SOME men seem born with a peculiar facility for becoming the sport of circumstances. Charles Graham, younger of Denniscraig, was one of these. He resembled a ball made to be “turned and tossed.” thrown here or there, up or down; but, by way of compensation, he possessed a certain convenient faculty for rolling swiftly and smoothly, and turning up uninjured in unexpected places. It was an untoward fate which had hitherto kept him stationary in a corner of Scotland. He found himself quite in his element when he joined the Marquis of Hamilton's headquarters; and the rather as Captain Stuart had taken a fancy to him, and acted the part of a staunch and useful friend. There were more candidates for employment in the new army than commissions to bestow on them, and Stuart rightly considered that he had done well by Charles Graham when he obtained a pair of colors for him. At the same time he served him effectually in another way. He brought Hugh under the notice of the marquis, who was attracted by the handsome, manly little lad, and consented, after some solicitation, to receive him into the number of his pages. This was a signal favor, for the splendid, pomp-loving nobleman was bringing with him to Germany in that capacity a train of no fewer than forty young gentlemen, scions of good families, who were anxious to serve their apprenticeship in the art of war. Hugh was not only of comparatively obscure birth, but much younger than the others. Captain Stuart obviated the latter difficulty by representing him as two years older than he actually was; and his own frank bearing and winning ways accomplished the rest.
But what was Graham to do with his niece? When he found, on reaching Edinburgh, that Dame Grizel was no more, he would have sent her back to Denniscraig, but it had been already arranged that the principal creditor of the family should live in the house and manage the estate. Once more Captain Stuart came to the rescue His wife, a German, had been for some years residing in Scotland, but was now desirous of returning to her native country, that she might enjoy the society of her relatives and be able to join her husband whenever circumstances permitted―as she might reasonably expect to do, in an age when even private soldiers were accustomed to bring their families with them into the field.
The marquis's large, well-appointed fleet afforded her an excellent opportunity of making the voyage in comfort and safety; and at her husband's request she offered to take Jeanie with her. She would be very glad of her company, she said, and on their arrival in Germany she would either keep her with her or find her a home in some respectable Protestant family, until her uncle should be able to provide for her suitably. Thus little Jeanie won the desire of her heart, and was not denied the request of her lips. If her brother was not to stay in Scotland with her, she was to go to Germany with him, and that was clearly the same thing. So she “thanked God and took courage.”
After a prosperous voyage the marquis landed his gallant little army at the mouth of the Oder, in the pleasant month of July. During the march into the country, a circumstance occurred which ought to have told powerfully and beneficially on the fortunes of Charles Graham. The company to which he belonged found quarters one night in a half-ruined village, where the captain and several of the men were prostrated by a violent sickness caused by the German beer and new honey, in which the English and Scotch had indulged immoderately. Graham and others who had escaped the malady were refreshing themselves in the little inn, when a peasant brought the tidings that the general's baggage, some distance off, had fallen into the hands of a party of Croats, who had cut the guard to pieces and seized upon the rich booty. In the wars of that period Croat was a name of terror and a proverb for savage and remorseless cruelty. Even the humane and chivalrous Gustavus Adolphus refused quarter to the Croats, esteeming them not soldiers but murderers and banditti. It was therefore with nothing short of horror that Graham remembered that Hugh, having been ill with others, had been left behind with the baggage until he regained his strength. His first thought was that the child would be murdered; his second, why not hasten at once to his aid? ―perhaps they might yet be in time. Acting upon impulse, as he had done all his life, he flung down his goblet of lager beer, sprang to his feet, and cried aloud, “Wha's with me for the rescue?” A lieutenant who was present, a Scotchman like himself, called the attempt a piece of madness. “Vera weel, brother,” said Wild Charlie. “If ye dinna like it ye may leave it. Perhaps some of the brave English fellows here will volunteer for the work. Who wants to make his fortune?” he added, looking round on the group. “The marquis has the worth of a king's ransom in those trunks of his, forbye the plate and the equipages, and I'll warrant me he'll open his hands wide to the brisk lads that win them back for him.”
“I'm with you, sir; not for reward, but for duty,” said a stout sergeant who lived to serve bravely amongst Cromwell's Ironsides. Joining his eloquence and his influence to Charlie's, they soon managed so well that the whole available strength of the company joined the enterprise. That was the happiest night of wild Charlie's wildlife. The rapid, silent midnight march, guided by the peasant who had brought the tidings—the fierce, sudden onslaught―the mad conflict, hand to hand, breast to breast, foot to foot—crowned by the intoxicating joy of victory―all these were the fiery breath of a new life to Charles Graham. “Something waked up in me I never kept before,” he said afterward. Never before, in fact, had he seen a shot fired in anger, or taken part in any conflict more dignified and legitimate than a drunken brawl. When the fighting instinct, inherited from a long line of warlike ancestors, was once fairly aroused within him, its awakening was that of a lion. He found Hugh safe and uninjured; the Croats had been mere plunderers, the disorganized remains of some disbanded troop, who were doing business, after their fashion, on their own account. When the marquis heard of the rescue of his very valuable baggage, he told Captain Stuart that one of those penniless Scotch lairds he had picked up for him was turning out a trump card, and, sending for Graham, thanked him, and placed him at once upon his staff.
So fortune came to Charlie, if only he had possessed common sense and self-command enough to use it. Unhappily these were lacking. But since every man ought to be heard in his own defense, we must needs allow Charlie to give his own account of the misadventures that spoiled his promising career, as he recounted them in a letter to his old guardian and tutor, Master John Aird. Allowance must be made for the uncouthness of his style, since up to this period he had only written three letters in his life, all of them to his brother.
“WERBEN. CAMP OF THE KING OF SWEDE.
(Date omitted.)
“MAIST WORTHY SIR AND MY GUID FREND, ― This is to say that I am here and in guid heith, as also my nephew Hugh and my niece Jane, when I left her at Frankfurt upon Oder, in the care of Captain Stuart his lady. As for myself, I had the good fortune to give some contentment to my lord of Hamilton, anent an affair we had with certain Croats near Stettin, whereupon his lordship was pleased to advance me to a post upon his staffe. But I cannot say that the gentlemen of his following have been as courteous as―being myselfe a gentleman born―I had the right to expect of them. No doubt they envied my advancement and the credit I got with his lordship, being for the maist part Englishmen. Withal they be fiery, conceited young sparks, so masterful and of so high a stomach that albeit they have seen no sort of service they think they have but to look at the fremit folk to make them run like hares. Such conceit have they of themselves that they spare not to flout and jeer us honest Scotchmen, wha may not prank in such braw gear, nor carry so muckle gold on our weapons, but have perchance as brave hearts beneath the one and as strong arms to use the other. My lord, Scotch though he be himself, has not the courage to stand by his own like a man. Ane young springald of his suite―Perceeveall they call him (but I never could perceeve any guid in him)―was aye jeering at me. I bore it with what patience I might, thinking him but a harebrained young coxcomb, until one day, when I came into the place where we were quartered, he began to sing, with the maist insolent tone and manner, a certain flouting song―
“‘Bonny Scot, all witness can,
England hath made thee a gentleman.’
“‘Mair than England could make of you,’ quoth I; whereon he gied me an ill word for calling him no gentleman, and went on just to brave me to my face―
“‘Thy bonnet blue when thou tamest hither,
Could scarcely keep out the wind and weather,
But now it is changed to a cap and feather.’
“‘Sir,’ said I, looking him full in the face, ‘I said not you were no gentleman, but if the cap fits you, you are welcome to wear it, and the feather too. Albeit I think the cap and bells might suit you better!’ Then he flew into a mortal rage with me for giving him fule's livery, and in course pistolets and rapiers was the word. But it came to my lord's ears, wha forbade our duel after the maist peremptory fashun. I wadna have cared a brass bodle―for whaur's the muckle pleasure of dinging a hole in a fule's body?―gif he had made young Perceeveall to apologeese and to behave himself for the future, but he was too fond of the English, or too afraid of them, to do mair than just bid us shake hands and have done with it. Not one word would he hear of all the provocations I had received from Perceeveall and the others; so, to end the matter―for a short tale is soon told―I just clappit my sword into his sheath, with a muckle oath never to draw it mair for my lord of Hamilton.
“I should have mentioned, in his proper place, that my lord had gone with his staffe (but without his army) to visit the King of Swede in his camp at Werben. My difference with Perceeveall was by the way, that with my lord upon our arrival here. So I have volunteered into the king's service, which, indeed, under all the circumstances, was the only course left open to me. Captain Stuart is not now at hand to give me his guid word, but I have found a frend in ane honest Scot, Colonel Monro, wha has been Lang in the Swedish service. There be many Scotchmen here, baith officers and men, and they be well liked and trusted of the King of Swede. Ane captain, Rittmeister they call it here, named Cochrane, shares his tent with me.
“So here I am, light of purse, bare of prospects, but no' that sair disheartened after all. Ane guid thing is, Hugh will be well seen to. My lord takes to the bairn, whom he ofttimes honors with his notice, and, to do him justice, he bears him no malice on my account. So I think the lad will prosper, though I am like never to set eyes on him again.”
But here the letter came to a sudden close.
Charles Graham paused, looking up from his paper with eyes softened with unwonted regret, as he thought that Hugh would drift away from him, probably forever. Just then a hasty hand drew aside the curtain that served as a tent door, and a slight figure bounded to his side.
“So I have found you at last!” cried Hugh. “Uncle, dear uncle, did you think I was going to leave you?”
“Of course you must go with my lord,” said Graham, hardly knowing how to understand the boy. “Have you come to bid me good-bye?”
“Feint a step will I gang with him,” said Hugh proudly, tossing back his fair hair. “I'm no' his servant ony mair.”
“Oh, my bairn! my bairn! What have you done?” cried Charles Graham in genuine distress, while the despairing thought came over him that there was no use in giving advantages to any of his name, since they were sure to be flung away at the earliest opportunity.
“Done?” repeated Hugh, with much self-satisfaction. “Just no more than your own self. I made bold to tell him I would serve him no longer, since he treated you so ill.”
“That to my lord! Luckless, malapert boy! how durst you forget yourself after sic a fashion? But that is indeed past mending. No apology would serve you after that. Laddie, laddie, ye're ruined for life, and it's all my fault. Of all the luckless loons that ever buckled on a sword I'm the maist unfortunate.” And honest, blundering Charlie Graham actually hid his face in his hands and gave way to a burst of grief and vexation which his own misfortunes would never have caused him.
“Dinna be downhearted, uncle,” said the boy cheerily. “It's all right. We're better here serving the great King of Swede his own self nor serving my lord of Hamilton. I'll gang to school—do ye ken there's schools here for the bairns, uncle?―and soon I'll be a braw soldier.”
“Ay, but, Hughie lad, ye might have been a fine gentleman, and now ye'll be no' but just a boy of the regiment.”
“Gudesakes, uncle, what of that? You and I'll just hold together, and make our fortunes. And do ye ken, uncle, I'm right glad to serve the King of Swede? I have seen him today.”
“So have I. When we first came I was in his tent, in attendance on my lord of Hamilton. I'm thinking, if it had been his baggage I had saved from the Croats, I had scarce gotten as many thanks for it. No gold nor silver was to be seen, but all as simple as this tent we sit in here.”
“Ay, but I saw him today. The soldiers were bigging a dyke, and a Swedish callant I foregathered with pointed him out to me wi' his coat off and a spade in his hand, digging with the best. Only better than the best, for you's the gait he does everything.”
“How could you foregather with a Swede when you had no word of his tongue, nor he of yours?”
“Right weel. We talked in signs. As for the king, he showed me his face on a rix-dollar.” (“Wish I had some chance to see it there,” muttered Charlie.) “He's a proper man, grand and tall, and with fair hair, just the color of mine. I walked all through the camp.”
“And what do you think of it?”
“Oh, it's just wonnerfu'. It's a muckle town, like Edinburgh or London, wi' streets and squares and a' that, only built of canvas for stones. It'll be a grand thing to live in a camp, uncle. And I saw the soldiers, crowds and crowds of them. Some of them in blue, mair in red, or white, or yellow―that shows which brigade they belong to. I saw them doing exercises, and sitting afterward at their tent doors, cleaning their pikes and muskets, and many of them―what do you think, uncle?—making lace. 'Deed an' it's quite true. I saw one poor lad, though, standing upright with his hands bound to a pike, looking unco rueful. A Scotchman, wha I asked about it, said he had been swearing. I'll never say any bad words. Jeanie garred me promise that when we bade goodbye. And be right glad to bide here.”
“Weel, bairn, I'm no' that sorry to have ye, after all. It canna be helped now, any gait. I'll just speak to Cochrane about ye when he comes in. In the meantime, there's bread and cheese in the locker, if ye havena supped already. What's that?” as a sound of singing, solemn yet cheerful, reached their ears. “Oh yes; they are singing the evening hymn. They have prayers, Cochrane tells me, every morning and evening, each regiment gathered around its own chaplain.”
“Ay,” said Hugh. “That's like hame.”
“So it is. It's an unco thing, Hughie, that when a man's far awa' from old Scotland, he'd give bright siller for a bicker of the brose he had no mind to when he got it every day at home. So with other things. Those prayers will do you and me no harm, Hughie, whatever guid they may chance to do us.”