ky shore, against which the white waves were ever
beating, watching the sea-birds careering full many a fathom deep below
us, their shrill cries mixing with the wilder plash of the ever-restless
sea--and how we dreamed away those hours, now half in sadness, now in
bright hope of long years to come, and found ourselves thus wandering
hand in hand, loved and loving; and then I looked out upon the bleak
world before me, without an object to win, without a goal to strive at.

'Come, Jack,' said my father, laying his hand on my shoulder, and
startling me out of my reverie, 'one piece of good fortune we have had.
The duke has given me the command at Chatham; some hint of my altered
circumstances, it seems, had reached him, and without my applying, he
most kindly sent for me and told me of my appointment. You must join
the service companies of the Twenty-seventh by to-morrow; they are under
sailing-orders, and no time is to be lost. I told his grace that for
all your soft looks and smooth chin there was no lack of spirit in
your heart; and you must take an eagle, Jack, if you would keep up my
credit.'

Laughingly spoken as these few words were, they somehow struck upon a
chord that had long lain silent in my heart, and as suddenly awoke in me
the burning desire for distinction, and the ambitious thirst of military
glory.

The next evening at sunset the transport weighed anchor and stood out
to sea. A slight breeze off shore and an ebb-tide carried us gently
away from land; and as night was falling I stood alone, leaning on
the bulwarks, and looking fixedly on the faint shadows of the tall
chalk-cliffs, my father's last words, 'You must take an eagle, Jack!'
still ringing in my ears, and sinking deeply into my heart.

Had my accidents by flood and field been more numerous and remarkable
than they were, the recently-told adventures of my friend Charles
O'Malley would prevent my giving them to the public. The subaltern of a
marching regiment--a crack corps, it is true--I saw merely the ordinary
detail of a campaigning life; and although my desire to distinguish
myself rose each day higher, the greatest extent of my renown went
no further than the admiration of my comrades that one so delicately
nurtured and brought up should bear so cheerfully and well the roughings
of a soldier's life; and my sobriquet of 'Jack Hinton, the Guardsman,'
was earned among the stormy scenes and blood-stained fields of the
Peninsula.

My first e