Chapter X: The Forest of Gaich--Or the Captain Dhu (7)

The restless suspicions of his lady had now discovered a clue to something real and tangible; and now she had an object on which her vague jealousies could settle with security. Yolande de Gifford, the playmate of her absent son--the viper whom she had taken into her bosom at the entreaty of the cunning Abbot Bernard, was doubtless involved with her husband in one of those intrigues which had embittered her whole life, although she had never been able to detect them or discover solid proofs.

"Let me be wary and watch well," said she to herself; "should it be so, by the cross that stood on Calvary, my Lord of Badenoch shall pay dear for his fair-haired toy!"

Iago's words have been quoted a thousand times, and none are more true; for

"Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.....
Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste,
But, with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of sulphur."

Lady Comyn suddenly discovered that the timid Yolande had been abstracted and thoughtful, neglectful of her apportioned duties, and inattentive alike to the conversation of her companions and the commands of her mistress. Was not this a sign of love and of secret thoughts? She frequently and bitterly reprimanded her, till even the gentle Yolande could not forget that she was the Lord Yester's only daughter, and replied with honest pride and proper spirit, asserting her own position and rank.

"This insolence and hauteur are alike unbecoming," said Lady Gwendoleyne; "and you shall be banished, minion, from my hall and bower, though the poorest convent in Scotland be your portionless home!"

And assuredly this harsh threat would have been put in execution, but for the determined intervention of the Red Comyn, whose kindness to the orphan increased with his haughty wife's displeasure; and so she set her little black dwarf, who was dumb, to watch Yolande constantly. This dwarf was a present from Sir Thomas of Charteris, the famous Red Rover and pirate, who afterwards became Lord of Kinfouns, and was conquered on the high seas by William Wallace.

About the time that great preparations were making for the return of her son, the young Sir John Comyn, whom--whether the youth was so disposed or not---she meant to wed to his cousin, Alicia Comyn, daughter of the Lord High Constable, she was again imparting her griefs to Sir Alexander of Cavers.

"Comyn goeth from bad to worse; he braves me now, and dares to keep his minion here, whether I will it or no. By God's teeth, sir, could I but discover aught to prove my suspicions right, I'd slay that pale-faced Yolande with Red Comyn's own dagger!"

"I beseech you, lady, to compose yourself, and to be assured that your suspicions are alike unjust and cruel; for they malign your husband and crush this friendless maiden to the dust."

"I tell you that I hate her!" responded the imperious dame, grinding her beautiful teeth, while her magnificent eyes flashed fire.

"Then get her married," said the Chamberlain of Scotland, pithily.

"Who in these selfish times will be mad enough to wed the penniless daughter of a forfeited house? Who would ask her love?"

"I for one, were I young as herself; but let her seek a husband according to the ancient law."

"Sir Alexander, you mock me again."

"Heaven forbid, fair kinswoman; I do but remind you of an Act of Parliament passed in the reign of the late Queen Margaret."

"Pshaw--the Maid of Norway--well?"

"Anent spinsters, like this Yolande."

"Well--well," continued Gwendoleyne, stamping her pretty foot.

"In 1288, it was statute and ordained, 'that during the reign of her Most Blessed Majesty, _ilk maiden ladye of baith high and lowe estate shall have libertie to bespeak ye man she likes_: albeit, if he refuses to take her to be his wyf, he shall be mulctit of ye sum of one hundred pounds or less, as his estate may be, except and alwais, if he can make it appear that he is betrothit to ane ither woman, when he shall be free."

"Yolande is proud as myself, for she comes of a race that would not stoop their crests to kings; and this is but mockery, my Lord Chamberlain, so--but what is this now?"

At that moment the little black dwarf crept close to her side, pulled her skirt, and pointed towards the chamber of Yolande Gifford. The yellow glossy eyes of the stunted negro gleamed with malevolent light, as, snatching up her train, the lady swept out of the hall; and the Chamberlain shrugged his shoulders and blessed his stars that he was still a bachelor, while he whistled merrily, and resumed his employment of teaching a hawk to shake its little bells and coquette with its wings.

With all her pride and spirit, her furious will and temper, so completely had the demon of jealousy taken possession of her soul, that Gwendoleyne stooped to the humility of eavesdropping; and on hearing the murmur of voices whispering in the chamber of Yolande, she crept close to the thick arras that covered the door, and listened with all her soul in her ears.

"Go, I implore you," she heard Yolande say, in a stifled voice; "alas! if you are discovered here, what will my tyrannical mistress say?"

"Just what she pleases," replied a voice, and then there was a sound--a kiss--which set the listener's blood on fire.

"I am watched by that hateful imp her dwarf, and live in daily terror of her discovering all," continued the sobbing Yolande; "and you know what her views are concerning yourself. Go--go--John Comyn, for the love of God and Saint Mary, go!"

"_John Comyn!_" muttered lady Gwendoleyne; "oh, wretch! that I had a dagger here to avenge this double perfidy!"

A pause ensued.

"To-morrow evening be it, then--at the Roman Peel," said a low voice.

"When the moon is over Campsie Fells."

"You will not forget, beloved Yolande."

"Oh, no--no; and let that meeting be our last, for another day will change the face of everything," wept Yolande.

Unable longer to restrain her fury, the white hand of Lady Comyn tore aside the arras, and she rushed into the apartment with all the aspect of an enraged Pythoness, while at the same moment the figure of a man vanished from the open window, and his steps were heard crashing through the bushes and trees without, as he retired hastily and in the dusk; but Gwendoleyne saw--or thought she saw--enough, to be convinced that the fugitive was no other than her husband!

"Alas! madam," cried Yolande, sinking on her knees in an agony of terror, "you have discovered us."

"At last--yes, at last!" exclaimed the fierce, exulting woman, in hoarse accents, as she savagely wreathed her slender fingers, which rage had endued with triple strength, in the golden hair of Yolande, and proceeded to drag her several times across the oak floor; "beggar! viper! outcast!--ha, ha, ha! thou shalt die now!" and she laughed as she tore out those beautiful tresses in handfuls, till the poor girl's shrieks died away, and she sank senseless at her feet. Then Gwendoleyne locked her up, and after tying the key of the chamber to her silver girdle, retired to her own apartment to still the fierce tumult that swelled her fiery heart, and to lay her plans of deeper and surer vengeance. Alas! they were but too soon formed and matured for pity or remorse to arrest them.

The night passed away, and though she had alternate fits of tenderness and tears, with gusts of jealous rage and passion, the morning found her cold, calm, inexorable, and resolved to have a terrible retribution on the Red Comyn for this attempt to deceive her; and the arrival of a hasty message from him, stating that he was compelled to depart with a slender train on public business to the town of Dumfries, only made her smile the more bitterly, as she thought she saw the game her truant husband meant to play; but she resolved to checkmate him.

"Dumfries, my Lord Chamberlain!" she said, with a scornful smile upon her lovely lip; "now what fool's errand takes him there?"

"To hold a conference with Sir Robert Bruce, the young Earl of Annandale," replied the other, in a low voice; "the Bruces have some bold project now in hand."

"A project."

"Ay, to root the English faction and all Baliol's people out of Scotland. Comyn hath known of this project long, and duly gives King John and King Edward notice of its progress; thus Bruce ere long must perish amid his own plots and follies."

"And without waiting for our boy's arrival from Perth, without even bidding me adieu, Comyn has gone to confer with him? 'Tis well--I wish him speed on his journey. But there is _a prophecy concerning him_; so let him beware lest he perish by a violent death like his kinsman who died at Craigie, and who had no other grave than his own girdle."

"Now, grace me guide, lady, talk not thus," replied Sir Alexander, growing pale at her words, which referred to a terrible tale; for it came to pass in the days of King Alexander III., that it was foretold by Thomas the Rhymer, that Comyn Earl of Buchan, who was ranger of the royal hunting forests of Plater, would die by a violent death; so he mocked the seer, saying--

"Thou art Sir Thomas the Liar, rather than the Rhymer."

But the aged chief replied solemnly in verse, as was his wont when inspired by his mysterious power--

"Though _Thomas the Liar_ thou callest me,
The sooth, Lord Earl, I tell to thee!
By Aikeyside,
Thy horse shall ride;
He shall stumble and thou shalt fa',
Thy neckbane shall be broken in twa,
And the hunting dogs thy bones shall gnaw!
There, maugre all thy kin and thee,
Thine own belt thy bier shall be!"

And so it came to pass soon after, for when the earl was hunting in the gloomy Den of Howie, as he galloped over the green hill of Arkeybrae, his horse became dazzled by the setting sun, and threw him with such violence that his brains were dashed out by some blocks of grey stone, which to this day are named Comyn's Craigie, and there his bones were found after his hounds had gnawed and torn them asunder.

"So, for God's love, dear lady," resumed the Lord of Cavers with a shudder, "refer no more to these dark and terrible predictions."

The white lips of the haughty lady smiled, but a wild expression of rage and sorrow filled her eyes, and the glance she gave her kinsman was to him inexplicable, as she had not a doubt that this sudden journey was all a device of her husband to meet, or perhaps to elope, with Yolande. Dark and terrible were the silent thoughts of Gwendoleyne as the evening drew on. The old prophecy that like the Black Comyn, the Red one would _die by a violent death_, seemed ever before her in letters of fire; and she thought that now the time had come.

"How was I ever weak enough to expect that a fair-haired man could be true to me?" she muttered; "in all old Scripture tapestries are not Cain and Judas represented with large yellow beards, or red ones, like that of my husband Comyn! Oh, woe is me! and cursed be the hour I forsook Sir John the Grahame to become the wife of his home and the mother of his children!"

All that day she kept Yolande carefully under lock and key, and without food or drink, while the black dwarf watched the window and the corridor. The sunset faded on the green ridges of the Campsie Fells, evening darkened into sombre night, and the pale light of the moon, long before her rising, was spread across the blue and starry sky behind the hills of Lanarkshire. The woolly-leaved birches that fringed the banks of the Logie and Kelvin, diffused a rich fragrance as the dew of eve fell on them; and the lonely heron sent up its mournful cry at times, as it waded in the pools that gleamed below the castle walls.

Attired as Yolande, in a dress of _dark velvet starred with silver_, with her black locks gathered in a golden crespinette, a veil spread over her head and shoulders, and with her little white hand grasping the hilt of a jewelled dagger that was concealed in her bosom, the wife of the Red Comyn left the Castle of Kirkintulloch unseen by all, and by a little postern on the south, and, skirting the houses of the town, reached the trysting-place, the Caer-pen-tulloch, or old Roman fort at the west end of the hill. The fallen ramparts of the tower were eighty feet square, and the yellow broom, the green whin, the purple foxglove, and the sweet wallflower, all flourished together on the masses of fallen masonry which were covered by long grass that waved mournfully to and fro between the pale Gwendoleyne and the white starlight. The place seemed very silent, lonely, and desolate. All was intensely still, save the fierce beating of her heart, which teemed with passion, as her eyes did with tears she scorned to weep. Time stole away. The moments seemed like hours.

No one came! Could she have mistaken the place--the time?

Now the yellow moon began to peep above the distant hills, and its lustre glinted on the green mounds and shattered masonry of the ancient peel.

Up, up it came, and now its whole disc was gleaming above the dark mountain-ridge, and tipping each rock and peak with fire.

Gwendoleyne prayed in her heart that no one might come--that she might have been deceived--that Comyn, the father of her four children--but, hark! the hoofs of a horse rang hollowly on the green turf, and through the archway of the ruined enclosure rode an armed man, who sang merrily the same march to which, eight years after, Bruce marched his victorious host to Bannockburn.

"Hark to the tramp, from yonder camp,
Whence the Scottish spearmen come!
When they hear the bagpipe sounding,
_Tuttie taittie_ to the drum!"

"'Tis the Red Comyn's favourite song!" said she, shrinking aside; "now mayest thou be accursed from the bearing cloth in which thou wert baptized to that shroud of blood in which thou shalt lie! Now by the soul of him who loved me well, the Grahame who fell at Falkirk, and by the life of my son--my dearest hope--I shall have a terrible vengeance!"

The knight, on whose head was a plumed chapel-de-fer, with a mail coif that concealed the lower part of his face, wore over his armour an embroidered cointise, with the cognisance of the Comyns, two ostriches, with the motto "Courage." He dismounted, and after looking about him for a moment, discovered Gwendoleyne, to whom he hastened with an exclamation of joy, and she recognised on the breast of the surcoat some embroidery, on which she had but too surely and too lately seen the white hands of Yolande Gifford plying the needle! What other proof of perfidy was necessary?

An arm was thrown around her, and passionately and joyously she was pressed to the breast of the new comer. But while trembling with ungovernable fury to find herself exposed to embraces intended for Yolande, she drove her poniard in the heart of the lover twice, exclaiming,

"Die, villain and deceiver--die in your adultery--die!"

"_Mother--oh, mother!_" cried a voice, which froze the marrow in her bones; and the frantic and wretched Gwendoleyne discovered that she had slain--not the Red Comyn--but their beloved and only son.

The plumed _chapel-de-fer_ rang as the wearer sank to the earth.

A gurgling sound was all that followed; the ruined tower swam round that miserable woman, and, multiplied by a thousand times, the horse of the murdered knight seemed to career around her; till borne down by misery, by a revulsion of feeling, by over-tension of the heart, and by horror of what she had done, Gwendoleyne sank senseless on the body of her son.

The young Sir John Comyn had loved the orphan Yolande, and on his return had secretly wished to meet--perhaps, for all that we can learn now--to espouse her; but this terrible catastrophe ended his life and intentions together.

Meanwhile, like a true Scottish baron bent on selfish schemes of family ambition and degrading aggrandizement, Red Comyn had ridden fast to meet Robert Bruce, the younger, at Dumfries, and to concert with him a pretended plan to free Scotland from the English and from John Baliol; but of this scheme the red-headed traitor had duly informed King Edward from time to time. On Comyn's arrival in Nithsdale, the gallant Robert, afterwards King of Scotland, had fled in safety northward, by reversing his horse's hoofs, as the ground was covered with snow; and being furnished with clear proofs of his compatriot's villainy, he pursued him to the church of the Minorites at Dumfries, whither he had fled for sanctuary, being full of conscious guilt; but neither the house of God nor its high altar could protect this perfidious wretch, who was false to Scotland and her people; and the prophecy that "Red Comyn should die by a violent death" was terribly fulfilled; for there Bruce, Lindsay, and Kirkpatrick buried their daggers in his heart upon St. William's day, the 10th of February, 1306.

So perish all who are false to their country!

He was the last Comyn of the house of Badenoch, and was, moreover, the last of his race--a race which Scotland well could spare.

Lady Gwendoleyne never spoke after she was borne into the castle with the dead body of her son. She lived for five years a close captive in that yellow chamber, and during those terrible five years a word, even of prayer, never passed her lips; but a period was put to her sufferings, for this proud and resentful beauty died on the 10th day of February, 1310, at the hour of three in the afternoon, the anniversary of the very moment in which her husband died under the three daggers in the Minorite Church of Dumfries.

She was buried before the Shrine of St. Ninian, with all the grandeur of a princess and all the splendour of the Roman ritual; her son slept by her side, and Sir Alexander of Cavers reared a stately monument above them; but that fierce woman's restless spirit is still said to haunt the Castle of Kirkintulloch and the Roman ruins at the west end of the town; for it is supposed that she will never find repose or peace until the day of doom.

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Such was the story told to the captain by the castellan of the old fortress of Kirkintulloch, scarcely one stone of which now stands upon another, as it was removed about the beginning of the present century.

"And Yolande Gifford--what of her?" asked the captain.

"She did not die of love or grief either, but lived to be a very old woman, and passed away in about her eightieth year, when Robert III. was King, a prioress of the Bernardine nuns of St. Mary--a convent of which you may still see the ruins on the north bank of the Avon, about a mile above Linlithgow Bridge."

"A melancholy story!" said the captain; "what a devil of a wife that Gwendoleyne must have been--but no better than such an infamous traitor as Comyn deserved!"

"Beware ye, sir," said the castle bailie, lowering his voice, and looking furtively round him; "she is said to walk about--ay, at this very hour, and may pay you a visit that you may never get the better of."

"I'll be hanged, bailie, if I go up-stairs to-night--or this morning, rather," said my grandfather, laughing; "I would rather face the Dons at the Moro again, than meet that dame in black velvet with her devil of a dwarf--so make a fresh browst and stir up the fire."

The clock struck four.

"Four!" said the soldier; "four already; and we march in an hour!"

The bailie, who was a jolly old fellow, brewed a fresh jorum of hot toddy--by this time they had under their girdles ten jugs each; and my grandfather now began to spin _his_ yarns, and detailed the slaughter of Ticonderoga, the scalping and flaying at Fort Pitt, the storming of the Moro, where British musket-butts and the pates of the Dons tested the hardness of each other; he proceeded on the expedition up the Lakes, and had just opened the trenches before Montreal, when he found himself at the bottom of his tenth jug, the fire out, the bailie asleep in his easy-chair, and heard the warning drum beaten in the streets of Kirkintulloch--the warning for the march, while the grey dawn stole through the ancient windows.

It was daylight now, and fearless alike of Dame Gwendoleyne and her dwarf, my grandfather sallied down-stairs, and propping himself between his claymore and the walls of the houses, or an occasional pump-well as he passed it, reached the muster-place, and holding himself very erect, gave, with great emphasis, the command to "march." His detachment marched accordingly, and--here ends our story for the present.

VI.

STORY OF THE GREY MOUSQUETAIRE.

A FRAGMENT OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR.

Among the captains of "Ours" who had the honour of serving in the Seven Years' War was one named Allan Robertson, a gentleman of the clan Donnoquhy, and a cadet of the loyal house of Struan, who bore the singular soubriquet of the _Mousquetaire Gris_, and whose adventures during the early part of his military career were very remarkable.

In his latter years, when leading a quiet "half-pay life" in the Scottish capital, Allan was known to all the military loungers about "Poole's Coffee-house," at the east end of Prince's Street, then the great rendezvous of the military idler, as a warlike octogenarian--a silver-haired remnant of other days--and as a brave and warm-hearted old Highlander, who was so devoted to the memory of the 42nd, that he never saw those two numerical figures, even on a street door, without lifting his hat, and saying, "God bless the old number!" for his heart swelled at everything that reminded him of the venerable Black Watch.

The manner in which Allan joined the regiment was in itself romantic and singular.

Among the French army at the famous battle of Minden, in the year 1759, when the Household troops were led by Prince Xavier of Saxony, brother of the French Queen, no cavalry distinguished themselves more by the fury and valour of their reiterated charges than the _Compagnie Franche_, or "Free Company" of the Chevalier Jules de Coeurdefer, and two other bands entirely composed of gentlemen of the highest rank and of irreproachable character, who were named from the colour of their uniforms _Les Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges_, led by the Vicomte de Chateaunoir.

In the fury of their last attack, the gallant Prince Xavier was slain by the 51st Regiment, and the leader of the grey troop (for all these noblesse served on horseback) was left behind bleeding on the ground, though a desperate rally was thrice made by the energy of one Grey Mousquetaire to rescue and carry off the colonel. These noble rallies were made in vain; for, after a third attempt, the Mousquetaires were swept from the plain of Minden by the terrible charge of the Scots Grey Dragoons, led by old Colonel Preston, the _last_ soldier who wore a buff coat in the British service, and who had risen to command from being a kettle-drummer in the old Flanders War.

The faithful Mousquetaire fell in this flight, being pierced by a musket-shot from one of Lord George Sackville's Dragoons, and he lay all night on that sanguinary field, near the leader he had striven so valiantly and in vain to rescue.

A distinguished Highland officer, whose memoirs have been published, mentions that on the 2nd of August, the day after the battle, he rode over the plain, accompanied by Major Pringle of Edgefield.

"On one part of the field we saw a French officer, who had been wounded in the knee, sitting on the ground, with his back supported by a dead horse. We accosted him, and offered any assistance in our power. He proved to be the commanding officer of _Les Mousquetaires Gris_, and was distinguished by several orders, which, with a handsome snuff-box, had probably excited the cupidity of some of the wretches who are never found wanting in the train of an army. We left him in high spirits, having undertaken to bring a cart or tumbril to carry him from the field; but with the hasty imprudence of young officers, we rode off together on this duty, instead of one of us remaining with the wounded man. It could not be more than ten or twelve minutes when we returned with the cart, and found--to our unspeakable concern--the murdered body of the poor French colonel (the Vicomte de Chateaunoir) lying naked on the ground."

Another officer adds, that near the corpse of the unfortunate colonel, which had been so ruthlessly stripped by the German marauders and death-hunters, lay, pistol in hand, the Mousquetaire, who had made such vigorous efforts to save him in the last charge of yesterday. He was still breathing, and after having his wound hurriedly dressed by a surgeon of the 51st, he was conveyed to the rear, in care of Major Pringle, who was a son of Lord Edgefield, a distinguished senator of the Scottish College of Justice. At the place where they found him, the adverse artillery had furrowed up the plain like a ploughed field by their shot, which lay so thick and half sunk in the turf, that they resembled on iron pavement, strewn with all the destruction and debris of battle.

The Grey Mousquetaire was a tall and handsome man, bronzed by the weather and scarred by battle. On the breast of his grey uniform glittered those decorations which few of the corps were without--the golden crosses of St. Louis and St. Lazare.

Pringle conveyed him to his own tent, for he knew well that the Mousquetaires were all men of no ordinary rank, and there he supplied him with wine and other comforts. As yet, he had not spoken; but as he gathered strength, he began to mutter and talk to himself in a strange language.

"Assuredly this man is not a Frenchman!" said Pringle, kneeling down to listen.

The Mousquetaire Gris was praying in the Erse tongue!

"What--are you a Scotchman?" exclaimed the astonished major.

"A Highlander," sighed the other.

"I recognised your Gaëlic at once."

"Likely enough," responded the other, in a low voice; "the Gaelic was the first language I heard, and, please God, it shall be my _last_! I spoke but the tongue I learned at my mother's breast!"

"And you are a Mousquetaire Gris?"

"Yes--that grey uniform is all the inheritance which the dark day of Culloden has left me."

"Poor fellow!" said Major Pringle, with commiseration; "and you are--"

"Allan Robertson, of the house of Struan, who, thirteen years ago, was a captain in the Athole Regiment under his Royal Highness Prince Charles, whom God long preserve!"

"Hush--hush!" said Pringle, hurriedly; "remember that you are in the British camp."

"I care not," replied the other, with flashing eyes; "I have shouted his name at Preston, Falkirk and Culloden, and why should I shrink from naming him here?"

Major Pringle kept the Jacobite officer in his quarters, and in a few days he was able to sit up in a camp bed, and converse with ease and coherence; and many Scottish gentlemen of the army whose political sympathies were with the exiled race, frequented the tent, and supplied him with whatever he required and their own necessities could spare. He asked particularly about the wounds on the breast of his dead colonel, the Vicomte de Chateaunoir, and on being informed that they must have been done with a dagger, he became dreadfully excited, and exclaimed,

"Jules de Coeurdefer has murdered him!"

"Who?" exclaimed Major Pringle and several officers who were present.

"A wretch most justly named Coeurdefer, who serves in the French army, to its disgrace; a noble and an outlaw--a soldier and a robber! a ribaud, with whom the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges have had more than one sword-in-hand encounter."

Among the mass of papers and regimental memoranda, from which these legends are gleaned and prepared, I find this Chevalier Jules de Coeurdefer frequently mentioned us a prominent character during the early part of the Seven Years' War; and some of Robertson's adventures with him during his service in the Grey Mousquetaires were very remarkable. His narrative was as follows.

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"We, the Red and Grey Mousquetaires, by forced marches from Paris, quitted the gay Court of Louis XV., and joined the army of M. de Contades about the end of May, crossed the Rhine with him at Cologne, and on the same day the Free Band of the Chevalier de Coeurdefer joined us, to the great annoyance of the whole army; for our hitherto quiet and well-ordered camp became a scene of incessant disquiet, by drunken brawls, duels, and severe military punishments; for as this _Franche Compagnie_, like the wild Pandoors of Baron Trenck, subsist only by gambling and secret robbery in camp, and by open plunder and ruthless bloodshed in the field, you may imagine our repugnance to co-operate with them; and our astonishment that leaders so strict as M. de Contades or Prince Xavier of Saxony would tolerate their presence among us for a moment. Their ranks were filled by men of all nations--runaway students, spendthrifts, cashiered officers, deserters, fugitive malefactors--in short, by men ready for any desperate work, and being deemed the cheapest food for gunpowder, they had enough of it.

"Their captain, the Chevalier Coeurdefer, is the representative of an ancient but decayed family in Lorraine, who spent his patrimony among the gambling-houses, the cabarets and bordels of Paris. Dismissed summarily from the French line when a captain in the Regiment du Roi for barbarously slaying a brother officer, after severely wounding him in a duel about a courtesan, he has now joined our army against the Prussians, in the hope of winning himself a new name by reckless bravery, cruelty, and outrage. He is handsome and young, but without fear of God or man; without religion, and without honour. Even their chaplain--"

"What! they have a chaplain?" exclaimed Pringle, laughing.

"Yes, a canon of Notre Dame, who was unfrocked by the Archbishop of Paris for having an affair with a citizen's wife in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He is a burlesque on the clerical character, and fights--as I was about to say--more duels than even the chevalier his leader. One of this choice band plundered a church at Cologne, and as sacrilege could not be tolerated, Prince Xavier made a great hubbub about it. The thief had been seen; he wore the tattered uniform of the _Franche Compagnie_, and had huge red whiskers. The chevalier paraded his men next day for inspection. Bearing a piece of the true cross, the holy fathers came along the line in solemn procession to discover the culprit; but lo! every man was shaven to the eyes, and not a vestige of whisker was to be seen in the whole band of the Chevalier Jules.

"On the 2nd June, 1759, with the force of M. de Contades, we joined the Maréchal Duc de Broglio near Giessen, and left M. d'Armentieres with twenty thousand men to oppose Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, in the neighbourhood of the Wesel; and on this important day we had an open rupture with the Free Company of Coeurdefer, for when detailed together to form the advanced guard of horse, the gentlemen of the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges flatly refused to share a post of honour with a corps of outlaws. Then the chevalier, flaming with irrepressible fury, flung his glove in the face of our colonel, Henri the Vicomte de Chateaunoir, with whom he had an old unfinished feud, and a duel to the death was only prevented by the determination of the maréchal duc, who bound them both down by solemn promises to keep the peace towards each other, at least until the close of the campaign; but the villain Coeurdefer made a vow of vengeance, swearing to 'lay the vicomte at his feet, where he had laid many a better man;' and you see how he has kept that vow, for by him or by his men our wounded leader was murdered on the field on the morning after Minden!"

"I do not understand," said Major Cringle, in whose tent this conversation took place one evening, when, with a few droppers-in, he and the now-convalescent Mousquetaire lingered over a few bottles of Rhenish wine; "in fact, it seems to me a marvel how a gallant soldier such as the late Prince Xavier of Saxony could tolerate the presence of such a ruffian and bully as this Captain Coeurdefer."

"For various reasons; he is brave----"

"Bravery is no strange quality in the French or Imperial armies, I think," said one of the 51st.

"Moreover, he is an expert forager, skilful in war, useful in council, and leader of two hundred troopers, who have only one virtue--their devotion to him. Besides, the brutal qualities he displays are not singular in the history of wars in Germany. We have had many such examples as he among the mixed races which make up the armies of France and Austria.

"In the last century there was the terrible Count Merode, a colonel of musketeers, whose name has become a proverb for all that is vile; and there was the ferocious Jehan de Wart, a colonel of horse, who in Bavaria spared neither man, woman, nor child, when the lust of blood glowed in his fiery heart."

"Thank Heaven! we have no such fellows among us," said the officer of the 51st, complacently.

"Sir," said Allan Robertson, with a cloudy brow, "you forget the nine of diamonds--the exterminating order of Cumberland, written on the night before we fought you at Culloden."

"But the assassination of your poor colonel," began Pringle, hastily, to change the turn the conversation was taking.

"Ah! that was a frightful episode in this new war; and yet believe me, my dear major, Coeurdefer has committed many such acts, and has always contrived to elude the hand of justice. Witness his vow to lay our colonel at his feet, where better men had lain. Liar that he is! Chateaunoir was the first gentleman in France! But true it is that, of the many who have lain at the feet of Jules, few have fallen in battle or fair combat."

"You seem to have serious cause for disliking him," said Pringle.

"Disliking!" reiterated Robertson, while his eyes sparkled and his pale face glowed with anger--"say abhorring him!"

"You had your sword," said the officer of the 51st.

"But it is the sword of a Mousquetaire," replied Robertson, sternly; "the chevalier ranks with a field officer."

"True," said Pringle; "you must pardon my friend, who forgets surely what discipline inculcates. And the cause of this animosity?"

"Is a dark and painful story," sighed Robertson, as he drained his green glass of Rhenish, and tossed it on the turf floor of the tent.

"Let us hear it."

"Before the rising of the clans in 1745," began Robertson, "I was a student at the Scottish College of Pontamousson, where I learned Latin and the classics under the tuition of old Father Innes. I had then a dear friend named Louis d'Herblay, a native of Remiremont, at the foot of Mount Vosge in Lorraine. Louis was handsome, brave, and courteous; an expert maker of verses; a tolerable player on the guitar, and a smart handler of his sword, which he had seldom occasion to use, for he was beloved by every one; a successful love affair with Mademoiselle Annette, a pretty and sprightly girl, had put him in the best of humours with all mankind. Annette was the only daughter of the old Marquis de Chateaunoir, father of the vicomte of that title, Great Maréchal of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc.

"Jules Coeurdefer, the spendthrift, gambler, and roué, was then, to our great regret, at college with us too, and having not yet come to his estates, his finances being far below his ambition and expenditure, to keep these equal he had betaken him to cards, dice, successful bets, to bullying some and cajoling others--and to every means his wild and wayward course of life permitted--a course which was the scandal of the good fathers of Pontamousson, and soon procured him the only favour he wished at their hands--expulsion.

"Between him and Louis d'Herblay there grew an aversion--a hatred that waxed stronger daily; an antagonism on his side, but on the part of Louis a cold and haughty bearing; for he despised the life and habits of Coeurdefer, whom he had thrice fought and thrice disarmed, when involved with him in tavern brawls beyond the college gates; for _within_ these barriers no sword or other weapon was ever worn. But in the very spirit of a Venetian bravo, Jules was known, or suspected, to bear about his person a small _crystal poniard_, the most savage of all weapons for inflicting a wound; as the blade, when broken off at the hilt, remained like a deadly sting in the body of the victim. It was a weapon which could be used but _once_ only, and then with terrible effect.

"I have mentioned that my friend D'Herblay had a successful love affair. As a trophy of it, he wore at his breast an antique cameo of great size, set round with diamonds, and within it was the hair of Annette concealed by a secret spring. He was not rich, but was sufficiently wealthy and well born to render him an acceptable suitor even to the most wary of fathers; thus it had been arranged that, as soon as he left college, his marriage would be celebrated. Father Innes, our old preceptor, was to perform the ceremony; all the students congratulated Louis, and looked forward to his nuptials as to a _fête_--at least, all save Coeurdefer, who kept ever aloof from him, and smiled with the quiet covert smile of malice and hate, when D'Herblay or his affairs were mentioned in his presence.

"At last came the time appointed for Louis to leave the college, and I was to accompany him to Remiremont. He bade adieu to all the old Scottish priests of Pontamousson, and severally shook hands with all his brother students--all till he came to where Coeurdefer was lounging outside the gates smoking a huge German pipe; and D'Herblay, in the happy fulness of his honest heart, being unwilling to leave a foe behind him, approached and held out his hand, saying--

"'Farewell, M. le Chevalier, though we have not always been the best of friends, I nope we do not part as enemies. Here is my hand to you--my hand, in token of friendship and future amity."

"Despite the honest frankness that beamed in the blue eyes of D'Herblay and the confiding generosity of his speech, the coarse Jules Coeurdefer gave him a sullen frown, and while rudely emitting a volume of smoke full in his face, with a sullen gesture of contempt, strode away.

"All the students muttered 'Shame!' and for a moment a cloud hovered on the usually smooth brow of D'Herblay.

"'Bah!' said he, turning to me, 'one who is so happy as I, can well afford to pity the wrath of one so poor in spirit and in Christian charity. Farewell, Jules,' he added, as we leaped on our horses; 'when next we meet, we shall part less sullenly.'

"'Yes--when next we meet, our parting _shall_ be different,' replied Coeurdefer, looking over his left shoulder, with a black frown in his face, as we trotted from the college gates.

"'He means me mischief--pooh! let the fool do his worst,' said Louis. We soon dismissed him from our thoughts, and laughing and chatting gaily, waving our hats to the old people, and kissing our hands to the young girls, we rode through the old familiar streets of Pontamousson, and took the road that led direct to D'Herblay's home, which lay more than twenty leagues distant. And now, gentlemen, observe that _within one hour_ after we left the college gates, Jules de Coeurdefer, alone and unattended, also departed on horseback, ostensibly to return to his father's house on the French side of the Rhine.

"We cantered along the road to Nancy, between the yellow cornfields, feeling happy as boys in our new freedom, and singing together a song which Louis had composed in honour of Annette de Chateaunoir, and thus we pushed on without halting at the capital of the duchy, save for a few minutes at a jeweller's, where my friend bought a diamond bracelet for his future bride. Blaziers and Neufchateau were soon passed, and then we reached Epinal, which, in 1466, was bestowed upon the once independent princes of Lorraine; and their castle, now a ruin, crowns an eminence above it.

"Epinal is within ten miles of Remiremont, and there we were compelled by the state of our horses to halt, notwithstanding the impatience of my friend, to whom a night spent so near the residence of Annette seemed an age, and the ten miles that intervened a thousand leagues; but we called for supper and made ourselves comfortable at an auberge. Louis assumed his guitar, and we sought to while away the time; and the hours flew quickly, for we had a thousand plans to form and things to talk of.

"Alas! how little did we dream that Jules de Coeurdefer, like a bloodhound, was tracking us swiftly and surely, by Nancy, Blaziers, and Neufchateau, and had actually lodged himself in an auberge opposite ours, at Epinal.

"After sitting up late, we retired. Overcome by an excessive lassitude, induced by the long and arduous journey of the past day, I fell into a deep and profound sleep--so deep indeed, that the noon of the next day had rung from the church bells ere I awoke, and inquired for my companion. Thus, you may see, sirs, the difference between one who is a lover and one who is not.

"Louis had been up with the lark, as the aubergiste informed me, and full of impatience to visit his mistress, had mounted a fresh horse, and set forth alone, leaving a message for me to follow him to the mansion of the marquis, near Remiremont; adding, as an apology for his abrupt departure, that he was loth to rouse me from a slumber so comfortable and profound.

"I ordered my horse, paid my bill, and departed at leisure, for I had no hope of overtaking him. An easy trot of tea miles brought me to Remiremont, which is a pretty little town on the left bank of the Moselle, and without difficulty I reached Chateaunoir, the fosse of which was filled by the river. The edifice was ancient, surmounted by heavy turrets and all built of _black_ stone (hence its name), and it stood embosomed among fine old trees.

"I sent up my name, and inquired for M. d'Herblay.

"'How--is he not with you, M. Allan?' asked the old marquis, with astonishment in his tone and manner.

"'No,' said I; 'he quitted Epinal at least four hours before me, leaving a message for me to follow him hither.'

"'Four hours before you, and he has not arrived yet!'

"'This is most perplexing, M. le Marquis!' said I.

"'Oh, mon Dieu! what can have happened?' exclaimed mademoiselle, whom I now saw for the first time, and who was a fair blonde, with a beautiful skin and long dark eyelashes, which lent a softness and inexpressible charm to her face.

"I could not reply. My heart misgave me; for knowing D'Herblay as I did, I feared that something most unusual must have occurred to prevent his appearance at the chateau.

"Noon passed; the sun verged westward, and still he did not appear. I became seriously alarmed; the old marquis was perplexed and irritated; while Annette wept in silence.

"Horses were ordered at last, and with Chateaunoir, his son the Vicomte Henri, afterwards Colonel of the Grey Mousquetaires, and all his servants, I set forth to search the roads and inquire for my friend. For some time we prosecuted this object in vain; but after much labour and anxiety, judge of our horror, when in a secluded orangery, about two miles from Epinal, the young vicomte found a man lying on the grass wounded, bleeding and dying, surrounded by a group of pitying and terrified vine-dressers.

"The damps of death were on the brow of this unfortunate, who proved to be my friend, poor Louis d'Herblay.

"He was frightfully pale, having received several wounds--one of these in the bosom occasioned him the most exquisite agony. From this wound he had bled for some hours undiscovered, and now he was beyond all hope of recovery. Revived partially by our presence, by a cordial poured between his lips, and by the stoppage of the crimson tide which had soaked the soil whereon he lay, in broken accents and at long intervals, he related what had befallen him; and every word he uttered there, so slowly, painfully, and laboriously, sank deeply in our hearts, for they were too surely the last words of the dying.

"Loth to arouse me untimeously at Epinal, my kind friend had arisen, and softly descended the wooden stair, saddled his horse, and left the auberge by dawn. He departed from Epinal at a canter, and in the overflowing happiness of his heart was singing merrily, when at a solitary part of the road, he heard the hoofs of a galloping none, and a voice impetuously calling upon him to stop. Believing this follower was I, who had discovered his secret and hasty departure, he turned to find himself confronted by a tall stranger, whose face was concealed by a black velvet mask, and whom he believed to be a brigand or assassin.

"'Monsieur,' said the strange horseman, in a voice which, by its varying tones, was too evidently disguised as his face, 'you are abroad betimes.'

"'As you also are,' replied Louis; 'but was it you, monsieur, who called upon me to stop?'

"'It was.'

"'For what purpose?'

"'That you shall shortly see.'

"'Shortly--nay, as soon as you please, for I am in haste.'

"'Indeed!' said the other scornfully and slowly.

"'What is your wish, sir?'

"Simply, that you measure swords with me in this meadow.'

"'Why?' asked Louis, with astonishment.

"'I intended to have pistolled you through the back, _sans cérémonie_, at first; but my heart relented; thus, I mean to afford you a chance of saving your miserable life--though I must have your purse and valuables.'

"'You are, then, a robber."

"'If one whose funds are down to zero, and who is desperate, be a robber, then I am one,' replied the mask, still in his feigned voice.

"'I am no poltroon, yet I will gladly save your soul the commission of a double crime,' said poor D'Herblay, who was the very mirror of generosity; 'here is my purse, good fellow--pray accept it and be gone, for I have no time to trifle with you.'

The unknown coolly put the purse in his pocket and drew his sword, saying, with an ironical laugh--

"'I thank you, though I would have had it, at all events; but still,' he added, grinding his teeth, 'you must fight with me!'

"'Leave me until to-morrow,' said Louis; 'there is one awaiting me at Remiremont--one expecting me to-day--whom I would not disappoint--a lady who loves me, monsieur.'

"The stranger laughed scornfully.

"'Let me see her but once again, and I shall meet you with joy.'

"The stranger laughed louder, and said bitterly--

"'Why not meet me now?'

"'I know not,' urged poor D'Herblay, who was anxious to ride on; 'but your presence chills my heart--I have a dark and solemn presentiment.'

"For a third time the other laughed ferociously, while his eyes sparkled through the holes in his mask, and he menaced D'Herblay with his sword, saying--

"'Fight--fight!'

"'To-morrow--I tell you, to-morrow.'

"'Never--be it now or never!'

"'I am too full of happiness to fight.'

"'Happiness!'

"'She whom I love--she whom I am to wed, expects me at Remiremont.'

"'She whom you love, and whom you hope to wed, shall never see you, but as a breathless corpse, fool!'

"'If I am slain, who will bear my last words to Annette?'

"'The spirits of the air or the demons of hell--I care not which,' was the fierce response.

"'Fool that I was to leave the auberge without my friend. Moreover, I decline to fight with a rascally _ferrailleur_!'

"This epithet, which is used in France to distinguish a person who, without provocation, delights in quarrelling and forcing others to fight, made this highway brawler tremble with rage.

"'Coward!' he thundered out.

"'Hah!' exclaimed Louis, leaping from his horse, and in his passion forgetting all but vengeance.

"'Coward, come on!' reiterated his assailant.

"Louis pressed to his lips the cameo locket which contained the hair of Annette, and with a prayer to Heaven that he might be spared to see her, rushed upon his furious antagonist. A desperate duel began, and so ably were the voice and costume of the masker disguised, that never once did a thought of Jules de Coeurdefer cross the mind of D'Herblay. They had withdrawn from the roadway into an orangery, and taken off their coats and vests to afford them greater freedom. A perfect fencer, Louis stood erect, with his head upright, his body forward on a longe, all the weight on his left haunch--feet, hands, body, arm and sword _in a line_, and completely covered by his weapon.

"Their swords clashed and gleamed in the bright morning sun; both were expert combatants, and most of their passes were skilfully made and as skilfully parried. The masker made a feint to the left, but changing the attack, suddenly ran his weapon through the sword-arm of Louis, fairly wedging the blade between the bones below the elbow, and covering his shirt with blood in a moment. Paralysed by this, his future defence was feeble. He received repeated wounds, and was at last laid prostrate on the earth, bleeding and senseless.

"'Lie there, thou moonstruck fool!' exclaimed his ruthless conqueror, giving him a final stroke in the breast. Tearing away the cameo locket, he left the unhappy D'Herblay a dying man, for he expired in our arms as we were conveying him to Remiremont.

On examining the wound in his breast, we found that it had been made by the blade of a _small crystal poniard_, which was purposely broken off from the hilt and left rankling in the orifice to insure by a mortal stroke the death of the victim!

"My first thought was of Coeurdefer, whom I knew to be the possessor of such weapons, which he had brought from Venice, where they are commonly used by the bravoes; but the proofs I could adduce were too slight for me, a stranger and a foreigner, to accuse the son of a powerful baronial family; thus the terrible suspicion remained locked in my own breast--a suspicion that grew less, however, when I remembered that the victor, like a common footpad, had taken the purse and locket of my poor friend.

"The grief of a kind, warm-hearted, and affectionate girl like Annette may be imagined. She wept little, but her sorrow was the deeper that it was unrelieved by any external manifestations. She was long inconsolable.

"Now came the war consequent to the League formed at Vienna, in 1757, to strip the King of Prussia of his dominions, and an alliance was formed by France, Austria, Russia, and Sweden, when Britain declared war against the former, and all Europe seemed to 'go by the ears' at once.

"The old Marquis de Chateaunoir marched as Colonel of Horse under the Maréchal d'Estrées, and fell at the passage of the Rhine. His son, the Vicomte Henri, became a soldier, too, and soon obtained the command of the Mousquetaires Gris, into which I, then a fugitive from the Scottish Highlands, was admitted by his request; but long before all this poor little Annette had become a canoness of Remiremont.

"This ecclesiastical establishment, by the peculiarity of its constitution, is one of the most singular in the church. It was founded by St. Romerick, a famous abbot, who lived in the days of Clotaire II., and who built his first convent on what was then a bare and desolate place, at the foot of Mount Vosge. All the ladies in it, the abbess excepted, take certain vows, reserving to themselves the right of quitting the convent and marrying if they please; and all must prove their nobility by four descents before admission. The abbess had both spiritual and temporal power under the Pope and Dukes of Lorraine.