Page 266 - A Jacobite Exile

Chapter 15

: An Old Acquaintance.

The next morning Charlie was placed in a tent, in which lay several officers
who had been wounded, either the night before or by shots from the town.

He learned with great pleasure, upon questioning the doctor, that the
Swedes had got off safely in the darkness. Some eight or ten men only had

straggled and been made prisoners, and not more than twenty had been left
dead on the field. He had the satisfaction, therefore, of knowing that the
defence made by his own pikemen had been the means of saving the whole

force. In other respects he had nothing to complain of, for he was well
attended to, and received the same treatment as the Russians.

For another ten days the roar of the cannon continued, some seventy guns
keeping up an incessant fire on the town. At the end of that time the

governor capitulated, and was allowed to march out with the honours of
war.

Only forty out of the brave garrison remained unwounded at the end of the
siege. They, as well as such of their comrades as were strong enough to

travel, passed through the lines of the Russians, and marched to Vyburg.

Three weeks after being made a prisoner, Charlie's wound was so far healed
that the surgeon pronounced him able to sit a horse, and, under the escort of
an officer and four Cossacks, he was taken by easy stages to Bercov, a

prison fortress a short distance from Moscow. He had inquired from the
surgeon who attended him for Doctor Kelly. The doctor knew him, but said

that he was not with the army, but was, he believed, away visiting some
towns on the Volga, where a serious pestilence was raging.

Charlie remained but a short time at Bercov. His wound was healing
rapidly, and the surgeon who attended him assured him that there was every

prospect of his making a complete cure, if he would but keep his arm, for
some weeks, in a sling.