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“Well, it is hard,” returned the young soldier; “but after all I cannot find fault with the powers that be, for I married with my eyes open. I knew the rule that those who marry without leave must leave their wives at home, for only a certain number of families can go abroad with a regiment—and that only in peace-time.”

“It might have been well,” continued Armstrong, slowly, while a sad expression clouded his face for a few moments, “if I had waited, and many a time has my conscience smitten me for my haste. But what could I do? Emmy most unaccountably fell in love wi’ me—thank God! for I do think that the greatest earthly blessing that can be given to mortal man is the love of a gentle, true-hearted girl. The wealth of the Indies cannot purchase that, and nothing else in life can supply the want of it. Can you wonder that I grasped the treasure when within my reach?”

“I certainly cannot; and as certainly I do not blame you,” returned the sympathetic Miles.

“Of course I fell in love with Emmy,” continued the soldier, with a slightly confused look. “I could no more help that than I could help growing up. Could I?”

“Certainly not,” said Miles.

“Well, you see,” continued his friend, “as the affair was arranged in heaven, according to general belief, what was I that I should resist? You see, Emmy’s father, who’s a well-to-do farmer, was willing, and we never gave a thought to Egypt or the war at the time. She will be well looked after while I’m away, and I’ll send her every penny of my pay that I can spare, but—”

He stopped abruptly, and Miles, respecting his feelings, remarked, by way of changing the subject, that the pay of a private soldier being so small very little could be saved out of that.

“Not much,” assented his comrade; “but, little as it is, we can increase it in various ways. For one thing, I have given up smoking. That will save a little; though, to say truth, I have never expended much on baccy. Then I have joined Miss Robinson’s Temperance Band—”

“Strange how often that lady’s name has been in my ears since I came to Portsmouth!” said Miles.

“Not so strange after all,” returned Armstrong, “when one reflects that she has been the means of almost changing the character of the town within the last few years—as far at least as concerns the condition of soldiers, as well as many of the poorer classes among its inhabitants—so Sergeant Gilroy tells me.”

As some of the information given by Sergeant Gilroy to the young soldier may be interesting to many readers, we quote a few of his own words.

“Why, some years ago,” he said, “the soldiers’ wives, mothers, and sisters who came down here to see the poor fellows set sail for foreign parts found it almost impossible to obtain lodgings, except in drinking-houses which no respectable woman could enter. Some poor women even preferred to spend a winter night under railway arches, or some such shelter, rather than enter these places. And soldiers out of barracks had nowhere else to go to for amusement, while sailors on leave had to spend their nights in them or walk the streets. Now all that is changed. The Soldiers’ Institute supplies 140 beds, and furnishes board and lodging to our sisters and wives at the lowest possible rates, besides reception-rooms where we can meet our friends; a splendid reading-room, where we find newspapers and magazines, and can write our letters, if we like, in peace and quiet; a bar where tea and coffee, bread and butter, buns, etcetera, can be had at all reasonable hours for a mere trifle; a coffee and smoking room, opening out of which are two billiard-rooms, and beyond these a garden, where we can get on the flat roof of a house and watch the arrival and departure of shipping. There is a small charge to billiard-players, which pays all expenses of the tables, so that not a penny of the Institute funds is spent on the games. Of course no gambling is allowed in any of Miss Robinson’s Institutes. Then there are Bible-class rooms, and women’s work-rooms, and a lending library, and bathrooms, and a great hall, big enough to hold a thousand people, where there are held temperance meetings, lectures with dissolving views, entertainments, and ‘tea-fights,’ and Sunday services. No wonder that, with such an agency at work for the glory of God and the good of men, Portsmouth is almost a new place. Indeed, although Miss Robinson met with powerful opposition at first from the powers that be, her Institute is now heartily recognised and encouraged in every way at the Horse Guards. Indeed, it has recently been visited by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, and highly approved of by these and other grandees.”

While the two soldiers were chatting about the past and present of the Institute they arrived at its door.

“Here we are. Come into the reception-room, Miles, while I make inquiry about my letters.”

They entered the house as he spoke. The reception-room is on the right of the passage. Armstrong opened the door and looked in, but, instead of advancing, he stood transfixed, gazing before him open-mouthed as though he had seen a spectre, for there, in front of the fire, sat a beautiful, refined-looking girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, gazing pensively at the flickering flames.

Miles was not kept long in suspense as to who she was.

“Emmy!”

“Oh, Willie!”

These were exclamations which would have revealed all in a moment, even though Emmy had not sprung up and rushed into Willie’s open arms. How she ever emerged from the embrace of those arms with unbroken bones is a mystery which cannot be solved, but she did emerge in safety, and with some confusion on observing that Miles had witnessed the incident with admiring gaze!

“Never mind him, Emmy,” said the young soldier, laughing; “he’s a good friend, a comrade. Shake hands with him.”

The action, and the ease of manner with which Emmy obeyed, proved that grace and small hands are not altogether dependent on rank or station.

“Excuse me,” said Miles, after a few words of salutation; “I’ll go and have a look at the library.”

So saying he quitted the room, leaving the young couple alone; for there chanced to be no other visitors to the reception-room at the time. In the lobby he found several soldiers and a couple of sailors enjoying coffee at the bar, and was about to join them when a man came forward whose dress was that of a civilian, though his bearing proclaimed him a soldier.

“Hallo, Brown,” exclaimed one of the soldiers, “d’ye know that a troop-ship has just come in!”

“Know it? of course I do; you may trust the people of this house to be first in hearing such news.”

“Mr Tufnell told me of it. I’m just going down to the jetty to boil the kettle for them.”

As he spoke, two ladies of the Institute descended the broad staircase, each with a basket on her arm.

They entered into conversation for a few minutes with the soldiers at the bar, and it was abundantly evident to Miles, from the kindly tone of the former and the respectful air of the latter, that they were familiar acquaintances, and on the best of terms.

“Are you all ready, Brown?” asked one of the ladies of the soldier-like civilian, whom we have already mentioned.

“All ready, Miss; a man has already gone to order the bread and butter and light the fire. I hear the vessel is crowded, so we may expect a full house to-night.”

Miles pricked up his ears on hearing this, and when Brown went out, leaving the two ladies to finish their conversation with the soldiers, he followed him.

“Pardon me,” he said, on overtaking the man. “Did I understand correctly that a troop-ship has just arrived?”

“Right,” said Brown. “I am just going down to the embarkation jetty to get coffee ready for the men. You seem to have joined but a short time, apparently, for though I am familiar with your uniform I have not seen yourself before.”

“True, it is not long since I joined, and this is my first visit to the Institute.”

“I hope it won’t be the last, friend,” returned Brown heartily. “Every soldier is welcome there, and, for the matter of that, so is every sailor and marine.”

“I have heard as much. May I accompany you to this jetty to see the troops arrive, and this coffee business that you speak of?”

“You may, and welcome,” said Brown, leading his companion through the town in the direction of the docks, and chatting, as they walked along, about the army and navy; about his own experiences in the former; and about the condition of soldiers at the present time as contrasted with that of the days gone by.

Chapter Four.
The Embarkation Jetty—And Nipped in the Bud

Bronzed faces under white helmets crowded the ports and bulwarks of the great white leviathan of the deep—the troop-ship Orontes—as she steamed slowly and cautiously up to the embarkation jetty in Portsmouth harbour.

On the jetty itself a few anxious wives, mothers, and sisters stood eagerly scanning the sea of faces in the almost hopeless endeavour to distinguish those for which they sought. Yet ever and anon an exclamation on the jetty, and an answering wave of an arm on the troop-ship, told that some at least of the anxious ones had been successful in the search.

“Don’t they look weather-beaten?” remarked Miles to his companion.

“Sure it’s more like sun-dried they are,” answered a voice at his side. Brown had gone to the shed to prepare his coffee and bread against the landing of the troops, and a stout Irishwoman had taken his place. Close to her stood the two ladies from the Institute with baskets on their arms.

“You are right,” returned Miles, with a smile; “they look like men who have seen service. Is your husband among them?”

“Faix, I’d be sorprised if he was,” returned the woman; “for I left him in owld Ireland, in the only landed property he iver held in this world—six futt by two, an’ five deep. He’s been in possession six years now, an’ it wouldn’t be aisy to drive him out o’ that, anyhow. No, it’s my son Terence I’ve come to look afther. Och! there he is! Look, look, that’s him close by the funnel! Don’t ye see ’im? Blissins on his good-lookin’ face! Hooroo! Terence—Terence Flynn, don’t ye recognise yer owld mother? Sure an’ he does, though we haven’t met for tin year. My! hasn’t he got the hair on his lips too—an’ his cheeks are like shoe-leather—my darlint!”

As the enthusiastic mother spoke in the tones of a public orator, there was a general laugh among those who were nearest to her; but she was forgotten immediately, for all were too deeply intent on their own interests to pay much regard to each other just then.

The great vessel was slow in getting alongside and making fast to the jetty—slow at least in the estimation of the impatient—for although she might leap and career grandly in wanton playfulness while on her native billows, in port a careless touch from her ponderous sides would have crushed part of the jetty into fragments. Miles therefore had ample time to look about him at the various groups around.

One young woman specially attracted his attention, for she stood apart from every one, and seemed scarcely able to stand because of weakness. She was young and good-looking. Her face, which was deadly pale, contrasted strongly with her glossy raven-black hair, and the character of her dress denoted extreme poverty.

The ladies from the Institute had also observed this poor girl, and one of them, going to her side, quietly addressed her. Miles, from the position in which he stood, could not avoid overhearing what was said.

“Yes, Miss, I expect my husband,” said the woman in answer to a question. “He’s coming home on sick-leave. I had a letter from him a good while ago saying he was coming home in the Orontes.”

“I hope you will find that the sea air has done him good,” said the lady, in that tone of unobtrusive sympathy which is so powerfully attractive,—especially to those who are in trouble. “A sea voyage frequently has a wonderful effect in restoring invalids. What is his name?”

“Martin—Fred Martin. He’s a corporal now.”

“You have not recognised him yet, I suppose?”

“Not yet, Miss,” answered Mrs Martin, with an anxious look, and shivering slightly as she drew a thin worn shawl of many patches closer round her shoulders. “But he wouldn’t expect me to meet him, you see, knowing that I’m so poor, and live far from Portsmouth. But I was so anxious, you see, Miss, that our kind Vicar gave me enough money to come down.”

“Where did you spend the night?” asked the lady, quickly.

The poor woman hesitated, and at last said she had spent the night walking about the streets.

“You see, Miss,” she explained apologetically, “I didn’t know a soul in the town, and I couldn’t a-bear to go into any o’ the public-houses; besides, I had no money, for the journey down took nearly all of it.”

“Oh, I am so sorry that you didn’t know of our Institute,” said the lady, with much sympathy in voice and look; “for we provide accommodation for soldiers’ wives who come, like you, to meet their husbands returning from abroad, and we charge little, or even nothing, if they are too poor to pay.”

“Indeed, Miss! I wish I had known of it. But in the morning I had the luck to meet a policeman who directed me to a coffee-tavern in a place called Nobbs Lane—you’ll not know it, Miss, for it’s in a very poor part o’ the town—where I got a breakfast of as much hot pea-soup and bread as I could eat for three-ha’pence, an’ had a good rest beside the fire too. They told me it was kept by a Miss Robinson. God bless her whoever she is! for I do believe I should have been dead by now if I hadn’t got the rest and the breakfast.”

The woman shivered again as she spoke, and drew the thin shawl still closer, for a sharp east wind was blowing over the jetty at the time.

“Come with me; you are cold. I know Nobbs Lane well. We have a shed and fire here on the jetty to shelter people while waiting. There, you need not fear to miss your husband, for the men won’t land for a long time yet.”

“May I follow you, madam?” said Miles, stepping forward and touching his cap in what he supposed to be the deferential manner of a private soldier. “I am interested in your work, and would like to see the shed you speak of.”

The lady looked up quickly at the tall young soldier who thus addressed her.

“I saw you in the lobby of the Institute this morning, did I not?”

“You did, madam. I was waiting for a friend who is a frequenter of the Institute. One of your own people brought me down here to see the arrival of the Orontes, and the coffee-shed; but I have lost him in the crowd, and know not where the shed is.”

“Here it is,” returned the lady, pointing to an iron structure just behind them. “You will find Mr Brown there busy with the coffee, and that small shed beside it is the shelter-room. You are welcome to inspect all our buildings at any time.”

So saying, the lady led Mrs Martin into the shed last referred to, and Miles followed her.

There was a small stove, in the solitary iron room of which the shed consisted, which diffused a genial warmth around. Several soldiers’ wives and female relatives were seated beside it, engaged in quieting refractory infants, or fitting a few woollen garments on children of various ages. These garments had been brought from the Institute, chiefly for the purpose of supplying the wives and children returning from warmer climes to England; and one of them, a thick knitted shawl, was immediately presented to Mrs Martin as a gift, and placed round her shoulders by the lady’s own hands.

“You are very kind, Miss,” she said, an unbidden tear rolling down her cheek as she surveyed the garment and folded it over her breast.

“Have you any children?” asked the lady.

“None. We had one—a dear baby boy,” answered the young wife sadly, “born after his father left England. God took him home when he was two years old. His father never saw him; but we shall all meet again,” she added, brightly, “in the better land.”

“Ah! it makes me glad to hear you say that God took him home. Only the spirit of Jesus could make you regard heaven as the home where you are all to meet again. Now I would advise you to sit here and keep warm till I go and make inquiry about your husband. It is quite possible, you know, that he may be in the sick bay, and they won’t let any one on board till the vessel is made fast. You are quite sure, I suppose, that it was the Orontes in which your husband said he was coming?”

“Yes, quite sure.”

The lady had asked the question because a vague fear possessed her regarding the cause of the soldier’s not having been seen looking eagerly over the side like the other men.

Hurrying from the shed, with her basket on her arm, she made for the gangway, which had just been placed in position. She was accompanied by her companion, also carrying her basket. Miles took the liberty of following them closely, but not obviously, for he formed only one of a stream of men and women who pushed on board the instant that permission was given.

While one of the ladies went in search of one of the chief officers, the other quietly and unobtrusively advanced among the returning warriors, and, opening her basket, drew therefrom and offered to each soldier an envelope containing one or two booklets and texts, and a hearty invitation to make free use of the Soldiers’ Institute during their stay in Portsmouth.

A most bewildering scene was presented on the deck of that great white vessel. There were hundreds of soldiers in her, returning home after longer or shorter absences in China, India, the Cape, and other far-away parts of the earth. Some were stalwart and bronzed by the southern sun; others were gaunt, weak, and cadaverous, from the effect of sickness, exposure, or wounds; but all were more or less excited at having once again set eyes on Old England, and at the near prospect of once more embracing wives, mothers, and sweethearts, and meeting with old friends. The continual noise of manly voices hailing, exclaiming, chaffing, or conversing, and the general babel of sounds is indescribable. To Miles Milton, who had never before even imagined anything of the sort, it seemed more like a vivid dream than a reality. He became so bewildered with trying to attend to everything at once that he lost sight of the shorter of the ladies, whom he was following, but, pushing ahead, soon found her again in the midst of a group of old friends—though still young soldiers—who had known the Institute before leaving for foreign service, and were eagerly inquiring after the health of Miss Robinson, and Tufnell the manager, and others.

During his progress through this bustling scene, Miles observed that the soldiers invariably received the gifts from the lady with respect, and, many of them, with hearty expressions of thanks, while a few stopped her to speak about the contents of the envelopes. So numerous were the men that the work had to be done with business-like celerity, but the visitor was experienced. While wasting no time in useless delay, she never hurried her movements, or refused to stop and speak, or forced her way through the moving throng. Almost unobserved, save by the men who chanced to be next to her, she glided in and out amongst them like a spirit of light—which, in the highest sense, she was—intent on her beneficent mission. Her sole aim was to save the men from the tremendous dangers that awaited them on landing in Portsmouth, and bring them under Christian influence.

Those dangers may be imagined when it is told that soldiers returning from abroad are often in possession of large sums of money, and that harpies of all kinds are eagerly waiting to plunder them on their arrival. On one occasion a regiment came home, and in a few days squandered three thousand pounds in Portsmouth. Much more might be said on this point, but enough has been indicated to move thoughtful minds—and our story waits.

Suddenly the attention of Miles, and every one near him, was attracted by the loud Hibernian yell of a female voice exclaiming—

“Oh, Terence, me darlin’ son, here ye are; an’ is it yersilf lookin’ purtier a long way than the day ye left me; an’ niver so much as a scratch on yer face for all the wars ye’ve bin in—bad luck to thim!”

Need we say that this was Mrs Flynn? In her anxiety to meet her son she had run against innumerable men and women, who remonstrated with her variously, according to temperament, without, however, the slightest effect. Her wild career was not checked until she had flung herself into the arms of a tall, stalwart trooper with drooping moustache, who would have done credit to any nationality under the sun, and whose enthusiasm at the happy meeting with his mother was almost as demonstrative as her own, but more dignified.

Others there were, however, whose case was very different. One who came there to meet the strong healthy man to whom she had said good-bye at the same spot several years before, received him back a worn and wasted invalid, upright still with the martial air of discipline, but feeble, and with something like the stamp of death upon his brow. Another woman found her son, strong indeed and healthy, as of yore, but with an empty sleeve where his right arm should have been—his days of warfare over before his earthly sun had reached the zenith!

Whilst Miles was taking note of these things, and moralising in spite of his distaste just then to that phase of mental occupation, the other lady of the Institute appeared and spoke hurriedly to her companion.

“Go,” she said, “tell Mrs Martin that her husband is not on board the Orontes. Let Tufnell, if he is at the shed, or our missionary, take her up to the Institute without delay. Let them take this note to Miss Robinson at the same time.”

The younger lady looked inquiringly at her companion, but the latter pushed on hurriedly and was soon lost in the crowd, so she went at once on shore to obey her instructions.

Being thus left to look after himself, Miles went about gazing at the varied, interesting, and curious scenes that the vessel presented. No one took any notice of him, for he was only one soldier among hundreds, and so many people from the shore had been admitted by that time that strange faces attracted no attention.

We have referred chiefly to soldiers’ friends, but these, after all, formed a small minority of the visitors, many of whom were tradesmen of the town—tailors, shoemakers, and vendors of fancy articles—who had come down with their wares to tempt the returning voyagers to part with their superfluous cash. Even in the midst of all the pushing and confusion, one man was seen trying on a pair of boots; near to him was a sailor, carefully inspecting a tailor’s book of patterns with a view to shore-going clothes; while another, more prompt in action, was already being measured for a suit of the same.

Descending to the ’tween-decks, our hero found that the confusion and noise there were naturally greater, the space being more limited and the noise confined. There was the addition of bad air and disagreeable smells here; and Miles could not help reflecting on the prospect before him of long voyages under cramped circumstances, in the midst of similar surroundings. But, being young and enthusiastic, he whispered to himself that he was not particular, and was ready to “rough it” in his country’s cause!

In a remarkably dark region to which he penetrated, he found himself in the women’s quarters, the disagreeables of which were increased by the cries of discontented children, and the yells of inconsolable infants—some of whom had first seen the light of this world in the sad twilight of ’tween-decks! Shrinking from that locality, Miles pursued his investigations, and gradually became aware that sundry parrots and other pets which the soldiers and sailors had brought home were adding their notes of discord to the chorus of sounds.

While he was looking at, and attempting to pat, a small monkey, which received his advances with looks of astonished indignation, he became conscious of the fact that a number of eyes were looking down on him through a crevice at the top of a partition close to his side.

“Who are these?” he asked of a sailor, who stood near him.

“Why, them are the long-term men.”

“I suppose you mean prisoners?”

“Yes; that’s about it,” replied the tar. “Soldiers as has committed murder—or suthin’ o’ that sort—an’ got twenty year or more for all I knows. The other fellers further on there, in chains, is short-term men. Bin an’ done suthin’ or other not quite so bad, I suppose.”

Miles advanced “further on,” and found eight men seated on the deck and leaning against the bulkhead. If his attention had not been drawn to them, he might have supposed they were merely resting, but a closer glance showed that they were all chained to an iron bar. They did not seem very different from the other men around them, save that they were, most of them, stern and silent.

A powerful feeling of compassion rose in our hero’s breast as he looked at these moral wrecks of humanity; for their characters and prospects were ruined, though their physique was not much impaired. It seemed to him such an awful home-coming, after, perhaps, long years of absence, thus, in the midst of all the bustle and joy of meetings and of pleasant anticipations, to be waiting there for the arrival of the prison-van, and looking forward to years of imprisonment instead of reunion with friends and kindred.

At sight of them a thought sprang irresistibly into our hero’s mind, “This is the result of wrong-doing!”

His conscience was uncomfortably active and faithful that morning. Somehow it pointed out to him that wrong-doing was a long ladder; that the chained criminals before him had reached the foot; and that he stood on the topmost rung. That was all the difference between them and himself—a difference of degree, not of principle.

Pushing his way a little closer to these men, he found that his was not the only heart that pitied them. His friend, the younger lady, was there speaking to them. He could not hear what she said, for the noise drowned her voice; but her earnest, eager look and her gesticulations told well enough that she was pointing them to the Saviour of sinners—with what effect, of course, he could not tell, but it was evident that the prisoners at least gave her their attention.

Leaving her thus engaged, Miles continued for a considerable time his progress through the ship. Afterwards he observed, by a movement among the men, that a detachment was about to land. Indeed he found that some of the soldiers had already landed, and were making their way to the coffee-shed.

Following these quickly to the same place, he found that innumerable cups of hot coffee and solid slices of bread and butter were being served out as fast as they could be filled and cut. A large hole or window opened in the side of the shed, the shutter of which was hinged at the bottom, and when let down formed a convenient counter.

Behind this counter stood the two ubiquitous ladies of the Institute acting the part of barmaids, as if to the manner born, and with the same business-like, active, yet modest, ready-for-anything air which marked all their proceedings.

And truly their post was no sinecure. To supply the demands of hundreds of hungry and thirsty warriors was not child’s-play. Inside the shed, Miles found his friend Brown busy with a mighty caldron of hot water, numerous packets of coffee, and immense quantities of sugar and preserved milk. Brown was the fountain-head. The ladies were the distributing pipes—if we may say so; and although the fountain produced can after can of the coveted liquid with amazing rapidity, and with a prodigality of material that would have made the hair of a private housewife stand on end, it was barely possible to keep pace with the demand.

At a large table one of the missionaries of the Institute cut up and buttered loaves at a rate which gave the impression that he was a conjurer engaged in a species of sleight-of-hand. The butter, however, troubled him, for, the weather being cold, it was hard, and would not spread easily. To overcome this he put a pound or so of it on a plate beside the boiler-fire to soften. Unfortunately, he temporarily forgot it, and on afterwards going for it, found that it had been reduced to a yellow liquid. However, hungry soldiers, rejoicing in the fact of having at last reached home, are not particular. Some of them, unaccustomed, no doubt, to be served by ladies, asked for their supply deferentially, accepted it politely, and drank it with additional appreciation.

“We want more, Brown,” said one of the ladies, glancing back over her shoulder as she poured out the last drop from her large jug; “and more buns and bread, please.”

“Here you are, Miss,” cried Brown, who was warm by that time in spite of the weather, as he bore his brimming and steaming pitcher to the window—or hole in the wall—and replenished the jugs. “The buns are all done, an’ the bread won’t hold out long, but I’ve sent for more; it won’t be long. I see we shall need several more brews,” he added, as he turned again towards the inexhaustible boiler.

“Shall I assist you?” said Miles, stepping into the shed and seizing a loaf and a knife.

“Thank you. Go ahead,” said Brown.

“Put another lump of butter near the fire,” said the missionary to our hero; “not too close. I melted the last lump altogether.”

“A cup o’ coffee for my Terence, an’ wan for mesilf, my dear,” exclaimed a loud voice outside.

There was no mistaking the speaker. Some of the men who crowded round the counter laughed, others partially choked, when the strapping Terence said in a hoarse whisper, “Whist, mother, be civil; don’t ye see that it’s ladies, no less, is sarvin’ of us?”

“Please, ma’am, can I ’ave some coffee?” asked a modest soldier’s wife, who looked pale and weary after the long voyage, with three children to look after.

A cup was promptly supplied, and three of the newly-arrived buns stopped the mouths of her clamorous offspring.