On that morning, as soon as the clocks strike twelve, a cheer passes over all the towns and hamlets of Scotland, from the German to the Atlantic sea; many a bottle is broached, and many a bagpipe blown; and though the wild orgies and uproar, and sometimes the discharge of firearms, with which it used to be welcomed at every market-cross, are passing away, still the New Year's tide is a time of feasting, merry-making, and congratulations with all.
Even that solemn "Dundreary," my brother officer, Berkeley, thawed under the jovial influence of the society around him; but I was provoked to find that it led simply to very animated conversation between himself and Lady Louisa across the table. It referred to a past hunting affair, in which they had had some adventures together.
"We--haw--had not been there more than half an hour before there was a find," said he; "you remember, Lady Louisa?"
"How could I forget?" she responded, with charming animation. "The fox, a dull, reddish fawn one, with black back and shoulders, broke cover from among some gorse at the foot of the Mid Lomond."
"The hounds were instantly in full cry, and away we went. By Jove, it was beautiful! We cleared some garden-walls, where we left the general up to the chin in somebody's hothouse; and after that we took the lead of the entire field."
"We?" said I, inquiringly.
"Lady Louisa and myself," replied Berkeley, with one of his quiet, deep smiles; "we were better mounted, and in riding I--haw--flatter myself that few--few even of your Fifeshire hunt will surpass me."
"Well?" I said, impatiently, crushing a walnut to pieces.
"The meet was at the base of the Mid Lomond; the morning was everything that could be desired; the field was very small, but select; Sir Nigel, the general, Mr. Spittal, Lady Louisa, Miss Calderwood, Miss Wilford, and--haw--a few others. The pack was in a most workman-like condition, and, as Lady Louisa remembers, they soon proclaimed a find, with open mouth."
"Yes," said she, with her dark eyes lighting up; "away we went at racing speed, through the park of Falkland, a two miles open run at least, on, on, over 'bank, bush, and scaur----'"
"But the fox was evidently an old one. He tried some old coal mines, and then some field drains; but they had been carefully stopped by old Pitblado, the keeper. Yet we lost him at a deep pool on the banks of the Eden."
"But for a time only, Mr. Berkeley," resumed Lady Louisa. "You remember how oddly he was found in a cabbage-garden, and how we cleared the hedges at a flying leap, you and I going neck and neck; you must remember, too, how Sir Nigel's shout made all our hearts rebound!"
"Quitting the river-side, he broke southward for two fields, and ran straight through the home farm of Calderwood; on, on we rode, and drove him right in Kinross-shire; but doubling on the dogs, he led us back. Doubling again, we pursued him once more into Kinross; what did you think of that, general?"
"Left to my own reflections among the melon-beds, ten miles in your rear, I thought it devilish poor work when compared to tiger-hunting," growled the general.
"In and out of each county he went no less than three times in as many half-hours," said Lady Louisa; "and but for the darkness of the December evening, he would have been compelled to yield up his brush, had we not lost him in a thicket near Kinies Wood, at Loch Leven side."
"We lost more," said Miss Wilford, with a very decided expression of mischief in her very beautiful blue eyes; "for when the whole hunt assembled, Lady Louisa and Mr. Berkeley were nowhere to be found--the keepers shouted, and horns were blown in vain. Having taken the wrong road, they did not reach the Glen till half-past nine, when a storm of snow was falling."
"Which compelled us, Miss Wilford, to take shelter in wayside cottages at Balgedie and at Orphil," said Lady Louisa, with a tone of real annoyance, while her eye, like a gleam of light, dwelt for an instant on me; but the hunting anecdote and its conclusion piqued--cut me to the heart.
With such opportunities could Berkeley have failed to press his suit?
I glanced at him. His temporary animation had subsided; his pale and impassive face wore its usual quiet and cold expression; yet his eyes were keen, restless, and watchful, even cunning at times. He smiled seldom, and laughed--so to say--never.
Whether it was simply the memory of that winter day's sport, with all its excitement and concomitant danger, in counties so rough and hilly as Fife and Kinross, or whether it was some particular incident connected therewith that inspired her, I know not; but a flush on the usually pale cheek of Louisa Loftus made her look radiantly beautiful--like a dash of 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.