Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1897 — AT LOVE'S COMMAND [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AT LOVE'S COMMAND

BY CHARLOTTE M. BRAEME.

CHAPTER I. “Prince Cahrlie's” daughter! The sun shone on the day of her birth; the bells in Erceldean pealed merrily; the flag waved ■ for Erceldean towers; every face on the i Erceldean estate wore a bright, pleased expression. “Her ladyship has a little j daughter,” the tenants said one to an- | other, then stopped a moment and added, , “Heaven bless the mother and the child!” I “Prince Charlie” himself was in a trance of delight. He might have lived | in the olden days When people cried out, | “Largess—a princess is born!” He gave with both hands, royally as a king. The clang of joy-bells filled the air; fragrance and melody greeted the birth of “Prince Charlie’s” daughter—Beatrix Lennox, heiress of Erceldean. No king’s heart was ever stirred with more passionate joy than this which now animated the heart of “Prince Charlie.” He stood on the summit of a sloping hill, thick green grass waving at his feet, wild heather to the right and to the left of him, tail, spreading trees over his head. He looked round him with pride and delight. This noble domain of Erceldean, how fair it was! In all the length of bonny Scotland no spot was half so fair—and it would all be lier-s one day. “What shall 1 name her?” he thought. “Beatrix Lennox, the proudest, fairest, haughtiest lady of our race, won the love of a king. She might have been crowned queen, but that she loved the land of her birth better than the king who wooed her. She preferred to be Countess of St. Mar. I will call my daughter ‘Beatrix'; it is a name of good omen. Perhaps it may win for net a loyal love.” He repeated the name as he descended the hill. He walked quickly through the heather, through the elover meadows, through the pleasure gardens, and along the terraces that surrounded the castle. A waiting woman met him at the door. “Her ladyship would be so pleased to see you, colonel,” she said. The colonel went on his way singing, in a low voice, his favorite song, “The Blue Bells of Scotland.” He reached her ladyship’s room, and there waited until the nurse's voice bid him enter. It was a large, lofty room, superbly furnished. On the bed, with its rich hangings, lay a pale, gentle lady, with a sweet, patient sac yet sad, as of one who suffered in silence. She held proudly in her arms a little child. She raised her eyes as the colonel entered. “Charlie, come and look at he<r,” she said. “I have never seen such a face. Look at her!” “There is some character in baby’s face,’ remarked the colonel. “Look at the sweet little lips—how firmly they are closed! See how delicately arched the brows are. The eyes are dark. There Is an old border song Of ‘a dark-eyed Lennox with a heart of fire.’ ” Lady Lennox leoked up at her husband. “Charlie,” she began half reluctantly, “do you know why I sent for you? I thought that on this the day that our little child has bean given to us you would not refuse my petition.” “That I will not,” he replied. “Like the king in your favorite history, I would give you the half of my kingdom.” She laid her band on his thick, clustering curls. “My dear Charlie, I have never doubted your willingness to give. I doubt, though, whether you have much to give. I know it is almost useless to talk to you; but, Charlie, now that we have the little one, will you not try to alter? I want you to promise to be more economical. Do not give away so much—do not bet on those terrible horses —do not trust so implicitly in a blind fate; if you do, ruin will follow. Generosity is a duty, but not such lavish generosity as yours. For my sake, for the little cue’s sake, begin now to act differently.” He bent down and kissed the rosebud face. “I will, Ailsa. You know I mean to do right always—l have no thought of doing wrong. Dame Nature is to blame, who gave me the open hands of a king without the revenues to fill them. I like bright faces, and, if a gift of mine clears a sad face, I am well pleased.” “Say these words after me—‘For your sake, my little Beatrix, 1 promise to be more careful —to give less, to save more, to renounce betting, and devote my time to home.’ ” He repated the words, and then kissed his wife’s hands and the baby’s face. “Ailsa, I hope your daughter will be like yourself.” The baby was christened soon afterward. A duchess was its godmother. The whole domain of Erceldean seemed to be illuminated. The only one troubled with foreboding, the only bne who wept when others laughed, and sighed when others smiled, who foresaw sorrow, was the wife of “Prinee Charlie,” the mother of the little heiress, Lauy Lennox.

CHAPTER 11. The sun shone upon few braver, brighter, happier men than Col. Charles Lennox. Me was one of the handsomest oflieers in her majesty’s army—a man of lofty stature and powerful build, with a graceful, easy, dignified carriage; his features were bold, frank and proud; there was joined in him the dash of the soldier with the grace of the cavalier. He was just twenty when he succeeded to the vast fortune left him by his father. His father, Keith Lennox of Erceldean, had two sons—Charles, the colonel, Who succeeded him, and Peter, the younger eon, who was a graceless ne’er-do-well—-he had neither manners, morals nor style, Keith Lennox was accustomed to say. There was no great love between the brothers, although Charlie had a contemptuous kind of pity for the ungainly boy who was so invariably awkward and clumsy. Peter solved for himself the difficult problem of his existence. He ran away from home, leaving a letter addressed to his father, in which he stated that it was his intention to make a fortune at the gold diggings; he was going to sail in the Ormo’.ia, he said. The father’s first feeling on reading the letter was one of unmitigated relief. But a few weeks afterward, when he read the story of the wreck of the Ormolia with the lojs of all on board, he mourned for his son. There was an end to Peter; he could never auaagi diagractu nor irritate them again.

Charles Lennox succeeded to the whole of the Erceldean estate. There had been ample provision made for Peter, that now became his brother’s. At twenty-one Charles Lennox was one of the handsomest and wealthiest men in Scotland. He served in one campaign against the Sikhs in India. It was there that his fair face became bronzed—there that he won his brilliant reputation for fearless courage. Col. Lennox was comparatively a young man when the necessity of looking after his estate compelled him to leave the army. He divided his time between London and Erceldean, and married, after a short courtship, the pretty, portionless orphan daughter of a Scotch peer—the Lady Ailsa Graeme—who simply idolized him. They were married ten years before the birth cf their little daughter, Beatrix Ijennox.

There were few men so courted or so popular as the colonel; he was chiefly known by the name of “Prince Charlie.” It was difficult not to idolize him, since lie had ways and fashions more royal even than those of a king. He was kind and warm of heart, impetuous, indiscreet; he was possessed of little caution or judgment, but he had an immense faith in everything and every one—an immense sympa'hy for all whom he come in contact with. How many destitute children he placed in schools, how many desolate widows he established in business; how many young simpletons he rescued from folly, could never be told. In vain did Lady Lennox remonstrate. “My dear wife,” he would answer in his genial, happy fashion, “I have so much money that I can never spend it all.” He lent, he gave, he lost, until the day came that his banker, with a grave face, told him that his account was so far overdrawn that some arrangement must be made. The gay, handsome colonel was electrified. At first he declared that the firm was nad; and then he grew indignant. An interview with his solicitors brought him to his senses, and he saw that there was no resource save to mortgage Ereeklean. “Prince Charlie” lost more and more. The London house was given up, a farm was sold, the mortgage was increased. Lady Ijennox startled her husband one day by telling him that if he should die unexpactedly he had not a shilling to leave her. Still the fright was not much of a v check on him; the mortgage was increased. So it happened that when Beatrix was born there was no heritage left for her. He never realized it. To himself he was always Col. Lennox of Ereeldean, lord of one of the fairest estates in Scotland. What (iid it matter to him that it was mortgaged to its full value, and that at any time, if the mortgage money was called in, he would be a ruined man? He was not of a nature to remember sueh things; he had a happy faculty of thrusting all dark thoughts from his mind. He had promised to amend now that his little heiress was born; but it was too late to do so; he should have reformed years before. He had nothing now to keep. He struggled on until Beatrix reached her fourth year. She had ail a child’s passionate adoration for the handsome, generous father who kissed her and loaded her with toys. She loved him, with an affection passing the love of children for their parents, until her fourth year, and then a terrible accident happened. One sunny morning in August the colonel kissed his wife and child for the last time. Some one had begged him to try a new horse which it was feared was vicious; with his usual good nature he had consented. When Lady Lennox, looking into his handsome face, asked him whither he was going, he answered laughingly and evasively. Had they known the truth, neither wife nor child would have parted with him. “You will come home to dinner, Charlie?” taid Lady Lennox. “Do not ride too quickly or too far; the day is warm.” The colonel laughed. “Fancy such advice as that to a man who has ridden forty miles in the heat of an Indian sun!” he cried. “I will be back for dinner, Ailsa—indeed, if you feel dull or lonely, I will not go at all.” Four hours afterward they carried him home to Ereeldean —dead!

CHAPTER 111. Beatrix Lennox, child as she was at that time, remembered the untold horror of the day on which her father was brought home dead. She remembered the slanting sunshine as it fell upon the grass, the silent hours whale her father was away and her mother, Lady Lennox, lay reading on the couch. How suddenly the calmness and the sweet sunshine seemed to terminate as over the greensward came the tramp of men! She remembered the terrible cry of her mother when she heard what the men had to say—“ The colonel is dead”; and the little lisping child, hardly knowing the meaning of the words, repeated them—“ The colonel is dead.” Then came a long interval. She had a dim remembrance of dark-browed men raging and storming in Ereeldengi Castle, of looking at a fall, angry man, who stood in the picture gallery, raving against her dead father—called him “prodigal” and “spendthrift”—of a servant trying to quiet him, saying: “Hush! the child is listening.” “Tire child had better be dead than a beggar,” he answered. “Here is my lady coming,” said the servant. “And ‘my lady’ had better be dead, too,” declared the man savagely. She remembered a hundred similar scenes—how her mother came to her one morning dressed in deep mourning, her pale face looking quite colorless and contrasting with her black robes . “Beatrix,” she said, “come with me, child, and say good-by to your home. You are a little child, but you are old enough to remember what 1 am going to say to you. Look at that beautiful castle; it should be yours. You were born heiress of Ereeldean, yet you have not a penny in the world. Beatrix, only. heaven knows what Les before us—what is to be our fate; I ut promise me always to remember that this is your home, always to remember that you were born a lady.” “I am a lady,” said the child, proudly, “not a beggar as that man called me, but a lady.” “Promise me, too, my darling, that, if

in the yean to cotn* yon should be fortunate or prosperous, you will, if you can, buy back the oM home of the Lennoxes.” “I wiU, momma,” said the child. “Remember another thing, my darting. They used to call yon ‘Prince Charlie’s* daughter in the days when feasting and revelry wasted your father’s substance, when men flattered ham and borrowed from him and led him to ruin.” “Poor papa!” said the child, with fastdropping tears. “Dear, noble, generous papa!” cried Lennox. “Oh, my little daughter, he has left me almost penniless; yet, I declare to you that I would rather be his widow, left poor and obscure, than the widow of a king. But you do not understand me.” “Yes, I do, mamma. I understand you loved papa. So dad I.” Then came a journey over the hills. Beatrix asked her mother whither they were going. Lady Lennox said: “You have never heard of the place, child; we are going to the old Grange at Stratbnam, an old house left to me years ago, and an income of a hundred a year with it I smiled at the time I heard of the legacy; now I thank heaven for it"

Stratbnarn wan reached at last. The Grange was a large, rambling building, pleasantly situated. The house stood on the summit of a richly wooded hill, and a beautiful lake, called Loch Nnrn, lay at its feet. No scenery could have been richer or more picturesque; no landscape more lovely. The Grange itself was a dreary habitation. In that great lonely house there were no cariiets, no pictures —nothing but old oaken furniture quite out of date, long, dark passages, and gloomy rooms. There wae one servant, Margaret by name, a staid, warm-hearted Scotchwoman, who had long been accustomed to the Grange. She had lived there alone since her late mistress’ death, looking after the gloomy house as well as she could. She gazed pitifully at the beautiful child with the bright face. “It will be a queersome place for her to grow up in, my lady,” dhe said; “we never see the sight of a human face here from one year to another. Perhaps it will be only for a time that you will stay here?” “It ’vill be for life,” replied Lady Lennox sadly—“for life; but if heaven is good to us, that life will not last long.” And Lady Lennox found it even worse than rhe had expected and feared. Just at first there was a glimmer of hope that something would happen—some source of relief would be found; that glimmer of hope died, and the full sense of desolation came home to her at last. The only thing that saved her from despair was her little daughter; to teach 'her, to brighten the little life, to make herself a child for the child’s sake, was the only thing that kept her from the very madness of despair. As the mournful years passed without change, without event, she busied herself thus, only waking at intervals to the consciousness that her daughter was rapidly becoming a beautiful girl, while she herself seemed to grow more helpless and feeble every day. (To be continued. )