It was the evening of a clear and sunny day--one of the earliest of spring--and Quentin surveyed, with equal delight and interest, the long lines of massive bastions, towers, and battlemented walls that enclosed the town and citadel of Corunna--that vast stone frontage, with all its rows of grim cannon that peered through dark port-holes or frowned _en barbette_, steeped in the warm radiance of a red setting sun that tinged the sea and surf with the hue of blood, sinking every alternate angle of the fortifications in deep and solemn shadow. The music of a French regimental band came floating pleasantly from time to time on the thin air, as they played the grand march of the Emperor along the ramparts; and now the carriage, by Eugene's desire, was stopped near a part of the citadel where Sir John Moore's grave lay, and where the French sappers were already building the great granite monument which the noble Soult erected to his memory, and which the Marquis of Romana completed. Quentin descended from the carriage and approached the spot. He was the last, the only British soldier in Corunna now. He sat down on one of the blocks and looked wistfully at the place where he knew the poor shattered corse lay uncoffined. Then the manly figure, the gentle face, the soldierly presence, and the winning manner of Moore came vividly to memory, and Quentin covered his eyes with his hand, as he could not control his emotion. He was the last solitary mourner by the grave of him whose memory Charles Wolfe embalmed in verse. The French sappers, who had been singing and laughing gaily at their work, respected his grief; they became quite silent, and saluted him with great politeness. Then Madame de Ribeaupierre took him by the hand and they drove away. In the general's well-hung, cosy, and handsome Parisian carriage, he passed more than once over the field of battle. Its sad débris had vanished now; the people of the adjacent villages had gleaned up every bullet and button. The dead were buried in trenches. Here and there might lie a solitary grave, but already the young spring grass was growing over them all. Quentin knew the ground where the Borderers had been posted, and thus he knew which of those fatal mounds was likely to hold the noble and true-hearted Rowland Askerne, Colville, and others whom he knew and mourned for. Even the _étourdi_ Eugene was silent, when, for the last time, they surveyed the field. "Here the 24th charged a square of one of your Scots regiments," said he; "and here fell poor Jules de Marbœuf. It was his last battle." "Killed?" "Yes--dead as Hector, by some of your bare-legged Scotsmen, who took the eagle of the 24th. _Sacre Dieu!_--think of that!"*