many detachments on the march; for I have been very impatient to be with
the old corps again. But this is sad news after my long absence. And
what of the rest of the regiment? Have there been many casualties?"
"We have suffered severely,--lost nearly as many as at Alba de Tormes;
but I know not the exact number. Return with me a few yards, and aid us
in procuring a comfortable place for the colonel, and I will tell you
all the regimental news in time. The corps is bivouacked in front of
Les Quatre Bras, over yonder, and they will not likely get under arms
for some hours yet. You can join, and report your arrival in the course
of the day."
The sound of their voices caused Cameron to open his heavy eyes, and on
beholding Ronald, a ray of their old fire sparkled in them. He
stretched out his hand, and Ronald grasped it gently, but
affectionately. Cameron attempted to speak, but his tongue failed in
its office, and on his lips the half-formed words died away in faint
mutterings.
As they entered the village of Waterloo, the surgeon related that, on
the preceding evening, a battalion of the enemy had taken possession of
a large two-storied house on the Charleroi road. From the windows and
garden walls of this place they kept up an incessant fire of musketry on
the British troops in its vicinity, until Lord Wellington ordered
Fassifern, with his Highlanders, to dislodge them with the bayonet.
After a sharp contest, the place was taken by storm; but Cameron, while
leading the assault, was shot through the body by a bullet from a
barricaded window in the upper story, fired by a chasseur, who, however,
ultimately gained nothing by the exploit. The eagle eye of Cameron's
revengeful follower, Dugald Mhor, had marked the slayer; and when the
house was entered, and the garrison were rushing from room to room and
from passage to stair, combating for death and life, he dragged him from
amid the bristling bayonets of his comrades, and twice plunged his long
dirk into his bosom, sending it home, till the double-edged blade
protruded through his goat-skin knapsack behind; and the Highlanders
were so infuriated by the loss of their leader, that butt and bayonet
were used freely, until scarcely a man was left alive in the place.
"Nae quarter! Remember the colonel! Death an' dule to every man o'
them!" were cries with which they encouraged each other during the
conflict.
The best house in Waterloo being selected, the colonel was borne into
it, and placed in an apartment, which seemed to be a sort of parlour,
facing the Brussels road. It was a snug little cottage, with walls of
bright red brick, a thatched roof, and yellow door and shutters, with
red panels. Numerous arbours and rails of trellis-work, painted green
and white, encircled it; and a forest of tall hollyhocks, peonies,
roses, and other large and glaring flowers were blooming about it, and
glistening gaily in the meridian sun; while gorgeous tulips and anenomes
were waving in thousands from plots and parterres, arrayed in all the
summer glory of a Dutch garden. But these were miserably trod down, as
the Highlanders bore the colonel up the narrow pebbled walk to the door,
which being locked, was opened by the rough application of a stone from
the highway. The inmates had fled, and the mansion was empty.
The colonel was laid upon the floor,--there was not a bed in the place,
all the furniture having been carried off. His sorrowing old follower
knelt down on his bare knees beside him, supporting his head, while he
poured forth interjections and prayers in Gaelic.
"I can do nothing more for his wound; it is already dressed," whispered
the surgeon to Ronald, who was eager to perform some office by which he
might serve the invalid, or assuage some of his torments; but nothing
could be done, and he was compelled to stand, by an idle spectator,
while the brave spirit of his friend hovered between life and eternity.
"He is sinking fast," continued the doctor in the same whispering voice.
"Alas! the regiment will never see his like again."
"Where is Angus Macvurich?" asked the colonel in a low voice, but a firm
one, and as if all his energies were returning.
The piper answered by a loud snifter, or half-stifled sob.
"Oich! he's speakin' like himsel again. Ye'll no dee just this
time,--will ye, no? O say ye'll no!" said old Dugald, bending over him
in an agony of sorrow, and gazing on his face as a father would have
done. "We'll baith gang hame,--ay, gang hame thegithir yet to
Fassifern, among the green hills of the bonnie north country. Ochone!
woe to the day we ever left it,--woe!"
"No, Dugald, my good, my dear old man; I shall never behold the fair
Highland-hills again. My hour is come, and death is creeping into my
heart, slowly but surely. Oh, that I might die among my kindred! It is
a sad and desolate feeling to know that one must be buried in a distant
land, and unheeding strangers will tread on the place of our repose.
'Tis sad to die here, and to find a grave so far away from home, from
the land of the long yellow broom and the purple heather. Tell me,
gentlemen, did my Highlanders storm the house on the Charleroi road?"
"Ay, please your honour," said the piper, "an' sticket every man they
fand below the riggin o't."
"Those excepted who laid down their arms," added the surgeon. "But the
house was gallantly stormed, colonel."
"Well done the Gael! Well done, my good and brave soldiers!" cried the
invalid.
There was a long pause, which nothing broke, save the loud breathing of
the wounded Highlander, until, in feeble accents, he said,
"Come near me, Macvurich; I would hear the blast of the pipe once more
ere I die. Play the ancient death-song of the Skye-men; my forefathers
have often heard it without shrinking."
"_Oran au Aiog?_" said the piper, raising his drones.
The colonel moved his hand, and Macvurich began to screw the pipes and
sound a prelude on the reeds, whose notes, even in this harsh and
discordant way, caused the eyes of the Highlander to flash and glare, as
it roused the fierce northern spirit in his bosom.
"He ordered that strange old tune to be played from the first moment I
declared his wound to be mortal," said the surgeon in a low voice. "It
is one of the saddest and wildest I ever heard."
"Hold me up, Dugald; I would say something," muttered Cameron. "Ah!
Stuart--I mean Ronald Stuart, I have much to say and to ask you; but my
voice fails me, and my tongue falters,--and--and--" utterance failed him
for a moment. "But tell me, gentlemen, what news from the front? Alas!
I should have asked that before. But tell me, while I can hear your
voices,--have the enemy been defeated?"
"They have been driven from the position at Les Quatre Bras," replied
Doctor Stuart; "our troops are every where victorious."
"Then Cameron can die in happiness," said he firmly, as he sunk back.
"Oh! I hope my dear country will think that I have served her
faithfully!"[*]
[*] These were his dying words. In recompense for his great services a
baronetcy was granted to his family. In 1815 his aged father received
the title of Sir Evan Cameron, Bart., of Fassifern.
His lips quivered as if twitched by a spasm, and he muttered some
imaginary order to keep shoulder to shoulder, to prepare to charge; and,
drooping his head upon the shoulder of Dugald Mhor, expired at about one
o'clock in the afternoon.
A cry of agony, sharp and shrill, like that of a girl rather than of an
old man of eighty, burst from the lips of Dugald, who bent his wrinkled
and sun-burnt visage over the face of the colonel until he touched it;
and he wept and sobbed bitterly, uttering uncouth ejaculations and
saying strange things, such as only an aged Highlander (whose mind was
filled with all the deep impressions of mountain manners and past ages)
would have said.
Anon he drew himself up erect, cast his disordered plaid about his
towering figure, and gazed around him with eyes, in which there gleamed
a strange light and unsettled expression. He seemed the very _beau
ideal_ of a Gaelic seer, and Macvurich, who imagined that he beheld some
dark vision of the second sight, drew back with respect and awe, not
unmingled with a slight degree of fear.
What wild vision crossed the disordered brain of the aged vassal I know
not, but he tossed his arms towards it, and a torrent of blood gushed
forth from his mouth and nostrils; he tottered towards the corse of
Cameron, and sunk on the floor beside it, a dying man. Ronald sprang
forward and lifted him up, but he never spoke again, and expired, making
several ineffectual signs to Macvurich to play; but the piper was
kneeling on the floor near the corse of his leader, and beheld them not.
Angus Macvurich was a stern old Highlander from Brae-Mar, browned with
the sun of Egypt and the Peninsula. He had gained scars in Denmark,
Holland, France, Spain, and Portugal. Since Cameron had joined the
regiment as a young ensign they had served together, and he had seen
blood enough shed to harden his heart; but now he was kneeling down near
the dead body, covering his brown face with his hands, to conceal tears,
of which, perhaps, he felt ashamed. The memory of days long passed
away--of some old acts of kindness, or of his colonel's worth, were
crowding thick and full upon his mind, and the veteran was weeping like
a girl.
Stuart was deeply moved with this scene of death and woe. Not having
been in the action, his heart had not been roused, or its fibres strung
to that pitch of callousness or excitement requisite to enable one to
look coolly on such scenes. He shrouded the remains of Cameron in the
ample plaid of his faithful and departed follower, and, after covering
them decently but hastily up, he prepared to retire. Yet, ere he went,
he returned again to lift the tartan screen, and
"To gaze once more on that commanding clay,
Which for the last, but not the first, time bled."
His breast became heated, and he felt strange vindictive longings for
battle and revenge, such as are seldom felt until one has been engaged
for at least half an hour. Desiring Macvurich to remain by the bodies
until they could be prepared for interment, he quitted the cottage, and,
accompanied by his namesake the surgeon, set out on the way to the
bivouacks of the army.
Each was occupied with his own sad reflections on the scene they had
just witnessed, and they walked forward for some time in silence. After
awhile, Stuart recapitulated his adventures and the story of his
disappearance, which afforded ample scope for conversation until they
drew near Quatre Bras, when the miserable objects they encountered at
every step rendered it impossible to converse longer with ease or
pleasure. The whole road was covered and blocked up with the
unfortunate wounded travelling towards Brussels, some in the waggons of
the Train, hundreds on foot, and hundreds crawling along the earth,
covered with dust and blood, dragging their miserable bodies past like
crushed worms; while their cries and ejaculations to God for mercy, and
to man for aid and for water, formed a horrible medley, surpassing the
power of description.
*CHAPTER XI.*
*THE 17TH JUNE, 1815.*
"Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drop as they pass,
Grieving--if aught inanimate e'er grieves--
Over the unreturning brave,--alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass."
_Byron._
"That is Quatre Bras," said the surgeon, pointing to a little village
close at hand. "The Highlanders are in bivouac behind it;" and, adding
that his services were now required in another direction, the military
Esculapius rode off, while Ronald walked hastily forward to the village.
On nearing the spot where the regiment was in position, a
strange-looking little hut, composed of turf and the boughs of trees,
apparently hastily reared up by the wayside, attracted his attention.
Curiosity prompted him to enter this wig-wam by pushing open the door,
which consisted of nothing more than a large oaken branch, torn from the
neighbouring forest. An officer clad in a blue surtout, white
pantaloons, Hessian boots tasselled and spurred, and wearing around his
neck a _white cravat_ or neckcloth, started up from the examination of a
large map of Flanders, over which he had been bending, and raising his
cocked hat, bent his keen bright eye on the intruder with a stern and
inquiring expression of anger and surprise. To use a Scotticism--Stuart
was _dumbfoundered_ to find that he had interrupted the cogitations and
anxious deliberations of Wellington.
He muttered something--he knew not what--by way of apology, and withdrew
as abruptly as he had entered, with the unpleasant consciousness that he
must have looked very foolish.
On gaining the rear of the village, and approaching the Highlanders, he
found them forming under arms, while the pipers, strutting to and fro on
the highway, made all Quatre Bras and the Bois de Bossu ring to the
'gathering of the Gordons.' The regiment was formed in line behind a
thick garden hedge, favoured by which he was enabled to advance close
upon them unseen; and the astonishment of the officers and soldiers may
be imagined, when, by leaping over the barrier, he appeared suddenly
among them. A half stifled exclamation ran along the line, and there
was a pause in the ceremonious formation of the parade.
The officers clustered round him, and many of the soldiers, pressing in
with a forwardness which was easily forgiven, greeted him in their
'hamely Scots tongue,' but with an affection, joy, and earnestness which
he never forgot. Campbell, who now commanded the regiment, leaped from
his horse, and with his ample hand grasped Stuart's so tightly as to
give him some pain. One seldom shakes the hand of such a Celtic giant.
"Well, Ronald, my lad! this is astonishing--almost beyond belief. Do we
look upon you, or your wraith?"
"Myself, major, myself I hope,--sound, wind and limb," answered Stuart
laughing.
"I thought wraiths were not in fashion, in this flat country at least.
Faith! this has quite the air of a romance, with the accompaniments of
astonishment, mystery, and all that sort of thing. Did you come down
from the clouds? or spring out of the earth like a Shetland dwarf?"
"Queer modes, both, of joining a regiment. No, major; I just leaped the
hedge,--unromantically enough. But, how d'ye do, Chisholm? How are
you, Macildhui? Ah! Douglas, my boy! and Lisle! Dear Louis, how much
I have to ask and to tell! Your hand."
And thus he greeted them all in succession, from the pot-bellied
field-officer to the slender ensign, raw from the college or nursery. A
truly national shaking of hands ensued, and such, I may safely assert,
as Quatre Bras had never witnessed before. Then came the light company,
with their humble but hearty wishes of joy; and the whole regiment,
giving martial discipline to the winds, cheered and waved their bonnets,
while the pipers blew as if their lives depended on it, until
Wellington, confounded by the uproar which had so suddenly broken forth
in his immediate vicinity, was seen looking from his wigwam in no
pleasant mood; but not even the appearance of that portentous white
cravat,--the glories of which are still sung by the Spanish muleteer,
the Flemish boatman, and the Portuguese gipsy,--could still the clamour.
Although Ronald's letters written from London had informed his military
friends of his existence and safe arrival in England, they were by no
means prepared for his sudden appearance among them in Flanders, and he
had to endure a thick cross-fire of questions and eager inquiries, which
at that moment there was not time to answer; but he promised the
rehearsal of his story at full length on the first opportunity, and for
the present considerably repressed their joy by announcing the death of
Cameron, and of his follower, poor old Dugald, who had been a man of no
small dignity and importance among those who filled the ranks of the
Gordon Highlanders.
The troops had been ordered to fall back upon the position of Waterloo,
which was next day to be the scene of that "king-making victory,"--the
most important ever fought and won in Europe, and one which has fixed
for ever the fame of the great duke and the British army.
When the bustle created by his arrival had a little subsided, Ronald
requested a few words apart with Louis; but before he could speak, the
voice of Campbell was heard in command.
"Fall in, gentlemen; fall in!"
"Alice?" whispered Stuart.
"She is well and happy, Ronald; and never once has her love wandered
from _you_," said Louis, pressing his hand.
The bugle sounded, and they separated to join their respective
companies; and next moment the adjutant was flying along the line at
full gallop, to collect the reports. Then riding up to Campbell, he
lowered the point of his sword, and, acquainting him with the
casualties, returned to his post in the line, while the regiment broke
into open column of sections, with the right in front; and the pioneers,
with their saws, axes, &c., and their leather aprons strapped to their
bare knees, went off double-quick in advance. "Quick march!" was now
the order repeated by a hundred commanding officers, varying in cadence
and distance. The trumpet brayed, the cymbal clashed, the drum
rebounded, the war-pipe yelled forth its notes of defiance and pride,
and the whole army was in motion _en route_ for Waterloo.
By the suddenness of the order to "fall in," Stuart lost an opportunity
(which never again occurred) of learning from Louis,--that of which he
was still ignorant,--the wreck of his father's affairs, and his
emigration to a strange country.
Gloom and doubt were apparent in the faces of both officers and
privates, as the army began its march to the rear, upon Waterloo. Any
thing like retreating is so unusual to British troops, that a chill
seemed to have fallen on every heart as they moved from Quatre Bras,
before which the third and fifth divisions were left to cover the
rear,--or at least to deceive Napoleon by remaining in sight till the
artillery and the main body of the army were far on the Waterloo road.
As Lord Wellington had foreseen, Napoleon was long kept in ignorance of
our retreat by this measure; but as soon as he perceived it, he
despatched immense bodies of cavalry to press and harass the rear-guard.
On looking back, just before the _Bois de Soignies_ began to throw its
foliage over the line of march, Stuart saw several dashing charges made
by the British heavy dragoons, who rode right through and through the
massive columns of the enemy, breaking their order, sabring them in
hundreds, and compelling the rest to recoil, and repress the fierce
feeling of triumph with which they beheld the British army retreating
before them. Scarcely a shot was fired, as the carbines and pistols
were rarely resorted to. Their conflicts were all maintained with the
sword, and some thousand blades were seen flashing at once in the light
of the sun, as they were whirled aloft like gleams of lightning, and
descended like flashes of fire on the polished helmets of the French,
and on the tall and varied caps of the British cavalry.
During the greater part of this march, Ronald moved with a group of the
officers about him, listening to that which he was heartily tired of
relating,--"a full, true and particular history" of his detention among
the Spaniards, his release and his restoration to the regiment. The men
of the neighbouring sections, who were all listening attentively with
eager ears, circulated the story through the ranks with various
additions and alterations, to suit that taste for the marvellous and
wonderful which exists so much among soldiers--Highlanders especially;
so that by the time it had travelled along the line of march, from the
mouths of the light company to the grenadiers at the head of the column,
Ronald's narrative might have vied with that true history, the 'Life of
Prince Arthur,' 'Jack the Giant Queller,' or any other hero of ancient
times.
"Well, Stuart, my man!" said Campbell, riding up to Ronald; "I am happy
to see you again at the head of the light bobs."
"I thank you, major; but truly none can rejoice more than myself,"
answered Ronald. "Faith! a century seems to have elapsed since I saw
the old colours with the silver thistles and the sphinxes,--your
favourite badge, major, waving above the blue bonnets. There was a
time, when I thought never to have beheld them again."
"When you so narrowly escaped hanging by those rascally thieves, I
suppose? Don Alvaro gave you ample reparation, so far as he could do,
by drawing fifty human necks, like the thraws of so many muir-hens. A
fine fellow, that Alvaro! only rather lank and sombre in visage. Faith!
I shall never forget the supper his pretty sister gave us the first
night we halted at Merida. Every dish had garlic, olive oil, and onions
in it!"
"Hooch, deevils and warlocks!" said Sergeant Macrone, grasping the
truncheon of his pike. "Oh! had I peen there peside you, sir, whan thae
reiver loons spake o' a tow to you, many a sair croon wad hae peen among
them!"
"I'm much obliged to you, Macrone; but, with a dozen of our blue
bonnets, I would soon have made a clear house of them."
"Oich!" continued the sergeant, growing eloquent in his indignation, "it
wad hae peen a fera tammed unpleasant thing to pe hanget, especially an
officer and shentleman. But wad the reivers no hae shot yer honour,
kindly and discreetly, just if ye had asked them as a favour, ye ken?"
"I never thought of that, Macrone," replied Ronald, laughing heartily;
"both modes were equally unpleasant, though not equally honourable."
"Poor Cameron! and so we have lost him at last," observed Campbell, in a
half-musing tone, while his eyes glistened. "I often look at the head
of the column, and half imagine I see him riding along there, on his
tall black horse, as of old; his figure erect and stately, and his long
feathers drooping down on his right shoulder. Many a day I have watched
him with pleasure, as he led the line of march over the long plains of
Spain, when we have been moving from sunrise to sunset, on the tall
spire of some distant city. I shall obtain the command, but He who
reads the human heart knows that I would rather have remained always
major, that Cameron might have lived."
"Brave Fassifern! we were always proud of him, but more so now than
ever," said Stuart, and his eyes glittered with enthusiasm while he
spoke. "'Tis but two hours since I beheld him expire in Waterloo
yonder."
"That d--ned old house near Quatre Bras!" exclaimed Campbell; "I am
sorry we left one stone of it standing on another. Poor Fassifern fell
at the head of the grenadiers, while assaulting it in front. I carried
it in rear, beating down the back door with my own hand, and scarcely a
man was left alive in it. Our men fought like furies after the colonel
fell. Ay," he continued, emphatically, "John Cameron was a true Highland
gentleman, and possessed the heart of a hero."
"Och!" muttered Macrone, "he was a pretty man, and a prave man, and
nefer flinched in ta front o' the enemy."
"And never did one of his name, Duncan," whispered a comrade, in Gaelic.
"I myself am a Cameron--"
"Ha, major! what is that?" asked Ronald, as something like a distant
discharge of artillery sounded through the hot and still atmosphere.
"Can the Prussians be at it again?"
"We shall hear no more of the Prussians, after what befell them at Ligny
yesterday. 'Tis said that they have lost twenty thousand men; and old
Blucher himself narrowly escaped being trodden to death by the French
cavalry charging over him, as he lay unhorsed and wounded on the ground.
They repassed him in retreat, but the old fox lay close. There is the
sound again!"
"What the devil can it be?" said an officer.
"The French flying artillery must have come up with our rear guard."
"No, no, Ronald; look at the sky, man! We shall have a tremendous storm
in five minutes."