Tommy Part 6

"Do you go there?" cried Tom in astonishment. For Penrose was looked upon as anything but goody-goody, and he was generally admired. He was the best boxer in the company, was smart in drill, could do long marches with the best of them, and was always ready to do a kindly action. Besides all that, his evident education and social superiority made him a marked man. It was rumoured, too, that he had refused a commission.

"Of course I go," replied Penrose.

"What, and listen to their pie-jaw?"

"There is precious little pie-jaw, as you call it," was Penrose's response. "We have jolly good entertainments almost every night, and some of the fellows who come to talk to us are not half bad, I can tell you! Besides, I go there to rub up my conversational French."

"Conversational French!" said Tom, only dimly understanding what he meant. "Dost 'a mean to say that they learn you French there?"

"There's a Frenchman who gives his services free," replied Penrose.

"It's jolly good of him too, for the poor wretch has hardly a sixpence to his name; still he does it. In his way he's quite a French scholar, and he has helped me no end."

"Ay, but you learnt French at school," said Tom; "he would have nowt to do wi' a chap like me."

"Don't be an a.s.s. Why, dozens of fellows go to him every night. A few weeks ago they didn't know a word of French, and now they are picking it up like mad. Besides all that, the Y.M.C.A. rooms are open every night, they have all sorts of games there, lots of newspapers, and they give you every facility for writing letters and that sort of thing."

"By gum!" said Tom, "I didn't know that."

"That's because you have been making an a.s.s of yourself. While the other fellows have been improving themselves you have been loafing around public-houses. Good night," and Penrose left him alone.

Tom felt rather miserable; he was somewhat angered too. He didn't like the way Penrose had spoken to him. In the old days he had been proud of his respectability, and before he had made Polly Powell's acquaintance, and when Alice Lister had shown a preference for him, Tom was very ambitious. Now he knew he had not only sunk in the social scale, but he had less self-respect than formerly. "After all," he argued to himself presently, "I didn't join the Army to go to Sunday School, I joined to lick the blooming Germans."

Still he could not help recalling the feelings which possessed him on the night he came out of the great hall at the Mechanics' Inst.i.tute.

He had felt stirred then; felt indeed as though he had heard the call of some higher power. Hitherto he had looked upon wearing the King's uniform as something ign.o.ble; then it had appeared to him almost as a religious act. The speaker had called upon him to fight against brutality, butchery, devilry, and his heart had burned at the thought of it. Something which he felt was holy made him leap to his feet and give his name, yet now he found his chief delights in coa.r.s.e a.s.sociations and debasing habits.

He was still fond of Polly Powell. The girl's coa.r.s.e beauty made a strong appeal to him, but he remembered Alice Lister; remembered the things which she had said to him, and he could not help sighing.

"Eh, Tom, is that you?"

Tom turned and saw a tall raw-boned fellow in kilts.

"Ay, Alec; wher't' baan?"

"There's a wee la.s.sie I promised to meet to-nicht," replied the other.

Alec McPhail belonged to the Black Watch, a battalion of which was stationed in the town, and Tom and Alec had become friends.

"What's thy la.s.s's name?" asked Tom.

"I dinna ken reightly, except that they ca' her Alice. Come wi' me, Tom; mebbe she has a friend."

"Nay," replied Tom, "I doan't feel like skylarking with the la.s.ses to-night."

"Weel, I'm not ower particular mysel', but I have not much siller.

Three bawbees will have to last me till Sat.u.r.day, otherwise I'd be asking ye to come and have a drop of whisky wi' me."

"I am stony-broke too," said Tom. "I expect I have been a fool."

"Nay, man, nae man's a fool who spends his siller on good whisky."

By this time they were walking together towards the outskirts of the town.

"What is this la.s.s o' yourn?" asked Tom after a silence.

"I think she's a wee bit servant la.s.sie," replied the Scotchman; "she's a bonny wee thing too, and fairly enamoured wi' a kilt."

Tom still walked on aimlessly; the thought of going to meet a girl who might never come did not have much attraction for him; still he didn't know where to go.

"I don't think I'll come any further," he said presently.

"Nay, what makes ye alter your mind, Tom?"

"I think I'll go back to the Black Cow," replied Tom, "'appen there's some chaps there who'll stand a treat. After all, Penrose wur right when he called me an a.s.s."

"Penrose is what you call a gentleman ranker, I'm thinking."

"Summat o' that sort," replied Tom,

"What did he call you an a.s.s for?"

"Well, you see I've been a bit of a fool; I've spent all my bra.s.s, and I've took up wi' a lot o' lads as is no use to me. Penrose is gone to the Y.M.C.A. You wouldn't think it perhaps, McPhail, but I wur a bit in the religious line myself once. I wur educating myself too, and I had as nice a la.s.s as there was i' Brunford, but I took up wi' the daughter of a man as kept a public-house, and--well, there you are."

"And you have chucked releegion?" asked McPhail.

"Ay, there's nowt in it, and it keeps a chap from having a good time--but I doan't know," and Tom sighed.

"I am a wee bit of a philosopher mysel'," replied McPhail, "and I have reasoned it all out very carefully. My mither, now, is what you might call a G.o.dly woman; my father was an elder in the old U. P. Kirk, and I was brought up in a G.o.dly fas.h.i.+on. But, as I said, I reasoned it out.

I read Colonel Ingersoll's Lectures, and he proved to me that Moses made a lot of mistakes. So, weel, presently I got fond of whisky, and I came to the conclusion that releegion was not logical."

"I reckon as you're none too logical," replied Tom.

"Ay, man, but I was well groonded in the fundamentals! I could say the Shorter Catechism when I was a wee kiddie of seven years old! How am I no logical?"

"After all," replied Tom, "it's noan logical to give up religion because of Colonel Ingersoll's Lectures. The religion my Alice had went deeper nor that. Ay, but there, I am a fool to be talking about it. Good night, McPhail, I will go back now." And Tom went back towards the town alone.

The following Sat.u.r.day night Tom was again drunk and disorderly. This time he did not escape punishment. Tom never felt so degraded in his life as when he was undergoing that punishment. He had joined the Army under the influence of a n.o.ble impulse. He had felt that he was doing a n.o.ble thing. Not that he was proud of it, because in reality he could do nothing else; when he came to think of it afterwards he knew that he was doing nothing but his duty. All the same he was elated by his action. It had made him hold his head higher, and made his heart beat fast; now, after a little more than three months' training, he had actually been called before his officers for being a disgrace to his company. The colonel, who was a stern soldier, was also a kindly gentleman. He recognised at a glance that Tom was not a gutter lad; saw, too, that he had the making of a man in him. That was the reason perhaps why he used stronger language than usual, and for meting out a heavier punishment.

"What excuse have you for yourself?" asked the colonel. "You have evidently had some education and were meant for better things. Why did you make a beast of yourself?" His words cut Tom like a knife. "Make a beast of myself," he thought, "has Tom Pollard come to that?"

"Where is there to go, sir, when one's day's work is over?" he asked almost sulkily.

"Go?" replied the colonel, a little nonplussed, "go?" And then remembering a visitor who came to him the previous day, he said: "There's the Y.M.C.A. hall; they teach you something useful there."

After his punishment was over Tom could not help seeing that the better cla.s.s of fellows somewhat shunned him. He could not say he was boycotted, but they showed no inclination to be in his company. This touched his pride. "I am as good as they are," he said to himself, "and a bit better nor some on 'em." He was delighted, however, to notice that Penrose acted differently from the rest, although he was by no means flattering.

"I told you you were an a.s.s," he said. "If you go on in this way, you'll end by being kicked out of the Army."

Again Tom was wounded deeply. "Kicked out of the Army!" He had never dreamed of that. What! he, Tom Pollard, who had won prizes at the Mechanics' Inst.i.tute, and who had ambition of one day becoming a manufacturer on his own account, kicked out of the Army!