Tom Cringle's Log Part 3

The colonel continued. "I hope, Marshal, you will allow him his parole? he is, as you see, quite a child."

"Parole!" replied the Marshall,--"parole! such a mere lad cannot know the value of his promise."

A sudden fit of rashness came over me.

"He is a mere boy," reiterated the Marshall. "No, no--send him to prison;"

and he resumed the study of the printed paper he had been reading.

I struck in, impelled by despair, for, young as I was, I knew the character of the man before whom I stood, and I remembered that even a tiger might be checked by a bold front--"I am an Englishman, sir, and incapable of breaking my plighted word."

He laid down the paper he was reading, and slowly lifted his eyes, and fastened them on me,--"Ha," said he, "ha--so young--so reckless!"

"Never mind him, Marshal," said the colonel. "If you will grant him his parole, I."--"Take it, colonel--take it--take his parole, not to go beyond the ditch."

"But I decline to give any such promise," said I, with a hardihood which at the time surprised me, and has always done so.

"Why, my good youth," said the Marshal in great surprise, "why will you not take advantage of the offer--a kinder one, let me tell you, than I am in the habit of making to an enemy?"

"Simply, sir, because I will endeavour to escape on the very first opportunity."

"Ha!" said the Marshal once more, "this to my face? Lafontaine,"--; to the aide-de-camp,--"a file of soldiers." The handsome young officer hesitated hung in the wind, as we say, for a moment--moved, as I imagined, by my extreme youth.

This irritated the Marshal rose, and stamped on the floor. The colonel essayed to interfere. "Sentry--sentry--a file of grenadiers--take him forth," and--here he energetically clutched the steel hilt of his sword, and instantly dashed it from him--"Sacre!--the devil--what is that?" and straightway he began to pirouette on one leg round the room, shaking his right hand, and blowing his fingers.

The officers in waiting could not stand it any longer, and burst into a fit of laughter, in which their commanding officer, after an unavailing attempt to look serious--I should rather write fierce joined, and there he was, the b.l.o.o.d.y Davoust--Duke of Auerstad Prince of Eckmuhl--the Hamburgh Robespierre--the terrible Davoust--dancing all around the room, in a regular guffaw, like to split his sides. The heated stove had made his sword, which rested on it, nearly red-hot.

All this while the quiet, plain-looking little man sat still. He now rose; but I noticed that he had been fixing his eyes intently on me. I thought I could perceive a tear glistening in them as he spoke.

"Marshal, will you intrust that boy to me?"

"Poo," said the Prince, still laughing, "take him--do what you will with him;"--then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, "But, Mr----, you must be answerable for him--he must be at hand if I want him."

The gentleman who had so unexpectedly patronized me rose, and said, "Marshal, I promise."

"Very well," said Davoust. "Lafontaine, desire supper to be sent up."

It was brought in, and my new ally and I were shown out.

As we went down stairs, we looked into a room on the ground floor, at the door of which were four soldiers with fixed bayonets. We there saw, for it was well lit up, about twenty or five-and-twenty respectable-looking men, very English in appearance, all to their long cloaks, an unusual sort of garment to my eye at that time. The night was very wet, and the aforesaid garments were hung on pegs in the wall all around the room, which being strongly heated by a stove, the moisture rose up in a thick mist and made the faces of the burghers indistinct.

They were all busily engaged talking to each other, some to his neighbour, the others across the table, but all with an expression of the most intense anxiety.

"Who are these?" said I to my guide.

"Ask no questions here" said he, and we pa.s.sed on.

I afterwards learned that they were the hostages seized on for the contribution of fifty millions of francs, which had been imposed on the doomed city, and that this very night they had been tom from their families, and cooped up in the way I had seen them, where, they were advertised, they must remain until the money should be forthcoming.

As we walked along the streets, and crossed the numerous bridges over the ca.n.a.ls and branches of the river, we found all the houses lit up, by order, as I learned, of the French marshal. The rain descended in torrents, sparkling past the lights, while the city was a desert, with one dreadful exception; for we were waylaid at almost every turn by groups of starving lunatics, their half-naked figures and pale visages glimmering in the glancing lights, under the dripping rain; and, had it not been for the numerous sentries scattered along the thoroughfares, I believe we should have been tom to pieces by bands of moping idiots, now rendered ferocious from their sufferings, in consequence of the madhouses having been cleared of their miserable, helpless inmates, in order to be converted into barracks for the troops. At all of these bridges sentries were posted, past which my conductor and myself were franked by the sergeant who accompanied us giving the countersign. At length, civilly touching his cap, although he did not refuse the piece of money tendered by my friend, he left us, wishing us good-night, and saying the coast was clear.

We proceeded, without farther challenge, until we came to a very magnificent house, with some fine trees before it. We approached the door, and rung the doorbell. It was immediately opened, and we entered a large desolate, looking vestibule, about thirty feet square, filled in the centre with a number of bales of goods, and a variety of merchandise, while a heavy wooden stair, with clumsy oak bal.u.s.trades, wound round the sides of it. We ascended, and, turning to the right, entered a large well furnished room, with a table laid out for supper, with lights, and a comfortable stove at one end. Three young officers of cuira.s.siers, in their superb uniforms, whose breast and back pieces were glittering on a neighbouring sofa, and a colonel of artillery, were standing round the stove. The colonel, the moment we entered, addressed my conductor:

"Ah,----, we are devilish hungry--Ich bin dem Verhungern nahe and were just on the point of ordering in the provender had you not appeared."

"A little more than that," thought I; for the food was already smoking on the table.

Mine host acknowledged the speech with a slight smile.

"But who have we here?" said one of the young dragoons. He waited a moment "Etes--vous Francais?" I gave him no answer. He then addressed me in German--"Sprechen sie geldufig Deutsch?"

"Why," chimed in my conductor, "he does speak a little French indifferently enough; but still...."

Here I was introduced to the young officers, and we all sat down at table; the colonel, civility itself, pressing my host to drink his own wine, and eat his own food and even rating the servants for not being sufficiently alert in their attendance on their own master.

"Well, my dear----, how have you sped with the Prince?"

"Why, colonel," said my protector, in his calm way, "as well as I expected.

I was of some service to him when he was here before, at the time he was taken so very ill, and he has not forgotten it; so I am not included amongst the unfortunate detainees for the payment of the fine. But that is not all; for I am allowed to go tomorrow to my father's, and here is my pa.s.sport."

"Wonders will never cease," said the colonel; "but who is that boy?"

"He is one of the crew of the English boats which tried to cut off Colonel----the other evening, near Cuxhaven. His life was saved by a very laughable circ.u.mstance certainly; merely, by the marshal's sword, from resting on the stove, having become almost red-hot." And here he detailed the whole transaction as it took place, which set the party a-laughing most heartily.

I will always bear witness to the extreme amenity with which I was now treated by the French officers. The evening pa.s.sed over quickly. About eleven we retired to rest, my friend furnishing me with clothes, and warning me, that next morning he would call me at daylight, to proceed to his father's country-seat, where he intimated that I must remain in the meantime.

Next morning I was roused accordingly, and a long, low, open carriage rattled up to the door, just before day--dawn. Presently the reveille was beaten, and answered by the different posts in the city, and on the ramparts.

We drove on, merely showing our pa.s.sport to the sentries at the different bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had to pun up until the officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously compared our personal appearance with the written description. All was found correct, and we drove on.

It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of the great strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound of green turf that const.i.tuted its chief defence.

It is all true that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond; but there was no covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple earthen embankments; so that, had the ditch been filled up with fascines, there was no wall to face the attacking force after crossing it,--nothing but a green mound, precipitous enough, certainly, and crowned with a low parapet of masonry, and bristling with batteries about half way down, so that the muzzles of the guns were flush with the neighbouring country beyond the ditch. Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the strength of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures, and frowning cannon. All this time it never occurred to me, that to breach such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible. You might have plumped your shot into it until you had converted it into an iron mine, but no chasm could have been forced in it by all the artillery in Europe; so battering in a breach was entirely out of the question, and this, in truth, const.i.tuted the great strength of the place.

We arrived, after an hour's drive, at the villa belonging to my protector's family, and walked into a large room, with a comfortable stove, and extensive preparations made for a comfortable breakfast.

Presently three young ladies appeared. They were his sisters,--blue-eyed, fair-haired, white-skinned, round-sterned, plump little partridges.

"Haben sie gefruhstucht?" said the eldest.

"Pas encore," said he in French, with a smile. "But, sisters, I have brought a stranger here, a young English officer, who was recently captured in the river."

"An English officer!" exclaimed the three ladies, looking at me, a poor, little, dirty midshipman, in my soiled linen, unbrushed shoes, dirty trowsers and jacket, with my little square of white cloth on the collar; and I began to find the eloquent blood mangling in my cheeks, and tingling in my ears; but their kindly feelings got the better of a gentle propensity to laugh, and the youngest said--"Sie sind gerade zu rechter zeit gekommen:" when, finding that her German was Hebrew to me, she tried the other tack "Vous arrivez a propos, le dejeuner est pret."

However I soon found, that the moment they were a.s.sured that I was in reality an Englishman, they all spoke English, and exceedingly well too.

Our meal was finished, and I was standing at the window looking out on a small lawn, where evergreens of the most beautiful kinds were checkered with little round clumps of most luxuriant hollyhocks, and the fruit trees in the neighborhood were absolutely bending to the earth under their loads of apples and pears. Presently my friend came up to me; my curiosity could no longer be restrained.

"Pray, my good sir, what peculiar cause, may I ask, have you for showing me, an entire stranger to you, all this unexpected kindness? I am fully aware that I have no claim on you."