← catalogue

Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

by Charles Lever · English · Gutenberg #8674 · 959,427 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2

Author: Charles Lever


        
Release date: February 2, 2007 [eBook #8674]
                Most recently updated: January 2, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8674

Credits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Illustrated
        HTML by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES O'MALLEY, THE IRISH DRAGOON, VOLUME 2 ***




Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.






CHARLES O’MALLEY


The Irish Dragoon


BY CHARLES LEVER.


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ.


IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.


[Illustration: EXORCISING A SPIRIT.]




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

I.       THE DOCTOR’S TALE
II.      THE SKIRMISH
III.     THE LINES OF CIUDAD RODRIGO
IV.      THE DOCTOR
V.       THE COA
VI.      THE NIGHT MARCH
VII.     THE JOURNEY
VIII.    THE GHOST
IX.      LISBON
X.       A PLEASANT PREDICAMENT
XI.      THE DINNER
XII.     THE LETTER
XIII.    THE VILLA
XIV.     THE VISIT
XV.      THE CONFESSION
XVI.     MY CHARGER
XVII.    MAURICE
XVIII.   THE MASQUERADE
XIX.     THE LINES
XX.      THE RETREAT OF THE FRENCH
XXI.     PATRICK’S DAY IN THE PENINSULA
XXII.    FUENTES D’ONORO
XXIII.   THE BATTLE OF FUENTES D’ONORO
XXIV.    A RENCONTRE
XXV.     ALMEIDA
XXVI.    A NIGHT ON THE AZAVA
XXVII.   MIKE’S MISTAKE
XXVIII.  MONSOON IN TROUBLE
XXIX.    THE CONFIDENCE
XXX.     THE CANTONMENT
XXXI.    MICKEY FREE’S ADVENTURE
XXXII.   THE SAN PETRO
XXXIII.  THE COUNT’S LETTER
XXXIV.   THE TRENCHES
XXXV.    THE STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO
XXXVI.   THE RAMPART
XXXVII.  THE DESPATCH
XXXVIII. THE LEAVE
XXXIX.   LONDON
XL.      THE BELL AT BRISTOL
XLI.     IRELAND
XLII.    THE RETURN
XLIII.   HOME
XLIV.    AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
XLV.     A SURPRISE
XLVI.    NEW VIEWS
XLVII.   A RECOGNITION
XLVIII.  A MISTAKE
XLIX.    BRUSSELS
L.       AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
LI.      THE DUCHESS OF RICHMOND’S BALL
LII.     QUATRE BRAS
LIII.    WATERLOO
LIV.     BRUSSELS
LV.      CONCLUSION
         L’ENVOI




ILLUSTRATIONS BY PHIZ IN VOL. II

Etchings
EXORCISING A SPIRIT
THE TABLES TURNED 210
THE GENTLEMEN WHO NEVER SLEEP 405
THE WELCOME HOME 472

Illustrations in the Text
A FLYING SHOT 28
O’MALLEY FOLLOWING THE CUSTOM OF HIS COUNTRY 77
MR. FREE TURNED SPANIARD 96
CHARLEY TRYING A CHARGER 118
GOING OUT TO DINNER 152
DISADVANTAGE OF BREAKFASTING OVER A DUELLING-PARTY 157
MR. FREE PIPES WHILE HIS FRIENDS PIPE-CLAY 218
A HUNTING TURN-OUT IN THE PENINSULA 240
MIKE CAPTURING THE TRUMPETER 248
CAPTAIN MICKEY FREE RELATING HIS HEROIC DEEDS 310
BABY BLAKE 355
MICKEY ASTONISHES THE NATIVES 403
DEATH OF HAMMERSLEY 463




CHARLES O’MALLEY.


THE IRISH DRAGOON.


       *       *       *       *       *


CHAPTER I.


THE DOCTOR’S TALE.[1]

“It is now some fifteen years since--if it wasn’t for O’Shaughnessy’s
wrinkles, I could not believe it five--we were quartered in Loughrea. There
were, besides our regiment, the Fiftieth and the Seventy-third, and a troop
or two of horse artillery, and the whole town was literally a barrack, and
as you may suppose, the pleasantest place imaginable. All the young ladies,
and indeed all those that had got their brevet some years before, came
flocking into the town, not knowing but the Devil might persuade a raw
ensign or so to marry some of them.

“Such dinner parties, such routs and balls, never were heard of west of
Athlone. The gayeties were incessant; and if good feeding, plenty of
claret, short whist, country dances, and kissing could have done the thing,
there wouldn’t have been a bachelor with a red coat for six miles around.

[Footnote 1: I cannot permit the reader to fall into the same blunder,
with regard to the worthy “Maurice,” as my friend Charles O’Malley has
done. It is only fair to state that the doctor in the following tale was
hoaxing the “dragoon.” A braver and a better fellow than Quill never
existed, equally beloved by his brother officers, as delighted in for his
convivial talents. His favorite amusement was to invent some story or
adventure in which, mixing up his own name with that of some friend or
companion, the veracity of the whole was never questioned. Of this nature
was the pedigree he devised in the last chapter of Vol. I. to impose upon
O’Malley, who believed implicitly all he told him.]

“You know the west, O’Mealey, so I needn’t tell you what the Galway girls
are like: fine, hearty, free-and-easy, talking, laughing devils, but as
deep and ‘cute as a Master in Chancery; ready for any fun or merriment, but
always keeping a sly look-out for a proposal or a tender acknowledgment,
which--what between the heat of a ball-room, whiskey negus, white satin
shoes, and a quarrel with your guardian--it’s ten to one you fall into
before you’re a week in the same town with them.

“As for the men, I don’t admire them so much: pleasant and cheerful enough
when they’re handicapping the coat off your back, and your new tilbury for
a spavined pony and a cotton umbrella, but regular devils if you come to
cross them the least in life; nothing but ten paces, three shots apiece, to
begin and end with something like Roger de Coverley, when every one has a
pull at his neighbor. I’m not saying they’re not agreeable, well-informed,
and mild in their habits; but they lean overmuch to corduroys and coroners’
inquests for one’s taste farther south. However, they’re a fine people,
take them all in all; and if they were not interfered with, and their
national customs invaded with road-making, petty-sessions, grand-jury laws,
and a stray commission now and then, they are capable of great things, and
would astonish the world.

“But as I was saying, we were ordered to Loughrea after being fifteen
months in detachments about Birr, Tullamore, Kilbeggan, and all that
country; the change was indeed a delightful one, and we soon found
ourselves the centre of the most marked and determined civilities. I told
you they were wise people in the west; this was their calculation: the
line--ours was the Roscommon militia--are here to-day, there to-morrow;
they may be flirting in Tralee this week, and fighting on the Tagus the
next; not that there was any fighting there in those times, but then there
was always Nova Scotia and St. John’s, and a hundred other places that a
Galway young lady knew nothing about, except that people never came back
from them. Now, what good, what use was there in falling in love with them?
Mere transitory and passing pleasure that was. But as for us: there we
were; if not in Kilkenny we were in Cork. Safe out and come again; no
getting away under pretence of foreign service; no excuse for not marrying
by any cruel pictures of the colonies, where they make spatch-cocks of the
officers’ wives and scrape their infant families to death with a small
tooth-comb. In a word, my dear O’Mealey, we were at a high premium; and
even O’Shaughnessy, with his red head and the legs you see, had his
admirers. There now, don’t be angry, Dan; the men, at least, were mighty
partial to you.

“Loughrea, if it was a pleasant, was a very expensive place. White gloves
and car hire,--there wasn’t a chaise in the town,--short whist, too (God
forgive me if I wrong them, but I wonder were they honest), cost money; and
as our popularity rose, our purses fell; till at length, when the one was
at the flood, the other was something very like low water.

“Now, the Roscommon was a beautiful corps; no petty jealousies, no little
squabbling among the officers, no small spleen between the major’s wife
and the paymaster’s sister,--all was amiable, kind, brotherly, and
affectionate. To proceed, I need only mention one fine trait of them,--no
man ever refused to indorse a brother officer’s bill. To think of asking
the amount or even the date would be taken personally; and thus we went on
mutually aiding and assisting each other,--the colonel drawing on me, I
on the major, the senior captain on the surgeon, and so on, a regular
cross-fire of ‘promises to pay,’ all stamped and regular.

“Not but the system had its inconveniences; for sometimes an obstinate
tailor or bootmaker would make a row for his money, and then we’d be
obliged to get up a little quarrel between the drawer and the acceptor of
the bill; they couldn’t speak for some days, and a mutual friend to both
would tell the creditor that the slightest imprudence on his part would
lead to bloodshed; ‘and the Lord help him! if there was a duel, he’d be
proved the whole cause of it.’ This and twenty other plans were employed;
and finally, the matter would be left to arbitration among our brother
officers, and I need not say, they behaved like trumps. But notwithstanding
all this, we were frequently hard pressed for cash; as the colonel said,
‘It’s a mighty expensive corps.’ Our dress was costly; not that it had much
lace and gold on it, but that, what between falling on the road at night,
shindies at mess, and other devilment, a coat lasted no time. Wine, too,
was heavy on us; for though we often changed our wine merchant, and rarely
paid him, there was an awful consumption at the mess!

“Now, what I have mentioned may prepare you for the fact that before
we were eight weeks in garrison, Shaugh and myself, upon an accurate
calculation of our conjoint finances, discovered that except some vague
promises of discounting here and there through the town, and seven and
fourpence in specie, we were innocent of any pecuniary treasures. This was
embarrassing; we had both embarked in several small schemes of pleasurable
amusement, had a couple of hunters each, a tandem, and a running account--I
think it _galloped_--at every shop in the town.

“Let me pause for a moment here, O’Mealey, while I moralize a little in a
strain I hope may benefit you. Have you ever considered--of course you have
not, you’re too young and unreflecting--how beautifully every climate
and every soil possesses some one antidote or another to its own noxious
influences? The tropics have their succulent and juicy fruits, cooling and
refreshing; the northern latitudes have their beasts with fur and warm skin
to keep out the frost-bites; and so it is in Ireland. Nowhere on the face
of the habitable globe does a man contract such habits of small debt, and
nowhere, I’ll be sworn, can he so easily get out of any scrape concerning
them. They have their tigers in the east, their antelopes in the south,
their white bears in Norway, their buffaloes in America; but we have an
animal in Ireland that beats them all hollow,--a country attorney!

“Now, let me introduce you to Mr. Matthew Donevan. Mat, as he was
familiarly called by his numerous acquaintances, was a short, florid, rosy
little gentleman of some four or five-and-forty, with a well-curled wig of
the fairest imaginable auburn, the gentle wave of the front locks, which
played in infantine loveliness upon his little bullet forehead, contrasting
strongly enough with a cunning leer of his eye, and a certain _nisi prius_
laugh that however it might please a client, rarely brought pleasurable
feelings to his opponent in a cause.

“Mat was a character in his way; deep, double, and tricky in everything
that concerned his profession, he affected the gay fellow,--liked a jolly
dinner at Brown’s Hotel, would go twenty miles to see a steeple-chase and
a coursing match, bet with any one when the odds were strong in his favor,
with an easy indifference about money that made him seem, when winning,
rather the victim of good luck than anything else. As he kept a rather
pleasant bachelor’s house, and liked the military much, we soon became
acquainted. Upon him, therefore, for reasons I can’t explain, both our
hopes reposed; and Shaugh and myself at once agreed that if Mat could not
assist us in our distresses, the case was a bad one.

“A pretty little epistle was accordingly concocted, inviting the worthy
attorney to a small dinner at five o’clock the next day, intimating that we
were to be perfectly alone, and had a little business to discuss. True to
the hour, Mat was there; and as if instantly guessing that ours was no
regular party of pleasure, his look, dress, and manner were all in keeping
with the occasion,--quiet, subdued, and searching.

“When the claret had been superseded by the whiskey, and the confidential
hours were approaching, by an adroit allusion to some heavy wager then
pending, we brought our finances upon the _tapis_. The thing was done
beautifully,--an easy _adagio_ movement, no violent transition; but hang me
if old Mat didn’t catch the matter at once.

“‘Oh, it’s there ye are, Captain!’ said he, with his peculiar grin.
‘Two-and-sixpence in the pound, and no assets.’

“‘The last is nearer the mark, my old boy,’ said Shaugh, blurting out the
whole truth at once. The wily attorney finished his tumbler slowly, as
if giving himself time for reflection, and then, smacking his lips in a
preparatory manner, took a quick survey of the room with his piercing green
eye.

“‘A very sweet mare of yours that little mouse-colored one is, with the dip
in the back; and she has a trifling curb--may be it’s a spavin, indeed--in
the near hind-leg. You gave five-and-twenty for her, now, I’ll be bound?’

“‘Sixty guineas, as sure as my name’s Dan,’ said Shaugh, not at all pleased
at the value put upon his hackney; ‘and as to spavin and curb, I’ll wager
double the sum she has neither the slightest trace of one nor the other.’

“‘I’ll not take the bet,’ said Mat, dryly. ‘Money’s scarce in these parts.’

“This hit silenced us both; and our friend continued,--

“‘Then there’s the bay horse,--a great strapping, leggy beast he is for a
tilbury; and the hunters, worth nothing here; they don’t know this country.
Them’s neat pistols; and the tilbury is not bad--’

“‘Confound you!’ said I, losing all patience; ‘we didn’t ask you here to
appraise our movables. We want to raise the wind without that.’

“‘I see, I perceive,’ said Mat, taking a pinch of snuff very leisurely as
he spoke,--‘I see. Well, that is difficult, very difficult just now. I’ve
mortgaged every acre of ground in the two counties near us, and a sixpence
more is not to be had that way. Are you lucky at the races?’

“‘Never win a sixpence.’

“‘What can you do at whist?’

“‘Revoke, and get cursed by my partner; devil a more!’

“‘That’s mighty bad, for otherwise, we might arrange something for you.
Well, I only see one thing for it; you must marry. A wife with some money
will get you out of your present difficulties; and we’ll manage that easily
enough.’

“‘Come, Dan,’ said I, for Shaugh was dropping asleep; ‘cheer up, old
fellow. Donevan has found the way to pull us through our misfortunes. A
girl with forty thousand pounds, the best cock shooting in Ireland, an old
family, a capital cellar, all await ye,--rouse up, there!’

“‘I’m convanient,’ said Shaugh, with a look intended to be knowing, but
really very tipsy.

“‘I didn’t say much for her personal attractions, Captain,’ said Mat; ‘nor,
indeed, did I specify the exact sum; but Mrs. Rogers Dooley, of Clonakilty,
might be a princess--’

“‘And so she shall be, Mat; the O’Shaughnessys were Kings of Ennis in the
time of Nero and I’m only waiting for a trifle of money to revive the
title. What’s her name?’

“‘Mrs. Rogers Dooley.’

“‘Here’s her health, and long life to her,--

    ‘And may the Devil cut the toes
    Of all her foes,
    That we may know them by their limping.’

“This benevolent wish uttered, Dan fell flat upon the hearth-rug, and was
soon sound asleep. I must hasten on; so need only say that, before we
parted that night, Mat and myself had finished the half-gallon bottle of
Loughrea whiskey, and concluded a treaty for the hand and fortune of Mrs.
Rogers Dooley. He being guaranteed a very handsome percentage on the
property, and the lady being reserved for choice between Dan and myself,
which, however, I was determined should fall upon my more fortunate friend.

“The first object which presented itself to my aching senses the following
morning was a very spacious card of invitation from Mr. Jonas Malone,
requesting me to favor him with the seductions of my society the next
evening to a ball; at the bottom of which, in Mr. Donevan’s hand, I read,--

“‘Don’t fail; you know who is to be there. I’ve not been idle since I saw
you. Would the captain take twenty-five for the mare?’

“‘So far so good,’ thought I, as entering O’Shaughnessy’s quarters, I
discovered him endeavoring to spell out his card, which, however, had no
postscript. We soon agreed that Mat should have his price; so sending a
polite answer to the invitation, we despatched a still more civil note to
the attorney, and begged of him, as a weak mark of esteem, to accept the
mouse-colored mare as a present.”

Here O’Shaughnessy sighed deeply, and even seemed affected by the souvenir.

“Come, Dan, we did it all for the best. Oh, O’Mealey, he was a cunning
fellow; but no matter. We went to the ball, and to be sure, it was a great
sight. Two hundred and fifty souls, where there was not good room for the
odd fifty; such laughing, such squeezing, such pressing of hands and waists
in the staircase, and then such a row and riot at the top,--four fiddles, a
key bugle, and a bagpipe, playing ‘Haste to the wedding,’ amidst the crash
of refreshment-trays, the tramp of feet, and the sounds of merriment on all
sides!

“It’s only in Ireland, after all, people have fun. Old and young, merry and
morose, the gay and cross-grained, are crammed into a lively country-dance;
and ill-matched, ill-suited, go jigging away together to the blast of a bad
band, till their heads, half turned by the noise, the heat, the novelty,
and the hubbub, they all get as tipsy as if they were really deep in
liquor.

“Then there is that particularly free-and-easy tone in every one about.
Here go a couple capering daintily out of the ball-room to take a little
fresh air on the stairs, where every step has its own separate flirtation
party; there, a riotous old gentleman, with a boarding-school girl for
his partner, has plunged smack into a party at loo, upsetting cards and
counters, and drawing down curses innumerable. Here are a merry knot round
the refreshments, and well they may be; for the negus is strong punch,
and the biscuit is tipsy cake,--and all this with a running fire of good
stories, jokes, and witticisms on all sides, in the laughter for which even
the droll-looking servants join as heartily as the rest.

“We were not long in finding out Mrs. Rogers, who sat in the middle of a
very high sofa, with her feet just touching the floor. She was short,
fat, wore her hair in a crop, had a species of shining yellow skin, and a
turned-up nose, all of which were by no means prepossessing. Shaugh and
myself were too hard-up to be particular, and so we invited her to dance
alternately for two consecutive hours, plying her assiduously with negus
during the lulls in the music.

“Supper was at last announced, and enabled us to recruit for new efforts;
and so after an awful consumption of fowl, pigeon-pie, ham, and brandy
cherries, Mrs. Rogers brightened up considerably, and professed her
willingness to join the dancers. As for us, partly from exhaustion, partly
to stimulate our energies, and in some degree to drown reflection, we drank
deep, and when we reached the drawing-room, not only the agreeable guests
themselves, but even the furniture, the venerable chairs, and the stiff old
sofa seemed performing ‘Sir Roger de Coverley.’ How we conducted ourselves
till five in the morning, let our cramps confess; for we were both
bed-ridden for ten days after. However, at last Mrs. Rogers gave in, and
reclining gracefully upon a window-seat, pronounced it a most elegant
party, and asked me to look for her shawl. While I perambulated the
staircase with her bonnet on my head, and more wearing apparel than would
stock a magazine, Shaugh was roaring himself hoarse in the street, calling
Mrs. Rogers’ coach.

“‘Sure, Captain,’ said the lady, with a tender leer, ‘it’s only a chair.’

“‘And here it is,’ said I, surveying a very portly-looking old sedan, newly
painted and varnished, that blocked up half the hall.

“‘You’ll catch cold, my angel,’ said Shaugh, in a whisper, for he was
coming it very strong by this; ‘get into the chair. Maurice, can’t you find
those fellows?’ said he to me, for the chairmen had gone down-stairs, and
were making very merry among the servants.

“‘She’s fast now,’ said I, shutting the door to. ‘Let us do the gallant
thing, and carry her home ourselves.’ Shaugh thought this a great notion;
and in a minute we mounted the poles and sallied forth, amidst a great
chorus of laughing from all the footmen, maids, and teaboys that filled the
passage.

“‘The big house, with the bow-window and the pillars, Captain,’ said a
fellow, as we issued upon our journey. “‘I know it,’ said I. ‘Turn to the
left after you pass the square.’

“‘Isn’t she heavy?’ said Shaugh, as he meandered across the narrow streets
with a sidelong motion that must have suggested to our fair inside
passenger some notions of a sea voyage. In truth, I must confess our
progress was rather a devious one,--now zig-zagging from side to side, now
getting into a sharp trot, and then suddenly pulling up at a dead stop, or
running the machine chuck against a wall, to enable us to stand still and
gain breath.

“‘Which way now?’ cried he, as we swung round the angle of a street and
entered the large market-place; ‘I’m getting terribly tired.’

“‘Never give in, Dan. Think of Clonakilty and the old lady herself.’ Here
I gave the chair a hoist that evidently astonished our fair friend, for a
very imploring cry issued forth immediately after.

“‘To the right, quick-step, forward, charge!’ cried I; and we set off at a
brisk trot down a steep narrow lane.

“‘Here it is now,--the light in the window. Cheer up.’

“As I said this we came short up to a fine, portly-looking doorway, with
great stone pillars and cornice.

“‘Make yourself at home, Maurice,’ said he; ‘bring her in.’ So saying,
we pushed forward--for the door was open--and passed boldly into a great
flagged hall, silent and cold, and dark as the night itself.

“‘Are you sure we’re right?’ said he.

“‘All right,’ said I; ‘go ahead.’

“And so we did, till we came in sight of a small candle that burned dimly
at a distance from us.

“‘Make for the light,’ said I; but just as I said so Shaugh slipped and
fell flat on the flagway. The noise of his fall sent up a hundred echoes
in the silent building, and terrified us both dreadfully. After a minute’s
pause, by one consent we turned and made for the door, falling almost at
every step, and frightened out of our senses, we came tumbling together
into the porch, and out in the street, and never drew breath till we
reached the barracks. Meanwhile let me return to Mrs. Rogers. The dear
old lady, who had passed an awful time since she left the ball, had just
rallied out of a fainting fit when we took to our heels; so after screaming
and crying her best, she at last managed to open the top of the chair, and
by dint of great exertions succeeded in forcing the door, and at length
freed herself from bondage. She was leisurely groping her way round it
in the dark, when her lamentations, being heard without, woke up the old
sexton of the chapel,--for it was there we placed her,--who, entering
cautiously with a light, no sooner caught a glimpse of the great black
sedan and the figure beside it than he also took to his heels, and ran like
a madman to the priest’s house.

“‘Come, your reverence, come, for the love of marcy! Sure didn’t I see him
myself! Oh, wirra, wirra!’

“‘What is it, ye ould fool?’ said M’Kenny.

“‘It’s Father Con Doran, your reverence, that was buried last week, and
there he is up now, coffin and all, saying a midnight Mass as lively as
ever.’

“Poor Mrs. Rogers, God help her! It was a trying sight for her when the
priest and the two coadjutors and three little boys and the sexton all came
in to lay her spirit; and the shock she received that night, they say, she
never got over.

“Need I say, my dear O’Mealey, that our acquaintance with Mrs. Rogers was
closed? The dear woman had a hard struggle for it afterwards. Her character
was assailed by all the elderly ladies in Loughrea for going off in our
company, and her blue satin, piped with scarlet, utterly ruined by a deluge
of holy water bestowed on her by the pious sexton. It was in vain that she
originated twenty different reports to mystify the world; and even ten
pounds spent in Masses for the eternal repose of Father Con Doran only
increased the laughter this unfortunate affair gave rise to. As for us, we
exchanged into the line, and foreign service took us out of the road of
duns, debts, and devilment, and we soon reformed, and eschewed such low
company.”


The day was breaking ere we separated; and amidst the rich and fragrant
vapors that exhaled from the earth, the faint traces of sunlight dimly
stealing told of the morning. My two friends set out for Torrijos, and I
pushed boldly forward in the direction of the Alberche.

It was a strange thing that although but two days before the roads we were
then travelling had been the line of retreat of the whole French army, not
a vestige of their equipment nor a trace of their _matériel_ had been left
behind. In vain we searched each thicket by the wayside for some straggling
soldier, some wounded or wearied man; nothing of the kind was to be seen.
Except the deeply-rutted road, torn by the heavy wheels of the artillery,
and the white ashes of a wood fire, nothing marked their progress.

Our journey was a lonely one. Not a man was to be met with. The houses
stood untenanted; the doors lay open; no smoke wreathed from their deserted
hearths. The peasantry had taken to the mountains; and although the plains
were yellow with the ripe harvest, and the peaches hung temptingly upon the
trees, all was deserted and forsaken. I had often seen the blackened walls
and broken rafters, the traces of the wild revenge and reckless pillage of
a retiring army. The ruined castle and the desecrated altar are sad things
to look upon; but, somehow, a far heavier depression sunk into my heart
as my eye ranged over the wide valleys and broad hills, all redolent of
comfort, of beauty, and of happiness, and yet not one man to say, “This is
my home; these are my household gods.” The birds carolled gayly in each
leafy thicket; the bright stream sung merrily as it rippled through the
rocks; the tall corn, gently stirred by the breeze, seemed to swell the
concert of sweet sounds; but no human voice awoke the echoes there. It
was as if the earth was speaking in thankfulness to its Maker, while
man,--ungrateful and unworthy man,--pursuing his ruthless path of
devastation and destruction, had left no being to say, “I thank Thee for
all these.”

The day was closing as we drew near the Alberche, and came in sight of the
watch-fires of the enemy. Far as the eye could reach their column extended,
but in the dim twilight nothing could be seen with accuracy; yet from the
position their artillery occupied, and the unceasing din of baggage wagons
and heavy carriages towards the rear, I came to the conclusion that a still
farther retreat was meditated. A picket of light cavalry was posted upon
the river’s bank, and seemed to watch with vigilance the approaches to the
stream.

Our bivouac was a dense copse of pine-trees, exactly opposite to the French
advanced posts, and there we passed the night,--fortunately a calm and
starlight one; for we dared not light fires, fearful of attracting
attention.

During the long hours I lay patiently watching the movements of the enemy
till the dark shadows hid all from sight; and even then, as my ears caught
the challenge of a sentry or the footsteps of some officer in his round,
my thoughts were riveted upon them, and a hundred vague fancies as to the
future were based upon no stronger foundation than the clink of a firelock
or the low-muttered song of a patrol.

Towards morning I slept; and when day broke my first glance was towards the
river-side. But the French were gone, noiselessly, rapidly. Like one man
that vast army had departed, and a dense column of dust towards the
horizon alone marked the long line of march where the martial legions were
retreating.

My mission was thus ended; and hastily partaking of the humble breakfast my
friend Mike provided for me, I once more set out and took the road towards
headquarters.




CHAPTER II.


THE SKIRMISH.

For several months after the battle of Talavera my life presented nothing
which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have deserted us
when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that splendid victory we
began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed hard by overwhelming
masses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida
fall successively into their hands. The Spaniards were defeated wherever
they ventured upon a battle; and our own troops, thinned by sickness and
desertion, presented but a shadow of that brilliant army which only a few
months previous had followed the retiring French beyond the frontiers of
Portugal.

However willing I now am--and who is not--to recognize the genius and
foresight of that great man who then held the destinies of the Peninsula
within his hands, I confess at the time I speak of I could ill comprehend
and still less feel contented with the successive retreats our forces made;
and while the words Torres Vedras brought nothing to my mind but the last
resting-place before embarkation, the sad fortunes of Corunna were now
before me, and it was with a gloomy and desponding spirit I followed the
routine of my daily duty.

During these weary months, if my life was devoid of stirring interest or
adventure, it was not profitless. Constantly employed at the outposts,
I became thoroughly inured to all the roughing of a soldier’s life, and
learned in the best of schools that tacit obedience which alone can form
the subordinate or ultimately fit its possessor for command himself.

Humble and unobtrusive as such a career must ever be, it was not without
its occasional rewards. From General Crawfurd I more than once obtained
most kind mention in his despatches, and felt that I was not unknown or
unnoticed by Sir Arthur Wellesley himself. At that time these testimonies,
slight and passing as they were, contributed to the pride and glory of my
existence; and even now--shall I confess it?--when some gray hairs are
mingling with the brown, and when my old dragoon swagger is taming down
into a kind of half-pay shamble, I feel my heart warm at the recollection
of them.

Be it so; I care not who smiles at the avowal. I know of little better
worth remembering as we grow old than what pleased us while we were young.
With the memory of the kind words once spoken come back the still kinder
looks of those who spoke them, and better than all, that early feeling of
budding manhood, when there was neither fear nor distrust. Alas! these are
the things, and not weak eyes and tottering limbs, which form the burden of
old age. Oh, if we could only go on believing, go on trusting, go on hoping
to the last, who would shed tears for the bygone feats of his youthful
days, when the spirit that evoked them lived young and vivid as before?

But to my story. While Ciudad Rodrigo still held out against the besieging
French,--its battered walls and breached ramparts sadly foretelling the
fate inevitably impending,--we were ordered, together with the 16th Light
Dragoons, to proceed to Gallegos, to reinforce Crawfurd’s division, then
forming a corps of observation upon Massena’s movements.

The position he occupied was a most commanding one,--the crown of a long
mountain ridge, studded with pine-copse and cork-trees, presenting every
facility for light-infantry movements; and here and there gently sloping
towards the plain, offering a field for cavalry manoeuvres. Beneath, in
the vast plain, were encamped the dark legions of France, their heavy
siege-artillery planted against the doomed fortress, while clouds of their
cavalry caracoled proudly before us, as if in taunting sarcasm at our
inactivity.

Every artifice which his natural cunning could suggest, every taunt a
Frenchman’s vocabulary contains, had been used by Massena to induce Sir
Arthur Wellesley to come to the assistance of the beleagured fortress:
but in vain. In vain he relaxed the energy of the siege, and affected
carelessness. In vain he asserted that the English were either afraid or
else traitors to their allies. The mind of him he thus assailed was neither
accessible to menace nor to sarcasm. Patiently abiding his time, he watched
the progress of events, and provided for that future which was to crown his
country’s arms with success and himself with undying glory.

Of a far different mettle was the general formed under whose orders we were
now placed. Hot, passionate, and impetuous, relying upon bold and headlong
heroism rather than upon cool judgment and well-matured plans, Crawfurd
felt in war all the asperity and bitterness of a personal conflict. Ill
brooking the insulting tone of the wily Frenchman, he thirsted for any
occasion of a battle, and his proud spirit chafed against the colder
counsels of his superior.

On the very morning we joined, the pickets brought in the intelligence that
the French patrols were nightly in the habit of visiting the villages at
the outposts and committing every species of cruel indignity upon the
wretched inhabitants. Fired at this daring insult, our general resolved to
cut them off, and formed two ambuscades for the purpose.

Six squadrons of the 14th were despatched to Villa del Puerco, three of
the 16th to Baguetto, while some companies of the 95th, and the caçadores,
supported by artillery, were ordered to hold themselves in reserve, for the
enemy were in force at no great distance from us.

The morning was just breaking as an aide-de-camp galloped up with the
intelligence that the French had been seen near the Villa del Puerco, a
body of infantry and some cavalry having crossed the plain, and disappeared
in that direction. While our colonel was forming us, with the intention of
getting between them and their main body, the tramp of horses was heard in
the wood behind, and in a few moments two officers rode up. The foremost,
who was a short, stoutly-built man of about forty, with a bronzed face and
eye of piercing black, shouted out as we wheeled into column:--

“Halt, there! Why, where the devil are you going? That’s your ground!” So
saying, and pointing straight towards the village with his hand, he would
not listen to our colonel’s explanation that several stone fences and
enclosures would interfere with cavalry movements, but added, “Forward, I
say! Proceed!”

Unfortunately, the nature of the ground separated our squadron, as the
colonel anticipated; and although we came on at a topping pace, the French
had time to form in square upon a hill to await us, and when we charged,
they stood firmly, and firing with a low and steady aim, several of our
troopers fell. As we wheeled round, we found ourselves exactly in front
of their cavalry coming out of Baguilles; so dashing straight at them,
we revenged ourselves for our first repulse by capturing twenty-nine
prisoners, and wounding several others.

The French infantry were, however, still unbroken; and Colonel Talbot rode
boldly up with five squadrons of the 14th; but the charge, pressed home
with all its gallantry, failed also, and the colonel fell mortally wounded,
and fourteen of his troopers around him. Twice we rode round the square,
seeking for a weak point, but in vain; the gallant Frenchman who commanded,
Captain Guache, stood fearlessly amidst his brave followers, and we could
hear him, as he called out from time to time,--

“_C’est ça mes enfans! Trés bien fait, mes braves!_”

And at length they made good their retreat, while we returned to the camp,
leaving thirty-two troopers and our brave colonel dead upon the field in
this disastrous affair.


The repulse we had met with, so contrary to all our hopes and expectations,
made that a most gloomy day to all of us. The brave fellows we had left
behind us, the taunting cheer of the French infantry, the unbroken ranks
against which we rode time after time in vain, never left our minds; and a
sense of shame of what might be thought of us at headquarters rendered the
reflection still more painful.

Our bivouac, notwithstanding all our efforts, was a sad one, and when the
moon rose, some drops of heavy rain falling at intervals in the still,
unruffled air threatened a night of storm; gradually the sky grew darker
and darker, the clouds hung nearer to the earth, and a dense, thick mass
of dark mist shrouded every object. The heavy cannonade of the siege was
stilled; nothing betrayed that a vast army was encamped near us; their
bivouac fires were even imperceptible; and the only sound we heard was the
great bell of Ciudad Rodrigo as it struck the hour, and seemed, in the
mournful cadence of its chime, like the knell of the doomed citadel.

The patrol which I commanded had to visit on its rounds the most advanced
post of our position. This was a small farm-house, which, standing upon a
little rising ledge of ground, was separated from the French lines by a
little stream tributary to the Aguda. A party of the 14th were picketed
here, and beneath them in the valley, scarce five hundred yards distant,
was the detachment of cuirassiers which formed the French outpost. As we
neared our picket the deep voice of the sentry challenged us; and while
all else was silent as the grave, we could hear from the opposite side
the merry chorus of a French _chanson à boire_, with its clattering
accompaniment of glasses, as some gay companions were making merry
together.

Within the little hut which contained _our_ fellows, the scene was a
different one. The three officers who commanded sat moodily over a wretched
fire of wet wood; a solitary candle dimly lighted the dismantled room,
where a table but ill-supplied with cheer stood unminded and uncared for.

“Well, O’Malley,” cried Baker, as I came in, “what is the night about? And
what’s Crawfurd for next?”

“We hear,” cried another, “that he means to give battle to-morrow; but
surely Sir Arthur’s orders are positive enough. Gordon himself told me
that he was forbidden to fight beyond the Coa, but to retreat at the first
advance of the enemy.”

“I’m afraid,” replied I, “that retreating is his last thought just now.
Ammunition has just been served out, and I know the horse artillery have
orders to be in readiness by daybreak.”

“All right,” said Hampden, with a half-bitter tone. “Nothing like going
through with it. If he is to be brought to court-martial for disobedience,
he’ll take good care we sha’n’t be there to see it.”

“Why, the French are fifty thousand strong!” said Baker. “Look there, what
does that mean, now? That’s a signal from the town.”

As he spoke a rocket of great brilliancy shot up into the sky, and bursting
at length fell in millions of red lustrous sparks on every side, showing
forth the tall fortress, and the encamped army around it, with all the
clearness of noonday. It was a most splendid sight; and though the next
moment all was dark as before, we gazed still fixedly into the gloomy
distance, straining our eyes to observe what was hid from our view forever.

“That must be a signal,” repeated Baker.

“Begad! if Crawfurd sees it he’ll interpret it as a reason for fighting. I
trust he’s asleep by this time,” said Hampden. “By-the-bye, O’Malley, did
you see the fellows at work in the trenches? How beautifully clear it was
towards the southward!”

“Yes, I remarked that! and what surprised me was the openness of their
position in that direction. Towards the San Benito mole I could not see a
man.”

“Ah, they’ll not attack on that side; but if we really are--”

“Stay, Hampden!” said I, interrupting him, “a thought has just struck me.
At sunset, I saw, through my telescope, the French engineers marking with
their white tape the line of a new entrenchment in that quarter. Would it
not be a glorious thing to move the tape, and bring the fellows under the
fire of San Benito?”

“By Jove, O’Malley, that is a thought worth a troop to you!”

“Far more likely to forward his promotion in the next world than in this,”
 said Baker, smiling.

“By no means,” added I. “I marked the ground this evening, and have it
perfectly in my mind. If we were to follow the bend of the river, I’ll be
bound to come right upon the spot; by nearing the fortress we’ll escape the
sentries; and all this portion is open to us.”

The project thus loosely thrown out was now discussed in all its bearings.
Whatever difficulties it presented were combated so much to our own
satisfaction, that at last its very facility damped our ardor. Meanwhile
the night wore on, and the storm of rain so long impending began to descend
in very torrents; hissing along the parched ground, it rose in a mist,
while overhead the heavy thunder rolled in long unbroken peals; the crazy
door threatened to give way at each moment, and the whole building trembled
to its foundation.

“Pass the brandy down here, Hampden, and thank your stars you’re where you
are. Eh, O’Malley? You’ll defer your trip to San Benito for finer weather.”

“Well, to come to the point,” said Hampden, “I’d rather begin my
engineering at a more favorable season; but if O’Malley’s for it--”

“And O’Malley _is_ for it,” said I, suddenly.

“Then faith, I’m not the man to balk his fancy; and as Crawfurd is so bent
upon fighting to-morrow, it don’t make much difference. Is it a bargain?”

“It is; here’s my hand on it.”

“Come, come, boys, I’ll have none of this; we’ve been prettily cut up this
morning already. You shall not go upon this foolish excursion.”

“Confound it, old fellow! it’s all very well for you to talk, with the
majority before you, next step; but here we are, if peace came to-morrow,
scarcely better than we left England. No, no; if O’Malley’s ready--and I
see he is so before me--What have you got there? Oh, I see; that’s our tape
line; capital fun, by George! The worst of it is, they’ll make us colonels
of engineers. Now then, what’s your plan--on foot or mounted?”

“Mounted, and for this reason, the country is all open; if we are to have a
run for it, our thoroughbreds ought to distance them; and as we must expect
to pass some of their sentries, our only chance is on horseback.”

“My mind is relieved of a great load,” said Hampden; “I was trembling in my
skin lest you should make it a walking party. I’ll do anything you like in
the saddle, from robbing the mail to cutting out a frigate; but I never was
much of a foot-pad.”

“Well, Mike,” said I, as I returned to the room with my trusty follower,
“are the cattle to be depended on?”

“If we had a snaffle in Malachi Daly’s mouth [my brown horse], I’d be
afeared of nothing, sir; but if it comes to fencing, with that cruel
bit,--but sure, you’ve a light hand, and let him have his head, if it’s
wall.”

“By Jove, he thinks it a fox-chase!” said Hampden.

“Isn’t it the same, sir?” said Mike, with a seriousness that made the whole
party smile.

“Well, I hope we shall not be earthed, any way,” said I. “Now, the next
thing is, who has a lantern? Ah! the very thing; nothing better. Look to
your pistols, Hampden; and Mike, here’s a glass of grog for you; we’ll want
you. And now, one bumper for good luck. Eh, Baker, won’t you pledge us?”

“And spare a little for me,” said Hampden. “How it does rain! If one didn’t
expect to be water-proofed before morning, one really wouldn’t go out in
such weather.”

While I busied myself in arranging my few preparations, Hampden proceeded
gravely to inform Mike that we were going to the assistance of the besieged
fortress, which could not possibly go on without us.

“Tare and ages!” said Mike, “that’s mighty quare; and the blue rocket was a
letter of invitation, I suppose?”

“Exactly,” said Hampden; “and you see there’s no ceremony between us. We’ll
just drop in, in the evening, in a friendly way.”

“Well, then, upon my conscience, I’d wait, if I was you, till the family
wasn’t in confusion. They have enough on their hands just now.”

“So you’ll not be persuaded?” said Baker. “Well, I frankly tell you, that
come what will of it, as your senior officer I’ll report you to-morrow.
I’ll not risk myself for any such hair-brained expeditions.”

“A mighty pleasant look-out for me,” said Mike; “if I’m not shot to-night,
I may be flogged in the morning.”

This speech once more threw us into a hearty fit of laughter, amidst which
we took leave of our friends, and set forth upon our way.




CHAPTER III.


THE LINES OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

The small, twinkling lights which shone from the ramparts of Ciudad Rodrigo
were our only guide, as we issued forth upon our perilous expedition. The
storm raged, if possible, even more violently than before, and gusts of
wind swept along the ground with the force of a hurricane; so that at
first, our horses could scarcely face the tempest. Our path lay along the
little stream for a considerable way; after which, fording the rivulet, we
entered upon the open plain, taking care to avoid the French outpost on the
extreme left, which was marked by a bivouac fire, burning under the heavy
downpour of rain, and looking larger through the dim atmosphere around it.

I rode foremost, followed closely by Hampden and Mike; not a word was
spoken after we crossed the stream. Our plan was, if challenged by a
patrol, to reply in French and press on; so small a party could never
suggest the idea of attack, and we hoped in this manner to escape.

The violence of the storm was such that many of our precautions as to
silence were quite unnecessary; and we had advanced to a considerable
extent into the plain before any appearance of the encampment struck us.
At length, on mounting a little rising ground, we perceived several fires
stretching far away to the northward; while still to our left, there blazed
one larger and brighter than the others. We now found that we had not
outflanked their position as we intended, and learning from the situation
of the fires, that we were still only at the outposts, we pressed sharply
forward, directing our course by the twin stars that shone from the
fortress.

“How heavy the ground is here!” whispered Hampden, as our horses sunk above
the fetlocks. “We had better stretch away to the right; the rise of the
hill will favor us.”

“Hark!” said I; “did you not hear something? Pull up,--silence now. Yes,
there they come. It’s a patrol; I hear their tramp.” As I spoke, the
measured tread of infantry was heard above the storm, and soon after a
lantern was seen coming along the causeway near us. The column passed
within a few yards of where we stood. I could even recognize the black
covering of the shakos as the light fell on them. “Let us follow them,”
 whispered I; and the next moment we fell in upon their track, holding our
cattle well in hand, and ready to start at a moment.

“_Qui va là?_” a sentry demanded.

“_La deuxième division_,” cried a hoarse voice.

“_Halte là! la consigne?_”

“_Wagram!_” repeated the same voice as before, while his party resumed
their march; and the next moment the patrol was again upon his post, silent
and motionless as before.

“_En avant, Messieurs!_” said I, aloud, as soon as the infantry had
proceeded some distance,--“_en avant!_”

“_Qui va là?_” demanded the sentry, as we came along at a sharp trot.

“_L’état-major, Wagram!_” responded I, pressing on without drawing rein;
and in a moment we had regained our former position behind the infantry. We
had scarcely time to congratulate ourselves upon the success of our scheme,
when a tremendous clattering noise in front, mingled with the galloping of
horses and the cracking of whips, announced the approach of the artillery
as they came along by a narrow road which bisected our path; and as they
passed between us and the column, we could hear the muttered sentences of
the drivers, cursing the unseasonable time for an attack, and swearing at
their cattle in no measured tones.

“Did you hear that?” whispered Hampden; “the battery is about to be
directed against the San Benito, which must be far away to the left.
I heard one of the troop saying that they were to open their fire at
daybreak.”

“All right, now,” said I; “look there!”

From the hill we now stood upon a range of lanterns was distinctly visible,
stretching away for nearly half a mile.

“There are the trenches; they must be at work, too. See how the lights are
moving from place to place! Straight now. Forward!”

So saying, I pressed my horse boldly on.

We had not proceeded many minutes when the sounds of galloping were heard
coming along behind us.

“To the right, in the hollow,” cried I. “Be still.”

Scarcely had we moved off when several horsemen galloped up, and drawing
their reins to breathe their horses up the hill, we could hear their voices
as they conversed together.

In the few broken words we could catch, we guessed that the attack upon San
Benito was only a feint to induce Crawfurd to hold his position, while
the French, marching upon his flank and front, were to attack him with
overwhelming masses and crush him.

“You hear what’s in store for us, O’Malley?” whispered Hampden. “I think we
could not possibly do better than hasten back with the intelligence.”

“We must not forget what we came for, first,” said I; and the next moment
we were following the horsemen, who from their helmets seemed to be
horse-artillery officers.

The pace our guides rode at showed us that they knew their ground. We
passed several sentries, muttering something at each time, and seeming as
if only anxious to keep up with our party.

“They’ve halted,” said I. “Now to the left there; gently here, for we must
be in the midst of their lines. Ha! I knew we were right. See there!”

Before us, now, at a few hundred yards, we could perceive a number of men
engaged upon the field. Lights were moving from place to place rapidly,
while immediately in front a strong picket of cavalry were halted.

“By Jove! there’s sharp work of it to-night,” whispered Hampden. “They do
intend to surprise us to-morrow.”

“Gently now, to the left,” said I, as cautiously skirting the little hill,
I kept my eye firmly fixed upon the watch-fire.

The storm, which for some time had abated considerably, was now nearly
quelled, and the moon again peeped forth amidst masses of black and watery
clouds.

“What good fortune for us!” thought I, at this moment, as I surveyed the
plain before me.

“I say, O’Malley, what are those fellows at yonder, where the blue light is
burning?”

“Ah! the very people we want; these are the sappers. Now for it; that’s our
ground. We’ll soon come upon their track now.”

We pressed rapidly forward, passing an infantry party as we went. The blue
light was scarcely a hundred yards off; we could even hear the shouting of
the officers to their men in the trenches, when suddenly my horse came down
upon his head, and rolling over, crushed me to the earth.

“Not hurt, my boy,” cried I, in a subdued tone, as Hampden jumped down
beside me.

It was the angle of a trench I had fallen into; and though both my horse
and myself felt stunned for the moment, we rallied the next minute.

“Here is the very spot,” said I. “Now, Mike, catch the bridles and follow
us closely.”

Guiding ourselves along the edge of the trench, we crept stealthily
forward; the only watch-fire near was where the engineer party was halted,
and our object was to get outside of this.

“My turn this time,” said Hampden, as he tripped suddenly, and fell head
foremost upon the grass.

As I assisted him to rise, something caught my ankle, and on stooping I
found it was a cord pegged fast into the ground, and lying only a few
inches above it.

“Now, steady! See here; this is their working line. Pass your hand along it
there, and let us follow it out.”

While Hampden accordingly crept along on one side, I tracked the cord upon
the other. Here I found it terminating upon a small mound, where probably
some battery was to be erected. I accordingly gathered it carefully up, and
was returning towards my friend, when what was my horror to hear Mike’s
voice, conversing, as it seemed to me, with some one in French.

I stood fixed to the spot, my very heart beating almost in my mouth as I
listened.

“_Qui êtes-vous done, mon ami?_” inquired a hoarse, deep voice, a few yards
off.

“_Bon cheval, non_ beast, _sacré nom de Dieu!_” A hearty burst of laughter
prevented my hearing the conclusion of Mike’s French.

I now crept forward upon my hands and knees, till I could catch the dark
outline of the horses, one hand fixed upon my pistol trigger, and my sword
drawn in the other. Meanwhile the dialogue continued.

“_Vous êtes d’Alsace, n’est-ce-pas?_” asked the Frenchman, kindly supposing
that Mike’s French savored of Strasburg.

“Oh, blessed Virgin! av I might shoot him,” was the muttered reply.

Before I had time to see the effect of the last speech, I pressed forward
with a bold spring, and felled the Frenchman to the earth. My hand had
scarcely pressed upon his mouth, when Hampden was beside me. Snatching up
the pistol I let fall, he held it to the man’s chest and commanded him to
be silent. To unfasten his girdle and bind the Frenchman’s hands behind
him, was the work of a moment; and as the sharp click of the pistol-cock
seemed to calm his efforts to escape, we soon succeeded in fastening a
handkerchief tight across his mouth, and the next minute he was placed
behind Mike’s saddle, firmly attached to this worthy individual by his
sword-belt.

“Now, a clear run home for it, and a fair start,” said Hampden, as he
sprang into the saddle.

“Now, then, for it,” I replied, as turning my horse’s head towards our
lines, I dashed madly forward.

The moon was again obscured, but still the dark outline of the hill which
formed our encampment was discernible on the horizon. Riding side by side,
on we hurried,--now splashing through the deep wet marshes, now plunging
through small streams. Our horses were high in mettle, and we spared them
not. By taking a wide _détour_ we had outflanked the French pickets, and
were almost out of all risk, when suddenly on coming to the verge of rather
a steep hill, we perceived beneath us a strong cavalry picket standing
around a watch-fire; their horses were ready saddled, the men accoutred,
and quite prepared for the field. While we conversed together in whispers
as to the course to follow, our deliberations were very rapidly cut short.
The French prisoner, who hitherto had given neither trouble nor resistance,
had managed to free his mouth from the encumbrance of the handkerchief; and
as we stood quietly discussing our plans, with one tremendous effort he
endeavored to hurl himself and Mike from the saddle, shouting out as he did
so,--

“_A moi camarades! à moi!_”

Hampden’s pistol leaped from the holster as he spoke, and levelling it with
a deadly aim, he pulled the trigger; but I threw up his arm, and the ball
passed high above his head. To have killed the Frenchman would have been to
lose my faithful follower, who struggled manfully with his adversary, and
at length by throwing himself flatly forward upon the mane of his horse,
completely disabled him. Meanwhile the picket had sprung to their saddles,
and looked wildly about on every side.

Not a moment was to be lost; so turning our horses’ heads towards the
plain, away we went. One loud cheer announced to us that we had been seen,
and the next instant the clash of the pursuing cavalry was heard behind us.
It was now entirely a question of speed, and little need we have feared
had Mike’s horse not been doubly weighted. However, as we still had
considerably the start, and the gray dawn of day enabled us to see the
ground, the odds were in our favor. “Never let your horse’s head go,” was
my often repeated direction to Mike, as he spurred with all the desperation
of madness. Already the low meadow-land was in sight which flanked the
stream we had crossed in the morning, but unfortunately the heavy rains had
swollen it now to a considerable depth, and the muddy current, choked with
branches of trees and great stones, was hurrying down like a torrent. “Take
the river! never flinch it!” was my cry to my companions, as I turned my
head and saw a French dragoon, followed by two others, gaining rapidly upon
us. As I spoke, Mike dashed in, followed by Hampden, and the same moment
the sharp ring of a carbine whizzed past me. To take off the pursuit from
the others, I now wheeled my horse suddenly round, as if I feared to take
the stream, and dashed along by the river’s bank.

[Illustration: A FLYING SHOT.]

Beneath me in the foaming current the two horsemen labored,--now stemming
the rush of water, now reeling almost beneath. A sharp cry burst from Mike
as I looked, and I saw the poor fellow bend nearly to his saddle. I could
see no more, for the chase was now hot upon myself. Behind me rode a French
dragoon, his carbine pressed tightly to his side, ready to fire as he
pressed on in pursuit. I had but one chance; so drawing my pistol I wheeled
suddenly in my saddle, and fired straight at him. The Frenchman fell, while
a regular volley from his party rung around me, one ball striking my horse,
and another lodging in the pommel of my saddle. The noble animal reeled
nearly to the earth, but as if rallying for a last effort, sprang forward
with renewed energy, and plunged boldly into the river. For a moment,
so sudden was my leap, my pursuers lost sight of me; but the bank being
somewhat steep, the efforts of my horse to climb again discovered me, and
before I reached the field two pistol-balls took effect upon me,--one
slightly grazed my side, but my bridle-arm was broken by the other, and
my hand fell motionless to my side. A cheer of defiance was, however, my
reply, as I turned round in my saddle, and the next moment I was far beyond
the range of their fire.

Not a man durst follow, and the last sight I had of them was the dismounted
group who stood around their dead comrade. Before me rode Hampden and Mike,
still at top speed, and never turning their heads backwards. I hastened
after them; but my poor, wounded horse, nearly hamstrung by the shot,
became dead lame, and it was past daybreak ere I reached the first outposts
of our lines.




CHAPTER IV.


THE DOCTOR.

“And his wound? Is it a serious one?” said a round, full voice, as the
doctor left my room at the conclusion of his visit.

“No, sir; a fractured bone is the worst of it,--the bullet grazed, but did
not cut the artery, and as--”

“Well, how soon will he be about again?”

“In a few weeks, if no fever sets in.”

“There’s no objection to my seeing him?--a few minutes only,--I’ll be
cautious.” So saying, and as it seemed to me, without waiting for a reply,
the door was opened by an aide-de-camp, who, announcing General Crawfurd,
closed it again, and withdrew.

The first glance I threw upon the general enabled me to recognize the
officer who, on the previous morning, had ridden up to the picket and given
us the orders to charge. I essayed to rise a little as he came forward; but
he motioned me with his hand to lie still, while, placing a chair close
beside my bed, he sat down.

“Very sorry for your mishap, sir, but glad it is no worse. Moreton says
that nothing of consequence is injured; there, you mustn’t speak except I
ask you. Hampden has told me everything necessary; at least as far as he
knew. Is it your opinion, also, that any movement is in contemplation; and
from what circumstance?”

I immediately explained, and as briefly as I was able, the reasons for
suspecting such, with which he seemed quite satisfied. I detailed the
various changes in the positions of the troops that were taking place
during the night, the march of the artillery, and the strong bodies of
cavalry that were posted in reserve along the river.

“Very well, sir; they’ll not move; your prisoner, quartermaster of an
infantry battalion, says not, also. Yours was a bold stroke, but could not
possibly have been of service, and the best thing I can do for you is not
to mention it,--a court-martial’s but a poor recompense for a gun-shot
wound. Meanwhile, when this blows over, I’ll appoint you on my personal
staff. There, not a word, I beg; and now, good-by.”

So saying, and waving me an adieu with his hand, the gallant veteran
withdrew before I could express my gratitude for his kindness.

I had little time for reflecting over my past adventure, such numbers of my
brother officers poured in upon me. All the doctor’s cautions respecting
quietness and rest were disregarded, and a perfect levee sat the entire
morning in my bed-room. I was delighted to learn that Mike’s wound, though
painful at the moment, was of no consequence; and indeed Hampden, who
escaped both steel and shot, was the worst off among us,--his plunge in the
river having brought on an ague he had labored under years before.

“The illustrious Maurice has been twice here this morning, but they
wouldn’t admit him. Your Scotch physician is afraid of his Irish
_confrère_, and they had a rare set-to about Galen and Hippocrates
outside,” said Baker.

“By-the-bye,” said another, “did you see how Sparks looked when Quill
joined us? Egad, I never saw a fellow in such a fright; he reddened up,
then grew pale, turned his back, and slunk away at the very first moment.”

“Yes, I remember it. We must find out the reason; for Maurice, depend upon
it, has been hoaxing the poor fellow.”

“Well, O’Malley,” growled out the senior major, “you certainly did give
Hampden a benefit. He’ll not trust himself in such company again; and
begad, he says, the man is as bad as the master. That fellow of yours never
let go his prisoner till he reached the quartermaster-general, and they
were both bathed in blood by that time.”

“Poor Mike! we must do something for him.”

“Oh, he’s as happy as a king! Maurice has been in to see him, and they’ve
had a long chat about Ireland, and all the national pastimes of whiskey
drinking and smashing skulls. My very temples ache at the recollection.”

“Is Mister O’Mealey at home?” said a very rich Cork accent, as the
well-known and most droll features of Dr. Maurice Quill appeared at the
door.

“Come in, Maurice,” said the major; “and for Heaven’s sake, behave
properly. The poor fellow must not have a row about his bedside.”

“A row, a row! Upon my conscience, it is little you know about a row, and
there’s worse things going than a row. Which leg is it?”

“It’s an arm, Doctor, I’m happy to say.”

“Not your punch hand, I hope. No; all’s right. A neat fellow you have for
a servant, that Mickey Free. I was asking him about a townsman of his
own--one Tim Delany,--the very cut of himself, the best servant I ever had.
I never could make out what became of him. Old Hobson of the 95th, gave
him to me, saying, ‘There he is for you, Maurice, and a bigger thief and a
greater blackguard there’s not in the 60th.’

“‘Strong words,’ said I.

“‘And true’ said he; ‘he’d steal your molar tooth while you were laughing
at him.’

“‘Let me have him, and try my hand on him, anyway. I’ve got no one just
now. Anything is better than nothing.’

“Well I took Tim, and sending for him to my room I locked the door, and
sitting down gravely before him explained in a few words that I was quite
aware of his little propensities.

“‘Now,’ said I, ‘if you like to behave well, I’ll think you as honest as
the chief-justice; but if I catch you stealing, if it be only the value of
a brass snuff-box, I’ll have you flogged before the regiment as sure as my
name’s Maurice.’

“Oh, I wish you heard the volley of protestations that fell from him fast
as hail. He was a calumniated man the world conspired to wrong him; he was
never a thief nor a rogue in his life. He had a weakness, he confessed, for
the ladies; but except that, he hoped he might die so thin that he could
shave himself with his shin-bone if he ever so much as took a pinch of salt
that wasn’t his own.

“However this might be, nothing could be better than the way Tim and I got
on together. Everything was in its place, nothing missing; and in fact, for
upwards of a year, I went on wondering when he was to show out in his true
colors, for hitherto he had been a phoenix.

“At last,--we were quartered in Limerick at the time,--every morning used
to bring accounts of all manner of petty thefts in the barrack,--one fellow
had lost his belt, another his shoes, a third had three-and-sixpence in
his pocket when he went to bed and woke without a farthing, and so on.
Everybody save myself was mulet of something. At length some rumors of
Tim’s former propensities got abroad; suspicion was excited; my friend
Delany was rigidly watched, and some very dubious circumstances attached to
the way he spent his evenings.

“My brother officers called upon me about the matter, and although nothing
had transpired like proof, I sent for Tim, and opened my mind on the
subject.

“You may talk of the look of conscious innocence, but I defy you to
conceive anything finer than the stare of offended honor Tim gave me as I
began.

“‘They say it’s me, Doctor,’ said he, ‘do they? And you,--you believe them.
You allow them to revile me that way? Well, well, the world is come to a
pretty pass, anyhow! Now, let me ask your honor a few questions? How many
shirts had yourself when I entered your service? Two, and one was more like
a fishing net! And how many have ye now? Eighteen; ay, eighteen bran new
cambrie ones,--devil a hole in one of them! How many pair of stockings had
you? Three and an odd one. You have two dozen this minute. How many pocket
handkerchiefs? One,--devil a more! You could only blow your nose two days
in the week, and now you may every hour of the twenty-four! And as to
the trilling articles of small value, snuff-boxes, gloves, bootjacks,
nightcaps, and--’

“‘Stop, Tim, that’s enough--’

“‘No, sir, it is not,’ said Tim, drawing himself up to his full height;
‘you have wounded my feelings in a way I can’t forget. It is impossible
we can have that mutual respect our position demands. Farewell, farewell,
Doctor, and forever!’

“Before I could say another word, the fellow had left the room, and closed
the door after him; and from that hour to this I never set eyes on him.”

In this vein did the worthy doctor run on till some more discreet friend
suggested that however well-intentioned the visit, I did not seem to be
fully equal to it,--my flushed cheek and anxious eye betraying that the
fever of my wound had commenced. They left me, therefore, once more alone,
and to my solitary musings over the vicissitudes of my fortune.




CHAPTER V.


THE COA.

Within a week from the occurrence of the events just mentioned, Ciudad
Rodrigo surrendered, and Crawfurd assumed another position beneath the
walls of Almeida. The Spanish contingent having left us, we were reinforced
by the arrival of two battalions, renewed orders being sent not to risk a
battle, but if the French should advance, to retire beyond the Coa.

On the evening of the 21st of July a strong body of French cavalry advanced
into the plain, supported by some heavy guns; upon which Crawfurd retired
upon the Coa, intending, as we supposed, to place that river between
himself and the enemy. Three days, however, passed over without any
movement upon either side, and we still continued, with a force of scarcely
four thousand infantry and a thousand dragoons, to stand opposite to an
army of nearly fifty thousand men. Such was our position as the night of
the 24th set in. I was sitting alone in my quarters. Mike, whose wound had
been severer than at first was supposed, had been sent to Almeida, and I
was musing in solitude upon the events of the campaign, when the noise and
bustle without excited my attention,--the roll of artillery wagons, the
clash of musketry, and the distant sounds of marching, all proved that the
troops were effecting some new movement, and I burned with anxiety to
learn what it was. My brother officers, however, came not as usual to my
quarters; and although I waited with impatience while the hours rolled by,
no one appeared.

Long, low moaning gusts of wind swept along the earth, carrying the leaves
as they tore them from the trees, and mingling their sad sounds with the
noises of the retiring troops; for I could perceive that gradually the
sounds grew more and more remote, and only now and then could I trace their
position as the roll of a distant drum swelled upon the breeze, or the
more shrill cry of a pibroch broke upon my ear. A heavy downpour of rain
followed soon after, and in its unceasing plash drowned all other sounds.

As the little building shook beneath the peals of loud thunder, the
lightning flashed in broad sheets upon the rapid river, which, swollen and
foaming, dashed impetuously beside my window. By the uncertain but vivid
glare of the flashes, I endeavored to ascertain where our force was posted,
but in vain. Never did I witness such a night of storm,--the deep booming
of the thunder seeming never for a moment to cease, while the rush of the
torrent grew gradually louder, till at length it swelled into one deep and
sullen roar like that of distant artillery.

Weak and nervous as I felt from the effects of my wound, feverish and
exhausted by days of suffering and sleepless nights, I paced my little room
with tottering but impatient steps. The sense of my sad and imprisoned
state impressed me deeply; and while from time to time I replenished my
fire, and hoped to hear some friendly step upon the stair, my heart grew
gradually heavier, and every gloomy and depressing thought suggested itself
to my imagination. My most constant impression was that the troops were
retiring beyond the Coa, and that, forgotten in the haste and confusion of
a night march, I had been left behind to fall a prisoner to the enemy.

The sounds of the troops retiring gradually farther and farther favored the
idea, in which I was still more strengthened on finding that the peasants
who inhabited the little hut had departed, leaving me utterly alone. From
the moment I ascertained this fact, my impatience knew no bounds; and in
proportion as I began to feel some exertion necessary on my part, so much
more did my nervousness increase my debility, and at last I sank exhausted
upon my bed, while a cold perspiration broke out upon my temples.

I have mentioned that the Coa was immediately beneath the house; I must
also add that the little building occupied the angle of a steep but narrow
gorge which descended from the plain to the bridge across the stream. This,
as far as I knew, was the only means we possessed of passing the river; so
that, when the last retiring sounds of the troops were heard by me, I began
to suspect that Crawfurd, in compliance with his orders, was making a
backward movement, leaving the bridge open to the French, to draw them
on to his line of march, while he should cross over at some more distant
point.

As the night grew later, the storm seemed to increase; the waves of the
foaming river dashed against the frail walls of the hut, while its roof,
rent by the blast, fell in fragments upon the stream, and all threatened a
speedy and perfect ruin.

How I longed for morning! The doubt and uncertainty I suffered nearly drove
me distracted. Of all the casualties my career as a soldier opened, none
had such terrors for me as imprisonment; the very thought of the long years
of inaction and inglorious idleness was worse than any death. My wounds,
and the state of fever I was in, increased the morbid dread upon me, and
had the French captured me at the time, I know not that madness of which
I was not capable. Day broke at last, but slowly and sullenly; the gray
clouds hurried past upon the storm, pouring down the rain in torrents as
they went, and the desolation and dreariness on all sides was scarcely
preferable to the darkness and gloom of night. My eyes were turned ever
towards the plain, across which the winter wind bore the plashing rain in
vast sheets of water; the thunder crashed louder and louder; but except the
sounds of the storm none others met my ear. Not a man, not a human figure
could I see, as I strained my sight towards the distant horizon.

The morning crept over, but the storm abated not, and the same unchanged
aspect of dreary desolation prevailed without. At times I thought I could
hear, amidst the noises of the tempest, something like the roll of distant
artillery; but the thunder swelled in sullen roar above all, and left me
uncertain as before.

At last, in a momentary pause of the storm, a tremendous peal of heavy
guns caught my ear, followed by the long rattling of small-arms. My heart
bounded with ecstasy. The thoughts of the battle-field, with all its
changing fortunes, was better, a thousand times better, than the despairing
sense of desertion I labored under. I listened now with eagerness, but
the rain bore down again in torrents, and the crumbling walls and falling
timbers left no other sounds to be heard. Far as my eye could reach,
nothing could still be seen save the dreary monotony of the vast plain,
undulating slightly here and there, but unmarked by a sign of man.

Far away towards the horizon I had remarked for some time past that the
clouds resting upon the earth grew blacker and blacker, spreading out to
either side in vast masses, and not broken or wafted along like the rest.
As I watched the phenomenon with an anxious eye, I perceived the dense mass
suddenly appear, as it were, rent asunder, while a volume of liquid flame
rushed wildly out, throwing a lurid glare on every side. One terrific clap,
louder than any thunder, shook the air at this moment, while the very earth
trembled beneath the shock.

As I hesitated what it might be, the heavy din of great guns again was
heard, and from the midst of the black smoke rode forth a dark mass,
which I soon recognized as the horse-artillery at full gallop. They were
directing their course towards the bridge.

As they mounted the little rising ground, they wheeled and unlimbered with
the speed of lightning, just as a strong column of cavalry showed above the
ridge. One tremendous discharge again shook the field, and ere the smoke
cleared away they were again far in retreat.

So much was my attention occupied with this movement that I had not
perceived the long line of infantry that came from the extreme left, and
were now advancing also towards the bridge at a brisk quick-step; scattered
bodies of cavalry came up from different parts, while from the little
valley, every now and then, a rifleman would mount the rising ground,
turning to fire as he retreated. All this boded a rapid and disorderly
retreat; and although as yet I could see nothing of the pursuing enemy, I
knew too well the relative forces of each to have a doubt for the result.

At last the head of a French column appeared above the mist, and I could
plainly distinguish the gestures of the officers as they hurried their men
onwards. Meanwhile a loud hurra attracted my attention, and I turned my eye
towards the road which led to the river. Here a small body of the 95th had
hurriedly assembled, and formed again, were standing to cover the retreat
of the broken infantry as they passed on eagerly to the bridge; in a second
after the French cuirassiers appeared. Little anticipating resistance from
a flying and disordered mass, they rode headlong forward, and although the
firm attitude and steady bearing of the Highlanders might have appalled
them, they rode heedlessly down upon the square, sabring the very men in
the front rank. Till now not a trigger had been pulled, when suddenly the
word “Fire!” was given, and a withering volley of balls sent the cavalry
column in shivers. One hearty cheer broke from the infantry in the rear,
and I could hear “Gallant Ninety-fifth!” shouted on every side along the
plain.

The whole vast space before me was now one animated battle-ground. Our own
troops, retiring in haste before the overwhelming forces of the French,
occupied every little vantage ground with their guns and light infantry,
charges of cavalry coursing hither and thither; while, as the French
pressed forward, the retreating columns again formed into squares to
permit stragglers to come up. The rattle of small-arms, the heavy peal of
artillery, the earth-quake crash of cavalry, rose on every side, while the
cheers which alternately told of the vacillating fortune of the fight rose
amidst the wild pibroch of the Highlanders.

A tremendous noise now took place on the floor beneath me; and looking
down, I perceived that a sergeant and party of sappers had taken possession
of the little hut, and were busily engaged in piercing the walls for
musketry; and before many minutes had elapsed, a company of the Rifles were
thrown into the building, which, from its commanding position above the
road, enfiladed the whole line of march. The officer in command briefly
informed me that we had been attacked that morning by the French in force,
and “devilishly well thrashed;” that we were now in retreat beyond the Coa,
where we ought to have been three days previously, and desired me to cross
the bridge and get myself out of the way as soon as I possibly could.

A twenty-four pounder from the French lines struck the angle of the house
as he spoke, scattering the mortar and broken bricks about us on all sides.
This was warning sufficient for me, wounded and disabled as I was; so
taking the few things I could save in my haste, I hurried from the hut, and
descending the path, now slippery by the heavy rain, I took my way across
the bridge, and established myself on a little rising knoll of ground
beyond, from which a clear view could be obtained of the whole field.

I had not been many minutes in my present position ere the pass which led
down to the bridge became thronged with troops, wagons, ammunition carts,
and hospital stores, pressing thickly forward amidst shouting and uproar;
the hills on either side of the way were crowded with troops, who formed
as they came up, the artillery taking up their position on every rising
ground. The firing had already begun, and the heavy booming of the large
guns was heard at intervals amidst the rattling crash of musketry. Except
the narrow road before me, and the high bank of the stream, I could see
nothing; but the tumult and din, which grew momentarily louder, told that
the tide of battle raged nearer and nearer. Still the retreat continued;
and at length the heavy artillery came thundering across the narrow bridge
followed by stragglers of all arms, and wounded, hurrying to the rear. The
sharpshooters and the Highlanders held the heights above the stream, thus
covering the retiring columns; but I could plainly perceive that their fire
was gradually slackening, and that the guns which flanked their position
were withdrawn, and everything bespoke a speedy retreat. A tremendous
discharge of musketry at this moment, accompanied by a deafening cheer,
announced the advance of the French, and soon the head of the Highland
brigade was seen descending towards the bridge, followed by the Rifles and
the 95th; the cavalry, consisting of the 11th and 14th Light Dragoons, were
now formed in column of attack, and the infantry deployed into line; and in
an instant after, high above the din and crash of battle, I heard the word
“Charge!” The rising crest of the hill hid them from my sight, but my heart
bounded with ecstasy as I listened to the clanging sound of the cavalry
advance. Meanwhile the infantry pressed on, and forming upon the bank,
took up a strong position in front of the bridge; the heavy guns were
also unlimbered, riflemen scattered through the low copse-wood, and every
precaution taken to defend the pass to the last. For a moment all my
attention was riveted to the movements upon our own side of the stream,
when suddenly the cavalry bugle sounded the recall, and the same moment
the staff came galloping across the bridge. One officer I could perceive,
covered with orders and trappings, his head was bare, and his horse,
splashed with blood and foam, moved lamely and with difficulty; he turned
in the middle of the bridge, as if irresolute whether to retreat farther.
One glance at him showed me the bronzed, manly features of our leader.
Whatever his resolve, the matter was soon decided for him, for the cavalry
came galloping swiftly down the slope, and in an instant the bridge was
blocked up by the retreating forces, while the French as suddenly appearing
above the height, opened a plunging fire upon their defenceless enemies;
their cheer of triumph was answered by our fellows from the opposite bank,
and a heavy cannonade thundered along the rocky valley, sending up a
hundred echoes as it went.

The scene now became one of overwhelming interest; the French, posting
their guns upon the height, replied to our fire, while their line, breaking
into skirmishers, descended the banks to the river’s edge, and poured
in one sheet of galling musketry. The road to the bridge, swept by our
artillery, presented not a single file; and although a movement among
the French announced the threat of an attack, the deadly service of the
artillery seemed to pronounce it hopeless.

A strong cavalry force stood inactively spectators of the combat, on the
French side, among whom I now remarked some bustle and preparation, and as
I looked an officer rode boldly to the river’s edge, and spurring his horse
forward, plunged into the stream. The swollen and angry torrent, increased
by the late rains, boiled like barm, and foamed around him as he advanced;
when suddenly his horse appeared to have lost its footing, and the rapid
current, circling around him, bore him along with it. He labored madly, but
in vain, to retrace his steps; the rolling torrent rose above his saddle,
and all that his gallant steed could do was barely sufficient to keep
afloat; both man and horse were carried down between the contending
armies. I could see him wave his hand to his comrades, as if in adieu. One
deafening cheer of admiration rose from the French lines, and the next
moment he was seen to fall from his seat, and his body, shattered with
balls, floated mournfully upon the stream.

This little incident, to which both armies were witnesses, seemed to have
called forth all the fiercer passions of the contending forces; a loud yell
of taunting triumph rose from the Highlanders, responded to by a cry of
vengeance from the French, and the same moment the head of a column was
seen descending the narrow causeway to the bridge, while an officer with a
whole blaze of decorations and crosses sprang from his horse and took the
lead. The little drummer, a child of scarcely ten years old, tripped gayly
on, beating his little _pas des charge_, seeming rather like the play of
infancy than the summons to death and carnage, as the heavy guns of the
French opened a volume of fire and flame to cover the attacking column. For
a moment all was hid from our eyes; the moment after the grape-shot swept
along the narrow causeway; and the bridge, which but a second before was
crowded with the life and courage of a noble column, was now one heap of
dead and dying. The gallant fellow who led them on fell among the first
rank, and the little child, as if kneeling, was struck dead beside the
parapet; his fair hair floated across his cold features, and seemed in its
motion to lend a look of life where the heart’s throb had ceased forever.
The artillery again re-opened upon us; and when the smoke had cleared away,
we discovered that the French had advanced to the middle of the bridge and
carried off the body of their general. Twice they essayed to cross, and
twice the death-dealing fire of our guns covered the narrow bridge with
slain, while by the wild pibroch of the 42d, swelling madly into notes of
exultation and triumph, the Highlanders could scarcely be prevented from
advancing hand to hand with the foe. Gradually the French slackened their
fire, their great guns were one by one withdrawn from the heights, and a
dropping, irregular musketry at intervals sustained the fight, which, ere
sunset, ceased altogether; and thus ended “The Battle of the Coa!”




CHAPTER VI.


THE NIGHT MARCH.

Scarcely had the night fallen when our retreat commenced. Tired and weary
as our brave fellows felt, but little repose was allowed them; their
bivouac fires were blazing brightly, and they had just thrown themselves
in groups around them, when the word to fall in was passed from troop to
troop, and from battalion to battalion,--no trumpet, no bugle called them
to their ranks. It was necessary that all should be done noiselessly and
speedily; while, therefore, the wounded were marched to the front, and
the heavy artillery with them, a brigade of light four pounders and two
squadrons of cavalry held the heights above the bridge, and the infantry,
forming into three columns, began their march.

My wound, forgotten in the heat and excitement of the conflict, was now
becoming excessively painful, and I gladly availed myself of a place in a
wagon, where, stretched upon some fresh straw, with no other covering save
the starry sky, I soon fell sound asleep, and neither the heavy jolting of
the rough conveyance, nor the deep and rutty road, were able to disturb my
slumbers. Still through my sleep I heard the sounds around me, the heavy
tramp of infantry, the clash of the moving squadrons, and the dull roll of
artillery; and ever and anon the half-stifled cry of pain, mingling with
the reckless carol of some drinking-song, all flitted through my dreams,
lending to my thoughts of home and friends a memory of glorious war.

All the vicissitudes of a soldier’s life passed then in review before me,
elicited in some measure by the things about. The pomp and grandeur, the
misery and meanness, the triumph, the defeat, the moment of victory, and
the hour of death were there, and in that vivid dream I lived a life long.

I awoke at length, the cold and chilling air which follows midnight blew
around me, and my wounded arm felt as though it were frozen. I tried to
cover myself beneath the straw, but in vain; and as my limbs trembled and
my teeth chattered, I thought again of home, where, at that moment, the
poorest menial of my uncle’s house was better lodged than I; and strange to
say, something of pride mingled with the thought, and in my lonely heart a
feeling of elation cheered me.

These reflections were interrupted by the sound of a voice near me, which I
at once knew to be O’Shaughnessy’s; he was on foot, and speaking evidently
in some excitement.

“I tell you, Maurice, some confounded blunder there must be; sure, he was
left in the cottage near the bridge, and no one ever saw him after.”

“The French took it from the Rifles before we crossed the river. By Jove!
I’ll wager my chance of promotion against a pint of sherry, he’ll turn up
somewhere in the morning; those Galway chaps have as many lives as a cat.”

“See, now, Maurice, I wouldn’t for a full colonelcy anything would happen
to him; I like the boy.”

“So do I myself; but I tell you there’s no danger of him. Did you ask
Sparks anything?”

“Ask Sparks! God help you! Sparks would go off in a fit at the sight of me.
No, no, poor creature! it’s little use it would be my speaking to him.”

“Why so, Doctor!” cried I, from my straw couch.

“May I never, if it’s not him! Charley, my son, I’m glad you’re safe.
‘Faith, I thought you were on your way to Verdun by this time.”

“Sure, I told you he’d find his way here--But, O’Mealey, dear, you’re
mighty could,--a rigor, as old M’Lauchlan would call it.”

“E’en sae, Maister Quill,” said a broad Scotch accent behind him; “and I
canna see ony objection to giein’ things their right names.”

“The top of the morning to you,” said Quill, familiarly patting him on the
back; “how goes it, old Brimstone?”

The conversation might not have taken a very amicable turn had M’Lauchlan
heard the latter part of this speech; but, as happily he was engaged
unpacking a small canteen which he had placed in the wagon, it passed
unnoticed.

“You’ll nae dislike a toothfu’ of something warm, Major,” said he,
presenting a glass to O’Shaughnessy; “and if ye’ll permit me, Mr. O’Mealey,
to help you--”

“A thousand thanks, Doctor; but I fear a broken arm--”

“There’s naething in the whiskey to prevent the proper formation of
callus.”

“By the rock of Cashel, it never made any one callous,” said O’Shaughnessy,
mistaking the import of the phrase.

“Ye are nae drinking frae the flask?” said the doctor, turning in some
agitation towards Quill.

“Devil a bit, my darling. I’ve a little horn convaniency here, that holds
half-a-pint, nice measure.”

I don’t imagine that our worthy friend participated in Quill’s admiration
of the “convaniency,” for he added, in a dry tone:--

“Ye may as weel tak your liquor frae a glass, like a Christian, as stick
your nose in a coo’s horn.”

“By my conscience, you’re no small judge of spirits, wherever you learned
it,” said the major; “it’s like Islay malt!”

“I was aye reckoned a gude ane,” said the doctor, “and my mither’s brither
Caimbogie had na his like in the north country. Ye may be heerd tell what
he aince said to the Duchess of Argyle, when she sent for him to taste her
claret.”

“Never heard of it,” quoth Quill; “let’s have it by all means. I’d like to
hear what the duchess said to him.”

“It was na what the duchess said to him, but what he said to the duchess,
ye ken. The way of it was this: My uncle Caimbogie was aye up at the
castle, for besides his knowledge of liquor, there was nae his match for
deer-stalking, or spearing a salmon, in those parts. He was a great, rough
carle, it’s true; but ane ye’d rather crack wi’ than fight wi’.

“Weel, ae day they had a grand dinner at the duke’s, and there were plenty
o’ great southern lords and braw leddies in velvets and satin; and vara
muckle surprised they were at my uncle, when he came in wi’ his tartan
kilt, in full Highland dress, as the head of a clan ought to do. Caimbogie,
however, pe’d nae attention to them; but he eat his dinner, and drank his
wine, and talked away about fallow and red deer, and at last the duchess,
for she was aye fond o’ him, addressed him frae the head o’ the table:--

“‘Cambogie,’ quoth she, ‘I’d like to hae your opinion about that wine. It’s
some the duke has just received, and we should like to hear what you think
of it.’

“‘It’s nae sae bad, my leddy,’ said my uncle; for ye see he was a man of
few words, and never flattered onybody.

“‘Then you don’t approve much of it?’ said the duchess.

“‘I’ve drank better, and I’ve drank waur,’ quo’ he.

“‘I’m sorry you don’t like it, Caimbogie,’ said the duchess, ‘for it can
never be popular now,--we have such a dependence upon your taste.’

“‘I cauna say ower muckle for my _taste_, my leddy, but ae thing I _will_
say,--I’ve a most damnable _smell!_’

“I hear that never since the auld walls stood was there ever the like o’
the laughing that followed; the puir duke himsel’ was carried away, and
nearly had a fit, and a’ the grand lords and leddies a’most died of it. But
see here, the earle has nae left a drap o’ whiskey in the flask.”

“The last glass I drained to your respectable uncle’s health,” said Quill,
with a most professional gravity. “Now, Charlie, make a little room for me
in the straw.”

The doctor soon mounted beside me, and giving me a share of his ample
cloak, considerably ameliorated my situation.

“So you knew Sparks, Doctor?” said I, with a strong curiosity to hear
something of his early acquaintance.

“That I did: I knew him when he was an ensign in the 10th Foot; and, to say
the truth, he is not much changed since that time,--the same lively look of
a sick cod-fish about his gray eyes; the same disorderly wave of his yellow
hair; the same whining voice, and that confounded apothecary’s laugh.”

“Come, come, Doctor, Sparks is a good fellow at heart; I won’t have him
abused. I never knew he had been in the infantry; I should think it must
have been another of the same name.”

“Not at all; there’s only one like him in the service, and that’s himself.
Confound it, man, I’d know his skin upon a bush; he was only three weeks
in the Tenth, and, indeed, your humble servant has the whole merit of his
leaving it so soon.”

“Do let us hear how that happened.”

“Simply thus: The jolly Tenth were some four years ago the pleasantest
corps in the army; from the lieutenant-colonel down to the last joined
sub., all were out-and-outers,--real gay fellows. The mess was, in fact,
like a pleasant club, and if you did not suit it, the best thing you could
do was to sell out or exchange into a slower regiment; and, indeed, this
very wholesome truth was not very long in reaching your ears some way or
other, and a man that could remain after being given this hint, was likely
to go afterwards without one.”

Just as Dr. Quill reached this part of his story, an orderly dragoon
galloped furiously past, and the next moment an aide-de-camp rode by,
calling as he passed us,--

“Close up, there! Close up! Get forward, my lads! get forward!”

It was evident, from the stir and bustle about, that some movement was
being made; and soon after, a dropping, irregular fire from the rear showed
that our cavalry were engaged with the enemy. The affair was scarcely of
five minutes’ duration, and our march resumed all its former regularity
immediately after.

I now turned to the doctor to resume his story, but he was gone; at what
moment he left I could not say, but O’Shaughnessy was also absent, nor did
I again meet with them for a considerable time after.

Towards daybreak we halted at Bonares, when, my wound demanding rest and
attention, I was billeted in the village, and consigned to all the miseries
of a sick bed.




CHAPTER VII.


THE JOURNEY.

With that disastrous day my campaigning was destined, for some time
at least, to conclude. My wound, which grew from hour to hour more
threatening, at length began to menace the loss of the arm, and by the
recommendation of the regimental surgeons, I was ordered back to Lisbon.

Mike, by this time perfectly restored, prepared everything for my
departure, and on the third day after the battle of the Coa, I began my
journey with downcast spirits and depressed heart. The poor fellow was,
however, a kind and affectionate nurse, and unlike many others, his cares
were not limited to the mere bodily wants of his patient,--he sustained,
as well as he was able, my drooping resolution, rallied my spirits, and
cheered my courage. With the very little Portuguese he possessed, he
contrived to make every imaginable species of bargain; always managed a
good billet; kept every one in good humor, and rarely left his quarters in
the morning without a most affective leave-taking, and reiterated promises
to renew his visit.

Our journeys were usually short ones, and already two days had elapsed,
when, towards nightfall, we entered the little hamlet of Jaffra. During the
entire of that day, the pain of my wounded limb had been excruciating; the
fatigue of the road and the heat had brought back violent inflammation, and
when at last the little village came in sight, my reason was fast yielding
to the torturing agonies of my wound. But the transports with which I
greeted my resting-place were soon destined to a change; for as we drew
near, not a light was to be seen, not a sound to be heard, not even a dog
barked as the heavy mule-cart rattled over the uneven road. No trace of
any living thing was there. The little hamlet lay sleeping in the pale
moonlight, its streets deserted, and its homes tenantless; our own
footsteps alone echoed along the dreary causeway. Here and there, as we
advanced farther, we found some relics of broken furniture and house-gear;
most of the doors lay open, but nothing remained within save bare walls;
the embers still smoked in many places upon the hearth, and showed us that
the flight of the inhabitants had been recent. Yet everything convinced
us that the French had not been there; there was no trace of the reckless
violence and wanton cruelty which marked their footsteps everywhere.

All proved that the desertion had been voluntary; perhaps in compliance
with an order of our commander-in-chief, who frequently desired any
intended line of march of the enemy to be left thus a desert. As we
sauntered slowly on from street to street, half hoping that some one human
being yet remained behind, and casting our eyes from side to side in search
of quarters for the night, Mike suddenly came running up, saying,--

“I have it, sir; I’ve found it out. There’s people living down that small
street there; I saw a light this minute as I passed.”

I turned immediately, and accompanied by the mule-driver, followed Mike
across a little open square into a small and narrow street, at the end
of which a light was seen faintly twinkling. We hurried on and in a few
minutes reached a high wall of solid masonry, from a niche of which we now
discovered, to our utter disappointment, the light proceeded. It was a
small lamp placed before a little waxen image of the Virgin, and was
probably the last act of piety of some poor villager ere he left his home
and hearth forever. There it burned, brightly and tranquilly, throwing its
mellow ray upon the cold, deserted stones.

Whatever impatience I might have given way to in a moment of chagrin was
soon repressed, as I saw my two followers, uncovering their heads in silent
reverence, kneel down before the little shrine. There was something at once
touching and solemn in this simultaneous feeling of homage from the hearts
of those removed in country, language, and in blood. They bent meekly down,
their heads bowed upon their bosoms, while with muttering voices each
offered up his prayer. All sense of their disappointment, all memory of
their forlorn state, seemed to have yielded to more powerful and absorbing
thoughts, as they opened their hearts in prayer.

My eyes were still fixed upon them when suddenly Mike, whose devotion
seemed of the briefest, sprang to his legs, and with a spirit of levity
but little in accordance with his late proceedings, commenced a series of
kicking, rapping, and knocking at a small oak postern sufficient to have
aroused a whole convent from their cells. “House there! Good people
within!”--bang, bang, bang; but the echoes alone responded to his call,
and the sounds died away at length in the distant streets, leaving all as
silent and dreary as before.

Our Portuguese friend, who by this time had finished his orisons, now began
a vigorous attack upon the small door, and with the assistance of Mike,
armed with a fragment of granite about the size of a man’s head, at length
separated the frame from the hinges, and sent the whole mass prostrate
before us.

The moon was just rising as we entered the little park, where gravelled
walks, neatly kept and well-trimmed, bespoke recent care and attention;
following a handsome alley of lime-trees, we reached a little _jet d’eau_,
whose sparkling fountain shone diamond-like in the moonbeams, and escaping
from the edge of a vast shell, ran murmuring amidst mossy stones and
water-lilies that, however naturally they seemed thrown around, bespoke
also the hand of taste in their position. On turning from the spot, we came
directly in front of an old but handsome château, before which stretched
a terrace of considerable extent. Its balustraded parapet lined with
orange-trees, now in full blossom, scented the still air with delicious
odor; marble statues peeped here and there amidst the foliage, while a rich
acacia, loaded with flowers, covered the walls of the building, and hung in
vast masses of variegated blossom across the tall windows.

As leaning on Mike’s arm I slowly ascended the steps of the terrace, I was
more than ever struck with the silence and death-like stillness around;
except the gentle plash of the fountain, all was at rest; the very plants
seemed to sleep in the yellow moonlight, and not a trace of any living
thing was there.

The massive door lay open as we entered the spacious hall flagged with
marble and surrounded with armorial bearings. We advanced farther and came
to a broad and handsome stair, which led us to a long gallery, from which
a suit of rooms opened, looking towards the front part of the building.
Wherever we went, the furniture appeared perfectly untouched; nothing was
removed; the very chairs were grouped around the windows and the tables;
books, as if suddenly dropped from their readers’ hands, were scattered
upon the sofas and the ottomans; and in one small apartment, whose blue
satin walls and damask drapery bespoke a boudoir, a rich mantilla of
black velvet and a silk glove were thrown upon a chair. It was clear the
desertion had been most recent, and everything indicated that no time had
been given to the fugitives to prepare for flight. What a sad picture of
war was there! To think of those whose home was endeared to them by all
the refinements of cultivated life and all the associations of years of
happiness sent out upon the wide world wanderers and houseless, while
their hearth, sacred by every tie that binds us to our kindred, was to
be desecrated by the ruthless and savage hands of a ruffian soldiery. I
thought of them,--perhaps at that very hour their thoughts were clinging
round the old walls, remembering each well-beloved spot, while they took
their lonely path through mountain and through valley,--and felt ashamed
and abashed at my own intrusion there. While thus my revery ran on, I
had not perceived that Mike, whose views were very practical upon all
occasions, had lighted a most cheerful fire upon the hearth, and disposing
a large sofa before it, had carefully closed the curtains; and was, in
fact, making himself and his master as much at home as though he had spent
his life there.

“Isn’t it a beautiful place, Misther Charles? And this little room, doesn’t
it remind you of the blue bed-room in O’Malley Castle, barrin’ the elegant
view out upon the Shannon, and the mountain of Scariff?”

Nothing short of Mike’s patriotism could forgive such a comparison; but,
however, I did not contradict him as he ran on:--

“Faith, I knew well there was luck in store for us this evening; and ye see
the handful of prayers I threw away outside wasn’t lost. José’s making
the beasts comfortable in the stable, and I’m thinking we’ll none of us
complain of our quarters. But you’re not eating your supper; and the
beautiful hare-pie that I stole this morning, won’t you taste it? Well, a
glass of Malaga? Not a glass of Malaga? Oh, mother of Moses! what’s this
for?”

Unfortunately, the fever produced by the long and toilsome journey had
gained considerably on me, and except copious libations of cold water, I
could touch nothing; my arm, too, was much more painful than before. Mike
soon perceived that rest and quietness were most important to me at the
moment, and having with difficulty been prevailed upon to swallow a few
hurried mouthfuls, the poor fellow disposed cushions around me in every
imaginable form for comfort; and then, placing my wounded limb in its
easiest position, he extinguished the lamp, and sat silently down beside
the hearth, without speaking another word.

Fatigue and exhaustion, more powerful than pain, soon produced their
effects upon me, and I fell asleep; but it was no refreshing slumber which
visited my heavy eyelids; the slow fever of suffering had been hour by
hour increasing, and my dreams presented nothing but scenes of agony and
torture. Now I thought that, unhorsed and wounded, I was trampled beneath
the clanging hoofs of charging cavalry; now I felt the sharp steel piercing
my flesh, and heard the loud cry of a victorious enemy; then, methought, I
was stretched upon a litter, covered by gore and mangled by a grape-shot.
I thought I saw my brother officers approach and look sadly upon me, while
one, whose face I could not remember, muttered: “I should not have known
him.” The dreadful hospital of Talavera, and all its scenes of agony, came
up before me, and I thought that I lay waiting my turn for amputation. This
last impression, more horrible to me than all the rest, made me spring from
my couch, and I awoke. The cold drops of perspiration stood upon my brow,
my mouth was parched and open, and my temples throbbed so that I could
count their beatings; for some seconds I could not throw off the frightful
illusion I labored under, and it was only by degrees I recovered
consciousness and remembered where I was. Before me, and on one side of the
bright wood-fire, sat Mike, who, apparently deep in thought, gazed fixedly
at the blaze. The start I gave on awaking had not attracted his attention,
and I could see, as the flickering glare fell upon his features, that he
was pale and ghastly, while his eyes were riveted upon the fire; his lips
moved rapidly, as if in prayer, and his locked hands were pressed
firmly upon his bosom; his voice, at first inaudible, I could gradually
distinguish, and at length heard the following muttered sentences:--

“Oh, mother of mercy! So far from his home and his people, and so young to
die in a strange land--There it is again.” Here he appeared listening
to some sounds from without. “Oh, wirra, wirra, I know it well!--the
winding-sheet, the winding-sheet! There it is; my own eyes saw it!”
 The tears coursed fast upon his pale cheeks, and his voice grew almost
inaudible, as rocking to and fro, for some time he seemed in a very stupor
of grief; when at last, in a faint, subdued tone, he broke into one of
those sad and plaintive airs of his country, which only need the moment of
depression to make them wring the very heart in agony.

His song was that to which Moore has appended the beautiful lines, “Come
rest on this bosom.” The following imperfect translation may serve to
convey some impression of the words, which in Mike’s version were Irish:--

    “The day was declining,
    The dark night drew near,
    And the old lord grew sadder
    And paler with fear:
    ‘Come listen, my daughter,
    Come nearer, oh, near!
    Is’t the wind or the water
    That sighs in my ear?’

    “Not the wind nor the water
    Now stirred the night air,
    But a warning far sadder,--.
    The Banshee was there!
    Now rising, now swelling,
    On the night wind it bore
    One cadence, still telling,
    ‘I want thee, Rossmore!’

    “And then fast came his breath,
    And more fixed grew his eye;
    And the shadow of death
    Told his hour was nigh.
    Ere the dawn of that morning
    The struggle was o’er,
    For when thrice came the warning
    A corpse was Rossmore!”

The plaintive air to which these words were sung fell heavily upon my
heart, and it needed but the low and nervous condition I was in to make me
feel their application to myself. But so it is; the very superstition your
reason rejects and your sense spurns, has, from old association, from
habit, and from mere nationality too, a hold upon your hopes and fears that
demands more firmness and courage than a sick-bed possesses to combat with
success; and I now listened with an eager ear to mark if the Banshee
cried, rather than sought to fortify myself by any recurrence to my own
convictions. Meanwhile Mike’s attitude became one of listening attention.
Not a finger moved; he scarce seemed even to breathe; the state of suspense
I suffered from was maddening; and at last, unable to bear it longer, I
was about to speak, when suddenly, from the floor beneath us, one
long-sustained note swelled upon the air and died away again, and
immediately after, to the cheerful sounds of a guitar, we heard the husky
voice of our Portuguese guide indulging himself in a love-ditty.

Ashamed of myself for my fears, I kept silent; but Mike, who felt only one
sensation,--that of unmixed satisfaction at his mistake,--rubbed his hands
pleasantly, filled up his glass, drank it, and refilled; while with an
accent of reassured courage, he briefly remarked,--

“Well, Mr. José, if that be singing, upon my conscience I wonder what
crying is like!”

I could not forbear a laugh at the criticism; and in a moment, the poor
fellow, who up to that moment believed me sleeping, was beside me. I saw
from his manner that he dreaded lest I had been listening to his melancholy
song, and had overheard any of his gloomy forebodings; and as he cheered
my spirits and spoke encouragingly, I could remark that he made more than
usual endeavors to appear light-hearted and at ease. Determined, however,
not to let him escape so easily, I questioned him about his belief in
ghosts and spirits, at which he endeavored, as he ever did when the subject
was an unpleasing one, to avoid the discussion; but rather perceiving that
I indulged in no irreverent disrespect of these matters, he grew gradually
more open, treating the affair with that strange mixture of credulity and
mockery which formed his estimate of most things,--now seeming to suppose
that any palpable rejection of them might entail sad consequences in
future, now half ashamed to go the whole length in his credulity.

“And so, Mike, you never saw a ghost yourself?--that you acknowledge?”

“No, sir, I never saw a real ghost; but sure there’s many a thing I never
saw; but Mrs. Moore, the housekeeper, seen two. And your grandfather that’s
gone--the Lord be good to him!--used to walk once a year in Lurra Abbey;
and sure you know the story about Tim Clinchy that was seen every Saturday
night coming out of the cellar with a candle and a mug of wine and a pipe
in his mouth, till Mr. Barry laid him. It cost his honor your uncle ten
pounds in Masses to make him easy; not to speak of a new lock and two bolts
on the cellar door.”

“I have heard all about that; but as you never yourself saw any of these
things--”

“But sure my father did, and that’s the same any day. My father seen the
greatest ghost that ever was seen in the county Cork, and spent the evening
with him, that’s more.”

“Spent the evening with him!--what do you mean?”

“Just that, devil a more nor less. If your honor wasn’t so weak, and the
story wasn’t a trying one, I’d like to tell it to you.”

“Out with it by all means, Mike; I am not disposed to sleep; and now that
we are upon these matters, my curiosity is strongly excited by your worthy
father’s experience.”

Thus encouraged, having trimmed the fire and reseated himself beside the
blaze, Mike began; but as a ghost is no every-day personage in our history,
I must give him a chapter to himself.




CHAPTER VIII.


THE GHOST.

“Well, I believe your honor heard me tell long ago how my father left the
army, and the way that he took to another line of life that was more to his
liking. And so it was, he was happy as the day was long; he drove a hearse
for Mr. Callaghan of Cork for many years, and a pleasant place it was; for
ye see, my father was a ‘cute man, and knew something of the world; and
though he was a droll devil, and could sing a funny song when he was among
the boys, no sooner had he the big black cloak on him and the weepers, and
he seated on the high box with the six long-tailed blacks before him, you’d
really think it was his own mother was inside, he looked so melancholy and
miserable. The sexton and gravedigger was nothing to my father; and he had
a look about his eye--to be sure there was a reason for it--that you’d
think he was up all night crying; though it’s little indulgence he took
that way.

“Well, of all Mr. Callaghan’s men, there was none so great a favorite as my
father. The neighbors were all fond of him.

“‘A kind crayture, every inch of him!’ the women would say. ‘Did ye see his
face at Mrs. Delany’s funeral?’

“‘True for you,’ another would remark; ‘he mistook the road with grief, and
stopped at a shebeen house instead of Kilmurry church.’

“I need say no more, only one thing,--that it was principally among the
farmers and the country people my father was liked so much. The great
people and the quality--ax your pardon; but sure isn’t it true, Mister
Charles?--they don’t fret so much after their fathers and brothers, and
they care little who’s driving them, whether it was a decent, respectable
man like my father, or a chap with a grin on him like a rat-trap. And so
it happened that my father used to travel half the county; going here and
there wherever there was trade stirring; and faix, a man didn’t think
himself rightly buried if my father wasn’t there; for ye see, he knew all
about it: he could tell to a quart of spirits what would be wanting for a
wake; he knew all the good criers for miles round; and I’ve heard it was a
beautiful sight to see him standing on a hill, arranging the procession as
they walked into the churchyard, and giving the word like a captain,--

“‘Come on, the stiff; now the friends of the stiff; now the pop’lace.’

“That’s what he used to say, and troth he was always repeating it, when he
was a little gone in drink,--for that’s the time his spirits would rise,
and he’d think he was burying half Munster.

“And sure it was a real pleasure and a pride to be buried in them times;
for av it was only a small farmer with a potato garden, my father would
come down with the black cloak on him, and three yards of crape behind his
hat, and set all the children crying and yelling for half a mile round;
and then the way he’d walk before them with a spade on his shoulder, and
sticking it down in the ground, clap his hat on the top of it, to make it
look like a chief mourner. It was a beautiful sight!”

“But Mike, if you indulge much longer in this flattering recollection of
your father, I’m afraid we shall lose sight of the ghost entirely.”

“No fear in life, your honor; I’m coming to him now. Well, it was this
way it happened: In the winter of the great frost, about forty-two or
forty-three years ago, the ould priest of Tullonghmurray took ill and died.
He was sixty years priest of the parish, and mightily beloved by all
the people, and good reason for it; a pleasanter man, and a more
social crayture never lived,--‘twas himself was the life of the whole
country-side. A wedding nor a christening wasn’t lucky av he wasn’t there,
sitting at the top of the table, with may be his arm round the bride
herself, or the baby on his lap, a smoking jug of punch before him, and as
much kindness in his eye as would make the fortunes of twenty hypocrites if
they had it among them. And then he was so good to the poor; the Priory was
always so full of ould men and ould women sitting around the big fire in
the kitchen that the cook could hardly get near it. There they were, eating
their meals and burning their shins till they were speckled like a trout’s
back, and grumbling all the time; but Father Dwyer liked them, and he would
have them.

“‘Where have they to go,’ he’d say, ‘av it wasn’t to me? Give Molly
Kinshela a lock of that bacon. Tim, it’s a could morning; will ye have a
taste of the “dew?”’

“Ah, that’s the way he’d spake to them; but sure goodness is no warrant
for living, any more than devilment, and so he got could in his feet at a
station, and he rode home in the heavy snow without his big coat,--for he
gave it away to a blind man on the road; in three days he was dead.

“I see you’re getting impatient, so I’ll not stop to say what grief was
in the parish when it was known; but troth, there never was seen the like
before,--not a crayture would lift a spade for two days, and there was more
whiskey sold in that time than at the whole spring fair. Well, on the third
day the funeral set out, and never was the equal of it in them parts:
first, there was my father,--he came special from Cork with the six horses
all in new black, and plumes like little poplar-trees,--then came Father
Dwyer, followed by the two coadjutors in beautiful surplices, walking
bare-headed, with the little boys of the Priory school, two-and-two.”

“Well, Mike, I’m sure it was very fine; but for Heaven’s sake, spare me all
these descriptions, and get on to the ghost!”

“‘Faith, yer honor’s in a great hurry for the ghost,--may be ye won’t like
him when ye have him; but I’ll go faster, if ye please. Well, Father Dwyer,
ye see, was born at Aghan-lish, of an ould family, and he left it in his
will that he was to be buried in the family vault; and as Aghan-lish was
eighteen miles up the mountains, it was getting late when they drew near.
By that time the great procession was all broke up and gone home. The
coadjutors stopped to dine at the ‘Blue Bellows’ at the cross-roads; the
little boys took to pelting snowballs; there was a fight or two on the way
besides,--and in fact, except an ould deaf fellow that my father took to
mind the horses, he was quite alone. Not that he minded that same; for when
the crowd was gone, my father began to sing a droll song, and told the deaf
chap that it was a lamentation. At last they came in sight of Aghan-lish.
It was a lonesome, melancholy-looking place with nothing near it except two
or three ould fir-trees and a small slated house with one window, where the
sexton lived, and even that was shut up and a padlock on the door. Well,
my father was not over much pleased at the look of matters; but as he was
never hard put to what to do, he managed to get the coffin into the vestry,
and then when he had unharnessed the horses, he sent the deaf fellow with
them down to the village to tell the priest that the corpse was there, and
to come up early in the morning and perform Mass. The next thing to do was
to make himself comfortable for the night; and then he made a roaring fire
on the ould hearth,--for there was plenty of bog-fir there,--closed the
windows with the black cloaks, and wrapping two round himself, he sat down
to cook a little supper he brought with him in case of need.

“Well, you may think it was melancholy enough to pass the night up there
alone with a corpse, in an ould ruined church in the middle of the
mountains, the wind howling about on every side, and the snowdrift beating
against the walls; but as the fire burned brightly, and the little plate of
rashers and eggs smoked temptingly before him, my father mixed a jug of the
strongest punch, and sat down as happy as a king. As long as he was eating
away he had no time to be thinking of anything else; but when all was done,
and he looked about him, he began to feel very low and melancholy in his
heart. There was the great black coffin on three chairs in one corner; and
then the mourning cloaks that he had stuck up against the windows moved
backward and forward like living things; and outside, the wild cry of the
plover as he flew past, and the night-owl sitting in a nook of the old
church. ‘I wish it was morning, anyhow,’ said my father, ‘for this is a
lonesome place to be in; and faix, he’ll be a cunning fellow that catches
me passing the night this way again.’ Now there was one thing distressed
him most of all,--my father used always to make fun of the ghosts and
sperits the neighbors would tell of, pretending there was no such thing;
and now the thought came to him, ‘May be they’ll revenge themselves on me
to-night when they have me up here alone;’ and with that he made another
jug stronger than the first, and tried to remember a few prayers in case of
need, but somehow his mind was not too clear, and he said afterwards he
was always mixing up ould songs and toasts with the prayers, and when he
thought he had just got hold of a beautiful psalm, it would turn out to be
‘Tatter Jack Walsh’ or ‘Limping James’ or something like that. The storm,
meanwhile, was rising every moment, and parts of the old abbey were falling
as the wind shook the ruin; and my father’s spirits, notwithstanding the
punch, wore lower than ever.

“‘I made it too weak,’ said he, as he set to work on a new jorum; and
troth, this time that was not the fault of it, for the first sup nearly
choked him.

“‘Ah,’ said he, now, ‘I knew what it was; this is like the thing; and Mr.
Free, you are beginning to feel easy and comfortable. Pass the jar. Your
very good health and song. I’m a little hoarse, it’s true, but if the
company will excuse--’

“And then he began knocking on the table with his knuckles, as if there was
a room full of people asking him to sing. In short, my father was drunk as
a fiddler; the last brew finished him; and he began roaring away all kinds
of droll songs, and telling all manner of stories as if he was at a great
party.

“While he was capering this way about the room, he knocked down his hat,
and with it a pack of cards he put into it before leaving home, for he was
mighty fond of a game.

“‘Will ye take a hand, Mr. Free?’ said he, as he gathered them up and sat
down beside the fire.

“‘I’m convanient,’ said he, and began dealing out as if there was a partner
fornenst him.

“When my father used to get this far in the story, he became very confused.
He says that once or twice he mistook the liquor, and took a pull at the
bottle of poteen instead of the punch; and the last thing he remembers was
asking poor Father Dwyer if he would draw near to the fire, and not be
lying there near the door.

“With that he slipped down on the ground and fell fast asleep. How long he
lay that way he could never tell. When he awoke and looked up, his hair
nearly stood on an end with fright. What do you think he seen fornenst him,
sitting at the other side of the fire, but Father Dwyer himself. There he
was, divil a lie in it, wrapped up in one of the mourning cloaks, trying to
warm his hands at the fire. “‘_Salve hoc nomine patri!_’ said my father,
crossing himself, ‘av it’s your ghost, God presarve me!’

“‘Good-evening t’ye, Mr. Free,’ said the ghost; ‘and av I might be bould,
what’s in the jug?’--for ye see, my father had it under his arm fast, and
never let it go when he was asleep.

“‘_Pater noster qui es in_,--poteen, sir,’ said my father; for the ghost
didn’t look pleased at his talking Latin.

“‘Ye might have the politeness to ax if one had a mouth on him, then,’ says
the ghost.

“‘Sure, I didn’t think the likes of you would taste sperits.’

“‘Try me,’ said the ghost; and with that he filled out a glass, and tossed
it off like a Christian.

“‘Beamish!’ says the ghost, smacking his lips.

“‘The same,’ says my father; ‘and sure what’s happened you has not spoiled
your taste.’

“‘If you’d mix a little hot,’ says the ghost, ‘I’m thinking it would be
better,--the night is mighty sevare.’

“‘Anything that your reverance pleases,’ says my father, as he began to
blow up a good fire to boil the water.

“‘And what news is stirring?’ says the ghost.

“‘Devil a word, your reverance,--your own funeral was the only thing doing
last week. Times is bad; except the measles, there’s nothing in our parts.’

“‘And we’re quite dead hereabouts, too,’ says the ghost.

“‘There’s some of us so, anyhow, says my father, with a sly look. ‘Taste
that, your reverance.’

“‘Pleasant and refreshing,’ says the ghost; ‘and now, Mr. Free, what do you
say to a little “spoilt five,” or “beggar my neighbor”?’

“‘What will we play for? ‘says my father, for a thought just struck
him,--‘may be it’s some trick of the Devil to catch my soul.’

“‘A pint of Beamish,’ says the ghost.

“‘Done!’ says my father; ‘cut for deal. The ace of clubs,--you have it.’

“Now the whole time the ghost was dealing the cards, my father never took
his eyes off of him, for he wasn’t quite aisy in his mind at all; but when
he saw him turn up the trump, and take a strong drink afterwards, he got
more at ease, and began the game.

“How long they played it was never rightly known; but one thing is sure,
they drank a cruel deal of sperits. Three quart bottles my father brought
with him were all finished, and by that time his brain was so confused with
the liquor, and all he lost,--for somehow he never won a game,--that he was
getting very quarrelsome.

“‘You have your own luck to it,’ says he, at last.

“‘True for you; and besides, we play a great deal where I come from.’

“‘I’ve heard so,’ says my father. ‘I lead the knave, sir; spades! Bad cess
to it, lost again!’

“Now it was really very distressing; for by this time, though they only
began for a pint of Beamish, my father went on betting till he lost the
hearse and all the six horses, mourning cloaks, plumes, and everything.

“‘Are you tired, Mr. Free? May be you’d like to stop?’

“‘Stop! faith it’s a nice time to stop; of course not.’

“‘Well, what will ye play for now?’

“The way he said these woods brought a trembling all over my father, and
his blood curdled in his heart. ‘Oh, murther!’ says he to himself, ‘it’s my
sowl he’s wanting all the time.’

“‘I’ve mighty little left,’ says my father, looking at him keenly, while he
kept shuffling the cards quick as lightning.

“‘Mighty little; no matter, we’ll give you plenty of time to pay,--and if
you can’t do it, it shall never trouble you as long as you live.’

“‘Oh, you murthering devil!’ says my father, flying at him with a spade
that he had behind his chair, ‘I’ve found you out.’

“With one blow he knocked him down, and now a terrible fight begun, for the
ghost was very strong, too; but my father’s blood was up, and he’d have
faced the Devil himself then. They rolled over each other several times,
the broken bottles cutting them to pieces, and the chairs and tables
crashing under them. At last the ghost took the bottle that lay on the
hearth, and levelled my father to the ground with one blow. Down he fell,
and the bottle and the whiskey were both dashed into the fire. That was
the end of it, for the ghost disappeared that moment in a blue flame that
nearly set fire to my father as he lay on the floor.

“Och, it was a cruel sight to see him next morning, with his cheek cut open
and his hands all bloody, lying there by himself,--all the broken glass and
the cards all round him,--the coffin, too, was knocked down off the chair,
may be the ghost had trouble getting into it. However that was, the funeral
was put off for a day, for my father couldn’t speak; and as for the sexton,
it was a queer thing, but when they came to call him in the morning, he had
two black eyes, and a gash over his ear, and he never knew how he got them.
It was easy enough to know the ghost did it; but my father kept the secret,
and never told it to any man, woman, or child in them parts.”




CHAPTER IX.


LISBON.

I have little power to trace the events which occupied the succeeding three
weeks of my history. The lingering fever which attended my wound detained
me during that time at the château; and when at last I did leave for
Lisbon, the winter was already beginning, and it was upon a cold raw
evening that I once more took possession of my old quarters at the Quay de
Soderi.

My eagerness and anxiety to learn something of the campaign was ever
uppermost, and no sooner had I reached my destination than I despatched
Mike to the quartermaster’s office to pick up some news, and hear which of
my friends and brother officers were then at Lisbon. I was sitting in a
state of nervous impatience watching for his return, when at length I heard
footsteps approaching my room, and the next moment Mike’s voice, saying,
“The ould room, sir, where he was before.” The door suddenly opened, and my
friend Power stood before me.

“Charley, my boy!”--“Fred, my fine fellow!” was all either could say for
some minutes. Upon my part, the recollection of his bold and manly bearing
in my behalf choked all utterance; while upon his, my haggard cheek and
worn look produced an effect so sudden and unexpected that he became
speechless.

In a few minutes, however, we both rallied, and opened our store of mutual
remembrances since we parted. My career I found he was perfectly acquainted
with, and his consisted of nothing but one unceasing round of gayety and
pleasure. Lisbon had been delightful during the summer,--parties to Cintra,
excursions through the surrounding country, were of daily occurrence; and
as my friend was a favorite everywhere, his life was one of continued
amusement.

“Do you know, Charley, had it been any other man than yourself, I should
not have spared him; for I have fallen head over ears in love with your
little dark-eyed Portuguese.”

“Ah, Donna Inez, you mean?”

“Yes, it is she I mean, and you need not affect such an air of uncommon
_nonchalance_. She’s the loveliest girl in Lisbon, and with fortune to pay
off all the mortgages in Connemara.”

“Oh, faith! I admire her amazingly; but as I never flattered myself upon
any preference--”

“Come, come, Charley, no concealment, my old fellow; every one knows the
thing’s settled. Your old friend, Sir George Dashwood, told me yesterday.”

“Yesterday! Why, is he here, at Lisbon?”

“To be sure he is; didn’t I tell you that before? Confound it, what a head
I have! Why, man, he’s come out as deputy adjutant-general; but for him I
should not have got renewed leave.”

“And Miss Dashwood, is she here?”

“Yes, she came with him. By Jove, how handsome she is,--quite a different
style of thing from our dark friend, but, to my thinking, even handsomer.
Hammersley seems of my opinion, too.”

“How! Is Hammersley at Lisbon?”

“On the staff here. But, confound it, what makes you so red, you have no
ill-feeling towards him now. I know he speaks most warmly of you; no later
than last night, at Sir George’s--”

What Power was about to add I know not, for I sprang from my chair with a
sudden start, and walked to the window, to conceal my agitation from him.

“And so,” said I, at length regaining my composure in some measure, “Sir
George also spoke of my name in connection with the senhora?”

“To be sure he did. All Lisbon does. What can you mean? But I see, my dear
boy; you know you are not of the strongest, and we’ve been talking far too
long. Come now, Charley, I’ll say good-night. I’ll be with you at breakfast
to-morrow, and tell you all the gossip; meanwhile promise me to get quietly
to bed, and so good-night.”

Such was the conflicting state of feeling I suffered from that I made no
effort to detain Power. I longed to be once more alone, to think, calmly if
I could, over the position I stood in, and to resolve upon my plans for the
future.

My love for Lucy Dashwood had been long rather a devotion than a hope. My
earliest dawn of manly ambition was associated with the first hour I met
her. She it was who first touched my boyish heart, and suggested a sense
of chivalrous ardor within me; and even though lost to me forever, I could
still regard her as the mainspring of my actions, and dwell upon my passion
as the thing that hallowed every enterprise of my life.

In a word, my love, however little it might reach her heart, was everything
to mine. It was the worship of the devotee to his protecting saint. It was
the faith that made me rise above misfortune and mishap, and led me onward;
and in this way I could have borne anything, everything, rather than the
imputation of fickleness.

Lucy might not--nay, I felt she did not--love me. It was possible that some
other was preferred before me; but to doubt my own affection, to suspect my
own truth, was to destroy all the charm of my existence, and to extinguish
within me forever the enthusiasm that made me a hero to my own heart.

It may seem but poor philosophy; but alas, how many of our happiest, how
many of our brightest thoughts here are but delusions like this! The
dayspring of youth gilds the tops of the distant mountains before us, and
many a weary day through life, when clouds and storms are thickening around
us, we live upon the mere memory of the past. Some fast-flitting prospect
of a bright future, some passing glimpse of a sunlit valley, tinges all our
after-years.

It is true that he will suffer fewer disappointments, he will incur fewer
of the mishaps of the world, who indulges in no fancies such as these; but
equally true is it that he will taste none of that exuberant happiness
which is that man’s portion who weaves out a story of his life, and who, in
connecting the promise of early years with the performance of later, will
seek to fulfil a fate and destiny.

Weaving such fancies, I fell sound asleep, nor woke before the stir and
bustle of the great city aroused me. Power, I found, had been twice at my
quarters that morning, but fearing to disturb me, had merely left a few
lines to say that, as he should be engaged on service during the day,
we could not meet before the evening. There were certain preliminaries
requisite regarding my leave which demanded my appearing before a board of
medical officers, and I immediately set about dressing; resolving that, as
soon as they were completed, I should, if permitted, retire to one of the
small cottages on the opposite bank of the Tagus, there to remain until my
restored health allowed me to rejoin my regiment.

I dreaded meeting the Dashwoods. I anticipated with a heavy heart how
effectually one passing interview would destroy all my day-dreams of
happiness, and I preferred anything to the sad conviction of hopelessness
such a meeting must lead to.

While I thus balanced with myself how to proceed, a gentle step came to the
door, and as it opened slowly, a servant in a dark livery entered.

“Mr. O’Malley, sir?”

“Yes,” said I, wondering to whom my arrival could be thus early known.

“Sir George Dashwood requests you will step over to him as soon as you go
out,” continued the man; “he is so engaged that he cannot leave home, but
is most desirous to see you.”

“It is not far from here?”

“No, sir; scarcely five minutes’ walk.”

“Well, then, if you will show me the way, I’ll follow you.”

I cast one passing glance at myself to see that all was right about my
costume, and sallied forth.

In the middle of the Black Horse Square, at the door of a large,
stone-fronted building, a group of military men were assembled, chatting
and laughing away together,--some reading the lately-arrived English
papers; others were lounging upon the stone parapet, carelessly puffing
their cigars. None of the faces were known to me; so threading my way
through the crowd, I reached the steps. Just as I did so, a half-muttered
whisper met my ear:--

“Who did you say?”

“O’Malley, the young Irishman who behaved so gallantly at the Douro.”

The blood rushed hotly to my cheek, my heart bounded with exultation; my
step, infirm and tottering but a moment before, became fixed and steady,
and I felt a thrill of proud enthusiasm playing through my veins. How
little did the speaker of those few and random words know what courage he
had given to a drooping heart, what renewed energy to a breaking spirit!
The voice of praise, too, coming from those to whom we had thought
ourselves unknown, has a magic about it that must be felt to be understood.
So it happened that in a few seconds a revolution had taken place in all
my thoughts and feelings, and I, who had left my quarters dispirited and
depressed, now walked confidently and proudly forward.

“Mr. O’Malley, sir,” said the servant to the officer waiting, as we entered
the antechamber.

“Ah, Mr. O’Malley,” said the aide-de-damp, in his blandest accent, “I hope
you’re better. Sir George is most anxious to see you; he is at present
engaged with the staff--”

A bell rang at that moment, and cut short the sentence; he flew to the door
of the inner room, and returning in an instant, said,--

“Will you follow me? This way, if you please.”

The room was crowded with general officers and aides-de-camp, so that for
a second or two I could not distinguish the parties; but no sooner was my
name announced, than Sir George Dashwood, forcing his way through, rushed
forward to meet me.

“O’Malley, my brave fellow, delighted to shake your hand again! How much
grown you are,--twice the man I knew you; and the arm, too, is it getting
on well?”

Scarcely giving me a moment to reply, and still holding my hand tightly in
his grasp, he introduced me on every side.

“My young Irish friend, Sir Edward, the man of the Douro. My Lord, allow me
to present Lieutenant O’Malley, of the Fourteenth.”

“A very dashing thing, that of yours, sir, at Ciudad Rodrigo.”

“A very senseless one, I fear, my Lord.”

“No, no, I don’t agree with you at all; even when no great results follow,
the _morale_ of an army benefits by acts of daring.”

A running fire of kind and civil speeches poured in on me from all
quarters, and amidst all that crowd of bronzed and war-worn veterans, I
felt myself the lion of the moment. Crawfurd, it appeared, had spoken most
handsomely of my name, and I was thus made known to many of those whose own
reputations were then extending over Europe.

In this happy trance of excited pleasure I passed the morning. Amidst
the military chit-chat of the day around me, treated as an equal by the
greatest and the most distinguished, I heard all the confidential opinions
upon the campaign and its leaders; and in that most entrancing of
all flatteries,--the easy tone of companionship of our elders and
betters,--forgot my griefs, and half believed I was destined for great
things.

Fearing, at length, that I had prolonged my visit too far, I approached
Sir George to take my leave, when, drawing my arm within his, he retired
towards one of the windows.

“A word, O’Malley, before you go. I’ve arranged a little plan for you;
mind, I shall insist upon obedience. They’ll make some difficulty about
your remaining here, so that I have appointed you one of our extra
aides-de-camp. That will free you from all trouble, and I shall not be very
exacting in my demands upon you. You must, however, commence your duties
to-day, and as we dine at seven precisely, I shall expect you. I am
aware of your wish to stay in Lisbon, my boy, and if all I hear be true,
congratulate you sincerely; but more of this another time, and so good-by.”
 So saying, he shook my hand once more, warmly; and without well feeling how
or why, I found myself in the street.

The last few words Sir George had spoken threw a gloom over all my
thoughts. I saw at once that the report Power had alluded to had gained
currency at Lisbon. Sir George believed it; doubtless, Lucy, too; and
forgetting in an instant all the emulative ardor that so lately stirred my
heart, I took my path beside the river, and sauntered slowly along, lost in
my reflections.

I had walked for above an hour before paying any attention to the path I
followed. Mechanically, as it were, retreating from the noise and tumult-of
the city, I wandered towards the country. My thoughts fixed but upon
one theme, I had neither ears nor eyes for aught around me; the great
difficulty of my present position now appearing to me in this light,--my
attachment to Lucy Dashwood, unrequited and unreturned as I felt it,
did not permit of my rebutting any report which might have reached her
concerning Donna Inez. I had no right, no claim to suppose her sufficiently
interested about me to listen to such an explanation, had I even the
opportunity to make it. One thing was thus clear to me,--all my hopes had
ended in that quarter; and as this conclusion sank into my mind, a species
of dogged resolution to brave my fortune crept upon me, which only waited
the first moment of my meeting her to overthrow and destroy forever.

Meanwhile I walked on,--now rapidly, as some momentary rush of passionate
excitement, now slowly, as some depressing and gloomy notion succeeded;
when suddenly my path was arrested by a long file of bullock cars which
blocked up the way. Some chance squabble had arisen among the drivers, and
to avoid the crowd and collision, I turned into a gateway which opened
beside me, and soon found myself in a lawn handsomely planted and adorned
with flowering shrubs and ornamental trees.

In the half-dreamy state my musings had brought me to, I struggled to
recollect why the aspect of the place did not seem altogether new. My
thoughts were, however, far away,--now blending some memory of my distant
home with scenes of battle and bloodshed, or resting upon my first
interview with her whose chance word, carelessly and lightly spoken, had
written the story of my life. From this revery I was rudely awakened by a
rustling noise in the trees behind me, and before I could turn my head, the
two fore-paws of a large stag-hound were planted upon my shoulders, while
the open mouth and panting tongue were close beside my face. My day-dream
was dispelled quick as lightning; it was Juan, himself, the favorite dog of
the senhora, who gave me this rude welcome, and who now, by a thousand wild
gestures and bounding caresses, seemed to do the honors of his house. There
was something so like home in these joyful greetings that I yielded myself
at once his prisoner, and followed, or rather was accompanied by him
towards the villa.

Of course, sooner or later, I should have called upon my kind friends; then
why not now, when chance has already brought me so near? Besides, if I
held to my resolution, which I meant to do,--of retiring to some quiet and
sequestered cottage till my health was restored,--the opportunity might not
readily present itself again. This line of argument perfectly satisfied my
reason; while a strong feeling of something like curiosity piqued me to
proceed, and before many minutes elapsed, I reached the house. The door, as
usual, lay wide open; and the ample hall, furnished like a sitting-room,
had its customary litter of books, music, and flowers scattered upon the
tables. My friend Juan, however, suffered me not to linger here, but
rushing furiously at a door before me, began a vigorous attack for
admittance.

As I knew this to be the drawing-room, I opened the door and walked in, but
no one was to be seen; a half-open book lay upon an ottoman, and a fan,
which I recognized as an old acquaintance, was beside it, but the owner was
absent.

I sat down, resolved to wait patiently for her coming, without any
announcement of my being there. I was not sorry, indeed, to have some
moments to collect my thoughts, and restore my erring faculties to
something like order.

As I looked about the room, it seemed as if I had been there but yesterday.
The folding-doors lay open to the garden, just as I had seen them last; and
save that the flowers seemed fewer, and those which remained of a darker
and more sombre tint, all seemed unchanged. There lay the guitar to whose
thrilling chords my heart had bounded; there, the drawing over which I had
bent in admiring pleasure, suggesting some tints of light or shadow, as the
fairy fingers traced them; every chair was known to me, and I greeted them
as things I cared for.

While thus I scanned each object around me, I was struck by a little china
vase which, unlike its other brethren, contained a bouquet of dead and
faded flowers; the blood rushed to my cheek; I started up; it was one I had
myself presented to her the day before we parted. It was in that same vase
I placed it; the very table, too, stood in the same position beside that
narrow window. What a rush of thoughts came pouring on me! And oh!--shall I
confess it?--how deeply did such a mute testimony of remembrance speak
to my heart, at the moment that I felt myself unloved and uncared for by
another! I walked hurriedly up and down, a maze of conflicting resolves
combating in my mind, while one thought ever recurred: “Would that I had
not come there!” and yet after all it may mean nothing; some piece of
passing coquetry which she will be the very first to laugh at. I remembered
how she spoke of poor Howard; what folly to take it otherwise! “Be it so,
then,” said I, half aloud; “and now for my part of the game;” and with this
I took from my pocket the light-blue scarf she had given me the morning we
parted, and throwing it over my shoulder, prepared to perform my part in
what I had fully persuaded myself to be a comedy. The time, however, passed
on, and she came not; a thousand high-flown Portuguese phrases had time to
be conned over again and again by me, and I had abundant leisure to enact
my coming part; but still the curtain did not rise. As the day was wearing,
I resolved at last to write a few lines, expressive of my regret at not
meeting her, and promising myself an early opportunity of paying my
respects under more fortunate circumstances. I sat down accordingly, and
drawing the paper towards me, began in a mixture of French and Portuguese,
as it happened, to indite my billet.

“Senhora Inez--” no--“Ma chère Mademoiselle Inez--” confound it, that’s too
intimate; well, here goes: “Monsieur O’Malley presente ses respects--” that
will never do; and then, after twenty other abortive attempts, I began
thoughtlessly sketching heads upon the paper, and scribbling with wonderful
facility in fifty different ways: “Ma charmante amie--Ma plus chère Inez,”
 etc., and in this most useful and profitable occupation did I pass another
half-hour.

How long I should have persisted in such an employment it is difficult to
say, had not an incident intervened which suddenly but most effectually put
an end to it. As the circumstance is one which, however little striking in
itself, had the greatest and most lasting influence upon my future career,
I shall, perhaps, be excused in devoting another chapter to its recital.




CHAPTER X.


A PLEASANT PREDICAMENT.

As I sat vainly endeavoring to fix upon some suitable and appropriate
epithet by which to commence my note, my back was turned towards the door
of the garden; and so occupied was I in my meditations, that even had any
one entered at the time, in all probability I should not have perceived it.
At length, however, I was aroused from my study by a burst of laughter,
whose girlish joyousness was not quite new to me. I knew it well; it was
the senhora herself; and the next moment I heard her voice.

“I tell you, I’m quite certain I saw his face in the mirror as I passed.
Oh, how delightful! and you’ll be charmed with him; so, mind, you must not
steal him from me; I shall never forgive you if you do; and look, only
look! he has got the blue scarf I gave him when he marched to the Douro.”

While I perceived that I was myself seen, I could see nothing of the
speaker, and wishing to hear something further, appeared more than ever
occupied in the writing before me.

What her companion replied I could not, however, catch, but only guess at
its import by the senhora’s answer. “_Fi done!_--I really am very fond of
him; but, never fear, I shall be as stately as a queen. You shall see how
meekly he will kiss my hand, and with what unbending reserve I’ll receive
him.”

“Indeed!” thought I; “mayhap, I’ll mar your plot a little; but let us
listen.”

Again her friend spoke, but too low to be heard.

“It is so provoking,” continued Inez; “I never can remember names, and his
was something too absurd; but never mind, I shall make him a grandee of
Portugal. Well, but come along, I long to present him to you.”

Here a gentle struggle seemed to ensue; for I heard the senhora coaxingly
entreat her, while her companion steadily resisted.

“I know very well you think I shall be so silly, and perhaps wrong; eh, is
it not so? but you are quite mistaken. You’ll be surprised at my cold and
dignified manner. I shall draw myself proudly up, thus, and curtsying
deeply, say, ‘Monsieur, j’ai l’honneur de vous saluer.’”

A laugh twice as mirthful as before interrupted her account of herself,
while I could hear the tones of her friend evidently in expostulation.

[Illustration: O’MALLEY FOLLOWING THE CUSTOM OF HIS COUNTRY.]

“Well, then, to be sure, you are provoking, but you really promise to
follow me. Be it so; then give me that moss-rose. How you have fluttered
me; now for it!”

So saying, I heard her foot upon the gravel, and the next instant upon the
marble step of the door. There is something in expectation that sets the
heart beating, and mine throbbed against my side. I waited, however, till
she entered, before lifting my head, and then springing suddenly up, with
one bound clasped her in my arms, and pressing my lips upon her roseate
cheek, said,--

“_Mar charmante amie!_” To disengage herself from me, and to spring
suddenly back was her first effort; to burst into an immoderate fit of
laughing, her second; her cheek was, however, covered with a deep blush,
and I already repented that my malice had gone so far.

“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” said I, in affected innocence, “if I have so far
forgotten myself as to assume a habit of my own country to a stranger.”

A half-angry toss of the head was her only reply, and turning towards the
garden, she called to her friend:--

“Come here, dearest, and instruct my ignorance upon your national customs;
but first let me present to you,--never know his name,--the Chevalier de
----What is it?”

The glass door opened as she spoke; a tall and graceful figure entered, and
turning suddenly round, showed me the features of Lucy Dashwood. We both
stood opposite each other, each mute with amazement. _My_ feelings let me
not attempt to convey; shame, for the first moment stronger than aught
else, sent the blood rushing to my face and temples, and the next I was
cold and pale as death. As for her, I cannot guess at what passed in
her mind. She curtsied deeply to me, and with a half-smile of scarce
recognition passed by me, and walked towards a window.

“_Comme vous êtes amiable!_” said the lively Portuguese, who comprehended
little of this dumb show; “here have I been flattering myself what friends
you’d be the very moment you meet, and now you’ll not even look at each
other.”

What was to be done? The situation was every instant growing more and more
embarrassing; nothing but downright effrontery could get through with
it now; and never did a man’s heart more fail him than did mine at this
conjuncture. I made the’ effort, however, and stammered out certain
unmeaning commonplaces. Inez replied, and I felt myself conversing with the
headlong recklessness of one marching to a scaffold, a coward’s fear at his
heart, while he essayed to seem careless and indifferent.

Anxious to reach what I esteemed safe ground, I gladly adverted to the
campaign; and at last, hurried on by the impulse to cover my embarrassment,
was describing some skirmish with a French outpost. Without intending, I
had succeeded in exciting the senhora’s interest, and she listened with
sparkling eye and parted lips to the description of a sweeping charge in
which a square was broken, and several prisoners carried off. Warming with
the eager avidity of her attention, I grew myself more excited, when just
as my narrative reached its climax, Miss Dashwood walked gently towards the
bell, rang it, and ordered her carriage. The tone of perfect _nonchalance_
of the whole proceeding struck me dumb; I faltered, stammered, hesitated,
and was silent. Donna Inez turned from one to the other of us with a look
of unfeigned astonishment and I heard her mutter to herself something
like a reflection upon “national eccentricities.” Happily, however,
her attention was now exclusively turned towards her friend, and while
assisting her to shawl, and extorting innumerable promises of an early
visit, I got a momentary reprieve; the carriage drew up also, and as the
gravel flew right and left beneath the horses’ feet, the very noise and
bustle relieved me. “_Adios_,” then said Inez, as she kissed her for the
last time, while she motioned to me to escort her to her carriage. I
advanced, stopped, made another step forward, and again grew irresolute;
but Miss Dashwood speedily terminated the difficulty; for making me a
formal curtsey, she declined my scarce-proffered attention, and left the
room.

As she did so, I perceived that on passing the table, her eyes fell upon
the paper I had been scribbling over so long, and I thought that for
an instant an expression of ineffable scorn seemed to pass across her
features, save which--and perhaps even in this I was mistaken--her manner
was perfectly calm, easy, and indifferent.

Scarce had the carriage rolled from the door, when the senhora, throwing
herself upon her chair, clapped her hands in childish ecstasy, while she
fell into a fit of laughing that I thought would never have an end. “Such
a scene!” cried she; “I would not have lost it for the world; what
cordiality! what _empressement_ to form acquaintance! I shall never forget
it, Monsieur le Chevalier; your national customs seem to run sadly in
extremes. One would have thought you deadly enemies; and poor me, after a
thousand delightful plans about you both!”

As she ran on thus, scarce able to control her mirth at each sentence, I
walked the room with impatient strides, now, resolving to hasten after the
carriage, stop it, explain in a few words how all had happened, and then
fly from her forever; then the remembrance of her cold, impassive look
crossed me, and I thought that one bold leap into the Tagus might be the
shortest and easiest solution to all my miseries. Perfect abasement,
thorough self-contempt had broken all my courage, and I could have cried
like a child. What I said, or how I comforted myself after, I know not; but
my first consciousness came to me as I felt myself running at the top of my
speed far upon the road towards Lisbon.




CHAPTER XI.


THE DINNER.

It may easily be imagined that I had little inclination to keep my promise
of dining that day with Sir George Dashwood. However, there was nothing
else for it; the die was cast,--my prospects as regarded Lucy were ruined
forever. We were not, we never could be anything to each other; and as for
me, the sooner I braved my altered fortunes the better; and after all, why
should I call them altered. She evidently never had cared for me; and even
supposing that my fervent declaration of attachment had interested her, the
apparent duplicity and falseness of my late conduct could only fall the
more heavily upon me.

I endeavored to philosophize myself into calmness and indifference. One by
one I exhausted every argument for my defence, which, however ingeniously
put forward, brought no comfort to my own conscience. I pleaded the
unerring devotion of my heart, the uprightness of my motives, and when
called on for the proofs,--alas! except the blue scarf I wore in memory of
another, and my absurd conduct at the villa, I had none. From the current
gossip of Lisbon, down to my own disgraceful folly, all, all was against
me.

Honesty of intention, rectitude of purpose, may be, doubtless they are,
admirable supports to a rightly constituted mind; but even then they must
come supported by such claims to probability as make the injured man feel
he has not lost the sympathy of all his fellows. Now, I had none of these,
had even my temperament, broken by sickness and harassed by unlucky
conjectures, permitted my appreciating them.

I endeavored to call my wounded pride to my aid, and thought over the
glance of haughty disdain she gave me as she passed on to her carriage; but
even this turned against me, and a humiliating sense of my own degraded
position sank deeply into my heart. “This impression at least,” thought I,
“must be effaced. I cannot permit her to believe--”

“His Excellency is waiting dinner, sir,” said a lackey, introducing a
finely powdered head gently within the door. I looked at my watch, it was
eight o’clock; so snatching my sabre, and shocked at my delay, I
hastily followed the servant down-stairs, and thus at once cut short my
deliberations.

The man must be but little observant or deeply sunk in his own reveries,
who, arriving half-an-hour too late for dinner, fails to detect in the
faces of the assembled and expectant guests a very palpable expression of
discontent and displeasure. It is truly a moment of awkwardness, and one
in which few are found to manage with success; the blushing, hesitating,
blundering apology of the absent man, is scarcely better than the
ill-affected surprise of the more practised offender. The bashfulness of
the one is as distasteful as the cool impertinence of the other; both are
so thoroughly out of place, for we are thinking of neither; our thoughts
are wandering to cold soups and rechaufféd pâtés, and we neither care for
nor estimate the cause, but satisfy our spleen by cursing the offender.

Happily for me I was clad in a triple insensibility to such feelings,
and with an air of most perfect unconstraint and composure walked into
a drawing-room where about twenty persons were busily discussing what
peculiar amiability in my character could compensate for my present
conduct.

“At last, O’Malley, at last!” said Sir George. “Why, my dear boy, how very
late you are!”

I muttered something about a long walk,--distance from Lisbon, etc.

“Ah! that was it. I was right, you see!” said an old lady in a spangled
turban, as she whispered something to her friend beside her, who appeared
excessively shocked at the information conveyed; while a fat, round-faced
little general, after eying me steadily through his glass, expressed a
_sotto voce_ wish that I was upon _his_ staff. I felt my cheek reddening
at the moment, and stared around me like one whose trials were becoming
downright insufferable, when happily dinner was announced, and terminated
my embarrassment.

As the party filed past, I perceived that Miss Dashwood was not among them;
and with a heart relieved for the moment by the circumstance, and inventing
a hundred conjectures to account for it, I followed with the aides-de-camp
and the staff to the dinner-room.

The temperament is very Irish, I believe, which renders a man so elastic
that from the extreme of depression to the very climax of high spirits,
there is but one spring. To this I myself plead guilty, and thus, scarcely
was I freed from the embarrassment which a meeting with Lucy Dashwood must
have caused, when my heart bounded with lightness.

When the ladies withdrew, the events of the campaign became the subject of
conversation, and upon these, very much to my astonishment, I found myself
consulted as an authority. The Douro, from some fortunate circumstance, had
given me a reputation I never dreamed of, and I heard my opinions quoted
upon topics of which my standing as an officer, and my rank in the service,
could not imply a very extended observation. Power was absent on duty; and
happily for my supremacy, the company consisted entirely of generals in the
commissariat or new arrivals from England, all of whom knew still less than
myself.

What will not iced champagne and flattery do? Singly, they are strong
impulses; combined, their power is irresistible. I now heard for the first
time that our great leader had been elevated to the peerage by the title of
Lord Wellington, and I sincerely believe--however now I may smile at the
confession--that, at the moment, I felt more elation at the circumstance
than he did. The glorious sensation of being in any way, no matter how
remotely, linked with the career of those whose path is a high one, and
whose destinies are cast for great events, thrilled through me; and in
all the warmth of my admiration and pride for our great captain, a secret
pleasure stirred within me as I whispered to myself, “And I, too, am a
soldier!”

I fear me that very little flattery is sufficient to turn the head of a
young man of eighteen; and if I yielded to the “pleasant incense,” let my
apology be that I was not used to it; and lastly, let me avow, if I did get
tipsy, I liked the liquor. And why not? It is the only tipple I know of
that leaves no headache the next morning to punish you for the glories of
the past night. It may, like all other strong potations, it is true, induce
you to make a fool of yourself when under its influence; but like the
nitrous-oxide gas, its effects are passing, and as the pleasure is an
ecstasy for the time, and your constitution none the worse when it is over,
I really see no harm in it.

Then the benefits are manifest; for while he who gives becomes never the
poorer for his benevolence, the receiver is made rich indeed. It matters
little that some dear, kind friend is ready with his bitter draught to
remedy what he is pleased to call its unwholesome sweetness; you betake
yourself with only the more pleasure to the “blessed elixir,” whose
fascinations neither the poverty of your pocket, nor the penury of your
brain, can withstand, and by the magic of whose spell you are great and
gifted. “_Vive la bagatelle!_” saith the Frenchman. “Long live flattery!”
 say I, come from what quarter it will,--the only wealth of the poor man,
the only reward of the unknown one; the arm that supports us in failure;
the hand that crowns us in success; the comforter in our affliction; the
gay companion in our hours of pleasure; the lullaby of the infant; the
staff of old age; the secret treasure we lock up in our own hearts, and
which ever grows greater as we count it over. Let me not be told that the
coin is fictitious, and the gold not genuine; its clink is as musical to
the ear as though it bore the last impression of the mint, and I’m not the
man to cast an aspersion upon its value.

This little digression, however seemingly out of place, may serve to
illustrate what it might be difficult to convey in other words,--namely,
that if Charles O’Malley became, in his own estimation, a very considerable
personage that day at dinner, the fault lay not entirely with himself, but
with his friends, who told him he was such. In fact, my good reader, I was
the lion of the party, the man who saved Laborde, who charged through a
brigade of guns, who performed feats which newspapers quoted, though he
never heard of them himself. At no time is a man so successful in society
as when his reputation heralds him; and it needs but little conversational
eloquence to talk well, if you have but a willing and ready auditory. Of
mine, I could certainly not complain; and as, drinking deeply, I poured
forth a whole tide of campaigning recital, I saw the old colonels of
recruiting districts exchanging looks of wonder and admiration with
officers of the ordnance; while Sir George himself, evidently pleased at my
_début_, went back to an early period of our acquaintance, and related the
rescue of his daughter in Galway.

In an instant the whole current of my thoughts was changed. My first
meeting with Lucy, my boyhood’s dream of ambition, my plighted faith,
my thought of our last parting in Dublin, when, in a moment of excited
madness, I told my tale of love. I remembered her downcast look, as her
cheek now flushing, now growing pale, she trembled while I spoke. I thought
of her, as in the crash of battle her image flashed across my brain, and
made me feel a rush of chivalrous enthusiasm to win her heart by “doughty
deeds.”

I forgot all around and about me. My head reeled, the wine, the excitement,
my long previous illness, all pressed upon me; and as my temples throbbed
loudly and painfully, a chaotic rush of discordant, ill-connected ideas
flitted across my mind. There seemed some stir and confusion in the room,
but why or wherefore I could not think, nor could I recall my scattered
senses, till Sir George Dashwood’s voice roused me once again to
consciousness.

“We are going to have some coffee, O’Malley. Miss Dashwood expects us in
the drawing-room. You have not seen her yet?”

I know not my reply; but he continued:--

“She has some letters for you, I think.”

I muttered something, and suffered him to pass on; no sooner had he done
so, however, than I turned towards the door, and rushed into the street.
The cold night air suddenly recalled me to myself, and I stood for a moment
endeavoring to collect myself; as I did so, a servant stopped, and saluting
me, presented me with a letter. For a second, a cold chill came over me; I
knew not what fear beset me. The letter, I at last remembered, must be that
one alluded to by Sir George, so I took it in silence, and walked on.




CHAPTER XII.


THE LETTER.

As I hurried to my quarters, I made a hundred guesses from whom the letter
could have come; a kind of presentiment told me that it bore, in some
measure, upon the present crisis of my life, and I burned with anxiety to
read it.

No sooner had I reached the light, than all my hopes on this head vanished;
the envelope bore the well-known name of my old college chum, Frank Webber,
and none could, at the moment, have more completely dispelled all chance
of interesting me. I threw it from me with disappointment, and sat moodily
down to brood over my fate.

At length, however, and almost without knowing it, I drew the lamp towards
me, and broke the seal. The reader being already acquainted with my amiable
friend, there is the less indiscretion in communicating the contents, which
ran thus:--


    TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, No. 2,

    October 5, 1810.

    My Dear O’Malley,--Nothing short of your death and burial,
    with or without military honors, can possibly excuse your very
    disgraceful neglect of your old friends here. Nesbitt has never
    heard of you, neither has Smith. Ottley swears never to have seen
    your handwriting, save on the back of a protested bill. You have
    totally forgotten _me_, and the dean informs me that you have never
    condescended a single line to him; which latter inquiry on my part
    nearly cost me a rustication.

    A hundred conjectures to account for your silence--a new feature
    in you since you were here--are afloat. Some assert that your
    soldiering has turned your head, and that you are above corresponding
    with civilians. Your friends, however, who know you better and
    value your worth, think otherwise; and having seen a paragraph
    about a certain O’Malley being tried by court-martial for stealing a
    goose, and maltreating the woman that owned it, ascribe your not
    writing to other motives. Do, in any case, relieve our minds; say,
    is it yourself, or only a relative that’s mentioned?
    Herbert came over from London with a long story about your
    doing wonderful things,--capturing cannon and general officers by
    scores,--but devil a word of it is extant; and if you have really
    committed these acts, they have “misused the king’s press damnably,”
     for neither in the “Times” nor the “Post” are you heard of.
    Answer this point, and say also if you have got promotion; for what
    precise sign you are algebraically expressed by at this writing, may
    serve Fitzgerald for a fellowship question. As for us, we are jogging
    along, _semper eadem_,--that is, worse and worse. Dear Cecil
    Cavendish, our gifted friend, slight of limb and soft of voice, has
    been rusticated for immersing four bricklayers in that green
    receptacle of stagnant water and duckweed, yeleped the “Haha.”
     Roper, equally unlucky, has taken to reading for honors, and obtained
    a medal, I fancy,--at least his friends shy him, and it must be
    something of that kind. Belson--poor Belson (fortunately for him he
    was born in the nineteenth, not the sixteenth century, or he’d be most
    likely ornamenting a pile of fagots) ventured upon some stray
    excursions into the Hebrew verbs,--the professor himself never having
    transgressed beyond the declensions, and the consequence is, he is
    in disgrace among the seniors. And as for me, a heavy charge hangs
    over my devoted head even while I write. The senior lecturer, it
    appears, has been for some time instituting some very singular
    researches into the original state of our goodly college at its
    founding. Plans and specifications showing its extent and magnificence
    have been continually before the board for the last month; and in such
    repute have been a smashed door-sill or an old arch, that freshmen
    have now abandoned conic sections for crowbars, and instead of the
    “Principia” have taken up the pickaxe. You know, my dear fellow,
    with what enthusiasm I enter into any scheme for the aggrandizement
    of our Alma Mater, so I need not tell you how ardently I
    adventured into the career now opened to me. My time was completely
    devoted to the matter; neither means nor health did I spare,
    and in my search for antiquarian lore, I have actually undermined
    the old wall of the fellows’ garden, and am each morning in expectation
    of hearing that the big bell near the commons-hall has descended
    from its lofty and most noisy eminence, and is snugly reposing in
    the mud. Meanwhile accident put me in possession of a most
    singular and remarkable discovery. Our chambers--I call them
    ours for old association sake--are, you may remember, in the Old
    Square. Well, I have been fortunate enough, within the very precincts
    of my own dwelling, to contribute a very wonderful fact to the
    history of the University; alone, unassisted, unaided, I labored
    at my discovery. Few can estimate the pleasure I felt, the fame
    and reputation I anticipated. I drew up a little memoir for the
    board, most respectfully and civilly worded, having for title the
    following:--

    ACCOUNT
    Of a remarkable Subterranean Passage lately discovered in the
    Old Building of Trinity College, Dublin;
    With Observations upon its Extent, Antiquity, and Probable Use.
    By F. WEBBER, Senior Freshman.

    My dear O’Malley, I’ll not dwell upon the pride I felt in my new
    character of antiquarian; it is enough to state, that my very
    remarkable tract was well considered and received, and a commission
    appointed to investigate the discovery, consisting of the
    vice-provost, the senior lecturer, old Woodhouse, the sub-dean, and
    a few more.

    On Tuesday last they came accordingly in full academic costume.
    I, being habited most accurately in the like manner, conducted
    them with all form into my bed-room, where a large screen concealed
    from view the entrance to the tunnel alluded to. Assuming a very
    John Kembleish attitude, I struck this down with one hand, pointing
    with the other to the wall, as I exclaimed, “There! look
    there!”

    I need only quote Barret’s exclamation to enlighten you upon my
    discovery as, drawing in his breath with a strong effort, he burst
    out:--

    “May the Devil admire me, but it’s a rat-hole!”

    I fear, Charley, he’s right, and what’s more, that the board will
    think so, for this moment a very warm discussion is going on among
    that amiable and learned body whether I shall any longer remain an
    ornament to the University. In fact, the terror with which they
    fled from my chambers, overturning each other in the passage,
    seemed to imply that they thought me mad, and I do believe my
    voice, look, and attitude would not have disgraced a blue cotton
    dressing-gown and a cell in “Swift’s.” Be this as it may, few men
    have done more for college than I have. The sun never stood still
    for Joshua with more resolution than I have rested in my career of
    freshman; and if I have contributed little to the fame, I have done
    much for the funds of the University; and when they come to compute
    the various sums I have paid in, for fines, penalties, and what
    they call properly “impositions,” if they don’t place a portrait of me
    in the examination hall, between Archbishop Ussher and Flood, then
    do I say there is no gratitude in mankind; not to mention the impulse
    I have given to the various artisans whose business it is to
    repair lamps, windows, chimneys, iron railings, and watchmen, all
    of which I have devoted myself to with an enthusiasm for political
    economy well known, and registered in the College Street police-office.

    After all, Charley, I miss you greatly. Your second in a ballad is
    not to be replaced; besides, Carlisle Bridge has got low; medical
    students and young attorneys affect minstrelsy, and actually frequent
    the haunts sacred to our muse.

    Dublin is, upon the whole, I think, worse; though one scarcely
    ever gets tired laughing at the small celebrities--


Master Frank gets here indiscreet, so I shall skip.

    And so the Dashwoods are going too; this will make mine a
    pitiable condition, for I really did begin to feel tender in that
    quarter. You may have heard that she refused me; this, however, is not
    correct, though I have little doubt it might have been,--had I
    asked her.

    Hammersley has, you know, got his dismissal. I wonder how the
    poor fellow took it when Power gave him back his letters and his
    picture. How _you_ are to be treated remains to be seen; in any
    case, you certainly stand first favorite.


I laid down the letter at this passage, unable to read farther. Here, then,
was the solution of the whole chaos of mystery; here the full explanation
of what had puzzled my aching brain for many a night long. These were the
very letters I had myself delivered into Hammersley’s hands; this the
picture he had trodden to dust beneath his heel the morning of our meeting.
I now felt the reason of his taunting allusion to my “success,” his cutting
sarcasm, his intemperate passion. A flood of light poured at once across
all the dark passages of my history; and Lucy, too,--dare I think of her! A
rapid thought shot through my brain. What if she had really cared for me!
What if for me she had rejected another’s love! What if, trusting to my
faith, my pledged and sworn faith, she had given me her heart! Oh, the
bitter agony of that thought! To think that all my hopes were shipwrecked
with the very land in sight.

I sprang to my feet with some sudden impulse, but as I did so the blood
rushed madly to my face and temples, which beat violently; a parched and
swollen feeling came about my throat; I endeavored to open my collar
and undo my stock, but my disabled arm prevented me. I tried to call
my servant, but my utterance was thick and my words would not come; a
frightful suspicion crossed me that my reason was tottering. I made towards
the door; but as I did so, the objects around me became confused and
mingled, my limbs trembled, and I fell heavily upon the floor. A pang of
dreadful pain shot through me as I fell; my arm was rebroken. After this I
knew no more; all the accumulated excitement of the evening bore down with
one fell swoop upon my brain. Ere day broke, I was delirious.

I have a vague and indistinct remembrance of hurried and anxious faces
around my bed, of whispered words and sorrowful looks; but my own thoughts
careered over the bold hills of the far west as I trod them in my
boyhood, free and high of heart, or recurred to the din and crash of the
battle-field, with the mad bounding of the war-horse, and the loud clang of
the trumpet. Perhaps the acute pain of my swollen and suffering arm gave
the character to my mental aberration; for I have more than once observed
among the wounded in battle, that even when torn and mangled by grape
from a howitzer, their ravings have partaken of a high feature of
enthusiasm,--shouts of triumph and exclamations of pleasure, even
songs have I heard, but never once the low muttering of despair or the
half-stifled cry of sorrow and affliction.

Such were the few gleams of consciousness which visited me; and even to
such as these I soon became insensible.

Few like to chronicle, fewer still to read, the sad history of a sick-bed.
Of mine, I know but little. The throbbing pulses of the erring brain, the
wild fancies of lunacy, take no note of time. There is no past nor future;
a dreadful present, full of its hurried and confused impressions, is all
that the mind beholds; and even when some gleams of returning reason flash
upon the mad confusion of the brain, they come like sunbeams through a
cloud, dimmed, darkened, and perverted.

It is the restless activity of the mind in fever that constitutes its
most painful anguish; the fast-flitting thoughts that rush ever onwards,
crowding sensation on sensation, an endless train of exciting images
without purpose or repose; or even worse, the straining effort to pursue
some vague and shadowy conception which evades us ever as we follow, but
which mingles with all around and about us, haunting us at midnight as in
the noontime. Of this nature was a vision which came constantly before
me, till at length, by its very recurrence, it assumed a kind of real and
palpable existence; and as I watched it, my heart thrilled with the high
ardor of enthusiasm and delight, or sunk into the dark abyss of sorrow and
despair. “The dawning of morning, the daylight sinking,” brought no other
image to my aching sight; and of this alone, of all the impressions of the
period, has my mind retained any consciousness.

Methought I stood within an old and venerable cathedral, where the dim
yellow light fell with a rich but solemn glow upon the fretted capitals,
or the grotesque tracings of the oaken carvings, lighting up the fading
gildings of the stately monuments, and tinting the varied hues of time-worn
banners. The mellow notes of a deep organ filled the air, and seemed to
attune the sense to all the awe and reverence of the place, where the very
footfall, magnified by its many echoes, seemed half a profanation. I stood
before an altar, beside me a young and lovely girl, whose bright brown
tresses waved in loose masses upon a neck of snowy whiteness; her hand,
cold and pale, rested within my own; we knelt together, not in prayer, but
a feeling of deep reverence stole over my heart, as she repeated some few
half-uttered words after me; I knew that she was mine. Oh, the ecstasy of
that moment, as, springing to my feet, I darted forward to press her to my
heart! When, suddenly, an arm was interposed between us, while a low but
solemn voice rang in my ears, “Stir not; for thou art false and traitorous,
thy vow a perjury, and thy heart a lie!” Slowly and silently the fair form
of my loved Lucy--for it was her--receded from my sight. One look, one last
look of sorrow--it was scarce reproach--fell upon me, and I sank back upon
the cold pavement, broken-hearted and forsaken.

This dream came with daybreak, and with the calm repose of evening; the
still hours of the waking night brought no other image to my eyes, and when
its sad influence had spread a gloom and desolation over my wounded heart,
a secret hope crept over me, that again the bright moment of happiness
would return, and once more beside that ancient altar I’d kneel beside my
bride, and call her mine.


For the rest, my memory retains but little; the kind looks which came
around my bedside brought but a brief pleasure, for in their affectionate
beaming I could read the gloomy prestige of my fate. The hurried but
cautious step, the whispered sentences, the averted gaze of those who
sorrowed for me, sunk far deeper into my heart than my friends then thought
of. Little do they think, who minister to the sick or dying, how each
passing word, each flitting glance is noted, and how the pale and stilly
figure which lies all but lifeless before them counts over the hours he has
to live by the smiles or tears around him!

Hours, days, weeks rolled over, and still my fate hung in the balance; and
while in the wild enthusiasm of my erring faculties, I wandered far in
spirit from my bed of suffering and pain, some well-remembered voice beside
me would strike upon my ear, bringing me back, as if by magic, to all the
realities of life, and investing my almost unconscious state with all the
hopes and fears about me.

One by one, at length, these fancies fled from me, and to the delirium of
fever succeeded the sad and helpless consciousness of illness, far, far
more depressing; for as the conviction of sense came back, the sorrowful
aspect of a dreary future came with it.




CHAPTER XIII.


THE VILLA.

The gentle twilight of an autumnal evening, calm, serene, and mellow, was
falling as I opened my eyes to consciousness of life and being, and looked
around me. I lay in a large and handsomely-furnished apartment, in which
the hand of taste was as evident in all the decorations as the unsparing
employment of wealth; the silk draperies of my bed, the inlaid tables, the
ormolu ornaments which glittered upon the chimney, were one by one so many
puzzles to my erring senses, and I opened and shut my eyes again and again,
and essayed by every means in my power to ascertain if they were not the
visionary creations of a fevered mind. I stretched out my hands to feel the
objects; and even while holding the freshly-plucked flowers in my grasp I
could scarce persuade myself that they were real. A thrill of pain at this
instant recalled me to other thoughts, and I turned my eyes upon my wounded
arm, which, swollen and stiffened, lay motionless beside me. Gradually, my
memory came back, and to my weak faculties some passages of my former
life were presented, not collectedly it is true, nor in any order, but
scattered, isolated scenes. While such thoughts flew past, my ever-rising
question to myself was, “Where am I now?” The vague feeling which illness
leaves upon the mind, whispered to me of kind looks and soft voices; and
I had a dreamy consciousness about me of being watched and cared for, but
wherefore, or by whom, I knew not.

From a partly open door which led into a garden, a mild and balmy air
fanned my temples and soothed my heated brow; and as the light curtain
waved to and fro with the breeze, the odor of the rose and the orange-tree
filled the apartment.

There is something in the feeling of weakness which succeeds to long
illness of the most delicious and refined enjoyment. The spirit emerging as
it were from the thraldom of its grosser prison, rises high and triumphant
above the meaner thoughts and more petty ambitions of daily life. Purer
feelings, more ennobling hopes succeed; and dreams of our childhood,
mingling with our promises for the future, make up an ideal existence
in which the low passions and cares of ordinary life enter not or are
forgotten. ‘Tis then we learn to hold converse with ourselves; ‘tis then we
ask how has our manhood performed the promises of its youth, or have our
ripened prospects borne out the pledges of our boyhood? ‘Tis then, in
the calm justice of our lonely hearts, we learn how our failures are but
another name for our faults, and that what we looked on as the vicissitudes
of fortune are but the fruits of our own vices. Alas, how short-lived are
such intervals! Like the fitful sunshine in the wintry sky, they throw one
bright and joyous tint over the dark landscape: for a moment the valley and
the mountain-top are bathed in a ruddy glow; the leafless tree and the dark
moss seem to feel a touch of spring; but the next instant it is past; the
lowering clouds and dark shadows intervene, and the cold blast, the moaning
wind, and the dreary waste are once more before us.

I endeavored to recall the latest events of my career, but in vain; the
real and the visionary were inextricably mingled, and the scenes of my
campaigns were blended with hopes and fears and doubts which had no
existence save in my dreams. My curiosity to know where I was grew now my
strongest feeling, and I raised myself with one arm to look around me. In
the room all was still and silent, but nothing seemed to intimate what I
sought for. As I looked, however, the wind blew back the curtain which
half-concealed the sash-door, and disclosed to me the figure of a man
seated at a table; his back was towards me, but his broad sombrero hat
and brown mantle bespoke his nation; the light blue curl of smoke
which wreathed gently upwards, and the ample display of long-necked,
straw-wrapped flasks, also attested that he was enjoying himself with true
Peninsular gusto, having probably partaken of a long siesta.

It was a perfect picture in its way of the indolent luxury of the
South,--the rich and perfumed flowers, half-closing to the night air, but
sighing forth a perfumed _buonas noches_ as they betook themselves to rest;
the slender shadows of the tall shrubs, stretching motionless across the
walks; the very attitude of the figure himself was in keeping as supported
by easy chairs he lounged at full length, raising his head ever and anon as
if to watch the wreath of eddying smoke as it rose upwards from his cigar
and melted away in the distance.

[Illustration: MR. FREE TURNED SPANIARD.]

“Yes”, thought I, as I looked for some time, “such is the very type of his
nation. Surrounded by every luxury of climate, blessed with all that earth
can offer of its best and fairest, and yet only using such gifts as mere
sensual gratifications.” Starting with this theme, I wove a whole story for
the unknown personage whom, in my wandering fancy, I began by creating
a grandee of Portugal, invested with rank honors, and riches; but who,
effeminated by the habits and usages of his country, had become the mere
idle voluptuary, living a life of easy and inglorious indolence. My further
musings were interrupted at this moment for the individual to whom I
had been so complimentary in my revery, slowly arose from his recumbent
position, flung his loose mantle carelessly across his left shoulder, and
pushing open the sash-door, entered my chamber. Directing his steps to a
large mirror, he stood for some minutes contemplating himself with what,
from his attitude, I judged to be no small satisfaction. Though his back
was still towards me, and the dim twilight of the room too uncertain to see
much, yet I could perceive that he was evidently admiring himself in the
glass. Of this fact I had soon the most complete proof; for as I looked,
he slowly raised his broad-leafed Spanish hat with an air of most imposing
pretension, and bowed reverently to himself.

“_Come sta vostra senoria?_” said he.

The whole gesture and style of this proceeding struck me as so ridiculous,
that in spite of all my efforts I could scarcely repress a laugh. He turned
quickly round and approached the bed. The deep shadow of the sombrero
darkened the upper part of his features, but I could distinguish a pair of
fierce-looking mustaches beneath, which curled upwards towards his eyes,
while a stiff point beard stuck straight from his chin. Fearing lest my
rude interruption had been overheard, I was framing some polite speech in
Portuguese, when he opened the dialogue by asking in that language how I
did.

I replied, and was about to ask some questions relative to where, and
under whose protection I then was, when my grave-looking friend, giving a
pirouette upon one leg, sent his hat flying into the air, and cried out in
a voice that not even my memory could fail to recognize,--

“By the rock of Cashel he’s cured!--he’s cured!--the fever’s over! Oh,
Master Charles, dear! oh, Master, darling, and you ain’t mad, after all?”

“Mad! no, faith! but I shrewdly suspect you must be.”

“Oh, devil a taste! But spake to me, honey; spake to me, acushla!”

“Where am I? Whose house is this? What do you mean by that disguise, that
beard--”

“Whisht, I’ll tell you all, av you have patience? But are you cured? Tell
me that first. Sure they was going to cut the arm off you, till you got out
of bed, and with your pistols, sent them flying, one out of the window and
the other down-stairs; and I bate the little chap with the saw myself till
he couldn’t know himself in the glass.”

While Mike ran on at this rate, I never took my eyes from him, and it was
all my poor faculties were equal to, to convince myself that the whole
scene was not some vision of a wandering intellect. Gradually, however, the
well-known features recalled me to myself, and as my doubts gave way at
length, I laughed long and heartily at the masquerade absurdity of his
appearance.

Mike, meanwhile, whose face expressed no small mistrust at the sincerity of
my mirth, having uncloaked himself, proceeded to lay aside his beard and
mustaches, saying, as he did so,--

“There now, darling; there now, Master, dear,--don’t be grinning that
way,--I’ll not be a Portigee any more, av you’ll be quiet and listen to
reason.”

“But, Mike, where am I? Answer me that one question.”

“You’re at home, dear; where else would you be?”

“At home?” said I, with a start, as my eye ranged over the various articles
of luxury and elegance around, so unlike the more simple and unpretending
features of my uncle’s house,--“at home?”

“Ay, just so; sure, isn’t it the same thing. It’s ould Don Emanuel that
owns it; and won’t it be your own when you’re married to that lovely
crayture herself?”

I started up, and placing my hand upon my throbbing temples, asked myself
if I were really awake, or if some flight of fancy had not carried me away
beyond the bounds of reason and sense. “Go on, go on!” said I, at length,
in a hollow voice, anxious to gather from his words something like a clew
to this mystery. “How did this happen?”

“Av ye mean how you came here, faith, it was just this way. After you got
the fever, and beat the doctors, devil a one would go near you but myself
and the major.”

“The major,--Major Monsoon?”

“No, Major Power himself. Well, he told your friends up here how it was
going very hard with you, and that you were like to die; and the same
evening they sent down a beautiful litter, as like a hearse as two peas,
for you, and brought you up here in state,--devil a thing was wanting but
a few people to raise the cry to make it as fine a funeral as ever I seen.
And sure, I set up a whillilew myself in the Black Horse Square, and the
devils only laughed at me.

“Well, you see they put you into a beautiful, elegant bed, and the young
lady herself sat down beside you, betune times fanning you with a big
fan, and then drying her eyes, for she was weeping like a waterfall. ‘Don
Miguel,’ says she to me,--for ye see, I put your cloak on by mistake when I
was leaving the quarters,--‘Don Miguel, questa hidalgo é vostro amigo?’

“‘My most particular friend,’ says I; ‘God spare him many years to be so.’

“‘Then take up your quarters here,’ says she, ‘and don’t leave him; we’ll
do everything in our power to make you comfortable.’

“‘I’m not particular,’ says I; ‘the run of the house--’

“Then this is the Villa Nuova?” said I, with a faint sigh.

“The same,” replied Mike; “and a sweet place it is for eating and
drinking,--for wine in buckets full, av ye axed for it, for dancing and
singing every evening, with as pretty craytures as ever I set eyes upon.
Upon my conscience, it’s as good as Galway; and good manners it is they
have. What’s more, none of your liberties or familiarities with strangers;
but it’s Don Miguel, devil a less. ‘Don Miguel, av it’s plazing to you to
take a drop of Xeres before your meat?’ or, ‘Would you have a shaugh of a
pipe or cigar when you’re done?’ That’s the way of it.”

“And Sir George Dashwood,” said I, “has he been here? Has he inquired for
me?”

“Every day either himself or one of the staff comes galloping up at
luncheon time to ask after you; and then they have a bit of tender
discourse with the senhora herself. Oh, devil a bit need ye fear them,
she’s true blue; and it isn’t the major’s fault,--upon my conscience it
isn’t,--for he does be coming the blarney over her in beautiful style.”

“Does Miss Dashwood ever visit here?” said I, with a voice faltering and
uncertain enough to have awakened suspicion in a more practised observer.

“Never once; and that’s what I call unnatural behavior, after you saving
her life; and if she wasn’t--”

“Be silent, I say.”

“Well, well, there, I won’t say any more; and sure it’s time for me to be
putting on my beard again. I’m going to the Casino with Catrina, and sure
it’s with real ladies I might be going av it wasn’t for Major Power, that
told them I wasn’t a officer; but it’s all right again. I gave them a great
history of the Frees from the time of Cuilla na Toole, that was one of the
family and a cousin of Moses, I believe; and they behave well to one that
comes from an ould stock.”

“Don Miguel! Don Miguel!” said a voice from the garden.

“I’m coming, my angel! I’m coming, my turtle-dove!” said Mike, arranging
his mustaches and beard with amazing dexterity. “Ah, but it would do your
heart good av you could take a peep at us about twelve o’clock, dancing
‘Dirty James’ for a bolero, and just see Miss Catrina, the lady’s maid,
doing ‘cover the buckle’ as neat as Nature. There now, there’s the lemonade
near your hand, and I’ll leave you the lamp, and you may go asleep as soon
as you please, for Miss Inez won’t come in to-night to play the guitar, for
the doctor said it might do you harm now.”

So saying, and before I could summon presence of mind to ask another
question, Don Miguel wrapped himself in the broad folds of his Spanish
cloak, and strode from the room with the air of an hidalgo.

I slept but little that night; the full tide of memory, rushing in upon me,
brought back the hour of my return to Lisbon and the wreck of all my hopes,
which from the narrative of my servant I now perceived to be complete. I
dare not venture upon recording how many plans suggested themselves to my
troubled spirit, and were in turn rejected. To meet Lucy Dashwood; to make
a full and candid declaration; to acknowledge that flirtation alone with
Donna Inez (a mere passing, boyish flirtation) had given the coloring to
my innocent passion, and that in heart and soul I was hers, and hers
only,--this was my first resolve; but alas! if I had not courage to sustain
a common interview, to meet her in the careless crowd of a drawing-room,
what could I do under circumstances like these? Besides, the matter would
be cut very short by her coolly declaring that she had neither right nor
inclination to listen to such a declaration. The recollection of her look
as she passed me to her carriage came flashing across my brain and decided
this point. No, no! I’ll not encounter that; however appearances for the
moment had been against me, she should not have treated me thus coldly and
disdainfully. It was quite clear she had never cared for me,--wounded pride
had been her only feeling; and so as I reasoned I ended by satisfying
myself that in that quarter all was at end forever.

Now then for dilemma number two, I thought. The senhora, my first impulse
was one of anything but gratitude to her by whose kind, tender care my
hours of pain and suffering had been soothed and alleviated. But for her,
I should have been spared all my present embarrassment, all my shipwrecked
fortunes; but for her I should now be the aide-de-camp residing in Sir
George Dashwood’s own house, meeting with Lucy every hour of the day,
dining beside her, riding out with her, pressing my suit by every means and
with every advantage of my position; but for her and her dark eyes--and,
by-the-bye, what eyes they are! how full of brilliancy, yet how teeming
with an expression of soft and melting sweetness; and her mouth, too,
how perfectly chiselled those full lips,--how different from the cold,
unbending firmness of Miss Dashwood’s! Not but I have seen Lucy smile too,
and what a sweet smile! How it lighted up her fair cheek, and made her blue
eyes darken and deepen till they looked like heaven’s own vault. Yes, there
is more poetry in a blue eye. But still Inez is a very lovely girl, and
her foot never was surpassed. She is a coquette, too, about that foot and
ankle,--I rather like a woman to be so. What a sensation she would make in
England; how she would be the rage! And then I thought of home and Galway,
and the astonishment of some, the admiration of others, as I presented her
as my wife,--the congratulations of my friends, the wonder of the men, the
tempered envy of the women. Methought I saw my uncle, as he pressed her in
his arms, say, “Yes, Charley, this is a prize worth campaigning for.”

The stray sounds of a guitar which came from the garden broke in upon my
musings at this moment. It seemed as if a finger was straying heedlessly
across the strings. I started up, and to my surprise perceived it was Inez.
Before I had time to collect myself, a gentle tap at the window aroused me;
it opened softly, while from an unseen hand a bouquet of fresh flowers was
thrown upon my bed. Before I could collect myself to speak, the sash closed
again and I was alone.




CHAPTER XIV.


THE VISIT.

Mike’s performances at the masquerade had doubtless been of the most
distinguished character, and demanded a compensating period of repose, for
he did not make his appearance the entire morning. Towards noon, however,
the door from the garden gently opened, and I heard a step upon the stone
terrace, and something which sounded to my ears like the clank of a sabre.
I lifted my head, and saw Fred Power beside me.

I shall spare my readers the recital of my friend, which, however, more
full and explanatory of past events, contained in reality little more than
Mickey Free had already told me. In fine, he informed me that our army, by
a succession of retreating movements, had deserted the northern provinces,
and now occupied the intrenched lines of Torres Vedras. That Massena, with
a powerful force, was still in march, reinforcements daily pouring in
upon him, and every expectation pointing to the probability that he would
attempt to storm our position.

“The wise-heads,” remarked Power, “talk of our speedy embarkation, the
sanguine and the hot-brained rave of a great victory and the retreat of
Massena; but I was up at headquarters last week with despatches, and saw
Lord Wellington myself.”

“Well, what did you make out? Did he drop any hint of his own views?”

“Faith, I can’t say he did. He asked me some questions about the troops
just landed; he spoke a little of the commissary department, damned the
blankets, said that green forage was bad food for the artillery horses,
sent me an English paper to read about the O. P. riots, and said the
harriers would throw off about six o’clock, and that he hoped to see me at
dinner.”

I could not restrain a laugh at Power’s catalogue of his lordship’s topics.
“So,” said I, “he at least does not take any gloomy views of our present
situation.”

“Who can tell what he thinks? He’s ready to fight if fighting will do
anything, and to retreat, if that be better. But that he’ll sleep an hour
less, or drink a glass of claret more--come what will of it--I’ll believe
from no man living.

“We’ve lost one gallant thing in any case, Charley,” resumed Power. “Busaco
was, I’m told, a glorious day, and our people were in the heat of it. So
that, if we do leave the Peninsula now, that will be a confounded chagrin.
Not for you, my poor fellow, for you could not stir; but I was so cursed
foolish to take the staff appointment,--thus one folly ever entails
another.”

There was a tone of bitterness in which these words were uttered that left
no doubt upon my mind some _arrière pensée_ remained lurking behind them.
My eyes met his; he bit his lip, and coloring deeply, rose from the chair,
and walked towards the window.

The chance allusion of my man Mike flashed upon me at the moment, and I
dared not trust myself to break silence. I now thought I could trace in my
friend’s manner less of that gay and careless buoyancy which ever marked
him. There was a tone, it seemed, of more gra

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/8674