Charles Lever - Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

‘ Peste! cried an old grenadier, as he spat out the liquor on the ground. ‘This is one of those sweet things they make in Holland; it smacks of treacle and bad lemons.’

‘Ah, Grognard!’ said she, laughing, ‘thou art more used to corn-brandy, with a clove of garlick in’t, than to good curaçoa.’

‘What, curaçoa! Mère Madou, has got curaçoa there?’ cried a grey-whiskered captain, as he turned on his saddle at the word.

‘Yes, mon capitaine , and such as no burgomaster ever drank better’; and she filled out a little glass and presented it gracefully to him.

‘ Encore! ma bonne mère ,’ said he, as he wiped his thick moustache; ‘that liquor is another reason for extending the blessings of liberty to the brave Dutch.’

‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ said she, refilling the glass; ‘but, holloa, there goes Grégoire at full speed. Ah, scoundrels that ye are, I see what ye ‘ve done.’ And so was it; some of the wild young voltigeur fellows had fastened a lighted furze-bush to the beast’s tail, and had set him at a gallop through the very middle of the encampment, upsetting tents, scattering cooking-pans, and tumbling the groups, as they sat, in every direction.

The confusion was tremendous, for the picketed horses jumped about, and some, breaking loose, galloped here and there, while others set off with half-unpacked waggons, scattering their loading as they went.

It was only when the blazing furze had dropped off, that the whole cause of the mischance would suffer himself to be captured and led quietly back to his mistress. Half crying with joy, and still wild with anger, she kissed the beast and abused her tormentors by turns.

‘Cannoniers that ye are,’ she cried, ‘ ma foi ! you’ll have little taste for fire when the day comes that ye should face it! Pauvre Grégoire, they’ve left thee a tail like a tirailleur’s feather! Plagues light on the thieves that did it! Come here, boy,’ said she, addressing me, ‘hold, the bridle; what’s thy corps, lad?’

‘I have none now; I only followed the soldiers from Paris.’

‘Away with thee, street runner; away with thee, then,’ said she contemptuously; ‘there are no pockets to pick here; and if there were, thou ‘d lose thy ears for the doing it. Be off, then – back with thee to Paris and all its villainies. There are twenty thousand of thy trade there, but there’s work for ye all.’

‘Nay, mère, don’t be harsh with the boy,’ said a soldier; ‘you can see by his coat that his heart is with us.’

‘And he stole that, I’ll be sworn,’ said she, pulling me round, by the arm, full in front of her. ‘Answer me, gamin , where didst find that old tawdry jacket?’

‘I got it in a place where, if they had hold of thee and thy bad tongue, it would fare worse with thee than thou thinkest,’ said I, maddened by the imputed theft and insolence together.

‘And where may that be, young slip of the galleys?’ cried she angrily.

‘In the “Prison du Temple.”’

‘Is that their livery, then?’ said she, laughing and pointing at me with ridicule, ‘or is it a family dress made after thy father’s?’

‘My father wore a soldier’s coat, and bravely, too,’ said I, with difficulty restraining the tears that rose to my eyes.

‘In what regiment, boy?’ asked the soldier who spoke before.

‘In one that exists no longer,’ said I sadly, and not wishing to allude to a service that would find but slight favour in republican ears.

‘That must be the 24th of the Line; they were cut to pieces at “Tongres.”’

‘No – no, he ‘s thinking of the 9th, that got so roughly handled at Fontenoy,’ said another.

‘Of neither,’ said I; ‘I am speaking of those who have left nothing but a name behind them – the Garde du Corps of the king.’

‘ Voilà! cried Madou, clapping her hands in astonishment at my impertinence; ‘there’s an aristocrat for you! Look at him, mes braves! it’s not every day we have the grand seigneurs condescending to come amongst us! You can learn something of courtly manners from the polished descendant of our nobility. Say, boy, art a count, or a baron, or perhaps a duke?’

‘Make way there – out of the road, Mère Madou,’ cried a dragoon, curveting his horse in such a fashion as almost to upset ass and cantinière together, ‘the staff is coming.’

The mere mention of the word sent numbers off in full speed to their quarters; and now all was haste and bustle to prepare for the coming inspection. The mère’s endeavours to drag her beast along were not very successful, for, with the peculiar instinct of his species, the more necessity there was of speed, the lazier he became; and as every one had his own concerns to look after, she was left to her own unaided efforts to drive him forward.

‘Thou’lt have a day in prison if thou’rt found here, Mère Madou,’ said a dragoon, as he struck the ass with the flat of his sabre.

‘I know it well,’ cried she passionately; ‘but I have none to help me. Come here, lad; be good-natured, and forget what passed. Take his bridle while I whip him on.’

I was at first disposed to refuse, but her pitiful face and sad plight made me think better of it, and I seized the bridle at once; but just as I had done so, the escort galloped forward, and the dragoons coming on the flank of the miserable beast, over he went, barrels and all, crushing me beneath him as he fell.

‘Is the boy hurt?’ were the last words I heard, as I fainted; but a few minutes after I found myself seated on the grass, while a soldier was stanching the blood that ran freely from a cut in my forehead.

‘It is a trifle, general – a mere scratch,’ said a young officer to an old man on horseback beside him, ‘and the leg is not broken.’

‘Glad of it,’ said the old officer; ‘casualties are insufferable, except before an enemy. Send the lad to his regiment.’

‘He’s only a camp-follower, general. He does not belong to us.’

‘There, my lad, take this, then, and make thy way back to Paris,’ said the old general, as he threw me a small piece of money.

I looked up, and, straight before me, saw the same officer who had given me the assignat the night before.

‘General Lacoste!’ cried I, in delight, for I thought him already a friend.

‘How is this – have I an acquaintance here?’ said he, smiling; ‘on my life! it’s the young rogue I met this morning. Eh! art not thou the artillery-driver I spoke to at the barrack?’

‘Yes, general, the same.’

‘ Diantre! It seems fated, then, that we are not to part company so easily; for hadst thou remained in Paris, lad, we had most probably never met again.’

‘ Ainsi, je suis bien tombé, general? said I, punning upon my accident.

He laughed heartily, less, I suppose, at the jest, which was a poor one, than at the cool impudence with which I uttered it, and then turning to one of the staff, said —

‘I spoke to Bertholet about this boy already; see that they take him in the 9th. I say, my lad, what’s thy name?’

‘Tiernay, sir.’

‘Ay, to be sure, Tiernay. Well, Tiernay, thou shalt be a hussar, my man. See that I get no disgrace by the appointment.’

I kissed his hand fervently, and the staff rode forward, leaving me the happiest heart that beat in all the crowded host.

If the guide who is to lead us on a long and devious track stops at every byway, following out each path that seems to invite a ramble or suggest a halt, we naturally might feel distrustful of his safe conduct, and uneasy at the prospect of the road before us. In the same way may the reader be disposed to fear that he who descends to slight and trivial circumstances will scarcely have time for events which ought to occupy a wider space in his reminiscences; and for this reason I am bound to apologise for the seeming transgression of my last chapter. Most true it is, that were I to relate the entire of my life with a similar diffuseness, my memoir would extend to a length far beyond what I intend it to occupy. Such, however, is very remote from my thoughts. I have dwelt with, perhaps, something of prolixity upon the soldier-life and characteristics of a past day, because I shall yet have to speak of changes, without which the contrast would be inappreciable; but I have also laid stress upon an incident trivial in itself, because it formed an event in my own fortunes. It was thus, in fact, that I became a soldier.