""Is Ben as tall as you are?" asked the sergeant.
""As tall as ME, is it? Why, man, I"m the shortest of my family! There"s six more of us, but Bin"s the biggest of all. Oh! out and out the biggest. Seven feet in his stockin-FUT, as sure as my name"s Morgan!"
""Can"t we send and fetch them over, these brothers of yours?"
""Not you. Ever since I was seduced by one of you gentlemen of the cane, they"ve a mortal aversion to all sergeants," answered Morgan: "but it"s a pity they cannot come, too. What a monster Bin would be in a grenadier"s cap!"
"He said nothing more at the time regarding his brothers, but only sighed as if lamenting their hard fate. However, the story was told by the sergeant to the officers, and by the officers to the King himself; and His Majesty was so inflamed by curiosity, that he actually consented to let Morgan go home in order to bring back with him his seven enormous brothers."
"And were they as big as Morgan pretended?" asked my comrade. I could not help laughing at his simplicity.
"Do you suppose," cried I, "that Morgan ever came back? No, no; once free, he was too wise for that. He has bought a snug farm in Tipperary with the money that was given him to secure his brothers; and I fancy few men of the guards ever profited so much by it."
The Prussian captain laughed exceedingly at this story, said that the English were the cleverest nation in the world, and, on my setting him right, agreed that the Irish were even more so. We rode on very well pleased with each other; for he had a thousand stories of the war to tell, of the skill and gallantry of Frederick, and the thousand escapes, and victories, and defeats scarcely less glorious than victories, through which the King had pa.s.sed. Now that I was a gentleman, I could listen with admiration to these tales: and yet the sentiment recorded at the end of the last chapter was uppermost in my mind but three weeks back, when I remembered that it was the great general got the glory, and the poor soldier only insult and the cane.
"By the way, to whom are you taking despatches?" asked the officer.
It was another ugly question, which I determined to answer at hap-hazard; and so I said "To General Rolls." I had seen the general a year before, and gave the first name in my head. My friend was quite satisfied with it, and we continued our ride until evening came on; and our horses being weary, it was agreed that we should come to a halt.
"There is a very good inn," said the Captain, as we rode up to what appeared to me a very lonely-looking place.
"This may be a very good inn for Germany," said I, "but it would not pa.s.s in old Ireland. Corbach is only a league off: let us push on for Corbach."
"Do you want to see the loveliest woman in Europe?" said the officer. "Ah! you sly rogue, I see THAT will influence you;" and, truth to say, such a proposal WAS always welcome to me, as I don"t care to own. "The people are great farmers," said the Captain, "as well as innkeepers;" and, indeed, the place seemed more a farm than an inn yard. We entered by a great gate into a Court walled round, and at one end of which was the building, a dingy ruinous place. A couple of covered waggens were in the court, their horses were littered under a shed hard by, and lounging about the place were some men and a pair of sergeants in the Prussian uniform, who both touched their hats to my friend the Captain. This customary formality struck me as nothing extraordinary, but the aspect of the inn had something exceedingly chilling and forbidding in it, and I observed the men shut to the great yard-gates as soon as we were entered. Parties of French hors.e.m.e.n, the Captain said, were about the country, and one could not take too many precautions against such villains.
We went into supper, after the two sergeants had taken charge of our horses; the Captain, also, ordering one of them to take my valise to my bedroom. I promised the worthy fellow a gla.s.s of schnapps for his pains.
A dish of fried eggs-and-bacon was ordered from a hideous old wench that came to serve us, in place of the lovely creature I had expected to see; and the Captain, laughing, said, "Well, our meal is a frugal one, but a soldier has many a time a worse:" and, taking off his hat, sword-belt, and gloves, with great ceremony, he sat down to eat. I would not be behindhand with him in politeness, and put my weapon securely on the old chest of drawers where his was laid.
The hideous old woman before mentioned brought us in a pot of very sour wine, at which and at her ugliness I felt a considerable ill-humour.
"Where"s the beauty you promised me?" said I, as soon as the old hag had left the room.
"Bah!" said he, laughing, and looking hard at me: "it was my joke. I was tired, and did not care to go farther. There"s no prettier woman here than that. If she won"t suit your fancy, my friend, you must wait a while."
This increased my ill-humour.
"Upon my word, sir," said I sternly, "I think you have acted very coolly!"
"I have acted as I think fit!" replied the captain.
"Sir," said I, "I"m a British officer!"
"It"s a lie!" roared the other, "you"re a DESERTER! You"re an impostor, sir; I have known you for such these three hours. I suspected you yesterday. My men heard of a man escaping from Warburg, and I thought you were the man. Your lies and folly have confirmed me. You pretend to carry despatches to a general who has been dead these ten months: you have an uncle who is an amba.s.sador, and whose name forsooth you don"t know. Will you join and take the bounty, sir; or will you be given up?"
"Neither!" said I, springing at him like a tiger. But, agile as I was, he was equally on his guard. He took two pistols out of his pocket, fired one off, and said, from the other end of the table where he stood dodging me, as it were,- "Advance a step, and I send this bullet into your brains!" In another minute the door was flung open, and the two sergeants entered, armed with musket and bayonet to aid their comrade.
The game was up. I flung down a knife with which I had armed myself; for the old hag on bringing in the wine had removed my sword.
"I volunteer," said I.
"That"s my good fellow. What name shall I put on my list?"
"Write Redmond Barry of Bally Barry," said I haughtily; "a descendant of the Irish kings!"
"I was once with the Irish brigade, Roche"s," said the recruiter, sneering, "trying if I could get any likely fellows among the few countrymen of yours that are in the brigade, and there was scarcely one of them that was not descended from the kings of Ireland."
"Sir," said I, "king or not, I am a gentleman, as you can see."
"Oh! you will find plenty more in our corps," answered the Captain, still in the sneering mood. "Give up your papers, Mr. Gentleman, and let us see who you really are."
As my pocket-book contained some bank-notes as well as papers of Mr. Fakenham"s, I was not willing to give up my property; suspecting very rightly that it was but a scheme on the part of the Captain to get and keep it.
"It can matter very little to you," said I, "what my private papers are: I am enlisted under the name of Redmond Barry."
"Give it up, sirrah!" said the Captain, seizing his cane.
"I will not give it up!" answered I.
"HOUND! do you mutiny?" screamed he, and, at the same time, gave me a lash across the face with the cane, which had the antic.i.p.ated effect of producing a struggle. I dashed forward to grapple with him, the two sergeants flung themselves on me, I was thrown to the ground and stunned again; being hit on my former wound in the head. It was bleeding severely when I came to myself, my laced coat was already torn off my back, my purse and papers gone, and my hands tied behind my back.
The great and ill.u.s.trious Frederick had scores of these white slave-dealers all round the frontiers of his kingdom, debauching troops or kidnapping peasants, and hesitating at no crime to supply those brilliant regiments of his with food for powder; and I cannot help telling here, with some satisfaction, the fate which ultimately befell the atrocious scoundrel who, violating all the rights of friendship and good-fellowship, had just succeeded in entrapping me. This individual was a person of high family and known talents and courage, but who had a propensity to gambling and extravagance, and found his calling as a recruit-decoy far more profitable to him than his pay of second captain in the line. The sovereign, too, probably found his services more useful in the former capacity. His name was Monsieur de Galgenstein, and he was one of the most successful of the practisers of his rascally trade. He spoke all languages, and knew all countries, and hence had no difficulty in finding out the simple braggadocio of a young lad like me.
About 1765, however, he came to his justly merited end. He was at this time living at Kehl, opposite Strasburg, and used to take his walk upon the bridge there, and get into conversation with the French advanced sentinels; to whom he was in the habit of promising "mountains and marvels," as the French say, if they would take service in Prussia. One day there was on the bridge a superb grenadier, whom Galgenstein accosted, and to whom he promised a company, at least, if he would enlist under Frederick.
"Ask my comrade yonder," said the grenadier; "I can do nothing without him. We were born and bred together, we are of the same company, sleep in the same room, and always go in pairs. If he will go and you will give him a captaincy, I will go too."
"Bring your comrade over to Kehl," said Galgenstein, delighted. "I will give you the best of dinners, and can promise to satisfy both of you."
"Had you not better speak to him on the bridge?" said the grenadier. "I dare not leave my post; but you have but to pa.s.s, and talk over the matter."
Galgenstein, after a little parley, pa.s.sed the sentinel; but presently a panic took him, and he retraced his steps. But the grenadier brought his bayonet to the Prussian"s breast and bade him stand: that he was his prisoner.
The Prussian, however, seeing his danger, made a bound across the bridge and into the Rhine; whither, flinging aside his musket, the intrepid sentry followed him. The Frenchman was the better swimmer of the two, seized upon the recruiter, and bore him to the Strasburg side of the stream, where he gave him up.
"You deserve to be shot," said the general to him, "for abandoning your post and arms; but you merit reward for an act of courage and daring. The King prefers to reward you," and the man received money and promotion.
As for Galgenstein, he declared his quality as a n.o.bleman and a captain in the Prussian service, and applications were made to Berlin to know if his representations were true. But the King, though he employed men of this stamp (officers to seduce the subjects of his allies) could not acknowledge his own shame. Letters were written back from Berlin to say that such a family existed in the kingdom, but that the person representing himself to belong to it must be an impostor, for every officer of the name was at his regiment and his post. It was Galgenstein"s death-warrant, and he was hanged as a spy in Strasburg.
"Turn him into the cart with the rest," said he, as soon as I awoke from my trance.
CHAPTER VI. THE CRIMP WAGGON-MILITARY EPISODES
The covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, as I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible moving prison where I was now to be confined. A scream and a curse from my opposite neighbour showed me that he was most likely wounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of the wretched night, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar captivity kept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually prevented my getting any relief from my ills in sleep. At midnight (as far as I could judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the creaking lumbering machines were put in motion. A couple of soldiers, strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim faces peered in with their lanterns every now and then through the canvas curtains, that they might count the number of their prisoners. The brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as "O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, Mein Kanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket," "Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter." and the like; their wild whoops and jodels making doleful discord with the groans of us captives within the waggons. Many a time afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or in the barrack-room, or round the fires as we lay out at night.
I was not near so unhappy, in spite of all, as I had been on my first enlisting in Ireland. At least, thought I, if I am degraded to be a private soldier there will be no one of my acquaintance who will witness my shame; and that is the point which I have always cared for most. There will be no one to say, "There is young Redmond Barry, the descendant or the Barrys, the fashionable young blood of Dublin, pipeclaying his belt and carrying his brown Bess." Indeed, but for that opinion of the world, with which it is necessary that every man of spirit should keep upon equal terms, I, for my part, would have always been contented with the humblest portion. Now here, to all intents and purposes, one was as far removed from the world as in the wilds of Siberia, or in Robinson Crusoe"s Island. And I reasoned with myself thus:-"Now you are caught, there is no use in repining: make the best of your situation, and get all the pleasure you can out of it. There are a thousand opportunities of plunder, &c., offered to the soldier in war-time, out of which he can get both pleasure and profit: make use of these, and be happy. Besides, you are extraordinarily brave, handsome, and clever: and who knows but you may procure advancement in your new service?"
In this philosophical way I looked at my misfortunes, determining not to be cast down by them; and bore woes and my broken head with perfect magnanimity. The latter was, for the moment, an evil against which it required no small powers of endurance to contend; for the jolts of the waggon were dreadful, and every shake caused a throb in my brain which I thought would have split my skull. As the morning dawned, I saw that the man next me, a gaunt yellow-haired creature, in black, had a cushion of straw under his head.
"Are you wounded, comrade?" said I.
"Praised be the Lord," said he, "I am sore hurt in spirit and body, and bruised in many members; wounded, however, am I not. And you, poor youth?"
"I am wounded in the head," said I, "and I want your pillow: give it me-I"ve a clasp-knife in my pocket!" and with this I gave him a terrible look, meaning to say (and mean it I did, for look you, A LA GUERRE C"EST A LA GUERRE, and I am none of your milksops) that, unless he yielded me the accommodation, I would give him a taste of my steel.
"I would give it thee without any threat, friend," said the yellow-haired man meekly, and handed me over his little sack of straw.
He then leaned himself back as comfortably as he could against the cart, and began repeating, "Ein" feste Burg ist unser Gott," by which I concluded that I had got into the company of a parson. With the jolts of the waggon, and accidents of the journey, various more exclamations and movements of the pa.s.sengers showed what a motley company we were. Every now and then a countryman would burst into tears; a French voice would be heard to say, "O mon Dieu!-mon Dieu!" a couple more of the same nation were jabbering oaths and chattering incessantly; and a certain allusion to his own and everybody else"s eyes, which came from a stalwart figure at the far corner, told me that there was certainly an Englishman in our crew.
But I was spared soon the tedium and discomforts of the journey. In spite of the clergyman"s cushion, my head, which was throbbing with pain, was brought abruptly in contact with the side of the waggon; it began to bleed afresh: I became almost light-headed. I only recollect having a draught of water here and there; once stopping at a fortified town, where an officer counted us:-all the rest of the journey was pa.s.sed in a drowsy stupor, from which, when I awoke, I found myself lying in a hospital bed, with a nun in a white hood watching over me.
"They are in sad spiritual darkness," said a voice from the bed next to me, when the nun had finished her kind offices and retired: "they are in the night of error, and yet there is the light of faith in those poor creatures."
It was my comrade of the crimp waggon, his huge broad face looming out from under a white nightcap, and ensconced in the bed beside.
"What! you there, Herr Pastor?" said I.
"Only a candidate, sir," answered the white nightcap. "But, praised be Heaven! you have come to. You have had a wild time of it. You have been talking in the English language (with which I am acquainted) of Ireland, and a young lady, and Mick, and of another young lady, and of a house on fire, and of the British Grenadiers, concerning whom you sung us parts of a ballad, and of a number of other matters appertaining, no doubt, to your personal history."
"It has been a very strange one," said I; "and, perhaps, there is no man in the world, of my birth, whose misfortunes can at all be compared to mine."
I do not object to own that I am disposed to brag of my birth and other acquirements; for I have always found that if a man does not give himself a good word, his friends will not do it for him.
"Well," said my fellow-patient, "I have no doubt yours is a strange tale, and shall be glad to hear it anon; but at present you must not be permitted to speak much, for your fever has been long, and your exhaustion great."
"Where are we?" I asked; and the candidate informed me that we were in the bishopric and town of Fulda, at present occupied by Prince Henry"s troops. There had been a skirmish with an out-party of French near the town, in which a shot entering the waggon, the poor candidate had been wounded.
As the reader knows already my history, I will not take the trouble to repeat it here, or to give the additions with which I favoured my comrade in misfortune. But I confess that I told him ours was the greatest family and finest palace in Ireland, that we were enormously wealthy, related to all the peerage descended from the ancient kings, &c.; and, to my surprise, in the course of our conversation, I found that my interlocutor knew a great deal more about Ireland than I did. When, for instance, I spoke of my descent,- "From which race of kings?" said he.
"Oh!" said I (for my memory for dates was never very accurate), "from the old ancient kings of all."
"What! can you trace your origin to the sons j.a.phet?" said he.
"Faith, I can," answered I, "and farther too,-Nebuchadnezzar, if you like."
"I see," said the candidate, smiling, "that you look upon those legends with incredulity. These Partholans and Nemedians, of whom your writers fondly make mention, cannot be authentically vouched for in history. Nor do I believe that we have any more foundation for the tales concerning them, than for the legends relative to Joseph of Arimathea and King Bruce which prevailed two centuries back in the sister island.
And then he began a discourse about the Phoenicians, the Scyths or Goths, the Tuath de Danans, Tacitus, and King MacNeil; which was, to say the truth, the very first news I had heard of those personages. As for English, he spoke it as well as I, and had seven more languages, he said, equally at his command; for, on my quoting the only Latin line that I knew, that out of the poet Homer, which says,- "As in praesenti perfectum fumat in avi,"
he began to speak to me in the Roman tongue; on which I was fain to tell him that we p.r.o.nounced it in a different way in Ireland, and so got off the conversation.
My honest friend"s history was a curious one, and it may be told here in order to show of what motley materials our levies were composed:- "I am," said he, "a Saxon by birth, my father being pastor of the village of Pfannkuchen, where I imbibed the first rudiments of knowledge. At sixteen (I am now twenty-three), having mastered the Greek and Latin tongues, with the French, English, Arabic, and Hebrew; and having come into possession of a legacy of a hundred rixdalers, a sum amply sufficient to defray my University courses, I went to the famous academy of Gottingen, where I devoted four years to the exact sciences and theology. Also, I learned what worldly accomplishments I could command; taking a dancing-tutor at the expense of a groschen a lesson, a course of fencing from a French pract.i.tioner, and attending lectures on the great horse and the equestrian science at the hippodrome of a celebrated cavalry professor. My opinion is, that a man should know everything as far as in his power lies: that he should complete his cycle of experience; and, one science being as necessary as another, it behoves him.
"I am not of a saving turn, hence my little fortune of a hundred rixdalers, which has served to keep many a prudent man for a score of years, barely sufficed for five years" studies; after which my studies were interrupted, my pupils fell off, and I was obliged to devote much time to shoe-binding in order to save money, and, at a future period, resume my academic course. During this period I contracted an attachment" (here the candidate sighed a little) "with a person, who, though not beautiful, and forty years of age, is yet likely to sympathise with my existence; and, a month since, my kind friend and patron, University Prorector Doctor Nasenbrumm, having informed me that the Pfarrer of Rumpelwitz was dead, asked whether I would like to have my name placed upon the candidate list, and if I were minded to preach a trial sermon? As the gaining of this living would further my union with my Amalia, I joyously consented, and prepared a discourse.
"If you like I will recite it to you-No?-Well, I will give you extracts from it upon our line of march. To proceed, then, with my biographical sketch, which is now very near a conclusion; or, as I should more correctly say, which has very nearly brought me to the present period of time: I preached that sermon at Rumpelwitz, in which I hope that the Babylonian question was pretty satisfactorily set at rest. I preached it before the Herr Baron and his n.o.ble family, and some officers of distinction who were staying at his castle. Mr. Doctor Moser of Halle followed me in the evening discourse; but, though his exercise was learned, and he disposed of a pa.s.sage of Ignatius, which he proved to be a manifest interpolation, I do not think his sermon had the effect which mine produced, and that the Rumpelwitzers much relished it. After the sermon, all the candidates walked out of church together, and supped lovingly at the "Blue Stag" in Rumpelwitz.
"While so occupied, a waiter came in and said that a person without wished to speak to one of the reverend candidates, "the tall one." This could only mean me, for I was a head and shoulders higher than any other reverend gentleman present. I issued out to see who was the person desiring to hold converse with me, and found a man whom I had no difficulty in recognising as one of the Jewish persuasion.
""Sir," said this Hebrew, "I have heard from a friend, who was in your church to-day, the heads of the admirable discourse you p.r.o.nounced there. It has affected me deeply, most deeply. There are only one or two points on which I am yet in doubt, and if your honour could but condescend to enlighten me on these, I think-I think Solomon Hirsch would be a convert to your eloquence."
""What are these points, my good friend?" said I; and I pointed out to him the twenty-four heads of my sermon, asking him in which of these his doubts lay.
"We had been walking up and down before the inn while our conversation took place, but the windows being open, and my comrades having heard the discourse in the morning, requested me, rather peevishly, not to resume it at that period. I, therefore, moved on with my disciple, and, at his request, began at once the sermon; for my memory is good for anything, and I can repeat any book I have read thrice.
"I poured out, then, under the trees, and in the calm moonlight, that discourse which I had p.r.o.nounced under the blazing sun of noon. My Israelite only interrupted me by exclamations indicative of surprise, a.s.sent, admiration, and increasing conviction. "Prodigious!" said he;-"Wunderschon!" would he remark at the conclusion of some eloquent pa.s.sage; in a word, he exhausted the complimentary interjections of our language: and to compliments what man is averse? I think we must have walked two miles when I got to my third head and my companion begged I would enter his house, which we now neared, and partake of a gla.s.s of beer; to which I was never averse.
"That house, sir, was the inn at which you, too, if I judge aright, were taken. No sooner was I in the place, than three crimps rushed upon me, told me I was a deserter, and their prisoner, and called upon me to deliver up my money and papers; which I did with a solemn protest as to my sacred character. They consisted of my sermon in MS., Prorector Nasenbrumm"s recommendatory letter, proving my ident.i.ty, and three groschen four pfennigs in bullion. I had already been in the cart twenty hours when you reached the house. The French officer, who lay opposite you (he who screamed when you trod on his foot, for he was wounded), was brought in shortly before your arrival. He had been taken with his epaulets and regimentals, and declared his quality and rank; but he was alone (I believe it was some affair of love with a Hessian lady which caused him to be unattended); and as the persons into whose hands he fell will make more profit of him as a recruit than as a prisoner, he is made to share our fate. He is not the first by many scores so captured. One of M. de Soubise"s cooks, and three actors out of a troop in the French camp, several deserters from your English troops (the men are led away by being told that there is no flogging in the Prussian service), and three Dutchmen were taken besides."
"And you," said I-"you who were just on the point of getting a valuable living,-you who have so much learning, are you not indignant at the outrage?"
"I am a Saxon," said the candidate, "and there is no use in indignation. Our government is crushed under Frederick"s heel these five years, and I might as well hope for mercy from the Grand Mogul. Nor am I, in truth, discontented with my lot; I have lived on a penny bread for so many years, that a soldier"s rations will be a luxury to me. I do not care about more or less blows of a cane; all such evils are pa.s.sing, and therefore endurable. I will never, G.o.d willing, slay a man in combat; but I am not unanxious to experience on myself the effect of the war-pa.s.sion, which has had so great an influence on the human race. It was for the same reason that I determined to marry Amalia, for a man is not a complete Mensch until he is the father of a family; to be which is a condition of his existence, and therefore a duty of his education. Amalia must wait; she is out of the reach of want, being, indeed, cook to the Frau Prorectorinn Nasenbrumm, my worthy patron"s lady. I have one or two books with me, which no one is likely to take from me, and one in my heart which is the best of all. If it shall please Heaven to finish my existence here, before I can prosecute my studies further, what cause have I to repine? I pray G.o.d I may not be mistaken, but I think I have wronged no man, and committed no mortal sin. If I have, I know where to look for forgiveness; and if I die, as I have said, without knowing all that I would desire to learn, shall I not be in a situation to learn EVERYTHING, and what can human soul ask for more?
"Pardon me for putting so many I"s in my discourse," said the candidate, "but when a man is talking of himself, "tis the briefest and simplest way of talking."
In which, perhaps, though I hate egotism, I think my friend was right. Although he acknowledged himself to be a mean-spirited fellow, with no more ambition than to know the contents of a few musty books, I think the man had some good in him; especially in the resolution with which he bore his calamities. Many a gallant man of the highest honour is often not proof against these, and has been known to despair over a bad dinner, or to be cast down at a ragged-elbowed coat. MY maxim is to bear all, to put up with water if you cannot get Burgundy, and if you have no velvet to be content with frieze. But Burgundy and velvet are the best, bien entendu, and the man is a fool who will not seize the best when the scramble is open.
The heads of the sermon which my friend the theologian intended to impart to me, were, however, never told; for, after our coming out of the hospital, he was drafted into a regiment quartered as far as possible from his native country, in Pomerania; while I was put into the Bulow regiment, of which the ordinary headquarters were Berlin. The Prussian regiments seldom change their garrisons as ours do, for the fear of desertion is so great, that it becomes necessary to know the face of every individual in the service; and, in time of peace, men live and die in the same town. This does not add, as may be imagined, to the amus.e.m.e.nts of the soldier"s life. It is lest any young gentleman like myself should take a fancy to a military career, and fancy that of a private soldier a tolerable one, that I am giving these, I hope, moral descriptions of what we poor fellows in the ranks really suffered.
As soon as we recovered, we were dismissed from the nuns and the hospital to the town prison of Fulda, where we were kept like slaves and criminals, with artillerymen with lighted matches at the doors of the courtyards and the huge black dormitory where some hundreds of us lay; until we were despatched to our different destinations. It was soon seen by the exercise which were the old soldiers amongst us, and which the recruits; and for the former, while we lay in prison, there was a little more leisure: though, if possible, a still more strict watch kept than over the broken-spirited yokels who had been forced or coaxed into the service. To describe the characters here a.s.sembled would require Mr. Gilray"s own pencil. There were men of all nations and callings. The Englishmen boxed and bullied; the Frenchmen played cards, and danced, and fenced; the heavy Germans smoked their pipes and drank beer, if they could manage to purchase it. Those who had anything to risk gambled, and at this sport I was pretty lucky, for, not having a penny when I entered the depot (having been robbed of every farthing of my property by the rascally crimps), I won near a dollar in my very first game at cards with one of the Frenchmen; who did not think of asking whether I could pay or not upon losing. Such, at least, is the advantage of having a gentlemanlike appearance; it has saved me many a time since by procuring me credit when my fortunes were at their lowest ebb.
Among the Frenchmen there was a splendid man and soldier, whose real name we never knew, but whose ultimate history created no small sensation, when it came to be known in the Prussian army. If beauty and courage are proofs of n.o.bility, as (although I have seen some of the ugliest dogs and the greatest cowards in the world in the n.o.blesse) I have no doubt courage and beauty are, this Frenchman must have been of the highest families in France, so grand and n.o.ble was his manner, so superb his person. He was not quite so tall as myself, fair, while I am dark, and, if possible, rather broader in the shoulders. He was the only man I ever met who could master me with the small-sword; with which he would pink me four times to my three. As for the sabre, I could knock him to pieces with it; and I could leap farther and carry more than he could. This, however, is mere egotism. This Frenchman, with whom I became pretty intimate-for we were the two c.o.c.ks, as it were, of the depot, and neither had any feeling of low jealousy-was called, for want of a better name, Le Blondin, on account of his complexion. He was not a deserter, but had come in from the Lower Rhine and the bishoprics, as I fancy; fortune having proved unfavourable to him at play probably, and other means of existence being denied him. I suspect that the Bastile was waiting for him in his own country, had he taken a fancy to return thither.
He was pa.s.sionately fond of play and liquor, and thus we had a considerable sympathy together: when excited by one or the other, he became frightful. I, for my part, can bear, without wincing, both ill luck and wine; hence my advantage over him was considerable in our bouts, and I won enough money from him to make my position tenable. He had a wife outside (who, I take it, was the cause of his misfortunes and separation from his family), and she used to be admitted to see him twice or thrice a week, and never came empty-handed--a little brown bright-eyed creature, whose ogles had made the greatest impression upon all the world.
This man was drafted into a regiment that was quartered at Neiss in Silesia, which is only at a short distance from the Austrian frontier; he maintained always the same character for daring and skill, and was, in the secret republic of the regiment-which always exists as well as the regular military hierarchy-the acknowledged leader. He was an admirable soldier, as I have said; but haughty, dissolute, and a drunkard. A man of this mark, unless he takes care to coax and flatter his officers (which I always did), is sure to fall out with them. Le Blondin"s captain was his sworn enemy, and his punishments were frequent and severe.
His wife and the women of the regiment (this was after the peace) used to carry on a little commerce of smuggling across the Austrian frontier, where their dealings were winked at by both parties; and in obedience to the instructions of her husband, this woman, from every one of her excursions, would bring in a little powder and ball: commodities which are not to be procured by the Prussian soldier, and which were stowed away in secret till wanted. They WERE to be wanted, and that soon.
Le Blondin had organised a great and extraordinary conspiracy. We don"t know how far it went, how many hundreds or thousands it embraced; but strange were the stories told about the plot amongst us privates: for the news was spread from garrison to garrison, and talked of by the army, in spite of all the Government efforts to hush it up-hush it up, indeed! I have been of the people myself; I have seen the Irish rebellion, and I know what is the free-masonry of the poor.
He made himself the head of the plot. There were no writings nor papers. No single one of the conspirators communicated with any other than the Frenchman; but personally he gave his orders to them all. He had arranged matters for a general rising of the garrison, at twelve o"clock on a certain day: the guard-houses in the town were to be seized, the sentinels cut down, and-who knows the rest? Some of our people used to say that the conspiracy was spread through all Silesia, and that Le Blondin was to be made a general in the Austrian service.
At twelve o"clock, and opposite the guard-house by the Bohmer-Thor of Neiss, some thirty men were lounging about in their undress, and the Frenchman stood near the sentinel of the guard-house, sharpening a wood hatchet on a stone. At the stroke of twelve, he got up, split open the sentinel"s head with a blow of his axe, and the thirty men, rushing into the guard-house, took possession of the arms there, and marched at once to the gate. The sentry there tried to drop the bar, but the Frenchman rushed up to him, and, with another blow of the axe, cut off his right hand, with which he held the chain. Seeing the men rushing out armed, the guard without the gate drew up across the road to prevent their pa.s.sage; but the Frenchman"s thirty gave them a volley, charged them with the bayonet, and brought down several, and the rest flying, the thirty rushed on. The frontier is only a league from Neiss, and they made rapidly towards it.
But the alarm was given in the town, and what saved it was that the clock by which the Frenchman went was a quarter of an hour faster than any of the clocks in the town. The generale was beat, the troops called to arms, and thus the men who were to have attacked the other guard-houses, were obliged to fall into the ranks, and their project was defeated. This, however, likewise rendered the discovery of the conspirators impossible, for no man could betray his comrade, nor, of course, would he criminate himself.