James Grant

“ Roland and Elliot had command of different boats, so they could commune no more, even when they moored for the night by the river's bank, when the crimson sun had set in ruddy splendour beyond the gray hills of the Bayuda Desert, and the dingy yellow of the Nile was touched by the afterglow, in which its waves rippled in purple and silver sheen, while the dark, feathery palms and fronds swayed slowly to and fro in the friendly breeze, and the great pelicans were seen to wade amid the slime and ooze where the hideous crocodiles were dozing. ”

“ So Roland was gone, and apparently out of her life more than ever now.
Notwithstanding that he certainly had not treated her well at Merlwood, Hester was for a time quietly inconsolable for his departure, which he had taken in a mood of mind rendered so stern and reckless by the episode of Annot, that she pitied him.
He would, she knew, court danger and wounds; seek perhaps every chance of being killed—dying far away from friends and kindred—dying a soldier's death without getting, perchance, even a grave in the hot sands of the desert. ”

“ But can you, Hester, or anyone, explain this cruel duplicity? To me it seems as if I were still in the middle of a horrid dream—a dream from which I must suddenly wake. That she, so winsome and artless apparently—so gentle and loving, should become so cold, so calculating, so mercilessly cruel now!'
'I always mistrusted her,' said Maude bitterly. 'People call her eyes hazel—to me they always seemed a kind of vampire-green.'
Roland made no reply, but he was thinking with Whyte-Melville:
'Who shall account for the fascination exercised by some women upon all who approach their sphere? ”

“ Well, Roland, that is better fun, I suppose, than carrying the lines of Tel-el-Kebir!' And the old gentleman laughed at his own conceit till he felt his Jhansi bullet cause an aching where it lodged. This companionship filled the heart of the girl with supreme happiness, and more than once she recalled the words of a writer who says of such times: 'I think there are days when one's whole past life seems stirred within one, and there come to the surface unlooked-for visions and pictures, with gleams from the depths below. ”

“ In the morning he had no assurance that he should see night—in the night that he would be a live man in the morning.
Anything—death itself—were better than this keen and cruel suspense.
One evening about sunset there was a vehement beating of tom-toms, and a body of Baggara Arabs, some on horseback, others on camels, but many on foot—a fierce and jabbering mob, all but nude—though well-armed with bright-bladed Solingen swords and excellent Remington rifles, passed the zereba, bound for some point of attack; and the Sheikh Moussa, with every man he could muster, joined them in hot haste. ”

“ When the gloaming was considerably advanced, and, though a ruddy sunset lingered in the north-west, there was no moon in the sky, where the evening star shone brilliantly, they had wandered down the river-side—its current flowing like molten silver when seen between and under the dark, overshadowing, and weird-like trees—to where, on the summit of its high and grassy knoll, the beautiful chapel of Roslin towered up between them and the sky-line—the solemn scene, as Scott has preserved it, of one of the most thrilling and poetical of all family presages of death and war ”

“ Because I love the splendid patrimony that, in time, will become his; this beautiful estate, this grand old house, the parure of family diamonds, and the settlements that must be made upon me. I always meant to marry the first wealthy man who asked me, and now I am only true to my creed—the creed mamma taught me. Can anyone blame me for that? Of course I would rather a thousand times have had poor Roland with Earlshaugh, because he is a man that any woman might love and be proud of; but failing him, I must put up with the person and name of—Hawkey Sharpe. ”

“ Annot's equanimity amid these influences grieved Maude and annoyed Hester, who recalled her twaddling grief when Roland had been but a few hours absent from her in Edinburgh.
'How can she bear herself so?' said Maude.
'Because she is heartless,' replied Hester; 'and to say the least of her, I never could imagine Annot, with all her prettiness and espièglerie, at the head of a household, or taking her place in society like a woman of sense.'
Hour succeeded hour, and still there was no appearance of Roland, and the clang of the great iron bell in the porte-cochère was listened for in vain. ”

“ Though a niece of Sir Harry's, Annot Drummond was no cousin to Roland Lindsay, yet she seemed quite inclined, erelong, to adopt the rôle of being one; for he was quite handsome enough and interesting enough in aspect and bearing to attract a girl like her, who instinctively filled up her time with every chance-medley man she met, and knew fully how to appreciate one whose prospects and positions were so undoubtedly good; thus she repeatedly turned with her irresistible smiles and espièglerie to him, as if he were her sole, or certainly her chief, audience. ”

“ But once again, in the long shady avenue near the Weird Yett, when Maude was idling there, under the cold blue sky of an October evening, with Jack Elliot—idling in the happiness a girl feels when on the brink of her marriage with the man she loves with all the strength of her warm heart—the man whose voice and the mere touch of whose hand gives joy—she felt that heart turn cold when she detected Annot—her brother's fiancée—bidding a hasty adieu to the stranger before referred to—clad in a red hunting coat, and leading his horse by the bridle. ”

“ Does love once born lie dormant to live again?
Judging by his own experience, he thought so, with truth.
More than once when he had gone forth into the world with his regiment he had almost forgotten the little Hester as she had been to him, a sweet, piquante, and dainty figure amid the groves of Merlwood, and in the background of his boyish days; then in his soldier's life, she would anon flit across the vista of memory, fondly and pleasantly, till he learned to love her (ere that other came, that Circe with her cup and the dangerous charm of novelty) ”

“ A century later had seen it the favourite trysting-place of Roland Lindsay, the younger, of Earlshaugh, and a daughter of a neighbour, the Laird of Craigie Hall, till the former left with his regiment, the Scots Guards, for Spain. One evening the girl was lingering there, in the soft violet light of the gloaming, impelled by what emotion she scarcely knew, but doubtless to dream of her lover who she thought was far away, when suddenly a cry escaped her, as she saw him appear, in his scarlet uniform, with feather-bound hat—the Monmouth cock—his flowing wig, and sword in its splendid belt ”

“ Bullets sang past, thudded in silvery stars on the rocks, cut the clothing, or raised clouds of dust; comrades and dear friends were going down fast, as rifles were tossed up and hands were lifted heavenward—as, more often, men fell in death, in blood and agony; but good fortune seemed to protect the untouched, and then came the clamorous and tiger-like longing to close in, to grapple with, to get within grasp of the foe!
In this spirit Roland went on, but keeping his skirmishers well in hand, till they reached the high rocks in front, when they rushed between or over them ”

“ Often had the boats to pause in their downward way, while the melancholy duty was performed of burying those whose journey in life was over, by the river bank, uncoffined, in nameless and unrecorded graves, where the ibis stalks among the tall reeds, and the scaly crocodile dozes amid the ooze.
And as the boat in which he lay under an awning glided down the Nile Jack Elliot was often in a species of stupor, and muttered at times of his boyish days at the High School of Edinburgh; of the brawling Tweed when he had been wont to fish at Braidielee ”

“ Roland does not seem a flirting fellow, whatever the girl may be, and she is plain when compared with my Hester; yet he looks like a shorn Samson in the fairy hands of this little golden-haired Delilah, and seems never happy except when with her. It appears to me that people nowadays always fall in love when, where, and with whom they ought not. Ah, he is one of the "Lightsome Lindsays;" yet I never saw anyone so changed,' added Sir Harry, who had latterly found him wax weary of his Indian reminiscences. ”

“ Mounted on a splendid Arab, whose rider he had slain in the battle of the 29th of April, Roland Lindsay led one face of the hollow square in which the troops marched, and in which formation they fought for three days, with baggage, sick and wounded in the centre, Krupp and Nordenfeldt guns in the angles, against a dark and surging human sea of frantic Dervishes, wild Bedouins, and equally wild and savage Mohammedans and Mulattoes, shrieking, yelling, armed with ponderous swords and deadly spears that flashed like thousands of mirrors in the sunshine. ”

“ The few weeks of his leave of absence that intervened before Jack Elliot would have inexorably to start for Egypt, glided happily and all too swiftly away, when he and Maude took up their residence at the pretty villa in the southern quarter of Edinburgh, near the ancient Grange Loan; and often if they sat silent, or lingered hand in hand amid the faded flower-beds of the garden, they seemed to be only listening—if one may say so—to the silent responses of their own hearts, and that language of instinct understood only by kindred souls. ”

“ Now that he had not perished in the desert, in the river, by Arab hands, or in any fashion as his troublesome presentiment had led him to expect when he left Cairo guided by that rascal Hassan on his lonely mission to Dayr-el-Syrian, he felt a curious sense of mortification, compunction, almost of regret, concerning the very tender and loving letter of farewell he had written to Hester Maule; and began to think it would be somewhat remarkable and awkward if—after all—he should again meet her face to face in society. ”

“ Roland had often goaded Hawkey to the verge of madness by his cool, haughty bearing and unassailable scorn, even at times when the latter secretly amused him by the 'society' airs he strove to assume; but Hawkey's time for vengeance seemed to have come unexpectedly and all unsought for; and in fancy still he seemed to glare gloatingly down into the dark chasm where the pale sufferer lay in his peril, doubtless with many a bone broken, and the waters of the burn rising fast, for the rain was falling in torrents, and there was a spate in all the mountain streams. ”