egiments were trained
and managed before being sent forward to their destination.

A taste for equitation, and a certain aptitude for catching up the
peculiar character of the different horses, at once distinguished me in
the riding school, and I was at last adopted by the riding-master of the
regiment as a kind of _aide_ to him in his walk. When I thus became a
bold and skillful horseman, my proficiency interfered with my promotion,
for instead of accompanying my regiment, I was detained at Nancy, and
attached to the permanent staff of the cavalry school there.

At first I asked for nothing better. It was a life of continued pleasure
and excitement, and while I daily acquired knowledge of a subject which
interested me deeply, I grew tall and strong of limb, and with that
readiness in danger, and that cool collectedness in moments of
difficulty, that are so admirably taught by the accidents and mischances
of a cavalry riding-school.

The most vicious and unmanageable beasts from the Limousin were often
sent to us; and when any one of these was deemed peculiarly untractable,
"Give him to Tiernay," was the last appeal, before abandoning him as
hopeless. I'm certain I owe much of the formation of my character to my
life at this period, and that my love of adventure, my taste for
excitement, my obstinate resolution to conquer a difficulty, my
inflexible perseverance when thwarted, and my eager anxiety for praise,
were all picked up amid the sawdust and tan of the riding-school. How
long I might have continued satisfied with such triumphs, and content to
be the wonder of the freshly-joined conscripts, I know not, when
accident, or something very like it, decided the question.

It was a calm, delicious evening in April, in the year after I had
entered the school, that I was strolling alone on the old fortified
wall, which, once a strong redoubt, was the favorite walk of the good
citizens of Nancy. I was somewhat tired with the fatigues of the day,
and sat down to rest under one of the acacia trees, whose delicious
blossom was already scenting the air. The night was still and noiseless;
not a man moved along the wall; the hum of the city was gradually
subsiding, and the lights in the cottages over the plain told that the
laborer was turning homeward from his toil. It was an hour to invite
calm thoughts, and so I fell a-dreaming over the tranquil pleasures of a
peasant's life, and the unruffled peace of an existence passed a