sprang from the alcove, and would infallibly have been slain had not
the countess hung upon her fiery husband's sword-arm, praying him by
all he held sacred and dear to spare her the horror, the disgrace,
and lifelong reproach of an act so cruel as this man's slaughter in
her chamber; but she spoke to one who heeded and who heard her not.
"In his blind fury or suspicion, the count disdained to hear her, and
coarsely strove to thrust her from him, bruising her tender breasts
and hands, as she clung about him wildly. Though so faint that he
could scarcely stand, Chateaunoir had now reached and drawn his
sword; and how this matter might have ended, there are no means of
knowing, had it not at this crisis been cut short by the ball of a
field-piece passing through the house with a frightful crash, and
then they heard the sharp shrill notes of the Prussian trumpets
sounding to horse, as a party of the Duc de Broglio's Cavalry, who
were again advancing towards Munden, approached the mansion, and
seeing a squadron of Blue Hussars in the lawn with a standard
displayed, had suddenly opened a fire on them from three pieces of
flying artillery.
"Leaving our colonel to the care of his advancing friends, Hatzfeld
had to depart on the spur for Munden, which was his head-quarters and
nearest fortified post, while his fair young countess became the
lawful prisoner of the Mousquetaires Gris. The vicomte treated her
with every courtesy, and she was escorted with all honour to the
quarters of the Duc de Broglio, whose timely approach had arrested an
act of assassination.
"In his anger at Count Hatzfeld, and anxiety to remain with us,
Chateaunoir, immediately on procuring a new horse, assumed once more
the command of the Grey Musketeers, and marched at our head, on the
expedition against the town of Munden.
"The sun was setting when we, who formed the advanced guard, came in
sight of Munden, at the confluence of two streams, which there unite
and are named the Weser; and its current rippled in pink and gold as
the tints of evening deepened on the laden barges that floated by the
quays, on the spires of the churches, and the quaint architecture of
the streets. The scenery was neither bold nor striking; but the sun
seemed to linger for a time 'at the gates of the west,' casting
upward his rays through cloud and sky, diverging like the fiery
spokes of a mighty wheel, and these continued to waver and play, to
fade and gleam again from below the dark line of the horizon, long
after the sun himself had disappeared from our eyes.
"As the last bright vestige of his flaming disc went down, a
cannon--the solitary evening gun--boomed from the fortifications of
Munden, and the Prussian standard was slowly lowered for the night;
and this was to us a significant notice that as yet our approach was
unseen.
"Munden we considered one of the most important places on the Weser.
On one side it had eight solid bastions faced with stone, full of
earth and impenetrable to cannon-shot. A half-moon lay before every
curtain and the ditch was broad. The counterscarp, covered way and
palisadoes were all in the best order, and the town was garrisoned by
three thousand men, five hundred of whom were Irish, whose backs had
never been seen by an enemy. Count Hatzfeld commanded the whole, and
his second was the Baron O'Reilly, a soldier as resolute and
determined as himself, consequently we had every reason to expect
that broken heads would be numerous enough.
"If my warlike friends expect a detail of the siege and capture of
Munden, I regret that I can afford them but a brief note of the
operations, which were pressed by M. de Broglio with great vigour.
The battalions de Picardie blockaded it on one side, while those of
Normandie enclosed it on the other. M. de Contades broke ground
before the strongest bastions, and M. de Broglio undertook to storm
and destroy the works and bridges on the Weser, while the Vicomte de
Chateaunoir, with the Mousquetaires Gris et Rouges and the cavalry,
covered the roads and collected supplies.
"The fire of our artillery, which was heavy, was neutralized by the
elevation at which they were discharged, and by the compactness of
the earthen parapets; but ultimately a breach was effected in two
days, and a host of brave fellows volunteered for the assault. Among
these were all the Grey Mousquetaires and about a hundred of the
Dragoons of Brissac, dismounted. The honour of leading the stormers
at midnight was assigned to the vicomte, who appeared in his
brilliant state uniform, with all his orders sparkling on his breast.
"'Is this wise, vicomte?' asked the old Duc de Broglio.
"'Wherefore, maréchal?'
"'You will be the mark of every musket to-night.'
"'So much the better for others,' replied the gay noble. 'Allow me
to please myself, Monseigneur le Duc. I may as well be killed in my
best coat to-night as have it sold at the drum-head to-morrow.'
"The second volunteer for the storming party was a mere child--a son
of the Comte de Brille, who had been unjustly executed for losing a
military post under General Lally, in India. The boy was serving as
a private soldier under M. de Contades, and was burning for an
opportunity to distinguish himself; thus when we advanced towards the
breach mingling together pell-mell, men of all ranks and arms united
in a mass, and falling fast on every side, with shot of every sort
and size passing us with an incessant _hum_ or _whistle_, tearing up
the turf, shattering stones, and rending huge branches off the trees
that grew on the banks of the river, the vicomte turned, with an
emotion of pity, and said to the boy--
"'M. de Brille, my young brave, return while there is yet time.'
"'My father perished innocently on the scaffold in the Place de
Grêve, vicomte,' replied the boy, on whose pale cheek glowed the
light of the fireballs, which filled the air above and sputtered in
the muddy ditches below; 'and I shall to-night redeem his coronet
from the temporary tarnish it has suffered, or die. I, too, am a De
Brille!'
"'But the breach is just before us.'
"'Well!'
"'And you have no fear; pardon me, boy, I am your senior officer,
and, believe me, your sincere friend.'
"'I thank you,' said he, haughtily; 'fear--I have none.'
"'Thou art a brave chick--Vive M. le Comte de Brille!' exclaimed the
stormers, and the eyes of the lad flashed fire.
"'I know, vicomte' said he, 'that at this moment my poor old mother,
the widowed countess, is praying for me at home; and God,' he added,
pointing with his sword to the starlighted heaven, 'will spare the
widow's son!'
"'Bravo; forward, then, to the assault--to the assault! France and
Vive Louis le Roi!'
"But he was not spared; he fell, pierced by a mortal wound. Like a
swollen surge the stormers swept over him, and through the ghastly
gap in the shattered rampart hewed a passage into the heart of the
place, driving the foe before them. Count Hatzfeld was among the
first who fell, for, after a brief encounter, Chateaunoir slew him at
the third pass. After this the Prussians gave way, and the only
resistance we experienced was from O'Reilly and his Irishmen, who
took possession of a Lutheran church, where they fought like
incarnate devils, swearing to blow themselves up, if they had powder
enough, but never to surrender.
"By noon, however, they hoisted a white flag on the steeple, and
agreed to leave the place with the honours of war, which we were glad
to accord them. By this time there were only two hundred left alive;
and at their head the gallant O'Reilly marched out, With one standard
displayed; it bore the Irish harp and Prussian eagle. One drum was
beating before them; and, in the old fashion, each man had a bullet
in his mouth and four charges of powder in his pouch.
"We cheered them heartily and saluted them with all the honours of
war, and then the drums of the Regiment de Normandie were beaten
before them down through that terrible breach, which was strewn with
dead and wounded, and where the blood was battening in the sun or
oozing and trickling between the stones; and from thence they crossed
the Weser, and marched to Beverungen.
"On our advance towards the latter place, they were soon compelled to
retire again; for, when we carried the town by assault, they retired
from it on the Prussian side.
"My next service was on the field of Minden, where--but, gentlemen,
you know the rest."
----------
Such was the varied narrative of Allan Robertson, the Grey
Mousquetaire.
On his recovery, being sick of exile and of the French service, he
expressed a great desire to join any of our Highland regiments, even
as a volunteer. His wish was warmly seconded by the officers of the
51st Regiment, and his hopes were realized beyond his expectations;
for, by their desire and the recommendation of Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick, he was gazetted to an ensigncy in the Forty-second--the
old Black Watch--then serving under General Amherst on the American
Lakes; but before leaving the camp of the Allies, from whence he was
first sent home in charge of sick and wounded soldiers, he had the
satisfaction of seeing the strange career of his enemy, the Chevalier
de Coeurdefer, terminated with abrupt ignominy.
At Fellinghausen--a severe battle, the name and results of which are
now absorbed and forgotten in the greater glories of the previous
encounter at Minden--the Free Company of the chevalier charged our
51st or Second Yorkshire Regiment, to which Allan Robertson had for a
time attached himself as a volunteer. This occurred among those
dense and ancient forests which surround Fellinghausen, and which, on
this day in particular, rendered the operations of the cavalry on
both sides almost futile.
Issuing from a jungle, heedless of the shells which exploded in the
air or roared and hissed along the ground, and of the leaden rain
that sowed the turf about them, the wild troopers of the _Franche
Compagnie_ fell _sabre à la main_ on the 51st, who formed square in a
trice, and by a withering fire swept them back in disorder. Then the
Black Prussian Hussars, led by Count Redhaezl, a dashing noble, in
his twentieth year, by a furious flank movement, cut them wholly to
pieces. Beneath the sabres of the hussars a hundred men and horses
rolled upon the earth, and many prisoners were taken. Among these
were the Chevalier Jules, his chaplain, and a score of his troopers,
all of whom were more or less wounded. They were immediately
enclosed by the square of the 51st, and were soon after transmitted
to the rear.
After the battle, the chevalier and his ghostly friend, the late
canon of Notre Dame de Paris, were deemed such desperate characters
that their paroles were not accepted, and they were placed in a
secluded house with the other prisoners, under a guard of Keith's
Highlanders, commanded by Captain Fotheringham, of Powrie, an officer
who had covered himself with distinction in the late battle. There
they remained for some time without Maréchal Broglio, who was
probably but too glad to be rid of them, making the least effort for
their ransom or exchange, until Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, to
whom a report was made on the subject, declared "that to supply such
fellows with rations was simply feeding what ought to be hanged."
In an evil moment over their cups, the chaplain informed the
chevalier that he had, concealed about him, notes and gold to the
value of fifty thousand francs, the plunder of various persons and
places.
"Fifty thousand francs!" said the chevalier; "_mordieu!_ with that
sum I should soon gild over the most watchful eyes and achieve my
liberty."
This thought haunted him day and night, and with one so unscrupulous
the sequel may easily be guessed.
One night the chaplain was roughly wakened by a hand being heavily
laid on his throat, and he found a masked man standing over him,
armed with a bayonet, and commanding him to yield his ill-gotten
wealth on pain of instant death!
A loud cry, cut short by a death-stab in the throat followed, and, in
less than a minute, the chevalier found himself a prisoner in the
hands of the startled quarter-guard, beside the dead body of his
comrade and with a blood-dripping bayonet, as a terrible testimony
against him.
A court-martial next day made short work with him, and he was
sentenced to death--a doom which he met with the most singular
coolness and contempt. His fate was announced to him at night, and
he was chained to a tree lest he should escape before _reveille_ next
morning, when the sentence was to be put in execution. He conversed
with his guards, smoked, laughed and sang catches, and was
provokingly cool and gay to the last. On perceiving his old brother
student, Robertson, loitering near him, he said,
"You have the odds of me to-night, _mon ami_; but a Prussian bullet
ere long may, perhaps, enable you to overtake me _en route_ to the
infernal regions."
"Be thankful, chevalier, that you end your life in camp, and not in
Paris," replied the Mousquetaire, quietly.
"Wherefore?"
"Because a soldier's death and a soldier's grave are a better fate
than a felon's on the dissecting-table."
"Perhaps so--_peste!_ unpleasant thought to have a parcel of medical
_gamins_ amusing themselves with one's intestines and arteries."
"Think, sir," said Allen, gravely and with pity, "you are to die
to-morrow morning."
"Better then, than to-morrow night, if it is to be. _Allons!_
comrade, another light; for, _sang Dieu!_ my pipe has gone out!"
So passed his last night on earth.
Grey morning came and the great-coated guard got under arms. The
chevalier was unchained from the tree and marched to a secluded spot,
where his grave, which the pioneers of the 51st had dug overnight,
yawned in the damp mould among the bright green grass, he walked
calmly round it and looked down with all the curiosity of an amateur
or mere spectator. He then stood erect opposite the
provost-marshal's guard, with a scornful smile and with folded arms.
"I thank you, M. le Prevot," said he, smiling gaily; "all is as it
should be--'tis just my length; five feet ten inches."
The guard, or firing party, which was composed of twenty men of the
61st, were confounded, and, perhaps, disgusted by his unparalleled
coolness. He declined to have his eyes bound up.
"Make ready!" said the provost-marshal, and his guard cocked their
arms at the _recover_, according to the position of those days.
"_Pardonnes moi_," said the unmoved chevalier; "I have a little
request to make of you, M. le Prevot."
"What is it, sir?"
"Don't bury that devil of a friar near me."
"You mean your victim?"
"_Peste!_ so you name an avaricious monk, who wanted fifty thousand
francs all to himself."
"Your chaplain."
"Yes--so don't bury him near me, I say."
"Why, chevalier?"
"He might trouble me in the night, for he has been a worse fellow in
life than I, and is not likely to sleep so sound in that dark hole as
poor Jules de Coeurdefer; so now with your permission, I shall end
this scene myself. Once more, _soldats, appretez-vous armes_!"
The muskets were levelled at him, and steadily he looked at the
twenty iron tubes before him.
"_Joue!_" he added rapidly, "FEU!"
The report of twenty muskets rang sharply on the still morning air,
and pierced by eleven bullets the chevalier fell dead.
His body, shattered and covered by the blood that spouted from his
wounds, was lowered, while warm, into the grave by the pioneers of
the 51st; but before they covered it up, an officer stepped forward
and took the cloak from his own shoulders to wrap up his miserable
remains.
He who performed this last act of kindness to the earthly tenement of
the wild and reckless spirit that had fled, was Allan Robertson of
"Ours," the _soi-disant_ Mousquetaire Gris.
VII.
THE LETTRE DE CACHET.
In the ancient church of St. Germain de Prez, at Paris, is a stone
which bears the following inscription in English:--
M.S.
ADAM WHITE, OF WHITEHAUGH,
MAJOR IN THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF SCOTTISH HIGH-
LANDERS, 1789.
R.I.P.
On that stone, or rather on its inscription, the following legend,
compiled from the traditions of the regiment, was written.
Lately, every mess-table in the service rang with a romantic story
that came by the way of Calcutta. It was reported and believed, that
an officer of Sale's gallant brigade, who was supposed to have been
killed at Cabul, thirteen years ago, had suddenly re-appeared, alive,
safe and untouched. He had been all that time a prisoner in Kokan;
his name had long since been removed from the Army List; and on
reaching Edinburgh, his native place, he found that his wife had
erected a handsome monument to his memory, was the mother of a brood
of little strangers, and had become the "rib" of one of his oldest
friends.
This reminds me of the adventures of Adam White of Ours, who served
with the Black Watch under Wolfe and Amherst.
In the year 1757 three additional companies were added to our
regiment, which, the historical records say, "was thus augmented to
thirteen hundred men, all Highlanders, _no others being recruited for
the corps_." These new companies were commanded by Captains James
Murray, son of Lord George Murray, the Adjutant-General of Prince
Charles Edward Stuart, James Stewart of Urrard, and Thomas Stirling,
son of the Laird of Ardoch. The two subalterns of the latter were
Lieutenant Adam White, of the old Border family of Whitehaugh, and
Ensign John Oswald, one of the most remarkable characters in the
British service--and of whom more anon.
White's father had been a major in the army of Prince Charles; he had
been wounded at the battle of Falkirk, taken prisoner near Culloden,
marched in chains to Carlisle, and was hanged, drawn, and quartered
by the barbarous laws of George II., while his old hereditary estate
was forfeited and gifted to a Scottish placeman of the new régime.
Adam White was a handsome and dashing officer, who had served under
Clive in the East; and on the 9th of April, 1751, when an ensign, led
the attack on the strong pagoda named the Devil's Rock, when six
months' stores of Ali Khan's army were taken with all their guards.
Like many others who were ordered on the American campaign, Adam
White had left his love behind him; for in those days a lieutenant's
pay was only a trifle more than that of the poor ensigns--for they
(Lord help them!) when carrying the British colours on the frozen
plains of Minden, and up the bloody heights of Abraham, had only
_three shillings and threepence_ per diem.
Thus, for White to marry would have been madness; and as he had only
his sword, and that poor inheritance of pride, high spirit, and
pedigree, which falls to the lot of most Scottish gentlemen--for he
was descended from that Quhyt, to whom King Robert I. gifted the
lands of Stayhr, in the county of Ayr--poor Lucy Fleming and he had
agreed to wait, in hope that his promotion could not be far distant
now, when he had served six years as a subaltern, and the army had
every prospect of a long and severe war with France for the conquest
of North America. With the minstrel he had said--
"Have I not spoke the live-long day,
And will not Lucy deign to say
One word her friend to bless?
I ask but one--a simple sound,
Within three little letters bound,
Oh let that word be YES."
Lucy answered in the affirmative, and so they parted.
Lucy Fleming, the only daughter of a clergyman of the Scottish
Church, lived at her father's secluded manse in Berwickshire, among
woods that lie on the margin of the Tweed, in a beautiful and
sequestered glen, where tidings of the distant strife came but
seldom, save when the Laird of Overmains, and Rowchester, or some
other neighbouring proprietor, sent "with his compliments to the
minister" an old and well-read copy of the _London Gazette_, or more
probably the_ Edinburgh Evening Courant_, "sair thumbed by ilka coof
and bairn;" for newspapers were few and scarce in those days, and the
tidings they contained were often vague, marvellous, or
unsatisfactory. But Lucy was only eighteen; and she lived in hope,
while her lover in a crowded and miserable transport was ploughing
down the North Channel, making a vain attempt to remedy sea-sickness
by brandy and water, endeavouring to forget his melancholy among
comrades who were full of bilious recollections of the last night's
hock and champagne, and were seeking to drown their sense of
discomfort in rough practical jokes, mad fun, and fresh jorums of
_eau de vie_.
Done in the best style of Sir John de Medina, a famous foreign
artist, who in those days resided in Edinburgh, and who now sleeps
there in a quiet corner of the old Greyfriars Kirk-yard, a miniature
of Lucy in a gold locket, with a braid of her black hair, was White's
best solace; and for many an hour he lay in his swinging hammock,
apart from all, gazing upon the soft features Medina's hand had
traced. This miniature cost our poor subaltern half-a-year's pay;
but the prize-money of Trichinopoli had paid for it; and now when
rocking far, far at sea, oblivious of the ship's creaking timbers,
the groaning of blocks, and jarring sounds of the main-deck guns, as
they strained in their lashings; the whistling of the wind through
the rigging; and the varied din of laughter, occasional oaths and
hoarse orders bellowed from the poop, he abandoned himself,
lover-like, to the sad and pleasing employment of poring over that
little memento, until the dark hazel eyes seemed to smile, the red
lips to unclose, the light of love and joy to spread over all her
features, and her parting tears seemed to fall again, hot and
bitterly from her cheek upon his; yet the last recollection of his
dear little Lucy was her pale, wan face, with eyes red and swollen by
weeping, as she stood on the stone stile of the old kirkyard wall,
when he bade her farewell, just as the lumbering stage from Berwick
bore him away, perhaps--for ever.
In the same spirit did he brood over the thousand trifles that the
lover treasures up in memory, and on none more than the love-music of
Lucy's voice, which he might never hear again.
Never again!--he shrank from those terrible words, and, trusting
through God's grace to escape the chances of the war that were before
him, he endeavoured to reckon over the days, the weeks, the months,
and it might be the years (oh what a prospect for a newly separated
lover!) that must pass, before he should again see the little
secluded kirk-hamlet, with its blue-slated manse, half buried among
the coppice; the Tweed brawling over its pebbled bed in front, under
the white-blossomed hawthorns and green bourtree foliage; the ancient
church with its stone spire, its old sepulchral yews, and black oak
pulpit, where for more than forty years the father of his Lucy had
ministered unto a poor but pious flock.
He was an old and white-haired pastor, whose memory went back to
those terrible times, when Scotland drew her sword for an oppressed
kirk and broken covenant--
"When the ashes of that covenant were scattered far and near,
And the voice spoke loud in judgment, which in love she would
not hear."
Adam White saw in fancy the dark oak pew, where on Sunday Lucy sat
near her father's pulpit, and close to a gothic window, from which
the sun, each morning in the year, cast the red glow of a painted
cross on her pure and snow-white brow; and so, with his mind full of
these things, with a tear in his eye and a prayer of hope on his lip,
"rocked on the stormy bosom of the deep," our military pilgrim went
to sleep in his cot, as the Lizard light faded away, and word went
round from ship to ship that Old England had sunk into the waste of
sky and water, far, far astern.
By the many casualties of foreign service, Adam White, on joining the
regiment in America, found himself junior captain.
It was now the spring of 1758, and George II. was King.
Lieutenant-General Sir Jeffry Amherst, K.C.B., was proceeding on the
second expedition against L'Isle Royale, now named Cape Breton, which
had belonged to the French since 1713, and was deemed by King Louis
the key to Canada and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.