The Soldier's Wife — page 91: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

14 full amount of his punishment on the first oc- casion: in which case, after he has been cured in the hospital, he will be brought out again to receive the remainder !” THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. ‘just one kiss! For if you do come into be ” officers’ quarters “Where I expected to find honorable men,” exclaimed Lucy indignantly: and as Reabnarn “Oh—but this is horrible, horrible !” exclaim-| endeavored to throw his arms around her, she ed Lucy, becoming deadly pale, and staggering against a chair for sapport. “ More than all that,” continued the Colonel, pushed him away with such force that he fell against the balustrades, “T wii be revenged on Lonsdale for this!” “he will be a marked man in the regiment—|he exclaimed. in spiteful accents: but Luey liable to be tried and condemned again for the slizhtest offence. Now, it rests with me to mitigate his punishment. to lift as it were the ban for him afterwards. condescended to give no reply—and hurrying down the stairs, she was speedily outside the It rests with me also! lb .rracks. With an anguish in her heart that tran- It rests with me, too, to give him opportunities}. eended all the poignancy of any feeling she of pushing his way in the corps—of obtain-j 1ad ever yet known, she returned to her e < . . r, ¢ . . 7 bad ing. non-commissioned rank; and all this will, odging, where the woman of the house had J do for nim, if you—” “Colonel Wyndham,” interrupted Luey, al taken charge of the child during her absence. Then, on again finding herself alone in her her presence of mind being brought back t«;chamber, with her babe pressed to her bosom, her aid by the strong flood of indignation tha. again set in,—‘ my husband is too much in you - ower for me to provoke you by expressing rt. 1 think and feel at your present conduct. (a, sir! when a wife in the rending anguish of jer heart comes to throw herself at your feet snd implore mercy for her husband, is it not a. uel thing—to say nothing worse—that she siould have another dagger driven deep dows into that already too much lacerated heart! 1 ermit me to retire, Colonel Wyndham.” “You are resolved upon leaving me taus ?” he exclaimed, in mingled humiliation ad in- dignation. “Yes, sir: I have no farthér business nere:” —and Lucy withdrew from the epartmeuc, the Colonel no longer endeavoring to retain ner Lucey wept bitter scalding tears over the little innocent. Her looks were reverted to the happy home which but a few weeks back she and her husband had possessed at Carlisle ; and as she thought how suddenly it had been swept away, and how calamity upon calamity had been accumulating ever since, it appesred as if she had been whirled through the rapid stages of a hideous dream. She could look back upon the purity and the innocence of her own life without a blush; and she could not help wondering how it was that heaven thus suffered her to he so tortured. In three days a communication was received from the Horse Guards to the effect that the proceedings of the court-martial were approved of, and that the punishment was to take place. As she descended the stairs, so overpuwering| Very early in the morning of the fourth Jay, a sense of anguish seized upon her that .ae was compelled to lean against the wall for support. Her feelings had been most cruelly tortured. Hail she experienced a stern refusal, tne effect would have been less than the Insulting over- tures which had been made to her. She was truly wretched—wounded in her most delicate sensibilities. For some moments did she rest there, sobbing bitterly—till aroused, or rather startled, by hearing rapid footsteps ascending the stairs. Then she continued to advance; and the next instant found herself face to face with Gerald Redburn. He was in his uniform, having only just left the mess-table, where he had remained drinking; and his countenance was flushed. “ Ah, Lucy,” he exclaimed, half in surprise end half with an insolent familiarity; “1s this you! I suppose you have been to the Colonel bout your husband ?” “Allow me to pass, sir,” she said, as he barred her way. “Just one word, Lucey,” eried Gerald, seizing her by the hand: then as she literally tore that hand back from his grasp, he said, “Why, what a fool you are to get into such a rage for nothing. Of course | know the Colonel would do nothing for you: he is severity itself. But if I was to intercede, it would be different.” “T command you to let me pass, sir,” inter- rupted Lucy, resolved to escape from farther ingults, two young drummer-boys might have been seen 1n an outhouse of the barracks, practising with a cat-o’-nine-tails at a sack of sawdust placed in a leaning position against the wall. These youths were to inflict the atrocious punishment—a task which they had never per- formed before; and as they knew that they themselves would be punished if they did not accomplish their loathsome and revelting duty in what Sergeant-Major Langley termed a “scientific manner,” they were thus practising betimes the handling of the accursed instru ment of torture. “T don’t think I shall be able to do it,” ob- served one, suddenly flinging down the murder- ous Weapon. “Don't you?” exclaimed the other, likewise desisting from the experimental flogging of the sack. “Well, that’s exactly my feeling. It already makes me heave at the heart.” “J feel all over so queer,” resumed the first, “that it seems as if I was going to faint. I am sure I shall never get through i1t:’—and then the drummer-boy, who was not above sixteen, wiped the tears Poi his eyes. | “It’s dreadful,” observed his companion, swallowing a sob, “to be forced into this Suppose Lonsdale died under it, [ should look upon myself as a murderer for the rest of my life. It’s too bad! Why shouldn’t some of the officers that ordered the punishment, have the inflicting of 1?” “Not without a kiss,” ejaculated Redburn:| At this moment Mr, Langley entered the (E(6) IOOKS mile ju