The Lost Heir

A number of soldiers were standing in the road near the bungalow of Brigadier-General Mathieson, the officer in command of the force in the cantonments of Benares and the surrounding district."They are coming now, I think," one sergeant said to another. "It is a bad business. They say the General is terribly hurt, and it was thought better to bring him and the other fellow who was mixed up in it down in doolies. I heard Captain Harvey say in the orderly-room that they have arranged relays of bearers every five miles all the way down. He is a good fellow is the General, and we should all miss him. He is not one of the sort who has everything comfortable himself and don't care a rap how the soldiers get on: he sees to the comfort of everyone and spends his money freely, too. He don't seem to care what he lays out in making the quarters of the married men comfortable, and in getting any amount of ice for the hospital, and extra punkawallahs in the barrack rooms during the hot season. He goes out and sees to everything himself. Why, on the march I have known him, when all the doolies were full, give up his own horse to a man who had fallen out. He has had bad luck too; lost his wife years ago by cholera, and he has got no one to care for but his girl. She was only a few months old when her mother died. Of course she was sent off to England, and has been there ever since. He must be a rich man, besides his pay and allowances; but it aint every rich man who spends his money as he does. There won't be a dry eye in the cantonment if he goes under."