Major Vigoureux

ng across his arm, and once or twice hesitated on the verge of indignant speech; but by-and-by seemed to recollect himself, halt

follo

town, and climbed by one devious street to the garrison gate. From where he stood the Commandant could almost look down its chimneys. Along the isthmus straggled a few houses in double line, known as New Town, and beyond, where the isthmus widened, lay the Old Town around its Parish Church. These three together made Garland Town, the capital of the Islands; and the population of St. Lide's-town, garrison, and country side-numbe

g George's Battery, to which in old days the Islanders had looked for warning of the enemy's approach. Then it had mounted seven long eighteen-pounders: now-The Commandant sighed and moved on; past the Duke's Battery (four eighteen-pounders), the Vixen (one eighteen and one nine-pounder), and along by a breastwork pierced with embrasures to the important battery on

y provoke a smile. H

pay-sheet had been accepted; regularly the full amount had been handed to him by Mr. Fossell, agent at Garland Town for Messrs. Curtis' Bank on the mainland. Clearly there was a mistake

hipping dues which had made so welcome an addition to his income. On the strength of them he had made a too liberal allowance to his brother's widow; and now to maintain it he was driven to deny himself all but the barest necessary e

wo sergeants: and Treacher was a married man. He often drugged his conscience

Miss Gabriel had more than once pointedly asserted in his hearing) a scandal to the Islands. Moreover, the price of hens' eggs ruling high in Garland Town, he had discovered that gulls' eggs made a tolerable substitute. It was in

in his own breast. But none the less the Commandant, as a sensitive man, chafed under the Lord Proprietor's tyranny, which was the harder to bear for being slightly contemptuous. He felt t

Had Miss Gabriel and the Lord Propriet

and Windlass Batteries he repented his worst thoughts. He acquitted his enemies-if enemies they were-of conspiracy. The coincidence of the two gifts was fortuitous: they had been offered without guile, if also without sufficient care for

ously, when, across the breastwork, he was aware of Mr. Rogers, Lieutenant R. N., and Inspecting Commander of the Coa

lowering his glass and facing suddenly about at the soun

" responded Ma

king sky o

mmandant, shaken out of his brown study, slowl

avy swell rolling up from westward. Take hold of my glass and bring it to bear on the Monk"-this was the lig

out of all calculation with the weather for a

s, and checked himself in the act of handing the telescope across the breastwork, as he caught sight of S

aid Mr. Ro

f waistcoat," expla

cassar"-and with that Mr. Rogers winked, for he had (as the other knew to his cost) an artle

sure

eryone that you're at daggers dra

afternoon the C

only the intervening breastwork protected him from a nudge under the ribs. "I

f the sort." The Commandant's

led suddenly from the extremely gay to the extremely

woman!" he broke out in sudden wrath, and went his way with long strid

of the hill, the fortifications broke off, or were continued only by a low wall along the edge of the cliff; and here the path, or via militaris, turned off at a sharp angle and led back towards the Castle,

stroke of it he saw Sergeant Archelaus drive his spade into the soil, draw the back

hela

ir

egan the Commandant, picking his way between

chelaus; "and the upshot is, Do y

you off-hand; not without writing it down," said

as thinkin' to write him

ss trousers that might serve your turn; that is to say, if you could manage to unpick the red stripe off your old ones and get someone to sew it on. They are black, to be sure; but the difference

ere sound enough two months back, when I sprin

ey will do

eant Archelaus asserted; "thoug

Why, I haven't put on evening dress half a

ver knows. The Lord Proprietor might take it into hi

I might borrow Mr. Rogers', you know," added the Commandant-and with a smile; for

. 'Twould be just of a piece wi

ernly, and reproached himself afterwards f

rt to go about with the lower half of me looking a bit less like a

thank him-by word of mouth-if

ing off.... But when you came in by the gate, there, I was turning it o

ight, Ar

a new craze with him; and in spading over the border here I'd a-turned up a dozen or so of those queer-looking Lent-lilies you

lbs had

almost priceless ones, for a rich purchaser who wished to introduce tulip-culture into the Gironde. The Dutchman's vessel was a flat-bottomed galliot, fitted with lee-boards, but liab

t every sunken peril-to be sure, she was flat-bottomed, but the soundings varied so from moment to moment that the crew, after running a dozen times to the boats in the certainty of strikin

the wind, dropped anchor, got out a boat, and groped his way shoreward-

isplayed a lantern; and, looking up, the crew were aware of many people standing there and chattering in the dusk-chattering in the low soft tone peculiar to the Islanders. The skipper hailed them in Dutch, and again

ace of five days, at the end of which the Dutchman went his way before a clear north wind, and in charge of an Island pilot. But before departing he pr

was, for a soldier's wife, a first-rate housekeeper; and, supposing these bulbs to be onions of peculiar rarity, she forthwith issued invitations to the elite of the Island, and ordered over a leg of Welsh mutton from the mainland. I will not attempt to tell of the din

of the Islands) to "heave them to cliff." The cook cast them out upon a bed of rubbish in a corner of the garrison garden, where by-and-by they w

sters set their yellow bells waving against the blue sea. Major Vigoureux delighted in them-were they not his name-flower? But no one

s. Yet I would avoid anything in the nature of a rebuff, and if you think the Lord Proprietor would be gratified, you are wel

o' mouth," said Sergeant Archelaus, hopefully. "It'l

gs, "to call them trews. Not," he went on inconsequently, "that I have anything to say against the Highlan

ks, pausing on his way to pick up Miss Gabriel's antimacassar-wais

yed for Mr. and Mrs. Fossell's whist-party. As he passed the Garrison gate, Mrs. Treacher, who sometimes

aid, "can you tell me

Treacher, "is all price

ordinary flannel, fit to m

an one-three-farthings, or one

ch would be

eacher. "As if that didn'

ur husband with one: that is to say, with the

eeds one, which, being under average size and the width just a yard, as you ma

ep down to Tregaskis' shop to-morrow and choose the stuff yourself." He counted out the money into Mrs. Treacher's hand, and left her curtseying. As he we