"Ah! mademoiselle," said he, "I am lured towards you as the poor moth is lured towards the light—as an eaglet soars towards the glorious sun—soars, but to sink panting and hopeless down to earth again. Never did a Guebre worship the sacred fire with half the tremulous ardour I worship you; for mine is a worship of the heart and soul—the love of father, lover, husband, and brother—all combined in one!"
"And so, M. le Comte, you do admire me," said Lucy, trembling.
"In that, Mademoiselle Fleming, I would only be as other men."
"I love you, mademoiselle."
"But so do many more."
"Mon Dieu! I know that too well; but none love as I do."
It was not in bombast like this that poor Adam White had wooed and won her love; yet in six months after her arrival at the Hague, to the dismay and discomfiture of six entire battalions of the Scots brigade—at least the officers thereof—she became the wife of M. le Comte Montmorin, Peer of France, Knight of St. Louis, and all the royal orders—he who in former days had been the trusty grenadier of Philipsburg and the resolute general at Ticonderoga; and though the old minister sorrowed in his heart for the brave and leal-hearted lad she had loved in other days, and who was buried in his soldier's grave so far away; and though he deemed, too, that the old manse by Tweedside would be lonely now, without her, as the count belonged to an ancient Protestant house in Lillebonne, and had a magnificent fortune, et cetera, he had no solid objection to offer; and so he pronounced the irrevocable nuptial blessing, and handed over his last tie on earth—the last flower of a little flock who were all sleeping "in the auld kirkyard at hame," to the titled stranger.
On the occasion the Scots brigade consoled themselves by giving a magnificent ball; and none danced more merrily thereat than the friend of the lost lover, Jack Oswald, late of Ours, who had been taken prisoner during some of his wanderings, and sent to France; but had made his escape in the disguise of a poissard, and was wandering home, viá the Hague and Rotterdam.
"Poor Adam fell at Ticonderoga," said he, in a pause of the dancing—"I saw him knocked on the head—'tis well he lived not to see this day!"
"But the count is so rich!" said a disappointed man of the Scots brigade.