After the interesting tableau with which the last chapter concludes, the reader may consider that to say more were a useless task; but there are others in this narrative for whom I trust he—or she—may have conceived a little affection as well as for myself.
My friend, Jack Belton, was excellent at all manner of flirtation, and had an inimitable way of hanging sentimentally over a believing young lady's chair, and quoting Byron, or even Shelly, and giving her to know with all point and tenderness how, if
'——the sunbeams kiss the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea,
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?'
And Jack was always sketching or copying music for the girls about the garrison—i.e., making the band-master do so, and passing it off—like a rogue as he was—for his own. He was dazzled by Fanny Clavering; but his surprise and chagrin were great, to find that, when promenading the deck, she was quite as much enchanted with her old friend Callum Dhu as with himself.
'A private!' muttered Jack, stroking his bandolined moustache; 'demme, the girl's mad!'
After a time, he discovered that she was more than a match for him—a perfect flirt, who knew the language of the fan, as well as any girl of Cadiz or Almeria.
In the evenings when they sat on the deck, viewing the scenery of the Bosphorus, Jack was always by Fanny's side, watching her bright and beautiful face, and her sparkling eyes, that glanced waggishly upward, from under the prettiest of pink parasols with a long wavy fringe. Here would this coquettish Fanny deal her battery of smiling shots and wicked shells alternately at Jack Belton and my Highland follower, whom on some cunning pretence or other she contrived to keep pretty constantly about her; and on whom, to the unbounded wrath of Jack, she gave the especial care of her little Maltese spaniel—a silky-haired and Lillyputian cur, with a pug nose, a snappish eye, a silver collar and bell, all being the parting gift of some forgotten lover in the Rifles at Valetta.
Seated thus, with Jack by her side, and the handsome 'Callum in attendance,' as she phrased it, Fanny would speak to the latter of his home, of the Highlands, of Glen Ora, and poor Callum's honest heart was so completely won, that the memory of his dead Minnie was forgotten. He could have worshipped this beautiful English lady who knew so much about the clans and of other times, when that oppression of the poor, which now crieth to God for vengeance, was unknown in the land of the Gael; and who said so many kind and bewildering things to him; and though his plainness, his honesty, and manliness gained her respect—even as the heavy debt she owed him won her gratitude—his handsome face and noble figure, with his sincere eye and respectful manner, made so favourable an impression on the brilliant Fanny, that though making in her little heart, a vow for the thousandth time, not to coquette with the poor private soldier, she could not resist it; and the end of it all was, that the biter was bitten; for the dazzling Fanny fell in love with my henchman, even as the friend of my "Lady Lee," the proud and imperious Orelia Payne, did with her corporal of Dragoons.
Though a coarse red coat covered the broad breast of Callum Dhu, Fanny felt all his sterling worth, over the artificial flutterers who had surrounded her so long; and his superior officer, the fashionable Jack Belton, informed me with undisguised chagrin, 'that while my demmed fellow was present on deck, Miss Clavering seemed to have eyes for no one else.'
The end of all this coquetting, promenading, piano-playing, and music-turning, et cetera was, that our lively flirt consented one evening to become the lawful spouse of John Belton, Esq., of Her Majesty's —th Highlanders, but—after secretly pounding enough out of her many thousands to buy her Celtic lover a commission in the Turkish contingent—she levanted before daybreak, and was privately married at the chapel of the British Embassy to—Callum Dhu!
This little mésalliance rather soured Sir Horace, and intensely disgusted Jack, who quite forgot the fag-end of his mess-room ditty, anent being 'sad about trifles,' and started in a rage to join our first battalion at Balaclava.
I have procured sick-leave, as the doctors aver that the devil of a bullet made such a hole in my side that nothing will close or cure it but my native Highland air.
I am to return home—home to Glen Ora in the Fairy Bell, the yacht of Sir Horace, and we are to be married in due time after our arrival; for the worthy baronet, after mature consideration, was pleased to reiterate his consent, without apparently caring a jot about what that bugbear 'the world,' would say.
The old M.P. had met this personage—'the world,' in Parliament, and in the borough for which he is Member; he had met him at Almack's; at Crockford's; at Véry's; at the Opera; at Meurice's in Paris, and he marvelled in secret what this awful inquisitor, whose whereabouts is so dangerously vague, would say to the fact of his only daughter and heiress not becoming the wife of any of the blasé Honourables or sporting Peers to whom gossip had alternately assigned her; but simply plain Mrs. Allan Mac Innon, the wife of a hero, with only Her Majesty's 6s. 6d. per diem.
He took another glass of Moselle; pondered a little, and thought it was all for the best.
And so think I! With Laura for my bride, I would not envy Alexander of all the Russias on his throne.
The hearths of the people shall again be lit in Glen Ora; from the wilds of the Far West I will call the survivors home; and there, at least, the image of God shall no longer give place to grouse and deer—to sheep and dogs!
Reality never equalled anticipation, say casuists and moralists; but those fellows seldom smell gunpowder, and moreover never saw, never loved or were beloved by such a girl as Laura Everingham.
THE END
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.