"If my curiosity be not impertinent," said the Captain, "I would thank you for a few particulars respecting him. I remember a Francis Booyers, who some years since served, at the time I did, on board the Agamemnon; and what I have beheld I acknowledge has interested me. You appear to have known him long."
"From his birth, Sir: and, I believe, there are few circumstances of his life with which I am unacquainted.
"I was, Sir, in my youth a soldier, and served under the father of the gentleman you this evening beheld: as brave a man as ever fought beneath the British standard, and as well beloved by his whole regiment. During our campaign, I had the good fortune several times to gain his notice, and in the last engagement where I fought, had the happiness to save his life! It was by that, indeed, I was disabled; for I had my knee broken, and received a musket shot in my side; but that I did not regret, for, wounded as I was, there was not a man left of the regiment but envied me an action I shall ever regard as my greatest glory: Aye, your Honours, or who would not have changed situations with me, could he have said, he had been the means of preserving the gallant Colonel Booyers! I was attended with as much tenderness as our harassed situation would admit of: the Colonel himself visited me, and when I recovered, not only procured me a pension, but took me as an attendant on his person.
"Soon after, we returned to England, where the Colonel involved himself in ruin, by marrying the daughter of a poor clergyman. For his father, Lord Booyers, was no sooner informed of what he had done, than he forbade him his sight, and passed from one act of unkindness to another, till at last he disinherited him! The Colonel, at first, sought a reconciliation by means of their common friends; but, finding it of no effect, resigned all thoughts of the fortune he had expected. His lady was too amiable to let him regret the step he had taken, and, in her affection, he found a sufficient recompense for the loss of his father's.
"In the course of five years she made him the father of three lovely children, and, during that time, their happiness never received the least interruption: but our regiment was then again ordered abroad; and leaving his family in this village, under the protection of Sir James and Lady Elvyn, the Colonel bade adieu to Wales, and beneath the walls of Carthagena found a soldier's grave!
"Ah, Sir! five-and-thirty years have not worn away the remembrance of that day. Still fresh in my memory is the moment I saw him borne in the arms of the soldiers from the field. Many times had I faced death, regardless of the carnage which surrounded me—but the sight of my noble master's corpse made me a coward! The shout of victory, which had been wont to rouse me to an enthusiastic madness of joy, ceased to vibrate on my heart; and, though a soldier, I cursed the ravages of war!
"At such a time, but little ceremony can be used:—a shell was hastily prepared, into which he was laid, and the following evening carried on the shoulders of his men to the grave they had previously prepared. I followed—a real mourner! The half-suppressed groans of my comrades were answered by my own, and each stroke on the drum sank deeper in my heart. I however marched to the grave: but when I heard the earth rattle on the coffin of him, whom the day before I had beheld in the pride of health; surrounded with honour; whose words the oldest officers listened to with respect, and whose presence could animate and lead his men to the greatest dangers, then bereft of life, and hurried to the dust—to think of his wife—his children!—My heart already swelled with anguish to the utmost, could bear no more—I threw myself in the half-filled grave—in bitter terms lamented his untimely fate, and franticly accused the hand of Providence, that had not shielded him from the stroke of death! In vain my fellow-soldiers endeavoured to recall me to reason, to arouse me to a sense of apprehended danger from the scouts of the enemy: I was insensible to all but the remembrance of my master! At last they tore me from the sacred spot, and hurried me back to the battery, where I was suffered unmolested to indulge in my grief.
"Some days after, the General sent for me; he praised my honest affection, as he termed it, for my deceased master, and would have received me into his own service; but, finding me averse to the proposal, consented to my bearing the intelligence of the Colonel's death to my Lady. The property belonging to my master was therefore entrusted to my care, and I once more returned to Wales; when I found an account of his death had reached his wife by means of the public papers. She bore her loss with that meek resignation which marked her character, and, being then destitute of other support than her pension, determined, for the sake of her children, to humble herself before their stern grand-sire, and entreat his pity and protection. But his heart was too obdurate to yield to the orphan's or widow's tears; and that forgiveness he had refused to his own child, he vowed never to extend to hers.
"She then applied to his sons, my late master's brothers, the eldest of whom had a very large fortune, which he inherited from a relation: but they, like the old gentleman, were deaf to her claim of relief or protection; their pride of blood, indeed, would not let them stoop to acknowledge the poor descendants of an obscure country clergyman.
"My Lady returned to Sir James, who, on being informed of her unsuccessful application, said—'It is not more, Mrs. Booyers, than I expected from the well-known character of his Lordship and his sons: but let not this disappointment of your wishes rather than your hopes depress you. In Lady Elvyn, you have a sincere and affectionate friend: your hearts are congenial: stay then with her, and let her attentions and commiseration soothe the sorrows of your widowhood: as for your children—I will supply the place of the father they have lost.'—And truly did Sir James keep his word. My Lady remained at the Hall till her death, which happened about two years after; when she and her little girl both died of the small-pox.