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Title: The King's Own Borderers: A Military Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)

Author: James Grant

Release date: January 23, 2022 [eBook #67227]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: George Routledge and Sons, 1865

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS: A MILITARY ROMANCE, VOLUME 2 (OF 3) ***







  THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS.

  A Military Romance.


  BY

  JAMES GRANT,


  AUTHOR OF
  "SECOND TO NONE," "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE YELLOW FRIGATE,"
  ETC. ETC.



  "Memories fast are thronging o'er me,
    Of the grand old fields of Spain;
  How he faced the charge of Junot,
    And the fight where Moore was slain.
  Oh the years of weary waiting
    For the glorious chance he sought,
  For the slowly ripened harvest
    That life's latest autumn brought."



  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. II.



  LONDON:
  GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
  BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.

  1865.




  LONDON:
  SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
  COVENT GARDEN.





  CONTENTS
  OF
  THE SECOND VOLUME.


  CHAP.

  I. A LAST REJECTION
  II. THE MESS
  III. THE PUNISHMENT PARADE
  IV. THE OLD REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH
  V. THE ADVANCED PICQUET
  VI. COSMO JOINS
  VII. THE DEPARTURE
  VIII. ON THE SEA
  IX. PORTALEGRE
  X. COSMO'S CRAFT
  XI. QUENTIN DEPARTS
  XII. ANXIOUS FRIENDS
  XIII. THE PARAGRAPH
  XIV. THE WAYSIDE CROSS AND WELL
  XV. THE MULETEERS
  XVI. GIL LLANO
  XVII. DANGER IN THE PATH
  XVIII. THE CHASSEUR À CHEVAL
  XIX. EUGÈNE DE RIBEAUPIERRE
  XX. THE GALIOTE OF ST. CLOUD
  XXI. THE GUERILLA HEAD-QUARTERS
  XXII. A REPRISAL
  XXIII. DON BALTASAR DE SALDOS
  XXIV. DONNA ISIDORA
  XXV. THE JOURNEY
  XXVI. A SURPRISE
  XXVII. THE VILLA DE MACIERA
  XXVIII. OUR LADY DEL PILAR




THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS.



CHAPTER I.

A LAST REJECTION.

  "Ae fond kiss and then we sever!
  Ae farewell, alas for ever!
  Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
  Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee;
  Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
  While the star of hope she leaves him?"
                                          BURNS.


Ignoring the source or cause of the excitement among the household,
Cosmo lounged into the breakfast-parlour, where the silver urns were
hissing amid a very chaste equipage, and where the September sun was
shining in through clusters of sweet briar and monthly roses, and as
he seated himself he handed to his father a long official-like
document, at the sight of which his mother changed colour, and even
Flora, who looked charming in her smiling radiance, lace frills, and
morning dress of spotted white muslin, lifted her dark eyelashes with
interest.

"What's the matter, Cosmo?--your leave cancelled?" asked Rohallion.

"Oh no, my lord--nothing so bad as that."

"A summons from headquarters, I see."

"Something very like it," drawled Cosmo; "read it to the ladies.
Spillsby, some coffee--no cream."

The letter ran briefly thus:--


"Horse Guards, &c., &c.

"SIR,--I have the honour to acquaint you, by direction of His Royal
Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, that it is now in his
power to appoint you to one of the second battalions lately raised
for the line and for immediate foreign service, provided that within
a fortnight you are prepared to assume the command, in which case
your name shall appear in the next Gazette.

  "I have the honour to be, &c., &c.

  "Major the Hon. C. Crawford,
        &c., &c."


"A fortnight!--are we to have you only for a fortnight, my dear, dear
Cosmo?" exclaimed Lady Rohallion, all her maternal tenderness welling
up at once.

"You will not, I fear, have me so long, my dear mother," said he;
"and you, Flora," he added in a low voice, as he purposely held his
plate across her for a wing of grouse; "and you----"

"Give you full leave to go, with my dearest wishes, and your heart
unbroken.  Come, Cosmo," she added in the same low voice, and with a
soft smile; "let us part friends, at least."

Cosmo's eyes seemed to shrink and dilate, while a cold and haughty
smile spread over his otherwise handsome features, as he turned
quietly to discuss his grouse, and said to the butler,--

"Spillsby, tell the groom to have a horse saddled for my man--take
Minden, the bay mare--as I must despatch a letter to Maybole within
an hour."

Breakfast was hurried over in silence and constraint, then Cosmo,
kissing the brow of his mother, who was already in tears,--for the
only real emotion that lingered in the Master's heart was a regard
for his mother--played with the silk tassels of his luxurious
dressing-gown, and lounged into the library to write his answer to
the military secretary, and profess himself to be completely, as in
duty bound, at the disposal of His Royal Highness, and proud to
accept the command offered him.

He soon penned the letter, and sealed it with the coronet, the shield
_gules_ and fess _ermine_ of Rohallion, muttering as he did so,--

"The line--the line after all; a horrid bore indeed, to come down to
that!"

He threw open his dressing-gown, as if it stifled him, almost tearing
the tasselled girdle as he did so, and planting his foot on the buhl
writing-table, lounged back in an easy-chair, where he strove to read
up Sir David Dundas's "Eighteen Manoeuvres," and fancied how he would
handle his battalion without clubbing the companies or bringing the
rear rank in front; by taking them into action with snappers instead
of flints, as old Whitelock did at Buenos Ayres, or committing other
little blunders, which might prove very awkward if a brigade of
French twelve-pounders were throwing in grape and canister at
half-musket range.

Soothed by pipe, and by the silence of the place, and by the subdued
sunlight that stole through the deep windows of that old library, so
quaint with its oak shelves of calf-bound and red-labelled folios and
quartos, its buhl cabinets, and square-backed chairs of the
Covenanting days, its half-curtained oriel window, through which were
seen the ripe corn or stubble fields that stretched in distance far
away to the brown hills of Carrick.  Soothed, we say, by all this,
Cosmo dawdled over the pages and the diagrams of the famous review at
Potsdam for some time before he became conscious that Flora was
seated near him, busy with a book of engravings.

Then begging pardon for his pipe and his free-and-easy position, a
bachelor habit, as he said, he arose and joined her.  Leaning over
the back of his chair, as if to overlook the prints, while in reality
his admiring eyes wandered alternately and admiringly over her fine
glossy hair, the contour of her head, and little white ears (at each
of which a rose diamond dangled), and her delicate neck, which rose
so nobly from her back and beautifully curved shoulders, he said in a
low voice, and with considerable softness of manner, for him at
least,--

"'Pon my honour, friend Flora, I believe you really begin to love me,
after all."

"How do you think so, or why?" she asked, looking half round, with
her bewitching eyes full of wonder and amusement.

"Because we always quarrel when we meet, and that is called a Scots
mode of wooing, isn't it?"

"So our nurses used to say, long ago."

"And were they right?"

"Now, dear Cosmo, let us talk of something else, if you please," she
urged pleadingly.

"Why so?"

"A dangerous topic has a strange fascination for you."

"Dangerous?"

"Unpleasant, at least," said Flora, pettishly.

Cosmo flung the "Eighteen Manœuvres" of Lieutenant-General Dundas
very angrily and ignominiously to the extreme end of the library, and
folding his arms stood haughtily erect before Flora, whose bright
eyes were fixed on his, with a smiling expression of fear and
perplexity combined.

"Can it be possible," he began, "I ask you, can it be possible, Miss
Warrender----"

"Oh, you are about to address me officially--well, sir?"

"Can it be possible, Flora, that you still love this unknown protégé
of my foolish mother--this nameless rascal, who has run away, heaven
knows where?  By-the-bye, I wonder if Spillsby has overhauled the
plate chest since he went!"

Flora was silent, but his _brusquerie_ and categorical manner
offended her, and filled her eyes with tears.

"This weeping is enough," continued the exasperated Cosmo, who,
though he had no great regard for Flora, felt his self-esteem--which
was not small--most fearfully wounded; "you do love him."

"And what if I do?" she asked, very quietly, but withal rather
defiantly.

"Very fine, Miss Warrender--very fine, 'pon my soul!  That old jade,
Anne Radcliffe, with her 'Romance of the Forest,' her 'Castles of
Athlin and Dunbayne,' and this new Edinburgh fellow, Scott, with his
'Marmion,' and so forth, have perfected your education.  Your
teaching has been most creditable!"

"This taunting manner is not so to you,' replied Flora, resuming her
inspection of the book of prints.

"Oho! we are in a passion again it seems?"

"Far from it, sir--I never was more cool in my life," said she,
looking up with a wicked but glorious smile.

"And where has this runaway gone?  His friends in the servants' hall
heard something of him last night or this morning, if I may judge
from the pot-house row they made."

"He has gone into the army," replied Flora, with a perceptible
modulation of voice.

"The army!" replied Cosmo, really surprised; "enlisted--for what?--a
fifer or triangle boy?"

"No," replied Flora, curling her pretty nostril, while her eyes
gleamed dangerously under their long thick lashes.

"For what, on earth, has he gone then?"

"A gentleman volunteer."

"A valuable acquisition to His Majesty's service!" said Cosmo,
laughing, and, greatly to Flora's annoyance, seeming to be really
amused; "do you know, friend Flora, what a volunteer is?"

"Not exactly, sir," said Flora, again looking down on her book of
prints with a sigh of anger.

"Shall I tell you?"

"If you please."

"We never had any in the Household Brigade--such fellows are usually
to be found only with the line corps."

"Ah--with corps that go abroad and really see service--I understand."

"Miss Warrender, the Guards----"

"Well, _what_ is a volunteer?" asked Flora, beating the carpet with a
very pretty foot.

"A volunteer is a poor devil who is too proud to enlist, and is too
friendless to procure a commission; who has all a private's duty to
do, and has to carry a musket, pack, and havresack, wherein are his
ration-beef, biscuits, and often his blackball and shoebrushes; who
mounts guard and salutes me when I pass him, and whom I may handcuff
and send to the cells or guard-house when I please; who is not a
regular member of the mess and may never be; who gets a shilling per
diem with the chance of Chelsea, a wooden leg, or an arm with an iron
hook if his limbs are smashed by a round shot; who is neither
officer, non-commissioned officer, nor private--neither fish, flesh,
nor good red-herring (to use a camp phrase).  Oh, Flora, Flora
Warrender, can you be such a romantic little goose as to feel an
interest in such a fellow as I have described?"

Mingling emotions, indignation at the Master's insulting bitterness,
pity for Quentin, and pure anger at the annoyance to which she was
subjected, made Flora's white bosom heave as she quietly turned her
eyes, with a flashing expression however, upon the cat-like regards
of the sneering questioner, and said,--

"Who are you, sir, that would thus question or dictate to me?"

"Who am I?" he asked, while surveying her through his glass with
amusement, perplexity, and something of sorrow in his tone.

"Yes, sir--who are you?"

"I am, I believe, Cosmo, Master of Rohallion, and Colonel to be, of a
very fine regiment; so I can afford to smile at the pride and
petulance of a moon-struck girl."

"Oh, how unseemly this is!  Whatever happens, let us part friends,"
said she politely, perhaps a little imploringly.

"So be it," said he, kissing her hand as she retired.

"Now, the sooner I am off from this dreary paternal den the better.
Away to London at once.  Andrews!--Jack Andrews," he shouted, in a
tone almost of ferocity: "show me the last newspapers."  They were
soon brought, and Cosmo's sharp eyes ran rapidly over the
advertisements.  "Let me see," he pondered, "travelling by mail is
intolerable; one never knows who the devil one may be boxed up with
for a week, a fever patient or a lunatic, perhaps!  The smacks are
crowded with all manner of rubbish, travelling bagmen, linesmen going
home on leave, sick mothers and squalling babies.  What is this?  The
good ship _Edinburgh_, pinck-built, near the new quay at Leith, sails
for England without convoy--carries six 12-pounders--master to be
spoke with daily at the Cross--to be _spoke_ with.  Faugh! what says
the next advertisement?  'A widow lady, who is to set out for London
next week in a post-chaise, would be glad to hear of a companion.
Enquire at the _Courant_ office, opposite the Old Fishmarket-close,
Edinburgh.' Egad! the very thing--widow lady--hope she's young and
good-looking.  I'll answer _this_!"

Such advertisements in the London and Edinburgh papers were quite
common in those days, when travelling expenses were enormous.

He replied to it, and departed from Rohallion in a great hurry soon
after.  Whether with a fair companion or not, we are unable to say.

We hope so, and that on the journey of about four hundred miles to
London, the amenity of the fair widow consoled him for the final
rebuff he met with from Flora Warrender.




CHAPTER II.

THE MESS.

  "He is more fortunate!  Yea, he hath finished;
  For him there is no longer any future.
  His life is bright; bright without spot it was,
  And cannot cease to be.

                O 'tis well with him,
  But who knows what the coming hour,
  Veiled in thick darkness, brings for us!
                                        _Wallenstein._


The mess-room of the 2nd battalion of the 25th Foot, in old
Colchester Barracks, was a long room, and for its size rather low in
the ceiling, which was crossed by a massive dormant beam of oak.
Good mahogany tables occupied the entire length of the room, with a
row of hair-cloth chairs on each side thereof.  It was destitute of
all ornament save a few framed prints of the popular generals of the
time, such as the Duke of York, so justly known as "the soldier's
friend;" Sir Ralph Abercrombie, who fell in Egypt; Sir David Dundas,
the hero of Tournay; Sir David Baird, flushed with triumph and
revenge, leading on his stormers at Seringapatam; the sad and gentle
Sir John Moore, and others.

The room was uncarpeted, but the number of tall wax candles, in
silver branches, on the long table, and in girandoles, on the
mantelpiece and sideboard, together with the quantity of rich plate
that was displayed, and the brilliance of the assembled company,
about thirty officers in full uniform, their scarlet coats all faced
and lapelled to the waist with blue barred with gold, and all their
bullion epaulettes glittering, had a very gay appearance; thus the
general meagreness of the furniture passed unobserved.

At mess the coats were then worn open, with the crimson silk sash
inside and over a white waistcoat.  Nearly all the seniors still
indulged in powdered heads, while the juniors wore their hair in that
curly profusion introduced by George IV., then Prince of Wales.  A
few who were on duty were distinguished by the pipe-clayed
shoulder-belt and gilt gorget, which was slung round the neck by a
ribbon which varied in every corps according to the colour of its
facings.

Amid much good-humour and a little banter, they seated themselves,
and the president and vice-president--posts taken by every officer in
rotation--proceeded to their tasks of dispensing the viands.

Quentin was seated next his host, Major Middleton, about the centre
of the table, and he surveyed the gay scene with surprise and
pleasure, though looking somewhat anxiously for the face of his kind
friend Warriston, who was to be a guest that evening, but was still
detained on duty.

To him much of the conversation was a perfect mystery, being half
jocular and half technical, or that which is stigmatized as "shop."
It chiefly ran on drills, duties, and mistakes--how badly those 94th
fellows marched past yesterday, and so forth; while the standing
jokes about Buckle's nag-tailed charger, Monkton's old epaulettes,
Pimple's last love-affair, and the old commandant's state of mind on
discovering that Colville had a fair visitor in his guard-room,
seemed to excite as much laughter as if they had all been quite new,
and had not been heard there every day for the last six months.

Some rapid changes would seem to have taken place at the headquarters
of the 2nd battalion.  The old colonel of whom Quentin heard on the
march from Ayr, had sold out, and a Major Sir John Glendinning come
in by purchase.  One gazette contained a notice of this, and a second
announced the death of Sir John in a duel with an officer of the
Guards.  The lieutenant-colonelcy was thus again vacant, and all
present, even Monkton, hoped the step would be given in the regiment,
that old Major Middleton would get the command; thus all would have a
move upward, and who could say but Quentin Kennedy might obtain the
ensigncy which would thus be rendered vacant?  But poor Middleton had
served so long, and had seen so many promoted over his head, that he
ceased to be hopeful of anything.

Some of the youngsters drank wine again and again with our young
volunteer, a spirit of mischief being combined with their
hospitality.  To "screw a Johnny Raw" was one of the chief practical
jokes at a mess-table then, as it is at some few still; but
Middleton's influence soon repressed them.

The cloth removed, the regimental mull, a gigantic ram's head, the
horns of which were tipped with cairngorms and massive silver
settings, was placed before the president, and was passed down the
table from left to right, according to the custom of all Scottish
messes.  The mull was the farewell gift of Lord Rohallion, and the
gallant ram was the flower of all that he could procure in Carrick.

The proposed expeditions to Spain and Holland soon formed the staple
topics for discourse and surmise; but none present had the slightest
idea on which of these the regiment might be despatched.

When Quentin looked round that long and glittering mess-table, and
saw so many handsome, pleasant, and jovial fellows, all heedless and
full of high spirits, who welcomed him among them, spoke cheeringly
of his prospects and drank to his success, he felt a pang on
reflecting that he must owe it to the death in battle of one at least
among them!

There was plenty of laughter, fun, and joking.  Many of those present
were more or less dandies; but the military Dundreary, the--to use a
vulgar phrase--"heavy swell," who affects the style of Charles
Mathews in "Used Up," was unknown in the days of the long, long war
with France, for men joined the army to become soldiers indeed.
Their predecessors were usually killed in action, and they had the
immediate prospect of finding themselves before the bravest enemy in
the world.

The solemn regimental snob, or yawning yahoo, whose private affairs
became so "urgent" in the Crimea; the parvenu Lancer or lisping
Hussar, cold, sarcastic, and unimpressionable, are entirely the
growth of the piping times of peace, and to them the stern advice of
the old officer of other times, "Be ever ready with your pistol," is
meaningless now.

"I joined the service as a volunteer," said Rowland Askerne, the
burly captain of the Grenadiers--as his massive gold rings announced
him--turning to Quentin.

"Were you long one?"

"Longer than I quite relished," replied Askerne, laughing.

"Indeed!" said Quentin, anxiously.

"Yes--four years; and long years they seemed to me."

"On foreign service?"

"Of course; and pretty sharp service, too, sometimes.  I carried a
musket with Middleton's company at the capture of Corsica, in '95,
and again with the Gordon Highlanders on the recent expedition
against Porto Ferrajo, in Elba, where I had the ill-luck to be the
only man hit.  A French tirailleur put a ball through my left leg,
but he was shot the next moment by my covering file, Norman Calder,
now a sergeant.  Some of the Irish in '98 proved better marksmen than
the French; they knocked a number of ours on the head, so I won my
epaulettes fighting against the poor fellows under General Lake, at
Vinegar Hill.  I had many a heart-burning before they promoted me;
(by _they_ I mean the Horse Guards) and I swore that when the day
came that they did so, I would tread on my sash and turn cobbler; but
I had not the heart to quit, so I wear my harness still--a captain
only--when I should be lieutenant-colonel by brevet, at least; but
Middleton's case is a harder one than mine, for he has been longer in
the service."

"We are most likely bound for North Holland," said the adjutant; "and
there many an evil will be ended."

"The French are in great strength there, and hard knocks will be
going," added Monkton.  "Many among us are fated perhaps to find a
last abode among the swamps of Beveland; so, if you escape, Kennedy,
you must certainly gain your pair of colours, with five shillings and
threepence per diem--less the income-tax--to spend on the luxuries of
life--damme!"

"Glad to hear we are to be off so soon, Monkton," said a smart, but
somewhat blasé-looking young lieutenant, "for we have a most weary
time of it here in Colchester.  The course of drill--drill, always
drill--with club, sword, or musket, and the whole routine of barrack
duty, with inspections and guards, are decidedly a bore!"

"What the deuce would you have, Colville?" asked the adjutant,
bluntly.  "What did you come here for?"

"I came to be a soldier," replied the "used up" sub, with a suave
smile.

"To be a soldier?"

"Yes--not to doze life away by marching to and fro at the goose-step,
in that gravelled yard, or by lolling over the window in
shirt-sleeves, to save my shell-jacket.  Where are all the castles I
built----"

"To storm, eh?" asked Buckle, glancing uneasily at the commanding
officer, who was forming his walnut-shells in grand-division squares,
for the edification of the second major.

"Yes--I had hoped to have achieved something decidedly brilliant ere
this."

"Console yourself, Colville, and pass the port.  Ah, you consider
yourself sharp--up to every sort of thing--a common delusion with
young fellows of your age; but ten years' more soldiering, and the
rubs of life between your twenties and thirties, to say nothing of
those afterwards, will cure you of thinking so.  Believe me,
Colville, wherever we go, we shall find plenty of desperate work cut
out for us all.  Well, Monkton, in recruiting, you could not pick up
an heiress--eh?"

"No.  Heiresses are not to be found under every hedge."

"In Scotland, especially."

"I have considered the matter maturely, my dear friend," said
Monkton, in his bantering tone, "and have come to the sage conclusion
that, if a man marries, with his pay only, he had better hang; if
otherwise, and his wife have a long purse, and expectations, to
enhance the charms of her blushes and orange-buds, let him send in
his papers, and quit; so the service loses your Benedict any way."

"Purse, or no purse," said Colville, "as Paragon says in the comedy
we acted at York, 'when you see my wife, you shall see perfection,
though I never met the woman I could conscientiously throw myself
away upon.'"

"Pimple, we hear, has been romantically tender on a flax-spinner's
daughter; and that the route came only in time to save him from the
arms of Venus for those of Bellona, and he is burning now to forget
his loved and lost one amid the smoke of battle," said Colville, with
a tragic air.  "Ah, there were great men even before old Agamemnon."

"But Pimple shall show us by his glorious example, that we have at
least one greater since."

"Let me alone, Colville, and you also, Monkton," said Boyle, becoming
seriously angry; "I hope to do my duty with the best among you."

Attention was speedily drawn from the irritation of the little ensign
by the entrance of Warriston, who apologized briefly for being late,
having been detained on duty at the quarters of his own regiment;
then drawing a chair near his friend Middleton, he handed to him the
last number of the _London Gazette_, pointing to a paragraph therein,
and leisurely filling his glass with claret, passed the decanters.
When Middleton read the passage referred to, a crimson flush passed
over his features, and he crushed up the paper as if an emotion, of
rage and pain thrilled through him.

"What is the matter, major?" asked half-a-dozen voices; "nothing
unpleasant, I hope?"

"The lieutenant-colonelcy has been given _out_ of the regiment,"
replied Middleton, with his brows knit, while his hand still crushed
up the paper; then, as if remembering himself, he smiled, but very
disdainfully.

"He must have seen much service to be appointed over _your_ head,"
said Monkton.

"Service--yes, the Guards fight many bloody battles about Hounslow,
Hyde Park, and the Fifteen Acres," replied the justly exasperated
field-officer.  "Here is my advancement stopped by the promotion of a
fellow who has some petticoat interest about Carlton House, whose
cousin is groom of the backstairs, and who has been compelled to
'eschew sack and loose company,' so he comes from the Household
Brigade to the Line, and may go from the 25th to the devil, perhaps."

"Be wary, my good friend--be wary," said Warriston, glancing round
the table hastily.

"And _who_ is he?" asked several, full of curiosity.

"The son of a general officer--the Master of Rohallion."

On hearing this name, Quentin felt as if petrified!  Here, even here,
his evil spirit seemed to be following him!

"It is an old name in the regiment," said Monkton.

"Yes," replied the major; "his father was a gallant officer; I was
his subaltern in America; but here it is;" and he read, "'25th Foot;
to be Lieutenant-Colonel, Major the Honourable Cosmo Crawford, from
the 1st Guards, vice Sir John Glendinning, deceased,' so he comes
over us, in virtue of that court rank which is one of the worst
abuses of our service."

"Promotion is always slow among the Household troops, so they
indemnify themselves at the expense of the line," said Warriston, in
answer to a question of Quentin's; "every rank among them having a
grade above us; but take courage, my good old friend, this kind of
thing is not likely to happen again."

With a smile that grew scornful in spite of himself, the worthy old
major strove to conceal the bitterness of his heart, though all
present condoled with him on his disappointment and hard usage by the
powers that be; and for reasons known to himself alone, none shared
his chagrin more than Quentin Kennedy.

He had been formally enrolled as a member of the regiment, and had
ordered his equipments for it; his name, as a volunteer, had been
sent by Middleton to Sir Harry Calvert, the Adjutant General, at the
Horse Guards, that he might obtain the first vacant ensigncy
(_subject to the approval of the commanding officer_), and that he
might have his passage abroad provided, either by the commissariat
department, or by the commandant at Hillsea, near Portsmouth.  His
own honour, and all the circumstances under which he stood prevented
him from quitting; but now, what hope had he of comfort or prosperity
in remaining?  His very chances of advancement depended on the veto,
whim, and caprice of this Master of Rohallion, his bitterest enemy!
Of what avail would now be the endurance of campaigning, the hardship
of serving as a volunteer, and risking all the perils of war?

Perhaps Flora Warrender may come with him as his bride was the next
idea; and it added greatly to the bitterness of the others.

That night Quentin slept but little, and he seemed barely to have
closed his eyes when he heard the drum beating the assembly.

Then he sprang from bed just as the grey dawn was breaking, and
proceeded hastily to dress, remembering to have heard last evening
that, at daybreak, the regiment was to have a "punishment parade,"
which, to his uninitiated ears, had a very unpleasant sound.




CHAPTER III.

THE PUNISHMENT PARADE.

  "Most worthy sergeant, I have seen thee lead,
  Where men among us would be slow to follow;
  Udsdaggers, yes!  By trench and culverine,
  Where men and horses too, lay foully heap'd
  On other; and hath it come to this, good sergeant,
  Beshrew my heart--a prisoner and afeared."
                                          _Old Play._


Plain though it was, being destitute of lace or epaulettes, poor
Quentin was very proud of his volunteer uniform, and being eminently
a handsome young man, he looked very well in it.  The coarse buff
crossbelts, the pouch, and bayonet, and, more especially, the Brown
Bess he had to carry, did not suit his taste quite so well.  He had
imagined that he would have to shoulder a kind of Joe Manton, or
something like a smart Enfield rifle of the present day, with a
"draw" of ten pounds or less on the trigger, instead of a long
blunderbuss like the regulation musket of those days, weighing
fourteen pounds, with its enormous butt-plate of brass and so forth.

Thanks to the teaching of the old quartermaster, he proved himself so
apt a pupil under the sergeant-major and old Norman Calder, that
within a week he was reported as "fit for duty," as Monkton said,
"doing as much credit to his preceptors as to the cabbage-stalk," for
so he designated the army tailor.

But we are anticipating.

His first parade was an inauspicious one, in so far as it was for
punishment.

A sergeant of the regiment had been recently tried by a regimental
court-martial for permitting spirits to be brought by a woman to the
main guard-house at night, while he was in command, and by these
means certain prisoners became intoxicated and riotous.  He alleged
that he was asleep on that luxurious couch, the guard bed, after
posting his sentinels, and that the fault lay with his corporal and
others; but the plea was urged in vain--the corps was under orders
for foreign service--an example was necessary; so he was now to
receive the award of his dereliction of duty, and as the drum-major
had received some special instructions over night, all knew that it
involved the application of the now (happily) almost obsolete
instrument--the cat!

The degradation of a non-commissioned officer is always a painful
duty; but when flogging is added thereto, it is doubly painful to the
witnesses, and maddening to the culprit.

"I told you old Middleton was a Tartar," said Monkton, as he and
Quentin hurried downstairs from their quarters; "he'd certainly flog
ensigns if he could; and the _Gazette_ of last night won't have
improved his variable temper.  But here he comes, mounted, with
holsters and blue saddle-cloth, but looking for all the world like an
old woman trotting to market with her butter and eggs.  Such a
seat--such a queer length, or rather want of length, in the
stirrup-leathers!  Good morning, Buckle--so we are to have a
flogging--ugh? that isn't lively."

Quentin being a young hand, felt somewhat awed, as he knew not what
was about to ensue.  The sun had not yet risen, and the September
morning was chilly and misty; the men of the regiment were falling in
by companies under arms in light marching order--the tall grenadiers
on the right with their black bearskin caps; the smart light company
on the left with green plumes in their shakos, and Saxon horns on all
their appointments; the sergeants were calling the various rolls; the
officers were gathered in a somewhat silent group, and the face of
every man wore a sullen, or rather dejected expression, for a
punishment parade is the kind of parade least liked by soldiers of
all ranks.  It acts as a damper on the spirits of all; on this
morning the atmosphere was dense; the sombre sun seemed to linger
behind the uplands of Suffolk, and the shadows to lie deeper in the
silent barrack square.

Impressed by the taciturnity and gloomy expression of the men, whose
faces wore the pallor incident to all who come from bed in haste at
an unusual hour, Quentin remained silent and full of expectation and
anxiety as he fell into the rear rank of Captain Askerne's company,
to which he was to be permanently attached.  He was sensible,
however, that the soldiers viewed him with interest, as a volunteer
is always popular.  It was to rescue Thomas Grahame, when lying
severely wounded, and then serving as a simple volunteer in the red
coat of the Caledonian Hunt, that our troops in Holland made one of
their most desperate rallies, and gained to the service the future
Lord Lynedoch, the hero of Barossa.

The inspection of the companies and the drum for coverers rapidly
followed the calling of the muster-rolls; a bugle sounded; the
officers fell in; the bayonets were fixed, and the regiment, without
music, was marched silently by sections to a secluded part of the
barracks, where, surrounded by high stores and magazines, no
stranger's eye could oversee the proceedings, and then it was formed
in a hollow square, in the centre of which Quentin perceived three
sergeants' pikes (weapons not disused till 1830) strapped together by
the heads, an equilateral triangle being formed by the shafts, which
were stuck in the earth.  Near these were the drummers and
drum-major, who carried in his hand a canvas bag, which, as Quentin
was informed in a whisper by the next file on his right, contained
"the cats."

"The officer with the cocked hat, and without a sash, close by, is
the doctor," he added.

"The doctor--for what is he required?"

"You'll too soon see that, sir," was the ominous response.

"Steady, rear rank--silence," growled old Sergeant Calder.

At that moment one of the drummers drew forth a cat, and Quentin
could perceive that it consisted of nine tails of whipcord, each
having nine knots thereon, and these were firmly lashed to a handle
about the length of a drum-stick.  A slight shudder with an emotion
of sickness came over him; and he looked anxiously at the face of
Major Middleton, but it seemed immovable as he said to the
sergeant-major with studied sternness of tone,

"March in the prisoner."

A section in the face of the square wheeled backward and permitted
the unfortunate, with his escort, consisting of a corporal and two
men of the barrack-guard, to march in and halt before the major, on
which the culprit took off his forage-cap and stood bareheaded, the
centre of all observation.

He cast a haggard glance at the triangles; another half furtively and
restlessly at the stolid faces round him, and then he seemed to
become immovable.  There was little need for Mr. Buckle, the
adjutant, to read over the proceedings of the Court, for the hopeless
sergeant knew at once his double degradation and his doom!

He was to be reduced to the rank and pay of a private, and to receive
_three hundred and fifty lashes_, the utmost number a regimental
court could then award; with the option, if he would avoid this
extreme punishment, of volunteering to serve for life (_i.e._ till
disabled by wounds or age) in the York Chasseurs, or any other
condemned corps, in Africa or the West Indies.

His name was Allan Grange, the colour-sergeant of the Grenadiers, who
always considered themselves the _corps d'élite_ of a regiment.
Altogether he was a model of a man, erect and strong in figure, his
hair was a little grizzled about the temples, and his face was
somewhat careworn, as if he had known or suffered much anxiety and
trouble in his time.  His eye was clear and keen, and save a little
nervous twitching about the muscles of the mouth, he seemed unmoved
and unflinching--unflinching as when on the glorious field of
Egmont-op-Zee, he commanded the Grenadiers of the 25th, after all
their officers had fallen, and with his pike broken in his hand by a
musket shot, led them to that bloody hand-to-hand conflict on the
road that leads to Haarlem.

Perhaps the poor fellow was thinking of that signal and bloody
day--perhaps of his boyhood and his home; it might be of the future,
that was all a blank; for he seemed as in a dream while the adjutant
read over the formula of the trial, the list of charges and the
sentence, till he was roused by the drum-major proceeding to rip off
with a penknife the three hard-won chevrons from his right arm.  It
was done gently, but "the iron seemed to enter his soul" at the
moment, and a heavy sigh escaped him as his chin sank on his breast.

"Allan Grange," said Major Middleton, raising his voice clearly and
distinctly, that the whole of the hollow square and even its
supernumerary ranks might hear, "you are the last man in the whole
Borderers whom I could have expected to see standing before us as you
do to-day.  In cutting off your stripes I feel extreme reluctance and
sorrow, and I think you have known me long enough to be aware of
that."

"I am, major--I am aware of it," said the reduced man in a hollow
voice.

"Allan Grange, you have come of a respectable old Scottish stock in
Lothian: you were born in my native place, and are one of the many
fine lads who came with me to the line from the Buccleugh Fencibles.
I know well how, in your native village, the Stenhouse, your name and
progress have been watched by early friends and old schoolfellows; by
none more than your father, who now lies in Liberton kirkyard, by the
good old mother who nursed you; by the old dominie who taught you; by
the grey-haired minister who will ere long see your name affixed, as
that of a degraded man, on the kirk-door.  I know how, at the village
inn on the braehead, in the smithy at the loan-end, at the mill
beside the burn, it would be known that Allan Grange had been made a
corporal--that he had gained his third stripe--that he had been made
a colour-sergeant; and I can imagine how the listeners would drink to
your health and to mine, in the hope that we should one day see you
an officer; and now--_now_--by one act of folly you are again at the
foot of the ladder!"

A heavy sigh escaped the sergeant; the drum-major's knife gave a
final rip, and he stood once more a private on parade!

"The worst part of your sentence yet remains--unless--unless you
volunteer into the York Chasseurs."

"Major Middleton," said Grange, firmly, and standing erect, like a
fine man as he was, "I'll not leave the regiment!"

The man was fearfully pale, and it was evident to all that Middleton,
though a strict and sometimes severe officer, was greatly moved.

"You will rather take three hundred and fifty lashes than volunteer?"
he asked.

"I'd volunteer for a forlorn hope; I've done so before now, sir, as
you know well, but I'll not quit the old 25th for a condemned corps.
I'll take my punishment--I've earned it like a fool, and with God's
help, I hope to bear it like a man."

"Then strip, sir," said Middleton, playing nervously with the blue
ribbons of his gorget.

All emotion seemed to pass away as the culprit proceeded deliberately
to unclasp his leather stock and unbutton his coat; but before it was
off the major exclaimed in a loud voice, as he drew a letter from his
pocket--

"_Stop!_"

Grange paused, and looked up with a haggard and bloodshot eye.

"I remit the rest of the sentence, for the sake of one who intercedes
for you."

"Sir?"

"I have had a petition from your wife, and willingly grant it.  Take
away the triangles.  Conduct yourself as you did till this misfortune
came upon you, and ere long, Grange, you may regain the stripes you
have to-day been deprived of.  Rejoin your company."

"I thank you, sir, for the sake of my poor wife and her bairnie.  I
have proved that I would rather take my punishment than leave the
regiment and you; and--sir--sir----"

Here Grange fairly broke down and sobbed aloud; and no man among the
nine hundred there thought the less of him, because his stout heart,
which even the terror of the lash could not appal, now became full of
penitence and gratitude.  At that moment many an eye glistened in the
ranks, and many a heart was swelling.

"There, there--don't make a fuss," said Middleton, testily; "I hate
scenes!  Prepare to form quarter-distance column right in
front--stand fast the Light Company."

And so ended an episode, that, like the warm rising sun now shining
cheerfully into the barrack-square, shed a brightness over every
face, and lent a lightness--a sense of pleasure and relief to every
heart, as the regiment marched back to quarters, and to what was of
some importance after being two hours under arms in the morning
air--breakfast.




CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD REGIMENT OF EDINBURGH.

  "Such is our love of liberty, our country and our laws,
  That like our ancestors of old, we'll stand in freedom's cause;
  We'll bravely fight like heroes for honour and applause,
  And defy the French, with all their art, to alter our laws."
                                    _The Garb of Old Gaul._


From Major Middleton, who took somewhat of a fatherly interest in
him, Quentin learned much of the past history and achievements of the
regiment he had joined.

It was one with which the stories of his old military friends at
Rohallion had made him familiar from boyhood; thus, he was in
possession of so many old regimental names, so many stock stories and
anecdotes, which Middleton deemed unknown beyond the circle of their
mess-table and barrack-rooms, that he considered the lad an enigma,
and was puzzled how, or where, he had gained all this information
about the corps; for Quentin, though looking forward to the arrival
of Cosmo with a disgust that almost amounted to terror, kept his own
counsel with wonderful prudence, and never permitted the name of
Rohallion to escape him.

As there is no official record of the Borderers' achievements prior
to 1808, the account given by the major is perhaps the only one
extant.

Under David Leslie, Earl of Leven, the 25th Foot were formed on the
10th of March, 1689, from a body of six thousand Covenanters, who, on
the news of William of Orange landing at Torbay, marched from the
West Country and laid siege to the castle of Edinburgh.  On their
banners were an open Bible, with the motto, "For Reformation
according to the Word of God."

Marching north against the loyal Highlanders, they left their
compatriots, all of whom served without pay or remuneration till the
conclusion of the siege, when the fortress was surrendered by the
Duke of Gordon after a noble defence, and after being warned by a
spectre--pale as he "who drew Priam's curtain at the dead of
night"--in fact, by the wraith of the terrible Claverhouse in his
buff coat, cuirass, and cavalier wig, all stained with gouts of
blood, that he had been shot by a silver bullet on the field of
Killycrankie.  In one of the rooms of the old fortress this vision is
alleged to have appeared to Colin, Earl of Balcarris, then the duke's
prisoner, and the truth of the episode is admitted by a delirious
biographer of the viscount, who affirms that he is frequently in
communion with the ghost in question, and with others.

The Earl of Leven, though colonel of infantry under Frederick
Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and of a regiment which came over
with the Prince of Orange, who made him Governor of Edinburgh Castle
and Master of the Scottish ordnance, was a Whig noble, chiefly famous
for the rapidity of his flight from Killycrankie, and the vigour with
which he horsewhipped the Lady Morton Hall.  It is said that he rode
six miles from the Pass without drawing his bridle, though his
regiment, the future 25th, and Hastings, the future 13th, were the
only troops that made any stand against the victorious Highlanders.

Leven's regiment having been raised in the capital while Sir John
Hall, Knight, was Lord Provost, was designated of Edinburgh, and bore
the insignia yet borne on its colours, the triple castle of the city,
with its crest and motto, _Nisi Dominus Frustra_.

As Leven's regiment--the same in which "my uncle Toby" fought at
Landen, and with which he went to "mount guard in the trenches before
the gate of St. Nicholas in his roquelaure"--it served in all King
William's useless wars for the well-being of his darling Dutch, and
all the great barrier towns of Europe have heard the drums of the
25th.  It was the first British regiment which used the socket in
lieu of the screw bayonet, which its lieutenant-colonel, Maxwell,
adopted in imitation of the bayonets of the French Fusiliers.  Prior
to this, our bayonets were screwed into the muzzles of the muskets,
and to fire with them fixed, was, of course, an impossibility.  After
fighting at Sheriffmuir, as Viscount Shannon's Foot, it served with
distinction in the wars of the Spanish and Austrian succession, and
shared in the disasters of Fontenoy, ere its soldiers had again to
imbrue their hands in the blood of their own countrymen at Falkirk,
at Culloden, and in defending the Comyn's Tower in the old Castle of
Blair against Lord George Murray, till we find them again among the
troops defeated at Val through the cowardice and incapacity of the
Duke of Cumberland.

During the seven years' war it suffered severely at the siege of a
small German castle, by the heroism of a sergeant of the enemy.
Under Lord Rohallion a party of the Edinburgh Regiment had made
themselves masters of an outwork, in which they established
themselves at the point of the bayonet.  _Under_ this work was a
secret mine, which (as the "Ecole Historique et Morale du Soldat"
relates) was entrusted to a sergeant and a few soldiers of the Royal
Piedmontese Guards.  The mine was ready, the _saucisson_ led through
the gallery, the train was laid, and a single spark would blow all
below and above to atoms!

With admirable coolness the sergeant desired his comrades to retire,
and request the king to take charge of his wife and children.  He
then, inspired by a spirit of self-devotion, set fire to the train
and perished, as the mine exploded.  The outwork rose into the air
and fell thundering into the fosse, Lord Rohallion, a corporal, and
two men alone escaping, covered with bruises and cuts.  The name of
the sergeant was said to be Amadeus di Savillano, son of the
Castellan of the fortress of that name in Piedmont.

The Edinburgh regiment served at the battle of Minden.  The Earl of
Home was then its colonel, and it was in the second line, and on the
left of Kingsley's famous brigade.  Landing in England, on the
homeward march, near the Borders, the old colours borne in the seven
years' war were buried by its soldiers, with all honour, and three
volleys were fired over them.

In those days, when any regiment approached London, the colours were
furled and cased, and no drum was beaten or fife blown during the
march through its limits.  The 3rd, or Old East Kentish Buffs, were
alone excepted, and had the exclusive privilege of marching through
the City of London with all the honours of war, in memory of having,
at some period, been recruited from the City Trained Bands.

Likewise no regiment could beat a drum within the walls, or through
the portes of the Scottish capital, with the exception of the 25th,
or old Edinburgh Regiment.  But not long after the battle of Minden,
it chanced that a certain thick-pated lord-provost objected to their
drums beating up for recruits, on the plea that none should beat
there but those of the City Guard.  On this, the colonel, Lord George
Henry Lennox (M.P. for the county of Sussex, who died in 1805), was
so incensed, that on his special application the title of the corps
was changed, and its facings were altered from the royal yellow of
Scotland to the royal blue of Britain, and after a time it was styled
the "King's Own Borderers."

Egmont-op-zee, Martinique, and Egypt added fresh honours to those of
other times; but still on drum and standard are borne unchanged the
castle, triple-towered, with the anchor and motto, _Nisi Dominus
Frustra_, usually the first little bit of latinity learned by the
Edinburgh schoolboy.

Such is a rapid outline of the past history of this famous old corps,
in the ranks of which Quentin Kennedy hoped to achieve for himself a
position and a name--perhaps, rank and glory too!  What boy does not
look forward to some such vague but brilliant future,--

  "In life's morning march when the bosom is young."


The evening subsequent to the punishment parade was the _last_ on
which the battalion mess would assemble, and Quentin was Monkton's
guest.  He was again seated near the worthy major, and from him he
learned much of what we have just narrated, many a quaint regimental
story being woven up with what was actual military history.

"You should tell him of that startling adventure, or rather, I should
say, of those series of adventures, which happened to you when
commanding an out-picquet in America," said Colville, with a
significant but hasty glance at Monkton, for the frequent repetition
of this story formed a kind of covert joke against the worthy major.

"What--which out-picquet--at the siege of Fort St. John?"

"Exactly, Major," said Monkton.

"St. John, on the Richelieu River?" asked Quentin.

"Yes," said Middleton, with an air of gratification; "you are a very
intelligent young man, and have no doubt read of the defence of that
place."

Quentin hastened to say that he _had_ heard of it; in fact, the
defence with all its details--the bravery of Majors Preston and André
of the Cameronians, and so forth--formed one of the stock stories of
his old friends, the quartermaster and Jack Andrews; and so
frequently had he heard it, that he was somewhat uncertain at times
that he had not served there too.

"But the episode of yours, with that devilish Indian fellow, may
scare Kennedy when on sentry," said the adjutant, "a duty he must do
as a volunteer."

"Scare--not at all!" said Middleton, testily; "it is the very thing
to sharpen his wits and to keep him wide awake.  There are others
here who never heard the story, and it is worth listening to; but
before I begin we must send away the marines and replenish the
decanters."

"Right!" cried Askerne, who was president; "this is the last night of
one of the jolliest messes in His Majesty's service.  To-morrow the
plate, which has glittered before us so long--the crystal from which
we have imbibed the full bodied port, the creamy claret, and the
choice Madeira, the sparkling champagne, the old hock, in fact, 'the
entire plant,' to use a commercial phrase, will be packed up and
stored away among dust and cobwebs, while the Borderers march in
quest of 'fresh fields and pastures new.'  A long farewell to our
glorious mess!" exclaimed the handsome grenadier, as he poured a
glass of port down his capacious throat.  "Mr. Vice-President, order
the last cooper of port before the major begins his story."

"Ah, the mess!" sighed Buckle, the adjutant; "when we come to be
frying our ration beef in a camp-kettle lid, under a shower of rain,
perhaps, there will be an exchange with a devil of a difference!"

With the aforesaid "cooper" there came in hot whisky-toddy for the
major and a few select seniors, for it was _then_ the custom at the
messes of Scots and Irish national corps to introduce the Farintosh
and potheen; though I fear our dandies of the Victorian age
(especially such as are horrified at the sight of a black bottle)
might consider such a proceeding a deplorable solecism in good taste.

"And now, major, for your story," said Askerne, while Colville,
perhaps the only affected man in the regiment, gave his shoulders a
shrug, perceptible only by the glittering of his epaulettes, and
Monkton responded by a sly wink behind his glass of wine, while he
pretended to be looking for the beeswing.




CHAPTER V.

THE ADVANCED PICQUET.

  "All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
    Except now and then a stray picquet,
  Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro,
    By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
  'Tis nothing.  A private or two now and then,
    Will not count in the tale of the battle;
  Not an officer lost--only one of the men,
    Breathing out all alone the death-rattle."


"In the spring of the year '75, a party of ours, under Lord
Rohallion, then a captain, was sent to the Fort of St. John, on the
Richelieu River, to strengthen the garrison, which was composed of
some companies of the 7th Fusiliers and the 26th, or Cameronians,
under Major Preston, of Valleyfield, in Fifeshire, as gallant a
fellow as ever bore the King's commission.

"We were in daily expectation of the advance of the rebel General
Montgomery, with a great force, so the duties of guards and sentinels
were performed with great vigilance, as the whole country for miles
around, if not actually in possession of the armed colonists, was
full of people who were favourable to their cause, and were
consequently inimical to the king and to us.

"Montgomery was expected to approach through Vermont county (now one
of the states) by the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, a long and
narrow sheet of deep water, which forms the boundary between it and
the State of New York; thus, on an eminence which commanded a
considerable view of the country southward, and at the distance of
two miles from Fort St. John, Major Preston, of the 26th, had an
outpost or picquet, consisting of one officer and twenty men,
stationed in a log-hut, from whence they were relieved every week.
The officer in command of this advanced party had to throw forward a
line of sentinels, extending across the road by which the Americans
were expected to approach.  At the hut was also a small piece of
cannon, taken from a gunboat recently destroyed on the Lake, a
6-pounder, which was to be fired as a signal for the troops in Fort
St. John to get under arms, and the picquet was well supplied with
rockets to give the alarm by night.

"Our sentinels there had frequently been found dead and scalped,
without a shot being fired.  Sometimes they disappeared altogether,
without leaving a trace, save a few spots of blood on the prairie
grass.  Their desertion was never suspected by those in authority;
but that savages and assassins lurked in woods along the eastern and
western shores of Lake Champlain we had not a doubt; thus the
solitary outpost before the Fort of St. John was a duty disliked by
all, and always undertaken with sensations of doubt and anxiety.

"It was on a beautiful afternoon in the month of September, that with
a sergeant and twenty men of the Borderers, I took possession of this
log hut, relieving a Lieutenant Despard, of the Fusiliers, from whom
I received over my orders, and posted my line of six sentinels at
intervals across the highway and a kind of open prairie which it
traversed.  These orders were written and delivered with the parole
and countersign, by Major André, of the Cameronians (afterwards named
'the unfortunate'), and they were simply, that during the night the
sentinels were to face all persons approaching their posts, to stand
firm in a state of preparation at half-cock with ported arms, and to
fire instantly on all who could not give the countersign.

"Despard informed me that excessive vigilance was necessary, as he
had lost five sentinels in one week, information which made my
fellows look somewhat blankly in each other's faces; 'and these
assassinations have occurred,' he added, 'though we have an Indian
scout, Le Vipre Noir, an invaluable fellow, however unpleasant his
name may sound, attached to the picquet-house.  I would advise you to
keep off that bit of prairie in front, Middleton.  Zounds! one is
always over the ankles in mud there, and mid-leg deep occasionally;
so it's more like snipe-shooting in an Irish bog, than knocking over
Yankees and Iroquois.'

"I now found that there was another scout, a Cornishman, named old
Abe Treherne, attached to the post, as well as the native mentioned
by Despard.

"Abe Treherne was a white-haired squatter and pioneer, who, for more
than forty years, had been in the district, living by the use of his
rifle and hatchet.  He wore an Indian hunting-shirt and deer-skin
mocassins, and had so completely forgotten the civilization of his
native England, that he had almost become an Indian by habit, if not
by speech.  He was brave, however, and a most faithful fellow to us.
Active and hardy, brown and weatherbeaten by constant exposure;
privation could not impair, nor toil weary his strength, which was
wonderful, for, by the wild life of nature he had led, every muscle
had been developed, till it became like a band of iron.

"The savage scout, Le Vipre Noir, as he was named, was one of the
Lenni-Lenappe--or unmixed race as they boast themselves--who once
occupied all the vast tract of country which lies between Penobscot
and the shores of the Potomac; but we styled the most of them
Delawares, and by that name they became known.

"Well, this devil of a Delaware--I think I can see the fellow
now!--was a model of muscular strength and manly beauty, so far as
form and sinew go.  He was like a colossal statue of polished copper.
His usual expression was fierce and sullen; his eyes were keen,
black, and glittering, and his red and yellow streaks of war-paint
lent a fiendish aspect to his dusky visage, the features of which
were otherwise clean cut and regular.  He was somewhat of a dandy in
his own way, as his fur mocassins and hunting-shirt were gaily
ornamented with scarlet cloth, wampum, and beads, by the Delaware
girls.

"His head had been denuded of hair entirely, save the scalp-lock, in
which two feathers were stuck.  At his girdle hung his pipe and
hunting-pouch, a large musk-rat skin, in the tail of which his
keen-edged scalping-knife was sheathed; he had also a pouch for
ammunition, a long rifle, and a tomahawk, which were never from his
side by night or day.

"This Delaware was from one of the native villages about the upper
end of the Penobscot river, where the chiefs had signed a treaty of
alliance, offensive and defensive, with our government, and had sworn
to have no communication with the Americans or others, the king's
enemies, without the knowledge of the officer commanding the British
forces in North America.

"One of our men, named Jack Andrews, had quarrelled with the
Delaware, about a wild goose they had shot.  Blows were exchanged;
the savage drew his scalping-knife; but the Borderer clubbed his
musket, and laid the red-skin sprawling among the reeds.  Peace was
enforced between them; but the savage was more than ever sullen and
reserved, doubtless brooding on the vengeance he meant to take.

"Such was Le Vipre Noir, who will bear rather a conspicuous part in
my little story.

"It was a lovely evening, I have said, when we took possession of the
sequestered picquet-house.  The rays of the setting sun, as he sank
beyond those grand and lofty mountain ranges, which rise between the
source of the Hudson and Lake Champlain, shed a red glow across the
water, and bathed in warm light the foliage of the mighty primeval
forest, which for ages had clothed the shores of that magnificent
lake.  In the immediate foreground the bayonets of my sentinels
seemed tipped with fire, as they trod slowly to and fro upon their
posts in that voiceless solitude.  Before the log-hut the arms were
piled, and my soldiers, with the Cornishman, were cooking their
supper, while the swarthy Indian scout was squatted on his hams at a
little distance, smoking listlessly or half asleep, as the duty of
searching in the woods usually devolved upon him after nightfall.

"I, too, lit my pipe, and the pouch from which I took my tobacco
called back to mind some half-forgotten thoughts and fancies.

"They were lovely hands that embroidered that pouch for me, and it
was associated with many a promenade in Paul Street, when we were
quartered in Montreal, with balls at _her_ father's house, in the Rue
de Notre Dame, flirtation and ices in the Place d'Armes, where the
French troops used to parade of old--for, in short, that
tobacco-pouch had been made for me by Ella Carleton, the belle of
that old colonial city.

"She had a dash of the old French blood in her, and hence her dark
hair and eyes, which contrasted so wonderfully with her pure English
skin, and hence her continental form of eyelid and drooping lash.  So
I sighed as I thought of a year ago--cursed the emergencies of the
service that banished me to Fort St. John, and passed my fair Ella's
present to the sergeant of the picquet, that he might supply himself,
for active service is a true leveller, and without impairing
discipline leads to a spirit of _camaraderie_ not to be found in such
tented fields as Hyde Park or the Phœnix at Dublin.

"After the sun set and twilight stole on, I walked restlessly to and
fro before the log-hut, within which my men were now gathered with
their arms, as the dew was falling.  I had seen all carefully loaded
and had examined the flints and priming.  I was resolved that due
vigilance on my part should not be wanting if the post were attacked
or my sentinels surprised; and to prevent them from wandering
unconsciously from their beat in the dark, I had six white stakes
placed in the ground, and gave orders that they were to remain close
by them during the night, until relieved, and every hour I went in
person with the reliefs, a most harassing duty.

"Leaving my sergeant at the picquet-house, a few minutes before
midnight, I went with six men to relieve my sentinels, who were all
posted on the skirts of an open spacs, a large tract of waste ground
which for some miles was covered with long prairie grass, and which
stretched away towards the forest that was traversed by the main road
leading to Fort Edward on the Hudson, about sixty miles distant.

"Save the gurgle of a runnel that stole under the prairie grass,
there was no sound in the air--not even the whistle of the cat-bird;
there was no moon, but the stars were clear and bright, and guided by
their light we went straight from post to post, relieving the
sentinels; but as we approached the place where the sixth should have
been, on the extreme left of the highway, we advanced _unchallenged_
to the stake that marked his beat: the place was solitary and the
man--was gone.

"His musket, undischarged, was lying there, and a pool of blood
beside it at once refuted any suspicion of desertion.  But how came
it that he had perished without resistance--without giving an alarm,
and where was his body?  All round the place we searched for it, but
did so in vain.

"Posting another man, I gave him reiterated orders and injunctions to
be on the alert, and wistfully the poor fellow looked after us as we
returned to the picquet-house with the tidings of another mystery,
which added to the consternation that prevailed concerning this
devilish outpost.  Neither le Vipre Noir nor Treherne had yet
returned; they were as usual scouting in front of our advanced
sentinels, and when they came back, not together, but separately,
they each reported the country all quiet for miles towards the
mountains.  Who then was this determined assassin, unless it were
Satan himself?

"Next night the sentinel on the extreme right was missing, without
leaving even a trace of blood, and without the grass being bruised or
trodden near his beat; and on the night following, the sentinel on
the roadway was found lying dead on his face; his musket was
undischarged, his head cloven behind, and his scalp gone.

"The consternation of my picquet had now reached its height.  Still
our scouts asserted the country to be quiet around us, though, with a
strange gleam in his eyes, the Indian said, that when he shouted in
the woods he heard an echo.

"'From whence?' I asked, suspiciously.

"'From the great barrows by the lake--where the bones of my
forefathers lie.  The white man treads there now; but they were great
warriors, and many were the scalps that dried before their tents.'

"I was but a young officer then, being fresh from our Scottish
Fencibles, otherwise I would have doubled my sentinels; but the idea
never occurred to me, and my sergeant failed to suggest it.  The
affair was becoming intolerable.  This mysterious assassination of
brave men roused my blood to fever heat, and I resolved that on the
next night I should take the duty of sentinel with a firelock, and
remain on my post as such, not for one hour merely, but for the
entire night, in the hope of solving this terrible enigma.

"On the evening I came to this conclusion the post was visited by
Charley Halket from the fort, the captain of our first company, who
came cantering up on a fine bay horse.  I was glad to see him, for
Halket was one of the most lively and devil-may-care fellows in the
corps, and he sang the best song and was the best stroke at billiards
in our whole brigade.  Charley would drink his two bottles at mess
overnight and wing a fellow in the morning, without keeping his arm
in a cold bath, and with an accuracy that showed he had a
constitution of iron; he hunted fearlessly, shot fairly, rode like a
mad-cap; gambled, but simply for excitement, and spent his money like
a good-hearted fellow.  He was always laughing and jovial, and I was
about to relate the disasters that had befallen my party, when the
pale and anxious expression of his usually merry face arrested me,
and I feared that the fort had been taken by surprise in rear of our
post.

"'What the devil is the matter, Halket?' said I.  'I have always
predicted to Preston that we should never have our legs under his
mahogany at Valleyfield again--never taste his Fifeshire mutton, or
test his fine old Burgundy.  What is up?  Has the fort fallen,
Charley, that you come here with your bay thoroughbred covered with
foam, even to its bang-up tail?'

"'No, my dear Middleton; but I wish to pass your post.'

"'To the front?' I asked, with astonishment.

"'Yes.'

"'It is impossible!'

"'Even if out of uniform?'

"'In or out of uniform, none can pass or repass save our scouts,
whose lives are of little value.  Preston's orders are strict and
decisive.'

"'But if in disguise?' he urged, earnestly, and lowering his tone, as
he stooped from his saddle.

"'Worse and worse!'

"'How? explain, pray,' he demanded, as his earnestness became tinged
with irritation.

"'You might be deemed a deserter by General Burgoyne if found more
than two miles from camp or quarters.'

"'A deserter!--I?--pooh, man, absurd!'

"'A general officer has joined the rebels already.  Then you might be
hanged as a spy by Montgomery, whose troops are certainly closing up,
if we may judge from the murderous outrages committed by his Indian
allies upon the picquets stationed here.'

"'It is for that very reason, Middleton, that I am most anxious to
ride southward for about twelve miles into the country along the
shore of the lake, towards Misiskoui.'

"'You could not return; my sentinels have positive orders to fire
instantly on all----'

"'Who have not the parole and countersign,' said he, smiling; 'they
are _Quebec_ and WOLFE.  You see that I have both!'

"'From whom?'

"'My friend André, of the Cameronians--the fort-major.'

"'He is very rash!  I wish he had this infernal picquet to command;
the duty might teach him caution.'

"'But, my dear Middleton----'

"'Say no more, Charley--come, don't be rash; duty is duty; and I must
perform mine.  Moreover, I value your life and my own honour too much
to risk either to further some mad-cap ramble of yours.'

"'Zounds, sir!' he began, furiously.

"'Now don't call me out, Charley; I am on duty and can't go, and when
I am relieved and you are cool, you won't ask me.  But tell me,
Charley, what affair is this that seems so urgent?  The country in
front is full of perils; already eight or nine sentinels have been
assassinated, and yonder grave covers one of three fine fellows I
have lost.'

"'Listen to me, Jack,' said he, dismounting, and throwing the reins
of his horse over his arm, and leading me a little way apart from the
soldiers who were smoking and lounging before the log-hut; 'you
remember Ella Carleton?'

"'I should rather think I do' said I, reddening, and giving him a
very knowing wink, to which he made not the slightest response;
'Ella, whom we used to meet so much a year ago at Montreal.'

"'The same,' said he.

"'I remember her perfectly--a charming girl, with features that were
pale but beautifully regular, and with eyes and hair so dark.'

"'Exactly,' said Halket, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure.  'Her
father, you are aware, is a rich land-owner, in the American
interest.'

"'Many a bottle of champagne I have drunk in his house in the Rue de
Notre Dame.'

"'Yet he is an old curmudgeon who hates us red-coats, and for that
reason, as well as for a few others that were more cogent, Ella and I
were privately married about a year ago.'

"'Married?--whew!  Here's news for the mess to discuss over their
wine and walnuts!' I exclaimed, while laughing to conceal an
irrepressible emotion of pique.

"'I depend on your honour,' said he, earnestly.

"'To the death, Charley; but you have quite taken my breath away.
Married--you never looked a bit like it!'

"'We were married a year ago at the cathedral in the Place d'Armes
unknown to all--even to yourself, Rohallion, and others my most
intimate friends,' said Halket, speaking rapidly and with growing
emotion; 'in a month she will be a mother--think of that, Jack!  She
is residing at one of her father's country clearings near the
Missiskoui River, in an old hunting-lodge, built by Simon de
Champlain, who first discovered the lake.  She has written to me by a
circuitous route, saying that Montgomery's advanced posts are within
a few miles; that her father and all his men are with the rebels;
that the Iroquois are ravaging the country, burning, killing, and
scalping all before them; and thus, for the love I bear her, and for
the sake of our child that is yet unborn, I must strive to save her,
and have her conveyed to Fort St. John.  This is all my story,
Middleton.  She is about twelve miles distant from this outpost; I
think I know the way, and am certain I should be back before the
morning-gun is fired.  If not, I must risk all--commission, rank,
reputation, everything--but Ella must be saved!  You understand me
now, don't you, my dear friend?' said he, earnestly, as he grasped my
hand, and I could see that the poor fellow's eyes were filled with
tears.

"'Perfectly, Charley; I would risk my life to save or serve her or
you; but I think we may find those who will do both more effectually
than either you or I.'

"'Who do you mean?'

"'The Delaware scout, and old Abe Treherne, the hunter, will get over
the ground in half the time, and knowing, as they do, every track and
trail in the forest, with ten degrees more safety than you could ever
hope for.'

"I at once proposed the affair to them, and Treherne entered into it
with great readiness.  His reward was to be a pair of handsome
pistols and ten guineas.  He knew the old hunting-lodge on Carleton's
clearing quite well, and with the assistance of the horse, undertook
to bring the lady to the picquet-house in safety, and long before
sunrise.  The Delaware, however, shook his head.

"'Le Vipre Noir has some darned doubts, I guess,' said the hunter;
'the woods about the Missiskoui are full of the mocassin prints of
the Yankees and the Iroquois; the tracks, I reckon, are dangerous
enough; and there will be an almighty trouble in bringing a fine lady
a-horse-back through the bush; for all that, Delaware, you'll venture
to bring the White Chief his squaw safe from the hunting-place beyond
the river?'

"'From the Missiskoui, where once I had a wigwam, and where my squaw
and her little papooses perished at the hands of the white men?' said
the savage, in a husky and guttural voice, while his stealthy eyes
filled with a malevolent gleam, as he sat sullenly smoking under a
tree.

"'You're a darned fool, Vipre,' said Treherne, angrily.  'Look ye
har--what's the use o' thinking o' that now?  What's past is past,
ain't it?'

"'She appealed to them, and they laughed at her.  She appealed to
Manitto, but his face was hidden behind a cloud, and he saw neither
her nor what the pale-faces did to her.  She is with Manitto now--but
I yet am here.'

"'We may have a scrimmage, Delaware--can you bite yet?' asked
Treherne, testily.

"The savage pointed to his scalping-knife and grinned.

"'Will you venture with me for twelve bottles of the raal Jamaiky
fire-water?'

"'Oui, ja, yes!' said the savage, eagerly, in his mixed jargon; 'I
neither fear the feathered arrows of the rebel Iroquois, or the lead
bullets of the Yankees.  Go!  Le Vipre Noir is a warrior!'

"'Delaware,' said I, patting his muscular shoulder, 'what are the
greatest of human virtues?'

"'Courage and contempt of death,' he replied, loftily, while shaking
the two heron's plumes in his scalp lock.

"'Good,' said Halkett, who had listened to all this preamble with
irrepressible anxiety and impatience; 'here are ten guineas as an
earnest of future reward, Delaware.  You will risk this for me?'

"'For _you_?' said the Indian, scornfully, putting the coins,
however, in the musk-rat pouch, which dangled at his wampum girdle.

"'For her, then?' said Halket, persuasively.

"'For neither,' replied the Delaware, while a lurid gleam shone in
his sombre eyes.

"'How, fellow?' asked Charley, with alarm.

"'I do so for the reward--for the fire-water and gold that will buy
me powder and blankets; but neither for the squaw nor the papoose of
the pale-face.'

"'Risk it for what you will, but only serve me; and you, Treherne----'

"'Make your terms with this darned crittur of a Redskin, and you can
settle with me after, sir,' said Treherne, who had been regarding his
compatriot with a somewhat doubtful expression.  'Come, Vipre Noir,
we must keep the hair on our heads, if we can, certainly; so put
fresh priming into the pan of your rifle, my dark serpent, for the
dew is falling heavily; if the rebel Redskins come on us, it must be
our scalps agin theirs!  I'm your brother--let us be off to the bush
ere the sun sets.'

"Charley Halkett hastily wrote a note to his wife, telling her to
place implicit confidence in the two scouts as true and tried men,
who would convey her safely to the British outpost in front of Fort
St. John, where he, all eagerness and impatience, awaited her; and on
being furnished with this, Treherne slung his long rifle across his
body, stuck a short black pipe in his moustachioed mouth, mounted
Halkett's horse, and, with the swift-footed and agile Indian running
by his side, crossed the open bit of prairie before the log-hut, and
rapidly disappeared in the dense and virgin forest that lay beyond.

"That forest soon grew dark; twilight stole along the shores of the
silent lake; the last red rays of lingering light faded upward from
the lone mountain tops; one by one the bright stars came twinkling
out, and the old and clamorous anxiety occurred to us all; and each
poor fellow, as he was left on his post, felt himself a doomed man,
who might die without seeing his destroyer, or who might disappear as
others had so mysteriously done, without leaving a trace behind.

"Slowly and wearily our autumn night wore on, and with our pistols
cocked, Halkett and I visited the sentinels almost half-hourly.  The
sky was moonless, and the silence around our lonely post was
oppressive; to the listening ear there came no sounds save those of
insect life among the long and reedy prairie grass.

"All at once, afar in distance from the deep recesses of the vast
pine forest, there rose the shrill war-whoop of the red man!

"Like the yell of an unchained fiend, it rung upon the still night
air; but died away, and all became silent--more silent apparently
than before, and I felt the hand of Halkett clutch my arm like a
vice, while hot bead-drops rolled over his temples.

"I had terrible forebodings, but remained silent, and with reiterated
advice to my sentinels to be 'on the alert,' returned to the
picquet-house.  Poor Charley Halkett's alarm excited all my
compassion; the boldest, frankest, and jolliest fellow in the corps
had become a nervous, crushed, and miserable wretch!

"I thought that lingering night would never pass away.  It passed,
however, as others do; the morning came in, bright and sunny, and
without one of our sentinels being missed or molested; and it seemed,
certainly, a very singular feature in those mysterious deaths, that
the only night on which no fatality occurred, should be that on which
we actually had an _alerte_, and when Treherne and the Delaware were
away in the direction of Missiskoui, and _not_ scouting in front of
the post!

"Morning had come, but there was yet no appearance of our messengers
or Ella Carleton, and old sympathies made me doubly anxious on her
account.

"Halkett, who was pale with sleeplessness and intense anxiety, walked
with me a little way beyond our advanced sentinels, who were now
shouting to each other their happy congratulations that nothing had
occurred during the night--in short, that they were _all_ there.

"Lake Champlain, in its calm loveliness, shone brightly under the
morning sun, its surface unruffled by the wind, and not a sail or
boat was visible in all the blue extent of its far stretching vista.
The gorgeous azalias were still in their bloom, so were the snowy
blossoms of the sumach, and the glorious yellow light fell in flakes
between the towering pines of the ancient forest, while the dewy
prairie grass glittered as it rippled beneath the pleasant breeze.

"The distant landscape and the dim blue hills that look down on the
winding Hudson seemed calm and tranquil, the silence around us was
intense, the hum of a little waterfall alone breaking the stillness
of the autumn morning.

"Poor Charley was like a madman, and it was in vain that I suggested
to him that Treherne and the Delaware might have been compelled to
make a long detour; that Ella might be ill and unable to travel on
horseback, that her father might have returned, that Montgomery's
advanced guard might be now far beyond the Missiskoui, that our
scouts might have lost their way in going or in returning, not that I
believed either possible for a moment, but I was glad to say anything
that would serve to account for their delay, or soothe his gnawing
anxiety; so in exceeding misery he returned to Fort St. John.  The
moment that morning parade was over he hastened to me again, and
slowly the terrible day passed over, without tidings of Ella Carleton
or her guides, and as night drew near I had almost to use force to
prevent Halkett from setting out on foot for the old hunting-lodge on
the Missiskoui, a place he could never have reached alone.

"Suddenly we were roused, about sunset, by a shout from the picquet,
and as we looked up, the Delaware stood before us--alone!

"His aspect was fierce but weary; his hunting shirt was torn and bore
traces of blood.  His story was brief.  They had been attacked by
Indians in a deep gulley some miles distant, in the grey dawn of the
morning; Treherne had been killed and the lady carried off!  The
Indian showed his wounds, and then claimed his reward.

"Poor Halkett, on hearing of this catastrophe, fell, as if struck by
a ball, and was laid on the hard bed of planks whereon the soldiers
slept.  He was in a delirium, yet passive and weak as a child.

"So the hostile Indians were in our neighbourhood!  I thought with
horror of what the poor girl--on the eve of becoming a mother--might
suffer at their merciless hands; and all her delicate beauty, her
merry laugh, the singular combination of elegance and _espièglerie_
in her manner, came vividly back to memory, as I had seen her last,
happy, radiant, and smiling, amid the glare and glitter of a garrison
ball in the city of Montreal.

"I questioned the Delaware closely; but his story was simple and
unvarying, so he received food, rum, and the reward which Halkett had
promised.

"An irrepressible anxiety stole over me as night deepened, so taking
my servant's musket and bayonet, I primed, loaded, and fixed a new
flint with care; and proceeding to the distance of fifty yards in
front of my line of sentinels, on the open space where the prairie
grass grew thick and rank, I resolved to pass some hours there as an
advanced sentinel.

"The sky was dark and cloudy, the stars were obscured by vapour, the
silence was intense, and it smote upon my heart with a sense that was
in some degree appalling, though I knew that my sentinels and the
rest of the picquet were all within hail.  The tall prairie grass
waved solemnly and noiselessly to and fro; the sombre forest beyond,
with the myriad cones of its black pines stretched far away to the
distant mountains, but not a sound came from thence, nor from the
lone shores of the vast lake of Champlain, whose vista receded away
for miles upon my right.  Even if the night-herons were wading among
its waters I could not hear them, and the whistle of the cat-bird was
silent.

"Through the dark, I could see where the wild sumach, with its white
blossoms and scarlet berries, waved over the graves of those who had
perished on this fatal out-post.  Their aspect was solemnizing in
such a dark and silent hour, and the familiar faces of the dead men
seemed to hover before me.  But there was something mysterious and
unaccountable in the total disappearance of those whose blood we had
only traced upon the grass of the prairie.

"Around where I stood this grass was more than a yard in height and
thick as ripened corn.  It was waving steadily to and fro as the
breath of the night wind agitated it.

"I had been in that solitary place about two hours, and midnight was
at hand, when an emotion like a thrill--a tremor, not of fear, but of
_warning_--a 'grue,' as we Scots call it, came over me.  I felt the
approach of some unseen thing, and cast a hurried glance around me.
Something unusual about the appearance of the prairie-grass caught my
eye.

"Where, when hitherto I had looked in a direct line to the front, the
surface, while swaying to and fro, seemed a flat and unbroken mass,
there was now visible a dark line, a hollow furrow, as if some animal
was crawling slowly and stealthily through it.

"With every nerve braced, with all the powers of vision concentrated,
I watched this new appearance, and the hollow track seemed to draw
nearer and nearer _to me_, slowly, silently, and almost
imperceptibly, as if a snake or some such reptile were crawling
towards my post; and, ere long, it was not more than fifteen yards
distant.

"I placed a handkerchief over the lock of my musket to muffle the
click of the lock in cocking, then I took a steady aim and fired!

"On this, 'piercing the night's dull ear,' there rang a wild, shrill,
and savage cry--a cry like that we had heard on the preceding
night--and a dark figure, bounding from among the grass, came rushing
towards me, but I stood, with bayonet charged, ready to receive him
on its point.

"He was an Indian, brandishing a tomahawk; but, within a few feet of
where I stood, he fell prone on his face, wallowing in blood.  The
report of my musket, and his cry, brought all the picquet to the
front.  We dragged him into the log-hut, and discovered that I had
shot our missing scout, the Delaware, Le Vipre Noir, the ball having
entered his left shoulder, and traversed nearly the entire length of
his body.  He was mortally wounded, but the powers of life were
strong within him.  I was greatly concerned by this misfortune, which
might procure us the enmity of his entire tribe; but why was he
stealing upon our post in the manner he had done?

"Before this could be resolved, and while we were staunching the
welling blood, and doing all in our humble power to soothe suffering
and prolong existence, a pale and bloody figure, who had given our
sentries the pass-word, staggered into the hut, and sunk, half
fainting, against the guard-bed.  He was old Abe Treherne, the scout,
cut, gashed, and apparently dying.

"He was almost as speechless as the Delaware; but, on seeing each
other, though weak and deplorable their condition, the eyes of these
men glared with rage and hate, and they made such incredible efforts
to reach each other, knife in hand, that the soldiers of my picquet
had to hold them asunder by force.

"'Search the hunting-pouch of the darned thief--the accursed
red-skin!' said Treherne, in a hollow voice.  'May I never hew
hickory again if I don't have his scalp and his heart tew!'

"I was about to make the search, when Charley Halket anticipated me,
and shudderingly drew forth its cold and clammy contents.

"There were four human scalps; three were recognised as belonging to
our own men, the murdered sentinels, and the fourth had attached to
it the long, black, silky hair of a woman--the soft and ripply
tresses of Ella Carleton!

"'The red-skin fell on us suddenly in the bush, with knife and
tomahawk,' said Treherne, speaking with difficulty, and at intervals;
'he took me unawares from behind, and well nigh clove my head--darned
if I don't think the tommy's stickin' there yet!  I fought hard for
my precious life--harder for the poor lady, I guess; but I swowned,
after a time, and then he dragged her into the bush.'

"'Ella--Ella!' exclaimed Halket, wringing his hands.

"'The last I saw, 'tween the leaves and the blood that poured into my
eyes, was the glitter of his scalping-knife; and the last I heard was
her death-cry.  Shoot the varmint, captain!  I searched the bush for
her till I was weary.  Shoot the critter dead, soldiers!  Ah! he was
well named Le Vipre Noir, by that son of a Delaware dog, his father.'

"The savage scarcely heard the end of this, for Halket, maddened by
the contents of the hunting-pouch, and brief story of Treherne,
placed a foot upon the prostrate body of the Delaware, then, slowly
and deliberately, while his teeth were set, his eyes flashing fire,
his brows knit by rage and grief, and, while an unuttered malediction
hovered on his lips, he passed his sword-blade twice through the
heart of the scout.  The latter, for a moment, writhed upward on the
steel, like a dying serpent, and then expired.

"Poor Abe Treherne died soon after, for his wounds were mortal.

"So our false Delaware proved, after all, to have been in the
American interest, and inspired by some real or imaginary wrongs, to
have been the assassin of our sentinels.*


* Several sentinels of an outpost were thus actually assassinated
during the American war.  A Scottish periodical of the time gives a
Highland regiment--the 74th, I think--the credit of furnishing the
victims.


"Fort St. John soon after fell into the hands of the Yankees under
General Montgomery; we were all made prisoners of war, and my poor
friend, Charley Halket, died, and (far from his kindred, who lie in
the Abbey Kirk of Culross) we buried him amid the snow as we were
being marched, under escort, up the lakes, towards Ticonderoga."


Such was the major's story of _the advanced picquet_.




CHAPTER VI.

COSMO JOINS.

    "Ye'll try the world soon, my lad,
    And Andrew, dear, believe me,
  Ye'll find mankind an unco squad,
    And muckle may they grieve ye.
  For care and trouble set your thought,
    Even when your end's attained;
  And a' your views may come to nought,
    When every nerve is strained."--BURNS.


After a careful search through some of the old dog-eared Army Lists,
which, with Burns' poems, Brown's "Self-interpreting Bible," and
Abercrombie's "Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation," formed the
chief literary stores in his snuggery, the old quartermaster
discovered that in the 94th, the famous old Scots brigade, there was
a Captain Richard Warriston.  He was the only one of that name in the
service, and doubtless the same officer whom Quentin had mentioned in
his letter as having so kindly befriended him; and by Lord
Rohallion's direction, Girvan at once addressed a letter to the
officer commanding the regiment for some information regarding the
runaway.

In due time an answer came from Colonel James Campbell, to state
"that no volunteer named Quentin Kennedy had attached himself to the
94th Regiment," thus the household of the old castle were sorely
perplexed what to do, and had to trust to time or to Quentin himself
for clearing up the mystery that overhung his actions.

In little more than ten days after Cosmo's name had appeared in the
War Office _Gazette_, Quentin received the unwelcome information that
the new lieutenant-colonel, his enemy, had arrived at head-quarters,
and that a parade in full marching order was to take place on the
morrow, when he would formally take over the command of the corps
from poor Major Middleton.

Though daily expected, these tidings fell like a knell upon Quentin's
heart, and the old sickly emotion that came over him, when Warriston
brought the fatal _Gazette_ to the mess-room, returned again in all
its force.

"I think this Guardsman will prove a thorough Tartar," said Captain
Askerne, in whose rooms Quentin first heard Cosmo's arrival
canvassed; "and I fear that he won't make himself popular among the
Borderers."

"From what do you infer that?" said some one.

"He refused to let the drums beat the 'Point of War' this morning."

"The devil he did!" said Colville.

"That looks ill, damme!" added Monkton.

"I do not understand," said Quentin, as if looking for information.

"It is," said Askerne, "a custom as old as the days of Queen
Anne--older, perhaps, for aught that I know--for the drums and fifes
of a corps to assemble before the quarters of every officer who is
newly appointed to it, and there to honour the king's commission by
beating the 'Point of War.'  Though dying out now, and frequently
'more honoured in the breach than the observance,' it is a good old
custom, peculiar to many of our Scottish regiments.  The officer then
gives to the drummers a few crowns or guineas, as the case may be, to
drink his health; but the Master of Rohallion bluntly and haughtily
told the drum-major that he 'would have no such d--d nonsense, and to
dismiss!'"

"The deuce! this augurs ill," said Colville, with his affected lisp,
as he arranged his hair in Askerne's little camp mirror.

"Perhaps his exchequer is in a bad way."

"Not improbable, Monkton," said Askerne; "he was one of the most
lavish fellows in the household brigade, and he played and betted
deeply; but there goes the drum for parade; in a few minutes we shall
see what like our new man is."

We shall not afflict the reader with details of this most formal
parade, during which the regiment marched past Cosmo in slow and
quick time in open column of companies; then followed an inspection
of the men, their clothing, arms, accoutrements, and everything, from
the regimental colours to the pioneers' hand-saws; but thanks to old
Middleton's unwearying zeal and pride in the Borderers, the somewhat
fractious lieutenant-colonel discovered nothing to find fault with.

Mounted on a fine dark charger, with gold-laced saddlecloth and
holsters, Cosmo, in his new regimentals, looked every inch a handsome
and stately soldier; and his appearance, together with his clear,
full, mellow voice, when commanding, impressed the corps favourably.
Quentin, from the rear rank of Askerne's company, surveyed him
earnestly, anxiously, and with secret misgivings; for every feature
of his cold, keen, and aristocratic face brought back vividly the
mortifying and unpleasant passages in which they had both borne a
part at Rohallion, and sadly and bitterly he felt that the worst was
yet to come.

The parade over, the regiment was dismissed, but the orderly bugle
summoned the officers to the front, where they gathered around Cosmo,
who had dismounted and haughtily tossed his reins to an orderly
(Allan Grange, the crest-fallen and reduced sergeant), his
gentleman's gentleman--that town-bred appendage who had excited
alternately the wrath and contempt of sturdy old Jack Andrews, had
resigned, having no fancy for the chances of war as a camp-follower;
so the Master had to content himself with such unfashionable "helps"
as soldiers and batmen.

Quentin, lingering irresolutely, and half hoping to escape
observation, was about to retire to his quarters, when Askerne called
to him with a friendly smile--

"Kennedy, come to the front; Middleton is about to introduce the
officers, and you must not be omitted."

Poor Quentin felt that his doom had come, and he could feel, too,
that as his heart sank, the blood left his cheeks.  But honest anger
and just indignation came to the rescue, and gave him courage.

"Why should I dread this man--why shrink from one I have never
wronged?" he asked of himself.  "Of what am I afraid?  The sooner
this introduction is over, and that I know on what terms we are to
be, the better.  Perhaps he may be desirous of forgetting the past,
of committing to oblivion all that has occurred, and may be the first
to hold out a friendly hand.  Heaven grant it may be so!"

But this suggestion of his own generous heart was little likely to be
realized.

With studied politeness and grace, if not with pure cordiality, Cosmo
received each officer as he was presented according to his rank,
until the junior ensign, Boyle, was introduced.

"Ah!" said Cosmo, detecting one present without epaulettes, "you have
a volunteer with you, I see."

"One," said Middleton, "whom I wish especially to introduce to your
notice and future care, colonel, as a most promising young soldier,
who in a few weeks has passed through all his drills, and is now fit
for any duty.  Mr. Quentin Kennedy--Colonel Crawford."

The nervous start given by Cosmo, the changing colour of his cheek,
the shrinking and dilation of his cat-like eyes, as he raised and
almost nervously let fall his eye-glass, were apparent to several;
and Quentin saw the whole.  Cosmo bowed with marked coldness, and
turned so sharply on his heel, that his spurs rasped on the gravel of
the barrack-yard.

"Major Middleton," said he, haughtily, before retiring, "tell that
young man, Mr.--what's his name----?"

"Mr. Kennedy, sir."

"That when speaking to an officer, he should bring his musket to the
_recover_."

And so ended this--to Quentin--most crushing interview.

"What the devil is up now?" said Monkton to Colville; "it is evident
that our new bashaw doesn't like gentlemen volunteers."

"Then he is devilishly unjust--that's all," said Askerne the
Grenadier who had begun his military life as a volunteer.

Quentin could have furnished the clue to all this; but to speak of
the friendless childhood which cast him among the household at
Rohallion, and, more than all, to speak of Flora Warrender, and to
make her name the jest of the heedless or unfeeling, were thoughts
that could not be endured.  He was, silent, and his tongue seemed as
if cleaving to the roof of his mouth, while wearily and sadly he
turned away to seek the solitude of his bare and scantily-furnished
little room.

Middleton, who had followed unobserved, entered after him, and just
when Quentin, to relieve his overcharged heart, was on the point of
giving way to a paroxysm of rage, even to tears, the worthy old field
officer caught his hand kindly, and said with earnestness--

"Don't be cast down, my boy, by what has occurred to-day.  He was
cold and haughty to every one of us, but it is evidently his way, and
may wear off after a time.  I hope so, for our Borderers won't stand
it.  Take courage, lad--take courage, and don't fret about it; Jack
Middleton will always be your friend, though a hostile commanding
officer is a dangerous rock ahead."

"Oh, major, you are indeed kind and good," said Quentin, as he seated
himself at the hard wood table, and covered his burning face with his
trembling hands; "but you know not all I have suffered--all I think,
and feel, and fear!"

"Chut, Kennedy, look up!  'The English pluck that storms a breach or
heads a charge is the very same quality that sustains a man on the
long dark road of adverse fortune,' says an author--I forget who--not
he of the 'Eighteen Manœuvres,' however; so, Quentin; don't, let
Scottish pluck be behind it.  To follow the drum is your true road in
life, boy, and who but God can tell when that road may end?"

"Major Middleton," said Quentin, bitterly, "the colonel's chilling
manner, and more than you can ever know, have crushed the heart
within me.  I never knew my father--of my mother I have barely a
memory," he continued in a broken voice--"a memory, a dream!  Fate
has made me early a victim--a plaything--a toy!  Advise me--I feel my
condition so desolate, so friendless again.  What future can there be
for me, if I continue to serve under him; and how can I hope for
happiness, for justice, or advancement under such as he?"

"Obey and suffer in silence; bear and forbear, and you will be sure
to triumph in the end.  'He that tholes overcomes,' says our Scottish
proverb, and the poor soldier has much to _thole_ indeed; but do your
duty diligently, and you may defy any man--even the king himself."

Quentin strove to take courage from the good major's words, and
ultimately did so; but Middleton knew not the past of those he spoke
of, and was ignorant of the secret rivalry and settled hatred that
existed between them, especially in the heart of Cosmo; while
Quentin, in his ignorance of military matters, knew not that the
Master, if he chose to exert his powers arbitrarily, might dismiss
him from the corps at once, unquestioned by any authority for doing
so; and that by the stigma thus attached to his name, the chance of
any other commanding officer accepting him as a volunteer would be
utterly precluded; and that Cosmo did not do so was, perhaps, only by
a lingering emotion of justice or of shame for what his family, and
chiefly Flora Warrender and that huge bugbear "the world," would say
if the story got abroad.

"Better trust to the _chances_ of war," thought Cosmo, grimly, as he
lay sullenly at length, smoking, on a luxurious fauteuil in his ample
quarters, which were furnished with all the comforts and elegance
with which a Jew broker could surround him; "a brat, a boy, a
chick--a d--ned foundling!  With all my conscious superiority of
rank, birth, and, what are better, strength of mind and character,
why do I dread this Quentin Kennedy?  Why and how does he seem to be
so inextricably woven up with me, my fate and fortune--it may be,
with the house of Rohallion itself?  Last of all, why the devil do I
find him here?"  (This question he almost shouted aloud as he kicked
away the cushion of the fauteuil.)  "Why do I dread him?
_Dread_--I--shame! what delusion is this--what depression is it that
his presence--the very idea of his existence--and contact bring upon
me?  In all this there is some strange fate--I know not what; but I
shall trust to the chances of war for a riddance, and to the perilous
work I shall cut out for _him_ in particular."

And so he trusted; but with what success we shall see ere long.




CHAPTER VII.

THE DEPARTURE.

  "Our native land--our native vale--
    A long and last adieu;
  Farewell to bonny Teviotdale,
    And Cheviot mountains blue!
  The battle-mound, the border-tower,
    That Scotia's annals tell;
  The martyr's grave--the lover's bower--
    To each, to all--farewell."--PRINGLE.


Cosmo studiously and ungenerously omitted the slightest mention of
Quentin's name or existence in the letters which he wrote home to
Carrick, well knowing that if he did so, the kind old general, his
father, would at once address the authorities at the Horse Guards on
the subject of the young volunteer's advancement; and he knew, that
if appointed to any other corps than the Borderers, Quentin would be
beyond his influence, and free from the wiles and perils in which he
had mentally proposed to involve his future career.

At last came the day so long looked forward to by all the
regiment--the day of its departure for foreign service, as it proved
in the Spanish Peninsula, the land to which, after several useless
and bloody expeditions to Holland, Flanders, Sweden, and Italy, the
thoughts and hopes and all the sympathies of Britain turned, with the
desire of driving out the victorious French, and restoring the
Bourbon dynasty--almost an old story now, so remote have the
struggles before Sebastopol and the wars of India made the great
battles of those days seem to be.

The regiment had been under orders, and in a state of readiness for
weeks; but until, for it and for others, the _route_ came in the
sabretasche of an orderly dragoon who rode spurring in "hot haste" to
Colchester Barracks, its members knew not for what country they were
destined.

The drums beat the _générale_, the signal for marching, early in the
morning of a soft September day, and the four pipers of the regiment
played loud and high a piobroch, that rang wildly, in all its various
parts, through the calm air, waking every echo of the old barrack
square; for the piobroch, we may inform the uninitiated, is a regular
piece of music, containing several portions; beginning with an alarm,
after which follow the muster, the march, the fury of the charge, the
shrill triumph of victory, and the low sad wail for the slain.

With our battalion of the Borderers, there were to march on this
morning another of the Gordon Highlanders--the 92nd--one of the most
noble of our national corps, together with a strong detachment of the
91th, under Captain Warriston, so the enthusiasm of all was at its
height when, in heavy marching order, with great coats rolled on the
knapsacks, blankets folded behind them, havresacks and wooden
canteens slung, the companies fell in, and there seemed to be a
rivalry between the kilted pipers of the 92nd and the Borderers as to
who should excel most, or (as Cosmo, who was not inspired by overmuch
nationality, said to Middleton) who should "make the most infernal
noise."

Silent and grim, and keeping somewhat haughtily aloof from all his
officers, Cosmo sat on his black horse, gnawing the chin-strap of his
shako, as if controlling some secret irritation, while watching the
formation of the corps, looking very much the while as if longing to
find fault with some one.

"And so we are destined to reinforce the army under Sir John Moore?"
said Quentin, for lack of something more important to remark.

"Yes," said Askerne, as he adjusted the cheek-scales of his tall
grenadier cap; "Sir John is a glorious fellow, and quite the man of
to-day."

"I would rather be the man of _to-morrow_," said Monkton, with an air
that implied a joke, though there was something prophetic in the wish.

"I knew Moore when he was serving as a subaltern with the 82nd in
America--he is a brave, good fellow, and a countryman of our own,
too," said Middleton, whose orderly brought forward his horse at that
moment; "and now," he added, putting his foot in the stirrup, "a long
good-bye to the land of roast-beef, and to poor old Scotland, too!  I
wonder who among us here will see her heather hills and grassy glens
again--God bless them all!"  And reverentially the fine old man
raised his hand to his cap as he spoke.

A crowd formed by the soldiers' wives and children of the regiment,
now gathered round him, for the old major knew all their names and
little necessities, and was adored by them all.  Now he was
distributing among them money, advice, and letters of recommendation
to parish ministers and others, and to none was he more kind than to
the weeping wife of Allan Grange, who, by his reduction to the ranks,
lost nearly every chance of accompanying the troops abroad.

To the screaming of the bagpipes had now succeeded the wailing of
women, for many soldiers' wives and children were to be left behind,
and to be transferred to their several parishes in Scotland; many to
remote glens that are desolate wildernesses now; and it was touching
to see these poor creatures, looking so pale and miserable in the
cold grey light of the early morning, each with her wondering little
brood clinging to her skirts, as she hovered about the company to
which her husband belonged, his quivering lip and glistening eye
alone revealing the heart that ached beneath the coarse red coat,
amid the monotony of calling rolls and inspecting arms.

On one of the waggons which was piled high with baggage, huge chests
of spare arms, iron-bound trunks, camp-beds and folded tents, Quentin
tossed the little portmanteau which contained his entire worldly
possessions; then the baggage-guard, looking so serviceable and
warlike with their havresacks and canteens slung crosswise, came with
bayonets fixed, and the great wains rumbled away through the echoing,
and as yet empty streets of Colchester.

None of the officers were married men, fortunately for themselves
perhaps, at such a juncture.  The colours were brought forth with
their black oilskin cases on; the advanced guard marched off, and
just as the sun began to gild the church vanes and chimney-tops, and
while reiterated cheers rang from the thousands of soldiers who
crowded the barrack windows, and whose turn would come anon, the
troops moved off, the brass bands of other regiments--the usual
courtesy--playing them out, the whole being under the command of the
senior officer present, Lieutenant-Colonel Napier of Blackstone, who
afterwards fell at the head of the 92nd Highlanders on the field of
Corunna.

In the excitement of the scene, Quentin felt all its influences and
marched happily on.  He forgot his affronts, his piques and
jealousies, and as the young blood coursed lightly through his veins,
he felt that he could forgive even Cosmo, were it only for Lady
Winifred's sake, when he saw him riding with so stately and
soldier-like an air between Major Middleton and Buckle the adjutant,
at the end of the column, where the splendid grenadiers with their
black bearskin caps and braided wings, made a martial show such as no
company of the line could do in the shorn uniform of the present day.

All the happy impulses of youth made Quentin's spirit buoyant; thus
his light heart beat responsive to the crash of the drums and
cymbals, and to every note of the brass band.  Thus, when on looking
to the rear, he saw so many hundred bayonets and clear barrels (they
were not browned in those days) flashing in the sun, with the long
array of plumed Highlanders that wound through the streets after his
own regiment, he forgot, we say, his grievances, and the cold and
haughty Master--we believe he forgot even Flora Warrender--he forgot
all but that he was a soldier--one of the old 25th, and bound for the
seat of war!  Ah, there is something glorious in these emotions--this
flushing up of the spirit in a young and generous breast; but alas!
the time comes when we look back to the long-past days with envy,
regret, and, it may be--wonder!

The sorrowful parting, the hurried embraces, the last kisses, the sad
and lingering glances of farewell being exchanged along the line of
march every moment, by husbands and wives, by parents and children,
as group after group gradually dropped to the rear of the column they
could but follow with their eyes and hearts, ceased after a time to
impress him by their very number and frequency; thus he soon laughed
with the gay, and enjoyed all the silly banter of the heedless, as
the officers began to group by twos and threes, after Colchester was
left behind, and the troops were permitted to "march at ease" along
the dusty highway between the meadows and ploughed fields.

"I have never seen so jolly a morning as this," said Ensign Boyle, as
he trudged along with the regimental colour crossed on his left
shoulder; "never since first I saw my own name in print!"

"How in print?" asked Quentin, with simplicity; "you do not mean on
the title-page of a book?"

"Not at all--nothing so stupid--I mean in the Army List----"

"Where you have never been tired of contemplating it since--eh,
Pimple?" asked Monkton; "but I hope you have left your flirting
jacket and best epaulettes with the heavy baggage--you only need your
fighting traps now."

"I say, Pimple," said Colyear, the senior ensign, who, of course, had
the King's colour, "how much of the ready had that flax-spinner's
daughter, about whom Monkton quizzes you so much?"

"Rumour said twenty thousand pounds."

"The devil!  You might have done worse--aw--eh!"

"We're all doing worse, damme, marching for embarkation on this fine
sunny morning," said Monkton.  "There goes the band again to the old
air; but, save you, Pimple, few among us leave 'girls behind us' with
twenty thousand pounds."

"Adieu to Colchester, its morning drills and monotonous guards, and
that devilish incessant patter of little drum-boys practising their
da-da, ma-ma, on the drum from sunrise till sunset," said Colville,
looking back to where the strong old Saxon castle and the brick
steeple of St. Peter were being shrouded in yellow morning haze
exhaled by the sun from the river Colne.

"Bon voyage," cried a gay staff-officer, lifting his plumed cocked
hat, as he cantered gaily past; "good-bye, gentlemen."

"Adieu, Conyers," replied Monkton; "can I do anything for you?"

"Where?"

"Among the ladies in Lisbon?"

The officer made no reply, but rode hurriedly on.

"That is the fellow who had to quit Wellesley's staff for eloping
with some hidalgo's wife, the night after Vimiera," said Askerne.
"Monkton, you hit him hard there."

"Don't you think old Jack Middleton looks dull this morning?" asked
some one.

"The colonel is in a devil of a temper, I think," replied Askerne.

"Perhaps he has left his love behind him," suggested Boyle, raising
his stupid white eyebrows sentimentally; "don't you think so,
Kennedy?"

"Pimple, allow me to rebuke you," said Monkton, with an air of mock
severity.  "An ensign may wear a faded rose next his beating heart;
but in a field-officer, such an insane proceeding is not to be
thought of."

While this empty talk was in progress, about eight miles from
Colchester, a troop of the Scots Greys approached en route for that
place; and, as they drew near, the drums and fifes of the Borderers
struck up a lively national quick step; the Greys brandished their
swords, and gave a hearty cheer on coming abreast of the colours of
each regiment, and loud were the hurrahs which responded.

This little episode, and the thoughtless banter which preceded it,
had raised Quentin's spirits to a high state of effervescence.  Fresh
hope had come with all her ruddiest tints to brighten the future and
blot out the past, and with all the glorious confidence of youth, he
was again building castles in the air, on this morning march, when
the sun that shone so joyously on the green English landscape, added
to the brilliance of his thoughts and enhanced his joy and happiness.

From his day-dreams, however, he was roughly awakened by the harsh
voice of the Master of Rohallion, who half reined in his horse, and
turning round with his right hand planted on the crupper, said with
great sternness:

"Captain Askerne, I must remind you that, though officers may
converse together when the men are marching at ease, such a privilege
can by no means be accorded to a mere volunteer.  Mr. Kennedy, rejoin
your section, and keep your place, sir!"

Askerne's dark and handsome face coloured up to the rim of his
bearskin cap, and his eyes sparkled with rage at the colonel's
petulant wantonness; while poor Quentin, who, lost in his bright
day-dreamings, had certainly, but unconsciously, diverged a few paces
from the line of march to converse with his friends, fell sadly back
into the ranks, and felt that the dark cloud was enveloping him again.




CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE SEA.

  "A varied scene the changeful vision showed,
  For where the ocean mingled with the cloud,
  A gallant navy stemmed the billows broad.
  Blent with the silver cross to Scotland dear,
  From mast and stern, St. George's symbol flow'd,
  Mottling the sea their landward barges row'd,
  And flashed the sun on bayonet, brand, and spear,
  And the wild beach returned the seaman's jovial cheer."
                                  _Vision of Don Roderick._


The kingdom of Spain was at this time the great centre of European
political interest.  France, Prussia, and Russia had scarcely
sheathed their swords at Tilsit, when the terrible conspiracy of
Ferdinand, the Prince of the Asturias, against his father, Charles
IV.--a plot imputed to Michael Godoy, who, from a simple cavalier of
the Royal Guard, had, by the queen's too partial favour, obtained the
blasphemous title of the Prince of Peace--afforded the Emperor
Napoleon, whose creature he was, a pretext for interfering in the
affairs of the Spanish Bourbons.  He decoyed the royal family to
Bayonne, compelled their renunciation of the crown and kingdom of
Spain, into which he poured at once his vast armies, and, after the
fashion of the cat in the fable, who absorbed the whole matter in
dispute by the monkeys, he solved the problem by seizing the Spanish
empire, and gifting it to his brother Joseph, formerly King of Naples.

Portugal, at this juncture, deserted by her government and by her
pitiful king, who fled to Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, fell easily into
the power of a French army, under Marshal Junot, who was thereupon
created Duke of Abrantes, a town on the Portuguese frontier.

All Europe cried aloud at these lawless proceedings, and the
Spaniards, so long our enemies, with our old allies the Portuguese,
were alike filled with fury and resentment.  The peasantry flew to
arms, and the provinces became filled by bands of guerillas, brave
but reckless; so the whole peninsula was full of tumult, treason,
bloodshed, and crime.

"England," says General Napier, "both at home and abroad, was, in
1808, scorned as a military power, when she possessed (without a
frontier to swallow up large armies in expensive fortresses) at least
two hundred thousand of the best equipped and best disciplined
soldiers in the universe, together with an immense recruiting
establishment through the medium of the militia."

War, not "Peace at any price," was the generous John Bull's motto,
and, to aid these patriots, a British army proceeded to the peninsula
in June, 1808, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur
Wellesley.  Some sharp fighting ensued along the coast, the prologue
to the long and bloody, but glorious drama, that was only to
terminate on the plains of Waterloo.

On the 21st of August we fought and won the battle of Vimiera, and
nine days after followed the convention of Cintra, by which the
French troops were compelled to evacuate the ancient Lusitania, and
were conveyed home in British ships; but still the marshals of the
empire, with vast armies, the heroes of Jena, Austerlitz, and a
hundred other battles so glorious to France, were covering all the
provinces of Spain, from the steeps of the Pyrenees to the arid
plains of Estremadura.

"Soldiers, I have need of you," says the emperor, in one of his
bulletins.  "The hideous presence of the leopard contaminates the
peninsula of Spain and Portugal.  In terror he must fly before you!
Let us bear our triumphal eagles to the pillars of Hercules, for
there also we have injuries to avenge!  Soldiers, you have surpassed
the renown of modern armies, but have you yet equalled the glory of
those Romans, who, in one and the same campaign, were victorious upon
the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and upon the Tagus?  A long
peace and lasting prosperity shall be the reward of your labours."

The standard of freedom was first raised among the Asturians, the
hardy descendants of the ancient Goths, and in Galicia; then Don José
Palafox, by his valiant defence of the crumbling walls of Zaragossa,
showed the Spaniards what brave men might do when fighting for their
hearths and homes.

"In a few days," said Napoleon, boastfully, in the October of 1808,
"I go to put myself at the head of my armies, and, with the aid of
God, to crown the King of Spain in Madrid, and plant my eagles on the
towers of Lisbon."

The Junta of the Asturias craved the assistance of Britain, even
while the shattered wrecks of Trafalgar lay rotting on the sandy
coast of Andalusia.  Three years had committed those days of strife
to oblivion, or nearly so, and arms, ammunition, clothing, and money
were freely given to the patriots, while all the Spanish prisoners
were sent home.  Then, Sir John Moore, who commanded the British
forces in Portugal, a small but determined "handful," was ordered to
advance into Spain against the vast forces of the Duke of Dalmatia,
which brings us now to the exact period of our own humble story, from
which we have no intention of diverging again into the history of
Europe.

The body of troops among which our hero formed a unit, sailed in
transports from Spithead, and in the Channel, and when Portland
lights were twinkling out upon the weather-beam, poor Quentin endured
for the first time the horrors of sea-sickness, and lay for hours
half-stifled in a close dark berth, unheeded and forgotten,
overpowered by the odour of tar, paint, and bilge, and by a thirst
which he had not the means of quenching, for he was helpless, unable
to move and longed only for death.

It was no spacious, airy, and gigantic _Himalaya_, no magnificent
screw-propeller like the _Urgent_, the _Perseverance_, or any other
of our noble steam transports that, on this occasion received the
head-quarters of the "King's Own Borderers," but a clumsy, old, and
leaky tub, bluff-bowed and pinck-built, with her top-masts stayed
forward, and her bowsprit tilted up at an angle of 45 degrees, and
having a jack-staff rigged thereon.  She was a black-painted bark of
some four hundred tons, with the figures "200 T."--(signifying
Transport No. 200)--of giant size appearing on her headrails.
Between floors or decks hastily constructed for the purpose, the poor
soldiers were stowed in darkness, discomfort, and filth.  The
officers were little better off in the cabin, and hourly their
servants scrambled, quarrelled, and swore in the cooks' galley, about
their several masters' rank and seniority in the order of boiling
kettles and arranging frying-pans, whilst the hissing spray swept
over them every time the old tub staggered under her fore course, and
shipped a sea instead of riding buoyantly over it.

In the mighty stride taken by civilization of late years, when steam
and electricity alike conduce to the annihilation of time and space,
the soldiers of the Victorian age know little of what their fathers
in the service underwent, when old George III. was King.  In stench,
uncleanness, and lack of comfort and accommodation, our shipping were
then unchanged from those which landed Orange William's Dutchmen at
Torbay, or which conveyed our luckless troops in after years to the
storming of the Havannah or the bombardment of Bocca Chica.

After Quentin had recovered his strength (got his "sea-legs" as the
sailors have it) he presented his pale, wan face on deck one morning,
when the whole fleet, with the convoy, a stately 74-gun ship, were
scattered, with drenched canvas, like sea-birds with dripping wings,
as they scudded before a heavy gale, through the dark grey waters of
the Bay of Biscay, the waves of which were rolling in foam, under a
cold and cheerless October sky.

On that comfortless voyage to the seat of war, many were the secret
heart-burnings he felt; many were the cutting slights put upon him by
his cold and hostile commanding officer, who went the tyrannical
length of even raising doubts as to whether he should mess in the
cabin or among the soldiers; but to Cosmo's ill-concealed rage and
confusion, the motion was carried unanimously and emphatically in the
poor lad's favour; that the cabin was his place, as a candidate for
his Majesty's commission.

Cosmo gave a smile somewhat singular in expression, and unfathomable
in meaning, when Major Middleton communicated to him the decision of
the officers; but though victorious in this instance, young as he
was, the new affront sank deep in Quentin's heart, and he felt that
there was "a shadow on his path" there could be no avoiding now.

So rapidly had events succeeded each other since that evening on
which the Master had so savagely struck him down in the avenue, that
Quentin frequently wondered whether his past or his present life were
a dream.  His last meeting with Flora Warrender among the old and
shady sycamores--Flora so loving, so tender, and true!--his last
farewell of old John Girvan (but one of whose guineas remained
unchanged); that horrid episode of the dead gipsy, when he sought
shelter in the ruined vault of Kilhenzie; the drive in the carrier's
waggon; his volunteering at Ayr; the march to Edinburgh, with the
voyage to England in the armed smack, and his subsequent military
life, all appeared but a long dream, in which events succeeded each
other with pantomimic rapidity; and it was difficult to believe that
only months and not years, must have elapsed since the kind and
fatherly quartermaster closed the gate of Rohallion Castle behind
him.  And now he was sailing far away upon the open sea, bound for
Spain--a soldier going to meet the victorious veterans of Napoleon,
in England alike the bugbear of the politician and the truant
school-boy; and he was in the 25th too--that corps of which, from
childhood, he had heard so much, and under the orders, it might be
said truly at the mercy, of his personal enemy and bad angel, the
cold, proud Master of Rohallion!

He found it difficult indeed to realize the whole and disentangle
fact from fancy--reality from imagination; but that the faces of
Monkton, Boyle, and the good Captain Warriston, when he saw him
occasionally, were as links in the chain of events, and gave them
coherency.

At times, especially after dreams of home (for such he could not but
consider Rohallion), there came keen longings in his heart to see
Flora once again and hear her voice, which often came plainly,
sweetly, and distinctly to his ear in sleep.  Of her, alas! he had
not one single memento; not a ring, a miniature, a ribbon, a
glove--not even a lock of her soft hair--the hair that had swept his
face on that delightful day when he carried her through the Kelpie's
pool in the Girvan, and which he had kissed and caressed, in many a
delicious hour spent with her in the yew labyrinth of the old garden,
by the antique arch that spanned the Lollards' Linn, under the
venerable sycamores that cast their shadows on the haunted gate, or
where the honey bee hummed on the heather braes that sloped so
sweetly in the evening sunshine towards the blue Firth of Clyde.

From soft day-dreams of those past hours of happiness he was roused
on the evening of the 3rd October by the boom of a heavy gun from the
convoy, and several signals soon fluttered amid the smoke that curled
upward through her lofty rigging.  They were to the effect that land
ivas in sight--the fleet of transports to close in upon the
convoy--the swift sailers to take the dull in tow; and now from the
grey Atlantic rose a greyer streak, which gradually became broken and
violet-coloured in the sheen of the sun that was setting in the
western waves, as the hills of Portuguese Estremadura came gradually
into form and tint, on the lee-bow of the transport.

Next morning, when day broke, he found the whole fleet at anchor in
Maciera Bay, and all the hurry and bustle on board of immediate
preparations to land the troops on the open and sandy beach, where,
when the tide meets the river, a dangerous surf rolls at times, and
from thence they were, without delay, to march to the front.

It was a glorious day, though in the last month of autumn.  The ruddy
sun of Lusitania was shining gaily on the hills and valley of
Maciera, and on the plain beyond, where already the grass was growing
green above the graves of our soldiers, who fell three months before
at the battle of Vimiera.  But little recked the newcomers of that,
as the boats of the fleet covered all the bay, whose surface was
churned into foam by hundreds of oars, while clouds of shakos and
Highland bonnets were waved in the air, and swords and bayonets were
brandished in the sunshine, as with loud hurrahs, that were repeated
from the ships, and re-echoed by the rocks and indentations of the
shore, the soldiers of the Borderers and the 92nd anticipated a share
in the laurels that had been won at Rolica and Vimiera--hopes many
were destined never to realize; for like the thousands who,
elsewhere, were marching under Moore and others, towards Castile and
Leon, full of youth and health, joy and spirit, many were doomed but
to suffer and die, unhonoured and unurned.

Portugal, as we have stated, having been rescued from the grasp of
the French by the treaty of Cintra, and Sir John Moore having been
ordered to advance into Spain, notification came that a fresh force
from Britain, under the orders of Sir David Baird, would land at
Corunna, to co-operate with him.  Thus the troops on board the little
fleet in Maciera Bay were ordered at once to cross the Tagus,
traverse Portugal, and join him on the frontiers--a march of more
than one hundred and twenty miles, in a land where the art of
road-making had died out with the Romans.

At this time the British forces in the Peninsula numbered forty-eight
thousand three hundred and forty-one, bayonets and sabres.

On the 15th of the next month the French in Spain, commanded by the
Emperor in person made a grand total of three hundred and thirty-five
thousand two hundred and twenty-three men, with upwards of sixty
thousand horses; yet, with hearts that knew no fear, our soldiers
marched to begin that struggle so perilous and unequal, but so
glorious in the end!




CHAPTER IX.

PORTALEGRE.

  "You ask what's campaigning?  As out the truth must,
  'Tis a round of complaining, vexation, disgust,
  Night marches and day, in pursuit of our foes,
  Up hill or down dale, without prog or dry clothes;
  And to add to our pleasure in every shape,
  The French give us doses of round shot and grape."
                              _Military Panorama_, vol. ii.


On the evening of the 11th October, the armed guerillas who hovered
on the wooded mountains which look down on the rough old winding
Roman highway that leads from the dilapidated citadel of Crato to
Portalegre, saw the glitter of arms in the yellow sunshine, the
flashing of polished barrels and bright bayonets, and the waving of
uncased colours, amid the clouds of rolling dust that betoken the
march of troops; and ere long, the same picturesque gentry, in their
mantles, sombreros, and sheepskin zamarras, might have heard the
martial rattle of the British drum, and the shrill notes of the fife,
together with wilder strain of the Scottish bagpipe, echoing between
the green and fertile ranges of the sierra that there forms the
northern boundary of Alentejo, and the sides of which are clothed in
many places by groves of olive, laurel and orange trees; but from the
latter the golden fruit had long since been gathered, ere it was
quite ripe, to save it alike from the marauding soldiery of friend
and foe.

Covered with the dust of a march of twenty miles from the rustic
village of Gaviao, they were our old friends of the 25th, the
Highlanders, and Warriston's detachment, that were now approaching
the head-quarters of the division to which they were to be attached.

On this route from the Bay of Maciera, Quentin had undergone all the
misery of a soldier's life during the wet season in Portugal, where
the towns were then in ruins and desolate, the country utterly
destroyed, and where every one who was not in arms seemed to have
fled towards the coast, for, like the breath of a destroying angel,
the armies of France had passed over the entire length of the land
from Algarve to Galicia, laying all desolate in that wicked spirit of
waste which has been so peculiar to the French soldier in all ages.

Each day, in lieu of the old Scottish reveille welcoming the morning,
Quentin had heard the sharp note of the warning bugle, or of the
drummer beating hastily the _générale_, through the ruined streets of
Santarem, of Abrantes or elsewhere; through the equally silent lines
of tents when they encamped on the mountains, or the miserable
bivouac when they halted in some wild place where whilom maize or
Indian corn grew, summoning the drowsy and weary soldiers to their
ranks for the monotonous march of another day.

From the bare boards, the hard-tiled floor, or perhaps the cold
ground, whereon our volunteer had slept with his knapsack for a
pillow, he had been roused by the voices of the sergeant-major, or
Buckle the adjutant, shouting in the grey morning, "Fall in,
25th--stand to your arms--turn out the whole!" while the rain that
swept in sheet-like torrents along the desolate streets, and the gale
that tore in angry gusts among the ruined gables and shattered
windows, formed no pleasant prelude to a day's march that was to be
begun without other breakfast, perhaps, than a ration biscuit soaked
in the half-stale fluid that filled his wooden canteen.

In camp, the tents were made to hold twelve soldiers each; but some
of these were always on duty.  All lay with their feet to the pole
and their heads to the wall or curtain.  Each man's pack was his
pillow, and each slept, if he could, with a blanket half under and
half over him.  The rain always sputtered and filtered through in
their faces, till the drenched canvas tightened, and the water was
carried off by a little circular trench.

Quentin shared Askerne's tent with his two subalterns.

So the night would pass, till the cry of "Rouse!" rang along the
lines, and the bugles sounded the assembly, when the blankets were
rolled up and strapped to the knapsacks; the wet tents were struck
and folded; the pegs and mallets replaced in their bags, and the
troops prepared to march in the grey morning haze, weary, wet, stiff
and sore, by reposing on the damp sod.

Quentin had always fancied a bivouac a species of military pic-nic,
minus the ladies, pink cream, and champagne; but on the first night
he lay in one, when the baggage guard was lagging in the rear and no
tents were pitched, as he was drenched in a soaking blanket under the
cold October wind that swept down the rocky sierra, he began to have
serious doubts whether man was really a warm-blooded animal.

"Ugh!" grumbled Monkton on this night, "who, with brains in his
head-piece, would become a soldier?"

"You remind me," said Askerne, as he shook the water for the
twentieth time from his bear-skin cap, "of a story I have heard of
Maitland, one of our early colonels who served on the staff of the
Duke of Marlborough.  It was at Blenheim, I think, when he was riding
along the line accompanied by the colonel and another aide-de-camp,
whose head was suddenly shattered by a cannon shot from the Bavarian
artillery.  Perceiving that Maitland looked long and fixedly at the
fallen man, Marlborough said angrily--

"'Colonel Maitland, what the devil are you wondering at?'

"'Simply, that how a man possessed of so much brains as our poor
friend, ever became a soldier,' replied Maitland, and the phlegmatic
victor of Blenheim and Ramilies smiled as he rode on."

Then the dinner during a halt on the march was not tempting, and the
cuisine was so decidedly bad that even Monkton could not joke about
it.  The slices of beef fried in a camp-kettle lid, or broiled on an
old ramrod--beef that had never been _cold_ (the miserable ration
bullocks after being goaded in rear of the troops for miles by
muleteers and mounted guerillas, being shot, flayed and cut up the
moment the drum beat to prepare for dinner) was always tough as
india-rubber; while the soup which the soldiers tried to make with a
few handfuls of rice and the bones of the said bullocks, lacked only
the snails mentioned by Peregrine Pickle, to make it resemble the
famous black broth of the Spartans.

A little more of this common-place detail, and then we have done.

For all Quentin suffered, the novelty of treading a new soil and all
the varied scenery of Portugal could scarcely make amends; yet there
were times when he could not but view with interest and pleasure the
old arches and aqueducts, the stony skeletons of departed Rome, the
ruined amphitheatres and temples, especially that of Diana which
Quintus Sertorius built at Evora, while remains of baths and
cisterns, columns, capitals and cornices of marble and jasper lying
prostrate among the reeds and weeds in wild places, made him think of
Dominie Skaill and the rapture with which he would have lingered over
them.  Then there were the beautiful vineyards, the verdant valleys
where the lemon and orange trees grew; the steep frowning sierras,
wild and barren, but majestic; the fertile plain overlooked by the
thirteen spires of Santarem; and the old Roman bridges, spanning
rivers that rushed in foam down the granite steeps to mingle with the
Tagus.

Little convents perched in solitudes where the French had failed to
penetrate, and where now the bells rang in welcome to the British;
tiny wayside chapels and holy wells, presided over by local saints;
wooden crosses and cairns that marked where some paisano or guerilla
had been shot by the French--green mounds that marked where the
French, butchered in their turn, had been buried without coffin or
shroud, all seemed to tell of the new and strange land he traversed.

Though stout and hardy, poor Quentin's powers of endurance were
sorely taxed.  In his knapsack were all the necessaries of a
soldier--to wit, one pair of shoes and long gaiters of black cloth,
shirts, socks, and mitts; a forage cap, brushes, black-ball,
pipeclay, hair-ribbon, and leather.  He had to carry a blanket and
great-coat, a canteen of wood for water, and a canvas havresack for
provisions was slung over the right shoulder; a pouch with sixty
rounds of ball cartridge was over the left; add to these his musket,
bayonet, belts, and grenadier cap, and the reader may believe that
the poor volunteer felt life a burden before he saw the hill and
spires of Portalegre.

Stiff, sore, and weary, on halting he was unable to remove his
trappings, or even to take off his cap without the assistance of his
servant; and he usually found himself all over livid marks, as if he
had been beaten about the back and shoulders with a stick.  Not the
least of his discomforts was to march under the hot morning sun after
a night of rain, with two wet pipeclayed cross-belts smoking upon his
chest.

"Ah, if Flora Warrender or Lady Rohallion could see me now!" he would
think, when, at the close of each day's march, he lay breathless and
powerless on the floor of a billet, or the sod of a camp, or whatever
it might chance to be!

Use, however, becomes second nature, and after a time Quentin learned
to carry all his harness with ease, or ceased to feel it a burden.

"Châteaux en Espagne!"  He was a skilful builder of such edifices,
and had often erected one of great comfort and magnificence for
himself; but he found a difficulty in dreaming of them while lying
under a drenched blanket, or in a tent on the sides of which the rain
was rushing like Rounceval peas, while he had only a knapsack for a
pillow, and Brown Bess for a bedfellow.

In the Highland regiments the gentlemen volunteers carried simply a
claymore and dirk; in other regiments generally a musket only; but
Cosmo was resolved to _grind_ Quentin to the utmost; thus he
compelled the poor lad to carry all the trappings of the stoutest
grenadier.

Rowland Askerne, who loved the lad for his unrepining temper, manly
spirit, and gentleness, and who, like the entire regiment, saw how
studiously the haughty colonel ignored his existence, was unremitting
in kindness to him; and Monkton never ceased to encourage him in his
own fashion.

"Well, well," he would say, "it's queer work just now, of course; but
some of these fine days you will receive a parchment from the king,
greeting you as his 'trusty and well-beloved,' appointing you ensign
to that company, whereof, I hope, Richard Monkton, Esquire, is
captain; so take courage, Kennedy, my boy!"

He strove to do so, but felt thankful with all his heart for the
prospect of a few days' halt, as the regiment approached the western
gate of Portalegre, where a captain's guard of Cazadores was under
arms as the Borderers marched in with bayonets fixed and colours
flying, their band playing General Leslie's march, "All the Blue
Bonnets are bound for the Border," since 1689 their invariable quick
step.  And now its lively measure woke all the echoes of this
singularly picturesque old Portuguese town, which crowns the summit
of a hill, where its narrow, dark, and tortuous streets, with quaint
mansions overhanging the roadway, are surrounded by an old wall,
among the ruins of which may be traced the foundations of twelve
great towers, and a castle where, as the monks tell us, dwelt Lysias
the son of Bacchus!

The town was crowded by the regiments composing the division of Sir
John Hope; thus, the deserted convents, the two hospitals, and even
the episcopal palace, had all become temporary barracks; and now in
the stately chambers where the Bishops of Lisbon and the Counts of
Gaviao, of old the Lords of Portalegre, with their white-robed
prebends, or their steel-clad titulados, held their chapters and
courts, and where a hundred years before the period of our story,
Philip, Duke of Avignon, received the submission of the ancient city,
the rollicking Irishman sung "Garryowen" as he pipeclayed his belts
or polished his musket; the grave and stern Scottish sergeant daily
and nightly called the roll, and John Bull in his shirt sleeves or
shell jacket might be seen cooking his rations under a splendid
marble mantelpiece, which bore the bishop's mitre and the count's
coronet, with the knightly _paete gules_ of Christ, and the green
_fleur de lis_ of St. Avis, while the fuel was supplied by the cedar
wood of fine old cabinets, or gilded furniture that had survived the
sojourn of the Marshal Duke d'Abrantes and his suite in the same
place.

The grenadiers of the Borderers were all billeted in a narrow and
antique street, which was overshadowed by the vast façade of the
cathedral; and there, from the open lattices of their room (in a
house the proprietors of which were either dead or had fled) Askerne
and Quentin sat smoking cigars and enjoying some of the purple wine
of Oporto, from the cool, vaulted _bodega_ of a neighbouring
wine-house, and with their feet planted on a charcoal _brasero_, they
felt, on the evening after their arrival, for the first time, that
they were somewhat at home and could take their ease, with belts off
and coats unbuttoned.  And so they sat and watched, almost in
silence, the swift-coming shadows of the October evening as they
deepened in the quaint vista of the old Portuguese street, where the
costumes were so striking and singular; the citizen who seemed to
have no lawful occupation but smoking, in his ragged mantle and broad
sombrero; a secular priest with his ample paunch and shovel-shaped
chapeau; a white-robed Carmelite or grey Franciscan, flitting,
ghostlike, amid the masses of red coats who lounged about the doors
and arcades, most of them smoking, and all chatting and laughing,
till the stars came out, when the bugles would sound tattoo, and when
all loiterers would have to turn in, save the quarter guards and
inlying picquet.

These were ordered to be of considerable strength, as a numerous band
of homeless and lawless Spanish and Portuguese guerillas, under a
runaway student of Salamanca, named Baltasar de Saldos, hovered among
the hills.  This band was of somewhat dubious loyalty, as the members
of it, more than once, had scuffles with the British foraging
parties, and even fired on them--the alliance between this country
and Spain being so recent, that after the long and vexatious wars of
the preceding century, the people could not understand it.




CHAPTER X.

COSMO'S CRAFT.

  "Small occasions in the path of life,
  Lie thickly sown, while great are rarely scattered.
  * * * * *
  Shame seize me, if I would not rather be
  The man thou art, than court-created chief
  Known only by the dates of his promotion!"
                                    JOANNA BAILLIE.


The two first days after Quentin's arrival in Portalegre, were varied
by the flogging of soldiers for marauding, when they were four months
in arrears of pay.  One of these men was flogged by tap of drum; a
measure by which half a minute was allowed to elapse between each
stroke, greatly enhancing the agony; and this process went on during
more than four hundred lashes, till the bare muscles were seen to
quiver under the cats, and then he was removed.

On the second day, the troops that had recently arrived from England,
together with a battalion of Cazadores from Lisbon, were paraded
outside the walls of the little mountain city for the inspection of
the lieutenant-general commanding.

Their new uniform and accoutrements contrasted strongly with the
ragged, patched, and war-worn trappings of the corps which had served
during the preceding campaign, and had so rapidly cleared Portugal of
the French.

The Cazadores were active, bustling, and soldier-like little
Portuguese light infantry, all clad in dark green uniforms of London
make, with smart shakos, having green plumes.  Their ranks were ever
redolent of garlic and tobacco, to all who had the misfortune to
march to leeward of them, while their snubby round noses, thick lips,
and dark complexions reminded all who saw them of their Moorish
descent.

Prior to the infusion of British officers among them, the Portuguese
soldiery were every way contemptible.  Murphy tells us that in the
beginning of the war in 1762, "their army was in a most wretched
state, scarcely amounting to ten thousand men, most of whom were
peasants, without uniform or arms, asking charity, while the officers
served at the tables of their colonels;" and matters were not much
improved when Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived to uphold the interests of
the House of Braganza, after which he had few better or braver troops
than the Lusitanian Legion.

The general of division, Sir John Hope of Rankeillour, took
particular notice of the Borderers, having been colonel of the
regiment about fifteen years before.  He had been wounded on the
Helder, like Cosmo Crawford, and had served in the first campaign of
Egypt with great distinction.

He complimented Cosmo in strong terms upon the appearance and
discipline of the battalion, both of which high qualities the Master
had not the candour or the generosity to say were due to the
enthusiasm, exertions, and genuine _esprit de corps_ of Major
Middleton; and as Sir John rode along the line, wearing a glazed
cocked-hat, an old telescope slung across his well-worn red coat, the
lace and aiguilette of which were frayed by service and blackened by
gunpowder, he looked a thorough soldier.  He was tall, well formed,
and in the prime of life, being in his forty-second year; and Quentin
regarded him with deep interest, for he was informed by Askerne, in a
whisper, that "Sir John had joined the army as a volunteer in his
fifteenth year, prior to his first commission as a cornet, in the
10th Light Dragoons."

"As we are about to enter Spain by the way of Badajoz," said the
general to Cosmo, after the troops had been dismissed to their
quarters, "I am particularly anxious to open a communication with El
Estudiente."

"Is this a town which lies near it?" asked Cosmo.

"Oh, no.  El Estudiente is a man,' replied Sir John, laughing, while
the staff joined, as in duty bound, and Cosmo reddened with anger.

"Who, or what is he?" he asked, coldly.

"A guerilla chief--Baltasar de Saldos, a personage of savage
character, and very doubtful reputation."

"You recommend him badly, general."

"But truly, though."

"In what way can I assist you in the matter?" asked Cosmo, with
increasing coldness of manner, as he began to fear that the
unpleasant duty of opening the "communication" in question, was,
perhaps, to devolve on him.

"I wish a messenger to convey a despatch from me to him--one of
yours--not an officer, whose life would be too valuable; but if you
have any private, a troublesome fellow, worthless, frequently in the
defaulters' book--you understand me, colonel?"

"I think that I do, Sir John," replied Cosmo, whose green eyes shrunk
as he inserted his glass in one, and gazed at the general, keenly;
"but is the risk of delivering a message so great in Portugal, after
you have cleared it of the French?"

"Stragglers, orderlies, and solitary individuals are at all times
liable to be cut off, we scarcely know by whom, the country is so
lawless; but this fellow, Baltasar, is somewhere among the mountains
near Herreruela, beyond the Spanish frontier; and to say nothing of
the wolves that infest the wild places hereabouts, there are three
chances to one against any messenger returning alive, even after he
has delivered our letter to Baltasar."

"A lively duty!"

"Portugal and Spain are not without traitors in the French interest
ready to assassinate a redcoat; others are ready to do it merely to
procure his clothing and arms, and some of the low wayside tabernas
are kept by people who would cut any man's throat for the chance of
finding half a vintin in his pocket.  Then there are the hazards of
being hanged as a spy by the French, of losing one's way among the
wild, depopulated Sierras, and dying there of starvation, or being
devoured by the black wolves, or by those wild dogs, of which the
Duke of Abrantes strove in vain to clear the country."

"A pleasant country for a sketching tour!" said Cosmo.

"Yet Sir John Moore has distinctly ordered me to communicate with
these guerillas, to strengthen us and cover the flank of our advance
towards the Guadiana, as it is not impossible that the enemy may push
forward from Valladolid, and cut off our communication with the main
body of the army, and as scouts and sharpshooters, the guerillas are
invaluable."

"If your messenger did not return, what proof would you have that he
had ever delivered your letter?" asked Cosmo, with one of his strange
smiles.

"The presence of Baltasar's armed guerillas on our flank as we
advance through Spanish Estremadura, would be all the reply I wish.
Colonel Napier, of the Highlanders, has said that he would rather go
in person than sacrifice one of his men; but----"

"I am not so chivalrous," said Cosmo, laughing, as he shrugged his
shoulders and toyed with his gathered reins alternately on each side
of his charger's silky mane; "I have a fellow whom I can very well
spare, one who is a nuisance to the regiment in general, and to me in
particular--one of whom I should like to be handsomely rid: he is
clever, sharp, and resolute, too," he added, as he and the general
rode slowly side by side into Portalegre.

"He is the very kind of man I require; but," said the worthy general,
hesitating and colouring, "it is not a duty on which I should wish to
risk a valuable life--you understand me, Colonel Crawford?"

"Oh, perfectly; when will your letter be ready?"

"Before sunset; but what is the name of the bearer, for however
numerous his chances of failure may be, I must duly accredit him in
my mission to the guerilla chief--those Spaniards are so suspicious."

Cosmo took one of his own calling cards, and pencilling on it the
name of Quentin Kennedy, handed it to the unsuspecting general.

"His rank?" asked the latter.

"Volunteer," was the curt reply.

"A volunteer, Colonel Crawford!" exclaimed the general; "I spoke of
some private soldier, whose conduct made him worthless.  The bearing
of a volunteer must be careful--his honour spotless."

"Such are not his," said Cosmo, angrily, for this cross-questioning
fretted his fierce and crafty temper; "and I have said that I wish to
be handsomely rid of him."

"Very good--you are the best judge of how to handle your command; but
if in your place, I should send him back to his friends in Britain."

"The letter," began Cosmo impatiently.

"My orderly will bring it to your quarters within an hour.  Adieu,
colonel."

"To-night, then, perhaps to-night!" muttered Cosmo, half aloud,
through his clenched teeth, and with a sombre smile, as he saluted
the general and rode off in search of Buckle, his adjutant.  "A
volunteer must always be the first man for duty; I swore to work this
fellow to an oil, and egad! the game for him is only beginning.
Good! to think of the simple general baiting the very trap into which
he is to fall.  Once handsomely rid of him, I shall deceive the old
folks at home anew, and pretend that the letters in which I mentioned
that he was serving under me have _miscarried_."

He cast one of his sinister smiles after Sir John Hope, and spurred
his horse impatiently up one of the streets of Portalegre, towards
the Bishop's palace, where his quarters were, and where the colours
of the Borderers were lodged under a sergeant's guard.

Sir John Hope was that distinguished Scottish officer, who, after
Waterloo, was created Lord Niddry for his many brilliant services,
and who, two years subsequently, succeeded to the old Earldom of
Hopetoun.  Concerning him a very singular story is still current in
the French army.

It is to the effect, that the eldest son of Marshal Ney challenged
the Duke of Wellington to a mortal duel, for his alleged share in his
father's death--the place of combat to be any spot in Europe he chose
to select.  On receiving this cartel, the Duke is said to have
replied:

"My life belongs to my country and must not be lightly risked in
trifles!"

On this, one of his aides-de-camp, the Scottish Earl of Hopetoun,
whom he had always mentioned with honour in his despatches, accepted
the challenge in his place, and leaving Scotland, without bidding
adieu to his Countess, Louisa Wedderburn, or their eleven children,
repaired straight to Paris, and met young Ney on the Bois de
Boulogne, where they fired at once.  The story adds, that Hopetoun
fell pierced by a ball in the head, in the very place where he had
been wounded during the famous sortie from Bayonne in February, 1814,
and that as he fell, young Ney flung his pistol in the air,
exclaiming--

"Sacré Dieu! the Prince of Moskwa is revenged!"*

* Unfortunately for this story (which contains some strange grains of
truth, and which was told me by the Lieutenant of Marshal St.
Arnaud's Spain troop in the Crimea) the gallant Earl of Hopetoun died
in his bed, from natural causes, at Paris, on the 27th August, 1823.




CHAPTER XI.

QUENTIN DEPARTS.

  "Would ye my death?  Can that avail you?
    Or life? what life will ye to give?
  For this existence, grief-embittered,
    Doth hourly die, yet dying live.
  My sorrows, if ye fain would slay me,
    Your blows so fierce, so fast to deal,
  It needs not: one the least, the lightest,
    Would task endurance strong as steel."
                    _Portuguese of Rodriguez Lobo._


On the same evening when Quentin received the despatch from the
adjutant, with instructions to start forthwith by the nearest road
that led towards the frontier, Monkton was preparing to give a little
supper in his billet, and was superintending the cooking thereof in
person.

The house he occupied had belonged to some titulado of Portugese
Estremadura.  The ceilings were lofty, and the cornices of the heavy
and florid Palladian style were elaborately gilded, and everywhere
the green fleur-de-lis of St. Avis (an order founded by Alphonso, for
defence against the Moors, from whom he took Santarem and Lisbon) was
reproduced among the decorations.

The floors were of polished oak; the furniture, in many instances
richly gilded, was all of crimson velvet stuffed with down, and the
cabinets of ebony were covered with carvings, some representing the
past discoveries, victories, and glories, real or imaginary, of the
kings of Portugal.  Many fine paintings bore marks of additions
received from the French in the shape of bayonet stabs and bullet
holes, with finishing touches in burnt cork, by which Venuses and
Madonnas were liberally supplied with moustachios and so forth; while
the frescoes bore such lovely delineations of fair-skinned,
golden-haired, and ripe-lipped goddesses and nymphs, that, as Monkton
said, "they made one long for pagan times again."  Over a Venus being
attired in scanty garments by some completely nude graces, was the
motto "_Si non caste tantum modo caute_."

"Which means?" asked Askerne, who had been trying to make it out.

"In good Portuguese, 'If you can't be chaste, at least be cautious,'
an old-fashioned aphorism," said Monkton.

"Poor Portugal!" said Askerne, thoughtfully; "she is left now but
with mere traditions of her past; a country without kings, warriors,
poets or painters.  The land of Camoens, of Rodriguez Lobo, of
Antonio Ferreria, Bernardez, the captive of Alcazalquiver, of Andrade
de Cominha, cannot now produce one patriotic song!"

In one corner of the apartment a dark stain on the floor showed where
blood had been lately shed, and there were the marks of a woman's
hand upon the wall and oak boards, as if she had been dragged from
place to place, thus telling of some terrible outrage--an episode of
its recent occupants, the French.

"Now, what the devil is the meaning of this?" asked Monkton, looking
up from his culinary operations as Buckle entered; "Kennedy can't be
the first man for duty."

"No, he is not," replied Buckle, curtly, for having on his sword and
gorget, he felt and looked official.

"Then why the----"

"Why select him, you would ask, with the addition of some unpleasant
adjective?"

"Yes."

"Because a volunteer is always the first man for any duty that is
dangerous."

"And is this duty so?" asked Quentin, with very excusable interest.

"Undoubtedly--there is no use concealing the fact, as foreknowledge
will make you wary; and if successful, it will be reported favourably
to head-quarters, 'that negotiations with the formidable guerilla
chief--what's his infernal name--have been honourably concluded,
through the courage and diplomatic skill of that very distinguished
volunteer, Mr. Quentin Kennedy, now serving with the 25th Foot, whom
I recommend most warmly to your Royal Highness's most earnest and
favourable consideration'--that is the sort of thing," added the
adjutant, putting aside his sword and belt, as the odour of the
cooking reached his olfactory nerves.

"You think, Mr. Buckle, that the colonel will recommend me thus?"
asked Quentin, his young heart throbbing with delight.

"And Sir John Hope, too--of course; they can do nothing else," was
the confident reply, for the adjutant believed in what he said.

Hope, pride, and enthusiasm swelled up in the poor lad's breast as
the adjutant spoke.

"Ah," thought he, "I should have offered my hand to Cosmo, and shall
do so when I return."

"Congratulate me, major," he exclaimed, hastening to Middleton, who
entered at that moment; "I have been chosen for an important duty
already."

"So I have heard--so I have heard," he replied, quickly, shaking his
head and his pigtail with it.

"And what do you think of it?  Here is the despatch, addressed 'Al
Senor Don Baltasar de Saldos, Herreruela, _viâ_ Valencia de
Alcantara.'

"You are particularly to avoid that town," said Buckle, emphatically.

"Why?"

"Because a French garrison occupy it--some of General de
Ribeaupierre's brigade."

"It is a little way across the frontier," said Quentin; "so, my dear
sir, what do you think of the duty?"

"Think--that the whole affair is a cruelty and a shame!" exclaimed
the old major, bluntly.  "I've been looking at the map, and see that
the place is some miles beyond the frontier--in the enemy's country,
in fact."

"Come, major, don't discourage him," said Buckle; "he must go now,
and there is an end of it."

"I wish there was.  Does he go in uniform?"

"Yes; it is safer."

"How?"

"In mufti he might be taken for a spy."

"Uniform did not protect my poor friend André of the 26th, when taken
on a similar mission."

"Come, come, I'll bet you a pony apiece that Kennedy comes off with
flying colours," said Monkton.  "Some more butter, Askerne--where's
the pepper-box?--Quentin is a devilish sharp fellow, and always keeps
his weather eye open, as the sailors say."

"What is the distance between this and Herreruela?" asked Askerne,
who had hitherto remained silent.

"About thirty British miles, as a crow flies."

"And he is to proceed on foot?"

"But he can do so at leisure--there is no word of breaking up our
cantonments here yet."

"But in this country miles seem to vary very much, Mr. Buckle," said
Quentin; "when am I supposed to be back?"

"Back?" repeated Buckle, rather puzzled.

"Excuse my asking," said the lad, modestly; "but I am so ignorant of
the country, and so forth."

"True, Kennedy.  Well, supposing that you see this Baltasar de
Saldos--fine melodramatic name, isn't it?--he is doubtless a fellow
in a steeple-crowned hat and seven-league boots, all stuck over
pistols and daggers--supposing you sec him at once, there is nothing
to prevent you being back in six days, at latest."

"So we are about to make a night of it, the first jolly one we have
had since landing at the mouth of the Maciera, and, damme, here is
poor Quentin going to leave us!" said Monkton, who in his shirt
sleeves was devilling a huge dish of kidneys over a brasero, for the
orthodox fuel of which (charcoal) he had substituted the shutter of a
window, torn down and broken to pieces.  "One glass more of Oporto
for the gravy, another dash of pepper, and the banquet is complete.
You must have supper with us to-night, ere you go, Quentin."

The same readily found fuel was roasting on the marble slab of the
richly carved fireplace, a goodly row of sputtering castanos, which
were superintended by Rowland Askerne.

"Where is Pimple to-night?" he asked, looking up.

"With Colville, on the quarter guard," said Monkton; "and, rosaries
and wrinkles! where do you think they are stationed?"

"By your exclamation, opposite a convent, probably."

"Exactly--el Convento de Santa Engracia; but it hasn't a window to
the street, so they might as well have the wall of China to
contemplate."

A borrachio skin of Herrera del Duque (the famous wine of the Badajoz
district), of which Monkton had somehow become possessed, lay on the
beautiful marqueterie table, like a bloated bagpipe, while tin
canteens, silver-rimmed drinking-horns, tea-cups, everything but
crystal vessels, were ranged round to imbibe the contents from.

The plates and other appurtenances of the table were of the same
varied description, and were furnished by the guests themselves, as
the French had carried off or destroyed nearly everything in the
house.  A canteen of brandy and a loaf of fine white bread completed
the repast, to which all brought good humour and appetites that were
quite startling, better than any they could ever procure for the
dainties of the mess-table at Colchester.

Servants were entirely dispensed with; thus the conversation was free
and unrestrained, like the jests and laughter.

"I can scarcely assure myself that you are actually going to-night,"
said the major to Quentin; "the whole arrangement is a black, burning
shame; an older man, one of more experience, one who has been longer
in the country and had served the campaign in Portugal, should have
been sent on this duty."

"But the greater is my chance of honour!" said Quentin, cheerfully.

"And peril too.  Your health--and success, boy!  This wine is
excellent, Monkton--but the service is going to the devil! we have
never been the men we were since the abolition of hair-powder and
pigtails, brigadier wigs and Nivernois hats!  Think of a garrison
court-martial according four hundred and odd lashes to a poor devil
yesterday, for borrowing a loaf of bread like this, when we are all
so far in arrears of pay; and yet, I remember when we ate Jack
Andrews' baby in America, men were tucked up to the next tree for
just as little."

"Jack Andrews' baby," said Quentin, looking up from his devilled
kidneys at the familiar name.

"It is an old regimental story," said the major, laughing, as he
filled his horn with wine from the gushing borrachio; "it happened
when we were in garrison at Fort St. John on the Richelieu River (a
place I have often told you about); provisions were scarce, for the
Yankees had intercepted all our supplies, so that at times we were
literally starving, while to conciliate the colonists, strict orders
were issued against plundering.  It was as much as your life was
worth if the provost marshal caught you stealing anything, even a
kiss from a girl in Vermont or New York, so such a thing as levanting
with a sucking-pig or a turkey-poult, was not to be thought of even
in our wildest dreams: moreover they would not have _sold_ a chicken
for thrice its weight in gold, to a red-coat!

"Some weeks passed over thus; we were getting very lanky and lean,
and though our lovely countenances were ruddied by the American
frost, we were always hungry, always thirsty, and longed in our
day-dreams for a cooper of the old mess port, or a devilled
drumstick; but these were only to be had at the head-quarters of the
Borderers and Cameronians, then far away in the Jerseys, in pursuit
of the rebels, under Lord Stirling; and we often shivered with hunger
as well as with cold under the ice-covered roofs of our wooden
barracks at night.

"Lord Rohallion of ours, had a servant named Jack Andrews, a knowing
old file, from his own place in Carrick, who contrived to make off
with a sheep.  How or where Jack did it, the Lord only knows, and we
never enquired; but the owner, a Pennsylvanian quaker, made an outcry
about it, and the Provost's guard were speedily on poor Jack's track
with the gallows rope.  A stab with a bayonet in the throat soon
silenced the sheep, and Jack brought it under his greatcoat to our
quarters, and while the provost, with Simon Pure, was overhauling the
soldiers' barrack, we tucked up the spoil in a cradle, with a blanket
over it and a muslin cap round its head.  We set a piper's wife to
rock it, while Jack pretended to make caudle at the fire, and in this
occupation they were found, when the provost came in, intent on
death, and Broadbrim on retribution.

  "Hush-a-by, baby, on the tree-top,
  When the wind blows the cradle will rock,"

sung the piper's wife, patting the sheep tenderly.

"'Hush,' said Jack to the intruders; 'don't stir for the life that is
in you!'

"'Why--what is the matter with the baby?'

"'It's either measles or small-pox; we don't know which,' said Jack.

"'Yea verily--aye--ho, hum,' snivelled the Quaker.

"'All right,' said the provost, as he withdrew with his guard to
search elsewhere.  The sheep was soon cut up, divided, and a
sumptuous supper Major André, Rohallion and a select few of us had
that night, and ere morning all traces of it had disappeared, save
the skin, which, to the rage of the provost, was found concealed, no
one knew by whom, between the sheets of his bed.  Long after the fort
was taken by the Yankees, and none had a fear of coming to the
drumhead, the whole story came out, and many a laugh we had at the
provost marshal and Jack Andrews' baby."

The names mentioned thus incidentally by the good major recalled so
much of home and of old associations to Quentin, that his warm heart
swelled with kind and affectionate memories; and now, when on the eve
of departing from friends that he loved so well, and who had a regard
so great for him--departing on a lonely and decidedly perilous
duty--he was on the point of telling them the story of his earlier
life, so that, if aught occurred to him, his military companions
might write to Rohallion; but thoughts of the haughty Master chilled
him, and he repressed the suddenly-conceived idea.

And now the time came when he was compelled to depart.

He had three days' cooked provisions in his havresack, and he had
still money enough remaining for his wants in a land where he had to
journey almost by stealth, and where the French had left so little
either to buy or to sell.

He took with him his great-coat and forage-cap; in lieu of his heavy
musket, Askerne gave him a sword, and Middleton a pair of pistols;
and the former accompanied him nearly two miles on the road from
Portalegre.

"You dare danger fearlessly, Quentin," said he.

"I dare it as those who are friendless and alone do!  The knowledge
that I have few, perhaps none, who would really regret me, renders
life of little value."

"Come, Kennedy, egad! this bitterness is ungrateful," said Askerne,
in a tone of reproach.

"True, my friend, forgive me!  I believe that you, at least, with
Middleton and Warriston--he's on duty, remember me to him--Monkton,
and a few _others_ that are far, far away, have, indeed, a sincere
regard for me."

"Well, then, how many more, or what more would you have?  The world
is not so bad after all," said Askerne, laughing, as he shook his
hand warmly and bade him adieu, after giving him much good advice
concerning prudence and care of consorting with strangers on the way;
for Askerne and his brother officers saw, or suspected that the
colonel's selection of the lad was the result of bad feeling; while
Quentin deemed it but a part of his hard and venturesome lot as a
gentleman volunteer.

Often he turned to wave a farewell to Askerne, whose erect and
soldier-like figure was lessening in the distance, as he walked back
to Portalegre.  At last, a turn of the road, where it wound suddenly
between some olive groves, hid him entirely; and, for the first time,
an emotion of utter loneliness came over Quentin's heart as he
hastened towards the darkening hills.




CHAPTER XII.

ANXIOUS FRIENDS.

  "Oh, Leolyn, be obstinately just;
  Indulge no passion and deceive no trust.
  Let never man be bold enough to say,
  Thus, and no farther, shall my passion stray;
  The first crime past compels us into more,
  And guilt grows _fate_, which was but _choice_ before."
                                              AARON HILL.


The third day and the fourth passed away at Portalegre; on the fifth
and sixth, Major Middleton and others, who felt a friendly interest
in Quentin Kennedy, began to surmise, when they met on the morning or
evening parade, or in each other's billets, or so forth, that it was
time now he had reported his return, and the good or bad success of
his journey, to the colonel and general commanding the division.

Other days passed; it was whispered about from staff-office officials
that ere long the division would leave Portalegre, as the whole army
was about to advance against the enemy; and then Captain Askerne,
Monkton, Buckle, the adjutant, and others, became doubly anxious
about the lad, and were interested as much as men could be under
their circumstances, when human life is deemed of so little value as
it is when on active service and before an enemy.

As for Warriston of the 94th, not being under the immediate command
of Colonel Crawford, he openly and bitterly inveighed against "the
iniquity of having sacrificed a mere youth in such a manner," and
threatened "to bring the matter prominently before Sir John Moore,"
who commanded the forces in Portugal.

"He has, perhaps, gone over to the enemy--a despatch is sometimes
well paid for," said Cosmo, in his sneering manner, when some of
these remarks reached him on parade, one morning.

"Impossible, my dear sir--impossible!" said Middleton, testily, while
spurring and reining in his horse; "I know the lad as if he were my
own son, and feel assured that he is the soul of honour; that he was
all ardour for the service, and that he would die rather than
disgrace himself."

"Indeed--ah-aw--you think so?" drawled Cosmo, with his glass in his
sinister eye, as he surveyed the major with a glance of somewhat
mingled cast.

"I do, colonel," was the emphatic rejoinder.

"He has disappeared at all events--a dubious phrase.  If the fellow
has not levanted to the Duke of Dalmatia with General Hope's
despatch, may his heart not have failed him? may he not have shown
the white feather?  Better men than he, among the Belem Rangers, have
done so ere now."

The imaginary corps referred to contained one of the most offensive
imputations to the ears of Peninsula men; thus Captain Askerne
exclaimed--

"Cowardice, Colonel Crawford--would you infer cowardice?"

"I infer nothing, gentlemen, but that better men than he have shown
the white feather."

"Not in _the Line_, that I am aware of," was the somewhat pointed
remark of Middleton; and Cosmo, who had lately come from the Guards,
crimsoned with suppressed passion.

"A volunteer is a soldier of fortune, and none such can ever be a
coward," said Askerne, stoutly.

"Of course not--the idea is absurd," added Middleton, looking round
the group of officers, who glanced their approval.

"You are warm, Major Middleton," said Cosmo, sternly, while his eyes
gleamed with their most dangerous expression; "somewhat unnecessarily
warm on this trivial subject, I think."

"I am at least honest, colonel, as he must be who defends the absent
or the dead."

"We have had enough of this--to your companies--fall in, gentlemen!"
said the colonel, sternly and impatiently, as he spurred his horse,
unsheathed his sword, and the formula of the parade began, after
which he revenged himself by drilling the corps, under a drizzling
rain, for nearly two hours, forcing Askerne's grenadiers to skirmish
in a swamp, and making old Major Middleton put the battalion twice
through the eighteen manoeuvres.

About this time a patrol of Portuguese cavalry found near the high
road that led through a desert towards the Spanish frontier, the
remains of a man, almost reduced to a skeleton, picked, gnawed, and
torn asunder, to all appearance recently, by those devouring wolves
and wild dogs which infest the mountains of the district.

Terrible surmises of Quentin's fate were now whispered among the
Borderers; the officer in command of the patrol was closely
questioned by Middleton, Warriston, and others; but he constantly
stated that the victim had probably been stripped by robbers before
being devoured, as nothing had been found near the remains that might
lead to their identification, or in any way connect them with the
missing Quentin Kennedy.  Thus, in default of other proof, as time
wore on, the members of the regiment made up their minds to consider
the poor bones as his, and concluded that he had perished miserably
in the wilderness.

To do Cosmo Crawford justice, there were times when he was not
without secret emotions of shame, and even of compunction, for the
part he had acted to Quentin.  His own conscience, the small still
voice that would speak, could not acquit him; but those gleams of the
better spirit came only briefly and at intervals, and such unwelcome
thoughts were always eventually stifled by the constitutional
malignity of his nature, and he would mutter to himself--

"Pshaw! he is well away; what the devil was he to me, or I to him?"

It was while the troops were lingering at Portalegre and elsewhere
along the Spanish frontier, that Lord Castlereagh's despatch,
containing the first organized plan of the future campaign, arrived
in Lisbon.

In the northern provinces of Spain, thirty-five thousand horse and
foot were to be employed; ten thousand of these were to be embarked
from British ports, and the rest to be drafted from our army of
occupation in Portugal; and these were supposed to be equal to cope
with the vast hosts pouring through the many passes of the Pyrenees
from France and Germany, and those which already blackened all the
plains of Castile and Arragon.

We have elsewhere mentioned the vast strength of the French army,
whose head-quarters were at Vittoria.

The brave but ill-fated Sir John Moore was ordered to take the field
without delay with the troops that were under his own command.  Some
fortress or city (unnamed) in Galicia, or on the borders of the
kingdom of Leon, was to be the place for concentrating the whole
allied armies of Britain, Spain, and Portugal; and his specific plan
of operations was _afterwards_ to be concerted with the stupid,
jealous, and uncompromising local juntas, and the obstinate and
impracticable Spanish generals.

These orders were perilous, loose, and vague; they promised nothing,
but only that war at any hazard was to be waged in Old Castile and on
the banks of the Ebro.

And now for a time let us change the scene to a not less tuneful or
classic locality--the rocky hills and heather braes of Carrick's
western shore.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE PARAGRAPH.

  "My kindred are dead, my love is fled;
    Courage, my heart, thou canst love no more;
  Pale is my cheek, my body is weak;
    Courage, my heart, 'twill soon be o'er.
  Dim are my eyes with tears of sorrow,
  They ache for a night without a morrow!"
                                          M.N.S.


It was towards the end of the month--the last days of October, now.

The acorns were falling from the moss-grown oaks, the hollies and
hedge-rows were gay with scarlet berries and haws, the grey sea-gulls
were often seen mingling with the black gleds and hoodie-crows far
afield inshore.  The redwing, the fieldfare, and the woodcock had
come again to their old haunts on the braes of Rohallion, in the
oakwood shaw, in the hawthorn birks that overhang the Girvan, and the
deep carse land where the rushes grew and the water flowed of old.

The autumn winds, as they swept through the hollow glen, shook down
the last brown leaves of the old sycamores, and the spoils of the
past summer lay in rustling heaps about the haunted gate and the guns
of La Bonne Citoyenne on the battery before the castle-keep.  From
the tall square chimneys of the old feudal stronghold on the
storm-beaten bluff, the gudeman of Elsie Irvine and other fishermen
from the coves, saw the smoke of the rousing fires ascending into the
grey autumn sky, and the evening lights glittering early in the great
towers, a land-mark now to them as it had been to their forefathers
long ages ago, when the Scot and the Saxon found work nearer home for
their swords than fighting for conquered Spain or ravaged Portugal.

"People now-a-days, with the help of the penny-post and the
telegraph, and the endless means of communication and of coming and
going, are certainly able to _care for_ a greater number of persons
than they could have done a hundred years ago," says a recent writer
in the "Cornhill;" but he might have said thirty years ago, so far as
the people of Scotland are concerned.  Thus, secluded by her own
retiring habits and personal circumstances, as well as by those
incident to the time, content to reside in her narrow circle, and
chiefly among her husband's household and dependents, Lady
Rohallion's heart yearned with all a mother's love for her lost
protégé, the more, perhaps, that the cold and repulsive manner of her
only son Cosmo had cast her warm and affectionate heart somewhat
back, as it were, upon herself; though the memory of much if not all
his shortcomings in the way of filial reverence and regard were now
by her forgotten, or merged in the idea of his absence at the seat of
war.

Quentin's memory she cherished chiefly in silence; for, still
fostering her hopes or views with regard to Cosmo and the wilful
little heiress of Ardgour, she spoke of the lost one but reservedly,
and at long intervals, to the latter; though, sooth to say, young
Fernie of Fernwoodlee, a neighbouring proprietor, had become so
frequent a visitor at the castle, that, so far as good looks,
assiduity, and unwearying industry as an admirer might go, he bade
fair--gossips said--to supplant both Quentin and the Master of
Rohallion, for a lover lost, and another commencing a campaign, were
just as satisfactory as no lover at all.

It was about this time that the post-bag brought by John Legate, the
running-footman, from Maybole, was opened before Lord Rohallion by
his faithful old henchman Jack Andrews, and emptied on the
breakfast-table.

One small missive, bearing Fernwoodlee's crest--a fern leaf all
proper--he handed to Flora, who coloured slightly and said it
referred to a proposed ride as far as the ruins of Kilhenzie, to see
the Eglinton hounds throw off, as the keeper had promised to find a
leash of foxes in the cover there.

"These fox-hunting fools are beginning their work betimes--why, this
is only October," said his lordship, drily; "they would be better
employed riding in the light dragoons against the enemies of Europe."

Pushing the rest of the letters across the table to Lady Rohallion,
as if for perusal at her leisure, he opened the latest newspaper, and
betook himself, with true military instinct, to the gazette and
matters pertaining to the war against France and the Corsican, by
land and sea.

Erelong, it was with an exclamation of astonishment that shook the
powder from his venerable pigtail, that made Lady Rohallion permit
the urn to overrun her teacup, Flora to start nervously, Mr. Spillsby
to drop the egg-stand with its contents, and Jack Andrews to spring
mechanically to "attention" on his lame leg, that his lordship,
raising his voice to an unusually high pitch, read the following
paragraph:--

"On the 6th October, the final despatch of the premier reached the
general commanding at Lisbon, and by this time the whole army will
have been in motion across the Spanish frontier, to chastise the
barbarian hordes of the Corsican tyrant, under whose sway the people
of France and Spain alike are groaning.  We rejoice to say that
before marching from Portalegre, Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope of
Rankeillour most successfully opened a communication with the famous
guerilla, El Estudiente, a matter fully and finally arranged by the
skill and courage of Mr. Quentin Kennedy, a young volunteer, then
serving with H.M. 25th Regiment, or 'King's Own Borderers.'"

"Quentin!" exclaimed Flora, rushing behind Lord Rohallion's chair,
her cheeks flushing red, as she peeped over his shoulder.

"Quentin Kennedy!" said Lady Rohallion, in a breathless voice, as she
grew pale and trembled.

"The boy is found--found at last!  There, read the paragraph for
yourselves," said his lordship, flourishing the paper over his head.

Poor Lady Rohallion made many ineffectual efforts to do as he bid
her; but her eyes were full of tears, and her spectacles were quite
obscured.

"Spillsby--Andrews, send for John Girvan: zounds! the 25th, too--the
blessed old number!--here's news for him!  The lost is found again!
You'll write him, Winny--and Flora, too--gad, we'll all write!"
continued the old Lord, in a very incoherent way.  "The cunning
rogue, to keep us in suspense so long, and to be wearing the buttons
of the old Borderers all the time.  It must be he: there can't be two
Quentin Kennedies; oh, no--of course it must be he!"

"There is something strange in this," said Lady Rohallion, finding
relief in tears; "how many letters, Flora, have we had from Cosmo
since he left us?"

"Five."

"Five letters!"

"One from Colchester; others from Santarem and Abrantes; and two from
Portalegre."

"Exactly," said Lord Rohallion, on whose benign brow a cloud
gathered; "five letters, and in none of them has one word escaped him
concerning the poor lad who joined the corps before him--the dear old
25th, of my earliest memories.  It is not generous, Winny; I don't
envy Quentin his commanding officer; it shows a bad animus, and I am
sorry our boy should behave so."

Lady Winifred was silent, for she felt the truth of what her husband
said; and Flora, full of her own joyous thoughts, was silent too.

"Read over the paragraph again, Flora, darling; egad, I must cut it
out, and send it over to Earl Hugh, at Eglinton;" and while Flora
read, Rohallion walked to and fro, rubbing his hands with intense
satisfaction and delight.

"But, good heavens, my lord," she suddenly exclaimed, while the
colour left her face, "what is this that follows? there is here
another paragraph, about--about----"

"About what?"

"Poor Quentin," she added, faintly.

"Read it!" said Rohallion, impetuously.

"'We regret to have to add, it is feared that after accomplishing
this valuable public service with the guerilla, our enterprising
young soldier has fallen a sacrifice to his zeal, or the lawless
state of the country, as--as he has not been heard of since.'" .....

Flora's sweet voice died away almost in a tremulous whisper as she
read this blighting paragraph, which Lord Rohallion, after hastily
snatching the paper from her, read again and again, with his brows
deeply knit.

It did not fall upon him with the crushing effect it had upon the two
ladies, who sat silently weeping, for the words of the paragraph
were, to them, terribly suggestive and vague; and now the old
quartermaster, who had been noisily summoned by his veteran comrade
the valet, arrived to join the conclave; and truly, had a
thirteen-inch bombshell, shot from a mortar of similar diameter,
exploded among the breakfast equipage, worthy John Girvan could not
have seemed more astonished and bewildered than he did by the whole
affair.

Lord Rohallion and he, as old soldiers, endeavoured to explain the
matter away, and to speak from past experience of many instances of
men reported as "missing" who always turned up again; newspaper
paragraphs in general they treated with great contempt, and expressed
their certain conviction that "by this time," no doubt, he had
rejoined the corps.

Indeed, so certain were they of this that Lord Rohallion desired the
quartermaster to write at once; Flora, with charming frankness,
offered to enclose a tiny note, and the old general wrote at once by
the next mail to the Horse Guards, urging "the immediate promotion of
his young friend to the first ensigncy at the disposal of His Royal
Highness the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief--in the 25th Foot, if
practicable."

This done, the male part of the household, though full of the affair,
and their innumerable yarns of the corps, which it had called to
memory, felt more composed on the subject.  The quartermaster
furbished up his old red coat, and remained to dinner: Flora's
engagement to ride with young Fernwoodlee and the meet at Kilhenzie,
were committed to oblivion, and were utterly forgotten, as she sat
alone, full of thought, on the old mossgrown garden-seat, with the
autumn leaves whirling round her.

Through the branches of the stripped trees on which the rooks were
cawing, the sunlight fell aslant upon the copper gnomon of the
ancient sun and moon dial, which occupied the centre of the quaint
Scoto-French garden, and round the pedestal of which Quentin, to
please her, during the last spring, had trained a creeping plant.

The plant was still there, but its tendrils and trailers were dead,
withered, and yellow, and sadly Flora felt in her heart that she was
lonely, and that Rohallion was now a _broken home_--broken, indeed,
as if Death himself had been there!

Lady Winifred was also alone.

The noonday sun was streaming as of old into the yellow damask
drawing-room, and the sea-coal fire crackled on the hearth between
the delft-lined jambs cheerily and brightly.  Before it, on the thick
cosy rug, a sleek tom-cat sat winking and purring, and the favourite
terrier of Quentin, coiled up round as a ball, was there too, but
fast asleep beside the many-spotted Dalmatian dog, which always
followed the old-fashioned family carriage.

The antique ormolu clock, that ticked so loudly on the mantelpiece on
the night when Quentin was rescued from the wreck, and his father's
corpse was cast on the surf-beaten sand, and when he, a wailing
child, was brought by Elsie Irvine to Rohallion, was ticking there
still, quietly, regularly, and monotonously, and Lady Winifred looked
at its quaint dial wistfully, as she might have done in the face of
an old and familiar friend.

Now Quentin and her beloved and only son were both far, far away;
both were to encounter the perils of war, and she might never see
them more!  How much and how many things had happened, she thought,
and still the old clock ticked there monotonously, even as it had
done when, on an evening now many, many years ago, she came a
blooming bride to the old castle by the sea; and so it might continue
to tick, long after she, and her comely and affectionate old Lord,
lay side by side among the Crawfords of past centuries in the
Rohallion aisle of the venerable kirk whose tower she could see
terminating the woody vista of yonder lonely glen.

The paragraph of the morning had called up a multitude of sad
thoughts that had long been buried, and she felt melancholy, almost
miserable, and opening her escritoire, she looked long and earnestly
on the relics of Quentin's father--his commission in the French
service, the letter in the poor man's pocket-book, and the ring that
was taken from his finger, bearing the name of Josephine--the boy's
mother, doubtless.

The dominie, to whom the quartermaster lost no time in hastening with
the intelligence, like the old Lord, was stout in his belief that
Quentin would, as he phrased it, "cast up again."

"Disappeared," he repeated two or three times; "the bairn no since
heard o'; the thing's no possible!  He will, he shall return again,
be assured, to receive his reward, for he is worthy of a crown of
gold--worthy of it, yea, as ever were Manlius Torquatus or Valerius
Corvus, ilk ane o' wham, as we are told in Livy, slew a Gaul in
single combat."

This classic reward did not seem very probable, when a few weeks
after, a long official letter was brought to Rohallion, and added
greatly to the anxiety and perplexity of the inmates thereof.

In this missive the military secretary, by direction of H.R.H. the
Duke of York, "presented his compliments to Major-General Lord
Rohallion, K.C.B., and regretted to acquaint him that it was
impossible to entertain his request with regard to Mr. Quentin
Kennedy, a volunteer with the 25th Foot, as matters had transpired
which might render his clearance before a general court-martial
necessary."




CHAPTER XIV.

THE WAYSIDE CROSS AND WELL.

  "If in this exile dark and drear,
    To which my fate has doomed me now,
  I should unnoticed die--what tear,
    What tear of sympathy will flow?
    For I have sought an exile's woe,
  And fashioned my own misery;
  Who then will pity me?"
                  _Cancionero de Amberes_, 1557.


As Quentin walked on in solitude after Rowland Askerne left him, he
could not help musing, as he frequently did, on the changes a short
time had wrought in him and in his ideas.  It would seem that from a
mere day-dreaming schoolboy, whose most onerous purposes were to fill
his basket with trout from the Girvan, the Doon, or the Lollards'
Linn; to supply the cook with an occasional brace of ptarmigan from
the oakwood shaw, or of blackcock from the Mains of Kilhenzie; from
trying a pad for Flora, or culling the flowers which he knew she
loved most, he had risen to be a man and a soldier, valued by his
comrades, all officers of bravery and position, trusted by his
superiors, and charged with a great and confidential duty--a portion
of the vast game of war and politics now played by Britain for the
deliverance of Spain; and yet, withal, he longed for a companion, and
to hear the voice of a friend, for a sense of intense loneliness
gradually stole over him as the twilight deepened, and the purple
shadows grew more sombre on the hills of Portuguese Estremadura.

To Quentin it seemed that his bodily strength and bulk had increased,
for drill and marching had developed every muscle to the fullest
extent; thus he was stronger, more active and hardy than before.

He felt too, that the time had come when youth was no longer a libel
against him; the time for doing something worthy of being mentioned
in a despatch of the commander-in-chief, in the government gazette,
in general orders--something gallant, manly, and dashing; and that he
would turn the occasion to its best account, and achieve something
glorious, "or," as romances and melo-dramas have it, "perish in the
attempt."

"If I acquit myself well in this, my first duty, it shall in itself
prove a revenge upon Cosmo!" thought he.

And so he trod manfully and hopefully on, dreaming of the future,
knowing but little of the path he was at present to pursue, and less
of the perils and pit-falls that were around it.

As the evening deepened into night with great rapidity, for there is
very little twilight in those regions--the mighty shadows of the
sierra fell eastward in a sombre mass across the valley through which
lay the road--a mere bridle path--towards the Spanish frontier, while
the ranges of peaks that faced the west were still glowing in ruddy
saffron or pale purple against the blue dome of the star-studded sky.

About twelve miles from Portalegre, the road pursued by Quentin
enters a narrow gorge or immense chasm or cleft which rends the
mountains from their summit to their base.  Down the steep wall of
rock on one side, a spring trickles for some hundred feet, and at the
foot, near the road-way, it is received into the quaintly carved
basin of an ancient stone fountain, behind which stands a memorial
cross.

A niche in the shaft of the latter contains a little wayside altar.
An image of the Madonna was rudely and gaudily painted in the recess,
and before it a copper lamp was always kept burning.  This shrine,
once reputed to be of great sanctity, had been mutilated and its lamp
destroyed by the French; but it had been replaced by another, which
was always supplied with wick and oil by the passing muleteers,
contrabandists, guerillas, and others.

The rays of this lamp were burning feebly in the vast rocky solitude,
forming a strange and picturesque feature in the deep dark dell, the
silence of which was broken only by the plash of the slender thread
of liquid that filtered or trickled down the granite face of the
dissevered mountain.

This cross and well had been built by Alphonso I., in the year that
he achieved his greatest victory over the united arms of five Moorish
sovereigns.  It had been deemed holy even in those days, for there he
had halted and prayed when on the march with his mail-clad knights to
the capture of Santarem; and an inscription, frequently renewed,
invited the passer to say a prayer for the repose of his soul, and
the souls of all the good and true Portuguese who drew their swords
against the Moslem.

A long ray of light shed by the rising moon, shone down the cleft at
the bottom of which the road lay, casting the shadows of the well and
votive cross far along the narrow gorge.  The thick foliage of some
gigantic Portuguese laurels, which grew in the interstices of the
rocks, glittered like bronze gemmed with silver sheen, and offered a
resting place for the night; so Quentin, as he felt weary, crept
under the branches, which formed a pleasant shelter.

The turf below was soft and dry, and to him, who had slept so often
on the bare earth during his march to the frontier, it seemed a
comfortable couch enough.  The shaft of King Alphonso's cross on one
side and the wall of rock on the other protected him from prowling
wolves in the front and rear; the stems of the giant laurels formed
barrier on a third side, and the fourth, which was open, he might
defend with his weapons if attacked.

He took a draught from his canteen, which was filled with rum and
water, and placing it under his head for a pillow, with his sword and
loaded pistols ready by his side, he addressed himself to sleep.

The air was filled with a strange but delicious perfume, which came
from those little aromatic shrubs that grow wild everywhere
throughout Spain and Portugal.  The intense stillness of the place,
the only sounds there being the trickle of the far-falling water and
the croakings of some bull-frogs among the long grass, made him
wakeful for a time.

He felt neither alarm nor anxiety, but utterly lonely, and he said
over a prayer that in infancy he had often repeated at Lady
Rohallion's knee; then something holy and placid stole over his
heart; sleep at last closed his eyes and he slumbered peacefully
besides the old stone cross of our Lady of Battles.

So passed the first night of his absence from head-quarters.

When Quentin awoke next morning after a long and sound slumber, the
result of youth, high health, and the toil of the past day, though he
had acquired all a soldier's facility for sleeping in strange places
and strange beds, or without other couch than the bare sod, he was at
first somewhat confused and puzzled on perceiving the bower of leaves
above him, and a minute elapsed before he could remember where he
was, and how he came to be roosting under those huge Portuguese
laurels.

Then the despatch rushed upon his memory; he searched his breast
pocket, and found the important document was safe; his weapons were
all right, and he was about to creep forth, when he suddenly
perceived the figure of a man near the well, and, remembering the
reiterated advices of Askerne and others, he paused to observe him.

His first idea was that the stranger must be a robber, for, to a
Briton, Portuguese and Spaniards too have usually that unpleasant
character in their aspect.  Their sallow visages, deep dark eyes,
densely black beards and moustaches, with their slouching sombrero,
and large, many-folded cloak of dark brown stuff, together with a
certain fixed scrutiny of expression when observing strangers, give
them all the bravo look and bearing of the "sensation" ruffian or
mysterious bandit of a minor melo-drama; thus, says a recent writer,
"in consequence of the difficulty of outliving what has been learnt
in the nursery, many of our countrymen have, with the best
intentions, set down the bulk of the population of the Peninsula as
one gang of robbers."

The Spaniard in question, for such he seemed to be, was a young man
of powerful and athletic form; his face was sallow and colourless,
and his hair and eyes were black.  He was closely shaven, save a
heavy moustache, which had a very ferocious twist across each cheek
towards the tip of the ear.  His features were very handsome, and his
whole appearance was eminently striking.

He had a huge cloak--what Spaniard has not, generally to cover his
rags rather than his finery--but this he had flung aside, and Quentin
could perceive that he had a well-worn zamarra of sheepskin over a
gaily embroidered shirt, a pair of crimson pantaloons, which seemed
to have belonged to a hussar, and they ended in strong leather
_abarcas_, which were laced with thongs from the ankle to the knee.
He had a dagger and pair of pistols in his flowing yellow sash, and
close by him lay one of those long, old-fashioned travelling staffs,
shod with iron and loaded with lead, called by the Portuguese a
_cajado_.

Thus, upon the whole, considering the difference of their stature and
bodily strength, Quentin prudently thought that the stranger was not
a personage to be intruded upon without due consideration.

Reverently removing his black sombrero, which was rather battered and
rusty, and had a gilt image of our Lady del Pilar on the gay broad
scarlet band thereof, the Spaniard approached the wayside shrine, and
kneeling before it, crossed himself three times with great devotion,
while muttering a short prayer.  Then seating himself on the grassy
sward behind the well, he pulled a little book from the pocket of his
zamarra, and began to peruse it very leisurely while smoking a
cigarito and making his frugal breakfast on a few dry raisins and a
crust of hard bread, which he dipped from time to time in the cool
water of the gurgling fountain.

"This cannot be a bad kind of fellow," thought Quentin, who felt
somewhat ashamed of lurking from one man; so he half-cocked his
pistols, placed them in his girdle, and crept forth from behind the
stone cross, saying:

"_Buenos dias_, senor."

"Senor, good morrow," replied the Spaniard, with a hand on his
dagger, while he surveyed Quentin with a quietly grim, but unmoved
countenance, without rising from his recumbent posture; "are there
any more of you under these bushes?"

"No--I am alone."

"_Por mi vida_, but you chose a strange hiding-place!" said the
other, with a glance of distrust.

"A strange sleeping-place, you should say rather, senor--yet not a
bad one," said Quentin, laughing, and willing to conciliate the
stranger, who closed his book after quietly turning down a leaf to
mark his place; "I crept in over night, and have slept there until
now."

"Signs of a good digestion or a clear conscience."

"Of both, I hope, thank Heaven."

"I am indifferently provided with either; yet I can breakfast on this
poor crust, and be thankful to God and our Blessed Lady for it."

"I can give you something better, Senor Portuguese," said Quentin,
unbuttoning his havresack.

"_Muchos gracias_," replied the other; "but remember, senor, that I
am a Castilian, and in Spain we have a belief that a bad Spaniard
makes a tolerably good Portuguese."

"I beg pardon, senor, but your dress----"

"My dress!" interrupted the other, with a sardonic grin; "_oh, por el
vida del Satanos_, the less you say about that the better.  I was not
wont to sport such a costume when rendering Virgil into Castilian,
and Las Comedias de Calderon into Latin, in the Arzobispo College at
old Salamanca."

"A student?"

"Perhaps--it was as might be," replied the other, with sudden
reserve; "and you are----"

"What you see me."

Quentin gave a portion of his ration-beef and biscuit to the
Spaniard, who took them with many thanks, and with an air that showed
he was a man of breeding far above what his present paisano costume
seemed to indicate.  His hands were strong, white, and muscular, yet
seemed never to have been used to work, and a valuable diamond
sparkled in a ring on one of his fingers.  In the course of
conversation, Quentin could gather that he was remarkably well
informed of the strength, number, position, and divisions of the
British Army, together with the probable movements towards Castile,
thus he felt the necessity of acting with the greatest reserve, and
getting rid of him as soon as possible; for the most subtle, wily,
and dangerous Spaniards were those in the French interest, which, at
first, he feared his new friend to be.

"By my life, Senor Inglese," said the Spaniard, laughing, "with all
this victual in your wallet, 'tis a miracle of our Lady's Cross that
the wolves did not come snuffing about you in the night."

"You are a traveller?" observed Quentin, after a pause, during which
they had been observing each other furtively.

"I hinted that I had been a student among Salamanquinos," replied the
Spaniard, coldly.

"And you are now----"

"What the Fiend and the French have made me!" said he, with a lurid
gleam in his fine dark eyes.

"And that is----"

"My secret, senor," said the other, bluntly, adding "_muchos
gracias_," as Quentin smilingly proffered his canteen, the contents
of which he declined to taste.  "The well of our Blessed Lady will
suffice for me," he said, and proceeded to twist up another cigarito.
"You are very curious about me, senor; but pray what are you?"

"What my uniform declares me," said Quentin, showing the scarlet
uniform, which his grey coat had concealed; "a British soldier."

"Bueno!  Your hand.  And whither go you?"

"On duty."

"Where--to whom?"

"That is _my secret_," retorted Quentin, laughing.  But a dark
expression began to gather in the Spaniard's face, and he looked
searchingly at the young volunteer.

"Are you going to the front?" he asked.

"Yes, senor."

"Strange!"

"How so?"

"The British troops have not yet begun to cross the frontier into
Spain.  They are still in quarters."

"Yes."

"You are not going to the French head-quarters?"

"No."

"Still monosyllables!" said the Spaniard, impetuously.  "I must be
plain, I find.  You are a deserter!"

"I have said that I am going on duty," replied Quentin, haughtily.
"You need question me no further.  I am not bound to satisfy the
curiosity of every wayfarer I may meet."

"_Morte de Dios!_" swore the Spaniard, with a scowl in his deep eye,
and a hand on his stiletto.

"I, too, have arms to repress insolence," said Quentin, grasping his
sword.

On this the Spaniard laughed, and said--

"Come--don't let us quarrel.  You are a brave boy, and your little
breakfast came to me most opportunely.  Let us enjoy the present
without thinking of the future.  _Demonio!_  Neither of us may be
what we seem.  We more often look like spits than swords in this
world!"

"Senor, excuse me; but I don't understand your proverb."

"It means simply, that all men are not what they seem.  To you I
appear a _gitano_, a _mendigo_--it may be, a _ladrone_; you appear to
me a deserter; so our circumstances may change--you prove the spit,
and I the sword."

"Spit again!" said Quentin, angrily, as he conceived there was some
sarcasm concealed in the word.

"It is a fable.  Listen while I read to you what, I suppose, you
never heard before."

And, opening his book, which proved to be the little pocket edition
of the quaint old literary fables of Don Tomaso de Yriarte, he
rapidly read over the story of the "Spit and Espada."

"Once upon a time there was a rapier of Toledo; a better was never
seen in the Alcazar, or tempered in the waters of the Tagus.  After
having been in many battles, and belonging to many brave cavaliers,
by one of the vicissitudes of fortune which lay the greatest low, it
came at length to lie forgotten in the corner of a scurvy posada.

"There, desirous in vain to breathe a vein and flash once more in
battle, it lay long unnoticed and covered with rust, till, by command
of her master, a greasy kitchen-wench stuck it through a large capon,
and thus forced that which had been a rapier of high renown, arming
the hands of the noble and valiant, to degenerate into a mere spit!

"About this time, it likewise chanced that a clownish paisano, by the
sport of fortune became a hidalgo at court, and as he must needs have
a sword, he repaired to the booth of an espadero, who no sooner saw
the kind of customer he had to deal with, than he knew that anything
having a hilt and scabbard would do, and so desired him to call next
day.

"Against the time of his coming he furbished up an old spit that lay
in his kitchen, and sold it to our courtier as Tisona, the very same
blade with which the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar made the Arabian Khalifs
skip at Cordova, and the Moorish dogs at Jaen.  Hence we see that the
innkeeper was a very great fool, and the espadero a very great rogue."

"And what am I to understand by all this?" asked Quentin, who with
some impatience had permitted the Spaniard to read thus far.

"Simply, senor, that though by the vicissitudes of fortune, I seem a
spit at present, I may prove in the end to be a good Toledo blade;
for we should never judge solely by appearances;" and pointing to a
hole in his sheepskin zamarra, he laughed and added, "Farewell--I go
towards the mountains."

"And I towards Spain: I have but two wishes--to reach Herreruela, and
to avoid the French in Valencia."

"Truly, they are well and wisely avoided," said the Spaniard through
his clenched teeth, while his face became distorted and convulsed by
concentrated hate and passion.  "Save myself and another, my whole
family have perished under their hands.  Not even our aged mother was
spared, for she died like my helpless old father by their bayonets,
on the night that Junot entered Salamanca; and well would it have
been if some of the young had suffered the same fate _first_.  I had
three sisters, senor--three lovelier girls, or three more loving,
good, and gentle, God's blessed sun never shone on.  Two suffered
such wrongs on that night of horrors at Salamanca, that they could
not or would not survive them; the youngest, Isidora, happily escaped
by being in the convent of Santa Engracia, at Portalegre."

Impressed by the undoubted earnestness of the Spaniard, Quentin said--

"I am bound to the frontier, bearer of a secret despatch."

"To whom?"

"Honour ties my tongue for the present, senor."

"Enough, then; continue to pursue this road for some miles, you will
find a branch to the left where it runs parallel with the river
Figuero, and leads to Castello de Vide.  Proceed straight on and you
will come to Marvao; six miles further on is Valencia de Alcantara,
garrisoned by the French; cross the river Sever, and a league or so
further brings you to Herreruela.  Ere long I, too, shall be there,
so we may meet again; but remember that the whole country swarms with
the accursed French, and that your red coat will ensure your
captivity or death."

"I shall be wary."

"Be so, or, Santos!  I would not give a _claco_ for your life!  Do
you see yonder hill?" asked the Spaniard, pointing to a lofty
peak--the highest of the mountain range.

"Yes--a vapour hovers near it."

"I am going there to see what news the eagles have for the loyal
Portuguese."

"The eagles!"

"Exactly--but I forget that you are a stranger and don't understand
me," replied the other, laughing.

"Adios, senor," said Quentin, preparing to start.

"Adios, senor soldado--adios, vaya!"

The Spaniard pocketed his book of fables, threw his mantle over his
left shoulder, grasped his cajado, and waving his hat, proceeded to
ascend with great activity a steep zigzag path up the mountain side,
while Quentin Kennedy pursued his solitary way, which opened into a
level district covered with green orange, lemon, and olive groves;
and though the warnings of his late acquaintance did not fail to
impress him with anxiety, he felt hopeful that he would achieve in
safety and with honour the duty assigned him--escaping the perils
that might be set him, and the deadly snare into which Cosmo hoped he
might fall.




CHAPTER XV.

THE MULETEERS.

  "Riper occasions will thy valour claim,
  Danger comes on; Typhœus-like it comes,
  Whose fabled stature every hour increased."
                          AQUILEIA--_Old Tragedy._


While Quentin travelled onward, thinking over his recent meeting at
the well, and puzzling himself about the enigma that was probably
concealed by the words of the stranger concerning the eagles having
news for Portugal, he was roused from his reverie by the jangling of
bells, and ere long a string of mules, all sleek, well-fed, of
dapple-colour, and in size larger than any he had ever seen, appeared
in view, descending with sure and steady steps a narrow rocky path
between the olive and orange groves that covered the steep mountain
side.

He paused for a moment to permit the string or line, which consisted
of twelve mules, to pass along the road in front; but the three
muleteers in charge, all hardy and sturdy fellows in gaudily braided
and embroidered jackets of purple or olive green cloth, smart
sombreros, and gay scarfs, accoutred with ivory-hafted knives and
brass-butted pistols, hailed him immediately, asked whither he was
going, and courteously, with cries of "Viva los Inglesos! viva el
Rey!" offered him a draught of wine from the leathern bota that hung
at the neck of Madrina, and in a trice he found himself accompanying
them on their way.

Perceiving that he belonged to the British army, they were very
inquisitive to know what he was doing there alone; but Quentin had
heard that some of those muleteers could make their way from the
heart of Castile (then swarming with French troops) to the
cantonments of the British army, along the Portuguese frontier,
evading all infantry outposts and cavalry patrols by their superior
knowledge of the country and its secret paths.  He had heard also
that they frequently acted as spies and traitors on both sides: thus
he deemed extreme reserve necessary, and, with a prudence beyond his
years and experience, parried their inquiries, and turned the
conversation to general subjects, chiefly the various merits of their
mules, which were laden with Indian corn, Oporto wine, pulse, flour,
and tobacco; and he failed not, in particular, to extol the beauty of
Madrina, a stately old mare, nearly sixteen hands in height, which
had round her neck and on her gaudy red and yellow worsted head-gear
a row of larger bells than the rest of the train.

The clear sound of those bells being known to them all, they followed
her with wonderful instinct, docility, and affection.

So far as he could gather from the conversation, these muleteers were
of Old Castile, the principal arriero being Ramon Campillo from
Miranda del Ebro; he was a short, thick-set fellow, with a pleasant
and sun-burned face, and a beard and head of hair so black and dense
that made Quentin think the process of sheep-shearing might, in his
instance, have been resorted to with ease and comfort.  This shaggy
mop he had gathered into a red silk hair-net, over which he wore his
hat of coarse brown velvet, adorned by a band and bob of scarlet
plush.

These three men carolled and sung as they proceeded along, cracking
their whips, indulging in scraps of old warlike ballads, of
love-songs and seguidillas, pausing now and then to mutter an Ave on
passing a cross or a cairn that had some dark story of bloodshed and
crime.  And many a boast they made of their sunny Castile which
France should never, NEVER conquer! and many a story they told of the
Cid Rodrigo, of our Lady of Zaragosa, the Holy Virgin del Pilar, of
miracles and robbers, all pell-mell; but their chief themes were the
recent exploits of their guerilla chiefs, then rising into power; of
Don Julian Sanchez with the hare lip, and his glorious Castilian
lancers; of El Pastor, the shepherd; El Medico, the doctor; El Manco,
the cripple; of Don Juan Martin, the Empecinado, who, when his whole
family had been murdered by the French, after the ladies of his house
had endured horrors worse than death, in the first outburst of his
grief, smeared himself with pitch, and vowed never to sheath his
sword while a Frenchman remained alive in Spain; and who, when the
French nailed a number of patriots to the oaks of the Guadarama,
nailed up thrice that number of French soldiers in their place, to
fill the forest with their dying groans.  With enthusiasm they
extolled all those wild spirits whom the war of invasion and
independence had brought forth, calling it a _Guerra de moros contra
estos infideles!_

But their local hero of heroes seemed to be Don Baltasar de Saldos,
whom they described as partly a Cid and partly a devil in his hatred
of France and Frenchmen.  The mention of his name proved of deep
interest to Quentin, and finding him a ready and wondering listener,
many were the stories they told of him and of his band, which was
composed of Spanish deserters, run-away students, ruined nobles,
unfrocked friars, and all manner of wild fellows who loved him with
ardour and obeyed him with devotion.

He was the flower of Castilian guerilla chiefs!

"I have seen and heard enough of French atrocity in our
peregrinations throughout the kingdoms of Andalusia, Castile, Leon,
and Arragon, to make me imbibe somewhat of the same spirit of
vengeance that inspires Baltasar de Saldos--aye, senor, to the full!"
said Ramon, in his energy, spitting away the end of his cigarito, and
crushing it under his heel.

"In your line one must see much of life," said Quentin.

"Much--maladita!  I should think so.  I was present in Madrid on the
23rd of last April, when one hundred and twenty defenceless citizens
were slaughtered in cold blood by the troops of Murat--shot down by
platoons, and for what?  For el Santos de los Santos! only because
the epaulettes of his aide-de-camp, the gay Colonel de la Grange,
were splashed with mud by some rash students at the gate of Alcala."

"A slight cause, surely."

"But that night, hombre, we had a terrible retribution," said the
second muleteer, through his clenched teeth, as he gave a fierce
twist to the scarlet silk handkerchief which encircled his head, and
the fringed ends of which came from under his sombrero and floated
over his shoulders.

"Retribution, Ignacio Noain, I think we had, amigo mio!" replied
Ramon, with a bitter laugh; "for it was on that night Baltasar threw
off his student's gown and betook him to knife and musket, and rushed
through the streets, shouting 'Guerra al cuchillo, Salamanquinos!'
and 'Viva el Rey de Espana!' before the head-quarters of Marshal
Murat; and sure vengeance he took, for ere morning the gutters of the
Prado were gorged with the blood of more than seven hundred
Frenchmen, who fell by the muskets and daggers of the loyal
Castilians."

"Then," said the third muleteer, with a smiling face and in an
encomiastic tone, "it was Baltasar who slew Don Miguel de Saavedra."

"To the devil with him!"

"The traitorous governor of Valencia," added the other two.

"And it was he," said Ramon, "who with his namesake, the Padre
Baltasar Calvo, for twelve days and nights followed the fugitive
French and Valencian traitors, the tools and followers of Godoy,
through the streets, knife in hand, slaying them in cellars, vaults,
and bodegas, till the last who was false to Spain had breathed out
his dog's life, and his heart, reeking on a bayonet, was thrown on
the altar of St. Isidor."

The fiery energy of the speakers, the expression of their dark
flashing eyes, their picturesque costumes, and the modulation of the
grand old language in which they spoke, made those fierce and
barbarous recitals doubly striking to Quentin Kennedy, who heard them
with something bordering on astonishment, for the English press had
no "own correspondents" then, to let the people at home know what was
enacted abroad.

"Then, senor," said Ignacio Noam, "it was Baltasar de Saldos who
suggested the singular death to which the Spanish regiment of Navarre
put the timid Italian, Filangheri."

"And this mode of death?" asked Quentin, whom, sooth to say, the grim
energy and suddenly developed ferocity of the hitherto jolly
muleteers somewhat scared.

"I shall tell you," said Ramon, "for I saw it.  You must know, senor
soldado, that this Italian was Governor of Corunna and a loyal
cavalier to the King; but, terrified or hopeless by the overwhelming
power of Bonaparte, he showed some signs of wavering, and refused to
issue a proclamation of war against the French."

"Might it not have been wisdom to temporize for a time?"

"Santos! this is no time for trifling; so Baltasar rushed among the
soldiers of our regiment of Navarre, and incited them to seize the
governor at Villa Franca-del-Vierzo, a town on the road which leads
from Corunna to Madrid, where they dragged him, almost naked, from
the Marquis's palace.

"'Muera al Filangheri!" shouted Baltasar to the soldiers; 'unfix your
bayonets, plant the ground with them, and toss the traitor in a
blanket!'

"With shouts of acclamation at a suggestion so novel, they hastened
to do as he suggested.  The ground was soon planted thickly with
three hundred bayonets, their sockets fixed in the earth, their sharp
points upward.  The breathless governor, pale and imploring mercy,
was tossed thrice into the air from a blanket, as dogs are tossed on
Shrove Tuesday.  After the third toss, the blanket was withdrawn, and
the hapless Filangheri fell crash on the bayonets.  He was impaled in
every part of his body at once; after this, leaving him miserably to
die, the soldiers dispersed to join Baltasar's band of guerillas in
the mountains of Herreruela; but this destruction of a king's officer
caused Sir John Moore to deem him false to Ferdinand VII."

"How horrible is all this!" exclaimed Quentin.

"Desperate times and men, require desperate hearts and stern
measures," said the muleteer Ramon, as he slung his long
musket--which no doubt had a goodly charge of slugs in its
barrel--and took a guitar which hung at the collar of one of his
mules.  "But we must not scare you, senor Inglese, as we shall surely
do, if we talk longer thus; so now for something more cheerful:" and
he began at once to sing, with a very mellow voice, a little romance,
in which his companions joined with much laughter, and which began
thus,--

  "Tiempo es el Caballero,
    The world will all divine;
  Now my girdle is too narrow,
    They'll see my shame--and thine!

  "Tiempo es el Caballero--
    When the maids my garments bring,
  I see them wink and nod their heads,
    I hear them tittering."*

* Poetry of Spain.


"We have come from Arronches and are going to Castello Branco, in
Lower Beira, along the Portuguese frontier," said Ramon, "and yonder
is the puebla at which we are to halt," he added, pointing to a few
ruined walls that bordered the highway.

"What walled town is that on the hill, with an old castle?" asked
Quentin.

"About two leagues beyond?"

"Yes."

"That is Castello de Vide, famous for its cloth factory."

"Castello de Vide--good Heavens, senores arrieros, your pleasant
society has lured me out of my proper way."

"I am sorry to hear it," said Ramon, drily.

"I should have gone to the right."

"Madre de Dios!"

"To the right?"

"Towards the French lines?"

Such were the exclamations of the muleteers as their frowns deepened.

"I should have gone somewhat in that direction, at all events," said
Quentin, reddening with the annoyance and confusion natural to an
honourable person when viewed with mistrust.

"Senor Inglese, in what capacity, or for what purpose are you
travelling on foot alone, and in this suspicious fashion, towards the
outposts of General de Ribeaupierre, the commander in Valencia?"
asked the muleteer Ramon, sternly, as he drew himself up, and
proceeded very deliberately to examine the flint and priming of his
long musket.

"By what right do you ask?" demanded Quentin, whose heart beat
tumultuously at the prospect of being butchered far from help or
justice.

"Take your hand from your pistol--dare you question us, senor--one to
three?"

"Yes, I do--by what right do you molest me?"

"The right of loyal and true Castilians," replied the three
muleteers, with one voice, as the other two, who had not yet spoken,
unslung their bell-mouthed trabucos or blunderbusses, and all their
faces assumed that very formidable scowl, which appears nowhere so
grimly as in the dark and sallow visages of those sons of old Iberia.

Now ensued a brief, but somewhat unpleasant and exciting pause; and
finding that matters had come to this dangerous pass with him,
Quentin, on reflection, drew forth his sealed missive, and showing
the address to Ramon, said:

"I am the bearer of this despatch from Lieutenant-General Sir John
Hope, to Don Baltasar de Saldos, the guerilla chief, and if you are
loyal Spaniards, as you say, you will put up those weapons, and
direct me by the nearest and safest route to the hills near
Herreruela."

"Oh, par todos Santos, but this alters the case entirely!" said
Ramon, as they relinquished their weapons, wreathed their grim fronts
with sudden smiles, and cordially shook hands with him.

"Why did you not tell us all this at first?" asked the muleteer
Ignacio Noain.

"Well, even Madrina, I suppose, does not like to be sharply taken by
the bridle," said Quentin, smiling, and feeling considerably relieved
in his mind.

"No more does she, the old beauty, she would lash out at her own
madre.  You have somewhat overshot the way, senor, for a mile or two
along the Figuero; however, you shall not leave us yet awhile.  Dine
with us at the old puebla--the French have not left many stones of it
together.  Ay de mi! it was a jovial place once; many a bolero and
fandango I have danced with the girls here, and where are they all
now?  We have only bacallao (dried ling) and biscuits, with a
mouthful of good wine--real vino de Alicant--to offer you."

"Thanks, senores, but evening is almost at hand."

"It will be nightfall when you reach the base of yonder mountain,"
said Ramon, pointing to a lofty hill, whose granite brows were all
empurpled by the sunshine; "there Gil Llano, a poor vinedresser,
lives--a Portuguese, who for my sake, if not for your own, will
gladly give you shelter; be sure, however, to show him this."

With these words, Ramon disengaged from one of the four dozen of
brass bell buttons, with which his jacket was adorned, one of the
many consecrated copper medals that hung thereat, and placed it in
Quentin's hand, just as they entered the ill-fated puebla (village),
which was totally roofless and ruined.  Fragments of charred
furniture, broken crocks, cans, and plates strewed the now untrodden
street, where the grass was springing.  The broad-leaved vines grew
wild about the crumbling walls and open windows; and a rude cross
here and there marked the hastily made graves of the slaughtered
villagers.

There, as elsewhere, the wings of the Imperial Eagle, like those of a
destroying angel, had spread desolation and death!

"When," asked the poor Portuguese, in one of their manifestoes after
the horrors of Coimbra, "did the laws of man authorize the outrage of
women, the slaughter of aged and other defenceless inhabitants of
places which made no resistance; the assassination of men who were
accounted rich, only because they could not furnish that quantity of
treasure of which it was said they were possessed!"

Halting by the old village well, the muleteers attended first to the
wants of Madrina and her sleek companions.

"_Arre, arre_, old woman," said Ramon, "thou shalt have a deep cool
draught at last; _arre, arre_!"

This is an old Moorish term (literally gee-up), whence the muleteers
are familiarly termed arrieros.  They then shared with Quentin their
dried fish and hard biscuits, with a few olives and luscious oranges,
that had become golden among the groves that cast their shadows on
the Ebro; and they frequently patted him on the shoulder, and
expressed regret for their suspicions, and the mischief these might
have led to.

The group around this lonely well, which bubbled through a grotesque
stone face, under an old Roman arch, and the scene around, were
wonderfully striking and picturesque.

In the immediate foreground were the swarthy Castilian muleteers in
their gaudy dress, and their gaily trapped mules, all resting on the
bright green sward; close by was the ruined puebla; northward rose
Castello de Vide in the distance on its verdant hill, the round
towers of its ancient fortress and ruined walls, that had more than
once withstood the tide of Moorish and Castilian chivalry; to the
east and south rose the great sierras that form the boundary between
Spain and Portugal, all crimsoned with the light of the gorgeous sun
that was setting in gold and saffron behind the cork tree groves that
clothe the hills of St. Mames.

The frugal repast was barely over when the tinkle of a clear and
silvery bell that rung in some solitary hermitage, concealed afar off
among the chestnut woods in some hollow of the mountains, came at
intervals on the evening wind.

"Vespers," said Ramon Campillo, taking off his sombrero; "amigos
mios, to prayers."

Then, with a simple devotion that impressed him deeply, Quentin
Kennedy saw those sturdy and jovial, but rather reckless fellows,
who, but a few minutes before, were (we are compelled to admit it)
quite disposed to knock him on the head, kneel down and pray very
earnestly for a minute or so.

A few minutes more saw them on their way to Castello de Vide, and him
progressing towards the mountains.  They waved their hats to him
repeatedly, and then as the twilight deepened, the breeze of the
valley as it swept over the odorous orange groves brought pleasantly
to his ear the jingle of the mule-bells, and the tinkle of Ramon's
guitar dying away in the distance, with a verse of the song the three
arrieros sung--an old Valencian evening hymn.

  "Thou who all our sins didst bear,
  All our sorrows suffering there,
      _O Agnus Dei!_
  Lead us where thy promise led
  That poor dying thief who said,
      _Memento mei!"_





CHAPTER XVI.

GIL LLANO.

  "Still, however fate may thwart me,
    Unconvinced, unchanged I live;
  From those dreams I cannot part me,
    That such dear delusions give;
  Hoping yet in countless years,
    One bright day unstained with tears."
                            RODRIGUEZ LOBO.


The outrages of the French invaders in Spain and Portugal were
doubtless of the worst description; but those reprisals which the
patriots were not slow in making were equal in atrocity.  The stories
he had heard of these shook Quentin's confidence in his own safety,
and in his powers mental and physical; they caused him to regard with
something of suspicion, repugnance, and mistrust the dwellers in the
land, and to wish himself well out of it, or at least safe once more
under the colours of the Old Borderers.

He remembered the intense bitterness, the momentary but clamorous
anxiety caused by his late episode, and how keenly the foretasted
agony of death entered his soul, when the three muleteers threatened
him with their weapons, and when there seemed every prospect of his
falling by their hand in that mountain solitude, and being left there
dead to the wolves; his fate and story alike unknown to all who might
feel the slightest interest therein.  He remembered all this, we say,
and he had no desire to endure such an agony again.

He felt his isolation, his helplessness in many respects, and longed
anxiously for the end of his task, and for the society of his
comrades and friends, of Askerne, Middleton, and others by whom he
was esteemed and trusted.

This very anxiety made him quicken his pace, and thus about an hour
after parting from the muleteers at the puebla, he saw a light
twinkling on the roadway at the base of the dark green mountain;
then, after passing under some half-ruined trellis where the vines
were carefully trained and made a leafy tunnel, he reached the
dwelling of Gil Llano (pronounced Yano) the vine-dresser, a wayside
cottage, with a few smaller adjuncts where the galinas roosted and
the porkers snorted.

He knocked at the door, which was slowly opened after some delay, and
after he had been reconnoitred by a pair of keen black eyes through
an eyelet hole; then the proprietor, a swarthy and stout little
Portuguese, black bearded and snub-nosed, appeared with a bare knife
clenched between his teeth and a cocked musket in his hands, to
demand who was there.

"_Quien es?_" he asked, angrily.

"_Gente de paez_," replied Quentin, in a conciliating tone.

"_Pho!_ indeed--your dress doesn't say you are a man of peace."

"I am a British soldier travelling on duty," said Quentin.

"How can I assist you, senor?"

"The muleteer, Ramon Campillo, of Miranda del Ebro, who is now on his
way to Castello Branco, informed me that you are a loyal
Portuguese----"

"None more loyal!" responded the other, slapping the butt of his
musket.

"I was to show you this medal, and, if not intruding, remain with you
for the night."

"Ramon is my good friend," said the Portuguese, carefully looking at
the brass medal, which bore the image of St. Elizabeth, "and this was
my gift to him.  You are welcome, senor, to such poor accommodation
as the French have left me to offer."

The Portuguese conducted Quentin into his cottage, the interior of
which, by its squalor and poverty, showed that poor Gil Llano's
circumstances had not been improved by the influences of the war.

A candle, in a clay-holder, flickered on the bare table, an iron
brasero, full of charcoal and dry leaves, smouldered on the hearth;
above the mantelpiece were a little stucco Madonna and some gaudy
little Lisbon prints of holy personages, such as St. Anthony of
Portugal, with his beloved pig; St. Elizabeth the queen, who died at
Estremoz in 1336; St. Ignatius Loyola, and others in scarlet and blue
drapery, with golden halos, all pasted on the whitewashed wall.

The cottage appeared to consist of three or four small apartments,
all roofed with large red tiles, through the holes in which Quentin
could see the stars shining, and suggesting an idea of umbrellas in
case of rain.  The rafters were thickly hung with bunches of dried
raisins, by the sale of which to the passing muleteers and
contrabandistas, Gil and his family subsisted.  But even this humble
place bore traces of the retreating French.  One of the little
windows had been dashed to pieces by a musket-butt, and most of the
woodwork had gone for fuel when Junot's voltigeurs bivouacked among
the vine trellis, half of which they tore down and destroyed.

Poor Gil Llano, whose whole attire consisted of a zamarra, a pair of
red cotton breeches, a yellow sash, and the net which confined his
hair, made Quentin Kennedy heartily welcome, and spoke with
enthusiasm and gratitude of the British, who had swept Portugal of
the French; and he exulted about the recent battle of Vimiera, which
he had witnessed from the Torres Vedras, where, he frankly admitted,
he had hovered among the cork-trees, and, with his musket, had
"potted" successfully some of Ribeaupierre's dragoons as they fell
back in disorder before the furious advance of General Anstruther's
column.

Quentin soon felt himself at home, and shared with Llano's family the
supper of ham and eggs, cooked in a crock between the brasero and one
of the stones of Antas, which are supposed, when once heated, to
continue so for two days.  He might have excused the flavour of
garlic, but found an Abrantes melon sliced with sugar, and a flask of
Oporto wine, very acceptable.

The half-clad mother and her meagre, dark-skinned brood, with their
large black eyes, he could perceive regarded him as a heretic and
soldier, doubtfully, even fearfully, and askance--an English heretic
being always associated, in the minds of Peninsula people, with
priestly denunciations and the _autos de fé_ of the Holy Office in
its palmy days.  However, after a time, as he manifested no desire to
eat any of the children, but bestowed upon them all he could
afford--a handful of half-vintins, part of the poor quartermaster's
parting gift--confidence became established, and little bare-legged
Pedrillo crept close to his knee; Babieta peeped slily at him from
behind her mother's skirts, and, when he hung Ramon's brass medal
round the tawny neck of Gil, the nursling, the goodwoman Llano's
heart opened to him at once.

Perceiving that Quentin was so young, she asked, while her dark eyes
filled with a tender expression, if his mother sorrowed for him, and
if she had many other sons, that she could spare him; adding that,
after all she had seen of war, she would rather die than permit
either of her boys to become soldiers, even to fight for Portugal.

"Ere long Portugal shall have stronger hands than we could furnish to
fight for her," said Gil, confidently.  "No miracle the blessed
saints of heaven have ever worked has been half so wonderful as these
marvellous and prophetic eggs that have been found by Don Julian
Sanchez, by El Pastor, the Alcalde of Portalegre and others, in the
nests among the mountains.  True it is, senor," he continued, on
perceiving Quentin's glance of inquiry and surprise, "that eggs have
been found laid in the mountains by the birds of the air--eggs
bearing inscriptions which foretell that as Portugal has been
deserted at her utmost need by the House of Braganza, our brave old
king, Don Sebastian, of pious and glorious memory, will come to
protect and rule over us again."

"Don Sebastian," said Quentin, who had heard this farrago of words
with some wonder; "how long is it ago since he was king?"

Gil reckoned on his brown fingers, and then said--

"About two hundred and thirty years."

"How--what?" exclaimed Quentin, thinking that he had not heard aright.

"Exactly, senor; he was taken--some say killed--in battle by the
Moorish dogs at the battle of Alcazal-quiver, on the coast of Fez, in
1578; but his restoration to us is certain now."

"And _eggs_, do you say, have prophesied this?"

"By the soul of St. Anthony of Lisbon, yes!  The miraculous legends
written on their shells told us so.  I saw one with my own eyes as it
lay on the altar of the Estrella convent, where it had been brought
by the Marquis d'Almeida, who found it on the mountain of Cintra."

"And you read the legend?"

"No, senor--I cannot read; moreover, it was written in old Latin."

"By whom, Senor Gil?"

"God and St. Anthony only know," replied Gil, crossing himself after
dipping his fingers in a little clay font of _agua-bendita_ that hung
beside the mantelpiece.

Now Quentin remembered the words of the stranger whom he had met by
the wayside cross, and whom he had last seen toiling up the mountain
with the aid of his staff, as he alleged, in search of eagles' nests.
He had some trouble to preserve his gravity, and probably nothing
enabled him to do so but his wonder at the perfect simplicity and the
good faith of this Portuguese peasant in the return of Lusitania's
long-lost hero.

On inquiring further, he learned, for the first time, that there
still existed in Portugal the sect called of old "Sebastianists,"
fondly cherishing a belief that their crusader king (who fell in
battle against Muley Moloc) was detained in an enchanted island,
where he was supernaturally preserved; and that they also cherished a
belief that he would reappear with all his paladins to deliver
Lusitania when at her utmost need!

Portugal's utmost need had come and gone; Roleia and Vimiera had been
fought and won by Sir Arthur Wellesley; but still the Sebastianists
believed in the ultimate return and intervention of their favourite
hero, and eggs marked by the more cunning with some chemical agency,
bearing legends foretelling the event, were opportunely found and
exhibited: a puerile trick, which Marshal Junot, General de
Ribeaupierre, and others soon contrived to turn against the
inventors; for _other_ eggs bearing mottoes of very different import
were frequently found in the same places.

A belief similar to that of the Sebastianists long lingered among the
Scots relative to their beloved James IV., who fell at Flodden; among
the Germans, regarding Frederick Barbarossa, who filled all Asia with
the terror of his name, and died on the banks of the Cydnus; among
the Britons concerning their fabulous Arthur of the Round Table; and
among the ancient Irish concerning some now unknown warrior named
Dharra Dheeling.  But it was left for the poor Portuguese to be among
the last to console themselves under defeat and disaster with such
delusive hopes; and thus in the year of Vimiera, "many people," says
General Napier, "and those not of the most uneducated classes, were
often observed upon the highest points of the hills, casting earnest
looks towards the ocean, in the hopes of descrying the enchanted
island in which their long-lost hero was detained."




CHAPTER XVII.

DANGER IN THE PATH.

  "Beloved of glory, Spain! hail, holy ground!
  All hail! thou chosen scene of deeds renown'd,
  By warriors wrought in each progressive age,
  Who struggled to repel th' oppressor's rage.
  Tell thou the world how on thy favoured coast,
  Our Wellesley fought, and Gaul her sceptre lost."
                                _Roncevalles--a Poem._


Proceeding eastward next morning, Quentin was guided by Gil Llano for
some miles towards the Spanish frontier.  To avoid all chance of
being seen by cavalry or foraging parties, the officers commanding
which were sometimes really ignorant rather than oblivious of the
actual line of demarcation between Spain and Portugal, the worthy
vinedresser conducted him by unfrequented but steep and devious
mountain paths, which left far on their right flank the little town
and fortress of Marvao, that lies in the Comarca of Portalegre, and
as they were now within six miles of Valencia de Alcantara, which was
the head-quarters of Ribeaupierre's cavalry brigade, the utmost
circumspection was necessary.

The morning was one of singular loveliness; the white mists were
rolling up the green mountain sides from the greener valleys below,
and there was a peculiar freshness and fragrance in the atmosphere
which made Quentin feel buoyant and happy, for a time at least; the
sun was high in heaven, the dew was glittering on every herb and
tree, and the mountain scenery looked bright and glorious.

The blood of our soldiers who fell at Roleia and Vimiera had not been
shed in vain for Portugal.  Already signs of peace were visible in
her valleys and towns, and all was in repose along her frontier.
Thus Quentin could hear the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep
come pleasantly on the morning wind that passed over the green
sierra, bearing with it the odour of the orange groves in the valley
and of the flowering arbutus that bordered the way.

In a hollow of the hills, Llano showed Quentin a lake, on the borders
of which some of the miraculous eggs had been found by Baltasar de
Saldos in a cypress grove; and he alleged that its waters had the
power of swallowing or sucking into the bowels of the earth whatever
was thrown therein, consequently not a leaf, or reed, or lotus were
to be seen floating there.

"But its power, senor, is a mere joke when compared with that of the
lake of Cedima, which lies about eight leagues from Coimbra, and
which instantly swallows up the largest logs and trees, if cast
therein."

"Is there a whirlpool in the centre?" asked Quentin.

"Saints and angels only know what is in the centre; but in my
father's days--he was a farmer, senor, in the Quinta das
Lagrimas--there came a Danish cavalier who refused to credit the
story, and offered, mockingly, to cross the lake on horseback, in
presence of the Juiz-de-fora, the Reformator of the University, the
Alcalde of the city, and all the great lords of Coimbra.

"After hearing the bishop (who is always Conde de Arganuil) say mass
in the church of Santa Cruz, and after partaking of the Holy
Communion before the altar there, he mounted his horse, and, in
presence of a vast multitude, proceeded to the lake of Cedima.  Then
when he saw its black and ominous water that lay without a ripple in
the sunshine, his heart somewhat failed him, and lest the story of
the lake might be true, and lest his life might indeed be lost, on
perceiving a great stake, or the trunk of an old chestnut tree near
the edge, he tied a thick rope to it, securing the other end to his
right leg.  Another rope of similar strength he tied to the neck of
his horse, a fine Spanish gennet, and giving him the spur, he uttered
a shout and plunged headlong into the water.

"A little way the horse swam snorting, and then began to sink; ere
long his ears alone were visible!  Then they too disappeared; the
water bubbled above his nostrils as his head went down; then the dark
water flowed over the rider's shoulders--then over his head, and
while a cry of dismay rose from the terrified people, the steed and
the stranger vanished together and were seen no more."

"So the ropes proved of no service?" said Quentin.

"The one that was about the neck of the horse was snapped right
through the centre; but at the end of the other was found the right
leg of the unfortunate Dane, torn off by the thigh, doubtless as the
downward current whirled him into the vortex; and so from that day a
belief in the waters of Cedima has been stronger than ever in
Portugal."

"After the marvellous eggs and the enchanted island, I can easily
think so," said Quentin.

When worthy Gil Llano (who expressed a hope to see him again if he
returned that way) had left him, with the information that from the
top of the next hill he would see Spain and the spires of Valencia de
Alcantara, Quentin proceeded all the more rapidly that he was now
alone, and his steps kept pace with the busy current of his thoughts.

His whole ideas of the duty on which he had been sent were somewhat
vague.  He had but three instructions given him: first, to avoid
Valencia (which the reader must not confound with the capital of the
kingdom of the same name); second, to reach Hereruela how he best
could; third, to deliver his despatch; and for the execution of this
he had been sent from Portalegre unsupplied either with money or
credentials to any Alcalde, Juiz-de-fora, or other civil or military
authority, in case of any difficulty arising.

There were times--and this was one--when Quentin felt as if he were
again at Rohallion--at his home, for such he felt it to be--relating
all these adventures to those who were now there; to the kind and
soldier-like old Lord; to the courteous and gentle Lady Winifred; to
the old quartermaster, with his kind red face and yellow wig, while
Mr. Spillsby the butler and Jack Andrews loitered near to listen; to
the dominie, with his rusty blacks, his square shoe-buckles, and his
musty memories of the classics; and more than all, to Flora Warrender!

And then, with these thoughts, there seemed to come to his ears the
pleasant rustle of the aged sycamores as the west wind shook their
branches, the cawing of the black rooks on the old grey keep, the
rush of the Lollards' Linn pouring under its arch and over its ledge
of rock; and to his fancy's eye the sierras of Portugal gave place to
the brown hills of Carrick, the distant Craigs of Kyle, and "the
bonnie blooming heather," or the waves of the Clyde as they boiled in
foam over the Partan Craig and climbed the dark headland of Rohallion.

So the past returned and the present fled!

Amid those cherished scenes he had long since left his happy boyhood.
Now he felt himself, as we have said, every inch a soldier and a man,
inspired by a sense of duty, of trust, and not a little by the love
of adventure natural to youth.  The inborn ambition which the solid
weight of his knapsack and accoutrements, and all his sufferings when
on the march from Maciera Bay, had somewhat chilled; the high spirit
that Cosmo's hatred and cutting coldness had striven to crush, both
sprung up anew in his buoyant heart, and he felt it glowing with
hope, energy, and enthusiasm; and now, when he had reached the summit
of the mountain over which the road passed, and on issuing from a
narrow rocky defile, saw a vast extent of open country beyond, a
glorious and fertile landscape, all vibrating apparently in the rays
of the cloudless sun, he waved his cap and almost cried "hurrah!" for
he knew that he looked down on----Spain!

Before him, as on a map, he saw the vast extent of Spanish
Estremadura stretching into distance far away, all steeped in a
lovely golden glow, the almost universal verdure of the landscape
relieved here and there by the water of the Salor and other minor
tributaries of the Tagus, winding like blue silk threads through
velvet of emerald green, dotted by thickets of chestnut, orange, and
cork trees; and there, too, were the strong embattled towers and the
spires of Valencia de Alcantara, with the tricolour on its greatest
bastion; and in the distance, half hid in saffron haze, through which
they loomed in purple tint, the ramparts of Albuquerque, on its steep
hill, the heritage of the Condes de Ledesma.  Between these cities
lay a little puebla, which he knew must be San Vincente, near, but
not through which, lay his path to the hills that overlooked the
plain.

Thoughts of the poetry, of the beauty, and romance of Spain came
thronging on his memory, and we must confess they formed an odd chaos
of cloaked cavaliers with guitars and rapiers; dark eyed donnas in
balconies, fluttering fans and veils; lurking rivals, with mask and
dagger; mountain robbers in high-crowned hats, with their legs
swathed in red bandages, after the orthodox fashion of all
melodramatic banditti.  These, together with the solid splendour and
wonderful stories of the Alhambra, the wars of the high-spirited
Moors of Granada, ending so sadly in _el suspiro del Moro_, when the
warriors of Ferdinand and Isabella rent the banner of the Prophet
from the weak hand of Boabdil el Chico, not unnaturally made up his
stock ideas of the sunny land he looked upon.

But it was the land of the Cid Campeador--he at whose name the eyes
of even the most unlettered Spaniard will lighten--for he was the
veritable and redoubtable Wallace of Castile against the enemies of
Christianity and the Christian's God.  Such memories as these rushed
on Quentin's mind as he looked down on Estremadura; nor could he
forget, though last not least, that it was the native land of him
"who laughed Spain's chivalry away"--the illustrious Cervantes, the
one-handed soldier of Lepanto.

A distant but unmistakeable sound of musketry reverberating among the
mountain peaks on his left, roused him somewhat unpleasantly from his
dream, bringing him all at once from the romance of the past to the
reality of present Spanish life.

Several shots he heard distinctly pealing through the air; others
followed, and after an interval, two dropping shots, but at a greater
distance, as if they proceeded from some flying skirmishers.  Then
all became still, and he heard only the voices of the birds as they
wheeled aloft in the sunshine or twittered among the arbutus leaves.

The road, a narrow and rugged path now as it descended, passed
through a dark grove of wild pines; on issuing from which, Quentin's
nerves received somewhat of a shock on seeing a French light dragoon,
in pale green uniform, lying on his back quite dead, with the foam of
past agony on his lips, and the blood of a recent wound still oozing
from his left temple, through which a musket shot had passed.
Crushed, apparently by a horse's hoof, his light brass helmet lay
beside him.  A few yards off lay another _Chasseur à cheval_, and
further off still lay a third, who seemed to have been dragged some
distance by his horse ere his foot had been disengaged from the
stirrup, for a bloody and dusty track was visible from where Quentin
stood to where the Chasseur lay.

Quentin paused, for his heart beat wildly, and instinctively he
looked to the flints and pans of his pistols, his hands trembling as
he did so--with an excitement justifiable in one so young--but _not_
with fear.

These three unfortunates were the first Frenchmen--the first
slain--and, in fact (save the dead gipsy in the vault of Kilhenzie)
they were the _first_ dead men he had looked upon; thus he glanced
timidly, and while his heart swelled with pity, from one to the other.

There they were, three smart and handsome young men, clad in showy
light cavalry uniforms, each perhaps a mother's pride and father's
hope, left dead and abandoned to the ravens, in that wild place, with
their white faces and glazed eyes staring stonily at the glorious
noonday sun, while the little birds came hopping and twittering about
them.

Quentin's gentle soul was stirred within him; he was new to this
butcherly work, and war seemed wicked indeed!  Those three rigid
figures--those three pale faces with fallen jaws, and those bloody
wounds, made a scaring and terrible impression upon him; but as he
continued hastily to descend the hill, and left them behind, he
foresaw not the callous heart and time that use and wont would bring.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE CHASSEUR À CHEVAL.

  "The soldier little quiet finds,
  But is exposed to stormy winds,
  And weather."--L'ESTRANGE.


After proceeding a little way, the sound of voices, as if engaged in
fierce altercation, made him pause and look round warily, pistol in
hand.  He drew behind a gigantic Portuguese cypress that overshadowed
the way, and on reconnoitring, discovered two men engaged in a fierce
and deadly struggle.  They were a French cavalry officer and a
Spanish guerilla.

The Frenchman was almost in rags, for his silver epaulettes and green
uniform, covered with elaborate braiding, had been torn in his
conflict with the Spaniard, for, as they grappled, they rolled over
each other down a gravelly bank into the dry bed of a mountain
stream, where they only paused to draw breath before renewing the
contest, in which the guerilla was apparently getting the mastery.
He had a broadbladed dagger in his sash; but, as the Frenchman held
his wrists with a death-clutch, he was unable to use it.

"Ah, sacré Dieu!" cried the officer, on whose breast the knees of the
guerilla were pressed without mercy; "I will yield on the promise of
quarter--even from you."

"Dog of a Frenchman!  May thy foot be heavy on my neck if I spare
thee!" was the hoarse and fierce response of the Spaniard, in whom
Quentin, with considerable interest, recognised his friend of the
wayside cross, whom he last saw going bird-nesting up the mountains
in search of the miraculous eggs.

"Espanole," said the Frenchman, in tones of rage and entreaty
mingled, "would you kill a defenceless and unarmed man?"

"Why not, if he is French?  Who slew my aged father?  Who slew my
mother--my sisters--all--all?  Who deluged our home with blood, and
desolated it with fire?"

"Not I--not I--spare me," exclaimed the Frenchman, as he felt his
strength failing him fast; "my mother, Spaniard--hound!--ah, ma
mère--ma mère--mon Dieu!" he added, with a hopeless groan; and these
two French words stirred some deep, keen chord, some long-forgotten
memory in the heart of Quentin, who felt his temples throbbing.

"Maledita! the strife of our forefathers is but renewed," continued
the Spaniard, in his noble and forcible Castilian, through his
clenched teeth, while his eyes flashed fire, and his moustaches
seemed to bristle; "it is a war to the knife against dogs and
infidels, for what are Frenchmen but dogs and infidels, even as the
Moors were of old?"

Again, without avail, the hapless Chasseur pleaded for his life; but
the more powerful conqueror heard him to an end, and then laughed
exultingly.

"I am guiltless of all, of everything but doing my duty," he urged.

"Duty!" repeated the other; "shall I tell you of our pillaged altars
and desecrated churches, of ruined cities and desolated villages;
shall I tell you of our slaughtered brethren, our outraged wives,
sisters, and ladies of the holy orders, some of whom have been bound
to gun-carriages, stripped, and exposed in the common streets and
plazas?  Par Dios! these things are enough to call down Heaven's
thunder on the head of your accursed Corsican!"

"Ah, morbleu!" gasped the Frenchman, "what a devil of a savage it is!
Peste!  I assure you, monsieur, I have never touched even the tip of
a woman's hand since I had the misfortune to cross the Pyrenees.
Tudieu! the Emperor finds us other work and other things to think of."

By a violent wrench the Spaniard now got his right hand free, and in
an instant, like a gleam of light, his long knife glittered as he
upheld it at arm's length above the poor young Frenchman, whose pale
face and dark eyes assumed a most despairing aspect.

Quentin could no longer look on unmoved.

"Hold--hold!" he exclaimed, and sprang towards them threateningly.

"Oho, amigo mio," said the Spaniard, looking round with a saturnine
smile; "'tis my friend of the laurel bushes--the spit that looked
like a sword."

"Hold, I say, Spaniard--would you murder him in cold blood?"

"Demonio, yes; and you, too, if you would protect a soldier of the
false Corsican.  Begone, and leave us, or it may be worse for you."

"I shall not."

"Maladita!" said the Spaniard, grinding his teeth, and clutching the
throat of the fallen man.

"Release him, I say," demanded Quentin, resolutely.

"Vaya usted con cien mill demonios," (Begone, with a hundred thousand
devils), said the Spaniard, absolutely, gnashing his strong white
teeth, which glistened beneath his black moustache.

"Oh, sauvez moi, mon camarade," implored the poor Frenchman.

"Thus, then, die--die en el santo nombre de Dios!"

With this impious shout, the furious guerilla, or whatever he was,
raised the dagger which he had lowered for a moment; but ere it could
descend; Quentin, with lightning speed, snatched up the heavy cajado
which lay at his feet, and, loth to use a more deadly weapon against
a Spaniard, struck the guerilla a blow on the head and rolled him
over.  A heavy malediction escaped him, and then he lay motionless
and still, completely stunned.

Breathless with his recent struggle and its terrors, the French
officer lost no time in springing to his feet.

"A thousand thanks to you, monsieur!  But for you--there--there had
been a vacancy in my troop to-night.  But here--come this way; we
have not a moment to lose, for the hills are full of these guerillas.
Peste! they are as thick as bees hereabout; and believe me, the men
of Baltasar de Saldos are not to be trifled with."

As the Frenchman spoke, he seized Quentin by the sleeve, and half
led, half dragged him through the grove of pines; after which, they
ran down hill for more than a mile, till they reached the main-road
that led directly to Valencia the lesser, when Quentin paused, and
began to reflect that he was going very oddly about the deliverance
of Sir John Hope's despatch, a document that probably announced the
day on which the entire army would break up from its cantonments and
advance into Spain!




CHAPTER XIX.

EUGENE DE RIBEAUPIERRE.

    "Ford.  Well, he's not here I seek for.
    Page.  No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
    Ford.  Help me to search my house this one time: if I
  find not what I seek, show me no colour for my extremity,
  let me for ever be your table sport; let them say of me, 'As
  jealous as Ford, that searched hollow walnuts for his wife's
  leman.'"--_Merry Wives of Windsor._


Quentin Kennedy was only master of a certain amount of the Spanish
language, which he had rapidly acquired through the medium of his
friend the dominie's sonorous Scottish latinity; but fortunately the
young Frenchman, who seemed to be highly accomplished, spoke English
with remarkable fluency.

His uniform, we have said, was in rags; his epaulettes had gone in
the recent struggle, the straps of lace for retaining them on the
shoulders alone remained.  A hole in the breast of his light green
jacket showed where the gold cross of the Legion had been rent away
by some guerilla's hand, and the state of his scarlet pantaloons made
one see the advantage of wearing a kilt for pugnacious casualties, as
they were now reduced to mere shreds.

He was a slender young man, in appearance only a year or two older
than Quentin, though really many years his senior in experience of
the world and of life generally.  His hair, which he wore in
profusion, was dark brown and silky, and his hands, on one of which
sparkled a splendid ring, were white and almost ladylike.  An
incipient moustache shaded his short upper lip; his features were
very regular, and he was so decidedly good-looking, that Quentin
could not help thinking that if he had a sister like him, she must be
charming!

They quitted the highway and entered a dense thicket by the wayside,
where breathless, hot, and weary, they cast themselves on the cool
deep grass that grew under the leafy shade, and the last of the
contents of Quentin's canteen, divided between them, proved very
acceptable to both.

"I perceive that you are a French officer," said Quentin; "may I ask
whom I have had the honour of succouring?"

"Certainly, mon camarade; I am a sous-lieutenant of my father's
regiment, the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval--my name is Eugene de
Ribeaupierre."

"Any relation of the general who commands in Valencia?"

"A very near one," said he, laughing; "I am his son, and monsieur's
very obedient servant.  Come! let us rest ourselves and talk a
little.  The tap on the head you gave that Spaniard was most critical
and serviceable to me."

"True--it only came just in time!"

"I hope it may have despatched him outright."

"I trust not, now that the end was accomplished."

"Now that we have breathing time, you will perhaps excuse my little
curiosity, and say how you came to be here, within two or three miles
of our sentinels?"

"The country is quite open," said Quentin, evasively, with a smile.

"Your troops, we have heard, are closing up from Lisbon and
elsewhere; but have not as yet been rash enough to enter Spain, the
territories of King Joseph."

"Rash, monsieur?"

"Peste!  I suppose your generals have not forgotten the sharp lessons
we taught them at Roleia and Vimiera?"

Quentin laughed to hear the pleasant tone in which the Frenchman
spoke of two very important defeats of the Emperor's troops as
"lessons" to the British, but he said plainly enough,

"I am here because I was sent on duty."

"To whom, monsieur?"

Quentin hesitated.

"Nay, out with it, man--trust me, on my honour--I may well pledge it
to one who has saved me from a barbarous death within this hour, and
earned my warmest gratitude."

"Well, then, I go to Don Baltasar de Saldos."

"Diable! the man's a guerilla chief, and we have just had a severe
brush with his people.  My patrol, consisting of a sergeant, a
corporal, and twelve chasseurs, were riding leisurely along the road
from San Vincente towards the summit of yonder mountain, when, from a
grove of cork and cypress trees, there flashed out some twenty
muskets.  It was an ambush; the leading section of them fell dead;
the rest broke through, sabre à la main, and fled, pursued by the
guerillas, who sprang after them with the yells of fiends and the
activity of squirrels, leaping from bank to rock, and from rock to
tree, firing and reloading so long as we were in range.  Struck by a
ball in the counter, my horse reared wildly up, and threw me; for
some minutes I was insensible, and on recovering, found myself in the
paws of yonder Spanish bear, who was thrice my bulk and strength.
You know the rest.  I thought it was all up with me.  As Francis said
at Pavia, 'tout est perdu, sauf l'honneur!'  Baltasar's head-quarters
are in a mountain puebla near Herreruela, where he successfully
defies my father's cavalry.  Am I right in supposing that you have
been sent to invite his co-operation in some projected movement?"

"My orders were simply to deliver to him a despatch and rejoin my
regiment."

"It is a dangerous and desperate errand, my friend," said the young
Frenchman, while regarding Quentin with some interest; "I mean
desperate to be undertaken by one alone.  It looks almost like a
sacrifice of you!"

"A sacrifice?" repeated Quentin, as his thoughts naturally wandered
to Cosmo.

"Parbleu, yes--to the exigencies of the service."

"Some of my friends were not slow in saying as much," replied
Quentin; "but then I--I am only a volunteer, and as such, must take
any hazardous duty, I have been told."

"Well, here we must lurk till nightfall--you to avoid our patrols,
which are usually withdrawn for a few hours after the evening gun
fires, when the inlying picquet gets under arms; I to avoid those
pestilent guerillas.  The shade here is cool, and if we had a bottle
of wine, a sliced melon, and a little ice, our pleasure would be
complete."

"And you think I must conceal myself here?"

"Undoubtedly, mon ami; our people are scouring all the highways, and
would be sure to cut you off.  Then there is that devilish
Spaniard--ah, the brigand!--he will not be in haste to forget the
knock you gave him on the head, and should he or his comrades fall in
with you, I would not give you a sou for your safety!"

"Strange, is it not, that the first man I have struck on Spanish
ground should be a Spaniard?"

"These dons have unpleasant memories for such little attentions, and
here the secret shot or stab usually settles everything; but before
we separate, I shall have the honour of showing you the direct path
to the head-quarters of De Saldos, after which, you must look to your
pistols and put your trust in Providence.  I shall keep your secret,
and if there is any other way in which I can serve you, command me."

"I thank you; but I hope that to-night, or to-morrow morning at
latest, will see my face turned towards Portugal, for I long to
rejoin my corps."

"The fugitives of my party will spread a calamitous report concerning
me in Valencia, and my father, the poor old general, will suppose
that I am lying shot on the mountains, instead of holding this
pleasant _tête-à-tête_ with one of the sacré Anglais over the
comfortable contents of his canteen," said Ribeaupierre, laughing.
"What a droll world it is!"

"And your mother--I think I heard you mention your mother.  She----"

"Happily will know nothing about it, as she is with Joseph's court.
She is a gentle and loving creature, with a heart all tenderness.
Ah, the seat of war, would never do for her, and, ma foi! it doesn't
suit me either.  It was not willingly I became a soldier, be assured;
and yet, now that I am fairly in for it, and have won my epaulettes
and cross, I should not like to find myself a mere citizen again.
Peste!  I shall not in a hurry forget the night on which, by a great
malheur, a great mistake, I was forced to become a soldier."

"Mistake--how?" asked Quentin, smiling at the young Frenchman's
gestures and energy.

"Mon camarade, a man says more when under the influences of
eau-de-vie, or champagne, than he ever does under those of
vin-ordinaire, cold water, or a bowl of gruel; and, as your
remarkably potent rum-and-water has put me in that condition when a
man reveals his loves and hates, and, more foolish still, sometimes
his private history, I don't care if I tell you how I became a
soldier.

"My father," began the garrulous chasseur, "is an officer of the old
days of the monarchy, and held his first commission, like the Emperor
himself, from Louis XVI., the Most Christian King, and they were
brother subalterns in the regiment of La Fere.  To the friendship
that grew up between them there, the old gentleman owes his brigade
and the Grand Cross of the Legion, quite as much as to his own
bravery in Germany, Italy, and Flanders.  My mother (or she at least
whom I have been taught to call my mother, for she is his second
wife,) was a widow of rank, who lost her whole possessions in the
stormy days of the Revolution.  She was without children, and when my
father was assisting the Little Corporal to play the devil at Toulon,
Arcola, Lodi, Marengo, and elsewhere, she most affectionately took
charge of me, and of my education in Paris.

"As we were not rich, it was proposed to make a doctor of me, and so
I was duly matriculated at the Ecole de Médecine, and commenced my
studies there, not with much enthusiasm or industry either; but in
the vague hope, nevertheless, that I might some day cut a figure and
have my portrait hung among the full lengths of Ambrose Paré,
Maréchal, La Peyronnie, and others in the school.

"I look back with no small repugnance to the daily tasks I performed
there, and to the horrors of the dissecting-room, after boyish
curiosity grew satiated.  My brain became addled by lectures on the
maxillary sinus, on diseases of the stomach, of the pylorus, the
hepatic and abdominal viscera; elephantiasis, aortic aneurism, the
lacteal and glandular system, and Heaven alone knows all what more,
till I imagined that I had alternately in my own person every ailment
peculiar to man.  We had plenty of subjects, for daily the guillotine
was slicing away in the Place de la Grève, and I have seen the
loveliest women and the noblest men in France laid on those tables to
be stripped and dissected by the knife of the demonstrator.

"I was soon voted the worst if not the most stupid student that ever
put his foot within the college walls.  The professors were in
despair.  They could make nothing of me; and to muddle my poor brain
more, about this time I must needs fall in love.  Ah!  I perceive
that you now become interested.  I was not much over seventeen, and
my first love----"

"First?" said Quentin.

"_Oui--ma foi!_  I have had a dozen--was Madame Lisette Thiebault, a
friend of my mother."

"A widow, of course?"

"Not at all.  She was unfortunately the wife of one of our doctors in
the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine;" replied the _étourdi_ young
Frenchman.

"Married!" said poor Quentin, somewhat aghast.

"_Peste!_ of course she was; but we don't care for such little
obstacles in Paris.  Well, Lisette, for so I must name her, was
nearly ten years my senior, and so had what she called a motherly
interest in me.  She was a very handsome woman, somewhat inclined to
_embonpoint_, with a clear pale complexion and laughing eyes, exactly
the colour of her hair, which was a rich deep brown.  She was always
gay, laughing and smiling, except when her husband, the doctor, was
present, and one could no more make fun with him, than with old Bébé."

"Who, or what was he?"

"The mummy of the King of Poland's dwarf--_Ouf!_ what a horror it
is!--which we have in the School of the Faculty at Paris.  Lisette
was very fond of me, and, being a little addicted to literature--she
was fond of poetry, too--so we read much together.

"Ere long, monsieur, the doctor began to think all this very
improper, so he rudely and abruptly put a stop to our studies; he
locked Ovid up, and me out.  _Tudieu!_ here was an outrage!  I
thought of inviting him to breathe the morning air on the Bois de
Boulogne; but a duel between a first-year's student and an old doctor
was not to be thought of.  Madame had a tender heart, so she pitied
me.  She considered her husband's conduct cruel, ungrateful,
outrageous, barbarous; so, as it was necessary that my classical
studies should not be neglected, we arranged a little code of
signals.  Thus, Lisette, by simply keeping a drawing-room window open
or shut, or a muslin curtain festooned or closely drawn, could inform
me when Bluebeard was at home or abroad; whether the breach was
practicable or not; and thus we circumvented our tyrant for a time,
and I returned with ardour to the study of classical poetry; but as
for the dissecting-room, diable! it saw no more of me.

"Of the doctor I had always a wholesome dread, as he was a
_Septembriseur_."

"What is that?" asked Quentin, perceiving a dark expression shade the
face of Ribeaupierre.

"'Tis a name we have in Paris for those who were concerned as aiders
or abettors of the horrible September massacres--he would have
thought no more of slily putting a bullet into me, than of killing a
wasp; thus, you see, I pursued the acquisition of knowledge under
difficulties.

"Now came out the edict issued about eight years ago, for raising two
hundred thousand men for the army and marine, and every young man in
France had to inscribe his name for the conscription.  I omitted--we
shall call it delayed--to inscribe mine; but my learned friend, M. le
Docteur Thiebault, unknown to me, performed that little service in my
behalf.  He was extremely loth that the Republic--it was the glorious
indivisible Republic of liberty, equality, fraternity, and tyranny
then--should be deprived of my valuable aid by land or sea.

"About the time when he usually returned from visiting his patients,
I had bidden adieu to madame, for our studies were over, and in the
dusk of the evening was on my way home when surprised by a patrol of
the police under a commissaire, at the corner of the Rue Ecole de
Médecine.  To avoid them I shrunk into a porch, but they invited me
rather authoritatively to come forth, and on my doing so, a sergeant
passed his lantern scrutinizingly across my face.

"'A young man,' said the commissaire, who was new in the quartier;
'who are you?'

"'I am not obliged to say,' said I.

"'Ah--we shall see that; what are you?'

"'A student of the Faculty of Médecine.  Vive la République!  War to
the cottage--peace to the castle!' I replied, waving my hat.

"'Is your name inscribed for the levy, blunderer?  You quote oddly
for a student!'

"'Of course my name is inscribed,' said I, boldly, though I little
knew that it was so.

"'Show me your card which certifies this.'

"'Mon Dieu!' I exclaimed, as a brilliant thought occurred to me; 'do
not speak so loud, monsieur.'

"'Diable; may we not raise our voices in the streets of Paris?' he
asked.

"'Not if you knew the mischief an alarm would do me.'

"'Tête Dieu! 'tis an odd fellow, this!'

"'Monsieur, pity me!' said I, in a voice full of entreaty.  'I throw
myself upon your generosity--I perceive that I melt your heart.  I
have not my card; it is with my wife----'

"'Morbleu! you are very young to have a wife, my friend, with a chin
like an apple,' said the grim old sergeant, as he passed his lantern
across my face again; 'I hope she is fully grown; but to the point,
my fine fellow, or we shall have to march you to the Conciergerie,
and they have an unpleasant mode of pressing questions there.'

"'Where is this wife of yours, my little friend?'

"'In her house, M. le Commissaire, where you see that light above the
lamp with the scarlet bottle.  Ah, the perfidious!  There she awaits
a lover for whom I am watching.'

"I acted my part to the life, though jealousy is not a peculiarity of
French husbands.

"'And this lover?' said the commissaire, becoming suddenly
interested, perhaps from some fellow-feeling.

"'He is a young brother student of mine.'

"'His name?' said the commissaire, producing a note-book.

"'Eugene de Ribeaupierre.'

"'We know him,' said the other, 'for the greatest young rascal in all
Paris.  He destroyed a tree of liberty in the Palais Royal, and
painted the nose of Equality red in the Jardin des Plantes.'

"'The same, monsieur,' said I, in a whining voice; 'he will come here
disguised in a grey wig and spectacles to delude you, M. le
Commissaire, and me too, unhappy that I am.  Ah, mon Dieu, there he
is! there he is!  Seize him, in the name of morality and justice, of
the République Démocratique et Sociale!'

"The patrol instantly laid violent hands on the person of Doctor
Thiebault, who, to do him justice, made a violent resistance, and
broke the sergeant's lantern, to the tune of twenty francs, before he
was borne off to the Conciergerie, where he passed three days and
nights in a horrid vault among thieves and malefactors, before he was
brought up for examination, when it was discovered that it was not a
young student, but an old professor of the healing art, standing high
in the estimation of all Paris, who had been maltreated and carried
off by the watch.

"So the whole story came out, and on the fourth day I found myself
off _en route_ to join my father's corps of Chasseurs à Cheval, then
serving against the Austrians.  My good mother shed abundance of
tears at my departure; the Abbé Lebrun gave me abundance of good
advice and a handful of louis d'or, which I considered of more value,
and in a month after I found myself face to face with the white coats
in the forest of Frisenheim, on the left bank of the Rhine.

"As a parting gift my dear friend Lisette had given me a holy medal
to save me from bullets and so forth; but, diable! it nearly cost me
my life, for one of the first balls fired near Oggersheim beat it
into my ribs; the ball came out, but the blessed medal stuck fast,
and all the skill of our three doctors was required to extract it, so
after three months I found myself again in my beloved Paris on sick
leave."




CHAPTER XX.

THE GALIOTE OF ST. CLOUD.

"To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those
things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets.  There is no
slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no
railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but
reprove."--_Twelfth Night._


"So," resumed Ribeaupierre, "this was the way in which I became one
of the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval, in the service of the Republic one
and indivisible, as it boasted to be, as well as democratic and
social; and how I now find myself a sous-lieutenant, under the
Emperor, whom God long preserve!"

"And Lisette?----"

"Bah! in my absence I found that she had taken to study poetry with
M. Grobbin, a grenadier of the Consular Guard, the same who was the
cause of the First Consul issuing his remarkable order of the day,
concerning that Parisian weakness for destroying oneself, in the
passion named love.  Did you never hear of it?"

"No."

"Ma foi!  You English know nothing that is acted out of your foggy
little island."

"And this order----"

"Stated that as the Grenadier Grobbin had destroyed himself in
despair, for his dismissal by Madame de Thiebault, the First Consul
directed that it should be inserted in the order of the day for the
Consular Guard, 'that a soldier ought to know how to subdue sorrow
and the agitation of the passions; that there is as much courage in
enduring with firmness the pains of the heart as remaining steady
under the grape-shot of a battery; and to abandon oneself to grief
without resistance, to kill oneself in order to escape from it, is to
fly from the field of battle before one is conquered!'  The order was
signed by Bonaparte, as First Consul, and countersigned by Jean
Baptiste Bessières."

"Have you ever seen the Emperor?" asked Quentin.

"Once, mon ami--only once."

"In the field?"

"No; but nearer than I ever wish to see him again, under the same
circumstances at least.  Shall I tell you how it was?"

"If you please."

"Well, monsieur, it happened in this way.  I had just been appointed
a sous-lieutenant in the 24th Chasseurs à Cheval; we had returned
from service in Italy, and were quartered at St. Cloud, where we were
soon tired of the gardens, cafés, waterworks, and so forth.  A few of
us had been on leave in Paris for some days, where our spare cash and
prize money were soon spent among the theatres, operas, feasting, and
other means of emptying one's purse, so we were returning cheaply to
barracks by the galiote, which then used to traverse the great bend
of the Seine every morning, leaving the Pont Royal about ten o'clock
for St. Cloud; the voyage usually lasted about two hours, and cost us
only sixteen sous each.

"On this occasion, as the morning was very wet, the canvas covering
was drawn close, and as we had the galiote all to ourselves--save one
person, a stranger--we were very merry, very noisy, and very much at
home indeed, proceeding to smoke without the ceremony of asking this
person's permission, for which, indeed, we cared very little, as he
appeared to be a plain little citizen some five feet high, about
thirty-six years of age, and possessing a very sombre cast of face,
over which he wore a rather shabby hat drawn well down, a grey
greatcoat with a queer cape, and long boots; and he appeared to be
completely immersed in the columns of his newspaper.

"We were conversing with great freedom concerning the consulate,
which was just on the point of expanding into an empire, and our
senior lieutenant, Jules de Marbœuf (now our lieutenant-colonel)
was named by us 'Monseigneur le Maréchal Duc de Marbœuf, and
master of the horse to Pepin le Bref.'  Then we ridiculed
unmercifully the proposal of the Tribune Citizen Curée, that the
First Consul should be proclaimed Emperor, and in this quality
continue the government of the French _Republic_.

"'Peste! what a paradox it is!' exclaimed Jules, emitting a mighty
puff of smoke, as he lounged at length upon the cushioned seat of the
galiote.

"'And the Imperial dignity is to be declared hereditary in his
family,' I added, impudently, reclosing one of the openings in the
awning, which the quiet stranger had opened, as our smoking evidently
annoyed him.

"'In three days _the pear will be ripe_; France will become an
appanage of Corsica, and I shall obtain my diploma as peer and
marshal of France,' exclaimed Jules with loud voice; 'and you,
Eugene----'

"'Oh, I shall be Minister of War to the Little Corporal.'

"'Bravo!' said the others, clapping their hands; 'we shall all pick
up something among the ruins of this vulgar and tiresome Republic.'

"'M. le Citoyen,' said Jules, with affected courtesy, 'I perceive the
smoke annoys you--you don't like it--eh?'

"'No, monsieur,' replied the other briefly and sternly.

"'Then M. le Citoyen had better land, for before we reach St. Cloud,
he will be smoked like a Westphalian ham.'

"'Take care, Jules,' said I, 'the citizen may be a fire-eater--some
devil of a fellow who spends half his days in a shooting gallery.'

"'_Parbleu_, he doesn't look much like a fire-eater; but perhaps
monsieur is an editor--an author?' suggested Jules, with another long
puff.

"'Exactly,' said I; 'he is an author.'

"'Of what?'

"'The famous _Voyage à Saint Cloud par mer, et retour par terre_,
taking notes for a new edition.'

"This sally produced a roar of laughter, on which the citizen
suddenly folded his paper and prepared to rise, as we were now close
to St. Cloud.

"'Don't forget to record, M. l'Editeur, that last week I pulled a
charming young girl out of the river close by.'

"'Trust you didn't pull her hair up by the roots, Jules,' said one.

"'Or rumple her dress?' said another.

"'Fie!' I exclaimed; 'but you will give us each a copy, M. l'Editeur?'

"'On receiving your cards, messieurs,' replied the other with a grim
smile.

"'Here is mine--and mine--and mine,' said we, thrusting them upon him.

"'And here is mine' said he, presenting to Jules an embossed card, on
which was engraved 'Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul.'

"We remained as if paralysed, unable either to speak or move; but the
justly incensed First Consul, after quitting the galiote, which was
now moored alongside the quay, said to a gentleman whose uniform
proclaimed him a general officer, and who seemed to be waiting
there,--

"'Bessières, take the swords of these gentlemen, who are to be placed
under close arrest, and send the colonel of the 24th Chasseurs to me
instantly.'

"His massive features were pale as marble; his keen dark eyes shot
forth a lurid glare; his lips were compressed with concealed fury,
and we all trembled before the terrible glance of this little man in
long boots.  Ah, mon Dieu! what a moment it was!  How foolish, how
triste, how crestfallen we all looked.

"'Your name, monsieur?' said he suddenly to me.

"'Eugene de Ribeaupierre,' said I, with a profound salute.

"'Any relation to the officer who bears that name, and who was
captain-lieutenant in the Regiment de La Fere?'

"'I am his only son, monseigneur.'

"'That reply has saved you and your companions from degradation and
imprisonment; but still you must be taught, messieurs, that to
protect, and not to insult the citizen, is the first duty of a
soldier.  To your quarters, messieurs, and report yourselves under
arrest until further orders!'

"The authoritative wave of his hand was enough, and we slunk away
with terrible forebodings of the future.  A severe reprimand was
administered through Bessières; but whether it was that our political
opinions had been uttered too freely, or that the First Consul had no
wish to see the 24th figure in the forthcoming pageant of his
coronation as Emperor, I know not, but on the day following our
precious voyage to St. Cloud, we got the route for Genoa, so that was
my first and last meeting with our glorious Emperor, whose name I
have made a _cri de guerre_ in many a battle and skirmish, and for
whom I am ready to die!" he added, with genuine enthusiasm.  "Sunset!
there goes the gun in Valencia," he exclaimed, as the boom of a
cannon pealed through the still air.  "The evening is advancing,
monsieur, and we must part, unless you will accompany me to Valencia."

"Impossible!" said Quentin.

"I will gage my word of honour for your safety there and safe-conduct
to the mountains," said he, as they issued cautiously from the
thicket upon the highway.

"I thank you, but I am most anxious to complete my task."

"_Tres bien_--so be it; then we part at yonder cypress-tree.  Hola!
what have we here--a dead horse--the charger of one of my men?"
exclaimed Ribeaupierre, as they came suddenly upon a cavalry-horse
lying dead, with all his housings and trappings on, by the wayside.
"It is the horse of Corporal Raoul, one of the three men who fell in
the ambuscade--several bullets have struck the poor nag, and it has
galloped here only to bleed to death.  Raoul was a devil of a fellow
for plunder; I know that he always carried something else than
pistols in his holsters--let us see."

Unbuttoning the flaps of the holsters, Ribeaupierre drew forth a
pistol from each, and these, as they were loaded, he retained; but at
the bottom of one holster-pipe he found a canvas bag.  "Parbleu, look
here!  Raoul, poor devil, thought no doubt to spend these among the
girls in Paris.  Plunder, every sou of it," he added, tumbling among
the grass a heap of gold moidores, which are Portuguese coins, each
worth twenty-seven shillings sterling.  "This is Raoul's share of the
sacking of Coimbra, which the Portuguese permitted themselves to make
such a hideous bawling about.  It was the plunder of the living, so
you may as well have a share of it _now_ that it is the spoil of the
dead."

"Who--I?" said Quentin, hesitating.

"Take it--_ma foi!_"

"Can I do so?"

"I should think so; what--would you leave it here to fall into
Spanish hands, or be buried with a dead horse?" said Ribeaupierre, as
he rapidly divided the money, which amounted to one hundred and sixty
pieces in all.  "'Tis eighty moidores each; a sum like that is not to
be found often by the wayside."

He almost thrust his share into Quentin's pocket, and a few minutes
after, they bade each other warmly adieu, with little expectation of
ever meeting again.

Ribeaupierre pursued his way towards Valencia de Alcantara, while,
following his direction, Quentin proceeded towards the hills near
Herreruela, the rocky peaks of which were yet gleaming in crimson
light, though the sun had set.

He seemed still to hear the pleasant voice, and to see the dark and
expressive face of his recent companion as he trod lightly on,
clinking his moidores, happy that he was now master of a sum
amounting to more than a hundred pounds sterling, which would enable
him to repay his dear old friend the quartermaster, and would amply
supply his own wants while on service, for some time at least.

It was a remarkable stroke of good fortune, and he reflected that but
for his meeting with Ribeaupierre, he might have passed without
examining the dead troop-horse that lay by the wayside; he reflected
further, that but for the turn taken happily by the episodes of the
day, he might have fallen into the hands of a French patrol, and been
now, with his despatch, in safe keeping within the walls of Valencia.




CHAPTER XXI.

THE GUERILLA HEAD-QUARTERS.

  "I made a mountain brook my guide,
    Through a wild Spanish glen,
  And wandered, on its grassy side,
    Far from the homes of men.
  It lured me with a singing tone,
    And many a sunny glance,
  To a green spot of beauty lone,
    A haunt for old romance."--MRS. HEMANS.


Save in the west, where the hues of crimson and gold predominated,
the sunset sky was all of a pale violet.  Though the mountain peaks
were rough and barren, and the plains of Estremadura, long abandoned
and for ages uncultivated, were waste and wild in general, the road
by which Quentin proceeded towards Herreruela lay through rich
scenery and land that was fertile.

The tall Indian corn had been reaped, but its thick brown stubble
remained.  In some places it had too evidently been destroyed by fire
to keep it from the French, or by them to harass and distress the
Spaniards.  The olive and the vine grew wild by the wayside; the
orange tree and the leafy lime, the fig, and the prickly pear were
frequently mingled in the same place with the variegated holly, while
the myrtle and the lavender flower loaded the air with sweet perfume.

Darkness came rapidly on; the reddened summits of the sierra grew
sombre, the western flush of light died away, and ere long Quentin
found himself traversing a steep and gloomy road, that led right into
the heart of the mountains.

A sound that came on the night wind made him pause and listen.

It was the great bell of Valencia de Alcantara--the same that had
rung so joyously when the Christian cavaliers of Salamanca defended
the wild gorge through which the Tagus rolls at Al-Kantarah (_the
bridge_ of the Moors)--and it was now tolling the hour of ten.

Ribeaupierre was now with his friends and comrades, doubtless
recounting his adventures and his escape, by the aid of a British
soldier.  A knowledge of this caused Quentin some anxiety, lest among
the listeners, there might be some who had neither the gratitude nor
the chivalry of the young chasseur, and who might take means to cut
off his return to Portugal, for he was now fully aware of the risk he
ran on the Spanish side, and began to see something of the snare into
which he had fallen.

As the last stroke of the bell died away on the wind, a sense of
intense loneliness came over Quentin's heart; the sound seemed to
come from a vast distance, and the narrow road he was traversing
penetrated into the mountains, which seemed to become darker and
steeper on each side of it; but there is something intoxicating in
the idea of peril to a gallant soul.  It kindles a glorious
enthusiasm at times, and thus he marched manfully on till a voice in
Spanish, loud, sonorous, and ringing, demanded in a military manner--

"_Quien esta ahi?_" (Who comes there?)

"_Gente de paez_," replied Quentin, while the rattle of a musket and
the click of the lock as it was cocked came to his ear, and he saw
the dark outline of a human figure appear suddenly in the centre of
the path.

"_Estere ahi_ (Stay there), and say from whence you come," said the
challenger again.

Quentin naturally paused before replying, as he know not by whom he
was confronted, and could only make out a tall figure wearing a
slouched sombrero, by the pale light of the stars.

"Presto--quick!" continued the stranger, slapping the butt of his
musket; "from whence come you?"

"The British cantonments," replied Quentin, conceiving the truth to
be the wisest answer to a Spaniard.

"_Bueno!_ why didn't you say so at once?" exclaimed the other; "but
what seek you here?"

"I am bearer of a despatch for Don Baltasar dc Saldos.  Am I right in
supposing you are one of his people?"

"Si, senor; this is his head-quarters."

By this time Quentin had come close to the questioner, who still kept
his bayonet at the charge, and who seemed to be a Spanish peasant,
accoutred with crossbelts and cartridge-box.  He was posted on the
summit of a hastily-constructed earthwork, which was formed across
the road in a kind of gorge through which it passed; and there, too,
were in position three brass field-pieces, French apparently, loaded
no doubt with grape or canister to sweep the steep and narrow
approach.

Beside them lounged a guard of some forty men or so, muffled in their
cloaks, smoking or sleeping, but all of whom sprang to their feet and
to their weapons as Quentin approached.  He had now taken off his
grey coat to display his scarlet uniform, and, when one of the guard
held up a lantern to take a survey of him, loud vivas and mutterings
of satisfaction and welcome greeted him on all sides.

"Senors, where shall I find Don Baltasar?" he inquired.

"At his quarters in the puebla, senor.  Lazarillo, conduct the senor
to De Soldas," said one who seemed to exercise some authority over
the rest: "but I fear you will find him busy at present.  At what
time are those French prisoners to be despatched?"

"Midnight, Senor Conde," replied he whom he had named Lazarillo.

"It wants but half an hour to that," said the guerilla officer, who
was no other than the Conde de Maciera, as he looked at his watch;
and it was with emotions of intense pleasure and satisfaction that
Quentin found himself proceeding towards the mountain village which
formed the head-quarters of the formidable guerilla chief, and thus
acting, as he hoped, the last scene in the task assigned him; but he
knew little of the people among whom he was thrown, for in character
they are unlike all the rest of Europe.

"Nature and the natives," says a traveller, "have long combined to
isolate still more their peninsula, which is already moated round by
the unsocial sea.  The Inquisition all but reduced the Spanish man to
the condition of a monk in a wall-enclosed convent, by standing
sentinel and keeping watch and ward against the foreigner and his
perilous novelties.  Spain, thus unvisited and unvisiting, became
arranged for _Spaniards only_, and has scarcely required conveniences
which are more suited to the curious wants of other Europeans and
strangers, who here are neither liked, wished for, or even thought
of--natives who never travel except on compulsion, and never for
amusement--why, indeed, should they?"

Late though the hour, the guerillas, a loose and, of course,
disorderly force at all times, seemed all astir in their quarters.
By the clear starlight Quentin could see that the street consisted of
humble cottages bordering the way, with red-tiled roofs, over nearly
every one of which a huge old knotty vine was straggling.  At one end
rose a strong old archway, "old," Lazarillo said, "as the days of
King Bomba," and there, when the puebla had been a place of greater
pretension, a gate had closed the thoroughfare by night.

Now there was no barrier save a bank of earth and rubbish, hastily
thrown up, and a couple of field-pieces mounted thereon seemed to
hint the rigour with which intruders would be prosecuted; in short,
it prevented any sudden surprise in that direction.  There were
lights--pine-torches or candles--burning in all the houses, and, as
he passed the windows, Quentin could perceive the dark-bearded faces,
the striking figures, and varied costumes of the guerillas.  Various
groups of them thronged the little street, and a company of them were
parading, under arms, before the largest house in the puebla.

"That is the posada, senor," said Quentin's guide.  "There Don
Baltasar resides; but we have come too late to speak with him, at
least until his work is done."

"His work," repeated Quentin, inquiringly; "what is about to be done?"

"_Por Dios!_ you shall soon see," he replied with a grin, as a number
of men bearing blazing pine torches issued from the large house,
which the guide styled the posada, and, by the united light of these,
Quentin was enabled to behold a strange, a wild, and very awful scene.

As a drum only half braced was hoarsely beaten, the guerillas came
swarming out of the wayside cottages in hundreds, and a singularly
savage but picturesque set of fellows they were.  All were strong and
hardy Castilians; many were exceedingly handsome both in face and
form, and there was scarcely one among them that might not have
served as a model for a sculptor or a study for an artist.

Their Spanish peasant costumes, in some instances were sombre and
tattered, in others new and gay; the jackets, olive or claret colour,
being gaudily embroidered, and worn over the scarlet or yellow sashes
which girt the short, loose trousers.  Many were bare-legged and
bare-footed, and many wore long leather abarcas.  Not a few wore
fanciful uniforms of all colours, among which Quentin recognised the
brown coats of the Spanish line, and a few scarlet, which had no
doubt been stripped from the dead at Roleia and Vimiera, as they
seemed to have belonged to the 29th regiment, and the Argyllshire
Highlanders.

Most of them wore the native sombreros; many had their coal-black
locks gathered in a net of scarlet twine, or bound by a large yellow
handkerchief, the fringed end of which floated on the left shoulder,
while others sported regimental shakos and staff cocked-hats.  All
were armed with long Spanish guns, sabres, pistols, and daggers, and
all nearly were cross-belted with cartridge-box and bayonet.

In one or two instances the closely-shaven chin and the tonsure, but
ill-concealed by the half-grown hair, indicated the unfrocked friar,
who had taken up arms inspired by patriotism or revenge against the
destroyers of convents, or it might be to have a turn once more in
the world, while the state of Spain loosed all ties, divine as well
as human.

Half hidden in the shadow of the starlight night, and half thrown
forward into the strong red glare of the upheld pine torches that
streamed in the wind, the figures of those in the foreground and
those flitting about in the rear--the varied colours of their
costumes, their black beards and glittering eyes, their flashing
weapons, together with the rude mountain village, with its old and
time-worn archway, made altogether a strangely wild and picturesque
scene.

But its darker and more terrible features are yet to be described.




CHAPTER XXII.

A REPRISAL.

  "Proud of the favours mighty Jove has shown,
  On certain dangers we too rashly run;
  If 'tis His will our haughty foes to tame,
  Oh, may this instant end the Grecian name!
  Here far from Argos let their heroes fall,
  And one great day destroy and bury all!"
                                        _Iliad_ xiii.


Quentin's nerves received something like an electric shock when, on
proceeding a little further forward, he saw a line consisting of
sixteen poor French prisoners, partly bound by ropes, standing in
front of the rudely-formed rampart which closed up the archway, and
in front of them were four large pits, whose appalling shape and
aspect left no doubt that they were to be the premature graves of the
unfortunate men who now stood in health and strength beside them.

Those sixteen persons were of various ranks, as four at least seemed
by their silver epaulettes to be officers, and medals and crosses
glittered on the breasts of several.  Their uniform was dark blue,
lapelled with red, and all the privates wore large shoulder-knots of
scarlet worsted.  They were all French infantry men, taken in some
recent skirmish.  Bareheaded, they stood a sad-looking line, and in
their pale but war-bronzed faces, on which the flickering glare of
the torches fell with weird and wavering gleams, there seemed to be
no ray of hope for mercy or reprieve at the hands of their captors,
who were about to sacrifice them in the horrid spirit of reprisal
which then existed between the Spanish guerillas and the French
invaders.

"Good heavens!" said Quentin, in an agitated whisper; "are these men
about to be shot?"

"Si, senor--every one of them!"

"For what reason?"

"Being on the wrong side of the Pyrenees," replied the Spaniard, with
a cruel grin.

"Shot--and without mercy?"

"Precisely so, senor."

"By whose order?"

"One who does not like his orders questioned--Don Baltasar de Saldos."

"Is he capable of such an act?"

"Capable!  Santiago!  The French have made his heart as hard as if it
had been dipped in the well of Estremoz (beyond the mountains), which
turns everything to flinty rock."

As if to enhance the torture of their anticipated doom, the Spaniards
went slowly and deliberately about the selection of a firing party,
which consisted of no less than sixty men, who loaded in a very
irregular manner, and, as their steel ramrods flashed in the
torch-light and went home with a dull thud on the ball cartridges, a
thrill seemed to pass through the prisoners.

One, a grim-visaged and grey-moustached old captain of grenadiers,
folded his arms, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled in scorn and
defiance.  Doubtless, since the fall of the Bastile and the days of
the barricades, he had seen human lives lavished with a recklessness
that hardened him; but there was another officer who covered his face
with his handkerchief and wept; not in cowardice, for his gallant
breast was covered with the medals of many an honourable field; but
perhaps his heart at that moment was far away with his wife and
little ones in some sunny vale of Languedoc, or by the banks of the
silvery Garonne.

Some had their teeth clenched, and their eyes wearing a wild glare of
hate, of fear, and defiance mingled; some there were who seemed
scarcely conscious of the awful doom prepared for them, and some
glanced wistfully and fearfully at the newly-dug pits which were to
receive them when all was over.

Some were occupied by external objects, and the eyes of one followed
earnestly the course of a falling star of great beauty and
brilliance, which vanished behind the hills of Albuquerque.

A guerilla, clad in somewhat tattered black velvet, now took off his
sombrero, and in doing so, displayed, by a pretty plain tonsure, that
he was an unfrocked or degraded priest; but now inspired by something
of his former holy office, he held up a small crucifix, and
exclaimed--

"Frenchmen, if any man among you is a true son of the Church, I pray
God and the Blessed Madonna to receive him, and have mercy on his
soul!"

"That is the Padre Trevino, our second in command," whispered
Lazarillo; "and he is the best shot among us."

As Trevino spoke, the sixteen prisoners and all the onlookers,
crossed themselves very devoutly.  Some of the doomed closed their
eyes, and by their muttering, seemed to be praying very earnestly.
Intensity of emotion seemed to render them all more or less athirst,
as they were seen to moisten their pale lips with their tongues.

The stern grey-haired captain on the right alone seemed unmoved; he
had neither a prayer to give to Heaven or to earth, and thus stood
gazing stonily and grimly at his destroyers.

"On your knees, senors! on your knees!" said Trevino.

"Never to Spaniards!" replied the old captain.

"Are they really in earnest, M. le Capitaine?" asked the prisoner
next him, a mere youth.

"Earnest--ma foi!  I should think so, Louis."

"Ah, mon Dieu--to be shot thus--it is terrible!" he exclaimed, in a
piercing voice.

"On your knees, Frenchmen," repeated the militant friar, "not to us,
but to God!"

"To the blessed God, then," said the old captain; "kneel, comrades;
'tis the last word of command you will ever hear from me."

They all knelt, and now the firing party came forward three paces--

        ----"a death-determined band,
  Hell in their face and horror in their hand."

And forming line about twenty paces from the prisoners, shouldered
arms.  Then Quentin felt his excited heart beating painfully in his
breast, and he held his breath as if suffocating.  From the shoulder
the muskets were cast to the "ready," and then followed the terrible
clicking of the sixty locks, a sound that made the youngest victim,
who had been named Louis, a fair-haired lad (some poor conscript,
torn from his mother's arms, perhaps), to shudder very perceptibly
and close his eyes; and now came the three fatal and final words of
command from the unfrocked friar.

"Camaradas, preparen las armas!"

"Apunten!"

("Vive la France!  Vive l'Empereur!" cried the old captain,
defiantly.)

"FUEGO!"

The straggling volley of musketry broke like a thunder peal upon the
silence of the night, and echoed with a hundred reverberations among
the mountains, till it was heard, perhaps, by the sentinels in
Valencia.  Red blood spirted from the wounds of the victims, some of
whom leaped wildly up and fell heavily on the ground.  The grey smoke
rolled over them in the torch-light, and when it was lifted upward
like a vapoury curtain by the midnight wind, Quentin could see the
sixteen hapless Frenchmen all lying upon the earth.  Six were
screaming in agony, imploring the Spaniards to end it--to finish the
vile work they had begun--writhing in blood and beating the ground
with their heels; but then there were ten, who, alas! lay still
enough, with red currents streaming from the wounds in their yet
quivering corpses.

Half killed and gasping painfully, the old French captain struggled
into a sitting posture, but fell back again, as another volley poured
in at ten paces ended the butchery.

In a few minutes more they were stripped, even to their boots, and
flung quite nude and scarcely cold into the pits at the foot of the
breastwork, four being cast into each.

In the pocket of the poor officer who had wept there was found a
lady's miniature, and three locks of fair hair that had evidently
belonged to little children.  The loose earth was heaped over the
dead, the torches were extinguished, and, like a dissolving view or
some horrible phantasmagoria, the whole affair passed away and was
over.

In the horror excited by the scene and all its details, Quentin
forgot his mission, his despatch, almost his own identity; a sickness
and giddiness came over him, till he was roused by the voice of
Lazarillo, his guide, who said in the most matter-of-fact way--

"Follow me, senor--perhaps Don Baltasar can receive you now."

The house to which he was conducted was the most important in the
place, and had been for ages its chief posada or caravanserie, where
the muleteers passing between Oporto, Lisbon, and the southern and
eastern provinces of Spain, had been wont to halt and refresh.  It
was said to have been for a time the residence of the Scoto-Spaniard
Don Iago Stuart, who, with the _Sabrina_ and _Ceres_, two Spanish
frigates, fought Lord Nelson for three hours in the Mediterranean, in
1796, with the loss of one hundred and sixty men.

The under story was appropriated to the stabling of horses, mules,
and burros, and from thence a rickety wooden stair led to the upper
floor, the walls of which were cleanly whitewashed, the floors
covered, not with carpets, which in Spain would soon become
intolerable with insects, but with thin matting made of the esparto
grass or wild rush.

Military arms and household utensils were hung upon the walls or
placed on the wooden shelves; the stiff-backed chairs and sofas were
already occupied by some of the before-mentioned picturesque and
motley actors in the late scene, and a large branch candlestick, that
whilom had evidently figured on the altar of some stately church,
with its cluster of sputtering candles, gave light to the long
apartment, and enabled Quentin to examine it, and to see seated at
the upper end, a man in a kind of uniform, writing, occasionally
consulting an old and coarsely engraved map of Alentejo, and
referring from time to time to the Padre Trevino and others, who
leaned on their muskets, and who, lounging and laughing, smoked their
cigaritos about his chair.

This personage wore a black velvet jacket fancifully embroidered with
silver; a pair of British Light Infantry wings, also of silver,
probably stripped from some poor 29th man who fell at Roleia, were on
his shoulders.  He wore a gorgeous Spanish sash, with a buff cavalry
waist-belt and heavy Toledo sabre in a steel scabbard.  His sombrero,
adorned by a gold band and large scarlet plume, was stuck very much
on one side of his head, as if he were somewhat of a dandy; but
underneath it was tied a handkerchief, deeply saturated with the
blood of a recent wound.

"Senor Don Baltasar," said Lazarillo very respectfully, "a messenger
from the British cantonments on the frontier."

He of the silver wings and Toledo sabre looked up, and Quentin was
thunderstruck on finding himself face to face with the stranger of
the wayside well, the same personage from whom he had rescued Eugene
de Ribeaupierre, and whom he had stunned like an ox by a blow of the
cajado!




CHAPTER XXIII.

DON BALTASAR DE SALDOS.

  "We must not fail, we must not fail,
  However fraud or force assail;
  By honour, pride, or policy,
  By Heaven itself! we must be free.
  We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
  And dared the despot to the worst;
  Renewed the strife of centuries,
  And flung our banner to the breeze."--DAVIS.


A start of extreme astonishment deepening into a black scowl, which
anon changed to something of a scornful smile in the Spaniard's
sallow visage, was Quentin Kennedy's first greeting from the Guerilla
Chief, who then bowed haughtily, and said with an unpleasant
emphasis--

"Oho, senor; so you are the messenger!  Santos--why didn't you tell
me your errand on the day we met by the cross of King Alphonso?  You
would thus have saved yourself a devil of a journey and me this knock
on the head."

"It would have been unwise to reveal my mission to the first stranger
I met; I deplore the result of our second interview, senor; but I
would not stand by and see an unarmed man killed without interfering."

"A Frenchman!" said Baltasar with intense scorn.

"Maledito," said the Padre Trevino, a man with a pair of quiet and
deeply set, but the most treacherous looking dark eyes that ever
glanced out of a human head,.  "Maledito!" he repeated, while playing
with the knife in his sash, "so this is the fellow who wounded you
and rescued the French officer?"

"Yes, Padre; but that is my affair, not yours," said Baltasar,
haughtily.

"And your precious Frenchman--you conducted him no doubt to
Valencia?" said the Padre, anxious apparently to make mischief.

"I left him very near it--indeed, he was my guide part of the way
here," replied Quentin with composure.

"Very accommodating of him, certainly," said Baltasar, in whose face
the scowl returned; it was evident, apart from his indignation at
Quentin, that he had found some of the wrong eggs, the legends on
which foretold the early abandonment of the entire Peninsula by the
British, for his mind was full of ill-concealed anger and
apprehension.  "You see now, senor," he resumed with a malevolent
grimace, "you see now that the spit has become a sword, and the sword
only a spit.  Por vida del demonio! but Don Tomaso Yriarte was right
after all, for we must never take men or things for what they may
appear."

While Quentin was pondering what reply to make to this strange
speech, a drop of blood fell from the wound in Baltasar's head, and
made a large scarlet spot on the open map of Alentejo.  On seeing
this the eyes of the Spaniard flashed fire, his nostrils seemed to
dilate, and, striking the table with the haft of his dagger, he
exclaimed--

"But that the fact of shooting the bearer of a British despatch--a
messenger of Don Juan Hope, as Lazarillo says you are--might
compromise me with the Junta of Castile as well as with your general,
and thus injure the budding Spanish cause, by the Holy Face of Jaen!
I would send you to keep company with those sixteen dogs whom Trevino
shot to-night!"

"Senor, I was innocent of intending evil against _you_," urged poor
Quentin.

"And this despatch which you bring, if it be as my soul forebodes, a
notification that I am only to cover the retreat of the British when
falling back upon Lisbon and the sea, _then_ say over any prayer your
heretic mother may have taught you, for you, Inglese, shall not see
the sun of to-morrow rise.  I never forgive an insult--a word or a
blow!"

Though Quentin had been told at Portalegre somewhat of the contents
of the despatch, he knew so little of the great game of war and
politics about to be played in Spain that his mind misgave him, and
he trembled in his heart lest the treasured paper which he now handed
to this ferocious Spaniard, might indeed prove his death-warrant, and
seal his doom!  He thought of his pistols, and cast a glance around
him--escape was hopeless, and a cruel smile wreathed the thin wicked
lips of the Padre Trevino.

Baltasar tore open the long official sheet of paper, and when his
piercing eyes had run rapidly over the contents, to Quentin's great
relief of mind, a smile that was almost pleasant spread over his
sallow visage, like sunshine on a lake.

"Hombres," he exclaimed to those around him, "listen!  There are none
here but true Castilians, so all may share my joy.  On the second day
of the ensuing November, the first division of the British army which
is to rescue Spain will enter Castile by the Badajoz road, led by Sir
John Hope, whose advance we are to cover by a collateral movement
along the mountains by the hill ef Albuera.  Long live Ferdinand the
Seventh!"

"Viva el Rey de Espana!"

"Viva el nombre de Jesus!"

Such were the kind of shouts that were raised by a hundred voices,
while sundry faces, ere while darkened by hostile and suspicious
scowls, were now wreathed with broad smiles, and many a battered
sombrero and greasy bandanna were flourished aloft, while to the
triumphant vivas the musket-butts clattered an accompaniment on the
esparto-covered floor; and many a somewhat dingy hand shook Quentin's
with energy, while, in token of friendship and alliance, wine,
cigaritos, and tobacco pouches were proffered him on all sides.

When the hubbub was somewhat over, Quentin (with some anxiety for his
departure, as the atmosphere of the guerilla head-quarters seemed a
dangerous one) said to the chief--

"Don Baltasar, my orders were and my most earnest wishes are to join
my regiment at Portalegre, so I should wish to set out by daybreak
to-morrow."

"But the army will soon be advancing--why not remain with us till it
comes up?"

"Impossible!" said Quentin, whose heart sank at the suggestion.

"Perhaps you think that you have seen enough of us; but in a war of
independence, the invaded must not be too tender-hearted."

"Nay, senor; but if it would please you to give me to-night your
reply to the general commanding our division, it would favour me
greatly."

This simple question seemed to raise some undefinable suspicion, or
recall something unpleasant to the Spaniard's mind, for, knitting his
thick black brows over his deeply-set and lynx-like eyes, he regarded
Quentin with a steady scrutiny, and said:

"You are not an officer, it would seem?  (How often had this remark
stung poor Quentin.)  You have no sash, gorget, or epaulettes?"

"No, senor," replied Quentin, with a sigh; "I have not the good
fortune."

"What are you then--a simple soldado?"

"Senor," replied Quentin, with growing irritation, for, in truth, he
was very weary of his long day's journey, and its exciting episodes;
"the letter you have just read, I believe, tells you what you require
to know."

"Santos! you are a bold fellow to bear yourself thus to _me_."

"I am a British soldier on military duty," replied Quentin, loftily,
as he saw that hardihood was the only quality appreciated by his new
acquaintances.

"What is this?  You are styled, _voluntario del Regimiento Viente y
Cinco--Fronteros del Rey_--is that it?"

"A volunteer of the King's Own Borderers--yes."

"An English corps, of course, by your uniform?" remarked Baltasar,
while twisting up a cigarito.

"No, senor."

"_Maledito_--what then?" he asked, pausing, as he lit it.

"Escotos."

"_Demonio_!  I saw them at Vimiera, and thought all the Escotos were
bare-legged, and wore Biscayner's bonnets with great plumes.  But you
shall have the answer you wish this instant.  I am not a man for
delay."

"A guide also, senor, will be necessary, so that I may avoid the
French patrols."

"You made your way here without one," said the Spaniard, with one of
his keen and suspicious glances; "moreover, I suppose you are not
without at least one French friend in Valencia; but a guide you shall
have, if we can spare one," he added, dipping a pen in an ink-horn,
and, drawing before him a sheet of paper, he wrote hastily the
following brief despatch, for El Estudiente, as he was sometimes
named, had been well educated by his father, a professor at the
University of Salamanca.


"SENOR GENERAL,--I have had the high honour of receiving your
despatch announcing the day of your march into Castile, and, with the
help of God, Madonna, and the saints, I shall be in motion at the
same time towards the hill of Albuera, with my guerilla force, now
two thousand strong, with five 12-pounders, to cover your flank, if
necessary, from the cavalry of Ribeaupierre, who occupy all the
district in and about Valencia.  With the most profound esteem, I
have the honour to be, illustrious Senor and General, &c. &c.--

"BALTASAR DE SALDOS Y SALAMANCA."


While addressing this letter, which he handed to Quentin, he turned
to the Padre Trevino, who had stood all the while leaning on his long
musket, and said, with a sombre expression on his dark face:--

"Padre, now that I have a moment to spare, I shall be glad to learn
how your plan for ridding us of General de Ribeaupierre has failed,
and what has become of your remarkably luxuriant beard and whiskers,
which were ample enough to have frightened Murillo himself?  You are
now shaven as bare----"

"As when I threw my gown and sandals over the Dominican gate at
Salamanca," interrupted the ex-friar, with a grin.

"Exactly so."

"Well, Baltasar, _amigo mio_, when I entered Valencia this morning, I
had, as you know, a goodly natural crop of black beard and whiskers,
with a wig that for length of matted locks rivalled those of
Lazarillo here.  Over these I had a high-crowned sombrero, with a
tricoloured cockade, emblematical of my zealous loyalty to Joseph,
the Corsican.  Clad in an old brown mantle, I assumed the character
of a poor, meek man, the bearer of a petition to the French general,
De Ribeaupierre, whom I meant to stab to the heart as he read
it--aye, _por Dios!_ though surrounded by all his staff and
quarter-guard, for I was well mounted, and they never would have
overtaken or stopped me, save by closing the city gate.

"I reached the head-quarters just as the whole staff were turning
out, for tidings had come that the guerillas of that devil of a
fellow Baltasar the Salamanquino, had cut off a cavalry patrol, and
shot the general's only son, a lieutenant of chasseurs.  The
excitement was great in the garrison, where there was such mounting
and spurring, drumming and so forth, that I was almost unheeded,
while noisily importuning the staff-officers that I had a petition
for the general.

"'Here, Spaniard, give it to me,' said one who was covered with
orders, pausing, as with his foot in the stirrup, he was just about
to mount his horse.

"I measured him with a glance--I looked stealthily all round me to
see that the streets were clear for a start, as he opened my petition
and read it.

"I drew closer; the red cloud I have seemed to see on _former
occasions_, came before my eyes; my heart beat wildly, my hand, hot
and feverish, was on my knife.  Another moment it was buried in his
heart, and I was spurring along the street towards the southern gate,
which I reached only to find it shut!"

"A thousand devils!" said Baltasar.

"_Por Baccho!_" muttered the listeners, with their eyes dilated.

"Dismounting, I quitted my horse, rushed down an alley, where I saw
the door of a bodega open, and plunged down into it unseen, scrambled
over the borrachio skins into a dark corner and crept behind a heap
of them.  There I lay panting and breathless, dreading the proprietor
(but he had been hanged that morning as a spy), and also the French,
armed parties of whom passed and repassed, swearing and threatening;
and from what they said, I learned that I had not killed the
general----"

"_Not_ killed him? what the devil, Padre!--I thought you always
struck home!"

"So I do, and so I _did_, but the knife had reached only the heart of
his military secretary."

"Well, then, 'tis one more Frenchman gone the downward road, the way
we hope to send them all.  And you----"

"I lay for some time in the cool wine vault, among the cobwebs and
dirty borrachio skins.  One of them--for the temptation was too
great--I pierced with my yet bloody knife, and a long, long draught
of the vino de Alicante, cold, dry, mellow, delicious,
golden-coloured----"

"Ha, ha, ha!  Bravo Padre Trevino!" chorussed all the laughing
listeners, as they clattered away with their musket-butts in applause
of his atrocious narrative.

"Thou wert revived, no doubt?" said Baltasar, impatiently.

"_Amiga mio_, I should think so; it brightened my intellects; it gave
me new ideas--I drew inspiration from that beloved borrachio skin.  I
cast away my ample wig, drew from my wallet shaving apparatus, and in
a trice I was shaven to the eyes, as you see me.  Abandoning my
cloak, I concealed my dagger in my left sleeve, took a wine skin
under my arm, and walking deliberately to the officer in command of
the guard at the south gate, offered the wine for sale at half its
value, seeming to all appearance a very quiet citizen, anxious in
these hard times to do a little business, even with the enemy.  He
took the skin from me, bid me go to the devil for payment; the
sentinel opened the wicket, and I was thrust out of Valencia--the
very thing I wanted.  I said nothing about my poor wife or starving
little ones, lest their hearts might relent, but turned my face to
the mountains, and I am here."

This savage story met, we have said, with great applause, and
Quentin, after the scene he had witnessed in the street of the
puebla, felt no surprise that it did so; but his horror of the Padre
was great, and he felt his repugnance for the guerillas increase
every moment.

Policy and necessity forced him to dissemble; yet, in that mountain
village there seemed such an atmosphere of blood, dishonourable
warfare, and patriotism gone mad, that he longed intensely to be out
of it, and once again in the more congenial and civilized society he
had left.

"Supper, senor," said Don Baltasar, rising from the table and
gathering up his papers; "let us rest now, for you must be weary, and
in truth so am I; and then to bed, for the hour is late, and we have
both work to do upon the morrow.  Trevino, who has the quarter-guard?"

"El Conde de Maciera, senor," replied the Padre.

"Good--not a bat will stir between this and Valencia without his
hearing of it.  This way, then," added Baltasar, ushering them into
an inner apartment, where a very different face from any Quentin had
yet seen in the Peninsula shed a light upon the scene.




CHAPTER XXIV.

DONNA ISIDORA.

  "She sung of love--while o'er her lyre
    The rosy rays of evening fell,
  As if to feed with their soft fire
    The soul within that trembling shell.
  The same rich light hung o'er her cheek,
    And played around those lips that sung,
  And spoke as flowers would sing and speak,
    If love could lend their leaves a tongue."
                                        MOORE.


Unpleasant though his new acquaintances were in many ways, Quentin
felt a certain sense of lofty satisfaction that he was a successful
though humble actor in the great European drama.  His mission was
achieved!  The junction with the first division would doubtless be
effected by the guerillas, and as he thought of the castle of
Rohallion and those who were there, of gentle Flora Warrender and his
boyish love, he began to hope--indeed to believe--that he was
actually destined for great things after all.

In such a mind as Quentin's there was much of chivalry, nobility, and
enthusiasm that mingled with his deep love for a pure and beautiful
young girl like Flora.

In some respects, the companionship, aspect, equipment, and bearing
of those half-lawless, but wholly patriotic soldiers, seemed a
realization of those day-dreams or imaginary adventures his romance
reading had led him to weave and fashion; but the awful episode of
the night, though fully illustrative of the Spanish character, and of
the mode in which the patriots were disposed to carry on the war, was
a feature in guerilla life never to be forgotten!

"My sister, the Senora Donna Isidora," said Baltasar, assuming much
of the courtly bearing of a true Spanish gentleman, while introducing
Quentin to a very handsome girl; "Donna Ximena, the mother of our
comrade Trevino," he added, with a deeper reverence, on presenting
him to a woman, so old, little, dark, and hideous, that, after
bowing, he hastened to look again at the younger lady.

"The senor will kiss your hand, Isidora," said Don Baltasar.

Quentin did so, just touching with his lip a very lovely little hand,
but, happily for him, the leathern paw of the venerable Trevino was
not presented.  Then the party, which consisted of Baltasar, Trevino,
two other Spaniards, whose names are of no consequence, the two
ladies, and their youthful guest, seated themselves at table.

The mother of the ungodly Trevino was a deaf old crone who seldom
spoke, but always crossed herself with great devotion when Quentin
looked her way, having a proper horror of all heretics, whom she
believed to be the children of the devil, and all to be more or less
possessed of the evil eye.

Beauty belongs to no particular country, and is to be found, more or
less, everywhere, yet most travellers now begin to admit that Spanish
beauty is somewhat of a delusion or a dream, which poets and
novelists think it proper or necessary to indulge in and rave about;
and some of the aforesaid travellers begin to assert that, beyond a
pair of dark eyes and a set of regular teeth, it cannot be honestly
said that the women of Spain have much to boast of.

Be that as it may, Isidora de Saldos was a singularly lovely girl, in
somewhere about her eighteenth year, a very ripe age in the sunny
land of Castile.  Her eyes indeed were marvellous, they were so soft
and dark, and alternately so sparkling, languishing, and expressive
of earnestness, all the more striking from the pale complexion of her
little face.  In their deep setting and with their long thick upper
and lower lashes, those seductive eyes seemed to be black, while, in
reality, they were of the darkest grey.  Her dark brown hair was
long, rich in colour, and unrivalled in softness.  It was of that
texture which, unhappily, never lasts long, and which often, ere
five-and-twenty comes, has lost alike its length and profusion.

Her Spanish dress became her blooming years, her figure (which was
rather petite), and the piquant character of her beauty.  It
consisted of a scarlet velvet corset, and short but ample skirts of
alternate black and scarlet flounces, all very full; slippers of
Cordovan leather, with high heels, and scarlet stockings, clocked
almost to the knee, over the tightest of ankles.

A white muslin handkerchief, prettily disposed over her bosom, a high
comb at the back of her head, round which her magnificent dark hair
was gathered and fastened by a long gold pin, that looked
unpleasantly like a poniard (indeed, it could be used as such), with
silver bracelets on her slender wrists, long pendants that glittered
at her tiny ears, a large medal bearing the image of the Madonna hung
round her neck, and a black lace mantilla, depending from the comb
and flowing over all, completed her attire.

The medal was of pure gold, and bore the inscription, "_O Marie,
concue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous_," and
was, as she afterwards informed Quentin, the gift of the Padre
Trevino, who found it on the body of a Frenchman whom he had shot
near Albuquerque.

"Did you ever taste a real Spanish olla, senor?" asked Baltasar, as
the covers were removed, and the odour of a steaming and savoury dish
pervaded the apartment.

Quentin declared that he had not.

"Then thou shalt taste it to-night.  My sister is a famous cook,"
said Baltasar; "an olla she excels in--it was the favourite dish of
our old father, the professor at Salamanca, and is the most noble
dish in the world!"

"If Spanish, it must be," said Quentin, flatteringly.

"True," said Baltasar, gravely, while giving each of his enormous
moustaches an upward twist; "we consider everything Spanish supremely
good."

"We are rather a proud people, you see, senor," said Donna Isidora,
laughing; "and so far is pride carried, that to touch royalty is to
die."

"Manuel Godoy touched royalty pretty often," said Trevino, with a
grim smile, "and we never heard that Her Majesty of Spain resented it
particularly."

"Did you ever hear of the escape of the sister of Philip III., senor?"

"I regret to say, Don Baltasar, that I never heard of Philip
himself," replied Quentin.

"About two hundred years ago our royal family were residing at
Aranjuez," said Baltasar, while filling his own and Quentin's glass
with wine; "it is a country palace twenty miles south of Madrid, and
is remarkable for its size and beauty.  One night it caught fire; the
court and all the attendants took to flight, leaving the youngest
sister of Don Philip to perish.  She was seen at one of the windows
wringing her hands and imploring the saints to succour her, but a
young arquebusier of the royal guard proved of more avail.  He
bravely dashed through the flames, raised her in his arms, and bore
her forth in safety.  But Spanish etiquette was shocked that the hand
of a subject--of a man especially--had touched royalty; nay, worse,
that he should have entered her bed-chamber, so the soldier was cast
into a dungeon, chained to a heavy bar, and condemned to _die_!  But
the princess graciously pardoned him, and he was sent away to fight
the Flemings under the Duke of Alva.  His name was De Saldos, and
from him we are descended."

Spanish etiquette made Donna Isidora rather silent and reserved; she
somewhat uselessly addressed the old crone Donna Ximena from time to
time, and that worthy matron only responded by mutterings, shaking
her palsied head, or signing the cross beneath the table.  At other
times Isidora made an occasional remark to Trevino, by whom she was
evidently greatly admired, for his keen stealthy eyes were seldom off
her face, and a malevolent gleam shot from them whenever, in
dispensing the courtesies of the table, she addressed Quentin Kennedy.

The past day's skirmish among the mountains, the capture and
slaughter of the sixteen French prisoners, had appetized Baltasar and
his three companions; and though Spanish cookery is seldom very
excellent, Quentin was quite hungry enough to enjoy the olla podrida
of beef, chicken, and bacon, boiled with sliced gourd, carrots,
beans, red sausages, and heaven knows what more, well peppered and
spiced.

A few strings of rusks, a dish of raisins, with plenty of good
Valdepenas in jolly flasks, closed the repast, after which the
invariable cigars were resorted to, prior to repose.

As the whitewashed room, though scantily furnished, was close and
warm, and as fighting was over for the night, Baltasar and his
comrades unbuttoned their jackets, and each disencumbered himself of
a _peto_ or wadded stuffing, which was supposed to turn a bullet, all
the better that there was pasted thereon a coloured print of some
local saint.

The conversation ran chiefly on the new war about to be waged by the
allies in Spain, the various routes likely to be taken by the several
divisions, the probable points of concentration, and so forth.  These
were chiefly discussed by Baltasar and his three companions, all of
whom had already seen much service against the French.  The extreme
youth of Quentin, and his total ignorance of the country, made them
somewhat ignore his presence, notwithstanding the important despatch
he had brought, the scarlet coat he wore, and that he was the herald
of that great strife that was not to cease, even at the Hill of
Toulouse!

He sedulously avoided addressing or coming in contact in any way with
the Padre Trevino, of whom he naturally had a proper horror, as an
apostate priest who, exceeding his duty as a guerilla, became an
assassin, and so coolly avowed his deadly design upon the father of
Ribeaupierre.

The youth, the fair complexion, the gentleness of voice and eye the
donna saw in Quentin, together with certain unmistakeable signs of
good breeding, when contrasted with the dark, fierce aspect and
brusque bearing of those about her now, failed not to interest her
deeply.

The solitary mission on which he had come; the distance from his own
country, of the exact situation of which, in her strange Spanish
notions of geography (though passably educated for a Castilian), she
had not the slightest idea, for in those points her countrymen are
not much improved since Vasco de Lobiera wrote of the fair Olinda
taking ship in Norway, and sailing to the King of England's "Island
of Windsor;" the knowledge that Quentin was come to fight, it might
be to _die_, for her beloved Spain, all served to present him in a
most favourable light to her very lovely eyes, which rested on him so
frequently that the sharp-sighted Trevino more than once bit his ugly
nether lip with suppressed irritation, while Quentin felt his pulses
quicken with pleasure, for the dark little beauty, in her picturesque
national costume, was a delightful object to gaze upon; thus, a
longer residence than he intended in that mountain puebla might
perhaps have led we are not prepared to say to what species of
mischief.

As the wine circulated, and the conversation still turned on the war,
Quentin ventured the remark--a perilous one amid such gentry--that he
thought the scene he had recently witnessed was not favourable to the
good success of the Spanish cause.

Every brow loured as he said this, and the gentle donna looked uneasy.

"Madre divina! you don't know what you talk about, senor," said
Baltasar, gravely; "had you seen your countrymen, as I have mine,
shot down in poor defenceless groups of thirty or forty at a time, on
the open Prado of Madrid, you would think less harshly of us."

"And, senor," urged Isidora, in her soft and musical tones, "the poor
people of the city were forced to illuminate their houses in honour
of the sacrifice.  Was not such cruelty horrible?"

"Horrible indeed, senora," replied Quentin, feeling that it really
was so, though sooth to say he would have agreed with anything she
might have advanced, for there was no withstanding those earnest eyes
and that seductive voice.

"Light as noonday were the streets on that awful night," said
Baltasar, as the fierce gleam came into his eyes and the pallor of
passion passed over each of his sallow cheeks; "ten thousand lamps
and candles shed their glare upon the heaps of slain, where women
were searching for their husbands, children for parents and parents
for children, while the cannon thundered from the Retiro, and the
volleying musketry rang in many a street and square.  What says the
Junta of Seville in its address to the people of Madrid?  'We, all
Spain, exclaim--the Spanish blood shed in Madrid cries aloud for
revenge!  Comfort yourselves, we are your brethren: we will fight
like you until the last of us perish in defence of our king and
country!'  Senor, the massacres of the 2nd of May were a sight to
shudder at--to treasure in the heart and to remember!"

"And by our holy Lady of Battles and of Covadonga, we are not likely
to forget!" swore Trevino, striking the table with the hilt of his
knife.

"The spirits of the Cid Rodrigo, of Pelayo the Asturian, and all the
loyal and brave men of old, are among us again," said Baltasar, with
enthusiasm, "and we shall crush the slaves of the Corsican to whom
Manuel Godoy betrayed us!"

"Godoy," said a guerilla who had scarcely yet spoken, but who seemed
inspired by the same ferocious spirit; "oh that I may yet some day
despatch him as Pinto Ribiero slew that similar traitor, Vasconcella
the false Portuguese."

"Always blood!" thought Quentin, beginning to fear that from
indulging in bluster and rodomontade, they might fall on him, were it
for nothing more but to keep their hands in practice.

"I perceive you look frequently at my guitar," said Donna Isidora, on
seeing that Quentin evidently disliked the ferocious tone adopted by
her brother and his companions; "do you sing, senor?"

"No, senora."

"Or play?"

"The guitar is scarcely known in my country; but if you would favour
us----"

"With pleasure, senor," said she, with a charming smile.

"Bueno, Dora," said her brother, taking from its peg the guitar and
handing it to her; on which she threw its broad scarlet riband over
her shoulder, ran her white and slender fingers through the strings,
and then a lovely Spanish picture, that Phillips might have doted on,
was complete.

"What shall it be, Baltasar?" she asked; adding with a swift glance
at Quentin's scarlet coat, "'_Mia Madre no caro soldados aqui_'--eh?"

"Nay, Dora, that would scarcely be courteous to our guest, who is a
soldier."

"What then, mi hermano?"

"Give us one of Lope de Vega's songs.  There is that ballad which
compliments the English king who came to seek a wife in Spain."

Then with great sweetness she sang Lope's verses, which begin--

  "Carlos Stuardo soy,
    Qui siendo amor mi guia,
  Al cielo de Espana voy,
    Por ver mi estrella Maria."

While she sang, Quentin thought of the old Jacobite enthusiasm of
Lady Winifred and Lord Rohallion, and how they would have admired
alike the song and the singer; and while his eyes were fixed on her
soft pale face and thick downcast eyelashes, he neither heard the
accompaniment Baltasar beat with a pair of castanets, or by the Padre
Trevino with the haft of a remarkably ugly knife, which seemed alike
his favourite weapon and plaything.

In a few minutes after this they had all separated for the night, and
Quentin, without undressing, as he proposed to start early on the
following morning, stretched on a hard pallet and muffled in his
great coat, with his sabre and pistols under his head, soon sank into
slumber, the sound, deep slumber induced by intense fatigue; and from
this not even the horrors of the recent massacre, the louring visage
of the suspicious Trevino, the voice, the eyes, of the lovely young
donna, or any other memory, could disturb him.




CHAPTER XXV.

THE JOURNEY.

  "Meanwhile the gathering clouds obscure the skies,
  From pole to pole the forky lightning flies,
  The rattling thunders roll, and Juno pours
  A wintry deluge down and sounding showers;
  The company dispersed to coverts ride,
  And seek the homely cots or mountain side."
                                        Æneis iv.


From this long and dreamless sleep Quentin Kennedy started and awoke
next morning, but not betimes, as the sun's altitude, when shining on
the whitewashed walls of the posada, informed him.  He sprang up and
proceeded to make a hasty toilet.

"Breakfast, a guide, and then to be gone!" thought he, joyfully.

On issuing from his scantily-furnished chamber into the large room of
the posada, or rather what was once the posada, he found a number of
the guerillas busy making up ball-cartridges.  Heaps of loose powder
lay on the oak table, and the nonchalant makers were smoking their
cigars over it as coolly as if it were only brickdust or oatmeal.

The guitar that hung by its broad scarlet riband from a peg on the
wall, brought to memory all the episodes of last night, and Quentin
sighed when reflecting that a girl so lovely as its owner should be
lost among such society, for to him, those patriot volunteers of his
Majesty Ferdinand VII. had very much the air and aspect of banditti.

He looked forth from the open windows into the street of the puebla;
the morning was a lovely one.  The unclouded sun shone joyously on
the bright green mountain sides, while a pleasant breeze shook the
autumnal foliage of the woods, and tossed the large and now yellow
leaves of the ancient vines that covered all the walls of the old
posada, growing in at each door and opening; but Quentin could not
repress a shudder when he saw the four large graves at the foot of
the archway, for the faces and forms of the poor victims came before
his eye in fancy with painful distinctness--the rigid figure of the
grey-haired captain, the other officer who wept for his wife and
children, the conscript whom they named Louis--the manly and
unflinching courage of all!

Baltasar de Saldos twisted up his enormous whiskerando-like
moustaches, and smiled grimly as only a taciturn Spaniard can smile,
when he perceived this, as he conceived it to be, childish emotion of
his guest.

"The ladies await us, senor," said Baltasar; and Quentin, on turning,
found the dark and deeply-lashed eyes of Isidora bent on his, as she
smilingly presented her plump little hand to be kissed, and then the
same party who had met last night again seated themselves at table,
and a slight breakfast of thick chocolate, eggs, and white bread, was
rapidly discussed.  As soon as it was over, the brilliant young donna
and the withered old one withdrew, bidding Quentin farewell, and
adding that as he was to depart so soon, they should see him no more.

Quentin, with a heart full of pleasure, belted on his sabre and
assumed his forage cap; he also drew the charges of his pistols and
loaded them anew.

"And now, Don Baltasar, with a thousand thanks for your kindness, I
shall take my departure," said he.  "But how about a guide to avoid
the main road, and escape the enemy's patrols?"

"As we are so soon to leave this, and commence active and desperate
operations, the end or extent of which none of us can foresee, the
Padre Trevino, who is the very model and mirror of sons, has decided
on sending that excellent lady his mother (a slight smile spread over
the Spaniard's sombre visage as he spoke) across the frontier for
safety.  She goes to the convent of Engracia, at Portalegre; and, as
she knows the whole country hereabouts as if it were her own
inheritance, she shall be your guide."

"She--Donna Trevino?" exclaimed Quentin, who was by no means
enchanted by the offer of such an encumbrance.

"Si, senor.  You will be sure to take great care of her."

"But--but, Don Baltasar, that old dame!  (devil he had nearly
said)--why not send one of your band?"

"I cannot spare a single man.  Spain will need them all.  The senora
is very deaf and old, you need scarcely ever address her, and, as she
is taciturn, she will not incommode you.  Besides our Spanish
mistrust of strangers, she has--excuse me, senor--a horror of all who
are beyond the pale of the Church."

"But, senor," urged poor Quentin, "to travel for two or three days
with a deaf old lady!"

"What are you speaking of, senor?  We are only a little more than
thirty miles from Portalegre as a bird flies.  You lost your way, and
rambled sadly in coming here; but I shall mount her on a mule, and
you on a horse, and you may easily be there, even though proceeding
by the most steep and devious route, before the sun sets."

"To-night!"

"Exactly.  There is, as you are aware, a vast difference in
travelling on horseback with a guide, and a-foot, in a strange
country, without one."

"I thank you, senor," said Quentin, considerably relieved, "and shall
commit myself to the guidance of the old lady, though I fear that she
views me with no favourable eye."

"Here come your cattle."

"A noble horse, by Jove!"

"I have filled your canteen with aguardiente."

"Thanks, senor."

"I know that you Inglesos can neither march nor fight, as we
Spaniards do, on mere cold water, with the whiff of a cigar."

They were now at the door of the posada, where a group of dark, idle,
slouching, and somewhat villanous-looking guerillas were loitering,
to witness the departure.

"Ah, if these fellows only knew that my pockets were so well lined
with moidores!" thought Quentin.

Lazarillo held the horse (which had evidently been a French cavalry
charger) and the mule by their bridles.  The former had a fine switch
tail, which was now tied or doubled up in the Spanish fashion, as he
had to perform a journey.  The latter was a tall, sleek, and handsome
animal, whose figure indicated great speed and strength.

The saddles were Moorish (the fashion still in Spain), made with high
peak and croup behind; the stirrup-irons were triangular boxes, and
the bridles, bridoons, and cruppers, with their brass bosses, scarlet
fringes, tassels, and trumpery ornaments, closely resembled the
harness of the circus.

At the pommel of the horse's saddle, hung a leather bottle of wine,
and behind was a handsome alforja, or travelling bag, ornamented with
an infinity of tassels, and containing bread, sausages, a boiled
fowl, and other edibles to be consumed on the journey.  Nothing was
forgotten, and as Quentin mounted his horse, the old lady was led
forth by Trevino, who, with Baltasar's assistance, lifted her into
the mule's saddle.

The venerable donna was muffled up in a large loose garment of
striped stuff, purple and white; it covered her from head to foot,
and but for her thick veil, which entirely concealed her withered
visage, she might have passed for an old Bedouin in a burnous.

"Senor, this lady is one in whom I am so deeply interested," said
Trevino, with the keen, fierce, and impressive glance peculiar to
him, and with a hand, by force of habit, perhaps, on his knife; "I
say, one in whom I am so deeply interested, that I trust to your care
and honour in seeing her, without hindrance or delay, safe to
Portalegre."

"I shall see her safe to the gate of the Engracia convent," said
Quentin; "and how about returning the cattle, Don Baltasar?"

"Leave them there, too--my free gift to the convent.  And now,
adios," said he, with a low bow; "doubtless we shall meet again when
the army is in motion."

"I hope not," muttered Quentin.  "Adios, senores."

A few minutes more and they had left the puebla, with its lawless
garrison, its cannon, and earthen bastions, on which the scarlet and
yellow ensign of Castile and Leon was waving, far behind them, and
were riding at a rapid trot down the green mountain path which
Quentin had travelled alone last night.

Soon he saw the place where the road branched off to Valencia, and
where he had parted from Ribeaupierre; and, ere long, he passed the
dead horse, already torn and disembowelled by the wolves or the
wandering dogs which infested all the wild parts of Estremadura.

How changed were the scene, the circumstances, and the companionship
since he had last been in the saddle, cantering along the road to
Maybole, escorting Flora Warrender!

Leaving this path, and striking off to the left, Donna Ximena, to
whose guidance he silently and implicitly committed himself, and who
rode a little way in front, managing her mule with ease, and,
considering her years, with undoubted grace, conducted him up a steep
and narrow track that led into the wildest part of the mountains,
where the summits of slaty granite were already beginning to be
powdered by frost and snow in the early hours of morning, and where
the valleys, which the industry of the Moors made gardens that teemed
with fertility and beauty, are now desert wastes, abounding only in
rank pasturage.

Their cattle soon became blown, and, as the pleasant breeze that
fanned the foliage in the forenoon, had already died away, and been
succeeded by an oppressive and sultry closeness, they proceeded
slowly, and now Quentin thought he might venture to converse a little
with his silent companion, for the monotony of travelling thus became
tiresome in the extreme.

"Donna Ximena," said he, as their nags walked slowly up the mountain
path.  "Donna Ximena!" he repeated, in a louder key, before she said,
without turning her head--

"Well, senor?"

"It surprises me much that Don Baltasar permits a girl so lovely as
his sister to reside among those dangerous guerillas."

To this remark the haughty old lady made no response, so, raising his
voice, he added--

"He may now be without a home to leave her in; but, certainly,
Isidora is, without exception, the most beautiful and winning girl I
ever saw--in her own style, at least," he concluded, as he thought of
Flora Warrender.

He had to shout this remark at the utmost pitch of his voice before
the old lady replied, with a gloved hand at her right ear,--

"Yes, senor--she put a large and beautiful sausage into the alforja."

"Bother the old frump!" said Quentin; then shouting louder still, he
added, "Your head, senora, is so muffled in that mantle and veil,
that it is quite impossible you can hear me."

"Were you speaking, senor?"

"The devil!  I should think so--yes!"

"Speak louder."

"I cannot possibly speak louder, senora; but I was remarking the
danger that might accrue to a girl of such wonderful beauty as Donna
Isidora among the companions of her brother."

"It is Valdepenas, senor."

"_What_ is Valdepenas?"

"The wine in the bota--taste it if you wish--I filled it for you."

Quentin relinquished in despair any further attempt to make himself
heard or understood, and for some miles they proceeded, as before, in
total silence, while the gathering of the clouds betokened a storm,
and Quentin was certain he heard thunder at a distance; but a few
minutes after, the sound proved to be that of a brass drum
reverberating between the mountain slopes!  As these drums were then
used by the French alone, he instinctively reined up, and his silent
guide, to whom he did not deem it worth while to communicate his
alarm, did so too.

"Ah--you heard that, my venerable friend," said he aloud.

The sound now became continuous and steady, and his horse, an old
trooper we have said, snorted and pricked up his ears intelligently.
It was the regular but monotonous beating of a single drummer, who
was timing the quickstep for the troops in the old fashion still
retained by the French, when on the line of march, as it proves an
excellent method, in lieu of other music, for getting soldiers
rapidly on.

Desirous of reconnoitring, Quentin somewhat unceremoniously pushed
his horse past the mule of his fair, but exceedingly tiresome
companion, and dismounting, led it forward by the bridle.

The path, rugged and narrow, here went right over the steep crest of
a hill between some volcanic rocks that were covered with dark-green
clumps of the Portuguese laurel and wild olive tree; and from thence
it dipped abruptly down into a little green valley where stood a farm
house in ruins.

There by the wayside was a human skull, white and bleached, stuck
upon the summit of a pole, the grim memorial of some act of
retributive justice for murder and robbery.

Proceeding slowly and listening intently as he went, for the sound of
the drum was coming every moment nearer, Quentin peeped over the
eminence and found himself almost face to face with the first section
of the advanced guard of a French regiment of infantry; they were
scarcely a hundred yards distant, and were toiling up the steep
ascent.

In heavy marching order, with their blankets and blue great-coats
rolled, they were clad in long white tunics of coarse linen, with
large red epaulettes, high bearskin caps, each with a scarlet plume
on the left side; the legs of their scarlet trousers were rolled up
above the ankles; all had their muskets slung, and they were
chatting, laughing, smoking, and marching, some with their hands in
their pockets, and others arm-in-arm, in that slouching and free
manner peculiar to all troops when "marching at ease," but more
especially to the French.

On seeing the alarming sight, Quentin leaped on his horse, and cried--

"Away, Donna Ximena for your life--here are a body of the enemy--we
shall be either shot or taken prisoners!"

And very ungallantly caring little whether his venerable friend, the
mother of the worthy Trevino, fell into the hands of the French,
provided that he escaped them, Quentin goaded the sides of his horse
with his Spanish stirrup-irons, and lashed its flanks with a switch
which he had torn from an olive tree.

It sprung off with a wild bound; the lady's mule also struck out, and
away they went headlong down the mountain side together at a
break-neck pace, followed by shouts from the French, the first
section of whom were now on the crest of the eminence, and who
unslung their muskets and opened a fire upon them.

Every shot rung with a hundred reverberations between the mountain
peaks; Quentin, however, never looked back, but rode recklessly and
breathlessly on, thinking as the old lady scoured after him on her
mule, and as he lashed his horse without mercy, that he somewhat
resembled Tam o' Shanter pursued by Cuttie Sark.

There was no contingency of war of which he had a greater horror than
that of becoming a prisoner.  If taken by the enemy, years might pass
on and still find him in their hands, and when released or exchanged,
he would be little better than a private soldier--not so good, in
fact.  His time for promotion would be irrevocably past, and all the
stories he had heard of the sufferings to which the French Republican
and Imperial officers subjected our troops when prisoners in the
impregnable citadel of Bitche, the fortress of Verdun, and elsewhere,
crowded on his mind, with a consciousness of the beggared and
hopeless life to which the event might ultimately consign him, even
if he survived the captivity, which, in his restless and irritable
horror of all restraint, he very much doubted.

Fortunately for him the long-barrelled muskets of the French infantry
were very dissimilar to Enfield rifles in the precision of their
fire; thus, he and his companion were soon beyond all range, and an
opaque vapour, alternating between purple and brown in its tint, that
descended on the mountains, while a storm of blinding rain and
bellowing wind broke forth, put an end to all chance of pursuit; but
they rode on fully ten miles without knowing in what direction, when
the fury of the storm compelled them to take refuge in a thicket.

Dismounting, Quentin was too breathless and blown to attempt to
outbellow the wind in making excuses to old Donna Ximena; he simply
lifted that good lady off her mule, and conducted her under the
stately chestnut trees, which gave them shelter.  He then unslung the
bota and the alforja from his crusader-like demipique, and was
proceeding to secure the bridles of their nags to a branch, when
there burst a shriek from his companion, with the exclamation--

"Madre divina!  O Madre de Dios!"

At that instant there shot forth a terrific glare which seemed to
envelop them, and to fill the whole thicket with dazzling light,
showing every knot and twisted branch, and every gnarled stem.

Then there was a tremendous crash, as a thunderbolt ground a giant
chestnut to pieces, literally splitting its solid trunk from top to
bottom; next rang the roar of the thunder peal as it rolled away over
the vapour-hidden mountain peaks, leaving the dense and murky air
full of sulphurous heat and odour.

Stunned by the torrent of sound, and half blinded by the lurid glare,
more than a minute elapsed before Quentin discovered that, startled
alike by the flash and the thunder-clap, the horse and mule had torn
their bridles from his hands and galloped madly away, he knew not
whither.

Even the faintest sound of their hoofs could no longer be heard amid
the ceaseless hiss of the descending rain, every drop of which was
nearly the size of a walnut; so now, there were he and old Donna
Ximena (who crept closer to him than he cared for) left a-foot he
knew not where, in that gloomy thicket, evening coming on and night
to follow, a storm raging, and the French in motion in the
neighbourhood!

"Here's a devil of a mess!" sighed poor Quentin.




CHAPTER XXVI.

A SURPRISE.

  "Preciosa.  Is this a dream?  O, if it be a dream,
  Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!
  Repeat thy story! say I'm not deceived!
  Say that I do not dream!  I am awake;
  This is the gipsy camp; and this Victorian."
                                  _The Spanish Student._


To address or to consult his old and deaf companion would have been
worse than useless, so Quentin angrily sat down to reflect, and,
unfortunately, in sitting down, did so on a prickly pear.  Now, there
are more pleasant sensations in the world than to sit upon such an
esculent, or a Scots thistle (when one is inclined to ponder and to
"chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy"), with their bristling
stamens, especially if one wears the stockingweb regimental
pantaloons then worn; so Quentin sprang up, and issuing from the
thicket, perceived with great satisfaction, that though the rain was
then falling, the clouds were rising and the wind abating; in fact
that the storm, which had most probably concealed their flight from
the French, was gradually passing away; but whether or not, one fact
was evident--that the donna and he must pass the night in the thicket.

It was fortunate that he had rendered the flight of their cattle of
less consequence, by previously securing the bota of wine and the bag
of provisions, and also that he had ridden with his pistols at his
girdle, and not in holsters.

As the light increased a little when the clouds dispersed, he
perceived a ruined arch, the use or origin of which it would be
difficult to determine.  It seemed to be a portion of a small
aqueduct or vault, Roman, Gothic, or Moorish perhaps--anything but
Spanish.  It stood amid the great old trees of the chestnut grove,
and was half hidden by the luxuriant grass, the gorgeous wild
flowers, and odoriferous creepers.  It was about six feet in height,
but several more in depth, and heaps of fallen masonry, covered with
moss and lavender-flowers, enclosed it on one side.

Quentin examined the ruin, and finding it strewed with dry and
withered leaves, blown thither by the wind, he led in his trembling
companion, who seated herself near him, and with muttered thanks
drank a mouthful of wine from the bota, while he drew forth the
contents of the alforja, to wit, a huge loaf of fine white bread, a
boiled fowl, and a red sausage, that, of course, smelt villanously of
garlic.  It was in vain, however, that he pressed Donna Ximena to
partake of the guerillas' good cheer.  The old lady had evidently no
objection to a comforting drop of the generous Valdepenas, but when
he offered her food she only buried her head in her veil and rocked
herself to-and-fro, as if overcome by weariness or alarm.

Placing his mouth near her ear, Quentin endeavoured, by roaring as if
he were in a gale of wind at sea, to discover if she knew whereabouts
they were--whether near Valencia de Alcantara or Albuquerque; whether
near Marvao or San Vincente; whether on the Spanish or Portuguese
side of the frontier; but she only shook her head, and made signs of
the cross, as the twilight deepened.

Quentin thought that Don Baltasar had certainly selected his guide,
as the Dean of St. Patrick counselled all housemaids should be, for
their years and lack of personal charms.

"By Jove--the plot thickens!" said he, as he tugged away at a
drumstick of the boiled galina and consoled himself with a hearty
pull at the bota, while his companion laid her old muffled head on a
heap of leaves, and appeared to fall sound asleep; at least Quentin
never cared to enquire whether she was so or not.

There were moments when he seriously considered whether he was not
justified in marching off quietly without beat of drum, and leaving
this venerable bore to shift for herself, while he made the best of
his way to Portalegre, as he had left it, a-foot; but there seemed to
be something so ungallant and ungenerous in leaving an elderly female
(not that the fact of her being the maternal parent of Padre Trevino
enhanced her value) alone, in such a place and at night too, that he
resolved to wait till morning dawned, and then he would see what a
night might bring forth; and this resolution he formed all the more
readily that the rain was still pouring in a ceaseless torrent.

Hour after hour passed in silence, no sound coming to his ear save
the monotonous patter of the rain falling on the brown autumnal
leaves; to Quentin it proved alike a weary and dreary time, until the
shower began to abate, and for the first time in his life he heard a
nightingale pouring its plaintive and varying notes upon the air.

Quentin placed their provender and his pistols in a dry place,
gathered a heap of leaves for a pillow, and coiling himself up at the
other end of the ruin, _i.e._, as far away as possible from old Donna
Ximena, he followed her example and courted sleep.

With the first blink of the day he started from his nest of leaves.
Grey dawn was stealing between the great rough stems of the chestnut
wood.  The rain and the wind were over; the vapours of the night had
dispersed, and no trace remained of the past storm save the scathed
and thunder-riven tree, the ruins of which were scattered around its
root.

The green slopes of the distant hills were visible, dotted by the
drenched merino sheep, thousands of which are annually driven into
Estremadura, to fatten on the rich wild grass of its pastures.  In
the distance, and darkly defined against the increasing pink and
violet tints of the sky, were two windmills, quaint and old, like
those which the Knight of La Mancha assailed; their wheels were
broken, and the fans hung motionless and in tatters.

A herd of wild swine rushed through the grove, snorting and grunting
in their headlong career, but the Donna Trevino still slept soundly,
if Quentin might judge by her breathing, which was low and regular.
After stepping forth to reconnoitre, and finding the whole vicinity
of the thicket silent, and no appearance of either friend or foe on
the roads in any direction, he deemed this the wisest and safest time
to set forth, and returned to wake his companion, whom he really
began to wish--we shall not say where, or with whom--but safe at
least with her son, the Padre Trevino.

On approaching he perceived that the loose and ample garment of
alternate white and purple stripes in which she was enveloped, was
partly deranged, and the thick black lace veil which covered her head
was open in front, for now one half of it floated over her right
shoulder.  Then, on drawing nearer, how great was his astonishment to
behold in the sleeper, not the wrinkled and withered visage of the
deaf old woman, whom all yesterday and all last night he supposed to
be his bore and companion, whom he had left to shift for herself when
the French appeared, and from whom he had crept as far away as
possible in the singular den they tenanted--not the faded visage, we
say, of Donna Ximena, but the pale and delicately cut features, the
wondrously long black eyelashes, and the lovely little face of Donna
Isidora!

The red pouting lips were parted, and the pearly teeth below were
visible, imparting to her expression a charming air of child-like
innocence and repose.  Ungloved now, one white and slender hand,
grasping her gathered veil, was pressed upon her bosom; her left
cheek reposed upon her outstretched arm, and the partial
disarrangement of her picturesque costume, as she had turned in her
sleep, left visible rather more than her short Spanish skirts usually
revealed of two remarkably pretty ankles, cased in their tight
scarlet stockings.

The hardships to which her brother's recent guerilla life had
subjected her, evidently enabled the adventurous girl to "rough it,"
as soldiers say; thus she still slept soundly, while Quentin, half
kneeling down, surveyed with wonder, perplexity, and pleasure, the
beauties thus suddenly revealed by the open veil.

Touching her hand, he awoke her.

She started up with an exclamation of alarm, and her hand seemed
instinctively to feel for the bodkin which confined her hair.  Aware
that she was discovered now, she assumed a sitting posture, threw
back her thick veil, and a singular expression, half angry and half
droll, came into her dark eyes, as she said--

"You have been looking at me as I slept!  Was it proper to penetrate
my disguise, senor?"

"Pardon me, senora; I did not, indeed; I came but to wake you, and
found your veil open; could I refrain from looking--from admiring?"

"And you have discovered me----"

"To be young and beautiful----"

"When you thought me old and hideous--is it not so?" she asked,
laughing.

"I confess it, and with pleasure, senora.  This is very
enchanting--but what romance is it--what absurd comedy is this you
are acting?"

"Absurd?"

"Pardon me again; but though it is a game or drama that charms me
very much, it is not without peril.'"

"To whom?"

"To both--perhaps most of all to you, senora."

She replied only by a haughty smile, so Quentin continued--

"Now we shall make our way together delightfully to Portalegre, and
there can be no more deafness; or can it be that you and Donna Ximena
changed places here in the night?  Oh, tell me what does all this
mean?"

"I shall tell you, senor," said the now blushing girl; "it means
simply that my brother was most anxious that I, and not Donna Ximena,
should reach the St. Engracia convent, as a place of permanent safety
till these wars and tumults are over.  He also wished to supply you
with a guide to Portalegre, where, but for the loss of our horses, we
should have been last night.  Thus my brother----"

"Deemed that as old Donna Ximena you would be safer with me than in
your own character?"

"Exactly," she replied, laughing; "we thought there would be little
chance of your attentions annoying her."

"Do you imagine that when the French appeared I would have turned my
horse's head and left you without thought or ceremony, as I left
her--she whom I considered an old, deaf bore and encumbrance?  You
have acted well your part, senora.  How you made me roar and shout,
as if I was commanding a whole brigade!"

"And now, senor, that you know I am not Donna Ximena, will you
respect me the less?"

"On the contrary, I shall respect you a great deal more," said
Quentin with enthusiasm, as he took her hand in his; but she withdrew
it as if to adjust her veil.

"Then, am I to understand that in your country, youth is more
honourable than age?"

"Nay, it is not, but youth is more pleasing, certainly."

"You have been most kind to me, senor."

"Kind, senora?"  Quentin thought she was quizzing him.

"Yes; I cannot forget how, even as old Ximena, you lifted me from my
mule, conveyed me in here, made a couch and pillow for me, and so
forth.  _Beso usted la mano, caballero_ (I kiss your hand, sir)," she
added, taking his hand in hers.

"Oh, Donna Isidora, I cannot permit you to do this--unless----"

"Do you not know the customs of Castile?  Well, unless what?"

"You permit me to kiss yours."

"How simple! there, senor," she added, presenting a very lovely
little hand, which he pressed to his lips.

"Your cheek now--ah, you will permit me?" urged Quentin, becoming a
little bewildered by the whole situation, and by the clear dark eyes
that looked so softly into his.

"Do so, senor."

Quentin was promptly pressing forward, when the point of a very
unpleasant looking little stiletto met his cheek!

"Senora," he exclaimed, "what do you mean?"

"That I shall stab you to the heart if you molest me--that is all!"
said she, as a gleam came into her dark eyes that vividly reminded
Quentin of Baltasar.

"So, so, senora," said Quentin, with an air of pique, "you are
certainly able to take care of yourself."

"I live in times when it is necessary I should be so," was the dry
retort.

Quentin surveyed her with growing interest, for her beauty was very
remarkable in its delicacy and darkness.  She had a short crimson
upper lip, that seemed to quiver with every passing thought, for she
was an impressionable, enthusiastic, and high-spirited girl.  After a
pause,

"Now that you have done admiring me, I suppose," said she, "you will
kindly say what we are to do?"

"How?"

"We cannot remain here among the leaves, like a couple of gitanos, or
two rooks in search of a nest."

"We shall continue our journey to Portalegre, with your permission,
senora; and now that you have recovered your hearing, and that I am
not obliged to bellow like a madman, you will perhaps, if in your
power, tell me where we are?"

Donna Isidora laughed and presented her hand; Quentin assisted her to
rise, and on issuing from the ruined arch, she looked about her for
some time.

"By those two windmills," said she, "I know that we are not far from
Salorino."

"A town, senora?"

"Yes; it lies at the base of yonder lofty mountain, on the left bank
of the river Salor."

"Is it large?"

"A considerable place for manufactures.  This purple and white
striped woollen stuff is made there; but the town must be avoided, as
it is occupied by a troop of Polish Lancers."

"Then did we ride the wrong way in the rain last night?"

"Yes; we are still fully thirty miles from Portalegre."

"Thirty miles yet, senora!"

"Yes, and Valencia de Alcantara, where the French Light Cavalry are,
lies exactly midway, on the main road, between us and it."

Quentin's heart sunk at this information.

"You are certain of all this, senora?" said he, laying his hand
lightly on her arm.

"Quite, senor."

"We cannot--you, at least, cannot--proceed thirty miles on foot; so
what in heaven's name shall we do?" said Quentin in great perplexity.

"The Conde de Maciera, who serves in my brother's band of guerillas
as captain of a hundred lancers, has a villa at the foot of yonder
hill near the Salor; I remember that the wildest bull we ever had in
the arena at Salamanca came from thence.  The place is scarcely two
miles distant from this, and could we but reach it, doubtless some of
his domestics might assist us."

"The idea is excellent; let us set out at once!"

"Be advised by me, senor, and take some breakfast first," said the
Spanish girl, laughing; "it is a custom we guerillas have, always to
eat when provisions can be had, lest we halt where there are none."

Quentin at once assented, and opening the alforja produced the fowl
and other edibles, on which they made a slight repast before setting
forth.

Seating herself within the ruined arch, her head reclined upon her
left hand, Isidora displayed to perfection a lovely rounded arm, and
a pair of taper ankles and little feet, towards which Quentin's eyes
wandered from time to time.

"You look at me very earnestly, senora," said he, while his cheek
reddened and his heart fluttered on finding the dark searching eyes
of the young donna fixed on him more than once.

"There is, I can see, a sad expression in your eyes, senor."

"Do you think so?" asked Quentin, smiling.

"Yes."

"But how, or why do you suppose so?"

"I don't know; I perceive that you are a mere boy (muchacho), and
yet--and yet----"

"What, senora?"

"Ave Maria purissima!  I can't say--there is something that speaks to
me of thought, reflection, care beyond your years."

"It may well be so, dear senora; I have never known a relative in the
world; I have been an orphan from infancy, and----"

"And now," said she, presenting him with her hand, "you are a soldier
who comes to fight for Spain!"

"And for _you_, too, senora," he added, as he touched her fingers
with his lips, and with a devotion that somewhat surprised himself.
"But are you afraid of me, as old Donna Ximena was?"

"No--why do you think I am?"

"You sign the cross so often."

"Because, senor--excuse me, but the morning air is excessively chilly
here, and I yawn frequently."

"And you do so?----"

"For fear Satanas should dart down my throat unseen and unfelt.  It
is a belief--superstition you may deem it--that we have in Castile;
though you, perhaps, who have, unfortunately, been educated among
heretics, may know neither the dread nor the holy sign.  I know that
it is not used in your country, senor--because I can read."

"I should think so," said Quentin, amused by her simplicity; "is not
every lady educated?"

"No--not in Spain."

"Why?"

"Lest, if handsome, they should write to their lovers."

"And yet, senora, they had the rashness to teach you."

"Do you mean that I am handsome, or that I must have lovers?"

"I mean both--that being the first of necessity leads to your
possessing the last."

"My poor father, the good old professor, who was so barbarously slain
by the French, was careful to teach me many things, though our female
literary accomplishments are usually confined to our prayers and
rehearsing legends of the saints, songs of the Cid Rodrigo, or by
Lope de la Vega.  In England I believe you have women who could lead
the Junta or shine in the Cortes itself; but what matters their
education, when it only serves to confirm their heresies?  And now,
senor, place the bota in the alforja, and sling that over your
shoulder; let us go, and I shall be your guide to Villa de Maciera."




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE VILLA DE MACIERA.

  "Innocence makes him careless now.
  * * * *
  Youth hath its whimsies, nor are we
  To examine all their paths too strictly:
  We went awry ourselves when we were young."
                                    _Old Tragedy._


Donna Isidora had now divested herself of the large and loose woollen
weed in which she had travelled yesterday, and threw it gracefully
over her arm.  In her short but amply flounced skirt she tripped--as
we are writing of a Spanish girl we should have it glided--along by
the side of Quentin, who moderated his pace to suit hers.

The rain of last night had completely laid the dust; the morning air
was cool and delightful, and save a Franciscan friar of Medellin,
travelling like themselves on foot, with a canvas wallet slung on his
back and a long knotted staff in his hand, they met no one.

The heavy clouds were banking up from the westward, but the sky was
beautiful overhead, and, refreshed by the torrents of last night,
every herb, flower, and leaf wore their brightest hues.  The Salor, a
river which flows from the mountains southward of Caceres, in
Estremadura, and joins the Tagus near Rosmaninhal, in the province of
Beira, and the bed of which frequently becomes quite dry in summer,
now came in sight, swollen by the recent rains, and flowing red and
muddy between groves of olive trees, which were still in full leaf,
as in those regions the olive harvest usually occurs about the month
of December.

On the surface of the rushing river the large flowers of the white
and purple lotus floated, or sunk to rise again, bobbing in the
eddies; and some brightly feathered birds, though summer was long
since past, twittered about, filling the air with melody and song.

But the western clouds, we have said, came gathering fast and
heavily, and in sombre masses that alternated between purple and inky
grey, while the wind rose in hot or cold puffs that gradually grew to
gusts; and these, with other indications that rough weather was again
at hand, made the two pedestrians hasten on.

Ere they crossed the old Roman bridge that spans the Salor, by arches
that must whilom have echoed to the marching legions of Quintus
Sertorius, the sound of distant thunder was heard among the
mountains, and then the clouds gathered so fast, that ere long every
vestige of blue was completely hidden in the sky.

"If rain comes, what a situation for you, Donna Isidora!" said
Quentin, turning to his companion, to whose usually colourless cheek,
the early morning air and the exercise of walking had imparted a
lovely flush; in fact she seemed radiantly beautiful!

"Oh, fear not for me, senor, though to have one's only dress wetted,
is rather unpleasant," she replied; "besides, the villa of the Conde
is close at hand."

At that moment one or two large drops of warm rain plashed on the
road they traversed, causing them to quicken their steps.

Striking off from the main highway, Isidora led Quentin between two
gate pillars, each of which was surmounted by a marble lion, seated
on its haunches, with its fore paws resting on a shield.  This gave
access to an avenue, where two rows of giant beeches, now brown and
yellow, mingled with ilex (whose leaves seem red as blood when viewed
in the sunshine), cast their shadows on two lesser rows of dense and
dark-leaved Portuguese laurels, myrtle and wild gentian; but in this
silent and untrodden avenue, the rank grass and weeds were already
sprouting.

"This is the villa," said Donna Isidora, as they came suddenly in
sight of a chateau of very imposing aspect; "but Madre Maria! what is
this?  It seems quite deserted!"

A double flight of white marble steps led from a green lawn to a
noble terrace, the balustrades of which were elaborately carved, and
had at regular intervals square pedestals bearing each an enormous
porphyry vase filled with flowers that diffused a delicious aroma.
From the architecture of the villa, a large square mansion with
wings, which rose from the plateau of this stately terrace, and by
its Palladian style, many of the pediments, cornices, capitals, and
especially the statues that adorned it, seemed to have been taken
from the various Roman ruins in the vicinity.

Around this terrace was a row of orange trees, the fruit of which had
never been gathered, as it lay in heaps under each, just as it had
fallen from the branches when dead ripe.

The plashing water of a beautiful bronze fountain, where four Tritons
shot each a jet of pure crystal from a trumpet-shaped conch into a
yellow marble basin, alone broke the silence and stillness of the
place.  Torn from its elaborate hinges, the front door lay flat on
the tesselated marble floor of the vestibule, having evidently been
beaten in by the simple application of a large stone which still lay
above it; and the tendrils of the gorgeous acacias that covered the
front wall of the villa, had already begun to find their way in at
the open door, and to creep through the shattered windows.

"The French have been here!" said Isidora, with a dark expression in
her eyes; "De Ribeaupierre's dragoons have done this."

"The villa is quite deserted, senora," said Quentin, as they stood in
irresolution and perplexity on the terrace.  "How far are we from
Salorino?"

"Six miles at least."

Quentin hallooed loudly two or three times, but the echoes of the
tenantless abode alone responded, and the deathlike stillness there
made Isidora shrink close to his side.

"I was not prepared for this," she said, while her eyes filled with
tears; "yet what else can we expect while a Frenchman remains alive
on this side of the Pyrenees?" she added, bitterly.

"There seems to be no living thing here, senora; not even a household
dog."

"What shall we do, senor?" she asked, earnestly.

"Whatever we do ultimately, senora, we must take shelter now, for
here comes the storm again, and with vengeance, too!"

So intent had they been in observing the indications of desertion and
decay about this noble villa, that they had failed to see how fast
the storm had gathered round them.  A gust of wind tore past the
edifice, strewing the terrace with withered acacia flowers and orange
leaves, and then the rain descended in torrents, driving the
travellers for shelter into the open vestibule.

In blinding sheets it rushed along the earth, from which it seemed to
rise again like smoke or mist, then the thunder hurtled across the
darkening sky, and the yellow lightning played like wild-fire about
the bare granite scalps of the distant sierras, throwing forward
every peak in strong outline from the dusky masses of cloud, amid
which they "were an instant seen, and instant lost."

"_Madre de Dios!_ there seems a fatality in all this!" exclaimed
Isidora, as the overstrained and half Moorish ideas of etiquette and
female propriety which prevail in Spain and Portugal occurred to her;
then, looking at Quentin, while a blush suffused her cheek, she
added, "to be wandering in this manner is a most awkward situation,
especially for me."

Quentin made some well-bred reply, he knew not what; but with all its
awkwardness he felt that "the situation had its charm," as he took
her hand and suggested that they should investigate the premises and
see whether the villa was really so deserted as it appeared.

From the splendid vestibule, the lofty walls and rich cornices of
which were covered with armorial bearings of the past Condes de
Maciera, many of their escutcheons being collared by the orders of
Santiago de Compostella, Santiago de Montesa, the Dove of Castile,
and the Golden Fleece, with the crossed batons that showed how many
had of old commanded the Monteros de Espinosa, or Ancient Archers of
the Spanish Royal Guard, Quentin and Donna Isidora ascended a marble
stair to a large corridor, off which several suites of apartments
opened, and through these they proceeded, every moment fearful of
coming suddenly upon some sight of horror, as the French were seldom
slow in using their bayonets against any household that received them
unwillingly, and the battered state of the entrance door showed that
the villa had been entered forcibly.

The great corridor, like many of the rooms, was hung with portraits
of grisly saints and meek-eyed Madonnas, and of many a lank-visaged
and long-bearded hidalgo, with breast-plate, high ruff, and
bowl-hilted toledo, looking with calm pride, or it might be defiance,
from the flapping canvas, which had been slashed in mere wantonness
by the sabres of the French dragoons.

Save that a number of chairs were overthrown, that several lockfast
places had been broken open, and that many empty bottles strewed the
floors, the furniture appeared to have been left untouched.  The gilt
clocks on the marble mantel-pieces ticked no more, and the spiders
had spun their webs over the hour-hands and dials, thus showing that
the villa must have been deserted by the family and servants of the
count for some weeks.  The damask sofas and ottomans were covered
with dust, and many books lay strewn about on the dry and now musty
esparto grass that covered some of the floors, which were nearly all
of highly polished oak.

Quentin picked up a lady's white kid glove, and a black fan covered
with silver spangles.

"These have belonged to the mother of the Conde, who resided here;
where can the poor lady have fled--what may have become of her?" said
Isidora as they wandered on, her voice and Quentin's sounding strange
and hollow in the emptiness of the great villa.

All the bed-chambers were untouched, save in some instances where a
mirror or cheval glass was starred or smashed by a pistol-shot; and
so, ere long, the visitors in their search found themselves in the
chapel, a little gothic oratory of very florid architecture, which
had evidently formed a portion of a much older edifice than the
present villa; for there, on a pedestal tomb, having a row of carved
weepers round it, and little niches and sockets for twelve votive
lamps, lay side by side the effigies of two knights in chain-armour,
with their cross-hilted swords and military girdles on, and their
hands folded in prayer.  Quentin drew near them with interest, for he
remembered the quaint effigy of Sir Ranulph Crawford, Keeper of the
Palace of Carrick, in the old kirk of Rohallion, and while Isidora
knelt for a moment before the little altar, he read on a brass plate
this inscription:

"Aqui yazen el noble y valiente Conde, Don Fernando de Estremera, y
su hijo, Don Antonio, Condes de Maciera y Estremera; fueron muertos
en una batalla con los Infieles, en tiempo del Rey Don Alfonso de
Castile, Leon, y Galicia.  Requiescant in pace."

"More than seven hundred years ago," thought Quentin.  "Sir Ranulph's
tomb is a thing of yesterday compared with this."

He surveyed with emotions of pleasure and interest this little
oratory, the sanctuary of which, with its half Moorish and
arabesque-like carvings was a miracle of art and a mass of gilding.
It must have been erected almost immediately after the expulsion of
the Arabs from that part of Castile, and so those Counts of Maciera
had lived and died before the days of the Cid himself,

  "The venging scourge of Moors and traitors,
    The mighty thunderbolt of war!
  Mirror bright of chivalry,
    Ruy, my Cid Campeador!"

for he had been born when Canute the Dane swayed his sceptre over
England, and when Malcolm of Scotland--Rex Victoriosissimus--was
nailing the hides of the Norsemen on the doors of his parish
churches.  It was a remote period to look back to, and yet, in some
of her national features, particularly in a proneness to bloodshed,
Spain was pretty much the same as when the Cid shook his lance before
the walls of Zamora.

Light, many hued, crimson, blue, and green, streamed, with flakes of
dusky yellow, through the chapel's deep-arched windows, shedding a
warm glow on its carved pillars, ribbed arches, and lettered stones
that marked the graves of the dead below, where the Condes de
Maciera, "el noble--el magno," were mingling with the dust; but now
their dwelling-place was desolate, and the heir of all their titles,
a half-desperate outlaw and soldier, was serving as a guerilla in the
band of Baltasar the Salamanquino.

Various stools and hassocks were still disposed near the oak rail of
the sanctuary, as if to mark where several of the fugitive household
had knelt but recently.

The chapel suddenly grew very dark, but was lightened as quickly by a
terrific flash without.  Against this glare of light the mullions and
tracery of the windows were darkly but distinctly defined, and, as it
passed away, a peal of thunder that seemed directly over their heads,
shook the place.  Crossing herself, Donna Isidora sprang close to
Quentin's side, and taking her by the hand, he led her back to a more
cheerful part of the voiceless mansion.

The weather was completely broken now, and to Quentin it seemed that
unless there was some change, of which there was no probability, as
the year was closing, the army were likely to have a fine time of it,
after breaking up from their snug cantonments in Portugal to open a
campaign in Spain.

There was not the slightest appearance of the rain abating, so
feeling the necessity for making themselves as comfortable as
circumstances would permit, Quentin set about closing all the doors
and windows, and selecting a room that had evidently been the boudoir
of the Condesa, as its walls were covered by white silk starred with
gold; there, too, were pale-blue damask hangings, starred with
silver, a piano and guitar, with piles of music, illuminated books,
sketches, statuettes, and ornaments, all indicative of a graceful
taste and refined mind.

These were all untouched, so there Quentin installed his companion,
whose eye was the first to detect a gilt cage, at the bottom of which
a former friend and favourite, a little singing bird, lay dead and
covered with dust.

She seated herself near the window to watch the black clouds whirling
in masses around the peaks of the great mountain ranges that lay
between her and her temporary home in Portugal, and on the rain
plashing frothily on the marble terrace, gorging the gurgoyles of the
parapet and the basin of the bronze fountain, which had long since
overflowed.

Meanwhile Quentin bustled about; to have the run of such a house was
not without interest.  He soon procured a brasero, which he filled
with charcoal, and lighted by flashing some powder in the pan of a
pistol; and for warmth, he made Isidora place her dainty little feet
upon it.  Canisters of biscuits and of fruit of various kinds,
several flasks of Valdepenas and Champagne, a ham, and several other
matters which he found in overhauling the cook's department and
butler's pantry, with all the appurtenances of the table, he
appropriated with a campaigner's readiness, and insisted upon his
fair companion partaking of a repast with him.

The storm--the rain, at least, as we shall have to show--continued
much longer than they anticipated.  But if it lasted for a fortnight,
there seemed to be still provisions enough in the old villa to
prevent them from being starved out even in that time.

For a period both were now perplexed and thoughtful.

Donna Isidora was considering how all this unlooked-for deviation and
delay were to be explained to her brother, who, as a Spaniard, was
naturally suspicious, and of whom she stood in considerable awe.  The
latter emotion made her conceive that the most peaceful and prudent
course would be, to say nothing whatever about the casual discovery
of her disguise, or her wanderings on the way before reaching
Portalegre; but then, how was she to account for the absence of the
horse and mule, but for the loss of which, after their flight from
the French, she and Quentin would have been last night safe and
separated at the place of their destination!

Then when remembering the haughty temper of Cosmo, and the cold and
hostile manner in which he was treated by him, Quentin felt some
alarm lest his honour might be impugned by the protracted delay in
rejoining the Borderers; while his own experience, and the hints he
had received from Major Middleton, made him now resolve, however
great his reluctance would be in leaving that fine old soldier and
Askerne, Monkton, and other 25th men, to volunteer into some other
regiment--perhaps in the 94th, if his friend Captain Warriston could
scheme it for him.

The moidores which Ribeaupierre had so generously shared with him,
made a transfer of this kind appear the more easy in a monetary point
of view; and luckily the army had not yet begun to move, so his
courage was still unimpeachable.

Reflection showed that Cosmo would render his life intolerable, and
make promotion an impossibility.

"I shall seek out another colonel, if he can be found in the service.
I can only fail in the attempt, and be no worse than I am," said
Quentin, unintentionally aloud, so that the dark eyes of the Spanish
girl rested inquiringly on him.

He now seated himself in the same window opposite Isidora, who having
her own thoughts, was silent.  Evening was drawing near--the short
evening of a dark November day, and the ceaseless rain still plashed
heavily down, while the wind howled drearily around the solitary
villa.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

OUR LADY DEL PILAR.

  "The foe retires--she heads the sallying host,
  Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
  Who can so well appease a lover's fall?
  What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost?
  Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
  Foiled by a woman's hand before a battered wall."
                                              BYRON.


"What a singular adventure this is," thought Quentin; "and what a
perplexing position for us both!  It is very romantic, certainly.  A
deserted house, a lovely girl, and all that.  'Tis very like some
incidents I have read of, and some I have imagined; but, by Jove!  I
wish I could see my way handsomely out of it."

The last desire resulted from the unpleasant recollection of the
Padre Trevino's face and intonation of voice, when he spoke so
impressively of the _interest he_ felt in the lady committed to his
care, and the sternly expressed anxiety that she should reach
Portalegre "without hindrance or _delay_."

Was the fellow only acting a part, or could it be that the ugly ogre
actually had some tender fancy for Isidora?  Whether he had or not,
an unfrocked friar, especially of his peculiar character, had not
much chance of success with the sister or support from the brother,
so Quentin dismissed the idea.

"How charming she looks!" he thought, stealing a glance at the long
lashes of the now pensive eyes, the soft features half shaded by the
black lace veil, and the graceful contour of her bust and shoulders,
in her low-cut scarlet velvet corset.  "How delightful, if, instead
of being lost in this barbarous place, she were at Rohallion or
Ardgour; what a lovely friend and companion for Flora!"

Poor Quentin!  Alas, this was but the sophistry of the heart, and
was, perhaps, its first impulse towards the donna herself, and might
end by her image supplanting Flora's there.

"Such desecration, that her hand should even be touched by such a
wretch as Trevino!"

He had muttered his last thought aloud, so Donna Isidora looked up
and said--

"You mentioned the Padre Trevino?"

"Did I?--surely not?" replied Quentin, as the colour rushed into his
face.

"Yes--what of him, senor?" she asked, fixing her soft, dark eyes on
him inquiringly.

"I must have been dreaming."

"Scarcely," said she, smiling, "while the thunder makes such a noise;
you were thinking aloud."

"Perhaps."

"Of what?  I insist on knowing."

"I cannot help reflecting, senora, that such actions as those in
which Trevino seems to exult, must damage the Spanish cause in the
eyes of Europe and of humanity, and thus--excuse me----but I begin to
lose faith in your countrymen, even before we test alliance with them
fully."

"And what say you of the recent siege of Zaragossa?"

"Ah, Don José Palafox is a brave man, certainly; and brave too, is
Augustina, the Maid of Zaragossa, who led the cannoneers in the
defence of the Portillo against Lefebre."

"She had lost her lover in the siege, so apart from inspiration, her
courage was no marvel."

"And you, senora--if you lost a lover?"

"I have lost several; but if I lost one whom I loved, you mean?"

"Yes--and who loved you well and truly?"

"I would face ten thousand cannon to avenge him!--Augustina did
nothing that I would not dare and do!" replied Isidora, as her eyes
sparkled, and she pressed her clenched hand into the soft cheek that
rested on it.

"A beautiful little spitfire!" thought Quentin.

"But, senor, you must be aware that neither Palafox the Arragonese
nor the girl Augustina could have achieved all they did, save for the
aid of our Lady del Pilar?"

"What lady is she?" asked Quentin.

"Madre divina, listen to him!  It grieves me sadly, amigo mio, to
think--to think----"

"What?" asked Quentin, as she paused.

"That you are a heretic, innocently, through no fault of your own,
and yet born to perdition."

"You are not very complimentary, yet I pardon you, my dear senora,"
replied Quentin, laughing as he kissed her hand--which we fear he did
rather frequently now.

"Shall I try to teach you, and lead your heart as I would wish it?"
she asked, with a gentle smile.

"If you please, senora."

"I mean, to instil a proper spirit of adoration in it?"

"If it is adoration of yourself, senora, I fear my heart is learning
that fast enough already," replied Quentin, with such a caballero air
that the donna laughed and coloured, but accepted the answer as a
mere compliment; "then tell me," he added, "about this Lady del
Pilar, who aided Don José Palafox."

"She is the guardian saint of the city of Zaragossa, and save but for
her assistance, he had never withstood the arms of France so long;
for it was faith in her, and her only, that inspired Palafox to make
a resistance so terrible!"

"But tell me about her, Donna Isidora."

"You must learn, senor, that after the resurrection of our blessed
Lord, when the twelve apostles separated and went to preach the
gospel in different parts of the world, St. George set out for
England, St. Anthony for Italy, and the others went elsewhere; but
Santiago the elder set out for Spain, a land which, say our annals,
the Saviour commended to his peculiar care.

"Before departing from Judea, he went to the humble dwelling of the
blessed Virgin--the same little hut that is now at Loretto--to kiss
her hand, on his knees to obtain her permission to set forth, and her
blessing on his labours.  After bestowing it, she adjured him to
build a church unto her honour in that city of Spain where he should
make the most important, or the greatest number of converts.

"So the saint set sail in a Roman galley, but was driven through the
Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic ocean, and after enduring great
perils along the shores of Lusitania, he landed in the kingdom of
Galicia.  Proceeding through the land, he went barefooted, preaching
the gospel, teaching and baptizing, but with little success, until he
came to a fair city of Arragon, on the banks of the Ebro and the
Guerva, in the midst of a vast and lovely plain.  Surrounded by
fertile fields of corn, and by groves of orange and lime trees, its
stately towers were visible from afar, glittering white as snow in
the sunshine; but in its marble temples false gods and goddesses were
worshipped by the people.

"Enchanted by the sight of a city so fair, the saint rested on his
staff and asked of a wayfarer how it was named; and he was told that
it was Cæsarea Augusta; so entering, he began to preach in the public
thoroughfares, and ere long made eight disciples, who gave all they
possessed to the poor, and followed him.

"Full of joy with his success he retired, one evening, to a little
grove on the banks of the Ebro, with his eight new friends, and
there, after long and holy converse, they fell asleep under the
orange trees; but between the night and morning they were awakened by
hearing a choir, possessed of a harmony that was divine, singing 'Ave
Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum;' yet they saw not from whence the
sound proceeded.

"Louder swelled this mysterious harmony, and louder still, until they
seemed to be in the midst of it.

"Listening in wonder and awe they fell on their knees, and lo, senor!
a marvellous silver light, brighter than that of day, filled all the
orange grove, and amid a choir of angels, whose golden hair floated
over their shoulders, whose wings and robes were white as the new
fallen snow, and whose faces bloomed with the purity and radiance of
heaven, there, on the summit of a white marble pillar, stood the
blessed Madonna, with her fair brow crowned by thirteen stars, and
her robe all of a dazzling brightness.  With a divine smile on her
face, she listened to the choir, who went through the whole of her
matin service.

"When it was ended, when the voices of the angels were hushed, their
eyes cast down, and their hands meekly folded on their bosoms,

"'Santiago,' said she, 'here on this spot raise them the church of
which I told thee, and build it round this pillar, which I have
brought hither by the hands of angels; here shall it abide until the
end of the world, and all the powers of hell shall not prevail
against it!'

"The saint and his eight disciples, who were all on their knees in
reverence and awe, bowed low at this command; when they looked up,
the Virgin had disappeared with all her shining choir, and nothing
remained but the miraculous pillar of polished marble, standing cold,
white, and solitary, amid the moonlight, by the bank of the Ebro.

"So around that column he built the famous church of Our Lady del
Pilar, which has been the scene of a thousand miracles; about it, ere
long, grew the vast Christian city now named Zaragossa, which, as my
father the professor always assured me, is but a corruption of the
original name, Cæsarea-Augusta.

"Santiago rests from his holy labours in Compostella, where he was
martyred by the barbarous Galicians, and where his bones were
discovered in after years by a miraculous star that burned over his
grave.  When danger threatens Spain, the clashing of arms and of
armour is heard within his tomb, for he is her tutelary guardian, and
so greatly do we venerate him, that of the canons of his cathedral
seven, at least, must be cardinal priests: and there, at Compostella,
he appeared in a vision to the king, Don Ramiro, before his famous
battle with the Moors, and promised him victory for withholding the
annual tribute of a hundred Christian girls.

"Time passed over Zaragossa, and even the infidel Moors respected the
holy pillar, for it was found uninjured when the city was re-captured
from them by Don Alphonso of Arragon.

"And so last year, when the French had pushed their batteries along
the right bank of the Guerva, and had beaten down the rampart; and
when, at their head, General Ribeaupierre had cut a passage through
the ranks of Palafox into the wide and stately Coso: when Lefebre
assailed the Portillo, and was repulsed with the loss of two thousand
men, but returned with renewed fury, when a carnage ensued that must
have ended in the fall of Zaragossa and the capture of Don José,
_then_ it was, senor, that the young girl Augustina, inspired by
vengeance for her lover's fall, appeared among the soldiers, calling
on Our Lady del Pilar to aid her chosen city.

"Then springing over dead and dying, she snatched a lighted match
from her dead lover's hand and discharged a twenty-six pounder loaded
with grapeshot full at the advancing foe, and animated the citizens
to continue that awful struggle by which Zaragossa was saved, though
the flower of Arragon perished.  Foot to foot and breast to breast
they fought, contesting every street and house, from floor to floor,
till the French retired.  Augustina received a noble pension, and now
wears on her sleeve a shield of honour with the city's name."

By the time this story was ended, darkness had almost set in; the
rain was still rushing down in a ceaseless flood, and the vivid
lightning, with its green and ghastly glare, lit up from time to time
the gloomy chambers of the silent villa.

Remembering that he had seen a lamp in one of the rooms, Quentin was
about to go in search of it, when the sound of a heavy door closing
with a bang that echoed through all the mansion, made him pause, and
as he was Scotsman enough to have certain undefined but superstitious
notions, he turned to his companion, who on hearing this unexpected
noise, had started from her seat with her eyes dilated and her lips
parted.

"You heard that, senora?" said he.

"It is the private door of the chapel--the door through which we
passed," she replied.

"What has caused it to open and shut?"

"The wind, probably."

"It can be nothing else, senora, though in truth I was thinking of
those two effigies that for seven hundred years have stood, with
their stony eyes uplifted and their mailed hands clasped in prayer."

"What of them?" she asked, with surprise.

"What if they got off their pedestals and took a promenade through
the villa on this stormy night?"

"Ah, senor, don't talk of such things!" said Donna Isidora, as she
shrunk close to him and laid her hand on his arm.



END OF VOL. II.









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