and walked with him for a distance of five miles.
He was a man in the prime of life, with a military
air and bearing; with a handsome beard
and moustache, and a face bronzed by exposure
to the sun. He wore two medals on the breast
of his very ragged and disreputable looking
coat, although it scarcely required the proof
which these afforded that he had been a soldier.
He did not ask me for money; but point blank
said he was faint and weary, and would be truly
grateful if I would treat him to a glass of beer.
There was something so manly, yet respectful,
in his tone and manner, that the directness of
his request rather pleased me than otherwise;
and I told him that as we were going in the
same direction I would walk with him and give
him a glass at the first road-side inn we came
to. He became communicative on the faith
of my promise, and told me his history as we
went. He was of good parentage, and had
received a fair education; but in consequence of
pecuniary difficulties in his youth, and of a love
affair that had gone badly, he had enlisted in
his nineteenth year as a private soldier in a
cavalry regiment, and served more than twenty
years in India. He had made campaigns under
Gough, Havelock, Napier, and Lord Clyde;
and had received fourteen wounds in various
parts of his body;—one on the breast (he opened
his ragged jacket, and showed me the large
and ghastly scar); and another on his right
shoulder, which had disabled him from every
kind of hard work. He was discharged—as an
invalid—with an allowance of ninepence a day.
Within a week a quarter's pension, amounting
to three pounds fourteen shillings and elevenpence,
would be due. In the mean time he was
penniless, shirtless, almost shoeless, and had it
not been for the kindness of a gentleman—who
knew him, and who was an ex-director of the
old East India Company—he would have been
trouserless also. The trousers were a ludicrous
misfit, and their girth round the waist was
about thrice his circumference; but he folded
them over somehow, and intended, at the first
convenient opportunity, to try his hand at
taking them in, and tailoring them himself.

"When I get my pension," he added, "I
shall be able to rig myself out a little better."

I asked him whether, with the education he
had received and of which his conversation
gave proof, he had risen above the rank of a
private soldier.

"Yes," he said, "I was twice a sergeant,
and was twice broken and reduced to the ranks,
for my besetting sin. I am trying to conquer
it, though with very poor success. Drink, sir,
has been my ruin. I am striving very hard to
reform. For six weeks I have tasted nothing
stronger than beer, and very little of that;
but that I take as an article of food when I
can get it, and not as a stimulant, like gin."

"Why don't you take the pledge? and stick
to cold water?"

"It's of no use. I have taken the pledge,
and broken it. There are times when I loathe
the very smell of liquor, when my stomach
revolts at the thought of it; and when I think
a cup of good tea or coffee the most delicious
drink in the world. At other times a mad desire
for gin or rum possesses me. I am unable to
resist it. I would lay down my life for it. I
feel that I must have it; and that I grow strong,
cheerful, even happy, without being actually
drunk. On such occasions I am equal to almost
any exertion, and become so lavish of my money,
that I would share my last sixpence with any
poorer devil than myself if I could find one. This
fit generally lasts for about a fortnight, and
when it passes off, I always find myself a miserable,
penniless wretch, weak in body, dejected
in mind; and with such a hatred to drink, that
if the last barrel of it existing in the world
were placed before me to do as I pleased with,
I feel that I should knock the bung out and let
the poison run into the gutter."

"I think yours is a case for the doctor," said
I, "rather than for the teetotallers."

"I don't know that all the doctors in the
world could do me any good. It is misery, or
rather despair, that impels me to drink now,
though when I was in India I drank for the
love of drinking. But that is all over; and I
think that if I could earn half a crown a-day
in addition to my pension, that I should live a
regular life. Want of self-control, or self-control
exercised only by fits and starts, that has
been my curse ever since I can remember."

By this time I had given him the promised
beer, and a hunk of bread and cold bacon
besides at the way-side inn I knew of; and
luckily for him I walked with him for a couple
of miles further.

"Your education has been above the common
average," I said, "and you express yourself as
if you had read a good deal. You are still in
the prime of life, and if you can't do hard
manual work, you can do something—get into
the corps of Commissionaires, for instance."

"I have read a good deal, and I think I could
fill a respectable position even yet, if I could
get out of my present degradation. I can speak
Hindustani, and should like to go back to
India, not as a soldier, for my wounds and state
of health disqualify me; but as a hospital nurse.
The gentleman who gave me the trousers has
promised to do his best to procure me a situation
at Calcutta; but I believe he's rather
afraid of me."

"Afraid of you? why?"

"Afraid that I should disgrace his
recommendation by getting drunk again; but I have
suffered so much misery, and beggary, and cold,
hunger, and filth, since I left the army, that if
I get into work, and the means of living once
more, and lose my chance by drink, I shall
deserve to die in a ditch."

"You say you can speak Hindustani. Look
at that house," I said, pointing to an elegant
mansion, surrounded by park-like grounds on
the left-hand side of the road as we passed.
"A gentleman, an acquaintance of mine, lives
there, who also speaks Hindustani, and passed
about thirty years of his life in India. Possibly