Sue Petigru Bowen - The Actress in High Life
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Sue Petigru Bowen >> The Actress in High Life
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"What is the burden of Sir Rowland's verses?" she asked, addressing
him.
"Very true!" exclaimed L'Isle; "I had forgotten to read it." And
breaking the seal, he ran his eye hastily over the letter. "I must
leave Elvas at once, and be away some days," he said, with a look of
dissatisfaction.
"Sir Rowland is very fond of sending you on his errands," remarked
Lord Strathern. "And, hitherto you seemed to like the extra work he
gave you."
"I would be gladly excused from it just now," answered L'Isle, and in
spite of himself, his eye wandered toward Lady Mabel. Lord Strathern
did not observe this, but said, jestingly: "I believe you have
contrived to convince Sir Rowland that none of us can do any thing so
well as you can," but there was a little tone of pique in the way this
was said.
"I have made no attempt to do so," L'Isle answered. "But he has given
me some thing to do now, and I must set about it at once." Taking
leave of Lady Mabel, he held a short private conference with his
lordship, and, when he went out to mount his horse, found Colonel
Bradshawe already in the saddle, waiting for him. This annoyed him,
for he instinctively knew Bradshawe's object, and looked to be
ingeniously cross-questioned as to the verses which Lady Mabel had
recited, and then criticised so unsparingly. Unwilling to let
Bradshawe stretch him on the rack for his amusement, L'Isle assumed
the offensive, and at once broached another matter which he had much
at heart.
"I wonder when we will leave Elvas," he exclaimed, abruptly. "If we
stay here much longer, we will be at war with the people around us. I
never knew my lord so negligent of discipline. It evidently grows upon
him."
"The old gentleman," said Bradshawe, carelessly, "certainly holds the
reins with a slack hand."
"He is content with preserving order in Elvas," said L'Isle; "but
turns a deaf ear to almost every complaint the peasantry make against
our people."
"Many of them are lies," said Bradshawe, coolly.
"And many of them are too well founded," answered L'Isle. "You are the
senior officer in the brigade, and a man of no little tact. Could you
not stir my lord up to looking more closely into this matter."
"I will think of it," said Bradshawe, anxious to open a more
interesting subject.
"Pray think of it speedily," said L'Isle. "There is no time to be
lost, and I must lose no time now. The sun has set, and I must be in
Olivenca by midnight."
"What will you do there?" asked Bradshawe.
"Bait my horses on my way into Andalusia," answered L'Isle, riding off
at full gallop, leaving Bradshawe much provoked at his slipping out of
his hands before he could put him to the question.
CHAPTER XVII.
Who cannot be crushed with a plot?
All is Well that Ends Well.
Sir Rowland Hill had sent L'Isle off to the southward, to ascertain
the strength and condition of the reserve of Spanish troops moving up
from Andalusia. One might think that these things could be better
learned from the official reports of the _Conde d'Abispal_ and the
officers under him. But from the Prince of Parma's day to this,
Spanish officers in reporting the number and condition of their
commands, have made it a rule to state what they ought to be, not what
they are, leaving all deficiencies to be found out on the day of
battle. Sir Rowland, knowing this, now made use of L'Isle, whose
knowledge of the Spanish language and character, and his acquaintance
with many officers of rank, enabled him to ascertain the truth without
betraying the object of his mission, or giving offence to these proud
and jealous allies. Ten days had gone by when he again rode into
Elvas, and in spite of the secrecy aimed at in military councils, many
symptoms indicated that the campaign was about to open.
It was high time for the brigade to leave this part of the
country. The soldiers were disgusted with the sluggish people around
them, keen and active only in their efforts to make money out of their
protectors. The Portuguese were exasperated at the insolence of their
allies, their frequent depredations and occasional acts of violence,
many of which went unpunished; for the English officers, always
professing the utmost readiness to punish the offences of their men,
were singularly scrupulous and exacting as to the conclusiveness of
the proofs of guilt.
Lord Strathern's lax discipline may have aggravated, but had not
caused the evil, which was felt throughout Portugal. The Regency,
while proving itself unable to govern the country, or reform a single
abuse, had shown its ability to harass their allies and embarrass the
general charged with the conduct of the war. "A narrow jealousy had
long ruled their conduct, and the spirit of captious discontent had
now reached the inferior magistracy, who endeavored to excite the
people against the military generally. Complaints came in from all
quarters, of outrages on the part of the troops, some too true, but
many of them false or frivolous; and when Wellington ordered
courts-martial for the trial of the accused, the magistrates refused
to attend as witnesses, because Portuguese custom rendered such
attendance degrading, and by Portuguese law a magistrate's written
testimony was efficient in courts-martial. Wellington in vain assured
them that English law would not suffer him to punish men on such
testimony; in vain he pointed out the mischief which must infallibly
overwhelm the country, if the soldiers discovered that they might thus
do evil with impunity. He offered to send, in each case, lists of
Portuguese witnesses required, that they might be summoned by the
native authorities; but nothing could overcome the obstinacy of the
magistrates; they answered that his method was insolent; and with
sullen malignity continued to accumulate charges against the troops,
to refuse attendance in the courts, and to call the soldiers, their
own as well as the British, 'licensed spoliators of the community.'"
"For a time the generous nature of the poor people resisted all these
combined causes of discontent, * * * * * yet by degrees the affection
for the British cooled, and Wellington expressed his fears that a
civil war would commence between the Portuguese people on the one
hand, and the troops of both nations on the other. Wherefore his
activity to draw all military strength to a head, and make such an
irruption into Spain, as would establish a new base of operations
beyond the power of such fatal dissensions."
Throughout the war this great captain's hardest tasks had been to
conciliate the jealous, vain-glorious Spaniard, to stimulate the
laggard suspicious Portuguese, to enlighten the invincible ignorance
of Regency and _Juntas_, in order to draw out and combine the
resources of both countries with the scanty means afforded him by his
own blundering government. He was required to do great things with
small means, without offending one tittle against the laws, customs
and prejudices of three dissimilar nations. He might toil, fret and
fume, wearing himself to the bone, but could never get rid of this
task of making ropes out of sea-sand. So much as to the state of the
country. Let us return to our story.
L'Isle reached Elvas early in the day, and resolved to reward himself
for his labors, by paying a visit to Lady Mabel; then after a
conference with Lord Strathern, to sit down and write his report to
Sir Rowland, on the state of the Andalusian reserve. He knew that Sir
Rowland looked for a precise and pithy statement, and L'Isle mean this
to be a model for all such communications. But fate may mar the wisest
plan.
He found Lady Mabel and Mrs. Shortridge together, and soon perceived
that the latter lady's head was full of an entertainment she was about
to give.
"The commissary has warned me," she said "that from henceforth he will
be ever on the move--that he must break up his household here, and
send off his heavy baggage to Lisbon. In this he very politely
includes his wife."
"I am truly sorry to hear it," said L'Isle, "but confess that first
among a soldier's _impedimenta_ must be reckoned his wife."
"I did not look for so blunt an assent to the commissary's opinion
from you," said Mrs. Shortridge, somewhat nettled; "however, I am to
go, and as many of the good folks of Elvas have been as polite to me
as they know how, I wish to show my sense of it in parting. I have
invited all my Portuguese friends, with a good sprinkling of red coats
to meet them. I have put myself to infinite trouble and no little
expense, meaning to have a grand evening, combining _turtulia_,
concert and ball. I would show these people something of society and
life, then vanish from Elvas in a blaze of glory. Now, as the rarest
treat that I could offer, I had promised my guests that they should
hear Lady Mabel in all her glorious richness of voice; and now she is
seized with a sudden fit of modesty, and protests against being
exhibited before a motly crowd like an opera singer."
Lady Mabel's reluctance was not feigned; and when Mrs. Shortridge
called on L'Isle for assistance in overcoming it, he felt some
scruples at lending his aid. But her companion and friend was about to
leave her; it was painful to refuse her a favor on which she plainly
laid great stress. Friendship and flattery at length prevailed, and
Lady Mabel promised to do her utmost to charm the ears of the natives,
on condition that L'Isle should be at hand as her interpreter, and say
to them for her a dozen polite and half as many witty things for every
song she sang, in order that these foreigners might not mistake her
for a mere singer.
L'Isle pledged himself to be at her beck throughout the evening, and
to furnish wit and politeness without stint. This obstacle overcome,
Mrs. Shortridge was delighted, and talked gaily of her arrangements
and anticipations for the appointed night. L'Isle entering into her
humor, busied himself in drawing out a programme for Lady Mabel's
performance, and after turning over all the music at hand, made a list
of songs long enough to have cracked her voice forever. It was late
when he suddenly remembered that he had occasion to see Lord
Strathern, and he tore himself away to seek him.
L'Isle found his lordship in the business room of his quarters, and
quite at leisure, although seated by a table on which lay sundry
papers in no business like order. Most of them were despatches,
returns and other military documents. But among them was a goodly pile
of communications from the _Juiz de fora_ of more than one neighboring
_comarca_, written in eloquent but denunciatory Portuguese, being, in
truth, philippics aimed at sundry individuals or parties, belonging to
his command.
The old soldier had not treated them with absolute neglect. After
having the first two or three duly translated to him, and making
himself familiar with the tenor of this kind of document, he had
prepared a concise form of reply: regretting that any of his Majesty's
soldiers should be guilty of any act of violence, depredation or
impropriety in the country of their friends and allies, and proposing
that the accusers should come forward and prove the charges before a
court-martial, according to British laws. A copy of this stereotyped
answer, turned into good Portuguese, was always at hand to be
dispatched in reply to each new complaint, as soon as it reached
headquarters. Thus the correspondence cost little trouble there, for
Lord Strathern had an easy-going philosophy, which, like an ambling
pad, carried him smoothly over the rough and intricate path of
diplomacy, policy, and military exigencies. He knew it was impossible
to give perfect satisfaction to the Portuguese, and unlike his
commander, he eschewed all such attempts to make ropes out of
sea-sand.
L'Isle's entrance roused Lord Strathern from a pleasant reverie over
his cigar.
"Why, L'Isle! are you back again? You certainly have the gift of
appearing just when you are wanted. Is not that the case with a
character called Mephistophiles?"
"Yes, my lord; but he is a devil," said L'Isle, drily.
"I beg your pardon. I did not mean to make an unsavory comparison. But
here is another billetdoux from Sir Rowland awaiting you."
L'Isle, taking the dispatch handed to him, broke the seal and read it
deliberately, then said: "Does Sir Rowland think I keep an extra stud
of horses, to do the riding that properly belongs to his own staff?"
"Why, where is he sending you now?"
"To Badajoz, on an errand similar to that on which I went into
Andalusia."
"To Badajoz? That is no distance at all; at least nothing to grumble
at," said Lord Strathern. "You are growing lazy, L'Isle. Why Mabel
would ride that far after a rare flower. Just think you are chasing a
fox, who takes the high road, and never doubles once between this and
Badajoz."
"That would be a fox of a new breed," suggested L'Isle.
"I confess," said his lordship, "I never started one of the kind. But
Sir Rowland's staff have their hands full just now. To lighten their
labors, I have had to furnish more than one officer for special
duties. You surely would not have Sir Rowland send an aid all the way
from _Coria_, merely to see if those Spanish fellows in Badajoz are in
a state to march without disbanding, or without plundering the country
as they move through it!"
"Talking of marauding, my lord," said L'Isle; "I wish the taste for
that diversion was confined to our Spanish friends. It is becoming
every day more necessary to check the excesses of our own people. We
cannot send out a party into the country around, but on their return
they are dogged at the heels by complaints and accusations. When we
march hence, we shall leave a villainous name behind us."
"Oh, we will never come back here again," said Lord Strathern,
carelessly. "Moreover, two-thirds of these complaints are groundless,
and the rest grossly exaggerated."
"The sacking of the farmer's house on the border needed no
exaggeration," said L'Isle.
"I tell you that was done by the Spaniards," exclaimed Lord Strathern.
"Yet worse cases than that have occurred, and gone unpunished," urged
L'Isle.
"Because they never could prove the charge, and point out the
culprits," replied his lordship. "The country is full of
_rateros_. They commit the crimes and our fellows bear the blame."
"That is often true; but I have met with one little case in which the
offenders can be pointed out."
"Well, let me hear it," said Lord Strathern, leaning back in his
chair, as if compelled to listen, but anxious to be rid of the
subject.
"I stopped for a while on my way back," said L'Isle, "at a little
venda on this side of _Juramenha_. The people of the house were shy
and sullen. I had to ask many questions before I could induce them to
speak freely, but at length out came a charge against some of our
people. Three nights ago five of our men had come to the house, and,
calling for wine, sat down to drink. They soon became riotous, and
their conduct so insulting to the man's wife and daughters, that they
ran away to hide themselves. When he required them to pay the
reckoning and quit the house, they promised most liberal payment, and
seizing, bound him to a post in his own stable, where they gave him
fifty lashes with a leathern strap, valuing the stripes at a _vintem_
apiece."
"The witty rascals," said Lord Strathern; "I would like to repay them
in their own coin."
"Moreover," continued L'Isle, "on the man's son making some resistance
to their treatment of his father, they bound the boy, too, and gave
him a dozen _vintems_' worth of the strap for pocket money."
"The liberal rascals!" said Lord Strathern; "they deserve a handsome
profit on their outlay. But how do you know, L'Isle, that this story
is true?"
"There is no mistake about the flogging," exclaimed L'Isle. "They used
the buckle end of the strap, and, I myself saw the marks, some not yet
scarred over."
"That silent witness may prove a good deal; I cannot call it
tongueless," said his lordship, "for I suppose the buckle had a
tongue."
"I can vouch for that by the mark it left behind," said L'Isle. "Both
father and son swore that they would know the fellows among a
thousand. But the man dare not come to Elvas to search them out, as
the scamps promised faithfully to make sausage meat of him should he
venture near the town."
"If the cowardly rascal will not come forward and lodge a complaint,"
said Lord Strathern, "what the devil can we do?"
"We can bring him here and protect him," said L'Isle, "while he hunts
out the culprits. If necessary, I will take him before my regiment,
and let him look every man in the face, to see if he can identify the
offenders in the ranks; and so with other regiments."
"What! muster the whole brigade for such a poltroon to inspect them!"
exclaimed Lord Strathern. "What are you dreaming of, L'Isle? It would
be offering a bounty for accusations against the men. Half these
rascals would swear away a man's life for a _crusado_."
"Perhaps so, my lord. But by cross-questions and examining them apart,
the truth may be wrung from even lying witnesses."
"Impossible, with these people; the truth is not in them. Come,
L'Isle, no one knows better than you, who are so much in Sir Rowland's
councils, that we are on the point of moving from this part of the
country. The little disorders that have occurred here, can be followed
by no ill consequences."
"We carry the worse consequences with us," said L'Isle,
pertinaciously. "Little disorders, my lord! The peasantry round Elvas
do not talk of them so. They say that their property is plundered,
their women insulted, and themselves at constant risk in life and
limb."
"What! do the rascals talk of us in that way? even while we are
protecting them," exclaimed Lord Strathern, springing from his chair.
"We have spent more money among them than their beggarly country is
worth in fee simple; and they are no more thankful than if we had
occupied it as enemies. I wish they had among them again, for a few
weeks, that one-handed _Loison_ with his cut-throat bands, or pious
_Junot_, who loved church plate so well."
"It is bad enough to be robbed by their enemies, they say," suggested
L'Isle, "but they did not expect it from their friends."
"Pooh," said Lord Strathern, "the Portuguese, of all people, ought to
know what real military license is. The French taught them that. As
for our fellows, what if they do at times drink a little more wine
than they pay for, or even take a lamb or kid from the flocks they
protect, or kiss a wench before she has consented; is that any thing
to make a hubbub about? The lads should be paid for drinking their
muddy _vinho verde_, and as for the girls, all the trouble comes of
their ignorance of our tongue, so that they have to be talked to by
signs."
"You must be jesting, my lord. To overlook small offences is to
license greater."
"I license none; I punish whatever is clearly proved, but will not
play grand Inquisitor, and hunt out every little peccadillo. With your
notions, L'Isle, you would bring the men to confession every morning
and make the service worse than purgatory. Must I answer for it if a
girl squeaks out, half in jest, and half in earnest?"
L'Isle was provoked to see that Lord Strathern was laughing at him,
and said, earnestly, "You cannot have forgotten, my lord, the state of
the army at the end of the campaign. Little has yet been done to bring
this brigade up to the mark, and little will be achieved by it in the
coming campaign in its present state. Now is the time to check the
licentious spirit by making some severe examples."
"I will do no such thing," said Lord Strathern, coolly. "The occasion
does not call for it. We will be in the field shortly, and want all
the bayonets we can muster. The brigade is too weak to spare men from
the ranks to put into irons."
"I did not suppose," said L'Isle, "that the warning my Lord Wellington
gave us not long since, would be so soon forgotten."
L'Isle alluded to the circular letter Wellington had addressed to his
subordinates, at the end of the campaign, in which he had politely
dubbed half of his officers idlers, whose habitual neglect of duty
suffered their commands to run into ruffianism. Perhaps their
commander was suffering under a fit of indigestion when he wrote it.
It certainly caused a general heartburning among his officers. Lord
Strathern, among others, had found it hard to digest, and now angrily
denounced it unjust.
"Well, my lord," said L'Isle, with more zeal than discretion, "by the
end of the campaign our men may be in a state to be improved by a
touch of discipline from _Julian Sanchez_ or _Carlos d'Espana_, unless
they reject them as too much like banditti!"
"And I am captain of the banditti!" exclaimed Lord Strathern, in a
sudden rage. "As you do not _yet_ command the brigade, let me beg you,
sir, to go and look after your own people, and keep them up to the
mark, lest they become banditti!"
"I always obey orders, my lord," said L'Isle, with suddenly assumed
composure; "I will go and look after my own regiment, and let the rest
of the brigade march"--
"Where, sir?" thundered Lord Strathern.
"Their own road," L'Isle answered, and bowed himself out of the
room. He walked sedately through the long corridor that led to the
entrance of this monastic house, then, yielding to some violent
impulse, sprang into his saddle, and plunging his spurs into his
horse's flanks, dashed out of the court and through the olive grounds
at a killing pace. His astonished groom stared at him for a moment,
then followed with emulous speed. As L'Isle turned suddenly into the
high road, a voice called out: "Don't ride me down; I'm no Frenchman!"
and he saw Colonel Bradshawe quickly but coolly press his ambling cob
close to the hedge, to avoid his charge.
"You seem to be in a hurry, L'Isle. Hallo! here is another!" said the
colonel, giving his horse another dexterous turn, to shun the onset of
the groom. "What news has come? Or have you joined the dragoons? Or
are you merely running a race with your man here?"
"Neither, sir," said L'Isle, who had pulled up and turned to speak to
his comrade. His flashing eye and excited manner, his thoroughbred
steed, chafing on the bit and pawing the ground, were in striking
contrast with the unruffled Bradshawe on his sleek cob, whose temper
was as smooth as his coat.
"The fact is," said L'Isle, in what was meant for an explanatory tone,
"I have just had a serious conversation with Lord Strathern--"
"Which grew quite animated before it came to an end," interjected
Bradshawe, coolly.
"In which I took the liberty of expressing my opinion," continued
L'Isle--
"Rather strongly on the subject of discipline, military license, and
the articles of war," interjected Bradshawe again.
"You are happy in your surmises, sir," said L'Isle, stiffly; for
Bradshawe's imperturbable manner chafed him much in his present mood.
"Surmises! my dear fellow. Do I not know your opinions and my lord's?
You believe the rules and regulations were made to be enforced _ad
literam_, and he thinks they are to be hung up _in terrorem_. My
lord," added Bradshawe, in a calm, judicial tone, "is the more
mistaken of the two."
"Since you so far agree with me," said L'Isle, "would it not be well
for you to remind his lordship that it is time to enforce some of the
rules and regulations for the government of his Majesty's troops, if
he would have his brigade consist of soldiers, and not of robbers."
"It is very desirable to keep up the distinction between the two
professions," said Bradshawe. "One has a strong tendency to slide into
the other. Pray, tell me what arguments you have been using with my
lord."
L'Isle, with an effort at calmness, repeated the substance of the late
conversation, much to Bradshawe's amusement; for in him a genuine love
of mischief rivaled his epicurean tastes.
"On one point, my lord had the advantage of you," said Bradshawe. "It
is his privilege to bid you look after your regiment; not yours to bid
him look after his brigade."
"True," said L'Isle, bitterly. "But as you, though my senior, are not
my commander, I trust there is no insubordination in my telling you
that the brigade is left to look after itself, and is going to the
devil as fast as it can."
"As individuals," said Bradshawe, "that is the probable destination of
most of us."
"We will have to get Julian Sanchez, or the Empecinado, or some other
guerilla chief, to undertake its reformation," continued L'Isle, in
great heat. "I forgot to suggest to my lord, that before we march
away, we ought to levy a contribution, as a bounty for the blessings
we bestow on the neighborhood in leaving it."
"A capital idea," said Bradshawe, "but by no means original. The
French always do so when they change their cantonments; that is, if
there be any thing left in the country around. If our hands were not
tied, we might yet learn some clever arts from Monsieur. Junot's
system was to drive up all the farm cattle of the neighborhood just
before he marched off; then allow them to be redeemed at a low cash
price. He found it a capital way to extract the last hidden crusado."
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