'Fruitful Clydesdale's apple bowers
Were mellowing in the moon ;'

the peach and the nectarine had glowed there in clusters and been gathered, and now the woods of leafy green were being tinged by russet brown and golden yellow.

On leaving the mouth of the Clyde, we found the water rough; the wind blew keenly and chopped about; thus the Vestal pitched and lurched heavily off Ailsa Craig, amid the mist and spray. This somewhat damped the military pride of the youngsters, and as the motion increased when we entered the North Channel, the very idea of breakfast or dinner excited a qualmy horror within me; and the jokes of Catanagh, Mac Pherson, and other older soldiers, failed to rouse my spirit either to fun or anger-in short I was sick, miserably sick, and would gladly have exchanged my hopes of a marshal's baton and a tomb in Westminster for a safe footing on the nearest point of land.

On, on we sped, and ere long a faint white line at the horizon marked where the chalky brows of the Land's-end faded into the evening sea, and we bade a long good night to old England.'

We had on board six companies of the Rifle Brigade -all jolly fellows; and on recovering our 'sea legs,' we found the hours pass delightfully.

The Vestal was commanded by John Crank, an old, fiery, passionate and red-faced naval lieutenant, who had served under Nelson as a middy, and lost his starboard toplight, when boarding the Holy Joe,' as he irreverantly named the San Josef.

The proportion of tonnage for troops in a transport is two tons per soldier; but on board our old donkey Vestal, the Highlanders were stowed away with only eighteen inches per man for sleeping-room; and as the weather grew warm on our approaching the Mediterranean, they suffered great discomfort--and

the poor women were crammed away among the rank and file, unheeded and uncared for by all but their husbands.

I was subaltern of the watch, on the morning we anchored off Gibraltar, where we remained for four and twenty hours, waiting for despatches direct from London. As soon as they arrived, the mail was transferred on board the Vestal; the steam was again got up, and long before evening, the giant peak, the tremendous rock-built batteries of Gibel-al-taric-the rock of the old Moorish wars-faded into the blue waters as we bore on towards that land of death and battle, suffering and disaster, where Britannia was exchanging her ancient oak leaves and laurels for the funeral cypress and the baleful yew.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE TROOP-SHIP.

AMONG the letters and papers which reached our detachment at Gibraltar, was a copy of the Morning Post,' which went 'the round' of the officers—i. e.was perused by all in turn.

We were all seated jovially at the table, in the harbour of Gibraltar; the bright sun was glistening on the waves which ran in long and glassy ripples through the straits; the cabin-windows were open; the cloth had been removed, and the decanters of sherry and full-bodied old port were travelling round the well-polished mahogany on their patent silver waggons. We were idling over nuts and peaches, talking, laughing and making merry on the prospects of the war, when, judge of my emotions, on Major Catanagh, who had entrenched himself behind the

open pages of the Morning Post,' suddenly raising his head and his voice together

'Poor Tom Clavering!' he exclaimed; 'he has come to an untimely end at last.'

'How?' asked several, pausing in their conversation; Clavering of the Guards-who dined with us at Dumbarton ?'

'Brother of Bob Clavering of the 5th? Well?'

'He has come to an untimely end,' continued the major, and my heart felt a pang as the captain's frank and handsome face came before me; but I could neither analyse the major's expression of eye, or my own emotions, as he added,—

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'He has gone the way we must all go.'

'Dead!' I exclaimed, as hope mingled with my regret.

No-married.'

Married!' echoed several voices.

As you will hear by this most magniloquent paragraph.'

Read it, major-all news from home are welcome,' said Jack Belton.

Married yesterday by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh.-'

Who the deuce is he?' asked some one; we don't know such dignitaries in Scotland.'

'Never mind, my boy-the "Morning Post" doesMarried yesterday, by the Lord Bishop of Edinburgh, Captain Thomas Clavering, second son of the late Sir Anthony Clavering, of Clavering-corbet and Belgrave-square, to Laura, the only and accomplished daughter of Sir Horace Everingham, Bart. and M.P., of Elton Hall, Yorkshire and Glen Ora. The bride was most elegantly attired in white glacé silk, covered with Brussels lace flounces, flowers and a magnificent Brussels lace veil entwined with white roses and orange blossom. She was attended by twelve charming bridesmaids richly arrayed-six in pink and six

in white, who unbound their bouquets and strewed the way with flowers before the wedded pair, from the porch of St. John's church to the steps of the carriage.'

By Jove! there's a peal of bells for you!' said Belton.'

Think of Tom Clavering having the way before him strewed with flowers.'

After the ceremony, Sir Horace gave a splendid déjeuner at his residence in Edinburgh, and at four o'clock the beautiful bride and gallant bridegroom left town, en route for London, from whence it is said they will follow the Guards to the Crimea in the elegant yacht of Augustus Frederick Snobleigh, Esq., or in the Fairy Bell, the well-known yacht of Sir Horace.'

This pompous and inflated notice, which excited much merriment at the mess-table, fell heavily and sorely on me. Every word of it was like a deathknell yet I loitered calmly and placidly, as old Duncan Catanagh read it with a comical smile in his grey Highland eye, and with a quizzical emphasis on certain portions of it. No one who saw me sitting there, so quietly and so pale (I could perceive my face in an opposite mirror), would have dreamed there was such a hell raging in my heart.

But alas! this world is full of strange fancies and misplaced affections.

Though I was fully prepared or this marriage, the notice of it, so plainly and palpably in print, was a source of great agony to me; but amid the noise and bustle of the transport, the constant change of scene in the Mediterranean, and the reckless gaiety of those around me-those brave and light hearts, who amid the mud and gore of the rifle-pits were to find glory or the grave,' I had fortunately little time left for reflection. Knowing my secret, and sympathising with me, honest Jack Belton, left

nothing unsaid or undone to draw me from myself; to wean me as it were from my own thoughts, and to fix my attention more on the events that lay before us than those which were past and irremediable ; for Jack's maxim, like his favourite song, was

ever,

To be sad about trifles is trifling and folly,

For the true end of life is to live and be jolly.'

All day long, with our revolver pistols, we practised at bottles or old hats slung from the mainyard arm; and in this feat none but Callum Dhu could beat Jack Belton, who had been one of the most successful pupils in our new school of musketry at Hythe. In the evening we had the fine brass band of the Rifles, who gave us the best airs from Il Travatore and La Traviata; then we sang glees on the poop, or danced to the bagpipes on the main-deck, leaving nothing undone to beguile the tedium of a sea-voyage; for there is a tedium even in the beautiful Mediterranean; and daily we exchanged salutes and cheers with troop-ships and war-steamers, French, British, and Sardinian, returning with sick and wounded men from the land towards which we were hastening.

Many of these vessels were imperial transports, on their way to Marseilles; and they had generally in tow a sailing-vessel, also crowded by the miserable convalescents of Scutari and Sebastopol; and hourly, while they were within sight, we saw the ensign half hoisted, and the dead launched off to leeward-s —sans shroud or coffin or other covering than their blood-stained uniform, their Zouave cloak, or grey greatcoat, all tattered and torn by the mud of the rifle-pits and toil of the trenches.

After bidding adieu to the Cape de Gata, that long ridge of rocks which lie on the eastern limits of Almeria, and form the last point of Spain, we sighted Tavolaro, a promontory at the southern extremity of Sardinia. On that evening I had some trouble in

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