One of the Six Hundred: A Novel

different kind in the Highlands; a moor in Ireland--bog, some people call it; an excellent stud, and pack of hounds; a glorious cellar. Rich old fellow, indeed; a great chum of my father's. His dinners are said to be--haw--perfection, from the caviare on sliced bread, _a la Russe_, to the coffee and curacoa, the mocha and maraschino." The ladies were all busy with their crossed and recrossed epistles from friends, gossips, and correspondents. My uncle was put in excellent humour by a missive from a meeting of the heritors and others interested in the county hunt, assigning to him the mastership of the hounds, with a couple of thousands per annum towards his expenses, and the defray of damages, if he undertook to hunt the country between the Firths of Forth and Tay. "You have some jolly good hunters in the--haw--stables, Sir Nigel," said Berkeley, who was somewhat of a sporting man. "Yes, fairish." "Dunearn is a clean-limbed animal," said the general. "Yes; but he was not improved by your gallop among the melon beds," replied Sir Nigel, laughing. "Cost me four hundred and fifty pounds, that horse did. Saline, the grey, with the dark fetlocks, is a better hunter for clearing fences, and crossing a stiff country, and yet cost me only two hundred and ten pounds." After opening his third or fourth letter, Berkeley evidently received news that was not pleasant, for I heard him mutter almost an oath, as he said, uneasily-- "Jockeyed! Sold by the jockey, Trayner! A cheque on his bank for the amount; about as good as one on the Banks of Newfoundland." "No bad news, Berkeley, I hope," said my uncle. "Oh--haw--nothing, Sir Nigel," said he, and retiring into an oriel, he drew forth a memorandum book, and proceeded to consider the weights for a forthcoming race; and so absorbed was he that Cora laughed aloud on hearing him mutter in this fashion, pulling his long moustaches the while-- "Mail-train, five years, eight stone two pounds. Swish-tail, three years, six stone four pounds. Queen Victorina, aged, rather, six stone four pounds," and so on. As we rose from the breakfast-table, and broke into groups, he dropped a letter in a female handwriting. I picked it up, and followed him. It was open, and the signature, "_Agnes Auriol_," caught my eye. By that name I knew the writer, and could have crushed Berkeley's chances, perhaps, for ever; but as no such use could be honourably made of it, I touched him on the shoulder, simply saying-- "Pardon me, you have dropped this." He changed colour painfully as he received the letter, walked to the fire, cast it in, and carefully waited until it was consumed. I was not without hopes of luring Lady Louisa into the library, the conservatory, or some quiet nook, as a ride or a ramble out of doors was not to be thought of; but my uncle destroyed my chances, by suddenly announcing, with one of his loud and merry laughs, that the glass was rising, the day would yet be fine, and that gentlemen must kill their next day's dinner or go without. He was going to beat the thickets for a few birds, and he had guns for all the party. The old general grumbled an unmistakable dissent, and Berkeley pocketed his betting-book, drawling out, as he looked at the snowy landscape and left the room-- "A horrid bore!" "Come, general," said my hearty old uncle, who had not heard Berkeley's uncivil response, "don't think yet of substituting flannel bags for top-boots; Ascension turtle and pink champagne for patience and water gruel; hot fomentations for hot whisky-toddy! Come! put on your shot-belt; the gout is a long way off yet." "Gad! I am not so sure of that, Sir Nigel; and then there is this cursed jungle-fever, which I got when up the country with the 3rd Bengal, and I have a horror of toast and water, even when flavoured with pale dry sherry." "Where is Mr. Berkeley loitering; what is he about?" "Making up his mind, papa, or what he considers to be such," said Cora. "Fie, Cora," said the old baronet, "you should never quiz a guest." Berkeley, re-entering, urged that he had letters to write, and so must remain behind; so said Mr. Spittal, the M.P. Thus the shooting party was reduced to Sir Nigel, the keeper, and myself. Cora brought us each a flask of brandy, then a little packet of sandwiches cut by her own pretty hands in the housekeeper's pantry. These she stuffed into our pockets, and away we went to the keeper's lodge, I, for cogent reasons of my own, most unwillingly, though Lady Louisa smilingly kissed her hand twice to me from the drawing-room window; but as Cora and all the ladies did so at the same time, and waved their handkerchiefs, I could gather but little from that mark of her attention. Pitblado's cottage was more than a mile distant. The snow was thawing fast, in the sunshine; but we were accoutred in stout leather leggings, and thick, warm shooting coats and caps. My uncle's manner was fidgety, as we walked onward. He had evidently something on his mind, which he could not express in words, and I could give him no aid. After a pause-- "Newton, lad," said he, "I don't think that you take to your gun very willingly to-day." "What leads you to think so, uncle?" "You continued to look back at the house, as long as even the vanes of it were in view, as if the game there had more attractions than the birds out of doors." "I merely looked back to bow to Lady Loftus and the others," said I, laughing. "There it is! Why do you put Lady Loftus first?" "Perhaps because her figure was tallest--I don't know--perhaps I should have named Cora, as the Lady of Calderwood," said I laughing, to hide my growing confusion. "Newton Norcliff, you have a tenderness for Lady Chillingham's daughter," said Sir Nigel, gravely. "Have I? Don't know that I have, sir," I repeated, actually flushing. "Of course you have, and you know it," said he, emphatically. "But who told you of this?" "Cora." "Cora?" "Yes, with tears in her eyes, this morning." "Tears! This is incomprehensible. I have only been a single night under the same roof with Lady Loftus." "Yet Cora has discovered your secret. Girls are quick-sighted in such matters, I can tell you." "But why had Cora tears?" "Don't for the life of me know, unless it be that she fears your love will be but moonshine in the water. They are a cold, calculating, and ambitious family, Lord Chillingham's, and will fly their hawk at higher game than mere landed gentry." "She is a good girl, Cora," said I, thoughtfully "If you have any fancy for Louisa Loftus, I will back you to any amount," said my blunt uncle, stoutly; "but I don't think my lady mother would relish such a suitor as a lieutenant of cavalry. I have already heard her hint that Lord Slubber has made proposals, with offers of a brilliant settlement; but the man is older than I, and could no more hunt a country or march up a snow-covered brae, as we do now, than fly through the air. At all events, don't throw your heart away farther than is necessary, and what is more, in the meantime, look sharp, I say." "Sharp!" I exclaimed, bewildered by this odd jumble of advice. "How--why?" "Don't you perceive what is going on?" "What, uncle?" "That yaw-hawing donkey, Berkeley, is doing all he can to take the wind out of your sails." "Uncle, I have indeed felt a dread of this. He has, you know, a handsome fortune." "I would not let a fellow like that go neck and neck with me," said Sir Nigel. "I'd cut in and win at a hand gallop. It is your talking, pushing, forward men--seeming always confident of what they say, never acknowledging an error or confessing a defeat, that are too often allowed to take the lead in life. With average ability, and ten times the average amount of assurance, they often reach the goal that bashful merit never gets a sight of. So cut in, I say, and win, if you want her." While he was running on thus, I could not but admire, at his years, the hale, sturdy figure, and bluff, hearty bearing of Sir Nigel, in his old shooting toggery. He was always a crack shot, and in youth and middle life had been one of the keenest curlers and golfers between the West and East Neuks of Fife. It was his great boast that he could yet, if he chose, strike a golf ball from the street over each of the tallest spires of St. Andrew's. A fair hand, too, with the pistol, he had, as I have stated, winged more than one political antagonist, in squabbles about the old Reform Bill, in the days of Brougham, Grey, and Russell. Throw your glove in the air, and he would shoot any finger off it you named; and he would hit a cricket ball, were it cast ever so high, with a single rifle bullet. Thus in his hands I was sent to join the lancers somewhat of a master-of-arms, and certainly a complete horseman. Sir Nigel, withal, had much the air of a Scotch man-about-town; in Edinburgh a different style of man from he of the same genus in London--he of the glazed boots and carefully-trimmed whiskers, exquisitely solemn and unimpressionable, as if he had seen all the world, and found there was nothing in it. The "dandy" who hovers about the New Club in Princes-street is usually a six-foot man, bronzed and sunburnt (he has served somewhere--in India generally), and heavily moustached. He carries a huge stick; he wears rough Tweed suits, and double-soled brogues, with toe-pieces and rows of hobnails, as if ever ready for facing the hills and the frozen heather. He may be a snob, like his English brother Dundreary; but he has something rough and service-like in his bearing that is suggestive of climbing rocks, fishing, hunting, and shooting. But now Sir Nigel's warning, Cora's sharp discovery of my secret, and the knowledge that Berkeley remained behind in full possession of the field, filled me with anxiety and annoyance. The shooting excursion bored me, and I looked for the end before we had well begun. What might those hours of absence from her cost me? We reached the gamekeeper's cottage, which was situated amid a dense copsewood, beside a wimpling burn, and near King James's Well. Moss of emerald hue covered all the thatched roof, and in summer green trailers and scarlet-runners made all the white-washed walls and little windows gay. Now the former were ornamented by ghastly rows of half-decayed hawks, wild cats, fiumarts, and weasels, while the white, bare skull of a stag, with its gallant antlers outspread, was fixed above the door. Along the garden paling the dead hawks hung in dozens, as a regular war was waged between them and old Pitblado, who spent half his days in baiting traps; thus the breeze that passed his cottage was laden with odours, but not those of "a bank of violets." He was a fine, hale old man, with a weather-beaten aspect, short, grizzled hair, and keen grey eyes, that glistened and grew moist as he warmly shook my hand, and welcomed me to the glen again. Though respectful and kind, his bearing was not without a native dignity, for he was proud of considering himself the last representative of an old line of Fifeshire lairds, the Pitblados of Pitblado and that ilk, who had lost their land and position long ago; but in his old velveteen coat of no particular colour, his blue bonnet, network game-bag, and long, greasy overalls, Pitblado looked just as I had seen him last. Though "as soldiers in the march of life, we may never learn to mark time, time never fails to mark us." "It was kind ond thochtfu' o' you, Maister Newton, to bring my laddie, Willie, hame to see me ere ye baith gaed to the wars; and when there, I hope you ond he will tak' a' the care o' ilk ither ye can, for I could