226

THE

SHEPHERD'S COTTAGE.

exceed the gratitude of his father to me, though, in fact, I had done little or nothing to deserve his thanks. I stopped at the cottage for an hour, or more, helping to bind up the young fellow's wounds, and then left the place, receiving as many heart-felt acknowledgments as if I had saved the lives of the whole family.

CHAPTER X.

Paul Preston and Frank Berkley go to Spain. Battle between the French and the Spaniards and Portuguese. The Portuguese Marshal and the wounded Sergeant. Madrid. A Bull-fight. The Black Murcian Bull. The Penitent at the Black Confessional. The Mysterious Murder. The Andalusian Banditti.

FRANK and I set off for Spain, determined to make the most of the permission which had been granted us to see a little of the world. Every step we took reminded us of what we had read in Gil Blas and Don Quixote. Many an olden ballad too of "Gallante Knyghte" and "Fayre Ladye" occurred to our remembrance; nor were the battles between the Moors and the Spaniards forgotten. Frank said that the very names of Madrid, and Seville, and Granada, and Saragossa, took him back to his school days, when the Knight of La Mancha fought with the windmills, and Sancho Panza was tossed in a blanket. Many of the inns were just what we had imagined them to be; and the muleteers, and their mules, and pack-saddles, and burdens, were the

228

THE OFFICER'S NARRATIVE.

very same as those of which we had so often talked together.

Since Frank and I first put foot in Spain, many a battle has been fought on Spanish ground. Some time ago, I met with an officer who gave me the following short, but interesting narrative. "I wanted," said he, "to be a staff-surgeon in the Portuguese army, but knew not how to bring it about. One day, when I was in the field, the two armies were in fierce contention; they met like opposing torrents; and the twisted, stream-like, grey curling smoke told where the work was warmest. I was well mounted, carrying behind me a large pair of Spanish saddle-bags, one of them filled with surgical apparatus, and the other with food and other matters, while a leathern bag of country wine was suspended from my saddle-bow. As I turned round a rising ground, a Portuguese brigade was just in the act of storming the hill occupied by a strong body of French infantry. The attack and the defence were gallantly made.

"At this moment a mounted Portuguese officer galloped from the front, shouting aloud for a British surgeon. 1 fled towards him; he wheeled round his charger, and we dashed onwards together towards the thickest of the fight. There is no time for reflection in such a case as

THE WOUNDED GENERAL.

229

this. Stopping short of the contending parties, and hastily dismounting, he led me to a covered wagon that I had not before noticed. There lay the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese, and a sergeant beside him: the limbs of the latter were cruelly shattered; while the marshal, the commander-in-chief, had a ball wound just below the left breast. His face was pale, but his countenance calm. A field of battle is a much better place than a house for prompt attention to a wound. You have no formalities to go through, and no friends of the patient sobbing and sighing to disturb your self-possession; you go at once to the exercise of your profession.

"I asked no questions,-I spoke not a word, but tore open the marshal's dress, and thrust my finger into the wound till I touched the rib; but the ball had taken a downward course.

"The marshal neither uttered a sound nor moved a muscle; the wounded sergeant and all around were motionless. After a careful examination of the wounded part, General,' said I,' you are safe; your wound is not mortal.'

"It took a load from my heart when I knew this to be the case; but the general seemed but little affected by it, he only asked about the battle. Just as I was about to

230

THE PRADO.

cut out the ball, Attend to that poor fellow first,' said he, pointing to the sergeant,' if his wounds require it.' This was acting like a general, and stamped him, even in the midst of bloodshed and carnage, as a man of humanity.

"Cut boldly,' said the marshal, as I proceeded to search for the ball: in another moment I took out the bullet from the wound, and placed it in his hand. The sergeant, poor fellow ! lost both his legs. A few months after this I was a staff-surgeon, as I wished to be, in the army of the Portuguese."

Frank and I found much in Madrid to recommend it to our attention; but, for all that, we would not willingly have taken up our abode there. If all the monks that we met in the streets were good men, few cities had more reason to be thankful.

The Prado, or public walk, was a fine place, and the dons and donnas that we met there were fine people; but we willingly left this fashionable lounge, to ramble at our ease in more solitary places.

At night the sound of guitars, serenading the inhabitants of different habitations, was very sweet; but men with daggers under their cloaks were so often prowling the streets, that we never felt ourselves secure. Over and