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Read books online » Fiction » The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (kiss me liar novel english txt) 📖

Book online «The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (kiss me liar novel english txt) 📖». Author William Makepeace Thackeray



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Falls on 2nd day of September; and on the 14th of October following, the Rodney cutter arrived with the sad news in England. The attack had failed, the chief was sick, the army dwindling, the menaced city so strong that assault was almost impossible; “the only chance was to fight the Marquis of Montcalm upon terms of less disadvantage than attacking his entrenchments, and, if possible, to draw him from his present position.” Would the French chief, whose great military genius was known in Europe, fall into such a snare? No wonder there were pale looks in the City at the news, and doubt and gloom wheresoever it was known.

Three days after this first melancholy intelligence, came the famous letters announcing that wonderful consummation of fortune with which Mr. Wolfe's wonderful career ended. If no man is to be styled happy till his death, what shall we say of this one? His end was so glorious, that I protest not even his mother nor his mistress ought to have deplored it, or at any rate have wished him alive again. I know it is a hero we speak of; and yet I vow I scarce know whether in the last act of his life I admire the result of genius, invention, and daring, or the boldness of a gambler winning surprising odds. Suppose his ascent discovered a half-hour sooner, and his people, as they would have been assuredly, beaten back? Suppose the Marquis of Montcalm not to quit his entrenched lines to accept that strange challenge? Suppose these points—and none of them depend upon Mr. Wolfe at all—and what becomes of the glory of the young hero, of the great minister who discovered him, of the intoxicated nation which rose up frantic with self-gratulation at the victory? I say, what fate is it that shapes our ends, or those of nations? In the many hazardous games which my Lord Chatham played, he won this prodigious one. And as the greedy British hand seized the Canadas, it let fall the United States out of its grasp.

To be sure this wisdom d'apres coup is easy. We wonder at this man's rashness now the deed is done, and marvel at the other's fault. What generals some of us are upon paper! what repartees come to our mind when the talk is finished! and, the game over, how well we see how it should have been played! Writing of an event at a distance of thirty years, 'tis not difficult now to criticise and find fault. But at the time when we first heard of Wolfe's glorious deeds upon the Plains of Abraham—of that army marshalled in darkness and carried silently up the midnight river—of those rocks scaled by the intrepid leader and his troops—of that miraculous security of the enemy, of his present acceptance of our challenge to battle, and of his defeat on the open plain by the sheer valour of his conqueror—we were all intoxicated in England by the news. The whole nation rose up and felt itself the stronger for Wolfe's victory. Not merely all men engaged in the battle, but those at home who had condemned its rashness, felt themselves heroes. Our spirit rose as that of our enemy faltered. Friends embraced each other when they met. Coffee-houses and public places were thronged with people eager to talk the news. Courtiers rushed to the King and the great Minister by whose wisdom the campaign had been decreed. When he showed himself, the people followed him with shouts and blessings. People did not deplore the dead warrior, but admired his euthanasia. Should James Wolfe's friends weep and wear mourning, because a chariot had come from the skies to fetch him away? Let them watch with wonder, and see him departing, radiant; rising above us superior. To have a friend who had been near or about him was to be distinguished. Every soldier who fought with him was a hero. In our fond little circle I know 'twas a distinction to be Harry's brother. We should not in the least wonder but that he, from his previous knowledge of the place, had found the way up the heights which the British army took, and pointed it out to his General. His promotion would follow as a matter of course. Why, even our Uncle Warrington wrote letters to bless Heaven and congratulate me and himself upon the share Harry had had in the glorious achievement. Our Aunt Beatrix opened her house and received company upon the strength of the victory. I became a hero from my likeness to my brother. As for Parson Sampson, he preached such a sermon that his auditors (some of whom had been warned by his reverence of the coming discourse) were with difficulty restrained from huzzaing the orator, and were mobbed as they left the chapel. “Don't talk to me, madam, about grief,” says General Lambert to his wife, who, dear soul, was for allowing herself some small indulgence of her favourite sorrow on the day when Wolfe's remains were gloriously buried at Greenwich. “If our boys could come by such deaths as James's, you know you wouldn't prevent them from being shot, but would scale the Abraham heights to see the thing done! Wouldst thou mind dying in the arms of victory, Charley?” he asks of the little hero from the Chartreux. “That I wouldn't,” says the little man; “and the doctor gave us a holiday, too.”

Our Harry's promotion was insured after his share in the famous battle, and our aunt announced her intention of purchasing a company for him.





CHAPTER LXXV. The Course of True Love

Had your father, young folks, possessed the commonest share of prudence, not only would this chapter of his history never have been written, but you yourselves would never have appeared in the world to plague him in a hundred ways to shout and laugh in the passages when he wants to be quiet at his books; to wake him when he is dozing after dinner, as a healthy country gentleman should: to mislay his spectacles for him, and steal away his newspaper when he wants to read it; to ruin him with tailors' bills, mantua-makers' bills, tutors' bills, as you all of you do: to break his rest of nights when you have the impudence to fall ill, and when he would sleep undisturbed but that your silly mother will never be quiet for half an hour; and when Joan can't sleep, what use, pray, is there in Darby putting on his nightcap? Every trifling ailment that any one of you has had, has scared her so that I protest I have never been tranquil; and, were I not the most long-suffering creature in the world, would have liked to be rid of the whole pack of you. And now, forsooth, that you have grown out of childhood, long petticoats, chicken-pox, small-pox, whooping-cough, scarlet fever, and the other delectable accidents of puerile life, what must that unconscionable woman propose but to arrange the south rooms as a nursery for possible grandchildren, and set up the Captain with a wife, and make him marry early because we did! He is too fond, she says, of Brookes's and Goosetree's when he is in London. She has the perversity to hint that, though an entree to Carlton House may be very pleasant, 'tis very dangerous for a young gentleman: and she would have Miles live away from temptation, and sow his wild oats, and marry, as we did. Marry! my dear creature, we had no business to marry at all! By the laws of common prudence and duty, I ought to have backed out of my little engagement with Miss Theo (who would have married somebody else), and taken a rich wife. Your Uncle John was a parson and couldn't fight, poor Charley was a boy at school, and your grandfather was too old a man to call me to account with sword and pistol. I repeat there never was a more foolish match in the world than ours, and our relations were perfectly right in being angry with us. What are relations made for, indeed, but to be angry and find

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