Although the young and sensitive De Haldimar had found physical relief
in the summary means resorted to by the surgeon, the moral wound at his
heart not only remained unsoothed, but was rendered more acutely
painful by the wretched reflections, which, now that he had full
leisure to review the past, and anticipate the future in all the gloom
attached to both, so violently assailed him. From the moment when his
brother's strange and mysterious disappearance had been communicated by
the adjutant in the manner we have already seen, his spirits had been
deeply and fearfully depressed. Still he had every reason to expect,
from the well-known character of Halloway, the strong hope expressed by
the latter might be realised; and that, at the hour appointed for
trial, his brother would be present to explain the cause of his
mysterious absence, justify the conduct of his subordinate, and
exonerate him from the treachery with which he now stood charged. Yet,
powerful as this hope was, it was unavoidably qualified by dispiriting
doubt; for a nature affectionate and bland, as that of Charles de
Haldimar, could not but harbour distrust, while a shadow of
uncertainty, in regard to the fate of a brother so tenderly loved,
remained. He had forced himself to believe as much as possible what he
wished, and the effort had, to a certain extent succeeded; but there
had been something so solemn and so impressive in the scene that had
passed when the prisoner was first brought up for trial, something so
fearfully prophetic in the wild language of his unhappy wife, he had
found it impossible to resist the influence of the almost superstitious
awe they had awakened in his heart.
What the feelings of the young officer were subsequently, when in the
person of the murdered man on the common, the victim of Sir Everard
Valletort's aim, he recognised that brother, whose disappearance had
occasioned him so much inquietude, we shall not attempt to describe:
their nature is best shown in the effect they produced--the almost
overwhelming agony of body and mind, which had borne him, like a
stricken plant, unresisting to the earth. But now that, in the calm and
solitude of his chamber, he had leisure to review the fearful events
conspiring to produce this extremity, his anguish of spirit was even
deeper than when the first rude shock of conviction had flashed upon
his understanding. A tide of suffering, that overpowered, without
rendering him sensible of its positive and abstract character, had, in
the first instance, oppressed his faculties, and obscured his
perception; but now, slow, sure, stinging, and gradually succeeding
each other, came every bitter thought and reflection of which that tide
was composed; and the generous heart of Charles de Haldimar was a prey
to feelings that would have wrung the soul, and wounded the
sensibilities of one far less gentle and susceptible than himself.
Between Sir Everard Valletort and Charles de Haldimar, who, it has
already been remarked, were lieutenants in Captain Blessington's
company, a sentiment of friendship had been suffered to spring up
almost from the moment of Sir Everard's joining. The young men were
nearly of the same age; and although the one was all gentleness, the
other all spirit and vivacity, not a shade of disunion had at any
period intervened to interrupt the almost brotherly attachment
subsisting between them, and each felt the disposition of the other was
the one most assimilated to his own. In fact, Sir Everard was far from
being the ephemeral character he was often willing to appear. Under a
semblance of affectation, and much assumed levity of manner, never,
however, personally offensive, he concealed a brave, generous, warm,
and manly heart, and talents becoming the rank he held in society, such
as would not have reflected discredit on one numbering twice his years.
He had entered the army, as most young men of rank usually did at that
period, rather for the agremens it held forth, than with any serious
view to advancement in it as a profession. Still he entertained the
praiseworthy desire of being something more than what is, among
military men, emphatically termed a feather-bed soldier; and, contrary
to the wishes of his fashionable mother, who would have preferred
seeing him exhibit his uniform in the drawing-rooms of London, had
purchased the step into his present corps from a cavalry regiment at
home. Not that we mean, however, to assert he was not a feather-bed
soldier in its more literal sense: no man that ever glittered in gold
and scarlet was fonder of a feather-bed than the young baronet; and, in
fact, his own observations, recorded in the early part of this volume,
sufficiently prove his predilection for an indulgence which, we take
it, in no way impugned his character as a soldier. Sir Everard would
have fought twenty battles in the course of the month, if necessary,
and yet not complained of the fatigue or severity of his service,
provided only he had been suffered to press his downy couch to what is
termed a decent hour in the day. But he had an innate and, perhaps, it
may be, an instinctive horror of drills and early rising; a pastime in
which the martinets and disciplinarians of the last century were very
much given to indulge. He frequently upheld an opinion that must have
been little less than treason in the eyes of a commander so strict as
Colonel de Haldimar, that an officer who rose at eight, with all his
faculties refreshed and invigorated, might evince as much of the true
bearing of the soldier in the field, as he who, having quitted his
couch at dawn, naturally felt the necessity of repose at a moment when
activity and exertion were most required.
We need scarcely state, Sir Everard's theories on this important
subject were seldom reduced to practice; for, even long before the
Indians had broken out into open acts of hostility, when such
precautions were rendered indispensable, Colonel de Haldimar had never
suffered either officer or man to linger on his pillow after the first
faint dawn had appeared. This was a system to which Sir Everard could
never reconcile himself. He had quitted England with a view to active
service abroad, it is true, but he had never taken "active service" in
its present literal sense, and, as he frequently declared to his
companions, he preferred giving an Indian warrior a chance for his
scalp any hour after breakfast, to rising at daybreak, when, from very
stupefaction, he seldom knew whether he stood on his head or his heels.
"If the men must be drilled," he urged, "with a view to their health
and discipline, why not place them under the direction of the adjutant
or the officer of the day, whoever he might chance to be, and not
unnecessarily disturb a body of gentlemen from their comfortable
slumbers at that unconscionable hour?" Poor Sir Everard! this was the
only grievance of which he complained, and he complained bitterly.
Scarcely a morning passed without his inveighing loudly against the
barbarity of such a custom; threatening at the same time, amid the
laughter of his companions, to quit the service in disgust at what he
called so ungentlemanly and gothic a habit. All he waited for, he
protested, was to have an opportunity of bearing away the spoils of
some Indian chief, that, on his return to England, he might afford his
lady mother an opportunity of judging with her own eyes of the sort of
enemy he had relinquished the comforts of home to contend against, and
exhibiting to her very dear friends the barbarous proofs of the prowess
of her son. Though these observations were usually made half in jest
half in earnest, there was no reason to doubt the young and lively
baronet was, in truth, heartily tired of a service which seemed to
offer nothing but privations and annoyances, unmixed with even the
chances of obtaining those trophies to which he alluded; and, but for
two motives, there is every probability he would have seriously availed
himself of the earliest opportunity of retiring. The first of these was
his growing friendship for the amiable and gentle Charles de Haldimar;
the second the secret, and scarcely to himself acknowledged, interest
which had been created in his heart for his sister Clara; whom he only
knew from the glowing descriptions of his friend, and the strong
resemblance she was said to bear to him by the other officers.
Clara de Haldimar was the constant theme of her younger brother's
praise. Her image was ever uppermost in his thoughts--her name ever
hovering on his lips; and when alone with his friend Valletort, it was
his delight to dwell on the worth and accomplishments of his amiable
and beloved sister. Then, indeed, would his usually calm blue eye
sparkle with the animation of his subject, while his colouring cheek
marked all the warmth and sincerity with which he bore attestation to
her gentleness and her goodness. The heart of Charles de Haldimar,
soldier as he was, was pure, generous, and unsophisticated as that of
the sister whom he so constantly eulogized; and, while listening to his
eloquent praises, Sir Everard learnt to feel an interest in a being
whom all had declared to be the counterpart of her brother, as well in
personal attraction as in singleness of nature. With all his affected
levity, and notwithstanding his early initiation into fashionable
life--that matter-of-fact life which strikes at the existence of our
earlier and dearer illusions--there was a dash of romance in the
character of the young baronet which tended much to increase the
pleasure he always took in the warm descriptions of his friend. The
very circumstance of her being personally unknown to him, was, with Sir
Everard, an additional motive for interest in Miss de Haldimar.
Imagination and mystery generally work their way together; and as there
was a shade of mystery attached to Sir Everard's very ignorance of the
person of one whom he admired and esteemed from report alone,
imagination was not slow to improve the opportunity, and to endow the
object with characteristics, which perhaps a more intimate knowledge of
the party might have led him to qualify. In this manner, in early
youth, are the silken and willing fetters of the generous and the
enthusiastic forged. We invest some object, whose praises, whispered
secretly in the ear, have glided imperceptibly to the heart, with all
the attributes supplied by our own vivid and readily according
imaginations; and so accustomed do we become to linger on the picture,
we adore the semblance with an ardour which the original often fails to
excite. When, however, the high standard of our fancy's fair creation
is attained, we worship as something sacred that which was to our
hearts a source of pure and absorbing interest, hallowed by the very
secrecy in which such interest was indulged. Even where it fails, so
unwilling are we to lose sight of the illusion to which our thoughts
have fondly clung, so loth to destroy the identity of the semblance
with its original, that we throw a veil over that reason which is then
so little in unison with our wishes, and forgive much in consideration
of the very mystery which first gave a direction to our interest, and
subsequently chained our preference. How is it to be lamented, that
illusions so dear, and images so fanciful, should find their level with
time; or that intercourse with the world, which should be the means
rather of promoting than marring human happiness, should leave on the
heart so little vestige of those impressions which characterize the
fervency of youth; and which, dispassionately considered, constitute
the only true felicity of riper life! It is then that man, in all the
vigour and capacity of his intellectual nature, feels the sentiment of
love upon him in all its ennobling force. It is then that his impetuous
feelings, untinged by the romance which imposes its check upon the more
youthful, like the wild flow of the mighty torrent, seeks a channel
wherein they may empty themselves; and were he to follow the guidance
of those feelings, of which in that riper life he seems ashamed as of a
weakness unworthy his sex, in the warm and glowing bosom of Nature's
divinity--WOMAN--would he pour forth the swollen tide of his affection;
and acknowledge, in the fullness of his expanding heart, the vast
bounty of Providence, who had bestowed on him so invaluable--so
unspeakably invaluable, a blessing.--But no; in the pursuit of
ambition, in the acquisition of wealth, in the thirst after power, and
the craving after distinction, nay, nineteen times out of twenty, in
the most frivolous occupations, the most unsatisfactory amusements, do
the great mass of the maturer man sink those feelings; divested of
which, we become mere plodders on the earth, mere creatures of
materialism: nor is it until after age and infirmity have overtaken
them, they look back with regret to that real and substantial, but
unenjoyed happiness, which the occupied heart and the soul's communion
alone can bestow. Then indeed, when too late, are they ready to
acknowledge the futility of those pursuits, the inadequacy of those
mere ephemeral pleasures, to which in the full meridian of their
manhood they sacrificed, as a thing unworthy of their dignity, the
mysterious charm of woman's influence and woman's beauty.
We do not mean to say Clara de Haldimar would have fallen short of the
high estimate formed of her worth by the friend of her brother; neither
is it to be understood, Sir Everard suffered this fair vision of his
fancy to lead him into the wild and labyrinthian paths of boyish
romance; but certain it is, the floating illusions, conjured up by his
imagination, exercised a mysterious influence over his heart, that
hourly acquired a deeper and less equivocal character. It might have
been curiosity in the first instance, or that mere repose of the fancy
upon an object of its own creation, which was natural to a young man
placed like himself for the moment out of the pale of all female
society. It has been remarked, and justly, there is nothing so
dangerous to the peace of the human heart as solitude. It is in
solitude, our thoughts, taking their colouring from our feelings,
invest themselves with the power of multiplying ideal beauty, until we
become in a measure tenants of a world of our own creation, from which
we never descend, without loathing and disgust, into the dull and
matter-of-fact routine of actual existence. Hence the misery of the
imaginative man!--hence his little sympathy with the mass, who, tame
and soulless, look upon life and the things of life, not through the
refining medium of ideality, but through the grossly magnifying optics
of mere sense and materialism.
But, though we could, and perhaps may, at some future period, write
volumes on this subject, we return for the present from a digression
into which we have been insensibly led by the temporary excitement of
our own feelings.
Whatever were the impressions of the young baronet, and however he
might have been inclined to suffer the fair image of the gentle Clara,
such as he was perhaps wont to paint it, to exercise its spell upon his
fancy, certain it is, he never expressed to her brother more than that
esteem and interest which it was but natural he should accord to the
sister of his friend. Neither had Charles de Haldimar, even amid all
his warmth of commendation, ever made the slightest allusion to his
sister, that could be construed into a desire she should awaken any
unusual or extraordinary sentiment of preference. Much and fervently as
he desired such an event, there was an innate sense of decorum, and it
may be secret pride, that caused him to abstain from any observation
having the remotest tendency to compromise the spotless delicacy of his
adored sister; and such he would have considered any expression of his
own hopes and wishes, where no declaration of preference had been
previously made. There was another motive for this reserve on the part
of the young officer. The baronet was an only child, and would, on
attaining his majority, of which he wanted only a few months, become
the possessor of a large fortune. His sister Clara, on the contrary,
had little beyond her own fair fame and the beauty transmitted to her
by the mother she had lost. Colonel de Haldimar was a younger son, and
had made his way through life with his sword, and an unblemished
reputation alone,--advantages he had shared with his children, for the
two eldest of whom his interest and long services had procured
commissions in his own regiment.
But even while Charles de Haldimar abstained from all expression of his
hopes, he had fully made up his mind that Sir Everard and his sister
were so formed for each other, it was next to an impossibility they
could meet without loving. In one of his letters to the latter, he had
alluded to his friend in terms of so high and earnest panegyric, that
Clara had acknowledged, in reply, she was prepared to find in the young
baronet one whom she should regard with partiality, if it were only on
account of the friendship subsisting between him and her brother. This
admission, however, was communicated in confidence, and the young
officer had religiously preserved his sister's secret.
These and fifty other recollections now crowded on the mind of the
sufferer, only to render the intensity of his anguish more complete;
among the bitterest of which was the certainty that the mysterious
events of the past night had raised up an insuperable barrier to this
union; for how could Clara de Haldimar become the wife of him whose
hands were, however innocently, stained with the life-blood of her
brother! To dwell on this, and the loss of that brother, was little
short of madness, and yet De Haldimar could think of nothing else; nor
for a period could the loud booming of the cannon from the ramparts,
every report of which shook his chamber to its very foundations, call
off his attention from a subject which, while it pained, engrossed
every faculty and absorbed every thought. At length, towards the close,
he called faintly to the old and faithful soldier, who, at the foot of
the bed, stood watching every change of his master's countenance, to
know the cause of the cannonade. On being informed the batteries in the
rear were covering the retreat of Captain Erskine, who, in his attempt
to obtain the body, had been surprised by the Indians, a new direction
was temporarily given to his thoughts, and he now manifested the utmost
impatience to know the result.
In a few minutes Morrison, who, in defiance of the surgeon's strict
order not on any account to quit the room, had flown to obtain some
intelligence which he trusted might remove the anxiety of his suffering
master, again made his appearance, stating the corpse was already
secured, and close under the guns of the fort, beneath which the
detachment, though hotly assailed from the forest, were also fast
retreating.
"And is it really my brother, Morrison? Are you quite certain that it
is Captain de Haldimar?" asked the young officer, in the eager accents
of one who, with the fullest conviction on his mind, yet grasps at the
faintest shadow of a consoling doubt. "Tell me that it is not my
brother, and half of what I possess in the world shall be yours."
The old soldier brushed a tear from his eye. "God bless you, Mr. de
Haldimar, I would give half my grey hairs to be able to do so; but it
is, indeed, too truly the captain who has been killed. I saw the very
wings of his regimentals as he lay on his face on the litter."
Charles de Haldimar groaned aloud. "Oh God! oh God! would I had never
lived to see this day." Then springing suddenly up in his
bed.--"Morrison, where are my clothes? I insist on seeing my
slaughtered brother myself."
"Good Heaven, sir, consider," said the old man approaching the bed, and
attempting to replace the covering which had been spurned to its very
foot,--"consider you are in a burning fever, and the slightest cold may
kill you altogether. The doctor's orders are, you were on no account to
get up."
The effort made by the unfortunate youth was momentary. Faint from the
blood he had lost, and giddy from the excitement of his feelings, he
sank back exhausted on his pillow, and wept like a child.
Old Morrison shed tears also; for his heart bled for the sufferings of
one whom he had nursed and played with even in early infancy, and whom,
although his master, he regarded with the affection he would have borne
to his own child. As he had justly observed, he would have willingly
given half his remaining years to be able to remove the source of the
sorrow which so deeply oppressed him.
When this violent paroxysm had somewhat subsided, De Haldimar became
more composed; but his was rather that composure which grows out of the
apathy produced by overwhelming grief, than the result of any relief
afforded to his suffering heart by the tears he had shed. He had
continued some time in this faint and apparently tranquil state, when
confused sounds in the barrack-yard, followed by the raising of the
heavy drawbridge, announced the return of the detachment. Again he
started up in his bed and demanded his clothes, declaring his intention
to go out and receive the corpse of his murdered brother. All
opposition on the part of the faithful Morrison was now likely to prove
fruitless, when suddenly the door opened, and an officer burst
hurriedly into the room.
"Courage! courage! my dear De Haldimar; I am the bearer of good news.
Your brother is not the person who has been slain."
Again De Haldimar sank back upon his pillow, overcome by a variety of
conflicting emotions. A moment afterwards, and he exclaimed
reproachfully, yet almost gasping with the eagerness of his manner,--
"For God's sake, Sumners--in the name of common humanity, do not trifle
with my feelings. If you would seek to lull me with false hopes, you
are wrong. I am prepared to hear and bear the worst at present; but to
be undeceived again would break my heart."
"I swear to you by every thing I have been taught to revere as sacred,"
solemnly returned Ensign Sumners, deeply touched by the affliction he
witnessed, "what I state is strictly true. Captain Erskine himself sent
me to tell you."
"What, is he only wounded then?" and a glow of mingled hope and
satisfaction was visible even through the flush of previous excitement
on the cheek of the sufferer. "Quick, Morrison, give me my
clothes.--Where is my brother, Sumners?" and again he raised up his
debilitated frame with the intention of quitting his couch.
"De Haldimar, my dear De Haldimar, compose yourself, and listen to me.
Your brother is still missing, and we are as much in the dark about his
fate as ever. All that is certain is, we have no positive knowledge of
his death; but surely that is a thousand times preferable to the horrid
apprehensions under which we have all hitherto laboured."
"What mean you, Sumners? or am I so bewildered by my sufferings as not
to comprehend you clearly?--Nay, nay, forgive me; but I am almost
heart-broken at this loss, and scarcely know what I say. But what is it
you mean? I saw my unhappy brother lying on the common with my own
eyes. Poor Valletort, himself--" here a rush of bitter recollections
flashed on the memory of the young man, and the tears coursed each
other rapidly down his cheek. His emotion lasted for a few moments, and
he pursued,--"Poor Valletort himself saw him, for he was nearly as much
overwhelmed with affliction as I was; and even Morrison beheld him
also, not ten minutes since, under the very walls of the fort; nay,
distinguished the wings of his uniform: and yet you would persuade me
my brother, instead of being brought in a corpse, is still missing and
alive. This is little better than trifling with my wretchedness,
Sumners," and again he sank back exhausted on his pillow.
"I can easily forgive your doubts, De Haldimar," returned the
sympathizing Sumners, taking the hand of his companion, and pressing it
gently in his own; "for, in truth, there is a great deal of mystery
attached to the whole affair. I have not seen the body myself; but I
distinctly heard Captain Erskine state it certainly was not your
brother, and he requested me to apprise both Sir Everard Valletort and
yourself of the fact."
"Who is the murdered man, then? and how comes he to be clad in the
uniform of one of our officers? Pshaw! it is too absurd to be credited.
Erskine is mistaken--he must be mistaken--it can be no other than my
poor brother Frederick. Sumners, I am sick, faint, with this cruel
uncertainty: go, my dear fellow, at once, and examine the body; then
return to me, and satisfy my doubts, if possible."
"Most willingly, if you desire it," returned Sumners, moving towards
the door; "but believe me, De Haldimar, you may make your mind tranquil
on the subject;--Erskine spoke with certainty."
"Have you seen Valletort?" asked De Haldimar, while an involuntary
shudder pervaded his fame.
"I have. He flew on the instant to make further enquiries; and was in
the act of going to examine the body of the murdered man when I came
here.--But here he is himself, and his countenance is the harbinger of
any thing but a denial of my intelligence."
"Oh, Charles, what a weight of misery has been removed from my heart!"
exclaimed that officer, now rushing to the bedside of his friend, and
seizing his extended hand,--"Your brother, let us hope, still lives."
"Almighty God, I thank thee!" fervently ejaculated De Haldimar; and
then, overcome with joy, surprise, and gratitude, he again sank back
upon his pillow, sobbing and weeping violently.
Sumners had, with delicate tact, retired the moment Sir Everard made
his appearance; for he, as well as the whole body of officers, was
aware of the close friendship that subsisted between the young men, and
he felt, at such a moment, the presence of a third person must be a
sort of violation of the sacredness of their interview.
For some minutes the young baronet stood watching in silence, and with
his friend's hand closely clasped in his own, the course of those tears
which seemed to afford so much relief to the overcharged heart of the
sufferer. At length they passed gradually away; and a smile, expressive
of the altered state of his feelings, for the first time animated the
flushed but handsome features of the younger De Haldimar.
We shall not attempt to paint all that passed between the friends
during the first interesting moments of an interview which neither had
expected to enjoy again, or the delight and satisfaction with which
they congratulated themselves on the futility of those fears, which, if
realised, must have embittered every future moment of their lives with
the most harrowing recollections. Sir Everard, particularly, felt, and
was not slow to express, his joy on this occasion; for, as he gazed
upon the countenance of his friend, he was more than ever inclined to
confess an interest in the sister he was said so much to resemble.
With that facility with which in youth the generous and susceptible are
prone to exchange their tears for smiles, as some powerful motive for
the reaction may prompt, the invalid had already, and for the moment,
lost sight of the painful past in the pleasurable present, so that his
actual excitement was strongly in contrast with the melancholy he had
so recently exhibited. Never had Charles de Haldimar appeared so
eminently handsome; and yet his beauty resembled that of a frail and
delicate woman, rather than that of one called to the manly and arduous
profession of a soldier. It was that delicate and Medor-like beauty
which might have won the heart and fascinated the sense of a second
Angelica. The light brown hair flowing in thick and natural waves over
a high white forehead; the rich bloom of the transparent and downy
cheek; the large, blue, long, dark-lashed eye, in which a shade of
languor harmonised with the soft but animated expression of the whole
countenance,--the dimpled mouth,--the small, clear, and even
teeth,--all these now characterised Charles de Haldimar; and if to
these we add a voice rich, full, and melodious, and a smile sweet and
fascinating, we shall be at no loss to account for the readiness with
which Sir Everard suffered his imagination to draw on the brother for
those attributes he ascribed to the sister.
It was while this impression was strong upon his fancy, he took
occasion to remark, in reply to an observation of De Haldimar's,
alluding to the despair with which his sister would have been seized,
had she known one brother had fallen by the hand of the friend of the
other.
"The grief of my own heart, Charles, on this occasion, would have been
little inferior to her own. The truth is, my feelings during the last
three hours have let me into a secret, of the existence of which I was,
in a great degree, ignorant until then: I scarcely know how to express
myself, for the communication is so truly absurd and romantic you will
not credit it." He paused, hesitated, and then, as if determined to
anticipate the ridicule he seemed to feel would be attached to his
confession, with a forced half laugh pursued: "The fact is, Charles, I
have been so much used to listen to your warm and eloquent praises of
your sister, I have absolutely, I will not say fallen in love with
(that would be going too far), but conceived so strong an interest in
her, that my most ardent desire would be to find favour in her eyes.
What say you, my friend? are you inclined to forward my suit; and if
so, is there any chance for me, think you, with herself?"
The breast of Charles de Haldimar, who had listened with deep and
increasing attention to this avowal, swelled high with pleasurable
excitement, and raising himself up in his bed with one hand, while he
grasped one of Sir Everard's with the other, he exclaimed with a
transport of affection too forcible to be controlled,--
"Oh, Valletort, Valletort! this is, indeed, all that was wanting to
complete my happiness. My sister Clara I adore with all the affection
of my nature; I love her better than my own life, which is wrapped up
in hers. She is an angel in disposition,--all that is dear, tender, and
affectionate,--all that is gentle and lovely in woman; one whose
welfare is dearer far to me than my own, and without whose presence I
could not live. Valletort, that prize,--that treasure, that dearer half
of myself, is yours,--yours for ever. I have long wished you should
love, each other, and I felt, when you met, you would. If I have
hitherto forborne from expressing this fondest wish of my heart, it has
been from delicacy--from a natural fear of compromising the purity of
my adored Clara. Now, however, you have confessed yourself interested,
by a description that falls far short of the true peril of that dear
girl, I can no longer disguise my gratification and delight.
Valletort," he concluded, impressively, "there is no other man on earth
to whom I would say so much; but you were formed for each other, and
you will, you must, be the husband of my sister."
If the youthful and affectionate De Haldimar was happy, Sir Everard was
no less so; for already, with the enthusiasm of a young man of twenty,
he painted to himself the entire fruition of those dreams of happiness
that had so long been familiarised to his imagination. One doubt alone
crossed his mind.
"But if your sister should have decided differently, Charles," he at
length remarked, as he gently quitted the embrace of his friend: "who
knows if her heart may not already throb for another; and even if not,
it is possible she may judge me far less flatteringly than you do."
"Valletort, your fears are groundless. Having admitted thus far, I will
even go farther, and add, you have been the subject of one of my
letters to Clara, who, in her turn, 'confesses a strong interest in one
of whom she has heard so much.' She writes playfully, of course, but it
is quite evident to me she is prepared to like you."
"Indeed! But, Charles, liking is many degrees removed you know from
loving; besides, I understand there are two or three handsome and
accomplished fellows among the garrison of Michilimackinac, and your
sister's visit to her cousin may not have been paid altogether with
impunity."
"Think not thus meanly of Clara's understanding, Valletort. There must
be something more than mere beauty and accomplishment to fix the heart
of my sister. The dark eyed and elegant Baynton, and the musical and
sonnetteering Middleton, to whom you, doubtless, allude, are very
excellent fellows in their way; but handsome and accomplished as they
are, they are not exactly the men to please Clara de Haldimar."
"But, my dear Charles, you forget also any little merit of my own is
doubly enhanced in your eyes, by the sincerity of the friendship
subsisting between us; your sister may think very differently."
"Psha, Valletort! these difficulties are all of your own creation,"
returned his friend, impatiently; "I know the heart of Clara is
disengaged. What would you more?"
"Enough, De Haldimar; I will no longer doubt my own prospects. If she
but approve me, my whole life shall be devoted to the happiness of your
sister."
A single knock was now heard at the door of the apartment; it was
opened, and a sergeant appeared at the entrance.
"The company are under arms for punishment parade, Lieutenant
Valletort," said the man, touching his cap.
In an instant, the visionary prospects of the young men gave place to
the stern realities connected with that announcement of punishment. The
treason of Halloway,--the absence of Frederick de Haldimar,--the
dangers by which they were beset,--and the little present probability
of a re-union with those who were most dear to them,--all these
recollections now flashed across their minds with the rapidity of
thought; and the conversation that had so recently passed between them
seemed to leave no other impression than what is produced from some
visionary speculation of the moment.