James Grant

“ Now I was ploughing the deep green ocean, the white sails of an imaginary ship swelling out in the pure sea-breeze, the waves rolling around me in foam and sunshine—ploughing it to lands that were covered with waving foliage, with brilliant verdure and glowing fruit—to sunny isles that lay I knew not where—but
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.
Certainly the island of Robinson Crusoe stood most vividly out among them, with Amy Lee, however, as a substitute for his dingy comrade Friday. ”

“ I hastened on deck and could distinctly see the Cardinal's Cap, the most lofty hill in the isle of St. Martin (and a good landmark for mariners) ascending slowly from a sea empurpled by the yet unrisen sun. Since we had left Carlisle Bay, no sail, save the fleet, had been visible. I thought of Rouvigny, whose fleet schooner Les Droits de l'Homme could not be many hours ahead of us—if indeed, he had shaped his course to Martinique—and I hailed the rising land with a glow of stern hope. ”

“ Kildonan's coolness so bitterly exasperated the choleric captain, that making one violent lunge he overthrust himself, and in falling on the earl's sword, received a deep wound in the breast. He fell heavily on the deck, while a terrible oath, and a deluge of blood left his lips together.
Rendered more mad than ever by this catastrophe, and choking in blood and rage, as the earl bent over him, Cranky snatched a pistol from his belt, and would have shot him through the head; but I saw the action, and quick as thought sprang forward and knocked aside the weapon with my bayonet. ”

“ From the verandah we strolled into the gardens, where more than an hour glided imperceptibly over us. What we said, or left unsaid, would occupy a good many pages; but being of no interest to any one but ourselves, need not be rehearsed here; yet, ere we returned to the villa, to hear old M. George de Thoisy's everlasting recollections of bygone times—to taste and praise Madame's preserves; to resume our evening music and gaiety with Claire, Julie, Bruce, and Rowland Haystone—Georgette and I had exchanged our rings, and sealed our troth with gifts dearer, but less tangible than gold. ”

“ His family having (as Glendonwyn phrased it) "come down the brae wi' the auld Stuarts," he was animated by all the pride and high courage of the palmiest days of Celtic chivalry; but a ball from the upper rampart pierced his breast; he fell, and the hand of his old friend Glendonwyn was the first to assist him.
"My dear Glenny, I am wounded—mortally wounded!" he exclaimed, and fainted.
"Carry him to the rear," cried the Earl of Kildonan, whose cheek was streaming with blood, having been laid open by a sabre; "he comes of a race that have seldom died on other bed than this." ”

“ The watch on deck was numerous; but in a large frigate it was easy to seclude oneself and give way to reverie. In the clear light of the stars, her cloud of snowy canvas swelled out upon the breeze, and as she rolled slightly on each successive billow, the reef-points on the full white bosom of every shadowy sail waved slowly to and fro like silken fringes.
To windward lay the long line of the fleet—each ship following the other in silence, like white and noiseless spectres of vast stature, gliding over the solemn sea ”

“ While I had been in a state of stupor, a breeze or squall, mayhap the same squall that foundered your ship, had arisen. Left to herself, the cutter's sails had been thrown aback, her main-boom had jibed; she had been capsized, and was now floating, keel upmost, in the sea; floating, I knew not where, with me imprisoned helplessly and dying of hunger, thirst, terror, and suffocation, (but I cannot add remorse,) in her dark, inverted, and waterlogged cabin! ”

“ Violent hands were laid upon the old man, but towering up like a stately Hercules, he thrust the assailants back resolutely, as if he still stood upon the deck of the Venerable, for this white-haired gentleman was the Viscount Duncan, the conqueror of De Winter, the future hero of Camperdown, he who shared with old Rodney the glory of Cape St. Vincent.
A few, less brutal than their compeers, forced the admiral kindly into his own house, and shut the door; and then, amid a shout that made the welkin ring, the effigy of his kinsman, Henry Dundas, was committed to the flames. ”

“ I had not been many minutes in this sequestered and luxuriant place before the sounds of voices and of oars fell upon my ear, and then a long, low, half-decked boat, built like an Indian piragua, with her mast, yard, and sail laid flat, shot into the mangrove creek. Three men who were in her laid their oars on board, and by their hands urged their craft along under the luxuriant foliage and mangroves which almost concealed the water whereon they floated, and the long, giant, and wonderful plants that grew upward from the oozy bottom, and were brushed by the keel as it cleft their wavy masses. ”

“ Life is a precious gift, and not to be trifled with."
I became painfully agitated; but, as my mother's name filled my eyes with tears, Cousin Adrien changed the subject.
"And you leave Paris?" I asked.
"Very soon, unless you would wish me to remain a little time, to see you again; but I am already, I fear, a suspected man. The son of the Chevalier Major de Losme, is nowhere safe in France," he added bitterly; "and so the veil is your choice, my beautiful cousin. I dare not congratulate you; but I pray in my inmost heart, that you may be happy, dear Eulalie!" ”

“ Men toil and struggle bravely, when love, when liberty, and, more than all, when life is at stake. So struggled I on that night of terror.
Clutching fast the wetted shrouds, worn and exhausted by long exposure, by want of sleep, and by excitement, I hoped the hope of the desperate—that, with daybreak, if the ship floated so long, aid might come; a friendly sail might pass, and I might yet be saved, and spared for years to come: yet what right had I to be favoured so specially, when so many poor fellows had perished? The brave, the good, the hardy, and the true! ”

“ Next day, the garrison at Needham's Point; the white-tented camp upon the flat green shore; the stately fleet in the bay; and all the harbour of Bridgetown, the mole and the carenage, presented a scene of unwonted bustle, while a thousand boats were dashing to and fro, with their broad-bladed oars flashing in the sunshine; many had the scarlet ensign flaunting at the stern. Amid them were launches and piraguas manned by negro slaves, conveying stores, ammunition, orders, provisions, and all the requisite material for the arduous service on which we were so soon to depart. ”

“ Poor, penniless; a soldier whose whole worldly possessions consisted of a knapsack and sixty rounds of ammunition. Amid all these reflections and mental queries, did no memory of Amy—dear, wee, modest Amy Lee—my boyish love, occur to me? I cannot tell now. It seemed as if there was no woman in the world but Eulalie.
The summit of a gentle eminence brought me in sight of Carlisle Bay, where our fleet, in all the pride of British men-of-war, rode at anchor in two long lines, astern of the towering three-decker of Sir John Jervis. ”

“ Fifteen thousand men were there under arms—their bayonets flashing in the sun. A few years after, and what had war and pestilence left of all that glittering host? Hecatombs of rotten bones, when the roll of their "spirit-stirring drums" was lost in the silence of their graves by sea and shore; for Rochambeau and Rouvigny, who commanded in Martinique, and Ricard in St. Lucia, with Victor Hughes in Guadaloupe, were all skilful and resolute officers, who promised to give us pretty hot work before we could add these isles to the empire of the Queen of the Sea. ”

“ Since the capture of Martinique and the loss of Guadaloupe, long years have changed, and war and pestilence have made sad havock in the ranks; death, distance, and time, have dug deep and fast their lonely graves on many a far and foreign shore—far from the land of the rock and the heather; but "while the kindling of life in my bosom remains," I shall remember with pride and joy the friends that I made, the dangers that I dared, and the years that I spent in the old regiment of Scots Fusiliers. ”

“ He was too old a sailor not to know the tricks they were apt to play under favour of the darkness when a ship was near the shore. So we were all driven down like sheep into a fold. The lower-deck, about the ballast-port, was crowded by the strongest men, who, as the atmosphere of such a place in June was excessively hot, crept close to it, to inhale the freshening breeze that came into the estuary from the German Sea, while I was glad to content me by creeping close to the bulkhead-grating, outside which a sentinel was always posted. ”

“ With a dozen of my own company, I succeeded in luring the mounted officer who slew poor Blytheswood, with a few of his men, into a plantation of sugar-canes beyond range of the redoubt guns. We lay flat on our faces, and only started up at times to have a shot at each other, when our black bearskin caps on one side, or the huge misshapen cocked hats and red plumes on the other, became visible above the cane-tops. Here Tom Telfer shot the officer's horse, and before he could free himself from the stirrups, with a shout of exultation we were upon him. ”

“ On the southern side of the island, there was a large cavern, into which the sea rolled with a hollow sound; but its aspect was so gloomy, that I had not yet curiosity to penetrate its recesses. Moreover, I had conceived a horror—a hatred of this small spot of earth on which my evil fortune had cast me.
How solitary were my days! How deeply solemn—almost terrible, were my nights on that lonely isle! The rising and the setting of the sun and stars alone marked how time passed.
"Time, where man lives not—what is it but eternity?" and thereon no man dwelt save me. ”

“ With a cheer we rushed on; six men with sharp hatchets assailed the bamboo palisade, which fell like reeds before their sturdy blows; and just as Scipio and his sooty ragamuffins hurried to defend the gap, a loud hurrah on our left, and the explosion of forty hand-grenades that fell whizzing through the darkness, each bursting among them with a loud report and a ruddy glare, paralyzed the savages, and in a moment struck them with a panic, which a combined cross-fire, and an attack in front and flank with the charged bayonet, completed. ”

“ Who the devil is going to keep a loblolly-boy like you in grub and grog for nothing?"
I fell senseless and bleeding on the upper deck, or roof of the lighthouse.
I must have lain long thus; for, on recovery, I found that darkness had set in, that the beacon was lighted, and its three lamps, from the cavity of their vast reflectors, were again shedding their radiated lustre far across the heaving waves of the darkened sea. There was no moon visible, but a few tremulous stars were shimmering through the gauze-like vapour that veiled the gloomy sky. ”

“ I felt that I was now a soldier in earnest!
"Cheer again, my lads," cried old Captain Glendonwyn, brandishing his sword; "there is nothing in this world like a hearty British cheer. All the Frenchmen in Europe could never make anything like it."
Amid the enthusiasm kindled in the eyes and hearts of all, by the aspect of the fusileers with their long lines of tall black bearskin caps and glittering bayonets, on the march to a far and foreign land of war, disease and danger, were many episodes of a sorrowful kind. ”

“ Wealth flowed in upon us, for old M. de Thoisy, whom we left behind in Guadaloupe for a little time, chartered a vessel and raised the treasure of La Lima, which amply repaid the speculation by realizing our most sanguine expectations; and from that hour my old comrades of all ranks, drew on me as if I had been the Bank of England, or a species of regimental factor.
We had not been at home a week before I detected Haystone in the act of rhyming off to poor Lotty some of his usual love-speeches; on which I borrowed a leaf from Père de Thoisy's book, and at once took him to task on the subject ”

“ The beauty of the evening, the deep blue of the sky; and the deeper blue of the sea, caused me to deviate from the direct path for the garrison; and thus, leaving the road to Needham's Point, I wandered for some miles inland, through groves of yams, plaintains, and bananas, and frequently through deep, narrow dells rent and riven, by volcanic agency, where the sea found inlet and the brown tortoise crawled, and where the rocks were covered by those bearded figtrees from which this isle of hurricanes was named los Barbados by the Spaniards in the olden time. ”

“ The law takes care of you—but it grinds, robs, and crushes you to the dust. Will the law save a man whose throat is under the murderer's knife—or the poor tradesman who starves under the tyranny of the purseproud monopolist? I respect the law, but I say, curses blight the edict by which our fellow-citizens were this day slain. In our fathers' days, there was a law in Scotland that he who was taken redhand after a slaughter might be put to death in twenty-four hours. The provost is redhand, and but twelve hours have elapsed—the blood of our citizens is on his soul! ”

“ Oh, Marie mère de Dieu!" she exclaimed, while the tears fell over her pale face; "I have this day been elected Superior of the Ursulines. Go—go, Monsieur Oliver; for Heaven's sake leave me. We must meet no more; and better had it been for us that we had never met. You have won your epaulettes; fortune favours you, and I rejoice at it. Go on thus, my friend—my dear friend, and prosper."
"Thanks, dear Eulalie."
"In the path you must pursue in life Eulalie will soon be forgotten; but never, while pulsation and human charity remain in her heart, will she forget to pray for you. ”

“ The cool umbrageous foliage of a thicket lured me to halt, to fling off my shoulder-belt and sword, and to lie for a time under the shadow of its intertwisted branches. This thicket clothed the steep sides of a gully, at the bottom of which rippled a long inlet, or arm of the sea. It was a lonely spot, haunted only by monkeys that leaped from tree to tree, and by tortoises that crawled upon the shelves of weedy rocks far down below me. The steep and volcanic rifts were covered by wild gourd-vines and those Spanish lemon-trees which usually grow among rocks and stone. ”

“ We had a fair wind, and by lying well to the westward, saw the fading rays of the setting sun gild the two high and conical hills of St. Lucia—the Pitons—which are covered from the beach to their summits with the greenest foliage; but these darkened and seemed to melt away as the cloudless sun went down beyond the burning sea, while afar off on our larboard quarter a crimson gleam shot at times across the horizon. It came from the flaming crater of La Soufrière in St. Lucia, where clouds of burning alum, sulphur, and cinders are hourly spouted to the sky. ”

“ We stepped from the ruined sugar-mill into the full blaze of the sunshine, and on the green luxuriant grass that grew under the foliage of a citron-grove. All Nature seemed so sunny and beautiful, that I felt a momentary compunction on witnessing the farewell glance he cast around him—a farewell to light, to life, and to the future; for he could not have a shadow of hope, on seeing eight of my comrades in line resting on their muskets, and close by Tom Telfer, standing shovel in hand beside a newly-made grave—a hole of ominous aspect, six feet by two, which he had just dug by my directions. ”