The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 14

"Give me the flag, then," cried Kate, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from Ma.s.singbred's hand, and hastening on before the others. And now the heavy wagon had fallen back to its place, and a serried file of muskets peeped over it.

"Where's Ma.s.singbred?" asked the Captain, eagerly.

"Yonder,--where he ought to be!" exclaimed Kate, proudly, pointing to the barricade, upon which, now, Jack was standing conspicuously, a musket on his arm.

The troops in front were not the head of a column, but the advanced guard of a force evidently at some distance off, and instead of advancing on the barricade, they drew up and halted in triple file across the street. Their att.i.tude of silent, stern defiance--for it was such--evoked a wild burst of popular fury, and epithets of abuse and insult were heaped upon them from windows and parapets.

"They are the famous Twenty-Second of the Line," said the Captain, "who forced the Pont-Neuf yesterday and drove the mob before them."

"It is fortunate for us that we fall into such hands," said Lady Dorothea, waving her handkerchief as she advanced. But Kate had already approached the line, and now halted at a command from the officer. While she endeavored to explain how and why they were there, the cries and menaces of the populace grew louder and wilder. The officer, a very young subaltern, seemed confused and flurried; his eyes turned constantly towards the street from which they had advanced, and he seemed anxiously expecting the arrival of the regiment.

"I cannot give you a convoy, Mademoiselle," he said; "I. scarcely know if I have the right to let you pa.s.s. We may be attacked at any moment; for aught I can tell, _you_ may be in the interests of the insurgents--"

"We are cut off, Lieutenant," cried a sergeant, running up at the moment. "They have thrown up a barrier behind us, and it is armed already."

"Lay down your arms, then," said Kate, "and do not sacrifice your brave fellows in a hopeless straggle."

"Listen not to her, young man, but give heed to your honor and your loyalty," cried Lady Dorothea. "Is it against such an enemy as this French soldiers fear to advance?"

"Forward!" cried the officer, waving his sword above his head. "Let us carry the barricade!" And a wild yell of defiance from the windows repeated the speech in derision.

"You are going to certain death!" cried Kate, throwing herself before him. "Let _me_ make terms for you, and they shall not bring dishonor on you."

"Here comes the regiment!" called out the sergeant. "They have forced the barricade." And the quick tramp of a column, as they came at a run, now shook the street.

"Remember your cause and your King, sir," cried Lady Dorothea to the officer.

"Bethink you of your country,--of France,--and of Liberty!" said Kate, as she grasped his arm.

"Stand back!--back to the houses!" said he, waving his sword.

"Voltigeurs, to the front!"

The command was scarcely issued, when a hail of b.a.l.l.s rattled through the air. The defenders of the barricade had opened their fire, and with a deadly precision, too, for several fell at the very first discharge.

"Back to the houses!" exclaimed Martin, dragging Lady Dorothea along, who, in her eagerness, now forgot all personal danger, and only thought of the contest before her.

"Get under cover of the troops,--to the rear!" cried the Captain, as he endeavored to bear her away.

"Back--back--beneath the archway!" cried Kate, as, throwing her arms around Lady Dorothea, she lifted her fairly from the ground, and carried her within the deep recess of a _porte cochere_. Scarcely, however, had she deposited her in safety, than she fell tottering backwards and sank to the ground.

"Good Heavens! she is struck," exclaimed Martin, bending over her.

"It is nothing,--a spent shot, and no more," said Kate, as she showed the bullet which had perforated her dress beneath the arm.

"A good soldier, by Jove!" said the Captain, gazing with real admiration on the beautiful features before him; the faint smile she wore heightening their loveliness, and contrasting happily with their pallor.

"There they go! They are up the barricade already; they are over it,--through it!" cried the Captain. "Gallantly done!--gloriously done!

No, by Jove! they are falling back; the fire is murderous. See how they bayonet them. The troops must win. They move together; they are like a wall! In vain, in vain; they cannot do it! They are beaten,--they are lost!"

"Who are lost?" said Kate, in a half-fainting voice.

"The soldiers. And there 's Ma.s.singbred on the top of the barricade, in the midst of it all. I see his hat They are driven back--beaten--beaten!"

"Come in quickly," cried a voice from behind; and a small portion of the door was opened to admit them. "The soldiers are retiring, and will kill all before them."

"Let _me_ aid you; it is _my_ turn now," said Lady Dorothea, a.s.sisting Kate to rise. "Good Heavens! her arm is broken,--it is smashed in two."

And she caught the fainting girl in her arms.

Gathering around, they bore her within the gate, and had but time to bar and bolt it when the hurried tramp without, and the wild yell of popular triumph, told that the soldiers were retreating, beaten and defeated.

"And this to save me!" said Lady Dorothea, as she stooped over her. And the scalding tears dropped one by one on Kate's cheek.

"Tear this handkerchief, and bind it around my arm," said Kate, calmly; "the pain is not very great, and there will be no bleeding, the doctors say, from a gun-shot wound."

"I'll be the surgeon," said the Captain, addressing himself to the task with more of skill than might be expected. "I 've seen many a fellow struck down who did n't bear it as calmly," muttered he, as he bent over her. "Am I giving you any pain?"

"Not in the least; and if I were in torture, that glorious cheer outside would rally me. Hear!--listen!--the soldiers are in full retreat; the people, the n.o.ble-hearted people, are the conquerors!"

"Be calm, and think of yourself," said Lady Dorothea, mildly, to her; "such excitement may peril your very life."

"And it is worth a thousand lives to taste of it," said she, while her cheek flushed, and her dark eyes gleamed with added l.u.s.tre.

"The street is clear now," said one of the servants to Martin, "and we might reach the Boulevard with ease."

"Let us go, then," said Lady Dorothea. "Let us look to _her_ and think of nothing till she be cared for."

CHAPTER IX. SOME CONFESSIONS OF JACK Ma.s.sINGBRED

Upon two several occasions have we committed to Jack Ma.s.singbred the task of conducting this truthful history; for the third time do we now purpose to make his correspondence the link between the past and what is to follow. We are not quite sure that the course we thus adopt is free from its share of inconvenience, but we take it to avoid the evils of reiteration inseparable from following out the same events from merely different points of view. There is also another advantage to be gained.

Jack is before our readers; we are not. Jack is an acquaintance; we cannot aspire to that honor. Jack's opinions, right or wrong as they may be, are part and parcel of a character already awaiting their verdict.

What he thought and felt, hoped, feared, or wished, are the materials by which he is to be judged; and so we leave his cause in his own hands.

His letter is addressed to the same correspondent to whom he wrote before. It is written, too, at different intervals, and in different moods of mind. Like the letters of many men who practise concealment with the world at large, it is remarkable for great frankness and sincerity. He throws away his mask with such evident signs of enjoyment that we only wonder if he can ever resume it; but crafty men like to relax into candor, as royalty is said to indulge with pleasure in the chance moments of pretended equality. It is, at all events, a novel sensation; and even that much, in this routine life of ours, is something!

He writes from Spa, and after some replies to matters with which we have no concern, proceeds thus:--

"Of the Revolution, then, and the Three Glorious Days as they are called, I can tell you next to nothing, and for this simple reason, that I was there fighting, shouting, throwing up barricades, singing the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise,' smas.h.i.+ng furniture, and shooting my 'Swiss,' like the rest. As to who beat the troops, forced the Tuileries, and drove Marmont back, you must consult the newspapers. Personal adventures I could give you to satiety, hairbreadth 'scapes and acts of heroism by the dozen; but these narratives are never new, and always tiresome. The serious reflectiveness sounds like humbug, and, if one treats them lightly, the flippancy is an offence. Jocular heroism is ever an insult to the reader.

"You say, '_Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galere?_' and I answer, it was all _her_ doing. Yes, Harry, _she_ was there. I was thinking of nothing less in the world than a great 'blow for freedom,'

as the 'Globe' has it. I had troubled my head wonderfully little about the whole affair. Any little interest I took was in the notion that if our 'natural enemies,' the French, were to fall to and kill each other, there would be so much the fewer left to fight against us; but as to who was to get the upper hand, or what they were to do when they had it, I gave myself no imaginable concern. I had a vague, shadowy kind of impression that the government was a bad one, but I had a much stronger conviction that the people deserved no better. My leanings--my instincts, if you prefer it--were with the Crown. The mob and its sentiments are always repulsive. Popular enthusiasm is a great ocean, but it is an ocean of dirty water, and you cannot come out clean from the contact; and so I should have wished well to royalty, but for an accident,--a mere trifle in its way, but one quite sufficient, even on historic grounds, to account for a man's change of opinions. The troops shot my cab-horse, sent a bullet through poor 'Beverley,' and seriously damaged a new hat which I wore at the time, accompanying these acts with expressions the reverse of compliment or civility. I was pitched out into the gutter, and, most appropriately you will say, I got up a Radical, a Democrat, a Fourierist,--anything, in short, that shouts 'Down with Kings, and up with the Sovereign People!'

"My principles--don't smile at the word--led me into a stupid altercation with a very pleasant acquaintance, and we parted to meet the next morning in hostility,--at least, such was our understanding; but by the time that our difference should have been settled, _I_ was carried away on a stretcher to the Hotel Dieu, wounded, and he was flung, a corpse, into the Seine. I intended to have been a most accurate narrator of events, journalizing for you, hour by hour, with all the stirring excitement of the present tense, but I cannot; the crash and the hubbub are still in my brain, and the infernal chaos of the streets is yet over me. Not to speak of my wound,--a very ugly sabre-cut in the neck,--severing I don't know what amount of nerves, arteries, and such-like 'small deer,' every one of which, however, has its own peculiar perils in the shape of aneurisms, teta.n.u.s, and so forth, in case I am not a miracle of patience, calmness, and composure.

"The Martins are nursing and comforting and chicken-brothing me to my heart's content, and La Henderson, herself an invalid, with a terrible broken arm, comes and reads to me from time to time. What a girl it is!

Wounded in a street encounter, she actually carried Lady Dorothea into a porte-cochere, and when they had lost their heads in terror, could neither issue an order to the servants nor know what way to turn, she took the guidance of the whole party, obtained horses and carriages and an escort, escaped from Paris, and reached Versailles in the midst of flying courtiers and dismayed ministers, and actually was the very first to bring the tidings that the game of monarchy was up,--that the king had nothing left for it but an inglorious flight. To the d.u.c.h.esse de Mire-court she made this communication, which it seems none of the court-followers had the courage or honesty to do before. The d.u.c.h.ess, in her terror, actually dragged her into the presence of the king, and made her repeat what she had said. The scene, as told me, was quite dramatic; the king took her hand to lead her to a seat, but it was unfortunately of the wounded arm, and she fainted. The sight of the wounded limb so affected the nerves of monarchy that he gave immediate orders to depart, and was off within an hour.