CHAPTER VI.

COLONEL SMASH.

After this, many days elapsed, and Roland, having ever before him the last crushing communication of Messrs. Hook and Crook, never went near the Chateau de St. Eustache, much to the surprise of Logan, whose mind was sorely exercised on that subject, and on some new and unwonted peculiarities of temper and system which he discovered in his old friend and once jolly comrade.

Aurelia, too, felt some surprise at his protracted absence, and that she never saw him at the promenades and public places where she had been wont to see him before.

She was thinking could he have fallen in love with some one else--she always thought he loved _her_--some one in Scotland where he had been? If so, what business had he to come to her and talk, and act, and look, too, as if he were free and fetterless? Could he have been playing with her, making a fool of her all along? How coldly and quietly he had talked about going to India, too.

Ah no! could she have seen Roland Ruthven at that very time! He was kissing, looking at, smoothing out, and caressing a tiny kid glove, which he had begged from her at that very ball where they first met, on the 5th of August--the fatal day of the Ruthvens, as Elspat Gorm was wont to call it.

"Roland, old fellow," said Logan, dropping into his quarters one evening when he was dressing for mess, "what is up--you look like the ace of spades? Never saw a fellow so changed in all my life."

"One day you may know all, Hector--meantime, don't worry me," replied Roland, with the hair brushes suspended in action above his thick head of dark brown hair, while Logan smoked and talked. His toilet table bespoke taste and that wealth which he no longer possessed, with its ivory-handled brushes having on them the Ruthven arms; his dressing-case of silver-gilt, with gold-topped essence bottles in nests of blue velvet; rings, jewelled studs, and sleeve-links, lay there scattered about, with pipe heads of rare fashion and costly material.

"You are not using that girl well, Roland--you know what I mean; before you went on leave you were like her shadow, and now----"

"I can't get over my scruples about--about----"

"What, in the name of heaven?"

"Well, about making up to a girl who has a fortune--a very handsome income, at all events--when I am so out at the elbows."

"Out at the elbows--are you mad?"

"The thing would look ill--yet I could make a little running with her," said Roland, with a dreary attempt to be lively.

"I should think so. Ruthven of Ardgowrie out at the elbows--why, man alive, what the devil has come to you? You could marry Miss Darnel without exciting anybody but her special admirers. There is no 'establishment' to break up; no fair denizen of such a villa as is proverbial at St. John's Wood to tear her dyed locks, and demand a monetary kind of 'loot'--so I say again, what the deuce has come to you?" asked Logan, with genuine surprise.

"That which I cannot tell."

"Even to me?" asked the other reproachfully.

"Even to you, old fellow, just yet."

"This passes my comprehension."

"The misfortune that has befallen me passes mine."

"She is a delightful girl, Roland," said Logan, after a pause, during which he had been reflectively preparing another cigar; "she never misses fire in the way of a repartee or a brilliant rejoinder."

"In that I agree with you," replied Roland, quietly.

"How cold you are."

"I am far from feeling so, any way," said Roland, with a sigh.

"Can't make you out, by Jove! In the Chateau de St. Eustache, unless I am very much mistaken, you have gone in for some very effective bits of flirtation, in which the inconstant moon played no inconsiderable part."

"Flirtation, Logan? I never could flirt with Aurelia Darnell."

"Indeed!" said the other incredulously; "why?"

"Because I love her too sincerely."

"Yet you never go near that house where you have often acted almost as host to the whole garrison, and where that horrible Yankee Colonel has the field all to himself."

"Oh! he is a cousin of some sort--but what the devil is he to me?"

"Well--he is a good shot I hear."

"A shot--d--n him!" said Ronald, with considerable irritation of manner; "I would think very little of parading him on the other side of the Canadian frontier."

"I don't doubt that, Ronald, old man; but he has fought several duels, and successfully I hear."

"With double-barrelled rifles, at two hundred yards' distance, each man posted behind a tree, and dodging every way to dodge the other's fire. Well, I would meet him that way if he wished it. I have asked the Colonel to mess."

"To mess?"

"Yes."

"That fellow! What will the Colonel and others think? Your reason is, I suppose, to keep up a connecting link with the Chateau?"

"Perhaps so," said Roland, wearily; and, sooth to say, that was his sole reason.

"Well, if with the rental of Ardgowrie, you can't----"

"Please not to speak of Ardgowrie," said Roland impatiently, as he thrust himself into his shell-jacket; "there go the drums for mess."

It was impossible that Aurelia could have any regard, even, amenity, for this horrible American cousin, the Colonel; yet if she had, Roland felt that the changed circumstances of his own fortune tied up his tongue and would render his attentions an interference; yet it was scarcely possible for him to look on such a dangler or admirer with total indifference.

The Colonel, of whom we shall have more to relate anon, came duly to mess, where his appearance and bearing caused some speculation, and not a little secret mirth among Roland's brother officers, who were all men of a very good style and tone.

Lean, wiry, and powerfully made, he was above the middle height, had sharp aquiline features of an exaggerated type, that might not have been bad but for a chronic expression of vulgar suspicion and 'cuteness that played about his eyes, giving him a rather hangdog look; moreover, he had lost three front teeth in a row in Arkansas. He was closely shaven all save a long square goatee imperial that quivered when he spoke. Then he had a nervous way of clutching his hat and banging it against his thigh, with a curious but unmeaning energy. His clothes were loosely made, and he wore enormous cuffs, collar and studs. Every way, he looked, as Logan said, "like a man you would rather drink with than fight with, any day."

The Colonel had of course the usual American ideas about equality, and "the sovereign people," with considerable contempt for the little island, from whence "the Britishers came."

Doubtless he had never seen such a dinner-table us the mess of the Royals before, with all its massive and magnificent silver trophies, epergnes, and goblets--even the White House could not equal it; thus his utter bewilderment excited as much amusement as his _gaucherie_, for he picked his teeth with a silver fork, rinsed his mouth with the contents of his finger-glass, and so forth; but he made good use of his time in more ways than one, as we shall show.

"Strike me ugly, but this is a fine set of fixings! and that one in particular," he added, tapping with his knife a magnificent vase presented to the corps by its colonel, the late Duke of Kent.

As a friend of the Darnels, Roland was very attentive to "the Colonel," who was very loquacious on the subject of the local excitement among the Canadians of the Lower Province, then agitated by factious men who sought to dictate to the Government measures which were not deemed conducive to the welfare of the State, were actually preparing to rise in arms, and counted on the sympathy and support of American filibusters and all manner of desperate and broken fellows from beyond the frontier.

During the summer of that year, and while Roland had been in Scotland, the House of Assembly had refused to proceed in its deliberations until the demand for a total alteration of the legislative powers was complied with; and this was followed by the appearance of many of the colonists in arms, and by serious violations of the law.

On these matters, and the prospects of a row with the authorities, "the Colonel" was more loquacious than became a guest at a regimental mess; but more than once his phraseology excited the risibility of even the waiters. When offered wine, he asked if he "couldn't get some egg-nogg." He described the dry goods store he had once kept at Baltimore, and of the two clubs there, of which he was chairman, the "black snakes" and the "plug uglies," and Roland's bewilderment grew very great to think that such a man as this could be even an acquaintance, far less some remote kinsman of Aurelia Darnel.

Like all Americans, he boasted a good deal and had a sovereign contempt for every other constitution in the world save that of the United States, draining all kinds of wine in quick succession, and ever and anon announcing that he "was dry as thunder," till Roland felt as one in a fever for having such a guest, and saw the commanding officer regarding him with a rather mingled expression of face.

In short, it proved in the end that Colonel Smash was a spy of the intended insurgents, and contrived to glean up a considerable amount of information as to the positions and strength of the Queen's troops in Lower Canada, all of which he duly committed to his notebook.

He sat late, or early rather, and never left the mess table till the sweet, low notes of the old Scottish reveille were waking the echoes of the lonely barrack-square when he went forth, as Logan said, "like an inveterate soaker, without a hair of his coat being turned."

Assisted by Roland, through the medium of cigars and brandy-and-water, Logan was going over the books of his company, to wit, the ledger, day-book, and the acquittance roll, which is rendered every month to the commanding officer--an investigation to Hector of a very solemn nature, whereat there was much occasional anathematising, twisting of the moustache, appealing glances cast to the ceiling, a secret totting off of sums under the table, much rubbing of the chin, and many references to a ready-reckoner--when they were interrupted by the adjutant, who came clattering in with sword and belt on, and his face full of importance.

"What's the row?" asked Logan, looking up.

"Row enough!" replied the adjutant, laughing; "these colonial beggars are up in arms, and four companies of ours have to take the field to-morrow in the direction of Chambly, with some cavalry, a howitzer, and two six-pounders!"

"Bravo--anything is better than _this_ sort of work!" exclaimed Logan, tossing the books aside. "At what hour do we fall-in?"

"Immediately after the men have breakfasted."

Roland looked at his watch; the November evening was darkening fast; he borrowed the adjutant's horse, gave a few instructions rapidly to his servant, and in a few minutes more was spurring in the direction of the Chateau de St. Eustache.

Come what might of it, he had resolved to see once more Aurelia Darnel, and bid her farewell.