CHAPTER VII.
OUR STORY PROGRESSES.
"Here he dwelt in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh fair and free;
Not a lord in all the county,
Is so great a lord as he."—TENNYSON.
Kind old Rohallion was deeply interested in and attracted by the little boy, who had many winning and endearing ways about him; and he particularly excelled in a bright and captivating smile, that was joyous in its perfect innocence.
He seated him on his knee at the breakfast-table n the library, and strove, by all the art he was master of, to draw from him some clue, as to the part of France in which his mother resided, but save a knowledge of his own name, Quentin's recollections were few prior to the terror he had experienced on the wreck. All beyond that seemed vague, and his reminiscences were an odd jumble of a large town with a cathedral where his mamma took him to hear Abbé Lebrun preach or say mass—good M. l'Abbé Lebrun, who always gave him bon-bons, and wore such large spectacles. Then there was a river with boats, a bridge and a great mountain with a windmill, where he used to go with his nurse when she visited the miller.
Then, there was a Chanoinesse who gave him painted toys; there were some wicked soldiers, who burned a street and dragged away all the people to die, and of these same soldiers he had a peculiar dread and aversion. But whether they were ugly toys, or actors in some scene the child had witnessed, Rohallion could not tell; he supposed the affair referred to was some grim reality incident to the late revolution. He could gather nothing more that afforded a clue; and now as these memories were wakened in him, the faces of others came with them; tears filled the child's fine dark eyes, and he entreated piteously to have his mother brought to him and his nurse Nanette, or have his father brought to him out of the sea; and thus perceiving that nothing of certainty or value could be gleaned from him, his protectors tacitly agreed to let the subject drop.
Breakfast was just over when Andrews announced Quartermaster Girvan and Dominie Skaill, two individuals, who are perhaps bores in their way, but are nevertheless necessary to us in the course of this narrative.
They had heard of his lordship's arrival, and had "come to pay their dutiful reverence," for something of the old feudal sentiment lingered yet in Carrick, and a journey to Calcutta is a mere joke or pleasure trip now, when compared with how the Scots of 1798 viewed one to London, few prudent people attempting it without previously making a will, and settling all their earthly affairs.
"Welcome, Girvan, and welcome, dominie," said Rohallion, shaking each by the hand cordially; "I am glad to be at home again among you."
"Yea," replied the dominie, while rubbing one hand over the other, and smiling blandly, as perhaps his scholars seldom saw him smile; "your lordship has come back like Cincinnatus after the defeat of the Volci and the Æqui, to plough turnips and plant gude kail on haugh and rig—so welcome hame to Carrick, my lord."
The dominie had on his Sunday coat, with its huge flapped pockets; his best three-cornered hat, bound with black braid, was under his arm, and his square shoe-buckles shone like silver.
"And our little Frenchman has become quite a friend with your lordship, I see," said Girvan, patting the child on the head.
"Quite—a splendid little fellow he is!"
"But call him not a Frenchman," said the dominie, "when he bears the gude auld Carrick name of Kennedy."
"Aye, dominie; it used to find an echo hereabout, in the old trooping and tramping times," replied Girvan.
"And has so still," added Rohallion, laughing; "for I am half a Kennedy, and often have I heard my mother sing—
"'Twixt Wigton and the town of Ayr,
Portpatrick and the Cruives of Cree,
Nae man may hope in peace to bide,
Unless he court Saint Kennedie."
"Like the Maxwells in Nithsdale, the Kennedies had all their own way here in those days," said Lady Winifred, as she drew off her lace mittens, and prepared to adjust her ivory-mounted spinning-wheel.
"But to return to the present time, tell me, John Girvan, did that French ship actually come within range of our gun-battery?"
"Yes, my lord—or nearly so."
"And what were you about, John, to stand with your hands in your pockets at such a time? Egad, 'twas not like an old 25th man?"
The quartermaster reddened.
"There was a tremendous gale from the seaward," said Lady Rohallion, coming to his assistance; "a storm—a tempest——"
"And she came only within a mile of the Partan Craig, where the unfortunate merchantman was in sore peril—a foe on one side, a lee shore on the other—eh, dominie?"
"'Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes,
Tremendous port—abhorred by men and gods,
And there Charybdis,'
as old Homer hath it," replied the dominie, promptly.
"Even had the battery been manned, my lord, I am doubtful—I am doubtful if these old twenty-four pounders would pitch shot so far; and she scarcely appeared, before she hauled her wind and disappeared into the mist," said Girvan, giving his old yellow wig an angry twist.
"Some of these small craft are growing very saucy," said Lord Rohallion, to change the subject, which he saw was distasteful to his old comrade. "It was only the other day that a lieutenant with fourteen men from one of our gun-brigs landed on the coast of France to distribute royalist manifestoes of the Comte d'Artois, dated from Holyrood, but he and his men were taken by a party of dragoons who surrounded an auberge in which they were imprudently drinking. They were instantly hanged as spies, by order of General Monnet, and the bodies are to be seen on fifteen gibbets, a mile apart, along the coast between Boulogne and Cape Grisnez."
"Poor men! How horrible!" exclaimed Lady Winifred.
"Such barbarities were not committed in our time, my lord, except among the Indians."
"Quartermaster—but we are getting old fellows now," said Rohallion, with something between a laugh and a sigh. "We have often stopped the march of the French with fixed bayonets, but we can't arrest the march of time."
"Aye, aye, my lord," said the old soldier, warming, and answering a friendly smile from old Jack Andrews, who was removing the breakfast equipage; "but, when at Minden, and while the French gun brigade was bowling through the six British regiments that stood there in division, we little thought that we would live to drink our grog in Rohallion, forty years after, hale carles, and hearty ones, too."
"If we ever thought at all, Girvan, which is not likely; reflection troubles a young soldier seldom, and, egad! we were beardless boys then."
"And those who were boys like ourselves then, and those who were grey-haired grenadiers of Fontenoy and Culloden—who had no need to powder their white hair—were alike mowed down together, and lay like herrings in a landing net," said Girvan, sadly.
"It was a day on which the ripe fruit and the blossom were gathered together," said Lady Rohallion, as her wheel revolved rapidly, and little Quentin sat at her feet to watch it.
"Your ladyship's speech savoureth of poetry," said the dominie, bowing; "it is even as my old friend Burns—puir Robbie Burns—would have expressed himself."
"It is ten years since the Scots Horse Guards were amalgamated with the new Life Guard Regiments," said Rohallion, commencing a familiar topic.
"Just twelve years this summer, my lord," replied Girvan.
"And though moving slowly up the list of generals, Girvan, I have not had a regiment since."
"Among the Romans——" began the dominie.
"A regiment! it is a brigade you should have," interrupted the quartermaster, ruthlessly.
"Among the Romans," began the dominie again, when Lord Rohallion, who was full of his grievance (was there ever an old soldier without one?) spoke with something of irritation.
"I have actually been refused a brigade for service, though senior to more favoured officers; but a time may come when Government may be glad to avail themselves of my services, though I am afraid, John, that I'm getting owre auld in the horn, as the drovers say.. Besides, they think that we old fellows of Minden and Bunker's Hill are as much out of date as the snap-muskets and matchlocks of King William's time. And zounds, man! there are not wanting in the Lower House certain disloyal spirits, termed financial reformers, who grudge the old soldier the day's pittance which he has won by blood and sweat, and by wasting the flower of his days among the swamps of the Helder, the fevers of the West Indies, and elsewhere."
"The devil take all fevers and reformers together—amen," said the quartermaster; "but I believe this intended Egyptian business will be only a flash in the pan when compared with what we have seen."
"Among the Romans the soldiery at first received no stipendium," said the dominie, raising his voice and speaking very fast, lest he should be interrupted; "but every man served at his own proper charges."
"That would suit our modern whigs to a hair, dominie," said Lord Rohallion, laughing.
"Yea, even to the vinegar which he mixed with spring water as his daily drink, did he furnish all, in the early days of the Roman army."
"Vinegar grog!" exclaimed the quartermaster with disgust; "Heaven be thanked I was not born a Roman. Such beggarly tipple would never have suited the 25th. And now, my lord, when you are at leisure, I wish to shew you a new farmsteading I have erected at the Cairns of Blackhinney, and also how bravely the young trees are thriving in the oakwood shaw."
"Glad to hear the latter, Girvan, for I agree with my worthy friend, Admiral Collingwood, that every British proprietor should plant as many oak trees as he can, to keep up our navy. 'I wish everybody,' said he, in one of his letters, 'thought on this subject as I do, they would not walk through their farms without a pocketful of acorns to drop in the hedges, and let them take their chance,' and so keep up the future wooden walls of old England."
Neither Rohallion nor the gallant old Admiral could foresee the days, when those famous "wooden walls," would be represented by screw propellers, armour clads, cupola ships, and steam rams!
Rohallion assumed his walking cane and Nivernois hat, to which he still adhered, though it had been long out of fashion, and had the flaps fastened up to its shallow crown by hooks and eyes; and, bowing ceremoniously, left the dominie to confer with the lady concerning the course of study on which little Quentin Kennedy was soon to enter, while he issued forth with his old comrade the factor to look over the estate.
Close by the haunted gate lay a fine old beech, on which a cavalier Lord of Rohallion hanged as a traitor one of his vassals whom he discovered serving as a soldier in an English regiment. It now lay prostrate, for the storm had torn it up by the roots.
"Have this removed as soon as possible, Girvan," said the old lord; "for, ugh! I never see a fallen tree, but I think of that devilish abattis we fell into at Saratoga, when the Yankees would have made an end of me, had it not been for Jack Andrews and others of the 25th."
"Aye, my lord, and some of the 17th Light Dragoons too—under Corporal O' Lavery—you remember him?"
"Who could ever forget him that served there—who could ever forget him or his story?" exclaimed the old general flourishing his silver-headed cane; "not I, certainly. It was he who was entrusted by my Lord Rawdon as a military courier (estafette, the French term it), to bring me an important despatch concerning the movements of the regiment, and this despatch the Yankees were determined I should not receive, for spies had informed them of the bearer and his route, so the way was beset by riflemen. The soldier who accompanied him fell mortally wounded; O'Lavery was riddled by bullets too, yet he rode manfully on, until from loss of blood he fell from his saddle. Then Girvan, resolved that the important paper which he bore should never fall into the hands of the Yankees, he crumpled it up and thrust it into one of his wounds. I discovered it, when next morning we came upon him dying in the bush, and he had just life sufficient left to point to the fatal place where Rawdon's letter was concealed.* As one of our greatest orators said, when Martius Curtius to sacrifice himself for his country leaped into the gulf of the forum, he had all Rome for his spectators; but the poor Irish corporal was alone in the midst of a desert—I quote at random, quartermaster. And yet, after all the brave deeds and service of those days to refuse me this brigade for service—zounds! it was too bad—too bad!"
But Rohallion survived his disappointment, and the two following years glided peacefully away, at his old castle in Carrick.
* "The surgeon declared the wound itself not to be mortal; but rendered so by the insertion of the despatch. Corporal O'Lavery was a native of the county of Down, where a monument, the gratitude of his countryman and commander Lord Rawdon, records his fame."—Records of the 17th Lancers.