“Daughter of fair Leda, hear!From thy far Elysian sphere;Lovely as when, for his fee,To Paris Venus promised thee—Appear—appear—appear!”
“Daughter of fair Leda, hear!From thy far Elysian sphere;Lovely as when, for his fee,To Paris Venus promised thee—Appear—appear—appear!”
Accustomed to command, rather than to be commanded, the fair Helen lingered to the last possible moment; but when the last moment came, so did she, and so suddenly, that no one knew how she got there. She was habiteda la Grecque,—her hair ornamented with pearls and a superb aigrette. The figure passed slowly onwards—stopped for an instant directly opposite the Queen, as if to gratify her curiosity, took leave of her with a malicious smile, and vanished. She had scarcely disappeared when her Majesty exclaimed—“What! that the fair Helen! I don’t pique myself on beauty, but may I die if I would change faces with her!”
“I told your Majesty how it would be,” remarked the enchanter; “and yet there she is, as she was in her best days.”
“She has, however, very fine eyes,” observed Essex.
“Yes,” said Sydney, “they are large, dark, and brilliant—but after all, what do they say?” added he, correcting himself.
“Nothing,” replied the favourite.
The Queen, who was this day extravagantly rouged, asked if they did not think Helen’s tint tooChina-white.
“China!” cried the Earl; “Delf rather.”
“Perhaps,” continued the Queen, “it was the fashion of her time; but you must confess that such turned-in toes would have been endured in no other woman. I don’t dislike her style of dress, however, and probably I may bring it round again, in place of these troublesome hoops, which have their inconveniences.”
“O, as to the dress,” chimed in the favourite—“let it pass; it is well enough, which is more than can be said for the wearer.”
A conclusion, in which Sydney heartily joined, rhapsodying—
“O Paris, fatal was the hour,When, victim to the blind god’s power,Within your native walks you boreThat firebrand from a foreign shore;Who—ah, so little worth the strife!—Was fit for nothing, but a wife.”
“O Paris, fatal was the hour,When, victim to the blind god’s power,Within your native walks you boreThat firebrand from a foreign shore;Who—ah, so little worth the strife!—Was fit for nothing, but a wife.”
“’Od’s my life now,” said her Majesty, “but I think she looks fitter for anything else, Sydney!—My Lord of Essex, how think you?”
“As your Majesty does,” returned he; “there is a meaning in that eye.”
“And a minute past they said there was none,” thought Faustus.
This liberal critique on the fair Helen being concluded, the Queen desired to see the beautiful and hopeless Mariamne.
The enchanter did not wait to be twice asked; but he did not choose to invoke a Princess who had worshipped at holy altars in the same manner as he had summoned the fair Pagan. It was then, by way of ceremony, that, turning four times to the east, three to the south, two to the west, and only once to the north, he uttered, with great suavity, in Hebrew—
“Lovely Mariamne, come!Though thou sleepest far away,Regal spirit! leave thy tomb!Let the splendours round thee play,Silken robe and diamond stone,Such as, on thy bridal-day,Flash’d from proud Judea’s throne.”
“Lovely Mariamne, come!Though thou sleepest far away,Regal spirit! leave thy tomb!Let the splendours round thee play,Silken robe and diamond stone,Such as, on thy bridal-day,Flash’d from proud Judea’s throne.”
Scarcely had he concluded, when the spouse of Herod made her appearance, and gravely advanced into the centre of the gallery, where she halted, as her predecessor had done. She was robed nearly like the high-priest of the Jews, except that instead of the Tiara, a veil, descending from the crown of the head, and slightly attached to the cincture, fell far behind her. Those graceful and flowing draperies threw over the whole figure of the lovely Hebrew an air of indescribable dignity. After having stopped for several minutes before the company, she pursued her way,—but without paying theslightest parting compliment to the haughty Elizabeth.
“Is it possible,” said the Queen, before she had well disappeared—“is it possible that Mariamne was such a figure as that?—such a tall, pale, meagre, melancholy-looking affair, to have passed for a beauty through so many centuries!”
“By my honour,” quoth Essex, “had I been in Herod’s place, I should never have been angry at her keeping her distance.”
“Yet I perceived,” said Sydney, “a certain touching languor in the countenance,—an air of dignified simplicity.”
Her Majesty looked grave.
“Fye, fye,” returned Essex, “it was haughtiness; her manner is full of presumption,—ay, and even her height.”
The Queen having approved of Essex’s decision, on her own part condemned the Princess for her aversion to her spouse, which, though the world alleged to have been caused by his being the cut-throat of her family, she saw nothing to justify, whatever a husband might be. A wife was a wife; and Herod had done quite right in cutting off the heads of the offenders.
Faustus, who affected universal knowledge, assured her Majesty that all the historians were in error on that point; for he had had it himself from a living witness, that the true cause of Herod’svengeance was his spiteful old-maid of a sister—Salome’s overhearing Mariamne, one day at prayers, beg of Heaven to rid her of her worthless husband.
After a moment of thought, the Queen, with the same indifference with which she would have called for her waiting-maid, desired to see Cleopatra; for the Egyptian queen not having been quite ascomme il fautas the British, the latter treated her accordingly. The beautiful Cleopatra quickly made her appearance at the extremity of the gallery,—and Elizabeth expected that this apparition would fully make up for the disappointment which the others had occasioned. Scarcely had she entered, when the air was loaded with the rich perfumes of Arabia.
Her bosom (that had been melting as charity) was open as day; a loop of diamonds and rubies gathered the drapery as much above the left knee as it might as well have been below it; and a woven wind of transparent gauze softened the figure which it did not conceal.
In this gay and gallant costume, the mistress of Antony glided through the gallery, making a similar pause as the others. No sooner was her back turned, than the courtiers began to tear her person and frippery to pieces,—the Queen calling out, like one possessed, for paper to burn under her nose, to drive away the vapours occasioned by the gums with which the mummy was filled,—declared her insupportablein every sense, and far beneath even the wife of Herod or the daughter of Leda,—shocked at her Diana drapery, to exhibit the most villanous leg in the world,—and protested that a thicker robe would have much better become her.
Whatever the two courtiers might have thought, they were forced to join in these sarcasms, which the frail Egyptian excited in peculiar severity.
“Such a cocked nose!” said the Queen.
“Such impertinent eyes!” said Essex.
Sydney, in addition to her other defects, found out that she had too much stomach and too little back.
“Say of her as you please,” returned Faustus—“one she is, however, who led the Master of the World in her chains. But, madam,” added he, turning to the Queen, “as these far-famed foreign beauties are not to your taste, why go beyond your own kingdom? England, which has always produced the models of female perfection—as we may even at this moment perceive—will furnish an object perhaps worthy of your attention in the Fair Rosamond.” Now Faustus had heard that the Queen fancied herself to resemble the Fair Rosamond; and no sooner was the name mentioned, than she was all impatience to see her.
“There is a secret instinct in this impatience,” observed the Doctor, craftily; “for, according to tradition, the Fair Rosamond had much resemblanceto your Majesty, though, of course, in an inferior style.”
“Let us judge—let us judge,” replied the Queen, hastily; “but from the moment she appears, Sir Sydney, I request of you to observe her minutely, that we may have her description, if she is worth it.” This order being given, and some little conjuration made, as Rosamond was only a short distance from London, she made her appearance in a second. Even at the door, her beauty charmed every one, but as she advanced she enchanted them; and when she stopped to be gazed at, the admiration of the company, with difficulty restrained to signs and looks, exhibited their high approbation of the taste of Henry II. Nothing could exceed the simplicity of her dress—and yet in that simplicity she effaced the splendours of day—at least to the spectators. She waited before them a long time—much longer than the others had done; and as if aware of the command the Queen had given, she turned especially towards Sydney, looking at him with an expressive smile. But she must go at last; and when she was gone,—“My lord,” said the Queen, “what a pretty creature! I never saw anything so charming in my life. What a figure! what dignity without affectation! what brilliancy without artifice!—and it is said that I resemble her. My lord of Essex, what think you?” My lord thought, would to Heaven you did; I would givethe best steed in my stable that you had even an ugly likeness to her. But he said, “Your majesty has but to make the tour of the gallery in her green robe and primrose petticoat, and if our magician himself would not mistake you for her, count me the greatest —— of your three kingdoms.”
During all this flattery with which the favourite charmed the ears of the good Queen, the poet Sydney, pencil in hand, was sketching the vision of the Fair Rosamond.
Her Majesty then commanded it should be read, and when she heard it, pronounced it very clever: but as it was a real impromptu, not one of those born long before, and was written for a particular audience, as a picture is painted for a particular light—we think it but justice to the celebrated author not to draw his lines from the venerable antiquity in which they rest, even if we had the MSS. copy; but we have not—which at once finishes the business.
After the reading, they deliberated on the next that should succeed Rosamond. The enchanter, still of opinion that they need not leave England when beauty was the object in question, proposed the famous Countess of Salisbury, who gave rise to the institution of the Garter. The idea was approved of by the Queen, and particularly agreeable to the courtiers, as they wished to see if thecausewere worthy of the effect,—i.e., the leg of the garter;but her Majesty declared that she should particularly like a second sight of her lovely resemblance, the Fair Rosamond. The Doctor vowed that the affair was next to impracticable in the order of conjuration,—the recall of a phantom not depending on the powers submitted to the first enchantments. But the more he declared against it, the more the Queen insisted, until he was obliged at last to submit, but with the information that, if Rosamond should return, it would not be by the way in which she had entered or retired already, and that they had best take care of themselves, as he could answer for no one.
The Queen, as we have elsewhere observed, knew not what fear was—and the two courtiers were now a little reassured on the subject of apparitions. The Doctor then set about accomplishing the Queen’s wishes. Never had conjuration cost him so much trouble; and after a thousand grimaces and contortions, neither pretty nor polite, he flung his book into the middle of the gallery, went three times round it on his hands and feet, then made the tree against the wall, head down and heels up; but nothing appearing, he had recourse to the last and most powerful of his spells. What that was must remain for ever a mystery, for certain reasons; but he wound it up by three times summoning with a sonorous voice—“Rosamond! Rosamond! Rosamond!” At the last of these magic cries, thegrand window burst open with the sudden crash of a tempest, and through it descended the lovely Rosamond into the middle of the room.
The Doctor was in a cold sweat, and while he dried himself, the Queen, who thought her fair visitant a thousand times the fairer for the additional difficulty in procuring this second sight, for once let her prudence sleep, and, in a transport of enthusiasm, stepping out of her circle with open arms, cried out, “My dear likeness!” No sooner was the word out, than a violent clap of thunder shook the whole palace; a black vapour filled the gallery, and a train of little fantastic lightnings serpentined to the right and left in the dazzled eyes of the company.
When the obscurity was a little dissipated, they saw the magician, with his four limbs in air, foaming like a wild boar, his cap here, his wig there—in short, by no means an object of either the sublime or beautiful. But though he came off the worst, yet no one in the adventure escapedquite clear, except Rosamond. The lightning burned away my Lord of Essex’s right brow; Sir Sidney lost the left mustachio; her majesty’s head-dress smelt villanously of the sulphur, and her hoop-petticoat was so puckered up with the scorching, that it was ordered to be preserved among the royal draperies, as a warning, to all maids of honour to come, against curiosity.
Had the royal army of Israel been accoutred after the colour and fashion of the British battalions, I am quite satisfied that another enigma would have been added by King Solomon to his special list of incomprehensibilities. The extraordinary fascination which a red coat exercises over the minds and optics of the fair sex, appears to me a greater phenomenon than any which has been noticed by Goethe in his Theory of the Development of Colours. The same fragment of ensanguined cloth will irritate a bull, charm a viper, and bewitch the heart of a woman. No civilian, however good-looking or clean-limbed—and I rather pique myself upon my pins—has the ghost of a chance when opposed in the lists of love to an officer, a mail-guard, a whipper-in, or a postman. You may be as clever a fellow as ever coopered upan article for the Magazine, as great a poet as Byron, in beauty an Antinous, in wit a Selwyn, in oratory a Canning—you may dance like Vestris, draw like Grant, ride like Alexander; and yet, with all these accomplishments, it is a hundred chances to one that your black coat, although fashioned by the shears and polished by the goose of Stultz, will be extinguished by the gaudy scarlet habiliments of a raw-boned ensign, emancipated six months ago, for the first time in his life, from the wilderness of a Highland glen, and even now as awkward a cub as ever presumed to plunge into the perils of a polka.
Let no man, nor woman either, consider these observations flummery or verbiage. They are my calm deliberate opinions, written, it is true, under circumstances of considerable irritation, but nevertheless deliberate. I have no love to the army, for I have been sacrificed for a dragoon. My affections have been slighted, my person vilified, my professional prospects damaged, and my constitution fearfully shaken in consequence of this military mania. I have made an idiot of myself in the eyes of my friends and relatives. I have absolutely gone upon the turf. I have lost some valuable inches of epidermis, and every bone of my body feels at the present moment as sore as though I were the sole survivor of a terrific railway collision. A more injured individual than myself never mountedupon a three-legged stool, and from that high altitude I now hurl down defiance and anathemas upon the regulars, be they horse or foot, sappers or miners, artillery, pioneers, or marines!
It was my accursed fate to love, and love in vain. I do not know whether it was the eye or the instep, the form or the voice, of Edith Bogle, which first drew my attention, and finally fascinated my regards, as I beheld her swimming swan-like down the Assembly Rooms at the last Waverley Ball. A more beautiful representative of Die Vernon could not have been found within the boundary of the three kingdoms. Her rich auburn hair flowed out from beneath the crimson network which strove in vain to confine within its folds that bright luxuriant sea—on her brow there lay one pearl, pure as an angel’s tear—and oh! sweet even to bewilderment was the smile that she cast around her, as, resting upon the arm of the moody Master of Ravenswood, she floated away—a thing of light—in the mazy current of the waltz! I shall not dwell now upon the circumstances of the subsequent introduction; on the delicious hour of converse at the supper-table; or on the whispered, and—as I flattered myself—conscious adieux, when, with palpitating heart, I veiled her fair shoulders with the shawl, and felt the soft pressure of her fingers as I tenderly assisted her to her chair. I went home that night a love-sick Writer to the Signet. Onefairy form was the sole subject of my dreams, and next morning I woke to the conviction, that without Edith Bogle earth would be a wilderness, and even the bowers of Paradise damp, chilly, and uncomfortable.
There is no comfort in looking back upon a period when hope was high and unchecked. I have met with men who, in their maudlin moments—usually towards the close of the evening—were actuated by an impulse similar to that which compelled the Ancient Mariner to renew his wondrous tale: and I have heard them on such occasions recount the whole circumstances of their unfortunate wooing, with voices choked by grief, and with tears of tender imbecility. I have observed, however, that, on the morrow succeeding such disclosures, these gentlemen have invariably a shy and sheepish appearance, as though inwardly conscious that they had extended their confidence too far, and rather dubious as to the sincerity of their apparent sympathisers. Warned by their example, I hold it neither profitable nor wise to push my own confessions too far. If Edith gave me at the outset more encouragement than she ought to have done—if she systematically led me to believe that I had made an impression upon her heart—if she honoured me with a preference so marked, that it deceived not only myself, but others—let the blame be hers. But why should I go minutely into the courtship of half a year?As difficult, indeed, and as futile, would it be to describe the alternations of an April day, made up of sunshine and of shower, of cloud and rainbow and storm—sometimes mild and hopeful, then ominous of an eve of tempest. For a long time, I had not the slightest suspicion that I had a rival. I remarked, indeed, with somewhat of dissatisfaction, that Edith appeared to listen too complacently to the commonplace flatteries of the officers who are the habitual haunters of private ball and of public assembly. She danced too often with Ensign Corkingham, flirted rather openly with Major Chawser, and certainly had no business whatever to be present at a military fête and champagne luncheon given at the Castle by these brave defenders of their country. I was not invited to that fête, and the circumstance, as I well remember, was the cause of a week’s coolness between us. But it was not until Lieutenant Roper of the dragoons appeared in the field that I felt any particular cause for uneasiness.
To give the devil his due, Roper was a handsome fellow. He stood upwards of six feet in his boots, had a splendid head of curling black hair, and a mustachio and whiskers to match. His nose was beautifully aquiline, his eyes of the darkest hazel, and a perpetual smile, which the puppy had cultivated from infancy, disclosed a box of brilliant dominoes. I knew Roper well, for I had twicebailed him out of the police-office, and, in return, he invited me to mess. Our obligations, therefore, to each other might be considered as nearly equal—in fact, the balance, if any, lay upon his side, as upon one occasion he had won from me rather more than fifty pounds at ecarté. He was not a bad fellow either, though a little slap-dash in his manner, and somewhat supercilious in his cups; on which occasions—and they were not unfrequent—he was by far too general in his denunciation of all classes of civilians. He was, I believe, the younger son of a Staffordshire baronet, of good connections, but no money—in fact, his patrimony was his commission, and he was notoriously on the outlook for an heiress. Now, Edith Bogle was rumoured to have twenty thousand pounds.
Judge then of my disgust, when, on my return from a rent-gathering expedition to Argyllshire, I found Lieutenant Roper absolutely domiciled with the Bogles. I could not call there of a forenoon on my way from the Parliament-House, without finding the confounded dragoon seated on the sofa beside Edith, gabbling away with infinite fluency about the last ball, or the next review, or worsted-work, or some similar abomination. I question whether he had ever read a single book since he was at school, and yet there he sat, misquoting Byron to Edith—who was rather of a romantic turn—at no allowance, and making wild work with passages out of TomMoore’s Loves of the Angels. How the deuce he got hold of them, I am unable up to this day to fathom. I suspect he had somehow or other possessed himself of a copy of the “Beauties,” and dedicated an hour each morning to committing extracts to memory. Certainly he never opened his mouth without enunciating some rubbish about bulbuls, gazelles, and chibouques; he designated Edith his Phingari, and swore roundly by the Koran and Kiebaubs. It was to me perfectly inconceivable how any woman of common intellect could listen to such egregious nonsense, and yet I could not disguise from myself the consciousness of the fact, that Miss Bogle rather liked it than otherwise.
Roper had another prodigious advantage over me. Edith was fond of riding, an exercise to which, from my earliest years, I have had the utmost abhorrence. I am not, I believe, constitutionally timid, and yet I do not know almost any ordeal which I would not cheerfully undergo, to save me from the necessity of passing along a stable behind the heels of half-a-dozen stationary horses. Who knows at what moment the concealed demon may be awaked within them? They are always either neighing, or pulling at their halters, or stamping, or whisking their tails, in a manner which is absolutely frightful; and it is impossible to predict the exact moment they may select for lashing out, and, it may be, scattering your brainsby the force of a hoof most murderously shod with half a hundredweight of iron. The descent of Hercules to Hades seems to me a feat of mere insignificance compared with the cleaning out of the Augean stables, if, as I presume, the inmates were not previously removed.
Roper, on the contrary, rode like a Centaur, or the late Ducrow. He had several brutes, on one or other of which you might see him every afternoon prancing along Princes Street, and he presently contrived to make himself the constant companion of Edith in his daily rides. What took place on these occasions, of course I do not know. It was, however, quite clear to me, that the sooner this sort of thing was put an end to the better; nor should I have cared one farthing had a civil war broke out, if that event could have insured to me the everlasting absence of the pert and pestilential dragoon.
In this dilemma I resolved to make a confidante of my cousin Mary Muggerland. Mary and I were the best possible friends, having flirted together for five successive seasons, with intermissions, on a sort of general understanding that nothing serious was meant, and that either party was at liberty at any time to cry off in case of an extraneous attachment. She listened to the history of my sorrows with infinite complacency.
“I am afraid, George,” she said, “that you haveno chance whatever; I know Edith well, and have heard her say, twenty times over, that she never will marry any man unless he belongs to the army.”
“Then I have been exceedingly ill-used!”
“O fie, George—I wonder at you! Do you think that nobody besides yourself has a right to change their mind? How often, I should like to know, have you varied your attachments during the last three years?”
“That is a very different matter, Mary.”
“Will you have the kindness to explain the difference?”
“Pshaw! is there no distinction between a mere passing flirtation and a deep-rooted passion like mine?”
“I understand—this is the first time there has been a rival in the case. Well—I am sorry I cannot help you. Rely upon it that Roper is the man; and, to be plain with you, I am not at all surprised at it.”
“Mary!—what do you mean?”
“Do you really know so little of the sex as to flatter yourself that a lively girl like Edith, with more imagination than wit, would prefer you, who—pardon me, dear cousin—are rather a commonplace sort of personage, to a gay young officer of dragoons? Why, don’t you see that he talks more to her in one hour than you do in four-and-twenty?Are not his manners more fascinating—his attentions more pointed—his looks”—
“Upon my word, Miss Mary!” I exclaimed, “thisisgoing rather too far. Do you mean to say that in point of personal appearance”—
“I do, indeed, George. You know I promised you to be candid.”
“Say no more. I see that you women are all alike. These confounded scarlet coats”—
“Are remarkably becoming; and really I am not sure that in one of them—if it were particularly well made—you might not look almost as well as Roper.”
“I have half a mind to turn postman.”
“Not a bad idea for a man of letters. But why don’t you hunt?”
“I dislike riding.”
“You stupid creature! Edith never will marry you: so you may just as well abandon the idea at once.”
So ended my conference with my cousin. I had made it a rule, however, never to believe above one half of what Miss Mary Muggerland said; and, upon the whole, I am inclined to think that was a most liberal allowance of credulity. A young lady is not always the safest depositary of such secrets, or the wisest and most sound adviser. A little spice of spite is usually intermingled with her counsels; and I doubt whether in one case out of ten they sincerely wish success to their simple and confidingclients. On one point, however, I was inclined to think her right. Edith certainly had a decided military bias.
I begin to hold the doctrine that there is more in judicial astrology than most people are inclined to admit. To what other mysterious fount than the stars can we trace that extraordinary principle which regulates men in the choice of their different professions? Take half-a-dozen lads of the same standing and calibre; give them the same education; inculcate them with the same doctrines; teach them the identical catechism; and yet you will find that in this matter of profession there is not the slightest cohesion among them. Had I been born under the influence of Mars, I too might have been a dragoon—as it was, Saturn, my planetary godfather, had devoted me to the law, and here I stood a discomfited concocter of processes, and a botcher of deeds and titles. Pondering these things deeply, I made my way to the Parliament-House, then in the full hum attendant upon the close of the Session. The usual groups of the briefless were gathered around the stoves. As I happened to have a paper in my hand, I was instantly assailed by half-a-dozen unemployed advocates.
“Hallo, M’Whirter, my fine fellow—d’ye want a counsel? Set you down cheap at a condescendence,” cried Mr Anthony Whaup, a tall barrister of considerable facetiousness.
“I say, M’Whirter, is it asemiplena? Hand it over to Randolph; he has lots of experience in that line.”
“Get out, you heretical humbug! Never mind these fellows, George. Tip, and I’m your man,” said Randolph.
“Can anybody tell me who is pleading before the Second Division just now?” asked a youth, looking rather white in the gills.
“Old Windlass. He’s good for three quarters of an hour at least, and then the judges have to give their opinions.”
“I’m devilish glad to hear it. I think I shall bolt. This seems a fine afternoon. Who’s for Musselburgh?”
“I can’t go to-day,” said Whaup. “I was tempted yesterday with a shilling, and sold myself.”
“Who is the unfortunate purchaser?”
“Tom Hargate, crimp-general to the yeomanry.”
“I’m delighted to hear it, old fellow! We have been wanting you for two years back in the corps. ’Gad! won’t we have fun when we go into quarters. I say, M’Whirter—why don’t you become a yeoman?”
I started at the suggestion, which, strange to say, had never crossed my mind before. There was a way then open to me—a method left by which I might satisfy, without compromising myprofessional character, the scruples of Edith, and become a member of the military service without abandoning the pen. The man that hesitates is lost.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I think I should rather like it. It seems a pretty uniform.”
“Pretty!” said Randolph. “By the Lord Harry, it’s the splashest affair possible! I’ll tell you what, M’Whirter, I’ll back you in the yeoman’s jacket and pantaloons against the Apollo Belvidere.”
“It is regular Queen’s service, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. Only we have no flogging.”
“That’s no great disadvantage. Well, upon my word, I have a great mind”——
“Then, by Jove, there goes the very man! Hallo—Hargate, I say—Tom Hargate!”
“What’s the row?”
“Here’s a new recruit for you. George M’Whirter, W.S. Book him down, and credit me with the bounty money.”
“The Edinburgh squadron, of course,” said Hargate, presenting me with a shilling.
“Don’t be in a hurry,” said one of my friends. “There are better lancers than the Templars. The Dalmahoy die, but they never surrender!”
“Barntonà la rescousse!” cried another.
“No douking in the Dalkeith!” observed a third.
“Nonsense, boys! you are confounding him. M’Whirter and Anthony Whaup shall charge sideby side, and woe betide the insurgent who crosses their path!” said Randolph. “So the sooner you look after your equipments the better.”
In this identical manner was I enrolled as a full private in the Edinburgh squadron of the Mid-Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry.
I confess that a thrill of considerable exultation pervaded my frame, as I beheld one morning on my dressing-table a parcel which conscience whispered to me contained the masterpiece of Buckmaster. With palpitating hand I cut the cord, undid the brown paper foldings, and feasted my eyes in a trance of ecstasy upon the pantaloons, all gorgeous with the red stripe; upon the jacket glittering with its galaxy of buttons, and the polished glory of the shoulder-scales. Not hurriedly, but with a protracted sense of keen enjoyment, I cased myself in the military shell, slung on the pouch-belt, buckled the sabre, and finally adjusted the magnificent helmet on my brows. I looked into the mirror, and scarcely could recognise the counterpart of Mars which confronted me.
“’Od’s scimitars!” cried I, unsheathing my Bilboa, and dealing, with a reckless disregard to expense, a terrific cut at the bed-post—“Let mecatch any fellow saying that the yeomanry is not a constitutional force!”
And so I strode into the breakfast-room, where my old housekeeper was adjusting the materials for the matutinal meal.
“Lord save us a’!” cried Nelly, dropping in her astonishment a platter of finnans upon the floor—“Lord save us a’, and keep us frae the sin o’ bluid-shed! Dear-a-me, Maister George, can that really be you! Hae ye turned offisher, and are ye gaun oot to fecht!”
“To be sure, Nelly. I have joined the yeomanry, and we shall turn out next week. How do you like the uniform?”
“Dinna speak to me o’ unicorns! I’m auld enough to mind the days o’ that bluidy murderin’ villain Bonyparty, wha was loot loose upon huz, as a scourge and a tribulation for the backslidings o’ a sinfu’ land: and, wae’s me! mony a mither that parted frae her son, maybe as bonny, or a hantle bonnier than yoursel’, had sair een, and a broken heart, when she heard that her laddie was streekit cauld and stiff on the weary field o’ Waterloo! Na—for gudeness sake, dinna draw yer swurd or I’ll swarff! O, pit it aff—pit it aff, Maister George—There’s a dear bairn, bide at hame, and dinna gang ye a sodgerin’! Think o’ the mither that lo’es ye, forbye yer twa aunties. Wad ye bring doun their hairs—I canna ca’ them a’ grey, forMiss Kirsty’s is as red as a lobster—in sorrow to the grave?”
“Why, you old fool, what are you thinking of? We are not going out to fight—merely for exercise.”
“Waur and waur! Can ye no tak’ yer yexerceese at hame, or doun at the Links wi’ golf, or gang awa’ to the fishin’? Wadna that be better than stravagin’ through the streets, wi’ a lang swurd harlin’ ahint ye, and consortin’ wi’ deboshed dragoons, and drinkin’ the haill nicht, and rinnin’ wud after the lasses? And if ye’re no gaun out to fecht, what’s the use o’ ye? Are ye gaun to turn anither Claverse, and burn and hang puir folk like the wicked and bluid-thirsty troopers lang syne? Yexerceese indeed! I wonder, Maister George, ye’re no just ashamed o’ yoursel’!”
“Hold your tongue, you old fool, and bring the tea-pot.”
“Fule! ’Deed I’m maybe just an auld fule to gang on clattering that gate, for I never kent ye tak’ gude advice sin’ ye were a wean. Aweel! He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar. Ye’se hae it a’ yer ain way; but maybe we’ll see some day sune, when ye’re carried hame on a shutter wi’ a broken leg, or a stab in the wame, or a bullet in the harns, whilk o’ us twa is the greater fule!”
“Confound that woman!” thought I, as I pensively buttered my roll. “What with her Cameroniannonsense and her prophecies, she is enough to disband a regiment.”
And, to say the truth, her last hint about a broken leg was not altogether foreign to my own apprehensions. I had recollected of late, with no slight uneasiness, that for this sort of service a horse was quite as indispensable as a man; and, as already hinted, I had more than doubts as to my own equestrian capabilities. However, I comforted myself with the reflection, that out of the fifty or sixty yeomen whom I knew, not one had ever sustained any serious injury; and I resolved, as a further precaution against accident, to purvey me the very quietest horse that could be found anywhere. Steadiness, I have always understood, is the characteristic feature of the British cavalry.
My correspondence that morning was not of the legal kind. In the first place, I received a circular from the commanding-officer, extremely laudatory of the recruits, whose zeal for the service did them so much credit. We were called upon, in an animated address, to maintain the high character of the regiment—to prove ourselves worthy successors of those who had ridden and fought before us—to turn out regularly and punctually to the field, and to keep our accoutrements in order. Next came a more laconic and pithy epistle from the adjutant, announcing the hours of drill, and the differentarrangements for the week; and finally, a communication from the convener of the mess committee.
To all these I cordially assented, and having nothing better to do, bethought me of a visit to the Bogles. I pictured to myself the surprise of Edith on beholding me in my novel character.
“She shall see,” thought I, “that years of dissipation in a barrack or guardroom are not necessary to qualify a high-minded legal practitioner for assuming his place in the ranks of the defenders of his country. She shall own that native valour is an impulse, not a science. She shall confess that the volunteer who becomes a soldier, simply because the commonwealth requires it, is actuated by a higher motive than the regular, with his prospects of pay and of promotion. What was Karl Theodore Körner, author of the Lyre and Sword, but a simple Saxon yeoman? and yet is there any name, Blucher’s not excepted, which stirs the military heart of Germany more thrillingly than his? And, upon my honour, even as a matter of taste, I infinitely prefer this blue uniform to the more dashing scarlet. It is true they might have given us tails to the jacket,” continued I soliloquising, as a young vagabond who passed, hazarded a contumelious remark regarding the symmetry of my nether person. “But, on the whole, it is a manly and a simple garb, and Edith cannot besuch a fool as not to appreciate the motives which have led me to assume it.”
So saying, I rung the Bogles’ bell. Edith was in the drawing-room, and there also, to my no small mortification, was Lieutenant Roper. They were sitting together on the sofa, and I rather thought Miss Bogle started as I came in.
“Goodness gracious! Mr M’Whirter,” cried she with a giggle—Edith never looked well when she giggled—“Whathaveyou been doing with yourself?”
“I am not aware, Miss Bogle, that there is anything very extraordinary”——
“O dear, no! I beg your pardon for laughing, but really you look so funny! I have been so used, you know, to see you in a black coat, that the contrast is rather odd. Pray forgive my ignorance, Mr M’Whirter, but whatisthat dress?”
“The uniform of the Mid-Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry, madam. We are going into quarters next week.”
“How very nice! Do you know it is one of the prettiest jackets I ever saw? Don’t you think so, Mr Roper?”
“Veway much so,” replied Roper, reconnoitring me calmly through his eyeglass. “A veway handsome turn-out indeed. ’Pon my honour, I had no idea they got up things so cleverly in the fencibles”——
“Yeomanry, if you please, Lieutenant Roper!”
“Ah, yes! Yeomanry—so it is. I say, M’Whirter, ’pon my soul, do you know, you look quite killing! Do, like a good fellow, just march to the corner of the room, and let us have a look at you on the other side.”
“Oh do, Mr M’Whirter!” supplicated, or rather supplemented Edith.
I felt as if I could have shot him.
“You’ll excuse me, Roper, for not going through drill just now. If you like to come to the review, you shall see how our regiment can behave. At any rate, we shall be happy to see you at mess.”
“Oh suttingly, suttingly! Veway good things those yeomanry messes. Always a deal of claret, I believe.”
“And pray, Mr M’Whirter, what rank do you hold in that distinguished corps?” asked Edith.
“A full private, Miss Bogle.”
“Goodness gracious!—then you’re not even an officer!”
“A private of the yeomanry, Miss Bogle, is, let me inform you, totally independent of rank. We enrol ourselves for patriotism, not for pay. We are as honourable a body as the Archers of the Scots Guard, the Cavaliers of Dundee, or the Mousquetaires”——
“How romantic and nice! I declare, you are quite a D’Artagnan!” said Edith, who had just read theTrois Mousquetaires.
“Don’t they pay you?” said Roper. “’Pon my honour that’s too bad. If I were you I’d memorialise the Horse Guards. By the way, M’Whirter, what sort of a charger have you got?”
“Why, to say the truth,” replied I, hesitatingly, “I am not furnished with a horse as yet. I am just going to look out for one at some of the livery stables.”
“My dear friend,” said Roper, with augmented interest, “I strongly recommend you to do nothing of the kind. These fellows will, to a dead certainty, sell you some sort of a brute that is either touched in the wind or dead lame; and I can tell you it is no joke to be spilt in a charge of cavalry.”
I felt a sort of sickening sensation as I recalled the lines of Schiller—
“Young Piccolomini, known by his plumeAnd his long hair, gave signal for the trenches;Himself leapt first, the regiment all plunged after.His charger, by a halbert gored, reared up,Flung him with violence off, and over himThe horses, now no longer to be curbed”——
“Young Piccolomini, known by his plumeAnd his long hair, gave signal for the trenches;Himself leapt first, the regiment all plunged after.His charger, by a halbert gored, reared up,Flung him with violence off, and over himThe horses, now no longer to be curbed”——
The fate of Max might be mine, and Edith might be left, a mournful Thekla, to perform a moonlight pilgrimage to my grave in the solitary churchyard of Portobello!
“Do you really think so, Roper?” said I.
“Think so! I know it,” replied the dragoon. “Never while you live trust yourself to the tendermercies of a livery stable. It’s a wegular maxim in the army. Pray, are you a good rider?”
“Pretty—fairish—tolerable. That is, Icanride.”
“Ah! I see—want of practice merely—eh?”
“Just so.”
“Well, then, it’s a lucky thing that I’ve seen you. I have just the sort of animal you want—a wegular-bred horse, sound as a roach, quiet as a lamb, and quite up to the cavalry movements. Masaniello will suit your weight to an ounce, and you shall have him for seventy guineas.”
“That’s a very long price, Roper!”
“For Masaniello? I assure you he’s as cheap as dirt. I would not sell him for twice the sum: only, you see, we are limited in our number, and my father insists upon my keeping other two which he bred himself. If you like to enter Masaniello for the races, I’ll insure your winning the cup.”
“Oh do, Mr M’Whirter, take Mr Roper’s advice!” said Edith. “Masaniello is such a pretty creature, and so quiet! And then, after the week is over, you know you can come and ride with us.”
“Won’t you take sixty, Roper?”
“Not a penny less than seventy,” replied the dragoon.
“Well, then, I shall take him at that Pounds?”
“Guineas. Call down to-morrow forenoon at Piershill, and you shall have delivery. Now, Miss Bogle, what do you say to a canter on the sands?”
I took my leave rather satisfied than otherwise with the transaction. Edith evidently took a warm interest in my welfare, and her suggestion as to future expeditions was quite enchanting. Seventy guineas, to be sure, was a deal of money, but then it was something to be assured of safety for life and limb. On the street I encountered Anthony Whaup.
“Well, old fellow,” quoth Anthony, “how are you getting on? Pounding away at drill, eh?”
“Not yet.”
“Faith, you had better look sharp about it, then. I’ve been down twice at Canonmills of a morning, and I can tell you the facings are no joke. Have you got a horse yet?”
“Yes; a regular dragoon charger—and you?”
“A beast from Wordsworth. He’s been out regularly with the squadron for the last ten years; so it is to be presumed he knows the manœuvres. If not, I’m a spilt yeoman!”
“I say, Anthony—can you ride?”
“No more than yourself, but I suppose we shall contrive to stick on somehow.”
“Would it not be as well to have a trial?” said I, with considerable intrepidity. “Suppose we go together to the riding-school, and have an hour or two’s practice.”
“I have no earthly manner of objection,” said Anthony. “I presume there’s lots of sawdust there and the exhibition will, at any rate, be a privateone.Allons!” and we departed for the amphitheatre.
We inquired for a couple of peaceable hacks, which were forthwith furnished us. I climbed up with some difficulty into the saddle, and having submitted to certain partial dislocations of the knee and ankle, at the hands of the master of the ring (rather a ferocious Widdicomb, by the way), and having also been instructed in the art of holding the reins, I was pronounced fit to start. Anthony, whose legs were of a parenthetical build, seemed to adapt himself more easily to his seat.
“Now then, trot!” cried the sergeant, and away we went with a wild expenditure of elbow.
“Toes in, toes in, gentlemen!” bellowed our instructor; “blowed but you’d drive them wild if you had spurs on! You ain’t been at the dancing-school lately, have you? Steady—steady—very good. Down your elbows, gentlemen, if you please! them bridles isn’t pumps. Heads up! now gallop! Bravo! very good. Screw in the knees a little. Hold on—hold on, sir, or damme you’ll be off!”
And sure enough I was within an ace of canting over, having lost a stirrup, when the sergeant caught hold of me by the arm.
“I’ll tell you what, gents,” he said, “you’ll never learn to ride in this ’varsal world, unless you tries it without the irons. Nothing like that for giving a man a sure seat So, Bill, take off the stirrups, willyou! Don’t be afeard, gentlemen. I’ll make riders of you yet, or my name isn’t Kickshaw.”
Notwithstanding the comforting assurances of Kickshaw, I felt considerably nervous. If I could not maintain my seat with the assistance of the stirrups, what the mischief was I to do without them? I looked rebelliously at Anthony’s stirrup, but that intrepid individual seemed to have nerved himself to meet any possible danger. His enormous legs seemed calculated by nature to embrace the body of his charger, and he sat erect like an overgrown Bacchus bestriding a kilderkin of beer.
“Trot, gentlemen!” and away we went. I shall never forget the agony of that hour! The animal I rode was peculiarly decided in his paces; so much so that at each step myos coccygiscame down with a violent thump upon the saddle, and my teeth rattled in my head like dice in a backgammon-box. How I managed to maintain my posture I cannot clearly understand. Possibly the instinct of self-preservation proved the best auxiliary to the precepts of Sergeant Kickshaw; for I held as tight a hold of the saddle as though I had been crossing the bridge of Al Sirat, with the flames of the infernal regions rolling and undulating beneath.
“Very good, gentlemen—capital!—you’re improving vastly!” cried the complimentary sergeant. “Nothing like the bare saddle after all—damme butI’ll make you take a four-barred gate in a week! Now sit steady. Gallop!”
Croton oil was a joke to it! I thought my whole vitals were flying to pieces as we bounded round the oval building, the speed gradually increasing, until my diseased imagination suggested that we were going at the pace of Lucifer. My head began to grow dizzy, and I clutched convulsively at the pommel.
“An-tho-ny!” I gasped in monosyllables.
“Well?”
“How—do—you—feel?”
“Monstrous—shakey,” replied Anthony in dis-syllables.
“I’m off!” cried I; and, losing my balance at the turn, I dropped like a sack of turnips.
However, I was none the worse for it. Had it not been for Anthony, and the dread of his report, I certainly think I should have bolted, and renounced the yeomanry for ever. But a courageous example does wonders. I persevered, and in a few days really made wonderful progress. I felt, however, considerably sore and stiff—straddled as I walked along the street, and was compelled to have recourse to diachylon. What with riding and the foot-drill I had hard work of it, and earnestly longed for the time when the regiment should go into quarters. I almost forgot to mention that Masaniello turned out to be an immense black brute, rather aged,but apparently sound, and, so far as I could judge, quiet. There was, however, an occasional gleam about his eye which I did not exactly like.
“He’ll carry you, sir, famously—no doubt of it,” said Kickshaw, who inspected him; “and, mind my words, he’ll go it at the charge!”
It was a brilliant July morning when I first donned my regimentals for actual service. Dugald M’Tavish, a caddy from the corner of the street, had been parading Masaniello, fully caparisoned for action, before the door at least half an hour before I was ready, to the no small delectation of two servant hizzies who were sweeping out the stairs, and a diminutive baker’s boy.
“Tak’ a cup o’ coffee afore ye get up on that muckle funking beast, Maister George,” said Nelly; “and mind ye, that if ye are brocht hame this day wi’ yer feet foremost, it’s no me that has the wyte o’t.”
“Confound you, Nelly! what do you keep croaking for in that way?”
“It’s a’ ane to me; but, O man, ye’re unco like Rehoboam! Atweel ye needna flounce at that gate. Gang yer wa’s sodgerin’, and see what’ll come o’t. It’s ae special mercy that there’s a hantle o’ lint inthe hoose, and the auld imbrocation for broken banes; and, in case o’ the warst, I’ll ha’e the lass ready to rin for Doctor Scouther.”
This was rather too much; so, with the reverse of a benediction on my gouvernante, I rushed from the house, and, with the assistance of Dugald, succeeded in mounting Masaniello, a task of no small difficulty, as that warlike quadruped persisted in effecting a series of peripherical evolutions.
“And whan wull ye be back, and what wall ye ha’e for denner?” were the last words shouted after me as I trotted off to the rendezvous.
It was still early, and there were not many people abroad. A few faces, decorated with the picturesque mutch, occasionally appeared at the windows, and one or two young rascals, doubtless descendants of the disaffected who fell at Bonnymuir, shouted “Dook!” as I rode along. Presently I fell in with several of my comrades, amongst whom I recognised with pleasure Randolph and Anthony Whaup.
“By Jove, M’Whirter!” said the former, “that’s a capital mount of yours. I don’t think there is a finer horse in the troop; and I say, old chap, you sit him as jauntily as a janissary!”
“He has had hard work to do it though, as I can testify,” remarked Anthony, whose gelding seemed to be an animal of enviable placidity. “I wish you had seen us both at Kickshaw’s a week ago.”
“I dare say, but there’s nothing like practice.Hold hard, M’Whirter! If you keep staring up that way, you may have a shorter ride of it than you expect. Easy—man—easy! That brute has the mettle of Beelzebub.”
The remark was not uncalled for. We were passing at that moment before the Bogles’ house, and I could not resist the temptation of turning round to gaze at the window of Edith, in the faint hope that she might be a spectator of our expedition. In doing so, my left spur touched Masaniello in the flank, a remembrancer which he acknowledged with so violent a caper, that I was very nearly pitched from the saddle.
“Near shave that, sir!” said Hargate, who now rode up to join us; “we’ll require to put you into the rear rank this time, where, by the way, you’ll be remarkably comfortable.”
“I hope,” said Anthony, “I may be entitled to the same privilege.”
“Of course. Pounset, I think, will be your front-rank man. He’s quite up to the whole manœuvre, only you must take care of his mare. But here we are at Abbey-hill gate, and just in time.”
I was introduced in due form to the officers of the squadron, with none of whom I was previously acquainted, and was directed to take my place as Randolph’s rear-rank man, so that in file we marched together. Before us were two veteran yeomen, and behind were Anthony and Pounset.
Nothing particular occurred during our march to Portobello sands. Masaniello behaved in a manner which did him infinite credit, and contributed not a little to my comfort. He neither reared nor plunged, but contented him at times with a resolute shake of the head, as if he disapproved of something, and an occasional sniff at Randolph’s filly, whenever she brought her head too near.
On arriving at the sands we formed into column, so that Anthony and I were once more side by side. The other squadrons of the regiment were already drawn up, and at any other time I should no doubt have considered the scene as sufficiently imposing. I had other things, however, to think of besides military grandeur.
“I say, Anthony,” said I, somewhat nervously, “do you know anything about these twistified manœuvres?”
“Indeed I do not!” replied Whaup, “I’ve been puzzling my brains for the last three days over the Yeomanry Regulations, but I can make nothing out of their ‘Reverse flanks’ and ‘Reforming by sections of threes?’”
“And I’m as ignorant as a baby! What on earth are we to do? That big fellow of a sergeant won’t let us stand quietly, I suppose.”
“I stick to Pounset,” said Whaup. “Whatever he does I do, and I advise you to do the same by Randolph.”
“But what if they should ride away? Isn’t there some disgusting nonsense about forming from threes?”
“I suppose the horses know something about it, else what’s the use of them? That brute of yours must have gone through the evolutions a thousand times, and ought to know the word of command by heart—Hallo!—I say, Pounset, just take care of that mare of yours, will ye! She’s kicking like the very devil, and my beast is beginning to plunge!”
“I wouldn’t be Pounset’s rear-rank for twenty pounds,” said a stalwart trooper to the left. “She has the ugliest trick of using her heels of any mare in Christendom.”
“Much obliged to you, sir, for the information,” said Whaup, controlling, with some difficulty, the incessant curveting of his steed. “I say, Pounset, if she tries that trick again I’ll hamstring her without the slightest ceremony.”
“Pooh—nonsense!” replied Pounset. “Woa, Miss Frolic—woa, lass!—she’s the gentlest creature in the creation—a child might ride her with a feather. Mere playfulness, my dear fellow, I assure you!”
“Hang her playfulness!” cried Anthony; “I’ve no idea of having my brains made a batter pudding for the amusement of a jade like that.”
“Are you sure, Whaup, that you did not tickle her tail?” asked Pounset, with provoking coolness. “She’s a rare ’un to scatter a crowd.”
“Hang me if I’d come within three yards of her if I possibly could help it,” quoth Anthony. “If any gentleman in the neighbourhood has a fancy to exchange places, I’m his man.”
“Threes right!” cried the commanding-officer, and we executed a movement of which I am wholly unconscious; for, to the credit of Masaniello be it said, he took the direction in his own mouth, and performed it so as to save his rider from reproach.
Then came the sword exercise, consisting of a series of slashes, which went off tolerably well—then the skirmishing, when one of our flank men was capsized—and at last, to my great joy, we were permitted to sit at ease; that is, as easily as our previous exertions would allow. I then learned to appreciate the considerate attention of the authorities in abrogating the use of pistols. In each man’s holsters were a soda-water bottle, filled for the nonce with something more pungent than the original Schweppe, and a cigar-case. These were now called into requisition, and a dense wreath of smoke arose along the lines of the squadron. The officer then in command embraced the opportunity of addressing us in a pithy oration.
“Gentlemen!” said he, “I would not be performing my duty to my Queen and my country, (cheers), if I did not express to you my extreme surprise and satisfaction at the manner in which the new recruits have gone through the preliminarydrill. Upon my honour I expected that more than one half of you would have been spilt—a spectacle which might possibly have been pleasing to those veteran warriors of Dalmahoy, but which I should have witnessed with extraordinary pain. As it is, you rode like bricks. However, it is my duty to inform you, that a more serious trial of your fortitude is about to come. The squadrons will presently form together, and you will be called upon to charge. Many of you know very well how to do that already”—
“Especially the Writers to the Signet,” muttered Anthony.
“But there are others who are new to the movement. To those gentlemen, therefore, I shall address a few words of caution; they are short and simple. Screw yourselves tight in your saddles—hold hard at first—keep together as you best can—think that the enemy are before you—and go at it like blazes!”
A shout of approval followed this doughty address, and the heart of every trooper burned with military ardour. For my own part, I was becoming quite reconciled to the thing. I perfectly coincided with my commanding-officer in his amazement at the adhesive powers of myself and several others, and with desperate recklessness I resolved to test them to the utmost. The bugle now sounded the signal to fall in. Soda bottles and cigar-cases werereturned to their original concealment, and we once more took our respective places in the ranks.
“Now comes the fun,” said Randolph, after the leading squadron had charged in line. “Mind yourselves, boys!”
“March—trot—gallop.”
On we went like waves of the sea, regularly enough at first, then slightly inclining to the line of beauty, as some of the weaker hacks began to show symptoms of bellows.
“Cha—a—rge!”
“Go ahead!” cried Randolph, sticking his spurs into his Bucephalus. Masaniello, with a snort, fairly took the bridle into his teeth, and dashed off with me at a speed which threatened to throw the ranks into utter confusion. As for Pounset, he appeared to be possessed with the fury of a demon. His kicking mare sent up at every stride large clods of sand in the teeth of the unfortunate Anthony Whaup, whose presence of mind seemed at last to have forsaken him.
“What the mischief are you after, Whaup?” panted the trooper on his left. “Just take your foot out of my stirrup, will you?”
“Devil a bit!” quoth Anthony, “I’m too glad to get anything to hold on by.”
“If you don’t, you’re a gone ’coon. There!—I told you.” And the steed of Anthony was rushing riderless among the press.
I don’t know exactly how we pulled up. I have an indistinct notion that I owed my own arrest to Neptune, and that Masaniello was chest deep in the sea before he paid the slightest attention to my convulsive tugs at the bridle. Above the rush of waves I heard a yell of affright, and perceived that I had nearly ridden over the carcass of a fat old gentleman, who,in puris naturalibus, was disporting himself in the water, and who now, in an agony of terror, and apparently under the impression that he was a selected victim for the tender mercies of the yeomanry, struck out vigorously for Inchkeith. I did not tarry to watch his progress, but returned as rapidly as possible to the squadron.
By this time the shores of Portobello were crowded with habitual bathers. There is a gracefulabandon, and total absence of prudery, which peculiarly characterise the frequenters of that interesting spot, and reminds one forcibly of the manners of the Golden Age. Hirsute Triton and dishevelled Nereid there float in unabashed proximity; and, judging from the usual number of spectators, there is something remarkably attractive in the style of these aquatic exercises.
The tide was pretty far out, so that of course there was a wide tract of sand between the shingle and the sea. Our squadron was again formed in line, when a bathing-machine was observed leisurelybearing down upon our very centre, conveying its freight towards the salubrious waters.
“Confound that boy!” cried the commanding-officer; “he will be among the ranks in a minute. Sergeant! ride out, and warn the young scoundrel off at his peril.”
The sergeant galloped towards the machine.
“Where are you going, you young scum of the earth? Do you not see the troops before you? Get back this instant!”
“I’ll do naething o’ the kind,” replied the urchin, walloping his bare legs, by way of encouragement, against the sides of the anatomy he bestrode. “The sands is just as free to huz as to ony o’ ye, and I would like to ken what richt ye have tae prevent the foulks frae bathin’.”
“Do you dare to resist, you vagabond?” cried the man of stripes, with a terrific flourish of his sabre. “Wheel back immediately, or”——and he went through the first four cuts of the sword exercise.
“Eh man!” said the intrepid shrimp, “what wull ye do? Are ye no ashamed, a great muckle fellie like you, to come majoring, an’ shakin’ yer swurd at a bit laddie? Eh, man, if I was ner yer size, I’d gie ye a licking mysel’. Stand oot o’ the gate, I say, an’ I’ll sune run through the haill o’ ye. I’m no gaun to lose a saxpence for yeer nonsensical parauds.”
“Cancel my commission!” said the lieutenant, “if the brat hasn’t bothered the sergeant! The bathing-machine is coming down upon us like the chariot of Queen Boadicea! This will never do. Randolph—you and M’Whirter ride out and reinforce. That scoundrel is another Kellerman, and will break us to a dead certainty!”
“Twa mair o’ ye!” observed the youth with incredible nonchalance, as we rode up with ferocious gestures. “O men, but ye’re bauld bauld the day! Little chance the Frenchies wad hae wi’ the like o’ you ’gin they were comin’! Gee hup, Bauldy!”
“Come, come, my boy,” said Randolph, nearly choking with laughter, “this is all very well, but you must positively be off. Come, tumble round, my fine fellow, and you shall have leave to pass presently.”
“Aum no gaun to lose the tide that way,” persevered the urchin. “The sands is open to the haill o’ huz, and I’ll no gang back for nane o’ ye. Gin ye offer tae strike me, I’ll hae the haill squad o’ ye afore the Provost o’ Portobelly, and, ma certie, there’ll be a wheen heels sune coolin’ in the jougs!”
“By heavens! this is absolutely intolerable!” said the sergeant—“M’Whirter, order the man in the inside to open the door, and come out in Her Majesty’s name.”
I obeyed, as a matter of course.
“I say—you, sir, inside—do you know where you are going? Right into the centre of a troop of the Royal Yeomanry Cavalry! If you are a gentleman and a loyal subject, you will open the door immediately, and desire the vehicle to be stopped.”
In order to give due effect to this remonstrance, and also to impress the inmate with a proper sense of the consequences of interference with martial discipline, I bestowed cut No. Seven with all my might upon the machine. To my horror, and that of my companions, there arose from within a prolonged and double-voiced squall.
“Hang me, if it isn’t women!” said the sergeant.
“Yer mither wull be proud o’ ye the nicht,” said the Incubus on the atomy, “when it’s tell’t her that ye hae whanged at an auld machine, and frichtet twa leddies to the skirlin’! Ony hoo, M’Whirter, gin that’s your name, there’ll be half-a-croun to pay for the broken brodd!”
The small sliding-panel at the back of the machine was now cautiously opened.
“Goodness gracious, Mr M’Whirter!” said a voice which I instantly recognised to be that of Edith Bogle, “is it possible that can be you? Is it the custom, sir, of the Scottish yeomen to break in upon the privacy of two young defenceless females, and even to raise their weapons againstthe place which contains them? Fie, sir! is this your boasted chivalry?”
“O George—go away, do! I am really quite ashamed of you!” said the voice of my cousin, Mary Muggerland.
I thought I should have dropped from my saddle.
“Friends of yours, eh, M’Whirter?” said Randolph. “Rather an awkward fix, I confess. What’s to be done?”
“Would the regulars have behaved thus?” cried Edith, with increased animation. “Would they have insulted a woman? Never. Begone, sir—I am afraid I have been mistaken in you”——
“By my honour, Edith!—Miss Bogle, I mean—you do me gross injustice! I did not know—I could not conceive that you, or Mary, or any other lady, were in the machine, and then—consider my orders”——
“Orders, sir! There are some orders which never ought to be obeyed. But enough of this. If you have delicacy enough to feel for our situation, you will not protract this interview. Drive on, boy! and you, Mr M’Whirter, if you venture to interrupt us further, never expect my pardon.”
“Nor mine!” added Mary Muggerland.
“Who the mischief cares for yours, you monkey!” muttered Isotto voce. “But Edith—one otherword”——