A Journey from This World to the NextFielding, Henry
General
A Journey from This World to the Next
Fielding, Henry
English fiction; Paranormal fiction; Supernatural -- Fiction
“The next morning, the duke sending out parties to bring off the
wounded, I was found almost expiring with loss of blood; notwithstanding
which, as immediate care was taken to dress my wounds, youth and a
robust constitution stood my friends, and I recovered after a long and
tedious indisposition, and was again able to use my limbs and do my
duty.
“As soon as Dover was taken I was conveyed thither with all the rest of
the sick and wounded. Here I recovered of my wound; but fell afterwards
into a violent flux, which, when it departed, left me so weak that it
was long before I could regain my strength. And what most afflicted me
was, that during my whole illness, when I languished under want as well
as sickness, I had daily the mortification to see and hear the riots
and excess of my fellow-soldiers, who had happily escaped safe from the
battle.
“I was no sooner well than I was ordered into garrison at Dover Castle.
The officers here fared very indifferently, but the private men much
worse. We had great scarcity of provisions, and, what was yet more
intolerable, were so closely confined for want of room (four of us being
obliged to lie on the same bundle of straw), that many died, and most
sickened.
“Here I had remained about four months, when one night we were alarmed
with the arrival of the earl of Boulogne, who had come over privily
from France, and endeavored to surprise the castle. The design proved
ineffectual; for the garrison making a brisk sally, most of his men
were tumbled down the precipice, and he returned with a very few back to
France. In this action, however, I had the misfortune to come off with a
broken arm; it was so shattered, that, besides a great deal of pain and
misery which I endured in my cure, I was disabled for upwards of three
months.
“Soon after my recovery I had contracted an amour with a young
woman whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much better
circumstances than I had reason to expect should give their consent to
the match. However, as she was extremely fond of me (as I was indeed
distractedly enamored of her), they were prevailed on to comply with her
desires, and the day was fixed for our marriage.
“On the evening preceding, while I was exulting with the eager
expectation of the happiness I was the next day to enjoy, I received
orders to march early in the morning towards Windsor, where a large army
was to be formed, at the head of which the king intended to march into
the west. Any person who hath ever been in love may easily imagine what
I felt in my mind on receiving those orders; and what still heightened
my torments was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one
to go out of the garrison that evening; so that I had not even an
opportunity of taking leave of my beloved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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