Upon this I stopped my horse, desiring not to be shot for nothing; and eager to aid some poor sick people, who tried to lift their arms to me.  And this I did to the best of my power, though void of skill in the business; and more inclined to weep with them than to check their weeping.  While I was giving a drop of cordial from my flask to one poor fellow, who sat up, while his life was ebbing, and with slow insistence urged me, when his broken voice would come, to tell his wife (whose name I knew not) something about an apple-tree, and a golden guinea stored in it, to divide among six children—­in the midst of this I felt warm lips laid against my cheek quite softly, and then a little push; and behold it was a horse leaning over me!  I arose in haste, and there stood Winnie, looking at me with beseeching eyes, enough to melt a heart of stone.  Then seeing my attention fixed she turned her head, and glanced back sadly toward the place of battle, and gave a little wistful neigh:  and then looked me full in the face again, as much as to say, “Do you understand?” while she scraped with one hoof impatiently.  If ever a horse tried hard to speak, it was Winnie at that moment.  I went to her side and patted her; but that was not what she wanted.  Then I offered to leap into the empty saddle; but neither did that seem good to her:  for she ran away toward the part of the field at which she had been glancing back, and then turned round, and shook her mane, entreating me to follow her.

Upon this I learned from the dying man where to find his apple-tree, and promised to add another guinea to the one in store for his children; and so, commending him to God, I mounted my own horse again, and to Winnie’s great delight, professed myself at her service.  With her ringing silvery neigh, such as no other horse of all I ever knew could equal, she at once proclaimed her triumph, and told her master (or meant to tell, if death should not have closed his ears) that she was coming to his aid, and bringing one who might be trusted, of the higher race that kill.

A cannon-bullet (fired low, and ploughing the marsh slowly) met poor Winnie front to front; and she, being as quick as thought, lowered her nose to sniff at it.  It might be a message from her master; for it made a mournful noise.  But luckily for Winnie’s life, a rise of wet ground took the ball, even under her very nose; and there it cut a splashy groove, missing her off hindfoot by an inch, and scattering black mud over her.  It frightened me much more than Winnie; of that I am quite certain:  because though I am firm enough, when it comes to a real tussle, and the heart of a fellow warms up and tells him that he must go through with it; yet I never did approve of making a cold pie of death.