Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/32

26 the old yearnings after those who made home to him in England:

"My garden is in first-rate order, and I shall be sorry to leave it when we are ordered away. The passion-flower, twined with honeysuckle and convolvulus, are blooming so prettily over my n porch! Oh! my darling mother, that you were here, living in one of my rooms! What pleasure it would give me to look once more on your dear face, to mingle my prayers with yours for the temporal well-being and eternal happiness of mother and son. I generally retire to my summer-house to read when I feel serious; there I have no interruption from any one, and can sit for hours, with nothing to engage my senses but the wide expanse of the distant ocean, the sweet scent of heliotrope and geranium, the voice of the tiny humming-bird, or the rustling breeze in the lofty and quivering bamboos. Even the purring of my little kittens is pleasant to me at such a time. What fitter season for prayer than when one is surrounded by the gifts of the All-powerful Creator. But, oh! dear mother, I wish I felt more what I write.

"A poor gunner of the Royal Artillery died last night. His remains are to be buried to-day. While I write I hear the Dead March, and now the funeral party are winding their way to the graveyard, the muffled drum and shrill fife calling forth the soldiers from their barracks to see their lately gay and laughing comrade borne to his last resting-place. Who amongst them can tell which shall be next? Little they care, poor fellows! The sound of their merry laughter will soon be heard again, unsubdued as ever. I hope, my dear mother, that these warnings will have a salutary effect upon me. Those have lately been carried off whom I knew, and who (like myself) thought little of death, until he knocked at their own door, and beckoned them to come away — where?"