In three days it spread so fast that three hundred perished. Many rushed to schnaps and corn-brandy to drown their cares and apprehensions; and those unhappy wretches, in a state of madness and intoxication, were frequently seen rushing, half nude, from the lower purlieus of the city, pale, wan, and ghastly, or livid and yellow as oranges, uttering shrieks of blasphemy and lewdness; and making us shudder at the thought of the terrible scenes enacted in the dens from whence they had come. Into these places our men were reluctant to penetrate to bury the dead, many of whom we knew to be lying uncoffined and unshrouded. But the orders of the marshal were not to be resisted. Men were required to volunteer for the burial service as for a forlorn hope, and liberal supplies of corn-brandy were given to those who did so. Colonel Dübbelsteirn's Dutchmen, immovable and phlegmatic fellows, had this duty luckily assigned to them. Deep trenches were dug outside the Frankendör, and into these the dead (many of whom were worn to mere skeletons by famine and sickness) were flung over each other, pell-mell, old men and little children, side by side, and there we covered them up, shovelling great piles of earth, stones, and rubbish over them.
This malignant pest soon spread into our own ranks, and terrible havoc it made among our brave Highlanders. This was soon perceptible by the diminution of our numbers; for every company, as it came to its post at the Frankendör, lacked an officer, a sergeant, and ten, fifteen, or twenty of its files. The churches were turned into hospitals, where, with no other bedding than straw and their plaids, our soldiers lay side by side, and dying fast from lack of sufficient medical attendance; and being rendered—by their previous scanty food, the low and foggy atmosphere, the putrid effluvia of the German trenches, the malaria of our own stagnant ditches—peculiarly liable to attack, and less able to resist it.
The chief of our medical staff, Dr. Pennicuik of that Ilk, was of more service than twenty of the Danish doctors; while it was pleasing to see the Rev. Gideon Geddes and Father Ignatius emulating each other, and working side by side like good Samaritans among the sick and dying; yet not so oblivious of their former polemics, as to resist the opportunity of firing an occasional shot at each other, over the very corpse of some poor fellow, whose spirit had eluded both their kind efforts to detain him here. Stralsund became a mere charnel-house; now it was that I trembled for Ernestine, and wished her in the Imperial camp—any where but within those walls, which engirt so much suffering, and so many new miseries, in addition to those caused by scarcity of food, and the cannonading by land batteries and gun-boats on the Sound. I was reluctant, and terrified to enter her presence, lest I should convey that pestilence for which I had no fear personally, and the cautions I gave were countless. When not on duty, Phadrig Mhor and Gillian M'Bane were installed as a garde du corps, and occupied the lower story of the house, with orders to bar ingress to all under pain of death; but now none came hither; for Father Ignatius had the good sense to remain away, and Ian Dhu never came nearer the door than the garden plot, where he was wont to converse for a few minutes, and then retire, for no entreaty of Ernestine could make him enter.
One forenoon, when the frowsy November fog was rising like a veil from the face of the beleaguered city, I had come off guard at the Frankendör. Culcraigie's company had relieved mine, which I dismissed to their comfortless billets in the market-place, and then hurried, as was my wont, to inquire for Ernestine. I observed that the gate of the garden stood wide open; that the house door was ajar, and that all the blinds in front were still drawn closely down, although the noon was approaching. A pang of terror shot through me, for usually the gate and door were kept shut, and at such an hour the blinds were always drawn up, and the smiling face of Ernestine was the first object that greeted me. But on this morning the blinds remained motionless, and no face was smiling there.
I rushed into the vestibule, and found M'Bane fast asleep on a bench. The poor fellow was exhausted.
"Gillian, thou glaiket gilly," said I; "how and where is the young lady?"
"Where?"
"Yes—where? Must I prick you with my skene-dhu? Where is she?"
"Gone to the hospital."
"Hospital!" I gasped as if a ball had passed through my heart; "to the great church opposite the Bourse?"