THE DAY OF BADAJOS. "Now speak, old soldier, The height of honour ?" "Rather to suffer than to do a wrong, To make the heart no stranger to the tongue; Nor eat his meat, I choke with flattery; 'Tis poor, in grief for a wrong done to die; Honour, to dare to live and satisfy." MASSINGER. THE DAY OF BADAJOS. "TO-MORROW, sir," said my faithful valet, Havresack, placing the boot-jack and slippers before the arm-chair in which I was dozing over the pages of my favorite Folard, "tomorrow will be the day of Badajos; this night, nine years ago, I was lying by your honour's side on picquet before the walls of the old castle." 66 True, Havresack," said I, as I drew off my boot, and exchanged it for the luxury of an easy shoe;" and, as times go, we are not a whit less comfortably quartered at present than we were on that same picquet." F "For that matter," rejoined my factotum, "I suppose it's all for the best, as Mr. Scruples tells us; and it certainly is time for us old soldiers (it's a name your honour's not ashamed of), to have done with marches and out-lying picquets: but for my part, if I had ten years service off my back, and the same master to follow, I should not mind to be again on that covering party with our lads.-It was a cold night, and the ground none of the driest, for we had a rainy siege of it; but it was a fine thing, as we lay there, to hear the drums of the garrison beating their tattoo with the music sounding quite close to our ears, and to think how soon we should be among the rascals. You'll remember, sir, how hushed and quiet every thing was after the Frenchmen's tattoo had done sounding; except now and then a volley from our batteries on t'other side the town." "I do, indeed, remember it all, Jonathan," said I, "and can never forget it; for poor Desmond was wrapped in the same boat-cloak with me, and it was his last picquet-the last night upon earth that he was ever to reckon as past." "Ah!” cried Jonathan, shaking his head, "poor Captain Desmond was, indeed, a brave gentleman, and I wish, with all my heart, for your honour's sake, that he was alive to see the 6th of April come round again. It's curious now, I've known many of our officers not take it so much to heart for a single day when a companion has been knocked off, as you do his loss after the years that are gone by." With this half address, half soliloquy, Jonathan Havresack left me to my own rẹflections; and fancy rapidly carried me back through many a changing scene of my wandering life; much of the cheerfulness and vicissitude of which had been shared with poor Desmond. It is, indeed, true, I exclaimed, that the constant presence of danger leaves us little room for thought of those who have fallen around us; true, that the herd of a regiment can bear the mortal dis |