COLVILLE OF THE GUARDS
BY
JAMES GRANT
AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE CAMERONIANS,"
"THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER,"
ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1885.
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
I. Birkwoodbrae
II. Mary's Adventure
III. The Introduction
IV. Robert Wodrow
V. The Dunkeld Family
VI. The Visit
VII. Dreams and Doubts
VIII. A Truce
IX. Colville's Warning
X. A Garden-Party at Craigmhor
XI. In the Conservatory
XII. After Thoughts
XIII. The Last Appeal
XIV. Gretchen and Faust
XV. How Faust Succeeded
XVI. Evil Tidings
XVII. Mary's Preparations
XVIII. On the Brink
XIX. The Departure
XX. The Heir of Entail
COLVILLE OF THE GUARDS.
CHAPTER I.
KIRKWOODBRAE.
'You are a dear and good-hearted jewel, Mary!' said Ellinor. 'How
you can constantly face and soothe the sorrows and miseries of all
these poor people, I cannot conceive; I am not selfish, I hope, and
yet the frequent task would he too much for me.'
'You are not without a tender heart,' replied Mary, as she set down
her little hand-basket, now empty. 'I have paid but one visit
to-day--a very sorrowful one--and I am glad to be back again in our
own pretty home. When I saw old Elspat the funeral was over, and
dear Dr. Wodrow had brought her back to the little lonely cottage
from which her husband had been borne away. It was so sad and
strange to see the empty bed, with a plate of salt upon the pillow,
and the outline of his coffin still on the coverlet, and the now
useless drugs and phials on a little table, close by--sad
reminiscences that only served to torture poor Elspat, whose grey
head the minister patted kindly, while telling her, in the usual
stereotyped way, that whom He loved He chastened--that man is cut
down like a reed--all flesh is grass, and so forth. But old Elspat
shall not live alone now--she is to come here, and be a kind of
factotum for us.'
'That is like your kind, considerate heart, Mary; always thinking of
others and never of yourself.'
'When I think of the brightness of our own home, Ellinor--though
death has twice darkened it--and compare it with that of old Elspat,
my heart throbs with alternate gratitude and sorrow.'
'Poor Elspat Gordon.'
The speakers were sisters, two bright and handsome girls, one of whom
had just returned from an errand of charity and benevolence, while
the younger was seated in a garden before her easel and paint-block,
on which she was depicting, for perhaps the twentieth time, the
features of their home, Birkwoodbrae--works of art in which their
favourite fox-terrier Jack always bore a prominent part; and Jack,
his collar duly garlanded with fresh rosebuds and daisies, was now
crouched at the feet of the fair artist.
Mary Wellwood was fair-haired, with darkly-lashed eyes of
violet-blue. Many would call her very handsome, but few merely
pretty. She was far beyond the latter phrase. With all its soft
beauty and dimples, there were too much decision and character in her
face to justify the simple term prettiness, while it was a face to
haunt one a life long!
Two years younger than Mary, Ellinor was now twenty. Her dark hazel
eyes were winning in expression, and, like Mary's, longly-lashed, and
what lovely lips she had for kisses! Hers was no button of a mouth,
however. Critics might say that it was a trifle too large; but her
lips were beautifully curved, red, and alluring, often smiling, and
showing the pure, pearl-like teeth within; and yet, when not smiling,
the normal expression of Ellinor's face was thoughtful.
The orphan daughters of Colonel Wellwood--a Crimean veteran--the two
girls lived alone in their pretty sequestered home at Birkwoodbrae.
They had not a female relation in the world whom they could have
invited to share it; and though sometimes propriety suggested a
matron or chaperone as a necessity to two handsome and ladylike
girls, living almost under the shadow of the manse, and as the
minister, Dr. Wodrow, had been left by their father on his death-bed
a species of guardian to them, 'why hamper themselves with some
uncomfortable old frump, when they could be perfectly happy without
her, with their father's old servants about them?' was always the
after reflection of each.
Thus for three years the time had glided away, and Mary's life we
shall show to have been a busy, active, and useful one, adding to and
nearly doubling indeed the little income left them by their father,
through her own efforts in the production and sale of the
agricultural produce of the few acres of Birkwoodbrae, with a skill
and independence of spirit that won the admiration and respect of all
who knew her.
Yet the house they loved so well, and the patch of land around it,
did not belong to the orphan sisters.
The heir of the entail--for, according to 'Shaw's Index,' small
though the property of Birkwoodbrae might be, it had been entailed as
far back as 1696, with date of tailzie 1694, by Ronald Wellwood, a
remote ancestor, who was one of the many victims of King William's
treachery at Darien--the heir of entail, we say, held a lucrative
diplomatic appointment abroad, and left his two nieces in undisturbed
enjoyment of the house and lands.
Thus the latter, in Mary's care, had become quite a little farm, the
produce of which, in grazing--even in grain--butter, eggs, and
poultry, doubled, as we have said, the pittance left to her and her
sister by their father, the improvident old colonel.
In the words of Herbert's _Jacula Prudentum_, Mary Wellwood's motto
had ever been, 'Help thyself and God will help thee.'
The house of Birkwoodbrae was a little two-storied villa, with pretty
oriel windows, about which the monthly roses, clematis, and Virginia
creeper clambered: and it had been engrafted by the colonel on an old
farmhouse, the abode of his ancestors, which had two crow-stepped
gables and a huge square ingle-lum--the later being now the ample
kitchen fireplace of the new residence, and in the remote quarter of
the little household.
A lintel over the door that now led to the barnyard told the date of
this portion of the mansion, as it bore the legend often repeated by
Mary:--
'BLISSIT BE GOD FOR AL HIS GIFTIS. R. W. 1642,'
and showed that it had outlived the wars of the Covenant and the
strife that ended at Killiecrankie; and by its wall there grew a
hoary pear-tree, called a longovil--the name of a kind of pear
introduced into Scotland by Queen Mary of Guise, the Duchess of
Longueville.
This part of the house was, or used to be haunted by a goblin known
as 'the Darien Ghost,' a spectre that used to appear during the
blustering winds of March, on the anniversary of the storming and
sack of Fort St. Andrew by the Spaniards, when a thousand Scotsmen
perished, among them, Ronald, the Laird or Gudeman of Birkwoodbrae.
This ghost was a heavily-booted one, with spurs that were heard to
jingle as it went; and it was wont to appear by the bedside of some
sleeping visitor, over whom it would bend with pallid face and
gleaming eyes; and those who had found courage enough to strike at
the figure with hand or sword, found, to their dismay, that
notwithstanding his heavy-heeled boots, by some idiosyncrasy,
peculiar perhaps to ghosts, the stroke passed unimpeded _through it_;
but Mary averred that since the railway had come through Strathearn,
less and less had been seen of the Darien spectre, and now it came no
more.
Around the house were groups of lovely silver birches, the 'siller
birks' that gave the place its name; in front the ground sloped
gently downward, till the little garden, with its well-kept plots and
parterres of flowers, ended in a park of emerald green grass, where
the spotlessly white sheep and brindled cattle grazed amid the
sweetest sylvan scenery, the vivid colours of which were now brought
forth by the fleecy whiteness of the clouds, the deep blue of the
sky, and the brilliance of the sunshine; and, as William Black has
it, 'I have heard Mr. Millais declare that three hours' sunshine in
Scotland is worth three months of it at Cairo.'
When Mary came forth into the garden again, she wore an old straw hat
to save her complexion from the glares and had the smartest and most
becoming of lawn-tennis aprons pinned over her dress, with Swedish
gloves upon her hands, as she proceeded to snip and train some
straggling sprays of roses about the walls of the house, and seemed
to do so with loving and gentle care, as if the said house was a
thing of life, and sensible of the love she bore it; while uttering
many a yelp and gurgle, Jack, the fox-terrier, overwhelmed her with
the wildest of canine caresses.
Now Jack was deemed a wonderful 'doggie' in his way, and had been the
gift of Elspat's husband, an old Gordon Highlander, who had followed
Roberts to victory, and had Jack by his side in more than one battle
in Afghanistan. Jack was all muscle, and white as snow, save two
tan-coloured spots, one over the right eye and the other in the
centre of his back. He was the perilous enemy of all dogs, and cats
too, and at the sight of one or other his muscles grew tense, his
hair bristled up, and he showed his molar tusks; but otherwise he was
absurdly meek and gentle, and in appearance belied his combative
nature.
'Is it not strange, Ellinor,' said Mary, resuming the subject of
their conversation, 'that Elspat's husband, who never recovered from
the wound received three years ago in a battle in India, had a
presentiment that he would die of it, and on the anniversary of the
very day, hour, and moment he was hit, he expired? Yes, Jack, and
you, my dear little doggie, were there too,' she added, nestling
Jack's head in her pretty neck. 'In spite of all that Dr. Wodrow
said and inveighed against superstition, the piper would lead the
funeral party thrice _deisal-wise_ round the burial-ground before
entering it.'
'And no doubt the doctor would quote his ancestor's famous
_Analecta_?' said Ellinor.
'On that occasion he did not,' replied Mary; 'but it's too bad of
you, Ellinor, to quiz the dear old man, who does his duty so well. I
always recall what papa used to say, that no one who does not try
with all the strength one possesses to do some good to those about
them, can possibly say they do their best to live usefully and
honestly. Oh, Ellinor, what a delicate arum lily you have there!'
Mary suddenly exclaimed.
'I am putting it in my foreground. It came with some lovely peaches.'
'From Robert Wodrow?'
'Yes,' replied Ellinor, with a soft and pleased smile, for thereby
hung a tale, as young Robert Wodrow (of whom more anon), the
minister's only son, from his boyhood had sighed for Ellinor, and was
never perfectly happy but when with her, and, like the lover of
Rosamund Gray, 'he could make her admire the scenes he admired, fancy
the wild flowers he fancied, watch the clouds he was watching, and
not unfrequently repeat to her the poetry which he loved, and make
her love it too.'
And so, in early youth, the boy and girl had grown fond of each
other--far fonder than either of them at first suspected.
'By the way,' said Mary, suddenly, and pausing in the act of snipping
off a decayed rose with her garden scissors, 'the Dunkeld family are
back at Craigmhor.'
'With visitors, of course?'
'As usual--gentlemen to shoot when the season opens in a week or two;
and one, a Captain Colville--a very handsome man--is, I hear, the
intended of that haughty girl, Blanche Galloway.'
'Well, I am not ill-natured,' said Ellinor, with her pretty head on
one side, as she reproduced Robert Wodrow's lily in flake-white; 'but
the man who marries Blanche won't have his sorrows to seek. However,
we shall not call, unless they do so first, of course; so these
people are nothing to us.'
'Nay,' said Mary; 'with visitors at Craigmhor, the housekeeper must
necessarily require more eggs, fowls, flowers, and I know not what.'
'Sending these things to market at Perth or Forteviot is all very
well, but I do dislike orders from the great folks at the manor
house.'
'So do I, but needs must, you know, Ellinor.'
'What would papa have thought?'
'Had he thought more at times we had not been reduced to such
shifts--not that I upbraid him, poor old man.'
'I detest catering for these great folks, who ignore our existence,
save by a bow--more often a stare--at church,' persisted Ellinor.
'I care not--together we are independent, and happy here as the day
is long: are not you so, Ellinor?'
'Yes; but how if one of us were to get married? Such things happen.'
'Don't speculate on that, though I think Robert Wodrow does,' said
Mary, with something between a laugh and a sigh, as she took her way
to the hen-court to see after her fowls.