THE CAMERONIANS.
A Novel.
BY
JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF
'THE ROMANCE OF WAR,' 'OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1881.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
TO
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE, ESQ.,
MY OLD FRIEND AND PUBLISHER,
I INSCRIBE THIS MILITARY STORY,
AS A TRIBUTE
OF
RESPECT AND ESTEEM.
PREFACE.
The old Scottish regiment from which the following story takes its
title, and of which the hero is described as a member, is on the
point of losing its identity, and after the July of this year will be
united with the 90th Perthshire Light Infantry, as 'The Scottish
Cameronian Rifles,' thus losing, of course, its scarlet uniform,
colours, and facings--the royal yellow of Scotland, which, by a
correspondence with Mr. Childers, in March last, the author was
fortunate enough to secure (instead of buff) for all Scottish
infantry, not laced with blue.
Of the merits of the new regimental system it is difficult to
speculate as yet; but it will too probably create an endless
confusion, and be long a source of regret to the entire army.
25, TAVISTOCK ROAD,
WESTBOURNE PARK.
May, 1881.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER
I. EAGLESCRAIG
II. HEW'S LOVE-MAKING
III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS
IV. COVER-SHOOTING
V. HEW MAKES A VOW
VI. A REVELATION
VII. HEW'S 'MILD PLAY'
VIII. 'THE LOVE THAT TOOK AN EARLY ROOT'
IX. MRS. GARTH ACTS A FRIENDLY PART
X. A CRISIS
XI. HEW MAKES MISCHIEF
XII. CECIL'S DEPARTURE
XIII. IN SHADOW LAND
XIV. LESLIE FOTHERINGHAME
XV. SEPARATED
XVI. ANNABELLE ERROLL
XVII. HOPES AND FEARS
XVIII. THE CAMERONIANS
XIX. THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS
XX. THE OLD STORY AGAIN
THE CAMERONIANS.
CHAPTER I.
EAGLESCRAIG.
'Twenty-sixth Regiment,' said the old general, raising his voice, as
he rustled the morning paper importantly, after taking it from the
ebony reading-easel (attached to the arm of his large and comfortable
velvet easy-chair), whereon Mr. Tunley, the butler, always laid the
journals, after he had duly aired and cut them. 'Twenty-sixth
Regiment,' he added, coughing and clearing his voice, 'a detachment
of this distinguished corps, says the _Ayr Observer_, has recently
arrived at the castle of Dumbarton, under the command of Lieutenants
Cecil Falconer and Leslie Fotheringhame.'
'Well, there is nothing remarkable in that, uncle,' said one of his
young lady listeners, who seemed chiefly intent upon her breakfast,
and not much interested by the intelligence.
'My old regiment--my old regiment still,' said the old man, musingly.
'Gad, I'll have the senior--what's his name? Cecil Falconer--over
here, for a few days' cover-shooting.'
'And why not the other too?' asked the young lady who had just
spoken, laughingly; 'we might have an admirer each, Annabelle.'
But Miss Erroll, to whom the name of Fotheringhame seemed not
unknown, coloured and did not reply.
'Both could not leave their men at the same time,' said the general.
'Then I hope the senior is a pleasant fellow--he whom you propose to
bring, Sir Piers,' said Mr. Hew Montgomerie, of whom more anon.
'All the Cameronians were pleasant fellows in my time,' said the
general, tartly, 'and I have no doubt they are so still. And
remember, girls, that the smartest officers are usually selected for
detachment duty,' he added.
Those remarks passed in the cosy and elegant morning-room of
Eaglescraig, the mansion of Sir Piers Montgomerie, Bart., who--a
retired general officer--was G.C.B. and G.C.S.I. and Colonel of the
Cameronian Regiment, and Governor of the Castle of Dumbarton: and the
party at breakfast consisted only of Sir Piers, his remote kinsman
and heir, Hew Montgomerie, of the Indian Civil Service, home on a
year's leave; his grandniece and orphan ward Mary, also a
Montgomerie; her friend Annabelle Erroll--both very handsome
girls--and an old lady who presided over the silver tea-urn and
Wedgewood breakfast equipage, Mrs. Garth, Mary's governess and
friend, the widow of an old captain of the Cameronians--five
personages, with whom we hope to make the reader fully acquainted in
time.
Sir Piers was verging now on his seventieth year, but he was fresher
and more hale and hearty than many a man of fifty. His features were
still handsome and regular, though lined and wrinkled; his eyes were
keen as those of a hawk, and his figure, still wonderfully erect, was
clad in a rich maroon-coloured robe-de-chambre, with yellow silk
facings, cord, and tassels, and he was seated near the blazing winter
fire, with his feet on a velvet stool, and encased in slippers of
Mary's handiwork.
Generous by nature, yet hot-tempered and proud---pride of birth had
been a positive vice with him in early life--Sir Piers was a curious
mixture of the testy old Indian general, accustomed to every luxury,
including tyrannising over 'niggers,' with the country gentleman of
the old school; and having a profound admiration for the service and
everything pertaining thereto, like old Bismarck, he believed that
every man should be a soldier and rejoice in being one.
In his latter years Sir Piers had not been with the Cameronians, but
had seen a deal of service in India as a general officer, and, while
slowly creeping up the list of his rank, had been appointed, in the
usual courtesy of the army, full colonel of the old regiment in which
he had been a subaltern and field-officer.
His hunting-days were well-nigh past now; yet, at a meet, all the
field rejoiced to see the fine old man in his saddle, and with all
his pride of bearing--for a wealthy parvenu, however honestly he had
won his wealth, Sir Piers would have treated with chilling
hauteur--he was never above conversing with some sturdy farmer of
Kyle or Cunninghame, kindly and affably, on the price of stock, the
fall of wheat, on breeding, fattening, or draining, and always
winding up by some, often irrelevant, anecdote of his sporting
experiences in India, or when he followed the drums of the
Cameronians. Old as he was, he had never been known to shrink from a
bullfinch, or be fished out of a brook; he was welcome in every
homestead throughout the country-side, and the farmers' wives always
assumed their brightest looks, brought forth their whitest
tablecloths and the best contents of larder and pantry, in honour of
the old Laird of Eaglescraig, when he came their way.
He was a Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of Supply for the
County; he read the _Field_, of course, as what country gentleman
does not? He studied the War Office _Gazette_ regularly, as if he
expected his own name to appear there, once weekly; he was simple in
all his tastes and happy in all his surroundings, yet, for all that,
there was a skeleton in his house and heart, known, perhaps, to
himself alone.
He was a childless man now--childless by an act of his own--and the
title and estates, which he inherited from a long line of ancestors,
were eventually to pass from him to the heir of entail, whom he
strove hard, but in vain, to like or admire.
The latter, Hew Caddish Montgomerie, was then about thirty years of
age. He was not ungentlemanly either in manner or bearing; but his
face, like his disposition, was very defective. His eyes were called
grey, and seemed to be grey at times; yet, on closer inspection, it
was but too apparent that those shifty and furtive orbs of his were
of different colours, for one was a species of bilious green.
They were closely set on each side of a nose that strongly resembled
a shoe-horn, and his mouth, which was both cruel and licentious in
contour, was partly concealed, or altered in expression, by a
luxuriant brown moustache. He had come home, we have said, on leave
from the C.S., a sharp hand at cards and with a billiard-cue, deeply
dipped in debt, and with the current reputation, among his set, of
being 'a bad lot.' His mother, daughter of a Sudder judge, was one
of the old English family of Caddish, a name which Hew was wont to
affirm was a corruption of Cavendish; be that as it may, the
corruption thereof, in some instances, suited his character amazingly
well.
'This is rather unlike your usual proud exclusiveness, Sir Piers,'
said he, after a pause.
'What? inviting this young officer to knock over a few birds?'
'Yes--without an introduction.'
'Introduction? None was needed in my time; the epaulettes were
introduction enough everywhere. The service is certainly _not_ what
it was in my day, the special school of honour and politeness; but
I'll do the right thing, for all that. Let me see, which is
senior--Falconer or Fotheringhame. Tunley, hand me the "Army List."
Thanks. It _is_ Falconer. I have known what it is to be on
detachment in such a dull hole as Dumbarton, killing time till the
spring drills come on, so I'll invite the senior.'
'And how about the poor junior?' asked Miss Erroll, colouring
slightly again.
'Well, even to gratify you, Annabelle, I cannot bring him,' said the
general, laughing. 'I remember once, when we were in cantonments at
Barrackpore----' Hew smiled as the general began thus; but they were
spared the probably prosy reminiscence, for just then Sir Piers'
faded features clouded suddenly, as he put down the 'Army List' and
said, in a changed voice: 'Had my boy Piers lived, he might now have
been at the head of the regiment--five-and-twenty years
ago--five-and-twenty years! My God, how long--how time has rolled
away!'
His eyes, as he thought this, rather than spoke it all aloud, were
cast for a moment furtively--as if he was ashamed of exhibiting any
sudden emotion--on the full-length portrait of a handsome young
subaltern, in the uniform of the Cameronians, scarlet faced with
yellow, massive gold epaulettes, and the silver sphinx on his
belt-plate. It represented a spirited-looking young fellow with a
proud and joyous expression of face, and a well-knit, well-set-up
figure.
The shifty, parti-coloured eyes of Hew Montgomerie travelled for a
moment in the same direction, and then he addressed himself to the
grouse-pie, thinking the while that 'things were deucedly well
ordered as they were, so far as he was concerned.' And then the meal
proceeded somewhat silently, Mrs. Garth officiating over the cups,
and Mr. Tunley, a paragon of old rubicund butlers, at the side-board,
where the cold beef and grouse-pie were placed, among Indian jars and
old silver race tankards.
Mary Montgomerie, the general's grand-niece and ward, and her chief
friend and gossip, Annabelle Enroll, were both attractive and very
handsome girls, each in her twentieth year, but different in their
styles and complexions.
Of a good stature, and round, firm and graceful in form, Mary
Montgomerie had well-defined eyebrows, eyes, and hair, all of the
darkest brown; long lashes lent a great softness to her white-lidded
eyes, and she had a quiet ease, elegance, and girlish innocence of
manner; yet at times she was full of vivacity, born of the fact or
knowledge that she had been, as an orphan, from her youth, much of a
petted child, and reminded by many around her that she was the
heiress of many a thousand and many an acre, provided that she wedded
with the full approval of one who was not likely to be severe upon
her--old Sir Piers, her grand-uncle and legal guardian; for she was
the only daughter of his favourite younger brother--younger by
several years.
As such she filled a void in his heart, and ever and anon the old
man's eyes were wont to rest kindly, fondly, and admiringly upon her.
Her complexion was fair and creamy, her features regular and minute,
yet they were hardly ever in repose, for every variety of expression,
as thought inspired it, flitted over the ever-changing face.
Though less favoured by fortune, and even by nature, her friend Miss
Erroll was nevertheless a charming girl of the blonde type, with
grey-blue eyes and fair hair shot with gold, as it seemed, in the
sunlight, soft, plentiful, and wavy as the darker tresses of Mary,
and her eyebrows and their lashes were just a shade darker than her
hair. In the tone and tenour of her ways she was less impulsive than
Mary Montgomerie, who at times would come down the house stairs at a
headlong rush, while Annabelle followed with calm step and slow, or
would quietly seek a gate in the hunting-field, while Mary, with her
horse's head uplifted by her light, unerring hand, cleared the
nearest hedge at a flying leap, and with a laugh that rang like a
merry silver bell.
Both girls were eminently graceful and full of charming manners and
pretty winning words and ways; but the difference of their
temperaments was indicated even by the style of their
morning-dresses, for the robe of Annabelle was pale blue, as became
the character of her beauty, while that of Mary was of warm maize
colour, tied with fluttering scarlet ribbons, with rosettes of the
same to match on her tiny slippers. The loose, wide, falling sleeves
of this garment coquettishly showed her round white arm at times,
from the taper wrist to the dimpled elbow, and then she would smile
and hastily let them fall forward when she caught the quick, shifty
eyes of Hew Montgomerie cast admiringly on her.
The fifth of our _dramatis personæ_, as yet, is Mrs. Griselda Garth,
or, as she preferred to be called with the old Scoto-French courtesy,
that is now passing away, 'Mrs. Captain Garth.' The widow of a
Cameronian officer who had died on service in the East, a calm,
subdued, and gentle, white-haired old lady, she had found now, for
life, a quiet home at Eaglescraig, and had acted for more than twelve
years as a species of tender mother to Mary; and thus, after her
duties as a governess were past, she remained as her mentor,
companion, and chaperon, honoured, loved, and trusted by Mary and old
Sir Piers, who had been her husband's friend.
'If Mr. Falconer avails himself of my invitation, and I don't see
very well how he can decline it,' said the latter, returning to his
late idea, and viewing it somewhat in the light of a regimental
order, 'the dog-cart can meet him at the Montgomerie Arms in
Ardrossan; and you, Hew, will do me the favour to drive him here to
Eaglescraig.'
'Yes; that will be in better taste than sending a servant,' added
Mary.
'Excuse me, Sir Piers,' said Hew, almost sulkily, as his chronic
jealousy already took the alarm; 'but I don't care for acting as
charioteer to a total stranger.'
'As you please,' replied Sir Piers haughtily, as he always disliked
to have his wishes thwarted; 'some one else will obey my orders, I
have no doubt.'
Eaglescraig, in the Bailiwick of Cunninghame, we may describe as a
magnificent modern villa, with plate-glass oriels, a pillared
portico, a stately perron, and balustraded terrace, whereon the
peacocks spread their plumes and strutted to and fro. It had been,
somewhat incongruously we must admit, added to, or engrafted on, the
tall, old, square baronial tower that for ages had been, from the
lofty bluff known as the Eaglescraig, a landmark of the sea, and
which started up gaunt and grim, with grated windows, corbelled
battlements, and tourelles at the angles--a tower the pride of the
general's heart as the cradle of his house, and the home of his
ancestors, all unsuited though it was to modern usages, taste, and
requirements--an edifice so massive and old, that Hardy Knute, when
he dwelt in the adjacent castle of Glengarnock, may have shared in it
the hospitality of that Sir Hew Montgomerie who fought at the battle
of Largs, and whose coat-of-arms, three _fleurs-de-lis_, with three
annulets quarterly, crested by a maiden holding a man's head, may
still be seen above its northern door; and these Sir Piers had now
reproduced upon everything else, from the carriage panels to the
dogs' collars and the salt-spoons.
On one side the house of Eaglescraig commanded a view which, on a
summer day, was a delightful one, when there was just breeze enough
to swell the passing sails--the glorious Firth of Clyde, with the
dark-blue peaks of Arran in the distance, widening out into the
ocean, with ships homeward bound after many a tedious, rough, or
prosperous voyage; others with their prows turned towards the far
horizon, bearing with them, perhaps, expatriated Highland emigrants,
their hearts filled with sorrow and regret, rather than with the
thoughts of 'high emprise,' so necessary for an exile's success in
the doubtful future.
Close in shore, below the beetling cliff, when the wind is from the
land, may be seen the many coasting vessels and steamers plying to
and fro, shooting clear, as if by magic, from many a rocky promontory
and bluff, where, thick as gnats, the sea-birds wheel and scream; and
in many a sheltered cove the boats, brown-tarred and clinker-built,
moored or safely beached, for the people there are all hardy and
thrifty fisher-folk.
But on the landward side the view was different, and there the eye
could wander over the tolerably flat and very fertile acres of Sir
Piers Montgomerie, wood, wold and pasture, the richest part, perhaps,
of the rich dairy-farm producing land in a district of which, as the
old rhyme says:
'Kyle for a man,
And Carrick for a coo;
_Cunninghame_ for butter and cheese,
And Galloway for woo'.'
So the general's invitation to Lieutenant Cecil Falconer was written
by Mary and despatched, to the great annoyance of Hew, and all in
Eaglescraig knew that in another day or two the recipient thereof,
who had accepted it, was coming.
Mary Montgomerie and her friend Annabelle Erroll were too much
accustomed to society, and the gaiety of fashionable life, to feel
even any girlish excitement at the prospect of a young sub being
added to their present small circle at Eaglescraig; nevertheless, in
the seclusion of their dressing-closet, it was voted and passed by
them, _nem. con._, that the said addition would not be unacceptable;
and, on lot being laughingly cast as to whom he should fall a victim,
the prize was Mary's.
And after this they ceased to think upon the subject--certainly, at
least, so far as the latter lady was concerned.