Sir Nigel's old chum, General Rammerscales, was laid up with the gout and jungle fever, and their political friend, Lickspittal, was absent in Parliament—where, like a true Scottish M.P., he served to fill the house, to vote with the lord advocate or the majority, to work on all committees (which paid); but, of course, remaining as oblivious of Scottish interests as of those of the Sioux Indians.
Now that he was residing almost permanently at the old manor house—the Place of Calderwood, as it was named par excellence—Sir Nigel became somewhat infected by his daughter's melancholy. Thoughts of his two dead sons—Nigel, who fell at Goojerat, of his pet boy Archie, and also of his nephew, his favourite sister's only son, exposed to all the perils of disease and war in Turkey—recurred to him again and again, as he wandered through the rooms and under the old linden trees that had often echoed to their voices in infancy; and he thought of how the old estates, and the title first granted by King Charles to Sir Norman Calderwood, Primus Baronettorum Scotiæ, would go after his death, an event which he knew must happen some day; for, though hale and hearty yet, he felt that he rode a stone or two heavier now, was apt to "funk" at a sunk fence, and was finding that noble brute Splinterbar a trifle hard in the mouth for his bridle-hand now.
Even Cora's old song of "The Thistle and Rose" only served to make him sad—to make him think of those who had sung it long, long ago; and then he would order another bottle of that rare, creamy old claret, that Mr. Binns kept among the cobwebs, in a particular corner of the cellar, for themselves.
Faithful old Davie Binns! He had grown grey, white, and bald in the service of the Calderwoods, like his fathers before him, and like many other servants in that kind old Scottish household—one, indeed, "of the olden time." If he had been dismissed for a dereliction of duty, he would have thought the world was coming to an end, and doubtless would have flatly refused to go; for Davie was one of a class of servitors that are passing away, even in Scotland and Ireland; and from the sister-kingdom I fear they have long since vanished.
Accompanied by old Willie, Sir Nigel and a friend or two had occasionally a shot at the partridges in the stubble or the turnip-fields; but when the first meet of the hounds took place their master was absent.
In vain the horns were blown by Largo's slopes and Balcarris Wood; in vain the dogs gave mouth, and yelped, and wagged their upright tails. The cover was drawn, and every spur struck deep, as the huntsmen sped over dyke and ditch, by loch, and moor, and mountain; but Sir Nigel was sorrowing at his house in the Glen, and his favourite hunters, Saline and Splinterbar, were forgotten in their stalls.
Why was this?
On a Sunday towards the end of September—a Sunday which many must recall with sorrow—mysteriously, as if borne in the air, there passed a whisper over all the land of a great event that had happened far, far away; and that whisper found an echo in many a heart and home in England—in many an Irish mud cabin and Scottish glen—in many a high and many a humble dwelling.
In the quaint old village kirk of Calderwood, during the morning service, it passed along the pews from ear to ear among the people, even to the old haunted aisle of St. Margaret, where Cora sat (her sweet, earnest eyes intent on the preacher, though her thoughts were far away) beside her father in his carved oak seat, with all its armorial bearings overhead; for he was lord of all the glen and manor—a little king, but a very kind one, among the peasantry there.
So, on this calm, sunny summer morning, when no sound disturbed the preacher's voice but the rustle of the oak woods without, or the twittering of the martins in their nests among the Gothic carvings, there came vaguely to the pastoral glen—vaguely, wildly, no one knew how—news that a great battle had been fought far, far away in the East, and that we had lost four, five, some said even six thousand men; but that we were, thank God, victorious.