Tom Burke Of "Ours"
Volume II.
by Charles James Lever.
CHAPTER I. THE SICK LEAVE.
"What is it, Minette?" said I, for the third time, as I saw her lean her head from out the narrow cas.e.m.e.nt, and look down into the valley beside the river; "what do you see there?"
"I see a regiment of infantry coming along the road from Ulm," said she, after a pause; "and now I perceive the lancers are following them, and the artillery too. Ah! and farther again, I see a great cloud of dust.
_Mere de Ciel!_ how tired and weary they all look! It surely cannot be a march in retreat; and, now that I think of it, they have no baggage, nor any wagons with them."
"That was a bugle call, Minette! Did you not hear it?"
"Yes, it"s a halt for a few minutes. Poor fellows! they are sadly exhausted; they cannot even reach the side of the way, but are lying down on the very road. I can bear it no longer. I must find out what it all means." So saying, she threw round her a mantle which, Spanish fashion, she wore over her head, and hurried from the room.
For some time I waited patiently for her return; but when half an hour elapsed, I arose and crept to the window. A succession of rocky precipices descended from the terrace on which the house stood, down to the very edge of the Danube, and from the point where I sat the view extended for miles in every direction. What, then, was my astonishment to see the wide plain, not marked by regular columns in marching array, but covered with straggling detachments, hurrying onward as if without order or discipline. Here was an infantry battalion mixed up with a cavalry corps, the foot-soldiers endeavoring to keep up with the ambling trot of the dragoons; there, the ammunition wagons were covered with weary soldiers, too tired to march. Most of the men were without their firelocks, which were piled in a confused heap on the limbers of the guns. No merry chant, no burst of warlike music, cheered them on. They seemed like the scattered fragments of a routed army hurrying onward in search of some place of refuge,-sad and spiritless.
"Can he have been beaten?" was the fearful thought that flashed across me as I gazed. "Have the bold legions that were never vanquished succ.u.mbed at last? Oh, no, no! I"ll not believe it." And while a glow of fever warmed my whole blood, I buckled on my sabre, and taking my shako, prepared to issue forth. Scarcely had I reached the door, with tottering limbs, when I saw Minette dashing up the steep street at the top speed of her pony, while she flourished above her head a great placard, and waved it to and fro.
"The news! the news!" cried I, bursting with anxiety. "Are they advancing; or is it a retreat?"
"Read that!" said she, throwing me a large sheet of paper, headed with the words, "Proclamation! la Grande Armee!" in huge letters,-"read that!
for I"ve no breath left to tell you."
Soldiers!--The campaign so gloriously begun will soon be completed.
One victory, and the Austrian empire, so great but a week since, will be humbled in the dust. Hasten on, then! Forced marches, by day and night, will attest your eagerness to meet the enemy; and let the endeavor of each regiment be to arrive soonest on the field of battle.
"Minette! dearest Minette!" said I, as I threw my arms around her neck, "this is indeed good news." "Gently, gently, Monsieur!" said she, smiling, while she disengaged herself from my sudden embrace. "Very good news, without doubt; but I don"t think that there is any mention in the bulletin about embracing the vivandieres of the army."
"At a moment like this, Minette--"
"The best thing to do is, to make up one"s baggage and join the march,"
said she, very steadily, proceeding at the same time to put her plan into execution.
While I gave her all a.s.sistance in my power, the doctor entered to inform us that all the wounded who were then not sufficiently restored to return to duty were to be conveyed to Munich, where general military hospitals had been established; and that he himself had received orders to repair thither with his sick detachment, in which my name was enrolled.
"You"ll keep your old friend, Francois, company, Lieutenant Burke; he is able to move at last."
"Francois!" said I, in ecstasy; "and will he indeed recover?"
"I have little doubt of it; though certainly he"s not likely to practise as maitre d"armes again. You "ve spoiled his tierce, though not before it cost the army some of the prettiest fellows I ever saw. But as to yourself--"
"As for me, I "ll march with the army. I feel perfectly recovered; my arm--"
"Oh! as for monsieur"s arms," said mademoiselle, "I"ll answer for it, they are quite at his Majesty"s service."
"Indeed!" said the doctor, knowingly; "I thought it would come to that.
Well, well, Mademoiselle, don"t look saucy; let us part good friends for once in our lives."
"I hate being reconciled to a surgeon," said she, pettishly.
"Why so, I pray?"
"Oh, you know, when one quarrels with an officer, the poor fellow may be killed before one sees him again; and it"s always a sad thought, that.
But your doctor, nothing ever happens to him; you"re sure to see him, with his white ap.r.o.n and his horrid weapons, a hundred times after, and one is always sorry for having forgiven such a cruel wretch."
"Come, come, Mademoiselle, you bear us all an ill-will for the fault of one, and that"s not fair. It was the hospital aide of the Sixth, Monsieur, (a handsome fellow, too), who did not fall in love with her after her wound,--a slight scratch."
"A slight scratch, do you call it?" said I, indignantly, as I perceived the poor girl"s eyes fill at the raillery of her tormentor.
"Ah! monsieur has seen it, then?" said he, maliciously. "A thousand pardons. I have the honor to wish you both adieu." And with that, and a smile of the most impertinent meaning, he took his leave.
"How silly to be vexed for so little, Minette!" said I, approaching and endeavoring to console her.
"Well, but to call my wound a scratch!" said she. "Was it not too bad?
and I the only vivandiere of the army that ever felt a bullet."
And with that she turned away her head; but I could see, as she wiped her eyes, that she cared less for the sarcasm on her wounded shoulder than the insult to her wounded heart. Poor girl! she looked sick and pale the whole day after.
We learned in the course of the day that some cavalry detachments would pa.s.s early on the morrow, thus allowing us sufficient time to provide ourselves with horses, and make our other arrangements for the march.
These we succeeded in doing to our satisfaction; I being fortunate enough to secure the charger of an Austrian prisoner, mademoiselle being already admirably mounted with her palfrey. Occupied with these details, the day pa.s.sed rapidly over, and the hour for supper drew near without my feeling how the time slipped past.
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At last the welcome meal made its appearance, and with it mademoiselle herself. I could not help remarking that her toilette displayed a more than common attention: her neat Parisian cap; her collar, with its deep Valenciennes lace; and her _tablier_, so coquettishly embroidered,--were all signs of an unusual degree of care; and though she was pale and in low spirits, I never saw her look so pretty. All my efforts to make her converse were, however, in vain. Some secret weight lay heavily on her spirits, and not even the stirring topics of the coming campaign could awaken one spark of her enthusiasm. She evaded, too, every allusion to the following day"s march, or answered my questions about it with evident constraint. Tired at last with endeavoring to overcome her silent mood, I affected an air of chagrin, thinking to pique her by it; but she merely remarked that I appeared weary, and that, as I had a long journey before me, it were as well I should retire early.
The marked coolness of her manner at this moment struck me so forcibly that I began really to feel some portion of the ill-temper I affected, and with the crossness of an over-petted child, I arose to withdraw at once.
"Good-by, Monsieur; good-night, I mean," said she, blushing slightly.
"Good-night, Mademoiselle," said I, taking her hand coldly as I spoke.
"I trust I may find you in better spirits to-morrow."
"Good-night,--adieu!" said she, hastily; and before I could add a word she was gone.
"She is a strange girl," thought I, as I found myself alone, and tortured my mind to think whether anything I could have dropped had offended her. But no: we had parted a few hours before the best friends in the world; nothing had then occurred to which I could attribute this sudden change. I had often remarked the variable character of her disposition,--the flashes of gayety mingled with outbursts of sorrow; the playful moods of fancy alternating with moments of deep melancholy; and, after all, this might be one of them.
With these thoughts I threw myself on my bed, but could not sleep. At one minute my brain went on puzzling about Minette and her sorrow; at the next I reproached myself for my own harsh, unfeeling manner to the poor girl, and was actually on the eve of arising to seek her and ask her pardon. At last sleep came, and dreams too; but, strange enough, they were of the distant land of my boyhood and the hours of my youth; of the old house in which I was born, and its well-remembered rooms. I thought I was standing before my father, while he scolded me for some youthful transgression; I heard his words as though they were really spoken, as he told me that I should be an outcast and a wanderer, without a friend, a house, or home; that while others reaped wealth and honors, I was destined to be a castaway: and in the torrent of my grief I awoke.
It was night,--dark, silent night. A few stars were shining in the sky, but the earth was wrapped in shadow; and as I opened my window to let the fresh breeze calm my fevered forehead, the deep precipice beneath me seemed a vast gulf of yawning blackness. At a great distance off I could see the watchfires of some soldiers bivouacking in the plain; and even that much comforted my saddened heart, as it aroused me to the thoughts of the campaign before me. But again my thoughts recurred to my dream, which I could not help feeling as a sort of prediction.
When our sleep leaves its strong track in our waking moments, we dread to sleep again for fear the whole vision should come back; and thus I sat down beside the window, and fell into a long train of thought. The images of my dream were uppermost in my mind; and every little incident of childhood, long lost to memory, came now fresh before me,--the sorrows of my schoolboy years, unrelieved by the sense of love awaiting me at home; the clinging to all who seemed to feel or care for me; and the heart-sickening sorrow when I found that what I mistook for affection was merely pity: all save one,--my mother! Her mild, sad looks, so seldom cheered by a ray of pleasure,--I remember well how they fell on me! with such a thrilling sensation at my heart, and such a gush of thankfulness, as I felt then! Oh! if they who live with children knew how needful it is to open their hearts to all the little sorrows and woes of infant life; to teach confidence and to feed hope; to train up the creeping tendrils of young desire, and not to suffer them to lie straggling and tangled on the earth,--what a happier destiny would fall to the lot of many whose misfortunes in late life date from the crushed spirit of childhood!
My mother I--I thought of her as she would bend oyer me at night, her last kiss pressed on my brow,--the healing balm of some sorrow for which my sobs were still breaking,--her pale, worn cheek, her white dress, her hand so bloodless and transparent, the very emblem of her malady. The tears started to my eyes and rolled heavily along my cheek, my chest heaved, and my heart beat till I could hear it. At this moment a slight rustle stirred the leaves: I listened, for the night was calm and still; not a breeze moved. Again I heard it close beside the window, on the little terrace which ran along the building, and occupied the narrow s.p.a.ce beside the edge of the rock. Before I could imagine what it meant, a figure in white glided from the shade of the trees and approached the window. So excited was my mind, so wrought up my imagination by the circ.u.mstances of my dream and the thoughts that followed, that I cried out, in a voice of ecstasy, "My mother!" Suddenly the apparition stood still, and then as rapidly retreated, and was lost to view in the dark foliage. Maddened with intense excitement, I sprang from the window, and leaped out on the terrace. I called aloud; I ran about wildly, unmindful of the fearful precipice that yawned beside me. I searched every bush, I crept beneath each tree, but nothing could I detect. The cold perspiration poured down my face; my limbs trembled with a strange dread of I knew not what. I felt as if madness was creeping over me, and I struggled with the thought and tried to calm my troubled brain. Wearied and faint, I gave up the pursuit at last, and, throwing myself on my bed, I sank exhausted into the heavy slumber which only tired nature knows.
"The Sous-Lieutenant Burke," said a gruff voice, awakening me suddenly from my sleep, while by the light of a lantern he held in his hand I recognized the figure of an orderly sergeant in full equipment.