ngers to the flame. "What a night!
It isn't fit for a dog to be out in. 'Pon my soul, gunner, I feel
ashamed to come in and get shelter, and leave my poor boys in the
trench."
"Get a good warm then, and let's thaw and dry one of them at a time.
I'm going to turn out soon."
"Sorry for you," he said. "Brandy--thanks. It's worth anything a night
like this. I've got some cigars in my breast-pocket, as soon as my
fingers will let me get at them."
He had taken off his shako, and the light shone full upon his face,
which I recognised directly, though he did not know me, as he looked up
and said again:
"It's awfully kind of you, gunner."
"Oh! it's nothing," I said, "Captain Dalton--Philip Dalton, is it not?"
"Yes," he said; "you know me?"
"To be sure," I replied; "but you said that next time we met we'd shake
hands."
He sank back and his jaw dropped.
"You remember me--Grant? How is Sir Francis?"
"Remember you!" he said, seizing my hand, "Oh! I say, what a young
beast I was!"
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I learned more than once that he and his brother turned out fine, manly
soldiers, and did their duty well in that hard-fought campaign. I tried
also to do mine, and came back one of the last to leave the Crimea,
another grade higher in my rank.
During my college life I often used to go over and see the brothers
Brownsmith, to be warmly welcomed at every visit; and if ever he got to
know that I was going to Isleworth to spend Sunday, Ike used to walk
over, straighten his back and draw himself up to attention, and salute
me, looking as serious as if in uniform. He did not approve of my going
into the artillery, though.
"It's wrong," he used to say; and in these days he was back at
Isleworth, for Mr Solomon had entered into partnership with his
brother, and both Ike and Shock had elected to follow him back to the
old place.
"Yes," he would say, "it's wrong, Mars Grant, I was always drew to you
because your father had been a sojer; but what would he have said to you
if he had lived to know as you turned gunner?"
"What would you have had me, then? You must have artillerymen."
"Yes, of course, sir; but what are they? You ought to have been a
hoozoar:--
"`Oh, them as with jackets go flying,
Oh, they are the gallant hoozoars,'"
he sang--at least he tried to sing; but I went into the artillery.
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