Part 20

Inspired by just indignation, and determined to unravel this terrible mystery, the Duke of Dorset took him in a fiacre to the hotel of the Comte de Montmorin, the only minister then in Paris, to demand the reason of this outrage upon the laws of war, of peace, and of common humanity; but the official of the unfortunate Louis could only shrug his shoulders, make the usual grimaces and apologies, and plead, that as the records of the Bastille had perished in the sack of that prison, it was totally beyond his power to explain the affair; for not a scrap of paper remained to show how or why this brave officer of the Black Watch, who had been wounded and taken prisoner in action in 1758, should have been found in that dreadful place thirty-one years after. The Duke of Dorset perceived, with surprise, that while speaking the Comte de Montmorin was ghastly pale, and that his eyes were filled with terror. It would have made a fine subject for a painter, but a finer still for a novelist--the delineation of this interview, as it took place in the drawing-room of the Hotel de Montmorin on the morning after the demolition of the Bastille.

The unfortunate victim of a government which had long made that infamous prison an engine of tyranny, was introduced by our proud and determined ambassador, who spoke for him in no measured tones; for alas! the poor major could scarcely put three words together, and for some hours seemed to have forgotten the sound of his own voice.

In the stately and now elderly French lady seated on the gilt fauteuil, between her shrieking and pitying daughters, clad in her high stays, hooped petticoat, and figured satin, with an esclavage round her neck, and her white hair powdered and towered up into a mountain of curls, flowers, and feathers, à la Marquise de Pompadour, it was impossible for Adam White to recognise the once beautiful and black-eyed Lucy of his youth--the simple Scottish girl of the quiet old manse on Tweedside, for whom his sorrowing heart had yearned with agony, in the long and dreary days of captivity, and in the longer watches of the silent night, until love and youth and blessed hope all passed away together.

It was as difficult for her to trace in that wan, aged, and resuscitated man, the handsome young officer who had left her side to fight Britain's battles under Amherst and the hero of Quebec. She was now a white-haired matron, and he a wild-eyed, haggard old man--old by premature years, for eight-and-twenty in the Bastille had crushed him by a load of unavailing care and sorrow. How many seasons had passed over that dark and vaulted solitude during which his pained and weary eyes had never met a friendly smile, or his ear welcomed a kindly greeting.

Eight-and-twenty summers had bloomed and withered, and eight-and twenty winters had spread their snows upon the hills! In that long space of time, how many had been wedded and given in marriage, or been laid in their last homes?--how many of the brave and good, the noble and the beautiful, had gone to "the Land of the Leal," where there is no dawning or gloaming, where the sun shines for ever, and the flowers never die!

For eight-and-twenty years all the pulses of life had seemed to stand still; and now, under their changed aspect and character, and ignorant of each other's presence, Lucy Fleming and Adam White stood within the same apartment, without a glance of recognition. Weak, tottering, and frail, White was placed in a chair, and the countess brought wine to him from a side table. His aspect was that of a dying man; her eyes were full of pity, and her daughters wept to see this poor old man, whose wandering faculties were awaking to a new existence after the long and dreamless sleep of eight-and-twenty years, and to whom the upper air, the blessed sunshine, and the twitter of the happy birds, were all as strange and new as if he had never known them.

"Your name, monsieur le prisonnier?" asked her husband, coldly, and with averted eye.

"Adam White--yes, yes--I am sure it was so--Adam White; once a major in the 42nd Regiment of his Britannic Majesty George II.," he replied, with great difficulty and long pauses.

"George II. has been dead these twenty-eight years, sir," replied the Duke of Dorset, kindly placing an arm upon his shoulder, while, with outspread hands and eyes dilated with terror, the countess started back as if a spectre had risen before her.

"Dead! dead!" muttered the major. "I too have been dead, I think--and who now is on the throne?"

"His grandson, George III."

"Know you the crime for which you were arrested, monsieur?" asked the count, who did not seem to notice the agitation of the countess.

The sunken eyes of Major White flashed, but the emotion died at once, for his heart seemed broken and his spirit crushed.

"Crime!" said he; "I was wounded and taken in the assault on Ticonderoga by the Comte de Montmorin."

"I commanded there, and I am he."

"This was thirty-one years ago--my God! oh, my God!"

"Be calm, dear sir," said the Duke of Dorset.

"And you have been all that time in the Bastille?"

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Horrible!" exclaimed the duke.

"You were arrested"--

"One night in the streets of Paris, near the Port St. Antoine, when I was at liberty upon parole, as a prisoner of war."

"When was this?"

"In 1761--three years after Ticonderoga."

"Ah, we had peace with Britain in 1768," said the count, averting his eyes, and endeavouring to assume a composure which he did not feel under the keen scrutiny of Dorset's eye. "And so we meet again--fortune has cast us together once more."

"Fortune--say rather fatality," replied White, as some old memory shook his withered heart.

"Did you ever hear how or why you were arrested?"

"Once, and once only--I was told--I was told that it was on the authority of a _lettre de cachet_, filled up by King Louis in the name of the Comte de Montmorin."

"It is an infamous falsehood!" exclaimed the count, passionately.

"Perhaps so," sighed White, meekly; "the man who told me so has been dead twenty-three years."

"And this arrest was"--

"On the anniversary of Ticonderoga--the night of the 15th of July, 1761."

"The 15th of July!" exclaimed the countess, wildly, and in a piercing voice; "on the morning of that very day my desk was rifled of your letters, and your miniature, Adam White!--O my friend--I see it all--I see this horrible mystery!"

White turned his hollow eyes and haggard visage towards her in wonder. He passed a hand repeatedly across his eyes, as if to clear his thoughts, then shook his white head, and relapsed into dreamy vacancy. After a painful pause, "That voice," said he, "is like one which used to come to me often--very often--in the Bastille; in my dreams it used to mingle with the rustle of the straw I slept on."

He smiled with so ghastly an expression that the Duke of Dorset grew pale with anger and compassion. He had gleaned from White the story of his life, and discovered in a moment that the countess was the Lucy Fleming of his early love; and that the count, on discovering the wounded and long-missing major to be in Paris in 1761, to preclude all chance of the lovers ever meeting again, had consigned him to the Bastille, there to be detained for life, as it was termed "IN SECRET."

"Monseigneur," said he, sternly, "I see a clue to this dark story; and believe me, that the king, whom I have the honour to represent, will take sure vengeance for this act of more than Italian jealousy, and for an atrocity which cannot be surpassed in the annals of yonder accursed edifice, which the mob of yesterday have happily hurled to the earth."

With these words he retired, taking with him Adam White, who seemed reduced to mere childhood, for recollection and animation came upon him only by gleams and at unexpected times. As they withdrew, the countess turned away in horror from her husband, and fainted in the arms of her terrified daughters.

The inquiry threatened by our ambassador was never made. Paris was then convulsed, and France was trembling on the brink of anarchy, even as the weak Louis trembled on his crumbling throne. The exertions of his Grace of Dorset to unravel more of the mystery, and the fears of the Comte de Montmorin, were alike futile, for next morning the poor major was found dead in his bed. He had expired in the night. The sudden revulsion of feeling produced by a release, after so many years of blank captivity, had proved too much for his weak frame and shattered constitution. He was buried in the church of St. Germain de Prez; and when Oswald's sans-culottes lifted the dead man from the bed, to lay him in the humble shell provided by the curé of the parish, there dropped from his breast a locket It contained a miniature and a withered tress of black hair--the last mementoes left to him of all that he had loved in the pleasant days of youth and hope, and prized beyond even blessed hope itself, in the solitude and horror of the long years that had followed Ticonderoga. The ruffians who had desecrated the regal sepulchres of St. Denis respected the heritage of the dead soldier, so that the locket was buried with him; and there, in the ancient church of St. Germain, Oswald, the political enthusiast, interred his old and long-lost comrade with all the honours of war.

The stone which was erected in the church, and of which I have given the brief inscription, is said, traditionally, to have been the gift of a lady--who, need scarcely be mentioned. How long this lady and the count her husband survived the disclosures consequent to the destruction of the Bastille, I have no means of knowing; but French history has recorded the fate of Jack Oswald.

His two sons left Edinburgh and joined him at Paris, where, to illustrate the complete system of equality and fraternity, he made them both drummers in his regiment, among the soldiers of which his severe discipline soon rendered him unpopular; and on his attempting to substitute pikes for muskets, the whole battalion refused to obey, and then officers and men broke out into open mutiny.

"Colonel Oswald's corps," continues the editor of the "Scottish Biographical Dictionary," "was one of the first employed against the royalists in La Vendée, where he was killed in battle. It is said that his men took advantage of the occasion to rid themselves of their obnoxious commander, and to despatch also his two sons, and an English gentleman who was serving in his regiment."

And thus ends another legend of the Black Watch.

VIII.

ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT.

Colquhoun Grant, a captain of one of our battalion companies during the Peninsular war, was a hardy, active, strong, and handsome Highlander, from the wooded mountains that overlook Strathspey. Inured from childhood to the hardships and activity incidental to a life in the country of the clans, where the care of vast herds of sheep and cattle, or the pursuit of the wild deer from rock to rock, and from hill to hill, are the chief occupations of the people;--a deadly shot with either musket or pistol, and a complete swordsman, he was every way calculated to become an ornament to our regiment and to the service. General Sir William Napier, in the fourth volume of his "History of the Peninsular War," writes of him as "Colquhoun Grant, that celebrated scouting officer, in whom the utmost _daring_ was so mixed with subtlety of genius, and both so tempered by _discretion_, that it is difficult to say which quality predominated."

In the spring of 1812, when Lord Wellington crossed the Tagus, and entered Castello Branco, rendering the position of Marshal Marmont so perilous that he retired across the Agueda, by which the general of the allies, though his forces were spread over a vast extent of cantonments, was enabled to victual the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almieda, the 42nd, or old Black Watch, were with the division of Lieutenant-General Grahame, of Lynedoch. The service battalion consisted of 1160 rank and file, and notwithstanding the fatigues of marching by day and night, of fording rivers above the waist-belt, and all those arduous operations by which Wellington so completely baffled and out-generalled Marmont in all his attempts to attack Rodrigo--movements in which the sagacity of the "Iron Duke" appeared so remarkable, that a brave old Highland officer (General Stewart of Garth) declared his belief that their leader had the _second sight_,--not a man of our regiment straggled or fell to the rear, from hunger, weariness, or exhaustion; all were with the colours when the roll was called in the morning.

The information that enabled Wellington to execute those skilful manoeuvres which dazzled all Europe, and confounded, while they baffled, the French marshal, was supplied from time to time by Colquhoun Grant, who, accompanied by Domingo de Leon, a Spanish peasant, had the boldness to remain in rear of the enemy's lines, watching all their operations, and noting their numbers; and it is a remarkable fact that while on this most dangerous service he constantly wore _the Highland uniform, with his bonnet and epaulettes_; thus, while acting as a scout, freeing himself from the accusation of being in any way a spy, "for," adds Napier, "he never would assume any disguise, and yet frequently remained for three days concealed in the midst of Marmont's camp."

Hence the secret of Wellington's facility for circumventing Marmont was the information derived from Colquhoun Grant; and the secret of Grant's ability for baffling the thousand snares laid for him by the French, was simply that he had a Spanish love, who watched over his safety with all a woman's wit, and the idolatry of a Spanish woman, who, when she loves, sees but _one_ man in the world--the object of her passion.

When Marmont was advancing, Wellington despatched Captain Grant to watch his operations "in the heart of the French army," and from among its soldiers to glean whether they really had an intention of succouring the garrison of Ciudad Rodrigo--a desperate duty, which, like many others, our hero undertook without delay or doubt.

Thus, on an evening in February, Grant found himself on a solitary mountain of Leon, overlooking the vast plain of Salamanca, on the numerous spires and towers of which the light of eve was fading, while the gilded vanes of the cathedral shone like stars in the deep blue sky that was darkening as the sun set behind the hills; and one of those hot dry days peculiar to the province gave place to a dewy twilight, when the Tormes, which rises among the mountains of Salamanca, and washes the base of the triple bill on which the city stands, grew white and pale, as it wandered through plains dotted by herds of Merino sheep, but destitute of trees, until it vanished on its course towards the Douro, on the frontiers of Portugal.

Exhausted by a long ride from Lord Wellington's head-quarters, and by numerous efforts he had made to repass the cordon of picquets and patrols by which the French--now on his track--had environed him, Grant lay buried in deep sleep, under the shade of some olive-trees, with a brace of pistols in his belt, his claymore by his side, and his head resting in the lap of a beautiful Spanish peasant girl, Juanna, the sister of his faithful Leon, a warm-hearted, brave, and affectionate being, who, like her brother, had attached herself to the favourite scouting officer of Wellington, and, full of admiration for his adventurous spirit, handsome figure, and winning manner, loved him with all the ardour, romance, and depth of which a Spanish girl of eighteen is capable.

Juanna de Leon and her brother Domingo were the children of a wealthy farmer and vine-dresser, who dwelt on the mountainous range known as the Puerto del Pico, which lies southward of Salamanca; but the vines had been destroyed, the _granja_ burned, and the poor old agriculturist was bayonetted on his hearthstone by some Voltigeurs of Marmont, under a Lieutenant Armand, when on a foraging expedition. Thus Juanna and her brother were alike homeless and kinless.

The girl was beautiful. Youth lent to her somewhat olive-tinted cheek a ruddy glow that enhanced the dusky splendour of her Spanish eyes; her lashes were long; her mouth small, and like a cherry; her chin dimpled; her hands were faultless, as were her ankles, which were cased in prettily embroidered red stockings, and gilt zapatas. With all these attractions she had a thousand winning ways, such as only a girl of Leon can possess. Close by lay the guitar and castanets with which she played and sung her weary lover to sleep.

Her brother was handsome, athletic, and resolute, in eye and bearing; but since the destruction of their house, he had become rather fierce and morose, as hatred of the invading French and a thirst for vengeance were ever uppermost in his mind. He had relinquished the vine-bill for the musket; his yellow sash bristled with pistols and daggers; and with heaven for his roof, and his brown Spanish mantle for a couch, he had betaken himself to the mountains, where he shot without mercy every straggling Frenchman who came within reach of his terrible aim.

While Grant slept, the tinkling of the vesper bells was borne across the valley, the sunlight died away over the mountains, and the winding Tormes, that shone like the coils of a vast snake, faded from the plain. The Spanish girl stooped and kissed her toil-worn lover's cheek, and bent her keen dark eyes upon the mountain path by which she seemed to expect a visitor.

One arm was thrown around the curly head of the sleeper, and her fingers told her beads as she prayed over him; but her prayers were _not_ for herself.

Innocent and single-hearted Juanna!

Suddenly there was a sound of footsteps, and a handsome young Spaniard, wearing a brown capa gathered over his arm, shouldering a long musket to which a leather sling was attached, and having his coal black hair gathered behind in a red silk net, sprang up the rocks towards the olive-grove, and approached Juanna and the sleeper. The new comer was her brother.

"Domingo, your tidings?" she asked, breathlessly.

"They are evil; so wake your Senor Capitano without delay."

"I am awake," said Grant, rising at the sound of his voice. "Thanks, dearest Juanna; have I been so cruel as to keep you here in the cold dew--and watching me, too?"

"Caro mio!"

"It _was_ cruel of me; but I have been so weary that nature was quite overcome. And now, Domingo, my _bueno camarado_, for your tidings?"

"I would speak first of the Marshal Marmont."

"And then?"

"Of yourself, senor."

"Bravo! let us have the Marshal first, by all means."

"I have been down the valley, and across the plain, almost to the gates of Salamanca," said the young paisano, leaning on his musket, and surveying, first, his sister with tender interest, and then, Grant with a dubious and anxious expression, for he loved him too, but trembled for the sequel to the stranger's passion for the beautiful Juanna. "I have been round the vicinity of the city from Monte Rubio and Villares to the bridge of Santa Marta on the Tormes--"

"And you have learned?' said Grant, impetuously.

"That scaling-ladders have been prepared in great numbers, for I saw them. Vast quantities of provision and ammunition on mules have been brought from the Pyrenees, and Marmont is sending everything--ladders, powder, and bread--towards--"

"Not Ciudad Rodrigo and Almieda."

"Si, senor."

"The devil! You are sure of this?"

"I counted twenty scaling-ladders, each five feet wide, and reckoned forty mules, each bearing fourteen casks of ball cartridges."

"Good--I thank you, Domingo," said Grant, taking paper from a pocket-book, and making a hasty note or memorandum for Lord Wellington.

"Ay--Dios mi terra!" said Juanna, with a soft sigh, as she dropped her head upon Grant's shoulder, and Domingo kissed her brow.

"Now, where is Manrico el Barbado?" asked the captain, as he securely gummed the secret note.

"Within call," said Domingo, giving a shrill whistle.

A sound like the whirr of a partridge replied, and then a strong and ferocious-looking peasant, bare legged, and bare necked, with an enormous black beard (whence came his soubriquet of _el Barbado_), sprang up the rocks and made a profound salute to Grant, who was beloved and adored by all the guerillas, banditti, and wild spirits whom the French had unhoused and driven to the mountains; and among these his name was a proverb for all that was gallant, reckless, and chivalresque.

"Is your mule in good condition, Manrico?"

"He was never better, senor."

"Then ride with _this_ to Lord Wellington; spare neither whip nor spur, and he will repay you handsomely."

"And how about yourself, senor?"

"Say to his lordship that I will rejoin him as early and as I best may."

The Spanish scout concealed the note in _his beard_ with great ingenuity, and knowing well that he could thus pass the French lines with confidence, and defy all search, he departed on his journey to the British head-quarters; and the information thus received from Grant enabled the leader of the allies to take such measures as completely to outflank Marmont, and baffle his attempts upon Almieda and the city of Rodrigo.

"So much for my friend Marmont," said Grant, "and now, Domingo, for _myself_."

"Read this," said Domingo, handing to him a document; "I stabbed the French sentinel at the bridge of Santa Marta, and tore this paper from the guard-house door."

It proved to be a copy of a General Order, addressed by Marmont to the colonels of the French regiments, "saying" (to quote General Napier) "that the notorious Grant, being within the circle of their cantonments, the soldiers were to use their utmost exertions to secure him; for which purpose guards were also to be placed, as it were, in a circle round the army."

"Caro mio, read this to me," whispered Juanna.

He translated it, and terror filled the dilating eyes of the Spanish girl; her breath came thick and fast, and she crept closer to the breast of her lover, who smiled and kissed her cheek to reassure her.

"Have you closely examined all the country?" he asked Domingo.

"I have, senor."

"Well?"

"There is but _one_ way back to Lord Wellington's head-quarters."

"And that is--"

"At the ford of Huerta on the Tormes."

"Six miles below Salamanca?"

"Yes."

"I will cross the ford, then."

"But a French battalion occupies the town."

"I care not if ten battalions occupied it--_I must even ride the ford as I find it_; 'tis a saying in my country, Domingo, where I hope our dear Juanna will one day smile with me, when we talk of sunny Spain and these wild adventures."

"No--no--you will never leave Spain," said Juanna, with a merry smile. "Your poor Spanish girl could never go to the land of the Inglesos, where the sun shines but once in a year--not once every day, as it does here in beautiful Leon: but say no more of this, or I shall sing _Ya no quiero amores_," &c., and, taking up her guitar, she sang with a winning drollery of expression which made her piquant loveliness a thousand times more striking:--

"My love no more to England--to England now shall roam, For I have a better, fonder love--a truer love at home! If I should visit England, I hope to find them true; For a love like mine deserves a wreath! Green and immortal too! But, O! they are proud, those English dames, to all who thither roam, And I have a better, dearer love--a truer love at home!"

"You have _me_, Juanna--dearest Juanna!" exclaimed Grant, tenderly, as he kissed her.

"And now for Huerta," said Domingo, slapping the butt of his musket impatiently; "the moon be above the Pico del Puerto in half an hour--vaya--let us begone."