THE DESPATCH.
I was preparing to visit the town on the following morning, when my
attention was attracted by a dialogue which took place beneath my window.
“I say, my good friend,” cried a mounted orderly to Mike, who was busily
employed in brushing a jacket,--“I say, are you Captain O’Malley’s man?”
“The least taste in life o’ that same,” replied he, with a half-jocular
expression.
“Well, then,” said the other, “take up these letters to your master. Be
alive, my fine fellow, for they are despatches, and I must have a written
return for them.”
“Won’t ye get off and take a drop of somethin’ refreshing; the air is cowld
this morning.”
“I can’t stay, my good friend, but thank you all the same; so be alive,
will you?”
“Arrah, there’s no hurry in life. Sure, it’s an invitation to dinner to
Lord Wellington or a tea-party at Sir Denny’s; sure, my master’s bothered
with them every day o’ th’ week: that’s the misfortune of being an
agreeable creature; and I’d be led into dissipation myself, if I wasn’t
rear’d prudent.”
“Well, come along, take these letters, for I must be off; my time is
short.”
“That’s more nor your nose is, honey,” said Mike, evidently piqued at the
little effect his advances had produced upon the Englishman. “Give them
here,” continued he, while he turned the various papers in every direction,
affecting to read their addresses.
“There’s nothing for me here, I see. Did none of the generals ask after
me?”
“You _are_ a queer one!” said the dragoon, not a little puzzled what to
make of him.
Mike meanwhile thrust the papers carelessly into his pocket, and strode
into the house, whistling a quick-step as he went, with the air of a man
perfectly devoid of care or occupation. The next moment, however, he
appeared at my door, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, and
apparently breathless with haste.
“Despatches, Mister Charles, despatches from Lord Wellington. The orderly
is waiting below for a return.”
“Tell him he shall have it in one moment,” replied I. “And now bring me a
light.”
Before I had broken the seal of the envelope, Mike was once more at the
porch.
“My master is writing a few lines to say he’ll do it. Don’t be talking
of it,” added he, dropping his voice, “but they want him to take another
fortress.”
What turn the dialogue subsequently took, I cannot say, for I was entirely
occupied by a letter which accompanied the despatches. It ran as follows:--
QUARTER-GENERAL,
CIUDAD RODRIGO, Jan. 20, 1812.
Dear Sir,--The commander-in-chief has been kind enough to accord you
the leave of absence you applied for, and takes the opportunity
of your return to England to send you the accompanying letters
for his Royal Highness the Duke of York. To his approval of
your conduct in the assault last night you owe this distinguished
mark of Lord Wellington’s favor, which, I hope, will be duly
appreciated by you, and serve to increase your zeal for that service
in which you have already distinguished yourself.
Believe me that I am most happy in being made the medium of
this communication, and have the honor to be,
Very truly yours,
T. PICTON.
I read and re-read this note again and again. Every line was conned over by
me, and every phrase weighed and balanced in my mind. Nothing could be more
gratifying, nothing more satisfactory to my feelings; and I would not have
exchanged its possession for the brevet of a lieutenant-colonel.
“Halloo, Orderly!” cried I, from the window, as I hurriedly sealed my few
words of acknowledgment, “take this note back to General Picton, and here’s
a guinea for yourself.” So saying, I pitched into his ready hand one of the
very few which remained to me in the world. “This is, indeed, good news!”
said I, to myself. “This is, indeed, a moment of unmixed happiness!”
As I closed the window, I could hear Mike pronouncing a glowing eulogium
upon my liberality, from which he could not, however, help in some degree
detracting, as he added:
“But the devil thank him, after all! Sure, it’s himself has the illigant
fortune and the fine place of it!”
Scarcely were the last sounds of the retiring horseman dying away in the
distance, when Mike’s meditations took another form, and he muttered
between his teeth, “Oh, holy Agatha! a guinea, a raal gold guinea to a
thief of a dragoon that come with the letter, and here am I wearing a
picture of the holy family for a back to my waistcoat, all out of economy;
and sure, God knows, but may be they’ll take their dealing trick out of
me in purgatory for this hereafter; and faith, it’s a beautiful pair of
breeches I’d have had, if I wasn’t ashamed to put the twelve apostles on
my legs.”
While Mike ran on at this rate, my eyes fell upon a few lines of postscript
in Picton’s letter, which I had not previously noticed.
“The official despatches of the storming are, of course, intrusted to
senior officers, but I need scarcely remind you that it will be a
polite and proper attention to his Royal Highness to present your
letters with as little delay as possible. Not a moment is to be lost
on your landing in England.”
“Mike!” cried I, “how look the cattle for a journey?”
“The chestnut is a little low in flesh, but in great wind, your honor; and
the black horse is jumping like a filly.”
“And Badger?” said I.
“Howld him, if you can, that’s all; but it’s murthering work this, carrying
despatches day after day.”
“This time, however, Mike, we must not grumble.”
“May be it isn’t far?”
“Why, as to that, I shall not promise much. I’m bound for England, Mickey.”
“For England!”
“Yes, Mike, and for Ireland.”
“For Ireland! whoop!” shouted he, as he shied his cap into one corner of
the room, the jacket he was brushing into the other, and began dancing
round the table with no bad imitation of an Indian war dance.
“How I’ll dance like a fairy,
To see ould Dunleary,
And think twice ere I leave it to be a dragoon.”
“Oh, blessed hour! Isn’t it beautiful to think of the illuminations and
dinners and speeches and shaking of hands, huzzaing, and hip-hipping. May
be there won’t be pictures of us in all the shops,--Mister Charles and his
man Mister Free. May be they won’t make plays out of us; myself dressed in
the gray coat with the red cuffs, the cords, the tops, and the Caroline hat
a little cocked, with a phiz in the side of it.” Here he made a sign with
his expanded fingers to represent a cockade, which he designated by this
word. “I think I see myself dining with the corporation, and the Lord Major
of Dublin getting up to propose the health of the hero of El Bodon, Mr.
Free; and three times three, hurra! hurra! hurra! Musha, but it’s dry I am
gettin’ with the thoughts of the punch and the poteen negus.”
“If you go on at this rate, we’re not likely to be soon at our journey’s
end. So be alive now; pack up my kit; I shall start by twelve o’clock.”
With one spring Mike cleared the stairs, and overthrowing everything and
everybody in his way, hurried towards the stable, chanting at the top of
his voice the very poetical strain he had indulged me with a few minutes
before.
My preparations were rapidly made; a few hurried lines of leave-taking to
the good fellows I had lived so much with and felt so strongly attached to,
with a firm assurance that I should join them again ere long, was all
that my time permitted. To Power I wrote more at length, detailing the
circumstances which my own letters informed me of, and also those which
invited me to return home. This done, I lost not another moment, but set
out upon my journey.