"My head is clear enough," the colonel replied, "although I felt stunned, at first. Did you never hear of my having lost my child?"

"No, indeed," Colonel Shepherd replied, more and more surprised--for he had at first supposed that some sudden access of fever, or delirium, had seized his friend. "You will remember that, a week or two after you were married, my regiment was moved up to the north; and we remained three years longer in India. When I got back to England, I heard that you had lost your wife, a short time before, and had returned. I remember our ships crossed on the way.

When we met again, the conversation never turned on the past."

"I will tell you the story," the colonel said, "and you will see that, at any rate, the boy may be my son and, that being so, the double likeness proves to me, incontestably, that he is.

"I had, as you know, been ill before I left India. I had not been home for fifteen years, and got two years' leave. As you may know, I had a good fortune, irrespective of the service; and I took a place called Holmwood Park, near Dawlish and, as I had thought of retiring, at the end of my leave, I was put on the commission of the peace. My boy was born a few months after I got home.

"Soon after I took the place, some gipsy fellows broke into the poultry yard, and stole some valuable chickens--which were great pets of my wife. I chased them and, finally, brought home the guilt of the theft to one of the men, in whose tent a lot of their feathers were found. He had been previously convicted, and was sentenced to a term of penal servitude.

"Before the trial his wife--also a gipsy--called upon me, and begged me not to appear against her husband, This, of course, was out of the question, as he had already been sent to trial. When she found that her entreaties were useless she, in the most vindictive tone, told me that I should repent it; and she certainly spoke as if she meant it.

"I heard nothing more of the matter, until the boy was sixteen months old. Then he disappeared. He was stolen from the garden. A clue was left, evidently that I might know from whom the blow came.

The gipsy had been convicted partly on the evidence of the feathers; but princ.i.p.ally from the fact that the boot, which he had on, had half the iron on the heel broken off, and this tallied exactly with some marks in my fowl house. An hour after the child was gone we found, in the center of the drive, in the park, a boot, conspicuously placed there to catch the eye; and this boot I recognized, by the broken iron, as that which had transported the gipsy.

"That the woman had stolen the child, I had not the least doubt; but neither of her, nor it, could I ever gain the slightest clue. I advertised in every paper in the kingdom, I offered a reward of 1000 pounds, and I believe the police searched every gipsy encampment in England, but without success.

"My wife had never been strong and, from that day, she gradually sank. As long as there was hope she kept up, for a time. I hoped all would go well; but three months afterwards she faded rapidly and, ere six months had pa.s.sed from the loss of the child, I buried her, and came straight out to India. I went home once, for two or three months, upon business connected with my property there, some seven years since. That was when we last met, you know, at the club. With that exception, I have remained here ever since."

"The trouble will be, I fear," Colonel Shepherd said, "for you to identify him. That vindictive gipsy woman, who stole your child, is not likely to have left any marks on its clothing by which it might be identified at any future time, and her revenge on you frustrated."

"Thank G.o.d!" the colonel said, earnestly, "if it be my son, he bears a mark by which I shall know him. That was one of his poor mother's greatest comforts. The child was born with an ugly blood mark on its neck. It used to bother my wife a good deal, and she consulted several surgeons whether it could not be removed; but they all said no, not without completely cutting out the flesh--and this, of course, was not to be thought of. After the child was lost I remember, as well as if it had been spoken today, my wife saying:

"'How strange are G.o.d's ways! I was foolish enough to fret over that mark on the darling's neck; and now, the thought of it is my greatest comfort and, if it shall be G.o.d's will that years shall pa.s.s away, before we find him, there is a sign by which we shall always know him. No other child can be palmed off upon us as our own. When we find Tom we shall know him, however changed he may be.'

"Listen, Shepherd! That is his step on the stairs. May G.o.d grant that he prove to be my son!"

"Be calm, old friend," Colonel Shepherd said. "I will speak to him."

The door opened, and Will entered.

"I am glad you have not gone, colonel--I was afraid you might have left, for I have been longer than I expected. I just heard the news that the 66th are in orders this evening to march, the day after tomorrow, for Kurrachee; to sail for England, where we are to be reorganized, again."

"Gale, I am going to ask you a rather curious thing. Will you do it, without asking why?" Colonel Shepherd said, quietly.

"Certainly, colonel, if it is in my power," Will said, somewhat surprised.

"Will you take off your patrol jacket, open your shirt, and turn it well down at the neck?"

For a moment, Will looked astounded at this request. He saw, by the tone in which it was made, that it was seriously uttered and, without hesitation, he began to unhook his patrol jacket. As he did so, his eye fell upon Colonel Ripon's face; and the intense anxiety, and emotion, that it expressed caused him to pause, for a moment.

Something extraordinary hung on what he had been asked to do. All sorts of strange thoughts flashed through his brain. Hundreds of times in his life he had said to himself that, if ever he discovered his parents, it would be by means of this mark upon his neck, which he was now asked to expose. The many remarks which had been made, of his likeness to Colonel Ripon, flashed across his mind; and it was with an emotion scarcely inferior to that of the old officer that he opened his shirt, and turned down the collar.

The sight was conclusive. Colonel Ripon held out his arms, with a cry of:

"My son, my son!"

Bewildered and delighted, Will felt himself pressed to the heart of the man whom he liked, and esteemed, beyond all others.

With a word of the heartiest congratulation, Colonel Shepherd left the father and son together; to exchange confidences, and tell to each other their respective stories, and to realize the great happiness which had befallen them both. Their delight was without a single cloud--save that which pa.s.sed for a moment through Colonel Ripon's mind, as he thought how his wife would have rejoiced, had she lived to see that day.

His joy was, in some respects, even greater than that of his son.

The latter had always pictured to himself that, if he ever discovered his father, he should find him all that was good; but the colonel had, for many years, not only given up all hope of ever finding his son, but almost every desire to do so. He had thought that, if still alive, he must be a gipsy vagabond--a poacher, a liar, a thief--like those among whom he would have been brought up.

From such a discovery, no happiness could be looked for; only annoyance, humiliation, and trouble. To find his son, then, all that he could wish for--a gentleman, a most promising young officer, the man, indeed, to whom he had been so specially attracted--was a joy altogether unhoped and unlooked for.

Morning had broken before the newly united father and son had done their long and happy talk, and they separated only to take a bath, to prepare them for the day's work.

The astonishment of everyone was unbounded when Colonel Ripon announced, on the following morning, that in Captain Gale of the 66th--who, it was known, had risen from the ranks--he had discovered a son that had been stolen from him, as a child. No one entertained a doubt, for an instant, that any mistake had arisen; for the likeness between the two men, as they strode down the street together, on their way to General Roberts' quarters, was so marked that--now that men knew the relationship--none doubted for a moment that they were, indeed, father and son.

The warmest congratulations poured in upon them, from all sides; and from none more heartily than from the general, who was more than ever pleased that he had been the means of Will's obtaining his commission from the ranks.

The same day Colonel Ripon sent off, by a mounted messenger carrying despatches, a telegram to be sent from the nearest station of the flying line--which the engineers advancing with General Phayre's force had already carried as far as the Kojak Pa.s.s--to the government of India; asking leave to go home, at once, on the most urgent and pressing family business.

Yossouf's grief, when he heard that his master was going to leave for England, was very great. At first, he begged that he might accompany him; but Tom pointed out that--much as he should like to have him with him--his position in England would be an uncomfortable one. He would meet with no one with whom he could converse; and would, after a time, long for his own country again. Yossouf yielded to his reasoning; and the picture which Will drew of his own loneliness when in Cabul, separated from all his own people, aided greatly in enforcing his arguments on his mind. He said however that, at any rate, he would not return to Afghanistan, at present.

"It will be long," he said, "before things settle down there; and it will be useless for me to put my money into a herd which might be driven off by plunderers, the next week.

"Besides, at present the feeling against the English will be strong. So many have lost men of their family, in the fighting. If I returned, I should be a marked man. It is known that I threw in my lot with the English, and it will be cast in my teeth, even if no worse came of it.

"No, I will enlist in the Guides. I shall be at home with them, for most of them belong to the Afghan tribes. I am young yet, not fully a man, and I have my life before me. Some day, perhaps, if things are quiet and prosperous at home, I will go back and end my days there."

So it was arranged. One of the officers of the Guides had accompanied General Roberts, as interpreter; and Will handed over Yossouf to him, telling him how well the lad had served him. The officer promised to enroll him in the corps, as soon as he rejoined it; and also that he would not fail to report his conduct to the colonel, and to obtain his promotion to the rank of a native officer, as soon as possible. From Will Yossouf would accept nothing except his revolver, as a keepsake; but Colonel Ripon insisted upon his taking, from him, a present which would make him a rich man, when he chose to return to his native country.

Chapter 22: At Home At Last.

The next day Colonel Ripon started with the 66th and, at the end of the first day's march, met a messenger who, among other despatches, carried a telegram granting him, at once, the leave he asked for--and which, indeed, had been due, had he asked for it many years before. His intention was to accompany the 66th to Kurrachee, and to sail with it to England. This intention was carried out, and the remnant of the regiment safely reached England.

One of Colonel Ripon's first steps was to accompany Will--or, as he ought now to be called, Tom--to the Horse Guards; and to procure an insertion in the Gazette stating that Captain William Gale, of the 66th, would henceforth be known by his true and proper name of Thomas Ripon.

The colonel purchased a fine estate in Somersetshire and, retiring from the service, settled down there. There was a considerable discussion, between father and son, as to whether the latter should remain in the army. Colonel Ripon was unwilling that his son should relinquish a profession of which he was fond; and in which, from his early promotion, he had every chance of obtaining high rank and honor--but Tom, who saw how great a pleasure his society was to his father, and how lonely the latter's life would be without him, was resolute in his determination to quit the service. He had already, as he said, pa.s.sed through a far greater share of adventure than usually falls to one man's lot; and the colonel's property was so large that there was not the slightest occasion for him to continue in the service.

Not long after his return to England, Will paid a visit to Ely workhouse. He was accompanied by the colonel, and the two men walked together up to the gate of the workhouse. He rang at the bell, and a woman opened the door. She curtsied, at seeing two tall, soldier-like gentlemen before her.

"Your name is Mrs. d.i.c.kson, I think?" the younger said.

The woman gave a violent start, and gazed earnestly at him.

"It is Will Gale!" she exclaimed, drawing back a step. "They said you were dead, years ago."

"No, I am very much alive, Mrs. d.i.c.kson; and glad, most glad, to see an old friend again."

"Good Lord!" the woman exclaimed, "it is the boy himself, sure enough;" and, for a moment, she seemed as if she would have rushed into his arms; and then she drew back, abashed at his appearance.

Tom, however, held out his arms; and the woman fell sobbing into them.