I have but little courage to write of what followed this upbraiding interview and degrading discovery; for one episode of horror followed another.
I resumed the green hunting suit of the absent count, and Angelique was filled with dismay when she saw me clad in it, as she dreaded the punishment that would be awarded for her connivance in the recent masquerading; and moreover she loved her young mistress dearly. Then she wept when she found it was ordained that I was to depart secretly that night on horseback, and that it was to be given out that Basile the paysanne from the Morbihan, had eloped or run away.
I was to be the bearer of a special letter from madame to the Comte de Boisguiller, Governor of St. Malo, charging him by his old allegiance to her, and his present friendship, to have me despatched on board the first British ship that came in sight of the city, or sent by an especial boat to the Isle of Jersey: in short, to get me out of the province at all hazards, and quietly too.
It occurred to me that the count might neither seek a ship nor send a boat, but instead of obeying his venerable inamorata, might cast me into a vault at St. Malo as a prisoner; however, I felt so crushed, so crestfallen and miserable by the sudden, though not unexpected turn the matter had taken, that for a long time after these events I cared very little what became of me.
The evening drew on, and twilight deepened into night. Then Madame de Bourgneuf, on inquiring for her niece, found that she was not within the chateau; on this she had the great bell rung repeatedly to summon her from the garden or grounds; but it rang in vain, for there was no appearance of our Jacqueline. After this the countess sent for me, and addressing me sternly, said—
"Monsieur, my letter for M. le Comte de Boisguiller is here, ready written and sealed, the horse which is to bear you to St. Malo is ready in the stable, saddled and bridled, but you shall not pass the gate of Bourgneuf until mademoiselle returns to her apartment. Do you understand me?"
"I beseech you, madame——"
"Beseech me not!" she interrupted, sharply. "There is some other trick—some vile plot in this prolonged absence at an hour so unusual, and on the eve of your departure, too; so I shall keep you as a hostage for her."
But as the first hours of this anxious night drew on, the surprise of the countess and her household took the new phase of alarm and fear, a feeling that was quickened by my repeated assurances of ignorance, and my too evident deep anxiety. The avenue of yew and orange-trees, the lawn and its shrubbery, the borders of the lake, the garden, the labyrinth, and every room, turret, and corner of the chateau, were rigidly searched without success, for no trace of the missing one was found, till Urbain the gardener picked up, near the door of the bower in which we had been seated when madame discovered us, a small kid glove and a gold bracelet, which we knew belonged to Jacqueline.
Near these, on a bush, were some fragments of lace torn from her dress; and when inspected by lantern light the garden-walk and border bore evidence of a struggle; the flowers were crushed and bushes torn, and in the earth were the deep footmarks of a man who wore sabots.
About ten yards from the bower we found a small axe, which had been lost or cast away. It was such as woodmen generally used, and cut upon the handle, appeared the name of T. HAUTOIS!
The deductions we drew from these traces and indications filled my soul with the keenest alarm and horror!
* * * * *
That Jacqueline had been violently assaulted, carried off, and perhaps killed ruthlessly by this outlaw, who had so long vowed vengeance on her family, and whom Jacquot and I had both seen lurking in the grounds during the past week, seemed beyond all doubt. Of his extreme cunning, ingenuity, and of the length his daring and brutality could carry him, I had already had ample proof, and my heart sickened as imagination pictured the gentle, soft, and delicately nurtured Jacqueline, writhing and helpless in his felon hands.
The lamentations of Angelique and the female domestics were mingled with the oaths and maledictions of the men, who proceeded at once to arm themselves with muskets and pistols; and now it was that Madame de Bourgneuf, in her despair, was disposed to rely on me.
She pressed my hand in hers, and said, in a broken voice—
"Monsieur, if you ever loved my niece, as you say you do, aid in her rescue from this demon!"
I returned the pressure in silence, and was making preparation to scour the roads and thickets which covered all the district, when, amid our consternation, the tramp of horses was heard, and the Chevalier de Boisguiller, accompanied by twelve hussars, rode hurriedly up to the gate.
The countess was standing on the front door-steps of the chateau, pale, trembling, and her eyes red with weeping. Some ten men, including Urbain, the valets, gardeners, and grooms, stood around her, loading their arms, fixing and snapping their flints and lighting torches and lanterns, for darkness had long since set completely in.
The Chevalier dismounted, threw his bridle-reins to a hussar, and advancing to the countess, said, with a smiling bow—
"Peste!but I seem to have come at a critical time, madame. Has the lake been poached—the hen-roost robbed, or what, that you are preparing to take the field like a chatelaine of old?"
"Oh, chevalier, you have indeed come at a most critical time. Heaven itself must have sent you!"
"Not at all," replied the heedless hussar. "I am such a sad dog that I fear Heaven has long since given me up as incorrigible, but I have been sent here by order of the count, my father, with a sergeant and twelve troopers. You must learn, that on the day I had last the honour to visit you, a letter came to the commandant of St. Malo—a private letter, oddly spelled, on a very crumpled piece of paper, and bearing the feigned signature of Theophile Damien, but bringing information that an English spy was secretedhere. So, as duty compelled the count to see into the matter, and friendship urged that he should spare you an affront, he despatched me to make the necessary inquiries. Now I remember me of a soubrette of my cousin's——"
"Monsieur le Chevalier," said the poor countess, speaking rapidly amid a torrent of tears, "the person of whom you speak is no spy—for that you have my word of honour."
The chevalier bowed low, with his right hand on his heart, accepting the pledge for me.
"He is no spy, and must be protected. He it was who saved the life of Jacqueline, and will peril his life with you to save her once again, if indeed it be not too late already."
"Again—too late—what do you mean?"
"She means, chevalier," said I, "that Mademoiselle Jacqueline has been torn from us by a ruffian of the most daring and unscrupulous character—by Hautois, the galley-slave."
"Hautois!" repeated the chevalier, with indescribable alarm.
"By Hautois, and thus your arrival is most opportune. I am the person referred to in your orders; but for Heaven's sake—for the sake of Mademoiselle Jacqueline, waste no time or thought on me. I will assist you, aid you with my life to save, to rescue her, and after that is achieved, deal with me as you will."
For a full minute the Frenchman seemed to lose his invincible self-possession on hearing all this, but in a few words I acquainted him with what had occurred, and urged the necessity of immediate action. On hearing the name of Hautois, with whose story he was familiar, the chevalier changed colour, and appeared much disturbed and alarmed.
"If 'tis he, we have indeed no time to lose," said he, through his clenched teeth; "but the pursuit must be on horseback—the servants can beat the woods, while my hussars shall scour the roads. You ride, monsieur, I presume?"
Under other circumstances I might have smiled at the question, but then I simply replied in the affirmative.
"Bon!then get a horse from the stables, and let us begone."
In a few minutes our plan was detailed, and we all separated, inspired by anxiety and excitement. Three hussars took the road towards Dinan; three towards St. Paul le Plenguen; three on that which led to Montford, and other three on that which led towards Rennes. The armed servants under Urbain the gardener and the porter, who had been once a soldier, proceeded to search the woods and forests, while the chevalier and I departed at a gallop towards St. Aubin du Cormier, stopping for inquiry every person we met on the road.
The chateau was to be our point of rendezvous.
"Save her—bring her home in safety," were the parting words of the countess, "and I vow to God to hang a silver lamp worth a thousand livres on the altar at Roscoff!"
This was a little chapel near Leon in Brittany, built by Mary Queen of Scots, in memory of her landing there during a storm when on her voyage from Scotland to France.
"When nothing remains of an adventure," writes some one, "it is always possible to consider it a dream." As yet I could not realize this, though frequently asking of myself, Is all this sudden calamity a truth?—for I thought, spoke, and acted as one who dreamed.
But three hours—they seemed so many ages—but three hours ago, I had been seated in yonder garden-bower with Jacqueline, listening to her voice, while her cheek reclined upon my shoulder, fearing nothing save the shadowy future, thinking of ourselves and of our love alone.
Nowhow all was changed!
I had been discovered, and all but expelled from the chateau, while she had been abducted, and by such an abductor! Now I was riding side by side with a French officer—his comrade for the time—and he was that Chevalier de Boisguiller, who had been so long mybête noire.
At the very moment I was thinking of all these things, what might be the peril, the suffering, the desperate extremity of Jacqueline! Where was she, and how circumstanced in the power of a brutal galley-slave? Might we not be riding in the wrong direction, and thus, perhaps, abandoning her to the very fate from which we sought to save her? The stars that looked so brightly down on us looked also down on her; but where was she? Every thought and fear was maddening!
When contrasted with my own keen anxiety, thesang-froidof the French officer piqued and annoyed me. It was well for me, however, that he was ignorant of the relation that existed between his cousin and me, as, apart from any fancy he might himself have had for her, in the extreme ideas of difference of rank, religion, and so forth, cherished by the Frenchnoblesse, he would have thought no more of quietly pistolling me, on the score of presumption, than of shooting a weasel. Thus my ill-concealed emotions he put down in his own mind as the result of humanity and gratitude.
"Mon ami, I rather like you," said he, as we rode on together; "I can see that you are courageous, and that is better than to be merely brave."
"Merely brave—what do you mean, chevalier?"
"We French make a distinction in this matter. A soldier may be very brave, and yet on some occasions may not have courage to manifest his bravery."
"I confess that this paradox is too subtle for me, especially at such a time. But tell me, chevalier, was this wretch of whom we are in pursuit ever in the French service?"
"I regret to say that he was, until discharged with acartouche jauneas an incorrigible rogue."
He referred to the discharge printed on yellow paper and given to those men of the French army who were dismissed under sentence of degradation.
For a few miles we diverged into every cross path, but always returned to the main road; and we questioned closely the few persons, chiefly charcoal-burners, whom in that sequestered region we met abroad at such an hour, but questioned them in vain.
Thus the short night of August was soon spent. The clear stars still shone brightly in the blue sky; but already there were indications of the dawn that was at hand, for a warm flush was stealing over the east when we found ourselves at Fougères, a little town situated on the river Nanson, having some leather manufactories and a strong old castle wherein the lords of thatSeigneurieresided.
There we turned our horses without prosecuting our inquiries, as it was by no means likely that those of whom we were in search would be found in a busy town.
So the night had passed away—a night without tidings of Jacqueline!
Broader and deeper grew the light of morning, and clouds of sombre grey or purple that overhung the mountains and seemed to roll along their distant ridges, became lighted up and edged with saffron and gold.
We were returning at a canter along the highway to Bourgneuf, in the hope that on reaching that place we might find that some of our searchers had returned with happy tidings and better success than ourselves; but we had scarcely proceeded two miles when we met Urbain the gardener and Bertrand the porter, each armed with a musket. They were accompanied by an old peasant, whose head was bound about with a cloth to conceal a wound, which seemed to have bled profusely.
They had been scouting in the woodlands which bordered the highway, and had there met this peasant, who was a woodcutter, and who informed them that he had seen a man dragging a woman towards the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier, and that when attempting to interfere when she claimed his succour and protection, her captor struck him down with the butt of a heavy pistol. This rencontre occurred about three miles from the place where we were then speaking.
"Pardieu!this is valuable intelligence," exclaimed Boisguiller; "but how shall we track them through these dense thickets?"
"Monsieur, you cannot do it on horseback," replied the peasant; "but as my hut is close by, you may leave your horses there, and then, as I should like to repay that cowardly rascal for the tap he gave me on the head, I shall give you sure means of tracking him, for I have in keeping a Spanish bloodhound belonging to Monseigneur the Count of Fougères, and it is completely at your service."
"I thank you for this great aid,mon ami," said my companion; "the count knows me well—I am the Chevalier de Boisguiller, son of the Governor of St. Malo."
On hearing this the peasant made a succession of low bows, scraping the turf with his sabots at each.
The reader may imagine the haste and satisfaction with which we availed ourselves of the offer of the old woodman, and as we proceeded to his humble hut, which was situated close to a bend of the Nanson, I questioned him closely and anxiously about the appearance of the persons he had seen. The tall, powerful man in a common blouse and fur cap, with a girdle andcouteau de chasse, was as certainly Theophile Hautois as the poor pale girl with torn dress and dishevelled hair, whose hands he had tied with a cord, and whose mouth he had gagged with a handkerchief, was certainly our Jacqueline.
His description made me tremble with anguish and rage, and Boisguiller to gnaw the ends of his moustaches. We quitted our saddles, stuck our pistols in our girdles, and had the bloodhound brought forth.
"Messieurs," said the woodman, as he led forward the dog by a strong steel chain, "there is not in France, and certainly not in Bretagne or Normandy, alimierwith a finer nose than this; and set him but once upon the track of those we seek—let the distance between us be ever so great, and let it be through the thickest woods and by the most covert paths—ay,pardieu, by the Blackwater of St. Aubin du Cormier, this dog will trace them."
"To the proof, without delay!" exclaimed the chevalier, while I examined attentively the ferocious brute on whose instincts our hopes depended.
Its back was about thirty inches high, its limbs exhibited vast muscle, and its chaps were long, pendulous, and frothy. It was of a deep dark-brown hue, and was of that breed which the Spaniards once used with such terrible effect on the continent and adjacent isles of South America.
Leaving our horses at the hut, we retraced our steps, and entering the wild forest, which more or less covers all that part of the country, an hour's walk brought us to the place where the woodman had encountered Hautois and his victim about seven hours before—at midnight, in fact, and he assured us of the place by showing on the grass traces of the blood which had flowed from the wound inflicted by the outlaw's pistol-butt.
The fierce hound inserted his square muzzle among the grass and sniffed up blood, on which the peasant gave him a kick, saying,
"Voila, mon ami!—come, come, 'tis not my blood we wish you to sniff at so pleasantly, but the blood of another."
"True," said Boisguiller, "but how are we to give him the scent of Hautois, or of the lady?"
"Morbleu!" grumbled the woodman; "I did not think of that."
"Had we but a piece of mademoiselle's dress!" said Urbain.
"Here are what we require," said I, in a voice all but breathless with emotion, while drawing from my breast the kid glove and fragment of lace which we had found near the garden-bower. The chevalier gave me a keen glance, and snatching the relics almost abruptly from my hand, pressed them against the black nostrils of the dog, patting him soothingly the while. The glove was perfumed fortunately, and thus, in a minute or less, the dog, after sniffing and snorting about among the grass, with his head bent low and ears drooping, began to run rapidly through the forest, straining on his collar and chain, and dragging after him the peasant who grasped the other end of it.
"Parbleu, messieurs!he is on the track now! See how he follows the scent!" exclaimed the old man, who was compelled to run fast to keep up with the dog and with us. "Oh! by St. Malo! See, here are the footsteps, the crushed leaves, the broken twigs! 'Tis this way they have passed, messieurs.Ah! sacré coquin!That tap on the head shall cost thee dear. Look to your pistols, monsieur le chevalier, forhehas a pair, and I know not the moment we may come upon him."
Thus surely guided by the searching instinct and unflinching pertinacity of the hound, we hastened through the forest in silence, and with hearts full of intense anxiety and hope.
The dog was sometimes at fault when runnels of water crossed our path, but the peasant, who was an acute old fellow, with a face of the true Breton type—eyes that were deeply set and thoughtful, a high nose and square forehead—soon set him right again.
What must poor Jacqueline, so delicate and so tenderly nurtured, have suffered while forced to pursue such paths as these? We were now at least eight miles distant from Bourgneuf, and for her to have been dragged through a forest at midnight, and by such hands!
The idea was too dreadful to embody in fancy, so let me hasten over what follows.
At a part of the forest which was so dense that the intertwined branches of the trees almost excluded the light of the sun, the dog stopped at the root of a large elm, and began to bay loudly over some tufts of grass, leaves, and branches that were freshly heaped up there. He snorted, growled savagely, and then proceeded to tear up the little mound with his nose and forepaws.
"The scent ends here," said the peasant, looking somewhat bewildered and alarmed.
"There must be some mistake," said the chevalier, with annoyance in his tone; "we have been in pursuit of the wrong person. But some mystery may be concealed here. Urbain, Bertrand, scrape aside this heap, and let us see what the dog's nose has discovered."
They readily plied their musket-butts, and then their hands, while I stood by, feeling more dead than alive, for the horror of anticipation overcame me.
A bit of an orange silk dress appeared. Let me endeavour to write briefly and calmly of what followed.
In a hollow, a hasty grave, half dug and half heaped up, about three feet deep in all, we found the body of Jacqueline, covered by leaves, branches, and tufts of grass.
She lay upon her back; her right hand, so small and beautiful, clutched a tuft of grass; the teeth were clenched—there was no relaxation of the jaw—clenched as if with agony, and foam was plainly discernible on the white and parted lips; yet she was lovely like a dead angel, and all the divine serenity of innocence was there.
Standing aloof like one transfixed or petrified, I saw them raise her up, and saw her head drooping pendulously backward with its long dishevelled hair clotted with blood, the bare bosom and the tattered dress.
Then I heard Boisguiller exclaim in accents of horror,
"She is dead now; but that mere wound could never have killed her—she has been, stunned and buried alive! Poor Jacqueline! What she has endured ere death released her, her lips can never tell us now."
When my thoughts took some coherence again, evening had come on, and I found myself alone and still in a forest—alone with the bloodhound, whose steel chain I grasped with an unyielding hand.
I heard the rising wind shaking the tops of the lofty oaks. I remembered now, like one who, after a long and deep slumber, recals the passages of a dream, that near the tree beneath which we foundher, Urbain the gardener had picked up a fur cap, which I had no difficulty in recognising as one that had been worn by Hautois.
This furnished the dog with a scent, put us on his track, and the livelong day we had followed it, like Indians on the trail of an enemy.
One by one, Guillaume de Boisguiller, Urbain the gardener, Bertrand, the old porter, the peasant, and others, had dropped behind in weariness; but I, taking the dog in hand, inspired and endued by revenge with thrice my natural strength, had urged the pursuit alone, through wild thickets, up rough ravines, and across streams and torrents, while a pale face, in awful repose, with eyes glazed and half open, and a mouth the lips of which were two blue lines, seemed to lead me on—and on I went, unflinchingly and unswervingly.
Gradually there came a horrid calmness to my mind—the calmness that follows a shock—a grief too great to last; and there was something soothing in the conviction that Hautois could not escape me; that so surely as if I held an enchanted clue or magic wand I could track him now, if I husbanded my strength, and I could have kissed the ferocious dog that led me on his devious and secret track.
What had she suffered—my poor Jacqueline!—how much endured ere death came to her release!
It may seem strange, but I had a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that her sufferings were all over now—that she was at rest, at peace, and that she would see how fearfully I would avenge her.
But how, was the startling question or thought which occurred to me; for in the rapidity of my pursuit through the thickets of briars and matted shrubs in which I had to make my way, up the rocks which I had to climb, or down which I had to leap, the pistols had dropped from my girdle, when or where I knew not, and thus I was—defenceless!
Yet I heeded not even this terrible conviction; my only desire was to reach, to meet and to grapple with Hautois—weary though I was, to grapple with him bare-handed, and trust the rest to youth and strength, to justice and to God.
When twilight was setting in I found myself in a very wild place. The dog was conducting me up a ravine the sides of which were covered with vast blocks of basalt, thedébrisof some earthquake. In rank luxuriance the weeds and wild flowers covered them in many places. On both sides of this wilderness of rocks grew a dense forest, the timber of which was of several kinds; but the underwood seemed to consist of wild apple-trees. Great mountains of rock bordered this forest on one side; on the other it stretched away into the gloom of evening and the obscurity of distance.
Although I knew it not, I was then in the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier, so named from the prevalence of thecormier, or sorb-apple tree—that forest through which flows the subterranean torrent which forms one of the natural wonders of the province.
On reaching the head of the ravine, the dog led me through a mass of brushwood, by a path so narrow that it seemed to be such a track as the feet of wild rabbits might form, and then I found myself before a large hut, orchaumière, of dilapidated aspect.
It was built of stone blocks, and heavily thatched with heather and straw. The door, which was opened by a wooden latch of primitive construction, was old and worm-eaten, but seemed to have been once strong and well made. I afterwards found that a bar of oak secured it transversely on the inside.
Arming myself with a stone, I boldly entered this hut, and found it deserted. On the hearth there smouldered a fire of wood, turf, and fir-cones, showing that it had been recently occupied; and by the light of this, and the last flush of the set sun which stole through the little window, I could observe the squalor and wretchedness of the place. A few pots of brown ware, a couple of ricketty stools, an old chest, a hunting-belt that hung on a nail, and a few sheepskins that lay in a corner, as if to form a bed, were all the furniture of this cheerless abode.
As I surveyed it, the bloodhound licked my hand with his hot, steaming tongue, and whined, rubbed himself against me, and scented about, as if with satisfaction; then he lay down at my feet, lashing the floor with his thick, heavy tail, as if to inform me that we were in the lair of Hautois—of this human panther!
But would this man return to it after the deed he had perpetrated?
I could scarcely doubt it; thechaumièrewas in an utter wilderness, and while lurking there he must have committed many a crime ere this.
Would he return alone?—if not, I had perhaps only tracked him hither to find my own doom sealed; for I was defenceless.
Resolving to possess a weapon if it could be found, I searched the whole hut, which consisted of only two apartments, but sought in vain. Nor stick nor bludgeon were there; so I armed myself with one of the stools, which was certainly better than nothing.
The window of the inner room, faced the north-west, where a red light that overspread the sky attracted my attention; for if not some natural phenomenon, it assuredly proceeded from the flames of a vast conflagration.
I secured the door by its bar, lest I should be taken by surprise, and seated myself on a stool in a corner, with the dog crouching at my feet. But to rest was impossible, amid the whirl of thought, the mingled rage and grief that oppressed me. I felt as one in a burning fever.
There seemed to be under and about me the ceaseless rush of water. Was it fancy? The sound was too real for that; and it seemed to proceed from a torrent or waterfall at the back of thechaumière. I again entered the inner apartment, through the dirty and broken lattice of which the moon, shone clearly and brightly upon the discoloured and ill-jointed boarding of the floor. No fall of water was visible without, but the sound of it was louder now than before.
A trap-door about three feet square arrested my attention; and on raising it by an iron ring in its centre, I felt my flesh creep, when far down below, in darkness and obscurity, I heard the distant rushing of a vast torrent of water that flowed unseen down the mountain side; and I now knew that this trap-door—the concealment of many a crime—was merely an opening to the subterranean stream of St. Aubin du Cormier, and that this half-ruined chaumière had been built immediately over one of the open chasms—without a doubt for purposes dark and nefarious.
I had scarcely let the trap-door drop from my hand, when the bloodhound started up with a snort, and uttered a low growl. Then I felt a wild fierce glow in my heart, and a prickly sensation pass over every limb, when, on looking from the window, I beheld him for whom I longed with a hate so intense and deadly; he whom I had tracked thus far—he who had on his hands the blood of Jacqueline—he who had her sufferings and death to atone for—was now plainly visible as he passed through the screen of wild bushes, and approached the hut!
The moonlight fell full upon his pale and hideous visage—his black and matted hair. He was bareheaded, and had a pair of long pistols and a knife in his belt, while I was weaponless and weary; but as I grasped one of the stools I felt, in imagination, the strength of three men pass into my poor right arm.
The excitement, the ferocious joy of anticipated vengeance, nearly suffocated me, as, softly drawing back the bolt of the door, I retired into a dark corner, from whence I meant to spring upon him.
The latch was lifted, and he entered. At that moment, as if stirred by an invisible hand, the embers of the dying fire shot into a flame that shed a red light over all the squalid apartment, and thus the wretch detected me in an instant.
"Sangbleu!" he exclaimed, and started back, more in wonder than fear. "Who are you? hah!" he added, as he recognised me, and drawing forth a pistol, fired it straight at my head; but happily the ball struck the hard, thick wood of the stool which I used as a shield, and remained there. The force of the shot, however, made me reel; and as I was rushing forward, he drew forth another, but it flashed in the pan. Then, to prevent the use of his knife, I hurled the stool at his head. It struck him on the right temple with such force as to stun him for an instant, and deluged his face with blood.
He was grasping vaguely at his girdle for the haft of the knife which dandled there, when I closed with him, seizing his right arm; and then a deadly struggle for life on one hand, and for life and retribution on the other, ensued between us.
To know that I had in my grasp the hand that had destroyed Jacqueline, endued me with such savage energy that for a time I was quite a match for the Herculean ruffian with whom I fought. I was lithe, active, and young, and my dragoon drill with sword and club, had developed every muscle to the utmost.
The aspect of Hautois was frightful! His face was deathly pale, and streaked with the blood that poured from the wound on his temple; his thick black hair was matted and in ell-locks; and his yellow, bloodshot eyes glared into mine, like those of a wolf, from beneath their bushy brows, which met as one above his nose.
We never spoke as we swayed to and fro, panting hoarsely, grasping each other's wrists with a tiger-clutch, and each making futile efforts to reach the other's throat. We heard only our deep breathing, the ceaseless rush of the stream, like a mill-race beneath the floor, and the growling of the bloodhound, which, by some means, had shut itself into the inner apartment.
In this struggle, where each man grasped the other with the fierce compression of a smith's vice, it was evident that whoever got the victory would yield neither mercy nor quarter to the vanquished.
Suddenly a pang of terror chilled my heart; for I found the muscular Frenchman becoming stronger than myself, either because he had husbanded his powers, or that mine (so wearied by past emotion, by grief, and the toil of the preceding night) had departed; but he bent me backward till I fell heavily prostrate on the floor, with him above me, and in an instant both his knees were on my chest.
As yet, his right hand had never reached my throat, for my left was on his wrist, and I held it from me at arm's length.
Relinquishing the hold his left hand had of me, he sought for the knife at his girdle, but most fortunately, in our struggle, our wrestling, writhing, and swaying to and fro, it had dropped from its sheath, and lay on the floor beyond his reach, some yards off, else perhaps these adventures had never been committed to paper.
On discovering this, he uttered a horrible malediction, and instantly plunged his left hand on my throat. Then a red light seemed to flash from my eyes; I felt as if the crown of my head was flying off—there was a hissing and tingling in my ears, and for some moments I endured all the horror of strangulation, till suddenly changing his mind, he exclaimed—
"Sangbleu!the trap-door—you shall take a cold bath in the black Torrent du Cormier, my fine fellow!" And with a yelling laugh he proceeded to drag me across the floor of the room while yet breathless and incapable of resistance.
He dashed open the door of the inner apartment with his foot, and then with a growl of long-suppressed fury the bloodhound sprang upon him; rendered fiercer by the blood which still flowed from the wound in the head of Hautois, it grasped him by the throat, snarling, worrying and tearing, till dog and man fell down together—the dog above, the man below.
Trembling with weakness and the overstrained exertion of my recent struggle, I rose and looked with stern exultation on this new conflict, at this new and unexpected ally, against whom the human brute fought apparently in vain, for with all his strength he failed to wrench or tear the dog's sharp fangs from his already lacerated throat.
At last, by the terror of approaching death endued with twice his natural strength, while uttering convulsive sobs of agony, he rose to his full height, and reeled about the apartment with the great dog hanging at his throat and the chain rattling at its collar; and what a face was his, when for a moment a ray of moonlight fell on it through the broken casement!
Hautois was reeling about close to the trap-door, when an idea seized me. I threw it open, and gave him a push with all my strength; and through the black aperture, with a shriek and a growl the man and dog vanished together.
I stood alone—alone, with no sound in my ears save the rush of the subterranean stream—the torrent of St. Aubin du Cormier; how deep, how far down below, coming fromwhenceand flowing towhere, no man knew; but my teeth chattered, and a shudder passed over me.
I let the trap-door drop to shut out the horrid sound, and reeled giddily into the outer apartment.
It was not until some minutes had elapsed that I became fully conscious the fierce struggle was over, and that Jacqueline was avenged; but there lay on the floor the pistols, the knife, and the blood of him whose body was now whirling along the chasms and amid the eddies of that subterranean stream whose source and outlet are alike unknown.
Tossing a stool upon the fire to feed the sinking flame, and heedless of the danger of being found in what was doubtless the haunt, the abode of an outlaw and robber, perhaps the rendezvous of his partners in crime, I sank upon the floor, to reflect and to rest. It was only then that I felt how weak, how weary I was in body, how sick and ill at heart.
I was trembling from head to foot, and bathed in a cold perspiration; so much had I undergone within the last four-and-twenty hours that a kind of stupor came upon me.
And Jacqueline—my soul was full of her! Her voice seemed ever in my ear—her name upon my tongue—her image before me. The contour of her head, with every soft feature and familiar expression of eye; glances that were filled with affection and susceptibility; her smiling lip. Ah, the pale mask which lay at the foot of yonder tree in the forest—could it be the face of her I loved so well?
If I am to live, thought I, oh for the whirl and excitement of war—a storm, siege, wreck, battle, anything that will lure me from myself and from thoughts that are maddening. To have loved her and have lost her thus! Every pulsation was a pang, for I endured all the keen misery of knowing that I had been loved tenderly, truly, and deeply in return, and yet had lost her.
The images I drew of her endurance and death, they indeed were too much to think of long, so happily crushed by my own reflections, overcome by toil, and lulled by the ceaseless murmur of the subterranean stream that poured beneath the chaumière I fell asleep at last on the hard floor where I lay.
I must have lain thus for some hours when voices roused me, and I started up to find that day had broken and several men were about me.
I had a "splitting headache" (as Charters used to say), a burning thirst, and bloodshot eyes, the result of all I had undergone; but on staggering up, I recognised the Chevalier de Boisguiller, Urbain the gardener, and Bertrand, with several others, who followed the track I had pursued, and who thus succeeded in discovering the wretched chaumière which had formed the lair of Hautois, whom they clamorously inquired if I had seen.
"Yes," said I; "and moreover I have seen the last of him."
"How—what has happened?" they asked together, while the chevalier added—
"These pistols and this knife lying here—the blood on the floor, and the broken stool, bear evidence of a conflict. What has taken place?"
I briefly related all, and Boisguiller on lifting the trap-door, gazed with a shrinking aspect on the black torrent that rushed far down below; and it would appear that for dark purposes thechaumièrecertainly had been built immediately over one of the few open chasms in the rocks, through which this torrent of water traverses the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier.
"Your vengeance has indeed been ample—only perhaps too sudden," said he, after a pause; "and now let us return, but first, Urbain, we shall set fire to this den, lest it find an occupant similar to the last. Then, monsieur, what are we to do with you?"
"It matters little," said I, wearily, and sick at heart.
"You are probably unaware that the British have landed again, and set fire to Cherbourg?"
"Indeed, chevalier!" I exclaimed, interested in spite of myself, and remembering that the blaze I had seen in the sky to the north-west was now accounted for.
"Yes; a strong force, we know not how many, have disembarked at Bay des Maries."
"Under the Duke of Marlborough?"
"No; the commander is a general named Bligh."
"Pardi! cet officier est un homme d'expédition!" muttered the old grenadier, Bertrand; "he has already fired all the coast."
"Yes, and he is a man of courage and daring, too," added the chevalier. "Peste!he shall not stay long in France, for all that. But we have no time to lose; our sorrowful chase has come to an end, and I must rejoin my troop, as all our forces are closing towards Cherbourg to succour the Comte de Raymond. I repeat but the words of my friend Madame de Bourgneuf, when I say, monsieur, that I wish you every success in life, now when bidding you, it may be, farewell for ever. But horses are here, and Bertrand the porter, who has been an old soldier, shall accompany you within sight of your outposts at Cherbourg; so let us at once be gone."
Perceiving that I was so faint that I could scarcely reply, the chevalier kindly said that if I wished to rejoin my countrymen it was necessary to repair my strength, so he insisted upon me imbibing the contents of his flask, which were pure cognac, and Urbain gave me from his pouch agaletteor pancake, made of buckwheat and butter.
We separated soon after, and on looking back from the road that led to Avranches, old Bertrand and I saw a column of smoke ascending into the clear blue sky from the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier. It was from the burning hut wherein I had passed a night so terrible.
Riding at a quick pace we travelled together the whole day, frequently passing for miles through dense forests and apple-orchards; but after leaving Coutances behind, old Bertrand began to gnaw his wiry moustache, to make grimaces and mutter "Sacré Dieu!" "Morbleu!" and so forth; for now the roads became covered by people hastening inland with their children and valuables, and by waggons laden with furniture, sick and aged; the panic being great in that corner of Normandy; where the strength, object, and ultimate end of the new British expedition were quite unknown.
At last, after the sun had set, and the moon arisen in splendour, we saw from the heights, about seven miles off, the town and fortifications of Cherbourg, with the stately fleet of Commodore Howe riding quietly at anchor in the bay, which shone like a vast but rippling sheet of silver, from Fort Querqueville on the west, to the Isle Pelee on the east.
The way was clear before me now. I bade a kind farewell to Bertrand, dismounted, and handing to him the bridle of the chevalier's horse, walked hastily in one direction, while he rode off in the other. Scarcely had we separated, when a mounted patrol of ten dragoons in scarlet cloaks, riding slowly, each with carbine on thigh, came past.
"Who goes there?" challenged the leader, in English.
"A friend!" I replied, mechanically.
"English, by Jove!" exclaimed the officer in command, as the whole patrol simultaneously checked their horses to listen; "who or what are you, my man?"
"One of the Light Troop of the Scots Greys, left wounded in the rear, after the army abandoned Paramé," said I, stepping forward and saluting.
"Zounds! and you have been in France all this time?"
"Yes, sir, since the beginning of June."
"All right," replied the officer, shortening his reins; "remain with us. We are a party of the 11th Light Dragoons, and shall pass you on to headquarters."
I was welcomed back by the gallant Captain Lindsay, by Lieutenant Douglas, and Cornet Keith (the three officers of the light troop), by old Sergeant Duff, big Hob Elliot, and other comrades, with a warmth that was very flattering; but by none more than by Jack Charters and honest Tom Kirkton, and among them all, on the night of my return, rejoining, or "resuscitation" as they phrased it, there was held quite an ovation.
For two months my name had remained on the muster-roll as "missing;" but no doubt existed that I had been sabred or shot in our affair with the French hussars near Dol.
We had a jovial meeting, and the pantries of the good wives of the adjacent village supplied us amply with the means of having a plentiful supper. With ham, bread, fowls, wine, and cognac we regaled ourselves while lounging on the grass, with the silver moon wading through snowy clouds for a lamp and the star-studded sky for a canopy.
In some instances, however, the indiscriminate pillage of government stores and abandoned dwelling-houses caused several scenes of riot, disorder, and debauchery, which neither patrols, the picket, or guard of the Provost Marshal could repress.
I was now in the best place to teach me to forget the past. The merry and familiar voices, the gay uniforms, the noble grey chargers picketed at their breast ropes close by our bivouac, and thetout ensembleof the latter, weaned me from thoughts that were oppressive, and the ardour of the service glowed anew within me.
A narrative of my adventures in Brittany was necessary, but I took care to relate only such portions as I cared to let those heedless fellows know; and when I concluded, my green hunting suit, with its Parisian cut and fashion, afforded a subject for much merriment, and for many empty jokes of that small kind which will go a long way in the barrack and guardroom.
I found Charters and Kirkton rather more soured and reckless than when I last saw them. Both had expected promotion to follow our first expedition to France, and both still enjoyed their respective ranks of full corporal and full private; thus when we betook us to rectifying the acidity of the Norman wine by pure cognac they began to moralize in their old fashion.
"The devil!" said Charters; "ten years have I worn a red coat, and I am tiring now even of it. But every day that passes into night is one march further forward to the land of the leal where we shall all meet at last; so pass the bottle and let us be jolly while we may. How, Gauntlet, you shake your head? What the deuce has come over the boy! France does not seem to have improved him a bit."
"Nay, Charters," said I, "but remember that the troop parades an hour before daybreak to-morrow, so no more brandy. Have we not had enough?"
"One bottle more, say I!"
"Zounds, Jack!" urged Kirkton, "if you were not a very sponge you would have been drowned in wine long ago."
"Come, Tom," said Charters, who was rather tipsy, "don't be mutinous—I have an idea——"
"What! after all this wine and brandy you have actually an idea? It must be worth uncounted gold."
"It may be worth the king's commission, Tom, or such a coffin as the pioneer's shovel gives us," replied Charters, little knowing how prophetically he spoke. "We are to attack St. Vallon to-morrow, and if the French have a standard in the field, I will take it sword in hand—I, John Charters of Amisfield—or die in the attempt!"
And tipsy though he was, this unfortunate fellow made the boast with a lofty dignity that repressed the smile which spread on Kirkton's face. And now drums beating and trumpets sounding in varying cadence the tattoo, announced that sleep, or at least silence, should reign in camp and bivouac, till the commodore's ship in the bay should fire the morning gun upon the eventful morrow.
Sick, ill, without a horse or accoutrements, I was now little better than a non-effective, and thus happily, was only a spectator of the destruction of Cherbourg. I say happily, for France was the land of Jacqueline, and I had not heart for the work of pillage and destruction that ensued around me.
Lieutenant-General Bligh, an old and experienced officer, having succeeded to the command of the troops, the squadron had sailed from St. Helen's as before, under the pennant of Commodore Howe, who had on board theEssexhis Royal Highness Prince Edward (afterwards Duke of York and Albany) who was serving as a midshipman to learn the rudiments of the sea-service for which he was destined, and in which he died at an early age, with the rank of Rear Admiral.
On the 7th August, the squadron, consisting of five line-of-battle ships, nine frigates, and ninety-eight transports, with other craft, came to anchor in the bay of Cherbourg, which is one of the five greatports militairesof France, as the general had special orders to destroy the whole place.
By this time a body of French troops of the line, in bright blue uniforms, with some companies of the Irish Brigade clad in scarlet, had intrenched themselves in a line which extended for four miles along the coast, from Fort Ecourdeville to two miles beyond Cherbourg, and these hasty defences they strengthened by redoubts mounted with cannon, most of which were twenty-four pounders.
In rear of this line were some corps of cavalry.
While Commodore Howe sent a bomb-ketch to anchor close off the town, with orders to pitch a few shells into it from time to time, and thus amuse or decoy the officer in command there, the British forces landed three miles westward of Querqueville, the most western fort of the bay. During the disembarkation several other bomb-ketches shelled the line of intrenchments not only with explosives of the usual kind, but from mortars loaded with musket balls, thus making great slaughter with little or no risk to us.
As on the former occasion the flat-bottomed boats were hoisted out, and the three regiments of guards, with the grenadier company of every battalion on board the fleet, were first rowed ashore, and formed in line upon a portion of the beach that was flat and open. Each boat contained eighteen seamen and fifty grenadiers, and had a red flag displayed at its stern.
Beyond the landing place opened a grassy hollow, with a pretty village that crowned a steep eminence on the right flank; on the left were thick green hedges enclosing orchards laden with fruit of the most brilliant yellow and crimson colours, and amid these were seen the serried files and glittering bayonets of the enemy.
This was a beautiful evening, when the summer sun of Normandy covered all the fertile land and rippling sea with warm light, and bathed in purple tints the undulating ridges of the Mont-du-Roule and of the Boc-au-chat, while the waves that washed the sloping bastions of Cherbourg, of Fort Royal, and those on the Isle Pelee, or those that broke in foam on the rocks of St. Anne, seemed billows of liquid gold.
Puff—puff—puff—came the white smoke out from the green hedgerows and glowing orchards, as the foe opened a running fire of musketry, under which our grenadiers and Guards formed line, and rushing forward with fixed bayonets and a hearty hurrah, drove in the French out-pickets and stormed a breast-work that lay across the hollow way beyond the beach.
So rapid was the advance, that in this encounter there were only three privates killed and seventeen wounded; whilethree hundredof the enemy were killed or wounded, and among the former was a Captain Macartney of the Irish Brigade, in whose pocket Hob Elliot of ours, "found a letter," as the newspapers stated, "from a lady in London, dated on the 30th ultimo, assuring him that we were about to pay France a visit, and giving a particular account of our strength."
General Bligh took possession of the village of Erville, where several Irish deserters came in to him with assurances that a great force was coming against the British; but he declared that "if twenty thousand came he would not retire until Cherbourg was in ruins!" Having thus succeeded in turning the western flank of this famous port, he encamped under canvas his whole force, which consisted only of three battalions of the Guards, the 5th, 30th, 33rd, 34th, 56th, 67th and 68th regiments of Foot with those of Richmond and Cornwallis; the Light Troop of the Greys and of five other corps, making, with the artillery, in all about ten thousand men.
The night at Erville was lovely, the air serene and soft. Groves of the wild mulberry bordered the camp, and others of orange and apple trees loaded the night wind with perfume. The stars shone clear in heaven, and the sky was blue and bright from its zenith to the far horizon; but amid that calm scene there lay many a stiffened corpse and gaping wound in the hollow way through which the foe had been routed.
Lord Clare's Irish regiment, 700 strong, occupied Cherbourg, and the Count de Raymond, a Maréchal de Camp, who commanded in chief, had also under his orders Count Horions' new Regiment de Liege, with the old battalions of Lorraine, Languedoc and Guienne; in all, with militia, a force of about fourteen thousand men, was close at hand, so a bloody resistance was anticipated by our troops upon the morrow.
The morrow came, and before daybreak the whole army was under arms, and advancing, with the light dragoons in front, towards Cherbourg, with drums beating and colours flying.
Some daring French artillerymen, who had been left in the solitary fort of Querqueville, now opened a dangerous fire from a few pieces of cannon as our troops advanced. This seemed to serve as a signal to their comrades, who immediately abandoned Cherbourgen masse, and without exchanging a shot retired to a place named St. Vallon, nine miles distant.
The guns in Querqueville were still firing briskly, when a boat from the Commodore's ship was seen pulling inshore to the westward of the battery.
A dragoon being required to bear an order to the officer in charge of this boat, a volunteer was requested for the duty, which was one of great risk, as the grape from Querqueville was sweeping all the open plateau to be traversed by the messenger.
On this, Charters immediately rode forward, "recovered" his sword and presented himself.
"Why haveyouvolunteered for this?" asked Captain Lindsay, in a tone of reproof.
"Why, sir?" repeated Charters, almost haughtily.
"Yes."
"Because, as the player says—
'I am a manSo weary with disaster, tugged by fortune,That I would set my life on any chance,To mend it or be rid on't'
Captain Lindsay, life is no longer a prism to me."
"Ride fast!" said the captain, briefly.
Charters shortened his reins, gave his grey the spurs, and departed at once. As he proceeded towards Querqueville Point, the French cannoniers redoubled their efforts to bring him down. He frequently waved his sword as if in defiance, and escaped as if by a miracle. Then on his descending to the beach, where some rocks protected him, the battery turned its round shot and grape on the advancing boat.
Suddenly there rose from the sea and pierced the sky, the mingled yell of many voices. A twenty-four pound shot had dashed the boat to pieces, and twelve seamen and a little midshipman were seen struggling and sinking amid the debris of oars, thwarts and planks, while the French sent dose after dose of grape to kill the drowning men.
The middy struggled bravely; being light, the waves bore him towards the rocks, but Charters saw that unless succoured, the poor lad would certainly perish amid the surf that boiled over the ridge.
He sheathed his sword, shook his gloved hand fiercely at the battery, and urging his horse into the sea, even while the hissing grape sowed it thick with tiny waterspouts around him, succeeded in grasping the sinking lad by the collar, and turning the head of his gallant grey toward the shore, he bravely battled with the surf, the long waves of which, reddened by the sunshine, seemed to boil in fiery foam upon the beach, and rolled over his shoulders, so that at times the nostrils of his charger were only visible, yet he succeeded in landing the half-drowned midshipman, and rode twice afterwards into the sea to succour the seamen, but succeeded in saving only one.
This was done in the presence of the whole left wing of the army, which gave him three tremendous cheers, and a few minutes afterwards the grenadiers of Richmond's corps with the light troop of the Greys made a dash at the fort, which immediately surrendered.
As the troops advanced into Cherbourg the French flag was pulled down, and the Union Jack hoisted on the ramparts by the people in token of capitulation, and ere long, the magistrates in their robes and insignia of office came forth from the gates towards the land side to meet General Bligh, who promised that save government stores which he had special orders to destroy, all property should be respected. Thus, by three in the afternoon our troops had peaceable possession of the town and forts of boasted Cherbourg.
In the evening, the Greys, a troop of the 11th and a body of grenadiers were pushed on towards St. Vallon, from whence a party of French Horse, the hussars of Boisguiller, with the heavy dragoons of Languedocchecquered, had advanced to reconnoitre or to skirmish.
As our light dragoons moved off, the aide-de-camp of the commander-in-chief rode up to the troop of ours and addressing Charters, said—
"You did three acts of great bravery to-day under the fire of Fort Querqueville, but chiefly in saving the life of that midshipman."
"Sir," replied Jack, nonchalantly, "I only did the duty dictated by common humanity; and I hope the little mid has dried his jacket by this time."
"Do you know the name of him you saved?"
"Not I—never thought of such a thing."
"Well—that little middy was his Royal Highness Prince Edward, the second son of the king; and I have it in command from Lieutenant-General Bligh to compliment you, Corporal Charters, and to say that you shall have thefirstpair of colours that become vacant in the force now under his orders."
The nut-brown cheek of Charters flushed, as he replied in voice rendered husky by emotion—
"It is well, sir, and I thank the general. I have saved the lives of men ere now; but they were merely private soldiers,notroyal highnesses, so my humanity or bravery went for little."
"Charters, this bitterness and pride are your ruin," said the aide-de-camp, who knew well the story of our comrade.
"Not so; tell General Bligh that I am not ungrateful, and that I shall thank him from my soul, if, before I die, he replace upon my shoulders those epaulettes of which they should never have been deprived!"
"He will, Charters, and I shall be one of the first to welcome you and to wet the new commission," replied the frank staff officer. "Captain Lindsay, you had better form the two troops in squadron, and make a dash at those advancing cavalry, as the ground is open here."
Indeed, while this conversation had been proceeding, the French hussars and heavy dragoons, about one hundred and eighty in all, had debouched from some hedgerows upon a piece of open moorland, with a swallow-tailed banner of light blue silk flying in their centre.
Charters pointed to it with his sword, and said to Kirkton—
"You see yonder standard, Tom? Well—I shall fulfil my vow of last night, or my horse shall go home with an empty saddle!"
Quietly and orderly as if upon parade in Hyde Park, the two troops formed squadron; Captain Lindsay equalized them, appointed the troop leaders and the serrefiles; he then took post half a horse's length in front of the standard, which was borne by troop sergeant-major Duff, and which was of scarlet silk embroidered with the thistle and St. Andrew, the regimental motto, and the national one,Nemo me impune lacessit.
I shall not attempt to describe the fury of the encounter that took place, as I was not present. It was long, desperate, and hand to hand. Charters unhorsed the cornet and captured the standard which belonged to the Languedoc dragoons, who made a desperate rally to recover it, and cut him off. For some minutes he and big Hob Elliot were fairly surrounded by the enemy, but Captain Lindsay made a gallant charge to save him, as he was a prime favourite with the corps. In that charge the captain perished, but the French were repulsed.*
* "Several skirmishes were fought by the out-parties of each army, in one of which, Captain Lindsay, a gallant officer (of the Greys), who had been very instrumental in training the Light Horse, perished." Smollet,Hist. of Eng., vol. vi.
The squadron was brought out of the field by Lieutenant Douglas of ours, and it was with a sad heart I saw them enter Cherbourg, bearing across their saddles the wounded and the dead.
Among the latter was my poor friend Charters, slain by three pistol-shots and eight sabre wounds, yet still grasping with a deadly clutch the standard of the dragoons of Languedoc.
Hob Elliot carried his body out of the field.
During the reign of Louis XIV. plans had been proposed by the celebrated Marshal Vauban, for the fortification of Cherbourg; these were then only partially carried into effect, but a noble and spacious harbour had subsequently been formed. Two piers, one a thousand, the other five hundred, feet in length, had been built, and outer and inner basins were made large enough to contain ships of the line; these basins were closed by gates each forty-two feet wide.
To destroy these, General Bligh had fifteen hundred soldiers at work making blasts, and so well did they prosecute the art of destruction, that the labour of thirty years, and the expense of one million two hundred thousand pounds (English) perished in a few days. In short, the noble harbour of Cherbourg was utterly ruined, and the shipping it contained was given to the flames.
We took twenty-four tons of gunpowder out of the French magazines, and blew up or threw down all the bastions and batteries along the shore, from Fort Querqueville to the Isle Pelee, and dismounted, or flung into the sea, one hundred and sixty-three pieces of cannon and three mortars, with a vast quantity of shot and shell. Two mortars and twenty-two beautiful guns, all of polished brass, together with several colours (among them, of course, the standard taken by poor Jack Charters), were put on board the commodore's ship.
On the side of one of the great sluice-gates I saw an inscription in French to the following effect:—
"Louis and Fleury trust to Asfield's care,Amid the waves to raise this mighty pier,Propitious to our prayers the fabric stood,Curbed the fierce tide, and tamed the threatening flood,Hence wealth and safety flow—hence just renown,The king, the statesman, and the hero crown!
This work, by command of Louis XV.The advice of Cardinal Fleury, and direction of Count Asfield,Shall endure for ever!"
Scarcely had I finished reading this, than an officer of our regiment called to me—
"Hallo! look out! stand back there!"
He had a match in his hand, which he applied to a train, and in one minute the whole fabric, with a tremendous concussion, rent, split, rose into the air amid a cloud of smoke, and vanished as it sank into the surf that boiled over it.
Two armed ships which lay in the inner basin we despatched to England, and eighteen others we burned or sunk filled with stones. On the people of Cherbourg a contribution of forty-four thousand livres was levied by beat of drum; and so rapidly did our miners and devastators do their work, that the whole place was a scene of melancholy ruin and desolation before the Count de Raymond could muster forces of the line sufficient to dislodge us, for France had then two armies in Germany.
Thus, all our troops were on board, and the whole armament ready for sea by the 17th of August; our total loss, after having destroyed, what was styled in the prints of the day, "that most galling thorn in the side of British commerce," being only Captain Lindsay of the Scots Greys, and twenty-four others killed, some thirty wounded, and ten horses.
The whole army re-embarked without molestation at Fort Galette, about three o'clock in the morning.
The commodore, who had now, by the death of his brother, who fell at the head of the 55th Regiment in the disastrous affair of Ticonderoga, succeeded to the title of Viscount Howe, gave the signal for sea, and we sailed on the evening of the 17th for England. I was again on board his ship with the light troop of my regiment.
The destruction I had witnessed, and the distress and alarm of the poor unoffending people, sickened me of war for a time, and I felt happy when we bore up the Channel, though still haunted by memories of the land of Brittany, on which I should never look again—a land of stern and dreary mountains, of dark primæval forests, of rocky bluffs, of ruined castles and giant monoliths—the land where I loved so tenderly and endured so terribly.
On the 19th I saw Old England again, and the whole fleet came to anchor in Portland Roads.
The colours and brass guns taken at Cherbourg, after being exhibited to gaping multitudes in Hyde Park, were drawn in triumph through all the principal streets of London, as the spoil of conquered France, amid a noisy pomp that brought ridicule on the ministry. After this they were lodged in the Tower.
Instead of being sent home to Scotland, as we had fondly speculated, the light troop of the Scots Greys now marched through Dorsetshire and Hampshire into Sussex, where we reached the head-quarters of the regiment, then under orders to join the army in Germany.
Our fine old colonel—"auld Geordie Buffcoat," as the corps named him—complimented the troop for its uniform good conduct during the two expeditions to the coast of France, and hoped that when on the Rhine we should still prove ourselves "to be his own brave lads, who weresecond to none!"