CHAPTER V.

“I’ve been sort of praying for you, Jack.”Page43.CHAPTER V.“NOW THIS GOOD BLADE SHALL BE MY BRIDE.”“The bosom in anguish will often be wrungThat trusts to the words of a fair lady’s tongue;But true are the tones of my own gallant steel—They never betray, and they never conceal.I’ll trust thee, my loved sword, wherever we be,For the clang of my sabre is music to me.”Quarter-master Anderson.Itwas not until Sir Digby Auld had quite gone that Gerty came to her senses, and realized the position she had placed herself in. The comical side of the situation struck her at the same time, and for a few moments right merrily did she join the laugh with her old friend, Mr. Richards. But she grew suddenly serious next minute.“What have I done?” she cried; “and howcanI tell father?”“You droll, provoking little puss!” said Richards. “Come and sit on my knee here, as you always have done since you were a weary wee hop-of-my-thumb.”“And will you tell me a story?” Gerty was smiling once more. “Then it will just seem like old, old times, you know.”“Yes, of course. Once upon a time, then—oh, ever so long ago, because no such things as I am going to tell you about could happen in our day—once upon a time there lived, in a lonely house by the side of a deep, dark forest, a lonely man, to whom the fairies had once given a magic feather, plucked from the wing of a fairy goose; and whenever he touched paper with this quill, lo, the paper was turned into gold! So he amassed great wealth; but no one loved him when he went abroad, because, though he had gold, he had no titles and he was sharp of speech. Only he had one beautiful daughter, more fair than a houri of paradise; and she loved her father very much—more even than she loved the roses in June, or the wild birds that sang in the forest, or the stars that shone so brightly on still, clear nights in winter.“And this daughter was beloved by a youth who was surpassingly fair and brave and comely; but, ah me! he was poor, and so the father despised him.“But one day there came from out of the dark depths of the forest a prince in a splendid chariot, with six milk-white steeds, and the sound of many trumpets blowing. This prince was stiff and somewhat old, yet he said to the father: ‘Give unto me your daughter, that I may wed her, and she shall be my queen; then shall you be loved and honoured too, for you shall have titles as well as wealth.’“But the daughter loathed the elderly suitor. Nevertheless, that she might see her father happy and titled, she gave the prince her hand, and her father dowered her munificently, and—”“Go on, Mr. Richards.”“Well, of course they lived happy ever afterwards.”“No, no, no, Mr. Richards; that isn’t quite the end.”“Well, if I must tell you, I must. For a time, then, there was no one more loved and honoured than Sylvina (for that was her pretty name), and her father, too, was invited to the court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina’s beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvinanever had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her true lover, whom she had forsaken in his poverty and sorrow, and whose white, distracted face often even yet haunted her dreams at night, just as she had seen it for a moment that day as she walked to the altar with the prince.“But to the prince the young sparks were beyond measure attentive. They seemed delighted of an evening to see him snug in his high-backed chair by the fire; and one would run and bring his slippers and warm them, another pulled off his shoes, while a third brought his wine, and a fourth his hubble-bubble. Then they sang lullabies to him and patted his shoulder till he fell asleep; then—“But the prince awoke at last in every sense of the word. ‘No longer,’ he cried, ‘will I keep an open house that young sparks may pay attentions to my wife. I will issue no more invitations, give no more parties; Sylvina’s father must return to his lonely house by the forest. I and my bride will live but for each other.’“He spoke thus because the green demon Jealousy had aroused him.“So the prince dismissed nearly all his servants; and in his house by the forest Sylvina’s father wasmore lonesome now than ever. Sylvina had been a dutiful daughter, and she tried hard to be a dutiful wife; but nothing that she did was properly construed by her old husband. If she laughed and was gay, he called her giddy; if she seemed sad, he told her she was pining for her ‘pauper lover;’ if she showed him marked affection, he thought she was but cajoling to deceive him. Ah dear, ah dear, how miserable she was! for her ways were not his ways, because his age was not hers.”Richards paused again.“And the poor lover whom Sylvina deserted?” said Gerty. “Tell me about him. Did he pine and die?”“Oh no. But here comes Flora. I’ll finish the story another day, Gerty.”“Why, thisisa pleasure!” cried Flora. “Who could have thought of finding you here? I say, Gerty, let us keep Mr. Richards to ourselves alone for the rest of the evening. My work is all complete, and father is busy in his room. Supper in the boudoir here!—Not a word, Mr. Richards; you have no say in the matter at all.” Then Flora rang the bell.And a long delightful three hours the girls and their friend spent too. It is almost needless to saythat the chief subject of conversation was Jack, or that Sir Digby Auld was not spoken of or thought of even once.“Heigh-ho!” said Richards, as he stood in his room that night, “heigh-ho! and I have come down to break bad tidings to Flora and her father. How ever can I do it! A lawyer ought to have no heart, but I have one. Worse luck! worse luck!”The party next day at the Hall was a very gay affair, and never did General Grant Mackenzie seem in better spirits, nor Gerty and Flora look more bewitching or feel more happy. Mr. Keane, too, unbent himself, and was far less crisp and frigid than any one had ever seen him. Keane did not perhaps look a bit more happy than he felt, though he would not have told his thoughts to any one, as he wandered to and fro in the grand old beautifully-lighted rooms or out into the spacious gardens and flower-laden conservatories. Everything had of late years conspired to play into his hands. He had amassed money; he had spent but little. Gerty was good,sogood, for she had promised to marry Sir Digby—promised her father, that is; the other promise would come. Then this splendid hall washis—Keane’s—unless in a short time the easy-minded, happy-go-lucky general managedto clear his feet. “Clear his feet, indeed!” thought Keane; “how could he? No; the place would be his. Then he could hold up his head in the county. And as for Sir Digby, why, he could be easily managed after marriage. He was a trifle wild, he had been told, but he believed he was wealthy, and he would—some day—be a lord.”Every one loved the general and his beautiful but unassuming daughter. There was no word of her being engaged to any one as yet, though such an engagement might take place at any time. She was indeed a queenly girl. Now suitors are usually a little afraid of queenly girls—not that there are very many about, but though they may dispense their favours in kind words and smiles, they do not flirt, and though warm-hearted deep down in their soul-depths, there is no surface love to squander or to be ruffled with every breath that blows. Such girls as Flora Grant Mackenzie love but once, and that love is real and true. Flora’s prince would doubtless come.Shewas in no hurry.But the girl was very happy on this her brother’s birthday, and after all the guests had gone she spent the usual quiet half-hour with her father in his room in loving chat and converse, just as she had doneevery night since, long, long ago, her mother had died.“Good-night, dear,” he said as he kissed her. “Affairs are not quite so flourishing with me as I would like; but we’ll trust in Providence, won’t we? Things are sure to take a turn.”“Yes, dear father. Good-night: God bless you!”Many of the wounded, both among our own people and the French prisoners on board theOcean Pride, died and were buried as the ship sailed on; but the strength of Jack’s Highland constitution asserted itself, and he was at last pronounced by MʻHearty to be out of danger, very much to Tom Fairlie’s delight.His wounds had been very grievous—a sabre-cut on the skull and a spent bullet that had injured his left arm.When the ship reached Portsmouth and the country rang with the news of Sir Sidney’s bright little action, when the papers gave a list of the dead and wounded and extolled Jack’s bravery, and when private information from headquarters informed the general that his son would be gazetted post-captain, then the old Highlander’s cup of bliss seemed full.“Look at that,” he cried, with the joy-tears in his eyes; “read that letter, Flora dear. My boy, my brave boy! I shall go right away to Portsmouth and meet him, and you shall come and nurse him. My brave, good lad! What care we for money, Flo? The Mackenzies have their swords!”On the arrival of theOcean Pridein port, Jack had been sent to shore quarters for a time, and Tom determined to share his rooms.Jack was very cheerful, for he had almost forgotten his dream.Now Mr. Keane had determined to play his cards as well as he knew how to. The baronet had become indisposed, but the astute lawyer had invited him down to his little place in the country, and he had taken Gerty home too.At the time of thePride’sarrival in Portsmouth there was no engagement between Gerty and Sir Digby. All that she had really promised her father since Richards had told her that fairy story was that she would try to learn to love Sir Digby all she could, and when a little older would marry him; so Keane was content.This, however, did not prevent him sending a confidential clerk down to interview Jack. And thefollowing is the bomb-shell Saunders the clerk, obeying orders, fired:—“Mr. Keane just sent me down to ask about you and convey all sorts of kind messages. Especially did he bid me assure you that he had not spoken to your father about the little account, and that he is in no hurry for the money. Indeed, the approaching marriage of his daughter is at present absorbing all his attention.“Why, what is the matter, Captain Mackenzie?” continued the clerk, noticing the staggering effect his words had on poor Jack.“Nothing, nothing much. A little faint, that is all. Leave me now, Mr. Saunders. Tell Mr. Fairlie I would speak with him.”Tom ran in. He found Jack lying helpless on the sofa, white and trembling. But he soon recovered sufficiently to speak.“My dream, my dream, Tom; it has all come true.”Tom Fairlie sat long beside his friend, giving him all the comfort he could think of, and that really was not a great deal. Things might not be quite as the clerk had represented them. Gertycouldnot be so cruel. From all he—Jack—had told him, he seemed to know her thoroughly. Jack must see her and learnhis fate from her own lips. This and much more said Tom Fairlie.“This good blade shall be my bride.”Page58.But for a time never a word said Jack.He rose from the couch at last, and going quietly to the corner, took up his sword and drew it.“Tom,” he said boldly, “pardon me if I seem to act stagy, I amnotacting. We Mackenzies are a wild and headstrong lot, and too proud, I own, by far. We cannot help our nature. But here in your presence I vow that now this good blade shall be my bride; that I’ll be true to her, and she as true as steel to me.”“Bravo, Jack!” cried MʻHearty, bursting into the room; “I’ve heard it all. And now, my lad, I bring you good tidings. I’ve run all the way from the port-admiral’s office to be the very first to shake hands with Post-Captain Jack Mackenzie.”CHAPTER VI.A BOLT FROM THE BLUE.“O Life! how pleasant in thy morning,Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning.”Burns.GENERAL GRANT MACKENZIE was a somewhat impulsive man. It is the nature of the Celt to be impulsive. His nervous system is far more finely strung than that of the plethoric or adipose Saxon, and it vibrates to the slightest breath of emotion. Mind, I talk of the ideal Celt—be he Irish or Scotch—and General Grant Mackenzie was an ideal Celt. And sitting here with my good guitar on my knee, I cannot help comparing a nature like his to just such a beautiful stringed instrument as this. What a world of fine feeling lies herein; what a wealth of poetry, what sadness, what tenderness—ay, and what passionas well! Behold, on this music-stand lies a big old book—a book with a story to it, for it belonged to my unfortunate ancestor Symon Fraser of Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill. It is Highland music all, and sweet to me are its mournful laments as breathed by my sad guitar; but—I turn a leaf—and here is a battle-piece. Ha! the instrument hath lost its sadness, or only here and there come wailing notes like moans of the wounded amidst the hurry, the scurry, the dashing, and the clashing of this terrible tulzie. Can’t you see the claymores glitter? Can’t you see the tartans wave, and nodding plumes among the rolling smoke? Oh, I can. Seems as if the guitar would burst its very strings; but, the battle is over—cry of vanquished, shout of victor, all are hushed. And now comes the ghostly music of the coronach: they are burying the dead. And the instrument appears to sob, to weep, till the sweet low song of grief in cadence dies.A nature like that of Grant Mackenzie, then, or of his son—for both seemed cast in the same mould—needs a well-trained, well-balanced mind to guide and restrain it; for there are few occasions indeed in this world when one dares lay bare his soul and feelings even to his best friends.The day after MʻHearty’s visit to Jack, the young post-captain, with his friend Tom Fairlie, was just finishing breakfast, when in dashed the general. Next minute his son was pressed against his breast just as if he had been a child.Jack had spilt his tea and knocked over a chair in his hurry to get to his father; but what did that matter? So there they stood looking at each other for a moment, the tears in both their eyes.Maybe the old general was a trifle ashamed of such weakness, for next moment he burst into a merry laugh.“Why, Jack, my brave boy,” he cried, “there are only two arms between the pair of us. But yours will get well; mine, alas, is in the grave!”Flora came up now, and Jack seemed delighted to see her.“And here,” he said, “here, Flora, is the best friend I have in the world—Tom Fairlie.—Nay, never blush, Tom, my brother.—He it was, Flora, who helped to take me below after I got hit; and when even the surgeon—grand old fellow MʻHearty! father, you shall know him—gave me up, Tom stuck to me, and he has been nursing me ever since as if I were a child. Ah, Flora, there is no friendship onearth so true, and no love either, as that man bears for man.”Jack looked at his sister as he spoke, and that glance told her he knew all.“Father, I had almost forgotten to tell you of my espousal.”“Espousal, Jack! You astonish me; it can’t be true!”“Oh, but it is.”He picked his sword off the couch as he spoke and held it out to his father.“Let me present my bride,” he said, laughing.The general himself could laugh now.“So pleased, so pleased! But, ’pon honour, you young rascal, you pretty nearly took your old father’s breath away. Married! bless my soul, talk about that thirty years hence; and blame me, Jack, but that itself might be too soon.“So you knocked the French about a bit? Well done, Jack; and well done, Lieutenant Fairlie.”“Oh,” said the young sailor, laughing, “they always call me Tom.”“Well, Tom,” said the general, holding out his hand, “you and my brave lad fought nobly; but bless my heart, he wouldn’t be a true Mackenzie if he couldn’tfight. So you gave it to the Froggies hot, eh? I knew you would. Second only to the British army is the British navy, lads.”“And second only to the British navy, father, is the British army.”“Bravo!esprit de corps. Well, I like it. But I’ve news for you, Jack. Why, your old father, you young dog you, is going to take command again. Ha, ha! sword arm all right, and head-piece in glorious form.”“O father, I’m so delighted!”“Yes, boy, and there is one thing I look forward to—ay, and pray for—and that is for you and me, Jack, to be in the same field of battle, and drubbing the French as only British sailors and soldiers can.”“Father, you’ve made me happy.—Why, Tom, this all but reconciles me to the loss of the love—”Jack stopped, looking a little confused.“Love—love? Why, Jack, my lad, what is this? Love of whom, boy?”“Oh, only a pet spaniel, father. No, not dead. Lost though; enticed away—with a bone, I suppose.”“Just the way with spaniels, Jack. Glad it’s no worse. But ’pon honour, Jack, though you’re not old enough to know it, womankind are precious little better. Iknow’em well, Jack; I know ’em. A bonewill entice them too, particularly a bone with a bit of meat on it.”Jack Mackenzie was not a young man who cared for much nursing. Had Gerty been his nurse it would doubtless have been all so different. However, it was very pleasant for Jack to while away the next month or two down at Grantley Hall, and to be treated like an interesting invalid and made a hero of by old maids and young ones too. The curate of the parish had not a chance now.Then the country was so lovely all around the Hall. Though lacking the grandeur and romance of our Scottish Highlands, the land of the broads, with its wealth of wild flowers, its dreamy, quiet lakes, its waving reeds, its moors, and its birds, throws a glamour over one in spring-time that no true lover of nature can resist.Jack’s arm was well in a month, and he was waiting for service. He did not mind waiting even a little longer, and most assuredly Tom Fairlie did not, nor MʻHearty either, who was also a guest at the Hall. Richards also had come down to spend a week or two. He and MʻHearty became inseparables.A great old tub of a boat belonged to Mackenzie,and this lay on an adjoining broad or lake. Tom and Jack fitted it out as a kind of gondola, and many a pleasant hour did the young folks spend together on the water, sometimes not returning till stars were reflected from the dark bosom of the lake or the moonbeams seemed to change it into molten gold.A pleasant time indeed—a time that flew all too quickly for poor Tom Fairlie.One evening, when hanging up his hat in the hall, Jack’s father took him by the hand and led him silently into the library.“Father, father,” cried Jack, “what has happened?”“A bolt from the blue, my boy; a bolt from the blue.”CHAPTER VII.“WENT GLIDING AWAY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL GHOST.”“They bid me forget her—oh, how can it be?In kindness or scorn she’s ever wi’ me;I feel her fell frown in the lift’s frosty blue,An’ I weel ken her smile in the lily’s saft hue.I try to forget her, but canna forget,I’ve liket her lang, an’ I aye like her yet.”Thom,the Inverury Poet.RICHARDS, the kindly old solicitor, with Jack and his sister Flora and the general—these formed the group in the solemn, dark-panelled library of Grantley Hall on that beautiful summer’s evening. The light of the westering sun stole in through the high stained windows, and cast patches of light and colour on the furniture and on the floor. Mackenzie had already told his son all the story of his troubles, and while he had yet been talking, the curtains in thedoorway were drawn back, and Flora appeared, leaning on the arm of her good friend Richards.The general had lifted up a deprecating hand.“No need, no need.” This from the family lawyer. “Flora already knows all. And bravely has she borne the tidings. Ah, my good sir, Flora is a true Mackenzie.”“But you might have told me long ago,” was all she had said as she seated herself on a low stool by her father’s knee. “O father, I could have borne it, and could have comforted you, now that poor mother has gone!”There was silence for a time, broken by Flora’s low sobbing; broken, too, by the sweet, mellow fluting of a blackbird in the garden shrubbery.General Mackenzie was the first to speak.“Children,” he said, “I have been for many a day like one living in a dream, call it if you will a fool’s paradise. But I have awakened at last to the stern realities of life. It is better, perhaps, as it is, for we now know the very worst. You will believe me when I say that if I have hidden the truth from you, it was because I feared to vex you, or render you unhappy, while yet there was hope. But now,” he added, “all is over, all is lost, or seems to be.”“Nay, nay, my good old friend,” cried Richards; “you must not really take so gloomy a view as that of the matter.”“This grand old house,” continued the general as if he had heard him not, “this estate, with all its beauty of domains, that was presented to my ancestors by Charles the First himself, with its lands and its lakes, its gardens and its trees, and which was prized by my father almost as much as our ancient home in the Highlands of Scotland, has been wasted, has been frittered away, through my intrinsic folly.”“Sir, sir,” said Richards, “you are too hard on yourself now.”“Nay, my good friend, nay; that I cannot be. You have ever been faithful to our family; but I repeat it before you, and before my only son and daughter here: the estates are lost through my own folly, and through the imbecility, the madness, Richards, of my pride. Now in a month’s time, if I do not pay off the mortgage, Keane, your partner, will foreclose.”It was at this moment that Jack sprang up from his seat as though a serpent had stung him. He took a few rapid strides up and down the floor, then, hiscalmness in some degree restored, he confronted the general.“Did you say Keane would foreclose, father—Keane?”“I said Keane, boy—Griffin, Keane, and Co. The old man Keane is my only creditor. But why should the knowledge of this affect you so?”“Because, father—and oh, forgive me, for I ought to have told you before—because the heartless old man has been playing for your estates; he has won, and he has in a manner ruined you. But his daughter Gerty has been playing a crueller game than even his: she has won my heart, and having won it, having torn it from me, she has trampled it bleeding under foot. I can never love again.”“My boy, my poor boy, is this indeed so? How great is your sorrow and suffering compared with mine! Bah! let the estate go. I could feel happy now without it could I but believe that you would forget the heartless minx who has dared to gain your love then spurn it. Youwillforget her?”“Never, father, never; that is impossible. Sword in hand on the battle-deck I shall seek surcease of sorrow, but forget little Gerty Keane, never, never, never!”The young man covered his face with his hands, and his form heaved with suppressed emotion, and even the kindly-hearted Richards could but look on in silence. Not a word of consolation could he adduce that had the power to assuage grief so deep as this.No one spoke for many minutes—sorrow is oftentimes too deep for words—but higher and higher in the calm, still gloaming rose the blackbird’s notes of love, sounding half hysterical in the very fulness of their happiness and joy.General Mackenzie rose slowly from his chair, and approaching his son placed a kindly hand on his shoulder.“Dear Jack,” he said slowly, “we each have something left us, a name that has never yet been tarnished; our clansmen have ever been found in the battle’s van, or‘In death laid low,Their backs to the field, their feet to the foe.’We have that name, Jack boy; we have that fame. We have our unsullied swords. Jack lad, weshallforget.”“Father, we shall try.”And hand met hand as eye met eye. The two hadsigned a compact, and well they knew what that compact was.Jack Mackenzie sat alone in his bedroom that night long after his father and every guest had retired. The casement window was wide open, so that the sweet breath of the June roses could steal in, and with it the weird tremolo of a nightingale singing its love-lay in an adjoining copse. The moonlight was everywhere, bathing the flower-beds, spiritualizing the trees, lying on the grass like snow, and casting deep shadows from the quaint figures of many a statue, and a deeper shadow still from the mossy dial-stone.So intent was Jack in his admiration of the solemn beauty of the scene, that he saw not his chamber door slowly opening, nor noted the figure robed from head to feet in white that entered and glided towards him.Was it a spirit?If so, it was a very beautiful one. The face was very white in the moonbeams, the eyes very sad and dark, and darker still the wealth of waving hair that floated over the shoulders.“Jack!”Jack started now, and looked quickly round. Thena happy smile spread over his face as he arose and led his sister to a seat by his side.“So like old, old times, Flora,” he said.“So like old, old times, Jack,” said she.He wrapped her knees in a great old Grant-tartan plaid.“I knew you were still up, and that you were not happy, so I came to you. But, Jack—”“Yes, dear.”“Smoke.”“May I?”“You must.”“Still more like olden times, Flora.”Jack lit up his pipe, and then he took his sister’s hand.“I’m glad,” he said, “that I never had a brother.”“And I,” she said, “am happy I never had a sister.”“We are all in all to each other, are we not, Flo?”“All in all, Jack; especiallynow.”“Ah yes; now that I have lost Gerty. Ah, siss! you nor any one else in the wide world can ever tell how dearly I loved, and still love, that faithless girl.”“And she, Jack, will break her heart that she cannot marry you. That is what I came to tell you, Hush, Jack, hush! I know all you would say; butyou do not understand women, and least of all do you understand Gerty.Ido, Jack; yes, I do.”“Sissy,” said the young man earnestly, “the cruellest thing mortals can be guilty of is to arouse the dying to feeling again, when the bitterness of death is almost past.Youwould not be so unkind. You did not come here to raise hopes in my heart that would be as certainly doomed to disappointment as that blooming flowers shall fade.”“No, Jack, no. I only came because I wanted to pour balm, not hope, into your bleeding heart. I came to tell you all Gerty Keane’s story, that you may not think the very, very worst of her. Listen, Jack.”The young man sat in silence for quite a long time after his sister had finished the story of Gerty Keane, and of her fondness for her lonesome, friendless, and unlovable father; sat gazing out upon the moonlit landscape, but seeing nothing; sat while the nightingale’s lilt, plaintive and low or mournfully sweet, bubbled tremulously from the grove, but hearing nothing. And in the shadow of the old-fashioned arm-chair snuggled Flora, her eyes resting lovingly, wistfully on her brother’s sad but handsome face.At last he sighed and turned towards her. “Flora,”he said, “I’m going to try to forgive Gerty. I’m going to live in hope I one day may be able to forgive. Just tell her from me I wish her that happiness with another which fate has decreed it shall never be my joy to impart. Tell her—but there! no more, Flora, no more.”“Spoken like my own brother; spoken like a true and brave Mackenzie. Kiss me, Jack. I’m glad I came.”He held her hand a moment there, the moonbeams shining on both. “But, Flora,” he said, “you too have a little story.”“Ye—es, Jack.”Her head drooped like a lily.“And, siss, it—is connected with—don’t tremble so, Flora—with Tom?”The moonbeams shone on Jack alone now; his sister had stolen into the shadow to hide her blushes.“Good-night again,” she whispered, and so went gliding away like a beautiful ghost.CHAPTER VIII.ON BOARD THE SAUCY “TONNERAIRE.”“O’er the wide wave-swelling ocean,Tossed aloft or humbled low—As to fear ’tis all a notion—When duty calls we’re bound to go.”—Dibdin.TheTonnerairelay at anchor just off the Hoe in Plymouth Sound, as pretty a craft as any sailor need care to look at. Plymouth was an amphibious sort of a place even in those days; and there was not a landsman who had ever been in blue water that, having once caught sight of the saucyTonneraire, did not stop to stare at and admire her as he crossed the Hoe. Some, indeed, even sat quietly down and lighted up their pipes, the better to consider the bonnie ship. Long and low and dark was she, and though a frigate, the poop was not high enough to interfere with her taking lines of beauty. She carried splendid spars, and from their taperingheight it was evident she was built either to fight or to chase a flying Frenchman. But her maintop-gallant masts were at present below, for the ship was not quite ready for sea. She seemed impatient enough, however, to get away. The wind blew pretty high, right in off the Channel, and the frigate jerked and tugged at her anchors like a hound on leash that longs to be loose and away scouring the plains in search of game. Everything on board was taut and trim and neat: not a yard out of the square, not a rope out of place, the decks as white as old ivory, the polished woodwork glittering like glass, the brass all gold apparently, the guns like ebony, and the very lanyards pipeclayed till they looked like coils of driven snow.Post-Captain Mackenzie was walking to and fro on the poop-deck all alone, but casting many an anxious glance shorewards, or upwards at the evening sun that soon would sink over the beautiful wooded Cornish hills.“There’s a boat coming out yonder now, sir,” said the signalman.“Ah! is there, Wilson? Well, pray Heaven it may be the first lieutenant, and that he may have had luck.”Twenty minutes afterwards, Tom Fairlie, lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy, but acting-commander under Captain Mackenzie, was alongside in the first cutter. He was not alone, for several other officers were with him, and among them our old friend MʻHearty. Jack welcomed the latter, figuratively speaking, with open arms, then went to his private cabin, accompanied by Tom, who had been on shore on duty since early morning.“Sit down, Tom. Now we’re off the quarter-deck there is no need for ceremony. You look tired and starved. Help yourself to wine and biscuits there before you say a single word.”Tom poured out a glass, smiling as he did so.“Ah!” cried Jack, “I know you have good news.”“Ay, Jack, lots of it. I’ve been everywhere and I’ve done everything, and I’ve had good luck in the whole.”“Wait a moment, Tom.—Steward!”“Ay, ay, sir.”“I’m engaged for the next half-hour unless any one desires to see me on duty.—Now, Tom, I shall light my pipe. Follow my example. It wants an hour to dinner, and you are my guest to-night. No one else save our two selves and MʻHearty, I believe.”“Well, Jack,” said Tom Fairlie, after he had smoked in silence for a few moments, “first I went to the port-admiral’s office and saw Secretary Byng. He knows everything. Told me your father was gazetted, and would sail with his command in a few months’ time.”“Glorious news, Tom. How pleased father will be!”“Byng told me further that we must get men to fill up our complement, and fifty over, by hook or by crook.”“Fifty over! that means fighting, Tom. Go on.”“The hook and crook means pressment, Jack.”“Well, well, I don’t like it; but it is all for the good of the service. Heave round, Tom.”“Then I went to the post-office. Sly dog, am I? Well, perhaps. A letter from Flora, and one for you.”Jack tore his open.“Why, she has gone to live with dear old Father Spence at Torquay, Tom.”“Yes, Jack, till the war is over. Then, if God but spares us all, I shall be your brother.”“Dear girl,” said Jack. “Ah, Tom, what a noble courage she possesses! You and I can meet the foeface to face and fight well; but that is under excitement. But dear Flora needed more courage than ours to leave Grantley Hall so bravely as she did. Never a tear, Tom, never a tear; and I even saw my father’s eyes wet. Ah well. It is the fortune of war. Heigh-ho!”“Cheer up, Jack. Somehow, my friend, I think that Grantley Hall will come back to the Mackenzies yet.”“Ah, never, Tom, never! The dear old place where Flora and I spent our childhood, only to think it should come at last into the clutches of the plausible skinflint Keane; the father, though, of—but go on, Tom, go on.”“I next saw two gentlemen of the ‘sailors’ friend’ persuasion.”“Crimps? Scoundrels!”“Well, anyhow, they are good for forty between them.”“Bravo! Things are looking up. What a capital fellow you are, Tom! But, stay; let me reckon. We still want twenty more.”“And these, Jack, shall be no mere top hampers, I can assure you. I have arranged to lay hands on fifteen at least of thorough dare-any-things—fellowswho look upon fighting as mere fun, and can face the billows as well as tackle a foe.”“You interest me. Proceed.”“What say you to pirates, then?”“Come, come, Tom.”“Well, they are the next thing to it. They are sea-smugglers. I met One-legged Butler to-day, the king of coastguardsmen; and if we lend him nets, he will land the fish.”“You mean seamen and cutlasses. Well, he’ll have them; and I’ll trust the matter all to you.”“Nay, Jack, nay; the second lieutenant must be left in charge, andyoumust come. Flora must see you.”“Flora?” cried Jack.“Yes; we are to cut out the smuggler in Tor Bay.”“I’m with you, Tom. Well, we shall meet at dinner.Au revoir.”One-legged Butler was quite a character in his way. He had been in the service in his very young days, and had lost a limb while fighting bravely for king and country. But for this stroke of bad luck he might have been an admiral, and there is little doubt he would have been a brave one too. Appointed tothe revenue service, he soon proved that, in addition to cunning, tact, and bravery, he possessed detective qualities of no mean order. His timber toe, as the sailors called his wooden leg, was no drawback to him. Timber toes in those stirring times were as common as sea-gulls in every British sea-port; and Butler’s powers of disguising himself, or making up to act a part in order to gain information, were simply marvellous.On the day Tom Fairlie made his acquaintance, he had been singing “Tom Bowling” on the street in front of a public-house, and our Tom had gone up to give him a penny. Like the Ancient Mariner, he had held Tom with his glittering eye; and a very few moments’ conversation was sufficient to arrange for one of the cleverest and most daring little adventures that ever supplied a man-o’-war with gallant “volunteers,” as pressed men were often ironically termed in those days.They were a very merry party at dinner that day around the captain’s table. Not a large one, however; only Jack Mackenzie himself, his friend Tom Fairlie, MʻHearty, one “middie,” and bold Captain Butler, all good men and true; and the servant who waited at table was one to be trusted. Despite thefact that he was a Spaniard, he was most faithful, so that the conversation could take any turn without danger of a word being repeated either forward or to the servants below in the ward-room.In talking and yarning right quickly passed the evening in the captain’s cabin; but everywhere fore and aft to-night both officers and crew were hearty. They had already bidden farewell to friends and home, soon their country too would fade far away from sight, and then—the glories of war. Ah! never mind about its horrors; what brave young British sailor ever thought of these?CHAPTER IX.“A SPLENDID NIGHT’S WORK, TOM!”“Ah! cruel, hard-hearted, to press him,And force the dear youth from my arms;Restore him, that I may caress him,And shield him from future alarms.”Dibdin’sPressgang.

“I’ve been sort of praying for you, Jack.”Page43.

“NOW THIS GOOD BLADE SHALL BE MY BRIDE.”

“The bosom in anguish will often be wrungThat trusts to the words of a fair lady’s tongue;But true are the tones of my own gallant steel—They never betray, and they never conceal.I’ll trust thee, my loved sword, wherever we be,For the clang of my sabre is music to me.”Quarter-master Anderson.

It

was not until Sir Digby Auld had quite gone that Gerty came to her senses, and realized the position she had placed herself in. The comical side of the situation struck her at the same time, and for a few moments right merrily did she join the laugh with her old friend, Mr. Richards. But she grew suddenly serious next minute.

“What have I done?” she cried; “and howcanI tell father?”

“You droll, provoking little puss!” said Richards. “Come and sit on my knee here, as you always have done since you were a weary wee hop-of-my-thumb.”

“And will you tell me a story?” Gerty was smiling once more. “Then it will just seem like old, old times, you know.”

“Yes, of course. Once upon a time, then—oh, ever so long ago, because no such things as I am going to tell you about could happen in our day—once upon a time there lived, in a lonely house by the side of a deep, dark forest, a lonely man, to whom the fairies had once given a magic feather, plucked from the wing of a fairy goose; and whenever he touched paper with this quill, lo, the paper was turned into gold! So he amassed great wealth; but no one loved him when he went abroad, because, though he had gold, he had no titles and he was sharp of speech. Only he had one beautiful daughter, more fair than a houri of paradise; and she loved her father very much—more even than she loved the roses in June, or the wild birds that sang in the forest, or the stars that shone so brightly on still, clear nights in winter.

“And this daughter was beloved by a youth who was surpassingly fair and brave and comely; but, ah me! he was poor, and so the father despised him.

“But one day there came from out of the dark depths of the forest a prince in a splendid chariot, with six milk-white steeds, and the sound of many trumpets blowing. This prince was stiff and somewhat old, yet he said to the father: ‘Give unto me your daughter, that I may wed her, and she shall be my queen; then shall you be loved and honoured too, for you shall have titles as well as wealth.’

“But the daughter loathed the elderly suitor. Nevertheless, that she might see her father happy and titled, she gave the prince her hand, and her father dowered her munificently, and—”

“Go on, Mr. Richards.”

“Well, of course they lived happy ever afterwards.”

“No, no, no, Mr. Richards; that isn’t quite the end.”

“Well, if I must tell you, I must. For a time, then, there was no one more loved and honoured than Sylvina (for that was her pretty name), and her father, too, was invited to the court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina’s beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvinanever had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her true lover, whom she had forsaken in his poverty and sorrow, and whose white, distracted face often even yet haunted her dreams at night, just as she had seen it for a moment that day as she walked to the altar with the prince.

“But to the prince the young sparks were beyond measure attentive. They seemed delighted of an evening to see him snug in his high-backed chair by the fire; and one would run and bring his slippers and warm them, another pulled off his shoes, while a third brought his wine, and a fourth his hubble-bubble. Then they sang lullabies to him and patted his shoulder till he fell asleep; then—

“But the prince awoke at last in every sense of the word. ‘No longer,’ he cried, ‘will I keep an open house that young sparks may pay attentions to my wife. I will issue no more invitations, give no more parties; Sylvina’s father must return to his lonely house by the forest. I and my bride will live but for each other.’

“He spoke thus because the green demon Jealousy had aroused him.

“So the prince dismissed nearly all his servants; and in his house by the forest Sylvina’s father wasmore lonesome now than ever. Sylvina had been a dutiful daughter, and she tried hard to be a dutiful wife; but nothing that she did was properly construed by her old husband. If she laughed and was gay, he called her giddy; if she seemed sad, he told her she was pining for her ‘pauper lover;’ if she showed him marked affection, he thought she was but cajoling to deceive him. Ah dear, ah dear, how miserable she was! for her ways were not his ways, because his age was not hers.”

Richards paused again.

“And the poor lover whom Sylvina deserted?” said Gerty. “Tell me about him. Did he pine and die?”

“Oh no. But here comes Flora. I’ll finish the story another day, Gerty.”

“Why, thisisa pleasure!” cried Flora. “Who could have thought of finding you here? I say, Gerty, let us keep Mr. Richards to ourselves alone for the rest of the evening. My work is all complete, and father is busy in his room. Supper in the boudoir here!—Not a word, Mr. Richards; you have no say in the matter at all.” Then Flora rang the bell.

And a long delightful three hours the girls and their friend spent too. It is almost needless to saythat the chief subject of conversation was Jack, or that Sir Digby Auld was not spoken of or thought of even once.

“Heigh-ho!” said Richards, as he stood in his room that night, “heigh-ho! and I have come down to break bad tidings to Flora and her father. How ever can I do it! A lawyer ought to have no heart, but I have one. Worse luck! worse luck!”

The party next day at the Hall was a very gay affair, and never did General Grant Mackenzie seem in better spirits, nor Gerty and Flora look more bewitching or feel more happy. Mr. Keane, too, unbent himself, and was far less crisp and frigid than any one had ever seen him. Keane did not perhaps look a bit more happy than he felt, though he would not have told his thoughts to any one, as he wandered to and fro in the grand old beautifully-lighted rooms or out into the spacious gardens and flower-laden conservatories. Everything had of late years conspired to play into his hands. He had amassed money; he had spent but little. Gerty was good,sogood, for she had promised to marry Sir Digby—promised her father, that is; the other promise would come. Then this splendid hall washis—Keane’s—unless in a short time the easy-minded, happy-go-lucky general managedto clear his feet. “Clear his feet, indeed!” thought Keane; “how could he? No; the place would be his. Then he could hold up his head in the county. And as for Sir Digby, why, he could be easily managed after marriage. He was a trifle wild, he had been told, but he believed he was wealthy, and he would—some day—be a lord.”

Every one loved the general and his beautiful but unassuming daughter. There was no word of her being engaged to any one as yet, though such an engagement might take place at any time. She was indeed a queenly girl. Now suitors are usually a little afraid of queenly girls—not that there are very many about, but though they may dispense their favours in kind words and smiles, they do not flirt, and though warm-hearted deep down in their soul-depths, there is no surface love to squander or to be ruffled with every breath that blows. Such girls as Flora Grant Mackenzie love but once, and that love is real and true. Flora’s prince would doubtless come.Shewas in no hurry.

But the girl was very happy on this her brother’s birthday, and after all the guests had gone she spent the usual quiet half-hour with her father in his room in loving chat and converse, just as she had doneevery night since, long, long ago, her mother had died.

“Good-night, dear,” he said as he kissed her. “Affairs are not quite so flourishing with me as I would like; but we’ll trust in Providence, won’t we? Things are sure to take a turn.”

“Yes, dear father. Good-night: God bless you!”

Many of the wounded, both among our own people and the French prisoners on board theOcean Pride, died and were buried as the ship sailed on; but the strength of Jack’s Highland constitution asserted itself, and he was at last pronounced by MʻHearty to be out of danger, very much to Tom Fairlie’s delight.

His wounds had been very grievous—a sabre-cut on the skull and a spent bullet that had injured his left arm.

When the ship reached Portsmouth and the country rang with the news of Sir Sidney’s bright little action, when the papers gave a list of the dead and wounded and extolled Jack’s bravery, and when private information from headquarters informed the general that his son would be gazetted post-captain, then the old Highlander’s cup of bliss seemed full.

“Look at that,” he cried, with the joy-tears in his eyes; “read that letter, Flora dear. My boy, my brave boy! I shall go right away to Portsmouth and meet him, and you shall come and nurse him. My brave, good lad! What care we for money, Flo? The Mackenzies have their swords!”

On the arrival of theOcean Pridein port, Jack had been sent to shore quarters for a time, and Tom determined to share his rooms.

Jack was very cheerful, for he had almost forgotten his dream.

Now Mr. Keane had determined to play his cards as well as he knew how to. The baronet had become indisposed, but the astute lawyer had invited him down to his little place in the country, and he had taken Gerty home too.

At the time of thePride’sarrival in Portsmouth there was no engagement between Gerty and Sir Digby. All that she had really promised her father since Richards had told her that fairy story was that she would try to learn to love Sir Digby all she could, and when a little older would marry him; so Keane was content.

This, however, did not prevent him sending a confidential clerk down to interview Jack. And thefollowing is the bomb-shell Saunders the clerk, obeying orders, fired:—

“Mr. Keane just sent me down to ask about you and convey all sorts of kind messages. Especially did he bid me assure you that he had not spoken to your father about the little account, and that he is in no hurry for the money. Indeed, the approaching marriage of his daughter is at present absorbing all his attention.

“Why, what is the matter, Captain Mackenzie?” continued the clerk, noticing the staggering effect his words had on poor Jack.

“Nothing, nothing much. A little faint, that is all. Leave me now, Mr. Saunders. Tell Mr. Fairlie I would speak with him.”

Tom ran in. He found Jack lying helpless on the sofa, white and trembling. But he soon recovered sufficiently to speak.

“My dream, my dream, Tom; it has all come true.”

Tom Fairlie sat long beside his friend, giving him all the comfort he could think of, and that really was not a great deal. Things might not be quite as the clerk had represented them. Gertycouldnot be so cruel. From all he—Jack—had told him, he seemed to know her thoroughly. Jack must see her and learnhis fate from her own lips. This and much more said Tom Fairlie.

“This good blade shall be my bride.”Page58.

But for a time never a word said Jack.

He rose from the couch at last, and going quietly to the corner, took up his sword and drew it.

“Tom,” he said boldly, “pardon me if I seem to act stagy, I amnotacting. We Mackenzies are a wild and headstrong lot, and too proud, I own, by far. We cannot help our nature. But here in your presence I vow that now this good blade shall be my bride; that I’ll be true to her, and she as true as steel to me.”

“Bravo, Jack!” cried MʻHearty, bursting into the room; “I’ve heard it all. And now, my lad, I bring you good tidings. I’ve run all the way from the port-admiral’s office to be the very first to shake hands with Post-Captain Jack Mackenzie.”

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE.

“O Life! how pleasant in thy morning,Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning.”Burns.

G

ENERAL GRANT MACKENZIE was a somewhat impulsive man. It is the nature of the Celt to be impulsive. His nervous system is far more finely strung than that of the plethoric or adipose Saxon, and it vibrates to the slightest breath of emotion. Mind, I talk of the ideal Celt—be he Irish or Scotch—and General Grant Mackenzie was an ideal Celt. And sitting here with my good guitar on my knee, I cannot help comparing a nature like his to just such a beautiful stringed instrument as this. What a world of fine feeling lies herein; what a wealth of poetry, what sadness, what tenderness—ay, and what passionas well! Behold, on this music-stand lies a big old book—a book with a story to it, for it belonged to my unfortunate ancestor Symon Fraser of Lovat, who was beheaded on Tower Hill. It is Highland music all, and sweet to me are its mournful laments as breathed by my sad guitar; but—I turn a leaf—and here is a battle-piece. Ha! the instrument hath lost its sadness, or only here and there come wailing notes like moans of the wounded amidst the hurry, the scurry, the dashing, and the clashing of this terrible tulzie. Can’t you see the claymores glitter? Can’t you see the tartans wave, and nodding plumes among the rolling smoke? Oh, I can. Seems as if the guitar would burst its very strings; but, the battle is over—cry of vanquished, shout of victor, all are hushed. And now comes the ghostly music of the coronach: they are burying the dead. And the instrument appears to sob, to weep, till the sweet low song of grief in cadence dies.

A nature like that of Grant Mackenzie, then, or of his son—for both seemed cast in the same mould—needs a well-trained, well-balanced mind to guide and restrain it; for there are few occasions indeed in this world when one dares lay bare his soul and feelings even to his best friends.

The day after MʻHearty’s visit to Jack, the young post-captain, with his friend Tom Fairlie, was just finishing breakfast, when in dashed the general. Next minute his son was pressed against his breast just as if he had been a child.

Jack had spilt his tea and knocked over a chair in his hurry to get to his father; but what did that matter? So there they stood looking at each other for a moment, the tears in both their eyes.

Maybe the old general was a trifle ashamed of such weakness, for next moment he burst into a merry laugh.

“Why, Jack, my brave boy,” he cried, “there are only two arms between the pair of us. But yours will get well; mine, alas, is in the grave!”

Flora came up now, and Jack seemed delighted to see her.

“And here,” he said, “here, Flora, is the best friend I have in the world—Tom Fairlie.—Nay, never blush, Tom, my brother.—He it was, Flora, who helped to take me below after I got hit; and when even the surgeon—grand old fellow MʻHearty! father, you shall know him—gave me up, Tom stuck to me, and he has been nursing me ever since as if I were a child. Ah, Flora, there is no friendship onearth so true, and no love either, as that man bears for man.”

Jack looked at his sister as he spoke, and that glance told her he knew all.

“Father, I had almost forgotten to tell you of my espousal.”

“Espousal, Jack! You astonish me; it can’t be true!”

“Oh, but it is.”

He picked his sword off the couch as he spoke and held it out to his father.

“Let me present my bride,” he said, laughing.

The general himself could laugh now.

“So pleased, so pleased! But, ’pon honour, you young rascal, you pretty nearly took your old father’s breath away. Married! bless my soul, talk about that thirty years hence; and blame me, Jack, but that itself might be too soon.

“So you knocked the French about a bit? Well done, Jack; and well done, Lieutenant Fairlie.”

“Oh,” said the young sailor, laughing, “they always call me Tom.”

“Well, Tom,” said the general, holding out his hand, “you and my brave lad fought nobly; but bless my heart, he wouldn’t be a true Mackenzie if he couldn’tfight. So you gave it to the Froggies hot, eh? I knew you would. Second only to the British army is the British navy, lads.”

“And second only to the British navy, father, is the British army.”

“Bravo!esprit de corps. Well, I like it. But I’ve news for you, Jack. Why, your old father, you young dog you, is going to take command again. Ha, ha! sword arm all right, and head-piece in glorious form.”

“O father, I’m so delighted!”

“Yes, boy, and there is one thing I look forward to—ay, and pray for—and that is for you and me, Jack, to be in the same field of battle, and drubbing the French as only British sailors and soldiers can.”

“Father, you’ve made me happy.—Why, Tom, this all but reconciles me to the loss of the love—”

Jack stopped, looking a little confused.

“Love—love? Why, Jack, my lad, what is this? Love of whom, boy?”

“Oh, only a pet spaniel, father. No, not dead. Lost though; enticed away—with a bone, I suppose.”

“Just the way with spaniels, Jack. Glad it’s no worse. But ’pon honour, Jack, though you’re not old enough to know it, womankind are precious little better. Iknow’em well, Jack; I know ’em. A bonewill entice them too, particularly a bone with a bit of meat on it.”

Jack Mackenzie was not a young man who cared for much nursing. Had Gerty been his nurse it would doubtless have been all so different. However, it was very pleasant for Jack to while away the next month or two down at Grantley Hall, and to be treated like an interesting invalid and made a hero of by old maids and young ones too. The curate of the parish had not a chance now.

Then the country was so lovely all around the Hall. Though lacking the grandeur and romance of our Scottish Highlands, the land of the broads, with its wealth of wild flowers, its dreamy, quiet lakes, its waving reeds, its moors, and its birds, throws a glamour over one in spring-time that no true lover of nature can resist.

Jack’s arm was well in a month, and he was waiting for service. He did not mind waiting even a little longer, and most assuredly Tom Fairlie did not, nor MʻHearty either, who was also a guest at the Hall. Richards also had come down to spend a week or two. He and MʻHearty became inseparables.

A great old tub of a boat belonged to Mackenzie,and this lay on an adjoining broad or lake. Tom and Jack fitted it out as a kind of gondola, and many a pleasant hour did the young folks spend together on the water, sometimes not returning till stars were reflected from the dark bosom of the lake or the moonbeams seemed to change it into molten gold.

A pleasant time indeed—a time that flew all too quickly for poor Tom Fairlie.

One evening, when hanging up his hat in the hall, Jack’s father took him by the hand and led him silently into the library.

“Father, father,” cried Jack, “what has happened?”

“A bolt from the blue, my boy; a bolt from the blue.”

“WENT GLIDING AWAY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL GHOST.”

“They bid me forget her—oh, how can it be?In kindness or scorn she’s ever wi’ me;I feel her fell frown in the lift’s frosty blue,An’ I weel ken her smile in the lily’s saft hue.I try to forget her, but canna forget,I’ve liket her lang, an’ I aye like her yet.”Thom,the Inverury Poet.

R

ICHARDS, the kindly old solicitor, with Jack and his sister Flora and the general—these formed the group in the solemn, dark-panelled library of Grantley Hall on that beautiful summer’s evening. The light of the westering sun stole in through the high stained windows, and cast patches of light and colour on the furniture and on the floor. Mackenzie had already told his son all the story of his troubles, and while he had yet been talking, the curtains in thedoorway were drawn back, and Flora appeared, leaning on the arm of her good friend Richards.

The general had lifted up a deprecating hand.

“No need, no need.” This from the family lawyer. “Flora already knows all. And bravely has she borne the tidings. Ah, my good sir, Flora is a true Mackenzie.”

“But you might have told me long ago,” was all she had said as she seated herself on a low stool by her father’s knee. “O father, I could have borne it, and could have comforted you, now that poor mother has gone!”

There was silence for a time, broken by Flora’s low sobbing; broken, too, by the sweet, mellow fluting of a blackbird in the garden shrubbery.

General Mackenzie was the first to speak.

“Children,” he said, “I have been for many a day like one living in a dream, call it if you will a fool’s paradise. But I have awakened at last to the stern realities of life. It is better, perhaps, as it is, for we now know the very worst. You will believe me when I say that if I have hidden the truth from you, it was because I feared to vex you, or render you unhappy, while yet there was hope. But now,” he added, “all is over, all is lost, or seems to be.”

“Nay, nay, my good old friend,” cried Richards; “you must not really take so gloomy a view as that of the matter.”

“This grand old house,” continued the general as if he had heard him not, “this estate, with all its beauty of domains, that was presented to my ancestors by Charles the First himself, with its lands and its lakes, its gardens and its trees, and which was prized by my father almost as much as our ancient home in the Highlands of Scotland, has been wasted, has been frittered away, through my intrinsic folly.”

“Sir, sir,” said Richards, “you are too hard on yourself now.”

“Nay, my good friend, nay; that I cannot be. You have ever been faithful to our family; but I repeat it before you, and before my only son and daughter here: the estates are lost through my own folly, and through the imbecility, the madness, Richards, of my pride. Now in a month’s time, if I do not pay off the mortgage, Keane, your partner, will foreclose.”

It was at this moment that Jack sprang up from his seat as though a serpent had stung him. He took a few rapid strides up and down the floor, then, hiscalmness in some degree restored, he confronted the general.

“Did you say Keane would foreclose, father—Keane?”

“I said Keane, boy—Griffin, Keane, and Co. The old man Keane is my only creditor. But why should the knowledge of this affect you so?”

“Because, father—and oh, forgive me, for I ought to have told you before—because the heartless old man has been playing for your estates; he has won, and he has in a manner ruined you. But his daughter Gerty has been playing a crueller game than even his: she has won my heart, and having won it, having torn it from me, she has trampled it bleeding under foot. I can never love again.”

“My boy, my poor boy, is this indeed so? How great is your sorrow and suffering compared with mine! Bah! let the estate go. I could feel happy now without it could I but believe that you would forget the heartless minx who has dared to gain your love then spurn it. Youwillforget her?”

“Never, father, never; that is impossible. Sword in hand on the battle-deck I shall seek surcease of sorrow, but forget little Gerty Keane, never, never, never!”

The young man covered his face with his hands, and his form heaved with suppressed emotion, and even the kindly-hearted Richards could but look on in silence. Not a word of consolation could he adduce that had the power to assuage grief so deep as this.

No one spoke for many minutes—sorrow is oftentimes too deep for words—but higher and higher in the calm, still gloaming rose the blackbird’s notes of love, sounding half hysterical in the very fulness of their happiness and joy.

General Mackenzie rose slowly from his chair, and approaching his son placed a kindly hand on his shoulder.

“Dear Jack,” he said slowly, “we each have something left us, a name that has never yet been tarnished; our clansmen have ever been found in the battle’s van, or

‘In death laid low,Their backs to the field, their feet to the foe.’

We have that name, Jack boy; we have that fame. We have our unsullied swords. Jack lad, weshallforget.”

“Father, we shall try.”

And hand met hand as eye met eye. The two hadsigned a compact, and well they knew what that compact was.

Jack Mackenzie sat alone in his bedroom that night long after his father and every guest had retired. The casement window was wide open, so that the sweet breath of the June roses could steal in, and with it the weird tremolo of a nightingale singing its love-lay in an adjoining copse. The moonlight was everywhere, bathing the flower-beds, spiritualizing the trees, lying on the grass like snow, and casting deep shadows from the quaint figures of many a statue, and a deeper shadow still from the mossy dial-stone.

So intent was Jack in his admiration of the solemn beauty of the scene, that he saw not his chamber door slowly opening, nor noted the figure robed from head to feet in white that entered and glided towards him.

Was it a spirit?

If so, it was a very beautiful one. The face was very white in the moonbeams, the eyes very sad and dark, and darker still the wealth of waving hair that floated over the shoulders.

“Jack!”

Jack started now, and looked quickly round. Thena happy smile spread over his face as he arose and led his sister to a seat by his side.

“So like old, old times, Flora,” he said.

“So like old, old times, Jack,” said she.

He wrapped her knees in a great old Grant-tartan plaid.

“I knew you were still up, and that you were not happy, so I came to you. But, Jack—”

“Yes, dear.”

“Smoke.”

“May I?”

“You must.”

“Still more like olden times, Flora.”

Jack lit up his pipe, and then he took his sister’s hand.

“I’m glad,” he said, “that I never had a brother.”

“And I,” she said, “am happy I never had a sister.”

“We are all in all to each other, are we not, Flo?”

“All in all, Jack; especiallynow.”

“Ah yes; now that I have lost Gerty. Ah, siss! you nor any one else in the wide world can ever tell how dearly I loved, and still love, that faithless girl.”

“And she, Jack, will break her heart that she cannot marry you. That is what I came to tell you, Hush, Jack, hush! I know all you would say; butyou do not understand women, and least of all do you understand Gerty.Ido, Jack; yes, I do.”

“Sissy,” said the young man earnestly, “the cruellest thing mortals can be guilty of is to arouse the dying to feeling again, when the bitterness of death is almost past.Youwould not be so unkind. You did not come here to raise hopes in my heart that would be as certainly doomed to disappointment as that blooming flowers shall fade.”

“No, Jack, no. I only came because I wanted to pour balm, not hope, into your bleeding heart. I came to tell you all Gerty Keane’s story, that you may not think the very, very worst of her. Listen, Jack.”

The young man sat in silence for quite a long time after his sister had finished the story of Gerty Keane, and of her fondness for her lonesome, friendless, and unlovable father; sat gazing out upon the moonlit landscape, but seeing nothing; sat while the nightingale’s lilt, plaintive and low or mournfully sweet, bubbled tremulously from the grove, but hearing nothing. And in the shadow of the old-fashioned arm-chair snuggled Flora, her eyes resting lovingly, wistfully on her brother’s sad but handsome face.

At last he sighed and turned towards her. “Flora,”he said, “I’m going to try to forgive Gerty. I’m going to live in hope I one day may be able to forgive. Just tell her from me I wish her that happiness with another which fate has decreed it shall never be my joy to impart. Tell her—but there! no more, Flora, no more.”

“Spoken like my own brother; spoken like a true and brave Mackenzie. Kiss me, Jack. I’m glad I came.”

He held her hand a moment there, the moonbeams shining on both. “But, Flora,” he said, “you too have a little story.”

“Ye—es, Jack.”

Her head drooped like a lily.

“And, siss, it—is connected with—don’t tremble so, Flora—with Tom?”

The moonbeams shone on Jack alone now; his sister had stolen into the shadow to hide her blushes.

“Good-night again,” she whispered, and so went gliding away like a beautiful ghost.

ON BOARD THE SAUCY “TONNERAIRE.”

“O’er the wide wave-swelling ocean,Tossed aloft or humbled low—As to fear ’tis all a notion—When duty calls we’re bound to go.”—Dibdin.

The

Tonnerairelay at anchor just off the Hoe in Plymouth Sound, as pretty a craft as any sailor need care to look at. Plymouth was an amphibious sort of a place even in those days; and there was not a landsman who had ever been in blue water that, having once caught sight of the saucyTonneraire, did not stop to stare at and admire her as he crossed the Hoe. Some, indeed, even sat quietly down and lighted up their pipes, the better to consider the bonnie ship. Long and low and dark was she, and though a frigate, the poop was not high enough to interfere with her taking lines of beauty. She carried splendid spars, and from their taperingheight it was evident she was built either to fight or to chase a flying Frenchman. But her maintop-gallant masts were at present below, for the ship was not quite ready for sea. She seemed impatient enough, however, to get away. The wind blew pretty high, right in off the Channel, and the frigate jerked and tugged at her anchors like a hound on leash that longs to be loose and away scouring the plains in search of game. Everything on board was taut and trim and neat: not a yard out of the square, not a rope out of place, the decks as white as old ivory, the polished woodwork glittering like glass, the brass all gold apparently, the guns like ebony, and the very lanyards pipeclayed till they looked like coils of driven snow.

Post-Captain Mackenzie was walking to and fro on the poop-deck all alone, but casting many an anxious glance shorewards, or upwards at the evening sun that soon would sink over the beautiful wooded Cornish hills.

“There’s a boat coming out yonder now, sir,” said the signalman.

“Ah! is there, Wilson? Well, pray Heaven it may be the first lieutenant, and that he may have had luck.”

Twenty minutes afterwards, Tom Fairlie, lieutenant in his Majesty’s navy, but acting-commander under Captain Mackenzie, was alongside in the first cutter. He was not alone, for several other officers were with him, and among them our old friend MʻHearty. Jack welcomed the latter, figuratively speaking, with open arms, then went to his private cabin, accompanied by Tom, who had been on shore on duty since early morning.

“Sit down, Tom. Now we’re off the quarter-deck there is no need for ceremony. You look tired and starved. Help yourself to wine and biscuits there before you say a single word.”

Tom poured out a glass, smiling as he did so.

“Ah!” cried Jack, “I know you have good news.”

“Ay, Jack, lots of it. I’ve been everywhere and I’ve done everything, and I’ve had good luck in the whole.”

“Wait a moment, Tom.—Steward!”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“I’m engaged for the next half-hour unless any one desires to see me on duty.—Now, Tom, I shall light my pipe. Follow my example. It wants an hour to dinner, and you are my guest to-night. No one else save our two selves and MʻHearty, I believe.”

“Well, Jack,” said Tom Fairlie, after he had smoked in silence for a few moments, “first I went to the port-admiral’s office and saw Secretary Byng. He knows everything. Told me your father was gazetted, and would sail with his command in a few months’ time.”

“Glorious news, Tom. How pleased father will be!”

“Byng told me further that we must get men to fill up our complement, and fifty over, by hook or by crook.”

“Fifty over! that means fighting, Tom. Go on.”

“The hook and crook means pressment, Jack.”

“Well, well, I don’t like it; but it is all for the good of the service. Heave round, Tom.”

“Then I went to the post-office. Sly dog, am I? Well, perhaps. A letter from Flora, and one for you.”

Jack tore his open.

“Why, she has gone to live with dear old Father Spence at Torquay, Tom.”

“Yes, Jack, till the war is over. Then, if God but spares us all, I shall be your brother.”

“Dear girl,” said Jack. “Ah, Tom, what a noble courage she possesses! You and I can meet the foeface to face and fight well; but that is under excitement. But dear Flora needed more courage than ours to leave Grantley Hall so bravely as she did. Never a tear, Tom, never a tear; and I even saw my father’s eyes wet. Ah well. It is the fortune of war. Heigh-ho!”

“Cheer up, Jack. Somehow, my friend, I think that Grantley Hall will come back to the Mackenzies yet.”

“Ah, never, Tom, never! The dear old place where Flora and I spent our childhood, only to think it should come at last into the clutches of the plausible skinflint Keane; the father, though, of—but go on, Tom, go on.”

“I next saw two gentlemen of the ‘sailors’ friend’ persuasion.”

“Crimps? Scoundrels!”

“Well, anyhow, they are good for forty between them.”

“Bravo! Things are looking up. What a capital fellow you are, Tom! But, stay; let me reckon. We still want twenty more.”

“And these, Jack, shall be no mere top hampers, I can assure you. I have arranged to lay hands on fifteen at least of thorough dare-any-things—fellowswho look upon fighting as mere fun, and can face the billows as well as tackle a foe.”

“You interest me. Proceed.”

“What say you to pirates, then?”

“Come, come, Tom.”

“Well, they are the next thing to it. They are sea-smugglers. I met One-legged Butler to-day, the king of coastguardsmen; and if we lend him nets, he will land the fish.”

“You mean seamen and cutlasses. Well, he’ll have them; and I’ll trust the matter all to you.”

“Nay, Jack, nay; the second lieutenant must be left in charge, andyoumust come. Flora must see you.”

“Flora?” cried Jack.

“Yes; we are to cut out the smuggler in Tor Bay.”

“I’m with you, Tom. Well, we shall meet at dinner.Au revoir.”

One-legged Butler was quite a character in his way. He had been in the service in his very young days, and had lost a limb while fighting bravely for king and country. But for this stroke of bad luck he might have been an admiral, and there is little doubt he would have been a brave one too. Appointed tothe revenue service, he soon proved that, in addition to cunning, tact, and bravery, he possessed detective qualities of no mean order. His timber toe, as the sailors called his wooden leg, was no drawback to him. Timber toes in those stirring times were as common as sea-gulls in every British sea-port; and Butler’s powers of disguising himself, or making up to act a part in order to gain information, were simply marvellous.

On the day Tom Fairlie made his acquaintance, he had been singing “Tom Bowling” on the street in front of a public-house, and our Tom had gone up to give him a penny. Like the Ancient Mariner, he had held Tom with his glittering eye; and a very few moments’ conversation was sufficient to arrange for one of the cleverest and most daring little adventures that ever supplied a man-o’-war with gallant “volunteers,” as pressed men were often ironically termed in those days.

They were a very merry party at dinner that day around the captain’s table. Not a large one, however; only Jack Mackenzie himself, his friend Tom Fairlie, MʻHearty, one “middie,” and bold Captain Butler, all good men and true; and the servant who waited at table was one to be trusted. Despite thefact that he was a Spaniard, he was most faithful, so that the conversation could take any turn without danger of a word being repeated either forward or to the servants below in the ward-room.

In talking and yarning right quickly passed the evening in the captain’s cabin; but everywhere fore and aft to-night both officers and crew were hearty. They had already bidden farewell to friends and home, soon their country too would fade far away from sight, and then—the glories of war. Ah! never mind about its horrors; what brave young British sailor ever thought of these?

“A SPLENDID NIGHT’S WORK, TOM!”

“Ah! cruel, hard-hearted, to press him,And force the dear youth from my arms;Restore him, that I may caress him,And shield him from future alarms.”Dibdin’sPressgang.

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