bling with fear,-'not yet! Pray do not leave me yet!'

"Not leave you!' I returned, as I hurried on my uniform. 'And you a soldier's wife!'

"Yes, yes,' she added, 'I know that, I know all; but' and here bursting into tears, she twined her arms around my neck with a look so piteous, that I felt it weaken and unman me.

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Tell me,' I rejoined, 'all you would say. The cause of our separation is irremediable, and the call peremptory; but this was long anticipated by both, and you promised, when the hour arrived, not to add to our pain by fruitless tears and supplications.'

"Oh, do not blame me!' she exclaimed, in a fresh agony of grief. "You little know what I now suffer.

You could not chide me if you did!'

"Perceiving the large beads of perspiration standing upon her forehead, and that she shook like one stricken with the palsy in every limb, the dreadful truth at once flashed upon my brain.

"Forgive me if I can scarcely say what I did. I remember, or think I do, rushing wildly into the streets, and finding them blocked up with troops, artillerywaggons, and crowds of citizens. In every quarter I sought assistance; but in vain. Wives were parting from their husbands, children from their parents, friends from friends, and one and all so occupied with themselves, that none would listen to me. It might be that I was scarcely understood, for my senses seemed gone, and I returned to the chamber of my wife to find her alone and helpless in her trouble.

"Loud, and louder yet the drums beat, and the bugles sounded to arms; but there was one sword which remained in its scabbard-and that sword was mine.

"Do not leave me yet; pray not yet,' was the oftrepeated petition, which kept me spell-bound to the spot. "There was no turning from it, and there I remained, hour after hour, to watch the sufferer, and alleviate her pains.

"What was I to do?' said the wretched man, clasping his brow with violence. 'I could not leave her, as I thought, to die. He must be something more or less than man who could. Perhaps I was less; but with her, whom I swore, before my God, to honour and protect, I remained to my honour's cost and worldly ruin.

"Hours passed, and the spirit, fluttering on the threshold of life, was still delayed, until the mother seemed sinking from the effort to give it birth.

"Aid was at length obtained; but the opinion of the attendant led me to believe that I was probably witnessing the ebbing of a life more precious to me than all the world besides.

"Little—and but little more, perhaps, is necessary for me to say. After enduring the greatest danger, it was passed in safety; but too late for me to retrieve the momentous opportunity which had been lost. Maddened as I am at that thought, and knowing full well my misery will be scoffed at, I still,' continued he, weeping as I never saw a strong man weep before, 'would act again as I then did, at the peril of my eternal soul.'

"Some griefs like some wounds," said Corporal Crump, allaying a slight feeling of dust in his throat, by a seasonable appeal to his glass, "are too deep for speedy healing, and the best plan, in such cases, is to give 'em time, and let 'em alone. Seeing that I could do no good just then, and that my poor master was quite beyond all balm of comfort that I could render, I thought it wiser to let him be by himself a bit, and, stealing quietly out of the room, I left, on the night of the day on which the battle of Waterloo was won, as good and brave a soldier as ever drew a sword, brokenhearted that he was not there.

"I'm spinning a long yarn, comrade," said Corporal Crump. "You'll begin to grow weary of an old soldier's gabble, I fear."

"No, no," replied Jacob, administering an unusual supply of friction to the ends of his fingers," that's im

possible. I can listen," continued he, "for ever, and, if required, considerably longer."

"Well!" rejoined his companion, "in that case I'll proceed with my story, and arrive by easy marches at the end."

"In consequence of little attention being paid to my wound for several hours after receiving it, inflammation set in, and I was pronounced unable to join the forces which put an extinguisher upon Bonaparte's power by their prompt occupation of Paris.

"Glad of the opportunity of remaining with my poor master, who gradually sank into a dull, lifeless kind of state, from which there was no rousing him, I did my best in watching him both night and day, and easing, as far as I was able, the load of care from his sorrowful wife and young mother of his child.

"It was a hard duty; and finding I could make but little way, I thought of the chaplain's words, and prayed, in a rough kind of manner I fear, to Him who, we're told, is as ready to hearken to the private's petition as He is to the general's.

"We don't, d'ye see, comrade, always understand what's best for us; and we often want, like whining children, that which would exactly turn out to be the worst. The end of our plans and schemes often proves this to be the case; and it is not for us to think that because we are denied the things we crave, mercy is not at the root of the denial. However, I'm not A 1 at a sermon, and so here goes for another spell at the facts.

"I prayed, you must know, as a man should who prays at all-in earnest, that the lieutenant might be comforted and restored to peace of mind and contentment of heart. I asked, too, that he might keep his rank in this world, and be found among the most worthy in that to come. His wife and child were not forgotten; and I wound up with a strong hope that all three might live long and happy lives, and that I might be permitted to make a fourth in the ring.

Tn't forget myself, comrade," said the corporal,

tapping himself significantly on the breast. "A man's a fool, sir, who forgets himself under the most pressing circumstances; and, as I've said before, the Crumps are the original blades spoken of in history as sharp, keen-set razors.

"I can't say," continued he, "that there was as favourable an answer as could be desired; for my master grew daily worse, and at last became little short of a confirmed idiot.

"Matters went on in this way for the best part of three months, when a letter with a large official seal upon it, and directed to Lieutenant Somerset, was delivered into my hands; and thinking it the wisest plan to make myself acquainted with its contents before anybody else possessed the same, I thanked the planet under which I'd been born, that I went oftener to the Sunday-school than to play pitch-and-toss on the green.

"It was merely a formal admission from head-quarters of the receipt of the resignation of the lieutenant's commission. No word alluded to his conduct; and whether an explanation accompanied it or not at the time of his sending it in, was never known from that day to this.

"It was now clear to my mind that no further notice would be taken either of him or the offence of which he had been guilty. Indeed, his situation was such that nothing could have been done by way of punishment, as the depth of misery to which he had sunk possessed no lower.

"After considering well what steps had better be taken, Mrs. Somerset determined upon returning to England; and although it's not a rule of mine to study the interests of others in preference to my own, I made up my mind to go with her, provided I could get my discharge. The war being at an end, there was not much difficulty in obtaining this; and with a pension of tenpence a day, the rank of a full corporal, and, I believe, the character of a good soldier, I quitted his

most gracious Majesty's service"-Corporal Crump brought his right hand, with a squared elbow, stiffly to his forehead, and saluted the King-" to defend and protect, instead of my country, a poor broken-down man in body and mind, a little fat ball of a female squeaker, who looked first cousin to an angel, and a good dear lady, not”—the corporal dropped his voice to a scarcely audible whisper-"not much better qualified to struggle with the world than the aforesaid sucking baby at her bosom.

"For home, or as I should say to seek one, we sailed, and, after squatting down at one place and then at another places which the poor lieutenant knew when he was a boy-in the hope that visiting them might work a change for the better, we at last settled in a little quiet seaside nook in the west of England.

"The cottage which we occupied was a snug little box within a few yards of the shore," resumed Corporal Crump, "and either in wandering along the sands, or watching his little child play with the pebbles on the beach, the poor lieutenant's harmless life glided on with scarcely a change from one twelvemonth's end to another. He made no inquiries, rarely spoke; but would sit for hours, with his blinkless eyes fixed on vacancy, and dwelling upon one thought, the maddening misery of his brain. And so days were added to days, and, at length, years to years.

Changes, however, slowly as they may work, are ever going on.

"One day I noticed that the lieutenant looked paler than usual, and his limbs trembled under him as he walked. The following morning he roused us all at sunrise, and begged that the curtains from the chamber windows might be withdrawn, and that the casement might be opened.

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"Let me,' said he, once more see the glorious giver of life, and feel the fresh breezes of heaven play upon my brow. It does not ache now, Clara,' continued he, speaking to his wife, 'but,' and he shook his