Beyond the Black Waters

NEWLY ARRIVED.

“You’ll see it, Mr. Lawrence, you’ll see it――everything will be changed in England now that the old king is dead and the sailor William on the throne. The people are mad for changes, and shout for reform, as if it meant bread to their butter, or rather beef-steaks and plum-pudding.”

“But the Duke――” began Mr. Lawrence; but Dr. Pinfold cut him short ere he could finish the sentence.

“The Iron Duke is facing the mob like a man, but he’ll have to give way to popular excitement. Westminster is not Waterloo; let Londoners roar as they will, he can’t say, ‘Up, Guards, and at them.’ The Duke can no more stem the current than he can stop with his field-marshal’s baton one of those new-fangled monster engines which crushed out poor Huskisson’s life.”

The two gentlemen who were discoursing on politics were the chaplain of Moulmein and the doctor of the station. Their path was along a cactus-bordered road, where every here and there the plantain waved its broad green leaves aloft, as if proud of the heavy clusters of fruit forming below. The two men were very different in appearance: the clergyman was small, slight, pale, and fair-haired; the doctor was somewhat portly, with grizzled eyebrows and a copious beard. He was full of the subject of politics, to which Mr. Lawrence gave very divided attention.

“Every ship from England brings stirring tidings,” continued the doctor. “Have you seen the papers to-day?”

“Not yet,” replied the chaplain. “I was rather absorbed in the perusal of home letters. I am by no means indifferent to what is passing in the dear old island at the other end of the world; but the sounds of political changes, roaring mobs, and exciting orations in London, only reach me here at Moulmein as the distant plash of surges breaking on the shore.”

“So it is,” observed the doctor philosophically. “What is near always affects us most, a button close to the eye shuts out the landscape, and excludes even the sun. It is of more importance to me that my bhansamar should cook my pillau to my taste than that the Tories should secure a majority in the House. Perhaps your small parish here in Moulmein (if it can be called a parish at all)――your handful of soldiers, and a few scattered Europeans, take up more of your attention than the affairs of England, with Scotland and Ireland to boot.”

“Perhaps so,” replied the chaplain; “but my interest in what concerns Siam and Burmah is by no means confined to what you call my parish in Moulmein. I have hearty sympathy to give to our American brethren, labouring nobly and successfully amongst the native races.”

“The natives!” repeated Dr. Pinfold in a tone of contempt. “Do you think that all the praying and preaching in the world can wash the niggers white, or get the blackness out of their blood? The Yankees could as easily turn pomegranates into potatoes, or make monkeys into men.”

Mark Lawrence held a different opinion, but he saw that there would be no use at that time in pressing his views on the cheerful, corpulent doctor, from whom his own button of personal comfort shut out the view of anything of a higher nature. Dr. Pinfold’s favourite maxim was Live, and let live: the first, and to him more important, part of the proverb meaning what is called _good-living_――not a mere seat, but a well-cushioned chair; not simple food, but a banquet, washed down with old wine. It must be owned that the second clause of the proverb was by no means forgotten. Dr. Pinfold was popular as a medical man; and not without reason, for he was not only clever in his profession, but he took a pleasure in curing his patients. Pinfold liked to relieve pain, and to see people happy; and he had a feeling of general goodwill towards all his fellow-countrymen which passed for benevolence, though his charity was ever of the kind which begins at home, and is limited to a conveniently small circle beyond it.

“I wish to know something of the family who arrived yesterday from England via Calcutta――the Coldstreams, to whom you are going to introduce me,” said Mark Lawrence, changing the subject of conversation. “I think that we are now approaching their bungalow; a very pleasant dwelling it appears to be.”

“It’s a capital house,” observed the doctor; “there’s not a prettier one in Moulmein. It is fitted up too with perfect taste; for, you see, Oscar Coldstream arranged everything himself, and built and ornamented the house for the girl to whom he was engaged, whom he has just brought out as his wife. Coldstream came out first, two years ago, to get everything ready; a sensible plan, to my mind, for it is folly to bring a pretty girl still in her teens to face all sorts of discomforts in a heathenish country like this.”

“What sort of man is Mr. Coldstream?” inquired Mark Lawrence. “I like to know every member of my flock.”

“Oscar Coldstream is not much like a sheep,” said the doctor gaily; “more like a vigorous, energetic shepherd, who, like the Jewish hero, could catch a lion by the beard or conquer a giant one day, and sing psalms all the next.”

The young chaplain’s rather melancholy face brightened with pleasure. “I may find in him a helper then,” he observed.

“Yes; Coldstream is one of your sort,” said Pinfold, with a slight emphasis on the pronoun which implied “not one of my sort.” “But he’s a good fellow, a right good fellow, notwithstanding a little Puritanical strictness. Coldstream is a capital shot; he is a first-rate companion on a shooting expedition――can tell you a story to set you in roars of laughter, and is more lively on cold water than most men are when sipping good wine. He does a good business down at the wharf, and has no lack of rupees to jingle. I saw a good deal of Coldstream last year,” continued Dr. Pinfold; “for I am an old friend of the Thorns, the family into which he was going to marry. I had played with his lady-love before she was out of baby-clothes. I used to carry her round and round the room perched on my shoulder. I was proud to act gee-gee to the dimpled, laughing, dark-eyed child, whose chubby hand grasped my shaggy poll as her rein. Ha! ha! ha! how missie urged me to speed by vigorous movements of her tiny foot encased in its dainty pink kid shoe! That merry child and I were grand playmates; and even when she was promoted to pinafores, and her clustering curls were imprisoned in braids, Io delighted to challenge me to a game. I see her now――dodging me round chairs, defying me to catch her, hiding, and then betraying her hiding-place by an irrepressible laugh. Coldstream thoroughly enjoyed my long stories about his betrothed. My friendship with the Thorns was the one grand link between us; for if ever a man was over head and ears in love, that man was Oscar Coldstream. Certainly Io is worthy of any man’s love.”

“And now Mr. Coldstream is a happy married man,” observed Lawrence, perhaps with something of envy, for his own hopes had been blighted by one of the letters received from England.

“A married man certainly,” replied Dr. Pinfold, “but whether happy or not I cannot yet tell, as I have only seen the pair once since they landed. I went down to the wharf to welcome them to their new home in Moulmein. You know that the ship arrived only yesterday evening. I had not much more time than to shake hands, say a little appropriate nonsense to the pretty little bride, and help to look after the luggage. I shall know more about the wedded couple when I have seen them in their own house.”

“Mr. Coldstream no doubt looked very happy,” said the chaplain. “He has everything to make life bright.”

“He looked very much changed,” said the doctor, with a grave expression on his usually cheerful face. “Coldstream hardly seemed to be the same man as he who, in the wildest spirits, not a year ago, embarked in the ship bound for old England. Such a buoyant step was his, such a sparkling eye, as if the cup of joy awaiting him intoxicated him by anticipation! Certainly there is a difference now.”

“What kind of difference?” asked Mark Lawrence.

“The difference between a handsome lamp lighted, and the flame turned up high, and the same lamp turned down, almost extinguished. Oscar looked like his own elder brother――a grave, thoughtful man; not in the least like a jolly bridegroom.”

“Perhaps he was ill,” suggested the chaplain.

“He said not, for I asked him the question. Then the bonnie bride told me that Coldstream had been very ill just before his marriage, but that he had long ago recovered his health. I’ve my doubts about that――my doubts about that,” continued the doctor, slightly shaking his head in a professional way. “People don’t lose flesh and colour at Coldstream’s age if there’s nothing the matter. I should like to have asked some questions; found out the state of his――. But here we are at the house, and yonder’s a koi-hai to take in your card. I shall not waste my bit of pasteboard; none is needed when you call on a young lady who knows your name as well as her own. I shall be Io’s ‘_Doctor Pinny_’ to the end of the chapter.”