Poor Tommy, from that time, led the life of the devil—he could not shew his nose outside his own house that he was not fired at—and whenever we made up a larger party to shew him more of the world it was only to lead him into further mischief.
I was some time after this removed into the left wing of our regiment, which belonged to a different brigade, so that I ceased to be a daily witness of his torments, though aware that they went on as theretofore.
Tommy continued to rub on for a considerable time. Death had become busy in our ranks—first, by the siege and storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, and immediately after, by that of Badajos. I had heard little or nothing of him during those stirring events of real war—and it was not until the morning after the storming of Badajos that he again came under my notice—from having heard that he had been missing the night before. I there saw him turn up, like a half-drowned rat, covered with mud and wet, which looked very much as if he had passed the night in the inundation, adjoining the breach, up to his neck in the water, and probably a little deeper at times, when the fire-balls were flying thickest. He nevertheless contrived to hold on yet a little longer—one day, (agreeably to order,) taking post in the middle of a river, with his face towards Ispahan, to watch the enemy in that direction—and the next day, in conformity with the same orders, applying to the quarter-master-general for a route for himself and party to go to Kamskatcha to recruit, he got so bewildered that he could not distinguish between a sham and a real order, and, at last, when in the face of the enemy, in front of Salamanca, he absolutely refused to take the duty for which he had been ordered, and was consequently obliged to cut.
It was the best thing that could have happened both for him and the service; for, as I said before, he had mistaken his profession, and as he was yet but a youth, it is to be hoped that he afterwards stumbled upon the right one.
Atalya, which we now occupied, is a mountain village about half a league in front of the Vadillo. The only amusing characters we found in it were the pigs. I know not whether any process was resorted to in the mornings to entice them from their homes to grub up the falling acorns from the beautiful little evergreen oaks which adorned the hills above, but it was a great scene every evening at sunset to go to the top of the village, and see about five hundred of them coming thundering down the face of the mountain at full speed, and each galloping in to his own door.
We had been a considerable time there before we discovered that the neighbourhood could furnish metal more attractive, but a shooting excursion at last brought us acquainted with the Quinta Horquera (I think it was called), a very respectable farm-house, situated on a tongue of land formed by the junction of another mountain stream with the Vadillo.
The house itself was nothing out of the common run, but its inmates were, for we found it occupied by the chief magistrate of Ciudad Rodrigo, with his wife and daughter, and two young female relatives. He himself was a staunch friend of his country, and when the fortress of Rodrigo fell into the hands of the French, rather than live in communion with them, he retired with his family to that remote property, in the hope that as it was so much out of the way he might rest there in peace and security until circumstances enabled him to resume his position in society as a true and loyal Spaniard; but as the sequel will shew, he had reckoned without his host, for with a British regiment in the neighbourhood, and his house filled with young ladies he was an unreasonable man to expect peace there, and the enemy also by and bye came down upon him, as if to prove that his notions of security were equally fallacious.
Don Miguel himself was a splendid ruin of a man of three score, of a majestic figure, regular features, and stern dark Castilian countenance. He was kind and amusing withal, for though his own face was forbidden to smile, yet he seemed to enjoy it in others, and did all in his power to promote amusement, that is, as much as a Spaniard ever does.
His wife was very tall and very slender—the skin of her pale fleshless face fitting so tight as to make it look like a pin-head. She was very passive and very good-natured, her other day having long passed by.
Their only daughter was a woman about twenty-eight years of age, with rather a dull pock-pitted countenance, and a tall, stout, clumsy figure. She had very little of the Spaniard in her composition, but was nevertheless a kind good-natured girl. Her relatives, however, were metal of another sort: the eldest was a remarkably well made plump little figure, with a fair complexion, natural curly hair, and a face full of dimples which shewed eternal sunshine; while her sister, as opposite as day from night, shewed the flashing dark eye, sallow complexion, and the light sylph-like figure for which her country-women are so remarkable. To look at her was to see a personification of that beautiful description of Byron's in his first canto of Childe Harold—