THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1692.
But the far mind was absent in pursuit
Of him, her love, in fields where foes contested
The 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 abroad
_enjoying_ the 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 the _Banished
Virgin_, or _Cassandra_. 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 his _Apology_, and Delrio in his _Disquisitiones
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 to
_embonpoint_. 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.
"A _camp 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 the _third_ 20th of September since he first left me. Oh,
Walter, Walter, God may forgive thee this great ingratitude and
cruelty, but I never can!"