THE
'SCOTS BRIGADE'
AND OTHER TALES
BY
JAMES GRANT
AUTHOR OF 'THE ROMANCE OF WAR'
'The dying and dead strewed the breach at Meenen,
Where our brave Scottish blades met the troops of Turenne;
When cannon and firelock and musketoon played,
As often, elsewhere, on the old Scots Brigade!
Holland's Bulwark—in many a battle of yore—
From the woods of Brabant to the far Frisian shore;
Never Frenchman, nor Spaniard, nor German essayed
To withstand the hot charge of the old Scots Brigade!'
Camp Song.
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 9, LAFAYETTE PLACE
1882
CONTENTS.
THE SCOTS BRIGADE:
I. [THE LOVER]
II. [THE COLONEL-COMMANDANT]
III. [SWORD-PLAY]
IV. [DOLORES]
V. ['THE BULWARK OF HOLLAND']
VI. ['AT THE GOLDEN SUN]
VII. ['THE GENERAL'S SECRET]
VIII. ['THE RIDOTTO]
IX. ['THE ABDUCTORS]
X. ['THE FAIR WIDOW]
XI. ['OMNIA VINCIT AMOR]
XII. ['CONCLUSION]
['THE STORY OF THE CID RODRIGO OF BIVAR]
[THE BOY-GENERAL. THE STORY OF JEAN CAVALIER]
[THE VOYAGE OF THE 'BON ACCORD']
[A TALE OF THE RETREAT FROM CABUL]
[DICK STAPLES OF THE 'QUEEN'S OWN']
[THE STORY OF LIEUTENANT JAMES MOODY OF BARTON'S REGIMENT]
['OLD MINORCA;' OR, GENERAL MURRAY OF THE SCOTS FUSILIERS]
THE SCOTS BRIGADE.
THE SCOTS BRIGADE.
CHAPTER I.
THE LOVER.
'And you will not accompany me to call on these ladies, uncle?' said the young man persuasively.
'Certainly not, boy; do you take me for a fool—der Duyvel!' was the snappish rejoinder, as the General tossed his silver-mounted meerschaum on the table, and thrust his chair back on the polished oak floor, 'I have suspected you for some time past, and know, from old experience, that a young fellow in love is lost to the service and himself; among women he is as helpless as a rudderless ship among the thousand shoals of the Zuyder Zee! You are my heir, as you know, provided your conduct and obedience satisfy me. I am rich enough for both of us, and I had begun to hope that, like me, you would go through the world without the encumbrance of a wife. I shall not see you make a fool of yourself, without making an effort to save you. I shall give you a Beating Order, and send you to recruit for the Brigade in Scotland; or how would you like to roast on detachment at Guayana, or among the Dutch Isles in the Caribbean Sea?'
'Such a separation would be death to me, and to Dolores too.'
'Dol—what?' roared the General, grasping the knobs of his arm-chair and glaring at the speaker; 'how familiar we are, it seems! Where the devil did she get that absurd name?'
'From a Spanish ancestress, and with the name much of her beauty,' replied the younger man, who had a very pleasant voice and manner, which, if somewhat sad and soft, possessed the charm of cultured influences and refinement.
'Dolores—a very Donna Dulcinea, no doubt! Well, my young cock-o'-the-game, it is useless in me to repeat what you don't want to hear, and in you to say the same thing over and over again, as you have been doing for the last hour. So far as you and this—Dolores are concerned, my mind is made up—yes, by the henckers' horns!'
The speaker was no Dutchman, as his interjection might lead the reader to infer, but, like his nephew, a native of the northern portion of our isle, being Lieutenant-General John Kinloch, of Thominean in Fifeshire, Colonel-Commandant of the six battalions of the Scots Brigade, in the service of their High Mightinesses the States-General of Holland—a corps which boasted itself 'the Bulwark of the Republic'—a veteran of more than twenty years' hard service, though still in the flower of manhood.
His hair was powdered and queued, as was then the fashion; his handsome face was well bronzed by long exposure to the tropical sun, and his hands, which had never known gloves, contrasted in their brown hue with snow-white ruffles of the finest lace at the wide cuffs of his uniform coat.
His nose was straight; his mouth expressed firmness and decision, and his dark eyes, which were sparkling then with no small amount of anger, had somewhat shaggy brows that nearly met in one, and gave great character to his face.
His nephew, who stood near him, playing with the gold knot of his sword, and trying to deprecate his anger, was Lewis (or as he was generally called Lewie) Baronald of that Ilk in Lanarkshire (the only son of a baronet attainted after Culloden), and now a handsome young lieutenant in the Earl of Drumlanrig's Battalion of the Scots Brigade, in quarters, where we find him, at the Hague.
His face wore a droll expression just then, in spite of himself, as he knew that his uncle and patron was well known in the Brigade, and in Dutch society, as a misogynist—a genuine woman-hater, under the influence of some never-forgotten disappointment he had endured in early life, and who never omitted by the exertion of his advice, influence, or actual authority, to mar—if possible—the matrimonial views and wishes of the officers and men under his command.
When any of his brother officers would venture to express their surprise that one who was evidently so good-hearted and warm by nature, and who—though in all things a perfect soldier—was apparently fond of domestic life, should have omitted to share it with a help-mate, their remarks only invoked a torrent of grotesque invectives upon the sex, and put the General in such exceeding bad humour, that they were glad to beat a retreat and leave him to himself.
He had begun to perceive that for some time past, his nephew was abstracted in manner, that he absented himself from his quarters, was rather estranged from his comrades, and was almost neglectful of his military duties; and from rumours that reached him from the idlers and promenaders in the Voorhout and on the Vyverberg, the General was not long in discovering that a charming young girl was the cause of all this, and great was his wrath thereat. And when he found that Lewie Baronald's abstraction increased; that he caught him reading poetry instead of studying the 'Tactique et Discipline dc Prusse'; that he sighed sometimes involuntarily, and more than once had been caught inditing suspicious-looking little missives in the form of delicately folded, tinted and perfumed notes, he took him finally to task, and his indignation found vent, as it did on the present occasion.
'And you fell in with this girl——'
'When our battalion was sharing duty with the Dutch Guards at the Prince of Orange's palace in Amsterdam.'
'And how about her mother?' growled the General.
'She was very averse to my attendance on her daughter till——'
'Till when or what?' snapped the uncle.
'She asked me some questions concerning my name and family, and then suddenly I became quite a favourite.'
'All cunning—all cunning! But our name and our blood are as good as any in Holland, and better than some, I suppose; but every Scot has a pedigree, as King James was wont to say.'
And as General Kinloch spoke, the strong old Scottish accent, which then prevailed at the Bar and in the Pulpit at home (as it had done at Court in the preceding century), deepened with his excitement and irritation.
'And the mother is a widow, Drumlanrig tells me,' he continued; 'a widow who, I doubt not, loves her coffee with a glass of good curaçoa from De Pylsteeg at Amsterdam.'
'Indeed you mistake her, uncle,' replied the young man indignantly.
'Umph—egad—do I?'
'She often speaks to me of you, uncle.'
'Does she? I am greatly honoured.'
'Yes—and seems to know all about you, and your brilliant services to their Mightinesses the States, and so forth.'
'The devil she does! Well, she probably knows also that I never was a lady's man—a lady-killer, a buck, or a blood in my time; so my lady countess may spare her breath to cool her porridge. And who is this Countess van Renslaer? Her name sounds new to me.'
'She has but lately come to Holland.'
'From where?'
'England last, I believe; and none seem to take a higher place at the Court of the Prince of Orange; at the balls of the Grand Pensionary, and of the richest burgers in the Hague and Amsterdam.'
'Ouf! Well, I go to none of them—not even to Court, save once a year, to kiss the Prince's hand, and give in the Brigade Reports. She has a great retinue—keeps a stately coach and two sedans, I hear; and does this artful old—countess seem to tolerate the advances of a penniless sub like you, to her daughter?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because she is interested in me,' replied Lewie Baronald, smiling.
'For what reason?'
'Her first lover had been one of the Scots Brigade, and her heart still warms to the uniform.'
The knitted brow of the General relaxed for a moment, and he said with a grim smile:
'Then there have been two fools at least in the Brigade, to my knowledge. And for this prize, Dolores—I have caught her absurd name, you perceive—have you no rivals—no competitors?'
The young man's brow grew very dark.
'Yes,' said he, after a pause.
'Many?'
'One chiefly.'
'Whom you fear??
'I fear no man that wears a sword, uncle! She has a cousin, called Maurice Morganstjern, whom I greatly distrust.'
'Grandson of that Morganstjern who was one of the assassins of the De Witts in the last century? Avoid the whole brood, I say! If you will not be guided by me, who have your interest at heart, consult your Colonel, Drumlanrig, on this matter, and hear what he will say.'
'The last man to consult on such a topic.'
'Why?'
'Like yourself, he shuns female society. He is a gloomy misanthrope, and one of a fated race.'
'Right: a curse fell on his house, for the duke's share in the Union of 1707. I thought your family troubles were at an end when you joined the Brigade; but, der Duyvel! they seem only beginning, with this Dolores. To me it appears that there are some families—in Scotland more especially—whom misfortune—fate—which you will—pursueth to utter destruction.'
'The fate of mine was their own choosing: it lay between prudence and loyalty, and ill would it have become my people to have wavered when the Royal Standard was unfurled in Glenfinnan.'
'Your father's views and mine were different in that matter,' said the General in a softer tone.
'Give me your hand. I do not despair of your favour for us yet.'
'Indeed!'
'Tyne heart, tyne all, as we say at home.'
'In old Scotland, yes—and before the enemy, that is well enough; but anent a woman—go—go—or I shall lose my temper again. Besides, Lewie, there is a cloud on the horizon—the political horizon, I mean—which, though as yet no bigger than a man's hand, may expand into a dark and mighty one of storm and bloodshed. A revolution is at hand in France, and a time is coming when we—the Scots Brigade—will have other work than love-making cut out for us, and we shall have to choose between casting our lot forever with the States-General or with his Majesty George III.; for there is not a tavern and not a caserne in Holland in which the matter is not debated keenly and hotly now.'
Though the steady opposition and hostility of his uncle and patron, on whom all his hopes depended, left the young man depressed in spirit and heavy in heart, and inspired by no small dread of separation from the object of his love, he quitted the General's house, and set forth to visit her.
CHAPTER II.
THE COLONEL-COMMANDANT.
The General refilled his glass and his meerschaum, and remained sunk in thought after the departure of his nephew, and more than once he sighed heavily, knit his brows, and shook his head.
He was not drinking schiedam with water, but good Farintosh whisky, kegs of which were regularly sent to him by a Scottish merchant from the Scotsch Dyk at Rotterdam—Farintosh which was then free from all Excise duty, and remained so till five years after the period of our story.
We have said that General Kinloch was a handsome man and in the flower of manhood; and a fine picture he would have made as he sat there, in his graceful old-fashioned uniform, with heavily-laced lapels and skirts, his hair powdered and queued, with a Khevenhüller hat (not unlike that of Napoleon I.) close by, adorned with a stiff upright feather and Dutch cockade, and his silk sash worn crossways in the old Scottish fashion.
The old Scottish officer who took a turn of service in France was jaunty in air, tone, and bearing, as Scott describes his Baron of Bradwardin to have been; but his countryman who served the States of Holland became, under the influence of his flat, stale and stolid surroundings, rather another style of man—equally brave and gallant in war, but less gallant in the ball-room or the boudoir—often grave, grim, and starched amid the influence of Dutch society and Presbyterianism.
It was only thirty-four years before that Culloden had been fought; and though his political sympathies were not with the exiled King James VIII., his mind was full of the bitter memories of that atrocious field left in every right-thinking Scottish heart; and his orphan nephew, Lewie Baronald, was the son of his only sister, one of those enthusiastic Jacobite ladies who kept guard at Edinburgh Cross with a drawn sword when the King was proclaimed, who danced at the famous Holyrood ball, and who, like more than one old lady in Scottish history and tradition, had never allowed her husband to kiss her, after the Prince did so, and after making his bed, when an exile and fugitive, with her own hands, had laid aside the sheets thereof to be a shroud for herself, in the true spirit of loyalty 'and that sublime devotion which the Saxon never knew.'
Long as he had been in Holland, the eyes of our Scot—accustomed as he had been to the grand mountain scenery of his native land—had never become accustomed to the utter monotony, flatness, and insipidity of the Dutch landscape, or to the brusqueness of the natives, their stolidity and general dulness of demeanour; but the pay was good, the quarters were comfortable, and—when not fighting—the service was easy enough. His sword was almost his inheritance, as the estate he inherited, Thominean, was drowned in debt; and their High Mightinesses the States-General were sure and generous paymasters.
Yet, times there were when he thought with the author of 'Vathek,' that there must have been a period when Holland was all water, 'and the ancestors of the present inhabitants fish. A certain oysterishness of eye and flabbiness of complexion are almost proof-sufficient of this aquatic descent; and pray tell me for what purpose are such galligaskins as the Dutch burthen themselves with contrived, but to tuck up a flouncing tail, and thus cloak the deformity of a dolphin-like termination.'
Reflecting angrily and sadly upon the recent conversation with his favourite, the General continued to smoke and gaze down the long vista of the quaint Dutch street, with its stiff rows of trees reflected downward in the canal that lay parallel with them, and its quaint gables on each of which, nearly, a stork was perched; the little mirrors projecting from the windows to enable the ladies within to see those who passed outside; the knockers tied up with pincushions and plaited lace to indicate that a 'goodwife was in the straw.'
There were women in the mobcaps, print-gowns, and gaudy satin aprons wore by all ranks alike; men in broad, round, conical hats, puckered jackets, and capacious breeches, now no longer to be seen but in very remote districts; an occasional dominie or clergyman in his court-like costume, ruff and cocked hat, passing homeward after having a pipe with some parishioner, or a dish of coffee with his vrouw.
There was the clatter of wooden shoes in the ill-paved street; the oil-lamps were beginning to glimmer like glow-worms, and were reflected in the slime of the canals; the drums and fifes of the Scots Brigade, in the adjacent caserne, were playing out the dying day, and sweetly stole upon the ambient evening the old air:
'Oh, the Lowlands o' Holland
Hae parted my love and me;'
but the General was in shadow-land, thinking of other times and long-vanished faces, and wondering when the guilders of their High Mightinesses, and the prize-money won from the French and Spaniards, would free his inheritance from all its wadsets and incumbrances, and he would be able to hang his sword, where still his father's hung, in the old dining-hall of Thominean.
He saw it in fancy, that old house of Thominean ('the hill of birds'), with its grey crow-stepped gables and conical pepper-box turrets of the days of James VI., overlooked by the green range of the lovely Ochills; and he laughed softly as he remembered how in boyhood there he had trembled at the thought of the tiny elves, who, on their festival nights, were alleged to make great noises under the green turf, opening and shutting large chests of gold, and clattering with goblets and copper kettles; and how still more did he tremble at the story of a mysterious mirror, in which occasionally the figure of a pale woman, clad in white, could be distinctly seen behind the reflection of the person who stood before the glass, and how it was said to have appeared therein on the night his beloved sister, the Lady Baronald, died, and left her only son penniless in the world.
Thus Lewie, in his boyhood, became a soldier. On an evening that he never forgot, there came marching bravely down the quaint High Street of Kinross a recruiting-party of the Scots Brigade, with ribbons fluttering, drawn swords gleaming, the shrill pipes and hoarse drums, making every lane and alley bordering on Loch Leven to re-echo 'The Lowlands o' Holland;' and halting in front of the Bruce Arms Inn, a portly sergeant, after a libation of Farintosh had been duly poured forth, harangued the gathered rustics. He invited 'all lads of spirit to join that battalion of the Scots Brigade, commanded by the noble and valiant Henry Douglas, Earl of Drumlanrig, under their High Mightinesses the States-General of Holland, to fight the frog-eating French and popish Spaniards; all who so entered to have complete new clothing, arms and accoutrements as became a gentleman and soldier, two guineas bounty, and a crown to drink to the health of their High Mightinesses, and to the confusion of their enemies!'
A loud hurrah and much brandishing of broadswords followed this invitation, and ere 'The Point of War' was fully beaten, Lewie Baronald had shaken hands with this Scottish Sergeant Kite, and had the Dutch cockade pinned on his blue bonnet by a cunning corporal, who showed him an old watch like a silver turnip, and worth half-a-crown, which he boldly alleged had been presented to him 'by his Royal Highness the Prince of Orange in person.'
His uncle's influence soon procured him 'a pair of colours,' as the phrase was then, for a commission; and he soon proved himself worthy of the distinction by the daring and courage he displayed, when the battalion of Drumlanrig was employed with other Dutch troops in 1774, at the Cape of Good Hope, in driving the natives from the Bokkeveld and Roggeveld, back into the deserts on the south-west coast of Africa; and since his return to Holland his name, the popularity of his regiment, his handsome face and figure, were equally passports to the best society in the Hague and at Amsterdam.
But now, it seemed to his uncle and patron, the Colonel-Commandant of the Brigade, that his prospects were on the point of being marred by this unlucky passion for the daughter of the Countess van Renslaer.
Kinloch's antipathy to women was well known in the Brigade, and it was a standing joke among the battalions, that once, when the coquettish wife of the Grand Pensionary of Amsterdam had lured him into a game of battledore and shuttlecock, and contrived to let the latter drop into her ample bosom, and pointing thereto, piteously besought the General to take it out, that he—obtuse as Uncle Toby with the Widow Wadman—deftly abstracted it with the tongs.
'The lad will succeed me in time, as Laird of Thominean,' he muttered, after a time; 'the forfeited baronetcy may be restored: so why shouldn't he marry because I—I—but better not! They are all alike—all alike, these women: so he will be safer with the left wing of Dundas's Battalion in the West Indies, than philandering here at the Hague.'
But even while giving utterance to his thoughts, his features relaxed: his irritation or annoyance seemed to abate as other thoughts stole into his mind, and a shade of melancholy came over his face; and resting his head upon his hands, he remained for a time in deep and apparently painful thought.
Then he rose slowly, and selecting a key from a small bunch, opened an elaborately-carved Dutch cabinet, and from a secret drawer thereof, curiously and ingeniously hidden by a movable lion's head, he drew forth the oval miniature of a young girl, and gazed upon it long, sorrowfully, and tenderly.
There was something quaint and childlike in the beauty of the girl depicted there, with a string of pearls round her white and slender throat. Her complexion was clear and pure, her expression innocent, with golden-brown hair, and golden-brown eyes that seemed to smile on him again as he gazed on them.
A hot tear started in the eyes of Kinloch, yet he bit his lip, and, as if angry with himself for the emotion that came over him, he closed the miniature-case with a sharp snap, and restored it to its place of concealment hurriedly, muttering:
'Fool that I was—fool that I am now! Heaven grant that this Dolores of Lewie's may not make the dupe of him that girl made of me! I must save him from himself. I shall write the Director-General of the Forces—Berbice or Essequibo it must be. Poor Lewie! I am loth to part with him; but, der Duyvel! he shall not be the victim of this old jade and her daughter.'
CHAPTER III.
SWORD-PLAY.
Full of conflicting thoughts Lewie Baronald, with a slower pace than usual, proceeded towards the residence of the Countess van Renslaer, and quitting the Lang Vourhout, he crossed the canal that encircles the whole Hague.
If compelled by his powerful uncle's eccentric opposition to act the laggard now, he might leave Dolores to be won by his rival Morganstjern! Such things have been, and may be again. His brain whirled and his heart sank at the thought; and even if he had the permission of the Director-General of Infantry accorded him, could he ask the brilliant Dolores to share his solitary room in the barracks—the Oranje Caserne—of the Scots Brigade?
The thought was full of folly and presumption. He was not quite aware of the full extent of the hostile—yet well-meant—design his uncle the General was forming, for an effectual separation between him and the object of his love. He had left her yesterday with the avowed intention of obtaining the sanction of the General, from whom he had a yearly allowance: and now that the sanction was withheld, he was in sore perplexity, for by the then rules of the Dutch service no officer could marry without the consent of his superior; and how was he to tell Dolores that this had been bluntly refused, and that even exile or foreign service menaced him?
While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he came suddenly upon Maurice Morganstjern; he was seated under one of the trees that bordered the canal near the Hooge Wal, and was leisurely polishing the blade of his rapier with his leather glove, while conversing with a friend.
He was rather a handsome but dissipated-looking young fellow, and had shifty eyes and a very sinister expression of face. He wore his sandy-coloured hair powdered and tied, a smart Nivernois hat (such hats were all the rage about 1780), small, and with the flaps fastened up to the brim with hooks and eyes; his costume was bright in colours and richly laced.
That of his companion was the reverse. He wore an old battered Khevenhüller hat; his shaggy hair was unpowdered; his ruffles were soiled and torn; his visage was bloated and his eyes bloodshot and watery, while a scar on his nose, covered by a piece of black court-plaster, did not add to the respectability of his appearance: and Lewie Baronald, who knew him to be the Heer van Schrekhorn, a noted bully, gamester, and frequenter of gambling-houses and estaminets, barely accorded him any recognition, though feeling himself compelled to present his hand to Maurice Morganstjern.
'How now, Mynheer—have you been fighting?' he inquired laughingly of the latter.
'No; only polishing some specks off my sword,' replied Morganstjern, with a smile on his thin lips, though there was none in his watery grey eyes; 'but apropos of fighting—do you affect that?'
'In a proper cause—yes,' replied Baronald, surprised by the question.
'And can cover yourself well?' continued Morganstjern, making a half-mock lunge which the other—with the quickness of lightning—parried by his sword which he instantly drew.
'I can cover myself, as you shall see,' he exclaimed; and they began to fence in jest apparently, while the Heer looked approvingly on, and said with a laugh and an oath:
'Now we shall see who is the better ruffler of the two.'
And the Heer, who bore Lewie no goodwill for the coldness of his demeanour and the general hauteur he manifested towards him, looked as if he would very much have relished to draw his old hanger and engage in the perilous sport too—for perilous it was, with keen-edged and sharply-pointed straight-bladed swords.
The Heer van Schrekhorn was everyway an odious fellow—a lover of the fair sex, of schiedam and cards; but one who always avowed openly that liking for a woman was one thing, but love for her was another—and certes he knew nothing about it.
He loudly and bluntly applauded his friend's fencing.
'Appel now!' he exclaimed; 'quick—disengage to that side again! contract your arm—quick—dart a thrust right forward now!'
At that moment, as if in obedience to the suggestion, the point of Morganstjern's sword struck the gilded regimental gorget of Baronald, which was adorned with the Lion Rampant of the Netherlands.
'The devil!' he exclaimed; 'do you aim at my throat?'
'All a mistake,' said Morganstjern, beginning to pant as he was pressed on in turn and driven back.
'Is this folly or fury—do you really wish to quarrel?' asked Lewie Baronald; but the other made no reply, though his eyes became inflamed, his colour deepened, his teeth were set and his brows knit; and though he laughed, the sound of his laughter was strange and unnatural.
This game at sharps was certainly jest with Baronald, though he little liked his opponent; but he soon became aware that the eyes of the latter seemed to become more bloodshot, that his cheek paled, his grasp grew firmer on his hilt; that his thrusts came quickly and fiercely—in short, that beyond all doubt, under cover of a little pretended sword-play, he had—murder in his heart!
They were rivals for the love of Dolores, yet Morganstjern had not the courage to challenge Baronald to a regular mortal duel. His bearing now, and the perilous thrust arrested by his gorget, were a warning to the latter of that which Morganstjern was now capable—killing him by design, without peril to himself, while he would affect that it was done by mere chance in rough jest; and had Baronald been run through the body, the Heer would have been ready to affirm and swear that it was all done by the merest accident.
Baronald felt his blood getting warm; he knew that duelling was sternly discouraged by the Dutch authorities; and that to kill the cousin of Dolores, even in self-defence, would preclude all chance of possessing her favour.
But a strong measure was absolutely necessary. Darting forward he suddenly locked-in—seized his adversary's sword-arm, by twining his left arm round it, thus closing his parade hilt to hilt, and disarmed him by literally wrenching his sword from his grasp.
Pale as death now, panting, and with eyes flashing fire, Morganstjern stood before the victor, who, presenting the captured sword by the blade, said, with a kind of smile:
'This rough play is being carried too far—here let it end.'
Hissing out some execration, Morganstjern took his sword by the hilt, and in the blind excesss of his fury would have plunged it into the breast of Baronald, but at the moment it was struck up by another sword, as two officers of the Scots Brigade, Francis, Lord Lindores, and the Master of Dumbarton, threw themselves between them.
'We do but jest, gentlemen,' said Morganstjern, lifting his hat and sheathing his sword.
'Is this true, Baronald?' asked Lord Lindores.
'Jest assuredly, so far as I am concerned,' replied Lewie.
'I must confess that the work looked remarkably like earnest, so far as your adversary was concerned,' remarked the Master of Dumbarton, with a look at Morganstjern which there was no mistaking; but the latter simply bowed, and saying:
'Gentlemen—your servant. I have the honour to bid you good evening.'
Then, accompanied by the Heer van Schrekhorn, he hastened away; leaving Baronald to explain the matter as he chose to his two brother-officers, who had some difficulty in making him really aware of the deadly risk he had run.
'He is gone like a man who has lost an hour and runs as if to overtake it,' said Lord Lindores. 'Now how came you, Lewie Baronald, to be fencing, even in jest, with rufflers such as these?'
Baronald could not explain that one of them was the cousin of Dolores.
'At the Kanongietery we have just parted with Van Otterbeck, the Minister of State. It is as well he did not accompany us and see that piece of folly, Baronald; it might have gone hard with you, as the Brigade is not greatly in favour just now,' said the Master of Dumbarton, who was James Douglas, grandson of the loyal and gallant Earl of that title, who was Colonel of the Royal Scots, and followed James VII. into exile.
He was tall, had a straight nose, the bold dark eyes of the Douglas race, and sunny brown hair tied behind with a black ribbon and rosette.
'True,' added Lord Lindores; 'and I begin to think the Brigade has had enough and to spare of Holland during these two hundred years past, fighting to defend lazy boors and greedy merchants, in a land of frowsy fogs and muddy canals; as Butler has it in "Hudibras:"
'"A land that rides at anchor, and is moored;
In which they do not live, but go aboard."'
These remarks referred to the growing discontent between the regiments of the Brigade and the States-General—matters to which we may have to refer elsewhere, and which led to the former abandoning the service of the latter for that of Great Britain.
And now Lewie Baronald, after thanking his friends for their intervention and advice, took the road to the residence of the Countess van Renslaer, whither, unknown to him, Morganstjern had preceded him, and was, at that very moment, engaged with Dolores.
CHAPTER IV.
DOLORES.
The villa occupied by the Countess van Renslaer stood a little distance from the Hague, on the Ryswick road, amid a large pleasure-garden in the old Dutch style, a marvel of prettiness, with its meandering walks, fantastically-cut parterres, box borders, pyramids of flower-pots, and tiny fish-pond where the carp and perch were often fed by the white hands of Dolores.
It had more than one rose-bowered zomerhuis hidden among the shrubbery, and admirably adapted for contemplation or flirtation. It was the month of May now, when the tulips and hyacinths, potted in jardinières full of light sand, were in all their beauty—flowers for which, in the days of the tulip-mania, a hundred florins had been paid for a single bulb.
Around, the country was intersected in every direction by canals and trees in long straight avenues, the level surface dotted with farms and summer-houses; an occasional steeple, the old castle where the famous Treaty of Ryswick was signed, and the sails of many windmills whirling slowly in the evening breeze, alone broke the flat monotony of the Dutch horizon.
In the deep recess of a window that opened to the garden sat Dolores, watching and expectant. But only that morning, after parade, Lewie Baronold had talked to her of love—his love and hers—in the recess of that window—talked so sweetly of his adoration of her own charming self. So Dolores had thought to sit there again, with eyes half closed and smiling lips, to think it all over once more, while fanning herself with one of the large fans of green silk then in fashion, while the Countess, her mother, had fallen asleep over 'Clélia,' one of Monsieur de Scudery's five-volume folio novels, in the drawing-room beyond.
Dolores was taller, more lithe and slender, than Dutch girls usually are, for she had in her veins the blood of more than one ancestor who had come with that scourge of the Low Countries, Ferdinand of Toledo, el castigador del Flamencas; hence her graceful figure, the stately carriage of her beautiful head, her rather aquiline and oval features, her dark hair, and the darker lashes that shaded her soft eyes that were 'like violets bathed in dew,' and hence her peculiar name of Dolores.
She had the bloom of Holland in her cheek, and the grace of Spain in her carriage and bearing. An exquisite costume of pale yellow silk became the brunette character of her beauty well; creamy lace fell away in folds from the snowy arms it revealed; perfume, brilliance, and softness were about her.
There was a step on the gravel; her colour deepened.
'Morganstjern—Cousin Maurice!' she muttered with a tone of annoyance, as he approached her with hat in hand.
Would this creature, so incomparably lovely and winning, ever belong to him, and lie in his bosom? he was thinking as he surveyed her; was she not rather drifting away from him, and would soon, unless he took strong and sure measures with yonder accursed Schottlander, be lost to him and his world for ever?
'Always becomingly dressed, Dolores,' said he, stooping over her; 'but this costume especially suits your style of loveliness.'
'You must not say such things to me,' she replied with some asperity.
'How—why?'
'I mean such pretty or complimentary things, Maurice Morganstjern; because if you do——'
'What then?'
'I shall think that I have forfeited your friendship.'
'Friendship!' said he gloomily; 'how long will you seem to misunderstand me?'
Try as she might, Dolores could not feel kindly or well disposed towards her cousin Morganstjern, and her replies to him always sounded cold and formal, or taunting even to herself; and the face that bent over her was, she knew, not a good one, but sinister, and expressive of a bad and evil spirit within.
And now, as a somewhat palpable hint that his conversation wearied or worried her, she took up her flageolet, and putting the ivory mouthpiece to her rosy lips, began to play a sweet little air, while his brow became darker, for this now obsolete instrument (which had silver stops like the old English flute) had been a gift of Lewie Baronald's, who, in the gallantry of the day, had inserted a copy of verses addressed to herself, and which, of course, would only be found when the instrument was unscrewed to discover what marred its use.
Anon she paused; Maurice Morganstjern then glanced towards the Countess, and perceiving that she still slept, drew nearer to Dolores, and lowering his voice, said:
'Can you not love me a little, cousin?'
'Not as you wish,' she replied.
'Why?'
The musical voice of Dolores broke into a soft little laugh as she fanned herself, and said:
'Simply because one cannot love two persons at once.'
'Meaning that you love this—this accursed Schottlander?' he hissed through his set teeth.
'Oh, Maurice! how can you be so rude as to speak thus of any visitor of mamma's!'
'Listen to me, Cousin Dolores,' he resumed, making a prodigious effort to be calm.
'Well,' asked the girl, with something of petulance.
'I am probably to be sent to Paris.'
'Indeed—for what purpose?'
'In the interests of the patriots here.'
'And against the Prince of Orange?'
'Yes—of course.'
'You are unwise to say this to me even, cousin.' said she, looking up now.
'But you, Dolores, are my second self.'
'What will you do when I go?'
'Much the same as I did before you honoured the Hague with your presence.'
'To me it seems that you care little whether you see me or not.'
'What then?—and it may be so. Cousin Maurice, you are always annoying me by love-making, or by scowling and taunting me about gentlemen visitors.'
'May I hope, however, that you will pay me the compliment of feeling my absence—of missing me a little?'
'That,' replied the provoking beauty, as an arch expression stole into her face, 'may depend upon what amuses or interests me. Oh, pardon me, Maurice—I am so rude!' she added, on perceiving the sombre fury expressed by his sinister face.
'Whatever you think, only say that you will be sorry when I go,' he urged.
'If you do go—which I don't believe—I will be sorry of course, Maurice,' she replied, as she saw the necessity of temporising a little; 'I am always so when I lose anyone or anything that has become familiar to me. Do you not remember how I wept when my poor Bologna spaniel died last year?'
'I do not expect you to weep for me. It would be too much for Maurice Morganstjern to expect to be raised to the level of your spaniel.'
'How sarcastic and unpleasant you are!' exclaimed Dolores, expectant of Lewie Baronald's arrival, and now half dreading that event. 'I wish you would be as faithful as that poor animal was, and as unselfish in your love.'
'Could you look into my heart, you would find but one word—one idea stamped there.'
'And that is——'
'"Dolores"—meaning sorrow and lamentation if you love me not.'
She laughed merrily again, and again the sombre look came into his face; so she dropped her fan and held out two small white hands as if to deprecate his wrath, for she had an energetic way with her, so he instantly caught them in his own.
She was quite occupied in trying to release them when a familiar rap was heard on the knocker of the street door, an enormous lion's head of brass, with a huge ring in its jaws.
'Oh, I keep your hands prisoners,' said he: 'pardon me,' he added, as he stooped and kissed them; and she had barely time to wrench them away when a liveried valet ushered in Lewie Baronald, and in spite of herself and the presence of her cousin she could not conceal the joy with which his presence inspired her.
'Welcome,' she said, and held forth her hand. Oh, what a hand he thought it—small, plump, and white—so slim and shapely!
There was neither shyness, coquetry, nor embarrassment in the girl's manner, for in their assured position with each other both she and her lover were long past anything of the kind; but the latter and her cousin bowed rather grimly to each other, and mutually muttered:
'Your servant—Mynheer.'
Lewie Baronald now crossed the polished floor of the drawing-room to greet the Countess, who rose to receive him, and who looked so young and so pretty that she might have passed for an elder sister of Dolores; and stooping low he kissed her hand, looking, as he did so, with his sword at his side under the stiff square skirt of his coat, and his hat under his arm, with his ruffles and cravat of fine lace, a model of those stately manners that lingered in Europe when George III. was King—in Scotland, perhaps, longer than anywhere else.
Of Morganstjern's privileges as a cousin, Lewie Baronald was never jealous in the least; but on this occasion, after the recent fencing-bout, the interview with his uncle, and the threat of service in the Dutch West Indies, his brow was rather cloudy, and he longed intensely to be with Dolores alone.
The rough sword-play that had been forced upon him, the risk he had run, and the treachery of Morganstjern, had certainly exasperated him; but courtesy to Dolores and the Countess made him dissemble, and he treated his rival and enemy, if rather coldly and haughtily, as if nothing remarkable had occurred between them, and the conversation became of a general kind. But Morganstjern, in the waspishness of his nature, could not help referring to the 'armed neutrality,' as it was termed, a vexed and then dangerous political subject for a Briton and a Hollander to discuss.
This was an alliance, offensive and defensive, which had been formed by some of the northern powers of Europe; and some violent disputes between Britain and the States-General, which seemed advancing to a direct rupture just then, caused the position of the Scots Brigade in their service to become somewhat peculiar and critical.
From the commencement of the disturbance with America, the Dutch had maintained a close correspondence with the revolted colonists, supplying them with all kinds of material and warlike stores; and after the interference of France and Spain, the selfishness and treachery of the Dutch became more glaring and apparent.
'The States-General of Holland are free, independent, and can do precisely as they choose,' said Morganstjern haughtily, in reply to some condemnatory remark of Lewie Baronald.
'Their Highnesses,' replied the latter calmly, 'have no right to leave their ports open to the King's rebels, in disregard of friendship and honour, and in defiance of the remonstrances of his ambassadors.'
'Permit me to dispute your right, as a soldier in the service of their Highnesses, to censure them.'
Baronald's nether lip quivered at this retort, and the Countess and Dolores exchanged glances of uneasiness; for politics had become so embittered by the American Squadron, which had recently captured H.M.'s ships Serapis and Scarborough, having taken them into the Texel, and when General Yorke claimed those ships and their crews, the Dutch refused to restore them, and soon after Commodore Fielding fired upon their squadron under Count Bylandt, and took him into Portsmouth; so war was looked for daily, while the Scots Brigade were yet serving under the Dutch colours.
'Do not let us think or speak of such things, Cousin Maurice,' said Dolores imploringly; 'I tremble at the idea of Britain invading us, if this sort of work goes on. What have we to do with her colonists and their quarrels?'
'Invade us, indeed!' said Morganstjern, with angry mockery; 'if our swords fail us we can open the sluices, as we did in the days of Louis XIV., and drown every man and mother's son!'
'But how should we escape ourselves?' asked the Countess.
'Good generalship would take care of that; and then how about your Scots Brigade?' asked Morganstjern, turning abruptly to Baronald.
'The Bulwark of Holland, we have never failed her yet,' replied the latter haughtily; 'but to draw the sword upon our own countrymen is certainly a matter for consideration.'
'In Holland, perhaps, but not in America.'
'Let this subject cease,' said the Countess imperatively, while fanning herself with an air of excessive annoyance; and now Morganstjern, beginning to find himself de trop, bowed himself out, and with vengeance gathering in his heart, withdrew to an estaminet, or tavern, where he knew that he would find his friend the Heer van Schrekhorn, and whither we may perhaps follow him.
To Lewie Baronald, who was naturally destitute of much personal vanity, it had hitherto seemed rather strange that the Countess had permitted his attentions to her daughter at all, though he was known to be the heir of his uncle; and now that he had all the joy of knowing himself to be her accepted lover, his soul trembled within him at the prospect of having to announce General Kinloch's utter hostility to the mother.
Lewie had more than once observed that the Countess always smiled, or laughed outright, when his uncle the General was spoken of, as if she considered him somewhat of a character—an excentrique.
'You have seen the General, I presume, since you were here last?' said she.
'Yes, madam,' replied Lewie, painfully colouring.
'And told him of your love for Dolores—of your engagement to her, in fact?'
'Yes, madam; he seems to have suspected it for some time past.'
'Suspected—that sounds unpleasant.'
Lewie played with the feather in his regimental hat, and his colour deepened, when the Countess said:
'Then he is coming to wait upon me, I presume?'
'Alas—no, madam.'
'Indeed—why?'
'He is averse to the society of ladies.'
'In fact, is a woman-hater, I have heard.'
Lewie smiled feebly, and felt himself in a foolish predicament; so the Countess spoke again.
'He had some disappointment in early life, I believe, and never got over it.'
'Yes, madam.'
'Poor fellow! and of Dolores——'
'He will not hear me speak with patience.'
'How grotesque!' exclaimed the Countess, laughing heartily.
'Ah, could he but see her!' exclaimed the young man, regarding the upturned face of her he loved with something of adoration.
'Your uncle the General is very cruel, Lewie,' said Dolores; 'he is a veritable ogre!'
'He is the king of good fellows, but——'
'But what?'
'He has never seen you.'
'And never shall,' she said petulantly, opening and shutting her fan.
'Nay, dearest Dolores, do not say so.'
'The ogre, or worse!' exclaimed the girl, with a pout on her sweet lips.
'Nay—no worse—only a man,' said the Countess, laughing excessively; 'he thinks of us only as women, but to be shunned—avoided—dreaded. It is very droll!'
And looking down, she played with the étui and appendages that hung from her girdle, her tiny watch with the judgment of Solomon embossed on its case; and as she did so, Lewie thought her hand as white and dimpled as that of Dolores.
To him it certainly seemed strange that the opposition of his uncle seemed only to provoke—not the pride or the indignation of the lively Countess—but her laughter and amusement.
'And if he gets me banished on foreign service to the Dutch West Indies!' he urged rather piteously.
'My poor Lewie,' said she, patting his cheek with her fan, 'I must see what can be done; meantime, we must be patient and wait. From all I have heard and know, an early disappointment at the hands of one he loved only too well, has shaken his faith in human goodness and integrity, and now he is soured, suspicious and sarcastic.'
'But only so far as women are concerned.'
'True; and I suppose he is like a French writer, who says that "of all serious things, marriage is the most ridiculous;" but men are not infallible, especially men like your uncle the General—errare humanum est. Let us be patient a little, and all will come right in the end.'
But Dolores and her lover would only sigh a little impatiently as her hand stole into his, and the twilight of evening deepened around them.
CHAPTER V.
'THE BULWARK OF HOLLAND.'
And now while the lovers are waiting in hope, while the General is 'nursing his wrath to keep it warm,' and determined upon their separation; and while Maurice Morganstjern is plotting what mischief he may work them, we shall briefly tell the story of the Scots Brigade, and how it came to be called 'the Bulwark of Holland.'
Lewie Baronald, his uncle the General, and all others belonging to the Scots Brigade, had a good right to be proud of doing so, as it had a glorious inheritance of military history, second only to that of the 1st Royal Scots; and though its memory should have been immortal, its records now lie rotting in a garret of the Town House of Amsterdam; and even in Scotland little is remembered of it, save its march:
'The Lowlands o' Holland
Hae parted my love and me.'
Yet the drums of that Brigade have stirred the echoes of every city and fortress between the mouths of the Ems in the stormy North Sea, and the oak forests of Luxembourg and the Ardennes; and between the ramparts of Ostend and the banks of the Maese and Rhine.
In 1570 the fame of Maurice, Prince of Nassau, drew to his standard many of those Scots whose swords were rendered idle by peace with England, and it was by their aid chiefly, that he drove out his Spanish invaders. Among those who took with them the bravest men of the Borders, were that Sir Walter Scott of Buccleugh who exasperated Queen Elizabeth by storming the Castle of Carlisle; his son Walter, the first Earl of Buccleugh; Sir Henry Balfour of Burleigh; Preston of Gourton; Halkett of Pitfiran, and other commanders, named by Grose, Stewart, Hay, Douglas, Graham, and Hamilton.
These formed the original Scots Brigade in the army of Holland, and some of the battalions must have been kilted, as Famiano Strada, the Jesuit, states that at the battle of Mechlin they fought 'naked'—nudi pugnant Scoti multi.
In 1594, on the return of the States ambassadors, whither they had gone to congratulate James VI. on the birth of his son, they took back with them 1,500 recruits for the Brigade, which five years after fought valiantly in repelling the Spaniards at the siege of Bommel.
The year 1600 saw its soldiers cover themselves with glory at the great battle of the Downs, near Nieuport, and in the following year at the siege of Ostend, which lasted three years, and in which 100,000 men are said to have perished on both sides, and where so many of Spinola's bullets 'stuck in the sandhill bulwark that it became like a wall of iron, and dashed fresh bullets to pieces when they hit it;' and so great was the valour of the Brigade at the siege of Bois-le-Duc, that Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, styled it 'The Bulwark of the Republic.'
It consisted then of three battalions—those of Buccleugh, Scott, and Halkett.
The bestowal of some commissions on Dutch officers caused much discontent during the time of the Prince of Orange, afterwards William III., with whom (after being demanded by James VII. without effect in 1688) the Brigade came over to Britain for a time, and
served at the siege of Edinburgh Castle and the battle of Killiecrankie.
In 1747, by the slaughter at Val and the terrible siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, the Brigade was reduced to only 330 men, but the Hague Gazette records how they drove the French from street to street, and of all the glory won thus, the greatest fell to two lieutenants named Maclean, the sons of the Laird of Torloisk, who were complimented by Count Lowendhal, who commanded the enemy, by whom they were taken.
The men of the Brigade were ever good soldiers, yet strict and God-fearing Presbyterians, who would rather have had their peccadilloes known to a stern General like Kinloch, than to the regimental chaplain.
And it might be said of this Brigade, as it used to be said of the Scots Greys, that the members of it retained a kind of regimental dialect coeval with the days of its formation, when the language was rather different from the present Scotch; so, in the Irish brigades of France and Spain the strongest and purest old Irish was found to the last.
As a sequel to this brief account of the Brigade in Holland, we may sum up the story of its service in the British army—though that service was brilliant—in little more than a paragraph.
After a long and angry correspondence between the Governments of Holland and Britain, the Brigade—save some fifty officers who had formed ties in Holland, or elected to remain there—was transferred to the service of the latter, when a rupture took place between them at the time of the American War, and was taken to Edinburgh, clad in the Dutch uniform, and about 1794, it adopted the red coat, and there in George's Square, when drawn up under Generals Dundas and Kinloch, received its new colours at the hands of the Scottish Commander-in-Chief, when it was numbered as the 94th Regiment; and under these colours it fought gallantly at Seringapatam, winning the elephant as a badge; at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, and in all the battles of the Peninsular War, after which it was disbanded at Edinburgh in 1818.
Then another 94th was embodied five years afterwards, on which occasion, as we tell in our novel, 'The King's own Borderers,' 'the green standard of the old Brigade of immortal memory was borne through the streets from the Castle of Edinburgh by a soldier of the Black Watch,' thus identifying the new regiment with the old; but now even the number of the former has passed away, as under the new and helplessly defective army organisation scheme, it is muddled up with the 88th Regiment under a new name.
And now, having told what the 'Bulwark of Holland' was, we shall return to the fortunes of Lewie Baronald and his fiancée Dolores.
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE GOLDEN SUN.
'So—so! this Scottish adventurer stands between me and the girl I love; between me and my own flesh and blood; more than all, between me and the fortune of Dolores!' muttered Morganstjern—himself a penniless adventurer and knave to boot, as he strode through the streets with his left hand in the hilt of his sword and his right tightly clenched. 'I have a right to hate and dread him—the right to remove him, too, by fair means or foul!'
The latter were the only means he could think of, as he had a wholesome dread of Lewie Baronald's skill with his sword, and the bucks of the Scots Brigade were not wont to stand on trifles when they resorted to that weapon; and in this mood of mind he rejoined his friend the Heer van Schrekhorn, whom he found at an estaminet called the Gond Zon, or 'Golden Sun,' in a narrow and gloomy street near the Klooster Kerk.
There he found him seated in a quiet corner, smoking, drinking schiedam and water, while intently studying some profitable and useful gambling tricks with a pack of not overclean cards.
'I have just been trying some ruses or tricks at lansquenet,' said he, as the tapster brought fresh glasses and more liquor; 'it is the grandest of old gambling games, like those that are of French origin. Look here, to begin with: the cards being shuffled by the dealer, and cut by one of the party, two are dealt out and turned up on the left hand of the dealer, so; he then takes one and places a fourth, the réjouissance card, in the middle of the table, so. On this——'
'Enough of this, Van Schrekhorn,' said Morganstjern impatiently. 'I did not come here to be taught lansquenet,' he added, as he threw his sword, hat, and gloves on a side-table, and flung himself wearily into a chair.
'Oh—so you have just come from the house of la belle Dolores?'
'Yes,' replied the other with an imprecation.
'And left her well and happy, I hope?' said the Heer mockingly.
I left her with that fellow of the Scots Brigade.'
''Sdeath! the more fool you. Why not keep your ground? Were you not there before him?'
'Yes, and did my best to win her favour—even her mere regard.'
'In vain?'
'As usual. In fact, I think these two are affianced—or nearly so. I never so bestirred myself about a woman before,' said Morganstjern, as he drank at a draught a crystal goblet of schiedam and water, and refilled it.
'How is the Countess affected towards you?'
'But indifferently. Indeed, she only tolerates me as a kinsman, and, I suppose, has encouraged or permitted Baronald's addresses to her daughter, because he is the heir of General Kinloch, while I am heir to that only of which nothing can deprive me.'
'And that is?'
'A grave—six feet of earth,' replied Morganstjern, grinding his teeth unpleasantly.
'Come—you have always the guilders you win at roulette.'