the performance of this unpleasant task, I had to follow one of the
Company's artillery to his last home. Observing one of the funeral party
lagging behind the rest, I asked him why he did not keep up. He
answered, that "He had had a great big fight with the deceased a short
time before he went dead, and he did not think the man had forgiven
him." "Poh! poh!" replied I, "the man cannot hurt you now he is
dead."--"Och, fait!" said he, "I beg your honour's pardon. I once knew
a man that was as dead as Barney Flynn's great-grandmother, come to
life; besides, the deceased said he would never rest, dead or no dead,
till he gave me a great big bating; and I should not like to provoke
him."--"Do not talk such nonsense to me," said I.--"Nonsense! your
honour; it's no such thing at all, at all; he was a mighty cunning chap
when alive, and who knows what he has learned since he went dead?" All I
could say I could not induce this man to approach till the corpse was
lowered into the grave, and that half filled, when he at last ventured
to look in, and said, "Fait! I believe you are snug enough now,
joy."--"Throw in a piece of earth as a signal that you part friends,"
said one of the men; but Paddy quickly replied, "No, no; that would be
striking the first blow;" and he went away immediately, no doubt full of
apprehensions that he should some time or other receive a nocturnal
visit from his comrade, who now slumbered in peace, secure in the cold
grave from war's alarms. So much for superstition!

Having buried our dead, we left one regiment of native infantry till
Scindia should send a more loyal garrison. We were afterwards given to
understand, that his highness was not at all obliged to us for knocking
his fort to pieces. We then turned towards home, and in a few days
reached Saugar to rest our weary limbs.

After the toils of war, and seeing no prospect of having anything more
to do, I obtained permission to visit my wife at Cawnpore, some four
hundred miles from Saugar. This was readily granted: I reached Cawnpore
in the space of fourteen days; and, in the embraces of an affectionate
wife, I forgot, for a time, the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of
glorious war." I remained in Cawnpore about eight or ten days, and the
place was at that time the seat of festivity and splendour. Dinners,
balls, and routs, followed each other in quick succession, so that, at
the end of the ten days, I was completely exhausted by dissipation. On
th