He was full of genuine regard for the good and great Sir John Moore, full of enthusiastic devotion, gratitude, and admiration, too! How was it possible that he could feel otherwise? Apart from the news of his promotion in life, which must soon have reached him, he blessed the chance which made his informant the resolute and gallant leader of the British army!
After obtaining the warm congratulations of those who were his friends, and who hailed him now as a brother officer (as for old Middleton he almost wept for joy, and swore to wet the new commission deeply), most grateful indeed to his heart were the humble but earnest felicitations of the soldiers, who crowded round him, poor fellows, all haggard, ragged, and starving though they were, begging leave to shake his hand, and to wish him all success and prosperity to the end of his days. And Quentin felt that such genuine and heartfelt wishes as theirs were well worth remembering as an incentive for the future.
But little time was there for joy or loitering now, as the French were coming on and were again close at hand.
Relieved from the out-picquet on the Nogales road just as the winter dusk was deepening, he passed through the gloomy streets of Lugo, where ammunition waggons, unclaimed or abandoned baggage, and dead horses weltering in pools of dark blood, added greatly to the confusion of those crowded, ancient, narrow, and decidedly dirty thoroughfares; which were destitute alike of lamps, pavement, and police, and were full of holes, puddles, mud, and mire. There were sentinels, with bayonets fixed, at the doors of all the wine-shops and bodegas; yet crowds of famished soldiers loitered about them, while the dreaded provost-marshal guard, with cord and triangles, and patrols of horse and foot passed slowly to and fro in every direction, to enforce that order which the alcalde and his alguazils considered hopeless.
Quentin soon found, however, where the colonel and colours of the Borderers were lodged. It was an old mansion which had once belonged to the Knights of Santiago, the highest order of chivalry in Spain; and above its arched door, where two of the colonel's servants were chatting and smoking—one leisurely polishing a pair of hessian boots, and the other oiling the harness of his charger—he saw carved on a large marble block the badge of the order: a sword gules, the hilt powdered with fleurs-de-lis, and the stern motto, Sanguine Arabum.
It happened, though seated over his wine, after such a dinner as the exigencies of the time enabled him to procure, and though in company with his old friend the gallant and fashionable Lord Paget, then in his fortieth year, rehearsing together their gay but somewhat coarse memories and experiences of Carlton House and the Pavilion, the Honourable Cosmo was far from being in the best of humours.
A full conviction of the sudden and disastrous turn in the prospects of the expedition—the army was now only fighting to escape home—together with the knowledge that on landing in England a horde of harpies—Jews, lawyers, and tipstaves, were all ready to pounce upon him, with protested bills, accounts, I.O.U.'s, post-obits, bonds, and Heaven only knows what more, the result of his Guards' life and reckless expenditure in London—all this, we say, well nigh drove him frantic; and Paget's memories of their brilliant past, and their wild, disreputable orgies with the Prince of Wales and his set, added stings to the terror with which he viewed the future.
Flora's fair acres might have stood in the gap between him and ruin, but fate and Quentin Kennedy ordained it should be otherwise.
"Egad, Paget, you see how it is; I've drained the paternal pump dry—there are bounds to patience, and his lordship will not advance me another guinea beyond my allowance. Indeed, I could scarcely expect it; and thus, I dare not land in England!"
"Let us be afloat before we talk of landing," replied Paget; "it will be a deuced bad affair for us all if we don't find our transports in Vigo Bay; and, entre nous, I think Moore has some doubts about them."