"Well, when I'm dead, I want you to do summut for me, and I'll give you all I have in the world. My kit's wore out, ever so long ago, but I've three biscuits in my havresack, and you're welcome to them; give one to poor Pat Riley's widow."
"But wot am I to do for you, Bill?"
"Close my right eye, Tom; dont'ee forget; the cursed French knocked t'other out at Vimiera."
"Yes, Bill—I was wounded that day, too."
Bill's eye was closed, and the snow and the sods were over him within an hour after this, and close by Tom sat, munching his legacy, for he was starving, with his fierce moist eyes fixed on the little mound where his old comrade lay.
CHAPTER XV.
A SMILE OF FORTUNE.
"But little; I am arm'd, and well prepared.—
Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare-you-well!
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom."—The Merchant of Venice.
No music was heard now on that dreary retreat. The bagpipes of the indomitable Highlanders sent up their bold, wild skirl at times upon the winter blast, showing where the Camerons, the Gordon Highlanders, or the Black Watch trod bare-knee'd through the snow; but no other quickstep met the ear; even Leslie's march cheered the Borderers no more; and many a man among them wished himself with the other battalions of the corps, broiling in India, or serving anywhere but in Spain.
To reach their transports and abandon the country by sea, without risking the slaughter of a useless battle with those whose numbers were so overwhelming, was, for a time, the sole object of the British generals.