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Updated: May 27, 2025
He reached the spot, seized Fieldsend by the shoulders, and by main force dragged him quickly a dozen yards to the right. It was a heavy task, but the lad was as sturdy a fellow of his years as one might have found in a week's march, and his efforts were rewarded with a cheer from his comrades.
Here it is, I fancy, and plenty of it." It was a striking sight on which the two friends looked for though the one was but a private and the other a commissioned officer, yet by this time Fieldsend and Fairburn had begun their life-long friendship.
When the two, in company with others, reached head quarters, Lieutenant Fieldsend presented the letter he held from Sir George Rooke, and was received with the utmost pleasantness by the great Duke. "Humph, Mr. Fieldsend," Marlborough began, when he had glanced over the contents of the short epistle. "You are a lucky young fellow to have got Sir George's good word.
From London, which George saw now for the first time, the two travelled all the way to Newcastle in the wonderful stage-coach which ran from the English to the Scotch capital. In high spirits they hurried towards their native village. At the entrance to it they came all at once upon a gentleman walking in the company of three ladies. "Fieldsend!" declared Matthew.
His father, Matthew, Fieldsend, even old Reuben all crowded around with delight. In no long time Mrs. Maynard and Mary Blackett appeared, smiling through their tears of joy at their great deliverance. The latter had so grown that George hardly recognized her. All came up except the old Squire, and he was presently found in an alarming condition, one of his old heart attacks having come on.
Fieldsend was already captain, and hoped ere the close of the 1707 campaign to get his majority. As for George Fairburn, he was quite content to be a soldier for soldiering's sake, yet would thankfully take promotion if it came his way. Blackett had paid a visit to the west-country home of the Fieldsends, and it was whispered that he had there found a mighty attraction.
His other friend, Fieldsend, was attached to a line regiment again. Bit by bit Lieutenant Blackett, during the next days, contrived to give his friend a full and vivid account of the great battle of Blenheim, just won by the Allies. He was not a great hand at a tale, whatever he might be on the field, and we may piece together his story for him.
With intense interest, Lieutenant Fieldsend and George Fairburn heard, on landing in the Netherlands, of the great victory of Blenheim that had just been gained by the Allies under Marlborough, against the combined French and Bavarian forces, commanded by the famous generals Tallard and Marsin, and the two young soldiers hoped to learn more of the great fight when they reached the front.
The Dorsetshire, with Captain Whitaker in command, was sent to capture a French privateer with twelve guns, which lay at the Old Mole, and the boom of cannon rose in the air. Presently, from near the spot where Lieutenant Fieldsend and his little company were posted, a shot was fired into the fortifications; then another, and afterwards a third. Work had begun at last.
But in the autumn of this year, 1706, while Fairburn was quartered at Antwerp, he received a letter from the lieutenant. It appeared that at his own request Fieldsend had been allowed to return to Spain, and he had served ever since under Lord Peterborough.
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