perhaps within a week looking out from our hostel-window upon the streets
of old Winchester, our motions ever in accordance with the 'route' of the
regiment, so habituated to change of scene that it had become almost
necessary to our existence. Pleasant were these days of my early
boyhood; and a melancholy pleasure steals over me as I recall them. Those
were stirring times of which I am speaking, and there was much passing
around me calculated to captivate the imagination. The dreadful struggle
which so long convulsed Europe, and in which England bore so prominent a
part, was then at its hottest; we were at war, and determination and
enthusiasm shone in every face; man, woman, and child were eager to fight
the Frank, the hereditary, but, thank God, never dreaded enemy of the
Anglo-Saxon race. 'Love your country and beat the French, and then never
mind what happens,' was the cry of entire England. Oh, those were days
of power, gallant days, bustling days, worth the bravest days of chivalry
at least; tall battalions of native warriors were marching through the
land; there was the glitter of the bayonet and the gleam of the sabre;
the shrill squeak of the fife and loud rattling of the drum were heard in
the streets of country towns, and the loyal shouts of the inhabitants
greeted the soldiery on their arrival, or cheered them at their
departure. And now let us leave the upland, and descend to the sea-bord;
there is a sight for you upon the billows! A dozen men-of-war are
gliding majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from the
top-gallant masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from
his bights and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in
the east? a gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a
crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to
skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their
imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to
recall, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover
the days of my boyhood.