“Whoy, then, I shall be ‘sewed up,’ thee know.”

“That’s mighty foine,” replied James, shaking his head; “but I’d rather not, thank’ye.”

“Oh!  Jeames, a mother-in-law’s a greater bore than a bagnet, depend on’t; and it’s my mind, it’s better to die in a trench than afore an empty trencher—­I’ll list”

And with this unalterable determination, the half-starved, though still merry Giles, quitted his companion; and the following month, in pursuance of the resolve he had made, he enlisted in his Majesty’s service.  Fortunately for the youth, he received more billets than bullets, and consequently grew out of knowledge, although he obtained a world of information in his travels; and, at the expiration of the war, returned to his native village covered with laurels, and in the Joyment of the half-pay of a corporal, to which rank he had been promoted in consequence of his meritorious conduct in the Peninsula.  His father was still living, but his step-nother was lying quietly in the church-yard.

“I hope, father,” said the affectionate Giles, “that thee saw her buried in a deep grave, and laid a stone a-top of her?”

“I did, my son.”

“Then I am happy,” replied Giles.

[Watty Williams and bull]

“He sat, like patience on a monument, smiling at grief.”

Watty Williams was a studious youth, with a long nose and a short pair of trowsers; his delight was in the green fields, for he was one of those philosophers who can find sermons in stones, and good in everything.  One day, while wandering in a meadow, lost in the perusal of Zimmerman on Solitude, he was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a loud “Moo!” and, turning about, he descried, to his dismay, a curly-fronted bull making towards him.

Now, Watt., was so good-humoured a fellow, that he could laugh at an Irish bull, and withal, so staunch a Protestant, that a papal bull only excited a feeling of pity and contempt; but a bull of the breed which was careering towards him in such lively bounds, alarmed him beyond all bounds; and he forthwith scampered over the meadow from the pugnaceous animal with the most agile precipitation imaginable; for he was not one of those stout-hearted heroes who could take the bull by the horns—­especially as the animal appeared inclined to contest the meadow with him; and though so fond of beef (as he naturally was), he declined a round upon the present occasion.

Seeing no prospect of escape by leaping stile or hedge, he hopped the green turf like an encaged lark, and happily reached a pollard in the midst of the meadow.

Climbing up with the agility of a squirrel, he seated himself on the knobby summit of the stunted willow.

Still retaining his Zimmerman and his senses, he looked down and beheld the corniferous quadruped gamboling playfully round his singular asylum.