NAPOLEON'S SCHEME FOR INVADING BRITAIN--A BRIGHT
PROMISE--GRANDFATHER MEETS HIS FATE.
By God's blessing, the brig did win. The very winds seemed to favour
her, and, in a few hours after receiving the message of our hero Lord
Nelson, orders were sent to Sir Robert Calder, who was at that time
blockading the French in the harbours of Ferrol and Rochefort, to
raise the blockade and hasten to meet Villeneuve, or lay wait for him
off Cape Finisterre.
On July the 22nd, 1805, to his astonishment, the French admiral met
the British fleet.
What a hearty welcome they gave him!
What a hearty hiding!
This would have been worse had Villeneuve stayed, but he ran, and
managed in a crippled condition to make an entrance into Ferrol.
But even yet Napoleon must play another card, his last, and the
French admiral received orders to attempt a movement on Brest and
Rochefort. He tried to obey, but our strength was beyond his power
and courage, so he fled to Cadiz, without attempting to fight us.
Britain was saved!
Napoleon was furious!
But the great army with which he had designed to pay us so unwelcome
a visit, he now let loose upon Austria.
The capitulation of the Austrians at Ulm, a bloodless capitulation of
twenty-five thousand men, put the people of Paris mad with rejoicing.
Their Emperor was ten times a hero! What had they to fear now, even
if the whole world were in arms against them?
The French always were an ebullient nation, but their ebulliency
received a sad check only two days after the victory of Ulm and the
bombastic despatch of forty Austrian standards to Paris.
Trafalgar was fought.
That great naval victory of ours, in which the fleets of France and
Spain were smashed, and Britannia crowned once more Queen and
Mistress of the Seas, was decided on the 21st of October.
Alas! that in the hour of triumph our hero should have fallen on the
blood-slippery, fiery deck of the far-famed flagship, _Victory_.
The news of this wonderful battle spread like wildfire over Britain,
ay, and over Europe itself.
"Trafalgar," says Fyffe, "was not only the greatest naval victory, it
was the greatest and most momentous victory won either by land or by
sea, during the whole of the Revolutionary War. No victory, and no
series of victories, of Napoleon produced the same effect upon
Europe. Austria was in arms within five years of Marengo, and within
four years of Austerlitz. Prussia was ready to retrieve the losses
of Jena in 1813, but a whole generation passed before France could
again seriously threaten Britain at sea.
"The prospect of crushing the British Navy, so long as we had the
means to equip a navy, vanished. Napoleon henceforth set his hopes
on exhausting our resources by compelling every State on the
Continent to exclude our commerce.
"Trafalgar forced him, therefore, to enforce his yoke on all Europe,
or to abandon the hope of conquering Great Britain."
* * * * *
Have you ever looked down into the crater of a great volcano, reader
mine? I dare say not. It is a pleasure of a somewhat awesome
nature, that you still have before you. The volcano must not be in
an active state when you peer fearfully over its brink. But if it be
but semi-quiescent, the sight that meets your eyes is indeed a
wonderful one, especially if the crater be one of considerable
extent, like that of Kalakahui, in the Fiji Islands. It is a sight
that will be photographed, as it were, on the tablets of your memory,
indelible for ever and a day--a sight you may dream of many a night
in bed, and yet if you were asked to describe it, or picture it in
words to any of your friends, you would probably remain silent. No
language could bring before the mind's eye of another person that
seething, bubbling, ever-changing lake of fire; its mysterious chasms
opening up for a moment or two, to vomit forth flames and steam, and
then closing as suddenly as if swallowed up in the waves of liquid
lava; the strange, bright colours of the flames, or the streaks of
bright crimson, blue, or green fire that creep hither and thither,
and turn, and twist, and coil like hissing snakes; the clouds of
smoke and steam that settle here and there, but vanish as you look at
them; little conical hills that rise in this place or that, higher
and higher, and higher, till they burst at last and spue forth their
boiling contents, then collapse as quickly and change into lakes!
No wonder that the ancients looked upon such a place as this with
fear and trembling, and considered it the gates of the evil place,
that led downwards into the bottomless pit.
But, in reading the history of Europe that for the next ten years
succeeded Trafalgar, anyone who has ever looked into such a crater as
I have tried, though in vain, to describe, cannot help comparing the
condition of the Continent and the great Powers--its battles, its
sieges, its bloodshed, fire, thunder, and strife--with the volcano's
molten, seething sea.
It is a relief to turn for a time from this turmoil of war, of
intrigue, and murder, to more peaceful scenes at home.
Battalions, companies, and draughts of our regiments were, in those
days, beings lifted about here, there, and everywhere, like men and
knights on a chess-board. In the summer of 1807 my grandfather was
not at all surprised or displeased to find himself back once more in
Dublin barracks. Both he and his company.
Some changes, however, had taken place among the officers. Drake was
still here, so was O'Reilly, and Dr. McLeod also.
There was never wanting plenty of work for McLeod to do, and, if he
was not labouring in hospital, or among his own men, his services
were in request in some other corps lying at the same barracks.
But Blood died in battle, fighting against fearful odds, sword in
hand, on a parapet. In the same action fell Captain Jones, the brave
Welshman. A round shot carried his leg away above the knee.
Only the Royals and one or two other regiments were engaged in this
skirmish with the French, and they were victorious.
I have observed that my grandfather, like many other old heroes who
have fought in great battles, talked of lesser engagements as mere
"skirmishes." This seems odd, when you find out that the so-called
skirmish lasted perhaps three or four hours, with much loss on either
side.
Again, old heroes are in the habit of referring to a wound that has
not actually severed a limb, or cut a man in two, as "only a scratch."
My grand-dad had a terrible scar on the left shoulder that must have
cut far into the deltoid muscle. I remember well that when I first
saw it, while the old warrior, stripped to the waist, was enjoying
his morning ablution, I cried out in childish terror, "O, Auld-da,
look at your shoulder. What a terrible cut! Didn't you cry awfully?"
He smiled, but went on towelling.
"Only a scratch, dear boy. Only a scratch!"
Well, during this spell in Dublin, my hero undertook recruiting
duties. The fact is that smart, handsome men were usually picked out
for work of this kind, and were proud of it. I dare say that they
received pickings and perquisites more than enough to buy the ribbons
of red, white, and blue, that fluttered so gaily from their caps. On
a market-day it was nothing unusual for a dashing young sergeant to
enlist half a dozen or more.
Major Drake drew my grandfather aside one day, and had a quiet talk
with him about several things.
"Now, Sergeant," he said at last, "our regiment, they tell me"--here
he read a portion of a letter he had received from
headquarters--"needs filling up to its full strength, and you are the
man to help to do it. You generally bring in three recruits to any
other sergeant's one. Well, there is a great fair to take place near
Dundalk, and I'm going to send you round, and I expect you to return
here with quite a haul of young fellows. I believe in a mixture of
blood myself, and that is why we are recruiting here, but at that
fair at Dundalk you'll find plenty of good honest Irish and Scots,
and you're to do your best to bring at least a round dozen. And you
needn't spare expense."
My grand-dad saluted, and said, "Certainly not, sir."
"But," added Drake, "if I have a fault to find with you, it is
this----" He paused and looked comically for a few seconds at my
worthy progenitor, as if not sure how he would take it.
"Well, sir?"
"You're a pleasant sight too _honest_, Sergeant."
"But I draw them all the same."
"You would draw more if you told a white lie now and then. And,
Sergeant----"
"And what, Major Drake?"
"All lies told for the benefit of your King and country are white
lies."
"The regiment is soon to go abroad again, I suppose, sir?"
"That's so, I think."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"And why?"
"Because I think cutting throats for your King and country is far
more honest and honourable than telling lies, however white they may
be."
Drake laughed heartily.
"O, Robertson, Robertson, you'd make a capital captain of a company,
but you'd never do for a general."
"By the way," he added, "there is something I ought to have told you
years ago. Although we have been separated often enough, you having
been so ubiquitous, I had plenty of opportunities. Before he left
the Rock, the Duke informed me in conversation that he never had an
orderly or staff-sergeant under him that pleased him better than you."
"Did he really?"
Grand-dad's eyes were sparkling with pleasure.
"Yes, but he told me more. There is to be a Highland battalion of
the Royal Scots,* if his Royal Highness can manage it."
* This was on the tapis before Waterloo.
"So he has hinted to me himself, sir."
"Did he tell you anything else?"
"No."
"Well, he assured me that you would be one of the first appointed to
it as ensign, and I'll be happy, Sergeant Robertson, when that day
comes, to welcome you as a brother officer."
He extended his hand, and my grandfather shook it warmly.
Now although, innocently enough, I asked him if he had cried when he
received that awful slash across the shoulder, and although not even
the "pandés" of Dominie Freeschal could make my grandfather cry,
there had been tears in his eyes when his officer spoke thus kindly.
They came up with a gush and a rush, and it was a wonder they didn't
overflow.
"Major Drake," he said, "you've been always a friend to me on sea and
land, and we have fought shoulder to shoulder many a time, and I
declare to you honestly, I've always felt happy when I saw your sword
waving through the smoke of battle. But now you've made me the
happiest man in all the regiment. I've always tried to do my duty,
and henceforward, wherever I am, be the danger what it may, I shall
ever remember what the dear Duke said, and that ensign's sword will
seem to guide me on."
"Bravely spoken, Robertson. Now off you go and get ready for
Dundalk."
"I'm off, sir. O, by the way," he said, turning back, "my old friend
Tonal is on furlough, and will be here to-morrow. He'll have his
bagpipes. Shall I take him with me?"
"Most certainly."
* * * * *
It was not "to-morrow," however, but that very afternoon that Tonal
and my grand-dad met. The latter was walking across the bridge with
the ribbons fluttering gaily from his hat, as he swung his dainty
cane, and looked as gay as a goldfinch, when a voice said behind him,
"I want to enlist," at the same time he received a slap on the back
that made him jump.
"Take that, you spalpeen," roared grandfather, rounding briskly on
his assailant with uplifted cane.
But the blow never fell.
For there was Tonal himself as large as life, and laughing all down
both sides, apparently.
"Well, I am glad."
"And so am I."
"But, Tonal, man, what a terribly hard fist you have!"
They adjourned together to a quiet inn at which my grandfather was
wont to treat the men whom he hoped to enlist.
There was no recruiting in his head now, however, and it was two
whole hours before those two friends and cronies made their exit, so
much had they to speak about and tell each other.
A day or two after this happy meeting, both were off and _en voyage_
for Dundalk.
And now I have to tell you how my grandfather won his wife.
How my hero won my grandmother. Is that a better way of putting it?
I'm sure I don't know. You see she couldn't have been my grandmother
then, because I wasn't born. I was dead then, as the children say.
Besides, a girl of seventeen isn't very often a grandmother, is she?
Heigho! I always did get ravelled in reckoning or counting kith and
kin.
But one day, a week or two before this momentous visit to Dundalk, he
was returning to Dublin from Booterstown. He was admiring the quiet
villas, that even at that distant date were springing up, here and
there, not far from the water's edge.
The bay was very blue and beautiful, and afar off were the bonnie
green hills and the rocks that, together, seemed to float in the
gloaming haze.
Somehow or other, grandfather's thoughts, just then, were reverting
to the braes where his father and mother lived, and to his old
schooldays, when little innocent Rachel Freeschal was his boyhood's
idol. He had sunk into a kind of reverie, which, though just tinged
with a little sadness, was far indeed from being unpleasant, when he
heard the rattle of wheels some distance behind him.
He looked quickly round, and noticed a pony and trap rapidly
advancing, the occupants of which--an elderly lady and a young--had
evidently lost all control over the steed.
This was a moment for action, and grand-dad was ready for it. Though
not tall, he was very powerfully built, an athlete to all intents and
purposes.
This catching of a runaway horse is by no means so easy as it seems.
And it is, moreover, attended with considerable danger.
In pictures we sometimes see the action represented as if the hero
thereof had caught the nag, and forced him on his haunches. It never
was like this. Donald Dinnie himself could not do it.
The man is invariably dragged some little way unless he can keep his
feet.
On the present occasion my gallant grandfather was most successful,
and Mrs. Stapleton and her daughter were most grateful.
The frightened pony had taken them some distance past their cottage,
and grandfather led him back.
He would have taken his leave then.
"Sergeant," said the elder lady, "we are presently going to dine; you
must come and join us."
"Ladies," was the reply, "I am but a simple soldier."
"And we're but simple people. Peter, take the pony. Scold him a
little, but don't beat him. This is the gate, Sergeant. Come."
And as the girl's eyes said "Come" also, what could he do?
But those eyes, ay, and the beautiful face as well, reminded him so
of Rachel that non-compliance was out of the question.
"Obedience to orders," he said, smiling, "is the first duty of a
soldier. I follow."
He unpinned the ribbons from his hat, however, and placed them in his
pocket.
The ladies lived here all alone, with a single servant ind the boy
Peter.
Mrs. Stapleton* was the widow of a doctor once well known in Dublin,
and although comfortably off, they were by no means wealthy. She was
by no means averse to talking about her past life, nor Eleanor about
her dead-and-gone father, but all in such a quiet way that my
grandfather felt perfectly at home. He was a simple-minded and
truthful man, and although those were the days of effusive
compliments, strange to say, he never paid even a lady one.
* Mrs. Stapleton and Eleanor are real, not fictitious names.
But he told them much of his strange, romantic life, and especially
his early adventures, which made both ladies laugh.
Eleanor played prettily on the harp, and sang sweetly too.
Grandfather, in the course of the evening, blurted out the following
remark:
"How like your daughter's eyes and looks are to--to one I knew."
"Aha! a sweetheart. O, you soldiers!" said Mrs. Stapleton.
"Yes, a--sweetheart. It is long, long ago. She is dead. I was
thirteen, she was twelve."
Some impulse made him show the ladies his amulet, Rachel's letter,
and the sadly-faded four-bladed clover.
Eleanor smiled when she read it. But her bonnie blue eyes were
swimming in tears.
* * * * *
"If ever I marry," said my grandfather to himself as he walked
homewards, "that sweet girl shall be my bride. But, heigho! I'm
only a soldier, and--they did not even say, 'Come back and see us.'"