THE CAMERONIANS.

A Novel.

BY

JAMES GRANT,

AUTHOR OF
'THE ROMANCE OF WAR,' 'OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH, ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1881.

[All Rights Reserved.]

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER

I. ['A WEAK INVENTION OF THE ENEMY']
II. [CECIL RECEIVES HIS CONGÉ]
III. [IN THE PRINCE'S STREET GARDENS]
IV. [A FRUITLESS TASK]
V. [THE REGIMENTAL BALL]
VI. [HEW'S TRIUMPH]
VII. ['I HAVE COME FOR YOUR SWORD']
VIII. [THE COURT-MARTIAL]
IX. [A PAGE OF LIFE TURNED OVER]
X. [GONE]
XI. ['THE INITIALS']
XII. [TURNING THE TABLES]
XIII. [BY THE MORAVA]
XIV. [A MYSTERY]
XV. [ON DUTY]
XVI. [THE CASTLE OF PALENKA]
XVII. [MARGARITA]
XVIII. [CAPTAIN GUEBHARD]
XIX. [THE BLACK MOUNTAINEERS]
XX. [CECIL COMES TO GRIEF]

THE CAMERONIANS.

CHAPTER I.
'A WEAK INVENTION OF THE ENEMY.'

Hew resolved, as before, to lose no time in putting Sir Piers on his guard; he would give him an 'eye-opener,' he thought; and, in his ignorance of military discipline and etiquette, almost conceived that the baronet, as full colonel of the regiment, might have power to issue, perhaps, some very stringent and crushing order concerning the culprit.

Hew, among other 'caddish' tastes and propensities, was fond of 'sherry-glass flirtations' at bars and buffets, where sham smiles are bartered for button-hole flowers, amid bantered compliments and honeyed small-talk, not always remarkable for its purity; and while engaged in one of these little affairs, he made the casual acquaintance of Herr Von Humstrumm, the regimental bandmaster, a somewhat obese-looking German, with an enormous moustache and his scrubby dark hair shorn remarkably short; and from the latter he drew—or alleged to Sir Piers that he drew—some account of the family and antecedents of Cecil Falconer; and with these he came home highly elated; and whatever the conversation really was, the communications did not suffer diminution in his relation of them; and he broke the matter to Sir Piers in a cold, hard, and exultant way, that could scarcely fail to strike the latter as being, at least, ungenerous.

'I have discovered who and what our hero is!' said he.

'Our hero—who?'

'Our late visitor and guest, Mr. Falconer.'

'Captain Falconer. Well?'

'I met the bandmaster the other day, at a luncheon-bar, and he told me all about him,' continued Hew, laughing immoderately.

'I know that in Scottish regiments, especially, every man's family is usually known, his antecedents, and so forth.'

'And who do you think this Falconer proves to be?' asked Hew, with malignancy flashing brightly in his parti-coloured eyes. 'A pauper with a long pedigree, you will say. No, by Jove! he has not even that!'

'What do you mean, Hew?' asked Sir Piers, looking up from his chair, with knitted brow.

'I mean,' replied Hew, 'he may, like the street balladers, sing

'"I never had a father,
I never had a mother,
I never had a sister,
I never had a brother,
For indeed I'm nobody's child!"'

And adopting the tone and manners of a street-singer, Hew gave this verse with extreme zest and almost fierce exultation, acting the part with such broad vulgarity that his hearer winced; but well did Hew know that he was bringing the strongest argument to bear upon the weakest point in the character of Sir Piers—an inordinate pride of birth and family.

'Good God! you don't say so, Hew?' exclaimed Sir Piers, more sorrow than anger predominating in his mind for a time—but a time only.

'Fact, though,' replied Hew, carefully selecting a cigar from his silver case, 'if a certain chain of deductions may be trusted, and I know that the thought of his obscure birth is gall and wormwood to him—have seen him blush for it more than once, at Eaglescraig.'

'His father——' began Sir Piers.

'Nobody knows who that illustrious individual was. I suppose he doesn't know himself, though he must have had one.'

'And his mother?'

'Was a singer, or actress, or something of that kind. Folks in the musical world, like folks on the turf, all know something of each other, and so this fellow, Von Humstrumm, assured me that—that it is all as I say; and thus his excellence as a singer and pianist is accounted for at once. The Herr told me that he had performed at her private concerts given in the house of a noble lady in Belgravia, when the inner drawing-room was turned into quite a beautiful bijou salon de concert, and even royalty was present. Pretty circumstantial that!'

'Extraordinary!'

'Not at all; there is nothing extraordinary in this world. Thus I should not wonder if the fellow once figured before the footlights! Gad, if the Cameronians only knew of this, they'd put him in Coventry—force him to quit!'

'Then how the devil does this band-master come to know, if they don't?' said Sir Piers, pacing the room in great annoyance of spirit. 'I don't understand all this! Was he not a Sandhurst cadet?'

'I don't know, and don't care,' responded Hew, with an access of sullenness.

'He certainly seems a finished gentleman!'

'I have heard you admire his hands as being white and shapely,' said Hew, with a sneer.

'Yes; but what of that?'

'Did you ever observe his mode of gesticulating with them?'

'No.'

'Well, I have, and to me it seemed to indicate foreign blood and player-like proclivities.'

Hew's hands were neither white nor shapely, and certainly bore no indication of that refinement of race on which his listener set such store.

'We have not heard the last of this fellow,' he resumed, after a pause.

'The last! What do you mean?'

'His interference in our family affairs. A card-playing fortune-hunter, as I denounced him to be before; he was here no longer ago than yesterday afternoon, pursuing his designs upon our soft-hearted, and I must say, remarkably soft-headed, Mary! I felt inclined to chuck him through the window. Must not this matter be stopped, sir, and with the strong hand?'

'Stopped; I should think so. Should he attempt to cross me, he'd better touch the fuse of a live shell!' replied the old man sharply, while memory went back to the bitter times when his young Piers, so loved, petted, and prized, forgot the high traditions of his family, and daringly linked his fate with a humble girl, whom the proud baronet declined to receive or recognise, most unwisely, as he thought at times now.

'We are an old family, Hew,' he resumed, after a pause; 'and you will be the inheritor of my title in an untarnished condition; but you must not rest upon it alone, and, with Mary's money added to what I have to leave you—Eaglescraig, wood and wold, tower and manor-place—great things may be achieved. You will cherish Mary when I am gone, even as I have cherished her; for I have nothing else now,' he added, as he thought of his dead son and the never-to-be-forgotten night of the dread and shadowy vision.

'I cannot persuade her to enter even into a preliminary and formal engagement with me,' said Hew, after another pause.

'But,' urged the general, polishing his bald head with fidgety irritation, 'surely, by this time, something is understood?'

'That—that she will one day be my wife?'

'Yes, of course.'

'But when?'

'When I issue the order!' said Sir Piers, as he stood with his back to the fire and his feet planted on the hearthrug in orderly-room fashion.

Hew smiled feebly, as if he feared Mary would care little for such a ukase.

'Devil take this forthcoming ball!' he exclaimed suddenly. 'That fellow will be there, of course.'

'In his regimentals, too—a good old phrase that!' said Sir Piers. 'But the ball is somewhat of a nuisance, especially as Mary is not yet disillusionné. Yet she is not a child, that I may prevent her going to where she has set her heart upon. But one thing is certain; she must neither speak to, nor dance with him on that occasion.'

'I should think not!' said Hew, savagely.

'It is very unfortunate for you, my dear lad, if she has conceived any absurd fancy for this young man.'

'Oh, I don't care much for that, or whether or not the bloom is quite wiped off the plum,' was the nonchalant reply of Hew, at whose remark the general elevated his eyebrows.

When Mary heard of this alleged conversation, of which Hew lost no time in acquainting her, though ignorant as to whether the matter in regard to poor Falconer was a deliberate fabrication of his rival or a coarse exaggeration, she only smiled scornfully at it, as 'a weak invention of the enemy;' but her conviction was, that whether invention or not, it was calculated to have a most fatal influence upon the already sweet relations between herself and Cecil; and we can but hope that its truth or falsity will be discovered in the sequel.

CHAPTER II.
CECIL RECEIVES HIS CONGÉ.

Sir Piers' indignation with Cecil Falconer for presuming to address his ward in the language of love was very great, and he was in the act of 'nursing his wrath to keep it warm,' and studying how to circumvent one whom he deemed only a well-accredited adventurer, when next afternoon the latter, all unaware of how the general had been schooled to view him, was ushered into the library, where the former was idling over the preceding evening's War-Office Gazette. 'It is easier to conceive than describe,' says Oliver Goldsmith, 'the complicated sensations which are felt from the pain of a recent injury and the pleasure of approaching vengeance.' The two were suddenly face to face!

But Sir Piers, a courteous soldier and gentleman of the old school, though smarting and indignant, was resolved, that whatever turn the conversation took, he neither forgot their relative positions of host and visitor, or as officers in her Majesty's service.

He felt himself, however, on the horns of a dilemma. He had no precise right, he thought, to act on Hew's painful information in any way, obtained, as it was, from a source so subordinate; and he could not, without some distinct reason, forbid his recently welcome guest to visit his house, though he was resolved to tell old Tunley to strike his name off the visitors' list. Unaware of all the mischief that was brewing, Falconer advanced cordially towards the old general, who rose and gave him his hand, if not very frankly, and said, stiffly:

'Captain Falconer, I congratulate you on your promotion, sir; I hope it will prove an incentive to future good conduct and esprit de corps; but avoid cards, sir—avoid cards!'

Ignorant of how the speaker viewed him as a gambler, almost an adventurer and man of obscure birth, all as alleged by Hew, Falconer was alike surprised by this pointed remark and rather indignant at the tone in which it was said, and the general bearing adopted by Sir Piers.

He now inquired for the ladies, and was snappishly told that 'they were well, sir—well;' but whether at home or not, Sir Piers did not condescend to say; so Falconer almost held his breath at every sound, expecting Mary to enter the room; but he hoped in vain, for never even once did a light footstep or the rustle of a dress announce her vicinity. However, he had barely seated himself, when Sir Piers, as if reading his very thoughts, said bluntly:

'I wished to see you, sir, on a subject that has recently come to my knowledge. You have been addressing Miss Montgomerie in terms which no honourable man would do, without the full permission of those who are nearest and dearest to her, and have thus her welfare and her future at heart.'

Falconer, who felt painfully that in tone, bearing, and expression of eye, Sir Piers was now very unlike the hearty and hospitable veteran who welcomed him to Eaglescraig, said, with a somewhat faltering voice:

'All who have the happiness to know Miss Montgomerie will ever have her welfare and happiness at heart, Sir Piers.'

'Am I right in asserting what I do, Captain Falconer?' asked the latter, ignoring his remark.

'Before being borne away by my feelings, and permitting myself to address your grand-niece——'

'And ward. Yes, sir—well?'

'I ought, doubtless, to have obtained your sanction——'

'Or sought for it—well, sir—well?'

'And have satisfied you as to—as to——'

'Your means and position?' interrupted the old man, impatiently.

'Yes, Sir Piers,' said Falconer, taking up his hat, which he relinquished.

'By the way, it has never occurred to me to ask you fully and distinctly who you are—but now I seem to have some right to do so?' said Sir Piers, as all Hew's promptings came to memory.

'Who I am?' exclaimed Falconer, partially cresting up his head, yet colouring too evidently with mental pain, as the keen eyes of his questioner could see.

'Yes, sir.'

'I am, as you know, Captain Cecil Falconer, of the Cameronian regiment,' he replied, somewhat haughtily.

'Anything more?'

'In what way?'

'Family—antecedents. The devil! do you think that I would permit a nameless stranger to address Miss Montgomerie as you have done?'

'I am not rich, certainly—the reverse rather.'

'I don't care an anna for that, as we say in India; but as regards family——'

'Suffice it that I am utterly alone in the world,' interrupted Cecil, with a cadence in his voice that made the general feel some pity for him, though not inclined to yield an inch, for his words seemed to corroborate all that Hew had alleged or inferred. 'When my poor mother died, I seemed, for a time, to lose the last link that bound me to the world. To her I owe education, position, the commission I hold—everything!'

And now, when he spoke of his mother, his voice grew soft and infinitely tender, and a subdued light shone in his averted eyes—the light of love and a great reverence.

'And your father?' said the general, in a softer voice.

'I can remember but faintly: he died when I was very young. My mother never ceased to sorrow for him, and yet I fear, at times, that her marriage had not been a happy one, or that he had not deserved one so brilliant and talented as she was.'

'Oho!' thought the general; 'this refers to the musical world, evidently. Hew is right, after all.'

'It was selfish of me, perhaps, to leave her to be a soldier, for she was alone in life; but it was inspired by love for her, and to gain her esteem, that I worked so hard to become worthy of her, and rise in all that might promote me in my profession. In the School of Musketry at Hythe, in signalling and telegraphy, at the School of Engineering in Chatham, I won first-class certificates, and laid them, like a happy school-boy, in her lap. Since then I have passed out, one of the first, from the Staff College; and if I went to India——'

'Ah yes; go to India, sir, that is the place!' said the general, soothed a little and almost forgetting the 'cards.' 'But our conversation has wandered from the subject that introduced it,' he resumed, 'pulling himself together,' and resolved to be cool and determined, and for Hew's sake to end for ever this love-affair. 'In addition to what I said, sir, I have to add, that an honourable man should not make advances to an heiress—I mean if he is poor—and, in my time, all the Cameronians were men of honour!'

Falconer thought that a Cameronian might still very well make love to a pretty girl with a long purse, and not forfeit that commodity which the general so unpleasantly emphasised; but an emotion of hopelessness began to creep into his heart, and he rose from his seat, though reluctant to withdraw: yet the interview was fated to have an abrupt and harsh finale.

'Captain Falconer,' said Sir Piers, after a little pause, 'Miss Montgomerie has never disobeyed me since she came to my house an orphan; since she was a little child that stood upon my knee and nestled her face in my neck, begging me to tell her the same story over and over again—often an Indian yarn of snakes, tigers, and what not—and I know that she won't disobey me now.'

'I hope not, Sir Piers, so far as I am concerned.'

'I am averse to long and vague engagements, and have made up my mind to terminate hers by a speedy marriage with her fiancé, Hew Montgomerie, my heir of entail, as you know. They must marry at once, or—or——'

'Or what, Sir Piers?' asked Falconer in a low voice.

'She loses every shilling of her fortune by marriage with another.'

'Gladly—oh, how gladly!—would I take her penniless; but I shall not be guilty of injustice towards her; she would be permitted to choose for herself. God help us!' said Falconer, in a very broken voice. 'Good Sir Piers, let me see her once again, I implore you, just for five minutes,' he added, scarcely aware of what he was saying.

'Better not, better not, sir; it is useless,' said the general, growing stern; 'much mischief may be done in five minutes. Once and for ever, sir, let this folly end! I brought you most unwisely to my house, and you used your time there in seeking to detach the affections of my ward, Miss Montgomerie, from her affianced husband. Of the good taste that inspired such a line of secret conduct, I say nothing; but I repeat, that this scheme on your part (I speak not of folly on hers, for I hope she has been guilty of none) must end; and I have the honour to wish you—good-morning.'

He rang the bell, and with a heart swollen by many emotions, Falconer bowed and quitted the room. As he did so, there was in his face an expression of painful humiliation mingled with reproach, that powerfully brought back another and an almost similar scene, when he had expelled from Eaglescraig his son Piers, and when kindly old John Balderstone strove—but in vain—to effect a reconciliation between them.

His cool dismissal by the general, and the curious questions of the latter, made Cecil's blood boil with indignation. Had he only known all, it might have proved a bad business for the bones of Mr. Hew Montgomerie.

Despite the injunction laid upon him, the moth could not be kept from the candle. A fortnight had passed since the general's ukase had gone forth, and yet almost daily, by accident, design, or tacit understanding, Cecil and Mary met, and had the joy of lingering in each other's society, and riveting still closer the links of love that bound them to each other, but not without a dread of being watched or discovered by Hew, whose favourite haunts, however, lay far apart from theirs.

The spacious gardens, the parks, the hills, the half-empty West-end squares and crescents, the picture-galleries and promenades, afforded many facilities for such, apparently unpremeditated, meetings as theirs, and to Mary it seemed as if she had only now commenced to live, and as if all her past life had only been leading up to this, the end of which she, happily, could not then foresee.

As for Cecil, the very demon of restlessness seemed to have taken possession of him. Save when on duty, the Cameronians never saw him, and he was never happy save when, if not with Mary, searching for her in those lounges where; in the limited circle of the Modern Athens—the City of Idlers—everyone is almost sure to meet everybody else.

But he had one special annoyance to contend with. All the regiment knew that he had been the general's special guest at Eaglescraig, and deemed it strange that at all his dinners and dances given to them now, he was never present. Why was this? All deemed it 'deuced odd,' and Cecil writhed under their surmises, some of which were repeated to him by Leslie Fotheringhame and Dick Freeport, and a sentiment of defiance became engendered in his mind.

And it was with fresh annoyance that on parade some morning, or at mess in the evening, he heard some heedless fellow extolling the rare beauty of the general's ward, and mingling the praises thereof with the extreme appreciation of his wines and the culinary efforts of his chef; and somewhat of a crisis was put upon this, when Sir Piers dined with the regiment, 'in full fig,' and wearing all his medals, on the anniversary of its embodiment, the 19th April, 1689, and treated Falconer with a coldness of bearing that was but too apparent to all; thus rousing a kind of resentment in his heart, and a greater inclination to defy him in the matter of his now secret engagement with Mary, for such it formally was: but then, how about the terrible power Sir Piers held over her in virtue of her father's eccentric will!

CHAPTER III.
IN THE PRINCES STREET GARDENS.

Among those invited to the house of Sir Piers Montgomerie was Leslie Fotheringhame, of course; but he knew, from Falconer, that Annabelle Erroll was still a guest of the family, as she and Mary were a pair of inseparables; and compunction for his past treatment of her, and doubt of how she remembered him now, with a great fear of being contemptuously ignored by her, led him to decline, on every occasion, the invitation accorded, on various pretences.

Annabelle Erroll knew of this, and was piqued accordingly, so the old breach between these two grew wider, if possible. Cecil and Mary, as 'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind,' had a great desire to make peace between them; the former had told her of the love-making and quarrel by the river, and her sympathy was readily enlisted in the matter.

'You do love him still!' said Mary, as the two were exchanging confidences in the seclusion of their mutual dressing-room at night; 'at least I know, by your changing colour whenever his name is mentioned, that you have not forgotten how to do so.'

'One cannot forget having loved—or having loved him, at least,' replied Annabelle, in a soft voice.

'Would you marry him if he asked you now?'

'Decidedly not!' exclaimed Annabelle, whose golden hair was floating over her snowy neck, while, unaided, she was plaiting it up with deft fingers and throwing it this way and that, in masses, turning her graceful head sideways to see how they fell, and perhaps to admire the charming curve of her own white shoulders.

'You do not believe me?' she said, as Mary laughed at her reply.

'No—because, as I said, at the very mention of his name, even by me, your cheek flushes and your voice trembles.'

'If they do, it is with just anger,' said Annabelle, 'and you are mistaken, dear Mary; and I have read, that when an estrangement begins between two who have loved each other, it is like a tiny stream of water, which goes on widening and deepening day by day, until it becomes a river no bridge can span.'

'Will I ever be estranged from Cecil?' thought Mary. 'Oh no—no—no!'

Various pretty and amiable little schemes formed by Mary to bring them together, with Cecil's aid, failed, and yet their meeting ultimately came to pass in the most commonplace way imaginable.

With the opening season come the weekly promenades in the beautiful Princes Street Gardens, where the regimental bands play in the afternoons, for the delectation of the fashionables and idlers of the West End.

Bordered on one side by the most magnificent terrace and promenade in Europe, and on the other by the emerald-green bank of the Castle Hill, with all its waving trees, and by the mighty mass of the beetling rock on which stands the hoary fortress of a thousand memories, and more than a thousand years, these gardens are altogether unique; and already they were in almost their summer glory, for the air of the valley in which they lie was fragrant with the perfume of mignonette, of clove-carnations, roses, and heliotrope.

The carefully kept shrubberies were gay with borders of brilliant flowers, and amid this varied foliage the laburnum stood up in all the glory of green and gold. In swarms the happy children were gambolling and playing about on the velvet sward or chasing in zigzag fashion the bees and butterflies.

The fair promenaders were in all the bright gaiety of their spring costumes, and the grand echoes of the castle rock were responding to the music of the band under our friend Herr von Humstrumm, when Falconer and Leslie Fotheringhame came sauntering through the throng arm-in-arm, the former watchful for the figure of Mary, and the latter languidly indifferent of all on whom he cast his critical eyes, in one of which a glass was fixed.

Suddenly Fotheringhame, who was rather a nonchalant personage, started, and the glass dropped from his eye, for, sooth to say, perhaps he could see better without it.

A young lady passed near him, with other two—an elder and a younger—unseen by Falconer, who was looking in an opposite direction; and there can be no doubt Fotheringhame looked after her with a yearning in his gaze, so sudden, passionate, and tender, as must have touched her heart had she seen it; but Annabelle Erroll, for it was she, was all unconscious of his presence. Her companions, we need scarcely say, were Mary Montgomerie and Mrs. Garth, an old lady who still dearly 'doted on the military.'

Fotheringhame's first inclination was to quit the promenade and effect an escape; his second thought was to stay, and see her once—only once again. And in sudden silence he continued to walk slowly to and fro with Falconer, till the abrupt turn of a narrow shrubberied avenue brought them both face to face with the three ladies, and there was no retreating; for as Hew disliked society of this kind, and was never present, Mary felt perfect confidence, and welcomed Cecil with one of her brightest smiles, while he—reading her wish at a glance—hastened to utilise the occasion by presenting 'his friend, Fotheringhame of Ours,' to Mrs. Garth and 'Miss Erroll.'

'In for it, by Jove!' muttered Fotheringhame under his heavy black moustache, as he lifted his hat, and saw before him, in her rare blonde beauty and magnificence of style, now fully developed by a few short years, the girl whose artless heart he had won only to cast it at her feet—unclaimed—unprized!

Mary's bright little face was dimpling and rippling all over with pleasure, triumph and exultation—all the more so, when she saw that Leslie Fotheringhame was a man of whom any woman might be proud, more than ordinarily handsome, with an unmistakable tone, air, and bearing, that doubtless came of his early Lancer training; and now they were all conversing together with apparent ease; for although Mrs. Garth knew what the wishes and orders of Sir Piers were regarding Mary and Cecil Falconer, she did not conceive that they extended to the precluding of recognition in a public place.

But had even the suspicious Hew been there, not even he, on seeing the quiet and respectful way in which Cecil raised his hat and lightly took the gloved hand of Mary, could have detected that there was between them the soft and sweet and inexpressible charm and link of a secret understanding. And indeed none who saw the apparently cool composure with which she greeted him, and talked of the beauty of the weather, the serenity of the sky, of the music then being discoursed by his regimental band, could have suspected that but an hour or so before, in a shady and sequestered place elsewhere, he had showered kisses on her lips, and hair, and eyes, and pressed her to his breast, 'á la Huguenot,' again and again.

If deceit were practised in all this, it was not their fault, but was born of the pressure that was put upon them.

As the pair now began to promenade together, Cecil of course absorbed Mary, whom Mrs. Garth could not leave; it thus became a matter of course that Annabelle fell to the lot of Fotheringhame, more than perhaps her proud heart assented to. His manner was careful, studied, and deeply courteous. She could not, as yet, detect the slightest sadness in his glance or tone, or aught of tenderness or reproach either, so well did he veil his manner, and yet his heart was full of her; and thus these two, who had been so much to each other—all the world once—were meeting and acting just as those do who have known each other for half an hour, or less.

So they walked slowly on and on, all unaware apparently that they were instinctively seeking the quiet and lonely avenues of the garden, yet talking the merest commonplace all the while, though drinking in each other's voices and tones, till the groups of promenaders were all left far behind, and the music of the band sounded so faint and distant that the hum of the honey-bees could be heard among the flowers.

Then a silence—a long and awkward pause occurred; they felt that platitudes were failing them, and that they had a lack of words—a lack that is said to prove the deepest love, for where 'there is adoration there is paradise,' and Fotheringhame began to feel much of the old adoration in his heart for Annabelle.

'I have been on a long visit to Mary Montgomerie, at Eaglescraig,' said the latter, after a pause, during which she became very pale. 'She would insist upon me coming to Edinburgh with her; but the season here is nearly over, and I go back to mamma.'

'In Perthshire?'

'In Perthshire,' she repeated mechanically.

'Near where the silver birches overhang the Tay?' he asked with a caressing smile.

'Yes—and very soon,' said she, turning as if to retire.

'But not before our ball,' said he eagerly. 'You accepted our invitation?'

'Mary pressed me to do so,' she replied, colouring; 'and now we must hasten back to her and Mrs. Garth, for we are quite losing all that lovely music of Gounod's.'

'Stay one moment—do bear with me,' said he in an agitated voice.

'I do not understand,' she began falteringly, and then paused, yet looking him fully, firmly, and sadly in the eyes; 'have you aught to say to me?'

'So we meet again face to face, after all these changeful years, Annabelle!'

'I am simply Miss Erroll to you, Captain Fotheringhame.'

'I am only Lieutenant Fotheringhame now. If you remember the past——'

'Could I forget it?' she asked with sparkling eyes, while nervously twirling her parasol upon her shoulder, by its handle.

'Then pardon it, I pray you,' he urged in a voice which more than one woman had found it difficult to resist.

'Who is it that says, "Flowers and love have but a season"?' she asked with a little bitterness in her usually sweet tone.

'Annabelle!'

'I repeat to you, sir, that you must know me as Miss Erroll. I have been thoughtless in coming so far from my friends.'

'I am wrong in forcing my society upon you,' said he sadly; 'but that is a matter easily amended. In wronging you, as I did, dearest Annabelle, I wronged myself, and have suffered deeply accordingly.'

'Our meeting to-day has been—on both sides, unavoidable, Captain Fotheringhame. Let us return—if it is the best way to spare you further pain.'

She spoke very calmly and deliberately, yet it cost her a terrible and painful effort. She knew that she loved him still; she felt even the eloquence of his silence, if such a term can be used, and now dared not lift her eyes to meet his gaze.

'Annabelle,' said he again, and took her hand in his; then a quiver passed over her delicate form, but the proud girl accorded no other sign as yet of the power he still possessed over her. 'Do you despise me—do you hate me?'

'Hate you—despise you?—why use language so strong? Oh no, no, Leslie, far from either—far from either!' she exclaimed, as if her heart would burst, and tears welled up in her dark blue eyes.

Then the artificial barrier himself had raised between them seemed to give way, and he told her in the tenderest and most earnest of words how fondly he loved her still.

'Let us not cast away the chance of reconciliation that God in His great kindness has accorded us, Annabelle,' he urged, pathetically; 'as I loved you first, I love you now—nay, a thousandfold more, for I have learned the value of the heart with which I so cruelly trifled; and now, I pray you—I beg of you to be my wife, Annabelle, my wife!'

She shook her head, and withdrew her hand.

'Is it to be thus?' he said sadly, but not reproachfully.

She made no reply, but kept her long lashes down and her soft eyes fixed on the gravelled path.

'Let us be now, as we were then, in the sweet summer days, when the silver birches cast their shadows on the Tay; and let us forget my folly, my wickedness—all that estranged me from your loving heart and divided us, Annabelle, when that fair and artful woman of the world, Blanche Gordon, cast her meshes about me.'

'And must I believe that you have loved me all these years, and love me still?' she asked softly, and with infinite tenderness of tone.

'God alone knows how tenderly, deeply and reproachfully, Annabelle!'

'But who knows how you might act if she came with her beauty and her meshes again?' asked Annabelle, who was smiling now.

'Do not be pitiless to me; and as for her—that woman—she is married, so, Annabelle——'

'Hush—we are interrupted!'

'They suddenly found themselves environed by groups of idlers, and among others came Mrs. Garth, with Mary and Cecil, all of whom Leslie Fotheringhame would have wished very far away—at least on the cone of Arthur's Seat—at that precise moment.

Face to face again—at last, after all—after all—with Leslie Fotheringhame, Annabelle was thinking; his smile, his voice and presence, were fast bringing back the old and seemingly buried, yet never forgotten love, to thrill her heart and every pulse as in the bygone time!

Her memory, her whole soul seemed to go back more vividly to those hours which neither he nor she had ever forgot, and now, whilst listening to his voice, she seemed to be out in the bright summer sunshine on the rippling waters of the glassy Tay, in his handsome boat with its crimson velvet cushions; she heard the plash of the sculls, the voices of the birds among the graceful silver birches; she saw the dragon-flies again whizz past, and the brown trout leap from the azure stream; and he too was in dreamland, and seemed to hear her voice; as when he first heard it singing:

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

So they parted happily, these two, with hopes to meet again, at least once, before the all-important night of the regimental ball, now close at hand.

That some mysterious change had come over the once nonchalant Leslie Fotheringhame, was soon apparent to the entire mess.

'What the dickens is up now?' said Dick Freeport to Falconer, on this subject; 'I am sure there is a woman in the case; and I am sure that fellow never had a love affair since he joined the regiment, or sought peril by imploring Maud to come into the garden.'

'All the cause of his being more hardly hit now, Dick,' said Falconer, laughing.

'If it is the case it will be a horrible pity!' said Freeport, as he shut his pet, and carefully-coloured meerschaum up in its crimson velvet case with an angry snap. '"Of all the wonderful things, and there are many," says Sophocles in one of his choruses; "but none more wonderful than man."'

'Except woman, Dick, why didn't the old Athenian add,' said Cecil, laughing; 'so be assured there is a woman at the bottom of this change in Fotheringhame.'

'Shall we have her at the ball?'

'Most probably, so don't forget your magic ring with the blue stone, Dick; but you'll be hooked by a penniless girl some day, Dick!'

'A pity that will be, as manna does not fall from heaven now; but——the fact is,' continued the latter, still pursuing his surmises on the changed habits and bearing of Fotheringhame, 'that matrimony spoils a fellow for the service on one hand, and on the other, one can't think of bringing a tenderly-nurtured and high-bred lady into the meagre surroundings, and rough and round of barrack life.'

'Of course not, Dick,' replied Falconer; and yet—young though he was—he was not without his new day-dreams of a graceful and dove-like girl—of Mary Montgomerie—with tender smiling eyes and white hands, sitting opposite to him in that dingy barrack room, with its plain appurtenances.

But Mary was an heiress, and to wed and bring her there, would involve open war with her guardian, and too probably the loss of her inheritance!

'Would I had never seen her!' thought he; 'and yet—yet how vague and empty now would life be without her!'

CHAPTER IV.
A FRUITLESS TASK.

Prior to all this, Sir Piers had taken poor little Mary seriously to task in person.

She was full of her own fond, happy thoughts, and in her own peculiar sanctum or boudoir, when the general, influenced no doubt by some recent remarks of Hew, came in looking black as a thundercloud—as black, at least, as he ever could find it in his brave old heart to be with her; and here she was queen, for her boudoir was her pet place in the Edinburgh mansion.

The walls were silver-grey, picked out with bouquets of roses. There were delicate cretonne hangings to match, and funny little black and gold chairs with crimson satin cushions; wood-brackets from Switzerland, and all manner of pretty china things, including porcelain pugs of all sorts and sizes; and here she received him with that charming, coaxing air, which no one could resist, and Sir Piers, perhaps, least of all.

She knew that a lecture was coming, and on what subject, too; thus she was a little nervous, and her pretty dimples came and went, so fast!

It never occurred to Sir Piers that there was gross selfishness in thus seeking to control Mary, and to absorb her fortune into the exchequer of the future baronets of Eaglescraig; though he certainly deemed that he was fully justified in preventing another family mesalliance, and with a nameless gamester.

'Give way to the whim of a girl!' he thought; 'no—no; I shall not be a chicken-hearted fool in my old age!'

'You have been out and abroad again, I understand, and without Mrs. Garth, Mary,' he began, while caressing her head, as she seated herself on a low stool by his side.

'I am close on twenty, and surely old enough to be trusted out of sight now!' said Mary, laughing.

'Hew says no—when that fellow is about.'

'Hew forgets himself!' said she, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders; 'I shall soon reach my twenty-first birthday, dearest grand-uncle, and surely then I shall be my own mistress,' she added, laughing.

To the general she had ever looked up in a sweet, grave, old-fashioned and child-like manner that gave him great power over her, but this he felt was, somehow, passing away. He felt some sympathy for her too, for the human heart is, perhaps, the only part of us that does not grow old with years; but he deemed that he had a duty to do, and heard her now with uneasiness, as he withdrew his hand from her head that nestled on his knee.

'Even in your twenty-first year, child, you will not be independent of me,' he said; 'I have still a control over your fortune, if I fail to control your future.'

'I care not for it!' said she, pouting.

'You know not what you possess, and therefore know not what you would lose; thus I am anxious—more than ever—to lose no time in transferring you and your heritage to the care of a husband I can trust.'

'Meaning the inevitable Hew!' she exclaimed, with a little angry laugh.

'Precisely, girl; I am proud to have an inheritor of our own blood, to my family honours, which, but for him, would pass away. If my poor Piers had only lived——'

'I would to Heaven he had!' sighed Mary, with all her heart.

'You tell me, Mary, that when of age you will be the mistress of your own actions. True. You never talked to me in this way before,' he continued, raising his voice and starting to his feet; 'but I tell you, that if you dare to countenance that fellow Falconer——'

'Oh, uncle, don't break my heart by talking thus!'

'Stuff! hearts don't break, though bones do. Let there be no clandestine correspondence, still less any meetings; but I trust to your honour, Mary—I trust to your honour, child.'

She blushed deeply, painfully, for she had an appointment with Cecil that very afternoon. She remained silent, and Sir Piers interpreted her silence his own way.

He knew that they must inevitably meet at the ball given by the regiment, and for himself to be at that especial ball was, he deemed, a duty he owed to the old corps; so, as for the chances of Mary and Falconer meeting, he would ensure that it would only be as strangers in a crowded ball-room.

'Yes, Mary,' he resumed, 'I trust to your honour, that you will keep this fortune-hunter at a distance.'

'I do believe, uncle—nay, I am certain of it,' she said, in a pretty and coy, yet half-petulant manner, 'that Captain Falconer would marry me whether I had money or not. Oh how I wish I were without it!'

'Indeed!' said he with a cynical smile; 'for a commercial age, your ideas, my dear, are—to say the least of them—rather peculiar.'

'Now, you dear old pet, I wish you would say no more on this subject,' said Mary, glancing anxiously at a clock.'

'Why?'

'Because, grand-uncle, I don't want to marry anyone, and, any way, I will never commit the sin—for such it would be—of marrying one I do not, and never can love—there!'

'Meaning our Hew?'

'Yes, your Hew.'

'Don't be silly, Mary,' persisted the old man; 'you must and shall marry Hew, and there is an end of it!'

'But I have given my promise,' began Mary, feeling weary and desperate.

'Promise, to Captain Falconer? The devil you have! Did he dare exact one?'

'Oh no, no.'

'How then?'

'It came about somehow,' said Mary, as her fitful colour came and went.

'Did you promise—the devil, I'll explode!—to—to—marry him?' asked the general with his back against the mantel-piece.

'No.'

'What the deuce then?

'To love him—and him only,' said Mary, piteously, softly, and in a low voice, ending in a little nervous laugh.

'And all this has come of my own folly at Eaglescraig! damme, I'll—I'll—choke!' added the general, pale with anger, and feeling awkwardly conscious of the futility of it, with a genuine and honest fear of the future, through his unjust ideas of Cecil Falconer's character.

'Dear old grand-uncle, you have been more than a father to me, ever since I was a tiny tot, just so high,' said Mary, holding a little white hand about six inches from the carpet; 'and you must pardon me for all this—for Cecil does so love me,' she urged with tears, 'most tenderly and truly.'

'Folly—folly, all! has life, has position, no other claim on you than that? One born of such lineage as ours,' he continued, vaulting on his hobby-horse, 'requires to consider matters deeply. Disobey me, and I hand over your fortune to Hew; it shall never be made ducks and drakes of by a gambler and adventurer! By your father's will (how often am I to tell you this?) it is absolutely in my power to disinherit you, if you wed without my consent.'

'A most cruel and illegal will!'

'Devised to save you from yourself, and with a strange prevision of that which was to come.'

'Unjust! why should the dead be so loth to lose their grasp on, their power over, the living?'

'Your father's great dread was fortune-hunters, lest you should be sought—as Falconer seeks you—for your money. Moreover, if this young fellow really loves you, child, he ought to think more of your happiness than daring to seek your hand.'

'Daring?'

'Yes, I say so, considering his origin! You are a romantic little goose! But girls in your position must not think of men in his.'

'Were you not a captain once?' asked Mary, softly.

'Yes, and a jolly ensign too; but then, as now, I was Piers Montgomerie of the Eaglescraig! My darling Mary, you are the apple of my old eye, and I should like to see you safe and sound under Hew's protection, ere the last bugle sounds for me, and summons me away to the Land of the Leal; Hew, save yourself, is the nearest to me in blood now that my Piers is gone, finding his grave I know not where—know not where!' he added in a broken voice, as he recalled the real or fancied, but terrible vision he had seen years ago, now. 'If money can bring happiness you and Hew should certainly have something very like it,' said he, returning to the charge.

'We should be very, very miserable—at least I should—with all our united wealth.'

'Tut, tut! how much more miserable would you be without it?' asked the general; 'and yet, sooth to say, pet Mary, I shall give you even to Hew grudgingly.'

'Why?' asked Mary, hopefully.

'Because,' said the old man, with great tenderness, drawing her head into his neck, 'then you will be for ever, not mine as you are now, little one, but another's! Where Hew goes, you will go; our old life will be gone; a new one will open to you, and I shall be a lonely, old, old man, lonely as when, years ago, I lost Piers!'

'But I am not yet married to Hew,' said Mary, kissing both his withered cheeks, from which the red tan of the Indian sun had long since vanished.

So there was a kind of loving armistice between them for the present; but all the general had said against Cecil increased Mary's loathing of Hew, a loathing that took the place of the toleration with which she had hitherto accepted, not his peculiar mode of courtship, but the mere fact of a residence with him in the same family circle.

And now, as she recalled all Hew's scandalous hints and rumours, she remembered the mutual impression which she and Annabelle shared at Eaglescraig, that by the expression of his face, the young subaltern Falconer had a history; and yet she loved him not the less because, like Quentin in Scott's 'Ayrshire Tragedy,' he was:

'A young man, gentle-voiced and gentle-eyed,
Like one whom all the world had frowned on.'

So the moment Mary was left to herself, she put on a thick Shetland veil, which very effectively concealed her lovely little face, and set forth in haste to hold a certain tryst; thus the worthy old general's task had proved as yet a very fruitless one.

CHAPTER V.
THE REGIMENTAL BALL.

There is so close a family likeness among regimental balls in their general details, that we need scarcely describe that of the Cameronians, the chief importance of it to our story being the events that came of it.

All Edinburgh said it would be 'the ball of balls,' and beat those given a month before by the Dragoon Guards and Royal Archers. The officers were, of course, all dancing men, and there were few or no married ones to throw 'cold water' on the extravagances of the rest. It was held in the Music-hall and Assembly-room, two magnificent saloons connected by a stately vestibule, a place generally well patronised as a promenade between the dances. Each of these halls are about a hundred feet in length, and the first-named, on these occasions, is usually set apart for waltzes alone; here was the band of the regiment, in the lofty orchestra, under the guidance of Herr von Humstrumm, while a fashionable quadrille band was in the gallery of the Assembly-room, which has one of the finest floors in Europe.

A guard of honour, a hundred strong, under Captain Acharn, occupied the entrance to receive duly the commander-in-chief, Sir Piers, and other general officers; trophies of arms, shields, and claymores, the grouped banners of extinct Scottish regiments from the castle armoury, a double avenue of azaleas and myrtles, foliage and Chinese lanterns, with jets of perfumed water, spouting and sparkling in marble and alabaster basins, all testified to the good taste of Cecil Falconer and the ball-committee, who were there in 'full puff,' to receive the guests, who were now arriving as fast as the carriages could set them down at the east and west portes-cochère.

Yellow banners, with the trophies of the regiment, drooped over the staircases: 'Egypt' with the sphinx, 'Corunna,' 'China' with the fiery dragon, and lastly, 'Abyssinia'; and ever and anon the grand and inspiriting crashes of military music swept through the double halls. Kilted officers from the Highland depôt battalions, in various tartans; gentlemen in Highland dresses, Hussars and Lancers, made gay the scene. And the costumes of the ladies, the result of many an anxious consultation with mammas and modistes as to what would be prettiest and most effective, completed a scene in which a great amount of feminine loveliness and grace was not wanting.

In the vestibule, the young second lieutenants were flying hither and thither, supplying the ladies with enamelled programmes; the rooms were crowded by a glittering throng, and already the dancing had begun, when the voice of Acharn, calling the guard to attention, and the clatter of their rifles as they came to the 'present,' announced the arrival of Sir Piers and his party, and Falconer felt his heart give a responsive leap.

Roused and inspired by the music, the regimental trophies and familiar badges, and by all his congenial surroundings, the old general looked so bright and happy and he seemed to grow so young again that Hew, in his impatience to succeed him, might have thought that the Parcæ—if he ever heard of them, which is doubtful—were forgetting to shorten his span.

Smiling blandly on all, with all his medals and orders glittering on his gallant old breast, in full uniform, with sash and belt of gold, he moved through the brilliant throng, with Mary—Mary seeking for one face only—leaning on his arm; and he accorded even a pleasant bow to Cecil, as the latter hurried to his place in the dance with a tall and handsome girl, having arranged that Dick Freeport and Mary should be their vis-à-vis.

Once or twice as the night wore on, Mrs. Garth, from her place among the chaperons, detected a shadow cross the general's face, and knew that the sight of the familiar 'number,' the trophies and the uniforms, brought back to memory many a long-vanished face, and among them, doubtless, that of his only son.

Circumstanced as they were, Cecil felt all the mortifying absurdity of not putting his name even once on Mary's card, and permitting others to fill it—a rapid process; but there was a nameless sweetness in the conviction of the secret understanding that existed between them, and that she had specially implored him not to ask her. The general's alternate fits of kindness and severity, and his quick and impetuous temper, worried her. In his household he was absolute, or had all the desire to be so; and thus with all her love and respect for him, a steady emotion of utter rebellion was gathering in Mary's heart; and when she saw Cecil at the ball, she resolved that it would go hard with her if, by some little manœuvring, they did not achieve one dance, together.

Yet her card was filled fast, as she had passed through the vestibule—the whole garrison fighting gallantly to get their names inscribed upon it—and she was overwhelmed with petitions for dances more than she could accord. All the subs had come to the ball prepared to fall in love with her; and, as Dick Freeport said, they were in duty bound to do so.

The dark dress of Mary—perhaps a curious one for a ball—black tulle, gracefully trimmed with ears of silver wheat, made the pure delicacy of her complexion, her white shoulders, round, polished and snowy arms, bare from above the dimpled elbow, all more startlingly fair. She had a complete suite of diamond and pearl ornaments. Even to her lover's eyes, she looked more than usually lovely; there was a tender flush on her soft cheeks, and purest pleasure sparkled in her soft face, as she swept round in the waltz with Fotheringhame, who was whispering to her of Cecil; and her lithe form seemed full of firm, yet delicate, strength and vigour.

'Beg pardon,' said Hew, who was no waltzer, but had ventured on one round dance with Annabelle Erroll, presuming on her good nature, and after cannoning against several exasperated lancers and others, finally did so against Falconer; 'a gay scene,' he added breathlessly.

'Hope you will enjoy yourself,' was Cecil's commonplace reply to Hew, in whose eyes, even at that moment, he could read deep and defiant hostility, but partially veiled by a well-bred smile.

Remembering their gambling experiences, Acharn, a grim, dark officer, who had now dismissed the guard and taken his place among the dancers, would have opposed the invitation of Hew to the ball; but Falconer, loth to put a slight upon the general, and supposing that he had nothing personally to fear in his presence, enclosed a card to his would-be rival, and hence his appearance on the night in question.

He was disposed to be silent and sulky—silent in consequence of a total absence of ideas; and sulky, because of Mary's too apparent happy preoccupation, and her succession of brilliant partners. Most—if not all—of the Cameronians were as good performers on a well-waxed floor as at anything else that is manly, and, as we have already hinted, the floor of the Edinburgh Assembly-room is simply the perfection of what that for a ball should be.

'What a cub that fellow Hew is!' said Fotheringhame to Cecil in passing, with Annabelle on his arm, her pale blue costume becoming her light blonde beauty well. 'Can it be possible,' he whispered to her, 'that such a girl as your friend can be capable of marrying one man while loving another—marrying this Hew Caddish Montgomerie while loving Cecil Falconer?'

'I should hope not.'

'But women are such strange creatures!'

'Men are stranger still,' she retorted, with a bright smile; 'but here comes our odious Hew—and I promised him this waltz.'

'He imposes on your good-nature; bother the fellow!'

'Our dance, I think,' said Hew, lounging up.

'Number seven,' said Annabelle, affecting to consult her card, while Fotheringhame gave him an impatient stare, for his dislike of Hew was great.

'How handsome your cousin Miss Montgomerie is,' said he.

'She is full of goodness of heart and common sense too,' added Annabelle.

'I hope she will prove a girl of very uncommon sense,' said Fotheringhame.

'In what way?' asked Hew.

'By preferring a Cameronian to any other man,' replied Fotheringhame with perfect coolness; and Annabelle laughed to see the gleam that shot athwart the eyes of Hew, as he swept away with her into the dance, to begin a series of 'cannons' again, and elicit remarks of wrath under many a moustache.

'I don't know what your plans are, old fellow,' said Fotheringhame to Cecil, as their eyes mutually followed Mary, admiringly, through the maze of waltzers, 'but, if I were in your place, I would write to Sir Piers, and give him fair warning that I meant to use every means to win his ward.'

'Nay, Leslie; I have already won her,' interrupted Falconer, a little triumphantly.

'Well—all the better; and if the girl loved me as she loves you, and as Annabelle tells me, I would have her in spite of all the guardians in Scotland!'

But there was no answering smile in the face of Cecil, who remembered how his last visit to the house of Sir Piers ended, and the summary manner in which the old man rang the bell to have him shown out!

And now for a time he remained among the crowd of men—the inert or uninterested—who hovered about the doorway, critically watching the dancers, and he heard Mary again and again praised, as she swept past in a succession of waltzes. The genuine praises of some delighted him; but there were occasional off-hand remarks that made him inclined to punch more than one head.

'Not a bad-looking girl at all,' lisped a Lancer; 'wish she wouldn't lay on the powder so freely, though.'

'Powder!' said Bickerton of that Ilk, a well-browned young fellow in the blue-and-gold-laced uniform of the Ayrshire Yeomanry, 'the devil a pinch of powder is there!'

'By Jove! to my mind, her dress is very chic. Regent Street couldn't turn out a better! Who the deuce is she?' asked another lounger.

'Oh! the daughter of Sir Piers Montgomerie,' replied some one whose information was vague; 'an old general officer—no end of money, and has refused no end of eligibles, and non-eligibles, alike.'

'Get me an introduction, won't you?'

'Well, perhaps—but her card has been full no doubt an hour ago.'

'Who is that swivel-eyed fellow that hangs about her?'

'Her intended, people say—don't like the fellow; he once played me a fishy trick about a horse.'

'I have certainly seen a face like that girl's before,' resumed the Lancer, eyeing Mary through his glass.

'Perhaps—but you haven't seen many like it,' said Dick Freeport. 'I am lucky enough to have booked her for two waltzes.'

'Great success, this regimental hop of yours!'

Amid the painful doubts of his own position, his hopes and his fears, Cecil saw with pleasure how radiantly happy his friend Fotheringhame and Annabelle Erroll were enjoying the ball and their own society to the fullest extent; and sooth to say, though Blanche Gordon, the girl who had 'thrown him over,' was present, and looking very queenly in her costume and her loveliness, he seemed to have eyes only for Annabelle; and as his arm encircled her there was a depth of emotion in her tender blue eyes when their gaze met his, that called up many a loving thought, and, though they were silent, led both to remember the scenes of their past, upon the shining river, when the boat glided under the silver birches and the water-lilies floated by her side—scenes to be visited together, as they hoped, again.

But, as, if there could be no perfect brightness without a shadow, no perfect happiness without some alloy, it chanced that when seated together in the vestibule, for coolness, there occurred an event which—though Annabelle thought little, perhaps, of it then—she had bitter cause to remember afterwards.

A lady, closely veiled, passed quickly near them, after descending from the gallery usually occupied by servants and privileged spectators.

She dropped a card-case or purse, and Fotheringhame hastened to restore it to her, on which with a low voice, she thanked him by name, involuntarily as it would seem.

'Why are you here to-night?' he asked severely.