Legends of the Black Watch; or, Forty-second HighlandersGrant, James
History
Legends of the Black Watch; or, Forty-second Highlanders
Grant, James
Great Britain. Army. Regiment of Foot, 42nd -- History -- Anecdotes
The inquiry threatened by our ambassador was never made. Paris was
then convulsed, and France was trembling on the brink of anarchy,
even as the weak Louis trembled on his crumbling throne. The
exertions of his Grace of Dorset to unravel more of the mystery, and
the fears of the Comte de Montmorin, were alike futile, for next
morning the poor major was found dead in his bed. He had expired in
the night. The sudden revulsion of feeling produced by a release,
after so many years of blank captivity, had proved too much for his
weak frame and shattered constitution. He was buried in the church
of St. Germain de Prez; and when Oswald's sans-culottes lifted the
dead man from the bed, to lay him in the humble shell provided by the
curé of the parish, there dropped from his breast a locket It
contained a miniature and a withered tress of black hair--the last
mementoes left to him of all that he had loved in the pleasant days
of youth and hope, and prized beyond even blessed hope itself, in the
solitude and horror of the long years that had followed Ticonderoga.
The ruffians who had desecrated the regal sepulchres of St. Denis
respected the heritage of the dead soldier, so that the locket was
buried with him; and there, in the ancient church of St. Germain,
Oswald, the political enthusiast, interred his old and long-lost
comrade with all the honours of war.
The stone which was erected in the church, and of which I have given
the brief inscription, is said, traditionally, to have been the gift
of a lady--who, need scarcely be mentioned. How long this lady and
the count her husband survived the disclosures consequent to the
destruction of the Bastille, I have no means of knowing; but French
history has recorded the fate of Jack Oswald.
His two sons left Edinburgh and joined him at Paris, where, to
illustrate the complete system of equality and fraternity, he made
them both drummers in his regiment, among the soldiers of which his
severe discipline soon rendered him unpopular; and on his attempting
to substitute pikes for muskets, the whole battalion refused to obey,
and then officers and men broke out into open mutiny.
"Colonel Oswald's corps," continues the editor of the "Scottish
Biographical Dictionary," "was one of the first employed against the
royalists in La Vendée, where he was killed in battle. It is said
that his men took advantage of the occasion to rid themselves of
their obnoxious commander, and to despatch also his two sons, and an
English gentleman who was serving in his regiment."
And thus ends another legend of the Black Watch.
VIII.
ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN GRANT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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