The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1896-09-09
The Melancholy HuSSar.
By THOMAS HARDY.


~
All that day the foreigners face |
haunted Phyllis. Its aspect was so
striking, so handsome, and his eyes |
were so blue and sad and distracted. 1t .
was perhaps only natural that on some .
following day at the same hour she .
should look over that wall again and
wait till he had passed a second time.
On this occasion he was reaching n let /.
ter, and at the sight of her his manner
was that Of one who had halt expected
or hoped to discover her. He almost
stopped, smiled and made courteous
salute. The end Of the meeting was
that they exchanged few words. She
asked him what he was reading, and he
readily informed her that he was re-
pcrusing letters from his mother in Ger
many. He did not get them often, he
said. and was forced to read the old
ones great many times. This was all
that passed at the present Mterview, but
others of the same kind followed.
Phyllis used to say that his English,
though not good, was quite Ineligible
to her, so that their acquaintance was
never hindered by difficulties Of speech.
Whenever the subject became too deli
cate, subtle or tender for such words of
English as were at his command, the
eyes no doubt helped out the tongue,
and, though this was later on, the lips
helped out the eyes In short, this ac
quaintance, unguardedly made and rash
enough on their part, developed and ri
pened. Like Desdemona, she pitied him
and learned his history.
His name was Matthaus Tina, and
Saarbruck his native town, where his
mother was still living. His age was %,
ard he had already risen to the grade
Of corporal, though he had rot long been
in the army Phyllis used to assert that
no such refined or well educated young
man could have been found i'll the ranks
of the purely English regiments, some
Of these foreign soldiers having rather
the graceful manner and presence Of our
native officers than Of our rank and file.
She by degrees learned from her for
eign friend circumstance about HIM
self and his comrades which Phyllis
would least have expected of the York
hussars. So far from being as gay as its
uniform, the regiment was pervaded by
a dreadful melancholy, chronic homo
sickness, which depressed many Of the
men to such an extent that they could
hardly attend TO their drill. The worst
sufferers were the younger soldiers who
had not been over here long. They hated
England and English life, they took no
interest whatever i'll King George and
his island kingdom, and they only wish
ed to be out of it and never to see it any
more. Their bodies were here, bit their
hearts and minds were always far away
in their dear fatherland, of which
brave men and stoical as they were in
many wayS-they would speak with
| tears in their eyes. One of the worst of
the sufferers from this home woe, as he
called it in his own tongue, was Mat
thaus Tina, whose dreamy musing ma
ture felt the gloom of exile still more
intensely from the fact that he had left
lonely mother at home with nobody
| to cheer her.
Though Phyllis, touched by all this,
and interested in his history, did not dis
dain her soldiers acquaintance, she de-
clined, according to her own account at
least, to permit the young man to over
step the line of mere friendship for a
long while-as long indeed as she con-
sidered herself likely to become the pos
session of another, though it is probable
that she had lost her heart to Matthaus
before she was herself aware. The stone
wall Of necessity made anything like in
timacy difficult, and he had never ven
tured to come or to ask to come inside
the garden, so that all their conversation
had been covertly conducted across this
! boundary,