o attend to first. He was that evening trepanned; a few days
afterwards his leg was amputated, and other wounds and fractures
dressed. Being possessed of a most excellent constitution, nature
performed wonders in his favour, and in eleven weeks the cure was
completely effected. His name," continues Mr. Drinkwater, with what
might be deemed irony--if the worthy historian ever indulged in that
figure of rhetoric--"is Donald Ross, and he" (_i.e._ the remaining
fragment of the said Donald Ross) "now enjoys his sovereign's bounty in
a pension of ninepence a-day for life." One might almost suppose that Mr
Hume had some hand in affixing the gratuity; but in those days there was
a king who knew not Joseph.

My grandfather appears to have had also an adventure of his own. During
a cessation of the cannonade, he was sitting one morning on a fragment
of rock, in the garden behind his quarters, reading his favourite
author. The firing suddenly recommenced, and a long-ranged shell,
striking the ground at some distance, rolled towards him. He glanced
half-absently at the hissing missile; and whether he actually did not
for a moment recollect its character, or whether, as was often the case
on such occasions, the imminence of the danger paralysed him, he sat
immovably watching it as it fizzed within a couple of yards of him.
Unquestionably in another three seconds my grandfather's earthly
tabernacle would have been resolved into its original atoms, had not the
intrepid Carlota (who was standing near gathering flowers to stick in
her hair) darted on him, and, seizing him by the arm, dragged him behind
a wall. They were scarce under shelter when the shell exploded--the
shock laying them both prostrate, though unhurt but for a few
bruises--while the stone on which the Major had been sitting was
shivered to atoms. To the description of this incident in the Major's
journal are appended a pious reflection and a short thanksgiving,
which, being entirely of a personal nature, I omit.

The stores landed from the fleet were in a very precarious position.
Owing to the destruction of the buildings, there were no means of
placing them where they might be sheltered at once from the fire of the
enemy and from rain. Some were piled under sails spread out as a sort of
roof to protect them, and some, that were not likely to sustain
immediate injury from the damp air of such a depository, were ordered to
be conveyed to St Michael's Cave.

This cave i