As the 95th halted for a brief spell at a hamlet, Corporal Wilkes, his tanned, weather-beaten cheeks drawn and pinched, came up to his captain and said:
"Sir, Sergeant Jones's wife is dead."
"God help the poor fellow!" said Captain O'Hare; "what'll he do now with those two little children? How are they?"
"Well, sir, and cosy; that good woman gave her life for them. The sergeant's crazy, sir, and the wagon's come to grief that they were riding in. I thought, sir—"
"Well?"
"I wouldn't like to leave 'em behind, sir, and the sergeant's as weak as a rat and can hardly trail his pike. Couldn't I carry one, sir?"
"Sure an' you can. Take turns with another man. And the other one—the poor little colleen—"
"Pomeroy and I will look after her," said Jack. "It'll give us something to think about. We'll either carry her by turns or get some of our best men to do it."
And so it happened that for the rest of the retreat two little children, a boy and a girl, rode along in the rain on the shoulders of tender-hearted Riflemen, who talked to them and cheered them, so that the small things, all unconscious of their irreparable loss, prattled and laughed and felt exceedingly proud of their unusual altitude.
It is the morning of January 10th; the regiments are climbing the face of a range of hills, the last, they have been told, that intervene between them and the harbour of Corunna. The rain has ceased, the sky clears, and as the drenched and footsore warriors top the crest the sun bursts through a lingering cloud and throws its low beams from behind them.