The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 4

If the sweetest blue eyes that ever beamed beneath a forehead of snowy whiteness, over which dark brown and waving hair fell, less in curls than ma.s.ses of locky richness, could only have known what wild work they were making of my poor heart, Miss Dashwood, I trust, would have looked at her teacup or her m.u.f.fin rather than at me, as she actually did, on that fatal morning.

Beside her sat a tall, handsome man of about five-and-thirty, or perhaps forty, years of age, with a most soldierly air, who, as I was presented to him, scarcely turned his head, and gave me a half-nod of unequivocal coldness. As I turned from the lovely girl, who had received me with marked courtesy, to the cold air and repelling hauteur of the dark-browed captain, the blood rushed throbbing to my forehead; and as I walked to my place at the table, I eagerly sought his eye, to return him a look of defiance and disdain, proud and contemptuous as his own.

Captain Hammersly, however, never took further notice of me, and I formed a bitter resolution, which I endeavoured to carry into effect during the next day's hunt. Mounted on my best horse, I deliberately led him across the worst and roughest country, river, and hills, and walls, and ditches, till I finished up with a broken head and he with a broken arm, and a horse that had to be slaughtered.

On the fourth day after this adventure I was able to enter the drawing-room again. Sir George Dashwood made the kindest inquiries about my health.

"They tell me you are to be a lawyer, Mr. O'Malley," said he; "and, if so, I must advise you to take better care of your headpiece."

"A lawyer, papa? Oh, dear me!" said his daughter. "I should never have thought of his being anything so stupid."

"Why, silly girl, what would you have a man to be?"

"A dragoon, to be sure, papa," said the fond girl, as she pressed her arm around him, and looked up in his face with an expression of mingled pride and affection.

That word sealed my destiny.

_II.--I Join the Dragoons_

I had been at Mr. Blake's house five days before I recollected my uncle's interests; but with one hole in my head and some half-dozen in my heart my memory was none of the best. But that night at dinner I discovered, to my savage amazement, that Mr. Blake and all the company were there in the interest of the opposition candidate, and that Sir George Dashwood was their candidate. In my excitement I hurled my winegla.s.s at the head of one of the company who expressed himself in regard to my uncle in a manner insulting to a degree. In the duel which followed I shot my opponent.

I had sprung into man's estate. In three short days I had fallen deeply, desperately, in love, and had wounded, if not killed, an antagonist in a duel. As I meditated on these things I was aroused by the noise of horses' feet. I opened the window, and beheld no less a person than Captain Hammersly. I begged of him to alight and come in.

"I thank you very much," he said; "but, in fact, my hours are now numbered here. I have just received an order to join my regiment. I could not, however, leave the country without shaking hands with you. I owe you a lesson in horsemans.h.i.+p, and I'm only sorry that we are not to have another day together. I'm sorry you are not coming with us."

"Would to heaven I were!" said I, with an earnestness that almost made my brain start.

"Then why not?"

"Unfortunately, my worthy uncle, who is all to me in this world, would be quite alone if I were to leave him; and, although he has never said so, I know he dreads the possibility of my suggesting such a thing."

"Devilish hard; but I believe you are right. Something, however, may turn up yet to alter his mind. And so good-bye, O'Malley, good-bye."

During the contest for the seat--which was frankly fought in pitched battles and scrimmages, and by corruption and perjury--I managed to save Miss Dashwood's life. When polling-time came, Sir George found the feeling against him was so strong, and we were so successful in beating his voters out of the town, in spite of police and soldiers, that he resigned his candidature.

Afterwards I spent some time in Dublin, nominally in preparation for the law, at Trinity College. But my college career convinced my uncle that my forte did not lie in the cla.s.sics, and Sir George succeeded in inducing him to yield to my wishes, and interested himself so strongly for me that I obtained a cornetcy in the 14th Light Dragoons a week before the regiment sailed for Portugal. On the morning of my last day in Dublin I met Miss Dashwood riding in the park. For some minutes I could scarcely speak. At last I plucked up courage a little, and said, "Miss Dashwood, I have wished most anxiously, before I parted for ever with those to whom I owe already so much, that I should, at least, speak my grat.i.tude."

"But when do you think of going?"

"To-morrow. Captain Power, under whose command I am, has received orders to embark immediately for Portugal."

I thought--perhaps it was but a thought--that her cheek grew somewhat paler as I spoke; but she remained silent.

Fixing my eyes full upon her I spoke.

"Lucy, I feel I must confess it, cost what it may--I love you. I know the fruitlessness, the utter despair, that awaits such a sentiment. My own heart tells me that I am not, cannot be, loved in return. I ask for nothing; I hope for nothing. I see that you at least pity me. Nay, one word more. Do not, when time and distance have separated us, think that the expressions I now use are prompted by a mere sudden ebullition of boyish feeling; for I swear to you that my love to you is the source and spring of every action in my life, and, when I cease to love you, I shall cease to feel. And now, farewell; farewell for ever."

I pressed her hand to my lips, gave one long, last look, turned my horse rapidly away, and, ere a minute, was out of sight.

_III.--I Smell Gunpowder_

What a contrast to the dull monotony of our life at sea did the scene present which awaited us on landing at Lisbon! The whole quay was crowded with hundreds of people, eagerly watching the vessel which bore from her mast the broad ensign of Britain.

The din and clamour of a mighty city mingled with the far-off sounds of military music; and, in the vistas of the opening streets, ma.s.ses of troops might be seen, in marching order. All betokened the near approach of war.

On the morning after we landed, Power rode off with dispatches to headquarters, leaving me to execute two commissions with which he had been entrusted--a packet for Hammersly from Miss Dashwood and an epistle from a love-sick mids.h.i.+pman who could not get on sh.o.r.e, to the Senhora Inez da Silviero. I took up the packet for Hammersly with a heavy heart.

Alas! thought I, how fatally may my life be influenced by it!

The loud call of a cavalry trumpet roused me, and I pa.s.sed out into the street for the morning's inspection. The next day I delivered the packet to the Senhora Inez, by whom I was warmly received--rather more on my own account than on that of the little mids.h.i.+pman, I fancied. Certainly I never beheld a being more lovely, and I found myself paying her some attentions. Yet she was nothing to me. It is true, she had, as she most candidly informed me, a score of admirers, among whom I was not even reckoned; she was evidently a coquette. On May 7, 1809, we set off for Oporto. The 14th were detailed to guard the pa.s.s to the Douro until the reinforcements were up, and then I saw my first engagement. Never till now, as we rode to the charge, did I know how far the excitement reaches when, man to man, sabre to sabre, we ride forward to the battlefield. On we went, the loud shout of "Forward!" still ringing in our ears. One broken, irregular discharge from the French guns shook the head of our advancing column, but stayed us not as we galloped madly on.

I remember no more. The din, the smoke, the crash--the cry for quarter, mingled with the shout of victory, the flying enemy--are all commingled in my mind, but leave no trace of clearness or connection between them; and it was only when the column wheeled to re-form that I awoke from my trance of maddening excitement, and perceived that we had carried the position and cut off the guns of the enemy.

The scene was now beyond anything, maddening in its interest. From the walls of Oporto the English infantry poured forth in pursuit; while the whole river was covered with boats, as they still continued to cross over. The artillery thundered from the Sierra, to protect the landing, for it was even still contested in places; and the cavalry, charging in flank, swept the broken ranks and bore down their squares. Then a final impetuous charge carried the day.

From that fight I got my lieutenancy, and then was sent off by Sir Arthur Wellesley on special duty to the Lusitanian Legion in Alcantara--a flattering position opened to my enterprise. Before I set out, I was able to deliver Miss Dashwood's packet to Captain Hammersly, barely recovered from a sabre wound. His agitation and his manner in receiving it puzzled me greatly, though my own agitation was scarcely less.

When I returned after a month with the Legion, during which my services were of no very distinguished character, I found a letter from Galway which saddened my thoughts greatly. A lawsuit had gone against my uncle, and what I had long foreseen was gradually accomplis.h.i.+ng--the wreck of an old and honoured house. And I could only look on and watch the progress of our downfall without power to arrest it.

_IV.--s.h.i.+pwrecked Hopes_

Having been sent to the rear with dispatches, I did not reach Talavera till two days' hard fighting had left the contending armies without decided advantage on either side.

I had scarcely joined my regiment before the 14th were ordered to charge.

We came on at a trot. The smoke of the cannonade obscured everything until we had advanced some distance, but suddenly the splendid panorama of the battlefield broke upon us.

"Charge! Forward!" cried the hoa.r.s.e voice of our colonel; and we were upon them. The French infantry, already broken by the withering musketry of our people, gave way before us, and, unable to form a square, retired fighting, but in confusion and with tremendous loss, to their position.

One glorious cheer from left to right of our line proclaimed the victory, while a deafening discharge of artillery from the French replied to this defiance, and the battle was over.

For several months after the battle of Talavera my life presented nothing which I feel worth recording. Our good fortune seemed to have deserted us when our hopes were highest; for from the day of that splendid victory we began our retrograde movement upon Portugal. Pressed hard by overwhelming ma.s.ses of the enemy, we saw the fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fall successively into their hands, and retired, mystified and disappointed, to Torres Vedras.

Wounded in a somewhat scatter-brain night expedition to the lines of Ciudad Rodrigo, my campaigning--for some time, at least--was concluded; for my wound began to menace the loss of my arm, and I was ordered back to Lisbon. Fred Power was the first man I saw, and almost the first thing he told me was that Sir George Dashwood was in Lisbon, and that his daughter was with him. And then, with conflicting feelings, I found that all Lisbon mentioned my name in connection with the senhora, and Sir George himself, in appointing me an aide-de-camp, threw increased gloom over my thoughts by referring to the report Power had spoken of.

My torment was completed by meeting Miss Dashwood in the Senhora Inez's house under circ.u.mstances which led to treat me with stiff, formal courtesy.

The next night a letter from a Dublin friend reached me which told me that "Hammersly had got his _conge_."

Here, then, was the solution of the whole chaos of mystery; here the full explanation of what had puzzled my aching brain for many a night long. His own were the letters I had delivered into Hammersly's hands. A flood of light poured at once across all the dark pa.s.sages of my history; and Lucy, too--dare I think of her? What if she had really cared for me! Oh, the bitter agony of that thought! To think that all my hopes were s.h.i.+pwrecked with the very land in sight.

I sprang to my feet with some sudden impulse, but, as I did so, the blood rushed madly to my head, and I fell. My arm was again broken, and ere day I was delirious.

Hours, days, weeks rolled over, and when I returned to consciousness and convalescence I found I had been removed to the senhora's villa, and to her I owed, in a large part, my recovery. I was deeper in my dilemma than ever. Nevertheless, before I returned to the front, I found an opportunity to vindicate to Lucy my unshaken faith, reconciling the conflicting evidences with the proofs I proffered of my attachment. We were interrupted before I could learn how my protestations were received. Power, I found soon after, was the one favoured by the fair Inez's affections.