I took a great horsewhip and galloped off after him in a rage, swearing I would keep my promise.  But, Heaven forgive me!  I little thought of it when at three miles from home I met a sad procession coming towards me:  peasants moaning and howling as our Irish do, the black horse led by the hand, and, on a door that some of the folk carried, my poor dear dear little boy.  There he lay in his little boots and spurs, and his little coat of scarlet and gold.  His dear face was quite white, and he smiled as he held a hand out to me, and said painfully, ‘You won’t whip me, will you, papa?’ I could only burst out into tears in reply.  I have seen many and many a man dying, and there’s a look about the eyes which you cannot mistake.  There was a little drummer-boy I was fond of who was hit down before my company at Kuhnersdorf; when I ran up to give him some water, he looked exactly like my dear Bryan then did—­there’s no mistaking that awful look of the eyes.  We carried him home and scoured the country round for doctors to come and look at his hurt.

But what does a doctor avail in a contest with the grim invincible enemy?  Such as came could only confirm our despair by their account of the poor child’s case.  He had mounted his horse gallantly, sat him bravely all the time the animal plunged and kicked, and, having overcome his first spite, ran him at a hedge by the roadside.  But there were loose stones at the top, and the horse’s foot caught among them, and he and his brave little rider rolled over together at the other side.  The people said they saw the noble little boy spring up after his fall and run to catch the horse; which had broken away from him, kicking him on the back, as it would seem, as they lay on the ground.  Poor Bryan ran a few yards and then dropped down as if shot.  A pallor came over his face, and they thought he was dead.  But they poured whisky down his mouth, and the poor child revived:  still he could not move; his spine was injured; the lower half of him was dead when they laid him in bed at home.  The rest did not last long, God help me!  He remained yet for two days with us; and a sad comfort it was to think he was in no pain.

During this time the dear angel’s temper seemed quite to change:  he asked his mother and me pardon for any act of disobedience he had been guilty of towards us; he said often he should like to see his brother Bullingdon.  ‘Bully was better than you, papa,’ he said; ’he used not to swear so, and he told and taught me many good things while you were away.’  And, taking a hand of his mother and mine in each of his little clammy ones, he begged us not to quarrel so, but love each other, so that we might meet again in heaven, where Bully told him quarrelsome people never went.  His mother was very much affected by these admonitions from the poor suffering angel’s mouth; and I was so too.  I wish she had enabled me to keep the counsel which the dying boy gave us.