CHAPTER XII.
THE OLD BRIGADIER.
"I cannot deem why men so toil for fame,
A porter is a porter, though his load
Be the oceaned world, and although his road
Be down the ages. What is in a name?
Ah! 'tis our spirit's curse to strive and seek.
Although its heart is rich in pearls and ores,
The sea, complains upon a thousand shores;
Sea-like we moan for ever."—ALEXANDER SMITH.
By this time the snows of a bleak and early winter lay deep in the grassy glens and on the heathery hills of Carrick; the mountain burns and rivulets that whilome flowed to the Doon and the Girvan were frozen hard and fast, and, suspended in mid-air, the cascade of the Lollards' Linn hung under its gothic arch like the beard of Father Christmas. Long icicles hung from the eaves of the houses and from the quaint stone gurgoyles of the old square keep.
The sound of the woodman's axe echoed in the leafless oakwood shaw and the brown thickets of Ardgour, and everywhere the hedges and trees were being lopped and trimmed by the shears or bill-hook of the gardener and husbandman.
In the clear frosty air, from many a mountain loch rang up the cheers of the jovial curlers, with the roar of the granite curling-stones as they swept along the glassy rinks, and many a hearty fellow anticipated, his appetite sharpened by the frosty air, the banquet of salt beef and greens, with steaming whisky toddy, that closed his day's sport, at the Rohallion Arms in Maybole.
The cattle were in their heather-roofed shielings on the sheltered sides of the hills, the sheep and swine were among the pea-ricks, the dusky smoke of the ruddy winter fire ascended into the clear blue air from many a happy hearth and thatched homestead; but, as the roads that wound over hill and lea were buried deep in snow, news of the distant war in Spain come slowly and uncertainly to such remote dwellings as the castle of Rohallion—how much more uncertainly and slowly to those glens in Sutherland and Ross, where a few heaps of stones amid the desert waste now mark the birthplaces of those who manned the ranks of our noblest Scottish regiments in that old and glorious war.
As yet no further tidings had been heard either of Quentin Kennedy or of his court-martial. All that had been heard at home, through the columns of the London Courier, was that the slender army of Sir John Moore was falling back before the overwhelming masses of the enemy, and that ere long all might be confusion in its ranks—perhaps dismay!
After the receipt of the Adjutant-General Sir Harry Calvert's letter, the public papers were searched in vain for further tidings of Quentin Kennedy, but none were found. "Our own correspondent," with his camp-gossip, had no place in the newspaper columns of those days. The mails were then often late and always uncertain; many that came by sea were lost between storms and privateers, and the vague anxiety of Quentin's friends gradually became painful suspense, and amid it Lord Rohallion once more wrote with energy recommending his young protégé to the duke.
Dinner was over, and the wax-candles in the candelabra and girandoles of crystal had been lighted in the antique yellow drawing-room; Lady Rohallion, seated as usual in her own corner, was engaged, according to her wont, upon some piece of knitting or other work for the poor or old folks on the estate; her grey hair, somewhat needlessly powdered, was dressed back as of old. Lord Rohallion had brought his decanter of claret with him into the drawing-room and placed it on a guéridon table by his side; and there he sat, in a cushioned easy-chair, lingering over the wine, and gazing dreamily into the large fire that blazed in the old-fashioned brass-basket between the delf-lined jambs of the fireplace.
The wind was sighing through the old sycamores of the avenue, and the roar of the sea was heard on the Partan Craig.
Flora was idling over the piano, practising the "Battle of Prague," the Duke of York's grand march, or some such piece of music then in vogue with young ladies, and near her hovered her present admirer, Jack Ferny of Fernwoodlee, a good-looking but brainless young fellow with sandy hair and a pea-green hunting-coat of the fast kind worn when the Pavilion was in its glory at Brighton. Ferny's estate was a small one, and he was evidently, as gossips said, "doing his best to make ducks and drakes of it."
He was strongly addicted to betting, and was a keen fox-hunter and sportsman. Beyond the kennel or the stable he had very few ideas; and so little capability had he of adapting his conversation to time, place, or person, that he was now prosing away to the preoccupied Flora about sporting matters.
First it was of a famous match against time by the noted pedestrian, Captain Barclay of Urie; and next, how, when coursing among the Carrick hills, his two favourite stag-hounds so pressed a hare they had put up yesterday, that she leaped down a precipice more than fifty feet in height, and then the hounds followed without the slightest hesitation.
"Good heavens! they were killed, of course!" said Flora, looking up with wonder.
"Killed, Miss Warrender?—egad, no! To the astonishment of us all, we saw puss and the hounds scouring along the road towards Maybole; but the Ayr stage, coming up with four spanking greys, caused her to make for a field of grass, and though turned five several times by the hounds, she made her escape down a burn at last, for of course they lost the scent."
Finding that Flora had relapsed into listlessness, and that he failed to interest her by his scraps of information on the Newmarket Craven meeting, such as his horse Rolla, eight stone, running against Lord Sackville's Tag, also eight stone, across the flat for a thousand guineas, and that three to one was being taken on Rolla; that the betting was even at Epsom on the brown colt, by Eclipse, out of Mrs. Fitzherbert, and other gossip of similar character, he was compelled to resume his place near the old Lord, who was just in the act of pressing him politely to join in another glass of claret, when Jack Andrews limped in with a letter, which the running-footman had at that moment brought from Maybole. The mail from Ayr had broken down near the bank of the Boon in the snow, and the guard had brought on the bags to Dalrymple, on one of the horses, at the risk of his life. Oblong and official, the cover of the letter showed that it was "On His Majesty's service."
"News of Quentin Kennedy, doubtless," said Lord Rohallion, peering about for his eye-glass.
"I pray God it be not unfortunate news about Cosmo!" thought Lady Winifred, for the tidings that came to many a poor mother in those days of war were sad enough sometimes.
Fernwoodlee, who had seen Quentin Kennedy, and knew the rumours concerning him and Flora, observed with annoyance that she was pale and colourless with ill-concealed interest, as she drew near Lord Rohallion, who on opening the missive found, to his no small surprise, that it referred neither to Quentin nor Cosmo, but to himself, and was from Sir Harry Calvert, who wrote, that "by the direction of his Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, he had the pleasure to acquaint him that his lordship's repeated applications and wishes for command of a brigade could now be gratified, and that his name would appear in the next Gazette; and that as troops were being assembled in great force at Shorncliffe camp, his Royal Highness hoped that his lordship would, within a week, be ready to set out for that place, where his services were greatly required, and where his proper staff would be selected."
This announcement fell with a startling effect upon Lord and Lady Rohallion.
"Appointed to a brigade—a brigade for foreign service! My dear Reynold, you cannot for a moment think of accepting this command?" said Lady Winifred, anxiously taking his right hand between her own.
"I applied for it, as you are aware, dearest, repeatedly."
"About the time of the first unhappy expedition to Egypt; but you have long since relinquished all idea of serving again, and now—now, Reynold——"
"I am bound to accept it, Winny," said he, with more of sadness than of his old enthusiasm in his tone. "I am well up the list of major-generals," he added, with a faint smile, "and must do something for promotion. I may be a field-marshal yet, Winny, and a K.G. to boot."
Perhaps in his secret heart he would rather have wished that this command had not been offered him; he felt that he was rather old now, rather staid and formed in habit, and that he had too long settled down into the easy tenor of a quiet country life to care for the hurly-burly and anxiety of leading a brigade—it might ultimately be a division—in the field; but he knew that honour and duty compelled him to accept it.
Thus he wrote to the adjutant-general that very night accepting the command, and again urging that something should be done for his young protégé, Quentin Kennedy.
The letter left by the mail next morning, and Lord Rohallion prepared to bid farewell once more to the old mansion of his forefathers, and to buckle on the same sword that he had drawn on the plains of Minden, when a stripling ensign, forty-nine years before.
It was with sad forebodings that Lady Rohallion prepared to break up her quiet and happy household, and bid farewell to friends and neighbours, for she proposed, in the first instance, to accompany her dear old husband to Shorncliffe, and Flora, their ward, who could not be left behind, to the unmistakable dismay of young Fernwoodlee, was to go with them.
She was the only one who felt any pleasure in the anticipated change and long journey by post-horses, as it promised at least all that novelty so charming to a young girl.
Poor Lady Rohallion! She knew that by her husband's frequently expressed desire for military employment (parliamentary and diplomatic matters he detested) he was bound in honour—especially at a time when all Britain was in arms—to accept the first command offered him by the Duke of York, his old friend and comrade. She had long feared the crisis, but, as time passed on and no appointment came, she ceased to think of it; but now it had come at last, and when least expected, and she was about to be subjected to a double separation, from her husband and her son.
Cut off as Britain was then from the continent, the majority of its people had few views or sympathies beyond their own fireside or immediate circle. The scene of the probable campaign in which Rohallion would serve, was wild and remote, the people desperate and lawless; our force in the field small, most pitifully so, when compared with the masses of the dreaded and then abhorred French.
She could perceive that her courtly old lord vacillated between sincere sorrow for leaving her and a love for his profession, with a hope of distinguishing himself and trying his strength and skill against some of the famous marshals of the new empire—the heroes of the Italian, German, and Egyptian campaigns—those corporals of le petit caporal, who had picked up their epaulettes on the barricades of Paris, or at the foot of the guillotine on which King Louis and the noblest in France died; for thus were the marshal dukes of the great emperor viewed by the high-flying aristocracy of the Pitt administration, in the old fighting days "when George the Third was king."
Lord Cockburn, in his "Memorials," describes, with happy fidelity, "a singular race of old Scottish ladies," that have completely passed away. "They were," says he, "a delightful set; strong-headed, warm-hearted, and high-spirited; the fire of their tempers not always latent; merry even in solitude; very resolute; indifferent about the modes and habits of the modern world, and adhering to their own ways, so as to stand out like primitive rocks above ordinary society. Their prominent qualities of sense, humour, affection, and spirit, were embodied in curious outsides, for all dressed, and spoke, and did exactly as they chose; their language, like their habits, entirely Scottish, but without any other vulgarity than what perfect naturalness is sometimes taken for."
One of that genuine race was the handsome and stately old Lady Winifred of Rohallion.
A Scottish lady of the kindly old school, one who in infancy had been nursed and fondled by warm-hearted and periwigged old gentlemen and hoopskirted gentlewomen, who boasted that they were the last of the true old Scots, born when a Stuart was on the throne, and before their country was sold by the Whigs, and when her Parliament assembled on the ringing of St. Gileses bell; she who in girlhood had seen and known many of the gallant and loyal who had dined and drunk with Kilmarnock and Balmerino, and who had drawn their swords for James VIII. at Falkirk and Culloden; who treasured in secret the white rose, and yearly drank to "the king ower the water"—she felt now that she would be sadly at a loss and strange among English modern society. Her local ideas and usefulness, her strong Jacobite sympathies and loyalty to a dead race of kings, her nervous terror of democracy and foreigners, might pass for eccentricity; but how could those among whom she would now be thrown know or understand her little weakness for the heraldry, genealogy, connexions, and past glories of the Maxwells of Nithsdale and the Crawfords of Rohallion; for she knew them to be people who spoke of the late cardinal-duke as "the dead Pretender;" who voted all that was not English absurd or vulgar, and who basked in the rays of the star of Brunswick as it beamed on the breast of "the first gentleman in Europe," the future George IV.: with her powder and patches, her broad Scottish accent, and her high-heeled shoes, she felt that she would be, in such an atmosphere, an anachronism—a fish out of water!
These minor considerations of self, however, were completely merged or lost eventually in distress at the prospect of being separated from her husband, and in dread of the perils and hardships he might have to encounter at the seat of war—at his advanced years, too!
To add to her anxiety, the death-watch had ticked for several nights in the four-poster of the great old state bedroom, and this devilish little pediculus wrought the good lady as much alarm as Sir Harry Calvert's missive from the Horse Guards had done.
Amid all this, Flora's chief thought was, that at Shorncliffe she would be nearer Quentin Kennedy, by the entire length nearly of Britain, and as Lord Rohallion was to pass through London, he would see the Duke of York personally about him and his prospects.
The last night they were to spend in the old castle was a wild, cold, and bitter one. The waves of the Firth of Clyde boiled in mountains of white foam over the Partan Craig, and as Elsie Irvine said, "the yowls of the sealghs were heard on the wind, just as they were on the nicht that Quentin was shipwrecked, and a' body kent they were never heard for nocht."
The tempest roared round the snow-clad promontory on which the old castle stood, and on this night one of the oldest sycamores in the avenue was uprooted with a mighty crash by the wind, an omen decidedly of coming woe. Black clouds sailed like ghostly ships across the otherwise clear frosty sky, and in the distance the scud and the ocean blended together in storm and darkness.
On that night, the last they were to spend in their old home, sleep scarcely visited the eyes of either Lady Rohallion or her husband.
She was full of melancholy forebodings, tears, and prayers, the result of her education and temperament, and she was thinking of Flora's parents, of John Warrender of Ardgour, who fell in Egypt, and of his widow's broken heart; while in Lord Rohallion's mind, real regret for the coming separation was mingling with anxieties and little vanities about how he would handle his brigade in the field, as he had so long grown "rusty."
As the morning dawned—the morning of a clear and bright December day, Lady Winifred's spirits rose a little, especially after the sun burst forth auspiciously from the parting clouds.
The poor quartermaster was heart-broken with the idea of being left behind; but he had the household to look after, and all the live stock, including Quentin's terrier and Flora's birds, all of which she solemnly committed to his care.
On this morning, when they were to set out, trunks, mails, imperials, and all the usual incumbrances of a long journey were borne forth to the haunted gate where the carriage stood, with its four horses pawing the hard frosty ground, and their breath ascending like steam, in the clear cold air. Old Jack Andrews limped about, whistling the point of war, with uncommon vigour, and with a new lightness in his eye and step, at the prospect of seeing military life again.
All the tenantry of the estate and the fishermen of the hamlet mustered at the old castle-gate, and the Rohallion volunteers, all in full uniform, with cocked-hats and pigtails, were there in honour of the brave old Brigadier and his gentle lady; and there too, were all the household, from bluff Mr. Spillsby the butler, to John Legate, the long, lean running-footman, and all looked sad and downhearted.
The dominie had overnight prepared a long Latin address to read on the occasion, but happily for all concerned, he had left it behind him; and now his great horn barnacles were obscured and dim, as he lifted his old three-cornered castor and kissed her ladyship's hand with profound reverence and affection, and then Miss Flora's, as they were assisted by Fernwoodlee and the quartermaster into the carriage.
"Farewell, dominie," said the old Lord, as he shook the good man's hand. "I'll expect you to write me sometimes, and tell us how all the folk here and the school bairns are coming on."
"Woe is me, Rohallion! and you are again going to follow the drum!" he replied, shaking his queue and queer old wig: "it was invented by Bacchus, who, as Polysenus declares, used it first in the Indian war, but from the sorrow created by its sound, I verily believe its inventor to be the devil—the great author of the bagpipe."
"Hush, dominie," said his lordship, laughing, "for here comes Pate of Maybole."
This was the piper of the barony town, in the burgh livery, who now appeared; and as the coachman whipped up his horses, the sobs of the servants were drowned in the skirl with which Pate blew out his bag to the air of the good Lord Moira's Farewell to Scotland:
"London's bonnie woods and braes,
I maun leave them a', lassie,
For who can thole when Britain's faes,
Wad gie Britons law, lassie?"
And striding as only a Scottish piper strides and swaggers, he played before the carriage down the avenue and out upon the high road; while there was not an eye unmoistened at that time-worn castle gate, as its old lord and his lady went forth upon their way "to the wars in the far-awa land."
It was a silent house that night in Rohallion.