“Nonsense, man! I would not have spoken had I not been taken with you. But there! I am not a recruiting officer,” he said, with a laugh. “Think well over what I have said; I am not pressing for an answer.” Thereupon he turned the subject, and we fell into a conversation over the events of the past summer and winter. I answered such questions as I could in regard to our present position, for there was no advantage to be gained by undue concealment, and his consideration spared me any embarrassment.
When our interview ended he thanked me very handsomely, and regretted he could not offer me the hospitality of his own roof, but provided for me in the Ursulines, granting me the same parole as the priest.
“You will find among your countrymen an odd rebel here and there, Kirkconnel; but I rely on you to stir up no fresh treason with 'White Cockades,' or 'Bonnie Charlies,' or any other of the old shibboleths.”
“Have no anxieties on that score, your Excellency; I have had too rude an awakening ever to fall a-dreaming again. 'The burnt child.'” And I bowed, and left in company with the officer told off to see to my reception.
The General's unlooked-for sympathy had gone far to restore me to my natural bearing for the moment. It is flattering to any man to be received by his military superior as a social equal, and Heaven forbid that I should pretend to a susceptibility less than the ordinary. I was greatly pleased, therefore, by his recognition, and to my admiration of his soldierly qualities was now added a warm appreciation of his interest in me and my fortunes. But no personal gratification could long blind me to the misery of my real position. Chance, inclination, and, I think I may honestly add, principle, had kept my affections disengaged and, my heart whole, without any reasonable expectation of ever realising my life's desire, and now I had stumbled upon it, only to find it inexorably withheld from me, and every avenue to its attainment closed. Could I have gone on to the end without actually meeting with Margaret, I could have borne it with the silent endurance which had supported me so far, and had, in large measure, become a habit; but now every regret, every passionate longing, every haunting memory which time had lulled into seeming slumber, awoke to wring my heart at the very moment when I believed the bitterness to have passed forever.
The first to welcome me at the convent was my son Kit. Heavens! how tall and well-looking the boy had grown, and with what feeling did I take him in my arms. He returned my embrace with equal affection, and when we settled down, spake of his mother's death with much natural feeling.
Poor Lucy! She had had a narrow life of it with the exception of the year we had lived together. What a light-hearted, merry little soul she then was! She had no education in the general sense, but was possessed of so lively a sympathy that she entered into all that appealed to me with an enjoyment and an appreciation that no mere learning could have supplied. She may have lacked the bearing and carriage of a great lady, but what stateliness of manner can rival the pretty softnesses of a gentle girl wholly in love. She was not strictly beautiful, but she had the charm of constant liveliness, and her unfailing content and merriment more than made up for any irregularity in feature. This was the woman I had left, and I have already told what she was when I returned. It was not so much her nature that was at fault, poor thing! as the atrophy of soul resulting from an ungenerous form of religion.
I cannot but think it safer for both man and woman to continue in those religions which have received the sanction of authority, than take up with any new ventures, no matter what superior offers of salvation they may hold out. And the first step towards this dangerous ground I believe to be that pernicious habit of idle speculation on subjects too sacred for open discussion, which might well be left to their ordained guardians, and not to the curious guessings of simple and unsophisticated minds.
Kit had much information to give touching others in whom I was interested. Of Mme. de St. Just he spake, as I would have expected, with the warmest admiration and gratitude; but after he had informed me that she was an inmate of the same convent in which we were, I turned the conversation towards her brother, who, I learned, was wounded sufficiently to be under the surgeon's care, and was pleased to gather that Master Kit had made a respectable showing for himself in the rescue of his Captain. That Mademoiselle de Sarennes was much concerned in Nairn's condition I was glad to hear, as such an interest could not fail to be of service when she should learn of her brother's fate, of which I took care to make no mention, as I had no desire to figure as the bearer of what must, to her, prove painful tidings.
“Your Captain is fortunate to engage the sympathies of so fair an enemy,” was my only remark.