They listened to me with astonishment, as we sat by the foot of a large tree under which our horses were stabled (if I may use such a term), and where we were regaling ourselves with ration biscuits and the contents of a gallon keg of French wine, of which Charters had become proprietor on the march.
Around us the whole force, horse, foot, and artillery, were busy cooking or preparing for the bivouac of the night. Countless little fires, lighted beside trees, hedges, and low walls, glared and reddened in the evening wind, and when the dusk set in, they shed a wavering gleam on the piles of arms that stood in long ranks, on the white bell-tents and the red-coated groups that loitered near. The whole scene was picturesque, lively, and striking, and in the distance lay the town and fortress of St. Malo, quaint and worn by time and the misty storms that came from the open sea.
Its harbour is one of the best seaports in France, but is extremely difficult of access. The town is small, gloomy, and dull, but populous and wealthy, and crowns a rock which the sea encompasses twice daily—thus St. Malo is alternately insular and peninsular, as the tide ebbs, flows, and churns in foam against its fetid rocks, whereon the russet-brown seaweed rots in the sunshine; and far around it lies a barrier of sharp white reefs, the foe of many a ship ere beacons were invented.
It was guarded by a strong castle, flanked by great towers, on the battlements of which the last light of the setting sun yet lingered with a fiery gleam. The town had usually a good garrison; but His Grace the Duke of Marlborough had now learned that there were not quite five hundred troops in the whole of this neglected province of Brittany, which, though forming a portion of the kingdom of France, had long been under its hereditary dukes, and was now governed by a States General, with provincial privileges of its own.*
* It continued so until the Revolution in 1792.
For ages so separate had its interests been from those of France, that James III. of Scotland was requested by Charles VIII. to send thither a body of troops to capture and annex Brittany to his northern kingdom but the Scottish parliament declined to sanction the subjugation of a free people; so this strange scheme was abandoned.
A strong wall surrounded St. Malo, and every night twelve dogs of great size and ferocity were led round it by a soldier of the city watch, that their barking might give notice if brigands or an enemy approached.
The last ray of sunlight soon faded upward from the cathedral spire of St. Vincent, and the shades of twilight were already casting into obscurity the rocky basement of the whole city and its weedy reefs amid the chafing sea, when in a lonely part of our camp by St. Servand my two comrades and I reclined on the turf beside our accoutred horses, and drank the contents of the wine-keg, using one horn—for we possessed but one—fraternally by turns.
"It is very true," continued Charters, with reference to my adventure of the preceding night; "egad, friend Gauntlet, you had a narrow escape! In other hands—particularly those of old Preston—you had assuredly been brought to the drum-head and had a volley of ten carbines for dereliction of duty. To fall asleep on one's post before an enemy——"
"But I was not asleep," I persisted.