HALT AT AZUMAR.
"Pleasures fled hence, wide now's the gulf between us;
Stern Mars has routed Bacchus and sweet Venus:
I can no more--the lamp's fast fading ray
Reminds me of parade ere break of day,
Where, shivering, I must strut, though bleak the morning,
Roused by the hateful drummer's early warning.
Come, then, my boat-cloak, let me wrap thee round,
And snore in concert stretched upon the ground."
_An Elegy._
The noisy racket maintained by those who were in custody of the
rear-guard, the voices of others who whipped or cheered on the long
string of baggage animals (Evora horses, Castilian mules, and sturdy
burros or donkeys), the various novel sights and sounds incident to
the march of Hope's division, together with the appearance of the
division itself winding down the deep valleys and up the steep
mountains like a long and glittering snake, amid clouds of white
dust, out of which the sheen of arms and the waving of colours came
incessantly, won Quentin from his sadder thoughts, and he began to
feel, after all he had undergone, an emotion, of joy on finding
himself among his old comrades--a joy that can only be known by a
soldier--by one forming a part of that great and permanent, but
almost always happy family, a regiment of the line.
The morning was bright and breezy; the large floating clouds cast
their flying shadows over the sunlit landscape at times, adding alike
to its beauty and the striking effect of the marching columns.
Weary of the dark and sallow Spaniards, Quentin's eyes had run along
the ranks of the 25th, and their familiar faces, which seemed so fair
and ruddy when contrasted with those of the nations they had come to
free, were pleasant to look upon.
Their colours, with the castle triple-towered and the city motto; the
familiar bugle calls, and more than all, the old quick-step of
General Leslie, which came floating rearward from time to time when
the corps traversed an eminence, all spake to him of his new but
moveable home, and the new associations he had learned to love.
Cosmo--the impracticable and inscrutable--Cosmo Crawford--alone was
the feature there that marred his prospects and blighted his pleasure!
He felt a sincere regret for poor Isidora, and this was not unmingled
with a little selfish dread of her brother, De Saldos, the scowling
Trevino, and others, when those guerillas joined the division, which
they would probably do in the course of a day or so; and what answer
would he make to them when they--and chiefly her brother--asked for
the missing donna? He felt himself, indeed, between the horns of a
dilemma, and many unpleasant forebodings mingled with his dreams of a
brilliant future.
Amid these ideas recurred the longing to write home (how long, long
seemed the time that had elapsed since he left it!) that the good
Lord Rohallion and the gentle Lady Winifred--that dear Flora, and the
old quartermaster too, might learn something of what he had seen, and
done, and undergone since last they parted.
Had Cosmo, in any of his letters, ever written to announce that he
was serving with the Borderers?
This was a question Quentin had frequently asked of himself, and he
felt certain that the colonel had not done so, as in the other
instance, and unless he had been cruelly misrepresented, Lord
Rohallion or worthy John Girvan, and his old mentor the quaint
dominie, would assuredly have written to him long since. Thus it was
evident that in his correspondence with those at home in Carrick, the
haughty Master had totally ignored his name.
Quentin's passion for Flora Warrender was a boyish devotion that
mingled with all his love and all his memories of home. She was
still a guiding star to his heart and hopes, the impulse of every
thought, the mainspring of every act and deed; and thus Quentin felt
that while this dear girl at home loved him--as sister, friend, and
sweetheart all combined, the spiteful hauteur of Cosmo was innocuous
and pointless indeed.
As the paymaster of the regiment was riding with the rear-guard,
Quentin lost no time in placing in his hands a sufficient number of
those gold moidores that were found in the repositories of the late
Corporal Raoul, of the 24th Chasseurs a Cheval (the spoil so
liberally shared with him by Ribeaupierre), for the purpose of having
them transmitted by bill or otherwise to the quartermaster at
Rohallion, to repay the good man for the forty pounds he had placed
at his disposal on the night he left the castle to return no more;
and the fact of this debt being off his conscience made his spirit
more buoyant than ever.
They were now marching through the province of Alentejo, the land of
wine and oil, the granary of Portugal. Long-bearded goats and great
bristly swine were to be seen in all the pastures, but few or no
horned cattle. Proceeding on a line parallel with the Spanish
frontier, they passed through the fortified town of Alegrete, which
is moated round by the small river Caia, and there each regiment made
its first brief halt for a few minutes before pushing on to Azumar,
some fourteen miles from Portalegre, where the division was to pass
the night.
Those halts on the line of march were so brief that the bugles of the
leading corps always sounded the advance when those of the rear were
sounding the halt--ten minutes being the utmost time allotted.
On reaching Azumar, the lieutenant-general with his staff, and the
colonels of corps, found quarters in the castle of the counts of that
name, while the rest of the troops remained without the walls of the
town.
The night was fine for the season, and clear and starry; a pinkish
flush, that lingered beyond the summits of the Sierra Alpedriera to
the westward, showed where the November sun had set. Tents were
pitched for the whole force; but, before turning in for the night,
Captain Askerne, Monkton, and other Borderers, preferred to sup in a
cosy nook, sheltered by a ruined vineyard wall and a group of
gigantic chestnuts, under which their servants had lighted a rousing
fire of dry branches and wood, hewn down by the pioneers' hatchets.
Each added the contents of his havresack to the common stock of the
party, and in the same fraternal fashion they shared the contents of
their canteens, flasks, and bottles; thus various kinds of liquor,
wine--brandy, and aguardiente, were contributed. What the repast
lacked in splendour or delicacy was amply made up for by good humour
and jollity, and to those who had an eye for the picturesque, that
element was not wanting.
In the foreground the red glaring fire cast its light on the
soldierly fellows we have introduced to the reader, as they sat or
lounged on the grass in their regimental greatcoats, or cloaks of
blue lined with scarlet, and their swords and belts beside them. The
great chestnut trees were well-nigh leafless now, and with the rough
masonry of the old wall, coated with heavily-leaved vine and ivy,
formed a background.
Further off, in another direction, were the glares of other
watchfires, around which similar groups were gathered--fires that
shed their light in fitful flashes on the long rows of white
bell-tents, on the dark figures that flitted to and fro, and on the
forms of the distant and solitary sentinels, who stood steadily on
their posts, the point of each man's bayonet shining like a red star
as the flame tipped it with fire.
"Here comes Colville," said Monkton, as that individual, who was
somewhat of a dandy and man of fashion, lounged slowly up, and cast
himself languidly on the grass. "You have just been with the
colonel, I suppose?"
"Yes--a deuced bore--to report the baggage all up with the battalion,
the guard dismissed to their tents, and luckily, no casualties, save
a mule that we lost in a bog."
"And you found him bland, as usual?"
"I found him quartered, not in the castle, as I expected, but in a
deserted house half ruined by the French," replied Colville, smiling;
"the only habitable apartment was the kitchen, where our colours are
lodged, and there he was eating a tough bullock steak, embers and
all, just as his man had cooked it, on the ramrod of an old pistol.
Egad, it was a picture!"
"A dainty kabob we should have called it in Egypt," said Major
Middleton, laughing, with a huge magnum-bonum bottle of
brandy-and-water placed between his fat legs. "Ah, the Honourable
Cosmo should not have quitted his guardsman's comforts at the York
Coffee-house, or Betty Neale's fruit-shop in St. Jameses Street,* to
rough it with the line in the Peninsula!"
* Two favourite resorts of the Household Brigade in those days.
"Did he compliment you on bringing up your disorderly charge without
other loss than the mule?" asked Askerne.
"The devil a bit," yawned Colville; "with his glass stuck in his eye,
he gave me one of his cool stares, and said, briefly, 'That will do,
sir--to your company.'"
"Ah," grumbled Middleton, shaking his old head, while his pigtail
swayed to and fro, "the colonel may have in his veins good blood, as
it is called, but he has in his heart about as much of the milk of
human kindness as if it belonged to an old lawyer."
The last part of the sentence, we are bound to add, was partly
mumbled into the mouth of the magnum, which at that moment the major
applied to his own.
"Here comes Dick Warriston," said Monkton, as an officer muffled in a
cloak approached. "Hallo, Dick--how goes it, man?"
"Good evening, gentlemen--thought I should find you out. I heard on
the march that our friend the volunteer had turned up again. How are
you, Kennedy? glad to see you safe and sound once more," said
Quentin's old friend, as they shook hands, and he cast his ample blue
muffling aside, displaying his well-built figure, with the scarlet
coat, green lapels, and massive gold epaulettes of the Scots Brigade.
"Be seated, Dick."
"Thanks, Askerne."
"Do you prefer a chair, or a sofa?" asked Monkton.
"The sofa, by all means," replied Warriston, stretching himself on
the grass.
"There is brandy in that jar beside you, and Lisbon wine in the
bottle. Here, under these fine old chestnuts, we are quite a select
little pic-nic party, out of range of shot, shell, and everything----"
"Except fireflies and mosquitoes, Willie--a poor substitute for the
girls, God bless them."
"Whose trumpets are these? what's up now?" asked Monkton, as a sharp
cavalry call rang upon the night.
"The 3rd Dragoons of the German Legion, Burgwesel's regiment, are
watering their horses."
"Those Germans are regular trumps in their order and discipline,"
said Monkton; "but as for the Portuguese, damme, they are not worth
their liquor. Even the Johnny Crapauds despise them. You have just
come in time, Warriston, to hear Kennedy relate to us his interview
with the guerilla chief; go on, lad, we are all listening," he added,
as he and others proceeded to light their cigars or charge their
pipes for a thorough bout of smoking.
Quentin told them briefly as much of his adventures as he deemed it
necessary to relate or reveal, from the time of his parting from
Askerne to the hour of his return to Portalegre. The slaughter of
the French prisoners at Herreruela drew forth loud execrations and
unanimous condemnation. His illness at the Villa de Maciera was
alone a mystery which he could not explain, and the manner in which
he consequently and naturally blundered in narrating this part of his
story, drew forth the laughter and the empty jests of the younger
portion of his audience.
"Damme," said Monkton, "you were a bold fellow, Kennedy, to become
spooney on the sister of such a melo-dramatic individual--such a
regular 'heavy villain' as this guerilla De Saldos! Egad, the sight
of the fellow, with those black moustachios you have described, each
like a snake twisted under his hooked nose, would be enough to
frighten the French!"
"Very singular style of person, your Spanish friend, I should think,"
lisped Colville, with his glass in his eye.
"Remarkably so," added Ensign Pimple, raising his white eyebrows;
"decidedly a dangerous fellow to have a shindy with!"
"A most interesting individual, no doubt," said Buckle the adjutant;
"but begad, not at all suited to a quiet rubber or a little supper
party; takes mustard to his lamb, perhaps, and pepper to his
enchanted eggs, but knows nothing, I'll be bound, of a devilled
kidney, a broiled bone, and a tumbler of decent whisky toddy. 'Full
of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard;' he is all spasms, big
boots, and blue fire--eh?"
While they jested thus, and Quentin, with something of annoyance and
vexation, looked from one to another, Askerne and Warriston, who were
men of graver mood, had been eyeing him attentively.
"My poor lad,"' said the former, laying a hand kindly on his
shoulder, "all this that you have related was a sad trial for you--a
great test of courage and discretion for one so young to be subjected
to, especially in a foreign country, and among a people so fierce and
lawless."
"Your pistols were always my friends," said Quentin, laughing; "I
thought of them in every extremity, Captain Askerne; but fortunately
never had to use them."
"Then keep them, Quentin, my boy, as a little present from me," said
the grenadier.
"But to deprive you----"
"Matters nothing--I took a handsome pair of silver-mounted pops from
the holsters of a French officer the other day."
"Askerne has but anticipated me," said Warriston; "I had resolved to
give you mine, though they were a gift to me from my father's old
friend the Conservator of Scottish Privileges at Campvere, when the
Scots Brigade came home and turned their backs upon honest old
Holland for ever."
"Well, Kennedy," said Monkton, with a droll twinkle in his eye,
"we've heard all your adventures, at least _so much_ as you wisely,
prudently, and discreetly choose to tell us; but I cannot help
thinking that we could make a few interesting notes on the time spent
in that ruined Château en Espagne. Was the donna young, black-eyed,
beautiful, and all that sort of thing, eh?"
"By Jove," added Colville, in the same tone, "you are a regular St.
Francis, or St. Anthony! But unlike you, if the donnas on the other
side of the frontier think me worth their while, I am ready to be
subjected to any amount of seduction the dear creatures may choose to
put in practice."
Affecting neither to hear Monkton's banter nor Colville's addition,
Quentin turned to Askerne, admiring the order that glittered on his
left breast.
"This is Portuguese?" said he.
"Yes, Quentin--the Tower and Sword--given to me by the Junta of
Oporto for capturing an exploring party, consisting of an officer and
ten French dragoons of Ribeaupierre's regiment, whom I cut off in a
narrow valley near Portalegre (on the very day after you left us),
where I had been sent with twenty of ours to bring in forage."
"Askerne, I do envy you this decoration!" said Quentin, whose eyes
sparkled with genuine pleasure and admiration, for medals were almost
unknown in the British army then, and the Bath, as now, was only
given to field officers; "and they were, you say, dragoons of
Ribeaupierre?"
"The same corps with some of whom you fell in among the Spanish
mountains. They are quartered in Valencia de Alcantara."
"Ribeaupierre!" said the bantering Monkton; "there is a name for an
intelligent young man to go to bed with! It smacks of Anne
Radcliffe's mysterious romances of 'Sicily' and 'The Forest.'"
"Yet it is the name of an officer as brave as any in France," said
Quentin; "the general who bears it was a subaltern with Napoleon in
the Regiment of La Fere, a town on an island of the Oise, where it
was originally raised."
"Like that corps, the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval were originally under
the monarchy," said Warriston.
"Their uniform is light green, faced and lapelled with white?"
"Exactly, Quentin--the same uniform worn by the Emperor on almost
every occasion," replied Warriston; "the 24th were long known as the
Disinterested Regiment of Chartres."
"An honourable title," said Askerne; "how came they to win it, thou
man of anecdote?"
"About nineteen years ago, when the troubles of the Revolution were
first beginning, the regiment was quartered at Le Mans, a town of
France situated on the river Sarthe, if you have not forgotten your
geography, Rowland. The corps then belonged--such was the French
aristocratic term--to Louis Philip Joseph, Duke of Orleans,* the
notorious 'Egalité' who was guillotined by the mob in 1793; but it
was denominated 'of Chartres,' from the county of the name gifted to
his ancestor by Louis XIV.
* Father of Louis Philippe I., late King of the French.
"The outrages of the Revolutionists were at their height around the
whole of Mans. Day and night the dragoons of Chartres remained with
their accoutrements on and their horses saddled ready to assist the
magistrates and all peaceable citizens. Every day brought tidings of
new horrors in the rural districts, and every night saw the sky
reddened by the flames of burning chateaux, convents, and
abbey-churches, whose occupants were given to pillage and death.
"So resolute and orderly were the dragoons of Chartres, so sturdily
and bravely did they protect the weak against the strong, enforce the
public peace, and conduct the transit of corn for the poor, that the
magistrates deemed it necessary to make some acknowledgment of their
services. A vote of thanks from the municipality preceded a gratuity
of eight hundred livres (no great sum among us certainly, but a
handsome one on the other side of the Channel) to be distributed
among the three hundred Chasseurs of the corps.
"In a large bag the money, made, by the way, from the church bells of
France, was sent to the colonel, who gave it to the men to dispose of
as they pleased; upon which, instead of dividing it among themselves,
they resolved unanimously to bestow it upon a portion of the very
people who had been tormenting their lives for the last six months.
"One of the dragoons, a mere youth named Raoul, waited upon the
Rector of St. Nicholas in the city of Le Mans and handing him the bag
with its contents, said--
"'Monsieur le Recteur, we want not this money. The pay of His
Majesty, whom God and St. Louis long preserve! secures us in all that
a soldier requires; but the poor, though they are the children of
God, are not so blessed. We, the dragoons of Chartres, beg,
therefore, that you will accept of this for their use, and put it to
the common stock for the aged and the indigent.'"
"And this soldier was named Raoul?" said Quentin, who felt something
like a shock when he heard him mentioned.
"So the newspapers said," replied Warriston.
Quentin was silent, but the face of one of the dead dragoons whom he
had seen at Herreruela--he who had been dragged by his stirrup--came
vividly to memory; while, such is the effect of fancy, the moidores
that remained in his pocket seemed to become heavy as lead.
The hour was late now, and he was completely overcome by fatigue.
With a knapsack for a pillow he dropped asleep, while his more hardy
comrades sat smoking and drinking, and discussing the fortune of the
coming struggle in Spain.
As the light of the watch-fire waned and fell in flickering gleams on
his features, they seemed pinched, pale, and wan.
"God help the poor fatherless boy," said Captain Warriston, with
considerable emotion; "what hard fate brings him here? He seems
quite a waif among us, and one that is hardly used by you fellows of
the 25th in particular. I wish I had him with me in the Scots
Brigade. This last devilish piece of duty has broken him completely
down!"
"No, no, Warriston; there is good stuff in him yet," said Rowland
Askerne, as he divested his broad shoulders of his own ample cloak,
and kindly spread it over the sleeper. "At his age, I had neither
father nor mother nor friend to do _this_ for me, and I too was, like
him, a poor volunteer!"