pense; so I joined in the laugh, and affected to think it a
remarkably good joke.

About this period a circumstance happened which, in some degree,
blighted my pride, and almost cooled my military zeal. It was nutting
season: I made a party to go, and we arrived at the wood, where the
filberts hung as thick as laurels on a soldier's brow. We had not bagged
more than a bushel, when we were pounced upon by three keepers, and
taken prisoners to the barracks. The three boys who were my companions
on this excursion got two dozen stripes; I lost my two as fife-major,
and was turned back to my original post as drummer, or rather as fifer.
This severe punishment did not arise from the enormity of purloining the
nuts, but from the fact of our being found some four miles from the
cantonment. Under these circumstances we might have been taken up as
deserters, and the keepers have received two pounds each man; so that,
upon the whole, we had reason to be grateful that the more serious
offence was not urged against us.

Shortly after this unfortunate occurrence, the regiment was ordered to
proceed to the barracks at Hilsea, Portsmouth. This was soldiering in
clover; and good living, fresh scenes, faces, and events, conspired to
make me, in a measure, forget the stripes which I had lost. I was not
long on the march, before I became as knowing as the best of them, and
was soon well versed in the tricks of the road. I found that it was the
practice of some of the landlords to give us fat pea-soup, and of others
to regale us with greasy suet dumplings, as heavy as lead, by way of
taking off the edge of our appetites. These dishes I invariably avoided,
stating that they were injurious to my constitution, or that the doctors
had forbidden me to eat such food. I therefore waited for the more
substantial fare--the roast and the boiled--which I attacked with such
zest, as could not fail to convince the landlord of the delicacy of my
constitution, and of the absolute necessity of my refraining from less
substantial diet. In two hours after dinner the duff and pea-soup eaters
were as hungry as ever; but I kept my own counsel, and thus was enabled
to go on my way with a smiling countenance that indicated good and
substantial fare.

When we were treated in the scurvy way I have spoken of by the landlords
on our line of march, we never failed to leave some token of our
displeasure behind us. Thus, one day at Chelmsford, we were compelled to
su