THE YOUNG VOLUNTEER.
"When I was an infant, gossips would say
I'd when older be a soldier;
Rattles and toys I'd throw them away,
Unless a gun or sabre.
When a younker up I grew,
I saw one day a grand review,
Colours flying set me dying,
To embark in a life so new.
Roll drums merrily--march away!"
_Old Song._
Quentin had been asleep--to him it seemed but five minutes, though
two hours had elapsed--when he started as if he had received an
electric shock. The warning drum was being beaten loudly and sharply
under his window, and soon after followed the long roll, whose
summons admits of no delay, even to the most weary soldier.
Half asleep and half refreshed, he sprang from bed; grey daylight was
stealing faintly in, and all Ayr seemed yet a-bed, the shutters
closed, the chimneys smokeless. The morning mist was curling in
masses along the slopes of the uplands; the summits of the town
steeples and the gothic tower of St. John were reddened by the first
rays of the sun that was yet below the horizon, and the little
drummer boy, as he paced slowly to and fro, in heavy marching order,
with a black glazed knapsack strapped on his back, and a white canvas
havresack slung crosswise over his pipeclayed sword-belt, seemed to
be the only person abroad in the streets as yet.
"Rouse!" cried a voice, which Quentin knew to be that of Captain
Warriston, who knocked sharply on the room door; "pack your traps,
Kennedy, as quickly us you can. My man will put your portmanteau on
the baggage-cart. A cup of hot coffee awaits you in the dining-room.
Never march with an empty stomach, unless you can't help it."
While dressing hurriedly, Quentin heard the worthy captain rousing
his lieutenant, which seemed a process of some difficulty, and
productive of considerable banter and vociferation. As for the
ensign, he had never undressed or been in bed, so he was already
awake, and accoutred with sword, sash, and gorget, and looked very
pale and miserable as he swallowed his hot coffee in the twilight of
the wainscoted dining-room.
The early morning air was chilly, and Quentin, but half awake, felt
his teeth chattering as he issued into the street. The reflection
flashed on his mind that it was not yet too late to retrace his
steps, and alter his intentions. But why do so? asked reason. What
other course was open to him? On this morning, with his new friends
and patrons--particularly Warriston, for whom he had conceived a
great friendship--he felt his position was very different from what
it was yesterday, when, without views, objects, or a defined future,
he awoke among Gibbie Crossgrane's straw in the vault of Kilhenzie.
Already the soldiers of the recruiting-parties, with their various
recruits, were falling in. There were three sergeants, three
corporals, three privates, three drummers, and three fifers of the
25th, the 90th (Lord Lynedoch's Greybreeks), and the 94th, with
fifty-five recruits, all sturdy rustics, with cockades of tricoloured
ribbon streaming from their bonnets, for that most hideous of
headdresses, the round hat, was almost unknown then among the
peasantry of Scotland.
All seemed sleepy, heavy-eyed, and were yawning drowsily, as they
shouldered against each other, and shuffled awkwardly while forming
line and answering to their names, which were called over by
Monkton's sergeant, a portly old halberdier, named Norman Calder.
"Now then, Master William Monkton, are we to march, without you, or
must I detail a fatigue party to tumble you out of bed?" cried
Warriston, angrily, in the hall of the inn. "There goes the last
roll of the drum, and all are present but you!"
"Ugh!" said the lieutenant, as he came forth adjusting his
regimentals in the street, tying his sash, and buckling his
sword-belt, and certainly not looking the better for his potations
overnight; "as Scott of Amwell says, 'I hate that drum's discordant
sound'--'pon my soul, I do! Such a restless dog you are, Warriston!
Two hours hence would have done just as well for you, and immensely
better for all, than this. Half-past four, A.M.--damme!" he added,
glancing up at a church-dial which was glittering in the rising sun;
"this is a most unearthly proceeding, and likely to be the death of
poor Pimple. Good morning, Kennedy, my young volunteer; how do you
like this kind of work?"
Quentin felt bound to say that he enjoyed it very much.
"Bah! after being two hours in bed, having to tumble up in this
fashion, is just as pleasant as having to go out with a dead shot in
the honeymoon, or in the morning on which you have made an
assignation with a pretty girl on your way home; or having a bill
returned on your hands; a horse lamed when the starting-bell rings,
or when you are about to ride a steeple-chase, or lead a charge; or
any other thing that annoys you, by jingo!"
As Quentin had never experienced any of the five grievances
enumerated by Monkton, he could only laugh, and ask--
"Then what about 'the lark at Heaven's gate'--has his voice no
charms?"
"I'd rather hear his morning reveille when going home to my quarters."
The scene had now become very animated. The soldiers, fifteen in
number, were all in heavy marching order, with only their side-arms,
however, and were all sturdy, weatherbeaten fellows, with whom
Quentin found himself rather an object of interest, as he had given
Sergeant Calder a couple of guineas to enable them all to drink his
health.
Many of the townspeople were crowding round to see them depart; and
many a repentant recruit now bade a last farewell to sobbing parents,
to brother, or sister, or sweetheart, all deploring the step which
they deemed would lead him to ruin and death, for there were no
marshal's batons to be found in the knapsacks of the 25th or 94th, as
in those of "the Corsican Tyrant," whose name was as that of a bogle
for nurses to scare their children with.
While Warriston, an indefatigable officer, bustled about, getting the
motley party into something like military order, and detailed a
corporal and three men to take charge of the impressed cart which was
to carry their baggage, with some of the soldiers' wives and
children, his lieutenant lounged at the door of the Queen Anne's
Head, smoking a pipe, with his shako very much over one of his wicked
eyes, as he joked and bantered those about him.
"Come, landlord," said he to the sulky Boniface, who made his
appearance with a red Kilmarnock nightcap on his head; "give us a
farewell smile, do, there's a good fellow; I'll take a kiss from your
wife, too, on credit (I'm her debtor a long way already), and you may
put both in the bill when next we halt here. Gad, Kennedy, these
people hate the sight of a billet-order as the devil hates holy
water. Those who grudge the British soldier a night's lodging should
have a trial of a few Cossacks or Austrians; but it all comes of the
levellers, the opposition, and the democrats, damme! So Pimple, my
boy, have a dram--you have had your run of flirtation with the
flax-dresser's daughter, and yet have got off without having to
propose for the passée heiress, or go out about sunrise with the
incensed parent."
"Yes," replied the ensign, playing with the tassels of his sash, and
assuming a would-be gallant air; "close run, though--once thought I
was nearly in for it."
"Ah, you're safe now; but what says the couplet?"
"What couplet? I don't know."
"It says that to you, my friend,
"From wedlock's noose thus once by fate exempt,
The next may prove, alas! a noose of hemp!"
The ensign was about to make an angry retort, when Warriston gave the
command,
"Threes right--quick march! come, come, move off, gentlemen." The
sharp drums and shrill fifes struck up merrily in the echoing streets
(it was the unvarying 'Girl I left behind me'); a lusty cheer from
the departing recruits was loudly responded to by the people around
and from those at many a window. Others followed, loud, long, and
hearty, and catching the spirit of enthusiasm from those about him,
Quentin felt every pulse throb, every nerve and fibre quicken, as his
heart became light and joyous, and as Warriston drew his arm through
his own, and falling into the rear of the party, they departed from
the inn.
How different were Quentin's emotions now, when compared to the sense
of dejection and desolation, with which, portmanteau in hand, he had
entered that ancient caravanserai yesterday!
"Now for your first day's march, Kennedy," said the captain; "never
mind the _past_--it is gone for ever, and is useless now."
"Unless it afford me some hint to guide me for the future."
"Right," said the captain; "faith! boy, I like your spirit and
reflective turn."
The cheers of the people and the rattle of the drums, as the party
marched over the new bridge of Ayr, defied every attempt at
conversation. All viewed the departing band with interest, for, ere
long, they would be all sent to the seat of war, and be before the
enemy; and of those blue-bonneted recruits who were leaving the banks
and braes of Ayr, and old Coila's hills and glens, few or none might
ever return. But there was then a high spirit in all the British
Isles.
The long dread of invasion from France, political and religious
rancour, with years of continued victory by sea and land--the glories
and the fall of Nelson and Abercrombie, the brilliant but terrible
career of Napoleon following close on the atrocities of the French
Revolution--all conspired to fill honest Mr. Bull's heart with a
furore for military fame; he ceased to smoke the pipe of peace, and
the worthy man's funny red coat and warlike pigtail were never off.
Gillray's coloured caricatures of French soldiers in cocked hats and
long blue coats, and of their "Corsican tyrant," in every ridiculous
and degrading situation that art could conceive or malevolence
inspire, filled every print-shop; and the press, such as it was,
groaned alternately under puffs of self-glorification and scurrilous
abuse of France and its emperor, with a systematic expression of true
British contempt for anything foreign and continental. Thus the
whole country swarmed with troops of every arm, and all Britain was a
species of garrison, from London to Lerwick, and from Banff to
Bristol.
They had been some hours on the march before Quentin thought of
obtaining a very requisite piece of information--to wit, their
destination, when he was informed by Captain Warriston that the three
recruiting parties were to embark at Leith on board an armed smack or
letter-of-marque, for Colchester barracks in England, where the three
Scottish regiments were stationed.
"After I travel so far," said Quentin, "I do sincerely hope the
commanding officer will approve of me."
"Rest assured that he will," replied Warriston, confidently; "he is a
plain, sometimes rough old soldier, but he knows me well."
"Who is colonel of the regiment?"
"Lieutenant-General Lord Elphinstone is our colonel," said Monkton;
"and our lieutenant-colonel being aged--an old Minden officer,
indeed--has permission to sell out. Jack Middleton, the major, is in
command at present, and as he is too poor to purchase, he is
revenging himself upon the regiment."
"How?" asked Quentin, with surprise.
"Though our corps is a crack one (what corps is not so in its own
estimation?) he harangues us daily on the bad discipline and disorder
in which his predecessor has left us; so all have gone to school
again, from the oldest captain down to the youngest fifer."
"Indeed," said the bewildered volunteer; "that is very hard!"
"So it is, damme! but old fellows who smelt powder against Washington
at Brandywine, and under the Duke in Holland, at Alkmaar and
Egmont-op-Zee, are now at the goose-step and pacing-stick; and woe to
the private who fails to have the barrel and lock of his musket
bright as silver, and his pouch bottled to perfection, so that he
might shave or dress his pigtail in it. We have punishment parades,
extra drills, kit-inspections, drums beating, bugles sounding all
day, and often check-rolls thrice in the night, and orderlies flying
all over the barracks like madmen, and all because old Jack Middleton
has not enough of tin to purchase the lieutenant-colonelcy. There is
little Pimple--by Jove! he'll not be in Colchester a week before the
major frightens him into the measles."
"Who is to succeed the lieutenant-colonel?" asked Warriston, who
laughed at the subaltern's angry description of the state of matters
at headquarters.
"The Horse Guards, those Fates who sit on high over the British
soldier, alone know. Some good kind of fellow, I hope, before I
rejoin; for rather than serve under old Middleton (excuse me,
Warriston, as he is a friend of yours) I'd send in my papers--go
recruiting for the 2nd West India at Sierra Leone, or join that fine
body of men, the York Rangers!"
"What are they?"
"A condemned corps, named for the good duke; but whose officers,
damme, sleep at night with loaded pistols under their pillows, for
fear of their own men."
"This is not very cheering for you, Kennedy," said Warriston,
laughing heartily; "but you must not mind all Monkton says."
"No matter; I have given my word, and go I shall."
It was evident that Monkton was a little soured, for he alternately
vowed himself tired of the service and then an enthusiast for it, and
his corps in particular; but he was rather blue-devilled this
morning, and uncheered by the blue sunny sky and golden cornfields,
the songs of the birds and mild morning breeze, he swore at the long
dusty road and grumbled at the slowness of his promotion, and that by
circumstances beyond his control, after fifteen years' service and
having seen much fighting, he was only a lieutenant still; "but you
will learn, ere long, Kennedy," he added, "that the lieutenants are
the salt of the service, and do all the actual work. Middleton will
judge of you, not from others, but from yourself alone. The
battalion will likely go abroad under his orders; a month more may
see us before the enemy, and you in possession of your epaulettes, if
some poor sub--say Pimple here--is knocked on the head."
"Thank you," said Boyle; "why not suggest yourself--one sub is the
same as another."
"Not all--not at all; it would be no use. They never hit me
seriously in Flanders or Denmark, and they won't do it in Spain or
North Holland."
"My old friend Middleton must have changed sorely to have become the
Tartar and martinet you describe him," said Warriston; "if so, he
would have suited old Frederick of Prussia to a hair."
"You told us to remind you of a story which was worth telling."
"About Frederick and my father?"
"Exactly," said Quentin.
"And how he and I came to be in the Dutch service. Well, the story
has something droll in it, and though some may have heard the affair,
as it found its way into the newspapers, I shall give you the version
which I gave to Mr. Thomas Holcroft, when he was preparing that very
light and most readable work on the Life, Times, and Works of the
Great Frederick, in thirteen huge royal octavo volumes."
"Then it is to be found there?"
"On the contrary, he omitted it, not considering it quite a feather
in his hero's cap."
"And the story----"
"Occurred in this way."
But the story with which Warriston beguiled a few miles of the
morning march deserves, perhaps, a chapter to itself.