There may be some who will think that such ideas are out of place, but, in my opinion, they are not so. No truly brave man ever looked upon the graves of his fallen companions without a feeling of regret. A man falling in the heat of battle is quite a different thing, because _there_ all are alike, and subject to the same chance; and it is, moreover, wrong to mourn over the death of a comrade while the strife is going on; but the strife once ended, then will the feelings be brought into play, and the man who is incapable of a pang of regret for his fallen companion is unworthy of the name of a British soldier. My man, Dan, had scarcely arranged my billet, ere I bent my steps to the house where I had slept on the night of the storming of the town. I had scarcely made my appearance at the portal, when the old lady to whom the house belonged recognised my voice. She ran forward to meet and welcome me; her daughters accompanied her, and it was in vain that I said I had a billet in a distant part of the town. The excuse would not be taken, and I was forced, absolutely forced, to have my baggage conveyed to the house where I had so short a time before entered under far different circumstances. The old lady asked how long I was to remain at Rodrigo. I replied, for that night only. “_J'en suis fâché_,” she replied in French, which language she spoke tolerably well,—“_mais j’essayerai de faire votre séjour ici plus agréable qu’elle ne l'était la dernière fois_”—and she immediately sent an invitation to her friends to assemble at her house the same evening. Profiting by the confusion which of necessity took place in arrangements for the _soirée_, I left the house and took a survey of the town and breaches. The houses which were destroyed in the Great Square, by the fire which had taken place on the night of the assault, as also those near the breaches, remained in the same ruined state we had left them; but excepting this, and a few gabions which out-topped the large breach, whose reconstruction had not been quite completed, we could find nothing to denote the toil and labour we had sustained during our operations. An hour sufficed for me to make my “reminiscence” of past events. It was eight o’clock before Darcy and Adair joined me, and when we reached my billet, we found the saloon filled by a large and varied company.