A WARNING.
"Soft; I did but dream.
O, coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight,
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself? there's none else by."
_Richard III._
Sir John Moore and General Paget, with the cavalry, covered the
retreat; the former ordered several small bridges to be destroyed to
check the enemy's advance; but such was the inefficiency of the
engineer force, that in every instance the mines _failed_. The rain,
the wind, and the sleet continued; more soldiers perished by the way,
and more stragglers were taken or sabred by the enemy's light horse;
then again demoralization and despair pervaded the ranks. So
numerous did the stragglers of all corps become, that more than once
they found themselves strong enough to face about and check the
cavalry of Lallemand and Ribeaupierre. The Guards, Artillery, and
Highlanders alone preserved their discipline.
So great was the fatigue endured by the troops, that, on the evening
of the 10th, when the 3rd battalion of the Royal Scots entered
Betanzos, it mustered, under the colours, nine officers, three
sergeants, and _three_ privates; "all the rest had dropped on the
roads, and many did not rejoin for three days."
At this place, which is a village at the foot of a hill, where the
Mandeo was crossed by a wooden bridge, on which the engineers were
hard at work, they were attacked by Ribeaupierre's dragoons, who,
however, were repulsed by the 23th Regiment; the bridge was
destroyed, and its beams and planks hurled into the swollen stream,
which swept them away to the Gulf of Ferrol.
And here a party of straggling invalids, exhausted by fatigue, were
closely pressed by the French cavalry; a Sergeant Newman, of the 2nd
battalion of the 43rd, who was himself nearly worn out, rallied them
with his pike, and gradually collected four hundred men of all
regiments. With great presence of mind, he formed those poor fellows
into subdivisions, and made them fire and retire by sections, each
re-forming in rear of the others, so that he most effectually covered
the retreat of the disabled men who covered all that fearful
road--conduct so spirited that he was publicly thanked by Generals
Fraser and Fane.
The destruction of the bridge more decidedly secured the retreat; but
more men perished between Betanzos and Lugo than anywhere else, since
that rearward march began. Moore, by his energy, massed the army,
now reduced to fourteen thousand infantry, which, on the morning of
the llth January, fell back on Corunna, under his immediate and
personal superintendence.
"Stanhope," said he to his favourite aide-de-camp, who was almost
ever by his side, "we are now within a few miles of Corunna; ride
forward with me, as I am all anxiety to see if our fleet is in the
bay--Kennedy will accompany us."
Quentin bowed, put spurs to his horse, and quitting Paget's cavalry
rearguard together, they rode rapidly along the line of march to the
front.
They soon reached the heights of Corunna, and saw the town beneath
them about four miles distant; then a sad expression stole over
Moore's handsome face, but no exclamation escaped him.
Not a ship was visible in the Bays of Orsan or Betanzos, nor in the
harbour of the town; the Roads of Ferrol and all the expanse of water
were open and empty!
Fortune was against him and his army, for contrary winds detained the
fleet of men-of-war and transports at Vigo, a hundred and twenty
miles distant by sea.
The morning was sunny, and Corunna on its fortified peninsula--the
_Corun_, or "tongue of land" of the Celts--was seen distinctly, with
all its strong bastions and gothic spires; its almost land-locked
harbour, guarded by the castles of San Martino and Santa Cruz, with
the flag of King Ferdinand VII. flying on the fort of San Antonio
(which crowns a high and insular rock), and on the Pharos of Hercules.
For Sir John Moore there was nothing left now but to prepare to
defend the position in front of the town till the fleet should come
round. He quartered his army in Corunna and its suburbs; the reserve
he posted at El Burgo, on the river Mero, the bridge of which he
destroyed.
He also sent an engineer officer with a party of sappers to blow up
the bridge of Cambria. Some delay took place in the ignition of the
mine, and he despatched Quentin Kennedy to the officer with an angry
expostulation.
Mortified by repeated failures elsewhere during the retreat, the
officer was anxious to perform this duty effectually. He approached
the mine to examine it, and at that moment it exploded!
Quentin felt the earth shake beneath his feet; the arch of the bridge
sprung upward like a huge lid; a column of dark earth, stones, and
dust, spouted into the air to descend in ruins, bringing with them
the mutilated fragments of the poor engineer officer, who was
literally blown to pieces; but this was a mere squib when compared
with the explosion of two magazines containing four thousand casks of
powder, which were blown up on the 13th, to prevent them from falling
into the hands of the enemy. On this occasion, says an eye-witness,
"there ensued a crash like the bursting forth of a volcano; the earth
trembled for miles, the rocks were torn from their bases, and the
agitated waters rolled the vessels as in a storm; a vast column of
smoke and dust, shooting out fiery sparks from its sides, arose
perpendicularly and slowly to a great height, and then a shower of
stones and fragments of all kinds bursting out of it with a roaring
sound, killed several persons who remained too near the spot. A
stillness, only interrupted by the lashing of the waves on the shore,
succeeded, and the business of the war went on."
All this powder had been sent from England and left there, by the
red-tapists of the time, to be destroyed thus, while more than once
the armies of Britain and Spain had been before the enemy with their
pouches empty!
In Corunna, the jaded British had now breathing time, but the
exulting French were still pouring on. Some of Moore's staff
suggested that he should send a flag of truce to Soult and negotiate
for permission to embark unmolested--a suggestion which his undaunted
heart rejected with scorn and anger.
"I rely on my own powers," said he, "for defying the enemy, and
extricating with honour my troops from their perilous position."
Food, shelter, and rest restored vigour, and force of habit brought
discipline back to the ranks; fresh ammunition was served out, and in
many instances the men were supplied with new firelocks in lieu of
those rusted and worn by the weather during the retreat; but hearty
were the cheers that rung in Corunna when, on the evening of the
14th, the fleet of transports from Vigo were seen bearing slowly into
the harbour, under full sail, and coming each in succession to
anchor. At the same time, however, an orderly, sent by Sir David
Baird, came spurring in hot haste to announce that the French had
repaired the bridge of El Burgo, and that their cavalry and artillery
were crossing the Mero, a few miles from Corunna.
With the rest of the staff, Quentin passed all that night in his
saddle, riding between the town and beach with orders and
instructions, for, under cover of the friendly darkness, the whole of
the women and children, sick and wounded, dismounted dragoons, all
the best horses--the useless were shot on the beach--and fifty-two
pieces of cannon were embarked; eleven six-pounders and one field
howitzer being only retained for immediate service.
"Hardinge," said Moore, as his staff rode into the upper town, "you
will ride over to Sir David Baird; you, Major Colborne, to Lord
Paget; and you, Kennedy, to General Leith, to say, that at daybreak,
_if the French do not move_, they are to fall back with their corps
for instant embarkation."
And with these welcome orders, the three aides-de-camp separated at
full speed.
On this night of anxiety and bustle, the Master of Rohallion remained
idly in his billet, a pretty villa, the windows of which faced the
little bay of Orsan, with the suburb of the Pescadera extending from
its garden on the west towards the mainland.
Paget and some other friends of his, after seeing their sound horses
embarked and the useless shot, had supped with him. No one expected
any engagement to take place now; they made light of past sorrows,
spoke laughingly of the amusements that awaited them at home, and
drank deeply.
Any momentary emotion of gratitude felt by Cosmo for the noble manner
in which young Kennedy saved his life at Lugo was completely
forgotten now, all the recollection of that event being completely
merged in a whirlwind of rage at the aide-de-camp for having taunted
him to the charge, and for actually daring to lead on the battalion
in the face of so many superior officers!
Cosmo had never wearied of descanting on this military enormity, and
all night long, as he became inflamed by what he imbibed, he
consulted with Paget, Burrard, and others, as to whether he should
call Kennedy out or bring him before a court-martial again.
The former mode of proceeding at Alva having failed "to smash him,"
they were averse to another, and all were of opinion that for the
latter course Cosmo had allowed too many days to elapse.
"Trouble your head no more about it," said Paget, while playing with
the tassels of his gold sash; "we'll laugh the affair over at
Brighton in a few days or so. Soothe your mind, meantime, by the
study of these classic frescoes. I wonder who the devil decorated
this villa!"
"Cupid and Psyche," said Burrard, who had been adding a few
decorations, such as beards and tails, with a burnt cork; "Pyramus
and Thisbe; and, by Jove, the story of Leda!"
"Egad! such lively imaginations and odd propensities those pagan
fellows had! Au revoir, Crawford; we'll have the _générale_ beaten
for the last time on Spanish ground to-morrow, and then hey for the
high road to Old England!" added the gay hussar, who, before six
months were past, figured in an elopement, a duel, and damages to the
tune of twenty thousand pounds--an affair that made more noise in the
world of fashion than even the Spanish campaign.
Cosmo was at last alone, and though he mixed a glass of brandy with a
goblet of champagne, he felt strange and sad thoughts stealing over
him.
He was hot and flushed, and his heart beat tumultuously and
anxiously, he knew not why. He threw open the sash of one of the
lofty windows, which were divided in lattice-fashion from the ceiling
to the floor, and looked out upon the night.
It was silent, clear, and starry, and not a sound broke the calm
stillness, save the chafing of the waves on the rocks that bordered
the bay.
The snow had melted, and the garden of the villa being thickly
planted with evergreens, looked quite unlike a winter one.
Cosmo's brain, at least his whole nervous system, seemed to have
received a shock by that fall from his horse at Lugo. He was
restless, feverish, and anxious, without knowing why; for being brave
as man could be, he had no fear for the morrow, and really cared very
little whether a battle was fought or not.
"What is this that is stealing over me--can it be illness?" he asked
of himself.
Thoughts and memories of home, his family, and many an old and once
tender association that he had long forgotten were stealing over him
now, together with an uncontrollable sadness and depression of mind:
his father's cheerful voice, his mother's loving face, came vividly
to recollection, with emotions of tenderness for which he could not
account--emotions which he strove to repress as unnatural to him, and
which actually provoked him, by the strange pertinacity with which
they thrust themselves upon his fancy.
"Pshaw!" said he, "that deuced tumble in front of the enemy has
unmanned me--and that fellow, too! Confound him," he muttered
through his clenched teeth, "I hate him!"
At that moment the great bell of the citadel tolled the hour of
three. He arose and stepped out into the garden. The last note of
that deep and full but distant bell, yet vibrated in the stilly air;
the stars were reflected in the dark waters of the bay, and the light
that shone in the great Pharos of Hercules, three hundred feet above
it, as it revolved slowly on its ancient tower, cast tremulous rays
at regular intervals far across the sea on one side and the inlet of
Orsan on the other.
The ocean breeze came gratefully to the flushed brow of Cosmo, who
suddenly perceived near him a man in a strange uniform.
He stood in the centre of the garden walk at a short distance from
the open window, his figure being clearly defined against the starry
sky beyond, and by a ray of light which shone from the room Cosmo
could perceive that his dress was scarlet.
Supposing he was some straggler or other man who should be in
quarters, Crawford, whose step was somewhat unsteady, walked boldly
up to the tall stranger, who remained silent and immovable.
He wore an old-fashioned flowing red coat without a collar, but
having deep cuffs, all profusely laced; a large brigadier wig and
three-cornered hat, sleeve ruffles, and a long slender sword, and he
stood with his right hand firmly planted on a walking cane. His
bearing was noble and lofty; his long, pale, and handsome features,
in which Cosmo recognised a startling likeness of _his own_, wore a
deathlike hue, and his eyes were sad and stony in expression.
Cosmo Crawford attempted to speak, but the words failed on his lips;
he felt the hair bristle on his scalp, and a thrill of terror pass
all over him as the figure, phantom, fancy, or whatever it was,
pointed with its thin white hand to _the plain before Corunna_, and
then the whole outline began to fade, the stars shone through it, and
it seemed to melt away into space!
An icy horror came over Cosmo, and his soul trembled as he remembered
the bugbear of his boyhood, the story of the haunted gate at
Rohallion, and the wraith of his uncle John the Master, who had been
slain by the side of Cornwallis in America. He rushed back to the
room and flung himself panting on a sofa.
Then with a furious oath at his own timidity, folly, or fancy, he
issued boldly into the garden again, but nothing was there save the
laurel bushes that bordered the lonely walk where he had seen that
wondrous and fantastic dream.
All seemed still--horribly so--all save the beating of his heart and
the rustling of the regimental colours, which the night wind stirred,
and which, in virtue of his rank, were always lodged in his apartment.
"_Was that a warning?_--bah! And the cup of wine!" he exclaimed.
"By this time to-morrow night," he reflected, "I may have been again
in battle. I may be safe and scatheless, or dreadfully mutilated and
beggared for life, or by this hour--dreadful thought, I may be in
eternity! I may have learned the secret of life and death, of
existence and extinction, and this body may be lying stark, stripped,
and bloody, with its glazed eyes fixed on the stars of heaven! Bah!
another glass of wine, then!"
Cosmo slept but little that night, and it was with a stern and gloomy
foreboding of evil that he saw the day dawn stealing over the dark
grey sea and the lofty citadel of Corunna.