"Well, put them on this instant, sir; it's disgraceful. Put them on, I tell you. Be quick."
Jones, seeing I was resolute, presently gave tokens of compliance. "Don't let me find you in that state when I come back," said I.
There was nothing now to wait for, save the absentees. About eleven o'clock, a.m., the dragoons returned. They had gone some distance down the lane, and found nothing. At length, one of them noticed, in the ditch, a trunk, which proved, on examination, to have been broken open and rifled. This they brought back with them; and it announced to us, in language but too intelligible, what had been the probable fate of the party missing.—The fact is, when Mr Chesterfield purchased a mule at St Jean de Luz, for the conveyance of his personal baggage, his servant had discarded the albarda or pack-saddle, determining to load in his own way. Hence, in fact, the loss of the party. The albarda, please to observe, is essential to the serviceableness of your mule. In appearance, no doubt, it is the awkwardest thing in the world. Imagine a hard straw mattress (for it comes nearer that than anything else,) fitted to the animal's back, and covering nearly the whole of it. "Quite absurd," you would say, "to oppress a beast of burden with such an extra load." But then this mattress answers a threefold purpose. First, it keeps the load from galling your mule's back: secondly, it cushions the packages, so that they do not shift: thirdly, and this perhaps is most important of all, it distributes the weight, so that the burden presses equally. Now Mr Chesterfield's personelle was stowed in large awkward black boxes, of the most approved London make, which hung over the mule's back by straps, and of course were continually getting wrong. The inconvenience of this outfit became apparent, ere we were clear of the town of St Jean de Luz. The mule got uneasy; the load shifted; something was continually requiring to be set right. Both mule and driver, horse and groom, soon fell into the rear: the groom blowing up the driver in English, which he didn't understand; the driver bothered with an arrangement, which he knew was all wrong. They came up when we halted, but soon fell behind again. The last time they were seen in the lane, which was just before it fell dark, they were come to a halt, and were all at sixes and sevens. Whether they were killed, or made prisoners, or escaped with the loss of the effects, we never heard or ascertained during the rest of our journey to headquarters.
The packing was now completed with all expedition. By noon we got fairly off; and a march, not quite so short as we expected, brought us to our resting-place for the night.
CHAPTER XIV.
I question if the Gascon character has been duly appreciated. A Gascon is a braggadocio; so we settle it. Now the Gascons are great in this line, it's undeniable. But that which really distinguishes a Gascon, is grandiloquence on all subjects. Whatever the topic of conversation, his style is exaggerated. Tell a Gascon any extraordinary fact, he instantly caps it—tells you something more extraordinary of the same kind. If he happens to be speaking of himself, he still employs the same style of amplification, but only as he would in discussing any subject besides. He possesses also, in an eminent degree, that—(what? frankness, shall I call it?)—at any rate, that peculiar quality, which at once makes you feel as much at ease with him as with an old acquaintance. All the French have this, but the Gascon has it pre-eminently.
My billet for the night was at a seedsman's. Five minutes after my arrival I felt domesticated. He puzzled me not a little though, by eagerly inquiring whether I had ever met in England with a plant called Chou d'Yorck. Its fame had reached him, but the long war had prevented his obtaining a sample. He rejoiced in the prospect of a peace, which would enable him to obtain some Chou d'Yorck. In form he was stiff and stumpy, but in speech and manner lively. To assist him in his shop, he had a youth—age eighteen or nineteen—whom he treated with considerable hauteur. My landlord, his assistant, and myself, all three took our evening meal together; but the youth was not permitted to sit down. Standing near his master, like Corporal Trim, with one foot before the other in an attitude, his head very upright, and his chest projected, he grasped in one hand a hunch of bread and a modicum of sausage, while the other flourished a pocket-knife. His master abruptly handed him a tumbler of wine, without asking him when he would have it; and he forthwith tossed it off, and set down the glass, as if so much and no more was his allowance.
I was amused with my landlord's oration, when I entered his shop and presented my billet. He first read it, then looked at me. "Ah," said he, "in your face, now, I see something, Monsieur, which tells me we shall find you an agreeable inmate. The last Englishman I had conducted himself so badly, I was forced to pitch him out of the window." My landlord had a great penchant, like other Frenchmen of that day, for conversing on the subject of duelling. Asked me if the English did not decide their duels with pistols—were they good shots? I told him the famous wager that had come off not long before, when a crack shot betted to hit with a pistol nineteen oranges out of twenty thrown up in the air—missed the first on purpose to increase the odds—hit the other nineteen. This brought out the Gascon. I had told something extraordinary, he must cap it. "But, Monsieur," said he, "we have, in this place, persons who can hit a butterfly on the wing." (Qui tuent un papillon volant!) He gave me some account of a partisan, who had been active against the English. "Monsieur, he's as brave as a lion; in one word, he's as brave as I am myself," (à tout dire, il est brave comme moi.) One difference between a Gascon and the rest of the world I conceive to be this—that, when other people utter an extravagant or bombastic speech, they generally utter it in a joke; but when a Gascon exaggerates or romances, he speaks with perfect seriousness, and so expects to be taken.
This evening, though, I made a most agreeable discovery. Jones had found stable-room for Sancho in the yard of an inn near my billet. After dinner I stepped out, feeling it necessary, from previous observation, to see that Sancho had his. On reaching the inn-yard, the first thing I saw was just what one often sees at home about suburban public-houses, a party holding an open-air compotation, standing. It was a party of three—an English soldier, an English groom, and a Portuguese youth of twenty, dressed as much like the groom as possible. They stood in a triangle, noses all pointing to the common centre of gravity. Each held a glass, and the English servant a bottle. He, I concluded, "stood it." The soldier was Jones. He was rhetorically holding forth; the other two were earnest listeners—his theme, the battle of Vittoria. My approach broke up the party. I walked direct into Sancho's stable; found his crib empty—no appearance of corn. This might have been accounted for, by supposing the corn already consumed; but Jones couldn't keep his own counsel. He soon put the matter beyond all doubt by rushing in with a sieve-full, which he shot out under the pony's nose, and sedulously dispersed with his hand. The other two went into their own stable: the English groom, I observed, touching his hat. I had seen him somewhere before, but didn't remember, at the moment, time or place.
"Please, sir," said Jones, "both on 'em is sarvant to a jeddleham, sir; a Hinglishman, what's a-going up along with us, sir, 'cause we've got a hescort, sir; 'cause he considers it's more safer than going by his-self, sir. One on 'em's his groom, sir, and the other's his help, sir." The corn stuck in my gizzard, and I made no reply.