“My business abroad was not to teach but to learn,” he replied, smiling. “Yet there were some who used to ask me questions by the hour together about the ways of my own country. It was the examination that I was thus led into that induced me to consider the reasons and rules of our public and domestic economy in the way which makes my neighbours here come to me for advice.”
“What sort of people were they who used to question you?” I asked. “Soldiers do not generally study these matters much.”
“It is a pity they do not,” replied he, “so much opportunity as they have of observing the ways of different countries. Those that I speak of were mostly soldiers, however; they were my companions in the hospital where I lost my arm. I was confined there many weeks, and a prisoner too; so that I was glad to amuse my thoughts by conversation whenever I could get it.”
“You could speak Spanish, then?”
“I managed to pick up enough both of French and Spanish to make myself understood. If I had not, I should have been forlorn indeed, for not an Englishman was in that hospital but myself. I think I hardly could have borne to lose my liberty, my limb, and all intercourse with my countrymen at once, if I had been unable to talk with the people of the place. As it was, it was sad enough.”
“I have always wished,” said I, with some hesitation, “to hear the history of that terrible time from yourself; but I never ventured to ask it.”
The sergeant smiled as he assured me that I need not have scrupled, as it was a pleasure to him to go back to the remembrance of old times.
“I will begin with telling you, miss, how I got my wound. It was the first wound I ever had, though I had been often in the very thick of the fight. It was strange enough that on this particular day——”
Just at this moment the clock struck one. A shade passed over the face of the old man, and he stopped short. Knowing his passion for punctuality, I started up with many apologies for having detained him so long, and promised to call on him one day for his story, which it really was no little disappointment[disappointment] to me to give up for the present.
Before I left the churchyard, I looked back and saw that, though he was late for dinner, the sergeant had paused to look once more into his old friend’s grave.