Ronald derived the most exquisite pleasure from this reconciliation with his old friend; and it was alone equalled by the delightful idea that Alice yet loved him, and was the same gentle, winning, and blooming creature as ever,--and would yet be his, when all the perils of campaigning were past. Eagerly he longed for an opportunity to write: and what a deal he had to tell her,--of love and war, of future happiness, and mutual tenderness!
The long-detained letter of Alice could not be procured from the depths of Lisle's baggage-trunks, until the halt at the ruinous little town of Villa Mayor. Although the march was only twelve miles, and lay along the left bank of the Tagus, among the most beautiful scenery,--wood and water, rocks and ruins, fields and vineyards,--it appeared to Ronald the longest and most wearisome he had ever performed. As soon as he received the letter from Louis, he rushed away to a secluded nook or bower of orange-trees, by the river side, and prepared to con it over in secret. He hastily kissed and broke the seal, which bore the crest of the Monteiths of Cairntowis, with the motto _Keepe tryste_. Ronald knew the signet ring of his mother, which he had given to Alice when he bade her adieu in the lawn before Inchavonhouse.
"Inchavon, Perthshire, 10th December, 1811.
"Louis has already sent you no less than three letters, addressed to the regiment via Edinburgh and Lisbon, but, alas! we have never yet received any answer, and I fear that none of them have reached you. I know not how the posts are arranged in Spain, but I am afraid that all our letters have miscarried, as you must have written Louis and me many by this time. This one I send in the care of my dear brother, who leaves us to-morrow to join your regiment. Ah! I shall be very lonely without him, and shall weep long and bitterly when he is gone. I shall have no one then to whom I can impart my thoughts, or speak of you; and my tears and anxiety will be redoubled, when you are both exposed to the dangers of war. Since you left Perthshire I have never heard of a victory without weeping, and I dare not read the lists of 'killed, wounded, and missing,' lest the name of one should be there,--one on whom my thoughts ever dwell as their dearest treasure. I cannot look at the paper, which a servant brings every morning from Perth on horseback, but I sit breathlessly, in fear and trembling watching the face of papa, as he reads them over at breakfast. O goodness guide me, Ronald! my anxiety and pain, lest his features should change, are indeed beyond description. How drearily the days have passed since you left us; and I generally spend them in wandering among the places you and Louis loved best. And--but enough of this: I must not make my letter a dismal one. Louis some time ago appeared at the Perth ball in the uniform of the Gordon Highlanders; and I assure you that all the young ladies were quite in love with him, fairly touched with the scarlet fever. He outshone the militia, yeomanry, and even the gay tartans of Highland gentlemen from the hills. How well a gay uniform looks in a ball-room! and such a flutter it creates in the hearts of the young ladies! I believe you soldiers would be very arrogant fellows, if you really knew what we think you. But, as Mrs. Centlivre says, 'There's something so jaunty in a soldier,--a kind of _je ne sais quoi_ air, that makes them more agreeable than all the rest of mankind.' If this is the case, we are to be excused for being subdued by the gay epaulet.