Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

But the day of battle was not longer to be delayed – that day which was to win the renown a soldier covets for the gallant strangers who led the Turkish forces. On the 29th of September, before daybreak, one of the advanced sentries of the chief battery, nearest to the enemy, heard a sound in the distance, something like the rumbling of wheels and the tramp of infantry. Kmety was soon on the spot. He applied his ear to the ground, and recognised the rumble of artillery-wheels; while still the measured tread of infantry was heard advancing nearer and nearer up the valley. The night was moonless, and very dark. Again all was silent. The Zebek riflemen look well to their percussion caps; the word is passed to the artillery-men, “peshref” (grape); the advanced posts creep into the lines with the ominous words “Ghiaour gueliur” (The infidels are coming). A dark mass, faintly seen through the gloom, is observed. It is moving; it is a column of men! A gun is pointed in the direction, the match is applied, and a hissing shower of grape flies into the mass. An unearthly scream of agony from mangled human frames follows the thunder of the gun, when both are drowned by a loud hurrah which rises on all sides, and soon the whole line of breastworks is assailed in front and flank. All surprise is at an end. The Russians advance in close column on the breastworks and redoubts, while some Russian batteries, well placed on a commanding eminence opposite, pour shot, shell, and grape into the redoubts. Steadily each column advances, while grape, round-shot, and musketry are pelted into them. They still rush on; their officers, with wondrous self-devotion, charge in front, and, single-handed, leap into the redoubts only to fall pierced with bayonets. Their columns, rent and torn, retire to reform. Meantime, on the left flank and rear of the position, the breastworks are carried; a number of tents are occupied by Russian troops, while their officers, ignorant that the redoubts are closed, flatter themselves that the position is won. Kmety now, however, hastily gathers together a formidable body of his best troops; Teesdale turns some guns towards the rear and works them vigorously; Kmety’s riflemen pour into these partially victorious Russians a continued and well-directed fire, which holds them in check, and woefully thins their ranks. Meantime, the son has risen, and shows each position of the enemy. A sulphurous cloud envelops the scenes of fiercest conflict, while reserves in formidable numbers crown the distant slopes. Fresh columns of the enemy charge again and again the front line of breastworks and batteries, from which they are at first driven back: they are received with a deadly and withering fire; and thus the fight continues. But this is not the only struggle going on. The line of breastworks and forts protecting the heights on the north of the town are attacked simultaneously by overpowering numbers, and being defended only by a weak force, mainly of Laz irregulars, are carried and occupied by Russian troops, who pile arms and wait for further orders; while the Russian artillery-men employ their time in busily shelling the town, which they now command. Meantime, General Williams from the centre of the camp is watching events. He despatches a body under Kherim Pasha, which appears suddenly on the flank of a large body of Russians now gaining ground in the rear of the Turks on the chief battery. A loud yell arises of triumph and vengeance. Baba Kherim waves his sword; his troops pour a volley into the enemy; Kmety and his men, hitherto overpowered, raise a responsive cheer: they rush on, crying, “Sungu! sungu!” (The bayonet! the bayonet!) Teesdale pours fresh grape into the staggering masses; the Russians waver – they give way – the havoc slacks not. The Turkish artillery hurl round-shots into these columns of brave and devoted men. Captain Thompson, on the extreme east, is with might and main working a heavy gun, and keeping the enemy in check. Once, and once only, there is a slight sign of giving way, but General Williams despatching reinforcements, changes the backward into a forward movement. The loud hurrahs of the Russian hosts are mingled with the yells of the Turks, who tight like tigers, charging repeatedly with the bayonet. White-turbaned citizens are seen plunging into the fight, hewing with their scimitars; athletic and savage Lazistan mountaineers fight with the clubbed rifle, or hurl stones at the advancing foe, while the latter, ever obedient to a stern discipline, advance again and again to the deadly batteries, and are blown from the very mouths of the guns. Strong proof is there of the excellence of Colonel Lake’s batteries. For seven and a half hours the furious contest rages; when about mid-day the Russian columns are seen running down the hill, their cavalry and artillery steadily protecting their retreat. A confused mass of citizens follows them with the utmost temerity, firing into their retreating ranks. But where was the Turkish cavalry? Two thousand horsemen would have destroyed the Russian army, but none remain. The enemy reform, and march off unmolested.

The victory was complete, and the brave garrison looked forward with hope to relief, but relief did not come – cholera did, and famine. The provisions decreased, and many soldiers died of starvation, of cholera, sometimes fifty in a night. News, however, came that Selim Pasha had landed at Trebizond, and was advancing to their succour, and so our brave countrymen resolved not to yield. Still the relief did not come. Famine, disease, and death stalked round the camp. Human endurance could last no longer. The 25th of November arrived, and General Williams and his aide-de-camp, Teesdale, rode over, under a flag of truce, to the Russian camp, to propose a capitulation. They were well received by the humane Mouravieff. Terms most honourable to the brave garrison were speedily arranged; private property was to be respected; the troops were to march out with colours and music, and surrender themselves prisoners; “and write,” said the Russian General to his secretary, “that in admiration of the noble and devoted courage displayed by the army of Kars, the officers shall be allowed to retain their swords, as a mark of honour and respect.”

Thus was Kars defended chiefly by the wisdom, courage, and perseverance of a few Englishmen, gallantly supported by the Turkish troops; and thus it fell, not before the arms of Russia, but in consequence of the mismanagement, roguery, and pusillanimity of Turkish generals and officials. It would be difficult to point out to young soldiers an example more worthy of imitation than that set by the gallant officers who have been mentioned in these pages.

Story 13-Chapter I

STORY THIRTEEN – The Doomed Ship

“You see me now an old and careworn man, with my few scanty locks white as the driven snow; my eyes dim, my cheeks hollow, my shrunk and tottering limbs scarce able to support my bent and emaciated body; my blood languid, and flowing slowly round my heart; my voice weak and tremulous as a child’s; all my faculties deranged but memory, and that alone survives to tell me who I am. Memory, mysterious, inscrutable power, – gladly would I have escaped its painful influence! Alas! it cannot be. Thought alone, while every other faculty has departed, will pursue me to the grave.

“I was not always thus, young man. Ah! once my blood coursed freely through my veins as yours, my limbs were stout and strongly knit, my muscles were firmly strung, my figure was tall and graceful, and with my arm few dared to compete. No one ever cared a second time to tempt my anger; my eye was bright and piercing as an eagle’s, and my voice was clear and powerful, so that it might be heard amid the raging of the fiercest storm. My heart never beat with fear; aloft, no one was more active, or would so readily spring to the weather earing, when, in the strongest tempest, the last reef was to be taken in the topsails. Ah! young man, you look incredulous. I have stood securely on the main truck when landsmen could scarcely keep their feet on deck. I have hung by one hand suspended to a single rope, tossing to and fro in mid air. I have swum for miles on the foaming bosom of the ocean. I have contended with the wild beast of the desert. I have stood amid showers of bell and grape when my shipmates have been falling thickly around. I have with a few daring comrades fought hand to hand against overpowering numbers on an enemy’s deck. I have faced death in a hundred shapes, and I never trembled; yet now I bend even before the summer’s breeze. Worthless and miserable as I am, I have loved, truly and devotedly, ay, and have been loved too in return. The eye of beauty has sparkled, her lip has smiled sweetly on me, her heart has beat with tender emotions; when I drew near, those lips have uttered words of tenderest endearment for my ear alone. I have been young, strong, handsome, and bold; – I am now old and broken, loathsome and nerveless. Learn a moral, young man. To this all must come whose span of life is lengthened out like mine; then do the work to which you have been called while you have strength. Remember that this life, whether passed in sunshine and in calm, or amid cloud and storm, is like a voyage, speedily over, and that while it lasts every man on board is bound to do his duty, nor like a coward skulk idly below. Vain and bitter are the regrets of age, and if all men did but feel the importance of acting their parts faithfully towards their Maker and their fellow-men, what an amount of misery and anguish would be saved them in their latter days! how different would he the world they are sent to inhabit!

“But I asked you to sit down on this stone by my side, while we watch the shipping in the harbour below, and the deep blue sea sparkling in the rays of the setting sun, to listen to a tale of my younger days, and instead of that, I have been moralising, prating, you will say perhaps, of things which do not interest you. Well, well, follow my counsel; it is all I ask; and so to my tale.

“It is now more than half a century ago that I got the berth of second mate on board a fine ship belonging to the port of Liverpool. Liverpool was a very different town in those days from what it is now. There were no fine docks and spacious quays, no broad streets and magnificent buildings, but yet it was a place of much bustle and trade; and trade is the true mother of all the improvements. Our ship was called the Chameleon. She was bran new, and had never yet made a voyage; she measured four hundred and fifty tons burthen, was ship-rigged, and was well found and fitted in every respect. Her master was as thorough a sailor as ever stepped, and, take them all in all, I suppose a stouter ship, a better crew, or a more able master, never sailed from the port of Liverpool. But I have now more particularly to speak of the master. His name was Derick – Captain Ashby Derick. He was a young man, about seven or eight-and-twenty, I suppose, and was very well connected and educated. He was very good-looking – the women called him remarkably handsome – he was tall, with a firm, well-made figure and broad chest; his complexion was naturally fair, though now bronzed by the sun, with an abundance of light curly hair, and full whiskers; his eyes were large and grey; his lips firm, and his nose fine, though somewhat hooked, which prevented his face from having any approach to effeminacy. He had from boyhood been rather wild; indeed, his principles were none of the best, and it was for that reason that his father, who was a very strict man, had sent him to sea, that he might not set a bad example to his brothers. The world looked on him as a rollicking, careless blade, with more animal spirits than wisdom to guide him; but his employers knew him to be a first-rate seaman, and one liked by his crew, and that was all they had to inquire about. Now for my part, I believe that had he been well guided at first, and properly instructed in his duty to God and man, he would not have turned out a bad man; but he had not his fair play; he was cast like a waif on the waters, without rudder or compass, to find his way as he best could over the troubled sea of life, and how could those who sent him expect him to escape shipwreck? His fate has been the fate of many. He grew up with numerous fine manly qualities. He was brave and bold as man can be; he was generous to his friends, kind-hearted to any in distress, and full of life and animation, but his temper was hot and hasty. He had no religion, though he did not scoff at it in others; but he did not know what it meant; and he had no morality; indeed, no one could trust to his principles. With women he had very winning ways, and was a great favourite with them.

“After his return from his last voyage he went to stay with some friends living in Lancashire, not many miles from Liverpool. At the distance of a mile or two from the house where he was staying, there lived on the borders of a wild heath or common, in an almost ruined cottage, an old woman. The old woman’s name was Kirby – Mother Kirby she was called – and she was reported to be a witch by the common people, who told all sorts of stories about her. It is certain that she was of a sour bad temper, that she was very old and very ugly, and could use her tongue most fluently. But it is not about her I am going to speak at present. She had a granddaughter who lived in the hut with her, but was as unlike her in every respect as light from darkness. Amy Kirby was one of the most beautiful girls you ever saw – she was slight and graceful, with a well-rounded form, and tall rather than short; her hair was black as jet; her eyes large, dark, and lustrous; and her cheeks bore all the bloom of health and youth; her complexion was clear, but it just showed that there was a slight touch of gipsy blood in her veins; her step, as she walked along, was as elastic as a young fawn’s; and her voice was like the skylark’s as it mounts into the blue sky at early dawn.

“It was surprising to see how the old woman loved a being so unlike herself, how carefully she tended her, how well she had brought her up. She had taught her many things which girls in her rank of life never learn; she even got all sorts of books for her to read. Amy was always neatly dressed, and while the rest of the cottage was almost in ruins, her room was as good as any in a well-to-do house. No one knew how the old woman got the money for these purposes, but whenever any was wanted for Amy it was always forthcoming. One thing, alas! she had not taught her – that was religion; and neither the old woman nor her grandchild was ever seen to enter a church.

“Amy was about seventeen when Ashby Derick first saw her. He met her on the common near her grandmother’s cottage, and as he was a stranger there he stopped to ask his way, and from one question another was asked, and a few words led to many. His heart in a moment was struck by her beauty, and he felt that he had never seen any one he admired so much. She, too, was pleased with his look and fine manly bearing, but she would not tell him who she was, nor where she came from. She laughingly said that she was the spirit of the heath, that she dwelt in the air, and that her carriage was the storm, and that whenever he would seek her he must come there to find her. This excited his curiosity, and if she had told him that she lived in the ruined cottage hard by, from her dress and language he would not have believed her. Every day he visited the heath, and each time he found her there on the same spot, and hour after hour he spent with her, more and more captivated by her charms. What was extraordinary was, that he could never find out her name, nor anything about her, or he might perhaps have not gone so far as he did. The strangeness of the affair pleased him, for he was of a romantic turn, and I believe fancied her some well-born lady in disguise who had fallen in love with him. She must have been, from what I heard, full of life and wit, and of course showed out more to him than she had ever done to others. Indeed, her mind was of no ordinary character, and had it been well guided she would have been equal to any lady in the land. At last he offered her marriage. She laughed, and told him that he would be marrying a spirit, and that he must come to her home, for that she would never go to his. He had better think over it, for that no good could come of it. This only made him more vehement, and he vowed and swore that he would marry her and her alone. The belief is that she was of the gipsy religion as well as of the gipsy race, and gipsies look upon an oath as binding as any other form of marriage, and therefore after that she considered Ashby Derick as her husband. I cannot say if what she told him about her being the spirit of the heath had anything of truth in it, as some people believed, but her heart and soul were his, and she loved him with all the passionate ardour of a child of a race which comes from the lands of the burning sun of Egypt. The consequence was, that she went to reside with him at his house near Liverpool.

“Her grandmother had never come to see her, but at last the old woman could no longer resist the strong wish she had of visiting her. Derick came in and saw the witch-like creature sitting by the side of the beautiful girl he professed to love so much. He did not like the look of her, and in an angry tone he asked her what she did there.

”‘I’ve as much right to be here as you have,’ answered the old woman. ‘I’ve come to see my grandchild, and I should like to know what fault you can find with that!’

”‘You come to see your grandchild! – you Amy’s grandmother! I don’t believe it,’ he exclaimed, starting back from her with a look of horror. ‘You, you wizen-faced, shrivelled old hag!’

”‘What! you dare to call me names!’ screamed the old woman; ‘you’ll repent it – that you will, my master.’

“On this, Derick turned to Amy and asked if the old woman spoke the truth. Amy confessed that she was her grandmother, and then burst into tears, which so enraged the dame that she went away muttering curses between her teeth, which Derick could not understand. They had a great effect upon him, and from that time his love for the beautiful gipsy began to cool. I ought to have said that before Derick had fallen in with the poor girl he had been paying his addresses to a young lady of family and fortune who had been captivated by his handsome face and figure. While the above affair had been going on he had neglected his former attentions to this lady, but he now began to resume them. He never told her the reason of his absence, and he made so much play to recover his lost ground, that he was soon reinstated in her good graces. She was not only rich, but handsome and clever, and she so quickly enslaved the heart of Derick, that he neglected poor Amy altogether. He next proposed marriage to her; he was accepted, and the day of the wedding was fixed.

“Poor Amy had heard nothing about it, whatever she might have suspected, and she had grown accustomed to his long absences, though her heart was breaking at his coldness. Well, Captain Derick and his beautiful bride went to church to be married, and a very grand wedding it was, and numbers of relations and friends attended. Just as the service began, a alight female figure, wrapped close in a cloak with a hood, was seen to steal into the church, and to hide itself behind one of the pillars which supported the roof. Derick observed the circumstance and changed colour, and his hand trembled as he put the ring on his wife’s finger. Just at that moment a piercing scream was heard ringing through the aisles and vaulted roof of the church, and filling the hearts of everybody present with dismay. They searched the church throughout for the stranger in the hooded cloak, they looked around in every direction, but she was nowhere to be found, and no one had seen her quit the church, nor had any one observed her in the neighbourhood. That night there was a fierce storm of thunder and lightning, wind and rain, and on the following morning the young and once beautiful Amy Kirby was found a blackened corpse on the very spot where Ashby Derick had first met her. Some said that she had been killed by lightning, but it was generally supposed that she had died by poison, which she had taken in her despair.

“The old grandmother was the first person to tell Derick of what had happened, though he was a hundred miles or so from the spot on his wedding tour. She came into the room where he and his young wife were sitting, without any one announcing her, and nearly frightened the bride to death by the way she swore and cursed Derick, so that at last he became so enraged that he called up the servants and turned her out of the house by main force. She went away threatening that she would shortly wreak a bitter vengeance on him for his murder of the only being she loved on earth. The same evening she was back again in her now desolate hut near Liverpool. If she had with some reason been before suspected of being a witch, she was thought to be one now to a certainty from her strange look and ways of going on, and she took delight in making everybody believe her one. The sudden appearance of the old woman so frightened the young bride that she fell ill, and the doctors all agreed that the best thing to restore her shattered nerves would be for her to take a long voyage to a southern climate. Derick was not sorry to hear of this advice, for though he loved his wife, so he did his profession, and had no intention of giving that up, especially when he could take her with him. At first her friends did not like the idea of her going, but he soon persuaded them, and she, poor young thing! was delighted at the thought of accompanying him, and of visiting foreign countries. She had been nurtured in every sort of luxury, and had never been to sea before, so she little knew what she had to undergo. However, he had a cabin fitted up for her very elegantly, so that she might be as comfortable as possible. The cargo was stowed, the ship was cleared at the custom-house, the lady and all her things were on board, our owners and different friends had gone on shore, and Captain Derick was standing close to the taffrail and waving his hat, as the ship, all her fastenings being cast off, moved away from the quay, when on a sudden there appeared at the end of a jetty, close to which we had to pass, the old hag, Dame Kirby.

“I have not yet described her. She had in her youth been very tall, but she was now bent nearly double, though she contrived to raise herself at times of great excitement to nearly her former height. She was thin and wizened, with large prominent features, and eyes once large, now sunk so deep in her head that they would have been scarcely perceptible, except from their extraordinary lustre. In her hand she carried a long twisted staff to support herself, and she wore a red cloak and a queer little hat, from under which her long grey locks straggled in the wind. Her gown, such as it was, all rags and tatters, was looped up in front to enable her to walk, and as she raised herself up, her long bony leg, which was advanced forward, looked so like that of a skeleton that it was impossible to believe that it belonged to a living being. Her arms, which were also quite bare, appeared composed of nothing but bone and sinew, and the skin which covered them, like that of her face, was as yellow as parchment. They, as well as her hands and fingers, were of great length, and as she walked along in her usual way, she almost touched the ground with them. When the captain first saw her standing directly in front of him, with her hideous features scowling malignantly on him, appearing, as she did, the prominent figure, while his friends faded in the distance, he started back and trembled violently. He quickly, however, recovered himself, especially when he found his wife, who had come upon deck, close to his side. Her presence seemed to enrage the old woman greatly. She slowly raised up her bent body till she seemed taller than any woman I ever saw, and stretching out her staff, waved it round and round in the direction of the ship.

”‘Curses attend you, and follow all who sail with you,’ she shrieked out, in a loud shrill voice, which pierced through our ears, and made the oldest seaman on board turn pale with apprehension. ‘False-hearted, perjured murderer, betrayer of innocence, deceiver of a faithful heart, destroyer of one who would have clung to you through weal and through woe, through good report and evil report, through life unto death! Now take the consequence. As you valued not the treasure of her love, you shall rue the bitterness of my hate. You are proud of your knowledge, you are proud of your hardy crew, you are proud of your stout ship, but your knowledge shall not avail you in the fierce tempest I will raise; the waters shall drown your hardy crew, and the hard rocks shall batter in pieces your stout ship! Wherever you go I will follow you; in the furthermost parts of the wide ocean you shall find me, in the howling of the raging storm you shall hear me, in the flashes of the vivid lightning you shall see me. My vengeance will not sleep, my hate will not abate. Your bold heart shall quail and sink like a woman’s, your cheek shall blanch, when you feel that I am nigh, and hiss into your ears the name of her you murdered, and you see borne before your eyes on the whirlwind the writhing form of her who was once so lovely, dying in agony on the wild heath alone and hopeless. Blasted shall be the beauty of which you are proud, withered shall be your form, frozen your heart, and she who now stands in youth and loveliness by your side shall learn to repent she knew you, and shall share your fate. Sail onward on your course, but never shall your eyes again behold your native land, or hear the greeting of the friends you leave behind. But me you shall hear, and me you shall see, when you would give all the wealth of India not to see me or to hear me, and wish that I never existed. Go now – sail – sail – sail away over the wide sea! Curses hover over you where’er you go! Curses attend your hardy crew! Curses follow after the stout ship which hears you!’