FOREIGN SERVICE.
"Who had followed, stout and stern,
Through the battle's rout and reel,
Storm of shot and hedge of steel,
The gallant grandson of Lochiel,
Valiant Fassifern."
Scott.
A month or two more found Ronald with his comrades, after being landed at Lisbon, pursuing their route through Portugal to join their regiment, then campaigning in Estremadura with the division of Sir Rowland Hill.
Every where the ravages of the ruthless French were visible as they marched onwards. At Santarem, Punhete, Abrantes, and many other places, they viewed with surprise and pity the pale features of the starving inhabitants, the fire-blackened walls, the roofless streets or utterly deserted villages, from which every thing had been carried off or given to destruction by the French in their retreat. Ancient churches and stately convents had been turned into stables, where cavalry horses and baggage-mules chewed their wretched forage of chopped straw, and reposed on the lettered stones, beneath which slept the proud cavaliers and brave Hidalgos of old Lusitania.
When they looked on these scenes of desolation, and considered the desecration of every thing whether sacred or profane, their hearts grew sick within them; and they thought of the happy isle which they had left behind, where such horrors are unknown—unknown to the mercantile citizens, who grudge so much the miserable pittance received by the poor soldier.
In their route through these places they were welcomed by no sign of merriment, no joyful cheering, from those whom they had come to free from the iron grasp of Buonaparte; they were greeted with no welcome save the sepulchral tolling of some cathedral or chapel bell,—the waving of white kerchiefs or veils from the grated lattice of some convent which had escaped the ravagers, when their walls rung to the sound of the drum and war pipe,—the muttered benison of some old Padre, as he viewed with surprise the bare knees, the wild and martial garb, of the men of Albyn, and the gigantic proportions of the officer who commanded them. Major Campbell was a handsome Highlander, of a most muscular make and herculean form. His dark hair was becoming grizzled, for he was nearly fifty years of age, and his nutbrown cheek had been tanned by the sun and storm in many a varied clime. From the strength of his arm and the length of his sword (a real Andrea Ferrara,[*] with the maker's name on the blade) he was a most uncomfortable antagonist at close quarters, as many of the French and others had found to their cost; but Campbell never drew his Andrea unless when he found himself pressed, but made use of a short oak stick furnished with a heavy knob at the end, which he had cut in one of the wild forests of Argyleshire, and always retained and carried with him, as a relic and memorial of his native mountains.
[*] These swords are often worn by the officers of our Highland corps, the old blades being polished and set in new regimental basket-hilts.
It was towards the end of a chilly day in the spring of 1812, that the major's detachment halted in the ancient city of Albuquerque, where they spent their first night in Spain. This old frontier town is situated in the slope of the Sierra de Montanches, a ridge of mountains in Estremadura. By a miracle, or little short of it, it had escaped better than other places the ravages of the French, who had left the roofs on all the houses, which were, however, gutted of every thing of value. In general the outrages of Napoleon's troops were less flagrant in Spain than in Portugal, from a wish to conciliate the former, and render them, as of old, friends and allies. Owing to the eminence on which the city is situated, its streets are much cleaner than those of Spanish towns generally, where the thoroughfares are cleared of the mud and filth that encumber them by the rain, which in Albuquerque, when it falls heavily, sweeps every thing down the causewayed slopes to the bed of the Guadiana, which flows past the foot of the city. An ancient castle, as old probably as the days of Roderick "the last of the Goths," stands upon the summit of a rock above the town; and around its base are the streets, ill paved, dark, and narrow,—well fitted for Spanish deeds of assassination and robbery. By an order from the alcalde, the Highlanders were billeted upon different houses, and Ronald Stuart and Major Campbell were both quartered in the same mansion, the patron of which, Senor Narvaez Cifuentes (as he styled himself), kept a shop for retailing the country wine. Many goodly pigskins filled with it were ranged upon the rickety shelves of his store, from the ruinous rafters of which hung some thousands of tempting bunches of dried grapes, and many of these fell kindly down at Campbell's feet when the old house shook with his heavy tread.
The patron, in appearance, was not quite what one should wish a host to be, especially in a strange country. His stature was low, his face was so swarthy as to resemble that of a negro in darkness; his moustaches were thick, fierce, and black, mingling with the matted hair of his huge bullet-head. He wore a long stiletto (openly) in the yellow worsted sash which encircled his waist, and the haft of a knife appeared within the breast of his doublet, or sort of vest with sleeves, which was, like the rest of his attire, in a very dilapidated condition; and altogether, the Senor Narvaez Cifuentes displayed more of the bravo or bandit, than the saint in his appearance.
He was, nevertheless, a rattling jolly sort of fellow, especially for a Spaniard; he sung songs and staves without number to entertain his guests, who scarcely comprehended a word of them; and to show his loyalty, emptied many a horn to the health of Ferdinand VII., to the freedom of Spain, and to the eternal confusion of the French, compelling, with rough and unceremonious hospitality, Stuart and the major to do so likewise, until they had well nigh each imbibed the contents of a pigskin,—the common vessel for containing wine in Spain, where neither bottles nor flasks are used, but the simple invention of a pigskin, sewn up with the hair inside, which, when full, looks not unlike the bag of the Scottish piper, from its black, bloated, and greasy appearance.