CHAPTER III.Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy song to the ev'ning,Thou'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood Glen;Sae dear to this bosom, sae heartless and winning,Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.TANNAHILL."Here is the old house, and here we are at last, Newton," said my uncle, as an abrupt turn of the private path through the woodlands brought us suddenly in front of the ancient mansion, in which, after the early death of my father, I had spent my boyhood.It stands in a well-wooded hollow, or glen, overlooked by the three Lomonds of Fife—a county which, though not renowned for its picturesque scenery, can show us many peaceful and beautiful landscapes.Calderwood is simply an old manor-house, or fortalice, like some thousand others in Scotland, having a species of keep, with adjacent buildings, erected during quieter or more recent periods of Scottish history than the first dwelling, which had suffered severely during the wars between Mary of Guise and the Lords of the Congregation, when the soldiers of Desse d'Epainvilliers blew up a portion of it by gunpowder—an act terribly revenged by Sir John Calderwood of the Glen, who had been chamberlain of Fife and captain of the castle of St. Andrew's for Cardinal Beaton. Overtaking a party of the Bandes Françaises in Falkland Woods, he routed them with considerable slaughter, and hung at least a dozen of them on the oak trees in the park of the palace.The latest additions had been made under the eye of Sir William Bruce of Kinross, the architect of Holyrood—the Scottish Inigo Jones—about a hundred and ninety years before the present period, and thus were somewhat florid and Palladian in their style, their fluted pilasters and Roman cornices and capitals contrasting singularly with the grim severity and strongly-grated windows of the old tower, which was founded on a mass of grey rock, round which a terraced garden lies.Within this, the older portion, the rooms were strange and quaint in aspect, with arched roofs, wainscoted walls, and yawning fireplaces, damp, rusty, cold, and forlorn, where the atmosphere felt as if the dead Calderwoods of other times visited them, and lingered there apart from the fashionable friends of their descendants in the more modern mansion; and within the tower Sir Nigel treasured many old relics of the palace of Dunfermline, which, when its roof fell in, in 1708, was literally plundered by the people.Thus, in one room, he had the cradle of James VI., and the bed in which his son, Charles I., had been born; in another, a cabinet of Anne of Denmark, a chair of Robert III., and a sword of the Regent Albany.The demesne (Scotice, "policy") around this picturesque old house was amply studded with glorious old timber, under which browsed herds of deer, of a size, strength, and ferocity unknown in England. The stately entrance-gate, bearing the palm-tree of the Calderwoods, a crusading emblem, and the long avenue, of two Scottish miles, and the half-castellated mansion which terminated its leafy vista, well befitted the residence of one whose fathers had ridden forth to uphold Mary's banner at Langside, and that of James VIII. at the battle of Dunblane.Here was the well where the huntsman and soldier, James V., had slaked his thirst in the forest; and there was the oak under which his father—who fell at Flodden—shot the monarch of the herd by a single bolt from his crossbow.In short, Calderwood, with all its memories, was a complete epitome of the past.The Eastern Lomond (so called, like its brothers, from Laomain, a Celtic hero), now reddened by the setting sun, seemed beautiful with the green verdure that at all seasons covers it to the summit, as we approached the house.Ascending to the richly-carved entrance-door, where one, whilom of oak and iron, had given place to another of plate-glass, a footman, powdered, precise, liveried, and aiguilletted, with the usual amplitude of calf and acute facial angle of his remarkable fraternity, appeared; but ere he could touch the handle it was flung open, and a handsome young girl, with a blooming complexion, sparkling eyes, and a bright and joyous smile, rushed down the steps to meet us."Welcome to Calderwood, Newton," she exclaimed; "may our new year be a happy one.""Many happy ones be yours, Cora," said I, kissing her cheek. "Though I am changed since we last met, your eyes have proved clearer than those of uncle, for, really, he did not know me.""Oh, papa, was it so?" she asked, while her fine eyes swam with fun and pleasure."A fact, my dear girl.""Ah! I could never be so dull, though you have those new dragoon appendages," said she, laughingly, as I drew her arm through mine, and we passed into a long and stately corridor, furnished with cabinets, busts, paintings, and suits of mail, towards the drawing-room; "and I am not married yet, Newton," she added, with another bright smile."But there must be some favoured man, eh, Cora?""No," she said, with a tinge of hauteur over her playfulness, "none.""Time enough to think of marrying, Cora; why, you are only nineteen, and I hope to dance at your wedding when I return from Turkey.""Turkey," she repeated, while a cloud came over her pure and happy face; "oh, don't talk of that, Newton; I had forgotten it!""Yes; does it seem a long, or a doubtful time to look forward to?""It seems both, Newton.""Well, cousin, with those soft violet eyes of yours, and those black, shining braids (the tempting mistletoe is just over your head), and with loves of bonnets, well-fitting gloves and kid boots, dresses ever new and of every hue, you cannot fail to conquer, whenever you please."She gave me a full, keen glance, that seemed expressive of annoyance, and said, with a little sigh—"You don't understand me, Newton. We have been so long separated that I think you have forgotten all the peculiarities of my character now.""What the deuce can she mean?" thought I.My cousin Cora was in her fullest bloom. She was pretty, remarkably pretty, rather than beautiful; and by some women she was quite eclipsed, even when her cheek flushed and her eyes, a deep violet grey, were most lighted up.She was fully of the middle height, and finely rounded, with exquisite shoulders, arms, and hands. Her features were small, and perhaps not quite regular. Her eyes were alternately timid, inquiring, and full of animation; but, in fact, their expression was ever varying. Her hair was black, thick, and wavy; and while I looked upon her, and thought of her present charms and of past times—and more than all of my uncle's fatherly regard for me—I felt that, though very fond of her, but for another I might have loved her more dearly and tenderly. And now, as if to interrupt, or rather to confirm the tenor of such thoughts as these, she said, as a lady suddenly approached the door of the drawing-room, which we were about to enter—"Here is one, a friend, to whom I must introduce you.""No introduction is necessary," said the other, presenting her hand. "I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Norcliff before.""Lady Louisa!" I exclaimed, in a breathless voice, and a heart that trembled with sudden emotion, as I touched her hand."I am so glad you have come before we leave. I shall have so much to ask you about our mutual friends—who are engaged, and who have quarrelled; who have come home, and who gone abroad. We have been no less than four months in Scotland. Meantime," she added, glancing at her tiny watch, "we must dress for dinner. Come, Cora; we have barely half an hour, and old General Rammerscales is so impatient—he studies 'military time,' and with a 'military appetite.'"And with a bow and smile of great brightness and sweetness she passed on, taking with her Cora, who playfully kissed her hand to me as they glided up the great staircase into which the long corridor opened.Lady Louisa was taller and larger in person than Cora. Her features were singularly beautiful, and clearly cut; her forehead was low; and her nose had the gentlest approach to the aquiline. She was without colour, her complexion being pale, perhaps creamy; while in strange contrast to this aristocratic pallor of delicacy, her thick, wavy hair, her long double eyelashes, and her ever-sparkling eyes, were black as those of a Spanish gitano or a Welsh gipsy.To this pale loveliness was added a bearing alternately haughty and playful, but at all times completely self-possessed; an exquisite taste in dress and jewellery; a very alluring voice; a power of investing even trifles with interest, and of conversing fluently and gracefully on any subject—whether she was mistress of it or not mattered little to Lady Louisa.She was about my own age, perhaps a few months younger; but in experience of the fashionable world, and in knowledge of the manners and ideas of the upper ten thousand, she was a hundred years my senior.Suffice it to say that I had lost my heart to her—that I thought she knew it well, but feared or disdained to acknowledge a triumph so small as the conquest of a lieutenant of lancers among the many others she had won. So thought I, in the angry humility and jealous bitterness of my heart.For a minute I felt as one in a dream. I was sensible that my uncle had said something about changing his costume, and, suggesting some change in mine, had apologised, and left me to linger in the corridor, or in the drawing-room, as I chose; but now a personage, who had been lounging on afauteuilin the latter, intent on a volume ofPunch, and the soles of whose glazed boots had been towards me, suddenly rose and approached, in full evening costume.He proved to be no other than Berkeley of ours, who had been in the room alone, or, at least, alone with Lady Louisa Loftus. He came slowly forward, with his sauntering air, as if the exertion of walking was a bore, and with his eyeglass retained in its place by a muscular contraction of the right eyebrow. His whole air had the "used-up" bearing of those miserable Dundrearys who affect to act as if youth, wealth, and luxury were the greatest calamities that flesh is heir to, and that life itself was a bore."Ah, Norcliff—haw—glad to see you here, old fellow. Haw—heard you were coming. How goes it with you, and how are all at Maidstone?""Preparing for foreign service," said I, curtly, as the tip of his gloved hand touched mine."Horrid bore! Too late to send in one's papers now, or, by Jove, I'd hook the service. Don't think I was ever meant for it.""Ere long many more will be of your way of thinking," said I, coolly.Berkeley had a cold and cunning eye, which never smiled, whatever his mouth might do. His face was, nevertheless, decidedly handsome, and a thick, dark moustache concealed a form of lip which, if seen, would have indicated a thorough sensualist. His head was well shaped; but the accurate division of his well-oiled head over the centre of the caput gave him an air of intense insipidity. Mr. De Warr Berkeley never was a favourite of mine, though we had both joined the lancers on the same day, and it was with very ill-concealed annoyance I found myself compelled, with some apparent cordiality, to greet him as a brother officer and an inmate of my uncle's mansion."And—haw—what news from the regiment?" he resumed."I really have no news, Berkeley," said I."Indeed. You have got a month's leave?""Between returns, yes.""Is the route come?""A strange question, when you and I are here.""Haw—yes, of course—how devilish good.""It hasnot," said I, coldly; "but we are under orders for foreign service, and may look to have our leaves cancelled by a telegram any day or hour.""The devil—really!""Fact, though, however unpleasant it may be. So my uncle, Sir Nigel, met you at—where was it?""Chillingham's shooting-box, in the Highlands.""I was not aware that you knew the earl.""Losing my gillies—I think you call them in Scotland—one evening in the dark, I lost my way, and luckily stumbled on his lordship's shooting quarters, in a wild and savage place, with one of your infernally unpronounceable Scotch names.""Oh, you think changes more euphonious at times; but I suppose your father, honest man, could have pronounced it with ease," said I, quietly, for Berkeley's, or Barclay's affectation of being an Englishman was to me always a source of amusement. "You have to learn Russ yet, and it will prove, doubtless, more unpalatable than the tongue your father spoke. In the north, did you appearen montagnad?""Hey—haw, the devil! no; as the Irish Gil Blas says, 'Every one's legs can't afford publicity,' and mine are among the number. Leather breeches, when I don the pink, must be all the length. I don't care about going, though Lady Louisa pressed me hard to join the Mac Quaig, the Laird of Mac Gooligan, and other natives in tartan at a gathering. I had a letter from Wilford yesterday. He writes of a famous match between Jack Studhome and Craven, on which the whole mess had a heavy book, that great stakes were pending, and that Craven won, scoring forty-two running off the red ball; and considering that the pockets of the table were not bigger than an egg-cup, I think Craven a trump.""I heard something of this match at morning parade on the day I left; but being a bad stroke, you know, I seldom play billiards.""Why was Howard's bay mare scratched at the last regimental race?""Don't know," said I, so dryly that he bit his nether lip."Some nice people visiting here," said he, staring at me steadily, so that his eyeglass glared in the light of the lustre, which was now lit; "and some very odd ones too. Lady Loftus is here, you see, in all her glory, and with her usual come-kiss-me-if-you-dare kind of look.""Berkeley, how can you speak thus of one in her position?""Well, you-don't-dare-to-do-so-again sort of expression.""She is my uncle's guest; not a girl in a cigar-shop or a casino!" said I, with growinghauteur."Sir Nigel's guest—haw—so am I, and I mean to make the best use of my time as such. Nice girl, Miss Wilford, from York—cousin of Wilford of ours—a doocid good style of girl; but have no intentions in that quarter—can't afford to chuck myself away, as I once heard my groom observe.""You must learn to quote another style of people to make yourself understood here. You don't mean to infer that you have any intentions concerning Lady Louisa!" said I, with an air which was really impertinent."Why not?" he asked, failing completely to see it. "I have often such attacks, or affections of the heart, as she has given me.""How?""Just as I had the measles or the chicken-pox in childhood—a little increase of the pulse, a little restlessness at night, and then one gets over it.""Take care how you address her in this bantering fashion," said I, turning sharply away; "excuse me, but now I must dress for dinner."And preceded by old Mr. Binns, the white-headed old butler, who many a time in days of yore had carried me on his back, and who now welcomed me home with a hearty shake of the hand, in which there was nothing derogatory to me, though Berkeley's eyes opened very wide when he saw our greeting, I was conducted to my old room in the north wing, where a cheerful fire was blazing, with two lights on each side of the toilette-table (the manor-house was amply lit with gas from the village), and there was Willie Pitblado arranging all my traps and clothes. But dismissing him to visit his family (to his no small joy), I was left to my own reflections and proceeded to dress. A subtle and subdued tone of insolence and jealousy that pervaded the few remarks made by Berkeley irritated and chafed me; yet he had said nothing with which I could grapple, or with which I could openly find fault. I was conscious, too, that my own bearing had been the reverse of courteous and friendly, and that, if I showed my hand thus, I might as well give up the cards. Suspicion of his native character, and a foreknowledge of the man, had doubtless much to do with all this; and while making my toilet with more than my usual care—conscious that Lady Louisa was making hers in the next room—I resolved to keep a lynx-like eye upon Mr. De Warr Berkeley during our short sojourn at Calderwood Glen. My irritation was no way soothed, or my pique lessened, by the information that for some time past, and quite unknown to me, he had been residing here with Lady Louisa, enjoying all the facilities afforded by hourly propinquity and the seclusion of a country house.Had he already declared himself? Had he already proposed? The deuce! I thrust aside the thought, and angrily gave my hair a finishing rasp with a pair of huge ivory-handled hair-brushes.CHAPTER IV.And, oh! the memories that clingAround this old oak-panelled room!The pine logs flashing through the gloom,Sun sparkles from life's early spring.After long years I rest again;This ancient home it seems to me,Wearied with travel o'er the sea.Holds anodyne for carking pain.As I surveyed my old apartment the memories of other years stole over me with somewhat of a soothing influence, for when I thought of the past, the littleness of the present, the evanescent nature of all things could not fail to impress me.It was in that room I had the last vivid recollection of my dear mother's face, on that farewell morning, when with early dawn she stole in on tiptoe to look for the last time upon her boy as he slept, and before he went forth into the world beyond her maternal care for ever.The thunder of a gong in the corridor cut short further reflections, recalling me to the present; and giving a finishing touch to my costume, which was not the blue lancer uniform, faced with white, and laced with gold, but the solemn funereal suit and white necktie of civil life—a horrid costume that has crept among us, heaven knows how—I descended to the outer drawing-room, where I found my uncle and cousin marshalling their guests, of whom there appeared to be a goodly number.Berkeley had already monopolized Lady Louisa, with whom he was conversing in a low tone, while busy stroking his moustaches, which were darkened by the "Guards' dye," and the pointing and twirling of which afforded him endless employment.There was no denying that the fellow looked well, and that the result of riding, drilling, dancing, and fencing had been to impart to him much of that unmistakable air which, I may say without vanity, belongs particularly to the officers of our branch of the service.The odd minutes which precede dinner are seldom very lively, and rather depress than raise the spirits. To Cora I was a species of "lion;" and as such underwent, through her, a process of introduction to several people I cared not a jot about, and never would.I discussed the weather with General Rammerscales, as if I kept a rain-gauge and barometer, and was own brother to Admiral Fitzroy; touched on politics with the M.P., and on clerical innovations with a divine; kissed Cora's hand in play, and drew near to Lady Louisa, nearer still to her awful mother, whom I felt the necessity of conciliating to the utmost. Every one talked in a monotone, except jovial Sir Nigel, who was always cheery, brisk and bustling about from guest to guest.With the Countess of Chillingham (who accorded me a calm, but courteous bow), my uncle, whose costume was a suit of accurate black, led the way past Binns and a line of liveried and powered gentlemen drawn up in the corridor.She was a stately woman, of ample proportions, with a diamond tiara glittering on her grey hair.Her face was fine in feature, and very noble in expression, showing that in youth she must have been beautiful. Her costume was magnificent, being maroon-coloured velvet over white satin, trimmed with the richest lace. I rather dreaded her.She had all the peerage—"the Englishman's second Bible"—committed to memory; and, through the pages of Burke and Debrett, knew all the available and suitable heirs presumptive by rote—their ages, rank, title, and order of precedence; for it was among the strawberry leaves she chiefly expected to find a husband for her daughter—a marquis at least; and as she swept out of the room, with a velvet train like a coronation robe, she cast a backward glance to see to whose care that fair lady was confided.Seeing Berkeley paired off with Miss Wilford, I hastened towards Lady Louisa. With her I was sufficiently intimate to have offered my arm.As I have stated, we had met frequently before, at Canterbury, Bath, and elsewhere. Her society had been to me a source of greater pleasure and excitement than that of any other woman in whose way chance had thrown me.Her rank, as the daughter of an earl, and her rare beauty had dazzled me, while her coquetry had piqued my vanity; though I imagined that, without discovering the deep interest she excited in my heart, I had taught her to view me as an object of more interest than other men.I approached, and she received me calmly, placidly, with a bright but conventional smile, from which I could augur or gather nothing.In her there was none of the clamorous tremor which I felt in my own breast, where something of annoyance at the coldness of her mother's bow was rankling."Lady Louisa—permit me," said I, proffering my arm."Too late, Mr. Norcliff. I am already engaged," she replied, rising, and placing her pretty gloved hand on the arm of old General Rammerscales, who, bowing and smiling with gratified vanity, remarked to me in passing—"Been to India, I presume?""Yes, general, and Rangoon, too.""Bah! 'tisn't what it used to be in my time—the Indian service is going to the deuce.""But I belong to the Lancers.""Ah!"A daughter of the liberal M.P., Spittal, of Lickspittal, fell to my lot—a pretty piece of muslin and insipidity; but luckily we were seated not far from Lady Loftus. Near us were Miss Wilford and Berkeley, who proved less inattentive than I during the dinner, which proceeded with more joviality and laughter than is usual in such society; but the guests, twenty-four in number, were somewhat varied, for on this occasion the minister, doctor, and lawyer of the parish, the provost of a neighbouring burgh, and other persons out of the baronet's circle, were present.In that old Scottish château, the mode of life was deprived of all ostentation, though luxurious and even fashionable.The great oak table in the dining-room was covered with plenty, and with every delicacy of the season; but in its details it partook more of the baronial hall than such apartments usually do.It was floored with encaustic tiles, amid the pattern of which the arms of the Calderwoods were reproduced again and again; and at each end sparkled and glowed a great fire of coals from the baronet's own pits, with the smouldering remains of a great yule log that had grown in his own woods, and had been perhaps a green sapling when James V. kept court in Falkland.In the centre of this dining-hall lay a soft Turkey carpet for the feet of those who were seated at table.The chairs were all square backed, well cushioned with green velvet, and dated from the time of James VII.; the walls were of dark varnished wainscot, decorated with old portraits and stags' antlers; for there was here a curious blending of old baronial state with the comforts and tastes of modern times and modern luxury.Above each of the great fireplaces, carved in stone, were the arms of the Calderwoods of Calderwood and Piteadie;argenta palm-tree growing out of a mount in base, surmounted by a saltire gules; on a chief azure, three mullets, the crest being a hand bearing a palm branch, with the motto, "Veritas premitur non apprimitur."Amid the buzz of tongues around me—for, sooth to say, some of my uncle's country guests made noise enough—I looked from time to time beyond the great épergne to where Lady Louisa sat, evidently bored and amused by turns with the laboured conversation of the old sepoy general.It was impossible to refrain from turning again and again to admire that pale and creamy complexion, those deep black eyes and eyelashes, the small rosy mouth, the thick dark hair that grew in a downward peak, the lovely little ears with their diamond pendants, those hands and arms, which were perfection in colour, delicacy, and symmetry.Twice her eyes met mine, giving me each time a bright glance of intelligence, and making my heart beat happily.I fear that the young lady by whose side I was seated must have found me anything but a satisfactory companion, and her simple remarks concerning the coming war, our chances of going abroad, the latest novelty in music or literature—Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, and so forth—fell on a dull or inattentive ear.The dinner passed away as others do; the dessert was discussed. The fruit came, and now, as this was but the second eve of the new year, the old family wassail-bowl was placed before my uncle. Thanks to railway speed, I was enabled to partake of this old-fashioned libation. The great silver vessel in which it was compounded was the pride of Sir Nigel's heart, having been taken by an ancestor at the storming of Newcastle by the Scots in 1640, when the "Fife regiment entered by the great breach in the fore wall." It had four handles of chased silver, each representing a long, lanky hound, with his hind feet on the bulb of the cup, and his nose and fore paws on the upper rim.It held four bottles of port, which were spiced with cloves, nutmeg, mace, and ginger; the whites of six eggs well whisked and sugared; and six roasted apples were swimming on the top.To prepare this potent draught was the yearly task of old Mr. Binns, the butler, and my cousin Cora. Sir Nigel rose, and filling his glass from the gigantic tankard, exclaimed, ere he drained it—"A happy new year to you all, my friends! May the year that is gone be the worst of our lives, and may the new one, that opens full of promise, give joy to all!""A happy new year to all, Sir Nigel," went round the table, as we emptied our glasses; and as Binns replenished them from the wassail-bowl, the conversation became more free and unrestrained, for the celebration of the new year is a festival which has not yet fallen into desuetude in Scotland, though it has nearly done so in the sister kingdom.Wherever Scotchmen go, they never forget the associations or the customs of their fatherland; thus, in England and Ireland, and still more amid the goldfields of Australia, or the rice-swamps of Hong Kong, in the cities, camps, and barracks of India and America—ay, and in our ships far out upon the lonely sea, ten thousand miles, perhaps, from Forth, or Tay, or Clyde, on New Year's morning there are claspings of toil-hardened hands, good wishes exchanged, with the thoughts of home, its familiar faces, and its old fireside; the heather hills, and the deep grassy glens, that some may never see more; but still, amid joy and revelry, and, perhaps, the songs of Burns, the new year is ushered in.On that morning, as soon as the clocks strike twelve, a cheer passes over all the towns and hamlets of Scotland, from the German to the Atlantic sea; many a bottle is broached, and many a bagpipe blown; and though the wild orgies and uproar, and sometimes the discharge of firearms, with which it used to be welcomed at every market-cross, are passing away, still the New Year's tide is a time of feasting, merry-making, and congratulations with all.Even that solemn "Dundreary," my brother officer, Berkeley, thawed under the jovial influence of the society around him; but I was provoked to find that it led simply to very animated conversation between himself and Lady Louisa across the table. It referred to a past hunting affair, in which they had had some adventures together."We—haw—had not been there more than half an hour before there was a find," said he; "you remember, Lady Louisa?""How could I forget?" she responded, with charming animation. "The fox, a dull, reddish fawn one, with black back and shoulders, broke cover from among some gorse at the foot of the Mid Lomond.""The hounds were instantly in full cry, and away we went. By Jove, it was beautiful! We cleared some garden-walls, where we left the general up to the chin in somebody's hothouse; and after that we took the lead of the entire field.""We?" said I, inquiringly."Lady Louisa and myself," replied Berkeley, with one of his quiet, deep smiles; "we were better mounted, and in riding I—haw—flatter myself that few—few even of your Fifeshire hunt will surpass me.""Well?" I said, impatiently, crushing a walnut to pieces."The meet was at the base of the Mid Lomond; the morning was everything that could be desired; the field was very small, but select; Sir Nigel, the general, Mr. Spittal, Lady Louisa, Miss Calderwood, Miss Wilford, and—haw—a few others. The pack was in a most workman-like condition, and, as Lady Louisa remembers, they soon proclaimed a find, with open mouth.""Yes," said she, with her dark eyes lighting up; "away we went at racing speed, through the park of Falkland, a two miles open run at least, on, on, over 'bank, bush, and scaur——'""But the fox was evidently an old one. He tried some old coal mines, and then some field drains; but they had been carefully stopped by old Pitblado, the keeper. Yet we lost him at a deep pool on the banks of the Eden.""But for a time only, Mr. Berkeley," resumed Lady Louisa. "You remember how oddly he was found in a cabbage-garden, and how we cleared the hedges at a flying leap, you and I going neck and neck; you must remember, too, how Sir Nigel's shout made all our hearts rebound!""Quitting the river-side, he broke southward for two fields, and ran straight through the home farm of Calderwood; on, on we rode, and drove him right in Kinross-shire; but doubling on the dogs, he led us back. Doubling again, we pursued him once more into Kinross; what did you think of that, general?""Left to my own reflections among the melon-beds, ten miles in your rear, I thought it devilish poor work when compared to tiger-hunting," growled the general."In and out of each county he went no less than three times in as many half-hours," said Lady Louisa; "and but for the darkness of the December evening, he would have been compelled to yield up his brush, had we not lost him in a thicket near Kinies Wood, at Loch Leven side.""We lost more," said Miss Wilford, with a very decided expression of mischief in her very beautiful blue eyes; "for when the whole hunt assembled, Lady Louisa and Mr. Berkeley were nowhere to be found—the keepers shouted, and horns were blown in vain. Having taken the wrong road, they did not reach the Glen till half-past nine, when a storm of snow was falling.""Which compelled us, Miss Wilford, to take shelter in wayside cottages at Balgedie and at Orphil," said Lady Louisa, with a tone of real annoyance, while her eye, like a gleam of light, dwelt for an instant on me; but the hunting anecdote and its conclusion piqued—cut me to the heart.With such opportunities could Berkeley have failed to press his suit?I glanced at him. His temporary animation had subsided; his pale and impassive face wore its usual quiet and cold expression; yet his eyes were keen, restless, and watchful, even cunning at times. He smiled seldom, and laughed—so to say—never.Whether it was simply the memory of that winter day's sport, with all its excitement and concomitant danger, in counties so rough and hilly as Fife and Kinross, or whether it was some particular incident connected therewith that inspired her, I know not; but a flush on the usually pale cheek of Louisa Loftus made her look radiantly beautiful—like a dash of rouge, lending a glorious lustre to her deeply-lashed dark eyes. But now my Lady Chillingham, who evidently did not share her daughter's enthusiasm for field sports, exchanged an expressive glance with Cora, who, of course, occupied the head of the table, with the parish minister in the post of honour at her right hand.Then we all rose like a covey of partridges, while the ladies retired in single file to the drawing-room, whither I longed to accompany them; but now the gentlemen drew their chairs closer together, side by side; Sir Nigel announced that "the business of the evening was only beginning;" the wine decanters and the claret jugs were replenished; Binns appeared with water steaming hot in an antique silver kettle, followed by a servant bearing liqueur-frames, filled with "mountain dew," for those who preferred toddy, the national beverage, to which fully half the company, including my jolly old kinsman, at once betook themselves.Somehow those "trifles light as air," which are the torments of the jealous and the doubtful, were added to fears, to crush me now.Even without the danger of a rival, I knew that "La Mère Chillingham," as the mess called her, would keep a sharp eye upon me, as the possessor of only my subaltern's commission in the lancers, with a couple of hundred or so per annum; for she believed that all men so circumstanced were little better than well-accredited sharpers, and, as such, certain to have nefarious designs upon her wealthy and beautiful daughter—designs which our plumes, epaulettes, and lancer trappings were every way calculated to render more dangerous.I felt sure that, by such as she, even the wealthy parvenu, De Warr Berkeley, would be less dreaded than I; and as I looked round the old hall of Calderwood, and saw the grim portraits of those who had preceded me, looking disdainfully out of their stiff ruffs and long doublets, and thought of my rival's puerile character, and his father's beer vats, an emotion of real contempt for the cold-blooded and match-making countess stole into my heart.Louisa Loftus was, indeed, a proud and glorious beauty. I knew not yet what were my chances of success with her, and, in short, I "had nothing for it but to wait and try my best to be sanguine."The brave old axiom, that "no fortress is impregnable," is a valuable worldly lesson, and one ought never to forget that a storming party rarely fails.There was some consolation in this reflection.I took another glass of sparkling hock, another, and another, and somehow through their medium the world began to look more bright and cheering.CHAPTER V.Come, let us enjoy the fleeting day,And banish toil, and laugh at care,For who would grief and sorrow beatWhen he can throw his griefs away?Away, away! begone, I say!For mournful thoughtWill come unsought.BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN.""Provost," said my uncle to the jovial and rubicund magistrate who sat on his left hand, now that he had taken Cora's place at the head of the table, "try the Johannisberg. It is some given to me by Prince Metternich when I was at Vienna, and is from grapes raised in his own vineyards. Rare stuff it is for those who like such light wines.""Thank you, Sir Nigel; but Binns, I see, has brought the three elements, so I'll e'en brew some whisky-toddy," replied the magistrate.The conversation now became more noisy and animated. The approaching war, the treaty of neutrality between the Scandinavian and the Western Powers, whether our fleet had yet entered the Euxine, or whether Luders had yet burst into the Dobrudscha, became the prevailing topics, and in interest seemed fully to rival that never-failing subject at a country table, fox-hunting.The county pack, the meet of the Fifeshire hounds at the kennels, or on the green slopes of Largo; of the Buccleuch pack at Blacklaw, Ancrum, and so forth; their runs by wood and wold, loch and lee, rock and river, with many a perilous leap and wild adventure in the field, over a rough and hilly country, were narrated with animation, and descanted on with interest, though all such sank into insignificance beside the history of a hunt in Bengal, where General Rammerscales had figured in pursuit of a tiger (long the terror of the district), seated in a loftyhowdahof basket-work, strapped on the back of an elephant, twelve feet high to the shoulder, accompanied by the major of his regiment, each armed with two double-barrelled guns.The tiger, which measured nine feet from his nose to the tip of his tail, and five in height, had been roused from among the jungle grass, and was a brute of the most ferocious kind, yellow in hide, and striped with beautiful transverse bars of black and brown. He was well-known in that district. With his tremendous jaws he had carried off many a foal and buffalo; by a single stroke of his claws he had disembowelled and rent open the body of more than one tall dark sowar of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry; and as for sheep and goats, he made no more account of them than if they had been so many shrimps.With a shrill, short scream of rage, on finding that he was brought to bay at last, he threw himself in cat-fashion on his back, belly upwards, his small and quivering ears close on the back of his head, his dreadful claws thrust out, his eyes glaring like two gigantic carbuncles, his wide, red mouth distended, and every wiry whisker bristling with rage and fury.The general fired both barrels of his first gun. One shot failed; but the other wounded the tiger in the shoulder, and only served to make him more savage; though, instead of springing upwards, he lay thus on the defensive, gathered up in a round ball.The major, an enormously fat man, weighing more than twenty stone, now leant over thehowdahto take a cool and deliberate aim; but the elephant in the same moment happened to bend his fore-knees, for the claws of the tiger were inserted in his trunk.Losing all balance by this unlucky motion, the poor major toppled headlong over thehowdah, just as both barrels of his gun exploded harmlessly, amid a yell from the Indian hunters as they thought of his fate.But, "with a mighty squelch," as the general phrased it, the major, with his twenty-two stone weight of flesh and bone, fell prone upon the fair, white, upturned belly of the tiger!Terrified, breathless, and bewildered by an antagonist so ponderous, and by such an unexpected mode of attack, the tiger started up, and fled from the scene, leaving the major untouched and unharmed, but seated ruefully among the jungle grass, and with considerable doubts as to his safety and his own identity.The parish minister fairly overmatched this story by the narrative of a fox which had been drowned by a mussel.Prior to being appointed pastor of Calderwood Kirk, through the favour of its patron, Sir Nigel, he had been an assistant in a parish situated on the borders of one of the great salt lochs in the western highlands.When riding one morning along the shore, opposite the Summer Isles, he was surprised to see a large grey fox busy among the basket-mussels, thick clusters of which were adhering to the dark whin rocks which the ebb tide had left dry. The sea was coming in fast; but, strange to say, Reynard seemed to be so much engaged in breakfasting on shell-fish that he was heedless of that important circumstance.Dismounting, and tying his horse to a tree, the minister made a circuit to reach the place, and being armed with a heavy-handled riding-whip, he had no fear of the encounter; but by the time he arrived at the mussel-beds, the rapid tide had overflowed them, and the fox had disappeared. So, remounting, the minister pursued his way into the mountains.Returning along the shore by the same path in the evening, when the tide had ebbed, he again saw Reynard in the same place, but lying quite dead, and, on examination, discovered that he was held fast by the tongue between the sharp shells of one of the basket-mussels, which are sometimes seven inches long, and adhere with intense strength to the rocks by the beard, known to the learned as a powerfulbyssus. Seized and retained thus, as if in the grasp of a steel vice, the fox, which had been in the habit of seeking the sea shore to feed on the mussels, had been held fast, until drowned by the advancing tide, which there flows rapidly in from the Atlantic.This story elicited roars of laughter from the fox-hunters, who had never heard of a brush being taken in such a fashion; and Berkeley expressed astonishment that the anecdote had never found its way into the columns ofBell's Life, or other sporting journals.The provost and minister gabbled about presbyteries and synods, the moderation of calls, elders, deacons, and overtures to the General Assembly, anent sundry ecclesiastical matters, particularly the adoption of organs, and other innovations that savoured of prelacy, making up a jargon which, to many present, and even to me, proved quite unintelligible; but now, as a military man, old Rammerscales seized me by a button, for there was no eluding being bored by him.He had been so many years in India that he found a difficulty in assuring himself that he was not "up country" and in cantonments still.Thus, if the rooms were warm, the general grumbled that there was nopunkahto swing over his head, the baldness of which he polished vigorously, and muttered about "tatties of iced water."He calculated everything by its value in rupees, and talked much of compounds and cantonments; ofbattaand marching money, ofchutneyandchunam, and all manner of queer things, including sepoys andsowars,subadars,havildars, andjemidars; thus the most casual remark drew forth some Indian reference.The cold of last night reminded him of what he had endured in the mountains of Affghanistan; and the dark clouds of this morning were exactly like some he had seen near Calcutta, when a sepoy was killed by his side by a stroke of lightning, which twisted up the barrel of his musket like a screw—"yes, sir, like a demmed corkscrew!"Next, the gas offended his eyes, which had been so long accustomed to the oil lamps or oil-shades of his bungalow; and then he spoke to all the servants, even respectable old Mr. Binns (who had been for forty years like Sir Nigel's shadow) as if they had been so manysycees, grass-cutters, or tent-pitchers, making them start whenever he addressed them; for he seemed to bark or snap out his words and wishes at "the precious Griffs," as he termed them.On the other hand, I was bored by the provost, who, like the M.P. (a peace-at-any-price man), by no means approved of the expected war, and informed Berkeley and myself that—"Our trade—soldiering, to wit—was a deuced poor one—a speculation, a loss, and never profit to any one, individually or collectively."Berkeley smiled superciliously, eyed the provost through his glass, and blandly asked him to repeat his remark twice over, professing that he did not understand the worthy man."If you mean that you disapprove of the intended war, my good friend," said he, "I—haw—quite agree with you, Why the deuce should I fight for the 'sick man' at Constantinople; or for the Turks or the Tartars of the Crimea? It's a horrid bore."Amid all this uncongenial conversation, I longed for the time when the seniors would move towards the drawing-room, from whence the sounds of music and of voices sweetly attuned were heard to issue at times; for there my star was shining—Louisa Loftus, so beautiful to look upon, and yet whom it seemed so hopeless in me to love!Lost in reverie, and full of her image, it was some time before I became aware that my distinguished brother in arms, Mr. De Warr Berkeley, was addressing me."I beg your pardon," said I, nervously; "did you speak?""I was remarking," he lisped, languidly, "that these good people here are—haw—very pleasant, and all that sort of thing; but have little of the—haw—the—haw——""What?""Oh—theodeur de la bonne sociétéabout them.""The deuce!" said I, with some annoyance, for I was conscious that at our end of the table were really gathered the lions of my uncle's dinner party. "I hope you don't include our host in this—he represents the oldest line of baronets in Scotland.""In Scotland—haw—very good," he drawled."Sir Nigel is my uncle," said I, pointedly."Yes, by the way, I crave pardon; so deuced stupid of me, when I know well that there are no such sticklers about precedence and dignity as your little baronets."Coming from a conceitedparvenu, the cool impudence of this remark was so amusing that I burst into a fit of laughter; and at that moment, by a singular coincidence, Sir Nigel, who had been engaged in an animated discussion, almost amounting to a dispute, with Spittal of Lickspittal, the M.P., now suddenly raised his voice, and without at all intending it, sent one random shot after another at my fashionable comrade."I can assure you, sir," he continued, "that such cosmopolitan views as yours, politically and socially, can never be endorsed by me. Thackeray says—and he says truly—that God has created no more offensive creature than a Scotch snob, and I quite agree with him. The chief aim of such is to be thought an Englishman (just as some Englishmen affect the foreigner), and a deplorable caricature he makes of the Englishman in language, bearing, and appearance. An English snob, in whatever his line may be, is, as Thackeray has shown us, a great and amusing original; but a Scotch snob is a poor and vile imitation, and like all counterfeits is easily discernible: Birmingham at once. I know no greater hot-bed of snobbery than our law-courts, sir, especially those of Edinburgh. Binns, pass the claret."The M.P. bowed, and smiled deprecatingly, for he had long figured among the said courts as one who would joyfully have blacked the boots of the lord advocate or the ministry.I felt almost sorry for Berkeley while my uncle spurred his hobby against the M.P.; the ugly cap fitted so exactly."I know," resumed Sir Nigel, "that in a nation of tuft-hunters like the British, whose Bible is the 'Peerage,' a man with a handle to his name, however small it may be, is a trump card indeed; hence the adoration of rank, which, as some one says, 'if folly in London, deepens into positive vice in the country.'""Then what do you say of your poor Scottish metropolis, whose aristocracy consists of a few psalm-singing—aw—bailies and young legal prigs of the bar, whose importance is only equalled by their necessities—boiled mutton and thin Cape Madeira?" said Berkeley, glad of an opportunity to sneer at something Scotch."I have known a few honest fellows—and men of first-rate ability, too—connected with the Scottish Parliament House," said Sir Nigel."But that, I suppose, was in the old Tory days, when all Edinburgh fell down in the mud to worship George IV., the first gentleman in Europe," said the M.P. as a retort, at which my uncle laughed loudly.But thus, by his remarks at the fag end of some discussion, Sir Nigel had the effect of completely silencing, and unintentionally mortifying, Berkeley, who continued to sip his wine in silence, and with something of malevolence in his eye, till Binns announced coffee, and we repaired to the drawing-room.
CHAPTER III.
Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy song to the ev'ning,Thou'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood Glen;Sae dear to this bosom, sae heartless and winning,Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.TANNAHILL.
Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy song to the ev'ning,Thou'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood Glen;Sae dear to this bosom, sae heartless and winning,Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.TANNAHILL.
Sing on, thou sweet mavis, thy song to the ev'ning,
Thou'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood Glen;
Thou'rt dear to the echoes of Calderwood Glen;
Sae dear to this bosom, sae heartless and winning,
Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.TANNAHILL.
Is charming young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.
TANNAHILL.
TANNAHILL.
"Here is the old house, and here we are at last, Newton," said my uncle, as an abrupt turn of the private path through the woodlands brought us suddenly in front of the ancient mansion, in which, after the early death of my father, I had spent my boyhood.
It stands in a well-wooded hollow, or glen, overlooked by the three Lomonds of Fife—a county which, though not renowned for its picturesque scenery, can show us many peaceful and beautiful landscapes.
Calderwood is simply an old manor-house, or fortalice, like some thousand others in Scotland, having a species of keep, with adjacent buildings, erected during quieter or more recent periods of Scottish history than the first dwelling, which had suffered severely during the wars between Mary of Guise and the Lords of the Congregation, when the soldiers of Desse d'Epainvilliers blew up a portion of it by gunpowder—an act terribly revenged by Sir John Calderwood of the Glen, who had been chamberlain of Fife and captain of the castle of St. Andrew's for Cardinal Beaton. Overtaking a party of the Bandes Françaises in Falkland Woods, he routed them with considerable slaughter, and hung at least a dozen of them on the oak trees in the park of the palace.
The latest additions had been made under the eye of Sir William Bruce of Kinross, the architect of Holyrood—the Scottish Inigo Jones—about a hundred and ninety years before the present period, and thus were somewhat florid and Palladian in their style, their fluted pilasters and Roman cornices and capitals contrasting singularly with the grim severity and strongly-grated windows of the old tower, which was founded on a mass of grey rock, round which a terraced garden lies.
Within this, the older portion, the rooms were strange and quaint in aspect, with arched roofs, wainscoted walls, and yawning fireplaces, damp, rusty, cold, and forlorn, where the atmosphere felt as if the dead Calderwoods of other times visited them, and lingered there apart from the fashionable friends of their descendants in the more modern mansion; and within the tower Sir Nigel treasured many old relics of the palace of Dunfermline, which, when its roof fell in, in 1708, was literally plundered by the people.
Thus, in one room, he had the cradle of James VI., and the bed in which his son, Charles I., had been born; in another, a cabinet of Anne of Denmark, a chair of Robert III., and a sword of the Regent Albany.
The demesne (Scotice, "policy") around this picturesque old house was amply studded with glorious old timber, under which browsed herds of deer, of a size, strength, and ferocity unknown in England. The stately entrance-gate, bearing the palm-tree of the Calderwoods, a crusading emblem, and the long avenue, of two Scottish miles, and the half-castellated mansion which terminated its leafy vista, well befitted the residence of one whose fathers had ridden forth to uphold Mary's banner at Langside, and that of James VIII. at the battle of Dunblane.
Here was the well where the huntsman and soldier, James V., had slaked his thirst in the forest; and there was the oak under which his father—who fell at Flodden—shot the monarch of the herd by a single bolt from his crossbow.
In short, Calderwood, with all its memories, was a complete epitome of the past.
The Eastern Lomond (so called, like its brothers, from Laomain, a Celtic hero), now reddened by the setting sun, seemed beautiful with the green verdure that at all seasons covers it to the summit, as we approached the house.
Ascending to the richly-carved entrance-door, where one, whilom of oak and iron, had given place to another of plate-glass, a footman, powdered, precise, liveried, and aiguilletted, with the usual amplitude of calf and acute facial angle of his remarkable fraternity, appeared; but ere he could touch the handle it was flung open, and a handsome young girl, with a blooming complexion, sparkling eyes, and a bright and joyous smile, rushed down the steps to meet us.
"Welcome to Calderwood, Newton," she exclaimed; "may our new year be a happy one."
"Many happy ones be yours, Cora," said I, kissing her cheek. "Though I am changed since we last met, your eyes have proved clearer than those of uncle, for, really, he did not know me."
"Oh, papa, was it so?" she asked, while her fine eyes swam with fun and pleasure.
"A fact, my dear girl."
"Ah! I could never be so dull, though you have those new dragoon appendages," said she, laughingly, as I drew her arm through mine, and we passed into a long and stately corridor, furnished with cabinets, busts, paintings, and suits of mail, towards the drawing-room; "and I am not married yet, Newton," she added, with another bright smile.
"But there must be some favoured man, eh, Cora?"
"No," she said, with a tinge of hauteur over her playfulness, "none."
"Time enough to think of marrying, Cora; why, you are only nineteen, and I hope to dance at your wedding when I return from Turkey."
"Turkey," she repeated, while a cloud came over her pure and happy face; "oh, don't talk of that, Newton; I had forgotten it!"
"Yes; does it seem a long, or a doubtful time to look forward to?"
"It seems both, Newton."
"Well, cousin, with those soft violet eyes of yours, and those black, shining braids (the tempting mistletoe is just over your head), and with loves of bonnets, well-fitting gloves and kid boots, dresses ever new and of every hue, you cannot fail to conquer, whenever you please."
She gave me a full, keen glance, that seemed expressive of annoyance, and said, with a little sigh—
"You don't understand me, Newton. We have been so long separated that I think you have forgotten all the peculiarities of my character now."
"What the deuce can she mean?" thought I.
My cousin Cora was in her fullest bloom. She was pretty, remarkably pretty, rather than beautiful; and by some women she was quite eclipsed, even when her cheek flushed and her eyes, a deep violet grey, were most lighted up.
She was fully of the middle height, and finely rounded, with exquisite shoulders, arms, and hands. Her features were small, and perhaps not quite regular. Her eyes were alternately timid, inquiring, and full of animation; but, in fact, their expression was ever varying. Her hair was black, thick, and wavy; and while I looked upon her, and thought of her present charms and of past times—and more than all of my uncle's fatherly regard for me—I felt that, though very fond of her, but for another I might have loved her more dearly and tenderly. And now, as if to interrupt, or rather to confirm the tenor of such thoughts as these, she said, as a lady suddenly approached the door of the drawing-room, which we were about to enter—
"Here is one, a friend, to whom I must introduce you."
"No introduction is necessary," said the other, presenting her hand. "I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Norcliff before."
"Lady Louisa!" I exclaimed, in a breathless voice, and a heart that trembled with sudden emotion, as I touched her hand.
"I am so glad you have come before we leave. I shall have so much to ask you about our mutual friends—who are engaged, and who have quarrelled; who have come home, and who gone abroad. We have been no less than four months in Scotland. Meantime," she added, glancing at her tiny watch, "we must dress for dinner. Come, Cora; we have barely half an hour, and old General Rammerscales is so impatient—he studies 'military time,' and with a 'military appetite.'"
And with a bow and smile of great brightness and sweetness she passed on, taking with her Cora, who playfully kissed her hand to me as they glided up the great staircase into which the long corridor opened.
Lady Louisa was taller and larger in person than Cora. Her features were singularly beautiful, and clearly cut; her forehead was low; and her nose had the gentlest approach to the aquiline. She was without colour, her complexion being pale, perhaps creamy; while in strange contrast to this aristocratic pallor of delicacy, her thick, wavy hair, her long double eyelashes, and her ever-sparkling eyes, were black as those of a Spanish gitano or a Welsh gipsy.
To this pale loveliness was added a bearing alternately haughty and playful, but at all times completely self-possessed; an exquisite taste in dress and jewellery; a very alluring voice; a power of investing even trifles with interest, and of conversing fluently and gracefully on any subject—whether she was mistress of it or not mattered little to Lady Louisa.
She was about my own age, perhaps a few months younger; but in experience of the fashionable world, and in knowledge of the manners and ideas of the upper ten thousand, she was a hundred years my senior.
Suffice it to say that I had lost my heart to her—that I thought she knew it well, but feared or disdained to acknowledge a triumph so small as the conquest of a lieutenant of lancers among the many others she had won. So thought I, in the angry humility and jealous bitterness of my heart.
For a minute I felt as one in a dream. I was sensible that my uncle had said something about changing his costume, and, suggesting some change in mine, had apologised, and left me to linger in the corridor, or in the drawing-room, as I chose; but now a personage, who had been lounging on afauteuilin the latter, intent on a volume ofPunch, and the soles of whose glazed boots had been towards me, suddenly rose and approached, in full evening costume.
He proved to be no other than Berkeley of ours, who had been in the room alone, or, at least, alone with Lady Louisa Loftus. He came slowly forward, with his sauntering air, as if the exertion of walking was a bore, and with his eyeglass retained in its place by a muscular contraction of the right eyebrow. His whole air had the "used-up" bearing of those miserable Dundrearys who affect to act as if youth, wealth, and luxury were the greatest calamities that flesh is heir to, and that life itself was a bore.
"Ah, Norcliff—haw—glad to see you here, old fellow. Haw—heard you were coming. How goes it with you, and how are all at Maidstone?"
"Preparing for foreign service," said I, curtly, as the tip of his gloved hand touched mine.
"Horrid bore! Too late to send in one's papers now, or, by Jove, I'd hook the service. Don't think I was ever meant for it."
"Ere long many more will be of your way of thinking," said I, coolly.
Berkeley had a cold and cunning eye, which never smiled, whatever his mouth might do. His face was, nevertheless, decidedly handsome, and a thick, dark moustache concealed a form of lip which, if seen, would have indicated a thorough sensualist. His head was well shaped; but the accurate division of his well-oiled head over the centre of the caput gave him an air of intense insipidity. Mr. De Warr Berkeley never was a favourite of mine, though we had both joined the lancers on the same day, and it was with very ill-concealed annoyance I found myself compelled, with some apparent cordiality, to greet him as a brother officer and an inmate of my uncle's mansion.
"And—haw—what news from the regiment?" he resumed.
"I really have no news, Berkeley," said I.
"Indeed. You have got a month's leave?"
"Between returns, yes."
"Is the route come?"
"A strange question, when you and I are here."
"Haw—yes, of course—how devilish good."
"It hasnot," said I, coldly; "but we are under orders for foreign service, and may look to have our leaves cancelled by a telegram any day or hour."
"The devil—really!"
"Fact, though, however unpleasant it may be. So my uncle, Sir Nigel, met you at—where was it?"
"Chillingham's shooting-box, in the Highlands."
"I was not aware that you knew the earl."
"Losing my gillies—I think you call them in Scotland—one evening in the dark, I lost my way, and luckily stumbled on his lordship's shooting quarters, in a wild and savage place, with one of your infernally unpronounceable Scotch names."
"Oh, you think changes more euphonious at times; but I suppose your father, honest man, could have pronounced it with ease," said I, quietly, for Berkeley's, or Barclay's affectation of being an Englishman was to me always a source of amusement. "You have to learn Russ yet, and it will prove, doubtless, more unpalatable than the tongue your father spoke. In the north, did you appearen montagnad?"
"Hey—haw, the devil! no; as the Irish Gil Blas says, 'Every one's legs can't afford publicity,' and mine are among the number. Leather breeches, when I don the pink, must be all the length. I don't care about going, though Lady Louisa pressed me hard to join the Mac Quaig, the Laird of Mac Gooligan, and other natives in tartan at a gathering. I had a letter from Wilford yesterday. He writes of a famous match between Jack Studhome and Craven, on which the whole mess had a heavy book, that great stakes were pending, and that Craven won, scoring forty-two running off the red ball; and considering that the pockets of the table were not bigger than an egg-cup, I think Craven a trump."
"I heard something of this match at morning parade on the day I left; but being a bad stroke, you know, I seldom play billiards."
"Why was Howard's bay mare scratched at the last regimental race?"
"Don't know," said I, so dryly that he bit his nether lip.
"Some nice people visiting here," said he, staring at me steadily, so that his eyeglass glared in the light of the lustre, which was now lit; "and some very odd ones too. Lady Loftus is here, you see, in all her glory, and with her usual come-kiss-me-if-you-dare kind of look."
"Berkeley, how can you speak thus of one in her position?"
"Well, you-don't-dare-to-do-so-again sort of expression."
"She is my uncle's guest; not a girl in a cigar-shop or a casino!" said I, with growinghauteur.
"Sir Nigel's guest—haw—so am I, and I mean to make the best use of my time as such. Nice girl, Miss Wilford, from York—cousin of Wilford of ours—a doocid good style of girl; but have no intentions in that quarter—can't afford to chuck myself away, as I once heard my groom observe."
"You must learn to quote another style of people to make yourself understood here. You don't mean to infer that you have any intentions concerning Lady Louisa!" said I, with an air which was really impertinent.
"Why not?" he asked, failing completely to see it. "I have often such attacks, or affections of the heart, as she has given me."
"How?"
"Just as I had the measles or the chicken-pox in childhood—a little increase of the pulse, a little restlessness at night, and then one gets over it."
"Take care how you address her in this bantering fashion," said I, turning sharply away; "excuse me, but now I must dress for dinner."
And preceded by old Mr. Binns, the white-headed old butler, who many a time in days of yore had carried me on his back, and who now welcomed me home with a hearty shake of the hand, in which there was nothing derogatory to me, though Berkeley's eyes opened very wide when he saw our greeting, I was conducted to my old room in the north wing, where a cheerful fire was blazing, with two lights on each side of the toilette-table (the manor-house was amply lit with gas from the village), and there was Willie Pitblado arranging all my traps and clothes. But dismissing him to visit his family (to his no small joy), I was left to my own reflections and proceeded to dress. A subtle and subdued tone of insolence and jealousy that pervaded the few remarks made by Berkeley irritated and chafed me; yet he had said nothing with which I could grapple, or with which I could openly find fault. I was conscious, too, that my own bearing had been the reverse of courteous and friendly, and that, if I showed my hand thus, I might as well give up the cards. Suspicion of his native character, and a foreknowledge of the man, had doubtless much to do with all this; and while making my toilet with more than my usual care—conscious that Lady Louisa was making hers in the next room—I resolved to keep a lynx-like eye upon Mr. De Warr Berkeley during our short sojourn at Calderwood Glen. My irritation was no way soothed, or my pique lessened, by the information that for some time past, and quite unknown to me, he had been residing here with Lady Louisa, enjoying all the facilities afforded by hourly propinquity and the seclusion of a country house.
Had he already declared himself? Had he already proposed? The deuce! I thrust aside the thought, and angrily gave my hair a finishing rasp with a pair of huge ivory-handled hair-brushes.
CHAPTER IV.
And, oh! the memories that clingAround this old oak-panelled room!The pine logs flashing through the gloom,Sun sparkles from life's early spring.After long years I rest again;This ancient home it seems to me,Wearied with travel o'er the sea.Holds anodyne for carking pain.
And, oh! the memories that clingAround this old oak-panelled room!The pine logs flashing through the gloom,Sun sparkles from life's early spring.
And, oh! the memories that cling
Around this old oak-panelled room!The pine logs flashing through the gloom,
Around this old oak-panelled room!
The pine logs flashing through the gloom,
Sun sparkles from life's early spring.
After long years I rest again;This ancient home it seems to me,Wearied with travel o'er the sea.Holds anodyne for carking pain.
After long years I rest again;
This ancient home it seems to me,Wearied with travel o'er the sea.
This ancient home it seems to me,
Wearied with travel o'er the sea.
Holds anodyne for carking pain.
As I surveyed my old apartment the memories of other years stole over me with somewhat of a soothing influence, for when I thought of the past, the littleness of the present, the evanescent nature of all things could not fail to impress me.
It was in that room I had the last vivid recollection of my dear mother's face, on that farewell morning, when with early dawn she stole in on tiptoe to look for the last time upon her boy as he slept, and before he went forth into the world beyond her maternal care for ever.
The thunder of a gong in the corridor cut short further reflections, recalling me to the present; and giving a finishing touch to my costume, which was not the blue lancer uniform, faced with white, and laced with gold, but the solemn funereal suit and white necktie of civil life—a horrid costume that has crept among us, heaven knows how—I descended to the outer drawing-room, where I found my uncle and cousin marshalling their guests, of whom there appeared to be a goodly number.
Berkeley had already monopolized Lady Louisa, with whom he was conversing in a low tone, while busy stroking his moustaches, which were darkened by the "Guards' dye," and the pointing and twirling of which afforded him endless employment.
There was no denying that the fellow looked well, and that the result of riding, drilling, dancing, and fencing had been to impart to him much of that unmistakable air which, I may say without vanity, belongs particularly to the officers of our branch of the service.
The odd minutes which precede dinner are seldom very lively, and rather depress than raise the spirits. To Cora I was a species of "lion;" and as such underwent, through her, a process of introduction to several people I cared not a jot about, and never would.
I discussed the weather with General Rammerscales, as if I kept a rain-gauge and barometer, and was own brother to Admiral Fitzroy; touched on politics with the M.P., and on clerical innovations with a divine; kissed Cora's hand in play, and drew near to Lady Louisa, nearer still to her awful mother, whom I felt the necessity of conciliating to the utmost. Every one talked in a monotone, except jovial Sir Nigel, who was always cheery, brisk and bustling about from guest to guest.
With the Countess of Chillingham (who accorded me a calm, but courteous bow), my uncle, whose costume was a suit of accurate black, led the way past Binns and a line of liveried and powered gentlemen drawn up in the corridor.
She was a stately woman, of ample proportions, with a diamond tiara glittering on her grey hair.
Her face was fine in feature, and very noble in expression, showing that in youth she must have been beautiful. Her costume was magnificent, being maroon-coloured velvet over white satin, trimmed with the richest lace. I rather dreaded her.
She had all the peerage—"the Englishman's second Bible"—committed to memory; and, through the pages of Burke and Debrett, knew all the available and suitable heirs presumptive by rote—their ages, rank, title, and order of precedence; for it was among the strawberry leaves she chiefly expected to find a husband for her daughter—a marquis at least; and as she swept out of the room, with a velvet train like a coronation robe, she cast a backward glance to see to whose care that fair lady was confided.
Seeing Berkeley paired off with Miss Wilford, I hastened towards Lady Louisa. With her I was sufficiently intimate to have offered my arm.
As I have stated, we had met frequently before, at Canterbury, Bath, and elsewhere. Her society had been to me a source of greater pleasure and excitement than that of any other woman in whose way chance had thrown me.
Her rank, as the daughter of an earl, and her rare beauty had dazzled me, while her coquetry had piqued my vanity; though I imagined that, without discovering the deep interest she excited in my heart, I had taught her to view me as an object of more interest than other men.
I approached, and she received me calmly, placidly, with a bright but conventional smile, from which I could augur or gather nothing.
In her there was none of the clamorous tremor which I felt in my own breast, where something of annoyance at the coldness of her mother's bow was rankling.
"Lady Louisa—permit me," said I, proffering my arm.
"Too late, Mr. Norcliff. I am already engaged," she replied, rising, and placing her pretty gloved hand on the arm of old General Rammerscales, who, bowing and smiling with gratified vanity, remarked to me in passing—
"Been to India, I presume?"
"Yes, general, and Rangoon, too."
"Bah! 'tisn't what it used to be in my time—the Indian service is going to the deuce."
"But I belong to the Lancers."
"Ah!"
A daughter of the liberal M.P., Spittal, of Lickspittal, fell to my lot—a pretty piece of muslin and insipidity; but luckily we were seated not far from Lady Loftus. Near us were Miss Wilford and Berkeley, who proved less inattentive than I during the dinner, which proceeded with more joviality and laughter than is usual in such society; but the guests, twenty-four in number, were somewhat varied, for on this occasion the minister, doctor, and lawyer of the parish, the provost of a neighbouring burgh, and other persons out of the baronet's circle, were present.
In that old Scottish château, the mode of life was deprived of all ostentation, though luxurious and even fashionable.
The great oak table in the dining-room was covered with plenty, and with every delicacy of the season; but in its details it partook more of the baronial hall than such apartments usually do.
It was floored with encaustic tiles, amid the pattern of which the arms of the Calderwoods were reproduced again and again; and at each end sparkled and glowed a great fire of coals from the baronet's own pits, with the smouldering remains of a great yule log that had grown in his own woods, and had been perhaps a green sapling when James V. kept court in Falkland.
In the centre of this dining-hall lay a soft Turkey carpet for the feet of those who were seated at table.
The chairs were all square backed, well cushioned with green velvet, and dated from the time of James VII.; the walls were of dark varnished wainscot, decorated with old portraits and stags' antlers; for there was here a curious blending of old baronial state with the comforts and tastes of modern times and modern luxury.
Above each of the great fireplaces, carved in stone, were the arms of the Calderwoods of Calderwood and Piteadie;argenta palm-tree growing out of a mount in base, surmounted by a saltire gules; on a chief azure, three mullets, the crest being a hand bearing a palm branch, with the motto, "Veritas premitur non apprimitur."
Amid the buzz of tongues around me—for, sooth to say, some of my uncle's country guests made noise enough—I looked from time to time beyond the great épergne to where Lady Louisa sat, evidently bored and amused by turns with the laboured conversation of the old sepoy general.
It was impossible to refrain from turning again and again to admire that pale and creamy complexion, those deep black eyes and eyelashes, the small rosy mouth, the thick dark hair that grew in a downward peak, the lovely little ears with their diamond pendants, those hands and arms, which were perfection in colour, delicacy, and symmetry.
Twice her eyes met mine, giving me each time a bright glance of intelligence, and making my heart beat happily.
I fear that the young lady by whose side I was seated must have found me anything but a satisfactory companion, and her simple remarks concerning the coming war, our chances of going abroad, the latest novelty in music or literature—Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, and so forth—fell on a dull or inattentive ear.
The dinner passed away as others do; the dessert was discussed. The fruit came, and now, as this was but the second eve of the new year, the old family wassail-bowl was placed before my uncle. Thanks to railway speed, I was enabled to partake of this old-fashioned libation. The great silver vessel in which it was compounded was the pride of Sir Nigel's heart, having been taken by an ancestor at the storming of Newcastle by the Scots in 1640, when the "Fife regiment entered by the great breach in the fore wall." It had four handles of chased silver, each representing a long, lanky hound, with his hind feet on the bulb of the cup, and his nose and fore paws on the upper rim.
It held four bottles of port, which were spiced with cloves, nutmeg, mace, and ginger; the whites of six eggs well whisked and sugared; and six roasted apples were swimming on the top.
To prepare this potent draught was the yearly task of old Mr. Binns, the butler, and my cousin Cora. Sir Nigel rose, and filling his glass from the gigantic tankard, exclaimed, ere he drained it—
"A happy new year to you all, my friends! May the year that is gone be the worst of our lives, and may the new one, that opens full of promise, give joy to all!"
"A happy new year to all, Sir Nigel," went round the table, as we emptied our glasses; and as Binns replenished them from the wassail-bowl, the conversation became more free and unrestrained, for the celebration of the new year is a festival which has not yet fallen into desuetude in Scotland, though it has nearly done so in the sister kingdom.
Wherever Scotchmen go, they never forget the associations or the customs of their fatherland; thus, in England and Ireland, and still more amid the goldfields of Australia, or the rice-swamps of Hong Kong, in the cities, camps, and barracks of India and America—ay, and in our ships far out upon the lonely sea, ten thousand miles, perhaps, from Forth, or Tay, or Clyde, on New Year's morning there are claspings of toil-hardened hands, good wishes exchanged, with the thoughts of home, its familiar faces, and its old fireside; the heather hills, and the deep grassy glens, that some may never see more; but still, amid joy and revelry, and, perhaps, the songs of Burns, the new year is ushered in.
On that morning, as soon as the clocks strike twelve, a cheer passes over all the towns and hamlets of Scotland, from the German to the Atlantic sea; many a bottle is broached, and many a bagpipe blown; and though the wild orgies and uproar, and sometimes the discharge of firearms, with which it used to be welcomed at every market-cross, are passing away, still the New Year's tide is a time of feasting, merry-making, and congratulations with all.
Even that solemn "Dundreary," my brother officer, Berkeley, thawed under the jovial influence of the society around him; but I was provoked to find that it led simply to very animated conversation between himself and Lady Louisa across the table. It referred to a past hunting affair, in which they had had some adventures together.
"We—haw—had not been there more than half an hour before there was a find," said he; "you remember, Lady Louisa?"
"How could I forget?" she responded, with charming animation. "The fox, a dull, reddish fawn one, with black back and shoulders, broke cover from among some gorse at the foot of the Mid Lomond."
"The hounds were instantly in full cry, and away we went. By Jove, it was beautiful! We cleared some garden-walls, where we left the general up to the chin in somebody's hothouse; and after that we took the lead of the entire field."
"We?" said I, inquiringly.
"Lady Louisa and myself," replied Berkeley, with one of his quiet, deep smiles; "we were better mounted, and in riding I—haw—flatter myself that few—few even of your Fifeshire hunt will surpass me."
"Well?" I said, impatiently, crushing a walnut to pieces.
"The meet was at the base of the Mid Lomond; the morning was everything that could be desired; the field was very small, but select; Sir Nigel, the general, Mr. Spittal, Lady Louisa, Miss Calderwood, Miss Wilford, and—haw—a few others. The pack was in a most workman-like condition, and, as Lady Louisa remembers, they soon proclaimed a find, with open mouth."
"Yes," said she, with her dark eyes lighting up; "away we went at racing speed, through the park of Falkland, a two miles open run at least, on, on, over 'bank, bush, and scaur——'"
"But the fox was evidently an old one. He tried some old coal mines, and then some field drains; but they had been carefully stopped by old Pitblado, the keeper. Yet we lost him at a deep pool on the banks of the Eden."
"But for a time only, Mr. Berkeley," resumed Lady Louisa. "You remember how oddly he was found in a cabbage-garden, and how we cleared the hedges at a flying leap, you and I going neck and neck; you must remember, too, how Sir Nigel's shout made all our hearts rebound!"
"Quitting the river-side, he broke southward for two fields, and ran straight through the home farm of Calderwood; on, on we rode, and drove him right in Kinross-shire; but doubling on the dogs, he led us back. Doubling again, we pursued him once more into Kinross; what did you think of that, general?"
"Left to my own reflections among the melon-beds, ten miles in your rear, I thought it devilish poor work when compared to tiger-hunting," growled the general.
"In and out of each county he went no less than three times in as many half-hours," said Lady Louisa; "and but for the darkness of the December evening, he would have been compelled to yield up his brush, had we not lost him in a thicket near Kinies Wood, at Loch Leven side."
"We lost more," said Miss Wilford, with a very decided expression of mischief in her very beautiful blue eyes; "for when the whole hunt assembled, Lady Louisa and Mr. Berkeley were nowhere to be found—the keepers shouted, and horns were blown in vain. Having taken the wrong road, they did not reach the Glen till half-past nine, when a storm of snow was falling."
"Which compelled us, Miss Wilford, to take shelter in wayside cottages at Balgedie and at Orphil," said Lady Louisa, with a tone of real annoyance, while her eye, like a gleam of light, dwelt for an instant on me; but the hunting anecdote and its conclusion piqued—cut me to the heart.
With such opportunities could Berkeley have failed to press his suit?
I glanced at him. His temporary animation had subsided; his pale and impassive face wore its usual quiet and cold expression; yet his eyes were keen, restless, and watchful, even cunning at times. He smiled seldom, and laughed—so to say—never.
Whether it was simply the memory of that winter day's sport, with all its excitement and concomitant danger, in counties so rough and hilly as Fife and Kinross, or whether it was some particular incident connected therewith that inspired her, I know not; but a flush on the usually pale cheek of Louisa Loftus made her look radiantly beautiful—like a dash of rouge, lending a glorious lustre to her deeply-lashed dark eyes. But now my Lady Chillingham, who evidently did not share her daughter's enthusiasm for field sports, exchanged an expressive glance with Cora, who, of course, occupied the head of the table, with the parish minister in the post of honour at her right hand.
Then we all rose like a covey of partridges, while the ladies retired in single file to the drawing-room, whither I longed to accompany them; but now the gentlemen drew their chairs closer together, side by side; Sir Nigel announced that "the business of the evening was only beginning;" the wine decanters and the claret jugs were replenished; Binns appeared with water steaming hot in an antique silver kettle, followed by a servant bearing liqueur-frames, filled with "mountain dew," for those who preferred toddy, the national beverage, to which fully half the company, including my jolly old kinsman, at once betook themselves.
Somehow those "trifles light as air," which are the torments of the jealous and the doubtful, were added to fears, to crush me now.
Even without the danger of a rival, I knew that "La Mère Chillingham," as the mess called her, would keep a sharp eye upon me, as the possessor of only my subaltern's commission in the lancers, with a couple of hundred or so per annum; for she believed that all men so circumstanced were little better than well-accredited sharpers, and, as such, certain to have nefarious designs upon her wealthy and beautiful daughter—designs which our plumes, epaulettes, and lancer trappings were every way calculated to render more dangerous.
I felt sure that, by such as she, even the wealthy parvenu, De Warr Berkeley, would be less dreaded than I; and as I looked round the old hall of Calderwood, and saw the grim portraits of those who had preceded me, looking disdainfully out of their stiff ruffs and long doublets, and thought of my rival's puerile character, and his father's beer vats, an emotion of real contempt for the cold-blooded and match-making countess stole into my heart.
Louisa Loftus was, indeed, a proud and glorious beauty. I knew not yet what were my chances of success with her, and, in short, I "had nothing for it but to wait and try my best to be sanguine."
The brave old axiom, that "no fortress is impregnable," is a valuable worldly lesson, and one ought never to forget that a storming party rarely fails.
There was some consolation in this reflection.
I took another glass of sparkling hock, another, and another, and somehow through their medium the world began to look more bright and cheering.
CHAPTER V.
Come, let us enjoy the fleeting day,And banish toil, and laugh at care,For who would grief and sorrow beatWhen he can throw his griefs away?Away, away! begone, I say!For mournful thoughtWill come unsought.BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
Come, let us enjoy the fleeting day,And banish toil, and laugh at care,For who would grief and sorrow beatWhen he can throw his griefs away?Away, away! begone, I say!For mournful thoughtWill come unsought.BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
Come, let us enjoy the fleeting day,
And banish toil, and laugh at care,For who would grief and sorrow beat
And banish toil, and laugh at care,
For who would grief and sorrow beat
When he can throw his griefs away?
Away, away! begone, I say!
For mournful thoughtWill come unsought.BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
For mournful thought
Will come unsought.
BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
"Provost," said my uncle to the jovial and rubicund magistrate who sat on his left hand, now that he had taken Cora's place at the head of the table, "try the Johannisberg. It is some given to me by Prince Metternich when I was at Vienna, and is from grapes raised in his own vineyards. Rare stuff it is for those who like such light wines."
"Thank you, Sir Nigel; but Binns, I see, has brought the three elements, so I'll e'en brew some whisky-toddy," replied the magistrate.
The conversation now became more noisy and animated. The approaching war, the treaty of neutrality between the Scandinavian and the Western Powers, whether our fleet had yet entered the Euxine, or whether Luders had yet burst into the Dobrudscha, became the prevailing topics, and in interest seemed fully to rival that never-failing subject at a country table, fox-hunting.
The county pack, the meet of the Fifeshire hounds at the kennels, or on the green slopes of Largo; of the Buccleuch pack at Blacklaw, Ancrum, and so forth; their runs by wood and wold, loch and lee, rock and river, with many a perilous leap and wild adventure in the field, over a rough and hilly country, were narrated with animation, and descanted on with interest, though all such sank into insignificance beside the history of a hunt in Bengal, where General Rammerscales had figured in pursuit of a tiger (long the terror of the district), seated in a loftyhowdahof basket-work, strapped on the back of an elephant, twelve feet high to the shoulder, accompanied by the major of his regiment, each armed with two double-barrelled guns.
The tiger, which measured nine feet from his nose to the tip of his tail, and five in height, had been roused from among the jungle grass, and was a brute of the most ferocious kind, yellow in hide, and striped with beautiful transverse bars of black and brown. He was well-known in that district. With his tremendous jaws he had carried off many a foal and buffalo; by a single stroke of his claws he had disembowelled and rent open the body of more than one tall dark sowar of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry; and as for sheep and goats, he made no more account of them than if they had been so many shrimps.
With a shrill, short scream of rage, on finding that he was brought to bay at last, he threw himself in cat-fashion on his back, belly upwards, his small and quivering ears close on the back of his head, his dreadful claws thrust out, his eyes glaring like two gigantic carbuncles, his wide, red mouth distended, and every wiry whisker bristling with rage and fury.
The general fired both barrels of his first gun. One shot failed; but the other wounded the tiger in the shoulder, and only served to make him more savage; though, instead of springing upwards, he lay thus on the defensive, gathered up in a round ball.
The major, an enormously fat man, weighing more than twenty stone, now leant over thehowdahto take a cool and deliberate aim; but the elephant in the same moment happened to bend his fore-knees, for the claws of the tiger were inserted in his trunk.
Losing all balance by this unlucky motion, the poor major toppled headlong over thehowdah, just as both barrels of his gun exploded harmlessly, amid a yell from the Indian hunters as they thought of his fate.
But, "with a mighty squelch," as the general phrased it, the major, with his twenty-two stone weight of flesh and bone, fell prone upon the fair, white, upturned belly of the tiger!
Terrified, breathless, and bewildered by an antagonist so ponderous, and by such an unexpected mode of attack, the tiger started up, and fled from the scene, leaving the major untouched and unharmed, but seated ruefully among the jungle grass, and with considerable doubts as to his safety and his own identity.
The parish minister fairly overmatched this story by the narrative of a fox which had been drowned by a mussel.
Prior to being appointed pastor of Calderwood Kirk, through the favour of its patron, Sir Nigel, he had been an assistant in a parish situated on the borders of one of the great salt lochs in the western highlands.
When riding one morning along the shore, opposite the Summer Isles, he was surprised to see a large grey fox busy among the basket-mussels, thick clusters of which were adhering to the dark whin rocks which the ebb tide had left dry. The sea was coming in fast; but, strange to say, Reynard seemed to be so much engaged in breakfasting on shell-fish that he was heedless of that important circumstance.
Dismounting, and tying his horse to a tree, the minister made a circuit to reach the place, and being armed with a heavy-handled riding-whip, he had no fear of the encounter; but by the time he arrived at the mussel-beds, the rapid tide had overflowed them, and the fox had disappeared. So, remounting, the minister pursued his way into the mountains.
Returning along the shore by the same path in the evening, when the tide had ebbed, he again saw Reynard in the same place, but lying quite dead, and, on examination, discovered that he was held fast by the tongue between the sharp shells of one of the basket-mussels, which are sometimes seven inches long, and adhere with intense strength to the rocks by the beard, known to the learned as a powerfulbyssus. Seized and retained thus, as if in the grasp of a steel vice, the fox, which had been in the habit of seeking the sea shore to feed on the mussels, had been held fast, until drowned by the advancing tide, which there flows rapidly in from the Atlantic.
This story elicited roars of laughter from the fox-hunters, who had never heard of a brush being taken in such a fashion; and Berkeley expressed astonishment that the anecdote had never found its way into the columns ofBell's Life, or other sporting journals.
The provost and minister gabbled about presbyteries and synods, the moderation of calls, elders, deacons, and overtures to the General Assembly, anent sundry ecclesiastical matters, particularly the adoption of organs, and other innovations that savoured of prelacy, making up a jargon which, to many present, and even to me, proved quite unintelligible; but now, as a military man, old Rammerscales seized me by a button, for there was no eluding being bored by him.
He had been so many years in India that he found a difficulty in assuring himself that he was not "up country" and in cantonments still.
Thus, if the rooms were warm, the general grumbled that there was nopunkahto swing over his head, the baldness of which he polished vigorously, and muttered about "tatties of iced water."
He calculated everything by its value in rupees, and talked much of compounds and cantonments; ofbattaand marching money, ofchutneyandchunam, and all manner of queer things, including sepoys andsowars,subadars,havildars, andjemidars; thus the most casual remark drew forth some Indian reference.
The cold of last night reminded him of what he had endured in the mountains of Affghanistan; and the dark clouds of this morning were exactly like some he had seen near Calcutta, when a sepoy was killed by his side by a stroke of lightning, which twisted up the barrel of his musket like a screw—"yes, sir, like a demmed corkscrew!"
Next, the gas offended his eyes, which had been so long accustomed to the oil lamps or oil-shades of his bungalow; and then he spoke to all the servants, even respectable old Mr. Binns (who had been for forty years like Sir Nigel's shadow) as if they had been so manysycees, grass-cutters, or tent-pitchers, making them start whenever he addressed them; for he seemed to bark or snap out his words and wishes at "the precious Griffs," as he termed them.
On the other hand, I was bored by the provost, who, like the M.P. (a peace-at-any-price man), by no means approved of the expected war, and informed Berkeley and myself that—
"Our trade—soldiering, to wit—was a deuced poor one—a speculation, a loss, and never profit to any one, individually or collectively."
Berkeley smiled superciliously, eyed the provost through his glass, and blandly asked him to repeat his remark twice over, professing that he did not understand the worthy man.
"If you mean that you disapprove of the intended war, my good friend," said he, "I—haw—quite agree with you, Why the deuce should I fight for the 'sick man' at Constantinople; or for the Turks or the Tartars of the Crimea? It's a horrid bore."
Amid all this uncongenial conversation, I longed for the time when the seniors would move towards the drawing-room, from whence the sounds of music and of voices sweetly attuned were heard to issue at times; for there my star was shining—Louisa Loftus, so beautiful to look upon, and yet whom it seemed so hopeless in me to love!
Lost in reverie, and full of her image, it was some time before I became aware that my distinguished brother in arms, Mr. De Warr Berkeley, was addressing me.
"I beg your pardon," said I, nervously; "did you speak?"
"I was remarking," he lisped, languidly, "that these good people here are—haw—very pleasant, and all that sort of thing; but have little of the—haw—the—haw——"
"What?"
"Oh—theodeur de la bonne sociétéabout them."
"The deuce!" said I, with some annoyance, for I was conscious that at our end of the table were really gathered the lions of my uncle's dinner party. "I hope you don't include our host in this—he represents the oldest line of baronets in Scotland."
"In Scotland—haw—very good," he drawled.
"Sir Nigel is my uncle," said I, pointedly.
"Yes, by the way, I crave pardon; so deuced stupid of me, when I know well that there are no such sticklers about precedence and dignity as your little baronets."
Coming from a conceitedparvenu, the cool impudence of this remark was so amusing that I burst into a fit of laughter; and at that moment, by a singular coincidence, Sir Nigel, who had been engaged in an animated discussion, almost amounting to a dispute, with Spittal of Lickspittal, the M.P., now suddenly raised his voice, and without at all intending it, sent one random shot after another at my fashionable comrade.
"I can assure you, sir," he continued, "that such cosmopolitan views as yours, politically and socially, can never be endorsed by me. Thackeray says—and he says truly—that God has created no more offensive creature than a Scotch snob, and I quite agree with him. The chief aim of such is to be thought an Englishman (just as some Englishmen affect the foreigner), and a deplorable caricature he makes of the Englishman in language, bearing, and appearance. An English snob, in whatever his line may be, is, as Thackeray has shown us, a great and amusing original; but a Scotch snob is a poor and vile imitation, and like all counterfeits is easily discernible: Birmingham at once. I know no greater hot-bed of snobbery than our law-courts, sir, especially those of Edinburgh. Binns, pass the claret."
The M.P. bowed, and smiled deprecatingly, for he had long figured among the said courts as one who would joyfully have blacked the boots of the lord advocate or the ministry.
I felt almost sorry for Berkeley while my uncle spurred his hobby against the M.P.; the ugly cap fitted so exactly.
"I know," resumed Sir Nigel, "that in a nation of tuft-hunters like the British, whose Bible is the 'Peerage,' a man with a handle to his name, however small it may be, is a trump card indeed; hence the adoration of rank, which, as some one says, 'if folly in London, deepens into positive vice in the country.'"
"Then what do you say of your poor Scottish metropolis, whose aristocracy consists of a few psalm-singing—aw—bailies and young legal prigs of the bar, whose importance is only equalled by their necessities—boiled mutton and thin Cape Madeira?" said Berkeley, glad of an opportunity to sneer at something Scotch.
"I have known a few honest fellows—and men of first-rate ability, too—connected with the Scottish Parliament House," said Sir Nigel.
"But that, I suppose, was in the old Tory days, when all Edinburgh fell down in the mud to worship George IV., the first gentleman in Europe," said the M.P. as a retort, at which my uncle laughed loudly.
But thus, by his remarks at the fag end of some discussion, Sir Nigel had the effect of completely silencing, and unintentionally mortifying, Berkeley, who continued to sip his wine in silence, and with something of malevolence in his eye, till Binns announced coffee, and we repaired to the drawing-room.