As soon as I judged it safe, and that was not before Burchell Fenn had
talked himself back into his breath and a complete good humour, I
proposed he should introduce me to the French officers, henceforth to
become my fellow-passengers. There were two of them, it appeared, and my
heart beat as I approached the door. The specimen of Perfidious Albion
whom I had just been studying gave me the stronger zest for my
fellow-countrymen. I could have embraced them; I could have wept on
their necks. And all the time I was going to a disappointment.
It was in a spacious and low room, with an outlook on the court, that I
found them bestowed. In the good days of that house the apartment had
probably served as a library, for there were traces of shelves along the
wainscot. Four or five mattresses lay on the floor in a corner, with a
frowsy heap of bedding; near by was a basin and a cube of soap; a rude
kitchen-table and some deal chairs stood together at the far end; and the
room was illuminated by no less than four windows, and warmed by a
little, crazy, sidelong grate, propped up with bricks in the vent of a
hospitable chimney, in which a pile of coals smoked prodigiously and gave
out a few starveling flames. An old, frail, white-haired officer sat in
one of the chairs, which he had drawn close to this apology for a fire.
He was wrapped in a camlet cloak, of which the collar was turned up, his
knees touched the bars, his hands were spread in the very smoke, and yet
he shivered for cold. The second—a big, florid, fine animal of a man,
whose every gesture labelled him the cock of the walk and the admiration
of the ladies—had apparently despaired of the fire, and now strode up and
down, sneezing hard, bitterly blowing his nose, and proffering a
continual stream of bluster, complaint, and barrack-room oaths.
Fenn showed me in with the brief form of introduction: ‘Gentlemen all,
this here’s another fare!’ and was gone again at once. The old man gave
me but the one glance out of lack-lustre eyes; and even as he looked a
shiver took him as sharp as a hiccough. But the other, who represented
to admiration the picture of a Beau in a Catarrh, stared at me
arrogantly.
‘And who are you, sir?’ he asked.
I made the military salute to my superiors.
‘Champdivers, private, Eighth of the Line,’ said I.
‘Pretty business!’ said he. ‘And you are going on with us? Three in a
cart, and a great trolloping private at that! And who is to pay for you,
my fine fellow?’ he inquired.
‘If monsieur comes to that,’ I answered civilly, ‘who paid for him?’
‘Oh, if you choose to play the wit!’ said he,—and began to rail at large
upon his destiny, the weather, the cold, the danger and the expense of
the escape, and, above all, the cooking of the accursed English. It
seemed to annoy him particularly that I should have joined their party.
‘If you knew what you were doing, thirty thousand millions of pigs! you
would keep yourself to yourself! The horses can’t drag the cart; the
roads are all ruts and swamps. No longer ago than last night the Colonel
and I had to march half the way—thunder of God!—half the way to the knees
in mud—and I with this infernal cold—and the danger of detection!
Happily we met no one: a desert—a real desert—like the whole abominable
country! Nothing to eat—no, sir, there is nothing to eat but raw cow and
greens boiled in water—nor to drink but Worcestershire sauce! Now I,
with my catarrh, I have no appetite; is it not so? Well, if I were in
France, I should have a good soup with a crust in it, an omelette, a fowl
in rice, a partridge in cabbages—things to tempt me, thunder of God! But
here—day of God!—what a country! And cold, too! They talk about
Russia—this is all the cold I want! And the people—look at them! What a
race! Never any handsome men; never any fine officers!’—and he looked
down complacently for a moment at his waist—‘And the women—what faggots!
No, that is one point clear, I cannot stomach the English!’
There was something in this man so antipathetic to me, as sent the
mustard into my nose. I can never bear your bucks and dandies, even when
they are decent-looking and well dressed; and the Major—for that was his
rank—was the image of a flunkey in good luck. Even to be in agreement
with him, or to seem to be so, was more than I could make out to endure.
‘You could scarce be expected to stomach them,’ said I civilly, ‘after
having just digested your parole.’
He whipped round on his heel and turned on me a countenance which I dare
say he imagined to be awful; but another fit of sneezing cut him off ere
he could come the length of speech.
‘I have not tried the dish myself,’ I took the opportunity to add. ‘It
is said to be unpalatable. Did monsieur find it so?’
With surprising vivacity the Colonel woke from his lethargy. He was
between us ere another word could pass.
‘Shame, gentlemen!’ he said. ‘Is this a time for Frenchmen and
fellow-soldiers to fall out? We are in the midst of our enemies; a
quarrel, a loud word, may suffice to plunge us back into irretrievable
distress. _Monsieur le Commandant_, you have been gravely offended. I
make it my request, I make it my prayer—if need be, I give you my
orders—that the matter shall stand by until we come safe to France.
Then, if you please, I will serve you in any capacity. And for you,
young man, you have shown all the cruelty and carelessness of youth.
This gentleman is your superior; he is no longer young’—at which word you
are to conceive the Major’s face. ‘It is admitted he has broken his
parole. I know not his reason, and no more do you. It might be
patriotism in this hour of our country’s adversity, it might be humanity,
necessity; you know not what in the least, and you permit yourself to
reflect on his honour. To break parole may be a subject for pity and not
derision. I have broken mine—I, a colonel of the Empire. And why? I
have been years negotiating my exchange, and it cannot be managed; those
who have influence at the Ministry of War continually rush in before me,
and I have to wait, and my daughter at home is in a decline. I am going
to see my daughter at last, and it is my only concern lest I should have
delayed too long. She is ill, and very ill,—at death’s door. Nothing is
left me but my daughter, my Emperor, and my honour; and I give my honour,
blame me for it who dare!’
At this my heart smote me.
‘For God’s sake,’ I cried, ‘think no more of what I have said! A parole?
what is a parole against life and death and love? I ask your pardon;
this gentleman’s also. As long as I shall be with you, you shall not
have cause to complain of me again. I pray God you will find your
daughter alive and restored.’
‘That is past praying for,’ said the Colonel; and immediately the brief
fire died out of him, and, returning to the hearth, he relapsed into his
former abstraction.
But I was not so easy to compose. The knowledge of the poor gentleman’s
trouble, and the sight of his face, had filled me with the bitterness of
remorse; and I insisted upon shaking hands with the Major (which he did
with a very ill grace), and abounded in palinodes and apologies.
‘After all,’ said I, ‘who am I to talk? I am in the luck to be a private
soldier; I have no parole to give or to keep; once I am over the rampart,
I am as free as air. I beg you to believe that I regret from my soul the
use of these ungenerous expressions. Allow me . . . Is there no way in
this damned house to attract attention? Where is this fellow, Fenn?’
I ran to one of the windows and threw it open. Fenn, who was at the
moment passing below in the court, cast up his arms like one in despair,
called to me to keep back, plunged into the house, and appeared next
moment in the doorway of the chamber.
‘Oh, sir!’ says he, ‘keep away from those there windows. A body might
see you from the back lane.’
‘It is registered,’ said I. ‘Henceforward I will be a mouse for
precaution and a ghost for invisibility. But in the meantime, for God’s
sake, fetch us a bottle of brandy! Your room is as damp as the bottom of
a well, and these gentlemen are perishing of cold.’
So soon as I had paid him (for everything, I found, must be paid in
advance), I turned my attention to the fire, and whether because I threw
greater energy into the business, or because the coals were now warmed
and the time ripe, I soon started a blaze that made the chimney roar
again. The shine of it, in that dark, rainy day, seemed to reanimate the
Colonel like a blink of sun. With the outburst of the flames, besides, a
draught was established, which immediately delivered us from the plague
of smoke; and by the time Fenn returned, carrying a bottle under his arm
and a single tumbler in his hand, there was already an air of gaiety in
the room that did the heart good.
I poured out some of the brandy.
‘Colonel,’ said I, ‘I am a young man and a private soldier. I have not
been long in this room, and already I have shown the petulance that
belongs to the one character and the ill manners that you may look for in
the other. Have the humanity to pass these slips over, and honour me so
far as to accept this glass.’
‘My lad,’ says he, waking up and blinking at me with an air of suspicion,
‘are you sure you can afford it?’
I assured him I could.
‘I thank you, then: I am very cold.’ He took the glass out, and a little
colour came in his face. ‘I thank you again,’ said he. ‘It goes to the
heart.’
The Major, when I motioned him to help himself, did so with a good deal
of liberality; continued to do so for the rest of the morning, now with
some sort of apology, now with none at all; and the bottle began to look
foolish before dinner was served. It was such a meal as he had himself
predicted: beef, greens, potatoes, mustard in a teacup, and beer in a
brown jug that was all over hounds, horses, and hunters, with a fox at
the fat end and a gigantic John Bull—for all the world like Fenn—sitting
in the midst in a bob-wig and smoking tobacco. The beer was a good brew,
but not good enough for the Major; he laced it with brandy—for his cold,
he said; and in this curative design the remainder of the bottle ebbed
away. He called my attention repeatedly to the circumstance; helped me
pointedly to the dregs, threw the bottle in the air and played tricks
with it; and at last, having exhausted his ingenuity, and seeing me
remain quite blind to every hint, he ordered and paid for another
himself.
As for the Colonel, he ate nothing, sat sunk in a muse, and only awoke
occasionally to a sense of where he was, and what he was supposed to be
doing. On each of these occasions he showed a gratitude and kind
courtesy that endeared him to me beyond expression. ‘Champdivers, my
lad, your health!’ he would say. ‘The Major and I had a very arduous
march last night, and I positively thought I should have eaten nothing,
but your fortunate idea of the brandy has made quite a new man of
me—quite a new man.’ And he would fall to with a great air of
heartiness, cut himself a mouthful, and, before he had swallowed it,
would have forgotten his dinner, his company, the place where he then
was, and the escape he was engaged on, and become absorbed in the vision
of a sick-room and a dying girl in France. The pathos of this continual
preoccupation, in a man so old, sick, and over-weary, and whom I looked
upon as a mere bundle of dying bones and death-pains, put me wholly from
my victuals: it seemed there was an element of sin, a kind of rude
bravado of youth, in the mere relishing of food at the same table with
this tragic father; and though I was well enough used to the coarse,
plain diet of the English, I ate scarce more than himself. Dinner was
hardly over before he succumbed to a lethargic sleep; lying on one of the
mattresses with his limbs relaxed, and his breath seemingly suspended—the
very image of dissolution.
This left the Major and myself alone at the table. You must not suppose
our _tête-à-tête_ was long, but it was a lively period while it lasted.
He drank like a fish or an Englishman; shouted, beat the table, roared
out songs, quarrelled, made it up again, and at last tried to throw the
dinner-plates through the window, a feat of which he was at that time
quite incapable. For a party of fugitives, condemned to the most
rigorous discretion, there was never seen so noisy a carnival; and
through it all the Colonel continued to sleep like a child. Seeing the
Major so well advanced, and no retreat possible, I made a fair wind of a
foul one, keeping his glass full, pushing him with toasts; and sooner
than I could have dared to hope, he became drowsy and incoherent. With
the wrong-headedness of all such sots, he would not be persuaded to lie
down upon one of the mattresses until I had stretched myself upon
another. But the comedy was soon over; soon he slept the sleep of the
just, and snored like a military music; and I might get up again and face
(as best I could) the excessive tedium of the afternoon.
I had passed the night before in a good bed; I was denied the resource of
slumber; and there was nothing open for me but to pace the apartment,
maintain the fire, and brood on my position. I compared yesterday and
to-day—the safety, comfort, jollity, open-air exercise and pleasant
roadside inns of the one, with the tedium, anxiety, and discomfort of the
other. I remembered that I was in the hands of Fenn, who could not be
more false—though he might be more vindictive—than I fancied him. I
looked forward to nights of pitching in the covered cart, and days of
monotony in I knew not what hiding-places; and my heart failed me, and I
was in two minds whether to slink off ere it was too late, and return to
my former solitary way of travel. But the Colonel stood in the path. I
had not seen much of him; but already I judged him a man of a childlike
nature—with that sort of innocence and courtesy that, I think, is only to
be found in old soldiers or old priests—and broken with years and sorrow.
I could not turn my back on his distress; could not leave him alone with
the selfish trooper who snored on the next mattress. ‘Champdivers, my
lad, your health!’ said a voice in my ear, and stopped me—and there are
few things I am more glad of in the retrospect than that it did.
It must have been about four in the afternoon—at least the rain had taken
off, and the sun was setting with some wintry pomp—when the current of my
reflections was effectually changed by the arrival of two visitors in a
gig. They were farmers of the neighbourhood, I suppose—big, burly
fellows in great-coats and top-boots, mightily flushed with liquor when
they arrived, and, before they left, inimitably drunk. They stayed long
in the kitchen with Burchell, drinking, shouting, singing, and keeping it
up; and the sound of their merry minstrelsy kept me a kind of company.
The night fell, and the shine of the fire brightened and blinked on the
panelled wall. Our illuminated windows must have been visible not only
from the back lane of which Fenn had spoken, but from the court where the
farmers’ gig awaited them. In the far end of the firelit room lay my
companions, the one silent, the other clamorously noisy, the images of
death and drunkenness. Little wonder if I were tempted to join in the
choruses below, and sometimes could hardly refrain from laughter, and
sometimes, I believe, from tears—so unmitigated was the tedium, so cruel
the suspense, of this period.
At last, about six at night, I should fancy, the noisy minstrels appeared
in the court, headed by Fenn with a lantern, and knocking together as
they came. The visitors clambered noisily into the gig, one of them
shook the reins, and they were snatched out of sight and hearing with a
suddenness that partook of the nature of prodigy. I am well aware there
is a Providence for drunken men, that holds the reins for them and
presides over their troubles; doubtless he had his work cut out for him
with this particular gigful! Fenn rescued his toes with an ejaculation
from under the departing wheels, and turned at once with uncertain steps
and devious lantern to the far end of the court. There, through the open
doors of a coach-house, the shock-headed lad was already to be seen
drawing forth the covered cart. If I wished any private talk with our
host, it must be now or never.
Accordingly I groped my way downstairs, and came to him as he looked on
at and lighted the harnessing of the horses.
‘The hour approaches when we have to part,’ said I; ‘and I shall be
obliged if you will tell your servant to drop me at the nearest point for
Dunstable. I am determined to go so far with our friends, Colonel X and
Major Y, but my business is peremptory, and it takes me to the
neighbourhood of Dunstable.’
Orders were given to my satisfaction, with an obsequiousness that seemed
only inflamed by his potations.