Part 8

The spur of necessity becomes a marvellous useful instrument in sharpening a man to activity: and the Commissary found it so; for the rations were all up, and ready for delivery, at twelve o'clock the next day.

INFERNAL DUTY.

“Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither.”

_Shakspeare._

Captain Thompson, of the artillery, while serving in the Peninsula, had the luck to lose, in the space of one campaign, every man of the heavy brigade which he commanded, some by sickness, but most by the enemy; and he found himself at last, not only the _captain_ of the brigade, but, in his own person, the _brigade itself_. Finding, however, that a commanding officer, without men to command, was neither useful nor ornamental, he applied personally to the Adjutant-general, for advice under the circumstances, observing, that he wished to be appointed to some other duty. The Adjutant-general, at the moment the application was made to him, happened to be proceeding across the village in which they were quartered, to Lord Wellington; and said he would speak to his Lordship, requesting Thompson to call on him, for the purpose of knowing the Commander of the forces' will on the subject. When the Adjutant-general mentioned the matter to Lord Wellington, his Lordship was very busy with a map of the Peninsula, and did not give any answer regarding the captain and his _brigade_; but continued to attend to the subject he was then engaged with.

At length the Adjutant-general got up to retire, and amongst other things, asked his Lordship again, where he should send Captain Thompson; “Oh, send him to h——ll,” was the reply, and the interview ended.

When the last man of the brigade called upon the Adjutant-general, to know the result of his application, he was accosted by that officer in a grave and official manner:—

“Captain Thompson,” said he, “I am sorry we are going to lose you; and still more sorry to learn the sort of duty which the Commander of the forces has assigned to so deserving an officer.”

The Captain, who was a most gallant and deserving, but hot-tempered and impetuous man, interrupted the Adjutant-general thus: “God bless me! I hope his Lordship is not going to send me home.”

“I don't know that,” was the answer.

“I'm sure I have done my duty since I have joined his Lordship's army,” continued the Captain, “and I trust I shall not be so far negatively disgraced.”

“My dear Captain,” replied the Adjutant-general, “it is not a very disgraceful duty to which you are appointed, considering the very respectable men who have preceded you upon it. The fact is, that the Commander of the forces, knowing you to be a _devil of a fire-eater_, has directed us to send you to _h——ll_, and here is your route,” handing him an official direction of the marches by which he was to arrive at his destination.

The stages mentioned in the route were whimsical in the extreme, and there were several good points made; the last-mentioned place on the road was _London_.

When Thompson read the paper, his weather-beaten jaws relaxed into a smile; and putting the document into his pocket, he drily remarked, that Lord Wellington had always been in the habit of giving him _hot work_. “It is not the first time,” said he, “that I was sent to _clear the way_ for him; however, when I arrive, I'll look out for _warm quarters_ for his Lordship and _staff_. But there is a mistake in the route, I suspect; you see ‘_London_’ is the last stage mentioned.”

“Yes,” replied the Adjutant-general, “and depend upon it that is the nearest way to the infernal regions.”

“Excuse me,” rejoined Thompson, “there is a much better.”

“What is that?” asked the other.

“Why,” said the Captain, “_Wellington_, to be sure.”

The joke was soon carried to the Commander of the forces, and his Lordship, with the best humour in the world, changed Thompson's route, and took him off the _infernal_ duty to which he had previously ordered him.

NIGHTS IN THE GUARD-HOUSE.

No. II.

“Hoo' comes it, that ye ha' got an' extra guard the naight, Mulligan—Eh?”

“Musha 'pon my sowl, Sargeant M'Fadgen, it's becaise the Captain ordthered it.”

“Poh! mun, I ken that weel; but the Captain wonna gi' ye a guard for naething, wad he?”

“No, faith! it's _something_ to me; for I've had three this week before; that is, three nights out o' bed in my reglar juty; so isn't it something to be ordthered another night by way o' recreation?”

“Aweel, but what ha' ye been doin, lad?”

“Faith! I was doin' nothing at all; an' it was for that I got my guard.”

“Hoo's that?”

“I was ordthered to put out the light in my barrack-room every night at nine o'clock, an' I did not do it last night—that 's all.”

“But you were doin' a wee bit o' something, I'll warrant, Pat. Ye war a liften yer han' to your muzzle—eh?”

“O! that's nothing at all at all. We had a dthrop to be sure. That fellow over there on the stool—(_you_, mister Jack Andrews, I mane)—kept a tellin' us such stories, that I forgot the time entirely. Hooh! the divil may care—Jack is here now, and Corporal O'Callaghan to boot; so what signifies a guard, if they'll only tip us a bit of a song: what do you say, Sargeant—eh?”

“Why, Pat, I've no objection to that, if there be no muckle noise aboot it.”

Thus spoke the Sergeant, and his worthy private, Mulligan: the latter, by way of punishment, was ordered to an extra guard, for being a little out of rule, as above-mentioned; but his punishment was given him by an Officer who had fought and bled with him, and who regarded him with kindly feelings. Pat's delinquency was reported to the Captain by the Orderly Officer, and he could do no less. However, there was not a better nor a more respected man in the corps, than Patrick Mulligan, of the grenadier company. Like many other good soldiers, he was fond of society and the all-powerful potyeen. So when the Orderly Officer was going round at nine o'clock, he put the light under a wooden pale, and when all was, as he thought, safe, he returned to the convivial glass with his comrades; but the officer was one of those pipe-clay martinets, just joined from the half-pay of a militia regiment, and although he had never seen in his life as much actual service as poor Pat had done in one month of his existence, (and perhaps knew much less in reality about the duties of a soldier,) he stole back to the barracks, and surprised the party of carousing Peninsulars. His report was made, and the men were punished.

The practice of keeping lights in the barrack rooms, after the proper hour for extinguishing them, cannot be justified; but there are infractions of general rules in the army, which, if not to be tolerated, should not be sought after with too scrutinizing an eye. A good officer knows when to pry and when to keep his eyes shut; but that was not the case with Pat Mulligan's Orderly Officer.

“Weel Jock,” said the Corporal, “ye maun gi' us a lilt—you or the Corporal.”

“With all my heart,” replied Jack Andrews, “if Corporal O'Callaghan is willing to join in with his second.”

“Faith! I've no objection in the world to conthribute to the harmony of the guard, if my voice doesn't frighten you, lads.”

“Neever mind, Corporal, your voice is na so bad as the Highland pipes, nor yet so loud. But before ya begin, here tak' a——.”

It is impossible to say what the Sergeant offered the Corporal; but it has been since seriously hinted at by Pat Mulligan, and some others. Whatever it was, I have no business to blab—even if I thought it nothing less than pure Inishowen: however, when compliments had passed, and all the men were comfortably seated round the fire, the Corporal and Jack Andrews sung the following verses to a beautiful Biscayan air:—

THE FRIAR OF ST. SEBASTIAN.

Deep the matin-bell toll'd from Benedict's tower, Long the Friar alone had sighed for the hour, When all were at rest— All but the gentlest lady of Spain Who loved him the best. In secret he gave her his passion again, Unholy, unblest: His lamp of religion was clouded by love, Too thick and too dark to be seen from above!

Soon the Friar's boat came her bower beneath, While Sebastian's rock was silent as death, And gloomy, and steep. Soft she descended, while, close to her breast, Her baby lay asleep; Gentlest innocent, long is thy rest, Long, long in the deep! O Friar! the depth of Sebastian's wave Cannot cover the crime or the little one's grave.

Light the little boat skimmed the moon-covered sea, Guilt fell dark on the dawn that pointed their way. Woe followed their flight: Soon they were brought to St. Benedict's tower— The deed came to light. Down to the dungeon the lovers they bore On St. Benedict's night. The lamp of religion had scarcely a ray To chase the deep gloom of their prison away.

None can tell of the fate that either befell; Yet on holy record 'tis noted full well In Benedict's tower. Often the sentinel, trembling, fears The matin-bell hour: Often the sentinel fancies he hears Heaven's punishing pow'r; And the moans of dying grow loud in his mind, As the Friar and Lady flit by on the wind.

At the conclusion of this ballad, the door of the guard-house flew open, and the noise which it made, together with the sudden flapping of the window-shutters, astonished the whole guard, and terrified one or two. The wind roared, the night was as dark as chaos, and the song had wound the soldiers' minds up to a climax. They, for an instant forgot themselves, when the door was thrown open. Perhaps they expected a visit from the Friar himself, accompanied by the Lady, to remonstrate with them on the impropriety of thus disturbing their departed spirits. There was no very great demonstration of fear; but even soldiers—and soldiers used to behold the dying and the dead, cannot be always prepared against the effects of romance and music allied against them. None fell from their seats, nor was any stool overturned; but there was a certain shuffling and huddling up together, which sufficiently demonstrated to the sentry at the door, that his trick (for _he_ was the ghost that opened the door,) had the effect he intended. He laughed without, and the guard laughed within; but none had the _right of laugh_ except the sentry himself; which, to do him justice, he rightly enjoyed.

“Shut the door, then, God dom ye! for a blatherinskate, and mind yar duty,” roared out Sergeant M'Fadgen to the sentry, who obeyed the peremptory words as soon as he had expended his laugh in the dark; and order thus being restored, Jack Andrews was unanimously requested to tell the story of the “_Friar and the Lady_,” as he heard it at St. Sebastian: to this he assented, and gave it in something like the following words:—

“You all know, lads, that when the storming of the town was over, we took the duty there. Well, in the house where I was quartered, there lived nobody but an old couple: the man had been a smuggler, and had once been a prisoner of war in England, so that he managed by his intercourse with British and Americans, to speak English pretty tolerably. The old woman was a regular Basquentian mountaineer, with scarcely a bit of flesh on her bones, and not less than eighty years of age. This old couple had returned to St. Sebastian to occupy the house of a leather-seller, who retired from the town before the siege. And the house was certainly in a complete state of dilapidation, with the exception of the ground-floor; it had been on fire during the siege, and although the flames had not made much havoc in it, yet the shot and shell had done enough to reduce it to a complete wreck. Here I used to sit with the old pair of a night, talking of various subjects, and it was from the old man I heard the particulars of the ‘_Friar and the Lady_.’ He told me that his wife lived in the capacity of waiting-maid with the heroine of the tale, and that the convent of St. Benedict, to which the friar belonged, was in the same street where we then resided. The convent in which the young lady lived was at the extremity of the town, near the sea, which the back windows looked out upon, from an elevated rock. You have all seen the rock, yourselves.

“The young lady was about seventeen years of age; she had been admitted as a novice in the convent of Santa Clara, and was to be made a nun in about ten or twelve months after the period of her becoming acquainted with the friar. He was on very familiar terms with the mother abbess, as well as the whole of the establishment; for he was universally celebrated for piety and wisdom: his age was about thirty-five. This _holy_ gentleman managed matters so that he got the better of the novice's virtue, and the consequences were that she became pregnant: they contrived to conceal all appearances of her frailty; and the holy father, in order to preserve his reputation, prevailed upon the novice to elope with him, under a promise of removing her to Italy, whither he proposed to follow her, and to settle in that country. The night was fixed for carrying this plan into effect,—this was about a week before the day on which she was to take the veil—the friar procured a boat, and with it came to the back of the convent at midnight; the novice was prepared, and bade adieu to the walls of her sisterhood for ever. She entered the boat, and the friar easily rowed it along the coast towards the port of Passages, for it was a fine moonlight night, and the sea was as bright as a looking-glass. Before they had proceeded many yards from the beach the young lady became ill, and in half an hour was delivered of a fine boy in the boat: there were no clothes for the little stranger, and the friar was determined it should not long require them, for he sunk it remorselessly into the deep water close to the rocks, and ended all its wants in a moment.

“The baby was washed on shore next morning stiff and dead. There was a black silk band, with a clasp, twisted round its little leg, by accident, or more likely by the providence of God, for it was recognized as belonging to the unfortunate novice of St. Clara's convent. Enquiries soon took place; the guilty friar and his victim were discovered at an obscure house in the town of Passages, and taken back to St. Sebastian. The influence of the clergy prevented a public trial for the murder, lest the holy church should be scandalized; but neither Friar nor Lady were ever afterwards seen, and it is believed to this day, that they were either privately put to death, or imprisoned in the Convent for life. The old woman declares they were chained in separate dungeons, and starved to death; but this only rests upon her own assertion; however, most of the people of St. Sebastian implicitly believe that the ghosts of both visit the sea-shore every full moon; and so much did their stories about ‘_The Friar and the Lady_’ affect one of our lads, that it nearly killed him.”

“Wha' dy' ye mean,” said the Sergeant.

“I mean John Thomas, the Welshman. You remember we were on guard one night after the siege of St. Sebastian, on the top of the high hill in the middle of the town, where the fort stands, and into which the French retired. Well, this John Thomas was sentry; he was then only a raw boy, just come from among the goats and ghosts of his native mountains. It was exactly twelve o'clock, and a fine moonshine night. You could see the wide Bay of Biscay below your feet; the high Pyrenees, all misty on the right; and close under you the ruined town. I suppose the young fellow was superstitious; but be that as it may, he burst into the guard-room without his musket, fell down on the floor, against which he cut his forehead, and struggled in a fit for half an hour. He was taken down to the regimental hospital, and had three fits before the next morning. When he came quite to himself, he declared that he saw the Friar of St. Sebastian and the Lady beside him on the hill, and that the Friar held a dead infant in his hand, which he dashed down into the sea. Of course, this vision was the effect of his boyish fears and superstition; but it certainly is a fact that the lad nearly lost his life by it, for I heard our doctor himself say so. The poor fellow was afterwards killed at the sortie of Bayonne.”

“I remember the lad weel, Jock; but wha made the sang aboot it?” demanded Sergeant M'Fadgen.

“The Captain himself wrote the song,” replied Andrews, “and Corporal O'Callaghan taught me the air.”

“By my sowl,” said O'Callaghan, “I never hard an air I like betther. I used to sit for hours listening to the boat-women all singing it in chorus. I used to cross with them from Passages to Renteria of an evening, for no other purpose than to hear them.”

“Haud yer tongue, Corporal,” observed Sergeant M'Fadgen. “It's na' for a sang that ye wad stay sae lang amongst a parcel o' bonny lasses like them.”—

“TURN OUT THE GUARD!” roared the sentry: and out the guard turned, leaving Patrick Mulligan in quiet possession of the old arm chair, and a blazing fire.

THE FATE OF YOUNG GORE.

Stars that shine and fall, The flower that droops in springing; These, alas! are types of all— To which our hearts are clinging.

_Moore._

Eight bullets pierced this young man's body! In the full light of glory and in the warm lap of love he died, esteemed, honoured, wept, in the blossom of his youth, and in the pride of manly beauty!

Young Gore was a captain in the 51st regiment, and, I have heard, a son of the Earl of Annan. He fought at the battle of Vittoria, and it was in that town, a few days after the fight, that I first saw him, as well as the fair and soft black-eyed girl who was the innocent cause of his death.

When the sanguinary and memorable fight was at an end, a few officers, of necessity, remained in the town. In consequence of this battle, the Constitution was published on the Sunday succeeding it, in the main square or market-place, with great pomp and rejoicing. In addition to bull-fights[10] and public dancing upon the platform erected in the square for proclaiming the Constitution, a ball was given in the evening expressly to the British officers then in the town, at which all the inhabitants of consequence attended. At this ball I first saw Captain Gore; he was then, apparently, about twenty-two or three years of age, and as handsome a young man as ever I beheld; his hair was a light brown, and hung in a profusion of graceful ringlets; he was of a florid complexion, about the middle size, compact, yet light, and in the beautiful uniform of the 51st, a light infantry regiment, faced with green and gold; he was decidedly the most striking figure in the ball-room; and, in addition to this, was the best dancer amongst the English officers—nay as good as any of the Spanish and French[11] who exhibited on that evening their saltatory powers. Whether it was that our English style of dancing at that time wanted something to be added to its grace by a communication with the Continent or not, I will not pretend to say; but certain it is, that my countrymen were not so happy in plucking the laurels from the French that night in the dance, as they had been a few days before in the fight.

With qualifications such as I have described, it is not to be wondered at if the eyes and hearts of many fair ladies followed the young captain: it would rather have excited wonder if they had not. The warm hearts of the Spanish _Signioritas_ are but too susceptible to the charms of Love when his godship dresses in British regimentals.

My friend D., of the 13th light-dragoons, and I, were admiring the waltzers of the evening, when he observed to me that the young officer of the 51st was not only the best dancer, but had the prettiest and best partner; “and,” said he, “I think the lady seems quite smitten with him; they have been partners the whole of the evening.” From this observation I was led to remark the young lady more closely than I had done before, and the result in my mind was, that Captain Gore was blest with a partner the most bewitching in all Spain, and that _he_ was of the same opinion. She was about seventeen, rather _en bon point_, and middle-sized; large, dark, and languishing eyes; black, glossy ringlets, with a beautifully fair skin; she was dressed in the graceful black costume of her country, and appeared a personification of the Beauty of a Castilian romance; her manners were gentle, and with Captain Gore as her partner, she attracted the admiration of every one present.

Where is the moralist who has looked into the book of nature, and will say that they were culpable in loving each other, although circumstances wholly forbade their union? Let us draw a veil over the weakness of human nature, when opposed by such powerful influences as those which surrounded these young persons. Let us not, with the austerity of mature and experienced wisdom censure, but pity them, circled as they were with a glowing halo of youth and love. They loved—marriage was impossible:—she left her father's house and fled to him, while he vowed to protect her with his life, even unto the end of it. This happened in about three weeks after the ball.

The lady's father at first knew not of the rash step which his daughter had taken, but soon learnt the distressing truth; he became almost frantic, and applied to the authorities for their interference, representing young Gore as a seducer and a heretic. The authorities (a very inferior description of men at that time) immediately ordered a sergeant's guard (Spanish) to accompany the father to the quarters of the captain: they arrived—his apartments were on the first floor—and the soldiers were already in the court-yard below. Gore was informed of the intended purpose, through a Spanish domestic of the house he lived in. His own servant, a brave and determined soldier, hurried to the apartment in which his master was, with his bayonet drawn, and observed that there would be no great difficulty in driving away the “Spanish fellows below,” if necessary. The young lady clung to Captain Gore for protection, and besought him not to give her up; declaring that she would never survive, if he suffered her to be taken away. The soldiers were mounting the stairs—Captain Gore was decided. There was very little ceremony in the affair: he and his servant in a few minutes drove them out of the house, and secured the door with bolts and locks. Few blows were struck by either the Captain or his servant: the success which frequently attends sudden and resolute assaults against superior force, was in this instance manifested; and, considering the opinion which the Spanish soldiery entertained of the British prowess, it is not surprising that the guard was ousted.

The defeated soldiers returned to the authorities and related the failure of their enterprise; they were answered by abuse, and their officer having been sent for, was peremptorily ordered to take his men to Captain Gore's quarters and _force_ the lady away. At the same time he was tauntingly asked whether two Englishmen were equal to a dozen Spaniards.