by Mary Howitt.
Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.2 #37 (11 Sep 1847).
I was walking near the Bank; the morning was splendid; every body looked full of life and cheerfulness. I had just left a pleasant suburb, where the gardens were full of roses and sunshine, and now, having transacted my little business, I was again about to return thither. Amid the cheerful crowd which filled the street, I saw in the distance, and turning a corner, the regular movements of a small company of soldiers; they marched on one side of the middle of the road, and their shouldered muskets and scarlet uniform glittered in the bright sunshine. As they approached, I saw that they were only four, though they made so much show at a distance, and between the two first, walked a fifth; not in uniform,—but, God help him, I saw at a glance that he was a deserter. He was a tall, rather awkward and sunburnt-looking young man; he wore a peasant's dress; a round hat, blue carter's frock, and ancle boots; this was the disguise in which he had been taken, the disguise in which he had hoped to escape again to freedom; his hands were secured by hand-cuffs, and his countenance had a determined, and yet at the same time such a dejected air, as went to my very heart. I looked kindly at him as they passed, but I did not catch his eye; all the women turned round and looked at him with pity also.
Poor fellow, under that blue smock-frock beat a heart which in any case had suffered much; he had enlisted, and what had been the history of that enlistment I could not tell; no doubt bitter repentance had succeeded it; hopes and fears had fluctuated in his breast, and perhaps as a recruit he had deserted. I thought, however, by the look of the man, that it was the regular soldier, and not the recruit that had done so, and that made his offence the heavier. Whatever his sorrow, or dissatisfactions, or sufferings had been, he had dared the utmost; had left the ranks; had become a felon according to military law, and as a felon had pursued. In this disguise he had hidden; in this disguise he had been taken; he, that unfortunate being, had experienced all the agony, all the anxiety of the hot pursuit, the hope of escape; the lessening chances of it; the misery, the terror, the despair, of unsuccess, defeat, and detection! He had been dragged forth from some hiding-place which had failed to conceal him; he had felt the appalling certainty that the chances now were all against him; hope, remonstrance, resistance, vain! The fetters were on his hands; the musket ready to discharge its contents if he now did not submissively march off to disgrace, degradation, and death! and now here he was, marching through the streets of London to Hounslow, or Knightsbridge, or Chatham barracks, as it might be.
My heart was filled with sympathy and the deepest compassion. Whatever his sins had been, either against God or against man, he had suffered much, and had still more to suffer. I wished it had been in my power to pour, like the good Samaritan, oil and wine into his wounds. Close behind this melancholy group walked a strong-built, able-bodied man, although in the decline of life; he evidently belonged to them, and his sad and earnest countenance convinced me at once that he was the father of the young man; I turned round and walked on by his side.
"This is a poor deserter," said I.
"God help him," said the man.
"Is then his case a bad one?" asked I.
The man looked me in the face for a second or two, and seeing, no doubt, that it expressed the compassion and sympathy which I felt, he said,
"I am afraid it is a bad case; I am his father; he was sick of the service; he had not been two years in it. He was flogged unmercifully for what they called insolence to a superior, and so he ran away. He came home to us; he was pursued and taken; he knew his case was a bad one; so he made a desperate resistance, and one of the soldiers got wounded—not badly, but they swear it was his doing—God knows; but it will finish him, there's no doubt of it;—he will be shot!"—The man did not shed a tear.
My eye dwelt on the poor deserter, who walked on through the crowded streets, and amid the glorious sunshine, with his downcast, and determined countenance; he knew that death was before him.
"It is a bad case," said the man, "very bad, but there's many a guiltier man than he, who will sit in court-martial over him. I am his father, and as I know they would all take against him, I determined to stand by him. They say I shan't be allowed to speak to him, or for him, but I think they can't be so hard-hearted as that. It will be a comfort to him, at any rate, to know that his father pitied him, and they tell me that shooting is not a painful death—it's only the thought of it beforehand!"
The flood-gates of the father's heart were open; he talked of his son's boyhood and youth: to quote the words of Southey, which exactly suited the occasion,—
"He grew up
A comely lad and wondrous well-disposed;
I taught him well; there was not in the parish
A child who said his prayers more regular,
Or answered readier through his catechism.
If I had foreseen this!—But 'tis a blessing
We don't know what we're born to."
Again I looked on the deserter, marching to death, with unspeakable pity. If there be reality in that mysterious spiritual agency of which we read, by which one human being may influence the mind of another, I would fain hope that my human love might cast over his sad heart a benign and soothing influence, like the wafting of ah angel's wing.
"Be not too much cast down, poor human brother," said my spirit; "thy offence, though it may be great in the eye of military law, is not past forgiveness in the eye of thy Father in Heaven. Lift up thy down-cast eyes, and let thy troubled heart take comfort; thou hast broken thy soldier's oath, thou hast wounded another in self-defence; for this thou shalt pay the forfeit of thy life; but what then? thy very comrades whose muskets shall send a bullet through thy heart, may themselves, ere long, die by gunpowder or the sword,—may lie bleeding and mangled for hours, which shall seem like ages of agony. This it is for which the soldier enlists, and thy death will be merciful in comparison. As to the disgrace of which they will say so much, let not thy heart sink within thee on that account; better to die disgraced in the eye of man, young in crime, and abhorring the soldier's life with its moral degradation and pollution, disguise it as they may under the glitter and pomp of military show, than live to become hardened and corrupted by it, and die on the 'bed of glory,' or be buried with military honours even, at last! Thy case, poor deserter, is not really so bad after all; thou hast paid for thy follies—thou hast plucked of the tree of knowledge, and eaten its bitter fruits; for the rest, be a man, and fear not overmuch; trust in God, and all may be well with thee, even yet!"