Rodney, the Ranger, with Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield

by John V. Lane

She broke the seal and read, the boy watching her face as she did so. Having read it, she allowed it to lie in her lap for a time, and then gave it to Rodney, and this is what he read, his wonder increasing with every line:

“My Beloved Wife:––As you read this you may recall the last evening in the old home before we came to Charlottesville. I sat by the window and you said, ‘It is a pretty picture, David, the water in the creek, in the sunset colours, looks like wine and the road is a brown ribbon on green velvet. But perhaps you are not thinking of that at all. Sometimes, David, I think there is a part of your life in which I do not live.’

“You did not see me start at those words, for they were true. After you had retired I sat for a long time and then it became clear to me that you should know in good time that other part of my life, for there really was another.

“I had not seen the colours on the creek nor the brown ribbon on the green velvet, as I sat by the window. Instead I saw the streets of old Edinburgh, the shadows heavy in the Greyfriars’ churchyard, the familiar scenes along High Street of an evening, when the students were out laughing and joking, strolling 147 along, each with hand on the other’s shoulder, and I among them. For I was as care-free as any one of them all. The good mother had not let me see that she was making any sacrifice in giving me those years at the University, and I was confident of the future.

“I have told you of those days, but not that my mates knew me as David Cameron,––David Allison Cameron, to be exact, Allison being my mother’s name. ‘Why should you change it?’ I can hear you ask, apprehension in your voice. That is the part of my life in which you are now to share. Nor do I clearly know why you have not been permitted to do so before. It was no guilt of mine that caused me to change my name, except, possibly, that I was influenced by pride. My father’s brother was a merchant in Glasgow, who urged that I become his apprentice. Mother was all for having me educated. I think the dear soul hoped to hear me expound in the kirk, as possibly she might but for the cold that came upon her and, before I realized what it meant, the good doctor was telling me it would be her last illness.

“Ah! the mists hung heavy over the lowlands the morning I turned my face toward London, where I was determined to seek fame and fortune. I might have gone to my uncle in Glasgow, but no, mother had wished otherwise and I was as proud as I was inexperienced.

“I will not pain you with a recital of the struggles I endured until, as I thought, Fortune came to my relief and Lord Ralston engaged me as the tutor of 148 his son, Dick. And, when I saw the lad, my happiness was complete. He was a handsome fellow, generous to a fault, and his pleasant smile and hearty greeting won me at the first. The stipend, to one impoverished as I was, seemed munificent, but I soon found that Handsome Dick, as he was called, made sure the spending of it should not trouble me. He could borrow a pound or two as if doing one a favour, and I knew it was with the firm intention that I should have it back. This, however, he found so inconvenient I rarely had enough to help him out of scrapes when his own funds were wasted. Admonitions to him were like the falling rain on the back of the duck. He early acquired a passion for gambling. His father knew it, but hoped that time would work his cure. He, himself, I learned, had been somewhat of a profligate.

“I loved the boy and life with him would have been a pleasure but for the anxious moments when it seemed he would go headlong to perdition despite my utmost efforts. Once, I thought, he seemed inclined to mend his ways, when, after the manner of youth, he met a young lady in whose eyes he thought his happiness to lie. For a time his passion for cards was forgotten, and neither White’s nor the Coffee House saw him for months. But she went abroad and he became restless. Then came news of her marriage and he returned to his first love, the gaming table. Do what I might I could not restrain him. He was perfectly reckless. Soon he was in debt and his father, when it was too late, sought to check him and cut down his allowance. 149 From associates at White’s he descended to the lower resorts. There was one fellow that I specially feared, and with whom he had become a boon companion, a Captain Villecourt, a gambler and a rake, whose reputation was unsavoury. I pleaded, but in vain. I could not desert the boy. He loved me, and I him, and so I dogged his footsteps, helped him out of difficulty whenever I could, and lost no opportunity for pleading his cause with his father.

“One night, I shall never forget it, word came that his father was ill. The laddie was out and I thought he had gone to meet Villecourt, who lived in a low tavern and frequently did not dare venture abroad for fear of meeting his creditors and being lodged where he belonged, in a debtor’s gaol.

“It was a villainous place. A dismal rain was falling, the street was poorly lighted, and, but for the mean attire I put on, I might easily have become the victim of footpads.