on, such as
exfoliation of the bone, seemed now threatening me. Up to this the
inconvenience had gone no further than an occasional sharp pang after a
hard day's ride, or a dull uneasy feeling which prevented my sleeping
soundly at night. I hoped, however, by time, that these would subside, and
the natural strength of my constitution carry me safely over every
mischance. I was ashamed to speak of these symptoms to my companions, lest
they should imagine that I was only screening myself from the fatigues of
which they so freely partook; and so I continued, day after day, the same
habit of severe exercise; while feverish nights, and a failing appetite,
made me hourly weaker. My spirits never flagged, and, perhaps, in this
way, damaged me seriously; supplying a false energy long after real
strength had begun to give way. The world, indeed, "went so well" with me
in all other respects, that I felt it would have been the blackest
ingratitude against Fortune to have given way to any thing like discontent
or repining. It was true, I was far from being a solitary instance of a
colonel at my age; there were several such in the army, and one or two
even younger; but they were unexceptionably men of family influence,
descendants of the ancient nobility of France, for whose chivalric names
and titles the Emperor had conceived the greatest respect; and never, in
all the pomp of Louis XIV's court, were a Gramont, a Guise, a
Rochefoucauld, or a Tavanne more certain of his favorable notice. Now, I
was utterly devoid of all such pretensions; my claims to gentle blood,
such as they were, derived from another land, and I might even regard
myself as the maker of my own fortune.

How little thought did I bestow on my wound, as I mounted my horse on that
mellow day of autumn! How indifferent was I to the pang that shot through
me, as I touched the flank with my leg. Our road led through a thick
forest, but over a surface of level sward, along which we galloped in all
the buoyancy of youth and high spirits. An occasional trunk lay across our
way, and these we cleared at a leap; a feat, which I well saw my Hungarian
friends were somewhat surprised to perceive, gave me no trouble whatever.
My old habits of the riding-school had made me a perfect horseman; and
rather vain of my accomplishment, I rode at the highest fences I could
find. In one of these exploits an acute pang shot through me, and I felt
as if something had given way in my leg. The