I
understand they left almost all their English adherents in garrison at
Carlisle, for that very reason. And on a more general view, Colonel, to
confess the truth, though it may lower me in your opinion, I am heartly
tired of the trade of war, and am, as Fletcher's Humorous Lieutenant
says, "even as weary of this fighting-'"
'Fighting! pooh, what have you seen but a skirmish or two? Ah! if you saw
war on the grand scale--sixty or a hundred thousand men in the field on
each side!'
'I am not at all curious, Colonel. "Enough," says our homely proverb, "is
as good as a feast." The plumed troops and the big war used to enchant me
in poetry, but the night marches, vigils, couches under the wintry sky,
and such accompaniments of the glorious trade, are not at all to my taste
in practice; then for dry blows, I had MY fill of fighting at Clifton,
where I escaped by a hair's-breadth half a dozen times; and you, I should
think--' He stopped.
'Had enough of it at Preston? you mean to say,' answered the Colonel,
laughing; 'but 'tis my vocation, Hal.'
'It is not mine, though,' said Waverley; 'and having honourably got rid
of the sword, which I drew only as a volunteer, I am quite satisfied with
my military experience, and shall be in no hurry to take it up again.
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