De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

"Viva la Francia! Viva la Francia!" cried half a dozen voices at once. "Let him rise! let him rise! The French caballero commands it. Let him rise! let him rise!"

Some of the Catalonians, however, were for opposing this piece of clemency, and, evidently animated by the same spirit of hatred to the soldiery as their countrymen of Lerida, cried aloud to kill the tiger. "How many of ours has he killed!" exclaimed they. "How often has he plundered our houses, assaulted ourselves, insulted our women!--Let him die! let him die!"

But the discussion had for a moment diverted their attention from their prisoner, and though one of the strongest villagers had his foot upon the soldier's corslet, he contrived suddenly to throw him off, and, springing up, to catch his wounded horse, which still stood nigh. Half a dozen blows with musket-stocks and knives were now aimed at him in an instant; but leaping into the saddle, he spurred his horse through the crowd, and, saved by his corslet and morion from many a random stroke, galloped down the road like lightning.

At the distance of about a hundred yards, however, he turned in the saddle, and while his horse went on, aimed one of his musketoons calmly at the group assembled round me, and fired.

The ball whizzed close by me, and grazed the cheek of a villager near, leaving a long black wound along that side of his face. Fortunately for the fugitive, none of the muskets were loaded which graced the hands of those he left behind, otherwise his flight would have been but short. As it was, he departed undisturbed, and the whole of the group around turned to me, inquiring, as of one who had some title to command them, what was to be done next? "Were they," they asked, "to collect and join the patriots at Lerida, or to march forward upon Barcelona, collecting what troops they could on the road, and at once attack the tyrants in their head-quarters?"

I of course disclaimed not only all right to direct them, but all knowledge of the subject, telling them that I had merely cast the soldier from me in defence of my own property, and that I was not aware what patriots they spoke of at Lerida, or what tyrants at Barcelona.

"What!" cried one of the young men, with a look divided between surprise and incredulity; "do you not know that the inhabitants of Lerida have risen, and cast off the yoke of the Castilian tyrants? Do you not know the glorious news, that they have beat the mercenary soldados of Castile through every street of the city wherever they dared to make a stand, till the few that escaped have shut themselves up in the citadel? Do you pretend not to know that they have well avenged the death of the poor youth that the bloody-minded slaughterers fired off last night from a cannon's mouth? Pshaw! you know it well enough; and we know too, that it is with arms and ammunition from France, that all this has been done: so, 'Viva la Francia! Viva el Francés!'"

It was in vain I protested my ignorance of the whole; they were determined to believe me an agent of the French government, and nothing I could say had any effect in persuading them to the contrary. The only means I could devise for extricating myself from the unpleasant situation in which I was placed, without violating the truth, was to tell them, that I was going on myself to Barcelona, but that I thought the best thing they could do, would be to remain quiet till they heard more particularly from Lerida, taking care to be prepared for whatever event might occur.

They received this advice as if it had come from the Delphic Oracle. "Yes, yes, he is right," cried one; "we will wait for orders from Lerida."--"He will get to Barcelona before the Castilian now!" cried a second: "Quick! saddle the cavalier's horse!"--"Send us off a despatch as soon as all is safe at Barcelona," cried a third; but to this last I did not think fit to make any reply, as I had not the least intention of complying with the request. All was soon ready to set out, but a sudden difficulty delayed me some time, which was, that when about to depart, I could nowhere discover Monsieur Achilles Lefranc, whom I had left up stairs sound asleep. To leave the poor little man alone, in a country, the language of which was as unknown to him as Hebrew, was a piece of cruelty I could not think of committing. I was nevertheless nearly obliged to do so, for after looking for him in vain in the room where he had slept, and in every other place I could think of, with the assistance of half a dozen Spaniards, men, women, and children, he was drawn out from below the bed, where he had ensconced himself on hearing the sound of a musket, with the various shouts of the Spaniards in the street.

He seemed, however, in no degree ashamed of his cowardice. "I own it! I own it!" cried he; "I have nothing of Achilles about me but the name. I am vulnerable from top to toe; and so great a coward into the bargain, that I think the only wise thing my great namesake ever did, was in staying away so long from the fields of Troy; and the most foolish thing in going back again at all."