allowing Scott to have a friend who is not a monitor, but for the extent and quality of the resulting intimacy we may take Mr. Skene’s ultimate statement that it continued for “nearly forty years”—that is till one of them should be buried in Dryburgh Abbey—“without ever having sustained a casual chill from unkind thought or word.”
For the moment they talked of chargers, of the fear of French invasion on the northern coast, of the regiment of Light Horse that had been raised in London, and of the possibility of a similar enterprise being successful in the Scottish capital. During the winter, Scott worked so hard at this project that he was able in the middle of February to send a petition to the Government in London, signed by a sufficient number who would be willing to serve in a regiment of volunteer cavalry, to secure the necessary authority; and with such energy was the recruiting pressed that the regiment was an established fact when the spring came. It pledged itself to serve, in case of invasion, in any part of the United Kingdom. It was commanded by Charles Maitland of Rankeillor. Scott was “Paymaster, Quartermaster and Secretary.” Its cornets were James Skene, and William Forbes of Pitsligo. The last name is an incidental evidence that no shadow of hostility had fallen between Walter Scott and his successful rival.
As most of the members of the corps had business or professional duties that filled their days, the hour for drill was fixed for five A.M.—an hour which recalls Scott’s early-morning energies in his legal studies, and suggests that the secretary of the corps had some responsibility for this arrangement.
James Skene’s account of him in this connection deserves quotation:
“The part of quartermaster was purposely selected for him, that he might be spared the rough usage of the ranks; but, not withstanding his infirmity, he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback, and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps, while his ready “mot a rire” kept up, in all, a degree of good-humour and relish for the service, without which the toil and privations of long daily drills would not easily have been submitted to by such a body of gentlemen. At every interval of exercise, the order, Sit at ease, was the signal for the quartermaster to lead the squadron to merriment; every eye was intuitively turned on ‘Earl Walter’, as he was familiarly called by his associates of that date, and his ready joke seldom failed to raise the ready laugh. He took his full share in all the labours and duties of the corps, had the highest pride in its progress and proficiency, and was such a trooper himself, as only a very powerful frame of body and the warmest zeal in the cause could have enabled any one to be.”
The triple offices which Scott held at the first organisation of the regiment, for the existence of which his persistent energy was responsible, reminds us of the similar multiplicity of his official services to the Speculative Club. On this occasion, he found that he had undertaken more than it would be possible to continue permanently, and an arrangement was made for the paymaster’s duties to be transferred to Mr. Colin Mackenzie. But it is amazing at this, as at every subsequent period of his life, to observe how much of his time (and often of his money also) was given to the service of others, or to occupations that brought no remuneration. It is obvious, from Skene’s account, and from much other witness, that he was the life and inspiration of the regiment, though he had no thought to press for its higher dignities. At this time it seemed as though he would allow himself no time for solitary or introspective thought. He rose early: he read late. On a charger fitted for his unusual height and weight, which he had named Leonore, and the purchase of which had presented such difficulty that he had seriously thought of selling his collection of antique coins to acquire it, he appeared among his brother volunteers as of an inexhaustible vitality, and a good temper that nothing could overset.
It was so that he would appear to others through the vicissitudes of many future years. As they passed, it would become almost a routine with him to give his time and money to assist the troubles of others, and to keep his own to the privacy of his own heart. There would even be those in later days (but not who had known him) who would suggest that his passions were of no more than a moderate temperature. It is true that in the immense volume of his writings the allusion to periods—
“When on the weary night dawned wearier day,
And bitterer was the grief devoured alone,”
are very brief and few. But shallowness is a more talkative and more selfish thing.
CHAPTER XVII.
In the latter days of the reign of Louis XVI, there had been living in Lyons, with his wife and two young children, a M. Jean Charpentier, a government official of some wealth and position. Among his friends had been the Marquis of Downshire, who had stayed at his house for some time when travelling on the Continent. When the revolution broke out, M. Charpentier did not fly—he may probably have been in no condition of health to do so—but he prudently sent some of his money to England, about £4,000 in all.
The Marquis of Downshire was his good friend in the matter. He appears to have arranged its investment, part of the money being secured by a mortgage on his own estate. When her husband died, as he did shortly afterwards, Madame Charpentier left Lyons for Paris, and then fled with her two children to London, as the murderous horrors of the revolution darkened around her. Lord Downshire gave the fugitives shelter in his own house. The mother died almost immediately, and he acted from that time as the guardian of the two orphans who had been left on his hands. He appears to have acted throughout with kindness and probity. He educated the children wisely, and conserved their property. In due time, he procured for the boy, Charles Charpentier, an appointment under the East India Company, who in 1797 already held a good position as a commercial resident at Salem. It is probable that some of the children’s original capital had been invested in connection with this appointment, subject to Charles contributing to his sister’s support, for at this date we find that Charlotte Charpentier (or Carpenter, as she had now taken to writing it, in the English style) reckoned her income at £500 a year, part of which was from interest on secure investments, and the remainder dependent upon the regularity of her brother’s remittances.
Charlotte’s education had been entrusted to Miss Jane Nicholson, a daughter of the Dean of Exeter, and grand-daughter of William Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle. The Bishop of Carlisle was dead, but Jane Nicholson still had friends or relatives in Carlisle with whom she kept up acquaintance. Charlotte’s education was over, but Lord Downshire still retained Miss Nicholson’s services as a companion for the lonely girl.
It followed from these circumstances that when Charlotte and Miss Nicholson took a holiday together in August of this year, Carlisle was the selected spot, from which they went to Gilsland, to spend some summer weeks among the beauties of the English lakes.
At the same time, the legal session at Edinburgh having closed in July, and the new yeomanry regiment having suspended its drills (after three weeks in camp at Musselburgh), John and Walter Scott, with Walter’s friend, Adam Fergusson, came southward on a wandering holiday, stopping at several places before they put up their horses at a Gilsland hotel. The next morning Walter and Adam took a long ride together to explore the district in Walter’s usual manner. Charlotte Carpenter was fond of riding. She had a slim figure, which looked well in a riding-habit, as she doubtless knew. There is no evidence that Miss Nicholson had a similar figure, or a similar liking for a horse’s back. There is no evidence either way, beyond the fact that next morning Charlotte rode out alone. She was a dark girl by English, and still more by Scottish, standards. We have her son-in-law’s testimony that her complexion was “of the clearest and lightest olive”; that her eyes were “large, deep-set and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown.” The two young Scotsmen who reined up their horses to watch her ride must have seen more of her figure, and of jet-black hair that blew loose in the wind. From that hour Charlotte’s fate was a settled thing.
Etiquette did not permit that the girl should be accosted on the lonely moorland. But she could be discreetly followed, and her dwelling marked down for a more circumspect approach. We do not know whether she knew that she was stalked, or disliked the experience, but they rounded her up satisfactorily in Gilsland; which prevented any necessity for changing their own location. There was a dance that night, at which, by whatever combination of chance and swift contriving,