How often were the last scene with Flora, those last words and those last kisses, under the old sycamores in the avenue, rehearsed over and over again.
"Ah," thought he, "could I but persuade myself that she will not entirely forget me; that some tender recollections, some soft memory of the poor lonely and friendless lad, who loved her so well, will remain in her heart, now that I am far away—gone she knows not where, but gone for ever! For ever!—then what will love or memory avail me?"
The novelty of his situation, the sudden and remarkable change of scene, the short sea voyage, the crowded and somewhat noisy barracks of Colchester, then filled with troops, preparing by hourly training, prior to their departure for the seat of war; squads undergoing manual, platoon, and pacing-stick drill, others worked up in companies, battalions, and brigades, the general bustle and light-heartedness of all around him; the new occupation, new faces and new episodes, all so different from his former monotonous life in that old castle by the Firth of Clyde—a life that seemed like a dream now—soon weaned Quentin from his sadder thoughts, and he was startled to find that, after a time, instead of brooding over Flora's image and idea perpetually, he could only think of her occasionally, and ere long, that he began to take an interest in the crowds of ladies who came to view the evening parades, to promenade with the officers who were not on duty, and to hear the bands play. "Love sickness, according to our revised medical code, is nothing more than a disarranged digestion," says a writer; so, in this year of the world—five thousand and odd, according to Genesis, and Heaven knows how many more according to geology—no one dies of love, and, in the jovial barracks of Colchester, our friend Quentin showed no signs of the malady.
But we are anticipating.
The battalion of the 25th, or the King's Own Borderers, to which he was attached, occupied a portion of the stately and spacious barracks, which were built for the accommodation often thousand infantry, and had a fine park of artillery attached to them. These have all been since pulled down by an absurd spirit of mistaken economy, so that there are barely quarters for a single regiment in the town.
On the day after his arrival, anxious to create a good impression, he made a most careful toilet, and with a throbbing heart was introduced by Monkton to the officer commanding, the irritable Major Middleton, of whom he had heard so much, and to whom he presented the letter of introduction and recommendation given by his good friend Captain Warriston, who unfortunately was compelled to be absent elsewhere.
The major was a fine-looking old man, who had entered the service from the militia somewhat late in life, and hence the extreme slowness of his promotion, for he was now near his sixtieth year. He had a clear, keen, and bright blue eye; a suave, but grave and decided manner, with a deep and authoritative tone of voice. He still wore his thin hair queued, though after being reduced to seven inches in length, by the general order of 1804, by another order in 1808, the entire army was shorn of those appendages.
Fearing a mutiny, or something like it, the obnoxious mandate was countermanded the next day, but, Ichabod! the glory had departed. The regimental barbers had done their fatal work, and not a pigtail remained in the service, from the Life Guards to the Shetland Volunteers, save among a few privileged men of the old school, who stuck to it in defiance alike of taste and authority, and one of these was Major Middleton, who now appeared in full uniform, with his snow-white shirt-frill peeping through his gorget,—a badge retained till 1830—and a spotless white waistcoat covering the comely paunch, while his queue, seven inches long, with its black silk rosette, wagged gracefully at the back of his fine old head, which was powdered by time to a whiteness his servant could never achieve with the puff.
He cordially shook hands with Quentin and with Monkton, and welcoming the latter back to head-quarters, bowed them to chairs with great formality, his sword and pigtail going up and down like pump-handles the while, and then with his sturdy back planted against the chimney-piece, he proceeded to read over the letter of Warriston, Quentin in the meantime undergoing the pleasant process of being occasionally eyed askance with those clear, keen eyes—and a steady glance they had—the glance of one who had often been face to face with death and danger, in the East Indies and the West, in America, and wherever conquests were to be added to Britain's growing empire.
"My old friend Warriston recommends you highly, Mr. Kennedy—very highly indeed," said the major, as he folded the letters and again shook Quentin by the hand; "but I hope that the step you are taking has the full concurrence of all who are interested in your welfare?"