"What is the signal for us to advance?" I inquired.

"Four rockets," replied Dyneley, our adjutant, who was on foot, with
his sword drawn, and a revolver in his belt.

"There go the French to attack the tower!" cried Gwynne; and then a
hum of admiration stole along our lines as we saw them, at precisely
five minutes to twelve o'clock, "like a swarm of bees," issue from
their trenches, the Linesmen in kepis and long blue coats, the Zouaves
in turbans and baggy red breeches, under a terrible shower of cannon
and musketry, fiery in their valour, quick, ardent, and eager! They
swept over the little space of open ground that lay between the head
of their sap, and, irresistible in their number, poured on a sea of
armed men, a living tide, a human surge, section after section, and
regiment after regiment, to the assault.

    "O'er ditch and stream, o'er crest and wall,
     They jump and swarm, they rise and fall;
     With _vives_ and _cris_, with cheers and cries.
     Like thunderings in autumnal skies;
     Till every foot of ground is mud,
     With tears and brains and bones and blood.
     Yet, faith, it was a grim delight
     To see the little devils fight!"

With wonderful speed and force, their thousands seemed to drift
through the gaping embrasures of the tower, which appeared to swallow
them up--all save the dead and dying, who covered the slope of the
glacis; and in _two_ minutes more the tricolor of France was waving on
the summit of the Korniloff bastion!

But the work of the brave French did not end there. From twelve till
seven at night, they had to meet and repulse innumerable attempts of
the Russians to regain what they had lost--the great tower, which was
really the key of the city; till, in weariness and despair, the latter
withdrew, leaving the slopes covered with corpses that could only be
reckoned by thousands. The moment the French standard fluttered out
above the blue smoke and grimy dust of the tower, a vibration seemed
to pass along all our ranks. Every face lit up; every eye kindled;
every man instinctively grasped more tightly the barrel of his musket,
or the blade of his sword, or set his cap more firmly on his head, for
the final rush.

"The tricolor is on the Malakoff! By heavens, the French are in!
hurrah!" cried several officers.

"Hurrah!" responded the stormers of the Light and Second Divisions.

"There go the rockets!" cried Phil Caradoc, pointing with his sword to
where the tiny jets of sparkles were seen to curve in the wind against
the dull leaden sky, their explosion unheard amid the roar of musketry
and of human voices in and beyond the Malakoff.

"Ladders, to the front! eight men per ladder!" said Welsford, of the
97th.

"It is our turn now, lads; forward, forward!" added some one
else--Raymond Mostyn, of the Rifles, I think.

"There is a five-pound note offered to the first man inside the
Redan!" exclaimed little Owen Tudor, a drummer of ours, as he slung
his drum and went scouring to the front: but a bullet killed the poor
boy instantly, and Welsford had his head literally blown off by a
cannon ball.

In their dark green uniforms, which were patched with many a rag, a
hundred men of the Rifle Brigade who carried the scaling ladders
preceded us; and the moment they and we began to issue, which we did
at a furious run, with bayonets fixed and rifles at the short trail,
from the head of the trenches, the cannon of the Redan opened a
withering fire upon us. The round shot tore up the earth beneath our
feet, or swept men away by entire sections, strewing limbs and other
fragments of humanity everywhere; the exploding shells also dealt
death and mutilation; the grape and cannister swept past in whistling
showers; and wicked little shrapnels were flying through the air like
black spots against the sky; while, with a hearty and genuine English
"hurrah!" that deepened into a species of fierce roar, we swept
towards the ditch which so few of us might live to recross.

Thick fall our dead on every hand, and the hoarse boom of the cannon
is sounding deep amid the roar of the concentrated musketry. Crawling
and limping back to the trenches for succour and shelter, the groaning
or shrieking wounded are already pouring in hundreds to the rear,
reeking with blood; and, within a minute, the whole slope of the Redan
is covered with our redcoats--the dead or the helpless--thick as the
leaves lie "when forests are rended!"

CHAPTER LV.--INSIDE THE REDAN.

One enormous cannon-shot that struck the earth and stones threw up a
cloud of dust which totally blinded the brave brigadier who led us; he
was thus compelled to grope his way to the rear, while his place was
taken by Lieutenant-colonel W. H. Bunbury of ours--a tried soldier,
who had served in the Kohat-Pass expedition five years before this,
and been Napier's aide-de-camp during the wars of India. The
Honourable Colonel Handcock, who led three hundred men of the 97th and
of the Perthshire Volunteers, fell mortally by a ball in the head.
Colonel Lysons of ours (who served in the Canadian affair of St.
Denis), though wounded in the thigh and unable to stand, remained on
the ground, and with brandished sword cheered on the stormers.

The actual portion of the latter followed those who bore the scaling
ladders, twenty of which were apportioned to the Buffs; and no time
was to be lost now, as the Russians from the Malakoff, inflamed by
blood, defeat, and fury, were rushing down in hordes to aid in the
defence of the Redan. In crossing the open ground between our trenches
and the point of attack, some of the ladders were lost or left behind,
in consequence of their bearers being shot down; yet we reached the
edge of the ditch and planted several without much difficulty, till
the Russians, after flocking to the traverses which enfiladed them,
opened a murderous fusillade upon those who were crossing or getting
into the embrasures, when we planted them on the other side; and then
so many officers and men perished, that Windham and three of the
former were the only leaders of parties who got in untouched.

The scene in the ditch, where the dead and the dying, the bleeding,
the panting, and exhausted lay over each other three or four deep, was
beyond description; and at a place called the Picket House was one
solitary English lady, watching this terrible assault, breathless and
pale, putting up prayers with her white lips; and her emotions at such
a time may be imagined when I mention that she was the wife of an
officer engaged in the assault, Colonel H----, whose body was soon
after borne past her on a stretcher.

When my ladder was planted firmly, I went up with the stormers, men of
all regiments mixed pell-mell, Buffs and Royal Welsh, 90th and 97th. A
gun, depressed and loaded with grape, belched a volume of flame and
iron past me as I sprang, sword in hand, into the embrasure, firing my
revolver almost at random; and the stormers, their faces flushed with
ardour and fierce excitement, cheering, stabbing with the bayonet,
smashing with the butt-end, or firing wildly, swarmed in at every
aperture, and bore the Russians back; but I, being suddenly wedged
among a number of killed and wounded men, between the cannon and the
side of the embrasure could neither advance nor retire, till dragged
out by the strong hand of poor Charley Gwynne, who fell a minute
after, shot dead; and for some seconds, while in that most exposed and
terrible position, I saw a dreadful scene of slaughter before me; for
there were dense gray masses of the Russian infantry, their usually
stolid visages inflamed by hate, ferocity, by fiery _vodka_, and
religious rancour, the front ranks kneeling as if to receive cavalry,
and all the rear ranks, which were three or four deep, firing over
each other's heads, exactly as we are told the Scottish brigades of
the "Lion of the North" did at Leipzig, to the annihilation of those
of Count Tilly.

We were fairly IN this terrible Redan; but the weakness of our force
was soon painfully apparent, and in short, when the enemy made a
united rush at us, they drove us all into an angle of the work, and
ultimately over the parapet to the outer slope, where men of the Light
and Second Divisions were packed in a dense mass and firing into it,
which they continued to do even till their ammunition became expended,
when fresh supplies from the pouches of those in rear were handed to
those in front. An hour and a half of this disastrous strife elapsed,
"the Russians having cleared the Redan," to quote the trite
description of Russell, "but not yet being in possession of its
parapets, when they made a second charge with bayonets under a heavy
fire of musketry, and throwing great quantities of large stones, grape
and small round shot, drove those in front back upon the men in rear,
who were thrown into the ditch. The gabions in the parapet now gave
way, and rolled down with those who were upon them; and the men in
rear, thinking all was lost, retired into the fifth parallel."

Many men were buried alive in the ditch by the falling earth; Dora's
admirer, poor little Torn Clavell of the 19th, among others, perished
thus horribly. Just as we reached our shelter, there to breathe,
re-form, and await supports, I saw poor Phil Caradoc reel wildly and
fall, somewhat in a heap, at the foot of the gabions. In a moment I
was by his side. His sword-arm had been upraised as he was
endeavouring to rally the men, and a ball had passed--as it eventually
proved--through his lungs; though a surgeon, who was seated close by
with all his apparatus and instruments, assured him that it was not
so.

"I know better--something tells me that it is all over with me--and
that I am bleeding internally," said he, with difficulty. "Hardinge,
old fellow--lift me up--gently, so--so--thank you."

I passed an arm under him, and raised his head, removing at the same
time his heavy Fusileer cap. There was a gurgle in his throat, and the
foam of agony came on his handsome brown moustache.

"I am going fast," said he, grasping my hand; "God bless you,
Harry--see me buried alone."

"If I escape--but there is yet hope for you, Phil."

But he shook his head and said, while his eye kindled,

"If I was not exactly the first man _in_, I was not long behind
Windham. I risked my life freely," he added, in a voice so low that
I heard him with difficulty amid the din of the desultory fire, and
the mingled roar of other sounds in and around the Malakoff; "yet I
should like to have gone home and seen my dear old mother once again,
in green Llangollen--and _her_--she, you know who I mean, Harry.
But God has willed it all otherwise, and I suppose it is for the
best. . . . Turn me on my side . . . dear fellow--so. . . . I am
easier now."

As I did what he desired, his warm blood poured upon my hand, through
the orifice in his poor, faded, and patched regimentals, never so much
as then like "the old red coat that tells of England's glory."

"Have the Third or Fourth Division come yet? Where are the Scots
Royals?" he asked, eagerly, and then, without waiting for a reply,
added, very faintly, "If spared to see her--Winny Lloyd--tell her that
my last thoughts were of her--ay, as much as of my poor mother . . . and
. . . that though she will get a better fellow than I----"

"That is impossible, Phil!"

"She can never get one who . . . . who loves her more. The time is
near now when I shall be but a memory to her and you .  . . . and to
all our comrades of the old 23rd."

His lips quivered and his eyes closed, as he said, with something of
his old pleasant smile,

"I am going to heaven, I hope, Harry--if I have not done much good in
the world, I have not done much harm; and in heaven I'll meet with
more red coats, I believe, than black ones . . . . and tell
her . . . tell Winny----"

What I was to tell her I never learned; his voice died away, and he
never spoke again; for just as the contest became fiercer between the
French and the masses of Russians--temporarily released from the Redan
or drawn from the city--his head fell over on one side, and he
expired. I closed his eyes, for there was yet time to do so. Poor Phil
Caradoc! I looked sadly for a minute on the pale and stiffening face
of my old friend and jovial chum, and saw how fast the expression of
bodily pain passed away from the whitening forehead. I could scarcely
assure myself that he was indeed gone, and so suddenly; that his once
merry eyes and laughing lips would open never again. Turning away, I
prepared once more for the assault, and then, for the first time, I
perceived Lieutenants Dyneley and Somerville of ours lying near him;
the former mortally wounded and in great pain, the latter quite dead.

My soul was full of a keen longing for vengeance, to grapple with the
foe once more, foot to foot and face to face. The blood was fairly up
in all our hearts; for the Russians had now relined their own
breastworks, where a tall officer in a gray capote made himself very
conspicuous by his example and exertions. He was at last daring enough
to step over the rampart and tear down a wooden gabion, to make a kind
of extempore embrasure through which an additional field-piece might
be run.

"As you are so fond of pot-firing," said Colonel Windham to the
soldiers, with some irritation at the temporary repulse, "why the
deuce don't you shoot that Russian?"

On looking through my field-glass, to my astonishment I discovered
that he was Tolstoff. Sergeant Rhuddlan of ours now levelled his rifle
over the bank of earth which protected the parallel, took a steady
aim, and fired. Tolstoff threw up his arms wildly, and his sword
glittered as it fell from his hand. He then wheeled round, and fell
heavily backward into the ditch--which was twenty feet broad and ten
feet deep--dead; at least, I never saw or heard of him again.

Just as a glow of fierce exultation, pardonable enough, perhaps, at
such a time (and remembering all the circumstances under which this
distinguished Muscovite and I had last met and parted), thrilled
through me, I experienced a terrible shock--a shock that made me reel
and shudder, with a sensation as if a hot iron had pierced my left arm
above the elbow. It hung powerless by my side, and then I felt my own
blood trickling heavily over the points of my fingers!

"Wounded! My God, hit at last!" was my first thought; and I lost much
blood before I could get any one, in that vile burly-burly, to tie my
handkerchief as a temporary bandage round the limb to stanch the flow.

I was useless now, and worse than useless, as I was suffering greatly,
but I could not leave the parallel for the hospital huts, and remained
there nearly to dusk fell. Before that, I had seen Caradoc interred
between the gabions; and there he lay in his hastily-scooped grave,
uncoffined and unknelled, his heart's dearest longings unfulfilled,
his brightest hopes and keenest aspirations crushed out like his young
life; and the evanescent picture, the poor photo of the girl he had
loved in vain, buried with him; and when poor Phil was being covered
up, I remembered his anecdote about the dead officer, and the letter
that was replaced in his breast.

Well, my turn for such uncouth obsequies might come soon enough now.
In the affair of the Redan, if I mistake not, 146 officers and men of
ours, the Welsh Fusileers, were killed and wounded; and every other
regiment suffered in the same proportion.

The attack was to be renewed at five in the morning by the Guards and
Highlanders, under Lord Clyde of gallant memory, then Sir Colin
Campbell; but on their approaching, it was found that the Russians had
spiked their guns, and bolted by the bridge of boats, leaving
Sebastopol one sheet of living fire. Fort after fort was blown into
the air, each with a shock as if the solid earth were being split
asunder. The sky was filled with live shells, which burst there like
thousands of scarlet rockets, and thus showers of iron fell in every
direction. Columns of dark smoke, that seemed to prop heaven itself,
rose above the city, while its defenders in thousands, without beat of
drum or sound of trumpet, poured away by the bridge of boats. When the
last fugitive had passed, the chains were cut, and then the mighty
pontoon, a quarter of a mile in length, swung heavily over to the
north side, when we were in full possession of Sebastopol!

CHAPTER LVI.--A SUNDAY MORNING IN THE CRIMEA.

I must have dropped asleep of sheer weariness and loss of blood, when
tottering to the rear; for on waking I found the moon shining, and
myself lying not far from the fifth parallel, which was now occupied,
like the rest of the trenches, by the kilted Highlanders, whose bare
legs, and the word _Egypt_ on their appointments, formed a double
source of wonder to our Moslem allies, especially to the contingent
that came from the Land of Bondage. These sturdy fellows were
chatting, laughing, and smoking, or quietly sleeping and waiting for
their turn of service against the Redan, in the dark hours of the
morning.

I had lain long in a kind of dreamy agony. Like many who were in the
Redan and in the ditch around it, I had murmured "water, water," often
and vainly. The loss of Estelle, or of Valerie, for times there were
when my mind wandered to the former _now_, the love of dear friends, the
death of comrades, honour, glory, danger from pillaging Russians or
Tartars, all emotions, in fact, were merged or swallowed up in the
terrible agony I endured in my shattered arm, and the still more
consuming craving for something wherewith to moisten my cracked lips
and parched throat. Poor Phil Caradoc had perhaps endured this before
me, while his heart and soul were full of Winifred Lloyd; but Phil,
God rest him! was at peace now, and slept as sound in his uncouth
grave as if laid under marble in Westminster Abbey.

In my uneasy slumber I had been conscious of this sensation of thirst,
and had visions of champagne goblets, foaming and iced; of humble
bitter beer and murmuring water; of gurgling brooks that flowed over
brown pebbles, and under long-bladed grass and burdocks in leafy
dingles; of Llyn Tegid, deep and blue; of the marble fountain, with
the lilies and golden fish, at Craigaderyn. Then with this idea the
voice of Winifred Lloyd came pleasantly to my ear; her white fingers
played with the sparkling water, she raised some to my lips, but the
cup fell to pieces, and starting, I awoke to find a tall Highlander,
of the Black Watch, bending over me, and on my imploring him to get me
some water, he placed his wooden canteen to my lips, and I drank of
the contents, weak rum-grog, greedily and thankfully.

It seemed strange to me that I should dream of Winifred, there and
then; but no doubt the last words of Caradoc had led me to think of
her. It is only when waking after long weariness of the body, and
over-tension of the nerves, the result of such keen excitement as we
had undergone since yesterday morning, that the full extremity of
exhaustion and fatigue can be felt, as I felt them then. Add to these,
that my shattered arm had bled profusely, and was still undressed.

Staggering up, I looked around me. The moon was shining, and flakes of
her silver light streamed through the now silent embrasures of the
Redan, silent save for the groans of the dying within it. There and in
the ditch the dead lay thick as sheaves in a harvest-field--thick as
the Greeks, at Troy, lay under the arrows of Apollo. How many a man
was lying there, mutilated almost out of the semblance of humanity,
whose thoughts, when the death shot struck him down, or the sharp
bayonet pierced him, had flashed _home_, quicker than the electric
telegraph, yea, quicker than light, to his parents' hearth, to his
lonely wife, to the little cots where their children lay abed--little
ones, the memory of whose waxen faces and pink hands then filled his
heart with tears; how many a resolution for prayer and repentance if
spared by God; how many a pious invocation; how many a fierce
resolution to meet the worst, and die like a man and a soldier, had
gone up from that hell upon earth, the Redan--the fatal Redan, which
we should never have attacked, but should have aided the French in the
capture of the Malakoff, after which it must inevitably have fallen
soon, if not at once.

Many of our officers were afterwards found therein, each with a hand
clutching a dead Russian's throat, or coat, or belt, their fingers
stiffened in death--man grasping man in a fierce and last embrace.
Among others, that stately and handsome fellow, Raymond Mostyn, of the
Rifles, and an officer of the Vladimir regiment were thus locked
together, the same grape-shot having killed them both. Some of our
slain soldiers were yet actually clinging to the parapet and slope of
the glacis, as if still alive, thus showing the reluctance with which
they had retired--the desperation with which they died. In every
imaginable position of agony, of distortion, and bloody mutilation
they lay, heads crushed and faces battered, eyes starting from their
sockets, and swollen tongues protruding; and on that terrible scene
the pale moon, "sweet regent of the sky," the innocent queen of night,
as another poet calls her, looked softly down in her glory, as the
same moon in England, far away, was looking on the stubble-fields
whence the golden grain had been gathered, on peaceful homesteads, old
church steeples and quiet cottage roofs, on the ruddy furnaces of the
Black country, on peace and plenty, and where war was unknown, save by
name.

She glinted on broken and abandoned weapons; she silvered the upturned
faces of the dead--kissing them, as it were, for many a loving one who
should see them no more; and gemming as if with diamonds the dewy
grass and the autumnal wild-flowers; and there, too, amid that
horrible débris, were the little birds--the goldfinch, the tit, and
the sparrow--hopping and twittering about, too terrified to seek their
nests, scared as they were by the uproar of the day that was past.

I felt sick at heart and crushed in spirit now. In the immediate
foreground the moonlight glinted on the tossing dark plumes, the
picturesque costume, and bright bayonets of the Highlanders in the
trenches. In the distance was the town; its ports, arsenals, barracks,
theatres, palaces, churches, and streets sheeted with roaring flames,
that lighted up all the roadstead, where, one after the other, the
Russian ships were disappearing beneath the waves, in that lurid glare
which tipped with a fiery gleam the white walls and spiked cannon of
the now abandoned forts.

I began to creep back towards the camp, in search of surgical aid, and
on the way came to a place where, with their uniforms off, their
shirt-sleeves rolled up, their boxes of instruments open, lint and
bandages ready, three officers of the medical staff were busy upon a
group of wounded men, who sat or lay near, waiting their turn, some
impatiently, some with passive endurance, but all, more or less, in
pain, as their moans and sighs declared.

"Don't bother about that Zouave, Gage," I heard one Æsculapius say, as
I came near, "I have overhauled him already!"

"Is his wound mortal?"

"Yes--brain lacerated. By Jove! here is an officer of the 23rd!"

"Well, he must wait a little."

So I sighed, and seated myself on a stone, and clenched my teeth to
control the agony I was enduring. The men who lay about us, with pale,
woe-begone visages and lack-lustre eyes, belonged chiefly to the
Light Division, but among them I saw, to my surprise, a Russian hussar
lying dead, with the blood dry and crusted on his pale blue and
yellow-braided dolman. How he came to be _there_, I had not the
curiosity to inquire. A mere bundle of gory rags, he seemed; for a
cannon-shot had doubled him up, and now his Tartar horse stood over
him, eyeing him wildly, and sniffing as if in wonder about his bearded
face and fallen jaw.

The Zouave referred to was a noisy and loquacious fellow,
notwithstanding his perilous predicament. He had strayed hither
somehow from the Malakoff, and was mortally wounded, as the surgeon
said, and dying. A tiny plaster image of the blessed Virgin lay before
him; he was praying intently at times, but being fatuous, he wildly
and oddly mingled with his orisons the name of a certain Mademoiselle
Auréle, a _fleuriste_,  with whom he imagined himself in the second
gallery of the Théâtre Français, or supping at the Barrière de
l'Etoile; anon he imagined they were on the Boulevardes, or in a café
chantant; and then as his mind--or what remained of it--seemed to
revert to the events of the day, he drew his "cabbage-cutter," as the
French call their sword-bayonet, and brandished it, crying,

"Cut and hew, strike, mes camarades--frappez vite et frappez forte!
Vive la France! Vive l'Empéreur!"

This was the last effort; a gush of fresh blood poured into his eyes,
and the poor Zouave was soon cold and stiff. In a kind of stupor I sat
there and watched by moon and lantern light the hasty operations:
bullets probed for and snipped out by forceps, while the patients
writhed and yelled; legs and arms dressed or cut off like branches
lopped from a tree, and chucked into a heap for interment. I shuddered
with apprehensive foreboding of what might ensue when my own turn
came, and heard, as in a dream, the three surgeons talking with the
most placid coolness about their little bits of practice.

"Jones, please," said one, a very young staff medico, "will you kindly
take off this fellow's leg for me? I have ripped up his trousers and
applied the tourniquet--he is quite ready."

"But must it come off?" asked Jones, who was patching up a bullet-hole
with lint.

"Yes; gun-shot fracture of the knee-joint--patella totally gone."

"Why don't you do it yourself, my good fellow?" asked the third, who,
with an ivory-handled saw between his teeth, was preparing to operate
on the fore-arm of a 19th man, whose groans were terrible. "Gage, did
you never amputate?"

"Never on the living subject."

"On a dead one then, surely?"

"Often--of course.'

"By Jove, you can't begin too soon--so why not now?"

"I am too nervous--do it for me."

"In one minute; but only this once, remember. Now give me your knife
for the flap; and look to that officer of the Welsh Fusileers--his
left arm is wounded."

So while Dr. Jones, whom the haggard eyes of the man, whose limb was
doomed, watched with a terrible expression of anxiety, applied himself
to the task of amputation, the younger doctor, a hand fresh from
London, came to _me_.

After ripping up the sleeve of my uniform, and having a brief
examination, which caused me such bitter agony that I could no longer
stand, but lay on the grass, he said,

"Sorry to tell you, that yours is a compound fracture of the most
serious kind."

"Is it reducible?" I asked, in a low voice.

"No; I regret to say that your arm must come off."

"My arm--must I lose it?" I asked, feeling keener anguish with the
unwelcome announcement.

"Yes; and without delay," he replied, stooping towards his instrument
case.

"I cannot spare it--I must have some other--excuse me, sir--some older
advice," I exclaimed, passionately.

"As you please, sir," replied the staff-surgeon, coolly; "but we have
no time to spare here, either for opposition or indecision."

The other two glanced at my arm, poked it, felt it as if it had been
that of a lay figure in a studio, and supported the opinion of their
brother of the knife. But the prospect of being mutilated, armless,
for life, and all the pleasures of which such a fate must deprive me,
seemed so terrible, that I resolved to seek for other advice at the
hospital tents, and towards them I took my way, enduring such pain of
body and misery of mind that on reaching them I should have sunk, had
brandy not been instantly given to me by an orderly. It was Sunday
morning now, and the gray light of the September dawn was stealing
over the waters of the Euxine, and up the valley of Inkermann. The
fragrant odour of the wild thyme came pleasantly on the breeze; but
now the rain was falling heavily, as it generally does after an
action--firing puts down the wind, and so the rain comes; but to me
then it was like the tears of heaven--"Nature's tear-drop," as Byron
has it, bedewing the unburied dead. A red-faced and irritable-looking
little Deputy Inspector of Hospitals, in a blue frogged surtout,
received me, and from him I did not augur much. The patients were
pouring in by hundreds, and the medical staff had certainly no
sinecure there. After I had been stripped and put to bed, I remember
this personage examining my wound and muttering,

"Bad case--very!"

"Am I in danger, doctor?" I inquired.

"Yes, of course, if it should gangrene," said he, sharply.

"I don't care much for life, but I should not like to lose my arm. Do
you think that--that--"

"What?" he asked, opening his box of tools with _sangfroid_.

"I shall die of this?"

"Of a smashed bone?"

"Yes."

"Well, my dear fellow, not yet, I hope."

"Yet?" said I, doubtfully.

"Well, immediately, I mean. There is already much sign of
inflammation, and consequent chance of fever. The os humerus is, as I
say, smashed to pieces, and the internal and external condyles of the
elbow are most seriously injured. Corporal Mulligan, a basin and
sponge, and desire Dr.----" (I did not catch the name) "to step this
way."

The corporal, a black-bearded Connaught Ranger, who had lost an eye at
Alma, brought what the surgeon required; he then placed a handkerchief
to my nostrils; there was a bubbling sensation in the brain, but
momentary, as the handkerchief contained chloroform; then something
peaceful, soporific, and soothing stole over me, and for a time I
became oblivious of all around me.

CHAPTER LVII.--IN THE MONASTERY OF ST. GEORGE.

To be brief, when the effect of the chloroform passed away, I became
sensible of a strange sensation of numbness about my left shoulder.
Instinctively and shudderingly I turned my eyes towards it, and found
that my left arm was--gone! Gone, and near me stood Corporal Mulligan
coolly wiping the fat little surgeon's instruments for the next case.
Some wine, Crimskoi, and water were given me, and then I closed my
eyes and strove, but in vain, to sleep and to think calmly over my
misfortune, which, for a time, induced keen misanthropy indeed.

"Armless!" thought I; "I was pretty tired of life before this, and am
utterly useless now. Would that the shot had struck me in a more vital
place, and finished me--polished me off at once! That old staff
sawbones should have left me to my fate; should have let
mortification, gangrene, and all the rest of it, do their worst, and I
might have gone quietly to sleep where so many lay, under the crocuses
and caper-bushes at Sebastopol."

"After life's fitful fever" men sleep well; and so, I hoped, should I.

Such reflections were, I own, ungrateful and bitter; but suffering,
disappointment, and more than all, the great loss of blood I had
suffered, had sorely weakened me; and yet, on looking about me, and
seeing the calamities of others, I felt that the simple loss of an arm
was indeed but a minor affair.

Close by me, on the hospital pallets, I saw men expiring fast, and
borne forth to the dead-pits only to make room for others; I saw the
poor human frame, so delicate, so wondrous, and so divine in its
organisation, cut, stabbed, bruised, crushed, and battered, in every
imaginable way, and yet with life clinging to it, when life had
become worthless. From wounds, and operations upon wounds, there was
blood--blood everywhere; on the pallets, the straw, the earthen floor,
the canvas of the tents, in buckets and basins, on sponges and towels,
and on the hands of the attendants. Incessantly there were moans and
cries of anguish, and, ever and anon, that terrible sound in the
throat known as the death-rattle.

Sergeant Rhuddlan, Dicky Roll the drummer (the little keeper of the
regimental goat), and many rank and file of the old 23rd--relics of
the Redan--were there, and some lay near me. The sergeant was mortally
wounded, and soon passed away; the poor boy was horribly mutilated, a
grape shot having torn off his lower jaw, and he survived, to have
perhaps a long life of misery and penury before him; and will it be
believed that, through red-tapery and wretched Whig parsimony, two
hours before the attack on the Redan, the senior surgeon in the
Quarries was "run out" of lint, plasters, bandages, and every other
appliance for stanching blood?

I heard some of our wounded, in their triumph at the general success
of the past day, attempting feebly and in quavering tones to sing
"Cheer, boys, cheer;" while others, in the bitterness of their hearts,
or amid the pain they endured, were occasionally consigning the eyes,
limbs, and souls of the Ruskies to a very warm place indeed. Estelle's
ring, which I had still worn, was gone with my unfortunate arm, and
was now the prize, no doubt, of some hospital orderly. Next day, as
the wounded were pouring in as fast as the dripping stretchers and
ambulances could bring them, I was sent to the monastery of St.
George, which had been turned into a convalescent hospital. The
removal occasioned fever, and I lay long there hovering between life
and death; and I remember how, as portions of a seeming
phantasmagoria, the faces of the one-eyed corporal who attended me,
and of the staff doctors Gage and Jones, became drearily familiar.

This monastery is situated about five miles from Balaclava and six
from Sebastopol, near Cape Fiolente, and consists of two long ranges
of buildings, two stories in height, with corridors off which the
cells of the religious open. The chapel, full of hospital pallets,
there faces the sea, and the view in that direction is both charming
and picturesque. A zigzag pathway leads down from the rocks of red
marble, past beautiful terraces clothed with vines and flowering
shrubs, to a tiny bay, so sheltered that there the ocean barely
ripples on the snow-white sand. But then the Greek monks, in their
dark-brown gowns, their hair plaited in two tails down their back,
their flowing beards, with rosary and crucifix and square black cap,
had given place to convalescents of all corps, Guardsmen, Riflemen,
Dragoons, and Linesmen, who cooked and smoked, laughed and sang,
patched their clothes and pipe-clayed their belts, where whilom mass
was said and vespers chanted. Others were hopping about on crutches,
or, propped by sticks, dozed dreamily in the sunshine under shelter of
the wall that faced the sparkling sea--the blessed high road to old
England.

My room, a monk's cell, was whitewashed, and on the walls were hung
several gaudy prints of Russian saints and Madonnas with oval shining
metal halos round their faces; but most of these the soldiers, with an
eye to improvement in art, had garnished with short pipes, moustaches,
and eyeglasses; and with scissors and paste-pot Corporal Mulligan
added other decorations from the pages of _Punch_.

Sebastopol had fallen; "Redan Windham," as we named him, then a
Brigadier-general, was its governor; and by the Allies the place had
been plundered of all the flames had spared (not much certainly), even
to the cannon and church bells; and now peace was at hand. But many a
day I sighed and tossed wearily on my hard bed, and more wearily still
in the long nights of winter, when the bleak wind from the Euxine
howled round the monastery and the rain lashed its walls, though
Corporal Mulligan would wink his solitary eye, and seek to console me
by saying,

"Your honour's in luck--there is no trinch-guard to-night, thank God!"

"Nor will there ever be again for me," I would reply.

The inspector of hospitals had informed me that, so soon as I could
travel, sick leave would be granted me, that I might proceed to
England; but I heard him with somewhat of indifference. Would Valerie
join her brother Volhonski at Lewes in Sussex, was, however, my first
thought; she would be free to do as she pleased now that the odious
Tolstoff--But _was_ he killed by Rhuddlan's bullet, or merely wounded,
with the pleasure of having Valerie, perhaps, for a nurse? He
certainly seemed to fall from the parapet as if he were shot dead. Why
had I not gone back and inspected the slain in the ditch of the Redan,
to see if he lay there? But I had other thoughts then, and so the
opportunity--even could I have availed myself of it--was gone for
ever. These calculations and surmises may seem very cool now; but to
us then human life, and human suffering, too, were but of small
account indeed.

One evening the fat little staff surgeon came to me with a cheerful
expression on his usually cross face, and two packets in his hand.

"Well, doctor," said I, with a sickly smile, but unable to lift my
head; "so I didn't die, after all."

"No; close shave though. Wish you joy, Captain Hardinge."

"Joy--armless!"

"Tut; I took the two legs off a rifleman the other day close to the
tibia--ticklish operation, very, but beautifully done--and he'll
toddle about in a bowl or on a board, and be as jolly as a sand-boy.
Suppose _your_ case had been his?"

"When may I leave this?"

"Can't say yet awhile. You don't want to rejoin, I presume?"

"Would to God that I could! but the day is past now When I do leave,
it will be by ship or steamer."

"Unless you prefer a balloon. Well, it was of these I came to wish you
joy," said he, placing before me, and opening it (for I was unable to
do so, single-handed), the packet, which contained two medals; one for
the Crimea, with its somewhat unbecoming ribbon, and two clasps for
"Inkermann" and "Sebastopol."

"They are deuced like labels for wine-bottles," said the little
doctor; "but a fine thing for you to have, and likely to catch the
eyes of the girls in England."

"And this other medal with the pink ribbon?"

"Is the Sardinian one, given by Victor Emanuel; and more welcome than
these perhaps, here is a letter from home--from England--for you;
which, if you wish, I shall open" (every moment I was some way thus
reminded, even kindly, of my own helplessness), "and leave you to
peruse. Good evening; I've got some prime cigars at your service, if
you'll send Mulligan to me."

"Thanks, doctor."

And he rolled away out of the cell, to visit some other unfortunate
fellow. The medals were, of course, a source of keen satisfaction to
me; but as I toyed with them and inspected them again and again, they
woke an old train of thought; for there was _one_, who had no longer
perhaps an interest in me (if a woman ever ceases to have an interest
in the man who has loved her), and who was another's now, in whose
white hands I should once with honest pride have laid them. Viewed
through that medium, they seemed almost valueless for a time; though
there was to come a day when I was alike vain of them--ay, and of my
empty sleeve--as became one who had been at the fall of Sebastopol,
the queen of the Euxine.

"I fear I am a very discontented dog," thought I, while turning to the
letter, which proved to be from kind old Sir Madoc Lloyd.

For months no letters had reached me, and for the same period I had
been unable to write home; so in all that time I had heard nothing
from my friends in England--who were dead, who alive; who marrying, or
being given in marriage. Sir Madoc's missive was full of kind thoughts
and expressions, of warm wishes and offers of service, that came to me
as balm, especially at such a time and in such a place. Poor Phil
Caradoc, and many others, were sorrowfully and enthusiastically
referred to. Sir Watkins Vaughan was still hovering about the girls,
"but with remarkable indecision apparently." The tall Plunger with the
parted hair had proposed to Dora, and been declined; for no very
visible reason, as he was a pleasant fellow with a handsome fortune.

On an evening early in September, the very day that a telegram
announcing the fall of the Redan reached Craigaderyn, they were
dressing for a county ball at Chester--a long-looked-for and most
brilliant affair--when their sensibility, and fear that I might have
been engaged, made them relinquish all ideas of pleasure, and
countermand the carriage, to the intense chagrin of Sir Watkins and
also of the Plunger, who had come from town expressly to attend it.
Two day afterwards the lists were published, and the account of the
slaughter of our troops, and the death of so many dear friends, had
made Winifred positively ill, so change of air was recommended for
her, at Ventnor or some such place.

A postscript to this, in Dora's rapid hand, and written evidently
surreptitiously (perhaps while Sir Madoc had left his desk for a
moment), added the somewhat significant intelligence, that "Winny had
wept very much indeed on reading the account of that horrible Redan"
(for Phil's death, thought I; if so, she mourns him too late!) "and
now declares that she will die an old maid." (It _is_ so!) "When that
interesting period of a lady's life begins," continued Dora, "I know
not; if unmarried, before thirty, I suppose; thus I am eleven years
off that awful period yet, and have a decidedly vulgar prejudice
against ever permitting myself to become one. Papa writes that Sir
Watkins is undecided; but I may add that I, for one, know that he is
_not_. Our best love to you, dear old Harry; but O, I can't fancy you
_without an arm!_"

I was in a fair way of recovery now. The state I had been in so long,
within the four walls of that quaint little chamber--a state that
hovered between sense and insensibility, between sleeping and waking,
time and eternity--had passed away; and, after all I had undergone, it
had seemed as if

         "Thrice the double twilight rose and fell,
          About a land where nothing seemed the same,
          At morn or eve, as in the days gone by."

This had all passed and gone; but I was weak as a child, and worn to a
shadow; and by neglect had become invested with hirsute appendages of
the most ample proportions.

And so, without the then hackneyed excuse of "urgent private affairs,"
on an evening in summer, when the last rays of the sun shone redly on
the marble bluffs and copper-coloured rocks of Cape Khersonese--the
last point of that fatal peninsula towards the distant Bosphorus--and
when the hills that look down on the lovely Pass of Baidar and the
grave-studded valley of Inkermann were growing dim and blue, I found
myself again at sea, on board the Kangaroo--a crowded transport (or
rather a floating hospital)--speeding homeward, and bidding "a long
good-night to the Crimea," to the land of glory and endurance.

Sebastopol seemed a dream now, but a memory of the past; and a dream,
too, seemed my new life when I lay on my couch at the open port, and
saw the crested waves flying past, as we sped through them under sail
and steam.

Onward, onward, three hundred miles and more across the Euxine, to
where the green range of the Balkan looks down upon its waters, and
where the lighthouses of Anatolia on one side, and those of Roumelia
on the other, guide to the long narrow channel of Stamboul; but ere
the latter was reached--and on our starboard bow we saw the white
waves curling over the blue Cyanean rocks, where Jason steered the
Argonauts--we had to deposit many a poor fellow in the deep; for we
had four hundred convalescent and helpless men on board, and only one
surgeon, with scarcely any medicines or comforts for them, as John
Bull, if he likes glory, likes to obtain it _cheap_. It was another
case of Whig parsimony; so every other hour an emaciated corpse,
rolled in a mud-stained greatcoat or well-worn blanket, without prayer
or ceremony of any kind, was quietly dropped to leeward, the 32-pound
shot at its heels making a dull plunge in that huge grave, the world
of water, which leaves no mark behind.

I gladly left the Kangaroo at Pera, and, establishing myself at the
Hôtel d'Angleterre, wrote from thence to Sir Madoc that I should take
one of the London liners at Malta for England, and to write me to the
United Service Club in London; that all my plans for the future were
vague and quite undecided; but I was not without hope of getting some
military employment at home. The Frankish hotel was crowded by wounded
officers, also _en route_ for England or France, all in sorely faded
uniforms, on which the new Crimean medals glittered brightly. As all
the world travels nowadays, I am not going to "talk guide-book," or
break into ecstasies about the glories of Stamboul as viewed from a
distance, and not when floundering mid-leg deep in the mud of its
picturesque but rickety old thoroughfares; yet certainly the daily
scene before the hotel windows was a singular one; for there were
stalwart Turkish porters, veritable sons of Anak; stagey-looking
dragomen, with brass pistols and enormous sabres in wooden sheaths;
the Turk of the old school in turban, beard, slippers, and flowing
garments; the Turk of the new, whom he despised, close shaven, with
red fez and glazed boots; water-carriers; Osmanli infantry, solemn,
brutal, and sensual, jostled by rollicking British tars and merry
little French Zouaves; and for a background, the city of the Sultans,
with all its casements, domes, and minarets glittering in the
unclouded sunshine.

Two light cavalry subs, who had ridden in the death ride at Balaclava,
and bore some cuts and slashes won therein, three others of the Light
Division, and myself, agreed to travel homeward together; and pleasant
days we had of it while skirting the mountainous isles of Greece,
Byron's

    "Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sung,"

and the tints of which seemed all brown or gray as we saw them through
the vapour exhaled in summer from the Ægean Sea, with their little
white villages shadowed by trees, their rocks like sea-walls, crowned
here and there by the columns, solitary and desolate, of some temple
devoted to the gods of other days--"a country rich in historic
reminiscence, but poor as Sahara in everything else."

And so on by Malta and old Gib; and exactly fourteen days after
leaving the former we were cleaving the muddy bosom of Father Thames;
and that night saw me in my old room at "the Rag," with the dull roar
of mighty London in my ears; and after the rapid travelling I went to
sleep, as addled as a fly could be in a drum.

CHAPTER LVIII.--HOME.

The comfort and splendour of the fashionable club-house, the tall
mirrors, the gilded cornices, the soft carpets, the massive furniture,
the powdered and liveried waiters gliding noiselessly about, all
impressed me with a high sense of the intense snugness of England and
of _home_, after my airy tent, with its embankment of earth for
shelter, its smoky funnel of mess-tins, and the tiny trench cut round
it to carry away the rainwater. Then I was discussing a breakfast
which, after my Crimean experience, seemed a feast fit for Lucullus or
Apicius, and listening with something of a smile to the rather loud
conversation of some members of the club--wiry old Peninsulars,
Waterloo and India men, who were certain "the service was going to the
devil," and who drew somewhat disparaging comparisons between the way
matters had been conducted by our generals and those of the war under
Sir John Moore, Lynedoch, Hill, and "the Iron Duke;" and to me it
seemed that the old fellows were right, and that after forty years of
peace we had learned nothing new in the art of campaigning.

"Captain Hardinge, a gentleman for you, sir," said a waiter,
presenting me with a card on a silver salver; and I had barely time to
look at it ere Sir Madoc Lloyd, in top-boots and corded breeches as
usual--his ruddy sunburnt face, his white hair and sparkling dark
eyes, in his cheery breezy way the same as ever--entered, hat and whip
in hand, and welcomed me home so warmly, that for a moment he drew
the eyes of all in the room upon us. He had breakfasted two hours
before--country time--and had a canter round the Park. He was in town
on Parliamentary business, but was starting that afternoon for
Craigaderyn. I should accompany him, of course, he added, in his
hearty impetuous way. Then ere I could speak,--

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "Poor Harry! till I have seen you I
could not realise the idea of your being mutilated thus! No more
hunting, no more shooting, no more fishing----"

"And no more dancing, the ladies would add," said I, smiling.

"And no more soldiering."

"Unless the Queen kindly permits me."

"Gad! I think you have had enough of it!"

"And--and Miss Lloyd and Dora?"

"Are both well and looking beautiful. There are not many girls in
Wales like my girls. A seaside trip has brought back the bloom to
Winny's cheeks; and as for Dora, she never loses it."

"And why did Miss Lloyd refuse an offer so eligible as that of Sir
Watkins Vaughan?" I asked, after a pause.

"Can't for the life of me say," replied Sir Madoc, rubbing his chin,
and turning to the decanter as a waiter set some dry sherry and
biscuits before us.

"And why would not my little friend Dora have her Guardsman?"

"Can't say that, either. Perhaps she hated a 'swell' with an affected
'yaw-haw' impediment in his speech. Girls are so odd; but mine are
dear girls for all that. I'll telegraph to Owen Gwyllim to have the
carriage awaiting us at Chester; and we shall leave town before
luncheon-time, if you have no other plans or engagements."

"I have neither; but--but, Sir Madoc, why so soon?" I asked, as
certain passages in my later visits to Craigaderyn gave me a twinge of
compunction. "Now that I think of it, I had an idea of taking a run
down to Lewes in Sussex," said I.

"Lewes in Sussex--a dreary place, though in a first-rate coursing
country. I've ridden there with the Brighton Hunt. What would take you
there--before coming to us, at least?"

I coloured a little, and said,

"I have a friend there, among the Russian prisoners."

"By Jove, I think you've had enough of those fellows! Nonsense, Harry!
We shall start without delay. Why waste time and money in London?"
said Sir Madoc, who never liked his plans or wishes thwarted. "I have
just to give a look at a brace of hunters at Tattersall's for Vaughan,
and then I am with you. Down there, with our fine mountain breezes,
our six-months' Welsh mutton, and seven-years' cliquot, we'll make a
man of you again. I can't get you an arm, Harry; but, by Jove, it will
go hard with us if we don't get you _two_ belonging to some one else!"

I laughed at this idea; and so that evening saw me again far from
London, and being swept as fast as the express could speed along the
North-Western line towards Chester. I had quite a load of Russian
trophies--such were then in great request--for Sir Madoc: sabres,
muskets, and bayonets; glazed helmets of the 26th and Vladimir
Regiments, a Zouave trumpet (with a banner attached), trod flat as a
pancake under the feet of the stormers as they poured into the
Malakoff. There, too, were several rusty fragments of exploded
shells, hand-grenades, and the last cannon-shot fired from the Mamelon
Vert. For Winifred and Dora I had mother-of-pearl trunks of rare
essences and perfumes; slender gilt vials of attar of roses;
daintily-embroidered Turkish slippers, with turned-up toes, and
bracelets of rose-pearls from Stamboul; Maltese jewelry, lace, veils,
and as many pretty things as might have stocked a little shop in the
Palais Royal or the Burlington Arcade.

The month was June, and my spirits became more and more buoyant, as in
the open carriage we bowled along between the green mountains and the
waving woodlands. Now the mowers, scythe in hand, were bending over
the fragrant and bearded grass; the ploughmen were turning up the
fallow soil; the squirrels were feasting in the blossom; the sheep
were being driven to fold; and the crow was flying aloft, ere he
sought his nest "in the rooky wood." It was a thorough English June
evening: the air pure, the sunshine bright, and casting the shadows of
the mountains far across the vales and fresh green meadows; the
blackbird, thrush, and linnet sang on every tree, and a glow of
happiness came over me; for all around the land looked so peaceful and
so lovely, the gray smoke curling up from copse and dingle to mark
where stood those "free fair homes of England," of which Mrs. Hemans
sang so sweetly. Sir Madoc was discoursing on the cultivation of
turnips and mangold wurzels, and on the mode of extirpating annual
darnel-grass, coltsfoot, wild charlock, and other mysterious plants to
me unknown; and I heard him as one in a dream, when we entered the
long lime avenue.

How pleasant and picturesque looked the old house of the Tudor times
at the end of that long leafy vista, with all its tinted oriels, its
gilded vanes, and quaint stone finials! The woodbine, clematis, and
ivy, hops and honeysuckle, all blended in luxuriant masses, aspiring
to peep in at the upper windows. Craigaderyn, so redolent of fruit and
flowers, of fresh sweet air, of bright green leaves, of health and
every bracing element--a hearty old house, where for generations the
yule log had blazed, and the holly-branch and the mistletoe hung from
the old oak roof, when the snow lay deep on Carneydd Llewellyn; where
the boar's head was served up in state at Christmas, and at Michaelmas
the goose; where so many brides had come home happy, and so many old
folks, full of years and honour, gone to the vault of the old church
among the hills; where lay all the line of Lloyd, save the luckless
Sir Jorwerth Du; and where--. But here my somewhat discursive reverie
was interrupted by the carriage being pulled sharply up at the perron
before the entrance; and Owen Gwyllim, with his wrinkled face beaming,
and his white head glistening in the sunshine, hastened down to open
the door, arrange the steps, and shake the only hand the Russians had
left me.

"Where are the young ladies?" asked Sir Madoc, impatiently glancing up
at all the windows.

"Gone for a ride so far as Llandudno, with Miss Vaughan."

"Alone?"

"No, Sir Madoc, attended by Spurrit, the groom. They were gone before
your telegram arrived, but are to be back before the first bell rings
for dinner."

And now, after a little attention to my toilet, I was ushered into the
drawing-room, every object in which was so familiar to me; and seating
myself in the corner of an oriel, I gave way to a long train of deep
thought; for I was left quite alone just then, as Sir Madoc found
letters of importance awaiting him; and now, induced by the heat of
evening, the stillness broken only by the tinkle of a sheep-bell and
the hum of the bees at the open window, and by the length and rapidity
of my journey, I actually dozed quietly off to sleep.

CHAPTER LIX.--"A DREAM WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM."

Brief though my nap of "forty winks," I had within it a little dream,
induced, no doubt, by my return to Wales, and by my surroundings, as
it was of Winifred Lloyd, of past tenderness, and our old kind,
flirting, cousinly intercourse, before _others_ came between us; for
Winifred had ever been as a sister to me, and dearer, perhaps. Now I
thought she was hanging over me with much of sorrowful yearning in her
soft face, and saying,

"Papa will not be here for an hour, perhaps, and for that hour I may
have him all to myself, to watch. Poor Harry, so bruised, so battered,
and so ill-used by those odious wretches!"

Her lips were parted; her breath came in short gasps.

Was it imagination or reality that a kiss or a tress of her hair
touched my cheek so lightly? There was certainly a tear, too!

I started and awoke fully, to see her I dreamt of standing at the side
of my chair, with one hand resting on it, while her soft eyes regarded
me sadly, earnestly, and--there is no use evading it--lovingly. She
wore her blue riding-habit, her skirt gathered in the hand which held
her switch and buff gauntlets; and though her fine hair was
beautifully dressed under her riding-hat, one tress _was_ loose.

"Dear Winifred, my appearance does not shock you, I hope?" said I,
clasping her hand tenderly, and perhaps with some of that energy
peculiar to those who have but one.

"Thank Heaven, it is no worse!" she replied; "but, poor Harry
Hardinge, an arm is a serious loss."

"Yet I might have come home, like _Le Diable Boiteux_, on two wooden
stumps, as Dora once half predicted; but even as it is, my
round-dancing is at an end now. By the way, I have a sorrowful message
for you."

"Then I don't want to hear it. But from whom?"

"One who can return no more, but one who loved you well--Phil
Caradoc."

A shade of irritation crossed her face for a moment; and then, with
something of sorrow, she asked,

"And this message?--poor fellow, he fell at the Redan!"

"His last thoughts and words were of you, Winny--amid the anguish of a
mortal wound," said I; and then I told her the brief story of his
death, and of his interment in the fifth parallel. Her eyes were very
full of tears; yet none fell, and somehow my little narrative failed
to excite her quite so much as I expected.

"Did you not love him?"

"No," she replied, curtly, and gathering up the skirt of her habit
more tightly, as if to leave me.

"Did you never do so?"

"Why those questions?--never, save as a friend--poor dear Mr. Caradoc!
But let us change the subject," she added, her short lip quivering,
and her half-drooped eyelids, too.

I was silent for a minute. I knew that, with a knowledge of the secret
sentiment which Winifred treasured in her heart for myself, I was
wrong in pursuing thus the unwelcome theme of Caradoc's rejection;
moreover, there are few men, if any, who would not have felt immensely
flattered by the preferences of a girl so bright and beautiful, so
soft and artless, as Miss Lloyd; and I found myself rapidly yielding
to the whole charm of the situation.

"How odd that you should have returned on my birthday!" said she,
playing with her jewelled switch, and permitting me to retain her
ungloved hand in mine.

"Your birthday."

"Yes; I am just twenty-three."

"The number of the old corps, Winifred--the number, see it when he
may, a soldier never forgets."

"But I hope you have bidden good-bye to it for ever."

"Too probably; and you cannot know, dear Winifred, how deep is the
pleasure I feel in being here again, after all I have undergone--here
in pleasant Craigaderyn; and more than all with you--hearing your
familiar voice, and looking into your eyes."

"Why?" she asked, looking out on the sunlit chase.

"Can you ask me why, when you know that I love you, Winny, and have
always loved you?"

"As a friend, of course," said she, trembling very much; "yes--but
nothing more."

"I repeat that I love you tenderly and truly; have I not ever known
your worth, your goodness--"

"Is this true, Harry Hardinge?" she asked, in a low voice, as my arm
encircled her, and she looked coyly but tremblingly down.

"True as that God now hears us, my darling, whom I hope yet to call my
wife!"

"O, say it again and again, dear Harry," said she, in a low voice like
a whisper; "I did so doubt it once--did so doubt that you would ever,
ever love me, who--who--loved you so," she continued, growing very
pale. "It may be unwomanly in me to say this, Harry; but I am not
ashamed to own it now."

"To a poor cripple, a warlike fragment from the Crimea," said I, with
a smile, as caressingly I drew her head down on my shoulder; and while
I toyed with her dark-brown hair, and gazed into her tender
violet-coloured eyes, I thought, "How can a man love any but a woman
with eyes and hair like Winny's?"

(At that moment I quite forgot how fatuously I had worshipped the
thick golden tresses, the snow-white skin, and deep black eyes of
Valerie. And it was for _me_ that Winny had declined poor Phil, Sir
Watkins, and some one else! O, I certainly owed her some reparation!)

"Bless you, darling, for your love," said I; "and I think our marriage
will make good Sir Madoc so happy."

"You were ever his favourite, Harry."

"And you have actually loved me, Winny--"

"Ever since I was quite a little girl," she replied, in a low voice,
while blushing deeply now.

"Ah, how blind I have been to the best interests of my heart! I always
loved you, Winifred; but I never knew how much until now."

"I am sure, Harry, that I--that I shall--"

"What, love?"

"Make you a very, very good little wife, and be so kind to you after
all you have undergone."

As she said this, with something between coyness and artlessness that
proved very bewitching, I pressed her close to me, and there flashed
upon my memory the dream of her, as I lay wounded and athirst near the
ditch of the Redan, and also the singular coincidence of her pet goat
leading to my discovery when lying half buried under the dead horse
and cannon-wheel on the field of Inkermann.

"Papa and Dora," said she, in a low broken voice, "on that day when my
great grief came--"

"Which grief?"

"The tidings of your being drowned," she continued, weeping at the
recollection, "and when I let out the long-hidden secret of my heart,
told me not to weep for you, Harry; that you were far happier
elsewhere than on earth; that you were in Heaven; and poor papa said
over and over again the Welsh prayer which ends Gogoniant ir Tad, ac
ir Mab, ac ir Yspryd Glan."

"What on earth is all that!" I asked, smiling.

"Glory to the Father, the Son, and so on. Well, Harry, it was all in
vain. I felt that in losing you I had lost the desire of my eyes, the
love of my girl's heart--for I always did love you, and I care not to
tell you so openly again," she added, as the tender arms went round
me, and the loving lips sought mine. "My crave for news from the seat
of war, and the terror with which I read those horrible lists, Harry,
are known to myself only; yet why should I say so? many others, whose
dearest were there, must have felt and endured as I did."

"All that is over now, pet Winny."

"And you are here with us again, Harry."

"And am yours--yours only!"

"But there is the bell to dress for dinner, Harry--and here come Dora
and Gwenny Vaughan," she added, giving a hasty smooth to her hair,
which somehow had been a little rumpled during the preceding
conversation.

The two girls came in for a minute or so, in their hats and riding
habits; the last-named was a very beautiful and distinguished-looking
blonde, who could talk about hunting like an old whipper-in, and who
received me with kind interest, while Dora did so with her usual
gushing _empressement_.

The dinner, which came subsequently in due course, was rather a tame
affair to Winny and me, when contrasted with our recent interview in
the drawing-room; but the tender secret we now shared, and the perfect
consciousness that no obstacle existed to our marriage, made us both
so radiantly happy, that Sir Madoc's rubicund face wore a comical and
somewhat perplexed expression, till we had our postprandial cigar
together in the conservatory. So the whole affair came about in the
fashion I have narrated; yet but a day or two before, I had been
affecting a desire to visit the Russian prisoners at Lewes!

At table, of course, I required much assistance, and though I urged
that Owen Gwyllim or one of the footmen should attend me, there was
often a friendly contention among the three girls to cut my food for
me, as if I were a great baby; and like something of that kind, I was
flattered, petted, and made much of; and there was something so
pleasant in being thus made a fuss with, and viewed as a "Crimean
hero," that I scarcely regretted the bones I had left at the Redan.

"And so, poor Harry," said Dora, after hearing the story of that
affair, "you had no brave beautiful Sister of Mercy to nurse you?"

"No; I had only Corporal Mulligan, a true and brave-hearted Irishman,
who lost an eye at Alma; and a kind-hearted fellow he was!"

Winifred did not talk much; but in her place as hostess seemed
brilliantly happy, and quite her old self. We had all a thousand
things to talk of, to tell, and to ask each other; and the fate of
that strange creature Guilfoyle, or rather the mystery which then
attended it, excited almost the commiseration of Sir Madoc, who, once
upon a time, was on the point of horse-whipping him. On certain points
connected with my residence at Yalta, I was, of course, as mute as a
fish.

Of Caradoc he spoke with genuine sorrow--the more so, as he was the
last of an old, old Welsh line.

"Poor fellow!" said he; "Phil was a man of whom we may say that which
was averred of Colonel Mountain, of the Cameronians, 'that though he
were cut into twenty pieces, yet every piece would be a gentleman!'"

Over our cigars, I told Sir Madoc all that had passed between Winifred
and me, and begged his approbation; and I have no words to express how
enthusiastic the large-hearted and jolly old man became; how rejoiced,
and how often he shook my hand, assuring me that he had ever loved me
quite as much as if I had been a son of his own; that his Winny was
one of the best girls in all Wales--true as steel, and one who, when
she loved, did so for ever.

"I thank Heaven," he added, "you didn't get that slippery eel, my Lady
Aberconway!"

"So do I, now, Sir Madoc," was my earnest response.

But I had not yet seen quite the last of Estelle Cressingham.

Of her Winifred must, at times, have been keenly and bitterly jealous,
yet she was too gentle, too ladylike and enduring, to permit such an
emotion to be visible to others.

CHAPTER LX.--A HONEYMOON.

And so it came to pass, as perhaps Sir Madoc had foreseen, by the
doctrine of chances, and without any romance or sensationalism, that
in the bright season of summer, Winifred and I--after a short
engagement, and many a delicious ramble by the Elwey and Llyn Aled, in
the Martens' dingle and by the old rocking-stone--were married in
Craigaderyn Church, by her secret admirer, the tall pale curate in the
long, long coat, "assisted" by another (as if aid in such cases were
necessary); and amid the summer sounds that came floating through the
open porch and pointed windows, with the yellow flakes of hazy
sunshine, when I heard the voice of the pastor uniting us, I
remembered the Sunday we were all last in the same place, and the
daydreams in which I had indulged during the prosy sermon, when I
fancied the same solemn service being said, and when, by some magic,
the image of Winifred _would_ ever come in the place of another.

Sir Watkins Vaughan, a purpose-like and gentlemanly young fellow, a
prime bat and bowler, a good shot and good horseman, a thorough
Englishman and lover of all field sports, and who acted as my
groomsman, was so intent on looking at Dora--radiant in white crape
and tulle as one of her sister's bridesmaids--that he made, as he
said, "a regular mull" of drawing off my glove, an office which I
could not have done for myself.

At last the whole was over; the golden hoop had been slid on the
slender figure of a tremulous little hand; we were made one "till
death do us part;" and after the usual kisses and congratulations,
came forth into the glorious sunshine, while overhead the marriage
chimes rang merrily in the old square tower which Jorwerth ap Davydd
Lloyd had founded in honour of St. David five hundred years ago. Then
came the cheers in the churchyard--cheers that might wake the dead
below the green turf; the guttural Celtic voices of the tenants and
peasantry, the general jollity, with much twangle-dangling of harps
borne by certain itinerant and tipsy bards, attracted thither by the
coin and the well-known Cymric proclivities of Sir Madoc; and loud on
all hands were praises of the beauty of the _Briodasferch_ (Welsh
euphony for bride), with prayers for her future happiness, as we drove
away to luncheon.

All the household held high festival. Owen Gwyllim wept in his glee,
and drank our healths in mulled port with Mrs. Davis (for whom he had
a tenderness) in her room; and Bob Spurrit and Morgan Roots, and all
the valets and gamekeepers, did ditto with mulled ale in the
"servants' 'all," while we, leaving all to feast and speechify at
Craigaderyn, were speeding, as fast as four horses could take us, to
hide our blushes at Brighton. . . . After the stormy life I had led
how sweet and blessed were home-rest with Winifred! No tempests of
thought, of pique or jealousy, of disappointment or bitterness,
agitated me now. It was all like first love, and calmly as the summer
gloaming among the mountains, the joyous time glided away with us. I
felt how truly she had clung to me, and loved me as only those who
have long been loved in secret, and whose value, to the heart at
least, has been ascertained, by having been to all appearance lost in
life, and lost in death, too--for had I not been so to her?--and been
mourned for as only the dead, who can return no more, are mourned. Yet
I had survived all the perils of war, and her arms were round me now.

How strange it seemed, that I should once have been so indifferent to
all the graces of her mind and person; that I had been wont to quiz
poor Caradoc about her, and had more than once actually suggested that
he should "propose;" and so, when I looked into her tender and loving
eyes, I recalled her words on that day when, on a time that seemed so
long ago, we had a ramble by the rocking-stone, and when she said,
"the eye may be pleased, the vanity flattered, and ambition excited by
a woman of beauty, especially if she is one of rank; yet the heart may
be won by one her inferior." But I considered my little wife inferior
to none and second to none. After all my wild work in the field and
trenches, there was something wonderfully refreshing, bewitching, and
attractive in having her hovering and gliding about me, and all her
sweet companionship; and it was _so_ delightful and novel to have
those quick and white and fairy-like fingers to adjust one's necktie,
to settle one's collar, and give, perhaps, just a finishing touch with
a carved ivory brush to the back-parting of one's hair. It _had_
seemed odd to me, at first, those bracelets, tiny rings, and hair-pins
at times on my toilet table; and equally odd to her my collars, ties,
studs, and razors sometimes left on hers; and we were laughing and
chatting merrily of this community in matters one lovely morning at
Brighton, when the sun was shining on the sea, that was dotted by a
thousand pleasure-boats, and was all rippling in golden light from the
snow-white cliffs of Beachy Head to Selsea Bill, and while the merry
voices of children came pleasantly on the warm air from the Marine
Parade, as we were seated at breakfast with the hotel windows open.

Winifred was looking as only a young bride in her first bloom can
look. She was more radiant than she had ever seemed even at
Craigaderyn; and through the frills of her morning dress, a marvel of
white lace and millinery, her slender throat and delicate arms,
without necklet or bracelet, were seen to perfection, and I thought
she never seemed so charming, as she sat smiling at me over the silver
urn. Thus one quite forgot the fragrant coffee, the French rolls that
lay cosily hidden in the damask napkin, the dainty fresh eggs, the
game-pie, the ham done up in Madeira, and as for the well-aired
morning papers, they were never thought of at all. On the morning in
question my valet, Lance-corporal Mulligan, entered the room with our
letters on a salver. I had picked up the poor fellow by the merest
chance one night at the Brighton Theatre, where he had been receiving,
as a super and sham soldier in a suit of tin armour, one shilling per
night, exactly what he got from her Majesty's most liberal government
for risking his life night and day as a real one; and so, minus an
eye, he had betaken himself, after fighting at Alma and storming the
Redan, to figuring at the Battle of Bosworth and marching to
Dunsinane. So he came to me gladly, while his Biddy and a chubby Pat,
born under canvas among the tents of the Connaught Rangers, were
snugly located in one of the gate-lodges at Craigaderyn.

Erect as a pike he marched up to the table and laid the letters before
Winny, all save one, which he handed to me. It was oblong, official,
and inscribed "On her Majesty's Service," words at the sight of which
his solitary eye brightened, while he regarded them with respect, as
an Osmanli might the cipher of the Sultan; and then he stood at
"attention," lingering by, napkin in hand, to hear what the contents
were. They were, as usual in such communications from the Horse
Guards, very brief, but not the less gratifying. The Military
Secretary had the honour to inform me that her Majesty had been
graciously pleased to signify her intention of conferring the new
order of merit, entitled the Victoria Cross, on certain officers,
seamen, and soldiers, for acts of bravery during the late war;
that my name was on the list for it, on the recommendation of
Brigadier-general Windham, as a reward for volunteering with the
ladder party at the storming and capture of the Redan on the 8th
September; and that my presence was required at a parade before her
Majesty, on a certain day named.

"That is all, Mulligan--you may go," said I, and he wheeled about
sharply, as if on a pivot, and stalked out; while Winny kissed me, ran
her white fingers caressingly through my hair, her face beaming with
delight.

"But, Winny, by Jove, I've done nothing to deserve this. I only
tumbled into an embrasure of the Redan, to be tumbled out again," said
I; "and I got jambed among the dead."

"Nothing, darling--do you call that nothing?" she exclaimed. "O, this
is indeed delightful--a real decoration! How proud I am of you! and
yet--and yet--I am loth to leave Brighton for town. We are so happy
here; we have been so jolly, Harry."

"But, Winny, we shall return; we have 'done' the pier, the parade, and
the pavilion, again and again."

"Have you wearied?"

"When with _you!_"

"And I with you, Harry! But I am so happy that I fear at times such
happiness cannot last."

"Town will be a pleasant change for a time; and then the spectacle in
the Park will be most brilliant, and--all the world of fashion will be
there."

"And one, perhaps, whom--I don't wish to see," said she, pouting.

"One--who?"

"Lady Aberconway will be there, no doubt," she replied, with a little
nervous laugh.

"What of that, in the world of London? And what now is Es--the
Marchioness of Aberconway, or Aber-anything-else, to me, Winny,
darling?"

"Nothing now, of course--but--but--"

"But what?"

"I cannot forget that she _has been_ something to you."

"Never what you are now," said I, clasping her to my breast with one
arm, and kissing her on the eyes and hair.

"You pet me too much, Harry, and I fear will quite spoil me," said
she, laughing merrily again.

"Who could live with you and not pet you? Would you have me to wrap
myself up in a toga, a mantle of marital dignity, and remain solemnly
on a pedestal like an armless statue, for my little wife to worship?
But there was something in one of your letters that made you laugh?"

"It is from Dora."

"And her news?"

"Is that she has accepted Vaughan."

"I am so glad to hear it! Then we shall have another marriage, and
more feasting and harping at Craigaderyn?"

"Yes; about the middle of August, or after the grouse-shooting begins,
as dear papa would date it."

CHAPTER LXI.--"FOR VALOUR."

It was in the height of the gay London season that this interesting
ceremony, which formed the last scene connected with the Crimean
War--the last chapter in its glorious yet melancholy history--was to
be closed under the auspices of Royalty on a day in June, when the air
was clear, bright, and sunny, the sky without a cloud. The place
selected for the celebration, though perhaps not the most suitable in
London, was appropriate enough, by its local and historical
associations; and Hyde Park seemed beautiful and stirring when viewed
through the mellow haze of the midsummer morning, with its long rows
of trees and far expanse of green grass, on which the masses of
cavalry and infantry, chiefly of the Household Brigade, were ranged,
their arms and gay appointments flashing and glittering in the sun,
and the mighty assemblage of fashionables, in splendid carriages, on
horseback, or on foot--such an assemblage as London alone can
produce--with the bronze Achilles, the trophy of another and far more
glorious war, towering over all.

There were present not less than a hundred thousand of the
sight-loving Londoners, full of generous enthusiasm. A grand review
formed a portion of the programme; but as such displays are all alike,
I shall skip that part of the day's proceedings; though there were
present the 79th Highlanders, whom I had last seen in the trenches
before the Redan, preparing for the final assault at daybreak; the
19th, that with the 23rd went side by side in the uphill charge at
Alma; the showy 11th Hussars in blue with scarlet pelisses, who had
ridden in the terrible death ride at Balaclava; and with glittering
brass helmets the gallant Enniskillens, who, with the Greys, had
followed Scarlett in the task of avenging them. And there, too,
commanding the whole, in his plumed bonnet and tartan trews, was old
Colin Campbell, riding as quietly and as grimly, amid the youth, rank,
and beauty of London, as when he brought his Highland Brigade in
stately échelon of regiments along the green slopes of the Kourgané
Hill, and heard the gray Kazan columns, ere they fled, send up their
terrible wail to heaven, that "the angel of Death had come!" This
veteran soldier, who had carried the colours of the 9th Regiment under
Moore at Corunna, looked old now, worn, and service-stricken, yet he
had the wars of the Indian Mutiny before him still. By his side rode
the hero of Kars in artillery uniform, and that brilliant Hussar
officer, the Earl of Cardigan, mounted on the same horse he had ridden
at Balaclava. The royal stand, as yet empty, was elaborately
decorated; gilded chairs of state were placed within it; and in front,
covered with scarlet cloth, was a table whereon lay sixty-two of those
black crosses, cast from Russian cannon, rude in design, but named
after her Majesty, and inscribed "For Valour"--sixty-two being the
number who, on that day, were to receive them.

We, "the observed of all observers," had not as yet fallen in, so I
lingered near the stand, where Winifred, Dora, and Gwenny Vaughan, and
many other ladies were seated, and seeking, by the aid of parasol and
fan, to shield themselves from the heat of the sun, and using their
lorgnettes freely in looking for friends among the crowd, and in
watching the proceedings, chatting and laughing gaily the while, with
all the freedom of happy and heedless girls; for the troops were
"standing at ease," and her Majesty had not yet come. Winifred was
looking charming in her bridal bonnet, charming amid the loveliest
women in the world--and they were there by thousands; for she had the
beauty of perfect goodness, and of the purest and gentlest attributes
of woman-kind; for she was an artless and generous creature, too
simpleminded at times, even in this cold-blooded and well-bred age, to
have the power of concealing her emotions.

I wore my old and faded red coat of the Welsh Fusileers for the _last_
time; and though there was something sad in the conviction that it was
so, I never felt so proud of it, or of my looped-up sleeve, as on that
day in Hyde Park. I felt that my occupation was gone, and that any
other was unsuited to me, for "it is the speciality of a soldier's
career, that it unfits most men for any other life. They cannot throw
off the old habitudes. They cannot turn from the noisy stir of war to
the tame quiet of every-day life; and even when they fancy themselves
wearied and worn out, and willing to retire from the service, their
souls are stirred by every sound of the distant contest, as the
war-steed is roused by the blast of a trumpet." Often in fancy before
this, for I was ever addicted to daydreams, I had pictured some such
fête, some such ceremony, some such reward, for all our army had
endured in Bulgaria, and done by the shores of the Black Sea; but the
reality far exceeded all I had ever imagined. In my school-days, how I
had longed, with all a boy's ardour, to fight for my country and
Queen! Well, I _had_ fought--not for either, certainly, but for the
lazy, wretched, and contemptible Turks--and her royal hand was about
to reward me, by placing an order on my breast.

The longing, the wild desire to achieve, to do something great, or
grand, or dashing, had ever since those school-boy days been mine; now
that mysterious "something" was achieved, and I was about to be made a
V.C. before that vast multitude, and more than all, beneath the soft
kind eyes of one who loved me more than all the world.

"Who the dooce is that handsome woman, on whom----" (I failed to catch
the name) "of ours is so devilish spooney?" I heard one tall Plunger,
in a marvellously new panoply, lisp to another, as he checked his
beautiful black horse for a moment in passing.

"What! can it be possible you don't know? It is the talk of all town,"
replied the other, laughing, and in a low tone; "she is Lady
Aberconway, old Pottersleigh's wife--a more ill-mated pair don't exist
in Europe, by Jove!"

"So she has found consolation?"

"Rather."

And the two glittering warriors with black boots, shining
breastplates, and fly-away whiskers, winked to each other knowingly,
and separated.

I looked in the direction they had indicated. Close by me an officer
of the Oxford Blues, with his horse reined in close to the stand, was
engaged in a conversation, by turns gay and animated, or low and
confidential, with--Estelle! She was seated near her mother, Lady
Naseby, who looked as impassible and passionless as ever, with her
cold and imperious dignity of face and manner, and her odious white
shock, now somewhat aged and wheezy, in her lap.

"Love," it is said, "is hard as any snake to kill." Perhaps so; but I
could regard her daughter now without any special throb of my pulse,
or thrill in my heart.

Still I could not but confess that her high class of beauty, in style,
polish, and finish, was wonderful, and when in repose, cold and
aristocratic to a degree. She had achieved already that which has been
justly described as "that queenly standard women so often attain after
marriage, while losing none of their early charms," unless I except a
little heartless flippancy of manner in the conversation, which, as I
was pressed near her by the crowd, I was compelled to overhear. Her
toilette was as perfect as lace, tulle, and flowers could make it. How
often had I gazed tenderly and passionately on that face, so false and
yet so fair, and kissed it on lips, and eyes, and cheek! and now it
was turned, smilingly, laughingly, and, I am sorry to add, lovingly,
to the boyish and insipid face of that long-legged, curled, and
pomatumed Guardsman, who had "never set a squadron in the field," nor
smelt powder elsewhere than at Wormwood Scrubs or Bushey Park.

I turned from her with something of sublime contempt, and yet, odd to
say, I felt a nervous twinge, as if in the arm that was now no longer
in my sleeve, when her voice reached me; but after all that had come
and gone, that voice could find no echo now in my heart. Sweetly
modulated it was still, but seemed to me only "low and clear as the
song of a snake-charmer."

"It will be the ball of the season--you will be there, of course?" she
asked.

"Only if _you_ go, Lady Aberconway--not unless," replied the trooper,
in a low tone; "what or who else should take me there?"

"So they have made your uncle a K.C.B."

"Yes--and somebody is going to marry him on Tuesday at eleven in
Hanover-square."

"And your brother is coming up for his little exam. I have heard
also."

"Yes--at Woolwich. The idea of any fellow fancying the Artillery!"

"Is he handsome--is he anything like _you?_" Then, without waiting for
a reply to these important queries, she suddenly said, "Gracious,
mamma, there is another poor creature without an arm!"

"Poor deyvil--so there is," drawled her male friend, and then I knew
by these flattering remarks that their august regards were turned on
me; but my bushy Crimean beard, my empty sleeve, and, as yet, rather
pale cheek, and moreover my face being half averted, prevented Estelle
from recognising me; or it might be, that I dwelt but little in her
memory.

"What is that officer's regiment?" she asked, adding doubtfully, "he
is an officer, isn't he--but his uniform is deplorable!"

"Twenty-third--Welsh Fusileers."

"Ah, indeed!"

I now turned fully round; for a moment our eyes met, and then I moved
back to where Winifred sat. Estelle eyed me keenly enough now, and
fanned herself, as I thought, with a little air of vexation, from time
to time. Yet that was not flattering; for I knew that though a woman
may forget, she does not like the idea of being forgotten, or that
even when flirting with another, her empire over an old lover's heart
is at an end.

She had deteriorated in style, and her tone of flippancy was not that
of the Estelle I had once loved; and as for the boy Guardsman, with
whom gossip was already linking her name, poor fool! his love for her
and her extravagance soon ruined him. Bills were dishonoured thick and
threefold; cent. per cent., London, and Judea between them cleaned him
out. A meeting of the Guards' Club passed such resolutions that he was
compelled to begin the sliding scale--from "the Guards to Line, and
from thence to the devil," as the phrase is--and to recruiting for
H.M. 2nd West India Regiment in Sierra Leone, where drink and fever
finished him; and he lies now by the bank of the Bunce river, as
completely forgotten by Estelle as if he never had been.

"Do you see who is there, Harry?" asked Winifred, with a rather
agitated voice.

"Yes; what of it, little one?"

"Only that I--hate her!"

"Why?"

"For her treatment of you."

"How odd!" said I, laughing; "had it been otherwise, Winny, we should
not have had our delightful little trip to Brighton. Think of that, my
British matron!"

"I am not a matron yet, but only your bride; the honeymoon is not yet
over, sir."

"Thank God you are so, darling! What an escape I have had from being
in old Pottersleigh's place! But there sound the trumpets, and I must
fall in--fall in for the last time."

And as drum and bugle sounded on all sides, and the arms flashed in
the sunshine when the order was given to "shoulder," a brightness
seemed to pass over all the eyes and expectant faces in the grand
stand. The Queen had come, and all that passed subsequently was like a
dream to me then, and is more so now. The sixty-two officers and men
who were to receive the cross (and twelve of whom belonged to the
navy) were all, irrespective of rank, marshalled according to the
number of their regiment under Lieutenant John Knox, of the Rifles,
who, like myself, had an empty sleeve. The braided breast of his
dark-green uniform seemed ablaze with medals, for he had been with the
ladder party in the attack on the Redan, where he lost an arm by a
grape-shot. There were but two officers of the 23rd to win the
decoration, and we were posted between two privates of the 19th, and
two of the 34th; but all passed the royal stand in single file. I had
never seen the Queen hitherto, and suddenly I found myself before
her--a smiling-faced, graceful, though stout little lady, in a low
hat, adorned with a beautiful plume, and wearing a scarlet tunic and
blue skirt; and I certainly felt my heart vibrate, as with her own
hands she pinned the decoration on my breast--vibrate with a flush of
pride and joy only to be felt at such a time and at such a ceremony;
and yet amid it all I thought of the dear little wife who, with her
eyes dim with tears of happiness, was watching me. I then passed on,
giving place to a lame private of the 34th Foot, the Prince Consort
saluting each recipient as they passed him--many slowly, painfully,
and with difficulty; for some poor maimed and haggard-faced fellows
were hobbling on sticks and crutches, and some, like the gallant Sir
Thomas Trowbridge, who had lost both legs, were wheeled to the very
feet of the Queen in Bath-chairs. At last all was over--this closing
episode of our war in the Crimea; and as we drove from the crowded
park to get the train for Brighton--the honeymoon was not yet
finished--I had forgotten all about Estelle and her Plunger; and I
thanked God in my heart that I was not lying where so many lay in the
land we had left, and for the tender and true-hearted wife He had
given me, as I laughingly hung round her pretty neck the black-iron
order of valour--the Victoria Cross.

Fifteen years have passed since that auspicious day. And now, as I
write these closing lines, I can see, through the lozenged and
mullioned windows of the library, the old woods of Craigaderyn tossing
their leafy branches on the evening wind, and the sunset lingering
redly on the lofty peaks of Snowdon and Carneydd Llewellyn. Old Sir
Madoc--too old now to back even his most favourite hunter--is sitting
yonder in the sunshine, looking dreamily down the far-stretched vista
of the chase to where the bright sea is rippling in the distance.

The flowers are blooming as gaily on the terrace as they did on the
day of Dora's fête, and she has long been _Aunt_ Vaughan; for at
Craigaderyn there are little ones now--a violet-eyed Winifred, who
scampers through the park on a Welsh pony; a dark-haired Madoc, who
can almost handle a gun; and a golden-curled Harry to run after the
tossing leaves, to shout to the deer and hare as they lurk among the
fern; to seek for birds' nests among the shrubbery; to grab at the
gold fish in the fountain with his fat little fists; to clamber about
Sir Madoc's chair and knees; to ride on the backs of Owen Gwyllim and
old Corporal Mulligan, and in whom we see mamma's eyes, papa's
expression--nods, winks, and blinks, and so forth, all so exactly
reproduced and blended, that our best friends don't know which of us
he most resembles; so "Time, the avenger" of all things, has brought
nothing but joy and happiness to us at Craigaderyn.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Without God, without everything.]

[Footnote 2: The artillery of the Prussian Guard have also had
constantly a goat, its neck encircled by a beautiful collar, and one,
named by the soldiers "Herr Schneider," accompanied them in every
battle, from the war which broke out in 1866 till the peace in 1870.
He always marched with the men of the first gun. At Köninghof, Herr
Schneider was left in the rear, tied to a powder caisson; but he broke
loose, came to the front at full gallop, and was recaptured under
fire; the soldiers afterwards attached to his collar a copper medal,
made from a pan found among the captured cooking utensils of General
Coronini. His death was formally announced by the artillery of the
Guard in the Berlin _Vossische Zeitung_.]

[Footnote 3: Fusileer regiments did not then wear epaulettes.]

[Footnote 4: May God preserve us!]

[Footnote 5: Good Lord deliver us.]

THE END.

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BILLING, PRINTER. GUILDFORD, SURREY