"Are you really venturing to accuse the General of cowardice?" said Madame L.
"Yes," said Madame de B., "I want him to tell Mrs. Crowe a ghost story—a thing that he saw himself—and he pooh, poohs it, though he owned it to me before we were married, and since too, saying that he never could have believed such a thing if he had not seen it himself."
While the wife was making this little tirade, the husband looked as if she was accusing him of picking somebody's pocket—il perdait contenance quite. "Now, look at him," she said, "don't you see guilt in his face, Mrs. Crowe?"
"Decidedly," I answered; "so experienced a seeker of ghost stories as myself cannot fail to recognise the symptoms. I always find that when the circumstances is mere hearsay, and happened to nobody knows who, people are very ready to tell it; when it has happened to one of their own family, they are considerably less communicative, and will only tell it under protest; but when they are themselves the parties concerned, it is the most difficult thing imaginable to induce them to relate the thing seriously, and with its details; they say they have forgotten it, and don't believe it; and as an evidence of their incredulity, they affect to laugh at the whole affair. If the General will tell me the story, I shall think it quite as decisive a proof of courage as he ever gave in the field."
Betwixt bantering and persuasion, we succeeded in our object, and the General began as follows:—
"You know the Belgian Rebellion (he always called it so) took place in 1830. It broke out at Brussels on the 28th of August, and we immediately advanced with a considerable force to attack that city; but as the Prince of Orange hoped to bring the people to reason, without bloodshed, we encamped at Vilvorde, whilst he entered Brussels alone, to hold a conference with the armed people. I was a Lieutenant-Colonel then, and commanded the 20th foot, to which regiment I had been lately appointed.
"We had been three or four days in cantonment, when I heard two of the men, who were digging a little drain at the back of my tent, talking of Jokel Falck, a private in my regiment, who was noted for his extraordinary disposition to somnolence, one of them remarked that he would certainly have got into trouble for being asleep on his post the previous night, if it had not been for Mungo. 'I don't know how many times he has saved him,' added he.
"To which the other answered, that Mungo was a very valuable friend, and had saved many a man from punishment.
"This was the first time I had ever heard of Mungo, and I rather wondered who it was they alluded to; but the conversation slipt from my mind and I never thought of asking any body.
"Shortly after this I was going my rounds, being field-officer of the day, when I saw by the moonlight, the sentry at one of the outposts stretched upon the ground. I was some way off when I first perceived him; and I only knew what the object was from the situation, and because I saw the glitter of his accoutrements; but almost at the same moment that I discovered him, I observed a large black Newfoundland dog trotting towards him. The man rose as the dog approached, and had got upon his legs before I reached the spot. This occupied the space of about two minutes—perhaps, not so much.