Page:Life of the honourable Col. James Gardiner (1).pdf/4

 lay all night in the field, agitated, as may well be supposed, with a great variety of thoughts. When lie reflected upon the circumstances of his wound, that a ball should, as he then conceived it, go through his head, without killing him, he thought God had preserved him by a miracle; and therefore assuredly concluded that he should live, abandoned and desperate as his condition then seemed. Yet had he little thoughts of humbling himself before God, and returning to him after the wanderings of a life so licentiously begun. But hoping he should recover, his mind was taken up with contrivances to secure his gold, of which he had nearly 20 pistoles about him, and had recourse to a very odd expedient. Expecting to be stripped, he took out a handful of clotted gore, of which he was frequently obliged to clear his mouth; and putting it into his left hand, he took out his money, and, shutting his hand, besmeared the back of it with blood; in this position he kept it, till the blood so dried, that his hand could not easily fall open.

In the morning, the French, who were masters of that spot, though defeated at some distance, came to plunder the slain, and seeing him, to appearance almost expiring, one of them was just applying a sword to his breast, to destroy the little remainder of life; when, in the critical moment, a cordelier, who attended them, interposed taking him by his dress for a Frenchman, and said, "Do not kill the poor child.” Our young soldier heard all that passed, though he was not able to speak one word; and, opening his eyes made a sign for something to drink. They gave him a sup of some spiritous liquor, which happened to be at hand; from which he said he derived more sensible refreshment than he could remember from any thing he had ever tasted before or since. Then asking, by signs, the friar to lean down his ear to his mouth, he employed the first efforts of his feeble breath in telling him (what, alas was a contrived falsehood) that he was nephew to the governor pf Huy, a neutral town in the neighbourhood,