for
some hours known to myself and all London, as stretched, by a large
majority, upon one bloody aceldama--in which the young trooper served whose
mother was now talking with myself in a spirit of such hopeful enthusiasm.
Did I tell her the truth? Had I the heart to break up her dreams? No. I
said to myself, to-morrow, or the next day, she will hear the worst. For
this night, wherefore should she not sleep in peace? After to-morrow,
the chances are too many that peace will forsake her pillow. This brief
respite, let her owe this to _my_ gift and _my_ forbearance. But, if I told
her not of the bloody price that had been paid, there was no reason for
suppressing the contributions from her son's regiment to the service and
glory of the day. For the very few words that I had time for speaking, I
governed myself accordingly. I showed her not the funeral banners under
which the noble regiment was sleeping. I lifted not the overshadowing
laurels from the bloody trench in which horse and rider lay mangled
together. But I told her how these dear children of England, privates and
officers, had leaped their horses over all obstacles as gaily as hunters to
the morning's chase. I told her how they rode their horses into the mists
of death, (saying to myself, but not saying to _her_,) and laid down their
young lives for thee, O mother England! as willingly--poured out their
noble blood as cheerfully--as ever, after a long day's sport, when infants,
they had rested their wearied heads upon their mother's knees, or had sunk
to sleep in her arms. It is singular that she seemed to have no fears, even
after this knowledge that the 23d Dragoons had been conspicuously engaged,
for her son's safety: but so much was she enraptured by the knowledge that
_his_ regiment, and therefore _he_, had rendered eminent service in the
trying conflict--a service which had actually made them the foremost topic
of conversation in London--that in the mere simplicity of her fervent
nature, she threw her arms round my neck, and, poor woman, kissed me.

NOTES.

[NOTE 1.

Lady Madeline Gordon.]

[NOTE 2.

"_Vast distances_."--One case was familiar to mail-coach travellers, where
two mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at the same
minute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost constantly at a
particular bridge which exactly bisected the total distance.]

[NOTE 3.

"_Resident_."--The number on the books was far greater, m