of Anglo-Indian revelry, and who knew the Indian
army thoroughly. Whereas in _Oakfield_ the tone rises often to
righteous indignation, in _The Wetherbys_ it falls to a strain of
caustic humour, and in the modern reader's mouth it might leave an
unpleasant taste; yet the verisimilitude of the narrative would be
questioned by no competent judge. As Oakfield fought at Chillianwalla,
so Wetherby fights in the almost equally desperate battle of
Ferozeshah, where the English narrowly escaped a great disaster; and
here, again, we have a momentary ray of vivid light thrown upon the
battlefield by a writer who had associated with eye-witnesses, though
he was not one of them. It is difficult to give an extract from this
part of the tale, because Lang's power lies not in description, but in
characteristic conversation; so we may be content, for the purpose of
bringing out the contrast between two very diverse styles, with a
specimen of his comic talent, as exhibited in the injunctions laid
upon her husband by the vulgar half-caste wife of a poor henpecked
officer just starting for the campaign:

'Well, then,' she continued, 'keep out of danger. If your troop
wishes to charge into a safe place, let 'em. _You_ don't want
brevet rank, or any of that nonsense, I hope. Make as much bluster
and row as you like, but for Heaven's sake keep out of harm's
way.... You need not write to me every day, but every third or
fourth day, for the postage is serious. If you should happen to
kill any Sikhs, search them, and pull down their back hair; that's
where they carry their money and jewels and valuables. A sergeant
of the 3rd Dragoons, like a good husband, has sent his wife down a
lot of gold mohurs and some precious stones that he found tied up
in the hair of a Sikh officer. And, by the by, you may as well
leave me your watch. You can always learn the time of day from
somebody; and if anything happened to you, it would be sold by the
Committee of Adjustment, and would fetch a mere nothing.'

This is unquestionably a grotesque caricature; yet the ladies of mixed
parentage were quaint and singular persons in the India of sixty years
ago. As Arnold could hardly have failed to read _The Wetherbys_ before
he wrote _Oakfield_, the book may have suggested to him the plan of
going over the same ground upon a higher plane of thought and
treatment. The two books stand as records of a