CHAPTER XVIII.
HALT AT ST. SERVAND.
During the 7th of June the whole force (save one regiment, which was left at Cancalle to cover our re-embarkation, if necessary) marched towards St. Malo, through a rough and woody country. A dense mist from the ocean enveloped the scenery for some miles inland, and through this we were advancing when Captain Brook was killed. The soil seemed barren, with black sheep grazing among the rocks and boulders; old and ruinous bridges lay across deep swamps and rugged watercourses, that rushed towards the sea. Without molestation we passed several quaint, old manor houses, girdled by weedy fosses and moss-grown oaks—and some whose embattled porte cocher and grated casements opened to long and shady avenues of sycamore trees.
Ere long, we came to more open parts of the country, covered with pink heath and spotted with yellow flowers; in others, with fields, snow white with the bloom of buckwheat. In these flat places rose here and there, exactly as in Scotland, great battle stones of the Druids or the Celtic Bretons, that stood grim, grey, erect, solemn and silent; and so a march of nine miles through scenery such as this brought us in sight of St. Malo.
The men of our troop were so much occupied in scouring the district through which the infantry advanced, covering both flanks, reconnoitring and so forth, that it was not until sunset when our small army encamped at the village of St. Servand, two miles from St. Malo, that I had an opportunity of relating to my two chief friends, Tom Kirkton and Jack Charters, the strange adventure of the preceding night.
They listened to me with astonishment, as we sat by the foot of a large tree under which our horses were stabled (if I may use such a term), and where we were regaling ourselves with ration biscuits and the contents of a gallon keg of French wine, of which Charters had become proprietor on the march.
Around us the whole force, horse, foot, and artillery, were busy cooking or preparing for the bivouac of the night. Countless little fires, lighted beside trees, hedges, and low walls, glared and reddened in the evening wind, and when the dusk set in, they shed a wavering gleam on the piles of arms that stood in long ranks, on the white bell-tents and the red-coated groups that loitered near. The whole scene was picturesque, lively, and striking, and in the distance lay the town and fortress of St. Malo, quaint and worn by time and the misty storms that came from the open sea.
Its harbour is one of the best seaports in France, but is extremely difficult of access. The town is small, gloomy, and dull, but populous and wealthy, and crowns a rock which the sea encompasses twice daily—thus St. Malo is alternately insular and peninsular, as the tide ebbs, flows, and churns in foam against its fetid rocks, whereon the russet-brown seaweed rots in the sunshine; and far around it lies a barrier of sharp white reefs, the foe of many a ship ere beacons were invented.
It was guarded by a strong castle, flanked by great towers, on the battlements of which the last light of the setting sun yet lingered with a fiery gleam. The town had usually a good garrison; but His Grace the Duke of Marlborough had now learned that there were not quite five hundred troops in the whole of this neglected province of Brittany, which, though forming a portion of the kingdom of France, had long been under its hereditary dukes, and was now governed by a States General, with provincial privileges of its own.*
* It continued so until the Revolution in 1792.
For ages so separate had its interests been from those of France, that James III. of Scotland was requested by Charles VIII. to send thither a body of troops to capture and annex Brittany to his northern kingdom but the Scottish parliament declined to sanction the subjugation of a free people; so this strange scheme was abandoned.
A strong wall surrounded St. Malo, and every night twelve dogs of great size and ferocity were led round it by a soldier of the city watch, that their barking might give notice if brigands or an enemy approached.
The last ray of sunlight soon faded upward from the cathedral spire of St. Vincent, and the shades of twilight were already casting into obscurity the rocky basement of the whole city and its weedy reefs amid the chafing sea, when in a lonely part of our camp by St. Servand my two comrades and I reclined on the turf beside our accoutred horses, and drank the contents of the wine-keg, using one horn—for we possessed but one—fraternally by turns.
"It is very true," continued Charters, with reference to my adventure of the preceding night; "egad, friend Gauntlet, you had a narrow escape! In other hands—particularly those of old Preston—you had assuredly been brought to the drum-head and had a volley of ten carbines for dereliction of duty. To fall asleep on one's post before an enemy——"
"But I was not asleep," I persisted.
"Well, well; but to let the enemy pass you——"
"I was thinking of other times, Jack."
"Very likely," said Kirkton; "on such a lonely duty, and at such a time, by night, I have too often found the thoughts of other times, and images of those I have loved or lost, who are dead, or far, far away, all come unbidden before me."
"It is unwise to look back regretfully—for the past can never come again. Oh, never more!" continued Charters, sadly, as he thought of some cherished episode of his own life; "so the wiser and the manlier way is to improve the present (pass the keg, Tom), and look boldly at the future."
"You are right, Jack," said I, as this military philosopher proceeded to light his pipe and groom his horse, which he carefully covered with his cloak; "but I fear it will be long before I can school myself into your cool way of taking things. I have seen but little of the world, Jack, and have only learned to enjoy life since embracing the profession which sets no value upon it."
"Time and travel will improve your views, my boy; and 'all travel,' says Dr. Johnson, 'has its advantages; if it lead a man to a better country, he learns to improve his own; if to a worse, to enjoy it.' I have travelled much in my time—steady, old horse, steady!—and as I did so with sundry rounds of ball cartridge at my back, I have learned much that Dr. Johnson never thought of."
"In what way, Jack—to handle a dice-box and make love to the barmaids?" asked Tom.
"I have learned more than that," retorted Charters, somewhat coldly; "travel taught me to be charitable; for one finds good people everywhere, abroad as well as at home, for as it takes a great many men to make an army, so many people are required to make a nation."
"Bah!" shouted Tom Kirkton, who was in his shirt-sleeves and attending to our cooking; "we have had enough of musty moralising. This is like one of old father's sermons, poor man! and a sermon sounds oddly in your mouth, Jack. Here is a rasher of bacon, broiled on a ramrod and done to a turn. Come here while it is hot and savoury, for we may say with the fool in the Scripture, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'"
"Boot and saddle! To horse, you fellows there!" cried the loud and authoritative voice of a staff officer as a strange sequel to Tom's ominous speech. He proved to be General Elliot, who was passing through our bivouac at a hand gallop, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, both plumed and aiguiletted. "To horse—the Light Dragoons!"
"Fall in—the Scots Greys!" added Captain Lindsay, coming up at a trot; "we are ordered to the front."
So Tom's dainty rasher was eaten in a trice; the last of Charters's wine was drained, the keg tossed into the nearest watch fire, we sprang on our horses, and at the first ruffle on the kettle-drum, formed line on the left of our standard.