Part 31 (2/2)

hoofs; and these were followed by several squadrons of hussars, with their crimson trousers and their gaily furred pelisses, and then troop after troop of horse-artillery clattering along, the high-bred horses whirling the heavy guns and caissons behind them as if they had been mere playthings.

It certainly was a beautiful and brilliant pageant, and the splendid military music of the cavalry-bands, the clash and clang of the silver cymbals, the ringing roll of the kettle-drums, and the symphonious cadences of the cornets, horns, and trumpets at the same time, delighted and excited me to the utmost.

But, I confess, that to me the calm old veteran, sitting unmoved amidst all that pomp and clangour, and evidently marking only every smallest minutiae of the men, the accoutrements, the movements, was a more interesting, a more moving sight, than all the pageantry of uniform, than all the thrill of music.

I thought how he had sat as cool and impa.s.sive under the iron hail of battle, with thousands and thousands of the best and bravest falling around him, the fate of nations hanging on a balanced scale in those fights of giants--I thought how he, alone of men, had faced undaunted and self-confident, that greater than Hannibal, or Alexander, that world-conqueror Napoleon--I thought how he had quelled the might of my own gallant land, and my blood seemed to thrill coldly in my veins, as it will at the recital of great deeds and n.o.ble daring--and I knew not altogether whether it was the shudder of dislike, or the thrill of admiration that so shook me.

Had he looked proud, or self-elate, or triumphant, I felt that I could have hated him; but so impa.s.sive, and withal now so frail and feeble, yet with an eye so calmly firm, an expression of rect.i.tude so conscious, I could not but perceive that if an enemy of my _belle France_ was before me, it was an enemy who had been made such by duty, not by choice--an enemy who had done nought in hatred, all in honour.

I acknowledged to myself that I was in the presence of the greatest living man; and though I could neither love nor wors.h.i.+p, I felt subdued and awed into a sort of breathless horror, as one might fancy humanity to be in the presence of some superior intelligence, some being of another world.

The girls observed my riveted and almost fascinated eye, as it dwelt on that mighty soldier, and began to whisper to one another with a sort of very natural pride at the evident interest which we took in their favourite hero.

Their t.i.ttering attracted my brother's attention, and following their eyes he was not long in discovering what it was that had excited their mirth, and he looked at me for a moment with something like a frown on his forehead. But it cleared away in a moment, and he smiled at his own vehemence, perhaps injustice.

At that moment, the different regiments began wheeling to and fro in long lines, and open columns of troops, and performing an infinity of manoeuvres, which, though I of course did not in the least degree comprehend them, were very fine and beautiful to look at, from the rapidity of the movements, the high spirit of the horses, and the gleam and glitter of the arms, half seen among the dust-clouds. My brother, however, began, as I could see, to be vehemently excited, and his constant comments and exclamations of surprise and admiration, bore testimony to the correctness with which every movement was executed.

Then came the roar of the artillery, as the guns retreated before the charging horse, and even I could comprehend and appreciate the marvellous celerity with which flash followed flash, and roar echoed roar, from the same piece, so speedily that it was scarcely possible to comprehend how the gun should have been loaded and re-loaded while the horses were at full gallop.

By this time all the gentlemen had become so much interested and excited by the scene, that, Lionel having got upon his horse which had been led down to the ground by his servant, they asked our permission to leave us for a short time, and ride nearer to the spot where the artillery were manoeuvring.

As we had several servants about us in the first place, and as in the second there is not the slightest danger of ladies being treated with incivility by an English crowd, unless through their own fault or indiscretion, of course no objection was made, and our cavaliers galloped away, promising to return within a quarter of an hour.

Scarcely were they out of sight, before I observed a tall, handsome, soldierly man, though in plain clothes, ride past the carriage on a very fine horse, followed by a groom in a plain dark frock, with a c.o.c.kade in his hat.

It seemed to me on the instant that I had seen his face somewhere before, and that I ought to know him; for the features all seemed familiar, although had it been to save my life, I could not have said where I had met him.

I was torturing my memory on this head in vain--for he was evidently an Englishman, and I had no acquaintance with any English officer--when he rode past a second time, and seemed to be engaged in endeavouring to decipher the arms on our carriage, and his object appeared to be the discovery of who _I_ was; at least, I could not but observe that he looked at me from time to time with a furtive glance from under the brim of his hat, as if he, too, fancied that he knew or remembered me. The same thing happened yet a third time; and then he called his servant to his side, and I saw the man ride up a second afterwards to Judge Selwyn's footman, who was standing at a few yards' distance from the carriage, and ask him some question, which he answered by a word or two, when the groom rode away.

The gentleman, on receiving the reply, nodded his head quietly, as if he would have said, ”I thought so,” and then he looked at me steadily till he caught my eye, when he raised his hat, made a half military bow, and trotted slowly away.

Caroline's quick eye caught this action in an instant, and, turning to me suddenly, she cried quickly--

”Ah! Valerie, who is that? that handsome man who bowed to you?--Where have I seen him before?”

”The very question which I was asking myself, Caroline. I am quite sure that I have seen his face, and yet I cannot remember where. It is very strange.”

”Very!” replied a strange, sneering voice, close to my ear, with a slightly foreign accent. ”Can you say where you have seen mine, _Ingrate_?”

I turned my head as quick as lightning; for in answering Caroline, who sat on the side of the carriage next to the military spectacle, I had leaned a little inward; and there, with his effeminate features actually livid with rage, and writhing with impotent malignity, stood Monsieur G--, the infamous divorced husband of Madame d'Albret, and the first cause of almost all my misfortunes.

I looked at him steadily, and replied with bitter but calm contempt--

”Perfectly well, Monsieur G--. And very little did I suppose that I should ever see it again. I imagined, sir, that you were in your proper place,--the galleys!”

It was wrong, doubtless, in me so to answer him--unfeminine, perhaps, and too provocative of insult; but the blood of my race is hot, and vehement to repel insult; and when I thought of the sufferings I had endured, the trials I had encountered, and the contumely which I had borne on account of that man, my every vein seemed to overflow with pa.s.sion.

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