Busy as Lord Strathern was, he failed not to remark
Moodie's prompt, methodical, and energetic labors. He pronounced him
the prince of quartermasters, and a heavy loss to the army. "The old
fellow would evacuate a fortress, or conduct a retreat with the
precision of a parade, and not leave even a dropped cartridge to the
enemy behind him." In fact, had Marshal Soult sworn to sack Elvas
to-morrow, Moodie could not have been more on the alert in getting
Lady Mabel ready to leave it. Not that he was afraid of a
Frenchman--he would willingly have faced him, and made his mark upon
him--but when all might be lost, and nothing gained by staying,
Moodie, like Xenophon, was proving his soldiership by a speedy, yet
orderly retreat. He was carrying off Lady Mabel, _via_ the villages of
Lisbon and London, to his stronghold of Craggy-side, where, he
trusted, she would be safe from L'Isle and Popery.
Many signs of a speedy flitting were now seen about head-quarters.
Lady Mabel sat melancholy and alone in her half-dismantled
drawing-room. To-morrow, she is again to enter the desert of Alemtejo,
on her way back to Lisbon. What a relief she would have found in busy
preparations, even for that dull journey, now robbed of all the charms
of novelty and expectation; but Moodie's industrious alacrity had
deprived her even of this resource.
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