THE QUEEN ANNE'S HEAD.
"Well, suppose life be a desert? There are halting-places and
shades, and refreshing waters; let us profit by them for to-day. We
know that we must march on when to-morrow comes, and tramp on our
destiny onward."--THACKERAY.
Having amply satisfied the worthy carrier, Quentin quitted the
waggon, and proceeded through the bustling, but then narrow, unpaved,
and ill-lighted streets of Ayr, towards one of the principal inns,
the Queen Anne's Head, the only ONe in the town with which he was
familiar, as Lord Rohallion's carriage occasionally stopped there.
It was a large, rambling, old-fashioned house, with a galleried
court, ample stabling, low ceiled rooms; with dark oak panels, heavy
dormant beams, and stone fire-places; wooden balconies projecting
over stone piazzas, tall gables, and turret-like turnpike stairs; and
a mouldered escutcheon over the entrance door showed that in palmier
days it had been the town mansion of some steel-coated lesser baron.
Hotels were still unknown in the three bailiwicks of Carrick, Kyle,
and Cunninghame; thus in the yard behind the Queen Anne's Head, the
stage coach, his majesty's mail (whose scarlet-coated guard bore
pistols, and a blunderbuss that might have frightened Bonaparte), the
carrier's waggon, the farmer's gig, and the lumbering, old-fashioned
coaches of my Lord Rohallion, or the Earls of Cassilis and Eglinton,
with their wooden springs and stately hammercloths, might all be seen
standing side by side. Though war rendered the continent a sealed
book to the English, Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels had not as
yet opened up all Scotland to the tourists of Europe and Cockneydom.
The kingdom of the Jameses could not be "done" then as now, by Brown,
Jones, and Robinson, with knapsack on back (with Black's Guide and
Bradshaw's Table, tartan peg-tops and paper collars), in a fortnight
by rail and steam; hence a traveller on foot, and portmanteau in
hand, was apt to be considered in the rural districts as an English
pedlar or worse. Indeed, Scotland and England were then very little
changed from what they had been in the days of William and Mary, and
but for worthy old James Watt they might have been so _still_.
"I'll be extravagant--I'll have a jovial dinner and a glass of wine,"
thought Quentin, who, though pale and weary, had the appetite of a
young hawk, notwithstanding all his doubts and troubles. "Which
way?" he inquired of a surly-looking waiter, who stood at the inn
door, with a towel over his arm; but this official, instead of
replying, very leisurely surveyed Quentin from head to foot, and then
glanced superciliously at his portmanteau.
His wetting over night, his repose among the straw, and the
subsequent journey among the carrier's bales and butter firkins had
not improved his external appearance. Quentin felt aware of this,
and reiterated angrily.
"Which way--did you not hear me?"
"You've taen the wrang gate, my friend, I'm thinking," replied the
waiter, shaking his head.
"Wrong way! What do you mean, fellow?"
"Nae mair a fellow than yoursel'," said the waiter, saucily. "The
'Blue Bell,' doon the next wynd, or the 'Souter Johnnie,' opposite
the Tolbooth, will better suit ye than the 'Anne's Head.' They are
famous resorts for packmen and dustifute bodies."
"I mean to remain where I am. Show me to a bedroom, and order dinner
for me in the dining-room," said Quentin, flushing up with sudden
passion. "The best in the house, and lose no time!"
"Some military gentlemen are in the best chamber," urged the waiter,
whom this manner did not fail to impress, as he lingered with his
hand on the lock of a door.
"If the devil himself were there, what is it to me? Do as I order,
or I will kick you into the street!"
The waiter, who, as tourists and idle travellers were then unknown in
Ayr, was utterly at a loss to make out the character of this new
guest, bowed and ushered him into a bedroom, after which, he hastened
away, no doubt to report upon the dubious kind of occupant, who had
almost forced his way into No. 20.
Though the contents of Quentin's portmanteau were limited, he
speedily made such an improvement in his toilet, that when he came
forth he received a very gracious bow from Boniface, who had been
hovering about the corridor on the watch; and he was ushered into the
principal dining-room of the establishment, a long and rather
low-roofed apartment, having several massive tables and oval-backed
old-fashioned chairs, a gigantic sideboard, within the brass rail of
which stood three upright knife and spoon cases, several plated
tankards, salvers, and branch candlesticks of quaint and antique form.
The room was decorated with prints of Nelson's victories, the Siege
of Gibraltar, the Battle of Alexandria, and other recent glories of
our arms by sea and land; while over the mantel-piece was one of
Gillray's gaudily-coloured political caricatures, which were then so
much in vogue--for he was the H.B. and _Punch_ of the Regency.
Two officers in undress uniform, with blue facings (their swords,
sashes, and caps lying on the table beside them) were lounging over
some brandy and water, and laughing at Gillray's, not over-delicate
print, while Quentin retired to a remote corner of the room, and
smarting under the waiter's impertinence, now felt more lonely and
depressed than he had done since leaving home. He could remember
that his last reception in that very house had been so different,
when, in Lady Rohallion's carriage, he and Flora Warrender had driven
up to the door and ordered luncheon.
One of the military guests was a tall, weather-beaten, soldier-like
man, about thirty-five years of age, a lieutenant apparently by the
bullion of his epaulettes; the other was slender, fair-haired, and
rather plainly featured, and proved to be the ensign of his
recruiting party, which was then beating up at Ayr. As the churlish
waiter passed them after putting some wine before Quentin, the
lieutenant asked, in a low voice--
"What is _he_?"
"Who, sir?"
"That young fellow in the corner."
"Too proud for a recruit--an officer, I think," said the waiter, with
a grin.
"A sheriff's officer?--that boy, do you mean?"
"No, sir--in the army," whispered the waiter, with a still more
impertinent grin, and retired before Quentin could hurl the decanter
at his head, which he felt very much inclined to do.
He was seriously offended, but affected to look out of the window,
while the two subalterns, turning their backs on him, resumed their
conversation as if he had not been present.
"And so, Pimple," said the senior, "when you proposed for the
Bailie's daughter you were deep in love--"
"Yes--very."
"And in debt and drink, too?"
"I was in love, I tell you," said the ensign, angrily.
"For the _twenty-fifth_ time, eh?"
"Not exactly, Monkton; but you are aware that fathers have flinty
hearts, and seldom see with--with--"
"With what--out with it, old fellow.",
"Their charming daughters' eyes," sighed the ensign.
"True, or I should have been seen to advantage long ago. But an
ensign under orders for foreign service is not the most eligible of
sons-in-law."
"True--but in _my_ ease, at least," continued the ensign, who was
quite serious, while his senior officer was purple with suppressed
laughter, "in my case, as a young gentleman possessed of moderate
fortune, moderate accomplishments----"
"And moderate virtue--eh, Pimple?"
"You are very impertinent, Monkton," remonstrated the other,
upbraidingly.
"But truthful, my dear boy, very truthful," said the quizzing
lieutenant, for half the conversation was mere "barrack-room chaff,"
to use a phrase then unknown; "and if old Squaretoes----"
"Who do you mean?"
"Mean? why this rich old flax-spinner, the father of your fair one.
If he should come down handsomely, we fellows of the 25th would
consider you quite as our factor--eh, Pimple?"
On hearing this number, which was so familiar to his ear, Quentin
Kennedy turned to observe the speakers more particularly, when a
third officer, a very handsome man, about forty years of age, with a
nut-brown cheek, a rollicking blue eye, and a hearty laugh, a square,
well-built form, clad in full regimentals, scarlet-faced and lapelled
with green and gold to the waist, and wearing large loose epaulettes,
burst into the room, noisily and without ceremony. As he did so, he
threw his arms round a very pretty chambermaid, who was tripping past
with something from the sideboard, and kissing the girl, who was half
pleased and half scared, he shouted in a tragi-comic manner, a
passage from the _Merchant's Wife_, a now forgotten play:--
"Woman thou stol'st my heart--just now thou stol'st it,
A cannon-bullet might have kissed my lips
And left me as much life!"
"If the sour-visaged landlord catches you kissing any of his
squaws"----suggested the lieutenant.
"It is a custom we learned in the Dutch service," replied the new
comer, laughingly.
"Have you got the route for to-morrow, Warriston?" asked the
lieutenant.
"All right," said the other, flourishing an oblong official paper;
"it was brought by an orderly dragoon--here it is. His majesty's
will and pleasure, &c., to civil (query, uncivil) magistrates and
others and so forth, to provide billets for the noisy, carriages for
the drunken, and handcuffs for the disorderly, of three officers,
three sergeants, and seventy rank and file, proceeding by Muirkirk
and Kirknewton to Edinburgh--a seventy miles' march."
"Ugh!" groaned the lieutenant.
"So, Pimple, your love affair must be off like ourselves, by beat of
drum to-morrow."
The ensign heaved a kind of mock sigh, and raised his white eyebrows.
"Now, waiter, quick with dinner--the best in larder and cellar," said
the captain to that churlish attendant, who laid a knife and fork for
Quentin at the extreme end of the long table.
"Who is the solitary or exclusive person that is to be carved for
there, half a mile off?" asked the captain.
The waiter glanced towards Quentin.
"Nonsense," said the Captain of the 94th, "lay his cover with
ours--absurd to dine alone at the end of this devilish long table.
You'll join us, eh?"
"With pleasure," said Quentin, bowing.
"A glass of wine with you. What are you drinking?"
"Sherry."
They filled their glasses, bowed, and drank, after which Quentin came
forward and joined them.
"I'm Dick Warriston, 94th. My friends, Mr. Monkton and Mr. Boyle,
25th."
"Mr. Kennedy," said Quentin, introducing himself, with a heightened
colour.
Quentin soon learned from their conversation that the captain had
been recruiting for the 94th, and the other two officers for the
25th, in Ayrshire, with considerable success; that they had obtained
a sufficient number of men, and were under orders to march for the
head-quarters of their respective corps by daybreak on the morrow.
He also heard, incidentally, some of the little secrets of
recruiting, and the tricks played by knowing sergeants to trepan men
into paying smart-money, and so forth; that the lieutenant had been
"rowed" with a threat of being summoned to head-quarters for
enlisting men beneath the proper height, his sergeant having supplied
them with false heels, five feet seven being the minimum for "the
Borderers;" and next, that he had narrowly escaped a court-martial
for sending some half-dozen O'Neils and O'Donnels (all Irish) to the
regiment, as MacNeils and MacDonnels from the Western Isles.
The three officers, in their jollity, thoughtlessness, laughter, and
general lightness of heart, formed a strong contrast to poor
Quentin's dejection of spirit. He envied them, and asked of himself
why was he not happy and merry too--why was he not one of them?
Richard Warriston, the senior, had begun life as a subaltern in
General Sir Ralph Dundas's Regiment of the Scots-Dutch, as they were
named--the famous old Scots brigade of six battalions, which served
their High Mightinesses the States of Holland from the days of James
VI. to those of the French Revolution--in all the bloody wars of two
centuries, bearing themselves with honour and never losing a
standard, though they had captured many from every army in Europe.
They volunteered, as the 94th Foot, into the British service about
the end of the last century, and came back to Scotland clad in the
old Dutch yellow uniform; hence Warriston's stories and memories were
all of Holland and Flanders, Prussia and Austria, and many a strange
anecdote he had to tell at times.
Desirous of showing the suspicious landlord and impertinent waiter
how _other_ persons viewed him, Quentin ordered another bottle of
wine.
"The deuce!" he heard the captain whisper to Monkton; "we can't
permit this mere boy to treat us to wine."
"_Two_ bottles, and be sharp, waiter," said Quentin, whose pride the
well-meaning officer had piqued.
"He is a regular trump," said Monkton, adjusting his napkin.
"A gentleman--a phrase I prefer," added Warriston in the same
undertone, as he proceeded to slice down a gallant capon; for he
could perceive at once, by Quentin's bearing at the dinner-table--the
truest and best test--that he knew all its etiquette and had been
used to good society. As the wine circulated and reserve thawed (not
that there was much of it, certainly, in the present quartet) Quentin
asked Monkton if he remembered an officer named Girvan in his corps.
"Girvan--Girvan--remember him?--yes; an old quartermaster--rose from
the ranks, didn't he?"
"Yes."
"He left us on a half-pay commission in the year I joined, during
Lord Rohallion's lieutenant-colonelcy. (By-the-bye, his lordship
lives somewhere hereabout; should leave our cards for him, but have
no time.) Girvan was a queer old fellow, who always wore a yellow
wig--do you know him?"
"Intimately. I have known him from my childhood," said Quentin, his
eyes sparkling and heart swelling with pleasure, that he could speak
of some one at home.
"Any relation of yours?" asked Monkton; and so weak is human nature
that Quentin blushed that any one should think he was so, and then
blushed deeper still that he was ashamed of his true and sterling old
friend.
"Perhaps he is your father?" suggested the ensign, mischievously.
"Sir, I said my name is Kennedy; my father was a captain of the Scots
Brigade in the French service."
"Ah--indeed!" said Warriston, becoming suddenly interested; "is he
still alive?"
"Alas, sir, no!"
"Killed in action, likely?"
"He was drowned at sea, after an engagement with a French ship off
the mouth of the Clyde."
"And where have you come from, that you travel thus alone?"
"I cannot say."
"Then where are you going to?" asked the ensign.
"I don't know," replied Quentin, sadly.
"Can't say and don't know!" said the captain of the Scots Brigade;
"then my advice would be to stay where you are."
"That is not possible."
"You are an odd fellow--quite an enigma," said Monkton, laughing.
"Perhaps I am," replied poor Quentin, with a sickly smile.
"Do you know, my young friend, that I have been observing you closely
for some time (pardon me saying so), but with something of friendly
interest, and I perceive an air of dejection about you that shows
there is something wrong--a screw loose somewhere," said Captain
Warriston, kindly.
"Wrong?" repeated Quentin, flushing, and in doubt how to take the
remark.
"Yes; I have seen so much of the world that I can read a man's face
like an open book."
"And the reading of mine----"
"Is satisfactory; but there is something in your eyes that tells me
you are in a scrape somehow--at home, perhaps?"
"Home!" exclaimed Quentin, in a voice that trembled, for the wine was
affecting him; "I have _none_!"
The three officers glanced at each other, and the fair-haired
ensign's white eyebrows went up rather superciliously.
"I find that I must talk with you, my young friend," said
Warriston--"will you have a cigar?" he added, offering his case after
the cloth was removed.
"Thank you--no; I am not a smoker."
In fact, Quentin had never seen the soothing "weed" in such a form,
until his foe, the Master, came to Rohallion.
"Waiter, bring candles--another bottle, and then be off; these
decanters are empty--fill again; le Roi est mort--vive le Roi!"
"In short, Mr. Kennedy, you have run from college or home, I fear,"
said Monkton; "what have you been about--making love to some of your
lady-mother's maids, and got into a double scrape, or what? See how
he flushes--there has been some love in the case, at least."
"Were you never in love?" asked Quentin, who certainly did redden,
but with annoyance.
"Who--I--me?--what the devil--in love!" and the bulky lieutenant lay
back in his chair and fairly laughed himself crimson, either at the
idea or the simplicity of the question. "I have long since learned
that there is nothing so variable in the world as woman's temper."
"The Horse Guards excepted," said Warriston; "the great nobs there
never know their own minds for three days consecutively; witness all
the vacillation about who is to command the Spanish expedition."
"Then, Mr. Pimple," began Quentin, "have you ever----"
"Mr. Kennedy," said the ensign, angrily, "I'll have you to know, sir,
that my name is Boyle--Ensign Patrick Boyle, at your service."
"So it is," said the lieutenant, choking with laughter, on perceiving
that Quentin looked quite bewildered; "but we call him Pimple at the
mess for being only five feet and an inch or so. He is not big
enough to be a Boyle, though he is one of a tall Ayrshire stock. Is
not it so, Pat, old boy? Perhaps you are some relation of the famous
chemist?"
"Which--who?"
"I mean Robert Boyle was seventh son of the Earl of Cork, and became
_father_ of chemistry. Now, don't think of calling me out, Pat, for,
'pon my soul, I won't go. The 25th couldn't do without us. You must
know, Warriston, that Pimple was in the Royals before he joined us;
but he had always a fancy for the Borderers. You used to pass
yourself, in mufti, as a 25th man; didn't you, Pimple?--long before
you had the honour to admire that blessed number on your own
buttons--eh?"
Though hearty, hospitable, and jovial, to Quentin it seemed that
Monkton had an irrepressible desire to quiz the ensign, even to
rudeness, and the latter took it all good-naturedly enough till the
fumes of the wine mounted into his head.
"But, to return to what we were talking of," said Warriston,
earnestly and kindly. "Can I advise you in any way, my friend? Are
you already a prodigal, who has neither a herd of promising pigs, nor
the husks wherewith to feed them?"
"Excuse me entering much into my own affairs. My father, I have told
you, is dead. I have no mother--no friends--to counsel me," he
continued, in a tremulous voice, "and I know not whether to join the
service or drown myself in the nearest river."
"The Ayr is not very deep," said Monkton, despite a deprecatory
glance from his senior; "why don't you say hang yourself?"
"Well, then, or hang myself," said Quentin, bitterly.
"And the alternative is joining the service?"
"Yes."
"You pay his Majesty and his uniform a high compliment," said
Warriston, with a hearty laugh, in which Quentin, seeing the
ungraciousness of his remark, was fain to join; "but as for entering
the ranks, you must not think of that. Why not do as I did, and many
better men have done--join some regiment of Cavalry or Infantry, as a
gentleman volunteer?"
A new light seemed to break upon Quentin with these words--a new hope
and spirit flashed up in his heart.
"How, sir," he asked, "how, sir? Explain to me, pray."
"Zounds, man! it is very simple. A letter of recommendation to the
officer commanding any regiment now under orders for the seat of war,
a few pounds in your pocket to pay your way till under canvas or
before the enemy, are all that is necessary."
"Thanks to a dear friend, I have money enough and to spare; but the
letter----"
"We have too many volunteers already with both battalions of the
Scots Brigade," said Warriston, reflectively.
"But you can give him a letter to our commanding officer," interposed
Monkton.
"Why not give him one yourself, Dick?"
"Old Middleton would never believe in any person who was warmly
recommended for the first vacant commission by such a fellow as I."
"Egad, you are perhaps right," said Warriston, laughing; "get me ink
and paper, Pimple----"
"Boyle," said the ensign, sullenly.
"Beg pardon, Boyle, I mean--thanks. Here goes for all the virtues
that were ever recorded on a rich man's tombstone." With great
readiness Captain Warriston wrote a letter of introduction and
recommendation for Quentin to the officer commanding the 25th Foot,
in which he gave him as many good qualities as the sheet of paper
could contain, and wrote of him as warmly as if he had known him from
boyhood. It was unanimously approved of by all present--by none more
than Quentin himself, and after it was duly scaled, he pocketed it as
carefully as ever Gil Blas did his patent of nobility.