“Sure enough, sir, and so have I—times and again. Looking as sheepish too and as down in the mouth as ever a man need look. It don’t make much wonder neither, seeing they’re dragged away from their homes and their sweethearts, and never a chance of getting off. O they’ll make smart soldiers enough, I’ll be bound, and good food for shot too, with a few months of drilling, and be as ready to rave as any Frenchman of them all for ‘le petit Caporal,’ as they’re pleased to call the Emperor. And the mothers and sweethearts may bear the sorrow as they can, and the land may go uncultivated, and what does Boney care, so long as he has his way?”
“But—conscripts for Napoleon! French soldiers—chained!”[1] uttered Roy.
“Well, you see, sir, it’s this way. They’ve got to be taken from their homes to the dépôt; and scarce a man among ’em wouldn’t desert on the road, if he’d a chance of doing so. When they’ve been in the army a few weeks or months, disciplined and turned into proper soldiers, they’ll learn a pride in their new position, and things’ll be different; but at the first ’tis hard upon the poor chaps. Why, look you, I’ve heard of a young fellow being taken straight off, just as he was on the point of being married, and the marriage put off, nobody knew how long. As like as not, in six months he’d be in a soldier’s grave.”
Roy thought of Lucille.
“’Tis not our English way with our soldiers,” he said, in reference to the sight before them.
“No, sir. But”—and a queer smile gleamed on the weatherbeaten face—“but I’m not one for to go for to say that even old England is never in the wrong. You’ve maybe heard o’ such matters as the work of the press-gangs, that force men to go to sea against their will; carry ’em off captive, in fact. Many a brave tar, in His Majesty’s Service at this moment, who’d give his life for his country, and never a moment’s hesitation, was kidnapped at the first and dragged away, unwilling enough, I can tell you.”[2]
“More shame for them, if they didn’t want to fight for the liberties of England!” retorted little Will, with the dignity of a man three times his size.
The chained and dejected conscripts followed in rear of the prisoners, as the march was resumed.
Day after day it went on. A hundred leagues were not to be accomplished on foot quickly, by a large number of men and boys, of varying powers, many of them used to shipboard life, and entirely unused to long tramps. There were tender feet and weary limbs among them before long, and things grew worse each day. Food was poor, and at night when they halted they were put to sleep in the common prison of the place, no matter what manner of prison it might be. Roy would have found it hard to rest, in such accommodation as was provided, but that he was usually far too weary to keep awake.
He was carefully guarding the money with which he had been abundantly supplied by his father; not allowing it to be known that he possessed more than a few loose coins, sufficient for immediate needs. Impulsive Roy would hardly have been so reticent, but for injunctions at the last from Ivor. Like Ivor, he was naturally open-handed and generous, and he could not but share freely what he had in hand with the middies, since they proved to be ill supplied with cash.