"It can no longer be mine."
"Why?"
"For reasons that I cannot tell—even to you."
"Ah, pardon me; but what do you mean to do?"
"Soldier still—of course."
"But where?"
"In India."
"In India!" she exclaimed, with a depth of interest that made Roland's heart beat wildly; "oh, how far, far away!"
"Far away from you;—oh, Miss Darnel—Aurelia!" His heart was rushing to his head.
At that moment a visitor, Colonel Smash, of U.S. army, was announced, and Roland withdrew, leaving unsaid all that he ought to have said—that she expected him to say, and what he would have said, but for the secret of that accursed cabinet of Scindia.
Could she have looked into his heart and read his thoughts, through the window which Vulcan wished had been placed in every human breast!
Both Aurelia and Madame Darnel had a right to expect something more to develop itself from the visit of Roland; but he felt himself a very craven, and retired, leaving her with the most absurd of her many admirers, Colonel Ithurial Smash, a long-legged, hard-featured, and most ungainly New Yorker, whose rivalry was too contemptible for Roland's consideration, though he did marvel whether one could "possibly parade a fellow," for interrupting one's conversation with his cousin—for in this degree of relationship the "Colonel" somehow stood to Aurelia Darnel.
After this, many days elapsed, and Roland, having ever before him the last crushing communication of Messrs. Hook and Crook, never went near the Chateau de St. Eustache, much to the surprise of Logan, whose mind was sorely exercised on that subject, and on some new and unwonted peculiarities of temper and system which he discovered in his old friend and once jolly comrade.
Aurelia, too, felt some surprise at his protracted absence, and that she never saw him at the promenades and public places where she had been wont to see him before.
She was thinking could he have fallen in love with some one else—she always thought he lovedher—some one in Scotland where he had been? If so, what business had he to come to her and talk, and act, and look, too, as if he were free and fetterless? Could he have been playing with her, making a fool of her all along? How coldly and quietly he had talked about going to India, too.
Ah no! could she have seen Roland Ruthven at that very time! He was kissing, looking at, smoothing out, and caressing a tiny kid glove, which he had begged from her at that very ball where they first met, on the 5th of August—the fatal day of the Ruthvens, as Elspat Gorm was wont to call it.
"Roland, old fellow," said Logan, dropping into his quarters one evening when he was dressing for mess, "what is up—you look like the ace of spades? Never saw a fellow so changed in all my life."
"One day you may know all, Hector—meantime, don't worry me," replied Roland, with the hair brushes suspended in action above his thick head of dark brown hair, while Logan smoked and talked. His toilet table bespoke taste and that wealth which he no longer possessed, with its ivory-handled brushes having on them the Ruthven arms; his dressing-case of silver-gilt, with gold-topped essence bottles in nests of blue velvet; rings, jewelled studs, and sleeve-links, lay there scattered about, with pipe heads of rare fashion and costly material.
"You are not using that girl well, Roland—you know what I mean; before you went on leave you were like her shadow, and now——"
"I can't get over my scruples about—about——"
"What, in the name of heaven?"
"Well, about making up to a girl who has a fortune—a very handsome income, at all events—when I am so out at the elbows."
"Out at the elbows—are you mad?"
"The thing would look ill—yet I could make a little running with her," said Roland, with a dreary attempt to be lively.
"I should think so. Ruthven of Ardgowrie out at the elbows—why, man alive, what the devil has come to you? You could marry Miss Darnel without exciting anybody but her special admirers. There is no 'establishment' to break up; no fair denizen of such a villa as is proverbial at St. John's Wood to tear her dyed locks, and demand a monetary kind of 'loot'—so I say again, what the deuce has come to you?" asked Logan, with genuine surprise.
"That which I cannot tell."
"Even to me?" asked the other reproachfully.
"Even to you, old fellow, just yet."
"This passes my comprehension."
"The misfortune that has befallen me passes mine."
"She is a delightful girl, Roland," said Logan, after a pause, during which he had been reflectively preparing another cigar; "she never misses fire in the way of a repartee or a brilliant rejoinder."
"In that I agree with you," replied Roland, quietly.
"How cold you are."
"I am far from feeling so, any way," said Roland, with a sigh.
"Can't make you out, by Jove! In the Chateau de St. Eustache, unless I am very much mistaken, you have gone in for some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the inconstant moon played no inconsiderable part."
"Flirtation, Logan? I never could flirt with Aurelia Darnell."
"Indeed!" said the other incredulously; "why?"
"Because I love her too sincerely."
"Yet you never go near that house where you have often acted almost as host to the whole garrison, and where that horrible Yankee Colonel has the field all to himself."
"Oh! he is a cousin of some sort—but what the devil is he to me?"
"Well—he is a good shot I hear."
"A shot—d—n him!" said Ronald, with considerable irritation of manner; "I would think very little of parading him on the other side of the Canadian frontier."
"I don't doubt that, Ronald, old man; but he has fought several duels, and successfully I hear."
"With double-barrelled rifles, at two hundred yards' distance, each man posted behind a tree, and dodging every way to dodge the other's fire. Well, I would meet him that way if he wished it. I have asked the Colonel to mess."
"To mess?"
"Yes."
"That fellow! What will the Colonel and others think? Your reason is, I suppose, to keep up a connecting link with the Chateau?"
"Perhaps so," said Roland, wearily; and, sooth to say, that was his sole reason.
"Well, if with the rental of Ardgowrie, you can't——"
"Please not to speak of Ardgowrie," said Roland impatiently, as he thrust himself into his shell-jacket; "there go the drums for mess."
It was impossible that Aurelia could have any regard, even, amenity, for this horrible American cousin, the Colonel; yet if she had, Roland felt that the changed circumstances of his own fortune tied up his tongue and would render his attentions an interference; yet it was scarcely possible for him to look on such a dangler or admirer with total indifference.
The Colonel, of whom we shall have more to relate anon, came duly to mess, where his appearance and bearing caused some speculation, and not a little secret mirth among Roland's brother officers, who were all men of a very good style and tone.
Lean, wiry, and powerfully made, he was above the middle height, had sharp aquiline features of an exaggerated type, that might not have been bad but for a chronic expression of vulgar suspicion and 'cuteness that played about his eyes, giving him a rather hangdog look; moreover, he had lost three front teeth in a row in Arkansas. He was closely shaven all save a long square goatee imperial that quivered when he spoke. Then he had a nervous way of clutching his hat and banging it against his thigh, with a curious but unmeaning energy. His clothes were loosely made, and he wore enormous cuffs, collar and studs. Every way, he looked, as Logan said, "like a man you would rather drink with than fight with, any day."
The Colonel had of course the usual American ideas about equality, and "the sovereign people," with considerable contempt for the little island, from whence "the Britishers came."
Doubtless he had never seen such a dinner-table us the mess of the Royals before, with all its massive and magnificent silver trophies, epergnes, and goblets—even the White House could not equal it; thus his utter bewilderment excited as much amusement as hisgaucherie, for he picked his teeth with a silver fork, rinsed his mouth with the contents of his finger-glass, and so forth; but he made good use of his time in more ways than one, as we shall show.
"Strike me ugly, but this is a fine set of fixings! and that one in particular," he added, tapping with his knife a magnificent vase presented to the corps by its colonel, the late Duke of Kent.
As a friend of the Darnels, Roland was very attentive to "the Colonel," who was very loquacious on the subject of the local excitement among the Canadians of the Lower Province, then agitated by factious men who sought to dictate to the Government measures which were not deemed conducive to the welfare of the State, were actually preparing to rise in arms, and counted on the sympathy and support of American filibusters and all manner of desperate and broken fellows from beyond the frontier.
During the summer of that year, and while Roland had been in Scotland, the House of Assembly had refused to proceed in its deliberations until the demand for a total alteration of the legislative powers was complied with; and this was followed by the appearance of many of the colonists in arms, and by serious violations of the law.
On these matters, and the prospects of a row with the authorities, "the Colonel" was more loquacious than became a guest at a regimental mess; but more than once his phraseology excited the risibility of even the waiters. When offered wine, he asked if he "couldn't get some egg-nogg." He described the dry goods store he had once kept at Baltimore, and of the two clubs there, of which he was chairman, the "black snakes" and the "plug uglies," and Roland's bewilderment grew very great to think that such a man as this could be even an acquaintance, far less some remote kinsman of Aurelia Darnel.
Like all Americans, he boasted a good deal and had a sovereign contempt for every other constitution in the world save that of the United States, draining all kinds of wine in quick succession, and ever and anon announcing that he "was dry as thunder," till Roland felt as one in a fever for having such a guest, and saw the commanding officer regarding him with a rather mingled expression of face.
In short, it proved in the end that Colonel Smash was a spy of the intended insurgents, and contrived to glean up a considerable amount of information as to the positions and strength of the Queen's troops in Lower Canada, all of which he duly committed to his notebook.
He sat late, or early rather, and never left the mess table till the sweet, low notes of the old Scottish reveille were waking the echoes of the lonely barrack-square when he went forth, as Logan said, "like an inveterate soaker, without a hair of his coat being turned."
Assisted by Roland, through the medium of cigars and brandy-and-water, Logan was going over the books of his company, to wit, the ledger, day-book, and the acquittance roll, which is rendered every month to the commanding officer—an investigation to Hector of a very solemn nature, whereat there was much occasional anathematising, twisting of the moustache, appealing glances cast to the ceiling, a secret totting off of sums under the table, much rubbing of the chin, and many references to a ready-reckoner—when they were interrupted by the adjutant, who came clattering in with sword and belt on, and his face full of importance.
"What's the row?" asked Logan, looking up.
"Row enough!" replied the adjutant, laughing; "these colonial beggars are up in arms, and four companies of ours have to take the field to-morrow in the direction of Chambly, with some cavalry, a howitzer, and two six-pounders!"
"Bravo—anything is better thanthissort of work!" exclaimed Logan, tossing the books aside. "At what hour do we fall-in?"
"Immediately after the men have breakfasted."
Roland looked at his watch; the November evening was darkening fast; he borrowed the adjutant's horse, gave a few instructions rapidly to his servant, and in a few minutes more was spurring in the direction of the Chateau de St. Eustache.
Come what might of it, he had resolved to see once more Aurelia Darnel, and bid her farewell.
Many mails had come to headquarters without any fresh intelligence from Messrs. Hook and Crook concerning the lost or rival heir to Ardgowrie, and Roland Ruthven had gathered a little courage from that circumstance, and with it even love strengthened in his heart as he rode on.
What a credit such a wife, such a girl, such a brilliant young matron, as Aurelia would be, representing at balls, dinners, and everything, the married ladies of the regiment! She would be the veritable Queen of the Scots Royals! But that could not—might not be, so far as Roland was concerned if the heir of his uncle were actually found; and in this mingled mood of mind he spurred onward the adjutant's horse, in a mode that must rather have surprised that quiet quadruped, to bid Aurelia, it might be, a last farewell.
With all the advantages of a highly cultivated mind, trained in one of the best West End educational establishments, she possessed all the attractive manners of a French girl, with the honest fearlessness of an English one, innocent of worldly trickery and the deceits of society, and yet she was a girl well calculated to shine amidst that charmed circle.
Roland had shown her innumerable attentions, but, as we have elsewhere said, till he could arrange with his father as to his future he had spoken no word distinctly of love to her yet; and now he dared not!
The polite or politic coldness he had displayed of late, was thus very different to the bearing towards her which the girl, from his past conduct, had every right to expect. She was piqued and rather prepared for a flirtation with Logan or any one else; and thus at balls or elsewhere a lot of men were always hovering about her, among whom was too often the obnoxious Colonel Smash, the low state of whose exchequer would have made an alliance with the heiress of St. Eustache a very pleasant speculation.
Roland, with his pay only, or little more—the sum he accorded to himself out of the rents of Ardgowrie, and meant to refund—felt that he had no right to ask her hand, or seek to lure her from amid objects and associations endeared to her by taste and her earlier years, and, more than all, from the luxuries by which she was surrounded.
And yet it was with him, as it is with some others, barriers to his hopes and wishes only made these wishes and hopes all the more keen; and thus whenever he left her he would pause and commune with himself from time to time, conning over her words and her glances, as if to glean therefrom whether he was indifferent to her or not.
The doubts and fears that agitated Roland's heart were painful and poignant; had he been as he ought to have been, Laird of Ardgowrie, fortalice and manor, wood and mountain, with what honest confidence would he have told her of the love he dared not speak ofnow!
Yet it was so sweet to dream on; for the artless simplicity of Aurelia's manner, and the freshness of her untutored heart, had led him to know and feel that the greatest personal attractions may be second to excelling qualities in the girl one loves.
When he entered the familiar drawing-room, with its air of culture and wealth, pictures, statuettes, and bronzes, and saw from the windows the familiar view he might now be looking upon for the last time, Aurelia did not hear him announced. She was alone, seated at the piano, and singing one of thoseChansons Canadiennes, as they are named, which she had learned from her mother, for among the French Canadians of all ranks there linger yet thechansons,refrains, andbarcarolles, brought from Brittany and La Vendée by their ancestors three hundred years ago; and when Roland suddenly appeared by her side, she started, and arose, surprise mingling with her smile of pleasure, as the hour was an unusual one for a visit.
"I do not ask you to resume your singing, Miss Darnel," said Roland, in a voice that lacked all firmness, "as I have but a few minutes to remain with you, and these may, perhaps, be the last we shall ever spend together."
Her glance drooped, then she lifted her long, silky and most killing lashes, and Roland gazed with unconcealed tenderness into her eyes, which were of that deeply dark blue, which at times and in some lights, especially by night, seem almost black.
"You are, then, going to India?" she asked, in a breathless voice.
"No, Miss Darnel; and yet I am come to say good-bye."
"Good-bye?"
"We take the field to-morrow."
"Against whom?" she asked, growing very pale; "the Insurgents?"
"Yes—the French malcontents and others, I am sorry to say."
"And to-morrow—oh, that is sudden indeed—mamma is from home—and—and——"
Roland could see how her bosom heaved; his heart was rushing to his head, and he drew nearer to her. A black velvet riband, that hung down her back from her delicate white neck, was awry; he put it straight, and then trembled. No one surpassed Roland Ruthven in confidence with women, or at a little bout ofpersiflagewith a jolly flirting girl; but now he was very silent and sad.
The frill of lace that encircled her neck was ruffled in one place, and by a delicate and almost caressing touch he smoothed it as her own brother might have done; then his hands stole softly downward and took each, of hers, while his heart beat like lightning.
"Miss Darnel."
She was trembling now, and her sweet face quivered.
"Aurelia."
"Well, Mr. Ruthven."
"I am about to leave, it may be for ever."
"Do not say so!" she said, almost imploringly, while her eyes filled with tears.
"If anything in this world could make me feel like the Roland Ruthven of a year ago, hopeful, trustful, and happy, it is to see that I am not indifferent to you. Aurelia—my love—my darling!"
She looked at him wistfully for a moment, and ere her white eyelids drooped, a long kiss came, and then a silence, full of happiness most strangely blended with an emotion of intense gratitude, while his arm went round her, and her face was nestled in his neck, and he began, at broken intervals, much that was soft nonsense; but "it was the nonsense which every woman loves to hear from one man (at least) during her life-time."
Then suddenly, while still retaining her hands, and looking at her with infinite tenderness, he told of his great love for her, but how poverty had tied his tongue—poverty brought upon him through a will executed by his grandfather, which deprived him of all he possessed in the world, save his sword, for now the lost heir of Ardgowrie had been found, and no doubt by this time knew of his good fortune.
Roland had to repeat this more than once ere she quite understood him, for Aurelia felt as one in a dream—but a dream of happiness, for "is there any other time," says some one, "like that, when the knowledge comes upon you, that you are singled out, that you are admired most, that one other person is happy only when near you, that eyes are watching for your eyes, that a hand is waiting to touch your hand, when every speech has a new meaning, every word a bewildering significance."
"And you do love me?" she asked, in a low cooing whisper that filled his heart with rapture; he could only utter a deep sigh, and kiss her again.
"And you are poor—Roland?"
"As I have told you," he replied, his heart thrilling again at her utterance of his Christian name for thefirsttime.
"Well—I am rich—allIhave is yours; I am my own mistress, and mamma loves me too well, and you also, to thwart our wishes."
"Darling Aurelia—it is incredible—that—that——"
Roland knew not what he was about to say, so solved the difficulty with a long caress, from which Aurelia suddenly started back, as she now perceived they had a listener.
Unseen by both, Colonel Ithuriel Smash had been standing in the archway of the outer drawing-room, with a curiously malignant expression on his very marked visage, for he had evidently overheard and overseen the whole interview. His presence occasionally at the Château de St. Eustache was only tolerated by Madame Darnel because he was penniless, his store in 75th Avenue having been sold up; and now he was fostering, on the strength of a very remote relationship, some very bold views with regard to Aurelia.
"Jerusalem, apple-sauce, and earthquakes, my young Britisher, but you make yourself quite at home in the house of my kinsman!" exclaimed the Colonel, who had concocted an effervescing drink in a long tumbler, and was leisurely stirring it with the jack-knife used by him for cutting his pig-tail tobacco; "I wonder blood has not been shed about you before this, Miss Aurelia Darnel."
"Blood!" exclaimed Roland, swelling with indignation.
"Jerusalem! but it may be shed soon."
"But, that I am under orders for Chambly to-morrow, I might condescend to punish your insolence and your daring intrusion!"
Roland pressed the hand of Aurelia again, and in doing so deftly slipped a ring upon her engaged finger; he then kissed her deliberately and withdrew (just as the servants came in with lights), exchanging with Smash one of those unmistakable glances that is expressive of—and rivets for life—a hate that dies not, fired by the secret instinct of mutual enmity; yet Roland despised himself for having a foe so ignoble.
That night, without delaying an hour, Colonel Ithuriel Smash took his departure in the direction ofChambly!
Of so little importance had his presence been, that Aurelia never missed him as she sat alone, in a dream of joy that was not unclouded with anxiety for the cause of Roland's departure, and yet it was that event which brought the joy to pass, by laying bare the secret heart of each.
So the girl smiled fondly to herself, as she gazed at and kissed again and again her engagement-ring; and it seemed as if her former life had passed away and a new one of greater sunshine and brightness had begun; and long she sat there looking dreamily at the lovely moon (shining over the spires of Montreal), round as the shield of Fingal, her sweet face wreathed with smiles that no eyes could see, unless they were those of the old man who dwelleth therein.
Roland's heart was brimming with happiness and gratitude for the love and generosity of Aurelia Darnel, and it seemed actually to dance in his breast joyously, when, next morning, the four companies detailed for service marched from Montreal, with the colours flying, the bayonets fixed, and the band playing the old regimental quick-step of the pre-Revolution days, varied by the pipes,—
"Dumbarton's drums beat bonnie O,"
in memory of the Colonel, that loyal and gallant Earl, who followed his royal master into exile and died at St. Germains.
A hundred times Roland asked himself, why had he not tested the great love of Aurelia before? why had he lost so much time and so much happiness? A little time—the insurrection ended, and he would be by her side again, as he had somewhat needlessly assured her in a passionate little farewell note, dispatched that morning.
A little time? Alas, the first day of absence seemed to consist of at least seventy-two hours!
The force which now took the field by order of Lieutenant General Sir John Colborne (afterwards Lord Seaton), G.C.B., Colonel of the Cameronians, a wounded veteran of the Peninsular war, consisted of detachments of the 24th, 32nd, and 66th Regiments, with one howitzer, under the Hon. Colonel Charles Gore, son of the Earl of Arran, and afterwards Deputy Quartermaster-General in Canada, who marched towards St. Denis and St. Charles, with orders to arrest certain armed traitors who were alleged to be in these villages.
At the same time, Colonel Wetherall, with his four companies of the Royal Scots Regiment, Captain David's troop of Montreal Cavalry, a detachment of the 66th, and two six-pounders, was to move on the last-named village to assist a magistrate in executing the warrants.
The month was November, the weather severe, and the roads bad; the men were in heavy marching order, with knapsacks, great coats and blankets, camp-kettles, and with the arms and ammunition of the day, making up a load of seventy-five pounds twelve ounces per man; but all were in the highest spirits. Anything seemed better than moping in barracks, and when the music ceased as they marched "at ease," they made the forests resound to their merry choruses.
All parts of the country thereabout which have not been cleared for cultivation are covered with timber, and he alone, says a traveller, who has visited these regions of interminable forest can form an adequate idea of their dreariness, yet there the red oak, the white pine, the beech, elm, cedar, and maple mingle their branchesad infinitum.
Here and there a lonely clearing was passed, where, amid lofty trees devoid of lateral branches, their stems or stumps scorched and blackened by fire, stood the log hut of a settler, who, with his wild-looking brood, came forth to gaze with wonder, perhaps hostility, at the passing troops.
In autumn these magnificent forests assume hues of every shade—yellow, brown, and red—under sunsets which present the most glorious assemblages of clouds. But winter was the season now; the leaves had fallen; the humming-birds and fire-flies had departed, and the wild fowl had taken refuge on the lakes or the St. Lawrence.
The force under Colonel Wetherall crossed the Richelieu River by the upper ferry at the village of Chambly, where, in the days of the monarchy, the French had a strong palisaded fort; but the nature of the roads and the unfavourable weather seriously impeded his march, while information having reached him that the rebels in arms at St. Charles had been greatly increased in numbers, and had with them a number of lawless American or Yankee "sympathisers," under his late guest, Colonel Smash, whom he remembered at the mess, eating peas with his knife and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; so he made a halt at St. Hilaire, until he could be joined by a fifth company of the 1st Royal Scots under Hector Logan.
On that night it was evident that the country was alarmed. Instead of the stillness usual to the time, the clanging of church bells was heard at intervals, with the barking of dogs, the report of firearms occasionally, the blowing of conches and horns, red alarm-fires blazed up on the dark summits of the distant hills; and more than once horsemen in hot haste dashed past the advanced sentinels without responding to their challenge, and as the troops, as yet, were only acting in support of the civil power, they could not fire upon these strangers.
This was the night of the 24th November, and to Roland, like many others, it was a sleepless one, as he commanded an out-picket and had to visit his sentinels every hour.
On one side of his post rolled the mighty river, reflecting in its ripples the star-spangled sky; on the other, stretched away into darkness and utter obscurity the vast dingles of an American forest, planted and grown by nature.
His mind was full of that last evening with Aurelia and all its sweet details. On his odious rival he scarcely bestowed a thought, and he felt happier than an emperor in his palace, as he lay there, with his cloak around him, his sword and pistols at hand, his head pillowed on a pine-log, and all oblivious of the rattlesnakes, which there are six feet long. Near him was Robert Bruce, one of his sentinels, treading softly to and fro, with bayonet fixed, and singing to himself the old Scottish barrackroom ditty:—
"Poor Willie was landed at bonnie Dumbarton,Where the stream from Loch Lomond runs into the sea,While at home in sweet Ireland, he left Mary Martin,With a babe at her breast and a child at her knee."
The night passed in quietude, apart from the alarming sounds mentioned; on the 25th November the march was resumed, and on coming within a mile of St. Charles, puffs of white smoke spirted out of the dark jungly brushwood on the opposite side of the river, as the rebels daringly opened a straggling fire upon Her Majesty's troops. A Royal Scot was struck down by Roland's side, and several were wounded.
Rifle shots were also fired from a barn in front.
"Push on, Logan!" exclaimed Colonel Wetherall; "push on and storm that place at the point of the bayonet!"
Logan advanced with his company at a rush; his powerful arm burst in the door; the place was taken, all in it bayoneted or put to flight, and then it was set in flames, the whole affair occupying little more than the time we take to narrate the episode.
Near St. Charles were more than fifteen hundred insurrectionists under Papineau and Colonel Smash, posted in a strong and closely stockaded work from which they opened a sharp and serious fire, the echoes of which the adjacent forest repeated with a thousand reverberations, while the whole place seemed enveloped in white smoke, streaked with flashes of red fire.
The Royals responded with several rounds well thrown in; but they had stormed too many such, works in Burmah, the land of stockades, to linger in attacking this one.
A breach was beaten in by axe and hammer, and cannon shot together. In three minutes the place was carried by storm and its occupants bayoneted, shot down, or put to flight; but not before seventeen of the Royals, and four of the 66th were killed, and a great number wounded, while Colonel Wetherall and Major Warde had their horses shot under them, and Roland's cheek was grazed by a rifle shot.
The mingled curses and imprecations, yells of agony and rage, seemed to fill the air, when the roar of the firing died away, and the prisoners were disarmed and secured. "Every officer and man behaved nobly," says the dispatch of Colonel Wetherall. "Major Warde carried the right of the position in good style, and Captain George Mark Glasgow's Artillery did good execution; he is a most zealous officer; and Captain David's troop of Montreal Cavalry rendered essential service during the charge."
The murder of stray soldiers from time to time, and particularly that of George Weir, a young lieutenant of the 32nd Cornish Light Infantry, who was bound to a cart, and hacked to pieces with his own sword, by certain miscreants (among whom Ithuriel Smash was supposed to be one), now began to infuse in the minds of the troops much of that rancour which adds to the severity of a civil strife.
After the stockade had been uprooted and destroyed, the troops returned to St. Hilaire and remained in cantonments for three days. There a dragoon of the Montreal Cavalry arrived with the mail, which brought from Aurelia Darnel the first letter she had ever addressed him, and the sight of her hand-writing raised Roland at once to the seventh heaven of delight. We know not whether he kissed it, but think it extremely probable that he did, if no one was near.
As the contents of love-letters are of interest to the recipients thereof alone, and the said contents, with all their half-fatuous endearments and double diminutives, are at times rather grotesque, the reader need not be troubled with that of Aurelia, save in one part thereof.
"I told dearest mamma of all that had passed between us, shewed her our engagement ring, and added, that as soon as leisure permitted, you would write to her on that subject. She was agitated, the dear old soul, and tearful at the fear of losing me; but kissed me many times, and said she was certain we would be happy together, and that she loved you with all her heart. Oh, think of that, Roland! But we shall have mamma to live with us, won't we dearest, when I am your own—your very own? She will be a comfort to us both, and not at all like the proverbial 'mother-in-law' of the novel and play. But I must now conclude, as we are both on the eve of starting for our Seigneury of St. Eustache, where the French people are taking up arms; but they love mamma so much, that she hopes she may prevail upon them to refrain from breaking the Queen's peace. So adieu till I write you from there, dearest, dearest," &c., &c.
And then, of course, there was a postscript, containing "cartloads of kisses."
Had she told Madame Darnel about the long-hidden will and his changed circumstances?
Roland rather supposed not; she was generous and loving enough, in her love and joy to have forgotten all about the matter!
Roland found an entire day's occupation in reading again and again the letter of Aurelia, nor was it fairly consigned to that breast-pocket in his uniform which contained her glove, till the warning drum beat on the 28th, when the troops marched to attack another body of the rebels, who had taken post at Point Oliviere, and had actually constructed there an abatis of felled trees for the purpose of cutting off the retreat of Wetherall's entire force!
But when the Royals came in sight, with their brass-drums beating and fixed bayonets gleaming bright and keen in the cold winter sun, and deployed from the line of march with coolness and confidence into companies for attack, after exchanging a few shots, the rebels lost all heart, and fled, with the loss of their cannon, which Roland captured at the head of his company, sword in hand, together with twenty-five prisoners, and then rescued his captain, a brave fellow, who in the first advance got entangled among the branches of the abatis and ran thus the serious risk of being shot down helpless; and for all this, Roland was elaborately and honourably mentioned in Colonel Wetherall's dispatch to Sir John Colborne.
On the same day the Colonel's force returned to Chambly with the captured guns and prisoners; but though elated by their success every officer and man was suffering greatly from the heavy and chill rain which turned into mud the wretched roads that were already knee-deep in snow.
Meanwhile tidings reached them that the Queen's forces, under Colonel Gore, had encountered such formidable obstruction, and opposition, and, moreover, endured so much from the severity of the Canadian winter, which had set in with all its bitterness, that they had been compelled to fall back from St. Denis, and retire.
Marching was now laborious work, for when frost came, the troops had to wearcreepers, or plates of spikes strapped to their feet.
The snow lay so deep that one might almost imagine no power of the sun would ever melt it; and, at times, when the leafless trees are coated on every branch and twig with ice, whole forests seem to be turned into crystal, when the rays of light produce ten thousand prisms, and most wonderful is the effect if there is a slight breeze to set them in motion.
Wetherall had partially, by his great success, arrested the rebellion in his own quarter; but it was in all its strength elsewhere, and the troops had many severe and harassing duties to perform amid the frost and snow of a very severe winter. It has justly been said that the British officer is essentially a dandy, that "the neatly and closely cropped hair, the well-trimmed mustache, the set up figure, the spotless gloves, boots bright as a mirror, and the general air of dandyism are the outward symbols of those qualities which make men good soldiers."
It no doubt is so. The set up figure remained, but in Canada at that particular juncture, the dandyism had nearly departed, as much as it did in the Crimea.
Amid these duties, Roland could have no letters from Aurelia; neither could he write, for the postal arrangements were completely suspended, or could only be carried on by parties of armed men.
At last there came a day—one of horror—and Roland never forgot it!
"Look here, old fellow," said Logan, with a bright expression on his handsome face, bringing him a copy of theMontreal Gazettesome weeks old; "as Byron says, 'pleasant 'tis to see one's name in print—'"
"Even in the 'Army List?'"
"Yes, and proud was I when first I saw my name there," said Logan.
"Well, whose name is in print now?"
"Yours."
"Mine!" A sickening thought occurred to Roland of the story of the concealed will, Ardgowrie, and the discovered heir or heirs, for though he had schooled himself to face the idea, it was a bitter one; therefore, it was only a relief to his mind to find, that the matter referred to, was the fact that he was favourably mentioned and thanked in General Orders by Sir John Colborne, commanding Her Majesty's forces in Canada. "for his gallantry displayed on the 28th of November last, at the abatis of Point Oliviere."
As he read it he thought of Aurelia, and the pleasure such a notice would afford her; and was carelessly running his eyes over the columns of the paper, when they caught her name—her name—and mentioned in a way that made his blood turn alternately cold as ice, and hot as fire!
When proceeding in her sledge, with her daughter Aurelia, Madame Darnel had been stopped and surrounded near her own seigneury "by a band of rebels under the notorious Colonel Smash, for whose arrest a reward is now offered."
The old lady had been subjected to such violence, that she had fainted and been borne to the house of the curé insensible, while her beautiful daughter was brutally carried off by the "Yankee Sympathiser," and was now, if alive, a helpless prisoner in his hands at St. Eustache.
Roland was petrified with grief and dismay by intelligence, so deplorable—so terrible! Logan, full of just anger and great indignation, was speaking to him, but Roland knew not what he said.
The former was recalling the views "the Colonel" had with regard to Aurelia; he recalled, too, his eavesdropping, his rancorous hatred, threats, and jealousy; he recalled, also, the whole character and bearing of the man, and when he thought of the soft, gentle, and beautiful Aurelia being helpless in his power, at such a time, when the whole of Lower Canada was rent by civil dissension, outrage, and bloodshed, and when the Queen's troops were menaced everywhere, the heart of Roland seemed to die within him!
Again and again had Roland thought, while angry pride mingled with love and gratitude, that in marrying Aurelia, he would deprive her of no luxury to which she had been accustomed,—horses and carriages in summer, the sledge in winter, a dressing maid, or the thousand and one little things which wealth can procure, becauseshehad that; but he had longed to make her mistress of Ardgowrie!
Now—now, when he had lost her, perhaps for ever, how pitiful and minor seemed all such considerations.
In the main, the newspaper report was correct.
Madame Darnel, with the amiable object in view stated in the letter of Aurelia, had been proceeding with her toward her own estate, which was near the pleasant and well-built village of St. Eustache, in Lower Canada. It consisted then of about a hundred houses, a handsome church and parsonage, and is situated near the mouth of the river Du Chine.
Her sledge was a handsome and fashionable one; the day was clear and bright, the snow, though deep, was frozen hard, and the sledge glided along delightfully. It was drawn by two fine horses, with showy harness, set off by high hoops with silver bells on the saddles, with rosettes of ribbon and streamers of coloured horse-hair on the bridles; and Aurelia—her charming face flushed and pinky with frosty air, a cosy boa round her slender neck, her hand, through gloved, inserted in a sable muff,—was enjoying to the utmost the gay jingle of the bells, the nice crisp sound of the runners of the sledge, when suddenly and involuntarily a shrill scream broke from her, when at a turn of the road near the river, where the cuttings in the banked-up snow lay deep between two rows of picket-fencing, a musket was fired, and their driver fell forward, a corpse, shot through the head, and the vehicle was surrounded by a mob of men.
Infuriated or sullen, but all ruffianly in aspect, these men nearly all wore fur caps, with large flaps down their cheeks, enormous pea jackets or blanket coats patched and tattered, with India-rubber shoes, or moose-skin mocassins, or thick cloth boots with high leggings.
All were armed with pikes, pitch-forks, swords, and pistols; many had fowling pieces; many more had muskets and bayonets, and wore cross-belts stolen from Government armouries or stripped from the slain; and some carried their ammunition in hunting pouches and shot bags.
One who seemed the leader wore a huge coat of buffalo hide, and looked like some great wild animal, for of the human face, nothing was visible, but a long blue nose and a pair of red and blood-shot eyes.
"Jerusalem and ginger nuts, but that was a shot well put in!" exclaimed this personage, whose voice there was no mistaking, and the two horrified and helpless creatures found that they were in the hands of that gang of the insurgents—the most dastardly and lawless—led by Ithuriel Smash.
Their first emotions on finding themselves in the centre of such a savage throng, were undoubtedly those of extreme terror and shrinking delicacy; but Madame Darnel for a time forgot her naturally womanish apprehensions, collected the powers of her mind, and throwing up her veil, confronted the whole band, which mustered more than a hundred men.
Among that mob were many on whom Aurelia and her mother had conferred countless acts of kindness and charity in sickness and health; but, like low-born and ungrateful cowards, they hung back now, when they should have rushed to her defence.
Certainly, to some of the French insurgents, the appeal of Madame Darnel, a handsome woman about forty years of age, with an intelligent and sweet expression in her well-cut features, and every way a person of refinement and delicacy, was not without a little effect; but the announcement of Smash that her daughter was his affianced wife who "intended to slope with one of the 'tarnal Britishers," against whom they were in arms, deprived poor Aurelia of all sympathy, and a roar of menace escaped his hearers.
"Is this conduct your return for my kindness and charity to a creature so immensely beneath me?" asked Madame Darnel.
"As whom?" asked Smash.
"You, fellow!"
"D—n your cussed impudence! Now then, Aurelia, come along, white face. You look as if you required a box of our New York 'Never-say-die or Health-restoring pills,'" said Smash; and a shriek burst from the girl as his coarse fingers with their long spiky nails grasped her tender arm, and she was literally torn away from her horrified mother, who fainted, and was borne off by some of the better disposed to the house of the curé.
Followed by the armed rabble, the helpless Aurelia incapable of all resistance, was dragged through the village of St. Eustache, and taken a literal prisoner, or victim, to her mother's house which adjoined, the seigneury of the Darnels, wherein Colonel Smash had established his headquarters.
For a moment or two she thought to conciliate her chief captor.
Tears big and bright were welling in her dark blue eyes; her bonnet and veil had been torn off, and her dark hair all unconfined rolled over her back and shoulders, as she stood with clasped hands and pleading looks before the so-called Colonel.
"Do shake hands with me," she condescended in her first fear to say; "shake hands, Ithuriel—let us be friends, and send me back to mamma, or bring her here."
"Friends—friends be darned!" roared Ithuriel, whose plug of pigtail dropped out of his lantern jaws, after which he proceeded to air it on the point of his jack knife, while eyeing her with mingled malevolence and admiration, and seated himself on a table. "You won't give me a kiss, I suppose; but I can take as many as I like, I reckon; and you look as if you scarcely remembered me—Ithuriel Alcibiades Smash. Strike me ugly, but that's a bad compliment. But," added the bantering ruffian, "I calculate I'll survive it! Flirtation and courtship are two very different things, Miss Aurelia, and I ain't disposed to flirt with you, as you'll find out before long."
Smash did not yet molest her; but she knew not what he might do if he imbibed much brandy, as he had a bottle beside him, and was helping himself liberally to the contents thereof, while he talked; and she eyed him with fast-growing alarm.
That he had shot the poor sledge-driver, an old and faithful domestic whom she had known from childhood, Aurelia never doubted; and that deed added to her unfathomable loathing and horror of him. She shivered in his presence, and shuddered whenever he drew near her. She glanced wildly at the room door, but escape was hopeless. He saw the glance and laughed aloud.
Was she acting in a melo-drama with the ruffian, as the heavy villain of the piece? Was it all a dream? It almost seemed so, the whole situation with all its contingent horrors and future uncertainties, appeared so new, so unnatural and unreal! He seemed to read her thoughts, for he said,—
"Was it not to spite that tarnation Britisher, who used to come into the room with an opera hat under his arm, like a roasted fowl with its gizzard, I might give you a little time to think of marrying me."
"Marryyou!" exclaimed Aurelia in a peculiar tone, that filled him with rage and caused him to indulge in much language that was "more pagan than parliamentary" till he roused her scorn and anger.
"Coarse fool, and worse than fool! how dare you use language that is unfit for me to hear?"
"'Guess your Britisher will never see his wretched little island again—too many rifle bullets flying for that," said he irrelevantly, as he saw how every reference to Roland affected her. "You encouraged that 'ere Britisher," continued the Colonel, still airing his quid on his jack knife.
"Encouraged—how dare you say so?"
"Dare—there is no daring in it, my dear. Who commands here—you or I?"
"Sir, you presume upon your relationship in some way with mamma, to talk to me thus, surely."
"I presume only on my own love for you, and would keep you, a daughter of Canada, as I would a daughter of America, from the contamination of that 'tarnal red-coated British slave!"
Still, as yet, save when dragging her to the house—her own father's house—he had not laid hands on her. With all his roughness and innate brutality, he felt that there was an undefinable something in the grand hauteur, the excessive delicacy, the tone of refinement, in the general aspect and bearing of Aurelia, that quelled, while it secretly "riled" him.
He noticed the very expression of her nostrils, the quiver of her proud lip and the flash of her dark blue eye—the flash of scorn and loathing when she replied to him, and he quailed under it—he, the utter American rowdy! But this emotion began to die as he drained another bumper of stiff brandy and water, and he took to blustering and swearing again.
"Do not use language such as this—and to me," said Aurelia, putting her trembling hands to her ears; "surely you do not know the nature of oaths."
"Don't I? I calculate I've sworn enough to sink a seventy-four-gun ship," said he, with a mocking laugh; "but surely," he added, drawing nearer her, and adopting a coaxing tone and bearing, "in time you'll forget all about that fellow, and see the necessity of quietly becoming Mrs. Ithuriel Smash, when you cannot make abetter of it."
The girl's heart seemed to give a great bound, and then to die within her, at these words, the look that accompanied and the dreadful inference to be deduced from them.
"Anyhow, I calculate that I shan't forget the evening I saw you and that yaw-haw beast of a Britisher giving each other such nice tokens of your mutual good-will—he giving you what he calls his heart—and you making a free gift of the whole seigneury of St. Eustache! If once he comes within the reach of my rifle...!"
The Colonel was unable to express what would happen then. He clenched hands and set his great yellow teeth with such force, that his quid slipped down his throat and nearly choked him.
Two or three days were passed by Aurelia in extreme misery and captivity, and almost hourly she was warned by Smash that his patience would soon be exhausted, and he would "send for the parson."
She secluded herself in her own room, and found for a little time a temporary protector in Papineau, one of the rebel leaders, a dapper little French colonist, who had now come to concert measures for the defence of the village, and urged that the young lady must not be intruded upon.
"Snakes alive! man, don't I tell you she is to be my wife?" roared Smash.
"Mon Dieu, my dear Colonel, that may be so," replied Papineau, taking a pinch in the old Parisian fashion; "win the heiress, but woo her gently. A lady can only receive in her own apartment a clergyman or a doctor."
"And a hairdresser," added the barber of the village who was there, armed to the teeth.
"By Jerusalem, then, I'll go as a hairdresser and scalp her, if she gives me more trouble! I'll teach her that I'm half-horse, half-alligator!" exclaimed Smash, who by this time was intoxicated to a dangerous extent.
A violent illness—the fever of great fear—had prostrated Madame Darnel.
Separated from the latter, Aurelia was without the little protection her presence might have afforded. She was glad to keep beside the female domestics of the seigneury, from among whom she was often haled forth shrieking to endure the extraordinary love-speeches of Smash; at last the women quitted the house in terror, and she was left there alone—alone with a man whom she now loathed with a fear indescribable!
The sea was frozen now for miles upon miles along the coast, there were no electric cables as yet, and inland all postal communication was cut off by concurrent events. No news came to Roland from Messrs. Hook and Crook, and for all that he knew to the contrary, the newly-found heirs might have eaten their Christmas pudding and drunk the new year in, at Ardgowrie!
But Roland gave not a thought to such matters now! He had become changed in appearance, too; he was thinner, and two or three lines appeared about his eyes, where none had been visible before; and times there were when he thought himself going mad with the bitter strain upon his thoughts.
He had but a wild, clamorous craving and gnawing at the heart—a fierce longing to quit Chambly and set out for St. Eustache. But Roland Ruthven was a soldier of the Queen, and was chained to his post. His place was with the colours of the Royal Scots.
The cold at this time was intense; in the village market-place were masses of beef, sheep, and deer frozen hard as they had been for months, having been killed when the severe weather first set in. There, too, were plucked fowls, fish of all kinds frozen hard, and eels as stiff as walking-sticks. Even the milk was sold by the pound, and the loaves of bread, frozen hard the moment they left the oven, had to be literally sawn into slices, and half-and-half grog froze.
The snow was deeper than it had ever been seen by that proverbial party who is to be found everywhere, "the oldest inhabitant," and military operations were out of the question. Guards, when relieving others, frequently took over the arms of the old guard being unable to carry their own; and once Roland found a sentinel frozen dead, hard and stiff and pale as the snow around him, in his sentry-box, with his glazed eyes glaring horribly out of their sockets. He was Robert Bruce, already mentioned, who, poor fellow, would sing upon his post no more.
But amid all this, the mess often thought and talked of punkahs, of Bengal curries, green chillies, devilled biscuits, and other "up-country" memories, as if the very mention of such things would keep them warm! And at that merry mess-table Roland always felt himself to be now—how different from past times!—the skeleton at the banquet.
But there comes an end to all things, and relief came ere long to the agonised mind of Roland. He was seated in his billet—a miserable wood-cutter's hut at Chambly,—when, one morning, Hector Logan burst in upon him like a gale of wind, bringing a tempest of snow with him.
"News for you, Ruthven!" he cried, shaking himself like a Newfoundland dog; "splendid news! We are to march at once."
"For where?"
"St. Eustache, my boy."
"St. Eustache!" exclaimed Roland, starting to his feet.
"St. Eustache it is. I have just seen the Colonel with the General's order in his hand."
"Thank God!" exclaimed he, with great fervour; "we shall soon gain tidings now—you know ofwhom?"
"True, old fellow!"
"Yes—and vengeance too, perhaps!" added Roland, but his heart sank at the thought of how unavailing might be all human vengeancenow!
Never did soldier prepare to take the field with greater alacrity than Roland Ruthven. The chances of Fate or of war might have compelled him to remain where he was, like Tantalus, in his pool, or to move in some other direction than St. Eustache!
It all came to pass thus.
The severity of the weather had abated a little, and even while it lasted rapine and outrage had reigned supreme in the disaffected districts. Sir John Colborne, on the 13th December, with all his disposable forces, set out on his march from Montreal, and Wetherall's little column was to join him on the way to St. Eustache to seize that place and scour the country about the Lake of the Two Mountains, where the insurgents under Papineau, Smash, and others had barbarously driven out all the loyal inhabitants, leaving many of them to perish miserably among the snow; and a vast extent of country was ravaged and pillaged.
Sharing Roland's anxiety, Hector Logan was in the highest spirits, when the troops moved off and turned their backs on Chambly, as they devoutly hoped, for ever.
Evening was approaching when the march began, without music, and the drummers had their drums slung behind them. The soldiers had their buff belts above their great coats. The musket-locks had been inspected and fresh ammunition served to all, which, as the men said to each other smilingly, "looked like business."
"No 'beauty and the bowl' for us to night, Roland, by Jove," said Logan, as he set his face to the fierce northern blast, which came sweeping from the Pole itself over half a world of snow, rasping the cheek like the roughest file.
Roland commanded the advanced guard, which consisted of two sections, with detached files, and as they were penetrating into disturbed districts, Colonel Wetherall repeated to him the usual orders and cautions to be observed when entering defiles or hollow-ways, ascending hills, with flank objects, and so on, and never did the young officer feel more sternly zealous in his life.
After proceeding some miles, just as the moon rose and the guard entered a hollow-way, where the cutting in the drifted snow was deep, Roland heard his first advanced file challenge some one and cock his musket. Then a man on horseback appeared, who replied in broken English.
Roland drew his sword, and on hurrying to the front found that his next advanced files had stopped the stranger, who appeared to be a peasant—a French settler. He wore an old-fashionedcapoteand mocassins of cow-hide; and had a rifle slung across his back.
"You are a Frenchman, I perceive?" said Roland.
"Monsieur l'officier," replied the man, saluting him, "je suis Canadien."
"Why are you armed?"
"For my own protection, monsieur."
"That may or may not be. Where do you live?"
"My farm is on the Rivière de Chine."
"Has it been burned?"
"No, monsieur."
"That in itself looks suspicious," said Roland, while the stranger glanced uneasily at the dark mass of the grey-coated and cross-belted column, now descending the slope in the moonlight.
"From whence came you last?" asked Roland.
"The village of St. Eustache, monsieur."
Roland's heart leaped; it was with difficulty he could ask the next question.
Did he know aught of a young lady who was in the hands of Mie insurgents?
"Mademoiselle Darnel—yes, monsieur. She is still in the house of the Seigneur with Colonel Smash, or perhaps in the church which is fortified. She is married to him, people say—or, rather,hehas marriedher," added the fellow, with a grin, which nearly tempted Roland in his then mood of mind to run him through the body.
He felt sick, sick at heart; but in a little time he would know all—the worst!
"Corporal Burns," said he, with a voice strangely broken, as the listening soldiers told, "take this fellow, with a file of men, to the rear. The Colonel may wish to question him. Forward, lads!" he added, as the peasant was taken, in great tribulation of mind, towards the column, and once more the march of the advanced guard was resumed, and Roland Ruthven tramped on, so full of agitating thoughts that he never knew his cigar had been cold and out for half an hour or more.
The junction was duly effected with the column of Sir John Colborne; the Royal Scots Regiment, the Montreal Rifles, and Globinsky's Volunteers, were formed in one brigade under Colonel Wetherall. The latter force was dispatched through the forests that border the upper road leading to the point to be attacked, with orders to drive back and disperse all pickets and parties of the insurgents, while the remainder of the brigade crossed the Ottawa, or Grande Rivière, on the ice on the 14th of December.
There along the Ottawa, the then snow-covered country is undulating, thickly covered with fine wood, except on the western bank of the river, where for some twelve miles have been laid out townships, chiefly occupied by Irish, and American settlers. Below that of Chatham the old French Seigneuries begin.
The advance on the enemy's stronghold now began from several points.
In Roland's heart much of the ardour and fierce excitement incident to the march had died away, or rather taken the form of unspeakable anxiety and grief, especially when on the 14th of December he saw before him St. Eustache, with its wooden houses and orchards of bare apple-trees, the cold winter sunlight tipping the spire of the church, and the vanes of the large white house, wherein Roland knew that she might be, though the man taken over night informed Colonel Wetherall that it was not improbable she might be in the church, which the rebels considered the key of their position.
"Patience—patience!" he muttered, "patience yet awhile!"
No magistrate being with the troops, Sir John Colborne, while still at a little distance from the place, resolved to send forward an officer with the printed proclamation. For this service Roland at once volunteered. Tying a white handkerchief to the blade of his sword, in token of truce, he borrowed his friend the adjutant's horse, and galloped forward to the first line of stockades or outer defences, behind which the dark forms of armed rebels were seen clustering thick as bees, and at the windows of the seigneur's house.
The whole troops watched with anxiety the brief parley that seemed to ensue; then it was suddenly cut short by a lamentable crime. A stream of smoke came from the window of a house, the report of a musket rang out on the clear frosty air, Roland's horse was seen to rear, with its rider lying back on the crupper, but his knees still in the stirrups, to all appearance a corpse, as Nolan's was borne back from Balaclava!
A shout of rage burst from the Royals; the artillery opened, and all pressed forward to the attack, intent on dire vengeance, at a well-ordered rush.
By barricades, palisades, trenches, and loopholing the houses, the church, and its presbytery, Papineau, Smash, and their bands of rebels, had left nothing undone to render St. Eustache a somewhat formidable post; and they were encouraged by the knowledge that other bodies of their compatriots had fortified themselves at St. Benoit and elsewhere.
These preparations had, luckily for poor Aurelia, occupied much of her ungainly suitor's time, but he found himself at full leisure on the eventful 14th of December, and he began his system of annoyance again.
"The Colonel" had never sacrificed much to the graces, and his late occupations in St. Eustache had effectually prevented him from doing so at all; thus his appearance was every way the reverse of prepossessing.
In her own house, surrounded by familiar objects, though havoc and wanton destruction were visible on every hand, Aurelia had after a time gathered a fictitious courage, for was she not at home! But what struck her as curious was, that in this fellow's strange love-making he had never spoken oflove, for, sooth to say, he knew not what, in its purer sense, the sweet emotion meant; and by partial successes, particularly the failure of Colonel Gore's column before St. Denis, he was now so swelled and inflated with pride that he threatened to explode like a Woolwich torpedo, and ever and anon he would say to Aurelia,—
"Snakes! I could scarcely expect you to marry me right off the reel, slick at once; but I may grow weary of giving you time, so listen to me!" (here he registered one of his awful oaths) "rather than that blazing Britisher should succeed, I'd job my bowie into you!"
If St. Eustache were attacked, and the Queen's troops defeated, then indeed did Aurelia know that one way or other her fate would be sealed. Indeed, it might be sealed either way!
Cold though the season—it could not well be colder—so hot was the constitution of the Colonel (or his "coppers," as he phrased it), that he was always compounding curious effervescing drinks in long tumblers from the contents of Madame Darnel's cellars; but on the morning in question he said—
"Aurelia, my dear, I have a bumper of that old mydeary, which belonged to your dad, old Darnel! Snakes! but itisthe stuff. Not the mixtour of hickory and Jamaikey rum we get in New York," he added, draining a tumbler of the late Mr. Darnel's most cherished Madeira, much to the alarm of his shrinking listener, as intoxication always added, if possible, to the Colonel's vulgarity.
"Ah—ah!" said little M. Papineau, regarding him with a smile, snuff-box in hand, "the ancient Persians—if we are to believe history—never undertook any great matter, and never discoursed of aught that referred to policy or public interest, till they were at least, as the sailors say, three sheets in the wind, and you seem to be of their opinion. And now I must go round our posts."
And, bowing with mock courtesy to Aurelia, he took his sword and pistols, and withdrew, stuffing them into the belt that girt his buffalo coat.
Afraid almost to close her eyes at night, the poor girl had now an unslept, wild, and hunted look in them, with black circles round them; her face was deadly pale, and her once beautiful dark silky hair, never dressed now, was twisted in one great uncombed mass at the back of her head. Smash saw all this plainly enough, but he was pitiless as a Canadian bear, and only muttered,—
"Darn, me, but I'll tame her yet, and break her spirit or her heart!"
A little cry escaped her—a cry of joy, but more she dared not utter, for lo! from the windows of the room she could see, advancing over the waste of far extending snow through which the great Montreal road lay, the dark masses of the approaching troops, dark because all were in their grey overcoats; but the fixed bayonets glittered like a grey steely forest; the bright colours, crimson, blue, and gold, were waving in the sun, here and there the rays of the latter were reflected from a brass drum.
The heads of the infantry columns halted, and a distant flash or gleam seemed to pass along the ranks as the arms were "ordered" and the men stood "at ease;" the artillery were all well to the front, unlimbered and wheeled round, the horses untraced and taken to the rear, and while one solitary officer was seen galloping towards St. Eustache, a ferocious interjection escaped Ithuriel Smash, and a roar of voices burst over all the place, when some thousand men grasped their arms—weapons of every description.
How wildly with hope beat the heart of Aurelia at this moment! But she closed her ears to the cries she heard around her, from the colonists and their American sympathisers.
"Sacré Anglais! Blood for blood!"
"Down with the Red slaves of Queen Victoria!"
"Death to the island savages!"
"We'll whip the 'tarnal Britishers into the sea!"
And so forth, the phrases only alike in their spirit of ferocity. Meanwhile the solitary and adventurous officer was coming galloping on. At last he drew near that portion of the rudely-constructed works or fortifications (that connected all the houses and gardens of St. Eustache) which was immediately overlooked by the windows of the room in which she was compelled to remain with Ithuriel Smash, who, on the officer reining in his horse and waving his flag of truce, threw up a sash to hear what he had to say.
"Listen, my good people," he cried, displaying a paper, "to the proclamation of Lieutenant-General Sir John Colborne, G.C.B. and G.C.H., Commander-in-Chief of all Her Britannic Majesty's forces in Canada:—
"Our Sovereign Lady the Queen chargeth and commandeth all the persons here assembled in Eustache, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the Acts made in the 27th year of King George the Third, to prevent tumultuous risings and assemblies."
A yell of scorn and defiance responded to the reading of this brief document. Meanwhile a moan escaped Aurelia, and a fierce chuckle Colonel Smash; and so occupied was the former in looking at her lover, that she took no heed of the Colonel, who softly and silently locked a musket, took aim, and fired.
Then a piercing shriek escaped Aurelia, as Roland, to all appearance dead or dying, prostrate backward on the crupper of his horse, was borne by it to the rear.
"Jerusalem and earthquakes!" said the assassin, laughing. "No need to waste a second bullet now!"
"Oh Father in Heaven, but this is too much—too much!" cried Aurelia, as she fell on her knees and covered her face with her hands.
"Is it?" said the ruffian, with another fiendish laugh, while proceeding to reload. "Now I think the game is in my own hands in more ways than one, Aurelia Darnel. We've dug up the war-hatchet, and ain't going to smoke the painted calumet of peace now!"
She fell prone on her face in a swoon, and thus Ithuriel Smash had to leave her, to come round as best she might, as other work was cut out for him now, as the troops were closing up fast on every hand, and already the guns of Glasgow's artillery had begun to knock everything in the village to pieces.