Read Ebook: The Romance of War; or The Highlanders in Spain Volume 2 (of 3) by Grant James

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Ebook has 868 lines and 81374 words, and 18 pages

Chapter

"Yes. I have a thousand strange adventures to tell you of; but I will reserve them for the halt, which I suppose will be at the castle of Zagala. But meanwhile, let me hear the regimental news."

"Defer that till the halt also,--talking is dry work. A few rank and file were knocked on the head at Fuente del Maistre; but the officers, you may see, are all present. We feared you were on your route for France, when we heard that Dombrouski's dragoons were in Merida."

"A daring deed it was, for a handful of men to advance thus."

"Daring indeed!"

"But then they were Poles,--and the Poles are no common troops. Sad work, however, they have made at Merida. Every shop and house in the Plaza has been gutted and destroyed."

"More shame to the citizens! A city containing five or six thousand inhabitants, should have made some resistance to so small a party."

"'Twas a pity to destroy so perfect a relic of antiquity."

"It was dire necessity."

"Did you see any thing of our friends in the Calle de Guadiana,--the house at the corner of the Plaza?"

"Clappourknuis? That has a Scottish sort of sound."

To the political or historical reader, the names of the marquis and his brother will be familiar. The house of Laurieston stands within four miles from Edinburgh, on the south bank of the Forth.

"Very agreeable you'll find him, I dare say," replied Ronald, colouring slightly.

"A smart fellow he is, and will please Fassifern. His harness is mighty gay and glossy just now, but a night's bivouacking--by the by, he is from Perthshire, is he not?"

"Ay, the mountainous part of the country,--my own native place. He comes of good family, and we are old acquaintance."

"Yet you seem to behave very drily to him: why you have not spoken to him since the corps came up."

"I have my reasons. A few words with him last night--I will tell you afterwards," said Ronald in confusion.

"Pshaw, Stuart! You should not dishearten a young sub, who has just joined, by this sort of behaviour. Nothing disgusts one who has recently left his home with the service, so much as coldness on the part of those that he considered his friends. I shall see it made up--"

"I beg, Macdonald, you will not interfere in this matter," was Ronald's answer, with a vehemence that surprised his friend. "I am aware how I ought to behave to Mr. Lisle: we must be on distant terms--for the present at least."

"You are the best judge, of course," said Macdonald, with some confusion. "I merely meant for the best what I said. I dislike discord among brother officers."

"I am aware that your intentions were good,--they always are so, Alister; but change the subject. How did you like Almendralejo?"

"Not well: a dull place it is, and the dons are very quarrelsome."

"Ay, I remember your letter mentioning two brawls with the inhabitants."

"Your servant, Mr. Iverach, and that rogue Mackie, of your own company, were the heroes of one."

"I should be glad to hear the story now. My servant has often mentioned it, when I had neither time nor inclination to listen."

"A very agreeable correspondence ensued between them, but how they managed I cannot tell, as neither knew a word of the other's language, and Angus speaks more Gaelic than English; so I suppose they conversed by the eyes instead of the mouth.

The author of the "Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon."

"The Senora Maria he put securely under lock and key, and despatched a message to her cavalier that she would expect him that evening after vespers, sending at the same time a stout ladder of ropes, with which he was to scale her window. The plan succeeded to admiration. The savage old attorney and some five or six kinsmen, muffled and masked, lurked in a dark place, grasping their knives and crucifixes,--for a Spaniard never thinks he can commit a murder comfortably without having his crucifix about him: if it contains a piece of the true cross, so much the better. Mackie came to the rendezvous, but attended by his comrade Iverach, and both had luckily brought their side arms with them. Scarcely had the unsuspecting gallant placed his foot on the first step of the ladder, when the concealed assassins rushed upon him, dagger in hand, from their ambush. The Highlanders drew and fought manfully with their bayonets, ran two through the body, and after receiving a few cuts in return, put the rest to flight; and so the matter ended for the night. But a terrible row was made about it next day. Cameron's quarters were besieged by all the alcaldes, alguazils with their halberts, abogados, and other rogues in the town, headed by the corregidor, demanding revenge. Fassifern made a short matter of it with them, and desired the guard to drive them out. I know not how it might ultimately have ended, if the route for Villa Franca had not arrived just then, and put a stop to the affair by our sudden march. But since that occurrence I understand Mackie has not been the same sort of man he was,--always grave, absorbed, and thoughtful. I fear he will give us the slip, and desert. The old lawyer's daughter seems to have bewitched him. He has more than once asked leave to return to Almendralejo, although he knows that it is now in possession of the enemy, and that his death is certain, should he be seen there again."

During the five days of the weary forced march across the Spanish frontier to the town of Portalagre in Portugal, the same distance of manner and reciprocal coolness, which we have described in a preceding chapter, subsisted between Ronald Stuart and young Lisle; and although secretly both longed to come to some satisfactory, and if possible a friendly explanation, their Scottish pride and stubbornness forbad them both alike to make the first advances towards a reconciliation. Louis had written to his sister, but had said nothing of Ronald, further than that he was well, &c.

At Niza, Ronald parted with Pedro Gomez, who had accompanied him thus far, but whom he now despatched to join his troop in a neighbouring province, giving him in charge a long letter to Don Alvaro. The morning the first brigade entered Niza, they found the greedy inhabitants, on their approach, busily employed in pulling their half-ripe oranges, shaking them down from the trees and carrying them off in baskets with the utmost expedition, lest some of those soldiers,--soldiers who were shedding their blood to rescue the Peninsula from the iron grasp of Napoleon! should have plucked a few in passing under the groves.

That night a part of the Highland regiment were quartered in the convent of San Miguel, and great was the surprise of the reverend Padre Jos?, and the rest of the worthy brotherhood, to find themselves addressed in pure Latin by private soldiers, who could not speak either Spanish or Portuguese. But to those who know the cheapness of education at our Scottish village schools, this will excite little or no wonder.

Convent is a term applied indiscriminately, in Spain, to houses occupied by either monks or nuns.

Major Campbell and Stuart, with some of the officers, were seated in one of the best rooms of their billet,--the most comfortable posada the place possessed, and truly the peninsular inns are like no others that I know of. As they were in the days of Miguel Cervantes, so are they still; in every thing Spain and Portugal are four hundred years behind Great Britain in the march of civilization.

"Ah! Well, then, have you any beef or mutton,--roasted, boiled, or cooked in any way?"

"Any fish? You are near the Tajo."

"Pho! hombre! What, have you nothing else? Any fowl?"

"Any fruit?"

"Could you not have said so at once, hombre? Ham and eggs,--excellent! could we but have barley-meal bannocks and whisky toddy with them; but here one might as well look for nectar and the cakes that Homer feeds his gods with. Any Malaga or sherry?'

"Both, senor, in abundance."

"A glorious view," observed Ronald, after he had surveyed it for some time in silence; "it reminds me of one I have seen at home, where the blue Tay winds past the green carse of Gowrie. That hill yonder, covered with orange-trees to its summit, might almost pass for the hill of Kinnoul with its woods of birch and pine, and those stony fragments for the ruined tower of Balthayock."

"Truly the scene is beautiful; but its serenity might better suit an English taste than ours," replied Macdonald. "For my own part, I love better the wild Hebrides, with the foaming sea roaring between their shores, than so quiet a scene as this."

"Hear the western islesman!" said an officer, laughing. "He is never at home but among sterile rocks and boiling breakers."

"You are but southland bred, Captain Bevan," answered Macdonald gravely, "and therefore cannot appreciate my taste."

"The view--though I am too tired to look at it--is, I dare say, better than any I ever saw when I was with Sir Ralph in Egypt, where the scenery is very fine."

"The sandy deserts excepted," observed Bevan. "Many a day, marching together, we have cursed them, Campbell?"

"Of course. But where is that young fellow, Lisle? I intended to have had him here to-night, for the purpose of wetting his commission in Senor Raphael's sherry."

"He is at Chisholm's billet, I believe. They have become close friends of late," replied another officer, who had not spoken before.

"So I have observed, Kennedy; he is the nephew of an old Egyptian campaigner, and I love the lad as if he was a kinsman of my own. But here come the 'vivres!' Smoking-hot and tempting, faith! especially to fellows so sharply set as we are. Senor Raphael deserves a pillar like Pompey's erected in his honour, as the best casa-keeper between Lisbon and Carthagena."

While the talkative major ran on thus, the 'maritornes' of the establishment brought in the supper, or dinner, on a broad wooden tray, and arrayed it on the rough table--cloth there was none--to the best advantage, flanking the covers with several leathern flasks of sherry, brown glazed jugs of rich oily Malaga, and round loaves of bread from the Spanish frontier.

"Now, this is what I consider being comfortable," observed the major, as he stowed his gigantic limbs under the table, and gazed on the dishes with the eager eye of a hungry man who had tasted nothing for twenty-four hours.

"We have been lucky in receiving a billet here, and are much indebted to the worshipful alcalde," said Bevan, interrupting a silence which nothing had broken for some time, except the clatter of plates and knives. "A little more of the ham, major."

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