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THE PEASANT’S CONFESSION

“Si le maréchal Grouchy avait été rejoint par l’officier que Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille à dix heures du soir, toute question eût disparu. Mais cet officier n’était point parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal n’a cessé de l’affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l’en croire, car autrement il n’aurait eu aucune raison pour hésiter. Cet officier avait-il été pris? avait-il passé à l’ennemi? C’est ce qu’on a toujours ignoré.”

– Thiers: Histoire de l’Empire. “Waterloo.”

 
Good Father!.. ’Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn
Men’s bones all Europe through.
 
 
Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi,
To move on Brussels, where the English host
Dallied in Parc and Bois.
 
 
The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun
Growl through the long-sunned day
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun
Twilight suppressed the fray;
 
 
Albeit therein – as lated tongues bespoke —
Brunswick’s high heart was drained,
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,
Stood cornered and constrained.
 
 
And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed
With thirty thousand men:
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,
Would trouble us again.
 
 
My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,
And never a soul seemed nigh
When, reassured at length, we went to rest —
My children, wife, and I.
 
 
But what was this that broke our humble ease?
What noise, above the rain,
Above the dripping of the poplar trees
That smote along the pane?
 
 
– A call of mastery, bidding me arise,
Compelled me to the door,
At which a horseman stood in martial guise —
Splashed – sweating from every pore.
 
 
Had I seen Grouchy?  Yes?  Which track took he?
Could I lead thither on? —
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,
Perchance more gifts anon.
 
 
“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said,
“Charging the Marshal straight
To strike between the double host ahead
Ere they co-operate,
 
 
“Engaging Blücher till the Emperor put
Lord Wellington to flight,
And next the Prussians.  This to set afoot
Is my emprise to-night.”
 
 
I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought
To estimate his say.
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,
I did not lead that way.
 
 
I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be
The clash comes sheer hereon;My farm is stript.
While, as for pieces three,
Money the French have none.
 
 
“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win,
And mine is left to me —
They buy, not borrow.” – Hence did I begin
To lead him treacherously.
 
 
By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,
Dawn pierced the humid air;
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew
Never marched Grouchy there.
 
 
Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle
(Lim’lette left far aside),
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville
Through green grain, till he cried:
 
 
“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here —
I doubt thy gagèd word!
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,
And pricked me with his sword.
 
 
“Nay, Captain, hold!  We skirt, not trace the course
Of Grouchy,” said I then:
“As we go, yonder went he, with his force
Of thirty thousand men.”
 
 
– At length noon nighed; when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,
A hoarse artillery boomed,
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,
The Prussian squadrons loomed.
 
 
Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;
“My mission fails!” he cried;
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,
For, peasant, you have lied!”
 
 
He turned to pistol me.  I sprang, and drew
The sabre from his flank,
And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,
I struck, and dead he sank.
 
 
I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat —
His shroud green stalks and loam;
His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note —
And then I hastened home,.
 
 
– Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,
And brass and iron clang
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,
To Pap’lotte and Smohain.
 
 
The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;
The Emperor’s face grew glum;
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,
And yet he does not come!”
 
 
’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,
Streaking the summer land,
The men of Blücher.  But the Emperor cried,
“Grouchy is now at hand!”
 
 
And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,
Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;
But Grouchy – mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt —
Grouchy was far away.
 
 
By even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,
Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,Smart Guyot,
Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant,
Scattered that champaign o’er.
 
 
Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau
Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard!.. And of the foe
Picton and Ponsonby;
 
 
With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,
L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,
 
 
Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,
And hosts of ranksmen round.
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee
Of those that bit the ground!
 
 
The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead
Lay between vale and ridge,
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped
In packs to Genappe Bridge.
 
 
Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;
Intact each cock and hen;
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,
And thirty thousand men.
 
 
O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn
And saved the cause once prized!
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne
When late I’d sympathized!.
 
 
So now, being old, my children eye askance
My slowly dwindling store,
And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,
I care for life no more.
 
 
To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,
And Virgin-Saint Marie;
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,
Entreat the Lord for me!
 

THE ALARM
(1803)

See “The Trumpet-Major”

In Memory of one of the Writer’s Family who was a

Volunteer during the War with Napoleon

 
In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.
 
 
’Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer.
 
 
In haste he’d flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
In these campaigning years.
 
 
’Twas time to be Good-bying,
Since the assembly-hour was nighing
In royal George’s town at six that morn;
And betwixt its wharves and this retreat were ten good miles of hieing
Ere ring of bugle-horn.
 
 
“I’ve laid in food, Dear,
And broached the spiced and brewed, Dear;
And if our July hope should antedate,
Let the char-wench mount and gallop by the halterpath and wood, Dear,
And fetch assistance straight.
 
 
 “As for Buonaparte, forget him;
He’s not like to land!  But let him,
Those strike with aim who strike for wives and sons!
And the war-boats built to float him; ’twere but wanted to upset him
A slat from Nelson’s guns!
 
 
“But, to assure thee,
And of creeping fears to cure thee,
If he should be rumoured anchoring in the Road,
Drive with the nurse to Kingsbere; and let nothing thence allure thee
Till we’ve him safe-bestowed.
 
 
“Now, to turn to marching matters: —
I’ve my knapsack, firelock, spatters,
Crossbelts, priming-horn, stock, bay’net, blackball, clay,
Pouch, magazine, flints, flint-box that at every quick-step clatters;
.. My heart, Dear; that must stay!”
 
 
– With breathings broken
Farewell was kissed unspoken,
And they parted there as morning stroked the panes;
And the Volunteer went on, and turned, and twirled his glove for token,
And took the coastward lanes.
 
 
When above He’th Hills he found him,
He saw, on gazing round him,
The Barrow-Beacon burning – burning low,
As if, perhaps, uplighted ever since he’d homeward bound him;
And it meant: Expect the Foe!
 
 
Leaving the byway,
And following swift the highway,
Car and chariot met he, faring fast inland;
“He’s anchored, Soldier!” shouted some: “God save thee, marching thy way,
Th’lt front him on the strand!”
 
 
He slowed; he stopped; he paltered
Awhile with self, and faltered,
“Why courting misadventure shoreward roam?
To Molly, surely!  Seek the woods with her till times have altered;
Charity favours home.
 
 
“Else, my denying
He would come she’ll read as lying —
Think the Barrow-Beacon must have met my eyes —
That my words were not unwareness, but deceit of her, while trying
My life to jeopardize.
 
 
“At home is stocked provision,
And to-night, without suspicion,
We might bear it with us to a covert near;
Such sin, to save a childing wife, would earn it Christ’s remission,
Though none forgive it here!”
 
 
While thus he, thinking,
A little bird, quick drinking
Among the crowfoot tufts the river bore,
Was tangled in their stringy arms, and fluttered, well-nigh sinking,
Near him, upon the moor.
 
 
He stepped in, reached, and seized it,
And, preening, had released it
But that a thought of Holy Writ occurred,
And Signs Divine ere battle, till it seemed him Heaven had pleased it
As guide to send the bird.
 
 
“O Lord, direct me!..
Doth Duty now expect me
To march a-coast, or guard my weak ones near?
Give this bird a flight according, that I thence know to elect me
The southward or the rear.”
 
 
He loosed his clasp; when, rising,
The bird – as if surmising —
Bore due to southward, crossing by the Froom,
And Durnover Great-Field and Fort, the soldier clear advising —
Prompted he wist by Whom.
 
 
Then on he panted
By grim Mai-Don, and slanted
Up the steep Ridge-way, hearkening betwixt whiles;
Till, nearing coast and harbour, he beheld the shore-line planted
With Foot and Horse for miles.
 
 
Mistrusting not the omen,
He gained the beach, where Yeomen,
Militia, Fencibles, and Pikemen bold,
With Regulars in thousands, were enmassed to meet the Foemen,
Whose fleet had not yet shoaled.
 
 
Captain and Colonel,
Sere Generals, Ensigns vernal,
Were there; of neighbour-natives, Michel, Smith,
Meggs, Bingham, Gambier, Cunningham, roused by the hued nocturnal
Swoop on their land and kith.
 
 
But Buonaparte still tarried;
His project had miscarried;
At the last hour, equipped for victory,
The fleet had paused; his subtle combinations had been parried
By British strategy.
 
 
Homeward returning
Anon, no beacons burning,
No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss,
Te Deum sang with wife and friends: “We praise Thee, Lord, discerning
That Thou hast helped in this!”
 

HER DEATH AND AFTER

 
’Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate —
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.
 
 
And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone —
Him who made her his own
When I loved her, long before.
 
 
The rooms within had the piteous shine
That home-things wear when there’s aught amiss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant’s call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.
 
 
Her life was the price she would pay for that whine —
For a child by the man she did not love.
“But let that rest for ever,” I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.
 
 
She took my hand in her thin white own,
And smiled her thanks – though nigh too weak —
And made them a sign to leave us there
Then faltered, ere
She could bring herself to speak.
 
 
“’Twas to see you before I go – he’ll condone
Such a natural thing now my time’s not much —
When Death is so near it hustles hence
All passioned sense
Between woman and man as such!
 
 
“My husband is absent.  As heretofore
The City detains him.  But, in truth,
He has not been kind.. I will speak no blame,
But – the child is lame;
O, I pray she may reach his ruth!
 
 
“Forgive past days – I can say no more —
Maybe if we’d wedded you’d now repine!.
But I treated you ill.  I was punished.  Farewell!
– Truth shall I tell?
Would the child were yours and mine!
 
 
“As a wife I was true.  But, such my unease
That, could I insert a deed back in Time,
I’d make her yours, to secure your care;
And the scandal bear,
And the penalty for the crime!”
 
 
– When I had left, and the swinging trees
Rang above me, as lauding her candid say,
Another was I.  Her words were enough:
Came smooth, came rough,
I felt I could live my day.
 
 
Next night she died; and her obsequies
In the Field of Tombs, by the Via renowned,
Had her husband’s heed.  His tendance spent,
I often went
And pondered by her mound.
 
 
All that year and the next year whiled,
And I still went thitherward in the gloam;
But the Town forgot her and her nook,
And her husband took
Another Love to his home.
 
 
And the rumour flew that the lame lone child
Whom she wished for its safety child of mine,
Was treated ill when offspring came
Of the new-made dame,
And marked a more vigorous line.
 
 
A smarter grief within me wrought
Than even at loss of her so dear;
Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,
Her child ill-used,
I helpless to interfere!
 
 
One eve as I stood at my spot of thought
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,
Her husband neared; and to shun his view
By her hallowed mew
I went from the tombs among
 
 
To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced —
That haggard mark of Imperial Rome,
Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime
Of our Christian time:
It was void, and I inward clomb.
 
 
Scarce night the sun’s gold touch displaced
From the vast Rotund and the neighbouring dead
When her husband followed; bowed; half-passed,
With lip upcast;
Then, halting, sullenly said:
 
 
“It is noised that you visit my first wife’s tomb.
Now, I gave her an honoured name to bear
While living, when dead.  So I’ve claim to ask
By what right you task
My patience by vigiling there?
 
 
“There’s decency even in death, I assume;
Preserve it, sir, and keep away;
For the mother of my first-born you
Show mind undue!
– Sir, I’ve nothing more to say.”
 
 
A desperate stroke discerned I then —
God pardon – or pardon not – the lie;
She had sighed that she wished (lest the child should pine
Of slights) ’twere mine,
So I said: “But the father I.
 
 
“That you thought it yours is the way of men;
But I won her troth long ere your day:
You learnt how, in dying, she summoned me?
’Twas in fealty.
– Sir, I’ve nothing more to say,
 
 
“Save that, if you’ll hand me my little maid,
I’ll take her, and rear her, and spare you toil.
Think it more than a friendly act none can;
I’m a lonely man,
While you’ve a large pot to boil.
 
 
“If not, and you’ll put it to ball or blade —
To-night, to-morrow night, anywhen —
I’ll meet you here.. But think of it,
And in season fit
Let me hear from you again.”
 
 
– Well, I went away, hoping; but nought I heard
Of my stroke for the child, till there greeted me
A little voice that one day came
To my window-frame
And babbled innocently:
 
 
“My father who’s not my own, sends word
I’m to stay here, sir, where I belong!
”Next a writing came: “Since the child was the fruit
Of your lawless suit,
Pray take her, to right a wrong.”
 
 
And I did.  And I gave the child my love,
And the child loved me, and estranged us none.
But compunctions loomed; for I’d harmed the dead
By what I’d said
For the good of the living one.
 
 
– Yet though, God wot, I am sinner enough,
And unworthy the woman who drew me so,
Perhaps this wrong for her darling’s good
She forgives, or would,
If only she could know!