The first of these occurred when I was so young that I can remember
neither what went before nor what immediately after it. It stuck in my
infant mind when other things slipped through it. We were all in the
house one sultry summer evening, when there came a rattle of kettledrums
and a clatter of hoofs, which brought my mother and my father to the
door, she with me in her arms that I might have the better view. It was
a regiment of horse on their way from Chichester to Portsmouth, with
colours flying and band playing, making the bravest show that ever my
youthful eyes had rested upon. With what wonder and admiration did I
gaze at the sleek prancing steeds, the steel morions, the plumed hats of
the officers, the scarfs and bandoliers. Never, I thought, had such
a gallant company assembled, and I clapped my hands and cried out in my
delight. My father smiled gravely, and took me from my mother's arms.
'Nay, lad,' he said, 'thou art a soldier's son, and should have more
judgment than to commend such a rabble as this. Canst thou not, child
as thou art, see that their arms are ill-found, their stirrup-irons
rusted, and their ranks without order or cohesion? Neither have they
thrown out a troop in advance, as should even in times of peace be done,
and their rear is straggling from here to Bedhampton. Yea,' he
continued, suddenly shaking his long arm at the troopers, and calling
out to them, 'ye are corn ripe for the sickle and waiting only for the
reapers!' Several of them reined up at this sudden out-flame. 'Hit the
crop-eared rascal over the pate, Jack!' cried one to another, wheeling
his horse round; but there was that in my father's face which caused him
to fall back into the ranks again with his purpose unfulfilled.
The regiment jingled on down the road, and my mother laid her thin hands
upon my father's arm, and lulled with her pretty coaxing ways the
sleeping devil which had stirred within him.

On another occasion which I can remember, about my seventh or eighth