The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today
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*BOOK TWO*
*THE BREAK IN THE CLAY*
*I.*
Trevelyan’s face was the first that greeted Stewart at his journey’send.
Trevelyan had been in the wildest spirits for days before Stewart’sarrival, and his fellow officers spoke about the sudden change in him.For the first time in the year that Trevelyan had served with them, hebecame less moody and unsociable and whimsical, and they grew to thinkless critically of one who had never been a favorite. It was probablyonly the Colonel, remembering the stock from whence he sprang, who tookthe trouble to look beneath the inertia.
"The boy will come around all right in time—he’s only a bit homesick andstrange to the new life now. When there’s an opportunity for fightinghe’ll show himself up true," he would say. "Why, his father atInkerman—"
And then the officer or officers of whom he had gotten hold, would beobliged to listen all over again to the story of the charge led byTrevelyan’s father in the Crimea.
But the story had its unconscious influence on their treatment of theyoung Engineer. They never really cared for him but they respectedhim—for what the Colonel believed he would some day be—which was allthat Trevelyan seemed to desire. After their first trial atpleasantries which he had met with ill-concealed indifference, they lefthim to himself. They rarely saw him except at mess, or on duty, and hisungraciousness then did not help to heal the widening breach ofunfavorable opinion.
Toward the end of the year his fellow officers found out that he wascousin to young Stewart—Stewart who had won that honorable mention—andson of Malcolm Stewart of Aberdeen. That helped matters a little. Theycould pardon a chap’s unpardonable moodiness for young Stewart’s sake.
Months later they heard that young Stewart himself had re-applied forIndian service, and that he was coming to them. It was Trevelyan whotold them in confidence, first, and from then Trevelyan was changed.That night he joked them at mess, in a dry Scotch fashion, fostered longago in the Argyll years; later he joined them at cards and proposed thetoast to Stewart with a dash and a charm that made some of them wonderif they had not misjudged a deuced good chap after all.
As a matter of course Trevelyan formed one of the squad of officers andmen who rode over from the Station to meet young Stewart when he came.It was Trevelyan who got them started a needless hour before the time;it was Trevelyan who laughed at the dust and the heat of the long rideand bribed them, with all he possessed from the last cent of his pay, tohis helmet and the braid on his uniform, to races which he always won,swinging himself far out of the saddle and stooping low to pick upwithered bits of native growth from the ground as he swept past at agallop.
Trevelyan’s two mess companions who had been with Stewart in the "row"where he had won his mention, imbibed something of Trevelyan’s spirits,and they laughed at the dust, in their turn, and the heat, as they rodefrom the military station to welcome back their old comrade.
They saw him long before the train had come to a dead stop and theycheered him now, in the desolate little way-station, remembering howthey had cheered him that day, but it was only Trevelyan’s bronzed facethat Stewart saw as he descended.
"Hello, Bobby," he said, slapping him on the back, "You see I’ve come."
Trevelyan looked at him queerly for a moment in silence.
"I knew you would. You’re a—" he broke off and turned away, and theofficers and men wondered what had become of Trevelyan’s spirits duringthe return trip.
Trevelyan sat up late into the night with Stewart, listening while hetold of England and the home people. Once or twice Stewart mentionedCary.
"How is she?" asked the younger man.
He only alluded to her once again.
At midnight he rose to leave.
"Of course there isn’t anything to say to you about—your leaving Englandand—and all that—to come to me out here in this devilish hole—" he begandisjointedly, "but it’s only fair to try to say something. The fellowsand the men can tell you I’ve been a different chap since I heard of thetransfer. When I left England, and for all this year, well—I haven’tmuch cared what happened. Out here—the loneliness without her—"
He turned sharply on his heel and left.
Young Stewart of the Engineers stood still in the middle of hisquarters, listening to Trevelyan’s footsteps growing fainter. Presentlythey were lost in the silence of the Indian night. Now and again camesounds from the jungle, but Stewart stood motionless.
Suddenly he flung his right arm across his forehead.
"The loneliness without her—"
And Cary, sleepless in far-away England, watched the sun rise, wonderingwhat made the nights so long.