e every wish was for me. Alas! alas, my poor uncle! how gladly would
I resign every prospect my soldier's life may hold out, with all its
glittering promise, and all the flattery of success, to be once more beside
you; to feel your warm and manly grasp; to see your smile; to hear your
voice; to be again where all our best feelings are born and nurtured, our
cares assuaged, our joys more joyed in, and our griefs more wept,--at home!
These very words have more music to my ears than all the softest strains
that ever siren sung. They bring us back to all we have loved, by ties that
are never felt but through such simple associations. And in the earlier
memories called up, our childish feelings come back once more to visit us
like better spirits, as we walk amidst the dreary desolation that years of
care and uneasiness have spread around us.

Wretched must he be who ne'er has felt such bliss; and thrice happy he who,
feeling it, knows that still there lives for him that same early home, with
all its loved inmates, its every dear and devoted object waiting his coming
and longing for his approach.

Such were my thoughts as I stood gazing at the bold line of coast now
gradually growing more and more dim while evening fell, and we continued
to stand farther out to sea. So absorbed was I all this time in my
reflections, that I never heard the voices which now suddenly burst upon my
ears quite close beside me. I turned, and saw for the first time that at
the end of the quarter-deck stood what is called a roundhouse, a small
cabin, from which the sounds in question proceeded. I walked gently forward
and peeped in, and certainly anything more in contrast with my late revery
need not be conceived. There sat the skipper, a bluff, round-faced,
jolly-looking little tar, mixing a bowl of punch at a table, at which sat
my friend Power, the adjutant, and a tall, meagre-looking Scotchman, whom
I once met in Cork, and heard that he was the doctor of some infantry
regiment. Two or three black bottles, a paper of cigars, and a tallow
candle were all the table equipage; but certainly the party seemed not to
want for spirits and fun, to judge from the hearty bursts of laughing that
every moment pealed forth, and shook the little building that held them.
Power, as usual with him, seemed to be taking the lead, and was evidently
amusing himself with the peculiarities of his companions.

"Come, Adjutant, fill up; here's to the campaign before us. We