"A LAY OF LOVE FOR LADY BRIGHT."
Lisbon was doubtless as rich in abominations now as it was a year after, without any other redeeming virtue, which is a very ugly commencement to a tale of love; but having landed my reader a second time at the same place, I am anxious to relieve him from the fear of being treated to a second edition of the same story, and to assure him that my head-piece has been some time charged with fresh ammunition and I mean to discharge it now, to prevent its getting rusty. I intend to fight those battles only that I never fought before, galloping over the ground lightly, and merely halting to give a little of my conversation, such as it is, whenever I have anything new to tell; and as I have no idea of enduring the fatigues of the march to Talavera, nor the pleasures of fattening on the dinners of chopped straw which followed it, I shall leave my regiment to its fate until its return to the north of Portugal, and take advantage of the repose it affords to make my editorial bow with all due deference to my fair and lovely readers, to express my joy that I have been once more enabled to put myself in communion with them, and to assure them of my continued unbounded love and admiration, for I feel and have ever felt that the man who gave frailty the name of woman was a blockhead, and must have been smarting under some unsuccessful bit of the tender, for I have met her in the bower and in the battle, and have ever found her alike admirable in both! That old fool Shakspeare, too, having only a man's courage to meet a sprite with! Had he but told Macbeth to dare as woman dared, he would have seen the ghost of Banquo vanish into the witches' kettle in the twinkling of a wheelbarrow; for although I have never seen a woman kick the bucket, I have certainly seen her kick every thing else, and in fact there is nothing in the heroics that I have not seen her do. See her again when she descends into herself, and it is very odd if I have not seen her there too! for no man has ever been so often or so deep in love as I have—my poor heart has been lacerated, torn, and finally scorched until it is withered up like a roasted potato with scarcely the size of a kiss left.
How it was that I did not find myself dangling at a door-post by the end of a silk handkerchief some odd morning is to me astonishing, but here I am, living and loving still as fondly as ever. Prudence at this moment whispers that I have said enough for the present, for if I go on making love so fiercely thus early in the day, I shall be forced to marry the whole sex and bring my book to a premature conclusion, for which posterity would never forgive me. I must therefore for the present take a most reluctant leave, with a promise of renewing my courtship from time to time as opportunities offer, if they will but good-naturedly follow me through the various scenes into which I am about to conduct them; and while I do my best to amuse them by the way, should I unintentionally dive so deeply into the pathetic as to beguile them of a tear, let me recommend them to wipe it away, for it is only their smiles I court.
While on the way to join the light division on the northern frontier, I shall take the opportunity of introducing the reader to their celebrated commander, the late Major-General Robert Crawfurd, an officer who, for a length of time, was better known than liked, but like many a gem of purer ray his value was scarcely known until lost.
[CHAP. IV.]
Shewing how generals may descend upon particulars with a cat-o'-nine tails. Some extra Tales added. Historical, Comical, and Warlike all.
Crawfurd was no common character. He, like a gallant cotemporary of his, was not born to be a great general, but he certainly was a distinguished one,—the history of his division and the position which he held beyond the Coa in 1810, attest the fact. He had neither judgement, temper, nor discretion to fit him for a chief, and as a subordinate he required to be held with a tight rein, but his talents as a general of division were nevertheless of the first order. He received the three British regiments under his command, finished by the hands of a master in the art, Sir John Moore, and, as regiments, they were faultless; but to Crawfurd belonged the chief merit of making them the war brigade which they became, alike the admiration of their friends and foes. How he made them so I am about to show, but how such another is to be made now that his system has fallen into disrepute, will be for futurity to determine.
I think I see a regiment of those writers who are just now taking the cat by the tail, parading for a day's march under that immortal chief—that he furnishes them with an ink-bottle for a canteen, fills their knapsacks with foolscap, their mouths with mouldy biscuit, and starts them off with sloped pens. They go along with the buoyancy of a corps of reporters reconnoitring for a memorandum, and they very quickly catch one and a Tartar to the bargain, for the monotony of the road is relieved by the crossing of a fine broad stream, and over the stream is a very fine plank to preserve the polish of Warren's jet on the feet of the pedestrian—they all jump gaily towards the plank, but they are pulled up by a grim gentleman with a drawn sword, who, with a voice of thunder, desires them to keep their ranks and march through the stream. Well! this is all mighty pleasant, but now that they are up to their middles in the water, there surely can be no harm in stopping half a minute to lave a few handfuls of it into their parched mouths. I think I see the astonishment of their editorial nerves when they find a dozen lashes well bestowed a posteriori upon each, by way of their further refreshment and clearing off scores for that portion of the day's work (for the General was a man who gave no credit on those occasions). He had borrowed a leaf from the history of the land-crabs, and suffered neither mire nor water to disturb the order of his march with impunity.
Now I daresay he would have had to flog an editor a dozen times before he had satisfied him that it was to his advantage; but a soldier is open to conviction, and such was the manner of making one of the finest and most effective divisions that that or any other army ever saw.
Where soldiers are to be ruled, there is more logic in nine tails of a cat than in the mouths of a hundred orators; it requires very little argument to prove, and I'll defy the most eloquent preacher, (with the unknown tongue to boot,) to persuade a regiment to ford a river where there is a bridge to conduct them over dry-shod, or to prevent them drinking when they are in that river if they happen to feel thirsty, let him promise them what he will as a reward for their obedience. It is like preaching to his own flock on the subject of their eternal welfare (and I make the comparison with all due reverence); they would all gladly arrive at the end he aims at, but at the same time how few will take the necessary steps to do so, and how many prefer their momentary present enjoyment? So it was with the soldiers, but with this difference, that Crawfurd's cat forced them to take the right road whether they would or no, and the experiment once made carried conviction with it, that the comfort of every individual in the division materially depended on the rigid exaction of his orders, for he shewed that on every ordinary march he made it a rule to halt for a few minutes every third or fourth mile, (dependent on the vicinity of water,) that every soldier carried a canteen capable of containing two quarts, and that if he only took the trouble to fill it before starting, and again, if necessary, at every halt, it contained more than he would or ought to drink in the interim; and that therefore every pause he made in a river for the purpose of drinking was disorderly, because a man stopping to drink delayed the one behind him proportionately longer, and so on progressively to the rear of the column.
In like manner the filing past dirty or marshy parts of the road in place of marching boldly through them or filing over a plank or narrow bridge in place of taking the river with the full front of their column in march, he proved to demonstration on true mathematical principles, that with the numbers of those obstacles usually encountered on a day's march, it made a difference of several hours in their arrival at their bivouac for the night. That in indulging by the way, they were that much longer labouring under their load of arms, ammunition, and necessaries, besides bringing them to their bivouac in darkness and discomfort; it very likely, too, got them thoroughly drenched with rain, when the sole cause of their delay had been to avoid a partial wetting, which would have been long since dried while seated at ease around their camp-fires; and if this does not redeem Crawfurd and his cat, I give it up.
The general and his divisional code, as already hinted at, was at first much disliked; probably, he enforced it, in the first instance, with unnecessary severity, and it was long before those under him could rid themselves of that feeling of oppression which it had inculcated upon their minds. It is due, however, to the memory of the gallant general to say that punishment for those disorders was rarely necessary after the first campaign; for the system, once established, went on like clock-work, and the soldiers latterly became devotedly attached to him; for while he exacted from them the most rigid obedience, he was, on his own part, keenly alive to every thing they had a right to expect from him in return, and woe befel the commissary who failed to give a satisfactory reason for any deficiencies in his issues. It is stated that one of them went to the commander-in-chief to complain that he had been unable to procure bread for the light division, and that General Crawfurd had threatened that if they were not supplied within a given time, he would put him in the guard-house. "Did he?" said his lordship; "then I would recommend you to find the bread, for if he said so, by ——, he'll do it!"
Having in this chapter flogged every man who had any shadow of claim to such a distinction, I shall now proceed and place myself along with my regiment to see that they prove themselves worthy of the pains taken in their instruction.
From the position which the light division then held, their commander must have been fully satisfied in his own mind that their military education had not been neglected, for certes it required every man to be furnished with a clear head, a bold heart, and a clean pair of heels—all three being liable to be put in requisition at any hour by day or night. It was no place for reefing topsails and making all snug, but one which required the crew to be constantly at quarters; for, unlike their nautical brethren, the nearer a soldier's shoulders are to the rocks the less liable he is to be wrecked—and there they had more than enough of play in occupying a front of twenty-five miles with that small division and some cavalry. The chief of the 1st German hussars meeting our commandant one morning, "Well, Colonel," says the gallant German in broken English, "how you do?" "O, tolerably well, thank you, considering that I am obliged to sleep with one eye open." "By Gott," says the other, "I never sleeps at all."
Colonel Beckwith at this time held the pass of Barba del Puerco with four companies of the Rifles, and very soon experienced the advantage of having an eye alive, for he had some active neighbours on the opposite side of the river who had determined to beat up his quarters by way of ascertaining the fact.
The Padrè of the village, it appeared, was a sort of vicar of Bray, who gave information to both sides so long as accounts remained pretty equally balanced between them, but when the advance of the French army for the subjugation of Portugal became a matter of certainty, he immediately chose that which seemed to be the strongest, and it was not ours.
The Padrè was a famous hand over a glass of grog, and where amusements were so scarce, it was good fun for our youngsters to make a Padrè glorious, which they took every opportunity of doing; and as is not unusual with persons in that state, (laymen as well as Padrès,) he invariably fancied himself the only sober man of the party, so that the report was conscientiously given when he went over to the French General Ferey, who commanded the division opposite, and staked his reputation as a Padrè, that the English officers in his village were in the habit of getting blind drunk every night, and that he had only to march over at midnight to secure them almost without resistance.
Ferey was a bold enterprising soldier, (I saw his body in death after the battle of Salamanca); he knew to a man the force of the English in the village, and probably did not look upon the attempt as very desperate were they even at their posts ready to receive him; but as the chances seemed to be in favour of every enemy's head being "nailed to his pillow," the opportunity was not to be resisted, and accordingly, at midnight on the 19th of March, he assembled his force silently at the end of the bridge. The shadows of the rocks which the rising moon had just cast over the place prevented their being seen, and the continuous roar of the mountain torrent, which divided them, prevented their being heard even by our double sentry posted at the other end of the bridge within a few yards of them. Leaving a powerful support to cover his retreat in the event of a reverse, Ferey at the head of six hundred chosen grenadiers burst forth so silently and suddenly, that, of our double sentry on the bridge, the one was taken and the other bayonetted without being able to fire off their pieces. A sergeant's party higher up among the rocks had just time to fire off as an alarm, and even the remainder of the company on picquet under O'Hare had barely time to jump up and snatch their rifles when the enemy were among them. O'Hare's men, however, though borne back and unable to stop them for an instant, behaved nobly, retiring in a continued hand-to-hand personal encounter with their foes to the top of the pass, when the remaining companies under Sidney Beckwith having just started from their sleep, rushed forward to their support, and with a thundering discharge, tumbled the attacking column into the ravine below, where, passing the bridge under cover of the fire of their supporting body, they resumed their former position, minus a considerable number of their best and bravest. The colonel, while urging the fight, observed a Frenchman within a yard or two, taking deliberate aim at his head. Stooping suddenly down and picking up a stone, he immediately shyed it at him, calling him at the same time a "scoundrel, to get out of that." It so far distracted the fellow's attention that while the gallant Beckwith's cap was blown to atoms, the head remained untouched.
The whole concern was but the affair of a few minutes, but we nevertheless looked upon it as no inconsiderable addition to our regimental feather, for the appointed alarm post of one of the companies had carried it to a place where it happened that they were not wanted, so that there were but three companies actually engaged; and therefore with something less than half their numbers they had beaten off six hundred of the élite of the French army. But our chief pride arose from its being the first and last night-attempt which the enemy ever made to surprise a British post in that army.
Of the worthy pastor I never heard more—I know not whether the bold Ferey paid the price of the information he had brought, in gold, or with an ounce of lead; but certain it is that his flock were without ghostly consolation during the remainder of our sojourn—not that it was much sought after at that particular time, for the village damsels had already begun running up a score of peccadillos, and it was of little use attempting to wipe it out until the final departure of their heretical visitors.
Among the wounded who were left on the field by the enemy, there was a French sergeant whom I have often heard our officers speak of with much admiration—he was a fine handsome young fellow, alike romantic in his bravery, and in devotion to his emperor and his country—he had come on with the determination to conquer or to die, and having failed in the first, he seemed resolved not to be balked in the other, which a ball through a bad part of the thigh had placed him in the high road for, and he, therefore, resisted every attempt to save him, with the utmost indignation, claiming it as a matter of right to be allowed to die on the field where he had fallen. Our good, honest, rough diamonds, however, who were employed in collecting the wounded, were equally determined that the point in dispute should only be settled between him and the doctor in the proper place, and accordingly they shouldered him off to the hospital whether he would or no. But even there he continued as untameable as a hyena—his limb was in such a state that nothing but amputation could save his life—yet nothing would induce him to consent to it—he had courage to endure any thing, but nothing could reconcile him to receive any thing but blows from his enemies. I forget how, or in what way, the amputation of the limb was at length accomplished. To the best of my recollection death had already laid a hand upon him, and it was done while he was in a state of insensibility. But be that as it may, it was done, and the danger and the fit of heroics having travelled with the departed limb, he lived to thank his preservers for the brotherly kindness he had experienced at their hands, and took a grateful and affectionate farewell of them when his health was sufficiently restored to permit his being removed to the care of his countrymen.
Shortly after this affair at Barba del Puerco the French army under Massena came down upon Ciudad Rodrigo, preparatory to the invasion of Portugal, and obliged the light division to take up a more concentrated position.
It is not my intention to take notice of the movements of the army further than is necessary to illustrate the anecdotes I relate; but I cannot, on this occasion, resist borrowing a leaf out of Napier's admirable work, to shew the remarkable state of discipline which those troops had been brought to—for while I have no small portion of personal vanity to gratify in recording the fact of my having been for many years after an associate in all the enterprises of that gallant band, I consider it more particularly a duty which every military writer owes to posterity, (be his pretensions great or humble,) to shew what may be effected in that profession by diligence and perseverance.
The light division, and the cavalry attached to it, was at this period so far in advance of every other part of the army that their safety depended on themselves alone, for they were altogether beyond the reach of human aid—their force consisted of about four thousand infantry, twelve hundred cavalry, and a brigade of horse artillery—and yet with this small force did Crawfurd, trusting to his own admirable arrangements, and the surprising discipline of his troops, maintain a position which was no position, for three months, within an hour's march of six thousand horsemen, and two hours' march from sixty thousand infantry, of a brave, experienced, and enterprising enemy, who was advancing in the confidence of certain victory.
Napier says, "His situation demanded a quickness and intelligence in the troops, the like of which has seldom been known. Seven minutes sufficed for the division to get under arms in the middle of the night, and a quarter of an hour, night or day, to bring it in order of battle to the alarm posts, with the baggage loaded and assembled at a convenient distance in the rear. And this not upon a concerted signal, or as a trial, but at all times, and certain!"
"In peace love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war he mounts the warrior's steed."
And thus, in humble imitation of her master-man, did Mother Coleman, one fine morning, mount her donkey, and join her French lover to war against her lord.
While the troops of the light division, as already noticed, were strutting about with the consciousness of surpassing excellence, menacing and insulting a foe for which their persons' knapsacks and all would barely have sufficed for a luncheon—a dish of mortification was served up for those of our corps, by the hands of their better half, which was not easy of digestion. To speak of the wife of a regiment is so very unusual as to imply that she must have been some very great personage—and without depriving her of the advantage of such a magnificent idea, I shall only say that she was the only wife they had got—for they landed at Lisbon with eleven hundred men and only one woman.
By what particular virtues she had attained such a dignified position among them, I never clearly made out, further than that she had arrived at years of discretion, was what is commonly called a useful woman, and had seen some service. She was the wife of a sturdy German, who plyed in the art of shoemaking, whenever his duties in the field permitted him to resort to that species of amusement, so that it appeared that she had beauty enough to captivate a cobbler, she had money enough to command the services of a jackass, and finally she proved she had wit enough to sell us all, which she did the first favourable opportunity—for, after plying for some months at the tail of her donkey at the tail of the regiment, and fishing in all the loose dollars which were floating about in gentlemen's pockets, (by those winning ways which ladies know so well how to use when such favourable opportunities offer,) she finally bolted off to the enemy, bag and baggage, carrying away old Coleman's all and awl.
It was one of those French leave-takings which man is heir to, but we eventually got over it, under the deepest obligation all the time for the sympathy manifested by our friends of the 43d and 52d.
The movements of the enemy were at length unshackled by the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo, after a desperate defence, which gave immortal glory to its old governor Herrasti, and his brave Spanish garrison—and although it may appear that I am saying one word in honour of the Spaniards for the purpose of giving two to the British, yet my feelings are too national to permit me to pass over a fact which redounds so much to the glory of our military history—namely, that in this, the year 1810, the French were six weeks in wresting from the Spaniards the same fortress which we, in the year 1812, carried, with fire and sword, out of the hands of the French in eleven days!
Now that the enemy's movements were unshackled, the cloud, which for months had been gathering over Portugal, began to burst—and, sharp as Crawfurd and his division looked before, it now behoved them to look somewhat sharper. Had he acted in conformity with his instructions, he had long ere this been behind the Coa, but deeply enamoured of his separate command as ever youth was of his mistress, he seemed resolved that nothing but force should part them; and having gradually given ground, as necessity compelled, the 23d of July found him with his back on the river, and his left resting on the fortress of Almeida, determined to abide a battle, with about five thousand men of all arms to oppose the whole French army.
I shall leave to abler pens the description of the action that followed, and which (as might have been foreseen, while it was highly honourable to the officers and troops engaged) ended in their being driven across the Coa with a severe loss. My business is with a youth who had the day before joined the division. The history of his next day's adventure has beguiled me of many a hearty laugh, and although I despair of being able to communicate it to my readers with any thing like the humour with which I received it from an amiable and gallant friend, yet I cannot resist giving it such as it rests on my remembrance.
Mr. Rogers, as already stated, had, the day before, arrived from England, as an officer of one of the civil departments attached to the light division, and as might be expected on finding himself all at once up with the outposts of the army, he was full of curiosity and excitement. Equipped in a huge cocked hat, and a hermaphrodite sort of scarlet coat, half military and half civil, he was dancing about with his budget of inquiries, when chance threw him in the way of the gallant and lamented Jock Mac Culloch, at the time a lieutenant in the Rifles, and who was in the act of marching off a company to relieve one of the picquets for the night.
Mac Culloch, full of humour, seeing the curiosity of the fresh arrival, said, "Come, Rogers, my boy, come along with me, you shall share my beefsteak, you shall share my boat-cloak, and it will go hard with me but you shall see a Frenchman, too, before we part in the morning."
The invitation was not to be resisted, and away went Rogers on the spur of the moment.
The night turned out a regular Tam o'Shanter's night, or, if the reader pleases, a Wellington night, for it is a singular fact that almost every one of his battles was preceded by such a night;—the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and all the fire-engines in the world seemed playing upon the lightning, and the devoted heads of those exposed to it. It was a sort of night that was well calculated to be a damper to a bolder spirit than the one whose story I am relating; but he, nevertheless, sheltered himself as he best could, under the veteran's cloak, and put as good a face upon it as circumstances would permit.
As usual, an hour before day-break, Mac Culloch, resigning the boat-cloak to his dosing companion, stood to his arms, to be ready for whatever changes daylight might have in store for him: nor had he to wait long, for day had just begun to dawn when the sharp crack from the rifle of one of the advanced sentries announced the approach of the enemy, and he had just time to counsel his terrified bedfellow to make the best of his way back to the division, while he himself awaited to do battle. Nor had he much time for preparation, for, as Napier says, "Ney, seeing Crawfurd's false dispositions, came down upon them with the stoop of an eagle. Four thousand horsemen, and a powerful artillery, swept the plain, and Loison's division coming up at a charging pace, made towards the centre and left of the position." Mac Culloch, almost instantly, received several bad sabre wounds, and, with five-and-twenty of his men, was taken prisoner.
Rogers, it may be believed, lost no time in following the salutary counsel he had received with as clever a pair of heels as he could muster. The enemy's artillery had by this time opened, and, as the devil would have it, the cannon-balls were travelling the same road, and tearing up the ground on each side of him almost as regularly as if it had been a ploughing match. Poor Rogers was thus placed in a situation which fully justified him in thinking, as most young soldiers do, that every ball was aimed at himself. He was half distracted; it was certain death to stop where he was, neither flank offered him the smallest shelter, and he had not wind enough left in his bellows to clear the tenth part of the space between him and comparative safety; but, where life is at stake, the imagination is fertile, and it immediately occurred to him that by dowsing the cocked hat he would make himself a less conspicuous object; clapping it, accordingly under his arm, he continued his frightful career, with the feelings of a maniac and the politeness of a courtier, for to every missile that passed he bowed as low as his racing attitude would permit, in ignorance that the danger had passed along with it, performing, to all appearance, a continued rotatory sort of evolution, as if the sails of a windmill had parted from the building, and continued their course across the plain, to the utter astonishment of all who saw him. At length, when exhausted nature could not have carried him twenty yards further, he found himself among some skirmishers of the 3d Caçadores, and within a few yards of a rocky ridge, rising out of the ground, the rear of which seemed to offer him the long-hoped-for opportunity of recovering his wind, and he sheltered himself accordingly.
This happened to be the first occasion in which the Caçadores had been under fire; they had the highest respect for the bravery of their British officers, and had willingly followed where their colonel had led; but having followed him into the field, they did not see why they should not follow another out of it, and when they saw a red coat take post behind a rock, they all immediately rushed to take advantage of the same cover. Poor Rogers had not, therefore, drawn his first breath when he found himself surrounded by these Portuguese warriors, nor had he drawn a second before their colonel (Sir George Elder) rode furiously at him with his drawn sword, exclaiming "who are you, you scoundrel, in the uniform of a British officer, setting an example of cowardice to my men? get out of that instantly, or I'll cut you down!"
Rogers's case was desperate—he had no breath left to explain that he had no pretensions to the honour of being an officer, for he would have been cut down in the act of attempting it: he was, therefore, once more forced to start for another heat with the round shot, and, like a hunted devil, got across the bridge, he knew not how; but he was helm up for England the same day, and the army never saw him more.
General Crawfurd's conduct in the affair alluded to, would argue that his usual soldier-like wits had gone a wool-gathering for the time being—he had, in fact, like a moth, been fluttering so long with impunity around a consuming power that he had at length lost all sense of the danger. But even then it is impossible to conceive upon what principle he took up the position he did—for, in the first place, it was in direct defiance of Lord Wellington's orders; and had the river behind him been flowing with milk and honey, or had the rugged bank on which he was posted been built of loaves and fishes, it would scarcely have justified him in running the risk he did to preserve the sweets; but as the one was flooded with muddy water, and the other only bearing a crop of common stones, and when we consider, too, that the simple passing of the river would have made a hundred of his troops equal to a thousand of the invaders, we must continue lost in wonder.
It is difficult to imagine, however, that he ever contemplated the possibility of stopping the French army but for the moment. Confiding, probably, in the superiority of his troops, he had calculated on successfully repelling their first attack, and that having thus taught them the respect that was due to him, he might then have made a triumphant retreat to the opposite bank, where, for a time, he could safely have offered them further defiance.
If such was his object, (and it is the only plausible one I can find,) he had altogether overlooked that for a man with one pair of arms to grapple with another who had ten, it must rest with the ten-pair man to say when the play is over, for although the one-pair man may disable an equal number in his front, there are still nine pair left to poke him in the sides and all round about; and thus the general found it; for having once exposed himself to such overwhelming numbers, there was no getting out of it but at a large sacrifice—and but for the experience, the confidence, and the devotion of the different individual battalion officers, seconded by the gallantry of the soldiers, the division had been utterly annihilated. Napier, as an eye-witness, states, (what I have often heard repeated by other officers who were there,) that "there was no room to array the line, no time for any thing but battle, every captain carried off his company as an independent body, and joining as he could with the ninety-fifth or fifty-second, the whole presented a mass of skirmishers acting in small parties, and under no regular command, yet each confident in the courage and discipline of those on his right and left, and all regulating their movements by a common discretion, and keeping together with surprising vigour."
The result of the action was a loss on the British portion of the division of two hundred and seventy-two, including twenty-eight officers, killed, wounded, and taken.
It is curious to observe by what singular interpositions of Providence the lives of individuals are spared. One of our officers happening to have a pocket-volume of Gil Blas, was in the middle of one of his interesting stories when the action commenced. Not choosing to throw it away, he thrust it into the breast of his jacket for want of a better place, and in the course of the day it received a musket-ball which had been meant for a more tender subject. The volume was afterwards, of course, treated as a tried friend.
Having, in one of the foregoing pages, introduced the name of Mac Culloch in a prominent part of the action, I must be forgiven for taking this opportunity of following him to the end of his highly honourable earthly career.
John Mac Culloch was from Scotland, (a native, I believe, of Kirkudbright;) he was young, handsome, athletic, and active; with the meekness of a lamb, he had the heart of a lion, and was the delight of every one. At the time I first became acquainted with him he had been several years in the regiment, and had shared in all the vicissitudes of the restless life they then led. I brought him under the notice of the reader in marching off to relieve the advanced picquet on the night prior to the action of the Coa.
For the information of those who are unacquainted with military matters, I may as well mention that the command of an outline picquet is never an enviable one—it is a situation at all times dangerous and open to disgrace, but seldom to honour—for come what may, in the event of an attack spiritedly made, the picquet is almost sure to go to the wall. From the manner in which the French approached on the occasion referred to, it may readily be imagined that my gallant friend had but little chance of escape—it was, therefore, only left to him to do his duty as an officer under the circumstances in which he was placed. He gave the alarm, and he gave his visitors as warm a reception as his fifty rifles could provide for them, while he gallantly endeavoured to fight his way back to his battalion, but the attempt was hopeless; the cavalry alone of the enemy ought to have been more than enough to sweep the whole of the division off the face of the earth—and Mac Culloch's small party had no chance; they were galloped into, and he, himself, after being lanced and sabred in many places, was obliged to surrender.
Mac Culloch refused to give his parole, in the hope of being able to effect his escape before he reached the French frontier; he was, therefore, marched along with the men a close prisoner as far as Valladolid, where fortune, which ever favours the brave, did not fail him. The escort had found it necessary to halt there for some days, and Mac Culloch having gained the goodwill of his conductor, was placed in a private house under proper security, as they thought; but in this said house there happened to be a young lady, and of what avail are walls of brass, bolts, bars, or iron doors, when a lady is concerned? She quickly put herself in communion with the handsome prisoner—made herself acquainted with his history, name, and country, and as quickly communicated it, as well as her plans for his escape, to a very worthy countryman of his, at that time a professor in one of the universities there. Need I say more than that before many hours had passed over his head, he found himself equipped in the costume of a Spanish peasant, the necessary quantity of dollars in his pocket, and a kiss on each cheek burning hot from the lips of his preserver, on the high road to rejoin his battalion, where he arrived in due course of time, to the great joy of every body—Lord Wellington himself was not the least delighted of the party, and kindly invited him to dine with him that day, in the costume in which he had arrived.
Mac Culloch continued to serve with us until Massena's retreat from Portugal, when, in a skirmish which took place on the evening of the 15th of March, 1811, I, myself, got a crack on the head which laid me under a tree, with my understanding considerably bothered for the night, and I was sorry to find, as my next neighbour, poor Mac Culloch, with an excruciatingly painful and bad wound in the shoulder joint, which deprived him of the use of one arm for life, and obliged him to return to England for the recovery of health.
In the meantime, by the regular course of promotion, he received his company, which transferred him to the 2d battalion, and, serving with it at the battle of Waterloo, he lost his sound arm by one of the last shots that was fired in that bloody field.
As soon as he had recovered from this last wound he rejoined us in Paris, and, presenting himself before the Duke of Wellington in his usual straightforward manly way, said, "Here I am, my Lord; I have no longer an arm left to wield for my country, but I still wish to be allowed to serve it as I best can!" The Duke duly appreciated the diamond before him, and as there were several captains in the regiment senior to Mac Culloch, his Grace, with due regard to their feelings, desired the commanding officer to ascertain whether they would not consider it a cause of complaint if Mac Culloch were recommended for a brevet majority, as it was out of his power to do it for every one, and, to the honour of all concerned, there was not a dissentient voice. He, therefore, succeeded to the brevet, and was afterwards promoted to a majority, I think, in a veteran battalion.
He was soon after on a visit in London, living at a hotel, when one afternoon he was taken suddenly ill; the feeling to him was an unusual one, and he immediately sent for a physician, and told him that he cared not for the consequences, but insisted on having his candid opinion on his case.
The medical man accordingly told him at once that his case was an extraordinary one—that he might within an hour or two recover from it, or within an hour or two he might be no more.
Mac Culloch, with his usual coolness, gave a few directions as to the future, and calmly awaited the result, which terminated fatally within the time predicted—and thus perished, in the prime of life, the gallant Mac Culloch, who was alike an honour to his country and his profession.
[CHAP. V.]
The paying of a French compliment, which will be repaid in a future chapter. A fierce attack upon hairs. A niece compliment, and lessons gratis to untaught sword-bearers.
After the action of the Coa the enemy quickly possessed themselves of the fortress of Almeida, when there remained nothing between Massena and his kingdom but the simple article of Lord Wellington's army, of which he calculated he would be able to superintend the embarkation within the time requisite for his infantry to march to Lisbon. He therefore put his legions in motion to pay his distinguished adversary that last mark of respect.
The Wellingtonians retired slowly before them shewing their teeth as often as favourable opportunities offered, and several bitter bites they gave before they turned at bay—first on the heights of Busaco, and finally and effectually on those of Torres Vedras.
The troops of all arms composing the rear guard conducted themselves admirably throughout the whole of that retreat, for although the enemy did not press them so much as they might have done, yet they were at all times in close contact, and many times in actual combat, and it was impossible to say which was the most distinguished—the splendid service of the horse artillery, the dashing conduct of the dragoons, or the unconquerable steadiness and bravery of the infantry.
It was a sort of military academy which is not open for instruction every day in the year, nor was it one which every fond mamma would choose to send her darling boy to, calculated although it was to lead to immortal honours. A youngster (if he did not stop a bullet by the way) might commence his studies in such a place with nothing but "the soft down peeping through the white skin," and be entitled to the respect due to a beard or a bald head before he saw the end of it.
It is curious to remark how fashions change and how the change affects the valour of the man too. The dragoon since the close of the war has worn all his hair below the head and none on the top it, and how fiercely he fought in defence of his whiskers the other day when some of the regiments were ordered to be shaved, as if the debility of Samson was likely to be the result of the operation. My stars! but I should be glad to know what the old royal heavies or fourteenth and sixteenth lights cared about hairs at the period I speak of, when with their bare faces they went boldly in and bearded muzzles that seemed fenced with furze bushes; and while it was "damned be he who first cries hold—enough!" they did hold enough too, sometimes bringing in every man his bird, mustachoes and all. In those days they seemed to put more faith in their good right hand than in a cart-load of whiskers, for with it and their open English countenances they carved for themselves a name as British dragoons, which they were too proud to barter for any other.
Every attempt at rearing a moustache among the British in those days was treated with sovereign contempt, no matter how aristocratic the soil on which it was sown. But, to do justice to every body, I must say that, to the best of my recollection, a crop was seldom seen but on the lips of nobodies.
It was in the course of this retreat, as I mentioned in a former work, that I first joined Lord Wellington's army, and I remember being remarkably struck with the order, the confidence, and the daring spirit which seemed to animate all ranks of those among whom it was my good fortune to be cast. Their confidence in their illustrious chief was unbounded, and they seemed to feel satisfied that it only rested with him any day to say to his opponent, "thus far shalt thou come but no farther;" and if a doubt on the subject had rested with any one before, the battle of Busaco removed it, for the Portuguese troops having succeeded in beating their man, it confirmed them in their own good opinion, and gave increased confidence to the whole allied army.
I am now treading on the heels of my former narrative, and although it did not include the field of Busaco, yet, as I have already stated, it is foreign to my present purpose to enter into any details of the actions in which we were engaged, further than they may serve to illustrate such anecdotes as appear to me to be likely to amuse the reader. I shall therefore pass over the present one, merely remarking that to a military man, one of the most interesting spectacles which took place there, was the light division taking up their ground the day before in the face of the enemy. They had remained too long in their advanced position on the morning of the 25th of September while the enemy's masses were gathering around them; but Lord Wellington fortunately came up before they were too far committed and put them in immediate retreat under his own personal direction. Nor, as Napier says, "Was there a moment to lose, for the enemy with incredible rapidity brought up both infantry and guns, and fell on so briskly that all the skill of the general and the readiness of the excellent troops composing the rear guard, could scarcely prevent the division from being dangerously engaged. Howbeit, a series of rapid and beautiful movements, a sharp cannonade, and an hour's march, brought every thing back in good order to the great position."
On the day of the battle (the 27th) the French General Simon, who led the attack upon our division, was wounded and taken prisoner, and as they were bringing him in he raved furiously for General Crawfurd, daring him to single combat, but as he was already a prisoner there would have been but little wit in indulging him in his humour.
In the course of the afternoon his baggage was brought in under a flag of truce, accompanied by a charm to soothe the savage breast, in the shape of a very beautiful little Spanish girl, who I have no doubt succeeded in tranquillizing his pugnacious disposition. I know not what rank she held on his establishment, but conclude that she was his niece, for I have observed that in Spain the prettiest girl in every gentleman's house is the niece. The Padrès particularly are the luckiest fellows in the world in having the handsomest brothers and sisters of any men living,—not that I have seen the brother or the sister of any one of them, but then I have seen nine hundred and ninety-nine Padrès, and each had his niece at the head of his establishment, and I know not how it happened but she was always the prettiest girl in the parish.
It was generally the fate of troops arriving from England, to join the army at an unhappy period—at a time when easy stages and refreshment after the voyage was particularly wanted and never to be had. The marches at this period were harassing and severe, and the company with which I had just arrived were much distressed to keep pace with the old campaigners—they made a tolerable scramble for a day or two, but by the time they arrived at the lines the greater part had been obliged to be mounted. Nevertheless, when it became Massena's turn to tramp out of Portugal a few months after, we found them up to their work and with as few stragglers as the best. Marching is an art to be acquired only by habit, and one in which the strength or agility of the animal, man, has but little to do. I have seen Irishmen (and all sorts of countrymen) in their own country, taken from the plough-tail—huge, athletic, active fellows, who would think nothing of doing forty or fifty miles in the course of the day as countrymen—see these men placed in the rank as recruits with knapsacks on their backs and a musket over their shoulders, and in the first march they are dead beat before they get ten miles.
I have heard many disputes on the comparative campaigning powers of tall and short men, but as far as my own experience goes I have never seen any difference. If a tall man happens to break down it is immediately noticed to the disadvantage of his class, but if the same misfortune befals a short one, it is not looked upon as being anything remarkable. The effective powers of both in fact depend upon the nature of the building.
The most difficult and at the same time the most important duty to teach a young soldier on first coming into active service, is how to take care of himself. It is one which, in the first instance, requires the unwearied attention of the officer, but he is amply repaid in the long run, for when the principle is once instilled into him, it is duly appreciated, and he requires no further trouble. In our battalion, during the latter years of the war, it was a mere matter of form inspecting the men on parade, for they knew too well the advantages of having their arms and ammunition at all times in proper order to neglect them, so that after several weeks marching and fighting, I have never seen them on their first ordinary parade after their arrival in quarters, but they were fit for the most rigid examination of the greatest Martinet that ever looked through the ranks. The only thing that required the officers' attention was their necessaries, for as money was scarce, they were liable to be bartered for strong waters.
On service as every where else, there is a time for all things, but the time there being limited and very uncertain, the difficulty is to learn how to make the most of it.
The first and most important part lies with the officer, and he cannot do better than borrow a leaf out of General Crawfurd's book, to learn how to prevent straggling, and to get his men to the end of their day's work with the least possible delay.
The young soldier when he first arrives in camp or bivouac will (unless forced to do otherwise) always give in to the languor and fatigue which oppresses him, and fall asleep. He awakens most probably after dark, cold and comfortless. He would gladly eat some of the undressed meat in his haversack, but he has no fire on which to cook it. He would gladly shelter himself in one of the numerous huts which have arisen around him since he fell asleep, but as he lent no hand in the building he is thrust out. He attempts at the eleventh hour to do as others have done, but the time has gone by, for all the materials that were originally within reach, have already been appropriated by his more active neighbours, and there is nothing left for him but to pass the remainder of the night as he best can, in hunger, in cold, and in discomfort, and he marches before day-light in the morning without having enjoyed either rest or refreshment. Such is often the fate of young regiments for a longer period than would be believed, filling the hospitals and leading to all manner of evils.
On the other hand, see the old soldiers come to their ground. Let their feelings of fatigue be great or small, they are no sooner suffered to leave the ranks than every man rushes to secure whatever the neighbourhood affords as likely to contribute towards his comfort for the night. Swords, hatchets, and bill-kooks are to be seen hewing and hacking at every tree and bush within reach,—huts are quickly reared, fires are quickly blazing, and while the camp kettle is boiling, or the pound of beef frying, the tired, but happy souls, are found toasting their toes around the cheerful blaze, recounting their various adventures until the fire has done the needful, when they fall on like men, taking especial care however that whatever their inclinations may be, they consume no part of the provision which properly belongs to the morrow. The meal finished, they arrange their accoutrements in readiness for any emergency, (caring little for the worst that can befal them for the next twenty-four hours,) when they dispose themselves for rest, and be their allowance of sleep long or short they enjoy it, for it does one's heart good to see "the rapture of repose that's there."
In actual battle, young soldiers are apt to have a feeling, (from which many old ones are not exempt,) namely, that they are but insignificant characters—only a humble individual out of many thousands, and that his conduct, be it good or bad, can have little influence over the fate of the day. This is a monstrous mistake, which it ought to be the duty of every military writer to endeavour to correct; for in battle, as elsewhere, no man is insignificant unless he chooses to make himself so. The greater part of the victories on record, I believe, may be traced to the individual gallantry of a very small portion of the troops engaged; and if it were possible to take a microscopic view of that small portion, there is reason to think that the whole of the glory might be found to rest with a very few individuals.
Military men in battle may be classed under three disproportionate heads,—a very small class who consider themselves insignificant—a very large class who content themselves with doing their duty, without going beyond it—and a tolerably large class who do their best, many of which are great men without knowing it. One example in the history of a private soldier will establish all that I have advanced on the subject.
In one of the first smart actions that I ever was in, I was a young officer in command of experienced soldiers, and, therefore, found myself compelled to be an observer rather than an active leader in the scene. We were engaged in a very hot skirmish, and had driven the enemy's light troops for a considerable distance with great rapidity, when we were at length stopped by some of their regiments in line, which opened such a terrific fire within a few yards that it obliged every one to shelter himself as he best could among the inequalities of the ground and the sprinkling of trees which the place afforded. We remained inactive for about ten minutes amidst a shower of balls that seemed to be almost like a hail-storm, and when at the very worst, when it appeared to me to be certain death to quit the cover, a young scampish fellow of the name of Priestly, at the adjoining tree, started out from behind it, saying, "Well! I'll be d——d if I'll be bothered any longer behind a tree, so here's at you," and with that he banged off his rifle in the face of his foes, reloading very deliberately, while every one right and left followed his example, and the enemy, panic struck, took to their heels without firing another shot. The action requires no comment, the individual did not seem to be aware that he had any merit in what he did, but it is nevertheless a valuable example for those who are disposed to study causes and effects in the art of war.
In that same action I saw an amusing instance of the ruling passion for sport predominating over a soldier; a rifleman near me was in the act of taking aim at a Frenchman when a hare crossed between them, the muzzle of the rifle mechanically followed the hare in preference, and, as she was doubling into our lines, I had just time to strike up the piece with my sword before he drew the trigger, or he most probably would have shot one of our own people, for he was so intent upon his game that he had lost sight of every thing else.
[CHAP. VI.]
Reaping a Horse with a Halter. Reaping golden Opinions out of a Dung-Hill, and reaping a good Story or two out of the next Room. A Dog-Hunt and Sheep's Heads prepared at the Expense of a Dollar each, and a Scotchman's Nose.
I have taken so many flights from our line of retreat in search of the fanciful, that I can only bring my readers back to our actual position, by repeating the oft told tale that our army pulled up in the lines of Torres Vedras to await Massena's further pleasure; for, whether he was to persevere in his intended compliment of seeing us on board ship, or we were to return it by seeing him out of Portugal again, was still somewhat doubtful; and, until the point should be decided, we made ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit, and that was pretty well.
Every young officer on entering a new stage in his profession, let him fancy himself ever so acute, is sure to become for a time the butt of the old hands. I was the latest arrival at the time I speak of, and of course shared the fate of others, but as the only hoax that I believe they ever tried upon me, turned out a profitable one, I had less cause for soreness than falls to the lot of green-horns in general. It consisted in an officer, famous for his waggery, coming up to me one morning and mentioning that he had just been taking a ride over a part of the mountain, (which he pointed out,) where he had seen a wild horse grazing, and that he had tried hard to catch him, but lamented that he had been unable to succeed, for that he was a very handsome one!
As the country abounded in wolves and other wild characters I did not see why there should not also be wild horses, and, therefore, greedily swallowed the bait, for I happened not only to be in especial want of a horse, but of dollars to buy one, and arming myself accordingly with a halter and the assistance of an active rifleman, I proceeded to the place, and very quickly converted the wild horse into a tame one! It was not until a year after that I discovered the hoax by which I had unwittingly become the stealer of some unfortunate man's horse; but, in the mean time, it was to the no small mortification of my waggish friend, that he saw me mounted upon him when we marched a few days after, for he had anticipated a very different result.
The saddle which sat between me and the horse on that occasion ought not to be overlooked, for, take it all in all, I never expect to see its like again. I found it in our deserted house at Arruda; the seat was as soft as a pillow, and covered with crimson silk velvet, beautifully embroidered, and gilt round the edges. I knew not for what description of rider it had been intended, but I can answer for it that it was exceedingly comfortable in dry weather, and that in wet it possessed all the good properties of a sponge, keeping the rider cool and comfortable.
While we remained in the lines, there was a small, thatched, mud-walled, deserted cottage under the hill near our company's post, which we occasionally used as a shelter from the sun or the rain, and some of our men in prowling about one day discovered two massive silver salvers concealed in the thatch. The captain of the company very properly ordered them to be taken care of, in the hope that their owner would come to claim them, while the soldiers in the mean time continued very eager in their researches in the neighbourhood, in expectation of making further discoveries, in which however they were unsuccessful. After we had altogether abandoned the cottage, a Portuguese gentleman arrived one day and told us that he was the owner of the place, and that he had some plate concealed there which he wished permission to remove. Captain —— immediately desired the salvers to be given to him, concluding that they were what he had come in search of, but on looking at them he said that they did not belong to him, that what he wished to remove was concealed under the dunghill, and he accordingly proceeded there and dug out about a cart load of gold and silver articles which he carried off, while our unsuccessful searchers stood by, cursing their mutual understandings which had suffered such a prize to slip through their fingers, and many an innocent heap of manure was afterwards torn to pieces in consequence of that morning's lesson.
Massena having abandoned his desolated position in the early part of November, the fifteenth of that month saw me seated on my cloth of crimson and gold, taking a look at the French rear guard, which, under Junot, was in position between Cartaxo and El Valle. A cool November breeze whistled through an empty stomach, which the gilded outside was insufficient to satisfy. Our chief of division was red hot to send us over to warm ourselves with the French fires, and had absolutely commenced the movement when the opportune arrival of Lord Wellington put a stop to it; for, as it was afterwards discovered, we should have burnt our fingers.
While we therefore awaited further orders on the road side, I was amused to see General Slade, who commanded the brigade of cavalry attached to us, order up his sumpter mule, and borrowing our doctor's medical panniers, which he placed in the middle of the road by way of a table, he, with the assistance of his orderly dragoon, undid several packages, and presently displayed a set-out which was more than enough to tempt the cupidity of the hungry beholders, consisting of an honest-looking loaf of bread, a thundering large tongue, and the fag end of a ham—a bottle of porter, and half a one of brandy. The bill of fare is still as legibly written on my remembrance as on the day that I first saw it—for such things cannot be, and overcome us like the vision of a Christmas feast, without especial longings for an invitation; but we might have sighed and looked, and sighed again, for our longings were useless—our doctor, with his usual politeness, made sundry attempts to insinuate himself upon the hospitable notice of the general, by endeavouring to arrange the panniers in a more classical shape for his better accommodation, for which good service he received bow for bow, with a considerable quantity of thanks into the bargain, which, after he had done his best, (and that was no joke,) still left him the general's debtor on the score of civility. When the doctor had failed, the attempt of any other individual became a forlorn hope, but nothing seems desperate to a British soldier, and two thorough going ones, the commanders of the twelfth and fourteenth light dragoons, (Colonels Ponsonby and Harvey,) whose olfactory nerves, at a distance of some hundred yards, having snuffed up the tainted air, eagerly followed the scent, and came to a dead point before the general and his panniers. But although they had flushed their game they did not succeed in bagging it; for while the general gave them plenty of his own tongue, the deuce take the slice did he offer of the bullock's—and as soon as he had satisfied his appetite he very deliberately bundled up the fragments, and shouted to horse, for the enemy had by this time withdrawn from our front, and joined the main body of the army on the heights of Santarem. We closed up to them, and exchanged a few civil shots—a ceremony which cannot be dispensed with between contending armies on first taking up their ground, for it defines their territorial rights, and prevents future litigation.
Day-light next morning showed that, though they had passed a restless night, they were not disposed to extend their walk unless compelled to it, for their position, formidable by nature, had, by their unwearied activity, become more so by art—the whole crest of it being already fenced with an abbatis of felled trees, and the ground turned up in various directions.
One of our head-quarter staff-officers came to take a look at them in the early part of the morning, and, assuming a superior knowledge of all that was passing, said that they had nothing there but a rear-guard, and that we should shove them from it in the course of the day—upon which, our brigadier, (Sir Sidney Beckwith,) who had already scanned every thing with his practised eye, dryly remarked, in his usual homely but emphatic language, "It was a gay strong rear guard that built that abbatis last night!" And so it proved, for their whole army had been employed in its construction, and there they remained for the next four months.
The company to which I belonged, (and another,) had a deserted farming establishment turned over for our comfort and convenience during the period that it might suit the French marshal to leave us in the enjoyment thereof. It was situated on a slope of the hill overlooking the bridge of Santarem, and within range of the enemy's sentries, and near the end of it was one of the finest aloes I have ever seen, certainly not less than twelve or fourteen feet high. Our mansion was a long range of common thatched building—one end was a kitchen—next to it a parlour, which became also the drawing and sleeping room of two captains, with their six jolly subs—a door-way communicated from thence to the barn, which constituted the greater part of the range, and lodged our two hundred men. A small apartment at the other extremity, which was fitted up for a wine-press, lodged our non-commissioned officers; while in the back-ground we had accommodation for our cattle, and for sundry others of the domestic tribes, had we had the good fortune to be furnished with them.
The door-way between the officers' apartment and that of the soldiers showed, (what is so very common on the seat of war,) when "a door is not a door," but a shovel full of dust and ashes—the hinges had resisted manfully by clinging to the door-post, but a fiery end had overtaken the timber, and we were obliged to fill up the vacuum with what loose stones we could collect in the neighbourhood; it was, nevertheless, so open, that a hand might be thrust through it in every direction, and, of course, the still small voices on either side of the partition were alike audible to all. I know not what degree of amusement the soldiers derived from the proceedings on our side of the wall, but I know that the jests, the tales, and the songs, from their side, constituted our greatest enjoyment during the many long winter nights that it was our fate to remain there.
The early part of their evenings was generally spent in witticisms and tales; and, in conclusion, by way of a lullaby, some long-winded fellow commenced one of those everlasting ditties in which soldiers and sailors delight so much—they are all to the same tune, and the subject, (if one may judge by the tenor of the first ninety-eight verses,) was battle, murder, or sudden death; but I never yet survived until the catastrophe, although I have often, to attain that end, stretched my waking capacities to the utmost. I have sometimes heard a fresh arrival from England endeavour to astonish their unpolished ears with "the white blossomed sloe," or some such refined melody, but it was invariably coughed down as instantaneously as if it had been the sole voice of a conservative amidst a select meeting of radicals.
The wit and the humour of the rascals were amusing beyond any thing—and to see them next morning drawn up as mute as mice, and as stiff as lamp-posts, it was a regular puzzler to discover on which post the light had shone during the bye-gone night, knowing, as we did, that there were at least a hundred original pages for Joe Miller, encased within the head-pieces then before us.
Their stories, too, were quite unique—one, (an Englishman,) began detailing the unfortunate termination of his last matrimonial speculation. He had got a pass one day to go from Shorncliffe to Folkestone, and on the way he fell in with one of the finest young women "as ever he seed! my eye, as we say in Spain, if she was not a wapper; with a pair of cheeks like cherries, and shanks as clean as my ramrod, she was bounding over the downs like a young colt, and faith, if she would not have been with her heels clean over my head if I had'n't caught her up and demanded a parley. O, Jem, man, but she was a nice creature! and all at once got so fond of me too, that there was no use waiting; and so we settled it all that self same night, and on the next morning we were regularly spliced, and I carries her home to a hut which Corporal Smith and I hired behind the barrack for eighteen pence a week. Well! I'll be blessed if I was'n't as happy as a shilling a day and my wife could make me for two whole days; but the next morning, just before parade, while Nancy was toasting a slice of tommy[B] for our breakfast, who should darken our door but the carcase of a great sea marine, who began blinking his goggle eyes like an owl in a gooseberry bush, as if he did'n't see nothing outside on them; when all at once Nancy turned, and, my eye, what a squall she set up as she threw the toast in the fire, and upset my tinful of crowdy, while she twisted her arms round his neck like a vice, and began kissing him at no rate, he all the time blubbering, like a bottle-nose in a shoal, about flesh of his flesh, and bones of his bones, and all the like o' that. Well! says I to myself, says I, this is very queer any how—and then I eyes the chap a bit, and then says I to him, (for I began to feel somehow at seeing my wife kissed all round before my face without saying by your leave,) an' says I to him, (rather angrily,) look ye, Mr. Marine, if you don't take your ugly mouth farther off from my wife, I'll just punch it with the butt end of my rifle! thunder and oons, you great sea lobster that you are, don't you see that I married her only two days ago just as she stands, bones and all, and you to come at this time o' day to claim a part on her!"
[B] Brown loaf.
The marine, however, had come from the wars as a man of peace—he had already been at her father's, and learnt all that had befallen her, and, in place of provoking the rifleman's further ire, he sought an amicable explanation, which was immediately entered into.
It appeared that Nancy and he had been married some three years before; that the sloop of war to which he belonged was ordered to the West Indies, and while cruising on that station an unsuccessful night attempt was made to cut out an enemy's craft from under a battery, in the course of which the boat in which he was embarked having been sent to the bottom with a thirty-two pound shot, he was supposed to have gone along with it, and to be snugly reposing in Davy Jones's locker. His present turn up, however, proved his going down to have been a mistake, as he had succeeded in saving his life at the expense of his liberty, for the time being; but the vessel, on her voyage to France, was captured by a British frigate bound for India, and the royal marine became once more the servant of his lawful sovereign.
In the meanwhile Nancy had been duly apprised of his supposed fate by some of his West Indian shipmates—she was told that she might still hope; but Nancy had no idea of holding on by any thing so precarious—she was the wife of a sailor, had been frequently on board a ship, and had seen how arbitrarily every thing, even time itself, is made subservient to their purposes, and she determined to act upon the same principle, so that, as the first lieutenant authorizes it to be eight o'clock after the officer of the watch has reported that it is so, in like manner did Nancy, when her husband was reported dead, order that he should be so; but it would appear that her commands had about as much influence over her husband's fate as the first lieutenant's had over time, from his making his untoward appearance so early in her second honey-moon.
As brevity formed no part of the narrator's creed, I have merely given an outline of the marine's history, such as I understood it, and shall hasten to the conclusion in the same manner.
The explanation over, a long silence ensued—each afraid to pop the question, which must be popp'd, of whose wife was Nancy? and when, at last, it did come out, it was more easily asked than answered, for, notwithstanding all that had passed, they continued both to be deeply enamoured of their mutual wife, and she of both, nor could a voluntary resignation be extracted from either of them, so that they were eventually obliged to trust the winning or the losing of that greatest of all earthly blessings, (a beloved wife,) to the undignified decision of the toss of a halfpenny. The marine won, and carried off the prize—while the rifleman declared that he had never yet forgiven himself for being cheated out of his half, for he feels convinced that the marine had come there prepared with a ha'penny that had two tails.
The tail of the foregoing story was caught up by a Patlander with—"Well! the devil fetch me if I would have let her gone that way any how, if the marine had brought twenty tails with his ha'penny!—but you see I was kicked out of the only wife I never had without ere a chance of being married at all.
"Kitty, you see, was an apprentice to Miss Crump, who keeps that thundering big milliner's shop in Sackville-street, and I was Mike Kinahan's boy at the next door—so you see, whenever it was Kitty's turn to carry out one of them great blue boxes with thingumbobs for the ladies, faith, I always contrived to steal away for a bit, to give Kitty a lift, and the darling looked so kind and so grateful for't that I was at last quite kilt!"
I must here take up the thread of Paddy's story for the same reasons given in the last, and inform the reader that, though he himself had received the finishing blow, he was far from satisfied that Kitty's case was equally desperate, for, notwithstanding her grateful looks, they continued to be more like those of a mistress to an obliging servant than of a sweetheart. As for a kiss, he could not get any thing like one even by coaxing, and the greatest bliss he experienced, in the course of his love making, was in the interchange among the fingers which the frequent transfer of the band-box permitted, and which Pat declared went quite through and through him.
Matters, however, were far from keeping pace with Paddy's inclinations, and feeling convinced at last, that there must be a rival in the case, he determined to watch her very closely, in order to have his suspicions removed, or, if confirmed, to give his rival such a pounding as should prevent his ever crossing his path again. Accordingly, seeing her one evening leave the shop better dressed than usual, he followed at a distance, until opposite the post-office, when he saw her joined, (evidently by appointment,) by a tall well-dressed spalpeen of a fellow, and they then proceeded at a smart pace up the adjoining street—Paddy followed close behind in the utmost indignation, but before he had time to make up his mind as to which of his rival's bones he should begin by breaking, they all at once turned into a doorway, which Paddy found belonged to one of those dancing shops so common in Dublin.
Determined not to be foiled in that manner, and ascertaining that a decent suit of toggery and five tin-pennies in his pocket would ensure him a free admission, he lost no time in equipping in his Sunday's best, and having succeeded in borrowing the needful for the occasion out of his master's till, he sallied forth bent on conquest.
Paddy was ushered up stairs into the ball-room with all due decorum, but that commodity took leave of him at the door, for the first thing he saw on entering, was his mistress and his rival, within a yard of him, whirling in the mazes of a country dance. Pat's philosophy was unequal to the sight, and throwing one arm round the young lady's waist, and giving her partner a douse in the chops with the other, it made as satisfactory a change in their relative positions as he could have reasonably desired, by sending his rival in a continuation of his waltzing movement, to the extremity of the room to salute the wall at the end of it.
Pat, however, was allowed but brief space to congratulate himself on his successful debut in a ball-room, for in the next instant he found himself most ungracefully propelled through the door-way, by sundry unseen hands, which had grasped him tightly by the scruff of the neck, and on reaching the top of the staircase, he felt as if a hundred feet had given a simultaneous kick which raised him like a balloon for a short distance, and then away he went heels over head towards the bottom. It so happened at this particular moment, that three gentlemen very sprucely dressed, had just paid their money and were in the act of ascending, taking that opportunity, as gentlemen generally do, of arranging their hair and adjusting their frills to make their entré the more bewitching, and it is therefore unnecessary to say that the descent of our aëronaut not only disturbed the economy of their wigs but carried all three to the bottom with the impetus of three sacks of potatoes.
Paddy's temperament had somewhat exceeded madman's heat before he commenced his aërial flight, and, as may be imagined, it had not much cooled in its course, so that when he found himself safely landed, and, as luck would have it, on the top of one of the unfortunates, he very unceremoniously began taking the change out of his head for all the disasters of the night, and having quickly demolished the nose and bunged up both eyes, he (seeing nothing more to be done thereabouts) next proceeded to pound the unfortunate fellow's head against the floor, before they succeeded in lugging him off to finish his love adventure in the watch-house.
That night was the last of Paddy's love and of his adventures in the City of Dublin. His friends were respectable of their class, and on the score of his former good conduct, succeeded in appeasing the aggrieved parties and inducing them to withdraw from the prosecution on condition that he quitted the city for ever, and, when he had time to reflect on the position in which the reckless doings of the few hours had placed him, he was but too happy to subscribe to it, and passing over to Liverpool enlisted with a recruiting party of ours, and became an admirable soldier.
Having given two of the soldiers' stories, it may probably be amusing to my readers to hear one from our side of the wall. It was related by one of our officers, a young Scotchman, who was a native of the place, and while I state that I give it to the best of my recollection, I could have wished, as the tale is a true one, that it had fallen into the hands of the late lamented author of Waverly, who would have done greater justice to its merits.