Second to None: A Military Romance, Volume 1 (of 3)

Tom Kirkton was the son of a thrifty and prudent Scottish clergyman, who had educated him for the Church, in the hope that he might be his assistant and successor; but the wild...

I had enlisted as a private dragoon: I, the heir to a baronetcy; but it was a baronetcy that would not bring with it an acre of land, and by the enmity of its present possessors...

As I rode on, anger, pride, a keen sense of the foul injustice with which my family had treated me, and of the false position in which they had placed me with the world, prompte...

Lord Anson, Vice-Admiral of the Red, having put to sea with seventeen sail of the line (one of these was the hapless _Royal George_, which afterwards sunk in Portsmouth harbour)...

Wayward has been my fate--my story strange; for my path in life--one portion of it at least--has been among perils and pitfalls, and full of sorrow and mortification, but not, h...

It was a lovely May evening when I left busy Portsmouth. The shadows of the tossing branches of the old limes and sycamores that bordered the wayside were cast far across the ye...

Having now related how I became a soldier, almost in desperation and misanthropy, I shall soon show how such emotions gave place to better, to braver, and to higher aspirations,...

To a young soldier few duties or situations are more trying than the post of advanced sentinel by night, in a strange place and foreign country, in time of war and danger--all t...

Had this man a charmed life? was he a vampire, a devil, or what? thought I, as we surveyed each other, and I have no doubt he recognised me, as he had seen me thrice before. I r...

My protectors proved to be two of the Second Dragoons, or Scots Greys--a corporal and a private--who had been escorting a couple of prisoners, captured smugglers, to the Tolboot...

By the last day of May, all the troops destined for the hostile expedition were embarked on board of the ships of war and transports. In all there were thirteen thousand fightin...

Like all who are so subordinate in rank, we fell in and formed, in total ignorance of where we were going, or what we were to do; who we were to attack, or by whom we might be a...

"Under the roof of his home," says a pleasing writer, "the boy feels _safe_; and where in the whole realm of life, with its bitter toils and its bitterer temptations, will he ev...

As the column of light cavalry wheeled off by sections to return to the camp and bivouac, a staff officer who was riding hurriedly past in the dark addressed me--

All the adventures of the preceding night appeared but a dream, when early next morning--at least so early as I could hope to find any high officials at their office--I rode thr...

About the period of my aimless existence, detailed in the last chapter, the mansion of Mr. Nathan Wylie received a new, and to him, in no way welcome inmate, in the person of an...

It was very singular that though our armament had been visible off the coasts of Normandy and Brittany for four days, no preparations were made anywhere to oppose us. A strong F...

During the 7th of June the whole force (save one regiment, which was left at Cancalle to cover our re-embarkation, if necessary) marched towards St. Malo, through a rough and wo...

I have stated that I was placed in the troop of Captain Francis Lindsay, which for a time separated me from my friends, Charters and Kirkton. This was one of the nine troops of...

Nathan Wylie was as wicked as his word; and a letter, rehearsing in forcible terms my sinful, ungracious, and godless conduct, was duly despatched to my grandfather, at Netherwo...

"It is, indeed, singular that we should meet again, and so soon, too!" said the elder lady, who, notwithstanding the silver tinge amid her auburn hair, still bore unmistakable t...