that fellow over with mine.’ The sergeant loaded while lying down, having got a cartridge from a pouch of a dead man near him:--‘Are you ready?’ says I. ‘Yes.’ ‘Then if I miss him, and he should come up to us, wait till he is close--then make sure of him.’ The Portuguese had now left the Frenchman, and was engaged at a dead English officer: he was stooping down. I raised myself up, and leaned my musket on the French grenadier’s shoulder to take good aim--I covered my mark, and fired:--the rascal jumped two feet off the ground, roared out ‘Ai! Jesus!’ and dropped like a cock on his face. He did not lift his long-pole again, I warrant you. “In a very short time after this, a detachment arrived on the ground, to take away the wounded, and the surgeons had us removed into a house where there was plenty of straw--French, English, and all together. From the men who took us off the field, I learned that the enemy were completely beaten, and retired, leaving their artillery behind. “This was the very first brush our troops had under Sir Arthur, and for beginners, I never saw better boys in my life. In about five days after this, they had another trial, at the battle of Vimiera; and I wish I had not been wounded so soon, or I should have had a finger in the pie. “This was before you came to our regiment, Sergeant--wasn’t it?” said Jack Andrews. “Yes,” replied the sergeant, “I was drafted into this corps two years after that battle.” “It was a right good shot you made at the Portuguese scoundrel?” said Mulligan; “By the powers o’ Moll Kelly, you sarved him right; an’ if it was my case, I’d just a’ done the self same thing. The rascals used to follow the army, whenever there was a likelihood of a battle, an’ not only rob, but murdther the wounded. The Spaniards were no betther;--ay, an’ what’s worse than all that, some of our own army’s women, at the battle of Vittoria, were seen doin’ the same thing. Several of them were caught in the act by the provost, an’ flogged well, though they _were_ women,--an’ the devil’s cure to them for it.” “Hush--I think the sentry has challenged. Here comes Callaghan,” said the Sergeant, listening: and the word “Halt!” outside, convinced him that he was right in his conjecture. The Corporal, with four men as cold as the weather without, now entered the guard-house, and joined their comrades at the fire. They brought with them a stranger, an exciseman, whose face was somewhat disfigured; and the Corporal informed the Sergeant, that some countrymen, who kept a private still, had attacked him, and would perhaps have killed him but for the guard who were within call. “Captain Jones met us,” said Callaghan, “an’ desired me to conduct this man safe to the guard-house; an’ said that he would send the ordtherly officer down to you with further ordthers. The man is supposed to be very active about private stills here; an’ this is the way they have rewarded him.--Pon my sowl, Sir, you got a hell of a dthrubbing.”