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A LOVE STORY.

I have been told that a better or a braver fellow than Louis Charters of ours never drew a sword. He was, as the regimental records show, captain of our 7th company, and major in the army when the corps embarked for service in the Illinois in 1763; but prior to that his story was a strange and romantic one. Louis was a cadet of one of the oldest houses in Scotland, the Charters of Amisfield; thus he was a lineal descendant of the famous Red Riever. Early in life he had been gazetted to an ensigncy in Montgomery's Highlanders, the old 77th, when that corps was raised in 1757 by Colonel Archibald Montgomery (afterwards Earl of Eglinton and Governor of Dumbarton), among the Frasers, Macdonalds, Camerons, Macleans, and other Jacobite clans.

Charters was a handsome and enthusiastic soldier, full of the old chivalry and romance of the Highlands; but, at the time he joined the Black Watch, with the remnant of Montgomery's regiment, which volunteered into our ranks in 1763, he was a pale, moody, and disappointed man, who had no hope in the service, but that it might procure him an honourable death under the balls of an enemy.

The story of Louis Charters was as follows:—

In January, 1757, he was recruiting at Perth for the 77th, when it was his good, or perhaps ill fortune, to become attached to a young lady possessed of great attractions, whom he had met at a ball, and who was the only daughter of the Laird of Tullynairn, a gentleman of property in the vicinity of the "Fair City."

Emmy Stuart was four-and-twenty, and Louis was three years her senior. She was tall and beautiful in face and figure; her hair was chesnut, her eyes hazel, and there was a charming droop in their lids which enhanced all her varieties of expression, especially the droll, and lent to them a seductive beauty, most dangerous to the peace of all who engaged in a two-handed flirtation with her; for although that word was unknown to the fair maids of Perth in those days, yet they flirted nevertheless, and none more than the lively Emmy Stuart.

Though her charming figure was almost hidden by her frightful hoop petticoat, and her beautiful hair by white powder—but that, if possible, increased the brilliance of her eyes and complexion—none knew better than Emmy the piquant mode of arranging her capuchin, of holding a vinaigrette under her pretty pink nostrils; and your great-grandmother, my good reader, never surpassed her in the secret art of putting those devilish little patches on her soft cheek, or about her bright roguish eyes, in such a manner as to give double point to those glances of drollery or disdain in which all ladies then excelled; or, worse still, an amorous languish, levelled à la Francaise, in such a mode as would have demolished a whole battalion; while the adorable embonpoint of her figure was somewhat increased by the arrangement of her busk, her jewelled necklace, her embossed gold watch and etui, which no lady was ever without, and which Emmy of course carried at her waist.

When she left the assembly, there was always such a crush of gay gallants about the door to see her depart, that Louis seldom got her safely into her sedan or coach without swords being drawn, and some unfortunate being run through the body, or having a few inches of a flaming link thrust down his throat; for the "fine fellows" of those days were not over-particular in their mode of resentment when a pretty woman was concerned. The "Blood," or "Buck," or "Maccaroni," of the last century was a very different fellow from the peaceful unmitigated "snob" of the present day.

It was no wonder that Louis loved Emmy; the only marvel would have been had he proved invulnerable; so he fell before a glance of her bright hazel eyes, as Dunkirk fell before the allied armies. But Emmy was so gay in manner, distinguishing none in particular, that Charters was often in an agony of anxiety to learn whether she would ever love him; and moreover, there was one of ours, a Captain Douglas, recruiting in Perth, who possessed a most annoyingly handsome person, and who hovered more about the beautiful Emmy than our friend of the 77th could have wished. To make the matter worse, Douglas was an old lover, having met Emmy at a ball three years before, and been shot clean through the heart by one of her most seductive glances.

Emmy was so full of repartee and drollery, that though Charters was always making the most desperate love to her, he was compelled to mask his approaches under cover of pretty banter, or mere flirtation; thus leaving him an honourable retreat in case of a sharp repulse; for he could not yet trust himself to opening the trenches in earnest, lest she might laugh at him, as she had done at others; and Louis knew enough of the world to be aware, that a lover once laughed at is lost, and may as well quit the field.

So passed away the summer of—I am sorry to give so antique an epoch—1757. The snow began to powder the bare scalps of the Highland frontier; the woods of Scone and Kinnoull became stripped and leafless, and their russet spoils where whirled along the green inches and the reedy banks of the Tay; then the hoar frost wove its thistle blades on the windows in the morning, and our lovers found that a period was put to their rambles in the evening, when the sun was setting behind the darkening mountains of the west.

Now came the time to ballot for partners for the winter season; and then it was that Louis first learned to his joy that he was not altogether indifferent to the laughing belle. The fashion of balloting for partners was a very curious one, and now it is happily abolished in Scottish society; for only imagine one's sensations, good reader, on being condemned to dance everything with the same girl, and with her only, during a whole winter season! Besides, as the devil would be sure to have it so, one would always have the girl one did not want. The laws respecting partners were strictly enforced, and when once settled or fairly handfasted to a dancing girl for the season, a gentleman was on no account permitted to change, even for a single night, on pain of being shot or run through the body by her nearest male relative.

In the beginning of the winter season, the appointment for partners usually took place in each little coterie before the opening of the first ball or assembly. A gentleman's triple-cocked beaver was unflapped, and the fans of all the ladies present were slily put therein; the gentlemen were then blindfolded, and each selected a fan; then she to whom it belonged, however ill they might be paired or assorted, was his partner for the season. Such was the strange law, most rigidly enforced in the days of Miss Nicholas, who was then the mirror of fashion and presiding goddess of the Edinburgh assemblies.

When the time for balloting came, great was the anxiety of poor Louis Charters lest his beloved Emmy might fall to the lot of that provoking fellow Douglas of ours; but judge of his joy when Emmy told him, with the most arch and beautiful smile that ever lighted up a pair of lovely hazel eyes, how to distinguish her fan from amid the eighteen or twenty that were deposited in the hat.

"Now, my dear Mr. Charters," said she in a whisper, "I never pretended to be ferociously honest, and thus my unfortunate little tongue is always getting me into some frightful scrape; but I shall give you a token by which you will know my fan. Does that make you supremely happy?"

"Happy, Emmy? Dear Emmy, more than ever you will give me credit for!"

"Do not be sure of that, and do not make a scene. Quick now, lest some one anticipate you."

"But the fan——"

"Has a silver ball in lieu of a tassel. Now go and prosper."

Thus indicated, he soon selected the fan and drew it forth, to the annoyance of Douglas, who beheld him present it to the fair owner; and her hazel eye sparkled with joy as Charters kissed her hand with a matchless air of ardour and respect. Honest Charters felt quite tipsy with joy. Emmy had now shown that he was not without interest to her; and was not this a charming admission from a young beauty, who could command any number of wedding-rings at any hour she pleased? Thus, according to the witty Sir Alexander Boswell, who (for one of his squibs) was shot one morning by Stuart of Dunearn,

"Each lady's fan a chosen Damon bore,

With care selected many a day before."

With the dancing of a whole season before them, the reader may easily imagine the result. All the tabbies, gossips, and coteries of the fair city had long since assigned them to each other; and though the mere magic of linking two names constantly together has done much to cajole boys and girls into a love for each other, no such magic was required here, for Emmy, I have said, was four-and-twenty, and Louis was three years her senior.

Finding himself completely outwitted, and that the fan of a demoiselle of somewhat mature age and rather unattractive appearance had fallen to his lot, Willy Douglas "evacuated Flanders," i.e., forsook the ballroom, and bent all his energies to recruiting for the second battalion of the Black Watch, leaving the fair field completely to his more successful rival.

But though assigned to Charters by the fashion of the time, and by her own pretty manoeuvre, as a partner for the season, our gay coquette would not yet acknowledge herself conquered; and Charters felt with some anxiety that she was amusing herself with him, and that the time was drawing near when he would have to rejoin his regiment, which was then expecting the route for America, over the fortunes of which the clouds of war were gathering. Besides, Emmy had a thousand little whims and teasing ways about her, all of which it was his daily pleasure, and sometimes his task, to gratify and to soothe; and often they had a quarrel—a real quarrel—for two whole days. These were two centuries to Louis; but then it was of course made up again; and Emmy, like an Empress, gave him her dimpled hand to kiss, reminding him, with a coy smile, that

"A lover's quarrel was but love renewed."

"True, Emmy; but I would infinitely prefer a love that required no renewal," said Charters, with a sigh.

"How tiresome you become! You often make me think of Willy Douglas. Well, and where shall we find this remarkable love you speak of?"

"Ah, Emmy, you read it in every eye that turns to yours; it fills the very air you breathe, and sheds a purity and a beauty over everything."

"Then you always see beauty here?"

"Oh, Emmy, I always see you, and you only; but you are still bantering."

"Do you know, Captain Charters, that I do not think it polite to tell a woman that she is beautiful?" said Emmy, pretending to pout, while her eyelids drooped, and she played with her fan.

"To tell any ordinary woman that she was beautiful, might offend her, if she was sensible; but to tell you so, though you have the sense of a thousand, must be pleasing, because you are conscious of your great beauty, Emmy, and know its fatal power—but alas! too well."

"What!" exclaimed Emmy, her eyes flashing with triumph and fun, "I am beautiful, then?"

"Too much so for my peace. Beautiful! Oh, Emmy Stuart, you are dangerously so. But you trifle with me cruelly, Emmy. Think how time is gliding away—and a day must come when I shall be no longer here."

Her charming eyelids drooped again.

"A time—well, but remember there is an Italian poet who says,

All time is lost that is not spent in love."

Charters gazed at her anxiously, and after a momentary pause, with all his soul in his eyes and on his tongue, he said:—

"Listen to me, dearest Emmy. Of all things necessary to conduce to man's happiness, love is the principal. It purifies and sheds a glory, a halo over everything, but chiefly around the beloved object herself. It awakens and matures every slumbering virtue in the heart, and causes us to become as pure and noble as a man may be, to make him more worthy of the woman we love. Such, dear Emmy, is my love for you."

This time Emmy heard him in silence, with downcast eyes, a blush playing upon her beautiful cheek, a smile hovering on her alluring little mouth, with her breast heaving and her pretty fingers playing nervously with her fan and the frills of her busk.

This conversation may be taken as a specimen of a hundred that our lovers had on every convenient opportunity, when Louis was all truthful earnestness—devotion and anxiety pervading his voice and manner; while Emmy was all fun, drollery, and coquetry, yet loving him nevertheless.

But a crisis came, when Charters received, by the hand of his chief friend, Lieutenant Alaster Mackenzie, of the house of Seaforth, a command to rejoin his regiment, then under orders to embark at Greenock, to share in the expedition which Brigadier-General Forbes of Pittencrief was to lead against Fort du Quesne, one of the three great enterprises undertaken in 1758 against the French possessions in North America. How futile were the tears of Emmy now!

"Though divided by the sea, dear Louis, our hope will be one, like our love," she sobbed in his ear.

"Think—think of me often, very often, as I shall think of you."

"I do not doubt you, Louis. I now judge of your long, faithful, and noble affection by my own. Oh, Louis! I have been foolish and wilful; I have pained you often; but you will forgive your poor Emmy now; she judges of your love by her own."

It was now too late to think of marriage. Emmy, subdued by the prospect of a sudden and long separation from her winning and handsome lover, and by a knowledge of the dangers that lay before him by sea and land, the French bullet, the Indian arrow—all the risks of war and pestilence—was almost broken-hearted on his departure. The usual rings and locks of hair, the customary embraces, were exchanged; the usual adieus and promises—solemn and sobbing promises of mutual fidelity—were given, and so they parted; and with sad Emmy's kiss yet lingering on his lips, and her undried tears on his cheek, poor Charters found himself marching at the head of his party of fifty recruits, while the drum and fife woke the echoes in the romantic Wicks of Baiglie, as he bade a long adieu to beautiful Perth, the home of his Emmy, and joined the headquarters of Montgomery's Highlanders at Greenock.

But amid all the bustle of the embarkation in transports and ships of war—such rough sea-going ships as Smollet has portrayed in his "Roderick Random"—Charters saw ever before him the happy, bright, and beautiful Emmy of the past year of joy; or as he had last seen her, pale, crushed, and drooping in tears upon his breast—her coquetry, her drollery, her laughter, all evaporated, and the true loving and trusting woman alone remaining—her eyes full of affection, and her voice tremulous with emotion.

Louis sailed for America with one of the finest regiments ever sent forth by Scotland, which, in the war that preceded the declaration of American independence, gave to the British ranks more than sixty thousand soldiers*—few, indeed, of whom ever returned to lay their bones in the land of their fathers.

* See "Present Conduct of the Chieftains Considered." Edinburgh: 1773. "Thus it appears," says an anti-ministerial pamphlet, published in 1763, "that out of 756 officers commanding in the Army, garrisons, &c., 210 are Scots: and out of 1930 in the Navy, 536 are Scots." The table was thus:—