"AR 1.S

THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1883.

By the Gate of the Sea.

CHAPTER I.

IT was in the days of the last dynasty of the dandies, and anybody under the age of thirty who spoke with the accent of Christian, pagan, or man could scarcely be accounted a gentleman.

"She is a faine creachaw," said the Captain; "a dayvilish faine creachaw-an exceptionally faine creachaw."

The Lieutenant echoed the Captain's encomium, and the pair struck into formidable attitudes at the porch of the theatre. Little knots of the country people gathered on the

other side of the road and surveyed the two gentlemen, who were attired in evening dress and knew themselves to be objects of interest and admiration. M. Gibus had just given to the world his famous invention, and the two military gentlemen, who were in the van and foremost of fashion, had adopted it. The Captain was fully self-possessed under the admiring gaze of the yokels, but the Lieutenant so far yielded to a natural weakness as to take off his hat and flatten it against his breast. VOL. XLVII.-No. 279. 13.

It was done with an admirable air of absent-minded habit, and it amazed the bystanders. The Lieutenant felt that he made a telling figure, but when he released the springs and the hat fled back into its former shape he was betrayed into a smile of triumph at the sensation he created, and from that moment he became self-conscious and embarrassed, insomuch that his legs-which were commonly his strong point-became a trouble to him. The passing by of a friend at such a moment seemed almost providential, and the Lieutenant sprang into the gaslit street with renewed composure.

"Hollo, Tregarthen! How d'ye do? Quite an age since we saw you, old fellow. Here's Harcourt. Have you seen Miss Churchill ? She's a faine creachaw, an exceptionally faine creachaw, 'pon my word." The Captain smiled at this echo of his own conversational felicities. The Lieutenant, as he knew, was a fellow of no originality.

"No," said Tregarthen; "I haven't seen her. Who is she?" "Actress," replied the Lieutenant, successfully imitating the Captain's drawl. "Playing here now. Dayvilish faine creachaw, 'pon Harcourt and I have a box here.

m'honour. Come in and look at her. No ladies with us. Doesn't matter that yaw not dressed. Come along, there's a good fellow."

The new-comer allowed himself to be persuaded, and the three entered the theatre together. It was a small house, but too large for its audience, and all its tinsel was shabby as well as tawdry, and most of the gas globes around the dress circle were chipped and broken. An impossible old Adam doddered and dithered off the stage, thumping the boards with a staff like the prop of a clothes-line, and a burly Orlando followed him with his calves in his ankles. Then the scene shifted, and on came a dissipated Touchstone in second-hand garments, and a dowdy Celia, and between them Rosalind in doublet and hose. "Oh, Jupiter!" sighed Rosalind; "how weary are my spirits!" Something knocked at the heart of Cornet Tregarthen. He had never before listened to such a voice, and its tones went through him like a delicate fire. Touchstone jarred in with his answer, and Rosalind spoke again: "I could find it in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel, and to cry like a woman." It was downright pitiful, and yet there was a touch of comedy in it. "But I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat." The comedy shone out there with tender brilliance. 66 Therefore, courage, good Aliena!" To one listener there was such a womanly courage, solicitude, and friendship in the phrase and in the lovely voice that spoke it, that his eyes dimmed and his heart stuck in his throat. Cornet Tregarthen was but two-and-twenty, and youth is sometimes impressionable.

Rosalind, in spite of the fatigue which evidently sat upon her, was as straight and lithe as the stalk of a lily, and she had a voice like a silver bell. The Cornet was short-sighted, and her features were dimly seen, but he fancied them lovely. An older and more experienced man

might have been excused for the fancy, with such a voice and such a figure on which to base it.

His companions expressed their admiration for the actress in their own way, but he scarcely heard them. Even when Rosalind was absent from the stage he had but inattentive ears for the Captain and the Lieutenant, and he answered them when they addressed him with an absent "Yes" or "No," or a dreamy nod.

"Tregarthen," said the Captain," has gone spoons on the Churchill." The Lieutenant nodded and booked the statement for future use. Its chaste simplicity and directness charmed him, and he resolved to repeat it to Rylands at headquarters if he saw him before Harcourt did.

The play was over, the curtain was down, and the sweet voice dwelt in Tregarthen's ears. "Bid me farewell," said the sweet voice, in the last words of the epilogue. It sounded personal to him, and there was a pleasant gentle sadness in it.

"When do you join us at headquarters, Tregarthen?" asked the Captain. "You must find it most intollably dull where yaw staying, eh?"

"I am ordered to rejoin to-morrow," said Tregarthen.

66

"Hazel tells me that Colonel Pollard will be there. I have not seen him yet." No," said the Captain, "Old Polly's been on sick leave at Etretatcursed little village somewhere on the Continent. You'll like him. Jolly old bird is Polly. Tells thunderin' good yarn, Polly does. Mostly 'bout himself, y' know-self an' ladies, y' know-that sort thing, but thunderin' good they are. Sly old dayvl Polly is, uncommon."

"I shall meet him to-morrow," said Tregarthen, somewhat absently.

"He's a bit of a crib-biter, too, Polly is," said the Lieutenant, "bit of a martinet, y' know; but everybody gets on with him in the long run, don't they, Harcourt?"

"He's a cursed good old sort, is Polly," the Captain replied with emphasis. "You'll like him no end, Tregarthen. Night-night, my boy. Glad to have met you."

Tregarthen took train and reached his own quarters, and his thoughts dwelt a good deal about Miss Churchill by the way. To his mind she was the first real artist he had seen upon the stage, and for the time at least her voice had taken him captive. Shakespeare for once had found an actress worthy to interpret him, and surely no other man who had ever lived could have created a part sweet and bright enough for so exquisite a creature to play in. He smoked a cigar in company with his own agreeably fluttered fancies, and then he went to bed and slept soundly and forgot them. He was not nearly so much impressed with Miss Churchill in the morning, and though she touched his thoughts pleasantly once or twice he got through the day's business with no great hindrance from her.

Late afternoon found him at headquarters with little more than time