rateful, as I was very
hungry and the wine proved to be much more to my taste than my
previous ration of cyder.

I had not been sitting there long, however, before I heard a heavy
footstep descending the staircase of the house, and on looking up,
found it belonged to a Frenchman who had been up there for the purpose
of plunder, and was now coming away with a good-sized bundle of clean
linen under his arm. When he saw me he immediately bolted out of a
back door which led into a field. I made a desperate plunge at him
with my bayonet, but owing to my bad foot I could not get near enough
to him to hurt him; still I managed to stop his burden, for he had
forced that against the bayonet to shield himself from it. As soon as
I could extricate my musket, I hobbled as quickly as I could to the
back door and sent a bullet after him; but he had got some distance
away, and I cannot say exactly whether I hit him; though I think it
broke his arm, for I saw it drop immediately, and his motion became
more slackened as he passed out of sight, which contented me as much
as if I had killed him.

I then went back into the house and blew the Portuguese up for not
keeping a better watch than to let a Frenchman find his way upstairs,
as he might have killed us both. The Portuguese said he did not know
how he got up there, neither did he very much care so long as he was
gone now. I told him I thought he was a very easy-going customer, and
pointed out that I had saved his linen for him, and his wife took it
upstairs again as if nothing had happened, he likewise remarked that
there was no fear of the Frenchman having taken any money, for he had
none. He then gave me some more bread and wine, and when I had stopped
two or three hours longer, during which time I drank the wine and
stowed the bread into my haversack till I should feel more inclined to
eat it, I left them, not feeling altogether safe there, as the enemy
might very likely fall back. I returned over our well-deserved bridge
to the cyder-house, as we had named it after the barrel we had found
there. On my arrival my comrades seemed to smell out my bread, and
they came and hovered round me like bees while I divided it as well as
I could, for I was not hungry myself, and it was soon devoured.

We only stayed about two or three hours longer at this house until
the army came up, and we again joined our different regiments. We
halted near this place for the night, and our butchers comme