One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
rouge, lending a glorious lustre to her deeply-lashed dark eyes. But
now my Lady Chillingham, who evidently did not share her daughter's
enthusiasm for field sports, exchanged an expressive glance with Cora,
who, of course, occupied the head of the table, with the parish minister
in the post of honour at her right hand.
Then we all rose like a covey of partridges, while the ladies retired in
single file to the drawing-room, whither I longed to accompany them; but
now the gentlemen drew their chairs closer together, side by side; Sir
Nigel announced that "the business of the evening was only beginning;"
the wine decanters and the claret jugs were replenished; Binns appeared
with water steaming hot in an antique silver kettle, followed by a
servant bearing liqueur-frames, filled with "mountain dew," for those
who preferred toddy, the national beverage, to which fully half the
company, including my jolly old kinsman, at once betook themselves.
Somehow those "trifles light as air," which are the torments of the
jealous and the doubtful, were added to fears, to crush me now.
Even without the danger of a rival, I knew that "La Mere Chillingham,"
as the mess called her, would keep a sharp eye upon me, as the possessor
of only my subaltern's commission in the lancers, with a couple of
hundred or so per annum; for she believed that all men so circumstanced
were little better than well-accredited sharpers, and, as such, certain
to have nefarious designs upon her wealthy and beautiful
daughter--designs which our plumes, epaulettes, and lancer trappings
were every way calculated to render more dangerous.
I felt sure that, by such as she, even the wealthy parvenu, De Warr
Berkeley, would be less dreaded than I; and as I looked round the old
hall of Calderwood, and saw the grim portraits of those who had preceded
me, looking disdainfully out of their stiff ruffs and long doublets, and
thought of my rival's puerile character, and his father's beer vats, an
emotion of real contempt for the cold-blooded and match-making countess
stole into my heart.
Louisa Loftus was, indeed, a proud and glorious beauty. I knew not yet
what were my chances of success with her, and, in short, I "had nothing
for it but to wait and try my best to be sanguine."
The brave old axiom, that "no fortress is impregnable," is a valuable
worldly lesson, and one ought never to forget that a storming party
rarely fails.
There was some consolation in this reflection.
I took another glass of sparkling hock, another, and another, and
somehow through their medium the world began to look more bright and
cheering.
*CHAPTER V.*
Come, let us enjoy the fleeting day,
And banish toil, and laugh at care,
For who would grief and sorrow beat
When he can throw his griefs away?
Away, away! begone, I say!
For mournful thought
Will come unsought.
BOWRING'S "POETRY OF SPAIN."
"Provost," said my uncle to the jovial and rubicund magistrate who sat
on his left hand, now that he had taken Cora's place at the head of the
table, "try the Johannisberg. It is some given to me by Prince
Metternich when I was at Vienna, and is from grapes raised in his own
vineyards. Rare stuff it is for those who like such light wines."
"Thank you, Sir Nigel; but Binns, I see, has brought the three elements,
so I'll e'en brew some whisky-toddy," replied the magistrate.
The conversation now became more noisy and animated. The approaching
war, the treaty of neutrality between the Scandinavian and the Western
Powers, whether our fleet had yet entered the Euxine, or whether Luders
had yet burst into the Dobrudscha, became the prevailing topics, and in
interest seemed fully to rival that never-failing subject at a country
table, fox-hunting.
The county pack, the meet of the Fifeshire hounds at the kennels, or on
the green slopes of Largo; of the Buccleuch pack at Blacklaw, Ancrum,
and so forth; their runs by wood and wold, loch and lee, rock and river,
with many a perilous leap and wild adventure in the field, over a rough
and hilly country, were narrated with animation, and descanted on with
interest, though all such sank into insignificance beside the history of
a hunt in Bengal, where General Rammerscales had figured in pursuit of a
tiger (long the terror of the district), seated in a lofty _howdah_ of
basket-work, strapped on the back of an elephant, twelve feet high to
the shoulder, accompanied by the major of his regiment, each armed with
two double-barrelled guns.
The tiger, which measured nine feet from his nose to the tip of his
tail, and five in height, had been roused from among the jungle grass,
and was a brute of the most ferocious kind, yellow in hide, and striped
with beautiful transverse bars of black and brown. He was well-known in
that district. With his tremendous jaws he had carried off many a foal
and buffalo; by a single stroke of his claws he had disembowelled and
rent open the body of more than one tall dark sowar of the 3rd Bengal
Light Cavalry; and as for sheep and goats, he made no more account of
them than if they had been so many shrimps.
With a shrill, short scream of rage, on finding that he was brought to
bay at last, he threw himself in cat-fashion on his back, belly upwards,
his small and quivering ears close on the back of his head, his dreadful
claws thrust out, his eyes glaring like two gigantic carbuncles, his
wide, red mouth distended, and every wiry whisker bristling with rage
and fury.
The general fired both barrels of his first gun. One shot failed; but
the other wounded the tiger in the shoulder, and only served to make him
more savage; though, instead of springing upwards, he lay thus on the
defensive, gathered up in a round ball.
The major, an enormously fat man, weighing more than twenty stone, now
leant over the _howdah_ to take a cool and deliberate aim; but the
elephant in the same moment happened to bend his fore-knees, for the
claws of the tiger were inserted in his trunk.
Losing all balance by this unlucky motion, the poor major toppled
headlong over the _howdah_, just as both barrels of his gun exploded
harmlessly, amid a yell from the Indian hunters as they thought of his
fate.
But, "with a mighty squelch," as the general phrased it, the major, with
his twenty-two stone weight of flesh and bone, fell prone upon the fair,
white, upturned belly of the tiger!
Terrified, breathless, and bewildered by an antagonist so ponderous, and
by such an unexpected mode of attack, the tiger started up, and fled
from the scene, leaving the major untouched and unharmed, but seated
ruefully among the jungle grass, and with considerable doubts as to his
safety and his own identity.
The parish minister fairly overmatched this story by the narrative of a
fox which had been drowned by a mussel.
Prior to being appointed pastor of Calderwood Kirk, through the favour
of its patron, Sir Nigel, he had been an assistant in a parish situated
on the borders of one of the great salt lochs in the western highlands.
When riding one morning along the shore, opposite the Summer Isles, he
was surprised to see a large grey fox busy among the basket-mussels,
thick clusters of which were adhering to the dark whin rocks which the
ebb tide had left dry. The sea was coming in fast; but, strange to say,
Reynard seemed to be so much engaged in breakfasting on shell-fish that
he was heedless of that important circumstance.
Dismounting, and tying his horse to a tree, the minister made a circuit
to reach the place, and being armed with a heavy-handled riding-whip, he
had no fear of the encounter; but by the time he arrived at the
mussel-beds, the rapid tide had overflowed them, and the fox had
disappeared. So, remounting, the minister pursued his way into the
mountains.
Returning along the shore by the same path in the evening, when the tide
had ebbed, he again saw Reynard in the same place, but lying quite dead,
and, on examination, discovered that he was held fast by the tongue
between the sharp shells of one of the basket-mussels, which are
sometimes seven inches long, and adhere with intense strength to the
rocks by the beard, known to the learned as a powerful _byssus_. Seized
and retained thus, as if in the grasp of a steel vice, the fox, which
had been in the habit of seeking the sea shore to feed on the mussels,
had been held fast, until drowned by the advancing tide, which there
flows rapidly in from the Atlantic.
This story elicited roars of laughter from the fox-hunters, who had
never heard of a brush being taken in such a fashion; and Berkeley
expressed astonishment that the anecdote had never found its way into
the columns of _Bell's Life_, or other sporting journals.
The provost and minister gabbled about presbyteries and synods, the
moderation of calls, elders, deacons, and overtures to the General
Assembly, anent sundry ecclesiastical matters, particularly the adoption
of organs, and other innovations that savoured of prelacy, making up a
jargon which, to many present, and even to me, proved quite
unintelligible; but now, as a military man, old Rammerscales seized me
by a button, for there was no eluding being bored by him.
He had been so many years in India that he found a difficulty in
assuring himself that he was not "up country" and in cantonments still.
Thus, if the rooms were warm, the general grumbled that there was no
_punkah_ to swing over his head, the baldness of which he polished
vigorously, and muttered about "tatties of iced water."
He calculated everything by its value in rupees, and talked much of
compounds and cantonments; of _batta_ and marching money, of _chutney_
and _chunam_, and all manner of queer things, including sepoys and
_sowars_, _subadars_, _havildars_, and _jemidars_; thus the most casual
remark drew forth some Indian reference.
The cold of last night reminded him of what he had endured in the
mountains of Affghanistan; and the dark clouds of this morning were
exactly like some he had seen near Calcutta, when a sepoy was killed by
his side by a stroke of lightning, which twisted up the barrel of his
musket like a screw--"yes, sir, like a demmed corkscrew!"
Next, the gas offended his eyes, which had been so long accustomed to
the oil lamps or oil-shades of his bungalow; and then he spoke to all
the servants, even respectable old Mr. Binns (who had been for forty
years like Sir Nigel's shadow) as if they had been so many _sycees_,
grass-cutters, or tent-pitchers, making them start whenever he addressed
them; for he seemed to bark or snap out his words and wishes at "the
precious Griffs," as he termed them.
On the other hand, I was bored by the provost, who, like the M.P. (a
peace-at-any-price man), by no means approved of the expected war, and
informed Berkeley and myself that--
"Our trade--soldiering, to wit--was a deuced poor one--a speculation, a
loss, and never profit to any one, individually or collectively."
Berkeley smiled superciliously, eyed the provost through his glass, and
blandly asked him to repeat his remark twice over, professing that he
did not understand the worthy man.
"If you mean that you disapprove of the intended war, my good friend,"
said he, "I--haw--quite agree with you, Why the deuce should I fight for
the 'sick man' at Constantinople; or for the Turks or the Tartars of the
Crimea? It's a horrid bore."
Amid all this uncongenial conversation, I longed for the time when the
seniors would move towards the drawing-room, from whence the sounds of
music and of voices sweetly attuned were heard to issue at times; for
there my star was shining--Louisa Loftus, so beautiful to look upon, and
yet whom it seemed so hopeless in me to love!