“What think you of packing the soldiers up in bombs, and shooting them out of mortars?” asked Roderick.
“Your majesty is pleased to jest,” observed the doctor gravely: “but ridicule is not argument.”
“Certainly not,” replied the King; “and you mistake me greatly if you think I meant to ridicule the plan. I only wished to remark that I feared it would be rather difficult to put it in execution.”
“That which can be accomplished without difficulty,” said the doctor, solemnly, “is scarcely worth the trouble of undertaking, and is quite below the consideration of a man of genius. Difficulties to a man of science are but incentives to action.”
“Most sensibly observed, my dear doctor,” cried Roderick; “however, as we have now reached our tent, I must leave you to contrive some plan to bring us back from Madrid, as I am afraid we cannot wait now to put your designs in practice to enable us to get there: we must march with the dawn. Of course you will accompany us.”
“Certainly!” returned the doctor, still musing; then muttering to himself—“I don’t much like the plan of shooting off the soldiers, it would take such large mortars and so much gunpowder:—however, there is no knowing what might be done: I will think of it:”—he retired to his tent, though no sleep visited his eyes that night, so completely had the idea of packing up the soldiers in bombs taken possession of his imagination.
Roderick’s arrangements were soon made, for Nature had certainly intended him for a general. His intelligent mind foresaw everything, and provided against every contingency. Brave in the field, and prudent in council, the only fault of Roderick as a soldier was that he sometimes suffered himself to be carried away by his ardour when it would have been wiser to delay. But this very impetuosity had its charms in the eyes of his soldiers, as he never hesitated to expose himself to the same dangers or to undergo the same privations as themselves, and they would all have followed him willingly into the very jaws of destruction.
After arranging everything for the morning’s march, the Irish hero snatched a few hours of repose. With the dawn, however, the drums beat the reveille, and the Irish army left Andalusia to advance by rapid marches upon Madrid.
XXVI
Whilst these scenes were taking place in Spain, Elvira was beginning to discover, in England, that it was not quite so delightful to be a Queen as she had previously imagined. The contending parties in the state had been roused into action by the late struggle, and party spirit is of all others the most difficult to conquer. Besides this, the choice of Elvira having been rather a matter of feeling than of judgment, men felt dissatisfied at having suffered themselves to be hurried away by their passions, and, as is usual in such cases, they were disposed to vent the ill-humour they felt at their own conduct upon everything which chanced to fall in their way. Thus, even the best measures of Elvira’s government were warmly criticised; and as she unfortunately altered some of her laws in consequence of these objections, the critics were encouraged to proceed; and fancying her compliance to be the result of weakness, when it was, in fact, only produced by her natural candour and love of justice, the people became more outrageous and troublesome with every concession that was made to them.
Elvira’s intentions were excellent, but by unfortunately wishing to please everyone, she destroyed their effect. This made her councils vacillating, and her measures uncertain: nothing indeed but the strength of mind and commanding genius of Edmund, joined to his complete devotion to her cause, could have prevented the ruin of her government almost in the moment of its formation. From a mistaken motive of generosity, she had retained in her council those lords who had most vehemently opposed her, though, in compliance with the wishes of Edmund, they were shorn of their beams. This was a fatal error; half measures are always dangerous: the lords in question should have been discarded altogether, or retained in their former seats; as it was, Elvira had made them enemies, and yet left them the power to sting her.
The emissaries of Rosabella were also very active, and the ferment of the public mind excessive. The taste the people had just enjoyed of power, had only been enough to make them long for more. They had only just began to relish its sweets, when the dish was snatched away from them; though, if it had been left them to devour, they would have soon been cloyed and disgusted with its taste. Discontents became general, disturbances arose, which were no sooner quelled in one quarter than they broke out in another, and these petty insurrections, though almost too trivial to mention, were excessively annoying. For trifling inconveniences, like a host of flies buzzing round a nervous man on a sultry day, are often more irritating to the temper, than serious grievances; and the noble mind of Edmund was wearied in subduing such paltry enemies.
“They want employment,” said he one day to the Queen, after reading a dispatch containing an account of one of the most vexatious of these tumults; “you must build bridges and cut canals to amuse them.”
The active mind of Elvira caught eagerly at the idea, and she vainly fancied her name would be handed down to posterity as one of the greatest of Queens, who, though in the bloom of youth and pride of beauty, did not hesitate to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, and to devote that time to their welfare and the improvement of her kingdom, which others of her age and rank wasted in mere amusements.
Delighted with the thought, Elvira did not delay a moment
