he always does his duty before a host of sympathising
witnesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled through
a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole country? Turn
while you may yet retrieve the past and try."

With a nearly bursting heart Richard cries out, "I will! I ask but one
witness, sir!" The reply is instant and significant, "I understand you.
I will be a watchful and a faithful one." It is a compact between them,
a compact sealed and ratified. "I have heard from Private Doubledick's
own lips," said the narrator, and in tones how manly and yet how tender
in their vibration, "that he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that
officer's hand, arose, and went out of the light of the dark bright
eyes, an altered man." From the date to them both of this memorable
interview he followed the two hither and thither among the battle-fields
of the great war between England in coalition with the other nations of
Europe and Napoleon.

Wherever Captain Taunton led, there, "close to him, ever at his side,
firm as a rock, true as the sun, brave as Mars," would for certain be
found that famous soldier Sergeant Doubledick. As Sergeant-Major the
latter is shown, later on, upon one desperate occasion cutting his
way single-handed through a mass of men, recovering the colours of his
regiment, and rescuing his wounded Captain from the very jaws of death
"in a jungle of horses' hoofs and sabres"--for which deed of gallantry
and all but desperation, he is forthwith raised from the ranks,
appearing no longer as a non-commissioned officer, but as Ensign
Doubledick. At last, one fatal day in the trenches, during the siege of
Badajos, Major Taunton and Ensign Doubledick find themselves hurrying
forward against a party of French infantry. At this juncture, at the
very moment when Doubledick sees the officer at the head of the
enemy's soldiery--"a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of
five-and-thirty"--waving his sword, and with an eager and excited
cry rallying his men, they fire, and Major Taunton has dropped. The
encounter closing within ten minutes afterwards on the arrival of
assistance to the two Englishmen, "the best friend man ever had" is laid
upon a coat spread out upon the wet clay by the heart-riven subaltern,
whom years before his generous counsel had rescued from ignominious
destruction. Three little spots of blood are visible on the shirt of
Major Taunton as he lies there with the breast of his