Читать книгу The Royal Regiment, and Other Novelettes - James Grant - Страница 4

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"Thank Heaven, then I am not too late!" exclaimed Roland Ruthven, as he sprung on the horse that awaited him at the door of the hotel where he had arrived but an hour before; "there is no message for me specially?"

"None, sir," said the mounted groom, touching his hat, and shortening his gathered reins.

"My father——"

"Is living still, Master Roland; but that is all, I fear," replied the old man, with a sigh.

"Come on then, Buckle, old fellow; I think the grey nag knows my voice, though I have not been on his back for four years."

And spurring his horse, "Master Roland," as the grey-haired groom still called him, though he was nearer thirty than twenty years of age, and had held Her Majesty's commission for ten of them, departed at a rasping pace that soon left the stately streets, the spires and shipping of Aberdeen far behind them.

The royal residence at Balmoral had barely as yet been thought of, and railways had not then penetrated into the valley of the Dee; thus, all anxious as Roland Ruthven was to learn details of the perilous illness of the fine old soldier his father—the only kinsman he had in the world—at whose summons he had crossed two thousand miles and more of sea, he could only trust now to the speed of his horse, and without further questioning old Bob Buckle the groom, rode at a hard and furious gallop along the old familiar ways that led towards his home among the mountains, behind which the bright sun of a glorious evening—one of the last in June—was sinking.

Closely rode the old groom behind him, marvelling to find that the little golden-haired boy, whom he had first trained to ride a shaggy Shetlander, had now become a dark-whiskered, tall, and handsome man, well set up by infantry drill, and with all that air and bearing which our officers, beyond those of all other European armies, alone acquire, developed in chest and muscle by every manly sport; and he could recall, but with a sigh, how like "Master Roland" was now, to what the old dying Laird his father had been at the same age, when his regiment, the Royal Scots, was adding to its honours in the Peninsula—more years ago than he cared to reckon now.

And vividly in fancy too, did Roland Ruthven see before him the figure and face of that handsome old man, ere the latter became lined with care and thoughts and even his voice seemed to come distinctly to his ear, as the familiar objects of the well-remembered scenery came to view in quick succession, and at last Ardgowrie, the home of his family, rose before him in the distance, its strong walls shining redly in the setting sun.

Situated among luxuriant woods, in all their summer greenery, Ardgowrie presents the elements common to most of the northern mansions of the same age and kind—a multitude of crow-stepped gables encrusted with coats of arms, conical turrets, and angular dormer windows, giving a general effect extremely rich and picturesque, as their outlines cut the deep blue of the sky.

Notwithstanding its age, Ardgowrie is unconnected with the usual memories of crime and violence which form the general history of an old Scottish feudal fortalice, and yet it stands in the glorious valley of the Dee, between the central highlands and the fruitful lowlands, where in former ages it has been said "that the inhabitants of the two districts, thus joined by a common highway, were as unlike each other in language, manners and character as the French and the Germans, or the Arabs and the Caffres."

"At last!" exclaimed Roland, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he spurred his horse down a long and rather gloomy avenue of genuine old Scottish firs, dignified and magnificent trees, with massive trunks of dusky red, and foliage of bronze-like hue. "Ardgowrie at last!" he added, as he reined up at the stately entrance of his home, for to this moment had he looked forward with intense anxiety during the long voyage from America, while his affectionate heart had beat responsive to every throb of the mighty engines of the great Atlantic steamer.

Home! How much does that word contain to the exile or the wanderer! "What a feeling does that simple word convey to his ears, who knows really the blessings of a home," says an Irish writer, who found his grave in a far and foreign land; "that shelter from the world, its jealousies and its envies, its turmoils and disappointments, where like some land-locked bay the still, calm waters sleep in silence, while the storm and hurricanes are roaring without."

The sound of hoofs in the avenue brought a number of domestics to welcome him home in the kindly old Scottish way, and he had to shake hands with all, especially with Gavin Runlet, the white-haired butler, Elspat Gorm, the old Highland housekeeper, who had donned her best black silk, with the whitest of "mutches," in honour of the occasion: and then, too, came, though last, certainly not the least in his own estimation, with eyes keen as those of an eagle, and massive red beard, a thick-set sturdy figure, and bare limbs brown and hairy as those of a mountain deer, the family piper, Aulay Macaulay, whose boast it was that he came of the Macaulays of Ardencaple, and was a worthier scion of the clan than the historian of the same name.

Aulay had his pipes under his left arm, but no note of triumph or salute could come from them, when the Laird was in his dire extremity, and a great hush seemed over all the household. He had been a piper of the Royal Scots during the campaign in Burmah, and, like Bob Buckle and several others of the grand old regiment, had found a home with their loved Colonel at Ardgowrie.

"Well, Elspat, old friend," said Roland, as he leaped from his foam-flecked horse and tossed the reins to Bob Buckle, "how is my father to-night?"

"The doctor will tell you better than I," replied the old domestic, quietly, and with bated voice; "he has, thank Heaven, fallen asleep after a restless day, and, as sleep is like life to him——"

"Let him not be disturbed. I shall see him when he wakens," said Roland, as the servants fell back at his approach, and the butler and housekeeper led the way to the dining-room, where a repast awaited him, and at which they attended upon him in all the fussiness of affection and reverence as the future head of the house.

"Ewhow! but I am glad to see you here again, Master Roland," exclaimed Elspat, with whom we need not trouble the reader much. "Ewhow!" she continued, stroking his thick dark brown hair, as she had been wont to do in his boyhood, "we have had an eerie time o't wi' the Laird in his illness, and last night I thought the worst was close at hand."

"Why, Elspat? why?" asked Roland, pausing over the liver wing of a chicken, while Runlet filled his glass with sparkling Moselle.

"Because the dogs in the kennel howled fearfully."

"Where was the keeper?"

"A' the keepers in the world wouldna quiet them!" she replied, shaking her old head.

"Why?"

"Dogs can see and ken when death enters a house."

"Death!—is my father's case so bad?" asked Roland, growing very pale, and setting down his glass.

"Bad—it couldna weel be worse," said she, in a broken voice, as she began to weep; "but the doctor—"

"Is in the house, I understand. Tell him that I am here. Oh, Elspat, have I crossed the broad Atlantic only to face death and sorrow?"

"Death and sorrow!" she added, shaking her head, "and I dread the fifth of August—it has aye been a fatal day to the Ruthvens. It was on that day your lady mother died, and on that day your uncle Philip, that should have been Laird, went forth and returned no more!"

Roland started impatiently to his feet, and something of a disdainful smile crossed his handsome face.

There is something grand and noble in the position of such a young man as he was—the descendant and representative of a long line of stainless ancestry, having the sense of carrying out its destiny in the future, and being the transmitter to other times and generations of its lofty traits and distinction.

No gamblers, "legs," or turf transactions ever degraded the line of Ardgowrie (pigeons there may have been, but never hawks), which, in a collateral branch, represented the attainted Earls of Gowrie and Lords of Ruthven, and if Roland had any weakness it was family pride, which he inherited from his father, who had left nothing undone to develop it; and with it grew the idea and conviction, that death were better than for a Ruthven to do aught that was dishonourable.

The second article of Roland's faith, like that of his father, was a profound veneration for the old Royal Scots, in which so many of the Ruthvens had lived and died, that they deemed it quite a family regiment, and many knew of no home out of it, and many, too, in battle or otherwise, had found their graves under its colours in all parts of the world.

As his father's son, Roland was a favourite with both battalions of the Royal Regiment, and he was the life and soul of the mess, and the most popular man in it.

In friendly rivalry with his chief chum and brother-sub, Hector Logan, of Loganbraes and that ilk (of whom more anon), he was the "show man" of the Royals. None occupied the box-seat of the regimental drag, or tooled the team to race-meetings or elsewhere, in a better style than Roland; in the cricket field, when stumps were down, and the runs were growing few, his batting and bowling were the last hope of the regimental eleven; and at hurdle-racing or steeple-chasing he was ever ready to ride any man's horse, however desperate the leaps or wild the animal, if he had not entered one for himself. Moreover, his good figure and social qualities, his known wealth and high spirit, made him a prime favourite with the other sex wherever the regiment went, and none could see any man's wife or daughter more adroitly or gracefully through a crush at the Opera, or anywhere else, than Roland Ruthven of the Royal Scots.

In all this he was exactly what his proud old father had been before him; but the latter indulged in aspirations that never occurred to Roland.

That even at this remote time Queen Victoria might restore the earldom of Gowrie to his family after the lapse of two hundred and forty years, had been the dearest hope of the old Colonel's life, especially in his latter years. It was a child's whim; yet other titles, such as Mar, Perth, and Kellie, had been restored, he was wont to say.

With all his long service he had failed to win great laurels as an officer, and now his hopes were centred on his only son; but as yet the fields of the Crimea had not been fought, and great wars seemed to have become things of the past.

Though ever kind, loving, and affectionate to Roland, the latter found that in his latter years his father had become somewhat of a stern, moody, and morose man, almost repellant to his county neighbours, whom as years went on he seemed to avoid more and more, and of this peculiarity Roland was thinking as the doctor, a spruce and dapper little personage, entered with his professional smile, and warmly welcomed him home, adding,—

"I have but to deplore the occasion of it, my dear sir."

"But what is his ailment, doctor?"

"I can scarcely say—it seems to be a general break up of the whole system."

"At his years that can scarcely be."

"He has been sorely changed since you were last at Ardgowrie, my dear sir; and there seems—there seems——"

The doctor paused, and played nervously with his watch-chain.

"There seems what?" asked Roland, bluntly.

"Something that I scarcely like to hint at."

"How, sir?"

"Well, if you will pardon my saying so, he seems to suffer more from illness of the mind than of the body."

"Of the mind?" asked Roland, haughtily.

"Yes; as if some secret preyed upon him. I have watched him closely from time to time, for the last few years, and such, my dear sir, is my firm conviction."

"Your idea seems to me incomprehensible, doctor."

"There is a skeleton in every house," said the other with a simper.

"Sir, you forget yourself," exclaimed Roland, with haughty surprise. "What skeleton could be in ours?"

"Pardon me—I used but a proverb. Your father is awake now," he added, as a distant bell rang. And Roland, considerably agitated and ruffled by what had passed, repaired at once to the sick chamber.