OUR STORY PROGRESSES.
"Here he dwelt in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh fair and free;
Not a lord in all the county,
Is so great a lord as he."--TENNYSON.
Kind old Rohallion was deeply interested in and attracted by the
little boy, who had many winning and endearing ways about him; and he
particularly excelled in a bright and captivating smile, that was
joyous in its perfect innocence.
He seated him on his knee at the breakfast-table n the library, and
strove, by all the art he was master of, to draw from him some clue,
as to the part of France in which his mother resided, but save a
knowledge of his own name, Quentin's recollections were few prior to
the terror he had experienced on the wreck. All beyond that seemed
vague, and his reminiscences were an odd jumble of a large town with
a cathedral where his mamma took him to hear Abbé Lebrun preach or
say mass--good M. l'Abbé Lebrun, who always gave him _bon-bons_, and
wore such large spectacles. Then there was a river with boats, a
bridge and a great mountain with a windmill, where he used to go with
his nurse when she visited the miller.
Then, there was a Chanoinesse who gave him painted toys; there were
some wicked soldiers, who burned a street and dragged away all the
people to die, and of these same soldiers he had a peculiar dread and
aversion. But whether they were ugly toys, or actors in some scene
the child had witnessed, Rohallion could not tell; he supposed the
affair referred to was some grim reality incident to the late
revolution. He could gather nothing more that afforded a clue; and
now as these memories were wakened in him, the faces of others came
with them; tears filled the child's fine dark eyes, and he entreated
piteously to have his mother brought to him and his nurse Nanette, or
have his father brought to him out of the sea; and thus perceiving
that nothing of certainty or value could be gleaned from him, his
protectors tacitly agreed to let the subject drop.
Breakfast was just over when Andrews announced Quartermaster Girvan
and Dominie Skaill, two individuals, who are perhaps bores in their
way, but are nevertheless necessary to us in the course of this
narrative.
They had heard of his lordship's arrival, and had "come to pay their
dutiful reverence," for something of the old feudal sentiment
lingered yet in Carrick, and a journey to Calcutta is a mere joke or
pleasure trip now, when compared with how the Scots of 1798 viewed
one to London, few prudent people attempting it without previously
making a will, and settling all their earthly affairs.
"Welcome, Girvan, and welcome, dominie," said Rohallion, shaking each
by the hand cordially; "I am glad to be at home again among you."
"Yea," replied the dominie, while rubbing one hand over the other,
and smiling blandly, as perhaps his scholars seldom saw him smile;
"your lordship has come back like Cincinnatus after the defeat of the
Volci and the Æqui, to plough turnips and plant gude kail on haugh
and rig--so welcome hame to Carrick, my lord."
The dominie had on his Sunday coat, with its huge flapped pockets;
his best three-cornered hat, bound with black braid, was under his
arm, and his square shoe-buckles shone like silver.
"And our little Frenchman has become quite a friend with your
lordship, I see," said Girvan, patting the child on the head.
"Quite--a splendid little fellow he is!"
"But call him not a Frenchman," said the dominie, "when he bears the
gude auld Carrick name of Kennedy."
"Aye, dominie; it used to find an echo hereabout, in the old trooping
and tramping times," replied Girvan.
"And has so still," added Rohallion, laughing; "for I am half a
Kennedy, and often have I heard my mother sing--
"'Twixt Wigton and the town of Ayr,
Portpatrick and the Cruives of Cree,
Nae man may hope in peace to bide,
Unless he court Saint Kennedie."
"Like the Maxwells in Nithsdale, the Kennedies had all their own way
here in those days," said Lady Winifred, as she drew off her lace
mittens, and prepared to adjust her ivory-mounted spinning-wheel.
"But to return to the present time, tell me, John Girvan, did that
French ship actually come within range of our gun-battery?"
"Yes, my lord--or nearly so."
"And what were you about, John, to stand with your hands in your
pockets at such a time? Egad, 'twas not like an old 25th man?"
The quartermaster reddened.
"There was a tremendous gale from the seaward," said Lady Rohallion,
coming to his assistance; "a storm--a tempest----"
"And she came only within a mile of the Partan Craig, where the
unfortunate merchantman was in sore peril--a foe on one side, a lee
shore on the other--eh, dominie?"
"'_Here_ Scylla bellows from her dire abodes,
Tremendous port--abhorred by men and gods,
And there Charybdis,'
as old Homer hath it," replied the dominie, promptly.
"Even had the battery been manned, my lord, I am doubtful--I am
doubtful if these old twenty-four pounders would pitch shot so far;
and she scarcely appeared, before she hauled her wind and disappeared
into the mist," said Girvan, giving his old yellow wig an angry twist.
"Some of these small craft are growing very saucy," said Lord
Rohallion, to change the subject, which he saw was distasteful to his
old comrade. "It was only the other day that a lieutenant with
fourteen men from one of our gun-brigs landed on the coast of France
to distribute royalist manifestoes of the Comte d'Artois, dated from
Holyrood, but he and his men were taken by a party of dragoons who
surrounded an auberge in which they were imprudently drinking. They
were instantly hanged as spies, by order of General Monnet, and the
bodies are to be seen on fifteen gibbets, a mile apart, along the
coast between Boulogne and Cape Grisnez."
"Poor men! How horrible!" exclaimed Lady Winifred.
"Such barbarities were not committed in our time, my lord, except
among the Indians."
"Quartermaster--but we are getting old fellows now," said Rohallion,
with something between a laugh and a sigh. "We have often stopped
the march of the French with fixed bayonets, but we can't arrest the
march of time."
"Aye, aye, my lord," said the old soldier, warming, and answering a
friendly smile from old Jack Andrews, who was removing the breakfast
equipage; "but, when at Minden, and while the French gun brigade was
bowling through the six British regiments that stood there in
division, we little thought that we would live to drink our grog in
Rohallion, forty years after, hale carles, and hearty ones, too."
"If we ever _thought_ at all, Girvan, which is not likely; reflection
troubles a young soldier seldom, and, egad! we were beardless boys
then."
"And those who were boys like ourselves then, and those who were
grey-haired grenadiers of Fontenoy and Culloden--who had no need to
powder their white hair--were alike mowed down together, and lay like
herrings in a landing net," said Girvan, sadly.
"It was a day on which the ripe fruit and the blossom were gathered
together," said Lady Rohallion, as her wheel revolved rapidly, and
little Quentin sat at her feet to watch it.
"Your ladyship's speech savoureth of poetry," said the dominie,
bowing; "it is even as my old friend Burns--puir Robbie Burns--would
have expressed himself."
"It is ten years since the Scots Horse Guards were amalgamated with
the new Life Guard Regiments," said Rohallion, commencing a familiar
topic.
"Just twelve years this summer, my lord," replied Girvan.
"And though moving slowly up the list of generals, Girvan, I have not
had a regiment since."
"Among the Romans----" began the dominie.
"A regiment! it is a brigade you should have," interrupted the
quartermaster, ruthlessly.
"Among the Romans," began the dominie again, when Lord Rohallion, who
was full of his grievance (was there ever an old soldier without
one?) spoke with something of irritation.
"I have actually been refused a brigade for service, though senior to
more favoured officers; but a time may come when Government may be
glad to avail themselves of my services, though I am afraid, John,
that I'm getting owre auld in the horn, as the drovers say..
Besides, they think that we old fellows of Minden and Bunker's Hill
are as much out of date as the snap-muskets and matchlocks of King
William's time. And zounds, man! there are not wanting in the Lower
House certain disloyal spirits, termed financial reformers, who
grudge the old soldier the day's pittance which he has won by blood
and sweat, and by wasting the flower of his days among the swamps of
the Helder, the fevers of the West Indies, and elsewhere."
"The devil take all fevers and reformers together--amen," said the
quartermaster; "but I believe this intended Egyptian business will be
only a flash in the pan when compared with what _we_ have seen."
"Among the Romans the soldiery at first received no _stipendium_,"
said the dominie, raising his voice and speaking very fast, lest he
should be interrupted; "but every man served at his own proper
charges."
"That would suit our modern whigs to a hair, dominie," said Lord
Rohallion, laughing.
"Yea, even to the vinegar which he mixed with spring water as his
daily drink, did he furnish all, in the early days of the Roman army."
"Vinegar grog!" exclaimed the quartermaster with disgust; "Heaven be
thanked I was not born a Roman. Such beggarly tipple would never
have suited the 25th. And now, my lord, when you are at leisure, I
wish to shew you a new farmsteading I have erected at the Cairns of
Blackhinney, and also how bravely the young trees are thriving in the
oakwood shaw."
"Glad to hear the latter, Girvan, for I agree with my worthy friend,
Admiral Collingwood, that every British proprietor should plant as
many oak trees as he can, to keep up our navy. 'I wish everybody,'
said he, in one of his letters, 'thought on this subject as I do,
they would not walk through their farms without a pocketful of acorns
to drop in the hedges, and let them take their chance,' and so keep
up the future wooden walls of old England."
Neither Rohallion nor the gallant old Admiral could foresee the days,
when those famous "wooden walls," would be represented by screw
propellers, armour clads, cupola ships, and steam rams!
Rohallion assumed his walking cane and Nivernois hat, to which he
still adhered, though it had been long out of fashion, and had the
flaps fastened up to its shallow crown by hooks and eyes; and, bowing
ceremoniously, left the dominie to confer with the lady concerning
the course of study on which little Quentin Kennedy was soon to
enter, while he issued forth with his old comrade the factor to look
over the estate.
Close by the haunted gate lay a fine old beech, on which a cavalier
Lord of Rohallion hanged as a traitor one of his vassals whom he
discovered serving as a soldier in an English regiment. It now lay
prostrate, for the storm had torn it up by the roots.
"Have this removed as soon as possible, Girvan," said the old lord;
"for, ugh! I never see a fallen tree, but I think of that devilish
abattis we fell into at Saratoga, when the Yankees would have made an
end of me, had it not been for Jack Andrews and others of the 25th."
"Aye, my lord, and some of the 17th Light Dragoons too--under
Corporal O' Lavery--you remember him?"
"Who could ever forget him that served there--who could ever forget
him or his story?" exclaimed the old general flourishing his
silver-headed cane; "not I, certainly. It was he who was entrusted
by my Lord Rawdon as a military courier (_estafette_, the French term
it), to bring me an important despatch concerning the movements of
the regiment, and this despatch the Yankees were determined I should
not receive, for spies had informed them of the bearer and his route,
so the way was beset by riflemen. The soldier who accompanied him
fell mortally wounded; O'Lavery was riddled by bullets too, yet he
rode manfully on, until from loss of blood he fell from his saddle.
Then Girvan, resolved that the important paper which he bore should
never fall into the hands of the Yankees, he crumpled it up and
thrust it into one _of his wounds_. I discovered it, when next
morning we came upon him dying in the bush, and he had just life
sufficient left to point to the fatal place where Rawdon's letter was
concealed.* As one of our greatest orators said, when Martius
Curtius to sacrifice himself for his country leaped into the gulf of
the forum, he had all Rome for his spectators; but the poor Irish
corporal was alone in the midst of a desert--I quote at random,
quartermaster. And yet, after all the brave deeds and service of
those days to refuse me this brigade for service--zounds! it was too
bad--too bad!"
But Rohallion survived his disappointment, and the two following
years glided peacefully away, at his old castle in Carrick.
* "The surgeon declared the wound itself not to be mortal; but
rendered so by the insertion of the despatch. Corporal O'Lavery was
a native of the county of Down, where a monument, the gratitude of
his countryman and commander Lord Rawdon, records his
fame."--_Records of the 17th Lancers_.