"Puir Maister Macdonald!" said Evan, as he smoothed down the green sods. "He was a leal true Scotsman and a gallant gentleman: lang it may be ere we see his maik again. He was a gude officer, and well was he loed by every ane."
The other officers were all placed in one grave by the Highlanders, who, according to the ancient Scottish custom, piled a large cairn of loose stones over it. It was situated on the left of the road leading from Maya to France, and probably is yet to be seen. So great was the slaughter among the officers, that Stuart, although a very junior lieutenant, obtained a company, and succeeded his friend Seaton in command of the "light bobs." While the troops lay encamped on the Pyrenees, the different corps were soon made up to their proper strength by the return of convalescents from Vittoria, and the arrival of recruits from the depôts or second battalions at home. In about two months the Highlanders began once more to assume the appearance of a regiment; and Fassifern, and other officers who had been wounded in the fatal action of the 25th July, rejoined as soon as their scars were closed.
Along the chain of heights, strong redoubts and block-houses were placed at intervals. The last were composed of horizontal logs, loop-holed for musquetry, and occupied by strong picquets, who were continually on the alert, in case Marshal Soult might again pay them some sudden visit from Gascony. One night in October, Ronald Stuart with his company were on duty in one of these blockhouses, when a sudden attack was made on the position by the enemy. There had been a great fall of snow, and the intense cold by which it was accompanied added greatly to the discomfort of the troops encamped on these bleak and lofty mountains, with no other shelter against the inclemencies of the weather, day and night, than canvas tents. The hills and valleys were completely covered to the depth of several feet, and many sentinels were lost, or found dreadfully frost-bitten when dug out. A path had been made from the Maya camp to the block-house which Stuart was to occupy; and as his company marched along the slippery and winding roadway, they often saw Spanish peasants or guerillas lying dead with shovels near them, showing that they perished with the intensity of the cold whilst engaged on some working or fatigue-party. In some places a frozen grisly head, or shrunken hand, clenched and withered, appeared above the smooth white surface of the snow. Had the view around the block-house been in Greenland or Newfoundland, it could not have presented a more dreary aspect. The whole of the Pyrenean chain, and the plains of Bearn and Gascony below, were clad in the same white livery. The sky was of the purest, deepest, and coldest blue, showing the most distant summits of the Pyrenean chain, the white peaks of which rose in long perspective beyond each other in an infinity of outlines. The dense smoke from the camp fires was curling up from amidst the dingy-coloured tents, where now and then the beat of a drum rang out sharply into the clear and frosty air.
Although the cold was intense, and the legs of the Highlanders were as red as their jackets, the sun was shining brightly, and the whole surface of the earth and the atmosphere were sparkling and glittering in his radiance. With their musquets slung and a piper playing before them, the light company trod merrily up the ascent, many of them singing aloud to the notes of the pipe and the tramp of their feet, which sounded dull and hollow on the hard and frozen path. A captain of the 34th regiment, whom with his company they relieved, left Stuart a flask of brandy, for which he and his two subs (Chisholm and Evan Macpherson) were very thankful, and they found it a considerable acquisition during a winter day and night in a log-house, where the wind went in and out at a hundred chinks and crannies. The picquet-house was internally one large apartment, in the centre of which the soldiers piled their arms, and huddled close together on the ground for mutual heat, and to avoid the cold blast which blew through the numerous open loop-holes in the four walls of the edifice.
Towards night, a soldier of the 66th regiment, muffled up in his grey great-coat, came toiling up the steep ascent from the valley below, bringing to Stuart a letter, which had arrived from Lisbon in the packet for his corps. An officer of the 66th, who was intimate with Ronald, had despatched it to him forthwith, and he knew in an instant, by the hand-writing and the crest on the seal, that it came from Alice Lisle. Giving the Englishman a glass of brandy, he desired him to lose no time in regaining his quarters, in case of a snow-storm setting in before nightfall.
If any thing would serve to buoy up one's spirits amid all the miseries of campaigning and the dangers of daily warfare, such letters as those of Alice Lisle certainly must have had that effect. After expressing her delight for Stuart's success and safety in a manner and delicacy of style peculiarly her own, she continued thus:—
"And so you are really now a captain, and knight of a military order? O Heaven! I can scarcely believe it, even when your name appears in the army list. How short a time has elapsed since you used to harry the nests of the eagle and owl at Tullyisla, among the dark nooks of the old castle, and gather flowers and berries with Louis and me in Strathonan! You well know, dear Ronald, that no one rejoices more than Alice Lisle at your rapid promotion, but indeed I think it very horrid to owe one's advancement to the death of one's friends, and I see that a sad alteration has taken place among the officers of the Gordon Highlanders since the battle of the Pyrenees. The joy I now feel in the knowledge of your—alas! only temporary—safety and good fortune, will scarcely counterbalance the agony of mind I experienced when the news of Vittoria arrived, and your name appeared in the list of wounded. Papa concealed the papers from me for some days, but I heard of it from my foster-sister, Jessie Cavers, and until your letters, dated from the "Maya Camp" reached us, my anxiety and perturbation of spirit are quite indescribable. What was thought of your danger by the people up the glen at Lochisla I really know not, but the whole country side was in an uproar in honour of the victory. The banner was displayed from the tower, a huge bonfire blazed on the summit of Craigonan, and the two old cannon on the bartizan were kept booming away the live-long night, greatly to the terror of all the old ladies within ten miles, who supposed that Buonaparte in person had come up the Tay, and landed a host of be-whiskered grenadiers on the Inches of Perth. The noise of the cannon alarmed others, too. The militia, the fencibles, and the volunteers got under arms; many of the chiefs north of this began to muster their people, and the whole country was in a state of commotion. Your father gave a dinner to his kin and tenantry, and dancing, drinking, and piping were kept up, I believe, in the old hall until the morning sun shone down the glen upon them."
Rolled up in his cloak, Ronald sat sipping his brandy and water, while by the light of a streaming candle he conned over the letter, so much absorbed in its contents as to forget every thing around him, until the report of a musquet, fired by the sentinel outside the block-house, caused him to start and leap to his feet as if he had received an electric shock.
"The French, and in this frosty night!" exclaimed Macpherson, leaping up from the ground, on which he had been fast asleep. "Now the devil confound them! they might have chosen daylight for their visit. Come, Stuart, leave your love-letter,—it can scarcely be any thing else, as you have been reading it all night,—leave it, and attend to your command, or Wellington will be issuing such another order anent love-letters as he gave us about the wild-pigs at Alba."
"We receive more reprehensions than rewards from head-quarters, certainly. But where are the French? Among the hills?"