A Jacobite Exile<br />Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelf by G. A. Henty (christmas read aloud txt) 📗

"Bring that joint here, Captain Jervoise, and we will all take breakfast together. We are all hunters and comrades."

In a short time, they were all seated round a fire, with their meat on wooden platters on their knees, and with mugs of wine beside them; Captain Jervoise, by the king's orders, taking his seat beside him. During the meal, he asked him many questions as to his reasons for leaving England, and taking service with him.

"So you have meddled in politics, eh?" the king laughed, when he heard a brief account of Captain Jervoise's reason for leaving home. "Your quarrels, in England and Scotland, have added many a thousand good soldiers to the armies of France and Sweden, and, I may say, of every country in Europe. I believe there are some of your compatriots, or at any rate Scotchmen, in the czar's camp. I suppose that, at William's death, these troubles will cease."

"I do not know, sir. Anne was James' favourite daughter, and it may be she will resign in favour of her brother, the lawful king. If she does so, there is an end of trouble; but, should she mount the throne, she would be a usurper, as Mary was up to her death in '94. As Anne has been on good terms with William, since her sister's death, I fear she will act as unnatural a part as Mary did, and, in that case, assuredly we shall not recognize her as our queen."

"You have heard the news, I suppose, of the action of the parliament last month?"

"No, sir, we have heard nothing for some weeks of what is doing in England."

"They have been making an Act of Settlement of the succession. Anne is to succeed William, and, as she has no children by George of Denmark, the succession is to pass from her to the Elector of Hanover, in right of his wife Sophia, as the rest of the children of the Elector of the Palatinate have abjured Protestantism, and are therefore excluded. How will that meet the views of the English and Scotch Jacobites?"

"It is some distance to look forward to, sire. If Anne comes to the throne at William's death, it will, I think, postpone our hopes, for Anne is a Stuart, and is a favourite with the nation, in spite of her undutiful conduct to her father. Still, it will be felt that for Stuart to fight against Stuart, brother against sister, would be contrary to nature. Foreigners are always unpopular, and, as against William, every Jacobite is ready to take up arms. But I think that nothing will be done during Anne's reign. The Elector of Hanover would be as unpopular, among Englishmen in general, as is William of Orange, and, should he come to the throne, there will assuredly ere long be a rising to bring back the Stuarts."

Charles shook his head.

"I don't want to ruffle your spirit of loyalty to the Stuarts, Captain Jervoise, but they have showed themselves weak monarchs for a great country. They want fibre. William of Orange may be, as you call him, a foreigner and a usurper, but England has greater weight in the councils of Europe, in his hands, than it has had since the death of Elizabeth."

This was rather a sore point with Captain Jervoise, who, thorough Jacobite as he was, had smarted under the subservience of England to France during the reigns of the two previous monarchs.

"You Englishmen and Scotchmen are fighting people," the king went on, "and should have a military monarch. I do not mean a king like myself, who likes to fight in the front ranks of his soldiers; but one like William, who has certainly lofty aims, and is a statesman, and can join in European combinations."

"William thinks and plans more for Holland than for England, sire. He would join a league against France and Spain, not so much for the benefit of England, which has not much to fear from these powers, but of Holland, whose existence now, as of old is threatened by them."

"England's interest is similar to that of Holland," the king said. "I began this war, nominally, in the interest of the Duke of Holstein, but really because it was Sweden's interest that Denmark should not become too powerful.

"But we must not waste time in talking politics. I see the men have finished their breakfast, and we are here to hunt. I shall keep twenty horse with me; the rest will enter the forest with you. I have arranged for the peasants here to guide you. You will march two miles along by the edge of the forest, and then enter it and make a wide semicircle, leaving men as you go, until you come down to the edge of the forest again, a mile to our left.

"As soon as you do so, you will sound a trumpet, and the men will then move forward, shouting so as to drive the game before them. As the peasants tell me there are many wolves and bears in the forest, I hope that you will inclose some of them in your cordon, which will be about five miles from end to end. With the horse you will have a hundred and thirty men, so that there will be a man every sixty or seventy yards. That is too wide a space at first, but, as you close in, the distances will rapidly lessen, and they must make up, by noise, for the scantiness of their numbers. If they find the animals are trying to break through, they can discharge their pieces; but do not let them do so otherwise, as it would frighten the animals too soon, and send them flying out all along the open side of the semicircle."

It was more than two hours before the whole of the beaters were in position. Just before they had started, the king had requested Captain Jervoise to remain with him and the officers who had accompanied him, five in number. They had been posted, a hundred yards apart, at the edge of the forest. Charlie was the first officer left behind as the troop moved through the forest, and it seemed to him an endless time before he heard a faint shout, followed by another and another, until, at last, the man stationed next to him repeated the signal. Then they moved forward, each trying to obey the orders to march straight ahead.

For some time, nothing was heard save the shouts of the men, and then Charlie made out some distant shots, far in the wood, and guessed that some animals were trying to break through the lines. Then he heard the sound of firing directly in front of him. This continued for some time, occasionally single shots being heard, but more often shots in close succession. Louder and louder grew the shouting, as the men closed in towards a common point, and, in half an hour after the signal had been given, all met.

"What sport have you had, father?" Harry asked, as he came up to Captain Jervoise.

"We killed seventeen wolves and four bears, with, what is more important, six stags. I do not know whether we are going to have another beat."

It soon turned out that this was the king's intention, and the troops marched along the edge of the forest. Charlie was in the front of his company, the king with the cavalry a few hundred yards ahead, when, from a dip of ground on the right, a large body of horsemen suddenly appeared.

"Russians!" Captain Jervoise exclaimed, and shouted to the men, who were marching at ease, to close up.

The king did not hesitate a moment, but, at the head of his fifty cavalry, charged right down upon the Russians, who were at least five hundred strong. The little body disappeared in the melee, and then seemed to be swallowed up.

"Keep together, shoulder to shoulder, men. Double!" and the company set off at a run.

When they came close to the mass of horsemen, they poured in a volley, and then rushed forward, hastily fitting the short pikes they carried into their musket barrels; for, as yet, the modern form of bayonets was not used. The Russians fought obstinately, but the infantry pressed their way step by step through them, until they reached the spot where the king, with his little troop of cavalry, were defending themselves desperately from the attacks of the Russians.

The arrival of the infantry decided the contest, and the Russians began to draw off, the king hastening the movement by plunging into the midst of them with his horsemen.

Charlie was on the flank of the company as it advanced, and, after running through a Russian horseman with the short pike that was carried by officers, he received a tremendous blow on his steel cap, that stretched him insensible on the ground. When he recovered, he felt that he was being carried, and soon awoke to the fact that he was a prisoner.

After a long ride, the Russians arrived at Plescow. They had lost some sixty men in the fight. Charlie was the only prisoner taken. He was, on dismounting, too weak to stand, but he was half carried and half dragged to the quarters of the Russian officer in command. The latter addressed him, but, finding that he was not understood, sent for an officer who spoke Swedish.

"What were the party you were with doing in the wood?"

"We were hunting wolves and bears."

"Where did you come from?"

"From Marienburg."

"How strong were you?"

"Fifty horse and a hundred and forty foot," Charlie replied, knowing there could be no harm in stating the truth.

"But it was a long way to march, merely to hunt, and your officers must have been mad to come out, with so small a party, to a point where they were likely to meet with us."

"It was not too small a party, sir, as they managed to beat off the attack made upon them."

The Russian was silent for a moment, then he asked:

"Who was the officer in command?"

"The officer in command was the King of Sweden," Charlie replied.

An exclamation of surprise and anger broke from the Russian general, when the answer was translated to him.

"You missed a good chance of distinguishing yourself," he said to the officer in command of the troops. "Here has this mad King of Sweden been actually putting himself in your hands, and you have let him slip through your fingers. It would have got you two steps in rank, and the favour of the czar, had you captured him, and now he will be in a rage, indeed, when he hears that five hundred cavalry could do nothing against a force only a third of their number."

"I had no idea that the King of Sweden was there himself," the officer said humbly.

"Bah, that is no excuse. There were officers, and you ought to have captured them, instead of allowing yourself to be put to flight by a hundred and fifty men."

"We must have killed half the horsemen before the infantry came up."

"All the worse, colonel, that you did not complete the business. The infantry would not have been formidable, after they discharged their pieces. However, it is your own affair, and I wash my hands of it. What the czar will say when he hears of it, I know not, but I would not be in your shoes for all my estates."

As Charlie learned afterwards, the colonel was degraded from his rank by the angry czar, and ordered to serve as a private in the regiment he commanded. The officer who acted as translator said something in his own tongue to the general, who then, through him, said:

"This officer tells me that by your language you are not a Swede."

"I am not. I am English, and I am an ensign in the Malmoe Regiment."

"All the worse for you," the general said. "The czar has declared that he will exchange no foreign officers who may be taken prisoners."

"Very well, sir," Charlie said, fearlessly. "He will be only punishing his own officers. There are plenty of them in the King of Sweden's hands."

The general, when this reply was translated to him, angrily ordered Charlie to be taken away, and he was soon lodged in a cell in the castle. His head was still swimming from the effects of the blow that had stricken him down, and, without even trying to think over his position, he threw himself down on the straw pallet, and was soon asleep.

It was morning when he woke and, for a short time, he was unable to imagine where he was, but soon recalled what had happened. He had been visited by someone after he had lain down, for a platter of bread and meat stood on the table, and a jug of water. He was also covered with two thick blankets. These had not been there when he lay down, for he had wondered vaguely as to