CHAPTER XXII.

THE PRISON SHIP.

A thirty-six gun frigate, the Alceste, crowded with French prisoners, had for some reason, I know not what, come into the old harbour of Rye, which was then becoming rapidly choked up with sand, and unfortunately she became, as the sailors term it, neaped, which means being left so far aground by the neap-tide, which there rises to the height of seventeen feet, that there was no chance of her floating even at high-water, until the spring-tide flowed again.

In this state she lay imbedded in the sand, and careened over to port, much to the discomfort of those on board.

Several brawls having ensued among the prisoners, as the marine guard had been withdrawn (to partake in a third, and, as it proved in the sequel, most disastrous expedition to the coast of France), the officer in command applied for a guard of dismounted dragoons, the Greys being the nearest troops at hand; and thus with twenty men of the light troop I found myself doing marine duty on board H.M. ship Alceste.

In her commander I recognised one of the junior officers of Lord Howe's ship, a young lieutenant, for the frigate had all her guns out save two, and was simply degraded to the rank of a floating prison. He welcomed me all the more warmly that he was a countryman of mine, and one who spoke his native dialect in all its Doric breadth and native purity. He was afterwards that Captain I—— who commanded the Belliqueux, 64, at Camperdown, and who in the beginning of the action, on failing to make out Lord Duncan's signals amid the smoke, after various attempts flung the signal book on deck, and shouted from the poop—

"Up wi' yer helm, damme, and gang doon into the middle o't!" Then running in between two of the enemy's ships he shortened sail, and engaged his guns on both sides at once.

Now lest the reader may never have seen a hulk crowded with French prisoners, I shall sketch briefly a little of what we saw on board of the Alceste.

A few seamen and petty officers composed her crew, and she had on board, and under their care, four hundred desperadoes, as she was the condemned ship of the larger hulks which lay moored in Portsmouth harbour and elsewhere, being the receptacle for those prisoners whose misconduct, desperate character, or violent disposition rendered them obnoxious to rule and to the rest of their comrades.

Each of these prisoners when brought on board was provided with a suit of yellow uniform, this colour being deemed sufficiently remarkable to ensure notice and recapture in case of escape being effected. Each had also a hammock and bedding. To cook their rations certain men were elected by themselves, and the sole duty imposed upon the general body was the simple task of keeping themselves clean, the space they occupied between decks neat and tidy, and of bringing up their hammocks daily to air in the nettings.

Soldiers or seamen with loaded muskets were posted at various parts of the vessel, and in the poop cabins were two twenty-four pounders kept loaded; and these, in case of revolt or disturbance could be run through ports in the bulkhead, to sweep the decks with grape and canister shot.

On the main deck was a railed space named the pound, wherein the prisoners were allowed to walk and amuse themselves during the day; and there they were at liberty to expose for sale those boxes of dominoes, toy ships, buttons, bodkins, and other trifles, which, with the native ingenuity of their country, French prisoners were wont to manufacture from their ration bones and pieces of wood given to them by the ship carpenter.

But from the character of our prisoners—the refuse of the other prison hulks—I found few such traces of industry on board the Alceste.

In consequence of the absence of the marines, the discomfort of the ship while lying careened to port, and her vicinity to the land, Lieutenant I—— soon found the prisoners in a furious state of discontent, and beginning to encourage hopes of breaking loose by cutting a hole in the ship's side with a knife.

The ringleaders he had punished according to his printed regulations; but ten days in the black hole, among rats and bilge-water, extra deck-cleaning duty, and short allowance of hard biscuits and stale "swipes," utterly failed to repress their turbulence and insubordination.

There were sailors, soldiers, privateersmen, merchant-seamen, civilians, and even officers who had broken their parole, crammed together in wretchedness and filth, some of them being almost in a state of nudity, with nothing more than a piece of old sail tied round them, notwithstanding all the excellent regulations of the Transport Board, and the exertions of the officers and slender crew of the Alceste, for most of these Frenchmen were now so desperate and degraded that they cared less for death than life. Thus, never shall I forget the impression made upon me when I looked along the far vista of the lower deck, when the flakes of yellow sunlight were streaming across it through the barred gratings of the triced-up ports, and saw the tattered figures, the scrubby beards, the scarred forms—scarred less in battle than by prison brawls (for some who were obnoxious to the rest were horribly mutilated)—the shock heads of black, uncombed hair, the unwashed visages and bloodshot eyes of those prisoners—the dull apathy of some, the ferocious hate exhibited by others; and when I heard the yells, screams, obscenity and mockery with which they greeted us as new comers, and chiefly when my guard, as a hint, deliberately loaded their carbines with ball-cartridge before them.

"From what do all these miseries and disorders arise?" I asked, as we retired and entered the great cabin, the windows of which faced to the coast of Kent.

"You may well inquire," replied Lieutenant I——; "they have their origin in an inordinate passion for gambling."

"Gambling?"

"Yes; you would be astonished," continued the lieutenant, whose dialect I render in English, "if you knew how these incorrigible wretches persevere in a vice that ends in the death of many and the misery of all. Their clothes, their beds, their rations, the hair of their heads, and their very teeth, they convert into objects on which to hazard the turn of a card or a cast of the dice. For months in advance many of them have lost all their food to more fortunate or more knavish gamblers; and so hard of heart have some of these become, that they will see their victims perish of hunger before their eyes without bestowing a morsel to alleviate their sufferings. Many have died on the lower deck, naked, of cold in the winter, and others of sheer starvation. In the stomachs of two, who were thus found dead in the cable-tier yesterday, our surgeon found only a little water. I have had small-arm men posted over the mess-tables with loaded pistols, to force each man to eat his own rations, whether gambled away or not; and all night long we have to watch every portion of the ship, as they are for ever cutting holes in her sheathing with knives they have secreted—holes for the purpose of escaping or of scuttling her with all on board. So, sir," he added, with an oath, "you are likely to find yourself in pleasant company."

It would seem that on finding the ship stranded in Rye Harbour, and so near the shore, a privateersman, notorious as a ringleader in every disorder, cut, with the help of a knife—the edge of which he had serrated as a saw—one of those holes to which my friend referred, on the starboard side and just amidships.

This had been discovered in time, and in accordance with standing orders every prisoner in that part of the ship had been put upon half-rations to defray the expense of the repair, which the carpenter stated at twenty-five pounds sterling.

A dreadful uproar ensued when this information was communicated to the Frenchmen. Wet swabs, holystones, belaying-pins, pieces of wood torn from the hatch way-combings and deck-gratings, mops, brooms, and everything available as a weapon, were in immediate requisition; and the prisoners broke into open revolt on the third day after we were on board.

The drum beat to arms, the crew drove below all who were in the pound, battened down the hatches, and promptly ran the two twenty-four pounders through the bulkhead aft to sweep the deck forward if necessary; but so much was the vessel careened over in the sand that the guns failed to work well. Thus my twenty dismounted Greys, with their carbines loaded, were formed in line across the deck, ready for whatever might ensue; Lieutenant I—— having of course command of the whole.

As the disorder was at its height, and several missiles had been flung at us, I gave the orders—

"Ready—present!" but on finding that the din was instantly hushed, I added, "Advance arms!"

Stepping forward a few paces, and taking advantage of the lull, I was proceeding to address the prisoners in the most conciliatory terms, when the privateersman—a tall, strong, and swarthy fellow from Martinique—with silver rings in his ears, and naked to the waist, rushed upon me with a knife, in eluding which I stumbled and fell.

On seeing this, believing me to be stabbed, Tom Kirkton cried—

"Let us shoot them down—fire!"

Then a volley of carbines was poured in. This shot the privateersman and another dead, and severely wounded ten more. A terrible scene then took place at the hatchways, as the fugitives scrambled, tumbled, and rolled over each other—falling through in heaps in their haste to escape to the lower hold, cockpit, cable-tier, or anywhere; all save those who lay on the deck, and one, a many in tattered uniform, who stood calmly with arms folded, and with his back to the mainmast, eyeing us with steady disdain, as if waiting for the next platoon.

With my sword drawn, I stepped forward to question this rash man, and then judge my emotion on recognising in him the—Chevalier de Boisguiller!

CHAPTER XXIII.

"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION."

"Fire—kill me!" exclaimed the chevalier, proudly and fiercely; "I have no desire to live after the degradation to which you have subjected me—I, an officer of the Queen's Hussars, and a chevalier of the order. Ah, sacré! perfidious English—you know not how to make war."

"Monsieur de Boisguiller, have you already forgot me—and our meetings in the chateau of Bourgneuf, and the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier?"

His expression changed on recognising me; but perceiving my epaulettes, gorget, and sash—

"Pardieu!" he exclaimed, with a grimace on his lip, and fire flashing in his eyes; "we seem to have changed places with a vengeance, Monsieur l'Ecossais!"

He said something more, but his voice was rendered incoherent by the shame and passion, pride and mortification, which almost made him weep.

I turned to Lieutenant I——, of the Alceste, and inquired how it came to pass that the chevalier, whom I knew to be a brave and honourable French officer, should be found in a plight so deplorable, and thrust among such associates.

"He was sent on board here for attempting to kill the captain of one of our privateers," replied the naval officer briefly, and with a contemptuous glance at the Frenchman.

"I shall tell you how it came to pass, monsieur; you will believe me?" said the chevalier, turning to me earnestly.

"Assuredly, monsieur."

"Our fleet is still shut up in Brest by yours; so a large privateer of Bristol made a dash into the harbour of Cherbourg last week, to pick up anything milord Howe had left behind him. Among other things they unluckily picked up me, when on my way to Erville to keep an appointment with a little paysanne, who, like the rest, preferred a Parisian hussar to a Breton woodcutter. The privateer put to sea; I was refused my parole of honour, and placed on board this floating pandemonium three days before she was stranded in Rye Harbour, because in resenting some insolence of the privateer captain, I knocked him down and jumped overboard. He jumped after me, and we fought in the water till a boat's-crew picked us up. Pardieu that is all, mon camerade."

I begged the officer in command of the Alceste to accept the parole of the chevalier, to which he at once agreed, and removed him to one of the after cabins, where he was supplied with clothes to replace his hussar uniform, which was now in rags, the ruffians of the prison-ship having torn every shred of lace from it, to exchange for grog with bumboat women who paddled about the frigate.

We had a bottle of wine together, and under its influence the Frenchman's natural gaiety soon resumed its wonted sway, his annoyance and anger disappeared, and as we conversed his voice brought back, as in a mental panorama, the old chateau on the road to Rennes, with its reedy lake and flower-enamelled lawn—the woods, the hills, and rockbound shores of Brittany, with softer thoughts of a time that would never come again—thoughts, however, that he was singularly fated to dispel.

"The story of your encounter with Hautois, and your casting him into the Black Torrent, where doubtless he has thrown many an unfortunate devil, will form one of the best legends in Brittany," said he, laughing.

"The old Countess Ninon?"

"Is well—though less blooming than her namesake, De l'Enclos."

"And Urbain—and old Bertrand?"

"All well, when I saw them last, about ten days ago. Peste! what a number of things have happened to me since then."

"And pretty Angelique?"

"Is now the happy wife of Jacquot Triquot, coachman to M. le Curé of St. Solidore. The countess punished her thus for her remarkable trick of turning you into a soubrette, my friend, which might have been a very serious joke!"

I smiled mournfully and muttered—

"Poor—poor Jacqueline!"

"Parbleu! how is it that you do not ask for her?"

"Ask for her?" I repeated, with sorrowful surprise; "ask for one who is dead and buried?"

"Who was half dead and half buried, you mean. She was only stunned by a blow, and half-smothered among leaves and grass. She is alive and well, Dieu merci! and by this time will be in Paris with her cousin, Comte Bourgneuf."

I remained for some moments in doubt of my senses on hearing this; but there was an imperturbable smile on Boisguiller's face, as he sat twirling each moustache alternately.

"Chevalier, you assure me of this on your honour," said I, hoarsely.

"On my honour as an officer wearing the cross of St. Louis. It was a mere case of suspended animation—nothing more. You would have seen this yourself had you not left us with the bloodhound in such a devil of a hurry to follow the track of Hautois. In fact, she spoke to us all quite rationally in about half an hour after you disappeared."

"Chevalier, you saw how I suffered," said I, with grave reproach, "and yet you permitted me to leave the province in the belief that Jacqueline de Broglie was indeed dead. Was this fair of you?"

"In love as in war, my dear fellow, all things are fair, so far as strategy will go. Had I told you that she was merely in a swoon—lethargique—you might have been prompted to commit some new extravagance; thus we all thought that the sooner you were comfortably out of France the better. She is now in Paris, and—" he added rather spitefully, for my manner piqued him, "and will soon be married—most suitably married."

"Married to whom?" I asked fiercely. But he still smiled complacently, and continued to curl his confounded moustache. "In Paris—ah, there she may soon forget me," I added, sadly.

"Forget you! Ouf, mon camarade! what would you have? You don't know my cousin Jacqueline. In that huge old barrack, the lonely chateau, you were a brother, a companion, a little bit of romance such as we may find in Marivaux—nothing more. In Paris, the memory of all that will soon be effaced. Monsieur, she cannot come here—you cannot go there—so this is the end of the matter." And he burst out into a fit of laughter.

As a sequel to this conversation, my mind became oppressed by emotions of a very mingled cast indeed, and so little desire had I for the stinging communications of my friend the chevalier, that my whole wish was to get rid of him handsomely as soon as possible.

I wrote to Captain Douglas and to Lieutenant Keith to inform them how and where I had found the brave officer who had commanded in the redoubt at Cancalle Bay, and had led those hussars whom we had met hand to hand and bridle to bridle in Brittany.

They used their influence with old Colonel Preston, and through him the chevalier in a short time effected an exchange with an officer of equal rank, and was sent home to France by cartel.

Prior to this, a subdivision of marines having been placed on board the Alceste, my party gladly marched back to headquarters at Wadhurst, about twenty-five miles from Rye.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WADHURST.

Jacqueline not dead, but in Paris! It terrified and bewildered me. Was Hautois drowned at last? might he too reappear as he had done before, like a vampire, whom there was no destroying? Jacqueline not dead, but in Paris with her cousin, the handsome Comte de Bourgneuf, to whom she was soon to be married. This idea—this sequel to her story, whether false or true, was ever before me, kindling my jealousy, wounding my self-esteem, filling my heart with bitter sorrow, and I longed for active service to wean me from myself; and right glad was I when the "Route" arrived for Germany.

Wadhurst is five miles from Tunbridge Wells. That famous Spa was then little more than a village, but many fashionables who were there to drink the waters, to kill time, to catch an heir or an heiress, came over to see the corps inspected by the general of the district on the day before we marched for the coast.

The regiment paraded in complete marching order, with valises packed, and pouches filled with ammunition. In addition to the usual accoutrements for horse and man, every officer and trooper had strapped to his saddle a nosebag, watering bridle and log, with mane and curry-combs, sponge, horsepicker, scissors, and spare shoe, all in a canvas cover, and a net for forage.

We received the general, John Lafausille (who four years after died when on his way home from the Havannah), in review order, with our trumpets sounding "Britons, strike home." And I can remember well the stately appearance of the old soldier, with his hair powdered and queued, as he rode to the front of the staff, and raised his Kevenhüller hat in salute, while the veteran Preston, erect, grim, and stiff, in his buff coat, a relic of a past age retained by his eccentricity, lowered his heavy broadsword in return till the blade touched the toe of his right jackboot. The muscular strength and stature of our men, nearly all of whom were natives of Ayrshire, with the beauty and high condition of our horses, excited great admiration.

A brilliant staff now passed along the line, and it was so numerous, that to admit its passage, our rear rank went about by threes, retired to double distance, then fronted and dressed by the pivots. Many ladies on horseback accompanied the staff.

Among them was one in a pale blue riding-habit, with a broad hat and white plume, who was mounted on a dashing grey pad, and rode beside an aide-de-camp, of whom she was asking many questions; and she seemed to be eagerly scrutinizing the corps, the officers thereof especially.

Her companion I knew by sight to be a Major Shirley—rather a gay and dissipated man, and a brother of that Cornet Frederick Shirley who had wrought my friend Charters such evil when in the Dragoon Guards.

"Have you found him?" asked the major, laughing.

"No," I heard the lady reply.

"Look among the cornets."

"But how shall I know them?"

"By their cake and pudding appearance. Besides, each carries the standard of his troop."

They were now close to me, and I carried the standard of the Light Troop, with the staff resting on the toe of my right boot, so the young lady, a handsome girl with fair, almost golden hair, a delicate complexion, and dark blue eyes, turned and looked fully at me.

She was my cousin Aurora!

Though it was for me she had been looking, she coloured deeply, bowed and smiled, and then grew pale—so pale that her friend the staff major observed it, and said, drily:

"So, Miss Gauntlet, you have found him, then?"

"Yes—oh yes, and knew him immediately."

"Then I hope you are pleased," said the major, biting his nether-lip and adroitly catching the bridle of her horse, which reared at a sudden crash of the trumpets that drowned her reply as the cavalcade passed on.

The ranks were now closed.

"Dress the line by the standards, Major Maitland," cried Colonel Preston. "Who is that fool yonder throwing the whole line out?" he added, as a sergeant's horse became restive and reared on its hind legs.

"A fool, but for whom, Colonel, you would have been years ago in your grave at Stapledyke," replied the sergeant, quietly.

"Egad you are right, Duff, for you saved my life there—forgive my anger, comrade," said the kind old officer.

"I would forgive you any thing, Colonel," replied the old sergeant in the same under tone, while his eyes filled; "for you and I are the last left of the Greys who rode in the charge on the bloody day in South Beveland."

The review was soon over; we passed the general in open column of troops, charged in squadrons and in line, amid whirlwinds of dust—went through sword and carbine exercise, were complimented by the general and harangued by the colonel; then the men were dismissed to their quarters, while the officers joined the staff and the ladies at luncheon, in a large marquee which had been erected on a pleasant lawn for the purpose.

A stranger amid that gay throng, and caring little on the eve of embarkation whether or not I made new acquaintances, I was attending to one or two stout and elderly mammas, who being neither handsome nor blooming, had been somewhat neglected; and while doing the honours with our cold fowl, pink cream and champagne, a voice close by me said:

"And so, Basil, you are going to the seat of war?"

I looked around, and found Aurora Gauntlet's blue eyes bent on me with something of sad earnestness.

"You will shake hands with me, Basil—won't you?"

I coloured and trembled with pride, perplexity, and even annoyance; but pressed her hand in mine, though the wrongs I had suffered at the behest of our grandfather swelled up bitterly in my heart.

"So, Basil," she resumed, smiling, "I have brought your military escapade to a creditable—to a pleasant termination; have I not?"

"I felt quite certain, Miss Gauntlet, that it was to you I owed my epaulettes, and I pray you to accept of my gratitude for your friendship and memory. My military escapade! Is it thus you term the resource of stern necessity? Would it have been an escapade had I turned highwayman, or joined some desperate privateer? Few resources are left to a penniless gentleman, so I chose the most honourable."

"I deplore your bitterness of spirit, cousin Basil," said she, "and I pity you; but what could—what can I do?"

"I ask no pity, Miss Gauntlet," I replied, somewhat ruffled; "but permit me to lead you from this—here we cannot converse with freedom." And taking her hand, we went forth into the sunny lawn, Aurora holding her riding-habit gathered in her left hand, her ostrich feather drooping over her right shoulder, and very lovely and graceful she looked in the bloom of her youth and beauty.

"Forgive me," said she, almost with tears in her eyes, and a quiver on her pouting lip, for she knew in what a hostile aspect I viewed her; "but I think your conduct to me, as a kinswoman who seeks to befriend you, most unkind and ungracious! Think of what is before you, and that we may never see or meet each other again."

I laughed and replied,

"We have not seen much of each other hitherto, Miss Gauntlet."

"Call me Aurora!" said she, grasping her switch with an impulse that was not all playfulness.

"But then, when I am such a scape-grace—outcast if you will—what the devil does it matter what is before me, or how soon I am shot? Thanks to you, however, my dear cousin, I shall die in the position of a gentleman."

"I would have sent you a few hundred guineas on your promotion, Basil; but mamma reminded me of your dangerous pride, your haughty and resentful spirit, so I tore up the cheque after signing it."

"You judged rightly, my dear cousin; but I thank you, though I would not have accepted the money. The commission you have thrust upon me——"

"Thrust—oh fie, Basil! It was simply managed," said she, smiling, "by a note from mamma to Mr. Pitt, the great commoner, who was once himself a cornet of cavalry; in the Blues, I think, was he not?"

"That commission I hoped to have won otherwise. However——" I paused, as there was a tearful and angry expression in Aurora's eyes, and very beautiful eyes they were, with lashes thick, dark, and long, which imparted to them a charming softness. Then cousinship is such a strange affinity—something like a sister and more like a sweetheart, that I committed some very ungracious speech to silence, for I now began to perceive that from her mother Aurora inherited a true English girl's face, in expression the sweetest, in features the softest, perhaps, in the world.

"And you march——" she began, to change the subject.

"To-morrow, at eight in the morning."

"So early! Yet I shall ride over from Tunbridge Wells to see you off."

"Thank you, Aurora; but at such an hour——"

"Oh, I shall not want for an escort, believe me. Major Shirley and a dozen others will only be too happy. And now that we are to be friends from henceforward, confess that you have been wrong, cousin Basil, and that I have been right!"

"Perhaps—it is the privilege of all handsome girls to be right, whatever view they take."

"Did you learn this in France?" she asked, with a steady glance.

"Ah!" said I, and with the thought of Jacqueline, my heart seemed to die within me; "in France I preserved your handkerchief (you remember our race on Banstead Heath), and it saved my life from a bullet at St. Malo."

Her soft, peachlike cheek flushed with honest pleasure when I said this, but ere she could reply, Major Shirley—a privileged man evidently was this devil of a major, and a very handsome one to boot—came forward, saying—

"Miss Gauntlet, I beg pardon, but I have been looking for you everywhere."

"Why?" asked Aurora, raising her eyebrows.

"You are forgetting the hour, and that I promised your mamma to see you safely back to Tunbridge Wells betimes."

"Adieu, Basil!"

"Till to-morrow," I added.

She kissed her gloved hand to me, and the smiling major led her away with all haste.

I was happier after this interview than I had been for many a day. The kindness that the warmhearted and impulsive Aurora seemed to cherish for me gave her another and a nearer interest in my mind. Animosity died within me, and I began to think it was charming to have at least one relation who loved me for myself, and I thought of our old Scottish proverb, which says that "Blood is thicker than water." Moreover, how could she help the tenor of my crusty grandfather's odious will, or that fatality by which my cousin Tony broke his valuable neck and made her an heiress?

We paraded duly for the march next day. The several troops were formed, their rolls called, and as the clock of the old market-place struck eight, the whole regiment moved off amid the cheers of the populace and the lamentations of those soldiers' wives who were left behind with their poor little ones, their treasured marriage lines, and a "begging pass" to their own parish wherever it might be—too often the usual and cruel wind-up of military matrimony.

At that moment Aurora Gauntlet, mounted on her dashing grey—a pad she rode in compliment to us—her cheeks flushed by a long ride in the pure morning air, her skirt and plume and golden hair floating behind her, cantered up to the column, accompanied by Major Shirley in his staff uniform, and by John Trot, the valiant hero of Wandsworth Common, in very gay livery, and like the staff officer, well mounted.

"I'm just in time, I find," said she, as I drew aside from my troop (which being the Light one was in the rear, as the corps was marched with the right in front) and reined up beside her.

"I was looking for you anxiously, Aurora. Will you keep this document for me, cousin? for if I am killed in Germany, I have no desire that it should be used by some boor to light his pipe with or wrap his butter in."

It was the diploma of the Netherwood baronetcy, running in the name of "CAROLUS, DEI GRATIA, REX SCOTIÆ ET ANGLIÆ, &c. &c., nostro Johanni Gauntleti de Netherwood, ejusque hæredibus masculis de corpore, &c., titulam gradum et dignitatem militis Baronetti in hac antiqua parte Regni Nostri Scotiæ," and so forth.

"You shall be the custodier of this choice piece of archæology, for with my sword, Aurora, it is all my inheritance now. In my haversack or valise I have borne it ever since old Nathan Wylie, Sir Basil's evil mentor, sent it to me as a taunt amid my misfortunes."

"You would still reproach me?" said she, in a low voice.

"Nay, Aurora, on my soul I do not."

"I thank you," she replied, with her eyes brimful of tears; for in addition to the peculiar position in which we stood, nothing melts a woman's heart so much as the aspect of a fine regiment departing for foreign service in time of war. "My mother has become feeble and ailing—I shall soon be alone in the world, so think kindly of me, Basil, when you are far away, even as we shall think kindly of you, for we are the last of our family—the last of the old Gauntlets of Netherwood."

"I am, rather than you," said I, smiling.

"How?"

"Some one, of course, will marry you, so I must be the last."

She blushed painfully, and her glance wandered to Shirley, but his eyes, at least, appeared to be intent upon the marching column.

"I am going to Germany now, perhaps never to return; for news I have heard (here I referred to the strange tidings of Boisguiller) have made me, even in youth, somewhat reckless of life."

"Oh, Basil, Basil! you must not speak thus."

"Sir, Colonel Preston is looking back for you," said Major Shirley, with a slight tone of impatience and authority in his voice. "And there sounds a trumpet."

"Then we do part friends at last?" said Aurora, with a sad smile.

"Yes, dear cousin, the best of friends."

She held up her cheek to be kissed by me; but somehow her rosy lip came in its place.

I saw Shirley's face darken, but heeded it little, as I put spurs to my grey and dashed after the regiment, which was now trotting along the highway which led towards Brighton.

CHAPTER XXV.

SAIL FOR GERMANY.

We had been very comfortable in our quiet country quarters in Sussex, and being so near London, our officers led a gay life, for at least one-half of them were always in town "between returns;" but now Ranelagh and Vauxhall, with their fireworks and lighted promenades, their belles, beaux, music, and gaiety; the ridotti, the opera, the theatres, and entertainments al fresco in the beautiful West-end parks, or by barges up the Thames to Richmond or to Hampton Court, were all to be exchanged for the long dusty march by day or the dark and weary one by night—the tented camp, the wet bivouac, and the perils of the German war.

The regiment was embarked on board of two frigates—the Venus and Thames. The Light Troop was in the latter, under Major Maitland.

Owing to the circumstances of the expedition, and that the frigates, after landing us, were to run down the Channel and join the Brest blockading fleet, under Anson and Howe, discipline was somewhat relaxed, and the seamen and marines were permitted the privilege of having their wives, sweethearts, and friends on board. So there were enough, and to spare, of singing and weeping, swearing, smoking, and even fighting between decks.

To most of us the atmosphere, especially below, was rendered insupportable by the mingled odours of bilge, coarse tobacco, purser's gin, and new paint, while the language heard on every side was neither classical nor poetical; and this continued until the Blue Peter appeared fluttering from the frigate's foremasthead, and the boom of one of her bow-chasers announced that all shore-people must leave. Then began the howling of women and the grumbling of the seamen, many of whom, to express their discontent, roared in chorus a song then popular among taverns and crimping-houses, a portion of which ran thus:—

"Ere Hawke did bang Mounseer Conflan,
We had plenty of beef and beer;
Now Mounseer's beat, we've little to eat,
And d——n the drop of gin so neat,
    Since John Bull's nought to fear."

After having most severe weather at sea, we were landed at the quaint, old, and Dutch-like town of Embden, about the middle of September.

There we remained two days, giving our horses gentle exercise after the cramps of the sea voyage, riding them by the long canals which intersect the city, and by the sluices of which the whole surrounding country can be inundated in time of war. The officers received a banquet from the burgomaster and Count of Embden in the old feudal castle of the latter, and then we marched to join the allied British and Hanoverians, who were now commanded by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick.

I shall never forget that route, which occupied ten days. The rain poured incessantly, and we had to traverse a low, marshy country, few portions of which were less than fetlock deep in water. Many of the towns we passed through had been destroyed; the inhabitants of others declined to be incommoded. Thus we frequently bivouacked amid the wet, being quite without tents; but old Colonel Preston always cheered us on. Sometimes he would say, as some of us nodded over our holsters, when riding wearily on in the grey dawn that heralded another day of toil and travel:

"You are weary, my gude lads; we shall halt in an hour; but there can be no sleep even then, unless with the sword in the hand and the foot in the stirrup."

On one of those wretched marches I had command of the regimental baggage-guard, and was hourly annoyed by the master waggoner, an East Frieslander, who was never sober, as he drank constantly from a keg of Schiedam which hung at the back of his wain, and his companions assured me that he had never been sober for a year—others averred that he had been born drunk, so great a toper was he. I was riding a little way in rear of the escort, which was traversing a fetid swamp from whence a pestilential evening mist was rising white as milk, when amid that gloomy vapour there suddenly rose in front a lambent light of a pale hue. Then a cry of dismay from Hob Elliot and others of my men, made me trot up to the spot, where I beheld a very appalling spectacle.

The Friesland waggoner was lying on his back, and literally on fire—flames were issuing from his crackling nostrils, mouth, and ears, and even, while we gazed on him, his whole face and hair were burned away, while the fire seemed to pass over his whole body, scorching his clothes to powder.

Dr. Lancelot Probe, our surgeon, came speedily back from the front, but the Frieslander was already beyond his skill, having expired in agony. It was a case of spontaneous combustion. Probe naturally conjectured that a spark from his pipe—which he yet firmly grasped—had ignited the fumes of the spirit within him, and the subtle gases issuing from every pore and orifice, had kindled at once to fire, on reaching the external air.

Be it as it may, the terrible episode of the Frieslander had the effect of keeping some of our most tipsy fellows sober for many a week after.

Our mode of passing the night was generally thus.

A ridge would be selected; we dismounted and cloaked, throwing a portion over the saddle and holsters, each man standing by his horse, and holding on by the stirrup leather to steady himself if sleeping, as he was pretty sure to be. Despite the danger of lying down among the horses' hoofs, some did so in utter weariness, but were soon forced to get up again, lest their own chargers should tread on them.

Moreover, a dragoon accoutred cannot lie on his back for the spurs that are on his heels, and the cartridge-box between his shoulders, nor on his right side for his haversack, nor on his left for his canteen and sword-hilt; thus, when harnessed, he has no resource but to sleep on his face with his nose and toes in the turf!

So the dreary night would pass—the trumpet pour its melancholy twang through the mist at daybreak, and amid the pestilential swamp we would groom our horses or imagine that we did so; pour the water out of our boots; partake of a ration biscuit soaked by the night rain to pulp, if nothing better could be had; denounce the Hanoverians for whom we, H.M. Scots Greys, endured all this discomfort, and then again resume the march, which ended on the 31st of September, when we joined Prince Ferdinand at Coesveldt, a small but fortified town in Westphalia.

On those long marches, Tom Kirkton—he had now attained the rank of troop-sergeant—and I had many a confab as of old, for on service rank makes little difference, if discipline be retained. He frequently and bluntly urged that I should "lay siege," as he phrased it, "to my pretty cousin, and marry her, and so quit this miserable work. Lay siege!" he added, on one occasion; "you don't require to do that, for I have no doubt she is anxious enough to hook you for the mere sake of being Lady Gauntlet."

"This is most flattering, Tom; and so you would have me pander to a spirit so mercenary. Nay, nay; I cannot judge of her thus; and by this time perhaps she is the wife of Major Shirley, whom I left in possession of the field."

But Tom's advice, though heedlessly given, always rankled long and bitterly in my mind.

And now, lest the reader may naturally inquire what object we had in making a tour of Germany, I may briefly state that his Britannic Majesty's native and well-beloved Electorate of Hanover had been overrun by a French army, to expel whom, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick had put himself at the head of the German troops, and to reinforce these, six regiments of British infantry and some cavalry had joined him, and were now under the command of Lord George Sackville. Since the accession of the house of Guelph to the throne, the whole taxes and energies of the British people had been systematically devoted to the defence of Hanover and the pauper princelings of Germany; just as in the preceding age they had been wasted in defence of King William's dearly-beloved Dutch; and it was not until the peace of Paris that, as an historian says, the nation "would no longer suffer the public treasure to be squandered on poor foreign princes under the name of subsidies, to enable them to fight their own battles, nor the blood of British soldiers to be spilt to water the forests and fertilize the plains of Germany."

However, these are after-thoughts; of such we took little heed then, and cared less whom we fought, or where, remembering only a soldier's first duty—implicit obedience.

I shall briefly state that we skirmished through all Westphalia; that during these operations I received a slight pistol wound in the bridle hand; Colonel Preston had a horse shot under him, and Tom Kirkton a standard pole broken by a grape-shot, and so forth, until the month of November, when we retired to winter quarters at the little city of Alphen, in the Bishopric of Paderborn, where we remained quietly recruiting our energies for a new struggle in the early part of the ensuing year.

The allies, 34,000 strong, were led, as I have stated, by Ferdinand of Brunswick, one of the most celebrated generals of the age; but opposed to him were two maréchals of France, one, whose name found an echo in my heart, the Duc de Broglie, and the other M. de Contades, with 60,000 troops, the flower of the French line—men at whose hands the British and Hanoverians had suffered a series of reverses which made us long for spring, that the contest might be renewed and ended for ever.

END OF VOL. II.

LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,
CHANDOS-STREET.