Molly Elliot Seawell
ILLUSTRATIONS
| ILLUSTRATED HALF-TITLE | [vii] | |
| “‘IT IS MY TURN NOW!’ SHOUTED GAVIN” | [Frontispiece] | |
| GAVIN THROWS AWAY HIS TROOPER’S SABRE | Facing p. | [18] |
| THE KING DRAGGED GAVIN OUT OF THE CLOSET | ” | [46] |
| HE DROPPED SIR GAVIN ON TO THE FLOWER-BED FIFTEEN FEET BELOW | ” | [130] |
| GAVIN CARRIES THE KING ACROSS THE FLOODED GARDEN | ” | [184] |
| “TAKE CHARGE OF THE PRISONER UNTIL I SEND FOR HIM” | ” | [216] |
THE LIVELY
ADVENTURES OF GAVIN HAMILTON
CHAPTER I
In Silesia, the autumn of 1757 was one of frightful cold, of icy winds, of sunless days, and freezing nights. The land, made desolate by the contending armies of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia, suffered still more from this bitter and premature winter. The miserable inhabitants, many of them houseless, died by thousands, of cold and starvation. The wretched remnant of cattle left them perished; the fields lay untilled, the mills were only piles of charred ruins, and desolation brooded over the land. War could add but little more to the miseries of this unfortunate region; but Frederick of Prussia and the lion-hearted Empress of Austria fought as fiercely as they had done sixteen years before when the Titanic combat had first begun. Rosbach had been fought—that terrible battle in which Frederick prevailed against the Austrians, who were assisted by the soldiers of France and the money of England. The Austrians and French had, at first, attempted an orderly retreat; but the piercing cold, the constant fall of snow, and the difficulties of subsistence, had very much interfered with this. Their object was to reach Prince Charles of Lorraine, in northwest Silesia, and many small bodies of troops succeeded in maintaining their organization until they joined Prince Charles. Others were not so fortunate; soldiers found themselves without officers, and officers found themselves without men. In this last case was Captain St. Arnaud, of the French regiment of Dufour, a young gentleman who had exchanged his commission in the King’s Musketeers, the most royal of all the royal guards, for a line regiment where he could see service. It cannot be denied that this decision on Captain St. Arnaud’s part surprised his world, for he was a curled darling among the ladies, and the most superlative dandy in Paris. And, wonderful to say, he still looked the superlative dandy on the afternoon of the coldest day he ever felt in his life, amid the snowy wastes of Silesia, when, after two weeks of starving and running away from the Prussians, it looked as if the inevitable hour had come. There was, yet, not a speck upon his handsome uniform; his long, light hair lay in curls upon his shoulders—he had admired his own locks too much to cover them up with a periwig; and his delicate, handsome face, now gaunt and pale, was exquisitely shaven. Clearly, starving did not agree with his constitution. His whole life before that campaign had been spent in the courts and camps of kings, and he had missed those hardening and fortifying influences which is Fate’s rough way of benefiting her favorites. But faint and weak and hopeless as he seemed, his soul was still unconquered, and his eyes looked bravely around upon the desolate waste before him. The cold, already intense, was becoming severer every hour. St. Arnaud, being naturally of a reflective nature, which he hid under a mask of the utmost levity, was thinking to himself, as he patted the neck of his lean and patient horse, “The whole social order depends on the mercury in the tube. At a certain point, varying in different races, all distinctions are abolished. If my general were here this moment, I would be as good as he; for the best man would be he who could keep up his circulation best. And if my orderly were here—bah! he could only deprive me of my last chance of living through this night by rubbing down my horse for me, which exercise would keep my blood in circulation and increase the poor beast’s chances of carrying me through to the end.” His piercing eyes had swept the view in front of him, but he almost jumped out of his saddle as a voice at his elbow said: “My Captain! I salute you!”
Close behind him, on a very good horse, sat a young private soldier of St. Arnaud’s company. St. Arnaud at once recognized him; he was so tall, so fresh coloured, so well made that he attracted attention in the ranks; but private soldiers to St. Arnaud represented not names, but numbers. He thought this young fellow was 472 on the regimental roll, but had no idea of his name. He was a contrast to St. Arnaud in every way; for besides being a perfect picture of physical well-being, the young soldier was in rags. In one the inner man had suffered, in the other the outer man. Having spoken, the young man awaited speech from his officer with as much coolness as if he were on parade at Versailles, instead of being alone with him at nightfall in a frozen desert.
“I recognize you,” said St. Arnaud, after a moment; “where are the others of your company?”
“I am the only man left, sir,” replied the soldier; “as you know, we were very much cut up that villainous day at Rosbach; and when you were swept from us, in that last charge, we had already lost half our men. I don’t know how it was, sir; certainly it was not the fault of our officers”—with another salute—“but I believe ours was the worst demoralized regiment in the French forces after Rosbach, and my company was the worst demoralized in the regiment. We had not an officer left above a corporal, but the handful of us could have remained together. Instead of doing that, it was sauve qui peut with all of us. Note, sir, I do not say we did not fight like devils at Rosbach; but being unused to defeat, we did not know how to take it. I cannot tell you how it is I come to be here alone; only I know that I, with twenty others, started out to make our way toward Prince Charles, and one by one the men dropped off, until yesterday morning, when, at sunrise, I found myself alone where I had bivouacked the night before with three comrades. They had gone off in the night, or early in the morning, to follow a road I did not believe would lead us where we wanted to go. I came this way, and well it was for me.”