Read Ebook: La Folle Journée ou le Mariage de Figaro by Beaumarchais Pierre Augustin Caron De

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Ebook has 340 lines and 15920 words, and 7 pages

THE THIRD VOLUME.

CHAP.

SECOND TO NONE.

WE TAKE THE FIELD AGAIN.

While we were in quarters at Paderborn, a mixed detachment arrived to join the army, and with it came Major Shirley, looking quite the same as when I had seen him last, on the morning we marched from Wadhurst--his uniform new and spotless, his aiguilettes glittering, his wellfitting gloves of the whitest kid, above which he wore pearl rings; his hair curled and perfumed, with his handsome figure, suave and courtly bearing, his sinister and unfathomable smile.

He was one of those lucky fellows who have mysterious interest at head-quarters, and who, whether at home or abroad, are always on the staff, and never with their regiments; thus he had been appointed extra aide-de-camp to Lord George Sackville, and thus we chanced to meet on the day of his arrival at an old windmill which did duty as a staff-office for the British head-quarters.

"Did you see my cousin, Miss Gauntlet, before leaving England?" I inquired, though in reality caring little whether he had or not.

"Oh yes, frequently--especially when I was last in London; she is the reigning toast at White's and elsewhere."

"She was well, I hope?" said I, dryly.

"Well, and looking beautiful as ever."

"Did she charge you with any message to me?"

"None, Sir Basil. Zounds! none, at least, that I can remember," replied the major, colouring.

"Nor does she, 'sdeath--nor does she." replied Shirley, as a shade of vexation mingled with his perpetual smile.

"Aha, major," thought I; "an unsuccessful wooer--eh!"--"And so you have no message for me?"

"None; but I have just delivered one of more importance than that of a London belle--one for the army."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; we are to take the field at once, and advance into Hesse."

"Against whom?"

"The Duc de Broglie."

On hearing this, to me, familiar name, it was my turn to feel a tinge of vexation.

"Our muster-place is Fulda; there the allies are to be concentrated;" and with his constant smile which showed all his white teeth, with his gold eyeglass in his right eye, and his gilt spurs ringing, our gay staff-officer left me.

As it is my object to confine these pages as much as possible to my own adventures, avoiding anything like a general narrative of the war, the reader may learn briefly, that when summoned to the field, the Scots Greys marched to Hesse, "through roads which--as our records have it--no army had ever traversed before," and encamped at Rothenburg, in a pleasant vale, sheltered by high hills.

On the 13th of April we attacked the duke.

Early in the morning our corps took post in the line of battle; but it was not till ten a.m. that the columns of attack moved across the plain in front of the French army, whose artillery bowled long and bloody lanes through them.

These were no vain words, for in less than two minutes, by one desperate charge, we had routed them.

The grenadiers of all corps had commenced the action, supported by us and other dragoons, but were repulsed. They rallied again, but were again driven back and forced to retire, under cover of several charges made by us and by the Black Hussars of Prussia.

"Well done, my own hussars--and well done the Scots Greys!" cried Prince Ferdinand, as we re-formed after a furious charge, without having a saddle emptied. "Colonel Preston, you ought to be proud of commanding such a regiment."

In all this affair, our only loss was a single horse--mine, which was killed under me by a six-pound shot; but Prince Ferdinand was compelled to fall back, leaving five guns on the field, where the Prince of Ysembourg and two thousand of our soldiers were slain.

But vain were these precautions!

Rothenburg was surprised by the Duc de Broglie; his brother the Count de Broglie, and his nephew the Count de Bourgneuf, "with sixteen companies of grenadiers, one thousand four hundred infantry, the regiments of Schomberg, Nassau and Fischer," took Minden by assault, and found therein ninety-four thousand sacks of grain. Then Munster, though bravely defended by four thousand men, fell after a short but sharp siege. It was severely, I may say savagely, proposed by de Bourgneuf, to put all in Minden to the sword, on the plea that the garrison of a place taken by assault had no right to be received as prisoners of war; "but," as a newspaper informs us, "General Zastrow and his men owed their safety to the noble generosity of the Duke and Count de Broglie."

Considering the conquest of Hanover as certain, the court of Versailles was now occupied mainly by considering how that Electorate should be secured to France for the future, when we advanced to have a trial of strength with their armies on the glorious, and, to us, ever memorable plains of Minden.

Prior to this, my friend Tom Kirkton had been promoted to the rank of cornet and adjutant, for taking prisoner with his own hand, during our first charge at Bergen, the Comte de Lusignan, a Mar?chal de Camp.

THE TWO PRESENTIMENTS.

On the night before the action at Minden, while we were bivouacked in a wood near the bank of the Weser, there came under my observation two instances of that remarkable and undefinable emotion or foreboding termed presentiment; and I believe there are few men who have served a campaign without meeting with something of the kind among their comrades, though the dire foreboding may not always have been fulfilled.

One of these instances was the case of Lieutenant Keith of ours; the other was that of the aide-de-camp, Major Shirley.

Under a sheltering tree, and near a large watchfire, a few of our officers, among whom were Captain Douglas, Keith, Tom Kirkton, Dr. Probe, and myself, were making themselves as comfortable as our poor circumstances would admit. We had plenty of wine from the regimental sutler, "whose princely confidence" Kirkton ironically urged us not to abuse; we had plenty of brandy captured from a French caisson; we had water in plenty from a stream hard by; we had ration beef boiled in camp kettles; we had biscuits too; nor was Tom's usual song wanting on the occasion, and he trolled it so lustily that many of our men loitered near to hear him.

We were in high spirits with the expectation of meeting the French in the morning; young Keith alone was sad, melancholy, and silent, and it seemed to me that he drank deeply, an unusual circumstance with him. Then suddenly he appeared to reflect, and ceasing his potations, resolutely passed alike the wine-jar and the cognac bottle.

"Are you ill, Keith?" asked Douglas, kindly.

"Not a bit of it," interrupted Tom Kirkton; "it is only the Westphalia wine that partially disagrees with him. Is it not so, friend Probe? Try some more brandy. I took it from a French baggage cart; 'tis the spoil of my sword and pistol. Come, Jamie Keith--

"How stands the glass around? For shame, ye take no care, my boys!"

But Keith shook his head and turned away.

"Pshaw, boy! don't imitate any virtue of the Spartans to-night," said Probe, our surgeon; "who can say that we shall all be together at this hour to-morrow?"

"Ah, who indeed!" muttered young Keith, with an air so melancholy that we all paused to observe him.

"Look at me, Keith," said Captain Douglas, gravely; "there is something wrong with you to-night."

"I grant you that there is," replied the young lieutenant, turning his pale and handsome face to the inquirer. "I have in my heart--and I cannot help telling you--a solemn presentiment that I shall not survive the battle of to-morrow. Yet observe me, gentlemen, observe me well and closely all of you, and see if I shall blench before the enemy, or belie the name of my forefathers."

With one voice we endeavoured to ridicule this unfortunate idea, or to wean him from it; but he only replied by sadly shaking his head. After a pause, he said--

"I trust that you will not laugh at what I am about to tell you; but indeed I care little whether you do so or not. An hour ago, after our halt, I fell asleep in my cloak at the foot of that tree, and while there I dreamed of my home, of my father's house at Inverugie. I saw the Ugie flowing between its banks of yellow broom, I heard the hum of the honeybee among the purple heather bells, while the sweet perfume of the hawthorn passed me on the wind. Then I heard the German Sea chafing on the sandy knowes in the distance, and all the sense of boyhood and of home grew strong within me. But when I looked towards our old hall of Inverugie, it was roofless and windowless, the long grass grew on its cold hearthstone, and there the nettle and the ivy waved in the wind, while the black gleds were building their nests by scores in the holes of the ruined wall; and that dream daunts me still.

"Why--why--what of it?" we asked together.

"Because when one of our family dreams of a gled the hour of death is nigh. I have never known it fail, and so it has been ever since Thomas the Rhymer sat on a block near the castle , and as a vision came before him, he stretched his hands towards the house, saying--

I am the last of the old line, and there is a conviction in my heart that the prophecy of the Rhymer is about to be fulfilled."

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