Plain Tales from the Hills

  WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.

  What is in the Brahmin's books that is in the Brahmin's heart. Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world.

  Hindu Proverb.

  This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and isgetting serious.

  Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a plainleather guard.

  The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip-strap ofa curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards. They are strongand short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather guard there is nogreat difference; between one Waterbury watch and another there is noneat all. Every one in the station knew the Colonel's lip-strap. He wasnot a horsey man, but he liked people to believe he had been on once;and he wove fantastic stories of the hunting-bridle to which thisparticular lip-strap had belonged. Otherwise he was painfully religious.

  Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club--both late for theirengagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two watcheswere on a shelf below the looking-glass--guards hanging down. That wascarelessness. Platte changed first, snatched a watch, looked in theglass, settled his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel didexactly the same thing; each man taking the other's watch.

  You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply suspicious.They seem--for purely religious purposes, of course--to know more aboutiniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were specially bad beforethey became converted! At any rate, in the imputation of things evil,and in putting the worst construction on things innocent, a certain typeof good people may be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel andhis Wife were of that type. But the Colonel's Wife was the worst. Shemanufactured the Station scandal, and--TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothingmore need be said. The Colonel's Wife broke up the Laplace's home. TheColonel's Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The Colonel'sWife induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the Plains throughthe first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs. Buxton died, andthe baby with her. These things will be remembered against the Colonel'sWife so long as there is a regiment in the country.

  But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. They went their severalways from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, whilePlatte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to follow.

  Mark how things happen! If Platte's sais had put the new saddle-pad onthe mare, the butts of the territs would not have worked through theworn leather, and the old pad into the mare's withers, when she wascoming home at two o'clock in the morning. She would not have reared,bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying overan aloe-hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn's well-kept lawn; and this tale wouldnever have been written. But the mare did all these things, and whilePlatte was rolling over and over on the turf, like a shot rabbit, thewatch and guard flew from his waistcoat--as an Infantry Major's swordhops out of the scabbard when they are firing a feu de joie--and rolledand rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.

  Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight,and went home.

  Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundredyears. Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonellet out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some MissionReports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, andthe watch--Platte's watch--slid quietly on to the carpet. Where thebearer found it next morning and kept it.

  Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver ofthe carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at anunseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. If the Colonel's Wifehad been an ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed for destruction," shewould have known that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuseis always sound and original. The very baldness of the Colonel'sexplanation proved its truth.

  See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel's watch which camewith Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn's lawn, chose to stop just underMrs. Larkyn's window, where she saw it early in the morning, recognizedit, and picked it up. She had heard the crash of Platte's cart at twoo'clock that morning, and his voice calling the mare names. She knewPlatte and liked him. That day she showed him the watch and heard hisstory. He put his head on one side, winked and said:--"How disgusting!Shocking old man! with his religious training, too! I should send thewatch to the Colonel's Wife and ask for explanations."

  Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces--whom she had knownwhen Laplace and his wife believed in each other--and answered:--"I willsend it. I think it will do her good. But remember, we must NEVER tellher the truth."

  Platte guessed that his own watch was in the Colonel's possession, andthought that the return of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a soothingnote from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely create a small trouble for a fewminutes. Mrs. Larkyn knew better. She knew that any poison dropped wouldfind good holding-ground in the heart of the Colonel's Wife.

  The packet, and a note containing a few remarks on the Colonel'scalling-hours, were sent over to the Colonel's Wife, who wept in her ownroom and took counsel with herself.

  If there was one woman under Heaven whom the Colonel's Wife hated withholy fervor, it was Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous lady,and called the Colonel's Wife "old cat." The Colonel's Wife said thatsomebody in Revelations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn. She mentionedother Scripture people as well. From the Old Testament. [But theColonel's Wife was the only person who cared or dared to say anythingagainst Mrs. Larkyn. Every one else accepted her as an amusing, honestlittle body.] Wherefore, to believe that her husband had been sheddingwatches under that "Thing's" window at ungodly hours, coupled with thefact of his late arrival on the previous night, was.....

  At this point she rose up and sought her husband. He denied everythingexcept the ownership of the watch. She besought him, for his Soul'ssake, to speak the truth. He denied afresh, with two bad words. Then astony silence held the Colonel's Wife, while a man could draw his breathfive times.

  The speech that followed is no affair of mine or yours. It was made upof wifely and womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and sunken cheeks;deep mistrust born of the text that says even little babies' heartsare as bad as they make them; rancorous hatred of Mrs. Larkyn, and thetenets of the creed of the Colonel's Wife's upbringing.

  Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking awayin the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I think, theColonel's Wife realized a little of the restless suspicions she hadinjected into old Laplace's mind, a little of poor Miss Haughtrey'smisery, and some of the canker that ate into Buxton's heart as hewatched his wife dying before his eyes. The Colonel stammered and triedto explain. Then he remembered that his watch had disappeared; and themystery grew greater. The Colonel's Wife talked and prayed by turnstill she was tired, and went away to devise means for "chastening thestubborn heart of her husband." Which translated, means, in our slang,"tail-twisting."

  You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin, shecould not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too much, andjumped to the wildest conclusions.

  But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the lifeof the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and--here thecreed-suspicion came in--he might, she argued, have erred many times,before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so unworthy an instrumentas Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt. He was a bad, wicked,gray-haired profligate. This may sound too sudden a revulsion for along-wedded wife; but it is a venerable fact that, if a man or womanmakes a practice of, and takes a delight in, believing and spreadingevil of people indifferent to him or her, he or she will end inbelieving evil of folk very near and dear. You may think, also, thatthe mere incident of the watch was too small and trivial to raise thismisunderstanding. It is another aged fact that, in life as well asracing, all the worst accidents happen at little ditches and cu
t-downfences. In the same way, you sometimes see a woman who would have made aJoan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to piecesover all the mean worry of housekeeping. But that is another story.

  Her belief only made the Colonel's Wife more wretched, because itinsisted so strongly on the villainy of men. Remembering what she haddone, it was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny-farthingattempts she made to hide it from the Station. But the Station knew andlaughed heartlessly; for they had heard the story of the watch, withmuch dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn's lips.

  Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel hadnot cleared himself:--"This thing has gone far enough. I move we tellthe Colonel's Wife how it happened." Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shookher head, and vowed that the Colonel's Wife must bear her punishmentas best she could. Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in whom nonewould have suspected deep hate. So Platte took no action, and came tobelieve gradually, from the Colonel's silence, that the Colonel musthave "run off the line" somewhere that night, and, therefore, preferredto stand sentence on the lesser count of rambling into other people'scompounds out of calling hours. Platte forgot about the watch businessafter a while, and moved down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkynwent home when her husband's tour of Indian service expired. She neverforgot.

  But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too far.The mistrust and the tragedy of it--which we outsiders cannot see anddo not believe in--are killing the Colonel's Wife, and are making theColonel wretched. If either of them read this story, they can dependupon its being a fairly true account of the case, and can "kiss and makefriends."

  Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer beingshelled by his own Battery. Now this shows that poets should not writeabout what they do not understand. Any one could have told him thatSappers and Gunners are perfectly different branches of the Service.But, if you correct the sentence, and substitute Gunner for Sapper, themoral comes just the same.