"You do return me back on memory's path
To dear remembered scenes. Old Scotland's scenes!
It is a glorious land! I long to roam,
Doubly a lover, 'mong its wildest charms;
Its glens, its rocky coast, its towering cliffs
Come o'er me like a dream of infancy,
Startling the soul to momentary rapture;
It is the voice of home!"—DANIEL.
Two or three days passed before Quentin quite recovered his equanimity, or felt assured of his safety, and then as the whole affair of the court-martial seemed like a night-mare, he might have deemed it all a dream, but for the occasional comments and congratulations of his friends, and for the splendid gift of Madame de Ribeaupierre, which he prized greatly for its whole history, and which he longed greatly to place on one of Flora Warrender's tiny fingers.
Three days after the sitting of the court, tidings came to Alva that Baltasar de Saldos and his guerilla force had suffered a sharp repulse with great loss by the French, whose post at Fonteveras they had attacked with unexampled fury and blind rashness—both perhaps inspired by Donna Isidora's defection from her country's cause—and that in the confused retreat upon Hope's picquets, the luckless Baltasar had been shot dead by one of the Westphalian Light Horse.
We are not ashamed to say that Quentin on hearing this from Major Middleton, felt a species of relief, self-preservation being one of the first laws of nature, and he never could have felt himself perfectly safe in Spain while Baltasar de Saldos trod its soil.
Reflection on all the past served but to embitter the disgust and wrath with which he viewed the bearing of Cosmo Crawford at the recent trial, his whole connexion with it, and the terrible and hopeless malevolence he exhibited in reference to the episode at Kilhenzie, an affair which there was some difficulty in explaining, without referring to other and irrelevant matters; so Quentin burned with impatient eagerness for a general engagement with the French, for anything that would serve to blot out the recollection of his late unmerited humiliation; but he never thought of the enemy now without the face, figure, and voice of his friend Ribeaupierre rising upbraidingly before him.
Cosmo could have dismissed Quentin from the regiment, with or without cause, a colonel being himself sole judge of the expediency of so getting rid of a volunteer; but he was ashamed that his own family should hear of an act so petty. The onus of the futile court-martial fell on the general of division, and there were many chances against Quentin ever relating its secret history at Rohallion, as ere long bullets would be flying thick as winter hail.
Amid that confidence which is inspired by a borrachio-skin of good Valdepenas, varied by stiff brandy-and-water, Quentin, so far as he deemed necessary or right, made "a clean breast of it" to his friends and comrades, and detailed anew his adventures on the road from Herreruela and at the Villa de Maciera. Though he was complimented by Warriston and Askerne, whose praise was of value, there were not a few, such as Monkton, Colville, Ensigns Colyear, Boyle and others, who laughed immoderately, and voted him "a downright spoon"—wishing "such jolly good-luck had been theirs as to have a dazzling Castilian chucking herself at their heads."
"Yes, damme," said Monkton, "I should have had another story to tell; though, certainly, Kennedy, your Dulcinea did not 'let concealment like a worm i' the bud'—how does the quotation end? Now, Pimple, are you going to keep that blessed borrachio-skin all night? Why, man, you have squeezed it till it has become like a half-empty bagpipe."
Elsewhere we have mentioned that, after reading the famous newspaper paragraph which made such a commotion among the secluded household at Rohallion, the quartermaster offered to write to Quentin, and that Flora gave him a tiny note to enclose in his letter.
So it was on this night, when returning from Monkton's billet to his own, with a head none of the clearest, after talking a vast deal, smoking cigars and drinking the country wine, that Quentin was startled—completely sobered, in fact—by his servant placing in his hand a letter, and saying briefly that "the mail had come up that evening from the rear," which meant from Lisbon.
This letter was covered by such a multitude of post-marks that some time elapsed before Quentin—all unused to receive such documents—could bring himself to examine the contents; nor, in his mute astonishment, did he do so, until he had fully deciphered the address, which was in old John Girvan's hand, and the seal, an antiquated button of the 25th Foot, with the number, of course, reversed.
Every word seemed like a voice from home, and all the past—faces, forms, scenes, and places, came like a living and moving panorama on his memory.
Then, almost giddy with delight, a heart tremulous with anxiety, and eyes that grew moist—so moist, indeed, that for some seconds he could see no more than that the letter was dated more than a month back, Quentin was striving to read the square, old-fashioned writing of his early friend, when something dropped from between the pages—a tiny note, sealed by blue wax—the crest a hare sejant, the cognisance of the Warrenders.
Excited anew, he opened this with extreme care but tremulous haste. It was a single sheet of note-paper, on which two words were written, in a hand he knew right well—From Flora—and in it was a valuable ring, studded with precious stones.
We are compelled to admit that Quentin kissed the words and the ring some dozen times or so before he put the paper containing the former next his heart, in the most approved manner of all lovers, and the circlet on his finger, where he continued to admire it from time to time, while deciphering the long and somewhat prosy, but kind letter of his worthy old friend, who evidently knew nothing about the unlucky court-martial being on the tapis when he wrote it, Lord Rohallion's startling reply from the Horse Guards not having then arrived.
"MY DEAR QUENTIN,—And so by God's providence, through the humble medium of a stray newspaper, we have found you at last! Ye rash and ungrateful callant to leave us all in such a fashion, and well-nigh unto demented lest you had come to skaith or evil. I'll never forget the night the news first came to Rohallion that you had been found. You mind o' my auld Flanders greybeard—the Roman amphora, as the dominie calls it—he and I, wi' Spillsby and auld Jack Andrews, emptied it to the last drop, drinking your health, pouring forth libations in your honour, as Symon Skail hath it, and singing 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot' as we have never sung it since Robbie Burns left Mossgiel.
"And so, Quentin, my lad, ye have gone forth even as I went, nigh half a century ago, and have joined the glorious old 25th too! The Lord's blessing be on the old number, wherever it be—even on the head of a beer barrel! I joined the Borderers with little more than my father's benediction on my head, and, what served me better, one of my mother's pease-bannocks in my pouch. After Minden I came home a corporal, and proud I am to say, that I was the poor wayworn soldier-lad whom Burns saw passing the inn at Brownhill, and whom he invited to share his supper on the night he wrote his song—
"When wild war's deadly blast had blawn."
But ere long, by putting my trust in Providence (and a gude deal in pipeclay), I became, as I am now, and hope you one day shall be, a commissioned officer!
"As for Cosmo the Master, I fear me you'll find him a harsh and severe colonel. He was aye a dour laddie, and a heartbreak to his mother.
"The Lord and the Lady Rohallion, and a' body here, down to the running footman, send you their best remembrances. Miss Flora, of Ardgour, writes for herself, and what her note contains is no business of mine. Yesterday I caught her looking at the map of Spain in the library, and then she turned to that of Europe.
"'Girvanmains, it seems only the length of a finger from here to Spain,' said she, placing a bonnie white hand on the map, 'and yet it is so far—so very far away!'
"She often comes into my snuggery and speaks of you, the puir lassie, with her eyes and heart full. She has taken your terrier as her peculiar care, and sees that the gamekeeper has your guns and fishing-tackle always in order, for she looks forward, doubtless, to a time when you will need them all again.
"She is as handsome and high-spirited as ever! Young Ferny of Fernwoodlee, dangles pretty closely about her now, and village gossips say they may make a good match, as his lands march with the haughs of Ardgour. If they do, I am sure you won't care much about it now, for active service rubs all soft nonsense out of a young fellow's head, just as his waistbelt rubs his coat bare. (How little the worthy quartermaster, as he blundered on, conceived that he was now sticking pins and needles into poor Quentin by this incidental communication about the young fox-hunting laird of Fernwoodlee!)
"A long war is before us, Quentin, lad, and you're certain to rise in the service and be spoken about in future times, as Wolfe and Abercrombie are now. Maybe I'll not live to see the day—at my years it is not likely, but I know that it will happen for all that, when the grass is growing green above me in the auld kirkyard up the glen.
"The dominie—he is sitting opposite me brewing his toddy at this moment—hopes that you have not fallen into the vile habit of uttering oaths—a habit peculiar to gentlemen of our army ever since it 'swore so terribly in Flanders.' He bids me say that 'from a common custom of swearing, according to Hierocles (some Roman loon, I warrant) men easily slide into falsity; therefore do not use to swear.' He also hopes that you are not becoming contaminated in those realms of the Pope, who, though he founded all the bishoprics and most of the universities of Christendom, enjoyeth the evil repute of being little better than a Pagan and idolater among us here in Carrick. Moreover, ye are in an especial manner to avoid the snares of the female sex, and remember the mischief that was wrought by a light limmer named Helen of Troy.
"From myself, dear Quentin, I say avoid all duellists, drunkards, gamblers, and fools; as a good old friend of mine—a brave soldier, too—saith in his book, 'Provide for your soul, and God will provide for your honour. If your name be forgot in the annals of time, it will make a noble figure in the muster-roll of eternity.'
"If you are short of the needful, I have still a few more golden shot in the locker, so fail not to draw on me through Greenwood and Cox, or your paymaster.
"I would give much, if I had it, to have one glimpse of the old corps again, though no one in it, I suppose, remembers old John Girvan now!
"Are the bringers-up still dressed from the right flank by a flam on the drum? Does the colonel still use a speaking-trumpet? Is the point of war beaten now in honour of every new commission? Are the sergeants' pikes still stretchers for the wounded? Are pigtails always dressed straight by the back seam of the coat, and—but Lord! Lord! what am I asking? I clean forgot that the service is going to the devil, for the order that abolished the queues will be the ruin of it, from the Horse Guards to the Hottentot battalions! I can't fancy the 25th, like the Manx cats, with their tails cut off! In my time there would have been open mutiny if the atrocity had been attempted.
"Even the hair-powder is passing out of fashion now, unless a colonel happens to be powdered by time. Gentlemanly spirit will pass away too, I fear me, and the cautious time will come when a man will think twice before accepting an invitation to go out with a brother officer and breathe the morning air, about reveillez, at ten paces, with a pair of saw-handled pops.
"In Rohallion's time the 25th used to wear their hair and pigtails so floured and pomatumed that many a good meal the barrack rats have made off our caputs, when we lay asleep on the wood benches of the guard-house.
"And they (the Horse Guards, we presume) have substituted cloth pantaloons for the pipe-clayed breeches in which we fought at Minden and New York. This may be an improvement, for, in my time, our pipeclayed smalls were often a mass of mud on the march, and in wet weather one might as well have been in a bog of quick lime, for they regularly skinned us.
"And now, Quentin, my dear, dear laddie, to close an ower lang letter."
To Askerne, who came in at that moment, Quentin showed the letter of the worthy veteran, and it proved to the captain a source of some amusement, so quaint and old-fashioned were Girvan's ideas of the regiment and of the service.
"Well, Kennedy, what does Miss Flora's letter contain—eh?" asked Askerne, with a waggish smile.
"Don't jest, pray—I depend on your honour."
"You may, indeed, Quentin."
"It contained only this ring."
"Oho!" exclaimed Askerne, with a merry laugh, "these stones tell a story, my friend."
"A story!"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Is it possible that you don't know? Read their names; collect the initial letters, and tell me what they make?"
"Lapis-lazuli, opal, verde-antique, emerald, malachite, emerald."
"Well—what are these?"
"LOVE ME!" said Quentin, colouring with pleasure and surprise.
"The language of the stones seems new to you, Kennedy; but you are in luck, my friend. Who is the donor?"
"A dear, dear friend."
"Flora, you say—are you sure it is not Donna Isidora?"
"Impossible—thank Heaven!—a Miss Flora Warrender."
"Warrender—Warrender—I know that name; is she of Ardgour?"
"The same."
"Her father fell at the head of the Corsican Rangers, in Egypt. I knew him well—a brave old fellow as ever wore a red coat."
"You will not speak of this before our fellows?" urged Quentin, earnestly.
"Betray confidence! you have my word, Kennedy. And now let me to bed. I am for the baggage-guard; as we are falling back, it starts with the artillery, two hours before the division marches to-morrow."
The ring had now a new interest in Quentin's eyes, and he was never tired of reading the six mystical stones.
"Dearest Flora," he said to himself, "how happy I am now, that not even that lovely Spaniard could for a moment tempt me to forget you!"
For all that, the "lovely Spaniard" was very nearly doing a vast deal of mischief.
Finding that he was alone, and all was quiet in his billet, he sat far into the hours of the silent night, writing a long, long letter to his friend the quartermaster—the story of his past adventures; and to Flora he enclosed the only gift he possessed—the ring of Madame de Ribeaupierre—with its remarkable story, and he had barely sealed the envelope when he heard the warning bugle for the baggage-guard to turn out sounding in the dark and silent streets of Alva; and then, with a weary head but happy heart, he sought his pallet, and without undressing, courted sleep for a couple of hours, before the drums of the division beat the générale.