The Romance of War; or, The Highlanders in Spain, Volume 1 (of 3)Grant, James
General
The Romance of War; or, The Highlanders in Spain, Volume 1 (of 3)
Grant, James
Great Britain. Army. Gordon Highlanders -- Fiction; Peninsular War, 1807-1814 -- Fiction
"MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE.—We understand that the gallant Earl of Hyndford
is about to lead to the hymeneal altar the beautiful and accomplished
daughter of Sir Allan Lisle, Bart., M. P. for ——. The happy event is to
take place in a few weeks at Inchavon-house, (Perthshire,) the family
seat of the venerable and much respected baronet."
The room swam around him, and the light faded for a moment from his eye,
while the hot blood gushed back tumultuously through the pulses of his
heart; but clinching his teeth firmly, and mustering all his scattered
energies, he read it over once more, while mingled sorrow and fury
contracted and convulsed the muscles of his handsome features. There
was no doubting the purport of the torturing intelligence, and Catalina
was forgotten in the fierce excitement of the moment. "O Alice!
Alice!" he said, bitterly and aloud, "could I ever have expected this of
you? ’Tis but a few months since we parted, and she is false already. I
am, indeed, soon forgotten!"
He crushed the paper up, and thrusting it into the charcoal pan on the
hearth, it was consumed in an instant. "Hyndford—Carmichael, Earl of
Hyndford! Ay; the glitter of the coronet has more charms for her eye
than a subaltern’s epaulet; but I would not be my father’s son, should I
think more of her after this. I will learn to forget her, as she has
forgotten me,—and this too shall perish!" He took the miniature from
his neck, and was about to crush it beneath his heel; but when the
well-known features met his eye, his fierce resolution melted away: he
averted his head, and replaced it in his bosom, while a sad and subdued
feeling took possession of his heart.
"I cannot destroy," thought he, "what has been so long a solace, and an
object almost of worship to me. Even were she the bride of another, as
perhaps she is at this very hour, I would yet wear and bear it for her
sake, in memory of the days that are passed away and the thoughts I had
nourished for years—ay, for years,—since the days we gathered the wild
rose and the heather-bell on the bonnie braes I now almost wish never to
behold again."
For the first hour or two, he felt as if every cord that bound him to
happiness and existence was severed and broken, and an acute feeling of
mental agony swelled his breast almost to bursting. His Highland pride
came, however, to his aid, and roused within him feelings equally
bitter, though perhaps less distressing; and starting up, he strode
hastily about the apartment, and emptied more than once a large horn of
Malaga, from a pig-skin which lay on a side-table near him, drinking
deeply to drown care, and allay the wild tumult of his thoughts. But
the wine was as water, and he quaffed it without effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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