“Scarcely were the words spoken when he sprang from the room. The whole truth flashed at once upon his mind; in an instant he saw that he had exposed himself to the merciless ridicule of a mess-table and that all peace for him, in that regiment at least, was over.
“We got a glorious fellow in exchange for him; and Sparks descended into a cavalry regiment,—I ask your pardon, Charley,—where, as you are well aware, sharp wit and quick intellect are by no means indispensable. There now, don’t be angry or you’ll do yourself harm. So good-by, for an hour or two.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE COUNT’S LETTER.
O’Shaughnessy’s wound, like my own, was happily only formidable from the loss of blood. The sabre or the lance are rarely, indeed, so death-dealing as the musket or the bayonet; and the murderous fire from a square of infantry is far more terrific in its consequences than the heaviest charge of a cavalry column. In a few weeks, therefore, we were once more about and fit for duty; but for the present the campaign was ended. The rainy season with its attendant train of sickness and sorrow set in. The troops were cantoned along the line of the frontier,—the infantry occupying the villages, and the cavalry being stationed wherever forage could be obtained.
The Fourteenth were posted at Avintas, but I saw little of them. I was continually employed upon the staff; and as General Crawfurd’s activity suffered no diminution from the interruption of the campaign, rarely passed a day without eight or nine hours on horseback.
The preparations for the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo occupied our undivided attention. To the reduction of this fortress and of Badajos, Lord Wellington looked as the most important objects, and prosecuted his plans with unremitting zeal. To my staff appointment I owed the opportunity of witnessing that stupendous feature of war, a siege; and as many of my friends formed part of the blockading force, I spent more than one night in the trenches. Indeed, except for this, the tiresome monotony of life was most irksome at this period. Day after day the incessant rain poured down. The supplies were bad, scanty, and irregular; the hospitals crowded with sick; field-sports impracticable; books there were none; and a dulness and spiritless depression prevailed on every side. Those who were actively engaged around Ciudad Rodrigo had, of course, the excitement and interest which the enterprise involved: but even there the works made slow progress. The breaching artillery was defective in every way: the rain undermined the faces of the bastions; the clayey soil sank beneath the weight of the heavy guns; and the storms of one night frequently destroyed more than a whole week’s labor had effected.
Thus passed the dreary months along; the cheeriest and gayest among us broken in spirit, and subdued in heart by the tedium of our life. The very news which reached us partook of the gloomy features of our prospects. We heard only of strong reinforcements marching to the support of the French in Estramadura. We were told that the Emperor, whose successes in Germany enabled him to turn his entire attention to the Spanish campaign, would himself be present in the coming spring, with overwhelming odds and a firm determination to drive us from the Peninsula.
In that frame of mind which such gloomy and depressing prospects are well calculated to suggest, I was returning one night to my quarters at Mucia, when suddenly I beheld Mike galloping towards me with a large packet in his hand, which he held aloft to catch my attention. “Letters from England, sir,” said he, “just arrived with the general’s despatches.” I broke the envelope at once, which bore the war-office seal, and as I did so, a perfect avalanche of letters fell at my feet. The first which caught my eye was an official intimation from the Horse Guards that the Prince Regent had been graciously pleased to confirm my promotion to the troop, my commission to bear date from the appointment, etc., etc. I could not help feeling struck, as my eye ran rapidly across the lines, that although the letter came from Sir George Dashwood’s office, it contained not a word of congratulation nor remembrance on his part, but was couched in the usual cold and formal language of an official document. Impatient, however, to look over my other letters, I thought but little of this; so, throwing them hurriedly into my sabretasche, I cantered on to my quarters without delay. Once more alone in silence, I sat down to commune with my far-off friends, and yet with all my anxiety to hear of home, passed several minutes in turning over the letters, guessing from whom they might have come, and picturing to myself their probable contents. “Ah, Frank Webber, I recognize your slap-dash, bold hand without the aid of the initials in the corner; and this—what can this be?—this queer, misshapen thing, representing nothing save the forty-seventh proposition of Euclid, and the address seemingly put on with a cat’s-tail dipped in lampblack? Yes, true enough, it is from Mister Free himself. And what have we here? This queer, quaint hand is no new acquaintance; how many a time have I looked upon it as the ne plus ultra of caligraphy! But here is one I’m not so sure of. Who could have written this bolt-upright, old-fashioned superscription, not a letter of which seems on speaking terms with its neighbor? The very O absolutely turns its back upon the M in O’Malley, and the final Y wags his tail with a kind of independent shake, as if he did not care a curse for his predecessors! And the seal, too,—surely I know that griffin’s head, and that stern motto, Non rogo sed capio. To be sure, it is Billy Considine’s, the count himself. The very paper, yellow and time-stained, looks coeval with his youth; and I could even venture to wager that his sturdy pen was nibbed half a century since. I’ll not look farther among this confused mass of three-cornered billets, and long, treacherous-looking epistles, the very folding of which denote the dun. Here goes for the count!” So saying to myself, I drew closer to the fire, and began the following epistle:—