"Now that the poor old fellow is at rest," he said, "I will tell you,
by his express desire, something about his history. He wanted me to
promise to make it public, but that I resolutely refused to do, for
many reasons. 'Let Mr. Edmund know, at least,' he said. 'I do not
want him to have too good an opinion of me, or he will not pray as much
as I should wish for my poor soul.' So you have a right to know, Ted."
And with that he unfolded the story of Archie McLean's early years.
Archie had been a wild boy in his youth, with a strong propensity for
drink--hereditary, unfortunately--which he was not so well able to
satisfy on his father's croft, in Banffshire; so, to gain more liberty,
he ran off and enlisted. When scarcely more than twenty he took up
with a girl he met in one of the provincial towns in which he happened
to be stationed, and eventually married her. He had asked no
leave--indeed, at his age it would not have been granted; his wife,
therefore, was not "on the strength of the regiment"--in other words,
depended entirely upon his pay, and what little she might earn, for the
necessaries of life, and even for traveling expenses, in case of
removal elsewhere. The girl was a negligent Protestant, and he a
non-practising Catholic. They had been married before a Registrar, and
neither of them entered a church as long as the woman lived. The one
child born to them died a week later, unbaptized.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44