CHAPTER XIV.
FRANCE.
"These six years past I have been used to stir
When the reveille rung; and that, believe me,
Chooses the hours for rousing me at random,
And having giving its summons, yields no license
To indulge a second slumber."
Auchindrane.
It was on the morning of the 16th September that Ronald quitted Brussels, having under his command three hundred rank and file of the Gordon Highlanders, as many more of the 42nd, and fifty men of the Coldstream Guards. Three other officers were with him, but he was their senior both by rank and standing. They paraded in the park before the king's palace, in heavy marching order, about six o'clock in the morning, and, moving round the corner of the palace of the Prince of Orange, they proceeded along the Boulevard, after passing through the Namur gate. As they quitted the city, with bayonets fixed and pipes playing before the fifty Coldstreams, who of course marched in front, they elicited shouts of applause from the Belgians, many of whom followed them for many miles on the Waterloo road, and several young women went much farther, so that they never returned at all. Stuart had a very affectionate leave-taking with Widow Vandergroot, whose fat oily face was bedewed with tears at his departure.
Their route, for part of the way, lay through the forest of Soignies; on quitting which, they entered the plains of Waterloo, so lately the scene of that fierce contest in which the greatest empire in Europe had been lost and won. They were now treading on the hallowed ground of the field, and the murmur of conversation, which had arisen among the detachment the moment command to "march at ease" had been given, now died away, and the soldiers trod on in silence, or spoke to each other only at intervals, and in whispers, for there was something in the appearance of the vast grave-yard around them which caused strange feelings of sadness to damp the military pride that burned in every breast.
The morning was remarkably fine, with a pure air and almost cloudless sky. All nature looked bright and beautiful, and the rising sun cast the long shadows of every house and tree far across the level landscape, where every thing was beginning to assume a warm autumnal tint.
The farm of La Haye Sainte, the fine old château of Hougoumont, and other houses, were all roofless and ruined, the walls breached and battered by cannon-shot, the parterres, the shrubberies, and orchards destroyed; but on these wrecks of the strife they scarcely bestowed a look. As they marched over the ridge where the British infantry formed line, the sights which greeted them there caused the Highlanders—naturally thoughtful at all times—to become more so.
"No display of carnage, violence, and devastation could have had so pathetic an effect as the quiet orderly look of its fields, brightened with the sunshine, but thickly strewed with little heaps of upturned earth, which no sunshine could brighten. On these the eye instantly fell; and the heart, having but a slight call made upon it from without, pronounced with more solemnity the dreadful thing that lay below, scarcely covered with a sprinkling of mould. In some spots they lay thick in clusters and long ranks: in others, one would present itself alone; betwixt these, a black scathed circle told that fire had been employed to consume, as worthless refuse, what parents cherished, friends esteemed, and women loved. The summer wind, that shook the branches of the trees and waved the clover and gaudy heads of the thistles, brought along with it a foul stench, still more hideous to the mind than to the offended sense. The foot that startled the small bird from its nest among the grass, disturbed at the same time some poor remnant of a human being,—either a bit of the showy habiliments in which he took pride, or of the war-like accoutrements which were his glory, or of the framework of his body itself, which he felt as comeliness and strength the instant before it became a mass of senseless matter."
The ideas which appear to have pervaded the mind of the writer quoted, were those of every man of that detachment; such, indeed, as the objects in their path, and the mournful scenes by which they were surrounded, could scarcely fail to inspire.
Marching by easy stages, they entered Mons, the strongly-fortified capital of Hainault. During the halt of two days here, most of the officers one evening attended the theatre, a visit which nearly cost some of them their lives. The play was "The Fall of Zutphen," and the dresses of the actors were as ridiculous as their acting. The ferocious Duke of Alba was represented by a little fat Fleming, clad in a cocked hat and old red coat; Frederick, his son, by a boor, en blouse, who smoked a pipe composedly during the performance. The Dutch troops were represented by a party of Belgian chasseurs, and the Spanish by a strong brigade of motley-garbed scene-shifters and candle-snuffers. At a part of the play where Frederick storms Zutphen, and orders his soldiers to give it to the flames, sparing neither sex nor age in the sack, some ashes dropped from the bowl of this ferocious commander's pipe, and, lighting among some sulphur and other ingredients kept for stage purposes, set the whole scenery in a blaze. Zutphen was in flames in earnest. The players rushed about in every direction, crying for help like distracted people; but the audience, supposing the conflagration to be a part of the play, applauded with increasing vehemence, till the flames of Zutphen began to extend from the stage to the other parts of the house, and the blazing wood tumbling about their ears, warned the Flemings of their danger. A tremendous rush was made for the door. Stuart was thrown over by the press, and trod under their feet; and had not the officer who commanded a party of the Coldstream Guards menaced the citizens with his sword and rescued him, my narrative would probably have ended here. He dragged him out from the crowd, and they gained the street in safety.