Know, England, that I shot well, and received
the warm congratulations of my friends! After
lunch, the lecture was on the recoil of the rifle,
and so forth. Towards dusk I refreshed myself
by going to look at the skulls in the crypt of
the church. They are (of course they are) the
skulls of an army of Danes, who landed on this
coast one thousand and seventeen years ago.
The Britons defeated them, and slew thirty
thousand of them, but were so tired when they
had done it that they left the dead enemies
unburied. Charitable people afterwards gathered
their scattered bones within the sanctuary.

The next morning was fine; but the glare of
the sun, and a peculiar state of the atmosphere,
were bad for the shooting. We had a half holiday,
which I spent on a walk to Sandgate. The
next day being Sunday, many of us went to
Folkestone, and on, over the hill tops by the
sea, to Dover. There we rambled about the
Castle, and dined at the Lord Warden, where
there was no threat that wine consumers should
be cut up after dinner and distributed among
"those that drinks it," whoever Those may be,
and whatever It may be. Blood, I suppose.

Cold rain became snow on Monday. We fired
five shots at four hundred yards; the other five
at five hundred, weather did not permit. General
Hay talked to us, after lunch, in the lecture-
room, depreciating the mere eagerness of men
to be crack shots, when the man who remained
in the second class might make the best
musketry instructor. Colonel Wilford hereupon
said, in corroboration, that the best musketry
instructor under him was a man that had lost
one of his arms.

On Tuesday morning, after hard frost, we
went at half-past nine to the Shingles, and fired
five shots, at five hundred yards. At two P.M.
we returned to the Shingles, none the less loose
and lumpy for the frost, and fired ten rounds;—
namely, five at five hundred and fifty, and five
at six hundred yards. That evening, all of us
in our full dress, chiefly grey and green, we
entertained at dinner the officers of the staff. The
next day was the nineteenth of December—very
cold. File and volley drill in the morning,
after lunch, ten rounds of file firing at three
hundred, and ten rounds of volley firing at four
hundred yards. Felt a gentleman behind me
pressing the muzzle of his loaded rifle on my back,
while he put on the cap; and felt quite grateful
when the performance was concluded, and no
bullet had paased through me. The next day
was the twentieth of December. There was
skirmishing drill for us at half-past nine, and at
eleven o'clock I went, for the last time, to
trample on my foes, the Shingles. Fired ten
rounds, skirmishing, at distances varying from
four hundred to two hundred yards. After
lunch, I came back to London, after a happy
fortnight among teachers of all grades, courteous,
attentive, even, I may say, anxious to inform.
For me, there were to be, that year, no more
mornings of drill, but there were to be, I hoped,
more evenings of jollity.

It is evidence of the good teaching we had,
that not one of our batch of ninety-seven was
left in the third or lowest class. The figure of
merit to which all attained being slightly above
the average for the same number of courses
among officers of the army.

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

I AM obliged to acknowledge that I was vain-
glorious enough to accept a seat in the Crofton
carriage on the morning of their departure, and
accompany them for a mile or so of the way—
even at the price of returning on foot—just
that I might show myself to the landlady and
that odious old waiter in a position of eminence,
and make them do a bitter penance for the
insults they had heaped on an illustrious
stranger. It was a poor and a paltry triumph,
and over very contemptible adversaries, but I
could not refuse it to myself. Crofton, too,
contributed largely to the success of my little
scheme, by insisting that I should take the
place beside his sister, while he sat with his
back to the horses; and though I refused at first,
I acceded at last, with the bland compliance of a
man who feels himself once more in his
accustomed station.

As throughout this true history I have
candidly revealed the inmost traits of my nature—
well knowing the while how deteriorating such
innate analogy must prove—I have ever felt
that he who has small claims to interest by the
events of his life, can make some compensation
to the world by an honest exposure of his
motives, his weaknesses, and his struggles.
Now, my present confession is made in this
spirit, and is not absolutely without its moral,
for, as the adage tells us, "Look after the
pence, and the pounds will take care of
themselves;" so would I say, Guard yourself
carefully against petty vices. You and I, most
esteemed reader, are—I trust fervently—little
likely to be arraigned on a capital charge. I
hope sincerely that transportable felonies, and
even misdemeanours, may not picture among
the accidents of our life; such-like are the
pounds that take care of themselves, but the
"small pence," which require looking after, are
little envies, and jealousies, and rancours, petty
snobberies of display, small exhibitions of our
being better than this man or greater than that;
these, I repeat to you, accumulate on a man's
nature just the way barnacles fasten on a ship's
bottom—from mere time, and it is wonderful
what damage can come of such paltry obstacles.

I very much doubt if a Roman conqueror
regarded the chained captive who followed his
chariot with a more supreme pride than I
bestowed upon that miserable old waiter who now
bowed himself to the ground before me, and
when I ordered my dinner for four o'clock, and
said, that probably I might have a friend to dine
with me, his humiliation was complete.

"I wish I knew the secret of your staying
here," said Mary Crofton, as we drove along;
"why will you not tell it?"