Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England The Young Dragoon Every Day Life of a Soldier By A.W. Drayson Illustrations by Richard Huttula Published by Ward, Lock, and Tyler, London. The Young Dragoon, by A.W. Drayson. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THE YOUNG DRAGOON, BY A.W. DRAYSON. CHAPTER ONE. Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please; How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene! Goldsmith. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I am a soldier, Frederick Trenchard, at your service. The prospect before me in my early days was, that instead of following the drum I should have followed the plough. My father was a farmer, living in the Midland counties; and I am the only one of a numerous family and a wide circle of family friends who ever took the Queen's Shilling, and turned the ploughshare into a sword. My grandfather was a farmer; my uncle was a farmer; my cousin who married the heiress was a gentleman farmer; my cousin who fell in love with beer and skittles was a farm labourer. We were all of us sons of the soil, and it was the popular opinion in our family, that even sailors were no better than they should be (and, Heaven help us all, I suppose we none of us are), but that soldiers were utter outcasts--Sawney Beans in her Majesty's livery--vultures in red coats and pipeclay--at which even Job Chequers, of the Green Man, shook his head, objecting strongly to the billet, and assuring everybody whom it concerned, or did not, that he would sooner pay the billet twice than lodge a soldier once.