In an agony of affright my fair friend desired me to run up stairs to the first landing, and as I valued my life, not to stir from it until she should come to fetch me.
Misfortunes they say seldom come single, and so I found it, for I had scarcely reached the desired place when the voice of the sentry thundered, "Guard, turn out!" and conveyed to me the very pleasant information that the grand rounds approached, while I, the officer of the guard, was absent, the captive of a damsel. I was in a precious scrape; for, prior to the arrival of the other evil, I held it to be somewhat more than doubtful whether I was reserved for a kiss or a kick, but the odds were now two to one in favour of the latter, for if I did not find my way outside the walls within three quarters of a minute, it was quite certain that if I failed to receive what was due to me inside the house I should catch it outside, by getting kicked from the service. My case was therefore desperate, and as the voice of papa was still heard at the stair-foot and precluded the possibility of bolting undetected by the door, my only alternative was the stair window.
The field officer was passing under it as I threw up the sash, and though the distance to the ground loomed fearfully long there was no time for deliberation, but bundling out, and letting myself down by the hands as far as I could, I took my chance of the remainder and came down on the pavement with such a tremendous clatter that I thought I had been shivered to atoms. The noise fortunately startled the field officer's horse, so that it was as much as he could do to keep his seat for the moment, which gave me time to gather myself up; when, telling him that in my hurry to get to my place before him, I had stumbled against a lamp post and fallen, the affair passed away without further notice, but my aching bones, for many an after-day, would not permit me to forget the adventure of that night.
In my next turn for guard at the same place I got a glimpse of my fair friend, and but for once. I saw on my arrival that the family were in marching order, and my old acquaintance, the hand, soon after presented me with a billet announcing their immediate departure for the season, to a distant watering place. She lamented the accident which she feared had befallen me, and as she thought it probable that we would never meet again, she begged that I would forgive and look upon it merely as the badinage of a giddy girl.
SHOT THE SIXTH.
At a sore subject.
"They who can feel for other's woes should ne'er have cause to mourn their own!" so sayeth the poet, and so should I say if I saw them feeling; but I have found such a marvellous scarcity of those tender-hearted subjects on the field of battle, that, in good sooth, if the soldier had not a tear to shed for his own woes, he stood a very good chance of dying unwept, which may either be considered a merry or a dreary end, according to the notion of the individual.
In taking a comparative view of the comforts attending a sea and land fight, I know not what evils our nautical brethren may have to contend against, which we have not; but they have this advantage over us—that, whatever may be the fate of the day, they have their bed and breakfast, and their wounds are promptly attended to. This shot, be it observed, is especially fired at the wounded.
When a man is wounded the corps he belongs to is generally in action, and cannot spare from the ranks the necessary assistance, so that he is obliged to be left to the tender mercies of those who follow after, and they generally pay him the attention due to a mad dog, by giving him as wide a berth as they possibly can—so that he often lies for days in the field without assistance of any kind.
Those who have never witnessed such scenes will be loth to believe that men's hearts can get so steeled; but so it is—the same chance befals the officer as the soldier, and one anecdote will illustrate both.