CHAPTER VI.

MY GRANDFATHER IS PROMOTED--AN UNLUCKY ESCAPADE--SAVED BY A RIBBON--MASSACRE OF FRENCH NOBLES--NAPOLEON BONAPARTE TO THE FORE.

Promotion was quick in those days; that is, if a young soldier were really deserving.

I have always thought my grandfather one of the smartest men for his years that I ever knew. He was smart in appearance, soldierly in bearing, and most particular as to his toilet, and this without any signs of pride.

It was these very traits in his character that first brought him into notice with his officers. They could trust the young fellow, and if he was commissioned to do anything, or to carry a message, he did his duty most thoroughly. Well, if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well.

He was soon so perfect in his drill that he was made corporal.

That was a proud day for him, when he was told off to drill a squad of Jockie-raws in the barrack-square, in Dublin. His foot was now on the first step of the ladder of fame, and he was determined that it should not slip.

But now, as a corporal, he had more temptations to battle against than before. He was taken more out, and even the sergeants, who, as a rule, have more pride of place than their superiors, did not hesitate to make a companion of him, and a confidant as well.

"Robertson will soon be one of ourselves." That was what they said, or prophesied.

Another thing in honest John's favour was the education that had been drilled or driven into him by Dominie Freeschal. His correct English and his penmanship were specially in his favour, and he was often employed by the senior officers to write from dictation.

He was by no means loth to do this, not because it excused him from duty--which he dearly loved--but because it brought him into contact with men from whom he could not help learning much. Moreover, the work was not unremunerative from a pecuniary point of view. The officers of the Royals were too proud to accept the services of a writer for nothing.

* * * * *

When but little over twenty years of age, this progenitor of mine, to his intense delight, found himself the proud owner of a sergeant's sash and pike; and now, as I do not wish to hold him up to the reader's notice as a paragon of virtue or a plaster saint, I must record an adventure that he had, not long after his promotion, which was very nearly being his ruin, and, but for a lucky chance, would have broken him, and reduced a really able non-commissioned officer to the ranks.

Had it ended thus, he assured me himself, he would never again have returned to the Highland home where his father and mother and people dwelt.

Sergeant John Robertson had been for some time a Freemason. I am not a Freemason myself, so cannot tell you what a Royal Arch is, or whether it requires but one stone to compose it, or a thousand of bricks. Anyhow, that was the rank the young soldier held in the lodge to which he belonged, and I dare say there was nothing in it to be otherwise than proud of.

The regiment, or a portion of it, had been sent to the south of Ireland, for the French had threatened an invasion, and it was our purpose to give them a warm reception, and to prevent anything like a rising of the Irish malcontents to meet them.

One day, grandfather was sent from the camp to march a squad of Royals to a neighbouring town, a distance of about twelve miles. He was early astir, and he, with his men, accomplished the journey in a little over three hours. He was to come back alone, after delivering the squad at the barracks.

This, having dined, he prepared to do, but as ill-luck would have it, he forgathered with a squad of another sort, some Highland sergeants, one of whom, to his great surprise and delight, was none other than Tom Grahame, the boy--boy now no longer--with whom he fought for Rachel Freeschal, and whom he had stabbed with his kilt-pin.

My grandfather did not know this tall kilted warrior, who came up to him in the street and held out a hand to shake.

"Preen Mhor, and is it really yourself I see before me? Why, Ian, don't you remember the lad you stuck the big pin into and nearly killed, all for the love of sweet little Rachel?"

"Tom Grahame, is it you?"

The delight was mutual, and naturally enough the two linked arm in arm and marched off to a neighbouring inn, to talk about those dear old times that seemed so far away now, and the people they might never see again. This was indeed a happy meeting.

Ah! dear me, though, I'm sure it would have been happier had they taken nothing stronger than water.

But other sergeants dropped in, and now the company numbered five withal, and a merry afternoon they spent.

My grandfather was not used to strong drink, and it is no wonder, therefore, that the fiery stuff he swallowed should have flown to his head.

He had put an enemy in his mouth, and it had stolen away his brains.

The Highland sergeants gave him what is called a Scotch convoy. They walked with him to the third mile-stone, then they all walked back half a mile to an inn. Here a bottle of usquebaugh was bought, and at the fourth mile-stone the contents were discussed and the bottle smashed. Taking a hearty leave of poor Tom and his companions, my very naughty grandfather went on by himself. Presently, as the sun began to wester, he thought he would treat himself to a little song, and did. And now he heard the sound of horses' hoofs clattering up behind him, and next minute a gentleman's servant pulled up alongside.

"Soldier," he said, "you look tired; will you have a ride? This horse can carry you and me both, and never turn a hair."

"Thank you very much. How far are you going?"

"Within two miles of your camp. Leastways I take it to be yours. My master is Colonel W----, of the 42nd, stationed in the town you've been to, but he lives out this way for the present.

"Are you too unsteady," he added, "to get up behind?"

"Not a bit of it," said my grandfather.

So he mounted, and on they rode, chatting cheerily.

By-and-by they came to an inn, and naturally, let me say hypothetically, my grandfather asked the man to drink, and I suppose had some himself.

Inns must have been plentiful enough along that road, for they had not ridden a mile farther before they came to another little hostelry.

This time the man ordered the "noggin," but as soon as this was disposed of, he said rather gruffly to my grandfather, "Pay for that."

"Pay yourself--you called for it. I paid the last, and I'll pay the next."

"What! You won't pay it?"

"No."

"Then get off my horse."

This was too much for Highland blood, especially Highland blood fired with Irish whisky. Sergeant John seized the man by the neck and a leg, and in two seconds threw him off the horse. He managed to wrench the reins from him as he fell.

He just stopped long enough to toss a coin to the gaping landlord, then struck his heels in the horse's ribs, and, uttering a yell like a Mexican cow-boy, dashed madly off.

He felt more inclined to sing now than ever, though what he did sing I cannot say. Something madly Bacchanalian, I have little doubt. And as he sang he waved his pike and slew imaginary foes.

Now, not far from the house where lived Colonel W----, was a narrow bridge over a stream, a high old Gothic sort of structure from which quite half a mile of the road could be seen.

Some men working here, noticing what they thought was a mad soldier on horseback, quickly formed across the road, and, at considerable risk, succeeded in stopping my grandfather's gallop.

His career was stopped for one night, and he was made prisoner. Before this, however, the servant himself was seen in the distance, and honest John at once rushed to meet him. He merely meant to frighten the man, but this he succeeded in doing entirely to his own satisfaction, if not to that of the unfortunate servant.

The rest was all a blank to my soldier grand-dad, till he awoke next morning in a strange room, and found a sentry standing beside the window with fixed bayonet.

"Am I a prisoner, then?"

"You are, indade, sorr. Don't ye moind what ye did at all?"

"Nothing terrible, I hope?"

"Well, as near as a toucher, Sergeant. Sure, if you hadn't been caught, it's a big hole you would have drilled in the colonel's servant, and kilt him entoirely."

The prisoner's agony of mind for the next two hours may be better conceived than described.

He was then brought to the colonel's own room, and, much to his astonishment, received with kind words and a smile.

"But now give an account of this sad affair," he said. "My servant gives me his version, I would like to hear yours."

"I will tell you all I remember, sir, and you will then see that the fault was altogether mine, and your servant not at all to blame."

He then told the story as we know it.

"And that is the truth, Sergeant; the whole truth?"

"O, no, sir, not the whole truth."

"And what have you kept back?"

"Why, nothing that I can think of. I have brought myself as far as the bridge; after that it is all a blank."

The colonel smiled.

"Well," he said, "if I report you to your regiment, you are fully aware what the consequences will be."

My grandfather hung his head.

"I will not report you. There is a morsel of ribbon in your jacket. I well know what that denotes. I am myself a Mason, as--as you know. I will forgive you."

"O, sir, what can I do to show my gratitude? Anything, sir, in the world----"

"Stay, don't be too profuse. But there is one thing I wish you to do. Promise me, on your honour, that you will not let temptation overcome you again."

"On my honour as a soldier, sir, I promise you, but----"

"But what?"

"I had already made the same promise to myself, and I have prayed for help."

"Good. Go back now to your camp. You shall hear no more of this. Good morning."

"Good morning, sir, and a thousand thanks."

I have only to add that the promise he made to Colonel W---- he stuck to, not only for a time, but throughout his whole career. He may, and doubtless did, take his "ration of grog," but never again did he exceed.

I cannot say the same for many of the other sergeants, however, for those were hard, wild times. His own colonel said to my grandfather one day long after this:

"I have never seen you even once the worse of liquor, Sergeant Robertson. And I verily believe if I set you astride a wine-cask, like Bacchus, I would find you all right in the morning."

My grandfather's thoughts reverted to that wild night when returning from K----, but he answered never a word.

* * * * *

To hark back a little way, or rather a few years, and that is indeed but a short time in a war that lasted for twenty twelve-months. Captain Drake told us then how Hood had to leave Toulon after burning the French fleet. He said nothing, however, about the horrors of bloodshed and massacre that followed the entry of the French Republican forces. Such stories are perhaps best left untold.

The burning of the fleet, however, gave us full power in the Mediterranean. But the Vendéans, though promised help from the British, were soon overpowered, then Lyons fell.

After Robespierre himself had met his deserts in 1794, a new Government reigned in Paris.

In June, 1795, the British fleet landed the old nobles of France and an army in the Bay of Quiberon, in South Brittany. The people here were loyal to the backbone, and the expedition would be supported not only by British ships, but by British money.

But, alas! those nobles spent time quibbling and quarrelling as to who should command their forces. Then General Hoche swept down on them like an eagle, captured their fort, and hurled them back towards the sea.

In their fright the fugitives threw themselves into the waves, and many of these were saved by our boats, but all the others who were not killed in battle were made prisoners, and, horrible to relate, six hundred of these were massacred in cold blood.

* * * * *

In the early part of 1796, that bright particular star, Napoleon Bonaparte, whom we last heard of at Toulon as a young artillery officer, began to blaze on high, for we found him in command of the Italians--Italy at that time was not of much importance, and sadly priestridden. He had advised the Directory, as the French Government was now called, to make a threefold attack on Austria. Peace had been concluded with Spain, while Holland and the Lower Rhine were at peace, owing to the Treaty of Basle.

It will do the reader no harm to know that the French General Jourdan was to enter Germany by Frankfort; Moreau to cross the Rhine at Strasburg; and Napoleon himself to face the Austrians and Sardinians on the mountain slopes forty miles to the westward of Genoa.

Napoleon had 40,000 men on the hills above the coast 'twixt Nice and Genoa. The Austrians had an army of equal strength to face this force, and the Sardinian army besides.

To sever these two armies Napoleon fought for four days, then getting betwixt them he left a force to watch the Austrians, while he swooped down on the Piedmontese, driving them back towards Turin with terrible slaughter. The Government was terrorised, and glad to make peace with the young and artful general, giving up to him the fortresses of Coni, Ceva, and Tortona, most important strongholds, because they commanded the entrance to Italy itself.

But Napoleon got also the town of Valenza, at which place, or near it, General Beaulieu was led to understand the French would cross the Po. Here he concentrated his forces and waited to give Napoleon battle. But the latter was cleverly playing his own game. He crossed fifty miles lower down.

There were no telegraphs in those days, so Beaulieu got no inkling of the awful truth until he heard the roar of Napoleon's guns in his rear. It was a grand fight, that at Lodi.

Sword in hand at the head of his grenadiers, the future Emperor of the French crossed the Bridge of Lodi, and the Austrians were fearfully beaten.

Then into Milan itself marched Napoleon in triumph. And the Milanese had to purchase their freedom, not only with vast sums of money, but even with the spoils of their beautiful churches. Napoleon next marched into Central Italy, being determined to drive the armies of Austria completely out of the field. He advanced upon Mincio. In the battle fought by the Austrians and French at Borghetto, Beaulieu was again badly thrashed, and forced to fly into the Tyrol, leaving the French to invest Mantua.