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 heartily 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, couched 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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