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The Author of the “Scottish
Orphans,” grateful for the very flattering reception which the first
part of that tale has received from an indulgent public, hastens to
redeem her pledge of publishing a Second Part of the History.
The present narrative is entitled Arthur Monteith, from the name of the
principal actor in the. former piece, which traced him from the period
of his birth to that of his attaining the object of his honourable
ambition, a commission in the King’s service. It may here be proper,
briefly to recapitulate, that Arthur, with his sister Jessie and his
brother Allen were the children of a Scottish gentleman of ancient
family, who forfeited his life and estate by taking part in the
rebellion of 1745;—that the Orphans were preserved and brought up as
their own, by two faithful domestics, William and Jane Mathieson;—that
William was subsequently distinguished by the favour of Colonel
Beaumont, the husband of a lady whose father was believed to have
perished in the rebellion;—that Arthur, by the secret assistance of a
person, known only to him as old Robert, the hermit, acquired the
knowledge and accomplishments fit to enable him to move in a higher
sphere of society;—that he well repaid the confidence reposed in him by
the old recluse, and as steadily rejected all offers of placing him in
an occupation equally unsuitable to his real origin (of which he
retained an -obscure recollection) and to his acquired, talents; and
finally, that being patronized by Colonel (afterwards Sir Charles)
Beaumont, he accompanied the latter to India as his aid-de-camp.
It would be a needless repetition to advert to the particulars mentioned
of Lady Beaumont, and her little protege, Jessie—of Annie and Jamie, the
real children of the Mathiesons—of Colonel Monteith, the unnatural uncle
of Arthur's father—or of Colin, the Colonel’s son. These characters will
be sufficiently developed in the progress of the ensuing narrative, to
which without further preface we now proceed. |
