courtship of Morrice Buckler," Etc.

New York The MacMillan Company London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. 1903 All rights reserved Copyright, 1901, By A. E. W. Mason. Copyright, 1902, By The MacMillan Company. Set up and electrotyped October, 1902. Reprinted November, December, 1902; January, 1903; February, March, 1903. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

To MISS ELSPETH ANGELA CAMPBELL June 19, 1902.

CONTENTS
I. A Crimean Night
II. Captain Trench and a Telegram
III. The Last Ride Together
IV. The Ball at Lennon House
V. The Pariah
VI. Harry Feversham's Plan
VII. The Last Reconnaissance
VIII. Lieutenant Sutch is tempted to lie
IX. At Glenalla
X. The Wells of Obak
XI. Durrance hears News of Feversham
XII. Durrance sharpens his Wits
XIII. Durrance begins to see
XIV. Captain Willoughby reappears
XV. The Story of the First Feather
XVI. Captain Willoughby retires
XVII. The Musoline Overture
XVIII. The Answer to the Overture
XIX. Mrs. Adair interferes
XX. West and East
XXI. Ethne makes Another Slip
XXII. Durrance lets his Cigar go out
XXIII. Mrs. Adair makes her Apology
XXIV. On the Nile
XXV. Lieutenant Sutch comes off the Half-pay List
XXVI. General Feversham's Portraits are appeased
XXVII. The House of Stone
XXVIII. Plans of Escape
XXIX. Colonel Trench assumes a Knowledge of Chemistry
XXX. The Last of the Southern Cross
XXXI. Feversham returns to Ramelton
XXXII. In the Church at Glenalla
XXXIII. Ethne again plays the Musoline Overture
XXXIV. The End

THE FOUR FEATHERS[1]
[Footnote 1: The character of Harry Feversham is developed from a short story by the author, originally printed in the Illustrated London News, and since republished.]

CHAPTER I
A CRIMEAN NIGHT
Lieutenant Sutch was the first of General Feversham's guests to reach Broad Place. He arrived about five o'clock on an afternoon of sunshine in mid June, and the old red-brick house, lodged on a southern slope of the Surrey hills, was glowing from a dark forest depth of pines with the warmth of a rare jewel. Lieutenant Sutch limped across the hall, where the portraits of the Fevershams rose one above the other to the ceiling, and went out on to the stone-flagged terrace at the back. There he found his host sitting erect like a boy, and gazing southward toward the Sussex Downs.
"How's the leg?" asked General Feversham, as he rose briskly from his chair. He was a small wiry man, and, in spite of his white hairs, alert. But the alertness was of the body. A bony face, with a high narrow forehead and steel-blue inexpressive eyes, suggested a barrenness of mind.
"It gave me trouble during the winter," replied Sutch. "But that was to be expected." General Feversham nodded, and for a little while both men were silent. From the terrace the ground fell steeply to a wide level plain of brown earth and emerald fields and dark clumps of trees. From this plain voices rose through the sunshine, small but very clear. Far away toward Horsham a coil of white smoke from a train snaked rapidly in and out amongst the trees; and on the horizon rose the Downs, patched with white chalk.
"I thought that I should find you here," said Sutch.
"It was my wife's favourite corner," answered Feversham in a quite emotionless voice. "She would sit here by the hour. She had a queer liking for wide and empty spaces."
"Yes," said Sutch. "She had imagination. Her thoughts could people them."
General Feversham glanced at his companion as though he hardly understood. But he asked no questions. What he did not understand he habitually let slip from his mind as not worth comprehension. He spoke at once upon a different topic.
"There will be a leaf out of our table to-night."
"Yes. Collins, Barberton, and Vaughan went this winter. Well, we are all permanently shelved upon the world's half-pay list as it is. The obituary column is just the last formality which gazettes us out of the service altogether," and Sutch stretched out and eased his crippled leg, which fourteen years ago that day had been crushed and twisted in the fall of a scaling-ladder.
"I am glad that you came before the others," continued Feversham. "I would like to take your opinion. This day is more to me than the anniversary of our attack upon the Redan. At the very moment when we were standing under arms in