Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 22

by Unknown

I at once acknowledged that I did not intend returning home again; but as to what I should do, I did not know.

"Why, now," replied my entertainer, "I think a stout, good-looking, likely young fellow as you are need be at no loss. There's the army. Did you ever think of that, eh? The only thing for a lad of spirit. Smart clothes, good living, and free quarters, with a chance of promotion. The chance, said I? Why, I might say the certainty. Bounty too, you young dog! A handful of golden guineas, and pretty girls to court in every town. List, man, list," he shouted, clapping me on the shoulder, "and your fortune's made!"

List! It had never occurred to me before. I had never thought, never dreamt of it. But now that the idea was presented to me, I by no means disliked it. It was not, however, the flummery of my new acquaintance, who, I need hardly say, was neither more nor less than a sergeant in coloured clothes, assumed, I suppose, for the purpose of taking young fellows like myself unawares,—I say it was not his balderdash, which, young and raw as I was, I fully perceived, that reconciled me to the notion of listing. It was because I saw in it a prompt and ready means of escaping the immediate destitution with which I was threatened, my foolish determination not to return home having rather gained strength than weakened, notwithstanding a painful sense of the misery which my protracted absence must have been occasioning at home. To the sergeant's proposal of listing, therefore, I at once assented; when the former calling in the landlord, tendered me in his presence the expressive shilling.

The corps into which I had listed was the——, then lying in the Tower, London, there being only the sergeant and two or three men of the regiment in Glasgow recruiting. The matter of listing settled, the sergeant bespoke me a bed for the night in the tavern in which we were, that being his own quarters.

On the following day I was informed, much to my surprise, although by no means to my regret, that a detachment of recruits for the—— were to be sent off that evening at nine o'clock by the track boat for Edinburgh, and from thence by sea to the headquarters of the regiment at London, and that I was to be of the number. At nine o'clock of the evening, accordingly, we were shipped at Port-Dundas.

Before leaving Glasgow, however, I made one last call at the police office to inquire whether any discoveries had been made regarding my pocket-book, but found that nothing whatever had been heard of it.

On the following day we reached Edinburgh; on the next we were embarked on board a Leith smack for London, where we arrived in safety on the fourth day thereafter, and were marched to the Tower, which was at the time the headquarters of the regiment. Amongst the young men who were of the party who came up with me from Scotland, there was one with whom I became particularly intimate, and who was subsequently my comrade. His name was John Lindsay, a native of Glasgow. He was about my own age, or perhaps a year older—a lively, active, warm-hearted lad, but of a restless, roving disposition.

It was, I think, about a fortnight after our arrival in London, that Lindsay one day, while rummaging a small trunk in the barrack-room, which had formed the entire of his travelling equipage from Scotland, stumbled on a letter, with whose delivery he had been entrusted by some one in Glasgow, but which he had entirely forgotten. It was addressed in a scrawling hand—"To Susan Blaikie, servant with Henry Wallscourt, Esq., 19, Grosvenor Square, London."

"Here's a job, Davy," said Lindsay, holding up the letter. "I promised faithfully to deliver this within an hour after my arrival in London, and here it is still. But better late than never. Will you go with me and see the fair maiden to whom this is addressed? It contains, I believe, a kind of introduction to her, and may perhaps lead to some sport."

I readily closed with Lindsay's proposal, and in ten minutes after we set out for Grosvenor Square, which we had no difficulty in finding. Neither were we long in discovering No. 19, the residence of Henry Wallscourt, Esq. It was a magnificent house, everything about it bespeaking a wealthy occupant.