But before the battalion embarked, he fell into another scrape by inserting in the Edinburgh papers the following advertisement!—
"Vive l'amour! any fair dame of spirit, maid .... or widow, who would wish to see the world, and will join her fortunes with those of a gallant officer, about to embark for the seat of war—age 25, height five feet ten inches by one foot ten across the shoulders—good looking decidedly, may have her offers carefully considered, by forwarding her name and qualifications to the President of the Mess Committee."
But for the hurry of embarkation, old Sir David Dundas, he of the "Eighteen Manoeuvres," who then ruled at the Horse Guards, would have made this piece of impertinence a dear joke to Dick Duff.
The latter, at Torres Vedras was severely wounded in the left leg, and given over for a time to the care of a pretty patrona, who was so kind to him, and like Corporal Trim's Beguin, fomented the wounded part so tenderly, that Dick remained so long on crutches, we thought he would never get off them or be well; tell one night getting tipsy at the quarters of his friend Garriehorn of the Grenadiers, he walked home, he never knew how, without them; and as he had been heard singing his invariable and inevitable song,
"Who knows but our girls,
(We have known stranger things)," &c.
in the Plaza of Torres Vedras, he was obliged to report himself "fit for duty" next day, despite the tears of his patrona.
After serving at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onor, Badajoz, and Salamanca, his battalion, with Stirling's old Highland Brigade, endured all the horrors of the retreat from Burgos.
At the siege of the latter, the task of storming the famous hornwork, which had a hard sloping scarp of twenty-five feet, and a counter-scarp of ten, was specially confided to the 42nd Highlanders, who assailed the bastion after darkness had set in, and rushed on with great gallantry. Dick Duff was the first man up on the first ladder; and his feather bonnet was literally blown off his head by a volley of balls; every man by his side was bayonetted; and as each poor fellow in his fall knocked down others, the loss was terrible!
Sword in hand, Major Cox entered the gorge; Major (afterwards General Sir Robert) Dick led the regiment on en masse, and the hornwork was immediately captured; but two lieutenants and thirty-two rank and file were killed; four officers, one volunteer, and one hundred and sixty-four Highlanders were wounded. Captain Donald Williamson expired that night of his wounds. Lane, the poor gentleman volunteer, was severely wounded and became senseless; but revived, on finding two of the Cameron Highlanders gently abstracting a gold watch worth fifty guineas from his pocket.
"I beg your pardon, my lads," said he; "but I am not quite done with this.'