One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
Then pale cheeks flushed and sunken eyes grew bright, and all were in
high expectation, save one who lay in a corner on his iron bed and straw
pallet under a poor rug, with eyes already glazed at times, for the hand
of death was heavy on him; and this was my poor comrade Pitblado, with
no friend near him save the hospital orderlies, who by this time were
pretty well used to suffering and dissolution, and could behold both
with stoical indifference.
It was on a day that many yet remember--Monday, the 18th of June--the
fortieth anniversary of Waterloo, that all Strood, Rochester, and
Chatham were startled from their usual rural tranquillity by the
appearance of the Queen and her retinue, as she swept through their
narrow and tortuous streets, at her usual speed, to visit the wounded
soldiers in Fort Pitt.
The cold-blooded days of the "Four Georges" have passed into the waste
of eternity, and it is our happy fortune to have upon our throne a queen
whose true woman's heart no glory of station, or fortuitous grandeur of
position, can alter.
On his poor pallet, in the sick ward, Willie heard the cheers in the
streets of Chatham far below; he heard the clash of arms and the rolling
of the drum, as the guard presented arms at the gate, and in his
death-drowsy ear he seemed to hear again the din of battle far away,
Beverley's voice, and the rush of the charging squadrons; but the sounds
brought him back to the world for a time.
He was too feeble, too far gone, to join the melancholy parade before
the hospital; but the orderlies opened the window of the ward, and
propped him up with pillows and knapsacks, that, like one or two other
wasted creatures, he might see the Queen pass along.
"I wish that God had spared me ance mair to see my puir auld father's
face," said Willie, whose Scottish dialect came faster back as life
ebbed in his gallant heart; "but His will be done. It canna be--it
canna be! I maun e'en bear it, and he that tholes, overcomes."
From the windows on the ground floor he saw the glorious noonday sun, on
which his eyes were soon to close for ever, for the staff-doctor had
rather curtly told him so. He saw the fertile plains of lovely Kent
stretching far away towards Rainham, and the windmills tossing their
arms on the green upland slopes. He saw the tower of Rochester
Cathedral half hidden in the sunny haze, and the great square stone
block of the grand old Norman castle towering against the clear blue
sky, and casting a sombre shadow on the winding Medway, and poor Willie
thought the world that God had made looked peaceful and lovely.
Before the hospital he saw paraded some three hundred men. The front
rank lay mostly on the gravel, for they were unable to stand, either by
debility or amputation; the rear rank was propped against the wall, on
crutches or staves. All wore the light blue hospital gown, trousers, and
cap; but many an empty sleeve and useless trouser-leg were there.
Every man of them has been face to face and foot to foot with death, and
yet withal their hearts are strongly stirred within them by their
Queen's approach. Their hair is long, and in elf-locks; their faces are
hollow and pale, and their eyes shine out weirdly, and like bits of
glass, as those of the sick usually do.
"Attention!" cries the sleek and well-fed commandant (who, perhaps, had
not been at Sebastopol), as he comes along in full uniform, with his
cocked hat under his arm, by the side of the Queen, who leans on the arm
of Prince Albert; and as they pass slowly along that remarkable line,
their eyes and faces fill with pity and commiseration.
Mechanically, at the word of command, all the men make a nervous start.
Those who are legless prop themselves on their hands and arms; and some
stand painfully erect on their crutches, and their wasted fingers are
raised in salute, to where the helmet or the Highland bonnet would have
been; but, alas! a hospital nightcap is only there now!
Men of all regiments are there--horse, foot, and artillery, guardsmen,
hussars, and lancers; but all wear one sad uniform now.
That morning was long remembered in Fort Pitt; and it was one which, no
doubt, our good Queen long remembered too.
With a last effort, Willie rallied, and propped himself at the window,
just as a hospital orderly pinned on his blue woollen gown a card like
those worn by all the others, stating the age, name, and corps of the
wearer. It bore--
"William Pitblado--aged twenty-four--lancer--leg amputated--Battle of
Balaclava."
The card, as it was pinned on, caught the eyes of the royal group, and
the terrible expression that none can mistake--even those who luckily
see it for the first time--was read in Willie's face.
"Do not speak to him, please, your Majesty," whispered the commandant;
"his aspect must distress you--the man is dying."
"Dying!" exclaimed the Queen; "poor, poor fellow!"
"Pulse sinking--hope all over--will be dead before evening parade,"
muttered a sententious staff surgeon.
The Queen had in her hand a magnificent bouquet, presented to her by the
ladies of those in the high places of Chatham garrison--heads of
departments, and so forth. She detached a white rose, and gave it to the
poor dying lad, whose faculties were making a rally for the last time.
He looked at the high-born donor without shrinking or quailing, and,
with a sad, sad smile on his face, so thin and wan--for the eye of One
who is greater than all the kings of the earth was on him now--the
sufferer spoke, but in long and feeble utterances.
"My auld father aye said I need never--never look for--my reward in this
world; but--but this day I hae gotten it."
And he pressed the rose to his thin blue lips.
"Are you easy, my poor fellow?" asked the commandant.
"Ye-yes, sir--thank you--very easy,"
"Is there anything you would wish?"
"I would wish to be laid--in the old kirk-yard at hame, where my--my
mither lies under a saugh tree--but--but it canna be. God has been gude
to me--I might hae found a grave for ever far awa' in the
Crimea--and--and no within the sound o' a Christian bell."
His head fell back and turned on one side, as the eyes glazed and the
jaw relaxed. The Queen--good little woman--drew back, with her
handkerchief at her eyes, and the spirit of my faithful comrade--this
poor victim of the war--passed away.
The Queen's white rose is buried with Poor Willie Pitblado. His grave is
in the military cemetery, under the shadow of the great Spur Battery.
I know the place well, and a stone placed by Sir Nigel Calderwood marks
it.
*CHAPTER LIV.*
Banished every thought of sadness
In our home of quiet gladness;
Absence, separation o'er,
Together, and to part no more.
United, lovingly we glide,
Ever going with the tide.
Storm nor tempest fear we now,
Love sits watching at the prow;
Happy, trusting, silently,
Onward to the shoreless sea,
Together let us drift or glide,
Ever going with the tide.
ST. JAMES'S MAGAZINE.
"And you love me, dear Newton--and--and no one else?"
Soft autumn was in all her beauty; the forest leaves of Fife were
already tinged with yellow; the harvest fields were bare, and the brown
partridges were whirring up in tempting coveys from the hard stubble and
the hedgerows, while the deep, fragrant clover grew green and rich on
the upland slopes.
It was a glorious evening in September, when the days and nights are of
equal length. The sun was setting beyond the western Lomond, and
casting his dewy shadow far across the woodlands of Calderwood Glen,
when Cora and I lingered, hand in hand, in the old avenue, and she asked
this rather pleasing--I had almost said, perplexing--question, while her
soft and beautiful eyes were turned tenderly upwards to mine.
And dearly I kissed her, for we had been but three days married--so Cora
was my _kismet_, my destiny, after all!
I was lost for a moment in thought--even lance-prods and rifle bullets
had not cured me of my habit of day-dreaming and memory flashed back to
that strange episode in the quarters of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig at Varna,
when poor Jack Studhome, Jules Jolicoeur, and Captain Baudeuf were with
me, and the words of the conjuring Egyptian quack doctor seemed to come
to my ears again--"_Allah kerim_--it is _kismet_--your destiny."
Cora repeated her winning question.
"And you love me, dear Newton--and no one else?"
"Could I fail to love you, Cora--you, who are all affection and
perfection, too?"
"Now, in her memoirs, Mrs. Siddons asserts that 'no woman can ever reach
perfection until the age of nine and twenty or thirty,' and I require a
few years to reach that mature time," she replied.
Another kiss, and perhaps another--I don't think we counted them.
"Ah! how happy I am now!" she exclaimed, as she clasped her fair fingers
on my arm, with her cheek reclining on my shoulder.
"And I, too, Cora."
"Shall I sing you a verse of an old song?"
"If you please. Is it the 'Thistle and Rose'?"
"No."
"What then?"
"It's gude to be merry and wise,
It's gude to be honest and true;
It's gude to be off wi' the old love
Before ye are on wi' the new.
But it is too bad to tease you, Newton dear!"
"My dear little wag of a wife!" I exclaimed; for while Cora's sweet
voice rippled over the verse, I could smile now, and tenderly too, at
the advice it conveyed.
So much for "Time, the avenger!"
In the second chapter of this long history of myself and my adventures I
have related that the Calderwood estates were entailed, and were thus
destined to enrich a remote collateral branch, which had long since
settled in England, "and lost all locality, and nationality too," as Sir
Nigel had it, the baronetcy ending with himself, to whom long life!
Thanks to the legal acumen of Mr. Brassy Wheedleton, and of Messrs. Grab
and Screwdriver, writers to the signet, Edinburgh, there were "no end"
of flaws discovered in the original entail of 1685, registered when
James VII. was king of the realm. They boast that they could have
driven a coach-and-six through it; so it was speedily reduced, and the
lands of Calderwood Glen, with the place, fortalice, and manor-house
thereof, and those of Pitgavel, with the mains, woods, and farm touns
thereof, which were Cora's own portion, were all secured to us, our
heirs--yes, that was the word which made Cora blush--our executors, and
assigns, for ever.
The old title of "_Primus Baronettorum Scotiae_," the pride of Sir
Nigel's heart, neither I nor mine could inherit; but I have my star of
Medjidie, a medal and two clasps for the Crimea, with the French Legion
of Honour, and that decoration which I value more than all: the little
black bronze Victoria Cross, inscribed "For valour," which I received
for the rash attempt I made at Bulganak, with a gallant few, to bring
off the mutilated body of poor Rakeleigh, as the reader will find duly
recorded in page 336 of the "Army List" for the month in which it was
given, if he or she choose to look; and those four prized baubles, won
amid blood and danger, shall long be prized as heirlooms in Calderwood
Glen.
With the poet, I may exclaim--
Yea! I have found a nobler heart
That I may love with nobler love:
True as the trembling stars thou art,
Pure as the trembling stars above.
And shall I live a nobler life,
Come peace or passion, joy or grief?
Remembrance brings a sweet relief,
And points me to this nobler life.
* * * * *
The grass was growing green on the graves of the Alma, and where Albyn's
warpipe sent up its yell of triumph on the Kourgane Hill; greener,