same captain. Poor lad! The captain brutally
ordered two men to drag on the rascal, and
another to follow and prick him with a bayonet
whenever he dared to stop. All this time he
never complained, and the men, finding him too
weak for the march, left him behind. The poor
boy had been glad at any risk to prove his real
weakness. Now he dreaded the captain, and
all the world seemed against him. He was left
to starve, or be eaten by the wolves.
Heartbroken and tired of the cruel world, he crawled
out of the ditch into a melon-field, then loaded
his musket, and, taking off the stocking from
his bleeding foot, put his toe on the trigger of
his gun and blew out his brains.

There seems to have been considerable
jealousy existing between Cartridge's regiment
and the Highland Watch, or gallant Forty-
second, stationed also at Fermoy. The Highland
regiment were specially vain of the long
frills they wore attached to their shirts—frills
that were ostentatiously drawn out down to the
second buttons of their jackets. Cartridge
abuses the frill wearers right and left, says they
were at first only Scotch policemen, that they
were slouchlan in appearance, and that their
courage arose from desperation when they got, as
in Egypt, into scrapes by their own foolish
rashness. One especial cause of quarrel was, that
a Highlander of the Watch, having been asked
why Cartridge's regiment did not also wear frills,
replied, "Oh, she'll lose her frill for running
away." This slander was never forgiven till the
two regiments separated.

At Dublin, where Cartridge's regiment next
went, a painful case of desertion happened. A
band-master had been borrowed from a militia
regiment to teach the younger lads. The man
proved a good musician, but of a sour,
overbearing temper, and with no more power of
teaching than the clarionet he played on. He
kept the regiment in a perpetual broil, and not
a day passed without punishments or complaints.
This petty tyrant became especially jealous of a
boy named Rogers, who threatened to surpass
him in tone and expression. This roused his
dislike, and he heaped on the poor lad every
species of annoyance, even debarring him from
the use of music and of his instrument.

Rogers, a boy of precocious talent, proud
heart, and great susceptibility, could not brook
this persecution, and finding no superior officer
who would protect him, deserted, and took ship
for Glasgow, where his parents resided. His
mother, horrified at the disgrace, instantly
brought him back to Dublin, and gave him up
to the commanding officer. He was at once
pardoned, being but a boy, and recommenced
his duty. His oppressor persecuted him now
more than before, and at morning drill loaded
him with taunts and insults. Provoked beyond
bearing, after much patient silence, the
boy replied in terms that approached mutiny.
He was instantly reported, tried by
courtmartial, and sentenced to be flogged. At the
end of twenty-five lashes the boy fainted and
was taken down. But he never recovered the
sense of this disgrace, and got his friends to
petition at head-quarters for his discharge. His
mother herself came to London, and petitioned
the Duke of York, but the regiment opposed the
discharge, and his suit was refused at
headquarters. Rogers, driven to despair, deserted,
and was heard of no more.

The mother of this unfortunate lad was a
brave woman, a sergeant's wife, who
distinguished herself by her courage when the French
were besieging Matagorda, near Cadiz, in 1810.
Her husband was one of the detachment of the
94th Regiment that occupied the fort when the
French were bombarding it with thirty pieces
of cannon. The shots fell in a ceaseless storm
of fire upon a place not more than a hundred
yards square. The bomb-proofs being too small
to hold all the garrison, some of the soldiers had
huts formed on the battery. Amongst these
was the heroine. When the French opened fire,
she was awoke by a twenty-four pound shot
striking the fascine, but, nothing daunted, she
got up, and, removing her child (four years old),
she went to the bomb-proof to help the surgeon
dress the wounded men, and to aid him she tore
up all her own and husband's linen. Suddenly,
the surgeon wanted water to wash the bleeding
thigh of a wounded artilleryman; a drum-boy
was told to go and draw some from a well in the
centre of the battery court-yard. He did not
seem very willing, and kept lingering at the
door with the bucket in his hand. "Why don't
you go, boy, for the water?" shouted the
surgeon. "The poor thing's frightened," said the
sergeant's wife, "and no wonder at it. Give it
me, and I'll go myself!"

Off went the brave woman with the bucket
through a rain of iron, but just as she was
lowering the bucket, whiz went a shot and cut
the rope in two; but the heroine, determined to
carry out her object, called a sailor from the
guns, and got him to help her recover it. She
then filled it, and took it safely down to the
bomb-proof to the impatient surgeon.

Nor did the brave woman rest here: she
carried sand-bags to repair the battery, handed
up ammunition, and supplied the men at the
guns at intervals with wine and water, and when
the other two women, who had been grovelling
down in the bomb-proof in hysterics from the
first opening of the fire, were taken away, she
refused to go.

Next morning, the ponder and shot being
exhausted, our firing ceased, and the French,
seeing the fort was half broken up, sent down a
strong force to finish the job at one blow. The
heroine was at her post when the English
mustered to receive their enemies. Three guns,
all that amid the ruins could be brought to bear
on the advancing mass, were crammed with
loose powder, grape, and ball-cartridge, for a
farewell shot. When they came within three
hundred yards of the fort, this was given them, and
half the column fell like one man. The rest
took to flight, and instantly stormed out fresh
discharges from the batteries. Fresh ammunition
arriving, the English returned the salute,