Though Coombe Lorraine was so old a mansion, and so full of old customs, the Christmas of the “comet year” was as dull as a Sunday in a warehouse. Hilary (who had always been the life of the place) was far away, fed upon hardships and short rations. Alice, though full sometimes of spirits, at other times would run away and fret, and blame herself, as if the whole of the fault was on her side. This was of course an absurd idea; but sensitive girls, in moods of dejection, are not good judges of absurdity; and Alice at such times fully believed that if she had not intercepted so much of her father’s affection from her brother, things would have been very different. It might have been so; but the answer was, that she never had wittingly stood between them; but on the contrary had laid herself out, even at the risk of offending both, to bring their widely different natures into kinder unity.
Sir Roland also was becoming more and more reserved and meditative. He would sit for hours in his book-room, immersed in his favourite studies, or rather absorbed in his misty abstractions. And Lady Valeria did not add to the cheer of the household, although perhaps she did increase its comfort, by suddenly ceasing to interfere with Mrs. Pipkins and everybody else, and sending for the parson of the next parish, because she had no faith in Mr. Hales. That worthy’s unprofessional visits, and those of his wife and daughters, were now almost the only pleasant incidents of the day or week. For the country was more and more depressed by gloomy burden of endless war, the scarcity of the fruits of the earth, and the slaughter of good brave people. So that as the time went on, what with miserable expeditions, pestilence, long campaigns, hard sieges, furious battles, and starvation—there was scarcely any decent family that was not gone into mourning.
Even the Rector, as lucky a man as ever lived, had lost a nephew, or at least a nephew of his dear wife,—which, he said, was almost worse to him—slain in battle, fighting hard for his country and constitution. Mr. Hales preached a beautiful sermon, as good as a book, about it; so that all the parish wept, and three young men enlisted.
The sheep were down in the lowlands now, standing up to their knees in litter, and chewing very slowly; or sidling up against one another in the joy of woolliness; or lying down, with their bare grave noses stretched for contemplation’s sake, winking with their gentle eyes, and thanking God for the roof above them, and the troughs in front of them. They never regarded themselves as mutton, nor their fleeces as worsted yarn: it was really sad to behold them, and think that the future could not make them miserable.
No snow had fallen; but all the downs were spread with that sombre brown which is the breath or the blast of the wind-frost. But Alice Lorraine took her daily walk, for her father forbade her to ride on the hill-tops in the bleak and bitter wind. Her thoughts were continually of her brother; and as the cold breeze rattled her cloak, or sprayed her soft hands through her gloves, many a time she said to herself: “I suppose there is no frost in Spain; or not like this at any rate. How could the poor fellow sleep in a tent in such dreadful weather as this is?”
How little she dreamed that he had to sleep (whenever he got such a blissful chance) not in a tent, but an open trench, with a keener wind and a blacker frost preying on his shivering bones, while cannon-balls and fiery shells in a pitiless storm rushed over him! It was no feather-bed fight that was fought in front of Ciudad Rodrigo. About the middle of January, A.D. 1812, desperate work was going on.
For now there was no time to think of life. Within a certain number of days the fort must be taken, or the army lost. The defences were strong, and the garrison brave, and supplied with artillery far superior to that of the besiegers; the season also, and the bitter weather, fought against the British; and so did the indolence of their allies; and so did British roguery. The sappers could only work in the dark (because of the grape from the ramparts); and working thus, the tools either bent beneath their feet or snapped off short. The contractor had sent out false-grained stuff, instead of good English steel and iron; and if in this world he earned his fortune, he assured his fate in the other.
At length by stubborn perseverance, most of these troubles were overcome, and the English batteries opened. Roar answered roar, and bullet bullet, and the black air was striped with fire and smoke; and men began to study the faces of the men that shot at them, until after some days of hard pounding, it was determined to rush in. All who care to read of valour know what a desperate rush it was,—how strong men struggled, and leaped, and clomb, hung, and swung, on the crest of the breach, like stormy surges towering, and then leaped down upon spluttering shells, drawn swords, and sparkling bayonets.
Before the signal to storm was given, and while men were talking of it, Hilary Lorraine felt most uncomfortably nervous. He did not possess that solid phlegm which is found more often in square-built people; neither had he any share of fatalism, cold or hot. He was nothing more than a spirited young Englishman, very fond of life, hating cruelty, and fearing to have any hand in it. Although he had been in the trenches, and exposed to frequent dangers, he had not been in hand-to-hand conflict yet; and he knew not how he might behave. He knew that he was an officer now in the bravest and hardiest armies known on earth since the time of the Samnites—although perhaps not the very best behaved, as they proved that self-same night. And not only that, but an officer of the famous Light Division, and the fiercest regiment of that division—everywhere known as the “Fighting-cocks”; and he was not sure that he could fight a frog. He was sure that he never could kill anybody, at least in his natural state of mind; and worse than that, he was not at all sure that he could endure to be killed himself.
However, he made preparation for it. He brought out the Testament Mabel had given him as a parting keepsake, in the moment of true love’s piety; and he opened it at a passage marked with a woven tress of her long rich hair—“Soldiers, do that is commanded of you;” and he wondered whether he could manage it. And while he was trembling, not with the fear of the enemy, but of his own young heart, the Colonel of that regiment came, and laid his one hand on Hilary’s shoulder, and looked into his bright blue eyes. In all the army there was no braver, nobler, or kinder-hearted man, than Colonel C—— of that regiment.