Borth--we had almost forgotten him, and that had been deep ingratitude
for he was not the least warm-hearted of our friends in Wales. His
master lived two miles away; but soon after our arrival, Borth had come
down from the hills to attach himself to our fortunes, and henceforth
became, as it were, our familiar, the pet of the regiment, like the goat
of the "23rd." He knew his position, and was a stickler for formalities;
he had a wag of the tail for every boy who wore the image of the
venerable schoolmaster upon his cap; but if he met him bare-headed, or,
by any chance, in an indistinctive head-gear, he would cut that boy dead,
were he never so much the same urchin from whose hand he had yesterday
eaten a cheese-cake. That was his official rebuke for the irregularity.
By day, Borth would bask in some sunny corner of our quarters; at night,
he has been known to venture on a nearer intimacy where doors were left
open. We found you once ourselves, Borth, curled up and asleep upon our
own bed. You woke up, shook yourself with a modest, but not startled
manner, and walked quietly away, like a gentleman.

Ah! kind friend, you showed us the sincerest of flatteries, that of
imitation. You left a comfortable home for chance quarters and uncertain
fare, that you might be one of us, an outcast among outcasts. Now we
must part, for our home will spare us no longer, as neither will yours
spare you. And so the last good-bye is said, and you are limping away to
your hills again, with dejection expressed in every fibre of your frame,
from the drooping ears to the last hair on your tail.

All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of
hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, the
cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal of
herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore a porpoise
is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth of