THE BUGLE-BOY OF BADAJOZ.
'Mother! mother! come out of the cold ground; come to your little José, who is so lonely now!' wailed a boy stretched on his mother's grave, while wetting with his tears the flowers that had been laid there, and the green turf, into which he dug his little hands in the wildness of his great grief.
It was in the cemetery of the Penha Convent at Cintra, and when ravaged Portugal lay wasted and bleeding under the feet of the French army, led by Marshal Junot, the Duc d'Abrantes, to Lisbon, in 1808, a period that seems long ago now, yet was fresh enough in the memory of our fathers.
It was on a glorious evening in autumn, and the hill of Cintra, the base of which is clothed with wood, but which terminates in loose crags and splintered pinnacles, was bathed in warm light, while every fissure was covered with amaryllis and aglow with crimson geranium, and giant evergreen oaks and cork-trees were intertwined with vines, all adding to the beauty of the scene.
On one hand towered up the hill with the Penha Convent, on the other were the ruins of a Moorish castle; but the sunshine and the scenery were lost on the orphan boy. He saw only his mother's grave, and all the rest of the world seemed dark to him indeed.
'Look up, my boy,' said a voice, as a hand was kindly laid on his neck, and, rising from the turf, he found himself face to face with an officer of Cazadores, or Portuguese Light Infantry. He was a handsome and pleasant-looking man, clad in green uniform faced with scarlet, and wearing silver epaulettes. 'Who lies here that you weep for?' he asked.
'My mother,' replied the boy, in a tone of infinite tenderness.
'And your father?'
'Was De Castro, the guerilla chief, whom the French shot at the gate of the Torre Vilha. You have heard, perhaps?'