“Your master likes his feather pillow better than a mossy stone under his head, I’m thinking; and he ain’t far wrong either.”
“You’re out there, Neighbor. It’s himself cares as little for hardship as any one of you; and sure it’s not becoming me to say it, but the best blood and the best bred was always the last to give in for either cold or hunger, ay, or even complain of it.”
Mike’s few words shot upon me a new and a sudden conviction,—what was to prevent my joining once more? Obvious as such a thought now was, yet never until this moment did it present itself so palpably. So habituated does the mind become to a certain train of reasoning, framing its convictions according to one preconceived plan, and making every fact and every circumstance concur in strengthening what often may be but a prejudice,—that the absence of the old Fourteenth in India, the sale of my commission, the want of rank in the service, all seemed to present an insurmountable barrier to my re-entering the army. A few chance words now changed all this, and I saw that as a volunteer at least, the path of glory was still open, and the thought was no sooner conceived, than the resolve to execute it. While, therefore, I walked hurriedly up and down, devising, planning, plotting, and contriving, each instant I would stop to ask myself how it happened I had not determined upon this before.
As I summoned Mike before me, I could not repress a feeling of false shame, as I remembered how suddenly so natural a resolve must seem to have been adopted; and it was with somewhat of hesitation that I opened the conversation.
“And so, sir, you are going after all,—long life to you? But I never doubted it. Sure, you wouldn’t be your father’s son, and not join divarsion when there was any going on.”
The poor fellow’s eyes brightened up, his look gladdened, and before he reached the foot of the stairs, I heard his loud cheer of delight that once more we were off to the wars.
The packet sailed for Liverpool the next morning. By it we took our passage, and on the third morning I found myself in the waiting-room at the Horse Guards, expecting the moment of his Royal Highness’s arrival; my determination being to serve as a volunteer in any regiment the duke might suggest, until such time as a prospect presented itself of entering the service as a subaltern.
The room was crowded by officers of every rank and arm in the service. The old, gray-headed general of division; the tall, stout-looking captain of infantry; the thin and boyish figure of the newly-gazetted cornet,—were all there; every accent, every look that marked each trait of national distinction in the empire, had its representative. The reserved and distant Scotchman; the gay, laughing, exuberant Patlander; the dark-eyed, and dark-browed North Briton,—collected in groups, talked eagerly together; while every instant, as some new arrival would enter, all eyes would turn to the spot, in eager expectation of the duke’s coming. At last the clash of arms, as the guard turned out, apprised us of his approach, and we had scarcely time to stand up and stop the buzz of voices, when the door opened, and an aide-de-camp proclaimed in a full tone,—
“His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief!”
Bowing courteously on every side, he advanced through the crowd, turning his rapid and piercing look here and there through the room, while with that tact, the essential gift of his family, he recognized each person by his name, directing from one to the other some passing observation.