The lovers were no sooner parted, than Hargrave began to repent that he
had not more distinctly ascertained the kind and manner of the
intercourse which he was to hold with his mistress during the term of
his probation; and though he had little fear that she would be very
rigid, he considered this as a point of such importance, that he
resolved not to quit Glenalbert without having the matter settled to his
satisfaction. For this reason he condescended to accept the
accommodations of the little straw-roofed cottage, by courtesy called
the Inn, where he had already left his horse; and thither he retired
accordingly, not without some national misgivings of mind on the subject
of Scotish nastiness and its consequences. His apartment, however,
though small, was decent, his bed was clean, his sleep refreshing, and
his dreams pleasant; nor was it till a late hour the following morning,
that he rose to the homely comfort, and clumsy abundance of a Highland
breakfast. As soon as he had finished his repast, he walked towards
Montreville's cottage, ostensibly to pay his respects to the Captain,
but, in reality, with the hope of obtaining a private interview with
Laura. He entered the garden, where he expected to find Captain
Montreville. It was empty. He approached the house. The shutters were
barred. He knocked at the door, which was opened by the old woman; and,
on inquiring for Captain Montreville, he was answered, 'Wow, Sir, him
an' Miss Laura's awa' at six o'clock this morning.' 'Away,' repeated the
Colonel,--'Where are they gone?' 'To London, Sir; and I'm sure a lanely
time we'll hae till they come hame again.' 'What stay do they intend
making?' 'Hech, Sir, I dare say that's what they dinna ken themsels.'
'What is their address?' inquired the Colonel. 'What's your will, Sir:'
'Where are they to be found?' 'Am'n I tellan you they're in London, Sir.
I'm sure ye ken whar that is?' 'But how are you to send their letters?'
'Wow! they never got mony letters but frae England; and now 'at they're
in London, ye ken the folk may gie them into their ain hand.' 'But
suppose you should have occasion to write to them yourself?' said
Hargrave, whose small stock of patience wore fast to a close. 'Hech,
Sir, sorrow a scrape can I write. They learn a' thae newfangled things
now; but, trouth, i' my young days, we were na' sae upsettan.' Hargrave
was in no humour to canvas the merits of the different modes of
education; and, muttering an ejaculation, in which the word _devil_ was
distinctly audible, he turned away.
Vexed and disappointed, he wandered down the churchyard-lane, and
reached the spot where he had last seen Laura. He threw himself on the
seat that had supported her graceful form--called to mind her consummate
loveliness--her ill-repressed tenderness--and most cordially consigned
himself to Satan for neglecting to wring from her some further
concessions. She was now removed from the solitude where he had reigned
without a rival. Her's would be the gaze of every eye--her's the command
of every heart. 'She may soon choose among numbers,' cried he,--'she
will meet with people of her own humour, and some canting hypocritical
scoundrel will drive me completely from her mind.' By the time he had
uttered this prediction, and bit his lip half through--he was some steps
on his way to order his horses, that he might pursue his fair fugitive,
in the hope of extorting from her some less equivocal kind of promise.
Fortunately for his reputation for sanity, however, he recollected,
before he began his pursuit, that, ere he could overtake her, Laura must
have reached Edinburgh, where, without a direction, it might be
difficult to discover her abode. In this dilemma, he was again obliged
to have recourse to the old woman at the cottage; but she could give him
no information. She neither knew how long Captain Montreville purposed
remaining in Edinburgh, nor in what part of the town he intended to
reside.
Thus baffled in his inquiries, Hargrave was convinced that his pursuit
must be ineffectual; and, in no very placid frame of mind, he changed
his destination from Edinburgh to his quarters. He arrived there in time
for a late dinner, but his wine was insipid, his companions tiresome;
and he retired early, that, early next morning, he might set out on a
visit to Mrs Douglas, from whom he purposed to learn Captain
Montreville's address.
On comparing the suppressed melancholy of Laura, her embarrassment at
the mention of Hargrave, and her inadvertent disclosure, with her
father's detail of her rejection of the insinuating young soldier, a
suspicion not very remote from truth, had entered the mind of Mrs
Douglas. She imagined that Captain Montreville had in some way been
deceived as to the kind of proposals made to his daughter; and that
Laura had rejected no offers but such as it would have been infamy to
accept. Under this conviction, it is not surprising that her reception
of the Colonel was far from being cordial; nor that, guessing his
correspondence to be rather intended for the young lady than for the old
gentleman, she chose to afford no facility to an intercourse which she
considered as both dangerous and degrading. To Hargrave's questions,
therefore, she answered, that until she should hear from London, she was
ignorant of Captain Montreville's address; and that the time of his
return was utterly unknown to her. When the Colonel, with the same
intention, soon after repeated his visit, she quietly, but steadily,
evaded all his inquiries, equally unmoved by his entreaties, and the
paroxysms of impatience with which he endured his disappointment.
Hargrave was the only child of a widow--an easy, indolent, good sort of
woman, who would gladly have seen him become every thing that man ought
to be, provided she could have accomplished this laudable desire without
recourse to such harsh instruments as contradiction and restraint. But
of these she disliked the use, as much as her son did the endurance: and
thus the young gentleman was educated, or rather grew up, without the
slightest acquaintance of either. Of consequence, his naturally warm
temper became violent, and his constitutionally strong passions
ungovernable.
Hargrave was the undoubted heir of a title, and of a fine estate. Of
money he had never felt the want, and did not know the value; he was,
therefore, so far as money was concerned, generous even to profusion.
His abilities were naturally of the highest order. To force him to the
improvement of them, was an effort above the power of Mrs Hargrave; but,
fortunately for him, ere his habits of mental inaction were
irremediable, a tedious illness confined him to recreations in which
mind had some share, however small. During the interdiction of bats and
balls, he, by accident, stumbled on a volume of Peregrine Pickle, which
he devoured with great eagerness; and his mother, delighted with what
she was pleased to call a _turn for reading_, took care that this new
appetite should not, any more than the old ones, pine for want of
gratification. To direct it to food wholesome and invigorating, would
have required unremitting though gentle labour: and to labour of all
kinds Mrs Hargrave had a practical antipathy. But it was very easy to
supply the young man with romances, poetry, and plays; and it was
pleasing to mistake their intoxicating effect for the bursts of mental
vigour. A taste for works of fiction, once firmly established, never
after yielded to the attractions of sober truth; and, though his
knowledge of history was neither accurate nor extensive, Hargrave could
boast of an intimate acquaintance with all the plays, with almost all
the poetry, and as far as it is attainable by human diligence, with all
the myriads of romances in his mother tongue. He had chosen, of his own
free-will, to study the art of playing on the flute; the violin
requiring more patience than he had to bestow; and emulation, which
failed to incite him to more useful pursuits, induced him to try whether
he could not draw as well as his play-fellow, De Courcy. At the age of
seventeen he had entered the army. As he was of good family, of an
elegant figure, and furnished by nature with one of the finest
countenances she ever formed, his company was courted in the highest
circles, and to the ladies he was particularly acceptable. Among such
associates, his manners acquired a high polish; and he improved in what
is called knowledge of the world; that is, a facility of discovering,
and a dexterity in managing the weaknesses of others. One year--one
tedious year, his regiment had been quartered in the neighbourhood of
the retirement where the afore-said De Courcy was improving his 'few
paternal acres;' and, partly by his persuasion and example, partly from
having little else to do, partly because it was the fashionable science
of the day, Hargrave had prosecuted the study of chemistry. Thus have we
detailed, and in some measure accounted for, the whole of Colonel
Hargrave's accomplishments, excepting only, perhaps, the one in which he
most excelled--he danced inimitably. For the rest, he had what is called
a good heart; that is, he disliked to witness or inflict pain, except
from some incitement stronger than advantage to the sufferer. His fine
eyes had been seen to fill with tears at a tale of _elegant_ distress;
he could even compassionate the more vulgar sorrows of cold and hunger
to the extent of relieving them, provided always that the relief cost
nothing but money. Some casual instances of his feeling, and of his
charity, had fallen under the observation of Laura; and upon these, upon
the fascination of his manners, and the expression of his countenance,
her fervid imagination had grafted every virtue that can exalt or adorn
humanity. Gentle reader, excuse the delusion. Laura was only
seventeen--Hargrave was the first handsome man of fashion she had ever
known, the first who had ever poured into her ear the soothing voice of
love.
Unprepared to find, in an obscure village in Scotland, the most perfect
model of dignified loveliness, Hargrave became the sudden captive of her
charms; and her manner, so void of all design,--the energy--the
sometimes wild poetic grace of her language--the shrewdness with which
she detected, and the simplicity with which she unveiled, the latent
motives of action, whether in herself or in others, struck him with all
the force of contrast, as he compared them with the moulded artificial
standard of the day. His interest in her was the strongest he had ever
felt, even before it was heightened by a reserve that came too late to
repress or conceal the tenderness with which she repaid his passion. Yet
Hargrave was not less insensible to the real charms of Laura's mind,
than she was unconscious of the defects in his. Her benevolence pleased
him; for bright eyes look brighter through tears of sympathy, and no
smile is so lovely as that which shines on the joys of others. Her
modesty charmed him; for every voluptuary can tell what allurements
blushes add to beauty. But of her self-denial and humility he made no
account. Her piety, never obtruded on his notice, had at first escaped
his observation altogether; and, now that it thwarted his favourite
pursuit, he considered it merely as a troublesome prejudice. Of all her
valuable qualities, her unfailing sweetness of temper was perhaps the
only one that he valued for its own sake. But her person he idolized. To
obtain her no exertion would have appeared too formidable; and,
remembering the conditions of their future reconciliation, he began, for
the first time in his life, to consider his conduct with a view to its
moral fitness.
This he found a subject of inextricable difficulty. He was ignorant of
the standard by which Laura would judge him. He was willing to believe
that, if she were left to herself, it would not be severe; but the words
of her promise seemed to imply, that his conduct was to be subjected to
the scrutiny of less partial censors, and he felt some anxiety to know
who were to be his 'wise,' 'sober-minded,' 'pious' inspectors. He did
not game, his expences did not much exceed his income, therefore he
could imagine no change in his deportment necessary to conciliate the
'wise.' Though, under the name of sociality, he indulged freely in wine,
he seldom exceeded to intoxication. Here again reform seemed needless.
But, that he might give no offence to the 'sober-minded,' he intended to
conduct his indispensable gallantries with great discretion, he
determined to refrain from all approach to seduction, and magnanimously
resolved to abstain from the molestation of innocent country-girls and
decent maid-servants. Finally, to secure the favour of the 'pious,' he
forthwith made a purchase of Blair's sermons, and resolved to be seen in
Church once at least every Sunday.
It might be supposed, that when the scale of duty which we trace is low,
we should be more likely to reach the little eminence at which we
aspire; but experience shews us, that they who poorly circumscribe the
Christian race, stop as much short of their humble design, as does he of
his nobler purpose, whose glorious goal is perfection. The sequel will
show the attainments of Colonel Hargrave in the ways of virtue. In the
meantime his magnet of attraction to Perthshire was gone; he soon began
to grow weary of the feeling of restraint, occasioned by supposing
himself the subject of a system of _espionage_; and to kill the time,
and relieve himself from his imaginary shackles, he sought the
assistance of the Edinburgh races; determined, that if Laura prolonged
her stay in London, he would obtain leave of absence, and seek her
there.