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in winter. I like to make the young men feel at home. I like to hear them say they are 'jolly' here; if they say that then I know they are all right."

"And the Captain's a famous hand at spinning yarns other nights," quietly remarked my friend, with a sly glance at the old warrior.

"Now, Buller," said the Captain, holding up a warning forefinger, "that's a sore subject, you know; I'm regularly teased into it, and then you make game of me. I won't be joked about my rubbishing old stories;" but the captain laughed all the same, as if he thought the "sore subject" a capital joke.

"Or 'notches,' as young De Vaux calls them," remarked Mrs. Blunt with a pleasant smile.

"Ay, 'notches,'-the young scamp!"

"Notches'?" I inquired, not understanding the

allusion.

They all laughed, and then Buller explained,—

"You see that great cavalry sword hanging there?" pointing to a sort of trophy of sword, pistols, horsegear, sashes, and other paraphernalia of war, arranged against one of the side walls. I nodded assent, and he went on,-“Well, if you draw it, you will find its blade very considerably hacked from the Captain's vigorous use of it in"

"Oh stuff, Buller; don't talk nonsense!" and the

Captain rose in some confusion to poke the fire. "You know those young scapegraces hack it to pieces just to make fun of me."

"But not all the cuts in it, my dear," said Mrs. Blunt, with a glow of pride on her sweet matronly face.

The Captain sat down in despair, and Buller went

on,

"Well, whenever we can of a winter's evening, or sometimes even in the summer twilight, when we sit in the verandah-whenever we can persuade the Captain to tell us――

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"You'll never persuade me again," grumbled the Captain.

"When we can get him to tell us one of his jolly old war stories (and first-rate they are too), De Vaux calls it a history of one of the notches on his sword, as indeed some of them really are. And so we got into the habit of speaking of each tale as a 'notch' There, now you know all about it, and I hope you will persuade the Captain to give us one this very night."

"Indeed, he'll do nothing of the sort," said the Captain, with a good-humoured laugh, as he rose from his arm-chair: "Mr. Orme's tired, and the sooner he makes a 'notch' in his pillow the better."

I could not persuade the old gentleman to favour

us that evening; but when all the pupils were back, and the long nights began to set in, we often managed to get him-though certainly not without an immense amount of persuasion-to tell us anecdotes and tales of adventures he had taken part in, or knew of intimately, in all parts of the world. Many of these experiences—and they all were real experiences that had happened to himself or his friends-were entirely about grown-up persons; but, on the other hand, I often noticed that the Captain preferred to tell of youths or growing lads-their struggles, their catastrophes, their victories, or their defeats-and that in such cases he always picked out the true moral of what he told, and impressed it on his hearers with a peculiar kind of unobtrusive persistence that was all his own, and had a marked effect on his pupils. With the aid of a good memory-as historical master I may say, without vanity, that my mind is tolerably accurate as to names, places, dates, etc.,—and occasional shorthand notes, furtively taken in the corner of the study I selected for my own, I was able to transcribe nearly all these stories without glaring error, and in this little book I purpose placing before my readers such of them as refer to the lives, the actions, and the sufferings of some of the youthful adventurers who came under Captain Blunt's notice.

THE HUSSAR OF CANTERBURY.

CHAPTER I.

A

DISMAL November day, and a thick white mist hanging over the square of the Royal Cavalry Barracks, Canterbury. A mist that not only obscured the vision,-rendering objects a little distance off blurred, indistinct, and almost supernatural in appearance, but also soaked the wayfarer to the skin before he became aware that any real inconvenience was to be apprehended from the moisture in the atmosphere.

A day most depressing to all, both in-doors and out-doors; a day when men were possessed with sad thoughts, sad forebodings, which would not be exorcised; a day when catarrhs, rheumatisms, and aguish colds seemed to rule triumphant over all healthier influences of our generally equable climate; a day that Frenchmen would, in more ignorant times, have selected as one on which hundreds of our fellow-countrymen were apt to rush to the Monument or London Bridge, with a view to commit the final crime of all, suicide; and a day that as surely bears men's thoughts earthwards as does a brilliant spring morning send their aspira

C

tions soaring up to a seventh heaven of reverence, delight, and hope.

On such a day, Charley Greydon, trumpeter in the 30th Hussars, came clanking over the wet stones and rain-soaked gravel of the barrack-yard, with the black fiend of despondency weighing down his soul. He had been all day long on duty as orderly trumpeter, and never once had the physical clouds risen from the earth any more than had the mental gloom lifted from off his mind. He was wet and cold in spite of his great military cloak that covered him from head to foot. He was hungry, although there was plenty for him to eat if he only had the heart to partake of it; and he was greatly troubled in his mind about a foolish matter that had occurred to him the previous night in his barrack-room. For some time past, he had not been at all well; the regimental surgeon assured him that his malady was nothing but a very common one to youths of his age, arising from too fast a growth, and absolutely without danger, provided due attention was paid to diet and things of that sort; nevertheless, he admitted Greydon into hospital for a brief period; and then discharged him after a course of medicines of a mild nature.

Accordingly he had spent the night previous to the day of which I write in the same bedroom as his

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