"Then you have lost an estate in my service?"
"I have lost nothing that I can regret in such a cause."
"May I live to requite it! 'Tis an ancient house, and one of unblemished honour. Are you Catholic?"
"No, I am a Presbyterian."
"Then the greater honour is due to you for disinterested loyalty. And yours, Sir?"
"Douglas of Finland—a lieutenant under the Lord Dunbarton."
"Another forfeiture!" exclaimed James, striking his breast; "and yours, Sir?"
"Drumquhasel—first major to the same noble earl," replied the tali cavalier, on whose breast sparkled the cross of St. Louis.
"Another, and another! Oh, gentlemen, your sufferings and your losses, your loyalty and your truth—God may requite them adequately, but I never can!" exclaimed James, in a troubled voice, and when he had inserted the names of the whole hundred and fifty in his note book, he moved again to the front, and taking off his hat, bowed profoundly with an air in which thankfulness and respect were exquisitely blended with dignity and majesty. He then retired pensively towards the palace; but painfully aware of the misery of those who suffered for him, and still unwilling to leave them, with sensations too deep for utterance, the unhappy King returned once more, and bowing to them again and again, covered his face with his handkerchief, and burst into tears. Animated by one sympathetic impulse, the whole line sank at once upon their knees and bowed their heads; the spirit of many a brave man was subdued; several wept, and there was not an unmoistened eye among them. The King, in particular, was deeply affected; his sobs were audible; and again removing his hat, he raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, in the words of the last chapter of Lamentations,—
"Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us! Consider and behold our reproach!Our inheritance is returned to strangers—our houses to aliens!"
He repeatedly smote himself upon the breast in an energetic fashion he had acquired among the Jesuits, who had been too much about him for his own fortune; and a long pause succeeded, until Lord Dunbarton gave for the last time the word of command. The Scottish officers resumed their aspect of steadiness and order, and marched past the King, whom nearly all of them were fated to behold no more; for death on the field, disease in the camp, poverty and despair, did their work surely and rapidly, and few of that brave but forlorn band ever returned from the frontiers of Spain.
From Versailles this company of unfortunate cavaliers received an order to join the army of Mareschal Noailles; and, next day, they set out from St. Germain, on their long and weary march of nine hundred miles, which they performed on foot, heavily accoutred, bearing their own camp-kettles and equipages, and accompanied by miseries and mortifications that baffle all description; but which, by the indomitable spirit and ardour that animated them, they seldom failed to surmount.
Louis of France was now plunged in a war, into which his mistaken policy had hurried him. In a long persecution of the unhappy Protestants, he had weakened his kingdom by the expatriation of thousands of his best and most industrious subjects, who wandered as refugees throughout other countries, and justly inflamed all Europe against him. To crush him, there had been formed at Augsburg a powerful league, to which the whole empire of Germany, Spain, Holland, Savoy, Sweden, and Denmark were parties; but, in no way daunted, he anticipated this great confederation by invading the empire and laying siege to Philipsburg. The recent revolution in England had given a new turn to this religious war, and Ireland became the theatre of a contest which ended on the banks of the Boyne, where William triumphed over his unfortunate father-in-law.
It may be that the great expenses of the war in which he was now involved prevented Louis XIV. from remunerating adequately to their merit the officers of Dundee's army; but when they joined the standard of Noailles on the Spanish frontier, they were in a state of lamentable destitution and misery. The coarse uniform in which they had marched from St. Germain was worn to rags; they were shoeless, shirtless, and emaciated by hardships, privations, and want of the most common necessaries of life; for by the selfishness and duplicity of individuals to whom their little commissariat was entrusted, they were cheated of their poor supplies, the few presents the generous had sent them, and even of a small pittance (a few pence daily) which James, amid all his own necessities, endeavoured to pay them; yet they were never known to utter a complaint, for the misfortunes of their sovereign pressed heavier on their hearts than their own.
Wherever they marched they were beheld with pity and remembered with sorrow. The kind ladies of Perpignan presented them with a purse containing 200 pistoles, and bought all their rings as relics ofles officiers Ecossais. "Wherever they passed they were received with tears by the women and admiration by the men. They were the foremost in the battle, and the last in retreat, and of all the troops in the service of France they were most obedient to orders."
There is nothing in the history of ancient or modern times to equal their admirable bearing, heroic ardour, and devoted loyalty. They endured the most severe humiliation and privations without uttering a murmur, and performed actions of heroism outdoing the deeds of romance; for to their inborn daring was united a spirit of desperation, and a longing to be honorably rid of a life that was without a charm and without a ray of hope.
The French were touched by their misfortunes and sufferings; a universal shout rent the camp of Noailles on their marching into it, and with that generosity which is so characteristic of soldiers, the chevaliers and officers immediately subscribed for them, each furnishing shirts, clothing, and money, and none was more liberal with his purse than the noble Mareschal himself; but even of these presents the unhappy Scots officers were cheated by the villany of one to whom they were entrusted, and thus the kind efforts to alleviate their miseries failed.
On the route to Catalonia, near Montpelier, when fording a mountain torrent swollen by the recent rains, Walter Fenton and three other cavaliers were swept away. Catching hold of some alders that overhung the bank, they kept themselves above the current, and called on the peasantry to save them. It is related, that though hundreds were there looking on, they never offered the least assistance, but mocked and jibed them in barbarous Catalonian French, while waiting coolly until they were drowned, that they might possess their money, clothes, and arms. But after great toil and danger they were rescued by their comrades.
They were never seen on the field but with their faces to the enemy. On every desperate duty and forlorn hope they led the way, and often too where others dared notfollow. Death and disease rapidly thinned their ranks, but their ardour never failed, and had the invisible spirit of the fierce Dundee led them as of old, they could not have surpassed the deeds they achieved and the glory they acquired. On Rosas surrendering,
"Senor Mariscal," said the Spanish governor, "what soldiers were those who assailed the breach so valiantly?"
"Ces sont mes enfans," replied Noailles, smiling; "they are my children—the King of Britain's Scottish officers, who share his obscurity and exile, and do me the honor to serve under my command."
"By St. James!they alonehave compelled me to surrender," replied the noble Spaniard.
They marched from Rosas to Piscador, and, of an army of 26,000 men, 16,000 perished by the way-side of privation. Twice only the Scottish officers were known to disobey orders. The first occasion was at the siege of Rosas, an ancient and well fortified city, situated upon a gulf about twelve miles from Girona. The air was intensely hot, and the water muddy and unwholesome; the only rations of the Scots officers were horse-beans, garlic, and sardinas; they were utterly penniless, and could procure no better food, consequently deadly fevers and fluxes rapidly thinned their ranks, upon which Mareschal Noailles ordered them to leave the camp for the purpose of cantoning in a more healthy locality; but they delayed to obey, and sent Sir Walter Fenton to acquaint him that they "considered his order as an affront put upon them as soldiers of fortune and gentlemen of honour."
The second instance was when a strong body of German troops had made a lodgement on an island in the Rhine, from which it was necessary to force them; the Marquis de Selle ordered a number of boats to be prepared, under an impression that the river was too deep and rapid to be fordable, and the Scottish officers were to lead the way, but were not to move until orders were given to embark. Finding it impossible to restrain their ardour till the arrival of the boats, they slung their musquets and prepared to cross.
"Come on, Walter!" exclaimed the brave Douglas as he led the way, "and we will shew these gay chevaliers of France that we, who have forded the rapid Spey and rocky Forth, need not shrink on the margin of the Rhine. Join hands, gentlemen Scots; forward! and I will lead you to the dance. Hurrah!"
Hand in hand, in the Highland fashion, with their musquets slung, they threw themselves into the rapid and impetuous stream, where between jagged rocks it urged its foamy way over a slippery and stony bed; and thus breaking its force they stemmed the current, and, though under a fierce cannonade and storm of musquet balls poured on them from the rocks of the islet, they forced the dangerous passage in the view of both armies; the Laird of Drumquhasel and Captain Ogilvie* were shot dead; but, led on by Finland, the Scottish officers scaled the rocks, and assailing ten times their number of Germans with screwed bayonets and clubbed musquets, drove them from their intrenchments into the Rhine on the other side of the island, and reared the French standard on its summit.
* Captain Ogilvie was author of a song, which is preserved in Hogg's Jacobite reliques,—"Adieu for evermore."
"By St. Denis!" exclaimed the Marquis de Selle, "His the bravest action soldiers ever performed!"
"Vive les officiers Ecossais!" cried the French soldiers. "Le gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme;" and to this day, in memory of the Scottish valour, the place is named
L'ISLE D'ECOSSE.
But the far mind was absent in pursuitOf him, her love, in fields where foes contestedThe bloody harvest, and a crown the fruit,Dread fruit, with cares and dangerous joys invested!Her mind was absent in the distant war.PEDRO OF CASTILE.
"Whither awa', Clermistonlee, ye mad buckie?" exclaimed Lord Mersington, as his friend jostled past him under the great pillars or arcade near the cross, one forenoon, when all the city were abroadenjoyingthe sunshine; "whatna way is that to gliff folk? is a dun or the deil after ye?"
"I crave pardon, my Lord, but did not observe you; for what is all this crowd collected?"
"The heralds have been proclaiming the ratification of the new Protestant league against Louis of France."
"A league," added Clermistonlee scornfully, "which our pious and glorious William hath tinkered up, that the treasure and blood of his two British kingdoms may be wasted in defence of the rascally Hollanders and thick-pated Flemings. By all the devils, my Lord, we have brought our political pigs to a pretty market!" and he began to whistle a cavalier air.
"Wheesht!" said Mersington, glancing furtively around him; "this is clean contrary to the Act of Council; and mind ye, my braw billy, if ye aye strut with that long feather and cocked beaver, your pinkit mantle, and lace o'erlay, like a ruffling buck o' King Charles' time, instead o' wearing the sad-coloured garb and sober demeanour of these our present days, when naething but psalm-singing, swearing in low Dutch, and mortifying the spirit, are in vogue, you'll sune hae the eyes o' the Council upon ye, as a Jacobite in disguise, a hatcher o' plots, conspiracies, and the deil kens what mair—he, he!"
"Crush me, if I will lessen one curl of my peruke, or one slash in my doublet, to please any Dutch king or clown that ever wore breeches!"
"You seem in a braw mood this morning. I warrant you'll hae pouched a round sum at shovel-board last night in the Covenant Close."
"A messenger from the court of St. Germain has just been arrested by Muclutchy, the macer of Council," replied Clermistonlee, watching keenly the sharp visage of the senator; "by Jove, you change colour, my gossip!—any correspondence in that quarter, hah?"
"I trow not," said the other, resuming his immovable aspect; "d'ye tak' me for a gomeral? What is that we see above the Tolbooth-gable?"
"The arm of the gibbet."
"Weel," rejoined the judge, drily, "and what news brought the messenger?"
"Nought but letters from the exiled lords and gentlemen; some of them, I tell thee, Mersington, are deeply touching, and would harrow up even that impenetrable heart of thine. They tell of blighted loves and blasted hopes, of sorrow and of suffering, humiliation and despair; but of a loyalty and unblemished honour that shed a glory around the cause for which they suffer—a glory that makes us intensely despicable by comparison. There are passages in some of those letters from the brave cavaliers of Dundee that have made many of the Council almost weep with compassion. By the Heaven that is above us, I feel that I would be a thousand times more happy as one of those illustrious exiles, than struggling here to maintain, by gambling, exactions, and roguery, a hollow rank, a gilded title, and a career of extravagance on which I have run too far to return!"
"The only sensible clause in your process," said Mersington, testily. "But you'll hae yoursel laid by the heels yet, and then you may whistle on your thumb for the braw mains and revenues of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, for whilk you've graned and girned these twa years and mair."
"Right! 'twas but the feeling of a moment for the misfortunes of our former friends, whose hearts, to their honour (unlike ours) were better than their heads."
"Puir chields—puir chields—I doubt the Act of eighty-nine presses unco hard on some of them."
"Among other letters, is one from that wild spark, Douglas of Finland, once a lieutenant in the regiment of Dunbarton, addressed to his false leman, Mistress Annie Laurie. Poor credulous fool, to trust in a woman's faith! He knows not that she hath become Lady Craigdarroch, and so hath forgot him in the arms of his friend. I like love-letters, having written some bushels of them in my time; but his—by the devil's beard!—it equals anything in theBanished Virgin, orCassandra. I have taken the liberty to confiscate it to my own use; and here it is."
"Hold! a thought strikes me; the hand is easy of imitation, and for what may ye no add a postscriptum, whilk may be of service in your love affair, by wedding young Fenton——"
"The devil confound him!"
"To some airy damoiselle; or knocking him on the head during his French campaign?"
"'Tis all one. Excellent! Juden will deliver it. Annie will fly to her gossip, with every string in her boddice straining with the greatness of her intelligence; and as we never knew a damsel prefer a dead lover to a living one, we may imagine or hope the issue. 'Tis sublime!"
"I wad rather hae a dead gudewife, I ken—he, he!" said Mersington, as he adjusted his wig and took his friend's arm, striking his gold-headed cane on the pavement with the air of a man who has said something smart; "but let us hae nae mair o' your plaguy qualms o' conscience, for they dinna dovetail weel wi' the general tenour o' your way. Weel, anent this postscriptum—he, he!—let us adjourn to——"
"Hugh Blair's, you would say. Poor Hugh! his locale hath changed with the times, and there is nothing now but gloom and obscurity, cobwebs and dust, where all was once courtly merriment and joyous revelry. Who could have imagined that a time would come when this famous coffee-house would be voted 'a den of cavalier iniquity'—that the buirdly hosteller with whom the noble Perth, the gallant Dunbarton, and the courtly Dundee wiled away the hours at picquet and tric-trac, and pushed the wine from hand to hand, would be accused of those honours as a crime, and thrown into the iron-room of the Tolbooth, there to languish in poverty and misery, while the luscious contents of his well-stored cellars were confiscated to the public use?"
"It ill beseems ye to condemn the last clause in your interlocutor, my noble gossip, when the maist of the precious contents of Hughie's runlets ran owre your ain craig. My certie! you had a braw rug at the forfeitures, baith gentle and semple!"
"Ha, ha! enough of this—the present business is to procure the use of an inkhorn. I am restricted in wine to drink medicated Hippocras. What art grinning at now?"
"Your occasional scruples o' conscience—he, he! Do ye mind the whilly-whaw ye were in anent the spectre of an armed man in the hall of Clermiston?"
"Why the devil remind me of it?" exclaimed the other, angrily; "if it really was a spirit——"
"If!we have in profane as weel as sacred writing owre mony evidences of their reality, and their appearance for various purposes whilk we cannot comprehend; and we have also as mony solid proofs that the devil can mak' deid bodies move; but anent this, see Gabrieile Nandæus in hisApology, and Delrio in hisDisquisitiones Magica."
"D—n Delrio! Ever pestering me with thy musty learning!—but here is a change-house, where it may be that we can get this notable postscriptum concocted."
* * * * *
The summer had passed away, and now brown autumn was once more reddening the heather of the Pentlands, and spreading her dun tints over the woods of Bruntisfield; the sombre eve was closing fast, but the bright fire burned merrily as ever in the chamber-of-dais at the old castellated Place, and ruddily its warm light shone through the barred windows into the recesses of the old woodlands, which every passing breeze robbed of some of their crisped foliage, and strewed it over the muirlands to the south. The old manor-house had recovered from the rages of that terrible night in 1688, and was now repaired, and stronger than ever; the windows were more thickly grated, and numerous loopholes and two additional turrets defended the barbican gate.
Lilian and her friend Annie were seated side by side as of old, and opposite sat Lady Grisel—but a change had come over them all. Though the hale old lady recovered from the shock of Lilian's abduction, it had seriously affected her health, and now she was a picture of the helplessness of extreme old age, in her dotage, pale and querulous, but ever gentle and childlike. She occupied the same old fringed chair, with its bobs of parti-coloured silk, in which she had sat every evening for fifty years; her ivory wheel, though now unused, stood on one side of it, and her tall metal-headed cane on the other. Lilian was paler and thinner, and had lost much of her girlish beauty; she had many cares gnawing at her heart, but she was still as adorable and interesting as ever. Annie was, if possible, more so than formerly; the bloom of her beauty had expanded to the utmost; her cheek had a higher colour, and her eye a brighter sparkle; her tall and beautiful figure was more inclined toembonpoint. But alas for poor Finland, the fickle Laurie was now the wife of Craigdarroch, who had risen to the rank of Colonel of Horse in the new Scottish army of William III. Her dress was more matronly and magnificent than formerly, and her rich flower tabby suit, with its brocade stomacher and silver fringes, contrasted with Lilian's plain blue suit of Florence silk with its falls of point d'Espagne.
Ashamed that she had broken her own solemn engagements to her exiled lover, with the natural fickleness of her sex, Annie was labouring to undermine the truth of Lilian, and, Heaven knows why, tormented the poor girl hourly, by urging the suit of Lord Clermistonlee, and left no arguments untried to carry her point, and remove the scruples of her more gentle but less facile friend.
"And poor Walter!" urged Lilian, with a look of great tenderness in her mild and moistened eyes, replying to some observation of Annie.
"Marry come up with your Walter!—tush! bethink you, dear Lilian, this gallant never loved you truly, or else, dost think he would have preferred following King James?"
Lilian's eyes sparkled; a terrible retort trembled on her tongue, but her gentleness repressed it, and she could only exclaim with tears—
"Oh, horror! this insinuation is the most unkind of all. The unmerited shame and contumely, the dark and dishonourable suspicions that the malice of Clermistonlee has brought upon me I can bear, for I despise though I mourn them deeply—but a doubt of Walter's faith—oh, Annie, Annie, it sinks like a dagger in my heart. 'Tis the hope of his return, animated by the same spirit of love and truth in which he left me, that makes me rise superior to them all. Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, with girlish ecstasy, "my dear, dear Walter, the hour will yet come, when, with a kiss of affection, I will tell thee that this old manor and all these lands around it are thine, for ever thine!"
"And your heart?" laughed Annie.
"Dearest, that he has already. You see you cannot make me angry."
"And Clermistonlee?"
"Oh, name him not."
"He loves thee truly and fondly," said Annie.
"Dost think he loves me as Walter doth? dost think he knows what love means? Oh, no; he never conceived it. His passion is a turbulent phantasy, inflamed by rivalry, difficulty, and opposition, sharpened it may be by wounded pride and exasperated revenge. Oh, how can you forget the horrid mystery that involves the fate of his wife—the unhappy Alison Gilford?"
"Pho! she died in France."
"Of a broken heart."
"Gossip, quotha!" laughed Annie, "hearts are never broken except in the pages of De Scuderi. But with all his averred evil propensities, I think there is something very noble about Lord Clermistonlee."
"Noble?"
"Do not his wit, his elegance, and courage excite our admiration?"
"Yes—but do they make us forget that the villain lurks under that prepossessing exterior?" rejoined Lilian, scornfully.
"Dear Lilian, I have but one more argument to urge, and 'tis the old one; remember that your fair fame which his addresses have injured, requires——"
"What?"
"Marriage," added Annie, quietly. Lilian turned pale; her spirit of dissent was too strong for words; she shook her head with a mournful but decided air, and, after a pause, said, "never, oh, never!" but Annie only laughed, and a long and unpleasant pause in the conversation ensued. At length Lilian said, shuddering,
"Oh, what a grue came over me just now! What can it portend?"
"That an evil spirit is near us," replied Annie, turning pale with the superstition of the time.
"Nay, felt ye a grue, my bairn?" said Lady Grisel, rousing momentarily from her waking dose; "then some one is treading on the ground that shall be your grave." Again Lilian shuddered, and throwing her arms around her grand-aunt, kissed her, exclaiming,
"'Tis the first sentence I have heard you utter for a month—and oh, what a terrible one it is!"
At that moment there was a loud jingle at the great risp on the barbican gate, and Elsie Elshender hobbled in to say that an "auld broken soldier, who had limpit up the gate was speiring for my Lady Craigdarroch, but wadna enter."
"'Tis a letter from the Laird; his troop are in the north, watching the wild gillies of Braemar. Tush! what can his message be now?" said Annie, as she flew to the foot of the staircase, where a man in a tattered red coat, a great scratch wig, with a broad hat flapped over it, one patch on his right eye, and another on his nose, limped forward on a crutch, and presented a letter. "From whence comes it, poor man?" asked Annie.
"From the frontiers of Alsatia; blessings on your sweet face, my noble lady," replied the veteran, gruffly. Annie grew pale as death.
"From whom?" she faltered.
"The brave laird of Finland, Lady Annie; on mony a lang day's march I have trailed my pike by his side, owre the fields o' France and the howmes o' Holland, deil tak them baith, for there's neither brose nor brochon, nor sowans nor sourocks to be gotten there for love, lear, or money; but I've far to gang this nicht, and maun een march on, so God bless your noble ladyship—mind a puir auld soldier that's faced fire and water baith."
Trembling violently, Annie untied the ribbons of her purse and gave him a carolus, which he received with abundance of thanks, and he was limping away when Elsie hobbled forward and presented him with a bicker of ale.
"Drink, puir body," said she, "though the times are sair changit, nane pass this threshold without tasting o' the kindness o' langsyne. We dinna send awa' the naked and the hungry wi' a scrap o' gospel and a screed o' a psalm, like auld Drumdryan or the Laird o' Lickspittal owre bye yonder; drink deep, puir body! I once had a son a soldier-lad, (my puir Hab that was killed in the fearfu' times,) and, for his sake, my heart warms to your auld red coat."
"Here's to ye, my bonny lady, and to you Cummer Elsie, and never may ye be tarbarrelled for a' you're sae runkled and auld; hech, how!" and, drinking the ale to the last drop, this rough and uncourteous old fellow tossed the bicker to Elsie and limped away with great agility.
"Ha, ha!" he laughed, when the barbican gate was angrily banged behind him; "how the gay goshawk pounced at the lure; wha would hae thought I would ever hae hobbit and nobbit wi' Lucky Elshender after puir Meg's mischanter among her kale? This carolus comes in gude time, for my pouch is gey empty now. Deil tak' the patches and scratches, the rags and bags," he continued tearing off his disguise; "again I am Juden Stenton,
"And wha daur meddle wi' me?Wha daur meddle wi' me?My name it's Juden Stenton,And wha daur meddle wi' me?"
And, light hearted by the success of his Lord's scheme, he sang and laughed as he trudged back to the city.
On rejoining Lilian, Annie was in a flutter of extreme agitation; and, after great reluctance, in which shame and curiosity struggled with some remnant of her former love, and after bursting into tears and then laughing hysterically, she broke the seal and read in a quavering voice as follows:—
"Trenches before Mons, penult June, 1692.
"Mine own sweet Annie,
"God knoweth whether the words I am now inditing will ever be seen by your own dear blue eyes. Nevertheless I write (on a drumhead for a desk), and in great haste, for the bearer of this starts for Versailles in an hour. A trench where the dead and dying lie among the blood-stained earth, piled, yea, chin-deep, and where the cannon-balls are rebounding every instant from the ramparts of Mons, is a very unpleasant place to compose love-speeches; but, believe me, that the heart of poor Dick Douglas in suffering and danger, poverty and exile, is still unchanged, my beloved Annie, and as much thine as ever. Here are we, a company of gallant Scottish gentlemen, in such a plight as you never could conceive; and the very appearance of our ragged attire, our emaciated forms and our exceeding misery, would melt your gentle heart with the softest compassion. My ancient signet ring, the last relic of the house of Finland, I bartered yesterday for a loaf of bread, and now I have nothing left save the lock of thy hair, which shall go with me to the grave. But more glorious by far are our Jacobite rags than the gay bravery we might have worn under that accursed usurper against whom we have sworn to fight to the last gasp.
"The mischances of war are fast reducing the faithful cavaliers of Dundee. Starvation or the bullet daily send some brave heart to its long repose, and the survivors are in such a plight that not even the Westland Whigs could wish them lower. From the frontiers of Spain we have travelled to Alsatia, and from thence to Mons. It was a march of horrors! We were utterly without the necessaries of life, and in the depth of a severe winter, marched nine hundred miles over a country covered with snow. Many of us were barefooted. For many weeks our food was nuts in the woods, roots in the fields, horsebeans and garlic, and thus it is that Louis XIV. rewards our loyalty, our patience, our fatigues and achievements.
"Our old friend Walter Fenton is well. Through all the campaigns under Monsieur le Mareschal Noailles and the noble Luxembourg, he hath shewed himself worthy of the knighthood King James' sword bestowed. Yesterday he volunteered, with sixty of our unhappy cavaliers, to plant the banner of King Louis on the Bastion de Sainte Wandree, and nobly did he redeem his word. Commend me to all our leal and right honourable friends, and to those who may think kindly of the poor cavaliers for the happy days that have passed away for ever. A time may come—adieu, dearest Annie—the call to arms is sounding along the lines, and we are about to march for Steinkirke, a duty from which few will return. On my mind there weighs a heavy presentiment of what I cannot name to thee. Farewell, my gentle Annie, and may God bless thee! for I fear we shall see the bonnie braes of Maxwelton together no more.
FINLAND,"Late Lieut, in the Royall Scotts Ffoot."
There was a tone of sorrowful resignation to a hard and hopeless fate pervading this letter that struck a pang of deep remorse through the heart of Annie—but a pang for one moment only; the volatility of her sex aided her, and smiling through her tears, she said,
"My poor dear lighthearted Dick, would to Heaven I could lessen the miseries you endure!"
"Oh, Annie," said Lilian reproachfully, clasping her hands and weeping, "poor Walter and poor Finland!"
"Tush!" said Annie pettishly, her dark-blue eyes sparkling between shame and sorrow. "Gossip, tease me not."
"Stay, there is something more—oh, read it."
"A postscriptum"—
"It will grieve you much to hear that Walter Fenton hath broken his plighted troth to your fair friend Napier, and married a French woman, a mere camp follower, of evil repute. Right heavy tidings this will be for the heiress of Bruntisfield, but I ever deemed her spark a fool; again I kiss your hand—adieu."
The wicked expression of triumph that flashed in Annie's eyes quickly gave way to one of compassion and regret, on beholding the aspect of Lilian. Pale as death, with her eyes starting from their sockets, her silken curls seeming to twist like knots about her throbbing temples; her nether lip turned from crimson to blue, and quivering convulsively; her bosom heaving with the terrible and sickening sensations that oppressed it. Her little hands were firmly clenched, and her dry hot eyes were full of fire.
"Again, again, read it once more, Annie," she said, in a voice of strange but exquisite cadence.
"Not for worlds!" exclaimed Annie; "Oh, thou wicked letter, thus to mar our peace and hurl us into sorrow. Oh, if Craigdarroch should hear I have had a billet from my former lover, he will kindle up into such a fit of jealousy and rage as the world never saw; to the flames with it!" and she tossed into the fire the letter which poor Finland had so fondly and sorrowfully indited. It was consumed in a moment; and thus all after examination of the postscript was precluded, otherwise the forgery might have been discovered before its effects became too fatal.
"Acamp follower of evil repute! It is false—impossible—Finland hath lied! Yet—yet—a cup of water, for Heaven's sake—my throat is parched and scorching!" Lilian sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands, but neither wept nor swooned, for her sense of injury was too acute for tears.
How bitter was the palsying sickness of heart—the agony she endured!
Not a tear fell, for the fire that burned in her breast seemed to have absorbed them.
"This is thethird20th of September since he first left me. Oh, Walter, Walter, God may forgive thee this great ingratitude and cruelty, but I never can!"
"Women have died and the worms have eaten them, but not for love."
Long, long did poor Lilian grieve and weep, and mourn in the solitude of her gloomy home.
She endured all the complicated agony of endeavouring to rend from her heart its dearest and most wonted thoughts—the hopes and affection she had fostered and cherished for years. No woman ever died for love but the heroine of a romance; so Lilian of course survived it; a month or two beheld her again tranquil and calm, though very sorrowful and subdued in spirit, for time cures every grief.
The bitter sentiment of insulted pride and mortified self esteem which often come so powerfully to the aid of the deserted, and enable them to triumph over the more tender and acute reflections, were kindled and fanned and fostered by the artful sophistry of Annie, who, with her real condolences, threw in such nice little soothing and flattering inuendoes, mingled with condemnations of Walter, and pretended rumours of his marriage, the beauty and gallantries of his French wife, whom some called a countess and others a courtesan, that Lilian first learned to hear her patiently and then with indignation.
With these were mingled occasional praises of Clermistonlee, managed with great tact, for Annie was cunning as a lynx, and never failed to flank all her arguments with the powerful one, how necessary it was for the restoration of her own honour, that she should receive the roué lord as her husband.
Poor Lilian, though these advices stung her to the soul, learned at last to hear and to think of them with calmness, and (shall we acknowledge it?) to say at last, "that it might be."
With something of that fierce sentiment of desperation and revenge which, like a gage thrown down to fate, makes the ruined gamester place his last stake on the turn of a card, she began deliberately to school herself into thinking of Clermistonlee as her future husband; and though in reality poverty was the real cause of it, Lady Craigdarroch failed not to impress upon Lilian how much he was reformed, how penitent he was, and for three years past had never been engaged in any piece of frolic or wickedness, and wound up by asserting that a reformed rake made the best husband.
What love and perseverance could never accomplish, revenge achieved at last.
"Alas! the love of women, it is known,To be a lovely and a fearful thing;For all of theirs upon the die is thrownAnd if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring."
Long and assiduous were the exertions, the arguments and artifices of Annie, and long and fearful was the struggle that tortured the heart of Lilian, ere she would consent to receive Clermistonlee as her suitor.
At last the fatal words were said.
Annie flew to communicate the joyous tidings, and when next day he rode up the avenue to pay his devoirs, the miserable girl nearly swooned. The ring, the little embossed ring of antique gold, the last and only gift of Walter, and which he said containedthe secretof his life, she had now laid aside, carefully locked up in a cabinet, because it brought too vividly before her the memories she had resolved to banish from her heart for ever.
Gladly will we hurry over this chapter of pain and humiliation.
Clermistonlee had increased his great personal advantages by all the aid of dress, and in defiance of the sad coloured fashions of the time, wore a voluminous Monmouth whig, the long curls of which were puffed with aromatic powder, a suit of rose-coloured velvet, laced so thick with gold that the ground of the cloth was scarcely visible, a sword and belt sparkling with jewels. A medal of gold, bearing his coat of arms, was suspended by a chain of the same metal round his neck; it was his last venture in quest of fortune, and his lordship had resolved to spend all he possessed upon the stake.
By the artful Annie he was led forward to the trembling and sinking Lilian, to whom he pleaded his cause, his constancy, and perseverance, his raptures and agonies, his hopes and despair, with an ardour that confused, and perhaps flattered, if it did nothing more. These his lordship brought out all at a breath, as he had got the whole by rote, having said the same things to a hundred different women before; but now his natural ardour and spirit of gallantry were greatly increased by the touching character which sorrow, vexation, and disappointment had imparted to the soft beauty of Lilian—and also by the aspect of the comfortable old manor house and the acres of fine arable land that lay around it; while she (shall we confess it?), as bitter thoughts of Walter and his French wife rose up within her, stole glances from time to time at her noble and courtly suitor—glances which he soon perceived, and fired with new animation, threw such an air of devotion into his addresses that he—triumphed.
Annie placed the hand of Lilian within that of Clermistonlee; he pressed her to his heart, and she did not withdraw it; but burst into a passion of tears. He then threw his splendid chain, with its medal, around her bending neck, and pressed her to his breast, and so sudden was the revulsion of feeling that Lilian fainted.
An hour afterwards Clermistonlee, with all his embroidery glittering in the sun, was seen galloping back to the city like a madman; he dashed through the Portsburgh, and reined up near the Bowfoot, where, at the summit of a ten-storied edifice, dwelt Mr. Ichabod Bummel, minister of the Gospel.
"The father of confusion take your long stair! Why, Mr. Bummel, 'tis like a rascally old steeple," said the lord, breaking breathlessly in upon the lank-haired and long-visaged pastor, who was intent upon "The Hind let loose" of Alexander Sheills.
"Yea, a tower of Babel—but what hath procured me the honour of your lordship's visit?"
"By all the devils, don't think I am come to drub thee for that lecture on the cutty stool—ha, ha! I am about to be married, man—and want you to proclaim the banns and so forth—but my Lord Mersington will see after them for me."
"As myBombshellsaith, marriage is an honourable and godly estate——"
"But a deuced poor one, sometimes, Mr. Ichabod. I am about to be married to Lilian, of Bruntisfield, and thou shalt espouse us, because the citizens hold thee to be their first preacher, and it will increase my influence among them."
"But, my Lord," began Mr. Ichabod, bowing.
"Butme nothing—'tis my non-attendance at kirk and my old tricks you aim at—pho! I am a thorough Reformado—but, Mr. Ichabod, hast never a drop of wine about thee?—'tis a hot forenoon."
"My dwelling contains nothing but water, and it is a plack the runlet in these dear years; but, my Lord," continued the divine, after sundry gasps and contortions of visage, "if I lend all my influence to render popular this intended espousal, whilk I perceive to be the main object of your visit, may I crave your Lordship's favour in another particular?"
"Command me in all things save my purse, for 'tis a mere vacuum, if thy philosophy will admit of such a thing. Say forth, my Apostle!"
"I love the maiden called Meinie Elshender—yea, I love her powerfully with the carnal love of this world, and the maiden is not altogether indisposed to view me favourably."
"Zounds!" said Clermistonlee, while the minister looked complacently down on his long spindle shanks; "in the name of mischief, who is Meinie Elshender?"
"Handmaiden to the young Madam Lilian, who views me as an abomination——"
"By all the devils, thou shalt have her,bongré, malgré, and after I am fairly wedded, the best kirk in the Lothians to boot—even should I make Juden shoot the present incumbent."
"Heaven reward these generous promises," replied Ichabod, with a smile of incredulity. "Well it is that the maiden hath escaped the snares of her first lover, who was a soldier of Antichrist—a musqueteer of the bluidy Dunbarton."
"Say rather the most princely earl of the noble house of Douglas! Ha, ha—by my faith! we whigs are winning the false lemans of the cavaliers in glorious style."
"And now, my lord, I have one other boon to crave," said Ichabod, producing a tattered and dog-eared MS. from a bunker. "This is a book of which doubtless your Lordship hath heard; myBombshell aimet at the taile of the Great Beast."
"Oh, the devil take thy bombshell—"
"Shame, my lord. It proveth that Jonah—"
"Swallowed the whale; eh, Master Ichabod?" said the gay lord, pirouetting about and laughing boisterously.
"Oh, my Lord, for a centiloquy—"
"Ha, ha! a what?"
"A hundredfold discourse, to convince thee of the crime of this irreverence and irreligion."
"I crave pardon, but what do you want, eh?"
"Your Lordship's subscription; 'tis to be published in the imprinting press in the Parliament Close, whenever new irons are brought over from Holland."
"Oh, by all the devils, certainly; send me a dozen of copies. Faith! I must be quite pious henceforth. And now, bravo! see the Kirk Session about my little affairs, while I ride down the Lawnmarket to old Gideon Grasper, the Clerk to the Signet, for there will be a mountain of papers to sign and seal, and so forth; but the banns, the banns, next Sunday, remember;" and chaunting, "With a hey lillelu and a how lo lan," his lordship danced away out, tripping down the long stair by three steps at a time, and mounting, galloped into the upper part of the city.
As torrents roll increased by numerous rills,With rage impetuous down their echoing hills;Rush to the vales and pour'd along the plain,Roar through a thousand channels to the main;The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound:So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.ILIAD, BOOK IV.
It was the night before the famous battle of Steinkirke, when the confederates under William III. encountered the gallant and brilliant army of the great François Henri Duc de Luxembourg.
In happy ignorance of what was being acted at home by those whose memory lay so near their hearts, Walter Fenton and Douglas of Finland were carousing with their brothers in war and misfortune around a blazing fire, composed of rafters borrowed for the purpose from the roof of a neighbouring Flemish house.
Intent on crushing the alarming confederation of the Protestant powers against him, Louis XIV. had taken the field in person at the head of 120,000 men. This sensual, selfish, and weak-minded monarch was accompanied by all the effeminate pomp and tinsel splendour of an eastern emperor; his women and paramours, numerous enough for a seraglio; his dancers, players, musicians; his kitchen, opera, household, and all the ministers of his luxury, his pleasures, and his tyranny, in themselves a host, crowded and encumbered the great camp of his splendid army, which, however, soon captured Namur, a strong city on the Meuse, though strengthened by all the skill of the great Coehorn, and defended by the valour of the Prince de Brabazon and 9,000 chosen soldiers.
King William, whose duty it was to have raised the siege of this important fortress, lay with 100,000 men within gunshot of Louis, but, embued with all the stolid and phlegmatic stupidity of a Hollander, permitted the place to be captured, by which his military reputation was as much injured as that of Louis was increased. The victor of Namur immediately returned to Versailles, surrounded by triumph and adulation, worshipped undeservedly as a hero, and extolled as a conqueror, while William, whose inertness had at last given way to necessary activity, excited by shame and exasperation, having reviewed on the plain of Genappe a fresh quota of ten battalions of Scottish infantry, pushed forward against Mareschal Luxembourg, intent on retrieving his honour.
After basely employing a spy named Millevoix, under pain of torture and death, to mislead the French commander by false intelligence of the confederates' movements, William advanced with his 100,000 bayonets to prevent him from taking up a position between the then obscure villages of Steinkirke and Enghien, a royal barony of the house of Bourbon. With his usual bad generalship William completely failed, for Luxembourg outflanked him, gained the position, and trusting to the communications of the perfidious (or unfortunate) Millevoix, not anticipating any attack, confined himself to his tent, as he laboured under severe indisposition.
Not expecting analerte, the whole of his numerous and brilliant army lay intrenched among the fertile fields and pastures of the Flemings, whose thick hedges, solid walls, and comfortable houses, were cut down, torn up and overthrown without ceremony to render the position more secure.
The post occupied by the Scottish officers was near the Senne, a slow and sluggish river. The sun had set, and far over the long perspective of the level landscape, that in some parts withdrew to the extreme horizon, shone the red departing flush of the last evening many would behold on earth. In some places the river was reddened by the gleam of the distant fires, whose flickering chain marked out the camp of Luxembourg; the higher eminences were covered by woods and orchards, from which the evening wind came laden with the rich perfume of the summer blossom. Save the hum of the extended camp all was still round Steinkirke, and where the exiled cavaliers were bivouacked there was little more heard than the monotonous ripple of the Senne, as it flowed past its willow shaded banks on its way to the northern sea.
The Scottish exiles were always more merry than usual on the eve of a battle, for it freed many from a life of humiliation and hardship, to which they deemed an honourable death a thousand times preferable. At times an expression of stern joy, of ghastly merriment, at others of deep abstraction pervaded the little group, as they clustered round the fire that blazed in a little alcove formed by an orchard on the river side. There their arms were piled, and they rolled from hand to hand a keg of Hollands, to which they had helped themselves at the devastation of the Flandrian château de Senne. Afar off, above the village spire of Steinkirke, the silver moon rose broadly and resplendently to light the wide and fertile landscape with its glory. The Senne and Tender brightened like two floods of flowing crystal, and the willows that drooped over them seemed the work of magic, as their dewy leaves glittered in the rays of the summer moon.
The stern hearts of that melancholy band were soothed by the beauty of the scenery, the seclusion of their tentless bivouac, the softness of the Flemish moonlight, and a song that Finland sang completed the effect of the place and time. He reclined upon his knapsack, and his fine features, which long privation and toil had sharpened and attenuated, flushed and reddened as he sang of his love that was far away, and felt his brave heart expand with the dear and long cherished hopes and memories her image stirred within it.
"Maxweltoun Braes are bonnie,Where early fa's the dew;And blue-eyed Annie LaurieGave me her promise true.Gave me her promise true,That never forgot shall be;And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,I would lay me down and dee.
"Her locks are like the sunshine,Her breast is like the swan;Her hand is like the snawdrift,And mine her waist micht span.But oh! that promise true!Will ne'er be forgot by me,And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie,I would lay me down and dee!"
This famous song, which, with its beautiful air, is so chaste and pleasing, and still so much admired in Scotland, poor Finland in his chivalric spirit had composed, to lighten the toil of many a long and arduous march, and now, inspired by the love and the fond recollections that trembled in his heart, he slowly sang the last verse with great tenderness and pathos.
"Like dew on the gowan lying,Is the fa' of her fairy feet;And like wind in summer sighing,Her voice is low and sweet.But O that promise true!Makes her all the world to me;And for my bonnie Annie Laurie,I'd lay me down and dee."
Every word seemed to come from his overcharged heart, and as he sang the beautiful melody silence and sadness stole over the listening group. Softened by the dialect and the music of their fatherland, every heart was melted and every eye grew moist; the red camp fires and the shining waters of the Senne, the white tents of Luxembourg, the woodlands and orchards of Steinkirke passed away, and Scotland's hoary hills and pathless vallies rose before them, for their eyes and hearts were in the land from which they were expatriated for ever.
It was the morning of the 24th of July, and in unclouded splendour the sun shone from the far horizon upon the tented camp of Luxembourg, on the standards waving and arms glittering within the rudely and hastily constructed entrenchments of the great and veteran engineer the Chevalier Antoine de Ville. Like bright snowy clouds the morning vapour curled upwards from the sedges of the Senne, and the dewy foliage of the woods, and rolling lazily along the plain, shrouded everything in a thick and gause-like veil of white obscurity, which the rays of the sun edged with the hue of gold. Under cover of this, although the French knew it not, the entire force of the allied nations, led by William of England, were coming rapidly on in two dense columns, intent on avenging the disgraces they had endured at Namur. Luxembourg lay within his bannered pavilion on a bed of sickness, and neither he nor his soldiers were aware of the foe's approach until the Prince of Wirtemburg, at the head of ten battalions of English, Dutch, and Danes, drove back his outposts on the right, making a furious attack on the camp, which instantly became a scene of greater confusion than King Agramont's.
The patter of the musquetry, the roll of the advancing drums, and the bullets whistling through his tent, roused the brave Mareschal, who, leaping from his camp-bed, forgot his illness in the ardour and tumult of the moment. Hastily his pages attired and armed him, and throwing his magnificent surcoat above his gilded corslet, he seized his sword and baton, and rushed forth to repair what the artifices of William, the treachery of Millevoix, and the bravery of Wirtemburg had already achieved. To muster, to rally his immense force and repel the Prince of Wirtemburg, were but the work of a few seconds, and the great leader, who five minutes before had lain inert on a couch of illness, was now spurring his caparisoned horse from column to column, with his plumes waving, his accoutrements glittering, and his baton brandished aloft; his features filled with animation, his soul with energy.
The Dukes of Bourbon and Vendome, the Princes of Turenne and Conté, the Duc de Chartres, a youth of fifteen, whose almost girlish beauty made him the sport and the idol of the army, the Marquis de Bellefonde, and several thousand chevaliers of noble birth and matchless spirit, by their presence, their ardour, and example, restored perfect order, and in admirable battle array they stood prepared to encounter the host of the Protestant confederation.
As the sun rose higher the mist which shrouded the whole plain around the village of Steinkirke was gradually exhaled upwards, and as it rolled away the entire army of William III., a hundred thousand strong, were seen in order of battle, advancing as rapidly as the numerous thorn hedges, ditches, and dykes, which intersected the yellow cornfields, would permit.
In defence of a place which it was expected William's brilliant cavalry would assail, the Scottish officers were posted in an abbatis of apple-trees that had been cut down by the pioneers, and made an intricate breastwork all round; and within it, with their arms loaded, they stood in close order, watching with lowering brows and kindling eyes the scarlet ranks of their countrymen, to whom they now—for the first time since their exile—found themselves opposed in battle.
The golden bloom of the ripe and waving corn-fields, through which the lines were advancing in triple ranks, with their serried arms and embroidered standards glittering, threw forward the bright scarlet costume in strong relief, and the hearts of the little band of exiles beat with increased excitement as the moment of a general encounter drew nigh.
"Behold yonder fellows in our uniform!" exclaimed one, as the Scottish infantry debouched in heavy column on the French left, with their twenty standards displayed, and their drums loading the air with the old march of the Covenanters.
"God knoweth the sorrow, the bitterness, the hatred, and the fierce exultation that swell my heart by turns in this auspicious hour!" said Finland, striking his breast.
"You speak my very thoughts," responded Walter, with a deep sigh; "yonder are the old Royals, but now another than Dunbarton wields his baton over them; yonder are the standards we have carried—but others bear them now. How hard to forget that these are our countrymen! Do not ourselves seem to be marching against us?"
"Enough of this, gentlemen," said the veteran Laird of Dunlugais. "In them I behold only the rebels of our king, and the sycophants of an usurper. This day let us remember only that we are fighting under the standard of the first captain of the age, and about to win fresh glories for the most magnificent prince that ever occupied the throne of France!"
The battle was begun by Hugh Mackay, of Scoury.
Led by that brave and veteran general, a dense column of British cavalry, accoutred in voluminous red coats, great Dutch hats, looped up, and vast boots of black leather, with slung musquets and brandished swords, rushed at full gallop to the charge on one flank, while the Prince of Wirtemburg assailed the other.
The abbatis lay full in front of Mackay, who held aloft his long gilt baton, as he led on this heavy mass of troopers. On they came, horse to horse, and boot to boot like a moving mountain; but the deadly and deliberate volley poured upon them by the Scottish cavaliers threw them into immediate confusion; the front squadrons by becoming entangled among their falling horses and riders, recoiled suddenly on the rear, who were still spurring forward; the furious shock produced an immediate and irredeemable confusion, and the whole gave way ere another volley of that leaden rain was poured upon their dense array.
The roar of forty thousand musquets now burst like thunder on the ear, as the Prince de Conté and the brave De Chartres, the boy-soldier, at the head of the superb household infantry, assailed the British, and volleying in platoons, continued to press upon them with increasing ardour until within pike's length of each other, when Conté led the whole to the charge. The shock was irresistible! Count Solmes failed to support the English and Scots, who immediately gave way, and a tremendous slaughter was made, especially among the latter.
"Les Ecossais, retreat!" exclaimed Conté. "'Tis a miracle. Tête Dieu! 'tis surely a bad cause, when the hand of Heaven is against them!"
The Scottish regiments of Coutts, Mackay, Angus, Grahame, and Leven, were cut to pieces, and the English Guards nearly shared the same fate. James Earl of Angus, a brave youth in his twenty-first year, was shot dead at the head of his Cameronians, William Stuart Viscount of Montjoy, Sir Robert Douglas, Lieutenant-General James Douglas, Sir John Lanier, Colonel Lauder, and many other brave Scottish gentlemen were slain, while the Prince de Conté bore all before him.
With the gallant Prince of Wirtemburg it fared otherwise. Pressing onward at the head of his English, he carried off some of the French artillery, and after immense slaughter, stormed the intrenchment which covered their position, but finding himself in danger of being overpowered, he twice sent his aide-de-camp to crave succour from the phlegmatic William and from Count Solmes, a noble of the House of Nassau. Twice over a field that was strewn with thousands of dead and dying, and swept by the fire of so many thousand musquets, cannon, and coehorns, the brave aide spurred his horse to beg succour for the prince his master; but William neglected, and the Dutch noble derided his request.
"Vivat Wirtemburg!" cried Solmes, laughing; "let us see what sport his English bulldogs will make."
At length William shook off the inertness that seemed to possess his faculties amid the storm of war that raged around him, and in person ordered Solmes to sustain the advance of the left wing which Wirtemburg had led on so successfully. Thus urged, the unwilling Lord of Brunsveldt, made an unavailing movement with his cavalry, but left a few English and Danes to sustain the whole brunt of the battle.
Amid the dense smoke that rolled in white clouds and concealed the adverse lines, their carnage and its horrors, again and again the brave old Laird of Scoury led his squadrons to the charge, resolved to force the passage to turn the flank of Luxembourg or die, and again they were repulsed from the abbatis by the courage of the desperate Cavaliers. As yet, not one trooper had penetrated among them, though hundreds and their horses lay groaning and rolling in the agonies of death, entangled among the apple-laden branches of the prostrate trees, grasping and rending them with their teeth in the tortures of dissolution. As yet not one of the Scottish exiles had fallen; but now Mackay ordered a body of his dragoons to dismount, to unsling their short fusees, and from behind the piles of dead and dying men and chargers, to fire upon the abbatis which could afford no protection against bullets.
A furious fusilade now ensued, and Fenton soon missed Finland from his side; he turned, and his hot blood cooled for a moment to behold him lying on the bloody turf in the last agonies of death. A ball had pierced his breast; his eyes were glazing, and he was beating the earth with his heels, as he blew from his quivering lips the bells of blood and foam.
Unfortunate Douglas!
Something was clenched in his hand and pressed to his lips; but as his dying energies relaxed, and his brave spirit fled to heaven, the relic fell on the turf;—it was Annie Laurie's braid of bright brown hair.
"Farewell, dear Finland," exclaimed Walter, kissing the dead man's hand. "Here end thy love and misfortunes together!" Sorrow, rage, and ardour roused the fury of Fenton to the utmost, and with his clubbed weapon he sprang over the trees of the abbatis, exclaiming, "to the charge, gentlemen Scots!—to the charge! Never let it be said that the Cavaliers of Dundee played at long bowles with those false English churls. Victory and revenge!"
Fired by his example, and animated by national and political hatred against those who had deserted James VII., and wrought so many miseries to his few adherents, the little band sprang from the abbatis and threw themselves with incredible fury and determination on the dismounted troopers. Onward they pressed over piles of dead and wounded, while every instant the balls that flew thick as drifting rain, thinned their narrow ranks, and added many another item to the vast amount of that day's carnage.
None can be so brave as those for whom life has lost every charm; and none so reckless as those who have a thousand real or imaginary wrongs to avenge. Thus, heedless alike of the number of their antagonists, who were again pressing up to the attack, the Scottish Cavaliers came on pell mell, and a desperate conflict ensued with firelocks and fusils clubbed.
As Walter, forgetful of everything else but to glut a fierce spirit of revenge, pressed onward, he encountered a tall and powerful officer. The nobility of his aspect and the richness of his attire (for his scarlet coat was so richly interlaced with bars of gold as to be almost sword-proof) not less than the vigour with which he kept his soldiers to their duty, made him a marked man; but Walter struck him from his horse and flourished the butt of his musket over him.
"Take these, you tattered villain," said the officer, offering a splendid watch and ring; "take these and spare my life."
"Insult me not, Sir," exclaimed Walter Fenton with undisguised scorn. "I am one of the officers of Viscount Dundee—of Dundee the brave and loyal."
"The vilest minion of hell and tyranny that ever disgraced his country—then doubly are you traitor!" said the other starting from the ground and flashing a pistol in Walter's face. Blinded by fury and the smoke of the discharge, he drove his bayonet through the breast of the officer and fairly pinned him to the turf.
"Curse on the hour that I die by the hand of a base and renegade clown like thee!" exclaimed the dying man, half choked in his welling blood.
"Traitor!" cried his destroyer furiously; "you die by the hand of Sir Walter Fenton, Knight Banneret of Scotland!"
"So falls Hugh Mackay, of Scoury!" moaned the other as he sank backward and expired.
"Scoury!" reiterated Walter; "hah! then this hour avenges Dundee the slaughter of Killycrankie and of Cromdale."
At that moment he was hurled to the earth by a wounded charger as it rushed madly from the conflict. He fell against a tree and lay stunned and insensible to all that passed around him.
The sun was setting, and still the doubtful battle continued to be waged with undiminished ardour, until Mareschal Boufflers, at the head of a powerful body of cavalry, the French and Scottish gendarmerie, and the royal regiment, De Rousillon, swept like a torrent over the corpse-strewn plains with the oriflamme, displayed and decided the fortune of the war just as the sun's broad disc dipped behind the far horizon. William, instead of restoring his tarnished honour, was compelled to retreat in renewed disgrace, leaving many officers of valour and distinction and 3,000 soldiers slain; while the French, though they had to regret the fall of an equal number, with the Prince de Turenne, the Marquis de Bellefonde, Tilladete, Fernaçon, and many other chevaliers of noble blood, remained masters of the field, over which they suspended from a lofty gibbet King William's luckless confidant, the spy and intriguer Millevoix.
Paris resounded with joy and acclamation on tidings of this great victory arriving; the princes and soldiers who had served there were idolized as superior beings by the ladies and women of every rank, whose transports amounted to a species of frenzy, and from that hour for many a year every ornament and piece of dress was known by the name ofSteinkirke.
'Tis night;—and glittering o'er the trampled heath,Pale gleams the moonlight on the field of death;Lights up each well-known spot, where late in blood,The vanquished yielded, and the victor stood;When red in clouds the sun of battle rode,And poured on Britain's front its favoring flood.LORD GRENVILLE.
Again the summer moon rose brightly over the secluded village of Steinkirke, and poured its cold and steady lustre on cornfields drenched in blood, and trod to gory mire by the charge of the spurred squadrons, the closer movements of the compact squares of infantry, or the artillery's track; on the pale and upturned faces of the dying, the distorted and ghastlier lineaments of the dead,—on a wide battle-field strewn with all the trophies of war and destruction,—misery and agony.
Save where illumined by the gleams of moonlight, by the red flashes of a few distant fire-arms, and the redder glare from a convent burned by the retreating British, the ruddy conflagration of which mingled with the last faint glow of the departed sun, the field seemed gloomy and dark. A narrow lurid streak at the distant horizon shewed where the sun had set. The roar of that great battle had now died away, but it had sent forth an echo over France and Britain denoting joy to one and sorrow to the other. Where, then, was William of Orange, and where his mighty host?
The contest was now over, and, save the distant popping of a few skirmishers or plunderers, every sound of strife had ceased; but the cool night wind was laden with a sad and wailing murmur, a sound which it is seldom the lot of man to hear—the mingled moans of many thousands of men enduring all the complicated torture of sabre and gunshot wounds and the most excruciating thirst. Many a solemn prayer and pious ejaculation of deep contrition, uttered in many a varied tongue, were then ascending from that moonlit battlefield to the throne of God, while others in their ravings called only on Death to ease them of their torments; and long ere sunrise the stern king of terrors attended the summons of many.
A great cannon royal, drawn by eight horses and escorted by the artillerists of the Brigade de Dauphine, passed near the corpse-heaped abbatis where Walter Fenton lay, and he implored them to remove him from the field. They were passing him unheeded, when one exclaimed,
"Il est un officier Ecossais!" upon which the drivers reined up: the soldiers sprang from the tumbril, and placing him beside them, galloped across the field of battle towards the redoubts on the left of Luxembourg's position. The jolting occasioned Walter exquisite agony, and he could not repress a shudder when the cannon wheels passed over the crackling body of some dead or wounded soldier who lay prostrate in their path.
After riding a mile or two he fell from his seat with violence, and once more became insensible.
"Il est morte" said the Frenchmen, as they whipped up their horses and thought no more about him.
After lying long in a dreamy state, tormented by a burning thirst and feeling prickly and shooting pains over his whole body as the blood flowed back into its old channels, Walter made an attempt to rise, but the motion occasioned him exquisite pain, and the whole landscape swam around him. He thought he was mortally wounded; a cold perspiration burst over his temples; a stupor again stole upon his senses, and, believing he was dying, he piously recommended himself to God, closed his eyes, and lay down resigned to his fate.
But the mind was active though the frame remained inert, and he thought of Lilian, of Finland and Annie, and how the hand of Death had thrown a cold blight over all their fondest hopes and prospects, and so weak had he become that audible sobs burst from him.
The heavy dew was falling fast, and its moisture refreshed him; he raised his head, and near him saw the figure of a female in a sombre and peculiar garb: she was completely attired in black; a thick veil of the same colour with a little hood of white linen were drawn closely round her face, which seemed pale and colourless as that of death in the uncertain rays of a cruise which she carried; but though aged, she was marked by a serenity and air of repose singularly winning and prepossessing. She bent tenderly over him with a face expressive of the deepest commiseration.
"'Tis a vision!" was Walter's first thought; "'tis an Ursuline nun," was his second.
"Poor youth—unhappy youth!" said the stranger tenderly, and burst into tears.
"Heaven's blessing on you, gentle lady," said Walter, as he endeavoured to rise; "no tears can be more precious in the sight of Heaven than those shed by compassion. God save great Luxembourg! We have this day gained a glorious victory; but at what a price to me!" he continued in his own language. "Alake! my brave and noble friends, the best blood of Scotland has mingled yonder with the waters of the Senne."
"Scotland!" replied the venerable Ursuline, and her mild eyes became filled with animation and sadness. "I acknowledge with sorrow and pride that your country is also mine; but, alas! I can only remember it with horror and humiliation. Your voice takes me back to the pleasant days of other and happier years, and stirs an echo in the deepest recesses of my heart. Oh, my God! what is this that I feel within me? Intercede for me blessed Ursula, and save me from my own thoughts! Oh, let not the contentment in which I have dwelt these many years be disturbed by worldly regrets and old unhappiness!"
There was a deep pathos in her voice, an air of subdued sorrow, mildness, and melancholy in her features, and a soft expression in her eye that was very winning, and Walter kissed her hand with a sentiment of affection and respect, and, strange to say, she did not withdraw it.