e day in that month we were surprised by a visit from my uncle Job,
the sergeant in the Sixty-first foot, then in camp on the downs above
King George's watering-place, several miles to the west yonder. Uncle
Job dropped in about dusk, and went up with my father to the fold for an
hour or two. Then he came home, had a drop to drink from the tub of
sperrits that the smugglers kept us in for housing their liquor when
they'd made a run, and for burning 'em off when there was danger. After
that he stretched himself out on the settle to sleep. I went to bed: at
one o'clock father came home, and waking me to go and take his place,
according to custom, went to bed himself. On my way out of the house I
passed Uncle Job on the settle. He opened his eyes, and upon my telling
him where I was going he said it was a shame that such a youngster as I
should go up there all alone; and when he had fastened up his stock and
waist-belt he set off along with me, taking a drop from the sperrit-tub
in a little flat bottle that stood in the corner-cupboard.

'By and by we drew up to the fold, saw that all was right, and then, to
keep ourselves warm, curled up in a heap of straw that lay inside the
thatched hurdles we had set up to break the stroke of the wind when there
was any. To-night, however, there was none. It was one of those very
still nights when, if you stand on the high hills anywhere within two or
three miles of the sea, you can hear the rise and fall of the tide along
the shore, coming and going every few moments like a sort of great snore
of the sleeping world. Over the lower ground there was a bit of a mist,
but on the hill where we lay the air was clear, and the moon, then in her
last quarter, flung a fairly good light on the grass and scattered straw.

'While we lay there Uncle Job amused me by telling me strange stories of
the wars he had served in and the wownds he had got. He had already
fought the French in the Low Countries, and hoped to fight 'em again. His
stories lasted so long that at last I was hardly sure that I was not a
soldier myself, and had seen such service as he told of. The wonders of
his tales quite bewildered my mind, till I fell asleep and dreamed of
battle, smoke, and flying soldiers, all of a kind with the doings he had
been bringing up to me.

'How long my nap lasted I am not prepared to say. But some faint sounds
over and above the rustle of the ewes in the straw, the bleat of the
lambs,