Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 16

by Unknown

The news that the meeting had been dispersed, and that several were wounded, were brought to James Nicholson and his daughter as they sat waiting the return of her husband.

"Oh, I trust in goodness that naething has happened to William!" she exclaimed. "But what can be stopping him? Oh, had he but ta'en my advice!—had ye no persuaded him, faither! But ye was waur than him."

James made no reply. A gloomy apprehension that "something had happened" was stealing over his mind. He took his staff, and walked forward, as far as he was able, upon the road; but, after waiting for two hours, and after fruitless inquiries at every one he met, he returned, having heard nothing of his son-in-law. His daughter, with three children around her, sat weeping before the fire. He endeavoured to comfort her, and to inspire her with hopes which he did not himself feel, and to banish fears from her breast which he himself entertained. Night set in, and, with its darkness, their fears and their anxiety increased. The children wept more bitterly as the distress of their mother became stronger; they raised their little hands, they pulled her gown, and they called for their father. A cart stopped at the door; and William Crawford, with his arm bound up, was carried into his house by strangers. Catherine screamed when she beheld him, and the children cried wildly. Old James met them at the door, and said, "O William!"

He had been found by the side of a hedge, fainting from loss of blood. A bullet had entered his arm below the shoulder—the bone was splintered; and on a surgeon's being sent for, he declared that immediate amputation was necessary. Poor Catherine and her little ones were taken into the house of a neighbour while the operation was to be performed, and even her father had not nerve to look on it. William sat calmly, and beheld the surgeon and his assistant make their preparations, and when the former took the knife in his hand, the wounded man thought not of bodily pain, but the feelings of the father and the husband gushed forth.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "had it been my leg, it wad hae been naething; but my arm—I will be helpless for life! What am I to do now for my puir Katie and my bits o' bairns? Guid gracious! I canna beg!—and auld James, puir body, what will come owre him! Oh, sir," added he, addressing the surgeon, "I could bear to hae my arm cut through in twenty different places, were it not that it deprives me o' the power o' working for bread for my family!"

"Keep a stout heart, my good fellow," said the surgeon, as he began his task; "they will be provided for in some way."

"Grant it may be sae!" answered William; "but I see naething for as but to beg!"

I must here, however, take back my reader to 1815, and from the neighbourhood of Stirling direct their attention to Brussels and Waterloo. George Washington Nicholson, after the battle of Toulouse, had been appointed to the rank of serjeant. For several months he was an inmate in the house of a thriving merchant in Brussels; he had assisted him in his business; he, in fact, acted as his chief clerk and his confidant; he became as one of the family, and nothing was done by the Belgian trader without consulting Serjeant Nicholson.

But the fearful night of the 15th of June arrived, when the sounds of the pibroch rang through the streets of Brussels, startling soldier and citizen, and the raven and the owl were invited to a feast. The name of Napoleon was pronounced by tongues of every nation. "He comes!—he comes!" was the cry. George Nicholson was one of the first to array himself for battle, and rush forth to join his regiment. He bade a hurried farewell to his host; but there was one in the house whose hand trembled when he touched it, and on whose lips he passionately breathed his abrupt adieu. It was the gentle Louise, the sole daughter of his host.

The three following days were dreadful days in Brussels; confusion, anxiety, dismay, prevailed in every street; they were pictured in every countenance. On one hand were crowded the wounded from the battle, on the other were citizens flying from the town to save their goods and themselves, and, in their general eagerness to escape, blocking up their flight. Shops were shut, houses deserted, and churches turned into hospitals. But, in the midst of all—every hour, and more frequently—there went a messenger from the house of the merchant with whom Serjeant Nicholson had lodged, to the Porte de Namur, to inquire how fared it with the Highlanders, to examine the caravans with the wounded as they arrived, and to inquire at the hospitals, if one whom Louise named had been brought there.