"Never mind, mates," said he, cheerfully; "tie up the stump, some one—I'm in for a pension at Chatham Chest, boys!"
I remember that my first emotion was a selfish thankfulness that the shot had not struck me.
So strong was the ground by nature, in the neighbourhood of our landing, that two thousand determined men might have cut to pieces ten times their number from behind the thick hedgerows, the houses and the rocks; yet we encountered not the slightest opposition, save from the little battery already mentioned.
By the noon of the 6th of July, everything belonging to our small army—its whole material of war—was ashore, and we encamped on an eminence which was crowned by a picturesque old windmill.
It overlooked Cancalle, from whence the people—all hard-featured, ungainly, and squalid-looking Bretons—had now entirely fled, leaving their houses to the mercy of our soldiers and sailors, who pillaged them of everything they could find or destroy.
On the night of the 6th, with twenty other Scots Greys, I was detailed for out-picket; and under a Captain Wilmot Brook, of the 11th Light Dragoons, with twenty men of that regiment, all supplied with one meal of cooked food for ourselves and forage for our horses, we rode two miles to the front, on the road that leads from Cancalle to St. Malo. There the captain chose a position for his picket, and threw out a line of videttes, whose orders were to keep a sharp look-out, on peril of their lives; to fire their carbines on the approach of any armed party, but to permit all persons who came singly, bearing provisions for sale, to pass to their rear, without exacting a fee for their passage—to observe well the country in their front, and to communicate whatever they saw that seemed hostile or suspicious, by signal or otherwise, to each other, and at once to the officer in command of the outpost.
These orders were rhymed rapidly over to me about nightfall, and I was left for a two hours' vigil, in a gloomy hollow way between two hills, about eight hundred yards in front of the mainbody of the picket. This was my first responsible duty, and it so nearly ended in bringing me to a disgraceful and violent death, that the narration of that night's adventure deserves a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE VIDETTE.
To a young soldier few duties or situations are more trying than the post of advanced sentinel by night, in a strange place and foreign country, in time of war and danger—all the more so, perhaps, if the said soldier be a Scotsman, imbued with some of those superstitions, which few of his countrymen are without.