l be better off. Let me know at the time of any
depredations that are committed, and we will try and
protect you.--I am, faithfully yours,

"M. L. B----."

For the truth was--although I can laugh at my fears now--I was often
most horribly frightened at Spring Hill; and there was cause for it
too. My washerwoman, who, with her family, lived not half a mile from
us, was with me one day, and carried off some things for the wash. On
the following morning I was horrified to learn that she, her father,
husband, and children--in all, seven--had been most foully murdered
during the night: only one of the whole family recovered from her
wounds, and lived to tell the tale. It created a great sensation at
the time, and caused me to pass many a sleepless night, for the
murderers were never discovered.

Whilst I am upon the subject of Crimean thievery, I may as well
exhaust it without paying any regard to the chronological order of my
reminiscences. I have before mentioned what I suffered from the
French. One day I caught one of our allies in my kitchen, robbing me
in the most ungrateful manner. He had met with an accident near Spring
Hill (I believe he belonged to a French regiment lent to assist the
English in road-making), and had been doctored by me; and now I found
him filling his pockets, before taking "French" leave of us. My black
man, Francis, pulled from his pockets a yet warm fowl, and other
provisions. We kicked him off the premises, and he found refuge with
some men of the Army Works Corps, who pitied him and gave him shelter.
He woke them in the middle of the night, laying hands rather clumsily
on everything that was removeable; and in the morning they brought him
to me, to ask what they should do with him. Unluckily for him, a
French officer of rank happened to be in the store, who, on hearing
our tale, packed him off to his regiment. I gathered from the
expression of the officer's face, and the dread legible upon the
culprit's, that it might be some considerable time before his itch for
breaking the eighth commandment could be again indulged in.

The trouble I underwent respecting a useful black mare, for which Mr.
Day had given thirty guineas, and which carried me beautifully, was
immense. Before it had been many weeks in our store it was
gone--whither, I failed to discover. Keeping my eyes wide open,
however, I saw "Angelina"--so I christened her--coming quietly down
the hill, carrying an elder