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CHAPTER I.

EASTWARD HO!

"Groves, here is a letter for you," Dr. Bubear, the head-master of a large school at Dulwich, said, as the boys rose from their places to leave the school-room at the conclusion of their work. The lad addressed, a boy of about fifteen, went up to the desk.

"It is from your father's lawyers, Messrs. Sims & Hammond. I have received one from them myself, I think you will find it satisfactory," and he nodded kindly. "You had better stop in here to read it, for it looks somewhat bulky, and I fancy contains an inclosure."

Percy Groves returned to his seat, and did not open the letter until he was alone in the school-room. It was a long time since he had received one. Fifteen months before he had lost his father. Major Groves had returned on half-pay a year before his death, being obliged to quit the service from the effects of a severe wound which he received at the storming of Ghuznee. His regiment had been absent several years from England, and after he had left the service and taken a house at Dulwich, he had made but few acquaintances, spending most of his time at the military club to which he belonged.

Percy, who was an only child, had been born in India—his mother dying when he was five years old. His father had kept him three years longer with him, and had then sent him home to England to the care of his grandfather, who had, however, died a year later; and from that time Percy had known no home but Dr. Bubear's, until his father returned and took up his residence near the school. A few days before his death Major Groves had a long talk with his son.

"I am troubled about you, Percy," he said. "Besides my half-pay I have but three thousand pounds—a sum sufficient indeed to finish your education, pay your expenses at the University if you decide to go into one of the learned professions, and to help you a bit until you make your way. I have written to three or four of my old friends, who will, when the time comes, do their best to procure you a commission in the army, in case you have a fancy then, as I know you have now, for soldiering. Lastly, there is my brother. We have never kept up much correspondence, but we have always been good friends; he was in the army himself, but sold out after only serving a year, as he saw that there was very little chance of active service in Europe. He knocked about the world for some years and then went out to India, and the next I heard of him was that he had entered the service of Runjeet Singh, the leader of the Sikhs, who had great respect for European troops, and employed a number of foreign officers—Italian, German, and a few English—to train his troops on our method.

"I have not heard of him for some three or four years, but when I did he was still in the Sikh service, and held the rank of colonel, and was, I heard, high in favour with Runjeet Singh, and there I have no doubt he is still, that is if he is alive. No doubt he is married to some dusky princess, and has probably accumulated a fortune. These adventurers, as Europeans in the service of native princes are generally called, either get murdered soon after they get out there, or else accumulate large fortunes. I have no doubt that if he is alive he will take charge of you.

"The life is an adventurous one, and I do not say that I should advise you to adopt it; but in that respect you must decide for yourself, when you reach the age to do so. If your uncle is able to push your fortune out there you might do worse than stay with him; if, on the other hand, when you get to the age of seventeen or eighteen, you do not care to remain in India, you must come home and get the officers to whom I have written to use their influence to obtain a commission for you, which they will, I have no doubt, be able to do, as the son of an officer forced to retire from the service in consequence of wounds is always considered to have a claim.

"In that case the knowledge that you will obtain of Indian methods and languages would be a very great assistance to you. But mind, if you do go out to your uncle it will not be possible for you afterwards to choose one of the learned professions, for however much you may try to educate yourself out there, you will not be up to the mark of lads who have gone through the regular course of schooling here."

"I don't care for that, father; I have always made up my mind to be a soldier, as you were. I should like very much to go out to my uncle if he will have me."

The major was silent for a few minutes.

"I don't know that it is a wise step," he murmured to himself; "but the boy has no friends here—my old comrades will do what they can for him when the time comes, but until then he will have but a lonely life.

"Very well, Percy," he went on, turning to his son, "I will write to your uncle. It may be eighteen months before you get an answer from him—that is all the better. Work hard at school, lad, and learn as much as you can, for you will get but little learning out there. If your uncle does not care to have you, or thinks that things are too disturbed and unsettled out there for him to undertake the responsibility, you must fall back on the other plan and remain at Dr. Bubear's until you are seventeen. I have written letters to the friends who promised to see after your commission; you will find them in my desk. Keep them by you until you are leaving school, and then post them, that is if your wish to go into the army is unchanged. If it should be changed, Messrs. Sims & Hammond, my lawyers, will put you in the way of carrying out your wishes in whatever direction they may lie."

There had been several such talks between father and son, and Percy knew that he should not have his father long with him. He listened, therefore, gravely to his words, but without showing emotion; for although when alone he often gave way to tears, he knew that the major, himself a quiet and self-restrained man, was adverse to any display of feeling. The boy did not think the end was so near, and though prepared in some way for the blow, it was a terrible shock to him when his father, five days later, expired. He had again become a boarder at Dr. Bubear's, remaining there during the holidays as well as in school-time.

Two or three times old friends of his father had come to see him, and had taken him out for the day. This was the only change he had had, but he had worked hard and risen considerably in his place in the school. In accordance with instructions from Messrs. Sims & Hammond he had gone regularly to a riding-school, as the major, knowing the Sikhs to be a nation of horsemen, had thought it desirable that he should learn to have a good seat on a horse. The lawyers had also arranged that he should twice a week have lessons in Hindustani, and he was allowed to work at this instead of Greek. His progress was comparatively rapid, as after a time the language he had heard spoken for the first eight years of his life came back to him rapidly. He had hardly begun to look for a reply from his uncle when Dr. Bubear handed him the letter, which he doubted not contained the answer. He had hardly hoped that it would be favourable, for during the intervening time he had learned something of what was going on in the Punjaub, and knew that since Runjeet Singh's death there had been many troubles there, and that things were in a very unsettled state.

This information he had received from one of the boys whose father was a director of the East India Company. The doctor's words, however, gave him some hope, and when alone he opened the letter with less trepidation than he would otherwise have felt. Messrs. Sims & Hammond wrote as follows:—

"We have pleasure in forwarding to you a communication from Colonel Roland Groves, which was inclosed in one sent to us. In the latter he expressed his readiness to receive you, while pointing out that the position of affairs in the Punjaub was unsettled in the extreme. He doubtless speaks further of this in his letter to you. As our late client, your father, instructed us that we were to be guided entirely by your decision in the matter, we leave it in your hands, observing, however, that in the face of your uncle's statements with regard to the country, it appears to us that to go out to him at present would be an exceedingly ill-advised and rash step. Should you, however, decide upon doing so, we will, upon hearing from you, take the necessary steps for obtaining your outfit and securing your berth. A client of ours in Calcutta will, we doubt not, arrange on your arrival there for forwarding you up the country to your uncle."

Having read this, Percy broke the seal of the inclosure and read as follows:—

"MY DEAR NEPHEW,—I am filled with grief to learn from a letter, forwarded to me after his death, that your father is no more. It is many years since I saw him; but we were always capital friends, though as unlike in disposition as two brothers could be. He tells me that he has no friends in England in whose charge he could place you, and asks if I will have you out with me until you are of an age to enter the army at home, if, indeed, you do not decide to follow my example and take service with one of the native princes.

"As far as taking charge of you goes, I am perfectly ready to do so—indeed more than ready; for it will give me great pleasure to have poor Hugo's son with me and to treat him as my own, for I am childless. But the sort of career I have chosen is pretty nearly closed. The Company have most of India under their thumb, and allow no English except their own officials to take service with the protected princes. At present the Punjaub is independent, but I don't think it can remain so much longer. Since the death of the Old Lion, as Runjeet Singh was called, things have gone from bad to worse. One ruler after another has been set up, and either dethroned or assassinated. The army is practically master of the country; and one of its first steps was to demand the dismissal of all foreign officers, and the greater part of us were accordingly discharged.

"Some of them left the country; others, like myself, are living on the estates granted us by Runjeet Singh, and on the pickings, which were considerable, that had come to us during our term of service, and we are waiting to see what may be the next turn of the wheel. Life here is something like that of a baron of old in England. My house is, in fact, a fortress perched on a rock. I have a garrison of several hundred picked men, and as I am a much easier master than most of these Sikhs, who wring the last farthing from the cultivators, I could raise a thousand more at a couple of days' notice.