I will set down, if only to get rid of them, a few incidents of this
day.
Trivial they are--ludicrously so--to any one but me: yet they have left
me sitting with my head in my hands, stupid and idle, starting, each
hour, at the boom of the bell we took at Sebastopol--starting and
shivering like a nervous child.
Strange! there, in the Crimea, in the midst of danger, hardship, and
misery of all kinds I was at peace, even happy: happier than for many
years. I seemed to have lived down, and nearly obliterated from thought,
that one day, one hour, one moment,--which was but a moment. Can it, or
ought it, to weigh against a whole existence? or, as some religionists
would tell us, against an eternity? Yet, what is time, what is eternity?
And, what is man, measuring himself, his atom of good or ill, either
done or suffered, against God?
These are vain speculations, which I have gone over and over again, till
every link in the chain of reasoning is painfully familiar. I had better
give it up, and turn to ordinary things. Dear imaginary correspondent,
shall I tell you the story of my day?
It began peacefully. I always rest on a Sunday, if I can. I believe,
even had heaven not hallowed one day in the seven--Saturday or Sunday
matters not; let Jews and Christians battle it out!--there would still
be needful a day of rest; and that day would still be a blessed day.
Instinct, old habit, and later conviction always incline me to "keep the
sabbath:"--not, indeed, after the strict fashion of my forefathers, but
as a happy, cheerful, holy time, a resting-place between week and week,
in which to enjoy specially all righteous pleasures and earthly repose,
and to look forward to that rest which, we are told, "remaineth for the
people of God." The people of God. No other people ever do rest, even in
this world.
Treherne passed my hut soon after breakfast, and popped his head in, not
over welcomely, I confess, for I was giving myself the rare treat of
a bit of unprofessional reading. I had not seen him for two or three
days,--not since we appointed to go together to the General's dinner,
and he never appeared all the evening.
"I say, Doctor, will you go to church?"
Now, I do usually attend our airy military chapel--all doors and
windows--open to every kind of air, except airs from heaven, of which,
I am afraid, our chaplain does not bring with him a large quantity. He
leaves us to fatten upon Hebrew roots, without throwing us a crumb of
Christianity; prefers Moses and the prophets to the New Testament; no
wonder, as some few doctrines there, "Do unto others as ye would they
should do unto you."
"He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword!"... would sound
particularly odd in a military chapel, especially with his elucidation
of them, for he is the very poorest preacher I ever heard. Yet a worthy
man, a most sincere man: did a world of good out in the Crimera: used to
spend hours daily in teaching our men to read and write, got personally
acquainted with every fellow in the regiment, knew all their private
histories, wrote their letters home sought them out in the battle-field
and in the hospital, read to them and cheered them, comforted them, and
closed their eyes. There was not an officer in the regiment more
deservedly beloved than our chaplin. He is an admirable fellow--
everywhere but in the pulpit.
Nevertheless I attend his chapel, as I have always been in the habit of
attending some Christian worshi somewhere, because it is the simplest
way of showing that I am not ashamed of my Master before men.
Therefore, I would not smile at Trehune's astonishing fit of piety, but
simply assented: at which he evidently was disappointed.
You see, I'm turning resectable and going to church. I wonder such an
exceedingly respectable and religious fellow as you, Urquhart, has not
tried to make me go sooner."
"If you go against your will, and because it's respectable, you had
better stop away."
"Thank you; but suppose I have my own reasons for going?"
He is not a deep fellow; there is no deceit in the lad. All his faults
are uppermost, which makes them bearable.
"Come, out with it. Better make a clean breast to me. It will not be the
first time."
"Well, then--ahem!"--twisting his sash and looking down with most
extraordinary modesty,--"the fact is, _she_ wished it."
"Who?"
"The lady you know of. In truth, I may as well tell you, for I want you
to speak up for me to her father, and also to break it to my governor.
I've taken your advice and been and gone and done for myself."
"Married!" for his manner was so queer that I should not have wondered
at even that catastrophe.
"Not quite, but next door to it. Popped and been accepted. Yes, since
Friday, I have been an engaged man, Doctor."
Behind his foolishness was some natural feeling, mixed with a rather
comical awe of his own position.
For me, I was a good deal surprised; yet he might have come to a worse
end. To a rich young fellow of twenty-one, the world is full of many
more dangerous pitfalls than matrimony. So I expressed myself in the
customary congratulations, adding that I concluded the lady was the one
I had seen?
Treherne nodded.
"Sir William knows it?"
"Not yet. Didn't I tell you I wanted you to break it to him? Though he
will consent, of course. Her father is quite respectable--a clergyman,
you are aware; and she is such a handsome girl--would do credit to any
man's taste. Also, she likes me--a trifle!"
And he pulled his moustache with a satisfied recognition of his great
felicity.
I saw no reason to question it, such as it was. He was a well-looking
fellow, likely to please women; and this one, though there was not much
in her, appeared kindly and agreeable. The other sister, whom I
talked with, was something more. They were, no doubt, a perfectly
unobjectionable family; nor did I think that Sir William, who was
anxious for his son to marry early, would refuse consent to any
creditable choice. But, decidedly, He ought to be told at once--ought
indeed to have been consulted beforehand. I said so.
"Can't help that. It happened unexpectedly. I had, when I entered
rockmount, no more idea of such a thing than--than your cat, Doctor.
Upon my soul 'tis the fact! Well, well, marriage is a man's fate. He can
no more help himself in the matter than a stone can help rolling down
a hill. All's over, and I'm glad of it. So, will you write, and tell my
father?"
"Certainly not. Do it yourself, and you had better do it now. 'No time
like the present,' always."
I pushed towards him pens, ink, and paper; and returned to my book
again; but it was not quite absorbing; and occasional glimpses of
Treherne's troubled and puzzled face amused me, as well as made me
thoughtful.
It was natural that having been in some slight way concerned in it, this
matter, foreign as it was to the general tenor of my busy life, should
interest me a little. Though I viewed it, not from the younger, but from
the elder side. I myself never knew either father or mother; they died
when I was a child; but I think, whether or not we possess it in youth,
we rarely come to my time of life without having a strong instinctive
feeling of the rights of parents--being worthy parents. Rights, of
course modified in their extent by the higher claims of the Father
of all, but second to none other; except, perhaps, those whieh He has
Himself made superior--the rights of husband and wife.
I felt, when I came to consider it, exceedingly sorry that Treherne had
made a proposal of marriage without consulting his father. But it was no
concern of mine. Even his "taking my advice" was, he knew well, his
own exaggeration of an abstract remark which I could not but make;
otherwise, I had not meddled in his courting, which, in my opinion, no
third party has a right to do.
So I washed my hands of the whole affair, except consenting to
Treherne's earnest request that I would go with him, this morning,
to the little village church of which the young lady's father was the
clergyman, and be introduced.
"A tough old gentleman, too; as sharp as a needle, as hard as a
rock,--walking into his study, yesterday morning, was no joke, I assure
you."
"But you said he had consented?"
"Ah, yes, all's right. That is, it will be when I hear from the
governor."
All this while, by a curious amatory eccentricity, he had never
mentioned the lady's name. Nor had I asked, because I knew it. Also,
because that surname, common as it is, is still extremely painful to me,
either to utter or to hear.
We came late into church, and sat by the door. It was a pleasant
September forenoon; there was sunshine within and sunshine outside,
far away across the moors. I had never been to this village before;
it seemed a pretty one, and the church old and picturesque. The
congregation consisted almost entirely of poor people, except one
family, which I concluded to be the clergyman's. He was in the
reading-desk.
"That's her father," whispered Treherne.
"Oh, indeed." But I did not look at him for a minute or so; I could not.
Such moments will come, despite of reasoning, belief, conviction, when I
see a person bearing any name resembling _that_ name.
At last I lifted my head to observe him.
A calm, hard, regular face; well-shaped features; high, narrow forehead,
aquiline nose,--a totally different type from one which I so well
remember that any accidental likeness thereto impresses me as
startlingly and vividly as, I have heard, men of tenacious, fervent
memory will have impressed on them, through life, as their favourite
type of beauty, the countenance of their first love.
I could sit down now, at ease, and listen to this gentleman's reading
of the prayers. His reading was what might have been expected from
his face--classical, accurate, intelligent, gentlemanly. And the
congregation listened with respect, as to a clever exposition of things
quite beyond their comprehension. Except the gabble-gabble of the
Sunday-school, and the clerk's loud "A-a-men!" the minister had the
service entirely to himself.--A beautiful service--as I, though in heart
a Presbyterian still, must avow. Especially, when heard as I have heard
it--at sea, in hospital, at the camp. Not this camp, but ours in the
Crimea, where, all through the prayers, guns kept booming, and shells
kept flying, sometimes within a short distance of the chapel itself. I
mind of one Sunday, little more than a year ago, for it must have been
on the ninth of September, when I stopped on my way from Balaklava
hospital, to hear service read in the open air, on a hill-side. It was
a cloudy day, I remember; below, brown with long drought, stretched the
Balaklava plains; opposite, grey and still, rose the high mountains on
the other side of the Tchernaya; while, far away to the right,
towards our camp, one could just trace the white tents of the Highland
regiments; and to the left, hidden by the Col de Balaklava, a dull,
perpetual rumble, and clouds of smoke hanging in the air, showed where,
six miles off, was being enacted the fall of Sebastopol.
--Though at the time we did not know; we, this little congregation,
mustered just outside a hospital tent, where I remember, not a stone's
throw from where we, the living, knelt, lay a row of those straight,
still, formless forms, the more awful because, from familiarity, they
had ceased to be felt as such---each sewn up in the blanket, its only
coffin, waiting for burial--waiting also, we believe and hope, for the
resurrection from the dead.
What a sermon our chaplain might have preached! what words I, or any
man, could surely have found to say at such a time, on such a spot! Yet
what we did hear, were the merest platitudes--so utterly trivial and
out of place, that I do not now recall a single sentence. Strange,
that people--good Christian men, as I knew that man to be--should go
on droning out "words, words, words," when bodies and souls perish in
thousands round them; or splitting theological hairs to poor fellows,
who, except in an oath, are ignorant even of the Divine Name,--or
thundering anathemas at them for going down to the pit of perdition,
without even so much as pointing out to them the bright but narrow way.
I was sitting thus, absorbed in the heavy thoughts that often come to me
when thus quiet in church, hearing some man, who is supposed to be one
of the church's teachers, delivering the message of the church's Great
Head,--when looking up, I saw two eyes fixed on me.
It was one of the clergyman's three daughters; the youngest, probably,
for her seat was in the most uncomfortable corner of the pew.
--Apparently, the same I had talked with at Mrs. Granton's, though I was
not sure,--ladies look so different in their bonnets. Her's was close,
I noticed, and decently covering the head, not dropping off on her
shoulders like those I see ladies wearing, which will assuredly multiply
ophthalmic cases, with all sorts of head and face complaints, as the
winter winds come on. Such exposure must be very painful, too, these
blinding sunny days. How can women stand the torments they have to
undergo in matters of dress? If I had any woman-kind belonging to
me--Pshaw! what an idle speculation.
Those two eyes, steadfastly inquiring, with a touch of compassion in
them, startled me. Many a pair of eager eyes have I had to meet, but it
was always their own fate, or that of some one dear to them, which they
were anxious to learn: they never sought to know anything of me or mine.
Now, these did.
I am nervously sensitive of even kindly scrutiny. Involuntarily, I moved
so that one of the pillars came between me and those eyes. When we stood
up to sing, she kept them steadily upon her hymn-book, nor did they
wander again during church-time, either towards me or in any other
direction.
The face being just opposite, in the line of the pulpit, I could not
help seeing it during the whole of the discourse, which was, as I
expected, classical, laboured, elegant, and interesting,--after the
pattern of the preacher's countenance.
His daughter is not like him. In repose, her features are ordinary; nor
did they for one moment recall to me the flashing, youthful face, full
of action and energy, which had amused me that night at the Cedars. Some
faces catch the reflection of the moment so vividly, that you never see
them twice alike. Others, solidly and composedly handsome scarcely vary
at all, and I think it is of these last that one would soonest weary.
Irregular features have generally most character. The Venus di Medici
would have made a very stupid fireside companion, nor would I venture
to enter, for Oxford honours, a son who had the profile of the Apollo
Belvidere.
Treherne is evidently of a different opinion. He sat beaming out
admiration upon that large, fair, statuesque woman, who had turned so
that her pure Greek profile was distinctly visible against the red cloth
of' the high pew. She might have known what a pretty picture she was
making. She will please Sir William, who admires beauty, and she seems
refined enough, even for Lady Augusta Treherne. I thought to myself, the
lad might have gone farther and fared worse. His marriage was sure to
have been one of pure accident: he is not a young man either to have had
the decision to choose, or the firmness to win and keep.
Service ended, he asked me what I thought of her; and I said much as I
have written here. He appeared satisfied.
"You must stay and be introduced to the family: the father remains in
church. I shall walk home with them. Ah, she sees us."
The lad was all eagerness and excitement. He must be considerably in
earnest.
"Now, Doctor, come, nay, pray do."
For I hesitated.
Hesitation was too late, however: the introduction took place: Treherne
hurried it over; though I listened acutely, I could not be certain of
the name. It seemed to be, as I already believed, _Johnson_.
Treherne's beauty met him, all smiles, and he marched off by her side
in a most determined manner, the eldest sister following and joining the
pair, doubtless to the displeasure of one, or both. She, whom I did not
remember seeing before, is a little sharp-speaking woman, pretty, but
faded-looking, with very black eyes.
The other sister, left behind, fell in with me. We walked side by side
through the churchyard, and into the road. As I held the wicket gate
open for her to pass, she looked up, smiled, and said:--
"I suppose you do not remember me, Dr. Urquhart!"
I replied, "Yes I did:" that she was the young lady who "hated
soldiers."
She blushed extremely, glanced at Treherne, and said, not without
dignity:--
"It would be a pity to remember all the foolish things I have uttered,
especially on that evening."
"I was not aware they were foolish; the impression left on me was
that we had had a very pleasant conversation, which included far more
sensible topics than are usually discussed at balls."
"You do not often go to balls?"
"No."
"Do you dislike them?"
"Not always."
"Do you think they are wrong?"
I smiled at her cross-questioning, which had something fresh and
unsophisticated about it, like the inquisitiveness of a child.
"Really, I have never very deeply considered the question; my going, or
not going, is purely a matter of individual choice. I went to the Cedars
that night because Mrs. Granton was so kind as to wish it, and I was
only too happy to please her. I like her extremely, and owe her much."
"She is a very good woman," was the earnest answer. "And Colin has the
kindest heart in the world."
I assented, though amused at the superlatives in which very young people
delight; but, in this case, not so far away from truth as ordinarily
happens.
"You know Colin Granton;--have you seen him lately--yesterday I mean?
Did Captain Treherne see him yesterday?"
The anxiety with which the question was put reminded me of something
Treherne had mentioned, which implied his rivalry with Granton; perhaps
this kind-hearted damsel thought there would be a single-handed combat
on our parade-ground, between the accepted and rejected swains. I
allayed her fears by observing, that to my certain knowledge, Mr.
Granton had gone up to London on Saturday morning, and would not return
till Tuesday. Then, our eyes meeting, we both looked conscious; but, of
course, neither the young lady nor myself made any allusion to present
circumstances.
I said, generally, that Granton was a fine young fellow, not over
sentimental, nor likely to feel anything very deeply; but gifted with
great good sense, sufficient to make an admirable country-squire, and
one of the best landlords in the county, if only he could be brought to
feel the importance of his position.
"How do you mean?"
"His responsibility, as a man of fortune, to make the most of his
wealth."
"But how?--what is there for him to do?"
"Plenty, if he could only be got to do it."
"Could you not get him to do it?" with another look of the eager eyes.
"I?--I know so very little of the young man."
"But you have so much influence, I hear, over everybody. That is, Mrs.
Granton says.--We have known the Grantons ever since I was a child."
From her blush, which seemed incessantly to come, sudden and sensitive
as a child's, I imagined that time was not so very long ago: until
she said something about "my youngest sister," which proved I had been
mistaken in her age.
It was easier to talk to a young girl sitting forlorn by herself in
a ball-room, than to a grown-up lady, walking in broad daylight,
accompanied by two other ladies, who, though clergymen's daughters, are
as stylish fashionables as ever irritated my sober vision. She did
not, I must confess; she seemed to be the plain one of the family:
unnoticed--one might almost guess, neglected. Nor was there any
flightiness or coquettishness in her manner, which, though abrupt and
original, was quiet even to demure ness.
Pursuing my hobby of anatomising character, I studied her a good deal
during the pauses of conversation, of which there were not a few.
Compared with Treherne, whom I heard in advance, laughing and talking
with his usual light-heartedness, she must have found me uncommonly
sombre and dull.
Yet it was pleasant to be strolling leisurely along, one's feet dropping
softly down through rustling dead leaves into the dry, sandy mould which
is peculiar to this neighbourhood: you may walk in it, ancle-deep,
for miles, across moors and under pine-woods, without soiling a shoe.
Pleasant to see the sunshine striking the boughs of the trees, and lying
in broad, bright rifts on the ground here and there, wherever there was
an opening in the dense green tops of those fine Scotch firs, the like
of which I have never beheld out of my own country, nor there since
I was quite a boy. Also, the absence of other forest trees, the high
elevation, the wide spaces of moorland, and the sandy soil, give to the
atmosphere here a rarity and freshness which exhilarates, mentally and
bodily, in no small degree.
I thank God I have never lost my love of nature; never ceased to feel an
almost boyish thrill of delight in the mere sunshine and fresh air.
For miles I could have walked on, thus luxuriating, without wishing
to disturb my enjoyment by a word, but it was necessary to converse
a little, so I made the valuable and original remark "that this
neighbourhood would be very pretty in the spring."
My companion replied with a vivacity of indignation most unlike a grown
young lady, and exceedingly like a child:--
"Pretty? It is beautiful! You never can have seen it, I am sure."
I said, "My regiment did not come home till May: I had spent this spring
in the Crimea."
"Ah! the spring flowers there, I have heard, are remarkably beautiful,
much more so than ours."
"Yes;" and as she seemed fond of flowers, I told her of the great
abundance which in the peaceful spring that followed the war, we had
noticed, carpeting with a mass of colour those dreary plains; the
large Crimean snow-drops, the jonquils, and blue hyacinths, growing in
myriads, about Balaklava and on the banks of the Tchernaya; while on
every rocky dingle, and dipping into every tiny brook, hung bushes of
the delicate yellow jasmine.
"How lovely! But I would not exchange England for it. You should see how
the primroses grew all along that bank, and a little beyond, outside the
wood, is a hedge side, which will be one mass of blue-bells."
"I shall look for them. I have often found blue-bells till the end of
October."
"Nonsense!" What a laugh it was, with such a merry ring. "I beg your
pardon, Doctor Urquhart, but, really, blue-bells in October! Who ever
heard of such a thing?"
"I assure you I have found them myself, in sheltered places, both the
larger and smaller species; the one that grows from a single stem,
and that which produces two or three bells from the same stalk--the
campanula--shall I give you its botanical name?"
"Oh, I know what you mean--_hare-bell_."
"Blue-bell; the real blue-bell of Scotland. What you call blue-bells are
wild hyacinths." She shook her head with a pretty persistence. "No,
no; I have always called them blue-bells, and I always shall. Many a
scolding have I got about them when I used, on cold March days, to
steal a basket and a kitchen knife, to dig them up before the buds were
formed, so as to transplant them safely in time to flower in my garden.
Many's the knife I broke over that vain quest. Do you know how difficult
it is to get at the bulb of a bluebell?"
"Wild hyacinth, if you please."
"A blue-bell," she laughingly persisted. "I have sometimes picked out
a fine one, growing in some easy soft mould, and undermined him, and
worked round him, ten inches deep, fancying I had got to the root of him
at last, when slip went the knife; and all was over. Many a time I have
sat with the cut-off stalk in my hand, the long, white, slender stalk,
ending in two delicate green leaves, with a tiny bud between--you know
it; and actually cried, not only for vexation over lost labour, but
because it seemed such a pity to have destroyed what one never could
make alive again."
She said that, looking right into my face with her innocent eyes.
This girl, from her habit of speaking exactly as she thinks, and whether
from her solitary country rearing, or her inate simplicity of character,
thinking at once more naturally and originally than most women, will,
doubtless, often say things like these.
An idea once or twice this morning had flitted across my mind, whether
it would not be better for me to break through my hermit ways, and
allow myself to pay occasional visits among happy households, or the
occasional society of good and cultivated women; now it altogether
vanished. It would be a thing impossible.
This young lady must have very quick perceptions, and an accurate memory
of trivial things, for, scarcely had she uttered the last words, when
all her face was dyed crimson and red, as if she thought she had hurt or
offended me. I judged it best to answer her thoughts out plain.
"I agree with you that to kill wantonly even a flower is an evil deed.
But you need not have minded saying that to me, even after our argument
at the Cedars. I am not in your sense a soldier--a professed man-slayer,
my vocation is rather the other way. Yet even for the former I could
find arguments of defence."
"You mean, there are higher things than mere life, and greater crimes
than taking it away? So I have been thinking myself, lately. You set me
thinking, for the which I am glad to own myself your debtor."
I had not a word of answer to this acknowledgment, at once frank and
dignified. She went on:--
"If I said foolish or rude things that night, you must remember how apt
one is to judge from personal experience, and I have never seen any fair
specimen of the army. Except," and her manner prevented all questioning
of what duty elevated into a truth,--"except, of course, Captain
Treherne."
He caught his name.
"Eh, good people. Saying nothing bad of me, I hope? Anyhow, I leave my
character in the hands of my friend Urquhart. He rates me soundly to my
face, which is the best proof of his not speaking ill of me behind my
back."
"So that is Doctor Urquhart's idea of friendship! bitter outside, and
sweet at the core. What does he make of love, pray? All sweet and no
bitter?"
"Or all bitter and no sweet."
These speeches came from the two other sisters, the latter from the
eldest; their flippancy needed no reply, and I gave none. The second
sister was silent: which, I thought, shewed better taste, under the
circumstances.
For a few minutes longer we sauntered on, leaving the wood and passing
into the sunshine, which felt soft and warm as spring. Then
there happened,--I have been slow in coming to it, one of those
accidents,--trivial to all but me, which, whenever occurring, seem
to dash the peaceful present out of my grasp, and, throw me back
years--years, to the time when I had neither present nor future, but
dragged on life, I scarcely know how, with every faculty tightly bound
up in an inexorable, intolerable past.
She was carrying her prayer-book, or Bible I think it was, though
English people oftener carry to church prayer-books than Bibles, and
seem to reverence them quite as much, or more. I had noticed it, as
being not one of those velvet things with gilt crosses that ladies
delight in, but plain-bound, with slightly soiled edges, as if with
continual use. Passing through a gate, she dropped it: I stooped to pick
it up, and there, on the fly-leaf, I saw written:--
"Theodora Johnston."--"_Johnston_."
Let me consider what followed, for my memory is not clear.
I believe, I walked with her to her own door, that there was a gathering
and talking, which ended in Treherne's entering with the ladies,
promising to overtake me before I reached the camp. That the gate closed
upon them, and I heard their lively voices inside the garden wall while
I walked rapidly down the road and back into the fir-wood. That gaining
its shadow and shelter I sat down on a felled tree, to collect myself.
Johnson her name is not, but _Johnston_. Spelt precisely the same as I
remember noticing on his handkerchief, Johnston, without the final _e._
Yet, granting that identity, it is still a not uncommon name; there are
whole families, whole clans of Johnstons along the Scottish border, and
plenty of English Johnstons and Johnstones likewise.
Am I fighting with shadows, and torturing myself in vain? God grant it!
Still, after this discovery, it is vitally necessary to learn more.
I have sat up till midnight, waiting Treherne's return. He did not
overtake me--I never expected he would--or desired it. I came back, when
I did come back, another way. His hut, next to mine, is still silent.
So is the whole camp at this hour. Refreshing myself a few minutes since
by standing bare-headed at my hut-door, I saw nothing but the stars
overhead, and the long lines of lamps below; heard nothing but the sigh
of the moorland wind, and the tramp of the sentries relieving guard.
I must wait a little longer; to sleep would be impossible till I have
tried to find out as much as I can.
What if it should be _that_--the worst? which might inevitably
produce--or leave me no reason longer to defer--the end?
*****
Here it seemed as if with long pondering my faculties became torpid. I
fell into a sort of dream; which, being broken by a face looking in at
me through the window, a sickness of perfectly childish terror came over
me. For an instant only--and then I had put away my writing-materials
and unbolted the door.
Treherne came in, laughing violently. "Why, Doctor, did you take me for
a ghost?"
"You might have been. You know what happened last week to those poor
young fellows coming home from a dinner-party in a dogcart."
"By George I do!" The thought of this accident, which had greatly
shocked the whole camp, sobered him at once. "To be knocked over
in action is one thing; but to die with one's head under a
carriage-wheel--ugh!--Doctor, did ye really think something of the
sort had befallen me? Thank you; I had no idea you cared so much for a
harum-scarum fellow like me."
He could not be left believing an untruth; so I said, my startled looks
were not on his account; the fact was, I had been writing closely for
some hours, and was nervous--rather.
The notion of my having "nerves," afforded him considerable amusement.
"But that is just what Dora persisted--good sort of creature, isn't she?
the one you walked with from church. I told her you were as strong as
iron and as hard as a rock, and she said she didn't believe it; that
yours was one of the most sensitive faces she had ever seen."
"I am very much obliged to Miss Theodora--I really was not aware of it
myself."
"Nor I either, faith! but women are so sharp-sighted. Ah, Doctor, you
don't half know their ways."
I concluded he had stayed at Rockmount; had he spent a pleasant day?
"Pleasant? ecstatic. Now, acknowledge--isn't she a glorious girl? Such
a mouth--such an eye--such an arm! Altogether a magnificent creature.
Don't you think so? Speak out, I shan't be jealous."
I said, with truth, she was an extremely handsome young woman.
"Handsome? Divine. But she's as lofty as a queen--won't allow any
nonsense--I didn't get a kiss the whole day. She will have it we are
not even engaged till I hear from the governor; and I can't get a letter
till Tuesday, at soonest. Doctor, it's maddening. If all is not settled
in a week, and that angel mine within six more--as she says she will be,
parents consenting--I do believe it will drive me mad."
"Having her, or losing?"
"Either. She puts me nearly out of my senses."
"Sit down then, and put yourself into them again. For a few minutes, at
least."
For I perceived the young fellow was warm with something besides love.
He had been solacing himself with wine and cigars in the mess-room.
Intemperance was not one of his failings, nor was he more than a little
excited now; not by any means what men consider "overtaken," or, to use
the honester and uglier word, "drunk." Yet, as he stood there, lolling
against the door, with hot cheeks and watery eyes, talking and laughing
louder than usual, and diffusing an atmosphere both nicotian and
alcoholic, I thought it was as well on the whole that his divinity did
not see her too human young adorer. I have often pitied women, mothers,
wives, sisters. If they could see some of us men as we often see one
another!
Treherne talked rapturously of the family at Rockmount--the father and
the three young ladies.
I asked if there were no mother.
"No. Died, I believe, when my Lisabel was a baby. Lisabel; isn't it
a pretty name? Lisabel Treherne, better still--beats Lisabel Johnston
hollow."
This seemed an opportunity for questions, which must be put; safer put
them now, than when Treherne was in a soberer and more observant mood.
"Johnston is a Border name. Are they Scotch?"
"Not to my knowledge--I never inquired. Will, if you wish, doctor. You
canny Scots always hang together, ha! ha!--but I say, did you ever see
three nicer girls? Shouldn't you like one of them for yourself?"
I!
"Thank you--I am not a marrying man; but you will find them a pleasant
family, apparently. Are there any more sisters?"
"No!--quite enough, too."
"Nor brothers?"
"Not the ghost of one!"
"Perhaps,"--was it I, or some mocking imp speaking through my
lips--"perhaps only the ghost of one. None now living, probably?"
"None at all that I ever heard of. So much the better; I shall have her
more to myself. Heigho! it's an age till Tuesday."
"You'd better go to your bed, and shorten the time, by ten hours."
"So I will. Night, night, old fellow--as they teach little brats to say,
on disappearing from dessert.'Pon my life, I see myself the venerated
head of a household, and pillar of the state already. You'll be quite
proud of my exceeding respectability."
He put his head in again, two minutes after, with a nod and a wink.
"I say, think better of it. Try for Miss Dora--the second.
Charteris one, me the other, and you the third. What a jolly lot of
brothers-in-law. Do think better of it."
"Hold your tongue, and go to your bed."
It was not possible to go to mine, till I had arranged my thoughts.
What he stated must be correct. If otherwise, it is next to impossible
that, in his position of intimacy, he should not have heard it. Families
do not, I suppose, so easily forget one who is lost. There must have
been only those three daughters.
I may lay me down in peace. Thou who seest not as man sees, wilt Thou
make it peace, even for me?