Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/34

 walked every morning in the open street which formed the high mall of our village, in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole evening when he could make up a party. This happy vacuity of all employment appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary hint, which, according to the system of Helvetius as the minister says, determined my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to illustrate.

But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in this deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession before I discovered that if the independent indolence of half-pay was a paradise, the officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and service in order to gain admission to it. Captain Doolittle might brush his blue coat with the red neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his pleasure; but Ensign Clutterbuck had no such option. Captain Doolittle might go to bed at ten o'clock if he had a mind; but the Ensign must make the rounds in his turn. What was worse, the Captain might repose under the tester of his tent-bed until noon, if he was so pleased; but the Ensign, God help him, had to appear upon parade at peep of day. As for duty, I made that as easy as I could, had the sergeant to whisper to me the words of command, and bustled through as other folks did. Of service, I saw enough for an indolent man: was buffeted up and down the world, and visited both the East and West Indies, Egypt, and other distant places, which my youth had scarce dreamed of. The French I saw, and felt too; witness two fingers on my right hand, which one of their cursed hussars took off with his sabre as neatly as a hospital surgeon. At length the death of an old aunt, who left me some fifteen hundred pounds snugly vested in the three per cents, gave me the long-wished-for opportunity of retiring, wdth the prospect of enjoying a clean shirt and a guinea four times a week at least.

For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for my residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland, celebrated for the ruins of its magnificent Monastery, intending there to lead my future life in the otium cum dignitate of half-pay and annuity. I was not long, however, in making the grand discovery, that in