The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1877-04-25

soles, and good men were never more
wanted than at present. I'll cross the
country this very night, and away to
Edinburgh, where elere are troops
raising for foreign service. Better
musket than the gaTowsP
"Well, Bill 1 said, Il don't care
though l go with yor. I'm a good
enough man for my inches, though
amt SO tall as you, and I'm woundily !
tired of spoon making.
"And so off we SET across the coun-
try that very minute, travelling by
night only, and pas our days in
any hiding hole we could find, till we
reached Edinburgh, and there took the
bounty. Bill made as pretty a soldier
as one could have seen in regiment
and, men being scarce, / wasn't re-
jected neither; and after just three
weeks dTilling,-and plaguy weeks
they were,-we were shipped off, fully
finished, for the south. Bonaparte
had gone to Egypt, and we were sent
after him to ferret him out; though
we weren't told so at the time. And
it was our good luck, master, to be
put aboard of the same transport,
Nothing like seeing the world, for
making man smart. We had all
sorts of people in our regiment from
the broken-down gentleman to the
broken-down lamp-lighter; and Bill
was catching from the best of them all
he could. He knew he wasn't a gip-
sy, and had always an eye to getting
on in the world and as the voyage
was a woundy long one, and we had
the regimental schoolmaster aboard,
Bill was a smarter fellow at the end Of
it than he had been at the beginning.
Well, we reached Aboukir Bay at last.
Bill and l were in the first detachment,
and we had to clear the way for the
rest. The French were drawn up on
the shore, as thick as flies on dead
snake, and the bullets ratified around
us like a shower Of May hail. 1t was
a glorious sight, master, for a bold
heart. The entire line Of sand coast
seemed one unbrol6n streak of fire
and smoke and we Could see the old
tower of Aboukir rising like fiery
dragon at the one end, and the strag-
Cling village Of Rosetta, half-cloud,
half-hame, stretching away on the
other. There was line of launches
and gunboats behind us, that kept up
an incessant fire on the enemy, and
shot and shell went booming over ou1
heads. We rowed shorewards, under 9
canopy ofsmoke and flame; the water
was broken by ten thousand oars /; and
=. never, Master, have you heard such
cheering; it drowned the roar Of the
= cannon. Bill and | pulled at the same
, oar; but he bade me cheer, and leave
the pulling to him.
90 Cheer, Jack, he said, cheer !
, l am strong enough to pull ten oars
! and cheering does my heart good be
, "I could see, in the smoke and the
confusion, that there was boat stove
, by shell just besides us, and the mar
=, Immediately behind me was shot
through the head. Butwe just cheeret
and pulled all the harder; and the
:. moment our keel touched the shore
we leaped out into the water, middle
deep, and, after one well-directed vol
! ley, charged up the beach with oul
9 bayonets fixed. / missed footing il
h the hurry, just as we closed, and {
] big-whiskered fellow in blue woulC
! have pinned me to the sand, had MOI
Bill struck him through the wind-pipe
, and down he fell above me but wher
| strove to rise fron8 under him, hi
q grappled with me in his death agony
h and the blood and breath came rush
f ing through his wound in my + face
? Ere / had thrown him off, my com
f rades had broken the enemy, and wer'
q charging up the side of sand-hill
: where there were two tield-pieces sta
toned, that had sadly annoyed us, il
O the landing. There came shower 0
grape-shot whistling around me, tina
o carried away my canteen, and turner
n me half round and when looket
4 up, l saw, through the smoke, tina
half my comrades were swept away b,
0 the discharge and that the survivor
! were fighting desperately over the tw'
h guns, hand-to-hand with the enemy
Ere | got up to them, however, and
0 trust me, master, | didn't linger, -th
guns were our own. Bill stood besid
one of them, all grim and bloody, wit
his bayonet dripping like an caves
: spout in shower. He had struc
? down five of the French, besides tn
VI o,an L1 Lnl IiI.1lll oI.1,,. IA q. a,al ,,.s.