CHAPTER XVI.

TIDINGS OF THE LOST ONE.

And now to glance briefly homeward.

During all this time, and while these stirring operations had been progressing, no tidings had been heard of Gillian Lamond. To Dove it seemed as though he had passed away as completely as if he had never existed. As to Mr. Gainswood, he had perhaps ceased to think about him at all.

He had not put the ill-gotten £30,000 odd to any account as yet; neither had he made any important progress in his matrimonial project, though every week put the improvident young heir of Kilsythe more and more in his power, till the latter almost writhed under the conviction of degrading and hopeless entanglement.

"She is still moping after that young beggar!" said his lordship one day, as he played with the lash of his hunting-whip.

"Yes, my lord," replied Mr. Gainswood, adopting the whine with which he usually quoted scripture, and half-closing his grey ferret-like eyes. "'Many waters,' as Solomon saith, 'cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.'"

"By Jove, if you turn on the religious tap, I'm off like a bird;" and away he went, muttering, "how the deuce will all this end? Devilish hard, don't you know," he continued, addressing some imaginary person, "to chuck one's self away—not on the crême-de-la-crême of Mayfair, as I might do, but the scum-de-la-scum of this provincial lot!" So thus, in the insolence of his spirit, could he speak or think even of Dove.

And now he went off by train to ride with "the Pytchley hounds." One can always get leave in the hunting season; and with him went Stafford Martingale, who was a wonder even among the welter-weights of the Prince's Hussars: so Dove saw no more of her tormentor for a time.

Before his departure she had one good laugh at him. On the occasion of a dinner party, when various divines had been especially invited to meet "Lord Campsie," and rejoice in the light of his noble countenance, till when talking of disestablishment and other matters clerical, of which he knew about as much as the Khan of Khiva, he said:

"The Church of England is, of course, a high branch of the Civil Service, but that of Scotland—is—is—aw——"

"What, my lord?" asked one, hanging with delight on the coming opinion of a titled man on any subject.

"Vulgaw—demmed vulgaw!"

By degrees, through little Mr. McCodicil, who had borne correspondent in the Ross-shire Buffs, it came to be known that a recruit from Edinburgh, named Gillian Lamond, had joined with the last draft from Scotland at Bushire, and some other items of information proved his identity with the lost one.

Old Elspat McBriar, to whom he gave the intelligence, lost no time in communicating it to Mr. Gainswood and to Dove, on both of whom it acted very differently. To the latter it brought a startling and crushing sense of new sorrow; to the former, secret, fierce, and glowing exultation, and the hope that some Persian bullet might find the billet he wished it, but if not, it mattered little.

"So the lad has become a soldier!" said Mrs. McBriar, with a kindling of the eye.

"The camp is the natural home of the ne'er-do-weel and the ungodly," sighed Mr. Gainswood, fixing his eyes on the lofty ceiling of his luxurious dining-room; "many perils must encompass him there—yea, many and enough; yet I forgive him his ingratitude to me, and hope he may pray with the psalmist, 'O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more.'"

So that night the servants were assembled betimes in the library, and "family worship," as it was called, was held earlier than usual, Mr. Gideon Gainswood leading the van in powerful prayer.

In spite of herself and her desire to see Dove Lady Campsie, at the risk oven of all the girl's future happiness, old Elspat McBriar's heart warmed within her at the idea of Gillian being a soldier, even one so humble in rank. She loved the "redcoat," not the less for the sake of her "dear old man," who had worn it as quarter-master of the Greys, but more than all when it was associated with the kilt, the bonnet, and claymore, and all the past and present associations of Highland chivalry; but from all her communings on these subjects, Dove could gather no comfort. One grim fact stood ever before her.

By this time, amid the strife that surrounded him, his kind and gallant spirit might have fled forever, and the suspense she felt was becoming beyond endurance now; while it was too dreadful to think that when she had been talking, idling with her friends, promenading in the gardens or the gay and sunny streets, the struggle for the life of him she loved had been going on, and the worst that could happen might all be over now.

A soldier! Gillian, so tender and loving, so noble and true—true as herself, who had no thoughts unconnected with him—fighting in the ranks. What could it all mean? what had driven him in desperation to this resource, and what was the mystery involved in it? she would ask of herself, little conceiving that the sphynx that could have told her of all was daily at her elbow.

Had she and Gillian been able to compare notes, they might have found that on the same night when he dreamt of her and her song, so weary and worn, he lay on the bare earth with his knapsack for a pillow, in that desolate bivouac on the plain of Shiraz, she had been alone, abandoned to reverie and full of thoughts of him; but how different were her surroundings in that splendid mansion at the west end of Edinburgh.

She was in what a writer calls "that charming apartment known as 'my own room,' which comprises the mysterious repose of a sleeping chamber, with the solid comforts and light of a sitting-room." Within an arched recess was her pretty little bed, with its laced pillows, on which many a tear had fallen unseen; light muslins separated it from the room in summer, but now, when snow capped the scalps of the Pentlands, rich folds of heavy damask were festooned to the pilasters on each side. The fire burned ruddily in the grate of polished steel, and the lights were blazing brightly in the slender gaselier of Venetian bronze overhead.

Beside her were book-cases full of her favourite authors, on whose leaves were many a pencilling made by the hand that was far away, at that time she knew not where. And there were her beautiful desk, her jewel case, her Maltese spaniel—a gift from Campsie, with its silver collar—in a mother-of-pearl basket, her riding-whips with silver and jewelled heads, her favourite albums and sketch books, with a hundred other pretty trifles, such as young girls love to have in their own peculiar sanctum; and here she loved to retire, for Dove was one of those to whom a library with its books, a fire with its embers, like the sea with its waves, always furnished companionship.

As she looked on these, and could have seen where Gillian was lying at that moment, the sight might have broken poor Dove's gentle heart.

But now she knew the worst, or nearly the worst; he was in Persia.

"Persia!" she would mutter, with a tone of almost incredulity, as she looked at the map of the world. Oh, could it be that about five thousand miles, as the crow flies, of land and sea lay now between her and him whose kiss was on her lip, but yesterday as it were; yet in the confusion of thought it seemed long, long ago.

"And where is Gillian now?" she asked of herself, as she interlaced the fingers of her delicate hands, clasped them above her hair of golden auburn, and turned her passionate and beautiful face upward to heaven. "Oh, Gillian—Gillian!"

Had Dove Gainswood possessed the magic mirror of "Aunt Margaret" or of Cornelius Agrippa, as the clouds on its surface dispersed, she might have seen the single and lonely figure of a Highland sentinel in his dark great-coat and drooping plume, wet and dank with the shower that had passed away, standing with "arms ordered," silent, thoughtful, pale, and hungry—for food was scarce in camp, and the haversacks were empty—on the old rampart of Bushire; high overhead the crescent moon, "sweet Regent of the Sky," tipping with light the cannon in the adjacent embrasures, the white marble dome of a mosque, and the summits of the dark waves that rose and fell in the mighty Gulf of Persia, the leaves of the date palms, and other objects that rose here and there amid the mass of murky shadow, as Gillian, with the rest of his comrades, awaited the red flash and hoarse boom of the morning gun—the morning that saw the soldiers of Outram on their way to the bombardment of Mohammerah!

But it was remarked by all the household—though none of them knew the cause—that from the day when little McCodicil's tidings came, Dove's health visibly and painfully declined.

CHAPTER XVII.

A BOMBARDMENT AND AN EXCITING ADVENTURE.

To give the reader a detailed or even succinct account of our campaign in Persia, forms no part of our plan, nor is it necessary thereto; suffice it, that we must refer to some of those movements in which Gillian Lamond bore a part, and during which, even in his minor capacity, he was fated to figure prominently.

An amelioration of the tempestuous weather at Bushire tempted General Outram, on the 4th of March, to despatch an expedition against Mohammerah, while leaving a sufficient force (3,000 men) under General Stalker, in Bushire, to keep that garrison and hold the Persians in check. He took with him 4,000 men, including five companies of the Highlanders and five others of H.M. 64th regiment, to fight the Persians, who were averred to be 13,000 strong at Mohammerah, on which seven of our ships of war were to hurl their broadsides at a hundred yards' distance.

Passing the bleak, rocky isle of Icarus, then held by the 4th Punjaub Rifles, and then the mouth of the Euphrates, rolling as it rolled in the days of Alexander and of Xenophon, by the 23rd the whole squadron was quietly at anchor off the doomed place. With his comrades who crowded the side of the warships, Gillian could see the Persian cavalry, clad in light blue, with high fur caps and white cross-belts, galloping in clouds along the great stream of the classic ages, flourishing their flashing sabres, and poising their slender lances, as if they were seeking to impress the British with high ideas of the terrible troops they were about to oppose.

All the Persian batteries were manned, strong, grim, and sulky they looked; the walls were lined, and the gunners, with their inevitable black fur caps, were seen standing by the guns, while, in the gentle breeze of a calm and beautiful day, the banner with the Persian Lion swelled gracefully out from its tall flagstaff, and ere long little more than it became visible, when the general bombardment began, and the batteries replied, till the increasing breeze dispelled the smoke, and then a striking and beautiful scene presented itself.

The ships of war all decked in brilliant bunting to their trucks, as if for a holiday, were ranged with all their flaming ports on one side; on the other, lay the bank of the Euphrates, glittering in the sunshine of the early morning, fringed with date trees and green, luxuriant shrubbery, beyond the openings in which the brilliantly-clad Persian cavalry could be seen uselessly galloping to and fro; and closer at hand were the thundering batteries of Mohammerah, against which the troops now began to disembark; the Highlanders, under Havelock, in the Berenice, leading the way, as he often led them to glory in the more terrible days that were to come, for, of all our regiments in the East, the Ross-shire Buffs were his favourites; and now the old Staff-Colonel, who seemed a regular fire-eater, was by his side armed, not with a regulation sword, but a prodigious Indian tulwur.

So crowded was the deck of the Berenice, so densely were the Highlanders massed thereon, that had a single shot struck her, the result would have been calamitous; but the dreadful broadsides of the Indian navy protected them, and boat after boat, with its living freight, and a piper blowing defiance in its bow, swept in shore, while Outram, landing at another point, with the grenadiers of the 64th, made terrible havoc among the Persian matchlocks who held a grove of date palms, and cleared a way for the whole force to advance against the main point to be attacked, the camp of the Shahzadeh, uncle of Nassir-ed-Deen, leaving the shipping to pound the town.

One of our 68-pound shots fell crashing into the Persian camp.

"Oh" exclaimed the terrified Shahzadeh, "if they fire things like these, the sooner we are off the better!"

His advice was taken at once; the whole Persian army abandoned its camp, and melted away like a dissolving view, abandoning all the cannon, and leaving to its fate Mohammerah, which soon surrendered after the explosion of its grand magazine, by a random shell from our shipping.

The scene then was an awful one! Gillian looked with an emotion of shrinking horror on the legs, arms, hands, and other mangled fragments of poor humanity that protruded from amid the fire-blackened and shattered ruins; and among all this ghastly débris lay the wounded Persians in heaps, mingled with the dead, their hideous cuts and gashes exposed, all undressed, to the now blazing sunshine, the sharp whirling dust and the agonizing stings of great insects that battened in their blood.

There lay, half disembowelled by a cannon shot, and dying, a Persian officer, who, in answer to some questions of Sir James Outram, informed him that Mrs. Hartley had not been transmitted as yet to Teheran, but was conveyed about by the Shahzadeh in takhteraidan, or mule litter, the usual carriage of a Persian lady of rank, and Captain Hartley ground his teeth as he listened.

A few minutes after this the Persian expired, and in one of his pockets was found a letter, addressed to his wife at Teheran, stating that he was certain there would be a conflict on the morrow, foreboding his own fate, bidding her tenderly farewell, and entrusting the care of her and their little ones to his brother in Teheran; to which place it was at once transmitted by Sir James Outram, so true it is that—

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

Hartley, of course, rode as yet with the General's staff, doing his duty steadily and obeying all orders, but looking distraught and like the ghost of his former self.

Sir James Outram now ascertained that the Persians had fallen back, intending to halt at a place called Akwaz, a hundred miles distant on the Karun River, the ancient Eulœis, which traverses the Bachtiyara range of mountains and falls into the Gulf of Persia by several channels, one of which joins the Euphrates.

At Akwaz stood their great depot of provisions and all munitions of war, to destroy which and anticipate their reaching the point, he instantly despatched a small expedition, consisting of only 150 men of the 64th regiment and 150 Highlanders under Captain Duncan MacAndrew, a veteran of the Affghan wars, on board of three steamers, the Comet, Planet, and Assyria, and it was Gillian's fate to be in the first-named vessel. They had in tow a gun-boat armed with two 24-pound howitzers.

This expedition followed collaterally by water the track of the retreating Persians along the beautiful and varied scenery of the river's bank, and parties landing from time to time, could trace the marks of their route, the hoof indentures of the horses, the wheel tracks of five pieces of cannon, and of the mule litter.

On the morning of the 30th of March, the expedition made such progress towards Akwaz, that the exploring party found the ground on which the Persians had been but twenty-four hours before, the new graves of several who had just been interred, and a straggler informed Commodore Rennie that their force consisted of seven battalions and 2,000 horse, with four guns, the fifth, which was now unserviceable, being towed up the river; and to pursue all this column were only 300 British soldiers!

To capture the gun in the towed boat, the Comet shot ahead under high steam and with canvas set as the wind served, but failed to do so till next day, when the other ships came up, and the whole Persian force were known to be massed somewhere beyond a low range of sandy hills that lay near the bank of the river, and the boat with the disabled gun was seen moored and half hidden among some thick, dense mangrove-like shrubbery that overhung the Karun.

"Now to capture the gun," said the Captain of the Comet—"I want but a party only of a few—who will volunteer?"

"I, sir," said Gillian, starting forward; "but who will follow me?"

"I, and I—and I!" cried every man, rushing forward.

"This won't do, Lamond," said the officer commanding, laughing; "four men are enough."

"Then, sir, I shall take the four next me."

"Good—here is the pinnace—jump in—shove off."

The Commodore's despatch simply calls this party "a corporal's guard of the 78th Highlanders," but omitted to mention who the corporal was; so that was left for Outram to report. Every Highlander then would have volunteered to follow Gillian, for all who knew him, especially the men of his company, liked and respected the lad for his gentleness, good conduct, orderly ways, and strict sobriety, nor were the officers slow to recognize these and other good qualities.

He and his four men loaded and capped their rifles as the pinnace was pulled in shore, and speedily secured the gun, which proved to be a brass 12-pounder of exquisite workmanship, and while softly, but speedily, the seamen were hoisting it into the pinnace, he sprang ashore and crept up the bank to have a peep at the country beyond, all unaware that the Commodore and the old Staff-Colonel, who were watching him through their glasses, were reprehending his temerity and the probable delay it might cause in no measured terms.

Gillian could see far off near a mosque that stood between the brown sandhills, four dark columns of infantry massed and halted, their arms glittering in the rising sun; on the plain, in the middle-distance, was a column of some 2,000 cavalry also halted, and close by him, within some fifty yards at the utmost, under the shelter of a beautiful grove of palm trees, where evidently it had passed the night—he saw, what?

The takhteraidan with its escort! The latter consisted of six Persian lancers clad in long blue coats, with white trousers and cross-belts. In one was slung a sabre, in the other a matchlock, and they evidently belonged to the Bachtyara tribes, who form the flower of the Shah's cavalry. They were all dismounted, girthing up, adjusting their bridles, and feeding their horses prior to starting again in the direction of Akwaz.

At a window of the mule litter he could see a small pale face, evidently that of their fair English captive, gazing intently towards the river, where the smoke of the British steamers ascended high and thin into the clear ambient air of the early spring morning. Gillian's plan was instantly formed, for he had Lowland prudence that tempered his Highland fire, and he resolved to rescue Mrs. Hartley or die!

The gun was already on board the pinnace, when by a low whistle he attracted the attention of his four comrades and beckoned them up to his side, where in a moment he told them his plans, which were simply to fire a volley, rush on in the smoke, and bring off the lady; and the whole affair was done and over nearly in the time we take to write these lines.

"Not a shot must be thrown away—come, each, a man in succession," said Gillian, in a low voice, that excitement rendered husky.

Aiming from the knee, the Highlanders each selected a Persian.

"Now!" cried Gillian. The rifles rang together as one; there was a yell of agony, and five Persians were stretched on the ground killed or wounded, while the sixth fled. Gillian rushed to the mule litter; its pale and terror-stricken occupant was Mrs. Hartley, whose trembling hands vainly strove to unfasten the door; but Gillian wrenched it open with his bayonet, and with a strange and indescribable cry—joy, prayer, and terror mingled—she fairly fell into his arms, and without a word he bore her to the boat.

Not a moment was to be lost, as already a scattered cloud of Persian cavalry from the column on the plain, were galloping in wild and hot confusion towards them, unslinging their matchlocks as they came on, and already opening fire at random on the high jingle by the river side. Ere they reached it, the crew of the pinnace had shipped their oars, and with a defiant cheer were pulling into the fairway, from whence the guns of the Comet sent over their heads a few round shot booming and shells screaming. These soon cooled the ardour of the horsemen, and put them to flight; but not until they had peppered the pinnace with matchlock balls, one of which grazed the cheek of the coxswain and broke the left collar-bone of Gillian, and inflicted on him other injuries that were internal; but after the first shrill cry elicited by pain and alarm escaped him, he could only groan through his set teeth, while the blood flowed fast from his wound, and his arm hung powerless by his side.

He was borne up to the deck of the Comet in a fainting condition, and was scarcely conscious of the buzz that surrounded him, or the joy of her he had rescued, as she clung to the breast of her husband.

CHAPTER XVIII.

GILLIAN MAKES A STARTLING DISCOVERY.

For the present Gillian's fighting was over, though he remained, of course, on board the Comet, with the expedition, which ended successfully in the entire capture or total destruction of the Persian munitions of war at Akwaz, and the consequent disorganization of the army of the Shah—facts that belong to history rather than to our story.

Gillian was the hero of the hour; there was not a man in the army, from Outram and Havelock down to the humblest camp-follower, but envied the gallant young rescuer of pretty Mrs. Hartley.

Oblivious of all this, conscious only of his agony, and inspired by no wish but to escape it by death, he lay between two after guns on the starboard side of the main-deck, with a pillow under his head and a top studding-sail spread as awning above him—pale, breathing heavily, and was only completely roused, when Captain Hartley, after thanking him in words, which certainly came from his very heart, proffered him first his purse and next his watch.

Then an angry flush crossed Gillian's face, the blood from his wound burst through the doctor's dressings, and with his right hand he motioned the Captain away impatiently.

"A most singular young man!" said he to the Staff-Colonel, who leant on his sword—the old tulwur—and looked on approvingly.

"Hartley, dearest, leave him to me," urged his wife, who looked pale, ill, weary, and worn, after the terror she had been lately enduring; "the poor lad is not what he seems."

"Seems! by Jove, he is a soldier to the heart's core; but, as you will, my darling."

Full of tender and womanly sympathy, she hung over the lad, bathing his temples with a handkerchief, dipped in eau-de-cologne; and, as he lay there, on the hard deck, in the "garb of old Gaul"—the garb that for grace is second to none in the world,—a woman's eye could see how handsome he was, above the middle height, stalwart and well knit in figure, with finely proportioned limbs, and a more than pleasing face, and delicate in its features. His plumed and chequered bonnet was off now, and his close shorn hair seemed rich and crisp as that of a girl. His four-tailed Highland doublet had been thrown open, that the wound might be dressed, and she could see, as all near did, the ring of Dove Gainswood, attached to its blue ribbon.

"Poor fellow," said she, bursting into tears, as her husband led her away; "that bauble contains the secret of his life, and doubtless it is a sad one."

"His future shall be our care in every way," said the officer, full of gratitude and generosity; but there was another near, of whom he and Gillian wotted little—the old Staff-Colonel, who had been regarding him with great and growing interest.

"My God!" said he, in a low but piercing voice, "how strongly—how much and mysteriously his face reminds me of one I saw—long, long ago!"

"Of whose, Colonel?" asked the doctor, who had been gently re-adjusting the bandages.

"Of my poor dead wife. What is your name, my lad?" he asked, stooping over the sufferer.

"Lamond, sir," replied Gillian, faintly.

"Ah—my own—I, too, am a Lamond," replied the other, as his eyes brightened, and clansman-like, he pressed in his the young corporal's passive hand; "what other name—John, Duncan, or what?"

"Gillian Lamond," replied the other, with his eyes closed.

"How came you by that uncommon name?"

"It was that of my grandfather."

"And who was he?"

"Gillian Lamond of Avon-na-gillian."

A singular cry, or rather gasp, in which utter bewilderment and joy, were mingled with grief and horror, escaped the old field-officer, as he sank, tremulous in voice and in every limb, on his knees by Gillian's side, and in defiance of the astonished doctor, asked a few more hurried and earnest questions—only a few, but more than enough to convince him that this sufferer, who, from being a betrayed out-cast, had become a soldier, was his son; and so, while the Comet and her two consorts were steaming up the Karun, blazing with their mortars and 36-pounders at the distant pickets of Persian cavalry, a great discovery was being made on her deck, and the strands of a singular narrative were woven together, but only at such long intervals as the cautious doctor would permit, for Gillian was now—notwithstanding all the blood he had lost—in a state so low and feverish, that any excitement might kill him.

"Gillian, my boy—Gillian, my son—whose ring is this you wear, as Mrs. Hartley tells me, at your neck?" asked the Colonel.

"Dove's—Dove Gainswood, father." (How new the words seemed now to his lips!)

"Then, for her sake, I shall not curse her father," replied the old soldier; and after a time proceeded to do so in no very measured or gentle terms, recurring ever and anon, pathetically, to the secret sentiment that had first stirred his soul, when he saw Gillian in the bivouac on the plain of Shiraz.

So it seemed that the newspaper report, concerning the defeat and death of Colonel Lamond among the hill tribes, was all a canard or mistake. His party had been victorious; but he had certainly been wounded and carried off prisoner in the affair at Mora; but an old Lama priest, saved, protected, and cured him, and conveyed him to the plains, from whence he had reached Calcutta. From thence and Bombay, he had written to his brother-in-law, Gideon Gainswood, announcing his safety and homeward journey; but both letters would seem to have been miscarried; and, as at Bombay, he found "his old friend, Jamie Outram," departing with his expedition for Bushire, he could not resist having, as he said, "a farewell shy at the Persians," and thus had joined his personal staff as a volunteer, in the capacity of an extra aide-de-camp; and thereby hung a great deal more than the pious and godly Gideon Gainswood would care to see nicely woven up into a "process" before the Lords of Council and Session; and the old man gnawed his grizzled moustache, while black fury gathered in his bronzed visage, as he thought of the cruel, dark, and treacherous game that had been played to himself and his son; and where now, he thought, were all those savings of years of industry and peril, that were to have made his son the heir of their ancestral rocks and hills of Avon-na-gillian!

"I suppose much must be pardoned even in a Scotch lawyer, that would be unpardonable in a man of any other trade," said the Colonel, as he sat on the gunslide near Gillian, and poured forth his wrath, sometimes in Hindostanee, when the vocabulary of English abuse failed him; "but Gainswood is a psalm-singing scoundrel of the deepest die, and one whom, ere long, I shall most terribly unmask."

"But, father," urged Gillian, in a broken voice; "to use his own adopted phraseology—are the children to suffer for the sins of their parents? Is Dove to be considered as venial as her father?"

"Dove is a dear girl, and a genuine little brick!" exclaimed the Colonel, smiting the deck with his tulwur; "but as for her father, I must, when thinking of him, agree with Mrs. Shelly, that 'it is certainly more creditable to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant and accomplice of his vices—which is the profession of the law.' When shall I be face to face with the sanctimonious legal Thug!"

Night came down on the Karun; the moon, no longer a crescent now, but full, round, and in all her silver beauty, came out of the blue sky; the boom of the guns and the crash of the mortars had died away, and under half steam the Comet moved quietly in the fairway of that stately tribute of the Euphrates.

For the last few hours Gillian was almost voiceless, or able to speak only in tremulous and uncertain whispers; and he was sleeping heavily, while the old Colonel, sleepless, full of sad and fierce thoughts, sat yet on the gunslide and watched him, as the doctor alleged it was too close between decks to have one so feverish taken below; and from time to time, the old man stooped and gazed on him, till his eyes became blind with tears, and even while prayers gathered in his heart, the curses of deep and most just anger hovered on his lips.

Around him was the Persian shore bordering the waves of that classic river. It was a calm and lovely evening now; dusky shadows were stealing upward from the roots of the graceful date palms, and pomegranate trees, the leaves of which glittered in the moonlight, even while the last rays of sunshine lingered redly on the snow-clad mountain peaks that stood up so sharply against the deep blue of the sky beyond. The rising breeze rustled the foliage, the river went flowing downward to the Euphrates, snatching at the roots of the overhanging underwood, and watching by his newly-found son, that old man sat buried in bitter thought.

Away from the banks of the Karun, away from Shiraz, where Hafiz, the Anacreon of Persia, lies in his rose-covered grave near the garden of Jehan Numa; away from Faristan, the land of Abassides and the Attabegs, where the chinar, the dark cypress, and the pale willow grow side by side, and cast their changing shadows on the rice and brilliant poppy fields, the cotton-trees, the saffron and the hemp, the old Indian soldier's heart went home to Avon-na-gillian—the place of his hopes and his day-dreams—amid the surf-beaten isles of the West.

He saw before him a heath-clad glen, traversed by the Avon, a rough mountain stream, foaming over water-worn rocks, with tufts of vegetation sprouting in the many crevices as the burn leaped from pool to pool, its brown surface flecked by air-bells and the frequent trout. Overhead is a grey sky, against which stands a weather-stained old tower, looking down upon the distant tumbling sea, as it looked when Hacho's galleys fled from Largs in the days of old.

Old Lachlan Lamond had seen the wonders of the Taj Mahal at Agra, the marble domes of Delhi, and Seringham with its Temple of the Thousand Pillars, but he would freely have given them, all for that old battered Hebridean tower; and the glories of the Indus, the Jumna and Ganges, were as nothing to his heart, when compared with the old brawling burn that foamed through the lonely glen.

From his reverie he was roused by the doctor kneeling and looking anxiously at Gillian, who was an object of uncommon interest now.

"Is he in danger?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

"Very great."

"Will the boy die?" he asked piteously, after a painful pause.

The staff-surgeon only waved his hand, as if to impose silence or resignation, and moved away without any other response.

Then the heart of the old soldier—the heart that had never quailed amid the strife of India's bloodiest battles—died away within him, and stunned and bewildered by the discoveries and catastrophe of the day, bowing his head upon the hilt of his sword, he wept like a very woman.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE TANGLED WEB UNWOVEN.

In these our days of haste and hurry, steam and telegraph, when all men acknowledge that life seems far too short for what we seek to cram into it, it must not seem incorrect or "a violation of the unities," if we suddenly turn from Persia, and take another glance homeward at the most beautiful, yet, perhaps, most provincial, of all European capitals.

In Edinburgh the night was cold and gusty—the last of April—with occasional blasts of rain and hail. Mr. Gainswood was seated alone in his library; Dove was in the drawing-room, for father and daughter were now more apart than they were wont to be. With something of pleasure he heard her touching the piano. Poor Dove! Tortured and despairing, she had been more than once on the point of yielding to her father's matrimonial wishes, and she seldom thought of her music now. Seldom, indeed, she opened the piano, and even then she was running her pretty fingers over the keys in a wandering and purposeless way; at one time it was a waltz, at another a national melody that Gillian loved; then the lawyer would grind his teeth, as it always ended in "Wild Joanna."

"Poor girl!" he muttered; "she always looks so pale—curse that designing cousin! Her eyes have an expression so mournful and sad that often I feel inclined to take her in my arms and kiss her—but 'tisn't my way. She casts the mercies from her! How like a serpent's tooth it is——"

Then he paused, in doubt whether he was quoting Scripture or some profane writer, to do which beseemed not a man of his religious character.

Sunk back in softly stuffed easy chair, Mr. Gainswood abandoned himself to the luxury of thinking over the riches he had amassed from a very small and very sordid beginning. The lofty room was brilliantly lighted, and its interior contrasted pleasantly with the cold and stormy night without, where the tall trees with the old rookery were swaying in the occasional blasts. Sweeping curtains of rich maroon damask shrouded the windows, and from cornices of walnut-wood, gilded, bearing the Gainswood crest (some cognizance to heraldry unknown) fell on the rich carpet woven in the looms of Aubusson, in the department of Creuse—a carpet wherein the florid crimson roses, mellowed into the pink and yellow of other flowers.

It was a stately room, and everything around him betokened ease combined with splendour.

In the low, deep chair he sat before the fire, his slippered feet stretched out upon the fender of polished steel; and, while listening with dreamy pleasure to the wailing of the wind and the gusts of the storm that he was not exposed to, he thought over all he had amassed (without caring how); of an address he was to make at a religious meeting on the morrow; of cases pending before the Inner and Outer Houses; and then, as the notes of the piano came idly from the distant drawing-room, of Dove's rare beauty—-a useless commodity as yet, unless she yielded to him and Campsie; and anon, by the chain of thought, a vision of a face came before him with painful distinctness—the face of the wanderer, him whom he had expelled and robbed of his inheritance—the face of Gillian as he had seen it last.

The war was over in Persia; a peace had been concluded so early as the 4th of March, unknown to Sir James Outram; and the 78th Highlanders, under Havelock, had gone to India, where new and terrible complications were arising. Mr. Gainswood knew all this from the public papers. Many rank and file had fallen in battle he knew; he had gloated over their numbers hopefully. Had Gillian escaped; and, if so, would he escape the greater perils that were to come?

A sour smile gathered in his ferret-eyes, and the bull-dog jaw assumed a set expression of defiance. It passed away, and the former smile of indolent ease and of bland hypocrisy spread over his coarse face, as he thought, and thought, and thought again, of how he "had flourished even as the green bay-tree," till a loud ring of the front door bell echoed through the stone staircase and corridors, after a wheeled vehicle had stopped at the pillared portico without.

Mr. Gainswood glanced inquiringly at his library clock. Who could his visitor be at such an unusual hour?

"A gentleman wishes to see you, sir," said the servant, ushering in a person whom Mr. Gainswood saw to be a stranger, who had come thus suddenly without the prelude of sending up his card. He was a tall, thin man, of haughty and aristocratic bearing and undoubtedly military aspect, bronzed and furrowed in face, with a densely thick moustache that mingled with his flowing and silvery beard. Many years had elapsed since Mr. Gainswood had seen Colonel Lamond, for he it was; he was closely shaven in those days, with hair of a ruddy brown, so he utterly failed to recognize him or even his voice now.

The Colonel threw open his Highland cloak, deposited his hat and leather gloves with something of emphasis on the table, grasped nervously a silver-mounted and heavy malacca cane, and, when asked to "be seated," took a chair, with a keen and scrutinising expression in his eyes that thoroughly roused Mr. Gainswood, who said:

"May I ask whom I have the honour to receive?"

"An extra aide-de-camp of General Sir James Outram," replied the other, wishing to preserve his incognito for some time.

"Your name?"

"That you will have in good time. We have met before."

"Perhaps; but I have no recollection——"

"All the better."

"Your business, sir?"

"Is with you."

"Well?" said Mr. Gainswood sharply, as he decidedly thought his client was a strange one, and felt restless under his keen, bright, steady, and contemptuous glance.

"I have a message to you from Colonel Lachlan Lamond."

"My late brother-in-law!" exclaimed Mr. Gainswood, now thoroughly roused.

The Colonel smiled and twisted his heavy grey moustaches, as he saw that Gainswood's face became livid, and that already drops of clammy perspiration glittered about his temples; but he said:

"Poor old Lachlan! he was killed at Mora by the Bhoteas. Alas! in the midst of life we are in death!"

"He left a son in your care, Mr. Gainswood."

"A profligate, who left me and went forth into the world—I know not where. Were you in the campaign against the Hill Tribe?"

"I was."

"Then what was, or is, your message to me?"

"It concerns the will which Colonel Lamond entrusted to your care—the will by which he bequeathed all he possessed to his son, whom failing, to your daughter."

"I never heard of any such document, and, if it existed, it will, no doubt, be recorded somewhere."

"It was not, so far as I know."

"Then there is no proof of its existence at all."

"Very probably," replied the Colonel, scornfully; "so we shall pass that, and come to the fortune left by the Colonel, out of which you brought up his son, as a species of half-drudge in your office, in total ignorance that such a thing existed."

"A fortune!"

"Thirty thousand pounds and more, transmitted to you from India as a portion of the money to re-purchase Avon-na-gillian."

"You have been dining or are dreaming, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Gainswood, growing pale, but attempting to bully nevertheless, as he started to his feet and approached a bell-handle.

"Sit down, sir, and listen to me, or, by Heaven, I shall stretch you beside that fender!" cried the Colonel, grasping his heavy cane and looking as if he meant to use it.

Mr. Gainswood re-seated himself and affected to listen, with the half-amused and incredulous smile of one who has a lunatic to humour, and lay back in his elbow-chair with the tips of his fingers placed together; but, with all this assumed exterior, there flashed upon his memory the old saying about giving even the tip of one's little finger to Satan.

"Do you mean to deny the existence of this money, as well as that of the will, or that you ever received it?" asked the Colonel, quietly.

"I do."

"Foul liar!"

"Calm yourself, my good sir—calm yourself. Your words, if heard, are actionable; but there is a power above that rules us all and guides us all," replied the lawyer, looking with an air of resignation upward to the crystal gaselier that glittered overhead; "you are labouring under some incomprehensible delusion. If the money, those many thousands, were ever transmitted to me, or anyone else, by my dear dead brother-in-law some vouchers of the fact must be somewhere."

"They are so."

"Indeed; where?"

"In the hands of my banker," replied the other, with a calm smile.

For nearly a minute the two men regarded each other in silence. The trembling lips and pallid cheeks of Gainswood had been the result of his naturally bullying temper, but now they came of craven, abject fear, for terror and alarm were curdling in his coward heart. The malice of the devil was in it, and in his ferret eyes, yet his plight and aspect were pitiable—most pitiable—and the Colonel, even with all his scorn, felt it to be so.

"There are shades of guilt, Mr. Gainswood," said he.

"Shades, sir," stammered the lawyer.

"Yes, sir; shades."

"The All-seeing Eye can pierce all shades——."

"The less we have of this from such a worm as you the better, sir," interrupted his visitor, rising; "there are people of your infamous stamp who think it less guilty to suppress evidence than to destroy it; but that you have done, suppressed or destroyed the will left with you, and other documents that concern the transmitted money; but the proof of that transmission my vouchers can affirm."

"And you, sir," exclaimed the lawyer, fairly brought to bay at last, "who are you?"

"Colonel Lachlan Lamond, of whose existence the Procurator-Fiscal shall convince you to-morrow morning," replied the other sternly, as he carefully drew on his gloves, and eyed with withering scorn the lawyer, who, like a hunted creature, uttered a moan, not of sorrow, but of mingled rage, hate, and baffled desire for defiance, as he covered his face with his trembling hands, and thought perhaps,—

"O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!"

Here was a turning of the tables with a vengeance. His shame and disgrace, his committal and trial as a felon were in the hands of Colonel Lamond, and judging by himself and his own nature, he felt certain that the injured father would be merciless. He could have no comfort in his religion, for religion had he none. Though ever on his lips, he had about as much of it in his heart as a Zulu Kaffir, or those Bhoteas, who, so unfortunately for him, had not made mince meat of his brother-in-law.

The Colonel had ended buttoning his gloves and highland cloak, and was about to assume his hat, when Mr. Gainswood, whose hands shook like aspen, leaves, stretched them forth deprecatingly, and said:

"Lachlan, for the sake of our dead wives, for the sake of Dove, do not, do not expose me!"

Something of sadness now mingled with the sour scorn that filled the eyes of the old soldier, who, after a pause, said:

"Faithless and false-trickster as you have been, thief as you would be, heartless and cruel though you proved to my poor boy, Gillian, for the memory of those you name, and for the sake of the cousins who have loved each other so well and tenderly, I shall forgive you; but never, while the breath of Heaven is in your nostrils, ask Lachlan Lamond to degrade himself by taking your hand in his!"

"And where is Gillian now?" asked Gideon Gainswood, after a pause.

"Within summons if you wish to see him."

And sooth to say, during all this exciting interview, Gillian, whom we had last seen lying, to all appearances done nigh unto death, on the deck of H.M.S. Comet, had been in the adjoining drawing-room, with Dove's head pillowed upon his breast, and his arms around her.

Gillian, she thought, looked certainly haggard, pale, and hairy, and there was an unwonted glitter in his eye that was born of the sufferings he had undergone, but it was blended with the brightness and triumph of his present joy.

Gillian alive, safe, and back home again! It required days to pass ere Dove—in blissful ignorance of the dark and intricate springs on which her fate had turned—would settle down into a calm and delicious state of happiness subsequent to the return of the loved one, so bitterly mourned as lost for ever, that their engagement was permitted, and all barriers, monetary and otherwise, were dissipated and removed.

How differently passed the days now since she knew that he was safe and her own as before. Ah, how wearily they were wont to lag and drag in the dreadful past time, when at dawn and noon she only longed for night, though, when all were abed and asleep, she lay awake, with her heart aching, and her poor little head full of all manner of terrible imaginings, and knew that if she slept, she would, with daylight only come back to a dull sense of all-pervading sorrow.

As for my Lord Campsie, who had been to her a species of Frankenstein, she was relieved of his presence for ever, and with more ease than he was ever likely to be of his monetary embarrassments.

He has since espoused the fair one with the golden locks, thus combining the establishment at St. John's Wood with his own. He has, moreover, become a representative peer by the death of the old viscount, and being chronically "hard up," will have no objection to pocket the salary and figure yearly as H.M. Commissioner to the Kirk, if it will have him, "though it is a doocid bore, don't you know, and so demmed vulgaw." But then "the viscountess would have the upper ten dozen of Edinburgh and their women folk" at her receptions in the long gallery of the kings of Scotland, and there might be a little satisfaction in that.

A FORGOTTEN PRINCE OF WALES.

In the following pages I propose to give the brief history of a Prince of Wales who, had he lived long enough, might, by the brilliance of his talents and the tenor of his character, have changed the whole fate and annals of the British Isles after his own time, in so far, that Cromwell and the great civil war, the Scottish Covenant, the battles of Montrose and Claverhouse, the advents of William and Mary, of Anne, and even the accession of the House of Hanover, would never have been heard of.

At three in the morning of Tuesday, the 19th February, 1593, there was born in the Castle of Stirling, Henry, afterwards Prince of Wales, eldest son of James VI. of Scotland and I. of Great Britain, by his queen, Anne, daughter of Frederick II., and sister of the gallant sailor-king, Christian IV. of Denmark, in the fourth year of their marriage. A discharge of twelve great guns announced the event to the town; the king sent for the ministry, desiring that everywhere the people should be called together, to have public thanksgiving; and bale-fires were, as Calderwood records, set ablaze on all the great mountains; and Moyse adds in his memoirs, that so great was the joy of the nation, "that people in all parts appeared to be daft for mirth."

The baptism was deferred for six months, says Dr. Birch, the king having "thought proper to invite several foreign princes and states to send their ambassadors to be present at that solemnity"; but scarcely had that young prince—the future heir of all the British Isles—seen the light ere faction, the old curse of the Scottish nation, began to contemplate employing the unconscious infant for the promotion of its base designs. By the conspirators it was proposed to retain him in their hands as the means of strengthening their own party. To the honour of Lord Zouch, however, to whom the offer was made, he peremptorily declined all concurrence; so the despicable expedient, which had been so successful in past times of Scottish history, was abandoned. In the meantime Zouch, though strictly watched, busied himself, in conformity with his infamous secret instructions from Queen Elizabeth, to intrigue with all the Scottish nobility who were opposed to James's temporising policy, and embroil him with his people.

On the 27th of August the little prince was baptised in the Castle of Stirling, amid unusual magnificence. He was borne from his own room to the queen's chamber of presence, laid on a stately bed, in care of the Countess of Mar and other ladies of rank, who delivered him to Ludovic Stewart, Duke of Lennox, Admiral and Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland, who presented him to the foreign ambassadors. Among these was the representative of Elizabeth, the young Earl of Sussex, who was connected with her by ties of blood, and who came attended with a magnificent retinue, bearer of a letter from his royal mistress, congratulating the king on the auspicious event, and abounding in expressions of friendly feeling, in her own quaint manner; though at that very time she was intriguing for the destruction and death of Maitland, the Lords Home, Huntly, and others who were his most loyal nobles. There too were the ambassadors of the Duke of Brunswick, the States of Holland, the Duke of Mecklenburg, and other princes. "Behind the Earl of Sussex," says Dr. Birch, "stood the Lord Wharton and Sir Henry Bromley, Knight, no other Englishman being admitted into the chapel royal."

Thither the child was borne by Sussex, preceded by Lord Home bearing the ducal crown, Lord Livingstone the napkin, Lord Seaton the basin, and Lord Semple the laver. Above their heads was a great canopy, borne by the Lairds of Buccleuch, Cessford, Dudhope, and Traquair, while the prince's train was held up by the Lords Sinclair and Urquhart. Around was a guard of chosen young men of Edinburgh, richly dressed and armed; and the trumpets sounded as the king seated himself in a chair "adorned with the arms of France."

After a sermon "in the Scots tongue," by one of the king's chaplains, David Cunninghame, Bishop of Aberdeen, preached in Latin on the creed. The child was then baptised and knighted; the trumpets sounded, again the cannon thundered over the Valley of the Forth, while the Lyon King and his heralds from the gates and battlements proclaimed the now-forgotten prince, by the name of "Frederick Henry, Henry Frederick, by the grace of God Knight and Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Earl of Carrick, Duke of Rothesay, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland" (Calderwood). Gifts were then presented to the infant. Among these were a cupboard of plate worth £3,000 from Elizabeth; two massive gold chains from the King of Denmark; a table enriched with diamonds from the Duke of Mecklenburg; two gold cups from the States of Holland, worth 12,400 crowns, each weighing 400 ounces, and in one were 5,000 florins, the first of the prince's annual donations from the conservator of Scottish privileges at Campvere in Zealand.

History tells us that the pageants which succeeded this ceremony were of the most costly and gorgeous description, "and much ingenuity was expended by Mr. Fowler, Master of the Revels, as well as by the king himself, in planning masks, shows, and triumphs, together with curious and mysterious devices suited to the tastes of that age." Soon after, the prince was committed to the care of John, Earl of Mar, Governor of the Castle of Stirling and Chamberlain of Monteith, &c.; and he was assisted in his charge by his mother, Annabella, Countess Dowager of Mar, a daughter of the Lord Tullybardine.

For these two guardians the little prince, as boyhood crept on, showed such affection that the queen became jealous of them, and endeavoured to remove him into her own custody; but James wrote to the earl, desiring him upon no account to give up the prince to his mother; yet the charge of the old countess ended when, in his sixth year, Adam Newton, a gentleman "learned in languages," was made his tutor. Many attendants of rank were appointed; but chief of all these was still the Earl of Mar. It was at this time, in 1599, that the pedantic James composed for his use in Greek "His Majesty's Instructions to his dearest son, Henry the Prince." In the preface thereto were some passages that puzzled many; for by his bitterness against the Puritans he gave grounds for doubting his Protestantism, and in others he seemed to cherish some vindictiveness against England, though the heir to its throne.

In 1600, when in his seventh year, the prince wrote in his own hand a letter to the States-General, expressing gratitude to and regard for them. This letter, which most probably was dictated by the "Scottish Solomon," was taken to Holland by Sir David Murray. In the year following the prince began to take great pleasure in all manly exercises—in learning to ride, sing, dance, leap, to shoot with the bow and to toss the pike; and in most of these things he became a great proficient, under the care of Sir Richard Preston (of Craigmillar), Constable of Dingwall, and afterwards Earl of Desmond in Ireland. Of his progress in learning we have a proof in the recorded fact that he wrote a letter on his ninth birthday to his father, in which he mentions that "he had begun two years before to write to his Majesty, in order to make him a judge of the proficiency he had made in his studies; and that since his (James's) departure he had read over Terence's Hecyra, the third book of Phædrus's Fables, and two books of Cicero's Select Epistles."

On the death of Elizabeth, at Richmond, in 1603, James succeeded peacefully to the English throne, and soon after took with him to London his heir, still in the custody of the Earl of Mar; but the latter had, for a time, to return to Scotland, where Queen Anne was demanding from his custody her daughter, the Princess Elizabeth (afterwards Queen of Bohemia), and her son, Prince Charles (afterwards Charles I.); but the earl urged again the express commands of the king on the subject, and it is said that the queen never forgave him. Mar resumed his care of the prince, who, together with the earl, when the feast of St. George was celebrated at Windsor, on the 2nd of July, 1603, received the Order of the Garter; and young Henry, now for the first time saluted as Prince of Wales, "was highly commended by the Earl of Nottingham, in the hearing of Edward Howes, our English chronicler of that age, for his quick witty answers, princely carriage, and reverend obeisance to the altar" (Dr. Birch).

Branishill, in Hampshire, was built as a residence for him. He was the first Prince of Wales who ever wore the triple plume, and all the traditions which assign it to the Black Prince and John of Bohemia are totally unsupported by history. The latter at Cressy wore an eagle's pinion in his helmet, and the seal of the former in 1370 shows him wearing a single feather.

On New-year's-day, 1604, when in his eleventh year, he sent to his father a short poem in Latin hexameters, as his first offering of that kind. In the same year the prince, having already evinced a great love for naval affairs, had a vessel specially built for his amusement and instruction at Limehouse; and on the 14th of March it was brought to anchor off the king's lodging in the Tower, where the prince came and showed the lord high admiral and other nobles, with much boyish delight, how he could handle this craft, which was gaily furnished with ensigns and pendants. Anon we are told that it was brought to anchor off Whitehall Stairs, when the prince again went on board with the admiral, the Earl of Worcester, and other persons of rank. The anchor was then weighed, and under her foresail and topsail she dropped down the river to Paul's Wharf, where, with a great bowl of wine, the prince baptised her by the name of the Disdain.

The prince evinced a great love of arms, and was never weary of handling the pike; and in Drayton's Polyolbion we have a portrait of him when about his seventeenth year thus engaged, and the drawing depicts him as handsome in figure, regularly featured, with his hair starting in spouts from an open forehead. He is dressed in rich half-armour, with gauntlets, trunk hose, and the Garter on his left leg. Already men of learning had begun to court him as their patron, and he maintained a correspondence with such as were most eminent for their talent; and he gave such promise of future greatness that foreign princes solicited his friendship, and in a letter which the French ambassador sent home he remarked to the king his master, "that it would be a serious omission in policy to neglect a prince who promised such great things. None of his pleasures savour the least of childish pursuits. He is a particular lover of horses and what belongs to them; but he is not fond of hunting, and when he goes to it, it is rather for the pleasure of galloping than for that which the dogs afford him. He plays willingly enough at tennis, and at another Scots diversion very like mall [golf?], but always with persons older than himself, as if he despised those of his own age. He studies two hours a day, and employs the rest of his time in tossing the pike, or leaping, throwing the bar, shooting with the bow, vaulting, or some other exercise of that kind, for he is never idle. He shows himself likewise very amicable to his dependents, and supports their interests against all persons whatsoever, and pushes what he undertakes for them with such zeal as procures success; and by exerting his whole strength to compass what he desires, is already feared by those who have the management of affairs."

The Duke de Sully tells us in his memoirs that the young prince naturally hated Spain and favoured France, though there seems to have been some strange proposal on foot for having him educated finally in the former country. He also tells us that it was a favourite project of Henri IV to marry his eldest daughter to the prince, to whom he sent "a golden lance and helmet, enriched with diamonds, together with a fencing-master and vaulter" (Memoirs, vol. iii.). With all these gifts of mind and person we are told that he was less a favourite with the queen than her second son, Charles, Duke of York and Albany. The company of Merchant Taylors having requested the king to become a member of their guild, he replied that he "was already free of another company," referring to the similar corporation in Edinburgh; but added that his son the prince would avail himself of the honour, and that he would be present at the ceremony. So the king came, and "with his highness was entertained with vocal and instrumental musick—the musick of twelve lutes equally divided, and placed by six and six in a window of the hall; and in the area between them was a gallant ship triumphant, in which were three men dressed like sailors, eminent for their voice and skill, who were accompanied by the lutists."

In vol. i. Coke relates an anecdote which he heard from his father, who about the time was of the prince's age. Being out hunting, a butcher's dog chanced to kill the stag, and thus spoil the sport. As Henry did not resent this, the courtiers, to incense him against the butcher, said, that "if the king his father had been served thus, he would have sworn so that no man could have endured it." "Away," replied the gentle prince; "all the pleasure in the world is not worth one oath!"

In 1612 the cowardly and contemptible Elector Palatine came to London to marry the Princess Elizabeth, whom the scarcely less pitiful James had named after the woman who destroyed his unhappy mother. He was received in London with profound respect, and the court was fully occupied by brilliant entertainments, masques, and joyous diversions in honour of the royal nuptials; but amid them a mortal illness seized upon the promising young prince, who, not conceiving it dangerous, continued to appear in public with the elector till he was unable to leave his bed, on the 27th of October; and he died, between seven and eight o'clock P.M., on the 6th of November. He expired at St. James's Palace, and in the arms of the Earl of Mar.

Of what disease he died none now can say; but, as usual in those days, ugly whispers were abroad.

"He was," says Rapin, combining the encomiums of Wilson, Coke, and Osburn, "the most accomplished prince that ever was—I will not say in all England, but in all Europe. He was sober, chaste, temperate, religious, full of honour and probity. He was never heard to swear, though the example of his father and of the whole court might have been apt to corrupt him in that respect. He took great delight in the conversation of men of honour, and those who were not reckoned as such, were looked upon with a very ill eye at his court. He had naturally a greatness of mind, with noble and generous thoughts, and as much displeased with trifles as his father was fond of them. He frequently said if ever he mounted the throne his first care should be to try and reconcile the Puritans to the Church of England. As this could not be done without concessions on each side, and as such a condescension was directly contrary to the temper of the court and clergy, he was suspected to countenance Puritanism. He was naturally gentle and affable; but, however, in his carriage had a noble stateliness, without affectation. He showed a warlike genius in his passionate fondness for all martial exercises. In short, to say all in a word, though he was only eighteen when he died, no historian has ever taxed him with any vice."

Another annalist tells us that "neither the illusions of passion nor of rank had ever seduced him into any irregular pleasures; business and ambition alone engaged his heart and occupied his mind. Had he lived to come to the throne he might probably have promoted the glory more than the happiness of his people, his disposition being strongly turned to war" (Russell).

Regarding this spirit, Coke tells us that on a French ambassador coming one day to take leave of the prince he "found him tossing a pike"; and on asking "what service he would commend him to the king his master," "Tell him what I am doing," was the significant reply.

The weak king his father, on finding that Henry's court at St. James's was more frequented than his own, is said to have exhibited some jealousy on the subject, and was one day heard to ask "if his son would bury him."

The disease of which he died puzzled his physicians so much that the usual vulgar rumour, as I have said, went abroad that he had been poisoned, and Burnet tells us that, without the slightest proof, many actually accused Viscount Rochester of the crime; and thus a post-mortem examination took place, in presence of many physicians and surgeons, who declared on oath that they were unable to detect the slightest symptoms of poison. Howes says that he died of a malignant fever, which in that year "carried away a great many people of all sorts and ages." Balfour calls it "a malignant purpuer fever."

It is somewhat remarkable that the king forbade all court mourning, unless it can be explained that he was loth to cast a gloom over his daughter's recent marriage; but the funeral, which took place in Westminster Abbey on the 7th of December, was a stately one, and cost £2000 of the money of that time (Howes).

Sir Robert Douglas states that, after the prince's death, the faithful old Earl of Mar returned home, and, after being Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, died at a green old age in 1634.

With regard to the well-known plume, perhaps he adopted three feathers to signify the three kingdoms to which he was heir, or because three feathers are the badge of a chief in Scotland; but, whatever the cause, Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, was the first who gave that crest to the Principality.

The "Scots Magazine" for 1809, contains a copy of the doggrel epitaph—perhaps penned by the pedantic king his father—which was carved upon his tomb in Westminster Abbey.

Many of his letters are inserted in Disraeli's "Curiosities of Literature;" and his magnificent suit of armour is still preserved in the Tower of London.