The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 5

_V.--A Desolate Hearth_

It is not my intention, were I even adequate to the task, to trace with anything like accuracy the events of the war at this period. In fact, to those who, like myself, were performing duties of a mere subaltern character, the daily movements of our own troops, not to speak of the continual changes of the enemy, were perfectly unknown, and an English newspaper was more ardently longed for in the Peninsula than by the most eager crowd of a London coffee-room.

So I pa.s.s over the details of the retreat of the French, and the great battle of Fuentes D'Onoro. In the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo, that death struggle of vengeance and despair, I gained some notoriety in leading a party of stormers through a broken embrasure, and found myself under Lord Wellington's displeasure for having left my duties as aide-de-camp.

However, the exploit gained me leave to return to England, and the additional honour of carrying dispatches to the Prince Regent.

When I arrived in London with the glorious news of the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, the kind and gracious notice of the prince obtained me attentions on all sides. Indeed, so flattering was the reception I met with, and so overwhelming the civility showered on me, that it required no small effort on my part not to believe myself as much a hero as they would make me. An eternal round of dinners, b.a.l.l.s, and entertainments filled up an entire week.

At last I obtained the Prince Regent's permission to leave London, and a few mornings after landed in Cork. Hastening my journey, I was walking the last eight miles--my chaise having broken down--when suddenly my attention was caught by a sound which, faint from the distance, scarce struck upon my ear. Thinking it probably some delusion of my heated imagination, I rose to push forward; but at the moment a slight breeze stirred, and a low, moaning sound swelled upward, increasing each instant as it came. It grew louder as the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief. O G.o.d, it was the death-wail!

My suspense became too great to bear; I dashed madly forward. As I neared the house, the whole approach was crowded with carriages and hors.e.m.e.n. At the foot of the large flight of steps stood the black and mournful hea.r.s.e, its plumes nodding in the breeze, and, as the sounds without sank into sobs of bitterness and woe, the black pall of a coffin, borne on men's shoulders, appeared at the door, and an old man, a life-long friend of my uncle, across whose features a struggle for self-mastery was playing, held out his hand to enforce silence. I sprang toward him, choked by agony. He threw his arms around me, and muttering the words, "Poor G.o.dfrey!" pointed to the coffin.

Mine was a desolate hearth. In respect to my uncle's last wishes, I sold out of the army and settled down to a quieter life than the clang of battle, the ardour of the march. Gradually new impressions and new duties succeeded; and, ere four months elapsed, the quiet monotony of my daily life healed up the wounds of my suffering, and a sense of content, if not of happiness, crept gently over me, and I ceased to long for the clash of arms and the loud blast of the trumpet.

But three years later a regiment of infantry marching to Cork for embarkation for the Continent after Bonaparte's return from Elba, roused all the eagerness of my old desires, and I volunteered for service again.

A few days after I was in Brussels, and attending that most memorable and most exciting entertainment, the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's ball, on the night of June 15, 1815. Lucy Dashwood was there, beautiful beyond anything I had ever seen her. When the word came of the advance of Napoleon I was sent off with the major-general's orders, and then joined the night march to Quatre Bras. There I fell into the hands of a French troop and missed the fighting, though I saw Napoleon himself, and had the good fortune to effect the escape of Sir George Dashwood, who lay a prisoner under sentence of death in the same place as myself. Early in the day of Waterloo I contrived my own escape, and was able to give Lord Wellington much information as to the French movements.

After the battle I wandered back into Brussels and learned that we had gained the day. As I came into the city Sir George met me and took me into his hotel, where were Power and the senhora, about to be married.

Wounded by the innocent raillery of my friends, I escaped into an empty room and buried my head in my hands. Oh, how often had the phantom of happiness pa.s.sed within my reach, but glided from my grasp!

"Oh, Lucy, Lucy!" I exclaimed aloud. "But for you, and a few words carelessly spoken, I had never trod the path of ambition whose end has been the wreck of all my happiness! But for you I had never loved so fondly! But for you, and I had never been--"

"A soldier, you would say," whispered a soft voice as a light hand gently touched my shoulder. "No, Mr. O'Malley; deeply grateful as I am to you for the service you once rendered myself, bound as I am by every tie of thankfulness by the greater one to my father, yet do I feel that in the impulse I have given to your life I have done more to repay my debt to you than by all the friends.h.i.+p, all the esteem I owe you. If, indeed, by any means, you became a soldier, then I am indeed proud."

"Alas! Lucy--Miss Dashwood, I would say--how has my career fulfilled the promise that gave it birth? For you, and you only, to gain your affection, I became a soldier. And now, and now----"

"And now," said she, while her eyes beamed upon me with a very flood of tenderness, "is it nothing that I have glowed with pride at triumphs I could read of, but dared not share in? I have thought of you. I have dreamed, I have prayed for you."

"Alas! Lucy, but not loved me."

Her hand, which had fallen upon mine, trembled violently. I pressed my lips upon it, but she moved it not. I dared to look up; her head was turned away, but her heaving bosom betrayed emotion.

Our eyes met--I cannot say what it was--but in a moment the whole current of my thoughts was changed. Her look was bent upon me, beaming with softness and affection; her hand gently pressed my own, and her lips murmured my name.

The door burst open at this moment, and Sir George Dashwood appeared.

Lucy turned one fleeting look upon her father, and fell fainting into my arms.

"G.o.d bless you, my boy!" said the old general as he hurriedly wiped a tear from his eye. "I am now indeed a happy father."

Tom Burke of "Ours"

In 1840 Charles Lever, on an invitation from Sir John Crompton, Secretary to the British Emba.s.sy in Belgium, forsook Ireland for Brussels, where for a time he followed his profession of medicine. Two years later an offer of the editors.h.i.+p of the "Dublin University Magazine" recalled him to Ireland, when he definitely abandoned a medical career and settled down to literature permanently. The first fruit of that appointment was "Tom Burke of Ours," published, after running serially in the magazine, in 1844. It is more serious in tone than any of his preceding works; in it the author utilises the rich colouring gained from his long residence in France, and the book is less remarkable for the complex, if vigorous, story it contains than for its graphic and exciting pictures of men and events in the campaigns of Napoleon Many of its episodes are conceived in the true spirit of romance.

_I.--The Boy Rebel_

"Be advised by me," said De Meudon earnestly; "do not embark with these Irish rebels in their enterprise! They have none. Their only daring is some deed of rapine and murder. No; liberty is not to be achieved by such bands as these. France is your country--there liberty has been won; there lives one great man whose notice, were it but pa.s.singly bestowed, is fame."

He sank back exhausted. The energy of his speech was too great for his weak and exhausted frame to bear. Captain de Meudon had come to Ireland in 1798 to aid in the rebellion; he had seen its failure, but had remained in Ireland trying vainly to give to the disaffection some military organization. He had realized the hopelessness of his efforts.

He was ill, and very near to death. Now I stood by his bedside in a little cottage in Glenmalure.

Boy as I was, I had already seen enough to make me a rebel in feeling and in action. I had stood a short time before the death-bed of my father, who disliked me, and who had left nearly all his property to my elder brother, who was indifferent to me. My father had indentured me as apprentice to his lawyer, and sooner than submit to the rule of this man--the evil genius of our family--I had taken flight. The companion of my wanderings was Darby M'Keown, the piper, the cleverest and cunningest of the agents of rebellion. Then I had met De Meudon, who had turned my thoughts and ambitions into another channel.

My companion grew steadily worse.

"Take my pocket-book," he whispered; "there is a letter you'll give my sister Marie. There are some five or six thousand francs--they are yours; you must be a pupil at the Polytechnique at Paris. If it should be your fortune to speak with General Bonaparte, say to him that when Charles de Meudon was dying--in exile--with but one friend left--he held his portrait to his lips, and, with his last breath, he kissed it."

A s.h.i.+vering ran through his limbs--a sigh--and all was still. He was dead.

"Halloa, there!" said a voice. The door opened, and a sergeant entered.

"I have a warrant to arrest Captain de Meudon, a French officer who is concealed here. Where is he?"

I pointed to the bed.

"I arrest you in the king's name!" said the sergeant, approaching.

"What----" He started back in horror. "He is dead!"

Then entered one I had seen before--Major Barton, the most pitiless of the government's agents in suppressing insurrection.

The sergeant whispered to him, and his eye ranged the little chamber till it fell on me.

"Ha!" he cried. "You here! Sergeant, here's one prisoner for you, at any rate."

Two soldiers seized me, and I was marched away towards Dublin. About noon the party halted, and the soldiers lay down and chatted on a patch of gra.s.s, while my own thoughts turned sadly back to the friend I had known.

Suddenly I heard a song sung by a voice I knew, and afterwards a loud clapping of hands. Darby M'Keown was there in the midst of the soldiers, and as I turned to look at him, my hand came in contact with a clasp-knife. I managed with it to free my arms from the ropes that fastened them, but what was to be done next?

"I didn't think much of that song of yours," said one of the soldiers.

"Give us 'The British Grenadiers.'"

"I never heard them play but onst, sir," said Darby, meekly, "and they were in such a hurry I couldn't pick up the tune."

"What d'you mean?"

"'Twas the day but one after the French landed, and the British Grenadiers was running away."

The party sprang to their legs, and a shower of curses fell upon the piper.

"And sure," continued Darby, "'twasn't my fault av they took to their heels. Wouldn't anyone run for his life av he had the opportunity?"