The Actress in High Life Part 26

Meanwhile, Lord Strathern, though not given to over caution, was seized, as night drew on, with a sudden nervousness, at _Ma Belle_'s taking a night ride across the borders of two such unsettled countries, infested with patriotic guerilleros, who sometimes mistook friends for foes. He entertained--in fact, cultivated--an unfavorable opinion of his neighbors, the Spanish garrison of Badajoz. He laid at their door every outrage perpetrated in the country around.--The party from Elvas would afford a rich booty in purses, watches, and jewelry; and he thought it quite possible that after some of their allies had entertained them in Badajoz, with ostentatious hospitality, others might waylay, rob and murder them before, or soon after they crossed the frontier. So, he hastily ordered Major Conway to send out a patrol of dragoons to meet them; and the Major sent off Lieut. Goring in a hurry on this service.

Now, Goring had pa.s.sed the day chafing with indignation at hearing of the pleasant party, which he had not been asked to join; and his anger was not soothed by being despatched to meet it, at a late hour, when all the pleasure was over. Galloping on in this mood, with a dozen and more dragoons, behind him, he came to the Cayo, and after taking a look at the dark current, was about to cross, when he heard the sound of horses' feet, and the clattering of tongues drawing near on the other side. In the spirit of mischief, he followed the impulse of the moment. He ordered his men to form on the edge of the water, fronting the ford, to unbuckle their cloaks, and throw them over their helmets, and not to move or speak a word. The men took the joke instantly. The crescent moon, already distanced by the sun, was sinking below the horizon; the bank of the river threw its shade over them, and they stood below, a dark, undistinguishable ma.s.s.

Presently the party came straggling up, Dona Carlotta and her cavalier leading them, and feeling their way down to the water.

"This cannot be the ford," said he; "the bank looks too steep on the other side."

"What is that black object across the water?" asked Cranfield, from behind. "Can the river have risen and the bank caved in?"

"It has too regular an outline for that," said L'Isle, who had now come up, and was trying to peer through the darkness. "Do you not hear the stamping of a horse across the water?"

"And a clattering sound?" said Cranfield, as a dragoon's sword struck against a neighboring stirrup.

"Lady Mabel," said L'Isle, eagerly, (she had pressed close up beside him,) "Pray ride back a little way, and take the ladies with you."

"I will, but what is the matter?"

"The road seems to be occupied. But go at once, and take them with you."

"I wish it were daylight!" said she, trying to laugh off her trepidation. "Adventures by night are more than I bargained for. Come ladies, follow me."

"Tom," said L'Isle to his groom, without turning his head, but gazing steadily at the dark object across the water, "Follow Lady Mabel."

"Better send the Doctor, sir," said Tom, doggedly. "He has not sword or pistol."

"Whoever they are," said L'Isle to Cranfield, "they have posted themselves badly for surprise or attack. Let us form here on the slope of the bank, and if they attempt to cross, fall on them as they come out of the water."

Officers and servants fell into line--a badly armed troop, with infantry swords, and some without pistols. Meanwhile, L'Isle sent Hatton's down to the edge of the river to challenge the opposite party.

Now, Hatton's knowledge of foreign tongues was pretty much limited to those vituperative epithets which are first and oftenest heard in every language. He rode down to the edge of the water, and proceeded loudly to anathamatize his opponents in Portuguese, Spanish and French successively. Having exhausted his foreign vocabulary, he hurled at them some well shotted English phrases--but the heretics did not heed the d.a.m.natory clauses, even in plain English. Not a word could he get in reply from them. L'Isle literally and figuratively in the dark, grew impatient, and announced his intention to commence a pistol practice on them that would draw out some demonstration. He rode down to the water's edge, and was leveling a long pistol at the middle of the dark ma.s.s, when some epithet of Hatton's more stinging than any he had yet invented, proved too much for Goring's gravity. He began to laugh, and the contagion seized every dragoon of the party. The mask of hostility fell off, and they were instantly recognized as friends, to the great relief of those on the other bank.

Provoked as they were at this practical joke, their position had been too ridiculous not to be amusing. After a hearty laugh, they hastened to bring back the ladies, who were not found close at hand, for Dona Carlotta and her friends had been posting back to Badajoz, and Lady Mabel had only succeeded in stopping them by the a.s.surance that the road was doubtless beset, both before and behind them. When the two parties, now united, had taken their way back to Elvas, Lieutenant Goring found an opportunity of putting himself alongside of Lady Mabel.

She reproached him with the boyish trick he had just perpetrated. It might so easily have had fatal consequences. Goring, himself began to think it not so witty as he had fancied it.

"It was very provoking, though," said he, "to be left out of your pleasant party. I hope you will consider that, Lady Mabel, and forgive me for the little alarm I have given you."

"Not to-night," said she. "My nerves are quite too much shaken. But if I sleep well, and feel like myself again, I may possibly forgive you to-morrow."

CHAPTER XVI.

(_Rosalind reading a paper_.)

From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind, Her worth being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind, All the pictures fairest lined, Are but black to Rosalind, Let no face be kept in mind, But the face of Rosalind.

_Touchstone_.--I'll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right b.u.t.ter-woman's rank to market.

As You Like It.

Whenever L'Isle took holiday from his military duties, he was pretty sure to take it out of his regiment, the next day. On parade, next morning, he inspected the ranks, bent on detecting some defect in bearing or equipment, and peered into the faces of the men, as if hunting out the culprits in the latest breach of discipline. Men and officers looked for a three hours' drill, to improve their wind, and put them in condition. But, to their great comfort, he soon let them off, and hastened back to his quarters. Arrived there, he called to his man for his portfolio, and at once sat down to write as if he had a world of correspondence before him. But it was plain to this man, who had occasion to come often into the room, that his master did not get through his work with his usual facility. He found him, not so often writing, as leaning on the table in laborious cogitation, or biting the feather end of his quill, or rapping his forehead with his knuckles, to stimulate the action of the organs within, or else striding up and down the room, in a brown study, over sundry half-written and discarded sheets of paper, scattered on the floor.

L'Isle's servant wished to speak to him, but was too wise to disturb him in the midst of those throes of mental labor. But, when pausing suddenly in his walk, he pressed his forefinger on his temple, and exclaimed, "I had it last night, and now I have lost it!" his confidential man thought it time to speak. "What is it, sir, shall I look for it?"

L'Isle stared at him, as if just roused from a reverie, and bursting into a hearty laugh, bid him go down stairs until he called for him.

Down stairs he went, and told his two companions that their master was at work on the toughest despatch or report, or something of that sort, he had ever had to make in his life, adding, "I would not be surprised if something came of it."

"I have not a doubt," answered Tom, the groom, in a confident tone, "that the colonel has found out some new way to jockey the French, and is about to lay it before Sir Rowland Hill, or, perhaps my Lord Wellington himself."

Being men of leisure, they were still busy discussing their master's affairs, and had begun to wonder if he had forgotten that it was time to go to dinner, when L'Isle called for his man; but it was only to bid him send the groom up to him.

With an obedient start, Tom hastened up stairs. In a few minutes, he came down with an exceedingly neatly folded despatch in his hand. He seemed to have gained in that short interval no little accession of importance. He had quite sunk the groom, and strode into the room with the air of an amba.s.sador.

"Now, my lads, without even stopping to wet my whistle," said he, "I will but sharpen my spurs, saddle my horse, and then--"

"What then?" asked his comrades.

"I will ride off on my important mission."

"Were you right?" asked L'Isle's gentleman. "Is that for Sir Rowland Hill?"

"Sir Rowland," answered Tom, carelessly, "is not the most considerable personage with whom master may correspond. And as the army post goes every day to _Coria_, he would hardly send me thither."

"Can it be for the commander-in-chief?" suggested the footman. "That is farther off still."

"You are but half-right," said Tom, contemptuously; "for it is not so far," and, holding up the letter, he pretended to read the direction: "'To his excellency, Lieutenant-General Sir Mabel Stewart, commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in these parts.' If you had not been blockheads, you might have known it, from the extraordinary neatness of the rose-colored envelope, with its figured green border."

"I wonder where he got it?" said the footman.

"He brought them out with him from home," said Tom, as if he were in all his master's secrets, "for his love-letters to the Portuguese ladies--but never met with any worth writing love-letters to. And, now, my lads, hinder me no longer, I must ride and run till this be delivered to my lady, and your mistress, that is to be." He was soon in the saddle, and when there, rode as if carrying the news, that a French division, having surprised the dreamy Spaniards in Badajoz, was already fording the Cayo, without meeting even Goring's handful of dragoons, to check its advance.

L'Isle now hastened to the regimental mess, and, after dining, loitered there longer than usual, with a convivial set, until it was late enough to visit Lady Mabel.

He found her alone, in her drawing-room; her father being still at table, with some companions, the murmur of whose voices and laughter now and then reached L'Isle's ears.

"Lieutenant Goring, who is down stairs," said Lady Mabel, "has been amusing us at dinner with his version of our adventure at the ford of the Cayo; and a very good story he makes of it, giving some rich samples of Captain Hatton's polyglot eloquence. He, alone, seems not to have been in the dark; and saw all, and more than all, that occurred--nor does he forget you in the picture. But, papa cannot see the wit of it at all."

"_Burlas de manos, burlas de villanos_. There seldom is wit in practical jokes," said L'Isle; "but there was certainly more wit than wisdom in this."

"By-the-bye," said Lady Mabel, "our excursion yesterday has procured me a new correspondent. You will be astonished to hear who he is, and at the style in which he writes."

"Indeed!" said L'Isle, with heightening color. "I hope he writes on an agreeable topic, and in a suitable style?"

"You shall judge for yourself," said Lady Mabel. "But the grandiloquence of the epistle, worthy of Captain Don Alonzo Melendez himself, calls not for reading, but recitation. Do you sit here as critic, while I take my stand in the middle of the room, and give it utterance with all the elocution and pathos I can muster. You must know that this epistle I hold in my hand, is addressed to me by no less a personage than the river-G.o.d of the Guadiana, who, contrary to all my notions of mythology, proves to be a gentleman, and not a lady." And, in a slightly mock-heroic tone, she began to recite it: