Part 20

"P.S.--Is cousin Jeanie still unmarried? Does she reside still near you? I hope she is still unchanged, unreasonable that I am. If she is, give her the letter; if not, burn it. The scenes and feelings I enjoyed before I left your roof are dearer and stronger here in Spain than I can express, or you imagine. I do not request you to write soon--it would be unjust and unkind to doubt it for a moment. Again, I am your now altered and dutiful son until death.

"J. B."

The letter to Jeanie was received with a trembling hand, and placed in her bosom, that felt it impart a buoyancy to her feelings, she had been long a stranger to. As soon as she had finished reading the letter to Margaret, she retired to a beautiful knowe that overtopped the burn, and seated herself among the long yellow broom, where the most pleasant of her days had passed with her James. There they had herded together; there they had first plighted their young loves; and there James had left her in anger, without hope of ever returning to her again. On this loved spot, every moment she could spare had been passed, musing upon her absent lover, or praying for his safety and return; and now, with a feeling of pleasure she had been long a stranger to, she drew the letter from her bosom, and broke it open, while joy and grief filled her heart by turns.

"_Victoria._

"DEAREST AND BELOVED, BUT MUCH-INJURED JEAN,--Dare I hope you ever think of me? I fear, if you do, it is with anger and contempt; for I feel, and my heart is like to burst with the thought, that I have used you ill. Believe me, it was in anger at I knew not what. You, with the prudence I now esteem you for, refused to fulfil your promise of marriage, because I had given myself too much up to company--to my shame I own, to dissipation. Believe me, my love, I now feel, in all its bitterness, my folly, and your wisdom. I am no longer the 'roaring boy' I used to boast myself among my associates; but the humbled lover and son. The privations and toils of war have opened my eyes to my true interests. For a time I was the most reckless in our company; for I strove, by riot, to drive from my mind the upbraidings of my heart; but I strove in vain. The early lessons I had received in rectitude embittered all my guilty joys, and at length triumphed. Let me pour into your bosom the history of my reformation. It was on the eve of the battle of Fuentes de Honore the first serious reflection came over my mind. The whole after part of the day I had been engaged in the work of death, with all my energies aiding in the destruction of my species, my mind excited to the utmost. Thrice we had driven the enemy through the village before us, over the dead and wounded. My comrades were falling thick around me. Evening came to stop the work of death. My bosom friend, the companion of my follies, had fallen, early in the action, at the foot of the brae, by the burn-side. I remember the spot well. O Jeanie, how could I forget it? It was so like the spot where we last parted--where the most innocent and happiest of my hours had been spent--that, even in the hottest of the fire, the resemblance strung my arm, and fired my soul to double daring. I could not endure that an enemy should be in possession of it, and drive us from the sacred ground. I rejoiced that I was put on duty, to bury the dead and remove the wounded. I hurried to the spot where my friend had fallen, to assist him if alive, or to pay the last duty if dead. Alas! Jeanie, what a sight there met my eyes! He lay, adding to the pile of bleeding bodies, that, only a few hours before, were all in life and health. Silent and sad, we dug a trench, and deposited the victims of war. The French parties were out on the same duty; we mixed friendly together, only enemies by a cruel necessity, and, like dogs, brought out to fight for the interest or amusement of others. Several of them could speak a little English. We drank and ate together. They had plenty; we were at this time almost famished, being in advance of our supplies. Fear, my love, you know, is no part of my nature; but the uncertainty of human life as a soldier had never struck my mind with so much force as now. I returned an altered man. I felt as if we were never to meet again, and I never should reach my native vale, to lay my mother's head in the grave. I own, with shame, I had until now striven to forget you, but could not; for, sleeping or waking, you were ever in my thoughts, night after night you were present in my dreams, and day found me almost distracted. Dissipation only brought greater anguish; yet my proud heart would not stoop to communicate its woes to those who alone could give relief. Every draught that joined I anxiously looked for an acquaintance from my native place; and I would have given a kingdom for the knowledge that you were still free. I knew your faithful nature; but I had basely deserted you; wounded that heart I ought to have cherished, because it would act contrary to the dictates of a desecrating advice, that would have ruined us both. At length the battle of Victoria was fought; in which action I was wounded in the thigh; but still I kept the ranks. We were sorely pressed by the enemy; but nature could support me no longer, and I sank to the ground, as our regiment was forced to retire, overpowered by superior numbers. A charge of cavalry passed over the ground where I lay; and, O Jeanie! what horror did I feel at this moment! I commended my soul to God--my mother's and your name escaped from my lips--the horses passed over me--and when, from a swoon, I awoke to consciousness, the surgeons were setting the bone of my leg, and a bandage was already upon my wound in the thigh. I will not pain you more. I am now almost well, and often amuse myself with the thought that, were you to see the pale and emaciated soldier upon his crutches, you would look in vain for Jamie Blair. But be cheerful, my love; for the surgeon says I will be as sound a man as ever, and join my regiment in a few weeks. How much better were it to join you and my mother! But the time will come in course, and I hope soon. If pity ever found a place in your bosom, send me your forgiveness; and, if you can send me the assurance that, in spite of all my follies, you love me dear as ever, I will now do all in my power to be worthy of it. If you refuse to pardon me, you will drive me to despair, and I shall volunteer for every forlorn hope, and rush upon danger, until death relieve me from my present state of mind. Return me, my love, good for evil, and give peace to that heart that wounded yours. Remembered or forgot, dearest Jean, I shall ever remain yours until death,

"JAMES BLAIR."

On the evening of the day after the receipt of these letters, when I made my usual call, I was astonished at the change that had taken place in the widow's cottage. The sadness had passed from the brow of Jean, and hope had given a new lustre to her eye. Margaret was all garrulity, and loud in the praises of James; but Jean was silent, and seemed to luxuriate in the present feelings with which her soul was filled. I departed myself with a feeling of happiness at the welcome news from my old schoolfellow, and walked home more stately and erect, as if my consequence had been enhanced by my friendship and intimacy with one of Wellington's heroes; and crooned, with peculiar spirit and satisfaction, as I walked along, "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled."

It would be superfluous to say that Jeanie returned such an answer as James might wish. Joy once more became an inmate of Widow Blair's cottage, and thanksgivings were now mingled in their prayers for the absent soldier. The correspondence was as regular as the vicissitudes of war would permit; and often, when I had occasion to go to town, I was intrusted with the letter and penny to lodge in the post-office for James Blair. Month after month rolled on; peace was at length concluded; the troops were returning to Britain; and James, being a seven-years' man, and his period of service nearly expired, we could calculate to a day the time we expected to have him once more among us. But for a time we were disappointed. In no home in Britain did the return of Bonaparte from Elba cause greater sorrow than in the widow's cottage. James was once more embarked for the Continent with his regiment--was present at the battle of Waterloo--escaped the dreadful carnage unhurt--and marched with the army for Paris, where he got his discharge, and was on his return at the commencement of this narrative.

The shades of evening had forced the females to retire, benumbed with cold, long before my accustomed visit. I was grieved and disappointed at not finding James, and sorry to see the anxiety and grief of the mother and sweetheart. The clouds had now covered the whole sky; the darkness was intense; the wind blew with a piercing keenness, and snow had begun to fall fast, and drift along the waste. I gave them all the comfort I could, and retired, promising to call again in the morning--having in vain urged them to retire to rest; and, upon my return next day, I learned that, after my departure, they continued to watch--going repeatedly out to examine the state of the weather, or beguiled by the shaking of the door struck by the blast, and thinking some one tried the latch. Still no one came--hour after hour passed on--their humble supper stood untouched--the fears of the mother were expressed in wailings and ejaculatory prayers for his safety; and Jeanie's expressive countenance betrayed the anxiety under which she laboured. Their evening devotions were made with pious hope--their usual hour of retiring to rest had long gone by; yet neither thought of sleep--for all that was most dear on earth to them was, they feared, exposed to the pitiless storm, and they still sat by the fire, shrinking at every gust of wind, as if it had struck themselves, while the candle burned on the window-sill, a beacon to guide the wanderer. At length the door opened, and a thin, weather-beaten figure staggered in, and sank upon the floor, exhausted and senseless. The anticipated joyful meeting was one of anguish and alarm. Care and assiduity restored the soldier to warmth and animation; and hope and joy succeeded to fear and grief. James had come from London to Leith in one of the smacks; and, after leaving Haddington, anxious to reach his mother's as soon as possible, had left the highway, and struck into the country, over the Lammermuir Hills, by a route dear and familiar to him; and, being some miles shorter, chosen as much for the sake of former recollections, which were crowding upon him at every step, as for its shortness. The day was clear and bracing when he left Haddington, and all induced him to follow this route; but he had miscalculated his strength, and the shades of evening overtook him in the middle of the mountains. The sky began to lour, and threatened a storm. Ere he had reached the heights, the snow fell fast, the wind and drift threatened to overwhelm him, and all around became one undistinguishable chaos. He could recognise no mark by which to know whether he was in the right track or not. Confused and bewildered, but not dismayed, he stood still for a few minutes, to collect his energies; and having recalled to his recollection that the wind blew from the direction in which he wished to proceed, he started afresh, and battled with the storm, till at length he recognised a well-remembered cairn on the heights, against which he stumbled, and of which he gained his knowledge only by groping; for it was so dark that he could not see his own hand a few inches from his face. Having felt it round and round, he came to the broad, flat stone on the southern side, the shepherd's dial, which gave a thrill of hope to his breast, like a glimpse of the polar star to the tempest-tossed mariner. Starting anew, and still keeping his face to the biting blast, again he stumbled upon a cairn, and felt it round and round; and, to his surprise and regret, found it to be the same. Disappointed and confused, he started afresh--twice he struggled round the same circle upon the heights, each time adding to the despondency that began to steal upon him, till, exhausted and almost hopeless, he threw himself on the lee side of the cairn, to recover his strength. He thought some strange fatality attended him; yet was loth to yield to despair, and struggled manfully against it; but a languor came over him, attended by an almost irresistible drowsiness; and all he had suffered in the retreat to Corunna could not be compared to his present situation. There, companionship had lightened the most intense sufferings; severe as they often were, they were not, as now, without that aid which sustains men in the most trying cases--the countenance of their fellow-men. Here he was alone, in a sea of snow, within a few miles of his mother's door!--the thought was bitterness unutterable, such as he had never felt before. Death he had often braved in all his forms--in the battlefield he had gazed upon him in the pomp and tumult of war, when the excited mind unheeded his presence; but here he seemed to hold his victim in suspense, until his very presence might produce the parting of soul and body from very fear of him. He struggled to rise, and combat the feelings that he knew must prove fatal to him; but his limbs were stiff, and would not obey his will, and he commended his soul to his Creator, and resigned himself to his fate. His mind became more calm, his thoughts less confused; and, as he lay musing, it occurred to him that he had erred in taking the wind for his compass, for perhaps it blew round the top of the hill (as it did), and was the cause of his always returning to the same spot. The idea occurred to him, that, if he had held straight on until he came to a running water, and followed its course, it would have guided him to some mill or cottage. This acted upon his mind like an electric spark, his heart warmed, and his limbs resumed, under the inspiration of hope that once more came to his aid, their former energy. Onwards he urged his way, stumbling, at every few paces, over the unequal ground; and, with severe labour, he cleared the hills, and anxiously listened for the sound of running water; but the howling of the blast deadened every sound; and he still urged his way, dragging his weary limbs after him, till a faint rushing was heard, and a black chasm appeared at his feet, over which he must have fallen on the next step. He returned thanks to God for his preservation. The chasm was the well-remembered linn, only a few hundred yards from his mother's cottage; and he had thought, more than once, he had distinguished a faint light in the gloom, at times distinct, then vanishing again, but now easily made out. His heart leaped for joy, for he knew it proceeded from his mother's cottage-window. He kept the burn-side, and proceeded straight to the house; but his energies were entirely spent. He reached it, lifted the latch, and remembered no more until he found his mother and Jeanie hanging over him and chafing his benumbed limbs. After a night's repose, the hardy veteran had risen full of vigour, as if the last night's escape from death had been only a dream. I could perceive melancholy reflections mixed with the joy he felt at finding all well at his return; but he said to me, with much bitterness,

"Eight years I have spent, of the prime of my life, in the service of my country; a few shillings, the remainder of my marching-money, is all I possess in the world; and I have returned to my mother's house, a poorer man, in every respect, than I left it."

A cloud passed over his brow--a sigh escaped--his altered look Jeanie watched with pain. She spoke not, but the sigh fell on his mother's ear. She grasped his hand, and, pressing it to her bosom,

"Jamie," said she, "my bairn, why do ye sigh on this blessed day? Are ye vexed that ye hae come back to yer auld mither and Jeanie?"

"I am not, mother," replied he; "indeed; I am not; but a few painful recollections steal over my mind; and the consciousness that I am alone the cause adds to their bitterness. Jennie, I am at home, and find you all I could wish; but complete happiness is yet at a distance. We cannot be united until I have recovered, by care and industry, what I have lost by my unprofitable absence."

Jeanie blushed, and hung down her head; her breast seemed too narrow to contain the feelings that rose in it; but his mother hastily interfered.

"Jamie," said she, "ye maunna tak that view o' yer situation. This cottage, and a' that is in it, is yer ain. Ye'll no begrudge me my room in it for a' my time; and yer cousin has saved some pounds for this happy meeting, and winna put ye aff as she ance did before--for now she's satisfied ye're an altered man. What say ye, lassie? Am I richt?"

Jeanie spoke not; but her looks showed her approval; and the happy pair sat gazing at him as if they feared he was soon about to leave them, and they could not look enough. I began to speak of the scenes he had witnessed in Spain, when his mother inquired what he considered his most unlooked-for escape.

"Indeed, mother," he replied, "it is hard to say; but I think it was at the storming of Badajos, before my better feelings had returned to me. I was then reckless of everything; and, being in the grenadier company, I volunteered for the forlorn hope. I had been before on the same duty, and knew it was as well to volunteer as to be commanded, for the duty must be done, and volunteering has a more soldier-like sound; so we who were to form the party immediately sold everything we possessed, and drank it with our comrades. This was the practice of many, for we knew what we had to do as soon as it was dark; and, if we escaped death, we might look upon it as a miracle; and thus were determined to enjoy life while we had it. This is a soldiers philosophy: enjoy all you have in your power; for what you leave after you fall you know not who will enjoy. I have eaten the last morsel of bread in my haversack going into action, and my comrades did the same, lest we might fall and another eat it. As soon as the hour arrived, we were at our post and formed, then marched on in dead silence towards the breach, headed by a captain and a lieutenant. I was on the right, and heard the lieutenant sob once or twice. The captain turned to him and said, in an under voice--

"'Return, if you are afraid.'

"'No,' replied the lieutenant, in a firm voice, though not much louder than a whisper, 'I am not afraid. I fear not danger, but will face it with any man in the British army; but, good God! my mother and sister----'"

A dreadful crash stunned me--a mine had been sprung, and we were all scattered in different directions, the greater part mangled and dead. When I recovered my recollection, I was sweltering in the ditch of the place, almost suffocated, and sinking. I was sorely bruised and bewildered; and, led more by instinct than reason--for I was incapable of thinking--I struggled to get at some support; and fortunately got hold of some willow twigs that were growing in the side of the ditch, and clung to them, while my faculties gradually came to me, and I felt in all its force the horrors of my situation. The noise was louder than thunder; the shot was entering the banks, and plunging into the water around me like a hail-storm, while splinters of shells were flying past in every direction. I was at one moment covered with water, and the next with mud and earth, torn by the shot from the side of the ditch. The whistling of the balls, the shouts of the men, the volleys of musketry, and deafening roar of the guns, and constant flashes of light that shot fearfully across the darkness of the scene, rendered my mind a chaos of confusion. I felt not what could be called fear; I had, in vain, more than once tried to extricate myself from my horrible situation. A callous, regardless feeling was upon me; and I passed the tedious hours in a kind of stupor, much resembling a fearful nightmare. I felt fully the desperate situation I was in, and my utter inability to relieve myself; but there was no use of making it worse than it was by fretting--and morning at length came. The firing had for a long time ceased; and I was dragged out more dead than alive, benumbed and bruised. Most of the volunteers had perished, and along with them the lieutenant, for whom I felt more regret than for any officer I had ever known to fall in the field of war. I often thought how much more commendable his feelings were than my own; for I had never even thought of you until I returned once more safe to the camp, and coolly turned over in my mind the whole occurrences of this fearful night. My conscience, I own, did upbraid me; but I soon shook off the uneasy feeling.

Jeanie heard the recital with a thrill of horror; and, while tears were falling fast--

"O Jamie!" said she, "little did we imagine the half of the dangers you were exposed to, or the misery you must have endured."

"We had sufferings," replied he, "enough and to spare; but we had also our enjoyments, with a relish no one at home, in the calm of domestic life, can have the most distant conception of. The soldier's life, in an enemy's country, is made up of extremes, either of hardship or enjoyment. When the toilsome march is over, how sound and sweetly he sleeps, even on the hard, bare ground, under the canopy of heaven! But, if his billet be good, he is the happiest of mortals--words cannot express his pleasures. After a rapid pursuit of the enemy, such as we had after the French to Victoria, when we were far in advance of our commissariat, and our stomachs were keen, sweet, sweet was our dry hard beef, so hard and black from overdriving, we were forced to bruise it between two stones, before our eager teeth could masticate it. Victuals and drink were all we coveted, and we were not over scrupulous how we came by them. We were quartered in Alcantara for a winter, after a summer of privations, and we lived like kings. Four of us were quartered upon one house; our rations were regularly served; and we had abundance and to spare. In Spain, almost every family has a barrel of olive oil for a supply during the winter; for they cook a great many victuals with it. We had become as fond of it as the natives. I recollect that our host had two large barrels filled behind the door; and complaints having being made by the inhabitants, every day, of the depredations committed upon their oil by the soldiers, our host was as jealous as the rest, examined his store night and morning, and gave us the greatest character for honesty. But little did he know whom he praised; for we were no better than the rest--only more cunning; and it was fortunate for us when the route came, for I am sure there was not the depth of a finger of oil in one of the barrels, we having had the precaution to put in as much water as we drew oil, to save appearances."

"Jamie, Jamie," said Margaret, "ye were sair left. Oh, man, did ye steal frae the poor folk in that gate?"