CHAPTER I

A TALE OF A LION RAMPANT

It was in the month of May 1813 that I was so unlucky as to fall at last

into the hands of the enemy. My knowledge of the English language had

marked me out for a certain employment. Though I cannot conceive a

soldier refusing to incur the risk, yet to be hanged for a spy is a

disgusting business; and I was relieved to be held a prisoner of war.

Into the Castle of Edinburgh, standing in the midst of that city on the

summit of an extraordinary rock, I was cast with several hundred

fellow-sufferers, all privates like myself, and the more part of them,

by an accident, very ignorant, plain fellows. My English, which had

brought me into that scrape, now helped me very materially to bear it. I

had a thousand advantages. I was often called to play the part of an

interpreter, whether of orders or complaints, and thus brought in

relations, sometimes of mirth, sometimes almost of friendship, with the

officers in charge. A young lieutenant singled me out to be his

adversary at chess, a game in which I was extremely proficient, and

would reward me for my gambits with excellent cigars. The major of the

battalion took lessons of French from me while at breakfast, and was

sometimes so obliging as to have me join him at the meal. Chevenix was

his name. He was stiff as a drum-major and selfish as an Englishman, but

a fairly conscientious pupil and a fairly upright man. Little did I

suppose that his ramrod body and frozen face would, in the end, step in

between me and all my dearest wishes; that upon this precise, regular,

icy soldier-man my fortunes should so nearly shipwreck! I never liked,

but yet I trusted him; and though it may seem but a trifle, I found his

snuff-box with the bean in it come very welcome.

For it is strange how grown men and seasoned soldiers can go back in

life; so that after but a little while in prison, which is after all the

next thing to being in the nursery, they grow absorbed in the most

pitiful, childish interests, and a sugar-biscuit or a pinch of snuff

become things to follow after and scheme for!

We made but a poor show of prisoners. The officers had been all offered

their parole, and had taken it. They lived mostly in suburbs of the

city, lodging with modest families, and enjoyed their freedom and

supported the almost continual evil tidings of the Emperor as best they

might. It chanced I was the only gentleman among the privates who

remained. A great part were ignorant Italians, of a regiment that had

suffered heavily in Catalonia. The rest were mere diggers of the soil,

treaders of grapes, or hewers of wood, who had been suddenly and

violently preferred to the glorious state of soldiers. We had but the

one interest in common: each of us who had any skill with his fingers

passed the hours of his captivity in the making of little toys and

_articles of Paris_; and the prison was daily visited at certain hours

by a concourse of people of the country, come to exult over our

distress, or--it is more tolerant to suppose--their own vicarious

triumph. Some moved among us with a decency of shame or sympathy. Others

were the most offensive personages in the world, gaped at us as if we

had been baboons, sought to evangelise us to their rustic, northern

religion, as though we had been savages, or tortured us with

intelligence of disasters to the arms of France. Good, bad, and

indifferent, there was one alleviation to the annoyance of these

visitors; for it was the practice of almost all to purchase some

specimen of our rude handiwork. This led, amongst the prisoners, to a

strong spirit of competition. Some were neat of hand, and (the genius

of the French being always distinguished) could place upon sale little

miracles of dexterity and taste. Some had a more engaging appearance;

fine features were found to do as well as fine merchandise, and an air

of youth in particular (as it appealed to the sentiment of pity in our

visitors) to be a source of profit. Others, again, enjoyed some

acquaintance with the language, and were able to recommend the more

agreeably to purchasers such trifles as they had to sell. To the first

of these advantages I could lay no claim, for my fingers were all

thumbs. Some at least of the others I possessed; and finding much

entertainment in our commerce, I did not suffer my advantages to rust. I

have never despised the social arts, in which it is a national boast

that every Frenchman should excel. For the approach of particular sorts

of visitors I had a particular manner of address, and even of

appearance, which I could readily assume and change on the occasion

rising. I never lost an opportunity to flatter either the person of my

visitor, if it should be a lady, or, if it should be a man, the

greatness of his country in war. And in case my compliments should miss

their aim, I was always ready to cover my retreat with some agreeable

pleasantry, which would often earn me the name of an "oddity" or a

"droll fellow." In this way, although I was so left-handed a toy-maker,

I made out to be rather a successful merchant; and found means to

procure many little delicacies and alleviations, such as children or

prisoners desire.

I am scarcely drawing the portrait of a very melancholy man. It is not

indeed my character; and I had, in a comparison with my comrades, many

reasons for content. In the first place, I had no family: I was an

orphan and a bachelor; neither wife nor child awaited me in France. In

the second, I had never wholly forgot the emotions with which I first

found myself a prisoner; and although a military prison be not

altogether a garden of delights, it is still preferable to a gallows. In

the third, I am almost ashamed to say it, but I found a certain pleasure

in our place of residence: being an obsolete and really mediaeval

fortress, high placed and commanding extraordinary prospects, not only

over sea, mountain, and champaign, but actually over the thoroughfares

of a capital city, which we could see blackened by day with the moving

crowd of the inhabitants, and at night shining with lamps. And lastly,

although I was not insensible to the restraints of prison or the

scantiness of our rations, I remembered I had sometimes eaten quite as

ill in Spain, and had to mount guard and march perhaps a dozen leagues

into the bargain. The first of my troubles, indeed, was the costume we

were obliged to wear. There is a horrible practice in England to trick

out in ridiculous uniforms, and as it were to brand in mass, not only

convicts but military prisoners, and even the children in charity

schools. I think some malignant genius had found his masterpiece of

irony in the dress which we were condemned to wear: jacket, waistcoat,

and trousers of a sulphur or mustard yellow, and a shirt of

blue-and-white striped cotton. It was conspicuous, it was cheap, it

pointed us out to laughter--we, who were old soldiers, used to arms, and

some of us showing noble scars,--like a set of lugubrious zanies at a

fair. The old name of that rock on which our prison stood was (I have

heard since then) the "Painted Hill." Well, now it was all painted a

bright yellow with our costumes; and the dress of the soldiers who

guarded us being of course the essential British red rag, we made up

together the elements of a lively picture of hell. I have again and

again looked round upon my fellow-prisoners, and felt my anger rise, and

choked upon tears, to behold them thus parodied. The more part, as I

have said, were peasants; somewhat bettered perhaps by the

drill-sergeant, but for all that ungainly, loutish fellows, with no more

than a mere barrack-room smartness of address: indeed, you could have

seen our army nowhere more discreditably represented than in this Castle

of Edinburgh. And I used to see myself in fancy, and blush. It seemed

that my more elegant carriage would but point the insult of the

travesty. And I remembered the days when I wore the coarse but

honourable coat of a soldier; and remembered further back how many of

the noble, the fair, and the gracious had taken a delight to tend my

childhood.... But I must not recall these tender and sorrowful memories

twice; their place is further on, and I am now upon another business.

The perfidy of the Britannic Government stood nowhere more openly

confessed than in one particular of our discipline: that we were shaved

twice in the week. To a man who has loved all his life to be fresh

shaven, can a more irritating indignity be devised? Monday and Thursday

were the days. Take the Thursday, and conceive the picture I must

present by Sunday evening! And Saturday, which was almost as bad, was

the great day for visitors.

Those who came to our market were of all qualities, men and women, the

lean and the stout, the plain and the fairly pretty. Sure, if people at

all understood the power of beauty, there would be no prayers addressed

except to Venus; and the mere privilege of beholding a comely woman is

worth paying for. Our visitors, upon the whole, were not much to boast

of; and yet, sitting in a corner and very much ashamed of myself and my

absurd appearance, I have again and again tasted the finest, the rarest,

and the most ethereal pleasures in a glance of an eye that I should

never see again--and never wanted to. The flower of the hedgerow and the

star in heaven satisfy and delight us: how much more the look of that

exquisite being who was created to bear and rear, to madden and rejoice,

mankind!

There was one young lady in particular, about eighteen or nineteen,

tall, of a gallant carriage, and with a profusion of hair in which the

sun found threads of gold. As soon as she came in the courtyard (and she

was a rather frequent visitor) it seemed I was aware of it. She had an

air of angelic candour, yet of a high spirit; she stepped like a Diana,

every movement was noble and free. One day there was a strong east wind;

the banner was straining at the flagstaff; below us the smoke of the

city chimneys blew hither and thither in a thousand crazy variations;

and away out on the Forth we could see the ships lying down to it and

scudding. I was thinking what a vile day it was, when she appeared. Her

hair blew in the wind with changes of colour; her garments moulded her

with the accuracy of sculpture; the ends of her shawl fluttered about

her ear and were caught in again with an inimitable deftness. You have

seen a pool on a gusty day, how it suddenly sparkles and flashes like a

thing alive? So this lady's face had become animated and coloured; and

as I saw her standing, somewhat inclined, her lips parted, a divine

trouble in her eyes, I could have clapped my hands in applause, and was

ready to acclaim her a genuine daughter of the winds. What put it in my

head, I know not: perhaps because it was a Thursday and I was new from

the razor; but I determined to engage her attention no later than that

day. She was approaching that part of the court in which I sat with my

merchandise, when I observed her handkerchief to escape from her hands

and fall to the ground; the next moment the wind had taken it up and

carried it within my reach. I was on foot at once: I had forgot my

mustard-coloured clothes, I had forgot the private soldier and his

salute. Bowing deeply, I offered her the slip of cambric.

"Madam," said I, "your handkerchief. The wind brought it me."

I met her eyes fully.

"I thank you, sir," said she.

"The wind brought it me," I repeated. "May I not take it for an omen?

You have an English proverb, 'It's an ill wind that blows nobody good.'"

"Well," she said, with a smile, "'One good turn deserves another.' I

will see what you have."

She followed me to where my wares were spread out under lee of a piece

of cannon.

"Alas, mademoiselle!" said I, "I am no very perfect craftsman. This is

supposed to be a house, and you see the chimneys are awry. You may call

this a box if you are very indulgent; but see where my tool slipped!

Yes, I am afraid you may go from one to another, and find a flaw in

everything. _Failures for Sale_ should be on my signboard. I do not keep

a shop; I keep a Humorous Museum." I cast a smiling glance about my

display, and then at her, and instantly became grave. "Strange, is it

not," I added, "that a grown man and a soldier should be engaged upon

such trash, and a sad heart produce anything so funny to look at?"

An unpleasant voice summoned her at this moment by the name of Flora,

and she made a hasty purchase and rejoined her party.

A few days after she came again. But I must first tell you how she came

to be so frequent. Her aunt was one of those terrible British old maids

of which the world has heard much; and having nothing whatever to do,

and a word or two of French, she had taken what she called an _interest

in the French prisoners_. A big, bustling, bold old lady, she flounced

about our market-place with insufferable airs of patronage and

condescension. She bought, indeed, with liberality, but her manner of

studying us through a quizzing-glass, and playing cicerone to her

followers, acquitted us of any gratitude. She had a tail behind her of

heavy, obsequious old gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she

appeared to be an oracle. "This one can really carve prettily: is he not

a quiz with his big whiskers?" she would say. "And this one," indicating

myself with her gold eye-glass, "is, I assure you, quite an oddity." The

oddity, you may be certain, ground his teeth. She had a way of standing

in our midst, nodding around, and addressing us in what she imagined to

be French: "_Bienne, hommes! ca va bienne_?" I took the freedom to reply

in the same lingo: "_Bienne, femme! ca va couci-couci tout d'meme, la

bourgeoise_!" And at that, when we had all laughed, with a little more

heartiness than was entirely civil, "I told you he was quite an oddity!"

says she in triumph. Needless to say, these passages were before I had

remarked the niece.

The aunt came on the day in question with a following rather more than

usually large, which she manoeuvred to and fro about the market and

lectured to at rather more than usual length, and with rather less than

her accustomed tact. I kept my eyes down, but they were ever fixed in

the same direction, quite in vain. The aunt came and went, and pulled us

out, and showed us off, like caged monkeys; but the niece kept herself

on the outskirts of the crowd, and on the opposite side of the

courtyard, and departed at last as she had come, without a sign. Closely

as I had watched her, I could not say her eyes had ever rested on me for

an instant; and my heart was overwhelmed with bitterness and blackness.

I tore out her detested image; I felt I was done with her for ever; I

laughed at myself savagely, because I had thought to please; when I lay

down at night sleep forsook me, and I lay, and rolled, and gloated on

her charms, and cursed her insensibility, for half the night. How

trivial I thought her! and how trivial her sex! A man might be an angel

or an Apollo, and a mustard-coloured coat would wholly blind them to his

merits. I was a prisoner, a slave, a contemned and despicable being, the

butt of her sniggering countrymen. I would take the lesson: no proud

daughter of my foes should have the chance to mock at me again; none in

the future should have the chance to think I had looked at her with

admiration. You cannot imagine any one of a more resolute and

independent spirit, or whose bosom was more wholly mailed with patriotic

arrogance, than I. Before I dropped asleep, I had remembered all the

infamies of Britain, and debited them in an overwhelming column to

Flora.

The next day, as I sat in my place, I became conscious there was some

one standing near; and behold, it was herself! I kept my seat, at first

in the confusion of my mind, later on from policy; and she stood, and

leaned a little over me, as in pity. She was very still and timid; her

voice was low. Did I suffer in my captivity? she asked me. Had I to

complain of any hardship?

"Mademoiselle, I have not learned to complain," said I. "I am a soldier

of Napoleon."

She sighed. "At least you must regret _La France_," said she, and

coloured a little as she pronounced the words, which she did with a

pretty strangeness of accent.

"What am I to say?" I replied. "If you were carried from this country,

for which you seem so wholly suited, where the very rains and winds seem

to become you like ornaments, would you regret, do you think? We must

surely all regret! the son to his mother, the man to his country; these

are native feelings."

"You have a mother?" she asked.

"In heaven, mademoiselle," I answered. "She, and my father also, went by

the same road to heaven as so many others of the fair and brave: they

followed their queen upon the scaffold. So, you see, I am not so much to

be pitied in my prison," I continued: "there are none to wait for me; I

am alone in the world. 'Tis a different case, for instance, with yon

poor fellow in the cloth cap. His bed is next to mine, and in the night

I hear him sobbing to himself. He has a tender character, full of tender

and pretty sentiments; and in the dark at night, and sometimes by day

when he can get me apart with him, he laments a mother and a sweetheart.

Do you know what made him take me for a confidant?"

She parted her lips with a look, but did not speak. The look burned all

through me with a sudden vital heat.

"Because I had once seen, in marching by, the belfry of his village!" I

continued. "The circumstance is quaint enough. It seems to bind up into

one the whole bundle of those human instincts that make life beautiful,

and people and places dear--and from which it would seem I am cut off!"

I rested my chin on my knee and looked before me on the ground. I had

been talking until then to hold her; but I was now not sorry she should

go: an impression is a thing so delicate to produce and so easy to

overthrow! Presently she seemed to make an effort.

"I will take this toy," she said, laid a five-and-sixpenny piece in my

hand, and was gone ere I could thank her.

I retired to a place apart near the ramparts and behind a gun. The

beauty, the expression of her eyes, the tear that had trembled there,

the compassion in her voice, and a kind of wild elegance that

consecrated the freedom of her movements, all combined to enslave my

imagination and inflame my heart. What had she said? Nothing to signify;

but her eyes had met mine, and the fire they had kindled burned

inextinguishably in my veins. I loved her; and I did not fear to hope.

Twice I had spoken with her; and in both interviews I had been well

inspired, I had engaged her sympathies, I had found words that she must

remember, that would ring in her ears at night upon her bed. What

mattered if I were half-shaved and my clothes a caricature? I was still

a man, and I had drawn my image on her memory. I was still a man, and,

as I trembled to realise, she was still a woman. Many waters cannot

quench love; and love, which is the law of the world, was on my side. I

closed my eyes, and she sprang up on the background of the darkness,

more beautiful than in life. "Ah!" thought I, "and you too, my dear, you

too must carry away with you a picture, that you are still to behold

again and still to embellish. In the darkness of night, in the streets

by day, still you are to have my voice and face, whispering, making love

for me, encroaching on your shy heart. Shy as your heart is, _it_ is

lodged there--_I_ am lodged there; let the hours do their office--let

time continue to draw me ever in more lively, ever in more insidious

colours." And then I had a vision of myself, and burst out laughing.

A likely thing, indeed, that a beggar-man, a private soldier, a prisoner

in a yellow travesty, was to awake the interest of this fair girl! I

would not despair; but I saw the game must be played fine and close. It

must be my policy to hold myself before her, always in a pathetic or

pleasing attitude; never to alarm or startle her; to keep my own secret

locked in my bosom like a story of disgrace, and let hers (if she could

be induced to have one) grow at its own rate; to move just so fast, and

not by a hair's-breadth any faster, than the inclination of her heart. I

was the man, and yet I was passive, tied by the foot in prison. I could

not go to her; I must cast a spell upon her at each visit, so that she

should return to me; and this was a matter of nice management. I had

done it the last time--it seemed impossible she should not come again

after our interview; and for the next I had speedily ripened a fresh

plan. A prisoner, if he has one great disability for a lover, has yet

one considerable advantage: there is nothing to distract him, and he can

spend all his hours ripening his love and preparing its manifestations.

I had been then some days upon a piece of carving--no less than the

emblem of Scotland, the Lion Rampant. This I proceeded to finish with

what skill I was possessed of; and when at last I could do no more to it

(and, you may be sure, was already regretting I had done so much), added

on the base the following dedication:

A LA BELLE FLORA

LE PRISONNIER RECONNAISSANT

A. D. ST. Y. D. K.

I put my heart into the carving of these letters. What was done with so

much ardour, it seemed scarce possible that any should behold with

indifference; and the initials would at least suggest to her my noble

birth. I thought it better to suggest: I felt that mystery was my

stock-in-trade; the contrast between my rank and manners, between my

speech and my clothing, and the fact that she could only think of me by

a combination of letters, must all tend to increase her interest and

engage her heart.

This done, there was nothing left for me but to wait and to hope. And

there is nothing further from my character: in love and in war, I am

all for the forward movement; and these days of waiting made my

purgatory. It is a fact that I loved her a great deal better at the end

of them, for love comes, like bread, from a perpetual rehandling. And

besides, I was fallen into a panic of fear. How, if she came no more,

how was I to continue to endure my empty days? how was I to fall back

and find my interest in the major's lessons, the lieutenant's chess, in

a twopenny sale in the market, or a halfpenny addition to the prison

fare?

Days went by, and weeks; I had not the courage to calculate, and to-day

I have not the courage to remember; but at last she was there. At last I

saw her approach me in the company of a boy about her own age, and whom

I divined at once to be her brother.

I rose and bowed in silence.

"This is my brother, Mr. Ronald Gilchrist," said she. "I have told him

of your sufferings. He is so sorry for you!"

"It is more than I have the right to ask," I replied; "but among

gentlefolk these generous sentiments are natural. If your brother and I

were to meet in the field, we should meet like tigers; but when he sees

me here disarmed and helpless, he forgets his animosity." (At which, as

I had ventured to expect, this beardless champion coloured to the ears

for pleasure.) "Ah, my dear young lady," I continued, "there are many of

your countrymen languishing in my country, even as I do here. I can but

hope there is found some French lady to convey to each of them the

priceless consolation of her sympathy. You have given me alms; and more

than alms--hope; and while you were absent I was not forgetful. Suffer

me to be able to tell myself that I have at least tried to make a

return; and for the prisoner's sake deign to accept this trifle."

So saying, I offered her my lion, which she took, looked at in some

embarrassment, and then, catching sight of the dedication, broke out

with a cry--

"Why, how did you know my name?" she exclaimed.

"When names are so appropriate, they should be easily guessed," said I,

bowing. "But indeed, there was no magic in the matter. A lady called you

by name on the day I found your handkerchief, and I was quick to remark

and cherish it."

"It is very, very beautiful," said she, "and I shall be always proud of

the inscription.--Come, Ronald, we must be going." She bowed to me as a

lady bows to her equal, and passed on (I could have sworn) with a

heightened colour.

I was overjoyed: my innocent ruse had succeeded; she had taken my gift

without a hint of payment, and she would scarce sleep in peace till she

had made it up to me. No greenhorn in matters of the heart, I was

besides aware that I had now a resident ambassador at the court of my

lady. The lion might be ill chiselled; it was mine. My hands had made

and held it; my knife--or, to speak more by the mark, my rusty nail--had

traced those letters; and simple as the words were, they would keep

repeating to her that I was grateful and that I found her fair. The boy

had looked like a gawky, and blushed at a compliment; I could see

besides that he regarded me with considerable suspicion; yet he made so

manly a figure of a lad, that I could not withhold from him my sympathy.

And as for the impulse that had made her bring and introduce him, I

could not sufficiently admire it. It seemed to me finer than wit, and

more tender than a caress. It said (plain as language), "I do not and I

cannot know you. Here is my brother--you can know him; this is the way

to me--follow it."