COLONEL SMASH.
After this, many days elapsed, and Roland, having ever before him the
last crushing communication of Messrs. Hook and Crook, never went
near the Chateau de St. Eustache, much to the surprise of Logan,
whose mind was sorely exercised on that subject, and on some new and
unwonted peculiarities of temper and system which he discovered in
his old friend and once jolly comrade.
Aurelia, too, felt some surprise at his protracted absence, and that
she never saw him at the promenades and public places where she had
been wont to see him before.
She was thinking could he have fallen in love with some one else--she
always thought he loved _her_--some one in Scotland where he had
been? If so, what business had he to come to her and talk, and act,
and look, too, as if he were free and fetterless? Could he have been
playing with her, making a fool of her all along? How coldly and
quietly he had talked about going to India, too.
Ah no! could she have seen Roland Ruthven at that very time! He was
kissing, looking at, smoothing out, and caressing a tiny kid glove,
which he had begged from her at that very ball where they first met,
on the 5th of August--the fatal day of the Ruthvens, as Elspat Gorm
was wont to call it.
"Roland, old fellow," said Logan, dropping into his quarters one
evening when he was dressing for mess, "what is up--you look like the
ace of spades? Never saw a fellow so changed in all my life."
"One day you may know all, Hector--meantime, don't worry me," replied
Roland, with the hair brushes suspended in action above his thick
head of dark brown hair, while Logan smoked and talked. His toilet
table bespoke taste and that wealth which he no longer possessed,
with its ivory-handled brushes having on them the Ruthven arms; his
dressing-case of silver-gilt, with gold-topped essence bottles in
nests of blue velvet; rings, jewelled studs, and sleeve-links, lay
there scattered about, with pipe heads of rare fashion and costly
material.
"You are not using that girl well, Roland--you know what I mean;
before you went on leave you were like her shadow, and now----"
"I can't get over my scruples about--about----"
"What, in the name of heaven?"
"Well, about making up to a girl who has a fortune--a very handsome
income, at all events--when I am so out at the elbows."
"Out at the elbows--are you mad?"
"The thing would look ill--yet I could make a little running with
her," said Roland, with a dreary attempt to be lively.
"I should think so. Ruthven of Ardgowrie out at the elbows--why, man
alive, what the devil has come to you? You could marry Miss Darnel
without exciting anybody but her special admirers. There is no
'establishment' to break up; no fair denizen of such a villa as is
proverbial at St. John's Wood to tear her dyed locks, and demand a
monetary kind of 'loot'--so I say again, what the deuce has come to
you?" asked Logan, with genuine surprise.
"That which I cannot tell."
"Even to me?" asked the other reproachfully.
"Even to you, old fellow, just yet."
"This passes my comprehension."
"The misfortune that has befallen me passes mine."
"She is a delightful girl, Roland," said Logan, after a pause, during
which he had been reflectively preparing another cigar; "she never
misses fire in the way of a repartee or a brilliant rejoinder."
"In that I agree with you," replied Roland, quietly.
"How cold you are."
"I am far from feeling so, any way," said Roland, with a sigh.
"Can't make you out, by Jove! In the Chateau de St. Eustache, unless
I am very much mistaken, you have gone in for some very effective
bits of flirtation, in which the inconstant moon played no
inconsiderable part."
"Flirtation, Logan? I never could flirt with Aurelia Darnell."
"Indeed!" said the other incredulously; "why?"
"Because I love her too sincerely."
"Yet you never go near that house where you have often acted almost
as host to the whole garrison, and where that horrible Yankee Colonel
has the field all to himself."
"Oh! he is a cousin of some sort--but what the devil is he to me?"
"Well--he is a good shot I hear."
"A shot--d--n him!" said Ronald, with considerable irritation of
manner; "I would think very little of parading him on the other side
of the Canadian frontier."
"I don't doubt that, Ronald, old man; but he has fought several
duels, and successfully I hear."
"With double-barrelled rifles, at two hundred yards' distance, each
man posted behind a tree, and dodging every way to dodge the other's
fire. Well, I would meet him that way if he wished it. I have asked
the Colonel to mess."
"To mess?"
"Yes."
"That fellow! What will the Colonel and others think? Your reason
is, I suppose, to keep up a connecting link with the Chateau?"
"Perhaps so," said Roland, wearily; and, sooth to say, that was his
sole reason.
"Well, if with the rental of Ardgowrie, you can't----"
"Please not to speak of Ardgowrie," said Roland impatiently, as he
thrust himself into his shell-jacket; "there go the drums for mess."
It was impossible that Aurelia could have any regard, even, amenity,
for this horrible American cousin, the Colonel; yet if she had,
Roland felt that the changed circumstances of his own fortune tied up
his tongue and would render his attentions an interference; yet it
was scarcely possible for him to look on such a dangler or admirer
with total indifference.
The Colonel, of whom we shall have more to relate anon, came duly to
mess, where his appearance and bearing caused some speculation, and
not a little secret mirth among Roland's brother officers, who were
all men of a very good style and tone.
Lean, wiry, and powerfully made, he was above the middle height, had
sharp aquiline features of an exaggerated type, that might not have
been bad but for a chronic expression of vulgar suspicion and
'cuteness that played about his eyes, giving him a rather hangdog
look; moreover, he had lost three front teeth in a row in Arkansas.
He was closely shaven all save a long square goatee imperial that
quivered when he spoke. Then he had a nervous way of clutching his
hat and banging it against his thigh, with a curious but unmeaning
energy. His clothes were loosely made, and he wore enormous cuffs,
collar and studs. Every way, he looked, as Logan said, "like a man
you would rather drink with than fight with, any day."
The Colonel had of course the usual American ideas about equality,
and "the sovereign people," with considerable contempt for the little
island, from whence "the Britishers came."
Doubtless he had never seen such a dinner-table us the mess of the
Royals before, with all its massive and magnificent silver trophies,
epergnes, and goblets--even the White House could not equal it; thus
his utter bewilderment excited as much amusement as his _gaucherie_,
for he picked his teeth with a silver fork, rinsed his mouth with the
contents of his finger-glass, and so forth; but he made good use of
his time in more ways than one, as we shall show.
"Strike me ugly, but this is a fine set of fixings! and that one in
particular," he added, tapping with his knife a magnificent vase
presented to the corps by its colonel, the late Duke of Kent.
As a friend of the Darnels, Roland was very attentive to "the
Colonel," who was very loquacious on the subject of the local
excitement among the Canadians of the Lower Province, then agitated
by factious men who sought to dictate to the Government measures
which were not deemed conducive to the welfare of the State, were
actually preparing to rise in arms, and counted on the sympathy and
support of American filibusters and all manner of desperate and
broken fellows from beyond the frontier.
During the summer of that year, and while Roland had been in
Scotland, the House of Assembly had refused to proceed in its
deliberations until the demand for a total alteration of the
legislative powers was complied with; and this was followed by the
appearance of many of the colonists in arms, and by serious
violations of the law.
On these matters, and the prospects of a row with the authorities,
"the Colonel" was more loquacious than became a guest at a regimental
mess; but more than once his phraseology excited the risibility of
even the waiters. When offered wine, he asked if he "couldn't get
some egg-nogg." He described the dry goods store he had once kept at
Baltimore, and of the two clubs there, of which he was chairman, the
"black snakes" and the "plug uglies," and Roland's bewilderment grew
very great to think that such a man as this could be even an
acquaintance, far less some remote kinsman of Aurelia Darnel.
Like all Americans, he boasted a good deal and had a sovereign
contempt for every other constitution in the world save that of the
United States, draining all kinds of wine in quick succession, and
ever and anon announcing that he "was dry as thunder," till Roland
felt as one in a fever for having such a guest, and saw the
commanding officer regarding him with a rather mingled expression of
face.
In short, it proved in the end that Colonel Smash was a spy of the
intended insurgents, and contrived to glean up a considerable amount
of information as to the positions and strength of the Queen's troops
in Lower Canada, all of which he duly committed to his notebook.
He sat late, or early rather, and never left the mess table till the
sweet, low notes of the old Scottish reveille were waking the echoes
of the lonely barrack-square when he went forth, as Logan said, "like
an inveterate soaker, without a hair of his coat being turned."
Assisted by Roland, through the medium of cigars and
brandy-and-water, Logan was going over the books of his company, to
wit, the ledger, day-book, and the acquittance roll, which is
rendered every month to the commanding officer--an investigation to
Hector of a very solemn nature, whereat there was much occasional
anathematising, twisting of the moustache, appealing glances cast to
the ceiling, a secret totting off of sums under the table, much
rubbing of the chin, and many references to a ready-reckoner--when
they were interrupted by the adjutant, who came clattering in with
sword and belt on, and his face full of importance.
"What's the row?" asked Logan, looking up.
"Row enough!" replied the adjutant, laughing; "these colonial beggars
are up in arms, and four companies of ours have to take the field
to-morrow in the direction of Chambly, with some cavalry, a howitzer,
and two six-pounders!"
"Bravo--anything is better than _this_ sort of work!" exclaimed
Logan, tossing the books aside. "At what hour do we fall-in?"
"Immediately after the men have breakfasted."
Roland looked at his watch; the November evening was darkening fast;
he borrowed the adjutant's horse, gave a few instructions rapidly to
his servant, and in a few minutes more was spurring in the direction
of the Chateau de St. Eustache.
Come what might of it, he had resolved to see once more Aurelia
Darnel, and bid her farewell.