On this occasion there were, as usual at such times, many of the fair sex interested in our departure. There was much weeping among many wives, and certainly among a great number of "very foolish virgins," as Studhome designated them. Many of the soldiers’ wives were mingling in the ranks, and, fearless of the horses’ hoofs, were holding up their infants for the last kiss of many a poor father who was to find his grave in the land to which we were departing; and there were many painful separations among those who were destined never to meet again. I remember a sergeant of Wilford’s troop, whose wife had recently presented him with a baby. The latter died suddenly on the night before we were to march, and, by a singular coincidence, the little thing’s cradle and coffin were brought into barracks together next morning, but poor Sergeant Dashwood had to mount and leave his weeping wife and unburied little one behind him. He was one of the first who fell at the passage of the Alma. There was, on the other hand, much heedless jesting and idle levity. "This time," said Wilford, to the group of officers who were gathered round Beverley, "we shall do a portion of the Mediterranean, the entire Levant, and Dardanelles, at her Majesty’s expense, and without the aid of Bradshaw or John Murray." "So we are actually going at last," lisped Jocelyn, while playing with his horse’s mane. "Ah! but we leave our representatives behind." "How, Travers?" "In a squad of light infantry in arms, no doubt," replied Travers, a handsome fellow, with a clear blue eye and long fair moustache. He had the reputation of being the most rakish fellow in the regiment, and could not resist perpetrating the old dragoon joke. "How clumsily we English show grief," I heard Berkeley say, as he witnessed a very affecting parting between a mother and her son. "Hear how that old—aw—woman is permitting herself to howl." "Anything is better than having every natural emotion subdued and snubbed from childhood, as among us in Scotland," thought I. Soldiers muster and march at all times merrily. Care cumbers them but little and briefly, for "with them the present is everything, the past a point, the future a blank. The greeting of surviving friends is seldom embittered by the recollection of those who are no more, and in a life of danger and casualty this is natural." Already the advanced guard had been detailed and thrown out, under young Sir Henry Scarlett. The crowd in and about the barracks was great. Many carriages full of fashionables from Canterbury, Tunbridge, and elsewhere, were arriving, for the double purpose of getting up an appetite for breakfast and seeing us depart; but I saw nothing of my friends, for whom I was looking anxiously—so much so that Studhome said, laughingly, as he rode past— "Come, look alive, Norcliff, and get your troop into shape. There is no such spoon in the service, or out of it, as an ’engaged man.’"