"I heard of all that, when the news arrived in London. Our Virginia comes of a proud, but a—a—an unfortunate race." He could not find a more gentle word.
"Spain boasts not of a nobler name than that of Alba; but, save a sister in a convent in Galicia, my dear Virginia is its only representative. All the cavaliers of her house have fallen in battle; and lastly the duke, by the hands of Evan Iverach and Macrone, a serjeant, who attacked him with his pike. Poor Stuart, though in peril himself, did all he could to save him; but the hot blood of the Gaël was up, and the fierce Spaniard perished. But Virginia is weeping: we are only recalling her sorrows, and must say no more of these matters just now. Ronald Stuart—"
"Ah! by-the-by, what of him? A brave fellow! See how Alice blushes. Faith! I shall never forget the day the dauntless young Highlandman pulled me out of Corrie-avon. Has the good lad returned with you to Perthshire?"
"No," answered Louis with hesitation, glancing uneasily at Alice while he spoke. "He has not returned yet."
"'Tis well," continued his father. "Poor Stuart! he will have no home—no kind friends to return to, as you have, Louis, after all his toil and bloodshed. Not a hand is there now in the green glen of the Isla to grasp his in welcome!"
"I read in the Perthshire papers that the estate had been sold, and that his father, with all the Stuarts of the glen, had emigrated to Canada. Dreadful intelligence it will be for him when he hears it! He will be wounded most deeply in those points where the true Highlander is assuredly most vulnerable. He will be almost driven mad; and I would scarcely trust other lips than yours, Alice, to reveal the sad tidings to him. I read them at Toulouse. Stuart was not with us then. He has been—he has been—six weeks missing from the regiment."
"Six weeks missing!" cried Lord Lisle, while a cry of horror died away on the pallid lips of Alice, who drooped her head on the shoulder of Virginia.
"Keep a brave heart, Alie dear!" said Louis, clasping her waist affectionately. "I have no fears for your knight of Santiago, as the mess call him. He will swim where another man would sink. Had you seen him, as I often have, skirmishing in advance, charging at the head of his company, or leading the forlorn hope at Almarez on the Tagus, or the château on the Nive, you would suppose he had a charmed life, and was invulnerable to steel and lead, as men supposed Dundee to be until the field of Killiecrankie. Perhaps he has joined by this time. I procured six months' leave, and left the Highlanders the instant the anchor was dropped at Cove. My next letters from the regiment may have some intelligence. Campbell, I know, will write to me instantly, if he hears aught."
"But how comes it to pass, that Stuart is missing? what happened?" asked his father, while Alice listened in breathless agony to the reply.
"We were quartered at Muret, a town on the Garonne, eight or nine miles distant from Toulouse. We had lain there ever since the decisive battle gained over Soult; and in the church-yard of Muret Stuart buried his servant, a brave lad from Lochisla, who had received a death-shot on that memorable Easter Sunday. Ronald mourned his loss deeply; for the lad had become a soldier for his sake, and they were old schoolfellows—old companions and playmates. He was a gallant and devoted fellow. You remember him, Alice? Many a love-letter he has carried to and fro, between this and Lochisla; and often, bonnet in hand, he has led your pony among the steepest cliffs of Craigonan, by ways and crooks where I should tremble to venture now."