The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

Great Powers! will the vainglory of men, especially of Frenchmen, never cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind to design an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers prancing by; the mob waving hats, roaring cheers, picking pockets, and our friends in a balcony in Fleet Street looking on and blessing this scene of British triumph. But now that the French Invalides have been so vulgar as to imitate the Tower, and set up their St. Cas against our St. Malo, I scorn to allude to the stale subject. I say Nolo, not Malo: content, for my part, if Harry has returned from one expedition and t'other with a whole skin. And have I ever said he was so much as bruised? Have I not, for fear of exciting my fair young reader, said that he was as well as ever he had been in his life? The sea air had browned his cheek, and the ball whistling by his side-curl had spared it. The ocean had wet his gaiters and other garments, without swallowing up his body. He had, it is true, shown the lapels of his coat to the enemy; but for as short a time as possible, withdrawing out of their sight as quick as might be. And what, pray, are lapels but reverses? Coats have them, as well as men; and our duty is to wear them with courage and good-humour.

“I can tell you,” said Harry, “we all had to run for it; and when our line broke, it was he who could get to the boats who was most lucky. The French horse and foot pursued us down to the sea, and were mingled among us, cutting our men down, and bayoneting them on the ground. Poor Armytage was shot in advance of me, and fell; and I took him up and staggered through the surf to a boat. It was lucky that the sailors in our boat weren't afraid; for the shot were whistling about their ears, breaking the blades of their oars, and riddling their flag with shot; but the officer in command was as cool as if he had been drinking a bowl of punch at Portsmouth, which we had one on landing, I can promise you. Poor Sir John was less lucky than me. He never lived to reach the ship, and the service has lost a fine soldier, and Miss Howe a true gentleman to her husband. There must be these casualties, you see; and his brother gets the promotion—the baronetcy.”

“It is of the poor lady I am thinking,” says Miss Hetty (to whom haply our volunteer is telling his story); “and the King. Why did the King encourage Sir John Armytage to go? A gentleman could not refuse a command from such a quarter. And now the poor gentleman is dead! Oh, what a state his Majesty must be in!”

“I have no doubt his Majesty will be in a deep state of grief,” says papa, wagging his head.

“Now you are laughing! Do you mean, sir, that when a gentleman dies in his service, almost at his feet, the King of England won't feel for him?” Hetty asks. “If I thought that, I vow I would be for the Pretender!”

“The sauce-box would make a pretty little head for Temple Bar,” says the General, who could see Miss Hetty's meaning behind her words, and was aware in what a tumult of remorse, of consternation, of gratitude that the danger was over, the little heart was beating. “No,” says he, “my dear. Were kings to weep for every soldier, what a life you would make for them! I think better of his Majesty than to suppose him so weak; and, if Miss Hester Lambert got her Pretender, I doubt whether she would be any the happier. That family was never famous for too much feeling.”

“But if the King sent Harry—I mean Sir John Armytage—actually to the war in which he lost his life, oughtn't his Majesty to repent very much?” asks the young lady.

“If Harry had fallen, no doubt the court would have gone into mourning: as it is, gentlemen and ladies were in coloured clothes yesterday,” remarks the General.

“Why should we not make bonfires for a defeat, and put on sackcloth and ashes after a victory?” asks George. “I protest I don't want to thank Heaven for helping us to burn the ships at Cherbourg.”

“Yes you do, George! Not that I have a right to speak, and you ain't ever so much cleverer. But when your country wins you're glad—I know I am. When I run away before Frenchmen I'm ashamed—I can't help it, though I done it,” says Harry. “It don't seem to me right somehow that Englishmen should have to do it,” he added, gravely. And George smiled; but did not choose to ask his brother what, on the other hand, was the Frenchman's opinion.

“'Tis a bad business,” continued Harry, gravely; “but 'tis lucky 'twas no worse. The story about