belonged to whenever it was ordered home, into
one that was remaining in the country. Of
course, then, my obtaining a commission was out
of the question. But young men are seldom
otherwise than sanguine; so I determined to
enlist, and work my way to officers' rank; little
thinking that the day would come when I should
refuse promotion, even if it were offered to me.
The major of whom I have spoken would not
receive me as a recruit; he said that he would
not do me any such bad turn. I therefore
embarked for England, and, hearing that
recruiting sergeants were always to be found in
Charles-street, Westminster, I went thither,
and was soon beset by half a dozen of the
craft, all anxious to secure a likely-looking
youngster. In the well-known tavern, called the
Hampshire Hog, I enlisted for her Majesty's
—th Light Dragoons, then quartered at Jock's
Lodge Barracks, near Edinburgh. I was sent
down to the regiment, got through my drill and
riding-school in a very short time, and in two
years from the date of enlistment was promoted
to the rank of corporal. Three years later, I
was made a sergeant, and was appointed one of
the drill instructors of the corps. When the
Crimean war had broken out, my regiment was
ordered to the East, and I had then been about
fifteen years in the service. It was during the
fearful winter before Sebastopol, that I was
made a troop sergeant-major, and it was then
that I met with an old acquaintance. I had
been over to Kamiesh to take charge of some
stores, and went into one of the French suttlers'
huts, or tents, to get a glass of brandy. Several
French officers were sitting there, some
taking their coffee, others their absinthe. One of
them sprang up, called me by my name, and
advancing towards me, shook me warmly by the
hand, asking me in English—or rather in Irish
—how I was. To make a long story short, this
was an old playfellow of mine, in my native
village. He was a Catholic, and nephew of the
Catholic parish priest. His uncle had sent him
abroad to be educated for their Church, but the
young fellow soon discovered that he had no
vocation for the priesthood, and took service as
a private soldier in a French regiment formed of
adventurers from all parts of Europe, and which
always serves in Algeria. He had got himself
naturalised a Frenchman, had been transferred to
the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and, when I saw him,
was a first captain of some three years' standing,
expecting daily his promotion to the rank of "chef
d'escadrons"—what we should call major. He
had enlisted in the French army about the same
time that I had taken service in the English.
He was close upon being a field-officer, while
I had only just been made a troop sergeant-
major. My friend told me that he had never
had the slightest interest, except what he had
made for himself. He wore the legion of honour,
which he had won after some hard-fought
skirmish in Africa, when he was yet a non-
commissioned officer. With a very little care,
he said, his pay sufficed for all his wants. The
only help he ever had, was forty pounds from his
uncle the parish priest when he became an officer,
to enable him to buy his uniforms; and a
subsequent ten-pound note when he was promoted
from sub-lieutenant of the Chasseurs d'Afrique,
to be lieutenant in a lancer regiment. I thought
at the time, what innumerable advantages the
French service has over our own, for one who is
in earnest.

At the time I speak of, and for several years
afterwards, I should have been only too glad to
receive a commission. But it would have been
then most unfair to give me one, for there were
the regimental sergeant-major, and five troop
sergeant-majors, senior to me, as good
soldiers as I was, and like myself looking out for
promotion. At the famous charge at
Balaklava, and from the effects of exposure during
the winter, we lost twelve officers. Of these
vacancies two were filled up from the non-
commissioned ranks; that is, the adjutancy was
given to the regimental sergeant-major, and the
quartermastership to one of the troop sergeant-
majors, and thus, at the end of the campaign,
I was left with the new regimental and four
troop sergeant-majors senior to me in the corps.
I may mention that when I met my Irish friend
in Constantinople at the end of the war, he
had been promoted to be major. And he
told me that, in his regiment, every man that
had sergeant's rank at the beginning of the
campaign, and four or five that had only been
corporals, had received commissions—some in
their own regiments, some in other regiments—
a few who had entered the Crimea with sergeant's
chevrons on their arms, had returned to France
with captain's epaulettes on their shoulders.

My prospects of a commission being not very
encouraging, I volunteered, shortly after my
return from the Crimea, for India. A hussar
regiment was under orders to proceed there, and
volunteers were asked for from all the other
regiments in the service. I found I could only
go as a sergeant, for the list of troop sergeant-
majors was already full. However, as the Sepoy
mutiny had just broken out, I thought there
would be a chance of obtaining a commission,
for hard knocks were sure to be plentiful. Nor
was I disappointed, for from the first we were
sent wherever there was fighting, and for two
years we did nothing but march almost from one
end of India to the other. My new colonel
behaved very well to me. I came to the regiment
with a strong letter of recommendation from my
old commanding-officer, and it did me good
service. I was promised the first vacancy of
troop sergeant-major, and the promise was kept.
I was promoted, before the ship on which the.
head-quarters of the corps embarked, arrived at
Bombay. Still my commission seemed as far
off as ever. There were plenty of vacancies
among our officers, some by deaths in action,
others from sickness, but of all these, not more
than three were filled up from the sergeant-
majors. After three years of campaigning work,
and two in cantonments, I was sent home from
India with a very bad liver. I had then been,
about twenty-three or twenty-four years in the