Part 23

His corps had been quartered for a year in the barracks of the Gallowgate in the capital of the west, and Dick, who was decidedly of convivial, and scandal whispered of somewhat nocturnal, habits, and having, moreover, a high appreciation of the virtues of Glasgow punch, was in the habit of going home every night in the happiest mood of mind; and on more than one occasion was assisted by the friendly arm of the watchers and warders of the civic guard, or of the corporal of the patrol. The regiment marched for Edinburgh, changing quarters with the brave old Pompadours, who were so called from the colour of their facings resembling Madame's gown; but Dick, having obtained a month's leave between returns, resolved to enjoy himself a little longer among his old haunts, and remained behind, exulting in freedom from duty and the seclusion of mufti.

A week after the regiment marched, Dick Duff found himself about midnight propped against a lamp-post in the High-street, with very vague ideas of his own name, rank, and residence, and seriously weighing in his own mind whether the pavement and row of lamps extending to the right, or those that lay to the left, led to the barracks; for his faculties were so cloudy, that he had become utterly oblivious as to the circumstance of his being on leave, in plain clothes, and living at a west-end hotel.

After long and serious pondering, Dick instinctively discovered the right way by old habit, and proceeded, somewhat deviously, of course, through the delightful locality known as "the Sautmarket," and along the Gallowgate, until he found himself before the dark gate of the barracks, and heard the familiar step of the great-coated sentry pacing slowly to and fro inside. Here he kicked with vigour, and struck up his favourite mess-room song--

"Who knows but our girls-- (We have known stranger things!) When once they've got feathers. May make themselves wings; And like swallows in winter, May soon take their flight; And for lovers of '_ours_,' Bid their husbands good-night."

"Hollo! gate--gate!" shouted Dick, sprawling against it with outstretched hands.

"Who comes there?"

"Friend--particular friend of yours, my boy--very."

The drowsy sergeant of the guard unfastened the barrier, and sulkily passed a lantern once or twice across the face of the visitor, till it was knocked out of his hand by Dick, who exclaimed--

"D--n it, sir, what d'ye mean?--light me to my quarters."

"I beg pardon, sir," said the sergeant, who thought Dick might be one of the staff; but the lantern was extinguished, so our friend resumed his song, and stumbled on alone to the old staircase, with which he was quite familiar; and ascending by mere force of habit to his room, found the door-handle on the right as usual, and entered.

"All right," muttered Dick, "all right. Here's the bed-post--and the candlestick should be _here_."

But he could neither find candle nor matches, and resolving to "row" his man in the morning, he threw off his clothes, tumbled headlong into bed, and was soon sound asleep.

Now it happened that the proprietor of the aforesaid quarters was the officer of the main-guard, who as the next day proved Sunday, was to come off duty at eight o'clock a.m., and duly at the hour of seven his servant entered to prepare a fire and lay breakfast. Hearing a vehement snore proceed from his master's bed, the servant drew back the curtains, and, to his no small surprise, discovered the dark, sunburned, and well-whiskered visage of a stranger, whom he immediately awoke; but not without considerable difficulty and after reiterated efforts.

"Who are you," grumbled Dick; "and what the devil do you want?"

"What do you want here?"

"Where, old fellow?"

"In my master's bed."

"Master's bed, you scoundrel!" stuttered Dick; "how dare you intrude into an officer's room? be off, or I shall send you to the _shop_ in a minute." And so, Dick Duff, believing that he had settled the little mistake satisfactorily, again composed himself to sleep, while the servant hurried to the main guard to acquaint his master that "a thief was in possession of his bed and quarters." These tidings promptly brought up the officer with his sword in his hand, and a file of the guard at his heels.

Dick was once more roused, and wrathfully, too, from his slumbers, to find by his bedside two soldiers and an officer _cap-à-pie_ in a strange uniform.

"What do you mean, fellow, by this unwarrantable in-in-in-trusion?" asked Dick, with great dignity.

"Who are you, sir?" asked the officer in a louder key.

"You'll soon find that out--off with you, sir, or by heavens I'll parade you where you won't like it. I have a pair of saw-handled pacifiers that are the deuce for hitting at fifteen paces."

"What the devil are you about in my quarters?"

"_Your_ quarters?"

"Yes, sir, _my_ quarters!" thundered the Captain of Pompadours.

"Come, now--I like that."

"D--nit, sir?"

"Don't get excited, old fellow; is not this number three stair, four room?"

"Yes, of course it is."

"Then allow me to insinuate, sir, that you are drunk--very drunk, in uniform too--disgraceful; consider yourself under arrest Sir, these quarters are _mine_--you will retire, if you please."

And Dick, who was still very groggy, again addressed himself to sleep. Trembling with anger, the Pompadour for a moment doubted the evidence of his own senses; but seeing all his own luggage and property in the room, and being certain that his brain was not turning, though the cool impudence of Duff confounded him.

"Corporal of the guard," said he, in a stifled tone of anger, "handcuff this insolent fellow, and march him to the cells."

"Handcuff--the devil!" shouted Dick.

This imperative order made him spring up, and at that moment, the recollection of the change of barracks, his month's leave, and the last night's potations, flashed upon him. Unhappy Dick was sobered in a moment, and his countenance fell, and he turned to explain--to apologize; but the Pompadour would listen to nothing. Our friend was ignominiously hauled from bed, hastily dressed, roughly handcuffed, and despite all his assertions that he was "an officer--an officer and a gentleman," &c. &c., he was marched to the guardhouse, into which he would have been thrust, had not a staff-officer, the friend with whom he had supped overnight, passed in at that moment and recognised him.

The officer explained, Dick expostulated, the Pompadour was sulky; but after fiery threats, mutual apologies and expressions of friendship for life were exchanged, and Dick dined that evening at the mess, of which he was made an honorary member; but the story "found vent," with a hundred absurd additions; and Dick was so quizzed about it by the small wits of his own corps, that he exchanged into Ours, and joined us about the time Corunna was fought.

But before the battalion embarked, he fell into another scrape by inserting in the Edinburgh papers the following advertisement!--

"Vive l'amour! any fair dame of spirit, maid .... or widow, who would wish to see the world, and will join her fortunes with those of a gallant officer, about to embark for the seat of war--age 25, height five feet ten inches by one foot ten across the shoulders--good looking decidedly, may have her offers carefully considered, by forwarding her name and qualifications to the President of the Mess Committee."

But for the hurry of embarkation, old Sir David Dundas, he of the "Eighteen Manoeuvres," who then ruled at the Horse Guards, would have made this piece of impertinence a dear joke to Dick Duff.

The latter, at Torres Vedras was severely wounded in the left leg, and given over for a time to the care of a pretty patrona, who was so kind to him, and like Corporal Trim's Beguin, fomented the wounded part so tenderly, that Dick remained so long on crutches, we thought he would never get off them or be well; tell one night getting tipsy at the quarters of his friend Garriehorn of the Grenadiers, he walked home, he never knew how, _without them_; and as he had been heard singing his invariable and inevitable song,

"Who knows but our girls, (We have known stranger things)," &c.

in the Plaza of Torres Vedras, he was obliged to report himself "fit for duty" next day, despite the tears of his patrona.

After serving at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onor, Badajoz, and Salamanca, his battalion, with Stirling's old Highland Brigade, endured all the horrors of the retreat from Burgos.

At the siege of the latter, the task of storming the famous hornwork, which had a hard sloping scarp of twenty-five feet, and a counter-scarp of ten, was specially confided to the 42nd Highlanders, who assailed the bastion after darkness had set in, and rushed on with great gallantry. Dick Duff was the first man up on the first ladder; and his feather bonnet was literally blown off his head by a volley of balls; every man by his side was bayonetted; and as each poor fellow in his fall knocked down others, the loss was terrible!

Sword in hand, Major Cox entered the gorge; Major (afterwards General Sir Robert) Dick led the regiment on _en masse_, and the hornwork was immediately captured; but two lieutenants and thirty-two rank and file were killed; four officers, one volunteer, and one hundred and sixty-four Highlanders were wounded. Captain Donald Williamson expired that night of his wounds. Lane, the poor gentleman volunteer, was severely wounded and became senseless; but revived, on finding two of the Cameron Highlanders gently abstracting a gold watch worth fifty guineas from his pocket.

"I beg your pardon, my lads," said he; "but I am not quite done with this.'

"We beg yours, sir," answered they; "but we thought you dead, and supposed we might take it, as well as others."

They carried him carefully to the rear; and as they were returning, two stray shots killed them both. Lieutenant Gregorson was killed, and found stripped naked, by Lieutenant Orr, who buried him in a trench. In the gorge of this hornwork, so fatal to the Black Watch, their old Quartermaster Blanket, had both his legs carried away; so he might fairly have sung,

"O now let others shoot, For here I leave my _second legs_, And the _Forty-second Foot_."

He lived long a prisoner at Bitche and Verdun, and by his fiery temper and wooden pins was named by the French _le Diable Boiteux_.

In this siege the regiment had other losses; but the concentration of the enemy's forces, and the advance of superior numbers, obliged the Duke of Wellington to retire into winter quarters on the frontiers of Portugal; and the fatigues and privations incident to this retrograde movement, fell on no regiment more heavily than on our friends of the Black Watch.

On a gloomy afternoon in the month of November, pressed by the enemy's cavalry, who were vastly superior to the British, the brigade of which the 42nd formed a part, entered the ancient and pleasant city of Valladolid, all drenched and bedraggled by fording the swift Pisuerga; for the French, to impede our previous advance, had blown up the principal arch of the bridge.

Dick Duff was taken prisoner by the French hussars in a taberna, at Villanoz, by the treachery of the keeper, a well-known Spanish rogue, named Antonio Morello. By his captors and the hostalero he had been stripped nude, but made his escape and rejoined the regiment (just as it was entering Valloria) clad only in a pair of short scarlet pantaloons, which he had taken from a dead Frenchman of the line, and his aspect created no small surprise in the ranks--but I cannot add merriment, for our soldiers were then at the lowest ebb of misery and desperation. During this terrible retreat the rain had been incessant, and poured pitilessly down on the wet, dripping sierras and rough muddy mule roads traversed by our troops, whose sufferings and privations were indescribable.

The baggage was generally far in the rear, and the troops were without tents or other means of shelter from the inclemency of the weather. The _vivas_ that greeted the British advance were no longer heard--gloom, sombre desperation, and scowling famine were in every eye. The arrears of pay were in many instances beyond parallel. Many regiments had not received a penny for nine months--nine months of constant fighting! (How many tradesmen in England would have worked for that period without wages?)

The officers were reduced to about a shirt each; most of the men had only the collars or wrists of their linen remaining--many had not a vestige. "Their jackets were so patched," says an officer of the Gordon Highlanders, in his narrative, "that I know nothing to which I can so aptly compare them as parti-coloured bed-covers; for there were not fifty in my own regiment but had been repaired with cloth of every colour under the sun."

So admirably is the kilt adapted for marching and activity, that the Highland corps were the only battalions _without stragglers_.

Hollow-eyed and gaunt, bearded and grisly, emaciated and miserable in aspect, footsore and shoeless, their jackets turned to black and purple, their feather bonnets reduced to quills, and all trace of pipeclay long since washed out of their belts, yet heavily laden with knapsacks, great-coat, blanket, havresack, wooden canteen, camp-kettle, sixty rounds of ball-cartridge, their arms and accoutrements covered with mud and mire--after many days' of incessant alarm, halting and forming square to repel the enemy's cavalry, who at times charged into the rivers up to their very holsters--the Black Watch defiled along the quaint old streets of Valladolid, with their pipes playing a fiery _spaidsearach Gaelhealach_, or Highland march; but it failed to rouse either the spirit or bearing of the men.

As our troops were retreating, their entrance excited no enthusiasm in the sullen and ungrateful Spaniards. They gazed apathetically from under their heavy eyebrows and broad sombreros, as battalion after battalion defiled past, nor manifested the smallest interest until some Highland regiment approached, when cries of--"Look at the Scots," broke from every quarter.

"Mira los Escosses! Viva los voliantes! Viva los Escosses--los hombres valerosos."

Others, who knew the number of the Black Watch, varied the cry with--

"Viva la Regimento Quarenta Dos!"

Through streets of old and decaying houses the regiment defiled to the Plaza Mayor, while the bells of San Benito, St. Paul, and the Scottish College were tolled mournfully. All the balconies there were covered with tapestry; and amid a profusion of crimson velvet, a portrait of Ferdinand VII. was hung in the great Plaza. There the battalion dispersed in search of billets; the officers to inquire if the baggage had come up; to sigh for camp-beds and portmanteaux, that might be stuck in the mud twenty miles off; or to swear at stupid servants or drunken bat-men, who had let them fall into the hands of pillagers and paisanos.

Wellington and his aides-de-camp had taken up their quarters in the Scottish College, the rector of which, an old Highlander, though sick and dying, welcomed them warmly.

Dick Duff, Garriehorne, the captain of Grenadiers, and Colquhoun Grant, the famous scouting officer, whose adventures are already, we hope, familiar to the reader, made their way straight to a posada, previous to entering which an "examination of ammunition" took place, and among four purses two duros could only be mustered. At this time, many officers actually sold their silver epaulettes to the Jews of El Campo _for bread_.

"Ugh!" said Dick; "this comes of one's paymaster being nine months in arrear! and yet, though we have scarcely a tester among us, we are fighting for an island which, according to the learned Bochart, was named by the Phoenicians emphatically--_the land of tin_!"

An arched door gave admittance from the street to the lower story of the posada, where the horses and mules were generally stabled; from this, an open ladder gave access to the common hall; a second ladder led to the sleeping apartments, which were minus carpets, bells, plaster, and almost without windows or furniture; but, as Dick said to the grumbling captain of Grenadiers, no one looks for such things in a Spanish inn.

Several Spanish officers were already in the public room, all travel-stained and splashed with mud, but wrapped in their cloaks, and all with their feet planted on the only brassero, round which they sat in a circle, smoking and making themselves as comfortable as circumstances would admit; while the host, an old and sour-visaged Asturian, with clumsy hands and enormous shoulders, superintended the cooking of various edibles, which simmered and sputtered in stone jars on the flat hearth, the fuel piled upon which cast a lurid glow from under the broad impending mantel-piece on his swarthy visage, his stealthy eyes, and black grisly beard. This fellow was repulsive in aspect; but his wife, _la patrona_, was a pretty paisana, not much above eighteen years of age, dressed in the picturesque costume of the country, and having her handsome legs encased in the tightest and brightest of scarlet stockings. She welcomed us with smiles of the utmost good humour that two brilliant eyes and a mouth filled with the finest teeth could express.

"All right, Garriehorne," said Dick, in his bantering way; "here is one of the beautiful sex--como esta senora, how handsome you look to-night; 'pon my soul, I feel quite inclined to fall in love with you. Senor Patron--what is in the crocs, old fellow?"

Displeased by Dick's mode of addressing his young wife, the host affected not to hear.

"What can you let us have for supper, senora?" asked Garriehorne, unbuckling his sword, "hot castanos and garlic, of course, with Xerez and ripe grapes."

"Ripe grapes in November," growled the sulky patron; "what the devil are you talking about, senor official?--_Ninas y vinas son mal de guardar_!"

"Which means--"

"That ripe maidens and ripe grapes require vigilance to keep long," said the pretty patrona, with a waggish smile. "We have a fine guisado in this croc, senor."

"A guisado!" exclaimed Dick "By Jove, the very thought of it makes me more hungry than ever."

"What is it made of?" said the captain of Grenadiers, doubtfully.

"Don't you know--everything! hare, rabbit, chicken, pheasant, claret and water, bacon, salt, garlic, onions, pepper, pimentos, Valdepenas butter, a bunch of wild thyme--"

"The deuce! what more?"

"A little oil, and then it would add glory to the wedding of Camacho," said Dick.

"The senor caballero is quite a Spanish cook," said the pretty patrona; "but," she added, with a furtive glance at Dick's pair of French pantaloons, "I hope we shall not lose--"

"Lose--not at all, my dear senora. You shall be paid in gold as pure as your wedding ring."

"If we have it," added Garriehorne, aside.

"So serve up the guisado. Its odour is exquisite! By Jove, we four Hannibals have here found our Capua! But, Senor Patron," continued Dick, speaking with his mouth very full, "you are singularly like an ugly fellow whom I met yesterday--what is your name?"

"Morello."

"The devil it is! that name proved an unlucky one to me lately."

"Where, senor?"

"At Villahoz."

"I have a son there--"

"Keeper of a venta?"

"Si, senor."

"The villain! he betrayed me to the French for ten dollars."

"Likely enough of Antonio," said the young wife; "he is my step-son, and proves mala, mala--very bad."

"Step-sons frequently do in a step-mother's eyes, my dear patrona."

"He hates his father--"

"The unnatural wretch!"

"Hates him for having married me."

"In that I almost agree with him," said Dick.

"But he hates me, too."

"Hates you--so young, so charming!"

"Yes, senor, and daily vows to have revenge; believing that I have cheated him out of his birthright."

"Dick, what are those fellows round the brassero jabbering about?" asked the grenadier.

"Oh, they are mere cazadores, who say we should not have given up Madrid, or Burgos either, without a battle."

"Faugh! don't speak of Burgos; I am sick of shelling, storming, and mining. A battle, indeed! but, perhaps, they know better than Lord Wellington."

"A pretty woman that patrona is, ugh!" added Dick, as he drew off his boots. "See now muddy and deep the path that leads to glory and Portugal is! There are three inches of the mud of immortality, at least."

By this time our friends bad finished the guisado, which proved excellent, and a huge leathern bota of Xerez had been passed rapidly from hand to hand. They became comfortable--then jolly. Dick sang his usual song, and they all retired to pass the night in a crazy garret, and to thank Heaven that they were not for out-picquet on the Burgos road, and that they were to halt and not march all the next day.

Exhausted by toil, and perhaps somewhat overcome by their potations, and what our old friend Sancho Fanza would term "the blessed scum" of the hot and savoury guisado, Colquhoun Grant and Garriehorne fell into a sound sleep on the hard floor, with plaids around them, and their swords at hand; but poor Dick Duff's restless disposition kept him long awake.

He thought of the young and pretty patrona, with her taper legs and melting black eyes; of her scowling old spouse, and the rascal, Antonio Morello, who yesterday had so nearly procured him--the said Dick Duff--three inches of a French bayonet, or a three years' sojourn at Bitche or Verdun on parole. Then, as the moon shone brightly, he rose and looked out upon the scenery, where the bright flood of her silver light fell aslant on the spires of the churches, and gilded with a white lustre the pinnacles and little square belfries of the convents. On one side lay a narrow street which led to the Plaza Mayor; on the other, spread a wilderness of flat roofs, from amid which the huge cathedral, begun, but never finished, by Philip II., reared its dark outline; beyond, lay the beautiful plain watered by the Esqueva, stretching away in the moonlight and the haze it exhaled. All was silent and still, and no one seemed abroad save one man, whom Dick perceived to be reconnoitring the posada with stealthy eyes and steps. He placed a short ladder against one of the lower windows, which opened in two halves. He pushed the lattice open and entered.

"Is this fellow a thief or a lover?" thought Dick; "if an affair of gallantry, it is no business of mine. Bah! what is there to steal from a Spanish posada? and to interfere with the nocturnal rambles of some loving stableboy or amatory muleteer would be rather an insane proceeding on my part."

With these reflections he resumed his place on the floor, and was about to drop asleep--for on service all curiosity becomes blunted; the value of property and the risk of death but of little consequence--when a cry pierced his ear.

A cry! it was a wild and despairing one, that rang terribly along the wooden corridor; a struggle--the stamping of feet--the explosion of a pistol, with the fall of a body heavily on the floor followed; and then all became still save the barking of the _perro de caza_, or house-dog, in the yard. Duff's first thought was of the enemy--that their cavalry were in the town--and that the picquets had been repulsed on the Burgos road. Then he thought of the intruder.

"Up, Grant," said he; "get your sword, Garriehorne--the French or the devil are at work here!"

"Help, senores caballeros--help!" cried a piteous voice in the corridor.

"Is that you, senor patron?"

"Si, senor--'tis I and the senora patrona--open, por amor de Dios--the posada has been attacked by thieves."

"By thieves"--

"Yes; and by the holy of holies, I have had the narrowest of escapes," he added, dragging in his young and pretty wife. Both were in their night dresses; both were breathless and ghastly pale.

"What was the meaning of that pistol-shot?"