Sergeant Ewen Donaldson, whose leg was shattered by a carbine-ball, was here left behind, after some of the soldiers had made an effort to drag him along with them. "Push on, boys--push on, and never mind me," said the poor fellow; "before morning I shall be gone to where I'm fast wearin' awa'--the land o' the leal." And this, too probably, was the case. The tender and compassionate heart of Sir John Moore bled at the misery he beheld hourly on this miserable retreat. He bitterly deplored the relaxation of discipline consequent on it, and he never ceased issuing orders, warm exhortations, cheering addresses, and stirring appeals to honour and courage, to keep up the spirit of those under his command; but despair and sullen apathy reigned in many instances in officers and men alike, while the retreat lasted. But, with all this, grand and touching instances of humanity were not wanting to brighten the terrible picture. An infantry officer, in despair of proceeding further, turned aside into a thicket of trees, to lie down and die unseen and uncared for; but there he found a soldier's wife stretched at the point of death, and, with the last effort of expiring nature, she implored him to receive and preserve her child. He did so, and endued with fresh strength and energy by the trust, he carried the infant on his back, and it never quitted his care till he reached one of the transports in the bay of Vigo, after the battle of Corunna.* * Edinburgh Annual Register. At a place where the green coats of the 95th dotted the snow, showing where a skirmish had been, Quentin assisted a rifleman to place one of his comrades in a waggon that stood near. "Tom--old fellow," said the sufferer, in a weak voice, for he was dying with a bullet in his chest, and rustled fatuously among the damp straw on which they placed him; "I say, Tom--we've long been comrades." "Yes, Bill," said the other, in a husky voice, "ever since Copenhagen." "Well, when I'm dead, I want you to do summut for me, and I'll give you all I have in the world. My kit's wore out, ever so long ago, but I've three biscuits in my havresack, and you're welcome to them; give one to poor Pat Riley's widow." "But wot am I to do for you, Bill?" "Close my right eye, Tom; dont'ee forget; the cursed French knocked t'other out at Vimiera." "Yes, Bill--I was wounded that day, too." Bill's eye was closed, and the snow and the sods were over him within an hour after this, and close by Tom sat, munching his legacy, for he was starving, with his fierce moist eyes fixed on the little mound where his old comrade lay. CHAPTER XV. A SMILE OF FORTUNE. "But little; I am arm'd, and well prepared.-- Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare-you-well! Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you; For herein Fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom."--_The Merchant of Venice._