d Hartley Dallas a year I was able to join the Military College
at Woolwich, where I went through the regular course, and in due time
obtained my commission in the artillery.

I had not long been in the service before the Crimean war broke out, and
our battery was one of the first despatched to the seat of war, where,
in company with my comrades, I went through that terrible period of
misery and privation.

One night I was in charge of a couple of guns in a rather dangerous
position near the Redan, and after repairing damages under fire my lads
had contrived to patch up a pretty secure shelter with sand-bag and
gabion, ready for knocking down next day, but it kept off the rain, and
where we huddled together there was no mud under our feet, though it was
inches deep in the trench.

It was a bitter night, and the tiny bit of fire that we had ventured to
make in the hole we had scooped underground hardly kept the chill from
our half-frozen limbs. Food was not plentiful, luxuries we had none,
and in place of the dashing-looking artillerymen in blue and gold people
are accustomed to see on parade, anyone who had looked upon us would
have seen a set of mud-stained, ragged scarecrows, blackened with
powder, grim looking, but hard and full of fight.

I was seated on an upturned barrel, hugging my sheepskin-lined greatcoat
closer to me, and drawing it down over my high boots, as I made room for
a couple of my wet, shivering men, and I felt ashamed to be the owner of
so warm a coat as I looked at their well-worn service covering, when my
sergeant put in his head and said:

"Captain of the company of foot, sir, would be glad if you could give
him a taste of the fire and a drop of brandy; he's half dead with the
cold."

"Bring him in," I said; and I waited, thinking about home and the old
garden at Isleworth and then of that at Hampton; I didn't know why, but
I did. And then I was thinking to myself that it was a good job that we
had the stern, manly feeling to comfort us of our hard work being our
duty, when I heard the _slush, slush, slush, slush_, sound of feet
coming along the trenches, and then my sergeant said:

"You'll have to stoop very low to get in, sir, but you'll find it warm
and dry. The lieutenant's inside."

"Yes, come in," I said; and my men drew back to let the fresh corner get
a bit of the fire.

"It's awfully kind of you," he said, as he knelt down, took off his
dripping gloves, and held his blue fi