ANECDOTE THE THIRD.
At Astorga, a ludicrous alarm was occasioned by the frolic of an officer; though it might have led to more serious results.
The regiment was quartered in a convent, and the officers and the friars were promiscuously bundled for the night on mattresses laid in one of the galleries; when, about midnight, Captain —— awaking, and seeing the back of one of the Padres looking him full in the face, from under the bed-clothes, as if inviting the slap of a fist, he, acting on the impulse of the moment, jumped up, and with a hand as broad as a coal-shovel, and quite as hard, made it descend on the bottom of the astounded sleeper with the force of a paviour, and then stole back to his couch. The Padre roared a hundred murders, and murder was roared by a hundred Padres, while the other officers, starting up in astonishment, drew their swords and began grappling with whoever happened to be near them. The uproar, fortunately, brought some of the attendants with lights before any mischief happened, when the cause of the disturbance was traced, to the no small amusement of every one. The offender tried hard to convince the afflicted father that he had been under the influence of a dream; but the four fingers and the thumb remained too legibly written on the offended spot to permit him to swallow it.
ANECDOTE THE FOURTH.
When the straggling and the disorders of the army on the retreat to Corunna became so serious as to demand an example, Sir Edward Paget, who commanded the reserve, caused two of the plunderers to be tried by a court-martial, and they were sentenced to suffer death. The troops were ordered to parade in front of the town, to witness the execution, but, while in the act of assembling, a dragoon came galloping in from the front to inform Sir Edward by desire of his brother (Lord Paget), that the enemy were on the move, and that it was time for the infantry to retire. Sir Edward, however, took no notice of the message. The troops assembled, and the square was formed, when a second dragoon arrived, to say that the enemy were advancing so rapidly that if Sir Edward did not immediately retire, his lordship could not be answerable for the consequences. Sir Edward, with his usual coolness and determination, said he cared not, for he had a duty to perform, and were the enemy firing into the square, that he would persevere with it. Dragoon after dragoon, in rapid succession, galloped in with a repetition of the message; still the preparations went on, and by the time they were completed, (and it wanted but the word of command to launch the culprits into eternity,) the clang of the carabines of the retreating dragoons was heard all around.
In the breast of Sir Edward, it is probable, that the door of mercy never had been closed, and that he had only waited until the last possible moment to make it the more impressive; and impressive truly it must have been; nor is it easy to imagine such a moment; for, independently of the solemn and desolate feeling with which one at all times witnesses the execution of a comrade, let his offence be what it may, they had an additional intensity on this occasion, on the score of their own safety; for, brief as the span seemed to be that was allotted to the culprits, the clang of the carabine, and the whistling ball, told that it was possible to be even still more brief on the parts of many of the spectators.
Sir Edward, however, now addressed the troops, with a degree of coolness which would argue that danger and he had been long familiar. He pointed out the enormity of the offence of which the culprits had been guilty, that they deserved not to be saved, and that though the enemy were now upon them, and might lay half their number dead while witnessing the execution, that only one thing would save them, and that was, "would the troops now present pledge themselves that this should be the last instance of insubordination that would occur in the course of the retreat?" A simultaneous "Yes," burst from the lips of the assembled thousands, and the next instant saw the necessary measures taken to check the advancing foe, while the remainder resumed their retreat, lightened of a load of care, which a few minutes before had been almost intolerable.
The conduct of these regiments, as compared with others, was very exemplary during the retreat, although their duty, in protecting the stragglers of the army till the last possible moment, was of the most harassing kind. They had no means of punishing those to whom they were indebted for their extra trouble, but by depriving them of their ill-gotten gains, so that whenever a fellow came in with a bag of flour under his arm, (which was no uncommon occurrence,) they made it a rule to empty the bag over his head, to make him a marked man. Napier says of them, that "for twelve days these hardy soldiers covered the retreat, during which time they had traversed eighty miles of road in two marches, passed several nights under arms in the snow of the mountains, were seven times engaged with the enemy, and now assembled at the outposts (before Corunna), having fewer men missing from the ranks, including those who had fallen in battle, than any other division in the army."[A]
[A] The foregoing story, I find, has just made its appearance in a volume published by Lieutenant-Colonel Cadell; but as this narrative was publicly noticed, as being in preparation, prior to the publication of his, I have not thought it necessary to expunge it.
I shall now, with the reader's permission, resume the thread of my narrative.