or those faithful attendants on armies, the kite and vulture, stooped screaming over me to /know was I a prey or not, I would sit and hold converse with the absent and the dead, and hie over again short seasons of earthly sweetness that would never return in reality.

Nor in these hours of solitary thought wert thou, Courtenay, forgotten; here, again, I would hear in the stillness thy manly voice, I would see through the gloom thy open, honest smile, and I would dwell on thy deathwords to console me for the loss of my friend. Charles Fitzmorris had not forgotten Courtenay he felt his loss deeply, he missed his society greatly; but there is a feeling in the heart when one loses and laments a friend, that will not allow the idea that any one loved him, that any one lamented him, as we ourselves do. I thought I missed him more, I thought I regretted him more, and I strove to encourage myself in a belief that allowed me to pride myself on a pre-eminence of sorrow for him, by remembering that his young cousin and he had never been much together until lately, that the battalion to which Fitzmorris was attached had been on foreign service, and that I had been with Courtenay, his friend, his comrade, from the day I joined the regiment. Yet I did not wish to believe that Charles did not regret him, I only wished to think that I regretted him more. That he did feel, deeply feel, I knew; for often,

when some recollection of Courtenay would occur in conversation, he would pause, and when he said, with a stifled sigh, Dear Alick!' his eye would take a deeper shade, the colour would grow paler on his cheek, and he would throw open his breast as if he wished to breathe more freely, as if some suffocating sensation came over him. At such times he would make me repeat to him again the words that our young comrade had spoken to me; and then he would glance up to his spirit's home, and light would come brighter to his eye, and his countenance would kindle with holy joy and deathless hope, and the anthem of his soul as it mounted up in grateful submission would be. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!'

One morning my young comrade and I stood together on one of the heights of the mountains among which we were encamped. The grey light was stealing on through the sea, like mist that hung over mountain and valley, tree and rock. Gradually the rough bold peaks became visible, momentarily receiving a tinge or streak of light and losing it again and then again developing themselves more fully while beneath were thick and moving columns of vapour, and lower still in the valleys, the fog lay deep in settled gloom, giving them the appearance of ocean spread out at our feet.

We stood watching the gradual development of nature as her dusky mantle was slowly, and to the fanciful eye, reluctantly thrown off; I was observing where its withdrawing was revealing to me sights of war and tokens of armed hosts dwelling among such majestic loneliness but my more animated companion seized my arm, and turning me away from the contemplation of mountains and dark rocks, and deep, deep vallies below me, where the white tents of our army lay like the unbroken avalanche, or scattered here and there over the broken ground, intersected as it was with rock and rivulet, and glen and hill, resembled heaps of drifted snow that lay there unmelted; he drew me a little towards the verge of the mountain and pointed out to me a different landscape. The fair fertile provinces of southern France were unfolding their golden aspect beneath the rising sun scenes of rich fertility, and apparently smiling happiness lay stretched out beneath our feet to turn to one side and then to another, the transition was great, was exquisite.

I scarcely anticipated actually to stand here with you, Traverston, when in supposition I drew the sketch of this on the heights of Busaco.'

'No, Charles; but methinks it is no bad emblem of the Pisgah view you spoke of then,'

'And would you make yonder stream the river Jordan?' he said, pointing with a smile to the winding Bidassoa.

'Perhaps it may prove a Jordan to some,' I replied.

Oh! happy they to whom it proves the passage to Canaan!" he exclaimed with ani

mation.

CHAPTER XIII.

On the morning of the memorable seventh of October, the Bidassoa was to be crossed, and the enemy surprised, if a surprise could be effected. We mustered before day-break; it was a silent preparation that carried with it a feeling of awe and solemnity to the mind that was capable of sober thought. The pale star-light duskily revealed the sight of armed men, and forming columns-and those columns moving away in stillness, while the faint streaks of morning began to usher in a day of blood, and confusion, and slaughter it was not a scene to be beheld with carelessness.

We lay down in concealment along the bank, waiting till the fall of the tide should

allow us to ford the river. I felt then for the first time, something like a conviction that this would be my last engagement, and I do not think I felt sorry for it: I felt that it was a solemn thing to die, yet I trust too, I felt ready, willing. For what should I wish to live?- this world had often deceived me life had often pained me my own heart had often grieved me. Thus I was thinking, when the conversation had formerly with my young counsellor, Charles Fitzmorris, recurred to my mind, and I thought how much more animating was the view he took of death. I viewed it in this light too, and I found reason to hope, that I in some degree, at least, shared the feelings with which he looked forward to life's termination. It is not for me to say how many among us shared the serious reflections that engrossed myself; there was levity and carlessness, and thoughtless gaiety enough about me, but, both the inward thoughts of every man and the heart is deep.'

While they passed in my own mind, I turned my head, and saw Charles gazing with a look of intensity on the course of the river: what was then in his mind I know not; but as he lay reclining on his arm, and turned his head up to the bright sky above us, the expression of his beaming countenance was almost seraphic; a calm holiness seemed breathed over every feature; yet there was so much ardour, such a look of devotedness,