_Don Pedro_.--By this light he changes more and more. I think he
be angry, indeed.
_Claudio_.--If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.
_Benedict_.--Shall I speak a word in your ear?
_Claudio_.--God bless me from a challenge.
Much ado about Nothing.
Sir Rowland Hill, with a stout division, had been posted during the
winter at Coria, facing Marshal Soult in the valley of the
Tagus--holding him to bail not to disturb the peace and quiet of the
British army cantoned along the frontier. The Marshal had now
swallowed or pocketed all that he could find in the rich, but hapless
vale of Plasencia, and of late had been casting hungry glances on the
country south of the river. This had induced Sir Rowland to ride over
from Coria to Alcantara, to look to his line of communication with the
southern provinces. This old city had been long sinking into decay;
the French General, Lapisse, spent one night in it four years ago; and
well nigh completed the work which time had begun. Still its position
and its famous bridge, one arch of which had been blown up, and had
now been hastily repaired, made it an important point at this time.
In a Gothic hall, which looked as if it had not long since been
visited by the Vandals, but which had of old been often thronged with
members of the once chivalrous order of Alcantara, now as effete in
knighthood as that of Malta; a military secretary was writing at a
small table, at the dictation of Sir Rowland Hill, who stood near,
perchance, as good a knight as ever trod that floor. Officers came in
to him, and were sent out again on various missions. Lord Strathern
was seated by a larger table at the other end of the room, conversing
gaily with his fellow-travelers from Elvas, and waiting Sir Rowland's
leisure.
Sir Rowland presently looked at his watch, and raising his voice,
inquired--"My Lord, has L'Isle come yet?"
"Not yet," Lord Strathern answered with a smiling countenance, while
Sir Rowland's expressed disappointment. He knew that the
commander-in-chief was about to order a combination of simultaneous
movements. Every part of the allied force from Gallicia to Andalusia
had its task allotted, and he was anxious to know how far the _Conde
di Abispal's_ could be relied on.
"L'Isle is usually before his time," said Sir Rowland. "Do you think
he got my order yesterday?"
"I have little doubt of it," said my lord.
"But I doubt his being here soon," said Bradshawe, dipping in his oar
to trouble the waters. "He had to go last night to a concert in
Elvas."
"A concert detain him! I do not understand that."
"Nor I, Sir Rowland," said Bradshawe coolly. "I only heard it without
pretending to understand it."
Sir Rowland looked puzzled, but his unfinished dispatch claimed his
attention, and he turned again to his secretary.
Meanwhile Lord Strathern was in high spirits. "The hour has come, but
not the man!" he said, and began to triumph over Conway, and laugh at
L'Isle so merrily, that he would have soon found it in his heart to
forgive the latter all his offensive strictures on him. But, suddenly,
his merriment gave place to a look of surprise and disappointment.
Conway, turning to ascertain the cause, saw L'Isle walk into the room
as if he had come hither at his leisure; yet, something in his
bearing, betrayed that his pride was in arms.
"I am glad to see you, L'Isle," said Sir Rowland. "I were loath to
close my dispatch without adding the intelligence you might bring
me. By the bye, some of these gentlemen thought that you would not be
here so soon."
"They must have supposed that I had not received your order, sir,"
said L'Isle, glancing haughtily round on Lord Strathern; "but, having
got it, I am here."
"It seems to have cost you hard riding though, and more fatigue than
you are yet equal to," said Sir Rowland, remembering his late
wounds. "And you have had a fall," he added, observing some marks on
his clothes.
"Not from my horse," said L'Isle, shortly and somewhat bitterly. "But
it is of no consequence," and he hastened to produce his notes and
furnish Sir Rowland with the information expected from him.
Besides the unerased marks of a fall, L'Isle's clothes were
travel-stained, and his face was pale, less, perhaps, from fatigue and
loss of sleep, than from the violent excitement and revulsion of
feelings he had lately undergone. But he soon withdrew Sir Rowland's
attention from himself to his full and precise account of the state of
the Andalusian reserve, and the garrison of Badajoz.
"I am glad to find that this body of Spanish troops are not, like too
many Spanish armies, men of straw, an army on paper," said Sir
Rowland. "The French are trying to occupy so extended a position here
in Estremadura, that our Andalusian friends may do capital service in
harassing their out-posts, and cutting off their convoys."
"If they can be kept out of the plains, and induced not to fight,"
said L'Isle, smiling. "But the Spaniard is always seeking to surround
the enemy, and force him to battle."
"At all events," said Sir Rowland, "I can now give Lord Wellington a
definite and reliable account of their condition;" and, making a sign
to L'Isle to accompany him, he walked across the room and seated
himself at the larger table. Here he held a somewhat prolonged
conference with Lord Strathern, in which the other gentlemen were, at
times, called upon to take part. When compelled to speak, L'Isle
distinguished himself by giving admirable specimens of the lapidary
style, not one spare word. Sir Rowland had many questions to ask and
instructions to give; but, these over, he gave a less professional
turn to the conversation, and then said: "I hope, my lord, you and
these gentlemen will share my poor dinner to-day; but remember, I am
not at home in Alcantara, and cannot feast you, as you do your friends
at Elvas; neither can we sit long and drink deep, as I must return
to-night to Coria."
"We will dine with you with pleasure," said Lord Strathern. "Pray,
Bradshawe, who could have told Sir Rowland that we sit long and drink
deep at Elvas?"
"Some thirsty fellow," said Bradshawe, "who had drained the last drop
from his last bottle."
"Oh, my lord," said Sir Rowland, laughing, "I meant no
insinuation. But I must finish my despatch," and he returned to his
secretary.
While Lord Strathern and his companions awaited Sir Rowland's leisure,
L'Isle sat moodily apart, turning an unsocial shoulder toward his
lordship, giving him a glimpse of his back.
Lord Strathern smiled; he saw the earth stains, and saw, moreover,
evident marks of anger and chagrin in L'Isle's demeanor. His curiosity
was strongly excited, and he resolved to make the silent man find his
tongue.
"Pray, L'Isle how came you to let your horse slip from under you, and
measure your length in the road?"
"You are mistaken, my lord," said L'Isle, formally; "my horse did not
throw me."
"You are so used to success that you will acknowledge no failure, not
even a fall from your horse, or your hobby-horse. Perhaps you got
tired, and took a nap by the roadside, which accounts for your getting
here no sooner."
L'Isle was too angry to trust himself with an answer, but Major
Conway, turning to Bradshawe, said gaily: "Colonel L'Isle is here soon
enough for me; he is within the time, and I have won the fifty
guineas."
L'Isle started. Here was a revelation! His last night's adventure was
no secret. There were more parties to the plot than he had imagined.
"Sir!" said he, turning upon Conway, with a cold, hard manner. "Am I
to understand that you have done me the honor to bet on my movements?"
"Here is gratitude for you," exclaimed Conway, pacifically appealing
to his companions, and his voice attracted Sir Rowland's attention.
"Here have I been showing for him the height of friendship, hazarding
my best friends, my guineas, on his infallible fulfillment of duty;
and my full faith in him is received as an outrage."
"I suppose, sir," said L'Isle, turning on Bradshawe, with freezing
politeness, "it is you who have so obligingly afforded my volunteer
backer so singular an opportunity of proving his friendship?"
"I cannot claim the credit of it," answered Bradshawe, with easy
urbanity. "I am not even a stakeholder in the game; though, as a mere
looker-on, I confess having watched it with keen and growing
interest." And with a little wave of the hand he passed L'Isle gently
over to Lord Strathern.
L'Isle looked from the imperturbable colonel to the pacific major, who
professed to be so zealously his partisan, and back again to the
former. Not seeing how he could fasten a quarrel on either, he turned
somewhat reluctantly on Lord Strathern, who complacently awaited him.
"As for you, my lord, I might have felt surprise at your making me the
subject of such a bet, but it is lost in astonishment at the means you
took to win it!"
"And, after all to lose it," said Lord Strathern, in a mocking,
dolorous tone. "Is it not provoking?"
"No scruple," continued L'Isle, "seems to have stood in your way, my
lord, in the choice of either means or agent."
"On the contrary," said Lord Strathern, blandly, "I always
scrupulously choose the best of both."
"You must have contrived this plot," L'Isle persisted, "though the
chief actor be in Elvas. But I will say no more here."
"A few words more, I pray," said Lord Strathern, smiling. "I
understood that you were to have been detained in Elvas. How the devil
did you get away?"
L'Isle turned abruptly away, seeing that the more anger and
mortification he showed, the more gratified Lord Strathern seemed to
be. Rising from his seat, he walked up to Sir Rowland, who had been
watching him with much curiosity, and said: "I suppose, sir, you have
no further use for me here. If so, pray excuse my absence from your
table to-day, as I have occasion to return at once to Elvas."
Sir Rowland bid his secretary go and send off the despatch at once;
then looking fixedly at L'Isle, said: "I may need you here for a day
or two."
L'Isle bit his lip till the blood came, while Sir Rowland, stepping
over to Lord Strathern, asked in an undertone: "What is the matter
with L'Isle, my lord? he seems strangely out of humor."
"The truth is, Sir Rowland," said his lordship, in a confidential
tone, "somebody in Elvas has been quizzing L'Isle, and a man of his
vanity cannot stand being quizzed."
"Quizzed!" said Sir Rowland. "Does quizzing make a man mad?"
L'Isle dared not trust himself longer in Lord Strathern's company; he
wanted time to recover his self-command; so he again addressed Sir
Rowland: "That I left Elvas so suddenly, and unprepared for a
prolonged absence, matters little, Sir Rowland; but I have been so
little with my regiment of late, that--"
"Let your major take care of it a few days longer," Sir Rowland
answered, in a positive tone.
"You had better let L'Isle go, Sir Rowland," said Lord Strathern. "He
is afraid to lose sight of his regiment, lest they become banditti."
L'Isle's flushed cheek and compressed lips, showed that he felt the
taunt, while Sir Rowland exclaimed, in surprise: "Are they so unruly?
Then you must look to them yourself, my lord, for I shall keep Colonel
L'Isle a while with me. The truth is, L'Isle, I divine your urgent
business at Elvas. Some one there has given you gross offence, and you
seek revenge under the name of satisfaction. There is always sin and
folly enough in these affairs; but here, within sight of the smoke of
the enemy's camp, and now, when we are about to fall upon them, these
personal feuds are criminal madness. I would put you under arrest,
sooner than let you post off to Elvas on so bloodthirsty an errand."
Sir Rowland uttered this speech with an air worthy of his Puritan
uncle, of Calvinistic memory; but, in spite of the respect due to the
speaker, it was too much for the gravity of his hearers. Lord
Strathern and his companions burst into a roar of laughter, and even
L'Isle, amidst all his anger, felt tempted to join them.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Rowland, in grave astonishment, "I like a joke
as well as any of you. Pray explain this, that I may share your
enjoyment."
Bradshawe, with an effort, cut short his laughter, to say: "As a
neutral party, Sir Rowland, I will be Colonel L'Isle's surety, that in
whatever mood he may set out for Elvas, as soon as he finds himself in
the presence of his enemy there, he will be gentle as a lamb."
"You deal in mysteries; who in Elvas is so safe from L'Isle's
resentment?"
"Nobody but Lady Mabel Stewart."
"Lady Mabel Stewart!" exclaimed Sir Rowland, looking at Lord
Strathern. "If a lady contrived this plot, I shall never unravel it;
so you must do it for me."
"Perhaps the explanation," said Bradshawe, "would come more gracefully
from my lord."
"If I knew the details of it," said Lord Strathern, interrupting his
hearty laughter, for he seemed resolved, at all hazard, to recover his
fifty guineas, in sport, out of L'Isle. "I can tell but the beginning;
and then, Sir Rowland, you can squeeze the rest out of L'Isle
himself."
"By all means," said Sir Rowland. "L'Isle, take a seat, and learn to
stand fire. You must not dodge from a volley of laughter, that happens
to be aimed at yourself."
L'Isle reluctantly sat down, while Lord Strathern said: "Have you ever
discovered, Sir Rowland, that L'Isle is a monomaniac?"
"No! On what point?"
"Discipline! He is a little touched here," said my lord, laying his
finger on his temple, "on the subject of discipline. He never eats
heartily, nor sleeps quietly, but after detecting the breach of a
dozen of the rules and regulations made for the government of his
Majesty's troops. He fancies that they were made expressly to afford
him the pleasure of detecting the breach of them."
"Is this disease prevalent in your brigade, my lord?" Sir Rowland
inquired in a sarcastic tone.
"By no means; I have kept it down; for my method, looking to the
spirit, not the letter of the law, discourages it greatly."
"I have seen something of your method, my lord," said Sir Rowland,
smiling; "but cannot say that I have mastered its peculiar merits."
"That is very likely," said Lord Strathern, complacently. "As every
art has its mysteries--so each man may have some peculiar gift in the
application of his art; even though taught by the same master, no two
men's handwriting are exactly alike; so each of us may have some
inimitable peculiarity in his soldiership. It is certain that L'Isle,
not understanding my more enlarged and liberal system, wished to force
me into his own narrow notions, and when I would not yield to him, he
intimated to me that I was training up banditti. I had to recommend to
him the study of one of the articles of war, which he had
overlooked. It treats of subordination, and of each man's minding his
own business. Neither of us was very successful in keeping his temper;
and, indeed, being a good deal ruffled, I afterward spoke pretty
freely of L'Isle's conduct to these gentlemen, who dined with me.
Mabel shared my feelings, and, with my consent, set a trap for him,
hoping to teach him that he himself might be caught tripping. How he
escaped in time to get here you must learn from himself."
"Come, L'Isle, we have heard the prologue," said Sir Rowland; "be not
bashful, but give us the comedy."
What was L'Isle to do? It was evidently something more than curiosity
that made Sir Rowland so earnest to sift this matter. He could hardly
refuse all explanation to him--and he felt that it would never do to
give an account of Lady Mabel's behavior, to himself, as he had
construed it. Lord Strathern, too, did not exactly know what he was
urging him to do. Suddenly recollecting Lady Mabel's note, L'Isle drew
it from his pocket, and handed it to her father, for his private
reading. To L'Isle's astonishment, Lord Strathern read it out with
great _gusto_, and commented on it.
This was capital bait for the trap. "And pray, Mr. Interpreter, how
did you and your principal get through the evening?"
"You see the dilemma, Sir Rowland," exclaimed Bradshawe, with
glee. "Here was a conflict of duties. Colonel L'Isle had to obey two
commanders at one time, which Scripture tells us is difficult, if not
impossible."
"L'Isle seems to have achieved the impossible," said Sir Rowland; "for
I know you are too _gallant_ a man, L'Isle, to neglect a lady's order
for mine."
Sir Rowland's manner, though not his words, were urgent for an
explanation; and L'Isle being now fairly in for it, with an effort,
gathered his wits together, and opened the narrative of his last
night's adventure. He recounted Lady Mabel's successful efforts to
amuse and occupy him into a forgetfulness of the flying hours; her
artful delays before setting out; their slow but pleasant drive up
hill to Elvas; the animated and well-sustained part she had played
throughout the evening; her wit, her satire, and her singing, and his
labors as interpreter, acknowledging many foolish things of his own,
in his efforts to be witty and amusing according to contract. He
described her well-feigned fear of returning home in the dark without
an escort, the brilliantly lighted house and well-timed supper, at
which, unconscious of the flight of time, he sat listening to her
diverting talk, including her piquant sketch of Sir Rowland's glorious
dinners and tactical lectures, and the value his officers set on
each. Here his auditors had each an opportunity of laughing at each
other, and being laughed at in turn.
L'Isle strove to make Lady Mabel appear witty, amusing, and adroit; he
gave edge to her satire--keenness to her wit; but carefully rounded
off all the more salient points of her acting. He said nothing of her
singing "Constant my heart," at him. He did not hint at his taking her
hand in the coach, or kissing it at the supper table; but dilated on
her skillful libel on old Moodie's sobriety, and her well acted dread
of the house-breaking banditti, from whom he could best protect her,
as they are no other than his own men.
Though L'Isle did not get through his narrative with the best possible
grace, he was doubly successful in it; at once greatly amusing his
auditors, yet exhibiting Lady Mabel only as a witty girl, who had
merely played the part allotted to her with mischievous pleasure and
consummate tact. But he attained this at the cost of showing himself
an easy dupe to her arts, and getting well laughed at for his
pains. It cost L'Isle no small effort to do this. It was, in fact, a
heroic, self-sacrificing act; for he was not used to being laughed at,
and there is something highly amusing in compelling a man to tell a
story which makes him more and more ridiculous at every turn. But
while showing so much consideration for Lady Mabel, so far was he from
beginning to forgive her ill-usage of him, that the constraint he had
put upon himself only embittered his feelings toward her.
As to Lord Strathern, he was delighted with the account of _ma
belle_'s cunning manoeuvres and witty speeches, even to the point of
laughing heartily at her satire on himself; and he reveled in L'Isle's
ill-concealed mortification, exclaiming: "What a pity the plot failed
by Mabel's unmasking too soon. That and your good horse enabled you to
keep your appointment at the risk of your neck. Why, L'Isle, you might
have become a ballad hero. Mabel would have put your adventure in
verse, and set it to music, and you would have been sung by all our
musical folks, from Major Lumley down to the smallest drummer-boy. You
are a lucky fellow; but this time your luck has lost you fame."
"And how did you get away at last?" asked Sir Rowland, fully convinced
that L'Isle had been a prisoner, under lock, bolt and bar.
The earth-stains on L'Isle's clothes might have testified that he had
gotten a bad fall in jumping out of a lady's window, at two o'clock in
the morning. But this is a scandalous world. L'Isle remembered
Bradshawe, without looking at him, and evaded the question.
"I found old Moodie, lantern in hand, at the open gate, looking as if
he had drank nothing but vinegar in a month, the picture of sour
sobriety!"
Sir Rowland had striven in vain not to join in the laugh; but, in
spite of himself, was much diverted at L'Isle's adventure. But he was
provoked at the usage his favorite colonel had incurred, for the best
of faults--too much zeal for the service; and he longed to discuss
with Lord Strathern the propriety of setting traps for his own
officers, when posting, with important intelligence, to their common
commander. But there was a lady in the case, and Sir Rowland was
afraid to broach the subject; Lord Strathern, too, though his
subordinate was nearly old enough for his father--a man of high rank,
and a known good soldier; so he put off the discussion to a more
convenient season. As to L'Isle, Sir Rowland had been watching him
closely, and saw something in his eye and bearing that betrayed too
much exasperation for him to be trusted to return at once to Elvas.
So, Sir Rowland invented, on the spot, a special duty for him, and bid
him accompany him, that evening, to Coria.