Leaving for the present the Khan and his companions to pursue their way
to Seringapatam, we claim the usual privilege of writers to transport
our readers where, and as suddenly, as we please, and
‘To take up our wings and be off to the west.’
To the perfect understanding of the events connected with this veritable
history, therefore, we feel ourselves obliged to retrograde a few years,
and to leave the glowing climate of the East for a while, to breathe in
idea the colder yet more congenial air of England.
It was on the evening, then, of a wet and sleety day of December 1785,
that a large and merry family group sat around a cheerful fire in the
comfortable drawing-room of the rectory of Alston, in ——shire. It
consisted of the rector, his lady, and two sons, one of whom, Edward,
had returned from college for the vacation, and who was a youth of
perhaps eighteen years of age; his brother Charles was somewhat
younger, of that awkward period of life, between school and college,
which is not often productive of much gratification to the possessor,
and which all desire to see changed,—fond mothers, perhaps, again to
childhood,—fathers, to manhood,—and sisters, to anything more
agreeable and ornamental than the awkwardness and _mauvaise honte_
peculiarly attendant upon that epoch in life.
There were three girls, one between Edward and Charles, and another some
years younger; a third, as yet a child. Anywhere, any individual of the
family would have been very remarkable for good looks; but here, when
all were assembled together, they were a sight round that cheerful
blazing fire which caused the eye of the mother to glisten with
something like a tear of pleasure as she looked around the circle, and
the heart of the father to swell with proud satisfaction.
Mr. Compton, the rector, the second son of a baronet of the county, had
early been destined to the Church. In addition to a very handsome
private fortune bequeathed to him by his father, the rich living of
Alston had been secured to him while he was at college, and he had
succeeded to it as soon as he was of age to be ordained. He had married
early in life the sister of an old friend and college chum, also a
baronet of a neighbouring county, and the union had proved one of
continued happiness. With an ample fortune, gentle and refined tastes
and pursuits,—an excellent musician, a tolerable painter, a good
classic, and with literary abilities above an ordinary standard,—Mr.
Compton had resources within himself which ensured him a placid and
equable enjoyment of life. A sincere and pious man, his ministry was a
blessing to his numerous parishioners; and his society, where so much
intelligence and accomplishment prevailed, was eagerly sought for by all
the families of the county neighbourhood.
With no remarkable strength of character, Mrs. Compton was yet an
admirable woman; she was possessed of but few accomplishments, but then
those were not the days when youth was crammed with knowledge; she had,
however, a fair share for a lady of that period. Perhaps her talent for
music had partly attracted the notice, and helped, with her amiable
disposition and great personal charms, to win the admiration, and
eventually to secure the affections of her husband. In her career as a
mother she had been kind and loving, even beyond a mother’s usual
fondness; and if at times her excess of affection had overpowered the
sense of her duty in checking the foibles of her children, yet she had
so gentle and admirable a monitor at her side, one whose advice and
example she esteemed the most precious blessings vouchsafed to her, that
she had been enabled not only to bring up her children in perfect
obedience to her, and in strict moral and religious principles, but in
that complete harmony of intercourse among themselves, the result of
judicious training and pure example.
In truth so completely united a family, though perhaps not of rare
occurrence, is not so often to be seen as might be desirable to society;
and the young Comptons were noted through the neighbourhood for their
extreme good-breeding, and for the devoted affection they bore one
another.
Happy indeed as we know the family to have been,—as it must needs have
been from its constitution,—it had suffered already one stroke of
sorrow, which, mingling as it ever will in all the affairs of life, and
with those who apparently are farthest removed from its influence, had
come in a shape and at a time but little expected by any.
Their eldest son, Herbert, was a high-spirited yet fine-tempered youth.
He was destined by his father for the Church, in the offices of which he
himself felt such satisfaction, that no employment or pursuit in life,
he thought, could equal the gratification afforded by them. Herbert,
however, had from the first shown an unconquerable repugnance to the
sacred calling. It had been proposed to him on his leaving school,
preparatory to his entering on his college course; and though he had
gone through one or two terms at Oxford with credit, yet he continued to
implore his father so strongly not to persist in destining him to this
profession that at last Mr. Compton yielded, and the plan was abandoned.
Nor was Mrs. Compton surprised to hear a declaration made with much fear
and hesitation, that a military life of all others was that in which he
felt assured he should succeed best, as it was most consonant to his
high spirit and daring character.
Much entreaty was used—kind, gentle, loving entreaty—by both his
parents, especially his mother, to whom it was an agonising thought that
her first-born, her boy of whom she was so proud, should embrace a
profession which would expose him to other than the ordinary dangers of
life. All was however of no avail; and at the age of eighteen, or
thereabouts, his father, whose family influence was great, was enabled
to purchase for him a commission in a regiment of the line.
There was at that time no immediate cause to suppose that the regiment
would be called out on active service; and as that to which he had been
appointed was after a short time quartered in their own neighbourhood,
they had the gratification of seeing Herbert happy, fond of his corps
and his duties, beloved by his brother officers, and studying all the
details of science connected with his new profession; and indeed his
noble appearance in his uniform, and his now gay cheerful disposition—so
different from what his deportment had been while in uncertainty about
himself and his future career—in a great degree reconciled his parents
to the change in their plans for his life.
Promotion, if the means were at hand, was no difficult matter to obtain
in those days; and Mr. Compton, by the advice of a relative, a general
officer who had assisted him in obtaining the commission in the first
instance, had purchased Herbert on as far as a company, and was waiting
for a favourable opportunity for exchanging him into a cavalry regiment.
But while the negotiations for purchase were proceeding, sudden orders
arrived for the regiment to proceed on foreign service,—to India in
fact, where the increased possessions of the East India Company required
additional protection.
This news was a thunderbolt to the family, coming as it did so
unexpectedly. It might have been foreseen and thought of; but it had
not, for Herbert was with them, and that was enough; and any idea of his
leaving them, if distantly contemplated, had never been allowed to dwell
in their hearts. It was in vain that Mrs. Compton besought Herbert, in
the agony of her maternal affection, to resign, to exchange, to ask for
leave of absence, to carry into effect the negotiations which had been
pending.
The young man loved his mother with an intensity of affection, but he
saw also to yield to its dictates in this instance would be to forfeit
his honour and the obligations of his duty. Mr. Compton forbore to urge
him at all; his fine feelings at once told him that the young man was
right; and though it was a sore trial to part with one so dear, to
relinquish him to the chances of hard service in so distant and then
unknown a land, yet he did not murmur; and in many a secret prayer in
his closet, and daily in his family worship, commended him, as a
father’s affection only can prompt prayer for a child, to the protection
of that merciful Providence which had as yet bestowed on him and his
unnumbered blessings.
But there was yet another on whom this unlooked-for blow fell even more
heavily than on those we had mentioned. Amy Hayward, the only daughter
of a gentleman of fortune, whose estate joined the fields and extensive
lawns and grounds which formed the glebe of the rectory, had from the
earliest times she could remember been the companion and playmate of all
the Comptons. Her two brothers had shared the intimacy with her, and
whenever the boys were at their respective homes, there was a daily
intercourse kept up between them,—daily meetings, rambles in Beechwood
Park, fishing in the brawling trout-stream which ran through it, nutting
in its noble woods, and a thousand other joyous amusements peculiar to a
happy country childhood.
We say country childhood, for we feel that there is the widest
difference between that and a childhood spent in a town. With the former
there is a store of remembrances of gentle pleasures, of those natural
delights which are so inseparable to boyhood or girlhood,—when the first
gushes of the deep-seated springs of feeling are expanded among the
beauties of natural scenes, in themselves peaceful, and speaking quiet
to the heart, ever too prone to excitement when full vent is given to
joyous spirits;—where every occupation is fraught with delights, which,
if the faintest remembrance remains in after life, are treasured up as
the purest perhaps of all the pleasurable impressions the heart has ever
known.
How different is the town boy! he is a man before his time; and in that
one word how much meaning is there! How much less innocence—how many
cares! his amusements lack the ease of hilarity and freedom; he sees the
dull monotonous streets teeming with spectacles of vice or misery,—the
endless form of busy man ever before him, instead of bright skies, the
green recesses of the woods, the fresh balmy air, the thousand exquisite
creations of nature, ever appealing to his best sympathies. A city can
teach him little that can remain to benefit his understanding, or
invigorate its keenest and most delicious enjoyment, a complete
appreciation of nature in all her forms; but, on the contrary, it may
induce a callousness, which too often grows upon him in after life, and
causes those simple pleasures to be despised or unnoticed, in which,
after all, perhaps, are contained the germs of the purest enjoyment.
Amy was a few years younger than Herbert; beautiful as a child, that
beauty had grown up with her, and appeared to increase. But her features
were not regular, nor could she properly be called handsome; and yet if
large, lustrous, loving eyes, a fair and bright complexion, and long and
light brown curling hair, with a small figure, in which roundness,
activity, and extreme grace were combined, can be called beauty, she
possessed it eminently. Her face too, which was ever varying in
expression and lighted up with intelligence, was a fair index to her
mind,—full of affection and keen perception of beauty. If Herbert had
not the latter quality so enthusiastically as she had, he at least had
sufficient with cultivation to make him a tolerable draughtsman; and
Beechwood Park contained so many natural charms, that, as they grew up,
there was scarcely a point of blue and distant landscape, rocky brawling
stream, or quiet glade, which they had not sketched in company.
We have said they had been inseparable from childhood—ay, from the
earliest times; though the young Comptons and Haywards joined in all
their pastimes, yet Herbert had ever a quiet stroll with Amy. Her
garden, her greenhouse, her rabbits, her fowls, her gold and silver
fish—all were of as much interest to him for her sake as to herself. And
so it had continued: childish cares and pastimes had given place to more
matured amusements and pursuits, and the intercourse of the elders of
the families continued to be so harmonious, that no interruption had
ever occurred to their constant society.
If Herbert or Amy had been questioned on the subject, they could hardly
have said that as yet they loved; but it would be unnatural to suppose
that, knowing and appreciating each other as they did, they should not
have loved, and that ardently. The fire had been kindled long ago, and
slumbered only for a passing breath of excitement to fan it into a
bright and enduring flame.
It was, then, on the day which followed a night of intense anguish to
all—that on which no longer any opposition had been made to Herbert’s
departure, and they were beginning to bear to talk of it with some
calmness, that Mr. Compton said to his lady, as they sat after
breakfast, ‘You had better write this sad news to the Haywards, my love;
they have always felt such an interest in Herbert’s welfare, that they
ought to hear this from ourselves, before it is carried there by the
servants, and perhaps broken abruptly to them.’
‘I will be the bearer of the news myself,’ said Herbert, starting up;
‘no one ought to tell it but me; and it would distress you, dear mother,
to write it; besides, I promised to go over to Amy, either yesterday or
to-day, to sketch with her, as she wants to see the new style I have
learned.’
‘Thank you, my kind darling,’ she replied; ‘you have indeed saved me the
necessity of inflicting a pang on them, and one on myself too. And you
must screw up your courage to the sticking-place when you mention it to
Amy,’ she added almost gaily, with some emphasis on the name; ‘poor
child, she will grieve to hear it indeed!’
‘Yes, she will be sorry, very sorry, I know,’ said Herbert; ‘but it
can’t be helped now, and I must put as good a face as I can upon the
matter to them all. I will be as gay as I can,’ he said, taking up his
hat and opening the door, ‘and will not be long away.’
Poor fellow! the last words were tremulous enough for a gay captain to
utter, and his mother and father thought so too.
‘It will be unexpected to them,’ he said after a painful pause.
‘Very indeed, dearest,’ was the only reply she could make, for her tears
were flowing silently and fast.
-------