“However, your honour, they marched us off to the guard-house, Jerry and I; and there we staid till morning light, like the babes in the wood, our hearts bateing the tattoo all the time, fer we’d no great relish to the mines for life. But, joy betide the friar; he made it all out to be a miracle, and so we were released for the honour of San Nicholas, in spite of the thwacks he got in his corporation, that would have held a whole bench of bishops; and so the colours hang there till this time, your honour, unless they’ve taken them down since.[12] Happy enough were we to get out of that, and they said the friar would be _cannonized_; but Jerry swore they should ram him into a _mortar_, or marry him to the gunner’s daughter, before he would go colour-staleing again, with a vengeance to it.” I left the old man with a promise of visiting him again; and in a few months afterwards, being in the same part of the country, I strolled towards his usual resort--the village green. There was no busy hum of voices--no cheering laugh, or infantile prattle; the grass grew as luxuriant as ever, but the children were listlessly scattered about, as if they had lost the common tie which once had bound them together:--the veteran was no more. In a corner of the churchyard, below a time-shattered elm, was a turf-raised mound, and beneath it lay the mouldering remains of poor Pat. It was a lonely spot, and the villagers took delight in keeping it clear from weeds. A few wild flowers blossomed around, and some rustic had carved a rude memorial on a slab of wood. There were guns and swords neatly cut at the top, and underneath was cyphered a plain P. M. Below these letters appeared this simple elegy,-- A Soldier’s Grave. It was enough, and its language spoke more closely to the heart than all the pompous eulogies which deck the monumental urn, or sculptured tomb. It was indeed a soldier’s grave, and a sailor’s tear was shed upon it. FOOTNOTES [9] Six men upon four men’s allowance of provision.