Having her lily handkerchief in token of adieu to the departing travellers, Mrs. Lambert and her girls watched them pacing leisurely on the first few hundred yards of their journey, and until such time as a tree-clumped corner of the road hid them from the ladies’ view. Behind that clump of limes the good matron had many a time watched those she loved best disappear. Husband departing to battle and danger, sons to school, each after the other had gone on his way behind yonder green trees, returning as it pleased Heaven’s will at his good time, and bringing pleasure and love back to the happy little family. Besides their own instinctive nature (which to be sure aids wonderfully in the matter), the leisure and contemplation attendant upon their home life serve to foster the tenderness and fidelity of our women. The men gone, there is all day to think about them, and tomorrow and tomorrow — when there certainly will be a letter — and so on. There is the vacant room to go look at, where the boy slept last night, and the impression of his carpet bag is still on the bed. There is his whip hung up in the hall, and his fishing-rod and basket — mute memorials of the brief bygone pleasures. At dinner there comes up that cherry-tart, half of which our darling ate at two o’clock in spite of his melancholy, and with a choking little sister on each side of him. The evening prayer is said without that young scholar’s voice to utter the due responses. Midnight and silence come, and the good mother lies wakeful, thinking how one of the dear accustomed brood is away from the nest. Morn breaks, home and holidays have passed away, and toil and labour have begun for him. So those rustling limes formed, as it were, a screen between the world and our ladies of the house at Oakhurst. Kind-hearted Mrs. Lambert always became silent and thoughtful, if by chance she and her girls walked up to the trees in the absence of the men of the family. She said she would like to carve their names up on the grey silvered trunks, in the midst of true-lovers’ knots, as was then the kindly fashion; and Miss Theo, who had an exceeding elegant turn that way, made some verses regarding the trees, which her delighted parent transmitted to a periodical of those days.
“Now we are out of sight of the ladies,” says Colonel Lambert, giving a parting salute with his hat, as the pair of gentlemen trotted past the limes in question. “I know my wife always watches at her window until we are round this corner. I hope we shall have you seeing the trees and the house again, Mr. Warrington; and the boys being at home, mayhap there will be better sport for you.”
“I never want to be happier, sir, than I have been,” replied Mr. Warrington; “and I hope you will let me say, that I feel as if I am leaving quite old friends behind me.”
“The friend at whose house we shall sup to-night hath a son, who is an old friend of our family, too; and my wife, who is an inveterate marriage-monger, would have made a match between him and one of my girls, but that the Colonel hath chosen to fall in love with somebody else.”
“Ah!” sighed Mr. Warrington.
“Other folks have done the same thing. There were brave fellows before Agamemnon.”
“I beg your pardon, sir. Is the gentleman’s name — Aga ——? I did not quite gather it,” meekly inquired the young traveller.
“No, his name is James Wolfe,” cried the Colonel, smiling. “He is a young fellow still, or what we call so, being scarce thirty years old. He is the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the army, unless, to be sure, we except a few scores of our nobility, who take rank before us common folk.”
“Of course of course!” says the Colonel’s young companion with true colonial notions of aristocratic precedence.
“And I have seen him commanding captains, and very brave captains, who were thirty years his seniors, and who had neither his merit nor his good fortune. But, lucky as he hath been, no one envies his superiority, for, indeed, most of us acknowledge that he is our superior. He is beloved by every man of our old regiment and knows every one of them. He is a good scholar as well as a consummate soldier, and a master of many languages.”
“Ah, sir!” said Harry Warrington, with a sigh of great humility; “I feel that I have neglected my own youth sadly; and am come to England but an ignoramus. Had my dear brother been alive, he would have represented our name and our colony, too, better than I can do. George was a scholar; George was a musician; George could talk with the most learned people in our country, and I make no doubt would have held his own here. Do you know, sir, I am glad to have come home, and to you especially, if but to learn how ignorant I am.”
“If you know that well, ’tis a great gain already,” said the Colonel, with a smile.
“At home, especially of late, and since we lost my brother, I used to think myself a mighty fine fellow, and have no doubt that the folks round about flattered me. I am wiser now — that is, I hope I am — though perhaps I am wrong, and only bragging again. But you see, sir, the gentry in our colony don’t know very much, except about dogs and horses, and betting and games. I wish I knew more about books, and less about them.”
“Nay. Dogs and horses are very good books, too, in their way, and we may read a deal of truth out of ’em. Some men are not made to be scholars, and may be very worthy citizens and gentlemen in spite of their ignorance. What call have all of us to be especially learned or wise, or to take a first place in the world? His Royal Highness is commander, and Martin Lambert is colonel, and Jack Hunt, who rides behind yonder, was a private soldier, and is now a very honest, worthy groom. So as we all do our best in our station, it matters not much whether that be high or low. Nay, how do we know what is high and what is low? and whether Jack’s currycomb, or my epaulets, or his Royal Highness’s baton, may not turn out to be pretty equal? When I began life, et militavi non sine — never mind what — I dreamed of success and honour; now I think of duty, and yonder folks, from whom we parted a few hours ago. Let us trot on, else we shall not reach Westerham before nightfall.”
At Westerham the two friends were welcomed by their hosts, a stately matron, an old soldier, whose recollections and services were of five-and-forty years back, and the son of this gentleman and lady, the Lieutenant-Colonel of Kingsley’s regiment, that was then stationed at Maidstone, whence the Colonel had come over on a brief visit to his parents. Harry looked with some curiosity at this officer, who, young as he was, had seen so much service, and obtained a character so high. There was little of the beautiful in his face. He was very lean and very pale; his hair was red, his nose and cheek-bones were high; but he had a fine courtesy towards his elders, a cordial greeting towards his friends, and an animation in conversation which caused those who heard him to forget, even to admire, his homely looks.
Mr. Warrington was going to Tunbridge? Their James would bear him company, the lady of the house said, and whispered something to Colonel Lambert at supper, which occasioned smiles and a knowing wink or two from that officer. He called for wine, and toasted “Miss Lowther.” “With all my heart,” cried the enthusiastic Colonel James, and drained his glass to the very last drop. Mamma whispered her friend how James and the lady were going to make a match, and how she came of the famous Lowther family of the North.
“If she was the daughter of King Charlemagne,” cries Lambert, “she is not too good for James Wolfe, or for his mother’s son.”
“Mr. Lambert would not say so if he knew her,” the young Colonel declared.
“Oh, of course, she is the priceless pearl, and you are nothing,” cries mamma. “No. I am of Colonel Lambert’s opinion; and, if she brought all Cumberland to you for a jointure, I should say it was my James’s due. That is the way with ’em, Mr. Warrington. We tend our children through fevers, and measles, and whooping-cough, and small-pox; we send them to the army and can’t sleep at night for thinking; we break our hearts at parting with ’em, and have them at home only for a week or two in the year, or maybe ten years, and, after all our care, there comes a lass with a pair of bright eyes, and away goes our boy, and never cares a fig for us afterwards.”
“And pray, my dear, how did you come to marry James’s papa?” said the elder Colonel Wolfe. “And why didn’t you stay at home with your parents?”
“Because James’s papa was gouty, and wanted somebody to take care of him, I suppose; not because I liked him a bit,” answers the lady: and so with much easy talk and kindness the evening passed away.
On the morrow, and with many expressions of kindness and friendship for his late guest, Colonel Lambert gave over the young Virginian to Mr. Wolfe’s charge, and turned his horse’s head homewards, while the two gentlemen sped towards Tunbridge Wells. Wolfe was in a hurry to reach the place, Harry Warrington was, perhaps, not quite so eager: nay, when Lambert rode towards his own home, Harry’s thoughts followed him with a great deal of longing desire to the parlour at Oakhurst, where he had spent three days in happy calm. Mr. Wolfe agreed in all Harry’s enthusiastic praises of Mr. Lambert, and of his wife, and of his daughters, and of all that excellent family. “To have such a good name, and to live such a life as Colonel Lambert’s,” said Wolfe, “seem to me now the height of human ambition.”
“And glory and honour?” asked Warrington, “are those nothing? and would you give up the winning of them?”
“They were my dreams once,” answered the Colonel, who had now different ideas of happiness, “and now my desires are much more tranquil. I have followed arms ever since I was fourteen years of age. I have seen almost every kind of duty connected with my calling. I know all the garrison towns in this country, and have had the honour to serve wherever there has been work to be done during the last ten years. I have done pretty near the whole of a soldier’s duty, except, indeed, the command of an army, which can hardly be hoped for by one of my years; and now, methinks, I would like quiet, books to read, a wife to love me, and some children to dandle on my knee. I have imagined some such Elysium for myself, Mr. Warrington. True love is better than glory; and a tranquil fireside, with the woman of your heart seated by it, the greatest good the gods can send to us.”
Harry imagined to himself the picture which his comrade called up. He said “Yes,” in answer to the other’s remark; but, no doubt, did not give a very cheerful assent, for his companion observe............