CHAPTER I
InSilesia, the autumn of 1757 was one of frightful cold, of icy winds, of sunless days, and freezing nights. The land, made desolate by the contending armies of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia, suffered still more from this bitter and premature winter. The miserable inhabitants, many of them houseless, died by thousands, of cold and starvation. The wretched remnant of cattle left them perished; the fields lay untilled, the mills were only piles of charred ruins, and desolation brooded over the land. War could add but little more to the miseries of this unfortunate region; but Frederick of Prussia and the lion-hearted Empress of Austria fought as fiercely as they had done sixteen years before when the Titanic combathad first begun. Rosbach had been fought—that terrible battle in which Frederick prevailed against the Austrians, who were assisted by the soldiers of France and the money of England. The Austrians and French had, at first, attempted an orderly retreat; but the piercing cold, the constant fall of snow, and the difficulties of subsistence, had very much interfered with this. Their object was to reach Prince Charles of Lorraine, in northwest Silesia, and many small bodies of troops succeeded in maintaining their organization until they joined Prince Charles. Others were not so fortunate; soldiers found themselves without officers, and officers found themselves without men. In this last case was Captain St. Arnaud, of the French regiment of Dufour, a young gentleman who had exchanged his commission in the King’s Musketeers, the most royal of all the royal guards, for a line regiment where he could see service. It cannot be denied that this decision on Captain St. Arnaud’s part surprised his world, for he was a curled darling among the ladies, and the most superlative dandy in Paris. And, wonderful to say, he still looked the superlative dandy on the afternoon of the coldest day he ever felt in his life, amid the snowy wastesof Silesia, when, after two weeks of starving and running away from the Prussians, it looked as if the inevitable hour had come. There was, yet, not a speck upon his handsome uniform; his long, light hair lay in curls upon his shoulders—he had admired his own locks too much to cover them up with a periwig; and his delicate, handsome face, now gaunt and pale, was exquisitely shaven. Clearly, starving did not agree with his constitution. His whole life before that campaign had been spent in the courts and camps of kings, and he had missed those hardening and fortifying influences which is Fate’s rough way of benefiting her favorites. But faint and weak and hopeless as he seemed, his soul was still unconquered, and his eyes looked bravely around upon the desolate waste before him. The cold, already intense, was becoming severer every hour. St. Arnaud, being naturally of a reflective nature, which he hid under a mask of the utmost levity, was thinking to himself, as he patted the neck of his lean and patient horse, “The whole social order depends on the mercury in the tube. At a certain point, varying in different races, all distinctions are abolished. If my general were here this moment, I would be as good as he; for the best man would be he whocould keep up his circulation best. And if my orderly were here—bah! he could only deprive me of my last chance of living through this night by rubbing down my horse for me, which exercise would keep my blood in circulation and increase the poor beast’s chances of carrying me through to the end.” His piercing eyes had swept the view in front of him, but he almost jumped out of his saddle as a voice at his elbow said: “My Captain! I salute you!”
Close behind him, on a very good horse, sat a young private soldier of St. Arnaud’s company. St. Arnaud at once recognized him; he was so tall, so fresh coloured, so well made that he attracted attention in the ranks; but private soldiers to St. Arnaud represented not names, but numbers. He thought this young fellow was 472 on the regimental roll, but had no idea of his name. He was a contrast to St. Arnaud in every way; for besides being a perfect picture of physical well-being, the young soldier was in rags. In one the inner man had suffered, in the other the outer man. Having spoken, the young man awaited speech from his officer with as much coolness as if he were on parade at Versailles, instead of being alone with him at nightfall in a frozen desert.
“I recognize you,” said St. Arnaud, after a moment; “where are the others of your company?”
“I am the only man left, sir,” replied the soldier; “as you know, we were very much cut up that villainous day at Rosbach; and when you were swept from us, in that last charge, we had already lost half our men. I don’t know how it was, sir; certainly it was not the fault of our officers”—with another salute—“but I believe ours was the worst demoralized regiment in the French forces after Rosbach, and my company was the worst demoralized in the regiment. We had not an officer left above a corporal, but the handful of us could have remained together. Instead of doing that, it wassauve qui peutwith all of us. Note, sir, I do not say we did not fight like devils at Rosbach; but being unused to defeat, we did not know how to take it. I cannot tell you how it is I come to be here alone; only I know that I, with twenty others, started out to make our way toward Prince Charles, and one by one the men dropped off, until yesterday morning, when, at sunrise, I found myself alone where I had bivouacked the night before with three comrades. They had gone off in the night, or early in the morning, to follow a road I did not believe wouldlead us where we wanted to go. I came this way, and well it was for me.”
The young soldier’s story, told jauntily, produced a singular effect on St. Arnaud. He had kept on hoping that, in spite of the accident of his being separated from his command—an accident caused by his own impetuosity carrying him too far in advance of his men—he would yet find his own personal command intact. But there was no more room for hope in the face of what was before his eyes and ringing in his ears. His countenance became so pale with grief and chagrin that he seemed about to drop from his saddle. He laid the reins on his horse’s neck, and raised both arms above his head in a gesture of despair, but he said no word. The soldier, after waiting vainly for a question or an answer, spoke again.
“We have no time to lose, sir; we must cross this plain before night. I have some forage here and something in my haversack, and if we can get a fire we can live.”
St. Arnaud, still silent, mechanically gathered up the reins again, and the horse instinctively made for a faint track beaten through the snow. The soldier followed, ten paces behind. On theytravelled for an hour or two. As the sickly sun sank below the fringe of dun clouds in the west the cold became more terrible. A fierce wind set in, which drifted furious flurries of snow across the vast, white plain; and when the sky showed black against the white earth, neither man nor horse could travel farther. There was not a tree or even a bush in sight. They had passed a few dead horses on the dreary waste, but that was the only thing that broke the ghastly monotony of the way. Now they involuntarily halted, and each knew that from then until sunrise they would be fighting with the cold for life. The thought came back to St. Arnaud, who had scarcely spoken a word to his companion, how calamity levels all distinctions. It would not have surprised him in the least if, when he dismounted, and mechanically threw the reins to the soldier, to have heard him say: “Take care of your own horse, and I will attend to mine.” Instead of this, the soldier only pointed to a little hillock near by, and said: “That place, sir, is a little sheltered from the wind. It will do us good to walk there.”
St. Arnaud, whose faculties seemed frozen, obeyed the soldier. As he was tramping through the half darkness, his eyes blinded by the snow,and the icy blast nearly cutting him to pieces, he heard a shout of joy behind him. The soldier had suddenly stumbled upon something which was worth to them at that moment all the gold in the Bank of France. It was nothing less than a broken gun-carriage, of which a few inches of the wheel appeared above the snow. The soldier dashed toward it, and tugged and pulled at it, shouting out exclamations of joy, as a man will who has found that which will give him life. St. Arnaud watched him dully as he wrenched such of it apart as he could, and dragging it to the sheltered spot under the hillock, where St. Arnaud held the trembling horses, scooped out a hole in the snow, and with a flint and steel struck a flash of fire.
At first, the flame flickered tamely; then, suddenly, it burst into a glory of light and warmth. St. Arnaud advanced, still leading the poor horses, who gazed at the flames with an intelligent joy, almost human.
By that time it was so black overhead and so white underfoot, and the swirling snow was so whipped about by the furious north wind, that it seemed as if the two men and the two shivering horses were alone in a universe of cold and snow and blackness. The young soldier first gave thehorses the feed they had carried, and melting some snow in a tin pan he carried in his knapsack, gave them to drink. Then, washing out the pan, he produced some bacon and cheese and black bread. St. Arnaud showed the first sign of interest so far, by handing out his canteen, of which one whiff caused the young soldier’s wide mouth to come open with a grin, that showed the whitest teeth imaginable. And then, huddling under their cloaks, officer and soldier shared their first meal together. That day month St. Arnaud had been entertained by a countess in one of the finest houses in Vienna, and the young soldier had fared sumptuously in the kitchen with the maids; but to-night they were supping together, and only too glad to sup at all. At last, all the bacon and cheese being devoured, St. Arnaud’s spirit seemed to rouse from its torpor. He looked at the soldier attentively and asked:
“What is your name?”
“Ameeltone,” was the response.
St. Arnaud’s French ear did not detect the strange pronunciation of the name, yet he could not quite make it out.
“Can you spell it?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. H-a-m-i-l-t-o-n—Ameeltone.”
“But that is English.”
“Yes; my name is English all over. Gavin is my first name”—and he pronounced it Garvan.
“Have you any English blood in you?”
“I have not a drop of any but English blood, my Captain. My father, Sir Gavin Hamilton, is an Englishman; and my mother, God bless her, is Lady Hamilton.”
“Then,” said St. Arnaud, very naturally, “what are you doing as a trooper in Dufour’s regiment?”
“Because,” replied Gavin, taking up the tin pan and scooping out the last remnants of their supper, “my father is a great rascal.” And he washed the pan out with snow.
St. Arnaud, accustomed to the extreme filial respect of the French for their parents, felt a shock at Gavin’s cool characterization of his father, and said in reply:
“A man sometimes has cause for resentment against his father, but seldom calls him a rascal.”
“True, my Captain,” cheerfully replied Gavin, “but my father is a terrible rascal. He has ill-used my mother, the finest creature God ever made. What do you think of a man with a great fortune deserting his wife and child in a foreign landand then using all his power to make her admit she is not his wife, when he knows she is; and when he finds she has a soul not to be terrified, trying to fool her into a divorce? But I tell you, my Captain, my mother is a brave lady. She told him and wrote him that she was his lawful wife, and that she would defend me—I was a little boy then—that she would have no divorce, lest it reflect on me, and that no one of my rights would be bartered away by her. And at that very time she could barely keep body and soul together by giving lessons in Paris. She is well educated, luckily, being an English officer’s daughter. The English laws are hard on poor and friendless women, and being in France, too, my mother had little chance to prove her rights. She looked to me, however, to be able one day to maintain all she had claimed; and she taught me carefully, so that, as she said, when I came to the condition and estate of a gentleman, I might know how to bear myself. She did not wish to go back to England, where she knew persecution awaited her, and brought me up as much an English boy as she could in France. The only thing that troubled her was my pronunciation—she always laughs when I pronounce my own name. I have an English way of using my fistswhen I am angry. She scolds me, but I know her brothers fought like that when they were lads at school.”
“How came you to join the army?”
“Faith, sir, I had no choice. The King’s recruiting officers came after me, and I had to go. But I cannot say I regretted it, for I could never have been anything else but a soldier, and I have a better chance to rise in the army than in any of the humble callings open to me in civil life. My mother said it was best—that I came of good fighting stock on her side—her brothers were officers, and as far back as she knows her ancestors they were mostly in the army and navy.”
The fire was burning brightly now; they were warmed through, their hunger was appeased, and so comfortable was their situation that they were both in a mood to entertain and be entertained. A fire in the snow and a supper of cheese and bacon meant luxury to St. Arnaud now, who had been brought up in palaces, and he found himself listening to Gavin’s story with the same interest that the Arab in the parching desert listens to the story-teller who makes him forget all his miseries.
“Did you ever see your father?” he asked.
“Once. My father was sent to the court of theEmpress Queen on a diplomatic mission. He passed secretly through Paris and sent for me. I went with the sole idea that he might do justice to my mother. But I might have saved my shoe leather. However, what I did that day to my father is written to my credit in heaven’s books, for I mauled him well, and I was but eighteen—I am only nineteen now.”
St. Arnaud could not refrain from a look of disapproval, and Gavin, noting it, asked at once, with the greatestnaïveté:
“But he spoke abominably of my mother, and any man who speaks one disrespectful word of her—he is my enemy, and I am his. Would not you do the same by your mother?”
And St. Arnaud involuntarily answered “Yes.”
“Well, then,” continued Gavin, rising to his feet, “are you surprised that I should think I did a righteous act in flying at Sir Gavin? He is a strong, well-made man, though not so big as I am now, and as I took him by surprise, I succeeded in knocking him off his chair before he had got out half he had meant to say about my mother. His valet came running in then, and Sir Gavin, smiling as he wiped some blood off his face, sent the man away. Oh, hewas a cool one! He smiled all the time we were together, and he laughed aloud when I called myself Gavin Hamilton.
“‘Garvan Ameeltone!’ he cried, mocking me.”
Gavin was now thoroughly inspired by his own eloquence. He stood up and put his hands behind his back, English fashion, while repeating his father’s words and mimicking him in an odd, drawling voice. St. Arnaud fully believed in the scene that Gavin not only told, but acted before him. Even the two horses, tethered close to the red circle of light, lifted their heads, attracted by the ringing human voice, and seemed to be listening attentively to the story of Gavin Hamilton’s wrongs and revenges.
“My father then, instead of being angry with me, seemed to like me the better, and offered me everything—everything if I would abandon my mother. He would acknowledge me as his son, according to both the French and English law, for I was born in France; he would promise never to marry again, and I don’t know what else beside. It was then my turn to laugh. I said: ‘Wait until I am twenty-one, and then see if I do not prove I am your son. And as for marrying again, you dare not in my mother’s lifetime.’
“There was an hour-glass in the room, and Sir Gavin said to me: ‘In about twenty minutes all the sand will have run out of that glass. I give you until then to accept my offer.’ For answer I smashed the hour-glass on the hearth. It was then he spoke insultingly of my mother, and it was then that I think I laid up treasures in heaven by the way I pounded him. I got several good blows at him before that rascal of a valet came in and pulled me off.”
The wind was howling so, and the gusts of snow so driven between them, that St. Arnaud drew close to Gavin to hear the rest of the story. Gavin, who was thoroughly enjoying the recital of his affair, stopped long enough to throw some of the iron work of the gun-carriage into the fire, when it speedily grew red hot, and glowed radiantly, adding materially to the warmth. He then resumed, in response to the interest plain in St. Arnaud’s face:
“I trudged back to our garret, where my mother was waiting for me. It was a cold evening, and my mother had a little fire for me—fuel is cruelly dear in Paris, isn’t it, my Captain?—and she also had something for me to eat. She let me be warmed and filled before asking me any questions,for my mother has that English coolness which nothing seems able to disturb. When I was through eating I told her about the interview. I told her all except the words Sir Gavin had used about her, but I said they were such as no man, father or no father, should speak of her without being made to suffer all I could make him suffer for it. Then my mother suddenly burst into tears, and taking my face between her hands, kissed me, and said some of those sweet things that women say to those they love; and I replied: ‘What matters it about his threats and promises? You are his wife; I am his son and heir. Wait until I am twenty-one, and I will go to England and proclaim it all. If Sir Gavin Hamilton deals with us thinking he is dealing with a helpless woman and a boy, he will find we are not quite so helpless as he fancies we are. The notion that I, within three years of my majority, would make a bargain with him! It is absurd!’”
“Quite so,” replied St. Arnaud, “and his anxiety to make a bargain with you shows that he knows you will have to be reckoned with.”
Then, drawing his watch from his pocket, he said: “We must divide the watch to-night. I will take the first hour until one in the morning. Thefire will last the night, and rubbing the horses down will warm us up.”
Gavin then discovered that St. Arnaud meant the distinction between officer and private to be overlooked. They both went to work on their horses, and for fifteen minutes nothing more was said. Gavin had a small supply of forage, and he noticed that St. Arnaud had a large haversack strapped to his saddle. Gavin hoped that it was something to sustain life in man or beast; but presently, both having got through with their horses, St. Arnaud, noticing for the first time Gavin’s tattered clothes, said:
“You are ill-clad for such weather as this. Yonder in my haversack is a second uniform, which you may have. You see, I am not used to running away, and carried with me clothes, when I should have taken food.”
Gavin’s eyes sparkled. He fetched the haversack, and tore it open. A change of delicate linen, some toilet articles, and a handsome new uniform tumbled out. Gavin was in ecstasy when he saw the uniform.
“Oh, my Captain,” he cried, “do you mean this for me? I have longed—yes, longed to wear an officer’s uniform; and I have a presentiment thatif I once take off a private soldier’s coarse clothes, I shall never again wear them.”
And as quick as lightning he slipped off his rags, jumped into the uniform, and then, in the excess of his delight, he gave three loud and ear-piercing huzzas, that were half lost in the tumult of the wind. At the same moment he threw his own tattered clothes as far as he could swing them, the wind seizing and scattering them; next, he dashed away the dragoon’s sabre which he carried.
“There you go,” he shouted; “you never were any good as a weapon, and I will replace you by an officer’s sword with a gold handle. And meanwhile I will defend myself with my horse-pistol!”
St. Arnaud laughed until the tears came into his eyes. He had not in a month been so amused and interested as in this young man, so strangely found, and to whom he owed his life by the finding him. Gavin looked a little sheepish at St. Arnaud’s laughter, but was compensated by his next words.
“You are a fine-looking fellow, and you have the bearing of an officer. Why is it I never recognized you in the regiment?”
GAVIN THROWS AWAY HIS TROOPER’S SABRE
GAVIN THROWS AWAY HIS TROOPER’S SABRE
“I can’t say. I only know it was not becauseI did not want to be recognized. But I knew you, my Captain, and often looked at you as you stepped along so elegant, so debonair, with such beautiful cambric handkerchiefs, and such small polished boots. I heard, too, that your quarters were like a lady’s boudoir, and you had a private wagon to carry your clavier andviol da gamba!”
“Yes,” replied St. Arnaud, somewhat ruefully. “I shall know better in my next campaign.”
Gavin, then rolling himself in his blanket, lay down before the fire. By its red light his dark, upturned eyes could be seen, and they were full of hope and even joy. Defeat and disaster were lightly taken by this young soldier. In a little while, though, he was sleeping, with the soft, low breathing of a baby.
Beyond the red circle of the fire all was blackness, and, except the roaring of the wind, all was silence. A few stars flickered dimly in the cold heavens above them, but they were often obscured by the flurries of snow. St. Arnaud sat still in front of the fire, for it was not yet necessary to walk up and down to keep alive. His face was pale and impassive, and he was still suffering from the shock of flight and defeat. It seemed to him as if a hundred years separated him from the yearbefore, or even the month before. The hours dragged by toward midnight. Every moment it grew colder, but the fire still lasted. At last, at one o’clock, St. Arnaud waked Gavin, who rose instantly. St. Arnaud showed him a pocket thermometer, with the mercury down to zero.
“That’s nothing,” cried Gavin jauntily. “I will throw some of the iron of the gun-carriage on the fire, and if I see you freezing, I will wake you up, never fear.”
St. Arnaud lay down and, covered with Gavin’s blanket, soon fell asleep. Gavin watched him all the time, thinking:
“Some men in my place would think themselves unfortunate at this moment. I don’t. This is my first real stroke of fortune. I have an officer’s uniform—parbleu!what may I not expect in the way of good luck!”
Absorbed in a delicious dream of the future, the rest of the night seemed short to Gavin. A ghastly half light succeeded the darkness; and then all at once a pale rose colour appeared in the eastern sky, and a faint golden haze overspread the snow-covered earth. The distant mountains glowed in an opaline light—it was the dawn of the cloudless winter day.
Gavin, however, beyond the thrill which morning brings to men of his youth and type, noticed nothing, being occupied with the horses, and with the preparation of the last of his cheese and bacon in the tin pan. When it was ready he waked St. Arnaud, who was sleeping soundly.
“Come, my Captain,” he called out. “We are both alive. There is something to eat. The weather is fair, and the sun is rising. And faith! I feel as if I would like to right about face and go back to fighting those confounded Prussians again.”
St. Arnaud got up instantly. In fifteen minutes they had finished all they had to eat, had mounted, and were travelling along the faint track in the snow which indicated the highroad. As they turned their horses’ heads, St. Arnaud said to Gavin:
“Ride by me.” And Gavin, without the least impertinence, replied firmly:
“I meant to. No man in an officer’s uniform rides behind his captain.”