tobacco, and then brags about what he does for our children, the sly
old dog!) was educating some of our boys who otherwise might not be
educated half so well, if at all. Moreover, the broad shoulders, the
trim flanks, the aquiline nose, brown hair and ruddy cheeks of the
young fellow recalled the best specimens of British lads whom I had
seen in Canada and elsewhere. In truth, I could hardly persuade myself
that he was not English.

Albion was in the air, for on the other side of the depot there was
a lot of trunks and other baggage, the make of which could not
be mistaken. I soon learned that one of the best estates in the
neighborhood had been sold to an Englishman, who had arrived that
very day.

"Furies! the sacred soil of Virginia _again_ passing into the hands of
the blarsted Hinglish, from whom it was wrested a century ago by the
blood and treasure of George Washington's hatchet! A Federal cadet on
one side and an Englishman on the other of Blank Depot, away off here
in Bedford! What are we coming to?"

I did not say or think this either, but was delighted to find John
Bull pervading the Old Dominion.

Another and a bitterer pill, had I been as disloyal as I was five
years ago, and ought to be now, awaited me, as you shall hear.

But where is that ambulance? The blessed vehicle was there, and, after
so long and painful a separation, we should have met face to face if
it had not been backed up to the platform to receive--whom? me? No,
a parcel of ladies, who filled every seat. My inflammable Southside
soul would have burst into a high blaze at this if a gentleman had
not immediately stepped forward with a snug jug of whisky. Whisky in
any vessel I love, but whisky in a jug not too big to handle easily
I adore. My viznomy relaxed, a beam of joy began to irradiate my
features, when to my extreme surprise the benevolent jug-gentleman
said, "Take a glass of claret punch"--he had the glass as well as the
jug--"won't you, sir?"

Amazement! claret punch in a jug at a depot in the heart, or at any
rate the pericardium, of Bedford county! Where was I? who was I? what
was my name? and where was I going to? In my life I was never more
nonplussed.

The ambulance drove off, and I was consigned to a spring wagon with a
white boy for a driver.

"How far is it to the general's?" I ventured to ask as I stepped in.

"Eight miles."

"Whew!"

"Never mind, sir: we shall be there in an hour and a half."

And off we w