out his hands. In an instant
the colonel had caught him on one side and Norah on the other.

"Easy and steady," said the colonel, as he led him to his armchair.

"Thank ye, sir; I was near gone that time. But, Lordy I why, I can
scarce believe it. To think of me the corporal of the flank company
and you the colonel of the battalion! How things come round, to be
sure!"

"Why, we are very proud of you in London," said the colonel. "And so
you are actually one of the men who held Hougoumont." He looked at the
bony, trembling hands, with their huge, knotted knuckles, the stringy
throat, and the heaving, rounded shoulders. Could this, indeed, be the
last of that band of heroes? Then he glanced at the half-filled
phials, the blue liniment bottles, the long-spouted kettle, and the
sordid details of the sick room. "Better, surely, had he died under
the blazing rafters of the Belgian farmhouse," thought the colonel.

"I hope that you are pretty comfortable and happy," he remarked after a
pause.

"Thank ye, sir. I have a good deal o' trouble with my toobes--a deal
o' trouble. You wouldn't think the job it is to cut the phlegm. And I
need my rations. I gets cold without 'em. And the flies! I ain't
strong enough to fight against them."

"How's the memory?" asked the colonel.

"Oh, there ain't nothing amiss there. Why, sir, I could give you the
name of every man in Captain Haldane's flank company."

"And the battle--you remember it?"

"Why, I sees it all afore me every time I shuts my eyes. Lordy, sir,
you wouldn't hardly believe how clear it is to me. There's our line
from the paregoric bottle right along to the snuff box. D'ye see?
Well, then, the pill box is for Hougoumont on the right--where we
was--and Norah's thimble for La Haye Sainte. There it is, all right,
sir; and here were our guns, and here behind the reserves and the
Belgians. Ach, them Belgians!" He spat furiously into the fire.
"Then here's the French, where my pipe lies; and over here, where I put
my baccy pouch, was the Proosians a-comin' up on our left flank.
Jimini, but it was a glad sight to see the smoke of their guns!"

"And what was it that struck you most now in connection with the whole
affair?" asked the colonel.

"I lost three half-crowns over it, I did," crooned old Brewster. "I
shouldn't wonder if I was never to get that money now. I lent 'em to
Jabez Smith, my rear rank man, in Brussels. 'Only till pay-day, Grig,'