Chapter LXXII: Conclusion

Six months after the interview related here, I found myself on the brow of an eminence which overlooks the little wooded dell wherein lies the village in which the first chapter of this story opens, and where my mother's little cottage stands.

The month was October, and the russet hues of autumn, lent a sombre aspect to the evening landscape. The village and the scene were all unchanged as when I saw them before; and it was difficult for me to realize the events and years that had passed since last I stood there. But I had still on the uniform of a Scots Fusilier; Rowland Haystone was by my side, and I had left Georgette fatigued with her journey and our long voyage home in the _Adder_, at an hotel in town, while accompanied by my friend and comrade, I proceeded on foot to the residence of my mother.

The red crisped leaves whirled on the evening wind; a ruddy gleam played on the windows of the wayside houses from the coal fires within and a warm glow glared across the road from the smith's forge, where we heard the clang of a hammer on the resounding anvil.

The purple radiance of the set sun yet lingered on the heath-clad summits of the distant hills, whose long and wavy line spread far away to the westward; and every feature in the landscape, and every sound that fell on the ear, spoke to me of _home_, and filled my heart with a strange combination of joy and sadness.

Since those days, a railway has effected a great change in our little village. _Now_, an excursion train shoots ten thousand passengers through it at the rate of forty miles per hour. _Then_, its visitors were few. The war-worn soldier, travelling afoot with his knapsack, and with his memories of Granby, Cornwallis, and Abercrombie; the Heights of Abraham, and the Bay of Aboukir; the old familiar pedlar with his pack of trinkets and his blarney; the swarthy and uncouth gipsies, who made horn spoons and milking-pails; or the weary wayfarer with his proverbial staff and bundle, came there at times, leisurely, slowly, and surely; pausing on the brow of the hill, ere they descended into the densely-wooded valley, where the red mountain burn brawled hoarsely under an old bridge of the monkish times, or halted to drink a stoup of brown ale, or of limpid usquebaugh, at the old village inn, ere they pushed further on their journey into the busier world beyond.

Now, a giant viaduct, that might remind one of Rome or of Tivoli, save that its numerous arches are built of flaming red brick, spans, high in air, the wooded dell, leaping, as it were, from hill to hill; and then the huge train clatters and screams with its flaring red lights and brass-mounted engine, as it tears along with its living freight, or with countless trucks of luggage,--on, on, and on, as with a roar like thunder, it vanishes into the bowels of a tunnelled mountain. In those days, a newspaper which came once weekly, to the minister, served to inform the whole village of the doings of "the Corsican tyrant;" of the battle of Camperdown, and the glories of Trafalgar; but _now_, we heard how the Guards and Highlanders went up the heights of Alma, and of the valour of "the thin red streak" at Balaclava, as soon as the citizens of the great metropolis,--for we have our own electric wire as well as they.

Strange as it may seem in these our days of cheap postage and swift communication, in consequence of the wandering life I had led, and the desultory nature of our operations by land and sea in the Antilles, I had never heard from my home since leaving it, nor had any letters of mine been received; and thus, with a heart swollen by anxiety and mournful recollections, I made a rapid survey of the scene, dreading--I knew not what!

An aged thorn-tree that had overhung the road for centuries, and whereon many an outlaw had swung in the times of old--a tree whose gnarled branches I was wont to climb, had been cut down, and its _absence_ gave me a shock, so sensitive did vague apprehension make me. The roads and paths were all familiar as the faces of old friends; in boyhood I had traversed them a thousand times, seeking bird-nests, rabbit-holes, and scarlet berries in autumn.

The old manse recalled Dr. Twaddel the minister, with his white hair, his curved paunch, and his old bunch of red gold seals that hung thereat--and my poor mother's visit to him about _me_. How sadly I smiled when thinking of his monitory tones!--and there too, was the ancient church with its ivy-shrouded belfry, wherein an owl nestled by day and screamed by night. The old village signboards, and the old village sounds were around me; and now I was at the gate of the garden, in which Lotty and I used to plant flowers and shrubs--shrubs that had since grown to veritable trees; and _now_ after all my wanderings, after ploughing the great deep, and having had the roar of battle in my ear, and seen the colours of the Fusiliers riven to rags by shot and shell, I felt like a boy again when standing on my mother's threshold.

I was close to the first starting-place of the soul, yet my heart sank within me!

I was so full of anxious thoughts, that Haystone (rightly dreading lest strangers instead of friends might meet me) hastily rang the bell, and after speaking to a servant, returned, saying cheerily--

"All right, my boy--the old lady is alive and well."

"Thank God!" said I, as we were ushered in.

I stood once more within the little parlour (how very small it seemed?), on the walls of which the engravings of Wolfe and Cornwallis were yet hanging with my father's sword and gilded gorget--and my mother was before me, paler, thinner, and it might be more bent with years than when I saw her last. Her little work-basket, and a book or two, with her spectacles, were by her side, and a great sleek tom-cat was dozing on the hearthrug, in the warm glow of the fire.

On the entrance of two officers in uniform, the old lady rose with surprise and some alarm; it was evident that her seclusion was seldom broken.

A chair stood opposite, and seemed to say that Lotty had just left it,--to adjust her hair, or do something about her toilet, no doubt. I was trembling with emotion, and Haystone, who dearly loved a scene, and feared I might frustrate the effect he intended to produce, now said,--

"You must pardon us, madam; but we are two officers of the Scots Fusiliers, who were passing through the village, and hearing that you resided here, have called to pay our respects to the widow of one whose memory is still cherished in our regiment."

"For his sake, gentlemen, you are doubly welcome," replied my mother tremulously, as a film overspread her spectacles, and her heart warmed to the red-coats; "I was with the army in America; my husband marched with his regiment to fight the enemy on the banks of the Hudson; the firing was heavy all that dreadful day; and ere the sunset, I--I was a widow, and my children were fatherless! It was the will of God, and the chance of war."

"Your children," I stammered; "had you more than Lo--than Miss Ellis?"

"Sir, I had a son, who, had he been spared to me----" she paused, for her emotion became as deep as my own;--"Through the long hours of many a weary night I have watched, and wept, and prayed for him. Long his place seemed vacant, his chair and plate unoccupied; and when I carved for his sister, at our frugal little meals, a bitterness came over me, and I sighed, for there was no _other_ to help; but I am used to it now."

"He must have been a sad dog, this son of yours, madam," said Haystone, pinching my arm.

"Ah, sir! do not say so. He went out on a dreadful night--the night of a political riot, when the troops fired on the friends of the people, and when many men were slain; he disappeared and no trace of him could ever be discovered. Shall I tell you how hours and days, weeks and years rolled on, ere my sorrow became placid? But my first-born--my little boy was too dear, though lost, to be forgotten! his face, his eyes and voice, with a thousand little memories of him, were ever before me. People called him wild and wayward; but to me he was ever gentle and mild as the tender lamb, to which the blessed God tempers the wind of Heaven. But I weary you, gentlemen, by all this; I forget you cannot listen to it as my dear daughter Lotty does. While the young dream of the future, the old can only dream of the _past_."

"Madam," said Haystone, "such regrets as yours are most natural."

"I had two sons, it would seem," said my mother thoughtfully.

"Two?" I reiterated, fearing that her mind wandered.

"It seemed so to me, one, a dear little boy, whom I loved in childhood, and who loved me well; and _another_, who deserted me in manhood, for he who did so seemed so different from the curly-haired, waxen-skinned and bright-eyed little Oliver who slept in my bosom in infancy."

These words wrung my soul, and even Haystone seemed to think we were going quite far enough; but the old lady resumed.

"It has been a fearful--a terrible feeling this to me. He was the star of my life; the hope of my existence; the sharer of my humble crust; the joy and altar whereon were garnered up the hope and soul of a poor old widowed mother--but he left me! If yet he lives, may God forgive him--yea, as I do! ..... My dove went forth upon the waters; but, alas! he returned to me no more. The sunshine has seemed darker since I lost him; but it may be that my sight is dimmer; for as Ossian says, 'the years of age are dark and unlovely.'"

I felt ready to sink, for while saying all this, she had been gradually pushing the lamp nearer us across the table, and gazing wistfully and nervously at my face, for since I had spoken, _a mysterious chord_ had been stirred in her heart, and some fond memory of my features came vaguely and strangely over her.

The tears ran down my face as she drew nearer.

At last suspicion became conviction.

"Mother!" I exclaimed. We simultaneously uttered a cry and she sank into my arms, while Lotty, now a tall and handsome girl--handsome as Georgette herself--rushed in to join us, and Rowland Haystone, of whose presence we were long quite oblivious, certainly had the satisfaction of producing all the dramatic effect he desired.

On this tableau, can I do better than drop the curtain, when we were all so happy; and yet I have a word or two to add to the reader who has kindly followed me thus far by sea and land.

My mother was enchanted with Georgette, and so would you have been had you known her, for she proves to me all that the famous paragraph of Zimmerman expressed. Wealth flowed in upon us, for old M. de Thoisy, whom we left behind in Guadaloupe for a little time, chartered a vessel and raised the treasure of _La Lima_, which amply repaid the speculation by realizing our most sanguine expectations; and from that hour my old comrades of all ranks, drew on me as if I had been the Bank of England, or a species of regimental factor.

We had not been at home a week before I detected Haystone in the act of rhyming off to poor Lotty some of his usual love-speeches; on which I borrowed a leaf from Père de Thoisy's book, and at once took him to task on the subject; so the result was, that Lotty became Mrs. Rowland Haystone in three months after.

By this time the French had recaptured the whole of Guadaloupe, and heavily on my old comrades fell the slaughter of that day.

They defended Fort Matilda, our last stronghold there, till it was no longer tenable, so severely had it been injured by the enemy's fire; thus the Earl of Kildonan and Colonel Grahame resolved to abandon it on the night of the 10th December. One company, under Lieutenant Paterson and _Ensign Drumbirrel_, occupied the ramparts on the right of the great breach; Price, Colepepper, and Mackay, each at the head of their companies, fought bravely as they lined the bank of the Gallion river, when the whole garrison, with its stores and cannon, embarked on board the fleet of Admiral Jervis. By this time, the _three_ companies which covered the retreat, were reduced to six sergeants and ninety-two rank and file!

I loved my regiment well; to me it had been friends and kindred--home, a happy but movable home. We had shed our blood together; slept on the same turf; under the same tents; endured the same hardships, and shared the same glories, dangers, and disasters; for a "regiment is a permanent body, depending for its excellence on the general fellowship of a permanent set of officers--on their general relations with the non-commissioned officers and men under their command--a high _esprit du corps_--and the preservation of old associations and recollections connected with its past history and achievements."

We were a band of brothers, for there is among soldiers a deep fount of fraternity, of which the citizen knows nothing, and in which he cannot share. "My comrade--my brother soldier--my old brother officer!"--these, indeed, are endearing terms, and in the spirit they imbue we share our blanket in the bivouac, our last biscuit or ration bone, our last shot, and, too often, our last shilling, together!

Since the capture of Martinique and the loss of Guadaloupe, long years have changed, and war and pestilence have made sad havock in the ranks; death, distance, and time, have dug deep and fast their lonely graves on many a far and foreign shore--far from the land of the rock and the heather; but "while the kindling of life in my bosom remains," I shall remember with pride and joy the friends that I made, the dangers that I dared, and the years that I spent in the old regiment of Scots Fusiliers.

THE END.

COX AND WYMAN, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON.