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.




CHAPTER II.

HEW'S LOVE-MAKING.

During the few days that passed before the arrival of the expected
guest at Eaglescraig, Hew was more than usually attentive to the
general's wealthy ward; and one forenoon when they were idling in the
long avenue, which led through the Dovecot Park down the woodland
slope towards the highway, he resolved, if possible, to bring matters
to a successful issue with her.

For fully a month past, since his appearance at Eaglescraig, Mary had
been used to this love-making of his, apparently, as she treated him
half coquettishly, and yet so 'chaffingly,' that--but for his extreme
vanity, or obtuseness--he must have seen that he had no chance of
success.

Mary valued his attentions at their real worth, and times there were
when he eyed her gloomily--yea, angrily, for he trusted more in Sir
Piers' influence, wishes, and authority, to bend her to his will,
than to any merit of his own.

Thus his love-making was a curious combination of earnestness,
banter, and sullenness; earnestness caused by the girl's great
beauty, which he certainly valued, and her great wealth, which he
valued much more, on one hand; and on the other, genuine dislike of
India, with his own impecunious circumstances, and a knowledge of Sir
Piers' wishes.  The banter came at times, because he was really
incapable of loving any girl truly; and the sullenness was born of
his lack of success, with a chronic jealousy of every other man who
addressed her.

On this forenoon in the Dovecot Park, Annabelle Erroll did not
accompany them, so Hew proceeded to utilise the occasion.

Mary looked bewitchingly beautiful and piquante in her rich brown
sealskin, a grey skirt and a coquettish black velvet hat with a
scarlet feather.  She kept her hands obstinately in her tiny muff;
thus Hew had no pretence for capturing one of them in any way as a
suggestive preliminary to something more, and could only walk by her
side and utter his soft nothings from time to time, to which she
listened, half amused and half bored the while, and not helping him
in any way.

The winter day was clear and bright, and the keen gusty breeze that
swept from the sea over Eaglescraig imparted a rosebud tint to Mary's
usually pale cheeks that enhanced her beauty by adding a fresh light
to her eyes.  The gusts of wind whirled showers of yellow and brown
leaves across the sward, and drifts of stormy clouds through the sky
over land and Firth, yet Mary's spirits were a high pressure, and
though but little sunshine lit the December landscape, she was full
of merriment and the _espièglerie_ that were natural to her.

The dovecot they were approaching, like most of the ancient edifices
of that kind in Scotland, was built in the form of an enormous
beehive, some twenty feet high, and full of columbaria for the
pigeons, which were flying in clouds around it, or perched on the
summit thereof.  It was, in due conformity to an ancient act of the
Scottish Parliament, placed in the very centre of the Montgomerie
estate, so that the birds should not prey upon the corn of other
proprietors; and the reason why so many of these antique dovecots in
Scotland survive the mansions to which they belonged, is supposed to
be an old superstition, that if the dovecot is destroyed, the lady of
the land dies within the year.

Near that of Eaglescraig are two large yellow rings or circles
strongly marked in the green-sward (like those on the hill of
Craiganrarie), drawn by the sword of an evil Montgomerie, who had
trafficked in Satanic influence, and thus had formed round him an
orbit of protection, before summoning his sable majesty, and round
which the latter had to keep running, so long as he was visible to
mortal eyes.

'You do worry me, Hew,' said Mary, with something of a saucy laugh,
'and I have every mind to stand in the conjuror's circle and defy you
to approach me.'

'Do you deem me, then, so distasteful, so odious, and such an
incarnation of evil?'

'No; but seriously, what is the aim, the object of all this
attention, Cousin Hew? for though the tie is a remote one certainly,
I may call you cousin, I believe.'

'Do, dearest Mary.'

'Well?' she asked, curtly and impatiently.

'The aim and object, you say?'

'Yes, yes.'

'To marry you, of course; that is--that is, if you will have me, and
please Sir Piers,' he replied, with perfect deliberation and more
apparent coolness than he usually felt.

'I won't consult grand-uncle on _that_ matter, Cousin Hew.  Besides,
now that I think of it, I don't want to marry.'

'Indeed!  I thought marriage was the sole aim of every girl's
existence.'

'In novels more than in real life, perhaps.  Besides, marriage is
only to be thought of when the man and the hour come.'

'It is the end of all anxieties,' urged Hew, who thought no doubt of
his monetary ones.

'I have none to end; and with many girls it is only the beginning of
a set of troubles which none of them expect.  But let us drop this
very funny conversation.'

'Why?'

'You surely would not seek a wife with half a heart, or none!'

'The half of your heart, Mary, is worth the whole of any other
woman's!' replied Hew, with more warmth and gallantry than he had yet
shown; but the provoking Mary only laughed, and as she drew near the
dovecot, some of the pigeons, to whom her figure was familiar, and
whom she was wont to bring food for, came wheeling and fluttering
round her, and one, after nestling in her neck--a pretty
sight--alighted on her left hand, and while she stroked and fed it
with the right, Hew could not but remark that the snow-white pigeon
was not whiter than her slender fingers.

'I would I were that pigeon,' said he, sentimentally.

'"Would I were a glove upon that hand!"--now don't be a goose and
attempt to act Romeo, as I cannot be your Juliet,' said Mary,
laughing outright; and now he began to eye her with his gloomiest
expression in his parti-coloured orbs, while she caressed the bird,
and sang, as if to it, part of Lady Anne Lindsay's song:

  '"Why tarries my love?  Ah, where does he roam?
    My love is long absent from me.
  Come hither, sweet dove, I'll write to my love,
    And send him a letter by thee.

  '"Her dove she did deck, she drew o'er his neck
    A bell and a collar so gay;
  She tied to his wing a scroll with a string,
    Then kissed him and sent him away."'


Suiting the action to the word, she kissed the pigeon and tossed it
from her with a merry ringing laugh, for she had ever a light glad
heart, and was full of pretty, yet haughty and winsome ways.

Hew, in the vanity of his nature, could not see how hopeless it was
for him to press his suit with a girl who never listened to him
seriously, and who never tried, even in the least degree, to care for
him; for there was something in Hew Caddish Montgomerie that made
Mary totally indifferent to all he could urge, and so she felt
neither regret for, nor gratitude to him: thus she could hear unmoved
the avowal and proposal from his lips, which seldom fail to stir in
one way or another the hearts of most women, and which, whoever
utters them, are seldom or never forgotten.

'Let us be friends, Hew,' said she, in reply to another appeal; 'I do
not love you--I cannot love you as you wish, and I dare not and would
not marry where I did not love.'

Hew eyed her still more gloomily and almost revengefully, while she
played with the spray of a wild-rose tree, till a little cry escaped
her, as a thorn entered her delicate hand.

'Do permit me, Mary,' he urged, and tenderly enough he extracted the
thorn, and bowing over her hand, pressed it to his lips; but Mary
almost angrily snatched it away, just as the sound of wheels was
heard, and there bowled up the winding avenue a dog-cart, the driver
and the occupant of which must have seen, and no doubt misunderstood,
the whole situation.

'Our new guest with his gun-case and portmanteaus,' said Hew, with
much annoyance.

'Who?' asked Mary, still more annoyed, as she thought of what Hew had
done.

'Have you forgotten?'

'Oh! you mean Mr. Cecil Falconer.'

'Yes, that fellow from Dumbarton.  Now don't, please, run off to the
house, Mary; we shall meet him and his military appetite betimes, no
doubt, when the gong sounds for dinner.'

Mary had now an undefined sense of provocation, and in silence turned
away towards the house, accompanied by Hew, who found his chance was
gone for that day, and Mary never gave him another if it could be
avoided.

Thus ere long he began to fear that until Sir Piers' demise, and the
baronetcy and broad acres of Eaglescraig became his by succession, he
might have to face the Indian C.S. again; and seek how to meet his
debts by trying--as he had often done--his fortune at 'the board of
green cloth.'




CHAPTER III.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

The sense of having borne a part in a scene--an event which is
dreaded by well-bred folks--prevented Mary from making her appearance
till dinner-time, when, after achieving a most effective toilette,
she entered the lighted drawing-room.

Though almost totally unembarrassed by any memory of Hew's absurd
love-making, she had nevertheless been provoked that the new guest
should have been cognisant of his gallantry in the avenue.  She could
but hope that he had forgotten it, which was certainly not the case,
and ere she had left her dressing-closet, she paused before the
pier-glass to peep at her own sweet face and all her bravery, ere she
swept away down the great staircase to the drawing-room, where
already the general and their visitor were on the best of terms,
laughing and, as Mrs. Garth phrased it, 'talking shop in full swing.'

'Yes, yes,' she heard Sir Piers saying, 'it was there at the storming
of that hill-fort that the notable dispute took place between Douglas
of "Ours" and Bruce of the Bengal Infantry, as to which was senior
and who should lead the stormers; till Douglas, when the bullets,
egad! were flying like hail down the breach, lowered his sword and
said, "When a Bruce is to lead, a Douglas may be proud to follow;
lead on, and I shall follow you!"  He was shot down a minute after,
and the next who was knocked over was your good-man, Mrs. Garth--poor
John!  Ah! my niece,' he interrupted himself, on seeing the suddenly
arrested gaze of their guest.  'Mr. Falconer of "Ours," Mary--Miss
Montgomerie.'

Mary gave him her hand and a smile of welcome, and was at once put at
her ease, as Sir Piers resumed his anecdote, to which, though she had
heard it a hundred times before, Mrs. Garth listened with rapt
attention, as became an 'old campaigner,' while Annabelle Erroll, who
seemed already to have discovered that she and Mr. Falconer had some
friend or friends in common, was conversing away with more than her
usual fluency and animation.

'Is she already smitten by our new sub?' thought Mary.

Falconer had certainly a striking face and striking figure, and both
were well calculated to please a woman's eye.  In plain but accurate
evening costume, the funereal costume of festive civilisation, he
seemed every inch a gentleman and a handsome fellow; calm,
self-possessed, and in about his twenty-fifth year; soldier-like,
perfectly well-bred, as it eventually proved, was well-read and a
skilful musician.

His nose was somewhat aquiline; his eyes and close-shaven hair were,
like Mary's, of the darkest brown, and his moustaches, as Annabelle
afterwards whispered to her, were 'the perfection' of such
appendages.  He had a placid and perfectly assured manner, very
different from Hew's alternate restlessness and _insouciance_; yet
his eyes bespoke a latent fire of character and a spirit that was
full of courage and energy; and now Hew, who had been preparing for
the coming meal by having either sherry and bitters, or a hideous
compound called a 'cocktail,' which he had taught the butler, Tunley,
to make up, came lounging in, with scrutiny and gloom in his eyes, to
complete the little circle grouped near the fire.

By nature suspicious and envious, he barely accorded their visitor a
touch of his hand, and from that moment these two young men
felt--they knew not why--an instinctive dislike of each other.

The dinner-gong cut short another anecdote of the general's, and
recalled his thoughts from pig-sticking and Central India; he gave,
with courtly old-fashioned politeness, his arm to Mrs. Garth; Mary
took that of Cecil Falconer, and smiling Annabelle Erroll fell to the
lot of the amiable Hew, while Mr. Tunley and the servants drew up
rank entire in the vestibule; then, of course, the meal that followed
was like any other in such an establishment, perfect, from the soup
and dry sherry to the coffee and Maraschino.

'Tunley,' said Sir Piers, 'fill Mr. Falconer's glass.  Glad to
welcome you to Eaglescraig,' he added, bowing over a brimming glass
of sherry; 'glad, indeed, to welcome one of my old Cameronians.  I
hope that, like me, you are proud of the old corps?'

'I am indeed, Sir Piers!' responded the young fellow with a kindling
eye, that doubtless, like his heart, brightened under the genial and
charming influences of his surroundings.  'I share, sir, to the full,
the opinion of someone who says that no soldier is worth his salt
unless he feels that he is as good as any man about him, and twice as
good as any opposed to him.'

'Bravo, Falconer I you are one after my own heart!  Gad, but he is a
fine fellow,' he added in a low voice to Mrs. Garth; 'reminds me
powerfully of some one I knew, long ago.  _Who_ the deuce can it be?'

In the extremity of his kindness at that moment, he actually thought
him like his dead son, so the old man's whole heart went out to the
new-comer, in whose favour this fanciful idea operated powerfully.
'His father and mother have long been dead, I understand, and he
joined the Cameronians fresh from school--a mere boy, as I did
myself.'

He looked almost tenderly on the young man, who was quite unconscious
that he was an object of any particular interest; and his eyes
kindled, but a sigh escaped as he recalled his own hot youth, and

  'Thought of the days that were long since gone by,
  When his limbs were strong and his courage was high,'

and ere his once firm and stately stride had given place to what he
called 'a species of half-pay shamble.'

'By the way, Falconer,' said Sir Piers, whose pet weakness was
pedigree, 'there was an old family of your name, who had an estate in
this Bailiwick of Cunninghame--perhaps you are a branch of it?'

The young man coloured rather perceptibly (as Hew was not slow to
perceive and make a note of), and said with a smile:

'I was educated out of Scotland; my father died in my youth, and my
mother set no store on such fortuitous things as name or pedigree.'

'A sad mistake,' said Sir Piers, shaking his white head.  'The
Falconers I speak of were a branch of the Falconers, lords of
Halkertoun, who took their name from their office, being falconers to
our kings of old, as we learn from Douglas--aye, so far back as the
twelfth century.'

'I know not, general, of what Falconers I come,' replied the young
officer a little curtly; then he added, with a smile: 'I only know
that I was not born with the proverbial silver spoon, but with a
wooden one, of the largest size.'

Sir Piers felt intuitively that he had touched a delicate subject,
and changed it at once, though for a Scotsman not to know what kith
or kin he came of seemed certainly incomprehensible; but Hew, aware
of the vast value he attached to the most fortuitous circumstances of
birth, family, and position, thought:

'No pedigree!  By Jove! our Cameronian will find but small favour
here now.'

'Tunley has got some magnificent Marcobruner and Lafitte in the
cellar, Falconer,' said Sir Piers; 'I must have your opinion--but if
I only look at them, I should have a twinge of my old enemy the gout.'

Falconer bowed his thanks, and was turning again to address Mary,
when Sir Piers took his attention by plunging once more into Central
India, and a stream of anecdotes about 'what the service and the
regiment were in _my_ time,' till the ladies withdrew, and, to Hew's
disgust, there followed, of course, a professional conversation, on
which he was totally unable to enter; thus he could only sip his
wine, toy with the grape-scissors, or crack an occasional nut, while
hearing Sir Piers laughing at jokes that seemed destitute of all fun
to him, and all matters of 'shop' were discussed with the keenest
relish--the new head-dress for the Line, the new pattern musket, and
endless anecdotes of the mess-room and parade, to all of which Hew,
not unnaturally, perhaps, listened with ill-disguised impatience; and
even when the conversation halted irregularly between music and
literature, or art and politics, home and foreign, he could not enter
thereon, as Hew abhorred all books save a betting one, and read no
journal save the _Sporting Times_.

Cecil Falconer rose to rejoin the ladies, but the general was in no
mood to spare him, and insisted again and again on one more glass of
dry sherry, 'just as a white-washer;' and of course that, 'by the
way,' reminded him of 'how we used to be annoyed at Agra by the
musk-rats running over the wine-bottles, and communicating a
confounded flavour of musk to the sherry, which is no improvement to
the wine, I can tell you; and it is a curious fact that every English
resident in India tastes musk in his wine at some time or other,
though there are some who assert it is a mere superstition.  When we
were at Agra and elsewhere up country, we had deuced little money
among us in the Cameronians, yet somehow we always spent a devil of a
lot of it; for every fellow drew a bill on every other fellow, so
there was a regular crossfire of blue paper from right to left.'

To these and other reminiscences Falconer listened with his mind full
of the bright smile accorded to him by Mary Montgomerie, when he had
adroitly anticipated Hew in opening the door when the ladies departed
to the drawing-room, whither he longed to follow them, and from
whence the notes of the piano seemed to come as an invitation to do
so, but he was compelled to endure anecdotes about India _ad nauseam_.

'By Jove, Sir Piers,' said Hew, wearily, 'I detest India; I've had
enough of it!'

'I don't mean you to have any more of it, Hew, and you know that
well,' replied Sir Piers kindly, his heart mellowed with wine; 'but
you are mistaken in your views of it.  "India," says a writer,
correctly, I think, "is quite a misrepresented country, and has
nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in
the warm part of the day."

The night was considerably advanced when they joined the ladies.
Mrs. Garth had already retired; and the jolly old general, who had
fully partaken of more wine than he usually did, stood in
orderly-room fashion, with his feet apart on the rich hearthrug and
his back to the fire, winking, blinking, smiling blandly, and not
sure whether he was expected to take the field at the head of the
Cameronians to-morrow; while at the piano there was performed a
little brilliant singing, which Hew, with growing irritation,
secretly stigmatised as 'the most duffing caterwauling!' and sat
apart sulking (wine had usually this effect upon him), and leaving to
Falconer the inevitable and pleasant task of turning the music
leaves, and his eyes watched alternately the handsome and well-formed
young fellow, who bent with ease and confidence admiringly over the
singers, who, with voices sweetly attuned, were performing a duet,
and the forms of the latter, so different in the character of their
beauty--Mary with her hair of rich dark brown, and Annabelle, the
blonde, with her sunny coils, that shone with a remarkable sheen in
the flood of radiance that fell from the chandelier.

But the night waned apace, and at last it was necessary to separate,
if any justice was to be done to the cover shooting on the morrow,
now close at hand.

Hew gave Falconer his hand, which to the latter seemed clammy and
quite like the tail of a fish; but the general insisted on escorting
him to his 'quarters,' as he said, and conducted him, candle in hand,
along one or two stately corridors adorned with fine paintings--two,
that were of Cardinal York and King James VIII., evinced the Jacobite
proclivities of Sir Piers' ancestors--and there, too, were trophies
of the chase, both European and Asiatic.  Never had Hew or the girls
known the usually grave and rather stately old baronet 'in such a
merry pin' (Hew suggested 'so screwed'); but as he threaded the
corridors he was heard to sing a scrap of an old Anglo-Indian ditty:

  'Good-bye to the _batta_!--to lighten
    The pangs of each blooming cadet;
  And the brows of the captains to brighten,
    They've doubled the one epaulette;
  They've added some lace to our jackets,
    Augmented the price of our caps,
  In the hope that the half-batta rackets
    Will merge in the glare of our "traps."
  Just as any new plaything bewitches
    The sulks out of little boys whipped;
  And before they've well pulled up their breeches,
    They wholly forget they've been stripped.'


'Ah, yes, Falconer, my lad, that song was known long before your day,
when the beggars cut down the _batta_.  But here you are--no, here;
this is the door.  Good-night; hope you'll sleep sound.  No need for
a chowree to whisk inside the curtains here, as in India, and after
making them safe all round the mattress, spring in through the hole
you leave (like Harlequin through his hoop), lest a cloud of
mosquitoes follow.  I remember, at Dumdum--no, at Dinapore, my son
Piers and Ballachulish of the Cameronians----'  Then his voice broke
as he spoke of his son, and he added: 'But I'll tell you about it
to-morrow.  Breakfast at nine, and then--hey for the covers!'

And now Sir Piers, whose voice had become certainly somewhat
'feathery,' betook him to his own room, pausing on the way more than
once, candle in hand, as his aristocratic ideas of family, and that
pride of birth which had been his ruling passion and sin in early
life, occurred to him, and he muttered, pausing in his progress to
bed, and shaking his white head:

'Doesn't know what Falconers he's of--a strange thing--a pity.  My
boy Piers forgot, too, what Montgomeries he was of, once on a time.
A fine fellow, though!'

As for the latter, he was simply enchanted with Eaglescraig and all
the details thereof: the beauty of the two girls, each so different
in its character, and the _savoir vivre_ of the old general.  As for
Hew, he forgot all about him.

Meanwhile, a few rooms distant, the lady's-maid was sleepily combing
out the dark and luxuriant tresses of Mary Montgomerie, and the light
of a shaded lamp fell softly and tenderly upon the graceful figures
of herself and Annabelle, seated in their _robes de chambre_
(chatting as young girls will always do when preparing for rest), on
the looped-up lace curtains of their pretty beds, knotted one with
blue and the other with rose-coloured ribbons; on the toilet-tables,
with their glittering trinkets, and crystal bottles with gold or
silver stoppers; on vases of conservatory flowers, and all the pretty
luxuries which are usually to be found in the vicinity of youth,
wealth, and beauty, as each girl sat smilingly contemplating herself
in a long looking-glass, with all her rippling hair floating down
over her white shoulders.

'And you like him?' said Mary, after the maid had withdrawn.

'Oh, so much!' exclaimed Annabelle; 'he is quite a dear fellow.'

'He has a gentle voice and gentle eyes, certainly,' said Mary,
musingly.

'And to me looks somehow like one who has a history beyond that of
other young men.'

'A history--what a funny idea!  Of course he'll have a history,
which, perhaps, like other young subs, he would rather not have made
patent to everyone.  But you and he seemed to have some little
interest in common, Annabelle?'

'Had we?' said the latter, colouring a little.

'He spoke to you often of his friend, the other sub--what is his
name?'

'Leslie Fotheringhame,' replied Annabelle in a low voice.

'Do you wish Sir Piers had invited him?'

'Perhaps, Mary,' said Annabelle, with a little forced laugh.  'Yet
better not, better not,' she thought, with a memory of the days when
her hand had thrilled at the touch of Leslie's, even before words of
love had been spoken, and there had only been in her ear those broken
utterances which a woman seldom, perhaps never, forgets.

So, save in the instance of Hew, all their first impressions of each
other were favourable, and the young girls, as each laid her head on
her pillow, began already to scheme out pleasant little visions, they
scarcely knew of what.




CHAPTER IV.

COVER SHOOTING.

Jovial and laughing was the party which assembled at breakfast next
day, in the bright morning-room of Eaglescraig, though the December
landscape looked bleak enough without.

Mary, in all the freshness of her morning beauty, presided at one end
of the loaded table, and Mrs. Garth at the other.  Sir Piers was
still in his room; but there was Cecil Falconer, in a shooting-suit
of the best taste, and having of course innumerable pockets; Hew in
rather 'loud'-patterned knickerbockers; a couple of jolly, red-faced
country gentlemen, the village doctor, and old Mr. John Balderstone
(of whom much more anon), the trusted land agent and local factor of
Sir Piers, and deemed one of the best shots in the Bailiwick of
Cunninghame, a hale, hearty, ruddy-faced man, with an ample paunch
and short sturdy legs encased in long brown gaiters.

'How is Sir Piers this morning, Mr. Hew?' he asked that personage,
who was intent on a pile of grouse pie, for the breakfast was a
genuine Scottish one, a veritable dinner, with the addition of tea
and coffee pots covered with elaborate cosies of Mary's handiwork.
'Well, I hope, and that he goes to shoot with us?'

'Well?--I should think so; hearty and lively,' replied Hew, with his
mouth full; 'by Jove, he looks as if he was likely to live for ever!
He's got the receipt for old Parr's life pills, and the secret of
Methuselah too,' was the ungenerous--even coarse--response of Hew,
half spoken to himself, and speaking volumes as to his secret
thoughts; a response which made worthy old John Balderstone first
raise and then knit his shaggy grey eyebrows; 'but here he comes, to
answer for himself.'

Laughing and smiling, he greeted all in rapid succession, Cecil
Falconer perhaps first of all, and then he kissed Mary; and anyone
who saw how old Sir Piers held her hand and gazed into her tender
hazel eyes, might have seen and known that she was the one hope of
his now childless old age, and I doubt if he would have dined or
breakfasted comfortably without her.

He bowed over the hand of Annabelle Erroll, with something of
stately, old-fashioned courtesy; he patted Hew on the head as if he
had been a boy, and then took a place beside him, after a glance at
the weather without, with reference to the shooting.  He wore a suit
of rough grey tweed, with strong shoes and long brown leather
leggings, that had seen service many a time and oft among the beans
and turnip-fields all round Eaglescraig; and yet in this--the
plainest of all costumes--he looked every inch what he was, a
grand-looking and aristocratic old gentleman.

Shooting anecdotes, the qualities of certain dogs, guns, cartridges,
new shot-belts, and so forth, were being discussed on all sides,
together with eggs, ham, cold pie and steaming coffee; amid all of
which Cecil Falconer strove in vain, even by the offer of a
chicken-bone, to win the favour of Mary's pet terrier Snarley, which
he was disposed for her sake to view and approach tenderly; but in
return her favourite showed a whole set of sharp white teeth, and
retreating under his mistress's chair, snarled and repelled the least
attempt at familiarity, even when she caught the little brute up in
her arms and bestowed upon it kisses, which to Cecil's eye seemed a
great waste of something very charming.

'My pet, my own pet!' she called it, Snarley the while eyeing
Falconer as if he was his natural enemy or future rival.

'Hope you slept well, Falconer?' said Sir Piers.

'Thanks--like a veritable top,' replied Cecil.

'Right! a regular soldier should be able to sleep anywhere, and never
be surprised on awakening in new quarters.'

'Been ever in this part of the world before, sir?' asked Mr. John
Balderstone, with his mouth full.

'Never,' replied Cecil.

'Ah, you'll soon learn to like Eaglescraig,' added the factor.

'I am enchanted with it already,' said Cecil, as his eye
involuntarily wandered in Mary's direction; 'and believe that I shall
like it more and more, till it will be quite a wrench when the time
comes to tear myself away.'

'Then come back, Falconer, for some rod-fishing after Candlemas,'
suggested his host, with a bright smile.

'Duty, I fear, may clash with your great hospitality; but I thank
you, Sir Piers.'

'Call me general; I like it better.'

'To be always called so is my uncle's pet fancy, Mr. Falconer,' said
Mary.

'All great men have their weaknesses, and I always respect them,'
remarked Hew, with one of his scarcely perceptible sneers, for now
Sir Piers, to his irritation, had plunged into some reminiscences of
snipe-shooting at Dumdum, where he was wont to be for some hours up
to the waist in water under a burning Bengal sun, necessitating
frequent libations of brandy-pawnee; then, by some rapid transition
of thought, he found himself detailing a march of the Cameronians
through the jungles of Arcot, with the rain pouring in torrents, the
road knee-deep in mud and mire, the men drenched, the tents soaked
through, the mess and baggage animals miles in the rear, the column
having to cross a nullah where the water ran like a mill-race, and
there was the devil to pay!

Other anecdotes would have followed, but Hew, who had seen enough of
India in reality too, proposed a move to the gun-room and thence to
the covers.

'Time indeed to be off, gentlemen,' said the general, looking at his
watch.  'Tunley, fill those flasks.'

'And have more sandwiches cut,' added Mrs. Garth.

'I shall cut them for Mr. Falconer; he is the only stranger here,'
said Mary Montgomerie, hurrying to the sideboard, and proceeding
deftly with her pretty hands to do so; while Cecil murmured his
thanks, and tendered his silver case, or sandwich-box.

'Can't the cook do this?' growled Hew in her ear.

'Yes, but not half so well as I,' replied the girl, laughingly.  'I
can be so expert when I choose, Hew.'

In the hall, where hung all manner of hats and greatcoats, plaids,
whips, salmon-listers, whips and walking-sticks, Sir Piers assumed an
old and well-worn wideawake, the band of which was usually garnished
with hooks and flies, for he was as keen a sportsman with his rod and
line as with his double-barrelled gun.  And now the whole party set
forth from the house, Cecil looking more than once to the soft faces
of the two smiling girls, who, from the breakfast-room window,
watched their departure.

His mind _already_ was full of sweet Mary Montgomerie, and he would
rather, a thousand times, have remained, to sun himself in the light
of her winning eyes, than to toil through the damp covers to knock
over a few rabbits or a brace of harmless birds; and he could but
console himself by counting the hours that must inevitably elapse ere
he could meet her again, and strive to endure them as best he might.

Hew detected one of these glances thrown back to 'the face at the
window,' and remembering his ramble with Mary in the Dovecot Park,
bit his nether lip; and before the day's shooting was over, Falconer
had a specimen of what the amiable Hew might be capable of doing if
provoked.

Preoccupied thus, Cecil Falconer thought that on this particular
morning 'the Land of Burns' seemed uncommonly dreary.  Mist was
rolling along the valleys, and the landscape looked dank and moist
through its medium.

Hew, who, though not ungentlemanlike in bearing, was, as we have
said, naturally coarse in mind, and sometimes blunt in manner, the
result of association with billiard-markers and stablemen, on seeing
Falconer give another glance towards the house, said abruptly, and
with what he meant to be a laugh:

'I don't think you can see her now.'

'Her--who?' asked Falconer, with surprise.

'Well, my cousin; for I think you evidently admire her.'

'An odd remark!' thought Cecil, looking a little annoyed; but he
said, cordially:

'I do indeed admire her; who could fail to do so?  But what leads you
to infer that I do so more particularly?'

'By Jove!  I saw that your eyes were seldom off her; but it is no
use, Mr. Falconer,' said Hew, with a pretended genial laugh, 'as she
has no eyes in reality--save for one fellow.'

'What the deuce can he mean?' thought Falconer, a little annoyed by
the speaker's manner, which seemed to indicate advice or warning, or
impertinence.

'You are cousins, then?' he merely said coldly.

'Well, of course, in a manner of way--rather remote, you know,'
replied Hew, his closely-set eyes looking more shifty than ever, as
he scraped a match and lighted a huge cigar; 'but blood is thicker
than water, and it goes a long way in Scotch reckonings; and thus she
naturally looks to _me_ as the future head of the house,' he added
complacently, 'as the heir of entail.  And Mary is indeed handsome!
There was no girl handsomer out last season, or when she was
presented--I mean in the quiet and thoroughbred style.'

'What a cad this fellow is!' thought Falconer.

'Ah, you have looked admiringly back at the house,' said Sir Piers,
who had another theory on the subject; 'the old tower is the part of
it that is most to my taste.  The cliff was called Eaglescraig,
because ages ago a couple of gigantic eagles built a nest there every
summer--a nest of branches and great sticks on the giddy verge of the
cliff--and the vicinity of it was always found strewed with the bones
of muirfowl, ptarmigan, rabbits, and even lambs.  A poor man who
lived near it made quite a subsistence for himself and his family,
during a famine consequent on an English invasion, by robbing the
eaglets of the food brought by the parents; and one day he found a
little fair-skinned and golden-haired child therein, brought no one
knew from where, by the male bird, but safe and sound.  It grew to be
a man of vast strength and stature, and he carried the banner of the
Bailiwick at the battle of Largs--and certainly that field was not
fought and won yesterday.'

The day was unquestionably a bleak one.  The last few leaves were
fluttering down from the bare trees, the branches and twigs of which
stood blankly and darkly up against the dull grey sky; elsewhere the
red and brown remnant of rustling foliage that still lingered on the
oaks and ashes was thinned by every passing breeze; and even the gay
cock pheasant, as he skimmed over the gorse to seek his food in the
untilled land, might be heard to croak as he went.

Grim old Sandy Swanshot, the head-keeper, and his staff, had already
traversed the covers; the muzzled ferrets had been down in the rabbit
burrows, scaring forth the occupants; firm, stealthy, and quick-eyed,
they drove them into the gorse or elsewhere, and now the earth had
been stopped everywhere, barring all return to their well-known
holes, which they would never find again.

The cottage of the keeper, old Sandy, a veteran sportsman,
silver-haired and wrinkled, who had often carried the general's
game-bag when they were both 'school laddies,' was a busy scene that
morning.  It was a thatched edifice, garlanded round with dead
wild-cats, weasels, foumarts, hawks, and 'other vermin,' which in
their decay tainted the winter air, and its occupant was old enough
to remember when the system of shooting with muzzle-loaders was very
different from what it is to-day; when a cover was beaten with a
precision quite military, and when the order 'Halt! reload!' went
down the line, every man, be he shooter or beater, had to stop where
he was, until the last barrel had been charged anew; and the old man
had a supreme contempt for the perilous style of blazing away that
had come in with arms of precision and the slaughter of battues.

All the dogs around him seemed to know instinctively that they were
about to take the field, and kept up a chorus of mingled whining and
barking; and all the beaters were there, somewhat motley in aspect
and appearance, but all doffing their bonnets respectfully, as Sir
Piers came up with his 'guns' from the manor-house; and each of the
latter underwent, unknown to himself, a critical scrutiny under the
keen eyes of these practised fellows--his dress, his gun, his
gaiters, his shot-belt, every buckle and strap being duly noticed and
commented on.

We may hope that Cecil Falconer's bearing and equipment carried him
through this unknown ordeal; but the old keeper, who had an
instinctive dislike of Hew Montgomerie, whispered to him as a
stranger, though Sandy was, in Scottish parlance, a _dour carl_:

'Gie him a wide berth in the cover, sir!  Shooting? _he_ might as
well be ballooning!'

Sandy knew some of Hew's vagaries when at cover, such as shooting
down the line of the beaters and his companions, letting fly at a
bird whose flight was no higher than a man's head, fingering his
trigger, heedless of whether the muzzle was pointed to the sky or the
earth, and as careless of his friends as if they were clad in Milan
mail; for he was one of those awkward fellows who had not even the
simple prudence which Charles Dickens ascribes to the obese Mr. Tracy
Tupman, when that personage discovered that his chief object was to
fire his gun without danger to his friends, himself, or the dogs.

The covers of Eaglescraig were of considerable extent, and were well
preserved and carefully looked after; and though Sir Piers, as he
said, thought it very slow work compared with pig-sticking in
six-foot-high jungle-grass, or potting a man-eater from a howdah, it
was what suited him now, and in less than five minutes he had all his
'guns' in 'order of battle,' marshalled apart in a line of about a
hundred and forty yards or so, the beaters being chequered in the
gaps between the sportsmen.

Advancing thus, like skirmishers in extended order, on the right
flank of the line, were masses of whin-bush (or gorse as it is called
in England), displaying still here and there a golden flower; and
away on the left the cover went deep into the dark recesses of a
copse, under the tall red stems of Scottish firs, larch, and
ash-trees.

Hew and Cecil were in this quarter, and a little in the rear was the
keeper, the latter scanning the whole, as far as he well could, from
flank to flank, rebuking from time to time, in his deep, broad
Ayrshire Doric, any stupid beater who lagged behind, while the sharp
crack of the guns woke the echoes of the dingles, which occasionally
seemed to reply to quite an irregular volley.

Among the gorse the chief victims were ground game, but amid the
coppice the ruddy golden-hued pheasants were momentarily flurried up,
and arrested in their whirring flight by the crack of the fatal
breechloader.

Ever and anon, the voice of the keeper was heard, with the
prohibitory cry of--

''Ware hen--'ware hen, Master Hew!'

Among much other spoil, Cecil knocked over a fine cock-pheasant,
which fell crashing down among the underwood in the agonies of
death--a charge of shot in his gold-speckled breast.

'Why the deuce did you shoot my bird, sir?' demanded Hew with un
courteous abruptness of Falconer.

'He thocht, perhaps, ye war gaun to miss it, as ye did the last twa,
and the hare,' said the old keeper, drily.

'I beg your pardon,' replied Cecil quietly, as he reloaded; 'but that
bird was mine.'

'It was not!' was the blunt and rude rejoinder.

Falconer coloured and bit his lip; but thought of his courtly old
host, and desirous of avoiding a scene, simply said:

'Let us keep further apart, Mr. Montgomerie.'

'As far off as you please,' added Hew ungraciously, and moving
further away to his left.

Cecil continued to work his way between the crowded fir and larch
stems, which, by receiving many a charge of shot, saved the birds
that hovered beyond them, the voice of the keeper crying ever and
anon: 'Mark cock!' 'Hare forward!' ''Ware hen.' 'A hare for you,
Master Hew--a miss again!' 'Come to heel, Countess--come to heel!'
the latter, with the vicious whack of a whip, was directed to one of
the pointers.

While Cecil was inwardly laughing at Hew's wild shooting, a charge of
shot from the right whizzed past his face and tore away the rim of
his hat.

A natural exclamation of rage and alarm escaped him, as he had so
narrowly escaped having his sight destroyed or his face disfigured
for life, and looking whence the shot came, he saw Hew gently
slipping another cartridge into the breech of his gun, under cover of
a great Scottish fir with a red gnarled stem.

'I shall thank you, sir, to keep your muzzle up, or quit the ground!'
said Falconer, angrily.

'It was a devil of a mistake--and I beg your pardon,' replied Hew,
giving his cold damp hand to Cecil, who saw--or thought he saw--a
quiet twinkle of mingled malice and amusement in the speaker's
bilious eye.

'Blundering fool!  Could he have meant it?  Looks deuced like it--but
why?' thought the young officer more angrily, as he thought over the
matter.

'He weel-nigh shot Sir Piers in the same unco fashion, sir,' grumbled
the old keeper; while Cecil now changed his ground again, and for
actual safety kept closer to Hew than ever.

Four long beats through the covers brought luncheon-time, and while
flasks and sandwiches were produced, the slain were counted as they
were laid in long rows on the side of a grassy bank, each keeper, as
he came up in succession, adding his quota to the general stock, all
furred and feathered victims from the covers of Eaglescraig, and so
numerous, that the sportsmen thought enough had been done for one day.

'I may deem myself lucky that I was not added to _your_ bag to-day,
Mr. Montgomerie,' said Cecil, laughing, but not with genuine hilarity.

'What! has Hew been at his old tricks again?' asked Sir Piers, with
an air of annoyance.

'E'en sae, sir,' said Sandy, taking a flask from his mouth, 'firing
doon the line as before.'

'My gun exploded unexpectedly, sir,' said Hugh, with a sullen look;
'I explained to Mr. Falconer, and he has accepted my apology.'

Something in his manner caused this episode to rankle in the memory
of Cecil.

'By Jove, I think the cad _had_ intended to pot me, after all!' was
his occasional thought, and he never precisely forgot or forgave the
suspicion--one too grave in its diabolical spirit of mischief and
cruelty to be dismissed lightly; and though he laughed at some jokes
made by old Mr. Balderstone on the matter, he really saw nothing to
laugh at in it, and was very well pleased when the whole party bent
their steps homeward--all the more pleased when he thought of the
pleasant society that awaited him.

Falconer began to wonder whether he was actually falling in love
already with the beautiful grand-niece of his host.  He had never
believed much in 'that sort of thing,' at first sight especially; but
he was young and impressionable; he possessed a keen imagination, and
he already caught himself weaving mental conversations with
her--conversations in which tender little speeches came
involuntarily, though unuttered, to his lips, and soft smiles hovered
on hers, when she seemed to hear them; but when--after changing his
muddy shooting-costume for another--he joined the ladies in the
drawing-room, remembering the almost rude remarks of Hew Montgomerie,
Cecil, in approaching Mary, or conversing with her, had an angry
sense of being watched, or observed, by that personage; though a time
came when he ceased to think or care on the subject.

And who was 'the one fellow' for whom she had only eyes, as Hew had
vulgarly phrased it?  Most probably Hew meant himself!  If so, Cecil
thought that she cloaked or concealed her partiality with wonderful
discretion.

To avoid interfering with that gentleman's views or wishes, Cecil
gave much of his attention to Annabelle Erroll, and even to 'the old
soldier,' as Hew called Mrs. Garth; but Mary summoned him to her side
to see Snarley put through all his performances, such as leaping over
her interlaced hands as through a ring, walking erect round the room
for a lump of sugar, tossing another high off his sharp nose at the
word of command, to catch it with a snap in its descent, and so
forth, all the while he did so eyeing Cecil with undisguised
hostility.

And eventually the evening closed in like the preceding one (save
that old Sir Piers, worn out with his day's sport, had fallen asleep
in an easy-chair, with a handkerchief spread over his face), with
music and duet-singing, and pleasant conversation, ere some of the
visitors rose to depart.

That there should be so much duet-singing, and Mary's occupation with
the stranger, and that the general conversation was of a kind in
which he could bear no prominent part, disgusted Hew, who was in a
detestable humour; yet he had the policy to conceal it pretty well
(though his bilious eye was more bilious than ever) till once, he
drew near Mary, while Cecil, in another part of the room, was
occupied with old Mrs. Garth, who was relating with great unction
some memory of the Cameronians in _her_ day; and now Hew's ready
jealousy became painfully apparent.

'Good heavens, Hew!' said Mary, in a low voice, her dark eyes
dilating as she spoke; 'what is this Mr. Balderstone has told us?'

'Can't say, for the life of me; the old pump!'

'That you nearly shot Mr. Falconer to-day in the Fir Wood.'

'Did I?  Well, the blundering fellow was out of his proper place, I
suppose,' was the sulky rejoinder.

'What a dreadful thing if you had injured him!  Hew! you are
positively dangerous.'

'My dear Mary, you deem him an Admirable Crichton, I doubt not,' said
he, smilingly, in her ear.

'What do _you_ deem him?'

'Slow and deuced ugly.'

'Ugly--oh, come, Hew!' said Mary, laughing very merrily at such
undisguised jealousy, which somehow did not flatter her in the
least--it was too comical.

'I have no doubt our "old soldier" here deems him a very eligible
_parti_ for anyone; a subaltern, with two shirts a week and a few
dickies, by Jove!' he continued.

'How--how coarse you are!' said Mary, with her silvery laugh again;
'but don't let grand-uncle hear you sneering thus.  He, too, was a
subaltern once.'

'Yes, but with the rent-roll of Eaglescraig!  I wish him well out of
our neighbourhood anyway,' he added threateningly.

'Why, what harm has he done you?'

'None as yet,' replied Hew, getting more sulky than ever; 'but I may
harm him!'

'How?'

'If he comes in my way with you, Mary, or anyone else--understand
that clearly, cousin.'

Mary's brow darkened, and a haughty expression, not unmixed with
alarm, stole into her hazel eyes and soft face, as she said, while
quickly using her fan:

'Hew, you forget yourself, and me too!  How dare you adopt this tone?'

'Don't think to make a fool of me, Mary.'

'Impossible, sir!'

'You think so?'

'Yes.  Nature has been before me,' she replied, as she rose and swept
across the room to the side of old Mr. Balderstone.

The eyes of Hew, like those of Uriah Heep, 'seemed to take any shade
of colour that could make eyes ugly,' as they followed her beautiful
figure, and a savage emotion gathered in his avaricious heart as he
felt that the chances of his wooing with success--a wooing that was
without pure love--were receding further away than ever; but whatever
were his thoughts, to show that there was no bad feeling between
Cecil Falconer and himself, after all had retired to rest that night,
he invited the former to have a quiet little game of écarté in the
smoking-room--a game from which the Cameronian did _not_, somehow,
come away a winner.




CHAPTER V.

HEW MAKES A VOW.

For the next few days Cecil Falconer continued to give Hew a 'gey
wide berth,' as the old keeper phrased it, at the covers, where each
day's shooting was precisely like that which preceded it.  If Hew,
thought Falconer, were capable of such mad jealousy and dastardly
cruelty after a few hours' acquaintance, of what might he not be
capable and guilty in the time to come?

Was it his blundering stupidity which, as the gamekeeper said, had
nearly cost Sir Piers his life once before, or a spirit of infernal
malevolence to revenge the petty dispute about the cock-pheasant,
that made him fire his gun in the way he had done?

At times Cecil was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, and
as he was not of a resentful temperament, he gradually either forgot
the event, or remembered it only as a mistake, that might have proved
more serious than it did.  So each day's shooting passed pleasantly
over, and the evenings were devoted to music in the drawing-room,
where Mrs. Garth dispensed tea at a pretty little oval
table--fragrant orange Pekoe, out of tiny eggshell cups, without
handles--and where Sir Piers fell fast asleep over his _Scotsman_;
and the night wound up by Hew luring Falconer into what he termed 'a
little mild play' in the smoking-room--play from which the latter
always rose a loser, without being able precisely to know how.

Save for this kind of thing, which he could ill afford, Falconer
thought the brief term of his leave would be delightfully spent at
Eaglescraig.  A 'green yule' had come and gone, without skating or
curling, and the owl whooped nightly on the old tower-head, where the
winter wind shook the masses of ivy on the time-worn walls; and the
New Year was ushered in with well-bred joviality, rather than the
hearty old-fashioned uproariousness of the olden time, though in the
drawing-room the chorus could be heard from the servant's hall, where
Mr. Tunley led it with joyous vociferation, singing,

  'Here's a health to the year that's awa'!'

And precisely as the house-clocks struck twelve--midnight--the
house-door was unbarred with great formality, and thrown open to let
the Old Year _out_, and the New Year _in_; and rising from his
elbow-chair, Sir Piers kissed his niece Mary, and then old Mrs. Garth
in a courtly fashion, an example Hew Montgomerie was not slow to
follow on the soft cheek of the former, while Falconer looked
laughingly, yet perhaps enviously, on, and dared only press her hand
as he did that of Miss Erroll; and then there was a general
handshaking with Mr. Balderstone and other old friends who had been
invited to join the social circle.

The rubicund Mr. Tunley offered, in the name of all the servants, to
drink their old master's good health, and the health of all the
family; and Sir Piers, natheless all his pride, cordially shook the
old butler's hand, and each wished the other many happy years to
come; and he went through the same ceremony with all in the servants'
hall.

In all this homely warmth, mutual kindness and goodwill, there was
much that charmed Falconer; for though belonging to a Scottish
regiment, and one famous in history, educated as he had been far away
from his native country, and under peculiar circumstances, he knew
little or nothing of the ways and customs of the latter.

He had been much a wanderer, and never knew a home, save such as he
had found with his regiment; so there was much in the little circle
at Eaglescraig to delight him.  Save with Hew, he won golden opinions
from all there; his genial manner, spirited good-humour, handsome
bearing, and facile mode of adapting himself to those among whom
chance threw him--a mode that came, perhaps, of his having been
educated abroad--all seemed to make him a prime favourite.

He could speak much, and pleasantly, of what he had seen and where he
had been; he was a reader, too, and the fruit of his reading cropped
up pleasantly from time to time in the course of conversations that
Hew could take little or no part in, greatly to his own wrath.

'What a place this is for gammon and spinach!' thought Hew, who
viewed all this with extreme distaste, and still more the intimacy
that progressed between this 'interloper,' as he deemed him, and Mary
Montgomerie; for they nightly played together the mazurkas of Chopin
and selections from the songs of Mendelssohn and the operas of Verdi,
while Hew looked darkly and dubiously on, thinking there was in all
this far more than met the eye; and Sir Piers thought, with a smile,
that a Cameronian of _his_ time would certainly not have shone much
as a pianist.

Mary was always so happy in herself, that she usually made all others
equally so; thus, in her society, the hours, with Falconer, seemed to
fly like minutes.

Hew had--unknown to Sir Piers--become so seriously involved in
monetary matters during his sojourn in India, that it was next to
impossible for him to return there; and his chief hope for retrieving
himself and doing well for the future lay in a marriage with Mary
Montgomerie, rather than the prospective succession to the baronetcy
and to the acres of Eaglescraig, for Sir Piers was a hale old fellow
and might live for twenty years yet.  Indeed, everyone said so.

Thus he viewed with extreme bitterness and jealousy the visit of
Falconer and some of the details attendant on that visit, and his
closely-set and parti-coloured eyes twinkled dangerously as he
muttered:

'Devil take me if I don't bowl that fellow out yet!'

If Hew had been tender and true, less brusque and coarse--had really
loved Mary with a loving heart--she might have felt some compunction
for her laughing indifference to his suit; but she knew well his
avarice, his monetary hopes, and suspected some of his vices; and,
more than all, her proud spirit revolted at the idea of being made by
her father's will the mere puppet of a family compact, and
_compelled_ to marry any man.

'I heard you arranging a riding-party to-morrow, Mary,' said he,
during a pause (or while Falconer was being accompanied in an Italian
song by Miss Erroll), and bending over Mary till his moustache nearly
touched the white and close division in her rich dark-brown hair,
while she idled over an album of Indian photographs.

'Yes--you will go, of course, Hew?' said she, looking up at him with
her sunny hazel eyes bright with a smile.

'I would rather be excused,' he replied, sulkily.

'Why?'

'Why? because I should be only in the way.'

'Please yourself, Hew; but I do not understand you,' said Mary,
colouring with annoyance; '_what_ do you mean?'

'I mean,' said he bluntly, and in a low, concentrated voice, 'that
before this Cameronian fellow came, you and I were--were----'

'Were what?' asked Mary, sharply.

'Well, friends, at least.'

'And are we not friends now?' she said, laying her hand on his arm.
He looked lingeringly at it--a lovely hand it was, round and white,
with a golden bangle clasping the dimpled wrist--and he said in a low
voice:

'I had hoped we should in time be something dearer----'

'Oh, stuff!  Dear Hew, don't begin that sort of thing here,' replied
Mary, laughing to conceal her annoyance; 'you will forget all about
it when you go back to India again.'

Hew's face darkened ominously.

'But you don't like India?' added Mary, somewhat teasingly, while a
roguish smile dimpled her cheeks.

'I hate it, as you know well; yet I may have to return there, for all
that you care about it, or me.'

'There are tigers there, and snakes, and all those sort of things,
Hew?'

'Yes, and perhaps you would like them to eat me?' he asked, viciously.

'Oh, Hew! how can you speak thus!' she exclaimed, laughing.  'I never
said so.'

'But you thought it, all the same.'

She laughed louder at this, for Hew's peculiar love-making, if it
annoyed, always excessively amused her at the same time--a fatal
element for him.

The morning of the proposed ride proved a beautiful one, clear,
bracing, and sunny, and the horses were betimes brought round from
the stables to the stately perron in front of the house, where Hew
was smoking a cigar, when the girls came forth in their
riding-habits, attended by Cecil Falconer.

'And you are resolved not to accompany us, Hew?' asked Mary,
coaxingly, desirous to please him.

'Yes,' he replied, bluntly.

'What a pity the season is not summer,' she said to Falconer, 'we
could have such pleasant sketching expeditions, picnics, afternoon
tea on the lawn, croquet-matches and lawn-tennis; but our picnics are
so jolly, and we always use the big omnibus, in which the servants
drive on Sundays to the kirk of Eaglescraig.'

'Croquet is only good for one thing,' muttered Hew; 'it enables a
fellow to loaf with some girl he is soft upon; otherwise I never
could see anything in it,' he added in his growling tone.

Slender and willowy looked the figure of Mary in her tight,
well-fitted habit, even more so than that of Miss Erroll, who was
undoubtedly a very handsome girl.

Hew, having been in India, had been compelled to learn riding; but he
was a timid and indifferent cavalier, afraid of a horse, indeed, and
he could never have done what he saw Mary doing, tickling, patting,
and kissing the nose of her favourite pad, ere she was swung into her
saddle so deftly by Cecil, to whose care and companionship, together
with those of Annabelle Erroll, he was now compelled to relinquish
her, as the three departed, merrily and laughingly, to visit the
ruined castle of Kilbirnie, amid its stately parks and beautiful
gardens.

Down the long avenue they went under oaks and elms that had been
growing since the field of Pinkecleugh was fought and lost; and
between a pair of grand old carved iron gates, surmounted by a
coat-of-arms and supported by massive stone pillars covered with grey
lichen and green moss, and past the lodge, the occupant of which, an
old wooden-legged Cameronian, stood at 'attention' as they issued out
upon the roadway, watched by the evil eyes of Hew, to begin a two
hours' 'spin' through a rich and pastoral country.

Conversation of the stereotyped kind, concerning the weather and so
forth, had been long ignored by Falconer and Miss Montgomerie.

'I shall show you some beautiful scenery,' said she, as they
shortened their horses' pace to a walk; 'it is of the pastoral kind,
of course--for this is the land of dairy-farms and Dunlop
cheeses--all hill and dale; and though there are no mountains, we are
very proud of Cunninghame,' she added, laughing.  'Do you draw?'

'Yes.'

'And paint?'

'A little, in water-colours.'

'What a pity it is winter-time!  Were the season open, we might
sketch together, and how delightful that would be!'

Cecil Falconer cordially agreed with her.

'You must know that I love all this place dearly, wood, wold, and
water,' exclaimed the girl, with a bright smile, as she looked around
her with eyes the greatest beauty of which was their happy
expression, girlish truthfulness, and the innocence of a nature that
had never sought either to simulate or conceal an emotion; 'but I
fear you will deem me very provincial.'

'Why--for loving your native place?'

'Ah! but this is _not_ my native place.  I was born far away from
here; but since poor papa followed mamma to her grave, I have lived
at Eaglescraig, and all the happiest memories of my childhood, and
girlhood too, are connected with it; so I love the bold rocky
scenery, the great bluffs that overhang the Firth of Clyde, and the
green pastoral valleys of Cunninghame.  I know every farm and
cottage, every coppice and wimpling burn, in the bailiwick.'

'Is it long since your parents died, Miss Montgomerie?' asked
Falconer, as their conversation began to take a personal turn.

'Yes; oh, so long ago that I can only remember them as if in a dream!'

'That is sad.'

'And yours--was your father in the Cameronians?'

'He died when I was in infancy; and where, I scarcely know.'

'But he, too, was a soldier, of course?'

'I think not,' said Falconer, evasively.

'I am too curious--pardon me; but I am a terrible talker,' she added,
and changed the subject, which Annabelle Erroll perceived had brought
an unwonted colour to the young man's cheeks.

Falconer had often thought that, had his father lived, there would
have been a great difference in his own life somehow, though he could
not distinctly define the nature of it.

'How I wish your friend had been here with you,' Mary Montgomerie
said, after a pause.

'Leslie Fotheringhame?'

'Yes; but Sir Piers said it was impossible.'

'He, too, could not leave our detachment.'

'How lonely he must be, shut up in that dull castle of Dumbarton.
His name is a scarce one; is he one of the old Fotheringhames of
Angus?'

'I believe so,' said Miss Erroll, colouring after she spoke.

'We should have made quite a pleasant quartette!' said Miss
Montgomerie.  'Does he sing?'

'Oh yes--so well!' replied Annabelle, ere Falconer could speak.

'How do _you_ know?' asked her friend, laughing.

Annabelle, usually taciturn and silent, now changed colour more
perceptibly, and replied:

'Surely Mr. Falconer must have said so!  How should _I_ know,
otherwise?'

Cecil was perfectly aware that he had never done so, but was puzzled
to think how Miss Erroll was aware of his friend's talent.

'You have met, perhaps?' he began.

'In society--yes; people meet each other everywhere nowadays,' she
replied, and looked another way.

The three riders were still in view of the loftily-situated house and
tall old tower of Eaglescraig, and Hew's eyes, from the terrace, were
following them.

He seemed still to see the skill and grace with which--as if he
caressed her--Cecil Falconer had swung Mary Montgomerie into her
saddle, and the care and tenderness with which he adjusted her
stirrup, her habit, and reins.  He seemed to see, too, the light in
the eyes of both as they scampered down the long avenue, ere he
turned away to get a foaming beaker of soda-and-brandy, in Mr.
Tunley's pantry, as a panacea for his bitter thoughts.

He watched the trio disappear over a slope, or braehead, where the
road dipped downward, and he registered a vow of vengeance on Cecil
Falconer if the latter crossed his purposes--a vow all the deeper for
being unspoken--and he achieved it terribly when the time came, and
it was ultimately to assume a form and force beyond even what he
himself could have conceived!

Nature had cursed Hew with a suspicious and jealous disposition;
inherent doubt of everyone was a part of that very disposition.
Thus, his own total want of success with Mary Montgomerie, on one
hand, led him, on the other, to conceive the most exaggerated ideas
of the progress Cecil Falconer must already have made with her.

Hew Montgomerie, when he chose, could be 'a good hater,' and, as
such, would have been decidedly after the heart of the 'great'
English lexicographer, whose hateful addendum was, 'I never forgive
an injury;' but Cecil had in no way injured Hew.




CHAPTER VI.

A REVELATION.

Of Cecil Falconer's mood of mind and views of the whole situation at
this time, we can be best informed by a letter which he despatched to
his friend and chum, Leslie Fotheringhame, on the day subsequent to
the little riding expedition:


'Eaglescraig, Cunninghame.

'MY DEAR LESLIE,

'Hannibal has found his Capua!  After our limited cuisine at
Dumbarton, it seems to me that--so far as luxury is concerned--daily
Lucullus dines with Apicius; by which preamble you will think, old
fellow, that I have gone out of my mind, or betaken me to cramming
again, as we did at Sandhurst.  I am freely quartered in a
magnificent house, with delightful society, and an old host, the
general, who is hospitality's own self, and possesses a well-filled
stable and a rare cellar--not that I care for it much--but any way,
in its binns are some curious old Madeira that has been thrice round
the Cape, white and red Constantia, Tokay with tints of gold,
Chateau-Yquem, and Malmsey in which maudlin Clarence might have been
drowned.

'We have had some excellent cover shooting, and, though the birds
were a little wild, a good many brace fell to my bag.  Nothing is
stiff or formal here, though the old gentleman has some stately,
eccentric, and rather extravagant notions about family, pedigree,
blood, and all that sort of thing, and laments much the loss of a son
who was once one of "Ours."  There are two charming girls here, and
after one's bachelor and barrack experiences, it is delightful to
meet them each day at breakfast, with their fresh morning costumes
and complexions; and charming, too, is the morning-room--quite like
that described in "Coningsby": "Such a profusion of flowers; such a
multitude of books; such a prodigality of writing materials; so many
easychairs too, of so many shapes, each in itself a comfortable home;
yet nothing crowded."  And then the girls!  Don't you envy me, old
fellow!  But I have no doubt they will have you over here when
I--alas!--leave, for the old double Dun in the Clyde.

'There is one blot in my picture--a member of the family circle,
named Hew Caddish Montgomerie, to whom I am obliged to do the civil,
the general's heir--whom I simply detest and view in the light of a
noxious reptile, why or how I cannot precisely say; but we have our
likings and dislikings in this world, our attractions and repulsions,
and _certes_, this fellow repels me!

'He is jowly in face, with full, red lips, heavy, stealthy, and
shifty eyes, set close to his nose, and he inherits rather reddish
hair and freckles from the family who gave him his middle name,
which, curiously enough, is Caddish; and in spite, jealousy, or by a
blunder, he nearly potted me one day in the covers!

'I think he already views me as a species of rival; he is a sort of
cousin of Miss Montgomerie (would that I were so! but I am only one
of those poor devils who exist in the world on sufferance), and
whether they are engaged or not I cannot tell.  He has half led me to
infer as much, and assumes a disgusting air of proprietary and so
forth, which certainly is not endorsed by Miss Montgomerie.'

(Falconer had written 'by _Mary_,' but had dashed through the
Christian name, which had escaped his pen, and Fotheringhame remarked
this.)

'Anyhow, I was cognisant of a rather tender scene between them in the
avenue on the day I arrived here.  He is deuced sharp at cards, and I
have already lost to him much more than I can afford to lose.

'The general is an enthusiast on all that pertains to the regiment,
and quite a detachment of it, in the shape of old pensioners, is
quartered on his property.  His Indian anecdotes are a little prosy,
as he lugs them in on every conceivable occasion; but he is such a
dear old fellow, that one can't help listening to his yarns about
curry and rice; and a curious one he told me, last night, may
interest you, as it referred to his son and a detachment of "Ours."

'When they were in Central India, Piers Montgomerie, with forty
Cameronians and some natives, invested a fort named the Ghurry of
Kittoor, a square edifice with towers at the corners, armed with
heavy gingals and a few small cannon.  The Potail commanding it was a
resolute fellow, believing himself shot-proof, by an amulet he wore,
and he was custodian of a great amount of treasure in gold mohurs, of
which Piers had orders to deprive him.  The fort was stormed, the
Potail slain, and the treasure-chest was found, but totally
empty--verifying the last words of the Potail, who, when dying, swore
upon the Koran that there was not even an anna in the place, and that
all the slaughter had been for nothing.

'Before the gate of the Ghurry there grew a tree of vast size and
age, which Captain Montgomerie ordered his men to cut down for fuel.
The soldier who hewed down the first branch brought away with it a
literal shower of gold--gold that flashed in the sunshine and studded
all the green sward like yellow buttercups; and there, sure enough,
in the hollow trunk of the tree, was found treasure to the value of
fifty thousand golden mohurs, to the bewilderment and joy of the
Cameronians, who had been on such short rations for some time past,
that they were ready to share the repast of Count Ugolino.

'I listen patiently to such yarns, because I am anxious to remain in
his good graces; would that I could also be in those of his ward and
niece!

'I believe, Leslie, that you are nearer to my heart than any other
friend I ever had, so I don't mind owning to you that I am in for
it--about to fall in love!  I have always been at the same old game,
you will say; but this time I fear that I am in terrible earnest, and
have met my fate!  But the deuce is, that she is a great heiress,
while I have only my pay, or little more, and dare not lift my eyes
so high; besides, what would be the use, as I strongly suspect that,
with the general's wish and consent, she is the _fiancée_ of his
heir--the most unamiable, yet enviable, Cousin Hew!

'She is more than handsome--she is downright beautiful!  Somewhat of
a brunette, only a very pale and colourless one, with a small
straight nose, dark hazel eyes, and dark brown hair, and her mouth is
the sweetest in expression I ever saw; but I think I see you laughing
at all this, you unbelieving villain!

'Even now, as I write in the library, she makes a delicious picture,
with her beautiful slender throat and shapely head, as she stands in
an oriel, whispering to a canary which flutters its golden wings
against the bars of its cage, and takes from her rosy lips a crumb of
sugar in its bill.

'She is frank and open-hearted, and somehow seems to sympathise with
all my thoughts and fancies, and we have already gone some length in
a mixture of confidential jest and earnest, which, though it may only
amuse her, is perilous work to me.  She is, perhaps, a little proud
of her beauty; but what pretty girl is not?  She seems a creature
that draws brightness from all around her, while dispensing it in
return, and to have been made only to be petted, admired, and
caressed.

'You will think that I am hit hard.  Well, old fellow, I grant to you
that I am, and already a remoteness seems to have come over my
past--our old barrack-room life at Dumbarton and elsewhere.

'To be hourly in the society of such a girl--to have her daily to
walk, to ride, to sing with--is sure to have but one end.  Her voice,
by the way, is a clear and thrilling soprano--her touch upon the keys
is full of tenderness; but a distrust of myself besets me sorely, and
leaves unspoken the words that--despite the existence of Cousin
Hew--hover on my lips.

'Why? you will ask.

'Because it is difficult for a man that is poor, and has not even
high family to recommend him, to be deemed other than a
fortune-hunter, when he aspires to an undoubted heiress; but I shall
tell you all about this when I rejoin, and Fate has dropped its pall
between her and me.

'I have lost at écarté to Hew Montgomerie, and have given him my
I.O.U. for a hundred and eighty pounds.  Please lend me the money,
like a dear old fellow, and I shall square it up somehow, ere we go
back to head-quarters, as we are sure to do when the spring drills
commence, as I loathe to be in this fellow's debt, and the sum is
rather a crusher to me.

'I hope all is right with our detachment, and that you grant no
passes for more than twenty-four hours, and look sharp after our
fellows.  I must close now, as we are about to have a spin through
the country, as far as Kilwinning, to see the company of archers
practise, for old Sir Piers has more than once been captain of the
popinjay in June, and a winner of the silver arrow.'


He had closed and despatched his letter ere he remembered that he had
omitted all mention, even by name, of Annabelle Erroll.




CHAPTER VII.

HEW'S 'MILD PLAY.'

Fotheringhame wrote promptly back to Falconer; his letter contained
the 'needful,' and some bantering advice with reference to his love
affair.

'For a man in full possession of his senses,' he wrote, 'you are
evidently far gone indeed; and if matrimony alone will cure you, and
cause thereby the loss of a thorough good fellow to the corps and the
service, why the deuce don't you propose, and turn the flank of the
cub named Hew, of whose "mild play" I would advise you to beware,
especially as écarté is a very rooking kind of game.  Cut in for the
girl, if you are determined to chuck yourself away; and, if you play
your cards in love as well as the cousin does at écarté, she will
soon be nestling her blushing cheek on your waistcoat, and scratching
her dainty nose on your diamond studs.'

'How can he write thus of such a creature as Mary Montgomerie!'
muttered Falconer, indignantly.

'If she has wealth, it is all the better, as you have none,'
continued the epistle.  'And as far as name is required, a Falconer
is just as good as a Montgomerie, I suppose.'

'I am doubtful if Sir Piers shares this opinion,' thought Falconer;
but, for the future, he resolved to write no more to Fotheringhame on
the subject now growing daily nearer his heart.

'When I put on my first red coat,' continued Fotheringhame, 'I
resolved, if I married at all, to condescend to nothing less than a
young dowager duchess, a peeress in her own right, or an heiress,
beautiful as a houri; but none of these have, as yet, come in my way.'

Falconer lost no time in paying Hew, who gave back the I.O.U., and
invited him to have his revenge in a little 'mild play' that night in
his own room; and the former promised to take it if he could,
resolving the while to keep a sharp watch upon his adversary's play.

Falconer had not been without a hint concerning it from Mrs. Garth,
who took a motherly interest in him, as a young officer--more than
all, as one of her 'own Cameronians,' as she was wont to call the
corps.

'You and Hew sit up very late at night, I fear,' she remarked
incidentally; 'smoking, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

'Any play?'

'A little.'

'Take care,' she resumed softly; 'those who play with Hew often lose
and seldom win.  He is such a--such a very good player; and young
men, I know, are so foolish at times.'

Had she hinted aught of this to the general?

Falconer was almost inclined to think so, as before Fotheringhame's
inclosure came, his somewhat disturbed and preoccupied air was noted
by his host, who, drawing him aside, said kindly:

'Look here, Falconer, you seem rather distrait this morning.  I was
once a sub myself, and not always a jolly one; are you in want of
ammunition?  If so, say the word and my purse is at your service to
any amount; and as for repayment, take your time; "it may be for
years, and it may be for ever," so far as I care, when obliging a
brother officer of my own corps.'

Thanking the kind old man from his heart, Falconer waived the
subject; and ere the small hours of the night came, he found himself
in Hew Montgomerie's room seated at a table on which were several
packs of new cards.

The guest of Sir Piers, and the secret admirer of Mary, poor Falconer
felt himself constrained to be victimised nightly in his desire to
'stand well,' as the phrase is, even with Hew: thus he veiled his
growing suspicions and dislike of the latter, who, when quite sober,
for his own purpose, and to win as much as he could from the luckless
sub--a fact and system that would have roused the wrath of Sir
Piers--also veiled, so far as he could, _his_ dislike and jealousy of
Cecil; and thus held over, _pro tem._, his intended vengeance, if his
path or purpose were crossed, though he never forgot the wicked oath
by which he had bound himself.

To lose again, as he had lost before, Falconer knew might prove his
ruin now; but he resolved to be wary, and to watch well, and though
Hew was a player accustomed to deep and sharp play for years, in
whiling away the lonely hours in an Indian bungalow far up-country,
he was destined to have his _modus operandi_ thoroughly laid bare on
this occasion.

Personally, Hew was disposed to be offensive to Falconer; but
dissembled, as he was anxious to 'rook' him a little further, and
also to mislead him with reference to his own views concerning Sir
Piers' ward.  Cunning hints did much to achieve this with Cecil, and
to curb and perplex the latter, who never forgot the scene in the
avenue on the day of his arrival.

Hew began by pressing Falconer to partake of a tall and foaming glass
of brandy and soda, of which Tunley had left a supply for them on a
side-table, together with a box of havanas.

Hew's room was hung with coloured prints of the hunting field, the
paddock, and other horsey subjects, for though no horseman, as we
have said, he made up his book upon coming events and betted freely,
while his knowledge of whist and écarté was only excelled by that
which he possessed of zoology, so far as referred to rats and
badgers.  But he loved to affect a 'horsey' style; thus his
mantelpiece was littered by spurs, whips, riding-gloves, and rusty
bits, and pipes, long, short, clay and briar-root; and in one corner
stood a row of boots, the leather tops of which obtained 'their
creamy tint,' as he said, 'from being rubbed with champagne and
apricot juice--a hint given him by a gentleman-jock of the Royal
Hussars.'

'As usual?' said Hew; 'écarté, I suppose?'

'Yes,' replied Falconer, as they lit their cigars; 'écarté be it.'

'By Jove! one would require four eyes to play that game.'

Falconer thought that in the present instance eight might be
advantageous.

'Five points, and two packs to facilitate the deal,' said Hew, as he
quickly shuffled the cards; Falconer cut them, and the play began.

Falconer affected what he did not feel--but very far from it--an
unusually free, easy, and careless manner; looked at the hunting
pictures hung round the room, chatted on indifferent subjects, to
lull the suspicions of Hew, and intent on verifying his own, in which
he found a very unexpected assistant in the form of Mary
Montgomerie's pet terrier Snarley, which had already become
reconciled to him--had taken even a capricious fancy for him (for
which it had been privately kicked more than once by the amiable
Hew); and now it lay coiled up at his feet, and it was while stooping
from time to time to pat the dog, that he perceived the latter come
from under the table with a card in his teeth.

All this while, Hew had been deeply intent on the points and
counters.  He had, however, allowed Falconer, as a lure, no doubt, to
win four games successively, and as many sovereigns, when he suddenly
proposed to increase the stakes to five pounds.

'Agreed,' said Falconer, almost to the other's surprise, he did it so
readily; and the play went briskly on, while he continued to chat on
irrelevant subjects.

'Who was that good-looking young fellow who took Miss Montgomerie in
to dinner this evening?' he asked.

'Good looking?  _I_ don't think so, but tastes differ.  As to who he
is, I may say that he comes of a good old county stock--nay, is _the_
stock himself--Bickerton of that ilk.  You don't set much store on
that sort of thing, as I remember,' added Hew, who could never resist
saying a disagreeable thing, 'as you didn't seem to care what
Falconers you came of, when Sir Piers--a great man for
pedigree--spoke about it.'

Cecil Falconer coloured perceptibly at this remark.  Hew saw that it
was a sore subject, and thought to himself:

'Hit him on the raw there, somehow!'

Meanwhile, Falconer looked curiously at him from time to time.  Was
it the growing regard for Mary Montgomerie that induced him, Cecil
Falconer, to dissemble in his bearing towards this fellow, and affect
to forget that, but for a chance next to a miracle, by his hands, on
that day at the covers, he might now have been a mutilated, hideous,
and blind creature--blighted in existence and profession for ever?

Yes, the influence of Mary alone could make him act the double part
he felt himself to be acting now.

Hew was dealing, and while Falconer was stooping to pat Snarley, gave
himself--as he had done before--eight cards instead of _five_, some
of which he seemed to drop as if by a blunder, and in mistake only
took up one, leaving the remainder on the carpet till the hand was
played out, when he skilfully, but not unnoticed, contrived to
replace them in the pack.

'When we are married,' said he, with a nervous chuckle, 'I'll have to
drop all this sort of thing, I suppose.'

'Well, don't _drop_ your cards as yet,' replied Falconer, coldly.
'Married--you, and who?'

'Mary and I; it's all arranged, don't you know?  Oh, by Jove, here is
luck!' he added, looking for a king, and of course _getting_ one,
while the score was growing heavy against his adversary, and was
close on a hundred now.

'Hallo, Mr. Montgomerie!' exclaimed Falconer angrily, as Hew stooped
to fish for a dropped card, 'what's the matter?'

'I have dropped a card, by Jove! and that d----d terrier has collared
it.  Here, Snarley, you brute!'

'You have dropped half-a-dozen, sir!' said Falconer sternly, as he
rose from his chair with menace in his eyes.

'I have not!'

'Look for yourself, then.'

'Where?'

'Under the table.'

'By Jove, there _are_ cards there!' said Hew, with well simulated
surprise, as he hastily picked them up; 'but they were never dropped
by me.'

'By who, then?'

To gain time, or avoid reply, Hew addressed himself to his brandy and
soda, of which he had imbibed more than enough already.

'Never again shall I play with you' ('you scoundrel,' Cecil was on
the point of adding); 'and if I do not expose your play to Sir Piers
and the public, it is only because I have a sincere respect for your
family.  This is my score,' he continued, taking up a memorandum,
'more than one hundred pounds, which I must have paid you, but for
this most fortunate discovery, which cancels everything!'

With these words, Falconer tore up the paper and scattered the
fragments, while Hew, unsteady in his movements now, clutched the
back of his chair with both hands, grew very pale in the face, and
literally glared at him with his shifty green eyes.

'You are mistaken, Mr. Falconer,' he said thickly.

'I am _not_ mistaken, sir!'

'Come, come; don't make a d----d row about nothing,' said Hew,
coarsely and bluntly; but as he had no wish, as yet, to push matters
to an extremity with Falconer, or drive him to report the occurrence
to Sir Piers, he alternately sought to explain, temporise with, and
even to bully him, seeking at the same time to retain him in the room
for a little space, and unwired another bottle for his benefit; and
Cecil at first thought he was _acting_ intoxication as a cover, or
excuse, for his recent trickery.

'We mustn't appear to quarrel, you know,' said he, inarticulately,
while glaring viciously at Falconer.  'Won't do--bad style of
thing--bad form.  Keep it dark with Sir Piers,' he added, swaying
about as if his heels were on a pivot; 'a bloated old aristocrat--man
likely to hop his twig!  Ah! you thought to draw me like a badger
about Mary, but won't be drawn by you or any man.'

'Good-night!' cried Cecil, making his escape.

'Goor-right--goor-right!' said Hew, lunging right and left, and
nearly knocking over the card-table, while sending after his guest a
savage malediction, with an unlit havana in his mouth.

Thus, at first, through the appearance of Mary's terrier Snarley with
a card in his mouth, Falconer had obtained an insight into the cause
of his own continued losses, and the steady success of Hew
Montgomerie, with whom, of course, he could never play again; and the
knowledge of this, together with the disgrace of being unmasked as a
gambler and cheat, added to the growing hatred that possessed the
other, who did not appear next morning at breakfast, but left a
message with Tunley for Sir Piers, to the effect, that he had gone to
fulfil an engagement, for a few days' shooting at Bickerton's place,
in the adjacent bailiwick of Kyle, and there, doubtless, he would
plot mischief for the time to come.

'A jolly good riddance!' thought Falconer, as he recalled with
disgust the episode of the last night.




CHAPTER VIII.

'THE LOVE THAT TOOK AN EARLY ROOT.'

Several days had passed now since Cecil Falconer found himself fairly
installed as a guest at Eaglescraig.

Hew was still absent, and Falconer thought it strange, if he and Mary
were engaged, or lovers in fact, as many a casual remark from Hew had
led him to infer, to the great repression of his own secret hopes,
that the handsome Russia leather despatch-box, which was stamped with
the three _fleurs-de-lis_, and the three annulets of Montgomerie, and
which, with the regularity of clockwork, was brought in at
breakfast-time by Mr. Tunley, never contained an epistle from him to
her.

Cecil naturally supposed that lovers wrote each other daily; but here
was a pair who never wrote to each other at all!  Cecil gathered a
little hope and confidence from the circumstance, till a tormenting
doubt suggested that they might have had a lovers' temporary quarrel.

The days passed, we say, and in all that time, while almost hourly
enjoying the society of Mary Montgomerie, Falconer had in no way
betrayed the growing emotions of his heart; and though markedly
attentive, there was nothing approaching loverhood in his conduct or
bearing; but it would have been very difficult to convince the absent
and vindictive Hew of that fact, as it was a fixed conviction of his,
that there was more in everything in this world than met the eye, and
that all still waters run deep.

Cecil's face brightened, and his tone softened more, when addressing
Mary Montgomerie than they did when he was with Miss Erroll, or other
ladies.  There were no other signs; but her keener perception and
more subtle instinct told her intuitively that he felt a deeper
interest in her than he had yet avowed; and, though she had many
admirers, the consciousness of this made her heart beat happily, and
gave a little coquetry to her manner, that, when other men were
present, scarcely pleased Falconer, who thought that perhaps she was
only _amusing_ herself with him in the absence of her ungracious
_fiancé_.

She was quite a sister of charity, Mary Montgomerie, in that part of
the country, and sometimes Cecil drove her pony-carriage on her
missions--a tiny basket carriage, full of gifts for the poor, all of
which were bestowed upon them in a friendly rather than a charitable
way by the softly-eyed chatelaine of Eaglescraig, who loved to
cultivate thus a link, a bond, between the cottage and the great
house; and Falconer, no doubt to please her, never forgot the various
relationships and names of the recipients of her bounty, and
contrived to have always for each man or woman a packet of that
peculiar tobacco which they specially affected; thus he too became a
favourite with them all.  He never forgot the joy of these little
drives, in the deep old lanes of Cunninghame, with such a companion
as Mary Montgomerie, nestled together in the tiny pony-carriage,
covered by the ample skin of a dreadful man-eater, whom the general's
gun had brought down in the swampy Terrai of Nepaul, and the
inevitable Snarley coiled up at her pretty feet; drives in the clear,
frosty winter afternoons, when the skies were blue and bright, or
flecked by golden cloud, when the distant hills were capped with
snow, and the smoke of the steamers in the Firth of Clyde towered
straight upward till lost in the pure and ambient air.

Already they felt quite like old friends, these two; they had a
thousand topics and views in common, and they became perfectly
unconstrained, familiar, and easy with each other--familiar with a
rapidity that surprised themselves.

Little by little Mary wound her way quickly round the heart of Cecil
Falconer; but dread of her relations with Hew Montgomerie tied up the
tongue of the former more than even the crushing knowledge of his own
meagre exchequer did.

She soon discovered that sentiment which every young officer
possesses--a pride in his regiment, and drew him out to talk
enthusiastically of its achievements and ancient history, and watched
with pleasure his animated face while he expatiated on a topic so
congenial; though, to her, in reality, the glories of Her Majesty's
Cameronians had been rendered long ago a worn-out household theme by
Sir Piers.

When Cecil touched her hand, ever so gently, she felt every nerve in
her body thrill with that exquisite sensibility which was a part of
her nature.  She saw how his colour changed at times, and _he_ saw
how hers did so too; she felt in her own heart the hesitation that
was in _his_ voice, and, with the quick perception of a young girl,
thought to herself:

'Can it be that--that he loves me--loves me, and yet dare not say
so?' and then she would think of the sweet love song of Montrose,
about one who 'feared his fate too much.'

'I know that Cecil Falconer loves me!' she would whisper to Annabelle
Erroll, in the seclusion of their own particular sanctum; 'his eyes,
his voice, and his manner all begin to tell me so.  Why does he not
speak out?  I wish he had half the fluency and confidence of that oaf
Hew.'

'But Hew knows the wishes, and is backed by the authority of your
kinsman and guardian, Sir Piers,' replied Annabelle; 'and if any
contretemps occurs--you know----'

'Well--what then?'

'It will only be a thousand pities that young Falconer ever found his
way to Eaglescraig at all!'

There were more of this opinion than the soft, pretty blonde
Annabelle.  A curious and subtle change had come over Mary--a change
detected only by Mrs. Garth; as for Hew, he had been too obtuse to
notice it; and over her fair, soft face, when she was alone, or sunk
in reverie, there shone a brighter light than of yore--a happier and
yet more thoughtful expression.

Whence was this? thought Mrs. Garth.

'Take care, Mary,' said the old lady one day, when caressingly
folding her to her motherly heart, as she was often wont to do; 'my
little pet-bird, be wary, for your own sake, and all our sakes.'

'Wary of what?' asked Mary, growing pale as she knew intuitively what
was coming.

'Need I tell you--of this young Cameronian.'

'Why, how? fiddlestick! dearest Mrs. Garth; what do you fear?'

'Only this, you seem to forget the intentions of your grand-uncle,
and the hope that your cousin Hew--for so we may call him--has for
the future.'

These injunctions and remarks alarmed and irritated Mary; but they
had the effect of rendering her somewhat shy or constrained when with
Falconer.  The duets at the piano nearly ceased, then a cold, or a
headache, or some such reason was urged why the drives in the
pony-carriage should also cease, and they were abruptly relinquished.
There was a little change; Falconer felt it and was a little piqued;
he remembered her wealth, and the scene in the avenue, and strove to
crush out of his heart the thoughts he had been cherishing there.
His short term of leave would soon be at an end; but could he go back
to the dull routine of duty with this new secret of his soul untold?

Even if he won her love, his immediate idea of the future was vague
and shadowy.  It seemed to be chiefly the desire to know that she was
his own, and would be so irrevocably; to have the sole right of
caressing, doting upon, and worshipping her; but when marriage and
fortune came to be considered, the deep gulf yawned again between
them, and the cold hardness of practical everyday life jarred
terribly with the soft suggestions of love, tenderness, and romance.

Should he consult Mrs. Garth, who seemed so kindly disposed towards
him, or should he first seek the consent of Sir Piers?  No; he felt
very timid somehow, and shrunk from the too probable crushing
refusal, or biting inquiry as to the settlements he could make, his
family, and so forth; he thought that he would rather try his fate
with Mary herself, and 'put it to the touch to win or lose it all!'

He was already 'so far gone,' as Fotheringhame would have phrased it,
that his happiness or misery was now simply the question.  He made up
his mind, or thought he did so, to declare his love to Mary, and he
passed several hours in flattering, and anon in torturing himself by
putting every imaginable construction on all that had ever passed
between him and her, and between her and Hew, and all that the latter
had said to him, suggested to him, and artfully led him to infer.

Luncheon--or 'tiffin' as the general always named it--was over, when
one day Cecil, his soul fraught with a declaration, rose to follow
Mary, who had gone into the library to look after the last parcel of
books from Edinburgh; but ere he could join her he was button-holed
by the inevitable general, and the opportunity was lost--perhaps
luckily so--who knows?

'One glass more of Lafitte ere you leave me, Falconer,' said Sir
Piers; 'are you going to take your gun?'

'No; I walked too far after the birds yesterday, and have rather
knocked myself up.'

'You are too young a soldier to say this, Falconer.  Knocked up--by
Jove, sir!' exclaimed Sir Piers.  'Precisely this day twenty years
ago I too was knocked up, but it was not by tramping through covers.
It happened thus, you see.  We were on the march from the banks of
the Chumbul in Malwah, and the rain was incessant--yes, as if the
windows of heaven were opened again.  I was escorting prisoners, with
some native infantry, and had to push on without food or natural
rest, and exposed the while to incessant attacks from the Bheels, a
savage mountain banditti, who practise human sacrifices in secret,
and who were artfully incited to mischief by Holkar; and there was
the very devil to pay when we came to the Chumbul Nullah, a terrible
torrent, swollen by the rains--no rice for the men, no grain for the
horses, which left their shoes, when the nails declined to remain, in
the mud.  Heavy firing on all hands, the infernal Bheels with their
matchlocks and jingals, and the elephants, under it all, trying to
carry over the troops; when wounded the brutes became furious, shook
prisoners and escort, soldiers' wives and soldiers' children,
baggage, treasure, and everything out of the howdahs into the foaming
torrent, and a horrible scene ensued--all who got ashore were
massacred, save myself, and I only escaped by a perfect miracle.  It
happened this way, you see----'

How Sir Piers was saved Falconer never learned, for just then he
contrived to make his escape, as Mr. John Balderstone, with a bundle
of legal-looking documents, was announced on important business, and
arrested the attention of the narrator.

Partly worried by the general's prosy interruption, and thus partly
thwarted in his purpose, Cecil entered the library, unheard by its
occupant; its floor was covered by rare tiger skins, sent home from
India by the general, who had been a mighty hunter there, and had
transmitted home enough of them to stock a bazaar, with their claws
set in gold, as necklaces, ear-rings, and brooches to all the ladies
of his acquaintance.

After one brief glance at the stately room, with its curtained bay
windows, its walls covered by glittering volumes in splendid oak
cases, its marble busts, easy chairs, and reading tables littered
with papers, periodicals, prints, and drawing materials, Falconer's
eye rested upon Mary Montgomerie, and his heart, full of love though
it was, sank as he gazed--gazed on her in all her rare beauty.

She stood before the stately fireplace, looking intently into the
bright flame, seeing castles in the embers perhaps, and a sense,
momentarily akin to despair, stole over him; her graceful figure was
so elegantly and richly attired in a costume so perfect in all its
details and ornaments, from the tiny pearl comb that held up the
close silky coils of her dark-brown hair, to the beautifully
embroidered little slipper that rested on the fender--all indicated
the gulf, that, though love might span it, too surely lay between
them--a gulf formed by great wealth, by family and high position on
her side, and by the utter lack of these three important elements on
his own.

He had followed her here, fraught with a proposal, and now he could
but ask himself, Why had Fate brought him to Eaglescraig?

She turned suddenly, and welcomed him by a smile, a book in one white
hand, the other resting on the mantelpiece, and he was half
relieved--so unstable was he of purpose--when Annabelle Erroll issued
from the recess of a window, saying:

'Oh, Mr. Falconer, you are just come here when I wanted you--so
particularly, too.'

'I am glad of that--in what can I serve you?'

'By writing your autograph in my "Birthday Book,"' she replied,
producing one of the records with which young ladies are wont to bore
their friends--a handsomely bound little volume--a bijou freak of the
time, wherein a motto from a poet, or a text from Scripture, was
appended to each day of the twelve months.  'What is your birthday?'

'The fifth of November.'

'Gunpowder-plot day!' she exclaimed, laughing, as her quick little
hand selected the page.  'Here it is--November 5--St. Bertille's day;
and the motto is, "Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full
of trouble."'

'Scriptural--but rather uncomfortable,' said Falconer, smiling, as he
assumed a pen.

'Your days have not been days of trouble surely?' said Miss
Montgomerie to him softly.

'My past days have not been without it,' replied Falconer, as a shade
crossed his handsome face.

'And your future?'

'Heaven alone knows that--it depends upon another--not myself,' said
he, with a brief soft glance that made her colour deepen and her
eyelids droop, while he wrote his autograph immediately under that of
Sir Piers, whose natal day was also the 5th--dedicated to the memory
of Guy Fawkes and Inkermann.

'Cecil!' said Annabelle; 'such a pretty name it is--was it your
father's name too?'

'No--I am named from my mother, in a way; her name was Cecilia.'

'How strange?'

'There is nothing strange in it at all,' rejoined Falconer gravely,
and Mary could perceive that he coloured almost painfully, and the
subject was instantly changed by her; yet it impressed her so much,
that she mentioned the incident to her confidante and constant guide,
old Mrs. Garth.

'Named from his mother, and he has never been known to mention his
father,' thought Mrs. Garth; 'there is some painful mystery here--and
all mysteries are decidedly unpleasant!  I must endeavour to arrest
the progress of this _affair_, for the sake of both, ere it is too
late!  But how to do it, with sufficient tact and delicacy?'

And in this intention she had been further armed by the advice and
opinion of Mr. John Balderstone, an old and valued friend and
adherent of the Eaglescraig family, who had not been unobservant of
the matter in question.




CHAPTER IX.

MRS. GARTH ACTS A FRIENDLY PART.

Nor was the opportunity she wished for long in coming, in the many
chances afforded by propinquity, and a residence in the same house;
though, in one full of guests, it was difficult to get the object of
her solicitude alone.

That afternoon, in the drawing-room, Cecil Falconer and Mary were at
the piano; the general preparing for a visit to his stables, as it
was rainy, and none could go far abroad; Annabelle Erroll and a few
other visitors were idling over books of prints, albums, and other
trifles; and Mrs. Garth, observant of the two first-named, with
something of sadness and impatience in her heart, was in her usual
seat near the fireplace, sheltered from the heat by a plate-glass
screen, and knitting busily, for she was always knitting as if her
livelihood depended upon it--but her industry was all devoted to the
comforts of the poor, for she had a kind heart, having known much
suffering 'in her time,' as she was wont to say, and thus was ever
ready, so far as her slender means went, to aid those who were
necessitous, or troubled in any way.

She was tall and thin in figure, and not without dignity in her
bearing, with a look of calm and patient waiting in her soft and
gentle eyes, which were clear and bright as those of a young girl,
albeit her face was wrinkled and her silky hair was grey.  Sometimes
their expression seemed cold and sad, when her thoughts travelled
backward into the past; yet no eyes could laugh in expression more
merrily than hers, at times.

Like Sir Piers, and most old people, she lived more in the past than
the present, and he, just then, with his feet planted on the
hearthrug, while listening with a pleasant smile to an Italian duet,
of which he did not understand one word, was busy with that most
tantalising of all mental exercises, groping amid vanished years for
some fugitive reminiscence that the face and voice of Cecil Falconer
had summoned up.

Was it his old comrade Garth he resembled, or who?  But Sir Piers had
seen and known so many men in his time, that day-dreams of them were
no cause for marvel.

'How the time passes!' said he, looking smilingly down on the old
lady; 'yet I can remember you a charming girl, when you joined the
Cameronians, Mrs. Garth; and that was not yesterday!'

'Well, general,' replied the widow, with a gratified smile on her old
face, 'there were worse-looking girls, I dare say, and I had more
than one offer before I was twenty; but I preferred poor John Garth
to all the world.'

'And right you were--right you were!' said Sir Piers, emphatically.
'Poor John Garth!  I shall never forget his fine conduct on the
morning we stormed the hill-fort of the Nabob All Nazir-jung (or the
victorious in war), as he boasted himself, in the Doab between the
Jhelum and the Chenab.  It was a strange affair,' he continued,
relating an anecdote as well known to Mrs. Garth as to himself, yet
to which she listened with a kindling eye, 'we sunk our half-sap by
degrees and pushed it close to the outworks, covering our men by
gabions, sand-bags, and mantelets, and the assault was to take place
an hour before gunfire, or daybreak.  I remember how lovely the night
was!  A breeze stole up the hillside and stirred the golden bells of
the scented baubul-trees; the moon in her silver glory, like a round
shield, was mirrored in the bosom of the Jhelum, and the stormers
were beginning to creep into the advanced trench, where we could see
their bayonets glittering and their white puggarees behind the shade
of the gabions.  Just as Jack Garth and I were having a farewell
cheroot and drain of brandy-pawnee, Drake, of the Bengal Infantry,
who had been detailed to lead the assault, came into our tent looking
pale as a sheeted ghost.

'Now Drake was no coward, he had been under fire many times in open
ground; but somehow he felt that to lead a forlorn hope was a very
different thing; in short, almost certain death; and having led a
wild, terrible, irregular, and most irreligious life, his whole soul
had suddenly become filled with an uncontrollable dread and dismay of
the impending future.

'He told us of the strange emotion that possessed him--he seemed
somehow not to care of making a secret of it, to us at least--and
Garth instantly and cheerfully offered to take his place, and Drake
was to join the covering force.  The brigadier commanding permitted
the exchange; the place was carried by storm at a wild and headlong
rush; Jack Garth, leading the escalade like a hero, reached the heart
of the fort untouched, while poor Drake, after the affair was deemed
entirely over, and the firing had ceased, was killed by a random shot
that came no one knew precisely from where.'

By the time the general had ended his anecdote, and betaken him to
the stables to inspect the hock sinews of Mary's favourite pad, of
which Pastern, the groom, had made some evil report, the duet was
over.

Mrs. Garth had detected the mutual tenderness in tone and expression
of eye as it ended, and when the singers left the piano, she resolved
to lose no time in seeking to avert, if she could, the trouble which
she feared was impending.  Not that she loved Hew Montgomerie, but
she thought alone of Mary's interests and the wishes of Sir Piers,
her oldest, kindest, and best of friends.

But now, when Cecil Falconer approached her, she thought, as Sir
Piers had done more than once:

'What is there in this young fellow's face that touches, that
interests me?  Where have I seen that look before?  In India, I doubt
not.'

'I heard the general's anecdote of your husband, Mrs. Garth, even
while we were singing,' said he, bending over the old lady's chair;
'he must have been a fine old officer, and I can assure you that his
memory is still fresh in the regiment.'

Her face brightened with genuine pleasure as he said this, and her
eyes filled with tears.

'You see the relic I wear of him,' said the widow, placing her hand
affectionately upon a brooch she wore on her heart, a silver sphinx,
which had whilom been a regimental ornament, but which she would not
have exchanged for the regal brooch of Lorne; 'and now, if you will
come with me, I shall show you his portrait.'

'Thanks,' replied Cecil, and a parting glance was exchanged between
him and Mary as he left the room and followed Mrs. Garth across a
corridor, hung, like many other parts of the house, with Indian
trophies of war and the chase.

Falconer thought he was only to hear about her past and pet memories
of the corps; but he did not foresee that he must hear much more that
he would rather not have heard at all.  Nor could he suspect that her
primary object was to get him alone for her own well-meant purpose,
or, as she deemed it, his future peace of mind and the welfare of
Mary Montgomerie.

'This is my peculiar sanctum, Mr. Falconer,' said she, when ushering
him into a cosily and handsomely-furnished parlour, 'and here I keep
all my relics of the dead and of other times, and have done so since
I found a happy and contented home in Eaglescraig,' she added,
glancing at an old iron-bound baggage-trunk that had been at Bengal,
China, Bermuda, and all round the world with the Cameronians, and at
two regimental swords crossed upon the wall: one the weapon of her
husband, the other that of her son, a joyous boyish ensign, who had
fallen in a vile skirmish with a hill-tribe; shot under the colours,
on a day when match-lock balls were flying thick, and 'human lives
were lavished everywhere.'

And there now hung the sword that had failed him in the hot hour of
trial.

Over the old but handsome face of Mrs. Garth, there spread an
expression of sweetness and sadness mingled, as she showed Falconer
the miniatures of her husband and their dead soldier-son; the latter
as an infant, with a lock of his golden hair, which she had worn at
her heart for twenty years and more, treasured, like all his
school-boy letters, in the sad but loving superstition of the heart,
in memory of him and of that day when the troops fell in and he went
with the Cameronians 'to the front,' to be brought back to her across
six muskets, mortally wounded, to die, while calling on her name,
thanking her for her love, and dying with his head upon her breast,
as calmly as he had fallen asleep there when an infant.  And so he
died thus, as his father had died but a few weeks before him.

'The will of God be done!' said Mrs. Garth, in a sorely broken voice;
'for it was His will that I was to lose them, and that they were to
precede me.  But Heaven is just, and teaches us that there is a
brighter and a better world than this!'

Borne away by her own private or personal sympathies, she almost
forgot the purpose for which she had invited Falconer to visit her
little sanctum, till he unwillingly recalled it to her memory; as,
with all his commiseration for her loneliness, he began to tire of
the great many stories she told him of the excellencies of her only
daughter--a girl so amiable and so handsome--who had married a curate
in the West Indies, a good young fellow, who was so and so, and so
and so; of the noble qualities of her son, the poor ensign, and those
of the defunct Captain John Garth, who, 'poor dear soul, had been
dead and gone--dead and gone--deary me, however so many years ago.'
Thus Cecil--though there was certainly a cheerful gossipy quality in
Mrs. Garth, that rendered her a very attractive old lady--ventured to
say:

'And now, Mrs. Garth, you must excuse me.  Miss Montgomerie is
expecting me to attempt that duet over once more with her, ere we
duly perform it for some guests that come this evening.  How sweetly
she sings, and with exquisite taste!  But, indeed, how perfect she is
in all things!'

'A dear child!  I think you admire her?' began the widow, now
remembering her task, and suddenly making a leading remark.

'Admire! ah, who could fail to admire her?' exclaimed Falconer
warmly, and with kindling eye.

'She is a charming girl--ever was a sweet child--and I am so happy
about her future, Mr. Falconer,' said Mrs. Garth, resuming her
knitting, without however raising her eyes to him she addressed.

'Her future?'

'With Hew--I mean--you understand me, of course?'

'Hew?'

'Yes,' she continued softly and gently, reluctantly, too, for she was
loth to give him pain, 'Hew Montgomerie.  In her circumstances, and
with her wealth and its consequent and contingent responsibilities,
it has been with us all an anxious matter, that she should choose
well and wisely in the world of marriage; and thus, with Sir Piers'
heir of entail, she will be the tenth Lady Montgomerie, without
changing her name!  Curious that, is it not?  It cannot fail to be a
most fortunate alliance; but I shall not intrude upon you, whom we
have only had the pleasure of knowing so recently, these private
family matters.'

Cecil's heart grew cold as a stone, while he listened and heard Hew's
remarks thus corroborated, by what, Mrs. Garth felt with regret, must
pain him, but deemed it for his future good to hear.

In reply to some half-muttered inquiry (he could not fashion it as a
congratulation) she, by way of explanation and intended advice, said
distinctly much more than even Hew had done.  She told him, in
detail, of Mary's large fortune; and how entirely Mary and it
were--by the tenor of her father's will--at the behest of Sir Piers
Montgomerie, whose great and sole object was to consolidate the
wealth of the family in the person of Hew Caddish Montgomerie, his
heir of entail, who, even with ancient Eaglescraig alone, would not
be rich, and who would be the tenth baronet in succession from Sir
Hew, who had been made one for his loyalty and valour in the battles
of Montrose, particularly at Tippermuir, in 1644; and thus, that even
a duke might lay, in vain, his coronet at the feet of Mary
Montgomerie!

Pride of birth, and in his own family, of the old line of
Eaglescraig, almost a collateral one with the House of Eglinton, had
been, from youth, a passion with Sir Piers--a passion that had caused
the ruin of his only son--and so on, with an earnest tone, a sad, yet
gentle smile, she continued, for his own good as she supposed, to
plant (warningly) certain daggers in the heart of her hearer.

'They do not seem much suited to each other, Miss Montgomerie and her
intended,' suggested Falconer in a low voice, after a pause.

'Ah, so you think--so you think; but when "Love's young dream" and
the honeymoon are over, they will settle down, I have no doubt, into
a very happy, loving, and jog-trot couple.'

'It is well that you have told me all this in time,' said Falconer,
preserving his calmness of voice and feature by an incredible effort,
for if he had mistrusted Hew he could not mistrust Mrs. Garth, who
could have no selfish or sinister object in view; 'and I am--most
grateful to you.'

'To me--for what?' asked Mrs. Garth, as if she knew not his meaning,
though she never looked up, but continued to knit nervously and fast,
with tremulous fingers.

'I was, in fact, beginning to admire the general's ward perhaps too
much,' he replied, with a sickly attempt at a laugh; 'but now I must
think of her only as the intended bride of another.'

'And learn to laugh over the country-house flirtation.'

'Does she love Mr. Hew Montgomerie?'

'I cannot doubt it; though her ways of showing it are certainly shy
and peculiar; but then I see, and have seen, more of him and her than
you have done, Mr. Falconer.'

'You are sure she will consent to this marriage?' said Cecil,
scarcely knowing what he said.

'Yes, most assuredly; if not now, at a later period, for there is no
precise reason for haste, unless it be Hew's Indian appointment.'

A silence ensued for a minute or so, during which Cecil heard only
the click of the knitting-needles and the beating of his heart.

'Of what are you thinking?' asked Mrs. Garth, looking up with a
smile, and then lowering her eyes again, as the pain she read in his
face distressed her.

'I am thinking how to collect my ideas,' said he, in a broken voice;
'to reflect on my position, and the information you have given me,
with the useful warning contained in it.  In two or three days more
my leave will be up, and I shall have, inexorably, to depart from a
house in which the happiest moments of my life have been spent; yet,
which I would to Heaven I had never entered!'

Then, as he left her, Mrs. Garth felt that all her suspicions had
been justified; yet, with him, she approached the subject no more.

'I have done the deed! as Macbeth says,' thought she, looking after
him; 'poor fellow--poor dear fellow!  He seems sorely cut up; but it
is all for the best--all for the best!  How sad his handsome face
looked: and of _whom_ does that face remind me?  My own dear boy's
surely!'

Cecil Falconer was full of jealous anger and deep mortification.  He
could not, in his present mood of mind, rejoin Mary Montgomerie, and
so he took himself to the loneliest part of the garden to smoke and
think--to have that universal panacea to all men in trouble, doubt,
or difficulties--a mild 'weed.'  Moreover, there is a solitude we are
prone to seek at times, even amid our fondest affections.

A tender love for Mary had grown in his heart; but--apart from a
meagre exchequer--his lack of family rank was painfully thrust upon
him now by every word Mrs. Garth had, he thought, unconsciously
uttered.

In his lonely hours, like most young men of imagination and of those
given to day-dreaming, he had been wont--though well-nigh
nameless--to identify himself with the 'Ivanhoes' of romance and
history--the disinherited and disguised princes of boyish tales, and
so forth, weaving out a brilliant future for himself!  But now!

Now, like Alnaschar in the Arabian tale, his basket of crystal was
smashed; and yet he could have no future in which Mary Montgomerie
was not to bear an imaginary part.

He was aware that his family pretensions, when judged by the lofty
heraldic and genealogical standards of Sir Piers Montgomerie, were as
meagre as his monetary could be, and the double consciousness
thereof, though failing to influence his heart, had almost utterly
fettered his tongue.

These were the reasons why Cecil Falconer did not declare himself as
yet, or try conclusions with Hew Montgomerie, but now he had
others--more solid and more cruel.  It was, however, the old story of
the moth and the candle.  Mrs. Garth had done much to crush and damp
all hope in the heart of Cecil, but could not prevent him from
indulging in the perilous charm of Mary's society to the last hours
of his now-expiring leave of absence--leave granted 'between
returns,' as the technical phrase is.

So that night the duet was not sung, greatly to Mrs. Garth's
satisfaction, and somewhat to the surprise and disappointment of Mary
Montgomerie, to whom Cecil urged that he was afflicted by a sudden
cold, a hoarseness and so forth; so to his seductive tenor she was
unable to make the usually tender soprano replies.




CHAPTER X.

A CRISIS.

Hew returned suddenly from Bickerton--Hew of the shifty eyes and
cold, fish-like hands--more indignant than ever with 'Old Pipeclay,'
as he irreverently called Sir Piers.

Old Mr. John Balderstone, the family factor, who had been enjoying
some shooting at the Bickerton covers, had incidentally and
laughingly mentioned having seen Cecil Falconer and Mary Montgomerie
twice in her pony-carriage at a considerable distance from home; and
thus Hew had returned full of ire at the folly of Sir Piers in having
'invited that fellow to Eaglescraig,' at the presumption of the
latter, and with his heart full of secret rage, jealousy, and no
little rancour for the result of the last game at écarté.

Before this time, Cecil perhaps cared little what Hew said or thought
of his manner with Mary Montgomerie, so far as friendly intercourse
went.  Thus Hew had more than once seen him bending caressingly over
Mary as he addressed her, bending till his dark-brown moustache
almost touched her darker glossy hair.  But then, his whole manner to
her might be described as one long caress, though he was ever
courteous to all women, even the old and plain-looking; while Mary
thought it new and charming, and something that even in society she
was unused to.

But now there was a sudden change.  The result of Mrs. Garth's
friendly advice was, that doubt, reserve, and smothered
irritation--born of a suspicion that he had been trifled with, or
played with--tinged the manner of Cecil Falconer, infusing therein a
peculiar strangeness that piqued Mary Montgomerie, and made their
intercourse more perilous, for, being somewhat of a little coquette,
it was one of her idiosyncrasies, when so piqued, to avoid a
reconciliation that was too openly affected, and shyly, or slyly, to
take refuge in those which were merely, and silently, implied.

The communications of the old lady had forced upon him the necessity
for sedulously seeking to forget, as soon as possible, the existence
of Mary; and how far such an effort was consistent with spending the
hours of every day in her society, may be imagined.

In the first fever of his spirit he felt inclined to quit Eaglescraig
at once, ere his leave was up, and to get Fotheringhame to telegraph
for him; but anon he resolved to linger till the last moment, and sun
himself in the eyes of Mary; and in the midst of all this Hew now
returned, like the shadow of evil, to Eaglescraig, suddenly, and not
finding either Mary or Cecil in the house, had his spleen further
roused on being told by the watchful Mrs. Garth, that they were
rambling somewhere in the grounds together.

'In the grounds,' said Hew, viciously; 'where?'

'I know not,' replied Mrs. Garth; 'but if you will absent yourself
shooting here and there, Mary must avail herself of the courtesy of
others.'

'Of course--to help her to water her ferns, which she does
indefatigably, although a staff of gardeners are kept here at
Eaglescraig.'

'And to feed her favourite pigeons at the dovecot.'

'How touchingly domestic; how d----d Arcadian!' said Hew, more
viciously than ever.  'Are they on the lawn?'

'No; I think they took the path that leads to the grotto,' replied
Mrs. Garth, not unwilling to pique the jealousy of Hew, who muttered
an ugly word, and at once left the house to seek them in their ramble.

For this circumstance Sir Piers was in some measure to blame, as he
had desired Mary to show Falconer a curious grotto, or cavern, partly
natural and partly artificial, under the old tower of Eaglescraig, in
which tradition said some centuries ago, when the wall which had
concealed it fell, a so-called magic lamp had been discovered hanging
from a chain in the rocky roof.  The flame, when first seen, was
thought to be a Jack-o'-lantern, but was found to proceed from what
was supposed to be an ancient sepulchral lamp, prepared with matter
spontaneously combustible on the accession of air, and which, instead
of burning for centuries, had only taken light when the grotto was
opened.

Be all that as it may, neither Cecil nor Mary troubled themselves
much about the archæology of the place, though they certainly
lingered there, they scarcely knew why, and she clung to his arm, for
the mouth of the grotto opened inwards from the rock on which the
mansion stood, and overlooked the Firth of Clyde, three hundred feet
below.

Alone with Mary there, Cecil felt that he was becoming more devoted
and _empressé_ every moment, in spite of his recent resolutions and
the warnings of Mrs. Garth.

Their conversation was somewhat disjointed and desultory, especially
so far as Cecil was concerned; for the eve of his departure was
drawing near; he knew not when, or if ever, he might see Mary
Montgomerie again, and the great secret of his heart loaded his
tongue.  But the faltering accents and broken language of love are
generally expressions of the fullest eloquence to her who hears them;
and now, filled by all the charm her presence inspired, while gazing
into her face which had all the soul-like beauty that radiates from
_within_, Cecil Falconer felt his heart flying to his head, and while
pressing to his side the little hand that leant upon his arm, he said:

'Another day--only one short day more--and this time of joy, so sweet
to me, will have become a thing of the past--a dream--but a past
never to be forgotten!'

'I am glad that you have been happy with us--we live so quietly here
at Eaglescraig,' she replied, affecting to misunderstand what he so
evidently referred to.

'Happy indeed!  But who could fail to be happy here?  I am much of a
day-dreamer, Miss Montgomerie, and often it has seemed to me, in my
solitary moments and thoughtful moods, that some mysterious sympathy
or bond was linking my existence with that of another, but who that
other was I knew not.'

'A strange idea!'

'You will smile at my folly, as you no doubt deem it.  So, too, have
I thought there was something singularly sweet in the idea, but
sweeter still now that I know, the soul that I dreamed of was you.'

Mary's hand trembled on his arm, but she made no reply, and stood
with half-averted face.

'My lips have been silent,' he resumed, bending over her, as she
still further averted her face and looked down; 'yet you must have
guessed the cherished hope of my heart, and learned, even from my
glance--that I--that--that I love you!'

So Mrs. Garth's friendly warnings all came to nothing, and even Hew's
existence was forgotten!

'I saw from the first,' said Mary, in a low and agitated voice, 'from
the first, that you admired me, but--but, I never thought that----'

'That I loved you?'

'I know not what I thought.'

'Oh, Mary--may I call you so?--I have no words to tell you, Mary,
darling, how fondly, how deeply and tenderly I love you!'

Her hands were in his now, and her long lashes were cast down, during
a little pause that ensued, and he could see her soft bosom heaving
under her dress.

Then she looked up with a coy, shy smile of great brightness, as she
asked:

'Am I the first you have loved--the very first?'

'Fancies I have had--as what lad has not--but I never loved till now,
Mary,' he replied, with great tenderness, 'unless it was the love I
bore my poor mother, who is now in her grave.'

'I am so confused--so startled, Mr. Falconer.'

'Do say "Cecil," I implore you!'

'Well, then--Cecil.'

No need to say more just then, as their lips met, passionately for an
instant, and Cecil felt that she was his own.  Then Mary shrank back
a little, and blushing deeply, said:

'Oh, what would Sir Piers say if he knew of this?'

There was something of terror in her tone--alarm, at least, as Cecil
thought.

'When I tell him of my love for you----' he began.

'Oh, that you must not--must not do--yet awhile, at least!' she
exclaimed earnestly.

'Why, my darling?'

'Don't ask me--do not ask me!  Be content that--that----'

'You love me?'

'Oh, Cecil--yes.  But your love for me--when did it first begin?' she
asked, looking up with the same fond yet shy smile again on her soft
face.

'Heaven only knows--when I first saw you, without a doubt,' replied
Falconer, drawing her towards him.  'But now tell me, darling----'

Ere he could say more, she shrank from him.  A step was heard on the
gravelled path, Snarley growled and showed his teeth, and Hew
appeared close by them, at the mouth of the grotto--Hew, with a very
dubious and mingled expression on his face.

'Have you not heard the gong sound for luncheon?' he asked, curtly
and sulkily.

'Hew--returned already!' said Mary, blushing deeply.

'So soon--yes,' said he.

'Had good shooting at Bickerton?' asked Cecil Falconer, feeling that
it required a double effort to be complaisant to Hew just then, and
to slide into the commonplaces required by society.

'Pretty fairish--knocked over a few rocketters or so.  There were ten
guns out.  But how do you two come to be here?' he asked bluntly and
almost rudely.

'Sir Piers requested Miss Montgomerie to show me where an ancient
lamp had been found,' replied Cecil, with some annoyance of manner.

Hew muttered something unpleasant under his moustache, as he thought
that the 'ancient lamp' had thrown more light on their proceedings
than he anticipated, and drawing Mary's arm through his own, he said
sharply and curtly:

'Let us go back to the house, or we shall be late.'

Cecil's handsome mouth was compressed with sternness at the
abruptness of Hew's bearing, tone, and words.  His small and well-cut
nostrils quivered, and his eyes flashed with the anger which, despite
his recent joy, he felt a difficulty in restraining.

Hew was sharp enough to see this; but feeling himself somewhat master
of the situation, and a species of marplot, he gave one of his
strange smiles, and said something that might mean anything or
nothing, as he appropriated Mary and marched off with her towards the
house.

How long he might have been eavesdropping, and how much or how little
of their conversation he might have overheard, or what he might have
overseen, it was impossible for them to conjecture; but extreme
annoyance clouded the fair face of Mary, and bitter chagrin was but
ill concealed in that of Falconer.

'Pray do not quarrel with Hew,' Mary found opportunity to say in a
rapid whisper; 'you know not his power in the art of scheming,
manœuvring, and mischief.'

Cecil felt his heart beat lightly again at the interest in him
implied by her words, and the secret understanding they suggested and
created.

Though we doubt very much if Mr. Hew Caddish Montgomerie ever heard
of the Bard of Twickenhem, yet we are certain that he believed with
him, that 'every woman is at heart a rake;' and thus he was the more
irate with Mary, as he was prone to take the worst view of every one
and everything.

As they pursued the circuitous path that led from the grotto to the
house, Hew maintained a somewhat sulky silence, as he had neither the
good feeling nor the good taste to conceal his annoyance.  He,
perhaps, loved Mary; but if so, it was after a selfish fashion of his
own, and as much as it was in him to love anyone.  He knew her
fortune to a shilling; he had a passionate, an inherited, and
avaricious love of wealth, and he knew right well the vast importance
that attached to the possession of it; thus he took Mary to task, the
moment Falconer left them--with a glance, which Mary read, though to
Hew it was all unseen, or misunderstood.

'Were you and that fellow long in the grounds to-day?' he asked
bluntly, and with anger in his eyes.

'What if we were?' was the defiant reply.

'I asked you a question, cousin.'

'One you have no right to ask.'

'No right?'

'None!' said she, with decision.

'Come, I like that!  I am your cousin.'

'Nothing more, thank goodness!--and scarcely even that, save by name;
and you are not my mentor.'

'If I were so----'

'Well, sir; if you were?'

'I should say that I was extremely sorry to meet you and Falconer
together, as I met you just now.  I consider it most unseemly!'

'Are you my guardian, Hew?' asked the little beauty, with growing
irritation.

'Would that I were so, legally!'

'I cannot agree with you,' responded Mary, with a merry laugh.

'I regret to see how this intimacy has grown between you and an utter
stranger.'

'Pray what can it matter to you who my gentlemen friends are?'

'How can you adopt this tone to me, knowing what you do of Sir Piers'
intentions, Mary?  As for this fellow----'

'Fellow?  What has he done to offend you, Hew Montgomerie, that you
speak of him in this style?'

'I was only about to remark that, like Oliver Twist, I have no doubt
that he can trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents--to
his mother, at least, for I suppose he has, or had, such a relative,'
was the coarse and bitter sneer of Hew; 'but that measure of ancestry
will scarcely suit the standard of Sir Piers Montgomerie.'

Mary remembered the little episode of the 'Birthday Book,' and her
heart for a moment sank, and her countenance fell.

'What _do_ you mean?' she asked.

'I know--what I know--that is all,' replied Hew, malevolently.

'And I know that you are extremely rude and ill-bred,' said Mary, as
she swept away from him, and with difficulty restrained her tears,
while Hew looked after her with a scowl that was strangely mingled
with a triumphant smile.

He did not knit his eyebrows, for he had little or nothing in that
way to knit; but his closely-set eyes twinkled viciously and
furtively, as he began to feel that the power he once possessed, or
hoped to possess, over Mary, and more especially over her fortune,
was slipping away; and the emotions of wounded pride, disappointment,
avarice, and an odious passion for her that was not love, grew keenly
and stingingly in his heart.

Next day Cecil's leave would be up, and in the interval, so
sedulously did Hew keep guard, that never again had Cecil a chance of
addressing Mary alone; but the rival, while thus employed, could see
with growing rancour that they looked suspiciously amiable and happy,
and could talk confidentially enough with their eyes, if prevented
from doing so with their tongues; and now, to preclude any fresh
invitations on the general's part, or any further extension of the
hospitality of Eaglescraig, Hew resolved, ere their guest departed,
to do him all the mischief he could with his host.




CHAPTER XI.

HEW MAKES MISCHIEF.

Finding, as we have shown, that any appeal to Mary Montgomerie was
vain, Hew determined, as he muttered, to give the general 'an
eye-opener on the subject.'

He knew that 'a jilted suitor is hopelessly and irreparably
ridiculous, and that the jilt is apt to score the honours.'  Without
an engagement existing between them, there could be no jilting in the
case of him and Mary, but in his blind, unmeaning hate of Falconer,
his jealousy and avarice, he never thought of that; and only
considered that the wishes of Sir Piers and himself, and the object
for which he had been deliberately brought home from India, were on
the point of being baffled, or set utterly aside, by the intervention
of an unexpected interloper, to blacken and defeat whom was but just
and right, he deemed on his own part, and in his own behalf.

Without a just cause he had been from the first instinctively the foe
of Cecil Falconer; and ill-founded enmities, it is said, are ever the
most obstinate and bitter.

He found Sir Piers in the library, lounging in an easy-chair, smoking
a beautiful hookah which he had brought with him from India, and deep
in the pages of the _Field_.

'Can I have your attention for a little time, Sir Piers?' he asked.

'Yes, my boy; fire away.  About what do you wish to speak?'

'A subject very near my heart, as you know,' replied Hew, leaning on
the back of the old baronet's chair: 'Mary Montgomerie.'

'God bless the dear girl!' exclaimed Sir Piers, as his brightening
eyes were raised inquiringly to Hew's face.  'It is time some
arrangement were made by you and her; for Mary deserves the purest
and best love the heart of man can offer her.'

'Such love is mine, dear Sir Piers,' whined Hew.

'I hope so.'

'But I come not to speak of that.'

'Of what, then?'

'Of Mary and your new friend, Falconer.'

'Falconer!' exclaimed Sir Piers, staring blankly at Hew through his
gold eyeglasses.

'Seriously, sir, it seems to me that, thanks to the propinquity your
unwise hospitality has afforded them, Mary is drifting, with that
fellow Falconer, the way that many other young ladies have drifted
before her.'

'What does this mean?' exclaimed Sir Piers, wheeling his chair
sharply round.  'Worry, of course; and, d--n it!  I am getting too
old to have any worry--had enough of it in my time, up country!  Has
propinquity not helped you?  Gad, sir, in my day, I should like to
have seen the biped that could turn my flank with any girl; but why
the devil don't you push the trenches yourself?'

'But don't you think they have become too intimate?' asked Hew, with
growing irritation.

'Why?  How?'

'With all this singing, music, and philandering.'

'Pooh! not at all.  Let them amuse themselves.  I was once their age.
It is no use making a fuss; but why the deuce don't you cut in, and
sing, play, and philander too, as you call it?  Besides, Falconer in
a few hours now returns to Dumbarton, or to headquarters, and there
is an end of it all!  To me, Hew, it seems natural enough that young
Falconer should be attracted by our Mary; but aware of her position,
of my views and your wishes, and more than all, your prospects and
rank when I am gone,' he added, glancing at a portrait of his dead
son, 'I should very much doubt if she encouraged any particular
attention on his part.'

'There I don't agree with you; and when once a girl's heart becomes
warped, or interested in a fellow, she cares little what his rank or
position may be; and of this Falconer's family or antecedents we know
nothing.'

'True, by Jove!' said Sir Piers, whose pet weakness was now
interested.  'He seemed not to know, himself, which I thought odd.  I
wonder what arms he uses?  The Halkertoun family carried azure, a
falcon _argent_ crowned with a ducal crown.'

'Arms!' said Hew, with a mocking laugh.  'If all I suspect be true,
his have been quartered and attested by the Blue Bottle Herald and
Pimlico Pursuivant.  But apart from his dangling after Mary, I have
my own reasons for feeling glad that Eaglescraig will soon be rid of
him.'

'He is a presentable young fellow--a Cameronian too, and bears her
Majesty's commission,' urged Sir Piers in favour of Falconer, whom he
really liked; 'but what are the personal reasons you refer to?'

'Because in a little time he would have rooked--ruined me!'

'How?'

'At écarté.'

'At écarté?'

'Yes.  Before I went to Bickerton--to keep out of his way, in
fact--he inveigled me to play, night after night, when all others had
retired.  My play is always mild--but his was _wild_!  His constant
phrase was that it was so _ennuyant_ to play for low stakes, so we
always doubled, and even trebled, them--I always losing.'

'Why?'

'Because,' replied Hew, deliberately, while a malevolent gleam shot
from his parti-coloured eyes, 'it is seldom safe to play écarté, or
piquet either, after dinner, and when drinking brandy-and-soda with a
fellow who takes nothing--is too wary to do so.'

'And so you have lost?' said Sir Piers, flushing with indignation.

'Fearfully; and I suspect the scoundrel was in the habit of dropping
his cards.'

'What!' roared Sir Piers, aghast.  'The devil!  Do you say so?'  He
pinched his gold eyeglasses tighter on his high aristocratic nose,
and absolutely glared through them at Hew, as he turned his keen face
full round to await what he had to say, and with a face expressive of
intense chagrin, disappointment, and dismay.

'I do not say so--I only suspect,' said Hew, afraid that he, in the
extremity of his malice, had roused a storm it might be difficult to
quell, or see the end of.

'And he is one of the Cameronians!' exclaimed Sir Piers, in an
agitated voice.  'Gad! in my time, he would have had his hands tied
behind his back, and been drummed to the barrack-gate.  Do you
actually tell me this?  Gambling, in camp or quarters, _I_ never
permitted for a moment--they are strictly forbidden by the
thirty-fourth paragraph of the sixth section of the Queen's
Regulations.  But the idea of gambling and cheating at Eaglescraig!
D--me, I'll explode!  I remember that, when we were cantoned at
Jubbulpore, before we were relieved by the Seventy-Eighth, with bag,
baggage, and twelve bagpipes----'

'But our play is ended now, Sir Piers--once and for ever!'
interrupted Hew, as he shivered at the idea of an Indian anecdote,
which was certain to follow whenever Sir Piers mounted his Oriental
hobby-horse.

'Ended; I should think so!  But, as we used to say in India, beware
of a black Brahmin and a white pariah!'

The point of this aphorism was not very apparent; but Hew, satisfied
that he had now completely ruined Cecil Falconer so far as Sir Piers
was concerned, was so well pleased that he listened to a sudden
Bengal narrative of a thirty days' march, amid the horrors of Dacoits
and Thugs, swamps and jungles, tigers and snakes, dismounted guns and
broken bones, dead bullocks and swollen rivers; and then, after a
pause, during which the baronet had been reflecting with knitted
brows, he said:

'But to return to the first subject, Hew.  Do you mean to tell me,
and do you seriously think, that this--a--a--person, has made any
undue impression upon her--upon Mary?'

'From my soul I do, sir, and know it to my bitter cost!'

Another angry malediction escaped the general.

'I cannot desire him to leave my house, though right well disposed to
do so,' said he; 'but a little time will see him gone now, thank
Heaven!  I am deeply concerned by what you tell me, my dear Hew; all
the more so, that I have been the unwitting means of bringing all
this unforeseen mischief to pass.'

'Only an hour ago I interrupted a little scene in the grotto there
could be no mistaking!  He was bending tenderly over her, and
uttering sighs that would have softened the heart of a pawnbroker.'

'Don't use such odious similes, Hew!' exclaimed Sir Piers.  'Whatever
may be the personal merits or demerits of this young man,' he
continued, with an angry laugh, 'apart from my firm intentions, your
wishes, and Mary's own future welfare, it would never do for her to
make a _mésalliance_--to throw herself away upon an ambitious
adventurer, on whose name there too evidently rests the stain of
obscurity, at least.  It is well that he is going, Hew!  I want no
other catastrophe, no second fiasco, to occur to a Montgomerie of
Eaglescraig!' he added, with deep and sorrowful frown, as he referred
to a family episode we shall have to relate ere long.  'But here
comes Mary, most opportunely.  Leave us, Hew, and I shall talk with
her alone.'

As Hew retired, with disappointed passion and gratified revenge
curiously mingled in his face, the thought flashed upon the mind of
Sir Piers that expostulation or advice might only prove futile, and,
by exciting opposition, make the matter worse (as he had bitterly
experienced once before in his life), though he knew not how far the
matter had gone, or how deeply love had taken root in the hearts of
both Mary and Falconer.  Moreover, he thought that as separation,
which he deemed a safe cure, was so close at hand, it might be better
to ignore the communications of Hew, and let matters, after
Falconer's departure, fall into their old routine, yet having the
intended marriage of Mary and his heir pressed forward, in spite of
all opposition; but now, the sudden and apparently opportune entrance
of the fair culprit herself overset his calmer calculations.




CHAPTER XII.

CECIL'S DEPARTURE.

Though indignant at Falconer, Sir Piers could scarcely find it in his
heart to be angry with Mary, she was so sweet and winning--his dead
kinsman's one ewe lamb, committed to his care.  She had been to him
as the child of his old age, taking the place of that only son whose
death he had never ceased to lament; she, who by her affection, in
the thousand nameless little recurring trifles of life, as a tender
and loving daughter rather than a grand-niece, had made herself so
useful and necessary to him.

Mary had come in search of a book, a passage in which she meant to
show Cecil, whom she had left with Annabelle Erroll, when Sir Piers
summoned her to his side; and though she saw a gloom on his fine old
face, the cause of which she dreaded and suspected to have been Hew,
who had just quitted the room, she seated herself on a velvet
tabouret, near her guardian's own chair, and nestling at his knee as
she had been wont to do when a little girl, she drew one of his
shrivelled hands caressingly over her handsome head, and, looking up
smilingly, said:

'Well, grand-uncle darling, what have you to say to me?'

'Much, Mary--yet a few words may suffice,' he replied, as the lines
faded out of his face.  He had at first resolved to be very stern and
irate with her; but he reserved all his bitterness for Falconer.  'Am
I right when I say that I have been given to understand that Mr.
Falconer has forgotten his place as a guest in my house, and dared to
address you surreptitiously in language other than a mere friend or
guest may do?'

At this question, so sententiously put, Mary blushed painfully, and
then grew very pale indeed, for her heart was yet vibrating with its
new-found joy, and the memory of that kiss, the first that was ever
given her by any man save old Sir Piers himself.

'Has he attempted to win for himself that affection which should
belong to another?'

'Oh, grand-uncle, what do you mean?' asked Mary piteously, and
feeling quite overwhelmed.

'What I ask, Mary; and I wish you to know, further, that he is every
way unworthy the consideration of any girl--wholly unworthy the
kindness I have wasted on him.'

'Unworthy!' repeated Mary, faintly; and yet her heart rebelled, for
she now recognised the malevolent influence of Hew.

'I have other views for your future, as you know, dear Mary--views
long cherished and most dear to me, and I am not going to have my
plans and prospects marred by a fortune-hunting subaltern and a
romantic girl's folly.  Understand me, Mary, and the power your
father's will has given me over you and your fortune.'

Mary remained silent, but tears welled up in her eyes--tears that
sprang from emotions of anger as much as annoyance and intense
mortification.

'I don't object to the fellow because he is a subaltern, with little,
if anything, more than his pay,' said Sir Piers, as if ashamed of
using the military rank as an adjective; 'but I do object to this,
Mary, as your guardian and only kinsman, in whose hands the whole of
your fortune is vested, to bestow, so far as possible, on my heir of
entail, who is to share it with you.  But here, if all I am told is
true, you have been tempted--you, with beauty and attractions that
might win a coronet--you, with an inheritance, and certainly with a
name, second to none in Scotland--to cast your lot, perhaps, with one
destitute of position, save that which a commission gives him--one
without family or friends either, so far as we know,' continued the
general, musing, or talking himself into a fit of anger; 'as Hew has
hinted, the first of his race--a gambler, too----'

'A gambler, grand-uncle?'

'A gambler--and worse--who has sorely fleeced poor Hew!  But I shall
amply reimburse him, as it was by my old-fashioned folly our unlucky
guest came here.  How I shall be able to receive him at dinner to-day
I scarcely know, for now I consider his presence in Eaglescraig an
insult.  You may have been foolish--girlish, Mary; but I know that
you won't further vex your old grand-uncle, who loves you so, but
will sedulously avoid or shun this person, Falconer, during the few
hours he is under our roof: and when he leaves it let his existence
be to you as a thing of the past--as that of the dead--but the dead
who are forgotten!'

And with this cruel advice, which was all the more cruel and
impressive from being coolly, calmly, and deliberately given, the
general rose and quitted the library, leaving Mary in a flood of
tears and quite overwhelmed with dismay; not at the invectives
bestowed upon Falconer, as she knew their source and true value, but
at the hostility so suddenly developed by Sir Piers, and the long
term of domestic misery she saw before her in the future.

But, as indignation swelled in her heart against Hew, she dried her
tears and gathered a courage from her growing anger.  Yet she drew
her breath with difficulty, and pressed a hand upon her side as if a
pang of pain was there.

Unaware of all this scene, Falconer, even in the face of his
approaching departure, was chatting away gaily with Annabelle Erroll,
and having the full assurance of Mary's love, seemed to tread on air,
and feel emotions only of gratitude and joy.  He was as sure that
Mary was not a girl to love lightly as he was sure that she had given
her whole heart to him, despite the fiat, the 'general order' of Sir
Piers, that was to assign her as a bride to Hew Montgomerie.

When the little circle assembled for dinner, the last of which he was
to partake in Eaglescraig, Cecil became suddenly and painfully
sensible that some change had come over all present, save Miss Erroll.

Though all were scrupulously polite, their old cordiality seemed to
have evaporated!

Hew was colder than ever; not that Cecil Falconer cared much for
that, but he felt that the usually chatty and genial Sir Piers was
cold in manner too, and haughty and monosyllabic, for a time; and
Cecil recalled the cordial welcome of his first night in that
hospitable mansion, when his old host insisted on escorting him to
'his quarters,' as he called his room, singing his old Indian song
about 'half-batta' as they went.  He felt the change keenly, and
angrily too, all the more that he failed to understand it.

'What the deuce does the general suspect--what does he know?' thought
Cecil, whose own suspicions certainly pointed towards Hew; but he and
Mary were without the means of comparing notes together, or even of
taking of each other the tender farewell they would have wished.

At table--with the memory of all that had passed in the library--she
was nervous, silent and reserved, while she kept listening to the
voice and looking furtively in the eyes that as secretly sought
hers--the voice and eyes she had been bidden to forget as those of
'the forgotten dead.'

When the ladies withdrew, the general, who was the soul of
hospitality, when pushing the decanters round--for he was vain of his
clarets, Chateau Lafitte, Haut Brion, and Margaux--felt half inclined
to relax and relent at times.  Could Hew have been mistaken in that
diabolical story about the cards?  But if so, he was not mistaken on
the subject of Falconer's admiration of his intended wife: and though
such was utterly adverse to the wish of Sir Piers, he felt that he
could forgive it, especially as, like Mrs. Garth, he felt that in the
look and air, the expression of face, and bearing of Cecil Falconer,
there were an undefinable something that brought painfully back to
memory the face of another; and yet, between the two faces, that of
his dead son--for his it was--and the face of Falconer, there was no
especial likeness.

'Had poor Piers been living now, thought the general, 'he would have
been nearly fifty years of age, which reminds me that I am getting
too old to harbour thoughts of anger now.'

In the drawing-room, Cecil found the piano closed; there was
evidently to be no music that evening, nor was he in the mood for it,
except in so far that it might have served to cloak a few farewell
words to Mary, whom he found occupied at chess with Mrs. Garth, and
save that she trembled a little and changed colour at his entrance,
she seemed unconscious of his presence, as the slow and silent game
proceeded in its tedium: and leaving Sir Piers and Hew deep in some
matter of local improvements to be made on a certain farm, he seated
himself beside Miss Erroll, on an ottoman, a little way apart.

'And so you indeed go to-morrow?' she observed, for lack of something
else to say apparently.

'Inexorably, Miss Erroll,' he replied, with a smile that was no smile
at all; 'and after all the happiness I have enjoyed here I shall feel
doubly lonely at Dumbarton, as it is most probable that the general
may invite my brother officer here, to take my place.'

'Mr. Leslie Fotheringhame?' she said in a low voice, while her eyes
drooped.

'Yes.'

'What leads you to think so?' she asked, with a little agitation of
manner that Cecil could not fail to detect.

'He has once or twice said such was his intention.'

Such, indeed, had been the general's wish, but recent events had made
him change his mind.

Miss Erroll was a singularly attractive and bright-looking
girl--bright in her manner and blonde beauty.  Her fair, golden hair
rippled back from her broad, low, snowy forehead; and she had a
tender, rosebud-like mouth, and very lovely eyes.  In the full
preoccupation of his thoughts with Mary, Cecil Falconer had not been
quite conscious that on several occasions Miss Erroll had led him to
talk of his solitary friend at Dumbarton, Leslie Fotheringhame, as if
she had some interest in him; and also, that if he attempted to
question her on the subject, she skilfully or nervously changed it,
or evaded it.

'You know Fotheringhame, it would seem?' he asked.

'I do--or _did_, rather,' she replied, in a low voice.

This implied that there had been a coolness, a quarrel, or a dropping
of acquaintance somehow.

'He was not always in the Cameronians,' said Falconer.

'I am aware of that.'

'Perhaps you knew him when in his former regiment?'

'When in his former regiment--yes,' she replied, repeating his words,
as if afraid to trust herself to any of her own.  'How long will Mary
puzzle over her king?--she is quite checkmated!' she said with a
forced laugh, as she moved towards the chess-table, to conceal from
Falconer an expression of genuine pain that shot over her soft, fair
face.

He noticed now an unmistakable agitation of manner and sudden sadness
of eye and tone in Annabelle Erroll; and though he almost immediately
forgot this amid the anxiety of his own love affair, he remembered it
all at a future time.

The brief evening that followed the late and fashionable dinner-hour
passed rapidly--too rapidly for Cecil; yet heavily withal.  The
evening was so unlike its predecessors, for the once pleasant circle
seemed entirely changed.  How Falconer's heart would have swollen
with just rage had he known the reason why!

And this was his last night at Eaglescraig; it seemed as if he was
looking on everything there for the last time, Mary's pale face
included, and the time came at last when he had to say to her:

'Good-night, and good-bye, Miss Montgomerie.

Yet Fate was not so cruel as to make them part thus, for through a
skilful manœuvre executed by Miss Erroll--in compelling Hew to
hold a folio book of Indian photographs while the general explained
to her something therein--as Mary gave Cecil her hand, 'her soft,
white virgin hand, that had never touched aught to soil or harden
it,' he whispered hurriedly, and unheard by all save her:

'Good-bye.  Oh, my darling, my own Mary!  How am I to live without
you, how make the time pass till we meet again--if ever?'

And eye conveyed to eye and heart, a world that was alike unsaid and
unseen.

Courtesy compelled him to shake the damp, limp hand of Hew, and the
shifty eyes of the latter looked radiant with malevolence and triumph.


Grey dawn was breaking, and save Mr. Tunley, the butler, and a sleepy
valet, all the household were sunk in slumber, when Falconer, after
an almost sleepless night, and feeling as if it must be some other
person and not himself that was about to depart, got into the
dog-cart with his portmanteaus and gun-case.

A cold, chilly morning, the last day of January.  The crocus formed a
golden band along the parterres of the terrace; a few snow-flakes
came aslant the dull grey sky, and the robin redbreast, his little
heart filled at least with hope, twittered and sung on the bare
spray, where the first buds of spring would soon be bursting.  All
around the landscape looked dank and barren and dreary--unusually so
it seemed to Cecil's eye.

Pate Pastern, a groom, drove the dog-cart.  Hew had again flatly
declined to do so, saying overnight to Sir Piers that he 'didn't care
to drive a fellow like Falconer, a fellow so devilish sharp at cards,
and all that sort of thing, you know;' and the general had said
approvingly:

'Of course not, of course not, my dear boy.'

Cecil's mind was a prey to great bitterness in the conviction that he
was leaving Eaglescraig, as it seemed, for ever, and with no definite
plans, views, or hopes for the future.  Was all this new love, this
new joy, to pass out of his life and out of hers as suddenly as it
had come to them?

It seemed so!

He had, he thought, done wrong in winning the heart of Mary
Montgomerie without the permission of her proud old guardian and
kinsman; but now he had little compunction for having done so, as
that permission would never have been accorded to him, and he felt
that his departure seemed a welcome move to all but her--a departure
permitted to pass coldly, and without even a well-bred expression of
regret.

A farewell glance at the stately modern villa, and the grim old keep
that towered behind it, showed him their walls all reddened in the
early morning sun; the window-blinds close drawn, all closed as yet,
save one.  His heart told him it was that of Mary's room.  The sash
remained, of course, unlifted, but the blue silk curtain was
festooned back, and every pulse vibrated within him when he saw the
wave of a white handkerchief, just as the dog-cart went bowling down
the wooded avenue towards the highway.

It was Mary's farewell to him.

Would the strains of the sweet old story, that never tires, come to
their ears again?  How would it all end between him and Mary
Montgomerie, or was it ended now?




CHAPTER XIII.

IN SHADOW LAND.

'I am truly glad for Hew's sake, and for Mary's sake, that he has
gone--gone ere it was too late!' thought Sir Piers, as he sat in his
easy-chair in the library that afternoon, when nothing remained of
Cecil Falconer at Eaglescraig but an aching pain in Mary's heart, and
in the avenue the ruts of the wheels that had borne him away.

His recent conversation with Hew about the dread of a _mésalliance_
made the old baronet's mind revert--as it too often did, bitterly and
unavailingly--to another _mésalliance_ in his family, which nearly
brought ruin--for such in the vanity of his soul he deemed
disgrace--upon the Montgomeries of Eaglescraig, who had for ages been
a power in the bailiwick of Cunninghame.

'It seems a pity that we should disturb the stagnant waters of that
Dead Lake which men call the Past,' says Miss Braddon; but Sir Piers
was rather prone to do so; and now, as he sat gazing into the red,
clear, burning embers, they seemed to take divers shapes and forms,
quaint and curious pictures, of which, in reality, he saw little, for
his thoughts were treading upon each other fast, and in his dreamy
yet steadfast gaze there was a fixed, a far-off look--a look in
Shadowland.

A childless old man, he was thinking of what was now, and all that
might have been, but for his own stubborn will and pride of heart.

Some five-and-twenty years before this time, he had a son who had
been the pride of that heart, and valued all the more as being the
only child of a young and beautiful wife, after whose death he had
never married again, but sought relief from thought amid the wars of
British India.

From his infancy young Piers had been petted in every way, and was in
some respects the spoiled child of the household.  He grew up a
bright and handsome lad, full of intelligence and enthusiasm for
music and painting; but to dabble in these, even as an amateur, Sir
Piers deemed unworthy of his family, so in due time he had his son
gazetted to the Cameronians, then in garrison at Gibraltar.

During the unhealthy season, which lasts there from July to November,
when the east winds come surcharged with moisture, young Piers was
seized with fever, and obtaining leave of absence, went to travel in
Italy, and his letters that came from thence to Eaglescraig,
detailing his adventures and journeys up Calabrian mountains and
through defiles in the Abruzzi, all indicative of returning health
and strength, filled the heart of his father with joy, as his son,
the heir of his house and name, was the veritable apple of his eye.

His letters from Rome teemed with his enthusiasm about the objects of
history, the ruins of the past, and his ecstasies over the treasures
of the innumerable _studii_ of painting and sculpture; and then came
much about a painter whose acquaintance he had made at the Academy of
San Luca, and whose daughter was one of the most beautiful girls and
accomplished musicians in that city of pilgrimage to all lovers of
art.

After this Sir Piers grew painfully and suspiciously conscious of the
fact that his son's correspondence became irregular, his epistles
constrained and brief, while more than one incidental reference to
the artist's handsome daughter caused alarm in the parental heart,
all the more as young Piers had said that her father, 'though a man
of humble origin, was an emperor among artists.'

'Piers,' said the baronet to his confidential friend and local
factotum, John Balderstone, 'refers to this girl oftener than I quite
relish or like; and his letters are vague and odd as--if--as if--he
had something to conceal.  I wish he were back to his regiment at
Gibraltar.'

'Young men _will_ be young men,' replied the other; 'the girl may
have picked up some pretty tricks of foreign manners, and thus
interested him.'

'There are four months of his leave to run; surely he will not spend
them all among these painter-fellows in Rome?' said the baronet,
grimly.

For one moment, however, an idea of what was really the case never
entered the haughty mind of Sir Piers Montgomerie.  He only feared an
entanglement--as a subaltern, he had often been in such scrapes
himself--but nothing _more_!

And now a month elapsed without any letter from Rome, and genuine
anxiety filled the mind of Sir Piers, whom a temporary illness
confined at Eaglescraig, and prevented from coming swoop down upon
his son in the Eternal City, and seeing how 'matters were' for
himself.

At that very time there arrived at a country hotel, within a few
miles of Eaglescraig, a young married pair, with a valet and a little
French soubrette.  Both were singularly handsome--the lady, indeed,
was a very beautiful girl with minute and delicate features, dark
eyes and rich brown hair; and in her husband, whose face and figure
were alike striking, but for the ample beard he now wore, the people
of the hotel would have had little trouble in recognising young Piers
Montgomerie, for he it was, with his bride, the penniless daughter of
'the emperor among artists!'

He was one who could scarcely fail to make himself agreeable to all
women, as he excelled in that half-flirting manner which some young
men can cultivate with skill; and borne away by a great love for the
girl on one hand, and dreading his father's opposition on the other,
he had married her clandestinely, and had now brought her with him to
Scotland, trusting that her beauty, sweetness, grace and virtue would
open the heart of his father to them both, and pardon the fact of his
having had, as he would have phrased it, a 'stolen march made upon
him.'

The homeward journey had been but a portion of their honeymoon tour,
and safe in her young husband's love, the girl seemed to see only a
brilliant and happy, if somewhat vague, future.  Aware of his
father's temper, spirit, and infatuated pride of family, young Piers
was not without some genuine anxiety as to the result, when the issue
of his rashness seemed so close at hand.

'If your father is so proud as you say, Piers,' said the young
wife--still a bride--as she nestled her sweet face in his neck, and
his arm went caressingly round her, 'and if he will not forgive the
_mésalliance_ you have made with poor me----'

'Well, my darling, what then?'

'You may repent it,' said she, her dark eyes filling with tears, and
her voice trembling with anxiety.

'Never, my own little wife--never! and by this time to-morrow I hope
to see you taking your place at his table, as the future mistress of
Eaglescraig; though long may the time be ere you are so, for my
father is a dear old fellow--twice my age, at all events!'

The girl sighed softly, and hoped that all might be as they wished it.

'Welcome back, my boy!' exclaimed Sir Piers next day, when his son
appeared (but alone) at Eaglescraig; 'why have you been so long in
writing me?  Why do you come thus suddenly? and where is your
baggage?  But how well you are looking; and, by Jove, you have a
beard like a Brahmin!'

'I have a long story to tell you, sir, about all my adventures: one
in particular, that may take some time to tell----'

'Then keep it till after dinner: let us have it with the Chateau
Margaux,' said Sir Piers, laughing; and being timidly willing to
delay till the last moment the revelation that was _inevitable_, his
son--even with the sweet face of her who, at that moment, was alone
in his memory--was glad of the little reprieve.

Anxious to make a good impression, he made a more than usually
careful toilette in his own old and familiar room; but when he took
his seat at table, the presence of Tunley and the servants, and also
of John Balderstone, who had dropped in on business, and whom the
baronet had pressed to remain, precluded all reference to his secret
for a time, till the cloth was removed, the dessert laid, the
decanters ranged in rank-entire before the host, and Tunley was told
he might withdraw till rung for.

'And now for your story, Piers,' said the elder Montgomerie: 'the
claret stands with you.'

'I must first drink to you, and congratulate you on your promotion,'
replied his son.

'Yes, I am full colonel now, Piers, and may fairly hope to be a
lieutenant-general some of these days.  But now for the story,' he
repeated uneasily; 'I suppose John Balderstone may hear it?'

'Of course, sir,' said Piers, coughing nervously, and twice draining
his large green claret-glass to gain time, while he felt that his
colour came and went, and his father's keen eyes were fixed upon him
with equal scrutiny and affection.

Young Piers glanced at the stately table, with its massive plate,
glittering crystal, rich wines and luxuriant fruit, and thinking with
joy of her who would be the presiding goddess there to-morrow, told
his narrative in a manly and honest manner, yet not without some
trepidation of tone, while his father sat bolt upright in his chair,
staring at him with a face expressive of rage, incredulity, and
absolute grief, as if he felt that his only son and heir had gone
mad.  Worthy John Balderstone also looked scared and bewildered.

'And now, sir,' continued the son, despite the terrible frown that
deepened on his father's face, 'I have told you all, except my
darling's name.'

'Her name be----! what is her name to me?  Zounds, sir!  I don't want
to hear it--the daughter of a beggarly painter--an adventuress--to
become in time Lady Montgomerie of Eaglescraig!  No, sir, no; damme,
I'll break the entail; I'll--I'll----'

Sir Piers for a few moments was literally choking with rage.

'That my wife is poor and nameless, according to your mode of
thinking, father, is no fault of hers; her beauty is great, her
goodness and accomplishments are rarely surpassed, and surely you
will forgive us, we love each other so?' urged young Piers; and as he
spoke his heart was in his voice, and his very soul seemed welling
out of his fine dark eyes.

'May the moment that I forgive you and her be my last on earth!'
thundered Sir Piers, smiting the table with his clenched hand;
'forgive you--not if I lived for a thousand years!  Away--away! quit
my sight and never let me see your face again!'

And literally he began to tutor himself to hate his son as much as he
had idolised him before.

The latter rose from his chair; his handsome face seemed as if
petrified--turned to stone, and with the colour of stone, his nether
lip began to quiver painfully, for he too had a heart of fiery pride.

Sir Piers rang the bell so furiously that he nearly rent the wires.

'What are you about to do, sir?' asked his son.

'I am about to expel you from this house for ever!' replied Sir
Piers.  'Order the waggonette which brought Mr. Montgomerie from his
hotel round from the stables instantly,' he added to the astonished
Tunley, whom the fierce summons--the bell was vibrating still--had
brought up like a genius of the lamp; 'never again is he to set foot
in the house which he has disgraced!'

In vain did worthy John Balderstone attempt to act the peace-maker;
he was silenced by an imperious wave of the hand.

'This vile adventuress, for I am sure she is such, shall not quite
gain her ends.  I shall break the entail, if I can!' exclaimed Sir
Piers, with growing exasperation; 'by the God that hears me, I will!'

'Father, see her once--only once--ere you judge of her so cruelly!
And, oh! let us not part thus!  One day you may repent it,' urged his
son piteously, and yet not without some anger in his heart.

'Repent it? never!' replied his father, with a wild and bitter laugh.
'Now then, Tunley, is that waggonette at the door?'

'Yes, sir,' replied the butler, again appearing, and very much scared.

'Go!' said Sir Piers to his son; 'as God is our judge, here for ever
ends all between us!'

He turned and left the room by one door, while his son quitted it by
another, and from that moment the father and son met no more.  The
latter's allowance was cut off; he got into debt, sold his
commission, and with his young wife eventually disappeared.  Mr.
Balderstone was supposed to be cognisant of his movements for a time
under a false name; however, the general never inquired, and after a
year or so all traces of him were lost.

Proud of his ancient race, incapable personally of a dishonourable
thought or guilty plan, his son's rash marriage, without his consent,
and with an obscure girl, filled his heart with a species of black
fury, and gave his face a look of repellent pride that was long its
settled expression.

The fate of Piers became a kind of mystery--hidden; though it is the
fate of things in this world that, as a general rule, nothing is hid
for ever.

There came a night which the general never forgot!  It was the night
of an event which he related only to John Balderstone and one or two
others, confidential friends, who were now no longer in the land of
the living.

On the night referred to, the lonely general, then creeping up the
vale of years, was seated in the library, lingering over his last
glass of grog, and gazing, as we last left him, into the glowing
embers; his thoughts wandered away from present things to the past in
spite of himself.  He reviewed the things of old--forgotten sayings
and doings in camp and quarters, in the field and the Indian jungle;
the faces and the voices of the distant and the dead came back to
him, and among them, more powerfully than usual, the face and voice
of his lost son, Piers.

There was no sound in the room but the steady and monotonous ticking
of a great antique clock on the black marble mantel-piece, and the
snoring of a Highland stag-hound stretched upon a deerskin before the
fire, unless we add that the night wind moaned shudderingly through a
coppice of red-stemmed Scottish firs, and the beech-trees swayed
drearily in the passing blast.

A sudden sense of some one being near him--something intangible,
too--came over him; he seemed to hear a sigh, and brave though he
was, his heart felt as if dying within him, and the hair of his head
stood up, or a prickly sensation pervaded all his scalp.

Beside his chair a kind of shadow seemed to form itself, and become,
with each pulsation of his pulses, more distinct in outline, till the
face and form of his son were before him--the former wasted and
pallid, his eyes full of sorrow and reproach.  His hands seemed
unusually white, wan, and the articulations of the fingers were
painfully distinct, as those of one who had been wasted by fever,
toil, and want.

A thousand maddening and terrifying thoughts seemed to whirl through
the general's brain.  He strove to start from his chair, but remained
in it as if spellbound; he strove to cry aloud, but his voice failed
him, or the faint sound he did utter seemed unnatural, and filled him
with greater fear.

For a moment or two the upbraiding spirit, if spirit it was, or a
creation of his own fevered fancy, stood before him, and then slowly
melted away.

Sir Piers started to his feet.

'I have been dreaming,' he said, with a kind of gasping sigh.  'A
plague on such dreams and fancies!'

But something seemed to tell him it was _not_ a dream, and not a
fancy, and he remembered that in the pale and wasted hands of the
figure were a sheaf of small brushes such as artists use, and a
mahl-stick.  Had Piers in his dire necessity betaken himself to art
to gain a livelihood?

He sat for some time waiting and watching, in a state of awe, terror,
and intense anxiety, for the appearance to return, but it came no
more; but from that moment an assurance stole into his heart that his
son must be dead--that he perhaps died at that particular moment: and
then he began to think, and think, and think again, how hard and
pitiless he had been; and his handsome face grew older and more
lined, and wrinkles seemed to come where none were formed as yet.  He
might have said with Balder:

  'I have lived in the past,
  As by a deathbed, with unwonted love,
  And much forgiveness as we bring to those
  Who can offend no more.'


So time passed on, and old age came upon him--a childless old age.

His son was gone--he had no doubt of that!  He had no nephew, no
cousin, or cousin's son, to succeed him in the lands that had been in
his family since the wars of Bruce and Wallace--yea, since Norwegian
Haco's banner fell on the field of Largs; and he began to fear that
his title would become extinct, when, in the 'Landed Gentry of Grat
Britain and Ireland,' he found that Sir Bernard Burke had assigned a
place to a certain Mr. Hew Montgomerie, then broiling in the Indian
Civil Service, proving that he was the nearest living relative of the
line of Eaglescraig.

His lawyers speedily communicated with that amiable personage, whom
we have already introduced to the reader, and thus it is that he came
to be resident at Eaglescraig as heir of entail, and to the baronetcy.

The poor old general strove his hardest to like Hew, who also strove
sedulously, and pretty skilfully, to keep his many bad qualities
secret from him; but often when Sir Piers was in his thoughtful or
sad moods, he would ask Mary to sing to him certain old songs that
were associated in some way with the long-lost Piers, and as her soft
voice went to the old man's heart, and her pretty hands strayed over
the piano-keys, she 'soothed him to peace,' as Mrs. Garth was wont to
say, 'as the harp of David had soothed King Saul with the holy spell
of sweet music;' but it was a spell that always sent the thoughts of
Sir Piers to wander in Shadow-land.




CHAPTER XIV.

LESLIE FOTHERINGHAME.

'Welcome back to Dumbarton, where I have been somewhat rather of a
hermit since you left it--welcome back to pipeclay and all the "pomp,
pride, and circumstance of glorious war!"  The decanter is beside
you, and I think there are some prime havannas left in that box.  So,
now, let us be jolly,' exclaimed Leslie Fotheringhame, as Falconer
seated himself in the quarters of the former, a curious-looking,
old-fashioned room--the same that had been occupied by the little
Queen Mary in her twelfth year (ere she sailed to France, after the
battle of Pinkie)--one of the oldest parts of the castle.

Falconer cast himself with an air of weariness into an easy-chair,
though his journey from Eaglescraig had not been a very long one.

'What about our fellows, Fotheringhame?' he asked, manipulating a
cigar.

'The detachment?'

'Yes.'

'There is not much to report; two fellows are in "the shop" for
absence from parade; one in the cells, for being drunk and
disorderly; and little Fuddie, the drummer, has cut his stick--or
sticks, should I say?  Probably finding, as Sterne has it, that "the
honour of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward," he has
taken French leave and bolted.  If caught, we should duck the fellow
in the Clyde, but for the seventh clause of the sixth section on
"Discipline," which prevents the adoption of punishments in
detachments that are at variance with those in use at headquarters.'

Falconer continued to smoke in silence, so Fotheringhame spoke again.

'England expects every man to do his duty--but as cheaply as
possible--for next to nothing, in fact; so, after your late
surroundings, the luxury of my quarters will fail to impress you as
either being useful or ornamental--as a certain poem has it, here
are--

  '"Apparatus for washing: a pail and a can,
  Part of an Army List, half of a fan,
  A fawn-coloured glove, a lock of false hair--
  Both highly prized gifts from some lady fair;
  A case of blunt razors, a shako and plume;
  A fishing-rod, shot-belt, rifle, and broom;
  An invite to dinner, the card of a priest,
  A sketch of the colonel described as 'a beast.'"'


While Fotheringhame ran on laughingly thus, Falconer was silent and
pre-occupied, or replied only by a faint smile.

Leslie Fotheringhame was a handsome man, but of a different type from
Cecil Falconer.  He was taller and more squarely built, with deep-set
and grave dark-blue eyes, the expression of which generally belied
his merry manner; he was dark-haired, with a firm mouth, a clear dark
skin and ponderous black moustache.  His manner was ever honest,
frank, and pleasant; and though his turn of mind was somewhat
cynical--as if he had met with some disappointment in life--his face
at times wore a smile that lit it up like a sunbeam.

Though junior to Cecil Falconer in the regiment, he was his senior by
some years; for he had once been a captain of Lancers, but sold his
troop, no one knew why, and afterwards obtained a non-purchase
commission in the Cameronians.  He was also greatly Cecil's senior in
experience.  He was wont to boast that he had, by a fluke, escaped
the perilous meshes of matrimony, though the mess rather opined that
he had been disappointed, 'thrown over,' by some girl, though none
exactly knew the story.

'What is doing at headquarters?' asked Falconer.

'Birkie of that Ilk has sent in his papers.'

'Birkie--why?'

'Lost a pot of money on a hurdle-race at Streatham--it's a step in
the regiment; but everyone is very, sorry for poor Birkie.  Acharn
has got into a scrape with a widow, whose husband suddenly turned up,
so he has gone on leave, to be out of the way, and Freeport too.'

'Freeport--what was Dick up to?'

'He proposed to three sisters in one night--all the daughters of a
commandant of one of those confounded brigade depots, and hearing
that the adjutant might be sent for his sword, Dick was off like a
bird by an early train for London.  But we all know that Dick has an
engagement-ring with a blue stone, which he gives to some girl
everywhere, yet contrives to get back in a lover's quarrel when the
route comes.'

To Fotheringhame it was apparent that his friend had come back to
Dumbarton in a somewhat taciturn mood--cloudy in face and abstracted
in manner.

'What the dickens has happened?' thought he.

'Was our colonel--the old general--kind?' he asked.

'Very,' was the curt reply.

'And the ladies--kinder still, I suppose?' hazarded Fotheringhame,
lying back in his chair and shooting concentric rings of
tobacco-smoke upward.  'No answer--eh?  Now, apropos of the subject
of your remarkable letter, I hope that you have left Eaglescraig
without committing yourself?'

'I played no more with that fellow Hew.'

'I am not thinking of Hew.'

'Committing myself--how?'

'By a proposal.'

'What had I to offer a girl so rich as Mary Montgomerie--an heiress,
in fact?'

'All that a girl wants in a husband, I suppose--a deuced good-looking
and presentable fellow of his inches.'

'I could never sink to be a dependent on my wife, Leslie.  Had Mary
been penniless----'

'Oh, come--we have got the length of calling her Mary, have we?'

'Had she been so, I might not have shrunk from asking her to share my
poverty--for such it is; but her fortune is an impassable barrier
between us--and I would to heaven that I had never set foot in
Eaglescraig!'

'This is rather Quixotic,' said Fotheringhame, sipping his brandy and
water, and humming--

  '"'Tis madness to remember--'twere better to forget."'


'Moreover, if she marries without her guardian's consent, "then in
that case," as the will has it, her money passes from her.'

'You seem to have had all the details through hand,' said
Fotheringhame, drily.

'Not with her, at all events.'

'And she is attractive?'

'Attractive is not the word--she is downright lovely, and good as she
is lovely!  But her guardian, the general, has decided on plans for
her future.'

'A peerage.'

'Not at all.  He resolves that she shall marry the cub called Hew
Montgomerie, who is the heir of entail--a kind of distant cousin.'

'Does--Mary affect him?' asked Fotheringhame, with a quizzical smile.

'Not at all!  But I cannot tell you how much she has bewitched me.'

'Aware all the while of the plan in store for her.'

'I know what a sceptic you are about women, Leslie; but her face is
ever before me, by day and night.  I can see it now looking at me,
out of that blank barrack wall, as plainly as I see yours.  She has
indeed bewitched me!'

Fotheringhame looked at the wall indicated, shrugged his shoulders,
and said, with a provoking laugh:

'I can't help thinking, old fellow, that the girl has been amusing
herself with you, from the details you give me, and that a flirtation
was all she wanted.'

'Fotheringhame!'

'Don't get excited.  I am sure that, like other dear creatures,

  'Her feet are so very little,
    Her hands are so very white;
  Her jewels are so very heavy,
    Her head so very light;
  Her colour is made of cosmetics,
    Though this she never will own;
  Her body's made mostly of cotton,
    Her heart is made wholly of stone.'


'This may apply to some goddess of yours,' said Falconer, becoming
seriously ruffled; 'but as for me----'

'There will be no more larks or rows,' continued Fotheringhame,
laughing; 'no more chance medley flirtations at picnics or lawn
tennis, or even in the conservatory; our mind, or what is left of it,
must run only on one ideal, and on presents of dainty gloves for
lovely little hands, books and bouquets, chains, lockets, and
bracelets, pressure of the taper fingers, perhaps even a chaste kiss,
as Byron has it----'

'By Jove, Leslie, how you can gabble!' said Falconer, but without a
smile, for something peculiarly uncomfortable and damping in the
closing details of his visit to Eaglescraig haunted him.

Perceiving this, Fotheringhame's banter ceased, and after a pause he
said:

'Pardon me, Cecil, if my jokes annoy you; but if she does not wish to
marry this fellow Hew, why should she?'

'Why?'

'Yes; no power can compel her.  The day is passed when girls can be
married against their will, except in novels.  There may be, I am
aware, a mild system of domestic pressure, a steady and persevering
domestic tyranny, quite as mischievous in the end, sometimes, as the
brute force of the terrible old baron or stern parent of the Middle
Ages; and I have even known more than one case in which the feeble
opposition of a girl has been foiled under the powerful home-current,
as it flowed on and bore her away with it.'

'By Jove, Leslie, you _are_ a Job's comforter!  And now, by-the-bye,
there is another girl at Eaglescraig of whom I have not yet spoken--a
lady on a visit.'

'And your mind was divided between them?'

'Not at all, though the beauty and style of Annabelle Erroll are
indescribable.'

'_Who_ did you say?' exclaimed Leslie Fotheringhame, as his voice and
face changed curiously, he took the cigar from his lips and sat bolt
upright in his chair.

'Annabelle Erroll; she knows you, by the way, and I hope the general
will, in turn, invite you to Eaglescraig.'

'I hope not,' said Fotheringhame, sadly and fervently; 'by Jove, I
hope not!'

'Why?'

'Why?  Because I would not go under any circumstances or pressure,
from what you tell me.'

'As to what, or whom?  Hew Montgomerie?'

'Hew be hanged!  No.'

'Who then?'

'Annabelle Erroll,' said Fotheringhame, uttering the name sadly,
softly, and with unction.

'So, thereby hangs a tale.'

'Yes, old fellow--a devil of a tale I would rather not unfold.'

'Then you have had your little weakness too?'

'Of course; I've been in love like other--fools; who has not?'

Cecil Falconer, however, was too full of his own affair to ponder
long over the mysterious intimacy that existed, or had existed,
between Annabelle Erroll and Leslie Fotheringhame.




CHAPTER XV.

SEPARATED.

Though grievously disappointed that his late guest should have proved
the gamester Hew described him to be, and not ill-pleased to have a
rival of the latter at a distance from Eaglescraig, Sir Piers, to do
him justice, in the kindness of his heart, missed his friend, the
genial young officer, who had been so patient a listener to those
dreary Indian reminiscences, over which Hew openly groaned and
secretly swore.

Mrs. Garth and Annabelle Erroll missed him for his musical
accomplishments and conversational qualities, and poor Mary missed
him more than all, while her aversion to Hew became more undisguised
than ever, and he spitefully retorted by saying more than once in her
hearing that 'a deuced good lesson had been taught Sir Piers never
again to invite, without a due and accredited introduction, any
chance-medley fellow to Eaglescraig.'

Her manner to his heir at last drew upon her the animadversion of Sir
Piers.

'My dear girl,' said he to her one day, 'I must remonstrate with you,
as the betrothed wife of Hew.'

'Betrothed! by whom?' asked Mary, with mingled gravity and anger.

'By me, my darling; as such, I say, you owe him some duty, and some
respect, and a deference to his opinions.  School yourself to love
him properly in the time to come, and not distress your poor old
grand-uncle and guardian, who loves you so well for your dead
parents' sake.'

'I do not, and cannot love him!' said the girl, wearily.

'Not now, you think; but in time, Mary, in the good time to come,' he
continued, stroking her rich, dark hair caressingly, as if she were
yet a little child; and when he adopted a pleading tone and manner,
rather than those of authority and command, she felt a deeper emotion
of pain and annoyance.

'There is no necessity for having romantic notions, or being
desperately fond of your intended husband.  The notions and the love
will come in due time after marriage,' said the old man, who had
well-nigh forgotten all about his own early love and marriage, which
had come to pass so long ago.  'You have wealth, Mary.'

'What is wealth, if linked with unhappiness?'

'Hew will make you a good husband; if he did not--if he did not!' and
the general paused, and grasping the knob of his arm-chair, looked
unutterable things at the idea of such a contingency.  'As I have
said a hundred times since he came from India, with your fortune
added to what I shall leave--all going to Hew as heir of entail--the
future baronet of Eaglescraig will, in wealth, be second to none,
richer by far than half the peerage; and marry you cannot, without my
permission.'

'But to marry when one cannot love is--is----'

'What, girl?' asked Sir Piers, peevishly, for he had not again
referred to the suspected fancy for Cecil Falconer, though his mind
was full of it.

'Falsehood and dishonesty, rank injustice, and shameful!'

'Well--anything more?' he continued angrily.

'Yes--destruction of soul and body, perhaps.'

'Mary, you do not look beyond the present,' said Sir Piers, with
growing sternness, to find his pet scheme so vigorously opposed;
'hence it is my imperative duty to do that for you, and with a firm
will and resolute hand to scheme out a happy future.'

'How miserably had he schemed out the future of his poor dead son!'
thought Mrs. Garth, as she led Mary away in tears and anger.

Meanwhile, if Hew looked upon himself as the future lord and master
of Mary Montgomerie and her thousands, still more surely did he look
upon himself as the future laird, lord, and master of Eaglescraig and
all that appertained thereto; and while impatiently looking forward
to the day of his succession, gave himself, unknown to Sir Piers,
such airs with old and valued adherents, such as John Balderstone the
factor, Tunley the aged butler, whose taste in wine he scouted; Pate
Pastern the head groom, who was cognisant of some of his tricks on
the turf; old Sandy Swanshott the head keeper, with even Mrs. Garth
and others, that, certes, he won anything but golden opinions from
all!

Between him and John Balderstone there was a species of smouldering
feud.  The latter loved and revered Sir Piers, and always winced when
Hew showed, as he had the coarseness and ill-feeling to do, that he
actually prayed for the sudden or premature arrival of the time when
he should figure as Sir Hew Montgomerie; premature it could scarcely
be now, though the hale old man seemed to have years of life in him
yet.

Mr. Balderstone was not slow in perceiving how Hew disliked their
late visitor, Cecil Falconer, and thus was disposed to vaunt his
praises in the mere spirit of opposition.

'I can't perceive the fellows' merits in any way,' growled Hew with
an oath, as they entered the smoking-room one evening.

'That I can very well believe,' replied the old gentleman, drily.

'How--why?' demanded Hew, suspecting something in his tone.

'Plainly, then, to do so would argue the existence of what you do not
possess.'

'What is that--perception?'

'No.'

'What then?'

'Some refinement of taste,' replied Mr. Balderstone, his dark grey
eyes beaming as he made a home-thrust, for which Hew quickly revenged
himself in a fashion of his own, causing the portly Mr. Balderstone,
as he seated himself, to spring up with a malediction.

'What the devil is the row?' asked Hew.

'Only this, sir, that you have placed a pair of sharp jack-spurs upon
the chair you so politely accorded me!'

'And you have a sanguinary sense of sitting down on the rowels--eh?'
said Hew, laughing heartily, and not even attempting an apology,
while his shifty eyes now beamed with delight.

'I presume these spurs are a present to you, from your friend Mr.
Welsher Twigg, the gentleman rider, whose peculiar riding so favoured
you at Ayr and York last year,' said Mr. Balderstone, with some
contempt of manner, while Hew's parti-coloured eyes now gleamed with
rage, for it was averred on the turf, that bribed by him, the rider
in question, when pretending to give a horse a bucket of water,
daubed his nostrils with blood, to make people believe the animal had
broken a blood vessel, and had secretly loosened the nails in the
shoes of another, at a hurdle-race, to prevent him winning.

As these black rumours had never reached the ear of Sir Piers, Mr.
Balderstone felt that he had 'scored one' by the taunt; but in a time
to come, and by both unforeseen then, he was to run up a terrible and
crushing score against Hew Montgomerie, with a result that neither
could have imagined.

Slowly passed the days now with Mary.  The spacious house was full of
new guests, and pleasant ones too, but it seemed dull and dreary,
since _he_ was no longer there.  His place was vacant.  The click of
balls came from the billiard-room, and the sound of merry voices, but
his was no longer there, or at her piano now.  All seemed changed to
Mary.  Sir Piers never adverted to his visit, his name or his
existence; and scarcely ever to the old and invariable topic of the
Cameronians.

Why was this?  Did he suspect their secret, or was Hew the spirit of
evil?  She could not doubt that; and her sympathetic friend Annabelle
Erroll, who was a close observer of affairs, and had all Mary's
confidence, thought so too.

But Annabelle Erroll had thoughts that were peculiarly her own, over
the departure of Cecil Falconer.

'He has gone from me to Leslie,' she said to herself; 'to Leslie
Fotheringhame, to tell him that he has spent a whole month with me--a
month in my society, and I have given no sign that Leslie's existence
was ever aught to me--at least, I hope so--and yet there was a time
when I was all the world to him!  Yes--yes--it is indeed over and
done with, the love that was once ours.  Will Leslie ask him how I am
looking?' (she glanced at her soft blonde beauty in the mirror).  'Or
how I am comporting myself--sadly or merrily?--if I am unchanged from
the Annabelle of the time that can come no more?'

For some mysterious reason she had not taken her friend Mary into her
confidence at first, when Fotheringhame's name was spoken of; and now
she shrunk from doing so, lest she might seem wanting in candour;
and, as the love she referred to was 'over and done with,' what
mattered it now?'

And yet often Mary might have drawn such a confidence from her.

'Oh, Annabelle,' she would sometimes say, 'so quick is fancy, that
occasions there are when I see a figure like Cecil's in the
distance--the figure of some one else, whose walk or gesture recalls
him vividly to me--that I feel something like a sharp pang in my
heart.'

As days passed on and became weeks, Mary's movements and manner
became languid, and all her old occupations, if not neglected, were
pursued with a weary indifference.  She had lost interest even in
being dressed to perfection, as she had always been, and spent hours
in the seclusion of her own room, or exclusively in the society of
Annabelle Enroll.

Her eyes lost their clear brilliance and became heavy in expression;
her usually gentle and playful manner was changed for petulance and
irritability, all signs of where and how her thoughts were--signs
which Hew watched with jealous rage, and loving, old Sir Piers with
unaffected solicitude, mingled with bitterness at Falconer, and at
himself for that which he now deemed his own fantastic idea of
_camaraderie_ and old military hospitality.

'Never again,' he would mutter to himself, 'never again will I play
the fool!  Hew is right--Hew is right!'

His pet from her orphan childhood, his artless, father-like
experience of her, had, until quite recently, prevented him from
remarking that she was no longer a baby-faced girl, but a grown
woman--a bird that might leave him for another nest--and then a kind
of nervous thrill went through his heart, when he thought a love for
another might take possession of her; and thus he became doubly
anxious to secure her for Hew.

'How pale and ill you look, my darling!' said Mrs. Garth to her, at
the close of a day that had seemed a long and dreary one to Mary.

'What matters it?' said she, petulantly; 'Cecil cannot see me now,'
she added mentally, as her eyes wandered through the window to the
wooded walk that led to the grotto--the grotto where Cecil had first
told her of his love, and where his lips had touched hers for the
first and last time, and the host of tender recollections that
hallowed the place flowed full upon her memory.  'Why are some people
sent into this world only to be miserable!' sighed the lovely
heiress, while surrounded by every luxury that world could furnish.
'I wonder if we ever lived before and were happy--or if we shall live
again, and be happier still!  Who can tell--who knows?'

Then tenderly and fondly she recalled the words of Cecil, when he
spoke to her of the mysterious sympathy that, in his solitary
moments, had seemed to link his soul, or existence, with that of
another, and could she doubt now that it was her own!

And with this idea, a tender and loving expression would steal over
her delicate _mignonne_ face.

'Rouse yourself, my darling,' Mrs. Garth would say, 'ride or
drive--read or work.'

'Read--read!  I hate books now--I hate crewel-work, music,
everything!' she replied, almost snappishly; 'dear old Garthy, I am
no longer a schoolgirl, and I never, at any time, was one cut to the
Hannah More pattern.'

She had learned from his own lips how Cecil loved her; but now Cecil
was gone and never could return, and all her little world seemed
sunless and cold--dark and desolate.  She was no longer alternately
amused and petulant, coquettish and light-hearted, for a settled
moodiness had come over her--the gloom of sorrow, not anger; and
though no one, not even Annabelle, surprised her in tears, her eyes
sometimes bore unmistakable traces of recent weeping.

A wild longing would, at times, come over her to see Cecil again--to
hear his voice--to know what he was doing, or with whom he was at
that particular moment; but the days passed vaguely and drearily on,
while she thought of him, dreamt of him, talked in fancy to him, and
wove such romances about him and herself, as only a young girl can
weave.

He was not very distant from her after all, and yet he might, so far
as their intercourse was concerned, have been at the Antipodes; for
no tidings, no news of him, ever came to Eaglescraig, and at last, to
Mary, it began to seem as if the sweet bright chapter in her life,
about Cecil Falconer, was utterly ended!

And probably she would never love again, she thought; for that she
had given him was the one love of a lifetime.

But the general and Mrs. Garth thought they knew better; and that her
ailment was only a girlish fancy, that naturally would pass away and
be forgotten.




CHAPTER XVI.

ANNABELLE ERROLL.

Now Leslie Fotheringhame, though disposed at first to be somewhat
reticent on the subject of his previous intimacy with Annabelle
Erroll, after a time confided their mutual story to Cecil Falconer.

Thrown together as he and the latter were, in that lonely and
isolated fort, the whole garrison of which, besides their own
detachment, consisted only of a master gunner and a few old
pensioners, it was natural that they should have their mutual
confidences over their after-dinner cigars, and thus Falconer heard
all about it from Fotheringhame.

'You see, old fellow, it came to pass in this way.

'My troop of Lancers was quartered in Perth Barracks, while the
head-quarters were stationed at Piershill.  I soon tired of all the
little gaieties afforded by the Fair City; but the season was summer,
and the Tay afforded me endless amusement for fly-fishing and
boating; and, as one of my subs was on leave and the other on the
sick-list, I was somewhat thrown on my own resources.

'I had a swift light shallop, in which I used to pull daily, when the
tide or stream served, from the bridge upward past the wooded slopes
of Kinnoull, and away for miles amid the loveliest and most luxuriant
sylvan scenery in the world.

'One day the heat was very great, and, ceasing to row, I lay back in
the stern-sheets of my boat, with a cigar between my lips, and let
her float, lazily, on the current of the stream, which flowed between
its wooded banks deeply, silently, and majestically.  On every hand
around me were a long series of varied hills covered with picturesque
foliage of every shade of green, the vista everywhere terminated by
the more remote mountains, the rich tints of which were softened in
the blue haze and by the distance.

'At a bend of the river my boat partially grounded, but I felt too
lazy to shove off, and lay there under the shadows cast upon the
bright stream by the overreaching elms, oaks, and silver birches,
among the blended foliage of which the blue doves were cooing, and
where the wild violets and jasmine grew close to the water's-edge.
On all the river I thought there could be no lovelier spot than this.
Save the stillness of its flow, and the hum of the mountain honey-bee
among the wild flowers of the wood, in and out of the gueldre-roses
and foxglove-bells, there was no sound in the air, as I lay there in
a kind of daydream, with my arms resting idly on my sculls, till the
voice of a girl, singing close by, roused me at once to attention.

'Sweetly she sung, and seemed to give her whole soul and pathos to
the song.  She thought no ear save her own was within hearing; but
for a time the singer remained unseen by me.

  '"'Love me always--love me ever,'
    Said a voice low, sad, and sweet;
  'Love me always--love me ever,'
    Memory will the words repeat."


'And in truth, Falconer, I give them by an effort of memory now, it
is so long since I heard and read them:

  '"While in fancy still beside me,
    Is her fair and graceful form;
  And I hear the murmured love-words,
    Gushing from her heart so warm."

  '"From her heart, subdued by sorrow,
    In its fond and trusting youth,
  Till she trembles lest the morrow
    Rob some idol of its--truth?"


'A slight impetus which I gave my boat with one of the sculls,
brought me quite suddenly to the very feet of the singer, as she
stood on the edge of the stream, embowered among foliage, and shaded
by the light aspen-like sprays of the silver birches, regarding me
with some surprise, for my boating costume, I dare say, was novel in
that quarter, and seeming irresolute as to whether she should
retire--any way, advance she could not.

'I saw at a glance that the girl was just at that age which is
between childhood and maidenhood, that she was perfectly lady-like,
delicate in form and figure, and possessed of rare beauty of the
fairest, or blonde type; her hair of the lightest brown, and shot
with gold that made it brilliant in the flakes of sunlight that
flashed between the trees; her eyes, of dark-grey blue, had brows and
lashes so dark as to impart great character to her otherwise soft and
_mignonne_ face; but you know well who I am describing.

'She had a bunch of wild-flowers in one hand; the other grasped the
ribbons of her tiny hat, which she was swinging to and fro, as she
had come through the wood bareheaded, and was evidently not far from
her home.

'"Pardon me," said I, lifting my cap, "but I am afraid that I am
rather a trespasser here."

'"Not at all, sir; the river is free to everyone."

'"But I have been almost ashore, and is not that presuming too far?"
I asked again, only for the pleasure of conversing with her.

'"Oh no," she replied, with a charming smile.

'"But I have disturbed you, I fear."

'"How?"

'"I heard you singing--need I say, how sweetly!"

'"An old song, quoted from some old book, but the melody far
surpasses the words."

'"Yes, as sung by your voice," said I, gallantly.

'"What a pretty boat yours is!  Have you rowed far?"

'"All the way from the bridge."

'"You must be weary, otherwise I would ask you----"

'She blushed and paused.

'"I am not at all weary, and am every way at your service."

'"Oh, thanks; will you row to the other side, and bring me some of
the lovely--"

'She mentioned some peculiar kind of fern.

'"Permit me to row you across, and you can select them for yourself."

'Her eyes sparkled with pleasure, but she hesitated.

'"You mistrust a stranger," said I; "and perhaps your papa might be
displeased--"

'"Poor papa is dead; but mamma would, I know, be angry.  She is full
of strict and strange notions; thus I can never venture far alone."

'"But the distance is so short--"

'"And she is always busy at this hour."

'"Come, then."

'She confidingly put her little hand in mine, sprang with charming
grace lightly into the cushioned seat astern, and exclaimed with
girlish delight:

'"What a lovely boat!  How delicious this is!  Though we live only a
mile from the Tay, I have never had a row on it."

'"Permit me to give you a little one now," said I, assuming my
sculls, and shot the boat out into mid-stream.  I regarded her beauty
with growing admiration and pleasure; but my Lancer experiences
caused the thought to occur, could she be so innocent, so utterly
guileless as she seemed?

'Some ferns were speedily selected, and uprooted by my knife, also
some magnificent water-lilies from a pool under the trees; and, as
she seemed thoroughly to enjoy herself upon the sunlit river, I
pulled her to and fro, near the silver birches where I first met her,
and she chatted away to me as if she had known me for months.  That
she was a lady in birth and breeding was indisputable; her accent was
highly cultivated and her manners refined, and everything about the
girl betokened gentle blood; but there was an artlessness combined
with girlish abandon about her, that made me curiously and
uncharitably suspicious, while deeply and suddenly interested in her.
Thus I said, after a pause, while letting the boat drift with the
current, and keeping the blades of my sculls just out of the water:

'"You do me great honour, and must have singular confidence in me, a
stranger, that you trust yourself with me thus."

'"How we glide!" exclaimed the girl, with childish glee.  "Oh, I
could sail here for ever!"

'"What would mamma think, if she knew it?"

'"Being with you?"

'"Yes."

'"I scarcely know what she would think; but I know what she would
_do_," was the reply.

'"Admonish you?"

'"Yes; and lock me up for days to come.  But I can see, of course,
that you are a gentleman."

'"Thanks for the compliment."

'"But it is difficult to say what else; your costume is so unlike
anyone we see hereabout."

'I wore simply a rowing suit of white flannel, trimmed and faced with
blue, with a skull-cap to match.

'"I am a Lancer," said I.

'"A Lancer!" she repeated, while her blue eyes dilated.

'"Yes; I command the troop in Perth Barracks."

'I could see that the information pleased her, for her colour rose
and she looked aside; and again I pondered as to whether she was the
hoyden by nature I suspected.

'"I must return home now," she said suddenly, as if she read my
thoughts in my face.

'"So soon?" I urged, pleadingly.

'"Yes; and thanks, so much, for your row--it has been delightful."

'"I shall be so glad to row you further next time."

'"You talk as if you expected to see me again--as if it were quite a
matter of course."

'"I can only hope to do so," said I, handing her ashore and retaining
her little, ungloved hand, lingeringly in mine; "but I row past here
every day, _at the same hour_."

'"Good-bye," said she, about to turn away.

'"May I ask your name?" said I, cap in hand.

'"Annabelle Erroll."

'"Why do you start so?" she asked laughingly, and, tripping up the
bank, vanished among the white stems of the silver birches, leaving
her ferns in the boat behind her.

'Start!  Well might I do so; for I now discovered that she was my
cousin, the daughter of a widowed maternal Aunt Annabelle, with whom
my parents had ever been at enmity, about some money quarrel, with
her husband, Colonel Erroll--an aunt whom I had never met, and of
whose existence I had but a vague idea.

'My cousin she was, and proud, greedy old Uncle Erroll's daughter!  I
would rather not have heard this; for the girl's rare beauty
attracted me powerfully on one hand, while the transmitted stories of
the family feud--stories which in boyhood made me regard the colonel
and his wife as an ogre and ogress--on the other, had a fatal effect
upon me.

'That her mother yet kept up the feud, was evident from the
circumstance that she had never mentioned to Annabelle the fact,
which she must have known, that I commanded the Lancers at the
barrack within a few miles of their own house.  Yet to have done so
would have served no end; though I thought not of that.

'Would the young girl understand, or accept, my _hint_?

'When, on the following day, I betook me to the bend of the river in
my boat, she was not there.  I waited long, and reluctantly pulled
away with a certain emotion of pique.  But, on the _next_ day again,
at the same hour, I saw her light skirt flitting among the silver
birches, and at once crept inshore.  I had cut some fresh fern roots
for her, in place of those she had forgotten.

'"Ah, how thoughtful and kind of you," she exclaimed, as she gave me
her hand, and allowed me to lead her on board, quite as a matter of
course.

'"You will have a little row to-day?" said I.

'"A very tiny one it must be, then; I am so afraid of mamma," she
replied; and in another minute we were skimming over the silvery
water.

'"Have you mentioned to your mamma your meeting with me?" I inquired.

'"With you--a stranger?  Oh, I dare not, Captain Fotheringhame."

'"You know my name, then!"

'"I saw in a newspaper, by the merest chance, that you were a guest
of Lord Rothiemay's."

'For certain cogent reasons of my own, I could not help colouring
like a great schoolboy at this peer's name, as I had been involved in
something closer than a mere flirtation with a daughter of his; but
in the present instance, while feeling already inclined to be rather
cousinly, I resolved to remain incog. as long as I could.  I knew
that she would not mention my name at home, and so resolved to
abandon myself to the perilous charm of her society during the
absence of the Rothiemays in London.  I admit freely that I was
wrong, selfish in this, and severely was I punished in the end.

'This second day on the river was succeeded by many others, during
which I gave myself completely up to the fascination of my new
companion, who was so bright, quaint, and _spirituelle_, and full of
enthusiasm for music, flowers, scenery, and everything, that she was
unlike any other girl I had ever met--more than all, most unlike in
style of beauty and manner the stately and patrician daughter of
Rothiemay.

The boat, in the blaze of the sunshine, was drifting with the
current; my sculls in the rowlocks rested on my knees; my cigar, the
place and time, disposed me for luxurious reverie; and opposite me
sat this beautiful girl, her hat beside her, her golden hair and fair
face shaded by her parasol, while she sang in a low voice her song,
"Love me always--love me ever," her eyes fixed dreamily on the wooded
shore the while.

'"Annabelle," said I, softly.

'"Who gave you leave to call me by that name?" she asked, pouting.

'"Is it not your name?"

'"Yes, Captain Fotheringhame."

'"And a very pretty one; yet not even pretty enough for you.  Why may
I not call you by it?"

'"It sounds odd on your lips--already."

'"But not unpleasant, I hope?"

'She laughed, but became silent, and glanced at me shyly under her
long lashes--shyly, and yet at times I thought half invitingly, half
defiantly, too.  Was the girl acting or not?  I felt inclined to love
her one moment, and simply and selfishly to amuse myself with her the
next, heedless, perhaps, of whether the poor girl might learn to love
me or not.

'I was a young fellow then, Falconer--save in experience, I am not an
old fellow yet--but she was younger still, a very girl, on the
borders between childhood and womanhood, the "sweet seventeen" of the
inevitable love story.  I was playing with fire, and so was she; and
in teaching her to love me, I forgot all about an entanglement
elsewhere, and gave myself up to the romance and intoxication of the
time and the episode.  So we met and dreamed on day by day, and she
was so brilliantly happy that her soft face at times seemed to be
singularly brightened by the very gladness of her heart; for it seems
so natural for a young girl to mingle something of idolatry with her
first love.

'It did occur to me that our love--hers, at least--was somewhat of
the rash and romantic Romeo and Juliet, passionate and unreasoning
kind; while she was as young and innocent as I was exacting, and even
suspicious that she was perfectly artless.  I pondered over the words
of Shakespeare: "Love sought is good; but given unsought is better;"
and I was cynic, casuist, and egotist enough to doubt this.

'When I kissed her, it seemed each time as if all my soul went out to
her with that kiss; and yet--what idiosyncrasy of the heart was it
that made me wish to have that kiss recalled!

'"I seem to have no wish or desire in the world ungratified," she
whispered to me, as she nestled her head on my shoulder, while the
boat drifted with the current under the tremulous shade of the silver
birches, and the Tay rippled placidly past them.

'"You are so happy, Annabelle?"

'"I never thought to be so happy as I am now, Leslie; I could even
die with your arms round me!  But--but are you satisfied to have such
an ignorant little girl for your wife?"

'_Wife_!  I had not proposed yet; and the word roused me to a selfish
consciousness of the rashness of the whole affair, and so instead of
replying I gave her a tender caress, and said:

'"You are too good for me, Annabelle!"

'"I can scarcely believe it--you so handsome, so rich--a captain of
Lancers, and all that!  Oh, Leslie, God forbid you should ever cease
to love me less than you do!"

'This crisis in my river-cruising roused me to think of what I was
about; and still more was I roused when at the barracks I found a
letter from Lord Rothiemay awaiting me with an invitation to spend a
few days at his place.  But to leave my troop then was impossible,
thus I wrote thanking his lordship, and proposing simply to gallop
over on an evening named to dinner, and as I despatched the missive,
the face and figure of his daughter Blanche came reproachfully before
me.

'I have already referred to an entanglement--it was simply that,
though no promise had been given, I deemed myself all but engaged to
Blanche Gordon, who, some months before this time had enchanted and
spell-bound me.  She was, indeed, a beautiful girl, and is a
beautiful woman now, tall, slender, and graceful--a finished creature
in every way, and wielding every natural and acquired accomplishment
with consummate and yet unapparent art.

'She had given me every reason to believe that the passion with which
she had inspired me was reciprocated, and we had only parted with the
mutual hope, apparently, of meeting again; hence there seemed an
absolute necessity for breaking off my philandering on the river.  It
is said that a man cannot love two women at once; and yet my heart
ached for Annabelle and the grief that was before her.

'By some sophistry I nursed myself into the idea that I, rather than
she, was the victim of circumstances; and as I went to the
trysting-place for the last time I muttered:

'"'Handsome, rich, and a Lancer,'" she said.  "Yes--yes, by Jove! she
is not so deuced artless, after all; and the very proposal she made
to me was in itself unwomanly."

'_Unwomanly_!  I actually had the cruelty to tell her so; and never
shall I forget the look of incredulity, grief, dismay, and horror
that appeared by turns, and then all blended together, in her
beautiful face when I did so; and, already repenting what I had said
so capriciously, I would have retracted my words if it were possible
to do so.

'The phrase went through her loving heart like a bolt of ice, though
she seemed to hear it indistinctly.

'"Oh, Leslie!" she gasped, in an accent of desolation such as human
lips can utter but once in a lifetime, while her hands became cold
and her face grew livid.  She bit her lips till the blood came, and
clasped her white hands until a ring I had given her marked her
tender fingers; and then remembering it, she tore it off, cast it at
my feet, and after giving me one long glance of anguish and reproval,
tottered away home; and I, my heart burning with shame, shot my
shallop out into the stream, and pulled away from the spot like a
madman!

'"She is young, poor girl, and will get over it," thought I; while to
nerve myself I conjured up the presence of Blanche Gordon in all her
imperial beauty, while, ingrate that I was! she that I had just left
possessed and showed all the qualities that win love--and that love
had, upon a mere pretence, been coldly and abruptly thrust back upon
her heart.

'The black "morrow" of her prophetic song had come indeed, and an
idol had been robbed of its truth.

'She was helpless to avenge herself, suffering and so beautiful; so I
prayed that God might strengthen her, until some other love consoled
her for the loss of mine: and even the thought of that stung me.

'"Yes, yes," thought I, "if so ready to love me, she will with equal
facility learn to love another."

'There was no jealousy in the heart of Annabelle, for she knew
nothing of any rival; but she was tormented by a sensation of
loneliness and utter desolation by day and night, and disappointment
was not the least element of that torment.  But her time of vengeance
was at hand.

'Next day saw me at Rothiemay, and at the feet, if I may say so, of
Blanche Gordon, who received me with one of her usual bewitching
smiles.  My proposal certainly pleased and agitated her, but she told
me with considerable confidence and coolness that she was engaged to
another, and, indeed, was to be married in three weeks!

'The hollow damsel of fashion had thrown me over for a well-gilded
coronet, just as I had thrown over--but coarsely and
suspiciously--the girl who only loved me better than I deserved, and
whose sweet society I now missed fearfully.

'But I was justly punished, you will say; yet the story does not end
here.

'Some weeks after, when family misfortunes came upon me, and I was
compelled to sell out--to leave the Lancers--impelled I know not by
what emotion or motive, unless it were something like force of habit
and a restless craving, I roamed towards the old trysting-place,
beneath the silver birches.

'Things of love and joy seldom repeat themselves, but my heart leaped
on seeing Annabelle seated on the bank of the stream, half hidden by
the wild rose-trees.  Thither, no doubt, to torment her own heart,
she had perhaps been in the habit of repairing to dream over the love
that would never come again.  She seemed lost in thought, and neither
saw nor heard my approach; and I saw the sunlight flashing on the
bright, soft, golden hair, amid which my fingers had so often strayed.

'"Annabelle!" said I softly; and she sprang up with a nervous start.
"You see I am here again, to crave your pardon and to thank God that
life has yet something worth living for--your love, Annabelle!"

'"And yours?" she said disdainfully; then her fortitude gave way, and
for a moment she hid her burning face and her hot tears in her white
and wasted hands, which, when I attempted to take them, repelled mine.

'"I will try to atone for the past, Annabelle--forgive me," said I,
humbly.

'"I do forgive you," she replied with sudden calmness, grace, and a
bearing of dignity I had never before seen in her; "but you can never
be to me what you have been.  You were the very idol of my heart, and
with all my soul I worshipped you, Leslie; but that is ended now and
for ever."

'"If a life of devotion, Annabelle----"

'"Say no more--I will not listen."

'"You decline my love, because ruin has come upon me at the hands of
others, and I am compelled to leave the Lancers?"

'Her eyes flashed, yet not with anger, and her bosom heaved, as she
replied:

'"I grieve for what you say; and God knows it is not so--but for the
manner in which you reproached me with unwomanly conduct, that roused
my proper pride.  I did love you tenderly, purely, passionately,
then; but in repelling you, my conduct at least is womanly now!
Farewell then, for ever; we leave this place to-morrow."

'"For where?"

'"That can be a matter of no interest to you, Captain Fotheringhame,"
she replied, turning to retire.

'"Do not let us part thus, Annabelle.  It is for your sake as much as
my own that I sue thus."

'She crested up her little head haughtily.

'"Believe in my love," I urged.

'"I neither believe in it, nor want it--now at least."

'"How pitiless you are!" I exclaimed.

'"Just as you were; so to part is best for us both.  I once dreamt of
being only too happy; I am sadly awake now."

'Our eyes met for the last time: the expression of hers was
passionless and decided.  I had nothing to hope from her; but I
sighed deeply, with sorrow, pique, and even jealousy, as I watched
her departing steps and saw the last flutter of her skirt between the
stems of the silver birches, and then pulled slowly away from the
trysting-place, never to seek it again!

'I can remember yet how the woods and lawns along the river's bank
looked dreamily indistinct in the evening haze, as I pulled slowly
and sadly homeward.

'Never since, till you spoke of her, have I heard aught of Annabelle
Erroll, but I have since had reason to believe that she heard, in
time, of my affair with Blanche Gordon.'

So all this story of Leslie Fotheringhame's was the secret so
skilfully concealed under the calm exterior of the beautiful blonde
whom Cecil Falconer had met at Eaglescraig.




CHAPTER XVII.

HOPES AND FEARS.

'That was the way our affair of the heart came about, and was ended
by my pride, vacillation, and suspicion,' said Fotheringhame; 'and
now I have little doubt that she is quite aware that I--the Lancer
lover--was her cousin, though I never told her so.'

'How odd of you to act so!' exclaimed Cecil.

'Odd--I was mad, I think!'

'From her manner and words, I thought that you and she possessed in
common some mysterious antecedents.'

'An unpleasant way of putting it,' said Fotheringhame, with a shade
of annoyance in his face; 'all that time was one of gloom to me.
When I had to leave the Lancers I shall never forget the shock it
gave me--though of course expected--to see the 'Army List' without my
name in it; nor was I ever satisfied till I saw it there again, as a
Cameronian.  So you see, Falconer, that with all my general
heedlessness of bearing, my life has not been without "its little
romance, as most lives have, between the age of teetotum and
tobacco," as George Eliot has it.'

'I may yet be the means of relighting this old flame again,' said
Falconer; 'though it is said that there is nothing so difficult to
revive as an old flirtation.'

'It was no flirtation----'

'Save in so far as you were concerned.'

'Until I lost Annabelle, I never knew how much I loved her, and how
dear she was to me.'

'If Annabelle Erroll ever loved you she loves you still.'

'Why do you think so?'

'Because true love never dies,' said Falconer enthusiastically, for
his mind was full of Mary's image; 'and I can now recall much that
was strange in her mode and manner, if I mentioned you
incidentally--of which I thought nothing then, but to which you have
now given me a clue.'

'For all that you can tell, Falconer, she may only remember me with
hatred, therefore it were better to forget the past and all about it.
After confiding the matter to my two other friends--a quiet weed and
M. de Cognac--I'll turn in, and so good-night.'

Most uneventfully passed the early days of spring, to Falconer, in
the solitary castle of Dumbarton, which shoots up abruptly from a
flat level, and stands completely isolated, the most prominent and
picturesque object amid the beautiful scenery of the blue and
majestic Clyde, into the channel of which it projects--a channel
through the clear waters of which on a calm day, one may see whole
forests of luxuriant seaweed, waving fathoms deep below.

Perched in the hollow or rift between the two great volcanic peaks
into which this singular, mitre-shaped rock is cleft--the highest
being five hundred and sixty feet in height--the old-fashioned
barracks contain accommodation for only about a company of soldiers,
and an ancient armoury (among the stores of which is the blade of
Wallace's sword, fitted with a new hilt of a later period), and which
is still identified as having been the prison of the Scottish
Patriot, after his betrayal by the infamous Menteith.  The
circumstance of his sword having a hilt more modern than the blade,
has led to its identity being doubted by those who are ignorant of
the fact, that in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer in 1505, we
find mention made of the 'binding of Wallas's sword (in the castle of
Dumbarton) with cords of silk and a _new hilt_ and plomet (pommel),
new skabbard and new belt to the said sword, xxvj sh.'

The entrance to the castle is by a barrier-gate at the foot of the
rock and fronting the south east.  It is defended by ramparts and
guns, and immediately within it are the officers' quarters.  A steep
flight of stone steps gives access to the barracks, the well, and
other batteries; from whence, and especially from Wallace's Seat--the
highest peak of this stupendous rock--and the circular Roman tower,
or fragment, perchance, of the days when Balclutha was the abode of
Roderick Hael 'the Generous,' there is a glorious panorama of
scenery: the far expanse of the Clyde, the sylvan vale of the Leven,
the vast blue mass of Ben Lomond and the mountains of Arrochar, their
peaks sometimes veiled in silvery mist.

On the giddy summit Falconer lingered for many an hour, and fancied
he could see, more than twenty miles distant, as the crow flies, the
hills that looked down upon Eaglescraig.  There, when Fotheringhame
was absent on some duty or pleasure, he smoked many a solitary
havanna in solitude, in the evening and the gloaming, conversing in
imagination with Mary Montgomerie, with a fond enthusiasm and a
passion inflamed by obstacles and opposition, long after the shadows
had deepened in the vale of the Leven, and all around beneath the
rocks; after the drum had beaten tattoo, and the lights of the last
ocean-bound steamers had faded out beyond the point of Ardmore.

Then he would skilfully torment himself by recalling all that Mrs.
Garth, with the best intentions in the world, had said concerning
what Sir Piers would be certain to insist upon and carry out--the
union of Mary Montgomerie, the heiress, with his own heir of entail;
and well Falconer knew how Sir Piers would view his own slender means
and want of family rank.  And though he hoped much, he could not know
how, in the secrecy of her own room, and in the long hours of 'the
stilly night,' Mary treasured the memory of the few precious moments
spent in the grotto, and thought of him and him only--of the
influence he had exerted over her when present, and the memory he had
left of himself when gone.

At times there was in his manner a passionate dejection, which quite
bewildered and provoked the more matter-of-fact Leslie Fotheringhame.

''Pon my soul, old fellow, you're in a bad way,' the latter sometimes
said; 'you can't live on this Mary Montgomerie, and nothing but Mary
Montgomerie!  You must get up a relish for something else when the
drum beats for mess, or we shall soon have you on the doctor's list.'

So the days and weeks went by till the middle of March came.  Six
weeks had elapsed since he left Eaglescraig--six centuries,
apparently, as lovers count their time!

The few words so hastily spoken in the grotto were deeply graven in
his memory, and graven, too, was the kiss--the unpremeditated
kiss--pressed so passionately on her unresisting lips.  It seemed to
haunt him with joy, for ever and aye.

'If she loves me, as I know she does,' he often thought, 'I am a fool
not to carry her off in defiance of her guardian and all the world.
Heaven knows, it is not her fortune I value, but of course that
charitable world would think otherwise, though it is entirely in the
hands of Sir Piers.'

After the impression made upon him at his departure from Eaglescraig,
he felt that he could go back there on no pretence whatever, as no
welcome, save from one, would await him, and another invitation would
never be accorded.  He knew that too well.

Times there were when he threw open his desk, and thought he would
write to the general on the subject nearest his heart, at all
hazards, and cast himself upon his generosity; and then hope died,
and his courage failed, as he remembered his own slender exchequer,
his humble rank, apart from his commission, and the general's
inordinate pride of birth and value of long descent.

So he dared not write to Eaglescraig, and from thence came no word,
no news, or sign.

He remembered how Mary had, with much agitation, interrupted his
suggestion that he should tell Sir Piers of his love for her.  What
did she mean, then, unless it were her dread of the latter's power
and influence over her, and his future plans with reference to Hew?

But what would he have thought, what would his emotions have been,
and how great his indignation, had he known how, thanks to the
malignity and perfidy of that personage, the good old general, a
mirror of honour himself, viewed him as a trickster at cards, and a
scandal to the uniform he wore!  Had Falconer been aware of this
circumstance, it would simply have maddened him; but fortunately for
himself, and the bones of Mr. Hew Caddish Montgomerie, he knew
nothing of it.

He was roused from cogitations such as these by an order which
recalled the detachment to headquarters.

'We start for Edinburgh to-morrow, Fotheringhame,' he cried, hurrying
into his friend's room.

'Hurrah!' responded the latter, springing up; 'thank heaven we are to
quit this dull hole!  The scenery, of course, is picturesque, and all
that sort of thing, but the picturesque, is not in my line.  The
weekly assemblies and all the gaieties are on just now in 'Scotia's
darling seat,' and the regimental ball will soon be coming off, so,
with genuine satisfaction, I hail the order to rejoin at last.  Well,
it is a jolly change, anyway.'

And as such, Cecil welcomed it too, though it increased the distance
between himself and Eaglescraig, and he could little foresee the
calamities that awaited him in Edinburgh, and the crisis that would
come in his affairs.

The departure of the detachment was not so duly chronicled in the
local prints as its arrival had been; thus Mary knew nothing of
Falconer's movements.

In her own heart she fully conceived herself to be engaged--tacitly
engaged--to him, and loved to think she was so.  Long engagements are
perilous things, even when the pair can see each other at will, or
freely correspond, daily or even weekly; tiffs and petty quarrels,
even little bitternesses, may come to pass that weaken regard, unless
they be like 'lovers' quarrels, love renewed:' but such a tie as that
which existed between Falconer and Mary Montgomerie--never hearing of
each other, and debarred all correspondence, having only hope for an
anchor, was altogether peculiar in its features.

'She is always sad and weary now, Sir Piers,' said Mrs. Garth one
day; 'weary at night, and weary at morning, though she tries to
conceal it, or deceive us, by occasional bursts of gaiety.'

'Poor little fool!  Her mind is still running on that fellow whom I
should never have brought to Eaglescraig.  But, with all Hew's faults
of temper and so forth, she had better think of him and my wishes,
Mrs. Garth; so lead her up to it, for that is our _point d'appui_,'
replied the general.

'By Jove!' said the amiable Hew, with one of his ugly grimaces, 'she
has no more brains than a hen pheasant, I think, to sit as she does
all day long looking like a sick monkey.'

Meanwhile Hew was having no better success with his wooing, a fact
which was the more perplexing and even harassing now, as he had
resigned his Indian Civil Service appointment, and had no dependence,
save upon the purse of Sir Piers, who, as the former grudgingly
thought, seemed likely to live for ever; and who hoped, and indeed
never doubted, that when Mary got over her girlish fancy for Cecil
Falconer all things would come right in the end; and to change the
scene, as the Edinburgh season was then in its flush, Sir Piers
removed his entire household from Eaglescraig to his town residence
at the west end of the grey metropolis of the north, a few days after
Falconer's detachment had quitted the castle of Dumbarton.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CAMERONIANS.

It was the morning after Cecil Falconer's detachment had come in to
headquarters overnight.

In the mess-room about a dozen officers in their blue patrol jackets,
all more or less good-looking, even handsome young fellows, each and
all having a certain joyous and straightforwardness of manner, were
at breakfast, singly or in groups, and all greeted Falconer and
Fotheringhame warmly, for both were prime favourites with the corps,
and there was much shaking of hands and slapping on the back, with
'Welcome, old fellow!'  'How goes it?' and so forth, while an aroma
of coffee and devilled bones pervaded the long room which had windows
at each end, and where each officer seemed to be economising time, by
reading during the meal, with a daily paper or comic serial--_Punch_,
of course--propped against his coffee-pot or sugar-basin.  All were
discussing the repast in haste, as the hour of morning parade was
close at hand.

'Here you are again, Falconer and Fotheringhame!' cried one; 'the
Damon and Pythias--the David and Jonathan of the Cameronians!  The
very men we wanted; you have just come in time for the ball
committee!'

'Heard the good news, Falconer, old fellow?' asked Dick Freeport.

'No--what is it?  One of the three girls you proposed to accepted
you?' said Falconer, leisurely tapping an egg.

'Ah, you've heard that story; nothing so stupid.  But is it possible
you don't know?'

'What?'

'That your name is in the _Gazette_; but here you are, as large as
life,' added Freeport, reading aloud: '"Lieutenant Cecil Falconer to
be Captain, vice Brevet Major Balerno seconded for service on the
Staff."  I congratulate you.'

'And so do we all!' cried Acharn, a frank, jolly captain, though not
yet eight-and-twenty.

'Thanks; I knew not that Balerno was leaving us so soon,' said
Falconer, whose first thoughts were of Mary Montgomerie.

'This will rouse your spirits,' resumed Freeport.

'Do they want rousing?'

'Well, you looked rather glum last night.  Been spoony on some girl
in the West, I suppose?'

'Perhaps I was,' replied Cecil, laughing, with a chivalrous idea that
to deny his secret love might prove that he was not worthy of it;
'you know that I varied the tedium of country quarters by a visit to
the general--old Sir Piers Montgomerie.  But I wish you would fall in
love, in downright earnest, yourself, Freeport.'

'What harm have I done you that you should wish me this, Falconer?'
asked Dick, drily.

'Any fine girls there--at the general's, I mean?' asked a cheeky
young sub, of Falconer, who coloured with annoyance, though the
boy--a man in his own estimation and that of fast chums, touting
tradesmen and money-lenders--was but a boy after all.  'I have heard
that his niece, or grand-niece rather, is a stunner.  By Jove, he
grows absolutely red!  Were you writing verses to her eyebrows, and
sighing like a furnace, Falconer?'

'You would have sighed like two or three had _you_ tried the
process,' said Falconer, turning away.

'I do wish you joy, Falconer,' said his friend Fotheringhame, in a
low voice; 'and your promotion puts me one step nearer the rank I
held when I first knew Annabelle Erroll, and--and--well, played the
fool, or worse!'

Cecil thought, would Mary see the _Gazette_?  The general, he knew,
was certain to do so; and Mrs. Garth too, who read it as regularly as
an old Chelsea pensioner; but neither might speak of the event, or
deem it wise to revive his name at Eaglescraig.

Falconer was somewhat of a pet among the Cameronians.  Excellence in
all manly sports ever makes a British officer a favourite with his
men; thus, as Falconer could keep a wicket well, was also a prime
bowler, a good horseman (though he generally owed his mounts to a
friend), and could pull a good oar; moreover, as he joined his men in
many a match at tennis, football and shinty, he was popular with
them, and the eyes of his company seemed to brighten that morning
when he came upon parade, and discipline alone repressed the
inclination to give him something like a hearty cheer, and for nearly
each and all he had some kind word or inquiry--for the officers and
men of a regiment should ever feel as one large family.  'Their hopes
and fears are similar,' says a writer; 'their turns of exile will
come at the same time.  Their good and bad quarters will be enjoyed
and endured together, and each one shares, in common with the rest,
the proud privilege of perchance some day furnishing in his own
person that billet to which, the proverb tell us, every bullet is
entitled, or of being "wiped out" by sickness in some pestilential
clime, or of going down to the bottom of the sea in some rotten old
transport.  There is something in their order--a distinctiveness, a
speciality about it--which makes them cling together, and stand by
one another all the faster; for, although mixing freely with the
outer world, there is yet an inner one that is entirely their own.'

All troops like Edinburgh, and the national regiments, from their
popularity, more than all.  The regimental ball was on the tapis when
Falconer and his friend rejoined, and nothing else was spoken of in
the fortress, or the gay circle outside it; for the corps, as a
national and ancient one, was deservedly popular in the Scottish
metropolis, the gay season of which is during the winter, and ends
with the opening of summer--a metropolis where the people are all
devoted to music and song, and where dancing is a passion with all
classes and ages, so that even a baby has been taken from its cradle,
that the boast might be fulfilled of _four_ generations being on the
floor at once.

'Our regimental hop will be _the_ ball of the season,' said Freeport;
'so I am glad you have come back, Falconer: the committee could never
have done without you.  But once it is over, I fear there will be a
general flight from town, and we shall be reduced to the melancholy
promenade of the Scottish Academy.'

'Is it open?'

'Yes, with the usual kit-kats of local nonentities, and the
invariable yearly amount of Bass Rock, Ben Lomond, and the Water of
Leith, without which no exhibition of pictures here would be
complete.'

So Falconer and Fotheringhame were put on the ball committee, and
became forthwith immersed in programmes, invitation lists, and
interviews with Herr Von Humstrumm, the German bandmaster, the
quarter-master and messman.

The castle of Edinburgh may well be deemed the cradle of the
Cameronian Regiment, which received its first 'baptism of fire' amid
the fierce and protracted siege endured there by the loyal and
gallant Duke of Gordon in 1689.  The corps, though now Cameronians
but in name, have in that title a glorious inheritance of Scottish
and military history, that springs from Richard Cameron's bloody
grave in lone and wild Airs Moss, where he fell with Bible and sword
in hand, in defence of an 'oppressed Kirk and broken Covenant,' and
fell bravely, with his face to the enemy, in July, 1680.  As a ballad
says:

  'Oh, weary, weary was the lot of Scotland's true ones then,
  A famine-stricken remnant with scarce the guise of men;
  They burrowed, few and lonely, in the chill, dark mountain caves,
  For those who once had sheltered them were in their martyr-graves!'


When the landing of William of Orange became known in the West of
Scotland, a great body of Cameronians assembled on a holm near the
village of Douglas, in Lanarkshire, and, to the number of some
thousands, joined the revolted troops who besieged King James's
garrison in Edinburgh Castle during the winter of 1688.  Out of
these, two regiments, now respectively the 25th, and 26th or
Cameronians, were constituted in the March and April of the following
year.  The latter stipulated that their officers should be
exclusively men 'such as, in conscience,' they could submit to, as
staunch Presbyterians, and great care was taken in the selection of
them, while an 'elder' was appointed to every company, so that the
whole battalion should be precisely under the moral discipline of a
parish, and a Bible formed a part of the necessaries in every
private's knapsack.  'It is impossible,' says the Domestic Annalist
of Scotland, 'to read the accounts that are given of this Cameronian
Regiment without sympathising with the earnestness of purpose, the
conscientious scruples and heroic feeling of self-devotion under
which it was established, and seeing in them demonstrations of what
is highest and best in the Scottish character.'

Their first colonel was James, Earl of Angus, heir of the lordly line
of Douglas, who fell at their head in his twenty-second year, at
Steinkirk, but a mullet, or five pointed star, in memory of him, is
still one of the badges of the regiment.  Their first
lieutenant-colonel, Clelland, an accomplished soldier and poet, who
had fought under the banner of the Covenant at Drumclog and Bothwell,
fell at their head, defending Dunkeld; and their first chaplain was
Alexander Shiells, a well-known Scottish divine.

They were clad in red, faced with yellow, the royal colours of
Scotland; they wore yellow petticoat-breeches tied below the knee,
with monstrous periwigs, and hats of the Monmouth cock, and small
Geneva bands at the neck.  The captains wore gold-coloured
breastplates; those of the lieutenants were of white, and the ensigns
of black steel.  A proportion of pikemen and halberdiers were in
every company, and the bayonets were still cross-hilted daggers, till
the socket-bayonet, first adopted by the 25th, or Edinburgh Regiment,
was introduced by its colonel, Maxwell, in Flanders.

The Cameronians fought with valour and distinction in the wars of
William and Anne; James, Earl of Stair, commanded them in the year of
the union, and 1720 saw them at Minorca, under Philip Anstruther of
that Ilk, three of whose family have been at their head.  Under
Preston of Valleyfield they fought valiantly in the American War, and
how their major, the unfortunate André, perished is well-known to the
historical reader.  John Lord Elphinstone led them on the plains of
Egypt, and Colonel William Maxwell amid the horrors of the retreat to
Corunna.  In China, under Colonel Mountain, than whom no better or
braver officer ever wore scarlet, they won the dragon which adorns
their colours, and the scene of their last active service was amid
the arid mountains of Abyssinia.  And now, as the Cameronians were
originally mustered on the holm of Douglas, they are, at this day,
linked in brigade with the Lanarkshire Militia.

Though changed in character and impulse, the regiment is 'the
Cameronians' still; but its ranks are no longer manned by the sturdy
Covenanters--'men who prayed bare-headed as the troopers of
Claverhouse aimed at their hearts--prayed a prayer begun on earth and
ended in heaven!'

Local and national regard for the corps caused, we have said, a deep
interest to be taken in the forthcoming regimental ball; but, while
working on the committee therefor, Cecil Falconer could little
foresee the effect that festive occasion was to have on his future
career.

He felt his hand actually tremble as he addressed the invitation
cards, handsomely embossed with the crested sphinx of the regiment,
to Eaglescraig, for the general and his family.  He knew that the
former would be certain to appear, but felt doubts if Mary
Montgomerie would be permitted to accept for herself; and great was
his surprise and joy when, next day, acceptances came promptly from
Sir Piers for Mary, Miss Erroll, and Hew Montgomerie, dated, not from
Eaglescraig, but from the general's town residence at the west-end of
the city.

_She_ was to be in Edinburgh for the remainder of the season; balls,
assemblies, drums, and parties at which they would be sure to meet,
were before her and Falconer, and he contemplated the coming weeks as
being pregnant with every enjoyment, with many a charm and source of
pleasure.

And greater would his present joy have been had he known how Mary
treasured the invitation his hand had addressed, with a wistful
yearning for his presence, for the pressure of his hands, and the
sound of his love-words over again.  For since his advent at
Eaglescraig, Mary had begun a new existence--a new life of
self-devotion and romance.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE PROGRESS OF EVENTS.

'A company--I am a captain now!' thought Cecil, as he sat alone in
his quarters one evening.  Promotion brought him, he hoped, a little
nearer _her_; but she was far off from him still, by her surroundings
and the influences that were brought to bear upon her.

He recalled the words of a writer who says: 'When a young man wants
to marry a girl, he has already made up his mind that she is worthy
of him, otherwise he would not wish to marry her.  The next thing to
do is to make a rigid cross-examination of himself, and see whether
he is worthy of her.'  Falconer did so, and, of course, deemed
himself immeasurably the inferior of Mary, but more than all in
worldly prospects and even social position, albeit that he was now a
captain of the Cameronians; and yet only that evening, in the
mess-room, he had heard rattling Dick Freeport say, that it was 'the
duty of every man wearing a red coat to hook an heiress, if he wanted
one.'

He looked around the room in which he sat, his 'quarters,' and
smiled, in spite of himself, as he mentally contrasted its
appurtenances--its 'fixings,' as the Americans say--with such as were
deemed absolutely necessary to the existence of one so refined as
Mary Montgomerie, and he began to surmise whether or not his love was
a selfish one.

The bare floor, scrubbed, however, as clean as his servant, Tommy
Atkins, could make it, the walls white-washed, and liable to impart
their tint to everything that came in contact with them; a couple of
Windsor chairs; a table liable to unpleasant collapses, especially if
sat upon, as it often was; an iron camp-bed, wherein to dream of Mary
and glory, with a strip of carpet, as a luxury, by its side; a
washstand that took the form of a square box when the route came; a
tin tub, tilted up on end in a corner; an iron coal-box, or scuttle,
royally marked with 'V.R.' and an imperial crown; a fire-grate full
of torn billets and cigar-ends; a rack containing sticks, whips, a
couple of swords; a little narrow mantelpiece, littered with pipes,
cigars, and havanna boxes; but no flowers, and not a single pretty
knickknack suggestive of female influences were there.  Destitute of
all ornament, it was essentially a man's apartment--a very
barrack-room.

Yet some feminine memorials of 'auld lang syne' were not wanting; for
in Cecil's most secret repositories were the treasured letters of his
mother, her photos, a lock of her dark hair, thickly silvered with
white, and a bunch of withered daisies that he had gathered on her
grave, which she had found in a distant land--mementoes treasured all
the more that the story of her life had been a sad one.

If the interior of Cecil's apartment was plain to excess, the view
from its windows was second to none in the world.  On one side, far
down below, spread the Edina of the Georgian and Victorian ages; on
the other towered up Dunedin, grey and grim, in all the dead majesty
of a grand, historical, and royal past--the Dunedin of battle and
siege, yet instinct with life and vitality in all its pulses still;
and far, far away, to where the golden sun was setting at the gates
of the west, spread the wondrous landscape, till the green Ochil
ranges and the pale blue cone of Ben Lomond, sixty miles distant,
closed it in.

And anon, when darkness falls, more wondrous still is the beauty of
the scene when the broken masses and spiky ridges of the old town
sparkle with ten thousand lights.  'High in air a bridge leaps the
chasm between,' wrote one who knew it well; 'a few emerald lamps,
like glow-worms, are moving about in the railway station below, while
a solitary crimson one is at rest.  That ridged bulk of blackness,
with splendour bursting out at every pore, is the wonderful Old Town
where Scottish history mainly transacted itself, while opposite the
modern Princes Street is blazing throughout its length.  During the
day the castle looks down upon the city, as if out of another world;
stern with all its peacefulness, its garniture of trees, its slopes
of grass.  The rock is dingy enough in colour, but after a shower its
lichens laugh out greenly in the returning sun, while the rainbow is
brightening on the lowering sky beyond.  How deep the shadow which
the castle throws at noon over the gardens at its feet, where the
children play!  How grand when giant bulk and towering crown blacken
against the sunset!'

Gazing dreamily from his window, Cecil sat lost in thought, with a
note in his hand--the acceptance to the ball invitation--a note
written, he knew, by the hand of Mary, and which he had rescued from
Dick Freeport, who was sacrilegiously about to tear and toss it into
the waste-paper basket; and at the time we may suppose that our lover
felt as Sir Robert Cotton did when he rescued the original Magna
Charta from the shears of the Cockney tailor, who was about to cut it
into yard-measures for doublets and trunk hose.

But Cecil roused himself when the drums beat on the slope below the
citadel gate, and donning his mess-dress, he betook him to the
dinner-table, where the trophied silver plate added splendour to
luxury.

'So, as the general is in town, you'll leave a card, of course,
Falconer,' said Fotheringhame, with a peculiar smile, as Cecil took a
seat by his side.

'I am in duty bound to do so; though, sooth to say,' added Falconer,
for their confidences had become mutual, 'the coldness that
accompanied my departure from Eaglescraig gives me unpleasant doubts
of my reception; yet leave a card, of course, I must.'

Then he thought of Mary on the morning he came away, and the farewell
wave of her handkerchief.

'If I call, Fotheringhame, won't you accompany me?'

'Thanks; no.  Old fellow, you forget.'

'What?'

'That Miss Erroll's acceptance for the ball came from the general's
house.'

'A pleasant place it will be to visit,' said Dick Freeport, striking
into the conversation from the opposite side of the table.  'I have
had Falconer's confidential report on the subject; he states that the
general's cellar is excellent, the sherry pale and dry, the old port
full-bodied, the Chateau Lagrange unequalled, and Moët's Imperial
ditto!  His cook is a regular French _chef_, with a salary that
exceeds the pay of Sir Piers himself, no doubt; and then there is his
ward----'

'Halt, Dick! how your tongue runs on!' said Cecil, with some
annoyance.  'His ward is not to be lightly spoken of at any
mess-table--ours especially.'

'I saw the general's carriage to-day in George Street,' cried a
cheeky sub-lieutenant from the lower end of the table.  'I knew it by
the coat-of-arms; and, by Jove, there were two stunning girls in it!'

'Miss Montgomerie and her friend Miss Erroll, no doubt,' said
Fotheringhame.  'One dark--a brunette, and the other brilliantly
fair?'

'Exactly; I took stock of them both.  Dick will be bringing his
engagement-ring with the blue stone into action now.'

As this was a regimental joke it caused a little laugh, amid which
Acharn, the sporting man of the corps, came in hastily in his
mess-jacket and vest, looking rather grim and cross.

'Late for mess, old man,' said Fotheringhame.  'What is up, eh?'

'Wine!' said Acharn sharply, to a waiter, and then replied: 'Only
that I am rather up a tree just now.'

'You are rather fond of climbing,' said Fotheringhame.  'Is it lofty?'

'Lofty as a Himalayan pine, by Jove!  I say, Falconer, you were at
the general's place, Eaglescraig--or what's its name?'

'Yes.'

'Was there a fellow named Hew Montgomerie there?'

'Yes.'

'Hew Caddish Montgomerie, as his pasteboard has it--he is well named!
and from whom you won at cards?'

'No; but who utterly rooked me at cards!' said Falconer angrily,
while he and Fotheringhame exchanged glances.

'Well, I met him at the United Service Club this afternoon, though he
is not a member.  We somehow got into play, and I have lost enough to
make my governor pull a very long face when he comes to hear of it--a
cool £500.  He is a fellow whose shifty eyes and thin lips often
smile, but never in unison?'

'I know that his face never wears an expression of manly truth--for
truth isn't in him!' said Falconer.

'The fellow is a downright cad, I understand,' said Fotheringhame;
'he will go to the devil with the down-train, and never know how to
put on the brakes.  Why were you fool enough to play with a stranger?'

'And lose?' said Acharn, twisting his thick black moustache.

'By all accounts it would be a miracle if you won.'

'He has promised me my revenge to-morrow.'

'At what game was it you lost £500?' asked Fotheringhame.

'At roulette, piquet, and écarté; but most at écarté.'

'By Jove!  I should think so,' said Falconer, remembering Hew's 'mild
play.' 'Why didn't you look under the table?' he asked in a low voice.

'For what?' exclaimed Acharn, with surprise.

'The cards he was dropping unknown to you.'

'Good heavens, do you say so!'

'Why, the fellow's a regular leg!' said Fotheringhame; but Falconer
contented himself by saying:

'Your promised revenge will never come.  Next time he asks you to
play, decline, and say you do so by my advice--_mine_--don't forget.'

Acharn did so, and the fact did not increase Master Hew's goodwill to
Falconer; but little indeed could the latter guess how the good old
general had been led to view _him_.

A favourite with the entire regiment he was known to be, even to the
very school-children; thus it was with some surprise the
commanding-officer, some days after, heard the remarks of the general
at the club, made privately to himself, however.

'I have to thank you, Sir Piers,' said the lieutenant-colonel, 'for
extending the hospitality of your house to one of the best of my
officers.'

'Best--the smartest, perhaps you mean?' said Sir Piers, coldly.

'Smartest and best!' replied the lieutenant-colonel, emphatically.

'Sorry to hear it, sir; sorry to hear it.  When we were cantonned at
Jodpore----'

'Excuse me, Sir Piers; but I do not understand.'

'He is too fond of cards, sir--too fond of cards for my taste, sir.'

'I never saw a card in his hand!' persisted the other.

'Strange!'

The lieutenant-colonel thought these remarks more than strange, too;
but Sir Piers did not choose to inform him of Hew's malevolent
reports, and plunged at once into sundry reminiscences of Jodpore and
its Rajpoots.

Mary would certainly be the queen of the forthcoming regimental ball,
and Falconer was full of the most delightful anticipations concerning
it.

'Leslie Fotheringhame will be there!' was the secret thought of
Annabelle Erroll; 'how _are_ we to meet?  As strangers?  Would that I
had not come to Edinburgh at all--and yet!'

Yet--what?  She scarcely knew.

Mary was in full anticipation also of the ball--its joys and its
brilliance, and nightly laid her head on the pillow to sleep and
dream, if she could, of a region where all was romance, light and
splendour, bands of music, festooned banners and brilliant uniforms,
with one central figure--Cecil Falconer!




CHAPTER XX.

THE OLD STORY AGAIN.

It may easily be supposed that Cecil Falconer did not lose much time
in paying what was to pass ostensibly as a ceremonious visit to Sir
Piers Montgomerie's family.  Evening parade was over, when he quitted
the fortress in a carefully assorted suit of mufti, and betook him to
the north-western quarter of the New Town, in one of the most
fashionable streets of which stood the stately house of the general,
in a situation of wonderfully picturesque beauty, overlooking the
deep ravine through which the Leith flows under a noble bridge of
three arches, each of which is ninety-six feet in span.

On one side stands an ancient tolbooth, with crow-stepped gables; on
the other, a steep green bank crowned by a beautiful church and
stately crescent.  Between these yawns the rocky ravine, wherein lie
an old bridge of other days, and a cluster of quaint mills and
dwellings, and the river roaring in snow-white foam over a broad and
lofty weir; the whole place having in all its features a marvellous
resemblance to the Spanish village of Banos in Leon.

And now, when Falconer stood upon the threshold of the mansion, there
flashed upon his mind the recollection that on this very day it was
that his father and mother had both died--the latter on the
anniversary of the former's demise, eighteen years before; thus he
doubted whether he had chosen a fortunate time, for it has truly been
said, that there are certain moods of the human mind in which we
cannot help ascribing 'an ominous importance to any remarkable
coincidence wherein things of moment are concerned;' and he was in
this mood then.

In obedience to the sonorous bell, the double-door was thrown open,
revealing one of those spacious entrance-halls peculiar to Scottish
houses, with tiger-skins--some of Sir Piers' Indian spoils--and
Persian rugs covering the length of its tesselated floor, and marble
pedestals with tall Chinese and Japanese vases standing on either
side.

The general had gone to his club, in Queen Street; Mrs. Garth and
Miss Erroll were out in the carriage, but were expected back soon;
Miss Montgomerie was at home.  So said the valet, who remembered
Falconer, and smiled a welcome to him, but said nothing of the
whereabouts of Hew, who was a favourite with none.

Mary was then at home, and perhaps alone, so Cecil's heart beat
lightly and happily as he was ushered into the stately double
drawing-room, which had hangings of rose-coloured silk laced with
white, and was stately with crystal chandeliers, Venetian mirrors,
cabinets of rare china, statuettes, and gems of art in the way of
pictures and jars, amid which the eyes of Falconer saw only Mary
Montgomerie--Mary seated near an antique tripod table, whereon was
set out the dainty Wedgewood china for five o'clock tea, and varying
her time between knitting soft woollen socks for some old cotter of
Eaglescraig, and gazing from the window on the buds of spring that
were bursting in the warm sunshine, and the sweet flowers that made
the parterres gay; but she started from her chair when the servant
announced,

'Captain Falconer.'

She repeated the name mechanically, and grew very pale as she
presented her hand.

'Do not call me "captain,"' urged Cecil, retaining it, while the
thoughts of both went naturally back to their last meeting in the
grotto, and the avowal made then; and Mary grew shy in manner, for
she had been haunted by a dread lest her wave of the handkerchief to
Cecil on his departure from Eaglescraig had been unladylike, though
Annabelle assured her that, after all that had passed, any young girl
would have done precisely the same.

'But you _are_ a captain now,' she said, smiling; 'and I congratulate
you upon the circumstance.  It has given me real pleasure, you may be
well assured.'

'I thank you, from my heart,' replied Cecil, and she withdrew her
hand, while he was longing to take up the links of the old story,
gathering even courage from the omen that Snarley, in a new blue and
silver collar, with his mistress's monogram and a bell, barked,
whimpered, and frisked about him with delight.

Snarley had an undoubted propensity for worrying rats in the stable
court, under the auspices of Hew Montgomerie and Pate Pastern, the
head-groom; also proclivities for the kitchen and low life generally:
but here he was in the drawing-room to welcome the visitor.

'You knew I would call?' said Falconer, after a pause.

'I--hoped you would,' said Mary, timidly.

'You did!' he exclaimed in a low voice, as he started to her side.
'Oh, my darling!'

'Yes--of course,' replied Mary faintly, and blushing deeply now, as
he took both her hands in his and gazed into her eyes with passionate
tenderness; and somehow it came speedily to pass that as they stood
so near, they were posed like the Black Brunswicker and his love, or
the Huguenot and his guardian angel, in the well-known pictures; but
if the pose was delicious, the speeches that accompanied it were a
little fatuous and incoherent.

After a time, Falconer, still holding her in his embrace and gazing
tenderly into her upturned eyes, made the somewhat prosaic request:

'You will keep some round dances for me at the ball, of course,
darling?'

'Gladly would I do so, dearest Cecil--but----'

'But what, Mary love?'

'I am under such supervision--Hew, for instance--

'It is intolerable!' said Falconer, as a gesture of impatience
escaped him.  'To love you, and say that I love you, dearest Mary,
means views of marriage, and the hope that you will be mine--mine for
ever, sweetest pet,' he continued, with infinite tenderness of tone
and manner, taking her little face between his hands, after the mode
of the pictured Huguenot; but Mary partially and nervously withdrew
from him.  'You are free, Mary, are you not?' he asked, with great
and sudden anxiety.

There was no answer, and she seemed intently studying the pattern of
the carpet.

'You are not, you cannot be, engaged?' he exclaimed in a low and
earnest voice, and dreading some change since they parted.

'No, certainly--not of my own free will,' was her curious reply,
while tears trembled on her dark lashes.

'How then?'

'Mrs. Garth told you all, did she not?'

'Do you know your own mind, Mary?' he asked, taking her caressingly
in his arms.

'Yes,' said she, with a sob in her throat.

'How is it to be, then?'

There was no answer.

'Mary!'

She could scarcely have made any reply just then, as Cecil closed her
sweet lips most effectually.

'Hew actually takes his position with me for granted,' said she,
after a little pause, with her head reclined on Cecil's shoulder.
'He is absurd, and insolent as a wooer, yet seems to think there is
no need for exerting himself to win a bride that is bestowed upon
him.  He treats me as if I were his property--a gift from Sir Piers
in fact,' she continued with an angry little laugh.

'And you, with all your beauty and wealth too, Mary, are to become
the sacrifice of an old man's ambition to endow his house, and a
young man's avarice!  Oh, my darling, it is monstrous! and in this
age of the world, ridiculous too!  But perhaps the good old general
may come round in time, and see the folly of his scheme.'

She shook her head, and said brokenly:

'You speak of wealth--I would I were penniless, for your sake; it is
as a millstone about my neck; I think papa's will was most
iniquitous!'

Until Mary Montgomerie met and knew Cecil Falconer, she had lived
like the lady of Shalott, in a world of dreams--a young girl's dreams
of a lover; for even the advent of Hew as an admirer--an
intended--had certainly not embodied the idea to her.

She had read in Byron that a woman's love was a woman's whole
existence, and such she would have made it now to herself; and
doubtless had Cecil chosen to exert the power he had over her heart,
and lured her, as one less scrupulous might have done, into risking
the _esclandre_, he would have persuaded her to defy Sir Piers and
fly with him; but he never for a moment entertained the idea of a
measure that would have been such injustice to herself, as it would
have involved the loss of her fortune, and perhaps its eventual
transference to Hew!

Snarley now suddenly showed his teeth, as if to announce the approach
of the latter through the outer drawing-room, where it would almost
seem that he had been again an unseen listener, as at Eaglescraig.

'_Petit chien!_' exclaimed Mary, as the Huguenot pose was suddenly
relinquished, and she snatched up her dog to kiss it; '_petit
chien_--dear wee doggie, don't be jealous of--oh, it's _you_,
Hew--how tiresome!' she added under her breath, as that personage
lounged upon the scene, and drily gave his cold, fishy hand to
Falconer.

'Hew again!' thought Mary with a shiver of repugnance; and again, as
in the instance of the grotto, she marvelled, with intense annoyance,
how much he had overseen and overheard, and how long he had been _en
perdue_!

Nearly ignoring the presence of Falconer, who assumed his hat and
gloves, he bowed coldly and said curtly:

'I am about to have a canter down Granton way: will you join me,
Mary?'

'I would rather be excused.'

'Why?'

'It is anything but a pretty road--all stone walls and no trees.'

Hew scowled.  The answer showed plainly that his company would not
compensate for the dulness of the road--'and before that fellow
Falconer, too!'

'Annabelle will go, perhaps.'

'She is out with the old soldier, Mrs. Garth.'

'Hew?' she exclaimed, while with curiously-mingled emotions of
delight and annoyance, Falconer, deeming that the time had come to
depart, bowed himself out as Hew rang the bell.

'Ha!' thought the latter, 'she will not ride with me, and she has not
driven out with them, so she expected this fellow!  They have some
secret understanding unknown to Sir Piers, most certainly.  But they
have not yet come to the third volume of their little romance!'

Mary read his thoughts and suspicions in his face, and her heart
swelled with anger.

'We must stop this nonsense, Hew--or you must, I mean,' said she
abruptly, and with flashing eyes.

'Stop it?'

'Yes, as I mean to be the mistress of my own actions; and the sooner
your interference with me ends, the better for us both.'

'What do you mean?'

'What I say, sir!' replied Mary desperately, and with tears in her
eyes as she swept from the room; for though she deferred to the years
and affection of Sir Piers, she was resolved now to have neither
mercy nor toleration for Hew, who eyed her malevolently as she
withdrew.


Sweet indeed had been the love-passage between these two--Cecil and
Mary--knitting their hearts closer together.  Affection had been
ensured to the full and been accepted to the full; but no promise had
been given, and the future was vague as ever.

Cecil had a species of rival in Hew, certainly; but one that, strange
to say, provoked no jealousy, anger, or sense of suspicion, though
there were the influence and authority of Sir Piers to dread,
together with what might be their ultimate result upon the gentle
nature of Mary, who might be bent to accept the fate intended for
her, as being but a portion of the inevitable.  Besides, if the
regiment were ordered suddenly abroad, the chances of their ever
meeting again would be faint and few indeed.

Though Hew, as we have already indicated, had no genuine love for
Mary, he fully appreciated the wonderful beauty of her person, and
endorsed to the full the general's desire that he should marry her,
and a creditable wife indeed she would be to the future baronet of
Eaglescraig; thus his piqued self-esteem and his avarice rendered him
secretly savage that he made worse than no progress with her in his
wooing.  He felt as if placed in rather a ridiculous position with
his patron; and thus the whole tide of his venom flowed towards the
innocent Falconer, though the appearance of the latter on the scene
had not changed in the least degree Mary's views of him--Hew
Montgomerie.

There was no open quarrel between the latter and Falconer, but each
had a very decided repugnance to the other, and the soldier knew and
felt him to be his secret enemy; and in their chance intercourse in
public places and at the U.S. club, whither he came under the
general's wing, the veiled hatred of Hew grew deeper as he felt
instinctively that he was every way, in tone, in bearing, and in
mind, the inferior of Falconer.

He became more than usually boorish, for about this time he had a
curious run of ill-luck in his turf speculations; 'straight tips' had
turned out the reverse of straight; 'good things' on coming events
had turned out badly too; he had been jockied and wanted money
sorely, having lost in a few hours all that he had won from Acharn,
while the latter, instead of proposing to have his revenge, mentioned
incidentally 'his friend Falconer,' and declined all play; the next
time Acharn cut him _dead_, and he began to find all players avoiding
him.

Though Mrs. Garth was invaluable as a chaperon, such a guardian is
not so necessary in the streets of 'the Queen of the North' as in
those of the sister metropolis; consequently Mary could go abroad
alone whenever she chose, while curiously enough she seemed to have
lost all taste for the use of the carriage now.



END OF VOL. I.



BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, GUILDFORD.

_J. W. & Sons._