le Prefect of the Loire. Leave us your fish, M. Senebier, and be off
before darkness sets in. See," he added, with a furtive but
expressive glance at Grant; "see that you keep your worthy father
clear of yonder British ship, which will just be abreast of the
battery and two miles off about midnight."
Armand placed a bottle of brandy in the boat, and, while pretending
to pay for the fish, pressed Grant's hand, wished him all success,
and pointed out the bearings of the strange sail so exactly, that the
moment darkness set fairly in, Raoul trimmed his lug sail and ran
right on board of her; for her straight gun streak, her taper masts,
and her snow-white canvas shone in the moonlight above the calm blue
rippled sea, distinctly in the clear twilight of the stars.
"Boat ahoy!" cried a sentry from the quarter; "keep off, or I shall
fire."
"What ship is that?" asked Grant, in whose ears a British voice
sounded like some old mountain melody.
"His Britannic Majesty's frigate _Laurel_, of thirty-six guns."
"Hurrah!"
"Who the devil are you?"
"A prisoner of war just escaped."
"Bravo!" cried another voice, which seemed to be that of the officer
of the watch; "sheer alongside, and let us see what like you are.
Stand by with the man ropes--look alive there!"
Grant shook the hard hand of Raoul Senebier, gave him five more gold
Napoleons, and, in a moment after, found himself upon the solid oak
deck of a spanking British frigate. Now he was all but at home, and
his Proteus-like transformations and disguises were at an end. A
single paragraph from the "History of the War in the Peninsula" will
suffice to close this brief story of Colquhoun Grant's adventures, of
which I could with ease have spun three orthodox volumes, octavo.
"When he reached England, he obtained permission to choose a French
officer of equal rank with himself to send to France, that no doubt
might remain about the propriety of his escape. In the first prison
he visited for this purpose, great was his astonishment to find the
old fisherman (Raoul Senebier of Paimboeuff) and his real son, who
had meanwhile been captured, notwithstanding a protection given to
them for their services. But Grant's generosity and benevolence were
as remarkable as the qualities of his understanding; he soon obtained
their release, and sent them with a sum of money to France. He then
returned to the Peninsula, and within four months from the date of
his first capture, was again on the Tormes, watching Marmont's army!
Other strange incidents of his life could be told," continues General
Napier, "were it not more fitting to quit a digression already too
wide; yet I was unwilling to pass unnoticed this generous, spirited,
and gentle-minded man, who, having served his country nobly and ably
in every climate, died not long since, exhausted by the continual
hardships he had endured."
But his name is still remembered in the regiment by which he was
beloved; and his adventures, his daring, and presence of mind, were
long the theme of the old Black Watch at the mess-table, the bivouac,
and the guard-room fire.
IX.
THE STORY OF DICK DUFF.
Dick Duff, the lieutenant of our light company in 1812, was one of
the happiest and most lively fellows in the British service. He sang
and was merry from morning till night, and was occasionally
uproarious from night till morning; and not even all the horrors of
the retreat from Burgos could repress his flow of spirits. Moreover,
he was the terror of innkeepers, and made the lazy hostaleros and
keepers of posadas attend to his various commands with a celerity
that astonished themselves; for Dick Duff could swear with marvellous
fluency in Spanish and five other foreign languages; he had served at
Malta, in Egypt, and Holland; and was wont to boast that he had
acquired the whole vocabulary of oaths. This was highly necessary,
Dick was wont to allege, "lest in a casual war of words with any
ragamuffin on whom one might chance to be billeted, an officer and
gentleman should have the disgrace of being put down by the sauce
piquant of a rascally foreigner."
Dick had joined the service as a full private in the year 1800,
having been forced into the ranks by his chief or landlord.
He was the second son of a respectable sheep farmer on the mountains
of Mull, where his forefathers had resided for ages. His elder
brother, Hamish, when a child, had been swept out to sea (while
playing among the fisher-boats on the beach), and was drowned, to the
grief and dismay of his parents, to whom a wandering Scottish priest,
Father John of Douay, had foretold his birth, and predicted his
future usefulness and greatness in the church. His mother, an old
Catholic of the house of Keppoch, looked upon this elder child as
blessed by Heaven, and in the fulness of her heart she gladly
dedicated it to the then oppressed church of her forefathers, in
token of which she had unavailingly tied to his neck a valuable
_amulet_.
Their landlord, like many other Scottish feudatories in the year
1800, became desirous of appearing a person of importance in the eyes
of the Government; to this end he resolved to raise a kilted regiment
among his tenants, and on procuring a letter of service, immediately
called upon them for their sons.
These tidings caused some consternation in Argyleshire, a county from
which every war, prior to 1800, had swept at least _four thousand_ of
its best men, few of whom ever survived to return.
The aged father of Dick appeared with others before their feudal
tyrant, who threatened to deprive every parent of his farm, if his
sons delayed or declined to volunteer for service; and this can
easily be done, as the Highland crofter has seldom a written lease to
show, believing that the old hereditary cabin of his forefathers is
his, as much as the air he breathes or the heather he treads on.
"Duncan Duff," said the laird, who had already donned the uniform of
colonel, "I am raising a regiment for the King's service, and must
have your son Dick; he is a stout, active fellow, and here is the
bounty."
The old man wrung nis hands, and said--
"Sir, my son is the only prop of my last days. I am getting old, and
may not be able to work long at my little croft."
"Oh, don't trouble yourself about your croft," sneered the laird.
"If my only son goes to battle, what will become of _me_?"
"The parish will attend to _that_," was the cruel reply.
The eyes of the old Highlander flashed fire, but reverence for his
chief repressed the mingled threat and curse that rose to his tongue.
"Please yourself, Duncan," resumed the feudatory; "I have only to
warn you that another person has made my factor an advantageous offer
for your farm, and your son's enlistment or his disobedience will
materially influence me in considering the said offer."
"My croft, sir! have not I and my fathers been here under your family
for four hundred years and more; and is not our blood the same?"
"Stuff! I tell you that I must have a thousand men, and cannot spare
your son."
"I had another son, sir--a poor child who was drowned in his infancy;
had he lived, one should have gone to battle and one remained--but
God deals hardly with me."
"I care not," was the dogged reply; "men I want, and men I shall
have!" for the letter of service gave the laird an opportunity to
nominating all his officers, nearly fifty in number.
So Dick became a soldier in the laird's regiment, and as the old man
could not remain on his little farm alone, he became a soldier too,
in his sixtieth year, and on the long dusty marches in Holland, poor
Dick was often seen carrying the knapsack, firelock, and canteen of
his brave old father, whom he buried with his own hands after he was
killed by the French at the battle of Alexandria, where he, and
twenty others, perished in a rash attempt to rescue their chief, the
colonel, who was there wounded and taken prisoner. Dick's promotion
was rapid, and after passing through the intermediate ranks, he found
himself, by his own merit, a lieutenant in the Highland regiment of
this obnoxious laird in the year 1808; and his reason for leaving it
and exchanging into ours, was a mishap that occurred to him in
Glasgow.
His corps had been quartered for a year in the barracks of the
Gallowgate in the capital of the west, and Dick, who was decidedly of
convivial, and scandal whispered of somewhat nocturnal, habits, and
having, moreover, a high appreciation of the virtues of Glasgow
punch, was in the habit of going home every night in the happiest
mood of mind; and on more than one occasion was assisted by the
friendly arm of the watchers and warders of the civic guard, or of
the corporal of the patrol. The regiment marched for Edinburgh,
changing quarters with the brave old Pompadours, who were so called
from the colour of their facings resembling Madame's gown; but Dick,
having obtained a month's leave between returns, resolved to enjoy
himself a little longer among his old haunts, and remained behind,
exulting in freedom from duty and the seclusion of mufti.
A week after the regiment marched, Dick Duff found himself about
midnight propped against a lamp-post in the High-street, with very
vague ideas of his own name, rank, and residence, and seriously
weighing in his own mind whether the pavement and row of lamps
extending to the right, or those that lay to the left, led to the
barracks; for his faculties were so cloudy, that he had become
utterly oblivious as to the circumstance of his being on leave, in
plain clothes, and living at a west-end hotel.
After long and serious pondering, Dick instinctively discovered the
right way by old habit, and proceeded, somewhat deviously, of course,
through the delightful locality known as "the Sautmarket," and along
the Gallowgate, until he found himself before the dark gate of the
barracks, and heard the familiar step of the great-coated sentry
pacing slowly to and fro inside. Here he kicked with vigour, and
struck up his favourite mess-room song--
"Who knows but our girls--
(We have known stranger things!)
When once they've got feathers.
May make themselves wings;
And like swallows in winter,
May soon take their flight;
And for lovers of '_ours_,'
Bid their husbands good-night."
"Hollo! gate--gate!" shouted Dick, sprawling against it with
outstretched hands.
"Who comes there?"
"Friend--particular friend of yours, my boy--very."
The drowsy sergeant of the guard unfastened the barrier, and sulkily
passed a lantern once or twice across the face of the visitor, till
it was knocked out of his hand by Dick, who exclaimed--
"D--n it, sir, what d'ye mean?--light me to my quarters."
"I beg pardon, sir," said the sergeant, who thought Dick might be one
of the staff; but the lantern was extinguished, so our friend resumed
his song, and stumbled on alone to the old staircase, with which he
was quite familiar; and ascending by mere force of habit to his room,
found the door-handle on the right as usual, and entered.
"All right," muttered Dick, "all right. Here's the bed-post--and the
candlestick should be _here_."
But he could neither find candle nor matches, and resolving to "row"
his man in the morning, he threw off his clothes, tumbled headlong
into bed, and was soon sound asleep.
Now it happened that the proprietor of the aforesaid quarters was the
officer of the main-guard, who as the next day proved Sunday, was to
come off duty at eight o'clock a.m., and duly at the hour of seven
his servant entered to prepare a fire and lay breakfast. Hearing a
vehement snore proceed from his master's bed, the servant drew back
the curtains, and, to his no small surprise, discovered the dark,
sunburned, and well-whiskered visage of a stranger, whom he
immediately awoke; but not without considerable difficulty and after
reiterated efforts.
"Who are you," grumbled Dick; "and what the devil do you want?"
"What do you want here?"
"Where, old fellow?"
"In my master's bed."
"Master's bed, you scoundrel!" stuttered Dick; "how dare you intrude
into an officer's room? be off, or I shall send you to the _shop_ in
a minute." And so, Dick Duff, believing that he had settled the
little mistake satisfactorily, again composed himself to sleep, while
the servant hurried to the main guard to acquaint his master that "a
thief was in possession of his bed and quarters." These tidings
promptly brought up the officer with his sword in his hand, and a
file of the guard at his heels.
Dick was once more roused, and wrathfully, too, from his slumbers, to
find by his bedside two soldiers and an officer _cap-à-pie_ in a
strange uniform.
"What do you mean, fellow, by this unwarrantable in-in-in-trusion?"
asked Dick, with great dignity.
"Who are you, sir?" asked the officer in a louder key.
"You'll soon find that out--off with you, sir, or by heavens I'll
parade you where you won't like it. I have a pair of saw-handled
pacifiers that are the deuce for hitting at fifteen paces."
"What the devil are you about in my quarters?"
"_Your_ quarters?"
"Yes, sir, _my_ quarters!" thundered the Captain of Pompadours.
"Come, now--I like that."
"D--nit, sir?"
"Don't get excited, old fellow; is not this number three stair, four
room?"
"Yes, of course it is."
"Then allow me to insinuate, sir, that you are drunk--very drunk, in
uniform too--disgraceful; consider yourself under arrest Sir, these
quarters are _mine_--you will retire, if you please."
And Dick, who was still very groggy, again addressed himself to
sleep. Trembling with anger, the Pompadour for a moment doubted the
evidence of his own senses; but seeing all his own luggage and
property in the room, and being certain that his brain was not
turning, though the cool impudence of Duff confounded him.
"Corporal of the guard," said he, in a stifled tone of anger,
"handcuff this insolent fellow, and march him to the cells."
"Handcuff--the devil!" shouted Dick.
This imperative order made him spring up, and at that moment, the
recollection of the change of barracks, his month's leave, and the
last night's potations, flashed upon him. Unhappy Dick was sobered
in a moment, and his countenance fell, and he turned to explain--to
apologize; but the Pompadour would listen to nothing. Our friend was
ignominiously hauled from bed, hastily dressed, roughly handcuffed,
and despite all his assertions that he was "an officer--an officer
and a gentleman," &c. &c., he was marched to the guardhouse, into
which he would have been thrust, had not a staff-officer, the friend
with whom he had supped overnight, passed in at that moment and
recognised him.
The officer explained, Dick expostulated, the Pompadour was sulky;
but after fiery threats, mutual apologies and expressions of
friendship for life were exchanged, and Dick dined that evening at
the mess, of which he was made an honorary member; but the story
"found vent," with a hundred absurd additions; and Dick was so
quizzed about it by the small wits of his own corps, that he
exchanged into Ours, and joined us about the time Corunna was fought.
But before the battalion embarked, he fell into another scrape by
inserting in the Edinburgh papers the following advertisement!--
"Vive l'amour! any fair dame of spirit, maid .... or widow, who would
wish to see the world, and will join her fortunes with those of a
gallant officer, about to embark for the seat of war--age 25, height
five feet ten inches by one foot ten across the shoulders--good
looking decidedly, may have her offers carefully considered, by
forwarding her name and qualifications to the President of the Mess
Committee."
But for the hurry of embarkation, old Sir David Dundas, he of the
"Eighteen Manoeuvres," who then ruled at the Horse Guards, would have
made this piece of impertinence a dear joke to Dick Duff.
The latter, at Torres Vedras was severely wounded in the left leg,
and given over for a time to the care of a pretty patrona, who was so
kind to him, and like Corporal Trim's Beguin, fomented the wounded
part so tenderly, that Dick remained so long on crutches, we thought
he would never get off them or be well; tell one night getting tipsy
at the quarters of his friend Garriehorn of the Grenadiers, he walked
home, he never knew how, _without them_; and as he had been heard
singing his invariable and inevitable song,
"Who knows but our girls,
(We have known stranger things)," &c.
in the Plaza of Torres Vedras, he was obliged to report himself "fit
for duty" next day, despite the tears of his patrona.
After serving at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onor, Badajoz, and Salamanca, his
battalion, with Stirling's old Highland Brigade, endured all the
horrors of the retreat from Burgos.
At the siege of the latter, the task of storming the famous hornwork,
which had a hard sloping scarp of twenty-five feet, and a
counter-scarp of ten, was specially confided to the 42nd Highlanders,
who assailed the bastion after darkness had set in, and rushed on
with great gallantry. Dick Duff was the first man up on the first
ladder; and his feather bonnet was literally blown off his head by a
volley of balls; every man by his side was bayonetted; and as each
poor fellow in his fall knocked down others, the loss was terrible!
Sword in hand, Major Cox entered the gorge; Major (afterwards General
Sir Robert) Dick led the regiment on _en masse_, and the hornwork was
immediately captured; but two lieutenants and thirty-two rank and
file were killed; four officers, one volunteer, and one hundred and
sixty-four Highlanders were wounded. Captain Donald Williamson
expired that night of his wounds. Lane, the poor gentleman
volunteer, was severely wounded and became senseless; but revived, on
finding two of the Cameron Highlanders gently abstracting a gold
watch worth fifty guineas from his pocket.
"I beg your pardon, my lads," said he; "but I am not quite done with
this.'
"We beg yours, sir," answered they; "but we thought you dead, and
supposed we might take it, as well as others."
They carried him carefully to the rear; and as they were returning,
two stray shots killed them both. Lieutenant Gregorson was killed,
and found stripped naked, by Lieutenant Orr, who buried him in a
trench. In the gorge of this hornwork, so fatal to the Black Watch,
their old Quartermaster Blanket, had both his legs carried away; so
he might fairly have sung,
"O now let others shoot,
For here I leave my _second legs_,
And the _Forty-second Foot_."
He lived long a prisoner at Bitche and Verdun, and by his fiery
temper and wooden pins was named by the French _le Diable Boiteux_.
In this siege the regiment had other losses; but the concentration of
the enemy's forces, and the advance of superior numbers, obliged the
Duke of Wellington to retire into winter quarters on the frontiers of
Portugal; and the fatigues and privations incident to this retrograde
movement, fell on no regiment more heavily than on our friends of the
Black Watch.
On a gloomy afternoon in the month of November, pressed by the
enemy's cavalry, who were vastly superior to the British, the brigade
of which the 42nd formed a part, entered the ancient and pleasant
city of Valladolid, all drenched and bedraggled by fording the swift
Pisuerga; for the French, to impede our previous advance, had blown
up the principal arch of the bridge.
Dick Duff was taken prisoner by the French hussars in a taberna, at
Villanoz, by the treachery of the keeper, a well-known Spanish rogue,
named Antonio Morello. By his captors and the hostalero he had been
stripped nude, but made his escape and rejoined the regiment (just as
it was entering Valloria) clad only in a pair of short scarlet
pantaloons, which he had taken from a dead Frenchman of the line, and
his aspect created no small surprise in the ranks--but I cannot add
merriment, for our soldiers were then at the lowest ebb of misery and
desperation. During this terrible retreat the rain had been
incessant, and poured pitilessly down on the wet, dripping sierras
and rough muddy mule roads traversed by our troops, whose sufferings
and privations were indescribable.
The baggage was generally far in the rear, and the troops were
without tents or other means of shelter from the inclemency of the
weather. The _vivas_ that greeted the British advance were no longer
heard--gloom, sombre desperation, and scowling famine were in every
eye. The arrears of pay were in many instances beyond parallel.
Many regiments had not received a penny for nine months--nine months
of constant fighting! (How many tradesmen in England would have
worked for that period without wages?)
The officers were reduced to about a shirt each; most of the men had
only the collars or wrists of their linen remaining--many had not a
vestige. "Their jackets were so patched," says an officer of the
Gordon Highlanders, in his narrative, "that I know nothing to which I
can so aptly compare them as parti-coloured bed-covers; for there
were not fifty in my own regiment but had been repaired with cloth of
every colour under the sun."
So admirably is the kilt adapted for marching and activity, that the
Highland corps were the only battalions _without stragglers_.
Hollow-eyed and gaunt, bearded and grisly, emaciated and miserable in
aspect, footsore and shoeless, their jackets turned to black and
purple, their feather bonnets reduced to quills, and all trace of
pipeclay long since washed out of their belts, yet heavily laden with
knapsacks, great-coat, blanket, havresack, wooden canteen,
camp-kettle, sixty rounds of ball-cartridge, their arms and
accoutrements covered with mud and mire--after many days' of
incessant alarm, halting and forming square to repel the enemy's
cavalry, who at times charged into the rivers up to their very
holsters--the Black Watch defiled along the quaint old streets of
Valladolid, with their pipes playing a fiery _spaidsearach
Gaelhealach_, or Highland march; but it failed to rouse either the
spirit or bearing of the men.
As our troops were retreating, their entrance excited no enthusiasm
in the sullen and ungrateful Spaniards. They gazed apathetically
from under their heavy eyebrows and broad sombreros, as battalion
after battalion defiled past, nor manifested the smallest interest
until some Highland regiment approached, when cries of--"Look at the
Scots," broke from every quarter.
"Mira los Escosses! Viva los voliantes! Viva los Escosses--los
hombres valerosos."
Others, who knew the number of the Black Watch, varied the cry with--
"Viva la Regimento Quarenta Dos!"
Through streets of old and decaying houses the regiment defiled to
the Plaza Mayor, while the bells of San Benito, St. Paul, and the
Scottish College were tolled mournfully. All the balconies there
were covered with tapestry; and amid a profusion of crimson velvet, a
portrait of Ferdinand VII. was hung in the great Plaza. There the
battalion dispersed in search of billets; the officers to inquire if
the baggage had come up; to sigh for camp-beds and portmanteaux, that
might be stuck in the mud twenty miles off; or to swear at stupid
servants or drunken bat-men, who had let them fall into the hands of
pillagers and paisanos.
Wellington and his aides-de-camp had taken up their quarters in the
Scottish College, the rector of which, an old Highlander, though sick
and dying, welcomed them warmly.
Dick Duff, Garriehorne, the captain of Grenadiers, and Colquhoun
Grant, the famous scouting officer, whose adventures are already, we
hope, familiar to the reader, made their way straight to a posada,
previous to entering which an "examination of ammunition" took place,
and among four purses two duros could only be mustered. At this
time, many officers actually sold their silver epaulettes to the Jews
of El Campo _for bread_.
"Ugh!" said Dick; "this comes of one's paymaster being nine months in
arrear! and yet, though we have scarcely a tester among us, we are
fighting for an island which, according to the learned Bochart, was
named by the Phoenicians emphatically--_the land of tin_!"