"And so," said Stuart, "we must forego all the gay scenes of Paris to live in an old château among rooks and ancient elms. Country quarters spoil many a gay fellow: we had better leave our razors at Clichy."
"Wellington has ordered you on this service as a change, and to cure you of dangling after actresses and grisettes; for in Paris they quite spoil decent Highlandmen like ourselves."
"There will be neither the first nor the last at Melun,—nothing but brown-visaged and red-haired dairy-maids. I hope the château contains Laurieston's family—some agreeable young ladies especially, to make us amends for the loss we sustain in being ordered so far from Paris and this agreeable camp of Clichy, where we have always dry canvas, soft grass, and plenty of sunshine and vin ordinaire."
"Ladies! I hope so," added Macildhui. "Pretty faces, guitars, and pianos enliven country quarters amazingly."
Ronald and the four officers who accompanied him were doomed to be disappointed, for the château was occupied only by the regiment of Kloster Zeven, and a few aged servants. The old marchioness and her daughters had retreated to Paris on the first arrival of the lads in scarlet and buff. The Hanoverians marched out of the court of the château, with their bugles playing one of those splendid marches for the production of which Germany is so famous: the Highlanders marched in at the same moment, with carried arms, and their pipes playing "The wee German Lairdie," a tune which Macvurich, the leading piper, adopted for the occasion.
The château stood close to the margin of the Seine, not far from the quiet and pretty little town of Melun, embowered among aged chesnuts, and surrounded by orchards and groves. It was a large irregular building of the days of Louis XII., and was said to have once been honoured as the residence of the celebrated Lady de Beaujeu. It was covered with carved work in wood and stone, and was surmounted by numerous turrets, vanes, and high roofs, covered with singular round slates jointed over each other like the scales of a serpent. It was in every respect a mansion of the old school, and would have been the permanent residence of some respectable ghost of the olden time, had it stood in England, or more especially in Scotland.
The soldiers were billeted at free quarters on the tenants, while the officers took up their residence in the château, to the servants of which orders had been given by the proprietor to provide them with every thing they required. Here they enjoyed themselves much more than at Clichy, and the rickety old house was kept in an uproar the whole day, and sometimes the whole night too, by their merriment, pranks, and folly. Its splendid chambers, saloons, and galleries were a good exchange for a turf floor and canvas tent, which, in rainy weather, was never water-tight till it was thoroughly soaked through. The beds, with hangings of silk, ostrich plumes, and silver fringes, for camp shake-downs, and the white satin chairs, stuffed with down, were also a good exchange for stone seats, trunks, cap-cases, knapsacks, ammunition barrels, or whatever else could be had in the encampment. The mornings were spent in riding, the days in shooting, till the preserves were ruined and the game exterminated; and the evenings were devoted to chess and cigars, moistened with a few bottles of Volnay, Pomard, Lafitte, champagne, port, or sherry, for all the cellars were at their absolute command. A bull-reel generally concluded their orgies, or the sword-dance, performed on the dining-tables; after which they were all carried off to bed by their servants, who, on one occasion, required the aid of a fatigue party.
France is a glorious country in which to live at free quarters, and the Highlanders remained till the end of October completely their own masters, away from old Sir Dennis, from Wellington, and staff-office surveillance, amid merriment and jollity, spending their days and nights as they had never spent them before in country-quarters, which are generally so dull and lifeless. In the frolic and festivity of their superiors the privates fully participated, and many a merry though rather confused dance did they enjoy with the cottagers by moonlight on the grassy lawn, where the slender peasant girl, the agile husbandman, and the strong thickset clansman mingled together, leaping and skipping, with better will than grace, to the stirring sounds of the warlike bagpipes.
There was one subject alone which kept Ronald in a certain state of uneasiness,—the non-arrival of letters from his father, although he had regular despatches from Alice and her brother, which were brought him every fortnight from the Hôtel de Postes at Melun by Macvurich, who acted as postman for the château. He concluded that all were well at the old tower, but that by some strange fatality his father's letters were always destined to miscarry.
On the 26th of October they took a sad adieu of the venerable Château de Marielle, of its saloons, its parks, its emptied cellars and rifled preserves. Right glad was old Chambertin, the butler, to behold them depart; and I dare say he thanked Providence devoutly, when the last gleam of their bayonets flashed down the old gloomy chestnut avenue. Late on the night of the 25th, an aide-de-camp (Lieut. D—— of 22nd Dragoons) brought Stuart an order, directing him to remove his detachment to Clichy, from which the regiment was about to march en route for Calais. It was eleven at night when the order arrived; and by daybreak next morning they were all on the road, with bag and baggage, and had left Melun far behind them. The soldiers were overjoyed at the prospect of returning home, and they cheered and huzzaed lustily as they marched along, and displayed their handkerchiefs on ramrods, and their bonnets on their bayonets, in the extravagance of their delight. So eager were they to rejoin, that they marched back the twenty-eight miles in one day, and arrived in the camp at Clichy just as the bugles were proclaiming sunset.