Duty and Inclination/Chapter 22
DUTY AND INCLINATION.
CHAPTER I.
"Now they reach thee in their anger!
Fire and smoke and hellish clangour
Are around thee!"
Byron.
It was about the end of April, when the wind at early dawn blows fresh and chill; the moon had shone full in the hemisphere of its rest, serene and solemn, an undying lamp, shedding its unsullied beams upon a world of sin and woe, and equally illumining the path of the wicked as that of the virtuous; cold and pale she was now retiring to the far west, giving place to the rising of a morn, eventful, and involving the fate of many.
The General and his attendants were mounting the eminence before them, undulating in ascent, and more than a mile in length; scarcely had they advanced half way, when clamorous sounds and shouts of discord met their ears; having ordered the troops to follow, the General and his aid-de-camp sprang forward and attained the summit, where, alas! no troops awaited their coming.
Fired with impetuosity and an overheated zeal, impatient of delay, Major Harrold, in opposition to the commands of his General, had advanced to meet the combatants;—not perceiving the numbers of rebels, secreted in every direction, in a thickly-set country, beneath hedges of furze and brambles, this ill-judged officer had precipitated himself with the troops under his command into the very abyss of destruction.
The Irish peasantry, in all their ferocity of character, headed by leaders bold, daring, and outrageous as themselves, might well, in the horrid picture they then presented, have realised what the imagination might have conceived of the untamed savage or beast of prey precipitating with equal brutality on their victim.
What a scene of confusion, desperation, and carnage was destined to meet the eye of the General! The wild, infuriated Irish, thronging with their long terrific pikes, had broken the ranks of those brave soldiers, so worthy of a better fate; the ground received the slain, and streams of blood dyed the surface of the earth.
It was enough. Aghast, struck with horror and dismay, the General and his companions awaited the coming up of the forces; the former, during that short interval, reflecting upon what he had best determine: should he pour into the heat of action, in order that by keeping up a continual firing of musketry, so large a body of men might strike panic into the rebels? Advancing bravely in front of the ranks, he exhorted them to do their duty; firm and undaunted they obeyed:—but, alas! their columns were dispersed; the previous success of the rebels, in their carnage of the advanced guard, had given them an earnest of a second victory.
To spare a still greater and useless effusion of blood, nothing remained to the General but a safe and honourable retreat, and which he executed with the greatest coolness, having lost but few of his men. In the disordered state of the country, the General considered the retreat he was making to be most essential for the safety of the Fort, which he had left to the discretion of a battalion of superannuated veterans, and which required therefore to be put under an immediate and strong armament. Mournful and silent, the General and his aid-de-camp turned to retrace the path they had trodden, reflecting upon the many cut off in their prime, low and bleeding on the sod, heaped promiscuously; no honoured grave but the yawning pit to receive their disfigured bodies.
"What a deplorable error," thought the General; "in what cruel fortune am I involved! and which might have been prevented had the ill-fated Major obeyed my orders. A short delay, and he would have been supported by the body of forces he was made aware would follow him, so much more numerous than those he commanded, which were but as a handful compared to the hordes of savages he had to encounter." Nought could exculpate that officer from so perverse a disobedience of his General's orders,—having been sent forward, as previously planned, merely to reconnoitre, and upon no condition to have engaged without the chief's own personal express command; such had been the strict, deliberate, and urgent injunctions repeatedly given upon his leaving the Fort. He had fallen a victim to his indiscreet courage; and, what was still more poignant to reflect upon, the havock, the ruin, the desolation his fate involved, rendered it doubtful whether even one individual had escaped to tell the dreadful tale.
Again, as the General continued his reflections, every mischievous occurrence uniting to oppose him, might, when his conduct was reviewed, make it appear that he had not himself acted as an officer on duty ought to have done; and he deeply lamented his unfortunate delay, caused by the treacherous negative of the rebel to the question whether an armed force had passed his house. True, it seemed that to have mistrusted his veracity before just cause of suspicion had occurred, would have implied an unwarrantable mistrust also of the officer on whose implicit obedience he relied. Fatal abuse of confidence! Survive he cannot, thought the General; and better for him so, since, if living, his fate would be a court-martial, and dismissal from the service with disgrace.
"This unhappy defeat," he observed to his aid-de-camp, "arising through the imprudence of Major Harrold, now numbered with the dead, in giving further audacity to the victorious rebels, instilling into them hopes of future success beyond their most sanguine expectations, cannot but entail the worst consequences.
Deeply grieved. Captain Curtis expressed poignant regret, and forcibly lamented that he had allowed himself to have been buoyed up with such high anticipations of victory as he had been the preceding evening.
"My dear Curtis," replied the General, taking the blame upon himself for having, in the natural yielding of his character, attended to his counsels, "it is always thus that, in a military career, we are exposed to the chances of good or ill fortune, and what has now befallen us all (more particularly myself as chief) demonstrates that the issue of our schemes, prudent or not, depends as it were upon the cast of a die. Had we happily been in time to check the impetuous ardour of Major Harrold, the suggestion would instantly have occurred that cavalry alone would be of service here; two or three regiments of dragoons, fiercely riding over and trampling down that barbarous throng, were indispensable towards gaining us the victory. Desperate emergencies require desperate energies. The fatal hour is past, and it is now too late to reason."
Thus occupied in discourse, the General was scarcely sensible of the exhaustion his mind and body underwent, till suddenly pulling up his horse's reins he slackened his pace, approaching a small cabin, whence at no great distance a woman was seen bearing with her a pail.
His orderly dismounting, asked the General if he would not like to refresh himself with a draught of new milk, drawing as he spoke a bottle-case from his pocket, in which he had provided brandy. Being answered in the affirmative, he ran to the cabin to procure a jug or basin of the beverage. Meanwhile, as the woman approached, the General threw her a piece of silver, to allow him to taste the contents of her pail.
During this short interval, a bold and daring rebel, with fiendlike intent, like a serpent crouching in ambush awaiting the moment to inflict a deadly wound, was concealed in the covert of the hedge, the distance only of a pistol-shot from the General. Pausing for an instant with savage joy to feast his eyes upon his prey, secure within his reach, his certain victim, he deliberately aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger: the piece missed fire! A second attempt was made, but with the same result. What but the interposition of Providence saved the unsuspecting General, who, spurring his horse onwards, was speedily borne from the murderous aim!
Blasphemy and curses burst from the villain; he cast the weapon to the ground, furiously resumed it, picked the lock, essayed again, and with effect; the ball destined to fell the General to the earth lodged itself in the decayed trunk of an intervening tree.
A considerable sum had been offered by the chiefs of the insurrection for the General's head; no wonder then, with such a reward for his assassination, danger and death menaced him every moment. The only place of safe and honourable refuge from certain destruction to his followers and himself was the Fort, and thither then, seeing that the post of safety was become that of duty, the General retreated. His soul wept as he crossed the drawbridge at the thought of those who had passed it the preceding evening, never more to return.
The day was already far advanced, when the General made his way directly to the apartment of Mrs. De Brooke, where, awfully impressed as she had been in his absence, the instant her eye caught her husband's, every tremulous anxiety seemed confirmed; she scarcely dared to make inquiries, but flying to embrace him, awaited in dread expectation his speaking. Brief was his tale of woe! horrid in its recital! yet it seemed but as a beginning to more portentous evils; it came but as one loud burst of thunder on her ear, the darkened elements presaging deeper and more aggravated peals. Thus lost in sorrowful anticipations, she was roused from them by the hasty injunctions of her husband to lose no time in making arrangements for herself and children quitting the Fort.
"Within these boundaries," said he, "no female must remain; no line of distinction can be drawn; if, as my wife, you were suffered to stay, I should not feel a right to send away the wives of others. A packet has been sent for express, to transport you to the shores of Wales, and will be almost in immediate attendance to receive you. Make the most of your time,—it is but short,—whilst I hasten to write my despatches, and lay an account of this disastrous affair before Government."
In a case so clear and just, Mrs. De Brooke could not expostulate, but with a dejected mien, giving a summons to her attendants, employed them and herself in making preparations for her departure.
Despite the general hurry and commotion, and the necessity of a prompt obedience to orders, Captain Curtis, however, swayed by the tender interests of his heart, had stolen a moment to send to his wife a hasty account of the defeat; urging her at the same time to quit without delay, and put herself and family under the protection of the General, in order that she might share whatever might be the fate of Mrs. De Brooke. Striking a panic into all to whom the news was extended, Mrs. Curtis, her relations and friends, together with many of the gentry in and about the neighbourhood, took instant flight.
Thus Mrs. De Brooke, in the midst of trouble on her own account, was frequently called upon to condole with those who were continually flocking in, and forming an assemblage in her drawing-room—how different in appearance from those which she had there so often entertained!—now, as herself, awaiting, anxiously desirous to embark.
Few were the moments allowed for composing their scattered and agitated thoughts. A messenger summoned them to the beach, where the boat was resting upon its oars, to convey them to the vessel lying off at sea. The tide was about retreating—no delay could be admitted.
Giving precedence to her companions in distress, Mrs. De Brooke, leaning on the arm of the General, followed with her daughters. Arrived at the water-side, the sorrowful group prepared to leave the country. The oars were dashed amidst the billows, mingling their sounds with the many adieus and farewell accents, successively repeated, and silently answered by those who waved aloft their arms, as they mournfully stood contemplating the bearing away over the trackless ocean that lovely and endearing train, solaced, however, with the hope of soon returning, and of passing the interval on a coast not remote.
Mrs. De Brooke reached the side of the vessel, then under weigh, whilst the General, having seen her and his daughters ascend to the deck, hastened to give reception and audience to the colonel of the regiment and officers awaiting his further orders.