"Well, sir, the first thing as I heeard about
going out was early a Sunday morning [19th
of August], when Mr. Nameless says to me,
'Why, Oliver, you seems to find yourself
discontented and dissatisfied here."

"' No, sir,' I says;" I ain't discontented nor
yet dissatisfied.'

"He says: ' You'll not get provided for as
well as you are here, under ten shillings a week.'

"I says: ' I can get provided for very cheap
out.'

"' You ain't wanted out,' he says. He seemed
ruffled, like; but he have been very mild wi' me
since, and shook hands wi' me when I came out.

"It wasn't the food altogether as made me
want to get out. I am getting old and feeble,
and should often be glad to lay an extry hour
in the morning when I don't feel well. But you
must be very bad here to be allowed to lay in bed
beyond the reg'lar time. Besides, I so longed
to be with my own people — partickler a Sunday.

"Next Monday morning — that is, Monday
week [August 27] Nameless came to me and
said, ' You're to go to Oxford next Monday.' I
was a little flustrated, for I didn't know what it
was about; and it was said as if I was to go for
doing summut wrong. But I knowed as I hadn't
done nothing wrong. By-and-by I see the
poorter, and he tells me as the sergeant had
been there a speaking to him. After I'd seen
the poorter, I thought my going to Oxford had
something to do with what you was a-telling
me on; and I was a little more reconciled.

"Next day was board-day, and the gentlemen
came round. One asked me, 'Was I
discontented? Why did I wish to go out?'

"' No, sir,' I says, ' I ain't discontented; but
I should like to lie down in peace in my native
village, and be with those as is dear to me.'

"On the 3rd of September, as you know, sir,
I went to Oxford. The sergeant and me walked
to the station — pretty well three miles I should
think it is. We went by the railway to Oxford.
It was the first time as I'd travelled by steam.

"I hadn't been to Oxford for twenty years,
and I was quite flustrated by the buildings.
We waited at the pay-office till two o'clock [to
see the staff officer of pensioners], and as I had
my breakfast about six o'clock, I came over
faint-like; but the sergeant fetched me a glass
of beer. That refreshed me: and I went afore
the gentlemen. They asked me lots of questions,
and I told 'em all they wanted to know. One
of the gentlemen said it was all satisfactory, and
the other told me as I didn't seem to have lost my
memory, anyhow.

"We went, the sergeant and me, up into the
town, and had our dinner, and come home by the
train, about four o'clock. I walked up again
the three miles from the station; and out-and-out
tired I was. But I was all right next day."

"I looks forward to going home, although my
generation be mostly dead. I allys was very
fond of my native village. Many's the time
I've been there in a dream when I've been in the
workhouse — sometimes underground a slate-
making— sometimes at church — sometimes at
home. I'm used to the church and churchyard, and
I looks forward to worshipping in my old church,
although I shall always think of the little chapel
when the time comes round. Ever since I were
quite a little boy I used to sing till I went for a
soldier; and I were up in the gallery again as
soon as I come back from soldiering, till my voice
went away. But I must listen to the others now.
My wife and three children lies buried in the
churchyard, and all of both our families, hern
and mine. At the back of the church is the grave
of the young woman I spoke about, who I kept
company with before I went away to Waterloo.
She died in August, '18, and I come back home
in November, '18. It's nigh on fifty year ago;
but well I recollects the first thing I did when I
come back home and found her gone. I'd
thought of her at Waterloo, and I was like
a child. I went and lay down by her grave and
cried amain, I did. Her father and mother
died about ten or twelve years afterwards; and
I don't know if there is any of the family left now.
I shall soon be laid in the ground with them
all. Many's the thought  of happiness I feel at
having my liberty once more. But I think what
cheers me most of all things is the thought that
I shall be off the ratepayers' list, and that when
I come to die, I shan't be buried by the parish."

And so went home to his village this veteran
soldier. A word about how he came to have the
happiness of going there.

A well-wisher of the old man was fortunate
enough to be allowed to state his case in a letter
to the editor of the Times, on the 18th of
August last. On the 21st, he received a letter
from the Secretary of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea,
requesting him to furnish to "the Lords and
other Commissioners" of the hospital such
information as it might be in his power to afford
concerning the man whose cause he advocated;
"to enable the necessary inquiries to be made."

In this letter it was further stated that a " very
liberal provision" is made " by annual vote of
parliament for the pension and relief of invalid
and disabled soldiers," including, it was implied,
those "invalid and disabled soldiers" who are
popularly supposed not to be entitled to any
pension, by reason of too short a service. That
these short-service men are, under certain
circumstances, entitled to share in this "very liberal
provision" was treated as a fact well known, or
as one that ought to be well known: though if
there be one thing about army matters less
"generally known" than another, it is this same fact.

The " necessary inquiries" involving, among
other things, the old man's journey to Oxford,
narrated above having been made, and having
proved satisfactory, the writer of the appeal to
the Times, received, on the 12th of October,
another letter from Chelsea, stating that " the
man named in the margin" had " been granted a
pension of ninepence a day," and that "the