this way, for twenty years. "It may
bear hard on my feelings--I do not say it will _not_--but duty is
duty, and it must be done. Corporal Allen, you see the state of things;
the commanding officer is among the casualties, and nothing would be
simpler than our course, were it not for Madam Willoughby--God bless
her, and have her in His holy keeping--and the young ladies. It is
proper to deliberate a little about _them_. To you then, as an
elderly and experienced man, I first apply for an opinion."

"Sorrow's an unwelcome guest, whether it comes expected, or without any
previous knowledge. The hairts o the widow and fairtherless must be
stricken, and it's little that a' our consolations and expairiments
will prevail ag'in the feelin's o' natur'. Pheeloosophy and religion
tall us that the body's no mair than a clod o' the valley when the
speerit has fled; but the hairt is unapt to listen to wisdom while the
grief is fraish, and of the severity of an unlooked-for sairtainty.
_I_ see little good, therefore, in doing mair than just sending in a
messenger, to clear the way a little for the arrival of truth, in the
form o' death, itsal'."

"I have been thinking of this--will you take the office, Jamie, as a
man of years and discretion?"

"Na--na--ye'll be doing far better by sending a younger man. Age has
weakened my memory, and I'll be overlooking some o' the saircumstances
in a manner that will be unseemly for the occasion. Here is Blodget, a
youth of ready wit, and limber tongue."

"I wouldn't do it, mason, to be the owner of ten such properties as
this!" exclaimed the young Rhode Islander, actually recoiling a step,
as if he retreated before a dreaded foe.

"Well, sairjeant, ye've Michael here, who belangs to a kirk that has so
little seempathy with protestantism as to lessen the pain o' the
office. Death is a near ally to religion, and Michael, by taking a
religious view o' the maither, might bring his hairt into such a
condition of insensibility as wad give him little to do but to tell
what has happened, leaving God, in his ain maircy, to temper the wind
to the shorn lamb."

"You hear, O'Hearn?" said the serjeant, stiffly--"Everybody seems to
expect that you will do this duty."

"Jewty!--D 'ye call it a jewty for a man in my situation to break the
hearts of Missus, and Miss Beuly, and phratty Miss Maud, and the babby?
for babbies has hearts as well as the stoutest man as is going. Divil
bur-r-n me, then, if ye g