“No, no; nothing of the sort; only look here. It has thrown us all into great excitement; but we are not under orders, nor like to be,” said Harry. “Don’t tremble—we are all safe yet, you foolish Milly. Look here.”
Though I was leaning upon him, and he held the paper before my eyes, I could not read a word. But I guessed what it was. It was the Proclamation of War.
“Come out with me and hear it read at the Cross. It is to be done at twelve o’clock. Come,” said Harry, coaxing and soothing me; “it is something to see. Pluck up a heart, Milly! Come and hear it courageously, like a soldier’s wife. But, oh! I forgot baby,” he said, stopping short all at once with a soft of half-annoyed laugh.
“Baby shan’t prevent me this time,” I cried; for what between this dreadful news and the excitement in Harry’s mind, and the sudden way he stopped when he recollected I couldn’t rightly go out with him, I was desperate. “Mrs. Saltoun will keep him till I come back; and he will not wake, perhaps, for an hour.”
The old lady came when I asked her; and was quite pleased to sit down by the cradle while I tied on my bonnet with my trembling hands. Harry was very kind—very pleased. We went along winding up the steep paths, through the gardens to the Castle, my favourite walk, and into that long, grand, noisy old street with the yellow haze lingering between the deep houses, down the long slope towards Holyrood. I could see the people clearly enough about the streets, the little groups all clustered about the outside stairs, and the stir of something going to happen. But I could not look at the official people coming to say it again and make it more certain. If the trumpet had been a gun and killed somebody, my heart could scarcely have leaped more. Harry’s cheek flushed up; and I could almost fancy I felt the blood stir and swell in the arm I was leaning on. He was a soldier, and he forgot me as he held up his head and listened. Just then I could not hold up my head. The trumpet sounded to me, somehow, as if it came lonely out of the distance over some battle where men were dying who had wives and babies at home. A woman stood before me crying, and drew my attention for a moment. She dared say out what was in her heart, because, though perhaps she was no poorer, she was not a lady like me. “Eh, weary on them! it’s your man and my man that’s to pay for their fancies,” she was saying among her tears. “Glad! do ye ask me to be glad at sound o’ war? If our regiment doesna gang the day, it’ll gang some day. I’ve five weans that canna fend for themsels’, and I’m a sodger’s wife. God help us a’!” I dropped my veil over my face to hide my eyes from Harry, and slid my hand out of his arm—he, all excited in his soldier-mind, scarcely knowing it—to speak to my neighbour who had spoken to my heart. I had nothing to give her but my hand and my own troubled fellow-feeling, too deep and sore to be called sympathy. “For I am a soldier’s wife, too; and God help us, as you say!” I cried in her ear. She wiped off her tears, poor soul, to look at me as Harry drew me away. She and the other woman with her whispered about us as we went away through the crowd. They forgot their own anxiety to pity “the poor young thing, the young lieutenant’s wife.” I know they did, the kind creatures; for one of them said so another day.—God help us all, soldiers’ wives!
“But do you know this is like a little coward, Milly darling,” said Harry, as we walked home, when he found I could not speak, “and foolish as well. We are not going to the wars.”
“If you are not going to-day, you will go some day,” I cried, with a sob. She said true, poor soul; I felt it in my heart.
“To be sure we shall,” said Harry; “and you care neither for glory nor promotion, nor to have your husband do his duty, you poor-spirited Milly! But you can’t act Lady Fanshawe now; you will have baby to comfort you at home.”
“Do you mean that you are going?” cried I.
“Hush, hush! why this is like a child. I am not going. But, Milly, understand; if I don’t go some day, I shall be wretched. Make up your mind; you are a soldier’s wife.”