pressed on
the lever and opened the breech-piece. That's where we load 'em, you
know."

"Load 'em at the wrong end! Well, well, to think o' that! And no
ramrod neither! I've heard tell of it, but I never believed it afore.
Ah! it won't come up to brown Bess. When there's work to be done, you
mark my word and see if they don't come back to brown Bess."

"By the Lord, sir!" cried the sergeant hotly, "they need some change
out in South Africa now. I see by this mornin's paper that the
Government has knuckled under to these Boers. They're hot about it at
the non-com. mess, I can tell you, sir."

"Eh--eh," croaked old Brewster. "By Jimini! it wouldn't ha' done for
the Dook; the Dook would ha' had a word to say over that."

"Ah, that he would, sir!" cried the sergeant; "and God send us another
like him. But I've wearied you enough for one sitting. I'll look in
again, and I'll bring a comrade or two with me, if I may, for there
isn't one but would be proud to have speech with you."

So, with another salute to the veteran and a gleam of white teeth at
Norah, the big gunner withdrew, leaving a memory of blue cloth and of
gold braid behind him. Many days had not passed, however, before he
was back again, and during all the long winter he was a frequent
visitor at Arsenal View. There came a time, at last, when it might be
doubted to which of the two occupants his visits were directed, nor was
it hard to say by which he was most anxiously awaited. He brought
others with him; and soon, through all the lines, a pilgrimage to Daddy
Brewster's came to be looked upon as the proper thing to do. Gunners
and sappers, linesmen and dragoons, came bowing and bobbing into the
little parlour, with clatter of side arms and clink of spurs,
stretching their long legs across the patchwork rug, and hunting in the
front of their tunics for the screw of tobacco or paper of snuff which
they had brought as a sign of their esteem.

It was a deadly cold winter, with six weeks on end of snow on the
ground, and Norah had a hard task to keep the life in that time-worn
body. There were times when his mind would leave him, and when, save
an animal outcry when the hour of his meals came round, no word would
fall from him. He was a white-haired child, with all a child's
troubles and emotions. As the warm weather came once more, however,
and the green buds peeped forth again upon the trees, the blood thawed
in his veins, and he would even