what is your title?" stammered the major, holding the flickering candle
over the miserable couch; "'tis all over blood. What does it mean? We
_soldados_ are not so fond of slaughter as to relish a bed of this
sort." This strange exclamation recalled Ronald's wandering senses, and
on surveying their humble pallet, he beheld it stained with blood,
which, though hard and dry, appeared to have been recently shed, and in
no small quantity.
"Campbell, here has been some foul work," said he, instinctively laying
his hand on his basket hilt. "Make the fellow explain."
"Holloa, Mr. Cifuentes; tell us all about it, or I'll beat the pipe-clay
out of your tattered doublet, and that without parley," vociferated the
inebriated major, flourishing his short cudgel over the head of their
host.
"_Dios mio_, senors! Ha! ha! what a noise you make about a few red
spots; 'tis French Malaga," replied the other, laughing heartily, as if
something tickled his fancy exceedingly. "But I will tell you the tale
as it happened, as you appear so anxious about it. The last time the
French were in Albuquerque, I had four of their officers billeted upon
me by our dog of an alcalde. They were merry and handsome young sparks
of the chasseurs, and I plied them well with the contents of
half-a-dozen pigskins, until they could scarcely stand, and then led
them here for their repose; and they all four slept upon this very
pallet. In the night-time I and two other comrades, guerillas of Don
Salvador de Zagala's band, stole softly in upon them, and plunged our
stilettoes into their hearts:[*] they died easily, being overcome with
wine, and the fatigue of a long march, and our strokes were deadly and
sure. Carrying off all their chattels, we hid for some days in the
forest of Albuquerque until the enemy had retired, when I returned, and
was surprised to find my _caza_ but little the worse. The carrion,
which we had tossed into the street in our flight, had been carried
away, and buried by Dombrouski's corps with military honours.
[*] This piece of cruelty is no fiction, but actually happened as
related here.
"So now, senors, you see I am a true patriot,--a loyal Spaniard, and
that you have nothing to suspect me for. All Albuquerque knows the
story of the four chasseurs, and praise me for the deed. I will turn up
the mattress to hide the marks, and you will repose in all comfort upon
it." As all this was related in Spanish, but little of it was
understood by Ronald, who, however, comprehended enough to make him
regard with detestation and horror the man who coolly confessed that he
had slain four helpless fellow-beings in cold blood, and exulted in the
narration of the deed with the feeling of one who had acted a most
meritorious part. The satisfaction of the patriotic patron seemed
considerably damped by the expression which he saw depicted in the
features of his hearers.
"I do not believe you: this cannot be true," said they, at one and the
same time.
"_Madre de Dios_! I call the mother of God to witness that it is. Why,
senor, the men were only Frenchmen, and you would have taken their lives
yourselves."
"In the open field, when equally armed; but we should not have stolen
upon them in the night, and butchered them in their sleep, as you say
you did. And you shall die for it, you base Spanish dog!" cried Ronald
furiously, as he unsheathed his sword.
"Hold, Stuart, my lad!" cried the major, who was perfectly sobered by
this time; "it is beneath a soldier and gentleman to draw on so vile a
scoundrel as this: I will deal with him otherwise. Look ye, Senor
Narvaez," said Campbell, turning to the Spaniard, who had started back
at the sight of Ronald's glittering blade, and eyed them both with a
savage scowl, while his hand grasped the hilt of his poniard. "You had
better betake yourself again to your friends in the forest of
Albuquerque, and get clear of the city by morning, or I may have
interest enough with the corregidor or alcalde to have you hanged like a
scarecrow by the neck. So retire now, fellow, at once, and leave us."
"_Demonios!_" cried he, grinding his teeth; "am I not master of my own
house? _Carajo, senor_----"
The rest was cut short by the summary mode of ejectment put in force by
the major. Seizing him by the throat, he dragged him to the door, and
in spite of all his struggles,--for the Spaniard, though a stout
ruffian, was not a match for the gigantic Highlander,--hurled him to the
lower landing-place of the old wooden stair, and tossing the mattress
after him, shut and bolted the door.
"I can scarcely believe the tale to be true which this fellow has told
us," observed Ronald, as they composed themselves to rest upon the hard
boards, with no other covering than their gay regimentals.
"I entertain no doubt of its truth. He called to witness one, whom a
Spaniard names only on most solemn occasions. But we must seek some
sleep: 'tis two in the morning by my watch, and we march in three hours.
The boards are confoundedly hard, and I am too sleepy to prick for a
soft place. _Diavolo!_ what a time we have wasted with that tattered
vagabond! But good night, Stuart; we will talk this matter over on the
march to-morrow."
Campbell stretched his bulky form on the boards, with his cudgel and
long claymore beside him, and turning his face to the wall was soon in a
deep slumber, as a certain noise proceeding from his nostrils indicated.
But it was not so with the younger soldier, who courted in vain the
influence of the drowsy god whose power had overwhelmed the senses of
his comrade.
The fumes of the unusual quantity of wine which he had taken, were
mounting into Ronald's head, and he lay watching the pale light of the
stars through the latticed windows. Frightful faces, which he traced in
the stains on the discoloured wall, seemed to peer through the gloom
upon him, and every rumbling sound that echoed through the old mansion
caused him to start, grip his sword and look about, for the vivid idea
of the poor chasseurs who had been assassinated, in that very chamber,
haunted him continually, causing him to shudder. When he thought, also,
that he had spent the night in carousal with a murderous bravo, he
resolved to be more circumspect in what company he would trust his
person, in future, while in Spain.
From a sleep into which he had sunk, he was soon awakened by the warning
pipe for the march, which passed close beneath the window, and then grew
fainter in sound as Macdonuil-dhu strode on, arousing his comrades from
their billets, and the wild notes died away in the dark and narrow
streets of the city. The major sprang up at the well-known sound, and
Ronald, although wearied and unrefreshed, prepared to follow him.
"Confound this fashion of Lord Wellington's! this marching always an
hour before day-break," muttered Campbell. "The morning is so chilly
and cold, that my very teeth chatter, and----the devil! my canteen is
empty," he added, shaking the little wooden barrel which went by that
name, and one of which every officer and soldier on service carried
slung in a shoulder-belt. "If you have nought in yours, Stuart, we must
leave the house of the honourable Senor Narvaez Cifuentes without our
_doch-an-dhoris_,[*] as we say at home in poor old Scotland, where men
may sleep quietly at night, without fear of getting a dirk put into
their wame. Shake your canteen, my boy! Is there a shot in the
locker?"
[*] Gaelic, meaning stirrup-cup.
Luckily for the thirsty commander, Ronald's last day's allowance of
ration rum was untouched, and they now quaffed it between them to the
regimental toast,--"Here's to the Highlandmen, shoulder to shoulder!" a
sentiment well known among the Scottish mountaineers as a true military
toast.
They now proceeded down stairs, where they found their patron seated in
his wine-store, surrounded by the well-filled skins; he sat beside a
rickety old table, on which he leaned with the clumsy and careless air
that so well became his appearance; his chin rested on his hand, and his
tangled black hair fell over his face, but from between the locks he
eyed them with a gaze of intense ferocity as they entered. Campbell
sternly shook his stick over his head, and tossing towards him a few
reals for their last night's entertainment, passed with Ronald into the
street, where the soldiers were under arms.
On leaving behind the town of Albuquerque, the sound of distant firing
in front warned them of their nearer approach to the place of their
destination, and the scene of actual hostilities. As they advanced, the
sharp but scattered reports of musketry, and now and then the deeper
boom of a field-piece, came floating towards them on the breeze which
swept along the level places; but an eminence, upon which the ancient
castle of Zagala is situated, obstructed their view of the hostile
operations, and they pressed eagerly forward to gain the height, full of
excitement and glee.
"Welcome to Spain!" cried an officer of the 13th Light Dragoons, who
came galloping up from the rear, and reined in his jaded charger by the
side of the marching Highlanders for a few minutes. "There is brave
sport going on in front; press forward, my boys, and you may be in at
the death, as we used to say at home in old Kent."
"What is going on in advance?" asked the major. "Are ours engaged?"
"I have little doubt that they are: Cameron never lags behind, you know.
I was left in the rear at Albuquerque on duty, and am now hurrying
forward to join the 13th, who belong to Long's cavalry brigade. They
are now driving a party of plundering French out of La Nava: you will
have a view of the whole affair when you gain the top of the hill. But
I must not delay here: adieu!" and dashing the spurs into his horse, he
disappeared behind the ruinous castle.
"Forward, men! double quick. Let us gain the head of the brae," cried
Campbell, urging forward with cudgel and spur a miserable Rosinante,
which he had procured at Lisbon.
Carrying their muskets at the long trail, the Highlanders advanced with
that quick trot so habitual to the Scottish mountaineers, which soon
brought them beneath the grass-grown battlements and mouldering towers
of Zagala, from the eminence of which they now had an extensive view to
the southward.
The horizon extended to about six or eight leagues, and all within that
ample circle was waste and barren land, where the plough had been
unknown for an age, and where nought seemed to flourish but weeds and
little laurel-bushes. There was no trace of habitation around the
plain, but far off appeared the deserted village of La Nava, near a
leafless cork wood, the bare boughs presenting but a poor back ground to
roofless walls and solitary rafters. There was something chilling in so
dreary a prospect, but most of the plains in the same province present a
similar aspect, because in no part of Spain is agriculture more
neglected than in Estremadura. It was early in the spring of the year,
and traces of vegetation were becoming visible; the wood near La Nava
was, as I have said, bare and leafless, but a few stunted shrubs by the
way-side gave signs of budding. The ruddy sun was setting in the west
behind the lofty Sierra de Montanches, the dark ridges of which rose
behind the high city and castled rock of Albuquerque: the sky in every
direction was of a clear cold blue, save around the sun, where large
masses of gold and purple clouds seemed resting on the curved outline of
the mountains, over which and through every opening the rays fell
aslant, and were reflected by the arms of the troops who occupied the
level plain, over which shone the long line of its setting splendour.
From the height of Zagala they beheld the operations in front.
A party of five hundred French infantry were rapidly retreating towards
the cork wood, exposed to the continual fire of two twelve-pound
field-pieces and the charges of the cavalry brigade under General Long,
who took every opportunity of breaking among the little band through the
gaps formed by the cannon shot, which made complete lanes through their
compact mass. The French retired with admirable coolness and bravery,
keeping up a hot and rapid fire from four sides on the cavalry, who
often charged them at full speed, brandishing their sabres, but were
forced to recoil; and no sooner was a gap made in a face of a solid
square by the fall of a file, than it was instantly filled by another.
And thus leaving behind them a line of killed and wounded, they
continued their retreat towards Merida, where their main body lay,
disputing every foot of ground with desperate courage until they reached
the cork wood, which being unfavourable for the movements of the
cavalry, the latter were obliged to retire with considerable loss.
"Hurrah!" cried Campbell, flourishing his stick; "I have not seen this
sort of work for this year and more. You see, Stuart, that a solid
square of bold infantry may laugh at a charge of horse, who must recoil
from their bayonets like water from a rock. There are the 9th and 13th
Light Dragoons and the fire of the French seems to have cooled their
chivalry a little, and shown them that a sabre is as nothing against
brown Bess, with a bayonet on her muzzle. They are retiring towards us,
after doing, however, all that brave hearts could do. Poor fellows!
many of them are lying rolling about wounded and in agony, or already
dead, near the skirts of that confounded copse by which the frog-eaters
have escaped. But where are _ours_? I do not see Howard's brigade."
"Yonder they are, major," replied Ronald, "halted on the level place
behind the ruined village. I see the bonnets of the Highlanders, and
the colours."
"Ay, I see them now. Yonder they are, sure enough; and the old
Half-hundred, and the 71st, the light bobs, with the tartan trews and
hummel bonnets, all as spruce as ever, bivouacked comfortably on the
bare earth as of old. We shall have the pleasure of passing the night
without even a tent to keep the dew off us. _Carajo!_ as the Spaniard
says; you will now taste the delights of soldiering in good earnest, as
I did first in Egypt with old Sir Ralph Abercrombie."
"We are seen by them. I hear the sound of the pipes, and they are
waving their bonnets in welcome," said Alister Macdonald.
"Blow up your bags, Macdonuil-dhu, and let them hear the bray of the
drones," cried Campbell, whacking the sides of his nag to urge her
onward. "Push forward, brave lads! we will be with Fassifern and our
comrades in a few minutes more."
Skirting the miserable village of La Nava, they soon arrived at the
ground over which the advanced picquet of the enemy had retired. Two
dead bodies attracted the eye of Ronald as he passed over them, and
being the first men he had ever seen slain, and in so revolting a
manner, they made an impression on his mind which was not easily
effaced. They were young and good-looking men, and the same cannon-shot
had mowed them both down. A complete hole was made in the body of one,
and his entrails were scattered about; the legs of the other were
carried away, and lay a few yards off, with a ball near them half buried
in the turf. Their grenadier caps, each adorned with a brass eagle and
red plume, had fallen off, and the frightful distortion of their livid
features, with the wild glare of their white and glassy eyes, struck
Ronald with a feeling of horror and compassion, which it was long ere he
could forget.
"Queer work this!" said the major, coolly looking at them over his
horsed flank, "and you don't seem to admire it much, Stuart; but you are
a young soldier yet, and will get used to it by and by. Nothing hardens
either the heart or the hide so much as a campaign or two. I learned
that in Egypt."
"Puir callants! what would their mothers think, were they to see their
bairns as they lie here noo?" soliloquized Evan, looking after them
ruefully.
"It would be an awfu' sicht for them, or ony o' the peaceable folk at
name," replied another soldier. "But what can these twa queer chields
wi' the muckle brimmed hats be wanting wi' them?"
"The Spanish dogs! Would to Heaven I might be allowed to shoot them
dead," vociferated Campbell, making a motion with his hand towards the
bear-skin covering of his holsters. "The scoundrels! they are come to
rob and strip the dead."
Two Spanish peasants had approached the bodies, about which they
exercised their hands so busily, that they soon plundered them of
knapsacks, accoutrements, uniform, and every thing, leaving the
mutilated bodies stripped to the skin and exposed on the plain, while
they made off towards La Nava with their spoil. A few minutes' more
marching brought the major's detachment to the spot where the brigade of
General Howard was halted on a piece of waste moorland, where the three
corps had piled their arms, and were making such preparations for
bivouacking for the night as could be made by men who had neither tent
to cover them, nor couch to repose on but the bare and cold earth.
No tents at that time, or for long afterwards, were served out by the
British government to our troops in Spain, and their privations and
misery were of course greatly increased by the want of proper means of
encamping. The men were lying about in all directions, worn out and
exhausted with the load they had carried and the fatigue of a long
march; and the officers were reposing among them without ceremony.
Apart from them all, on the right of the line, Colonel Cameron of
Fassifern stood holding his caparisoned horse by the bridle, as was his
usual custom, aloof alike from his officers and soldiers. He was a proud
and strict commander, who kept the former "at the staff's end," as the
military saying is, behaving to them in a manner at once haughty, cold,
and distant; and yet withal he was a good officer, a brave soldier, and
beloved by his regiment, which would have stood by him to the last man.
He was a well-made figure, above the middle height; his features were
handsome, and his hair was fair and curly. There was ever a proud and
fiery sort of light in his dark blue eyes, which when he was excited
were wont to sparkle and flash with peculiar brilliancy,--an expression
which never failed to produce its due effect upon beholders. To him the
major reported his arrival, and introduced the officers one by one.
He eyed Ronald Stuart, of whom he had heard previously, with a keen
Highland glance, and asked some questions about his family and his
father.
"I have often heard of the Stuarts of Lochisla," said he, "but have
never had the pleasure of seeing one till now. Sir John Stuart of the
Tower saved the life and honour of my grandfather Lochiel, at the risk
of his own, on the bloody field of Culloden. I am happy to have the
descendant of so brave a man an officer of the Gordon Highlanders."
"Ensign Macdonald, colonel," said the major, presenting Alister.
"Macdonald? Ah!" said Cameron, bowing, "your family is not unknown to
me. I have had letters from Glengarry, and all the Macdonalds of the
Isles, respecting you;" and thus he went on, as there was scarcely an
officer introduced to him whose family was not well known in the North.
After some little conversation, Ronald withdrew to where the officers
were grouped around the bulky figure of Campbell, asking a hundred
questions about the news from home, &c.
There was scarcely an officer or private of the new comers but was met
and greeted by some kinsman or old friend, whose canteen of ration rum,
or Lisbon wine, was at his service; and loud were the shouts of laughter
and merriment that arose on all sides. Eager and earnest were the
inquiries about village homes and paternal hearths in "the land of the
mountain and the flood," and to many a Jean, Jessy, and Tibby, were the
wooden canteens drained to their dregs; but although the fun "grew fast
and furious" amongst many, there were some whose hearts grew sad at the
intelligence which their comrades brought, of some grey head, which they
loved and revered, being laid in the dust in some old and
well-remembered kirk-yard; or of a faithless Jenny, who preferred a
lover at home to one far away in Spain.
As the shades of night darkened over the plain of La Nava, the sounds
died away; and stretching their bare legs on the dewy earth, the hardy
Highlanders reposed between the pyramids of firelocks and bayonets that
glittered in the red glare of the watch-fires, lighted at certain
distances throughout the bivouac, which became quiet for the night,
after strong picquets had been posted in the direction of Merida, where
fifteen hundred French under the command of General Dombrouski (a Pole
in Buonaparte's service) were quartered. Rolled up in a cloak and
blanket, Ronald laid himself down like the rest, with the basket-hilt of
his claymore for a pillow and clay for his bed; but to sleep in a
situation so new and uncomfortable was almost impossible, and he often
raised his head to view the strange scene around him.
The ruddy blaze of the fires was cast upon the worn uniform, faded
tartan, and sun-burned knees and faces of the soldiers, giving a strong
light and shade, which increased the picturesque and romantic appearance
of the bivouac. The arms of the sentries flashed in the light, as they
paced slowly to and fro on their posts; and farther off were seen the
motionless forms of the cavalry videttes, appearing like black
equestrian statues in the distance, standing perfectly still, with their
long dark cloaks flowing over their horses' flanks; but as the night
grew darker, and the light of the watchfires waned, these distant
objects could be no longer discerned.
The bright stars were twinkling in the dark blue sky, and among them a
red planet in the west, (the _Ton-thena_ of Ossian,) which Ronald used
to watch for hours at midnight from the battlements of the tower at
Lochisla, while listening to the ancient tales of war or woe related by
Donald Iverach.
He thought sadly of his home, and of poor Alice Lisle. He gazed upon
her miniature until the flickering light of the fire failed him, and
then dropped into an uneasy slumber, from which he was startled more
than once by the deep howling of wild dogs, or other animals, from that
part of the plain where the dead bodies of the slain lay uninterred.
*CHAPTER VII.*
*MERIDA.*
"All was prepared--the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay--
A human hydra, issuing from its pen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which, cut off in vain,
Immediately in others grew again."
_Don Juan_, canto viii.
Towards morning a storm of rain and wind arose, and none but those who
have experienced it can imagine the manifold miseries of a tentless
bivouac on such an occasion. Howling dismally among the trees of the
cork wood, the cold wind swept over the desert plain, and the sleety
rain descended in torrents, drenching the unsheltered soldiers to the
skin, and extinguishing their fires; as the cold increased towards
day-break, they cursed the order which had halted them in so exposed and
dreary a spot, to which even the cork wood or ruins of La Nava would
have been preferable.