ll, trade will be still worse. The army,
Luke--that's the thing for 'ee. 'Twas the making of me, and 'twill be
the making of you. I hadn't half such a chance as you'll have in these
splendid hotter times.'

Luke demurred, for he was a home-keeping, peace-loving youth. But,
putting respectful trust in his father's judgment, he at length gave way,
and enlisted in the ---d Foot. In the course of a few weeks he was sent
out to India to his regiment, which had distinguished itself in the East
under General Wellesley.

But Luke was unlucky. News came home indirectly that he lay sick out
there; and then on one recent day when his father was out walking, the
old man had received tidings that a letter awaited him at Casterbridge.
The sergeant sent a special messenger the whole nine miles, and the
letter was paid for and brought home; but though, as he had guessed, it
came from Luke, its contents were of an unexpected tenor.

The letter had been written during a time of deep depression. Luke said
that his life was a burden and a slavery, and bitterly reproached his
father for advising him to embark on a career for which he felt unsuited.
He found himself suffering fatigues and illnesses without gaining glory,
and engaged in a cause which he did not understand or appreciate. If it
had not been for his father's bad advice he, Luke, would now have been
working comfortably at a trade in the village that he had never wished to
leave.

After reading the letter the sergeant advanced a few steps till he was
quite out of sight of everybody, and then sat down on the bank by the
wayside.

When he arose half-an-hour later he looked withered and broken, and from
that day his natural spirits left him. Wounded to the quick by his son's
sarcastic stings, he indulged in liquor more and more frequently. His
wife had died some years before this date, and the sergeant lived alone
in the house which had been hers. One morning in the December under
notice the report of a gun had been heard on his premises, and on
entering the neighbours found him in a dying state. He had shot himself
with an old firelock that he used for scaring birds; and from what he had
said the day before, and the arrangements he had made for his decease,
there was no doubt that his end had been deliberately planned, as a
consequence of the despondency into which he had been thrown by his son's
letter. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of felo de se.

'Here