There was a challenge from the roof just then; and we all went out to find that a mounted man was in sight; and on the captain making use of his glass, I heard him tell Lieutenant Leigh that the man was an orderly dragoon. A few minutes after, the new-comer was plain enough to everybody; and soon, man and horse dead beat, the orderly with a despatch trotted into the court. It was a sight worth seeing, to look upon Mrs Maine clutching at the letter enclosed for her in Captain Dyer's despatch. Poor woman! it was a treasure to her--one that made her pant as she hurriedly snatched it from the captain's hand, for all formality was forgotten in those days; and then she hurried away to where her sister was waiting to hear the news. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STORY ONE, CHAPTER TEN. The orderly took back a despatch from Captain Dyer, starting at daybreak the next morning; but before then, we all knew that matters were getting to wear a terrible aspect. At first, I had been disposed to think that the orderly was romancing, and giving as a few travellers' tales; but I soon found out that he was in earnest; and more than once I felt a shiver as he sat with our mess, telling as of how regiment after regiment had mutinied and murdered their officers; how station after station had been plundered, collectors butchered, and their wives and daughters sometimes cut down, sometimes carried off by the wretches, who had made a sport of throwing infants from one to the other on their bayonets. "I never had any children," sobbed Mrs Bantem then; "and I never wished to have any; for they're not right for soldiers' wives; but only to think--the poor sweet, suffering little things. O, if I'd only been a man, and been there!" We none of us said anything; but I believe all thought as I did, that if Mrs Bantem had been there, she'd have done as much--ah, perhaps more-- than some men would have done. Bless my soul! as I think of it, and recall it from the bygone, there I can see Mother Bantem--though why we called her mother, I don't know, unless it was because she was like a mother to us--with her great strapping form; and think of the way in which she-- Halt! Retire by fours from the left. Just in time; for I find handling my pen's like handling a commander-in-chief's staff, and that I've got letters which make words, which make phrases, which make sentences, which make paragraphs, which make chapters, which make up the whole story; and that is for all the world like the army with its privates made into companies, and battalions, and regiments, and brigades. Well, there you are: if you don't have discipline, and every private in his right place, where are you? Just so with me; my words were coming out in the wrong places, and in another minute I should have spoiled my story, by letting you know what was coming at the wrong time.