Litchfield enquirer., 1880-01-22
A HERDS REWARD.
A SKETCH FROM LIFE.
BY OUIDA.

been a soldier from his youth up; he had served under Carl Alberto and Victor Emanu- l el; he had been wounded in the thigh at No vara, in the hip at Solferino; he had known sickness and suffering in camp and in hospi I tal he had lost an arm in carrying comrade from under the fire of the enemy's battery in his last campaign; be was seventy five years old he had an old wife and three little orphan penniless grand children he had small earn ings and heavy burdens; he was very nearly blind, but he was very cheerful, as became an 1 old soldier. When the conscripts went by him muttering in discontent, he would say to them, ''Fie for shame It is a hard life-aye but a fine one. None better becomes man." e- gar .t
 He had had three sons once, and they had all died in battle, but no one thought much of that so many have sons that died so He would think of them himself very often with pride, and say to the three little hungry grand children, "When you grow up, if you draw the number, you will go willingly, and do your best; your fathers did their best, poor latls and mine too, though it did not come to l much.'
 Meanwhile, he was very poor. r.
 He had helped at making cart-wheels till his age and infrmities grew great, and no one would employ him it was hard work to face all the little hungry mouths, and he would not send one of them to the Bigalio. He lived in an attic, in crowded and narrow street, and his wife was palsied and bedridden; nevertbe- less, he was always cheerful. "Ah, lads, was good soldier!" he would tell the young men, and would still feel very proud; it is better to have been brave man than cow ard; it leaves glow about the heart even when the limbs are stiff and numb with age.
 Gualdro knew he had been brave man, and he was quite happy he would laugh with the l hoh or1t in @ and feel for the medals on hls breast that he was getting too blind to see well, and now and then sit under the trees in the Cascine and watch to see his General go riding by his young General, as he thought him, who, when he could catch his eye, would give him a smile Of recognition; his General. whom he would call, without prefix or title as all the city did, Lamarmora.
 With him Gualdro would always have one or two of the little children and his dog
 His dog, who was as old for dog as he for man, had been picked up by him on the field after Magenta, where it had lain mere puppy by the body of dead officer. TamburinQ, GngJice Drummer, was not at all valuable or handsome; he was half mastif, half bulldog, grey with age, and with broad, ugly, frank face, and no tail at all; but he was the idol of the children, the guardian of the sick wo- man, and the friend of his master.
 Looking at Drummer, any one can see he is King Honestman, too, in his way" would Gualdro say, and tell, with as much pride al most as showed his own medals, how the dog had marched and countermarched with him over the burning plains of LOmbaluy, and been wounded once by spent bullet. Altogether, they were very happy, Gualdro, and the children and the dog, though they climbed hundred and twenty stairs to their garret, and went, all of them, very often SUD- perless to bed.
 Once or twice Gualdro was summoned for having dog without license A lady who knew him paid the fine for him; Gualdro I could not understand why it was a crime to have dog.
 And he has fought the Austrians !-tooth and claw--he himself has fought them y ne would cry They told him that had nothing to do with it. He could not understand; he and Drummer and the babies sat in the shade or the sun, as the weather was, and could not see what harm they dld. &
 Drummer would watch the people go by, with his eyes still bright under his broad fore head. and his funny square mouth opened to get the air in comfortably, as nature tells a dog to do, and when the grave General rode | past them on his roan horse he would give kindly glance to the dog as we'll as to the veteran, and then Gualdro was happy for all | the week. a ,.t gt#
 'He does not forget" Gualdro would say to himself, and it solaced him to think that his General remembered,i if his country did forget as all countries do whether they are free or fet- tered, regenerated or unregenerated ..
 Gualdro could not read and could not write, but he was no fool he had been no mere | fighting machine, but true soldier of the War | of Independence. In the days of Carl Alberto he had been smitten with the lightning fires of liberty, and had dreamed his dream, not a base or sordid one, and had known what he had wanted when he had chanted the "Fuori l il stranier'' in moonlit Summer marcos, or Ill crowded theatres of carnival.
 The leaders of the revolution might have their own baser ends and more selfish hopes, but Gualdro had been simple rustic soldier, and had hated the stranger, and had done his best honestly, and risking life and limb to 1 serve his country. This was all.
 1 The chiefs of the national movement lived | in fine houses, and fared sumptuously every day, but the old soldier had much ado to get lltre of broth for his children's children; yet he did not complain. "The men that had the brains, they made good thing of it. They've sheared the lamb after saving it. As for me, I I was only good to carry the knapsack," he would say, and that is not a calling that any country can prize very highly.
 Il was only good to fight" he would say sorrowfully, realizing dlmly that he had been only one of the mules that had dragged the stones for building up the temple of liberty. and that the only payment to the mules was a kick apiece.
 Yet he did not grumble, not he. He was a cheerful old man, and if he could only get 1 something to do, was happy.
 s@Unhappily, in this world something to do is not always obtainable; when you are very poor, and want it very much, it becomes al- most certainly as impossible to find as the phi losophers stone ., h
 Il used to be smith; yes, that was my | trade" said Gualdro once when his tongue waxed warm with little wine that was given I him, wine that was only twopence flask, but was too dear for him to buy it for all that. "Yes, that was my trade and my fathers be- fore me. We lived out Settimo way !; aye, it was pretty then. The trees were not felled as they are now. l shoed horses. When was a little chapI remember the Frenchmen's horses coming through; my father would not shoe them. Poor Babbo ran away, and with him, and we hid in the hedges about the Badia. l might have done well if had stuck to my trade; yes, but l went fighting. It seemed to me stupid to sit still and beat iron when there were enemies and tyrants to be beaten. That. was my idea. I do not know that I was right. If had staid at my forge in Settimo perhaps the world would have wag- ged as well, and 1 been wiser. But there lswhat would you? One never knowsi. Who can say the pear is sound till he cuts it ?" and then he pulled his old canvas shirt open and showed his chest with the marks of sabre wound and of a shot wound in it. s.All the scars are in front on me, :" he said with pride, and perhaps in displaying them he was happier than be would have been at g smithy in Setti- mo. with 8 horse of his own and money in the bank, and bit of kid and some fried artichOkes smoking on his board on feast days As it was, he never tasted meat at all, and ar Etichokes. only when they were stale on the street stall. He lived in one room, and lived as best he could in ruined house in the Pig none unsavory, tumble down, often inundated with the unsavory muddy waters of the Arno on one side, and a refuse-heap on the other The river at sunrise would be lovely as the green sea, and at sunset would glow with the hues of the opal, and all it's mud and sand be-