The Span o' Life Part 39

When our interview ended he thanked me very handsomely, and regretted he could not offer me the hospitality of his own roof, but provided for me in the Ursulines, granting me the same parole as the priest.

"You will find among your countrymen an odd rebel here and there, Kirkconnel; but I rely on you to stir up no fresh treason with 'White c.o.c.kades,' or 'Bonnie Charlies,' or any other of the old shibboleths."

"Have no anxieties on that score, your Excellency; I have had too rude an awakening ever to fall a-dreaming again. 'The burnt child.'"

And I bowed, and left in company with the officer told off to see to my reception.

The General's unlooked-for sympathy had gone far to restore me to my natural bearing for the moment. It is flattering to any man to be received by his military superior as a social equal, and Heaven forbid that I should pretend to a susceptibility less than the ordinary. I was greatly pleased, therefore, by his recognition, and to my admiration of his soldierly qualities was now added a warm appreciation of his interest in me and my fortunes. But no personal gratification could long blind me to the misery of my real position. Chance, inclination, and, I think I may honestly add, principle, had kept my affections disengaged and, my heart whole, without any reasonable expectation of ever realising my life's desire, and now I had stumbled upon it, only to find it inexorably withheld from me, and every avenue to its attainment closed. Could I have gone on to the end without actually meeting with Margaret, I could have borne it with the silent endurance which had supported me so far, and had, in large measure, become a habit; but now every regret, every pa.s.sionate longing, every haunting memory which time had lulled into seeming slumber, awoke to wring my heart at the very moment when I believed the bitterness to have pa.s.sed forever.

The first to welcome me at the convent was my son Kit. Heavens!

how tall and well-looking the boy had grown, and with what feeling did I take him in my arms. He returned my embrace with equal affection, and when we settled down, spake of his mother's death with much natural feeling.

Poor Lucy! She had had a narrow life of it with the exception of the year we had lived together. What a light-hearted, merry little soul she then was! She had no education in the general sense, but was possessed of so lively a sympathy that she entered into all that appealed to me with an enjoyment and an appreciation that no mere learning could have supplied. She may have lacked the bearing and carriage of a great lady, but what stateliness of manner can rival the pretty softnesses of a gentle girl wholly in love. She was not strictly beautiful, but she had the charm of constant liveliness, and her unfailing content and merriment more than made up for any irregularity in feature. This was the woman I had left, and I have already told what she was when I returned. It was not so much her nature that was at fault, poor thing! as the atrophy of soul resulting from an ungenerous form of religion.

I cannot but think it safer for both man and woman to continue in those religions which have received the sanction of authority, than take up with any new ventures, no matter what superior offers of salvation they may hold out. And the first step towards this dangerous ground I believe to be that pernicious habit of idle speculation on subjects too sacred for open discussion, which might well be left to their ordained guardians, and not to the curious guessings of simple and unsophisticated minds.

Kit had much information to give touching others in whom I was interested. Of Mme. de St. Just he spake, as I would have expected, with the warmest admiration and grat.i.tude; but after he had informed me that she was an inmate of the same convent in which we were, I turned the conversation towards her brother, who, I learned, was wounded sufficiently to be under the surgeon's care, and was pleased to gather that Master Kit had made a respectable showing for himself in the rescue of his Captain. That Mademoiselle de Sarennes was much concerned in Nairn's condition I was glad to hear, as such an interest could not fail to be of service when she should learn of her brother's fate, of which I took care to make no mention, as I had no desire to figure as the bearer of what must, to her, prove painful tidings.

"Your Captain is fortunate to engage the sympathies of so fair an enemy," was my only remark.

"Why, father, we do not look on them as enemies at all!" he returned, with the ingenuousness of his years.

"Look you here, Master Kit, I cannot have you calling me 'father'; it has altogether too responsible a sound, and I do not wish to begin and bring you to book for matters which may, later on, call for a parent's judgment. Call me 'Chevalier,' if you like, it is more companionable, and it is as comrades you and I must live, unless you wish to have me interfering with you in a manner you might naturally enough resent later on. I love you heartily my boy, and it is love, not authority, I wish to be the bond between us.

What do you say yourself?"

"It can never be anything less than that, sir; you know how I was drawn to you that very first morning, when I entered your room in Wych Street; you were the finest gentleman I had ever seen."

"Well, you have seen better since, Kit."

"None better to me, sir." And he added, hurriedly, as if to cover his emotion, "Will you come over to us, now that we are victorious?"

"Oh, Kit, Kit, you are a true Englishman! Victorious! Why, great Heavens! We beat you fifty times over, only to-day! Not that it will make any great matter in the long run, perhaps, for it is no question of a single battle for either Levis or Murray, it is the arrival of the first ships which will decide this affair. Wait until they come up, and then it will be time enough to talk of victory."

The lad's face fell. "I mean for ourselves," he said, wistfully; "this can't go on with us on different sides."

"That is a serious matter for the princ.i.p.als, no doubt, Kit; but we need not worry over it, for I am not likely to be exchanged, the way things now are."

"But when it is decided?"

"Your way, Kit?"

"I mean _if_ it is decided our way," he corrected. "You will come back?"

"Come back to what? You forget I am still a proscribed rebel with a price on my head."

"But that is long past."

"So Dr. Archie Cameron thought, but they hanged him like a dog not so many years ago, and I do not know that he was deeper in the affair than I. That I am not a very ardent rebel, I will confess; but I have grown too old in rebellion to shift my character readily.

Besides, I fancy I am more of a Frenchman than an Englishman, or even a Scotchman; and the worst of such a transmogrification is, that one grows used to it, and change becomes wellnigh impossible.

But you have chosen wisely, my boy. I wouldn't have you different for the world!"

"It is not for myself I speak. I am thinking of you, sir."

"G.o.d bless you, Kit! I would rather have those words from you than a free pardon. And now good-night, or rather, good-day. You have your duties before you, and I must get some sleep;" and I embraced the generous boy with a full heart.

The next afternoon I set out to look over the town and mark the effect of the English fire during the bombardment, and could not but admire how destructive it had been, nor withhold my approval of the efforts the garrison had put forth during the past winter to repair the results of their own handiwork.

As I wandered round the Cape I caught sight of le pere Jean leaning against the parapet of la batterie du Clerge, gloomily surveying the dismal prospect of a river full of drifting ice and a desolate and half-frozen country beyond.

He turned as I approached, and greeted me with a return of the manner that was once habitual with him. "I was glad to hear you found friends last night, Chevalier."

"Thank you, yes. I found friends both new and old," I answered, glancing at him curiously.

But he had turned towards the river again, and waved his hand outward. "This is all emblematic of our fortress, I fear --dissolution," he said, wearily.

"One might descant on the promise of spring and the renewal of hope, but in reality I gather as little from the prospect as you do," I returned. And side by side we leaned over the parapet, and continued to indulge our cheerless speculations in silence.

"Chevalier," said the priest, suddenly, but in his usual tone, and without changing his position, "perhaps I owe you a more formal apology than was possible last night; but when I found that Mademoiselle Nairn--"

"Mme. de St. Just," I corrected.

"It is scarce worth while to keep up that fiction between us," he said, as if waiving the most ordinary form in the world, and in some manner I checked the cry of astonishment that was on my lips, and remained silent while he continued. "When I found Mademoiselle Nairn in your company, I too hastily a.s.sumed that it was by design on your part."

I was so bewildered by this unconscious revelation that I could make no reply; but, fortunately, he did not mark my agitation, and went on as though speaking to himself: "Right or wrong, I have been the means of keeping her from you thus far; and if I have sinned in so doing, I must bear the consequence."

As he spake he turned and faced me, but by this I had recovered command of myself, and saw that his thin face was flushed and drawn with suffering. "Let me go on," he said, with decision. "I owe an explanation to myself as well as to you."

Just what he said I cannot clearly recall. The revelation he had made was so astounding, had so completely changed the whole complexion of my outlook, that my brain could scarce apprehend the import of his words. I only realised that Margaret was no longer beyond my reach. The rest mattered not one whit.

When he ceased speaking, I briefly exposed what had been my position throughout, without reserve or argument, leaving it to him to draw his own conclusion.

"Chevalier," cried the priest, heartily, as I ended, "I feel that any apology would be frivolous in the face of what you have told me, but I can a.s.sure you no man was ever more satisfied to find himself in the wrong than I."

"I take that as more than any apology," I returned, as sincerely.

"But to return to Sarennes. What use did he make of my letter?"

"He attempted such a use that the outcome of your meeting with him is fully justified."

"It was justified as it was!" I objected. "I do not fight on trifles.

Do you mean, he tried to persuade Margaret that it referred to her?"

"He did. And though I was enabled to save her from personal danger, I could do nothing to relieve the distress he had wrought by these means."

"The hound! It would have been a satisfaction to have known this when I met him."

"Remember, though, it is entirely owing to the loyalty of his mother and sister that her position here has been possible."

"That is true; but I see as clearly, that her reception by them was only possible through your answering for her. I owe you everything."

"You owe me much," he said, quietly, as if to himself. And at the simple words of self-abnegation my heart ached at the thought of the pain I had involuntarily caused.