Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/171

164 I kept up a jolly fire all through, and endeavoured to write a letter to darling mother, whilst seated opposite its blaze, but I could only get fitful gleams, bright enough to see to write, so I had soon to give up. I read the First Epistle of Peter, and then folding my cloak around me, and stretching myself close to the watchfire, I was sound asleep in ten minutes, notwithstanding the roar of cannon and rattle of musketry which kept up a concert during the night.

"Thank you, my own darling Mary, for your last dear and affectionate letter. It affected me almost to tears, with its deep tone of sisterly love. Strange would it be if I did not love you fondly in return. You say my letters always 'cheer and invigorate you.' Surely I may say the same if not more, of yours.'

All this time the Prayer meetings were continued in his tent at every opportunity, and wearied and worn out as he was after nights on picquet or in the trenches, frequently before he rested he was found in the hospital tent. "In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often," he became "in labours more abundant," and his work of love carried with it its own reward, even at the time, as we learn from his letter of the 15th of December, besides the blessed remembrance of the promise for the future, "Verily I say unto you, a cup of cold water given in my name shall in no wise lose its reward."

"On picquet the other night I was looking up at the bright moon and stars, thinking of the power and love of Him who made them, and of the star in the East which 'came and stood where the young child lay,' and the Saviour's sorrows and sufferings from Bethlehem to Calvary passed in review before my mind. This afternoon, whilst speaking to our poor fellows in the cholera hospital, who were