ENLISTMENT.
Early morning brought sobriety, with a headache, a burning thirst,
and deep reflection.
I had enlisted as a private dragoon: I, the heir to a baronetcy; but
it was a baronetcy that would not bring with it an acre of land, and
by the enmity of its present possessors, I was then on the verge of
total want. What other path was open to me than this, which it
seemed as if the hand of destiny now indicated?
"Yes--yes," thought I, "it is the _dictum_ of fate!"
My position had been one of extreme difficulty. I could not dig, and
to beg--even from Sir Basil--I was ashamed; besides, I had a spirit
that revolted at the idea of eating bread that was won either by
falsehood or servility.
"'Tis done!" said I, thinking aloud, "in the plain red coat of a
trooper, none will ever discover Basil Gauntlet--the disinherited
heir of Nether wood!"
"So you are still resolved to be one of us?" said Charters, when we
met early in the morning.
"Yes."
"'Tis well; life is a lottery--let us go and draw," he observed,
figuratively.
"I would rather go and drink," added Kirkton, who, after our late
potations, looked rather red about the eyes.
"Try a dram--and then hey for the road; but we must have our new
comrade attested. Landlord, where is a justice of the peace to be
found?"
"Plague on them--they're thick as blackberries on both sides o' the
Border," growled the host.
"For one, there is Nathan Wylie, the writer at--" began the hostess.
"No--no--I go not before _him_!" said I, with a pang of sorrow in my
heart, as I thought of Ruth, whose sweet image came upbraidingly to
my memory.
"Well--who next?" asked the corporal, while buckling on his sword.
"Sir Basil Gauntlet, at the hall--or his nephew, the young Laird that
is to be."
"Worse still!" I exclaimed, passionately; "I shall not go before them
either."
"Zounds, but you are hard to please," said Charters as he eyed me
keenly, but with something of commiseration too. "What is your name?"
"That I shall tell the magistrate," I replied, evasively, not having
yet thought of a _nom de guerre_. Then the corporal asked me--
"Is this Sir Basil a relation, a connection, or what?"
The landlord laughed while eyeing my scurvy appearance, as if he
thought it very unlikely I could be either; my breast burned with
suppressed mortification and rage, but I continued calmly,
"It matters little--I go not before him."
"You are regularly enlisted, my lad," said the corporal, soothingly,
"and must go before some one."
"Try the rector," said I.
"We have no rectors in Scotland," said the landlord, bluntly.
"Well, there is one over the Border, a few miles from this----"
"On the road to Rothbury--good," said Charters.
"He is a justice of the peace, and such a one! Odsbud! he sent a
child, four years old, to hard labour for having a tame pheasant for
a pet."
"How?"
"As a poacher," added Boniface, with a rough malediction.
"Will _he_ do?" asked the Corporal.
"Yes," said I, briefly; "and now let us begone."
"Bravo! Now, Kirkton--brandy and water--boot and saddle, and let us
be off. Our new comrade shall share our horses alternately, for we
have nearly twenty miles to travel to-day before we reach
head-quarters."
As the troopers brought from the stable to the inn door their two
stately grey chargers, in all the trappings of a heavy dragoon
regiment, with saddle-cloth, scarlet valise, long holsters, powerful
bits, and chain bridles, an old horse that was passing, heavily laden
with the wares of an itinerant basket-maker, pricked up his ears, and
switched his short shorn tail, and seemed to eye us wistfully.
"That is an old trooper," said Kirkton; "by Jove, the poor animal
actually recognises our red coats, and, doubtless, his heart warms to
the colour. Landlord, a feed of oats, and here is the money for
it--a feed of oats for the old nag-tailed trooper. He has been a
heavy dragoon horse--see here are the white spots where the carbine
has galled him. Well, well! it makes one sad to think that the
dashing horse, which has perhaps borne a brave fellow in many a
charge, which has fed from his hand, and slept beside him in the
bivouac, comes down to the sand cart and knacker's yard at last!"
"After all, his rider's fate is seldom better in the end," said the
corporal, "and I don't think either you or I, Tom, will have our
tombs in Westminster Abbey. But bring the brandy; confound care and
reflection; let us live while we can and be jolly, too!"
I rode each of their horses alternately after we crossed the Border,
as we proceeded southward, along the road towards the Rectory.
My comrades were rather silent now, and I was often left to my own
reflections. The day was gloomy and lowering, and the wind came in
gusts; dark clouds rolled in masses across the grey, sullen sky; the
distant Cheviot hills looked brown and sombre; but nature's aspect
failed to impress me with gloom as on the preceding day.
I felt a glow of new enthusiasm kindling in my heart. The hopes
inspired by ambition, pride, and all a boy's visions of military pomp
and glory, grew strong within me. To wear a fine uniform--to ride a
showy horse--to be a captain in a year--to return to the village--to
marry Ruth--and to flaunt my finery before the people, were my most
prominent ideas. A year? Amid all this, I remembered that my
dashing comrade, Jack Charters, spoke of having been a soldier for
ten years, and was only a corporal still!
This was far from encouraging; but then I should be certain to prove
so much more sober, steady, and industrious than Jack; and so I rode
on scheming out my future career, with great brilliance and rapidity,
and much to my own satisfaction.
I was full of such thoughts when we reached the gate of the Rectory,
which was a quaint old building, having its deeply embayed and
mullioned windows nearly hidden by luxuriant masses of ivy, vine and
clematis. It was small, and covered simply with bright yellow
thatch; but its walls were thick and strong, though they had often
been subjected to fire by the invading Scots, in the stormy times of
old.
We left the horses at the gothic porch, and, by a servant in livery,
were ushered into the library, where the Rector was seated at
luncheon, with a decanter of port before him, and he had been
evidently dozing over his books and papers.
To attest recruits at once, without the many formalities of medical
inspections and so forth, was common in those days, and for long
after. Had it been otherwise, the public would never have been
favoured with the memoirs of Phœbe Hassel, who served seven years
in H. M. 5th Foot, or of Mrs. Christian Davis, another woman, who
served in all the battles of Marlborough, as a trooper in the Scots
Greys, who had her head fractured by the splinter of a shell at
Ramillies, and who enjoyed a pension of one shilling per diem till
she died, and was buried with military honours in the ground
belonging to Chelsea Hospital.*
* "Records of the Scots Greys," pp. 49-51. Phœbe Hassel was alive
at Brighton in 1821. She served in the West Indies, and at Gibraltar.
The Rector was a fine old gentleman, with a mild and rubicund visage;
and he had been, I knew, my father's early friend and schoolfellow;
so I resolved to enter the service under some such name as Smith or
Brown instead of my own.
He started from his waking dream as the two dragoons clattered in. I
can still see, in memory, that quaint old library in which he
received us, with its dark oak shelves of goodly folios and quartos,
in calf bindings, dark and brown; some partial gleams of sunlight
streaming through the lozenged window panes and carved stone mullions
fell on the old man's shining head and scattered silver hairs--on the
floor of polished oak, on the furniture of walnut wood, and on the
russet tints that time had cast over everything.
"What bring you here, my friends--not a deserter--this boy?"
stammered the Rector, with sadness and pity in his eye and tone,
while wheeling his elbow chair half round.
"No, no, reverend sir, a recruit," replied Charters, with a military
salute; "a recruit whom we wish you to attest."
"That slender boy for the cavalry!" exclaimed the Rector.
"He will do excellently for the troop of light horse which Captain
Lindsay of ours is raising," suggested Kirkton.
I was then slightly formed, and looked, I knew, wan, dejected, and
poor. The good rector surveyed me through his gold-rimmed spectacles
with an unmistakeable expression of pity on his benign and fatherly
face; after a pause--
"Have you considered this matter well?" he asked; "but you look
weary, my poor lad! take some wine--there are glasses on the
buffet--corporal, help yourself."
"I thank your Reverence," said Charters, who never required a second
invitation of this kind, and so filled our glasses with port--his own
twice in succession, and drank, muttering, "Good stuff this! I've
tasted worse--in a palace too."
"Have you weighed well the step you are about to take?" continued the
rector, impressively.
"Yes," said I, firmly.
"But your parents----" he urged gently: "think of them."
"I have none," said I, in tones that faltered as my heart swelled
with emotion, and the old man shook his head sadly.
"You will never be able to undergo the hardships of foreign service,"
said he, shaking his head.
"Then I will help to fill the trenches," said I, with that spirit of
bravado which we so often feel or assume in youth.
The corporal said something approvingly; then the rector sighed, as
he dipped a pen in an inkhorn, and placed on his desk a printed
document, preparatory to filling up the blanks, or fifteen replies to
questions always asked of a recruit at attestation.
"What is your name?" he began.
Now it was that my heart failed me, and the question had to be
repeated three times, as I could not tell an untruth.
"Do you hear me," he added, gently; "your name?"
"Basil Gauntlet."
He threw down the pen and half rose from his chair.
"The son of Major Gauntlet, of Granby's Dragoons?"
"Yes," I replied, while both of the soldiers turned, and faced me
inquiringly, and with unconcealed interest in their eyes.
"Oh, Basil," exclaimed the rector, who knew at once both me and my
story, "this is sad, most sad. Consider, I pray you, consider well.
I have some right to say this, for your father was one of my dearest
and earliest friends."
"Sir, you know how _his_ father has treated me; thus, that which
might have been dire necessity at first, has now become my choice. I
am resolved to be a soldier, so I beg of you to hasten over this most
mortifying scene, and let me begone."
In the irritation I felt at my position, I spoke somewhat sternly,
even ungraciously, to this good man; so Charters came to my aid, and
urged that time pressed, so the formal oath was administered, which
bound me "faithfully and honestly to defend his Majesty King George,
his heirs and successors, in person, crown, and dignity, against all
enemies, and to obey all the orders of his Majesty, his heirs and
successors, and of the generals and officers set over me," &c.
This oath made me irrevocably a soldier.
The old rector shook my hand, and his voice faltered, for he felt
more emotion than I did, as he accompanied us to the porch of his
house, where he kindly bade us adieu.
"We shall have a most disastrous war ere long," said he, "and I may
say in the words of Goldsmith, 'Go, my boy, and if you fall, though
distant, exposed and unwept for a time, by those who love you, the
most precious tears are those with which Heaven bedews the unburied
head of the soldier.' Farewell, my friends. God bless you!"
"We thank you, sir," replied Charters, with a profound salute, and
with an air that had something lofty and noble in it, as he sprang on
his horse and gathered up his reins; "a good man's blessing can never
be given in vain, especially to such reckless dogs as we are; but,
believe me, sir, that though but poor soldiers now, my comrades and I
can never forget that we have been, and may again be, _gentlemen_!"
We were once more on the open highway. I was glad the scene was
over, but I still seemed to see the mild and benevolent face of the
old rector, and to hear his parting words.
"So we have really had the honour of enlisting the heir to a
baronetcy?" said Kirkton. "You were right to come with us. I
thought you were meant for better things than to be squire to a
knight of the bluebag."
"What is that?"
"A lawyer. Were we quartered in Bath your story would make your
fortune. Any heiress would marry you for the prospect of the title."
"That is flattering," said I; and then thinking of Ruth, I added,
"Why not for love?"
"Bah!" said Charters, "people don't marry for that, except in plays
and novels."
"Jack, you are a misanthrope in spite of yourself," said Kirkton;
"but as this youth is the heir to a baronetcy----"
"I beg to have your promises of keeping the matter a secret when we
reach the regiment?" said I, with great earnestness.
"Why?" asked they.
"Because I owe nothing to my family, and hate them as they hate
me--the living at least. Whatever I may do to gain honour or
promotion, will never be acknowledged by my comrades, who will be
certain to attribute success to the fortuitous circumstance of family
and name."
"Egad! you are right, boy, and I love and respect your spirit," said
Charters. "I have more than once seen a poor fellow gain the
ill-will and malevolence of his comrades for being better born or
better bred than those among whom his lot was cast, and thus
bitterness came with prosperity."
"Your solemn pledge, then, that you will keep my secret?" said I,
earnestly.
They promised, and I may add that the worthy fellows never betrayed
it; but they too had each a secret, which they confided to me as we
sat together over a glass of beer in a wayside tavern, a few miles
from Rothbury.
"If I had not had the misfortune to have been born a genius, I should
perhaps never have been a soldier," said Kirkton.
"A genius--you?" exclaimed the corporal, laughing.
"Sorry am I to say it, for 'tis the fate of geniuses to be restless
and unfortunate. True; Boetus, who wrote on the battle of Philippi,
died in prison; Plautus was a baker's drudge and turned a hand-mill;
Terentius Publius was the slave of a Roman senator----. And I,
Thomas Kirkton, am a private in the Scots Greys!"
"'Tis an ungrateful world, my friends," added the other, with an air
of tragi-comedy that made us both laugh.