THE STORY OF A RECRUIT. 233
served to support the nest. Again, a pettychaps “had | inga piece of worsted to a branch of the ivy, weaving it
itiice built her nest in some way against a garden wall, | around the outer side of the nest, and carofully eine
land twice her labour had been fruitless, each nest having | the other end of the thread to another commun 2
been blown down by a high wind. The third time she | situated branch.” z
prevented the recurrence of a similar accident by attach-| And with this our nest gossip must conclude.

NIGHTINGALE’S NEST.

THE STORY OF A RECRUIT.

ce UIET at last. That pesterous fellow, who | After that question events went on quick enough.
M| has been trying to persuade me that I am | Therefore it is not surprising that I should find myself
a better man than my own officers, has | enlisted, measured, examined, attested, sworn in, and on
taken his greasy body away. Quiet at | my way to the nearest depot, before I hardly knew what
last. I was doing. Men in those days were wanted so fast to
I am writing this with a beer-shop pen upon beer-shop | fight Bony, that nobody stepped twice in a place.
note paper which I bought five minutes since of the The next few months of my experience would not be
landlord. These trifles are only mentioned by me to j very interesting to you. I hardly lived out of the stables
show the hindrances under which this composition (if I | and riding-school. It was drill all day and every day.
may be pardoned for so calling it) is now placed before When it was not foot drill it was sword exercise ; when it
you. was not sword exercise we were mounted and scampering
Fifty-eight years ago I enlisted at M H in | along the school on bare backs. All this, to say nothing
an hussar regiment. The reason why I took that step about the cleaning of horses and accoutrements, left us|
was that my young woman died in what was called then, not a moment to spare except for sleep or meals. Of,
and I believe still is, “a galloping consumption.” A | course, having been accustomed to horses, I suffered less
week before she was seized with the first symptoms, we | than others; but it made my heart bleed to see poor,|
were walking—happily enough—in the country lanes well brought up young fellows, fresh from home, sitting
near her father’s house. A week later she took to her | in corners, crying, ready to break their hearts after those.
bed and never rose again. When I was called to see the terrible lessons. They only got laughed at by the older,
last of her, I came too late. But I only took one look at | soldiers. We were mounted, I should state, upon bays. |
the white, beautiful face, when the old mother drew down | I had a mare allotted to me as soon as I was reported fit
the sheet from over it, and I went away to M—— H for duty—permanently that is. She was a beautiful
and listed. My trade had been a farrier, and I had as animal. Her muzzle and near hock were as white as,
fair a prospect of succeeding ‘in life as I suppose most | snow. The rest of her coat shone like a lady’s dress. |
people in my position, but I chose rather to give up my Whether, as a farrier, I was more used to handling the’
indentures than to stop any longer where she had lived | creatures, or from any other cause, IT am unable to say, |
and died. (for a woman’s temper, in uncertainty, is a fool to a
-Ihad come away just as I was, leather apron and all, | horse’s) but she took a fancy to me directly she was
so you may suppose (full as the town was of recruiting | handed over to my care. This she displayed, after the|
parties) that I was not long in being picked up by a ser- | usual style of the equine race, by sniffing me all over and
geant of hussars, who asked me what I was looking for. | then by rubbing her nose into my hand, From P