delighted to find that none of the shells, although eight
had been thrown, had done any other injury than frightening those whom
they came near. I can speak for myself, at all events; and I protest I
did not at all relish the idea of being shot by the shells of our own
batteries. There was something unnatural in this mode of making one's
exit; and, to tell the candid truth, I was terribly scared, and the
captain of the battery and I never got on such terms of intimacy again
as to be within shelling distance, as I was not fond of such combustible
acquaintances.

After I had stopped the shelling from our battery, and was thinking of
my miraculous escape, I was interrupted by an inquisitive sergeant; and,
as I always made it a point of attending civilly to every man who spoke
to me, I permitted him to go on. He addressed me as follows:--"Pray, was
your honour there when the first shell fell, for I was after laying that
self-same mortar?"

"Yes," said I, "and you nearly laid me in the grave."

"By the powers, but I should have been mighty sorry for that, your
honour."

I thanked him for his sorrow, but he continued following me towards the
scene of action, and at last again broke silence.

"Is all the fight over, your honour?"

I said, I hoped so.

"I hope not," replied he.

I told him I was pretty confident of it, as the enemy were willing to
give up the fort.

Hearing this, he coolly replied, "Then bad luck to them, after all the
trouble we have had in building and completing that sweet eight-gun
battery forenent yonder."

"Well, but my good fellow," I replied, "you cannot expect with reason
more than they have to give."

"I don't mane that, your honour; it's only so much time thrown away for
nothing, without getting any satisfaction for it; besides, your honour,
it is quite tantalizing to one's feelings; and a great big fight would
have been some kind of compensation."

"Supposing that, in that great big fight, you or I should have been
killed, sergeant?"

"By my conscience," said he, laughing loudly, "but that would have been
rather unpleasant, certainly."

"That would have been but a poor compensation for your trouble. What do
you think, sergeant?"

"Faith! your honour, I like short reckonings, and I do not like to work
for nothing."

Here we rejoined the party; he mixed in the general bustle, and I lost
sight of him. I afterwards saw the same man in the fort, and I pointed
out to him a poor woma