CHAPTER VII.

A NOBLE LORD RESOLVES TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF.

It chanced that one afternoon Lord Campsie came to the conclusion, that with regard to Dove, of whom he had evidently become as much smitten as it was in his languid nature to be, he must do something to place himself on a solid footing with her.

On that afternoon he had been dangling, as usual, about her in the drawing-room; but she had been provokingly cold and distant to him; spoke thrice to Gillian--who resolutely kept his post--for each time she addressed the visitor, and when pressed to sing something, she allowed him alone to turn the leaves of her music, and by her mode of treating Lord Campsie, left nothing undone to show him that Gillian was her affianced and accepted lover, to whom she felt that the attention of one whom she conceived to be only amusing himself, must be eminently distasteful. Matters had come to such a pass, that some such demonstration as this was necessary; and thus pique brought his lordship suddenly to a point, that he was, perhaps, not yet quite prepared for, so as he turned his horse's head eastward to the barracks he began to reflect.

It was not a common process with him, and usually made him taciturn---even sulky with his best friends.

He began to fancy himself very much in love, and naturally suspected Gillian; but the chief infirmity of his character was a suspicion of motives in every one, a fault created by his mode of education and the circumstances of his position in society.

Though one of the fastest men in the Prince's Hussars, and in his set in town, it was an understood thing, that Lord Campsie must, sooner or later, "commit matrimony," as he would have said, whenever the eligible female came to hand. His father and mother had said so, and everybody else except himself. The charms of a little box at St. John's Wood, with the inevitable outlay, in sealskins, diamonds, bouquets, and tiny brougham, had been, as yet, quite enough for him, especially while the tents of the Hussars were pitched at Hounslow, Aldershot, and other pleasant places within a moderate distance of the metropolis.

In the supposed bride certain qualities were deemed indispensable: beauty, grace, dignity, good birth, and unexceptionable position.

Poor Dove had the first of these three requisites, and many more, that were lovable, estimable, and adorable; yet she had neither good birth, position, nor anything else in these ways, coming up to the high standard required by the family of Viscount Kilsythe. But, like the daughters of Cottonopolis, she had money. That it was not acquired by honest hard work and genuine industry mattered not.

Campsie knew, or supposed that she would have a handsome dowry; for when asking advances, had not the lawyer said casually, "I must be careful of my little girl--I must not leave her less than eighty or a hundred thousand;" and so now, it seemed high time that he, Campsie, was married and settled at last.

The heir to an old title, taken from the now ruined castle of Kilsythe, in Stirlingshire (about which he cared no more than if it was in Timbuctoo or Dahomey), with already burdened estates in more than one English county, he could not go down to his grave unwed, especially with all his debts, so here was this taking little Dove (though he detested her suave, canting, vulgar father) at hand to make all comfortable, and to be had--he never doubted it--for the asking.

Such were the views of my Lord Campsie, as he slowly made up his noble mind to come to the point and "chuck himself away," whatever the mess and his "set" might think.

Dove would make a very creditable-looking little wife, and---

"Though from a humble stock, undoubtedly Was fashioned to much honour."

Her father was a nobody, and her grandfather, no doubt, a myth. These were bitter pills to swallow; while, after all Campsie had seen and known of life in London and elsewhere, it did seem rather a grim joke that he should be proposing at last to the little provincial, this Scots lawyer's heiress; but, once transplanted elsewhere, and placed among the upper classes, he had no doubt that, with her father's ill-gotten gains--he was certain they must be so--she would pass very well as the future Viscountess Kilsythe.

"Eighty or a hundred thousand, incumbered with such a wife, will be a very tolerable investment of myself," thought Campsie; "but the pater--the awful father-in-law, ugh! he will require to be kept utterly and permanently in the background or on his native heath. I wonder if the old beggar wouldn't take some of his own money and emigrate!"

He had once, when under the influence of sundry brandies and sodas, sounded Martingale to ascertain his views of such an alliance.

"I have lost fearfully, on one or two late events, old fellow, don't you know; and at the Derby, my trainer tells me that it is even betting my mare don't start at all; so Martingale, by Jove, I think I'll marry the little Gainswood."

"The devil you will!" drawled the captain, as he lounged back in an Indian chair, with a leg over each arm thereof, watching the smoke from his cigar, as it curled upwards; "why she is only a provincial attorney's daughter, and you know the adage."

"What is it?"

"Brazen pots and earthen vessels ought not to float down the same channel."

"Old Gainswood already holds so many of my acceptances, that in one sense, I am as much in his power as he could wish me to be."

"But old Six-and-eightpence will be certain to see that every penny his girl may have is settled upon herself--everything, even to the Maltese terrier and the pony phaeton, and she might request her lord and master to leave even that, if they quarrelled."

"I would then get a seat in the little one's brougham at St. John's Wood," said Campsie, grimly.

"Gainswood is bad form--very! and without position in society. Take time, old fellow, something else may turn up, even here."

And with the recollection of this not very cheering advice fresh in his mind, Campsie dismounted at the door of Gainswood's office, and even then paused for a moment, as he tied his reins in a knot. He was selfish; for any man brought up as he had been could not--like too many of his class--escape being so, more or less.

"Well," thought his lordship, "hang it--here goes!" and on being ushered into Mr. Gainswood's business-room, he lost not a moment in announcing his object.

"My lord--you really take my breath away!" exclaimed Gainswood, inserting a thumb in each arm-hole of his vest, and regarding with pretended amazement, but with intense secret delight, the young lord, who seated himself jauntily on the edge of his writing-table, and flicked his glazed boots with the lash of his jewelled riding-whip. He thought that Campsie had come, as usual, for an advance, or loan; but not to this issue so suddenly.

"I have, indeed, Mr. Gainswood, thought of proposing _au serieux_, for your dear daughter," he repeated.

"You do her and me a high honour, my lord!"

"I do _her_ none," was the rather pointed response.

"Who ever has the good fortune to marry my girl, will find with her as much goodness as beauty, and as much money as either."

"A vulgar, purse-proud snob!" thought his intending son-in-law.

"You are the heir to an ancient and honourable Scottish peerage, though not so rich a title as it might be; and you, my lord, pardon me, have many incumbrances; but, oh, my lord, what matter earthly riches; we shall all, I hope, meet one day in Heaven, where no riches are required, save those of the soul, my lord--save those of the soul!"

"But while on earth, and in the Prince's Hussars, a man must have money or credit, or he is safe to go to the dogs and the devil before his time."

"In this matter you are in earnest."

"As earnest as if it was the Derby day, and I heard the saddling bell ring!" said Campsie, impatiently.

"Dove will have a most creditable portion in cash--besides"----

"Besides what?" thought Campsie, while the lawyer was eyeing him acutely out of one eye; and it never seemed necessary to either of these two men, to say one word concerning love, admiration, affection, or such emotions as Dove might be supposed to excite. With the lawyer, whose heart trembled with exultation and ambition, it was simply a magnificent piece of business; while Campsie was much cooler than he had often been when chaffering for a nag at Tattersall's.

"Have I then your permission?" he asked, thinking he had bothered long enough upon the matter.

"Of course, my dear lord--of course, my dear young friend; but can we reckon upon that of Viscount Kilsythe?"

"As he never consulted me in his matrimonial affairs, I don't mean to consult him," was the somewhat flippant response. "The governor may cut up rusty at first; but he'll learn to like Miss Gainswood in time. No one could know her, without liking and loving her." (His lordship thought it was time to say something of this kind now.) "Her manners are doocid good form--her temper sweet--her loveliness undeniable; and as to title----"

"It is the last thing she or I would set store on, my lord!" interrupted Mr. Gainswood, with great fervour.

"Very like a whale!" thought my Lord Campsie.

"My dear daughter," said the lawyer, now deeming it necessary to do a little pathos, "has had a godly upbringing, as beseemed the child of an elder of the kirk and a Christian man. She is a religious and God-fearing young woman, and will be as a pearl above price--yea, as a crown of glory to her husband. I give her to you, my lord, with the fondest blessing of a loving and tender parent, and the heart-felt wishes of an honest man. May God bless you both!"

Then he wrung the hand of Campsie, and seeming to give way to emotion, covered his eyes with his handkerchief,

"To hide the tears he did not shed."

"Now, that 'the heavy father,' business has been done, I am off like a bird," said Campsie, who had eyed him somewhat dubiously; "so that is arranged--ta, ta, old fellow, I'd look you up to-morrow again."

"Good; what thine heart findeth to do, do it with all thy might."

Again his lordship betook him to his saddle, leaving the lawyer in a very mixed mood of mind, in which exultation, ambition, gratified vanity, and avarice, mingled with much of craven fear and more of hate for Gillian now, as he alone stood in the way, adding to the complications of the situation.

Gainswood had permitted the engagement of Dove and Gillian, and had openly corresponded with the father of the latter on that important subject; and now he had accorded to Campsie permission to address his daughter as a lover! and, as yet, he could not see how the whole affair was to end.

In his vanity and over-reaching ambition, he had not the courage to act in a straightforward manner, besides, none knew what might happen.

If Dove accepted Campsie, and threw over her cousin, as he never doubted she would, then--he seemed to pause even in speculation, and his fishy, shifty eyes wandered unconsciously to the green charter box.

Meanwhile, half regretting and half exulting in what he had done, Campsie rode slowly homeward by the most magnificent terrace in Europe, and yet saw not a feature of it. "What a poem is Prince's Street!" says Alexander Smith. "The puppets of the busy, many-coloured hour crowd about its pavement, while across the ravine, Time has piled up the Old Town, ridge on ridge, grey as a rocky coast, washed and worn by the foam of centuries; peaked and jagged by gable and roof; windowed from basement to cope; the whole surmounted by St. Giles's airy crown. The New is there looking at the Old. Two Times are brought face to face, and are yet separated by a thousand years."

Oblivious alike of the picturesque as of "the stirring memory" of these thousand years, Lord Campsie rode homeward to his barracks, and saw nothing of all that glorious scenery which makes the city of the gallant James's so full of interest, even to strangers--that old, old city, whose massive mansions of stone, weather-beaten, dark, and built, some of them, in years beyond even the stormy middle ages, have teemed with romantic and historical recollections for many generations of men; many painful, many pitiful memories, some of love and more of war, duels, and clan battles, of rancorous feud and foreign invasion, and of loyal hearts that have wasted and well-nigh broken in their passionate faith to religion and a race of kings that are no more.

To Campsie, the scenery and the place were all flat, stale, and unprofitable; and if he had a thought on the subject, as he glanced towards the rugged and wonderful outline of the Canongate, it was simply, that "it was d---- old and d---- dirty."

"I did not think I should have to chuck myself away among the women here, of all places; but needs must, and so, I shall have to make a sacrifice of myself on the altar of necessity!" he muttered as he gave his bay the spur.