Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1De Quincey, Thomas
General
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers — Volume 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays; English fiction
from below; servants in the household of a beneficent lady; and in some
pursuit of flying game had wandered beyond their ordinary limits.
Struck by the sudden scintillation from Kate's dress played upon by the
morning sun, they rode up to the thicket. Great was their surprise,
great their pity, to see a young officer in uniform stretched within
the bushes upon the ground, and perhaps dying. Borderers from childhood
on this dreadful frontier, sacred to winter and death, they understood
the case at once. They dismounted: and with the tenderness of women,
raising the poor frozen cornet in their arms, washed her temples with
brandy, whilst one, at intervals, suffered a few drops to trickle
within her lips. As the restoration of a warm bed was now most likely
to be successful, they lifted the helpless stranger upon a horse,
walking on each side with supporting arms. Once again our Kate is in
the saddle; once again a Spanish Caballador. But Kate's bridle-hand is
deadly cold. And her spurs, that she had never unfastened since leaving
the monastic asylum, hung as idle as the flapping sail that fills
unsteadily with the breeze upon a stranded ship.
This procession had some miles to go, and over difficult ground; but at
length it reached the forest-like park and the chateau of the wealthy
proprietress. Kate was still half-frozen and speechless, except at
intervals. Heavens! can this corpse-like, languishing young woman, be
the Kate that once, in her radiant girlhood, rode with a handful of
comrades into a column of two thousand enemies, that saw her comrades
die, that persisted when all were dead, that tore from the heart of all
resistance the banner of her native Spain? Chance and change have
'written strange defeatures in her face.' Much is changed; but some
things are not changed: there is still kindness that overflows with
pity: there is still helplessness that asks for this pity without a
voice: she is now received by a Senora, not less kind than that
maternal aunt, who, on the night of her birth, first welcomed her to a
loving home; and she, the heroine of Spain, is herself as helpless now
as that little lady who, then at ten minutes of age, was kissed and
blessed by all the household of St. Sebastian.
Let us suppose Kate placed in a warm bed. Let us suppose her in a few
hours recovering steady consciousness; in a few days recovering some
power of self-support; in a fortnight able to seek the gay saloon,
where the Senora was sitting alone, and rendering thanks, with that
deep sincerity which ever characterized our wild-hearted Kate, for the
critical services received from that lady and her establishment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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