📖✨ La grande ombre | Arthur Conan Doyle 🌌⚔️

Plongez dans *La grande ombre* d’Arthur Conan Doyle, un récit fascinant qui mêle histoire, aventure et émotion profonde. 🌟 Ce roman nous transporte à l’époque des guerres napoléoniennes, où les destins individuels se heurtent aux grands bouleversements de l’Histoire. 🇫🇷⚔️

Dans ce récit, Doyle explore les thèmes du courage, de l’honneur et du sacrifice, tout en dressant un tableau saisissant des conflits qui marquèrent l’Europe. Chaque page nous rapproche des héros pris dans la tourmente, entre loyauté, amour et devoir. ❤️🔥

👉 Pourquoi écouter cette œuvre ?
– Une histoire pleine de suspense et de rebondissements 🎭
– Un témoignage romanesque sur une époque charnière de l’Histoire ⚔️
– La plume inimitable de Conan Doyle, maître du récit captivant ✍️

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-📖✨ La grande ombre | Arthur Conan Doyle 🌌⚔️ [https://youtu.be/iNpY9p8vR2A]

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**Navigate by Chapters or Titles:**
00:00:35 Chapter 1.
00:21:07 Chapter 2.
00:35:29 Chapter 3.
00:51:50 Chapter 4.
01:08:53 Chapter 5.
01:24:18 Chapter 6.
01:34:24 Chapter 7.
01:56:30 Chapter 8.
02:03:18 Chapter 9.
02:09:32 Chapter 10.
02:20:55 Chapter 11.
02:39:37 Chapter 12.
03:08:09 Chapter 13.
03:21:07 Chapter 14.
03:28:03 Chapter 15.

In this captivating tale by Arthur Conan Doyle, we are immersed in a historical adventure where the shadow of a great empire hangs over the destiny of men. “The Great Shadow” transports us to the era of the Napoleonic Wars, a time of upheaval and uncertainty, where bravery and friendship were measured against the ambitions of the powerful. Through the eyes of a narrator recalling his past, we discover scenes at once epic and intimate, where love, loyalty, and courage collide with the harsh realities of history. Prepare to enter a story where every page is inhabited by tension and emotion. Chapter 1. The Night of the Signals. Here I am, Jock Calder, of West Inch, barely arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century, and at the age of fifty-five. My wife hardly ever discovers a little gray hair behind my ear once a week, which she insists on pulling out. And yet, how strange it is to me that my life has passed in an age when the ways of thinking and acting of men differed as much from those of today as if they were the inhabitants of another planet. Thus, when I walk in the countryside, if I look over there, towards Berwick, I can see the little trails of white smoke, which tell me of this singular and new beast with a hundred feet, which feeds on coal, whose body conceals a thousand men, and which never ceases to crawl along the border. When the weather is clear, I can easily see the reflection of the coppers, as it rounds the curve towards Corriemuir. Then, if I look out to sea, I see the same beast again, or sometimes even a dozen of them, leaving a black trail in the air, a white spot in the water, and going against the wind with as much ease as a salmon goes up the Tweed. Such a sight would have made my good old father speechless with anger as much as with surprise, for he had the fear of offending the Creator, so deeply rooted in his soul, that he would not hear of constraining Nature, and every innovation seemed to him to be very close to blasphemy. It was God who had created the horse. It was a mortal man from down there, near Birmingham, who had made the machine. So my good old papa persisted in using the saddle and the spurs. But he would have experienced a much greater surprise in seeing the calm and the spirit of benevolence which currently reign in the hearts of men, in reading in the newspapers and hearing it said in meetings that there must be no more war, except of course, with the Negroes and their ilk. When he died, had we not been fighting, almost without interruption—a truce of two short years—for nearly a quarter of a century? Think about that, you who today lead such a tranquil, such peaceful existence. Children, born during the war, had grown into bearded men, had in turn had children, and the war was still going on.
Those who had served and fought in the flower of life and in their full vigor, had felt their limbs stiffen, their backs bend, and the fleets and armies were still engaged . It is not surprising, then, that people came to regard war as the normal state, and that they experienced a singular sensation at finding themselves in a state of peace. During this long period, we fought with the Danes, we fought with the Dutch, we fought with Spain, we fought with the Turks, we fought with the Americans, we fought with the people of Montevideo. It seemed that in this universal melee, no race was too close, none too distant, to avoid being drawn into the quarrel. But it was especially with the French that we fought; and of all men, the one who inspired us with the most aversion, and of fear and admiration, it was this great captain who governed them. It was very bold to represent him in caricature, to sing about him, to pretend he was a charlatan, but I can tell you that the fear inspired by this man hovered like a black shadow over the whole of Europe, and that there was a time when the brightness of a flame appearing at night on the coast made all the women fall to their knees and put rifles in the hands of all the men . He had always won the game: that was the terrible thing. It was as if he carried fortune on his back. And in those days we knew that he was posted on the northern coast with 150,000 veterans, with the necessary boats for the passage. But that is an old story. Everyone knows how our little one-eyed, one-armed man annihilated their fleet. There should remain in Europe a land where one had the freedom to think, the freedom to speak. There was a large signal ready on the height near the mouth of the Tweed. It was a scaffold made of timber and tar barrels. I remember very well that every evening I used to stare with my eyes wide open to see if it was ablaze. I was only eight years old then, but at that age one already takes things to heart, and it seemed to me that the fate of my country depended in some way on me and my vigilance. One evening, as I was watching, I saw a faint glimmer on the signal hill: a small red tongue of flame in the darkness. I remember that I rubbed my eyes, I beat my wrists against the stone frame of the window, to convince myself that I was awake. Then the flame grew larger, and I saw the red, moving line reflected in the water, and I rushed to the kitchen. I shouted to my father that the French had crossed the Channel and that the signal at the mouth of the Tweed was blazing. He was talking quietly with Mr. Mitchell, the law student from Edinburgh. I think I can still see him shaking his pipe by the fire and looking at me over his horn-rimmed spectacles. “Are you sure, Jock?” he said. “As sure as being alive,” I answered in a broken voice. He reached out to take the Bible from the table, which he opened on his knee, as if he were going to read to us, but he closed it again and strode out. The law student and I followed him to the open gate that opens onto the highway. From there we can clearly see the red glow of the big signal, and the glow of another smaller fire at Ayton, further north. My mother came down with two blankets so that we would not be seized by the cold, and we remained there until morning, exchanging few words, and even in low voices. There were more people on the road than had passed the night before, for most of the farmers, who lived on the way up towards the north, had enlisted in the Berwick volunteer regiments, and were running at the full speed of their horses to answer the roll call. Some of them had drunk a shot from the stirrup before leaving. I shall never forget one whom I saw pass on a great white horse, brandishing in the moonlight an enormous rusty sabre. They shouted to us as they passed, that the signal at North Berwick Law was on fire, and that it was believed that the alarm had gone from Edinburgh Castle. A few galloped in the opposite direction, couriers for Edinburgh, the laird’s son, and Master Playton, the undersheriff, and others of that sort. And among these others was a handsome, robustly built man, mounted on a roan horse. He pushed right up to our door and asked us a few questions on the road. “I’m convinced it’s a false alarm,” he said. “May Perhaps I might as well have stayed where I was, but now that I’m gone, I have nothing better to do than lunch with the regiment. He dived and disappeared down the slope of the moor. “I know him well,” said our student, nodding to us , “he’s a lawyer from Edinburgh, and he knows how to string verses very well. His name is Wattie Scott. None of us had heard of him before, but it wasn’t long before his name was the most famous in all Scotland. Many times we thought then of the man who had asked us directions in the terrible night. But by morning we had peace of mind. The weather was gray and cold. My mother had gone back to the house to make us a pot of tea, when a wagon brought Dr. Horscroft, from Ayton, and his son Jim. The doctor had turned up the collar of his brown coat over his ears , and he looked very cross, for Jim, who was only fifteen, had run off to Berwick at the first alarm, with his father’s brand-new shotgun. Papa had spent all night looking for him, and was bringing him back a prisoner; the gun barrel was sticking up behind the seat . Jim looked as cross as his father, with his hands stuffed in his side pockets, his eyebrows pressed together, and his lower lip jutted out. “It’s all a lie,” cried the doctor as he passed. “There’s been no landing, and all the fools in Scotland have been wandering the roads for nothing. ” His son Jim groaned indistinctly at this , which earned him a blow on the side of the head from his father with a clenched fist. At this the boy dropped his head on his breast as if stunned. My father nodded, for he had affection for Jim, and we all went home, nodding our heads, and with blinking eyes, scarcely able to keep our eyes open, now that we knew all danger was past. But at the same time we felt a thrill of joy in our hearts such as I have only felt once or twice before in my life. No doubt all this has little to do with what I have undertaken to relate, but when one has a good memory and little skill, one cannot get one thought out of one’s mind without a dozen others clinging to it to get out at the same time. And yet, now that I have come to think of it, this incident was not altogether unconnected with my narrative, for Jim Horscroft had such a violent argument with his father that he was sent to Berwick College; and as my father had long since formed the design of placing me there also, he took the opportunity which chance offered him to send me there. But before I say a word about this school, I must return to the place where I should have begun, and enable you to know who I am, for it may happen that these pages written by me fall under the eyes of people who live far beyond the border, and have never heard of the Calders of West Inch. West Inch may look like it to you, but it is not a fine estate, around a good habitation. It is simply a large sheep-pastured land, where the north wind blows harshly and is swept away by the wind. It stretches in a fragmented strip along the sea. A frugal, hard-working man can barely earn his rent and have butter on Sundays instead of molasses. In the middle stands a stone dwelling house, roofed with slate, with a lean-to behind. The date 1703 is roughly carved into the block that forms the door lintel. My family has been here for over a hundred years, and despite her poverty, she managed to hold a good rank in the country, for in the country the old farmer is often more esteemed than the new laird. The house at West Inch presented a singular peculiarity. It had been established by engineers and other competent persons, that the boundary line between the two countries passed exactly through the middle of the house, so as to cut our best bedroom into two halves, one English, the other Scottish. Now, the bunk I occupied was oriented so that my head was to the north of the boundary and my feet to the south. My friends say that if chance had placed my bed in the opposite direction, I might have had hair of a less reddish blond and a less solemn figure of mind. What I do know is that once in my life, when my Scotch head saw no way of getting me out of danger, my good big English legs came to my aid and carried me away to safety. But at school, this brought me endless stories: some called me Grog in the Water; to others I was “Great Britain,” to others, “Union Jock.” When there was a fight between the Scotch boys and the English boys, some would kick me in the legs , others punch me in the ears. Then both sides would stop and laugh, as if it were a very jocular affair. At first, I was very unhappy at Berwick School . Birtwhistle was the headmaster, and Adams the second, and I had no affection for either of them. I was naturally timid, and very uncommunicative. I was slow to make a friend either among the teachers or among my classmates. It was nine miles as the crow flies, and eleven and a half miles by road, from Berwick to West Inch. My heart was heavy at the thought of the distance that separated me from my mother. Note, indeed, that a boy of that age, while pretending to do without maternal caresses, suffers cruelly, alas! when he is taken at his word. At last, I could bear it no longer, and I resolved to run away from school and return home as soon as possible. But at the last moment, I had the good fortune to attract the praise and admiration of everyone from the headmaster to the last pupil, which made my school life very pleasant and very sweet. And all this, because, in consequence of an accident, I had fallen from a second-story window. This is how it happened: One evening I had been kicked by Ned Barton, the school bully. This affront, added to all my other grievances, made my little cup run over. I swore, that very evening, as I buried my tear-stained face under the covers, that the next morning would find me either at West Inch or very nearly there. Our dormitory was on the second floor, but I had a reputation as a good climber, and heights did not make me dizzy. I felt no fear, small as I was, of letting myself down from the gable at West Inch, on the end of a rope tightened around my thigh, and that was a height of fifty-three feet above the ground. From then on, I had little fear of not being able to get out of the dormitory at Birtwhistle. I waited impatiently until the coughing and stirring had stopped.
Then when all the noises indicating that there were still people awake had ceased to be heard on the long line of wooden bunks, I got up very quietly, dressed, and, shoes in hand, I tiptoed to the window. I opened it and glanced outside. The garden stretched out below me, and very close to my hand stretched out a thick pear branch. A nimble boy could wish for nothing better for a ladder. Once in the garden, I would have only a five-foot wall to climb. After that, there would be nothing between me and the house but the distance. I grasped a branch tightly, put one knee on another , and was about to spring from the window, when I suddenly became as silent, as motionless as if I had been turned to stone. There was over the crest of the wall a figure turned towards me. A cold shudder of fear seized my heart as I saw this figure in its paleness and immobility. The moon poured its light upon it, and the eyeballs moved slowly from side to side, although I was hidden from its view by the curtain formed by the pear foliage. Then by jerks, the white figure rose so as to reveal its neck. The shoulders, belt, and knees of a man appeared. He straddled the crest of the wall, then with a violent effort, he pulled towards him a young boy about my height, who was gasping for breath from time to time, as if he were sobbing. The man shook him roughly, saying a few gruff words to him.
Then they both let themselves fall to the ground in the garden. I was still standing, and balanced, with one foot on the branch and the other on the windowsill, not daring to move for fear of attracting their attention, for I saw them creeping forward in the long shadow of the house. Suddenly, exactly below my feet, I heard a dull sound of scrap iron, and the sharp clinking of falling glass . “That’s it,” said the man in a quick, low voice, ” you have room.” “But the opening is all lined with splinters,” said the other, with a tremor of fear. The fellow uttered a curse that made my flesh crawl. “Come in, come in, you damned little dog,” he growled, “or I’ll…” I couldn’t see what he did. But there was a short gasp of pain. “I’ll go, I’ll go,” cried the little boy. But I heard no more, for my head suddenly spun. My heel slipped from the branch. I gave a terrible cry and fell with the full weight of my ninety-five pounds, right on the burglar’s bent back. If you were to ask me, all I could tell you is that even now I couldn’t say whether it was an accident, or whether I did it on purpose. It may well be that while I was thinking of doing it, chance took it upon myself to decide the matter for me. The individual was bent over, head first, busy pushing the boy through a narrow window when I fell upon him at the very point where the neck joins the spine. He gave a sort of whistling cry, fell face first, and spun around three times, beating the grass with his heels. His little companion slipped away into the moonlight and in the twinkling of an eye had cleared the wall. As for me, I sat down to shout at the top of my voice and rub one of my legs, which felt as if it had been caught in a circle of red-hot metal. You can imagine that it was not long before the whole household, from the headmaster to the stable boy, rushed into the garden with lamps and lanterns. The matter was soon cleared up. The man was placed on a shutter and carried away. As for me, I was carried in triumph and solemnly into a special bedroom, where the surgeon Purdle, the younger of the two who bear that name, put my fibula back in place. As for the thief, it was recognized that his legs were paralyzed, and the doctors could not agree on the point of knowing whether he would ever use it again or not. But the law did not give them the opportunity to decide the question, for he was hanged about six weeks later at Carlyle Assizes. He was recognized as the most determined villain in the north of England, for he had committed at least three murders, and there was enough evidence against him to have him hanged ten times. You see that I could not speak of my adolescence without telling you about this event which was the most important incident. But I will not take any more side roads, for when I think of all that is to come, I see that I will have more to say before I reach the end. Indeed, when one has only one’s own little story to tell, one often needs all the time in the world, but when one finds oneself mixed up in great events like those I shall have to speak of, then one experiences a certain difficulty, if one has not had a sort of apprenticeship in arranging everything to one’s liking. But my memory is as good as ever, thank God, and I shall try to make my story as straight as possible. It was this adventure with the burglar that gave rise to the friendship between Jim, the doctor’s son, and me. He was the school’s cock from the day he entered, for less than an hour later he had thrown Barton, who had been the cock until that day, through the large blackboard in the classroom. Jim continued to gain muscle and bone. Even then, he was square-shouldered and tall. Short-spoken and long-armed, he was very apt to loiter, his broad back against the wall, and his hands deeply buried in his breeches pockets. I have not forgotten his way of always having a straw in the corner of his lips, in the very place where he later used to put the stem of his pipe. Jim was always the same for good and for evil from the first day I made his acquaintance. Heavens! how much consideration we had for him! We were only little savages, but we felt the respect of a savage before force. There was Tom Carndale, of Appleby, who could compose alcaic verses as well as pentameters and hexameters, and yet not one of them would have given a flick of the wrist for Tom. Willie Earnshaw knew every date since Abel’s murder, like the back of his hand, so much so that even the masters would ask him if they had any doubts, but he was a narrow-chested boy, much too long for his width, and what good were his dates the day Jock Simons, from the third form, chased him down the corridor with his belt buckle. Ah! they shouldn’t have behaved like that to Jim Horscroft. What legends we built about his strength? Was it not he who had punched through an oak panel of the door that led to the games room? Was it not he who, on the day when great Merridew had conquered the ball, seized both Merridew and the ball and reached the goal, outrunning all his opponents at a run? It seemed a shame to us that a fellow of that stamp should be racking his brains over spondees and dactyls, or worrying about who had signed the Magna Carta. When he declared in the classroom that it was King Alfred, we little boys were of the opinion that it must be so, and that perhaps Jim knew more than the man who had written the book. It was this burglar adventure that first attracted his attention . He ran his hand over my head. He said I was a rabid little devil, which made me swell with pride for a whole week. We were close friends for two years, despite the gulf between the Years were growing between us, and though his temper or thoughtlessness had made him do more than one thing that infuriated me, I loved him none the less as a brother, and I shed enough tears to fill the ink bottle when he went to Edinburgh to study his father’s profession. I spent five more years at Birtwhistle’s after that, and when I left, I myself had become the school-cock, for I was as dry and sinewy as a whalebone, though I must admit that I did not attain the weight or the muscular development of my great predecessor. It was in the year of the Jubilee that I left Birtwhistle’s. Afterwards I spent three years at home, learning to look after cattle; but the fleets and armies were still at war, and the great shadow of Bonaparte still hung over the country. Could I have guessed that I, too, would help to remove this cloud from our people forever? Chapter 2. Cousin Edie of Eyemouth. Some years before, when I was a very young boy, my father’s brother’s only daughter had come to pay us a five-week visit. Willie Calder had established himself at Eyemouth as a fishing-net maker, and he had made more use of the loom than we were probably destined to make of the broom and sandy moors of West Inch. So his daughter, Edie Calder, arrived in a beautiful red blouse, a five-shilling hat, and a case of belongings, at which my mother’s eyes popped out like a crab’s. It was astonishing to see her spend so freely, she who was only a child. She gave the carrier everything he asked, and a nice twopence piece besides, to which he had no right. She thought no more of ginger beer than if it had been water, and she had to have sugar for her tea, butter for her bread, just as if she had been an Englishwoman. I didn’t think much of young girls in those days, for I could hardly understand what they were created for. None of us at Birtwhistle’s had thought much of them, but the little ones seemed to be the most sensible, for when the boys began to grow up they were less sharp on that point. As for us little ones, we were all of one mind: a creature who can’t fight, who spends all her time peddling stories, and can only throw a stone by waving her arm in the air as clumsily as if it were a rag, is good for nothing at all. And then you have to see the airs they give themselves: it’s as if they were father and mother in one person, they constantly interfere in our games to say to us: “Jimmy, your toe is going through your shoe.” or even: “Go home, you dirty child, and go and wash yourself” to the point that just by looking at them, we were fed up. So when that one came to the farm at West Inch, I was not delighted to see her. We were on holiday. I was then twelve years old. She was eleven. She was a thin little girl, tall for her age, with black eyes and the most bizarre mannerisms. She was always staring straight ahead with her lips parted, as if she were seeing something extraordinary, but when I stood behind her and looked in the same direction, I saw only the sheep’s trough or the dunghill, or Papa’s breeches hanging up with the rest of the washing to dry. Then, if she saw a clump of heather or bracken, or any other equally common object, she would remain in contemplation. She would cry out: –How beautiful it is! How perfect! You would have said it were a painting. She didn’t like to play, but I often made her play tag; it lacked animation, for I always managed to catch her in three jumps, whereas she never caught me, although she made as much noise, as much trouble as ten boys. When I began to tell her that she was good for nothing, that her father was very stupid to raise her like that, she would cry, say that I was a little oaf, that she would go home that very evening, and that she would never forgive me for the rest of her life. But after five minutes, she no longer thought about any of it . The strange thing was that she had more affection for me than I had for her, that she never left me alone. She was always watching me, running after me, and then saying, “Look! There you are!” and acting surprised. But soon I saw that she had good things too. She sometimes gave me pennies, so much so that once I had four in my pocket, but the best thing about her was the stories she could tell. She was terribly afraid of frogs, so I never failed to bring one, and tell her I would put her in the game unless she told me a story. That helped her to start, but once she was in the process, it was astonishing how she was. And to hear the things that had happened to her, it took your breath away. There was a Barbary pirate who had gone to Eyemouth. He was to come back in five years with a ship laden with gold to make her his wife. And there was a knight-errant who had also been to Eyemouth, and he had given her a ring as a pledge, which he said he would take back when he returned. And she showed me the ring, which looked just like the ones that held up the curtains of my bed, but she maintained that this one was of virgin gold. I asked her what the knight would do if he met the Barbary pirate. She told me that he would blow his head off his shoulders.
What could they possibly find in her? It was beyond my understanding. Then she told me that on her journey to West Inch, she had been followed by a prince in disguise. I asked her how she knew it was a prince. She answered me: “By his disguise.” Another day, she said that her father was composing a riddle, that when it was ready, he would put it in the newspapers, and whoever guessed it would have half his fortune and the hand of his daughter. I told her I was good at riddles, and that she should send it to me as soon as she was ready. She said it would be in the Berwick Gazette, and wanted to know what I would do with it when I had won it. I said I would sell it at auction for whatever price they offered me, but that night she would tell no more stories, as she was very touchy in certain cases. Jim Horscroft was away during the time Cousin Edie stayed with us. He came back the very week she left, and I remember how surprised I was that he asked any questions or showed any interest in a mere girl. He asked me if she was pretty, and when I said I hadn’t noticed, he laughed aloud, called me a mole, and said that some day I would open my eyes. But he soon became occupied with something else entirely, and I didn’t have another thought for Edie, until the day when she actually took my life in her hands and twisted it as I could twist this quill pen. It was 1813. I had left school, and I was already eighteen years old, with at least forty hairs on my upper lip, and the hope of having many more. I had changed since leaving school. I no longer played games with the same ardor. Instead, I sometimes lay on the slope of the moor, on the sunny side, with my lips half-open, and staring fixedly before me, just as Cousin Edie often did. Until then, I had considered myself content, I found my life full, as long as I could run faster and jump higher than my neighbor. But now, how little it all seemed! I sighed, I looked up at the vast vault of the sky, and then down at the blue surface of the sea. I felt that something was missing, but I could not say what it was. And my temper grew lively. It seemed to me that all my nerves were on edge. If my mother asked me what was wrong with me, or if my father spoke to me about putting my hand to work, I allowed myself to reply in such harsh, bitter terms that I have often since felt grief. Ah! one can have more than one wife, and more than one child, and more than one friend, but one can only have one mother. So one must take care of her as long as one has her. One day, as I was returning at the head of the herd, I saw my father sitting with a letter in his hand. This was a very rare occurrence with us, except when the agent was writing for the term. As I approached him, I saw that he was crying, and I stood there, opening my eyes wide, for I had always imagined that this was something impossible for a man. I could see him very well now, for across his pale cheek there was a wrinkle so deep that no tear could cross it. It had to slide sideways to his ear, where it fell on the sheet of paper. My mother sat near him and stroked his hand, as she stroked the cat’s back to calm it. “Yes, Jeannie,” he said, “poor Willie is dead. This letter is from the lawyer. The thing happened suddenly. Otherwise they would have written to us. A carbuncle,” he said, “and a rush of blood to the head. ” “Ah! Then her troubles are over,” said my mother. My father wiped his ears with the tablecloth. “He left all his savings to his daughter,” he said, “and if she hasn’t changed, by God, from what she promised to be, she won’t have long.” You remember what she said, under this very roof, about the tea being too weak, and that for tea at seven shillings a pound. My mother nodded and looked at the pieces of bacon hanging from the ceiling. “He doesn’t say how much she’ll have,” he continued, “but she’ll have enough, and to spare. She must come and live with us, for that was her last wish. ” “She must pay her own way,” cried my mother bitterly . ” I was sorry to hear her talk of money at such a time, but after all, if she hadn’t been so bitter, we should have been thrown out in twelve months. ” “Yes, she will. She’s coming today. Jock, my boy, you will be so kind as to start with the cart for Ayton, and wait for the evening coach. Your cousin Edie will be there, and you can take her to West Inch.” So I set off at a quarter past five with Souter Johnnie, our long-haired fifteen-year-old mare, and our cart with the newly painted body that we only used on special occasions. The coach appeared just as I was arriving, and I, like a foolish young country boy, without thinking of the years that had passed, was looking in the crowd around the inn for a girl in a short skirt barely reaching her knees. And as I advanced obliquely, with my neck stretched out, I felt my elbow touched, and found myself face to face with a lady dressed in black standing on the steps, and I learned that it was my cousin Edie. I knew it, I said, and yet if she had not touched me, I might have passed by her twenty times without recognizing her. Upon my word, if Jim Horscroft had then asked me whether she was pretty or not, I should not have known what to answer him. She was dark, much darker than our young girls from the border are usually, and yet through that lovely complexion, a shade of carmine could be glimpsed, like the warmer tint seen in the center of a sulphur rose. Her lips were red, expressing sweetness, and firmness, but from that very moment, I saw at first glance floating in the depths of her large eyes an expression of mocking malice. She seized me immediately, as if I had been part of her inheritance. She stretched out her hand and picked me up. She was in mourning, as I have said, and in a costume that struck me as extraordinarily fashionable, and she wore a black veil which she had drawn back from her face. “Ah! Jock,” she said to me, putting on an affected accent in her English that she had learned at school. “No, no, we are a little too old for that?… That was because, with my silly awkwardness, I was putting out my brown face to kiss her, as I had done the last time we saw each other… ” “Be a good boy and give a shilling to the conductor, who has been extremely kind to me during the journey. ” I blushed to the ears, for I had only a fourpence piece in my pocket . Never did the want of money seem more painful to me than at that moment . But she guessed me with a single glance, and immediately a small moleskin purse with a silver clasp was slipped into my hand . I paid the man and was about to return the purse to Edie, but she forced me to keep it. “You shall be my steward, Jock,” she said, laughing. “That’s your carriage, it looks very funny. But where shall I sit? ” “On the sack,” I said. “And how shall I get in? ” “Put your foot on the hub,” I said, “I’ll help you. ” I hoisted myself up with a jump, and took two small gloved hands in mine. As she stepped over the side of the carriage, her breath blew over her face, a soft, warm breath, and at once those vague and uneasy languors from my soul were wiped away in shreds . It seemed to me that this moment took me away from myself and made me one of the members of the human race. It took only the time it takes for a horse to wag its tail, and yet an event had occurred. A barrier had appeared somewhere. I entered into a broader and more intelligent life. I experienced all this under a sudden downpour, and yet in my timidity, in my reserve, I could do nothing but even out the stuffing of the bag. She followed with her eyes the coach as it clattered back towards Berwick. Suddenly she began to flutter her handkerchief in the air. “He took off his hat,” she said. “I think he must have been an officer. He looked very distinguished. Perhaps you noticed him, a gentleman on the top hat, very handsome, with a brown overcoat.” I shook my head, and all the joy that had come over me gave way to a foolish ill-humour. ‘Ah! but I shall never see him again. Here are all the green hills, and the brown, winding road; they are all the same as they were then. You too, Jock, I think you have not changed much. I hope your manners are better than they were formerly; you will not try to put frogs down my neck, will you?’ The very thought of it made my whole body shiver. “We’ll do all we can to make you happy at West Inch,” I said, playing with the whip. “Surely, it’s very kind of you to take in a poor, lonely girl,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to come, Cousin Edie,” I stammered. “You’ll find life very dull, I’m afraid,” I said. “It will be quiet enough indeed, Jock, won’t it? There are n’t many men around there, as far as I remember. ” “There’s Major Elliott, at Corriemuir. He comes to spend the evening now and then. He’s a fine old soldier, who was shot in the knee while serving under Wellington. ” “Ah!” When I speak of men, I don’t mean old people with a bullet in their knee, I mean people our own age, with whom we can make friends. By the way, that sour old doctor, he had a son, didn’t he? Oh, yes, that’s Jim Horscroft, my best friend. Is he at home? No, he’ll be back soon. He’s still studying at Edinburgh. Then we’ll keep each other company until he comes back, Jock. Ah! I’m very tired, and I wish I were at West Inch. I made old Souter Johnnie walk up and down the road at a pace she’s never walked before or since. An hour later, Edie was sitting at the supper-table. My mother had served not only butter, but redcurrant jelly, which, in its glass dish, glittered in the candlelight and looked very good. I had no difficulty in perceiving that my parents were quite as surprised as I was at the change in her, but that they were surprised in a different way from me. My mother was so impressed by the feathered thing she saw around her neck that she called her Miss Calder instead of Edie, and my cousin, with her pretty, light manner, shook her finger at her whenever she used that name. After supper, when she had gone to bed, they could talk of nothing but her looks and her breeding. “All the same, by the way,” said my father, “she does n’t seem to be heartbroken over my brother’s death.” Then, for the first time, I remembered that she hadn’t said a word about it since we last saw each other. Chapter 3. The Shadow on the Waters. It wasn’t long before Cousin Edie became sovereign in West Inch and made all of us, including my father, her subjects. She had money, and as much as she wanted, though none of us knew how much. When my mother told her that four shillings a week would pay all her expenses, she spontaneously raised the sum to seven shillings and sixpence. The south room, the sunniest, and with the window framed with honeysuckle, was assigned to her, and it was a marvel to see the knick-knacks she had brought from Berwick to store there. She made the journey twice a week, and as the carriage didn’t please her, she hired the gig of Angus Whitehead, who had the farm on the other side of the coast. And it was seldom that she came back without bringing something for one of us; a wooden pipe for my father, a Shetland plaid for my mother, a book for me, a brass collar for Rob, our collie. Never was a more extravagant woman seen. But the best thing she gave us, above all, was her presence. For me, it entirely changed the aspect of the landscape. The sun was brighter, the hills greener, and the air sweeter since the day of her arrival. Our lives lost their banality, now that we spent them with such a creature, and the old and dreary house The gray girl took on a completely different aspect in my eyes since the day she set foot on the doormat. It was not due to her face, which was nevertheless most attractive, nor to her appearance, although I had not seen any young girl who could rival her in that. It was her liveliness, her amusingly mocking manner, her way of talking, which was completely new to us, the proud gesture with which she threw back her dress or threw back her head. We felt as low as the earth beneath her feet. Finally, it was that lively look of defiance, and that kind word which brought each of us back to her level. But no, not quite to her level. For me, she was always a distant and superior creature. I had to get worked up and reproach myself. No matter what I did, I could not recognize that the same blood flowed in our veins and that she was only a young country girl, just as I was only a young country boy. The more I loved her, the more she inspired fear in me, and she perceived my fear long before she knew that I loved her. When I was away from her, I felt restless, and yet when I was with her, I was constantly trembling with fear that some mistake I made in speaking would cause her boredom or anger her. If I had known more about the character of women, I might have taken less trouble. “You are much changed from what you used to be,” she said, looking at me sideways from under her black eyelashes. “You did not say that when we first saw each other ,” I said. “Ah! I was speaking of your air then, and I speak of your manners now. You were so rough with me and so imperious, and you would have your own way, like the little man you were. I can still see you with your tangled hair and your mischievous eyes. And now you are so gentle, so quiet. You have such a considerate way of speaking! “One learns to behave oneself,” I said. “Oh, but Jock, I liked you much better as you were.” Well, when she said that, I looked her straight in the face, for I should have thought she had never quite forgiven me for the way I used to treat her. That such manners should please anyone but a person escaped from a madhouse was quite beyond my understanding. I remembered the time when, catching her on the threshold reading , I would attach little balls of clay to the end of a springy hazel stick and throw them at her until she cried. I remembered, too, that having caught an eel in the Corriemuir stream, I chased it, eel in hand, so relentlessly that it ended up hiding, half mad with fright , under my mother’s apron, and that my father gave me a blow on the ear with a porridge stick that sent me rolling, with my eel, right under the kitchen dresser. So that was what she regretted? Well, she would resign herself to doing without it, for my hand would dry up before I could do it again now. But then I understood for the first time how strange it is in female nature, and I recognized that a man should not reason about it, but simply be on his guard and try to educate himself. We finally found ourselves on the same level when she said that she had only to do what she pleased and as it pleased her, and that I was as entirely at her command as old Rob was docile to my call. You think I was very foolish to let myself be turned upside down like that. Perhaps I was, but you must also remember how little I was used to women, and that we met at every moment. Besides, you don’t find a woman like that in a million, and I can guarantee you that any one who had a strong head would not have let it turn his head upside down by her. Look, there’s Major Elliott. He was a man who had buried three wives and who had figured in twelve pitched battles. Why! Edie could have rolled him around her finger like a wet rag, she who was barely out of boarding school. Not long after she came, I met him, as he was leaving West Inch, still hobbling, but red in the cheeks, and with a gleam in his eye that made him look ten years younger. He twisted his gray whiskers on both sides, so that the tips were almost in his eyes, and he held out his good leg with as much pride as a piper. What had she said to him? God knows, but it had done as much in his veins as old wine. “I came up to see you, my boy,” he said, “but I must get home. However, my visit was not wasted, for it gave me the opportunity to see the beautiful cousin, a most charming, attractive young person, my boy. He had a way of speaking that was a little formal, a little stiff, and he liked to interject into his remarks a few snippets of French sentences that he had picked up on the Peninsula. He would have gone on talking to me about Edie, but I saw the corner of a newspaper sticking out of his pocket. I understood then that he had come, as was his custom, to bring me some news. We hardly got any news to West Inch. ” “What’s new, Major?” I asked. He took the newspaper out of his pocket and held it up. “The Allies have won a great battle, my boy,” he said. ” I don’t think Nap will last much longer after that.” The Saxons threw him overboard, and he suffered a severe check at Leipzig. Wellington has crossed the Pyrenees, and Graham’s soldiers will be at Bayonne before long. I tossed my hat in the air. “Then the war will end?” I cried. “Yes, and it’s about time,” he said, nodding his head gravely. “A lot of blood has been shed. But there’s hardly any point in telling you what was on my mind about you now. ” “What was it? ” “Well, my boy, you’re up to no good here, and now that my knee is getting a little more supple, I thought I might be able to return to active service. I wondered if you wouldn’t like to see a little of soldier’s life under my command. ” At the thought my heart leaped. “Ah! yes, I should like to!” I cried. “But it will be six months before I am fit to present myself for the medical examination, and there is a good chance that Boney will be put in a safe place before that time. ” “Then there is my mother,” I said. “I doubt if she will let me go. ” “Ah! Well, she won’t be asked this time.” And he hobbled off. I sat in the heather, my chin in my hand, turning the matter over and over in my mind, and following with my eyes the major in his old brown coat, with a bit of plaid fluttering over his shoulder, as he climbed the hill. It was a very poor existence, that of West Inch, where I waited my turn to replace my father, on the same moor, by the same stream, always sheep, and always that gray house before my eyes. And on the other side was the blue sea. Ah, that was a life for a man!” And the major, a man past his prime, he was wounded, finished, and yet he was making plans to get back to work while I, in the prime of life, was wasting away among these hills! A burning wave of shame rose in my face, and I stood up suddenly, full of eagerness to go out, and to play the part of a man in the world. For two days I did nothing but think about this. On the third, something happened which condensed my resolutions, and immediately dissipated them, as a breath of wind makes smoke disappear. I had gone for an afternoon walk with Cousin Edie and Rob. We had reached the top of the slope which leads down to the beach. Autumn was drawing to a close. The grasses, in withering, had taken on bronze tints, but the sun was still clear and warm. A breeze came from the south in short, burning gusts and rippled the vast blue surface of the sea with curved lines. I pulled back an armful of bracken for Edie to sit on. She
settled down with her carefree air, happy, content, for of all the people I have known, there was none who loved warmth and light so much. I sat down on a tuft of grass, with Rob’s head on my knee. As we were alone in the silence of this desert, we saw, even there, stretching out on the waters, in front of us, the shadow of the great man from there who had written his name in red letters all over the map of Europe. A ship was coming in, driven by the wind. It was an old merchant ship with a peaceful appearance, which, perhaps, had Leith for its destination. It had square yards and was going with all sails set. On the other side, from the northeast, came two large ugly boats, rigged as luggers, each with a mainmast and a vast brown square sail. It was difficult to have before one’s eyes a prettier sight than that of these three ships moving along, swaying, on such a beautiful day. But suddenly there shot out of one of the luggers a tongue of flame, and a swirl of black smoke. The same amount shot out of the second. Then the ship returned fire: rap, rap, rap! In the twinkling of an eye, hell had, with a thrust of the elbow, parted the sky, and on the waters were unleashed hatred, ferocity, bloodlust. At the first shot, we had risen, and Edie, all trembling, had laid her hand on my arm. “They’re fighting, Jock,” she cried. ” Who are they? Who are they?”
The beating of my heart answered the cannon shots, and all I could say, through my gasping breath, was: “They’re two French privateers, chasse marées, as they call them down there, it’s one of our merchant ships, and as sure as we are mortal, they’ll seize it, for the major says they’re always provided with heavy artillery and are as full of men as there is food in an ox.” Why doesn’t that fool retreat to the bar at the mouth of the Tweed? But he didn’t lessen an inch of sail. He still swayed with his stubborn air, while a little black ball was hoisted on the tip of his mainmast, and the magnificent old flag suddenly appeared and waved on his halyards. Then was heard again the rap, rap, rap! of his small guns, followed by the boom! boom! of the big carronades that armed the lugger’s beams. A moment later, the three ships formed a group. The merchantman swayed like a stag with two wolves clinging to her haunches. All three were now nothing but a confused black mass enveloped in smoke, from which the yards poked out here and there. From above and from the center of this cloud issued, like lightning, red tongues of flame. It was such an infernal din of large and small cannons, of shouts of joy, of howls, that for many weeks my ears still rang with it. For a clock hour, the cloud pushed by hell moved slowly over the waves, and we stood there, our hearts seized, watching the fluttering of the flag, straining our eyes to see if it was still in its place. Then, suddenly, the ship, prouder, blacker, firmer than ever, started moving again. When the smoke had cleared a little, we saw one of the luggers teetering like a duck falling into the water, with a broken wing, while on the other, they were hastening to take on board the crew before it sank. During that whole hour, my whole life had been concentrated in the battle. The wind had blown my cap away, but I hadn’t noticed it. Then, with my heart overflowing, I turned to my cousin Edie, and just seeing her I found myself back six years. Her gaze had regained its steadyness, her lips were half-open, as when she was very young, and her small hands were clasped so tightly that the skin at her wrists shone like ivory. “Ah! that captain!” she said, speaking to the heather and the broom bushes, “what a strong man, what resolve! What woman would not be proud of such a husband? ” “Ah! yes, he has behaved well!” I cried enthusiastically. She looked at me. It was as if she had forgotten I existed. “I would give a year of my life to meet such a man ,” she said, “but that is where you are when you live in the country. You never see anyone there except those who are good for nothing better.” I don’t know whether she meant to hurt me, though she never needed much persuasion for it, but whatever her intention, her words struck me as if they had gone straight through a bare nerve. “Very well, Cousin Edie,” I said, trying to speak calmly, “that makes up my mind. I’ll go to Berwick to-night and enlist. ” “What! Jock, you want to be a soldier? ” “Yes, if you think every man who stays in the country is necessarily a coward. ” “Oh, Jock, how handsome you would look in a red coat, how much better you look when you’re angry. I wish you could always see your eyes sparkling like that. How well it becomes you, how much more of a man it makes you look! But I’m sure you’re only joking about becoming a soldier. ” “I’ll show you if I’m joking.” Then I ran across the moor, and so came to the kitchen, where my mother and father were sitting on either side of the fireplace. “Mother,” I cried, “I’m going to be a soldier.” If I had told them I was going to be a burglar, they could not have been more dismayed, for in those days the wary and well-to-do country folk reckoned that the sergeant’s flock consisted chiefly of black sheep. But, upon my word, those black beasts have done their country a great service. My mother put her mittens up to her eyes, and my father looked as gloomy as a peat-hole. “No! Jock, you’re mad,” he said. “Mad or not, I’m going. ” “Then you won’t have my blessing. ” “Then I’ll do without it.” At this my mother gave a shriek and put her arms around my neck. I saw her calloused, deformed hand, full of knots from the trouble she had taken to raise me, and it spoke to me more eloquently than any words could have done. I loved her tenderly, but my will was as hard as the edge of a flint. I forced her to sit down again with a kiss; then I ran to my room to prepare my package. It was already dark, and I had a long way to go on foot. So I contented myself with gathering a few things. Then I hurried to leave. Just as I was about to set foot outside A side door, someone touched my shoulder. It was Edie, standing in the sunset light. “Silly child,” she said, “you’re really not going to leave? ” “I won’t leave? You’ll see. ” “But your father doesn’t want me to, and neither does your mother. ” “I know that. ” “Then why go? ” “You must know. ” “Why, anyway. ” “Because you’re making me leave. ” “I don’t want you to leave, Jock. ” “You said so; you said country people are only good for staying there. You always talk like that. You don’t think any more of me than those pigeons do in their nest. You think I’m nothing at all. I’ll change your mind.” All my grievances came out in little jets that burned my lips.
While I was speaking, she blushed, and looked at me with her air that was at once mocking and caressing. “Ah! I think so little of you?” she said, and that’s why you’re going? Well, Jock, will you stay if… if I’m good to you? We were face to face and very close. In a moment the thing was done. My arms were around her. I gave her kiss after kiss, on the mouth, on the cheek, on the eyes. I pressed her to my heart. I told her in a low voice that she was everything to me, everything, and that I couldn’t live without her. Edie didn’t answer, but it was a long time before she turned her head, and when she pushed me back, she didn’t make much effort. “Oh! you’re very rude, you cheeky old fellow,” she said, holding her hair in both hands. “The way you shook me, Jock, I didn’t imagine you’d be so bold. But I had quite ceased to fear her, and a love, ten times more ardent than ever, boiled in my veins.” I grabbed her and kissed her as if I had the right to. “You’re mine, mine indeed,” I cried. ” I won’t go to Berwick, I’ll stay here and we’ll get married.” But at the word marriage, she burst out laughing. “You little fool! You little fool!” she said, raising her forefinger. Then, as I tried to get my hands on her again, Edie gave me a pretty little curtsey and went home. Chapter 4. Jim’s Choice. And so those six weeks passed, which were a kind of dream and are still so now when the memory comes back to me. I should bore you if I began to tell you what passed between us. And yet how serious it was, what decisive importance it must have had on our destiny from that time on! Her caprices, her constantly changing humor, sometimes lively, sometimes dark like a meadow beneath which clouds roll by; her anger without cause, her sudden repentances, which alternately made joy or sorrow overflow in me. That was my life: all the rest was nothingness. But there always remained in the lowest depths of my feelings a vague disquiet, the fear of being like that man who stretched out his hand to grasp the rainbow, and that the real Edie Calder, however close she seemed to me, was in reality very far from me. She was, indeed, very difficult to understand. At least it was for a young country boy with a less than penetrating mind , like myself. For if I tried to talk to her about my real plans, to tell her that by taking the whole of Corriemuir we could add to the sum needed for this surplus rent a profit of a good hundred pounds, that this would enable us to add a drawing-room to West Inch, and make it a fine house for our wedding day, then she would begin to sulk, to lower her eyes, as if she had just enough patience to listen to me. But if I let her indulge in her dreams of what I might become, of the chance discovery of a document proving that I was the laird’s true heir, or if, without enlisting in the army, something she didn’t want to hear about, she saw me become a great warrior, whose name would be on everyone’s lips, then she was as charming as a May day. I played along as best I could, but at last some unfortunate word would escape me to prove that I was still Jock Calder of West Inch, period, and then the pout on her lips again expressed how little she cared for me. We lived thus, she in the clouds, I down to earth, and if the break hadn’t come one way, it would have come another . Christmas was over, but the winter had been mild. It had been just cold enough to make walking in the bogs safe . Edie had gone out one fine morning, and had come home to breakfast with her cheeks flushed with animation. “Is your friend the doctor’s son back, Jock?” she said. “I heard they’re expecting him. ” “Then it must be him I met on the moor. ” “What! You met Jim Horscroft? ” “I’m sure it must be him. A superb-looking fellow , a hero, with black, curly hair, a short, straight nose, and gray eyes. He has shoulders like a statue, and for height, Jock, I think your head would just reach his tie-pin. ” “I’m going right up to his ear, Edie,” I cried indignantly. “That is, if it were Jim! Did he have a brown pipe in the corner of his mouth? ” “Yes, he did smoke; he was dressed in gray, and he had a fine, deep, strong voice. ” “Ha! Ho!” You spoke to him, I said. She blushed slightly, as if she had said more than she intended. “I was heading towards a place where the ground was a little soft, and he warned me. ” “Ah! yes, it must be good old Jim,” I said, “he should have had his doctorate years ago , if he had had as much brain as biceps. Yes, by Jove, there is my man in the flesh.” I had seen him through the kitchen window, and I rushed to meet him, holding my half-eaten doughnut in my hand. He ran to meet me, too, holding out his big hand and his eyes shining. “Ah! Jock,” he cried, “it’s a real pleasure to see you again. There are no friends like old friends.” But suddenly he broke off his conversation and looked over my shoulder with wide eyes. I turned. It was Edie, with a merry, mocking smile, standing on the threshold. How proud I was of her, and of myself, looking at her! “This is my cousin, Jim, Miss Edie Calder,” I said. “Do you often take a walk before lunch, Mr. Horscroft?” she asked, always with that sly smile. “Yes,” he said, looking at her with all his eyes. ” So do I, and I almost always go that way,” she said. ” But, tell me, Jock, you’re not in a hurry to receive your friend. If you don’t do him the honors of the house, I’ll have to do it for you to save its reputation.” In a few minutes we were with the old people, and Jim was sitting down to his plate of soup. He hardly said a word and always stood with his spoon in the air , looking at Edie. She only gave him little glances. It seemed to me that she was amused to see him so shy and that she was doing her best to encourage him with her words. “Jock told me that you were studying to be a doctor,” she said, “but how difficult it must be, and that he It must take a long time to acquire the necessary knowledge! “It does take me a long time,” said Jim piteously, ” but I’ll get through it all the same.” “Ah! you are brave! You are resolute, you fix your eyes on a goal and you move towards it. Nothing can stop you. ” “Really, I have nothing to boast about,” he said. “More than one who started with me already has his plaque on his door, while I am still only a student. ” “That’s because you are modest, Mr. Horscroft. They say the bravest people are also the most modest. But also, when you have achieved your goal, what a graceful career! You carry healing wherever you go. You restore strength to those who suffer. Your sole aim is the good of humanity. ” Honest Jim shifted in his chair at this. “I don’t have such high motives, I’m afraid, Miss Calder,” he said. I am thinking of earning my living, of continuing my father’s practice . That is what I aim at, and if I bring healing with one hand, I will hold out the other to receive a piece of a crown. “How frank and sincere you are!” she cried. And so it went on: she covered him with every virtue, skillfully arranged her language to encourage him to enter into his role, and went about it in the manner I knew so well. Before he was subjugated, I could see that his head was buzzing with the brilliance of her beauty and her engaging words. I shuddered with pride to think what a high opinion he would have of my kinship. “Isn’t she beautiful, Jim?” I said to him, unable to help myself, as we were on the threshold, and while he was lighting his pipe to return home. “Beautiful!” he cried. But I have never seen his equal. “We must be married,” I said. His pipe fell from his mouth and he looked at me fixedly. Then he picked up his pipe and walked away without a word. I thought he would come back, but I was mistaken. I followed him with my eyes far across the moor. He walked with his head bowed on his chest. But I was not about to forget him! Cousin Edie had a hundred questions for me about his boyhood years, his vigor, the women he probably knew: she never knew enough. Then I heard from him a second time, during the day, but in a less pleasant way. It was from my father, who came home in the evening, talking of nothing but poor Jim. Poor Jim had spent all that time drinking. At noon, being drunk, he had gone down to the hills of Westhouse, to fight with the Gipsy champion and it was not certain that the man would last the night. My father had met Jim on the highway, as terrible as a thundercloud, and ready to insult the first man who passed by. “Good heavens!” said the old man, “he’ll make a fine following if he starts breaking people’s bones. ” Cousin Edie only laughed at all this, and I laughed to join her, but I found nothing very amusing in the news. The day after tomorrow, I was going to Corriemuir by the sheep path when I met Jim himself, walking with great strides. But he was no longer the big, good-natured fellow who had shared our soup the other morning. He had neither collar nor tie. His waistcoat was undone, his hair matted, his face all muddy, like that of a man who had spent the night drinking. He was holding an ash stick, which he used to lash the broom on either side of the path. “Well, Jim,” I said. But he gave me one of those looks I had seen him give more than once at school, when he was in a bad mood, when he knew he was in the wrong and was putting all his will into getting out of it by dint of effrontery. He didn’t answer me a word. He passed me on the narrow path and walked away with an uncertain step, still brandishing his piece of ash and cutting down the brushwood. Ah! certainly, I didn’t hold it against him. I was angry, very angry, that’s all. Certainly, I wasn’t so blind as not to see what was happening. He was in love with Edie, and he couldn’t get used to the idea that she would be mine. Poor boy, what could he do? Perhaps in his place I would have behaved like him. There had been a time when I was surprised that a young girl could turn a strong man’s head upside down, but now I knew better. A fortnight passed without my seeing Jim Horscroft, and then came that day, Thursday, which was to change the course of my whole existence. That day I awoke early, with that little thrill of joy, so exquisite at the moment one opens one’s eyes. The day before, Edie had been more charming than usual. I had gone to sleep thinking that after all, I might have got my hands on the rainbow, and that without imagining anything , without getting carried away, she was beginning to feel an affection for the simple, coarse Jock Calder, of West Inch.
It was this same thought, which, lingering in my heart, was the cause of that little morning twitter of joy. Then I remembered that if I made haste, I would be ready to go out with her, for she was in the habit of going for walks at sunrise. But I was too late. When I reached her door, I found it half-open, and the room empty. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘at least I shall meet her, perhaps, and we shall return together. From the top of Corriemuir hill, one can see all the country round about; so, taking my staff, I set off in that direction. The day was clear, but cold, and the surf made its loud roaring noise, though for several days there had been no wind in our part. I climbed the steep zigzag path, breathing the light, crisp morning air, and whistling as I went, and at last I arrived, a little out of breath, among the broom on the summit. Glancing up the long bridge on the other slope, I saw Cousin Edie, as I expected, and I saw Jim Horscroft walking side by side with her. They were not far off, but they were too much occupied with each other to see me.’ She walked slowly, her head bent, with that mischievous little air I knew so well. She looked away from him, and threw in a word from time to time . He walked close to her, contemplating her, and lowering his head in the ardor of his speech. Then, at some remark he made to her, she placed a caressing hand on his arm. He, no longer able to contain himself, seized her, lifted her up, and kissed her several times. At this sight, I felt incapable of crying out, of making a movement. I remained motionless, my heart heavy as lead, with the air of a corpse, my eyes fixed on them. I saw her put her hand on his shoulder, and receive Jim’s kisses with as much favor as mine. Then he put her back on the ground. I recognized that this scene had been that of their separation, for if they had gone only a hundred paces further, they would have been within sight of being seen from the upper windows of the house. She walked away slowly, and he stood there, following her with his eyes. I waited until she was some distance away. Then I went downstairs, but my shock was such that I was barely a hand’s length away from him when he passed by me. He tried to smile, and his eyes met mine. “Ah! Jock!” he said, already on his feet. “I saw you,” I said in a broken voice. My throat had become so dry that I spoke with the tone of a man who has a sore throat. “Ah! really!” he said. Then he whistled for a moment. “Well, on my life, I’m not sorry. I was planning to go to West Inch today, to have it out with you. Perhaps it’s better that way. ” “What a fine fellow you are!” I said. “Now, now, be reasonable, Jock,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets and waddling away. “Let me tell you where we stand. Look me in the eye and you’ll see I’m not lying to you. Here’s what it is.” I met Edie before— that is, Miss Calder—the morning I arrived, and there were certain particulars which made me suppose she was free, and in that conviction I let my mind run after her. Then you said she wasn’t free, that she was your fiancée, and that was the hardest blow I’ve received for a long time. It put me completely out of my wits. I spent days doing foolish things, and it was by a happy chance I’m not in Berwick Gaol. Then chance brought me to meet her a second time—upon my soul, Jock, it was chance to me—and when I spoke to her about you, the idea made her laugh. It was a cousin’s business , she said, but as for not being free, and you being more than a friend to her, that was nonsense. So you see, Jock, I wasn’t so much to blame after all, especially since she promised to show you by her conduct towards you that you were mistaken in believing you had any claim on her. You must have noticed that she has scarcely said a word to you during the last two weeks. I burst into a bitter laugh. ‘Just last night,’ I said, ‘she told me I was the only man in the world she could ever bring herself to love. ‘ Jim Horscroft extended a cordial hand, put it on my shoulder , and leaned his head forward to look into my eyes. ‘Jock Calder,’ he said, ‘I never heard you utter a lie. You’re not playing a double game, are you ? You’re in good faith now. Between you and me, we ‘re acting frankly, man to man? ‘ ‘That’s God’s truth,’ I said. He stood there looking at me, his face tense, like that of a man in a fierce internal struggle. Two long minutes passed before he spoke. “Come now, Jock,” he said, “that woman is making fun of us both. You hear, friend, she is making fun of us both. She loves you at West Inch, she loves me on the moor, and in her devilish heart, she cares as much for us both as for a gorse flower. Let us shake hands, my friend, and send the infernal hussy to hell. But that was too much to ask of me. In my heart of hearts, it was impossible for me to curse her, even more impossible to remain impassive while listening to another speak ill of her. No, even if that other had been my oldest friend.
” “No bad words,” I cried. “Ah! you make my heart ache with your benign talk. I call her by the name she ought to bear. ” “Oh! really?” I said, taking off my coat. “Look out, Jim Horscroft, if you say another word against her, I ‘ll shove it down your throat, were you as big as Berwick Castle.” He rolled up his coat sleeves to his elbow. This was to slowly pull them down. “Don’t be a fool, Jock,” he said. “Sixty-four pounds in weight and five inches in height, that’s a difference that can’t be made up for by anyone in the world. Two old friends who take hold of one… No, I won’t say it. Ah! by the Lord, hasn’t she got the nerve for ten? I turned around. There she was, not twenty yards from us, looking as calm and indifferent as we looked heated and feverish. “I was quite close to the house,” she said, “when I saw you talking so animatedly. So I came back to find out what it was. ” Horscroft ran a few steps and seized her by the wrist. She screamed at the sight of his face, but he pulled her back to where I had been standing. “Well, Jock, that’s enough nonsense,” he said. ” Here she is, shall we ask her to declare which of us she prefers? She can’t cheat us now that we ‘re both here? ” “I consent,” I replied. “And I too, if she decides in your favor, I swear I won’t turn a single eye her way. Will you do the same for me? ” “Yes, I will. ” “Well then, be careful, you! Here we are, two honest people and friends, we never lie to each other, and now we know your double game. I know what you said last night. Jock knows what you said today. You see; now speak frankly, without beating around the bush. Here we are before you: decide once and for all. Which is it Jock’s or mine?” You may think the young lady was overwhelmed with confusion. Far from it, her eyes shone with joy. I would willingly wager that she was never prouder in her life . As she wandered her eyes from one of us to the other, her face lit by the cold morning sun, she looked more charming than ever. Jim thought so too, I’m sure, for he let go of her wrist, and the hard look on his face softened her. “Come now, Edie, which one will it be? ” “Silly children!” she cried, “squabbling like this! Cousin Jock, you know how much I like you. ” “Well, then, go with him,” said Horscroft. “But I only love Jim. There’s no one I love so much as Jim.” She leaned lovingly towards him and laid her cheek against Jim’s heart. “You see, Jock,” he said, looking over Edie’s shoulder. “I saw—” I went back to West Inch, changed into quite a different man. Chapter 5. The Man From Across the Sea. I was not the man to sit and moan by a broken jug. When there is no way to mend it, the proper part for a man is to say nothing of it. For weeks my heart ached, and I confess it still does a little, when I think of it, after so many years and a happy marriage. But I made myself appear to take it bravely , and above all, I kept the promise I had made on the day of the walk on the coast. I was a brother to her, nothing more. Yet more than once I felt it necessary to pull hard on the bit. Even then she circled around me, with her coaxing ways, her stories of how rude Jim was to her, and how happy she had been when I was well disposed towards her. She had to talk like that: it was in her blood, and could not act otherwise. But, almost all the rest of the time, Jim and she were very happy. It was said all over the country that the wedding would take place as soon as he was admitted to the doctor’s office. Then he would come and spend four nights a week at West Inch with us. My parents were pleased, and I did my best to be pleased on my side. There may have been a little coldness between him and me in the beginnings. It was no longer between him and me that old friendship of schoolmates. But later, when the pain had passed, it seems to me that he had acted frankly, and that I had no just cause to complain of him. We had therefore remained friends, up to a certain point. He had forgotten all his anger against her. He would have kissed the imprint left by his shoes in the mud. We often took long walks together, he and I. It is of one of these walks that I propose to tell you. We had passed Brampton House and skirted the clump of pines which shelters Major Elliott’s house from the sea wind. It was then spring. The season was early, so that by the end of April the trees were already well in leaf. It was as hot as a summer day. So we were extremely surprised to see an immense fire roaring on the lawn which stretched out in front of the Major’s door. There was half a pine tree there, and the flames leaped up to the height of the bedroom windows. Jim and I stared, but we were much more astonished to see the major come out with a large quart jar in his hand, followed by his sister, an old lady who ran her household, two of the maids, and the whole party gambolling around the fire.
He was a very gentle, quiet man, as was known all over the country, and now he was taking the part of old Nick at the Sabbath dance, hobbling around and brandishing his pint glass above his head. We came running up. He only waved it the more eagerly when he saw us approaching. “Peace!” he bawled. “Hurrah! My children, peace!” At these words, we also began to dance and sing, for for so long, that we had lost all memory of it, all we talked about was war. We were exasperated; the shadow had hovered over us for so long, that we were quite astonished to feel that it had disappeared. Really, it was a little too much to believe, but the major dispelled our doubts with his disdain. “Why, yes, it’s true,” he cried, stopping and pressing his hand to his side. “The Allies have occupied Paris. Boney has thrown in the towel, and all his men swear loyalty to Louis XVIII. ” “And the Emperor?” I asked, “will he be spared? ” “There is talk of sending him to the island of Elba, where he will be out of harm’s way. But his officers! There are some who will not get off so lightly.” There have been deeds committed during these last twenty years which have not been forgotten, and there are still some old scores to settle. But it is Peace! Peace. And he resumed his capers, pot in hand, around his bonfire . We spent a few moments with the major. Then Jim and I went down to the beach, talking about this great news and what would follow. He knew little. I knew almost nothing; but we adjusted it all, we said that the prices of everything would fall, that our brave fellows would return home, that the ships would go where they wanted in safety, that we would demolish all the fire signals established on the coast, for henceforth no enemy was to be feared. While talking, we walked along the firm white sand, and we looked out at the ancient North Sea. And Jim, who was striding along beside me, so full of health and ardor, little did he suspect that at that very moment he had reached the highest point of his existence, and that from now on he would never stop descending the slope. There was a light mist floating on the sea, for the early hours of the morning had been very misty and the sun had not all dissipated. As our gaze turned toward the sea, we suddenly saw emerging from the fog the sail of a small boat, which was coming in from the landward side, swaying. A single man was sitting at the helm, and the boat was tacking as if the man were having difficulty deciding whether to land on the beach or to move away. At last, as if our presence had made him make up his mind, he dived straight toward us, and his keel crumpled against the pebbles, just at our feet. He dropped his sail, jumped out, and dragged the bow along the beach. “Great Britain, I believe?” he said, turning quickly to address us. He was a man of slightly above average height, but excessively thin. He had piercing eyes, set very close together, between which stood a long, sharp nose, above a bush of brown mustache as stiff and hard as a cat’s. He was dressed very properly, in a brown suit with copper buttons, and wore large boots that the seawater had hardened and made very rough. His face and hands were so dark that one might have taken him for a Spaniard, but when he raised his hat to greet us, we saw that his forehead was very white and that the dark shade of his complexion was only superficial. He looked at us alternately, and in his gray eyes there was something I had never seen before. The question thus put was easy to understand, but one would have said that there was a threat behind it, one would have said that he was counting on the answer as an obligation and not as a favor. “Great Britain?” he asked again, striking his boot briskly on the pebbles. “Yes,” I said, while Jim burst out laughing. “England? Scotland?” “Scotland, but that’s England on the other side of those trees over there. ” “Well, I know where I am now! I’ve been in the fog without a compass for nearly three days, and I didn’t expect to see land again. ” He spoke English very fluently, but occasionally with strange turns of phrase . “So where are you from?” Jim asked. “I was in a ship that was wrecked,” he said briefly. ” What’s that town over there? ” “It’s Berwick. ” “Ah! very good! I must get my strength back before I go any further.” He turned toward the boat, but as he did so, it swayed badly, and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed the prow. He sat down, looked around him, his face very red, and his eyes blazing like a wild beast’s. “Voltigeurs de la garde!” he cried in a voice that sounded like a bugle blast, and then again… Voltigeurs de la garde ! He waved his hat above his head, and suddenly, head first, he fell, all curled up, in a brown heap, on the sand. Jim Horscroft and I stood there, stupefied, looking at each other. The arrival of this man had been so strange, as well as his questions, and this sudden incident! We each took him by a shoulder and laid him on his back. He lay there, with his prominent nose, his cat’s whiskers, but his lips bloodless, his breathing so feeble that it would hardly have stirred a feather. “He’s dying, Jim,” I cried. “Yes, he’s dying of hunger and thirst; there isn’t a crumb of bread in the boat. Perhaps there’s something in the bag?” He rushed out and brought back a black leather bag. Along with a large blue coat, these were the only items in the boat. The bag was closed, but Jim opened it in an instant; it was half full of gold coins. Neither he nor I ever had any seen as many, no, not even a tenth part. There must have been hundreds of them; they were all shiny, brand-new English sovereigns. In fact, the sight had interested us so much that we no longer thought of their owner until he called us back to him with a moan. His lips were bluer than ever. His lower jaw was hanging back, which allowed me to see his open mouth and his rows of teeth, white as wolf’s teeth. “My God! he’s passing!” cried Jim. “This way, Jock, run to the brook and get some water in your hat. Quick, friend, or he’s lost. ” Meanwhile, I undid his clothes. I ran off, and came back in a minute, bringing back as much water as he could fit in my Glengarry. Jim had unbuttoned the man’s coat and shirt. We poured water over him and squeezed a few drops between his lips. This produced a good effect, for after two or three deep breaths, he sat up and slowly rubbed his eyes, like a man awakening from a deep sleep. But at that moment, it was not his face that Jim and I were looking at; it was his uncovered chest. There were two deep, red depressions, one just below the collarbone and the other about halfway down the right side. The skin of his body was extremely white as far as the brown line of the neck. Therefore the puckered, red holes only stood out more distinctly against the general complexion. From above I could see that there was a corresponding depression in the back in one place, but none in the other. Inexperienced as I was, I could tell what this meant. Two bullets had entered his chest. One had passed through it; the other had remained there. But he stood up suddenly, still wobbly, and pulled down his shirt suspiciously. “What have I done?” he said. “Have I lost my mind? Don’t pay attention to what I said. Did I scream? ” “You screamed at the very moment you fell. ” “What did I scream?” I repeated it to him, although they were words almost devoid of any meaning to me. He looked at us fixedly from one to the other, then shrugged his shoulders. “It’s part of a song,” he said. ” Good! I ask myself this : what am I going to do now? I wouldn’t have thought myself so weak. Where did you go to get this water?” I showed him the stream, towards which he walked uncertainly . There he lay down on his stomach and began to drink, for so long that I thought he would never finish. His long, wrinkled neck stretched like a horse’s, and with each sip he made a loud lapping noise with his lips. Finally, he stood up with a deep sigh and wiped his mustache with his sleeve. “I’m better,” he said. “Have you anything to eat? I put two pieces of cake in my pocket before leaving .” He stuffed them into his mouth and swallowed. Then he stuck out his shoulders, puffed out his chest, and stroked his ribs with the palm of his hand. “I’m sure I owe you a lot,” he said. “You’ve been very kind to a stranger. But I see you had a chance to open my satchel. ” “We were counting on finding some wine or brandy in there when you lost consciousness. ” “Ah! I don’t have much in there, at most… how do you say?… some savings.” It’s not a large sum, but I’ll have to live on it quietly until I find something to do. Besides, it seems to me that could live here quite peacefully. It would have been impossible for me to come across a more peaceful country, where there is perhaps not the shadow of a gendarme at this distance from the city. “You have not yet told us who you are, where you come from, or what you have been,” said Jim in a forbidding tone. The stranger looked him up and down, with a knowing air. “My word,” he said, “but you would make a grenadier for a flank company. As for the questions you ask me, I would have the right to be angry, if it concerned anyone other than you, but you have the right to be informed, after having treated me with such courtesy. My name is Bonaventure de Lapp. I am a soldier and traveler by profession, and I come from Dunkirk; as you can see in large letters on the boat. ” “I thought you had been shipwrecked,” I said. But he gave me that direct look that reveals an honest man. “That’s true, but the ship was from Dunkirk, and this boat is one of its longboats. The crew left in the big boat, and the ship sank so quickly that I didn’t have time to take anything on board. That was Monday. ” “And here we are on Thursday! You went three days without food or drink? ” “That’s too long,” he said. “I’ve been in a similar situation before , but never for so long. Well, I’m going to leave my boat here and see if I can find a place to stay in one of those little gray houses on the slope of the coast. What’s that big fire blazing over there? ” “It’s at the home of one of our neighbors who served against the French: He’s happy because peace has been concluded. ” “Ah! You have a neighbor who served! I’m glad, because for my part I’ve been in the war a little here and there.” He did not look pleased, for his eyebrows were drawn very low over his piercing eyes. “You are French, are you not?” I asked as we descended together. He held his black satchel in his hand and had thrown his large blue coat over his shoulder. “Ah! I am Alsatian,” he said, “and you know that Alsatians are more German than French. As for me, I have been to so many countries that I feel at home anywhere. I have been a great traveler. And where do you think I could find a home? It would be very difficult for me to say, now, looking back over the great interval of thirty-five years that have elapsed since then, what impression this singular personage had made on me . He had inspired in me, I believe, distrust, and yet he exercised fascination over me. There was, indeed, in his bearing, in his air, in all his ways of speaking, I know not what was entirely different from anything I had seen before. Jim Horscroft was a handsome man, and Major Elliott a brave man, but both lacked something that this stranger possessed: it was that alert and quick glance, that sparkle in his eyes , that distinction indefinable to describe. Then, we had rescued him when he lay, scarcely breathing, on the shingle, and one always feels tender toward a man to whom one has done a service. “If you will come with me,” I said, “I am pretty sure of finding you a bed for a night or two. During that time you will be better able to make your arrangements.” He took off his hat and bowed with all the grace imaginable. But Jim Horscroft tugged at my sleeve and led me aside. “You’re mad, Jock,” he said to me in a low voice. “That fellow is only an ordinary adventurer. What possesses you to want to meddle in his affairs? But I was the most obstinate creature that ever wore a pair of boots, and the surest way to get me ahead, It was to pull me back. “He’s a stranger,” I said, “and it’s our duty to look after him,” I said. “You’ll be angry about it,” he said. “That may be. ” “If it doesn’t bother you, at least you might think of your cousin Edie. ” “Edie is perfectly capable of looking after herself. ” “Well then, the devil take you, and do as you please!” he cried in one of his sudden fits of anger. And without another word, to take leave of either of us, he turned and left by the path that led up from the side of his father’s house. Bonaventure de Lapp looked at me with a smile, while we went down together. “I think I didn’t please him much,” he said. “I see very well that he picked a quarrel with you because you took me home with you. What does he think of me?” Does he think I stole the gold I have in my satchel, or what is he afraid of? “Phew!” I said, “I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter to me. Not a stranger will pass through our door without bread and a bed.” Chapter 6. An Eagle Without Asylum. My father seemed to me to be almost of Jim Horscroft’s opinion, for he did not show any extreme eagerness towards this new guest; he looked him up and down with a very questioning air. He did, however, serve him a plate of pickled herrings, and I noticed that he gave him an even more askance when he saw my companion eat nine. Our ration was always reduced to two. When Bonaventure de Lapp had finished, his eyes closed of their own accord, for I believe that during these three days, he had slept no more than he had eaten. It was a very poor room to which I took him, but he threw himself on the bed, wrapped himself in his great coat, and fell asleep at once. He had a powerful and sonorous snore, and as my room was next to his, I had reason to remember that we had a guest under our roof. The next morning, when I went downstairs, I noticed that he had preceded me, for he was sitting opposite my father at the table in the window-frame, in the kitchen, their heads almost touching, and there was a small roll of gold pieces between them. As I entered, my father raised his eyes to me, in which I saw a flash of greed that I had never noticed before. He seized the money with a miserly movement, and pocketed it at once. “Very well, sir, the room is yours, and you will always pay in advance on the third of the month. ” “Ah!” ” Here is my first friend,” cried de Lapp, holding out his hand and giving me a smile that was rather kindly, no doubt, but in which there was that shade of protective air that one has when one smiles at one’s dog. “I am quite recovered now, thanks to my excellent supper and a good night’s rest,” he continued. “Ah! it is hunger that takes away all energy from a man. That first, then the cold. ” “Yes, it is true,” said my father, “I was on the moor in a snowstorm for thirty-six hours, and I know what it is. ” “I once saw three thousand men die of hunger,” said de Lapp, putting his hands close to the fire. “From day to day they grew thinner and more like monkeys, and they came almost to the edges of the pontoons where we kept them; they howled with rage and pain.” “The first few days, their screams could be heard throughout the town, but after a week, our sentries on the riverbank could barely hear them, they had become so weakened. ” “And they died?” I cried. “They resisted for a very long time. They were Austrian grenadiers from Starowitz’s corps, tall, handsome men.” men, as big as your friend of yesterday. But when the city surrendered, there were only four hundred left, and a man could lift three of them at a time, as if they were little monkeys. It was pitiful. Ah! my friend, will you introduce me to Madame and Mademoiselle? It was my mother and Edie, who had just entered the kitchen. He had not seen them the day before, but this time I had the greatest difficulty in keeping a straight face, for instead of giving them a simple nod in the Scottish fashion by way of greeting, he bent his back like a trout about to jump, he put his foot forward by a slide and put his hand to his heart in the most humorous way. My mother opened her eyes wide, thinking he was making fun of her, but Edie was immediately delighted. It seemed as if it were a game to her, and she began to curtsey, but a curtsey so low that for a moment I thought she was about to fall down and sit down in the middle of the kitchen. But no, she sat up as lightly as springy padding . We all drew up our chairs and did justice to the cakes served with the milk and porridge. He had a marvelous way with women, that fellow. If I, or Jim Horscroft, had done as he did, we should have looked like fools, and the girls would have laughed in our faces, but with him it suited his way of looking and talking so well that it came at last to seem quite natural. Indeed, when he spoke to my mother, or to cousin Edie— and for this he never needed to be asked twice—he never did so without bowing, without assuming an air of making one believe that they were doing him great honor simply by listening to what he had to say; and when they answered, one would have thought, from the look on his face, that their words were precious and worthy of being preserved forever. And yet, even when he humbled himself before women, he always retained in the depths of his eyes something proud, as if to imply that it was for them alone that he was so gentle, but that on occasion, he knew how to show enough stiffness. For my mother, it was marvelous to see how she softened towards him. In half an hour she brought him up to speed on all our affairs, told him about her uncle, who was a surgeon at Carlisle, and the greatest personage in the family, on her side. She told him about the death of my brother Rob, an event I had never heard him mention to a living soul—and then one would have thought that De Lapp would shed tears on the occasion—he who had just told us that he had seen three thousand men die of hunger. As for Edie, she did not talk much, but she kept glancing at our host, and once or twice he looked at her very fixedly. After breakfast, when he had gone into his room, my father took eight guinea pieces out of his pocket and spread them on the table. “What do you say to that, Martha?” he said. “Well, it’s because you’ve sold two black rams, that’s all.” “No, it’s a month’s payment for Jock’s friend’s board and lodging, and he’ll get as much every four weeks. ” But, hearing this, my mother shook her head. “Two pounds a week is a great deal too much,” she said, “and it ‘s not when the poor gentleman is in distress that we should make him pay that price for a little food. ” “Ta! ta!” cried my father, “he can do it very well without embarrassment. He has a satchel full of gold. Besides, it’s the price he offered himself. ” “That money won’t bring luck,” she said. “Hey! Hey! My wife, has he turned your head upside down with his foreign ways? ” “Yes, it would be well if Scottish husbands had some of his considerate manners,” she said. ” It was the first time in my life that I heard him retort to my father.” De Lapp soon came downstairs and asked me if I would go out with him. When we were in the sun, he took from his pocket a small cross made of red stones, the most charming thing I had yet seen . “They are rubies,” he said, “and I got this in Toledo, in Spain. There were two of them, but I gave the other to a young girl in Lithuania. I beg you to accept this one in memory of the great kindness you showed me yesterday. You will have it made into a tie pin.” I could not help but thank him for this present, which was worth more than anything I had ever possessed in my life. “I’m leaving to count the lambs in the pasture above ,” I said. “Perhaps you would like to come with me and see a little of the country.” He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “I have,” he said, “some letters to write as soon as possible. I intend to spend the morning at home to carry out this task.” All morning I went to and fro on the heights; and, as you will readily believe, my mind was occupied only with this stranger whom chance had thrown at our door. Where had he learned these manners, this air of command, this haughty and menacing glare in his gaze? And these adventures, to which he alluded with such a detached air, what an astonishing life they had found a place in? He had been kind to us, he had used language full of kindness, and despite everything I could not entirely banish the distrust I had felt towards him. Perhaps, after all, Jim Horscroft was right; perhaps I had been wrong in introducing him to West Inch. When I came home, he looked as if he had been born and raised on the farm.
He was sitting in that large armchair with wooden arms that occupies the corner of the fireplace, and he had the black cat on his knee. He held his arms outstretched, and from one hand to the other ran a skein of knitting wool, which my mother was making into a ball. Cousin Edie was sitting close by, and when I saw her eyes, I perceived that she had been crying. “Well, Edie,” I said, “what troubles you? ” “Ah! Mademoiselle has a tender heart, like all true and honest women,” he said. “I should not have believed the thing could affect her so much. Otherwise, I should not have mentioned it.” I was recounting the sufferings of some troops who had to cross the Guadarama mountains during the winter, and about whom I know something. It is very strange to see the wind carry men over the edge of precipices, but the ground was very slippery, and there was nothing to hold on to. The companies crossed their arms, and it went better that way, but the hand of an artilleryman remained in mine, as I took it. It had been rotten with cold for three days. I remained listening, open-mouthed. “And the old grenadiers, too, as they no longer had their former ardor, they had difficulty resisting. And yet, if they remained behind, the peasants took them, nailed them to the doors of their barns, feet up, and lit fires under their heads. It was pitiful to see these brave old soldiers perish in this way. So when they could no longer advance, it was interesting to see how they managed: they would stop, say their prayers, sitting on an old saddle, or on their haversack, take off their boots and stockings and rest their chin on the end of their rifle. Then they put their big toe on the trigger, and poof! it was over: no more marches for those fine old grenadiers. Oh! we had a hard job down there in those Guadarama Mountains. “And what army was it?” I asked. “Oh! I’ve been in so many armies that I get confused sometimes. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of war. By the way, I’ve seen your Scots fight, and they make tough foot soldiers, but I thought from that that everyone around here wore… what do you call them… petticoats? ” “They’re kilts and they’re only worn in the Highlands. ” “Ah! in the mountains. But there’s a man out there. Perhaps he’s the one who’ll be taking my letters to the post office, or so your father said. ” “Yes, he’s Farmer Whitehead’s boy. Would you like me to give them to him?” — Yes, he would take more care of them if he received them from your hand. He took them from his pocket and gave them to me. I went out at once with these letters and on the way my eyes fell on the address on one of them. It was in very large and very beautiful handwriting: “To His Majesty “The King of Sweden “Stockholm” I did not know much French, enough, however, to understand this. What sort of eagle was this that had come to rest in our humble little nest? Chapter 7. The Corriemuir Watchtower. It would be a bore for me, and also, I am very sure, a bore for you, if I undertook to tell you the details of our life from the day this man came under our roof, or how he came to win the affection of us all by degrees . With women, it was not a very long task, but it was not long before he thawed my father himself, a thing which was not the easiest. He had even conquered Jim Horscroft as well as I had. In fact, we were hardly more than two big children beside him , for he had been everywhere, he had seen everything, and when he had spent an evening chatting, in his broken English, he had carried us far from our simple kitchen, our rustic cottage, to throw us into the middle of courtyards, camps, battlefields, all the wonders of the world. Horscroft had at first been rather gloomy with him, but de Lapp, by his tact, by the ease of his manner, had soon charmed him, had completely won his heart, so that there was Jim sitting there, holding in his hand the hand of cousin Edie, and both of us lost in the interest they took in listening to all the stories he told us. I am not going to tell you all this, but even today, after such a long interval, I could tell you how, from one week, one month to the next, by this or that word, this or that action, he managed to make us what he wanted. One of his first acts was to give my father the canoe in which he had come, reserving only the right to take it back if he should need it. The herrings came very close to the coast that year, and before his death my uncle had given us a fine assortment of nets, so that this present brought us a good number of pounds. Sometimes de Lapp embarked alone, and I saw him for a whole summer rowing slowly, stopping every five or six strokes of the oar to throw a stone tied to the end of a rope. I understood nothing of his behavior until the day when he explained it to me of his own accord. “I like to study everything that has to do with war ,” he said, “and I never let an opportunity slip away. I was wondering if it would be difficult for an army corps commander to make a landing here. ” “If the wind didn’t come from the east,” I said. “Yes, that’s right, if the wind didn’t come from the east. Have you taken any soundings here? ” “No. ” “Your line of warships would be forced to keep out to sea, but there’s enough water here for a forty- gun frigate to come within rifle range. Pack your skirmishers , deploy them behind these sand dunes, then support them by launching more, hurl a hail of grapeshot from the frigates over their heads. It could be done! It could be done.” His whiskers, stiff as a cat’s, bristled more than ever, and I could see from the brightness of his eyes that he was carried away by his dreams. “You forget that our soldiers would be on the beach,” I said indignantly. “Ta! Ta! Ta!” he cried, “naturally for a battle, it takes two. Come now, let’s reason it out.” How many men can you put in line? Shall we say twenty thousand, thirty thousand? A few regiments of good troops, the rest! Phew! Conscripts, armed bourgeois. What do you call that? Volunteers? “Brave people,” I cried. “Oh yes, very brave, but imbeciles. Ah! my God! one cannot say to what extent they would be imbeciles. Not only them, but all the young troops. They are so afraid of being afraid, that they would take no precautions. Ah! I saw that. In Spain, I saw a battalion of conscripts attack a battery of ten guns: you should have seen how bravely they advanced, so well that from the place where I was, the climb looked… what do you call that in English?… looked like a raspberry tart. And our fine battalion of conscripts, what had become of it? Then another battalion of young troops attempted the assault. They set off at a run, shouting, yelling, all together, but what can shouts do against a volley of grapeshot? So there’s your second battalion lying on the slope. Then it’s the guard’s infantrymen, old soldiers, who are told to take the battery: watching them march, it wasn’t very captivating, no column, no shouts, no one killed. Just a line of scattered riflemen, with support platoons, but after ten minutes, the batteries were silenced; and the Spanish gunners cut to pieces: War, my young friend, is something you learn, just like sheep herding. “Puh!” I said, so as not to be silent in front of a stranger; if we had thirty thousand men on the crest of that height over there, you would come to be very happy to have your boats behind you.
“On the crest of the height?” he said, quickly looking over the crest. Yes, if your man knew his business; he would have his left supported by your house, his center at Corriemuir, and his right that way, toward the doctor’s house, with a strong line of skirmishers in front. Naturally, his cavalry would maneuver to cut us off as soon as we were deployed on the beach. But let him only let us form up, and we will soon know what we have to do. That’s the weak point, the defile here: I would sweep it with my guns. I would commit my cavalry there. I would push the infantry forward in strong columns, and this wing would be in the air: Hey, Jock, your volunteers, where would they be? “On the heels of your last man,” I said. And we both burst into that hearty burst of laughter with which these sorts of discussions usually ended. Sometimes, when he spoke like that, I thought he was joking. At other times, it was not so easy to admit it. I remember very well that one evening that summer, as we were sitting in the kitchen, he, my father, Jim, and I, and the The women had gone to bed, he began to talk about Scotland and its relations with England. “You used to have your own king, and your laws were made in Edinburgh,” he said. “Don’t you feel full of rage and despair at the thought that all this comes from London? ” Jim took his pipe from his mouth. “It was we who imposed our king on England, and if anyone were to be furious, it would be those down there.” Obviously the foreigner was unaware of this detail. This silenced him for a moment. “Yes, but your laws are made down there,” he said finally, “and certainly that is not advantageous. ” “No.
It would be good if a Parliament were put back in Edinburgh,” said my father, “but the sheep keep me so busy that I hardly have the leisure to think about such things. ” “It is up to handsome young men like you to think about it,” said de Lapp. When a country is oppressed, it is its young people who must avenge it. “Yes, the English want too much for themselves sometimes,” said Jim.
“Well, if there are a lot of people who share that view, why don’t we form battalions of them, and march on London?” cried de Lapp. “That would make a fine campaign,” I said, laughing, “but who would lead us?” He straightened up, curtseyed, and laid his hand on his heart, in his odd way. “If you would do me the honor,” he cried. Then, seeing us all laughing, he began to laugh too, but I’m convinced he didn’t mean to be joking in the least. I could never get any idea of ​​his age, and Jim Horscroft was no better. Sometimes we took him for an old man who looked young, sometimes on the contrary, for a young man who looked old. His brown hair, straight and cut short, had no need to be cut close at the top of his head, where it thinned out to end in a polished curve. His skin was furrowed with a thousand very fine wrinkles, which intertwined, forming a network; it was, as I have said, all annealed by the sun. But he was agile as a youth, supple and hard as a whale, and could spend a whole day roaming the mountains or rowing on the sea without wetting a hair. All things considered, we judged that he must be forty or forty-five years old, although it was difficult to understand how he could have seen so much at such a period of his life. But one day we began to talk about age, and then he gave us a surprise. I had just said that I was just twenty and Jim that he was twenty-seven. “Then I am the oldest of us three,” said de Lapp. We burst out laughing, for, in our opinion, he could perfectly well have been our father. “But not by much,” he said, raising his eyebrow, “I turned twenty-nine in December.” This assertion, even more than his words, made us understand what an extraordinary life he had led. He saw our astonishment and was amused by it. “I have lived! I have lived!” he cried. “I have employed my days and my nights; I was only fourteen years old, commanding a company in a battle in which five nations took part. I made a king turn pale with the words I whispered in his ear, when I was twenty. I helped to rebuild a kingdom and put a new king on a great throne the very year I came of age. My God, I have lived my life. ” This was the most precise thing I learned, according to his words, about his past. When we wanted to know more about him, he would just nod or laugh. At times, we thought he was just a clever imposter, because why would a man who had so much influence and talents would have come to waste his time in the county of Berwick? But one day, an incident occurred which was calculated to prove to us that his life had indeed had a very full past. As you probably remember, our very near neighbor was an old officer of the Spanish Civil War, the same one who had danced around the bonfire with his sister and the two maids. He had gone to London on some business relating to his pension and his wound compensation, and with some hope that employment would be found for him, so that he did not return until late in the autumn. Within the first few days of his return, he came down to visit us, and then his eyes fell for the first time on de Lapp. Never in my life did I see a face express such astonishment. He looked fixedly at our host for a long minute without saying a word. De Lapp returned this look with the same persistence, but without any indication of recognition. “I don’t know who you are, sir,” he said finally, “but you look at me as if you’d seen me before. ” “Indeed, I have seen you,” said the major. “Never, as far as I know. ” “But I swear it. ” “Where, then? ” “In the village of Astorga, in 18…” De Lapp jumped up, looked at our neighbor again. “My God,” he cried, “what a coincidence, and you’re the English parliamentarian. I remember you very well, sir. Allow me to whisper a word in your ear.” He took him aside and spoke with him in French, very seriously , for a quarter of an hour, gesticulating with his hands, giving explanations, while the major nodded his old, grizzled head from time to time. At last they seemed to have agreed upon some convention, and I heard the major say several times, “Word of honor,” and then “Fortune of war,” words which I understood very well, for at Birtwhistle’s we were pushed very far. But since then I constantly observed that the major never indulged in the same familiarity of language, which we used with our lodger, that he bowed when addressing him , and that he lavished on him marks of respect. More than once I asked the major what he knew on the subject, but he always shied away, and I could get nothing from him. Jim Horscroft spent all that summer at home, but towards the end of the autumn he returned to Edinburgh for the winter courses, for he intended to work assiduously and take his degree next spring, if he could, and he would return for Christmas. So there was a great farewell scene between him and his cousin Edie. He was to have his plaque put up and get married as soon as he was licensed to practice. I never saw a man love a woman with such tenderness, and she, on her part, had some affection for him, in her own way, and indeed, she would have searched in vain all Scotland for a more handsome man than he. However, when it came to marriage, she made a slight grimace at the thought that all her wonderful dreams would end in being only the wife of a country doctor. But all things considered, she had no choice but between Jim and me, and she decided on the better of the two. Of course, there was de Lapp too, but we felt he was of a completely different class from us: so he didn’t count. At that time, I was never quite sure on this point: did Edie care for him or not? When Jim was at home, they hardly paid attention to each other. After he left, they met more often, which was natural enough, as Jim had taken up a large part of Edie’s time.
Once or twice, she spoke to me about Lapp as if she didn’t did not find it to her liking, and yet she was not at ease when he was not there in the evening. Edie, more than any of us, enjoyed talking with him, asking him a thousand questions. She had him describe the costumes of the queens, tell her what kind of carpet they walked on, whether they had hairpins in their hair, how many feathers they wore in their hats, and I ended up being surprised that he found an answer to all this. And yet he always had an answer. He played with the language with such dexterity, with vivacity. He showed such eagerness to amuse her, that I wondered why it was that she did not have more affection for him. In short, the summer, the autumn and the greater part of the winter passed, we were all still very happy together. The year 1815 was already well underway. The great Emperor still lived on the island of Elba, gnawing at his heart; all the ambassadors, assembled in Vienna, continued to squabble over how to divide the lion’s skin, now that they had reduced him to bay for good and all. As for us, in our little corner of Europe, we were entirely absorbed in our petty and peaceful occupations, the care of the sheep, the trips to the cattle market at Berwick, and the evening chats before the great peat fire. We hardly imagined that the actions of these high and powerful personages could have any influence whatsoever on As for the war, well, were we not all agreed in admitting that the great shadow had disappeared forever from over our heads, and that if the Allies did not start a quarrel among themselves, it would be another fifty years before a single shot was fired in Europe. There was, however, one incident which stands out in very clear outline in my memory. It happened, I think, towards the end of February of that year, and I will tell you about it before I go further. You know, I am sure, how the border watchtowers are made . They are square masses, scattered at intervals along the divide, and built so as to give shelter and protection to the people of the country against marauders and bandits. When Percy and his men had started for the Marches, some of their cattle were brought into the tower-yard, the great gate was shut, and fire was lit in the braziers on the top. This was a signal to which the other watchtowers were to respond in the same way . The flashing lights thus crossed the heights of Lammermuir and carried the news as far as Pentland, and thence to Edinburgh. But now, as may be well imagined, all these ancient keeps were buckled and crumbling, and afforded superb nesting places for wild birds. I have collected a good many fine eggs for my collection from the alarm tower at Corriemuir. One day I had gone a long way to deliver a message to the Armstrongs of Laidlaw, who live two miles beyond Ayton.
About five o’clock, just as the sun was about to set, I was on the moor path, so as to see the gable of West Inch exactly in front of me, while the old alarm tower was a little to my left. I was leisurely considering the keep, which made a very picturesque effect from the flood of red light which poured upon it the horizontal rays of the sun, and the sea stretching far behind. And as I was looking attentively, I suddenly perceived the figure of a man moving in one of the holes in the wall. Naturally I stopped, astonished at this, for what could any individual be doing in that place, and at that time, for the time of nesting had not yet come. It was so singular that I determined to get to the bottom of the matter. So, in spite of my fatigue, I turned my back on the house and walked briskly towards the tower. The grass reaches right up to the very base of the wall, and my feet made little noise until I came to the flowing arch where the entrance had once been. I glanced furtively inside. It was Bonaventure de Lapp who was there, standing in the enclosure, looking through the same hole where I had seen his face. He was turned sideways to me. Evidently he had not seen me at all, for he was looking with all his eyes in the direction of West Inch. I took a step forward. My feet made the ruins of the entrance crunch. He started, turned around, and found himself facing me. He was not one to be made to lose his composure, and his face did not change any more than if he had been there for a year waiting for me. But there was something in the expression of his eyes which told me that he would have paid a pretty good sum to see me take the path again. “Hello!” I said, “what are you doing here? ” “I could ask you the same question,” he said. “I came because I saw your face at the window. ” “And I, because, as you may well have noticed, I am very genuinely interested in everything that has any connection with war, and naturally castles are among them. You will excuse me for a moment, my dear Jock.” Then, advancing, he suddenly sprang through the opening in the wall, so as to be no longer under my eyes. But my curiosity was much too excited to excuse him so easily. I hastened to change my place in order to see what he was doing. He was standing outside, waving his hand with feverish ardor, as if to signal. “What are you doing?” I cried. And at once I ran out to stand near him and look across the moor to see who he was signaling to. “You’re going too far, sir,” he said irritably. “I didn’t think you’d go so far. A gentleman is free to act as he pleases, without you spying on him. If we are to remain friends, you must not meddle in my affairs. ” “I don’t like these mysterious ways,” I said, “and my father wouldn’t like them either. ” “Your father can explain it himself, and there’s nothing secret about it,” he said dryly. “It’s you who make all the secret with your imaginations. Ta! Ta! Ta! This nonsense makes me impatient.” And without so much as a nod, he turned his back on me and set off with a quick step towards West Inch. I followed him, and in as bad a mood as possible, for I had a presentiment of some mischief being plotted, and yet, I had not the least idea in the world of what it could be. And I came back without realizing it, to think of all the mysterious incidents of the arrival of this man, and of his long stay among us. But who could he be waiting for at the Alarm Tower? Was this personage a spy, who had a colleague in espionage who came to this place to speak to him? But that was absurd. What could come to spy in the County of Berwick? And besides, Major Elliott knew perfectly well what to expect from him and would not have shown him so much respect, if there had been anything suspicious. I had reached this point in my reflections when I heard myself greeted by a cheerful voice. It was the Major himself , coming down the hill from his home, holding his large bulldog, Bounder, on a leash. This dog was a most dangerous animal, and had caused many an accident in the neighborhood, but the Major was very fond of him, and never went out without him, while keeping him tied up with a good, strong strap. Now, as I watched the major coming, and was waiting for him to arrive, he tripped with his injured leg over a broom branch; while regaining his balance, he let go of the strap and immediately this cursed animal took off at full speed towards me, down the hill. I didn’t like that at all, I can tell you, because I didn’t have a stick or a stone within reach, and I knew this beast was dangerous. The major called him from up there with piercing cries, but I think the animal took this reminder for an excitement; because it only ran more furiously. But I knew his name, and I hoped that this might earn me the respect due to an old acquaintance. So when he was almost upon me, his fur bristling, his nose buried between two red eyes, I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Bounder! Bounder! ” This had its effect, for the animal passed me, growling, and set off along the path in the footsteps of Bonaventure de Lapp. The latter turned at all this noise and seemed to understand at first glance what it was about; but he continued walking without hurrying any longer. I was terrified for him, for the dog had never seen him. I ran as fast as I could to get the animal away from him. But I don’t know how, when he sprang up and saw the play of fingers that de Lapp was making behind his back with his thumb and forefinger, his fury suddenly subsided, and we saw him waving the stump of his tail and stroking his knee with his paw. “So this is your dog, Major,” he said to his master, who was coming in limping. Ah! it’s a fine beast, a fine, fine creature. The Major was quite out of breath, for he had come almost as fast as I had. “I was afraid it might hurt you,” he said, panting. “Ta! Ta! Ta!” cried De Lapp, “it’s a fine animal, very gentle. I’ve always liked dogs. But I’m glad I met you, Major, for here is this young gentleman, to whom I owe a great deal, and who was beginning to think I was a spy. Isn’t that true, Jock?” I was so stunned by this language that I couldn’t find a word to reply. I only blushed and looked away, with the awkward air of a countryman that I was. “You know me, Major,” said De Lapp, “and you will tell him, I’m sure, that it’s absolutely impossible. ” “No, no, Jock. Certainly not!” “Certainly not,” cried the major. “Thank you,” said de Lapp, “you know me and you do me justice. And yourself? I hope your knee is better, and that you will soon be given your regiment back. ” “I am well enough,” replied the major, “but I will never be given a job unless there is a war, and there will be no more wars in my lifetime. ” “Oh! You think so!” said de Lapp, with a smile. “Well, we shall see, we shall see, my friend.” He took off his hat, then, turning quickly, walked briskly in the direction of West Inch. The major stood following him with his eyes, looking thoughtful. Then he asked me what had made me believe he was a spy.
When I told him, he made no reply, only nodded , and then he had the air of a man whose mind is not quite at ease. Chapter 8. The Arrival of the Cutter. Since the little incident at the Alarm Tower, my feelings toward our tenant were no longer the same. I always had the idea that he was hiding a secret from me, or rather that he was a secret in himself, since he always kept the veil stretched over his past. And when chance drew back a corner of this veil for a moment, It was always to give us a glimpse, on the other side, of some bloody, violent, terrible scene. The mere sight of his body was frightening. One day when I was bathing with him, during the summer, I saw that he was all striped with wounds. Not counting seven or eight scars or gashes, his ribs, on one side, were all twisted, all deformed. One of his calves had been partly torn off. He laughed in his most cheerful way at my astonishment. “Cossacks! Cossacks!” he said, running his hand over his scars. “The ribs were broken by an artillery caisson. It’s a very bad thing when cannons pass over your body. Ah! when it’s cavalry, it’s nothing. A horse, however fast its pace, always looks where it puts its foot.” Fifteen hundred cuirassiers and the Russian hussars from Grodno passed over me without suffering much harm. But the cannons are very bad. “And the calf?” I asked. “Poof! It’s only a wolf bite,” he said. “You’d never believe how I got it. You’ll know that my horse and I were hit, he killed, and mine had my ribs broken by the caisson. And it was cold… such a bitter, bitter cold! The ground hard as iron, and no one to take care of the wounded, so that when they froze they assumed attitudes that would have made you laugh. I, too, felt the frost invading me. So what did I do? I took my saber and slit the belly of my dead horse. I did the best I could. I cut enough room to get in, leaving a small opening to breathe. Gosh, it was very warm in there. But I didn’t have enough space to fit all of me in. My feet and part of my legs were sticking out. Then at night, while I was sleeping, wolves came to devour the horse, and they also made a bit of a dent in me, as you can see; but after that I stayed up, pistols in hand, and they had no more of me. That’s where I spent ten days very comfortably. “Ten days!” I cried, “and what did you eat? ” “Well, I ate the horse. It was for me what you call table and lodging. But naturally I had the good sense to eat the legs and not touch the body. There were a great number of dead around me, all of whom had their water flasks, so that I had everything I could wish for. And on the eleventh day a patrol of light cavalry arrived . Then all went well. It was thus, through conversations, started accidentally, and which are hardly worth reporting separately, that light was shed on his person and his past. But the day was to come when we would know everything, and I will try to tell you how it happened. The winter had been very gloomy, but from the month of March the first signs of spring appeared, and for a week at the end of that month we had sunshine and southerly winds .
On the 7th, Jim Horscroft was due to return from Edinburgh, for although the session ended on the 1st, his examination was to take him a week. Edie and I were walking on the beach on the 6th, and I could talk of nothing but my old friend, for, after all, he was the only friend of my age that I had at that time. Edie was very little given to talking, which was a very rare thing for her, but she listened with a smile to everything I said. “Poor old Jim,” she said once or twice in a low voice, “poor old Jim! ” “And if he’s been accepted,” I said, “well, of course he’ll have his plate put up, and he’ll have his own lodgings, and we ‘ll lose our Edie.” I did my best to make light of it, and to make light of it, but the words still stuck in my throat. “Poor old Jim!” she said again. And as she said this, there were tears in her eyes. “Ah! poor old Jock,” she added, slipping her hand into mine as we walked, “you used to be a little attached to me too, didn’t you, Jock… Oh! there, over there, was a very pretty little vessel. She was a charming little cutter of about thirty tons, very fast going, judging by her slender masts and the cut of her fore-mast. She was coming in from the south, under her jib, foremast, and mainmast , but just as we were looking at her, all her sails suddenly folded in, like a gull closing its wings, and we saw the water splashing up under the fall of her anchor coming down from the bowsprit. It was probably less than a quarter of a mile from the shore, so near in fact that I could see a tall man in a pointed cap standing at the stern, and with a glass in his eye, examining the coast in both directions. “What can they be looking for around here?” asked Edie. “They are rich Englishmen from London,” I replied. ” That was how we interpreted everything in the border counties that escaped our comprehension. We spent nearly an hour examining the pretty vessel, and then, as the sun was about to sink behind a band of clouds, and the evening air was rather sharp, we turned back to return to West Inch. When you come to the farmhouse by the front, you pass through a garden, which is not the best-kept, and which opens onto the road by a gate with a latch. It was at this very gate that we stood on the night the signals were lit, the night we saw Walter Scott pass by on his way back from Edinburgh. To the right of this entrance, on the garden side, was a bit of rockery which, it seems, had been built by my father’s mother long ago. She had fashioned it with water-worn pebbles and sea-shells, and put mosses and ferns in the interstices. Now, when we had passed through the gate, our eyes fell upon this rockery; at the top of it was stuck a stick, in the cleft of which was a letter. I went forward to see what it was, but Edie beat me to it, took out the letter, and put it in her pocket. “It’s for me,” she said, laughing. But I stood looking at her with a look that extinguished the laughter on her face. “Whose is it, Edie?” I asked. She pursed her lips, but she didn’t answer. “Whose is she, miss?” I cried. “Could it be that you have deceived Jim as you have deceived me? ” “What a brute you are, Jock!” she said quickly. “I wish you would mind your own business. ” “It can only be one person,” I cried, “and that person is none other than de Lapp. ” “Well, suppose you’re right, Jock? The cold-bloodedness of that creature astounded and infuriated me. ” “You admit it!” I cried. “Have you no more modesty left? ” “Why shouldn’t I receive letters from that gentleman? ” “Because it’s infamous. ” “And why? ” “Because he’s a stranger. ” “Far from it,” she said. “He’s my husband.” Chapter 9. What Was Done at West Inch. I remember that moment very well. I have heard people say that a sudden, violent blow had dulled their sensitivity. It was not so for me. On the contrary, my sight, my hearing, and my thinking were redoubled in clarity.
I remember that my eyes fell upon a small marble ball the width of my hand, which was embedded in one of the gray stones of the rockery, and that I found time to admire its delicate veins. And yet I must have had a strange expression on my face, for Cousin Edie gave a great cry and ran back to the house. I followed her and tapped at her bedroom window, for I could see she was there. “Go away, Jock, go away,” she cried. “You want to scold me. I don’t want to be scolded. I won’t open the window. Go away.” But I persisted in knocking. “I must have a word with you. ” “What is it then?” she said, opening it three inches. “The moment you start scolding, I’ll shut it again. ” “Are you really married, Edie? ” “Yes, I am. ” “Who married you? ” “Father Brenman, at the Roman Catholic chapel in Berwick. ” “You, a Presbyterian? ” “He insisted the marriage should take place in a Catholic church. ” “When was that?” “It will be a week on Wednesday.” I remembered that on that day she had gone to Berwick by car, and that de Lapp, for his part, had gone away to take, as he said, a long walk in the mountains. “But… And Jim?” I asked. “Oh! Jim will forgive me. ” “You will break his heart, and ruin his future. ” “No, no, he will forgive me. ” “He will kill de Lapp. Oh! Edie, how could you have brought us such dishonor and suffering! ” “Ah! there you are, scolding!” she cried. And the window closed abruptly. I waited a little and knocked again, for I still had many questions to ask her, but she would not answer, and I thought I heard her sobbing. At last I gave up, and was about to go into the house, for it was almost dark, when I heard the bolt of the garden gate being lifted. It was Lapp himself. But as he went along the path, he seemed to me to be either mad or drunk. He walked with a dance step. He cracked his fingers in the air, and his eyes shone like two will-o’-the-wisps. “Voltigeurs!” he cried, “Voltigeurs of the Guard!” That was what he had done the day he had been delirious. Then suddenly: “Forward! Forward!” And he came whirling his stick above his head. He stopped short when he saw me there, looking at him, and I may say he was a little disconcerted. “Hello! Jock,” he cried, “I didn’t think there was anyone here.” Tonight I am in that state of mind which you call cheerfulness. ‘It seems so,’ I replied with my usual brusqueness. ‘You will not feel so cheerful tomorrow when my friend Jim Horscroft returns here. ‘ ‘Ah! He is coming back tomorrow, then? And why should I feel less cheerful?
‘ ‘Because, if I know my man well, he will kill you. ‘ ‘Ta! Ta! Ta!’ cried de Lapp. ‘I see you know of our marriage. Edie has spoken to you. Jim can do what he likes. ‘ ‘You have rewarded us handsomely for having you. ‘ ‘My good fellow,’ he said, ‘I have, as you say, rewarded you very handsomely. I have delivered Edie from an existence which is beneath her, and I have brought her by marriage into a noble family. Besides, I have several letters to write this evening. As for the rest, we can talk about it tomorrow, when your friend Jim has returned to help you.’ He took a step toward the door. “And that was why you were waiting at the Alarm Tower,” I cried, suddenly enlightened. “Hey! Jock, now you’re getting perceptive,” he said mockingly . A moment later, I heard his bedroom door close and the key turn in the lock. I expected not to see him again all evening, but a few minutes later, he came down to the kitchen, where I was holding company to the old parents. “Madame,” he said, bowing, his hand on his heart, in the strange way that was characteristic of him, “I have been the object of all your kindness and I will always remember it. I would never have believed I would be so happy as I have been thanks to you in this peaceful country. You will accept this little souvenir. And you too, sir, will accept this little gift that I have the honor of giving you.” He placed two small packages wrapped in paper on the table before them, then, making three more bows to my mother, he left the room. His present was a brooch in the center of which was set a large green stone, surrounded by half a dozen other sparkling white stones. We had never seen anything of the kind before, and I did n’t even know what to call them, but we were told afterward at Berwick that the large stone was an emerald, and the others diamonds, and that the whole was worth far more than all the lambs that were born to us that spring. My good old mother has been dead for many years, but that beautiful brooch still sparkles around my eldest daughter’s neck when she goes out into society, and I never look at it without seeing those piercing eyes and that long, thin nose, and those cat’s whiskers that our tenant at West Inch had. As for my father, he had a fine gold watch with a double case, and you should have seen how proudly he held it in the palm of his hand, bending over to hear the ticking. I don’t know which of the two old men was the more charmed, and they only wanted to talk about the presents de Lapp had given them. “He gave you something else too,” I said at last. “What, Jock?” asked Father. “A husband for Cousin Edie,” I replied. ” When I said this, they thought I was dreaming, but when they finally understood that it was the truth, they were as proud and as pleased as if I had told them that Edie had married the laird. To tell the truth, poor Jim, with his drinking and fighting habits, had not a very good reputation in the country, and my mother had said many times that this marriage would not turn out well . Besides, de Lapp, as far as we could tell, was a quiet , well-to-do, and orderly man. There was secrecy, of course, but in those days, secret marriages were very common in Scotland; for as a few words sufficed to make a man and a woman a couple, no one found much fault with it.” The old men were as delighted as if their rent had been reduced, but my heart still ached, for it seemed to me that my friend had been treated with the cruellest levity; and I knew well that he was not a man to take it easily. Chapter 10. The Return of the Shadow. The next morning I arose with a heavy heart, for I was certain that Jim would soon appear, and that that day would be a day of great sorrow. But what amount of sorrow that day would bring, to what extent would it alter the destiny of each of us? It was more than I would have dared to imagine in my darkest moments. Allow me, however, to tell you all this in the very order of events. That morning I had risen early, for it was about to enter the full season of lambing. My father and I set out for the pasture at daybreak. As I entered the corridor, a breath brushed my face: the door of the house was completely open, and the gray light of dawn outlined another door on the far wall. I looked. I also found the door to Edie’s room open and Lapp’s. I understood then, as if by a flash of lightning, what those gifts meant: they were farewell presents . Both were gone. I felt bitterness in my heart against Cousin Edie, as I entered and stopped in her room. To think that for a newcomer, she had left us all there, without a word of kindness, without even a handshake! And him too! I had been terrified at what would happen when he met Jim. But at this moment, one would have said that he had avoided this meeting, and that had something of a cowardly air about it. I was full of anger, humiliated, suffering. I went out into the open air without saying a word to my father and went up to the pastures to cool my heated head. When I arrived up there at Corriemuir, I was able to take a last look at Cousin Edie. The little cutter had remained where it had dropped anchor, but a boat had detached itself to go ashore. In the bow I saw something red fluttering. I knew she was signaling this with her shawl. I saw this boat reach the ship and her passengers come on deck.
Then the anchor was raised and the ship sped straight out to sea. I saw again the little red spot on the deck, and de Lapp standing beside it. They could see me too, for I was outlined full against the sky. They both waved their hands for a long time, but they finally gave up, for they got no answer from me. I stood there with my arms folded, more grumpy than I had ever been in my life, until their cutter was nothing more than a faint white square, disappearing among the morning mist. It was lunchtime, and the porridge was on the table when I came in, but I had no appetite. The old people had taken it rather coldly, though my mother found no expression too hard on Edie. They had never had much affection for each other, especially lately. “Here is a letter from him,” said my father, showing me a folded paper on the table. “It was in his room. Will you read it to us?” They had not even opened it, for, to tell the truth, my good people had never been able to read handwriting fluently, though they managed to print in large and beautiful type fairly well. The address, written in large letters, was thus: “To the good people of West Inch.” As for the note, which I still have before me, all stained and yellowed, here it is: “Dear friends, “I did not intend to leave you so suddenly, but the thing depended on someone else’s will. “Duty and honor have recalled me to my old companions. “This is something you will certainly understand before a few days have passed. “I am taking our Edie with me as my wife, and it may well be that in more peaceful days you will see us again at West Inch.
“Meanwhile, accept the assurance of my affection, and believe that I shall never forget the quiet months I spent with you, at a time when I would have had at least a week to live, had I been taken prisoner by the Allies. But you may also know some day the reason for this. “Yours truly, “BONAVENTURE DE LISSAC, “Colonel of the Voltigeurs of the Guard and Aide-de-Camp to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon.” My voice became wheezy when I came to the words he had added after his name. No doubt I had come to the conviction that our host could only be one of those admirable soldiers of whom we had heard so much and who had forced their way into all the capitals of Europe, with one exception, our own. Yet I hardly believed that we had under our roof the Emperor’s aide-de-camp and a colonel of his guard. “So then,” I said, “his name is de Lissac and not de Lapp. Well , colonel or no, it’s lucky for him that he’s away from here, before Jim gets his hands on him… And it was only time,” I added, glancing out of the kitchen window, “for here comes our man from the garden.” I ran to the door to meet him. I felt that I would have paid a high price to see him go back to Edinburgh. He came striding up, waving a piece of paper over his head. I imagined that it might be a note from Edie, and that from then on he knew everything. But when he came nearer, I saw that he was a large, stiff, yellow leaf, which crackled when you waved it, and that his eyes sparkled with joy. “Hurrah! Jock,” he cried. “Where’s Edie? Where’s Edie? ” “What’s the matter, friend?” I asked. “Where’s Edie?
” “What have you got there? ” “It’s my diploma, Jock; I can practice whenever I like. It’s all right; I want to show it to Edie. ” “The best thing you can do is to forget Edie,” I answered. ” I never saw a man’s face change like his when I said those words. ” “What? What do you mean, Jock Calder?” he stammered . As he spoke, he dropped the precious diploma, which the wind carried over the hedge, across the moor, to a clump of gorse, where it fluttered to a halt, but Jim paid no attention to it. His eyes were fixed on me, and in their depths I saw a diabolical gleam. “She is not worthy of you,” I said. He seized me by the shoulder. “What have you done?” he said in a low voice. “It must be some trick of yours. Where is she? ” “She has gone off with that Frenchman who lodged here. I had thought long and hard how best to make it pass smoothly for him, but I have always been very clumsy in my speeches, and I could think of nothing better than this. ” “Oh!” he said, nodding his head and looking at me. ” Yet I was certain he was in no condition to see me, to see the farm, to see anything at all.” He remained thus for a minute or two, his hands tightly clasped, and still swinging his head. Then he made a gesture of swallowing painfully, and spoke in a singular, dry, hoarse voice. “When did it happen? ” “This morning. ” “Were they married? ” “Yes.” He laid his hand on one of the doorposts to steady himself. “A message for me? ” “She said you would forgive her. ” “God damn my soul if I ever do. Where have they gone? ” “They must have gone to France, I believe. ” “His name was de Lapp, I think? ” “His real name is de Lissac, and he is no less than a colonel in Boney’s guard. ” “Then, in all probability, he is in Paris. That’s good! That’s good! ” “Hold on,” I cried. “Father, father, bring the brandy.” His knees had buckled for a moment, but he was himself again before the old man had run up with the bottle. “Take it away,” said Jim. “Take a sip, Mr. Horscroft,” cried my father, insistently, “it will cheer you up.” Jim seized the bottle and threw it over the garden hedge. “It’s excellent for those who want to forget,” he said, “but I want to remember. ” “God forgive you for this guilty waste,” cried my father loudly. “And also for nearly breaking the head of an officer of Her Majesty’s infantry,” said old Major Elliott, pointing over the hedge. I would have been content with a swig after a morning walk, but a bottle that rustles your ear as it whistles! But what has happened that you all stand there as motionless as people gathered around a grave at a funeral? I explained our sorrows to him in a few words, while Jim, his face ashen pale, his brows furrowed low, remained leaning against the doorpost. The major, when I had finished, was as furious as we were, for he had affection for Jim and Edie. “Puh!” he said, “I’ve been constantly dreading something like this ever since that Alarm Tower business. This is very French behavior. They can’t leave women alone. At least, de Lissac married her, and that’s a consolation.” But there is hardly time now to think about our little worries, for all Europe is in revolution, and in all probability, we have twenty more years of war on our hands. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, my friend, Napoleon has landed from the island of Elba. His troops have flocked to him, and King Louis has fled as fast as he can. The news reached Berwick this morning. ” “Good heavens!” cried my father. “So, here is this terrible task to be started all over again? ” “Yes, we had imagined that the Shadow was no longer there, and it is still there. Wellington has received orders to leave Vienna for the Low Countries, and it is believed that the Emperor will make a sortie first in that direction. Well, it is a bad wind, a wind that does not bode well. I have just received the news that I am to join the 71st Regiment as first major.” At these words I shook hands with our good neighbor, for I knew how humiliated he was to be treated like an invalid, who no longer had a role to play in this world. “I must rejoin my regiment as soon as possible, and we shall be there, on the other side of the water, in a month, perhaps even in Paris in another month. ” “Then, by the Lord! Major,” cried Jim Horscroft, “I’ll go with you. I’m not too proud to refuse to carry the rifle, if you want to put me face to face with this Frenchman. ” “My boy,” said the major, “I shall be proud to have you under my command. As for de Lissac, where the Emperor is, he will be too. ” “Do you know his name?” I said. “What can you tell us about him? ” “There is no better officer in the French army, and yet that is saying a lot.” It seems that he would have become a marshal, but that he preferred to remain with the Emperor. I met him two days before the Corunna affair, when I was sent as a parliamentarian to negotiate about our wounded. He was then with Soult. I recognized him when I saw him. “And I will recognize him when I see him,” said Horscroft with that hard, evil look he once had. And at that very moment, in that very spot, I suddenly realized how pitiful and useless my existence would be while our friend the invalid and the companion of my childhood were far away, exposed in the front line to the fury of the storm. My resolution was formed with the promptness of lightning. “I will go with you too, Major,” I cried. “Jock! Jock!” said my father, wringing his hands. Jim said nothing, but he put his arm around me and squeezed my waist. The major had shining eyes, and brandished his cane in the air. “Upon my word!” he said, “here are two fine recruits I shall have behind me. Well, there is not a moment to lose. You must both be ready for the evening coach. ” This is what a single day produced, and yet it can It may happen that years pass without bringing about a change. Think of the events that had taken place in those twenty- four hours? De Lissac gone! Edie gone! Napoleon escaped! War breaks out. Jim Horscroft has lost everything: he and I are making our preparations to fight the French. It all seemed like a dream, until I walked towards the evening coach and turned to look at the gray house and two small black figures. It was my mother, burying her face in the folds of her Shetland shawl, and my father, waving his cattle stick to encourage me on my journey. Chapter 11. The Gathering of Nations. I now come to a point in my story, the telling of which quite takes my breath away, and makes me regret having undertaken this task of narrating. For when I write, I like things to go slowly, in good order, each thing in its turn, like sheep when they come out of a pen. It might have been so at West Inch. But now that we are launched into a larger existence, like tiny bits of straw drifting slowly in some lazy ditch until they find themselves caught unawares in the rapid flow and eddies of a great river, then it is very difficult for me, with my simple language, to follow it all step by step. But you can find in the history books the causes and reasons of everything. So I will leave all that aside, to tell you what I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears. The regiment to which our friend had been appointed was the 71st Highlanders Light Infantry, who wore the red coat and checked tartan breeches. They had their depot in the city of Glasgow. The three of us went there by coach. The Major was full of energy and told a thousand anecdotes about the Duke, about the Peninsula, while Jim sat in the corner with his lips pursed, his arms folded, and I’m sure that deep down he was killing de Lissac three times an hour. I could have guessed it from the sudden flash of his eyes and the twitch of his hand. As for me, I didn’t quite know whether to be happy or angry, for home is home, and no matter how hard you’ve done to toughen yourself up, it’s still a painful thing to think that you have half of Scotland between you and your mother. We arrived in Glasgow the next day. The major led us to the depot, where a soldier with three chevrons on his arm and a streamer of ribbons on his cap showed all his teeth in Jim’s sight, and circled his person three times to examine him at his ease, as if it had been Carlisle Castle. Then he came up to me, poked me in the ribs, felt my muscles, and was almost as pleased with me as with Jim. “That’s what we need, major, that’s what we need,” he kept repeating. “With a million of our fellows, we can hold our own against the best Boney has. ” “How does that work?” asked the major. “They look pitiful,” he said, “but by dint of licking them, they’ll take some shape. The picked men have been transported to America, and we’re crowded with militia and recruits. ” “Ah!” said the major, we will have before us old, good soldiers. You two, if you need any help, come and find me. He nodded to us and left us. We began to understand that a major, who is your officer, is a very different person from a major who happens to be your neighbor in the country. Fine, but what good is it to bother you with all these things? I would use up a quantity of good goose quills just on you to tell what Jim and I did at the Glasgow depot, how we came to know our officers and comrades, and how they came to know us. Soon the news arrived that the people of Vienna, busy until then slicing Europe into pieces as if it were a leg of mutton, had returned at full speed to their respective countries, that all who were there, men and horses, were on the march to France. We also heard of great musters, great reviews of troops, which were taking place in Paris. Then we were told that Wellington was in the Low Countries, and that it would be up to us and the Prussians to take the first shock. The government was embarking men and men, as fast as it could. All the ports on the East coast were crowded with guns, horses, and munitions. On June 3, we in turn received our order to march . That same evening we embarked at Leith, and arrived at Ostend the following evening. It was the first foreign country I had ever seen. It was the same for most of my comrades, for there were mostly young soldiers in the ranks. I think I can still see the blue waters, the curved lines of the waves of the surf, the long yellow beach, and the strange mills that pivot and beat their sails, something that one would seek in vain from one end of Scotland to the other. It was a clean, well-kept town, but the size was below the average, and neither ale nor oatcakes could be bought there . From there we went to a place called Bruges, and from there to Ghent, where we were united with the 52nd and 95th, two regiments which, with ours, formed a brigade. Ghent is an astonishing city, for its steeples and stone buildings. Besides, among all the cities we passed through, there was hardly one that did not have a church more beautiful than any of those in Glasgow. From there we marched to Ath, a small village situated on a river , or rather on a stream called the Dender. We were lodged there mainly in tents, for the weather was beautiful and sunny, and the whole brigade was busy from morning to night in drill. We were commanded by General Adams, and our Colonel Reynell, but what gave us the most courage was to think that our commander-in-chief was the Duke, whose name was like a bugle call. He was in Brussels with the main body of the army, but we knew that we would see him soon if necessary. I had never seen so many Englishmen together, and I must say that I felt some disdain for them, as is always the case with people who live near a frontier. But the two regiments that were with us were on as good terms of camaraderie as one could wish for. The 52nd had a strength of a thousand men, and included many old soldiers from the Peninsula. The 95th regiment was composed of carabiniers, and they wore green coats instead of red. It was a strange thing to see them charge, for they wrapped the ball in a greased rag and drove it in with a mallet, but also they shot further and more accurately than we did. All that part of Belgium was then covered with English troops, for the Guard was there too, near Enghien, and there were cavalry regiments on our side, some distance away. As you see, Wellington was obliged to deploy all his forces, for Boney was behind his curtain of fortresses, and naturally we had no way of knowing which way he would emerge. However, we could be certain that he would arrive by whichever way we would least expect it. On the one hand, he could advance between us and the sea, and thus cut us off from England; on the other hand, he was free to slip between the Prussians and us. But the Duke was as clever as he was, for he had all his cavalry and light troops spread around him like a vast spider’s web, so that as soon as a Frenchman set foot over the frontier, the Duke was able to concentrate all his troops in the right place. As for me, I was very happy in Ath, where the people were full of kindness and simplicity. A farmer named Bois, in whose fields we were encamped, was an excellent friend to most of us. In our spare time, we built him a wooden barn, and more than once, I and Job Seaton, my tail-ender, hung his laundry out to dry on lines: it was as if the smell of damp linen had the power, more than anything else, to bring us straight back to the thought of the domestic hearth. I have often wondered if this good man and his wife are still living. It is hardly likely, for though vigorous, they were past the middle of life at that time. Jim also came with us sometimes, and stayed smoking in the spacious Flemish kitchen, but he was now a very different Jim from the one he had formerly been. He had always had a hardness at heart, but it was as if his misfortune had completely petrified him. I never saw a smile on his lips. He rarely spoke. His whole mind was concentrated on the idea of ​​revenge on de Lissac, who had taken Edie from him. He spent hours sitting, his chin resting on his two hands, his gaze fixed, his brow furrowed, completely absorbed in a single thought. This had at first made him, to a certain extent, the butt of jokes by some, but when they knew him better, they perceived that he was not a good laughing matter, and they left him alone. At that time, we rose very early, and generally the whole brigade was under arms at the first light of day. One morning, it was the sixteenth of June, we had just formed up, General Adams had gone on horseback to give an order to Colonel Reynell, about a rifle shot from where I was, when suddenly both fixed their gaze persistently on the Brussels road. None of us dared move our heads, but all the men in the regiment turned their eyes that way, and there we saw an officer, wearing the general’s aide-de-camp cockade, arrive on the road with a great crash, with all the speed he could give to his great dappled gray horse. He bent his head over the mane, and lashed its neck with the rest of the reins. It seemed as if his life depended on his speed. “Hello, Reynell,” said the general, “this is beginning to look serious. What do you say to that?” They both put their horses into a trot to advance, and Adams quickly opened the dispatch the messenger handed him. The envelope was not yet on the ground when he turned around and waved the letter above it. With his head, as he would have done with his saber. “Break ranks!” he shouted. General review and marching in half an hour. Then for a moment there was a great noise, great agitation, and news flew from mouth to mouth. Napoleon had crossed the frontier the day before, pushed the Prussians before him, and had already advanced far into the interior of the country, to the east of us, with 150,000 men. We ran in all directions to gather our belongings and have lunch. Less than an hour later, we were on the march, leaving Ath and the Dender behind us forever. There was not a moment to lose, for the Prussians had not gave Wellington no news of what was happening, and although he had rushed from Brussels at the first rumors of the event, like a good watchdog from his kennel, it was difficult to suppose that he could arrive in time to help the Prussians. It was a fine, warm morning, and as the brigade marched along the broad Belgian causeway, the dust rose from it like the smoke from a battery. I can tell you that we blessed the one who had planted the poplars on the banks, for their shade was better for us than drink. Across the fields, to the left and right, there were other roads, one very close to ours, the other a mile or more away. A column of infantry followed the nearest one. It was a fine rivalry that animated us, for on both sides all our energy was put into playing with our legs. There floated around them such a wide garland of dust that we could only distinguish the gun barrels and bearskin caps poking out here and there, or the head and shoulders of a mounted officer, dominating the cloud, and the flag fluttering in the wind. It was a brigade of the Guard, but we did not know which one, for there were two of them fighting with us.
In the distance, we could also see on the road a thick cloud of dust, but which, parting from time to time, revealed a long string of grains glittering with a silvery glint.
The breeze brought such a noise of rumbling, sonorous, dazzling music that I had never heard anything like it. If I had been left to myself, I would have been a long time to know what it was, but our corporals and sergeants were all old soldiers, and there was one who walked beside me, halberd in hand, and who was inexhaustible in advice and information. “That’s the heavy cavalry,” he said. “You see that double reflection. It means they have the helmet as well as the breastplate. They are the Royals or the Enniskillens, or the King’s Household. You can hear their cymbals and kettledrums. The French heavy cavalry are too strong for us. They are ten to one, and good soldiers too. You must aim at their face or their horse. Remember that, when they come upon us. Otherwise, you will receive four feet of blade through the liver to teach you how to live. Listen, listen, listen! Here comes the old music again!” He was still speaking when the dull roar of cannon fire was heard somewhere in the distance, to the east of us. It was deep and hoarse. It was like the roar of some ferocious beast, all smeared with blood, which thrives only at the expense of human existence. At the same moment there was a cry behind us of “Hey! Hey! Hey!” and someone commanded in a loud voice: “Let the guns pass!” I turned my head and saw the rearguard companies suddenly open ranks and throw themselves on either side of the road, while six cream-colored horses, harnessed in pairs, galloping at full speed, came crashing into the open space, dragging a fine twelve-pounder cannon that whirled and cracked behind them. Then came a second, a third, twenty-four in all, they passed near us with a great noise, a great uproar, the men in blue uniforms, holding tightly to the guns and the caissons, the drivers swearing, cracking their whips, their manes fluttering in the wind, the brushes and buckets waving with a clanging sound. The air was all stirred by this feverish agitation, by the sonorous clinking of the chains. A great deaf man rose from the pits. The artillerymen responded with shouts, and we saw a gray cloud roll before us, and a number of bearskin caps made at times a speck in the darkness. Then the companies closed up, while the roar that could be heard in front of us became louder and deeper than — There are three batteries there, said the sergeant. They are Bulls and Webber Smiths. These last are new. There are more in front of us, for I see here the mark left by a nine-pounder, and all the others are twelve-pounders. If you want to be hit, give preference to a twelve-pounder, for a nine-pounder crushes you, while a twelve-pounder cuts you in two like a carrot. And he continued, giving me details of the horrible wounds he had seen, which made my blood run cold . You could have rubbed all our faces with whiting, and you wouldn’t have made them any whiter. — Ah! Ah! You’ll look even sicker when you have a packet of grapeshot in your guts! he said. At that moment, seeing several old soldiers laughing, I began to understand that this man was trying to frighten us. I began to laugh too, and the others did the same, but we were not laughing very heartily. The sun was almost over our heads when we halted at a little place called Hal. There is an old pump there that I used to fill my shako. Never did a pitcher of Scottish ale taste so good to me as that water. More cannons passed in front of us, then Vivian’s Hussars : there were three regiments of them, very coquettish on their fine dark bay horses. It was a feast for the eyes. The cannons made more noise than ever, and it made my nerves vibrate, just as it had once been, when, with Edie beside me, a few years before, I had witnessed the merchant ship’s fight against the privateers. The noise was now so loud that it seemed to me that we must be fighting on the other side of the nearest wood, but my friend the sergeant knew better. “It’s twelve or fifteen miles from here,” he said. “You can be sure of it; the general knows we’re not needed, otherwise we wouldn’t be resting at Hal.” He spoke the truth, as was clearly seen, for a minute later the colonel arrived to give us the order to form groups and bivouac there. We spent the whole day there, during which we saw cavalry, infantry, artillery, English, Dutch, Hanoverians march past. The frenzied music lasted until evening, sometimes rising to a roar, sometimes falling to an indistinct rumble. Around eight o’clock in the evening, it stopped completely. We were eating away at ourselves with impatience, as you can imagine, to learn what was happening, but we knew that whatever the Duke did would be done right, which ended up inspiring us with a little patience. The next day, the brigade remained at Hal all morning, but around noon, an orderly arrived from the Duke, and we advanced to a small village called Braine le… I don’t remember what. It was only time, because a terrible storm suddenly burst upon us, pouring down torrents of water that changed all the fields and all the roads into marshes and quagmires. In this village, the barns offered us shelter, and there we found two stragglers, one was part of a petticoat regiment, the other was a man of the German legion, and they had news to tell us that was as gloomy as the weather. Boney had thrashed the Prussians the day before, and our men had had a hard time holding their own against Ney: yet they had finally beaten him. It sounds to you today like a very old, stale story, but you can’t imagine our eagerness to crowd around the two men in the barn. We fought and jostled each other, just to catch a word of what they were saying, and those who had heard were in turn assailed by the crowd of those who knew nothing. We laughed, we applauded, we groaned in turn, hearing that the 44th had received the cavalry in line, that the Belgian Hollandos had fled, that the Black Guard had let the Lancers into their square, and had killed them there at leisure. But the Lancers won the laughter over by reducing the 69th to its simplest form and carrying off one of the flags. And to conclude, the Duke was retreating in order to maintain contact with the Prussians. Rumor had it that he would choose his ground and fight a great battle at the very spot where we had halted. And we soon saw that this rumor was true, for the weather cleared toward evening, and everyone went up to the ridge to see what could be seen. It was a beautiful countryside of wheat fields and meadows. The crops were beginning to turn yellow, and the rye, which was superb, reached a man’s shoulder. It was impossible to conceive of a more peaceful scene. Whichever way one looked, one saw only rolling hills covered with wheat, and above them, the little village steeples raising their points among the poplars. But through all this pretty scene, there appeared, like the mark of a whiplash, a long line of men on the march, some dressed in red, others in green, others in blue, others in black, heading in zigzags across the plain, blocking the roads; one end so close that it could hear our calls, when the men stacked their rifles , on the ridge to our left, while the other end disappeared into the woods, as far as we could see.
Then, on other roads, we saw the teams of horses pulling with great difficulty, the dark glare of the cannons, the men bending and bracing themselves to push at the wheels and free them from the deep, thick mud. While we were there, regiment by regiment, brigade by brigade, came to take up positions on the ridge, and before sunset , we were formed into a line of more than sixty thousand men, closing Napoleon’s route to Brussels. But the rain had started again with force. We, of the 77th, rushed back to our barn. We were much better sheltered than most of our comrades, who had to lie in the mud, under the gusts of the storm, and wait until the first light of day. Chapter 12. The Shadow on the Earth. It was still a fine rain in the morning; brown clouds moved in a damp and icy wind. I experienced a strange feeling when I opened my eyes, when I thought that I would take part, that day, in a battle, although none of us expected a battle such as the one that took place. However, we were up and ready at the first light, and when we opened the doors of our barn, we heard the most divine music I had ever heard, playing somewhere in the distance. We had formed into small groups to listen to it. How sweet, innocent, melancholy it was. But our sergeant burst out laughing when he saw how charmed we were. “This is French music,” he said, “and if you climb up here, you will see what many of you may never see again.” We climbed. The beautiful music still reached our ears. We stopped on a hill a few steps from the barn. Down there, at the foot of the slope, half a rifle shot from us, stood a pretty farmhouse roofed with tiles, surrounded by a hedge with a bit of an orchard. All around it were lined up men in red coats and high fur caps, working with the activity of bees, drilling holes in the walls and barring the gates. “Those are the light companies of the Guard,” said the sergeant. “They will hold out in this farmhouse, as long as a single one is able to move a finger. But look over. You will see the bivouac fires of the French. ” We looked across the valley, towards the low ridge, and saw a thousand little yellow points of flame, surmounted by a plume of black smoke rising slowly in the heavy air. There was another farmhouse on the opposite slope of the valley, and while we were looking, suddenly appeared on a nearby knoll, a small group of horsemen who examined us attentively. There were a dozen hussars in the rear, and five men in front, three of them wearing helmets, another with a long, straight red plume on his hat. The last had a low hairstyle. “By God!” cried the sergeant. “It’s him, it’s Boney, the one who rides the gray horse. Yes, I’d bet a month’s pay on him.” I stared wide to see him, this man who had stretched this great shadow over all Europe, who had plunged the Nations into darkness for twenty-five years, this shadow which had even extended over our distant farm, and had violently torn us, me, Edie, and Jim, from the life our families had led before us. As far as I could judge from this distance, he was a stocky man with square shoulders. He held his spyglass tightly to his eyes, his elbows wide apart on either side. I was still watching him, when I heard a heavy breath beside me. It was Jim, whose eyes gleamed like burning coals. He was thrusting his face up to my shoulder. “It’s him, Jock,” he said in a low voice. “Yes, it’s Boney,” I replied. “No, no, it’s him; it’s Lapp, or Lissac, unless that demon has some other name. It’s him.” Then I recognized him at once. It was the rider whose hat was adorned with a large red plume. Even at that distance, I would have sworn it was he, seeing his drooping shoulders, and the way he carried his head. I closed my hands on Jim’s arm, for I saw that his blood was boiling at the sight of this man, and that he was capable of any madness. But at that moment it seemed that Bonaparte leaned over and said a few words to de Lissac. The group turned and disappeared while a cannon shot rang out, and from a battery on the ridge a cloud of white smoke rose. At the same moment, the bell rang in our village for muster. We ran to our weapons and formed up. There was a series of shots fired all along the line, and we thought that the battle had begun, but in reality it came from our gunners cleaning their guns. It was indeed to be feared that the primers had been wetted by the night’s humidity. From where we were, we had before our eyes a spectacle that was worth crossing the sea to see. On our ridge stretched the squares, alternately red and blue, which went as far as a village, located more than two miles from us. Nevertheless, it was whispered to one another, from rank to rank, that there was too much blue and not enough red, because the Belgians had shown the day before that they were not strong enough for the task, and we had twenty thousand men there as comrades. Moreover, our English troops themselves were composed of militiamen and recruits, for the elite of our old Peninsula regiments were still on transports, crossing the Ocean, returning from some stupid quarrel with our relatives in America. We had, however, with us, the bearskins of the Guard, forming two strong brigades, the bonnets of the Highlanders, the blues of the German Legion, the red lines of Pack’s brigade , of Kempt’s brigade, the small green dotted line of the carabinieri, arranged in front. We knew that, whatever happened, these were people who would hold firm wherever they were placed, and that they had at their head a man capable of placing them in the positions where they could hold firm. On the French side, we could hardly see anything but the flashing of their bivouac fires, and a few cavalrymen scattered on the curves of the ridge. But as we were there waiting, suddenly the noisy fanfare of their music rang out. Their entire army mounted and overflowed over the low height that had hidden them; brigades following brigades, divisions following divisions, until at last the whole slope, right down to the bottom, had taken on the blue color of their uniforms, and glittered with the gleam of their weapons. It seemed as if they would never end, for more came, more came, without interruption, while our men, leaning on their rifles, smoking their pipes, looked down at this vast gathering, and listened to what the old soldiers who had already fought against the French knew. Then, when the infantry had formed into long and deep masses, their cannons arrived, leaping and turning along the slope. Nothing is more beautiful to see than the agility with which they brought them into battery, all ready to enter into action. Then, at an imposing trot, the cavalry appeared, thirty regiments at least, with cuirasses, plumes on their helmets, armed with gleaming sabers or pennon-spear lances. They formed on the flanks and in the rear in long, mobile, shining lines. “There are our fellows,” cried our old sergeant. “They are gluttons in battle. Oh, for that! Yes. And you see those regiments in the middle, the ones with the big shakos, a little behind the farm. That’s the Guard. There are twenty thousand of them, my children, all picked men, gray-headed devils, who have done nothing but fight since the time they were no taller than my gaiters. There are three of them against two, they have two cannons against one, and by God! you recruits, they’ll make you wish you were back in Argyle Street before they’ve finished with you.” Our sergeant was hardly encouraging, but it must be said that he had been in every battle since Corunna, and that he had a medal with seven bars on his chest, so that he had the right to speak as he pleased. When the French had completely drawn up, a little out of range of the cannons, we saw a small group of cavalrymen all bedecked in silver, scarlet, and gold, moving rapidly between the divisions, and as they passed, shouts of enthusiasm burst out from both sides, and we could see arms stretched out, hands waving towards them. A moment later, the noise stopped. The two armies remained face to face in absolute, terrible silence . It is a sight that often recurred in my dreams. Then, suddenly, there was a disorderly movement among the men who were right in front of us. A thin column broke away from the large blue mass and advanced briskly towards the farm below our position. It had not gone fifty paces when a cannon shot came from an English battery on our left. The Battle of Waterloo had just begun. It is not for me to try to tell you the story of this battle, and besides, I would not have asked for anything better than to keep myself out of such an event, if it had not happened that our destiny, that of three modest beings who had come there from the border, had been to be mixed up in it to the same extent as if it had been any of all the kings or emperors. To tell the honest truth, I learned about this battle, more from what I read than from what I saw. Indeed, what could I see, with a comrade on each side, and a large mass of white smoke at the end of my rifle. It was from the lips and conversations of other people that I learned how the heavy cavalry had made charges, how it had driven back the famous cuirassiers, how it was chopped to pieces before being able to return. It was also from there that I learned everything concerning the successive attacks, the flight of the Belgians, the firmness shown by Pack and Kempt. But I can, from what I know for myself, speak of what we ourselves saw through the intervals of smoke and the moments of lull in the firing, and it is precisely this that I will tell you. We were on the left of the line, and in reserve, because the Duke feared that Boney would seek to turn us in that direction, to take us from the rear, so that our three regiments, as well as another English brigade and the Hanoverians, had been posted there to be ready at any risk. There were also two brigades of light cavalry, but the attack of the French was entirely from the front, so that the day was already quite advanced before we were really needed. The English battery, which had fired the first cannon, continued to fire well off to our left. A German battery was working steadily to our right. We were completely enveloped in smoke, but we were not so hidden as to remain invisible to a line of French artillery, posted opposite us, for about twenty cannonballs crossed the air with a sharp whistle, and came crashing down right in our midst. As I heard the sound of one of them passing close to my ear, I lowered my head like a man about to dive, but our sergeant gave me a jab in the ribs with the end of his halberd. “Don’t be so polite,” he said. “It will be soon enough to do it once and for all when you are hit.” There was one of these cannonballs which reduced five men to a bloody pulp at once, and I saw this cannonball lying motionless on the ground. It looked like a red football. Another went through the adjutant’s horse with a dull thud like a stone thrown into mud. It broke his back and left him lying there like a burst gooseberry. Three more cannonballs fell farther to the right. The wild movements and shouts told us they had scored. “Ah! James, you’ve lost a good mount,” said Major Reed, who was just in front of me, looking at the adjutant, whose boots and breeches were streaming with blood. “I paid fifty pounds for him in Glasgow,” said the other. ” Don’t you think, Major, that the men had better lie down now that the guns have got their aim on us? ” “Pfft!” said the other, “they’re yellow, James. That’ll do them good. ” “They’ll learn enough before the day’s out,” replied the adjutant. But at that moment, Colonel Reynell saw that the carabinieri and the 52nd were lying down to the right and left of us, so he ordered us to lie down on the ground as well. We were exceedingly glad when we could hear the projectiles passing, howling like hungry dogs, over our backs a few feet high. Even then a dull noise, a splash almost every minute, then a cry of pain, a stamping of boots on the ground, informed us that we were suffering heavy losses. A fine rain was falling. The humid air kept the smoke close to the ground: so we could only see at intervals what was happening directly in front of us, although the roar of the cannons showed us that the battle was engaged along the whole line. Four hundred pieces were then turning together, and making enough noise to break our eardrums. Indeed, there was not one of us who did not have a whistling in his head for many days that followed. Directly opposite us, on the slope of the height, there was a French cannon and we could clearly distinguish the crew of this piece. They were small, agile men, with very tight breeches, large hats, with large, stiff, straight plumes, but they worked like sheep shearers, doing nothing but stuffing, swabbing, and pulling. There were fourteen of them when I first saw them. The last time there were only four, but they were working more actively than ever. The farm called Hougoumont was down there, opposite us. All morning we could see that a terrible struggle was going on there, for the walls, the windows, the hedges of the orchard were nothing but flames and smoke, and from them came cries and howls such as I had never heard anything like before. It was half burned, completely gutted by cannonballs. Ten thousand men hammered at its gates, but four hundred soldiers of the guard held their ground there during the morning, two hundred during the evening, and not a single Frenchman crossed the threshold. But how they fought, those French! They cared no more for their lives than for the mud they marched through. One of them—I think I can still see him—a tanned man, quite well-fed, and walking with a cane, limped forward, all alone, during a lull in the firing, towards the side gate of Hougoumont, where he began to knock, shouting to his men to follow them. He remained there for five minutes, pacing back and forth in front of the rifle barrels that spared him, until finally a Brunswick rifleman, posted in the orchard, shot him in the head . And there were many others like him, for all day long, when they did not arrive in masses, they came in twos and threes, looking as resolute as if they had the whole army at their heels. We remained like this all morning, contemplating the battle that was being fought over there at Hougoumont; but soon the Duke recognized that he had nothing to fear on his right, and he began to employ us in another way. The French had pushed their riflemen to beyond the farm. They were lying down in the still green wheat in front of us. From there, they aimed at the gunners, so that on our left three out of six guns were silent, with their crews scattered on the ground around them. But the Duke had an eye on everything. At that moment, he arrived at a gallop. He was a thin, dark man, all sinews, with a very lively look, a hooked nose, and a large cockade on his hat. He had behind him a dozen officers, as dashing as if they were on a fox hunt, but of this dozen not a single one remained by evening. “Hot business, Adams!” he said as he passed. “Very hot, Your Grace,” said our general. “But we can stop them, I think. Tut! Tut! We cannot allow skirmishers to silence a battery . Go and flush these people out for me, Adams.” Then I felt for the first time that diabolical thrill which runs through the body, when you are given your part to fulfill in the fight. Up to this time, we had done nothing but lie down and be killed, which is the most gloomy thing in the world. Now our turn had come, and upon my word, we were ready. We rose, the whole brigade, forming a line four men deep. Then they ran away like lapwings, bowing their heads, arching their backs, and dragging their rifles along the ground. Half of them escaped, but we seized the others, and first of all their officer, for he was a very big man, who could not run very fast. It was like a blow to me to see Rob Stewart, who was on my right, stick his bayonet right into the broad back of this man, whom I heard utter a howl of the damned. No quarter was given in that field; We fought against them with our points or our butts. The men were now in a state of fever, and this was not surprising, for all morning these wasps had been constantly stinging us, while remaining almost invisible to us.
And then, after crossing the other edge of the wheat field, as we had left the zone of smoke, we saw the entire French army in front of us, from which we were separated only by two meadows and a small path. We gave a great shout when we saw them, and we would have launched an attack, if we had been allowed to do so, for young soldiers do not imagine that things can turn out badly for them until they are completely engaged. But the Duke had come trotting very close to us as we advanced. The officers rode past us, waving their swords to stop us. Bugle calls were heard. There were pushes, maneuvers, the sergeants swearing and pounding us with halberds. In less time than it takes me to write it, the brigade was arranged in three neat little squares, all bristling with bayonets, and arranged in echelon, as they say, which allowed each of them to fire across one side of the other. This was our salvation, as I could see, young soldier as I was, and it was only time. There was on our right flank a low, undulating hill. From behind this hill rose a noise that nothing in the world resembles so much as that of the waves on the Berwick coast when the wind comes from the east. The earth was all shaken by this dull roar: the air was full of it. “Stand firm, Seventy-first, in the name of God, stand firm!” shouted our colonel’s voice behind us, but we had before us only the gentle, green slope of the hill, dotted with daisies and dandelions. Then suddenly, over the top, we saw eight hundred copper helmets suddenly appear. Each of these helmets fluttered a long mane, and beneath these helmets appeared eight hundred fierce, tanned figures, advancing, bending down to the ears of the same number of horses. For a moment, we saw cuirasses gleam, sabers brandished, manes flutter, red nostrils open and close furiously. Hooves beat the air in front of us. Then the line of rifles lowered. Our bullets struck their cuirasses with the crackle of hail against a window. I fired like the others and hastened to reload, looking ahead through the smoke, where I saw a long, thin object floating slowly back and forth. A blast on the bugle warned us to cease firing. A gust of wind blew away the veil that lay before us and then we could see what had happened. I had expected to see half of this cavalry regiment lying on the ground, but whether their armor had protected them, or whether, due to our youth and the agitation their approach had caused us, we had fired high, our fire had not caused them much damage. About thirty horses were lying on the ground, three together within ten yards of me, the middle one was completely on its back, with all four legs in the air, and it was one of these legs that I had seen moving through the smoke. There were eight or ten dead and as many wounded, who remained sitting on the grass, most of them quite stunned, but one of them was shouting at the top of his voice: “Long live the Emperor!” Another, who had received a bullet in the thigh, a tall devil with a black mustache, was sitting with his back against the corpse of his horse. Picking up his rifle, he fired with as much coolness as if he had been competing in target practice, and he hit Angus Myres, who was only two men away from me, full in the forehead. He was reaching out to take another rifle that was lying nearby, but before he had time to seize it, big Hodgson, who formed the pivot of the Grenadier company, ran up and stuck his bayonet in his throat. A great pity, for he was a very handsome man! At first I imagined that the cuirassiers had fled under cover of the smoke, but they were not people to do it so easily. Their horses had swerved under our fire. They had continued their course beyond our square and received fire from the two squares placed further away. Then they crossed a hedge, met a regiment of Hanoverians formed in line, and treated them as they would have treated us if we had not been so quick. They cut it to pieces in an instant. It was terrible to see the big Germans running screaming while the cuirassiers, standing on their spurs to give more momentum to their long, heavy sabers, cut them down mercilessly with thrusts and cuts. I do not believe that a hundred men of this regiment remained alive . The French returned, passing in front of us, shouting and brandishing their weapons, which were red hot to the hilt. They did this to make us fire, but our colonel was an old soldier. At that distance we could not do them much harm, and they would have fallen upon us before we had reloaded. Three horsemen passed a little further behind the ridge to our right. We knew very well that if we opened our square, they would be upon us in the twinkling of an eye. Besides, it was very hard to wait where we were, because they had given the word to a battery of twelve guns, which formed halfway up the hill, a few hundred yards away, but we could not see it. It sent cannonballs at us over the crest, which arrived right in our midst; this is what is called a plunging shot, and one of their gunners ran to the top of the slope to plant a spear in the damp earth which was to serve as a guide. He did this under the very rifles of the whole brigade. None of us fired at him, because each one counted on his neighbor for that . Ensign Samson, the youngest of the regiment’s non-commissioned officers, ran out of the square and went to snatch the spear, but as swift as a pike in pursuit of a trout, a lancer appeared on the ridge and struck him so violently from behind that not only the point, but also the pennon of his lance came out in front, between the second and third button of the young man’s tunic. “Helen! Helen!” he cried before falling dead face first , while the lancer, riddled with bullets, fell down near from him, without letting go of his weapon, so that they lay together, joined by that terrible hyphen. But when the battery had opened fire, we had little time to think of anything else. A square is an excellent way to receive cavalry, but it is no worse when it comes to receiving cannonballs , as we realized when they began to cut red-hot cuts through our ranks, to the point that our ears were tired of hearing the dull splashing sound made by the iron mass hitting flesh and blood. After ten minutes of this maneuver, our square moved a hundred paces to the right, but we left behind us another square, for one hundred and twenty men and seven officers marked the place we had occupied. But the guns found us again. We tried to form up in line, but immediately the cavalry— this time they were lancers—fell upon us from over the height. I must tell you that we were glad to hear the sound of horses’ hooves, for we knew that the artillery would hold its fire for a moment, and give us a chance to return blow for blow. And this we did very well, for with our coolness, we had acquired malice and cruelty. For my part, it seemed to me that I cared as little for the horsemen as if they had been so many Corriemuir sheep. There comes a time when one ceases to think of one’s own skin, and it seems to you that you are only looking for someone to make pay for all that you have suffered. This time we took our revenge on the lancers, for they had no breastplates to protect them, and with a single volley, we knocked down seventy of them. Perhaps if we had seen seventy mothers weeping over the bodies of their boys, we would not have been so happy, but men, when they give battle, are nothing more than beasts; and they have just as much reason as two young bulls when they have succeeded in taking each other by the throat. At that moment, the colonel had an excellent idea. After calculating that after this charge, the cavalry would be kept away for five minutes, he reformed us in line and made us fall back to a deeper hollow, where we would be sheltered from the artillery, before it could resume its fire. This gave us time to breathe, and we needed it badly, for the regiment was melting like an icicle in the sun. But bad as it was for us, it was much worse for others. All the Dutch-Belgians had fled at full speed at that moment, fifteen thousand in number, and the result was great gaps in our line, through which the French cavalry came and went as it pleased. Then, the French guns had been far superior to ours in fire and numbers; our heavy cavalry had even been hacked to pieces, so that things were not taking a very cheerful turn for us. On the other hand, Hougoumont, which was now nothing but a ruin soaked in blood, had remained in our hands. All the English regiments held firm. Yet, to tell the truth, as one must when one is a man, there was among the bluecoats who went to the rear, a sprinkling of redcoats. But they were all young men, those there, stragglers, cowardly hearts like you find everywhere. I repeat, not a regiment wavered. What we could make out of the battle was very little , but one would have had to be blind not to see that behind us the countryside was covered with fugitives. However, by then, although we on the right wing knew nothing about it, the Prussians had begun their movement. Napoleon had detached twenty thousand men to stop them, and It was a compensation for those of us who had escaped. The forces present were almost the same as at the beginning. All this, however, was very obscure to us. At one point, the French cavalry had overflowed in such numbers between us and the rest of the army, that we believed for a time to be the only brigade left standing. Then, gritting our teeth, we resolved to sell our lives as dearly as possible. It was between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, and most of us had nothing to eat since the previous evening. On top of that, we were soaked by the rain. It had drenched us all day, but during the last few hours, we had not had a moment to think about the weather or our hunger. Then we began to look around us and shorten our belts, to wonder who had been hit, who had been spared. I was glad to see Jim again, his face all black with powder, standing on my right and leaning on his rifle. He saw that I was looking at him and asked me, shouting, if I was wounded. “It’s all right, Jim,” I answered. “I’m afraid I came here to hunt some imaginary game,” he said gloomily. “But it’s not over yet, by God! I’ll have his skin, or he’ll have mine. ” He had brooded over his torment for so long, poor Jim, that I really believe it had turned his head. Indeed, there was an expression in his eyes, when he spoke, that had almost nothing human about it. He had always been one of those who take even small things to heart, and since Edie had left him, I do n’t think he had ever been master of himself. It was at this point in the battle that we witnessed two single combats, something quite common, I am told, in battles of old, before men were trained to fight in masses. As we were lying in the ditch, two horsemen arrived at full speed, on the ridge, facing us. The first was an English dragoon. His face was almost in his horse’s mane. Behind him, a French cuirassier, a strapping old fellow with a gray head, was coming up with a great noise on a big black mare. Our men began to boo them as they passed, for it seemed shameful to them that an Englishman should run like that, but the moment they passed in front of us, we saw what was going on. The dragoon had dropped his weapon, he was disarmed, and the other was pressing him just as closely to prevent him from finding another . At last, doubtless stung by our jeers, the Englishman resolved to face the fight. His eyes fell on a lance lying near the body of a Frenchman. He swerved his horse a little to let the other pass, and then, jumping down skillfully, he seized it. But the other was an old hand, and he fell upon him like a cannonball.
The dragoon parried the blow with his lance, but the other deflected it and plunged his saber through his shoulder blade. It happened in an instant. Then the Frenchman put his horse to a trot, throwing us a sneer over his shoulder, like a snarling dog. The first game was won for them, but we soon had to score a point. The enemy had pushed forward a line of skirmishers, who directed their fire on our right batteries, rather than on us, but we sent two companies of the 95th, to hold them in check. This produced a singular effect, these dry and harsh noises, because on both sides the rifle was being used. Among the French riflemen stood an officer, a tall, thin man, with a cloak over his shoulders. When our men arrived, he advanced halfway between the two troops and stopped straight, in the attitude of a fencer, his head thrown back. I can still see him today, his eyelids lowered, a sort of mocking smile on his face. At this sight, the non-commissioned officer of the carabiniers, a tall, handsome young man, ran forward, charging at him with that singular curved saber that the carabiniers carry. They collided like two battering rams, for they were running towards each other. They fell from the effect of this shock, but the Frenchman was underneath. Our man broke his weapon near the hilt, and received the other’s weapon through the left arm, but he was the stronger, and found a way to take the life of his enemy with the chipped section of his weapon. I thought the French riflemen were going to shoot him, but not a trigger went off, and he returned to his company with a saber blade in one arm, and half a saber in his hand. Chapter 13. The End of the Storm. Among so many things that seem strange in a battle, now that I think about it, there is none more singular than the way it acts on my comrades. For some of them, one would have said that they were indulging in their daily meal, without having asked a question, noticed a change. Others muttered prayers from the first cannon shot until the end; others cursed, let out oaths that would make your hair stand on end. There was one, the man on my left, Mike Threadingham, who never stopped talking to me about his Aunt Sarah, an old maid, who had left a house for the children of drowned sailors, all the money she had promised him. He told me this story and started it again. Then, when the battle was over, he swore by God that he hadn’t opened his mouth all day. As for me, I can’t say whether I spoke or not, but I know that my intelligence and memory were clearer than I have ever had, that I thought all the time about the old relatives left at home, about Cousin Edie, her mischievous, mobile eyes, about de Lissac and his cat’s whiskers, about all the adventures of West Inch, which had finally led us to the plains of Belgium, to serve as a target for 250 cannons. All this time the roar of these guns had been terrible to hear, but they suddenly fell silent. It was, however, only the momentary calm during a storm. So, one guesses that almost immediately, it will be followed by a worse unleashing of the storm. There was still a very loud noise towards the farthest wing, where the Prussians were forcing their way forward, but it was two miles away. The other batteries, both French and English, fell silent. The smoke cleared so that the two armies could see each other a little. Our ridge presented a terrible spectacle. It seemed as if there were barely a few patches of red and green lines left where the German legion had been, while the French masses seemed as dense as before. We knew, however, that they must have lost several thousand men in these attacks. We heard great shouts of joy coming from their side; then, suddenly, their batteries opened fire again with such a din that the one that had just ended was nothing in comparison. It must have been twice as loud, for each battery was twice as close together. They had been moved so as to fire almost point-blank , enormous masses of cavalry, arranged in their intervals, to defend them against any attack. When this infernal din reached our ears, there was not a man, even the little drummer, who did not understand what it meant meant. It was Napoleon’s last and supreme effort to crush us. There were only two hours of daylight left, and if we could hold out that long, all would be well. Exhausted by hunger, fatigue, overwhelmed, we prayed for the strength to load our weapons, to saber, to fire, as long as one of us remained standing. Now the cannonade could no longer do us much harm, for we were lying flat on our stomachs, and we could in an instant rise up in a mass bristling with bayonets, if the cavalry fell upon us again. But, behind the thunder of the cannons, a clearer, harsher noise could be heard, a rustling, scraping noise, the fiercest, most jerky, most stirring of noises. “It’s the charge,” shouted an officer. “This time they want to finish.” And, while he was still speaking, we saw a strange thing. A Frenchman, wearing the uniform of a hussar officer, galloped towards us on a small bay horse. He was shouting at the top of his lungs: “Long live the King! Long live the King!” Which was to say he was a deserter, since we were on the King’s side, and they supported the Emperor. As he passed by us, he shouted in English: “The Guard is coming! The Guard is coming!” Then he disappeared to the rear, like a leaf blown away by a storm. At the same moment, an aide-de-camp ran up, with the reddest face I have ever seen on a man’s body. “You must stop them, or we are beaten,” he shouted to General Adams so loudly that our whole company could hear him. “How does that work?” asked the general. “Two small squadrons, that’s all that’s left of six heavy cavalry regiments,” he said. And he began to laugh, with the air of a man whose nerves have been too strained. “Perhaps you will like to join our advance! I beg you, consider yourself one of us,” said the general, bowing and smiling, as if he were offering him a cup of tea. “It will be with the greatest pleasure,” said the other, taking off his hat. A moment later, our three regiments closed up. The brigade advanced in four lines, crossed the hollow where we had remained lying down forming squares, and went beyond the point from which we had seen the French army. It was not possible to see much at that moment. We could hardly distinguish anything but the red flame, leaping from the muzzles of the cannons, through the cloud of smoke, and the black silhouettes stooping, firing, swabbing, charging, active as devils, and all at their diabolical work. But through this din and buzzing rose, louder and louder, the noise of thousands of marching foot, mingled with great clamours. Then we glimpsed, through the fog, a vague but broad black line, which took on a darker tint, a clearer outline, so that finally, we saw that it was a column, a hundred men abreast, who were moving rapidly towards us; wearing high bearskin caps, with a flash of copper plates above their foreheads. And behind these hundred men, there were a hundred others, and so on, it uncoiled, twisted, emerged from the smoke of the cannons. It looked like a monstrous serpent, and this immense column seemed interminable. In front came, here and there, riflemen, behind these, the drummers, all this advanced with an elastic step, the officers forming tight groups on the flanks, swords in hand and shouting encouragement. There were also, at the head, a dozen horsemen, all shouting together, one of them carrying his shako at the end of his sword, which he held upright. I say it again, never did mortals fight so valiantly as the French did that day. It was wonderful to see them, for as they advanced, they found themselves in front of their own guns, so that they no longer had to rely on this help, although they went straight to two batteries which we had had at our side all day. Each gun had adjusted its fire to within a foot, and we saw long red lines appearing in the black column as it advanced. The French were so close to us and so close together that each shot took away dozens; but they pressed closer together, and marched with a spring and spirit which were most beautiful to see. Their heads were turned straight towards us, while the 93rd outflanked on one side, and the 52nd on the other. I will always believe that if we had stayed and waited for them, the Guard would have broken through, because how could we stop such a column with a line four men thick? But at that moment, Colburne, the colonel of the 52nd, pulled back his left flank so as to place it parallel to the column, which forced the French to stop. Their front line was about forty paces from us, and we could see them at our ease. It has always seemed amusing to me to remember that I had always imagined the French as small men. Now, there was not a single one in that first company who was not capable of picking me up as if I were a boy, and their tall bearskin caps made them look even taller .
They were hardened, tanned, nervous fellows, with fierce, slanted eyes and bristling mustaches, these old soldiers who had never spent a week without fighting, and for many years. And then, as I stood ready, my finger on the trigger, waiting for the command to fire, my gaze fell squarely on the mounted officer who wore his hat on the end of his sword. I recognized him: it was Bonaventure de Lissac. I saw him. Jim saw him too. I heard a loud shout, and I saw Jim run like a madman on the French column. As quick as thought, the whole brigade followed this impulse, officers and soldiers alike, and threw themselves on the front of the Guard, while our comrades assailed it from the flanks. We had waited for the order, but everyone thought it had been given: however, you can take my word for it, it was in reality Jim Horscroft who led this charge, made by the brigade on the Old Guard. God knows what happened during those first five minutes of rage. I remember that I put my rifle on a blue uniform, that I pulled the trigger, and that the man did not fall, because he was carried by the crowd, but I saw, on the fabric, a horrible stain, and a slight swirl of smoke, as if it had caught fire. Then, I found myself thrown against two big Frenchmen, and so tightly between them, that it was impossible for us to move a weapon. One of them, a strapping fellow with a big nose, seized me by the throat, and I felt like a chicken in his grip. “Surrender, you rascal,” he said. But, suddenly, he doubled over with a cry, for someone had just plunged a bayonet into his stomach. Very few shots were fired after the first boarding. All that was heard was the clash of the butts against the guns, the brief cries of the wounded men, and the commands of the officers.
Then, suddenly, the French began to give ground, slowly, reluctantly, step by step, but finally they were retreating. Ah! it was worth all we had suffered until then, the shudder that ran through our bodies when we understood that they were going to give in. I had before me a Frenchman, a man with sharp features, with black eyes, who charged, who fired, as if he had been at drill. He aimed carefully, and first looked around him to select and shoot an officer. I remember that it came to me that it would be a great exploit to kill a man who showed such coolness. I rushed towards him and thrust my bayonet through his body. On receiving this blow, he turned around and fired a rifle shot into my face. The bullet made a mark across my cheek that will remain with me until my dying day. When he fell, I stumbled over his body. Two other men fell on top of me in turn, and I was almost suffocated under this heap. When I finally got free, after rubbing my eyes, which were full of powder, I saw that the column was definitely broken up, that it was breaking up into groups, some fleeing as fast as they could, others continuing to fight, back to back, in a vain effort to stop the brigade, which was sweeping everything before it. It seemed to me that a red-hot iron was pressed against my face, but I had the use of my limbs. So, I leaped over a pile of corpses or mutilated men, ran after my regiment, and went to take my place on the right flank. Old Major Elliott was there, limping a little, because his horse had been killed, but he was no worse for it. He saw me coming and nodded to me, but we had too much work to do to have time to talk. The brigade was still advancing, but the general rode past me, lowering his head and looking at the English positions : “There is no ground gained,” he said, “but I am not retreating. ” “The Duke of Wellington has won a great victory,” proclaimed the aide-de-camp in a solemn voice. And then, suddenly yielding to his feelings, he added: “If that cursed animal would only rush forward.” This made all the men of the flank company laugh. But at that moment, anyone could see that the French army was breaking up. The columns and squadrons, which had held their ground so firmly all day, now offered gaps on the edges. Instead of having a strong line of skirmishers in front, they had, in the rear, a scattering of stragglers. The Guard thinned out in front of us as we pushed forward, and we found ourselves face to face with twelve guns, but after a while they were ours, and I saw our youngest non-commissioned officer, after the one who had been killed by the lancer, scribble in chalk on one of them, in large figures, the number 72, like the true schoolboy that he was. It was then that we heard, behind us, a cheer of encouragement, and saw the whole English army overflow over the crest of the heights and spread into the valley to fall upon what was left of the enemy. The guns also came bounding in with a great noise, and our light cavalry, the few that remained, vied on the right with our brigade. After that, there was no more battle. We marched forward without encountering any resistance, and our army finally formed up in line on the very ground that the French had occupied in the morning. Their guns were ours; their infantry was reduced to a mob that scattered across the whole country; their brave cavalry alone showed itself capable of preserving a little order, and of leaving the battlefield without breaking. Finally, at the very moment when night was falling, our men, exhausted and hungry, were able to hand over the task to the Prussians, and form the fasces on the ground they had conquered. This is all that I saw and all that I can say about the battle of Waterloo. I will only add that I swallowed, in the evening, an oatcake of two pounds, for my supper, and a good jug of red wine. I therefore had to pierce another hole in my belt, which then tightened me like a circle around a barrel. After that, I lay down in the straw, where the rest of the company was wallowing. Less than a minute later, I fell into a leaden sleep. Chapter 14. The Settling of Accounts by Death. Day was breaking, and the first gray glimmers had just furtively appeared through the long, thin cracks in the walls of our barn, when I was forcibly shaken by the shoulder. I jumped up. In my brain, dazed by sleep, I had imagined that the cuirassiers were coming towards us, and I seized a halberd placed against the wall, but seeing the long lines of sleepers, I remembered where I was. But I can tell you I was quite astonished to find it was Major Elliott himself who had woken me. He looked very grave, and behind him came two sergeants, holding long strips of paper and a pencil. “Wake up, my boy,” said the major, regaining his good nature as if we were at Corriemuir again. “Yes, Major,” I stammered. “Please come with me. I feel I owe you both something, for it was I who made you leave your homes. Jim Horscroft is missing.” I started at this, for with this furious attack, and hunger , and fatigue, I had completely forgotten my friend since he rushed against the French Guard, drawing the whole regiment with him. “I am taking stock of our losses,” said the major, “and if you would come with me, you would give me great pleasure.” So we set off, the major, the two sergeants, and I. Oh! certainly, it was a terrible sight, so terrible that, despite the number of years that have passed, I prefer to speak of it as little as possible. It was very horrible to see in the heat of battle, but now, in the cold morning air, when there is no drum or bugle to excite you , all that is glorious has vanished; nothing remains but a vast butcher’s shop, where poor devils have been disemboweled, crushed, and ground to a pulp, where one would say that man had wanted to mock the work of God. One could read on the ground each phase of the previous day’s fighting: the dead infantrymen, still forming squares, the confused line of cavalrymen who had charged them, and above, on the slope, the artillerymen lying around their shattered piece. The Guard column had left a band of dead across the countryside. It looked like the mark left by a slug. At the head of it stood a mass of dead men in blue uniforms, piled on top of their red coats, where that furious embrace had taken place when they had first taken a step backward. And the first thing I saw, when I reached that spot, was Jim himself. He lay stretched out on his back, his face turned to the sky. It was as if all passion, all suffering, had evaporated. He looked exactly like that Jim of old, whom I had seen a hundred times in his bunk when we were schoolmates. I had cried out in pain when I saw him, but when I came to look at his face, and found it looked much happier in death than I had ever hoped to see it in life, I ceased to grieve over him. Two French bayonets had pierced his chest. He had died on the spot, without suffering, judging by the smile on his lips. The major and I were lifting his head, hoping that perhaps a breath of life remained, when I heard near me a well-known voice. It was de Lissac, propped up on his elbow, in the middle of a pile of corpses of soldiers of the Guard. He had a large blue coat around his body. His hat with its large red plume lay on the ground near him. He was very pale. There were large brown circles under his eyes, but, apart from that, he was still as he had been before, with his large, sharp nose like a hungry bird of prey, his stiff mustache, his hair cut close and thinning to the point of baldness at the top of his head. His eyelids had always drooped, but now it was almost impossible to find the twinkle in his eye underneath . “Hello, Jock!” he cried, “I hardly expected to see you here, and yet I might have suspected it, when I saw friend Jim. ” “You’re the one who brought us all this trouble,” I said. “Ta! Ta!” Ta! he cried, with his old impatience. Everything is arranged for us in advance. When I was in Spain, I learned to believe in Fate. It was Fate that sent you here this morning. “It is on you that this man’s blood will fall,” I said, laying my hand on poor Jim’s shoulder. “And my blood on him!” he said. “So we are even.” He then opened his coat, and I saw, with horror, a large black clot of blood coming out of his side. “This is my thirteenth wound, and my last,” he said, with a smile. “They say the number thirteen is unlucky. Could you give me a drink, if you have a few drops?” The major had some brandy diluted with water. De Lissac drank it greedily. His eyes brightened, and a small red spot reappeared on his livid cheeks. “Jim did that,” he said. “I heard someone call my name, and immediately his rifle landed on my tunic. Two of my men tore him to pieces the very moment he fired. Well, well! Edie was worth it. You’ll be in Paris in less than a month, Jock, and you’ll see her. You’ll find her at number 11 Rue de Miromesnil, which is near the Madeleine. Break the news to her gently, Jock, for you can’t imagine how much she loved me. Tell her that everything I own is in the two black trunks and that Antoine has the keys. You won’t forget? ” “I’ll remember. ” “And your mother? I hope you left her in good health? Ah! And your father too. Give her my greatest respects.” At that very moment, when he was about to die, he made the old-fashioned bow and gesture of the hand, addressing his greetings to my mother. “Surely,” I said, “your wound could be less serious than you think. I could bring you the surgeon of our regiment. ” “My dear Jock, I have not spent these fifteen years giving and receiving wounds, without knowing which one counts. But it is better that it is so, for I know that it is all over for my little man, and I would rather go away with my Voltigeurs than stay to live as an exile and a beggar. Besides , it is absolutely certain that the Allies would have shot me. Thus, I have spared myself a humiliation. ” “The Allies, sir,” said the major with a certain warmth, ” would never be guilty of such a barbaric act. ” “You don’t know, Major,” he said. Do you suppose, then, that I would have fled to Scotland and changed my name, if I had nothing more to fear than my comrades who remained in Paris? I held on to my life, for I knew that my little man would return. Now I have nothing to do but die, for he will never again find himself at the head of an army. But I have done things that cannot be forgiven. It was I who commanded the detachment that shot the Duke of Enghien; it was I who… Ah! My God! Edie! Edie, my darling! He raised both hands, whose fingers moved and trembled as if he were groping. Then he let them fall heavily before him, and his head leaned on his chest. One of our sergeants gently laid him back down. The other spread the large blue cloak over him. We left there these two men, whom Fate had so strangely brought together. The Scotsman and the Frenchman lay silent, peaceful, so close together that the hand of one could have touched that of the other, on this blood-soaked slope, in the vicinity of Hougoumont. Chapter 15. How It All Ended. Now I am very near the end of all this, and I am very glad to have arrived there, for I began this tale of old with a light heart, thinking that it would give me something to do during the long summer evenings. But, along the way, I have awakened a thousand sleeping sorrows, a thousand half-forgotten griefs, so that my soul is now raw, like the skin of an unshorn sheep. If I get through this safely, I swear I will never take up my pen again; for, when I begin, it is easy, like going down a stream whose bank slopes gently. Then, before you can notice it, you put your foot in a hole and stay there, and it is up to you to struggle out . We buried Jim and de Lissac, with 431 soldiers of the Imperial Guard and our Light Infantry, drawn up in the same trench. Ah! If one could sow a brave man, as one sows a seed, what a fine harvest of heroes one would one day reap! So, we left behind us forever, this field of carnage and we took, with our brigade, the road to the border to march on Paris. During all these years, I had always been accustomed to looking at the French as very wicked people, and since we only heard about them on the occasion of battles, massacres on land and at sea, it was quite natural for me to believe them to be vicious by nature and dangerous company. After all, had they not heard the same thing about us, which must certainly have made us judged by them in the same way. But when we had to cross their country, when we saw their charming little farms, and the good people so quietly engaged in working the fields and the women knitting by the roadside, the old grandmother, in a vast white headdress, scolding the baby to teach it politeness, everything seemed to us so imbued with domestic simplicity, that I came to be unable to understand why we had so long hated and feared these good people. I suppose that, at bottom, the real object of our hatred was the man who governed them, and now that he was gone and his great shadow had disappeared from the country, everything would regain its beauty. We made the journey quite joyfully, crossing the most charming country I had ever seen, and thus we arrived at the great city. We expected to give battle there, for it is so populous, that by taking only one man in twenty, one would form a fine army. But this time, it was recognized how unfortunate it is to ruin an entire country because of a single man. He was therefore advised that he would have to get out of this situation alone from now on. According to the latest news that reached us about him, he had surrendered to the English. The gates of Paris were open to us; this was excellent news for me, because I would have preferred to stick to the only battle in which I had been. But there were then in Paris a crowd of people attached to Boney. This was quite natural, when one thinks of the glory he had brought them acquired, and let us remember that he had never asked his army to go to a place where he did not go himself. They made a rather bad impression on us when we entered, I can tell you. We, from Adams’s brigade, were the first to set foot in the city. We crossed a bridge called Neuilly, a word easier to write than to pronounce; from there, we crossed a beautiful park, the Bois de Boulogne, then we went to the Champs Élysées, where we bivouacked. Soon there were so many Prussians and English in the streets that one would have thought we were in a camp rather than a city. The first time I was able to go out, I left with Rob Stewart, from my company, because we were only allowed to move in pairs, and I went to the rue de Miromesnil. Rob waited in the hall, and as soon as I stepped onto the doormat, I found myself in the presence of my cousin Edie, who had always remained the same, and who began to look at me with that wild look of hers. For a moment she did not recognize me, but when she did, she advanced three paces, ran to me, and threw herself on my neck. “Oh! my dear old Jock,” she cried, “how handsome you are, in that red coat! ” “Yes, now I am a soldier, Edie,” I answered very stiffly , for when I saw her pretty face, I thought I saw, behind her, the other face that had been turned towards heaven, on the battlefield of Belgium. “Who would have thought it?” she cried. “What are you then, Jock? General? Captain? ” “No, I am a private.” “What, you are not, I hope, one of those common people who carry the rifle? ” “Yes, I do. ” “Oh! it is not nearly so interesting,” she said , returning to sit on the sofa she had left. ” It was a superb room, all hung with silk and velvet, full of shining objects, and I was about to go back to give my boots another brushing. When Edie sat down, I saw that she was in deep mourning; this proved to me that she knew of de Lissac’s death. ” “I am glad to see that you know everything,” I said, “for I am very clumsy at breaking news tactfully. He said you could keep everything in the trunks, and that Antoine had the keys. ” “Thank you, Jock, thank you,” she said, “you were very kind to do this errand. I heard of the event about a week ago.” I was mad about it for a while, quite mad. I ‘ll mourn it all my life, though it makes me a real scarecrow, as you see. Ah! I’ll never get over it. I’ll take the veil and die in a convent. “Pardon, madam,” said a servant, putting her head forward, “the Earl of Beton wishes to see you. ” “My dear Jock,” said Edie, rising abruptly, “this is very important. I’m very sorry to cut our interview short, but you’ll come back to see me, I’m sure of it, won’t you? I ‘m so sorry? Ah! Wouldn’t it be all the same to you if you went out by the back door and not the front? Thank you, my dear old Jock, you were always such a good fellow, and did exactly as you were told. That was the last time I was to see Cousin Edie.” She appeared in the sunlight with her provocative gaze of old, with her dazzling teeth. So I will always remember her, shining and mobile like a drop of mercury. When I joined my friend down in the street, I saw at the door a beautiful two-horse carriage; I guessed then that she had asked me to slip away furtively, so that her new friends in high society would never see the common people with whom she had lived in her childhood. She had not asked any questions about Jim, nor about my father and mother, who had been so kind to her. Bah! she was made like that, she could no more avoid it than a rabbit can avoid wagging its tail ; and yet the thought grieved me greatly. Nine months later, I learned that she had married this same Earl of Beton, and she died in childbirth a year or two later. As for us, our task was done. The great shadow had been driven from Europe; it would no more come to lie down from one end of the country to the other, hovering over the quiet farms, the humble villages, casting darkness into lives that would have been so happy. Having purchased my release, I returned to Corriemuir, where, after my father’s death, I took the farm. I married Lucie Deane, of Berwick, and raised seven children, all of whom are older than their father, and who leave no stone unturned to remind him of it. But in the quiet, peaceful days that now pass, like so many Scottish rams, I struggle to convince my young people that even here we had our novel, back when Jim and I courted, and the man with the cat’s whiskers arrived across the water. Thus ends Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Long Shadow,” a literary journey that blends historical grandeur with profound humanity. This epic, where the echoes of war and the impulses of the heart intersect, reminds us how much collective destiny can weigh on individual choices . Doyle, with his talent as a storyteller, was able to capture the power of an era and the fragility of the people who lived through it. Thank you for sharing this reading experience with us on Audiobooks. If this adventure touched you, feel free to continue your discoveries among the other masterpieces we offer.