the more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people.
“here—hi!”
as no one replied to this summons either, by voice or approach, the young man subsided into occupied silence.
he was a very large young man, with a fair moustache which looked almost flaxen against the deep tan of his face. this last, like the rest of him, was ludicrously typical of that race which has wandered farther than the jews, and has hitherto managed, like them, to retain a few of its characteristics. the anglo-saxonism of this youth was almost aggressive. it lurked in the neat droop of moustache, which was devoid of that untidy suggestion of a beer-mug characterising the labial adornment of a northern flaxen nation of which we wot. it shone calmly in the glance of a pair of reflectively deep blue eyes—it threw itself at one from the pockets of an old tweed jacket worn in conjunction with regulation top-boots and khaki breeches.
moreover, it gave birth to a quiet sense of being as good as any one else, and possibly better, which sat without conceit on his brow.
it would seem that he really did not want to be answered just then, for he did not raise a voice accustomed to dominate the clatter of horses' feet, nor did he pass any comment on the carelessness or criminal absence of some person or persons unknown.
he merely took up his pen again, and proceeded to handle that mighty weapon with an awkwardness suggestive of a greater skill with another instrument only less powerful. he was seated on two reversed buckets, pyramidally balanced, at a small table which had the air of wide capabilities in some other sphere of usefulness. there was a weird cunning in the legs of this table indicative of subtle change into a camp-bed or possibly a canoe.
the writing materials consisted of a vaseline bottle (fourpenny size) full of ink, and two weary pieces of blotting-paper. the paper upon which he was writing had a travelled and somewhat jaundiced air, the penholder was of gold. in the furniture of the tent, as in the canvas thereof, there was that mournful suggestion of better days which is held to be a virtue in furnished apartments. but over all there hovered that sense of well-scrubbed cleanliness which comes from the touch of a native military servant. an indulgence in this habit of rubbing and scrubbing was indeed accountable for much dilapidation; for that silent little ghoorka man, ben abdi, had rubbed and scrubbed many things not intended by an ingenious camp-furnisher for such treatment. james edward makerstone agar was engaged in the compilation of a diary, which volume there is reason to believe is still preserved in a woman's jewel drawer.
it has not run through any editions—indeed, no compositor's finger has up to this time defiled its pages. this, in fact, was one of those literary works, ground slowly out from the millstones of the brain, of which the style fails to please the taste of the present day. to catch the fancy of a slang-loving and thoughtless generation the writer must throw off his works. this is an age of “throwing off,” and it is to be presumed that future ages will throw the result away. one must be brilliant, shallow, slightly unpleasant and very unwholesome, to acquire nowadays that best of all literary reputations which leaveth a balance at one's bank.
j.e.m. agar—or “jem” as his friends call him to his face and his servants behind his back—jem sahib to wit—was no pepys. his literary style was disjointed, heavy, and occasionally illiterate. this last peculiarity, by the way, is of no consequence nowadays, but it is mentioned here for ulterior motives. in the pages of this little black-bound volume there were no scintillating thoughts scribbled there with suspicious neatness of diction, such as one finds in the diaries of great men who, it would seem, are not above post-mortem vanity. the diary was a chronicle of solid facts—jem being essentially solid and a man of the very plainest facts.
speaking as an impartial critic, one would incline to the opinion that agar devoted too much thought to his work—in strong contrast, perhaps, to the literary tendency of his day. he nibbled the leisure end of his penholder too much, and allowed the business extremity thereof to dry in inky conglomeration. the result was a distinct sense of labour in the style of the work. after having called in vain, perhaps for assistance, the scribe returned to the contemplation of his latest effort. the book was one of letts's diaries, three days in a page, which are in themselves fatal to a finished style of literature. there is always too much to say or too little. one's thoughts never fit the rhomboid apportioned by mr. letts for their accommodation. great men who have thoughts when the diary is handy do not, of course, patronise letts, because he could not be expected to know when there would be a sunset likely to stir up poetic reflections, or a moonrise comparable with the cold light cast by some unsympathetic young woman's eyes upon the poet's life.
for such men, however, as agar, mr. letts is a guardian angel. the space is there, and facts must be forthcoming to fill it. agar was, and is still—thank heaven—a conscientious man. he had promised to keep this diary and keep it he did. and surely he hath his reward—remembering the jewel drawer.
at the moment under consideration he was filling in yesterday's rhomboid, and paused at the conclusion of the following remarks:
“seven a.m. turned out, and shot a ghilzai. saw him sneaking up the valley. long shot—should put it down at a hundred and seventy-five yards. hit him in the stom—abd—chest. looked like rain until two o'clock. then cleared up. walter caught a mongoose and brought him in with much triumph. he got conceited afterwards and slept on my bed till kicked off by ben abdi. i see it's sunday. church four hundred odd miles away.”
this, my masters, is not the stuff to quote in extenso, and yet in its day this diary was cried over—before it was put away in the jewel drawer. truly women are strange—one can never tell how a thing will present itself to them. honest jem agar, nibbling his penholder and jerking these lucid observations out of his military brain by mere force of discipline, never suspected the heart that was in it all—that minute particle of himself that lay in the blot in the corner carefully absorbed by the exhausted blotting-paper.
“sunday, egad!” he muttered, leaning his arms on the cunning table, and gazing out across the pine-clad valley that lay below him in a deep blue haze.
he stared into the haze, and there he saw those whom he called “his people” walking across a neat english park toward a peaceful little english church. to them came presently a young person; a young person clad in pink cotton, who walked with a certain demure sureness of tread, as if she knew her own mind and other things besides. her path came into the park from the left, and among the trees into which it disappeared behind her there stood the red chimneys of a long low house.
suddenly these visions vanished before something more tangible in the haze of the valley. this was the flutter of a dirty white rag which seemed to come and go among the fir trees.
jem agar rose from his temporary seat and walked to the door of the tent—exactly two strides. a rifle lay against the canvas, and this he took up, slowly cocking it without taking his eyes from the belt of fir trees across the valley.
presently he threw the rifle up and fired instantaneously. he had been musketry instructor in his time and held views upon quick firing. the smoke rose lazily in the ambient air, and he saw a figure all fluttering rags and flying turban running down the slope away from him. at the same moment there was a crashing volley, followed by two straggling reports. the figure stopped, seemed to hesitate, and then slowly subsided into the grass.
agar put his head out of the tent and saw half a company of goorkhas, keen little sportsmen all standing in line at the edge of the plateau, reloading.
this was the force at the disposal of major j. e. m. agar, at that time occupying and holding for her majesty the queen of england and empress of india a very advanced position on the northern frontier of india. and in this manner he spent most of his days and some of his nights. in addition to the plain major he had several other titles attached to his name at that time, indicative of duties real and imaginary. he was “deputy assistant” several things and “acting” one or two; for in military titles one begins in inverse ratio in a large way, and ends in something short.
jem agar was thought very highly of by almost all concerned, except himself, and it had not occurred to him to devote much thought to this matter. he was one of the very few men to whom a senior officer or a pretty girl could say, “you are a nice man and a clever fellow,” without doing the least harm. men who thought such things of themselves laughed at him behind his back, and wondered vaguely why he got promotion. it never occurred to them to reflect that “old jem” invariably acquitted himself well in each new position thrust upon him by a persistently kind fortune; they contented themselves with an indefinite conviction that each severally could have done better, as is the way of clever young men. one of the many mysteries, by the way, which will have to be cleared up in a busy hereafter is that appertaining to brilliant boys, clever undergraduates, and gifted young men. what becomes of them? there are hundreds at school at this moment—we have it from their own parents; hundreds more at oxford and cambridge—we have it from themselves. in a few years they will be absorbed in a world of men very much inferior to themselves (by their own showing), and will be no more seen.
jem agar had never been a clever boy. he was not a clever man. but—and mark ye this—he knew it. the result of this knowledge was that he did what he could in the present with the present, and did not indefinitely postpone astonishing the universe, as most of us do, until some future date.
at this time he was banished, as some would take it. banished to the top of a pass which was nought else than a footway between two empires. forty miles from men of his own race, this man was one of those who either have no thoughts or no wish to impart them; for this racial solitude, which is an emotion fully explored by many in india, in no way affected his nerves. some say that they get jumpy, others aver that they begin to lose their national characteristics and develop barbarous proclivities, while one woods-and-forests man known to some of us resigned because he had a buzzing in the head during the long solitary, silent evenings.
major agar made no statements on this point, though he listened with sympathy to the assertions of others. if the sympathy were subtly mingled with non-comprehensive wonder, the seeker after a purer form of commiseration attributed the alloy to natural density, and turned elsewhere.
accompanied by a handful of goorkhas, major j. e. m. agar had occupied the key to this narrow pass for more than a week, vaguely admiring the scenery, illustrating upon living “running deer” in turbans his views upon quick firing to his diminutive soldiers, who worshipped him as second only to the gods, and possessing his soul with that trustful patience which is rapidly becoming old-fashioned and effete.
during that same week the newspapers at home had been very busy with his name. some had gone so far as to lay before a greedy public a short and succinct account of his life, compiled from the army list and a journalistic imagination, finishing the record on the monday, six days previously, with the usual three-line regret that england should in future be compelled to limp along the path to glory without the assistance of so brilliant a young officer.
such a word as brilliant had never been coupled with the name of jem even by his best friend in earnest or his worst enemy in irony. such sarcasm were too shallow to be worth sounding even in disparagement. but we never know what an obituary notice may bring. not only had he been endowed with many virtues, manly qualities, and the record of noble deeds, but more substantial honours had been heaped upon his fallen crest or pinned upon his breathless bosom. to some of his distant countrymen he was the proud possessor of the victoria cross, awarded him post-mortem in the heat of obituary enthusiasm by more than one local paper. to others he was held up by what is called a representative press as a second crichton. and all this because he was dead. such is glory.
all unconscious of these honours, honest jem agar sat in his little tent, nibbling the end of his penholder—the gift, by the way, of his father—and wishing that he had bought a letts's diary with six days in a page instead of three.
