On the morning of the 19th we quitted our miserable bivouac, and commenced our march in search of the enemy, for we were on perilous ground, and had the Russians come suddenly upon us, we might have been compelled to risk a battle with our rear to the cliffs which overhung the Euxine (where the sea-calves basked on the beach a hundred feet below), and on a field where defeat would have been certain ruin and death to all. But, as the French had assumed to themselves the honour of the right wing, they had thus a greater risk than we British, who had quietly taken the left flank, as the allies advanced along the coast. The 11th Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons, under Lord Cardigan, formed an advanced guard; and in their rear marched a detachment of rifles, in extended or skirmishing order. We knew that the enemy was somewhere in front; but in what force, or where or how posted, we were in perfect ignorance. Occasionally an excited voice in the ranks would exclaim that a Russian vedette was in sight on the distant hills. The atmosphere was calm, the sky almost cloudless, and high into its azure ascended the smoke of the allied fleet, which kept moving under steam far away on the right flank of the French army, which rested on the shore. The sun shone hot and brightly; but at times there came pleasantly a light, fresh breeze from the shining Euxine. The colours were all uncased and flying; the bands of the cavalry and infantry, with the merry bugles of the rifles, filled the air with music; and I could hear the pipes of the Highlanders, under the Duke of Cambridge, alternately swelling up or dying away upon the ambient air, as the first division traversed the undulating country in front. As we proceeded, I could not resist letting my horse’s reins drop upon his neck, and soaring into dreamland, my thoughts went far away to our distant home beyond the sea. Sometimes I imagined how my name would look in the list of killed or wounded, and of what Louisa Loftus would think then. And with this morbid fancy came always another idea—was it a conviction?—that such an announcement would cause a deeper and more lasting grief in Calderwood Glen than at Chillingham Park; and I thought of my good uncle reading the heavy news to his two faithful old henchmen, Binns, the butler, and Pitblado, the keeper. Louisa’s lock of raven hair which I had received at Calderwood, the miniature which she had sent to me afterwards at the barracks, were with me now; and with me, too, was the memory of those delicious words she had whispered in my ear in the library at Chillingham— "Till we are both in our graves, dear Newton, you will never, never know how much I love you, and the agony which Berkeley’s cunning cost me."