William Wemyss, a veteran serjeant of Dunbarton's musqueteers, became his patron and protector; and a love and friendship sprang up between them, for the orphan had none other to cling to. Wemyss often led him to the old churchyard, and showed him the grave where his mother lay—where the soldiers had interred her; and there little Walter, overcome by the mystery that involved his fate, and the loneliness of his heart, wept bitterly; for the soldier, though meaning well, was rather like one of Job's comforters, and painted his dependance in such strong colours, and reminded him how narrowly he had escaped being hanged or banished as "a covenanter's spawn," that the heart of the poor boy swelled at times almost to breaking. Then the soldier would desire him to pray for his mother, and made him repeat a curious but earnest prayer full of quaint military technicalities, in which the good old halberdier saw nothing either unusual or outré. Often little Fenton came alone to seek that well-known grave, to linger and to sit beside it, for it was the only part of all broad Scotland that his soul clung to. The weeds were now matted over it, and the waving nettles half hid the humble stone, which with his own hands the kind soldier had placed there. Walter always cleared away those luxuriant weeds, and though they stung his hands, he felt them not. It was a nameless grave too, for the real name of her who slept within it was unknown to him; and the desolate child often stretched himself down on the turf, burying his face in the long grass, and weeping, as he had done in infancy on the poor bosom that mouldered beneath, retraced in memory, days of wandering and misfortune, of danger and sorrow, which he could not comprehend. Time, and that lightness of heart which is incident to youth, enabled him at last to view the grave with composure; but he sought it not the less, until after his return from Sedgemoor; he hastened to the well-known place, but, alas! the grave had been violated, and the charm of grief was broken for ever. Another had been buried there; the earth was freshly heaped up; and he rushed away, to return no more.
From childhood to youth the old Serjeant was his only protector: though poor, he was a kind and sincere one; and the little boy became the pet of the musqueteers.
A child, a dog, or a monkey is always an object of regard to an old soldier or sailor; for the human heart must love something.
Little Walter carried the halberdier's can of egg-flip when he mounted guard, learned to make up bandoliers of powder, polish a corslet, to rattle dice on a drumhead, and to beat on the drum itself; to fight with rapier and dagger; to handle a case of falchions like any sword-player; and became an adept at every game of chance, from kingly chess, to homely touch-and-take. He learned to drink "Confusion to the Covenant," in potent usquebaugh without winking once, and swear a few cavalier-like oaths. Like all such pets, he was often boxed severely, and roundly cursed too, at the caprice of his numerous masters, until the poor boy would have been altogether lost, his ideas corrupted, and his manners tainted by the roughness of camp and garrison, had not his humble patron been ordered away on the Tangier expedition; and being unable to take his little protégé with him, bethought him of craving the bounty of his commander's wife, the Countess of Dunbarton, a beautiful young English woman, who was the belle of the capital and the idol of the Scottish cavaliers. Struck with the soldier's story, envying his generosity, pitying the little boy, and pleased with his candour and beauty, she immediately took him under protection, adopting him as her page; and never was there seen a handsomer youth than Walter Fenton, when his coarse attire (a cast doublet of the serjeant) was exchanged for a coat of white velvet slashed with red and laced with gold, breeches and stockings of silk, a sash, a velvet cloak, and silver-hilted poniard; and his dark-brown hair curled and perfumed by Master Peter Pouncet, the famous frizzeur in the Bow. He parted in a flood of tears from his old patron, who slipped into his pocket a purse the Countess had bestowed on himself, drew his leather glove across his eyes, and hurried away.
At Lady Dunbarton's he had often seen Lilian Napier; she was then a little girl, and always accompanied her tall and stately relative in the vast old rumbling coach, with its two footmen behind and outriders in front, armed with sword and carbine; for the noble dame set forth in great state on all visits of ceremony. Lady Grizel's majestic aspect and frigid stateliness scared and awed the little footpage; but the prattle of the fair-haired Lilian soothed and charmed him, and he soon learned to love the little girl, to call her his sister, to be joyous when she came, and to be sad when she departed.
Young Walter, from his well-knit figure, and a determined aspect which he had acquired by his camp education, was as great a favourite among the starched little damoiselles of the Countess's withdrawing-room, as his clenched fist and bent brows made him a terror at times to the little cavaliers whose jealousy he excited; and his military preceptors (the old Royals, then battling and broiling at Tangiers) had inculcated a pugnacity of disposition that sometimes was very troublesome; and he once proceeded so far as to d—n the old Dowager of Drumsturdy pretty roundly, and draw his poniard on the young lord her son, who, with his companions, had mocked him as "a covenanter's brat." The Countess made him crave pardon of the little noble, and they shook hands like two cut-and-thrust gallants of six feet high.
But when their companions, with childish malevolence, taunted poor Walter as "my lord's loon," "the soldier's varlet," or "the powder puggy," epithets which always kindled his rage and drew tears from his eyes, Lilian, ever gentle and kind, wept with him, espoused his cause, and told that "Walter's mother was a noble lady, for the Countess had her ring of gold;" and the influence of the little nymph, with her cheeks like glowing peaches, and her bright hair flowing in sunny ringlets around a face ever beaming with happiness—was never lost, or failed to maintain peace among them. And thus days passed swiftly into years, and the girl was twelve and the boy sixteen when they were separated. Walter followed his noble patron to the field, when the landing of Argyle in the west, and Monmouth in the south, threw Britain into a flame. Dunbarton, now a general officer, marched with the Scottish forces against the former; but Walter, as a volunteer, served under Colonel Halkett, with a battalion of Scottish musqueteers, at the battle of Sedgemoor, where he felt what it was to have lead bullets rebounding from his buff coat and headpiece. Since then he had been serving as a private gentleman; but in a country like Scotland, swarming with idle young men of good birth and high spirit, who despised every occupation save that of arms, preferment came not, and he had too often experienced the mortification of seeing others obtain what he justly deemed his due, the commission of King James VII.
His recent interview with Lilian had recalled in full force all the friendship of their childhood and the dawning love of older years; but the manner in which he was now involved with the supreme authorities seemed to destroy all his hopes for ever—in Scotland at least; and yet, though that reflection wrung his heart, so little did he regret the part he had acted, that for Lilian's sake he would willingly run again, a hundred-fold greater risk. The last three years of his life had been spent amid the stirring turmoil of military duty in a discontented country, where each succeeding day the spirit of insurrection grew riper. In the rough society with which he mingled, never had he been addressed by a female so fair in face and so winning in manner as Lilian of Bruntisfield; and thus the charm of her presence acted more powerfully upon him. Her accents of entreaty and distress—her affection for Lady Grizel struggling with anxiety for himself, had in one brief interview recalled all the soft and happy impressions of his earlier and more innocent days, and love obtained a sway over his heart, that made him for a time forget his own dangerous predicament, in pondering with pleasure on the mortifications from which he had saved the ladies of Bruntisfield, the risks he had run for their sake, and consequently the debt of gratitude they owed him.
From his breast he drew forth her glove a hundred times, to admire its delicate texture and diminutive form; but he could not repress a bitter sigh when contemplating how slight were the chances of his ever again beholding the gentle owner, now when both unhappily were under the ban of the law,—she a homeless fugitive, and he a close prisoner, with death, imprisonment, or distant service in the Scots' Brigade his only prospects. Even were it otherwise,—and, oh! this idea was more tormenting than the first,—her heart might be dedicated to another; and she might, with the true pride of a noble Scottish maiden, deem it an unpardonable presumption in the poor and unhonoured pikeman to raise his eyes to the heiress of Sir Archibald Napier of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes. And thus, having introduced to the reader the grand feature upon which our story must "hinge," we shall get on with renewed ardour.