CHAPTER V.
HALT AT AZUMAR.
"Pleasures fled hence, wide now's the gulf between us;
Stern Mars has routed Bacchus and sweet Venus:
I can no more—the lamp's fast fading ray
Reminds me of parade ere break of day,
Where, shivering, I must strut, though bleak the morning,
Roused by the hateful drummer's early warning.
Come, then, my boat-cloak, let me wrap thee round,
And snore in concert stretched upon the ground."
An Elegy.
The noisy racket maintained by those who were in custody of the rear-guard, the voices of others who whipped or cheered on the long string of baggage animals (Evora horses, Castilian mules, and sturdy burros or donkeys), the various novel sights and sounds incident to the march of Hope's division, together with the appearance of the division itself winding down the deep valleys and up the steep mountains like a long and glittering snake, amid clouds of white dust, out of which the sheen of arms and the waving of colours came incessantly, won Quentin from his sadder thoughts, and he began to feel, after all he had undergone, an emotion, of joy on finding himself among his old comrades—a joy that can only be known by a soldier—by one forming a part of that great and permanent, but almost always happy family, a regiment of the line.
The morning was bright and breezy; the large floating clouds cast their flying shadows over the sunlit landscape at times, adding alike to its beauty and the striking effect of the marching columns.
Weary of the dark and sallow Spaniards, Quentin's eyes had run along the ranks of the 25th, and their familiar faces, which seemed so fair and ruddy when contrasted with those of the nations they had come to free, were pleasant to look upon.
Their colours, with the castle triple-towered and the city motto; the familiar bugle calls, and more than all, the old quick-step of General Leslie, which came floating rearward from time to time when the corps traversed an eminence, all spake to him of his new but moveable home, and the new associations he had learned to love.
Cosmo—the impracticable and inscrutable—Cosmo Crawford—alone was the feature there that marred his prospects and blighted his pleasure!
He felt a sincere regret for poor Isidora, and this was not unmingled with a little selfish dread of her brother, De Saldos, the scowling Trevino, and others, when those guerillas joined the division, which they would probably do in the course of a day or so; and what answer would he make to them when they—and chiefly her brother—asked for the missing donna? He felt himself, indeed, between the horns of a dilemma, and many unpleasant forebodings mingled with his dreams of a brilliant future.
Amid these ideas recurred the longing to write home (how long, long seemed the time that had elapsed since he left it!) that the good Lord Rohallion and the gentle Lady Winifred—that dear Flora, and the old quartermaster too, might learn something of what he had seen, and done, and undergone since last they parted.
Had Cosmo, in any of his letters, ever written to announce that he was serving with the Borderers?