The King's Own Borderers: A Military Romance, Volume 3 (of 3)Grant, James
General
The King's Own Borderers: A Military Romance, Volume 3 (of 3)
Grant, James
Soldiers -- Fiction
She was evidently deranged by suffering, terror, and sorrow, and she
was a pretty young woman, too. She heard not the wailing of the
infant that nestled among the wet straw by her side, but sat with her
husband's head in her lap, and her hollow eyes fixed on vacancy, as
she toyed with his hair, and "crooned" a fragment of an old Scottish
song to a plaintive air, somewhat like that of "My Love's in
Germanie."
"They say my love is dead,
Gone to his gory bed,
They say my love is dead,
Ayont the sea.
In the stillness o' the night,
When the moon is shining bright,
My true-love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me,
Haunteth me!
My true love's shroud sae white
Haunteth me!"
"Good heavens, sir," said a soldier, "it is poor Allan Grange, the
sergeant who was broken at Colchester, and his wife, too! She's
clean demented, puir thing! Ailie, woman, come awa; the regiment is
moving on."
Quentin too, tried his powers of persuasion, but without avail, and
the stern order of Cosmo, to "Close up--close up, and move on--no
loitering!" together with the distant boom of a French field-piece,
the flash of which came redly through the drift and darkness,
compelled them to leave her. If she lived she must soon after have
fallen into the hands of the enemy. At all events, Ailie Grange was
heard of no more.
In one of the many skirmishes with the enemy's light dragoons, a
singular instance of gross treachery occurred at the little village
of Palacios de la Valduerna. There a sergeant of our 7th Hussars,
belonging to Captain Duckinfield's detachment, vanquished, in single
combat, a French dragoon and took him prisoner. The Frenchman threw
down his sword, drew off his leather gauntlet, and held out his hand
in token of amity. Then the sergeant, with the characteristic
generosity of a gallant Englishman, also put forth his right hand;
but inserting his left into his holster, the Frenchman drew a pistol,
blew his captor's wrist to pieces, and killed his horse under him.
Before the poor hussar could rise from under his fallen charger, the
would-be assassin was bayoneted by some of Romana's Spanish soldiers,
who in their rage and hatred, made up a fire and consumed his body to
ashes; after this, in blind vengeance, they somewhat needlessly slew
his horse.
At this part of the disastrous retreat nearly a hundred waggons that
were coming on, laden with shoes and clothes for Romana's Spaniards,
from England, but too late to be of any avail, fell into the hands of
the enemy.
As the column defiled past them, Quentin saw the body of an officer
lying dead under one of the wheels in a pool of blood, snow, and
mire. A vague recollection, combined with a horrible anxiety, made
him draw near to observe the corpse.
It was that of Warriston! his kind and generous friend, Captain
Richard Warriston, of the Scots Brigade; but "push on--push on," was
the order, and there was no time given for thought, examination, or
inquiry........
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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