with his party. It was the last time he ever beheld him. By the sound
of his silver whistle he collected the Highland sentinels from all
points. These, with Major-general Howard, Wemyss, the brigade-major,
and Ronald himself, were the last men who quitted the ruins of Alba. The
mounted officers rode at a trot, and the heavily laden infantry followed
double-quick, with their musquets at the trail. The moment the bridge
was cleared the sappers sprung the mine: a roar like that of thunder
shook the current of the Tormes, and a cloud of dust and stones rose
into the air. Ronald, who was severely bruised by the falling
fragments, cast a glance behind as he hurried along. The bridge was a
mass of ruins. The Spanish flag was waving from the round tower of
Alba, which was now enveloped in smoke, and flashes of musquetry broke
from it on all sides as the forlorn band of the conde opened a sharp
fire from the rampart and loopholes upon a dense and dark column of
French infantry, which was seen descending rapidly towards the town,
with tri-colours flying, and brass drums beating in that peculiar manner
by which the French regulate the quick step. After a desperate
resistance, Truxillo and his Castilians were captured; but the sound of
the firing was long heard by the brigade as it retreated in squares
along the road for Ciudad Rodrigo, thus completely frustrating Soult's
design to enclose and cut them off by his cavalry, who appeared in about
half an hour, and met with so desperate a resistance that they were
compelled to retire with immense loss.
That night the brigade halted on the skirts of a cork wood, five leagues
distant from Alba de Tormes. The half-leafless branches afforded but a
poor protection from the rain, which continued to pour without cessation
until day-break, when the weary march was recommenced.
It was indeed a night of misery! Although worn out with fatigue and
hunger, it was impossible to sleep on the wet ground, on which the
rushing rain was descending in drops larger than peas; and almost
equally impossible to stand, after what had been endured for some days
past,--marching from dawn till sunset laden with seventy-five pounds
weight, and fasting for six-and-thirty, or eight-and-forty consecutive
hours. Cursing themselves and their fate, many of the soldiers were so
disheartened at the retreat, and the miseries they had undergone since
they left Aranjuez, that they were often heard aloud "wishing to Heaven
their brains had been blown out in Alba!"
Ronald, being sent on out-picquet, lost even the slight shelter afforded
by the wood; but the soldiers had lighted prodigious fires, upon which
even the power of the rain was lost; and seated by one, he passed a
sleepless night, listening to the rain-drops sputtering in the flames,
and to the hoarse croaking of frogs in a neighbouring marsh. During the
night it was discovered that the wood was the lair of wild pigs, and a
regular hunt ensued; by which means scores were shot during the glimpses
of moonlight. As fast as they were killed they were quartered, and
served out to the men, who crowded round the fires, broiling them on
their bayonets and long steel ramrods. Major Campbell, who was a keen
sportsman, and had been accustomed to shoot by moonlight at home,
exerted himself so well, that with his own hand he shot five, and
brought them to the bivouac, where he threw them among the soldiers.
The out-picquets had been puzzled to comprehend the meaning of the
firing within the wood, and Ronald was agreeably surprised by his
servant bringing him a slice of wild pork, famously fried in a
camp-kettle lid, and with it a _berengena_ (a fruit of the cucumber
genus) which he had found in the wood and reserved for his master,
although almost perishing for want of nourishment himself. But the
instances of Evan's fidelity are innumerable.
The contents of the camp-kettle were shared between master and man,
without ceremony, and without the absence of salt or other seasoning
being perceived.
For this affair of pig-shooting in the cork wood, the commander-in-chief
took the opportunity to tell the army, in a general order, that they had
degenerated into "a lawless banditti," and that, without having suffered
the least privation, they were in a state of mutiny and disorder. This
taunting and bitter address is still remembered with peculiar annoyance
by the few survivors of that brave army.
But, to return to the unhappy and unlooked-for retreat from Burgos,
privations the troops _did_ suffer, (and I say so, in defiance of that
general order,) and privations such as soldiers never endured before or
since. Continuing their rapid retreat across the frontier, on the
evening of the 19th of November, the first brigade entered the miserable
village of Robledo, in Leon; and as the soldiers halted and formed line
in the street, pale, exhausted, wayworn, famished, and absolutely in
rags,--shirtless, shoeless, and penniless, they seemed more like an
assemblage of gaunt spectres than British men. Ronald's shirt had not
been changed for ten days, nor had his beard been shaven for the same
period. His shoes were completely worn away, and his bare feet had been
cut and wounded by the flinty ground, while his uniform hung in fritters
about him. Every officer was in the same predicament.
The military chest was empty, the stores exhausted. The cavalry and
artillery horses perished in scores for want of forage; and during the
whole retreat from Alba de Tormes to Robledo, the soldiers had fared on
scanty rations of tough beef, horse-beans, acorns and castanos picked up
by the way-side; or now and then, when the commissary could procure it,
a few handfuls of wheat served out to each officer and
private--unground. On reaching their winter-quarters thousands of
soldiers died of sheer exhaustion, or were invalided and sent home, to
become burdens to their friends, parishes, or themselves, for the
remainder of their lives.
*CHAPTER IV.*
*ANGUS MACKIE.*
"The bud comes back to summer,
And the blossom to the tree;
But I win back--oh, never!
To my ain countrie.
I'm leal to the high heaven,
Which will be leal to me;
And there I'll meet ye a' sune,
Frae my ain countrie."
_Scottish Song._
In the beginning of the next month the Highlanders were marched across
the Sierra de Gate to the ancient city of Coria, in Estremadura, where
they were to remain until they had recovered from their late fatigues,
and received recruits, clothing, supplies, and arrears of pay from
Lisbon. While on the march across the sierra, Evan's comrade, Angus
Mackie, a soldier of whom I have made frequent mention, deserted from
the light company, and, singularly enough, was discovered to have gone
off in the direction of the enemy,--a circumstance which exasperated the
whole regiment against him. But the true reason of poor Mackie's
disappearance soon afterwards came to light.
On the second day after their arrival at Coria, the mail bags were
brought from the rear, and Ronald, who was on guard with twenty
Highlanders at one of the four gates of the city, was much annoyed at
being unable to inquire if any letters had come for him, and he passed
the whole day in a disagreeable state of expectation and excitement. In
the evening the guards were relieved, and he hurried to his billet,
which was situated in one of the narrow and gloomy streets leading from
the market-place towards the cathedral. At the door he was met by Evan,
who informed him that "twa letters frae hame were awaiting him in his
room. Major Campbell had left them there some time before."
"Foolish! Why did you not bring them to the guard-house?"
"But alake, sir! there isna ane for me," said Evan, without minding the
question. "My faither micht hae sent me ae screed, and I houp that
naething waur than the broon coo--(as he ay ca'd the yill), or a wee
drap ower muckle o' the barley bree, have keepit him fraed."
"A light, Evan! a light! this place is very dark," cried Ronald to his
retainer, who had followed him up stairs to hear what news the letter
contained.
"Twa candles, sir," said he, as he lighted them. "Twa, nae less. By the
alcalde's order, the auld patron body has to furnish ye wi' twa,--which
maks ye 'as braw as the Laird o' Grant.' Ye mind the auld saying, I
daur say?"
Ronald snatched the letters, and beheld with joy and delight that one
was from Alice,--the other from his father.
"Poor Louis!" muttered he aloud; "how much I wish that he was here!"
Ronald was absolutely trembling with joy as he opened the letter and
prepared to read it.
He drew his chair close to the table, and raised the snuffers to trim
the candles; when, lo! the lights were both blown out, and the snuffers
flew from his hand with a loud report.
"Gude guide us!" exclaimed Evan, astonished at being so suddenly
involved in darkness; but a hearty malediction escaped Ronald, who was
chafed and infuriated with the delay this unexpected circumstance
caused.
"Light them again," cried he. "Did you say that Major Campbell had been
waiting for me in this room?"
"Ay, sir, a gay gude while,"
"Pshaw! this is some trick of his: he has put a pinch of powder in the
snuffers. His practical joke has been somewhat mis-timed. Get me fresh
lights." Although Ronald laughed heartily at this occurrence
afterwards, he was greatly enraged by it at the time, and an age seemed
to elapse before Evan brought him the candles again. Love-letters are
interesting to those only for whom they are designed, and it is not my
intention to give Miss Lisle's letter at length; but the reader, if
concerned about the matter, may be assured that its contents were in
every way just what Ronald could have wished them,--save in one part.
She expressed her joy to hear that Louis was a prisoner, saying that he
was "safer in France than fighting in Spain," and that she almost wished
that Ronald himself might be captured likewise, to keep him out of
harm's way.
"Evan, Jessie Cavers begs again to be remembered to you," said Ronald to
his expectant follower, as he closed the letter.
"Does she really, noo? The dear lassie!" cried he, snapping his
fingers, while his eyes glistened with delight; and he commenced a sort
of strathspey round the table. "My ain bonnie blithesome Jessie! Mony
a gloaming I have spent wi' her among the sauch-tree woods o' Inchavon,
and the haughs o' the Isla. Deil tak the wars and campaigning! How
blithely would I gie this unco land o' teuch beef and rotten nuts, hard
fechtin and wearysome marching, for auld Scotland, sae brave and sae
bonnie, wi' its green grassy glens and high heather hills, its lochs and
its woods! Ochone! Oh, Maister Ronald! gin we once mair saw Benmore,
and fand the smell o' oor ain peat reek, I dinna think we would be in a
hurry to leave hame again. And then Miss Lisle o' the big ha' house
would be your ain, and my bonnie doo Jessie mine! I have written to her
three times, and deil a scrap o' a letter has she sent me. She writes
weil aneugh, thanks to the auld dominie at the schule o' Latheronweel.
But what does the laird say? Are a' weil at oor ain ingle-neuck?"
"All, Heaven be thanked!" replied Ronald, glancing rapidly over the
pages of his father's letter; "but leave me just now, Evan, and see who
that is knocking in the piazzas below. I will detail the news from the
glen afterwards."
His father's letter, although it contained many expressions of pride,
praise, and exultation for Ronald's conduct at Almarez, was written much
in the same style as his others usually were: every thing was looking
gloomy at home; the flocks and hirsels were perishing on the mountains,
and the tenants in the glen had failed in their rents. "But they are
our people," continued the old gentleman, "and I cannot drive them forth
from the sheilings where they were born, and from the glen where the
purple heather blooms so bonnily above the graves of their fathers. I
cannot savagely expatriate, as other proprietors are doing daily, the
descendants of those true and loyal vassals, who stood by our ancestors
in danger and death during many a soul-stirring time in the years that
are gone. No! I have more honour, compassion, and generosity. Poverty
is their misfortune, not their crime. Heaven knows how little a space
of time remains for me to be over them, as all my affairs are
inextricably involved, and in a few months that letter of cautionary,
granted in an evil hour to protect that rascal Macquirk, becomes due.
God alone knows where I can raise the money. L8,000 will scarcely pay
it, and I believe I will have to lay it down every stiver, as Macquirk
has retreated to the sanctuary of Holyrood-house for protection from his
creditors. Last month I was down in Edinburgh, endeavouring to procure
the needful on a bond,--but in vain. Lochisla is too deeply involved
already. Curse on the hour in which an honourable Highland gentleman of
birth and family has to sue at and succumb to a narrow-hearted and
blood-sucking attorney! a wretch that will make a beggar of any man who
is simple enough to trust him, or become entangled in the meshes of
_the_ profession, which, like a true old Highlander, I regard with
proper hatred and contempt. D--n them all! I say, heartily; and all
tax-gatherers, messengers at arms, and excisemen likewise! Some of the
last kind of intruders carried off Alpin Oig's still from Coir nan
Taischatrin, and a great noise was made in Perth about it. Three came
up the glen with a warrant for his apprehension; but I hid him in the
old dungeon under the hall, where I would advise them not to try and
look for him, if they wish to keep their bones whole. It was a great
insult to seize the still, but I am powerless now, and can only think
with a sigh of the time when my father hung two of them on the _dule
tree_ at the tower gate,--and no man dared to say, What dost thou? It
was the day before he marched for Glenfinnan, and the unfortunate
gaugers were left to feed the eagles and corbies of Benmore. Scotland
was Scotland then! Dirk and claymore! was the cry when a Highland
gentleman was insulted. I saw, by the papers, that young Inchavon has
been taken prisoner. Well, I dare say you will not miss him much. His
sister's arts have completely failed to entrap the Earl of Hyndford. He
took his departure suddenly for Edinburgh last month, leaving Miss Alice
to fly her hawks at lesser game."
Ronald had scarcely finished the perusal of this disheartening letter,
when Evan entered hastily. "Oh, sir," said he, "I have an unco' tale to
tell ye aboot my comrade Angus,--puir cheild."
"How! has he been robbed by picaros,--slain by _guerillas_, or what?"
"O, waur than a' that."
"He deserted in the direction of the enemy; I was sorry to hear of it.
He was always a favourite of mine and of Seaton's. Did he reach the
French lines?"
"Eh, no, sir! Captain Blacier's riflemen fell in wi' him amang the
hills, and there has been an unco' tulzie. But weel do I ken for what
puir Angus deserted. It wasna the French he was awa to join; he was off
for Almendralejo, sir."
"Almendralejo! Stay; I remember a story now. Surely it was not his
attachment to some girl there which led him to commit so rash an act?"
"Just naething else. O Maister Ronald, ye ken weel what an unco' thing
love is."
"I have seen the girl,--Maria Garcionados."
"Ay, sir,--a bonnie lassie, wi' een like slaes, cheeks redder than
rowans, and skin like the drifted snaw; but she has been a dooms unlucky
jo for Angus. I'll tell ye the haill story. Ye maun ken, sir, that
mony months gane past, when we were quartered in Almendralejo, Angus
fell over the lugs in love wi' this braw gilpie, whan we were billeted
in her ain house. Ye heard frae Mr. Macdonald o' the toosle we had wi'
her cuisins, and unco' auld Turk o' a faither. Hech! it was a teugh
job, wi' sharp skenes and bayonets, and a' that. Weel, sir; syne the
day Angus first tint sicht o' that lassie, he has never been the same
rattling, roaring kind o' chield he was; but ay wae and dowie, soughing
and sighing till it was gruesome to hear him. Yesterday, or the day
before it, when coming ower the hills,--ye mind the bit clachan we
stoppit at for a night's rest?"
"Los Cazas de Don Gomez?"
"Ay, sir, just sae,--a deevil o' a lang nebbit name! At a wine-house
there Angus and I forgathered wi' a muleteer loon frae
Almendralejo,--Lazaro Gomez, he ca'd himsel. Ye'll may be mind o' him?"
"Perfectly; but be quick with your story."
"Aweel, sir, the mule-driver gied us a' the news and clashin frae aboot
Merida and ither places, and amang ither things tauld Angus that auld
Sancho Garcionados,--or _el Picaro_, as the Spaniards ay ca' a lawyer,
was gaun to compel the lassie, whether she wad or no, to marry a rich
alcalde. Od, sir! I never saw a face change as puir Mackie's did, while
the carrier callant chatted awa wi' us in his broken English, never
kennin' the while that ilka word was fa'in' like scaudin' lead into the
heart b' puir Angus. He came to me that nicht at tatto beat, and said
he could thole this life no anither minute, and that--come weal, come
wae, he would gang off for Almendralejo, and save the lassie or dee wi'
her. I did a' I could to pacify him, but he minded me nae mair than the
wind whistlin' ower the muir. He came to me whan I was on sentry at the
toon end. His een were glistening, his face was white, like that o'
something no cannie, and his gartered knees were chaffing thegither. I
grew eerie to look at him, for the nicht was dark and gloomy, and the
wind came soughing doon frae the hills wi' a sound like the moan o' a
deid man. Ae starnie was glintin on the hill-tap, and I saw the
reflection o'd in the rinnin water,[*] which passes the toon wa's.
Angus stretched his hands towards the bit starnie, and said it was
shinin' ower Almendralejo then,--and may be, his ain true love was
lookin' at it; and that it hung like a lamp in the mirky, lift to guide
him to whar she bided.
[*] The Alagona river, which passes Coria.
"'Hoots, havers!' said I, 'ye'll sune get ower'd; and may be that
gomeral mule-driver's story o' auld Sancho's dochter was a' a
lee,--every word o't. Gang hame to your bed, my man, and ye'll be better
the morn.'
"But he just gied an unco' sough, and wrung my loof, gaed doon the brae,
and left me. Next morning Serjeant Macrone reported him absent frae
parade, and then I kent that he had taen to the hills and was awa'. The
black een o' that Spanish lass hae cuisten' a glamourie ower him waur
than witchcraft. Amang the hills he fell in wi' Captain Blacier's
company o' the 60th, some o' wha spiered the gate he was gaun? Angus
couldna or wadna tell, and a fray o' some kind ensued atween him and the
German loons: in the middle o't, Angus drew his bayonet on auld Blacier,
for which he now lies in airns in ane o' the square toors o' Coria."
"O the fool! Attempted to stab Blacier, did he?"
"Ay, an vera nigh stickit him i' the wame. Puir Angus! he ay hated thae
thrawn gebbit Hanoverian dogs, as he ca'd them; for his faither, like
yer ain, had been out in the forty-five,--wi' the Prince sae bauld and
braw."
"The unfortunate madman! he will surely die. It is death, by the
articles of war, to draw weapon upon an officer."
"So Serjeant Macrone says; but alake! Maister Ronald, I houp it will no
come to that. Blacier is only a German, ye ken," said Evan, while his
eyes began to glisten. "Surely the Cornel, Captain Seaton, or may be
yoursel, will get him ower it. Angus and me hae ever been cronies and
brithers syne the first day we met at La Nava, and I would be unco'
laith to lose him noo. Ye ken hoo dowie ye were yoursel for mony a lang
day after brave Maister Louis fell into the claws o' thae taid-eating
loons, and no a' Maister Macdonald's jokes or merriment could rouse ye."
"Prepare yourself for the worst, Evan. Your poor friend will certainly
die, if this crime is proved against him." * * * *
Stuart was one of the members of the general court-martial ordered to
try this case, in which desertion was coupled with a flagrant act of
insubordination. The court met in the palace of the bishop, as there
was not another house in Coria containing an apartment fit for the
purpose,--the town being very inconsiderable, having only about fifteen
hundred inhabitants, although strongly defended by walls, towers, gates,
and a very singular fortress, the ascent to which is by a flight of
upwards of a hundred steps. From this strong-hold Mackie was brought
before the court which was to decide his doom.
The room in which it met, was gloomy and old, and the dim light from
four mullioned windows fell uncertainly on the war-worn uniforms and
well-bronzed faces of the officers seated around the table, on which lay
paper, pens and ink, a bible, and the articles of war. The president,
the Hon. Colonel Cadogan of the Highland Light Infantry, sat at the
head; the judge-advocate, an officer of cavalry, stood at the foot of
the table to read the charges,--the members taking their places
according to their rank; the seniors on Cadogan's right, the juniors on
his left. After the court had been sworn, by the president holding
forth the bible, and every officer laying his hand upon it and swearing
"duly to administer justice according to the rules and articles now in
force for the better government of his Majesty's forces, without
partiality, favour, or affection," the proceedings commenced. Pale,
dejected, and apparently cast down to the lowest depths of mental
misery, the unfortunate young Highlander stood before the military
tribunal. His red coat, threadbare and patched with divers colours, his
frittered tartans, and a deep scar on one of his sun-burnt knees,
another on his cheek, gained at Corunna,--all bore witness for him of
the service he had seen, but which was little cared for there, as all
had served alike. Tall and erect he stood before them, glancing from one
to another in a firm but respectful manner. One by one the evidences
against him were examined, and he found no fault with what any man said
of him. Seaton and Serjeant Duncan Macrone stated the time when his
absence was first discovered, and the former spoke highly of his general
character and conduct, and acquainted the court that his life had been
twice saved by the prisoner,--first at the battle of Fuentes de Honore,
in May 1811; and again at Arroya del Molino in the November of the same
year, when he was encountered by two aides-de-camp of the Prince
d'Aremberg during the action. Honest old Blacier, although the most
aggrieved party, was unwilling to be the means of depriving the
Highlander of existence, and taking his pipe from his mouth, gave his
evidence with marked backwardness; he concluded by saying, "Dat he
believed de _henckers knecht_ vas under de influence ob de pig-skins, or
_der teufel_, or _zauberei_, vich means de vitshcraft, and I vould not
hab it on my conscience dat I occasioned a young man's being shot and
sent to _der teufel_ for showing a bare blade ven his bloodt vas up; and
I hope de coort' vill recommendt him to de tender mercy ob Lord
Vellington, so dat he may be shaved."
"Your wishes, with those of Captain Seaton, shall have due consideration
with the court, Captain Blacier," replied the president; and the
rifleman withdrew, puffing vehemently with his long pipe. When called
upon to make his defence, the prisoner had little to say. He knew that
any attempts to extenuate his double crime would be perfectly
unavailing, and his knowledge of the rules of the service led him to
anticipate his doom. Yet his keen grey eye never quailed or grew less
bright, and his voice never faltered while he addressed the court in the
following manner:--