“Indeed, I have heard of such things,” said Kellett, with a sigh; but he was evidently lending his assent on small security, because he cared little for the venture.
“How poor Jack loves you!” cried Bella, who, deep in her brother's letter, had paid no attention to what was passing; “he calls you Charley,—nothing but Charley.”
“My name is Charles Conway,” said the young man, smiling pleasantly.
“'Charley,'” read she, aloud, “'my banker when I have n't a shilling, my nurse in hospital, my friend always,—he 'll hand you this, and tell you all about me. How the dear old dad will love to hear his stories of campaigning life, so like his own Peninsular tales! He'll see that the long peace has not tamed the native pluck of the race, but that the fellows are just as daring, just as steady, just as invincible as ever they were; and he'll say, too, that to have won the friendship of such a comrade I must have good stuff in me also.'”
“Oh, if he hadn't gone away and left his old father!” broke in Kellett, lamentingly; “sure it was n't the time to leave me.”
“Wasn't it, though?” broke in the soldier; “I differ with you there. It was the very moment that every fellow with a dash of spirit about him should have offered his services. We can't all have commissions,—we can't all of us draw handsome allowances from our friends; but we can surely take our turn in the trenches, and man a battery; and it's not a bad lesson to teach the common fellow, that for pluck, energy, and even holding out, the gentleman is at least his equal.”
“I think it's the first of the name ever served in the ranks,” said the old man, who, with a perverse obstinacy, would never wander from this one idea.
“How joyously he writes!” continued Bella, as she bent over the letter: “'I see by the papers, dearest Bella, that we are all disgusted and dispirited out here,—that we have nothing but grievances about green coffee and raw pork, and the rest of it; don't believe a word of it. We do curse the Commissariat now and then. It smacks like epicurism to abuse the rations; but ask Charley if these things are ever thought of after we rise from dinner and take a peep at those grim old earthworks, that somehow seem growing every day, or if we grumble about fresh vegetables as we are told off for a covering party. There's plenty of fighting; and if any man has n't enough in the regular way, he can steal out of a clear night and have a pop at the Russians from a rifle-pit. I 'm twice as quick a shot as I was when I left home, and I confess the sport has double the excitement of my rambles after grouse over Mahers Mountain. It puts us on our mettle, too, to see our old enemies the French taking the work with us; not but they have given us the lion's share of it, and left our small army to do the same duties as their large one. One of the regiments in our brigade, rather than flinch from their share, returned themselves twelve hundred strong, while they had close upon three hundred sick,—ay, and did the work too. Ask dad if his Peninsulars beat that? Plenty of hardships, plenty of roughing, and plenty of hard knocks there are, but it's the jolliest life ever a fellow led, for all that. Every day has its own story of some dashing bit of bravery, that sets us all wild with excitement, while we wonder to ourselves what do you all think of us in England. Here comes an order to summon all to close their letters, and so I shut up, with my fondest affection to the dear old dad and yourself.
“'Ever yours,
“'Jack Kellett.