On to the Rescue: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny

Book I

Book I

Chapter I. BALAKLAVA LODGE

AS that the moon red-rising over hills and woods?

" Surely no one could mistake the moon," one might say. Ah! true, reader mine; but had you been a perfect stranger in the glen, and had you been unable to tell which was east and which was west, you would have been for a few moments puzzled indeed; for turning your back to one fiery ball, you would have seen, glimmering in a blue -grey haze, and near to the horizon, precisely such another. Yes, that is the sun, and it gets larger and more crimson every moment, till it sinks from sight behind the far-off mountains.

And yonder is the moon, moving higher and higher every minute, getting a trifle smaller too, and less and less red, until her broad, round, yellow disc has shaken itself clear of the horizon's haze, and is shining softly, sweetly over hill and dale.

Then a star struggles out; then another, and it is night.

But not until three or four more stars dot the dark blue of the cloudless heavens, does the mavis cease to sing.

It is a wild, happy, ringing melody that of his, sound- ing out from the pine wood, and making echo ring from tree to tree.

WeD, that bird has reason to be happy. It is spring- time now, or soon will be. Already there are buds on the trees and on the hedgerows, wee green dots on the white-thorn, brown, sticky burgeons on the horse-chestnut, long, smooth buds on the sycamore. Already the goat willows are hung with silver, the leaves are out on the honeysuckle, and in the haughs not far from the river's brink half -open primroses are coyly hiding in the grass.

A happy, hopeful time for the mavis! His nest is built and lined, and well hidden in that low spruce tree. And only to-day his speckled-breasted mate laid one egg therein, black-ticked and turquoisine. Ah ! no wonder he sings, until the sight of the stars and the night wind, low whispering through the pines, drive him for shelter to his cosy nest.

Higher and higher rises the moon !

It is smaller still now, smaller and brighter, and its mellow light silvers streamlet and lake, silvers the village church spire that points heavenwards like a finger high above that cloud-land of fir-trees, silvers the dew that lies low in the meadow, silvers the gauzy mist that hangs over the woods, softens and spiritualizes everything.

And now that the moon is so high above the glen, and night has really and truly come, scarcely is there a sound to be heard, save now and then the fox-like barking of a farmer's collie.

Hark ! though, that is someone whistling, someone whistling a bright and merry melody as he comes trudging along by the edge of the wood, a dog by his side. The notes of the mavis even were not more blithe and happy than these.

But suddenly he stops.

" Bruce," he says, " come here."

Bruce, his honest sheepdog, is by his side in a moment, gazing up into his face with his ears well back on his neck, for he seems to know instinctively that he is about to listen to something that is not quite pleasant.

Willie Saunders lifts a forefinger to emphasize his words.

"Doggie," he says in Scotch, "ye maun gang hame. I 'm gaun, the nicht, where it is best ye shouldna follow. Hame, Bruce, hame ! "

Bruce gives just one pleading glance up into his master's face, but seeing no signs of relenting there, he turns and trots sadly homewards.

Willie Saunders buckles his plaid more tightly round him and trudges on. He walks in silence now for fully a mile; for Willie is kind-hearted, and would not like his gentle and loving collie to think his master could be happy without him.

But spring and youth -time are the seasons for song and love as well, and soon Willie begins to whistle once again, and then to sing, for whistling did not appear quite to meet the requirements of his case.

A blackbird near to her grass-lined nest crouches low as Willie passes her tree. Not through fear, for no one who could sing like that would harm a bird, but to listen. "There is music in that human biped's voice," he tells his wife; "and if my own song that Nature taught me were not so sweet and melodious, I might borrow some notes from him."

The mavis listens also, and, half-asleep though he is, he tries to remember some notes which, swaying on the tall larch-tree to-morrow, he will try to mimic.

But in the fresh green briard* yonder is a nest of a different kind. Thereon a lark sits low on her four dark-brown eggs, and near to her is her bonnie bold mate. He listens, but it is not with pleasure, for he sings in the clouds all day, and even at night there are times when he will mount in the starlight to trill his song, as if angels called to him to join their hymns, or as if he were so full of joy and happiness that he could not wait till day. He will not borrow the note of a human biped. No; he is the bird that Shakespeare sings of

" Hark 1 hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins to rise, His steeds to water at those springs

On chalic'd flowers that lies ; And winking Mary-buda begin

To ope their golden eyes."

Springing corn.

But what cares Willie Saunders? Birds may like the song he sings, or birds may not. It comes straight from his young and happy heart, and, indeed, I am not at all sure that he is aware that he is singing, so full is that busy brain of his with thoughts of the pleasure that is before him.

The country is very still to-night up in this rural district of the North, yet it is but early in the evening. There is but little need for Willie to hurry, therefore, and if it were not that his steps seem to insist upon keeping time to his thoughts, he would not walk so quickly, for the dance will not begin till nine.

"First guests," he said half aloud to himself, "are seldom the most welcome. I 'll even slacken my pace."

As he did so he looked up into the bright starry, moonlit sky.

"What a heavenly night!" he murmured. "I never saw a clearer sky, nor one more darkly blue; and the stars look so big and bright and so near, it appears as if I could touch them with a salmon rod. And yonder is the moon, the sly old moon. If I walk slow she hardly moves; if I were to run ever so quickly she would keep pace by my side. How she nods and blinks and bobs at me. It really seems as if she knew my secret, and were wishing me joy."

"Only a cold, dead world" he was continuing his reverie " no atmosphere around it ; no bright and beautiful clouds to herald the sunrise; no grass or trees to clothe its glens with green; no water in its lakes, its streams all dry. Ugh ! it makes me shudder to think of it. And yet, may be, there was a time when the moon was young ; when forests waved in her straths and glens ; when her hills were clad with verdure ; when her blue lakes slept peaceful in the sunshine ; when streamlets and rills joined hand in hand, and went singing seawards over their pebbly beds; when cattle or kine, perhaps, roved over her meadows, and blithe-voiced birds sang joyously in her woodlands. A happy time for the moon, the days of her youth. If so, then fell coldness and blight and death. I wonder if it came suddenly, in the very midst of her joy ? Young lives are blighted at times. Ugh ! "

Had the night turned suddenly colder? he wondered, as he drew the looser folds of his plaid around his shoulders.

"I feel," he said now, "as if somebody were walking over my grave. Well, of course I have a grave som where; for not long ago the minister told me that as soon as a child was born into the world Death hurried away and dug his grave. That was only spoken figura- tively of course. But it wouldn't take a great deal to kill me a deal of grief I mean. Now, if Annie Lindsay is unkind to me to-night, I shall wish to be dead, as dead as yonder moon."

He had slackened and slackened his pace till now, as he spoke the last words, he stood stock-still, with his eyes on the ground.

Well, I am not in a position to calculate the amount of evil that grief in its bitterest form namely, that of unrequited love might work upon a sturdy young frame like that of Willie's, but to look at him now as he stands in the moonlight, to study him physically, one would think Willie Saunders would take a deal of killing. Though not more than twenty-one, he is sturdy and strong. The tweed kilt suit he wears, and the plaid, surely never before were worn by a more handsome young Scot. His brow is high and white, and his face is manly. Yet, had you criticised his features narrowly, you could not have helped noticing that there was an air of innocent simplicity in that face and in those light blue eyes that, although engaging enough to witness, would lead men of the world to believe he was easily moulded clay. Perhaps he was; but youths like Willie develop into heroes at times, when they become what sailors call " sea-fast."

Before a sailor can become so he must weather a few storms, and it is the same with men in their voyage across the sea of life. Storms of grief and trouble alone can make them brave and sea-fast, and grief indeed may oftentimes become the parent of fame.

Willie heaves a kind of half-stifled sigh, and resumes his journey. But he is not singing now ; neither is he whistling. He is simply thinking.

In his own half-shy and simple way he had long loved Annie Lindsay, but he had never told her so. He had often told his heart's story to the birds that sang in the woodlands; he had whispered it to the wild flowers, and breathed it in song to the winds; but as far as words went Annie knew nothing about it. Nor, strange to say, had Willie said a single word about it to Jack Morrison, although this young man was the best and dearest friend he had on earth, and a near neighbour as well as a friend.

ao On to the Rescue.

Annie Lindsay lived miles and miles up the glen in which we first meet Willie to-night. A light-hearted winsome lassie was Annie. She was just turned eighteen this very day, and it was to celebrate this event that her parents, who were very fond of her, permitted Annie to give a party. Indeed Annie herself had proposed it weeks ago. She was an only child, so was refused nothing at all events, her father never refused her anything.

Colonel Lindsay, her father, had won the Victoria Cross, gained his promotion, and lost a leg, all in one day at the battle of Alma. A one-armed soldier is passable, but a one-legged one is no longer capable of serving his Queen and country, so Lindsay had retired even before the war was over, and here he now lived, hearty and hale, and still in the prime of life. The good soldier had some private means, and this had enabled him to make his little place, which was called Balaklava Lodge, quite a beautiful spot. It had been a kind of a wildery anyhow, a turbulent little stream with a natural waterfall went roaring through the grounds; banks and braes covered with scented droop- ing birch trees, with here and there a tasselled larch; bold bluffs of rock clad with heather and furze or whins that in springtime was all a blaze of bloom, the scented home of the rose -linnet, and skite; and high above all, on a bold-terraced height, the old-fashioned house itself, with solemn pine trees waving dark above it. The whole was sheltered by green and heath-clad hills from the cold spring winds of north or east. It needed but little aid from art to change a spot like

Balaclava Lodge. 2!

this into a very romantic and lovely place indeed; and the Colonel spent all his time in his gardens and grounds, and with John, his gardener, was ever planning some new improvement.

Annie Lindsay I do not mean to describe, farther than to say she was petite, dark-haired, and very beautiful, because this is not a love story, but rather a tale

" Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i* the imminent deadly breach,"

and of many a wild adventure, reader, incidental to a soldier's life.

Annie's father and mother had taken great pains with her education and culture. She could play well and sing very sweetly, but above all she could talk and read well. It was just such a girl as this that was bound to captivate a hero like Willie Saunders, because she was out of the common ; that is, Annie was really a girl who had been brought up in refined society in the far South, and there- fore not like the maidens Willie Saunders was wont to meet at church, who, however fresh and bonnie they might be, were somewhat wanting in Ion ton.

Willie Saunders had known Annie for only a year and a half; but, dear me! that seems a lifetime to one in the days of youth. His father was what is called a laird in Scotland not a rich one, however. He simply owned the farm he cultivated, with its woodlands and sheep- hills, and its haughlands stretching along by the river- side, where, in many a smiling field, the corn is now sprouting green and tender, and where in autumn the song and the laugh will be heard all day long as the

22 On to the Rescue.

farm lads and lasses mow down and stook the yellow grain.

Before Colonel Lindsay bought that place at this glen head, Laird Morrison, who lived about two miles from Haven's Nest Willie's father's home was a very frequent visitor indeed both in summer and winter at the Nest, and if now his visits were not quite so numerous, it was only because both he and Laird Saunders went so often to spend the evening at the Colonel's house.

The trio had soon become very good friends indeed, and the darkest or stormiest winter's night that ever blew did not prevent the " twa lairds" from rolling their plaids about them and striding up the glen to Balaklava Lodge, to spend an hour or two with him, often listening to the wondrous stories the soldier had to retail concerning his life and wanderings. But Willie and his friend Jack always followed on, a few hours afterwards, to bring their parents back.

It was during these visits that Willie Saunders had lost his heart so irretrievably to winsome Annie Lindsay.

But why is he alone to-night, on this night of all nights? Well, the fact is that Jack had gone from home, but promised to turn up at Balaklava about ten or eleven. So his friend Willie has gone on without him.

Is Willie very sorry to do so ? I must candidly tell you he is not. Before the colonel came to the glen our hero had thought Jessie Morrison, Jack's young and only

Balaklava Lodge. 23

sister, the sweetest girl in all the countryside, and

perhaps she was ; but now

Anyhow, to-night Willie determines to know his fate. He had repeated to himself, over and over again as he was dressing, with more care than usual, the lines

" He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the test, To win or lose it all."

But now at a turn of the road he comes at last in full view of the Lodge, the lights from the windows of which struggle out through the tall pine trees, and do battle with the bright rays of the now clear and silvery moon.

The hustling noise of the waterfall or linn falls upon his ear in a kind of drowsy monotone ; but Willie pauses not to listen to anything. He must hurry on now.

One thing he knows, one thing he feels, and that is that he will return to-night either the happiest young man in all the glen, or a youth to whom life can have no more charms. Which will it be ?

Chapter II. A BIRTHDAY BALL AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

HAT, my lad," cried Morrison cheerfully when Willie entered the drawing-room, " are you all alone then ? "

"Yes," said Willie, smiling, "Jack has gone to Drumarran, and won't get here till pretty late, so I thought I wouldn't wait." The Colonel and the two lairds were having a three- handed game in a quiet corner, for Mrs. Lindsay could not join them to-night.

" Come and sit down then," said Laird Morrison, " and have a hand with us ; we want just one." Willie laughed now outright.

" No, thank you, sir. Would with pleasure, you know, but I really feel more like dancing."

" Quite right, my boy," said the Colonel, " go and enjoy yourself, if you don't dance at your age, you won't at ours. Off with you."

There was one special room in Balaklava Lodge that deserves just a passing word or two. This was quite an ideal sort of a room, and I hardly know what to call it.

A Birtnday Ball. 25

Happy thought! I shall shirk the responsibility of naming it at all, but leave the reader to do so. It opened then off one end of the drawing-room by a curtained doorway, but it was as large as three good-sized drawing- rooms. Quite a hall did you say, reader ? Yes, almost a hall, and it was lighted partly by a glass roof, it was lined as to its sides with shrubs of tropical foliage and beautiful flowers; to this extent therefore it was a gigantic conservatory, but there were seats here and there half-hidden by the greenery, and there were singing birds here, there, and everywhere to this extent it was an aviary, though the floor was laid for roller skating. " A rink," you say. Well possibly, but to-night there was an orchestra of violins, clarionets, and a harp at the farther end, and they were even now tuning up. " A ballroom ! " Thanks, I knew we would get at it presently.

Well, by a doorway near to the place where the music was stationed, you could enter a well-lighted and real conservatory, and thence you might emerge on to a beautifully-kept lawn. If you crossed this, behold, you were on a strong but rustic bridge above the linn, and this would lead you to sweet-scented birchen woods that rose over the braeland, and that to-night were bathed in a flood of silver moonlight. Annie, on this particular evening, looked like like well I do not really know altogether what to liken her to, for similes of all sorts that are worth anything have been used up over and over again. "Fairy" won't do for Annie, she hadn't fair, floating hair, short green skirts and a gilded tinsel wand. No, she wasn't a bit like a pantomime fairy. " Houri of paradise !" How would that suit ? " Too far fetched."

26 On to the Rescue.

"A vision of beauty?" Vision of fiddlesticks; no, let me cut the gordian knot and simply call her a fascinating and pretty girl neatly dressed in white, with a pink rose in her bosom and one in her dark, bonnie hair. There were roses also on her cheeks.

But she wore no diamonds except those that sparkled in her eyes, and no jewellery of any sort ; only clasped around her neck was a double chain of pearls that her father had brought from India long, long ago.

After all what need has a girl like Annie Lindsay to be adorned with gold or jewels ? Leave such gewgaws to maids who are in the sere and yellow leaf. My petite heroine was robed in the beauty of her own innocence and youth. She needed nothing else.

But later on that night there was a song sung by a bold young student from the University that seemed just to suit Annie, and Willie Saunders felt that he wanted to choke the fellow, because as he sang he cast languishing looks towards Miss Lindsay.

You know the song, reader, and if you don't, the sooner you learn both words and melody the better for you. One verse runs thus

" Her brow is like the snaw-drift,

Her neck is like the swan ; And her face it is the fairest That e'er the sun shone on."

The student who sang this lovely old song took not the slightest notice of Willie Saunders, when he came up a few minutes afterwards to claim Annie's hand for the next waltz. Beautiful dreamy music it was, and as the young couple went floating around the floor, there was no one in the room who did nob take notice of their dancing. The two seemed made for each other, seemed indeed to be the very embodiment of the music that was being played.

Willie wanted to choke that University man now more than ever. What right had he to dance so well. What right had he to dance with Annie Lindsay anyhow. Why he was positively whispering in her ear, his face far closer to hers than it had any right to be. Was he making love, Willie wondered, and then he wondered which way this young fellow went home, for he had half a mind to lie in wait for him in a wood, and to challenge him to fight as he passed.

But the music ceased at last, yet the bold student still lingered by Annie's side ; and she had had her tablets in her hand.

Willie Saunders would not see any more of this. He rushed through the conservatory and out to the lawn.

The hum of the waterfall fell on his ear and calmed him, and the night air cooled his heated brows. He took a few turns up and down on the grass, then returned. He found Annie sitting alone in a corner, looking some- what sad ; but she made room for him on the sofa, and welcomed him with a smile.

Willie forgot everything now save her presence. He even postponed the fight with the student sine die. He would let the fellow live a little longer. The fellow at this moment appeared to be enjoying himself very much indeed, dancing with a young lady of quite a different stamp from Annie.

"The next two dances are ours, Annie," said Willie Saunders.

Annie inclined her head, and smiled.

" Suppose now," he added, " we dance the first, and sit the second ? "

" Oh, that would be very delightful ! "

" Come, then."

Willie Saunders's dancing of waltzes attracted no special notice of a very nattering nature, at all events. It was not so airy or so graceful as that of the University man. It was not the poetry of motion, at least not quite. There was not much poetry in the motion, for instance, when Willie cannoned off one couple and completely floored another. Our hero thought it was the correct thing to retire after that, so he led his smiling partner to a seat.

" Waltzing isn't my strong point," he said, wiping his brow.

" I rather think," said Annie mischievously, " that it is a very strong point."

" Now, Annie, you 're laughing at me. I wish I could dance as well as that student fellow ; you might care for me more.

"But," he added, "after all, waltzing is not dancing; and I think in a Highland reel I can hold my own even with him. Are you warm ? "

" It is warm."

"Do come and take a turn on the moonlit lawn, then."

Willie's heart seemed to be playing at pitch and toss as he spoke. Would she refuse ?

But she did not.

He left her in the conservatory for a few moments, and flew round to the hall to fetch thence a soft little snow- white Shetland shawl.

With this floating around her shoulders Annie looked like a sylph. So Willie thought, and so he told her.

" Only," he added somewhat clumsily, " you are ever so much more beautiful than any sylph that ever was born ; that is, if sylphs are born."

" I couldn't say ; I never saw one except in a picture."

Annie was looking at the moon, and Willie Saunders was looking at Annie.

They moved slowly across the lawn, and soon found themselves on the rustic bridge that spanned the canon. They stopped for a moment to gaze down at the misty linn, then strolled on once more, Annie's hand resting lightly on Willie's arm.

There was a seat not far away on the braeland, and just under the boughs of two spreading birch -trees, the sweet, healthful perfume of whose leaves scented the air.

Many times and oft they had sat here before, reading, or studying botanically the specimens of wild flowers they had collected in their rambles over the moorlands and hills.

But that was in summer, and very happy Willie Saunders had been then.

He was less so now, solely because he felt awkward and shy and stupid. He would have given a good deal just then for the affable and cheerful mannerism of the student whom he called " that fellow who danced."

" You 're sure you are not cold ? "

He made that remark once, he made it twice, and when he made it the third time within two minutes, not having spoken a word during the intervals, she looked up into his face and laughed.

She could not help it, rude though it might seem. Then he blushed, and felt more like a fool than ever; but speak he must now, and speak he did, though the commencement of his speech was not by any means elegant.

" Oh," he said, " I don't care whether you are cold or not ! I mean," he added awkwardly, " that when I asked the question I don't think I knew what I was saying. Oh, bother, I wish I was that fellow who danced ! Seems to me, Annie, that I can't do anything right. I can't dance, and I can't talk, and "

" What is the matter with you to-night, Willie ? " said the girl, looking at him wonderingly.

He grew desperate now.

" I 'm going to tell you a story ; I "

" Tell me a story ? " laughed Annie. " Why, you will want to sing a song next. But is the story a very long one ? because I 'll be missed, you know."

" No, it is not a very long one, but it is a very old one."

" Oh, if I 've heard it before, better not tell it."

" You never heard it from me before, Annie."

The young man was now looking so solemn and miserable that Annie was getting frightened.

" Is there anything the matter, Willie ? "

" Yes, very much the matter ; I 'm in love ! "

"Oh, is that the story?"

"That is the story. Just listen one moment, won't you ? "

"Yes, with all the pleasure in the world, because, mind you, if there is going to be a wedding, I am going to be there."

" Certainly, I mean you to be." Willie was getting braver now every minute. "The fact is, Annie, the wedding would be nowhere without you. You see "

" Go on, I am all attention."

"You see I am an only son, and my dear mother and father are both very fond of me. Well, our place is very pretty, and I I I "

" You thought of getting married ? Is that it ? *

"That is it. I half told mother, and she seemed so happy about it. But I haven't spoken to the young lady yet; only I made up my mind I would do so to-night."

"Well, if I were you, Willie, I should, and I think I can guess who it is."

" Do guess then."

" You danced with her twice to-night."

"I did."

" Her brother has not come. Am I right ? "

She she hasn't got a brother that ever I heard of."

1 What, is not Jessie Morrison the young lady ? "

4 No, Annie Lindsay, it is you ! "

Those two lines of asterisks represent the fall of the curtain on Scene IL Act I. of this story. I have told

32 On to the Rescue.

you already that ours was not a love tale in the true sense of the word, so I could not keep it up a moment longer.