CHAPTER V.

NAPOLEON'S SCHEME FOR INVADING BRITAIN--A BRIGHT PROMISE--GRANDFATHER MEETS HIS FATE.

By God's blessing, the brig did win. The very winds seemed to favour her, and, in a few hours after receiving the message of our hero Lord Nelson, orders were sent to Sir Robert Calder, who was at that time blockading the French in the harbours of Ferrol and Rochefort, to raise the blockade and hasten to meet Villeneuve, or lay wait for him off Cape Finisterre.

On July the 22nd, 1805, to his astonishment, the French admiral met the British fleet.

What a hearty welcome they gave him!

What a hearty hiding!

This would have been worse had Villeneuve stayed, but he ran, and managed in a crippled condition to make an entrance into Ferrol.

But even yet Napoleon must play another card, his last, and the French admiral received orders to attempt a movement on Brest and Rochefort. He tried to obey, but our strength was beyond his power and courage, so he fled to Cadiz, without attempting to fight us.

Britain was saved!

Napoleon was furious!

But the great army with which he had designed to pay us so unwelcome a visit, he now let loose upon Austria.

The capitulation of the Austrians at Ulm, a bloodless capitulation of twenty-five thousand men, put the people of Paris mad with rejoicing. Their Emperor was ten times a hero! What had they to fear now, even if the whole world were in arms against them?

The French always were an ebullient nation, but their ebulliency received a sad check only two days after the victory of Ulm and the bombastic despatch of forty Austrian standards to Paris.

Trafalgar was fought.

That great naval victory of ours, in which the fleets of France and Spain were smashed, and Britannia crowned once more Queen and Mistress of the Seas, was decided on the 21st of October.

Alas! that in the hour of triumph our hero should have fallen on the blood-slippery, fiery deck of the far-famed flagship, _Victory_.

The news of this wonderful battle spread like wildfire over Britain, ay, and over Europe itself.

"Trafalgar," says Fyffe, "was not only the greatest naval victory, it was the greatest and most momentous victory won either by land or by sea, during the whole of the Revolutionary War. No victory, and no series of victories, of Napoleon produced the same effect upon Europe. Austria was in arms within five years of Marengo, and within four years of Austerlitz. Prussia was ready to retrieve the losses of Jena in 1813, but a whole generation passed before France could again seriously threaten Britain at sea.

"The prospect of crushing the British Navy, so long as we had the means to equip a navy, vanished. Napoleon henceforth set his hopes on exhausting our resources by compelling every State on the Continent to exclude our commerce.

"Trafalgar forced him, therefore, to enforce his yoke on all Europe, or to abandon the hope of conquering Great Britain."

* * * * *

Have you ever looked down into the crater of a great volcano, reader mine? I dare say not. It is a pleasure of a somewhat awesome nature, that you still have before you. The volcano must not be in an active state when you peer fearfully over its brink. But if it be but semi-quiescent, the sight that meets your eyes is indeed a wonderful one, especially if the crater be one of considerable extent, like that of Kalakahui, in the Fiji Islands. It is a sight that will be photographed, as it were, on the tablets of your memory, indelible for ever and a day--a sight you may dream of many a night in bed, and yet if you were asked to describe it, or picture it in words to any of your friends, you would probably remain silent. No language could bring before the mind's eye of another person that seething, bubbling, ever-changing lake of fire; its mysterious chasms opening up for a moment or two, to vomit forth flames and steam, and then closing as suddenly as if swallowed up in the waves of liquid lava; the strange, bright colours of the flames, or the streaks of bright crimson, blue, or green fire that creep hither and thither, and turn, and twist, and coil like hissing snakes; the clouds of smoke and steam that settle here and there, but vanish as you look at them; little conical hills that rise in this place or that, higher and higher, and higher, till they burst at last and spue forth their boiling contents, then collapse as quickly and change into lakes!

No wonder that the ancients looked upon such a place as this with fear and trembling, and considered it the gates of the evil place, that led downwards into the bottomless pit.

But, in reading the history of Europe that for the next ten years succeeded Trafalgar, anyone who has ever looked into such a crater as I have tried, though in vain, to describe, cannot help comparing the condition of the Continent and the great Powers--its battles, its sieges, its bloodshed, fire, thunder, and strife--with the volcano's molten, seething sea.

It is a relief to turn for a time from this turmoil of war, of intrigue, and murder, to more peaceful scenes at home.

Battalions, companies, and draughts of our regiments were, in those days, beings lifted about here, there, and everywhere, like men and knights on a chess-board. In the summer of 1807 my grandfather was not at all surprised or displeased to find himself back once more in Dublin barracks. Both he and his company.

Some changes, however, had taken place among the officers. Drake was still here, so was O'Reilly, and Dr. McLeod also.

There was never wanting plenty of work for McLeod to do, and, if he was not labouring in hospital, or among his own men, his services were in request in some other corps lying at the same barracks.

But Blood died in battle, fighting against fearful odds, sword in hand, on a parapet. In the same action fell Captain Jones, the brave Welshman. A round shot carried his leg away above the knee.

Only the Royals and one or two other regiments were engaged in this skirmish with the French, and they were victorious.

I have observed that my grandfather, like many other old heroes who have fought in great battles, talked of lesser engagements as mere "skirmishes." This seems odd, when you find out that the so-called skirmish lasted perhaps three or four hours, with much loss on either side.

Again, old heroes are in the habit of referring to a wound that has not actually severed a limb, or cut a man in two, as "only a scratch."

My grand-dad had a terrible scar on the left shoulder that must have cut far into the deltoid muscle. I remember well that when I first saw it, while the old warrior, stripped to the waist, was enjoying his morning ablution, I cried out in childish terror, "O, Auld-da, look at your shoulder. What a terrible cut! Didn't you cry awfully?"

He smiled, but went on towelling.

"Only a scratch, dear boy. Only a scratch!"

Well, during this spell in Dublin, my hero undertook recruiting duties. The fact is that smart, handsome men were usually picked out for work of this kind, and were proud of it. I dare say that they received pickings and perquisites more than enough to buy the ribbons of red, white, and blue, that fluttered so gaily from their caps. On a market-day it was nothing unusual for a dashing young sergeant to enlist half a dozen or more.

Major Drake drew my grandfather aside one day, and had a quiet talk with him about several things.

"Now, Sergeant," he said at last, "our regiment, they tell me"--here he read a portion of a letter he had received from headquarters--"needs filling up to its full strength, and you are the man to help to do it. You generally bring in three recruits to any other sergeant's one. Well, there is a great fair to take place near Dundalk, and I'm going to send you round, and I expect you to return here with quite a haul of young fellows. I believe in a mixture of blood myself, and that is why we are recruiting here, but at that fair at Dundalk you'll find plenty of good honest Irish and Scots, and you're to do your best to bring at least a round dozen. And you needn't spare expense."

My grand-dad saluted, and said, "Certainly not, sir."

"But," added Drake, "if I have a fault to find with you, it is this----" He paused and looked comically for a few seconds at my worthy progenitor, as if not sure how he would take it.

"Well, sir?"

"You're a pleasant sight too _honest_, Sergeant."

"But I draw them all the same."

"You would draw more if you told a white lie now and then. And, Sergeant----"

"And what, Major Drake?"

"All lies told for the benefit of your King and country are white lies."

"The regiment is soon to go abroad again, I suppose, sir?"

"That's so, I think."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"And why?"

"Because I think cutting throats for your King and country is far more honest and honourable than telling lies, however white they may be."

Drake laughed heartily.

"O, Robertson, Robertson, you'd make a capital captain of a company, but you'd never do for a general."

"By the way," he added, "there is something I ought to have told you years ago. Although we have been separated often enough, you having been so ubiquitous, I had plenty of opportunities. Before he left the Rock, the Duke informed me in conversation that he never had an orderly or staff-sergeant under him that pleased him better than you."

"Did he really?"

Grand-dad's eyes were sparkling with pleasure.

"Yes, but he told me more. There is to be a Highland battalion of the Royal Scots,* if his Royal Highness can manage it."

* This was on the tapis before Waterloo.

"So he has hinted to me himself, sir."

"Did he tell you anything else?"

"No."

"Well, he assured me that you would be one of the first appointed to it as ensign, and I'll be happy, Sergeant Robertson, when that day comes, to welcome you as a brother officer."

He extended his hand, and my grandfather shook it warmly.

Now although, innocently enough, I asked him if he had cried when he received that awful slash across the shoulder, and although not even the "pandés" of Dominie Freeschal could make my grandfather cry, there had been tears in his eyes when his officer spoke thus kindly. They came up with a gush and a rush, and it was a wonder they didn't overflow.

"Major Drake," he said, "you've been always a friend to me on sea and land, and we have fought shoulder to shoulder many a time, and I declare to you honestly, I've always felt happy when I saw your sword waving through the smoke of battle. But now you've made me the happiest man in all the regiment. I've always tried to do my duty, and henceforward, wherever I am, be the danger what it may, I shall ever remember what the dear Duke said, and that ensign's sword will seem to guide me on."

"Bravely spoken, Robertson. Now off you go and get ready for Dundalk."

"I'm off, sir. O, by the way," he said, turning back, "my old friend Tonal is on furlough, and will be here to-morrow. He'll have his bagpipes. Shall I take him with me?"

"Most certainly."

* * * * *

It was not "to-morrow," however, but that very afternoon that Tonal and my grand-dad met. The latter was walking across the bridge with the ribbons fluttering gaily from his hat, as he swung his dainty cane, and looked as gay as a goldfinch, when a voice said behind him, "I want to enlist," at the same time he received a slap on the back that made him jump.

"Take that, you spalpeen," roared grandfather, rounding briskly on his assailant with uplifted cane.

But the blow never fell.

For there was Tonal himself as large as life, and laughing all down both sides, apparently.

"Well, I am glad."

"And so am I."

"But, Tonal, man, what a terribly hard fist you have!"

They adjourned together to a quiet inn at which my grandfather was wont to treat the men whom he hoped to enlist.

There was no recruiting in his head now, however, and it was two whole hours before those two friends and cronies made their exit, so much had they to speak about and tell each other.

A day or two after this happy meeting, both were off and _en voyage_ for Dundalk.

And now I have to tell you how my grandfather won his wife.

How my hero won my grandmother. Is that a better way of putting it? I'm sure I don't know. You see she couldn't have been my grandmother then, because I wasn't born. I was dead then, as the children say. Besides, a girl of seventeen isn't very often a grandmother, is she? Heigho! I always did get ravelled in reckoning or counting kith and kin.

But one day, a week or two before this momentous visit to Dundalk, he was returning to Dublin from Booterstown. He was admiring the quiet villas, that even at that distant date were springing up, here and there, not far from the water's edge.

The bay was very blue and beautiful, and afar off were the bonnie green hills and the rocks that, together, seemed to float in the gloaming haze.

Somehow or other, grandfather's thoughts, just then, were reverting to the braes where his father and mother lived, and to his old schooldays, when little innocent Rachel Freeschal was his boyhood's idol. He had sunk into a kind of reverie, which, though just tinged with a little sadness, was far indeed from being unpleasant, when he heard the rattle of wheels some distance behind him.

He looked quickly round, and noticed a pony and trap rapidly advancing, the occupants of which--an elderly lady and a young--had evidently lost all control over the steed.

This was a moment for action, and grand-dad was ready for it. Though not tall, he was very powerfully built, an athlete to all intents and purposes.

This catching of a runaway horse is by no means so easy as it seems. And it is, moreover, attended with considerable danger.

In pictures we sometimes see the action represented as if the hero thereof had caught the nag, and forced him on his haunches. It never was like this. Donald Dinnie himself could not do it.

The man is invariably dragged some little way unless he can keep his feet.

On the present occasion my gallant grandfather was most successful, and Mrs. Stapleton and her daughter were most grateful.

The frightened pony had taken them some distance past their cottage, and grandfather led him back.

He would have taken his leave then.

"Sergeant," said the elder lady, "we are presently going to dine; you must come and join us."

"Ladies," was the reply, "I am but a simple soldier."

"And we're but simple people. Peter, take the pony. Scold him a little, but don't beat him. This is the gate, Sergeant. Come."

And as the girl's eyes said "Come" also, what could he do?

But those eyes, ay, and the beautiful face as well, reminded him so of Rachel that non-compliance was out of the question.

"Obedience to orders," he said, smiling, "is the first duty of a soldier. I follow."

He unpinned the ribbons from his hat, however, and placed them in his pocket.

The ladies lived here all alone, with a single servant ind the boy Peter.

Mrs. Stapleton* was the widow of a doctor once well known in Dublin, and although comfortably off, they were by no means wealthy. She was by no means averse to talking about her past life, nor Eleanor about her dead-and-gone father, but all in such a quiet way that my grandfather felt perfectly at home. He was a simple-minded and truthful man, and although those were the days of effusive compliments, strange to say, he never paid even a lady one.

* Mrs. Stapleton and Eleanor are real, not fictitious names.

But he told them much of his strange, romantic life, and especially his early adventures, which made both ladies laugh.

Eleanor played prettily on the harp, and sang sweetly too.

Grandfather, in the course of the evening, blurted out the following remark:

"How like your daughter's eyes and looks are to--to one I knew."

"Aha! a sweetheart. O, you soldiers!" said Mrs. Stapleton.

"Yes, a--sweetheart. It is long, long ago. She is dead. I was thirteen, she was twelve."

Some impulse made him show the ladies his amulet, Rachel's letter, and the sadly-faded four-bladed clover.

Eleanor smiled when she read it. But her bonnie blue eyes were swimming in tears.

* * * * *

"If ever I marry," said my grandfather to himself as he walked homewards, "that sweet girl shall be my bride. But, heigho! I'm only a soldier, and--they did not even say, 'Come back and see us.'"