The Royal Regiment, and Other NovelettesGrant, James
History
The Royal Regiment, and Other Novelettes
Grant, James
Scotland -- Fiction; Scotland -- History, Military -- Fiction
"Look here, old fellow," said Logan, with a bright expression on his
handsome face, bringing him a copy of the _Montreal Gazette_ some
weeks old; "as Byron says, 'pleasant 'tis to see one's name in
print--'"
"Even in the 'Army List?'"
"Yes, and proud was I when first I saw my name there," said Logan.
"Well, whose name is in print now?"
"Yours."
"Mine!" A sickening thought occurred to Roland of the story of the
concealed will, Ardgowrie, and the discovered heir or heirs, for
though he had schooled himself to face the idea, it was a bitter one;
therefore, it was only a relief to his mind to find, that the matter
referred to, was the fact that he was favourably mentioned and
thanked in General Orders by Sir John Colborne, commanding Her
Majesty's forces in Canada. "for his gallantry displayed on the 28th
of November last, at the abatis of Point Oliviere."
As he read it he thought of Aurelia, and the pleasure such a notice
would afford her; and was carelessly running his eyes over the
columns of the paper, when they caught her name--_her name_--and
mentioned in a way that made his blood turn alternately cold as ice,
and hot as fire!
When proceeding in her sledge, with her daughter Aurelia, Madame
Darnel had been stopped and surrounded near her own seigneury "by a
band of rebels under the notorious Colonel Smash, for whose arrest a
reward is now offered."
The old lady had been subjected to such violence, that she had
fainted and been borne to the house of the curé insensible, while her
beautiful daughter was brutally carried off by the "Yankee
Sympathiser," and was now, if alive, a helpless prisoner in his hands
at St. Eustache.
Roland was petrified with grief and dismay by intelligence, so
deplorable--so terrible! Logan, full of just anger and great
indignation, was speaking to him, but Roland knew not what he said.
The former was recalling the views "the Colonel" had with regard to
Aurelia; he recalled, too, his eavesdropping, his rancorous hatred,
threats, and jealousy; he recalled, also, the whole character and
bearing of the man, and when he thought of the soft, gentle, and
beautiful Aurelia being helpless in his power, at such a time, when
the whole of Lower Canada was rent by civil dissension, outrage, and
bloodshed, and when the Queen's troops were menaced everywhere, the
heart of Roland seemed to die within him!
Again and again had Roland thought, while angry pride mingled with
love and gratitude, that in marrying Aurelia, he would deprive her of
no luxury to which she had been accustomed,--horses and carriages in
summer, the sledge in winter, a dressing maid, or the thousand and
one little things which wealth can procure, because _she_ had that;
but he had longed to make her mistress of Ardgowrie!
Now--now, when he had lost her, perhaps for ever, how pitiful and
minor seemed all such considerations.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ABDUCTION OF AURELIA.
In the main, the newspaper report was correct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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