Such was the doggrel ditty—some camp song of the brave old Peninsular days—with which I heard my Irish groom, Larity O’Regan, solacing himself in the grey light of the early morning, as he rubbed down my charger, and buckled his gay trappings, in the dawn of the, to me, eventful 22nd of April. How I envied that man’s lightness of heart! Perhaps he had a mother in a thatched cabin in some brown Irish bog far away; sisters, too; it might be a sweetheart—some grey-eyed and black-haired Biddy, or Nora. If so, they occasioned him but little regret then; and light-hearted Lanty’s queer song and jovial bearing went far to rouse my own spirit as I mounted the gallant dark horse that was to bear me in the fields of the future. The regiment, mustering about three hundred men of all ranks, came rapidly from the stables, under the eye of Studhome, and that ubiquitous and indefatigable non-commissioned officer, Sergeant-Major Drillem. The sun had not yet risen, but the barrack windows were crowded by the men of other corps to witness our departure. Their own turn would soon arrive. Wilford informed me that the route[*] had come suddenly, when the regiment was in church, and it was first announced by the chaplain from the pulpit. The sanctity of the place alone restrained the cheers of the lancers, but not the sobs of the women; and he added, that by a singular coincidence, the text the chaplain had chosen for his sermon was from Proverbs xxvii. 1—"Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." [*] Order for marching. As the trumpets blew the assembly on this auspicious morning, their sound seemed different—more warlike in fact than usual—a portion of the great movement in which the fate of Europe, and certainly of many a poor human being, was involved. As yet Lionel Beverley, our lieutenant-colonel, who wore his Cross of the Bath, was the only decorated man among us (save a few Indian medals); but a rich crop of such tributes was to be reaped in the land to which we were going. Our plumes had been laid aside, glazed covers were on our square-crowned caps, and officers and privates alike had canvas havresacks and wooden canteens slung over the right shoulder; some of the former had telescopes and courier-bags; but all betokened coming service and preparation for it. Our horses were nearly all of a deep dark bay colour, save those of the band and trumpeters, many of which were white, or spotted grey. The guidons were all uncased; each was of white silk (the colour of our facings), embroidered with gold, measuring three feet long by twenty-one inches on the lance, which was ten feet in length—the regulation for light cavalry. On the flank of its troop each standard was now flying in the morning wind.