The interests of our story do not require us to dwell minutely on the
miserable system of intrigue by which the French authorities sought to
compromise the life and honor of a British officer. The Knight of Gwynne
was committed to the charge of a veteran officer of the Republic, who,
though dignified with the title of the Governor of Akrish, was, in
reality, invested with no higher functions than that of jailer over the
few unhappy prisoners whom evil destiny had thrown into French hands.
By an alternate system of cruelty and concession, efforts were daily
made to entrap Darcy either into some expression of violence or
impatience at this outrage on all the custom of war, or induce him
to join a plot for escape, submitted to him by those who, apparently
prisoners like himself, were in reality the spies of the Republic.
Sustained by a high sense of his own dignity, and not ignorant of the
character under which revolutionized France accomplished her triumphs,
the Knight resisted every temptation, and in all the gloom of this
remote fortress, ominously secluded from the world, denied access to
any knowledge of passing events, cut off from all communication with his
country and his comrades, he never even for a moment forgot himself, nor
became entangled in the perfidious schemes spread for his ruin. It was
no common aggravation of the miseries of imprisonment to know that each
day and hour had its own separate machinery of perfidy at work. At one
moment he would be offered liberty on the condition of revealing the
plans of the expedition; at another he would be suddenly summoned to
appear before a tribunal of military law, when it was hinted he would be
arraigned for having commanded a force of liberated felons,--for in this
way were the Volunteers once designated,--in the hope that the insult
would evoke some burst of passionate indignation. If the torment of
these unceasing annoyances preyed upon his health and spirits, already
harassed by sad thoughts of home, the length of time, to which the
intrigues were protracted showed Darcy that the wiles of his enemies had
not met success in their own eyes; and this gleam of hope, faint and
slender as it was, sustained him through many a gloomy hour of
captivity.
While the Knight continued thus to live in the long sleep of a
prisoner's existence, events were hastening to their accomplishment
by which his future liberty was to be secured. The victorious army of
Abercrombie had already advanced and driven the French back beneath the
lines of Alexandria. The action which ensued was terribly contested, but
ended in the complete triumph of the British, whose glory was, however,
dearly bought by the death of their gallant leader.
The Turkish forces now joined the English under General Hutchinson,
and a series of combined movements commenced, by which the French saw
themselves so closely hemmed in, that no course was open save a retreat
upon Cairo.
Whether from the changed fortune of their arms,--for the French had
now sustained one unbroken series of reverses,--or that the efforts to
entrap the Knight had shown so little prospect of success, the manner
of the governor had, for some time back, been altered much in his favor,
and several petty concessions were permitted, which in the earlier days
of his captivity were strictly denied. Occasionally, too, little hints
of the campaign would be dropped, and acknowledgments made “that fortune
had not been as uniformly favorable to the 'Great Nation' as was her
wont.” These significant confessions received a striking confirmation,
when, at daybreak one morning, an order arrived for the garrison to
abandon the fort of Akrish, and for the prisoners, under a strong
escort, to fall back upon Damanhour.
The movements indicated haste and precipitancy; so much so, indeed,
that ere the small garrison had got clear of the town, the head of a
retreating column was seen entering it by the road from Alexandria; and
now no longer doubt remained that the British had compelled them to fall
back.
As the French retired, their forces continued to come up each day, and
in the long convoy of wounded, as well as in the shattered condition
of gun-carriages and wagons, it was easy to read the signs of a recent
defeat. Nor was the matter long doubtful to Darcy; for, by some strange
anomaly of human nature, the very men who would exaggerate the smallest
accident of advantage into a victory and triumph, were now just as loud
iu proclaiming that they had been dreadfully beaten. Perhaps the avowal
was compensated for by the license it suggested to inveigh against the
generals, and, in the true spirit of a republican army, to threaten them
openly with the speedy judgments of the Home Government.
Among those who occasionally halted to exchange a few-words of greeting
with the officer in conduct of the prisoners, the Knight recognized with
satisfaction the same officer who, in the retreat from Aboukir, had
so kindly suggested caution to him. At first he seemed half fearful
of addressing him, to speak his gratitude, lest even so much might
compromise the young captain in the eyes of his countrymen. The
hesitation was speedily overcome, however, as the young Frenchman gayly
saluted him, and said,--
“Ah, mon General, you had scarcely been here to-day if you had
but listened to my counsels. I told you that the Republic, one and
indivisible, did not admit criticism of its troops.”
“I scarcely believed you could shrink from such an order,” said the
Knight, smiling.
“Not in the 'Moniteur,' perhaps,” rejoined the Frenchman, laughing.
“Yours, however, had an excess of candor, which, if only listened to at
your own head-quarters, might have induced grave errors.
“I comprehend,” interrupted Darcy, gayly catching up the ironical humor
of the other,--“I comprehend, and you would spare an enemy such an
injurious illusion.”
“Just so; I wish your army had been equally generous, with all my
heart,” added he, as coolly as before; “here we are in full retreat on
Cairo.”
“On Damanhour, you mean,” said Darcy.
“Not a bit of it; on Cairo, General. There's no need of mincing the
matter; we need fear no eavesdropper here. Ah, by the by, your German
friends were retaken, and by a detachment of their own regiment too. We
saw the fellows shot the morning after the action.”
“Now that you are kind enough to tell me what is going forward, perhaps
you could let me know something of my poor comrades whom you took
prisoners on the night of the 9th.”
“Yes. They are with few exceptions dead of their wounds, two men
exchanged about a week since; and then, what strange fellows your
countrymen are! They sent us back a major of brigade in exchange for a
wounded soldier who, when he left our camp, did not seem to have life
enough to bring him across the lines!”
“Did you see him?” asked Darcy, eagerly.
“Yes; I commanded the escort. He was a young fellow of scarcely more
than four-and-twenty, and must have been good-looking too.”
“Of course you could not tell his name,” said the Knight, despondingly.
“No; I heard it, however, but it has escaped me. There was a curious
story brought back about him by our brigade-major, and one which,
I assure you, furnished many a hearty laugh at your land of noble
privileges and aristocratic forms'.”
“Pray let me hear it.”
“Oh, I cannot tell you one-half of it; the finale interested the major
most, because it concerned himself, and this he repeated to us at least
a dozen times. It would seem, then, that this youth--a rare thing, I
believe, in your service--was a man of birth, but, according to your
happy institutions, was a man of nothing more, for he was a younger son.
Is not that your law?”
Darcy nodded, and the other resumed.
“Well, in some fit of spleen at not being born a year or two earlier,
or for some love affair with one of your blond insensibles, or from
weariness of your gloomy climate, or from any other true British cause
of despair, our youth became a soldier. _Parbleu!_ your English chivalry
has its own queer notions, when it regards the service as a last
resource of the desperate! No matter, he enlisted, came out here, fought
bravely, and was taken prisoner in the very same attack with yourself;
but while Fortune dealt heavily with one hand, she was caressing with
the other, for, the same week she condemned him to a French prison,
she made him a peer of England, having taken off the elder brother, an
ambassador at some court, I believe, by a fever. So goes the world;
good and ill luck battling against each, and one never getting uppermost
without the other recruiting strength for a victory in turn.”
“These are strange tidings, indeed,” said the Knight, musing, “and would
interest me deeply, if I knew the individual.”
“That I am unfortunate enough to have forgotten,” said the Frenchman,
carelessly; “but I conclude he must be a person of some importance, for
we heard that the vessel which was to sail with despatches was delayed
several hours in the bay, to take him back to England.”
Although the whole recital contained many circumstances which the Knight
attributed to French misrepresentation of English habitudes, he was
profoundly struck by it, and dwelt fondly on the hope that if the young
peer should have served under his command, he would not neglect, on
arriving in England, to inform his friends of his safety.
These thoughts, mingling with others of his home and of his son Lionel,
far away in a distant quarter of the globe, filled his mind as he went,
and made him ponder deeply over the strange accidents of a life
that, opening with every promise, seemed about to close in sorrow and
uncertainty. Full of movement and interest as was the scene around, he
seldom bestowed on it even a passing glance; it was an hour of gloomy
reverie, and he neither marked the long train of wagons with their
wounded, the broken and shattered gun-carriages, or the miserable aspect
of the cavalry, whose starved and galled animals could scarcely crawl.
The Knight's momentary indifference was interpreted in a very different
sense by the officer who commanded the escort, and who seemed to suspect
that this apathy concealed a shrewd insight into the real condition of
the troops and the signs of distress and discomfiture so palpable on
every side. As, impressed with this conviction, he watched the old man
with prying curiosity, a smile, faint and fleeting enough, once crossed
Darcy's features. The Frenchman's face flushed as he beheld it, and he
quickly said,--
“They are the same troops that landed at the Arabs' Tower, and who carry
such inscriptions on their standards as these.” He snatched a flag from
the sergeant beside him as he spoke, and pointed to the proud words
embroidered there: “Le Passage de la Scrivia,” “Le Passage de Tisonzo,”
“Le Pont de Lodi.” Then, in a low, muttering voice, he added, “But
Buonaparte was with us then.”
Had he spoken for hours, the confession of their discontent with their
generals could not have been more manifest; and a sudden gleam of hope
shot through Darcy's breast, to think his captivity might soon be over.
There was every reason to indulge in this pleasing belief;
disorganization had extended to every branch of the service. An angry
correspondence, in which even personal chastisement was broadly hinted
at, passed between the two officers highest in command; and this not
secretly, but publicly known to the entire army. Peculation of the most
gross and open kind was practised by the commissaries; and as the
troops became distressed by want, they retaliated by daring breaches of
discipline, so that at every parade men stood out from the ranks, boldly
demanding their rations, and answering the orders of the officers by
insulting cries of “Bread! bread!”
All this while the British were advancing steadily, overcoming each
obstacle in turn, and with a force whose privations had made no inroad
upon the strictest discipline; they felt confident of success. The few
prisoners who occasionally fell into the hands of the French wore
all the assurance of men who felt that their misfortunes could not be
lasting, and in good-humored raillery bantered their captors on the
British beef and pudding they would receive, instead of horseflesh, so
soon as the capitulation was signed.
The French soldiers were, indeed, heartily tired of the war; they were
tired of the country, of the leaders, whose incompetency, whether real
or not, they believed; tired, above all, of absence from France, from
which they felt exiled. Each step they retired from the coast seemed
to them another day's journey from their native land, and they did not
hesitate to avow to their prisoners that they had no wish or care save
to return to their country.
Such was the spirit of the French army as it drew near Cairo, than which
no greater contrast could exist than that presented by the advancing
enemy. Let us now return to the more immediate interests of our story;
and while we beg to corroborate the brief narrative of the French
officer, we hope it is unnecessary to add that the individual whose
suddenly changed fortune had elevated him from the ranks of a simple
volunteer to that of a peer of England was our old acquaintance Dick
Forester.
From the moment when the tidings reached him, to that in which he lay,
still suffering from his wounds, in the richly furnished chamber of a
London hotel, the whole train of events through which he had so lately
passed seemed like the incoherent fancies of a dream. The excited frame
of mind in which he became a volunteer with the army had not time to
subside ere came the spirit-stirring hour of the landing at Aboukir. The
fight, in all its terrible but glorious vicissitudes; the struggle in
which he perilled his own life to save his leader's; the moments that
seemed those of ebbing life in which he lay upon a litter before Darcy's
eyes, and yet unable to speak his name; and then the sudden news of his
brother's death, overwhelming him at once with sorrow for his loss, and
all the thousand fleeting thoughts of his own future, should life be
spared him,--these were enough, and more than enough, to disturb and
overbalance a mind already weakened by severe illness.
Had Forester known more of his only brother, it is certain that the
predominance of the feeling of grief would have subdued the others, and
given at least the calm of affliction to his troubled senses. But they
were almost strangers to each other; the elder having passed his life
almost exclusively abroad, and the younger, separated by distance and a
long interval of years, being a complete stranger to his qualities and
temper.
Dick Forester's grief, therefore, was no more than that which ties of so
close kindred will ever call up, but unmixed with the tender attachment
of a brother's love. His altered fortunes had not thus the strong alloy
of heartfelt sorrow to make them distasteful; but still there was an
unreality in everything,--a vague uncertainty in all his endeavors at
close reasoning, which harassed and depressed him. And when he awoke
from each short disturbed sleep, it took several minutes before he could
bring back his memory to the last thought of his waking hours. The very
title “my Lord,” so scrupulously repeated at each instant, startled him
afresh at each moment he heard it; and as he read over the names of the
high and titled personages whose anxieties for his recovery had made
them daily visitors at his hotel, his heart faltered between the
pleasure of flattery and a deeper feeling of almost scorn for the
sympathies of a world that could minister to the caprices of rank what
it withheld from the real sufferings of the same man in obscurity. His
mother he had not seen yet; for Lady Netherby, much attached to her
eldest son, and vain of abilities by which she reckoned on his future
distinction, was herself seriously indisposed. Lord Netherby, however,
had been a frequent visitor, and had already seen Forester several
times, although always very briefly, and only upon the terms of distant
politeness.
Although in a state that precluded everything like active exertion, and
which, indeed, made the slightest effort a matter of peril, Forester had
already exchanged more than one communication with the Horse Guards
on the subject of the Knight's safety, and received the most steady
assurances that his exchange was an object on which the authorities were
most anxious, and engaged at the very moment in negotiations for its
accomplishment. There were two difficulties: one, that no officer of
Darcy's precise rank was then a prisoner with the British; and secondly,
that any very pressing desire expressed for his liberation would serve
to weaken the force of that conviction they were so eager to impress,
that the campaign was nearly ended, and that nothing but capitulation
remained for the French.
Forester was not more gratified than surprised at the tone of obliging
and almost deferential politeness which pervaded each answer to his
applications. He had yet to learn how a vote in the “Lords” can make
secretaries civil, and Under-Secretaries most courteous; and while
his few uncertain lines were penned with diffidence and distrust, the
replies gradually inducted him into that sense of confidence which a few
months later he was to feel like a birthright.
How far these thoughts contributed to his recovery it would be difficult
to say, nor does it exactly lie in our province to inquire. The
likelihood is, that the inducements to live are strong aids to overcome
sickness; for, as a witty observer has remarked, “There is no such
_manque dre savoir vivre_ as dying at four-and-twenty.”
It is very probable Forester experienced all this, and that the dreams
of the future in which he indulged were not only his greatest but his
pleasantest aid to recovery. A brilliant position, invested with rank,
title, fortune, and a character for enterprise, are all flattering
adjuncts to youth; while in the hope of succeeding where his dearest
wishes were concerned, lay a source of far higher happiness. How to
approach this subject again most fittingly, was now the constant object
of his thoughts. He sometimes resolved to address Lady Eleanor; but so
long as he could convey no precise tidings of the Knight, this would be
an ungracious task. Then he thought of Miss Daly, but he did not know
her address; all these doubts and hesitations invariably ending in
the resolve that as soon as his strength permitted he would go over to
Ireland, and finding out Bicknell, obtain accurate information as to
Lady Eleanor's present residence, and also learn if, without being
discovered, he could in any way be made serviceable to the interests of
the family.
Perhaps we cannot better convey the gradually dawning conviction of his
altered fortune on his mind than by mentioning that while he canvassed
these various chances, and speculated on their course, he never dwelt on
the possibility of Lady Netherby's power to influence his determination.
In the brief note he received from her each morning, the tone of
affectionate solicitude for his health was always accompanied by some
allusive hint of the “duties” recovery would impose, and each inquiry
after his night's rest was linked with a not less anxious question as
to how soon he might feel able to appear in public. Constitutionally
susceptible of all attempts to control him, and from his childhood
disposed to rebel against dictation, he limited his replies to brief
accounts of his progress or inquiries after her own health, resolved
in his heart that now that fortune was his own, to use the blessings it
bestows according to the dictates of affection and a conscientious sense
of right, and be neither the toy of a faction nor the tool of a party.
In Darcy--could he but see him once more--he looked for a friend and
adviser; and whatever the fortune of his suit, he felt that the Knight's
counsels should be his guidance as to the future, reposing not even more
trust on unswerving rectitude than the vast range of his knowledge of
life, and the common-sense views he could take of the most complex as of
the very simplest questions.
It was now some seven weeks after his return, and Forester, for we
would still desire to call him by the name our reader has known him,
was sitting upon a sofa, weak and nervous, as the first day of a
convalescent's appearance in the drawing-room usually is, when his
servant, having deposited on the table several visiting-cards of
distinguished inquirers, mentioned that the Earl of Netherby wished to
pay his respects. Forester moved his head in token of assent, and his
Lordship soon after entered.