Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/641

Rh be made glad on hearing that his fond sister was about to become the wife of the new incumbent of St. Clement's. With so estimable a man for husband, to say nothing of his being so brilliant a preacher, she felt sure that her happiness was secured. Mr. Morgan was a widower, the letter went on to say; "indeed he has been sorely tried, poor dear fellow, for his first wife died after a long and very painful illness; but I trust he has now many years of happiness before him." The letter concluded by saying that the marriage was to take place in a few weeks. The writer would have wished to defer it till her dearest Arthur should be at home; but she supposed he could not be spared from his military duties just at present, and dear William had made such a point of the new vicarage being now ready for occupation, that she was forced to consent to a speedy union.

The tide of war had now completely turned. It was no longer a struggle on terms of equality, where discipline and courage on one side were balanced against numbers on the other. The British army was now in great strength, and moving triumphantly over the country. The rebel cavalry had pretty well given up fighting on its own account, and the opportunities for engaging it had become rare; but the enemy still held out in force here and there, occupying strong positions from which they had to be dislodged; and the British cavalry, moving in advance of the army, more than once suffered losses from artillery and infantry fire, to which they were unable to reply. This happened one day to Kirke's horse, now brigaded with two other regiments under Colonel Tartar, and in advance of the army moving on a point where the enemy seemed disposed to make a stand. Kirke's horse was drawn up in reserve while one of the other regiments was skirmishing in their front among some high crops, in which the horsemen were almost concealed, and which surrounded a flat-roofed town hardly to be made out above the tall grain, but from the outskirts of which a desultory fire was proceeding. The younger troops, who had never been in action before, were in a state of great excitement, as a squadron told off for skirmishing was engaged in front soon to be reinforced by another — Kirke's men meanwhile, who were in the rear, conducting themselves with the nonchalance of old campaigners, the men dismounted, the officers in a little group on horseback.

"They seem very lively in front there," said Kirke, as the dragoons might be seen trotting round in circles discharging their carbines in reply to the enemy's fire; "but I should doubt anything coming out of the business, except that some of the youngsters will get hit. I wonder the brigadier don't send us up instead. Not that we should be able to do much better, but our men would be cheaper."

"It would be an awful nuisance though," said Egan, "to have a lot of our fellows knocked over for nothing, merely because the general wants us cavalry to do infantry work. A regiment of Sikhs would clear out these fields in a jiffey."

"My good fellow," observed Braddon, "if you deduct all the men who are knocked over in war without satisfying any useful purpose, the casualties in this noble pastime would undergo a perceptible reduction."

"May be so, but it must be a horrid bore to be hit about in this way without getting any good by it."

"But you may get a great deal of good by it, my dear fellow; there, for example, goes a man who will get a good deal," — and as Braddon spoke, a doolee was borne to the rear with an officer, whom they could make out to be the commandant of the regiment engaged, wounded in the leg by a gunshot: "that man arrived from England about three days ago, and has been in action about five minutes, but he is safe for his C.B. now, and will be a great authority on cavalry for the remainder of his life."

"Ah! here are the infantry at last," said Kirke, as a regiment of Sikhs came up in haste at a long swinging stride, and sent a couple of companies in skirmishing order into the high crops.

"Now, there goes a really brave man," said Braddon, pointing to the commandant of the regiment, a stout, middle-aged officer, who rode at the head of it. "That man has a wife and eight children in England to my knowledge. I declare I don't think I could muster up courage to go into action if I had such a frightful load on my shoulders."

"I don't see that at all," said Yorke; "if a man has all the comfort of married life in peace time he must pay for it on active service. You can't have everything without alloy in this world. But I don't observe that married men make a bit worse soldiers than bachelors."

"Then they ought to. As for comfort, I don't fancy old Swaby there has had too much in that line; he has been always