I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast,

in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on

the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but

another man!

And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron

on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that

the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat

broad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for

I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at

me,--it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself

down, for it made him stumble,--and then he ran into the mist, stumbling

twice as he went, and I lost him.

"It's the young man!" I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified

him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had

known where it was.

I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right

Man,--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all

night left off hugging and limping,--waiting for me. He was awfully

cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face

and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when

I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to

me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did

not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me

right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets.

"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he.

"Brandy," said I.

He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious

manner,--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent

hurry, than a man who was eating it,--but he left off to take some of

the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite

as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth,

without biting it off.

"I think you have got the ague," said I.

"I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he.

"It's bad about here," I told him. "You've been lying out on the meshes,

and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too."




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