The Seven Poor Travellers | Page 8

a young gentleman not above
five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which affected Private
Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way. They were bright, handsome, dark
eyes,--what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than
severe,--but they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard
Doubledick could not stand. Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of
everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for
a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the
street like any other officer. He was reproached and confused,--troubled by the mere
possibility of the captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would rather turn
back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark,
bright eyes.
One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole, where he had
been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of
his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton's quarters. In the stale and
squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being
seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently
went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers' quarters were;
twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed
the decorative furniture of the Black hole.
"Come in!" cried the Captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at the door. Private
Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that
he stood in the light of the dark, bright eyes.
There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and
was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself.
"Doubledick," said the Captain, "do you know where you are going to?"
"To the Devil, sir?" faltered Doubledick.
"Yes," returned the Captain. "And very fast."
Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his month, and made a
miserable salute of acquiescence.
"Doubledick," said the Captain, "since I entered his Majesty's service, a boy of seventeen,
I have been pained to see many men of promise going that road; but I have never been so
pained to see a man make the shameful journey as I have been, ever since you joined the
regiment, to see you."
Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he
looked; also to find the legs of the Captain's breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw
them through water.
"I am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "It signifies very little what such a poor brute
comes to."
"You are a man," returned the Captain, with grave indignation, "of education and superior
advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you say, you have sunk lower than I had
believed. How low that must be, I leave you to consider, knowing what I know of your

disgrace, and seeing what I see."
"I hope to get shot soon, sir," said Private Richard Doubledick; "and then the regiment
and the world together will be rid of me."
The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up to steady his
vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over him. He put his hand before his
own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.
"I would rather," said the young Captain, "see this in you, Doubledick, than I would see
five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you
a mother?"
"I am thankful to say she is dead, sir."
"If your praises," returned the Captain, "were sounded from mouth to mouth through the
whole regiment, through the whole army, through the whole country, you would wish she
had lived to say, with pride and joy, 'He is my son!'"
"Spare me, sir," said Doubledick. "She would never have heard any good of me. She
would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my mother. Love and
compassion she might have had, and would have always had, I know but not--Spare me,
sir! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy!" And he turned his face to the wall, and
stretched out his imploring hand.
"My friend--" began the Captain.
"God bless you, sir!" sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.
"You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged a little longer, and you