The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Roger Egremont was indulging himself in thinking of these things as he tramped along, still leading his tired horse. Mile after mile was passed; before him an endless black line of marching men, an endless black line behind him. As the clock tolled one in a village steeple the order to halt came. The bivouac was in open field, and in half an hour the men had eaten such provision as was made for them, and rolled in their blankets were sleeping soundly. So slept Roger Egremont. One of the compensations of the soldier’s life was that he could always eat soldier’s fare with a relish, and slept like an infant. He remembered those sleepless nights in Newgate, and was thankful he was spared that horror.

At four o’clock in the morning he was up and shaving—for he had privately promised himself never to be caught again as at Steinkerque—and he put a fresh white cockade in his hat. At half-past four, when the men were munching their breakfasts, and the soft, sweet dawn of a July morning overspread the land, Roger caught sight of a brilliant group of general officers riding along that silvery brook of Landen, which was to be of a dreadful color before night. He recognized the commanding-general,—that gay, ugly, dissolute, brave old Maréchal de Luxembourg,—who sent so many standards to Paris that he was called “le tapissier de Notre Dame;” who, when he heard that William of Orange had spoken of him coarsely, as “that old hunchback,” retorted by saying, “What does he know about it? he never saw my back;” and who ended his merry old life so piously and composedly that the stern and scrupulous Père Bourdaloue said: “I should not wish to live like the Maréchal de Luxembourg, but I should wish to die like him.”

And then the sound of fife and drum and bugle rent the blue air; great bodies of men assumed form and shape and motion, and the Irish brigade, led by Lieutenant-General the Duke of Berwick, plunged into the crystal stream, and rushed over woods and fields and briery thickets, toward the village of Neerwinden,—rushed, as they ever did, to glory or the grave.

The Irish brigade wore red coats, by order of their King, James Stuart, and they longed to be at arm’s-length with other grim red-coats, who filled the trenches that encompassed the village, swarmed in the houses and gardens, and whose cannon bristled on every coign of vantage. These red-coats owned William of Orange for their King. They had Germans, many thousands of them, on their side; but the men of the Irish brigade counted themselves cheated and swindled and chicaned when they had only to fight the Germans and the Dutch. And there were Frenchmen fighting in line with the Irish brigade. But those Whig red-coats reckoned not with them; they were not the Irish brigade. So those fellow-countrymen rushed together with the greatest longing, saying in their hearts, “My brother, how art thou?” and then stabbing that brother if the brother did not succeed in stabbing first.

On one side of these eager men who followed Berwick as he showed them the way toward their enemies, was the brigade of Rubantel, on the other that of Montchevreuil,—French, both,—but the centre brigade never saw them after the brook was crossed. Up the wooded incline rushed the Irish brigade and the foot-guards; through brake and thicket they dashed, the tall figure of the Duke of Berwick on his powerful bay charger ever in the van. On they plunge to Neerwinden, but in their impetuous charge they have far outstripped their supports on the right and the left. Roger Egremont, on foot, at the head of his company, tumbling out a squad of gunners from a trench, turned to see a blazing line of red-coats falling upon the Irish brigade on all sides. Rubantel and Montchevreuil are not in sight, but a thunder of guns, and a ceaseless rattle and crash of musketry, off amid the woods and ravines that lie between the river and the village, show where they are. They have been stopped for a time by great masses of English, Dutch, and Germans,—horse, foot, and artillery,—but are holding their own so stubbornly that Dutch William says, between his clenched teeth,—

“This insolent nation!”

And that merry old hunchbacked warrior, the Maréchal de Luxembourg, who has always beaten William of Orange whenever they have been matched, sits perched on his horse, watching the struggle from a hill, and holding in his hand ten regiments of horse ready to support “the insolent nation” when they really want it.

But meanwhile the English are closing in upon Berwick’s incomparable brigade. Roger sees, just before him, a little walled-in garden on the outskirts of the village, with a stout oaken door at the back. He re-forms his men, and making a rush for the garden, a soldier climbs nimbly over the wall, unbars the gate, and Roger and his men scamper in, just in time to lock and bar the gate behind them. The wall is high and spiked, and opposite the oaken door is an open iron-work gate looking on to the street, where can be seen men fighting furiously, English and French in confusion, riderless horses plunging, and no one clearly understanding what has happened, or what he has to do, only to fight, to fight, to fight.

Roger Egremont, wiping the blood from his sword, glances about him, prepared to defend himself at the first assault made upon him, which will be in half a minute. The iron gate is secured like the oaken door, and sharpshooters are posted there, with their muskets carefully adjusted at the openings in the grille. But every man in the company of Egremont is a sharpshooter for that time. And in the middle of the mossy garden is a charming little summer-house, covered with rich red roses in full bloom. They will be redder next year, for they will be watered with blood.

“My lads,” cries Roger, “we are safe as in a fortress here; we may sit down and laugh, for all the harm those rascal Whigs can do us. See, we have a summer-house to lie down and rest ourselves in when we get tired of picking ’em off through the gate and over the top of the wall. See, yonder high house, without a loophole in the wall, protects us on that side. We sha’n’t see any more fun to-day, I am fearing;” of which speech part was true and part was a lie,—they being in very imminent danger every moment. Nevertheless, the men, some of whom were from Devonshire, huzzaed loudly.