distinct and lively
pleasure, while the greenness and freshness are a delicious rest to
the eye, wearied with the deadly whitey-brown sameness of dried-up
sandy plains, or the all-too gorgeous colouring of eastern cities and
pageants.

My people were living in Ireland, in the county of Waterford, so after
only a short sojourn in London, for the very necessary re-equipment
of the outer man, I hastened over there. I found my father well
and strong for a man of seventy-four, and to all appearance quite
recovered from the effects of his fifty years of Indian service, and,
to my great joy, my mother was looking almost as young, and quite as
beautiful, as I had left her six years before. My little sister, too,
always an invalid, was very much as when I had parted from her--full
of loving-kindness for everyone, and, though unable to move without
help, perfectly happy in the many resources she had within herself,
and the good she was able to do in devoting those resources to the
benefit of others.

There, too, I found my fate, in the shape of Nora Bews, a young lady
living with a married sister not far from my father's place, who a
few months later consented to accompany me on my return to India. The
greater part of my leave was, therefore, spent in Ireland.

During the winter months I hunted with the Curraghmore hounds, and was
out with them the day before Lord Waterford was killed. We had no run,
and at the end of the day, when wishing us good-bye, he said: 'I hope,
gentlemen, we shall have better luck next time.' 'Next time' there was
'better luck' as regarded the hunting, but the worst of all possible
luck for Lord Waterford's numerous friends; in returning home after a
good run, and having killed two foxes, his horse stumbled over quite
a small ditch, throwing his rider on his head; the spinal cord was
snapped and the fine sportsman breathed his last in a few moments.

I was married on the 17th May, 1859, in the parish church of
Waterford. While on our wedding tour in Scotland, I received a command
to be present on the 8th June at Buckingham Palace, when the Queen
proposed to honour the recipients of the Victoria Cross by presenting
the decoration with Her Majesty's own hands.

Being anxious that my wife should be spared the great heat of a
journey to India in July, the hottest month of the year in the Red
Sea, and the doctors being very decided in their opinion that I should
not return so soon, I had applied for a