opportunity of expressing his gratitude to the gallant General above
alluded to; but has never had that opportunity, from having been always
employed on a service different from that in which he commenced.
The Author now avails himself of the present occasion, publicly to
acknowledge his sense of the paternal kindness he received in the
affair alluded to; and trusts, that should these pages meet the
General's eye, he will consider this note as a token of the Author's
gratitude.
[3] This alludes to a case in which the magistrate censured a
midshipman for appearing in uniform in the streets. His worship said,
that if the officer had business at the Admiralty, he might have gone
there in uniform; but it was proper on no other occasion.
THE SOLDIER'S ORPHAN.
“Heu! miserande puer!”—VIRGIL.
Amongst soldiers—men whose habits of life are almost in direct
opposition to social and domestic enjoyment—who are strangers every
where, and whose profession is to destroy their fellow-men, it
is astonishing what tenderness and amiability of disposition are
frequently to be met with. If a comrade dies and leaves a widow; or
if an object of distress presents itself to a regiment—such as a poor
traveller, unable to proceed from illness or want, a subscription is
immediately set on foot, and although a few pence from each be the
extent of the alms, yet, with men whose pay is so limited, it bears
the credit of a considerable gift: but it is not the amount of the
subscription I have looked to most; it is the generous promptitude
with which the measure is adopted. Nor are such the greatest marks of
tenderness in the soldier: oftentimes has it occurred, that an orphan
has been left in a regiment, and the child has either been supported
and domiciled with the company to which its father belonged, or a
single soldier has undertaken the care of it. I believe one remarkable
instance occurred immediately after the battle of Waterloo—the
infant was discovered under the carriage of a field-piece. Another
is, I believe, at this moment to be found either in the 76th or 79th
Regiment. That which fell under my own observation I will relate; and I
think it affords undoubted proof of the kindest and most amiable heart.
At the battle of Talavera, a soldier, who had his wife, and a child
about two years and a half old, at the regiment with him, was killed.
His death weighed heavily at the heart of the woman, and together with
a severe cold caught in marching, produced a fever which terminated
in her death. Her infant, thus left fatherless and motherless, became
an interesting object of pity. The officers of the regiment took
measures for its protection, and placed the boy in the care of a woman
belonging to their own regiment. This woman, however, was a drunkard,
and the comrade of the deceased father, perceived that she neglected
the child. He reported this to the officers, and they determined to
remove it; but on examination it was found that there was no other
woman in the regiment who had claims to be trusted more than the person
with whom the child already was. Indeed, there are but few women
permitted to take the field with the soldiers; and these, in general,
are not only intemperate, but blunted in their feelings by their own
privations.
The comrade, finding much difficulty in providing a nurse for the
child, declared that he would sooner undertake the care of him himself
until an opportunity of better disposing of him should occur, as he
felt convinced that the poor infant would be lost, if suffered to
remain with the woman under whose care he then was.
There was no objection made to this, so the soldier immediately
took charge of the child. And well he acquitted himself in his
responsibility: he regularly washed, dressed, and fed the little
fellow, every morning; he would clamber over the hills and procure
goats' milk for him, when even the officers could not obtain that
luxury; and although not much of a cook, would boil his ration-meat
into a nutritive jelly, as scientifically as the best of them, for
the child. In less than two months, the little campaigner was very
different in appearance from that which he exhibited when first taken
in charge of the soldier; and he became a rosy-faced, chubby, hardy
little hero, as ever bivouacked on the hills of Portugal.
Month after month passed away, during which the regiment often moved
about. Upon the march the soldier always found means of procuring a
seat for the child upon one of the baggage mules; and he now became so
interesting to all who knew him, that little difficulty in obtaining
transport for him was to be met with. One time a muleteer would take
the boy before him on his _macho_, or place him between two sacks or
casks, upon the animal's back, and gibber Spanish to him as he jogged
along; at other times he would find a seat on some officers' baggage,
or “get a lift” in the arms of the men; nobody would refuse _little
Johnny_ accommodation whenever he needed it. So far I heard from a
soldier of the division in which the child was protected. What follows
I witnessed myself.
After the battle of Busaco, which was fought in the year following that
of Talavera, the army retreated over at least one hundred and fifty
miles of a country the most difficult to pass; steep after steep was
climbed by division after division, until the whole arrived within the
lines of Torres Vedras. The whole of this march, from the mountains of
Busaco to the lines, was a scene of destruction and misery, not to the
army, but to the unhappy population. Every pound of corn was destroyed,
the wine-casks were staved, and the forage was burnt; the people in
a flock trudging on before the army, to shelter themselves from the
French, into whose hands, had they remained in their houses, they must
have fallen. Infants barely able to walk; bedridden old people; the
sick, and the dying—all endeavouring to make their way into Lisbon; for
which purpose all the asses and mules that they could find were taken
with them, and the poor animals became as lame as their riders by a
very few days' marches. It was a severe measure of Lord Wellington's
thus to devastate the country which he left behind him, but, like the
burning of Moscow, it was masterly; for Massena being thus deprived of
the means of supplying his army, was soon obliged to retrace his steps
to Spain, pursued in his turn by the British, and leaving the roads
covered with his starving people and slaughtered horses.
Amidst this desolation I first saw the little hero of whom I write.
I had been with the rear-guard of the division, and was approaching
Alhandra, when I observed four or five men standing on a ridge, in
the valley through which we were passing. One of them ran towards me,
and said that there was a man lying under a tree a little way off the
road, beside a stream, and that he was dying. A staff-surgeon was close
by; I told him the circumstance, and we immediately proceeded to the
spot. There we beheld a soldier lying upon his back, his head resting
against a bank, his cap beside him and filled with water as if he had
been drinking out of it. Beside the man sat a fine boy, of about three
years' old, his little arms stretched across him. The child looked
wistfully at us. We asked him what he was doing there? but, from fright
and perhaps confusion at seeing us all intent upon questioning him he
only burst into tears. The surgeon examined the man, and found he was
lifeless, but still warm. I asked the child, if the man was his father?
he said he was; but to any further questions he could only lisp an
unintelligible answer. The surgeon thought the man had died of fatigue,
probably from marching while under great debility or sickness. I asked
the boy, if he had walked with his father that day? and he replied,
that he did not, but had been carried by him.
At this moment the last of the division was passing up the hill, and
the French columns appeared about half a mile behind. There was nothing
to be done but to remove the child, and leave the dead man as he was. I
directed the soldiers to do so, and to bring him along with them. They
accordingly went over to the boy, to take him away from the body; but
he cried out, while tears rolled from his eyes, “_No, no! me stay wi'
daddy!—me stay wi' daddy!_” and clung his little arms about the
dead soldier with a determined grasp. The men looked at each other;
we were all affected in the same way; I could see the tears in the
hardy fellows' eyes. They caressed him; they promised that his father
should go also; but no, the little affectionate creature could not
be persuaded to quit his hold. Force was necessary; the men drew him
away from the body; but the child's cries were heart-rending: “_Daddy!
daddy! daddy! dear, dear, daddy!_” Thus he called and cried, while the
men, endeavouring to sooth him, bore him up the hill just as the enemy
were entering the valley. This was little Johnny, and the dead man was
his father's kind, good-hearted comrade, who perhaps hastened his own
death in carrying the beloved little orphan.
NIGHTS IN THE GUARD-HOUSE.
No. I.
“See yonder, round a many-colour'd flame,
A merry club is huddled all together;
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.”
GOËTHE.
“Who goes there?”
“Rounds.”
“What rounds?”
“Grand rounds.”
“Stand, grand rounds—advance one and give the countersign.”
“Waterloo.”
“Pass, grand rounds: all's well.”
Splash went the steed, and patter went the rain, as the above dialogue
rapidly passed between the officer of the rounds and the advanced
sentry of Ballycraggen guard-house, one stormy night in the depth of
December, and in the midst of the Wicklow mountains.
“Guard, turn out!” instantly bellowed with true Highland energy,
from the lungs of Sergeant M'Fadgen, and echoed quickly by those of
Corporal O'Callaghan, increased the panic to its climax, and broke up
the circle of story-tellers who were enjoying themselves round a huge
turf fire, and, for aught yet known, a bottle of pure potyeen. “Guard,
turn out!” repeated the corporal, as he upset, in his haste to obey,
the stool on which he sat, as well as the lance-corporal and a fat
private who occupied one end of it; but notwithstanding these little
embarrassments, both men and musquets were out of the guard-house in a
twinkling—silent, and as steady in line as the pillars of the Giants'
Causeway.
The officer's visit did not last many seconds, for the night was too
wet, and nothing had occurred with the guard worth his particular
notice: off he galloped, and the clatter of his horse's hoofs was
almost drowned in the word of command given by Sergeant M'Fadgen, as
he returned the guard; for the Sergeant always made it a point, when
giving the word within the hearing of an officer, to display the power
of his non-commissioned lungs in the most laudable manner.
The arms were speedily laid down, and each man ran to take up his
former position at the fire, or perhaps to secure a better, if
permitted to do so by the rightful owner: this, however, was, as
regarded the stools, without any reference whatever to the sergeant's
seat—an old oak chair, which he leisurely, gravely, and consequentially
resumed.
“The Major was in a hurry to-night, Sargeant,” observed Corporal
O'Callaghan, as he fixed himself at the front of the fire, elbowing his
supporters right and left.
“The Major's nae fool, Corporal; it's a cauld an' a raw naight,”
replied the Sergeant.
“Could, did ya say, Sergeant,” returned O'Callaghan; “By the powers o'
Moll Kelly! he knocks fire enough out o' the wet stones to keep both
him and the baste warm: I could ha' lit my pipe with it when he started
off.”
“Aweel, he's done his duty as effectally as if he had stopped an hoor;
so dinna fash, but gi' us that story you were jist commencing afore the
turn-oot.”
“Yes, yes, the story, Corporal!”—“Give us the story;”—“That's the
thing, my boy;”—“Let us have it.” These, and a dozen similar requests
followed the Sergeant's, from the men of the guard; when, after the
due quantity of hems, haws, and apologies, usual in all such cases,
Corporal O'Callaghan commenced the following
STORY OF MARIA DE CARMO.
“Well! if yiz _will_ have the story, I suppose I must tell it:—Maria
de Carmo, you see, is a Portuguese name, as _you_ Redmond, and _you_
Tom Pattherson knows well: for it's often you saw the self-same young
girl I'm going to tell about; and as purty a crature she was as ever
stept in shoe leather,—a beautiful and as sweet a young blossom as
the sun ever shone upon, with her black curls, and her white teeth,
set just like little rows of harpsichord kays; and her eyes, and her
lips, and her ancles! O! she bet all the girls I ever saw in either
Spain or Portugal; that you may depend upon. Well, Harry Gainer was her
sweetheart; poor fellow! he was my comrade for many a long day. _You_
knew him well, Sargeant.”
“I listed the lad mysel at Waterford, aboot this time ten years, as
near as poossible; an' a gay callant he was,” said M'Fadgen; and then
with an important sigh resumed his pipe.
“Well, Harry and I went out with the rigiment from Cork to Lisbon in
1810, and it was in March; for we spent our Patrick's Day aboord,
and drowned our shamrock in a canteen of ration rum, just as we were
laving sight o' Ireland: and we gave the counthry three cheers on the
forecastle—the whole lot of us together, sailors an' all, as the green
hills turned blue, an' began to sink away from our sight. We had a
fine passage, an' landed at a place called the Black Horse Square,
in Lisbon, afther only six days' sailing, as hot and as fine a day,
although in March, as one of our July days here. Well—to make a long
story short, we made no delay, but, according to ordthers, were
embarked aboord the boats, and sailed up the Tagus to Villa Franca (as
pretty a river as ever I sailed in), and then the rigiment marched on
to Abrantes, where we halted: it was in this town that Harry first met
with Maria de Carmo. Both he and I were quarthered at her father's
house, a nice counthry sort of place, what the Portuguese call a
_Quinta_, in the middle of a thick wood of olives, on the side o' the
high hill of Abrantes. You could see from the door fifty miles and
more, over beautiful blue mountains on one side; an' on the other side,
across the Tagus, a fertile, cultivated counthry, with the fine wide
river itself, like a looking-glass, wandering away—God knows where. O,
it was as purty a spot as any in Ireland, I'm sure, barrin' the town
itself; and that was a dirty, narrow hole of a place, on the very top
o' the high hill,—yet it was fortified all round, as if it was worth
living in. The streets are so narrow that you could shake hands out o'
the windows with the opposite neighbours. There's a bit of a square, to
be sure, or Praça, as they call it, but that's not worth mentioning.
The fact is, I often thought that the town of Abrantes was like a big
dunghill in the middle o' Paradise.
“We halted here about a month, during which time Gainer was always
looking afther this young girl; and faith! he hadn't much throuble to
find her any day, for she was just as fond of looking afther him. I
often met them both sthrolling up along the side o' the river, like two
turtle doves, billing and cooing, and I could ha' tould how the matther
would have gone, in two days afther we arrived; for, 'pon my sowl I
don't know how it is, but when a young couple meets, that's made for
one another, there is such an atthraction, an' such a snaking toward
this way an' that way, that they are always elbowing and jostling,
'till they fall into each other's arms.
“Poor Harry was a warm-hearted sowl as ever was born, and as
honourable, too. He came to me the night before we marched from
Abrantes for Elvas, and says he to me (we were just outside the town,
taking a bit of a walk in an orange garden), says he, ‘Tom,’ an' the
poor fellow sighed enough to brake his heart; ‘Tom,’ says he, ‘I don't
know what to do with that girl; the rigiment marches to-morrow, and God
knows will I ever see her again. She wants to come with me, unknown to
her parents.’ ‘An' will you take her?’ says I.—‘Take her, Tom,’ says
he; ‘is it an' she, the only child of the good-natured ould man that
behaved so well to us? The Lord forbid! I'd sooner jump off this hill
into the river than I'd lade a sweet and innocent young girl asthray,
to brake the heart o' her father.’
“Och, I knew well, before I mintioned it, that Harry's heart was in the
right place.—‘Well,’ says I, ‘you must only lave her, poor thing; it's
betther nor take her with you. But what does her father say?’ ‘O,’ says
Harry, ‘the poor man would be willing enough to let her marry me if I
was settled; but although he likes me so much, he knows well that this
is no time for marriages with soldiers.’ ‘Well, then, Harry,’ says I,
‘there's no manner o' use in talking; you must only give her a lock o'
your hair and a parting kiss,—then God speed you both.’
“With that we went back to our quarthers, an' took share of a canteen
o' wine; but although Harry drank, I saw it was more for the dthrowning
of his throubles, and the sake of conversation about Maria, than for
any liking he had to licker. But faith! I'm sure, although I'm no great
hand at it myself, I think a glass on such an occasion as that, when
the heart o' the poor fellow was so full, an' my own not very empty,
an' when we were going to march from the town we spent some pleasant
hours in, was a thing that if a man could not enjoy, he ought to be
thrown behind the fire, as a dthry chip.
“We were just finishing the last glass, when the ould man, our Patroa,
Signior Jozé, came to say that we must ate a bit o' supper with him, as
it was our last night in the place; and although I didn't undtherstand
much o' the language, yet he explained himself well enough to make us
know that he was in the right earnest o' good-nature. We had no more
wine to offer him, at which he smiled, and pointed to the parlour
below,—‘_La esta bastante_,’ says he; which manes _there's enough
below stairs, my boys_. We went down to supper, which was a couple of
_Galinias boas_, or in plain English, _roast fowls_,—an' soup: with
oranges of the best quality, just plucked out of the ould man's garden.
Maria was with us, an' I don't think I ever passed a pleasanter night.
God knows whether it was so with Harry an' his sweetheart or not;
I believe it was a sort o' mixture. They were both not much in the
talking way, an' Maria looked as if she had a hearty male o' crying
before she sat down to supper. However, I kept up the conversation
with Jozé, though I was obliged to get Harry to interpret for me often
enough, as he was a far betther hand at the Portuguese than I was,
from always discoursing with Maria—faith! in larning any language
there's nothing like a walking dictionary;—that is to say, a bit of a
_sweetheart_.
“Signior Jozé gave us a terrible account o' the French when they came
to Abrantes first; an' all he feared was, that ever they should be able
to make their way there again. He hoped he would never see the day, on
account of his dear Maria, for they nather spared age nor sex in the
unfortunate counthry.
“‘They call themselves Christians,’ says he, ‘and the English infidels;
but actions, afther all, are the best things to judge by: the sign o'
the cross never kept a devil away yet; if so, there should not have
been such a _Legion_ of them here along with the French, for we had
_crosses_ enough.’
“Jozé was a liberal man in his opinions, an' although a Catholic, an'
more attached to Harry an' me from professing the same religion, yet he
was not like the bigots of ould, that I read of; but one that looked
upon every faith in a liberal light. He was for allowing every man to
go to the devil his own way.”
“I dinna ken but Jozé was raight,” drily remarked Sergeant M'Fadgen; to
the truth of which observation a general admission was given by all the
fire-side listeners.
“Well, we broke up about one o'clock purty merry, but not at all out o'
the way; and as we had to march, a little after day-brake, I thought
three or four hours' rest would do us no harm: so I wouldn't let the
Patroa open another bottle. Harry looked a little out o' sorts at my
preventing him; but I knew what he was at—he didn't want the dthrink;
but just to keep sitting up with the girl: therefore I thought it
betther to go; for he an' she would have been just as loth to part if
they had been six weeks more together without stopping.
“Next morning we turned out at day-brake; an' faith! Harry might as
well have staid up all night for the sleep he got—he looked the picture
of misery and throuble. We had our rations sarved out the day before;
but faith! _we_ did not want much o' that—Harry and I; for Jozé had
stuffed our haversacks with every spacies of eatables.
“We mustherd in the square or market-place,—mules and all, by four
o'clock, and at half-past four we marched off to the chune o'
_Patrick's Day_, upon as fine a band as ever lilted; which, in the
middle o' foreign parts, as I was, made me feel a little consated, I
assure you. The rigiment was followed by a crowd of Portuguese, as far
as the bridge over the Tagus where we crossed. Poor devils! the band
didn't seem to make _them_ look pleasanter; they were like as if they
suspected we were not certain of keeping the French out long.
“Just as the light company was moving on to the bridge, (Harry and I
belonged to the light company,) we halted a few minutes, and he fell
out to spake a parting word to Maria an' her father, who were both
waiting then at the bridge. Her mantilia a'most covered her face; but
still I saw the tears rowling down her cheeks, poor girl, like rain. In
a few moments the column moved on, and Harry was obliged to fall in.
We both shook hands with the ould father—Harry kissed his sweetheart,
and we marched on over the bridge. But to make a long story short, our
rigiment remained at Elvas about three months, when the French began to
attack us, and we retrated upon Abrantes. This was the time that they
boasted of going to dthrive us into the sea, clane out o' Portugal; but
by my sowl the Mounseers never were more mistaken in their lives. Well,
we hadn't hard from Maria for two months, and I remember it was late
in the evening when we entehred Abrantes on our retrate. Harry and I
didn't want to taste bit or sup till we went down to ould Jozé's house,
and there we larnt that he died of a faver six weeks afore: poor
ould man! I was sorry to hear it, an' so was Harry—very sorry indeed.
We inquired about the daughther, an' hard that she was living with a
particular friend of her father's, at the other end o' the town. We
soon found her out, although she was denied to us at first by an ould
woman; but faith! a nice-looking young lad, dressed like a _pysano_, or
counthry-boy, with a wide black hat an' red worsted sash on him, came
out driving along, and threw his arms round Harry's neck, hugging an'
kissing him. By my sowl! the boy was _herself_, sure enough. The fact
is, Maria had dthressed herself up like a boy, fearful that the French
would ill use her when they came into the town; an' they expected them
from report, two days before. Faith! an' so they would, I'd warrant ye;
for they never showed much mercy to a purty girl once in their power.
“The people with which Maria now lived, were good cratures, and as fond
of her as if she was their own. They insisted upon us stopping with
them, although there was six soldiers more in the house. A good room
was provided for us, an' every thing comfortable. Harry and Maria
made much o' their time; but I was obliged to go on the baggage-guard,
so left them to themselves. Next morning, at day-light, we were all
undther arms, and marched out o' the town towards Punhete. We were the
rear-guard, and as we expected the advanced guard of the French up, we
were prepared to give 'em a _good morning_: the baggage was all on, an
hour before. Sure enough the enemy hung on our rare the whole day, and
towards night our company had a bit of a brush with 'em.