SECOND TO NONE.
A Military Romance.
BY
JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD,"
"THE YELLOW FRIGATE," ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
ROUTLEDGE, WARNE, AND ROUTLEDGE,
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.
NEW YORK: 129, GRAND STREET.
1864.
PREFACE.
In the following pages, and in delineating the character of my hero,
I have chosen the ranks of the 2nd Dragoons, not because of any
national partiality, but from the desire to describe the adventures
of a soldier in a brave old regiment, which has served with
distinction in every war since its formation--in short, from the
battles of the Covenant to those in the Crimea; which had the proud
distinction of capturing the Colours of the Regiment du Roi at
Ramillies, the White Standard of King Louis' Household Troops at
Dettingen, and the Colour and Eagle of Napoleon's 45th Foot at
Waterloo.
Several historical incidents, and one or two traditions of the
Service are interwoven with the story of Basil Gauntlet, the Scots
Grey.
I may mention that the misfortunes of his comrade Charters are nearly
similar to those which befel an officer of the 15th Hussars prior to
the war in the Peninsula; and that the dark story and death of the
engineer Monjoy and of Madame d'Escombas formed one of the _causes
célèbres_ before the Parliament of Paris during the middle of the
last century.
EDINBURGH, 1st _May_, 1864.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAP.
I. BY THE WAYSIDE
II. RUTH WYLIE
III. THE SEQUEL
IV. MY COUSIN TONY
V. THE INN
VI. ENLISTMENT
VII. MY COMRADES
VIII. HEAD QUARTERS
IX. MY HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
X. THE FRENCH DESERTERS
XI. WANDSWORTH COMMON
XII. THE RACE
XIII. THE HANDKERCHIEF
XIV. THE RED LION AT GUILDFORD
XV. SAIL FOR FRANCE
XVI. THE LANDING AT CANCALLE
XVII. THE VIDETTE
XVIII. HALT AT ST. SERVAND
XIX. THE SACK OF ST. SOLIDORE
XX. AN EPISODE
XXI. JACQUELINE
SECOND TO NONE.
CHAPTER I.
BY THE WAYSIDE.
My adventures were my sole inheritance long before I thought of
committing them to paper for the amusement of myself, and--may I
hope--for the instruction of others.
Wayward has been my fate--my story strange; for my path in life--one
portion of it at least--has been among perils and pitfalls, and full
of sorrow and mortification, but not, however, without occasional
gleams of sunshine and triumph.
On an evening in the month of February--no matter in what year,
suffice it to say that it was long, long ago--I found myself near a
little town on the Borders between England and Scotland, with a
shilling in my hand, and this small coin I surveyed with certain
emotions of solicitude, because it was my _last one_.
I sat by the wayside under an old thorn-tree whereon the barons of
Netherwood had hung many a Border outlaw and English mosstrooper in
the olden time; and there I strove to consider what I should do next;
but my mind seemed a very chaos.
In this unenviable condition I found, myself on the birthday of my
eighteenth year--I, the heir to an old title and to a splendid
fortune--homeless, and well-nigh penniless, without having committed
a crime or an error of which conscience could accuse me.
The rolling clouds were gathering in grey masses on the darkening
summits of the Cheviot hills in the hollows of which the snows of the
past winter lay yet unmelted. The cold wind moaned in the leafless
woods, and rustled the withered leaves that the autumn gales had
strewn along the highway. The dull February evening crept on, and
the road that wound over the uplands was deserted, for the last
wayfarer had gone to his home. The sheep were in their pen and the
cattle in their fold; no sound--not even the bark of a dog--came from
the brown sides of the silent hills, and, affected by the gloomy
aspect of Nature, my heart grew heavy, after its sterner and fiercer
emotions passed away.
The last flush of sunset was fading in the west; but I could see
about three miles distant the gilt vanes and round turrets of
Netherwood Hall shining above the strove of leafless trees that
surrounded it, and I turned away with a sigh of bitterness, for
adversity had not yet taught me philosophy. I was too young.
With the express intention of visiting Netherwood Hall, I had
travelled several miles on foot; but now, when in sight of the place,
my spirit failed and my heart sickened within me; and thus,
irresolute and weary, I seated myself by the side of the way, and
strove to arrange my thoughts.
To be brief, I shall describe in a few pages, who and what I am, and
how on that sombre February evening I came to be on such unfortunate
terms with old Dame Fortune.
My grandfather, Sir Basil Gauntlet, of Netherwood, had so greatly
resented his eldest son's marriage with a lady who had no fortune
save her beauty, that he withdrew all countenance and protection from
him. So far did he carry this unnatural enmity, that by will he
bequeathed all his property to the son of a brother, and, with great
barbarity, permitted my father to be consigned to the King's Bench
prison, by which his commission in the cavalry was forfeited; and
there, though a brave and high-spirited officer, who had served under
the Marquis of Granby, he died of despair!
My mother soon followed him to the land that lies beyond the grave;
and thus in infancy I was left, as the phrase is, to the _tender_
mercies of the world in general, and my old bruin of a grandfather in
particular.
Yet this upright Sir Basil, who was so indignant at his son's
penniless marriage, had been in youth one of the wildest rakes of his
time. He had squandered vast sums on the lovely Lavinia Fenton--the
original Polly Peachum--and other fair dames, her contemporaries;
indeed, it was current in every green-room in London, that he would
have run off with this beautiful actress, had he not been
anticipated, as all the world knows, or ought to know, by his grace
the Duke of Bolton, who made her his wife.
Sir Basil had been wont to drink his three bottles daily, as he said,
"without a hair of his coat being turned." He had paraded three of
his best friends, on three different occasions, for over-night
insults of which he had a very vague recollection in the morning; but
then "after what had occurred," what else could he do? and so after
bathing his head and right arm in vinegar to make his aim steady, he
winged them all at Wimbledon Common, or the back of Montagu House.
In London he was the terror of the watch, and would smash all the
lamps in Pall Mall or elsewhere, when, after losing perhaps a
thousand guineas at White's among blacklegs and bullies, or after
carrying the sedan of some berouged fair one through the streets with
links flaring before it, he came reeling home, probably with a broken
sword in one hand, a bottle in the other, and his pockets stuffed
with brass knockers and other men's wigs; consequently Sir Basil
should have remembered the days of his youth, and have tempered the
acts of his old age with mercy; but it was otherwise.
I do not mean to detain the reader by a long history of my earlier
years; for if those of a Cæsar or an Alexander have but little in
them to excite interest, still less must the boyhood of one who began
the world as a simple dragoon in the king's service.
The good minister of Netherwood, and the English rector on the south
side of the Border, frequently besought Sir Basil to be merciful to
the orphan child of his eldest son.
"I pray you to recollect, Sir Basil," urged the rosy-faced rector,
"that your own marriage was a love-match."
"It must have been so, if all you scandalous fellows at Oxford said
truth."
"Why?"
"For there you said I loved the whole female sex."
The jolly rector laughed so much at the poor jest of the old rake,
that the latter actually became commiserate; or it may be that my
mother's death and my utter desolation, stirred some emotion of
shame--pity he had none--in Sir Basil's arid heart; so, to keep me at
a distance from himself, he consigned me on a pittance to the care of
his country agent, a certain Mr. Nathan Wylie, who was exceedingly
well-named, as he was a canting Scotch lawyer--in truth "a cunning
wretch whose shrivelled heart was dead to every human feeling," and
who by the sharpness of his legal practice was a greater terror on
both sides of the Border than ever the mosstroopers were of old.
He was the person who had prepared and executed the will which
transferred my heritage to my cousin, Tony Gauntlet--a will which he
framed with peculiar satisfaction, as he hated my father for making
free with his orchard in boyhood, and in later years for laying a
horsewhip across his shoulders at the market-cross of Greenlaw, so in
his sanctified dwelling I was likely to have a fine time of it!
For ten years I resided with the godly Nathan Wylie, a repining
drudge, ill-fed, ill-clad, and poorly lodged, in one of those attics
which he apportioned to Abraham Clod, his groom, his pigeons and
myself--uncared for by all; and not unfrequently taunted with the
misfortunes of my parents for whom I sorrowed, and the neglect of my
grandfather whom I had learned to abhor and regard with boyish terror.
I picked up a little knowledge of law--at least such knowledge as one
might learn in the office of a Scotch country agent in those days. I
mastered, I believe, even "Dirlton's Doubts," and other equally
amusing literature then in vogue; while Nathan Wylie took especial
care that I should know all the shorter catechism, and other biblical
questions by rote, that I might be able to repeat them when the
minister paid us his periodical visit, though my elbows were
threadbare, my shoes none of the best, and my eyes and brain ached
with drudging at the desk far into the hours of the silent night,
penning prosy documents, preparing endless processes, and not
unfrequently writing to dictation such an epistle as the following,
which I give _verbatim_ as it actually appeared in a Border paper:--
"DEAR SIR,--I am directed to raise an action against you to-morrow
for the sum of one penny, together with the additional sum of three
shillings and fourpence, sterling, the expense of this notice, if
both sums be not paid me before 9 a.m.
"Yours, faithfully in the Lord,
"NATHAN WYLIE.
"To Farmer Flail, &c."
In early life he had married an old and equally devout female client
for the money which he knew well she possessed; and as that was all
he wanted, after her death he never married again, but devoted
himself manfully to the practice of the law and extempore prayer--an
external air of great sanctity being rather conducive to success in
life in too many parts of Scotland.
Poor Nathan has long been laid six feet under the ground; but in
fancy I can still see before me his thin figure, with rusty black
suit and spotless white cravat; his sharp visage, with keen,
restless, and cat-like eyes, that peered through a pair of horn
spectacles, and with shaggy brows that met above them. Moreover, he
had hollow temples, coarse ears, and a tiger-like jaw, which he
always scratched vigorously when a case perplexed him, or with
satisfaction when some hapless client was floored in the field of
legal strife.
As years stole on, that keen and honest sense of justice, which a boy
seldom fails to feel, inspired me with indignation at the neglect
with which my family treated me, and the story of my parents and
their fate redoubled my hatred to my oppressors.
My cousin Tony, a harebrained fool, whose mad fox-hunting adventures
formed the theme of all the Border side, and who, by my grandfather's
lavish and misplaced generosity, was enabled to pursue a career of
prodigality and extravagance, came in for a full share of my
animosity, for he was wont to ride past me on the highway without the
slightest recognition, save once, when, flushed with wine, he was
returning from a hunting-dinner.
On that occasion he was ungenerous enough to draw the attention of
his groom and whipper-in to the somewhat dilapidated state of my
attire, as I was trudging along the highway on some legal message to
Farmer Flail at the Woodland Grange.
On hearing their derisive laughter, my heart swelled with suppressed
passion, and had a weapon been in my hand, I had struck them all from
their saddles.
This crushing existence was not the glorious destiny my boyish
ambition had pictured; but what could I do for a time, save submit?
I had none to guide me--nor father, nor mother, nor kindred were
there; and as a child, I often gazed wistfully at other children who
_had_ all these, and marvelled in my lonely heart what manner of love
they had for one another.
I was conscious of possessing a fund of affection, of kindness and
goodwill in my own bosom; but there it remained pent up for lack of
an object whereon to lavish it, or rather it was thrust back upon me
by the repulsive people by whom I was surrounded.
Business over, I would rush away to solitude. Sunk in reveries,
vague and deep, I would stroll for hours alone in the starlight along
the green and shady lanes, or by the silent shore, where the German
sea rolled its creamy waves in ceaseless and monotonous succession on
the shingles, or from whence it rippled in the splendour of the
moonlight far away--reveries filled less with vain regrets than with
visions of a brilliant future, for my heart was young, inspired by
hope and thoughts that soared above my present condition, and sought
a brighter destiny!
I could remember a time--alas! it seemed a dream to me now--when I
used to repose in a pretty little bed, and when a lady, who must have
been my mother, pale and thin and gentle-eyed, and richly-attired
too, for her satin dress rustled, and her presence had a sense of
perfume, was wont to draw back the curtains of silk and white lace to
caress and to kiss me. Once a tear fell on my cheek--it was hot--and
she brushed it aside with a tress of her gathered hair.
Was all this a reality, or a dream? I strove to conjure up when and
where I had seen this; but the memory of it was wavering, and so
indistinct, that at times the treasured episode seemed to fade away
altogether.
In the long nights of winter I saved up my candles--no easy task in
the house of a miser like Nathan Wylie--and, retreating to my attic,
read far into the hours of morning; poring over such novels and
romances as were lent me by the village milliner, a somewhat romantic
old maiden, who had been jilted by a recruiting officer, and for
whose memory she always shed a scanty tear, for he fell at the
bombardment of Carthagena. These books I read by stealth, such
literature being deemed trash and dangerous profanity in the godly
mansion of Nathan Wylie.
Then when the wind, that tore down the rocky ravines of the Cheviots,
howled in the chimneys, or shook the rafters above me, I loved to
fancy myself at sea, for the life of a sailor seemed to embody all my
ideas of perfect freedom--a bold buccaneer, like Sir Henry Morgan--a
voyager, like Drake or Dampier--a conqueror, like Hawke or
Boscawen--a wanderer, like dear old Robinson Crusoe, or worthy Philip
Quarll; and then I went to sleep and to dream of foreign lands, of
lovely isles full of strange trees and wondrous flowers, where scaly
serpents crawled, and spotted tigers lurked; of cities that were all
bannered towers, gilded cupolas and marble temples, glittering in the
sunshine far beyond the sea.
A lonely child, I ripened into a lonely lad, and so passed my life,
until the coming of Ruth Wylie, an event which fully deserves a
chapter to itself.