"On this cold night, mother!"
"Yes; helping Miss Raikes to decorate it for the service to-morrow."
"Miss Raikes!" said I, and a cloud came over me.
I had left head-quarters with only four crowns in my pocket. We soldiers are seldom over-burdened with cash—for though England expects every man to do his duty, England likes it done cheap—and I had well-nigh starved myself on the road home that I might bring something with me for those I loved—some gay ribbons for Bessie, and a lace cap for my mother, who was so proud of her "Bombardier Bob," for so she always called me, heaven bless her!
"I hope she won't be long away, mother, for I've had such a dream——"
"Lor' bless me, Bob," said she, pausing as she bustled about preparing supper, "a dream, have you—about what, or whom?"
"Bessie," said I, with a sigh, as I took the ribbons from my knapsack.
"Was it good or evil, Bob?"
"I can't say, mother," said I, with a sickly smile, as the solemn words of the Scotch pay-sergeant came back to my memory; "for an evil dream, say we, portends good, and a pleasant dream portends evil; they seem to go by contraries. Yet somehow, by the impression this dream made upon me, it seems almost prophetic."
"Don't 'ee say so, Bob, for though in the Old Testament we find many instances of prophetic dreaming, I don't believe in such things nowadays."
The darkness had set completely in now, and I saw that, although mother affected to make light of Bessie's protracted absence, she glanced uneasily, from time to time, through the window, and at the old Dutch clock that ticked in its corner, just as it used to tick when I was a boy, and rode on father's knee; for nothing here seemed changed, save that mother was older, and stooped a trifle more.
"Mother, dear," said I, starting up at last, "I can't stand this delay, and Bessie must not come through the lanes alone; so I shall just step down to the church and escort her home."
In another moment I was out in the snow. A few thick flakes were falling athwart the gloom. The decoration of the rectory church for the solemn services of the morrow was, I knew of old, always considered an important matter in our village, yet I could not help thinking that, as I had written to announce the very time of my return, Bessie might have been at home to welcome me. Instead of that, I had now to go in search of her; and this was the Christmas meeting—the home-coming of which I had drawn so many happy and joyous pictures when alone, and in the silence of the night when far away, a sentinel on a lonely post, or when tossing sleeplessly on the hard wooden guard-bed.
Mother was kind, loving, affectionate as ever, but Bessie, my betrothed, why was she absent at such a time?
The sad presentiment of coming evil grew strong within me, and I thought, with bitterness, of how far I had marched afoot for days, and starved myself to buy her gewgaws, for I knew that pretty Bessie was not without vanity.
"Pshaw!" said I. "Be a man, Bob Twyford—be a man!" and, leaping the churchyard stile, I slowly crossed the burial ground.
There were lights in the church; and I heard the sound of merry voices, and even of laughter, ringing in its hollow, stony space.
Snow covered all the graves, and the headstones, which stood in close rows; a heavy mantle of snow loaded the roof of the church, and, tipping the carvings of its buttresses, brought them out from the mass of the building in strong white relief. Great icicles depended from the gurgoyles of its tower and battlements, and the wind whistled drearily past, rustling the masses of ivy that grew over the old Saxon apse. The tracery of the windows, the sturdy old mullions and some heraldic blazons, with quaint and ghastly spiritual subjects in stained glass, could be discerned by the lights that were within.
I lifted my forage-cap in mute reverence as I passed one grave, for I knew my father lay there under a winding-sheet of snow, and a pace or two more brought me to the quaint little porch of the church, where I remained for a time looking in, and irresolute whether to advance or retire.
When my eyes became accustomed to the partial gloom within, I could see that the zigzag Saxon mouldings and ornaments of the little chancel arch, the capitals of the shafts, the stairs of the pulpit, and the oaken canopy thereof, were all decorated with ivy sprigs and holly leaves, combined with artificial flowers, all with some meaning and taste, so as to bring out the architectural features of the quaint old edifice.
A portable flight of steps stood in the centre of the aisle, just under the chancel arch, which was low, broad, massive, of no great height, and formed a species of frame for a picture that sorely disconcerted me.
On the summit of that flight stood a lovely, laughing young lady, whose delicate white hands, a little reddened by the winter's frost, were wreathing scarlet holy-berries among the green leaves.
A little lower down was seated Bessie—my own Bessie—her blue eyes radiant with pleasure, her thick hair—half flaxen, half auburn—shining like golden threads in the light of the altar lamps, that fell on her beaming English face, so fresh, so fair, so charming. Her lap was full of ivy and holly twigs, which a gentleman who hovered near, cigar in mouth, was cutting and tossing into that receptacle, amid much banter and badinage, that savoured strongly of familiarity, if not of flirtation.
Near them in the background loitered another, who was simply leaning against the pillar of the chancel arch, looking on with a strange smile, and sucking the ivory handle of his cane.
He laughed as he regarded them.
That laugh—where had I heard it before?
In my dream. And now the antitypes—the men of my dream—stood before me!
As yet unnoticed, I remained apart, and observed them; but not unseen, for the eyes of the dark man were instantly upon me, and the peculiarity of their expression rendered me uneasy.
He who hovered about Bessie was a fair-faced, blasé-looking young man, with sleepy blue eyes, a large jaw, a receding chin, and thick, red, sensual lips. He had long, thin, flyaway whiskers, and a slight moustache, with an unmistakably good air about him.
His companion had that peculiar cast of features which we sometimes see in the Polish Jew—keen and hawk-like, with sharp, glittering black eyes, hair of a raven hue, and a general pallor of complexion that seemed bilious, sickly, and unhealthy.
I felt instinctively that I hated one and solemnly feared the other. Why was this?
Was it the result of my dream?—of that "instinct which, like imagination, is a word everybody uses, and nobody understands?"
Perhaps we shall see.
Suddenly the eye of the fair-haired stranger fell on me. He adjusted his glass, surveyed me leisurely, and, pausing in the act of playfully holding a sprig of mistletoe over Bessie's head, said, in the lisping drawl peculiar to men of his style—
"A soldier, by Jove! Now, my good man—ah, ah!—what do you want here at this time of night?"
"I came to escort my cousin home, sir."
"Your cousin, eh—haw?"
"Bessie Leybourne, sir; but," I added, reddening with vexation and annoyance, "I see she is still busy."
"Cousin, eh? What do you say to this, Bessie?"
Bessie, who started from the steps on which she had been seated, came towards me, also blushing, confused, and letting fall all the contents of her lap as she held out her hands to me, and said—
"Welcome home, dear Bob. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! Captain Raikes, this is my Cousin Bob, who is a soldier like yourself—an artilleryman," she added, with increasing confusion, as if she felt ashamed of my blue jacket among those fine folks; while the captain, after glancing at me coolly again, merely said, "Oh—ah—haw—indeed!" and proceeded to assist his sister in descending the steps, as their labours were done, and the decorations of the church complete; but a heavier cloud came over me now.
Captain Raikes was the son of the rector, and squire of the parish, in right of his mother, who was an heiress; and he, perhaps the wildest and most systematic profligate in all England, had made the acquaintance of Bessie Leybourne!
A little time they lingered ere Bessie curtseyed, and bade the young lady good-night. Captain Raikes whispered something which made Bessie blush, and glance nervously at me, while his friend with the hook nose gave a mocking cough, and then we separated. They took the path to the gaily-lighted rectory, while Bessie and I trod silently back through the snow to my mother's little cottage.
I pressed Bessie's hand and arm from time to time, and though the pressure was returned, I never ventured to touch her cheek, or even to speak to her, for I felt somehow, intuitively, that all was over between us; and we walked in silence through the lanes where we had been wont to ramble when children.
It seemed to be always summer in the green lanes then; but it was biting winter now. I asked for no explanation, and none was offered me; but I felt that Bessie, once so loving and playful, was now cold, reserved, and shy.
Next day was Christmas. Our fireplace was decked with green boughs, and holly-leaves, and huge sprigs of mistletoe. I heard the chimes ringing merrily in the old tower of the rectory church.
It was a clear, cold, snowy, and frosty, but hearty old English Christmas; and faces shone bright, hands were shaken, and warm wishes expressed among friends and neighbours, as we trod through the holly lanes, and over the crisp, frosty grass, to church—mother, Bessie, and I; and again, as in boyhood, I heard our rubicund rector preach against worldly pride and luxury, both of which, throughout a long life, he had enjoyed to the full.
The dark stranger—the squire's constant companion, chum, and Mentor, whose strange bearing and wicked ways gained him the sobriquets of Pluto and Hooknose in the village—was not with the rector's family on this day; and I learned that he resided at the village inn. It was evident, though we read off the same book, that Bessie's thoughts were neither with heaven nor me, for I caught many a glance that was exchanged between Captain Raikes and her, and these showed a secret intelligence.
I sat out the rector's sermon in silent misery, and in misery returned home—a moody and discontented fellow, wishing myself back at head-quarters, or anywhere but in the Weald of Kent.
Bessie didn't seem to care much about my ribbons. Why should she? I was only a poor devil of a bombardier, and couldn't give her such rich presents as those pearl drops which I now discovered in her ears.
"A present from Captain Raikes, Bob," said mother, good, simple soul; "but I don't think she should ha' shown 'em till her wedding-day."
I had a mouthful of mother's Christmas dumpling in my throat at that moment, and it well-nigh choked me.
The mistletoe hung over our heads; but I never claimed the playful privilege it accorded. Was there not some terrible change, when I dared not—or scorned—to kiss Bessie, even in jest? Others' kisses had been upon her lips, and so they had no longer a charm for me!
Day and night dread and doubt haunted me, while hope, with her hundred shapes and many hues, returned no more. Brooding, silent, and melancholy thoughts seemed to consume me; yet the time passed slowly and heavily, for Bessie's falsehood and fickleness formed the first recollection in the morning, the last at night, and the source of many a tantalizing dream between. All the ebbs and flows of feeling or emotion which torment the lover I endured. My sufferings were very great; and from being as jolly, hardy, and expert a gunner as ever levelled a Lancaster or an Armstrong, I was becoming a very noodle—a moonstruck creature—"a thoroughbred donkey," as Tom Inches would have called me—and all for the love of Bessie Leybourne.
Short though my time at home would be, Bessie could give me but little of her society. My jealousy would no longer be concealed, and that she had secret meetings with our squire I could no more doubt. Then came tears, upbraidings, and bitterness, with promises that she would meet him no more; and in the strongest language I could command, I told her of the perils she ran, of the desperate character of Valentine Raikes, of his mad orgies and debaucheries, of the gambling, drinking, singing, swearing, and whooping that accompanied the suppers he and Hooknose had almost every night in a lonely lodge of the rectory grounds.
"Oh, Bob, don't bother," she would say, imploringly, through her smiles and tears. "It is terrible to be told constantly that one must marry one particular young man."
"Meaning, Bessie, that mother reminds you of being engaged to me?"
"Well, yes."
"You are fickle, Bessie."
"My poor Bob, you are not rich, neither am I."
"Hence your fickleness; but, oh, Bessie, don't think I want to make a soldier's wife of you. I hope for better days, and to settle down at home. Oh, Bessie, my own Bessie, listen to me, and hear me."
And so she would listen to me, and hear me, and then slip away to keep a tryst with my rival.
Once or twice Bessie became angry with me, and ventured to defend the squire, laying the blame of all his evil actions on his friend, or Mentor—the dark Mephistopheles, who was always by his side. Her defence of him maddened me. From tears she took to taunts, and I replied by scorn.
We separated in hot anger, and with my mind a perfect chaos—a whirl—and already repenting my violence, or precipitation, I strode moodily through the holly lanes, till a sudden turn brought me face to face with Captain Raikes and his dark friend, in close and earnest conversation.
The idea of honest and manly remonstrance seized me; and touching my cap respectfully, as became me to an officer, I said—
"Captain Raikes, may I crave a word with you?"
"Certainly—haw!" he drawled, while his friend drew back, surveying me with his strange, malevolent, but terrible smile. "In what can I—haw—serve you?"
"In a matter, sir, that lies very near my heart."
He surveyed me with a quiet but puzzled air, through his glass, and replied—
"Haw—have seen you before. How is your pretty cousin, Bessie Leybourne, this morning—well, I hope?"
"It is about Bessie I wish to speak, sir," said I, with a gravity that made him start and colour a little—but only a little, as he was one of those solemn, self-conceited, unimpressionable "snobs," who disdain to exhibit the slightest emotion. He did, however, become uneasy ultimately, and pulled his long whiskers when I said—
"Captain Raikes, my cousin Bessie is my betrothed wife; and, though I am but a poor private soldier (or little more), I must urge, sir—ay, request—that you cease to follow, molest, or meet her, as I have good reason to know you do; for though Bessie is a true-hearted girl, no good can come of it. So I put it to you, sir, as a gentleman—as my comrade, though our ranks are far apart—whether your intentions can be honourable in the matter?"
"By Jove! the idea! I'll tell you what it is, my good fellah," said he, twirling his riding whip; "I have listened to your impertinent advice—your demmed interference with my movements—so far without laying this across your shoulders; but beware—haw—how you address me on this subject again."
Passion and jealousy blinded me, and shaking my hand in his face, I said—
"Captain Raikes, on your life I charge you not to trifle with her or with me!"
He never lost his self-possession, but said, with a smile—
"Very good; but rather daring in a private soldier—a poacher—a vagabond!"
I heard the strange laugh of Hooknose at these words, and, while it was ringing in my ears, I struck the squire to the earth, and he lay as still as if a twelve-pound shot had finished him. Then I walked deliberately away.
I had vague alarms now. He might have me arrested on a charge of assault or might report me to head-quarters for the blow, although he was not in uniform; but he did neither, as he left the Weald that night for London; and mother and I sat gazing at each other in alarm and grief—our Bessie had disappeared!
By some of our neighbours she had been seen near the branch station of the South-Eastern line, with Valentine Raikes and his mysterious friend, the Hooknose: and from that hour all trace of her was—lost!
* * * * *
She had left me coldly and heartlessly, and old mother, too, who had always been more than a mother to her.
So passed the last Christmas I was to spend in old England.
I got over it in time. I was not without hope that I might discover Bessie, and befriend her yet—ay, even yet. But I couldn't do much, being only a poor fellow with two shillings per diem, and an extra penny for beer and pipeclay. But even that hope was crushed when, in the following August, I was ordered with the siege train to Sebastopol, and sailed from Southampton aboard the "Balmoral," of Hull, a transport ship, which had on board a whole battery of artillery, with one hundred and ten fine horses.
Captain Raikes was, I knew, with the Light Cavalry Brigade, under Lord Cardigan; and I only prayed that heaven and the chances of war would keep us apart, and not put the terrible temptation before me of seeing him under fire.
Our voyage was prosperous till we entered the Black Sea, when we experienced heavy gales of wind, and lost our topmasts; and as the gales increased in fury and steadiness, they were blowing a perfect hurricane on the night when, in this crippled condition, we hauled up for the harbour of Balaclava.
Were I to live a thousand years, I should never forget the horrors and certain events of that night; and though the perils that our transport encountered were ably described by more than one newspaper correspondent, I shall venture to recall them here.
Wearied with hard stable duty, I had fallen asleep in my birth, when I was suddenly roused by a voice—the voice of Bessie,
"Bob, Bob, dearest Bob—save me! save me! I am drowning!"
It rang distinctly in my ears, and then I seemed to hear the gurgling of water, as I sprang from bed in terror and bewilderment, and from no dream that I was at all conscious of; but I had little time to think of the matter, for now the bugle sounded down the hatchway to change the watch on deck.
The night was pitchy dark; all our compasses had suddenly become useless—no two needles pointed the same way—and the rudder bands were rent by the force of the sea, which tore in vast volume over the deck, sweeping everything that was loose away. The watch were all lashed to belaying pins, or the lower rattlins; but three of ours and two seamen were swept overboard and drowned.
To add to our dangers, as we lifted towards the harbour mouth, the "Balmoral" heeled over so much that the ballast broke loose in the hold, and uprooted the stable deck. The centre of gravity was thus lost, and the transport lay almost over on her beam-ends, with the wild sea breaking over her, as she went, like a helpless log, on some rocks within the harbour entrance.
The captain commanding the artillery ordered Tom Inches and a party, of whom I was one, into the hold or stables, to see how the horses fared; and I shall never forget that terrific scene, for it nearly rendered me oblivious of the cry that yet lingered in my ears.
The time was exactly midnight, and I almost fear to be considered a visionary by relating all that followed. The vessel lay nearly on her beam-ends to starboard; the whole of the stalls on the port side had given way, and the horses were lying over each other in piles, many of them half or wholly strangled in their halters; and there, in the dark, they were biting and tearing each other with their teeth, neighing, snorting, and even screaming (a dreadful sound is a horse's scream), and kicking each other to death.
The atmosphere was stifling. The wounds they gave each other were bloody and frightful. Many had their legs and ribs broken, and others their eyes dashed out by ironed hoofs. Above were the bellowing of the wind, and the roaring of the Black Sea on the rocks of Balaclava. There were even thunder-peals at times, to add to the terrors of the occasion, and the rain was falling on the deck like a vast sheet of water.
Many of our men were severely wounded by kicks; for the horses that survived were wild with fear—maddened, in fact—and, in their present condition, proved quite unmanageable.
Carrying a lantern, I was making my way into the hold, and through this frightful scene, when suddenly, amid it all, and through the gloom, I saw a face that terrified—that fascinated—me, but which none of my comrades could see.
Was I mad, or about to become so?
Within six inches of my own face was the keen, dark, and swarthy—the almost black—visage of Hooknose glaring at me, mocking and jibbering; his eyes shining like two carbuncles, his sharp teeth glistening with his old malevolent smile; and, as I shrank back, I heard his mocking laugh—the same laugh that had tingled in my ears on that fatal Christmas time at home.
I fell over a horse, the hoof of another struck me on the chest. I became insensible, and, on recovering, found myself on deck, in the hands of Tom Inches and the surgeon.
I was soon fit for duty, luckily, as that ship was no place for a sick man. With sunrise the storm abated; with slings the horses were hoisted out as fast as we could bring them; and of the hundred and ten we had on board, we found that ninety-five had been kicked to death, smothered, or so bruised that we were compelled to shoot them with our carbines.
Their carcasses lay long in Balaclava harbour, where they were used as stepping stones by the sailors and boatmen, till their corruption filled the air, adding to the cholera and fever in the town and camp.
All that haunted me must have been fancy, thought I, for my thoughts were always running on Bessie—lost to me and to the world—fevered fancy, especially the cry, and the horrid gurgling as of a drowning person that followed it. The sound of the sea must have produced or suggested the cry in my sleeping ear, and the subsequent vision in the hold—those gleaming eyes and that fierce hooked nose; and yet, as an author has remarked, the whole world of nature is but one vast book of symbols, which we cannot decipher because we have lost the key.
It was ungrateful of me to be always thinking of Bessie, who had scorned, flouted, and deserted me—thinking more of her than of poor old mother in the Weald of Kent, who loved me with all her soul, as only a mother could love a son who was amid the trenches of Sebastopol; but I couldn't help it, for the terrible mystery that involved the fate of Bessie made me brood over it at all times.
As for the trifle of money I had expected, it never came, and now I didn't want it.
It was Christmas Eve before Sebastopol, as it was all over God's Christian world; but I hope never again to see such a ghastly festival. I was not at the breaching batteries that night, having been sent with two horses and four men to bring in a twelve pound gun, which had been left by the Russians in the valley of Inkermann, after the battle of the 5th of November. Tom Inches and many a brave fellow of ours had gone to their long home in that valley of death, and I was a battery-sergeant now.
The cold was awful, and we were rendered very feeble by hunger, toil, and half-healed wounds; so, like men in a dream, we traced the horses to the gun, and limbered up the tumbril, both of which lay among some ruins in rear of the British right attack, and not far from the frozen Tchernay.
Three miles distant rose Sebastopol, and the sky seemed all on fire in and around it, for they were keeping Christmas night, amid shot from our Lancaster guns, and whistling Dicks of all sorts and sizes, from hand-grenades to eighteen-inch bombs, chokeful of nails, broken bottles, and grapeshot.
Yet I couldn't help thinking of home, and how merrily the village chimes would be ringing in the old tower of the rectory church, amid the hop-gardens and the cherry-groves of Kent. And then I saw in fancy the old fireside, where father's leathern chair was empty now, and where one at least would say her prayers that night for me—that happy night at home, when every church and hearth would be gay with ivy leaves and holly-berries, and the lads and the lasses would be dancing under the mistletoe; and with all these came thoughts of Christmas geese and plum-puddings, and I drew my sword-belt in a hole or two, for I was starving—light-headed and giddy with want; and as we rode silently on, the swinging chains of the gun seemed to me like the jangle of our village chimes! but they rung over the snowy waste that lay between Khutor Mackenzie and the Highland camp—a white waste, dotted by many a dead man and horse.
As we rode silently on, man after man of our little party of four gave in, dropped from the gun, to which I had no means of securing them, overcome by cold, fatigue, and death. At last I was riding alone in the saddle, with the gun rattling behind me.
Ghastly sights were around me on that Christmas night, and the glinting of the moon at times made them more ghastly still.
On French mule litters, and on horses, many wounded and dying men were being borne from the redoubts down to Balaclava; and as my progress was very slow, with two worn-out, half-starved nags, a terrible procession passed before me. Many of the poor fellows were nearly over their troubles and sorrows. With closed eyes, relaxed jaws, and hollow visages, they were carried down the snowy path by the Ambulance Corps, and the pale steam that curled in the frosty air from the lips of each alone indicated that they breathed.
Two dismounted hussars—for amid their rags, I discovered them to be such—were carrying one who seemed like a veritable corpse, strapped upright on a seat; the legs dangled, the eyes were staring open and glassy, and the head nodded to and fro.
"Comrades," said I, "that poor fellow is surely out of pain now?"
"Not yet," said one. "He is an officer of ours, badly wounded and frost-bitten."
"An officer!"
"Captain Raikes. He won't last till morning, I fear."
"Raikes," said I through my clenched teeth; "Valentine Raikes—and here!"
"Ay, here, sure enough," said the hussar.
My heart bounded, and then stood still for a moment. At last I said—
"Place him on the gun, comrades, and I will take him on to Balaclava; but first, here I've some raki in my canteen. Give him a mouthful, if he can swallow."
Raikes was placed on the seat of the gun-carriage, buckled thereto with straps, and muffled up as well as we could devise, to protect him from the cold. The two hussars left me, and then we were alone, he and I—Valentine Raikes and Bob Twyford—in the solitary valley, through which the road wound that led to Balaclava.
Though coarse and fiery, the raki partially revived the sinking man, and, leaving my saddle, I asked him, in a voice husky with cold and emotion, if he knew me.
But he shook his head sadly and listlessly. And bearded as I was then, it was no wonder that his dimmed vision failed to recognize me.
"I am Robert Twyford, the bombardier, whose plighted wife you stole, Valentine Raikes! God judge between you and me; but I feel that I must forgive you now."
"My winding sheet is woven in the loom of hell!" he moaned, in a low and almost inarticulate voice. "Oh! Twyford, I have wronged you—and her—and—many, many more."
"But Bessie!" said I, drawing near, and propping him in my arms; "what came of Bessie Leybourne? Speak—tell me for mercy's sake, while you have the power!"
"Ask the waters—the waters——"
"Where—where?"
"Under Blackfriars-bridge. She perished there on the 27th of last September."
The 27th was the night of the storm—the night of the mysterious drowning cry, which startled me from sleep!
"I am sinking fast, Twyford!" he resumed, in a hollow and broken voice. "Pray for me—pray for me. There is but one way to heaven——"
"But many to perdition!" added a strange, deep voice.
And a dark, indistinct, and muffled figure, having two gleaming eyes, stood by the wheel of the gun-carriage, just as a cloud overspread the moon.
"Here—he here! Do not let him touch me—do not let him—touch me!" cried Raikes, in a voice that rose into a scream of despair, as he threw up his arms and fell back.
There was a gurgle in his throat, and all was over!
A fiendish, chuckling laugh seemed to pass me on the skirt of the frosty wind; but I saw no one; nor had I time to observe, or to remember, much more, for now a madness seemed to seize the horses.
They dashed away with frightful speed, the field-piece swinging like a toy at their hoofs. It swept over me breaking one of my legs, and inflicting also a terrible wound on the head, I sank among the snow, and remember no more of that night, for, after weeks of delirium and fever, I found myself a poor, weak, and emaciated inmate of the hospital at Scutari, and so far on my way home to dear old England.
But such was the Christmas night I spent before Sebastopol, and such were those mysteries in the "Book of Nature," to which I can find as yet no key.
A TALE OF THE INDIAN MUTINY.
It was on a soft and warm night in April that we were encamped not far from the margin of Lake Erie, in expectation of the Fenian raiders, who were having armed picnics, and threatening a plundering invasion of Upper Canada. We were simply an advanced post, consisting of my company of the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment, and some two hundred volunteers, farmers and their sons. For some time past there had been considerable alarm along the Canadian frontier. General Mead, of the United States army, was at Eastport with his staff, and the Federal gun-boat Winooske was cruising off that place, on the look-out for an alleged Fenian vessel.
Numerous armed meetings had taken place in the State of Maine, and a great embarkation of the brotherhood in green was expected to take place at Ogdensburg, the capital of St. Lawrence, which has a safe and commodious harbour; but luckily the whole affair ended in bluster and rumour. The only fire we saw was that of our bivouac, and the only smoke that of the soothing weed, while we sat by "the wolf-scaring faggot," and drank from our canteens of rum-and-water, singing songs, and telling stories to wile the night away.
The picturesque was not wanting in the group around that blazing fire of pine wood. The Royal Canadians, in their dark green tunics, faced with scarlet; the volunteers, in orthodox red coats or fringed hunting-shirts, with white belts worn over them, were all bronzed, rough, and bearded fellows, hardy by nature and resolute in bearing, led, in most instances, by old Queen's officers, who had commuted their commissions, and turned their swords into ploughshares on farms by the banks of the New Niagara, or the shores of the vast Erie, whose waters stretched in darkness far away towards the hills of Pennsylvania.
"Come, captain, tell us a story of other lands and sharper work than this," said one of the Canadian volunteers, as he proffered me his tobacco-pouch, which was prettily embroidered with wampum; "tell us something about the mutiny in India. You served there, as we all know."
"Yes," said I, as the memory of other times and other faces—faces I should never look upon in this world again—came over me, "I served there in the —th Dragoons, and can relate a strange story indeed—of discipline overdone—of that which we hear little about in our service, thank heaven—tyranny; and of a young hero, who, without a crime, was sentenced to die the death of a felon!"
"We know," said one of my subs, "that the mutiny is always a bitter subject with you."
"I lost much by the destruction of Indian property, and so had to begin the sliding-scale."
"What kind of scale is that?"
"Sloping from the cavalry to the line."
"But the story, captain!" urged the volunteers.
"Well, here goes," said I; and after a pause and a sip at the canteen, began thus:—
"The narrative I am about to tell you was not one in which I figured much personally, save as member of a court-martial; but it details suffering with which I was familiar—the miserable fate of Sergeant Anthony Ernslie, a fine old soldier, and his son Philip, a brave young fellow—a mere lad—both of whom were in my troop during the Crimean war, and afterwards in the memorable mutiny, the horrors of which are so fresh in the minds of all.
"I had not been long with the regiment before I discovered that a deeply-rooted enmity existed between our sergeant-major, Matthew Pivett, and my troop-sergeant, Ernslie, and that it had been one of long standing, having originated in jealousy when both were privates quartered at Canterbury, and both were rivals for the affection of a pretty milliner girl. She, however, preferred Ernslie, then a horse artilleryman; but when our corps was under orders to join the army of the East, Ernslie volunteered for general service in the cavalry, and, by the chance of fate, was placed in my troop of the —th Dragoons, where his steady conduct, fine appearance, and strict attention to duty, soon caused me to recommend him for promotion, and he gained his third stripe with a rapidity that did not fail to excite the remark of the envious.
"Yet his life was rendered miserable by the sergeant-major—a stern, wiry, sharp-eyed, loud-voiced, and vindictive man; and more than once, when I interposed my authority to keep peace between them, has Ernslie told me, with tears in his eyes, that 'he cursed the day on which he left the ranks of the Horse Artillery to become a dragoon!'
"A senior, when perpetually on the watch to worry a junior, may easily find opportunities enough for doing so. Thus Ernslie's belts were never pipe-clayed quite to the taste of Pivett, and at the staff inspection before parade, faults were ever found with his horse, harness, and everything. He was put on duty at times out of his turn, and not in accordance with the roster. A complaint to the adjutant or myself always altered these errors; but the sting of annoyance remained. At drill a hundred petty faults were found with him, and he was perpetually accused of taking up wrong dressings, distances, and alignments, till, in his anger and bewilderment, the poor man sometimes really did so, and then great was the delight of Pivett!
"'For what,' said he one day, bitterly, 'for what did I ever leave my old regiment?'
"'No good, most likely,' sneered Pivett.
"'Sir, I won my three good-conduct rings there.'
"'By a fluke, of course,' replied Pivett; adding, in a loud voice, 'Silence!' to check the rising retort of the other.
"As Shakespeare has it—
"'That in the captain's but a choleric wordWhich in the soldier is rank blasphemy.'
And so it came to pass that whenever Ernslie ventured to remonstrate, his oppressor invariably sent him to his room under arrest, and twice—a great insult to a sergeant—to the guard-house; but though the charges of mutiny and insubordination were always 'quashed' by the colonel, poor Ernslie felt, as he told me, 'that he was a doomed man, and safe to come to grief some day, for the sergeant-major had sworn an oath to smash him!'
"His son Philip, a private in the troop, saw and felt all this. The lad's smothered hatred and fear of the sergeant-major were great; but he did his duty well and steadily, and contrived to elude notice. Ernslie was proud of his handsome boy, and thanked heaven in the inmost recesses of his heart when the war was over in the Crimea, for there father and son had ridden side by side in the famous charge of the Heavy Brigade, and both had escaped almost scatheless; but when we were ordered to India, to stem with our swords the great tide of the terrible mutiny, the father's anxieties were revived again.
"When our transport was off the Cape de Verd Islands, Ernslie came to my cabin in great distress, to announce that his wife had just died. I knew that the poor woman had been ailing for some time past, and the sickness incident to the rough weather we encountered put an end to her sufferings, and she died in the arms of her son, for her husband was with his watch on deck, and the sergeant-major would not permit him to go below.
"She had died at daybreak, and by noon that day the body, swathed in her bedding, and lashed round with spun-yarn, lay on a grating to leeward, with a twenty-pound shot at the feet, and a Union Jack spread over it. By sound of trumpet, our men fell into their ranks, and, like the sailors, all stood bare-headed, silent, and grave, for a funeral at sea is the most sad and solemn of all. There was a heavy breeze at the time, and the ship was flying before it with her courses and head-sails only, and the bitter spray swept over us in drenching showers.
"The adjutant read the burial service. At a given signal the grating was lifted, and the body vanished with a splash under the ship's counter. Close by me stood Sergeant Ernslie and his son. Clutching the mizen shrouds with one hand, and Philip by the other, he bent his pale face over the quarter, as if to give a farewell glance at the corpse; but it was gone—gone for ever!
"Ernslie was barely forty; but now he looked quite old and haggard, and his hair was streaked with gray. He saw Pivett standing near him, as the men were dismissed, and passing forward or below; and as if he felt and knew that the original cause of enmity had passed away, he held forth his hand, and said, in a choking voice, for grief had softened his heart—
"'You'll shake hands with me now, sergeant-major, won't you?'
"But Matthew Pivett answered only by a scowl, and crossed to the windward side of the deck. So even by the side of that vast and uncouth grave their hatred was not quenched; and I had twice to interfere for Ernslie's protection before our transport ran up the Hooghly, and landed us at Calcutta, from whence the river steamers took us up country to Allahabad, where our remount awaited us, and we took the field at once, under Brigadier-General R——.
"If Ernslie's tormentor spared his son, it must have been through some lingering regard for the dead mother, or some soft memory of the love he once bore her, and Ernslie was thankful that Philip escaped, for the lad was passionate and resentful, and had vowed to his father in secret that he would 'yet serve out the sergeant-major.'
"One morning, long before daybreak, we were on the march towards the province of Ajmir, where a noted rebel, Hossein Ali, was at the head of a great force. We had endured the most unparalleled heat; for days the sky had been as a sheet of heated brass above our heads, and the cracked and baked earth as molten iron under foot. Cases of sunstroke had been incessant, and many of our horses perished on the march.
"On this morning our thirst was excessive, for the tanks of a temple on which we had relied for water had become dry in the night, and thebheesties, or water-carriers, attached to the regiment, had deserted to Hossein Ali, and most of us were without liquid of any kind in our canteens.
"Among others situated thus was Sergeant Ernslie, who had been on patrol duty until the last moment. His son Philip was the orderly of the colonel, and while that officer's horse was getting a drink, he had contrived to fill his canteen from the bucket, and held it invitingly to Ernslie, just as the corps filed past, for the colonel had not yet mounted. Agonized as he was with thirst, to resist the temptation was impossible; so Ernslie galloped to where his son stood, a hundred yards distant or so, near the hut of palm-leaves which had formed the colonel's quarters.
"'To your troop, Sergeant Ernslie! back to your troop, sir!' cried the sergeant-major, in a voice of thunder.
"Ernslie heard the voice of his enemy, but still rode towards his son, and took a long draught from his canteen before turning his horse and galloping back to his troop.
"'How dare you leave the ranks when on the line of march?' resumed Pivett, heedless in his fury that this was interfering withme. 'Fall in with the quarter guard!' he added, in his most bullying tone; 'and consider yourself under arrest!'
"'I shall do neither one nor the other,' replied Ernslie, trembling with passion. 'I am under the orders of the captain of the troop—not yours. Keep your own place, or, by heaven, I shall make you!'
"And in his just anger, Ernslie was rash enough to shake his sword with the point towards Pivett—an unmistakable threat. So the colonel was compelled to place him under arrest, in the face of the whole regiment.
"'At last you have fixed me, sergeant-major!' said he, calmly, but bitterly, as he sheathed his sword, and turned to the rear; 'but if you look for your true character, you will find it in the "Military Dictionary."'
"'Likely enough; but under what head? Discipline?'
"'No. Tyrant! See how that is defined!'
"The sergeant-major did look, and saw that Colonel James therein defines, 'Petty tyrants—a low, grovelling set of beings, who, without one spark of real courage within themselves, execute the orders of usurped or strained authority with brutal rigour;' and as he read on Pivett grew pale with rage.
"At the first halt of the brigade, a general court-martial, of which I was the junior member, sat, by order of General R——. An example was wanted; so Ernslie was reduced to the ranks.
"Our parade next morning was a gloomy one, as we formed a hollow square of close columns of regiments, near the ruins of a great Hindoo temple. The sun was yet below the horizon, and in the dim, cold light, the face of Ernslie looked pale and ghastly as he was marched into the square, a prisoner, between two armed troopers, one of whom, with execrable taste, the sergeant-major had contrived should be his own son, Philip.
"The sergeant was nervous in bearing and restless in eye; but his mind seemed to be turned inward. He was thinking, perhaps, of the terrors of the day at Balaclava, of the dead wife he had committed to the deep, or of the boy who stood scheming revenge by his side; but it was not until he felt the penknife of the trumpet-major ripping the worthily-won chevrons from his sleeve that a groan escaped his lips, a flush crossed his haggard face, and his soul seemed to die within him.
"Then he slunk to the rear of his troop, a broken and degraded man. Philip's dark eyes were full of fire, and, if a glance could have slain, the career of Matthew Pivett had ended there.
"We all felt for the sergeant, and knew that in the vindication of discipline he had been made a victim; but that night the Queen lost a good soldier, for Ernslie was absent from roll-call—he had disappeared without a trace, and the sergeant-major openly declared his belief that he had deserted to the rebel Sepoys, under Hossein Ali.
"The truth was, though we knew it not at the time, that Ernslie, when wandering alone and unarmed near our camp, communing with himself in a storm of grief and misery, had actually been waylaid and carried off by some of Hossein's scouting Sepoys, who by that time were tired of slaughtering and torturing the white Feringhees. They spared him, and discovering somehow that he had once been agolandazee, or gunner, they chained him naked to a field-piece, and kept him to assist in working their cannon against us in Kotah, the place which we were on the march to besiege and storm.
"So poor Anthony Ernslie's name was further disgraced by being scored down as a deserter in the regimental books.
"The forces which we accompanied, under General R——, consisted of the 8th Royal Irish Hussars, H.M. 72nd Highlanders, 83rd and 95th Regiments, together with the 13th Bengal Native Infantry, a corps which had not yet revolted, but was sorely mistrusted.
"The enemy in Kotah consisted entirely of mutineers, but chiefly those of the 72nd Bengal Infantry, whose scarlet coats were faced with yellow, exactly like those of the 72nd Highlanders, now advancing against them; and we considered it a curious coincidence that two regiments bearing the same number should meet in mortal conflict.
"Our march was a severe one; each of our horses had not less than twenty stone weight to carry, irrespective of forage, and yet there was not a sore back or a broken girth either in our ranks or in those of the 8th Hussars, when, after traversing a mountainous but fertile and well-watered district, we came in sight of Kotah (which had been the seat of a Rajpoot-rajah), on the east bank of the Chumbul. It is a large town, girt by massive walls, defended by bastions and deep ditches cut out of the solid rock. Its entrances were all protected by double gateways.
"Both strong and stately looked the fortified town, when, under the scorching blaze of an Indian sun, and a hot, red sky, amid which the hungry vultures floated, we saw it and the palace of the rajah, with all its lofty white turrets, the roofs of bazaars and temples, crowning a steep slope that was covered by teak, tamarind, and date palm trees, all of lovely green. In the foreground lay a vast lake, with the superb temple of Jugmandul, a mass of snow-white marble, rising in its centre, its peristyles and domes reflected downward in the deep and dark-blue water.
"The rajah had fled. In his palace Hossein Ali, an ex-kote-havildar, or pay-sergeant of the revolted 72nd B.N.I., reigned supreme; and its marble courts and chambers were yet stained by the blood of our women, children, and other defenceless people, who had been slain therein, after enduring indignities and torments that maddened those who came, like us, to avenge them; and, full of the memories of those deeds, with the other horrors of Cawnpore and Delhi to inflame us, we pushed the siege with relentless vigour, though Hossein's men, with seventy pieces of cannon, gave us quite enough to do, and our sappers worked in vain to undermine the enormous walls.
"Night and day, amid slaughter, wounds, sunstroke, and cholera, we pounded away at each other with the big guns. Officers and men worked side by side at them and in the trenches, aiding or covering the sappers in their scheme of a mine, till we were all as black as the Pandies with gunpowder, dust, and grime, and till the once gay uniform of ours had given place to flannel jerseys and rags; our helmets to linen puggerees, or solar-hats; our pantaloons to cotton knickerbockers and Cawnpore boots; and even those who had been the greatest dandies among us were seldom seen without a scrubby beard, a shovel, a revolver, and Chinshura cheroot. In short, we were more like diggers or desperadoes than her Britannic Majesty's dragoons.
"With a working party composed of men of various corps, one morning, before daybreak, I was assisting the sappers at the mine, while the enemy, with shot, shell, and rockets, did all they could to retard or dislodge us. It was a horrid place, I remember, encumbered by dead camels and horses—yea, and men, too, in every stage of decomposition, where the gorged vultures hovered lazily among fallen ruins and whitening bones.
"'Jack Sepoy thinks it no sin now to bite the greased cartridge—the scoundrel!' said one of my men, as a bullet broke the shovel in his hand.
"'Sin—as little as to cut the throats of our wives and children in cold blood!' added another, with a fierce oath.
"'Fighting for glory is a fine thing,' said young Philip Ernslie, resting on his pickaxe; 'but fighting for a shilling per day, with a penny extra for beer, is a different affair.'
"'But we are fighting for revenge, Phil,' said a soldier, whose wife and children had perished at Meerut.
"'True,' replied Ernslie, through his clenched teeth; 'and times there are, by Jove! when even revenge may be just and holy!'
"'Silence!' growled Sergeant-Major Pivett, still in pursuance of his feud.
"'Down, men—down!' cried I, 'for here comes a shell.'
"Humming through the air, but, oddly enough,notwhistling, a ten-inch shell fell near me, and, with a thud, half sunk into the soil. Strange to say, it was without a fuze; the touch-hole was simply plugged by a common cork, in which a half-scorched quill-pen was stuck. After lying flat on our faces, and watching it uneasily for some time, and all fearing a snare, or the explosion of some poisonous stuff, I ventured to roll it over with a shovel, and found that it was empty, or quite unloaded. Pivett, who certainly did not lack courage, sprang forward, and, extracting the cork from the fuze-hole, found a scrap of paper attached to it, and on the scrap was written, with ink that seemed to have been composed of gunpowder and water, these words:—
"'I am a prisoner in Kotah. The work of the sappers is useless, for where they are mining the rock is solid. There are seventy guns in this place, and I am chained to one of the seventeen in the right bastion. If the front gate is blown up, the place may be carried at the point of the bayonet, as the way beyond is quite open.
"'A. ERNSLIE,private, H.M. —th Dragoons.'
"'I knew that fellow had deserted to the enemy!' growled the sergeant-major.
"'Silence,' said I, 'and do not be unjust in your hatred.'
"'It's a message-shell, sir, a message-shell, and fired by my father, poor man. Heaven help him!—he is in the hands of the Sepoys!' exclaimed young Ernslie, whom, with the shell and note, I took at once to the general, whose tent was by the margin of the lake.
"This information caused the staff at once to abandon the idea of a mine, and all our energies were now bent against the great gate.
"Though the junior regiment of the division, the 72nd, or Duke of Albany's Own Highlanders, were ordered to furnish three hundred men for a storming party, and at two o'clock on the morning of the 30th of March the grand assault was to be made, while we—the cavalry—were in our saddles, to cover, and if possible assist in the attack, when the great gate was forced.
"'My brave lads, rouse!' I heard the adjutant of the Highlanders cry in the dark; 'quit your dog's sleep—half-dozing and half-waking—and fall in. Fall in, stormers!'
"And while the warning pipes blew loud and shrill, cheerfully they formed by companies, those brave Albany Highlanders; and stately, indeed, looked their grenadiers, with their tall plumed bonnets and royal Stuart tartan; for the highland regiments during the mutiny had not time to adopt Indian clothing, and went at the Pandies in their kilts and ostrich feathers, just as their forefathers did at Madras and Assaye.
"Silently they crossed the river in the dark, where the graceful date palms and the luxuriant mango topes cast a deeper shadow than the starry night upon the water. Then, quitting their boats, they crept close to the great outer wall of Kotah; but so great was the delay in blowing up the gate, that day broke, the Highlanders were seen, and for hours we sat in our saddles helplessly, and saw the enemy pouring shot and shell upon them from the same bastion where we knew poor Tony Ernslie was chained to a gun.
"Suddenly there was a dreadful shock; the wall of the city seemed to open, as it rent and gaped, a blinding cloud of dust and stones ascended into the air, and a shower of wooden splinters, the fragments of the great gate, flew far and wide, as our mine blew the barrier up.
"A mingled shout of 'Scotland for ever!' the old Waterloo war-cry of the Black Watch and the Greys, broke from the Highlanders* again and again, as they rushed in with fixed bayonets, driving back the terrified Sepoys, storming bastion after bastion, and capturing two standards. The other regiments broke in at different points, and after much hard fighting Kotah was ours, and then we rode through the streets cutting down the fugitive rebels on right and left.
* SeeScotsmanof 28th of May, 1858.
"Philip Ernslie and a few of his comrades made straight for the bastion indicated in his father's note. It was deserted by all save a few dead or dying Sepoys; but a more terrible spectacle awaited the searchers.
"Stripped nude, and nailed to the wall of the bastion by the hands and feet, hung the body of Anthony Ernslie, minus nose and ears, and otherwise horribly mutilated!
"Even this appalling spectacle failed to excite the pity or soothe the hate of the malevolent Matthew Pivett (but we were well used to scenes of horror and barbarity during the mutiny), for he audibly expressed a conviction 'that Ernslie had met his just reward for deserting to the enemy.'
"'I shall make you eat your words before the going down of the sun, by the God who made us, I shall!' said Philip Ernslie, in a low, husky voice, heard only by the sergeant-major, who shrunk back, so impressed was he by the fierce and resolute aspect of the lad, by the deep concentrated loathing that glared in his eyes, making his lips ashy pale, and causing every muscle to quiver; but this emotion was unseen by others, and his threat was unheard, luckily, for if Pivett could have found a witness, he would at once have made young Ernslie prisoner on a charge of insubordination, as he really dreaded his vengeance.
"About dark that evening the sergeant-major was returning from the bungalow of the colonel, where, with the adjutant, he had been preparing lists of casualties and for our march on the morrow, when we and the 8th Hussars were to surround a village that was full of fugitive mutineers. The day had been one of toil, of strife, and heat; now the atmosphere was steamy and moist, and Pivett was enjoying by anticipation the comforts of a hearty supper and a cool sleep in his tent, the sides of which histatty-wetterhad, no doubt, soused well with cold water.
"To reach the cavalry camp he had to pass through a ravine, not far from the town wall—a narrow place, full of prickly and thorny shrubs, where the beautiful silky jungle grass grew in such wild luxuriance that, in some instances, it was almost breast-high, and where the perfume of the many aromatic plants came floating on the puffs of warm air.
"Traversing the narrow path on foot, with his sword under his arm, he was suddenly confronted in the dusk by Philip Ernslie, who resolutely barred the way. He, too, had his sword by his side, but in each hand he had a holster pistol. His features were pale as those of a corpse, and might have passed for such, but for the nervous twitching of his lips as he spoke.
"'You know, Matthew Pivett, for what purpose I am here?'
"'Mutiny and murder, likely enough,' replied Pivett, who was a stern and resolute man. 'Give up those pistols—fall back, and return to your quarters, or I shall cut you down.'
"'Draw your sword but one inch from its sheath, and I shall send a bullet through your brain!' replied Philip, cocking one of the pistols. 'You maddened my poor father by your systematic tyranny for years; you had him reduced and degraded, and driven desperate from among us. You wronged his memory this morning, and taunted even his mutilated remains——'
"'Scoundrel! what then? Would you dare to murder me?' exclaimed the undaunted sergeant-major.
"'No, you shall have a chance for your life. Oh, Matthew Pivett, I have long looked for an opportunity like this, when I might meet you face to face; so take your choice of these pistols, for, by the heaven that hears us, you or I must lie dead here to-night!'
"As Philip spoke solemnly and sternly, with clenched teeth and flashing eyes, he thrust a pistol into Pivett's hand.
"'Quarter guard!' shouted Pivett, as he made a resolute attempt to grasp the throat of Ernslie, who thrust him back with the barrel of the other pistol, crying—
"'Stand back, sergeant-major, and keep your distance, or I shall shoot you down like the dog you are!'
"Pivett, who now saw there was no resource but to fight, withdrew a pace or two, and fired straight at Ernslie's head. The ball whistled through the white puggeree, or cap, and slightly grazed his left ear. He gave a ghastly smile, and said—
"'You were rather quick, sergeant-major, but now it is my turn!'
"He levelled his pistol, with a deadly, triumphant, and vindictive aim, straight at the glaring eyes of the agitated Pivett; but the percussion cap must have been defective—it snapped and hung fire.
"'Seize this mutinous rascal!' cried the sergeant-major to a patrol who, on hearing the explosion of the first pistol, came galloping up; and Philip was instantly made prisoner by a party of the 8th Hussars, who had seen the whole situation.
"Another court-martial sat by break of day, in the palace of the Rajah of Kotah, and, wan and haggard, after a sleepless night, fettered by handcuffs, and looking the picture of misery, Philip Ernslie stood before it, charged with violating the forty-first clause of the second section of the Articles of War, which ordain that 'any officer or soldier who shall strike a superior, or use any violence against him, shall, if an officer, suffer death, and if a soldier, death, transportation, or such other punishment as by a general court-martial shall be awarded.'
"The majority of the members of the court were strangers to the lad and his story, and the father's alleged spirit of insubordination, manifested when on the march to Kotah, was now brought forward in the prosecution of the son. The court was but an epitome of the greater world, where accusation is condemnation. Nothing is so fallible as human judgment, but nothing so pitiless.
"As captain of Philip's troop, I gave evidence of all I knew, and of the good characters borne by father and son; but, after the brief proceedings terminated, and the court was cleared for the consideration of the verdict and sentence, I knew too well what they would of necessity be.
"That evening the chaplain visited the prisoner, who was confined in one of the vaults of the palace, to announce that on the following morning he was to—DIE!
"He spent nearly the whole night with the poor lad, who was quite resigned, and so calm and prepared for his fate that he begged to be left alone for a little sleep before the appointed time; and when the provost-marshal came at gun-fire, he found Philip Ernslie in a profound slumber, with a horse-cloak spread over him, and his head resting on a bundle of straw.
"Never did we parade with more reluctance than on that 31st of March at dawn, and all the corps in and about Kotah, with some others that had marched in during the night, got under arms to witness the execution. It was a lovely Indian morning. The beams of the sun shone redly on the white marble domes and carved minarets of Kotah, and on the turrets of the rajah's stately palace.
"The place where we paraded was a hollow between two hills that were covered with beautiful groves of the peepul-palm and teakwood, and flocks of wild peacocks and green paroquets flew hither and thither as we were massed in columns round the spot, where an open grave was yawning, and where the guard of the provost-marshal—twelve men and a sergeant—stood with their rifles loaded.
"Every face was expressive of intense anxiety to have the whole affair over, and many were very pale.
"Accompanied by the chaplain of the cavalry brigade, who wore a surplice over his black uniform surtout, and praying very devoutly with his fettered hands clasped before him, Philip Ernslie, guarded by an escort, came slowly into the square of regiments, and stopped midway between the firing party and that premature grave that was so soon to receive him. His face was frightfully pale; he looked at that black hole, which yawned so horribly amid the green turf, calmly and steadily, and something of a smile—but not of bravado or derision—stole over his features.
"My heart bled for the poor lad; but I was immensely relieved when our colonel said, in a whisper, as he passed me—
"'The adjutant-general has a reprieve from General R—— in his pocket, so there will be no execution.'
"'Thank heaven!' I exclaimed, fervently.
"'We are but acting out a solemn farce.'
"'For the sake of effect and discipline?'
"'Exactly.'
"'And the sentence, colonel——'
"'Will be commuted to transportation for life.'
"It was a human existence blighted for ever, any way; but now I could look on with more composure.
"The fetters were removed from Philip's hands. He was ordered to take off his cap and listen respectfully to the sentence of the court; and he seemed to do so mechanically, as one in a dream.
"The proceedings of the tribunal were briefly noted, the enormity of the crime forcibly adverted to, and then came the doom—that he was to be shot to death!
"The young man's usually haughty and handsome face was wistful and sad in expression now. He merely bowed his head in meek assent, and in a weak voice asked leave to shake hands with me and some of his comrades. They came forth from the ranks as he named them, and wrung his cold and clammy fingers in silence, and I could see that the eyes of these men were moist with tears; yet they were brave fellows all, and had charged by my side at Inkermann and Balaclava.
"Philip next asked for the sergeant-major, that he might shake hands even with him, and so die at peace with all mankind. But Pivett was absent from parade that morning, and lay seriously ill in his tent, for Asiatic cholera had fastened upon him.
"Philip then turned to the chaplain to signify that he was ready, and, kneeling near his grave, had his eyes covered by a handkerchief.
"The whole scene was now worked up to its utmost intensity, and many officers, who knew not of the reprieve, had taken off their caps to utter a silent prayer for the spirit that was so soon to appear before its Maker.
"The silence was profound, and we heard only the Chumbal rushing on its course to meet the Jumna, till the voice of the provost-marshal rang in the air—
"'Firing-party—ready!' and softly the rifles were cocked.
"'As you were!' cried the adjutant-general, with a bright expression of face; 'half-cock, and order arms! Prisoner, stand up! you are, I rejoice to say, mercifully reprieved.'
"Philip Ernslie did not hear the words apparently, for his head sank forward on his breast.
"The provost-marshal took his hand to assist him to rise; but the poor lad fell forward on his face, dead—stone dead—without a wound. The sudden revulsion of feeling had killed him.
"So he was actually buried in that unconsecrated ground, beneath the shadow of the walls of Kotah; but, ere we marched next day, another grave was formed beside him.
"It contained the remains of Sergeant-Major Pivett; and, during a long career of service, I have met with few events which created so profound a sensation among the troops as this little tragedy."
On an evening in the September of 1860, some excitement was caused among the inhabitants of the secluded town of Oppido in Calabria Ultra, when the gleam of arms announced the approach of regular troops. The dealers in pottery and silk, in wine and oil, and the manufacturers of gloves and stockings from the delicate filaments of the shell-fish named thepinna marina, and the water-carrier by the well, conferred together on this unusual circumstance; the wanderingpifferaripaused in their strains before the shrine of the Madonna; and the rustics of a more doubtful character—to wit, the armed and lawlesscarbonariand mountaineers, the brigands, with their sugar-loaf hats, velveteen jackets, and sandalled feet—looked forth from the dense forests and coverts wherein they lurked, defying alike the anathemas of the Archbishop of Reggio and the powers of the High Court there, and thought the time was near to inspect their guns and stilettoes, and set their wives to abandon the distaff for the bullet-mould, as none knew on what errand those troops had come, or what might ensue ere long, and strange things were expected, for Mazzini and "The Liberator" had been busy with their manifestoes; even the Fata Morgana had been showing strange optical delusions of late in the Bay of Reggio and the Straits of Messina.
The battle of Aspromonte had been fought in their vicinity during the preceding month.
Garibaldi, as all the world knows, intent on raising an insurrection in Hungary, had placed himself at the head of a body of Sicilian volunteers, in the forest district of Ficuzza, twenty miles from Palermo, and, by a hasty and ill-advised movement, he landed these men from two steamers on the Calabrian shore, where, on the mountain plateau of Aspromonte—one of the highest of the Calabrian hills, rising immediately behind the town of Oppido—he was attacked by the Royal Italian troops, under Colonel Pallavacino. He fell, wounded by a musket-shot in the ankle, while all his people were surrounded and made prisoners.
Military executions followed on many, though "The Liberator," for his great services in the cause of Italian independence, was never brought to trial; and now the young grass was sprouting above the earthy mounds, and round the rude little crosses that marked where the dead lay in their lonely graves on the slope of the Apennines.
For two noted brigands who had accompanied him, named Agostino Velda and Giuseppe Rivarola, rewards were offered at that time in vain.
The excitement in Oppido was in no way lessened when the sound of bugles came on the evening wind, and ere long the 3rd regiment of Bersaglieri, or Italian Rifles, in the service of Victor Emanuel, with their plumed hats and quaint uniforms, marched into the town, and halted before theAlbergo del Leon d'Oro, where the colours were lodged, and the lieutenant-colonel commanding took up his quarters.
The soldiers were placed in an empty monastery; a guard was mounted there, and also at thealbergo; and then it began to be whispered about in the market-place andcafésthat the Bersaglieri were to remain there until a captain arrived from Reggio with some special instructions for the colonel, Vincenzo il Conte Manfredi, of whom we shall hear more anon.
These rumours were unpleasantly connected with a Bersagliere named Agostino Velda—the same Velda who had followed General Garibaldi, and who had been brought in with the quarter-guard as a prisoner, and was now in a cell of the monastery, heavily ironed, and under the strictest surveillance.
Among the Bersaglieri of Colonel Manfredi were two soldiers of the name of Velda—the prisoner Agostino, and his son Raphael, a youth of little more than twenty years, who bore a character as high and unblemished as that of his father was degraded and low, dissipated and vile. Yet the father and son were both eminently handsome men, and both had fought bravely—the former on the fields of Goïto and Novara, and the latter at Montebello and Solferino; but latterly to many crimes and breaches of military law, Agostino had added that of desertion and consorting with brigands, among whom he narrowly escaped an assassination in which he became involved; and a notice of this event found its way even into theTimes.
He had thrown aside his uniform, adopted the well-known costume of the brigands—a gaily-embroidered jacket, a high hat, with broad, flaunting ribbon, and long leathern gaiters—and, armed with a rifle and six-barrelled revolver, made his lurking-place among the mountains near Naples.
Not far from Acerra—an episcopal city in the province of Lavoro—for a year prior to the affair of Aspromonte, he had taken up his residence with a formidable bandit and his wife, with whom he lived, concealed in a vault, the fragment of some ruined castle or villa of the old days of Roman Naples.
There they might have resided long enough together, and made perilous the road to Rome, but for the sum of two thousand ducats which had been put upon the head of Agostino Velda after Garibaldi's defeat, and which proved too much for a friendship such as theirs.
One day, after a close pursuit, hispadronaassured him that he might safely issue forth, as the police had disappeared; but immediately on Velda raising the trap-door, which was covered with turf and branches to conceal their den, he was struck to the earth by a blow from an axe, dealt full on his head by a most unsparing hand.