, except attending the wedding? I won't do that."

Colonel Wilders could not bring himself to ask any favours of his
unsympathetic kinsman. Nevertheless, it was through Lord Essendine's
interest that he obtained a snug staff appointment in one of the large
garrison towns; and he did not return indignantly the very handsome
cheque paid in by his cousin to his account as a wedding present.

He was still serving at Chatsmouth, his young and beautiful wife the
life of the gay garrison, when the war-clouds gathered dark upon the
horizon, and, thanks again to the Essendine interest, he found himself
transferred, still on the staff, to the expeditionary army under
orders for the East.

CHAPTER V.

THE WAR FEVER.

They were stirring times, those early days of '54. After half a
century of peace the shadow of a great contest loomed dark and near.
The whole British nation, sick and tired of Russian double-dealing,
was eager to cut the knot of political difficulty with the sword.
Everyone was mad to fight; only a few optimists, statesmen mostly,
still relying on the sedative processes of diplomacy, had any hopes of
averting war. A race reputed peace-loving, but most pugnacious when
roused, was stirred now to its very depths. British hearts beat high
throughout the length and breadth of the land, proudly mindful of
their former prowess and manfully hopeful of emulating former glorious
deeds.

It was the same wherever Englishmen gathered under the old flag; in
every corner of the world peopled by offshoots from the old stock,
most of all in those strongholds and dependencies beyond sea captured
in the old wars, and still held by our arms.

It was so upon the great Rock, the commonly counted impregnable
fortress, one of the ancient pillars of Hercules that still stands
silently strong and watchful at the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea.

Nowhere did the war fever rage higher than at Gibraltar. Before
everything, a garrison town, battlemented and fortified on every side,
resonant from morning gunfire till watch-setting with martial sounds,
its principal pageants military, with soldiers filling its streets,
and sentinels at every corner, the prospect of active service was
naturally the one theme and topic of the place.

As spring advanced, one of those balmy-scented Southern springs when
flowers highly prized with us blossomed wild everywhere, even in the
fissures of the rock--when the days are already long and bright,