THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF A SOLDIER.CHAPTER I.
THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF A SOLDIER.
The regiment I belonged to had been serving in the Peninsula from the early part of 1810, during that harassing and apparently interminable war; for campaign after campaign succeeded each other, and although we gained splendid victories in each, we generally found ourselves taking up our winter quarters on the same ground from whence we had set out.
At the close of 1812, after a weary and disastrous retreat from Madrid, we were again quartered in Portugal; here we remained for five months, during which the most active and energetic preparations were made for the ensuing campaign, which commenced in May, 1813. A series of successes almost unexampled enabled us to winter in France, and the battle of Toulouse in April, 1814, concluded a war which had drained the country of men and treasure. With feelings which none can know but those who have toiled through fields of death, we received the order to embark for Britain, and it was with little regret that we lost sight of the fair shores of France, ‘with its bright beaming summers exhaling perfume.’ Far dearer to our imaginations were the ‘humble broom bowers’ of our native land, ‘where the blue bell and gowan lurks lowly unseen.’ On the voyage homeward, hope smiled triumphant, dreams of joy and bliss took the place of disappointment and despair. Yet often in sleep did my imagination return to those fields of strife and rapine that we had left; the agony of disappointed hope again shed its chilling mildew on my soul, and I awoke expecting to hear the sound of the bugle or the roar ofartillery; but the picture was reversed—‘sorrow did not now return with the dawning of morn.’
Our voyage homeward was short and pleasant. Ireland was our destination, and having anchored in the Cove of Cork, we proceeded to disembark in lighters.
‘You are welcome to old Ireland,’ exclaimed my comrade Dennis, holding out his hand to me as I stepped from the boat out of which he had sprung an instant before, ‘welcome to the land of potatoes and buttermilk. Didn’t I tell you that we would live to see this day? May I never die if this isn’t the happiest, minute of my life! my heart’s so light that I think I could jump over the moon. Come along, my gay fellow, we have been long together, “and in spite of wind and weather we will moisten well our clay”—I mean by and by, when we get to our billets. Did you ever drink any potheen, Joseph? Och! there never was drink like it in the universe, for if you wish to be in any mood at all, it’ll do the job for ye. If you want to fight, potheen will make you face the ould boy himself; if you have any notion of making love, with a bumper or two of Inishone you might malvader the heart of Diana; and if crying is your game, it will make your heart as soft as prapeen. Go to the first wake you can in this country, and you’ll see what wonders it works; it will do your heart good to see how it makes the tears trickle down their cheeks, and sets them a counting their pedigree back to the time when Adam was a little boy; ay, indeed, (but I must whisper it,) I have seen it make a voteen of many an old woman that said her Paternave dry enough at any other time. Och, pure potheen’s the liquor for me,—it beats brandy, rum, and gin, out of all razon.’
Whatever I might think of the extravagant praise which Dennis had bestowed on his favourite whisky, I certainly participated in his joyous feelings, and felt an affection at that moment for every thing living, from the half naked urchins that ran about the cabin doors, down to the pigs, cocks, and hens, that participated in their sports, food, and lodging.
We were billeted that day in Cork, on a respectable tradesman,—a kind, cheerful fellow, who exerted himself to make us comfortable; and after a dinner such as we had been long strangers to, he insisted upon us joining him in a tumbler of punch.
‘Come, my dear,’ said the landlord to his wife, who was present, ‘be kind enough to sing us a song.’
‘With all my heart,’ said she, and she began the well-known song of ‘Erin-go-bragh.’ The air is uncommonly plaintive and beautiful, but few who have not heard it can conceive the expression and pathos which an enthusiastic Irishwoman can throw into it. Such was our hostess, and she poured out her strains in a voice so delightfully sweet that my heart thrilled to its core: no doubt association and the state of our minds aided the effect, but I never felt so much pleasure from music. Recollections of former scenes and feelings crowded on my memory, and my eyes filled with tears. Dennis sat entranced in his chair trying to swallow the emotion that he was ashamed to show, while his eye was fixed on the singer as if on some heavenly vision. She had herself caught the infection, and as she repeated
‘Ah! where is the mother that watch’d o’er my childhood?’
‘Ah! where is the mother that watch’d o’er my childhood?’
her voice faltered, and the tear trembled in her eye. Dennis could contain himself no longer; he covered his face with his hands and wept aloud; a pause ensued, but it was a pause occasioned by revealings of the soul, too purely intellectual for expression.
Silence was broken by our hostess.
‘Poor fellows!’ said she, ‘I see the dreadful scenes you have witnessed have not hardened your hearts: they still beat true to nature.’
‘Oh,’ said Dennis, ‘there’s more in that song than you have any notion of; many’s the time I sung it when I was far from home, and, when I little expected to see old Ireland or my poor mother again—surely it was an Irishman that made that song.’
‘He has all the warm feeling of one,’ said I, ‘but I believe he is a townsman of mine, Dennis.’
‘Never mind,’ replied he, ‘his heart is an Irish one—and that’s the best part of him.’
From the various circumstances connected with it, I am sure I never spent a happier evening, and next morning we parted with our kind hosts with as much regret as if we had known each other for years.
From Cork the regiment marched to Fermoy; having been on duty, which detained me some hours after the corps, I set out alone to perform the journey. When half way, I overtook a countryman travelling the same road, with whom I entered into conversation. We had not gone far together when my attention was attracted by a wild cry, which seemed to be borne on the wind from some distance; it burst on my ear like the cry of a person in distress—then, gradually sinking to a low moan, it ceased for a few moments, when again the despairing shriek swelled to the utmost pitch of the human voice,—again it sank to the plaintive murmur, and melted into air. There was something uncouth in the notes, but they were expressively wild and melancholy, and I felt myself powerfully affected without being able to account for it. I stopped for a moment to listen, and asked my companion the meaning of what I heard.
‘Oh, it’s some poor creature going to his long home,’ said he, ‘that they are keening over.’
We had not gone far, when at a turning of the road, the melancholy procession opened on our view,—a countryman driving a car, on which was placed a coffin. One solitary mourner, (an old woman,) clung to it with one hand, while the other was raised in a despairing attitude; her gray hair hung in dishevelled tresses about her face and shoulders, and intense grief was depicted in her haggard countenance. My companion requested me to wait a moment, while he turned back a short way with the corpse. ‘Well,’ said he to me when he returned, ‘many’s the funeral I have seen; but never one like that,’—they haven’t a single neighbour with them: when the poorest creature would have half the parish, but that comes of the boy’s own behaviour—God be merciful to his soul!’
‘Why, what harm did he do?’
‘So much that I believe his poor father and mother will never be able to hold up their heads again: he was the means of bringing two of his own relations to the gallows, that but for him might have been alive and well to-day; they were all three laid up for taking arms from a gentleman’s house near this, and there was no clear proof against them, but they wheedled over this boy that’s dead now, to turn king’s evidence, and save his own life; but he never did a day’s good after, and he died the other day of fever, and not one of his neighbours would attend his wake—God help his poor people!’
On reaching Fermoy, I found the regiment in barracks, where we remained only a few days, when we received the route to march to Wexford, a town on the west coast of Ireland. On reaching a village that lay in our route, the place being small, and the inhabitants poor, we were but indifferently supplied with billets. Poor Dennis had been rather unwell for a day or two previous, and I hastened to find out our quarters, that we might have an opportunity of lying down. Having inquired for the person we were billeted on, we were directed to a low-roofed cabin, where a tall, masculine-looking old woman was standing in the door-way.
‘Come away, honies,’ said she, with an arch mischievous expression of countenance, ‘you are welcome, I was just waiting for yees.’
‘Thank you,’ said I, stooping down to enter the cabin, which was so filled with smoke that I could see nothing of the interior. By the help of the crone, however, we got ourselves seated by the fire, which was made in the centre of the apartment, the door of which served for chimney, window, and all.
Dennis feeling himself very sick, expressed a wish to lie down, and I asked the landlady to show him our bed, for although I saw none, I thought she might have some other apartment.
‘That I will, I’ll be after making a fahl for the poor boy in a minute. Get up out o’ that,’ said she, angrily,to some one who lay on a bundle of straw, in a dark corner of the room, enveloped in something resembling an old great coat.
‘O don’t disturb any body for us.’
‘Troth and it’s myself that will,’ and seized a stick that was lying by the fire to chastise the object she had addressed.
Seeing the miserable appearance of the hovel, I had made up my mind to seek other quarters, and was proceeding to remonstrate, but before I could, the old woman had inflicted the blow; a grunt followed, and presently an enormous pig, carrying the half of the straw, and the ragged coat on his back, came running towards the door, and in his struggle to pass me, threw me over. Ill as Dennis was, he could not help laughing, and the old woman, instead of condoling with me on my misfortune, exclaimed, ‘What a smashing sodger you are, to let the pigs knock you down.’
‘Come away, Dennis,’ said I, ‘if this is a specimen of your country, you have much reason to be proud of it.’
‘Och! is that the way you are going to leave me?’ said the old hag, when she saw us moving off.
‘Troth is it,’ replied Dennis, ‘for I would be sorry to disturb any of the decent family.’
We luckily procured a lodging in a public-house near the cabin, and having mentioned our reason for changing our quarters—
‘Judy is too many for ye,’ said our host; ‘she’s no friend to the sodgers any how: she lost two brave boys in the rebellion, and was a right rebel herself. I have seen the day when she would have thought no more of knocking down a man than of eating her breakfast. It’s not many years since, when we had a fair here, the boys were seemingly going to disperse without a bit of arow, and bad luck to me if she didn’t take off her jock, and holding it by the one sleeve, trailed it through the fair, crying out to her own party, that the blood of the O’Briens had turned into buttermilk, or they wouldnever let the faction of the Murphies home, without a blow being struck. ‘Come, you chicken-hearted rogues?’ said she, while she brandished a stick in her hand, ‘let me see the thief’s breed of a Murphy that will dare to put his foot on my jock.’ The boys only laughed at first, but some one in the crowd, out of contempt, threw a dead rat which struck her on the face; this enraged her so, that she knocked down the man nearest her, and in a twinkling there was a fight that beat anything ever was seen, and she was there to the last. But the devil himself’s but a fool to ould Judy.’