lection, I could not recall where I gave my
rifle to the grass.

I ran for the river. I saw some of our own men running ahead of me and I
envied them. My point of contact with the river was the top of a high
bank. But I did not hesitate to leap for the water with all my ounces of
muscle. I struck out strongly for the other shore. I expected to be shot
in the water. Up stream, and down stream, I could hear the crack of
rifles, but none of the enemy seemed to be paying direct heed to me. I
swam so well that I was soon able to put my feet on the slippery round
stones and wade. When I reached a certain sandy beach, I lay down and
puffed and blew my exhaustion. I watched the scene on the river. Indians
appeared in groups on the opposite bank, firing at various heads of my
comrades, who, like me, had chosen the Susquehanna as their refuge. I
saw more than one hand fling up and the head turn sideways and sink.

I set out for home. I set out for home in that perfect spirit of
dependence which I had always felt toward my father and my mother. When
I arrived I found nobody in the living room but my father seated in his
great chair and reading his Bible, even as I had left him.

The whole shame of the business came upon me suddenly. "Father," I
choked out, "we have been beaten."

"Aye," said he, "I expected it."

LONDON IMPRESSIONS.

CHAPTER I.

London at first consisted of a porter with the most charming manners in
the world, and a cabman with a supreme intelligence, both observing my
profound ignorance without contempt or humour of any kind observable in
their manners. It was in a great resounding vault of a place where there
were many people who had come home, and I was displeased because they
knew the detail of the business, whereas I was confronting the
inscrutable. This made them appear very stony-hearted to the sufferings
of one of whose existence, to be sure, they were entirely unaware, and I
remember taking great pleasure in disliking them heartily for it. I was
in an agony of mind over my baggage, or my luggage, or my--perhaps it is
well to shy around this terrible international question; but I remember
that when I was a lad I was told that there was a whole nation that said
luggage instead of baggage, and my boyish mind was filled at the time
with incredulity and scorn. In the present case it was a thing that I
understood to involve the most hideous confessions of imbecility on my
part, because I h