Bob the sergeant spoke more than any one else on the subject of the song;--“That’s a ’nation good thing, Jack,” said he; “it puts me in mind of many a one of my night-guards when I was a private. D--me but it made me think I was on the side of a hill on the advanced-posts, stuck behind a tree, or the corner of a rock, watching the enemy in the moonshine of a fine summer’s night, just as I was immediately before the first battle Sir Arthur ever fought in Portugal. I think I’m there now: it was at Roliça. I was on sentry that night, on a hill, close to the enemy. It was as fine and as calm a night as ever was seen. The French were posted thick upon the heights in front of us--infernal steep and craggy precipices, where it was almost impossible to come at them. There was I about three hundred yards in front of them. On this advanced-post I was the sentry, and was just leaning against an old windmill, looking out at the French vidette, who was stuck on horseback, like the statue at Charing Cross, right out upon a high rock, at the top of a hill. The moon was rising behind him, and I could see the figure of the fellow and his horse just like one of those black shadows they cut out in card. The whole country round was one of the most beautiful pictures in the world. Down under my eyes was a little wood of lightish-coloured trees, (cork, I believe,) a small stream at the end of it: all along, to the distance of about two miles, I could see different old convents, and houses beset with orange and olive-trees; and the moonlight threw such a beautiful colouring over them that I could not help feeling melancholy.--You may smile, lads, but I was a young man then, and only a few days in a foreign country: I could almost smell the sea-air; for we were only three miles from the beach, along which we had been so lately sailing: I had not been many weeks away from a comfortable home--father, mother, sweetheart and all: I was then standing between two great armies, ready to start upon each other: and I did not know but the next day would see my first fight and my last hour. I’ll leave it to any man here, who ever was in any thing like such a situation, to say, whether it is not calculated to make an impression on the feelings.” “Oh, by my sowl! and that it is, sargeant,” replied private Mulligan; “particularly when you are not a long time at the work.”