CHAPTER I.

THE LOVER.

'And you will not accompany me to call on these ladies, uncle?' said the young man persuasively.

'Certainly not, boy; do you take me for a fool--der Duyvel!' was the snappish rejoinder, as the General tossed his silver-mounted meerschaum on the table, and thrust his chair back on the polished oak floor, 'I have suspected you for some time past, and know, from old experience, that a young fellow in love is lost to the service and himself; among women he is as helpless as a rudderless ship among the thousand shoals of the Zuyder Zee! You are my heir, as you know, provided your conduct and obedience satisfy me. I am rich enough for both of us, and I had begun to hope that, like me, you would go through the world without the encumbrance of a wife. I shall not see you make a fool of yourself, without making an effort to save you. I shall give you a Beating Order, and send you to recruit for the Brigade in Scotland; or how would you like to roast on detachment at Guayana, or among the Dutch Isles in the Caribbean Sea?'

'Such a separation would be death to me, and to Dolores too.'

'Dol--what?' roared the General, grasping the knobs of his arm-chair and glaring at the speaker; 'how familiar we are, it seems! Where the devil did she get that absurd name?'

'From a Spanish ancestress, and with the name much of her beauty,' replied the younger man, who had a very pleasant voice and manner, which, if somewhat sad and soft, possessed the charm of cultured influences and refinement.

'Dolores--a very Donna Dulcinea, no doubt! Well, my young cock-o'-the-game, it is useless in me to repeat what you don't want to hear, and in you to say the same thing over and over again, as you have been doing for the last hour. So far as you and this--Dolores are concerned, my mind is made up--yes, by the henckers' horns!'

The speaker was no Dutchman, as his interjection might lead the reader to infer, but, like his nephew, a native of the northern portion of our isle, being Lieutenant-General John Kinloch, of Thominean in Fifeshire, Colonel-Commandant of the six battalions of the Scots Brigade, in the service of their High Mightinesses the States-General of Holland--a corps which boasted itself 'the Bulwark of the Republic'--a veteran of more than twenty years' hard service, though still in the flower of manhood.

His hair was powdered and queued, as was then the fashion; his handsome face was well bronzed by long exposure to the tropical sun, and his hands, which had never known gloves, contrasted in their brown hue with snow-white ruffles of the finest lace at the wide cuffs of his uniform coat.

His nose was straight; his mouth expressed firmness and decision, and his dark eyes, which were sparkling then with no small amount of anger, had somewhat shaggy brows that nearly met in one, and gave great character to his face.

His nephew, who stood near him, playing with the gold knot of his sword, and trying to deprecate his anger, was Lewis (or as he was generally called Lewie) Baronald of that Ilk in Lanarkshire (the only son of a baronet attainted after Culloden), and now a handsome young lieutenant in the Earl of Drumlanrig's Battalion of the Scots Brigade, in quarters, where we find him, at the Hague.

His face wore a droll expression just then, in spite of himself, as he knew that his uncle and patron was well known in the Brigade, and in Dutch society, as a misogynist--a genuine woman-hater, under the influence of some never-forgotten disappointment he had endured in early life, and who never omitted by the exertion of his advice, influence, or actual authority, to mar--if possible--the matrimonial views and wishes of the officers and men under his command.

When any of his brother officers would venture to express their surprise that one who was evidently so good-hearted and warm by nature, and who--though in all things a perfect soldier--was apparently fond of domestic life, should have omitted to share it with a help-mate, their remarks only invoked a torrent of grotesque invectives upon the sex, and put the General in such exceeding bad humour, that they were glad to beat a retreat and leave him to himself.

He had begun to perceive that for some time past, his nephew was abstracted in manner, that he absented himself from his quarters, was rather estranged from his comrades, and was almost neglectful of his military duties; and from rumours that reached him from the idlers and promenaders in the Voorhout and on the Vyverberg, the General was not long in discovering that a charming young girl was the cause of all this, and great was his wrath thereat. And when he found that Lewie Baronald's abstraction increased; that he caught him reading poetry instead of studying the '_Tactique et Discipline dc Prusse_'; that he sighed sometimes involuntarily, and more than once had been caught inditing suspicious-looking little missives in the form of delicately folded, tinted and perfumed notes, he took him finally to task, and his indignation found vent, as it did on the present occasion.

'And you fell in with this girl----'

'When our battalion was sharing duty with the Dutch Guards at the Prince of Orange's palace in Amsterdam.'

'And how about her mother?' growled the General.

'She was very averse to my attendance on her daughter till----'

'Till when or what?' snapped the uncle.

'She asked me some questions concerning my name and family, and then suddenly I became quite a favourite.'

'All cunning--all cunning! But our name and our blood are as good as any in Holland, and better than some, I suppose; but every Scot has a pedigree, as King James was wont to say.'

And as General Kinloch spoke, the strong old Scottish accent, which then prevailed at the Bar and in the Pulpit at home (as it had done at Court in the preceding century), deepened with his excitement and irritation.

'And the mother is a widow, Drumlanrig tells me,' he continued; 'a widow who, I doubt not, loves her coffee with a glass of good curaçoa from De Pylsteeg at Amsterdam.'

'Indeed you mistake her, uncle,' replied the young man indignantly.

'Umph--egad--do I?'

'She often speaks to me of you, uncle.'

'Does she? I am greatly honoured.'

'Yes--and seems to know all about you, and your brilliant services to their Mightinesses the States, and so forth.'

'The devil she does! Well, she probably knows also that I never was a lady's man--a lady-killer, a buck, or a blood in my time; so my lady countess may spare her breath to cool her porridge. And _who_ is this Countess van Renslaer? Her name sounds new to me.'

'She has but lately come to Holland.'

'From where?'

'England last, I believe; and none seem to take a higher place at the Court of the Prince of Orange; at the balls of the Grand Pensionary, and of the richest burgers in the Hague and Amsterdam.'

'Ouf! Well, I go to none of them--not even to Court, save once a year, to kiss the Prince's hand, and give in the Brigade Reports. She has a great retinue--keeps a stately coach and two sedans, I hear; and does this artful old--countess seem to tolerate the advances of a penniless sub like you, to her daughter?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Because she is interested in me,' replied Lewie Baronald, smiling.

'For what reason?'

'Her first lover had been one of the Scots Brigade, and her heart still warms to the uniform.'

The knitted brow of the General relaxed for a moment, and he said with a grim smile:

'Then there have been two fools at least in the Brigade, to my knowledge. And for this prize, Dolores--I have caught her absurd name, you perceive--have you no rivals--no competitors?'

The young man's brow grew very dark.

'Yes,' said he, after a pause.

'Many?'

'One chiefly.'

'Whom you fear??

'I fear no man that wears a sword, uncle! She has a cousin, called Maurice Morganstjern, whom I greatly distrust.'

'Grandson of that Morganstjern who was one of the assassins of the De Witts in the last century? Avoid the whole brood, I say! If you will not be guided by me, who have your interest at heart, consult your Colonel, Drumlanrig, on this matter, and hear what _he_ will say.'

'The last man to consult on such a topic.'

'Why?'

'Like yourself, he shuns female society. He is a gloomy misanthrope, and one of a fated race.'

'Right: a curse fell on his house, for the duke's share in the Union of 1707. I thought your family troubles were at an end when you joined the Brigade; but, der Duyvel! they seem only beginning, with this Dolores. To me it appears that there are some families--in Scotland more especially--whom misfortune--fate--which you will--pursueth to utter destruction.'

'The fate of mine was their own choosing: it lay between prudence and loyalty, and ill would it have become my people to have wavered when the Royal Standard was unfurled in Glenfinnan.'

'Your father's views and mine were different in that matter,' said the General in a softer tone.

'Give me your hand. I do not despair of your favour for us yet.'

'Indeed!'

'Tyne heart, tyne all, as we say at home.'

'In old Scotland, yes--and before the enemy, that is well enough; but anent a woman--go--go--or I shall lose my temper again. Besides, Lewie, there is a cloud on the horizon--the political horizon, I mean--which, though as yet no bigger than a man's hand, may expand into a dark and mighty one of storm and bloodshed. A revolution is at hand in France, and a time is coming when we--the Scots Brigade--will have other work than love-making cut out for us, and we shall have to choose between casting our lot forever with the States-General or with his Majesty George III.; for there is not a tavern and not a caserne in Holland in which the matter is not debated keenly and hotly now.'

Though the steady opposition and hostility of his uncle and patron, on whom all his hopes depended, left the young man depressed in spirit and heavy in heart, and inspired by no small dread of separation from the object of his love, he quitted the General's house, and set forth to visit her.