th from to-day we shall be off. To hear our
senior major talk, one might as well be going to the bottomless
pit at once. Well, he'll sell out--that's a comfort. Gives us a
step, and gets rid of an old ruffian. I don't seem to care much
what the place is like if we only get some work; and there will
be some work there before long, by all accounts. No more
garrison-town life, at any rate. And if I have any luck--a man
may get a chance there."

"What the deuce can he be about? This all comes of sentiment,
now. Why couldn't I go quietly off to India without bothering up
to Oxford to see him? Not but what it's a pleasant place enough.
I've enjoyed my three days there uncommonly. Food and drink all
that can be wished, and plenty of good fellows and fun. The look
of the place, too, makes one feel respectable. But, by George, if
their divinity is at all like their politics, they must turn out
a queer set of parsons--at least if Brown picked up his precious
notions at Oxford. He always was a headstrong beggar. What was it
he was holding forth about last night? Let's see. 'The sacred
right of insurrection.' Yes, that was it, and he talked as if he
believed it all too; and if there should be a row, which don't
seem unlikely, by Jove, I think he'd act on it, in the sort of
temper he's in. How about the sacred right of getting hung or
transported? I shouldn't wonder to hear of that some day. Gad!
suppose he should be in for an installment of his sacred right
to-night. He's capable of it, and of lugging me in with him. What
did he say we were come here for? To get some fellow out of a
scrape, he said--some sort of poaching radical foster-brother of
his, who had been in gaol, and deserved it too, I'll be bound.
And he couldn't go down quietly into the village and put up at
the public, where I might have set in the tap, and not run the
chance of having my skin blown over my ears, and my teeth down my
throat, on this cursed look-out place, because he's _too well
known_ there. What does that mean? Upon my soul, it looks bad.
They may be lynching a J. P. down there, or making a spread eagle
of the parish constable at this minute, for anything I know, and
as sure as fate, if they are, I shall get my foot in it."

"It will read sweetly in the naval and military intelligence--'A
court-martial was held this day at Chatham, president, Colonel
Smith, of Her Majesty's 101st Regiment, to try Henry East, a
lieutenant in the same distinguished