other side of the wall, ready for action, with his case of instruments
displayed around him like a pedlar's wares, whispered in Ronald's ear
with most medical composure, "It is all over with him, poor fellow!
Rejoin your company before Cameron misses you: Iverach will die in ten
minutes."
"I cannot leave him," said Stuart, deeply distressed. "Oh, cannot you
do something for him? I would yield all I possess on earth to save
Evan's life!"
"He is bleeding more internally than outwardly, and were I to attempt to
stop the discharge of blood from his mouth and breast, he would be
instantly suffocated."
"D--nation, Dick!" said Ronald angrily, "and will you leave him to die?"
"He will die without my assistance: on my honour, I can do nothing! He
is past my skill, and I have other work on hand. See how the wounded
are pouring down from the height! I must indeed leave you."
He snatched up his box, and ran to where four soldiers of the 61st had
laid down Coghlan, their eccentric old colonel, who had received a shot
which entered the top of his left epaulet and came out at his right
side. But he, too, was past Stuart's skill, and died instantly.
Evan heard not what passed, but learned the doctor's opinion from the
sad expression of his master's face.
"O sir! and sae he has gien me ower," said he, speaking in a broken and
difficult manner, while the blood continued to gurgle incessantly in his
throat. He held out his hand, and Ronald, taking it in his own, knelt
down beside him. "And sae, sir, he has gien me ower. I thocht as
muckle, but he micht, he micht hae tried to save me. But na, na! it's
a' ower noo. I ken my weird mon a' be fulfilled; I kent I wad fa' the
day. There was an unco sooghin' in my heart a' the last nicht.
Something seemed aye whispering in my lug it was the last I was doomed
to see. Oich, ay! it will be sair news to auld Donald Iverach, whan he
hears that Evan Bean--his Evan with the fair hair, Evan that he was aye
sae fond o', has de'ed in the land o' the foe and the stranger. But, O
dear maister Ronald! ye'll tell him,--ye'll tell a' the folk in the
bonnie glen, whan ye gang hame to Miss Alice, that I died as became
me,--with my bonnet on my brow, and my face to the enemy."
"I will, Evan, I will," groaned Ronald.
"I have always dune my duty, sir, to you and to my cuintry."
"You have, Evan,--bravely and nobly."
"Thanks, sir, thanks! Ye'll say that Evan, the son of Iverach, never
flinched in the dark hour o' trial and danger!" said he, while his eyes
lighted up with Highland enthusiasm. "Tell them this,--that the auld
folk may remember me in their prayers, when the coronach is sung for me
in the clachan at Lochisla."
"My poor Evan, you will exhaust yourself."
"My time is short noo," he replied in a moaning voice; "but, oh! this
will be sad news to my auld faither. My death will bring sorrow and
dule on his grey hairs. And then there is Jessie--Jessie Cavers o' the
Inch-house, at Avonside!" He began to sob, and his tears mingled with
his blood. He sunk back exhausted, and lay still for a short time,
during which he muttered to himself,--"The gowden braid--her lock o'
hair! An ill omen,--cut in twa by a sabre at Orthez. O Jessie! my
sweet wee love, maun we never meet mair?"
"Maister Ronald!" said he, in a quivering voice, "see that Jessie gets
a' my back pay. There's three months o't gane, come the neist
Lord's-day. Let her put it to her tocher,--'twill help her to get
anither love. I release her frae the troth she gaed to me. Alake--"
And his voice died away in a gentle wail.
"Evan, this money,--hear me; this pay you speak of,--shall I not give it
to your father, rather than this Jessie Cavers, who may, perhaps, have
forgotten you?"
"She never will forget me!" cried Iverach, with an impetuosity which
caused the gore to rush from his wound and mouth fearfully. "If I
thocht she had proved fause to her plichted aith, I wad haunt her till
her dyin' day. Yird an' stane wadna' haud me! But my faither,--gie him
this, sir; for he wad fling siller into the loch, as if it burnt his
hand."
He undid from his bonnet the regimental badge which fastened the black
cockade and upright green feather. It was a wreath of thistles,
encircling a Sphynx, and the word _Egypt_ stamped in brass. "Gie--gie
him this: he will wear it for my sake,--the sake o' his Evan Bean. And
now, Heaven bless ye, Maister Ronald, and grant that ye may live lang
and happily after I'm gane to dust, and the grass o' many a year has
grown and withered ower me. Ye've been a kind maister,--a gude
friend,--and a gude officer to me. God bless Colonel Cameron, and every
officer and private man in the regiment! I thocht to have been spared to
gang hame wi' ye a' to auld Scotland; but that hath been ordained
itherways. But--but--"
His voice failed him again, and his eyes grew dull and glassy, while his
face became overspread with the livid hue of death, and assumed that
expression which is terrible to look upon. On a sudden he started, and
seemed to gaze intently on some distant object.
"Evan!" said Stuart in astonishment. "What see you, that you gaze
thus?"
"My faither the piper," said he in a breathless voice, while he grasped
Ronald convulsively with one hand, and with the other pointed to some
vision of his imagination. "'Tis my faither!" he added, in a voice
thrilling with death and delight. "He comes to find me in the
deid-thraw! Yonder, yonder he comes,--doon by the dyke-side. His pipes
a' braw wi' ribbons frae the drones, and his tartan plaid waving behind
him!"
Startled by the energy of the dying soldier, Ronald looked in the
direction pointed out. No such appearance was visible to him; but there
lay the broad bosom of the Garonne, refulgent with the noon-day
sun,--sweeping in watery majesty past the towers and spires of Toulouse,
and disappearing among the deep forests, which were resounding with the
clang of the battle that was waged hotly and fiercely before the walls
of the city.
"Evan," said he, mournfully, "I see not the figure you mention."
But there was no reply: the Highlander had ceased to exist. The blood
oozed slowly and heavily from his wound, and his distended and glassy
eyes were yet fixed with the glare of death on the scene of the distant
battle-field.
An exclamation of deep anguish burst from Ronald Stuart on beholding the
breathless body of his humble but gallant friend, which presented a
woful spectacle, being drenched in blood from the chin to the
shoe-buckle. He tied a handkerchief over the face, and disposing the
body in its plaid, he hewed down an olive-tree with his sword and with
the branches covered it up, that it might be unmolested by the peasantry
and death-hunters, until he could return and commit it to the earth.
This done, he tied up his own wound, which till then he had forgotten,
and again sought the field, where flashing steel and eddying smoke bore
token of the strife. Toulouse was the last, and one of the most keenly
contested battles of the Peninsular war; and it was very generally
believed by the allied army, that Soult, when it took place, was aware
that peace had been concluded between Great Britain and France.
* * * * *
Here the author must, for the present, take leave of the courteous
reader, who has accompanied him thus far through innumerable long
marches and dangerous exploits, and halt for a time on the field of
Toulouse. Should he be encouraged to publish the further adventures of
his kilted heroes, he will not be tardy in obeying the call; for full
many a weary march in France and Flanders--many a wet bivouac--many a
desperate duty and perilous adventure, have to be described "before the
last grand charge took place in that victory," where the crown of France
was lost and won, when Europe was freed from the iron grasp of Napoleon,
and where (at least in the great war in which they had so signally
distinguished themselves) the "occupation of the Gordon Highlanders"
concluded.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by Maurice and Co., Howford-buildings,
Fenchurch sheet.