It was not to be wondered at that, during their third day in the forest, Roger was constantly looking over his shoulder, and frequently tempted to force the pace. But he could not do that for, although gallant little Mary trudged doggedly on, she had now to lean on his arm for most of the time, and was fast approaching exhaustion.
At last, on the Friday, their fourth day after leaving French Mills, they emerged from the forest to see again the valley through which the St. Lawrence ran. A high cliff still prevented them from getting down to the river, but Roger heaved a great sigh of relief when Leaping Squirrel told him that within two hours they would be across it.
After walking for a little over a mile, the Indian led them to the edge of the cliff and pointed to the right. Immediately below them were rapids with water foaming between a number of big, flattish rocks, and nearer the bank several large, swirling pools. But further along the cliff was rugged and broken, where there had been a landslide, making it possible to climb down to the water, and there it was smooth.
For some minutes they gazed down at the river; then, just as they turned away, a great bald-headed eagle swooped, screeching, down upon them. Evidently its nest was below the place where they were standing on the edge of the cliff, and it feared they were about to harm its young.
Mary gave a cry of fright and swiftly backed away from the big, terrifying bird. Next second she uttered a piercing scream. She had retreated too far and put a foot over
the cliff edge. Roger dashed forward, but was too late to grab her. Flinging himself flat, he looked over, praying that she might have landed on a ledge. But she had not. His eyes starting from his head, he saw her, a whirling bundle of furs, hurtling downward until, with a great splash, she hit one of the pools and disappeared.
8
News out of Portugal
It was on the evening of April 6th, while Roger and Mary were on their way with Leaping Squirrel from French Mills to the place at which the latter hoped to get them across the St. Lawrence, that a Captain John Harley of the 47th Foot delivered to Lady Luggala's residence a packet addressed to Jemima. She did not receive it until she returned from a rout soon after two o'clock in the morning.
Seeing that it was addressed in Charles's writing, Jemima bade Lady Luggala a swift goodnight, went straight up to her room and tore open the packet with eager fingers. To her delight, she found that it contained a letter several pages in length. Its opening, 'Most beautiful and adorable of the Sex", caused her to flush with pleasure, and quickly she read on:
'You will, I trust, have received my missive despatched by a sloop sailing from Lisbon within a few hours of my landing, just to inform you that, although we met rough weather in the Bay of Biscay, being a good sailor I arrived none the worse for that’
Jemima had not received such a missive, but at once assumed that either it had gone astray or the sloop had been sunk. The letter continued:
'In Lisbon I spent several very pleasant days, as I had brought with me a letter of introduction to the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles Stuart, our Minister in that city; and, after reporting to the Garrison Commander I went straight to the Legation. There I was most kindly received by Sir Charles and his lady, who insisted I should be their guest until I received orders to proceed to the front.
'At two dinner parties given by the Stuarts, and other entertainments to which I was invited, I met as well as numerous British officers several Portuguese Generals and Ministers and their wives, and all cannot speak too highly of His Grace of Wellington's conduct of the campaign. And well they may, since with an army that until recently rarely numbered more than sixty thousand men, for four long years he has bedevilled the French, who at times had four hundred thousand men in the Peninsula, driven them from Portugal and has now freed half Spain.
'The Stuarts have living with them their niece, Deborah —a poor, pale hop-pole of a girl who suffers from shyness, but is a kindly creature. On two occasions I drove out, with her as my guide, to see the now famous "Lines of Torres Vedras", behind which our army remained secure during the winter of 1810-11. The earthworks and innumerable bastions in this great double line of fortifications are of such amazing strength that no-one, having seen them, can be surprised that Marshal Massena, despite his great superiority in numbers, realised that any attempt to force them would have led to the massacre of his army. For his failure to make the attempt Bonaparte recalled and broke him. That, to my mind, was cutting off his nose to spite his face, for it is generally held that Massena was the ablest of all the French Marshals.
'It transpired that Deborah had known Uncle Roger, as he stayed here with the Stuarts during the Spring of 1811. At that time she had with her an ex-school friend, one Lady Mary Ware with whom, I gather, Uncle R had a secret affair, during which Miss D acted as their confidante. The last Miss D heard of Lady M was in the following autumn—that she was about to marry a wealthy merchant. Since then D's letters have been returned marked "gone from here", and I could give her no news of Uncle R, since he left England on one of his secret missions some fifteen months ago.
'I need no telling how distant our war here is to people at home in England. It is scarcely even mentioned by society belles like yourself, except when news comes of some relative killed or seriously wounded. And I'll confess that I hardly gave it a thought myself except when there had been occasion to celebrate a victory. But now that I am involved, I feel you will want to know something of the situation in the Peninsula and of our prospects.
‘It has been a grim struggle and our army would long since have been defeated and driven into the sea had it not been for the brilliance of our great commander, and the fact that the enemy had for years to hold down all but a tiny corner of Spain, and the greater part of Portugal. It is this last that, in spite of their enormous superiority in numbers, has prevented them from ever being able to bring against us in the open field a force greatly exceeding our own. And the Duke is truly inspired. Again and again, whenever he has found himself in an unfavourable position, he has had the courage to invite censure by retiring, as he has twice done from Madrid; yet, time after time when opportunity offered, he has caught the French off their guard by clever stratagems, launched a lightning attack and destroyed whole divisions of them.
'We also owe far more than people realise to the Portuguese and the Spaniards. While behind the lines of Torres Vedras the Duke embodied and trained many regiments of the former. They are well disciplined troops and in battles since have displayed high courage. The contribution by the Spaniards has been still greater, although at times their forces have proved a dubious asset.
'As at least you will know, owing to Cadiz being situated at the end of a narrow eight-mile long peninsula the Spaniards succeeded in retaining that city and there formed a Junta which, after the flight of their King, assembled a Cortes that declared itself the government of Spain, and later entered into an official alliance with us. Incited by their fanatical priests, all but a very small part of the population in the north and south of Spain accepted the orders of the Junta and rose in revolt against their conquerors. Not only did they raise half a dozen armies, but also innumerable bands of fierce irregulars living in the mountains have constantly harassed the French from one end of the country to the other, cutting their communications and capturing convoys of supplies.