With Moore at Corunna Part 42

"I shall not trouble myself to plead not guilty, except before a regularly const.i.tuted court," Terence laughed. "At any rate, as when the march begins we shall go on first as scouts, it may be that I shall send in news which will turn out a British army again."

"I will forgive you if you do, for it is likely that we should have some divarsion after turning out, instead of marching out and back again like a regiment of omadhouns."

CHAPTER XXII

NEWS FROM HOME

A week after arriving at Abrantes, seeing that there was no probability whatever of fighting for a time, Terence had suggested to Herrara that it would be a good opportunity for him to run down to Lisbon for a few days to see his fiancee and his friends in the town.

"I don't know who you really ought to apply to for leave," he said, "but as we are a sort of half-independent corps, it seems the simplest way for me to take the responsibility. n.o.body is ever likely to ask any questions about it; and now that it will simply be a matter of hard drill till the army moves again, you can be very well spared. If it is company work, it is the captain's business. If the two regiments are manoeuvring together, they will of course be under Bull and Macwitty, and I should be acting as brigadier."

"I should like to go very much," Herrara said. "I have not yet had the pleasure of introducing myself to my family and friends as a lieutenant- colonel. Of course, I wrote to my people when I received the commission from Lord Beresford; but it would be really fun to surprise some of my school-fellows and comrades, so if you think that it will not be inconvenient I should like very much to go."

"Then if I were you I should start at once. I will give you a sort of formal letter of leave in case you are questioned as you go down. You can get to Santarem to-night and to Lisbon to-morrow afternoon."

"Is there anything that I can do for you?"

"Yes; I wish you would ask Don Jose if he will, through his friends at Oporto, find out whether my cousin's mother was there at the time the French entered, and if she was, whether she got through that horrible business unhurt. I have been hearing about it from my friends, who were a couple of days there before the force marched to Braga. They tell me that, by all accounts, the business was even worse than we feared. The French came upon some of their comrades tied to posts in the great square, horribly mutilated, some of them with their eyes put out, still living, and after that they spared no one; and upon my word, I can hardly blame them, and in fact don't blame them at all, so long as they only their vengeance on men. The people made it worse for themselves by keeping up a desultory fire from windows and housetops when resistance had long ceased to be of any use; and, of course, seeing their comrades shot down in this way infuriated the troops still further.

"I don't suppose it will make the slightest difference in the world to my cousin whether her mother is dead or not, for I fancy from what Mary said that her mother never cared for her in the slightest. Possibly she was jealous that the child had the first place in the father's affections. However that may be, there was certainly no great love between them, and of course her subsequent treatment of my cousin destroyed any affection that might have existed. That either by some deed executed at the time of marriage, or by Portuguese law, Mary has a right to the estate at her mother's death, is clear from the efforts they made to get her to renounce that right. Still, there is no more chance of her ever inheriting it than there would be of her flying. As a nun she would naturally have to renounce all property, and no doubt the law of this priest-ridden country would decide that she had done so. She tells me--and I am sure, truly-- that she refused to open her lips to say a single word when she was forced to go through the ceremony; but as, no doubt, a score of witnesses would be brought forward to swear that she answered all the usual questions and renounced all worldly possessions, that denial would go for nothing."

"Besides," Herrara said, "it would never do for her to set foot in Portugal. She would be seized as an escaped nun immediately, and would never be heard of again."

"I have no doubt that that would be so, Herrara; and as she has a nice fortune from her father, you may be sure that she will not trouble about the estates here, and her mother would be welcome to do as she likes with them, which is, after all, not unreasonable, as they are her property and descended to her from her father. Still, I should be glad to learn, if it does not give any great trouble, whether if, as is almost certain--for the people from all the country round took refuge there long before the French arrived--she was in Oporto, and if so, whether she got through the sack of the town unharmed. No doubt Mary would be glad to hear."

"I am sure Don Jose would be able to find out for you without any difficulty," Herrara said; "indeed I expect he will soon be going back there himself. Now that there is a British garrison in the town, that the bishop must be utterly discredited there, and a good many of his Junta must have been killed, while the rabble of the town has been thoroughly discomfited, the place will be more comfortable to live in than it has been for a long time past. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Nothing whatever."

A quarter of an hour later Herrara left for Lisbon, bearing many messages of kind regards on Terence's part to Don Jose and his family. Terence's last words were:

"By the way, Herrara, if you should be able to find at any store in Lisbon some Irish whisky, I wish you would get six dozen cases for me, or what would be more handy, a sixteen or eighteen gallon keg, and could get it sent on by some cart coming here, I should be very much obliged. It had better be sent to me, care of Colonel Corcoran, Mayo Fusiliers, Abrantes. I should like to be able to give a gla.s.s to my friends when they ride out to see me. But have the barrel or cases sewn up in canvas before the address is put on; I would not trust it to the escort of any British guard if they were aware of the nature of the contents. Wine would be safe with them, for they can get that anywhere, but it would be too much for the honesty of any Irishman if he were to see a cask labelled Irish whisky."

A week later Colonel Corcoran said when Terence rode in:

"By the bye, O'Connor, there is a cask of wine for you at my quarters; it was brought up by an ammunition train this morning. The officer said that a Portuguese colonel had begged him so earnestly to bring it up that he could not refuse."

"It was Herrara, no doubt, Colonel; he has gone down to Lisbon for a week."

"Ah! I suppose he sent you a keg of choice wine."

"You shall taste it next time you come out, Colonel. I have been wishing that I had something better than the ordinary wine of the country to offer when you come over to see me. I will send over a couple of men with a cart in the morning to bring it out to me."

On leaving that evening Terence invited all the officers who could get away from duty to come over to lunch the next day.

"Bring your knives and forks with you," he said; "and I think you had better bring your plates, too; I fancy four are all I can muster."

Early next morning Terence told Bull and Macwitty that he expected a dozen officers out to lunch with him. "And I want you to lunch with me too. I know that Captain O'Grady and others have asked you several times to go in and dine at mess, and that you have not gone. I hope to-day you will meet them at luncheon. I can understand that you feel a little uncomfortable at this first meeting with a lot of officers as officers yourselves; but, of course, you must do it sooner or later, and it would be much better doing so at once.

"The next thing is, what can I give them to eat? I should be glad if you will send out a dozen foraging parties in different directions; there must be little villages scattered among the hills that have so far escaped French and English plunderers. Let each party take four or five dollars with them. I want anything that can be got, but my idea is a couple of young kids, three or four ducks, or a couple of geese, as many chickens, and of course any vegetables that you can get hold of. My man Sancho is a capital cook, and he will get fires ready and two or three a.s.sistants. They will be here by one o'clock, so the foraging parties had better return by ten."

"If there is anything to be brought you shall have it, Colonel," Bull said; "Macwitty and I will both go ourselves, and we will get half a dozen of the captains to go too; between us it is hard if we don't manage to get enough."

By ten o'clock the officers rode in, almost every one of them having some sort of bird or beast hanging from his saddle-bow; there were two kids, a sucking pig, two hares, half a dozen chickens, three geese, and five ducks, while the nets which they carried for forage for their horses were filled with vegetables. Half a dozen fires had already been lighted, and Sancho had obtained as many a.s.sistants, so that by the time the colonel and fifteen officers rode up lunch was ready.

After chatting for a few minutes with them, Terence led the way to a rough table that was placed under the shade of a tree. Ammunition boxes were arranged along for seats. Although but a portion of what had been brought in had been cooked, the effect of the table was imposing.

"Why, O'Connor," the colonel said, "have you got one of the genii, like Aladdin, and ordered him to bring up a banquet for you? I have not seen a winged thing since we marched from Coimbra, and here you have got all the luxuries of the season. No wonder you like independent action, if this is what comes of it; there have we been feeding on tough ration beef, and here are the contents of a whole farmyard."

Almost all the officers had been out before, and Bull and Macwitty had been introduced to them. They now all sat down to the meal.

"I am sorry Major O'Driscol is not here," Terence said.

"He could not get away," the colonel said, from the other end of the table. "If the general had come round and there hadn't been a field- officer left to meet him there would have been a row over it. I have brought pretty nearly all the officers with me, and I dared not stretch it further."

"O'Grady," Terence said, "I wish you would carve this hare for me, I have no idea how it ought to be cut. I can manage a chicken, or a duck, but this is beyond me altogether."

"I will do it gladly, Terence; faith, it is a comfort to find that there is something you can't do." And so, with much laughter and fun, the meal was eaten.

"You have not told us yet where you got all these provisions, O'Connor," the colonel said; "it is too bad to keep all the good things to yourself."

"It has been the work of eight officers, Colonel; they rode off this morning in different directions among the hills, and there was not one of them who returned empty-handed."

"The wine is fairly good," the colonel said, as he set down his tin mug after a long draught, "but it was scarce worth sending all the way up from Lisbon."

"That has to follow, Colonel; I thought you would appreciate it better after you had done eating."

"I have not had such a male since we left Athlone," O'Grady said, when at last he reluctantly laid down his knife and fork. "Be jabers, it would be all up with me if the French were to put in an appearance now, for faith I don't think I could run a yard to save me life."

The tin mugs were all taken away and washed when the table was cleared.

"You are mighty particular, O'Connor," the colonel said.

"One mug is good enough for us. If we liquored-up a dozen times--which, by the way, we never do--one of these wines is pretty well like another, and if there was a slight difference it would not matter."

When the board was cleared a large jug was placed before Terence, and some water-bottles at various points of the table.

"I thought, Colonel, that you might prefer spirits even to the wine," Terence said.

"And you are right, O'Connor. A good gla.s.s of wine after a good dinner is no bad thing, but after such a meal as we have eaten I think that even this bastely spirit of theirs--which, after all, is not so bad when you get accustomed to it--is better than wine; it settles matters a bit."

Terence poured some of the spirit from a jug into his tin and filled it up with water. "Help yourself," he said, pa.s.sing the jug to O'Grady, who sat next to him.

O'Grady was about to do so when he suddenly set the jug down.